An Immodest Proposal

"Yes."

"Very good, Vanessa. I don't really believe you came to my office to discuss the lazy tongue. Why did you really come here today?"

Vanessa took a deep breath and said, quietly, "I liked your style yesterday and I couldn't stop thinking about your lecture. And I think you're kind of cute, so I figured I'd come down to your office."

"Very good, Vanessa. I'm flattered. You're very pretty yourself."

"Thank you."

"Please tell me your bra size."

"36-C."

"That's a very good size. Do you ever go out without a bra?"

"No."

"I think it would be a good idea if you came to my classes bra-less. You won't even think twice about it. When you know you're coming to my class, you'll make sure you take off your bra before you head out. And, for that matter, you'll also come to my office hours without a bra, too. Do you understand?"

"Yes." She reached under her blouse and began to unfasten her bra.

"You can keep your bra on right now. But the next time you come either to my office or to my class, you'll be bra-less. And every time after that, too."

She lowered her hands and placed them on her knees.

The professor paused for a minute and stared at his student. The blank expression on her face, the toothy yet somewhat dopey looking grin. Her willingness to take off her bra at this suggestion. He contemplated his next move.

"I have one more suggestion for you. I want you to think about how good you feel right now. How deeply entranced you are, how safe, secure, and comfortable you are. How blank your mind is right now. Any time you hear me say 'a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream' you will immediately fall back into this state you're in right now. No matter where you are or what you're doing, when I say 'a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream', you will immediately go blank and drift back into this trance you're in now. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Very good, Vanessa. Now I'm going to clap my hands and when I do, you will wake up, feeling completely refreshed, with no active memory of my having put you in a trance. The suggestions I gave you will be buried deep in your subconscious, but you won't remember anything other than the fact that I explained what I meant about our tongues being lazy. One. Two. Three!" He clapped his hands a few inches away from her face.

She shook her head for a moment and smiled at him.

"So do you understand what I meant now when I talked about the laziness of our tongues?"

"I ... think so."

"Great! I think this is going to be a good term and we'll have a lot of fun in our class. What do you think?"

"I agree!" She nodded exuberantly.

"In fact, I think it'll be better than a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream."

Vanessa stopped moving. Her eyes widened, her mouth opened slightly, and her head slowly swayed back and forth.

He leaned forward and waved his hand in front of her face. She didn't react to his movements. "Can you hear me, Vanessa?"

"Yes."

"Very good. After I wake you up, you will decide we are done with our meeting for today. You will go about your day as normal, and you'll talk with your friends about whatever it is you normally would talk about with them. If you want to tell them about coming to my office, that's completely fine, but that'll be your choice. So I will clap my hands and you will wake up, completely refreshed. One. Two. Three." He clapped his hands a few inches away from her face.

She blinked twice and said, "I prefer cookie dough ice cream."

He laughed. "Yeah, I like cookie dough ice cream too. But ... anyway, is there anything else I can do for you today?"

Vanessa glanced down at her watch. She was kind of amazed at how long she'd been in his office. "I, uh... I think I'm good for now. Thank you Professor Wells!"

"Any time, Vanessa. Any time." He stood up, opened his office door, and bowed over with a flourish to let her out of his office. He watched her walk down the hall, admiring the way she wiggled her ass as she walked. He chuckled as he thought, yes, this was going to be a very good term.

Chapter 4

Vanessa met Chandra in their cafeteria for dinner that night.

"So anyway, Justin's got this awesome office. And I --"

"Wait a sec, Vanessa," scolded Chandra. "I think we should probably call him Professor Wells or something like that."

"But he introduced himself to us as 'Justin'."

"Yeah, but then we learned he's more than just, er, Justin. He's our teacher, not some guy you met in a bar."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Vanessa diverted her eyes for a moment.

"So what'd you go down to his office for?"

"Oh! I, um... I didn't quite understand what he meant by saying we've got lazy tongues."

"I was wondering about that myself. What did he say?"

"He said that speech tends towards easier sounds than more difficult ones and, over time, the pronunciation of words can and will change. But the old way of spelling will linger longer. And it's not unique to the English language. He talked about how most consonants aren't pronounced at the end of French words and how Russian vowels pretty much all sound the same."

Chandra nodded her head, listening to her friend.

After a short pause, Vanessa said, "You take a look at the syllabus? Next week's topic seems kind of... mysterious."

"I did, but I don't remember what it was supposed to be about."

"Seven Important Wurdz, spelled W-U-R-D-Z, of course."

"Of course. Which seven words?"

"Dunno."

"You didn't ask him when you were there?"

"I didn't think to. Let's keep it a mystery."

Chapter 5

The week felt like it moved at a snail's pace for Vanessa. When Thursday finally rolled around again, she woke up with a start, took a shower, and got dressed. As she rummaged through her closet for a good outfit to wear to her linguistics class, she had a naughty thought: why not go bra-less today? Maybe she could distract the teacher a little bit.

She suppressed a giggle as she put on a silk blouse and began to button it up, keeping it open enough to show off her cleavage. She ogled herself in her mirror for a few minutes from all angles before she decided she was ready to go out and have some breakfast.

She didn't see anyone she knew at breakfast and, as a result, ended up eating alone in a corner of the cafeteria. She didn't really mind it that much, though, since she spent her time gazing out the large windows and into the courtyard below.

She started to think about seven words with a real importance to them, in hopes of guessing what today's lecture would be about. Her first thought -- after she counted them out on her fingers -- was "We hold these truths to be self-evident." (Assuming, she told herself, that the hyphenated phrase "self-evident" only counted as one word.) But what truths about words are self-evident? That they represent whatever concept, action, or object they come to describe? Although this is a true statement, that sounded more like something that belonged in a class that talked more about the history of a language. Kind of like how the word 'pursue' today means to chase after something, but back when Thomas Jefferson wrote "the pursuit of happiness" he meant the word in a similar fashion to how someone pursues a career today.

She closed her eyes and imagined Justin wearing a powdered wig and standing around among the founding fathers, maybe even helping Jefferson or Thomas Paine with the editing and publication of their works. Then she pictured herself, a contemporary of the founding fathers, offering her own, private inspiration to fight the good fight, to help craft a young country, starting out in the world and trying to become a more just place.

Her daydream lasted for nearly two hours. When she finally glanced at her watch, she realized she needed to run in order to make it to her Wurdz class on time.

Chapter 6

Vanessa paused to catch her breath and wipe her brow just before entering into the classroom. She turned and saw Professor Wells standing behind his desk. He smiled to her and she returned the smile before she took her seat next to Chandra.

Chandra whispered to her friend, "Running late again? What happened?"

"I'll explain later."

The professor looked around the classroom, cleared his throat, and activated his powerpoint display in a manner similar to what he had done the prior week. "Seven Wurdz" appeared on the screen behind him as he said the title of the lecture.

"These seven words are arguably the most important seven words in the English language, at least for the purposes of this class. I'm sure some of you guessed what the seven words are, but for those of you who haven't..."

He clicked on his remote and the next slide appeared. It was blank, except for a four-column-by-two-row grid. He clicked the remote one more time and the voice of comedian George Carlin filled the room. In perfect synchronicity with the comedian's voice, the grid filled in, as follows:

"Shit" took the top row of the first column.

"Piss" was placed directly below it.

"Fuck" appeared directly to the right of "Shit"

"Cunt" appeared to the right of "Fuck"

"Cocksucker" appeared to the right of "Cunt"

"Motherfucker" appeared below "Cocksucker"

"Tits" appeared below "Cunt".

The space below the word "Fuck" darkened.

The professor assessed the completeness of the slide and turned to face the class once more. "George Carlin called these the seven words you can't say on television. They have been the subject of two high-profile lawsuits. The first one basically confirmed that the Federal Communications Commission has the right to regulate speech over the airwaves and the second effectively validated that these seven words are the ones that can't be spoken on TV."

He gazed around the classroom and saw everyone nodding.

"All right, everyone. Show of hands. Just want to get a sense of how often you guys use each word. I'm going to say one of the seven words. Raise your hand if you use it regularly. Shit."

All hands in the classroom went up.

"Piss." A couple of the girls in the back of the room lowered their hands but, for the most part, everyone kept their hands in the air.

"Fuck." All of the men kept their hands in the air. About half of the women lowered their hands.

"Cunt." Most hands went down. A few men and slightly fewer women kept their hands raised.

"Cocksucker". Only two men and one woman raised their hands for this word.

"Motherfucker". The three whose hands were raised from the prior word kept their hands in the air. A couple of other women raised their hands as well.

"Tits". All of the men raised their hands. Slightly more than half the women raised their hands, although one of the women who raised her hand for the word "Motherfucker" lowered her hand.

"Interesting dynamic. Neither of the insult words is very popular. Beyond that, it seems as though the men are more willing to use almost all of these words more often than the women."

A general murmur of assent filled the room.

"So let's cut to the chase. If you're uncomfortable with any of these words, I'd ideally like to see you get comfortable with them. I will be using all seven words throughout this class and they will become a part of our regular discussions, so if you're too uncomfortable with talking about the word 'cunt' it could be a problem as we progress throughout this semester.

"The first thing you need to know is that all seven of these words have been around in the English language for hundreds upon hundreds of years, and are among the English's oldest words. There's some scholarly debate as to how long cocksucker and motherfucker have been in active use in the English language, but both of them are compound words involving much older words."

He picked up a laser pointer from his desk and pointed it at the screen behind him. He moved the red light in a circular motion around the words "shit" and "piss", commenting, "We've got two words for human waste..."

He redirected his laser to the words "cunt" and "tits" and said, "Two words for -- how shall I put it? Lady parts."

A few students laughed at his choice of words. He ignored the laughter and pointed at "cocksucker" and "motherfucker". "Of course, these two words are sexual in nature and are generally used as insults... And finally..."

He redirected the small red light in his hand towards the word "fuck."

Two students spoke the word "fuck" as he pointed to it.

"That's correct," he said. "It's arguably the most interesting of all seven words we have up here. I'm sure everyone here has seen the lists out there that expound on the versatility of the word itself. But linguistically, it's just as versatile. How many other words literally take up your entire mouth in one syllable? It starts with a labia-dental fricative, has a wide-open vowel sound, and ends with a palatal stop. Cunt comes close, moving from back to front instead of front to back, but it's not quite as linguistically impressive."

Vanessa stared at the attractive professor and stopped paying attention to his words. She closed her eyes and imagined herself trying to seduce him. Every time he said the word "cunt" or "tits", she briefly came back to the present, but for the most part, she found herself daydreaming. She rationalized her lack of focus by telling herself that she'd be able to go to his office the following day to pick up on whatever she'd missed. She just knew that she had to be comfortable with all seven words. She could do that, she mused.

Before she knew it, Professor Wells was dismissing his class. She hastily gathered her books and walked out with everyone else.

Chapter 7

The following day, Vanessa arrived promptly at 10 o'clock in the morning, just as Professor Wells began his office hours. She walked confidently to the door and knocked.

"Come on in!" called the professor from behind the door.

Vanessa strode in confidently.

He smiled as he saw her enter. "What'd you think of yesterday's lecture?"

"It was ... good. Honestly, I didn't get a whole lot out of your talk about the specific words but I understand that I need to overcome my distaste for a couple of the words. Nothing I can't work on, though."

He gestured grandly to have her sit down. "I want you to repeat after me. We'll go through all seven words together. Can you do that?"

She nodded her head.

"Great! Shit."

"Shit."

"Piss."

"Piss."

"Fuck."

"Fuck."

"Cunt."

She paused for a a moment and looked away from him.

When it seemed as though she wasn't going to say it, he said "We'll come back to that. Cocksucker."

She stammered a bit but was able to say the word.

"Motherfucker."

"Motherfucker."

"And ... tits."

She giggled and said, "Tits."

He smiled at her. "Carlin was right. Tits is a friendly sounding word, like a nickname or something."

"I'm not sure I'd want that to be my nickname."

"I can respect that. Still, we know what we need to work on. It's kind of like a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream."

She sat up, stared forward, and opened her mouth slightly. He chuckled silently, leaned forward, and waved his hand in front of her face. She didn't flinch.

He paced around his office for a moment before speaking. "All right, Vanessa. First off, I'm going to say all seven words that you can't say on television. You will repeat them without hesitation, with no qualms about any of the words, and with no emotional connection to any of them. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

He repeated the seven words as he had done before he uttered the trigger phrase. Unlike before, she repeated all seven words quickly, in a slow monotone voice. Once the two of them had cycled through all seven words, he returned to "Cunt", "Cocksucker", and "Tits", smiling broadly as she uttered all three words with none of the baggage she had displayed when he first tried to get her to say them.

"Now, Vanessa. I want you to imagine a giant pencil in your brain. Can you see the pencil?"

"Yes."

"Very good. I want the pencil to turn over so that you can see its eraser. It's starting to erase all of your qualms and inhibitions about using profanity and offensive terms. Can you see it doing that?"

"Yes."

"You are now free to say the word 'cunt' any time you see fit."

"Yes. I can say 'cunt' any time I see fit."

"You are now free to say 'cocksucker' any time you see fit."

"I can say 'cocksucker'."

"You are now free to say 'tits' any time you see fit."

"I can say 'tits'."

He glanced down at her clothes. "I couldn't help but noticing that you weren't wearing a bra to my class yesterday and that you're not wearing one now. How does that make you feel?"

"I like how it feels. My tits feel liberated."

"I'll bet they do. So... I think your cunt might be feeling a little bit jealous. Maybe from now on, when you come either to my class or to my office, you shouldn't be wearing panties either."

"I shouldn't wear panties to your class or to your office."

"What does your cunt think of you going without underwear?"

She paused for a minute, as if she was asking the question to her vagina. "My cunt likes the idea. Thank you, professor." She lifted herself off of the chair, reached up her skirt, and began to take off her panties.

He nodded approvingly. "I was going to tell you you don't need to do it until the next time you come to my class."

She stopped taking her underwear off.

"But if you want to take them off now, I suppose I won't object."

"Thank you, professor." She rolled her underwear down to her feet and stepped out of them.

"You might want to put those in your purse, though."

She bent over to stash her panties in her purse.

Professor Wells started to pace around his office again. This particular girl seemed eager enough that he could move relatively quickly in his control over her. He took a deep breath and said, "Very good, Vanessa. I have a few more instructions for you. The more you think about my class, the more aroused you will become. The more aroused you become, the harder it will be for you to concentrate. This is especially true in my class. After you realize that you didn't pick up enough from my lectures, you will feel compelled to come by my office for more individualized discussions, not unlike what happened today. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"You will find my class fascinating and intriguing despite your concentration difficulties."

"Your class is fascinating and intriguing."

"You'll want to talk about my class, especially with your classmates."

"I'll want to talk about your class."

"You'll encourage your classmates to come to my office when I'm here."

"My classmates will want to come to your office."

"Excellent. Now stand up."

Vanessa stood up effortlessly.

"Lift up your skirt."

She did as instructed.

"You've got a very attractive cunt. You might want to shave it a little more, though."

"Thank you. I will shave it."

"You can lower your skirt now."

She let go of the hem of her skirt, which slowly fell to just above her knees.

"You can sit back down now. Now, when I clap my hands, you'll wake up, feeling completely refreshed and with a better understanding of the harmlessness of the seven words you can't say on television."

He clapped his hands in front of her face. She shook her head and smiled at him.

"So anyway, Vanessa," said the professor as though nothing happened. "You might want to listen to George Carlin's monologues about the seven words. The original is on his album 'Class Clown'. But he did a follow-up monologue in his album 'Occupation: Foole' -- that's got an unnecessary E on the end of it."

She giggled softly and headed towards the door.