An Immodest Proposal

Chapter 11

The following week, Professor Wells's PowerPoint display started with the word 'Eponyms'. Vanessa had managed to arrive on time to this class, partially at the urging of Keith, who now sat right next to her.

When the teacher strode into the class, he smiled broadly and said, "Who knows what an eponym is?"

There was a low murmur throughout the class, but no one came forward with the answer to this question.

Professor Wells sighed and said, "An eponym is a word that enters the language from the name of the person who had some degree of notoriety. Their name becomes synonymous with the event or thing they're responsible for. Can anyone come up with any examples of this?"

A few students hesitantly raised their hands. The professor pointed to a guy in the back of the room, who called out, "Bell! Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and all of the phone companies took their names from him."

"That's a pretty good example, Dave. Of course, the word 'Bell' existed in our language long before the telephone came into being. But it's fair to say that the word 'bell' took on an additional meaning or two thanks to the work of Alexander Graham. Any others?" He pointed to a girl Vanessa didn't know.

"Crapper. Thomas Crapper invented the toilet."

"Very good, Sophie. Crapper is an excellent slang term for toilet.

Thanks to our buddy Tom. Where it's not quite so straightforward is whether the term 'crap' meaning 'shit' begins here or not. There's definitely an interrelationship between the two words, though." He paused for a minute, smiled, and looked around the room. "How about we move away from people's inventions and think about some kind of historical notoriety. Does anyone know where the phrase 'Your name is mud' comes from?"

Chandra raised her hand and the professor indicated for her to speak. "When Abraham Lincoln was shot, there was a doctor involved who was named ... Mudd. I don't remember his first name."

The teacher quickly said, "Samuel."

"Right! Anyway, some people called Dr. Mudd a traitor and co-conspirator for giving medical treatment to Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. And so it became that, when someone's reputation has been tarnished, their name is mud."

"Very good. Here's one: who knows what the Donner Party was?"

Keith blurted out, "Wasn't that a group of pioneers who resorted to cannibalism to survive as they rode out to get to California?"

"I guess you could say that," Justin said. "There's some dispute as to whether they actually did eat the flesh of other members of their party after they'd died, but it makes for an interesting story. In fact, world history is littered with tales of people who hadn't planned on being cannibals but found they needed to, just to survive."

Vanessa's train of thought once again started to wander. She gazed down at Keith's pants, wondering when she'd next get into them. She half-heard the professor talking about the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team dramatized in the movie Alive, and Alferd Packer, the only person convicted of cannibalism in American history.

Although it sounded like an echo of an echo of an echo, the class clearly started to engage him in discussion as to whether or not cannibalism could be justified. She vaguely heard herself thinking that she'd do it if she absolutely needed to, even if she had no desire to do so. She made a note that she'd discuss this with Professor Wells when she went to visit his office again, as the conversation shifted to Loreena Bobbitt and how her last name has become an eponym of a woman getting revenge on her boyfriend or husband.

Chapter 12

Over the course of the next several weeks, more and more students were having difficulty focussing in the linguistics class and Professor Wells's office hours, as a result, became increasingly popular. Students found themselves chatting amiably in line as they waited to see their favorite teacher.

On the last day of the semester, Professor Wells arrived at the class carrying a large wooden box, which he placed on his desk as he stepped forward to speak. "We're not going to have a powerpoint today," he said.

A few students shuffled in their chairs and a couple quietly said, "Awwwww," which was met with laughter from other students.

He continued by saying, "Today's the last day we'll all be together, but I would like to believe we've all become reasonably good friends this term. I'm hopeful that some of you might go out of your way to take other classes with me, or at the very least, find the time in your schedules to come by my office to let me know how you're doing."

He didn't give any of his students the chance to express either agreement or disagreement, despite the fact that a few students, including Vanessa, had made comments to their neighbors that they certainly would keep in contact with him

"I think we've all come a long way with our words, thoughts, and actions these past few months. I hope you're all more comfortable with your own words, and how they can be used, abused, and misused. And I hope you know the right and wrong ways to use, abuse, and misuse your words, just as there are right and wrong ways to use, abuse, and misuse other things, including yourselves.

"And that, class, is how we should wrap things up a little bit. It's kind of like a mixture of erotic daydreams and mint chocolate chip ice cream."

The trigger affected the entire class at the same time. Several students dropped their pens or books to the floor. Others, as they straightened up, created noise by lowering their feet to the floor in front of them.

Once he was certain that all of his students were completely under his command and that all transitions to mindlessness had been completed, he spoke again. "All of you, please stand up and strip naked."

Everyone did as instructed. He marveled at both the speed and efficiency of their actions.

"I believe that my words are exceptionally powerful and that you are all now willing recipients of my words and the power they represent. As such, I am going to use my words to compel each and every one of you to do something that most people would find, at best, unethical and, at worst, repugnant. We discussed this a few weeks ago, so I want you all to imagine that you are survivors of a plane crash and are awaiting your rescue. Your wounds have been dressed and are healing. Not everyone on your plane was as lucky as you were, and all of the bodies of those who didn't survive have been moved away from the wreckage of the plane. Unfortunately, you are now starting to get hungry and you don't have any sense as to how long it will be before you're rescued.

"Inside this box are human body parts. Brains, hearts, a lot of muscle. I want you all to come up here, grab something out of the box, and eat it."

The students lined up at his desk. He opened the box and, one by one, the students reached into the box to pull something out.

"Looks like you've got a heart, Vanessa," he said to her encouragingly when she reached the desk. "The meat of the heart is probably the tastiest of all human flesh. Dig in and enjoy!"

She examined the deep-red object in her hands for a moment, opened her mouth wide, and bit noisily into the meat she held in her hands.

"You're right. Wow! That's so ... tender, it's like it melts in my mouth." She hastily shoved the rest of the heart into her mouth and chewed it up quickly before swallowing it. She let out a quiet belch, blushed, and said, "Excuse me!"

"You're excused," said Keith. "How was it?"

"Delicious. I never would've guessed at how good it tastes."

"I know. I mean, I feel sad for the people who didn't survive and all, but we have to live and, well..." He looked around to make sure no one was too close to him when he said, in a low whisper, "If human flesh is this good, I ... well, I just hope we're not found too soon, ya know?"

"I hear you," giggled Vanessa.

The professor walked around the room, ensuring that all of his students were eating -- and enjoying -- their gruesome feast. After he had circumnavigated the room once, he spoke loudly and forcefully. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have heard rumors and hearsay about the real reasons why dining on human flesh is considered immoral or illegal, and I desire to know if it's true. Some say that human flesh is an aphrodisiac. Does the flesh you have eaten have an impact on your own flesh?"

Vanessa was licking her fingers clean when she felt a jolt in her pussy. "Oh!" she said, involuntarily. She began to breathe heavily.

Her reaction to the question posed by the professor was quickly echoed by several other women in the class.

Vanessa turned to face Keith, whose cock was now standing on end, and cried, "Fuck me! Fuck me now!"

In no time, the lecture turned into an orgy, with the students pairing up with each other with wild abandon, in many cases not caring about the identity of the person whom they fucked.

Professor Wells smiled broadly as he watched with a rapt appreciation for the power of his own words. The sound of a dozen women moaning their individual pleasures, he mused, filled his ears an otherworldly yet strangely melodious tone.

He allowed the bacchanalian reverie to continue for another ten minutes before he spoke again. "All right everyone! I'm going to clap my hands twice. When I do, you will have an orgasm, stand up, return to your desks, and get dressed. Once you sit back down, you will wake up, knowing that at some point in your recent history you engaged in cannibalism to survive after a plane crash. You will not speak of this incident except among each other."

He took a deep breath and clapped his hands twice. The students' collective moans reached a crescendo, after which they each completed the instructions laid out to them by the teacher.

It didn't take long before every student in the class had returned to his or her seat. After a brief pause, he spoke again. "Well, I'd say we have had an excellent term here. We explored the boundaries of what words can and cannot accomplish, and I daresay we each learned something about ourselves and the world around us as we undertook this educational journey together.

"For those of you who might be looking for a good class to take next term, I cannot recommend the course on Metaphor in Sociology strongly enough. It's taught by my good friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Morrison. If you appreciated the exploration of the words we use as metaphors, it's a natural next step." Several of the students wrote this down quickly.

"I know I'm repeating something I already said, but I hope that you will all keep in contact with me, both as you continue your university education and in life. I do so love hearing what my former students have accomplished."

There was a low murmur of assent throughout the classroom.

"So, unless you have anything more to add, I'm going to let you all go early." He paused for a minute and surveyed the class. Each student looked around to each other, wondering if anyone would speak. "All right! Class dismissed!"

He walked to the door and swung it open. The students lined up and each shook his hand and thanked him before walking out of the room and into the hall. Vanessa was at the end of the line. When she finally reached the door, she stood on the tips of her toes, kissed him on the cheek and said, "I've never enjoyed a class as much as this one."

"Thank you! I think you made some great contributions to the class this term. I appreciate your participation."

She giggled and disappeared into the hall.

Chapter 13

Professors Morrison and Wells met in a local restaurant to discuss the just-ended semester.

"So, Justin. How many students are you sending to me for next term?"

"Well, my "Wurdz" class had 24 students in it, and I've asked them all to sign up for your --"

Dr. Morrison interrupted his colleague with a hearty laugh. "You 'asked' them? Really? Is that all you did? For some reason, if you ask your students to do ... well, just about anything, it's a safe bet that they're going to do it."

"All I did is suggest it to them."

"Yes. It was just a suggestion. I got it. You can literally get your students to do anything. And I do mean anything. If you wanted one student to go out and commit some heinous crime, they'd do it without question and you and I both know it."

"But I'd never do that!"

"Right, but you could."

"Whatever."

There was a brief pause in the conversation. Robert broke the silence by asking, "So how'd you send your students off this year?"

"Oh, nothing spectacular. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Suggested taking your class. I guess that's about it."

"Fuck you, Justin! Just the other day I was telling a friend of mine that you always do something outrageous on the last day of class. Like the time you arranged a hieros gamos ritual."

Justin began to laugh. "I wouldn't call it a true hieros gamos. It felt more like the big famous scene from the movie Eyes Wide Shut than anything."

"But that movie was supposed to be hieros gamos and you know it."

Justin peered at his friend and colleague over the top of his glasses. Robert returned the gaze with an equal intensity.

The two university professors stared at each other in silence for nearly a minute before the linguistics teacher relented. "All right. Fine. This year I made my students eat human flesh because I had them believe they survived a plane crash."

"Really?"

Professor Wells nodded his head.

"Did you really feed them human flesh or did they just think that was what they were eating?"

"I think you know better than to ask that question, don't you, Rob?"

Rob raised his drink to his lips before answering, "Yes. Yes I do. I don't know how you maintain such control. I take it you didn't personally take advantage of any of your students this year?"

"I never do. There's always one or two who are tempting and this year her name was Vanessa, but I remained professional with her."

"She going to be in my class next term?"

"Probably."

The two men both took sips from their drinks. Professor Wells broke the silence. "I've told you enough about my Words class. Now tell me about what you did with your classes this past term."

- end -