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Keri's class seemed to drag slower than usual. She'd planned a lecture on Pamela. The novel was considered scandalous when first published. Her students just yawned.
"How does Pamela struggle to maintain her virtue?" Keri demanded of her class.
Chuck, a sandy blond who'd come to the university on a baseball scholarship, raised his head from the crook of his arm and murmured, "She negs that one dude who tries to scam on her."
"By 'dude,' I take it you mean her employer, Mr. B?"
"Yeah, him."
"Okay, good. Any other examples?"
At length, Lin, her brightest student, said, "She hides those letters."
"That's right!" Keri said. "She hides them in her purse."
Lin frowned. "Her purse?"
Keri felt her chest flutter.
"I may have misread the passage," Lin said, "but I thought she hid the letters in her petticoat."
"Yes, yes, of course," Keri said. She took a step backward, bumping into the podium. This was something that would never happen to Jeremy. He was a professional. She'd been a grad student when they first met. He was an assistant professor of English and philosophy, fresh from his doctoral triumph. "Let's break early today," she said, in exasperation. "We'll continue with Pamela on Friday."
Keri didn't open her purse until the room was empty. The cock was still there, nestled between her wallet and address book. She touched it lightly. How had Jeremy done it, she wondered. And why? Was he trying to deconstruct himself?
Even after all
Maybe, just maybe, she'd been more in love with it than him.
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their discussions, Keri didn't entirely understand Jeremy's deconstructionist theories. But she'd learned, after the first few years, that listening to your lover's ideas — no matter how opaque — was part of the package. When Jeremy started in on one of his rants, she'd find a way to distract him, usually by reaching for his cock. When that part of his body hardened, the rest of Jeremy seemed to soften, until he was the sensitive, pliant man she'd grown to love.
Was that why she couldn't just get rid of the thing? Because she'd always thought of his cock as the key to Jeremy's heart? Or maybe, just maybe, she'd been more in love with it than him.
That's ridiculous, she told herself. Still, she felt it would be rude not to address the cock before snapping shut her purse. "Don't worry," she told the replica. "We're going to get you home right away."
In the car, Keri couldn't help opening her purse again and looking at it again. Suddenly it felt wrong to keep the cock locked up like that. She put it down on the seat beside her, but then worried it might roll off onto the floor if she had to make a sudden stop.
You're being silly now, Keri chided herself. Then she laughed out loud, not out of shame, but some more playful feeling, something light and girlish.
Maybe she should call Jeremy. Ask him what was going on. She imagined how the conversation might go:
"What's with the, um, present?"
"Oh that," Jeremy would say, as if he'd already forgotten. "I thought you might miss it. I'm sure you haven't gotten laid since the breakup."
That conversation would end with Keri throwing the phone against the wall.
Or, maybe:
"What's with the cock in the box?"
"I still want you to forgive me, Keri. So I thought I'd send him on ahead as, you know, sort of an ambassador."
Or, perhaps even:
"Just what do you mean by sending me an obscene thing like that in the mail?"
"Obscene? Honey, you know your own id has thought of much worse."
The final option, the one that kept her from calling, was the thought that the redhead might answer. Even though it had only been three months, Keri knew from mutual friends that she'd already moved in. This was Jeremy's way of punishing her. He'd asked her to forgive him, after all, had made quite a campaign out of it, right up until Keri announced she was moving to Arizona. But another part of her wondered if perhaps the redhead had simply walked down the path to Jeremy's heart, the one that she, Keri, had cleared. Maybe it didn't make a difference to Jeremy which woman moved in, now that he'd decided it was time for that kind of commitment.
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