Even the unabridged dictionaries in those days didn’t have fuck or cunt. What’s a boy to do--the Cyclopean blur and burn and burst of sex everywhere? Settle for vulva and clitoris and mons veneris, of course, which leads to penis and labia and ordinary intercourse. Mat made sure to cut short his study long enough before the final bell that his erection (see also priapism) might subside: Living down a girlish giggle was worse than never knowing orgasm. Sometimes the y’s worked: yttrium, yucca, yufts, and yunx. Safer to simply slap the book shut. There!

Alas, after class Laura’s lovely eyes undid him instantly. Her wry smile, more than a million white-hot sex-words, seized his shame and stoked it shamelessly. “Say,” she said, “wanna come over tonight and study for the test or something?”

The study started slow: lily, limb, limber, limbo--a retreat where things are consigned to oblivion. Then Laura took things into her own hands. “Oh, Mat,” she whispered. “It’s so big!”

After that, no more words were needed.