“Workin’ hard or hardly workin’,” Victoria asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

Paula glanced up, letting the pencil fall from her face. “A bit of both,” she said with a grin.

Paula was alone with a small measure of privacy, so Victoria invited herself in and sat at her desk. “What are you working hard on and what are you slacking on?”

Her friend put her sneakered feet on the floor and straightened up in her chair. After she stuck the pencil in her short afro, she swung her computer monitor around to face Victoria. “Read that,” she said, pointing a bubblegum-pink fingernail at the screen.

Victoria squinted and leaned forward. “Billy yanked her panties down her thighs...”

“To yourself,” Paula said.

“Is this your new book?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Victoria skimmed the page before resting her chin on her knuckles. “Mmh.”

“Is that a good ‘mmh’ or a bad ‘mmh’?”

“Do you have to say the p-word so much?”

Paula let out an exaggerated sigh and rolled her eyes. “My readers love the p-word. What else am I going to call it?”

Victoria shrugged her shoulders, her hair ornaments clattering. “I don’t know,” she said. “The books I read have more subtle words like mound and womanhood.”

“Too much hedging. A lot of women like to get straight to the point, girl. If I labored over the millions of different ways to say pussy, I wouldn’t have time to write what Billy does to it.” She pointed to the second page, forcing Victoria to continue reading.

Victoria raised a brow as her face burned. “Jeez, Paula. Do guys even do that?”

Paula raised her own brow in response. “Ooh, baby, what is you doing?”

“Not that,” she said nodding to the screen. Although, Victoria did have to do some mental calculation to remember the last time any man had shared her bed. Thirty-three and now thirty-four were particularly dry years since her break up with Kevin. Not that he did anything mind-blowing when they did share a bed. Lights off, missionary, and quick was Kevin’s style. His brand of lovemaking wasn’t even long enough for her to think of a theme for the next day’s lecture.

“Well we need to fix that,” Paula said, turning the monitor back. “Any prospects?”

“You sound like my mom.”

“Don’t tell me that,” her friend said with a barking laugh. “Your mom is a piece of work and I don’t want to be associated with her.”

Victoria debated whether to tell Paula about the strange email she received from John Donovan. Since Paula signed on for the fall semester, it felt easier to face the stressful culture of Pembroke University. Victoria didn’t have very many people to talk to in the English department even though she’d worked there for four years herself. But because of the exclusive air of the private institution, a fear of judgement made it difficult to share one’s ideas or problems with equally competitive professors. But this was Paula, her former graduate school buddy and the third member of The Write Bitches Gang. If there was anyone on Pembroke’s campus she could trust it was her girl. “Can I talk to you about administration?” Victoria asked, casting a nervous glance over shoulder.