Maria couldn't help wondering why she had come to the lecture. The bench below her arse was hard and uncomfortable, the room at the Met museum was freezing cold and she was surrounded by a bunch of oldies. The speaker was a professor of classics, over from Cambridge in England, in a tweed jacket and horn-rimmed spectacles. His name was Prof Albert George, and he was a leading expert in Roman and Greek history. Neither of these subjects were of much interest to Maria, a New York wife in her mid-20s with time to kill. That afternoon she had been at home while her husband watched television and ignored her. She wanted out of the house and had gone for a walk in Central Park. And here she was, at the museum, listening to a lecture on something she knew nothing about. At least it might be educational, she supposed. For half an hour the professor had been droning on about life in Roman times, and he was now bringing out a selection of antiquities from that period. He laid them out on the table in front of his audience of 50 or 60 people. There was a spade, used by Roman farmers. There was an ampulet, worn by a typical lady of the time. Here, he explained, was an original amphora which would have contained red wine in the 2nd century AD. And this, he said, was a dildo.
"A dildo?" thought Maria. She woke up somewhat from a daydream.
"You may be surprised to see such an artefact," explained professor George. "But sexual desire is not an invention of the 20th or 21st century. Such devices have been popular with the fair sex for many, many years."
The object was made from solid pale marble, with a thick base and a smooth, polished surface. The head of the marble cock was circumcised and the length of the device was at least eight inches. "This is not to say that the length of the average male member has decreased over the centuries," he explained. "Rather, dildos and such devices have often been longer than the real thing."
Maria was fascinated. She couldn't help thinking about the object and wondering how and when it had been used. Perhaps, nearly 2000 years ago, a Roman wife had inserted it into her pussy while her husband was out at work....as a centurion, perhaps, or a gladiator? Maria wondered whether the dildo had been used by many different women, over the years. The thought made her a little giddy and confused.
The lecture was taking place in a vast hall with various marble statues along the walls and in the centre. Most of the statues were men, many without many clothes on, showing off their rippling torsos in various postures.
The professor was still on the subject of Romans and sex. "Of course, that civilisation was responsible for the word 'orgy'," he said. "As often as not, a Roman orgy was more about excessive eating and drinking than sex, thus the word 'vomitarium' - where over-indulgent people could bring up their dinner and return for more food afterwards," said the professor. "Yet there was often a carnal element to such events. Drunk with wine and excitement, the Romans would often indulge in wife-swapping and what is now widely known as 'daisy chains'. That is, everyone would recline on cushions on the floor of the villa and start playing with one another. There was little public disapproval of such practices."