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Eli clears his throat. “In a brothel?”
Maggie looks at him. “Not necessarily, this is the sort of thing people would have in their homes.”
Declan lets out a low whistle. Maggie points to something on the wall. It’s just a carving of a giant penis mounted on the wall. “Like that, it’s a symbol of fertility. You’d hang it in your house, and it is supposed to be good luck and bring you children.”
Eli rubs his hand over his mouth and chin as he looks at it. “Like someone would give it to you as a wedding present or something?”
Maggie laughs. “Maybe?”
“Well, now we know what to get you as a wedding present,” Keene says.
Declan moves his eyes over to Keene and says, “Don’t. Maggie would like that too much. She’d definitely hang it.”
Maggie pouts. “You wouldn’t like that?”
He wraps his arm around her shoulder and says, “I wouldn’t mind it, but I think our son might find it really weird.”
“Oh, traumatizing,” Keene says.
Eli shudders. “Imagine bringing friends over.”
I laugh. “Honestly, I don’t know if that would make him more or less popular.”
Bode chuckles beside me.
“Maybe that’s what we were doing wrong when we were trying to get pregnant,” Maggie says, smiling at Declan.
“Not hanging penises from every surface?”
She nods.
He laughs and kisses the side of her head. “If we have trouble next time, I’ll think about it.”
“In general phalluses could mean good luck or they could just be a symbol of male virility. If they were in brothels it was luck or sexual prowess.”
“Looks lucky to me,” Keene says with a shrug.
We walk through the gallery and continue to look at the art. We’ve broken up. I step in front of a display of serving platters decorated with men – naked men with huge penises. I see Bode step beside me. “This would make an interesting dinner conversation,” he says.
“Yeah. Maggie and Declan should have used it at their dinner party. Would have livened things up,” I say before turning.
Once I’m facing the other direction, I freeze. As soon as Bode sees what I’m seeing, he says, “Interesting.”
“Disturbing is more like it,” I say stepping closer. “What the hell am I looking at?”
He studies it for a moment and says, “I think that’s Pan, god of the wild or nature.”
I frown. “I don’t like it.”
“I think it’s another symbol of fertility,” he says.
The statue is of Pan having his way with a sheep or goat – and it is graphic.
I hold my hand over my eyes. “I can’t.”
“If it makes you feel better Pan is half goat and his penis is on the goat half so...”
“Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “No. It does not make it better.”
