Camilla's next memory vision was one that had occurred eight years before her predicament in the public aquarium.
She was twenty-nine at the time, and she and her husband Cameron had been lecturing on English literature in Montreal's McGill University for a year.
She still felt guilty about the encounter she'd had with the 'masseur', and hadn't found out he was one of the masked men. The pain of that guilt, however, had abated somewhat; for she'd been controlling her sexual urges very well ever since, and the masked men hadn't done anything else to trouble her...yet.
One afternoon in late September, Camilla was lecturing on Nathaniel Hawthorne's
Scarlet Letter
, and she was enjoying showing off her wide range of knowledge--of everything from the best of all Christian virtues to the darkest forms of evil in the themes of all great literature. Indeed, there was much of both in Hawthorne's novel. She found discussing the redemption of adulteress Hester Prynne especially therapeutic.
"Though shunned by her priggish society," Dr. Camilla Fox went on, reaching the end of her class, "Hester actually becomes a much better Christian than all of her Puritan neighbours combined. Time has passed since her affair with the minister Dimmesdale, and she has spent that time helping the sick and the poor, a far better thing to do than self-righteously judging the sins of others. She has gone full circle, going from extreme shame to extreme honour, from the hellish bitten tail of the ouroboros to its heavenly biting head. Sometimes a brief visit to hell actually saves us. Think of Jesus between His own death and resurrection."
One attractive young man--tall, thin, and blond--was listening to her words in rapt attention. He was as intellectually turned on by her ideas as he was physically turned on by her body. Who wouldn't have been? She was wearing tight beige slacks, black high heels, a white dress shirt unbuttoned low enough to show off a bit of black lace brassiere, and bright, heavy makeup to put some colour on her otherwise pale, 'Goth-looking' skin. Her black hair and eyes were particularly enticing to the boy.
Class ended, and everyone left the room except him and Dr. Fox, a name all the male students found quite apt for her.
"Dr. Fox?" he said, drawing her attention from the papers she was looking at on her podium. "That was a great lecture."
"Thanks," she said with a grin. "You're Mike, right?"
"Yeah," he said shyly. "You remembered my name. Wow."
"How could I forget, sweetie? You who always have a lot to talk to me about after every class. What would you like to ask me today?"
"Well, uh," he began, leaning against a desk and pushing out his right knee, "You've mentioned this symbol of a snake coiled in a circle, biting its tail, several times over the past few lectures."
"The ouroboros," she said, standing up close in front of him, with her legs spread open a bit.
"Yeah, the ouroboros. It's a symbol of eternity, of endless cycles; but you seem to speak of it in a different way. Can you explain your interpretation? I'm not sure I understand it."
"Well, I see it as the Western version of
yin
and
yang
in Chinese philosophy. We never have one opposite without the other one, right next to it. All opposites--folly, wisdom; good, evil; heaven, hell;
et cetera
--can each be put on its own continuum ranging from one extreme to the other, with every intermediate point lying in between. You can then take those extremes and coil the line of each continuum into a circle, and one extreme opposite mysteriously dissolves into the other--a circular continuum. The serpent biting its tail represents that idea to me." She moved a little closer to him, her crotch almost touching his knee.
"I see," Mike said. "So the hell of Hester's shame dissolves into saintliness with her charitable deeds; while Dimmesdale's shame over sleeping with her is kept secret, and his hating of himself, which ironically reinforces his false public image as a good, humble man of God--always seeming holy in his confessions of worthlessness--that ultimately kills him."
"Exactly," she said. "Hester goes from bitten tail to biting head, in her confrontation with her sin, and in her resolve to be charitable. Dimmesdale, however, goes from biting head to bitten tail, in his cowardly inability to confess his sin, and in his perpetuating of his false image as a virtuous Christian. He confesses his worthlessness only in a general sense, and this impresses his flock; but never until his death does he take responsibility for sleeping with Hester by publicly admitting to it, for such a confession would have been too shocking."
"Brilliant," Mike said, beaming at her as she used to do with her old teachers. "You're amazing, Dr. Fox."
"Thank you." Camilla suddenly started feeling hot, both physically and sexually; she was breathing heavily as she eyed the cute boy. She'd been successfully resisting adultery for over a year since her encounter with the 'masseur', sleeping only with Cameron. But temptation was taking her over, and quickly. "You're obviously a very bright young man." She put her crotch on his knee and rubbed where her vulva was back and forth against him.
"Th-thank you," he panted. Though getting very excited from his teacher's come-on, the shy boy needed an excuse to cool down from this all-too-hot situation, so he nervously looked down at his watch. "Oh, I gotta get to my next class." He got up from the desk and picked up his book-bag. "Bye, Dr. Fox."
"Bye," she said, grinning at him as he shuffled out of the classroom. "What a little hottie." Then she quickly cooled down. "But I'm married, and I already have a scarlet letter of my own."
**************
Mike met up with a male friend of his in the hall just outside Camilla's classroom.
"So how was your class with The Fox?" his friend asked.
"Hotter than usual," Mike said. "As I was asking her questions, I was leaning on a desk with my knee sticking out, and she started rubbing her pussy against it."
"Holy shit!" his friend whispered. "Fuck her, man! Fuck The Fox!"
"I think she wants me to."
**************
The next day, Camilla saw Mike walking down the hallway of another building on the McGill campus.
Catching up to him, she said, "Hi Mike!" with a big grin.
"Oh, hi," he said shyly.
"Where are you off to?" she asked.
"Oh, a class on the Romantic poets," he said.
"Oh, really? Who will you be studying today?"
"Coleridge. 'Kubla Khan'." They got into an elevator together.
"Oh, the one who decreed a pleasure-dome in Xanadu. 'And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!'"
"You know the poem well?" Mike asked, pressing the button for his floor.
"Oh, yes. My doctoral thesis dealt with it," she said, pressing the button for hers. "'Kubla Khan' deals with the influence of drugs--opium in particular--on poetic inspiration, and with creativity and the poetic imagination."
"Can you help me with it? I'm having trouble understanding it."
Heating up again, she said, "Sure. We can discuss it over dinner."
"R-really?" he asked, getting hot himself.
"Sure," she said, grinning. "My treat. Do you know
