I was new to the college, and looking to make a good impression; I did not have a permanent job, but I wanted one. Consequently I tried to make friends with whoever would talk to me. I wanted to show I was a team player and could be a good colleague. As a part of that strategy, I made sure to attend every gathering that I could: academic talks, presentations by the school administration, and art films put on by the faculty film club. And so it was that I came to a campus-wide staff meeting. We were in a new campus theatre hall, specially purposed to show films and videos. It had all the trappings of an up-scale movie house, with chairs whose plush seats folded up, had high backs, and which gently curved around you, enveloping you and directing your gaze towards the front. I half expected to see popcorn between the rows of seats. I had arrived early, so I walked down close to the front of the room, sat down in one of the comfy chairs, and waited. Of course, the room being so dark and the chairs being so comfy, I dozed. I was pulled up out of my stupor by a presence; I felt a large woman striding into the theatre, waltzing up row and sitting down beside me. She turned a beaming smile my way and said,
"Hello, I'm Clarity."
"I'm Adrian," I replied, and moved to shake the hand she offered.
As I say, she was large and she had pronounced features. Blonde hair that came down to her shoulders, and gaping eyes looking out from behind glasses. Her eyes were intense, and their action was really more of a stare than a looking. She gazed at me in that unflinching way, and she said,
"I don't think we've met; you must be new here, since I've inspected everyone on faculty already and I don't remember you. I am a professor in the Religious Studies department, and I teach classes on mysticism and sects. The joke is that if you take a course with me, you're initiated into my cult, and I've got you for the rest of your undergraduate career! Really it's just a rumour spread by other professors who are jealous of my enrollment numbers. My classes fill up immediately, and I will say that students find me captivating; they seldom take just one of my courses . . . why just this year I had an enormous player of the football team devote himself to me, or more properly, my instruction. He quit the team so that he could give himself over to my studies. That caused quite the ruckus, I can assure you!'
"Apparently he was quite good at competing physically with other men, had scouts drooling over him, and I got several phone calls from the coach, begging me to put him back on the team. It got so bad I had to go make a personal visit to the athletic facilities to stop the pestering. His office was at the back of the weight room, and so to see him, I had to walk through a room full of sweating, muscular young bulls straining and moaning as they ogled me. Not a situation just any woman can control. But fortunately, that's a group I know how to handle. And when I was done in the coach's office . . . well, the matter was decided."
The whole time she was saying this, she had been boring into my eyes without flinching. This was disconcerting. Usually you need to look away at some point when you are speaking to someone. It's just common curtesy, and it also helps you to be sure of your train of thought. If you're staring at someone's face intensely, then you're using all of your focus to read the signs they're making with facial movements, and you don't have much mental power left over to make up your own little speech. At least, that's how I thought it was supposed to go. But Clarity seemed able to examine me with great attention to check for my reactions while speaking at the same time, and again, I found this very odd. It was, if I'm being truthful, also a little stimulating. It's rare to have a woman focus on you in such a concentrated way, and flattering; why was I worthy of such attention? Here was an obviously powerful, intense woman applying herself to me. The natural reaction in such a situation is to swell up: if someone is fawning on you, you can't help but think better of yourself too, and so the top of my chest expanded out as I breathed in and tried to be more, well, virile.
Seeing this, she touched my hand. She then brought her other hand over to give mine a shake in greeting. Indeed, as if to maximize the impact she tightened her clasp with both hands and made it a two-fisted shake, slowly pumping my hand up and down and saying, "It's very nice to meet you, Adrian."
While this was happening, her gaze held my eyes. I was being forced to take notice of her facial features, which were large, rounded, and perfectly symmetrical. On anyone else I would have thought they were almost mannish, but she somehow came across as uniquely feminine; the combination said nothing so much as divinely woman to me.
"Actually my real name is Siva, but that's still a bit unsettling for most of the older faculty here who can't accept a non-Western name, so I go with Clarity. Easier for everyone, don't you think?" By now the handshake had taken on a definite slow rhythm: she would move my hand down slowly and then bring it back up again more quickly. This also caused her to slowly rock towards me, and her eyes seemed to flare a little bit with each up-stroke. Her smile was constant and her chin bobbed up in time with her hands. Almost imperceptibly, she had arched her back and was looking slightly down at me.
"Yes, of course," I said in a haze. Now, university professors are generally an eccentric group. Because of their academic abilities, society tends to allow for all sorts of idiosyncratic behaviour; witness Einstein's hair, for a very tame example. Nevertheless, and even in my befuddled state, this greeting struck a part of me as weird. But another part, a larger part of me, was taken. Unconsciously I started to rock back towards her, synchronizing my movement with hers and nodding my head up at the same time she did. For anyone watching it would have looked like we were just agreeing with one another, but it was clearly something else for me. The blood rushing through my ears started to sound like shouting.
"Good," she said with a curt nod, and released her grasp. I sank back into my chair, feeling a little drained. On the stage was a lectern and behind it a row of chairs, in which various members of the school administration were seated. At that moment the President of the university stood up from his chair which was off to the side of the others and moved to the lectern to address the faculty. I could see the first place he looked was at Clarity, and in response she smiled and let out a musical little laugh. The President began his annual report, discussing student enrollment, a few standout accomplishments of various faculty members, and other things that I quickly lost interest in. He seemed to be glancing over our way every now and then, but I thought nothing of it until at one point I saw Clarity suddenly raise her chin, and the President immediately looked her way. I thought this was something too, and began to pay more attention to what was going on. In a few minutes it happened again. After the third time, there could be no mistake: our President was responding to Clarity. I frowned, wondering what was going on, and Clarity leaned over and pressed her head close to mine so that she could whisper in my ear.
"The President and I were close last year," she said, and then pulled back. I inhaled deeply, as her voice, and, more peculiarly, her scent, pushed me back into a fog. She sat staring at me, gauging me, and then she broke out into her joyous smile. The school President was looking over at us again, and now I thought I could detect some perspiration on his forehead. Clarity leaned in to me again, placed her hand on my forearm, and whispered in my ear, "So far, I've been signalling him to raise his excitement level, and he's very attentive to my suggestions. But I think he also wonders who you are." Now this was confusing too; what did that mean, "raise his excitement level"? Was she some kind of life-coach, cajoling him from the audience to put a little more 'oomph' into his speech? But that didn't seem right. She leaned in again. "I prefer people to be excited when they address me; it's only appropriate, don't you think?" I could only nod. This time when she moved her head back, she left her hand on my arm. There was no shock associated with her touch, but it forced all of my awareness to focus on Clarity. As if in recognition of this, her smile broadened out again, and she sat up very straight. She arched her back, and her breasts swelled out as she did so. She displayed herself, she was proud, and she took pleasure in being admired. Again with that smile. Although she was looking straight ahead, it was clear she knew what was happening to me and even measuring it. Somewhere in the background, far away, I heard the President say, "And now we would like to present to the faculty something that we hope will help reverse our enrollment trends. For the first time, our school has a recruitment film. This will be sent out to all the local high schools and posted both on our website and on Youtube. Please enjoy our promotional movie, "The Experience!""
The President was not a tall man, and he was stocky. His muscles were obviously straining within the confines of the suit he wore; it looked a bit too small for him. From the angle we were sitting at, it was quite clear that he was sporting an erection as he sheepishly went back to his seat. I felt my vision was slowly narrowing, and I looked into Clarity's face, which was entrancing with its smile, and then the lights went down. The immediate change in lighting meant everyone was blind, and in that moment of confusion Clarity leaned over and whispered into my ear,