The Library

As Cora neared the library, she felt heart beat a little quicker than usual. Immediately, she knew why and was not surprised. She was hoping he would be there again, sitting alone at his table, surrounded by his regular pile of art books, wearing his worn blue turtleneck sweater. Cora always did like visiting the library; she loved the smell of the books, the feeling of being surrounded by so much knowledge, so much inspiration. But ever since she saw him for the first time, last Friday, her visits were accompanied by another kind of excitement. She had always been considered an attractive girl, but she had always taken steps to mask her beauty, eschewing make-up and the mythical trappings of looking beautiful for a sense of comfort and a deep-seated need to meet the world on her own terms. Her long, curly tar black hair and icey green eyes made it difficult, however, to be accepted as merely a person in this world. She had had a few boyfriends since graduating from high school four years previous - her mother had always said that boyfriends don’t count until one graduates from high school – but they had always focused on her beauty, always wanting her to “let her beauty shine,” in the words of her last suitor, a hypocritical and sex-starved philosophy major. She was sick of subtle hints to do this to her hair or do that to her face or do something else with her clothes. Today, as she headed to her favorite table, she wore a simple black, ankle-length skirt and her comfy grey sweater; her heart beat reminding her of what might be.

Her heart literally sank when she arrived at her favorite table, and found herself alone. There were three tables in this section of the library, and he was not sitting at his table, directly across form where she often sat, pouring over her history texts, stealing glances. She sighed and stacked her books on the table – W.E.B Dubois, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King – her specialty being civil rights and the history of Black America. She loved history, and hoped one day to become a professor of Black American history – she was fascinated with struggle and the overcoming of it, the pride and strength of an entire race of people to simply be accepted as human beings, nothing more, nothing less. “Without struggle, there can be no progress,” Fredrick Douglass had written. AM I allowed to apply that to my life, she wondered to herself, almost aloud.

She was daydreaming about a better world, when she saw him approach. He was tall, over six feet, and quite lanky without being skinny. Dressed in dark green cords and a golden brown sweater, with his curly blond hair bouncing slightly, he oozed sexiness visible to Cora alone. Her heart began its familiar thump, and as he neared his table, she lowered her eyes, not wanting to be caught staring, gawking at him.

When she looked up again, he was looking at her. For a brief moment, their eyes met and she was able to look directly into his soft blue eyes. Then instinct took over and they both lowered their heads in shyness and custom. Like the protagonist in Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart,” she wondered if the rapid beating of her heart might betray her, such was its strength. She looked up again; this time, he was intently reading one of his massive art books, and she studied him. His long, almost dainty fingers, which occasionally brushed the hair off his face. His face. Strong jaw, nose slightly bent, puppy-dog blue eyes, pale lips, he had almost a babyish quality to him, yet his features were very manly. She loved irony

He lifted his eyes and interrupted her perusal of his face, and their eyes met again, only this time his look came with a shy smile, and she fought the instinct to look away and instead returned a smile. The look lingered with the smile, and he looked down again, still smiling. I wonder what he is thinking, thought Cora. She was a little surprised at her own reaction to seeing him, to meeting his eyes. Her body felt warm. She crossed her legs to capture the light tingle that lay between them. She began to enjoy herself. She looked up again. He was staring at her. As their eyes met again, however, she sensed something different; it was not only more comfortable and easy to look at each other, but something else. A line had been crossed, and the longer they looked directly at each other, the farther over that line they went. They were both smiling, and she gulped as he mouthed one simple word to her, as if to signal this transition.
“Hi.”
One simple word, and it sent her mind reeling in that split second between his greeting and her own silent reply.
“Hi.”

Cora’s mind spun, and her body tingled. What is happening here, she thought. Are we just flirting? Her mind began to swim with thoughts and images. Here was the cutest guy on the planet, she didn’t know anything about him, but loved everything about him. But she felt an odd sense of abandon, of freedom, of certainty. She wanted to fuck this guy. She didn’t know where the thought came from. She had never thought anything like that before. Yes, she wanted to fuck this guy. Didn’t know his name, didn’t know if he was straight or gay, didn’t know if he had a boyfriend or girlfriend, didn’t know if he some sort of perv sicko, she just wanted to fuck him. The urge swept over her like a virus. It reached into her mind. These things don’t happen. But more than that, she realized, she didn’t want to know any of those things, she didn’t want to know him, she didn’t want to lose this ideal, this strange, exciting feeling she had. She didn’t want things to be normal, to be awkward. She didn’t want small talk and questions about books and study and movies, she didn’t want to know if he liked cats or foreign films, where he lived or why he was always pouring over art books. She wanted to fuck him. She wanted to act on this new, odd sensation she was feeling, for fear she may never feel it again.

She looked up, catching his gaze once again. His handsome, innocent face now held new meaning for her. She did not allow herself to think before she mouthed a phrase she had never even thought of in her life, nor would she again……
“I want to fuck you.”
She lowered her head with a mixture of excitement and embarrassment. What had she just done? Maybe he hadn’t understood. She wondered which was better, that he had or hadn’t understood her silent lips. This is crazy, she thought. She felt stuck, physically and mentally. Now what?
Her question was answered by a piece of paper dropped in front of her. She hadn’t even noticed him get up and walk past her, struggling as she was with her thoughts. Then he was gone. She looked at the paper. It said simply, “Room 17a.”

She got up to see where he had gone, but he had disappeared. Her whole body tingled, her legs felt numb, and she sat down, her heart threatening to jump out of her chest. Her brazen thoughts of a moment ago were now tempered by rationality. Questions flowed from her battling mind. Is this really happening? SHOULD this be happening? What was room 17a? Who is this guy? Did he read her mind? Does he pick up all the girls in the library this way? Then the most important question drowned out the others: “do I want to do this?” To her surprise, the answer was much clearer than anything she had experienced before. Yes. But first she had to find Room 17a.

With weak legs, she walked to the directory. Room 17a was located in the basement of the library, where most of the photocopying was done and the library’s collection of microfiches were held. Obviously not a well-used floor of the library. Good sign. She decided to take the elevator, even though she was on the second floor, because she didn’t know if her legs would take her there. In the elevator, she played with scenarios in her mind and thought of what might happen, what words would be spoken, what was in store for her. She decided one thing. She would let herself go, she would act on her desires without thought, she would simply let it all happen.

She found Room 17a. It was located in the back corner of the basement floor, around the corner from the microfiche area and down a short dead-end hallway. She passed not a soul on her walk to the room, and she paused when she got there. Do I knock? Do I just walk in? No thinking! She scolded herself and turned the handle.

He was waiting, leaning against the sole table in the middle of the small room. It was a long table with chairs around it; probably this room was used for meetings. It was dimly lit by a single light fixture on the ceiling. When she stepped into the room, he stood and brushed by her to shut the door. She didn’t even have time to turn. He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them. She was nervous, but his hands felt good along her shoulders, and she could feel the warmth of his body behind her. His hands roamed her back, and rose to her shoulders again. He lifted her hair, and her whole body tingled as she felt his soft lips on her neck. He kissed her gently along the nape of her neck, moving across the back and up the other side. She lowered her head to one side to allow his lips to cover the side of her neck. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she reached back slightly and found his thighs, squeezing gently on them. His hands roamed her body as he kissed her neck and shoulders, slowly increasing the strength and passion of his kisses. She moaned involuntarily as his hands grazed over her breasts and across her stomach. They were both breathing audibly and the sense of passion and excitement was building between them. Sensing this, he lifted the sweater from her body in one motion, as she raised her arms for him.
She greedily grabbed his hands and placed them on her breasts, and he squeezed them slightly, rolling his hands over them, and then focusing his fingers on her hardening nipples. He let his thumbs move over her nipples, sending shocks of pleasure through her body with each touch. When he began to roll her nipples between his fingers, she spun around and kissed him hard on the lips, while struggling to pull his sweater off. As his sweater came off, revealing his bare chest, they both seemed to realize the intensity of the moment, and the fact that they had neither the time nor the desire to be deliberate in their actions.
He pulled her shirt off and she unhooked her bra, revealing her bountiful breasts for him to devour, which is exactly what he did. He kissed his way down her neck and circled her breasts with his warm lips. She grabbed the back of his head and pushed his face into her heaving breasts. He took one breast in his hand and ran his tongue back and forth across her nipples, before plunging it into his mouth and letting his tongue roll around the nipple inside his mouth. Then her took her nipple between his lips and tugged gently, before moving to the other breast. Cora was in ecstasy, and she heard herself moan with pleasure as he went back and forth between her breasts, and her grip on his hair tightened as he began to gently bite her nipples before taking them in his mouth again.