The countdown alarm went off loudly, signalling an end to the fifth round on the heavy bag. It was the late afternoon, I'd done a session of HIIT at the gym, followed by an hour of boxing practice. After showering and putting on a clean shirt and jeans, I picked my bag up from the locker room and headed to the library. I went down the steps to the basement level, which had variety of spaces - from individual workstations and four-seater booths to private niches and discussion rooms.
I had booked a discussion room in advance, as the mid-term was a busy period with tests and first batch of assignments due. I wasn't expecting any company, however. I wanted some privacy and a couple of hours of quietude. Booking a whole room to myself at such a time seems selfish, but I know people exploit the library worse than I do.
I swiped my uni ID card at the door and let myself in. I hooked my laptop up to the large-screen LED in the room and settled down. Over the next hour-and-a-half, I worked my way down a rabbit hole of literature review. Through the striped, frosted plate glass walls I observed silhouettes of people passing by from time to time. I had just sat down after doing some stretches when the door beeped and a woman let herself in, a trolley luggage bag in tow. I wasn't expecting an intrusion, as my ID was the only way anyone could get in the room.
"Um..." I began, addressing the lady's back as she tried to close the door as quietly as possible.
Then my unanticipated visitor turned around and I saw that it was one of the new library staff. I'd first spotted her at the reception, sometime within the first couple of weeks of the semester. She stood out as the only brown woman amongst all of the library employees. I saw her every now and then, and figured she was probably a part-timer, hired to fill in a couple of gaps in staffing. What she was doing in my discussion room this evening was still a mystery.
"Oh hi, sorry to barge in on you like this. I needed a quiet place and I saw you were the only person using this room, so I used my staff privileges to let myself in." she said, flashing me a bright smile and her ID. Her name was Dini. "Hope you don't mind sharing the space."
I couldn't very well say no. She could get me kicked out of the discussion room, on the grounds that it wasn't permitted for just one person to hog the space. I acquiesced, a bit grudgingly. Dini sat down on the chair across the table and pulled out a dozen books from the suitcase, along with a laptop. She started flipping through the pages of one of the books, intermittently pausing to type for a few seconds on her computer.
Over the next hour she went through three of the books this way. She was quiet, which suited me just fine. Another hour and I was done with my reading for the day. Dini was in the process of going through the fifth book, and I could tell she was getting either bored or tired. Possibly both. My curiosity got the better of me.
"So what is it that you're doing with these books?" I asked.
She looked up from behind the laptop screen.
"These books were recently acquired by the library, for the special collections section. I'm trying to go through them and figure out the tags to associate with them on the online database, so that people researching those subjects can find them easily" she explained, rubbing her eyes.
"Tiring gig?"
"Yeah, but I need to go through all of these before tomorrow, or my newly-interning ass is on the line. The way things are going, however, I might have to stay here the whole night."
I looked over at the spines of the books. The titles implied they were ancient treatises on a civilisation long gone.
"How about I help you out with tagging them?"
Dini raised her eyebrows. "Are you serious?"
"Sure. The books look interesting, I'm a fast reader, and together we can work through them quicker than you can by yourself."
"What's the catch?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
"You get me access to book the discussion rooms all to myself, for the whole day, throughout the next week."
Dini considered this for a couple of seconds. "I guess I can do that."
"Great."
I pulled up a chair next to Dini and we began going through the books together. Over the next two hours we went through six books together. Some were really bland, boring texts, but then we got down to the final two volumes. These were about the personal lives of upper-class and rich denizens of that civilisation, pieced together from archaeological artefacts and translated texts. There were accounts of their weird and outlandish sex lives and orgies, accompanied by illustrations. History almost morphed into erotica, and it looked like the authors really took their time describing the juicier aspects of what went on in throne rooms, private harems and dungeons, even royal kitchens, temples, and -- during periods of war -- inside the tents of high-ranking military officers on the battlefield.
I found myself progressing slower through this tome than the previous ones, and looking over at Dini, saw that she was getting distracted too. She glanced at me and smiled, looking rather embarrassed. I raised my eyebrows in a well-what-do-you-know expression and got back to reading. After a quarter-hour I got distracted by what sounded like soft, swishing noises. I looked up and saw that Dini's lips were parted, and she seemed absorbed in a particular paragraph. She was twisting a lock of hair between her fingers.
A slight movement under the table caught my eye -- Dini had her legs pressed shut and was gently rubbing them together. The nylon of her hose was making those sounds, amplified by the quietness of the room. I quickly looked back down at my book, lest she catch me watching her.
But after a minute I realised she was totally engrossed in her book, and glanced down under the table again. Her nyloned legs were still rubbing up against each other, and the hem of her skirt had ridden slightly up her thighs. I discreetly looked over at what she was reading: it was about a noblewoman's sexual escapade with her personal guard, in the cellar of her house. Dini suddenly cleared her throat and flipped the page. I hastily looked away.
Again, after a few minutes I heard the friction of nylons. I peeked. She was still twirling a lock of hair with one hand, but the other one was no longer on the table -- it was under it. I couldn't see what her hand was doing under there, but going by the sound of something rubbing slowly against fabric, she must be stroking her legs. Down the entire length of the thigh, slowly up to the hip and back down. The swishing nylon, thigh stroking, lock curling and her half-open mouth with its full lips started giving me ideas.
I imagined what it'd be like if I slid down in my chair, under the table and started kissing Dini's legs, while she was still reading. I'd explore with my lips from the tip of her shoes to the hem of her skirt. Then I'd slide my hands under it and run them up and down the sides, eventually prying her legs apart slowly at the knees. I kiss and lick my way up her inner thighs till I got to her mound -- no doubt all swollen with arousal. I'd tear open the seams at the crotch, just enough to slide my tongue in and start lapping away at her pussy lips.
My head would be enveloped by her legs, clamping on it like a vice. I'd eat her out under the table, while she fantasized about being the noblewoman in the story and getting fucked -- bent over a wine cask in the cellar. At some point, I'd insert my fingers into her warm sex, curling them up inside and rubbing the upper wall of her vagina. I'd finger, kiss and suck away until she started spasming and soaked my beard with her juices. Then I'd come out from under the table, bend her over the chair's arm and fuck her just like her fantasy...
Dini cleared her throat again and that brought me out of my trance. Flipping the book shut, she asked me if I was done with mine. I said I was almost done.
"I'm gonna head down to the special collections section and start racking these books up on the shelves." she told me.
"Give me a couple of minutes. I'll be right behind you."
She put the books inside her trolley bag and went down. I took a few minutes to let my erection subside, gathered up my things and then followed her. It was almost closing time for the library, and in the part of the building where the special collections section was housed, there seemed to be no-one else. I peered in through the sliding glass doors that were currently shut. The lights inside were dimmed. I rang the bell at the reception outside. The doors slid open and I heard Dini from a distance.
"In here!"
I set my bag down and walked down the rows of shelves. More than half of the sealed, controlled-atmosphere section was taken up by the glass-enclosed bookshelves, with the remainder of the space given to a carpeted reading area with couches and long tables with overhanging lamps. I found Dini between the shelves near the reading area. She'd put already put a bunch of books on the shelves.
"How did you open the doors for me while you were here?" I asked, puzzled.
She showed me an app on her phone which people working in the section could use to lock and unlock the sliding doors. She said this was the only way anyone could get in and out of the space.
"I've put back half the books we went through, but the others need to go in the higher shelves."
Dini then asked me to get the small ladder from the adjacent shelf. I did and was starting to climb up it when she stopped me.
"I don't think it's a good idea for you to shelf these books. You don't know the library cataloguing system and my boss will chew my ears off if the books weren't in order. Let me climb up and you can hand the books to me." she said.
With that, she took her shoes off and gingerly climbed up on the ladder herself. I held it steady as her feet went up the steps. On the top step, the hem of the skirt was about a foot above my face. It was all I could do not to look up her beautiful, thick legs. I started handing her the books one by one. She would puzzle over their positions, rack them and then come back down. Then we'd move to a different shelf where she'd get up the ladder again and put back another book. We repeated the process till we got to the last couple which we'd been reading. Dini went up the steps, and stared at the cover of the book she'd been rubbing her legs to earlier.
"Yeah those two books were... interesting." I offered.
