"The library is closing in 15 minutes."
The young man nodded and rubbed his eyes. It was later than he thought, apparently. This research project was steadily draining away his soul; with every annotation and quote (citations included) his bones felt a little heavier and he lost a bit more will to live. Why had he chosen such an obscure topic? The table (which could seat six people) was completely covered with books, photocopies, index cards and paper coved with notes that were impossible to read. Almost all of the material before him had tantalizingly promised information on his subject, but in reality only teased him with oblique references and long, sidestepping passages about how obscure the idea was. He was beginning to wonder if anyone had actually done field research on this at all.
"Will you be checking out any of these?"
He looked up- he had forgotten about the poor librarian, who now eyed the plethora of encyclopedias with a measure of resignation. She must not have been the same librarian as this afternoon, he thought, looking at her; he didn't recognize her and wouldn't have thought she worked here were it not for the shiney, plastic ID card. She was short, but she was also quite thin which gave her the illusion of appearing taller. When she looked pointedly at her watch, he saw that her nails were bitten.
"No, no," he replied, standing, "I won't be taking any of these." Bloody useless literature.
"Oh," she said, her jawline becoming hard. Suddenly, her eyes, which had been on his face, slid to one side and stared over his shoulder. He realized, taking a quick look around at the inactivity of the library, that she must be the last librarian on duty- she would have to reshelve all these books herself and many of them were from top shelves. He thought about her working late because of him; then he thought about going home to his cold, unsympathetic computer screen to type up the day's worthless research.
"Would you like help putting these away?"
She regarded him sharply with piercing hazel eyes. He shuffled his feet and brushed sandy brown hair out of his eyes, trying to look respectable. She stared at him a long time, clearly debating with herself as she looked him up and down one last time, taking in all six-foot-three of him before briskly turning on her heel saying, "I'll go get a cart."
She returned with one standard-issue beige library cart (squeaky wheel included) just after he finished collecting his notes and stowing them in his bag. She began to stack thick reference books on it with a rhythmic, mechanical intensity. He stepped around the table, scooping up books as he went and dumping them on the cart with a loud metallic crash. He earned himself a dark look from the corner of his companion's eyes but she said nothing and finished loading.
Pushing the cart ahead of her, the little librarian headed for the elevator with quick steps. She was wearing heels with her short, grey skirt. Flat-footed, she wouldn't even reach his chest. It made him feel like a giant.
"We'll start on the top floor," she said.
"Ok."
They waited obediently until the elevator arrived and they could cram in together with the full cart. This elevator, in addition to being unusually small, was also unusually slow. It felt awkward to stand in complete silence until the fourth floor, so Thomas fished around for something to say.
"My name's Thomas."
"Emily," she answered after a pointed silence, glancing sidelong at him.
"Nice to meet you."
Ding!
Thomas followed her to the section of the library dealing with medicine. The college no longer had a large medical program, so these books were largely neglected. Thomas grabbed a few books at random and started the exciting game of seek-and-find against his arch-nemesis, the Dewey decimal system. Everything seemed to be on the bottom shelf, so he knelt to shelve them, but was startled by another loud, metallic noise.
Emily was standing on one of those rickety library stepstools with the unreliable wheels. She stood on her toes to reach the top shelf even as the stool wobbled wildly under her. Thomas quickly got up and stood behind her, afraid that she would fall, but she waved him off, so he took a step back. He took another book from the cart and immediately saw its place on the second shelf right in front of him. He reached down to put it back, then realized that he was kneeling beside a woman in a short skirt. He hesitated before standing again, not wanting her to notice that he was in an opportune position, but still uncompromisingly struck by overwhelming curiosity. Carefully, he rose and looked ever-so-slightly to the right as he did so.
Smooth, pale skin... gently curving calves... warm, soft thighs. Thomas's fingers itched to confirm his hypothesis. He saw a tiny scar about the size of his thumbnail right in the place where creamy thigh becomes firm ass. He swallowed and finished standing. He busied himself with the books until there were no more to put back in this section and Emily came down from her lofty perch.
"Periodicals are on the third floor. History is on the second, I think," he said, trying both to recall his first journey through the book stacks and to keep his voice from cracking.
"Mmm." She leaned over the cart briefly to check the numbers on the book spines, but also unintentionally afforded Thomas an excellent view of the contents of her white blouse. Apparently, she was wearing a lacy pink bra on the job. He closed his eyes and tried to keep the impure thoughts to a minimum... at least for the next minute or two.
One elevator trip later, Thomas was sliding old, fragile newspapers onto those weird bamboo-stick organizers while Emily shelved magazines a safe distance away. He had accidentally stood on the same side of the cart as her in the elevator and felt the heat radiating from her body the whole, painfully slow, ride down. He wondered how hot her skin would be to the touch, how she would feel under her skirt around the... no! You still have at least one more elevator ride with her, he thought. Try not to make an ass out of yourself just yet.
He snapped back to reality in time to see that he was about to tear the front page of a paper from 1951. The newspapers were returned with considerably more care after that.
"Are you finished?" Emily stood with her arms crossed under her breasts and a flushed face.
"Yes. Well... almost. This is the last one."
"Good." She turned away briskly, the hem of her skirt flaring out (hadn't that skirt been longer before?) and retrieved the cart.
Thomas nodded and mentally steeled himself.
The first elevator ride down had been hard, but the second one was torture. He became very aware of Emily's perfume that threatened to drive him insane. As if to taunt him further, she acquired an itch on her ankle that required her to bend over to scratch. I am going to hell, Thomas thought, turning his face away and enjoying the cold metal interior of the elevator against his cheek.
He breathed a sigh of relief once they were safely parted in the bookshelves and he was free of her immediate allure. This was becoming difficult. She was just the sort of girl to reject him for an innocent cup of coffee, much less tolerate a desperate grope in the history section. His jeans tightened just thinking about it. Her pert breast in his palm... her lips parted and breathing heavily... a splash of red across her cheeks. Thomas smacked his forehead lightly against a shelf and suppressed a groan.
