Lost in Eros
Book I: The Manor
The Library
As a matter of fact, they did take things a bit easier that evening. After a long time spent cleaning up and dallying about in the baths, Tascha, Don, Shelonda and Nicole, who was now interested at least in finding out more about their situation, went back to looking for noteworthy rooms. They picked up where they had left off the day before, which happened to be where they were anyway, on the second floor. They located the wardrobe again, and found quite a few bedrooms with assorted mischief taking place. After a few hours, they took a break by making use of a bedroom to have an impromptu foursome, in which Don managed to make each of the women come. Then, several hours later, when they knew they were about done for the evening, they joined in on a nice little orgy that was going on in a large bedroom. Finally, they found a free bedroom and fell asleep, in what Don personally thought one of the best ways; that is with him in a pile of naked women.
The next day, after a quick trip to the garden for bathing and breakfast, they started on the third floor. This proved not much more useful than the first and second floors, until, after two play breaks, they came upon a large pair of double doors at the end of a corridor. Pushing one of the doors open, they realized they had found the library.
The shelves of books seemed to defy gravity both in the way the shelves soared up to the high ceiling, and in the fact that they were not on the ground floor, which seemed to Don to be the sensible place for what must be a very heavy collection of books. Off to the left as they came in, was a remarkably unremarkable circulation desk. Behind it, of course, was an incredibly hot woman with her thick, long dark hair tied up in a conservative bun, and a nice set of full tits peeking out of the collared, white dress shirt (which had two more buttons undone than Don had ever seen on a
real
librarian), and long, beautiful legs glimpsed beneath the hem of, and through the modest (by Manor standards) slit on the side of, the black skirt that clung to her curves and fell to just below her knee. Of course, she was also wearing black frame glasses, high heels and dark pink lipstick.
Don and the others took a moment to wander around a bit. They noticed that there were several floors to the library, connected to this one by circular metal staircases. Here on the main floor there were a number of little reading lounge areas, complete with comfortable chairs and couches. These areas and the many secluded corners and aisles between the stacks were conducive to erotic encounters, and, this being the Manor, there were a number of parties enjoying themselves in just this way. Surprisingly enough, there were also a few people who were actually there to read.
"Can we stay here for a while?" Nicole asked with her mischievous smile, as she eyed a man's cock as he sat on the floor with his head on the seat of a couch as a woman, facing toward the back of the couch, knelt over his face.
"Um, sure," Don said, suddenly feeling like he and Tascha were the chaperones on a field trip. "Have fun."
Both Nicole and Shelonda went to go enjoy themselves, while Tascha and Don considered the books available on the shelves. Tascha pointed out, "There seems to be a very good assortment."
"Yeah," Don said, his eyes running over the titles, "and they're not junk. This would be a good college library, or even a small university's. Huh, I wonder..."
Don went over to the circulation desk and said, "Hello, I take it that you're the librarian."
The woman arched a dark eyebrow at him and pursed her lips before saying, "Yes, I'm the Librarian. May I help you?"
"Just 'the Librarian', not the 'head librarian'?" Don asked playfully.
"No," the Librarian said a bit impatiently. "That's the head librarian over there."
Don followed the direction of her nod and saw a woman on her knees in front of a gentleman in a chair giving him an enthusiastic, but quiet, blowjob.
"Of course she is," Don couldn't help saying. Turning back to the Librarian, he asked, "Could you tell me if you have any floor plans of the Manor on file?"
"Oh, good idea!" Tascha said.
"Shh," the Librarian insisted. "No, I'm afraid we do not, sir."
"How about any books at all about the Manor?" Don tried.
"Not as such, sir," the Librarian said seriously. "However, you may want to talk to the Scholar."
"I'm sure we do want to," Don smiled. "Would you kindly direct us to him?"
"Certainly," she smiled. "Please follow me."
Don and Tascha shared a glance and a shrug and then followed the Librarian. They passed Nicole and Shelonda, who were now riding the man's cock and sitting on the back of the couch getting eaten by the woman, respectively, and then climbed a winding set of stairs up two levels. Then, through an area dominated by large work tables which were currently unused, except for the pair of men who were using one as a stable platform to lean against, they were brought to a door with a hand-lettered sign on it that read "SCHOLAR'S ROOM -- Keep out!" The Librarian rapped twice on the door and proceeded to open it.
A thin man who was apparently a bit older than Don, with reddish brown hair, looked up from the heavy book he was reading, and said, "Yes? What is it?"
"This gentleman was looking for books about the Manor," the Librarian said. "I suggested he might want to talk with you."
"Oh, really? Well, good. Thank you, Audrey," the man said.
"You're welcome, Robert," the Librarian nodded with a smile and then turned to leave.
"Oh, could you send Leah up when she has a few minutes?" Robert asked.
"Of course," the Librarian, or Audrey, said as she left.
"You two are on a first name basis, eh?" Don observed.
"Oh, yes, well, I knew her when she was still the head librarian," Robert said, scratching his head absently. "She's a beautiful creature, isn't she? I was in love with her for a long time -- maybe still am a little. It's no good falling in love here, though, not with them."
"Why not?" Tascha said.
"You must be quite new," Robert decided. "They're not complete. They have no memories before waking up here, unlike me and, I take it, the two of you. They also have all their material needs taken care of, and only one consistent desire, and there's plenty of that to be had. So, without anything to structure their lives, they don't really develop personalities. What makes you special here, young woman -- particularly to this fellow who obviously adores you -- is your memories and your complete personality. Audrey, the Librarian, as lovely, and amazing in bed, as she is -- and she really is amazing in bed! -- she's not quite a whole person. Sure, she's got a personality, a perfectly charming one, but it's rather... Well, superficial, though I'm not sure that's the best word. One gets infatuated perhaps, but it fades when one realizes they've fallen for what is basically a child in a smoking hot body. Does that all make sense?"
"Um, yes," Tascha nodded, "I think so."
"So, I take it you're not new here?" Don asked.
"No," Robert laughed. "Oh, sorry! Please have a seat. I don't get many visitors."
Don and Tascha sat down in the offered chairs. This gave them a chance to appreciate the stacks of papers and books cluttering the little room.
"Um, I have been here for a very long time indeed. Let's see," Robert said, grabbing for a notebook off to his left. "I've been here for one hundred and forty seven... no, forty eight... hmm..."
"You've been here for one hundred and forty eight days?" Tascha asked.
"Oh, no! That's nothing," Robert laughed again. "I've been here for that many years, plus two months and eight days."
"What?!" Tascha gasped.
Don took this information a bit more calmly, and said, "Robert, that's not possible. You must have made a mistake."
"No, no," Robert shook his head. "I keep very careful track of these things. It's what I do to try to keep myself sane. Perhaps I don't do enough, but I'm sure the numbers are right. Years are still 365 days, right?"
"Well, yeah, plus leap years," Don said.
"Yeah, ok, so I should probably factor those in, but what's the point?"
"OK, well, how is it possible that you're over 150 years old?" Tascha asked.
Robert shrugged, but said, "It's the water. I'm almost sure it's the water. It's not actually water, of course -- not H-two-O. They call it XYZ -- kind of a joke, that."
"Who's 'they'?" Don asked.
"I should have said 'we' really, but the Scholars who came before me, and some other people I've managed to talk to over the years. There have been at least eight scholars, who have worked here over the years, and sometimes people pass through the Manor, and they tell me things, which I'm careful to record. It's kind of the gig, you see, and it's supposed to help keep me from going totally bonkers."
"Wait," Tascha said. "You're going too fast. How could the water, or the XYZ, keep you alive, and young, for so long?"
"Well, that's the million dollar question," Robert chuckled. "XYZ seems to do a lot of things. First of all, it does everything our 'normal' water does, but it does it better. Somehow you don't need more than a glass of the stuff every day."
"We'd noticed that," Don nodded.
"Of course you did," Robert smiled. "It's so delicious too, and like the water we were used to before we got here, it's in everything, including our bodily fluids, so those are also delicious -- almost addictively so. And, since it's so effective, for hydration, a little bit of each other's fluids keeps us going quite well. It also revs up your libido -- 'throws it into permanent over-drive' might be a better way to put it -- but I don't think it does much to our level of inhibition. No one ever seems drunk on the stuff. I suspect only people who are already rather uninhibited get brought here. Super-charging the libido seems to do the trick. And, it seems to work particularly well in boosting natural lubricants. Also, it either works as some kind of super-disease killer -- anti-bacterial and anti-viral -- which is odd because it only kills harmful bacteria. Either that, or diseases just don't exist here, which actually seems plausible. It also seems to be what's responsible for the fact that you're both probably in better shape now than you were when you got here."
"Well, we haven't exactly been inactive," Don smiled.
"Yes, sex is good for you but seriously, everyone here is in amazing shape. You won't find a chunky person anywhere, and a lot of them never even make it to the gym. I think this is what keeps us all just about at the age we were when we got here."
"So, you're from the nineteenth century?" Tascha asked.
"Oh, no, I'm from 1997."