While this story is played as if it happened, and certain mundane elements are taken from personal experience, the following is completely fictitious, and any similarities to real world people or events are coincidental.
***
Summers come and go, but I'll never forget this one. I come back to it, time and time again, a journey gifted to me by some miraculous stroke of luck so perfectly placed in time it might as well have been divine intervention. Nowadays it feels almost like a dream, a dream where every sensation, every act of depravity and pleasure, is as vivid as when they happened all those years ago.
This is a story of growth; of how a woman whose power, generosity, experience and insatiable desire saved me from myself. I dedicate this account to her.
Prologue
Like all stories, mine began with a choice.
I was eighteen, fresh out of high school, and utterly unsure of what to do with my life. To compensate I decided to stay home while I earned my associate's degree at the nearby community college. It seemed like a financially responsible thing to do, allowing me to get my gen eds out of the way while also giving myself more time to explore my future options. In hindsight this was an obvious attempt to avoid the daunting prospect of university life for a few more years.
However, my father insisted that if I was going to stay home, I needed a part time job. I couldn't fault his logic, and I needed a steady paycheck, so I applied to the nearest and most inoffensive place I could find: the library. I was a nervous wreck walking through those doors the first time. It was my very first interview, and I was afraid, as always, of not knowing what to say; of embarrassing myself and of being rejected.
But to my great surprise I was hired on the spot. Sandy, my interviewer turned boss, was incredibly nice and had an outgoing bubbly personality that made it easy to be yourself around her. Immediately after hiring me she showed me around the building, acquainted me with the various sections (fiction, non-fiction, teen, dvds, etc), introduced me to all of the staff, and told me I would start the following week.
I cannot express how much the library was an ideal place to work for me at the time. It was a holy place; a mecca for the shy, the awkward, and the introverted. My job, a lowly shelver, was simple, had flexible hours, and required bare minimum social interaction, allowing me to spend most of my time alone in the world of books, listening to music and my favorite podcasts as I went about my menial tasks. I could be alone and away from people. It was perfect.
Don't get me wrong, the staff were wonderfully kind, and small talk with them was pleasant enough. But it consisted of mostly elderly women, and I'd always found talking to old people to be easy. There was less pressure to impress, and so I didn't get anxious around them like I did with people my own age. Especially girls. Back then, nothing got me more flustered and clam up more than talking to the opposite sex, especially if I was attracted to them.
It's not that I thought I was ugly or anything. I was self-aware enough to know that I was decent looking, though definitely on the short and skinny side, which I was self-conscious about. I wasn't the most masculine looking guy. I had very little confidence and mild social anxiety, so I avoided talking to people as much as possible. The result? Zero sexual experiences during high school, which was maddening because my sex drive was absurd. I know most teenagers are sex-crazed monsters, but I always felt like my libido was well above average. I was a chronic masturbator; at my peak I had to relieve myself a few times a day bare minimum.
Despite this, I still couldn't ever muster up the courage to even approach girls, let alone talk to them. And there were so many girls. So many sizes and shapes and colors. The opportunities were overwhelming. And I didn't just want sex, though that was a major priority. I wanted intimacy; to experience another person. But fear held me back.
And so by the time I was ready to move on from high school and into the next chapter of my life, I still had yet to even kiss a girl. Hell, I hadn't even held a girl's hand. I felt like a loser. I felt like I was missing out on a fundamental human experience; missing out on the connections and confusions and experimentations of youth.
But with all that behind me, I held out hope that this could change. I figured community college was a chance to start fresh and meet new people, including girls. I was genuinely looking forward to my new job and a new school, determined to make the most out of the next stage of my life.
But old habits die hard, and in my case they got worse.
I didn't seize the opportunities in front of me. I was afraid, afraid of rejection and crippled with self-doubt. Time passed, and I grew complacent, and instead of summoning up the courage and forcing myself to go out and mingle with the world, I doubled down and withdrew from it. I lost touch with what few friends I had from high school and made no attempts to make new ones in college. In fact the only times I talked to other students was when I was forced to through a group project or collaboration, which I dreaded. The majority of my socializing came from either my immediate family or small talk I had with the senior members of the library staff. Outside of going to my classes and the library, I spent all of my free time at home playing video games, reading books, rewatching my favorite movies, and of course, masturbating to pornography. Multiple times a day. Every day. Imagining and wishing I was the man in the video. Pleasing beautiful women without fear.
This is how it went for almost two years. Suddenly I was twenty years old and close to graduating again. And yet it felt like nothing had changed; like I was frozen in place. And perhaps most disappointing of all, I was still a virgin. And there was nobody to blame but myself.
Thank god she came along when she did.
I.
HAPPY RETIREMENT MISS LILLY!
The banner hung from the ceiling, and stretched from wall to wall of the circulation office. Underneath was a large card crowded with signatures accompanied with variations of well wishes and congratulations. With pen in hand I scanned for an open space to sign my own name, all the while trying to come up with something creative to say. I found a vacant space in the top left corner, and still running on blanks with what to write, ended up defaulting to what so many had already said.
"Enjoy your retirement. You'll be missed!" -Jacob
It was bland and generic, but mostly the truth. Miss Lilly had been the children's librarian when I started, and had been for almost thirty years. She was a quiet but friendly old lady who brought a warmth to the library that made it a welcoming place to work. Her leaving, as unfortunate as it was for the community, was well known ahead of time, which meant that the library had already hired someone new to take her place. I didn't think anything of it, nor did I give much consideration as to who would replace her. There was too much going on in my own life to care too much.
I had just started my final semester of community college, which meant I was only a few short months away from graduating, so the pressure was on to figure out my major and what school I would be going to next. My father, newly retired at the time, was on my case about it constantly, and part of me resented him for it; for putting all that pressure on me. But the reasonable part of me understood. He was no nonsense baby boomer, and the only one in his family who went to college. He simply wanted the same opportunity for me, and had spent his entire career saving up to give me that opportunity. He intended for it to be used, regardless of how I felt.
Having fulfilled my social duty, I left circulation to grab a cart of books. The library seemed abnormally busy that day, which happened every so often, which meant an above average number of books that needed to be shelved. I welcomed this. There was nothing worse than having to work a four hour shift with nothing to do.
An hour later, while returning back to circulation with an empty cart I noticed Sandy talking with a woman so striking she immediately caught my eye. She was remarkably beautiful; I couldn't help but stare. Eventually Sandy noticed, and waved me over, eager to introduce me to this mysterious woman.
"Hey Jacob," said Sandy, "I just wanted to quickly introduce you to Miss Amber, our new children's librarian."
She's Miss Lilly's replacement?
I thought. I was shocked. I had figured it would be another elderly bookish woman or ex-elementary school teacher, not someone who looked like she just stepped off the runway. I was so taken aback by this unexpected development that I hesitated for a second, but I quickly regained my composure and held out my hand.
"Hi, nice to meet you," I meekly said.
She smiled and shook my hand. "Nice to meet you too Jacob," she replied.
