There are no underage characters in this story. All characters portrayed are 18-years-old or older.
*****
Lainey likes books. She loves them, actually. She loves everything about them. Their look, their feel, their heft in her small hands. She loves the soft worn canvas cover of the eighty-year old hardbacks in her grandmother's collection. She loves the delicately decaying paper dust jackets of the novels from the sixties that gather dust on her mother's shelves. And she loves, just adores, that particularly musty odor of paper and ink and stale air of times gone by in the stacks at the University Library. Many an hour has been spent wandering through them, aimlessly, adrift in in the oppressive silence and pungent rank that only exists in academic archives. She felt lucky to not only grow up in a college town, but to be the daughter of two professors, and so to have access to these catacombs of antiquity, and their quiet, potent voices from the past.
One of her earliest memories, maybe when she was four or five, is of wandering off from her father in the stacks, her tiny fingertips tracing the spine of each and every book she passed as she trotted down the aisles, mesmerized by their towering height and their endless corridors. When she was ten she would sit for hours alone with a book, off in some corner of these literary cathedrals, delving into unseen worlds. And when she grew a little older, when she started to come of age and her young body began to catch up with her mind, she discovered the incredibly moving power of a well-turned physical phrase. Nin, Lawrence, James, even Jong and Robbins, began to stimulate not only her thoughts but also her body. And the printed word, already a potent psychological conveyance to unseen treasures, became a corporeal pathway to pleasure as well.
She's not exactly a comely lass, as the books would say. Lainey, who got that name at the age of four from her little sister who couldn't manage the 'E' that came before it, much to her parents' delight, was never a stand out of any kind, either by looks or by nature. She was a quiet girl, well behaved but keenly attentive, and always, always looking for ways to disappear or escape into her own imagination, to both hide from and rise above the ordinary. These escapes, as innocently as they started out, took her wherever the words would lead her. But once they transcended from the intellectual to the erotic as well, they began to lead her body as well as her mind, and her hands found a new way to occupy themselves between turning pages. She gradually came to realize it was easier to read in skirts, and so even being as plain and bookish as she was, she always dressed with a little flair.
By the time she was a senior in high school she was a regular at the graduate library, and the girls at the desk ¬- they were almost always girls - would simply wave her in with a subdued but cheery hello. Over time of course these undergraduates would come and go, but the primary staff remained mostly intact over time, and there was one in particular, Angelina, who had been working there since her graduate years from the time Lainey was little. She'd watched her grow up and always kept an eye on her both in a sort of protective way, but also as a fellow bibliophile, and she often gave her advice on books or topics she might be interested in. It was, in fact she who had surreptitiously pointed her towards the more mature content, because in Lainey she saw herself as a younger girl, one who would have enjoyed more mentoring than she'd gotten, particularly as she herself started coming of age. So when she started showing up in skirts around the same time, Angie had a good idea why. Introverted girls like her weren't really interested in drawing attention to themselves, after all. She wasn't dressing for the boys, she was dressing for herself.
Sure enough, Angie was moving through stacks one afternoon when she heard the slightest little whimper coming from only and aisle or two away. She stood stock still for a moment, hoping to here the noise again, listening intently for the rustle of clothing or perhaps the deeper grunt of male, because it wasn't entirely uncommon to catch young coed couples having an adventurous quickie. But she heard nothing for nearly another full minute, when she heard the same soft whimper again, just over to her left somewhere. She dropped down a bit and peered between the shelves, and padded silently over a few feet; no one knows how to move soundlessly more than a librarian. And there she was, leaning against the books three aisles down, facing the opposite direction. Angie could barely make out the repetitive motion of her elbow, but knew instantly who's it was. She listened for another few minutes, willing her to make another sound, but the girl was good, and perhaps well practiced, because the only other noise she heard was the sudden rush of a foot sliding across the floor, followed by a stifled gulp, almost a choking sound. In her mind she visualized the young girl's leg flexing forward and the full body shudder of orgasm, and she very much wished she could see more, but knew this time she'd missed the show.
It didn't however, mean she couldn't still go see her, and she waited a few moments for the girl to compose herself before she took a stroll over to where she was. She came around the corner as if she'd had no idea anyone was there and pulled up short in feigned surprise, smiling brightly at the still seated teen who quickly pulled her knees up and pushed a book behind her on the floor. Angie knew the book, and knew it well. Anais Nin's Little Birds. It was an ancient hardbound copy nearly iconic, well worn and well-thumbed by countless freshmen girls for years on end. She put her finger to her lips indicating 'Shhh,' and gave her a wink, a deliberately vague gesture that may or may not have meant she'd heard her, or seen the book. Then she came over and squatted down to one knee next to her for an innocent conversation.
"What are you reading back here all by yourself?" she whispered, barely audible. She tried to lean in, wanting to catch a lingering whiff of her scent, or maybe find an excuse to touch her pleasuring hand. A subtle aroma of sex passed her nose, and she quietly inhaled as deeply as she could without being obvious.
Lainey blushed but tried to act indifferent. "Nothing really," she whispered back. "Just sitting here enjoying the quiet, trying to decide where to go next." She found her gaze being held by Angie's, and was somehow unable to look away, partially to not betray her guilt, but also in noticing for the first time how nice her eyes were, friendly hazel pools that smiled around the edges. Angie noticed this and leaned in even further under pretense of being even more quiet, but also to inhale more of her piquant bouquet.
"Ok," she purred, her eyes just inches from hers, "but try not to have too much fun!" She was struck with the urge to give her a kiss, but resisted, and instead placed her hand upon the girl's knee as a way to boost herself back up to standing, giving her a soft squeeze before letting go and padding off without another word. Only as she turned the corner did she realize how wet she'd become.
