Author's Note:
I hear that people prefer longer chapters, so I am putting a bit more in each chapter from here on out. Also: all characters in this chapter (and all chapters) are over 18.
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One of Zach's favorite places in the world was the library. And his favorite place in the library was a quiet corner on the lowest level where the library extended out partially over the river. He could sit at a quiet, semi-private desk next to a tall window watching the water flow beneath him. The light brown carpeting had a warmth to it. Because the area was home to massive volumes of public records, it was not a common destination for students looking for books, although Zach was certainly not the only one to enjoy the location for its ambiance.
He sat, breathed, and got to work, the sound of his fingers tapping at his laptop joining the others in nearby desks. Sometimes there was a rustle of paper, sometimes a discreet cough, occasionally a despairing sigh. The perfect sounds of a library.
The despairing sigh came from the next carrel over. It was a distinctly feminine sigh, and Zach could help but tune in.
The woman there was surrounded by paper. She held a pencil. She was doing, or trying to do, math. Zach couldn't see it, and it wouldn't have mattered if he could. Just enough algebra to get by, was his strategy for math.
But he quickly felt that the sigh was not for the math.
It was for a problematic boyfriend. He felt anger, irritation, sadness. All of which were veneers for loneliness. For feeling unwanted.
Zach couldn't tell what the boyfriend had specifically done or not done, but the result was a neglected girl.
He tried to return to his own paper: "James Joyce and the Hero's Journey." He had a few paragraphs, and a lot of notes. It was an utterly obvious topic, he bored himself with his own writing.
His own mind distracted him as well, returning to the momentous events of the day before. By the time he staggered out of Maddy's room, the whole dorm knew about them. Lisa, Maddy's roommate, had not been shy about declaring her shock at the situation, and apparently they had made enough noise to be heard from the common room. Zach blushed with embarrassment.
Jacob, at least, was cheerful. An afternoon of conversation and probably more had gotten things back on track with Ava, and he applauded Zach's hookup with Maddy. "Nice job, Zach! Looks like you made quite an impression!"
Jacob was out late, and when he returned in the wee hours of the night, he returned alone. So, for the first time in a few days, Zach had a deep sleep undisturbed by shenanigans or dreams.
Zach shook it off, trying to return his attention to the paper. A phrase from the Britannica kept tripping him up: "The moral rules by which we might try to govern our lives are constantly at the mercy of accident and chance encounter."
What were his moral rules? He really wanted to know.
Another sigh brought him out of his reverie. He found himself tuning back in.
He saw the dim light of her desire, flickering low. The library was a good place to explore. Why did it always have to be sex? Could he just explore the lines and layers of her energy, feel the beating of her heart and the flickers of lightning as her mind and emotions danced?
But something sharp cut through his attention.
She popped up over the edge of the carrel, straight dark hair, maybe Japanese? "Hey, you mind your own business!"
Zach stuttered. "What?"
"I felt you looking at me."
Zach gaped. "I can't even see you. I'm working on my paper."
"Then I felt you thinking about me. Quit it."
She scooped up her papers, shuffled them into order, and stalked off.
Zach nervously turned back to his paper but found himself even less able to concentrate.
How could she know? Did she have training also?
The thought that there might be others like him was a disturbing idea.
Zach closed his laptop and put his head down, suddenly exhausted.
You need energy
.
The words formed clearly in his mind. Was that his own thought? Was it a message?
Zach let himself soften outwards, tracing his awareness through the threads to people he had connected to: the Japanese girl, had resettled on the other side of this part of the library and returned to moping over her boyfriend. Maddy was having a heart to heart with her roommate. Jacob was struggling with his own paper back in the room. Ava was... Zach couldn't find Ava right now. Diana was out shopping and--wow!--really feeling sexy. Sara had vanished as well. The girl by the fountain was... by the fountain! Hoping for a repeat maybe? The girl on the slope had faded to a bare whisper of presence, Zach felt that connection slipping away. Good to know, they slip away.
Zach realized how prolific his connections had been.
An older woman was perusing the stacks nearby, consulting a tablet. He felt out to her: so far all the energies he had experienced had been women around his own age, but this woman might be in her forties. Curious, Zach let himself tune in to her, and immediately felt a dramatic difference in her energy. It was stronger! Much stronger. Zach hadn't expected that.
As he relaxed into pure awareness, he saw the presence of her energy brightly swirling in her body, even though her mind was focused on something extremely dry. Property records or something.
He could only see glimpses of her through the wall of books as she roamed the aisle, checking volumes against her tablet, occasionally hauling one of them off the shelf and ruffling through.
But he could feel that energy swirling with her motion, and it was an easy tweak to send a ripple of pleasure through her. She gave an unconscious sigh and continued with her search. He let the ripple complete its way through her and then sent another. He also sought the edges and folds in the layers of her mind, looking for that place he had found in Diana. Each mind, Zach realized, was potentially quite different. It would take real study to get good at this. A couple of times he thought he found a way to pull her to the now-empty desk ahead of his own, and each time nothing. But he was able to keep the ripples of pleasure, even as he began to turn the dial up on her desire. This was easy: she was already parched with thirst for erotic connection.
He didn't think it was his own doing, but she did bring two heavy books to the carrel in front of him and set them down.
She wore a floral-print dress, bright and light. She was heavy set, but not exactly fat. She had large, heavy breasts filling out the top of her dress, although it was modest, not revealing her cleavage at all. Her waist did not narrow much, but she had a large flare to her hips. She was really a very womanly figure, Zach observed. At least until she sat. He heard her open one of the books and start riffling through the pages.
Zach tuned back into her energies, stoking both desire and pleasure more, feeling warmth spread through her. This moment was one he loved, when he could start to feel her sensations, the bright tingling through her body, the way she began to gently rock against the chair just a little. He heard her breath quicken, even as she stifled all sound.
He wondered what she would look like beneath him, with her legs open and those large breasts moving as he thrust into her. Even as he had this image, he wasn't sure if it was his own or hers. She clamped down on another sound, riffling some pages to cover the sound of her breath. He felt that flare of heat growing stronger.
Something shifted, and Zach suddenly felt like he was watching. Something different was starting to happen.
He felt his own arousal and energy surge with a bright power that felt strange. Powerful, but fierce, dark, relentless. A dark brightness?
His erection was powerful, and he was holding the edge of the desk, his muscles tight.
In the carrel in front of him, he felt the woman in an almost identical posture, gripping the desk, taut, gasping and trying to keep it silent at the same time, quivering, trembling, filled with a craving that went beyond desire for sexual release. She wanted to be completely possessed. And Zach felt himself possessing her, his energies and awareness coursing between them. He felt a brilliant red swirl in his hips, and a fire raging in his core, and a piercing blue beacon from his heart, and a radiant brilliance of white light filling the library from the center of his head. It wasn't light, of course, not photons. It was something else. His own body rumbled and shook. He glanced out the window to see if the waters were diverting, but the world flowed on as usual.
The woman was whimpering lightly, trying to desperately to cover for her sounds. It seemed as if no one else was around, now, however. He had thought there were others, but it was as if he could see everything, as if he was looking down on himself, and her, and the other desks along this side, all empty.
He felt that ineluctable force turning up the desire in her, which seemed inconceivable. Zach could tell that she had her skirt hiked up, her hand between her legs, pressing her hips against the chair, against her hand, thrusting almost wildly.
It was the final blooming of her energy, and something drew Zach back into his body.
Watch carefully.
At the first crest of her climax, Zach felt his body take an enormous breath in, as if vacuuming all the oxygen in this part of the building.
Her climax splashed over, but it was entirely with him, and it was contained. He felt a flood of pure golden warmth to every cell of his body, not like a sexual orgasm, but like something entirely different. His whole being expanded with it. He startled to complete presence, utterly in control of his body. He saw every leaf on every tree shining brightly in the sun, every book on every shelf, every grain in the wood of the desk. He saw it all at once, his body absorbing it. He saw
Ulysses
sitting on his laptop and in an instant, he knew exactly what paper he had to write and what it would look like. It would take him all of ten minutes. Just typing, no further thought required.
