Author's Note: All characters are over the age of 18. Story will include soft themes of mind control (fucking duh, mate).
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"
here
" I typed out and sent.
I'd been in this library hundreds of times, and still I appreciated just how fucking ugly it was. Monochromatic, cubic, unimaginative. Just a hulking tessellation of granite and plaster, with taupe walls and taupe librarians. But hey -- I respected a hustle, and the architect who designed and erected the thing surely had grandiose artistic statements to justify the multi-million dollar "investment." Here's hoping he's on a beach with a cigar somewhere.
I'm not going to tell you exactly which library or which city or whatever, by the way. You'll know why later.
This library is on my high school campus, which is, like the library, sprawling and unattractive. It's a private school, meant to model college life, so they do the whole library/studying thing hard. I live where a lot of rich people live, and this is the school they all want to get their kids into -- the widest avenues to top universities and whatnot. I'm here because I tested in, which is, incidentally, also why I'm at the library: because the kids who paid to get in need help from the kids who tested in to pass their classes.
I sound bitter. Maybe I am, I dunno. I don't feel bitter. I was tutoring Miranda Plover today, and I really didn't feel any resentment towards her. Her folks were both doctors, so they paid well, and her dad has taken me to a Giants game each of the last two seasons as an extra bonus. It wasn't weird, either: Miranda and I were friends, despite her allegiance to New York teams. She was bubbly in a non-irritating way, spirited about learning even if it doesn't come easily for her. Her educational goal is a doctorate in occupational therapy, and I was the first betting on her to reach it.
She was also pretty hot, which didn't hurt. Didn't hurt her aspirations in a male-dominant field, and didn't hurt my enjoyment of her company. Shorter and curvier, with long brown hair and dimples behind a big smile, I knew the shape was one she worked for as much as she lucked into. She liked sweaters in the chilly library A/C; I liked them because they were tight over her tits, which were...ample. That's a non-gross way of saying it.
It was a black turtleneck today, tucked into maroon pants that gripped her waist and flared with her hips. She waved as she approached; I remembered to pick my eyes up.
"88 on the last test, bitches!" She cursed when she was happy.
"That B average is well and alive coming into finals," I said without mirth -- that B was hardfought. "What tripped you up?"
"There was a multi-part word problem where I got the first part wrong and I was screwed the rest of the way." She riffled through the papers in her hand. "And then there was a volume of revolution where I tried to do slices but I think I was supposed to do shells."
"Well, most calculus isn't going to pop back up in your life again, but choosing the right way to attack a problem will. Especially when we get to the final. You don't want to be wasting your time on the first strategy you think of when you could have just planned your approach. Brute forcing things can take time."
"Yeah, next time I'll go real subtle on the word problem, keep him guessing. He'll never know just where I'll strike."
"I just mean--"
"Head on a swivel, integration!"
I leered at her. She grinned at me. She had a nice smile.
We took a desk on the third level, which was usually quiet after dinner, and dug in on the next topic: multi-variable functions. It was predictably frustrating, slow-going. She unpacked a prepackaged vegetable motley with a branded super water while I raided the vending machine for Cheetos; we took over an abandoned study room so I could draw horribly disproportionate diagrams on a smudged whiteboard. After 90 minutes, we both wanted to die.
"...technically, it's ellipses all up the
z
-axis. Just, in this case when the coefficients of
x
and
y
are equal, it's circles." I was describing elliptic paraboloids to my captive audience, to little avail.
Miranda stretched in her chair, and my eyes traced the outline of her bra over her chest. She wore some heavy-duty stuff, and rightfully so. With a final lurch back in her chair, her boobs bounced once, and I gulped, re-crossing my legs in my seat.
"I think I understand most of it. If there's more to it, though, I'm not going to be able to get to it tonight." She tapped her temple with her pen. "I'm stuffed."
It wasn't really innuendo, but in my current headspace, it felt like it.
"I feel that." I checked the clock. "If you want to just keep chugging away at your assignment, I'll hang around for the final 30 minutes, be around for any questions."
"You don't have to do that!" She shot me a winning smile. "You've got better things to do with your Friday night."