Please note: All characters depicted in sexual situations are over 18 years of age.
The library was nearly empty at this time of year. There was a fair in the square and most likely people were outside, enjoying it. Sunshine had its place, but I like old books.
I found it at the back of the SF and Fantasy section, at the intersection of Nerd and Sex, and it was a book, of course. And it was about sex. This back corner was where the amorous folk often came to make out and fondle each other. Perhaps it was a coincidence, perhaps not.
It had a black cover and no title on the spine. The spine was well worn, almost grey, and the cover was embossed with a cross, but it wasn't any kind of cross that one would see in any kind of church, it was more filigreed and looked sort of Celtic.
The first story was about a young man who got lost in a forest and then "seduced" by a witch. I put that in quotes because it seemed to be completely consensual. It was written in a style that evoked the old masters or perhaps a Grimm's tale, and I loved it. It was difficult to read, but quite effective. I flipped through the front looking for a publishing imprint, but couldn't find one, but no pages seem to have been torn out. At the beginning of the book, there was simply a quote, but no attribution:
**Sex can be the most wonderful thing in existence, and the most terrible. Sometimes the best can be both.**
I smiled in anticipation but before I could read further, on the other side of the shelves where I had pulled the black-covered book, I heard low laughter. I was no longer alone.
I flipped to the first story; the main character was named Martyn, and seemed to be following a map, searching for a woman who lived in the forest, for some kind of cure.
I heard a bump and the shelf next to me wobbled, and books shuffled in their spaces. I heard the sounds of people canoodling in the next aisle. How many people were over there, I wondered? Because it sounded like more than two. Maybe it was some kids who snuck over from the fair. I ignored them and went back to the story.
I flipped to the part where Martyn found himself wandering in the dark, so he stopped, laying down in a moss-covered grove. He awoke some indeterminate time later, to sounds of laughter and merriment. Excited, he hopped up, and was encouraged by lights among the bows and eaves of the forest. He followed them, but even though they just seemed only a small distance away, they always remained out of reach. He kept moving forward, and I began to worry for him as he tripped and climbed in desperation. He crashed through a clearing and suddenly the sounds and the lights ceased, mysteriously snuffed out. Martyn's map still lay discarded in the moss-covered grove.
I gripped the edges of the book as I read further. Had the sounds of the amorous couple (throuple?) also ceased? I continued reading.
In the clearing was a house. Not a gingerbread house perhaps but something akin to that, at least in my mind's eye. The young man Martyn, full of trepidation, moved towards it assuredly. There were no lights in the windows, but a thin trail of smoke wafted from the chimney. As he approached the rounded arch doorway, the black and green painted door slowly swung open. A woman stood there, clothed only in a light shift, her ample bosom easy to see even in the dim half-light of the night-shrouded clearing.
'Well, hello, Martyn,' she said, her lips blood red and pursed, smiling. He seemed drawn to her and she drew him into the house with a delicate hand, that same smile playing upon her lips. He smiled at her and went in willingly, saying nothing.
Then I noticed that the subtle vibrations of the shelf I was leaning up against had become more pronounced, and I felt each rhythmic thump. Was someone having sex, like actual sex, in the library? A lump formed in my throat at what I might find on the other side... I simply had to investigate. What kind of person wouldn't?
I tried peering through the gaps between the books on the shelves, but I couldn't see anyone. I placed the black-covered book in my satchel and quietly, carefully tiptoed down to the end of the aisle. I reached the end of the next row and could still hear the sounds of lovemaking drifting down the aisle toward me, but when I rounded the next corner, I was astonished to find it empty. A cart for replacing books had been discarded in the middle of it, but other than that, the aisle was clear. I paced back and forth along the rows, but no one was there.
Slightly exasperated at not being rewarded with any public displays of affection, and completely puzzled by the emanations of sensuous sounds, but with no visual accompaniment, I stood there, dumbfounded. I could still feel, but only just, the vibrations coming to me from further along. Gentle slapping sounds of flesh on flesh, light groans and moans of pleasure, the hiss of sudden breath intake, yet, there was no one there.
Confused but now also strangely aroused by this peculiar phenomenon, I walked down to the other side of the aisles, trying to find the source. Part of me was scared shitless, but another part of me felt strong stirrings of arousal and... lust.
I edged past the discarded reshelving trolley, the volume of the erotic noises increasing as I went along. I could feel the vibrations of at least two people fucking. The tempo increased as I walked forward, my footsteps cushioned by the carpeting, and the sounds ahead softened by the absorption of so many books. And then it seemed I was nearly on top of them, or should be. My brain was electric from the synesthesia. I could hear the delights of sex right in front of me, but I could see nothing. It was a strange sensation, feeling I should see something arousing, but not being able to actually see anything. It was curiously enjoyable. My eyes searched frantically around at the shelves looking for something that simply wasn't there, or at least, couldn't be seen. Perhaps all those times I had thought there were amorous participants in that corner of the library, it was simply this phenomenon, whatever it might be. Despite my fear and terror, I was having fun.
Then suddenly there was a cry, not quite of someone reaching climax, but as if the invisible participants had noticed I was there and had been surprised at my sudden arrival. I distinctly heard the voices of at least three separate people in exclamation and alarm, crying things like, 'Oh my,' and, 'They've found us!' and all manner of exclamations. Indeed it seemed I had interrupted... something. I could almost smell the musk of sex in the air, and at the same time I heard invisible fumblings with clothes, zippers, a belt jangling as it was being hitched up, then a scramble of footfalls on the floor. I heard amused laughter and felt what may have been a breeze pass by me, ruffling my hair. Then there was silence.
I took the book to the counter elsewhere in the library, still shaken but also incredibly aroused by my experience. A very cute transgirl helped me. She had light brown and also pink and purple hair, and a skirt that seemed to match.
Immediately when she saw the book, she shook her head and said, 'That's not one of ours.' She picked it up and looked it over, still shaking her head. She opened the cover and there was a lurid image there. I was immediately embarrassed. I must have missed that page somehow, but it seemed to be of a swarthy fellow with goatlike appendages for legs, three of them, and between each was a dripping, throbbing cock. I don't know if the girl noticed or not, but she flipped through and I saw more lewd images in various styles, some like daguerreotype, others more impressionistic: a woman with four breasts of two stacked pairs being suckled by disembodied mouths and lips, an orgy scene of some hairy participants in a forest and something like looked very much like a giant walking vulva, all flashing by like a zoetrope animation. At the back of the book was a slip of paper, like a makeshift bookmark. A single name was scribbled in the margin, the rest of the bookmark seemed to be a flier of some kind for a club called "80% Straight". The name was my own.
She read the name out, and I heard myself saying, 'That's me.'