The doors eased languidly open, ejaculating a burst of muggy midday air into the Library’s seductively cool interior. Miss Olivia Bound, Deputy Librarian, looked coyly upwards, a move rendered effectively pointless by the vision-obscuring presence of her lusciously long and fulsome lashes. (Miss Bound was exceptionally attractive for a Librarian, her classic beauty only accentuated by the presence of her three bespectacled, bouffant-haired, blouses-buttoned-up-to-the-neck colleagues, whose combined age was a figure approaching the unthinkable, particularly when you consider that Miss Bound—being an exceptionally attractive Librarian—was much stronger on words than she was on numbers.)
But the Library doors are awaiting our breathless attention; indeed, they had already caught Miss Bound’s and were holding it with the steadfast grip of an incredibly strong, well-read, and unfeasibly attractive Literary Studies Professor grasping a rare and precious manuscript. Upon looking upwards through the dense forestry of her lashes and squinting as attractively as possible (years of practice), Miss Bound finally identified the presence responsible for breaching the Library’s solid oak entryway with such commanding yet subtle assurance.
Oh! How she wanted him to trail a long and learned finger along her spine.
She caught her breath. She felt her heartbeat begin to thrum rhythmically in her delicate, bird-like ribcage. She might also have broken out in a light sweat of anticipation, had sweating not been an especially unattractive and unladylike bodily function that Miss Bound tried very hard not to do (years of mind over matter). For striding through the door with an enviable combination of commanding intellect, titillating tweed, and graceful yet undeniably manly forward-thrusting (decades of practice) was the long term object of Miss Bound’s as-yet-unrequited physical and mental affections (because she might have been exceptionally attractive, but she wasn’t shallow; indeed, she was at least as deep as the Library’s Archival Collections shelf, which was a good sixteen inches): Professor Grayson Foxley-Worthington, whose intimate knowledge of world literature’s rounded curves and moist crevasses knew no bounds.
Oh! How she wanted him to trail a long and learned finger along her spine, to take off her dust jacket, to rifle her pages, to let her reach … her happy ending. Surely a man with three doctorates and the ability to make tweed look positively sensual was more than qualified to give a lady like Miss Bound some very instructive tutelage.
‘Professor!’ Miss Bound blushed girlishly and tucked a titian strand of hair behind one shell-like ear. ‘What can I help you find today?’
‘Miss Bound.’ Grayson’s dulcet, velvety tones caressed the whorls of those shell-like hearing instruments. ‘I’m after the first edition of EM Shame’s Sixty Hues of Scarlet. I’m afraid it might be in your Restricted Section.’ Peering perceptively down his patrician nose, Grayson appraised Miss Bound with his indubitably intelligent yet also celestially captivating eyes, which were surely deeper than even the sixteen-inch Archival Collections shelf. ‘It’s for the Classic Erotica course I’m convening this semester. It’s only week two, but class numbers are … engorged. I’m having to set some additional reading.’
‘But of course, Professor!’ Miss Bound affected her carefully cultivated air of simmering sexuality tempered with robust intellectual curiosity and the ability to conduct lengthy discussions about Freudian overtones in nineteenth century European novels. ‘I’ll just visit the Restricted shelf and … pull one off for you.’
Miss Bound ascended the ladder to the Library’s Restricted Section, home to tumescent tomes of titillating tales that many a Librarian had stayed back after hours to ‘research’ (knowledge is power). Sixty Hues of Scarlet was just within her grasp. Or was it? The book was very high up; Miss Bound was suddenly unsure whether the length of her arm would be sufficient to satisfy Grayon’s needs. But a lady had to try.
Feeling the Professor’s penetrating gaze sliding over her stockinged legs as he watched from below, Miss Bound extended one lily white arm to the upper echelons of the top Restricted shelf. Her breath quickened. Her pulse accelerated. A tiny sigh escaped her cupid’s bow lips. She was close. Oh! So close! Just a little harder … she leaned her whole body forward, thrusting her hips, her legs beginning to tremble—she was almost there, oh god, just a little harder, a little farther, a little more—oh—oh—OH—‘YES!!!’
Miss Bound let out the sharp cry of a woman satisfied. ‘I’m coming, Professor!’ Grasping the book with her finely shaped fingers and gasping lightly and with ladylike poise for breath, Miss Bound descended the ladder, weak-kneed and spent. ‘Here you are, Professor,’ she whispered wantonly, pressing Scarlet into Grayson’s manly hands. ‘I’ll take you right now … to the counter. To get you all … checked … out.’
About the Author
Tuesday Thatch BA MA Grad Dip Cert IV Small Business (pending) wants you to be quiet in the stacks; she has ways of making you not talk. A former academic librarian with a penchant for pince-nez and a plethora of as-yet-unpublished publications to her name, Ms Thatch enjoys tweed skirts, twinsets, and the tactile pleasures of thumbing vigorously through a volume of purposefully chosen prose.
She derives intense satisfaction from assisting helpless male academics find exactly what they need from between her well-stacked shelves. Her hobbies include touch typing, watercolour painting, and exploring the rich intricacies of the Dewey Decimal Classification System.
She is also the tweed clad alter-ego of Carody Culver, who resides in digital form at www.carodyculver.com.
