"The library is closing in 15 minutes."
The young man nodded and rubbed his eyes. It was later than he thought, apparently. This research project was steadily draining away his soul; with every annotation and quote (citations included) his bones felt a little heavier and he lost a bit more will to live. Why had he chosen such an obscure topic? The table (which could seat six people) was completely covered with books, photocopies, index cards and paper coved with notes that were impossible to read. Almost all of the material before him had tantalizingly promised information on his subject, but in reality only teased him with oblique references and long, sidestepping passages about how obscure the idea was. He was beginning to wonder if anyone had actually done field research on this at all.
"Will you be checking out any of these?"
He looked up- he had forgotten about the poor librarian, who now eyed the plethora of encyclopedias with a measure of resignation. She must not have been the same librarian as this afternoon, he thought, looking at her; he didn't recognize her and wouldn't have thought she worked here were it not for the shiney, plastic ID card. She was short, but she was also quite thin which gave her the illusion of appearing taller. When she looked pointedly at her watch, he saw that her nails were bitten.
"No, no," he replied, standing, "I won't be taking any of these." Bloody useless literature.
"Oh," she said, her jawline becoming hard. Suddenly, her eyes, which had been on his face, slid to one side and stared over his shoulder. He realized, taking a quick look around at the inactivity of the library, that she must be the last librarian on duty- she would have to reshelve all these books herself and many of them were from top shelves. He thought about her working late because of him; then he thought about going home to his cold, unsympathetic computer screen to type up the day's worthless research.
"Would you like help putting these away?"
She regarded him sharply with piercing hazel eyes. He shuffled his feet and brushed sandy brown hair out of his eyes, trying to look respectable. She stared at him a long time, clearly debating with herself as she looked him up and down one last time, taking in all six-foot-three of him before briskly turning on her heel saying, "I'll go get a cart."
She returned with one standard-issue beige library cart (squeaky wheel included) just after he finished collecting his notes and stowing them in his bag. She began to stack thick reference books on it with a rhythmic, mechanical intensity. He stepped around the table, scooping up books as he went and dumping them on the cart with a loud metallic crash. He earned himself a dark look from the corner of his companion's eyes but she said nothing and finished loading.
Pushing the cart ahead of her, the little librarian headed for the elevator with quick steps. She was wearing heels with her short, grey skirt. Flat-footed, she wouldn't even reach his chest. It made him feel like a giant.
"We'll start on the top floor," she said.
"Ok."
They waited obediently until the elevator arrived and they could cram in together with the full cart. This elevator, in addition to being unusually small, was also unusually slow. It felt awkward to stand in complete silence until the fourth floor, so Thomas fished around for something to say.
"My name's Thomas."
"Emily," she answered after a pointed silence, glancing sidelong at him.
"Nice to meet you."
Ding!
Thomas followed her to the section of the library dealing with medicine. The college no longer had a large medical program, so these books were largely neglected. Thomas grabbed a few books at random and started the exciting game of seek-and-find against his arch-nemesis, the Dewey decimal system. Everything seemed to be on the bottom shelf, so he knelt to shelve them, but was startled by another loud, metallic noise.
Emily was standing on one of those rickety library stepstools with the unreliable wheels. She stood on her toes to reach the top shelf even as the stool wobbled wildly under her. Thomas quickly got up and stood behind her, afraid that she would fall, but she waved him off, so he took a step back. He took another book from the cart and immediately saw its place on the second shelf right in front of him. He reached down to put it back, then realized that he was kneeling beside a woman in a short skirt. He hesitated before standing again, not wanting her to notice that he was in an opportune position, but still uncompromisingly struck by overwhelming curiosity. Carefully, he rose and looked ever-so-slightly to the right as he did so.
Smooth, pale skin... gently curving calves... warm, soft thighs. Thomas's fingers itched to confirm his hypothesis. He saw a tiny scar about the size of his thumbnail right in the place where creamy thigh becomes firm ass. He swallowed and finished standing. He busied himself with the books until there were no more to put back in this section and Emily came down from her lofty perch.
