Works/For Reference Only

No one notices when I wear my pearls. No one notices my new sweater or my wine-colored lipstick. I am not vain, but I think I would like to be noticed. For a little while.

We keep the library open very late during dead week. The students demand it, but then they don't come. Only a few diehards, one overdressed librarian, and ghosts. There are always ghosts in a library. Especially during dead week.

There is no one to notice me here. I coerce the cart with the useless caster past miles of shelves, all deserted as I look down their aisles - although sometimes I see imps disappearing around the corner to the next row, giggling, just as I pass. They like to play games, but they never tell anyone else the rules.

The shelves just go on and on and I never see them. I don't speed up. The cart won't let me go any faster. I see a pointed tail now and then, a small foot running away, hear them rustling, but they are always at least one row ahead of me.

I turn around and realize how far I've gotten. I can just barely see my desk by its green lamp. You can't get this far during the day; too many responsibilities.

Ahead of me the fluorescents are old and they flicker. Onward.

The shelves are dark now, the books barely visible; they stretch to the ceiling, which itself is fading into obscurity as the lights become tired. Fluorescent bulbs age like humans. They get creaky and irascible; they take longer to wake up than they used to. Sometimes they just barely manage to linger on. Then one day they don't.

An open space in the shelves. If the books are there, they cannot be seen. Only tall dark stones. I am in a circle of monoliths. Probably sacred to someone.

Giggles from the edges. I see little reflective eyes above the stones, high over my head, and between them at various heights. The imps are climbing on the stones, scurrying around behind them, scrabbling with their cute little claws. I believe they are waiting for me to catch up once again.

I should not disappoint.

I have never been able to undress and make it look sexy. I am not going to put on a show for the imps at any rate. I fold my clothes neatly and stack them on the ground outside the circle. It seems warmer inside the stone ring. I should be cold. Our ventilation system is hyperactive. It dries out my contact lenses.

What do I do now? It's been a while since I read about this. I kneel in the center of the circle, sitting on my feet, and bow low until my hair brushes the carpet, my arms splayed out before me in supplication. I hold this pose, waiting. Nothing happens, my back begins to hurt, and I hear the imps giggling. I sigh and sit up.

But it is definitely warmer in the circle. I brush hair out of my eyes and stretch out. I lie on my back, spread-eagled, and stare up and wonder how far away the ceiling is now. I feel hot and exposed, and I reach down and start to fondle myself because no humans are watching and it seems like the correct thing to do.

Mmmm - and because it feels so nice. I cover my hand with my other hand and bear down, one hand tickling and rubbing and the other pressing atop it, arms in a V shape pointing, like an arrow, between my legs.

I am aware of something nearby. The air patterns have changed. I stop immediately and open my eyes.

It is standing astride me above my waist. When I look up at it I see mostly its huge penis. As wide around and as long as my thigh, half-erect, jutting out in front of this shadowy onyx creature whose head is too far in the darkness for me to see. All I see is two legs, like I am navigating the Colossus of Rhodes, and that amazing organ which I certainly hope it does not want me to accomodate.

I stare up for a while, trying to make out any other silhouette, until a low rumble vibrates the circle. I think it wants me to continue.

But I can't. Not with that presence hovering over me. I'm too intimidated. I shake my head, reluctantly, and the ground rumbles again. I shiver a little.

An arm reaches down. It begins to stroke its penis, gently, rapidly. Tip to base, over and over, hand large enough to cup around that mammoth shaft. I watch, utterly fascinated. Again and again it strokes until I am sure that at any second I am going to be completely doused in whatever fluid this bizarre apparition may produce.

But what happens is only that the tip of the organ begins to glisten with wetness. It steps back a little and allows a few drops of this mystery pre-come to drop onto my exposed crotch. I hesitate to move or react. I feel it drip slowly down through my pubic hair and into my folds.

And then I am on fire with need. I shriek and reach down with both hands, trying to rub the stuff off and only making it worse. I am vaguely aware of the imps laughing at me. I cannot move my fingers fast enough. I feel the wetness burning, tingling. I have to climax as quickly as I possibly can, before the want kills me.

I am very close. It coughs above me. No, wait. That was a chair moving.

I stop immediately, put both hands on the desk, and try to compose myself. I'm breathing heavily and I'm sure my face matches my lipstick, but he's sitting thirty feet away; hopefully he won't be able to tell. I straighten my hair and then realize I did so with the hand that smells of me. Damn.

The student looks at me over the top of his book, curiously. I must have been making too much noise.

I try to look like I'm reading the newspaper that's open on my desk. I shift in my seat. I know why I can't find a comfortable position, but there's no way I'm putting my hand down there again while he's looking. If he walks up to the desk and sees my skirt up, I'm in deep trouble.

It's not even midnight. I need to find a better place to do this.

After he has returned to his studies, I get up, put the RESHELVING - RING BELL sign on the desk and and walk over to the cart with the useless caster. Shoving it in front of me - it only wants to roll in circles - I make my way out into the stacks, trying to walk normally. I want to jolt every time my legs pass each other.

I pass by two rows of carrels. These are little booths to study in. They have doors, a chair, and a fixed countertop which serves as a desk. Their walls are about five feet high. As I move on into the next set of shelves, I stop. I leave the cart where it is - for misdirection - and walk back to the carrels. Tiptoe, actually, I realize. As if I needed to sneak around! I look discreetly over the wall of each carrel to make sure it is empty. Reassured, I go into one of the carrels, sit down, and close the door with a click.

I lean far back in the chair, letting it rest against one wall, and put my feet up on the counter. I lift my skirt and reach under my panties again. But, although it feels pleasant enough, the mood is gone. I sigh. Oh, well.

It is unexpectedly dark. I look up. The fluorescent lights are gone. Has some idiot turned them off? I sit upright in the chair, then stand up - and hit my head unexpectedly and sit back down again. The carrel now has a roof. I am in a five-foot square cube. And the door is missing. I look around for a gap, a line of light leaking in. There is none.

I lean my chair back and put my feet on the counter again and the chair slides out from under me and I fall on my back and bump my head a second time, on the wall behind me. There is no countertop. I had tried to put my feet on empty air.

I stand up to regroup and bump my head on the low ceiling again. I let myself fall down, collapsing cross-legged onto the floor, where I sit and rub my thrice-sore head. Once spots stop forming in front of my eyes, I realize that the chair is gone too. And I am nude.

Not bothering to stand, I crawl around in the box, finding the corners, feeling for cracks or bolts or anything I can manipulate or unfasten. Of course there is nothing. I sigh and sit cross-legged again. I do not have quite enough room to stretch out on my back, even across the diagonal. I sit, leaning against a wall, and play with myself, but my heart isn't in it, so I stop.

I hear voices outside the walls. Muttering, impossible to make out.

Suddenly I am given an electric shock, square in the ass, like I have been poked with a cattle prod from beneath. I make a loud noise and I jump up - and hit my head again on the ceiling. Rubbing my head, I crouch down and feel along the floor where I had been sitting. No holes.

I sit back down again. I can still feel my whole skin tingling. I think my hair is standing up. The shock was nasty, but the aftereffects are kind of nice. I begin, almost absentmindedly, to fondle my clitoris again. Then I consider what I'm doing and I stop.

More of that vague muttering. Then I am shocked again. I jump forward, land on hands and knees, look around frantically for something I wouldn't be able to see anyway. That one hit me in the small of the back, and it hurt like hell.

I shake my head. If this is reinforcement, it won't work. I am not a lab rat. I cross my arms. They shock me again. My whole body shakes and it feels like my skin is being pinched all over. I keep my arms crossed. No way. I shake my head again.

More muttering. I begin to get worried.

Then I hear a low hiss. It keeps going. I crawl around trying to find it, but it's hard to locate. It may have more than one source. The air smells funny. I am spinning around in circles, turning on hands and knees around and around, and then I get dizzy from all the spinning and I lie curled up on my side and breathe heavily for a while.

Then the absurdity of it hits me and I start to giggle. Giggling feels good. I want to giggle some more. I laugh out loud. It's fun to laugh. I can't stop laughing.

My head is spinning, it feels like it's full of air. My skin is loose, it wants to come off. I want to touch it. I squeeze my hands down between my curled-up legs and wriggle, laughing non-stop as I squirm happily on the floor of the cubicle.

Oh, that feels really good.

I hear something ringing. Do I drool for you now? I'll be a good little lab rat if I get rewarded for this - oh god this is nice. Am I being Pavlovian enough? Am I being a good subject? Damn it, it doesn't do any good to keep ringing the bell if I don't know what my conditioned response is supposed to be!

Oh, wait a minute.

I sit up and bump my head on the undersurface of the countertop. Painfully I come out from under the counter, where I've been sitting on the floor of the carrel. I stand up, straighten my skirt, open the carrel door and trudge off to answer the desk bell. This had better be good.

Can't anyone find anything for themselves? I glare at him the whole time as I show him where to find the book he needs. He doesn't notice. Visions of theses dance in his head.

To work effectively at some tasks it is necessary to induce what amounts to a trance state, a level of concentration where non-germane stimuli are not merely ignored, they are not even sensed.

I wander the stacks, not wanting to go back to my desk. I read titles on spines at random as I pass by. Librarians can read sideways. It's a learned skill.

Two or three sets of shelves ahead, something is glowing faintly red. I wander there in trepidation, first assessing the situation. Since it only seems to be a book, I pull it out and have a look.

Divers Cantrips and Incantations for All Conceivable Situations.

The hand is old, the ink has bled, but the verses all can still be read. I find a page by choosing blind and read aloud what there I find.

Oh, dear.

Cold white fire spouts from the book, bubbles out and spills over and onto my feet. The cloud of fire that surrounds my feet gradually climbs my body like a thing alive. It reaches the level of my eyes and then I can't see, all is brightness and then I am crouched on the floor, poised on my fingertips and the balls of my feet, as if I am about to begin a sprint. Panting. My eyes burn and my skin is silver, gleaming.

I stand up slowly, stretching, luxuriant in my skin. With purpose I move through the shelves.

He is two shelves away. He was looking for a book, but he found another that was more useful than he expected. Now he is standing in the aisle, in his study trance, reading it. He has forgotten the other book he was searching for. He will get back to his desk before he remembers it.

If he gets back to his desk. I round the corner and stand triumphantly at the end of the aisle, perfect, silver, unclothed, a vision. He doesn't notice.

I begin to chant. Rhymes that part of me didn't know I knew. The chant doubles and redoubles like an echo, building on itself, filling the aisle. The sound seizes him and he turns, mechanically, to face me. His hands go limp; the book falls to his feet. He walks over it, advancing toward me and removing his clothing as he approaches. He is unable to speak or react; he is entranced. His penis is beautiful. It stands waiting to attend me.

I embrace him without the familiarity of a kiss. He is only an object to me. I press my silver skin against him, liking the feel, and then push him to his knees in front of me, hands on his shoulders.

An arm grabs me around the waist and pulls me backwards, throws me onto the floor. I stare up at a huge woman, Amazonian, with red skin and a corona of fire around her head where there should be hair. Her eyes are solid black. Her breasts are enormous.

She points a finger at me in silent accusation and I feel shame. Then I feel the heat of anger. How dare she! As if she had the right to punish me - me, a silver goddess! I stand up, then I rush at her with the intent of throwing her to the ground the way she threw me.

She gestures again and I stop in mid-movement, leg lifted for my next step, frozen. She releases me and I fall to the floor in a heap, all my muscles sore and limp. I feel as if I have been in a cement mixer for several hours. I am too exhausted to move.

I hear the sound of a chant multiplying itself, and then I feel the burning in my groin, the same need I felt when the behemoth dripped its fluid on me. I know I cannot relent. I know to touch myself is to allow the fire goddess to win. But I cannot control my own movements. Like a puppet I reach down, hands between my legs, and as in the cube I wriggle on my side on the ground, squirming around as I press against my clit and move my fingers in fast circles. I touch, I rub, I tickle, I pinch - and I can't stop gasping because it feels so good and I need it so badly. But I know something is wrong.

I look up at the fire goddess, to beg for her forgiveness. She is larger now, towering over me with an unreadable face. I moan at what my hands are doing and my attention is taken away by a new surge of pleasure from within.

When I look up again she is even bigger; she has become a behemoth. Then I see my victim, still nude and erect, still wearing a dazed expression. He, too is much larger now. I cry out for his penis - it is so big and I need it inside me so badly. I want to reach for it, but my hands will not move from between my legs.

I rub and rub and I feel the heat beginning to build to the point where I know that soon the waves will wash over me and I will be so happy at last. But I look up again. Everything is huge. The shelves are monstrous. The fire goddess is too large to see clearly now. My beautiful man is a giant.

They are not getting bigger. I am getting smaller.

I scream in mixed realization and ecstasy, but I cannot stop, I would not stop if I could. I am so close and the heat is so close to exploding over me. I close my eyes. I do not want to see as I climax and vanish, shrinking away to nothingness in my own orgasm.

The sound I make as I finally come is much too soft for anything human to hear.

I open my eyes.

The student who noticed me the first time is still deep in his book. He has not moved. No one else is in sight.

I pull my skirt back down, stand up a little shakily, and go to the bathroom to wash my hands. Not a peep that time. I'm pleased with myself. The first few nights it was much harder to stay quiet.

I return to my desk, fold up the newspaper, and drop it in the recycling bin. I like to keep the desk tidy. I brush my hair out of my eyes. My forehead is still a little damp.

Soon it will be one a.m. I will send them all away, all of these readers in their own worlds. Then I will turn out the lights and lock the doors.

Copyright © February 2008. Do not distribute or reproduce.