Weekday closing shifts at the library turned out to be the longest part of Chelle’s week. Most of the patrons were gone by seven o’clock, all the books were long since shelved, and for the last hour of the evening, Chelle always found herself with very little to do. Whenever Jack was on the reference desk, she would head into the stacks to organize the books or merely take a mental inventory of all the ones she wanted to read. If another librarian was working, though, she would linger around the desk and talk with them to make the time go a little faster.
Tonight she knew Jack wasn’t on duty, but she was surprised when she went over to the reference desk to find Mira sitting there.
“You work the desk?” She asked, a little surprise edging into her voice.
“Not usually,” Mira said. “But there was a gap in the reference schedule and I decided that would be a good opportunity to see what it’s like out here lately, especially after all the excitement we had last week.”
“Well, we haven’t had any more masturbators, if that’s what you mean,” Chelle said, and she got a little kick out of it when she saw Mira’s cheeks redden at the crude term. “Sorry.”
“No, that’s good news,” Mira said with a laugh.
Chelle pulled one of the chairs from the computer area up to the reference desk and sat down. “For what it’s worth, I thought you did a great job handling that reporter. If I was watching that story on the news, I would think you had a totally sensible Internet policy and that guy was just a one-off library weirdo.”
“Thanks,” Mira said, smiling. Then she turned to the computer at the end of the reference desk and pulled up the Facebook group responsible for the majority of the fuss over the filter. She turned the monitor to show Chelle and said, “Unfortunately, twenty-five more people joined the group since that report aired.”
“Well, fuck ‘em,” Chelle said, then quickly added again, “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Mira said. “It’s true. Fuck ‘em.”
“At least you have a list of all the intolerant and ignorant people in Westbrook,” Chelle said. “Nothing quite like self-identifying idiots.”
Mira laughed and shot Chelle a grateful smile. “Thanks. I needed that.”
They sat in silence for a minute or two, and Chelle looked into the empty stacks. There didn’t appear to be a single other soul in the library tonight. After another minute, she got up the courage to ask, “So what’s Jack’s problem, anyway?”
“Oh, he’s got a chip on his shoulder about the director position,” Mira said with a sigh. “Did you know he was the interim director for almost a year after the last guy retired?”
“No,” Chelle said.
“He’s been at Westbrook for most of his career – I think he’s got something like twenty years of service in,” Mira went on. “So he was the logical choice to fill the director position, and he would have gotten it if he hadn’t spent the entire year as interim director making Draconian policy changes. The Board of Trustees is pretty conservative, but even they hated what he was doing to the library, so they had no choice but to hire an external candidate.”
“You,” Chelle filled in.
“Me,” Mira confirmed. “Jack still hasn’t gotten over the fact that he was passed up for the promotion, and I think it’s been a particular hit to his ego that I’m both a woman and several decades his junior. I think he’s still harboring the hope that the Board will decide I’m unfit for the position and they were wrong about not hiring him.”
“I’m sure that will never happen,” Chelle said. She couldn’t imagine a more suitable library director than Mira, and she also couldn’t fathom what it would be like to work for Jack.
“Never say never,” Mira said. “The Board isn’t particularly happy with all the media coverage we’ve been getting lately.”
“You think they would fire you?” Chelle asked, alarmed at the idea.
Mira sighed and shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the biggest upset in WPL history.”
“But there’s no way they would hire Jack if that happened,” Chelle reasoned. “Not after they passed him up the first time. He’d have nothing to gain if you lost your job because they’d just pick another external candidate.”
“Maybe,” Mira said, then she checked the time on the computer. “Hey, it’s close enough to closing – I haven’t seen anyone in here for over an hour. Why don’t you go upstairs and make sure there’s no one lingering in the stacks, then start turning out the lights up there.”
“Okay,” Chelle said, pushing her chair back over to the computer area before heading for the stairwell on the other side of the lobby.
The library was only two stories and almost everyone used the elevator to reach the second floor, but Chelle took the stairs whenever she didn’t have a book cart with her because she preferred the extra exercise. She took the stairs now, her footfalls echoing off the walls, and the sound – along with Mira’s comments about Jack – reminded her of something she’d overheard last week.
She had been coming down from the second floor when she heard the door below open and someone stepped into the stairwell. She heard Jack’s voice, low and conspiratorial, so she paused on stairs, just out of sight. He was whispering a one-sided conversation and she guessed that he was on the phone.
His voice echoed up to her just as her footfalls were echoing now.
“Bring your camera and I’ll show you just how bad it is,” he said.
The conversation was brief and then he was gone, ducking back out of the door to the lobby. Chelle had no idea what he was talking about then, and she hadn’t connected his comments to the appearance of the reporters until this moment, knowing what she now knew about Jack’s motivation to make Mira look bad. Had he invited the news crew to the library?
Chelle opened the door onto the second floor, her stomach feeling a little unsettled at the idea. She felt somewhat responsible for that news report now, for not warning Mira about what she’d heard, but she hadn’t thought much of it at the time. It could have been a personal call that was entirely unrelated to the library for all she knew, and besides – by the time she heard that conversation, she knew better than to go sticking her nose in Jack’s business.
As she walked through the stacks, turning off the banks of overhead lights and checking that the second floor was empty, she wondered if she should tell Mira about her suspicions now. But that’s all they were – suspicions. She had no concrete evidence of anything, and Mira was wound so tight as it was. She didn’t need anything more to worry about, especially not unfounded speculation.
Chelle decided to keep her mouth shut and her eyes open, at least for the time being. There was a very real possibility that Jack was up to something – but she would need proof before she could take it to Mira.
***
Mira watched the stairwell door swing shut behind Chelle, and then she was alone at the reference desk. She felt her absence acutely, like all the energy had been sucked out of the room with the closing of that door. Mira was noticing that feeling a lot lately.
It was like a void inside her chest, and she’d gotten very good at forgetting about it – Mira had no time for girls or relationships or love ever since she graduated from library school and decided to make her life all about building her career, so she had no time for the hole that a non-existent love life created in her heart. Chelle brought it painfully back to the surface, though, and it seemed crazy – counterintuitive – to lean into that feeling. But that’s exactly what Mira did as she stood up from the reference desk and followed Chelle upstairs.
She told herself that she was abandoning her post at the reference desk to help Chelle shut down the second floor because there was obviously no one in the library who needed reference help. She convinced herself that it was the logical thing to do as the director, to go upstairs and make sure Chelle was doing all the closing procedures correctly – she was new here, after all.
But Mira’s heart was palpitating as she climbed the stairs and her mind was punching all kinds of holes in that logic. It was telling her not to be stupid, to go back downstairs and sit at the reference desk for another half an hour, let Chelle do the page work, and then go home like a proper library director would. With every step she took up to the second floor, she knew what she was doing jeopardized everything she’d been working for over the last decade. But it didn’t matter, because her feet already knew what her heart had decided and she kept going.
The second floor was mostly dark by the time Mira opened the door at the top of the stairwell – all the overhead lights had been turned off except for a bank at the back of the room. Mira bit her lip, took a deep breath, then went into the stacks, heading toward the light to meet Chelle before she plunged the floor into complete darkness. The idea of finding her in the dark, their bodies colliding and their hands exploring each other in nothing but the moonlight streaming through the windows sent a thrill through Mira, but Chelle didn’t know she had left the reference desk and she didn’t want to scare her.
Mira walked up the long row of bookshelves, glancing down each aisle in search of Chelle. When Mira found her at the other end of the floor, she was in the biography section, heading up the aisle toward Mira and the final bank of light switches on the wall behind her.
“Oh,” Chelle said when she saw Mira, her breath catching in her throat as she stopped abruptly in the aisle. “I didn’t hear you come upstairs.”
“Sorry,” Mira said. “Being quiet is the librarian’s curse.”
“I’m almost done,” Chelle said somewhat apologetically. “I just need to turn off the lights.”
Looking into the turquoise oceans of Chelle’s eyes, Mira reached out and flipped the lights off. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, moonlight slowly filling the stacks, and then she took a step toward Chelle, Mira’s hand going to her cheek as she pulled Chelle’s lips down to her own.
She closed her eyes and felt Chelle’s arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her close as the kiss turned from tentative to passionate and Chelle pulled Mira into the aisle to push up against the stacks.
Mira felt every last bit of her resolve dissipating, and however she’d rationalized the choice to come upstairs, or the risk she was taking, she was completely and utterly lost in the moment now. The library, Chelle’s closing duties, Mira’s responsibilities as the director – none of them mattered anymore as she felt the cool metal shelves against her back, the books giving way behind her as Chelle pressed her body into Mira’s.
A moan escaped her lips, and the way it echoed over the tall ceiling sent shivers through her. She put her hands on Chelle for the first time, gliding her palms over the exaggerated curve of her hips and up to her waist. Her body felt so perfect pressing up against Mira’s, pinning her against the bookshelf.
Chelle’s hands went to the buttons of Mira’s blouse, carefully but quickly undoing each one as her tongue glided over Mira’s lips and their hips connected. She slid the silky fabric down over Mira’s shoulders, bringing her mouth down to kiss the exposed flesh and send another thrill down into Mira’s core. She writhed against Chelle, her hands going to Chelle’s large breasts as her mouth explored Mira’s neck and collar bones.
Each kiss was like a spark, igniting more heat and sending it between Mira’s thighs. She pulled the elastic from Chelle’s hair, releasing it from its messy pony tail and running her hands through the fiery red locks. Then she felt Chelle’s hands on the front of her pants, unbuttoning and unzipping and yanking them down over her hips, where they dropped to the floor and she stepped out of them.
Mira moaned again and closed her hands into fists in Chelle’s hair as her fingers glided up the inside of Mira’s thighs. She brought Chelle’s lips back to her own and then reached down to take the hem of Chelle’s dress in her hands, pulling it over her head in one smooth motion.
The moonlight streaming in from the nearby windows illuminated Chelle’s figure, dancing over the curves of her hips and breasts, and Mira could just make out the shape of her underwear, a sexy black push-up bra and matching thong that were ten times closer to lingerie than Mira ever wore to work. Suddenly she felt a little self-conscious standing in front of Chelle in a blush pink pair of cotton panties and a plain white bra.
She didn’t have long to linger on this thought, though, as Chelle took Mira’s hand and brought it to her plump lower lip, kissing the tips of Mira’s fingers. When Chelle took them into her mouth, the wetness of her fingers gliding over Chelle’s lips, another moan escaped her and Mira felt her panties growing wet. She hadn’t been this turned on in a very long time – she couldn’t remember the last time someone made her feel this way – and it turned on something animalistic inside of her.
She wanted Chelle - she had to have her now.
Mira grabbed her by the hips, squeezing the ample flesh of Chelle’s love handles as she took her turn pushing Chelle up against the stacks. She pushed her thigh between Chelle’s legs and ran her hands along Chelle’s arms, stretching them out to her sides where Chelle grabbed onto the shelves behind her.
Then Mira reached behind Chelle and snapped open the hooks of her bra, sliding her hand around her ribs and then under the loosened cups to the soft, inviting flesh beneath. Her skin was hot and her nipples were hard, and Mira felt Chelle’s hips grinding against her thigh at her touch.
Mira moved to the side, her tongue snaking over Chelle’s neck while she arched her back and her hands closed around the books on the shelves behind her, knocking a few to the floor. Then Mira moved her hands down over Chelle’s stomach and to the lacy hem of her panties. She felt Chelle inhale sharply, her belly sucking in at the touch, and then Mira slipped her hand beneath the waistband.
Her fingers skimmed between Chelle’s thighs as she moved her legs farther apart with a moan. She was so wet and Mira slid her fingers all through Chelle’s slickness while she shuddered, pinned between Mira and the stacks.
She covered Chelle in wild, sloppy kisses from her collar bone to her jaw as her fingers explored her, and Mira could feel her throbbing beneath her touch. Her breath hitched with desire as she pressed herself against Chelle, her hips connecting with Chelle’s thigh and her fingers going deep inside of her. The move elicited a loud moan that echoed through the stacks and sent a shiver down into Mira’s core.
Chelle was grinding her hips and moaning, completely unrestrained, as she rocked against Mira’s palm and gripped the shelves behind her in a way that suggested she’d collapse if she let go. It thrilled Mira to think that she was responsible for this level of pleasure, her panties getting wetter at the thought as she kissed Chelle, nibbling on that plump lower lip she’d spent so much time covertly staring at since she’d hired Chelle.
And then Mira felt her beginning to convulse around her fingers, her thighs shaking against Mira as her moans became more desperate and she threw both arms around Mira’s shoulders, clinging to her as she came.
They slid down to the floor together, pushing a few fallen books out of the way as they collapsed in a heap. Mira’s hand was still between Chelle’s thighs, held there by her thong, her skin still flushed and throbbing as she covered Mira in kisses.
After a minute, revived from her ecstasy, Chelle smiled at Mira and then pounced on top of her, straddling Mira’s hips. She slid the unclasped bra from her arms and tossed it halfway down the aisle, then leaned down and tugged the plain cotton cups of Mira’s bra down, freeing her breasts. They shone pale white in the moonlight and Chelle was looking down at her in a way that started to make her feel self-conscious again. She shot her a crooked smile.
“What?” Mira asked.
“I am so glad you caved first,” Chelle said with a laugh. “I was trying so hard to respect your rules and be professional, and it was killing me.”
“I did not cave,” Mira objected, trying to push her playfully away.
Chelle held Mira’s shoulders, pinning her to the ground, and said, “Yeah, you did.”
Then she lowered her head and closed her lips around Mira’s nipple, sucking and nibbling as Mira’s body responded to her and her hips moved beneath Chelle. A moan escaped her lips, small and self-aware, and Chelle kept swirling her tongue over and over her again until she put her hand over her mouth and her muffled pleasure sounds intensified.
Chelle looked up at her, taking Mira’s wrist and pulling her hand away from her mouth.
“You don’t have to be quiet,” she said, hunger dancing in her eyes. “There’s no one here to shush you.”
Another violent shiver ran through Mira’s body and she pushed Chelle’s head back down to her chest. She closed her eyes and felt Chelle’s mouth beginning to inch down her stomach, taking a slow and meandering path over every inch of her torso before finally arriving at the waistband of Mira’s pink panties. She held her breath without noticing that she was doing it, waiting for Chelle’s fingers to hook under the elastic, but instead she felt her thighs being pushed wide and then Chelle’s mouth closed over the wet cotton.
Her breath was hot through the damp fabric, and Chelle’s tongue rolling up and down over Mira sent her into loud, moaning paroxysms of pleasure. She twined her fingers through Chelle’s untamed hair and her thighs quivered at the sensation. She never would have guessed that wet cotton could feel so good, and yet there she was trying not to come too fast.
Mira knew, from the moment her heart leapt into her throat as she watched Chelle walk around her desk during her job interview, that this girl had some tricks up her sleeve, and she wanted to find out what Chelle could show her.
She arched her back and closed her thighs around Chelle’s head as her tongue lapped over the crotch of her panties and her hot breath sent a shiver up Mira’s spine every time she exhaled. Then when Mira thought she couldn’t take this teasing a moment longer, she felt Chelle’s fingers slipping beneath the fabric at last. Her knuckles brushed against Mira’s wetness, sliding up and down through it just once, and then she yanked the panties down to Mira’s knees in one quick movement as she raised her hips to accommodate it.
No sooner had she lowered her hips to the ground again, but Chelle’s mouth followed, her lips closing around Mira’s clit and making her let out a loud moan. She threw her hands up over her head and grabbed the shelf above her as Chelle thrust her fingers inside her and a thousand little fires ignited over every inch of Mira’s skin.
She squirmed beneath Chelle’s touch, overwhelmed with sensation as she licked and fucked her, and Chelle draped her arm over Mira’s hips to hold her in place as she coaxed her closer and closer to her climax. Mira squeezed her eyes shut and clenched both fists around the metal shelf above her as her hips moved of their own accord, up and down over Chelle’s fingers pumping faster and faster to keep up with her body’s demands.
The heat was building, radiating out from her core and every inch of skin that Chelle touched, threatening to boil over at any moment until finally she came, screaming Chelle’s name into the empty stacks. She kept thrusting her fingers and flicking her tongue over Mira until the last wave of her orgasm subsided, and then they both collapsed in a sweaty heap on the thin carpet.
Chelle smacked her head against a book as she laid down, muttering “ouch,” and pushing it out of the way as she wrapped her arms around Mira and pulled her close. Mira laughed and stroked the side of Chelle’s head where she’d banged it, smoothing down the wild fly-aways of her intoxicatingly red hair. They lay panting in each other’s arms for a few minutes while they caught their breath, and then when the library’s aggressive air conditioning began to make goosebumps stand up on Chelle’s arms, Mira brushed her fingers over them and said, “We should get dressed.”
“Yeah,” Chelle agreed, snuggling into the crook of Mira’s neck and making no effort to get up. It did feel nice to be lying in her arms, the curves of her body perfectly forming to Mira’s.
After a minute, though, she said, “You’ve got goosebumps.”
“I’m not cold,” Chelle said, leaning over to kiss the tip of Mira’s nose. Then she whispered, “you gave them to me,” and her words sent another little shiver of joy through Mira.
“Come on,” she said, trying to be dismissive of this comment and its effect on her. She reached over and snagged the hem of Chelle’s dress, just within reach. “We can’t stay here all night.”
Then she got up, trying not to let her reluctance to leave Chelle’s arms show. She handed her the dress, then looked around the aisle for her own clothes, gathering them up while Chelle stood and got dressed. They had to spend another five minutes gathering up all the books they’d knocked from the shelves, but the moonlight wasn’t quite strong enough to shelve them by, and Mira thought it was too risky to turn the lights back on.
“No one’s going to notice,” Chelle said. “Let’s just put these back now so I don’t have to shelve them tomorrow.”
“No, leave the lights off,” Mira insisted. The idea of some busybody driving past the library and seeing the lights on after closing was enough to make her heart leap into her throat – she couldn’t be caught with Chelle in such a compromising position. She took her armful of books over to the cart at the end of the aisle and lined them up there, motioning Chelle to do the same.
As she came near, Chelle caught Mira up in another kiss, and while she put down her books, she said teasingly, “On the bright side, when you see me shelving these books, you’ll know exactly who I’m thinking about.”
“Melvil Dewey,” Mira supplied, and Chelle laughed.
“Exactly,” she said, throwing her arm around Mira’s shoulder as they walked through the dimly lit aisle back to the stairwell.
When they got back to the first floor, they had to separate again to finish all the closing procedures they had neglected while they were upstairs. It was quarter past eight already, and Mira went quickly back to her office to grab her purse and her uneaten lunch while Chelle went around and turned off all the first floor lights.
They met again at the library entrance, and Mira locked the doors. When she turned around, Chelle leaned in for a kiss and Mira instinctively dodged away from it. Chelle’s expression turned momentarily to confusion, and then to something somewhat pained.
“I’m sorry,” Mira said, reluctant to look her in the eyes. “I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression, but what we did upstairs – that has to stay upstairs.”
“Oh,” Chelle said, her voice crestfallen as Mira fixed her eyes on the pavement. “I’m sorry. Of course it does – I understand.”
“I can’t be seen with a subordinate,” Mira said, the words sounding horrible. She wished she could take them back the moment she’d said them, but there was no way to change the reality of their situation. As harsh as it sounded, it was true. “I would lose my job.”
“I would never put you in danger,” Chelle said. After a moment of silence between them, she ducked down a little bit, trying to meet Mira’s eyes, and asked, “Will you look at me please?”
Mira looked up at Chelle. The desire still burning in her eyes was such a bittersweet sight.
“If you want to keep this a secret, I’ll never tell a soul. If you never want it to happen again, I understand,” she said, a little bit of sadness creeping into her expression as she said it. “But I hope that isn’t the case. Have a good night, Miranda. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Then she headed across the parking lot to the old Mercury sedan parked by itself at the far end of the lot. Mira called, “goodnight,” to her, then started walking toward her apartment.