Amelia the Stripping Librarian

Amelia Higginbottom sat behind the desk in the Brian Clough Memorial Library in Leeds as she had done every working day since she left school at the age of eighteen. Her parents had not wished her to go to university believing such places to be dens of vice and iniquity entirely unsuited to a girl brought up as a strict Wesleyan Methodist.

The library was not busy. People rarely entered. Occasionally some brave soul would approach the door, stare at the name then back away ashen faced.

Amelia Higginbottom often wondered why. Alderman Brian Ebenezer Clough, a local Victorian philanthropist and benefactor, had endowed the library in 1896 and it had sheltered many a child and adult with a thirst for knowledge until those fateful days in 1974 when his ill fated namesake had taken charge of the local football club. Neither the club nor the library had ever recovered.

Amelia lived a sheltered existence: the library, the small flat in Headingley where she had lived since the mysterious demise of her parents and John Lewis's on The Headrow were the limits of her world.

But underneath that prim exterior: the short black hair tied in a bun, the horn rimmed spectacles, the face devoid of artificial aids to beauty, the tweed suits and the sensible shoes, lay a mind in turmoil; a mind bursting to be free, a mind searching for adventure.

As she did every day at precisely four in the afternoon she stood up, walked to the end of the library and behind the bookshelf that held the works of Virgil and started to unfasten the buttons on her blouse.

Joe hardly gave her a second glance. Hunched over the library's one and only computer he was transcribing a sheaf of neat typewritten pages. If you didn't know better you might have taken him for some sort of fusty academic putting the last touches to a thesis on mediaeval Irish or the finer points of the French revolution, but you would have been wrong. He worked as a filing clerk at the Ministry of Benefits and today was his day off. His chance to post his stories on the internet.

His discovery of the internet had transformed his life. Prior to that he had typed his naughty stories on his old Remington and kept them all in a big lever arch file. But nobody else had ever seen them. Then at last the Brian Clough Memorial Library had got hold of a second hand computer and Joe's life had been transformed. He had found a site where people posted naughty stories and he took great pleasure in transcribing his life's work and making them available to the great public.

Even people as far away as America and New Zealand read them!

There was never anybody else in the library to see what he was doing, but even so he had learned how to change the font colour to white so that the screen looked entirely blank.

He had learned to touch type at college after leaving school. A good secretary is never out of work, his mother had told him. And she had been right. So he was always confident he was typing accurately.

Behind the volumes of Virgil, Miss Higginbottom was down to her bra and knickers. Her life provided little by way of thrills, but she had found this way of adding a little spice to her mundane existence. An existence that had had little by way of spice since Mr Sidebottom had bussed her under the mistletoe at the librarians' Christmas party way back when.

It was the thrill of possible discovery that was so exciting. Not that the chance of anyone coming in was that great, there was only that bloke tapping away at his blank screen, and who in this part of the world would ever want to read Virgil in the original Latin. Not for the first time she wondered what on earth the sainted Alderman Clough had been thinking of filling his library with books like that. It was safe. She could carry on. Her pulse speeded up a little as she unclipped her bra.

Joe paused as second. He was pleased with his progress. He thought he would call into Harry Ramsbottom's, 'The Premier Fish Restaurant in the North', on the way home and pick up haddock and chips, and perhaps some mushy peas, yes he deserved some mushy peas.

Amelia had never gone this far before. Usually she lost her nerve when she got down to her knickers, but today she had decided to go all the way. It would be so thrilling to be completely nude and to know that only a few yards away there was a man sitting there oblivious of what was happening.

She thought about the man. He was good looking in a rather timid vulnerable way. Rather quiet and unassuming. What was he doing tapping away at his blank screen. He never left the computer. He never came to look at the books. There wasn't any risk. Well just a tiny one, that was why there was a little thrill. But did she dare?

She was already topless. She was almost there. With a final surge of courage she took hold of the waistband of her knickers and pulled them down.

Joe was almost finished. The story was almost ready for posting. The girl in his story was naked. He always had naked girls in his stories, and she was lying in a mossy dell beside a tinkling waterfall, but it needed something extra, something to add a bit of class, something to make it literature. Then it struck him. That quotation from Virgil, that was it, from The Ecologues, what was it again? He searched his memory, "Muscosi fontes et somno mollior...". 'Somno mollior' what though? What was it that was softer than sleep? He racked his brains but it just wouldn't come to him. Then a thought struck him. The sign at the end of the last row of shelves, the one behind which Miss Higginbottom had disappeared a few minutes ago, read 'Classics - Greek and Latin - Virgil'

Of course. He could go and look it up.

Amelia was nude. She'd done it. For the very first time she'd gone all the way. She stood up straight. Now that she'd gone this far she wasn't going to rush to put her clothes back on. She would stand there and count to sixty.

Joe walked quickly to the end shelves, his rubber soled shoes making no noise on the thick carpeted floor.

Amelia stood there petrified. It had been a million to one chance. A million to one, but it had happened. She had been caught.

She stood there completely naked, red faced and shaking as the man stared back at her.

Joe was equally stunned. Miss Higginbottom was in the nude. What on earth was he supposed to do. The poor woman looked as if she was going to die of embarrassment. The only thing he could think of to do was to act normally.

"Excuse me Miss Higginbottom," he said, and his voice came out in a kind of croak, "I'm sorry to interrupt your er... Your er... Whatever you were doing...," what on earth had she been doing? "... but do you by any chance have a copy of Virgil's Ecologues?"

"Certainly, certainly," poor Amelia was totally flustered, "let me get it for you. It's.... It's...." Oh no! It was on the bottom shelf. She was going to have to bend over to get it.

The sight of Miss Higginbottom bending over, displaying her pleasingly round, and completely bare, bottom was a vision that was to remain etched in Joe's memory for many a long year.

"Thank you Miss Higginbottom," Joe took the volume and returned to his computer.

Amelia hastily dressed, but didn't dare show herself again until Joe had left. He didn't return the Virgil to its shelf.

For Amelia the episode had been extraordinarily embarrassing and humiliating, but at the same time getting caught had given her the greatest thrill of her life. That night she saw to herself for the first time for many weeks.

For Joe, the extraordinary thing, apart from the fact that demure Miss Higginbottom was a closet stripper, was how absolutely gorgeous she looked with no clothes on. Dressed you wouldn't have given her a second glance, undressed she was perfect. He looked forward to his next day off. What on earth was going to happen!

Amelia wondered the same thing. She desperately wanted the same thrill again, but what was she to do. She knew he had every Thursday off, and she waited in terrified expectation of his next appearance. Perhaps he wouldn't come. Perhaps he had been put off.

But there he was, prompt Thursday morning, tapping at his computer. She waited till exactly four o'clock again.

Joe was also waiting for four with some apprehension. He knew she went behind those shelves at four in the afternoon every day.

At one minute to she approached him.

"I'm afraid Sir, you forgot to return your copy of Virgil to the shelf last time, perhaps you would be good enough to do so in say, five minutes."

Joe looked at it in astonishment. Miss Higginbottom had disappeared behind the shelves again. What would he find when he went round there. What he found of course was the delightful Amelia stark naked. He handed the book to her. It seemed the sensible thing to do. After all she would have to put it back on the bottom shelf.

In her office in the Town Hall Lady Esmeralda Peasebottom was staring at a list. The government had decided that there would have to be cuts. Councils were spending money on useless things like libraries. Why did anybody need books nowadays when you could read anything you liked on the internet. A library was going to have to close and it was clear to Lady Esmeralda which one, as Lord Mayor it was her duty and she would not shrink from it. The Brian Clough Memorial Library had lent out only five books in the last six months. It was proof in bricks and mortar of the truth of the government's assertion. Books were on the way out. Economies would have to be made, austerity was the order of the day! She picked up her phone and spoke to her personal assistant.

"Millicent, pop out for some champagne and oysters for luncheon," Lady Esmeralda liked to maintain a veneer of poshness by use of words such a 'luncheon', "then ask Littlebottom to fetch the Rolls, we're going on a little visit."

Two hours later Lady Esmeralda swallowed the last drop of champagne and with a slightly wobbly gait made her way out of the building. Her personal chauffeur, Arnie Littlebottom, held open the door of the Rolls.

In the Brian Clough Memorial Library Amelia Higginbottom was striking her pose for the week. Stripping and posing nude for the man she now knew as Joe had become a weekly event in her life, and each week, in order to keep the excitement alive, she tried to think of a new and alluring pose. The pose this week was startling, she stood quite naked, one foot on a chair, her back arched, her head thrown back with her hair loose and hanging free; her back was arched to an extent that her breasts stood up almost vertically and her nipples were proud and erect pointing at the ceiling. The separation of her legs exposed her most intimate parts, but she had determined that he should see everything.

Joe thought he had never seen such an erotic sight.

"Quite.. quite...," he was lost for words, "it's quite."

Extraordinary..."

He spun round, the voice had come from a woman, a woman with strident voice and an accent that strived unsuccessfully to be posh.

Amelia shrieked and stood up turning bright red and covering her naughty bits with her hands as best she could. She recognised the owner of the voice immediately. It was the Lord Mayor, Lady Esmeralda Peasebottom.

"What is the meaning of this!" Lady Esmeralda's voice was not a little slurred.

Amelia's brain was working overtime trying to think of an excuse for the bizarre behaviour of stripping stark naked in the library.

"It's... it's... it's naturist day in the library," it was the first idea that sprang into her fevered brain.

"Naturist day? What on earth is naturist day?" Lady Esmeralda did not sound convinced.

"Surely you remember reading about it. I sent you an e-mail. I assumed you approved when I didn't get a reply," it was all lies of course, but Amelia suspected, not without some justification, that Lady Esmeralda rarely bothered to read her e-mails, "the er... local naturist club wanted to hold a naked day in the library and I said I would join them for it. I presumed you'd agreed."

Lady Esmeralda felt deep down that this was what Yorkshire folk would call a load of codswallop, but she couldn't be sure. She looked suspiciously at Joe, "why aren't you naked?"

"What?"

"If this is naturist's day, why aren't you naked?"

"He's just about to get naked aren't you?" Amelia looked imploringly at Joe.

Poor Joe found himself in a total quandary. He always found the vision of the naked Amelia, how shall we put this politely, arousing. To strip naked in front of two women was the height of embarrassment. To do it with his penis erect. It was unthinkable. On the other hand he had grown fond of Amelia. If he let her down now he would never forgive himself.

"I've just arrived," he said, "I'm just about to er..."

"To what?" Lady Esmeralda stood with her hands on her hips.

Joe looked at Amelia and she gave him an imploring look.

"To strip naked," with a rush the words came out and he'd committed himself.

Lady Esmeralda smiled. She could see the man would die rather than strip, on the other hand she liked to see men suffer.

"Go on then," Lady Esmeralda didn't move. Any lingering hopes Joe had that she would take his word for it vanished, "I'm waiting."

Joe started to undress. He took off his shoes and socks. No going back now! In what seemed like no time he was down to his underpants. The state of his penis must have been obvious to all. He looked wildly from one to the other. One with her hands on his hips and a 'go on I dare you' look on her face, the other with a 'please for my sake' look on her face.

There was only one thing a gentleman could do. His underpants came down.

He stood as red as a beetroot as Lady Esmeralda looked him up and down, making sure she stared hard at his penis. He was bright red and trembling. A wicked thought had come into her mind.

"Excellent idea, Miss Higginbottom, we are always looking for new ways to attract people to our libraries. We will have to give this some publicity. She took out her mobile phone and punched in a number.

"Hello, is that the photography department," she said, she knew exactly what picture would be on the front of the next council newsletter.