Librarian Finds Long Overdue Love Ch. 20

October 28, 1988

Single, middle-aged and bespectacled Angelina Lione may look the part of the prim, proper and sexually repressed, buttoned-up bibliothec, but she's most definitely NOT your father's librarian -- at least not while in a lover's company. Blessed with a ravenous and unquenchable sexual appetite, Angelina's orgasms are so intense that she oftentimes faints during the throes of passion.

While never mistaken for a perfect 10 with her large brown eyes, tucked behind oversized, Diana Prince-style eyeglass lenses, Angelina still cuts quite the desirable figure, with a fetching face always perfectly and tastefully made up, and a sleek and shapely body. Her short, black hair, speckled with gray, was cut in a chic, wedge/pixie-style, puffed and piled on the top and curled forward around the ears. Angelina's attractive physical traits, however, always paled in comparison to her overwhelming sex appeal. Using her vast store of feminine wiles, Angelina negotiates about her lovers' hearts, minds and bodies as deftly as she navigates the Dewey Decimal System, manipulating infatuated men for her monetary and personal gain.

High maintenance and even higher fashion, Angelina always models the latest designer threads -- oftentimes accentuated by any one of her dozen pairs of high-heeled dress boots. Her sophisticated look even extends to smoking accessories. The haughty diva wouldn't dream of smoking a cigarette if it wasn't filtered through her long, black holder. More of a cigarette holder sucker and stroker than a smoker, Angelina seductively works the black shaft with her mouth, tongue and fingers as if it was a penis proxy; the effect that playing with the long, stiff holder has on would-be lovers is like snake charming. Under the sexy siren's magic spell, they're entirely at her mercy; powerless to resist the temptation to pleasure her -- as if they really would.

Angelina spent her 20s and 30s as a fully-committed member of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and '70s -- bedding dozens upon dozens of men. Only when she reached age 40 did her love life settle down -- for her anyway -- when the lusty librarian entered into a long term, nearly exclusive, torrid affair with the principal at her school. After the forbidden relationship unceremoniously ended six years later, Angelina found herself alone at a time when her peers had long since settled down into blissful domestic life. A prolonged romantic dry spell followed, until a former student unexpectedly burst into her life.

Twenty-two year old Tom Bailey had been in lust with Angelina for years, drawn in classic fetish fashion to the sexy librarian's stylish, high-heeled boots, seductive smoking and even her pretentious and snobbish personality. Over time, his feelings -- like his fetishes -- for the femme fatale only grew stronger, until he could no longer keep them to himself. The pair had just launched an intense, physical relationship when Harry Seymour, Angelina's old boss and lover, re-entered her life. Unable to decide between the two romantic suitors, Angelina proposed a date-off -- or "fuck-off" -- as Tom bitterly described the arrangement.

Now, with her love life once again in full bloom, the amorous woman was in sex heaven -- reliving her youth, when men practically lined up around the block to date her. Preying on the men's sexual addiction to her, Angelina gleefully bounced between their beds for nearly a month, until Tom finally prevailed.

The love triangle finally broken, Angelina and Tom were finally free to embark on a committed, loving relationship. But the couple's path to romantic bliss was lined with a phalanx of challenges -- not the least of which was familial. During their first fortnight together, Tom met Angelina's family -- and had been unnerved by her brutish and overprotective brother-in-law.

It was a couple months into their relationship before Tom worked up the nerve to introduce Angelina to his folks. The encounter set off a tremor that was bound to trigger aftershocks along the fault line of their courtship. The meeting with what turned out to be an old work adversary so unnerved Tom's mother, in fact, that she subsequently resumed a long dormant smoking habit.

That introduction went poorly enough, but how would Tom's college friends react to seeing him with a much older woman? What would be their impression of her? What would he see in her? Sure Angelina was attractive enough -- but she was an attractive older woman. Why would young Tom be interested in a 50 year old, when there were plenty of lovely ladies his own age available? And when they got a whiff of her pompous and bitchy personality, they'd really question what was in this relationship for Tom and the age difference would be even more pronounced. The very real possibility existed that they'd disapprove of this affair, judging Tom a weirdo and mere boy toy to Angelina's dirty old woman.

Private by nature -- and especially embarrassed to confide in anyone about his smoking and boot fetishes -- how could Tom possibly explain to them that Angelina embodied all that he found physically alluring in a woman? How every time he saw the haughty diva smoking from a cigarette holder or strutting about in a pair of delicious, high-heeled, knee-high leather boots it made his dick dance and pulsate with delight. Or that when every time he and this MILF-before-the-term-was-coined made love it brought him to heights of pleasure he never dreamed possible.

Now, a year into their dating relationship, the grave doubts Tom once harbored about he and Angelina ever having a serious, long-term future together had faded and their relationship had settled into a seemingly physical routine of uninhibited, care-free sex.

The telephone in the tastefully decorated office attached to the Riverside Middle School library rang for the umpteenth time that Friday. Angelina Lione knew who the caller was before she picked up the receiver.

"What is it now, Thomas?" answered the annoyed head librarian, after pressing the phone to the right side of her face -- made up as immacutely as a Cover Girl model's. "I'm trying to work and you keep interrupting."

"I just...uhhh... wanted to know why you...uhhh... don't want to do anything tonight," her young boyfriend said, his halting voice dripping with a most unattractive blend of confusion and desperation. "We always have a date on Friday night."

"As I've told you repeatedly, I'm just not in the mood."

"But we haven't seen each other all week. We didn't even get to celebrate our anniversary last Saturday because you spent the night at your sister's house after Lisa's bacheloretty party. I really want to see you. I miss you."

"Not tonight, okay?"

"But I don't understand. Is there something wrong. Did I do something wrong?"

"I don't want to talk about this right now. Listen, it's been a long week, I'm tired and I still have a lot of paperwork to do. I just want to finish up, go home and crawl into bed. Now goodbye....and DON'T call me anymore here."

"But..."

"For the last time: GOODBYE!"

Angelina slammed the phone down into its cradle before Tom could reply. The stress of the past week had finally caught up with her and she buried her head in her hands and began to weep.

What started so promising the previous Saturday with a lunch date with Tom's mother, soon led the 51-year-old librarian to second guess her relationship with him. Then, in a drunken lapse of judgment, she performed oral sex on a male stripper. Angelina had been ducking her boyfriend ever since as she tried to process how he apparently felt about her and her about him; and regretting that they hadn't been properly addressed over the last year.

"Angelina, are you okay?" came a female voice from the open door to the library office.

Angelina raised her head from the desk.

"Oh, hi, Sharon," she said, wiping her hands across her mascara-stained cheeks. "Yes, I'm okay."

"You don't seem okay. What's wrong."

The concerned woman took a seat on the couch in front of Angelina's desk.

"It's just men trouble," Angelina said, with a dismissive waive of her hand, as she rose from her desk and walked around in front of it.

"Sure you don't want to talk about it?" Sharon replied.

"I don't want to burden you with my troubles."

"No trouble at all. Why don't we go out for a drink and talk about it?"

"No, I'm not really up for socializing. Plus, I'm in my work clothes."

Sharon scanned Angelina's outfit: the smart-looking white button-downed blouse, black pencil skirt and matching black leather, knee-high, hot-nail boots and shrugged her shoulders.

"You look a helluva lot better in your work clothes than I do in mine," she said, pulling at the sleeve of her baggy gray sweatshirt. "Lets go. I'll even buy. It's happy hour. It'll be fun."

"I don't think so."

"Do you realize we've taught at the same school for the last 10 years and have never once socialized? We even live in the same town, for crying out loud! C'mon, lets go."

"Well...okay," Angelina reluctantly agreed. "I guess it would be helpful to talk to someone about this. Just give me a minute to fix my face."

"That's better. We single gals have to stick together. I'll wait over by the magazine rack. The new edition of Popular Mechanics come in yet?"

Forty-five minutes later, the co-workers settled onto the last two swivel seats at the end of the bar at Skipper's, Cromwell, New Jersey's swingest nightspot.

"What'll you ladies have tonite?" asked the 40ish, bow tie wearing bartender, placing cocktail napkins on the bar in front of their places.

"I'll have a Long Island Ice Tea," Angelina said.

"Gimme a Bud," Sharon ordered, in a New Jersey accent so thick it could a slice of thin-crust pizza.

Angelina then turned to Sharon and crossed her booted legs, forcing open the slit on the side of her skirt to expose her shapely left thigh.

"Oh, darrhhling, I'm so sorry" she said, gently touching the top of Sharon's left thigh with her hand, when the leg crossing caused the pointed leather toe of her boot to accidentally scrape the woman's kneecap. "Are you okay?"

"No problem at all," Sharon responded with a grin. "I used to play in a ladies' rugby league. I'd have to be hit harder than that to feel anything."

Angelina produced a Virginia Slim and a long black holder from her purse. As she lowered her head to screw the cigarette into the wide end of the holder, Angelina noticed out of the corner of her eye the handsome, smiling bartender readying his lighter to assist her. One evil-eyed stare and back-off-buddy shake of the head by Sharon, however, caused him to drop his lighter back into his pocket.

Seconds later, when Angelina lifted her head and looked to the bartender for attention, she found him busily preparing the ladies' drinks instead. As confusion clouded her attractive face, Sharon lit a match and held it in front of her. Turning toward the flame, Angelina smiled, parted her sumptuous red lips, injected the mouthpiece of the holder an inch, closed her mouth around it and accepted the light. After a couple puffs, she slid the holder out, arched her neck and blew a perfectly symmetrical funnel of smoke toward the ceiling.

Sharon was so captivated by her co-worker's sultry exhale that she nearly forgot about the dying match between her fingers. Noticing just in time before the fire burned her hand, Sharon blew it out, then stuffed a Marlboro from a crumbled pack in her sweatpants pocket into her mouth and lit it after executing a quick swipe of another matchstick against the box's cover.

"Is that a new holder, Angelina?" Sharon asked.

"Why, yes, it is," the librarian said, examing the six-inch-long shaft. "Good observation. Want to try it? It's wonderful. So chic and stylish."

"No, thanks. I don't think it's my style, actually. I'm trying to cut down anyway. Our esteemed new principal doesn't think it sets a good example for the students to have a gym teacher who smokes. So, lately, I've gotten into cigar smoking."

"Oh, how charming."

Angelina placed the holder into her mouth again and turned her head to the side to hide the disbelief in her eyes.

"Here you go, ladies," the bartender announced, placing the women's respective drinks on the bar before them. "Would you like to run a tab tonite?"

"Yeah," Sharon said. "I think we're gonna be here awhile."

Angelina smiled faintly, released a soft puff of smoke from her mouth that was as delicate as her previous exhale was prodigious and picked up her cocktail.

"To a night of girl talk and girl fun!" Sharon said defiantly, raising her bottle of beer in a toast.

Angelina, holder resting comfortably between the index and middle fingers of her daintily upturned right hand -- smoke from the lit end of the cigarette wafting behind and away from her, met the toast by clinking the bottle with the rim of her cocktail glass, then took a sip of her Long Island Ice Tea.

"Now, tell me 'bout this men trouble of yours," Sharon said, after a swig of her beer.

"Ohhh...where do I start?" Angelina began, with a long sigh. "Well, I've been dating this guy for the past year and last weekend when I was out to lunch with his mother..."

"His mother?! Where were you eating? Her nursing home?"

"No. She's only a couple years older than me, actually."

"What?"

"Well, my boyfriend is only 23."

"Twenty-three years old?!"

"Yes. But he'll be 24 in a few months. He's also an ex-student."

"Back up for a second. How have you come to date a 23-year old ex-student?"

"He came into the library one day last fall on false pretenses, saying he was interested in studying library science, you know, and asked me to dinner. When I blew his cover, he confessed to having a crush on me since he was in the 8th grade. It was very flattering. I was in a vulnerable state because I hadn't dated in awhile. We wound up sleeping together that night and the sex was fantastic. It was so good -- and I'd gone without it for so long -- that I didn't want to give it up. It's been so good, in fact, that it's made me ignore the elephants in the room, like the age gulf and the lack of common interests. Aside from a three-week period when I was dating both he and Harry Seymour, we've been exclusive."

"Our ex-principal?!"

"Right. We started dating again when his wife passed."

"Again?!"

"We had a six-year affair from '78-'84."

"An affair?! This is all too mindblowing. I had no idea."

"No one did, really, except for Nancy Allums. We had to keep it secret because Harry was married."

"Why did you have an affair with him for so long?"

"He kept saying he'd leave his wife and marry me."

"Oh, Angelina. That's the oldest line in the book."

"I know, Sharon. I know. That's why I eventually gave him an ultimatum and then broke it off with him when he wouldn't leave her."

"Not permanently, though, apparently."

"Well, after his wife passed...I tried, Sharon, but Harry was so hard to quit. I had such a weakness for him."

"But you ultimately chose this young guy. Who is he, if I can ask?"

"Tom Bailey. Class of '79."

"Tom Bailey...Tom Bailey. Oh, yeah. I remember him. On the tall side? Wavy brown hair? Kinda shy?"

"That's him. Yes, he's so attractive -- and next to Harry, the best lover I've ever had. And when we started dating he was like a little puppy. He worshipped me. I'm obviously not getting any younger. There were no other men beating down my door. He was exactly what my ego and libido needed."

"So, what's the problem?"

"Well, I was taken aback when his mother said she had to remind him of our one-year anniversary. While it's been pretty much a sexual relationship, that raised a red flag to me. I know he's young, but I thought he was more mature than that. I'm afraid we've spent so much time having a good time -- if you know what I mean -- that all we're doing is having is a good time."

"Yeah, I see what you mean now. I dunno, Angelina. If you don't mind me saying so, you're all over the map with men."

"And then there's the stripper."

"The stipper?!"

"I was so upset by what his mother said, and I had too much to drink at lunch, that when I went to my niece's bachelorette party that night I gotta little wild and out of control and had oral sex with this gorgeous male stripper."

"Angelina!"

"I know it was wrong. But my defenses were down. My sexual judgment always seems to take the day off when I've had a few drinks. I can't tell you how many men I've been with in those situations."

Sharon signaled the bartender for another round.

"A married man, a kid, and a stripper," Sharon said, stubbing out her cigarette in an ashtray. "Sorry to say, but drinking or not, it doesn't seem like you've made the best decisions in men lately, Angelina."

"I know," Angelina said, with a shake of her head. "The stripper was definitely a mistake."

"They've ALL been mistakes, if you ask me. None of these guys are right for you."

"Well, I've had a lot of lovers in my life, Sharon. A lot of lovers. And Harry and Tom are on the top of the list of the men I've been with."

"Maybe that should tell you something about why you've never been married. A lot of lovers and yet those guys are on the top of the list?! Do you love the Bailey kid?"

Angelina turned pensive for a moment, then took a soft draw on her cigarette holder.

"I do, Sharon. I do," she said, the smoking flowing from her nostrils meeting with her talk exhale. "I'm very jealous when other women are around him, I can tell you that. Very jealous."

"That's not really love, though."

"True. But it's more than that. He's not perfect. He's just so young. But I adore him. He turns me on like no man I've ever been with. Every time we sleep together it has the excitement of a one-night stand. I have the same intense emotional feeling for him that I had when I dated Harry. I love him enough that I even turned down a date with the stripper."

"The stripper called to ask you out?!"

"Yes. And I wasn't at all tempted to go out with him -- even though I'm sure we would have had mindblowing sex. I never would have rejected a date with a body like his when I was younger -- or even when I was dating Harry. And believe me, that stripper had the most impressive build and penis I've seen in quite some time. You would have loved him, believe me."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Does the Bailey kid know you love him?"

"Not yet. I was planning on telling him on our anniversary."

"Don't do it."

"Why not?"

"A woman should never be the first to say 'I love you.' You'll lose all power in the relationship. Makes you look needy."

"That's an interesting theory."

"Trust me."

"You said he's not perfect. How so?"

"Well, lately all we seem to do is make love. We don't even go out really anymore. And like I told you earlier, his mother said he didn't even remember it was our anniversary."

"Hmmm...those sound like real red flags to me. You deserve to be pampered. Treated like a queen. He's taking you for granted and treating you like a prostitute instead of a girlfriend. You're worse than a prostitute. He's not even paying you!"

"I never thought of it that way. My God, you're right."

"If you want my opinion..."

"I do. I do."

"It sounds like a dysfunctional relationship. You're both just using each other for sex. From how you've described your relationship, he's more like a kept man, than a boyfriend."

"I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Men, who needs 'em?"

"There's times I wonder. And this is definitely one of those times."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Several hours -- and drinks -- later, the buzzed co-workers arrived at Angelina's home. Entering the darkened house, Angelina's eye immediately caught the blinking red light of her answering machine on the table in the living room. As she drew closer to the phone, the librarian noticed a flashing "5" in the display window. After pressing the playback button, a familiar male voice appeared out of the speaker.