Nerdcam Pt. 03

A stack of old paperbacks teetered where it arched out from a shelf overhead, then stilled again. Anna watched apprehensively for several seconds. When no further movement occurred, she hefted her tote of unsorted incoming and moved further down the aisle. Settling in front of a new set of shelves, she checked the genre, then resumed the always challenging task of trying to find space for the books in the tote.

This usually involved creative stacking -- an art in which she was gaining some skill. That said, she couldn't quite imagine ever attaining the uncanny ability of her employer, the shop's proprietor. Mr. Lintz, (He had suggested she call him Elias, but she would always think of him as Mr. Lintz), was in his mid sixties, of average height, bearded, and somehow both bookish and gregarious -- in a very calm, well-spoken sort of way. Aside from coming across as intelligent and self-possessed, he had a bizarrely encyclopedic memory -- at least when it came to the shop; Shelf Indulgence.

Not only did he remember everything he had in stock, and where to find it in the shop, but he also seemed to remember everyone who visited while he was working. Returning customers were often dumbfouded when Mr. Lintz greeted them warmly and reminded them of what they had asked about or purchased on their previous visit. But it wasn't his memory that had inspired Anna to invent an amusing fictional backstory for Mr. Lintz. It was his ability to stack books in ways that reminded her of an Escher painting. Or that one scene in Labyrinth.

It had been a slow afternoon, a couple of weeks after she first got the job. She had watched Mr. Lintz play a nail-biting game of reverse-Jenga with a towering stack of romance novels. A helical stair of cheap smut had risen, to be surmounted by a buttressed arch which Mr. Lintz had required a step ladder to finish.

While Anna had waited, incredulous, for the whole thing to collapse, possibly killing her employer, she had entertained the thought that he was like some kind of eccentric wizard. And she had whiled away her time sitting at the register by daydreaming about Mr. Lintz as a librarian at that wizarding school in the Harry Potter books. He would have been very good at the job. Maybe too good.

That would explain why he was here, running a used book store, now. They had kicked him out because he had been meddling with the laws of physics in order to more efficiently use the space in the library. Or perhaps because he had endangered the students by building whole mazes and catacombs, bricked with the heavy, leather bound tomes.

Being the only employee, it was a little inside joke she had only shared with herself, but she thought Jack might get a laugh out of it. Especially if he ever visited the shop.

Taking her sweet time sorting and shelving books, Anna indulged in the fresh memories of her recent visit to Jack's place. She winced briefly at the thought of the brazen display she had put on after entering his apartment. Not exactly a classy move, but she had been really horny, and he hadn't seemed to mind.

Then she smiled and shook her head, remembering how she had 'booped' his nose with the tip of her dick. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes as he looked up at her, laughing. How they had laughed together, at the sillyness of the moment. It might have broken the sexual tension, but it had also dispelled a lot of the lingering nervousness.

Events from that night played out in her mind, and she saw him looking up at her. Holding her gaze with a longing, knowing look as his warm breath touched her. Followed by his lips, his hot mouth, his tongue...

Anna swallowed and made an effort to come back to the present. Maybe better if she skipped the bulk of their time together that night. At least until she wasn't minding the shop alone. She'd end up giving herself blueballs otherwise. And she could always pick up where she had left off when she got home from work.

Realizing she had been staring at the spine of the same book for who knew how long, she resumed her work. Given the nature of the work, it wasn't long before she was daydreaming again. Leaving the sexy fun time memories for later, she thought of what had come after.

She had gone into Jack's kitchen for a drink of water and noticed some work he had left on the table. Looking at the topmost sheet, she had recognized the layout of something like a comic book. Curious, she had taken a closer look at the penciled artwork. There were word bubbles and spaces clearly meant for narration or internal monologue, but the text hadn't been added yet. After scanning a couple pages, Anna had been surprised to realize she had a very good idea of what the text would be.

When she asked Jack about it, he seemed a little embarassed while admitting that he had been inspired to draw up a little comic depicting their meeting. It started with a short montage of images explaining their meeting interspersed with blanks where the accompanying text would go. Anna's tattoos were shown and explained. Some of them. Then there were a few panels showing the passage of time before their fateful meeting.

Anna had grinned despite herself, seeing the incident from his point of view. And again when she saw that it had been one of her tattoos that had first tipped him off about who she was.

Jack had joined her in the kitchen, pausing to dab here and there with some paper towels before moving to look over her shoulder.

"You've got skill, Nerd." she'd said, nudging him with her hip.

He had slid his arms around her just under her breasts and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"You think so?"

"Well, you made me look good," she turned her head enough to look at him, "Guess I made an impression, huh?"

"Nah," Jack smirked, "It was only cardboard, and you didn't hit me that hard."

Leaning back against him, she had nipped at his ear.

"Maybe I should try harder next time."

"Mm, I joke, but I'm glad you like it. And yeah, you definitely made an impression."

They had been quiet for a minute while she had looked through the rest of the pages. Jack had moved her hair aside to kiss her neck before moving away.

"Kinda getting the urge to bend you over the table, so... Unless you wanna join me for a shower..." he had spoken while retrieving his boxers from where they'd been dropped.

"Pretty sure we'd end up christening the shower," she'd replied, "but I will use your bathroom before you get in there, if you don't mind."

When she had finally dressed and was leaving he had seen her off, lingering in his doorway to watch her go. That night she had fallen asleep thinking about what they might get up to after they finally went out for sandwiches. And it wasn't all about sex, either -- although that certainly featured.

It was some five hours later that she stood before Jack's door, having finished work, and then stopped in at her apartment between. She knocked. While waiting for him to come to the door she momentarily wondered if he might be out. Then immediately dismissed the idea as highly unlikely. He wasn't an actual shut in, but he also didn't go out a lot, and worked at home to boot.

And as it turned out, she only had to wait a few moments. The door opened far enough for the chain to catch. Jack peered out through the gap.

"Hey man, I don't really have time-" he began before seeing who was there. "Oh. Hey."

Anna tipped her head to one side.

"Hey. Don't have time for what?"

Jack undid the chain and opened the door.

"To smoke up." he explained. "Thought it might be the guy across the hall. Again. He's always coming over asking if I wanna get high with him. He gets paranoid when he smokes alone."

"Oh. I kinda thought that was just a made up stereotype. Or trope. Whatever you'd call it."

"Getting paranoid? Yeah, I thought it only happened with harder stuff like meth, but apparently..." Jack replied.

"Huh. Learn something every day, huh?" Anna gave him a look that said they had already definitely spent more than enough time on that subject.

"Uh, yeah. Did you want to come in, or..."

"Not tonight," Anna pulled a folded scrap of paper from a pocket and held it out, "I just came over to give you this."

Jack took the sheet and unfolded it.

"My work schedule for this week," Anna explained while Jack scanned the sheet.

"Have a look and let me know if there's a good day to meet up. You know, for sandwiches."

Jack glanced up, smiling.

"Okay, cool. So... do you have a phone or should I come knock on your door?"

"See that line of numbers at the bottom?" Anna pointed at the paper in his hand, "That's my phone number smart guy."

Jack skipped down to the bottom of the sheet and found that there was, indeed, a line of digits.

"Is that what that is?"

"Uh huh." Anna confirmed.

"Oh good. Cause my next suggestion was gonna be the Rocky method."

"I'm scared to ask."

"That's where I come out into the hall and call you -- like; 'Hey, yo!'" Jack gave a mediocre attempt at Sylvester Stallone's accent.

Anna gave him a look.

"Yeah, okay, that was pretty lame."

"Yeah, it was." Anna agreed. "I actually like Rocky, but that was still lame."

"Alright. Go away and I'll call you if I can decipher your handwriting." Jack made a show of turning the sheet 90 degrees and squinting at it.

"'Go away', and you're insulting my handwriting?"

"Um, go away, bad handwriting," Jack counted off on the fingers of his free hand, "Oh, there was one other thing."

Anna's expression suggested it had better be a good thing.

Jack folded the sheet and stuffed it in a pocket before abruptly stepping close to Anna. Gently but firmly tipping her chin up with his right hand, he bent to kiss her. With his left hand he reached around her and down to bunch the top of her jeans in his fist. He pulled up and in, causing the jeans to ride up. This earned a surprised gasp as Anna rose on her toes. At the same time, she was moving her own hands under Jack's shirt and up his back. Moaning into the kiss, she dragged her nails across his back -- not quite hard enough to really hurt.

Eventually they parted, remaining close. Jack lowered Anna and loosened his grip on her jeans. She rolled her lower lip in, sucking moisture from it before looking up into Jack's eyes.

"Mm, okay. Just so you understand... That's not always gonna work."

"Fair enough."

"Uh huh. Also," she spoke quietly, "The thing with my pants -- kinda hot, but you almost changed my voice, and I've already got it where I like it."

"Oh," Jack winced, "Sorry. I could kiss it, er, them-"

"After sandwiches." Anna interrupted, smiling and taking a small step back.

"Right, right," Jack's tone sobered somewhat, "I'll call you. Have a good night, Anna,"

"Goodnight Jack."

Anna slid her fingers into her back pockets, backing up another step before turning to walk down to her door. She half turned to glance back, finding Jack still standing where she had left him, watching her go. With a certain warmth in her chest, she unlocked her door and went inside.

While Anna turned on her TV and console of choice, plopping down on the couch with a wireless controller, Jack went back into his apartment in search of his phone. When he found it he added Anna's number to his contacts list. In entering her info, it occurred to him that he had no idea about her last name. He would have to ask.

Setting the phone aside, he read over the schedule again. His own schedule was highly flexible. He had a backlog on the queue of pages for his webcomic. A couple of commissions, but they wouldn't take long. Taking a day off wouldn't be a problem.

With that duly considered, Jack stared off for about a minute before shrugging and grabbing his phone.

Anna picked up on the third ring. Jack could hear simulated gunfire and explosions from Anna's game in the background.

"Hello?"

"Uh, hey. It's Jack."

"Oh, that was quick."

"Yeah. Well, turns out my schedule is pretty open, so... Any time is good for me. I see you have the weekend off."

"Yeah. I haven't been workin' there too long, but so far I usually have weekends off."

"Cool."

There was a pause during which the clicking and clacking of Anna's controller joined the sound effects in the background.

"Aaaand the match is a loss. Oh well, that was a shit team. Sorry. You have my attention now. Um. Yeah. Saturday, then?"

Jack chuckled.

"It's cool. Saturday is good. Were you thinking lunch or supper? Or something else?" he asked.

"No, I wanna try this sandwich place you were talking about. So, that's more of a lunch thing."

"The place is called Ellison's. I can give you directions if you need 'em." Jack offered.

"I'll just get 'em on the ol' interwebs, thanks. And I'll see you there around, hmm... I'm not gonna worry about getting up early on a day off. Is one'o'clock okay?"

"One is good." Jack confirmed.

"Your treat?"

"Hack the planet?" Jack countered with surprising alacrity.

"Pfft, wow," Anna laughed, "Really milking that for all it's worth, huh Nerd?"

"Are we still talkign about your tattoo, or..." Jack trailed off suggestively.

"I refer you to my new catchphrase; 'after sandwiches.'" Anna replied.

"Arg. It's like Kryptonite. Alright, Beautiful, I'll let you get back to sucking at your game."

Anna gasped in mock outrage.

"Keep talkin' smack and it could be 'after three dates'."

Jack actually coughed on his own breath.

"I take it back," he half laughed -- half sputtered, "You're a goddess of gaming."

"Yeaaah. I wouldn't do that, though. That'd hurt me as much as it would you. I'll have to think of some other punishment."

"Good to know, good to know. So, Saturday at one. Ellison's. But if you need help moving boxes or like, you need a cup of sugar or something, you know where to find me."

"I do. And I'll remember, if I'm... baking a cake." Anna joked.

"Hmm... something about glazing your cake? After sandwiches." Jack replied, his tone becoming a little more serious. "Alright. I'll talk to you later. Goodnight Anna."

Anna smiled, eyes drifting across the middle distance. He sounded so earnest, and a little reluctant at the end there. Which seemed all the more meaningful given his usual nonchalance and humor.

"Yeah. Goodnight Jack."

Thursday came and went, unremarkable. Anna passed much of the day sitting at the register at Shelf Indulgence, reading a horror novel that had looked promising. Jack, meanwhile, worked diligently to finish the commissions he had taken on. When he took a break late in the afternoon, he spent some time picking up around the place -- a bit more thoroughly than he normally would. They each, at some point not long before deciding to call it a day, thought about texting or calling the other. And each decided to wait.

Jack spent a little while with a pencil and a small sketchpad, trying to capture some of Anna's facial expressions. Down the hall, Anna finished preparing a little side project of her own.

Jack was still sketching, thinking, sketching, when Anna replaced inkpen and clear tape in a kitchen drawer. She padded back to her bathroom to wash up, brush her teeth and hair, and relieve herself. Stripping down as she went from bathroom to bedroom, she left her clothes on the broad hardwood trunk at the foot of her bed. Crawling in between the sheets she yawned, adjusted her hair so that she wasn't laying on it, and nuzzled her face into the pillow. In doing so, she unintentionally brought up the memory of moving down over Jack's body.

She pressed a purr-like murmur into the pillow while remembering how she had licked her way down his tummy.

The alarm on her phone woke Anna the next morning. Turning off the alarm, she rose and stretched. A slight chill in the air caused goosebumps to break out over her bare skin. With a shiver, she stopped at her dresser and closet for clothes before heading for the shower. While waiting for the water to heat up, she remembered her last thoughts from the night before.

Must have been more tired than she realized, to pass out with that in her head. Oh well. She could wait. Probably. She decided to focus on hurrying up and getting ready for work, lest her memory and imagination conspire to test her.

It was the better part of an hour later when Anna left her apartment with her 'side project' in hand. It was a couple of hours later still when Jack finally rolled out of bed. And yet another hour -- during which he did the usual bathroom routine, dressed, and had buttered toast with a mug of coffee -- before he emerged from his apartment to go down and check his mail.

In doing so he very nearly tripped over a large cardboard box someone had left just to the side of his door.

"What the-"

Glaring at the box in irritated surprise, he noticed a sheet of paper taped along one side to the top of the box. Written large, in familiar looping script, was the word 'lift.' Jack stared at it for a few seconds, frowning, before working a fingertip under the sheet and flipping it over. The writing on the other side was small enough that Jack copped a squat to get closer to read it.

'Hello Jack. I wanted to apologize for knocking you over the other day. I hope you can forgive me. Oh, Anna says 'Hey Nerd.'

Sincerely,

Anna's big empty box'

Jack shook his head, then chuckled to himself. Opening his door, he scooted the box inside with his foot and re-locked the door.

While he was taking the contents from his mailbox -- one bill and a handful of junk mail -- he considered leaving a note wedged in Anna's box... about her box. He decided against it. An idea about future practical jokes had taken seed in his mind.

So he took his mail back up to his apartment, dealt with the bill, chucked the junk, and went back to his room to start his work day.

He checked various email accounts and those social media platforms on which he bothered to maintain a presence. After an hour of replying here and posting there, he finally powered up his art tablet and pulled up the usual array of files and things on his desktop to work on the comic.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in town, Anna half listened for customers while moving about in the cramped back room of Shelf Indulgence. The stacks of boxes and loose books concealed the walls almost completely. The cave-like room was lit by a single bare bulb, which cast a yellowish light. The air was thick with the scents of books old and new, and cardboard, and time.

It would be a bad time if she were claustrophobic, but Anna found the space oddly comfortable. Cozy even. It reminded her of her childhood -- poking around in the basement of the home her parents still lived in up state.

Setting her nearly empty Starbucks cup down atop a semi-permanent stack of boxes, she set to work sorting through a recent delivery of books which Mr. Lintz had purchased at a local auction. Customers were few, as was common in the morning. Mr. Lintz arrived around noon, and Anna took her luch break.

It would be mid afternoon before Jack noticed the text she sent while she sat munching on a chicken salad from a grocery store near the shop.

Naturally Jack had music playing while he worked. When, around three, he went out to the kitchen to put something in his stomach, he noticed Anna's box still sitting near the door. Thinking he might at least leave her a little acknowledgement of her admittedly amusing prank, he grabbed his phone. Finding a message notification waiting for him, he tapped on it.

'Hey Nerd. On lunch break. Hows the shut in life treating you? Have you gone outside today?'

"Smartass." Jack murmured, his voice holding amusement and perhaps a hint of admiration.

He sent back:

'Hey Beautiful. As a matter of fact, I ran into a friend of yours. I'll send hospital bill.'