The Libertine in the Library

Oleandra Labrecque had some time to kill before her three o'clock geography class, and, not being a social butterfly by nature, gravitated as usual to the isolated, quiet, cocoon-like atmosphere of one of the back tables on the third floor of the university library.

Though she often studied here, reading assigned articles or books for different classes, on some occasions she would indulge her other hunger, ferreting out from the stacks random books, largely fiction, involving explicit descriptions of sexual things. Many of them were classics of their genres and, like her present selection, De Sade's "Philosophy in the Bedroom", were the kind of books she had only read about before now. The works of the Marquis she had heard of referenced in other books as ones of consummate depravity. She would not have had the courage to check out this kind of book, though it was not the opinion of the students working at the library checkout that truly concerned her. She did not like the idea of being caught reading them by roommates, friends or family members in a more casual setting. So instead she satisfied herself by consuming their controversial content in semi-clandestine fashion.

Depending on the book, some offering more disappointment than others, it was inevitable that she would sometimes become sexually aroused. The anatomy of her arousal varied. In some cases she found the language exciting, at other times the story, though in her hunger she sometimes scarcely could stomach the non-sexual parts and would skim past them questing for wickeder words to satisfy her appetite. Sometimes it would be the particularly quality of a lewd act, which was not always necessarily the most perverse but which was new or different and appealing as a thing she might one day like to try with a real lover.

Usually she would try her best not to touch herself while reading, being a sensible girl and knowing full well that she was in a public place. Sometimes she would slip into the nearby restroom to attempt some relief in a bathroom stall, in which was not very easy for her to make herself comfortable enough to reach orgasm, nor did she find that setting particularly arousing, though she had read enough to understand that some do. Other times, sitting back in a chair at a table while no one was around, she would position a book's spine in her crotch and grind it hard against her aching mound, providing sufficient clitoral friction for a good come. Today she felt lazy, and desperate, and the third floor seemed perfectly miserable and deserted at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, so she slouched down uncomfortably in the hard wooden chair and slipped her right hand down the front of her loose grey sweatpants and into her cotton panties and adjusted the book on the table to be able to read while she touched herself. Though desperate, Oleandra was a person who was by nature always aware of her surroundings. She'd surveyed the empty chairs and vacant tables while selecting her seat, and reasoned that she would likely hear footsteps in plenty of time to extract her extremity from her pants prior to any embarrassing encounters with passers-by.

"Voluptuaries of all ages, of every sex, it is to you only that I offer this work; nourish yourselves upon its principles: they favor your passions, and these passions, whereof coldly insipid moralists put you in fear, are naught but the means Nature employs to bring man to the ends she prescribes to him; hearken only to these delicious Promptings, for no voice save that of the passions can conduct you to happiness."

She could not have explained to anyone why exactly she was drawn to investigate such a seemingly unsavory subject, and, having been raised in the methodically nonsensical doctrines of a Catholic household, she had much guilt about her own curiosity. Perhaps in an enlightened an eloquent moment she would have been able to say that she was trying to be wise, like Mithridates, in inuring herself to evil. Or she would quote Yeats about the only two things of interest to a serious and studious mind. These intellectual expressions, however, would only have hinted at her actual aspiration, which she had already been working at for a while, to amass in her brain an encyclopedia of erotica which would both inspire her own imagination, and with which she would be able to effectively combat sexual ennui.

Apart from any lofty scholarly motivations, she understood that some of her curiosity was a product of her unintentional sexual starvation. Unbelievably untouched until the age of nineteen, she'd fallen for a boy she'd met in high school, and had spent the last several years relentlessly soliciting his frustratingly reluctant attentions, only to be rewarded with a few magically passionate kisses and a chaste but carnal panty-clad make-out session on his nineteenth birthday. That boy was gone now, far away and in the army, though she found it decidedly difficult to forget about him, or the delectable fire of his kisses. He had left her a virgin, which in a figurative way made it seem that she was vulnerable to being sacrificed to any dragon that happened to notice her, though it also seemed that no dragon would bother himself to notice an invisible girl. She was unspeakably lonely.

In reading the first paragraph of the book a second time, to solidify her understanding of the words, she did not know if she considered herself to be a voluptuary, though she was fairly certain she did qualify as voluptuous. Her own father, who had a copious collection of colorful turns of phrase, had said, in a paternally affectionate and not at all inappropriate way, that she was "built like a brick shithouse."

Distracted either by her forlorn musings, or the contemplation of the reading maquterial in front of her, she did not notice the figure who came up quietly and quickly behind her, crouching a bit behind her chair on the right side and who put his mouth quite close to her ear and whispered, "Please, don't stop."

Of course she had glanced about the place before delving into her drawers, but her footstep theory was obviously flawed.

Despite the unexpectedness of the intrusion, his words had summarily dismissed her first instinct, to take her hand from her pants and turn away or otherwise physically distance herself from him. Frozen instead, a furious flood of questions began in her mind. They ranged from the practical to the preposterous. How long had this guy been watching her? Was he a deranged sexual psychopath? Was he a security guard of some kind? Was there a prescribed penalty for masturbating in the university library?

Though she didn't say anything, he seemed to sense her questions, and knew he needed to say something further. His tone of voice was slow and gentle, firm but non-threatening. Still very close to her ear. "You're beautiful. I just want to watch."

Oleandra did not know what to say, and could not bring herself to turn and look at him. She did not think she looked beautiful at the moment, in baggy sweats and sneakers with her hair haphazardly pulled up in a ratty scrunchie, but it did not feel right to contradict him on this matter, positioned precariously as she was. In this ultra-frumpy getup, there was no way for him to know she had pinup-perfect 36C breasts, or an absolutely amazingly-shaped ass, but then she didn't know she had these things either. He hadn't really asked anything, but it felt like he definitely expected some sort of answer from her.

"I can read to you," he offered softly, still crouched, but moving his right hand to hold the book on the table in front of them. She felt his left hand clasped on the back of her chair. Without either of them specifically saying so, they both understood that his crouched position, with his arm extended across to the book, provided a superior screen for her surreptitious activity and probably made it look like they were just studying something together.

He read the remainder of the introduction, with more than reasonable fluency and enunciation, but then suggested in a seductively inflected whisper, "Let's skip a bit." And with only one hand and devilish precision he flipped the pages to begin Dialogue the Third.

Now that he had taken the book, Oleandra was able to place her free hand on the seat of the chair to lessen the discomfort of her slouched posture and to steady herself against the strangeness of the situation. He read in a near-whisper, but the closeness of his mouth to her ear ensured that she was able to understand each word.

As the piece was written in play form, he read the setting and the names of the characters, the stage directions. He did not make up different voices for the different characters, but said the character's name before delivering their dialogue and made an appropriate pause between each.

It wasn't long after he had begun reading before her fingers really resumed their nether enterprise in earnest. She was amazed and impressed that he stumbled over no word or phrase. He dispatched them all with equivocal diction, made even the duller parts of the prose sound provocative, and pronounced the French names and words properly without coming off as comical. She listened to the licentious passages, enjoyed the masculine sound of his voice, but reveled most in the delicious brush of his warm breath, which she felt on her neck and ear as he spoke.

It was difficult for her to determine whether her arousal now was derived from the reading material, or the presence and participation of another person, yet there was undoubtedly more moisture between her legs than there had been earlier before the silver-tongued stranger's arrival. Although in the beginning her eyes were focused on the page of the book he held open on the table in front of her, following along as he read, Oleandra had trouble dividing her attentions, and eventually stopped concentrating on the written words and abandoned herself to his hypnotic locution.

Periodically he paused from reading to provide her with little erotic encouragements, but made no move to touch her. "That's it. So hot," he practically purred to her as she furtively fondled herself, at which she was understandably expert, having had the pleasure of nothing much but her own hands throughout her adolescence. Though he could not closely observe the specifics of her self-pleasuring, he was clearly enjoying the intimacy and intrigue of the entire scenario.

His left hand moved from the chair back, and with tremendously gentle fingers, slipped the scrunchie off and freed her straight, fine brown hair to fall about her shoulders. "Keep going," he murmured approval of her hidden hand's motion. As she continued to pleasure herself, he stroked her hair and ran his fingers through it. "Good girl," he said, with a spectacularly sultry emphasis on the "good" that let her know how much she was pleasing him.

Though the situation was strange, somehow in the moment she was both excited and relaxed enough to find the relief of release. She shuddered silently when she came, bracing herself with her free hand against the table, and near as he was he could not help but to know she had climaxed. From his vantage point, he could not see how the knuckles of her left hand had become a lovely shade of lily white from gripping the edge of the chair. He stopped reading, but continued to quietly stroke her hair.

"That was incredible," he said, closing the book and laying it on the table. Though she hadn't spoken a word to him, she nodded now in agreement, and felt him smile next to her. Though still crouched down, he moved forward a bit, so that his face came into her line of vision. She had expected him to look at her, but while her eyes were fixed on the stranger's not unhandsome face, his gaze was directed at the hand she still had in her sweatpants.

He was dressed in sweats as well, and had the hood of his black zippered sweatshirt over his head, in stereotypical sexual predator fashion. But it seemed more ironic than iniquitous and, were it not for the bizarre and unfamiliar nature of the act that had just occurred, she might have laughed. His sweatpants were dark too, maybe not exactly the same black as the sweatshirt. She could tell that his eyes, though they were not on her, were a very nice shade of blue and there were some enticing thick black curls of hair underneath his hood. While his clothing wasn't fitted, her artistic instincts for observing underlying structure told her that the frame beneath was of an athletic inclination. Though perhaps she was only predispositioned by the things he had been saying to her just now, she instantly liked the shape of his lips and mouth. She did not recognize him, but hadn't realistically expected to in a place where there were mostly strangers anyway. A number of students from her high school went here too, but seemed to have been swallowed up in the larger sea of academia .

Immediately Oleandra felt a wave of reproach for her stupidity in not removing it, but he solved the problem by pulling smoothly on her arm and drawing her sticky puckered fingers to his half-open mouth. He closed his eyes as his tongue savored their taste, and murmured a mesmerizing "Mmmm." When he opened his eyes, they were looking directly at her, and though he still had her fingers in his mouth swirling his tongue between them and against their tips, she could tell he was smiling.

Both of them heard nearby footsteps in the main aisle, and what sounded like two students talking quietly together. While she panicked inwardly, he unhurriedly took her hand from his mouth and laid it lightly in her lap.

"Will you be here next Tuesday around this time?" he asked, standing up to his full height in front of her. He didn't seem very tall, and she guessed he was about five foot ten at most.

"Yes," she replied, not sure even of how the word had come out, not sure even if she should look up at him.

"Good," he said pleasantly, and then, "you should wear a skirt for next time. Gotta go." He turned and walked away.

She didn't watch him go, but stared instead at the taboo book on the table in front of her, and at her hand with fingers licked clean laying in her lap. The two students they'd heard talking moments ago passed by, but didn't look her way. With a start, she remembered her hair, now hanging and undone, and wondered where the scrunchie had gone. Turning around in her chair, she saw it on the floor behind her. She picked it up and re-bundled her unruly locks.

It was closer to class time, so she picked up the book from the table, touching and carrying it almost as if it were a kind of sacred relic, and returned it to the shelf where she'd gotten it. In a fog of troubled wondering and secret delight, she wandered downstairs, and down the library steps, then past the grassy swath of lawn just beginning to turn from parched winter brown to budding spring green, toward the building where her geography class was, feeling a bit like Alice about to tumble down a rabbit hole. She wondered if she was supposed to feel violated, but to her the stranger hadn't pirated her privacy, but had merely sought to share in her intimate endeavor, and actually to assist her in the pursuit of a stolen moment's enjoyment. She marveled both at her own fearlessness in almost instantly accepting the stranger's unexpected company, and at his uncanny ability to pass himself off as a natural and unobjectionable addition to her self-stimulation.

Though she'd indicated to him in the affirmative, she had not actually made up her mind completely to return to the same spot at the same time the next Tuesday. Sensibly speaking, he was still a stranger, so she did not entertain any overly moral ethics about standing him up later. And she knew he could stand her up too, forget about her, remember he had something else more interesting or important to do, or just plain chicken out. She understood that two forces, curiosity and conscience, would wrestle inside her for the next week, and she hoped with a smirk that their conflict would be civil.