It was true.
People really did have sex in libraries.
Couldn’t they just wait to get back to their dorm rooms?
What if they got something on the books? Or the tables? Or the chairs?
Or the walls?
I slowed my cart—not slow enough to appear as if I cared, but slow enough to get an earful— and pretended to reshelve the books piled on it.
And an earful, I got. Holy shit.
But I figured, if you’re going to have sex in a campus library, the reference floor—where I was working that day—was probably as good a place as any, if not better. With every college student’s ability to do so much research online these days, the reference floor was becoming a sad relic of the past, smelling of dusty old books no longer lovingly paged through in the quest for scholarly advancement. I seldom visited it, there were so few books that needed reshelving there, but when I did, it was like entering a morgue. Cold, airless, dark, and dead silent.
That was, unless someone had taken the opportunity to seize on the privacy of the place and play hide the sausage. Or whatever they were doing.
Somebody—or somebodies—were getting it on out of sight, down at the end of a towering row of bookshelves, one you probably wouldn’t wander down unless you were looking for something highly specialized, or had a thing for the creepy, poorly-lit stacks of the campus library.
Or were looking for a spot to get laid.
The funny thing was, that while the imposing and mostly-deserted room was creepily quiet aside from the occasional laptop keyboard click, slow turn of a page, or a dust-induced cough, the not-so-discreet coeds having the time of their lives were completely unconcerned that their joyful exuberance and screams of passion slammed off the walls, only partly absorbed by the tons of paper surrounding them.
When they paused for breath, someone on the other side of the room giggled.
Instead of being concerned about the racket they were creating, they seemed more focused on how quickly they could get off. Guess I couldn’t blame them. They needed to finish their dirty deed and get the hell out before they were caught by someone who gave a damn about what went on in the reference stacks.
I glanced down the nearest aisle then in front of and behind me, to make sure I wasn’t being watched by the few now-amused folks trying to study, and inched a little closer to the amorous couple, the fingers of my right hand twisting and tugging on my hair like I always did when I was nervous.
“Oh! Oh! Oh fuck! Harder, harder, yes!” a female voice panted.
A small wave of guilt washed over me, as if I were some perverted voyeur. But on the other hand, it wasn’t as if the lovebirds were concerned about privacy. It was as if they wanted to be caught.
Maybe that was the point.
I’d heard having sex in public places was a thing. That some people were really into it, getting a huge rush out of the risk of being caught. I guess those were the people who had sex in airplanes, public restrooms, and elevators.
Which was so not my thing. Not that I had a thing, per se.
Personally, I didn’t have sex in public places. Nor did I have sex in non-public places.
I actually didn’t have sex anywhere.
Because I’d never had sex.
True story.
But I wasn’t above listening to people who were.
My ears pricked at the sound of the guy grunting, almost growling, really. That, coupled with the female’s moans and whimpers, went straight to my—well, let’s just say I’d have something to think about later that night when I was in bed, ready to fall asleep, pleasuring myself like I did most every night.
I might have been a virgin, but I wasn’t an idiot. I knew how shit worked. Well, at least how my shit worked.
Their enthusiasm reached a crescendo that I thought might bring campus security running. I didn’t want to be there when that happened. So, I scurried away deeper into an opposite row of bookshelves to put away the last of the volumes on my cart. I needed to get the hell out of there before someone of authority happened by and wondered why I, as a part-time employee of the campus library, didn’t alert the powers that be that inappropriate behavior was taking place in the reference room.
The poor, neglected, reference room. Like a once-beautiful ship past its prime, it was rusty and leaking and unwanted.
But I wasn’t ready to bolt just yet. I positioned myself, half-hidden, where I’d have a view of the lovers when they finally exited the stacks. I wanted to see who they were. Yeah, I was a nosy bitch.
And just as I dragged out the shelving of my last book—a dreadful compendium of local nineteenth century tax records and census information—I heard soft tittering.
Yes!
They were leaving. Perfect timing.
A moment later, the girl came out first, one I vaguely recognized—a tall, skinny blonde with a pink streak in her hair, in a Wellshire University hoodie and yoga pants. No surprise there—she looked like every other pretty girl on campus. No, what got me was when I realized she was followed by not one guy… but two. A burly dude with shaggy brown hair wearing jeans and a tight blue t-shirt, and a lean, athletic guy wearing basketball shorts and a New York Knicks shirt. Did I know him? Maybe from freshman English? James was possibly his name?
’Course, he had no idea of mine.
It didn’t matter though, because I’d just heard a real ménage a trois.
I knew of such encounters. But they were kind of like advanced-level sex. Top shelf stuff. And while I wouldn’t have minded a threesome of my own, I had to first work my way off the bottom-most shelf, where I was stuffed in the back, out of sight and forgotten. There were mountains to climb before I could hope for anything so fancy.
But a girl could dream.
The trois were chatting and laughing on their way out, and the ‘maybe’ James noticed me staring. He smiled and winked, putting a finger to his perfect, still-moist lips.
I quickly looked away, heat washing over my embarrassed face. I had so many questions.
Sex with two guys? How does that even work? And beyond that, how was such a thing even arranged? Was one of them her boyfriend and the other his friend?
Or were the guys together and they invited the girl for a walk on the wild side?
Lucky bitch. I didn’t know what sex with one guy was like, much less two.
Not for lack of trying, or interest, at least on my part. It just hadn’t happened yet.
And I wasn’t sure how to make it happen. I mean, was it the kind of thing where someone just walked up to you on the way to class one day, all casual, saying, “Hi, I’m Matt. We’re in chemistry together. Wanna have sex?”
I’d been in line at the dining hall a few days earlier and overheard a guy on his cell. “Bro, you have to come up and visit some weekend. Seriously, you just fall into pussy here. It’s almost like you can’t avoid it.”
What?
Really?
How was this part of college life passing me by?
I took a despondent, deep breath, inhaling more of the reference room dustiness than I should have, and waited until I was sure the girl and two guys were gone. I approached the end of the stack where they’d been carrying on, slowly, unsure of what I might find there. One of the duties of all library employees, no matter where you were in the hierarchy, was to make sure the place remained spotless. No coffee cups or stray books were to be left behind.
No condoms or bodily fluids, either, I imagined. Although they’d never been specifically mentioned.
But I was pleased to see the happy little group had left no trace of their deed. There was not only no sign that they’d messed around, I couldn’t even tell anyone had been in the vicinity.
These guys were pros.
Satisfied, I headed for the elevator to get back to the main library floor, painfully sensitized to the couples and groups around me, with their little touches indicating familiarity and affection—hugs, kisses, hellos, goodbyes, footsies under the tables, the occasional lob of a balled-up piece of paper—all indications of connections being made that might lead to sex.
Every Wellshire student seemed to have found his or her match—or matches.
Everyone except me.
When I’d dumped the cart and returned to the check-out desk, my co-worker Angelo grabbed me by the arm so hard it hurt. “Birdie, you won’t believe the shit I just saw,” he hissed.
Ha. For once, I had a story of my own. Angelo was going to be proud. And I was willing to bet it topped anything he had seen. But to be nice, I raised my eyebrows and invited him to continue.
“Right when I got here, when I’d just clocked in,” he said breathlessly, “I found two guys on the first floor making out. Like, hot and heavy, you know? Right in the poetry aisle. The boss saw them, too.”
Oops.
Our boss, who’d been at the school since before most of us current students were even born, was easily shocked, and I could only imagine what such a sighting might do to her. On the other hand, it was funny to think that someone could spend so much time around horny college undergrads and still be a prude.
“Oh my god,” I said. “And in the poetry section!”
“Exactly.” Angelo laughed. “So. Hot. I wanted to join them so bad. They were super-cute.”
The boss considered poetry sacred. She would not have thought it hot.
“Anyway, thanks again for covering for me earlier,” he added.
“Sure. Anytime. Hope you got your paper done.”
It wasn’t like my calendar was bursting with stuff to do anyway, aside from exam dates and crap like that.
But Angelo—like everyone else around me—was having lots of sex, which only solidified what had become my opinion about the social scene at Wellshire U.
If you were a guy?
Sex.
If you were a girl in a sorority?
Sex.
If you were a girl with big boobs?
Sex.
If you were a girl with blonde hair?
Sex.
If you were a nerdy girl with curly brown hair?
No sex for you!
College had been great for me on an academic level. I’d hit the dean’s list three semesters running. I enjoyed working at the library, and I adored my roommate Jessa and her BFF Roxy. But there was something missing from my life, even beyond wanting a hand to hold or mouth to kiss or a guy to Netflix and chill with.
I still had an ache deep inside that desperately needed to be scratched.
Preferably by a hard dick.
