Innocence

I set my feet firmly upon the ground and ignited my constitution. Exams were upon me, and I needed to study.

Walking to the library, I remembered how short I was on cash, and wondered whether the necklace was really a good idea. "I am such an idiot." And I was supposedly bound to reason, huh.

That night I became a dedicated hermit again, escaping completely to the pages I so desired to become. I sat at my table with a large stack of books, my nose buried. It was a pleasant, quiet evening and I became focused, digesting line after line of classic poetry.

It was a talent I had...clearing my mind. Yes, I could have been angry, yes I could have been plotting revenge, but it would have been a waste of time. I had Milton to read, and I knew that a minute like this was time more precious than a decade plotting revenge (especially since I was actually assigned Chaucer).

My mind was clear, the book was cracked, and I was delving deep into concentration. With such a flurry of emotion put on hold, I softened into something closer to my usual self. Sorrow was lifted for a moment. It was a welcome relief, a perfect moment for a nuisance to invaded my Zen-like sphere.

Footsteps.

They appeared on the other side of the room. Grrr. I tried not to lose focus.

I couldn't help it. The sound meandered from one side of the room to the other. A book slid from the shelf and was then returned...more steps. "Just my luck." I remember closing my eyes, trying to will whoever it was to leave me in peace. "Why tonight?"

It was almost numinous. It was wonder. It was the minute possibility that I could not extinguish...

"Is that Vanessa?"

Ever since her first visit to my special place trips to the library were afflicted with a slight degree of background radiation thanks to Vanessa's descriptions. "Could she dare arrive again?" The mind had to ask. Her writing appeared in my head...

I slipped in unnoticed and walked to the rear corner. I lifted my skirt and pulled my panties down around my ankles, placing them in my purse. My body temperature was already rising.

If I had recalled these words with titillation before, they were now met with just as much fury. I listened closely. The footsteps were soft. They sounded female, perhaps. I could not see anything but rows of books. Try as I might, the thought could not escape. If I was a paranoid schizophrenic, so be it. I knew she could be here. What if she was standing in this room? The possibility destroyed me. I flipped a page and waited. They shuffled along another aisle.

Her sentences enveloped me. I couldn't help it. Passages from her entries began unintentionally filling my mind.

I was a predator, moving closer. My heart was pounding against my chest like a pile driver.

I was ashamed that I could recite almost every line by heart. My chest was thumping. She had seen my thoughts. I had seen hers. Was it her? No. I had to forget about it.

I looked down and, to my dismay, the words became scrambled on the page again. Useless. Thud. I closed the assigned book and pulled out another, resting it open in front of me. Maybe a little Heinlein will help. That one was definitely not part of my required reading...

Nope...there would be no study, only pondering...wasting of time, probably. I was disposed, sitting completely still, running over her words in my mind...

I knew what I had to do. This time I relaxed. I took my time, slowly edging my way toward him down the aisle, holding the open book in front of me.

Could she really have pawned off that entry? Could she have relayed the scenario and let Jim do her dirty work? It was possible. Anger. But even so, "no, it couldn't actually be her," I thought. It was probably the librarian. Yet, a twinkle of doubt/faith was all it took. Fear, passion, loathing, dread, curiosity swelled until I was a motionless mess. The footsteps moved slowly across the adjacent aisle. Soon they would be on the other side.

I waited.

I lowered in my chair. There was a small window between the books.

Oh shit.

Blue.

Was it a skirt?

It was. I think.

Oh no.

Stockings.

I breathed deeply and deliberately. The words thrashed through my skull.

I was a predator, moving closer. My heart was pounding against my chest like a pile driver.

I was frozen as the figure materialized in the corner of my eye. It's familiarity sent shock waves through my body. The figure that appeared was so plainly Vanessa that the flicker out of the corner of my eye was enough to confirm it. I had imagined this scene in my head so many times, but not quite like this.

I was a stone statue.

As she approached I imagined the exact words she had written. I wanted to know that they were flowing though her mind. I imagined the condition of her heart, her flesh. It had to be true. But no, it didn't, not anymore. The publisher...Jim. She could be doing this for money, for Jim...for nothing at all. My heart suddenly swelled with rage. I felt the blazing power of her presence swell into a rampaging army of either the truest passion or the most wicked deception. So natural, so unbelievably calm, as if she was built for this...as if she was completely immune to the brand of insanity ravaging my spirit and senses. How could it be? How was she built for such a thing? It was obvious that she was as natural as a flowing field of wheat.

Could she be exploding with desire inside?

It was just as likely that she was completely heartless.

I was his desire incarnate, and I was begging him. So close. Only a few feet. He was perfectly still now. My body was sex.

Regardless, her legs were sweet honey before me as I frantically tried to sense her thoughts. She must have known mine. She did know mine. I could not know hers, not with certainty. She wanted to do this to me. She wanted me to be torn apart in my silent prison with lust and rage as her luscious body floated so dangerously close. In either case, she wanted to own me.

"But no, Magnus, she does give a shit about you. It was all an evil trick to roll you for cash." Now, right here, I was falling for it again, despite myself. "Idiot..."

She swayed with careless abandon, right, then left. No matter what, I could not help assaulting her again, just like before, every inch penetrated with carnivorous intensity. Something suddenly became abundantly clear: She may be an angel, or she may be Satan incarnate, either way she was my prey.

This was it. It was time. I reached so high and lowered my torso. Oh, God, my pussy was drenched. Such awful, terrible truth.

She reached high and I split her legs with my eyes as the pleats bounced. Once, twice, oh god, again. A split second, and the image was locked once again. Stored permanently, now smooth. My senses were becoming intensely acute, my erection, throbbing. The imaginative portions of her literature invoked a hostile invasion:

I wanted him. 2...3... Oh, I needed him. 4...5... I hardly noticed his firm hands cup both of my tender breasts. I shuddered and bit my lip as his cock suddenly thrust into my shimmering lips, sinking deep into my flooded inferno.

Her words said she wanted it. She wanted it hard, suddenly, and immediately. I was asked to unbutton my pants, pull out my love muscle, and plunge it into her aching pussy. Right there in the library. Or, it was Jim fucking with me, and using Vanessa to do it. The room was empty. Someone could walk by any minute.

I wanted to feel his cock explode inside me. The thought consumed me.

I was attacking her already with my eyes as she stood there, inches from my face. She placed one hand on the shelf in front of her and bent over slightly to look at the spines in front of her. I wondered if I had one. Her bald beaver was now almost visible as she combed the shelf in front of her.

My mind was racing. I pondered every rationalization for the action I wanted so desperately to commit: "If she is true, I will give her what she needs. If she is Satan, I will use her like the worthless whore she is..."

That was good enough. I decided to do it...right there. I was going to stand, unzip my fly, place both hands on her breasts, and fuck her with every ounce of ferocity that had accumulated over the past several months. I would not hold back, but destroy her. I did not care that we were in a library. I was prepared to go to jail. I looked at her smooth legs elevating into her skirt.

It was time. My heart pounded through my chest.

I rose slowly and stood behind her.

I placed one hand on my belt.

The anger was raging within. It was the rage tasted with Maria, then Jen, then Linda. As I began to unbuckle my belt, it grew suddenly to an earthquake of insanity, pounding between my ears and throughout my body. "NO" echoed in my skull.

"I will not submit to her. Never. Not in any way. I can not. I will not." I recalled a line from Emerson: "No law is sacred to me but that of my nature." He was right. My nature did not allow me to risk total destruction on account of my impulses or imagination. "My nature is virtue, love, life, and truth." It sounds ridiculous, but that's what I thought. I knew it was somehow not up to me. I simply could not submit to Vanessa, I could not submit to anyone or anything at all. I realized why I could not. I do not live in service to any of those things...they exist because I will them to. It is my action that allows virtue, love, life, and truth to exist in the first place. Even if I did not ask for the power I had been given, it was my duty to accept it, to control it. It was my obligation to wield it with all my strength. I could not accept her delicate flesh, her desperate, open body. I could not accept that second part of my rationalization. If she was true, she was not a worthless whore. Reason does not play favorites. The permission I had been granted was useless until she understood...until I knew she understood...until she proved herself. Time seemed to stop as all these things blazed through my mind.

She turned slightly, with a book in her hand, acting as if she had just noticed me.

"Oh, hi Magnus. How are you?"
"Hi Vanessa. Just fine." My shirt covered my half-opened belt buckle.
"Sorry, am I in your way?"
"Oh, not at all, just need this one here..."

I reached beside her to grab a book indiscriminately. I smiled as graciously as possible, her full lips inches from my own as I pulled it from the shelf. She half-smiled, and I saw the yearning in her eyes...something desperate to escape.

"Thank you, Vanessa."
"Magnus, can I show you something?"

"Oh no," echoed somewhere inside. I knew what she wanted to show me. I was weakened at the thought of her breasts, her naked body in front of me. If she revealed any more I didn't know if I could bear it. She knew my heart was pounding. Her face was lush and red. She wanted to show me, to reveal herself. I resisted assumptions. "I can't know that she really wants to strip for me." But, yes, I knew that was her plan. I knew she wanted to drive me wild. The words escaped as if a simple courtesy.

"Yes, I suppose you can."

Her eyes were wicked affection, false innocence, or maybe true. She brought her finger from her neck and slowly down to the book she was holding.

She slid her fingernail beneath a marked page and slowly brought half of the pages to her other hand. As she cradled the book I positioned my glasses. I looked at her, then toward the page. The text was clear. San serif. The words were crystal.

I am yours, Magnus. This is the moment I have lusted for, fantasized about over so many lonely days and nights. Read with intensity. Devour every word like a withdrawn addict. Each was written for you, my sweet. These words are real. They are love. They are sex. They are true. It is not a mystery. I am standing beside you in a frenzy of passion as you consume, pulling every character from the page. I feed you with all my heart. If my heart is Satan's, then it is all I can offer. I can only give what I possess. These words are my blood. You must receive the flames of my love in this way, as I have discovered no other means. Please open yourself to me, Magnus. I give you what I have in any way I know how, and in the truest sense, lest you deprive me...lest you withhold a speck of your sorrow, happiness, rage, or love. I watch you read and desire fills my heart. I feel your power grow inside me. My flesh roils for you at this moment, every centimeter. I remember your words:

Her waist, back, and shoulders begged my eyes to assault her. They did relentlessly. They washed over her smooth elbows, her dainty shoes. No point was spared among the balance of her delicate frame. I contrived an absurd fantasy, as if she was begging me to adore her.

You must know that I was, that I still am. I do beg you to adore me...at every moment. I could already feel you inside me, a moment ago. You must believe I am desperate for you, my sweet. I was ready to push these books through the shelf and experience your restraint unleashed with brutal, visceral severity. Believe that I will crawl through hell to be your whore if that is how you need me. But, you must read these words first. You must comprehend my love for you. You are not in a contrived fantasy. If you are we share that fantasy, and then it is all that is real. All else crumbles to obscurity in its wake.

As I read, my hand moved beneath hers, carrying the book's weight.

As you watched me, you were ashamed that you were dedicated to relieve your curiosity. Why, Magnus? Never be ashamed of the truth. You said:

I needed the truth to live. Without it I was nothing...

The truth can never harm you, so much as it is the truth. Now, I must receive the truth from you. When you are completely finished reading these words, if you trust me, if you accept my offer, you will close the book gently. If you do so, my body becomes life in your service. Indulge in it greedily, as love compels it to delight in your every demand. Magnus, remember that it is your desire, and yours alone, that brings me life. Your love is my greatest and only desire, as I cannot breath without it. You must believe I am ready for you in every way. I will accommodate you in any way you need, not because it is what you want, but because it is necessary. I submit to nothing less than your love, my love. No other. I know that you have these things with or without me. I know others yearn to remove the chains that shackle your heart. If they have the key, please let them use it. Your love is my love. Please, Magnus, trust me. You have every reason not to, but so much to lose. If I cannot be trusted, I ask you to slam the book with all your might, and rest it in my hands. You will never be burdened by me again. Know that, in either case, my love for you is eternal. With unending love and affection, Vanessa.

After I was finished, my eyes were glossy affixed to the page. She was looking up at me, yearning for my slightest response.

I reached across and closed the book as gently as I could.

I set the book on the table, reached in my pocket, and wrapped the necklace around her so the blue gem rested against her delicate flesh.

It was my last minute of innocence.