Bettie Page Presents: The Librarian Read Free

books”—as she put it—could be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. But that’s exactly what it was to her; from the time when she was six and her father had started taking her to the library every Saturday afternoon—not even the New York Public Library, just their small library in Gladwynne, Pennsylvania—Regina had known it was where she belonged. She never went through a phase of wanting to be a schoolteacher, or a veterinarian, or a ballerina; for Regina, it had always been about becoming a librarian. She wanted to be surrounded by the smell of books; she wanted to be responsible for the rows and rows of tidy shelves, for the meticulous cataloguing; she wanted to help people discover the next great novel they would read, or the book that would help them do the research that would earn them a degree or solve an intellectual riddle. She knew this from the time she was little, and she never lost focus.
    And now her dream had come true, as small and ridiculous as it might seem to a woman like Carly Ronak, who had spent her girlhood dreaming of becoming the next Tory Burch.
    â€œGood to hear,” Carly said. “Listen, I’m having a friend over tonight. I hope we won’t be in your way.” What she really meant was that she hoped Regina would have the decency to stay in her bedroom and not get in their way.
    â€œDon’t worry about me. I have a lot of reading to do.”
    â€œOh, and your mother called—twice,” Carly said, handing Regina a purple Post-it note with the message scribbled illegibly in Sharpie ink.
    In an attempt to cut her expenses for the move to New York, Regina had gotten rid of her cell phone. This had the welcome consequence of making it impossible for her mother to contact her twenty-four/seven. Unfortunately, anyone in Regina’s life who happened to have a landline was now paying the price.
    Regina crumpled the note and stuffed it in her pocket.
    â€¢
    Regina woke to the sound of someone breaking into the apartment. At least, that’s what it sounded like to her. And then she realized it was just Carly’s headboard banging into her wall.
    This was accompanied by moaning, and Carly’s no doubt unnecessary cry of “Fuck me!”
    More moaning, this time a man’s voice. The sound of the headboard hitting the wall got harder and faster, and the tenor of their voices seemed indicative of violence rather than pleasure. And then it was silent.
    Regina found herself breathing heavily. She didn’t know whether it was from being startled awake, or from the nature of the sounds she’d been hearing. It was disturbing and arousing at the same time, and this bothered her more than the fact that she was literally losing sleep as a result of her roommate’s sex life.
    She knew she was behind the curve as far as the whole sex thing went; to be a virgin at her age was unthinkable to most people. But it was her reality—a reality that hadn’t bothered her until she moved to New York and realized she was the last one to the party.
    It wasn’t as if she planned never to have sex. She hadn’t taken a chastity pledge or anything. It was more that the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. Her friends back home told her that she walked around oblivious—that guys were always checking her out and would ask her out more often if she made an effort to get out and do things. “You’re so serious all the time,” her friends told her. It’s not that she didn’t want to have fun. It’s more that she was painfully aware that every party she went to was a night of missed studying, and every guy she had a crush on threatened to take her away from what was important: studying. Working hard. Preparing for her future.
    Focus . It was her mother’s mantra. She was quick to tell Regina that boys were nothing but a distraction—“a surefire way to derail your future.” It had happened to