Bettie Page Presents: The Librarian Read Free Page A

her, Regina’s mother warned her solemnly. Regina had heard the story dozens of times: her mother spoke about how she had “given up her dreams” to support Regina’s father as he went through architecture school and during the early years of his career—and then she got pregnant with Regina. “And your father died and left me holding the bag. No one thinks about worst-case scenarios, Regina. The only one you can depend on is yourself.”
    Regina looked at the clock. It was two in the morning. Five hours until her alarm went off.
    Laughter, and then another moan.
    Regina rolled over on her back, desperate to find her way back to sleep. Her nightgown, a gray cotton shift from Old Navy, was twisted around her waist. She loosened it but kept it above her hips. She stroked her stomach, trying to relax herself, to recapture sleep. And then her hand, as if moving of its own volition, drifted to the edge of her underwear.
    She paused. From the next room, silence.
    Regina moved her hand into her underwear, her fingers touching herself lightly between her legs. The thought of the man just a few feet away on the other side of the wall both excited and distracted her. It had been a long time since a guy had touched her, and her few experiences had been fumbling and unmemorable. Now it was almost impossible for her to imagine someone else’s hand in this exquisitely private and sensitive place, stroking her until she was wet, then pressing inside, moving in and out in just the right way to trigger that powerful release. She moved her hand quickly, the walls of her vagina pulsing against her own finger, her hips moving in tandem. She felt the familiar rush of pleasure, and then lay still against her rumpled comforter. Her heart was pounding.
    What would it be like to have someone else next to her at that moment of climax?
    She was beginning to wonder if she would ever know.

CHAPTER 3
    A girl with dyed red hair and wearing a Columbia University T-shirt handed Regina a crumpled pile of requisition slips.
    â€œSo do I, like, just wait here?” The girl leaned on the desk.
    â€œYou can wait at one of the tables and just watch the board for your number. That will indicate your books are ready for pickup,” Regina said.
    Regina was already addicted to the predictable rhythm of the Delivery Desk: the quiet early mornings, the afternoon hub of activity, and the slow drift in the early evening as people left for dinner—some returning, some gone for the day. She knew she was lucky to spend her days in arguably the most beautiful room in the entire city. And while her job was not intellectually challenging, she did get a certain sense of satisfaction in handing the books over to the eagerly waiting library patrons. She wondered, as she looked out at the rows and rows of people bent over books and laptops, what everyone was working on. Was the next great American novel being written in that room? Was something being invented? Was history being rediscovered?
    And yet sometimes, when there was a lull, she felt fidgety.
    â€œWhy don’t you read something?” asked Alex, a wiry, slightly-awkward-but-cute-in-a-puppy-dog-sort-of-way NYU student who worked part-time running books from the various rooms to the Delivery Desk.
    â€œAre we allowed to read behind here?” she asked.
    â€œNo one’s ever said anything to me,” he said. “And you and I both know Sloan doesn’t miss a chance to jump down our throats. So I’d say yeah, it’s cool.”
    Regina thought maybe she and Alex could be friends, although she’d never had a real guy friend before. Her mother always warned her that guys were never real friends—that they “wanted only one thing.” But Alex did just seem genuinely friendly. Although, she felt she had somehow offended him when he told her that he liked her haircut, that it was “very Bettie Page.” Regina had said, “What’s a