Sex in the Stacks Read Free Page B

the painful sensation.
    She had been wrong about Fillmore. Wrong about Simon. Wrong about herself. Was she wrong about Violet, too? Was Violet the better twin?
    She fought the temptation to give in to tears, not for Simon, but for her pitiful self.
    “Stop,” Violet urged, as if reading her thoughts.  
    Melanie bit her lip and nodded. She swiped away her tears one last time and then hit the button to start the elevator again. She was going to take Violet’s advice and walk through the library lobby as if nothing untoward had happened; business as usual.
    For a few minutes, she had been undone and broken. She didn’t have to stay that way. No one had to know.
    When the elevator doors slid open, she marched, spine straight, toward the exit, where the guards checked bags for stolen books. She glanced behind her back, but Violet, as usual, had disappeared.
    Kevin burst from the stairwell and barreled into her. “Aha!” he cried.
    She shrugged off his touch. “What’s wrong with you?”
    “Where’s Simon?” he demanded.
    “How would I know?” she snapped.
    Kevin scanned her as if searching with a magnifying glass for clues about her activities. She resisted the temptation to check her wrists for marks or to tug on her sleeves to cover them. No way would she reveal to Kevin that she and Simon had gotten kinky in the stacks or that he had almost caught them.
    It never happened.
    “You’ve seen him. Haven’t you?” An accusation, not a question.
    “Actually, Kevin, I haven’t,” she lied.
    “Then what are you doing here?”
    “What do you think?” The snap in her voice surprised her. She never snapped at anyone. She prided herself on being pleasant.
    “You look like you’ve been crying,” he observed.
    “Because I was. Happy?” No use denying it. She expected her eyes were red and puffy. What she didn’t expect was how much she sounded like her combative twin.  
    She softened her tone. “I don’t want you to tell anyone,” she confided, “but I went into the stacks to be alone. Fillmore and I just broke up, and it’s been really hard on me.”
    Maybe leaving Fillmore had been a huge mistake. For all his faults—and she could now see that there were many, not least of all his childish, vindictive streak that had made him try to shame her in front of her colleagues after she’d moved out—at least he had grounded her. She hadn’t strayed into wildness, not once the whole year they were together. With him, she had settled comfortably into an appealing persona—the sweet, pleasingly dull and dorkily eccentric college professor.
    That woman wasn’t plagued by forbidden fantasies about her student or her boss, and she certainly would never lower herself to act on them.
    But you weren’t completely happy.
    She wasn’t happy now either. She didn’t have to fake the tears, fresh and eager to breach the dam of self-possession.
    Kevin shifted uncomfortably and then opened his skinny arms to her. She caught the remorseful furrow of his brow just before he embraced her.  
    “I’m sorry.” He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.  
    She wasn’t sure whether he was apologizing for suspecting her of being Simon’s flavor of the month or for her breakup.
    She pulled away and wiped her face yet again. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to be like this. Especially not here.” She glanced around, hoping no one else saw her little scene. “I think I might head home early.”
    “That might be a good idea,” Kevin said.
    She brushed past him, barely daring to take a breath. She was going to make a clean escape. She was going to get a free pass on her indiscretions, and then she was going to take great care not to repeat them. She almost felt giddy at this unexpected reprieve. She wanted to run out the door and then skip across the quad, but she kept her steps measured and dignified.
    “Um, Melanie,” Kevin called from behind her. His voice was dangerously cold as he said, “You might want to