The stacks are not unfamiliar to me. I don't come here every day, but I've been to Wayne's study carrel many times over the years, and I often help him find obscure volumes while he works on his final degree. Not all scholastic works are online yet. Some are still only found in real hardcopy books. I know how to get around in this vast library with its millions of volumes.
We will soon be leaving this all behind when he gets his Ph.D in Geophysics. Tonight I need to see him before I go to work in the computer room of the University Hospital. I can't call him on his cell phone. Not if he's studying in the carrel. It's around 9:30 in the evening and my shift starts at 11:00 o'clock. I dislike texting if I need to talk.
My bare feet make little sound on the heavy concrete floor. I take my shoes off whenever I can. It's a freeing feeling for me. I often come upon little surprising vignettes in the stacks. Lovers and others playing their games. I just smile and pass them by. It's a playground for many who should be studying hard, like my Wayne.
As I approach his carrel, I hear an odd sound. I slow down and near him and then cannot believe what I'm seeing. My fiance is slowly humping into some girl, her skirt up over her butt, panties down, and him with his pants still mostly up, using his trouser fly opening to release his hard prick. Obviously, he'd been in a hurry to get down to business. The fucking asshole!
Maybe it's just me. My personality. I don't make a sound. I don't scream or hit him or anything. I turn and walk quietly away as the tears are starting to ooze out of my eyes. He doesn't even know I was there.
All our hopes and dreams. My hopes and dreams, I guess. Working so hard to get him through school so that then we could start living. Get married and find the perfect job for him. Maybe allow me to go back to college. I don't know. My dreams all falling apart.
I always thought I was the only woman he had been with. At least, he never mentioned any other girlfriends. We met as frosh at another university and we've been together ever since. I quit school and started working to keep us going. Our families were happy to let us get along on our own with the costs of school what they are.
That is over. That is over, for good or bad. I've been royally screwed and not in a good way.
Then I see this stranger dude lying across the walkway through the stacks with a few piles of books around him. He looks like some little Sartre wannabe. No matter. He's cute enough. He'll do for me right now. I walk up to him, look down, and say, "Hey, I have something to show you. Mind following me for a minute? You won't be sorry.."
He looks up at me, squinting slightly. "What? Am I blocking the aisle?"
"No, no. Come on. Get up. This is important. Do I look like a serial killer?" I smile. I can be rather pretty when I smile.
Leaning over, I take his warm hand. He slowly stands up and I drag him down the aisle and around the end of the stack. There's a small alcove behind it formed by a buttress extending from the outer wall up against the shelving from behind.
"Wha... what? Okay, what is going on?" he demands to know.
It gets cool, and stays cool, in the computer room where I work.