Originally published By Virgin Black Lace in the anthology entitled Sugar and Spice, 1997.
Edited by Kerri Sharp and published here with kind permission.

In Pursuit of Knowledge

I watched the clock on my desk. The hand paused, then flicked forward suddenly, pacing over the clock face like an erratic heartbeat. My own heartbeat mirrored its mood, controlled as it was by the images in my mind. I was thinking about him. I was thinking about his skin. I could almost feel its touch on mine. His skin against my skin, both against my body, and inside.

My eyes focused on the long, smooth, jerking needle of time. Its movement began to twitch against my aching sex, and I rode the ripple of sensation that climbed from there, stretching back in my chair.

Mercifully, it wasn't long until I would see him again. I closed out the familiar surroundings of the office, abandoning it for something more appealing. Barbara, the technical director, was humming to herself as she tidied her desk for the close of the day. I allowed her image to blur and fade, smiling to myself as his image settled in my mind. It was the picture that remained from that first time my eyes had touched on him across the space of the library. He was striking but contained, vigorous yet controlled. Delicious.

His long dark hair fell loosely against the column of his neck and my eyes had climbed up, along the dramatic sweep of his hard jaw, across the angle of his cheekbones, and into the intent look of his amber green eyes. One long, firm finger gently stroked at his elegant mouth as he pored over his book. It seemed to brush the surface of my own lips, as it touched against his. The space between us began to dissolve. I felt cool air rush across my tongue as my lips tingled and parted. I wanted him.

It had been three months since I had first spied him. I always went to the City Library on a Tuesday evening, reading for my part-time degree course; bringing alive my own world of literature and philosophy within that arena of grander ideas. I had always found the womb-like atmosphere both comforting, and stimulating. The atmosphere seeped forth with a feast of ideas and images; the walls heavy with mental nutrition, stimulation for life. I could visit the scenes in the books my spirit chose to enter. I could smell the heavy, pungent incense of Eastern love dens, sense the fragrance coursing through my body. Or taste the fruits of exotic lands, their juices flowing down my face and neck as I bit into their lush, tactile flesh. I would open books and gently draw their questions into my mind. Questions that I would strive and strive with until, finally, the release came and the answers would sparkle, and flood through me. Then, one day, I looked up, and I saw him.

He always sat in the same place, the third seat from the right at the long, heavy, polished wood table set down the library's centre aisle. When he rose to look for a book my eyes followed his long, lean frame. His legs were always encased in black jeans. Broken-in jeans, worn to the form of his body, outlining the angles and planes of his slim hips. He wore loose draped shirts that exposed his elegant collarbone to my eager eyes. The material flowed over his chest, as if it was my very hands touching his skin.

As the summer moved from gauzy sun-filled evenings to the humid dusk of late September, I gradually moved closer, abandoning my favourite desk in the shadowy corner of ancient history, to move out into the more exposed central corridor, where he sat.

'Is it a new man, Zoe?' Barbara had asked when she noticed my increasing haste to leave the office. She gave a knowing smile and watched with amusement, occasionally commenting on my clothes or hair as I left the office; reminding me that she had noticed. She noticed too when I began to attend the library more frequently. By chance I found out that he studied there three nights a week. One of the librarians had come to his seat to discuss the availability of a book he had requested. I lowered my head but lifted my attention when she began to flirt openly with him.

'I'll keep it under the desk for you then,' she offered. Several curious readers had turned to observe the conversation, but her blatant simpering seemed to have little effect on him. He gave a cool, polite smile in response to her suggestive pout.

'Don't worry. If it's not here by Thursday, I'll be in again on Friday.'

His voice was quiet but resonant. I savoured its sound and tried not to show my amusement when he returned to his book, and dismissed the woman in doing so. My mind took the knowledge and my timetable, my life rhythm, altered, to meet his. The next night I moved closer still.

I sat facing him at the table, but some three spaces away, where I could best admire his profile over the lowered corner of my current text. He was so very intent. Would he be like this as a lover? In my mind's eye I replaced the rather grand surroundings of the library with a more intimate scene, where he arched over my naked body with similar intensity. My inner sex began to contract in response. I had shifted in my seat, my thighs crossing and uncrossing in an attempt to ease the raging desire I felt inside. He had glanced up. His eyes locked with mine. Electric. He returned to his book, but he also stepped outside himself. He was interested, curious. I could sense him taking my presence in. For nights it was enough to absorb the glorious knowledge of his awareness, and the feelings I got when his eyes raised up to trace a warm passage over my body.

Then I wanted to know more about him. I looked down at the book in his hand. I couldn't make out the title and on impulse I stood up. My body wavered when he glanced up to follow its passage. I pushed back my chair, pleasure sweeping up beneath the touch of his gaze on my body, and sidled out of the containment. I circled the table, weaving in and out of the bookshelves. My fingers caressed the spines of the books as I passed, my eyes constantly drawn back to him, taking in the look of him from all angles. He glanced up occasionally to follow my passage, but my body told me he was really watching all the time. I stood in the aisle behind his seat. What was he reading? I wanted to see inside his mind while I touched his body. My fingers rested on the subtly ridged spine of a leather-bound book, but my eyes were still on him. He flexed his back and my hand closed on the book in response. I wanted to touch him instead. His head moved slightly, he was looking for me. I wanted to touch his hair. I slid one finger over the top of the book and drew it out. What was he reading? I imagined talking across a pillow to him, in between making love. My body was burning up with the idea of it.

I began to wonder if I could get near enough to see the books lying in front of him, without succumbing to my desires. The deep throbbing emanating from inside was a demand so hot it was beginning to take control. I reminded myself to breathe. I began to move towards him again, my heart racing dramatically, as if to reach him before I did. When I got close he turned around towards me and I realised that the book I had been holding had slid from my hand and fallen on the floor. We both stared down at the book and then I dropped down to retrieve it, just as he leaned over.

'Thank you,' I heard myself say as I took the book from his hand.

We were inches apart, I could barely breathe.

'Any time,' he replied.

The ambiguity of his statement was reflected in the suggestive expression in his eyes. I took a deep breath and stood up. My body was tense with containment as I regained my footing and continued on my path. With his eyes on me like that I didn't think I could even try to see the books, but a title rose up to meet my eyes over his shoulder as I passed: Anthropology and Understanding Another book beneath exposed only one word: Behaviour. As I got to the end of the table I tried to control my smile. Not philosophy, but even better: the mind thinking about relationships, about people, about the body. I wanted him to study mine. As I sat down again he turned a page, but he wasn't looking at the words, he was looking at me.

The next night I rushed into the gloomy entrance hall of the library and bumped into somebody reading the notice boards.

'Sorry!' I said with a laugh, then paused and quietened when I saw that it was him.

He had been waiting to step out of the shadows, to catch me as I came in, I was sure of it. He put his hand on my arm to steady me and was looking at me with desire in his eyes, I could see it plainly. The hand on my arm may have been the only thing holding me up.

'My fault entirely,' he murmured. His hand stroked my arm gently before letting go, it was the touch of an intimate lover, stroking me on the inside as well. After a few moments he moved to hold the door open for me. As I passed my body slowed and brushed against his. I couldn't decide which was more magnetic, the look in his eyes at that moment, or the mutual pull between our hips as they came so close together.

I sat one seat away from him. It was so close that I couldn't risk staring, only glancing occasionally to reassure my eyes that he was there. My body already knew that he was. I was aware that he was observing me from under half-lowered eyelids. I dragged my eyes from the attractive outline of his hands to look at the book they held. He seemed to read my thoughts because he lifted the book, so that I could see the cover. I recognised it immediately. It was the biography of Anäis Nin - the Queen of erotica - that lay on my own shelf, at home. My heart missed a beat. So, he wanted to know about women's desires, about women and sex. I wanted him to know me.

I lowered my book and stretched one arm out, flexing my shoulders and loosening my neck muscles with a sweeping curve of movement. He looked directly at me. His lips curled. I don't know who had smiled first. He put his book down and stretched back in the chair, giving me a look at the long, lean line of his torso as he moved. We began then to move in direct and immediate response to one another - the dance had truly begun.

The sound of Barbara snapping shut her briefcase called me back to the present moment. I returned from the landscape of memory and looked again at the clock. It was five. At last. I closed the file I had been working on, stood up and grabbed my things.

'The library again?' Barbara asked.

'Knowledge is power,' I replied flippantly.

She just laughed. 'When am I going to meet this mystery man of yours?' she asked, as we headed for the door.

'I haven't met him properly yet,' I replied. Barbara shook her head, smiled and waved as she walked off towards her car. She was heading out of the city, I was going deeper into it. I would be at the library by half past five. He would already be there, and I planned to sit opposite him. I ran for the bus.

The humid skies began to open as I stepped off the crowded bus. I hastened my speed but didn't escape the rain. When I got inside the huge mahogany doors I paused to catch my breath. Glancing down, I saw that the light cotton of my dress was splattered with rain drops. I pushed my damp hair back from my face and composed myself before going on. He sat back in his chair, staring blatantly at me as I walked towards him. I tried to appear as nonchalant as I could, but it was difficult, because his bold stare told me he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

I focused my eyes on the seat I was heading for, my heart racing. In the corner of my vision I caught a barely perceptible movement and the chair I was aiming for suddenly shot out in front of me. I stopped, rooted to the spot. He must have pushed it out with his foot. The back of my neck prickled with sensation, his invitation was so clear that it scared me a little. I glanced at him; he was smiling, his eyes sparkling with amusement. I managed to get to the chair.

Before I sat down, I put my bag on the table. He was looking at my dress, through it, where the rain drops had clung to the plane of my breasts through the light material. I drew the book out of my bag and put it on the table: The Gender Gap and How to Enjoy the Distance. As I sat down I caught his eye as it came up from the book cover. He raised one eyebrow and his smile twitched and curled to one side. To my annoyance I felt myself blush.

I picked up the book and hurried through the pages, trying to focus on some words, but they eluded me as my eyes caught a movement opposite. He was reading from the Nin biography again, he was nearing the end and his fingers caressed the corner of the book in gentle, even strokes, back and forth. I watched the movement a while, each stroke going right down across my body, then deep inside me. I wanted him to touch me there.

When I re-focused I saw that he had been watching me as I stared at the book. My eyes traced the line of his hand where it rested against his face and then looked at his lips; my hand stealing up to touch my neck, where I wanted to feel his mouth on me. He watched the movements of my fingers and I felt compelled to lead his eyes with them, stroking down across the neckline of my dress, teasing the skin on my collarbone, my arm brushing across my hot, aching breasts. His gaze lingered there a moment and when he looked up again, there was an invitation in his eyes. A challenge. I met it.

I stood up, gently closing The Gender Gap and went off to the twentieth-century literature shelves. The material of my dress swayed and rippled over my thighs as I moved, prickling at the alert skin there, a constant reminder of my body's state of arousal. I knew the book I wanted and thankfully a copy of it was there. It was Nin's: The Four-Chambered Heart. I leaned up against the shelves and looked down at the cover. I wondered if he had read it. The man in the story was not unlike him, with dark gypsy looks. The lovers met in the gloomy, moist hollow of a barge on the river. They were contained in the boat, as we were in this space in the library. The shifting water of their river was like the sweet rain that was lapping at the tall windows. My body rippled and moved away from it's mooring at the shelf.

Was I brazen enough to carry it off? As I walked back I encouraged myself to carry on with the game, but I paused and grabbed another book to use as cover, in case my courage deserted me. I glanced down at the title: Is Castration the Answer to Crime? Oh God! I abandoned it. I would just have to rely on my courage.

Again he watched as I returned, his book half raised in front of him. I put Nin down on the table between us, taking a deliberate step forward in the game. His eyes rose from the cover to meet mine. The look was pure sex. He knew!

As I sat down we stared openly at each other, reciprocated desire cruising the airwaves back and forth across the table. The knowledge of it surged through me. I was so hot! I could barely open the book with my hands for wanting to touch him instead. He was flexing his shoulders rhythmically, as if poised for action. My whole body pulsed with need, the nerves beneath my skin dancing in anticipation, the blood positively hummed in my veins.

My hips rocked instinctively forward, my sex reaching for contact against the hard surface of the chair. His eyes followed the movement of my body and then slowly raised back up to meet mine. His look was so intense that I felt an urge to climb over the table and straddle him there and then. I closed my eyes, but his image was still imprinted against the warm red of my eyelids. A voice disturbed me from my trance and I opened my eyes. He was sitting as before, but had turned towards the main desk. The voice was on the loudspeaker.

'The library will be closing in ten minutes.'

I turned to the desk to see the librarian's mouth moving, to prove it to myself. Damn. Where had the time gone? His eyes were flickering with thought, he didn't want it to end yet either. A decision had to be made, should we step back or go forwards? The answer was there, we didn't words to say it. He stood up. So did I.

He walked down one of the aisles, turning his head occasionally to see if I followed, and stopped in the gloom at the end of the aisle. His hand went up to the books, as if he was looking for something. I stopped about two feet away from him and did the same, the titles blurring in front of my eyes as my heart raced. His fingers slipped across to mine. I leapt at the touch and gasped as he grabbed my hand, pulling me over to him. His other hand climbed up my back, drawing me close. His mouth fell to mine. The kiss, the kiss, the long awaited kiss. As his lips parted I slid my tongue into his mouth, to meet with his, to make the vital connection. My body was trembling, so heavily aroused that I felt weak. The contact between us was so very good, I pressed closer against him, breathing in the musk of his skin, our bodies merging together in the deep physical embrace.

'This is crazy,' he murmured, as his mouth slid down against my neck. His voice was husky, heavy with desire.

'Yes,' I replied. Yes, yes, yes! I wanted to be set free, like all the words flying out from the pages of the books in the library. I wanted him to open the books and release me.

He pulled back and looked at me, his hand sliding along neckline of my dress where I had led his eyes before, then it dropped to the outline of my breasts. I stroked my hands through his hair and let the heavy look of unleashed desire in his eyes weigh on me. My lips parted as his touch closed on my aching nipples, freeing a quiet moan. His body flexed in response and then he meshed his fingers with mine, turned down a narrow corridor and drew me along behind him. He reached out to try each door handle we passed, until, finally, one opened. As the door clicked open he turned and looked at me with a question in his eyes.

'Are you sure about this?' he asked, his expression alert but controlled.

The amber-flecked green of his eyes flickered, awaiting my reply. God he was gorgeous! I felt myself opening up inside with an urgent demand: I was begging for him there. I smiled in reply, then pushed the door open and walked into a tiny room.

All that was visible was a clutter of equipment and a small window high up on the wall that let some moonlight fall over an old desk. He shut the door and stood in the corridor of mottled light that fell through the glazed panel from outside. I leaned up against the desk to steady myself as he walked through the junction of light from the corridor and the window, and I felt his body close on me. The air seemed to be filled with the energy-force between our bodies, it positively hummed with anticipation.

He pulled me up against him, kissing me fiercely while his body pushed mine against the desk. My hands began to discover him, sliding over his shoulders and down his back, our arms entwining as they crossed paths in exploration. His body was slim and wiry, leanly coiled muscle covering his limbs and torso; suggesting vitality, energy. His hips were hard, the dip of muscle that would drive him inside my body flexing beneath my hand. Perfection.

'I want you,' I murmured against his hair as his mouth descended to my throat.

'That's good,' he said and his hands moved down from my neck, to my shoulders and around my breasts, closing over them, dragging frantically at the material as they passed. I hummed my approval and he pulled back, reached down, and lifted the loose material of my dress, sweeping it over my head. I felt the swish and sway of the fabric, the gentle tug over my breasts and then the cool air moved around my body in its place.

'All I could do was look at you. You're so beautiful,' he whispered, as his hands traced the outline of my figure. My breath seemed to be caught on the edge of his fingers, drawn along my skin in their wake, slowly, painfully.

'So are you,' I breathed in response. 'But we're here now, aren't we?' I smiled and reached for his lips with my fingers. I felt him smile beneath their touch, then he pushed them away to reach for my breasts with his mouth. His warm breath travelled across my skin and I felt the gentle stirring of his lips covering my nipple. As his mouth enclosed me the touch of his urgent desire rose up from deep within him and soared through me, commuting through the channel at my breast and travelling from there, throughout my body. The touch was like torture. I wanted more.

I drew back, forcing him to rise up to me again, tugging at his shirt. He pulled at the buttons and I drew the rough linen off him, covering him instead with the warm strokes of my hands. He was lean and beautiful and I was going to have him. My palms rested over the hard, dark outline of his nipples, stroking him as I reached forward to take a taste of him, following a salty trail across his skin with my tongue. The musk of his skin was seeping into my own, intoxicating me. He moaned and flexed, I could feel the urgency of his desire beneath my touch and the power of it flowed through me.

He was angled towards me, his knee climbing against the desk, enclosing my hips with his thigh, the tension in his body building ever higher. His hands entwined in my hair as my hips rocked into his, absorbing the dense heat of his loins, savouring the feeling of a contained energy force. He was going to join us together with that force, soon. My teeth tugged gently at his erect nipple.

'Christ woman, I have to be inside you,' he said urgently and his voice shot along that interior path that he wanted to travel.

I was so very wet with wanting! I leaned back on the moonlit desk, resting on my elbows, and my shoes fell to the floor with a soft thud. The skin of my thighs fluttered and trembled as he climbed over them with stalking hands. His fingers lingered momentarily around the lace-edged tops of my stockings and then slowed their search in the heat that they met at the top of my thighs. One hand curved over the triangle of silk that lay between us and my body rose up into its hollow, rocking my throbbing sex against him. He slipped a finger over the edge of the silk, then stripped it along the length of my legs, taking my breath with it. His fingers travelled back along my thighs and dipped down into the curve of my sex, like a tongue wanting to taste, opening me gently to his touch. I had to have more. The waiting was unbearable!

My hips pushed forward and my head fell back against the desk, my feet climbing up against the desk drawers for support. He jerked one out for me to brace against and as I found the foothold my legs fell open. He stroked the moist heat of my sex and then one finger ran against my jutting clitoris. Deep and heavy rhythms spread around his fingertip, then lunged and swayed up through my pelvis. He watched as the movements of his fingers wavered over my face and sounded through my body in the low moans that escaped me. It felt so good and he knew it did. He stroked his hands along the length of my body, then knelt down in front of me. I felt the cool air against my hot aching flesh and then his firm lips covered me. Ecstasy.

He gently sucked and then engulfed my clitoris with his mouth, moving rhythmically, spreading sensation wide and deep. In my mind I saw an image of a book falling open on the desk, pages beginning to stir in a gentle breeze. Sensation charged up across my body from his lips, my entire skin alive to his touch, each nerve ending turning in response to the questing tongue that reached inside. Words flew backwards and forwards as the breeze waved the pages. I wanted to read the words more closely. I wanted to write them.

'Now, now,' I whispered and pulled gently at his hair. He stood up and stripped off his jeans. His penis stood erect in the moonlight. The gleaming shaft arched itself from his body, charged with divine white light and power. I wanted the thrust and energy of it inside me and reached for him. He looked at me with passionate words in his eyes. Poetry.

He ran the thick strong line of his shaft along the damp lips of my sex, and rocked it there, pressing it hard between our bodies, sending wild shock waves through me. I was burning up with need, I could hear the whimper in my own breathing. My hands climbed up his arms in desperation, my body writhing beneath his. He pressed the swollen tip of his penis into the entrance of my sex flesh. I gasped, but he held the position, stretching his arms out either side of me on the desk. Then he slowly moved the engorged head of his penis into that oh so sensitive place, until I felt positively desperate - he was driving me insane with desire!

I pulled at his shoulders, my legs enfolding him, drawing him inside. He gave a low groan and thrust deep into me, pushing up against my moist aching sex with his beautiful sweet hardness. It felt so very, very good. For a moment, I couldn't even move. His hair fell around my face, closing me into its shifting cave, and his mouth reached for mine, sharing with me the flavour of my own desire. It echoed through my body and my sex quivered and clenched in response. A quiet gasp escaped him when he felt that gentle embrace. Then he reached for it again and I reached for him, our bodies taking each other in the rhythm of the dance. He rode the rhythm, passing in and out of the moonlight to meet, to meet me. Leading me, leading me back and forth. Moving with subtle precision, he timed our collisions so very perfectly; until I felt as if I would come, each, and every time, the head of his penis crushed against me, so very deep inside. Striding, striding, we were riding the rhythm together, chasing each other's thrusts, matching one for one.

A hot volcanic rock had lodged itself in my pelvis and smouldered there. It was getting ready to seep forth its hot lava; stirring, rising up, ready for release. My finger nails began to lock on his back, ready to clasp him to me, before he was taken away. The words on the page faded in and out of focus, then began to blaze into white light. I felt his teeth sink into my shoulder as our tempo increased and we began to race for the prize. Racing for it, out of reach; but blistering, blistering on the horizon. Oh such sweet, sweet, torment.

Then, suddenly, the light in the corridor went out and we were plunged into a deeper concealment. Our movements paused and I became aware of the entwined partnership of our heavy, aroused breathing. His outline began to return to my sight, illuminated gently by the moonlight that fell from the window.

'It looks as if we're locked in until morning,' he whispered.

The library was ours! My body began to stir and undulate against his, encouraging his vibrant rhythms to take hold of me again.

'Good,' I said. I wanted to keep him inside.