The Librarian
"Overdue books. Overdue desires. The late fees are worth it."
The overdue notice says I owe $47.50.
Three books, eight months overdue. I forgot I even had them—moved apartments twice, and they got buried in boxes I never unpacked. Now I'm standing in the Westbrook Public Library with a stack of paperbacks and enough shame to fill the entire fiction section.
"These are very late, Mr. Hayes."
The librarian examining my books is not what I expected.
She's enormous—easily three hundred pounds, maybe more—packed into a navy cardigan and long skirt that do nothing to hide her size. Her hair is silver, pinned up in an elaborate twist. Her glasses are thick, her face round and surprisingly unlined for someone who must be in her late fifties.
Her nameplate says Margaret Chen, Head Librarian.
Her expression says You are in trouble.
"I know. I'm sorry. I just found them when I was unpacking—"
"Eight months." She stamps something—the stamp makes a satisfyingly aggressive sound. "Do you have any idea what eight months of late fees does to our budget?"
"I said I was sorry—"
"Sorry doesn't fund after-school programs." Another stamp. "Sorry doesn't keep the lights on." She looks up at me, and her eyes are sharp behind those thick lenses. "You'll pay the full amount. Today."
I reach for my wallet, then freeze.
I have $32 in my checking account until Friday.
"Is there, uh—" I swallow. "Is there a payment plan option?"
Margaret Chen does not believe in payment plans.
"This is a library, Mr. Hayes, not a bank." She's led me to her office—a cramped room in the back, walls lined with books, desk buried under papers. "If we let everyone pay in installments, we'd never collect anything."
"I understand that, but I really don't have—"
"Then you'll work it off." She settles into her chair—an oversized thing that creaks under her weight. "Thirty hours of community service. Shelving, cleaning, whatever I need. At minimum wage equivalent, that covers your fine with a bit left over."
"I have a job—"
"Then come evenings. Weekends. I don't care when, as long as the hours get done." She peers at me over her glasses. "Unless you'd prefer I send this to collections?"
I think about my credit score. About the apartment I just moved into, the job I just started, the life I'm trying to build from nothing.
"When do I start?"
I start that evening.
Margaret puts me to work in the stacks—reshelving returns, straightening spines, dusting shelves that haven't been touched in years. It's tedious work, but peaceful. The library is quiet at night, populated only by a few late students and the occasional homeless person seeking warmth.
Margaret supervises from her desk. I can feel her watching me, though she pretends to be focused on her computer.
"You're fast," she says after my first hour.
"I worked at a bookstore in college."
"Hmm." She returns to her screen. "Continue."
I continue.
Over the following weeks, I learn things about Margaret Chen.
She's been head librarian for thirty-one years. Never married—"No time," she says, when I ask. "And no one worth making time for." She lives alone in an apartment above a Chinese restaurant. She speaks four languages fluently and is teaching herself a fifth. She has opinions about the Dewey Decimal System that border on religious.
She's also, I realize slowly, achingly lonely.
It shows in small ways. The eagerness with which she accepts my offer of coffee. The way conversations stretch longer than necessary. The disappointed look when I gather my things to leave.
"Same time tomorrow?" she asks one night.
"I don't have hours left. I finished my thirty yesterday."
Something flickers across her face. Disappointment. Resignation. Acceptance.
"Of course. Well. Thank you for your service, Mr. Hayes." She extends her hand, formal. "Your debt is paid."
I shake her hand. Her palm is soft. Warm.
"What if I wanted to keep coming?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Keep coming. Volunteering." I don't let go of her hand. "I like it here. It's quiet. I can think."
"You want to volunteer. At the library. When you don't have to."
"Is that so strange?"
"Men your age don't volunteer at libraries." She pulls her hand back. "They go to bars. Gyms. Dating apps." Her voice turns bitter. "They don't spend time with fat old women in dusty rooms."
"Maybe I'm not like most men my age."
"Everyone says that. No one means it."
"I mean it."
She stares at me. I hold her gaze, refusing to look away.
"Why?" she finally asks. "What do you want from me?"
It's a good question. I've been asking myself the same thing for weeks—why I look forward to these evenings, why I find excuses to stay late, why I can't stop thinking about her during the day.
"I don't know," I admit. "I just know I don't want to stop coming."
The silence stretches. Then she sighs.
"Fine. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Seven to close. And don't make me regret this."
I don't make her regret it.
I come every Tuesday and Thursday, regular as clockwork. I shelve books, help patrons, learn the arcane organization of the reference section. Margaret watches me with decreasing suspicion and increasing... something else.
"You're good at this," she says one night. We're in her office, sharing takeout from the Chinese place below her apartment. It's become routine—she orders, I pay, we eat at her desk while the library empties.
"At shelving?"
"At being here. At making people comfortable." She picks at her lo mein. "The regulars ask about you on days you're not in."
"They're nice."
"They're protective of me." She meets my eyes. "The old ones especially. They think you're... taking advantage."
"Of what?"
"Of me." She gestures at herself—at the expanse of her body, the gray in her hair, the lines around her eyes. "Of a lonely old woman desperate for company."
"Is that what you think I'm doing?"
"I don't know what you're doing, Evan. That's the problem." She sets down her chopsticks. "I'm fifty-eight years old. I weigh three hundred and twelve pounds. I haven't been touched by a man since the Reagan administration. What could you possibly want from me?"
I answer by kissing her.
She freezes.
For a long, terrible moment, I think I've made a horrible mistake. She's going to push me away, call the police, ban me from the library and maybe from the entire city—
Then her hands come up to my face, and she kisses me back.
She tastes like soy sauce and tea and something softer. Her lips are full, her mouth hot, her tongue hesitant at first and then desperate. She kisses like someone who's forgotten how and is remembering in real-time.
"Evan—" she gasps when we break apart. "What are you—why—"
"Because I want to." I cup her face—her round, soft, beautiful face. "Because I've wanted to for weeks. Because you're the most interesting person I've ever met and I can't stop thinking about you and I don't care that you're older or bigger or whatever else you think should disqualify you."
"This is insane."
"Probably."
"I don't do this. I've never—"
"Then let me show you." I kiss her again, softer this time. "Let me show you what you've been missing."
She looks at me—this massive, brilliant, lonely woman—and I see the moment she decides.
"Lock the door."
I lock the door.
She's standing when I turn back, hands working at her cardigan with shaking fingers. I cross to her, still her hands with mine.
"Let me."
I undress her slowly. The cardigan first, then the blouse beneath it—buttons that strain over her belly, that sigh with relief when freed. Her bra is industrial, white cotton, functional rather than pretty. I unhook it, let her breasts spill free—massive, heavy, nipples dark against pale skin.
"I'm not—" she starts.
"You're perfect." I drop to my knees, press my lips to her belly. "You're absolutely perfect."
I worship her body with my mouth. Kiss every inch of her—every roll, every curve, every place where flesh folds over flesh. She gasps, shivers, her hands finding my hair and gripping tight.
"Evan—oh god—Evan—"
"Tell me what you want." I look up at her from my knees. "Anything. Everything."
"I want—" Her voice breaks. "I want you to touch me. Really touch me. No one ever—they always stopped at—"
She can't finish. But I understand.
I reach for her skirt.
Margaret Chen comes on my tongue in the back office of the Westbrook Public Library.
She comes with her hand pressed over her mouth, muffling sounds that would definitely result in noise complaints. Her thighs squeeze my head—massive, soft, suffocating—and I drink her like she's the last water in a desert.
"Fuck," she pants when the shaking stops. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. I didn't—I've never—"
"Never?"
"Not with—not with someone else. Just—" She flushes. "Alone. With books."
The thought of Margaret Chen reading erotica in this office, touching herself, is almost enough to make me come untouched.
"Show me what you like." I stand, start undoing my own pants. "Show me how you do it when you're alone."
"That's—you want to watch me—"
"I want to learn you." I free myself—hard, aching. "I want to know exactly how to make you fall apart."
She stares at my cock. Her tongue darts out, wets her lips.
"Sit down," she says.
I sit.
She rides me in her desk chair.
It groans under our combined weight—her mass settling onto me, her flesh surrounding me, her body swallowing me whole. I'm buried inside her, her wetness coating my thighs, and nothing has ever felt this right.
"Is this—" she pants. "Am I—too heavy—"
"No." I grip her hips—so much flesh, so much woman. "Never. Give me all of it."
She gives me all of it.
She rises and falls, slowly at first, finding her rhythm. Her breasts bounce against my face. Her belly presses against my stomach. Her moans fill the office—loud now, unashamed, the sounds of a woman who's spent decades in silence finally letting herself be heard.
"Yes—yes—don't stop—please—"
I don't stop. I thrust up into her, meeting her rhythm, driving deeper with each stroke. She clutches my shoulders, nails digging in, and when she comes it's with a scream she doesn't bother to muffle.
I follow her over the edge, spilling inside her, and for a long moment there's nothing but the sound of our breathing and the creak of the chair.
"That was..." She can't find words.
"Yeah."
We're still connected, still tangled, her weight pressing me into the chair in a way that should be uncomfortable but isn't.
"I'm too old for this," she says.
"You're perfect for this."
"The library—"
"Is closed."
"Someone could have heard—"
"No one heard." I kiss her neck, her jaw, the corner of her mouth. "And even if they did, would you care?"
She considers this. Laughs—surprised, delighted.
"No. I don't think I would."
"Then stop worrying." I shift, feel myself stirring inside her again. "And let me check out this body for another round."
"That's a terrible library pun."
"I have plenty more."
"God help me." But she's smiling. "Fine. One more round. But you're shelving all the returns tomorrow."
"Deal."
The library is different now.
I volunteer three nights a week instead of two. Margaret has stopped trying to hide her smiles when I arrive. The regulars have noticed—the old women nod at me approvingly, the old men offer grudging handshakes.
"You're good for her," one tells me. "She needed someone."
What they don't know about happens after closing. In the back office. Between the stacks. Once, memorably, in the rare books room, where the smell of old paper mixed with her perfume into something sacred.
"This is my favorite place in the building," she confessed that night, sprawled naked on a reading table.
"Mine too." I kissed down her body. "Now let me add to its memories."
We're creating our own library, she and I. A collection of moments, shelved in chronological order, catalogued by touch and sound and taste.
Overdue?
Perhaps.
But some books are worth the late fee.
Checked out.
Indefinitely.