The Lord and the Librarian
written by:
Naughty Miranda

The first time it happened, I thought there was a fire, and I was already ushering everybody out of the library when I realized it was the telephone. Cursed thing; I cannot imagine what induced me to agree when Lord Dansforth offered to have it installed, saying it was the sound of the future. The sound of hell's bells, more like it, and what made it even more redundant was the fact that there was only one other device like it in the village. The one that he had had installed at the manor. Which in turn meant the only person who ever telephoned me was him. Or the obsequious Wiggins, his valet.

This is Wiggins, now. "His Lordship," says the man, in a tone that leeches innuendo, "wishes to know whether the volumes he requires have been delivered yet?"

I paused. "The volumes he requires." I was glad the man did not use the word "books." For publications such as these don't deserve such a title.

"They arrived this morning," I replied in measured tones. I almost added that I'd been about to call and inform him, but that would have been a lie. I have not yet used this device of my own volition, and I trust I'll never have to.

"Did you look at them yet?" Wiggins' tone shifted a chord. Where once he employed innuendo, now he sounded positively lecherous.

"I don't think that will be necessary, Mr Wiggins. Now if you will excuse me, I have matters I must attend to. I will expect the volumes to be collected this afternoon." And I returned the handset to its cradle.

Around me, a dozen pairs of eyes watched my every movement. The telephone, I knew, was a novelty in these parts, but I never expected the very act of using it for the purpose it was intended to become such an attraction to the people of the village. From the moment it arrived, library attendance had more than doubled, purely from people hoping I might receive a call while they were in the room. They usually went away disappointed, but today would have made up for that. Tomorrow I expected twice as many spectators.

I cast a glance over to the package that waited underneath my desk. And I shuddered.

Lord Dansforth had always had what I would politely term as eclectic tastes. I remembered him as a boy, when I was barely out of girlhood myself, sauntering into the circulating library where I had just begun working, looking like an angel with his auburn curls and sailor suit. He would march up to the desk where I was busying myself in some task, and a look of thoughtfulness would cross his brow. "Mrs Reid?" he would ask, though I had never been married; "Mrs Reid. I heard a word today and I wondered, would you be so kind as to explain to me what it means?"

And then the little beast would whisper words that I could not even bring myself to spell out, then rush out giggling but with such an air of innocence that I could never quite bring myself to report him to his parents. I would, however, have liked to know where he learned such awful phrases.

Almost twenty years had now elapsed since those childhood days. The old Lord, his father, passed with the Golden Jubilee, and his eldest son died in that business with the Boers. So the manor and all its holdings passed to the second son, Young Bertie as I still called him in my thoughts, and life had gone on as before.

Nothing ever changes in a small village like this. Including Young Bertie's tastes. Only now, he doesn't ask me if I know what a succession of indecent words mean. Now he has me order him books that comprise nothing else.

I did not need to open the package. I knew from the postmark and the illegible return address precisely what it contained. A wicked prolusion called Venus In India, the autobiography, Bertie explained to me, of an adventurer in that distant land. Bertie, too, had served in India, and his parents sometimes came to the library to read his latest letters to the villagers, chatty missives filled with unimaginable thrills and exotic beasts. The tiger hunts, the elephant rides, the servility of the native servants, the beauty of the womenfolk. Sometimes, I half expected Bertie to return from the tropics with a local as his wife, but no. He was not yet the marrying kind. Not when he could get the advantages of wedlock for free.

Venus In India, I learned from a colleague, was a novel of just such advantages. Just like every other book that Bertie had bade me order from a bookseller he knew of on the Charing Cross Road in London. And how he laughed when I flatly refused, the first time, fearful that even being aware of the names of the tomes he desired might land me in jail. Such writings, we all knew, are illegal in this land. In any decent land, I would imagine. But of course Lords and their ilk are above such bland concerns, and the respectability of a public library would alleviate any last lingering suspicions. He ordered his reading matter on the recommendation of friends, and they arrived sight unseen through the auspices of not one, but two respectable public bodies. For the post office had to deliver them.

Only when he received the publication, he would say, was he made aware of just how appalling it was, so of course he had to burn it, because what else would a gentleman do? And the cost to the library of procuring it for him would be made good with generous financial compensation.

It was, he assured me, a foolproof operation. But you're not fooling me, young Bertie my boy, and I'd wager that Wiggins was not in the dark, either.

But wait! I could tell from the wrapping, and the feel of its contents, that the package contained just one volume, and his Lordship had ordered up two. Such shortfalls are common, of course, in this trade, and no doubt the invoice would explain it. But the invoice was in the package, which meant....

Which meant I would need to open it after all.

Carey Hunt. The missing volume was a slim work by an author named Carey Hunt. It had no other title, and no description either. But a handwritten note assured me that my Carey Hunt would be available within twenty-four hours, with apologies for any inconvenience caused.

I picked up the telephone warily, and directed the operator to connect me with the manor.

Wiggins answered, of course, and for once I was happy to speak to him. Far better a matter of this nature be discussed with someone who understood the subtext of our conversation, rather than attempting to explain to one of the other servants.

I told Wiggins what I understood from the invoice, and waited patiently as he wrote it down. "I should inform his Lordship that the Carey Hunt has not yet been delivered, but it should be awaiting him at the library tomorrow. And may I ask, Mrs Reid [though I am still not married], should he expect the Carey Hunt to be opened?"

"I cannot see any reason why it should be, Wiggins," I answered. "I unsealed this package only to ascertain its contents. You may tell his Lordship that the packaging will be intact."

Was the impudent man laughing under his breath? I could not tell, but it was another black mark against his character in my book.

"Very well. I will convey your precise words to his Lordship. The Carey Hunt will be intact." The line went dead.

------

His Lordship arrived the following morning. The days had long since passed when a crowd would gather respectfully, just to watch as the family passed through the village (superseded by the wonders of the telephone, no doubt). But still there was much bowing and scraping as he entered the building, and some courteous "good morning, sir,"s mumbled from beneath tugged forelocks.

Bertie smiled and flapped a hand in that decorous manner he had long since perfected, one that bade people not to make such a fuss (while encouraging them to do so, of course), and passed straight through to my office. I nodded for Brenda, my assistant, to take over my place at the main desk, and followed him.

We exchanged a few pleasantries; how were my parents, and my brother Tom? Tom had joined his Lordship's regiment shortly after his Lordship came home, and I think it made Bertie feel happy inside to hear the little snippets of news and, may God forgive him, gossip that burbled through Tom's letters home. I passed on the latest, and for ten, fifteen minutes, Bertie and I were ... well, we were just Bertie and I, two people from very different sides of the fence, who had nevertheless known one another since childhood, and I doubted would flinch to call one another friends.

In fact, around the time that Bertie came of age, my mother even remarked that he would make a good husband, and that I, being older by some six or seven summers, might be just the kind of influence that would help him settle down. My father laughed loudly, I blushed almost painfully, and the topic was never broached again.

But I occasionally looked at Bertie through curious "might-have-been" eyes, and it was as clear to me, as to my mother back then, that he did require someone who could bring some stability his life. He was twenty-seven now (which meant, lawks-a-murky, I was thirty-three), and he could not act the playboy forever. Plus, there was the succession to think of.

He was a good-looking man. His eyes danced with a certain mischievous air, a successor, I assumed, to the insouciance that I remembered from his sailor suit days; his features were sculpted without being angular; and he had a chin which was a rarity in the Dansforth family line. His body was lean, militarily muscular, and that, Deborah Reid, is as far as we need to go.

He was speaking.

My brain hurried to piece his words together, and I walked to the cupboard where I had stored the first package. "I'm afraid the post office has not yet delivered the other title," I said. "I queried the postman especially this morning, and he promised to pay especial attention to any packages that might arrive later today."

"Not too much attention, I trust," Bertie smiled, as he unfolded the wrapping I had so patiently reaffixed. I watched him cautiously. The volume, mercifully, was bound with decorum, with no indication on either boards or spine of the grotesqueries that cavorted within. And when he opened one to peruse its contents, neither he nor the volume burst in to flames.

He browsed through a few pages. "Yes, I'm sure this is exactly what I was hoping for. It is so difficult, sometimes, to discover the books, even within a field such as this, that actually fulfill one's personal requirements."

I did not know how to reply, so I remained silent. I was not even certain that I understood what he was saying. Surely depravity and filth are requirements in themselves? There can be no need whatsoever to further subdivide such topics.

Bertie laughed, and its tone reminded me again of our youth. No, I did not know the meanings of the words that he asked me. But occasionally, curiosity got the better of decorum, and there was a certain thematic logic to a few of the terms he had asked me about.

A logic that I refused to think about.

"Why did you never marry... Miss Reid?"

The question caught me completely off guard. "Oh... I..." I stammered and tried to marshall my thoughts, suppressing one that came bounding unbidden to mind, and summonsing instead one that was completely non-committal. "I never really thought about it," I lied. "I have my employment, I have my position." Unspoken was the knowledge that I was just the latest in a long line of spinster head librarians in a small farming village on the south-east English coast; unspoken, too, was the snap rejoinder of "I might ask the same question of you."

But he answered it anyway. "I have thought about it. I suppose I have simply never thought enough of the opportunities that I've been presented with. A title, if I might step beyond the realms of propriety, often seems to be an even greater aphrodisiac than love."

I was feeling uncomfortable. "And the volumes that you read so voraciously?" I nodded my head towards Venus In India?. "What manner of aphrodisiac are they?"

Bertie laughed so loudly that I was sure they could hear him in the street outside. "Ah, and there is the Mrs Reid I knew, loved and trembled before." He stepped forward, one hand cupping my elbow.

I stepped back, and he watched me carefully. "Do you remember...." he started, but I cut him off. "I'm sure I don't, your Lordship. And now if you will excuse me...." I made to turn towards the door, but his hand was on my arm once again.

"I have offended you, and that was my very last intention."

"No, not offended, not in the slightest."

"Then I have embarrassed you," he corrected himself. "And that is worse. I too should leave."

"And your other package?" I collected myself.

"Alas, there will be no Carey Hunt for today. Perhaps another time?"

"It will be awaiting your return," I told him, and he slipped past me to the door; held it open as I left the room, and then with a courteous nod to the villagers who all stood from their chairs as he entered behind me, he left the library.

His package did not arrive that day. Nor the next. I had made a note of the sender's address, and sat down to write them a letter of inquiry. Wiggins had already called once to ask after its whereabouts; sounded positively schoolboyish as he told me how anxiously his Lordship awaited his Carey Hunt. I replied that I was doing my best, and would continue to do so. Exasperating little man.

On the third day, a package did arrive, but it was addressed to me personally, as opposed to the library, and when I opened it an expensive box of chocolate fancies lay within, an envelope handwritten beneath the Dansforth crest. "My impatience is not a virtue," read the note within. "Enjoy these with my affection, and my apologies too."

I looked across at the telephone, silent since Wiggins‘ last call. Willing it to sound its shrill bell. But it remained mute, so I took a piece of library stationery... stared at it for a moment, then delved into my handbag where I knew I had placed some of my own private stationery. Wrote a short note of thanks to his Lordship, then paid a boy two pennies to deliver it to the manor. I could have waited for the postman as he made his mid-morning round, but...

But I was afraid I'd change my mind before he arrived.

Bertie's carriage arrived as I was preparing for my lunch. Again I stationed Brenda at my customary desk, and allowed myself to be conveyed the mile or so to the manor house. Most of which, naturally, was devoured by the driveway. Bertie greeted me as a alighted.

"I received your note," was his unnecessary introduction, and the slightly flustered air that cloaked his customary aristocratic bearing allowed me a swift inward smile.

"I am afraid there is still no word on the availability of the Carey Hunt that you are awaiting so..." I paused to choose my words. "Fervently."

His eyes did not leave mine; then he broke away and gestured me into the manor house.

It was not my first visit. Many times in my youth, and once or twice since then, I had attended the fetes that his parents threw on an annual basis. Today, though, there were no throngs of villagers shuffling around house and grounds, and the servants moved so silently they could as easily have been ghosts. I continued my sentence.

"I have contacted the retailer and expect a reply within the day. In the meantime, I was wondering whether there are any other titles that you might wish to sample, that I might attempt to procure them for you?"

We sat in the dining room, and coffee was rung for. Reaching into my handbag, I produced a pamphlet, laying it first on the desk before me, then sliding it across the lacquered black mahogany. It must have fallen from his package as he unwrapped it the other day, a catalog of other works that "an inquisitive Gentleman might care to peruse."

It had demanded all my will, and not a few whispered shocks, for me to make my own way down the list of titles, but Bertie scanned it without so much as a tremor. Then he rose and stepped over to a glass fronted bookshelf. He gestured for me to follow. "As you can see, I have already obtained several of these titles, at a time before we arrived at our present arrangement."

Indeed he had; and many others besides. I had no idea so much indecency had found its way into print. But I quelled the sharpness that tortured my tongue; shielded, too, my instinctive urge to recoil from the engravings that I now saw were carved into the wood of the bookshelf itself.

"You have unusual tastes," I murmured, hoping that my embarrassment did not tinge my words with reproach.

Bertie smiled. "Not unusual, Miss Reid. More..." he appeared to think for a moment. "Undiscussed." A broad, boyish smile. "Is that a word?"

I shook my head. "Oh, you and your words." And when he smiled again, knowing precisely what I was referring to, I continued. "I will wager you already knew what every one of them meant, you scamp."

He moved closer to me, and this time I did not back away. "And I will wager that, if you didn't, you made certain to find out very soon."

His mouth was on mine. The coffee was forgotten. Now I stepped back, or perhaps he gently pushed. I felt the bookshelf behind me, and wondered which of the grotesque carvings was digging its lustful simulations into my behind. My tweed skirt felt heavy, my flesh begged for air, but I clung to him as tightly as he clung to me, thrilling as his lips opened around mine and his tongue scraped my teeth before entering my mouth.

I had never heard of such a thing, but I acceded to the intrusion; allowed my own tongue to coil around his, and hands that once had been on my arms were now on my shoulders, my neck, my face.

"Dear Mrs Reid," he breathed, and then chuckled. "Dear Deborah." His fingers were on the buttons of my blouse and my eyes flickered nervously towards the drawing room door. He could not have seen, but perhaps sensed my unease. "We will not be disturbed. The servants know not to enter this room unless they are expressly rung for."

I suppressed the question that came to mind ("why? What might they be interrupting?"); I had no doubt that Bertie's past was shameful, just as mine was blameless and staid. But the curse of not knowing is more than negated by the thrill of someday finding out; and besides, one fumbling virgin in a room is enough. I did not want Bertie to tell me his secrets. I wanted him to show me what he had learned from them.

My flesh had its wish. I was suddenly naked from the neck to my waist, and his mouth was on my breast, first one and then the other, and though every fiber of my upbringing pleaded for him to stop, a deeper-seated instinct clapped a hand to his head, holding him close as a voice I didn't recognize used my mouth to moan its pleasure.

My legs were buckling beneath me; his strength alone held me upright, a hand on my waist, the other on my back, and I felt perspiration prickle beneath the weight of his palm. He broke my light grip, and his lips broke the magical hold they had on my nipple; I looked down and saw both of them standing plump and proud, larger than I had ever known them to grow before, his saliva glistening in the glow of the chandelier above us.

I reached for the lapels of his waistcoat, followed the line to the row of buttons and clumsily worked to release them. His hand joined mine and did the job a lot quicker, then he slipped out of the garment, and undid his shirt. He wore no vest beneath, and I flushed at the sight of his chest, lightly haired but strongly muscled, his own nipples tiny pinpricks that I yearned, but feared, to touch. Instead I kissed him and felt his breastbone on my lips, tasted the thin sheen of sweat on his skin, and my tongue flickered out to taste it some more.

But his hands were at my waist now, deftly releasing the hooks from the eyes they were strung through, and tugging my skirt down over my hips.

Again, my head moved to stop him; my heart held it back. He was crouched now before me, his hands a near blur as layers were peeled back, fasteners unclipped, buttons released. I stood trembling as every shard of my decency tumbled to the floor, to lay in a rumpled heap at my feet.

I raised one leg and released my foot from the jumble; took another step and freed the other. He clasped it in one hand, raised it to his lips. Kissed my foot, then my ankle too. I felt stupid. Standing there like a pink flamingo, bare as a babe while a peer of the realm placed my foot on one shoulder and kissed up my calf.

I was going to topple, and reached out for balance, one hand on the mantle, the other on his head. His hands grasped my buttocks, held me still for a moment. And my mind grasped another memory, of a ballet I saw when I was just small, a Christmas gift in the city from my parents. One dancer poised on tip-toe while another knelt reverently before, then began to lean back. The lighting held their bodies as though their whole lives were in slow motion, one figure leaning back as the other one swayed forward, until their silhouettes created the form of a swan.

That is how this felt, as though we were barely moving. But gently, inexorably, we continued to dance, until Bertie, sweet Bertie, was flat on his back, and my bent legs were parted either side of his head.

I dared not look, I dared not think. And I certainly dared not imagine. But I knew what he was doing even before I felt his tongue; I knew because I'd looked up the word the first time I ever heard it spoken.

With one hand, two fingers parted me wide. But I was scarcely aware of the feeling although I knew I'd never felt such a sensation before. His tongue was firm, but his mouth did the real work, knowing just when to suck, just when to kiss, and just when to push a finger inside me, and I felt for a moment as though I were being inspected, tested to ensure that nobody else had ever been there. I pushed away the thought. No, his movements were so natural, his hunger was so evident, and just when I thought that I was finally shoving all my fears and worries to the back of my mind, and surrendering everything to his sweet manipulations, his lips seized on a spot that sent all other pleasures reeling, and if the servants didn't hear me scream, then Bertie obviously only employed the deaf.

Hands on my hips began rocking my body; my senses grasped the rhythm and, falling forward so my palms were flat on the Persian rug, I picked up his movements, rubbing myself into his face, almost grinding my... my... the word! I can't say the word although it danced on my lips, and then realization dawned as my entire being was raised up, and I was screaming away as a lightning bolt of pleasure struck me dead on the spot, and just kept on striking till I had nothing left to give. Then I collapsed on the floor alongside my lover, my mouth in the moisture that coated his face, my tongue testing teasingly at the flavors I had spilled.

I was silent. I was thinking. I was wrestling with my words. But finally they spilled out in a fit of girlish giggles.

The supposed works of the Reverend William Archibald Spooner, the notoriously tongue twisted warden of New College, Oxford, had naturally done the rounds in the village, back when I was a teenager. And what fun it was to talk back to the teacher with a cleverly camouflaged spoonerism.

It appeared that some people, my present company included, had never put such childish tricks behind them.

"It would appear your Carey Hunt has been delivered, your Lordship. I trust you found it to your taste?"

And before he could answer, I followed through with another whose ready appearance on my lips had stunned even me.

"Maybe next time, I could read to you some pages from Joe Blob?"

[Author's Note: Glaring Anachronism Alert! The term "Blowjob" didn't arrive in common usage until the 1940s or so. But nobody ever says "gamahuche" these days, and the joke would fall flat if I used it now.]