Chapter 1

The alarm clock on Sarah’s bedside table buzzed incessantly until she banged the snooze button for it to stop. It was 7 am. She wanted to go back to sleep but knew she couldn’t or she would miss her bus. Begrudgingly she reached for her glasses and got out of bed. Sarah’s bedroom was always a mess, but it was particularly bad recently. So many boxes, dirty clothes, papers, and other miscellaneous things littered the floor it was almost impossible to see the carpet. Her bedroom was made up of a single bed, a chest of drawers, a bedside table, as well as her most important possession her computer on a desk.

“Sarah, you better hurry up or you’ll miss your bus!” It was her mother, nagging as always. As usual, she decided to skip showering. She took off her plaid pyjamas and quickly grabbed some clothes from the floor: a faded t-shirt, some old socks, a green knitted jumper her grandmother had made her for Christmas, a plain, long brown skirt and finally her brown lace-up boots. She quickly slipped her clothes on and raced out into the kitchen, grabbing some toast she saw on the kitchen table and putting her bag on. She raced out onto the front lawn and out the gate as her mother screamed at her from the door that she needed to have a shower. Luckily, she arrived just as the bus came, unluckily all seats were taken so she had to stand holding a handle for the whole trip.

Sarah was a 23-year-old girl who had worked as a librarian in her part-time since starting University and was in the second year of her part-time degree. The University library was advertising for a part-time librarian, preferably someone who was also a Uni student for convenience reasons. Sarah had always been a “nerdy” type of girl, though she didn’t like the word. She never had many friends in school and this suited her fine, she had a disdain for the “popular girls” and preferred to be left alone with her books and video games.

Sarah had never been considered “pretty” and didn’t wear any make-up. Her hygiene was never great, as she often skipped showering for days at a time, and wore the same clothes for weeks. She had a round, homely face, brown eyes, pale skin, and curly brown hair, with visible acne scarring on her face. Her glasses were out-of-date oval frames. She was 5’3 tall and had A-cup breasts, all of which added to her shy, introverted demeanour.

It wasn’t long till the bus arrived at the University campus. It was Friday, and Sarah was looking forward to the weekend, not for anything like “partying” or “socializing” but because she could get stuck into some new books she had checked out at the library and was looking forward to reading. The hill up to the campus was long and being out-of-shape; she hated the walk, especially after standing on the bus. Finally, she reached the top and spied the library building. It was a multi-story modern building with white walls and even an elevator for the disabled. Since starting Uni this had become Sarah’s home away from home, and she knew the building from head to toe.

As she reached the top of the hill she heard a familiar voice, “H-Hey Sarah! Sarah!” Sarah groaned; it was Brian. “Sarah! I thought it was you!” Brian said, he was huffing and puffing from running up the hill, as he had seen her. “Hello Brian” She tried to sound friendly but was unable to hide her disgust. “You’re going to the library as usual I guess!” she nodded. Brian was a boy Sarah had known for most of her life (“friend” was an inaccurate term). Their parents were friends and had tried to play matchmaker between them many times, even though she found him vile. Brian was, in all honesty, unattractive, he had greasy red hair, sunken eyes, small lips, a flat nose, patchy facial hair, was overweight, almost no chin to speak of, and almost as short as she was. It had been painfully obvious since high school that he was in love her with, a feeling she did not share, and he would constantly follow her around sycophantically. She had however become adept at avoiding him over the years.

They both walked through the glass automatic doors at the entrance of the library and into the main foyer, the library seemed busy so early in the morning. “Good morning, Sarah” It was Pauline, she was the manager of the library and thus Sarah’s boss. She was an older lady with a good-natured smile and round glasses and with her grey hair in a long braid, she looked like the epitome of a librarian. “We have quite a lot of backlog right now dear, so if you wouldn’t mind we’ll need all these books on the shelves quickly”, Sarah nodded and went to the returns container and started sorting them. She would start with the History books as history was on the first floor, so she began looking through the container and getting out history books, putting them into the book trolley.

After finishing she began to push the trolley to the bookshelves when suddenly she jumped as someone put his arm around her neck. “Hey! If it isn’t my favourite cutie librarian” Instantly Sarah froze and her face went bright red. It was Jason, a fellow Uni student whom Sarah occasionally saw, but never at the library. He was very tall, at least 6 feet, with a muscular build, wavy blond hair, deep-set eyes, a defined oval jawline and large cheekbones. She thought it was criminal for someone to have such a perfect face, and he knew it. She almost felt resentful of his looks while also being so attracted to him. “Haha! Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare ya! I’m just here for some reading material, maybe you can help me later!” He finished while walking away into the distance. Even for an anti-social person like Sarah, she knew Jason by reputation. He was the epitome of the “Jock”, he had gotten a scholarship in Athletics and was known as a bit of a celebrity on-campus because he was expected to go far in his future career. Even the idea of him going to the library for “reading material” was absurd. They were polar opposites but she couldn’t help but feel intrigued by him.

She noticed the heat in her body after he walked away, and instantly felt a gushy, squelching feeling in her panties, and her face went as red as a beat. She hated that such a meatheaded, unintellectual guy would make her feel this way. “H-Hey Sarah!” She sighed as Brian was still here, didn’t he have classes to go to? “What that idiot just did was really bad! It’s like harassment!”, Sarah smiled weakly, “I’ll be alright” Brian stood there silent. “Anyway, I need to get to work”, “Oh yeah, I better get to class haha!” and with that, he was finally gone. She wondered how she could get it across to him that she didn’t want to be friends without coming off as mean, but it seemed impossible. Sarah thought that it all stemmed from high school, when she was a social reject and didn’t have any real friends, except Brian. The friend groups in that school were segregated by gender and the female groups were only into girly things like make-up, fashion etc, which excluded someone like Sarah. Once during the school summer holidays, Brian had been at her place (always something that was organized by their parents), Brian had in a fit of puberty hormones, attempted to put the moves on Sarah in her room. He had touched her breasts over her clothes and had his hand up her skirt rubbing over her underwear. To this day she can still smell his disgusting Gingivitis breath as he kissed her on the neck. She managed to push him off, but she believed this experience is what made Brian believe they were “made for each other”, despite her making it painfully obvious countless times she wasn’t interested.

Sarah began putting the books from the trolley back onto the history shelves. She instinctually knew where they went by now, where the Greek, Roman, European, Contemporary etc sections were, and in no time at all she had finished and was pushing the trolley back to the front desk in the foyer to get the next batch. As was her routine by now, she chose Literature which was on the second floor, (the closest to the ground floor) and began searching out the labelled literature books from the return container into the trolley, Paulina smiled at her as she left.

Some hours later Sarah was on the 5th floor, the Poetry section, finishing up with the last of the returns when she spotted a familiar sight. It was Jason, which on its own was a ridiculous site in such a place. He seemed to spot her from the corner of his eye and walked toward her. Instantly her heart began to pound and she froze in place, unable to move. “Hey, librarian-girl, we meet again!” His smile was sickeningly perfect and she couldn’t even help but smile back. “Hello...” She said weakly and stared at her feet. Jason scratched his face, “Yeah just sprucing up my poetry for the ladies!” She rolled her eyes internally. “Anyway, for my degree, I am required to do some essay on physical health, so it would be cool if you could help me, like as a study tutor!” She froze even stiller; a million different things were going through her head at once. “Umm ... Ok,” she managed. “Great! So maybe we can start in this library when you knock off working here today?”. She desperately tried to keep her composure but couldn’t clear her thoughts, “Ahhh ... Maybe 5 pm then?”. “Great cutie, well gotta go then!”.

And with that, he was off in a run down the hall to the stairs. Did he just call her “Cutie”? No one had ever called her that in her entire life. She had to sit down just to collect her thoughts, her stomach was filled with butterflies and her underwear had become so wet that she thought she might have to change them.

Sarah’s first coherent thought was that she needed to get some books on athletics and physical fitness and start studying. She only had five hours until 5 pm. Still, as a veteran reader, this was more than enough time for her to become familiar with the topic, so she went to work immediately on the 4th floor finding four books on physical fitness in the biology section and taking them to a nearby reading desk to begin. Within no time at all she had skimmed most of the important basic information on physical fitness and bodily functions that she assumed Jason would need. She was fervently reading at speed she never had before, her energy greater than ever. She smiled knowing that it seemed even star athletes still need some intellectual capacity to get their degrees, even if this was probably the first time in his life he’d needed to read.

Stupid thoughts began intruding into Sarah’s mind as she read, a romantic fantasy that she would be the one to finally make this dumb Jock discover his hidden passion for reading. She couldn’t help but smile at this thought, but then forced it away at how silly it was. She felt like a girl for the first time in many years, was this her first date? She swiped this thought away quickly, a perfectly handsome guy like Jason, who seemed to have a different girlfriend every week, obviously couldn’t care about a weirdo like her. He just wanted to use her for his homework she thought while frowning.

Ten minutes to 5 and Sarah suddenly became aware of something she rarely considered, her hygiene. She hadn’t showered or brushed her teeth in days and her armpits stank, her hair was greasy and her body felt sweaty and uncomfortable. She quickly ran down the stairs and into the women’s restrooms and straight into a cubicle. She pulled up her skirt and put her head between her legs. It smelled bad, but there wasn’t anything she could do. Her plain white cotton panties had gotten drenched from daydreaming about Jason for hours, and she could smell it. She instantly felt self-conscious that he would be able to smell it when he met her, and he was the type of guy who would know exactly what that kind of smell was. Millions of thoughts ran through her head and she couldn’t calm down, she tried breathing exercises to no effect. She took a glance at her watch, 2 minutes to 5! She hurriedly raced to the sink and washed some water over her face before running out of the restrooms to the foyer, where presumably she would meet Jason.

As it turned out, Jason was not a punctual guy, which was of no surprise to Sarah. It was already a quarter past. She awkwardly waited near the returns container for him to arrive, biting her nails feverishly. “Darling, your shift is finished my girl, you can go home!” It was Paulina the manager from across the way. “O-Oh I agreed to help someone study today, so I’m just waiting for him ... Them!” She stammered. “Alright then, just remember then to finish by 8 when the library closes. Sarah nodded. The library was deathly quiet and seemed to be almost empty, through the window Sarah could see the sun was beginning to set.