Heard at the bookstore

I love the bookstore between 5pm and 8pm, I try to truly breathe through every minute of those hours with full intent. I keep every low whisper between my ribs, every clink of coffee mug under my stomach, every reading smile of the customers behind my eyes. At 7pm the bookstore is alive in a way I can only hope to imitate. Customers come and go, buying books, reading poetry, waiting for their beloved ones while their coffee swirls with sugar.

Every day after work I go to the bookstore to steal a little life for my own. I not this live inside myself. I´m a plain creature, easily mistaken with blurry surroundings, often bumped in the streets, often ignored, often invisible. If you were to describe any type of person or situation, I wouldn’t be your first example.  I live a pretty normal, uneventful life for a young women in Boston. Don´t  get me wrong, I wouldn’t dream of a dramatic life neither, but a little life could be appreciated.

That’s what I got in the bookstore, borrowed lives to live by. Stories to read, people to stalk, coffee to listen carefully.  I´m a pretty boring thing, but I´m also a pretty curious thing. If there is something to myself that is only mine is my ability to live through others, to listen furtively and leech emotion from them. That’s when being irrelevant payed.

The bookstore is perfect for my activities; it is in a busy street. It was an small local and therefore everything was agglomerated, there wasn’t a single space that wasn’t used. The bookshelves covered every single wall, the chairs and tables where small and near each other. The coffee bar and its noises made the illusion of privacy a little more believable. But my tiny eyes were made for looking through shelves and my little ears to ear past cups and plates. Confidential conversations are my preys.

This particular afternoon, someone new entered the bookstore, a tall blonde woman dressed in formal working attire, hair loose after being trapped all day in a bun and a face used to hide secrets.  She asked for coffee and a book that wasn’t in sell yet. Disappointed, she went for a table to observe the street while drinking her beverage. This was my cue, waiting people at the bookstore often meant waiting people with a story and a beholder in its way to receive it. I took my book, and with practiced invisibility I sat in the next table, ready.

Ten minutes later another woman entered the bookstore, this one was quite similar to my blonde, tall, brunette, with an air of “Don’t bother to speak to me, you are not worth it” about her grimace. She went straight to her place: the vacant chair at my blonds table.

–          You did it. – Her voice wasn’t hard nor merry, it was factual. – You did it and now we have to find a way to undo it.

–          I know Carla, but I don’t want to undo it. I´ve accepted the offer, for real, not for scam. – My blond face was unreadable, all hard lines.

–          You were only supposed to dig it out, to create evidence, not to jump in his bed – hissed Carla. Her frame was very still. There was something tensed going on.

–          I think that “jumping in his bed” is exactly what this was about.

Carla held her temples with her fingers; she took a breath in and a breath out. – Get him to invite you to his bed, not actually doing it.

–          Well, he is quite good at it – I really liked the smile my blonds face, it was catlike.

–          You are impossible – Carla replied. – You can fuck him all you like, but you know why he is dangerous. I know he doesn’t seem like it but rumor has it he got everything he has like that: fucking intelligent women like you dear. Don’t forget why are we doing this.

–          I´m not. – My blonde’s expression softened – I´m just… I really like this guy, sexually, and I know it is dangerous to play with the boss´s toys. But, since I´m supposed to sleep with him anyway…

Carla made a humming noise that I understood as annoyance – If you are not gonna be careful about this you better drop it. Let one of the girls take the price and the bullet. The boss likes her games played as she planned them.

–          I am being careful Carla, that’s why I´m telling you. You are my life line. I´m going to see him now. I’m going to get the evidence, and I need you to take me out when I´m done. You are gonna tell Boss everything went as expected, and that is all.

Carla didn’t like the plan, I turned a page of my book, I really like this plan, but it wasn’t my life on the line I guess. The possibility of death is always exciting when it isn’t yours on bet.

I went to my apartment short after the two women excited the bookstore to play their dangerous games, whatever they were. I wasn’t interested in following them, for much that my stalker hobby gave me life it was tiresome to pursue it outside the bookstore. And, in a way, uncomplete, true stories were my thing. The wondering afterwards was almost as satisfying as the finding. Books were round, completed stories with little to no afterthought once finished. True stories picked up at the bookstore were just fragments whit plenty of room to play around. Wondering was my king of entertaining.

I had dinner wondering what would it be that my blonde had to look for evidence, I took the trash out wondering what would be Carla´s roll on it. I took a shower wondering what could have that man under his pants to make my blond risk her life like that. I went to bed still wondering it.

I went to bed imagining my blond going into a posh apartment near downtown, no cheap man could be worth risking one´s life. I imagined my blond nodding to Carla while closing the door behind her. I imagine my blond smiling at this handsome men waiting for her with a tumbler in his hand.

This should be a handsome man, about five years her senior, it must be a lean man, with a dark beard, with muscles noticing even through his suit. I imagine my blond smiling dangerously while taking her coat off and letting it hanging by the door. I imagine her leaning on her pray to kiss his mouth hello and setting her purse, almost innocently, beside his safe. Hi is pretty sure nobody knows that his wine fridge is a safe, she realized it the first time he looked for a bottle of wine without even considering the wine fridge.

My blond would be really smart about it, she would give no time to question it, and she would straddle his lap and take his tumbler to rest in the coffee table. She would kiss his whiskey scented mouth as his hands try to figure out her zippers, office suits are a interesting way of complicating sex. She would kiss the top of his head as he nuzzles her neck. His hands would trail her waist, her lifted skirt and her strong legs under it. He would put his hands through her hair at ravish her mouth with drunk kisses. She would laugh in delight.

They would go one piece of cloth at a time, enjoying the unwrapping of the present, fully aware that this was a stole moment, repeating this is unlikely. My blond would be so fierce, she has nerve, I can tell. She would take his hands and put them to work on her body once her shirt was off. He would kiss her breast right away, garb her ass and lift her like she didn’t weight nothing. He would take her to his room and press her against a wall as she rushes her finger nails down his back. My blond would pull his hair and make room for her mouth to fall on him like a sentence. They would drop to the floor, urgent need building up, taking what was left of their clothes out of the way. 

I can imagine my blond straddling him right there, without considerations, just hungry for this man and his vicious smile impaling her soul like his cock was doing. She would rode him like her life on the game, and it was. He would cry out that fake name she gave him and my blonde would like it. She choose that name with that purpose, for him to say when overflowing with pleasure. He would take her up again, against the bed, he would try to placate this creature of lust that was my blond and find out it was impossible. Even topping she was driving him crazy.

They wouldn’t notice Carla´s frantic phone calls, or the door opening, or the boss entering the apartment. They certainly wouldn´t realize how good it feels to masturbate to the idea of being there unnoticed to attest to their fall.