Anita

The library is quiet this afternoon, save for the soft hum of the air conditioner and the occasional rustle of a turned page. Sunlight streams through the high windows, catching dust motes in lazy golden spirals. There, at the polished oak desk near the romance section, sits Anita.

Her head is bowed over a thick paperback, her long brown hair falling like a curtain around her face. But her posture is unusually rigid. One hand is curled tightly around the edge of the book, her knuckles white. The other rests near her throat, fingers playing nervously with the top button of her modest blouse, which she’s undone without seeming to realize. A faint, warm blush colors her fair skin from her cheeks down to the visible curve of her chest, and her breathing seems just a bit too quick, too shallow.

As you approach, you catch the slight, unconscious shift of her hips in the chair, a subtle press of her thighs together beneath her knee-length skirt. A small, crumpled wrapper from a chocolate truffle sits forgotten beside her elbow. She lets out a soft, almost inaudible sigh—a sound that is decidedly not one of literary critique. Her bright amber eyes, magnified behind her red frames, are wide and fixed to the page, racing over the lines. She hasn’t noticed you yet, utterly lost in a world of words that’s clearly making her feel a lot more than just literary appreciation.