Things an autistic, bisexual bookworm can find in a library: Books. Periodicals. Kinky vampire librarians... Wait. Stop. KINKY VAMPIRE LIBRARIANS?
Yes. And the most profound love she has ever known.
A shy public reference librarian, and a college...
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We head north on the interstate. The radio is on, playing something classical, but neither of us is really listening. He keeps his eyes on the road; I look out the window without paying much attention to what I'm seeing. We don't talk, nor do we brush hands like we usually do when we're in the car. I'm afraid I'll start to weep if I so much as open my mouth.
Or worse, that I'll make him weep.
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Midsummer Eve.
We drove to one of the massive suburban parks that circle the larger metropolitan area to the north like a long emerald necklace. Like any other park, it's closed to the public after dark, and patrolled, which is why he parked the car in a parking lot about a half a mile away from the park entrance we accessed, and why we've been walking in shadows to our destination, a formation of three hundred-million-year-old ledges and boulders that overlook a lake.
When we reach them, I look up in awe. The boulders are huge – some of the rocks are the size of small houses. They're dwarfed by the ledges themselves, which soar above the trees.
He says quietly, "This used to be an ocean bed. These sandstone ledges used to be mud and silt; when the ocean dried up, the stone was lashed by wind until the boulders and ledges you see here were made. The rock formations, made of conglomerate sandstone, a soft and brittle rock if ever there was one, then somehow managed to survive multiple ice ages, and glaciers three miles high and as wide as the continent they covered, glaciers that flattened the terrain and left not just till behind when they melted, but also deep grooves in the earth, and a series of massive lakes. These rocks and ledges remained through it all. It puts a certain perspective on things, doesn't it? Eromene, are you certain you want to do this?"
"Yes."
"What we do will be permanent. These are not just vows. We are binding our souls together."
