That Sexy Librarian and Me

22nd

21 immaterial

     one ex c e p tion

Remy had seen Athenia in her underwear six times in total, all by accident.

A curse when you lived with someone in such a small place, where privacy was almost nonexistent. Nudity was unavoidable. 

Right then, as he watched her stretch in the faint orange light, wearing an oversized transparent nothing, he felt like he'd never seen her more... open, or bare.

The strangest thing was that she wasn't even naked. She was fully dressed, a swimsuit underneath that transparent nothing, but fully dressed nonetheless. Her hair danced fascinatingly to the tune the sandy wind sang, his eyes focused on how her hands hung behind her neck. He wanted to so badly to see her face right then.

"Stealing those quiet moments with the love of your life now?"

He looked at Maddie dazedly. "I'm too in the zone to even care about your babbling."

"Talking about it might desensitize you."

"She is fucking perfect. I..." he trailed off, his eyes stinging from staring too long and hard. "Can't even tell you how brilliant she is, and at anything she does. She's so smart and funny and she's ripping me into two right now."

"She's not all that, you know," she told him as she sipped her coffee. "She's human too."

"Is it so wrong that I want all that, human and inhuman?"

"Why? I'm inhuman too." Maddie confessed. "We're all flawed in some way or the other, all of us alike in one way or another. Why now, and why her?"

The question drove him insane for the hours that followed. What bothered him most was how he hadn't even thought of something smart to say. It'd just been Maddie and him for the minutes that followed, till he broke his gaze and walked away.

Why her?

Why now?

Was it that he knew he couldn't try anything stupid with her... or that they lived together?

Does that mean just about anyone he'd live with would do this to him... make his insides gooey and incomprehensible?

"Rem, you want one?" she offered him an orange as he sat on the hammock wondering, watching, wishing, wanting. He nodded at her, put the orange in his mouth and closed his eyes, feeling the sun burn his skin just that little bit. 

At night, Maddie played loud music that would've scared off the neighbours, if there were anyone else living around. The two of them would dance while Remy dipped his feet into the cool black sea. Not because he didn't like dancing sober, but because he couldn't stand to be too close to Athenia anymore.

Close meant touch, and touch meant so much. So much more than it did before, with the other girls. The other girls didn't... share a working space with him. They didn't hang around him all the fucking time. They didn't wear their hair in buns that made no sense. They didn't have the face that looked like it would break if he did something wrong, if he pushed too hard.

Looking back at the two of them he saw how Maddie danced surely, the confidence she had oozing from every sway of her hips, her hands holding onto Athenia's, who moved like... she knew everything, like she didn't care if someone was watching. Like the world would stop every time she did something.

"Rem!" 

He snapped out of his daze and walked over to the two of them, his hands itching to hold, his heart wanting to own.

It wouldn't make any difference if he didn't have a heart. As of this moment, right there, beneath the starry skies, next to the dark waters, he felt her skin against his, the feeling ringing deeper than any sound or scent, the touch innocent.