Love and Demotion Read online

  And now her dream had come true, as small and ridiculous as it might seem to a woman like Carly Ronak, who had spent her girlhood dreaming of becoming the next Tory Burch.

  “Good to hear,” Carly said. “Listen, I’m having a friend over tonight. I hope we won’t be in your way.” What she really meant was that she hoped Regina would have the decency to stay in her bedroom and not get in their way.

  “Don’t worry about me. I have a lot of reading to do.”

  “Oh – and your mother called. Twice,” Carly said, handing Regina a purple post-it note with the message scribbled on it in illegible Sharpie ink.

  In an attempt to cut her expenses for the move to New York, Regina had gotten rid of her cell phone. This had the welcome consequence of making it impossible for her mother to contact her twenty-four/seven. Unfortunately, anyone in Regina’s life who happened to have a land line was now paying the price.

  Regina crumpled the note and stuffed it in her pocket.

  *** ***

  Regina woke to the sound of someone breaking into the apartment. At least, that’s what it sounded like to her. And then she realized it was just Carly’s headboard banging into her wall.

  This was accompanied by moaning, and Carly’s no doubt unnecessary cry of, “Fuck me!”

  More moaning, this time a man’s voice. The sound of the headboard hitting the wall got harder and faster, and the tenor of their voices seemed indicative of violence rather than pleasure. And then it was silent.

  Regina found herself breathing heavily. She didn’t know whether it was from being startled awake, or from the nature of the sounds she was hearing. It was disturbing and arousing at the same time, and this bothered here more than the fact that she was literally losing sleep over her roommate’s sex life.

  She knew she was behind the curve as far as the whole sex thing went; to be a virgin at her age was unthinkable to most people. But it was her reality – a reality that hadn’t bothered her until she moved to New York and realized she was the last one to the party.

  It wasn’t like she planned on never having sex. She hadn’t taken a chastity pledge or anything. It was more that the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. Her friends back home told her that she walked around oblivious – that guys were always checking her out and would ask her out more often if she made more of an effort to get out and do things. “You’re so serious all the time,” her friends told her. It’s not that she didn’t want to have fun. It’s more that she was painfully aware that every party she went to was a night of missed studying, and every guy she had a crush on threatened to take away from her focus on what was important: studying. Working hard. Her future.

  Focus. It was her mother’s mantra. She was quick to tell Regina that boys were nothing but a distraction “a surefire way to derail your future.” It had happened to her, Regina’s mother warned her solemnly. Regina had heard the story dozens of times, but every time her mother spoke about how she had “given up her dreams” to support Regina’s father as he went through architecture school and then in the early years of struggle – and then her pregnancy with Regina. “And then your father died and left me holding the bag. No one thinks about worst case scenarios, Regina. The only one you can depend on is yourself.”

  Regina looked at the clock. It was two in the morning. Five hours until her alarm went off.

  Laughter, and then another moan.

  Regina rolled over on her back, desperate to find her way back to sleep. Her nightgown, a gray cotton shift from Old Navy, was twisted around her waist. She loosened it, but kept it above her hips. She stroked her stomach, trying to relax herself, to recapture sleep. And then her hand, as if moving of its own volition, drifted to the edge of her underwear.

  She paused. From the next room, silence.

  Regina moved her hand into her underwear, her fingers touching herself lightly between her legs. The thought of the man just a few feet away on the other side of the wall both excited and distracted her. It had been a long time since a guy had touched her, and the few experiences she had had been fumbling and unmemorable. Now, it was almost impossible for her to imagine someone else’s hand in this inquisitively private and sensitive place, stroking her until she was wet, then pressing inside, moving in and out in just the right way to trigger that powerful release. She moved her hand quickly, the walls of her vagina pulsing against her own finger, her hips move in tandem. She felt the familiar rush of pleasure, and then lay still against her rumpled comforter. Her heart was pounding.

  What would it be like to have someone else next to her at that moment of climax?

  She was beginning to wonder if she would ever know.

  Chapter Three

  A girl wearing a Columbia University T-shirt with dyed red hair handed Regina a crumpled pile of requisition slips.

  “So do I, like, just wait here?” the girl leaned on the desk.

  “You can wait at one of the tables and just watch the board for your number. That will indicate your books are ready for pick up,” Regina said.

  Regina was already addicted to the predictable rhythm of the delivery desk: the quiet early mornings, the afternoon hub of activity, and the slow drift in the early evening as people left for dinner – some returning, some gone for the day. She knew she was lucky to spend her days in arguably the most beautiful room in the entire city. And while her job was not intellectually challenging, she did get a certain sense of satisfaction in handing the books over to the eagerly waiting library patrons. She wondered, as she looked out at the rows and rows of people bent over books and laptops, what everyone was working on. Was the next great American novel being written in that room? Was something being invented? History re-discovered?

  And yet sometimes, when there was a lull, she felt fidgety.

  “Why don’t you read something?” said Alex, a wiry, slightly-awkward-but-cute-in-a-puppy-dog-sort-of-way NYU student who worked part-time running books from the various rooms to the delivery desk.

  “Are we allowed to read behind here?” she said.

  “No one’s ever said anything to me,” he said. “And you and I both know

  Sloan doesn’t miss a chance to jump down our throats. So I’d say yeah, it’s

  cool.”

  Regina thought maybe she and Alex could be friends, although she’d never had a real guy friend before. Her mother always warned her that guys were never real friends – that they “only wanted one thing.” But Alex did just seem genuinely friendly. Although, she felt she had somehow offended him when he told her he liked her haircut, that it was, “Very Bettie Page.” Regina had said, “What’s a Bettie Page?” And he looked at her kind of funny, as if not sure if she were serious or joking.

  “You know – the legendary pin-up model? With the black hair and the short bangs?”

  Regina had nodded, although she had no idea what he was talking about. People sometimes told her she looked like “that girl on that show…with the bangs,” or they would snap their fingers and say, “Zooey Deschanel.” She had seen Zooey Deschanel’s sitcom, and while there might have been some resemblance in coloring and haircut and even facial features, the star’s zany effervescence made any comparison ridiculous, in Regina’s opinion. Now she would have to Google this Betty person.

  “Is it truck time?” Alex said.

  She and Alex had fallen into the habit of walking out for lunch together to grab a burger or hot dog from the food truck that parked around the corner on 41st Street. But today, Regina decided she would try to find Margaret and see if they might have lunch together.

  She took the South Stairs up one flight, to the fourth floor that was home to first editions, manuscripts, and letters, and also the Trustees lounge. She passed a room that was gated off, and she took notice of it.

  She found Margaret logging a pile of books into a ledger.

  “You do this all by hand?”

  “Yes. And we have an intern put it into the computer. I can’t be bothered with those machines.
”

  “I wanted to know if you wanted to have lunch together. I brought mine and we could sit outside…”

  Margaret was already shaking her head. “I don’t eat lunch on Tuesdays,” she replied. Regina wasn’t sure what to say that. Margaret added, “As you get older, you need to sleep less and eat less. You’ll see.”

  “Okay, then. Well, I’ll see you later, I guess. Oh, by the way – what’s Room 402?”

  “Barnes Collection — visited by special permission. First editions of Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens.”

  “I used to take the library tour once a year when I was a kid – I don’t remember it.”

  “They built it about five years ago. The Barnes family donated twenty million dollars. They renovated the entire Main Reading Room. Remember when it was closed for over a year?”

  Regina nodded.

  “The Barnes room used to be open. I spent some time in there, but not since I had to start bothering with permission.”

  “Whom would I ask for permission?”

  Margaret shrugged.

  Regina was not one to ignore authority, but she couldn’t imagine the works were meant to be hidden from library staff. It made sense that the public couldn’t go traipsing through the room at will, but surely it couldn’t hurt if she just took a peak.

  The dark bronze doors were framed in marble, with the words JASPER T. BARNES ROOM in gold letters. Regina gingerly approached the door, and thought that if it were locked, that would solve her dilemma of whether or not to try to sneak a look inside.

  She placed her hand on the gold, lever-like handle, and with only a few seconds of hesitation, pressed down. The door was unlocked, and she pushed it open.

  The first thing she noticed was that the room was much simpler in style than most other places in the library. It was English classical, and the walls were floor-to-ceiling books in wooden and glass shelving. In the center of the room was a long, dark wood table – almost like a dining room table, surrounded by antique chairs finished in red velvet.

  And then she realized she was not alone.

  A strange, almost keening sound emanated from the corner of the room, a space obscured from the view of the doorway. But as she stepped further inside, the source of the noise became shockingly clear. A naked woman was bent over a marble bench, her arms supporting the weight of her upper body, her head down, long hair sweeping almost to the floor. Behind her, a man – also naked – stood with his hands on the woman’s hips, pumping into her with a ferocity that made Regina question if what she was witnessing was a woman in the throes of pleasure or in pain. A part of her – the practical, rational part of her – knew she should turn around and get the hell out of there. But another part of her – a part she didn’t quite understand — was riveted.

  Regina, her heart pounding, quickly realized that what was seeing was most definitely pleasure. The steady rhythm of the two bodies moving together, the uncontrolled moans of the woman and the sheen of sweat on her long arms that Regina could see even from her distance — it was raw ecstasy. Regina knew it was wrong for her to be there, and, as if punishing her for her trespass, her own body betrayed her with a hot flicker of excitement between her legs.

  Ashamed of herself, Regina tried to avert her eyes, but instead ended up looking directly at the man’s face, and to her shock, she realized that she actually recognized him: The dark tumble of hair, the black eyes, the chiseled features. It was the man from the steps the day before.

  And from the smile on his face as their eyes met and locked, it seemed he recognized her, too…

  Logan Belle - I hope you enjoyed this preview of Bettie Page Presents: The Librarian (Pocket Star/Simon and Schuster November 27, 2012)

  Click here to buy the complete novel or follow me at www.JamieBrenner.com or @JamieLBrenner

  Bettie Page ® is a registered trademark of Bettie Page LLC. www.BettiePage.com

  Copyright © 2012 Logan Belle