I Make My Escape

I glance back as I run between the bookcases, the two suits are only just realising what I’ve done. Onyx, the one who was standing, starts to walk after me. This strikes me as odd – why is he walking? Nobody else here seems to have noticed me running, which probably isn’t all that common a sight in the library.

I see a door in the wall to my right and charge through it, finding myself in a spacious accessible toilet. I pause for just a second. I need a pen, and I need to write in my book so I can escape. I open the book, deciding to think of something to write as I am running so as soon as I see a pen I can scribble my plan down. I throw the door open and run back out.

My eyes sting at the intense, bright light. I have to squeeze them closed, and I can’t run. I crouch down, bracing for one of the agents to tackle me whilst I’m immobilised, but nothing happens. I feel a light, warm breeze on my face, and hear cheerful birdsong. Opening my eyes I find myself on a grassy lawn, part of a large secluded garden surrounded by flower beds and tall trees. How did I do this? I wonder. Turning back to the toilet door I see that it is now the rough wooden door of a potting shed.

I catch my breath, then hold it, standing still, as I hear something from behind the shed. There is a metallic creaking sound, a shrill cry followed by a guttural growl. I flatten myself against the coarse wooden planks and peer around to see the source of the noise.

I can breathe again. Sprawled, face down across a wooden wheelbarrow is a woman, her thin blue dress pushed up around her waist, the top open and pulled down, her breasts pressed against the timber. The metal frame of the barrow creaks as a man thrusts into her from behind, his rough shirt open, his dirty trousers around his ankles. The woman looks like a character from an expensive costume drama, but he looks like he spends all of his time working on a farm. Her flesh is soft and pale in contrast to the hard, tanned skin of his buttocks.

I have no idea how this has happened. I didn’t get a chance to write in the book. Perhaps the agent did, and this is a trap? I move back out of sight, and look down. I still have it open in my hand at one of the torn pages from one of the other books.

‘And when he came into her, with an intensification of relief and consummation that was pure peace to him, she was still waiting. She felt herself a little left out. And she knew, partly it was her own fault. She willed herself into this separateness.’

I hear the man grunt in a deep voice and look around the shed wall. As he still thrusts into the woman he suddenly stiffens, and the fierce growl I heard earlier is louder, harsher, and she briefly cries out beneath him. He leans forward, his buttocks twitching, and the barrow creaks loudly as he rests his body on hers.

Okay, so the agents have gone, but now I’m in this lady’s garden. And it doesn’t seem like a very good moment to ask her for a pen. I try to pull the torn page out, to reveal the blank one beneath which I can write on, but it seems to be bound with the others. It is now part of this book. My book. I read on, trying to figure this out as the two lovers behind me pant loudly.

‘Now perhaps she was condemned to it. She lay still, feeling his motion within her, his deep-sunk intentness, the sudden quiver of him at the springing of his seed, then the slow-subsiding thrust. That thrust of the buttocks, surely it was a little ridiculous. If you were a woman, and a part in all this business, surely that thrusting of the man’s buttocks was supremely ridiculous. Surely the man was intensely ridiculous in this posture and this act… Yes, this was love, this ridiculous bouncing of the buttocks, and the wilting of the poor, insignificant, moist little penis. This was the divine love!’