Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Unfortunate Masturbation, Part 2

Jeanna burst into the break room. I glanced up from Pillars of the Earth, where I had been deep into medieval England, with knights battling for honor and monks building colossal cathedrals.

"Someone was masturbating in the stacks!" She looked like she wanted to both laugh and vomit.

"Again?" I asked. "Did they catch him?"

Jeanna's eyes looked as round as full moons. "Yeah, he tried running out, and he got as far as that vacant lot next to us, but one of the other patrons tackled him."

I stifled a giggle and asked, "Who found him?"

"Me." Jeanna's face was blooming red from mortification. "He was watching some dirty video, and he had his fly undone, and he had his thing half out of his pants and he was stroking it, so I ran to go get Kraleen. But I think he must have noticed me, because he had already left when I came back."

I shook my head at the antics of The Public. "Was he…?" and I made the motion for heavy-duty wanking.

"No, he just had it out and was kind of flopping it around," she said. She scrunched up her face and looked like she was trying to press CTL+ALT+DEL in her mind. We had a fit of cathartic giggling to rid ourselves of what just transpired.

"What's going to happen to him?"

Jeanna was suddenly serious. "Well, one of Mrs. Robinson's sons saw him, and since he's only 16, the guy will get charged with exposing himself to a minor."

I had a flash of empathy for the teen; when I was 13 or so, some jerk had exposed himself while I was waiting in the car at a Dollar General. I had felt sick and scared, torn between running to get my mother and leaving my little sister (who has Down Syndrome) alone in the car.

"People are animals," I said, and Jeanna agreed whole-heartedly.

Ah yes, dear Reader, don't think that just because the library is often a quiet place that it is a peaceful one.

Freaky shit still happens.

One of the little quirks about making information free and open to the public means that most libraries provide computer access or a WiFi connection. On the one hand, one of the core tenets of librarianship is to challenge censorship of any form, and that includes internet filtering. Just because some people find some content "obscene" does not mean that it should be restricted[6]. One the other hand, people, at their core, are just dirty animals looking to get off. Where do you go if you want to watch free, high speed porn? That's right: the library.

The debate rages on.

A white guy, somewhere in his 40s was browsing the science fiction section. He glanced at me, and I smiled on reflex and tried going back to weeding.

"You have a pretty smile."

"Thank you," I said, keeping my eyes firmly on the oevre of Ray Bradbury before me.

"So, are you married?"

Inappropriate much?

"No." I pulled a battered copy of The Martian Chronicles.

"Why not?"

I grit my teeth. Do you treat all professionals this way?

"Just haven't found the right person," I muttered.

"So…do you think I could give you a call sometime?"

I became intensely aware of the wall at my back and that the man effectively blocked my way out of the stacks. The towering rows of books seemed like they were closing in around me. My eyelashes became moth's wings in a glass jar.

This is not Houston, and he's not Keith.

Marlys, my fellow librarian, came to my rescue.

"Can I help you find something to read?" Marlys asked loudly. She directed the man away from me. I mumbled, "I have to go to the bathroom/get something/pull a book off the shelves," and left to essentially hide in the break room. I swallowed a Buspirone to calm my heart rate.

My supervisor pulled me into her office after the embarrassing event, and I honestly thought that she was going to blame me for the situation. She was not the warmest or most approachable supervisor I had ever had, and I steeled myself for the reprimand. She shut the door behind us.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were OK after the incident with Caleb," she said.

"Uh, yes, it was just a little…embarrassing. But it's ok. I'm fine." The glaring, fluorescent lights in her office seemed especially harsh.

"We have taken steps to make sure that he doesn't enter on these premises again. He can go to the other branches, but not here." She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, which were always leaking.

Right then, I had one of those weird moments where my body was in the library office, but my mind flashed to pink areolas, thumping music, and old man smell. I felt like a robot pretending to be human. What does the human manual say about this situation? Your fellow human is asking about your personal well-being. Reference page 80, section A, paragraph 2 for proper response.

"Oh, ok, that's good."

The irony of the situation struck me as slightly surreal. My boss was asking if I were OK after some guy had inappropriately hit on me, when during half the week, I dealt with uncouth guys hitting on me tastelessly for eight hours straight. Still, it was reassuring that this kind of workplace harassment was dealt with swiftly and efficiently. It wasn't as if I thought, "Pshaw, this was a piece of cake to deal with compared to what I deal with every other day." Unwanted attention based on sexual attraction is difficult to deal with, no matter the environment. I appreciated the support, but I simply wanted the interaction to be over, so I could go back to being a librarian.

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