The Ugly Ducklings (Closed for Desperado 1089)

[SpicySpirit]

Miriam clutched the copy of her resume in her hands, looking up at the sign across the familiar blue building. Taking a deep breath, she shifted the weight of her backpack strap and placed a hand on the glass door. As she opened the heavy door, she heard the familiar tinkle of the bell to let the employees know a customer had entered. She had come to the bookstore frequently since moving to Berkeley, but had always kept to herself and tended to blend in with the bookshelves. Besides, coming to the bookstore to do an interview was far different than hiding in a corner to read her newest treasure all alone.

She nervously walked up to the counter and asked for Mrs. Fisher, the owner. The employee at the register politely asked her to have a seat or feel free to look around while they went to retrieve her.

Miriam bit her lip. Fantastic, she thought, bonus time to build up my nerves. Trying to keep her mind off the interview at hand, she walked through the aisles and browsed the various titles. Pegasus Books was a new and used bookstore. She had always been an adamant reader, and while the rest of the world moved on to electronic books and tablets, Miriam had continued to select physical copies to read. Bookstores with used books were becoming harder and harder to find. She loved the chocolate and wood fragrance that old books seemed to emanate. Her fingers browsed the spines of several older romance books on a shelf, admiring the textures and fabrics.

“Miriam?” She heard an older woman’s voice calling from behind her.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said, turning back to the front of the store.

Pulling the brown cardigan sweater tighter around her chest, she followed Mrs. Fisher into a back room to complete, what she hoped would be, a successful interview.

 

[desperado1089]

Sam Fisher, who happened to be the owner's grandson, was already in the room when his grandmother walked in with their newest applicant. He pushed his glasses further up his nose and smiled. "Don't mind me, I'm just here to help out grandmother. Plus it helps with my people skills." He held up a pencil and a notebook. "You won't know I'm here."

But as he balanced his notebook on a clipboard against a pair of skinny legs that the dark blue slacks he wore did a poor job of concealing the thinness of, he thought that he would most definitely not forget this girl. She was beautiful, he thought, and almost missed the start of the interview because of his daydreaming.

 

[SpicySpirit]

"Nice to meet you," she gave him a small smile and a friendly nod. She hadn't remembered seeing him around the bookshop before, but then again, she wasn't one to go out of her way to introduce herself to others. His disheveled brown hair was endearing and his smile welcoming.

She tucked a strand of her auburn hair back behind her ear and adjusted her black-rimmed glasses before settling into the plush leather chair across from Mrs. Fisher. Miriam pulled the brown sweater even tighter around herself as if it could hide her nerves and the butterflies in her stomach. Last year, she had worked on campus in the dining hall and it had been a disaster for her. This year she had vowed to get a job off-campus, where she wouldn't know anyone. There were very few jobs she was comfortable doing, so the stakes were high.

"So, tell me a little bit about yourself," Mrs. Fisher started, her voice was gentle and her eyes were kind.

Miriam fiddled with one of her rings and then took a breath to ground herself before answering, her somewhat lower, husky sounding voice tumbling out faster than she had hoped it would.

"I am originally from Surprise, Arizona - yes that is the actual name," she noted the usual eyebrow raise she got from strangers when she talked about her hometown. "It's a small suburb outside of Phoenix. I moved here for college because UC Berkeley offered me a scholarship and I wanted to attend a larger school. I am a Biology major. I love to read and appreciate old and used books, so I come here often. I needed a new part-time job outside of school and saw you were hiring..." she trailed off somewhat awkwardly. How many times have I told you to not ramble and then trail off, scolding herself for not finishing definitively. She hated interviews.

Her hazel eyes had been glancing between the table and Mrs. Fisher as she spoke, but when she trailed off she caught Sam's eyes. He gave her an encouraging smile before quickly looking down at his notebook. Miriam looked down at her hands and then back up at Mrs. Fisher waiting for the next question.

 

[desperado1089]

Thankfully, Sam's grandmother was not some old battleaxe when she was conducting interviews, particularly with candidates who were so much like her grandson: shy, awkward, nerdy. So Rita Fisher gave Miriam a warm smile and said, "Well, that is indeed a surprise," hoping to lighten the mood; Sam laughed at the joke and made a mental note to look up the township later.

"So, I've taken a look at your application," Mrs. Fisher went on, "and your resume is, of course, not really full of experience but hey, you're still young and you got your whole life ahead of you! We try not to hold that against people around here." She paused and glanced at Sam. "One of the other reasons I let Sam sit in on these is, unfortunately, I'm not getting any younger, and his parents are doing their own thing. So one day, hopefully a long time from now yet, Sam will be taking over for me. Best to prepare him now while there's still time. So, Sam, what do you think?"

Sam set down his notebook and stood up, and doing his best to summon a bit of confidence, he barely stumbled over his words as he said, "I think she'll fit right in, Grandma." Rita beamed and said, "I couldn't agree more. Welcome to the team, Miriam." Both Sam and Rita offered Miriam a handshake.

 

[SpicySpirit]

Miriam was lost in her thoughts the entire walk back to the dorms and when she arrived at the door to the suite, she wasn't even sure how she had gotten there. She was elated to have been offered the job and was even more excited that she could start training tomorrow. Miriam secretly hoped that Sam would be the one training her, but never would have admitted it. The door to her shared dorm room in the suite was closed, and when she gently propped it open she was relieved to see that her roommate, Jackie, was out and about on campus.

Freshman year, Miriam had lucked out half-way through the year when her roommate had decided to transfer back home. The college hadn't moved anyone else in for the rest of the year and she had enjoyed the freedom of having a private space. This year, she hadn't been as fortunate since single rooms were few and far between. To be fair, she could have been placed in a triple, which would have been far worse. She loved that Kerr was several blocks from campus and not right in the thick of things, so between having a single room and being removed from campus, this was the lesser of two evils.

This year, the college had placed her with a junior. Jackie would have been a perfectly lovely roommate had she not been everything Miriam was trying to escape from back home. Her luscious dirty blonde hair, large honey-colored eyes, and curvy figure, were the epitome of every frat boy's wet dream. She reminded Miriam of all the cheerleaders who used to torment her mercilessly in high school, but thankfully, Jackie was much kinder, so she couldn't begrudge her too much. Being classically attractive and outgoing, Jackie was often out and about being a social butterfly. Thank goodness for small favors.

Placing her backpack on the floor next to her bed, she flopped onto the jewel-toned mandala comforter, hugging a pillow to her chest. She needed to start working on the paperwork for her chemistry lab, but couldn't bring herself to sit in front of her laptop to start. Miriam leaned over and grabbed her backpack, pulling out her most recently acquired copy of Emmanuelle, an older French novel. She had a found a copy in its original language. Being practically fluent in French from high school, she was eager to read it without the translation.

She was only part way through the first chapter where Emmanuelle was on a plane under a blanket and had reached under her skirt to start touching herself. Taking advantage of the empty room, she continued reading the chapter, feeling the wetness build between her own thighs. Miriam held the book in her left hand, unzippered her pants with her right hand and slid her fingertips into her now damp underwear. She started gently pressing against her throbbing clit, massaging it the same way Emmanuelle did in the passage.

In the next section, the mysterious stranger next to Emmanuelle's seat, reached his hands under the blanket and began caressing Emmanuelle's swollen sex, dipping in and out of her opening and circling her clit. Her mind wandering, Miriam imagined Sam as the mysterious stranger in her own fantasy, continuing to dip in and out of her own lips with her fingers. The book fell to her pillow as she was getting close to climaxing... she bit her lip trying to stifle back a moan...

And that's when she heard the front door to the suite slam shut.

Fuck. She stopped cold. So much for that.

Miriam quickly shoved the novel back into her backpack and zipped up her pants, just before Jackie burst into the room.

"Hey!" she greeted, tossing her things onto her bed before turning to face Miriam.

"Hi," Miriam replied weakly, trying to restrain from showing any annoyance in her voice towards Jackie.

"How did your interview go?" Jackie asked flopping into her desk chair.

"It went really well," Miriam smiled over at her, reminding herself that Jackie truly was a good person. "I got the job."

"That's awesome, Miri." Jackie gave her a genuine smile. There were only some people allowed to call Miriam by her nickname and Jackie had been kind enough to earn the right.

"Thanks. I was just about to go get a shower before starting my chem lab report. Did you need it first?"

"Nah, I was going to try to finish my essay for lit and then meet Shane for dinner." Shane was Jackie's boyfriend of almost a year. Miriam tried not to be jealous, but struggled having never had a boyfriend herself. Miriam grabbed her bathrobe and started to make her way to the suite's bathroom.

"Cool, well have fun and I will see you later then!" Miriam quickly departed the dorm room and headed to the suite bathroom where she could turn on the water and finish what she had started in private.

 

[desperado1089]

Sam breathed out a sigh of relief when he shut the door to his off-campus apartment. "Alexa, lights," he called out and a moment later the apartment's lights came on to his own half-intensity specifications. The door locked electronically at the same moment as the lights came on, and he walked past a framed, signed poster of Captain Jean-Luc Picard as he bent down to scratch his Belgian Malinois behind the ears. "You miss me, Bones?", he asked the dog softly, and he whined in response. He thought back to when he first got Bones, as a newly-birthed puppy, and recalled how he thought it would've been weird if the dog was female. His tradition of naming his pets after Star Trek characters was called into serious question, in his mind at least, when he had a female cat as a young teenager, but he compromised and christened her Spot, after the feline companion of Lt. Commander Data. Spot was currently in a different home, as Sam gave her to his only friend from high school after moving for college.

Kicking off his shoes and glancing towards his school computer (he had a high-end gaming setup in the apartment's second bedroom, which was his nerd cave, as he termed it), he chuckled at how he'd already done all of the assignments that were due anytime soon, and started the ones that were due later. His mind drifted to thoughts of Miriam, and in due course he had left a pile of clothes in his hamper as he turned on the shower in his bathroom, head full of thoughts imagining what she might be hiding under that cardigan.

 

[SpicySpirit]

Miriam’s alarm jolted her awake at 6am the next morning. She had an 8:10am Statistics class, followed by a chemistry lab. She didn’t mind the early classes because they got her up and moving for the day. She had three other roommates, including Jackie, in the suite that shared a bathroom. The others all had later morning classes, so she appreciated her calm mornings in the bathroom before their chaos began.

Before trekking to the suite bathroom, she reached inside her bedside drawer and pulled out her pill bottles. Medication had been an ongoing saga of her life, and she had to be mindful of taking her meds at specific times of day to stay regulated. Sipping the glass of water by her bed, she stopped to log the meds in her phone app before shuffling to her closet to pull out clothes for the day.

Any other day, she would have thrown on the first t-shirt, sweater and jeans she could find and head off to class, but today wasn’t a typical day. She wished she had asked Mrs. Fisher or Sam if there was a dress code for the bookstore, and hoped that whatever she picked for today would suffice.

She settled on a pair of light tan corduroy pants and an earth-toned slouchy striped sweater over a white button-up. Beyond the substantial scholarship, one of the reasons she had selected Berkeley was the change in climate. Miriam had always been overly self-conscious of her body, and it was much easier to wear layers here than it was back in Arizona.

On the way to the bathroom, she stopped to make a cup of tea before settling in front of the bathroom mirror. Miriam took the time to braid her wavy reddish-brown hair instead of throwing it up into the normal clip or bun. Due to sensitive skin and acne, she rarely wore a ton of makeup, but did take the time today to add a little mascara. Doing a final check in the mirror, she put her glasses back on and stared at her reflection. This was acceptable, she had never been super feminine, but this was a small step.

Her classes went by quickly, and before she knew it, she was walking back into the bookstore that afternoon, ready to start her first day of work. Stepping over the threshold, Miriam quickly scanned the areas she could see for Mrs. Fisher… or really for Sam… Not seeing either of them, she sighed, her stomach turning as she approached the female employee at the register. Tessa, her nametag read. But before she could open her mouth, she heard a voice behind her.

 

[desperado1089]

The bookstore was one of the few places Sam really felt comfortable, where he could speak without stumbling over his words, where he almost felt...normal. So it was with an almost giddy anticipation (part of which had a lot to do with Miriam) that he blew through his classes without paying much attention to them.

When it finally came time to begin work he took extra time to make sure he was presentable--hair combed, button-up shirt tucked in, tie straight, name tag clean--and began his shift with one eye always on the door. He was called into the back to help move some heavier things, so he missed Miriam's entrance, but when he realized she was here he quickly finished up before heading back to the front. "I got this, Tessa," he said, and when Miriam turned around he forgot how to speak for several seconds, his eyes would have bugged out if this was a cartoon.

Eventually recovering himself, he cleared his throat. "Umm, yeah. Welcome, welcome. Let me show you around the parts of the store you haven't seen yet, and hopefully by the time that's done..." He led her into the back where a 3D printer was set up next to a computer with six different name tag designs on the screen. "Just pick one, type your name or however you'd like people to address you, and click the green button at the top. By the time the tour is done, so will the 3D printer."

 

[SpicySpirit]

Without thinking, Miriam leaned in close to Sam to look over at the computer to see the options for name tags. Her hazel eyes scanned Sam's nametag, and then met his eyes briefly before returning to look over the options. She hadn't realized how close she had gotten to him and didn't want to make things awkward on her first day.

"This is pretty neat, I haven't actually used one of these before. Did you set this up?"

After a quick review, she selected one of the options that had a book on the left side with lettering that had a flowing lilt to it, typing in her full name. M-I-R-I-A-M.

"I usually go by Miriam. I let friends call me Miri, but I wouldn't want random strangers calling me that... So is Sam a nickname or is it your full name?"

Damn it, Miriam. Stop rambling and let him talk.

She straightened up from the keyboard and turned to smile at him, fidgeting with her rings again waiting for his response.

 

[desperado1089]

Sam's brain checked out for long enough for him to blurt out, "You can read the dictionary, for all I care." Then he realized what he'd said and stammered out, "Y-yeah, I s-set it up. You want tech setup, I'm your g-guy," all as his face went beet red.

As the 3D printer set to work, he took her through all the employee areas: the stock room, his grandmother's office, the door that led up to Rita's apartment (to which Sam was the only one with a spare key), and a break room that seemed designed as a quiet reading area as much as a place to eat. "Grandma always makes a big heaping pile of food for us all to eat, stacked up in the fridge in Tupperware containers," he said, opening the fridge to reveal several servings of beef stroganoff. "If you aren't hungry when you take a break, go ahead and bring it home. Just make sure you bring back the Tupperware when you're done."

Circling back to the 3D printer, the name tag was done and Sam attached a magnet to the back and held up a matching magnet that was shaped like an open book made of metal. He demonstrated how the name tag was attached by the two magnets coming together, then handed the whole thing to her. "Welcome to the team, Miriam. I-we're so glad you're here."

 

[SpicySpirit]

Miriam wasn't sure what Sam had meant about dictionaries, but she when she glanced up at him she saw his face had turned a little red. Ok, maybe he is nervous, too. Though she couldn't understand why. Considering he was the assistant manager of the store, he had probably trained dozens of employees before. She made note that he never actually answered the question about his full name, but figured she could find out later.

As he walked her through the store, they came to the breakroom and he shared the very full fridge. "Your grandmother is a very generous and kind woman. It's amazing that you have such a close relationship with her," Miriam remarked.

Sam seemed to smile at that, before circling back to the 3D Printer. When he handed her the nametag, she wasn't sure whether to correct him, and say that he could just call her Miri. Thinking about what she had said before, she didn't want him to think he wasn't a friend. Was he a friend? ...or a work associate? I want him to be my friend, but is it too presumptuous to say that on the first day?

All these thoughts went racing through her head so quickly, as she paused, and decided she could offer it up again later if the chance arose.

"Thank you, Sam. I appreciate it," Miriam settled for not potentially embarrassing herself and making assumptions. Unbuttoning her shirt at the top, she lifted the bottom of it ever so slightly so she could put the back of the magnet underneath. She didn't realize she was showing a little of her stomach and underwear as she did, and surely wasn't aware it was visible to Sam since she was looking down make certain it was secure and straight.

Once she was sure it was presentable, Miriam just looked up at him with friendly smile and asked, "What would you like me to work on today?"

 

[desperado1089]

Sam chuckled a little awkwardly when he realized he didn't answer her question. "I've been going by Sam for as long as I can remember, but it is indeed short for Samuel." Back at the 3D printer, he smiled. "I would be more than happy to consider you a friend...Miri." And maybe more someday, he thought to himself...just before his brain started to short-circuit at the sight of Miriam's stomach and underwear. It wasn't exactly porn, but he finally caught a small glimpse of what she hid from the world, and he loved it.

When he landed back to earth, thankfully just in time to catch her question, he smiled and said, "I get the sense you might be a little nervous around the public, at least at first. Just like I was. But that's all right. Grandma said to start you off with learning where everything goes, both in the back and on the sales floor." Over the next several hours, Sam would teach Miri how their system worked, and how the stock room was laid out almost exactly like the sales floor, albeit with much fewer books in the back as opposed to the front. "Obviously, sometimes we will have almost everything out on the sales floor, and very little will be back here," he explained. "Such is the nature of the used book business. Since one hundred percent of our stock comes from either donations or people selling us their books, we won't ever get large boxes full of brand-new copies. So the stock room will always contain either what we've yet to enter into our system--which I'll show you how to do in a minute--what is too unpopular to put out on the sales floor, overstock, or online-only materials. There's also one other category." He pointed to a corner in the very back of the stock room, labeled "Adults Only." "There is a list of what's available here, much of it blurs the line between literature and porn and oftentimes falls on the latter side of the line in the eyes of many, and to see the list, you gotta be carded, just like you would if you walked into an adult novelty shop. Make sense?"

 

[SpicySpirit]

Okay, Miriam thought to herself, he did pick up on that and he does want to be friends. She couldn't really explain it, but she liked how 'Miri' sounded coming from him more than other people who had used her nickname.

Miriam was relieved that she wouldn't have to work on the main floor right away, but was even more happy that she would get to spend the rest of the afternoon working with Sam. It was a paradox because while he she was nervous around him, he also made her feel relaxed at the same time.

"Yes it does make sense." Miriam nodded, she glanced to the corner of the room he had just pointed out. "So after you show me how to enter books into the system...?" She trailed off, unsure of how to continue the sentence. She didn't want to come across as a sex-crazed pervert, but was very intrigued by the "Adults Only" section he had just described. One of her favorite reading genres, but not one she had ever admitted to anyone.

"Oh, nevermind. I lost my train of thought." Miriam's face flushed and she looked at the ground, chickening out. Don't want to start off on the wrong foot and make things awkward.

 

[desperado1089]

Sam chuckled, giving Miri a knowing look. "Yeah, I'm a little curious about it myself. Why not? You're over 18, right?" He played it off as a joke, before waving Miri over towards a small shelf inside the entrance to the stock room. It held two tablets, both of which were encased in protective covers with shoulder straps. "These are how we keep inventory," he said, and after unlocking the screen, he showed her the app that displayed a top-down view of the stock room, side by side with a top-down view of the sales floor, with each bin or shelf colored red, green or white.

"A white bin is empty," he explained. "A red bin has materials that haven't been entered into the system. A green bin has materials, all of which have been entered into the system. Since we deal with rare books and other valuable items, we fit each book with an RFID sticker, but with a key difference from those you see in the library: there's a special aerosol spray at checkout that will let you take it off without damaging the book. But the reason I'm bringing that up now, is that each bin is on a scale. Each book, magazine, or other item is weighed when it comes in. If there's a discrepancy between the weight of the bin and the RFID stickers in it, it's flagged red."

He tapped a button marked "Training Mode" and put in a pass code before tapping a couple more things and one of the bin turned purple along with the corresponding shelf on the sales floor. "This happens when something is moved from the stock room to the sales floor without being logged in the system. As long as it's still in the store, we won't make a big deal, although we do encourage you to make sure it doesn't happen too often." He tapped a few other commands and the bin and shelf turned yellow. "This occurs when someone puts inventory out without logging it, and it gets sold before someone fixes the mistake. If enough of those two things happen, we'll give you some help, maybe some more training. The only times you really need to worry are when this happens," he said, tapping a few more commands and one of the stock room bins were colored with a red and blue striped pattern. "This means an RFID-tagged book was removed from the store without setting off the alarm and without being sold. Usually, when that happens the relevant data is immediately sent to the police and myself or Grandma is alerted so we can meet them when they come. Thankfully it's never happened. This is the other thing that you need to worry about." He tapped some more commands and a bin in the stock room turned black. "This happens when two things happen together. The first is that the scale registers a non-RFID tagged book has been removed. The second is that the security system's AI monitoring program detects the book being taken from the store. That's never happened either, thankfully, because I wrote the program but there's no way to tell if it really works. Had to spend days teaching it what various methods of concealment look like on camera."

 

[SpicySpirit]

Miriam watched carefully while Sam explained all of the procedures for the inventory. Since he was showing her the app on a tablet, she had to move closer in to him to see the various items he was talking about. Taking a step closer, she realized she could feel the heat coming off his body.

Stay focused, Miriam.

In noticing their proximity, she had missed something he said and she hoped it wouldn't come back to bite her. As Sam continued to explain the various color coding, she caught a glimpse of his face every so often, not trying to draw focus. This was clearly a project he was proud of and passionate about.

"This is pretty intricate. You did the whole program yourself?" She admired people who could invent and create with computers and electronics. While she was a talented scientist, electronics were not her forte.

 

[desperado1089]

"Yep. I certainly did. Now, I may be a nerd, but that doesn't mean I didn't notice your attention slipping a bit. I don't want you to have any problems, so how about you tell me what you remember before and after you spaced out, alright?" Sam was neither mad nor disappointed. He genuinely wanted to make sure she understood everything okay.

Once she told him what she'd missed and he'd repeated himself, he unplugged a second tablet and put it in training mode. "Alright, nothing you do here will affect anything in the real world, so don't worry if it takes you a few tries to get it right. There's some tutorial programs there that'll teach you to scan in new inventory, what to do if the barcode is unreadable, and more. Go ahead and get familiar with it while I go check on Tessa and make sure my grandma doesn't need anything."

 

[SpicySpirit]

Miriam was grateful that Sam had repeated the instructions she had missed, but damn he was observant. Thankfully, he was very kind about it and repeated the parts she needed again. Even though she had never been a teacher to anyone, as a student she always had the pet peeve of hating when teachers had to repeat themselves five times because students weren't paying attention. She didn't want Sam to think ill of her for not having her full focus. Ironically, he did have her full focus; she was just focused on his body and not what he was saying, but she couldn't admit that.

After he left her to work on the tablet, she spent the next 30 minutes using the tutorials and experimenting with the app. Sam had made it pretty intuitive and easy to follow. While she hadn't had a job back home before college, she had volunteered at the public library some and was used to the common methods of tracking inventory. So the barcodes and RFID tags weren't that foreign.

Feeling like she had the hang of things, she peeked through the doorway onto the main floor, but only saw Tessa at the main counter, along with a few customers browsing shelves. She retreated back to the storage room, unsure of what to work on next. Her eyes came across the back corner of the room, where the "Adults Only" sign seemed to be calling her name.

Taking a quick glance back out to the main floor and still not seeing Sam, she made her way to the corner where there was a curtained doorway underneath the "Adults Only" sign. Miriam had never been to an adult novelty shop, but not for lack of interest. She hadn't had the courage to go to one in the past two years since she had turned 18. She knew that when video stores had been prevalent they often had a back area for adults only films, but most video stores had closed by the time she was 10 due to the surge of Netflix and the internet. Taboo and books weren't two words that often found themselves together in the average person's mind. As much as she had it built up in her mind, she was sure it was probably just a small closet with some shelves of books and not much to look at.

She glanced back to the tablet and sighed, feeling magnetically drawn to the dark corner. I'll just take a peek, she thought, and come right back out.

 

[desperado1089]

The Adults Only section contained shelves of books, it was true. The steamiest romance novels with the most lurid descriptions were only the tip of the iceberg. Every manner of magazine that featured nude women (and a few with men) were categorized by year and magazine, and made up the bulk of the section. And most every magazine was represented at least once.

Sam was currently helping his grandmother bring down a large chocolate cake to welcome their new employee, and setting up a surprise party in the break room. So Miriam would have time to explore the space, but how much was anyone's guess.

 

[SpicySpirit]

As Miriam pushed the black velvety curtains to the side and stepped into the back room, her eyes took a moment to adjust. The space was similar to a large walk-in closet or smaller bedroom in size. The lighting was sufficient enough to see, but definitely dimmer than the storage room and other areas of the store. Having been to the store several times during her freshman year, how did she not know this area existed? Oh, right, she thought, I wouldn't have been brave enough to be carded, let alone come back here even if I had known.

She walked further into the room away from the curtain. There were several shelves filled with books of newer and older texts. Miriam hadn't anticipated the amount of magazines that would be in the back. There must be a certain nostalgia for old smut magazines since their ship had sailed with the introduction of PornHub and OnlyFans. While she preferred reading and using her imagination to fantasize about different sexual scenarios, the nude magazines of women and men she came across were definitely raising her temperature.

Towards the end of a shelf she noticed a title she had yet to read on her personal list, a 1977 first edition copy of Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus. The book nerd that she was, Miriam couldn’t help but sit down on the crate near the shelf and crack open the weathered yellow cover of the book and start reading.