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The Library door opened with bang, and both Cassandra and Ezekiel were uncustomarily spat out into the grassy field outside.
Cassandra landed on her stomach, emitting an, “oomf!” Ezekiel tumbled a little further, landing on his back.
“Well that was nice,” he mumbled to the sky. “Stupid Library.”
“Are you okay?” Cassandra’s muffled voice floated over.
“Maybe,” he grunted, feeling pain in his back. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“Me either.”
He looked over. She had landed face down in the grass, but she was now up on her elbows, grimacing at him. Her cheek was smeared green with grass stains. There was a slight pull at his chest, but he attributed it to the wind being knocked out of him. Gingerly, he got to his feet and looked around.
There was nothing but fields, covered in purple flowers. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but…
“There’s nothing here.”
Cassandra joined him, map in hand. “That’s impossible. There is supposed to be a castle, right….” She looked at the map and then up again. “There.” She pointed off to the south where a cloud bank hovered over the hills.”
“Are you sure you read it right?” He looked over at her doubtfully and was rewarded with a glare.
“Brain grape, remember?” she said, tapping her forehead.
He put his hands up in defense. “Okay, okay.”
But she turned back and scanned the skyline. “It could be beyond that first hill,” she said nodding towards the direction she had previously pointed out. “The map is old, landscapes change...”
“People lie,” Ezekiel contributed wryly. ‘Write things down wrong on purpose…”
She tilted her head and gave him a smile that clearly told him she knew he was being an ass on purpose.
The started down the hill, making their way through the flowers. Cassandra seemed delighted at them and stopped to examine them, but Ezekiel eyed them distastefully as he passed her. He thought they looked sort of creepy and unnatural. He was about to tell Cassandra to hurry up, when he heard the sound of stalks snapping right behind him.
She had plucked a handful of flowers and was taking a deep whiff, only to sneeze immediately after, blowing a cloud of pollen into Ezekiel’s face.
“Hey!” He coughed and waved his hand in front of him.
Cassandra wiped her nose, which was now slightly red. “Sorry,” she said, sniffing. “I didn’t realize there was so much pollen.”
“They’re flowers, Cassandra,” Ezekiel said, feeling annoyed. “What did you expect?”
She looked down at her feet and he realized he had hurt her feelings.
Oh, great, Ezekiel, he thought. Way to be a douche.
“I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t realize—”
“It’s okay.”
He kicked at the flowers, scuffing his shoe in the dirt. “No, it’s not. It’s just these flowers give me a bad feeling.”
When she didn’t say anything, he looked up. A funny expression came over her face and her cheeks turned pink. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She tried again, and her expression turned to one of growing panic.
“What’s wrong?” He started towards her, alarmed, but she put out her hand suddenly and gasped out,
“Stop!”
He did stop, but his alarm only grew. “What is it? Are you sick?”
She had twisted her knees towards one another, one hand on her belly, the other on her chest, and she began breathing heavily.
“Sick?” she squeaked out. “No, not sick. You feel nothing?”
Confused, Ezekiel looked down and examined himself. “No, I—”
Then she let out small whimpering moan and immediately Ezekiel’s insides flipped as he felt intense heat flare up through his body. He gasped and staggered forward.
“What the hell was that!”
But Cassandra wasn’t listening. She clutched her skirt in her fist and pulled on it, as though it would somehow make whatever she was feeling go away. Her knees gave out and she buckled forward.
Instinct kicked in and Ezekiel reached out, catching her up against his chest—but he was suddenly overwhelmed with her softness and with a scent that could only be her—a combination of violets, books, ink, and skin. His own legs gave way and he collapsed to the ground amongst the flowers, pulling her on top of him.
“It’s the pollen!” Cassandra gasped out, struggling to get away, but only succeeding in entangling their limbs more. Her face was flushed almost as brightly as her hair. “It’s some sort of aphrodisiac or—”
Her eyes widened, pupils dilating to where there was only a small ring of blue-gray around them.
Then the numbers and facts took over.
“Datura! Chemical compounds—nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon—the properties of tropane alkaloids include methylated nitrogen, no, no, no! Ergin, Ergot! D-lysergic acid amid, H, CONH2, NCH3—LSD!” She jerked away from him.
“LSD?” Ezekiel felt his jaw drop as he scrambled to his knees. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
But she was already gone, back into the strings of theories, elements and numbers that made up the network of her thought patterns, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, knuckles white as her hand clasped together.
“Poppies, morning glories, psilocybe, stropharia, rust fungus—”
At “rust fungus,” he took her cheeks between his hands and turned her face up towards his—
—then everything he was going to say flew out of his head as his gaze caught her lips. They were red, parted, and she was panting, making little gasping noises that caused his nether regions to twitch. He thought of leaning in, just a little more, and kissing her.
“Stop!” His voice came out a growl as he tore his gaze from her lips. “I get it. Some damn plants are making us horny. Now what do we do about it?”
“Fuck.”
The expletive came as such a shock, Ezekiel actually recoiled, dropping his hands. “What?”
She sank down, her legs spread out behind her, knees parted in front. Her skirt rode up around her thighs, exposing white skin dusted with a smattering of freckles. And beyond that—
He groaned quietly. She leaned towards him, her breasts brushing against his chest. He was having a hard time breathing evenly, and the desire that swept through him made him hard.
“I can’t get the compounds out of my head,” she whispered in a strangled voice, her breath on his cheek. “I can’t breathe, I can’t focus! Ezekiel!”
She uttered his name with such desperation, he knew he would not, could not, deny her.
He took a deep shuddering breath and took her cheeks between his palms again, ignoring the way it made goose bumps rise all over his arms and scalp. “Cassandra, look at me...”
She opened her eyes and focused on his. Her eyes were so big, and they were gazing at him with such trust.
He swallowed hard. “Tell me.” His voice came out a whisper. “What do you want me to do?”
“Make it stop.”
“Yes—I know, but—” He brushed his thumb over the sharp curve of her cheekbone. “—but I need your consent. Cassandra…” He whispered her name and brushed her freckled nose with his. “I need you to tell me what you want.”
“I want—I need—endogenous opioid inhibitory neuropeptides—I need…”
“Say it,” he whispered, trembling.
“Touch me,” she whispered, clinging to him.
“Okay.” And then he kissed her, pushing her down into the purple flowers, their lurid coloring clashing against the landscape of her hair.
Her mouth was soft and responsive, velvet tongue demanding as they kissed again and again. She pressed against him and he found the hem of her sweater, pushing his hands up underneath, letting the part of his mind that made rational choices fade into the background. His fingertips connected with the soft skin of her belly and then the lace of her bra, and she gasped into his mouth.
He slowly moved his fingers down to her thigh. Slipping his hand under her skirt, he reached into the warmth there and caressed her through the soft material of her knickers. She lifted her hips to his hand and their eyes met, electric, and breathtaking.
Unable to hold the intensity of her gaze and the strange feelings that coursed through him, he closed his eyes and stilled. For a brief moment there was nothing but the warm breeze and the distant sound of birds.
“Ezekiel.”
Her hands slid up under his sweater, fingertips brushing over his skin like feathers.
Without a word, he pulled her knickers down, burying his fingers in the soft curls between her legs, feeling the dampness there.
“I want you inside me.”
His eyes widened. This entire debacle had suddenly became more dangerous, and he wasn’t sure what to do. He was simultaneously wary and bewitched.
“What?”
“I want you inside me,” she said again, and her hands were on the buttons of his pants, pulling down the zipper, reaching her hand inside…
“Oh, God,” he groaned as her small fist wrapped around him.
She pulled his trousers and pants down with one stroke and then he was between her white thighs looking into her eyes. He waited for her to make the first move, to answer his unspoken question of whether or not it was okay. He was afraid that if she said yes, it would ruin them, but in the fog of his desire he was willing to take that risk.
His question was answered when she grasped his hips and pulled him into her.
He couldn’t help himself, surrounded by her soft, silky, warmth—her name left his lips in a low, gentle, sound he had tried his best never to imitate in life, for fear its intimacy and tenor would bring him something he didn’t want.
“Oh, Cassandra.”
She clung to him as he moved within her. He tried to go slowly, but she was frantic, making whimpering noises that tugged at his control. He grasped her chin and forced her to look at him.
“Tell me when you…Cassandra, I can’t do this much longer…I can’t—”
Then his cheeks were between her palms, and she was murmuring low, incomprehensibly about the rotation speed of gas and stars in the cosmos and the electrochemical pulses in neurons.
“—the charge of the ion divided by Faraday’s constant—”
Her fingers were gentle as they traced his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, his jaw—
“Cassandra!”
“—I am no poet,” she whispered. “But if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will perform a poem in your mind—”
Just before he felt he could hold on no longer, he felt her clench tightly, then jerk, her hands slid up and gripped his hair, still muttering nonsense into his ear.
“—then came the great change that will be associated for all time with the names, Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, and Hertz—”
The rest of her words were lost to him as he shattered into a million pieces around her, and he knew nothing but his own body and the shimmering haze on the outer edges of his vision.
After a time, he didn’t know how long, he became aware that she had quieted and her grip on his hair had loosened. A silence overtook him. He heard the breeze rustle the flowers around them, and their perfume, now benign, mixed with the scent of her skin. He felt the earth crumble beneath his fingers and realized he was still inside her and she hadn’t pushed him away.
Eventually, without speaking, they rose from the ground and straightened their clothes. Ezekiel didn’t look at her, feeling embarrassment and the fear that she would not look at him.
As he fruitlessly tried to brush the grass stains off his trousers, he felt her move up behind him. When she touched his arm, he looked up. Her hair was tangled around her face and her cheeks were pink, but her expression was gentle.
“Let’s go home,” she said softly. “We can save this mission for another day…and another route.”
He smiled slightly and nodded, confused, but relieved.
She led the way back to spot they had emerged from, the outline of the library door shimmering against the backdrop of the trees.
As she climbed up the hill before him, he noticed the back of her skirt was wet—not with dew or damp—but with him.
As he stared at the spot, he felt something tug inside his chest that he knew—knew—had nothing to do with the pollen or it’s after effects. The truth was, he would have done anything she asked of him, willingly and without question.
When she reached the door, she turned and he stared. Her hair, lit by the sun, had turned into a halo of red fire. Her eyes glimmered in the dying light, features sharpened in the shadows. She looked ethereal, every bit the Librarian she was meant to be—and more.
With a smile, she reached her hand down to him to help him up the last steep hill.
Without hesitation, he took it.