The MILF Files: Volume 3

Chapter 1: Taking What They’re Giving I love my job. Brynn Martin leaned back in her chair. Around her was the hush of the school library. A few dozen computers, a sturdy shelf of newspapers, periodicals and magazines, and the stacks of books, running in neat rows down the rear half of the room. Not as many as she would have liked, of course. It was a running joke in the staff lounge that when budget time came around, Miss Martin always asked for twice as much as the school district was willing to give her. But over the last ten years, she had managed to upgrade a facility that had been permanently stuck in the nineteen-seventies into one of the best high-school libraries in west-central Illinois. Of course, she thought with an inner smile, it wasn’t as if there was a whole lot of competition for that honor. Havana was forty miles from Peoria, fifty miles from Springfield, and light-years away from anything that resembled the twenty-first century. A farm town that always seemed a few bad years away from dying altogether, it was riddled by poverty. The good jobs had left years ago. Now there wasn’t much left besides the farms and the businesses that served them. And three or four bad harvests in a row would kick the remaining supports right out from under the five thousand or so people who lived in the town. Which made her job all the more important. Many of the kids in the high school didn’t have much money at home. And what they did have was spent on necessities, not high-speed internet connections and laptop computers. So most of the young men and women who had the ambition and brains to try to get out of town and into the bigger world depended on the school library. Yes. They depend on me. And I depend on them. Sure, Brynn could probably have gotten a job at a bigger school district. Or gotten out of education altogether and been a librarian in a larger town. But Haven was a good, clean place to live and raise her two children. The cost of living was cheap, the rent on her house was low, and she was able to get dependable day-care after school for Larry and Aliya. And then, there were the invisible benefits. Like the ability to choose lovers from among the male students at the high school. A benefit which no one knew about besides herself. And her lovers, of course. Brynn was careful. She knew how dangerous the game she played was. All it would take was one loose-lipped teenager to ruin her comfortable little life. Which was why she chose her targets very, very carefully. After she and her husband divorced, she had grown everlastingly tired of the men her own age. They were so in love with their own personalities that sometimes she thought that they should save time and maybe clone themselves. Then they could stare at each other all day and tell themselves how great they were. No. Young men were better. They were young, they were grateful, they were practically tireless in bed, and with her ability to cut off the free-flowing spigot of risk-free s*x that every teenager craved, they were something she could control. Of course, she mused regretfully, the dreary dead period between one lover and the next, as she carefully selected the high-school senior who would share her bed until he went away to college, had the tendency to wear on her. But even that had its own special flavor of excitement. Until she chose, she had all of them. After, she only had one. Which was why it was very, very important that she choose wisely. The bell rang, and the scattering of students who were using their final-period study hall to do work in the library gathered their things and left. With a smile, Brynn got up, walking around the large room as she put things away. A few reference books, the sports section of the St. Louis paper one of the sports-crazy sophomores had left out, and a scattering of notebook paper that someone had forgotten to throw in the recycling bin. The door opened, and one of her favorite students walked in. “Hi there, Michael. What’s up?” “Hi, Miss Martin.” The dark-haired senior looked at her, then glanced away shyly. “What are you doing here? School’s out. Or didn’t you hear the bell?” she teased. His answering smile was small, but genuine. “Oh, I heard it, all right. But I wanted to use the computers to finish up my history paper before I had to go in to work tonight.” The young man, Brynn recalled, worked for the local feed company, supplementing his single mother’s income by working evenings on the loading dock. “Well, you’re welcome to stay for a while, but I have to leave at five to pick up my kids. And once I leave, I’ll have to kick you out.” “That’s fine,” he said, sitting down at one of the computers and pulling a history textbook out of his backpack. In a few minutes, the only sound in the library was the clatter of the keyboard. Brynn watched him for a time, a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth, then went back to her own duties. Being a librarian wasn’t exactly a back-breaking job. A far cry, for instance, from hauling around bags of pig and cattle feed. But there certainly was a lot of it, even in a small-town high school. There were books to shelve and books to pull from the shelves, reserved by students who needed them for term papers or projects. There were e-mails to send to students whose books were past due. If a teacher wanted to show a movie or video to a class, she had to get it ready from their small supply of educational DVDs and, even more importantly, collect it after the school day was done, because who knew who might need it next. It was around four-thirty that she noticed the sounds from Michael’s computer had ceased. She glanced up, curious, her mug of hot tea forgotten at her elbow, just in time to see his tall, slender form vanishing into the stacks. When he didn’t come back after fifteen minutes, her curiosity began to change to annoyance. Where could he have gone? There weren’t any doors down that way. And it wasn’t as if they were at the main branch of the New York Public Library or anything. You couldn’t get lost in here if you tried. And she had to leave to pick up her kids soon. Leaving her mug at her desk, Brynn got up and walked into the stacks. It only took about a minute to find Michael. And when she did, she put her hand over her mouth, stifling a naughty giggle. Michael, it seemed, had managed to find one of the very, very few books with erotic content in the library. She recognized the cover – a spicy romance that she had picked up at a flea market last summer. With money so tight, the school board often let her bring in her own purchases to supplement what she could buy with the meager budget they allowed her, as long as the books were educational in nature. Luckily, both the title and the description of Fire Down Below had been vague enough not to raise any alarms in the minds of her conservative superiors. But when one opened up the pages, the s****l adventures of bad-girl volcanologist Thera Marimar and Carlton Hood, a straight-laced agent for the United States government, as they investigated a series of mysterious deaths around Yellowstone Park, made for reading that was best done with one hand down your pants. Or even better, Brynn believed, with your pants off entirely. Michael hadn’t gone that far, thank goodness. But it was more than obvious that the book had him riveted. Brynn took a quick glance below his waist, raised her eyebrows in silent admiration, then cleared her throat delicately. The young man jerked around, closing the book shut with a snap. A red flush crawled up his throat as he realized that he’d been caught red…handed. Hee hee! I saw that! And I saw you, Michael! While her inner voice was chortling, she kept her outer voice as calm as cream. “I’m leaving in a few minutes, Michael. So I’m going to have to ask you to pack up and get ready to leave.” She glanced at the book, then away, as if she had no idea what he had been reading. “You’re welcome to check that out, if you like.” The dark-haired senior nodded, and a hand twitched to cover his groin. A hand isn’t going to do you any good, sweetie. Not with that package. You’re going to need something a little bit bigger. Like your arm. “No problem,” Michael croaked. “I was just getting ready to leave, anyway.” “Good,” she nodded, and turned to leave the stacks. As she did, she put the faintest hint of sway into her stride, knowing that young men being what they were, Michael would definitely be looking at her hips and ass. She didn’t mind. In fact, she depended on it. Outwardly, she dressed as conservatively as any of the bitter old farts who pounded the pulpit and screamed about sin could wish. On the inside, though…she was a huntress on the prowl. And Michael Kroger had just shot up to the top of her list. Brynn walked around the library, turning off computers and lights as Michael gathered his things. Much to her amusement, he did bring the book up to her desk to be checked out. But all she permitted herself to show was a raised eyebrow as she held it under the reader and passed it back to him. “Get your history paper finished?” she asked. He waved a few pages of printout at her. “All done.” “Good.” Michael was a good-looking young man, with bright brown eyes and a firm jaw, usually set in a stubborn line, as if it was looking for an excuse to kick the world in the teeth. Lower down he was all arms and legs, and under the baggy, shapeless sweater, laundered so many times that its color had faded to an indeterminate shade of gray, Brynn couldn’t tell if he actually had any muscles on his chest, or if he was so skinny she would be able to play a tune on his ribcage. She walked out of the library, locking the doors shut behind her. “Well, I’ll see you on Monday. Have a good weekend.” The young man stared down at his feet. “I’ll walk you to your car, if that’s okay with you.” “Oh, Michael. That’s so sweet.” Imitating a curtsey, Brynn gave a quick dip of her knees. Shifting her bag to her right hand, she threaded her left arm through Michael’s. “And so gallant.” If anything, the flush on the senior’s face grew only deeper. “It’s dark out, is all. And you’re…” He stared down at his feet. “You’re a woman. And pretty. And there’s some people in this town who aren’t worth the time it would take to scrape them off your shoes, is what I’m saying.” She patted his arm, making sure that her breast was pressing into his side. He might think that she wasn’t aware of what she was doing, but she was. And more importantly, it might pay dividends down the road. The more Michael saw her as a woman, and less as the school librarian, the happier she would be. The halls of the school were quiet, and when they walked out into the cold, raw, March evening, she made sure that the doors were locked behind them. It was only a few steps from the back doors to her car in the faculty parking lot, and when they arrived, she disengaged from Michael. “Thank you,” she said, and shivered in the cold wind, not entirely for affect. “I’ve got to go pick up my kids. Have a great weekend.” “You, too.” With an awkward nod, he walked towards the student lot, where only a few cars lingered. His steps became longer and swifter, and Brynn could see his shoulders hunch into the bitter wind as it flung rain against his face. The look of a man whose day had only just begun. “You’re late,” Larry said as he climbed into the back seat of her car. Her oldest child sounded as put-upon as only a nine-year-old boy could be. “You’re supposed to pick us up at five o’clock, Mom.” “Sorry,” she said, lifting Aliya into her car-seat. “I didn’t know I was being graded on promptness.” “What?” “It’s Friday!” her daughter sang, trying to help her with the buckles. “Friday Friday Friday!” “It is,” Brynn agreed, kissing her cheek. “How was school?” “Good. Mommy?” she added in a wheedling voice as Brynn started the car up and pulled away from the day-care. “Yeah?” “Can I go to Suzie’s birthday party on Saturday?” Her daughter scrabbled in her backpack, pulling out a grubby envelope. “She invited me and Becca and Molly and Tricia. And there’s going to be pizza and ice cream and cake and we’re going to stay up all night watching movies!” Larry snorted disdainfully, earning himself a black scowl from his younger sister, and an admonishing frown from his mother. “I’ll take a look at it when we get home, okay sweetie?” “But…” “I said, I’ll take a look. Okay?” “…Okay.” “Good.”