Time: Halloween / Kinsey: Age 24 / Post-YIM
Rating: Naughty
“So, what do you want to do tonight?” Taylor asked, holding Kinsey’s hand as they walked leisurely past Rockefeller Center. The cold air bit at their exposed skin as they maneuvered the sidewalks after eating a truly delicious meal at The Captain’s Grill. Kinsey looked up at him and smiled as she felt his fingers graze lightly over the beautiful diamond ring he’d put on her left ring finger a month ago. Their relationship had been so strained and so full of fighting before the fateful night he’d kissed her and turned their world upside down. That all seemed a lifetime ago now as they strolled calmly together, no longer finding it necessary to fill the silence with inane banter. They had left Taylor’s younger brother and Kinsey’s best friend, Zac, home alone in the condo they all shared for the night while they struck out on the town in hopes of finding something fun to do on Halloween.
“I don’t know. Something,” she shrugged, adjusting her purse on her shoulder.
“It’s always something with you,” he teased, pulling her close and placing a kiss to her temple. She rolled her eyes and poked him in the ribs with her elbow. They walked on for several more blocks looking at all of the shops they passed, but finding most of them already closed. It was almost ten and they had just agreed to go to a bar for a few drinks before catching a cab home when they passed a massive building with its windows still aglow.
“Let’s go in!” Kinsey said excitedly.
“To the library?” he asked incredulously, looking up at the impressive building that was the Mid-Manhattan Public Library.
“Come on,” she coaxed, pulling on the hand enclosed in hers and leading him up the stairs.
“What are we going to do in the library? Do you even have a library card?” he sighed, obviously not thrilled with her suggestion.
“I’m not here to check anything out,” she told him before stopping on the stairs. She turned towards him, their faces lined up due to her positioning on a higher step, “Except you.” His eyes opened wider and he laughed lightly.
“What?”
“Remember that little talk we had a few weeks ago?” she started, leaning in a little closer, “The list we made?” He nodded dumbly. “Well, I was thinking we could kill two birds with one stone.”
“Which two birds?” he asked, his heart rate increasing as his brain chugged through the list they’d made. The list of new activities to explore together; things neither of them had ever done before.
“Well, the library is a public place, isn’t it?” she asked.
“The library? Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Good as any. And besides, it’s ten o’clock on a Wednesday night. I’m sure we can find someplace nice and secluded,” she told him, smoothing her hands down the front of his dark gray coat.
“Wait, I thought you said you wanted to do two things,” he said. She grinned and started to back up the stairs.
“Well, you have to find me first. Count to twenty, and then get your ass in gear. I’ll be waiting,” she told him before turning and running towards the building, leaving him dumbstruck on the stairs. She whisked through the doors and into the library, her cheeks reddened from the cold. A large sign boasting that the fiction section was on the second floor caught her eye and she walked as quickly as she could in that direction. He would be following her soon and she needed to be out of sight of the main doors by the time he entered. Otherwise, their little game of hide and seek wasn’t going to work. Her feet dashed up the stairs and as she lifted her head to see how many steps remained, she thought she saw a flash of bright red move quickly out of sight from the stacks directly in front of her. Due to her rush, she wasn’t able to pay it any mind and moved quickly forward once her feet left the stairs, immersing herself in rows of fiction books. The smell was wonderful and she had to use great self-restraint to keep herself from perusing the many inviting looking novels. Once she had hit the back wall of the library, she took a left turn and started to pay attention to the labels on the spines of the books. She was currently in the Western section and knew immediately where she wanted to hide.
The library was mostly deserted. She had noticed a few college-aged students working furiously on laptops on the main floor when she’d breezed past, but so far, she hadn’t seen anyone on the second. But just as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she caught another glimpse of red, now to her left. Kinsey spun in place and saw a tall man dressed in a clown costume just as he was turning the corner. Her heart rate was already speeding at the thought of what she was soon to do with Taylor somewhere in the depths of the library, but it blasted into overdrive at the complete surprise sighting of the clown. She started running forward, now looking for Taylor instead of wanting to hide from him. He had made her watch the movie “IT” when she had been far too young to see such a movie, and ever since, her flesh crawled at the mere sight of a clown, even in a place it belonged like a circus. She knew that a clown had absolutely no business in a library, especially not at ten o’clock at night, and couldn’t help it as her mind whisked itself to a hundred terrifying scenarios.
As she moved into a new section of the stacks, one that had books that housed labels signifying that she had unintentionally reached her original destination of the Horror section, she heard footsteps behind her. Every fiber of her being told her not to turn around and look at who was stomping down the maroon carpeting after her. If it was Taylor, he would have called out by then and been excited to have won. It was obviously not Taylor, but whoever it really was, they were gaining on her. Kinsey could hear him breathing behind her, a heavy, rasping breath as he struggled to gain ground while Kinsey zigzagged through the rows and rows of books that might have contained a scene similar to the one she was experiencing. She didn’t know whether to be more afraid that it was a clown, or that it might be some other kind of creep trying to rape or kidnap her. As she was about to reach a main pathway, the person behind her let out a raucous laugh. A clown’s laugh. Kinsey wanted to scream, but her throat was too busy gasping in mouthfuls of air. She reached the elevators and stopped, whipping around to face her creepy pursuer. But, he was gone. Hastily, she stabbed the down button repeatedly with her index finger, coaxing it to hurry the hell up until it finally opened and she rushed inside, pressing the Door Close button until it finally obliged.
Taylor sighed after having counted to twenty and then made his way inside. Sure, the prospect of having sex with Kinsey in public was really exciting, but she had been the one to add it to the list. He was well aware that if he was caught with his pants literally down in public, it would be fuel for the tabloids unlike anything he had ever seen or ever wanted to see, for that matter. After he entered, he looked around, surveying his options. There was no way that Kinsey would hide on the first floor. It was too easy, and he knew she was definitely planning to make a game of it. He convinced himself that taking the stairs would be good for him, especially after the enormous steak he’d just eaten and started his way up. When he reached the top of the stairs, he took a few steps towards the stacks to see what section of the library he was in.
“Westerns?” he thought, “Ride ’em, cowboy…” But he knew there was no way Kinsey would hide there. Again, it was right at the top of the stairs and far too easy. So, he decided to go to the right, which led him into the Romance section. While he didn’t think Kinsey was enough of a romantic to choose to hide herself within those rows, he took a gamble and started into the maze of books with long-haired men with shiny six-pack abs on their covers. The further into the section he got, the more creeped out he started to feel and he still hadn’t seen any sign of Kinsey. Since he had passed hundreds of pink and red colored spines, he almost missed the red mass that peeked around the end of the set of stacks nearest the back wall. Taylor stopped in his tracks and kept looking ahead, wondering if he had just been seeing things. Once he found he was surrounded only by silence, he started walking again, right in the direction of the object he’d imagined he saw. When he reached the end, he couldn’t help but look in the direction he’d thought he saw the red thing look from, and when he did, he took a staggering step backwards and started to run in the opposite direction. Standing five feet away from him had stood a clown, glaring and pointing in his direction.
Taylor ran blindly for several seconds before realizing that he was just digging himself deeper into the stacks. The clown had startled him to the point of instant, adrenaline-infused movement, and he realized what an ass he had probably made of himself. It was Halloween after all, and it was probably just some person getting ready to go out to a party. He turned around to prove his theory correct, but saw that the clown was running towards him and laughing. Suddenly, Taylor understood exactly why Kinsey had been afraid of clowns for so long. Even when they were being creepy, they were still laughing. And there was nothing normal about that. He burst back into action, and once he felt he’d gotten enough distance between himself and the clown, he zipped to the right, sending himself back towards the main walkway of the floor, back to where someone else might see him. He felt a hand grasp at the back of his shirt and he found it within himself to push harder and sped ahead until he ran full force into the railing that allowed library patrons to look down at the second floor. A loud “Oof!” came out as his stomach collided with the thick black bar and he expected to feel the clown’s hand close down on his shoulder. When he turned, however, he found the space there empty and silent.
He still wanted to find Kinsey, but not for the reasons she’d originally suggested. There was absolutely no way he was in the mood for anything sexual, not after that, whatever the hell had just taken place. Taylor wasn’t sure exactly why he had just been chased by a frigging clown, but at the moment, he really didn’t care. All he wanted to do was find Kinsey so they could leave. He turned back around and found her standing beside the front doors looking up at him with big, scared eyes. As fast as he could, he made his way to her, ignoring the whisper-shouted warning from the librarian behind the circulation desk to stop running.
“Are you okay?” he asked her. She just shook her head, not taking her gaze away from the second floor. He turned and followed her gaze, finding a single red balloon floating against the ceiling. “So, can we agree now that coming to the library was a bad idea?”
“Just shut up and take me home,” she sighed, grabbing his hand in hers and leading the way out the door.