The book tumbled from her fingers, the impact sound as it hit the floor muffled as it was intercepte

The book tumbled from her fingers, the impact sound as it hit the floor muffled as it was intercepted by the pile of its brethren, a mess of words and paper at her feet. Her face was twisted in a frustrated, angry grimace. 

It wasn’t there. It didn’t make sense. 

The bookshelf behind her was half empty, books pulled at random as she started to drift through them, searching for the phrase that would explain him, the paragraph that would be the key to unlocking exactly why he was the way he was. She knew he read; he hardly spent a day without a book firmly lodged in his hand at some point. And he would quote philosophers and poets all day, using that condescending, irritatingly charming tone that would make her feel minuscule and turned on simultaneously.

It had to be here. Somewhere. There had to be one book that explained him, why he was the way he was. Otherwise she would never know, and that wasn’t something she wanted to consider.

She pulled another off the shelf, and opened it on a random page. Brow furrowed, and she tried to approach it with him in mind. 

              “Nothing about sex ever shocks women. At least, men’s kind of sex. We clean up after you, like those charladies with brooms who follow the coronation coach.” She kissed my mouth, curious about the taste of my lips, and then tested my still-flaccid penis, nodding like a serious minded child with some difficult homework. “Let’s concentrate on you. We’ll open a few doors. That robbery excited you. What else is there?”

“Try me. Turn a key.”

“I will… do you want to beat me?” She lay on her stomach, looking over her shoulder at her image in the mirror, and smacked her plump bottom. “I’ve got a nice rump - deliciously spankable, David used to say. There’s a dressing gown cord in the bedside table.”

Wide eyed, she put the book, down, lost in thought. Suddenly something flashed behind her eyes, and she grabbed one of those she cast aside, flicking through the pages till she found the one she was after, and her eyes flashed again, lids peeling back in an odd mimicry of a camera shutter. Another book came to her hand, another desperate flick through, and then another eye flash. 

That was it, then. It wasn’t the books that had turned him into what he was. The books were a symptom, each one riddled through with him, little pieces that resonated with his personality. 

It made sense, really. He was too grand to be the result of some words, even if they were powerful ones. He’d been doing what she was doing, right here; approaching the words with a perspective, looking for the things that excited him. She bit her lip, and her cheeks flushed ever so slightly. She felt like a fool. 

A shadow fell across the room. He was leaning against the doorframe.

“Clean up the mess and then come to the study. Leave the clothes.”

Irritatingly charming.