The smell
He visited regularly for the smell. It was inviting, comforting. . .intoxicating.
Wine connoisseurs could pick up hints of berries and chocolate and old shoe leather. Cigar smokers would swear that Cubans were "creamy". "Creamy", god dammit. They were right. They knew Dominicans from Nicaraguans from Mexicans. There was a difference.
He smelled O'Connor and Fitzgerald, Aristotle and Johnson.
Fiction had that crispy plastic cover smell. Newer. The good rot hadn't yet set in. . .No, that wasn't right. It was there but it was overpowered by the newer stuff. New books still had that ink smell. The finish on the paper. First floor was ink and paper and finish, but it was still there. the real smells floated down from the upper floors.
He ignored the elevator and walked up the steps. He wanted to taste the transition. Halfway up it hit him. The biographies and histories and reference stacks. The second floor was better. If it was beef it would be the 28-day stuff, right? Aged perfectly. These were the good smells. Shelves and shelves of the stuff, set in Baskerville and Garamond. Times Roman. Shit.
He walked between the stacks and took it in. His eyes stayed open but he could just have easily smelled his way through. Alphabetical. He could move quickly to his favorites or the latest interest. They waited for him. No one else around here touched them. He even checked a few just to be sure. "Idiots," he thought. They have no idea what they are missing.
Later he would taste them. Bedside light casting an incandescent glow as he leaned against two pillows and read. His eyes devoured the pages and went back to repeat the good phrasings. He might even whisper those parts aloud. Loud enough to hear but not so loud as to wake her up.
But the smell was what kept him coming back.
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