"Hey, J—quick question," Jacob Stone said in a gravelly voice as he and a snickering Ezekiel Jones came to stand in front of the Caretaker's desk. Jenkins sighed heavily at the interruption and raised his head, glaring impatiently at the younger men.
"Yes, Mr. Stone?" he asked, his tone irritated. These Librarians were forever plaguing him with their 'quick questions', which usually turned out to be neither quick nor even questions most of the time.
"I know it ain't none of our business what you and Cassie do after hours, especially since ya'll actually live here and everything," the historian began, sniggering as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "But, uh…ya might want to consider pickin' up after yourselves when you're, uh…ya know…'done'?" He dropped his gaze and coughed, his hand rubbing his nose as he tried to suppress a grin and Jones elbowed him conspiratorially. Jenkins simply stared blankly at him.
"My apologies, Mr. Stone, but I'm afraid I don't speak 'cryptic', so I have no idea what you're talking about," he finally said. "Perhaps if you were to speak English, I might have a better chance of actually understanding you?" Jacob sniggered and rubbed the back of his head.
"Well, uh…ya see, me and Jones, we were in the stacks this morning, and we, uh…found somethin'," he said. Jenkins continued to stare uncomprehendingly at the pair, so Ezekiel reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out an emerald-green scrap of lacy satin. He laid it with a dramatic flourish on the desk in front of the wide-eyed immortal.
Jenkins fumbled and nearly dropped the quill he was using as he looked up at Jacob and Ezekiel, the irritation in his brown eyes now replaced by round-eyed embarrassment, much to the two Librarians' delight. The immortal immediately recognized the item as a pair of women's panties—the sort that Cassandra owned. But how they ended up in the stacks was an utter mystery to him.
"Mr. Stone, Mr. Jones—I assure you that I do not know how this...garment...found its way into the stacks," he protested vehemently. "But I know what you're thinking, and despite what you may believe, Cassandra and I are not a pair of silly, hormonal teen-agers—we don't just…'assault' each other wherever we happen to be when the mood strikes us!" Jacob, immensely enjoying the blustering man's discomfiture, stifled a guffaw behind his hand, pretending to rub his chin. Ezekiel didn't even try to hide his laughter.
"Come on, Jenkins, really?" the Australian challenged the older man, totally unimpressed by the Caretaker's denial. "You're gonna honestly sit there and tell us that you and Cassandra have never done any…'in depth research' in the Biology section?" The young thief bumped his fist with Stone's at the joke.
Jenkins sprang from his stool and pulled himself up to his full imposing height, dark eyes blazing. The two young Librarians automatically backed a couple of steps away from the irate man, each of them pasting a suitably chastened look onto their faces.
"Certainly not!" thundered Jenkins indignantly. "Cassandra is a lady, and as a knight and a gentleman I treat her as such!" Ezekiel smirked knowingly and poked Jake in the ribs.
"Methinks the Caretaker doth protest too much!" the thief quipped with mock seriousness. A huge fist slammed onto the desktop, causing all but the heaviest items to jump. The Librarians jumped also.
"Tread carefully, Mr. Jones!" Jenkins said, his voice low and dangerous. "If my wife and I wish to be 'intimate', we retire to the privacy of our quarters, like civilized human beings! We do not simply 'rut' hither and yon like beasts! And if I ever hear you suggesting otherwise again…" He let the threat go unspoken. He also fervently prayed to all the gods that these two never found out about all of the times that he and Cassandra had actually been intimate 'hither and yon'. In fact, they had trysted throughout the Library and the Annex. Just last week they'd had a very memorable assignation in the Lepidopterarium. If the others discovered the truth, Jenkins knew he and Cassandra would never hear the end of it.
Jake held his hands up in surrender and gave the angry man a little bow. "Okay, J, we got it, we got it—sorry! Didn't mean to insult the honor of your lady fair!" Jenkins, slightly mollified, picked up the panties and quickly slipped them into the pocket of his suit coat.
"Yes, well, thank you, Mr. Stone, Mr. Jones," he said, pulling the sleeves of his coat down. "In the meantime, I'm sure there's some rational explanation for how Cassandra's… 'unmentionables' ended up in the stacks." He sat down again and picked up his quill to resume his work, silently dismissing the Librarians. Jacob nearly choked on his laughter as he lightly hit Jones on the shoulder and backed away from the high desk. The smirking pair then turned and ran from the workroom, both of them bursting into raucous laughter.
Jenkins tried to return his attention back to his work after the two Librarians left, but all he could think of was the scanty undergarment in his pocket. How did Cassandra's panties find their way into the Library? He racked his brain trying to remember if the two of them had trysted in the stacks recently, but he came up blank. Perhaps the panties had been left from a long-previous encounter, and they had simply gone unmissed and undiscovered until now? Yes, that had to be the answer, it made perfect sense. There were numerous instances of something amorous beginning in the stacks but ending somewhere else. Jenkins took a deep breath. He and Cassandra would have to be much more careful in the future…
A flash of red in his peripheral vision and an energetic squeal caught the Caretaker's attention, and he quickly looked up. His jaw dropped as he beheld Franklin, the tea dragon, enthusiastically flinging one of Cassandra's bras into the air and then playfully leaping after it to try and catch it in his jaws. The small, shimmering green dragon emitted another high-pitched squeal of delight as he chased and played with the bra, seizing it and shaking it like a dog with a rat whenever he caught it. Jenkins jumped up from his seat and hurried over to the miscreant, and grabbed one end the bra.
"SO!" he said sternly. "You're the one with the underwear fetish!" He tried to snatch the bra away from the little reptile, but Franklin only clamped his jaws more tightly onto the garment, thinking that Jenkins was joining in his game. The two were soon engaged in a tug-of-war over the bra.
"Franklin! Let go of that this instant!" the Caretaker growled through clenched teeth. The dragon's eyes glittered happily as he sat back on his haunches and stiffened his front legs, like a stubborn donkey. He wrapped his long tail tightly around a nearby table leg for good measure as he refused to let go of the bra or be budged from his place, his needle-sharp teeth beginning to tear holes in the delicate fabric. In frustration, Jenkins finally gave one last hard yank, and the bra's thin cloth gave way with a dull ripping sound. Jenkins staggered upright with the bra, now missing a large chunk out of one of the cups, dangling in his hand. He looked up at Franklin just in time to see the rambunctious creature scurry off into a corridor, a scrap of red clamped between his teeth.
His shoulders slumped in exasperation, Jenkins watched as the tail of the small dragon disappeared into the dimly-lit hallway, the sound of his claws clicking against the wooden flooring quickly fading into the distance. He looked down at the ruined bra in his hands; Cassandra was going to be furious when he explained to her what had happened to it. She was certainly as fond of Franklin as he was, but she had far less patience with some of the tea dragon's more high-spirited behavior. For a moment he thought about simply disposing of the bra and not saying anything, but he quickly rejected that idea. He needed to be honest with her, no matter the consequences. At least he had her panties safely tucked into his pocket; perhaps that would count in his favor for something. Taking a deep breath, he squared his broad shoulders and went in search of his wife.
He found her at her work station in the lab, perusing one of Merlin's lesser-known spellbooks. Bracing himself, he handed her the torn brassiere and explained what had happened to it. As expected, Cassandra was not pleased in the least to have lost such an expensive article of clothing to the boisterous tea dragon.
"Jenkins, that thing is getting to be a menace!" she fumed as she examined the ruined bra. "I know you love him and that you're really attached to him, and I love him, too. But you've got to teach him what's allowed and what's not, you've got to discipline him, otherwise…" She flung her hands into the air in frustration. The immortal nodded in agreement.
"You're absolutely right, my dear, I have let Franklin become rather unruly, haven't I?" he admitted, carefully fixing a hangdog look onto his face. "I guess I'm not very experienced at—what did you call it?—'pet parenting', am I?" Cassandra felt a twinge of guilt upon seeing her husband's sad, shamefaced expression, and she went over to the repentant man to slip her arms around his waist.
"It's okay. I'm sorry, sweetie, I don't mean to be so grumpy," she said, standing on tip-toe to plant a small kiss on his cheek. "He does need discipline, but I guess I can help with that by making sure he can't get into my laundry hamper or my dressing room from now on." Having won her forgiveness, Jenkins gave her a dazzling smile, then remembered the panties. He pulled them out of his pocket and held them out to his wife.
"I did manage to save these, though!" he fibbed brightly. Cassandra looked at the panties and frowned, her smooth brow wrinkling in confusion.
"Um…those aren't mine," she said, looking up into her husband's dark eyes. A perplexed look crossed his face.
"Are you sure?" he asked. The Librarian nodded vigorously.
"But Mr.—er, I mean—since Franklin had your brassiere, I just assumed that he had carried these off into the stacks as well; if they aren't yours, who could they belong to, then?" he asked. The answer came to both of them at the same time.
"EVE?!" they said together, looking at each other with startled, wide eyes. Jenkins dropped the panties onto the lab table as though they were hot and unconsciously wiped his hand quickly against the leg of his trousers.
"I believe I'll let you return them to Colonel Baird!" he said hurriedly, but Cassandra shook her head, her russet curls bouncing wildly.
"Uh-uh! Not me!" she said. She picked the panties up with a pencil and dropped them into a nearby wastepaper basket. "There! Out of sight, out of mind! I've now officially never seen those in my life, and therefore I don't have any horrible mental images of how they ended up in the stacks!" Jenkins laughed as he picked up on her intent.
"And I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, my love!" he said breezily, giving her a tight hug. He meant to also give her only a quick peck on the lips, but instead somehow found himself giving her a tender, lingering kiss. He gently took the remnants of the bra from her hand and dropped them on the nearby table, his face taking on a look of longing.
"Perhaps you'll allow me to recompense you for Franklin's mischief in some way...?" he murmured suggestively, lifting his pretty wife onto the tabletop, then slipping his hands into her hair as he bent down to give the smiling Cassandra another kiss, this one full of passion and hunger...
