The Bookbinder’s Back Room

When $name1 brings a battered old journal to a tiny bindery on a stormy night, the quiet woman behind the counter takes her apart far more slowly than the book.

The rain had been coming down sideways for an hour when $name1 pushed open the door of the bindery on Calder Lane.

A brass bell rang above her head. The shop smelled of glue, leather and old paper, and the warm yellow lamps made the street outside look even colder.

She was thirty-two, soaked to the knees, and clutching a carrier bag to her chest like it held something alive.

“We close at seven,” said a voice from the back.

“It’s five to,” $name1 said. “I checked.”

A woman came out from behind a curtain of heavy green velvet. She was a little older, maybe thirty-eight, tall, with dark hair twisted up and held with a pencil. She wore a leather apron over a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and her forearms were dusted with something pale, like flour.

“Then you’ve got five minutes,” she said. “I’m Mara. What have you brought me?”

$name1 put the bag on the counter and slid out the journal. It had belonged to her grandmother. The spine had split, the cover was hanging by threads, and half the pages had come loose.

Mara didn’t say anything at first. She just touched it. She ran one fingertip along the broken spine, then turned it over and pressed her thumb gently into the soft old leather.

$name1 found she was holding her breath.

“Someone loved this,” Mara said quietly.

“She wrote in it every night for forty years.”

“Then it deserves to be done properly.” Mara looked up, and her eyes were grey and very steady. “It’ll take me weeks. But if you want, I can show you what I’ll do. You can stay while I take it apart. Most people find it upsetting.”

“I’m not most people,” $name1 said, and was surprised at how it came out. Low. Almost a dare.

Mara held her gaze for one second longer than she needed to. Then she walked past her, flipped the sign on the door to Closed, and turned the key.

“Come through,” she said.

The back room was smaller and warmer. A radiator ticked under the window. There was a long wooden workbench covered in tools, bone folders, spools of waxed thread, a heavy iron press in the corner and a battered leather sofa against the wall with a blanket thrown over it.

Mara pulled out a stool for her. “Take your coat off. You’re dripping on my paper.”

$name1 peeled the wet coat off. Her blouse underneath had soaked through at the shoulders and clung to her skin. She saw Mara notice. She saw Mara look away, and then look back.

For a while they didn’t talk much. Mara worked with the journal open on a clean sheet, easing the old threads out with a needle, lifting each loose section and laying it flat. Her hands were slow and sure. Every movement was patient.

$name1 watched those hands and felt something tighten low in her belly.

“You’re staring,” Mara said, without looking up.

“You’re very good at that.”

“At what?”

“Being gentle with things.”

Mara set the needle down. “Come here. Hold this.”

$name1 got up and stood beside her at the bench. Mara guided her hand down onto the page, pressing her fingers flat to keep the section still. Her palm stayed on the back of $name1’s hand. It was warm and dry and a little rough.

Neither of them moved.

$name1 could feel Mara’s breath on the side of her neck. She could smell her too, cedar and something sweet underneath, like vanilla.

“You can let go now,” Mara murmured.

“I don’t want to.”

The radiator ticked. Outside, the rain hammered the window.

Mara turned her head, and their faces were inches apart. “Tell me why you really came in five minutes before closing.”

“Because I walked past this window three times last week,” $name1 said, “and every time you were in here, bent over this bench, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Mara’s lips parted.

Then she kissed her.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was hungry, like she’d been holding it in for a long time. Her hand came up to $name1’s jaw, tilting her head back, and her tongue slid into her mouth, slow and deep. $name1 moaned into it and grabbed the front of the leather apron with both fists.

Mara pushed her back against the bench. Tools rattled. A spool of thread rolled off the edge and hit the floor.

“The book,” $name1 gasped.

Mara reached past her and slid the journal carefully to the far end of the bench without breaking eye contact. “The book is safe. You’re not.”

She untied her apron and dropped it. Then she started on $name1’s blouse, one button at a time, exactly as slowly as she’d unpicked those old threads.

“Mara, please.”

“Please what?”

“Faster.”

“No.” Mara undid another button and kissed the skin she’d uncovered. “I take things apart properly.”

By the time the blouse fell open, $name1 was trembling. Mara pushed it off her shoulders and let it drop, then traced the edge of her bra with one finger, along the lace, over the swell of her breast, down into the soft valley between them.

She reached behind and unhooked it with one easy flick.

$name1’s breasts spilled free. Her nipples were already hard and aching in the warm air.

Mara looked at her for a long moment. “God, you’re beautiful.”

She lowered her head and took one nipple into her mouth.

$name1 cried out. Mara sucked hard, swirling her tongue around the stiff bud, then grazed it with her teeth until $name1’s hips jerked forward against her. Her other hand cupped the second breast, kneading it, pinching and rolling the nipple between her finger and thumb.

“Fuck,” $name1 whispered. “Oh fuck, that’s good.”

“Language,” Mara said against her skin, and switched sides, sucking the other nipple into her hot mouth.

$name1 tugged at Mara’s shirt. “Off. I want to see you.”

Mara stepped back and pulled the black shirt over her head. She wore nothing under it. Her breasts were small and high, with dark nipples, and there was a tattoo of a fountain pen nib on her ribs.

$name1 reached out and touched it, then dragged her palm up to cup one of those small breasts. Mara’s eyes fluttered shut.

They kissed again, skin to skin now, breasts pressed together, nipples rubbing. $name1 could feel her own heartbeat everywhere, in her throat, in her chest, throbbing hot between her legs.

Mara’s hands found the button of her jeans.

“These are soaked,” she said.

“That’s not just the rain.”

Mara laughed, low and wicked, and dragged the wet denim down her thighs. $name1 kicked them off with her shoes. Then she stood there in just a pair of black cotton knickers, and there was a dark patch on the front of them that had nothing to do with the weather.

Mara knelt.

She pressed her face against the damp cotton and breathed in deeply. $name1 grabbed the edge of the bench behind her so hard her knuckles went white.

“You smell incredible,” Mara said. She mouthed her through the fabric, pressing her tongue flat against the wet cotton right over her clit.

$name1’s knees almost gave way.

Mara hooked her fingers in the waistband and peeled the knickers down, slowly, slowly, until they dropped round her ankles. $name1 was bare and swollen and shining wet.

“Up,” Mara said, and lifted her by the hips onto the edge of the workbench.

The wood was cool under $name1’s bare arse. Mara pushed her knees wide apart and looked at her pussy like it was the most precious thing she’d ever been handed.

Then she leaned in and licked her, one long, slow stroke from her dripping hole all the way up to her clit.

$name1 threw her head back and moaned loud enough to be heard on the street.

Mara did it again. And again. Long, flat licks that made $name1’s thighs shake. Then she parted her lips with two fingers and went straight for her clit, circling it with the tip of her tongue, flicking it, sucking it gently into her mouth.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, Mara, don’t stop.”

Mara didn’t stop. She pushed one finger inside her, slick and easy, and curled it upward. Then a second. She fucked her slowly with them, deep and steady, while her tongue worked her clit in tight little circles.

$name1 grabbed a fistful of dark hair and pulled the pencil free. Mara’s hair tumbled down over her thighs.

“You’re so wet,” Mara growled against her pussy. “Listen to how wet you are.”

$name1 could hear it, the filthy sound of fingers sliding in and out of her. It made her even wetter.

The orgasm came up out of nowhere. One second she was climbing and the next she was falling, her whole body locking tight, her pussy clenching hard around Mara’s fingers. She cried out, a broken, ragged sound, and her hips bucked against Mara’s mouth.

Mara held her down and kept licking right through it, softer and softer, until $name1 was twitching and gasping and pushing her head away.

“Too much,” she panted. “Too much.”

Mara stood, wiping her glistening chin with the back of her hand, and smiled. “That was the first section,” she said. “There are a lot of sections in a book.”

$name1 laughed shakily and pulled her into a kiss. She could taste herself on Mara’s tongue, salty and sweet, and it made her dizzy.

“My turn,” she said.

She slid off the bench and pushed Mara backwards across the room until the backs of her knees hit the leather sofa. Mara sat down hard. $name1 unbuttoned her trousers and yanked them down along with her knickers, and Mara lifted her hips to help.

Mara’s pussy was neatly trimmed, a dark strip of hair, her lips already swollen and slick.

“You got this wet just licking me?” $name1 said.

“I’ve been this wet since you walked in dripping on my floor.”

$name1 knelt between her legs and kissed the inside of each thigh, taking her time now, paying her back. She kissed closer and closer until Mara was squirming and pushing her hips forward.

“Who’s impatient now?” $name1 whispered.

“Fuck you,” Mara said, breathless.

“That’s the plan.”

She buried her face in Mara’s pussy. Mara gasped and threw an arm across the back of the sofa. $name1 licked her the way she liked to be licked herself, slow at first, then faster, sucking her clit, slipping her tongue down to push inside her and taste her.

Mara was louder than she’d expected. She swore in a constant low stream, “yes, fuck, there, just there, don’t you dare stop,” and rocked her hips against $name1’s face.

$name1 slid two fingers into her, then three. Mara was tight and hot and soaking. $name1 fucked her harder than Mara had fucked her, pumping her fingers in deep while she sucked hard on her clit.

“Oh fuck, I’m going to come. I’m going to come on your face.”

“Do it,” $name1 said against her. “Come for me.”

Mara came with her thighs clamped round $name1’s head, her back arching off the sofa, her pussy pulsing hard around $name1’s fingers. A gush of warm wetness ran down $name1’s wrist.

They collapsed together onto the sofa, sweaty and tangled. The rain was still pounding the window. The radiator still ticked.

But they weren’t finished.

Mara rolled her onto her back and climbed over her, slotting one thigh between $name1’s legs. $name1 did the same. Their wet pussies pressed together, and Mara began to grind.

It was slow at first, a rocking, sliding rhythm, clit against clit, slick against slick. Mara braced her hands either side of $name1’s head and looked down at her while she moved.

“Look at me,” she said. “Don’t close your eyes.”

$name1 didn’t. She watched Mara’s face, flushed and fierce, her hair falling round them like a curtain. She grabbed Mara’s arse with both hands and pulled her down harder.

The leather sofa creaked under them. Their bodies made wet, filthy noises. $name1’s breasts bounced with every thrust, and Mara bent to suck a nipple into her mouth without breaking rhythm.

“Harder,” $name1 begged. “Grind on me harder.”

Mara did. She rode her, hips snapping, their swollen clits rubbing together until the friction was unbearable. $name1 felt the second orgasm building, deeper and heavier than the first.

“I’m close,” she gasped. “Mara, I’m so close.”

“Together,” Mara panted. “Wait for me. Wait.”

$name1 held on, shaking, right on the edge, digging her nails into Mara’s back.

“Now,” Mara said. “Come now.”

They came together. Mara cried out into her neck and $name1 wrapped her legs round her and clung to her, both of them shuddering and grinding through it, wet and helpless and gasping each other’s names.

Afterwards, they lay under the blanket on the cracked old sofa, listening to the storm.

Mara traced lazy circles on $name1’s hip. “It really will take weeks, you know. The journal.”

“Good,” $name1 said. “I’ll need to come in and check on it.”

“How often?”

“Every night. Five minutes before closing.”

Mara smiled and kissed her slowly, and this time it was gentle.

“I’ll leave the door unlocked,” she said.