The sign said, "Book Sale!", complete with the exclamation point. It's why I was there, at the central library, on a warm Friday evening.

I waited for Darryl at the bus stop just outside the library. I sat on the bench. Just sat there, humming to myself, not worried about what would happen. Normally I would have been more concerned, but a little suggestion the night before meant that I was just going to sit there and wait and not worry. As I'd requested.

I kicked my feet like a small child as the bus drove up. The door opened, and three people got off, one of them Darryl. I hopped up as he spotted me, and we had a nice, warm hug that seemed to go on forever.

"Hey, thanks for suggesting this," Darryl said as we separated. "Even if I haven't unpacked my own books yet."

I grinned. "Well you don't have to buy anything... But! This is where I got my first book in the King Beyond Time series, when I was a kid."

Wednesday we had a fun chat about our favourite fantasy novels. There hadn't been any... no, there hadn't been much hypnotism. I had to keep reminding myself of that. When we talk, I'm likely to get hypnotized. Which meant that I had to assume, even if I couldn't remember, that there had been hypnotism. Given that his mere presence in our private chat meant that I started to feel a little drifty, and that I'd found that I was actually pretty good at not remembering, or misremembering, things that he didn't want me to remember.

"Well it's worth having a look, then!" Darryl offered me his arm and I hooked my own through it. "I have too many books already," he continued, shaking his head, "and I suspect I'll be coming home with more of them."

I blushed a bit. "Happens to me every three months when they do this thing. I don't think there'll be any KBT in there, but there are other books to find. And it's usually pretty quiet the first day. The big crowd comes through Saturday."

"Then we have a better chance of finding something," he replied. "Oh, were you thinking about dinner afterwards?"

I hadn't eaten since lunch. "That would be nice," I said honestly. "Uh, what would you like?"

He smirked a bit. "We'll talk about that after."

I swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. I nodded. At that point, the calm that I had felt waiting for Darryl to arrive had dissolved. His response made me curious and concerned, and I wasn't really sure what it meant. Was there some suggestion he'd left me with that I wasn't aware of? Some time-bomb in my unconscious just waiting to go off?

Or was I just going to mess this up on my own?

"O-okay," I said, trying to catch a breath. I realized where my arm was, and started to worry that I was clutching too tight, that he would think I was clingy, but I didn't want to let go and make him think I didn't want to hold onto him or something. Was I getting sweaty?

"Shall we go inside?"

I looked up at him, wide-eyed, I'm sure. "Uh." The library closed early on Fridays as it was, but the staff had used the time to clear the furniture, put out a bunch of long tables, and set out a huge stock of lightly-used books that weren't being loaned out anymore. "If we don't," I said, "we'll never find any books."

He nodded like that wasn't the dumbest possible thing to say. "Pity they don't set things up out here."

"Oh! They used to sometimes, but a few years ago it rained and everything had to be rushed inside at the last second, so I guess, um, they... don't..." I trailed off.

"Yeah, I could see that being a problem." He looked around. "Books are inside?"

"Books are inside."

"And we are outside."

I giggled nervously. "Apparently."

"Shall we go inside?"

"Heh, we, uh, probably, um, should."

He started walking again. I made my feet move before he had to drag me. Of course, having him drag me off didn't feel like a terrible idea, but I was thinking of somewhere more private...

"Where would you like to start?" he asked as we went through the main doors.

I looked around the foyer, and it was just as I remembered it—a dozen or so long wooden tables set up and just covered with books for sale, and a couple other book-lovers there looking around. There were more upstairs, too. Makeshift signs indicated genres, loosely; the main floor was mostly reference and non-fiction. Maybe Darryl would want to look around. But the fantasy and sci-fi weren't on the main floor, they were upstairs with general fiction and the children's books.

"Rosa? Where should we begin?"

He already knew that I liked fantasy, so it wouldn't really hurt to go upstairs first, and maybe there were a couple King Beyond Time books I didn't have yet. But if I looked too eager to get to them... Maybe I would look smarter if I went for the reference materials.

Darryl gave me a little, light pull on our linked arms, startling me a little. "What's a good place to look first?"

"Right! Um. Upstairs? Fantasy, sci-fi?"

"Great plan," Darryl agreed, and the two of us, still arm-in-arm, headed up the central staircase. I searched his answer for a hint of sarcasm; when I couldn't find any, I breathed a little sigh of relief. "What are you missing from King Before Time?"

"Huh? Me? Um, well I have the seven books from the main story, and, uh, the second and third from 'Tales of the Sundered Kingdom' but not the first, a-and there was... um, I have some of the short story compilations..."

"I'll keep my eyes open, then," Darryl said. "I have the first 'Sundered Kingdom' book if you want to borrow it sometime."

"Could I?" I said too loudly and too excitedly. A couple heads turned. It was a library, after all, but it wasn't the sort of dead quiet you would normally expect since there was a book sale going on. I lowered my voice self-consciously. "That would be great, I've been looking for it forever but the bookstores never seem to have it in!"

"Yeah, If you don't mind it being well-used. It's a pretty good book, I've read it a few times." We got to the Fantasy table, and we disentangled our arms. "You never just ordered it online?"

I flushed. "I... um... I don't really order books online, you know? It just... there's a library here, a-and a bookstore in the mall that I like to hang out at, so it just seems... not right, you know? I..." It sounded like a silly argument, right then, to suggest that I didn't use online ordering. I used it for a lot of other things, but somehow it just never felt good doing it for books.

He put a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I understand, really," he said, picking up a book and looking at the back of it. "There's something really special about finding a new book you're interested in and getting a chance to hold it and look at it, instead of just reading a summary and a couple possibly-astroturfed user reviews." He flipped the book open about halfway through.

I studied the books on the table. They all showed signs of wear and use, since they'd all been on the shelves for however long. Normally I would have been doing what Darryl was, browsing the insides of the texts instead of the outsides, but I was staring at the titles, looking overly intently at the spines, for some reason reluctant to reach out and just pick one up like my companion had done.

Darryl put his hand back on my shoulder and I turned to him. "What do you think of this?" he asked me, holding out the book in his hands with his thumb in a spot.

"Oh, um..." I didn't recognize the title or the author or the series at all. I took the book and opened it to where he had marked, the start of a chapter called, 'Fields of Grain,' and I started to read.

I could feel the summer sun beating down on me, smell waves of barley on the wind. Children were playing nearby, I could hear them laughing and yelling. My dress swirled in the breeze (but I was wearing jeans and a comfy sweatshirt) and my long, blonde (short, dark) hair fluttered around me. Birds sang among the bookshelves. My companion stood there with a knowing smile, his armour gleaming as he sat atop his midnight-black horse, and none of it made any sense, except...

I blinked my eyes and took a breath and the library came back. I looked Darryl in the eyes. "I like it," I said, blushing hard. I knew he knew what I meant.

"Thought you might," he said. "I actually have that one at home. It's the author's first novel, it's, eh..." His hand wobbled in front of him. "Mostly she does some great short stories and poems. I just like that passage."

"I can see why," I said, trying to catch my breath. "It's very... evocative."

Darryl gently removed the book from my hands at put it back on the table. A nice older man smiled at us from behind the sales table, one of the library employees. "If you like her, a couple of her newer works are on the shelves, but she's been pretty popular as a loaner lately."

"Uh, thanks," I said. "I'll keep her in mind, I think."

"Of course. Let me know if there's anything I help you with."

The library worker turned aside, and I looked up a Darryl, who gave me a bit of a smirk. "Evocative?" he said.

I felt my face burning. "Shut up," I half-hissed, grinning like a maniac. "You're a monster."

"I thought I'd be the hero," he said with a laugh.

"You... you were!" I admitted, still keeping my voice low. "Up on a black charger, with armour and a lance..." I looked around. "Is that going to happen every time I pick up a book?"

Darryl chuckled and turned back to the table. "No, just the first time I hand you a passage to read. So I kind of used it up in our first ten minutes here. Hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all," I said, also looking over the books. I smiled a bit to myself. "Just... glad that you chose that sort of passage, and not... something... else."

"Like a war scene."

"Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking of."

"I'm certain."

There was sarcasm. Understated, hardly present except I was listening for it. More the voice of a skeptical parent talking to a whiny child who insists they've cleaned their room; affection was there, but not belief. Fortunately, I knew he was teasing me.

He put a hand on my shoulder and I shivered, wondering if there was another trigger in that gesture. "We could discuss the possibilities more after dinner."

I swallowed. Hard. "Maybe," I whispered.

"Would you like that?"

I looked around again. It felt like everyone's eyes were on us, and everyone's ears too. But no, no one had noticed a thing, as far as I could tell. "Maybe," I muttered again.

"Maybe?" The amusement in his voice was growing. He picked up another book and looked at it curiously.

My eyes were everywhere but the table. I stepped even closer to him, pressing my hip against his. "Yes, alright?"

"Yes, what?" he asked, impossibly... normally, as if he wasn't driving his words right into my head and making them manifest as blood in my cheeks.

I nearly said Yes, Sir, out of reflex, but we had discussed that, and neither of us wanted the honourific used publicly. Therefore, he wasn't asking for that. "I would... like... that..." I mumbled, trying both to get the words out quickly to get it over with, but not so hurriedly as to draw attention to myself. I stepped away from him, grabbed a book at random from the table and started looking at the blurb on the back. I was seeing everything through a red haze and wasn't able to focus on the words, but I didn't really want to lose track of what I was thinking of.

What scenes could he build in my mind? What might he call out of my twisted imagination?

I was getting wet. I tried to control my breathing. We weren't even a half-hour into the date.

His hand was on my shoulder again. I suppressed a moan. He leaned down, almost whispering directly in my ear, to say, "You would like what?"

He had to know no one was watching us. He had to be being safe and respectful. I put the book down, stepped out of his grip, spun around, and looked him right in the eye. "I would like," I began, controlled, confident, effecting a barely-contained anger that was obviously an act, "to discuss the possibilities. Darryl. After dinner."

To his credit, he didn't laugh at my clear fiction. "That would be lovely, Rosa," he replied, then turned back to look at the books as if nothing—as if nothing at all—had just happened between us.

I don't think anything could have made it harder to concentrate than that complete casualness. If he'd shown any signs of excitement or agitation, it would have been easier to deal with, but for the rest of the forty-or-so minutes we spent there, even through several other brief discussions about books and authors, a few purchases, some conversations with some of the other attendees and volunteers and employees, I could still hear his supremely casual tone, saying nothing more than, That would be lovely, Rosa.

I couldn't manage to be angry. Every time I tried, I just circled back around to embarrassed, and then horny. What did I even have to be angry about? The post-hypnotic suggestion? But I would have agreed to that, and I knew that if I checked the chat logs, it would be there in black and white, assuming I was allowed to remember reading them. The way he made me answer him? Who was I kidding, I loved that, and he knew it, and he knew I knew he knew it, too. The way he dominated my thoughts instead of the books?

At that moment I'd've given away my ability to read just to hear him talk like that again.

Okay, Rosa, that's a bit much. He's awesome, but he's not worth giving up literacy for.

...

I think.

I started to get a little worried about my own attachment. It had only been a few weeks. Well, I had been watching him in the groupchat for a little longer, but we had only connected for a few weeks. And this was only the third time we'd been in physical contact. Last time I had been attached like this, it hadn't gone well. I resolved to be a little more careful this time, which put a bit of a damper on my excitement, but only a bit. I wasn't walking on air. Just on clouds.

Darryl and I walked back to the bus stop carrying a grocery bag full of new reading material. "This was a fantastic idea, Rosa," he said, and I flushed with pride at the praise. "Thank you for showing me this."

I stammered a bit. "Oh um, it was... I had a... c-can we, um, go get some supper?"

"That would be great. Where should we go?"

I hesitated. There was a decent English-style pub nearby, and I enjoyed their fish and chips, but it was a pub, and it could get noisy. I also knew about a nice steakhouse, but it was at the far end of town and maybe a bit pricey for two people who'd just bought a bunch of books and anyway we were maybe not well dressed for it, and of course there was the sandwich stop I liked near my place, but it was near my place, and that brought with it a whole lot of other—

"Where should we go, Rosa?"

Oh right, he wanted me to make a choice. Tour guide. He was new to town. Three options stood out, two would require a bus, one was close to home, and the bus we needed was on its way. I looked down the road.

"Where should—"

"There's a great sandwich place! Near—uh, we'll have to take that bus, it should be about halfway for you. Home, I mean. When we're done. Eating. Uh, let's go there. And take this bus."

Darryl didn't laugh, but he probably should have. "Sounds good."

The bus arrived without further incident, we paid our fares and took seats near the back, near but not directly beside each other.

"What stop do we want?"

My stop, I thought. "Cavendish," I said.

"How much time does that give us."

Too much. Also, not enough. Also also, why is he asking? "About seven minutes?"

"Enough time for a nap?" he asked with a grin.

My heart sank in my chest. Was that a trigger? Was I going to fall into a trance right there on the bus, where the three other people riding with us (who were not in any way interested in the two of us) could see? I looked up at him. He looked back at me. I tried to keep composed. "You're teasing me."

"I am."

"You're mean."

"I am."

I laughed then. It felt good. So did he.

"Were you expecting something to happen?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Nah, but if it did, I was ready for it. I know some people that, if you just hint that you're going to hypnotize them, just fall. I didn't think you were one of them, so I thought it would be fun to..." He shrugged. "Hope you don't mind," he finished, sounding a little lame.

It was the first time I'd noticed him being out-of-sorts. He probably had been before, but I'd never really seen it. He radiated confidence, not uncertainty. He didn't make mistakes. Mistakes were for other people. Mistakes were for me. And this hadn't been a mistake, just a joke that, when it panned out exactly as he'd planned it, didn't leave him anywhere to go.

"I didn't mind," I said, quietly, and honestly.

He nodded. "Thank you, Rosa."

"I..." I looked around. "... wouldn't have minded if... um... something..." I blushed hard. I couldn't finish that thought.

He raised an eyebrow. "If something had happened?"

I covered my face in my hands and squeaked a bit.

"If I had set you up and triggered you on the bus."

I nodded. "But only cuz there's like three other people here and no one would see anything" I mumbled quickly through my fingers.

"No one would know at all if you didn't make a show of it," he pointed out in a smooth, liquid tone. His voice had dropped a bit and... had he moved closer to me? "If you just sat up straight like a puppet, like strings were drawing you up to the ceiling..."

I felt myself straightening up. Sure, that made sense, looking straight at him probably would have attracted less attention than sitting back there with my face in my hands.

"And," he continued, "if you weren't showing your embarrassment, if we were just talking, casually, and you were just listening casually, just sitting there, smiling..."

I knew what he was doing, but still, I couldn't keep the smile from my face. It felt really good.

"And if you just sat like that, let your mind go blank and your thoughts drift away..."

Next stop: Cavendish, came the recorded voice over the bus' PA system. I shook my head. Darryl was reaching to hit the stop request button.

"Did... Did I... Did you just..."

He pressed the button, looked me in the eye, and grinned.

I'm sure I was bright, bright red. Impossibly red.

"Coming?" Darryl asked.

For a second I misinterpreted and felt even warmer. Then I realized what he meant, and got up out of my seat, stumbling right into him as the bus lurched. He stayed upright, helped me get my bearings, shifted me towards to the back door, and together we got off the bus in front of my favourite lunch haunt. Close enough for me to walk there and back before my order got cold. I ordered my favourite chicken wrap and a soda, and Darryl ordered the same. We talked about our finds; I picked up a couple sci-fi short-story compilations and what looked like a fantasy-romance novel, at least by the blurb, along with some old programming texts (not useful, but they would go nice in my collection), while Darryl had a handful of fantasy novels from writers I'd never heard of, a French-English dictionary that was probably older than I was, and some children's books for his nieces.

"Nothing from the King Before Time series, though," Darryl said, and I could tell that he wasn't really all that upset about it.

I shrugged. "Got a week's worth of reading material at least." I patted the bag at my side and took a final bite of my wrap. "Just got to get it home."

"Right, you said you live around here, mind if I walk you home?"

I hesitated. It wasn't far, it was well-lit, it was a quiet neighbourhood. It was safe. But I could have Darryl walk me home.

"Rosa? May I walk you home?"

"Uh, I mean, are you sure you can, um. Find your way back to the main road?"

He smiled. "I'm sure it's not a challenge. Mind if I walk with you?"

I closed my eyes. "I... would like it if you did."

He finished his wrap and drink. "Then should we be off?"

I grabbed my half-finished drink and my bag of books, and together we headed towards my place. "Anyway," I said, picking up a thread from earlier, "I can just reread the series. Uh, King Before Time. The books I have. They're good. Even if I know them."

"Read them a lot?" There was no judgment in the question.

"Sure do. Um, I even have the opening of the first book..." I blushed and trailed off.

"...the opening of the first book... what?" He sounded amused again. "Framed on your wall? Posted as the background of your laptop? Tattooed across your butt?"

"What?" I laughed loud at the last one. "No, no, I have it memorized. You know, how the first book starts, with Halley being... um..."

He nodded. "Yes, I know what you mean. You memorized it? That's impressive."

"Oh, yeah, uh, let's see..." I started to recite the text. "'When the King Beyond Time had arrived, the whole village had lined up before him. His bejewelled robe glinted in the sunlight; it was said that every world he owned was represented by one of those gems, and there were hundreds. No one could resist his word, his command, his very presence. He traveled without escort, without guard. Why would he need a guard, when no one could stand against him?'" The words came to me easily, and I felt almost like a trance was settling over me.

"'There before the village, friends and family and lovers and old rivals, she had stepped forward, helpless to do otherwise. She had bared herself to the King Beyond Time, stood for his inspection. Nothing else mattered. She had walked away with him. Twenty years old. She left behind a father who's voice she could no longer hear in her memory, a husband whose name and face were long gone. She had become ageless, like the King Beyond Time, and had served well for what might have been forever. But then...'" I breathed, caught up in the moment as we walked, and saw the rapt look on Darryl's face as well.

"'Halley awoke for the first time in eons. For the King Beyond Time had visited her village, and had chosen her to be among his slaves. And now for the first time in an eternity, she was free.'"

"You speak beautifully," he said.

I turned up the walkway in front of my house. "Th-thank you," I stammered. "Uh, this is... me..."

He walked with me up the front steps, and I started to wonder if the neighbours could see, not that any of them would really care. We stood there a moment, me on the first step, him on the walk, eye-to-eye. There was a tension between us.

"Rosa," Darryl began, and I knew what was coming. "May I kiss you?"

There it was. I turned aside, blushed, looked at my feet.

"May I kiss you?"

He asked again. I hadn't answered, so he asked again. And he would again if I couldn't gather my courage and—

"May I kiss you, Rosa?" His voice was soft, gentle.

I shook my head, stepped down to the ground, and wrapped my arms around him in a warm hug. "Not tonight."

He returned the embrace enthusiastically, and his hands brushed through my hair wonderfully. "Another time, then." We stepped apart. "See you in the chat soon, we'll make more plans."

"I would like that," I said.

He watched me go inside. I closed and locked the door behind me, then sat down on the floor with my back against the door, wondering if I'd just made a huge mistake.