Will Seymour

Ah, the University Library. Home to over eight billion books. More bricks in the UL than there are in Legoland. And, at present, full to the brim with sexy bibliophiles.

Having stationed myself in the South Wing Corridor for some weeks, I’ve watched Cambridge’s biggest book barn steadily inflate from the pressure of diligent readers inside. Some people use a laptop; some make notes by hand, but everyone needs books.

So, like Shelob biding her time, I sit at my desk glancing left and right every time I hear a feminine footfall entering the peripherals of my passage. The Cambridge Companion to Exams sits before me for hours, page three gazing up at me undisturbed.

I know The One is in here somewhere, sharing a passion for Dewey and shelving. I approach the desk – “Hi, I’m looking for The One.” After a gruelling interrogation, the bookkeeper turns me away empty handed. But I have a plan!

Arriving early the next day, I place a book on every table of the first floor. I choose carefully: only books with sexy titles can offer their subliminal assistance (Making Microsoft Simple for Extremely Ugly People, out; The Shagger’s Guide to the Mona Lisa, in). Hours later, I retrace my steps, offering sexies my apologies for interrupting their studies: Oh, you also like art? That’s great, because I think art is actually the future, and is really important, despite what Nick Cameron says (politics) so maybe coffee, sure, or tomorrow is fine, I’m not doing anything Wednesday, Thursday? Or, ok, yeah, exams, fine.

Staring into a deathly cup of black matter in the Tea Room, I feel defeated. “Why, oh why, am I so crap at finding The One? I am sure to graduate alone, and my parents, when they see my friends’ beautiful partners, will surely take me to the workhouse.”

Overhearing my soliloquy, punctuated as it was by sobs and remorseful gestures heavenward, an old, hoarish man slid unnervingly close to my side. “In a time gone by, whose shadow can still be seen slipping out of view,” he whispered as quietly as a leaf, “I was the most prolific womaniser of the age.” I did not doubt this, for he carried with him a cane whose only purpose can have been to relieve his overspent crotch.

The mysterious stranger slipped away, but not before he had scrawled in permanent ink upon my arm…

Covering this up, I returned to the stacks so that I could resume my poaching with new tactics. This time, I waited with excitement in the North Wing lift, being periodically summoned by a range of bespectacled beauties, towards whom I rose or descended with anticipation.

But with every failure, my thoughts returned to that mysterious encounter, and the ink on my skin was testament to its weirdness. When I finally left the University Library, I thought I spied a strange old man heading towards a group of sexy students in the distance, his limp disappearing at the sight of his quarry.

I had a feeling I would see Professor Boosman again…