Your finger settles on the spine of one of the books and under your breath you read the title. "Bacchanalia and You?" You mutter. Your mind runs back to the parts of the mythology books you'd read as a kid that had opened up new ideas about bodies and their functions to you. Chapters describing in dry and academic terms the ribald and wild behavior of men, women, and beasts in an orgy of wine, sex and even blood. Your breath catches in your throat as you remember the evenings spent in imagination of piles of bodies, male, female, human and more, all drunkenly entwined in a moment of intense shared pleasure and ferocity. The book slips easily from the shelf into your hand and idly you recognize that there is no author listed on the cover and no bar code on the back. In fact, it is oddly plain other than the embossed gold lettering of the title.
You flip through it briefly, noticing chapters and headings that discuss types of satyrs and nymphs that are familiar and unknown to you alike. The illustrations in each chapter, fine line drawings briefly catch your eye, with lifelike and intoxicating curves all shown in fine linework. The book closes gently in your hands and you turn to leave. At the desk you join a line of dozens of locals and visitors all checking out books. You glimpse more unusual titles, subjects, and book designs but the line moves quickly and before you give it much thought a teenaged volunteer stamps the due date on a card in a pocket on the inside cover.
The book feels warm tucked under your arm as you walk to your car and then head to your apartment across town. You barely keep yourself from flipping through it, thinking about the glimpses you caught in the library before checking out. You stumble a bit out of your car in your hurry to get into the second story studio apartment you call home here in Littlewood. You're only a mile from the house you grew up in, but having your own place has always felt important, even if it has been a little lonely lately.
Once inside you flop onto the couch, stretching out a bit and propping the book up on the slight round of your stomach. The past decade has not really been one where you've done the work to keep the pounds off and it shows. You put the thought out of your mind as you flip to the table of contents and see the different sections. Rather than jumping to the introduction you notice a particular section that calls out to you...