He slitted his eyes open and squeezed them shut again as he saw her finger intruding deeper into the bottle. "Grows..."he forced himself to continue, "until the fruit is ripe."
"They do? That is the cleverest...a pear in its own little...oh no."
"What?" Marcus asked through clenched teeth.
"My finger's stuck."
Dumbfounded, he looked down at the sight of Lillian tugging on her imprisoned finger.
"I can't get it out," she said.
"Just pull at it."
"It hurts. It's throbbing."
"Pull harder."
"I can't! It's truly stuck. I need something to make it slippery. Do you have some sort of lubricant nearby?"
"No."
"Not anything?"
"Much as it may surprise you, we've never needed lubricant in the library before now.

Author: Lisa Kleypas