"Wonderful," Kurt replies. He traces with a single fingertip the rim of Blaines eyesocket, where the memory alloys making up the AR eyepiece now rest beneath his skin, quiescent and invisible. Blaine feels the pressure of the contact more than the fine detail. "Youre so beautiful, Blaine. Has anyone ever told you that?"

As a child hed been called beautiful; hed been called a beautiful young man as he grew into adulthood, but the sentiment was usually a result of how he behaved and performed protocol, and what those performances said of his potential: his youthful manners at a formal dinner, his posture on a horse, his form with a fencing saber, his deferential grace as an escort for a girl or a woman. Kurt speaks to none of those things; he speaks to Blaine in a moment that bleeds into disarray and vulnerability, and Blaine cant comprehend it easily. He shakes his head. "Not… quite like this."

Kurts lips quirk. "Tell me one thing youd like right now. Just one thing, not everything."

"One thing?" Blaine asks. Upon his face, Kurts fingers are light and soft-tipped, tracing a line down his cheek to his jaw. Blaine looks at Kurt, admires again the line of his neck curving sinuously into the arc of his bared shoulder. He doesnt fully understand why it tempts him to put his hand there. It seems too simple and inconsequential to want it as much as he does. It seems silly to ask, but hell answer Kurt. "Id like to touch you. May I?"

"Yes."

Reaching across the small distance between them, Blaine rests his hand over the bump of Kurts shoulder. Its warm, hard, and smooth beneath his palm. He didnt expect otherwise, but the difference between intellectually understanding the idea of how something will be and the direct sensory experience of it are entirely different things. One, an intangible abstraction in his mind, the other, an immediate, wonderful phenomenon: touching Kurt, Kurts skin beneath his own skin. Catching Kurts scent as Blaine shifts up to his side—nearer—and moves his hand, sweeping down and back up the follow the line of his neck, his throat. The pulse of Kurts heartbeat beneath Blaines fingertips, the bob of his larynx as he swallows, the quiet puff of his breath. And a glance up to see the way Kurt lowers his eyelashes.

"Youre very beautiful too," Blaine says, testing the words upon his tongue to better appreciate the exchange of them here in this context. The prickle of blood rising beneath his skin and the slowly curling desire in his belly—this time, Blaine doesnt resist it. He longs to understand it, what it is that his body wants—what he wants of Kurt and what Kurt wants of him. "And what do you want, Kurt?"

Kurt snags his bottom lip between his teeth and gives Blaine a smile (that Blaine understands now) brims with flirtation. "I want you to watch me," he says. "You can keep touching me—if you like. But I want you most to just watch me." Then Blaine looses the contact between them as Kurt half-sits and pulls his top off over his head, and Blaine is presented with his naked torso.

The light through the lace canopy makes an intricate pattern of translucent shadow upon Kurts skin. The cameo pink ovals of his nipples strike a sharp contrast against the milk paleness of his complexion. Blaine marvels at the smoothness of him. His skin seems polished to a shine, hairless and sleek. It makes him think of the fine porcelain figurines his mother collected. "Look with your eyes and not with your fingers," shed tell him.

"Okay," Blaine says—to the memory, to Kurt, to himself. He curls his fingers against his palms. "Watch and learn, right?" he says, trying to make it a joke, but his lips wont quite curve into a smile; theyre numbed by anticipation.

"I already know youre a good student, Blaine," Kurt says, shaking his fingers through the mussed sweep of his hair before settling back against the pillows. His gaze doesnt flinch from Blaines face as his hands slide down his torso in symmetrical arcs and come to rest at his waistband. Blaine follows the motion with his gaze and keeps himself still, though the gathering heat and heavy throb between his legs demands some kind of action.

Kurt unfastens his fly, and even though Blaine is determined not to look away in a childish burst of embarrassment, he has to shut his eyes and steady his breathing.

"Youve seen a naked man before I hope?" Kurt asks, wry. "Other than yourself."

"Of course, yes, but…" Blaine opens his eyes, sees Kurts hands are at rest, thumbs hooked into the waistband of his trousers. The outline of his erect penis is clear behind the thin fabric of his underwear. Blaine can make out the thickness of the shaft and the way the material is pulled taut over the crown of it. Thats what he felt against him when they danced the previous night. The connection between his over-saturated memory and the physical fact before him makes him dizzy.

"Not quite like this though?" Kurt teases affectionately.

Blaine laughs through his sudden smile and his attention lifts back to Kurts face. "No. Not quite."

"Its okay," Kurt says. He moves a hand to touch Blaines arm, rubs up his forearm sympathetically. "This kind of thing was new for me once, too."

"Were you nervous?"

"More than I expected to be," Kurt says. "The man I was with was a few years older, and he had experience. I thought I knew a lot about sex—I thought I knew everything. Id studied, after all, and I was sophisticated for my age—ready for all of it, but when it actually came to him taking me to bed and undressing me. I may have been ready, but I realized I didnt know a fraction of what I believed I did."

"The difference between an idea and its actualization in the world," Blaine says.

Kurts eyebrows rise and he nods. "It can be unsettling, it can make us reevaluate ourselves. Thats normal, Blaine. Its how we learn. Let yourself be open to the process, however you experience it. Its something Im confident you understand from your work." Then Kurts gaze flickers down to himself, and he runs two fingers up the cloth covered length of his cock. His eyelashes flutter and he tilts his head to expose his throat.

Its so inviting, Blaine shivers, but his mind catches on one word. "My work isnt so intimate, its not about me."

Its not about me. He hears his own words and they startle him cold with the full and sudden realization of just how far hes stepped outside the bounds of duty and responsibility. Hes just turned his rig off, hes— What is he doing?

"Blaine," Kurt says, with strange emphasis Blaine cannot decipher, and then Kurts shifting close and his hand is upon Blaines jaw, and hes pressing his mouth to Blaines, so soft, his lips parted, damp and warm and delicious. He kisses Blaine as if the kiss can banish the sudden doubt rising up from Blaines conscience. He may be right.

Then theres a hot flash of Kurts tongue at the seam of his closed lips, asking a silent permission. Blaine doesnt know how to resist it. He doesnt want to resist it, but he should. He should. Oh, gods, he should. Hes on a mission, this isnt— But Blaine doesnt resist. He gives in, lets Kurt work his mouth open, welcomes the heat and slick slide of his tongue in, with more breath, more heat, and more hunger rousing in Blaines blood to answer it and overwhelm his fear.

When Kurt withdraws, his lips shine, his cheeks are flushed, and his pupils are a wide and fathomless black. "This is intimate, Blaine," Kurt says low and rough in a way Blaine has never heard his voice. "And this is about you."

"I—" Blaine cant find a single word to follow.

"You," Kurt says, stroking Blaines face, "are allowed to choose this. If youve changed your mind, I need you tell me, but if you havent, I want you to know, Blaine, your body is capable of so much joy. You dont need to deny yourself your own being. This isnt a dereliction of your work, its a celebration of yourself."

"Okay," Blaine says, and whatever reluctance remains within him yields to the truth he senses in Kurts words. "I havent changed my mind. I want this. To learn with you."

"Im glad," Kurt says. "But I think…" Kurt contemplates him for a moment, and then leans in to coax Blaine to his back and Kurt braces himself above him. "Id like to do this differently."

Blaine reaches up and touches Kurts bare chest, sees the flush of his blood rising beneath his flesh, wonders at being the cause of it, and how the reciprocal of it aches so urgently in his own body. "How?" Blaine asks.

"Rather than having you watch me, Id like to touch you," Kurt says. "I want to give you your first orgasm. Is that all right? Would you trust me with that?"

"Yes," Blaine says. With Kurt looking at him the way he is right now, Blaine could trust him with anything.

But even with that consent granted, Blaine still finds himself blushing and fidgeting beneath Kurts attention. Kurt unbuttons his shirt and strokes Blaines chest and belly while he presses more kisses to Blaines face and neck, murmurs encouragement and praise. To have anothers hand upon his bare skin, petting him as if hes a drowsy lap cat? Blaine understands why they purr.

And then its entirely different when Kurts hands slide down and tug open his belt and fly. The muscles in his belly clench, and Kurt kisses the anxious whimper from his mouth. "Its all right," Kurt says as he eases Blaines pants down right along with his briefs, but Kurt doesnt look down to where Blaine is increasingly feeling overexposed. He keeps his eyes locked with Blaines as his fingers curl around Blaines penis. Then his grip tightens and glides up and back down, and it feels. It feels… "Ooh," Blaine says, long and low. This must be how its meant to be.

"Like this," Kurt says, and his hand keeps moving, up and down, snug and even, squeezing tighter with each drag of Blaines foreskin over the head of his sensitive glans. The contact that seemed too much to Blaine earlier is eased and enhanced by Kurts technique, and Blaine gasps at the pleasure Kurts hand elicits, sharp and so full, drawing together the heat so tightly in his testicles, his belly, and surging up to fill his chest and throat, to raise perspiration on his face and prick across his scalp. Just this one simple motion of Kurts hand is enough for his whole body to respond. "This is a way you can touch yourself," Kurt says.

"I… understand," Blaine says, and he closes his eyes to better concentrate on the feeling. "Oh." He gasps at a spike of sensation that surmounts all the others. "Is this an orgasm?" Blaine asks.

"Not yet," Kurt replies with warmth. "Youll know when it happens," Kurt says. "You wont need to wonder."

"It feels so good already," Blaine says, and his legs have become restless, the muscles in his thighs and calves tense and strain within the tangle of his trousers around his knees.

"Mmm," Kurt says. "Youre so lovely like this. I dont think its going to take much more. Your bodys been waiting for so long, youre so eager."

The pleasure keeps building with each pull of Kurts hand on him. It gathers in his body like a summer storm, towering on the horizon, promising a deluge. It feels so close, as if he could put out a hand and grasp it. As if maybe he should.

It keeps growing, in fits and surges, less the storm itself than a rising tide as it comes ashore. It becomes nearly unbearable, and Blaine grows incoherent with it. Loses awareness of anything but the feeling. Its acute, like pain, except his body doesnt shy away from it. His body reaches for it greedily, stretching and striving and reaching until—ah—he finds the leading edge and it breaks though him in a rush of revelation.

Its as though every cell in his body contracts and then bursts into a shock of rapture so swift and strong, Blaine loses control of himself, his limbs, his voice. He quakes and twitches, grasps uselessly at the bedding and at Kurt—and he cries out. Pleasure pulls and pulses hard in his balls and cock, a hot outpouring of the excess. It surges wet and spills on his belly. It bleeds the strain of too much from his nerves.

And then it fades so gently, leaving Blaine wrung out, soft and malleable, to shift and settle back into the shape of himself. He exhales deeply as Kurts hand releases him and slides over his hot skin and slack muscles. Soothing.

Blaine feels brand new as he breathes and cools and his heartbeat slows. His mind is peculiarly blank. Kurt kisses his cheek softly and nuzzles against Blaines face. "That was an orgasm," Kurt says quietly. Then passes a span of silence measured only by the cadence of Kurts caresses, until Kurt speaks again. "You did so well, Blaine. How do you feel?"

Simple praise and a simpler question. But it does something terribly complex inside him, for theres still too much of something within him, a tension unrelieved by the orgasm. Or perhaps something hidden, freshly uncovered by it, and left raw in its aftermath. A surplus of unnameable emotion wraps tight in his throat and stings his eyes. Blaines vision blurs, he chokes on a sob, and he—

Blaine does something he hasnt done since he was a very small child: he cries.

He expects to be chided or challenged. He expects Kurt to respond with aversion, to correct the errant response Blaine cannot contain. He doesnt understand it, where this feeling is coming from or what is is, so he covers his face, ashamed, and does his best to regulate his breathing, to calm himself. But his lungs spasm and wont cooperate with his will.

And then, instead of being scolded—instead of disappointment, "Oh, sweetheart," Kurt murmurs, and he pulls Blaine close, into his arms, rolling them until Kurts on his back and Blaines head rests over Kurts heart. With careful fingers, Kurts pets through Blaines hair and lets Blaines tears fall against his skin. "It can be like that sometimes," Kurt says softly. "I know. But youre all right," Kurt says. "Youre all right."