Kurt spent the rest of the weekend reliving Blaine's kiss. Although it was quick and sweet and clearly impulsive—Kurt didn't even have time to react, let alone kiss Blaine back—Kurt felt the kiss all the way to his toes. He knew that he would remember that kiss for a very long time. Whenever he took a moment, he tasted it on his lips.

He took a lot of moments that weekend.

All of his friends had come to see him perform, and they teased him relentlessly about his sexy performance and the kiss. Kurt spent so much time blushing he started to worry that the rest of his body was suffering from blood loss.

It turned out that his friends weren't the only people in the audience. When Kurt entered his classroom on Monday morning, the entire class erupted in applause. Kurt gave a few tiny, mock bows and then waived them down. “Thank you, thank you. I'll never forget the little people.” He circled a finger around to indicate all of them. They laughed.

“Dr. P., that was epic,” called Sam. “That cheesy dance, and then that hilarious kiss when you won. Man, you had ‘em going.”

That hilarious kiss? Kurts elation burst like a balloon.  Maybe that's all it was. Maybe all of it was just Blaine being the consummate performer until the bitter end.

Kurt looked toward Blaine to gauge his reaction, and he realized the seat was empty. Blaine wasn't in class. Blaine was always in class. It felt personal.

Kurt pushed his feelings aside. “OK, today we're going to talk about how gender structures our everyday life. Even in preschool, boys who are not engaged in what are considered ‘typical boy' behaviors—being aggressive, acting dominant, and showing a lack of self-control—soon become invisible…”

Kurt was twenty minutes into his lecture when the door opened, and Blaine slipped in the back. Kurt felt an unexpected surge of relief. Then he looked more carefully at Blaine. It was obvious that Blaine hadn't slept, maybe not since Kurt last saw him. What did it mean?

Kurt didn't find out. When class ended, Blaine was the first to leave.

Kurt stared at his email in dismay. Come see me as soon as possible. WS.

Crap.

Kurt rose from his desk chair at this summons from his thesis advisor. With leaden legs he climbed the stairs up from the dungeon that housed the graduate student cubicles to the Sociology Department floor. He knocked softly on Dr. Schuester's door.

“Dr. Schue, you wanted to see me?”

“Sure, Kurt. Have a seat.” Dr. Schuester waived Kurt toward a chair covered with papers. “Just put those anywhere.”

Kurt picked up the papers and stacked them on a desk already swimming in books and papers. The whole office was like that. It was as if a tree had exploded.

“So, Kurt, we might have a problem, and, if we do, I wanted to get ahead of it.”

Kurt's stomach plummeted to his toes.

“I was at the Greek competition this weekend…” Kurt started to sweat, “…and I want to say, first of all, that you were really good. Amazing, in fact.

“However, I also saw the kiss, and I feel obligated to talk to you about that in case it's a problem. Clearly, the kiss was hilarious…”

Gosh darn it! That was the second time someone had described the most amazing kiss of Kurt's life as “hilarious.” Kurt was an ambitious man. He aspired to a lot of things. Being a funny, funny kisser was not one of them.

“…it was pretty obvious to me, and to everyone there, that your student kissed you, not the other way around. What I need to know was whether it was something that you two had planned or talked about. Was it something that you had rehearsed, in case you won?”

It took a few seconds for Kurt to realize that his advisor was asking him a question. “Oh. Oh, no. It wasn't planned. I was as surprised as everyone else, actually.”

Dr. Schuester leaned back in his seat and smiled. “Well, then, we don't have a problem. Since he kissed you, there is no basis for a sexual harassment claim. That's good.” He began rummaging around his desk until his hands landed on a pamphlet. He held it out to Kurt. “Just to be safe, I want to give you this copy of the school's sexual harassment policy. I know you've taken a class, but it's just always good to review. We don't want to have another incident like we had last year.”

“With Noah?”

“Yeah.”

“I promise I'm not sexually harassing any of my students, Dr. Schue.” But that doesn't mean they're not harassing me.

“I'm sure you're not, Kurt. I just want to be able to protect you.”

Kurt looked up when he heard the knock on the meeting room door.

“Come in,” he called.

Blaine put his head in the door. “Kurt, do you have a minute?”

Kurt felt oddly self-conscious with Blaine after his conversation with Dr. Schuester, so he said formally, “Yes, Blaine.  Please have a seat.”

Under the florescent lights in the small room, Blaine looked even worse than he had in class. He had deep, dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was standing up in all directions as though he had run his hands through it a lot. One side of his collar stood slightly up, the other down. He didnt smell so good, either.  

When Blaine sat down, however, he smiled radiantly at Kurt. Then he said, “I want to ask you a favor.”

Kurt rocked back in his chair until it was on two legs. “Blaine, last time you asked for a favor, I had to make a spectacle of myself in front of the entire school.”

“Ah, c'mon Kurt. You know you loved it.”

Kurt rocked forward so that the chair was once again resting on all four legs. “Yeah, you're right,” he admitted.

“Well, anyhow,” Blaine dug through his book bag and dragged out a stack of stapled pages that he slapped on the table. “Here.”

Kurt looked. Across the front of the first page was typed:

Analysis of Gender Stereotypes in Top 40 Songs

by

Blaine Anderson

Sociology 431

“This is your term paper?”

“Yeah.”

“But it's not due for two more weeks.”

“I know, but I stayed up all weekend to finish it, and I wanted to know if you had time to grade it right away. Like, in the next day or two.”

Kurt squinted at Blaine. “Why?”

Blaine turned a little pink. “Can I tell you later? Like, after you grade it?”

Kurt looked hard at Blaine. “This is really important to you?”

“You have no idea.”

“Okay, I'll have it graded by Friday.”

When Blaine showed up for Kurt's Friday office hours, he looked decidedly more refreshed. In fact, he looked amazing. Gone was the ubiquitous polo shirt, replaced with a white linen button down, sleeves rolled up to reveal strong forearms. He had recently gotten a haircut, and his curls were under control without the help of gel, and instead of being clean shaven, he had a sexy growth of stubble.

Kurt's breath caught in his throat, and he gripped his chair with both hands to keep from throwing himself at Blaines feet and begging to be taken right there on the desk.

“Um, you look very nice,” Kurt croaked in a small voice.  Then he remembered that the sexual harassment policy didn't allow instructors to compliment students on their appearance. Screw it.

Blaine looked down at himself. “Oh, um…well, I have something planned…for later.” He seemed oddly self-conscious.

Kurt mentally shook himself, then he shuffled through some papers on the table and pulled out Blaine's project. “I graded your term paper. You did very well.” He had done very well, indeed.

Blaine looked at the grade (A+) and he smiled broadly. “This is good,” he said.

Then he slid a piece of paper and his phone out of his book bag. Pulling his chair up to the table, he sat right next to Kurt, so that Kurt could see, too. On the page were several neat, hand-written numbers. Blaine opened the calculator function on his phone.

“See here,” Blaine said, pointing to the numbers. “By my calculation, I'm going to get an A in your class, no matter how I do on the final.”

Kurt double-checked the math. “That's true. I guess you can completely blow off the final then, if you want.”

Blaine got a mischievous glint in his eye. “That's not what I want to blooooow. Off.”

Kurt colored slightly. Were they back to this? “So you want to quit coming to class? I don't grade on attendance, Blaine. You never had to come to class, if you didn't want to.”

“No, I love this class.” Blaine grabbed both of Kurt's hands in his and pulled so that Kurt was facing Blaine, practically knee to knee. “Don't you see Kurt? No matter what I do from now on, you have to give me an A.”

Kurt was still confused, and he gave Blaine a look to convey that.

“Kurt, it means I can do this.”

He took Kurt's face in his hands and kissed him, gently at first, then, as Kurt relaxed into the kiss, Blaine pushed closer, capturing Kurt's lower lip between both of his. Blaine let out a groan as Kurt's eyes closed, and then Kurt's arms wrapped around Blaine's waist, pulling him even closer. Blaine slid out of his chair and onto Kurts lap, straddling him.  Kurt's lips parted, and Blaine's tongue licked across his lips and then dipped into Kurt's mouth. Kurt deepened the kiss, and then slid one hand up to tangle in Blaine's hair, which curled around his fingers and caressed them with softness. One of Blaine's hands moved from the side of Kurt's face to wrap around the back of Kurt's neck, squeezing warmly and pulling Kurt closer. The other hand pushed up a little into Kurt's hair, brushing his ear. Kurt felt suffused with rapturous warmth as he felt his legs go weak.

Then the door to the meeting room opened.