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[By @HouseOfFinches]
For three and a half years, she’s been putting off getting the liberal arts course credit she needs. Mostly it’s the principle of the thing: why does she need to learn about philosophy or world religions or Russian fairytales to be a good mechanical engineer? But when she meets with her academic advisor, he tells her what she already knows, deep down. The time has come. It’s this semester or never.
She scrolls through the list of eligible classes in the online course catalog, waiting for something to grab her. Eight pages of search results in, nothing has. She finally decides to choose a page at random. Fifteenth. And a class on that page. Fourth. She nibbles on her thumbnail as she navigates to the page and scrolls down. Huh. Sociology of Sexuality. It fits in her schedule. It could be worse, she supposes. She clicks the “Register” button, then takes a deep breath before hitting “Confirm.” It’ll be fine. What’s the worst that can happen?
It’s a night class that meets for two and a half hours each Tuesday. As she gets ready on the evening of the first class, bundling up in sweaters and an oversized knit scarf, she grumbles to herself about New England winters and liberal arts course requirements and the existence of night classes. She leaves her apartment in plenty of time to battle snowdrifts and get there early, so she can claim a seat in the back. She’s expecting a big lecture hall where she can slouch down in an uncomfortable chair and maybe doze if the professor isn’t too observant. Her heart sinks as she walks through the unfamiliar halls of the arts and sciences building. These classroom doors aren’t nearly far enough apart to be lecture halls; the rooms are probably built for small, twenty-student seminars. There are likely three or four rows of desks, maximum, so being in the back won’t help her hide. She opens the door to room 236 with some trepidation.
It’s even worse than she imagined. The desks are arranged in a circle.
She wonders if it’s too late to take Russian fairytales instead. She’s internally debating whether she can leave—maybe claim she has the wrong room, or the wrong building, or she forgot to feed her goldfish or something—when the grizzled professor looks up and smiles broadly. “Greetings, seeker of knowledge!”
Oh, hell no.
The main problem—the only problem, really, because she can’t think of anything else in her life that’s as excruciating as this experience, right now—is that as she gapes in disbelief, the moment where she could formulate an excuse and leave passes her by. Instead, her feet carry her automatically to one of the desks. She puts her bag down, removes her parka, and sits down. She’s in for it now.
She looks around, and there’s only one other student who arrived before her. The seat she selected is directly across the circle from him, and she’s honestly not sure how he’s successfully folded his massive frame into the almost comically small desk. He hadn’t looked up at her arrival and he’s still looking down, reading something, so she takes a minute to study him unobserved. He’s ridiculously attractive, with pale, mole-dotted skin, dark hair, and shoulders whose sheer width should be illegal. Looking at him for two and a half hours a week might not be the worst thing in the world, she thinks.
The rest of the class files in, and by the time six o’clock rolls around there are twelve students in the circle. The professor stands, looks around, and clasps his hands together delightedly like their presence is the best gift anyone has ever bestowed on him. He begins, “Fellow travelers! Let us share of ourselves. Please go around the circle, sharing your earthly name, your star sign, and your philosophy of life.” Rey’s not the only one left looking at him with a blank stare. A couple students smile, apparently under the catastrophically mistaken impression that he’s joking. “I’ll begin. My terrestrial appellation is Huckleberry Moonstone, and I am blessed to be an Aquarius. My philosophy of life is the same as my philosophy for this class: the knowledge you seek is within you already. I am merely a conduit for the realization. The visionless bureaucracy that is this university insists that I create a syllabus and assign grades, but who am I to direct the course of your self-actualization? Our discussions will be guided by our minds alone. There will be no papers, exams, or pointless trappings of academe. The ‘A’ that I will assign you at the conclusion of our time together is meaningless. If you bring your true selves to our weekly communion, we all will be enriched.” He bows his head when he finishes, perhaps waiting for an amen? Or applause? Or something other than what he gets, which is some shuffling and a few awkward coughs. Unperturbed, he takes his seat again and turns to the student to his left. She looks terrified.
One by one, they each come up with something sufficiently satisfying to Professor Moonstone. The guy opposite her introduces himself in a deep voice as “Kylo Ren,” but at least has the good grace to look a little ashamed. Hippy parents, maybe, Rey thinks. His star sign is “I have no idea,” and his philosophy of life is “nonexistent.” She covers her smile with her hand, but not before Kylo sees it. There’s something in his dark eyes that she can’t quite read. But oh, she’d like to.
“A nihilist!” Professor Moonstone enthuses. “We have much to learn from you, Kylo Ren. For all life is truly meaningless, in the end.”
Everyone’s life philosophy is equally exciting to him. Rey hasn’t decided what hers will be by the time it’s her turn, so she blurts out the truth: “My philosophy is that engineering majors shouldn’t have to take liberal arts classes.”
Professor Moonstone greets the pronouncement with as much rapture about her wisdom as he did everyone else’s, and when he moves on to the next person she hazards a glance at Kylo. He’s watching her steadily, and she feels her cheeks heat.
When the ludicrous exercise concludes, Professor Moonstone launches the class into a discussion of the means society uses to regulate and control human sexuality. “Who can name any of these societal institutions?”
A timid-looking girl speaks up hesitantly. “Marriage.”
“Indeed!” Professor Moonstone agrees excitedly. “Marriage legitimizes the practice of monogamous sexuality, and in many cases, forms the basis of the family unit. How has marriage evolved over time?”
A girl in a green hoodie says, “Having children isn’t always the aim of marriage the way it used to be.”
Another student volunteers, “For the most part, now people can choose who they marry instead of having it dictated to them. Marriage is generally based on affection, not for economic or political reasons.”
Rey surprises herself by jumping in. “I agree, I think that’s one of the most fundamental changes. Having the choice to marry someone you love was rare in many societies up through a few generations ago, at least in higher social classes.”
Kylo cuts in. “I don’t see how love enters into this discussion.”
Rey is incredulous. “Just so we’re clear, you’re saying that love isn’t involved in modern marriage?”
“No, I’m saying that when it comes to marriage as a state-sanctioned legal contract, love is irrelevant.” He stares her down across the room as if daring her to say more.
As she takes a deep breath and prepares to retort, she feels a slight pang: that highly specific brand of grief that comes upon learning that an attractive guy is an asshole.
She could still drop the class and take something else instead. But she has a heavy workload for her engineering classes, and the prospect of not having to do any reading, papers, exams, or actual work beyond an extemporaneous debate each week is too good to pass up. So she lets the add/drop deadline come and go. If Kylo’s lips, hair, or eyes factor into that decision in any way, she doesn’t admit it to herself.
Most of class time is now devoted to the debates between the two of them. Professor Moonstone loves it; he thinks conflict “unlocks the secrets of the soul.”
One week in early February, when Rey references the merits of casual sex, Kylo sneers.
“Excuse me,” she asks defensively, “What exactly is your objection to casual sex?”
“I’m not saying that no one should have sex with people they’re not emotionally attached to. I’m just saying, given the choice between the two circumstances, it’s obviously preferable to have some level of commitment to your sexual partner. Things are less messy that way.”
“The point of life isn’t to avoid mess; that’s the worst argument I’ve ever heard. And besides, sex is more messy when feelings are involved.”
“You can’t entirely divorce feelings from sex.”
“Oh, because I’m a woman? I can’t fuck someone without falling in love with him? All those feminine emotions get in the way?”
“That’s clearly not what I meant.”
“Then say what you mean.”
“In my experience, it’s rare that both participants in casual sex have the same level of emotional connection and expectations. When you’re in a committed relationship, there’s a mutually agreed-upon understanding of what sex entails.”
She rolls her eyes. “If you suspect that you’re not on the same page as your casual sex partner, you could consider, I don’t know, communicating with them.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” he says, without taking his eyes off her. She feels like he conceded something, but it’s less of a victory when he doesn’t fight back.
She starts noticing that he’s never the first one to speak up, of the two of them. It’s not until she makes her viewpoint known that he retorts. She starts to think that he’s perversely arguing against whatever she says, regardless of his actual opinion. She’s almost successful in dismissing the idea as crazy, until a class in mid-March.
She’s not sick, obviously—she doesn’t get sick, that’s a point of pride—it’s just that she’s lost her voice. And there’s a weird tickle at the back of her throat, and her nose won’t stop running. She gets to class a few minutes early, as usual, and croaks out weakly to Professor Moonstone that she’ll only be able to observe. She ensconces herself in her desk with a pocket pack of tissues and a tumbler of mint tea with honey and wraps her oversized scarf closer around her neck.
The topic of discussion this week is sexual identity and gender roles, and she’d certainly have something to say about it if her voice were working. She resigns herself to having to listen in silence to whatever misguided views Kylo espouses, but he doesn’t talk. She glances up at him sometimes, and his eyes hastily dart away from her every time. Over the two and a half hours, the pocket pack turns into a white mountain of crumpled used tissues on her desk, and still he looks but doesn’t say anything.
She can’t decide what’s more maddening: when he does talk, or when he doesn’t.
Winter relents, and spring comes early. Rey uses the first truly warm day as an excuse to pull out her short-sleeved shirts and sundresses from the beat-up plastic bins under her bed. If she happens to wear the sundresses more often on Tuesdays than any other day, well, that must just be a coincidence. She definitely doesn’t do it for the way that Kylo sometimes loses his train of thought when she uncrosses and re-crosses her legs. She doesn’t think it’s just her imagination that she’s winning a lot more of their debates lately.
There are ten minutes left in a class in late April, and he’s in rare form, despite her floaty yellow sundress. “There are agreed-upon standards for beauty and sexual attractiveness within every society in the history of the world, and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.”
“That doesn’t mean that individuals are all attracted by the same things!” she retorts, frustrated. “Just because a society dictates that women must have blonde hair and enormous breasts to be sexually desirable, that doesn’t mean that flat-chested redheads don’t find sexual partners.”
“There’s no accounting for individual taste. People like all sorts of ridiculous things.”
“I’ll grant you that,” she snaps. “I imagine someone, somewhere is even willing to fuck an enormous asshole like you.” She bites her tongue as soon as the words are out. Did she go too far?
“Well, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to fuck you,” he says, a cruel smile on his lips. Audible, dramatic gasps come from both sides. Rey doesn’t acknowledge them. She just looks at him, and their eye contact is a silent battle of wills. His smirk quickly disappears under the intensity of her stare. Professor Moonstone interjects and tries to engage the others in discussion, but he utterly fails and finally dismisses the class a few minutes early.
Her gaze is ice; his is fire. She doesn’t back down. Neither does he. As the rest of the class gathers their things to leave, Rey and Kylo both stay seated. Everyone else files out quickly and quietly to avoid the inevitable explosion. They’re left alone.
Kylo finally looks away, staring down at his hands where they rest in fists on his desk. He unclenches them. He doesn’t look up. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
That angers Rey more than anything that came before. She wants to slap his perfect face, she wants to pound her fists on his stupidly broad chest, she wants...
She masters herself, stands up, and picks up her bag. With haughty composure she says, “That sounds like a personal problem, Kylo.” She turns and leaves the room.
She’s not ten steps into the deserted nighttime hallway when she hears, from behind her, “Wait.” She falters but doesn’t stop, doesn’t look back. “Please wait.” She stops but doesn’t turn. When he comes into her field of vision, she steels herself against him.
“Rey, I—” It’s the first time she’s seen him lost for words. “I lied.”
“I don’t need your pity. If you find me repulsive, then own it.”
“I don’t find you repulsive. I only said that because...” He can’t seem to find the words. She hates it, how much she needs to hear what he’s going to say. “You drive me crazy.”
“Well, forgive me if I have my own opinions and I voice them! I’m not going to apologize for debating with you.”
“No, not like that.” She’s never seen him so frustrated or inarticulate.
“Like what, then?” Their faces are close enough that she can feel the heat of his breath.
“Like I can’t stop thinking about you.”
She fixes him with a level stare. “Say what you mean,” she commands.
“I want to fuck you,” he says lowly.
Her heart stops, just for a beat. “Say it again.”
“I want to fuck you.”
She steps back, toward the wall of the hallway, and he follows as if drawn by an invisible string. She only stops when her back rests against a door, and his hands do too, on either side of her face. He’s vibrating with the effort of self-restraint.
She swallows. “Say it again.”
“I’ve never wanted anything in the world more than I want to fuck you.”
She grabs his shirt and pulls him to her, and the kiss is hard and brutal. His whole body crushes every inch of hers against the door, and his hands move to her sides as hers tangle in his hair. When his mouth finds her neck she gasps for air, and the trail of tongue and teeth is devastating in its intensity. She can only hang on to him, to any part of him she can reach, and try not to drown.
His cock presses insistently against her, and she grabs his hair and pulls his head back. “Wait.” His look is so hurt, so lost, that she can’t resist reassuring him with a smile. “Not here.”
He looks around wildly, and there, right across the hall, is a single-user restroom. Rey has never been so happy to see a bathroom before. He can hardly take his hands off her long enough for them to go inside. As soon as they’re in, he has her pinned against the door again, his hands at her ass, and then he’s picking her up and angling her just so, so his cock can grind at her core through the layers of clothes that separate them. She wraps her legs around him and holds on to his shoulders as he starts a torturous thrust of his hips against hers. He’s not even kissing her, he’s just looking at her by the light of the single yellowed lightbulb over the mirror that weakly illuminates the ancient bathroom. As he increases the rhythmic pressure of his crotch against her clit, she suddenly realizes that she will absolutely orgasm from this, it’s inevitable, and it scares her a little. So she buries her face in the crook of his shoulder, but he murmurs, “Look at me. Rey, look at me. Look at me.” She brings her head back up and rests it against the door where it slides up and down as his bulge savages her clit, and it’s not ten, not even five more rolls of his hips before she’s trembling and her lips part in a desperate moan. Every muscle in her body locks as she comes. And somehow it’s not just her orgasm, it’s like a gift to him, and from him.
He sets her down carefully, and as her feet find the floor she looks up at him. His cock still strains against her. She pushes him backwards, with one hand, and he retreats. She brushes past him as she walks to the sink and its mirror and aged lightbulb. She looks back over her shoulder and sees that he stayed where she left him, just watching her. She turns toward him and leans back against the sink.
They look at each other for a long moment, before she says, “Say it again.”
He lets out a ragged breath. “I want to fuck you.”
She turns back toward the mirror and pulls up the skirt of her dress enough to grab her panties and pull them down until they rest around her ankles. She leans forward and arches her back so that her ass sticks out enough that her skirt stays up when she pulls it up around her midsection. Her slit is bared to him, like this. She carefully, deliberately grasps the porcelain of the sides of the sink and looks at him in the grimy mirror, and he hasn’t moved. “What are you waiting for?”
The words seem to break some spell. He closes the distance between them with three steps, and he fumbles with the button of his pants for a minute, but then he’s rolling on a condom and before she can think, the head of him is pressed against her entrance. She gasps involuntarily at the delicious intrusion as he presses inside her, stretching her more than she’s ever, ever been stretched. She couldn’t look away if she tried, from his eyes boring into hers through the mirror. When he’s fully sheathed in her he freezes so she can adjust to him. There’s no sound anywhere except their breath. He waits for her to be ready, even as his cock throbs with want inside her. When she nods, he pulls almost all the way out and thrusts home again, so abruptly that a moan is forced out of her. He sets a relentless pace, gripping her hips so tightly that she knows she will have fingertip-sized bruises as proof that this wasn’t just a dream. She lets go of the sink with one hand to push against the filthy mirror, bracing herself against the onslaught. He fucks into her again and again, never breaking eye contact. Rey feels naked, laid bare before him. If this is casual sex for him, no wonder he thinks it feels too intimate.
He buries himself in her with such ferocity that she steps forward involuntarily, until her public mound presses against the porcelain of the sink. She whimpers with surprise and cold, but he just snakes his hand around to caress the skin of her lower belly, right above the sink, and her body realizes before she does. She can rock against the sink so its edge hits right there, and once her fevered skin warms the porcelain it’s pure pleasure: the tempo of his cock making her see stars and the rounded edge of the sink taking her to paradise all over again. She’s once again seized by the urge to hide away from him, to keep this for herself, and she closes her eyes. He grabs a handful of her hair and pulls it back, and her eyes fly open in surprise.
“Don’t,” he growls, even as he redoubles his speed until the jackhammer of him inside her forces her mouth open and makes her eyes water. Then with no warning he slows his pace to a lazy crawl, and that’s what her body was waiting for: the orgasm is pulled out of her, and her vision blurs around the edges but she never lowers her eyes from his. He works her through it with slow thrusts that drag over every nerve alight inside her cunt.
When she comes down to earth, he sets her hair down on her back and his hand lingers on the pull of the zipper at the back of her dress. He inches it down, only a bit, watching for her consent. She just smiles lazily, and he works the zipper the rest of the way down. She obligingly slips her arms out of the sleeves so the dress pools around her middle, prevented from falling by where they stay connected. She wears no bra. His eyes glitter with satisfaction, and he cups her breasts with both hands. Her nipples pebble against his palms.
He looks back up at her, through the mirror. “I want to fuck you.” She wonders if she broke him, if that’s the only thing he’ll ever be able to say again.
“I want you to fuck me.”
He takes a deep breath and takes hold of her hips again, with both hands. He resumes his frenzied thrusts, his eyes darting back and forth between her face and her tits where they jiggle with his rhythm. He uses her, and she loves it. Before was for her; now is for him. Just when she thought he couldn’t go any faster, he groans out her name and picks up the pace, frantically pistoning into her until he comes with a desperate wordless cry. He falls forward, catching himself with one hand on the mirror. It lands next to hers, his thumb covering her pinky. His other arm gathers her around the middle and holds her to his chest as his lips find her bare shoulder.
He softens inside her, and she knows he needs to take off the condom but she doesn’t want this to be over. Neither does he, it seems, because he groans regretfully as he removes his arm from her stomach to catch himself as he slides out of her. He steps back to throw the condom away and fasten his pants, but she stays there for a minute, one hand on the mirror and the other still clutching the sink. Finally she straightens up, grasping her dress before it falls down, and slowly puts her arms back though the sleeves. She stands there with her dress unzipped, watching him as he stands behind, looking at her.
It’s easier to have this conversation through the grimy mirror than face to face. “The things you’ve said, all semester, in class. Did you mean all of them?” she asks.
He answers sheepishly, “No, usually I agreed with you.”
Her mind reels. “Why, then?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you go out of your way to antagonize me?” She’s not angry, she's genuinely curious. “Why did you pick a fight with everything I said?”
He smiles slowly and sadly. “So you would look at me.”
She swallows a sudden lump in her throat. “What made you think I wouldn’t have looked at you otherwise?”
He considers for a minute. “You’re...luminous. And I’m...me.”
She looks away from him in the mirror and back at herself. At her reddened lips and the love bites that dot her neck, and some round bruises on her arm that she doesn’t even remember him giving her. She reaches behind herself to pull her zipper up. He doesn’t offer to help, just watches her like he’s trying to etch her indelibly into his memory. She bends down to pull her panties up, but they’ve been resting on the none-too-clean floor, so she steps out of them instead and stuffs them in an outside pocket of her bag, which lies by the door where she’d dropped it. She opens the door and turns back to him expectantly.
He looks like a lost puppy.
“Are you coming, or what?” she asks.
“Where?”
“I think we should do that again, in a bed.”
He gulps visibly but doesn’t move. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. If we do this, I want to do this. I wasn’t lying about that part: I’m not good at casual sex.”
Her heart squeezes a little, and she can’t stop her smile. “With you, neither am I.”