gefionne:

A product of a Twitter conversation: Kylo can’t cite his sources properly in his college papers, and Professor Hux isn’t having that. Kylo’s punishment: reverse strip poker. Take it all off and list his mistakes. One wrong answer and he puts an item of clothing back on. Kylo learns about citations, and gets off in the process.

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Red Bull and Gatorade was a perfect cocktail: get your caffeine, but keep those electrolytes up. At least that’s what Kylo told himself every time he pulled an all-nighter on a paper. He was still recovering from the last one a week later, when he walked back into the small seminar room in the Tarkin Building on West Campus promptly at 3:30 in the afternoon. Historiography 401 had been both the best and the worst class he had taken at Hosnian University: worst because the reading load was hell and there was a book review due every class session, but best because he got to spend three hours every week listening to Dr. Hux give his lectures on interpretation and, well, the study of the study of history: historiography.

To say that Kylo was a little hot for teacher was a gross understatement. He had actually started taping the lectures just so he could jerk off to the sound of Dr. Hux’s voice — English, prim, clipped, sexy as hell. He wasn’t proud of himself, but he had actually spent a whole class period starting at the creases of his neatly pressed slacks and imaging them wrinkled and discarded on the greying linoleum of his dorm room floor while they were breaking Kylo’s extra-long twin bed. There were way better places to think of—namely Dr. Hux’s cramped, book-filled office or the big, dark bedroom Kylo liked to pretend he had—but every time he managed to get Hux back to his little room, throw a sock on the door, and finger him until he was begging Kylo to fucking get inside me.

Kylo was the first to arrive for the seminar, and he chose a seat near the middle. He didn’t want to draw too much attention, but he didn’t want to be seated so far in the back that he couldn’t catch the occasional whiff of Dr. Hux’s cologne: Finalizer by Snoke; Kylo had Googled it. He dropped his backpack next to the chair and, pulling the book they had read that week out, he sank into his seat and prepared to turn in his new book review essay. He had worked hard on this one, and hoped—prayed—that he had finally gotten the particulars of the citations right.

Dr. Hux had spent a full class session on proper historical citations when they had begun the semester: the Chicago Manual of Style was available in the library; use it. Kylo hadn’t even been to look at it, but he had a good handle on the Purdue OWL website. He figured he was doing things right, but every time he got an essay back, there were inevitably red marks in the footnotes, denoting every mistake he had made. And they were numerous.

“Mr. Ren, good afternoon.”

Kylo shot bolt upright in his chair, nearly giving himself whiplash as he turned to the front of the room. Dr. Hux was immaculately dressed, as always, in khaki trousers, a sky blue button-down shirt, and a darker blue, knit vest. His oval, half-frame glasses were perched on his nose, and he carried a stack of papers. Neatly parted red hair burned in the florescent light.

“Hello, Dr. Hux,” Kylo said around the tightness of barely suppressed desire in his throat.

Hux—Kylo dared not call him by his first name, even in his fantasies—set the papers down at the head of the table, but made no move to sit. Today was a lecture day, then. Kylo waited for him to reach into his leather messenger bag to retrieve the box of white chalks he always brought with him, yet he did not. Instead, he returned to the door and closed it, leaving him and Kylo alone in the small seminar room. Kylo glanced between him and the door, starting to panic a little.

“Uh, is there something wrong, sir?” he asked. “Is nobody else coming?”

Hux blinked at him, slow and catlike, before crossing to the front of the room again. “They are not,” he replied. “I emailed them earlier in the week and told them the class was canceled.”

Kylo swallowed, not having realized he would be so utterly terrified to be alone with him. “But not me?”

“No, Mr. Ren. Not you. I wanted to take the opportunity to speak to you privately. It’s a very important matter: a problem that has persisted since the beginning of the semester.” He folded his hands behind his back, looking down at Kylo, who was still seated, through the thin lenses of his glasses. “I didn’t see the problem resolving, so I decided it was necessary to address it here, like this.”

The dismay was roiling in Kylo’s gut now, mixed with the fear and thrill of being the sole focus of Hux’s attention. “What did I do, sir? I’m not failing, am I? I’ve done all my assignments, gotten good marks…”

“Your performance in terms of content has been quite satisfactory,” Hux said. “You are, by this university’s standards, a very competent student.”

“But not by your standards,” said Kylo, clearly comprehending the implication.

Hux nodded once. “I’m afraid not. You’ve quite disappointed me, Mr. Ren.”

Heat flooded Kylo’s face, shame in addition to the arousal he couldn’t eschew when Hux was around. “I’m sorry, sir. What did I do? How can I fix it?”

“It’s good that you’re eager to correct this issue,” said Hux, his green gaze still piercing. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You have yet to hear the problem.”

Chastised, Kylo turned his eyes down, waiting. “Yes, sir.” He heard the rustling sound of papers and, curious, turned to see what Hux was doing. He drew out a paper from the pile, its left corner stapled, and slid it across the table to Kylo. Catching it, Kylo immediately recognized it as his midterm essay from last week: “An Exploration of Howard Zinn’s Interpretation of the Slave Trade in A People’s History of the United States.” Written just below that title was 95%, the best grade Kylo had gotten all semester. His flash of pride was ruined, though, as he saw the familiar red marks in his footnotes. Shit.

“What do you see, Mr. Ren?” Hux asked, cooly.

“I didn’t do the citations right again,” Kylo replied.

“Indeed, you did not. Nor have you since you began my class. I thought I gave thorough instruction on citation methods, but it seems it did not take. I am aware you were not sick that day.” His hands curled around the back of the chair nearest him. “So, what is the matter, Mr. Ren?”

Kylo didn’t really have a good answer other than blaming the fact that his Red Bull high was usually wearing off by the time he got to the citations for his papers at around four in the morning, so he said nothing.

Hux continued, “You have a keen eye for the details of history, as your grade reflects, but you could make up those last five points if you bothered to take care with your references. You don’t take care with them, do you, Mr. Ren?”

“No, sir,” Kylo said, letting his hair fall into his face to hide it.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Kylo,” Hux said sharply.

Kylo outright gasped at the use of his given name. Hux had never used it, and oh God, did it sound good on his lips.

“Better,” said Hux, one side of his mouth lifting in satisfaction. “I want your full attention.”

“You have it, sir,” Kylo said. “You always have it.” He couldn’t bite back that last bit, and it hung in the room like a mist of nineteen-year-old longing that was pathetic on a whole new level.

When Hux spoke again, there was a lowness to his tone that made Kylo’s fingers tingle: “Yes, I’m aware of that. I’ve seen how you look at me in class.”

In Kylo’s fantasies, this was the part where he would stand up and tell Hux just how much he wanted him and what he would do to make him see stars, but instead he felt hot tears of disgrace prickle at his eyes. “Sir, I—”

“Don’t speak,” said Hux. “This is my classroom, and I do to the talking. Now, I had half a mind to make you rewrite all of your citations by hand and then type them out to be turned in during my office hours tomorrow, but I decided that would likely not solidify the lesson any more than my marks have already failed to do. So, I devised an alternative method of instruction.” He held out his hand. “Give me your paper, Mr. Ren.”

Trembling, Kylo did as he was told.

“Now, take off your clothes.”

The wind rushed out of Kylo as if he had been kicked in the chest. “What?” he managed to say.

Hux, wholly unperturbed, pulled out his chair and lowered himself into it. “I believe you heard me, Mr. Ren. I assure you, the door is locked. No one will see you but me.” He gestured in the general direction of Kylo’s belt. “Go on.”

Kylo stared at him, agape and half-comprehending. “You want me…naked?”

“Yes, Mr. Ren,” said Hux. “I thought that was clear. Don’t dawdle. We’ve only the length of the class period and so much to cover.”

With no other option before him and too confused to turn on to run screaming to the dean, Kylo reached for the zipper of his hooded sweatshirt and began to pull it down. Each click of the zipper seemed to echo around the room, making Kylo’s knees shake. But Hux had told him not to tarry, so he unzipped it hurriedly and shrugged it over his shoulders. He fought for a place to put it for a moment, but decided on just hanging it over the chair; it lay there limp as he went for the hem of his faded cotton Star Wars t-shirt.

Kylo had never been ashamed of his body—he worked out enough to keep himself in good shape, even if he wasn’t exactly ripped—but the way Dr. Hux was looking at him, appraising him, made him want to hunch his shoulders instead of display their breadth. The shirt ended up on top of the hoodie, followed shortly by his belt. He had never felt so exposed and awkward as he stooped to untie the laces of his sneakers and pull them off his large feet. He wanted to know what Hux was thinking, desperately, but he was also afraid of being a disappointment. Not that he already wasn’t, with his subpar citations. He was barely breathing as he flicked open the button-fly of his black jeans and pushed them down his legs.

“Oh, Mr. Ren,” said Hux, “how indecent of you. No undergarments.”

Kylo resisted the powerful urge to cover himself with his hands, though barely. “I haven’t done my laundry this week,” he admitted, chagrined.

Hux, sitting back in his chair, looked him over from toes to nose, a dark smile spreading over his face. “Well, that will make this lesson all the harder for you.” He cleared his throat. “Though perhaps harder was not the best choice of words.”

Kylo was flushed hot enough to make him sweat, as he fought to keep from looking down at his erection. Getting a hard-on was nothing new in Dr. Hux’s classroom, but he could always hide it under the table. Right now Hux was looking right at his cock, one of his ruddy brows raised.

“Do you touch yourself when you’re thinking of me, Kylo?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Kylo replied.

“Have you ever touched yourself during my class?”

Kylo hung his head, even as his cock twitched. “In the bathroom a couple of times. You were talking about nineteenth-century studies of sexual mores, and I just—”

Hux clicked his tongue reprovingly. “That session? Really, Mr. Ren, I expected better.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kylo mumbled.

“It makes no matter,” said Hux, rising slowly, carefully. “You wrote an excellent paper on that topic, so clearly your brief moment of weakness didn’t work to your detriment.”

Kylo could all but feel the disturbance of the air as Hux took a step toward him. He wasn’t going to be responsible for his actions if Hux actually got close enough to touch him. Fortunately, he stopped, resting the tips of his fingers on the tabletop while he continued to regard Kylo. Kylo watched as he slid his hand to where the paper lay, and he picked it up.

“Here are the rules of this lesson, Mr. Ren,” he said. “I am going to read you one of your citations as it as written, and you are going to tell me where it is incorrect. If you do not know the answer, you may say so, but if you choose that route, you will have to put one item of your clothing back on.”

For a second that seemed like a reward, but a glance down at Hux’s fly revealed at he was at least half-hard. Holy shit.

“If I answer correctly?” Kylo said.

“Then you may touch yourself,” said Hux. “But only in the place of my choosing.”

Kylo almost grabbed the chair for support. “Yes, sir.”

Hux nodded again, adjusting his glasses. “Very well, then. Let’s begin.” He picked up the paper and began to read: “Footnote one. Zinn comma Howard.” He sighed. “Already a mistake. What’s the matter with this, Mr. Ren?”

Kylo’s brain was so muddled with want he could barely think, but he wracked it until he found a reply: “I put his last name before his first. It’s first name before last name in the footnotes.”

“Correct,” said Hux. “Your right nipple, pinch it.”

Bringing his left hand numbly up, he took his nipple between his forefinger and thumb and pinched. He couldn’t hold in an “Oh, fuck” as he did it, soothing with a brush of his thumb.

“That’s enough,” Hux commanded. “There’s more to be dealt with in this footnote. The next part is: quotation mark, Chapter 14, dash, War is the Health of the State, quotation mark, comma. Oh, where to start here. Go on, then.”

Kylo tried to visualize the footnote, trying to figure out where he went wrong. Shit, shit, shit. He had no idea. “Uh…there’s no dash?”

“Did you not even read the manual of style?” Hux said, clearly displeased. “That is incorrect. Put on one of your socks and try again.”

Kylo spent the ten seconds he needed to pull his left sock back on scouring his brain for the hundreds of citations he had seen in the books he read for class. “Um, well, it should be a period after the chapter title?”

Hux scowled. “For that you’ll put on your shirt,” he said. “Periods go between clauses in the bibliography; they do not belong in footnotes unless they are at the end of the citation. This is a very obvious answer, Mr. Ren. What medium are you actually citing?”

The moment of clarity came as he was pulling his shirt over his head. “It should be the book title, not the title of the chapter. You only cite the title of an article in quotes.”

“Very good,” said Hux, chin high and imperious. “Answer me one more question and you will get a very nice reward.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If the title of a book is not in quotation marks, how is it formatted so that the reader knows it is a book?”

Kylo actually knew this one, so he quickly replied, “It’s in italics.”

Hux offered him a smile. “Excellent. Show me how you stroke your cock when you’re imagining me doing it.”

Kylo hissed through his teeth, shocked again, but he tentatively reached down with his right hand and wrapped it around himself.

“Tell me how you’d want me to touch you,” said Hux.

“Tight,” Kylo let slip before he could think of anything better. “Slow at first, kind of…gentle.” He moved his hand just so. “I like it when you…uh, touch the slit. Just a little.” He did it, feeling the small bead of fluid break under the pad of his thumb. “Are your hands soft? They look like they are.”

“Perhaps you’ll find out one day,” Hux said, sounding as controlled as ever. “But not today. That’s enough now; let go. We have another issue in this citation.” Kylo reluctantly released his cock and lowered his hand back to his side as Hux continued, “There is one more fault in this clause. Where is it?”

Kylo nearly groaned. He had no idea, really. “What comes after the comma?”

“That is the question I’m asking, Mr. Ren. Do you not know?”

“No,” said Kylo. “I don’t know.”

Hux sniffed. “Another sock. The correct answer is that the comma goes inside of the closing quotation mark, not outside of it. So, technically, the quotation mark follows the comma. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Kylo answered weakly.

“Very good. On to the next thing, then.” He ran his long fingers across the printed sentences at the bottom of the page. “Here. It reads: parenthesis, 1999, comma, Harper Perennial, comma, New York, parenthesis. Where is the fault, Mr. Ren?”

Kylo groaned. “I don’t know, sir. I don’t know any of this.”

“Then put on your trousers and go,” Hux snapped. “If you won’t take this exercise seriously, then I will not waste my time.” He went to turn his back, but Kylo called, “No! Wait. It’s…it’s the city and the date. They’re mixed up. The city should come first, with a…a…a colon after it.”

Hux gave him a hard look, but conceded, “That’s right. And after that…in order?”

“The publisher, a comma, and then the year,” Kylo said.

“Well done, Mr. Ren,” said Hux.

“Where can I touch?”

Hux eyed him, forcing Kylo to hold his breath, but then answered, “Your testicles. Roll them in your hand; squeeze, but just a little. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Kylo complied, taking himself by the balls and working them, pressing just behind where he liked a little pressure. He made a quiet “mm” sound as he closed his eyes.

“You know, I don’t make a habit of private tutoring,” he heard Hux say. “I’m making a very special exception for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Kylo.

“You’re a good student, Mr. Ren, and I want you to succeed. I have every reason to write you a glowing letter of recommendation for the graduate school of your choice.”

Pleasure shot down Kylo’s spine, and not just the physical. “I want that, sir. I want to be good for you.”

Hux chuckled. “I know you do, Kylo. And you’re doing very well. But we have yet to finish your lesson, so…let go of yourself again and give me your attention.”

Kylo sighed as he dropped his hand, but did as he was told. “What next, sir?”

“You’ve marked the pages as P period P period and then the number. What is incorrect about that?”

“I didn’t put a period after it?” Kylo said, his best guess.

“You’re not even trying, Mr. Ren,” said Hux, stern. God, Kylo wanted to fuck that haughty tone right out of him.

“I honestly don’t know, sir. I can’t think.”

Hux shook his head, removing his glasses and setting them down on the table. “Trousers, then.”

Dejected, Kylo stepped into the legs of his jeans and, with no small effort, tucked his cock into them and fastened the fly. The denim abraded his sensitive skin, feeling both good and wrong. He still had his shoes off, and he guessed that those counted in this game, but he was sorry to be fully covered up again. He chanced another look at Hux’s crotch and found no trace of the outline of his erection.

“I’ll give you one more try, Kylo,” Hux said. “If you really cannot answer, you may leave, but I want you to consider another attempt before you give up.” He came up to Kylo, giving him a noseful of his musky cologne. “How do you mark page numbers in a footnote?”

He was so close, Kylo could see the striations of blue in his green eyes and that his lashes were almost blond. Kylo’s cock pressed all the harder against his jeans, straining toward where Hux’s hands were by his sides. Kylo wanted to reach for him so badly, he could taste the yearning.

“It’s just the number,” Kylo breathed. “No P period P period. Just a comma after the parenthesis with the publisher and year and then the number. There’s a dash if it’s the range of pages. And it ends in a period.”

Hux smiled, closed-lipped but pleased. “Very, very good, Kylo. I knew you had the ability to do this. You’re so clever.”

Kylo shivered. “Dr. Hux, please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please touch me.”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” said Hux, and Kylo nearly collapsed, but then: “But I suppose I could.” His fingers brushed Kylo’s groin, tracing the length of his cock, and Kylo moaned. “So clever,” Hux mused as he continued to stroke Kylo through his jeans. “So handsome. I think I’m going to have to see more of you.”

Kylo, hips jerking into Hux’s hand with unabashed need, said, “You’ve seen all of me, sir.”

“Oh, yes,” said Hux, squeezing Kylo’s cock. “But you want more than this, don’t you?”

Kylo nodded mutely.

“What do you want, Mr. Ren?”

Kylo was getting perilously close to coming, and his head was thick with it, but he said, “I want to fuck you until you’re screaming.”

Hux pressed his palm hard against Kylo, giving him more friction. “Turn in your final paper without a single mistake, and I’ll bend over for you.”

Kylo lost it, crying out as he came in his pants, against Hux’s hand. Hux worked him through it, until he could see again, and then he took a long step back, his mask of professorly sobriety back in place.

“Our lesson for today is finished, Mr. Ren,” he said. “You may hand in your book review for this week.”

Kylo shot a look at the paper he had been ready to turn in; he knew it was full of errors in the citations. “I think I’ll take a zero for this one and give you something better next week.”

Hux gave him a slow, sated grin. “I expect the best from you, or you won’t have your reward at the end of the semester.”

“Oh, I will,” said Kylo. “Even if I have to read the entire Chicago Manual of Style.”

“You do that, Mr. Ren.”

“Yes, sir.”