Doing a 160

By Miriam Heddy

 

 

Charlie waited at the end of the line outside office 160 with the five undergraduates who'd signed their names to the sheet Larry'd tacked onto his door. He noted that every last one of them left looking happier than they had going in, though he suspected that Larry was far gentler on them than either he or they realized. At last, Larry poked his head out and into the hall.

"Charles? What in the world are you doing here?"

 

"Waiting, obviously. I assume this is the line for blowjobs?"

 

"I—" And Larry was just as suddenly gone.

 

"Larry?" He knocked at the door and waited until, a good five minutes later, Larry opened it again.

 

Larry looked… not angry, exactly, but perturbed. "That was—what if someone heard you just now?"

 

"Nobody is here but me."

 

"That you know of, Charles."

 

"I checked. I've been sitting out here for two hours, Larry."

 

"Ah, yes. And your brother—I suppose he's been teaching you how to surveil on the side in exchange for tutoring the FBI in remedial Algebra?"

 

"I—No—"

 

"And did you happen to notice Professor Lingstrom, who, by the way, likes to keep her door open just a crack because she's claustrophobic?"

 

"I—"

 

"Yes, she really does exist, and yes, she really is here, two doors down. You can verify that on your way out of the building. Goodbye."

 

The door shut and Charlie found himself faced with the nameplate again. He traced the room number with his finger once before knocking again, wondering if maybe he shouldn't just take Larry's advice and leave, because yes, now that he looked again, he saw that Professor Lingstrom's office door was open just a crack, and it was pretty obvious that the light around the door was incandescent and not sunlight. How the hell had he missed that?

 

"You think she heard?" he whispered when Larry opened the door again, peeking out and looking annoyed to see him still there.

 

Larry didn't answer, continuing to glare at him, and he realized that Larry might well not answer, which probably meant that no blowjob was happening in the foreseeable future.

 

"Sorry?"

 

"I hope so. Yes, I do hope you are sorry. Go home, Charles."

 

"You did say I should be more impulsive."

 

"I said—" Larry's nose twitched the way it did when Larry was about to laugh, but then he shook his head and no laughter was forthcoming. "I suggested that you worry less about whether or not you are going to succeed at something and instead dare to move outside of your area of competence. Competence, Charles, though perhaps that was the wrong word entirely, as you seem to have gone all the way over to non compos mentis. I did not—I most definitely did not suggest that you…."

 

And Larry didn't seem to be able to complete that sentence, having descended into sputtering and hiding behind his hands.

 

"So you weren't speaking se—"

 

"Don't say that—don't say that!" Larry peeked from behind his fingers and Charlie tried to look repentant, but it was hard, because he was hard. He glanced down and Larry did as well.

 

"Sexually?" He whispered it, this time, surprising himself for taking a perverse enjoyment in the fact that Larry's voice had gotten a bit squeaky and was blushing up to his hairline. Because it might've been anger, but it looked a lot like Larry was sort of turned on even if he would never admit it, and it was still sort of interesting to find out just what turned Larry on.

 

"Am I talking to myself here? No—don't answer that, because if you are a sign of creeping dementia you'd definitely lie and say you weren't, though I like to tell myself that I would not be reassured by my attempts to convince myself otherwise."

 

"You lost me."

 

"No, you're still very much here, though I'll admit that I hoped you'd vanish when I closed the door earlier. Wait—why don't we just try that again and this time, when I open the door again, either you'll be gone or I will. Either way, I think I'd be satisfied, though you—well. The less said about that the better." And, with a last, somewhat lingering glance at his erection, Larry shut the door again.

 

Charlie knocked three times and then waited, this time for twenty minutes. He actually sat down and graded another three mediocre first year exams before he stood up again and knocked again, arousal now fully in check thanks to the student who seemed to be under the impression that there was something clever rather than just annoying about multiplying every one of his absolutely correct answers by a different prime number. He had yet to figure out what the purpose of testing him was, as none of them were ever quite bright enough to come up with a good test of anything other than his patience. But he also couldn't bring himself to punish them for it. Yet.

 

"Damn." Larry opened the door and frowned, putting one hand to his forehead and then rubbing his eyes until Charlie's own eyes watered in sympathy. "I suppose I should have anticipated that even if you didn't exist, my libido would construct something like you. Repression is an ugly thing, Charles. I feel I must now pay for every year I refrained from taking advantage of my influence on you." Larry looked somewhat defeated, and Charlie patted his shoulder.

 

"And I appreciate that you—how many years was that, exactly? You can tell me later. And really, I am sorry I'm not a hallucination. But looking at the bright side, I can go over and, um, apologize. To Professor Lingstrom."

"And what were you thinking of saying, if I might ask? Because Charles, what might have seemed, thirty minutes ago, to be a crude joke, is likely to seem a bit less of one now that you've been all but stalking me."

 

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that."

 

"You wouldn't, no. Stalkers rarely do. Perhaps a restraining order? Though given your connections, and my seniority, and your reputation—well, perhaps it's best to leave the law and your family out of this entirely."

 

"I didn’t want to leave with you mad at me."

 

"In other words, you're bound and determined to have that blowjob, regardless of my feelings in the matter. Though actually, did you say you were going to do me or I was going to do you—no, this is my psychotic break, after all, so you are definitely going to do me."

 

Charlie dropped his handful of exams, which scattered down the hall.

 

Larry sighed, waving his hands in the direction of Professor Lingstrom's office as he spoke. "She's nearly deaf, Charles. She refuses to wear her hearing aid, even when she's teaching. You should hear her lectures. Actually, you probably have heard them. She tends to shout just a bit. Overcompensation. Which, by the way, I think you know something about."

 

"That—that wasn't nice." Still, when he got his breath back, he couldn't help but laugh.

 

"Neither was your ill-conceived sexual proposition, intriguing as it was. We are neither of us 'nice' people, apparently."

 

"I am nice."

 

"No—you're naughty, though you do manage to fool a great many people with that wounded look."

 

"I think I actually am wounded." And yet he was still laughing.

 

"No, you're just desperately horny, and I must admit I'm somewhat flattered."

 

"I am, actually. Though I could also use a cup of coffee. And some advice about Don's case, which you might actually know more about than I do."

Larry rubbed his forehead and sighed. "And at last we get to the real reason behind your visit. Well, you're in luck, because I happen to have both a penis and a pot on, though beyond that, I make no promises. I might even have some cookies left, though, which I really promised myself I wasn't going to eat. But I suppose if you're having some, I should at least try them…"

 

Charlie patted his arm and Larry watched him gather up his errant exams with a gleam in his eye that suggested that it would probably be awhile before they got to the cookies.

 

And then Larry finally invited him into his office and Charlie locked the door behind him and didn't wait for the promised cup of coffee to unzip Larry's khakis and say a proper hello.

 

"Larry, I should probably warn you that I'm not, strictly speaking, following your advice at this point."

 

"No? In what respect? And do you ever?" Larry's voice was soft and breathy, and he leaned into him and swayed as if they were dancing, until Charlie walked him back to lean him against the desk.

 

"Well, yes. I do. But I'm pretty sure this is actually something I'm good at."

 

"Hmm. Well, why don't you let me be the judge of that while I think up something you don't already know how to do. Like, for instance—"

 

And because he could, and because, again, it was something he was pretty confident about, at least with Larry if with no one else, he kissed Larry hard and deep, pushing him back onto the desk and lying on top of him and sliding more than a few of Larry's papers onto the floor. Larry didn't seem to care, thrusting up against him, moaning softly into his mouth as he always did. It was a little uncomfortable, and awkward, and Larry was definitely going to complain about his back later, but at the moment, it was perfectly satisfying just rocking against him and having him respond in kind.

 

Eventually, just as he thought he might just come, Larry urged him back up again, and Charlie grinned at Larry's somewhat dazed expression.

 

"Good?"

 

Larry blinked several times in succession and nodded, thoughtfully. "You know I don't like to offer an evaluation of a work in progress. Oh, but I do like this song." Larry reached over and turned the radio up. It was set to a station Charlie would've called "oldies" except that Larry tended to wince when he did that, arguing that anything after 1970 was classic. "Now this, Charles, is music to fuck by."

 

Charlie leaned in and kissed him again, because there really wasn't anything on earth as hot as Larry's mouth. When Larry wanted to, he knew how to make physics sound like fucking and vice versa, until it was all vice and all verse, a sort of profane poetry that no one but Larry ever spoke, and that Larry only spoke to him. He'd never really told Larry, because it would have been embarrassing, but he'd probably developed a small, weird fixation on him as an undergraduate the first time he heard Larry talk about string theory, because, though Larry was clearly lost in his own world, Charlie had sensed that there was room in that world for him.

 

Though sometimes, Larry could also be less than articulate, and though the radio was now pretty loud, and Professor Lingstrom was apparently deaf, once Charlie got Larry out of his pants, Larry's vocal appreciation quickly turned to moans that made Charlie wish one of them had thought to close the window before he'd gotten down on his knees.

 

He pulled off of Larry and said, "Shhh" and Larry shivered but went silent.

 

Larry had braced his hands behind him on the desk and tipped his head back, and Charlie held onto Larry's hips while he returned his attention to drawing Larry out of himself in long, hot strokes with his fist and tongue, until Larry at last stopped shivering and went very still, only his thighs trembling slightly signaling he was going to come. Charlie reached up without pulling off and found Larry's hand clenched on the edge of the desk, and squeezed it as he finished Larry off with his tongue as he always did, stopping only when Larry put his other hand under Charlie's chin and lifted him up into another kiss.

 

Larry hopped up onto his desk again and parted his knees, so that Charlie could stand between his legs, and Larry unzipped Charlie's jeans, taking him in his hand and using short, tight squeezes, familiar and fast. His hand was a little too dry, but soon enough it was just fine and he couldn't hold still, wanting more.

 

"I'm feeling far more generous now. Should I—"

 

"Hmm. Yes. No. Wait—Just this—this is good."

 

He wanted Larry's mouth on him, but also wanted this—to look into Larry's eyes while Larry made him come.

 

"New song," he noted, noticing it only because the chorus was a string of seven numbers sung over and over. 8675309. 8675309. The beats were timed almost perfectly with Larry's hand on his cock, and he found himself singing along, not really noticing it until he came on the zero of the ninth iteration, finding himself fading out just ahead of the song's final beat.

 

"You're in very fine voice tonight, Charles."

 

He nodded, not at all sure if Larry was being sarcastic, and too sated to really care. "Interesting song. Is that a real phone number?"

 

"Yes, almost certainly, though I suspect that 'Jenny' is now unlisted."

 

"Is it—a 'classic'?"

 

"I believe it was written in 1981, so that's debatable. Devo is classic. Tommy Tutone is, well, I suppose one-hit wonder is a bit insulting, if apt."

 

"Huh. 1981. I was—"

 

"Yes, I'm sure you were. Did you mention coffee?"

 

He laughed and shook his head to clear it. "Yes, coffee and advice, I definitely need that. But coffee first, please."

 

"Cookie?"

 

Larry held out the box and he grinned and took one even though he wasn't hungry, because Larry clearly wanted a cookie. They were better than he'd expected, and not too sweet, and he swiped at the smudge of chocolate on Larry's mouth and then kissed him again.

 

"Yes, so now you wanted advice?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Good, because I have some for you. Do not attempt to seduce me here again, Charles."

 

"Are you, um, o-kay. I suppose I asked for that. Yes."

 

Larry was serious, it was clear from the set of his jaw. "It's not that I don’t appreciate your enthusiasm, but honestly, it's messy on several levels and inconvenient, and just look at my desk!"

 

Charlie looked and noticed that Larry's laptop was balanced precariously and had nearly gone over the edge with them.

 

Larry was still eating, though Charlie was sure he didn't notice it, as he was also waving the cookie around as he talked, spreading crumbs over his desk and the floor. "I really have no idea how to separate my relationship with you professionally from this as it is, and yet you insist on making it more complicated, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, though I sometimes suspect it's sheer malice on your part."

 

"Right. Keep it simple, stupid."

 

"Oh, not the wounded look again. You will someday soon be too old for that to work, y'know."

 

"You aren't."

 

"Yes, well, I—" And Larry's nose twitched and wrinkled up again, and then he smiled suddenly, warmly, as if he never really was angry, though Charles sensed that he really was. "Apology accepted, lessons ignored all around, and—"

 

"Good, I can have another cookie?"

 

"Evasive as ever, Professor Eppes. And thank you for these, by the way. The shape was really a nice touch. I really had no idea anyone made penii in peanut butter, though. And my string theory lunch club found it most amusing to speculate as to the nature and origin of the gift, most of them assuming it was a rather crude gag at my expense."

 

"Gag gift—I hadn't thought of—wait—you opened it there? They didn’t—the card. They saw the card?"

 

The card had CE printed on it, and Larry, and the word "love" figured in there somewhere. He'd never sent Larry a gift before, and he'd never written that word down before, and at the time, that, too, had seemed to be something Larry would approve of, considering he was not at all certain he knew what he was doing as he'd sent in the order. It was a lark—just something he thought of that suddenly seemed right, sort of like showing up at Larry's office naked, though the naked part had been clearly more personal fantasy than practical.

 

"No, they saw none of it because I saw your initials on the package and at least one of us has the good judgment to keep it in our pants during office hours. But now you perhaps see the gravity of the situation, so we're even, I think. Yes."

 

"Larry—"

 

"Charles. I am serious now. Call me old-fashioned if you like, though I prefer it if you didn't, but anything remotely libidinous—which includes but isn't limited to food and sex and love and any combination of those you can think of—is probably best left out of the workplace, at least until I learn how to say a firm 'No' to you and your… cookies."

 

"Hmm. You have a very firm—"

 

"Yes. Oh, hell, ye—I mean, no. Charles, we really shouldn't be—oh. Well. That's… yes. We can start a new leaf tomorrow, I suppose. And I do need to work off those cookies somehow."

 

Charlie nodded, tasting chocolate and peanut butter and coffee and sliding his hand inside Larry's shirt and unbuttoning it, noting with some relief that Larry had said 'love' far more casually than he himself had written it on that card. And made more confident by that inclusion, this time Charlie had the foresight to close the window, clear the desk, set the computer down safely on the bookshelf, and find the hand-lotion, and when they came again, in a moment of orgasmic insight that he would struggle to make sense of later, the closer he looked at Larry's body fitting against his own, the more certain he was that the boundary of their lives was actually far more fractal than fractured. And if Larry himself couldn't yet see that yet, Charlie was willing to go to extreme lengths to convince him.

 

 

The End.

 

 

Feed the Muse.

 

Thanks to Kate. Office sex is love.