Nicotine & Gravy

Wensleydale

Chapter 4: The Tutoring Lesson

In Which We Learn Some Bad Pick-Up Lines
and
There is a Hasty Retreat

            The rest of the school day seemed to drag on, and Maximilien counted down the hours until the movie. He hadn't even bothered to ask what movie it was—it didn't matter. Of course, there was the problem that he had never been on a date.

Fortunately, Durand had.

Maximilien decided to swallow his pride and turn the tables on the tutoring this afternoon. After the visit on Sunday, Maximilien didn't care if they stayed confined to the kitchen—he preferred his own room, anyway. More comfortable, and since there wasn't much in the way of embarrassment (he kept it scrupulously clean and did his own laundry—couldn't have his parents smelling the cigarettes), he didn't mind Durand around.

He jumped and settled on his mattress, and watched as Durand searched around in his backpack for English books. Clearing his throat, Maximilien said, "Actually, today we aren't going to cover the Canterbury Tales."

Durand raised an eyebrow, and slowly put down his bag. "So, what are we going to cover today? I don't have a trig test for another two weeks, but if you want to go over that now..."

It took a moment for Maximilien to form the words in his mouth, and it still left a weird taste when they left his mouth. "Durand, I need help with women."

Now Durand waggled an eyebrow salaciously. "I don't think I heard you correctly, Max."

Robespierre couldn't manage to meet Durand's gaze, and stared at his twiddling thumbs. "Don't call me Max! ...Ineedyoutotellmewhattodoonadate." He couldn't help his face from reddening. He hoped that Durand understood him that time, though it was probably less coherent than his first plea.

A heavy slap on his back reminded Maximilien whom he was dealing with. "Is this little Maxy François Marie...um...is this your first date, man? Hee!" Durand took a seat on the bed next to his tutor. He was promptly shoved off.

Assuming the defensive, Maximilien crossed his arms. "I have standards, unlike you. I've heard about you and practically every cheerleader in some capacity," he muttered haughtily.

Durand smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Er, well, not every cheerleader. And it's not like I can't help myself—I'm not seeing anyone now, for your information." His thought derailed, but he snapped back to return Maximilien's jab with his own response. "And again, you haven't even been on a date! You've had to have wanted someone before."

Maximilien scowled. This wasn't going to go anywhere if he argued with Durand, and in some way he envied Durand's expertise in charming women. Even if the women were fairly simple-minded (or so he thought) they were still something. His only experience was the lonely type with his hand.

He tried a less arrogant approach. "Okay, okay. Let's look at this as another condition for your tutoring. So far, conditions are that you owe me three trays of cookies a week, and you aren't my friend." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the realization that Durand knew him better than anybody else finally sunk in like a painful memory. Hell, Durand was over at his house, in his room—casual acquaintances never made it past the front door.

Durand's eyebrows knitted and he crossed his arms in an imitation of his tutor. "Right, not friends. Well, we need to change that if I'm the one doing the tutoring now. And now that we're friends..." at this he grinned at Maximilien and winked, "how did you hear about my love life?"

Maximilien snorted. "Each time you dumped one of them only to move on to her teammate, the rest of the school heard about it," he responded. "Cheerleaders are a pretty noisy bunch."

"Yeah, it's a wonder they don't all hate me," Durand mused thoughtfully. "Though they certainly don't cheer for me like they used to." He laughed at himself and turned towards Robespierre. "So, explain your problem."

Maximilien sighed and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "Well, the truth of the matter is....well, I've never really made out with a girl." He didn't consider the kiss with Lia because she had started it.

Durand yawned exaggeratedly. "We've established that already. So what is it?"

Durand had been making this into an ordeal and Maximilien had to bite his tongue to stay civil. "You know...kissing and stuff."

"And...by 'stuff', you mean like, touching boobs, right? Or touching other parts? Smooth legs..." Durand leered at him.

Again Maximilien had to bite his tongue. He wanted to put an end to the embarrassment, but he'd be rather hypocritical if he criticized what Durand was saying. He nodded quickly, face flushed.

"Well, now that that's settled...geeze Max, I see why you have so much trouble. You hardly know what you want!" Durand pushed the chair under his desk and took a seat next to Maximilien on the bed. "First things first. Step one—get close to her. So, did you know the know the distance from here to here," at that, Durand tapped first on Maximlien's elbow, then the shoulder closest to him, "is the same as the distance from here to here?" On these, he had snaked his arm around Maximilien's back and tapped on the opposite shoulder and elbow. Now Durand leaned on him, sporting a lopsided grin, his arm over Maximilien's shoulder. "That's how you do it."

Maximilien gave him an icy stare and shrugged off Durand's arm. "Well, obviously the distance from my elbow to my shoulder will be the same for both my arms. That was exceedingly lame."

"But notice how close I got? It's sneaky!"

Maximilien sniffed disdainfully. I can't believe that works for you. But then again, thinking about the other girls you've wooed..."

Durand rolled his eyes and sighed. "Well, to make you feel better, I'm more interested in a challenge and have been going after hard-to-get types now. And, if you don't like that trick, you can always do the old 'yawn and stretch'. Like this." He proceeded to give a huge false yawn, stretched his arms wide, and let one fall around Maximilien's shoulder.

"Well, it's something. I suppose if it came to that...actually, why can't I just put my arm around her shoulder?" Maximilien had actually wondered about all this goofy pretense.

Durand rolled his eyes again, which was becoming slightly irritating. "Well, I suppose you could do that, but it's not half as fun. It's part of the game, Max. It's all foreplay anyway, make it fun." Durand moved his arm and slid away from Maximilien. "Now you try."

Swallowing his pride, he flopped down next to Durand. Maximilien haltingly let his arm rest on Durand's shoulder, barely touching it as if his arm were above the stove.

"No no no! For starters, why aren't you smiling? You look disgusted, if anything! And stop acting like I have cooties or something. Are you stuck in fourth grade? I mean, of course you are, you've never had a girlfriend or anything..." Even berating Maximilien, Durand still seemed to be having fun. In fact, with Durand in charge, the tutoring tables had turned completely. It wasn't as fun being on the receiving end of the mocking.

"Big smile, then..." Maximilien muttered darkly, and grinned as far as he could. It hurt his mouth to smile this way, but he repeated the sit-down arm-rest technique anyway.

Durand stuck out his tongue. "Now you just look like a serial killer, or like you're going to rape me or something..."

"Well, it'll probably be different when it's a girl and not you, Durand!" He stomped off in a huff, fuming. He heard the bed creak when Durand got up, and circled around to face him. "Now what?"

"You know, I'm just trying to help you. You don't have to act like an asshole about it, Max. You're just upset that you aren't perfect, is all." Durand patted his shoulder reassuringly, which Max deigned to allow. "My coach would tell us that sometimes you just can't win every game. You can try your best, but no one is actually the best. Don't worry about it so much—just have fun."

This struck a chord with Maximilien, at least to a certain extent. He had already grudgingly admitted to himself that Durand was his friend, and now he came to terms with the fact that yes, Durand was smarter in some areas than he was. He hoped that he could just focus on picking up these pick-up tips now. "I'll try again, then."

Durand perked up, and sat back on the bed. "I'll let my hair down so I'll look more like a girl!" Even after letting it out of the ponytail, he didn't look any more feminine. "Should I go borrow some of your mom's clothes or makeup or something?"

Maximilien shuddered at the mere thought of Durand in drag. "No, no, it should be fine. It's not like letting your hair down changes you that much." He put on a normal smile and tried again at step one.

This time, Durand accepted the attempt. "Already better. Glad my pep-talk seemed to work, then. Well, next step...provided everything's gone well, at least. Let's say you've been talking, there's a lot of eye contact, she seems into you. All good signs." Durand brushed back some of his hair that kept getting in the way, now that he let it all down. "You can either stay satisfied at this point, which is fine if you're twelve years old, or you can commence with the liplock."

A wave of nausea rushed over Maximilien—Durand couldn't actually want him to practice kissing. That would be too strange. He had practically blocked the memory of that night out of his mind, but this potential brought it back. He bit his lip as he recollected all the feelings from that moment after the dare, after Durand pushed against him, after...He shook his head. "I think I can probably manage that on my own."

"Are you sure? It took you long enough to simply put your arm around my shoulder, and this will probably be twice as hard with a real girl. At least you have nothing to lose with me."

"Except my dignity, you mean. I'm not drunk, if you haven't noticed. I'm not going to kiss you, even if I need the practice. It's not something you do." He glared at Durand, who seemed fairly oblivious to the weirdness of the situation.

"Well, you'll end up closing your eyes anyway, so you could just pretend I'm a girl. I mean, if you want to graduate from high school without having made out with a woman, that's your choice—but I could have sworn you asked for some tips." Durand started to look vaguely offended that Maximilien was turning down his help. "Also, no one's around. I swallow my pride to learn math and stuff from you while you make fun of me, and you can't even manage a little kiss, which is ten times easier. Now I know why some people call you 'Robospierre'..."

"ROBOSPIERRE?!" Maximilien's voice cracked with indignation. He knew that he was aloof and smarter than everybody else, but being compared to a cold, emotionless robot hurt him a bit. "Fine then!" He closed his eyes and aimed for Durand's lips, if only to shut him up.

Surprisingly, he hit his target. Even more surprisingly, Durand kissed back just as Maximilien was about to break away, and put his arm around him. Unlike Lia, Durand didn't taste like smoke when his tongue ended up in Maximilien's mouth. Maximilien kept telling himself to stop every time their lips met, and every time he gave in to the kiss. He even allowed Durand to push him back against the mattress, where they continued to make out.

As soon as he was lying flat on his back, Durand on top of him, Maximilien reassessed the situation, or attempted to. He wasn't drunk, and it still felt good. Part of him was confused, but nearly seventeen years without any human physical contact made him forget why he hadn't jumped on this bandwagon sooner. A high GPA never gave him this sort of sensation.

Durand had left his lips and began kissing at his neck, and Maximilien had to grit his teeth to stay quiet. He didn't want to let Durand think he was enjoying it that much, after all—this was all a learning experience! The lower Durand went on his neck, the hotter the room seemed to get—Maximilien chalked this up to Durand's body heat, since he was practically lying on top of him. Luckily, Durand had started to unbutton Maximilien's shirt...with his mouth.

It was too hard to keep his own mouth clenched, and ragged breaths emerged in spite of himself. There weren't many buttons left by the time he opened an eye, and he wasn't really sure what would happen next.

"S...stop, Durand, you're...turning me on," he panted hoarsely, immediately regretting having opened his mouth at all.

Fortunately, the loud whirring of the garage door put an end to this particular lesson, and the boys separated almost immediately. By the time Maximilien buttoned his shirt back up and smoothed his hair out, Durand was gone; leaving in his wake scattered papers, a knocked-over desk chair, and a confused (and aroused) seventeen-year old.

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