Kurt was usually on top.

That would have surprised most people to know. Not that anyone did know, because the kind of people who would ask were not the kind of people they were likely to tell and the kind of people they wouldn't have minded telling usually weren't interested or didn't care.

But the people who were interested usually either stated outright or just sort of assumed that Blaine was the penetrating partner. After all, he was the more obviously masculine of the two, and he was almost always the aggressor—Kurt was a romantic in his soul, and he still thought you could have a perfectly nice romantic evening with just dinner and maybe a duet. It didn't usually take long for Blaine to persuade him otherwise, but it was almost invariably Blaine doing the persuading.

And then he would get down on his hands and knees and docile, androgynous, counter-tenor Kurt with the fair complexion and the doll-blue eyes would take him.

They had tried it the other way several times. Their first time together, the night of West Side Story, they had discovered after quite a bit of awkward shuffling that both wanted to bottom, so it had ended in a sort of who's-hornier competition where they each sang something and whoever got more turned on "lost".

Blaine sang "Fever". Kurt sighed and told him he might as well just turn around, because there was no way he, Kurt, could compete with that, but Blaine insisted he try anyway.

"It's no good," said Kurt. "You're sexy and gorgeous and you make my skin tingle in weird places even though I know I moisturised. I can't even make sexy faces right."

"Hey, now. Come on. Just try."

"Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea."

"No, no, no!" Blaine knelt on the bed and took Kurt's face in his hands. "Don't back out on me now, Hummel. If you're uncomfortable or you think we're going too fast, that's one thing, but if it's just that you don't think I find you sexy…"

Kurt averted his eyes. That was exactly what it was, and Blaine looked down at their interlocked hands for a moment. Then he began to speak, slowly and deliberately. "You know, when I touch myself at night, I'm not thinking about some guy making sexy faces. I'm thinking about you."

Kurt flushed. "You think about me when you…you…?"

Blaine ran his fingers lightly over Kurt's shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. "You make me hot," he whispered, "just by being you."

"Like how? What, what, what do you…think about?"

"You remember when you sang 'Blackbird'?"

"Oh, no. That is a very pure memory for me, Blaine Anderson. I will not let you sully that. You said I moved you with my performance—I remember that word. I moved you. It was emotional. You did not say…"

"Yes, you moved me emotionally, Kurt. And then, when I left the choir room, I ran up to my dorm, and collapsed on my bed and closed my eyes, and pretended…"

"Oh my god…"

"…pretended that as you sang, you were stroking me. I pretended my hands were your hands, and that you knew just what to do to me…"

"But I don't. I have no idea what I'm doing."

"You don't have to, Kurt." Blaine crept closer until his breath, which smelled like the hot lemon water he drank during performances, ruffled Kurt's hair. "Neither of us have to know. We'll work it out. But first, we've got to decide who's doing what, so come on. Give me something exciting."

Kurt sang "At Last". Blaine watched him, his amber eyes wide and hungry.

Before Kurt had well finished the last note Blaine was on top of him, covering his face and neck with kisses and pawing desperately at his clothing.

"Wait, wait, wait, layers! Layers!" gasped Kurt.

"I can't wait any longer, Kurt, I can't," said Blaine, between mouthfuls of cream-coloured flesh. "I'll tear these beautiful, beautiful clothes if I have to. God, I just want your skin, I want your skin next to mine, I don't care how…"

"Please don't tear my clothes," said Kurt.

"Right, sorry," said Blaine. He lifted his head and took his hands away from a panting, flushed, sweating Kurt. "Sorry," he said again. He examined his boyfriend for a moment and then climbed off of him again. Kurt sat up. "Okay," Blaine said. "So…I'm definitely hornier."

"I guess so," said Kurt.

"But we're gonna take it slow. Like I promised. Like we always said. Do you think I can work out how to get that vest off, or should I leave that to you?"

"It's just a good thing I took the scissors accessory off before you starting mauling me," said Kurt primly, unbuttoning the offending article at what seemed to Blaine a maddeningly slow pace. "You would have cuts all over the upper half of your body by now."

The vest came off eventually. Underneath were more buttons, but by now the intensity of Blaine's gaze was starting to get to Kurt.

"Do you care if I just…?" said Blaine, slipping his fingers underneath the hem of his shirt and tugging upward. Kurt obediently raised his arms; the shirt got caught under his nose but after a second it came off all right.

"Not a single burst thread or anything," said Blaine.

"The wider neck does make it easier," said Kurt.

"You've still got on a T-shirt," said Blaine. "And jeans. And probably underwear? Anything else?"

"No. I went for simple today."

"Any special reason?"

"Well, I didn't just waltz into that auditorium without a plan. I was pretty determined we were going to end up…here."

"But you wore the scissors brooch."

"Simple doesn't mean boring. You had to want to end up here, after all."

"I've wanted to end up here since the first moment I saw you."

"Really?" Kurt paused his fumbling at his belt buckle.

"Really. Your eyes met mine and I had this crazy moment where I was like, I wonder what that kid would look like naked? Hey, take off the shirt first, would you?"

Kurt obliged, with only a slight hesitation. He had been careful over the past couple of days, eating lean foods and even lifting a few weights, but his torso wasn't exactly…

Blaine lunged for him, knocking him backward. This time, Kurt kicked off his jeans and wrapped his arms and legs around the other boy, who squirmed out of his own clothes without any apparent regard for damages; this would have worried Kurt more if he hadn't happened to know that Blaine's entire ensemble including the boxers cost $13.50 at K-Mart. Skin against skin, their kisses became faster and more frantic until Blaine's fingers found the band of Kurt's boxers and pulled them down around his ankles…

"Oh my god," moaned Blaine. "Okay, I'll go first, but please, please, please, can I have that inside me at some point?"

"We'll see," said Kurt, pulling away Blaine's underwear and smiling. "Nice," he said, and Blaine actually blushed.

"Hang on. I've got a box of you'd-better-not-ever-need-these condoms in my drawer somewhere."

"Do we really need those? We're both virgins, right?"

"Right, but I've never been tested for like congenital diseases or anything. They say better safe than sorry. If you don't like it we can maybe try it without, but at the very least it's probably cleaner…"

"Cleaner is definitely better." Kurt rolled over on his stomach and listened to Blaine's laboured breathing as he rooted for condoms.

"Here we go. Okay. Oh, wow, you have got to relax," said Blaine. Kurt felt his boyfriend's perpetually cold hands against his back, and then felt his knees clamp on either side of Kurt's hips.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

"You sure?"

Kurt closed his eyes and nodded, and…

"Ow!"

"Oh, my god, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"I'm okay. Do I need to relax more?"

"Yeah, but…oh, shit, I forgot the lube! Hang on, I think I have most of a bottle around here somewhere. It's this really expensive silicone-based stuff that I treated myself to…"

"Most of a bottle?" teased Kurt. "Exactly who have you been using it with?"

"I told you. Me. Thinking about you, remember?"

"You use expensive silicone-based lubricant to jack off?"

"It lasts longer. Why? What do you use?"

"Um, skin lotion, mostly."

Blaine looked up from his rummage and grinned. "So you do masturbate sometimes."

Kurt turned away, trying to hide the embarrassment on his face. "Of course I do. Everybody does."

"And? Do you think about me when you do?"

"Y-yes."

"Here it is." Blaine brandished a container and hopped back up on the bed. He straddled Kurt and began stroking inside him in slow, circular movements.

"Wow. Whoa. Wow. That feels really…"

"What do you think about me doing to you?" murmured Blaine, slipping his free arm around Kurt's waist and kissing the hollow of his neck.

Kurt shuddered a little.

"I don't…I don't know. Dancing. Singing, the way you sing when you really get into it, with your eyes shut tight and your throat throbbing. I think about the curve of your neck and the…the way your eyes look in direct sunlight in the second before you lift your hand to shield them."

"Is that it?"

"I don't think about you sucking me off or anything."

"Why not?"

"I wanted to wait, to see what that was really like. I just think about you, about watching you. I love watching you, Blaine. You're beautiful."

"You're beautiful." Blaine kissed him again and pulled his fingers out.

"All right, let's try this again," he said.

"Well?" said Blaine.

Kurt lay back, his hands behind his head. If he had had a cigarette, he would have smoked it.

"Honestly?"

"Always."

"I liked the kissing. And the lubing. As for the other stuff…" He shrugged.

Blaine's face broke into a grin. "Me, too. That is exactly how I felt. See, I knew it!"

"What? What did you know? That neither of us were going to be good at this and we should have stuck to making out? I knew that, too."

"No, no, no no no," said Blaine hastily, putting his hands on Kurt's shoulders to stop him from standing up. "I knew that you were supposed to be inside me, not the other way around."

"You want to go again?"

"What again? We haven't even gotten to your bit yet."

"All right, so what's my bit? I'm not even hard anymore."

"That's because you're not looking at me."

"I am, I'm looking directly at you…"

"You know what I mean, Kurt. Look at me, really look."

He sang a few bars of that love song from West Side Story. And as he did so he lay back and the lamplight fell and cast shadows over his lithe little golden body.

Kurt let his eyes roam over every dip and curve of the younger boy's form, from the prominent hip bone to the hard muscle in the shoulder to the soft dark hair, sweat-stuck to his forehead. He gleamed in the half-dark, and when, as he ceased to sing, he bent over to kiss Kurt's throat, the lines in his back make a perfect curve, like a triumphal arch.

Kurt reached up and let his fingers play through Blaine's glossy black curls, still stiff with gel. His thumb traced a line down Blaine's nose and over his smooth lips, and then he hooked his fingers in Blaine's collarbone and brought him forward for another kiss.

"See what I mean?" Blaine's fingers had slipped between Kurt's legs and were teasing some life back into him, ever so gently.

"Wow," whispered Kurt.

"Wow," said Kurt.

"Wow," agreed Blaine.

They lay panting in each other's arms, legs tangled, sweat drops clinging to each other, sheets bunched up beneath them.

"We're doing that again next time," said Kurt. "Wow."

"Next time," agree Blaine.

It hadn't been perfect. In fact, it had been a little weird and awkward, and Blaine had to talk Kurt through most of it. But in the end it was the best release Kurt had ever had; he was still throbbing and tingling all over, as if he had suddenly become hyper-ticklish, and the play of Blaine's fumbling fingers on his hips and ribcage made his ears ring.

Blaine felt the way you feel after a really intense deep-tissue massage. He was warm and fuzzy and light-headed and bright-eyed, and Kurt had become a shining star, a beautiful angel, a songbird with glistening feathers and a mouth that made him drunk to kiss. Which he did, long and deeply.

"I love you," he whispered fiercely against Kurt's lips. "I love you, I love you, I love you, forever and ever and ever…"

"Don't they always say not to say that after sex?" murmured Kurt.

"Not to say what?"

"I love you."

"I love you too."

They both giggled.

"You're also," said Blaine, shifting his hips a little to press against Kurt, "not supposed to say that you are the single best thing to ever happen to me, you are the most beautiful being in existence, you are the love of my life, an angel in human form, a demigod of perfection—you, Kurt Hummel, are a creature out of all of my best and most beautiful dreams, and it kills me to think that I'm going to have to stop looking at you at some point. I think it'll burn my eyeballs to look at anything in the world other than you."

"No, no, you really shouldn't say all that," agreed Kurt. "And I definitely should not say that I…"

"Blaine? Blaine, honey, I'm home a little early. Are you in your room?"

"Oh, shit!" Blaine leapt to his feet and fumbled until he found his boxers and a tank top. Kurt yanked on his T-shirt and had just succeeded in hiking his drawers up to just below his armpits when the door handle turned and a dark-haired woman peered around the corner.

She blinked. "Oh. Hello, Kurt."

"Hello, Ms Anderson."

She took barely a glance around the room, and her mouth tightened, but whether in amusement or disapproval Kurt couldn't tell. "Blaine, are you two going to need anything else?" she asked.

"Um, like what?"

"Snacks? Wi-Fi password? Pants?"

"No, I think we're all good on that front, Mom, thanks."

"Great. Well, I am…definitely going out again. For a while. I might spend the night away. Or something. Um. Use protection. I mean, I don't know if…"

She stopped, frowned, and smiled.

"Well, anyway. Goodnight, Blaine. Nice to see you again, Kurt."

"You too, Ms Anderson."

Kurt and Blaine flopped back onto the bed as soon as she was gone.

"Oh my god," said Blaine, burying his face in his boyfriend's shoulder. "I can't believe…she was supposed to be out till eleven."

"It's okay," said Kurt. "It was kind of funny."

Blaine chuckled and rubbed the back of Kurt's neck—his hands were warm enough now.

"I really do love you," he said. "Always."

"I really do love you back," said Kurt. "Forever and ever."

Blaine tried once or twice after that penetrating Kurt, but it never seemed as good—at the very least, it never came as naturally. They did a lot of other things that were fun and silly and awkward and mutually beneficial, too, of course.

But whenever there was topping to do, Kurt more than happily assumed the position.