The X-Men were having an orgy in the basement. Charles was was doing his utmost not to listen—or had been, half an hour ago—but it wasn't the easiest sight to turn away from.
First, he'd had to seek out the source of everyone's lust, to be certain it wasn't dangerous. Then, he'd had to keep an eye on the proceedings, so as to make sure they wouldn't hurt themselves or each other. Keeping an eye on things had somehow turned into something else, and now Charles sat behind the desk in his office, the fingers of one hand pinching his nipples, and his other hand wrapped around his soft penis, trying to coax it into a more convenient shape.
A few floors beneath him, Kurt and Peter and Scott were entwined together, naked and mostly naked, desperate to have each other again, although they'd been around the world already three or four times now. Across the room from them were Raven and Ororo, and if this hadn't been the expected next step to Ororo's hero worship, it was close enough not to matter.
As for Jean, she must have shielded herself from him somehow, for Charles didn't even sense her presence until she walked into his office. He looked up from what he was doing when he heard the door open, and there she was, standing before him completely naked.
"Jean," he said. He shoved his penis back in his underwear, zipped up with unsteady hands. "What are you doing here?"
"I think you know," said Jean, and suddenly her mind was clear to him—and something else was clear, too.
"Shouldn't you be with the others?" Charles asked, though now seemed a much less prominent concern. "I don't think you know what you're doing."
Jean approached the desk with her bare breasts, and bare thighs, and red, red hair between them. She sat on his desk, facing him. It had to be cold against her bare bottom, but she neither shivered nor gave any other sign of discomfort.
"I need you," she said, and below the spoken words, I know you want it.
The hell of it was...Charles did. He had, for quite some time now. He'd imagined any number of scenarios in which to have her—in his bed, on his desk, against a wall. Sometimes he was standing in the dreams, able to do anything, in any position; sometimes he was the way he was, and those were always the dreams that seemed more of a transgression, if only because they were that much closer to reality.
"I need you," she said, and spread her legs so he could see how swollen she was, and how wet. "Please."
The words were as false as those in any of his fantasies, but her need—not for him, but for someone, anyone, to touch her, to bring her to orgasm again and again until the itch inside her had been satisfied—was very real. It was in her voice, in her thoughts; it was in the sight before him, and no amount of shame could have averted his eyes.
"All right," he said.
Charles would have done this for her whether he wanted her beforehand or not. He would have done it for anyone who'd come to him in such pain. He positioned himself between her legs, and bent over to taste her.
The moment his lips touched her, she arched up for him. The moment he licked her, she grabbed the back of his skull to keep him there. He could barely breathe, but oh, she tasted good. He licked and sucked her clit, and she was more responsive than anyone else he'd ever been with, shaking to her first orgasm within a minute, and her second within a few more.
He'd have done this for her either way, but any image of himself as selfless in this matter was entirely gone by the third time she screamed out her climax. He reached to open the front of his trousers again, took himself in hand, and began to jerk himself in earnest. By the time she'd come for the tenth time, he was fully erect.
Maybe it would help you more if we, he said, and couldn't manage to finish in any way but with the image of what they might do.
"Yes," Jean said. She sat up and moved over to her chair, impaling herself on him so quickly it might have been part of the image. "Yes, yes, please, I need it from you, please," she said. You want it, you've always wanted it, like this, you want me, just like this, you want me to use you.
"Yes, darling. Use me, please," Charles said, though he knew better than to answer, knew he shouldn't have answered anything Jean said, or admitted to thoughts he'd never known she'd heard. He buried his face between her breasts, stroked her long hair and the soft skin of her back beneath it. "I've got you. Take whatever you need, Jean."
You've wanted her, from the moment you met. You've always wanted her, even when she was fourteen and fifteen and sixteen. Even though you could easily have been her father. Even though she thinks of you as a father. You've always wanted to push yourself into her, to fuck her mouth and cunt and ass, whether she wanted you or not—and she didn't, not until now, and she only came to you because she thinks of you like a father, and she was frightened.
No, Charles said. That was a fantasy, it's normal to have fantasies. I'd never have—I'd never have acted on them, Jean. You have to know that. Jean slammed herself down on his cock, then lifted back up, and came down again, now making little grunts with each effort, her mind humming with the itch, and with something even darker and more foreign; he took his hands away from her, gripped the rims of his chair instead, as if so doing would prove anything to either of them. Isn't that the first thing we ever talked about, in our sessions? The difference between fantasies and desires? The difference between desires and actions?
I know all about your desires, and now so does she, said Jean, with a twisted satisfaction that didn't jibe at all with the girl Charles knew so well.
That was when Charles realized it wasn't Jean speaking to him at all, or may as well not have been. She'd sounded different through all of this, of course, since her mind had been altered by the strange cloud of pollen she and the others had stumbled upon—but now she sounds like another person entirely, as if Jean were some third party they were discussing together. He'd never heard her sound like this, but he'd felt something similar. Back before En Sabah Nur had come, Jean had used to have dreams that shook the house, waking everyone in it; once, her dream self had seemed like something else altogether, until he woke her in the night and she turned to him, blinking and frightened, herself and no one else.
Yes, and you wanted her then, too, said the voice, and later Charles would think that was where it had erred.
"I didn't," he said, and it was true: his weakness had always been later, when he was alone and horny and he hadn't thought there was any chance of her hearing. I truly didn't. I never wanted anything more than to help you, Jean. Not on any of those nights.
I know you didn't, Professor, Jean said, and came with a moan closer to a sob. It hurts.
She meant her inner muscles, which had clenched around his fingers over and over, and which were now clenching around the part of him that was so much bigger; she meant the itch inside her mind, the extinction burst that was making her want him so much more than she had before, so much she could hardly bear it; she meant the strange fire stewing at the back of her mind, the part of her that seemed to only come out when she had lost control in some way.
Downstairs, the others were finished, and had been for some minutes, having had a head start. This had happened to them, too, Charles saw, and so he reached for her again, where he'd recoiled from her before. "It's all right," he said. "It's almost over. You're all right."
Jean went over one more time, then began to slow down, still chasing something but needing it less now. Two more tremors, and then she stopped entirely, and leaned against his chest. He stroked her back, making shushing noises as she trembled against him.
He realized he was still inside her only when she did, coming back to herself with the full realization of what had happened.
"Oh my god," she said, and pulled off him, and jumped away from his chair. "Oh my god, Professor, I'm so sorry."
"You're sorry?" Charles said, but one of her hands went up to cover her breasts, the other to cover her groin, and he knew any further discussion would have to wait. "Here," he said, and pulled off his shirt and handed it to her. He'd realize only later how presumptuous this had perhaps been, when he'd already taken advantage of the situation. Never mind if someone had had to; he was still as close to complicit as it was possible to get.
He looked away as she pulled the shirt on, looked back at her in time to see her run out the door again. His shirt wasn't quite long enough to cover her buttocks, and so that was the image he was left with. It seemed to him even worse than the rest of it, somehow.
***
Any mention of orgies was conspicuously missing from Raven's mission report. Charles took this as his cue to pretend he'd noticed neither the orgy nor the delicate way in which the X-Men navigated around each other for the weeks following. It wasn't as if any of them wished to talk about it; they all resolutely thought about something else whenever they spoke to him. He let them get away with it because he didn't want to talk about it either, didn't need to be any more involved than he was already.
As for Jean, she'd taken to heading in the opposite direction whenever he saw her. She'd stopped coming to their training sessions, which spared him having to duck them. If he sometimes thought of the minutes when Jean had seemed like someone else, which perhaps indicated she ought to be having sessions with someone, he told himself it was none of his concern. Jean was eighteen now, a member of the X-Men, well able to manage her own affairs. If she thought she needed assistance, she would ask for it. If she didn't, she wouldn't. Raven was constantly telling him he needed to keep his nose out of her people's affairs, and perhaps she was right.
***
A month and a half later, Charles was getting ready for bed when a knock came on his bedroom door. He answered it. It was Jean, wearing clothing this time.
"Hi, Professor," she said. "Can I come in?"
"Of course," Charles said, closing the door behind her and thinking, To my bedroom?
Jean flushed. "I know it's a little weird, after what happened. I just...I wanted to ask you about something."
Jean headed over to the armchair by the bed. She seemed to consider it for a moment, then sat down...on the mattress.
On my bed? Charles thought.
Jean blushed harder, and met his eyes—she was the sort of person who always met your eyes, no matter how much part of her wanted to shy away. "I thought we should talk about what happened."
"We can do that," Charles said weakly, though he'd hoped they would get away with never speaking of it again.
"I just...I know you feel terrible about what happened," she said, which went to prove Charles hadn't been shielding his thoughts nearly as well as he'd intended. "Not because it happened, but because you wanted it to before it did."
"Jean—"
"I wanted to tell you it's not your fault. I knew you wanted to sleep with me, and I came to you anyway," she said. "I needed someone, and I wanted it to be you. I came to you on purpose."
"Jean, you don't have to—"
"I used to have fantasies about you, too," Jean said. "That's why I came to you. I thought it would be...I thought it would be better than what the others were doing. Because we both wanted it before. But it wasn't."
This time, Charles waited to see if she was finished. When she seemed to be, he said, "I'm not convinced you were thinking at all, Jean. It was instinct. Regardless of whether I bear any responsible, you certainly do not."
"I know," she said, so clearly he believed her.
A pause, long and awkward. "Thank you for telling me," he said. "It took courage for you to come here."
Something passed over Jean's face, and though she'd reigned her telepathy in before, Charles was hit now with a dose of irritation, the crest on a wave of nerves.
"Jean? What is it?" Charles asked, thinking perhaps she meant to ask about the outsider that had seemed to be with them that day.
"It was my first time" she said, flushing again, nearly as dark as her hair.
Oh, no. "I'm so sorry."
"I always thought it would be better. And then it was...like it was, and ever since then I've wished it was better. And then the other day, Scott and I...but it was his first time, too. The other time, I mean. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, and it was...it wasn't bad, the way the other time was, but it wasn't good, either. Neither of us...it wasn't good." She'd looked away during some of this, I thought maybe...
Charles could hardly believe this conversation was going in that particular direction. "You thought I would help you again."
"Yes."
"So you can sleep with Scott and enjoy it."
So I can do anything and enjoy it, she said, and Charles unwittingly got a series of images—Jean, touching herself at night, but newly timid, unable to make anything happen, even though it usually had before. I don't think I'm going to, unless...you said you'd help me with anything. And I know you want to.
Charles hadn't known he still wanted to, not until she said it. He'd thought he'd been cured of his desire for her, ever since she'd sobbed in his arms. Now, he looked at her, and he saw how lovely she still was, and how brave.
She'd come to him in her right mind, this time. It had to mean something.
All right, he said, and whatever part of him might have balked had been swept aside weeks ago, when she'd sat on his desk and spread her legs for him.
She reached for the top button on her shirt with trembling hands.
"Stop," Charles said. "Leave your clothes on for now. It'll make you less nervous."
"Okay."
He wheeled over to the other side of the bed, and transferred over. He leaned against the headboard and said, "You can kiss me, if you'd like."
"Okay."
Jean leaned sat against the headboard too, and leaned over and touched her lips to his. The first few touches were tentative as she learned the shape of his lips and his breath. He trailed fingertips along her upper arm, and she pressed into him, deepening the kiss.
Nothing more happens until you want it, Charles said. Nothing more happens until you ache with how much you want it.
So they kissed, and kissed, and then she wanted to take his shirt off, so he let her, and then she wanted the rest off, too, so he pulled off his pajama pants and tried not to mind her gaze on his thin legs, and then she wanted to touch him everywhere, and so he let that happen, too. It was only fair that he be naked while she was fully clothed this time. She had every right to touch his chest and his stomach, to run her fingers down his soft penis and to weigh his balls in her hand.
Then she came back up and kissed him again, and after a few minutes she wanted him to touch her breasts, and so he did. Then she wanted him to unbutton her shirt and undo her bra, and so he did that too, and reached in to cup her bare breasts in his hands. He sucked on one of her nipples, and then the other, feeling her arousal rise up in response to what he was doing.
She wanted him to unbutton her pants, and so he did, and she wanted him to stroke her through her panties, and so he did that, feeling the damp spot there spread the more he touched her. She wanted more and more, but she didn't want him to change what he was doing, and so he continued to stroke her as she rubbed against him. He let her chase her orgasm in that way until she cried out, without pain or that strange urgency of before.
Then she wanted him to reach beneath the elastic of her panties, and he did, sliding his finger between her lips so, so easily. She came again quickly, and then she wanted even more than that, and so he traced a fingertip around her entrance, then slipped it in. He stroked her through a third orgasm, and a fourth, her inner walls fluttering around him.
They took a break. Jean's flush now appeared to be more or less permanent, and her eyes were shining with something much different than the anguish of weeks ago. Charles had done that to her, had done at least a little to help fix what he'd helped break.
"We don't have to do anything more," he said, though he was half-hard now despite the lack of physical stimulation, and wanted nothing more than to keep going. "I'd imagine, if you have Scott take his time..."
He hadn't wanted to see it in Jean's mind, but he had. How determined they'd both been, the way they'd wanted to just get through it, instead of letting it happen. A little more foreplay, a few more attempts, and they'd be fine. He should have told her, and he'd known he should have, from the moment she'd said what she wanted from him.
I thought I'd stay with you tonight, Jean said. "If that's okay with you, Professor."
The things they could do on a Friday night, and how easily those things could be extended into a Saturday morning...
The lust that had bolted through him when she'd called him Professor in that tone...
"I'd rather have your company than anyone else's, darling," he said, knowing even as he said it that it would be only once; knowing, too, that she knew very well what he should have told her and hadn't; even knowing she'd told Scott more or less the same thing Charles should have told her, but had come tonight anyway. It was perhaps less that she needed practice than she'd needed to remember something better with Charles himself. After all, she'd had fantasies about him, too, once.
"Good," she said, and straddled Charles again, her hair slipping down from behind her shoulders to hang between them. Teach me, Professor.
No matter how wrong it was, how self-serving, Charles found he couldn't deny her. He couldn't even try, He helped her push her hair back, helped her pull off her shirt and bra, then lightly touched her shoulders, her breasts, her waist, her hips. His hands settled there as she leaned in to kiss him again, and he was in no hurry: even if there would only be the one night, it would be the whole night, and it had only just begun.