Common Core
by Pan
Jeffrey’s brow furrowed as he stared at the piece of paper.
He’d never been a model student at his son’s age, but he’d at least understood the fundamentals. Then they’d gone and changed everything for no good reason. Ridiculous.
The small bedroom was warm, and even though the window was open, the air was so still and heavy that they may as well have been outside in the summer sun. Jeffrey was hunched over his son’s small desk; Brian was eighteen now, but they’d installed the desk when he was twelve, and never thought to upgrade it.
“Okay Brian,” he said, after another half a minute of pondering. “I think I’ve found the issue. You carry the one, and then...no, wait. That’s not right.”
Jeffrey squinted at the paper. He knew this. At least, he had, before they’d introduced Common Core. What was even the point of it?
“Ah-ha!” he said, the triumphant feeling of progress coursing through his body. “That’s it! You need to- oh, for the love of God.”
As soon as he’d set pen to paper, the damned thing had refused to write. He threw the traitorous implement across the room, taking a deep breath to calm himself down.
“Here you go, Dad,” his son offered helpfully. He was holding a replacement pen in front of him. It was much thicker than the one Jeff had thrown across the room, but the breakthrough was still at the top of his mind, and he grabbed it eagerly.
“You’ll have to shake it,” Brian said. Jeff was too distracted to notice the sly look on Brian’s face; he followed his son’s advice, grasping the thick pen firmly and beginning to rhythmically shake it.
After several minutes, Jeff had expected the ink to start flowing, but it seemed he was having no luck with pens that day. His son reached down and put his hand on his father’s, making him stop.
“Nothing?” Brian said sympathetically, a sheen of sweat on the teenage boy’s face. “God, that’s too bad. It really felt like you were getting somewhere.”
Jeffrey nodded. There had been something strangely familiar about shaking the pen—it had brought him back to his own days in high-school (though for some reason, he was reminded more of time spent in his bedroom than the classroom).
If he hadn’t been interrupted, he would have sworn ink was just moments from beginning to pump out of the pen’s nib.
“Sometimes it’s just a little clogged,” Brian suggested. “You can always suck the ink out.”
Without hesitating, Jeffrey moved his mouth to the end of the pink, fleshy pen. He immediately began sucking it with full force, causing his son to cry out, as if in pain.
“Dad, stop!” he yelped. “Stop stop stop!”
“What’s wrong?”
“You can’t just go at it like you’re a vacuum cleaner,” Brian explained, audibly frustrated. “You’ve got to...it’s...”
Jeffrey waited for his son to get his thought together.
“...it’s probably frozen,” Brian eventually concluded triumphantly. “You’ll have to warm it up.”
“Frozen?”
Jeffrey glanced at the window, where the hot sun was still streaming through.
“Yeah,” Brian replied nonchalantly. “Ink has a different freezing point to water.”
“I’ll warm it up,” Jeffrey said, returning his mouth to the stiff pen in front of him. This time, he didn’t try to suck the ink out of the tip, instead taking the whole thing into his mouth and rubbing his tongue over the surface until he felt the heat of his saliva begin to have an effect. The pen reacted almost immediately, almost as though it was growing, pulsating.
Heat does make things expand, Jeffrey reminded himself. Even if he couldn’t master his son’s mathematics homework, he hadn’t forgotten everything from his own high school days.
For almost ten minutes, Jeff worked on thawing out his son’s pen. Brian rested his hands on his father’s head as he did. He must have been excited for the homework help, Jeffrey noted whenever he looked up: his son was throwing his head back in pleasure.
As his head bobbed up and down, Jeff tried to keep his mind focused on the problem he’d just managed to crack, but the heat was distracting, and he soon found his mind wandering, reflecting on what an odd sight the pair of the must have looked.
Jeff was in his early forties, and tried to keep himself in shape. He was just under six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a muscular chest, and thick legs. His light hair was just starting to grey; he kept it short and neatly trimmed.
His son, on the other hand, had dark hair, looking so much like his mother. He was taller than Jeffrey was, but much leaner. Jeffrey had always hoped his son would be an athlete, but instead, Brian preferred to spend his spare time reading or playing video games.
He was also a bit of a loner, spending much of his time on schoolwork…which had made it quite surprising when he’d asked his dad to tutor him in math.
Jeffrey had been happy to help, of course. He knew how important his son’s education was.
“Okay Dad,” Brian said breathily. “I think it’s ready.”
After running his tongue along the pen’s underside one last time, Jeff removed it from his mouth and pointed it straight at his son’s homework. To his horror, the thick instrument didn’t even wait for its tip to meet the paper, instead shooting out several bursts of ink, soaking the lined sheets.
“God damn it!” Jeff shouted, watching as the milky-white liquid landed on the question he’d just managed to comprehend. “Oh, for fuck’s…—“
He guiltily glanced at his son; they had a strict no-swearing policy. Fortunately, Brian didn’t seem to have noticed. His mouth was open, his eyes half-closed, and he looked almost as if he was shuddering with pleasure.
“Uh, Brian?”
It took a few moments for Brian to respond. When he did, he had a dopey, satisfied look on his face, as though he’d just finished off a delicious dessert.
Something about the look on Brian’s face made Jeffrey lose his temper. “The pen!” he shouted, gesticulating with wild frustration. “It just...you’ve got to...”
Brian sighed and shook his head. “Dad, you need to calm down.”
“You need to get some stationery that works,” Jeffrey snapped back, closing his eyes as soon as the words left his mouth. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just...”
“Frustrated,” Brian suggested. “Angry.”
“Yeah,” his father replied through gritted teeth. “It’s been a frustrating afternoon.”
Standing up, Brian took his father’s arm.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to do some breathing exercises,” Brian said. “Something to help you calm down.”
Jeffrey wanted to shake his son’s hand off, but he knew that the kid was right. He’d lost his temper at a pen, of all things. An inanimate object. A few minutes of relaxation were exactly what he needed.
After guiding his father to the bed, Brian lay down in front of him, until his face was just a few inches from Jeffrey’s.
“Breathe in,” Brian instructed, and Jeffrey took a deep breath. “Now breathe out.”
A look of consternation appeared on Brian’s face. “What?” Jeffrey asked, before he could help himself.
“Not like that,” Brian replied. “Breathe in like this.“
Jeffrey repeated the action, but his son’s expression remained.
“What?” Jeffrey repeated. “Now I’m breathing wrong?“
“Not exactly. It’s more like...here, let me show you.”
Moving his mouth to his father’s, Brian breathed for him. As Brian breathed out, Jeffrey felt his lungs being filled by his son’s warm air; he inhaled deeply, a feeling of deep relaxation filling his body. After exhaling, he was again able to take in the recycled oxygen.
“See?”
“Mm-hmm,” Jeffrey replied.
“I’ll keep helping you,” Brian offered, and Jeff nodded.
For almost half an hour, the two men lay on the bed, their lips locked, Brian helping his father breathe. To assist further with the relaxation, he ran his hands around his father’s body, gently squeezing and kneading his muscles in a rudimentary massage. His tongue even helped, reaching out and gently licking his father’s teeth, exploring his mouth before eventually just lightly running along Jeffrey’s tongue.
All the while, Jeffrey felt himself getting more and more relaxed. As his son massaged his back, his ass, his thighs, even the hard muscle between his legs, the forty-two-year-old just lay back and let it happen. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so good, so zen.
“Are you ready?” Brian asked, and Jeffrey nodded. He was so relaxed, he felt like he would have agreed to anything his son suggested.
He sat up, before remembering the leaky pen. “Your homework is ruined,” he said, a hint of frustration already beginning to return.
“Don’t worry about it,” Brian laughed. “That was just a print-out. The actual homework was online.”
“Ah,” Jeffrey said, suddenly feeling like an old man. He’d never even considered the possibility of digital homework.
Brian loaded up his computer, his mouth twisted.
“What’s wrong?”
“My login isn’t working,” Brian said with a sigh. “I tried too many times, so it needs full photo evidence that it’s me. And if you’re going to be helping me, you as well.”
“Well then, give it the evidence.”
“It’s just annoying,” Brian grumbled, and his father laughed.
“Now who needs to relax?”
“I guess,” Brian replied, rolling his eyes. “Come on; let’s take our clothes off and see if it’ll let us in.”
The two men stripped naked, and Jeffrey followed his son’s instructions. A few photos of them standing side-by-side, then one of them closer. Then closer again, until their bare legs were touching.
“Sorry,” Brian said. “It’s really glitchy, sometimes. Let’s try this.”
Jeffrey didn’t hesitate to follow his son’s lead as they got into position—with their bodies pressed against each other, Brian’s hands on his waist, Jeffrey’s arms wrapped around his chest.
“This is so annoying!” Brian cried, and Jeffrey held up a hand.
“I think I know how to help you relax,” he offered, moving his lips to his son. The camera continued taking pictures as Jeffrey tried to offer the same assistance that Brian had earlier—running his hands along his son’s underdeveloped teenage body, caressing Brian’s tongue with his own, all the while breathing heavily in and out of the young man’s lungs.
Finally, when Brian had calmed down, they tried again. At last, it worked: the pose that eventually did it was Jeffrey sitting on the bed, legs spread, while Brian sat on one of his father’s legs, their foreheads touching.
“At last,” Jeffrey joked as his son pulled up the homework, and Brian nodded in relief. “Now, here’s where we were going wrong...”
Just a few minutes of explanation later, a smile split Jeffrey’s son face. “That was it?”
“That was it,” the older man nodded. “See why I was so frustrated?”
“Amazing, Dad!” Brian beamed. “That’s the only thing I was stuck on. I can finish it from here, if you wanted to go. Thanks so much for—AARGH!”
Jeffrey was taken aback by his son’s painful exclamation. “What? What happened?” he asked, looking down at the boy.
“It’s my back,” Brian said, through gritted teeth. “I think I have a cramp.”
“You should lie down,” Jeffrey replied immediately. “I’ll get a heat pack from downstairs, and—”
“No!”
Jeffrey paused. “Why not?”
“I don’t have time,” Brian replied frantically. “The homework is due in fifteen minutes; if it’s even a few seconds late, I might not be allowed to graduate.”
“What?? That’s ridiculous.”
“Those are the rules,” the teenage boy replied with a shrug. “I think I’ll be okay, as long as I get started now.”
“You can’t work with your back like that,” Jeffrey said, clicking his tongue in worry.
“I think I’ll be okay. Can you try to massage the cramp out? Here—I’ll lay prone on the bed, you get on top of me and keep the pain from getting too bad.”
With a nod, the older man got into position. As Brian began typing, he spread his legs and started giving his father very precise instructions.
“A little lower,” he gasped. “Yes, right there. Now add some massage oil, and thrust forward. Slowly, slowly…oh, god, yes. Now use your hands. Now—ungh!—yeah, Dad. Just like that. Oh, fuck…”
“Language!” Jeffrey grunted. The massage was an unusual one, one which felt as good to administer as it must have felt to receive.
After several minutes, Jeffrey started to get the rhythm, and Brian’s instructions faded away, to be replaced by moans and grunts of concentration as he continued to work on the homework. The ID software must have been continuing to play up, because several times Jeffrey saw his son load up the camera system on the computer and take more photos.
“How’s it going, son?” he eventually asked. He could feel himself getting done with the massage.
“Almost finished,” Brian panted in response. “Almost! Finished! Oh god, Dad. Speed up! I’m gonna finish. I’m gonna finish. I’m gonna—OH!—finish!”
With that, Brian’s entire body began trembling and shaking. For a moment, Jeffrey also felt himself losing control, his hips bucking wildly as he massaged Brian, a surge of endorphins and adrenaline hitting him hard as he helped his teenage son with his math homework.
The two men sat in silence, both of them panting heavily.
“How did you go?” Jeffrey finally asked, and—with a long shudder—Brian removed himself from the massage position, and sat up.
“So good,” he said dreamily. “You were really helpful, Dad.”
“I’m glad,” Jeffrey said with a smile. “Any time you need help with homework, you know I’m here for you.”
A twinkle appeared in Brian’s face.
“Any time?” he asked. “Because now that I think about it, I have some English homework that’s due tonight as well…”