"And of course, as we all know, the capital of our own state is--" Michael jumped a little as the bell rang, as did the classroom full of fifth graders in front of him.  Class periods weren’t a regular staple of their education yet, so the sound was always a little unexpected.  The bells were only used on special days.
"Well, we seem to have run out of time for geography," Michael said, turning and rolling up the map hanging from the wall. He he heard the nervous whispering of the students behind his back, his wolf ears always swiveled toward the class regardless of what direction he was facing.
"Mister Laxman?" a small voice from the front row squeaked, sibilants lisped from newly-attached braces.
"Yes, Marcie?" Michael turned back around, smiling at the mouse girl in the front row with her paw raised.  She lowered it and fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, blushing.
"Will we have to look at… funny pictures again, like yesterday?"
"No," Michael chuckled, shaking his head.  "That was just in preparation for today.  Kind of a sorting exercise.  Today is going to be a bit like naptime."
Groans came up from the class. "We’re not babies!" someone piped up.
"Ut! The rule is that we raise our paws when we want to speak!  And don’t worry, this isn’t going to be like the naptime you had in kindergarten. This is a much more grown-up naptime.  Now, the class is going to split up."  He padded over to his desk, swishing his well-groomed tail behind his ironed khakis, and picked up a piece of paper.  "Seats one to five, go across the hall to Mrs. Sandy’s classroom.  Seats seven to eleven, go down the hall to Mr. Buchard’s class.  Seats twelve to sixteen, head to the dining hall and meet up with Mrs. Aiken.  If your seat wasn’t called, you’ll be staying here for the rest of the day.  I assume I can trust you all to find your ways to the proper rooms?"
The students stayed still for a few moments, glancing at each other to figure out who was and wasn’t in their groups, then began to get up, collect their belongings, and shuffle out of the room.  Only Solomon Davis, the dun-furred ferret in seat 6, didn’t move.
Michael had been a little surprised at the Davis boy’s penile plethysmograph results the previous day. The ferret kit wasn’t noticeably gay. He roughhoused with the other boys, joined in on sports enthusiastically, and seemed more concerned with appearing cool than fashionable, just like the other boys his age.  That’s how it was sometimes, though, and the charts were undeniable.  After Michael had fitted each of the boys with the little penile band, the girls having been shuffled off to a different room for a similar test, and started the pornographic slideshow, Solomon’s little cock had responded only to the males.
Solomon looked around, a little confused, as the rest of the class cleared out. "Mister Laxman?" he piped up.  "Only me here?"
Michael smiled down at the gay eleven-year-old ferret and nodded.  "Just you and me!" He opened a cabinet and pulled out a mat, similar to the ones the kindergartners used for naptime but larger, and laid it out on the floor in front of the teacher’s desk.
"So it IS naptime," Solomon said, sounding disappointed.  "That’s boring."
Michael grinned and shook his head. "I don’t think you’ll find it boring. This isn’t just naptime.  It’s cuddle time.
"Cuddle time?" Solomon squeaked.  "With you?"
Michael nodded.  "Only one mat here! It’s gotta hold both of us."  He spread a blanket out over the mat, then began to unbutton his white dress shirt, exposing the fluffy gray chest fur underneath.
"Wait!" Solomon yelped, standing up from the chair, face turning bright red.  "NAKED cuddle time?!"
Michael shrugged casually, as if Solomon had asked about the weather. "Only if you want to.  I’m going to be in my underwear. Cuddling in clothes is a little warm!  Hurry up and get ready, though.  You at least need to take off your shoes, they’ll ruin the mat." He slipped his shirt off and set it on the desk, revealing his lithe but well-toned chest and abs.
Solomon gulped and kicked off his shoes, trying not to stare as Michael undid his belt buckle and began to shimmy down his tailored slacks, pulling his tail through the loop. The ferret boy imitated him, undoing his own buckle and pulling down his jeans – the thick denim would be uncomfortable to lie down in.
"I like your underwear, Mister Laxman," Solomon said nervously, glancing at his teacher and then away again.  Michael was now in just his boxer-briefs, which were tan with a playful pattern of flamingos and palm trees.
"Thanks," the wolf said, looking Solomon up and down.  The boy was now wearing just a striped T-shirt and a pair of plain white briefs, blue trimming lining the waistband, legbands, and flaps of the Y-front.  "During cuddle time only, though, you can call me Michael.  All right?"  He stepped over to the mat and pulled the blanket back.
Michael got down on his knees, then laid down on his side, holding up the blanket and patting the mat in front of him.  "Come here, Solomon.  Time to cuddle."
The ferret, blushing intensely, got down on all fours, then laid down in the space next to his teacher.  Michael pulled the blanket up, covering both of them up to their shoulders.  "Um… what do we do?" Solomon asked.
"I’m glad you asked. Cuddle time has one very important rule, so you need to listen, all right?" Michael looked into the ferret kit’s wide eyes to make sure he had his full attention. "Both of us have to ask before touching the other person in any way, or changing what we’re doing with each other.  And either of us has the right to say yes or no to anything. Understand?"
"I… think so," Solomon said.  "It sounds pretty simple." He laughed a little.
"It is simple, but it’s also very important. It’s called ‘consent.’ For the first few sessions of cuddle time, at least, I want you to ask every time you’re going to change how you’re touching me, and I’ll do the same thing. We can ease off that a little bit in a week or two, but even then we need to ask about anything major."
"O-okay," Solomon said, looking a little confused. "What does ‘anything major’ mean?"
Michael smiled. "We’ll get to that.  Another important idea here is that there’s no limit on what either of us can ask. Neither of us will get in trouble for just asking anything, and neither of us will get in trouble for saying no if we want to.  For example, I might ask to take you to the roof and throw you off, and of course you’d say no.  And it’d be okay that I asked, and okay that you said no."
Solomon just looked more confused. "Why would you want to do that?"
"I wouldn’t," Michael laughed, "it was just an example.  But for another example, you might ask me to show you the answers for next week’s geography test.  That’s something you might want to do, isn’t it?"
The ferret’s eyes glinted.  "And I wouldn’t get in trouble?"
"No you wouldn’t.  I’d say no, of course, but you wouldn’t be in trouble for asking."
Solomon nodded.  "I think I get it.  Anything goes, but also anything no’s."
Michael laughed.  "Hey, that’s pretty good!  I’ll have to remember that.  And we don’t have to do anything except lie here next to each other for the rest of the day, if one of us didn’t want to do anything else."
"That wouldn’t be much of a cuddle time." Solomon blushed.
"No, it wouldn’t.  May I put my arm around you?"
"Oh!" Solomon’s whiskers splayed out. "Y-yeah, I guess so!"
Michael laid his head down on the pillow built into the mat, reaching one paw over and wrapping it gently around the warm kit’s shoulders, his pawpads resting gently on the T-shirt material.  The contact was only his arm, as he’d asked, but it was a far more tender touch than he’d ever used with Solomon before. He didn’t want the kit’s instincts to have any confusion about what the purpose of this exercise was.
Solomon let out his breath, and Michael felt it across his whiskers.  The ferret kit tensed, then relaxed slowly and scooted forward a bit.  "Oh, um… can I… put my arm around you too, Mr. Laxman?"
"You sure can.  But it’s Michael right now."
"Oh yeah!  Michael."  He lifted an arm under the blanket and put it around Michael’s midsection, resting his paw on the small of the wolf’s back.  Michael pulled him closer gently, his whiskers mingling with the boy’s.
The two laid in each other’s arms for a few minutes, noses close, breath flowing over each other’s whiskers. Michael could tell that Solomon was nervous, but curious and excited.  "Have you ever done anything like this with other kids? Or adults?" Michael asked.
"No… but I’ve heard my brothers talking about it.  Um, I think.  This is sex, right?" His blush reached the tips of his round ears.
Michael chuckled a little.  "Not yet, it isn’t.  It’s still just cuddling.  This is usually how sex starts, though.  May I kiss you, Solomon?"
Solomon squeaked. "N- umm… yes, you can kiss the top of my head."
Michael smiled and nodded, giving the ferret boy a kiss on his forehead.
"Mist-- Michael, what if I said no to something, and it made you mad? We have a test next week."
Michael shook his head.  "It’s not allowed to work like that.  I can’t get mad at you for anything, and especially not in a way that affects your grades." He knew that kind of thing used to happen all the time in the bad old days, but now that every classroom was recorded 24/7, including the sex ed series for which "cuddle time" was the first module, teachers couldn’t get away with that kind of extortion anymore.
Solomon nodded.  "Okay… I almost said no a second ago, because my brothers say that kissing a boy is gay."
"Do they? Well, ‘gay’ just means being intimate with someone your same gender. So yes, kissing me would be a gay thing to do. But just because someone does a gay thing sometimes doesn’t mean they are gay."  Of course, Michael knew that the little ferret boy in his arms was almost certainly as gay as a Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance of Kinky Boots, but that was something he should let the kit discover on his own.
"It doesn’t?"
"No, people try different things, especially when they’re young. And even if it turned out that you were gay, that’s not a bad thing. Your brothers shouldn’t use that word like that."
Solomon looked thoughtful for a long time, staring at a spot on the ceiling, keeping his arm around his teacher.  "Michael, can I touch your chest?"
"Yes, you can." Michael pulled the blanket down to his side, exposing his grey fluffy chest, and Solomon put his paws in the thick fur, rubbing it gently back and forth. Michael saw his nostrils flare open, taking in the wolf’s scent.
"This makes my penis excited," Solomon said in a voice barely above a breath. "That’s what you were testing for yesterday, wasn’t it? Whether that happened with girls or boys on the screen."
"You’re a smart boy," Michael said, snugging him closer.  "Among other things, yes. We wanted cuddle time to be a pleasant experience for everyone, so we had to pair up the students with the right teachers."
Solomon looked up into Michael’s eyes, continuing to press his fingers through the wolf’s luxuriant fur.  "Are you gay?" he asked.
"Sure am. I like boys of all ages, from cute little kits like you to hot granddaddies."
Solomon’s blush returned, but he kept his gaze up at the older wolf’s eyes.  "I guess you can kiss me for real.  If you want."
Michael nodded and put a paw against the back of Solomon’s head.  He leaned forward, turning his muzzle to the side, and gently pressed his lips against the kit’s.