"Are you serious?" He asked me for the fifth time. 

I didn't know how to be more explicit. I was lying in bed in my underwear with the blinds down and an earbud in my ear. Yes, I was serious. I wasn't going to school.

"It's only your second day, Drake! You can't quit already!" Jeremy, on the other hand, was dressed to the nines in his crisp red jacket and slicked-back hair.

"I can, I can. Just watch." I turned away from him.

"And what are you going to tell our mother?"

"Since she leaves first and comes back last, I think I won't tell her a fucking thing, and if it comes up, I'll think of a lie."

Jeremy muttered something to himself.

I heard him stomp his feet as he left my room. I wasn't sure what he said, but it sounded something like, "she'll only get mad at me anyway."

He was treating me unfairly. I wouldn't throw him under the bus like that. I would take all my responsibilities and come up with a massive lie to cover up the fact that I simply didn't feel like enduring another day in that snob-infested asylum.

I hadn't gone to bed in a good mood the night before. At dinner, I had tried to bring up the crazy idea of someone letting me talk to my dad again, but I was met with nothing but awkward silence.

So for the rest of the meal, I played with the idea of pocketing something valuable and getting out of there as soon as possible, but then the judge put her hand on my shoulder, said she had no words to express her happiness in having me back.

Then she started crying. Again.

And I didn't know what the hell to do.

For now, lying sprawled in bed seemed like a good option. The only one I was physically capable of, to be honest.

My eyes wandered aimlessly around the room. Even with the windows closed and the lights off, I could see my abandoned guitar lying on the floor.

I didn't even feel like playing. Even my crappy band was falling apart.

In my earbud, the only song that me and my crazy friends had managed to record with halfway decent microphones resonated. We had tried it in three different versions, changing singers each time.

It sucked in all versions. But it was still one of the songs I cherished the most, the one I had written and rewritten at the dawn of my fifteen years. It was the first time I had marked the notes on sheet music, and not just strummed the strings randomly. I had been so proud of it.

Dad had said I was talented.

But what the hell did he know about talent? He had never even managed to get hired to play at a wedding.

And I would never take a step further than him. Being good at playing the guitar wouldn't get me anywhere; I needed a singer. The singer is the heart of the band, everyone knows that. And my songs would be the blood that pumped through it.

I don't know how long I stayed there wallowing in my misery, with my stupid, horrible voice grating in my stupid, horrible ear.

I know it was long enough to make me hungry. And then it took the time to go from being aware of being hungry to mustering the actual intention of getting up.

The house was quiet. Everyone had been gone for a while now, so I headed down the hallway in my underwear and bare feet.

To get to the kitchen, I had to go down three holy floors. There better be ice cream in the freezer at least, to justify all that physical activity.

I began the long descent with the song still in my head and my fingers lost in the air, pressing invisible keys.

E, F sharp minor, C sharp minor, B, B major seventh...

I was descending the last flight of stairs when I heard it.

And, at first glance, I was sure I had definitively lost my mind. If you're a man in a desert and you see a well in the distance, what's more likely? That someone decided to build a well right there, in the middle of nowhere, or that you've gone mad?

So, logically, I must have gone mad.

In my case, I hadn't seen a well, no. I had heard a voice. And, wanting to be extremely explicit with this stupid metaphor of the well, if you spend three hours whining in bed wishing for nothing more than a voice that does justice to your songs, and when that same asshole manages to drag himself out of bed to drown his sorrows in ice cream, and hears a voice with a vocal range that breaks through the roofs...

He must have been a tenor, a man's voice, someone with retractable testicles or something, because his ability to go so high and then so low wasn't human.

I stood there nailed to the stairs, clutching the railing.

I must have gone crazy. I must have fucking gone crazy.

I was alone in the house, for heaven's sake! And now I thought I had found the next Brendon Urie?

I climbed a couple of steps back. I had to go back upstairs and find a weapon before confronting the singing robber/the ghost of my madness.

No. I couldn't risk the illusion breaking, to hell with my physical safety. If angel lungs wanted to rob the house, I'd get in the sack.

I slid down the stairs. The voice was coming from the kitchen.

I pressed myself against the wall, a step away from the door frame. And then I peeked.

There was a boy in the kitchen. A real boy, flesh and blood. No crazy mirage, no wooden puppet. It was a real kid.

He had his back turned. All I could see were his blond hair with a military cut, a gray hoodie all faded covering his broad shoulders, and track pants.

This big son of a bitch had giant headphones on his ears. This guy was singing in THAT way without even listening to his own voice.

He moved in small steps, swaying his hips. Was he dancing?

The song reached its peak, and the boy emphasized it by raising his index finger above his shoulders. And at that moment I noticed the hand wrapped in a long pink plastic glove, and the soapy sponge clutched between his fingers.

The high note dropped, and the boy flattened the sponge on the kitchen counter and started scrubbing.

Oh.

Hold on a second...

There was a bucket of soapy water in the corner and a broom leaning against the wall. And the cleaning lady came in the morning when no one was there.

My father had taught me few things in life, but one of them was certain: when luck knocks on your door, you grab it by the balls, drag it in, and lock the door.

I abandoned all pretense and entered the kitchen. I tapped him on the shoulder just to make him turn around, which he did, jumping as if he had stumbled on a landmine.

"HOLY SHIT!" He took off his headphones, covering them with soap, and flattened himself against the kitchen counter.

And with that, I must have used up all my luck for my entire life: the guy was staring at me with two sky-blue eyes, with beautiful firm and dark lips.

He was a cute guy: the kind they pay to be on magazine covers.

"Have you ever thought about being in a band?"

"What?"

"Your voice must be the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed. But I haven't seen your dick yet, so it might be the second."

The guy relaxed a bit, perhaps realizing I wasn't there to kill him. He blinked. He pursed his lips and burst out laughing. "Oh, wow."

He let out a relieved breath and looked at me more closely. His eyes ended up on my underwear, which was the only thing I was wearing. Then on my chest. His beautiful blue eyes seemed slightly puzzled.

"Wait... are you serious?"

"About the voice or about the dick? Well, yes to both."

He had some fucking long eyelashes. I felt like I could hear the whoosh of the wind when they fluttered perplexedly.

"Uh..."

"So, do you want to show it to me?"

"What?"

"The dick."

I knew this guy was on the same wavelength as me.

His eyebrows made a precise contortion. They went from puzzled, to maybe, to almost, to fuck it, wanna fuck? in no time.

Mine replied happily nodding.

The guy laughed, parting his lips wide, showing me how truly big they were. He looked around as if someone might see us, and then made his final decision. He took off wet gloves and headphones, and placed them on the counter.

I closed the final distance between us and took his jaw in my hands. His mouth tasted like mint toothpaste. I must have been too abrupt because it took him a moment to recover from the surprise and respond to the kiss.

But he did, and he responded well. He was as hungry as I was. He put his hands in my hair and continued to massage my lips with his.

His tongue clashed with mine. It made a moist, smacking sound that awakened my dick from its slumber.

There's nothing better than kissing a stranger. The possibilities are endless.

I slid a hand from his jaw to the nape of his neck and held him tighter. My eagerness pushed his back against the counter.

Before I could take his hand and press it to my groin, he pushed me back, breaking the kiss.

"I usually don't..." he gasped. "I usually introduce myself before doing certain things."

"Drake, pleased to meet you."

"Uh... I'm Lucas."

I waited for a perplexed silence of a few seconds, during which Lucas didn't ask for any further formalities to move on, so I proceeded with my own formalities: "I don't have a condom with me. I could go look for one in my brother's room, but from all the information I've gathered in these two days, I get the impression that he doesn’t fuck much."

"I have a condom in my wallet."

Wonderful. I stepped back. He ran a hand through his hair to put it back in place after I had messed it up. Then he walked out of the kitchen and into the living room.

I followed him step by step. He had left a jacket slumped on the coffee table and a flip phone like the ones they keep in dinosaur museums.

"Okay, here they are."

He pulled out a wonderful colorful packet from the jacket, so I grabbed his hand to drag him into the bedroom.

His expression made me laugh, he seemed a bit lost but excited, like a kid on a roller coaster.

"Um, just to be clear, you're the second son of the Smiths, right? The one the police were looking for?"

"That's me. And you're the cleaning lady, right?"

I turned to him as I dragged him up the stairs. He didn't have much of a sense of humor.

"Sometimes I cover for my mom when she's not feeling well." His voice sounded dry with annoyance.

It wasn't my intention to dry him. Quite the opposite (because the opposite of dry is wet...? Whatever...).

The door to my room awaited. We dashed into the pitch blackness and ended up on top of each other.

Kisses followed gropes and caresses. I was starting to get hard.

"Shall we turn on the light?" He stopped to ask me such a thing.

I don't fucking care. Light yes, light no. The important thing is to have you lying in my bed.

I let him set up the room as he wanted. He opened the windows and the shutters, letting the sun in and exposing the mess I had made inside.

He looked at the backpack strewn on the floor, my torn uniform at the four corners of the room, the blanket thrown on the desk.

"I LITERALLY cleaned up in here yesterday."

His eyes fell on the note on the nightstand. He looked at the ejaculating penis in the danger triangle with a perplexed look.

"What's this?"

"I thought it would be embarrassing if the cleaning lady made my bed after I had done my thing.”

Lucas burst out laughing. "It would have been embarrassing, huh?"

He approached me with a new smile, one promising naughtiness. He took me by the shoulders and pushed me onto the bed.

He found himself on top of me in the blink of an eye. He focused all of himself on kissing me, while I focused all of myself on pulling his dick out of those pants.

When he realized what I was doing, he started laughing again. He had a nice way of laughing, light, like a voiceless sigh.

"I deduce that you already have some experience...?"

Experience. How cute. "I'm a veteran. Why don't you show me your curriculum, Mr. Clean?"

Lucas laughed with his sigh. His eyes sparkled mischievously.

His knees straddled my hips, and he sat up on my groin. He brought his hands to the edge of the sweatshirt and then hesitated.

"Uh, no comments about my physical appearance, okay?"

I nodded. I wasn't picturing him with model-like abs. I live on planet Earth.

The sweatshirt was quickly lifted and thrown onto the floor. I didn't even have time to admire him; he immediately leaned over to my mouth.

I could only see fair, sun-untouched skin, and okay... maybe he had a few extra pounds on his belly and arms, but it wasn't relevant at all at that moment. What was relevant was that he had just shoved his hand into my underwear, and I was ready to go.

His pants flew off quickly along with the hoodie.

We had kissed more than enough, I had no more sensitivity in my lips. I took him by the shoulders and, leveraging my legs, flipped him onto the bed, throwing him with his back onto the mattress.

His sigh turned into another laugh.

I cuddled his neck with gentle pecks. "We've played enough. Shall we get to the point?"

"You're asking me? I was waiting for you."

He picked up the condom he had left on the nightstand and, instead of giving it to me, he unwrapped it himself.

I reached out a hand for him to pass it to me, and he looked at me puzzled. "I can put it on by myself."

At which I blinked ten times before responding, "Why the hell should you put it on for?"

It was his turn to blink. And then he burst into laughter. "I don't bottom."

"Wow. Okay. Maybe dial down the aggression? Your masculinity won't suffer that much."

He abandoned the condom again on the nightstand and flopped onto the bed, lazily resting his head on his palms. "My masculinity is just fine. It's just that I don't like it. You, instead, seem just like that kind of guy. Let's each stick to our natural inclinations and we'll both have fun. I assure you. No one has ever complained."

It was up to me to sit on his lap. I crossed my arms over my chest. "My natural inclination is very different. I know it well. Believe me. I, unlike you, have tried both a million times, and I know well what I like. Now, be a good boy, spread your legs. You can't know what you don't like until you try it. Didn't your mommy teach you that?"

Lucas laughed as if I were rambling. "Nice. That will never happen. I don't bottom."

"Well, neither do I."

We stared at each other.

UGH.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Come on! I want to have sex!"

He laughed again. He laughed often, apparently. "I also want to have sex. Get on all fours, and let's get this done."

We went on for I don't know how long.