Motorbike

“I’m home,” he called into the empty house. The place was sparsely furnished. It wasn’t surprising, especially considering they’d only actually arrived here three days ago. They wouldn’t have had much time to unpack even if they had been a normal family. Except they weren’t – not really. Normal, that is.



He had his dad, yeah. Both of them. And then there was his sister and whatever kid she was make-out buddies with that week. And then him.



Maybe I should be happy Jonas wanted to end it, he thought to himself, dropping his bag on the floor where it landed with a dull thud. Instead of carrying it up the stairs, he dragged it, letting the dark blue fabric begin to trail a bit of dirt and dust. It didn’t matter – he could always wash it later.



Up the stairs and to the right directly off the landing was his room. The floor sagged a bit in the middle, and he was afraid that despite his dads’ assurances, he would fall through the floor and end up on the floor downstairs. Consequently, he was sleeping downstairs though this was still dubbed as ‘his’ room.



He only came up here long enough to fetch the clothes that his dad deposited here on a regular basis. It was the only reason he did come up here. Everything else he needed was on the ground floor – bathroom, kitchen, table to do homework.



Not that he actually planned on doing any homework. Even in physics, he’d noticed the school he’d been at before had been much more advanced. Physics was almost easy, and that was never the case.



It’ll hurt like hell going back to a school that actually knows how to teach, he reflected, pulling out another sheet of paper and settling in for some quality time with his pencils.



First thing to come out was the picture he’d begun of the math geek – the really good looking one that made his hormones start burning up.



Not that he hadn’t noticed the fact that everyone with a ‘popular’ bone in their bodies had obviously avoided him. Nah, he wasn’t going to school to get popular, or even to get noticed by the popular kids. He was in it for one thing only – the sheer thrill.



Okay, so maybe thrill wasn’t quite the right word, but it was close enough. The place was teeming with drama and pain-in-the-asses and so many other strange, sophisticated-but-not types that it was possible to choke on them.



He knew from experience. You could choke on popularity.



XXXXX



The alarm clock rang. It was much too loud. He groaned and slapped it off the table beside the couch. Stubbornly, it refused to stop its ringing. With a couple choice swear words, Alex roused himself enough to find the clock and strangle it.



It was seven in the morning, for crying out loud. School might start in a half hour and yes it took ten minutes to walk there so he really only had about fifteen minutes to get ready….but still!



The morning freedom he had zipped by without even bothering to wave. Alex watched it disappear as he walked up the stairs to the auditorium that housed the students while they waited for someone to open the black iron gates so they could get to class. Why they would want to go to class was beyond him.



He found a place by a potted plant and stared out of one of the large windows that seemed to decorate the entire building. They were double paned glass windows, meant to keep the cold out, and the heat in. The kids in too, if he was any sort of judge. Not that they had iron bars or anything, but the glass was near unbreakable, so if a student ever wanted to escape by breaking the windows, he’d be SOL.



He tinkered with the leaf of the potted plant, looking at the veins on the underside and cutting through the skin with his nails.



A sharp tap on his shoulder made him look around.



Prissy pink greeted his eyes, nearly blinding him with its intensity. What the hell? Well, he seemed about to find out. It was the not blonde chick from yesterday who was actually a redhead leader with too curly hair – it had to be fake! – and nails that were obnoxiously long and painted a startling pink to match her outfit. The whole effect was rather scary, as though a monster had decided to clothe itself in a chick’s wardrobe and come after him.



Alex mumbled something that must have sounded like a greeting. Even he couldn’t distinguish what he’d just said, but the point was moot.



She brimmed with happiness and sheer girlishness. Now, usually, he wasn’t opposed to girlishness. After all, his sister sometimes was the biggest ditz in the world, and he could easily tolerate her. It was the mannerisms, the high giggle that she insisted on placing at the end of every other word – that’s what did it in for him.



“Oh, you must be that new kid,” she gushed.



Yeah, I am. You’re the chick who said my bag looks emo. Get out of my face.



Out loud, he said, “Yeah.”



“Well, welcome to the school!” she exclaimed, her hands moving with her words.



Great. Not only does it look like she’s a total ditz, I bet she’s part cheerleader too. Absolutely peachy. Someone up there wants to ruin my life. Which god did I offend this time? I promise to make sacrifices – blood sacrifices, starting with her. Just make it stop!



“Uh, thanks,” he managed, thinking at the same time, Way to welcome me yesterday when I was actually new here.



“You know, I saw you yesterday getting picked up in that limousine,” she said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders like they were best of friends. It was all Alex could do not to puke on her. As it was, he flinched slightly. Not enough to be noticeable, but enough so that he could pretend – at least to himself – that he’d attempted a get-away.



She didn’t notice.



“So, you know, only the best of, like the whole class, well, they want to get to, like, know you,” she said, gushing the same way a leaky toilet does.



“Oh. That’s cool, I guess.”



Either she was no good at reading deadpan voices or she assumed he was overwhelmed by what she was saying. Probably the second, because she added in a tiny, sweet voice that left him gagging on sugary-coated-ness, “You know, you don’t have to worry about us. We’re a nice bunch.” She giggled again, that annoying stupid giggle. It was what nightmares were designed from, Alex decided.



“So, if you, like, want to hang out, that’s cool,” she added. “I think we have lunch together, and like, we have math too, so, we can, like, sit together, right?”



He paused a little too long.



She took the silence for mute acceptance. “Great! Okay, I have, like this project that I need to work on, but, like, feel free to like call or whatever, kay? See you!”



Then and only then did she finally skitter off to whatever madhouse spawned her. He watched her go, not sorry in the least.



Maybe the day’s approaches were done. He hoped they were. Just looking around, he noticed all the kids who had seen him talking – or being talked at rather – who were now ignoring him like he carried some sort of disease from associating with the redhead. Maybe popularity was contagious. He hoped not. He didn’t feel like dying from a disease he might have had a cure for, or a vaccine to prevent.



XXXXX



First period – it wasn’t too bad. The history was fine, easy stuff. He knew it already, knew up to a hundred years beyond this point. However, he didn’t really plan to have another episode like the one from before, so instead of drawing, he opened the textbook like a good little minion and flipped too far ahead, catching up to where he’d been in his old school. The books here weren’t quite as detailed, nor were they as historically accurate. The dates were all screwy and the writing was as big as young children’s books. But the pictures were good, and the captions were legible, so he supposed it would do.



At any rate, it would have to. He didn’t feel like taking a chunk out of his own money to go buy the old textbook. Maybe this one would even simplify things.



With that in mind, he set about the too-hard task of reading what he needed to know, taking a pencil to the book whenever possible to add in notes and other things he already knew. If the whole book was like this, he figured he’d be dumber by the end of it.



Briefly, he even considered pulling out a pen and using that to attack the book with knowledge it had been preordained would not be located within its covers. But he already had one black mark against his name for knowing more than the teacher – he didn’t need another one so soon.



Instead, he kept to pencil and nodded like he was paying attention. Really, he was watching the math geek. He still didn’t know the guy’s name, but he let himself fall into a magical world where they knew each other and were slightly more than friendly. Not touchy-feely or any crap like that, but just getting to know each other. More than a casual hello in the hallway, type.



It was a nice dream, he decided, and thought to himself that if he ever wanted to elaborate on it, he could do so with quite some ease, as his fiction fed imagination supplied too many narratives with heroes and anti-heroes to name. It was quite disturbing from the inside.



When the bell finally tolled – rang – he pulled up his books, shot out of the class and only just missed entirely escaping the redheaded predator.



She still hasn’t told me her name, he reflected when she started gushing over him with another pair of hangers-on who fit the blonde bill quite nicely. They were rather busty, not too bright and completely in her power.



Typical queen bee, he decided, carefully extricating himself from the trio with a half-promise to meet up with them again sometime. Half because he knew he would have to, though he fully intended to avoid them as much as possible.



They’re like wolves – no, worse. They’re vultures, circling a kill. I think they’ve never even heard of the concept of a gay man, either, or they wouldn’t be waiting for me to pounce on them and screw them silly. It’s in their steps, their eyes – everything, dammit. I can read body language better than anyone else I know and they’re just on the edge, waiting. It’s sick.



He wondered absently if anyone actually did meet the redhead and take her for a drive in the same meeting time. Drive, as in not behind a car wheel. More like, drive as in on the car seats.



The thought was a scary one.



I wouldn’t want to screw with anyone I didn’t know the favorite color of, he decided. Not that that’s really important, but it’s one of the last things I ever find out about people. Along with birthdays, although sometimes I inadvertently pick those up as well. Oh just forget it. I wouldn’t want to screw anyone, period. Not now anyway. Not out of this bunch.



It wasn’t too difficult to navigate the rest of the day. He had the promised, and dreaded, math class with the redhead and her hangers-on, but the math geek was also there. In his head, Alex wasn’t calling him simply ‘math geek’ anymore, either. He hadn’t quite acquired a name, but he was more ‘The Guy’ now, than someone with a defining label. It seemed to suit him, anyway.



Lunch was an awful affair. Every table seemed determined to have Alex sitting with them. Every table that housed anyone popular, that is. There were six chairs to a table, and no moving of chairs allowed. It seemed the redhead had kicked one of her girls out to make a seat for him, and despite the appeal of being unbearably rude and refusing to take the seat, Alex found himself forced in a rather roundabout way to take the place. Really, what had happened was he’d attempted to sit at a table that seemed unoccupied, but really it was ‘taken’ he was informed, by air spirits. The girl who’d told him had sounded completely serious and with huge glasses magnifying her eyes, he half-wondered if she was privy to views he could only imagine.



Then he’d attempted to merge with a few of the more studious types. No luck there either. All the chairs had bags heaped on them, or books, or calculators. No place to sit. And at the last table he tried to sit at, where a pair of girls were seated, they’d simply chased him away, saying that the place was filled and he could go suck a cock.



He didn’t dignify that with the response that would have shocked them – I’d suck a cock. Do you know any guys with good ones?



Nah, he didn’t feel like insulting these poor people’s sensibilities just yet. He’d wait a week or three. Maybe a couple days. Just long enough to find out the way everyone hung in this crazy school thing. Maybe there’d be someone to show up on his gaydar or something. Mannerisms, actions – it all should register. Maybe there was a bi dude lying around, waiting to be dragged out of the closet.



The image that conjured up made him feel rather tight in his stomach and he immediately ordered his mind on a cleaner path. Nothing dirty. Nothing dirty. Nothing…like that. Dammit.



The rest of the day didn’t pass in a blur so much as a confused mess of psychopathic-ness. After the second bell, he didn’t bother trying to follow it. If the pace these teachers set was any example, he could easily move up a grade or two and still be ahead in material covered.



Easier to relax and let whatever had to happen, happen.



XXXXX



When he finally did get out, his sister had come to pick him up again. This time the limo wasn’t black and silver. It was a gaudy, gold and red thing, decked out with the most hideous patternings he’d ever seen. The popular red-head and hangers on loved it.



“What the hell did you do?” he demanded when he climbed into the back of the auto.



His sister was still acting like a chauffer, opening the limo door and letting him get in. He thought he could get used to the treatment, but it was also a little strange, having to pretend he was actually used to it already. Especially from his sister. Just…weird.



Ni raised her eyebrows at him as she pulled out. “What do you mean?”



“I mean the damn limo,” he exclaimed, waving his hands around to encompass the whole thing.



She chuckled. “I told you I own a limo company, didn’t I?” she inquired. “That means I have many types of limo. Better get used to looking out for the ugly ones. The more hideous they are, the better the popular crowd likes ‘em.”



“This is a sick place,” Alex decided, laying back against the seat.



“You said it, I didn’t,” Ni agreed.



“Are there any regular people around here?” Alex asked.



Ni shrugged. “Depends on your definition of regular. There’re those that you’d get along with – yeah, even a couple out-of-the-closets, you hormonal nutcase. Don’t lick your whiskers so damned obviously.”



Alex blushed slightly, but refused to be distracted. So he had been ‘licking his whiskers’. What of it?



“There’s a community way out in the middle of the city. I guess I can take you there this weekend. I mean, we didn’t exactly tell Dad where we’d be when we left, did we?”



“Nope,” Alex agreed.



Ni nodded, as if to herself. “Then we can just go and visit there. I think you’d have – fun, to say the least.”



“Fun?” Alex asked, raising his voice a little at the end, to accentuate the word. He guessed what his sister was insinuating, but he wanted to make sure. He knew for sure Dad wouldn’t approve of him fucking around with some random guy, but sometimes – hormones. He’d blame it all on hormones.



“Yeah,” Ni said, checking both ways before artfully turning the limo. “That kind of fun. As long as you can keep your mouth shut and not do anything too stupid, then we can go. Sound good?”



“Depends. What counts as ‘stupid’?”



“Packing lube or condoms or any sort of thing like that,” she answered him. “First off, you can buy all that in the city spots and not arouse suspicion, and second, I highly doubt you’d be able to get into Dad’s stash without him catching you. It’s just better that way.”



“I wouldn’t get pregnant by fucking with a guy anyway,” Alex objected.



Ni fixed him with a look. “You know,” she said, deliberately, “I thought they actually taught kids about sexually transmitted diseases in sex ed classes nowadays. I guess not.”



He flinched. Hadn’t thought of that.



“Yeah, thought so,” she commented, noticing his cringing.



“All right, I’ll bring some cash to get the stuff then. What’re you going to be doing while we’re there? I doubt you’d want to hang with me, and frankly, that’d be rather…uncomfortable.”



Ni grinned. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I’m planning on meeting up with a friend of mine.”



“Friend-friend or something more type friend?” he asked.



“None of your business,” she replied primly, her firm tone putting an end to the conversation.



Alex shrugged and went back to looking out the window.



Friday couldn’t come soon enough.