He was supposed to be somewhere, he supposed, but he was not. It was Saturday night and he was nowhere, except on his bed alone in the dark and it wasn't much past ten at night which was probably his curfew - but it had never come up. His sister had needed a curfew, but so far he never went anywhere. No one asked him.

Somewhere out there, he figured, there was an alternate version of himself who was at a party or on the beach or... anywhere but staring up at the ceiling where the last few glow in the dark stars from when he was ten clung to the uneven plaster in some lame attempt to ascend to the heavens. He didn't even know what people did at parties. It didn't matter - he'd probably never figure it out.

He was still young... Things did get better, didn't they?

He rolled over and turned up the radio. Not loud enough that his father would bang on the ceiling with a broom handle or anything, just loud enough to be heard clearly. He wanted to lose himself, if only for a few songs. He wanted to be anywhere, somewhere, nowhere, everywhere.

Closing his eyes, he settled onto his back. What would he be doing, anyway? The same thing his friends were - learning all about the cosmic 'it' as if 'it' really mattered. Maybe it did - maybe 'it' didn't. Maybe his problem was just that girls weren't interesting to him in that way even though he had been asked, once, to do whatever kids did in junior high. He'd said no - no one had ever asked again.

Maybe they all just knew. Maybe that was why he was alone on a Saturday night even though it was probably past the curfew he didn't have anyway.

He was barely paying attention when one song segued into another.

Yes, in his fantasies he met a nice blond boy who was also shy and awkward and loved music and wanted to trade video games and also had an amazing bedroom with a lock on the door so they could kiss for hours without being disturbed. Maybe he played guitar. The fantasies always stayed vague - why wait for someone who didn't exist?

Except sometimes, they felt so real. He wanted to delude himself.

He hated being alone.

He imagined more - his cute and awkward blond boy would lock the door and kiss him and they'd do things that weren't quite 'it' but were close enough. He'd heard stories from his friends, stories he'd listened to and nodded as if he understood. There would be touching, like when he touched himself. He couldn't imagine, really, what it would be like to have someone else do it for him, but he assumed it was good. That was why people did it, right?

He felt like the song was moving him. He had a hand down his pants and was surprised to find he was already hard. It was the voice. It had the same desperation he felt. It was honest and real and everything he wanted. He understood and he was being understood. And in his mind, his hand was the blond's hand and everything was going so quickly. He wondered if he'd come as soon as someone else touched him. He just kept moving his hand.

He wanted to feel. And for a split second, he felt alive. He could feel everything. There, with the blond boy and the pounding song and the echoing chorus...

There was nothing, other than the darkness around him and the hiss of dead air before a commercial break. There was his own semen cooling on his hand and his shirt. He lay there, numb, wondering what he was doing.

"Is there anybody alive out there?"