AN: Wow, I’m on a roll today. Crazy… I updated Kiss, edited two chapters of Flying Above Sky, and started an entirely new story, its cause I don’t have school these next two days, and then finals start… But. Sigh. Anyways, summer is almost here, although I’m pretty busy. Yay! I’m almost a senior, gah, I’m so old. LOL. Alright, read and review.

Disclaimer: This contains slash, yup, men, on men. Hot men. If you don’t like it, there’s a back button. Also, any references to LOTR belong to Tolkien. And I know nothing about art schools in new york, so I made one up, if it actually exists, great, if not, great. The “metropolitan opera youth competition” is also made up, because I forgot the name of the actual competition.

-Read and review and I’ll love you forever

…………….

Sometimes, I feel bad for those who don’t understand what performing means to me. What music means to me. You know that moment, in Fellowship of the Ring, when Galadriel says “let this be a light for you in dark places,” or something of that nature, that phrase, and character belonging to the ever fantastic Tolkien, well that’s what music is to me. My light, it’s my stronghold. As overdramatic as it sounds, (and as a tenor I have the right to be overdramatic), music is my life.  Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, Bach, Handel… The list continues. Those dead men, are my heroes, they created the music that I live through. Thanks to them, I can indulge in my passion.

            Blake Kent, the name my parents gave me. If I sound like I’m from small town Alabama, it’s because, sadly enough, I am. Born and raised in the south, well for my childhood at least. Not on a plantation, or in a trailer park, in a nice, middle class sized home. My mother was a failed opera singer. She’d dreamed, and never succeeded, and not because she doesn’t have a fantastic voice, because she couldn’t deal with being turned down audition after audition. So instead she took up writing, and had a mediocre but satisfactory career. My father owned the local hardware store, and as the only one in our small town of 15,000, he made a decent living. I think he’d secretly once had aspirations of becoming a doctor, but those failed after he couldn’t afford medical school, and well, the fact that he didn’t get into medical school must not have helped.

            If I sound bitter when describing my parents, it’s because I am. Here were two completely brilliant people, who wasted their talent because they didn’t have the drive. And regretted it their entire lives, god knows my sister Meg and I heard about it enough while growing up. Meg was my father’s golden girl, brilliant at science, beautiful, and talented. She’s currently completing he second year UCLA medical school. Not only that, but thanks to my mother who dragged us both to Piano lessons every year of her life, she’s also got a bachelors in piano performance from Northwestern School of Music, as well as a bachelors in bio-chemistry. She’s a fantastic pianist, and often plays in cabaret and jazz clubs all around LA, in order to bring in enough money to pay for grad school, which since my father was unable to afford it, has tripled in price. This of course without mentioning the price of books or anything of that sort.

            As for me, I’m 28 years old, and have recorded three CDs, as well as traveled around the world to sing in Taiwan, Moscow, Sydney (Yes at the Opera House), Venice, Rome, Paris, and London, just to drop a few names. I’ve performed at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as Carnegie Hall. Yes, you guessed it; I was my mother’s golden boy. From the day she brought me to my first piano lesson, and my senile, white haired teacher told me to sing along with the scale I was playing, I’ve had a voice. The aforementioned senile, white haired teacher, upon hearing my voice immediately told my mother that I should be taken to singing lessons. And so, at four years old, I met Tobias Atkinson. A brilliant baritone who taught me everything he could, until I was 14, and became better than he was.

            He then recommended I move up to New York to train with Margaret Tomson, A beautiful lyric soprano. We called up my bitchy spoiled cousins on fifth-avenue, and asked if they happened to have room for their gifted cousin in their monstrosity of an apartment. They said yes of course. Mind you, they never had to deal with me, or rarely, as the two of them are almost always on business. I did however have to deal with their 13 year old daughter, Alexis. Oh how I loath that woman. She is now unfortunately, my manager. And still every bit as spoiled and annoying, and irksome as ever. I suppose despite my loathing, I love her in some odd, un-definable way. Emphasis on the ‘un-definable.’

            I graduated from Manhattan High School of the Arts, at age 18. With a full scholarship to Julliard. I sent that news back to my mother, and she surprised me by showing up at my apartment with my father and sister, who was 14 at the time, to congratulate me. Which was a shock to say the least; because I’d planned on spending a nice evening, in my room, with my boyfriend at the time, Donovan; a tall, redheaded pianist with the most amazing set of hands I’d ever seen in my life. The conversation sounded something like:

            “Hi Mom, hi Dad, heya, Meg. This is Donovan, yes I was just kissing him, as we exited the elevator. Yeah sorry Dad won’t be carrying on the family name. Oh you came here to congratulate me? Well thanks. Sorry, you couldn’t have been met with a better reception.”

            And then I proceeded to invite them inside, and spend an awkward two hours at dinner with my family, Donovan, and Alexis, who of course had known I was a flaming homosexual, and spent the entire two hours trying not to laugh. Did I mention I hate that girl?

            Anyway, Donovan and I broke up not long after that, because he was going off to Reed in Oregon, and beyond his very talented hands, and dashing good looks, he didn’t have much else going for him.

            Julliard was educational. I learned that rich, pretentious musicians are perhaps the most annoying beings to ever grace planet earth with their less than fantastic presence.  I suppose my technique improved, I had a fantastic teacher. Juliet Richer, a mezzo of English origin, with a voice dreams are made of and a temperament more suited for nightmares. Fortunately, she found me talented, and I thus spent most of my days at Julliard in her good graces. Except for the few times I was late to lessons, in which case she’d spend our lesson hour lecturing me on the importance of punctuality instead of the proper way to sing.

            At 22 years of age, I won the first place prize in the Metropolitan Opera Youth competition. And it was then that I got my record contract. Between good looks and a prodigal voice, I was a shoo-in, and since then my career has taken off.

…………………

            “Blake, pick up your damn phone!” Alexis’ voice screams over the answering machine.

            I sigh and reach off the side of leather sofa, “Yes Lexi?” I quip, using the nickname I know she hates, she growls slightly, “What do you want today? Press appearance, performance opportunity, or does the record want a new CD? I’ve been working on a compilation of death arias, but oh wait you knew that already, after all you-“

            “Shut up for a moment would you?” She says impatiently, and even through the phone line, I can hear the way her teeth are grinding in annoyance. “Although you guessed right, they want another CD, and they’re mulling over the compilation of ‘death related’ arias as we speak. In fact, they’ll probably send you a repertoire and get you into the studio by next week.”

            “Why thank you Lexi, you had to disrupt my lovely afternoon of peace and silence to tell me that?”

            “I hate you, really I do.”

            “No, you don’t, not really,” I smile. “Somewhere deep inside that black heart of yours, there is love.”

            “I hate tenors,” she announces. “You’re temperamental, moody, and arrogant.”

            “And we’ve got magnificent voices.”

            “I find them squeaky.”

            “Oh, but my dear Lexi, what happened to the undying adoration we once shared?”

            “It exists only in the barriers of your highly skewed mind,” she sighs.  “They weren’t joking when they said that singers were stupid.”

            “You’re just far too underdeveloped to possibly understand my superior intelligence.”

            “I’m hanging up the phone,” she warns.

            “Bye babe, love you,” I respond.

            “Love you too,” and I hear the beep that signals she has turned off her cell.

            I drop the phone off the side of the couch, onto my handcrafted Persian rug. Yes, I have far too much money lying around, so what better to do with it, than buy copious amounts of clothing and other useless material possessions?

            A moment later, the vibration of my cell phone knocks me out of my ‘space out and stare at my ceiling,’ phase. I pull the small contraption out of my pocket.

            “Hello?”

            “Hey baby,” I find myself greeted by the silky rich tone of my ‘boyfriend of the week.’ I travel a lot, a solid relationship is often hard to maintain.

            “Hey Kyle,” I respond, playing with the cuff of my right sleeve.

            “What are you up to?” He asked, in the background, I can hear him light a cigarette as his thumb scratches over the sparker.

            “Laying on my back, enjoying the lovely yellow color of my ceiling, thinking maybe I should redecorate.”

            “Bored?” He inquires.

            “I’m always bored when I’m not on tour, or recording, or meeting with important people.”

            “Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and famous.”

            “Yes it’s dreadfully boring, and you should talk Mr. ‘my father owns a huge law firm.’”

            “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t,” He admits, as I hear him take a drag of his cigarette.

            “Wanna come over?” I ask, knowing I probably shouldn’t, as him coming over will probably lead to sex, and odd as it may sound to hear this from a man, I don’t really want sex at the moment. In fact, I’m rather sick of Kyle, he’s starting to become annoying.

            “What are you offering?” He inquires. One thing I’ve learned about Kyle: he always wants something. He’s never satisfied, he’s absolutely insatiable. Both sexually, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and materialistically. If I buy him an 18 karat gold bracelet, he wants to know why it isn’t 22, if it’s 22 karat, he wants to know why there isn’t a diamond on it. And I wonder why I’m getting annoyed?

            “Oh I don’t know, whatever happens to be on television, a private performance, as long as you agree to accompany me, whatever the moment brings.”

            “Give me fifteen minutes?” He asks, and I can hear him scrambling to get up, and tripping over the array of expensive items lying perpetually on the floor of his apartment.

            “Anything for you,” I reply, sarcasm thick on my tone.

            He doesn’t notice, “Later baby,” he hangs up the phone. I’ll never understand why others always manage to hang up their phones before I do. Am I that horrible to talk to that people have their thumbs just waiting to hit that ‘off’ button? Or is it just that I’m lethargic, and it takes me far longer to turn my phone off than it does anyone else?

            I’ll vouch for the latter option, because my obnoxiously large ego does not feel like shrinking. Or at least not today.

            I hastily pick up the assortment of overpriced clothing that hangs around my living room, and shove it into the back of my closet. Yes, it will get wrinkled, and I suppose it’s some kind of travesty to wrinkle an Armani original, but I’m finding I don’t care very much. If at all.

            Fifteen minutes finds me exactly where I started, in a pair of jeans with the tops of my overpriced black silk boxers sticking out. Hair mused, lying on my back, reveling in the soft leather of my couch, and staring at the ceiling. My couch, the one worthwhile purchase I ever made.

            The doorbell chimes. My head spins as I stand up to quickly, and pull the door open. Kyle stands on the other side.  5’10, short cropped dark air, and piercing blue eyes. An effeminate jaw line, and lashes long enough to make any woman jealous. A strong, well shaped body completes the outfit, along with the long beautifully sculpted hands of a pianist. Yes I have a fetish for pianists; they simply have the most amazing hands I’ve ever seen, on anyone.

            In fact, Kyle and I met, because my normal accompanist fell ill with some random disease, and Kyle was the backup.

            “Afternoon,” he steps into my apartment and closes the door behind him, “This place looks… clean,” he says somewhat incredulously.

            “Yeah,” I shrug, “I made the effort.” More like, I’m planning on breaking up with him, and it’s always easier to do so in a clean environment. I lay back down on the couch. He climbs on top of me, kissing my bare chest. Another thing I dislike about him, he has no tact, absolutely none. He places a kiss on my lips.

            “Are you alright?”

            “Peachy,” I respond, kissing him again, lingering for a moment, and pulling away.

            “Alight,” He tries to kiss me again, but I don’t let him, instead I sit up, shoving him a bit roughly off my lap.

            “We’ve gotta talk Kyle,” I start hesitantly. I don’t know why I’m hesitant, it’s not like I haven’t broken up with tons of men in the past.

            “What’s up?” He asks, turning slightly concerned blue eyes towards me. They contain a slight puppy dog-esque expression. He knows what’s going on, and he thinks looking cute will make me stay. I may be a singer, but despite what Lexi may think, that doesn’t make me stupid.

            “This,” I wave my hand around, “us, it’s over,” No beating around the bush, no lines to try and make him feel better about his pathetic, needy self. Just plain truth.

            “What?” Kyle looks shocked, but somewhere I know, he was expecting it sooner or later. Already we’ve been together for a month, that’s longer than my last four relationships put together.

            “I’m breaking up with you, we’re done. It was fun while it lasted.”

            He shrugs, “Did I do something wrong?”

            “No,” I shake my head, “you’re just needy, slightly annoying and less than smooth. It’s starting to annoy me.”

            His blue eyes fill with tears, aw, fuck. He’s not going to cry, I hate making guys cry, I couldn’t have possibly meant that much to him, could I have? “I thought you liked me.”

            “I did, now I don’t. Sorry babe, we can still be friends.”

            “Oh that’s a bullshit line,” Kyle sighs, “I guess I should’ve expected it, shouldn’t have thought I was special.”

            “No,” I shake my head, “probably not. But I’m sure to someone else you’ll be special.”

            “Coldhearted asshole,” Kyle glares.

            “Friends?” I ask, mostly because Kyle’s decently influential in the music world, as he’s rather talented, as an accompanist, and has lots of money.

            “Whatever,” Kyle shrugs, knowing that I’m probably a dangerous enemy to have as well. “Last kiss?”

            I raise an eyebrow, telling him exactly how cheesy his request truly is, but comply, leaning in, and covering my mouth with his. His lips part slightly for a moment, before I pull away, “Later Kyle.”

            He stands up, still looking slightly disgruntled, “Later,” he pulls the door open in a determined fashion, and then slams it behind him for effect.