In his dreams, while he was asleep, nothing could frighten Rayne. Not walking into fire. Not shark-infested waters. Not Dr. Lovely, his psychiatrist, whom Rayne blamed for fucking up his brain with experimental drugs. In his dreams, fear was simply an emotion. In the real world, fear was stalking Rayne, following his every waking thought, ready to pronounce its dire warnings inside his head.

 

At three o’clock in the morning, in Harold’s backyard, Rayne stood naked at the side of the pool, stretching out the silhouettes of his long, swimmer’s arms. On the back porch, in his bathrobe and slippers, Harold stamped out his third cigarette and whistled quietly. He’d been watching Rayne glide through the water for the past hour, back and forth, from one end of the pool to the other, the moon’s light shimmering in his wake. “How was your swim?” Harold asked as Rayne moved toward him in the dark. “How many lengths?”

“I lost count.” Beneath the glare of the porch light, Rayne was dripping a large puddle at his feet, his nipples cold and alert. “It’s those stupid, fucking drugs. My brain got distracted.”

“Well, it’s a beautiful night for a swim,” Harold said, scanning the star-littered sky. The moon’s face was beaming. “It’s so incredibly quiet.”

“What happened to the crickets?” Lately, whenever Rayne couldn’t sleep, he climbed out his bedroom window and jumped the fence between his mother’s yard and Harold’s. In spite of Nancy’s pleas, he’d flushed the sleeping pills that Dr. Lovely prescribed, claiming the tiny, blue tablets would cause his limbs to shrivel up and die like worms on hot pavement.

“I don’t know,” Harold said. “Do crickets sleep?” This wasn’t the first time they were having a late-night encounter in Harold’s backyard. It was getting to the point where Harold was laying in bed awake, breathing softly as he stroked his erection, waiting for the splash of Rayne’s naked body as he hit the water. “Do you want a towel?”

Rayne looked him straight in the eye for a moment and didn’t move. It was the look of a wild animal in a cage. “Will it hurt my body?”

Harold was accustomed to his unusual questions. He held Rayne’s gaze, as cold and distrustful as it was. “No, it won’t. You’re shivering a little. Thought you might want to dry off.”

“Are you inviting me in, Mr. Fix-It?”

At first, Harold hesitated. Rayne had never called him that before. Mr. Fix-It. And why was he scowling? Harold was becoming increasingly uneasy around Rayne, which was only making the sex more enticing. “It would be my pleasure,” Harold said. That was the routine. Harold would ask him if he’d like a towel and Rayne would ask to be invited in. Although the pretext was no longer necessary, the routine persisted, unfurling on those summer nights like the nocturnal lilies that filled Harold’s backyard with the smell of oranges.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to get involved with Rayne, Harold’s 20 year-old schizophrenic neighbor who was inclined to storms of unpredictable emotion. Nancy had cautioned Harold during one of their Saturday morning chats in his garden. Rayne was showing more signs of aggression. He'd been removed from university for throwing a textbook at his Psychology professor, whose nose and glasses were broken as a result. Rayne believed the professor had been spying on him for Dr. Lovely. “I’m just not sure what to do for him anymore,” Nancy said. “I feel helpless.” Her husband was dead; she was raising Rayne as a single mother. For nearly fifty, Nancy was gorgeous, a statuesque redhead with a body she’d developed in her work as a cop. Rayne was her only child, which was just part of the reason why his illness was eating away at her heart. “I’m afraid of my own son,” she said. “That’s the worst part, Harold.”

In the two years since he left Toronto and moved in next door, Harold had become Nancy’s confidant. The doctors felt that Rayne was well enough to be living at home, but Nancy wasn’t sure she agreed. “Maybe it’s best that he’s home so I can keep an eye on things,” she speculated. She believed that a recent hospitalization had only made Rayne’s condition worse. That’s all that she could bear to call it: his condition.. Schizophrenia sounded threatening and permanent. Nancy was drinking alone in the evenings and needed someone to talk to. Harold was a good listener. He was an electronics repairman. He fixed people's televisions and computers. That’s how he first met Nancy. Shortly after Harold moved in, she knocked on his front door one evening in a tight blouse to ask if he fixed coffee makers. “I know your van just says computers and televisions, but I thought maybe you’d know how to fix a coffee maker.” There was a lonely widow glint in Nancy’s eye. He made haste in telling her that he was gay, which he did the next morning in her kitchen while he was fixing the coffee maker.

Harold feared that Nancy might discover what was going on and accuse him of taking advantage of her mentally ill son. What was he doing? The question kept playing over in his head. He considered the possibility that the two celibate years of his suburban exile, on top of his lingering grief, had produced an insanity of his own. After Sean died, he sold their condo in Toronto and fled blindly to the suburbs, where he could enjoy an uncomplicated, single life, complete with in-ground pool and a garden of wildflowers. After two years, the suburbs were still a complex, alien world of uncertain appearances. Whenever he thought that a handsome shopper might be cruising him at Home Depot, the furtive glances turned into nothing more than his masturbation fantasies.

Rayne was stunning, horny and well endowed. Except for the schizophrenia, he was perfect. The closest Harold would come to Heaven was when he was on his knees, worshipping Rayne’s body. A sweaty hint of old cheese beneath Rayne’s balls. The sharp curves of his hip bones. Like a rare, exotic moss, orange hair grew over Rayne’s chest, forming a path that divided his lean torso and disappeared into the overgrown bush at his crotch. Whenever Harold was giving him a blowjob, he liked to watch Rayne’s face: his placid, angelic expression, not a flicker of madness. There wasn't a wrinkle anywhere, not like on Harold's face, where they were encroaching and deepening by the year. When he looked into Rayne's blue, wounded eyes, Harold felt a mix of paternal responsibility and pig desire. It was an unsettling combination.

After his swim, in Harold’s living room, Rayne was pacing in a circle, absently tapping his lips with his fingertips. The damp towel was draped around his waist, molding his cock with a thick, cotton skin. It wasn’t the first time that Harold was staring in awe. How Rayne’s cock could fit inside a little Speedo was a mystery to him. Rayne had been a promising freestyler at university until he received a warning about the murderous intentions of his coach, whom Rayne spat on twice in the face and threatened to drown.

Rayne stopped pacing for a moment to study the framed photos on the mantle. Harold was seated on the sofa in his bathrobe, pouring chamomile tea from a china teapot, the steam billowing. “After your swim and some chamomile tea, you should be able to sleep no problem.” As soon as Harold said it, he knew it sounded ridiculous. Sometimes, Rayne would go days without sleeping. “If that doesn’t help, maybe a blowjob will.”

“Who’s this, Mr.Fix-It?” Rayne was pointing at the photo of Sean, the one Harold had taken at the beach in Provincetown the summer before Sean died. Sean was laying on a chaise-lounge beneath an umbrella, fully clothed, a stiff, sweet smile across his face. “Your lover?” Rayne asked. Harold was about to take a sip from his cup, but he stopped. “Nancy said your lover had AIDS.”

Rayne returned Sean’s photo to the mantle and started to pace. Harold was cornered. He hadn’t realized that Nancy would be sharing their private discussions with her son. “His name was Sean,” Harold said after a moment. “And your mother was right.” He brought the cup to his lips again. “Why do you ask?”

Rayne looked up at the ceiling, his one hand wringing the other. “Do you have it?”

“No,” Harold said in reassuring voice. “Fortunately, I’m fine. I’m totally clean, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” He extended a cup of tea toward Rayne. “Here. I poured you some tea, if you’d like some.”

Rayne took the cup and smiled at Harold. His smile so spontaneous and pure. Without fail, it tempted Harold to fall in love with him. “That’s not what I’m concerned about,” Rayne said. He tipped back the cup and drained the steaming tea into his throat. “I’m already infected.”

Harold suspected that Rayne was testing him, but he wasn’t sure why. Or maybe he was trying to shock Harold, which Nancy said he liked to do to people. “What do you mean infected?”

“With HIV. I’ve got the virus. It’s been inside me since Dr. Lovelips put me in that fucking hospital in Toronto. It’s what’s making me crazy.”

Harold wasn’t quite sure how far one should keep an open mind with a schizophrenic. He was doubtful about what Rayne was saying, but he was scaling an unfamiliar cliff. A wrong move might cause a landslide. “Why don’t you get rid of that wet towel and come over here,” Harold suggested.

“Did you like Sean’s cock as much as mine, Mr. Fix-It?” The fact that Rayne kept referring to him as Mr. Fix-It was making Harold a little nervous. Or maybe it was Rayne’s eyes, which were blinking at high speed. “Was it as big as this?” Rayne squeezed the fleshy mound behind the towel.

“Come over here and I’ll tell you.”

“You should have seen me. I was a big, fucking porn star in the hospital. A regular, Hollywood celebrity. I like doing videos, man. Hot. Last time I was in the hospital, I was in the shower and who shows up but my buddy Tim. From the varsity team. Do you know Tim?”

Harold shook his head.

“Really hot guy. Scandanavian. Great ass. Anyways, Tim and me were taking a shower together. We were standing under the hot water, soaping up each other’s cock and balls, rinsing off and soaping up again until we were both ready to blow some mega-wad. You know that feeling? Staying right on the edge. Awesome. Anyways, I made a thick lather around Tim’s butthole and went digging with my fingers. It wasn’t long before little Timmy was begging me to give him the old skin pickle. So I did. Right there in the shower. I fucked him. I fucked him hard. And I’m glad I did because after I fucked him, Tim confessed. He was working for Dr. Lovelips. My fucking bastard shrink was watching me bang Tim behind a one-way mirror.” Rayne was pacing back and forth over the plush living room carpet, wearing a trail. “Anyways, my buddy Tim, who was my closest buddy on the team, was working for Dr. Lovelips. Can you believe it? I didn’t know that, man, when I was giving it to him raw. Next day in the hospital, Dr. Lovelips tells me that I’m HIV positive. Tim infected me. As part of an experiment.” Harold had never heard anyone speak with so little sense and with so much conviction at the same time.

“An experiment?” Harold asked.

“They’re testing my intelligence. To see if I can figure out how to get rid of the virus.”

“You mean like a cure?”

“A cure for what? For schizophrenia maybe.”

Rayne looked around the room before he sat down on the couch. He just sat there and stared into space. He was close enough that Harold could smell the chlorine in his pale, freckled skin. Rayne’s bizarre moments could come and go like trains in a station. Harold hoped that the weirdness was now over and they could get on with their business. He was about to indulge Rayne’s nipples, which were begging to be nibbled, when Rayne stood up. Suddenly, the towel was on the floor, wrapped around his feet like an affectionate cat. At last, his beautiful cock was hanging in Harold’s face, just an inch outside his tongue’s long reach. “Come closer,” Harold said, running his hands over the large, powerful muscles in Rayne’s legs.

“Mr. Fix-It likes my skin pickle too.” A bead of precum dangled off the pink slit of Rayne’s cock like the gooey nectar in Harold’s lilies.

“No, I love it,” Harold corrected. After carefully removing the drop of precum with his tongue, Harold said, "Yum. Sweet pickles are my favorite.” Then he swallowed Rayne’s cock. He went down until the mushroom head was in his throat. He loved every inch of it. There was no other word for it. It was love.

The hungry intensity of Harold's mouth was soon tingling throughout Rayne's body. Getting blown was the only time when Rayne could feel his whole body, all of its parts at once. He was laying back on the couch, Harold crouched between his legs in a position he could have taken for a prayer. Harold's mad slurping and a lone, persistent cricket. Other than that, there was silence. Rayne wasn’t much of a noisemaker when it came to fellatio. Some nights, Rayne would still be on Harold’s couch as the sun was rising, thirsty sparrows making a racket in the garden, Harold still slurping away, Rayne still hard, still silent.

“Stop for a minute,” Rayne said, pushing Harold’s head away from his crotch. “I need to piss.”

When Rayne returned from the washroom, he was holding one of the German steak knives that Harold’s mother had given him for Christmas. He must have made a detour through the kitchen. Or did he even go to the washroom? He was glaring at Harold, a knife in one hand and a commanding erection in the other. He was sliding the smooth side of the blade along his inner thigh.

“Rayne, are you okay?” Harold’s words were delicate. He wanted to avoid anything that might spin this bizarre moment into something…. What? Psychotic? Or worse, bloody? “Are you okay?” Harold asked again. Rayne wasn’t answering. Inside Harold’s throat, fear fluttered its small, trapped wings. “What’s the matter Rayne?”

“I need you to take it,” he said, in a voice that Harold was sure he’d never heard before. “If you don’t take it, I’ll die and Dr. Lovelips will take all the credit. That’s what the asshole wants.”

Harold wasn’t about to ask for clarification or how the knife fit in with Rayne’s plans. “Well Rayne, I don’t think it would be even possible to do that,” Harold said gingerly, after a moment. “You know, chances are you’re probably not even HIV-positive and even if you were, you can’t get rid of the virus. You wouldn’t be able to give it away to me or anything like that.” Harold stopped. He could see by the empty screen in Rayne’s eyes that attempting to reason with him would be like trying to pin down the meaning of a surreal painting. “Do you want some more tea?”

“No, I’ll just have to piss again.”

“Do you want to just call it a night then?” Harold asked, trying not to sound hopeful. “And get some sleep? How does that sound?”

“I want to fuck you, Mr. Fix-It.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s the only way I can get rid of the virus.”

Harold stood there looking at him. Ironically, he’d been fantasizing all summer about getting fucked by Rayne, except that in his fantasy it was happening in the pool one night after Rayne’s swim, and there was definitely no knife. He wasn’t sure what Rayne was intending to do with the knife, if anything. He was schizophrenic. Maybe its presence was no more relevant than the crystal bowl on the coffee table or the framed photo of Sean on the mantle. Or maybe Harold was kidding himself. There was a phone in his bedroom. That was the nearest one. “I’ve got some condoms in my bedroom,” he said.

“It won’t work that way.”

Harold had taken several unsafe risks over the years, and still he was negative. He could pray that his luck would continue. In all likelihood, Rayne was not infected. He had told Harold during their first encounter that he was a bisexual virgin. “Never been with a guy before,” he said. And that first night, he seemed sane. More sane. Tonight, he was looming over Harold, twisting a steak knife his hand and wanting to fuck him without a condom.

“I have some lube right in here,” Harold said, opening the cabinet beside the couch. “I keep it handy for watching porn.” Harold thought maybe he could divert Rayne’s attention. “Have you ever seen gay porn?”

“Take off your bathrobe.”

Harold reached into the cabinet and grabbed the KY. “This stuff’s magic,” he said, handing the bottle to Rayne, who studied the label for a moment before tossing it on the couch. “Ever used it before?”

“Take off the bathrobe, Mr. Fix-It.”

Harold stood there, mesmerized. It was all too unreal. “Rayne, can you put the knife down please.”

“Take it off.”

“Okay, but I’d like you to put the knife on the coffee table please.”

“No. It’s a trick.”

“It’s not a trick, Rayne. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Take off your bathrobe.”

Harold tossed the bathrobe on the couch. For a man of his age, his body was strong and quick. Still, he would be no match for Rayne. Even with the added strength of adrenalin, it was unlikely that he could successfully wrestle Rayne for the knife or outrun him. “Now your underwear.” When Harold was completely naked, Rayne said, “Get down on all fours.”

Rayne didn’t bother with the KY. He was kneeling on the floor behind Harold, the knife in one hand, the other clenching the base of his cock, which he was using to club Harold’s ass. After a minute, he dribbled a long string of saliva into Harold’s crack. In one thrust, with the full force of his pelvis, he pushed in. Harold gasped; a bolt of jagged pain shooting from his sphincter, burning the length of his spine.

“Nice and easy,” Harold said through his teeth.

Like when he was getting a blowjob, Rayne was completely silent. Not even a blissful grunt or one labored breath. Just the sound of flesh slapping flesh. Harold was silent too, Rayne’s cock pounding inside him on a life-or-death mission. Harold’s fear was charged now with the unstoppable, hot rush of blood in his veins. His hole giving in, stretching wider to accommodate the full force of Rayne’s cock.

“That’s good,” Harold said. “Nice and easy.”

Finally Rayne stopped pounding, his cock still buried inside Harold’s ass. Harold looked back over his shoulder. “Now, fix me,” Rayne muttered, his body seized, gripped by the power of an urgent orgasm. The knife falling to the floor. His cock exploding, filling Harold’s hole with the stuff of his madness.

 

© 2004 Duane Williams - Contributor's Bio