It sounded like a speeding truck had crashed into the building.

It was a thunder-clap I think, a very close one,
but I couldn’t be sure with all the noise.

Gasping for breath, senses stabilizing,
I rolled off and onto my back. In moments, my breathing slowed.
I opened my eyes and the elaborate glow-in-the-dark constellations on his ceiling came into focus, glowing ever so slightly.
Orion
. . .The Big Dipper
. . . meticulously hand-painted during our brief season in astrology.

Suddenly day had flipped to night.
Thunder rolled again and a flash of lightning lit the room as the sky exploded and buckets of rain splashed down, splattering on the windowsill. A few errant drops even reached my thigh.

I turned my head slowly, composing myself, a musky odor heavy in the air, his sweat still on my tongue.

He had rolled over too and was staring at the ceiling,
face flushed, hair rock star wild.
Purple passion marks painted his neck and shoulder, and red scratches marred his perfect pale torso, which rose and fell in quick gasps.

Globs of semen mingled with dirty blond pubes,
glistened on the head of his dick and quietly oozed off his thigh toward the carpet. White briefs and Levi’s were tangled around his left ankle,
held in place by one remaining Nike. He arched his back with a grunt and pulled out a book from beneath him and flung it across the room.
His arm collapsed back to the carpet and he sighed,
exhausted by the effort.

A lone tear trickled toward his ear.

An emotion poured over me then
. . . one as dark as those clouds blotting out the light,
as sweet as the breeze that crept over our afterglow,
and as gut-wrenching as the longing I’d harbored for two beautiful years.

As I reached out to wipe that tear, I heard myself whispering
. . . I love you . . . .

Funny thing about that,
at the time I didn’t realize his allure was so sexual.
Not right away.

But looking back on the first day I set eyes on Ray
—him opening the door in his tighty-whiteys and then proceeding to remain that way for the duration of my stay
—I clearly wanted him from the start.

Unbeknownst to me then,
before I stepped through that threshold,
before David had formerly introduced us,
before I got to see the killer fish I’d come to see,
before I started following him around, mimicking his style in fashion and music and everything else
. . . before all that
. . . an invisible tether had sprung from my gut and Crazy Glued itself to his scrawny
Fruit-of-the-Loom clad ass.

His mother was vivacious and busty with sharp features and a pale toffee complexion. She was Jamaican, but her eyes belied an Asian ancestor. I imagined that when she was twenty-one, she must have been an exceptionally beautiful woman. His father was a mysterious Norwegian sailor who Ray never talked about. She’d lived in Norway at the time. Ray had been born there, exactly two months before me, on the other side of the Atlantic.

I’d had almost every sort of pet imaginable over the duration of my fifteen years on the planet, the creepier and crawlier the better. I was just getting interested in fish when David told me about this kid that I should meet.

A wild almost platinum-blond head peeked around the front door and treated me like I was an old friend, ushering us in, even as David was making introductions.

Ray . . . this is Danté . . . he’s only got a goldfish.

Something in my gut twisted into a painful little knot,
causing my right eye to twist.
But with my left one,
I noticed Ray’s little basket, a small scar on his right thigh amidst translucent hairs, and his pale toes were all funny and separated
. . . like a gecko
. . . as if he was this frail silvery-haired albino gecko with the cutest little accent that I planned to take home and ask my mom if I could keep.

C’mon, Danté, Ray grabbed me firmly by the arm, You gotta see this.

We practically ran down the long hallway to his room, like a couple married mere seconds. He had the master bedroom, and it contained one huge aquarium and several smaller ones scattered about, all bubbling and humming softly. Tears For Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World blasted from the stereo.

Ray’s 200-gallon tank was behind his bed like a living headboard.

It had black sand,
was illuminated by a purple florescent glow and was densely planted with real, growing plants. An explosion of misty bubbles came from somewhere near the top, whirl-pooled downward toward the center before rising up on the other side. Spidery leaves in shades of green beige and maroon waved back and forth with the current, and algae-covered boulders were piled randomly as if deposited by an ancient tectonic eruption.

Cool . . . was all I could say.

I climbed on the bed with him. We knelt in front of his pride and joy, his hand on my shoulder feeling heavy and hot. I saw myself going home, picking up my 5-gallon tank—with psychedelic gravel, pink plastic fern and lone Goldfish—and hurling it straight out the window.

Once my eyes absorbed the initial spectacle, I noticed stout salmon-colored fish—with blue and green reflective scales adorning their sides like sequins—darting aggressively in and out of the rock formations,
aquatic bejeweled gladiators tearing at each other,
stirring up clouds of sand and then darting in opposite directions. Sometimes, they wouldn’t clash at all
. . . just face-off, fins flexed, gills flared,
and growing redder before my eyes exciting each other further,
charging and backing-up in unison,
as if having a tug o’ war with an imaginary rope.

What are they? I heard myself ask.

Jewel Fish. They’re always aggressive, but it’s breeding season now, so it’s all out war. The male and female will fight and fight until she gives in and mates with him.

Cool . . . I said again, cutting my eyes in his direction.

I’d forgotten about David, who was probably in the kitchen raiding the refrigerator as usual. I became totally engrossed in the action taking place on either side of the glass as Ray and I chilled on his bed
. . . him telling me all there is to know about breeding Jewels,
me taking in every single syllable,
marveling that his hair was so silvery,
his eyebrows so dark, and his hand so damn moist and warm.

It was a gray late September day when we played hooky and he broke into his mother’s liquor cabinet. We were seniors at Snyder High by then and we felt entitled to take off whenever the mood struck.

It was about noon and we were gonna catch a movie in a bit—the premiere of ‘Dawn of the Dead’. It was supposed to be a real gore-fest, and I’d heard they did some really cool stuff with pig guts. We couldn’t wait.

Ray came into the room,
pale white-boy locks dangling past his shoulders.
For the past year he’d been endlessly twisting them, trying to get his soft hair to lock. Achieving dreadlocks was difficult with his type of hair, but Ray wasn’t one to give up easily. Actually, the job usually fell to me. He’d sit on the floor while I applied holding gel and methodically twisted each lock. They’d begin to unravel the next day, he’d call me and I’d come to his house to repeat the process.

His chestnut eyes sparkled with mischief as he waved a bottle, its clear contents swirling around and around and around.

Jamaican Rum, 151, he announced. It’ll fuck you up, so go easy.

I chugged it straight from the bottle and spent the next five minutes gagging and gasping. After Ray stopping laughing, he mixed it with soda and ice and we lounged on his bed sipping our cocktails, watching his fish, flipping through GQ magazines, listening to that Tears for Fears album that he couldn’t get enough of, feeling worldly and grown.

One of his male Jewels was pummeling a female mercilessly because she wasn’t ready to breed. She finally dashed behind the filter tube,
pale, fins shredded, chunks torn from her body.
In the wild, she would be banished from his territory if she wouldn’t breed. I knew that in a smaller tank with no where to run, he’d certainly kill her. I suggested he separate them anyway, but knew Ray didn’t believe in getting involved
. . . survival of the fittest and all that.

Breeding season is a beginning and an end. He’d once told me in that sagely way of his. Why do you think Salmon swim upstream to screw their brains out and die? It’s just the way it is. And you shouldn’t fuck with Mother Nature.

I knew that was true, but it still seemed cruel . . . somehow.

Take my picture, he said, suddenly hopping up and getting his Polaroid. I’m gonna be on their cover soon. Mark my words. He struck a pose that could very well have been in a magazine.

We drank some more and he proceeded to pose for me as I clicked away. Soon images of Ray in various sensual poses littered the bed. He took the camera, loaded more film and aimed it at me.

Do something, he said.

I did
. . . but he wasn’t satisfied.

Take off your shirt.

I did as I was told. He clicked again.

Now do something sexy.

Like what?

I don’t know, lie on the bed . . . and look at the camera like you wanna fuck it. Ray peered over the Polaroid with a smirk and a wink. Or like you want IT to fuck YOU.

I felt the most idiotic grin surface.
But still,
I climbed onto the bed and did as I was told,
straining to erase said grin.

I said SEXY . . . you look like you’re taking a shit. C’mon Danté, think about what really turns you on.

I mellowed,
gulped my drink,
lounged back on his bed and allowed my thoughts to wander down that secret passageway my mind reserved for all things Ray.

Memories were there
. . . sensations, scents and sounds from the two years I’d known him, drifting about in my head like those Polaroids on the bed,
captured moments frozen in time:

The two of us in Exotic Aquatics,
looking for some rare fish that he insisted we acquire,
the scent of aquarium water in my nose and that African Gray Parrot behind the counter shrieking ‘fuck you’ over and over and over again
. . . the two of us when I spent the night,
lying there in his bed,
staring at the fish, talking about death-defying feats we wanted to do and all the little girls we wanted to screw
. . . the two of us with the blanket over our heads in that same bed, masturbating in the dark, seeing who could finish first
. . . or the times we did it over the phone late at night, in our individual beds, racing to a hushed mind-blowing climax.

Yeah . . . he said . . . that’s it kid, just like that. He clicked and clicked. Now unzip your jeans . . . show me some pubes.

I was totally into it by then
as he snapped picture after picture after picture,
tossing them on the bed with the others,
directing me to do more and more naughty things.

Roll over on your stomach. Stick your butt up. Think nasty thoughts.

Click.

Yeah. Now pull the jeans down just a little . . . no, no . . . not like that, damnit, let me do it.

He adjusted me exactly like he wanted with just a little crack exposed; even making sure the white comforter was aesthetically rippled
. . . and then told me to lick my lips.

Click.

He kept adjusting and arranging me.
In no time at all, I was completely naked,
lying on my stomach to hide exactly how ‘into it’ I was.

Click.

Ray was more breathless than ever, circling the bed like a Mapplethorpe wannabe, biting his nails, in the zone.

If you show these to anyone, I said to him, You’re so dead.

Shut up. Click. Arch your back. Click. Do something else. Click.

Like what?

Use your imagination for once. Damn Danté, do I have to tell you everything? Just go wild. He was making those jerky movements he always did when he was excited about something, or nervous.

I reached over and drained my drink.
Then I looked at him standing there and this feeling overwhelmed me
. . . a feeling that had been growing for some time.

I started grinding my hips into his bed as I watched him watching me.

Yeah. That’s good. Just like that.

Click. He tossed the picture on the bed, scurried to a different part of the room and aimed again.

I got a little more animated with my hips, even adding lip and tongue action for effect, letting my imagination run wild
. . . as instructed.

Click. Toss. Scurry. Aim.

Yeah, he said.

I got on all fours, reached behind and started to play with my butt.

Sexy. Keep going. Don’t stop.

My finger slipped inside a tiny bit without me telling it to, I gasped and my eyes closed. I’d never done that before. Don’t know what made me do it then, it just happened. The excitement of the moment, I guess. It felt good though, extremely good, better than I would have expected it to feel.

Then
. . . as if some writhing sexual demon had swooped in and taken over my body, my shoulders dropped to the bed while my hips remained in the air and my finger sank further and further and further inside me.

I wiggled and moaned with my face buried in Ray’s down comforter,
enjoying his unique pheromone,
enjoying the sensations zipping from my toes to my scalp,
but mostly enjoying the fact that he was watching me,
yeah,
watching me do that wild sinful thing to myself.

Reaching beneath with my other hand I began to masturbate
. . . thinking of all the times we’d done it next to each other,
right there in his bed,
knees touching accidentally on purpose during moments of frenzy.

My head lifted and I peeked through my lashes. Ray was standing there, camera lowered, just staring at me.

I froze.
I couldn’t read his expression.
It wasn’t excitement or anger or disgust.
It was just sort of blank
. . . like the cold observing eyes his fish must’ve seen as he and I watched them lovingly lay tiny amber eggs after beating each other bloody.

Dude, he asked after what seemed like a millennium, What are you thinking about?

Without thought, hesitation or regret, I said
. . . You.

Ray nodded,
put the camera carefully on the dresser,
looked at me again in the same dispassionate way,
and then slowly approached the bed. I closed my eyes because my hand was pumping again and he was coming closer and I couldn’t believe we were finally about to do what everyone else,
including my own mother,
feared we were doing.

Not that I was gay.
But if I had to do some faggot shit
. . . I’d do it with Ray.

I felt the bed rock a little.
He was climbing on.
I waited,
breathlessly anticipating his first real touch,
one not casual or fraternal or accidentally on purpose
. . . I waited,
already hearing his voice in my head as he knelt over me,
whispering that he loved me over and over and over again.

Put your clothes back on, he ordered coldly, and my jeans landed on my back.

Huh? I was lost in the fog of ‘frenzy-interruptus’.

Dude . . . He laughed. You are SO gay. I always suspected it though.

Kneeling nude on his bed with my finger up my butt, my lust immediately turned to indignation. Ray was the gayest man I’d ever met. He’d also introduced me to the masturbating game
. . . and he had the nerve to call ME gay.

What do you mean? I jumped off the bed and got in his face. My erection stabbed his belly button. YOU’RE the one who’s gay.

Dude! He stiff-armed me back a discrete distance. Playing with yourself while thinking about another guy is the definition of gay. We won’t even talk about the finger thing. It’s okay though, we’re still cool . . . just put your clothes back on.

We faced-off for a minute, silently
. . . him willing me to back off and get dressed,
me willing him to come closer and get naked.

Will you fuckin get dressed please? The movie . . . remember?

I glanced over at the photos on the bed, his, mine, all seductive, all leading up to the naked ones he’d urged me to do, and then I looked back at him and his smirk turned my indignation to rage.

No. I said, and felt a vein begin to pulse on my forehead.

Dude. Please. Just get dressed.

Not until you kiss me. I demanded.

That’s never gonna happen. I’m not the fag.

I pushed past his outstretched palms in a flash, pinning him helplessly against the wall, my forearm across his neck.

Stop playing around, Danté!

I’m not the one who’s playing. You’ve been begging for this.

As his shocked eyes stared back,
filled with an emotion I couldn’t put my finger on
. . . fear, lust, anger, whatever
. . . I don’t know
. . . I tried to kiss him but he turned away, yelling something I couldn’t hear over my own breathing and beating heart.

But I could see his lips moving, shiny, wet, bits of spittle flying.

It only made me want to kiss him more,
with his warm frame writhing lasciviously between my erection and the wall. By that point, I wasn’t Danté anymore,
and he wasn’t my pale friend Ray with the cool-ass aquarium, silvery hair and gecko toes. It was as if that sexual demon, most likely a Succubus, was in control now, making me do things
. . . things I’d only dreamt about.

Ray’s face turned red and it energized me further.
I tore at the button-fly of his Levi’s, slapping his hands away. We struggled further along the wall, dislodging photos, awards, a clock
. . . him desperately trying to keep his clothes on,
me easily defying his wishes.

A pole lamp crashed to the floor
. . . we stumbled over it into the armoire,
knocking books from the top and all sorts of crap spilled out of the front.

I’d managed to get his jeans down to his knees,
which finally tripped him up and we toppled to the carpet.

He tried to crawl away through the wreckage of his room, kicking at me, but she, that Succubus, was faster, stronger, smarter
. . . together we quickly subdued him.

He exhaled,
his body went limp,
and he squeezed his eyes shut.

. . . Yeah, I love you so fuckin much. Ray’s eyes were half open when I touched his face, wiping at that tear.

He slapped my hand away violently, and then went almost limp again. But I noticed his jaw was tense, as if he was grinding his teeth a little, and another tear oozed hotly along the path of its predecessor.

I felt sick.
He was the last person I wanted to hurt,
the last person I wanted to be angry with me.
But still here he was,
lying naked on the floor,
wrestling with his mind,
trying not to cry
. . . all because of me.

I reached out again because I ached to console him. I needed for him to not be angry with me. But before my hands could reach him—the same hands that moments ago had muffled his screams—he sprang off the floor.

I sat up, watching him fumble with his clothes.
His jeans and briefs were tangled around one sneaker. He methodically untwisted the material, angled everything appropriately, and then slipped his other leg back in and pulled them up. He pressed his palms to his thighs and smoothed the wrinkles out.

I watched him slip into his other sneaker and carefully tie it up. Then, as he gathered the Polaroids from the bed into a pile,
he stopped and stared into the tank at something floating.

His voice was far away when he said . . . Another one bites the dust.

He put the pictures in a drawer,
stared in the mirror and tweaked his locks for a long long long while, occasionally stopping to pose and flex his muscles,
his face dispassionate as before
. . . his eyes blood-shot.

His image began to quiver as moisture welled in my eyes.
I felt overwhelmed and frantic suddenly,
like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the air
. . . like I was drowning in hot quicksand
. . . like I was some tiny primordial thing sinking into the tar pits.

I closed my eyes and took a series of deep calming breathes
. . . back to back to back to back.

Dude! He barked.

My eyes snapped open.
I noticed the sun was shining brightly now, though rain still poured.
Ray was watching me through the mirror with an expression that made my eyes burn.

It’s fuckin late. The movie starts in forty-five fuckin minutes. Get fuckin dressed!

I yanked myself off the floor—not as excited about pig guts and gore anymore—and did exactly as I was told.

 

© 2006 Taylor Siluwé - Contributor's Bio