And once more, the blazing white light of the needle going down into my skin.
My arms go limp, the rope slacks.
My eyelids atrophy, fail.
BREEDING SEASON
Taylor Siluwé
The sound of a close-by thunderclap rattled the room, drowning out the noise we were making.
Gasping for breath, my senses stabilizing, I rolled off him onto my back. My breathing slowed. I opened my eyes, and the elaborate glow-in-the-dark constellations on his ceiling came into focus, ever so slightly lit: Orion, the Big Dipper, all meticulously hand-painted during our brief season’s interest in astrology.
Day had flipped to night. Thunder rolled again and a lightning flash lit the room as the sky exploded. Buckets of rain splashed down, splattering the windowsill. A few errant drops even reached my thigh.
I turned my head slowly, composing myself; a musky odor hung heavy in the air, his sweat was still on my tongue. He too had rolled over, 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 his dirty-blond pubes, glistened on the head of his dick and 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, pulled a book from beneath him and flung it across the room. His arm collapsed to the carpet.
A tear trickled toward his ear.
Emotion swept through me, as dark as the clouds blotting out the light and as sweet as the breeze wafting over our afterglow, as gut-wrenching as the longing I’d harbored for two awesome years.
As I reached out to wipe that tear, I was whispering…I love you.
When we first met, I didn’t understand his allure was sexual. Not right away. But looking back on the first day I set eyes on Ray—as he opened the door to his home in his tighty-whiteys, the only clothes he wore for the duration of my visit—I clearly wanted him from the start.
Unbeknownst to me, before I stepped through that door, before Malik had formally 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 Krazy-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 indicated an Asian ancestor. When she was twenty-one she must have been exceptionally beautiful. His father was a mysterious Norwegian sailor Ray never talked about. His parents had met in Norway, and Ray was born there—exactly two months before me, but on the other side of the Atlantic.
I’d had almost every sort of pet imaginable by the time I was fifteen, the creepier and crawlier the better. I was just getting interested in fish when Malik told me about this kid that I should meet.
Ray’s wild, platinum blond-haired head poked around the front door, his smile welcoming me like I was an old friend, ushering us in, even as Malik was making introductions.
“Ray…this is Danté. He’s only got a goldfish.”
My gut twisted into a painful knot and my right eye twitched. But with my left, I took in Ray’s compact basket, a small scar on his right thigh, the translucent hairs on his arms and legs, and the fact that his pale toes were widely spaced. They reminded me of a gecko’s. And he was a frail silvery-haired albino gecko—with the cutest 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. “Check this out.”
We scampered down the long hallway to his room, which contained one huge aquarium and several smaller ones, all bubbling and humming softly. Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World blasted from his stereo.
Ray’s two-hundred-gallon tank, dense with plants, was behind his bed like a living headboard, its black sand illuminated by a purple fluorescent glow. An explosion of misty bubbles rose from algae-covered miniature boulders, calling to mind undersea tectonic disturbances I’d seen on TV.
“Cool.” That’s 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, heavy and hot. I saw myself going home, picking up my five-gallon tank—with psychedelic gravel, pink plastic ferns and one lone goldfish—and hurling it 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, growing redder and charging and backing up in unison, as if having a tug-o’-war with an imaginary rope.
“What are they?”
“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 forgot about Malik, who was probably in the kitchen raiding the refrigerator. 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 was to know about breeding Jewels, me taking in every syllable, marveling that his hair was so silvery, his eyebrows so dark, and his hand so warm and moist.
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 felt entitled to take off whenever the mood struck.
It was about noon and we were gonna catch a movie—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 locks 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 one. They’d begin to unravel the next day, and he’d call me over 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.
“Jamaican Rum, one-fifty-one,” he announced. “It’ll fuck you up, so go easy.”
I chugged straight from the bottle, then gagged and gasped. After Ray stopping laughing, he mixed some with soda and ice and we lounged on his bed, sipping our adolescent cocktails, watching his fish, flipping through copies of GQ, 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 nowhere to run, he’d certainly kill her. I suggested Ray separate them, but he didn’t believe in getting involved: survival of the fittest and all that.
“Breeding season is a beginning and an end,” he’d once said in his sage way. “Why do you think salmon swim upstream to screw their brains out and die? It’s nature’s plan. And you shouldn’t fuck with Mother Nature.”
I knew that was true, but it still seemed cruel.
“Take my picture,” he said, suddenly dropping a GQ on his bed and hopping up to get his Polaroid. “I’m gonna be on their cover soon. Mark my words.” Then he struck a simmering pose and fixed a stare, and I knew he was telling the truth.
We drank some more while he posed and I clicked away. Soon images of Ray in sensual poses littered the bed. Then he took the camera, load
ed more film and aimed it at me.
“Do something,” he said.
I did. But he wasn’t satisfied.
“Take off your shirt.”
I did. 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.”
An idiotic grin surfaced. But I climbed onto the bed and did as I was told, straining to erase my grin.
“I said sexy… C’mon, Danté, think about what really turns you on.”
I gulped my drink, lounged back on his bed and allowed my thoughts to wander that secret passageway reserved for all things Ray.
There were memories, sensations, scents, and sounds from the two years I’d known him, drifting about in my head like those Polaroids on the bed, pleasure frozen in time.
The two of us in Exotic Aquatics, searching for some rare fish he insisted we acquire, the scent of aquarium water in my nose and an African Gray parrot shrieking “Fuck you” randomly… The two of us when I spent the night, lying 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. That’s it.” He clicked and clicked. “Now unzip your jeans. Show 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 be more and more naughty.
“Roll over on your stomach. Stick your butt up. Think nasty thoughts.”
Click.
“Yeah. Now pull your jeans down just a little…no, no…not like that, dammit. Let me do it.”
He adjusted my jeans so a little crack of my ass was 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.”
I drained my drink. I looked at him, and excitement overwhelmed me. 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 more animated with my hips, 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 played with my butt.
“Sexy. Keep going. Don’t stop.”
My finger slipped inside my asshole, involuntarily. I gasped. My eyes closed. I’d never done that before. Didn’t know what made me do it then. The excitement of the moment, I guess. It felt nice though, extremely nice, exciting.
Then, as if some writhing sexual demon had swooped in and taken over my body, my shoulders dropped to the bed, my hips remained in the air, and my finger sank further inside. I wiggled and moaned with my face buried in Ray’s comforter, enjoying this unique pheromone, and the sensations zipping from my toes to my scalp, but mostly, enjoying the fact that he was watching me…yeah…watching me.
Reaching beneath with my other hand, I began to masturbate, thinking of all the times we’d done it next to each other, 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, staring.
I froze. I couldn’t read his expression. It wasn’t excitement or anger or disgust. It was just blank—like the observing eyes his fish must’ve seen as we 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?”
“You,” I said, without thought, hesitation, or regret.
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 mother, feared we were doing.
Not that I was gay. But if I absolutely had to do some faggoty shit…I’d do it with Ray.
The bed rocked. 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 things, over and over, loving things in my ear in that cute little accent…and I waited for that first tickle of white-boy locks to touch my back.
“Put your clothes back on,” he ordered.
My jeans landed on my back. I was lost in the fog of fantasy interruptus.
“Dude. You are so gay.” He laughed. “I always suspected .”
Kneeling nude on his bed with my finger up my butt, my lust immediately turned to indignation. Ray sometimes painted his fingernails black and wore eyeliner. He hated sports. He got pissed because I didn’t know the difference between fuchsia and mauve. He’d also introduced me to the masturbating game…and he had the nerve to call me gay.
“What do you mean? You’re the one who’s gay!” I jumped off the bed and got in his face, my erection stabbing his belly button.
“Dude!” He stiff-armed me away. “Playing with yourself while thinking about another guy is the definition of gay. We won’t even talk about that finger thing. Just put your clothes back on, all right?”
We faced off for a long minute, silently, Ray willing me to back off and get dressed, me willing him to come closer and get naked.
He broke the standoff. “Will you fuckin’ get dressed, please? The movie…remember?”
I glanced 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 something else.
“No!” A vein pulsed on my forehead.
“Dude. Please. Just get dressed.”
“Not, not until you kiss me.”
He laughed. “That’s never gonna happen.” He laughed some more. “I’m not the one who’s a fag.”
I pushed past his outstretched palms in a flash, pinning him against the wall, my forearm across his neck.
“Stop playin’ around, Danté!” he gurgled, pawing at my arm.
“I’m not the one who’s playing.”
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 harsh breathing and beating heart.
But I could see his lips moving, shiny, wet, bits of spittle flying. It made me want to kiss him more, his shirtless, 501-clad frame writhing 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. A sexual demon, a succubus, was in control now, making me do things…things I’d only dreamt about.
Ray’s face turned red, which energized me further. I tore at the button-fly of his Levi’s, slapping his hands away. We struggled furth
er along the wall, dislodging photos, awards, a clock. A pole lamp crashed to the floor. We stumbled over it into the armoire, knocking books from the top and all sorts of crap out of the front. I managed to get his jeans to his knees, which finally tripped him up. We toppled to the carpet.
He tried to crawl away through the wreckage of his room, kicking at me, but that succubus was faster, stronger, smarter. Together we subdued him.
He exhaled, his body went limp, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Yeah, I love you, and I’m sorry.” Ray’s eyes were half open when I touched his face, wiping at that tear.
He slapped my hand away and then went limp again. But his jaw was tense, as if he was grinding his teeth, and a second 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 he was, lying naked on the floor, wrestling with his emotions, 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 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 slowly 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. “Another one bites the dust.”
He put the pictures in a drawer, stared in the mirror and tweaked his locks for a very long while, occasionally stopping to pose and flex his muscles, face dispassionate as before, eyes bloodshot.
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