Rave Boy - 1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

“From the razor to the rosary we can lose ourselves…”

-“It’s Not A Fashion Statement, It’s A Deathwish” My Chemical Romance

I’m at a rave! There are strobe lights; bright white, luminescent blue, startling red. I’m dressed in an unbelievably sexy outfit. Black, tight fitting long sleeves made of some sheer, weightless material that shifts frictionless across my body when I move to the pulsing music, cut high enough to show off my flat stomach and pierced navel. I have on fitting but loose jeans that ride my hips perfectly. My nails are painted black and deep, dark violet on alternating fingers, which match my black hair with blue tips.

In front of me, there’s a boy who is absolutely gorgeous. His hair is dyed some color between black and purple, and his chest is only half-covered in a button-up shirt I can’t tell the color of between strobes. He has his eyes closed, and his mouth slightly open with the hint of a smile. His eyelashes flutter as his hair ruffles against them, and I lean over to kiss his neck.

His eyes pop open, infusing me with an MDMA-like rush of absolute pleasure. I see they’re the most beautiful shade of silvery blue I’ve ever seen, bright with his smile and the frenzied, orgiastic bliss of the rave. I don’t see because he does it so quickly during a split second moment of darkness, but he leans and grips my waist, pulling me close to him, pressing his crotch into mine. We move to the music and his mouth closes over mine. I can feel his lips on mine, his tongue invading my mouth.

Then I woke up. I cursed blatantly as I blinked my eyes, wanting to cry. The meds my psychowhatsit had me on weren’t working well, at least not yet. Fluoxetine, 20 milligrams daily.

I’m seventeen, and my name is Joseph. If you call me that, I’ll rip out your spleen, cook it to medium rare, and feed it to you as I remove your other organs for sautéing. My real name, the one my few friends call me, is Joey.

I hate my life. I said it for you. Instead of trying to paint a picture for you with so many tragic events and circumstances, there it is in pure and simple terms for your easy understanding. I’m breaking the rule my English teacher gave me; “Never tell, always show!” Thought you might appreciate a little blunt reality instead of me being after-school special with you. Then again, do you think I care what you think about me?

I don’t know you, and I don’t give a shit about what goes on in your most likely tiny brain. However, I digress, and it’s not fair to insult you yet. You may very well be a magnanimous, congenial person with whom I would get along with very well. I just get worked up easily, I apologize. But not if I described you accurately, in which case I laugh and point.

As you’ve probably figured out, I’m a defensive and introverted bitch sometimes. Don’t worry though, I get better. You may start to like me sometime. Give me a chance, you sexy beast.

So anyway, I woke up in my bed. I have black sheets. Don’t try to insert dime-store psychology here; I just like black, so fuck you.

You’re making me get off topic again. My description of myself in my dream was accurate. I’m a very tiny person, not at all impressive in height as I stand at around five feet and six inches. Don’t expect anything wonderful about me. I won’t embellish or try to make myself look good. You’ll get my story.

Oh, you’ll get used to these dynamic changes in prose and annoyingly abrupt changes in topic, along with the static sarcasm. I have a thing for alliteration, too. Sally sells seashells by the seashore, idiot.

By now you’re wondering where I’m going with this. Hold onto your pants. No, seriously, hold onto them. Keep it in the cage, freak.

I’m a former closet case, now outed to the school and community as the town faggot. No one picks on me for fear of the box cutter I carry in my pocket in case anyone decides to invade my personal space. In fact, they leave me very much alone. In a place like Mississippi, in the middle of the Bible Belt, gothic appearance is a bit of a conversation killer. Since I don’t believe in the Baptist bullshit they preach, they don’t like me.

Now that I’ve given you the breakdown, we’ll get back to the story. Sorry for the lack of inventive, exciting ways to give you that information. Shut the fuck up and listen.

I got out of bed, pulling on jeans over black boxer briefs. I walked out of my room bare-chested. I have no tan, but a perfectly clear complexion. I’m not what everyone considers attractive, but I myself would do me, and have on several occasions if you count sex with my hand as doing me.

In the kitchen, a note left on the coffee maker asked me for the ten-thousandth time to clean my room, do this, do that; connotations that I shouldn’t be so weird, I need friends, and to get off my lazy ass and do something constructive. Fit in. Be normal. I don’t do normal.

I looked down at my arm, covered in razor tracery, then grabbed a mug and filled it with the now cold coffee. I placed the cup in the microwave, and turned to get milk and sugar. I got my coffee, fixed it just the way I like it, and snuggled into the couch. My laptop announced its powered up state with the familiar cascade of notes, and I pulled a blanket around me as I checked on mail and played around. The Internet’s always held fascination for anyone who wanted to be in contact with people who understand them, and I’m no exception.

After going through the motions of checking e-mails and such, I got bored and started looking at porn. Sighing because nothing caught my interest, I got up and pulled on a hoodie. It was my favorite, black with a silver skull and crossbones on it. One of the reasons it was my favorite was the feel of the silky inner lining against bare skin.

Still barefoot, I walked outside onto the porch step and dug in my pocket to retrieve a palm-full of pills; two hydrocodone tablets, four muscle relaxants. With a swig of coffee and a backward jerk of the head, they went down to my stomach. I set the cup down and started to walk along the warm concrete, slowly, wishing something would happen to make this day different from all the rest. Something to make it better, get me out of here, anything.

In my distracted state, I walked right into someone and bounced off, landing on my ass. I heard a snicker and reached into my pocket, hand closing around my box cutter. As I looked up, though, a hand came into view, outstretched to help me. Surprised for a moment, I examined it more closely. It was nicely manicured, soft looking while still manly. Flecks of black polish graced the nails, and I looked at the guy’s face as I hesitantly took his hand.

He was fucking gorgeous. A tall, thin, punky looking boy had just run into me. The boy had short, red hair. He was dressed in bondage pants (you know, the cargo pants with chains and locks and all), black tee, studded leather bracelet, and chain choker. I recognized his eyes; they were the same eyes as the boy’s from my dream.

The boy smiled congenially, and said he was sorry. I could barely hear him through all the thoughts in my head. I still hadn’t let go of his hand. Noticing that, I finally did let go, and when I did, I stuttered out an introduction.

“Hey, um, I’m Joey…” I said. Yeah, so I’m a little shy, fuck off.

“I’m Jon, nice to meet ya. Sorry to run into you, lemme brush you off, you still have some dirt on you,” he said.

With that, he ran his hand quickly down my back, and across my butt. My eyes went slightly wide, as I didn’t expect that, by a long shot. I have to admit, it felt incredible for such a brief touch. Of course I was still suspicious of his motives, but I was beginning to like the boy more and more. He was nice looking to say the least, and I watched avidly as his mouth began to move again.

“I’m new here, my dad just moved here for his job. He works as an engineer, and this is closer to where he needs to be… so are you from around here? I don’t know anybody yet…” He stopped talking, running out of words. I realized then that the boy was honestly trying to start a conversation with me. That’s when I stopped calling him ‘the boy’ in my mind, and started calling him Jon.

“Yeah, I’ve lived here forever and it sucks ass through a bendy straw. There’s not anything to do here, small town. Um, there’s a few things to do… well, not really, I’m lying, there’s nothing to do,” I told him.

“Oh wow, that bad?” he asked. I nodded.

“You’re welcome to hang out anytime or whatever, I just live right there,” I said, pointing at my house.

“Oh, cool, how about now? Wanna give me a grand walking tour of the town?” he asked.

I must have raised an eyebrow because the look on his face changed, but he didn’t break eye contact. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, though.

“Sure, just let me run back inside and put some shoes on. I’ll be right back, okay?” He nodded, so I jogged back to my house and slammed socks and shoes on. I got back to him, and we started to walk. I led him in a big circle around the block, indicating what was in what direction. You know, the important stuff, like Wal-mart, the gas station, the high school, the library, and the other few buildings in existence. He stopped in front of a large white house that kind of mimicked antebellum architecture on a smaller scale, one that had a “for sale” sign in front of it a week ago.

“Here’s my house. Dad’s not home right now, ya wanna come inside and watch a movie or something?” His eyes looked at me almost pleadingly. Seeing his eyes like that made me really want this boy. I followed him inside, watching the safety pins on his pants pocket bounce with his hips as he climbed the steps to the door and walked inside.

He stepped down the hall and into a room as I followed a few steps behind, hesitant about being in someone else’s house. It almost felt unsafe, like I was being lured in. If he hadn’t given me that look, there’s no way I would’ve come inside. Who can resist pouting blue eyes, though?

“C’mon in, this is my room,” he said.

I walked into his punk boy haven. If my room was an alcove for gothic kids, his was for punk kids. Band posters covered the walls, stickers with smartass slogans were already stuck to the door. A closer look revealed they weren’t stuck, but taped, evidence of moving frequently; no one tapes stickers on unless they plan to take them off later.

Jon reached behind me toward the door. I wanted to move out of his way, but there was nowhere to go since his room had almost a mini-hall after the door. He pushed, and slowly shut the door, never letting his palm leave the surface of the wood. As it was fully closed, his face was maybe four inches from mine. His eyes were locked with mine, and despite all my jaded goth-boy personality, my heart was racing.

“I’m sorry, but I have to do this,” he told me. Jon leaned in closer, and I felt his lips press against mine.

Ha, I fooled you! Nah, it was all real up until the point when I said “his face was maybe four inches away…” I had you going for a second there, didn’t I? This isn’t a fairy tale.

Anyway, seeing as how I really was in his room with his door closed, I was wondering what he was up to. By this time, my inhibitions were really gone. The daydream was a result of the delectable mix of opiates and muscle relaxants; they do fun things to your brain. I wanted to throw him on his messy bed and make hot kinky love to him right then and there, but I refrained. Next thing I knew he was talking to me again.

“You, um, look a little happy there, if ya know what I mean,” he told me. I instantly blushed and turned around to adjust my pants, knowing my ‘happy’ was showing. Not a ship’s mast, but still readily noticeable when at full attention. I mumbled some lame excuse about being fucked up and daydreaming about something (which wasn’t really a lie). As I turned back around, he smiled at me, and he held in his hand a small water bong, made of clear plastic pipe with a hole for a carb in the back. The little metal bowl in the front was already packed. Jon sat down on his bed and moved a skateboard out of the way before he patted the place beside him.

“Good idea,” I said to him with genuine relief. Those who smoke pot know how it forms an instant connection and eases communication when the knowledge becomes apparent that someone you just met smokes it. It’s almost like belonging to a club, it just feels safe. We passed the homemade looking contraption back and forth and pretty soon we were both blazed.

Each time he passed it to me, though, his fingers lingered just long enough to feel mine against his as I took it from him, and vice versa. I might be taking things out of context, but I figured this to be an infinitesimal sign of something that may eventually be of more than infinitesimal significance. I promise I’m not just playing with you this time, this was real. He did indeed seem to be almost hitting on me. My heart wasn’t racing, though. It was doing gymnastic acrobatics in my chest cavity, static backflips that were rattling the butterflies in my stomach.

Tears started to well in my eyes. I know, you think I’m insane. What reason could I have for crying when I just met an incredibly hot guy that seems to like me, someone I might actually get along with instead of all the idiots I’d been forced into being around my entire life, right? Well, you just have to be inside my head.

First, I get along with almost no one I know. It wasn’t always this way, but now I can’t even be civil to my own family. I even forget that I have little siblings until they come and invade my room to piss me off, foraging through my things until they find something incriminating to turn over to my mother, like my cigarettes or pipe. Once they found a joint, but I snatched it away and when pressed about it I said it was a cigarette. They didn’t know what it was, anyway, and I’d rather take the heat for a cigarette than a joint.

I’m severely anti-social. I can’t be friends with just anyone. They have to be intelligent, accepting, kind people; otherwise I just want to kill them. I can’t stand to be around anyone else, and I have anxiety problems, too.

I’m pessimistic. It’s just part of who I am, always preparing for the worst case scenario. I get ready for it and hope it doesn’t happen. If I don’t, then I’m not going to take it well at all.

So with that in mind, can you see that I was thinking to myself that this guy was probably not meaning to convey the signals he was, and that there was probably a snowball’s chance in Hell of him liking me the way I liked him. I had one of those miniature breakdowns in my mind, which can only take so much strain. All the things that I had to take care of piled up and this was the last straw. Adding worrying about whether or not my feelings were being reciprocated was one too many worries.

I managed to keep my voice steady as I asked him where his bathroom was, facing away from him slightly so he couldn’t see my eyes of course. He pointed down the hall since he was currently coughing a little too hard to talk. Normally I’d have waited until he stopped and called him a wimp or something, but I wanted to get the fuck out of there in a big hurry.

I shut the door to the bathroom, noticing how tidy it was. Somebody in the house was a clean freak, and definitely not Jon judging from his room. All the washcloths were rolled and placed neatly in a basket; in Jon’s room, all his shirts were rolled and placed neatly on the floor. The mirror was absolutely spotless, free of all those little streaks and dots that normally show up after the bathroom gets steamy a few times. I noticed there was a new roll of toilet tissue on the stainless steel holder (also streak and dot free), and one directly above it on the back corner of the counter, still in its paper wrapper for when it might be needed.

I grabbed a snatch of paper from the roll on the holder and wiped my eyes carefully. Blotting, not rubbing. If you rub, your eyes get red and people can tell you’ve been crying.

Looking disgustedly in the mirror, I sobbed twice. Two carefully controlled nearly silent sobs. I blew my nose to make sure I didn’t sound weird, and looked up. I took a few deep breaths and ran cold water from the tap, splashing my face lightly, and then wiped it off with the hand towel hanging from its ornate metal home. As my heart rate was slowing, I heard a soft knock at the door.

“Hey man, you okay in there? You’ve been in there for a while, just checking to see if you might’ve tripped and knocked yourself out or something!” Jon shouted to me through the door. I immediately unlocked it and stepped out armed with my all-star fake smile.

“Wanna watch that movie now?” he asked me. I nodded, but before I had a chance to step toward the living room he surprised me. “What happened? I mean, I heard you in there, and I just wanted to know. I’m sorry if I did anything.” Jon placed his hand on my shoulder, radiating enough warmth and security to make me want to burst into tears again. Instead, I did what I always did, what I was good at.

I buried it all and marked its tomb with a smile. “I’m fine,” I said. He gave me an odd look, but seemed to accept it as final. In my mind I was reveling in the fact that I had already managed to be a psychotic freak and I’d not even known him for an hour yet. Yeah, you get a cookie for recognizing sarcasm.

Jon apologizing for being nosy brought me back to reality. I cut him off, though. “It’s okay. So what do you think of this place so far?” I asked him, hoping to change the subject and avoid further damage.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m gonna really like bein’ here, it kinda sucks, y’know? I mean, I’m used to being in places where people are more… I don’t know. When I get weird looks for the way I dress, what are they gonna say when they find out other stuff? Somehow I think dyed hair and black nails are a rung below bisexuality on the ladder of sin. I mean, I’m really accepting and I don’t care what anyone does, that’s their business, but people here seem to have a…” and that’s when I stopped listening.

If my mind had a neck, it would’ve popped like a jack-in-the-box gone rogue from the double take it did at that moment. Jon was bisexual? Was he available? Oh my sweet fucking baby zombie Jesus on a pogo stick.

I couldn’t wait to see what he would say or do next. I wanted to say something, acknowledge the opportunity in front of me, do something to make my life better. I didn’t know how to do it, though. Instead, I kept my mouth shut so I could avoid looking like I was coming onto him and just watched. Now that I knew he wouldn’t freak out, maybe I could flirt a little.

It left me clawing desperately at that thin thread of hope that maybe life would get a little more bearable. It’d be nice to not think of waking up as torture anymore. Now, though, I was in his bedroom. I was also very, extremely, unimaginably, and several other adverbs that I can’t think of right now, high.

“Bi, huh? That’s nothing. Try being so queer the Baptists hide their sons from you.” Yeah, I said it. Why so surprised? You think I’m a coward? You’re right if you do. Even so, sometimes my safe, sane craven side is overpowered by an impulse. I blame teenage hormones. Jon’s eyes went a little wider, barely perceptible. Then he just smiled and walked toward the living room like nothing happened.

“Let’s see…” he trailed off, naming movie titles. I watched him bent over examining the cases, and had to keep myself concentrating on what he was saying.

“Anything works,” I said, sitting back on the couch against the wall. I closed my eyes and the world spun for a moment. That warm opiate-induced feeling emanated from my stomach and I smiled before opening my eyes to find Jon looking at me with a smirk.

“You still have your hoodie on,” he said. I raised an eyebrow, and then looked down, then back at him. “I was just wondering if you’re hot under there,” he said. I raised my eyebrow even higher when his smile widened.

“No shirt underneath,” I said, pulling up the bottom of the hoodie to flash my stomach at him.

“Oh, well, come back to my room, you can borrow one of mine. It’s gotta be hot in long sleeves, the AC in here is screwy,” he said. I hadn’t really noticed it being all that warm in the house. It was almost like he was angling to see me without a shirt on.

“But it requires movement and I’m stoned,” I whined. “Carry me!” I said, holding out my arms like a two-year-old. He laughed and snatched hold of one of my arms before he threw me into a fireman’s carry over his shoulders. “You nimfuck, I didn’t mean it, put me down!” It came out as a half-yell, half-laugh, and with no conviction behind it at all. This was like a hug, only better, and I hadn’t had a hug in a long, long time. It felt safe.

“Nimfuck?” he asked, walking to his room with me still hoisted over his shoulders. I let out a few other random half-hearted curse words before he tossed me easily onto his bed.

“Wow, I only met you like an hour ago, already tossing me in bed?” I asked, laughing. He gave me a wink and a growl.

“You know it, sexy.”

So, this boy was playing my game. If he wanted to flirt, I could flirt back. It made me hopeful, y’know? It had been a really long time since I felt wanted by anyone. My life was hell; Jon was an ice bath.