WHERE RAY IS
By
Nikki Harrington
A companion piece to With The Rising Of The Sun.
Fraser is thinking about home.
An established relationship story.
Written: August 2009. Word count: 500.
Completely naked, Ben stood at the window looking up at the moon. Not for the first time he rued the fact that it, like the stars, like the sunrise, the sunset, like the sky itself, was almost muffled by buildings, streetlamps, pollution, and a city that never truly grew dark.
He felt, as he often did, closed in; trapped; caught; shackled; sometimes he found it hard to breathe in all the hustle and bustle, the noise, the people, the buildings, the cars, the fumes, the rubbish. It was all so oppressive; so heavy; it weighed him down.
He often longed for the open spaces, the quiet, the purity, the beauty, the cold, the freedom, the cleanness, the innocence of Canada. Of home.
But then he turned and looked at bed where his lover - where Ray - slept, one arm thrown across his eyes, as if trying to shut out the light, shut out the world, and he knew. He was home. He was home because Ray was home.
One day he hoped they could leave Chicago, could leave the city, could maybe go to Canada, or at least move to somewhere less congested, less built-up, less noisy, less confining. But wherever they went, that would be home, because home was wherever Ray was. Home was Ray.
Yes, he still longed for Canada. But he longed more for Ray's arms for Ray's kisses for Ray's caresses for Ray's voice telling him he loved him for Ray's eyes confirming his words; for Ray. Even though he had all those things, he never stopped longing for them, never stopped wanting more, never stopped needing more. Sometimes the level of his love for Ray surprised him, he had never been sure he would be capable of such depth. But Ray had shown him he was. Ray had shown him so many things. But most of all Ray had shown him what home was like.
And now that he'd found his home, now that he had found his Ray, he wasn't going to give it up. He turned back to the window and once again looked at the moon, full and heavy in the sky. Suddenly it all seemed so much clearer; suddenly the muffled look vanished, and he was seeing the moon of his childhood; seeing the moon open and free.
He smiled to himself, knowing that wasn't really the case. It was simply that he was seeing it through the eyes of a different man, through the eyes of a man in love, through the eyes of a man who had a home; seeing it through the eyes of a man for whom home was a person, not a place.
He heard a slight noise behind him and turned to find Ray now awake and watching him. Ben held out his hand and waited until Ray slid from the bed and, as naked as Ben was, walked across the room to join him and watch the moon as she kept guard over the city.
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