Rentboy

cupboards. One of these days
    I’ll kill that bastard and bury his body in a place no one will ever find it.
    But no, that wasn’t a good idea. With one hand he reached up into the cutlery drawer and felt
    around until his fingers came into contact with a small, sharp paring knife.
    If the body is never found, we can’t collect the life insurance or get his military pension. The
    body will have to be dumped. It needs to look like a murder by some stranger, or an accident.
    Securing the knife handle in his palm, Fox looked at it. Slowly and deliberately he rolled up the
    long sleeve of his black shirt and looked at the inside of his forearm. The scars from the last time
    weren’t healed, and it was hard to find a spot between the cuts. Silence descended, but it was
    different from the silence of the house. It was like another place and time. A different-dimension kind
    of silence. His heart began to beat faster, and his breath came short and hard. It was someone else’s
    arm, not his; it had to be because there was no pain as he sliced through his flesh with the tip of the
    knife. The first cut was not deep, no more than a scratch. Blood beaded along the red line. In a trance,
    Fox watched it before making another, deeper cut, and then another deeper still until blood flowed
    freely over his arm, dripping onto his black jeans.
    The relief shot adrenaline through his body, followed by the euphoria that cutting always
    brought. With his eyes closed he leaned his head back against the cupboard and let the knife fall from
    his hand. Cutting was like a drug, and best of all, it was free.
    He had no idea how long he had sat there when a very quiet voice said, “Fox.” He opened his
    eyes to look up at the twins. Their beautiful faces, usually devoid of expression, looked pained.
    “Fox,” they said again in unison.
    Christ in heaven, I should have waited. I should have locked myself in my room. But when the
    urge came over him, he could not stop it. “I’m all right.” Pain shot through his arm, forcing him to
    come back to the present. “Give me a tea towel.”
    Alder took a tea towel from the drawer and knelt to wrap it around Fox’s arm while Arden
    picked up the knife. Even with the tea towel bandage, the blood quickly soaked through. The twins sat
    beside him on the floor in the silent house. Fox’s brutal bastard of a father was out, thank God, his
    alcoholic mother was passed out upstairs, and his twin siblings, who had never in their lives said any
    other word than Fox sat beside him, staring at him, uncomprehending.
    “The knife slipped when I was about to peel an apple. Silly old me. I’m such a butterfingers.”
    He grinned at them.
    Alder stroked Fox’s face and moaned.
    “I spilled hot tea on myself,” he explained. But they weren’t stupid. They knew what had
    happened.
    Arden stood and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. Sitting down again, she handed it to Fox,
    who took it and tossed it in the air, catching it again with one hand. The twins made a strange sound
    that Fox had come to recognize as laughter. He was all they had in the world, and he had to keep them
    safe. “We’ll be all right.” He stood, put the apple away, and washed the knife. “You can’t have
    finished the bathroom yet. Have you?”
    They shook their heads.
    “Why did you come down?”
    Arden made a hitting gesture, and Alder copied.
    “You heard him? Come on, let’s go upstairs. He’s gone out for a while. I have to sleep, and you
    can finish the bathroom, then play in your room on your computer. Later I’ll take you to the park; then
    I’ve got to do some work in studio this afternoon, so you’ll have to be really good when I go out.” He
    hugged them close. “But you’re always really good, aren’t you?”

    * * * *
    The smell of oil paint and brush cleaner filled Fox’s nostrils as he walked into the studio at

    Wimbledon College of Art. It calmed him almost as much as cutting calmed him. Tossing his faux
    leather backpack onto the floor by his easel, he felt again the throb in his arm.
    “Hi, Fox.” A tall, full-figured girl with a round, happy face wound her way between the easels,
    smiling at him. She’d had the hots for him since classes began last September, and he liked her a lot.
    He really should tell her he was gay, but what did it matter anyway? It wasn’t like he had a boyfriend
    or anything.
    “Hi, Nik. Are you working on the skull project?” he asked. One of their assignments