When Rayne did not answer him, Aldo unscrewed the lid from the moisturiser tub and began to gently apply the soft, white cream to his naked back. His flesh was still on fire. Aldo felt him wince more than just a couple of times as he worked the soothing solution into Rayne’s skin, though he did not protest. Occasionally he whimpered under his breath and Aldo guessed that the sunburn hurt like crazy. He had been blessed with a complexion that tanned naturally but this pretty little boy had a milk-white celtic hide. In the places where he was most sheltered from the sun – the smooth crevice between his arse cheeks and the backs of his knees – he was still that colour.
Aldo stroked the moisturiser carefully down his back and over his firm, silky buttocks before nestling a little closer. As he began to stroke Rayne’s upper arm, he touched his lips to the nape of the English boy’s neck and felt a little shiver run through him.
“Are you awake?” he whispered huskily. “Do you like that?”
“Leave me alone,” the boy croaked miserably, the first words he had spoken since storming off to hide himself here.
“Antonio thinks that someone should stay with you,” Aldo murmured against the back of his neck. His short black hair was cropped very close there and felt silky soft against his lips. Now he nuzzled the curve of Rayne’s skull through his hair, loving the clean, warm smell of his naked body.
“I’m not going to run away,” Rayne muttered sleepily. “I just want to lie still. Forever.”
“Can I lie with you?”
A little silence followed Aldo’s playful enquiry, then Rayne whispered; “Why?”
“Because I want to,” Aldo snuggled a little closer, careful of his companion’s sore back and bottom. “You feel so warm. I want to soak up some of your heat. May I hold you?”
“Who are you?” Rayne tried to turn but it hurt too much and he relented and lay where he had fallen. After a moment, Aldo got up and moved around to lie in front of him. Pale green eyes flickered restlessly up and down his body for a moment, then closed wearily.
Aldo touched gentle fingers to his reddened cheeks, then set about applying more cream.
“My name is Arnoldo Francesco di Boccato,” he said in a low, good-humoured, musical sounding voice. “But you can call me Aldo. I am to be your leading man if Daniel is to make this movie with you.”
Those impassive, peridot-green eyes opened wide and fixed on his face this time. For a little while Rayne just stared at him incuriously.
“I can’t make a film looking like this,” he exhaled at last. “I can’t even move without crying.”
“It won’t last. With enough moisture cream you may not even blister,” Aldo promised. “I have seen much worse sunburn, I promise you.”
Rayne lay motionless whilst he was ministered to, eyes closed tightly. Aldo noted that a jewel of salty wetness eased out from under one eyelid and ran down his small, upturned nose but he did not make a sound. From time to time he shivered like a restless horse shrugging off flies. The older man gently stroked his hands and tried to rub the cream into his forearms but he pulled away then, hugging his hands to his breast defensively.
“What is wrong?” Aldo whispered. “You let me touch your ass but not your hands? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. Leave me alone.” Rayne’s voice was gruff and husky with emotion.
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m tired.” Rayne half turned and buried his face in the pillows then changed his mind, clearly the friction was too much to bear. A little groan of frustration escaped him.
“You should eat. You will be tired if you don’t eat properly.” Aldo counselled gently.
“I’ve told Ant he’s not my mother and I’m telling you the same thing. I’ll only tell you once, okay!” Rayne curled up like an ammonite again, his arms folded across his chest, fists resting on their opposite shoulders. “Fuck off and leave me alone.”
“Dan is angry,” Aldo said, ignoring him and lounging on the mattress beside him. “We were to screen-test this afternoon. Now we cannot start until tomorrow.”
“He should have told me that this morning,” Rayne muttered, drawing his knees up closer to his chin. “He said we wouldn’t film for five days.”
“He should have done,” Aldo agreed. “I would have liked to spend this afternoon fucking you instead of being your nursemaid.”
One pale green eye opened and surveyed him critically, then closed again. “What time is it?” Rayne asked wearily.
“About half past ten.” Aldo stretched out on his back and began to stroke his lovely long penis with one greasy hand.
“Shit!” Rayne was sitting up at once. He swayed a little then tried to get to his feet. The floor lurched under him and he dropped to the boards with another curse. Aldo was after him like a shot.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to be somewhere. I arranged… I need to meet someone at eleven.” Rayne’s eyes were suddenly very wide and anxious. “It’s important.”
“We are at sea,” Aldo said slowly and precisely as if to a child. “You can’t go anywhere. Settle down.”
“We can’t… I…” Rayne waved his hands weakly, staring towards the doorway as if he could somehow see land through there in the corridor. “I need to go…”
Aldo caught his hands at once and steered him back to the bed, making him sit down. Even in the low light the boy’s pupils were tiny, his breathing was too fast. Now Aldo turned his hands over and ran his thumbs gently down the insides of his patient’s forearms. The pale, almost translucent skin of his wrists and the crook of his right elbow were patterned with fine, white scars. There were needle marks in his right arm, some which still bore the faint shadows of bruising.
“I’ve been ill,” Rayne said automatically, his eyes on the track-marks. “I was in hospital for ages. They had me on a drip and everything. Injections every day. It was awful. I’m better now.”
“My sister is a nurse in Turin. They would put in a central line,” Aldo said, unconvinced. He turned Rayne’s right hand over, then his left. There were small white burn scars but no needle marks on the backs of them.
“Couldn’t find a vein there,” the boy lied at once. “They had to take pot luck. Somewhere different every day.”
“Did they cut you in the hospital?” Aldo asked cynically.
Those icy green eyes bored into his head now, unblinking. Rayne’s lower jaw set stubbornly. He said nothing.
“Thought not,” Aldo nodded to himself. “I’m not criticising. But you can do better for yourself. What are you taking?”
Rayne wrenched his hands free and turned away curling up on the bed again. He buried his face in his arms and refused to look at Aldo. The older boy lay down beside him and stroked his hair quietly.
“Why did you cut yourself?” he asked at last. “You must have been hurting inside pretty bad to do something so dangerous.”
“What the fuck do you know?” Rayne’s voice was muffled and hoarse again.
“I know that someone who makes cuts on their wrists either wants to kill himself or he just needs to feel some pain, to let something out that’s building up inside him like steam in a pan with the lid on tight, no?” Aldo bent over him and kissed the top of his head. His hand ran down the back of Rayne’s neck and between his shoulder blades, then stroked back up again slowly. “When you bleed you feel, yes? And only then? So you were shutting something up tight inside you, a secret only you could know.”