Of Heaven and Hell Read online

  Bailey wished he’d had a second longer to say goodbye, but the pull toward the door was undeniable and it guided him toward a light. The last thing he remembered was how their fingers were the last to part.

  Sunrise

  SITTING AND looking through the open window, Bailey watched as the sun broke through the clouds and rose into the air over the distant horizon. He always woke early now, knew it to be the best part of the day when everyone else was still in their beds. He could gather his thoughts and think about the day ahead.

  Today he wanted to reminisce, think back to that day like he did from time to time—when he woke next to Greyson in the stillness of moonlight. He thought about the days after, when he was so consumed by his breaking heart. He’d woken from his drug-induced attempt at death with a clear head, but never questioned how they’d left his system without a trace.

  Time seemed to move quickly after that day, drifting into weeks and months, until he’d actually managed to get out of bed without crying. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but he had found the strength Greyson had told him to hold onto.

  Forty years had since passed, and with patience Bailey waited for his own end to come. Each day, sensing his lover watching over him, singing to him in the wind when leaves fluttered in the trees.

  He’d refused the advances of others, never looked at another man, and devoted his life to caring for others the way Greyson had done.

  He was ready now though, somehow aware his time was coming. So he watched from the window with his hand held open, hoping for fingers to entwine with his once again. Inhaling, he swore he could smell the scent of lavender and rose. He smiled.

  “I never could sneak up on you, could I?”

  Bailey closed his eyes and grinned, listening to his frail heart fluttering like a bird flapping its wings in a cage. “You always did try.”

  When he felt a hand closing over his, Bailey opened his eyes again and turned to look into aqua depths. Greyson was more beautiful than Bailey had remembered. He had forgotten how that crooked smile snaked across his face and brought a sparkling life to his eyes.

  Greyson’s face was covered in the gentle glow of the morning sun. “As are you. You’re as beautiful as the day we parted.”

  Shying away, Bailey tried to hide his face. “I’m an old man now.”

  Greyson chuckled and guided his face back to his; then he leaned in for a soft, lingering kiss. Bailey’s whole body trembled. When Greyson pulled an inch away, Bailey whimpered.

  “You’re perfect. The man I’ve always loved.”

  Bailey smiled, wishing this to be true. He knew time had turned him into an old man. Each day since their hearts had parted, his face had gained more wrinkles, his dark hair greyed to an almost white.

  “I can still see the man I fell in love with smiling back, the other part of my heart,” Greyson told him.

  Looking down at his hands, Bailey watched as his skin smoothed out until the wrinkles were no more. Liver spots faded away to be replaced with the soft, pink skin he’d once had. He was radiant with youth, and he smiled back at his husband.

  “Ready?” Greyson asked.

  Bailey nodded and allowed Greyson to guide him to stand. They held onto one another as light swirled around them, and Bailey whispered into his ear, “I’m glad you waited for me.”

  Bailey kissed Greyson, and from the corner of his eye he glimpsed fields of green as far as the eye could see. Flowers peppered the land, and they swayed in the gentle breeze.

  “I told you love doesn’t end simply because the heart stops beating,” Greyson reminded him, taking his husband’s hand and leading him toward an eternity together.

  Finally.

  M.C. RAYNE is a UK based author living in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Although he always had numerous stories fluttering around in his head, it wasn’t until he reached his thirties that he started writing them down. Since then, he hasn’t stopped writing.

  A massive fan of all things fantasy, and romance related, his current works are seeing him delve into these two genres to produce stories he enjoys reading, and is keen to share. However, he never sticks to one thing for long, and is aware his future writing may turn corners and venture down alleyways he never intended.

  At the moment he lives with two friends and his baby, a guinea pig by the name of Bean.

  M.C. Rayne can be found at:

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/SimplyMatt2

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MCRayneAuthor

  Website: https://mcrayneauthor.wordpress.com/

  HUBERT LOVED sitting next to Big Jimmy on the bus. He was jocular, he was loud, and though he might not have been “smart” by any elitist Hollywood definition, Big Jimmy knew everything there was to know about the Bible. He certainly knew everything about the Bible as Reverend Jarvis preached it, which Hubert and everybody else on the bus knew was the Holy Unbreakable Truth, and he wanted you to know it, too. Plus, under that thickening layer of fast food and French fries, a ravenous addiction to which everyone knew was Big Jimmy’s Cross to Bear, he was still all football-jock muscle, and Hubert thrilled when the pile of Big Jimmy’s thigh spilled just the littlest bit across his seat and pressed up against him.

  Not that it was about that. Hubert was drawn to Big Jimmy for his gregarious, backslapping nature and his unswerving dedication to setting others on the righteous path. Was his broad, beatific face wholesomely handsome? Did his big butt bounce around in his shorts like the beach balls Hubert had seen batted about by the crowd at a Third Day concert? Was the smell of cheeseburgers, cheap soap, and the pits of yesterday’s T-shirt that wafted off him maddeningly intoxicating? Perhaps. But if there was one message Reverend Jarvis strove to hammer home above any other—especially since last fall when the Demon Satan Himself had sent those loose teenage girls, all that cocaine, and those cops to his hotel room in Bakersfield to test him—it was that Passion is the Gravest Sin of Sins. And Hubert understood that a place in Paradise was infinitely more important than anyplace next to Big Jimmy more intimate than the shared seat of a school bus could ever be. He knew the desperate longing that swirled around him was his Cross to Bear, and he could only pray with a breast-beating fervor that the Lord would forgive him for those dark-of-night transgressions, when the visions the Demon sent him of Big Jimmy sitting on his couch watching television in nothing but an old jock strap proved more than his earthly hand could rise up and resist.

  Hubert also knew that spreading the news of Salvation was the surest way into the Lord’s heavenly heart, and his personal struggle dictated that he actively minister to the fallen, fornicating homosexuals, who desecrated the Divine Plan every time they kissed each other on a street corner or usurped a starring role in yet another situation comedy. “Leading America’s youth down the garden path away from the Lord is no laughing matter,” Reverend Jarvis had preached on more than one occasion. “Those who do not show an iron Will in the face of these trumped-up temptations will surely know no Grace!” The Amens! near-about raised the roof on the Worship Center.

  The Church of God’s Intended Love boasted four hundred sixty-three members, and Hubert had basked in the light of the Holy Unbreakable Truth as far back as he could remember. Ever since his “Fool Mama,” as Granddad called her, did “the only sensible thing she ever did in her life,” as Granddad called it, and left him as a toddler twenty-seven years ago to be “raised up right” with “the only man’s gonna stand between you and your fiery damnation,” as Granddad called himself. God’s Intended Love, Hubert knew, was of an upright man for his chosen woman and her undiluted devotion to her children. Anything that stood in the way of a man’s right to dominion over a family was a shameful affront to the Lord, and unmarried Hubert was often offered up to the congregation as a warning. “Scrawny, meek, a face we know not even a mother could love—do you suppose this was God’s plan? Of course it wasn’t. But Good Brother Hubert here fights against his failings every day, praying to the Lord for the miracle that w
ill one day help him stand up straight and see Salvation. He knows he brings shame on the Lord, but that doesn’t stop him from witnessing His Glory. You see him pray! You see him proselytize! You see him pass the collection plate—you’d better see him pass the collection plate if you want to see the Holy Unbreakable Truth represented at the Kauai Council of Churches next April! Will you do less for your Lord than this sorry supplicant? Jesus weeps on his throne at the prospect.”

  The Lord, everybody knew, had sent Reverend Jarvis to Earth to spread this unimpeachable word. And it was a vocation the Reverend Jarvis took to heart—just this last year he and pretty Annie Percival had taken the Lord’s message that a man must love a woman to the grateful people of Bora Bora, the Bahamas, and Paris, France. And they had plans to minister to the guests of an all-inclusive resort in Mexico at the end of next month. While Hubert yearned to be selected to testify on one of these missions abroad, he succumbed to a sinful flash of Pride each time the congregation was reminded that his personal struggle guaranteed—nay, mandated—that he be awarded one of the coveted seats on The Church’s one bus when it traveled the hundred and twenty verdant miles to shepherd the lost in San Francisco. “Convert us some queers!” as Big Jimmy liked to holler. “Right, Q-Bert, buddy?” The Lord spoke to Hubert quite plainly through Big Jimmy—the surge of want that electrified his body when Big Jimmy slapped him on the thigh a thrilling reminder of how very vigilant Hubert needed to stand.

  Tonight’s had been a particularly hot bus ticket, for if ever there was an opportunity to fight for America’s purity on the shores of a sea of degenerates, it was in the Castro on Halloween. Caroline Jarvis, the Right Reverend’s helpmeet, and her mannish assistant Robertann, from whom she was inseparable, had assembled their A-Team of testifiers—church members who had proven their resilience in the face of insults and inclement weather, and who knew enough to hold their signs still for any television cameras or liberal social-media fanatics. After all, these godless do-gooders did more to disseminate the Holy Unbreakable Truth in one mocking tweet or self-righteous Huffington Post editorial than her husband could do in a career of fiery, inspired sermons in a Worship Center no bigger than the lobby of the Radisson hotel where she and Robertann stayed on their annual pilgrimage to Palm Springs to save golf tournament spectators over Dinah Shore weekend. Many of the demonstrators, including Hubert, were chosen for their quiet, conflict-averse demeanor—the enraged fornicator hatefully spewing “tolerance” at the calm crusader a much more desirable photo op for The Church than, say, that unfortunate shot of her big oaf of a son-in-law clobbering a fairy with a folding chair at a rally to preserve the sanctity of Proposition 8—but Big Jimmy nevertheless had his place. He could overwhelm even the most vociferous heathen busybody with the strength—and volume—of his convictions, knew every Bible verse about Abomination by heart, and had never demonstrated so much as a flash of hesitation to defend the physical safety of the other members. While he’d started running to fat almost the same day he married Mary-Stephanie Jarvis, he still obviously relished his role as The Muscle.

  Conservative dress was expected of Church members at all times, God’s Love being Intended neither for harlots in miniskirts nor for mincing prettyboys in tank tops, but it was unequivocally required for Testimony. Hubert had never so much as tried on a pair of shorts—”If the Lord wanted you parading your legs around like you was selling yourself on a street corner, he wouldn’ta given you those pathetic popsicle sticks,” his granddad pointed out—and jeans were for “cowboys and queers,” but he’d been sure to wash his good putty-colored dress pants. Even his size small secondhand shirts hung off Hubert like potato sacks with snaps, but he ironed his snazziest one and tucked it in tight, slicked down his cowlick with all the spit he could muster; he knew the Lord would be watching this night, and he hoped He would notice how hard Hubert worked to make Him proud. After half an hour of circling the Mission, Robertann’s prayers were answered and a parking spot opened up alongside Dolores Park, close enough to walk to the Castro but far enough away that hopefully this year the bus wouldn’t get egged. Hubert scrambled from the bus and beseeched Caroline Jarvis for his favorite sign; a lime green, dog-eared piece of posterboard glued to a broom handle on which he’d painted “EVERYONE HERE/WILL BURN IN HELL IF YOU’RE QUEER/GET USED TO IT!!!”

  Once the signs had been distributed and a meeting time set for the bus ride back, Big Jimmy led the members in several rousing shouts of “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” as they marched up 18th Street to Castro, Hubert all but skipping alongside him in his excitement. He’d never been to a carnival or amusement park—those were for “jezebels and miserable godless punks,” according to Granddad—but he imagined the thrill of anticipation must be the same. He knew they’d get hollered at and sneered at and laughed at, and he’d heard of Church members getting shoved and even spit on, but life with Granddad had made him impervious to such everyday distractions. Even if he didn’t make the Lord proud or earn a kind word from Reverend Jarvis—and how he prayed that he would—he’d get to spend an entire evening in Big Jimmy’s orbit, watching him do what he did best: trying to shout Salvation into San Francisco’s most strident sinners.

  And everybody knew: if it was sinners you were after, no city had a more reliable supply than San Francisco. By the time the Church members were crossing Sanchez Street, Halloween—in the form of sexy stewardesses, witches, and shirtless Star Wars Stormtroopers—was swirling drunkenly around them. They could have settled into a spot on 18th and Noe and been able to preach to a veritable mob, but Big Jimmy would not be satisfied just with reaching the run-off. They had to shoulder their way through a wall of masked and made-up humanity to get there, but they eventually reached the corner of 18th and Castro and situated themselves in the thick of the throng. The smallest and the lightest among them, Hubert clambered atop a newspaper box and hoisted his hellfire warning sign. The streets were closed, and awash with revelers who dipped in and out of stores selling liquor and apartments blaring music; to his left, to his right, before him, behind him, party people as far as his eye could see, and he knew their only hope of attracting even a fraction of them was for him to rise above the rabble—literally, as on the newspaper box, as well as spiritually.

  Testimony was intended as a non-confrontational call to repent. Hubert and most of the other members stood silently, holding signs—Big Jimmy’s on a length of lead pipe, “just in case”—detailing the pitfalls of the disastrous homosexual lifestyle, while Caroline and Robertann distributed pamphlets packed with scriptural guidance to the righteous path and The Church’s donation website. At first, even Big Jimmy kept relatively calm, hollering at only the most insistent hecklers, understanding that condemnation was only a part of the program. It was true, Reverend Jarvis had preached, that the Lord is the only True Judge in a spiritual sense; it was He, for example, who would fling wide the gates of Paradise for members of The Church, and turn back the woeful throngs of sexual deviants and single mothers. But hadn’t He made us in His image? Wasn’t it therefore our job, he asked his congregation, to judge wrongdoers in His stead? Those who walked the righteous path were above petty jealousy and fun-making, but it was their duty to set those who’d strayed back on track. “Do you really imagine there will be a place for you in Paradise,” and here Reverend Jarvis often looked at Hubert, “if you pass up the opportunity to share the Word with others and deny them their chance to set themselves right?”

  And so Hubert proudly waved his sign. He wanted to stop each of the thousands of young men who passed by and tell him, I am like you. He knew he could serve as an example. Your desire for the Lord’s favor can be greater than your desire for carnal knowledge of your fellow he wanted to tell them. I know it because I live it. Hubert was no Bible scholar like Granddad or Big Jimmy, but if there was one thing he knew, it was temptation. Obviously, he wanted to tell the guy in the fur coat and the crazy half-black, half-white wig leading a nearly naked boy painted like a Dalmatian
through the crowd on a shiny red leash, I understand the attraction you feel. He’s got a darling face and a marble-hewn stomach and a little waggling white rump you just wanna eat with a spoon. But if you put some clothes on him and content yourself with the occasional handshake or brotherly hug, you can know a far greater love.

  And that’s saying something, he pretended not to hear himself think.

  It didn’t surprise Hubert that the street was crawling with devils and monsters and zombies and sailor-boys in nothing but Speedos and jaunty white hats; Halloween was Satan’s holy day, so naturally, his minions were out in full force, painted to look soulless and sinister, or stripped down to look sexy, which amounted to the same thing. But he was shocked by the gall of one golden youth, who seemed to be circling his newspaper box, to try and pass himself off as one of the Lord’s Heavenly Angels. Hubert couldn’t recall a time he’d seen such brazen blasphemy with his own two eyes, and his knees went wobbly every time the pretender caught his gaze. The kid had gone to great lengths, too—he flaunted a luminous halo of golden curls and extravagant feathered wings that gave every impression of sprouting right from his spectacular shoulders. He wore nothing but the suggestion of shimmery sheer shorts, and had dusted himself head-to-toe in what Hubert could only assume must have been some kind of radiant powder that swirled around him like an aura of sunshine, even here in the dark of night.

  Although his feathers must have brushed against everyone he passed, no one but Hubert paid him the slightest mind; he might as well have been invisible for all the impression he made, but he was riveted to Hubert. He didn’t approach, but nor did he stray from the vicinity, and finally Hubert clued in: he’d obviously dressed as an angel out of a longing to be right with the Lord and had taken the message on Hubert’s sign to heart, but was bashful to approach boisterous Big Jimmy or domineering Robertann. At last, the Lord had brought him a penitent pervert of his very own, and Hubert’s heart began to race. Thoughts pinballed through his head, the things he could say to bring comfort to this beautiful lost soul jostling into a jumble: Jesus loves you. There is hope if you repent and sin no more. Let me guide you; let me love you; let me embrace you and feel your robust manhood against—Okay, he’d probably better not say that last part. He probably shouldn’t have thought it. But no, it was good to feel that temptation—they could repent together; Hubert could lead by example! He was so ecstatic at the prospect he almost fell off his newspaper box.