It started a long time ago… this dream of mine… this obsession of mine. It starts with red… everything is red. I look at my hands and they are covered. I look at the walls and they are covered. I look at the bed and the bedding and they are soaked. I look at him and there is nothing left. Flesh and muscle and bones have been ripped and beaten and ground into unrecognizable bits. I look at his head and all I see are parts… eyeballs laying in the bloody mess looking at me as if they could still see me… following me no matter where I go.

As I stand looking down at this mess, I feel a hand on my shoulder and jump not knowing that there was anyone else in the room. Turning my head I can feel my face drain of whatever blood is running though the veins there as I see him standing next to me shaking his head with a sad smile on his face. For once in my life I am speechless. My jaw opens and closes like a fish out of water seeking air. My head swivels back and forth looking from the mess on the bed to the man standing next to me not comprehending.

Slowly my hand rises to touch his shoulder and the solidity of it frightens me. With both my head and my body shaking I try and speak… try to ask him how he could be here when he is dead… mutilated by my hands, but no sound comes out and a sad sigh escapes his lips. "It is not me in that bed my friend… it is you."

My denial bursts loudly from my chest, but he just watches me as his eyes fill with tears. "I always told you Scott. Someday you'll just come to a bloody end." I lift my arms to shield myself from his eyes, but I find that they can no longer move… I try to turn and run but my legs won't work any more… I try to cry but my eyes won't form the tears. I look to the bed again and realize that those eyes are still watching me… and then in my horror I realize that he is right. Those eyes are mine.

That is always where it ends. Bolting up in bed with my chest heaving I feel my hands roaming over my body searching for unfamiliar wounds. Getting up I stumble to the shower turning the water on as hot as it will go ignoring the pain as it burns my skin. Always I end up huddled on the bottom of the bathtub sobbing for forgiveness always afraid… always knowing that this dream is nothing more than a foregone conclusion… just not sure how… or why.

I have committed some of my most heinous acts after that dream… and received my worse torment. Raven is always stronger after it and I am stuck with him for days telling myself that he is but protecting me from myself… or him. For a long time I just held all the emotions wrought from that dream in… until Stevie. He was my first… he was my fall into sin. He was my first cut both given and received. He was my first gag also given and received. He was the first time that I admitted that there were parts to me that needed things that would make most of society lock me up as deviant and obscene.

In my innocence I thought him beautiful… the blood covering his pale tan and the screams and crying coming from his lips like some erotic song. He couldn't fool me. No matter how much his lips begged me to stop and pleaded with me to let him free… his eyes begged for more and always it was more that he received. My days were spent battling my obsession in my ring of torture and my nights were spent battling my dreams. Stevie would have been good… would have been forever if Stevie hadn't turned into such a bitch.

His confusion was maddening. If I didn't hurt him he'd pout and tell others I was abusing him. If I did he'd tell them the same. His words grew abusive and as a result so did mine. Hatred and self-loathing grew between us and inside us. In time I reached the brink and in one quick moment was sure that he had hurdled me over the edge. Strung out and drunk I couldn't remember any longer if I was the abuser or the victim. My body contained wounds worse than anything I put on his body that no one ever saw and yet it was HIS PAIN that I was being crucified for. But what about mine? What about MY PAIN?

And then the moment was gone. Just as I was sure I had fallen into the realm of no return I somehow through blind luck found myself saved and propelled into the land of salvation… only there was no God here that wanted me. Stevie was gone and I was alone to suffer with my dreams. It was time to find someone new.

It didn't take any longer than it does to breathe air into my lungs. Before I even thought to look I had a new mate… only this one didn't like to share roles. It was his way or nothing… and his way wasn't pretty. Pain… not just pain but the kind of pain that wounds didn't heal from was his game. I thought that I had been saved… and maybe I was… but not by Justin. My savior came later…

Justin liked to maim… Justin liked to break and bleed until you passed out because you had lost too much. Justin was seriously fucked up… not that I noticed. You never do 'til you get rid of him. Even with the reputation that I have people grew worried. But they never suspected what was really going on. Justin was better at playing the game that Stevie was. Never once did I put a mark on his body and yet… he was always the victim.

Even my obsession told me something had to change. "You're gonna end up dead Kid. Some day there ain't gonna be nothing left." I had the dream every night for a month after that… somehow his words were too close to the others for comfort… my dream was slowly becoming reality. I started betting on my own death. I wished for it. I begged for it. I longed for it with a passion that not even my chosen career received any longer. I wanted the dream to come. I needed the dream to come. But always it seemed just out of my reach as if IT was going to decide when it was time not I.

Enter my savior. Some how… some way… I found myself cleaned up (at least from the drugs and the booze) and standing in the bright lights of paradise and as I looked around the backstage area of the WWF my eyes fell on an angel. Hazel eyes made green by contacts. Dark hair made every color of the rainbow by dyes. The face of an angel and the obsessions of… well… what they perceived was me.

For once in my life I was glad for my reputation. I thanked the Gods and the devil for giving it to me. Despite my torment and my attempted self destruction I had managed to survive with the thought firmly implanted in people's minds that it was I that was the giver of pain... not the receiver. Of course it didn't hurt that Stevie was there… I am sure already spreading not so good tidings of repulsion about me.

Luckily for me it only fed the fantasy for my little Jeff. Bold as a Madame and innocent looking as a babe he bounced into my life hooking me with two little words that were irresistible. "Hurt me." God what a concept. After living in the dark hell that was Justin for so long here was my chance to give some of what I had received. And so hurt him I did. Night after night and day after day until sometimes I wondered if he was going to survive. Or if I was going to end up in jail, but always he brushed the though out of my mind with the sweet look on his face as he stood on his tiptoes and whispered into my ear, "hurt me." And saved I was once more time.

I kept saying that I had to stop. I told myself that what I did to him was wrong. I insisted that there had to be more to my life that this. My lift became a blur with Jeff and Stevie both wanting my attention… and then Justin was hired and the roller coaster really got out of control. There was no stop. There was no slow down. It was all just one long neck-breaking ride through the land of pain both given and received. It got so that I couldn't remember whom I was with. And then before I knew what had happened they were all gone. And I was back where I started with nothing more that myself and my dream.

I know him well, my obsession. Over the years we had become great friends. We have drank together, smoked together, fucked and fought, but never… not even once did I tell him about the dream. I am not sure how he would respond to it. I know that most of the lifetime of our friendship I have gotten that look from him… that look that said… "kid, you're gonna end up nowhere but dead." But then looking back on my life I am surprised that I haven't ended up dead… Look how long I tried to accomplish it.

Announcers scare me sometimes with the things they say. He wrestled tonight. Standing in the locker room he was so close to me that I could have touched him… or fucked him… or been fucked by him, which is the most likely scenario. But none of these happened. I just stood there watching him like I always do with a grin on my face and a need in my heart and my groin. As he came out for his match they shouted like peasants welcoming the return of their hero shouting, "He's returned! Sandman's back!" And watching the screen all I could think was yes he is.

I had the dream the night before… predictable as I always have it before I know that I am going to see him after we have been parted for an extended period of time. There must have been something in my eyes, some sign of need, some longing for pain… received or given because he took one look at me and nodded saying, "I see Raven's out early tonight."

He's not always you know. I am capable of appearing or rather acting like a normal functional human being. I am told I can even be rather entertaining and amusing, but not when I am Raven. He is never either of those things and Raven I was. Wordlessly I nodded looking into his eyes with some tinge of desperation possibly. It had been so long since I filled the need or at least tried to fill it with someone that wasn't him.

Jeff once said something that was frightening… well more than one, but one thing that specifically that fit this tale. One night after a dream and after I had worked it out of my system he asked he why I got these moods and for some reason I told him the truth. I explained the dream in great detail knowing that he of all people would not be afraid of it or get squeamish from it. In one of those moments of clarity when you realize how much more there is to him that just some bouncy pain freak he said quietly, "It'll never go away you know."

"Not until you let him hurt you."

I wondered long after that how he knew that or even why he thought that, but he would never answer me. Instead he just looked at me with a sad look on his face not speaking. I decided that I didn't want to know. The possibilities are frightening. With my luck I would find out he was in love with someone… God help us maybe even me.

Standing there in the locker room that night that prophecy kept roaming through my head inhumanely. Even as I stood in the ring it echoed making my dream roam around in my mind and giving my promo that slight tint of darkness that Raven is famous for… bloody dreams. I wished them on Father Mitchell, but the truth is I wouldn't wish my dreams on anyone… not even myself.

I tried to push it away. I walked to the back and into the shower ignoring everyone… everyone but my obsession that is. I couldn't have missed him if I wanted to. Sitting on a bench nursing old wounds… more than one inflicted by me in some ring. His eyes though followed me with a look that should have frightened me… if it were not for the fact that they held the promise of places we had never ventured.

Sure pain had entered our… play time in the past, but never like I needed from him and never like his eyes were promising me now. I stood in the shower letting the water beat over my head. I knew what I wanted… Or thought I did, but some how for some reason suddenly I was confused. My own mind was unclear to me and I couldn't find my way back to it. Giver or Receiver… that was the prophecy I couldn't understand suddenly. My wants and my needs were blurring together with what I had programmed myself to believe I was and try as I might I couldn't find my way out of the maze.

"Are you coming out of there or are you gonna stay til you melt?" I heard him ask and shuddered as his voice shot through my veins like molten lava bringing everything to life… or was that death? I didn't answer and the truth of the matter was that I couldn't. I heard his boots making their way across the wet tile of the shower floor and I expected the feel of his hand on my shoulder, but yet I still jumped when it happened.

When he turned me I must have looked like a deer caught in a car's headlights for he looked at me cocking his head to one side. He hadn't taken a shower and I could smell the beer on him from his show and it intoxicated me as if I had drunk it myself. "What do you want?" He asked softly and I knew… I KNEW what I wanted. But when I opened my mouth it was the Carolina Bunny that spoke as if speaking through me like a psychic calling the dead. "It won't go away until you hurt me."

I watched his eyebrow raise and a cocky smirk appear on his face as my whole being rested in his hands. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my life or death rested in his answer. Like always in our relationship he was there when I needed him most. "Well then bitch get your ass out of the fucking shower and get it dressed. If I get arrested with you tonight it ain't gonna be for indecent exposure."

Nodding not sure what I had done I rushed out and threw on some clothes not paying attention or whether they matched or not and frankly not caring. I picked up my bags and started to head for the door when I felt a sharp blow to the head as he passed me. He'd hit me hard enough for stars to dance before me eyes and I stared at the back of his head part hurt and part angry as he threw over his shoulder, "Don't forget my stuff bitch."

So like some servant in the long gone south I hauled his bags and mine out to his car packing them in the trunk and just barely got into the passenger's seat before he pulled away burning rubber in his haste. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered my own rental but quickly pushed it away not caring about such trivial things. Unsure what to think of him or myself I watched him in an almost zombie like state until I saw him lips curl with annoyance. "I never said that you could look at me bitch." Quickly I dropped my eyes and growled softly.

My night didn't appear to be getting any better. When we reached the hotel it was my job to haul all of our things inside even though the majority of it could have remained in the trunk unneeded for the night. As I was setting the things down in the room I again received a blow to the head dazing me and as I turned to object I found myself being knocked onto my ass. Angrily I looked up at him, with my lips curling with rage. "You asked for this bitch not me. So do NOT look at me like that or I will skin you. How bloody you get tonight depends upon you not me."

That last sentence made me cower like no other could. It felt like every bad emotion that I had ever felt was flooding my brain, but yet he looked down at me without an ounce of pity on his face. "Make up your mind, bitch. Giver or receiver… yes or no. I ain't got all night genius."

I didn't understand why he was pushing me like this. My confusion returned and the clarity I had five minutes before fled like dust in the wind. Growling with a rage I didn't understand I lunged at him, spearing him back onto the bed where he had moved to stand near and not pausing to think as I punched and tore ripping clothes from his body and covering his skin with welts and bruises.

I didn't pause to see that he wasn't defending himself.

I didn't pause to look into his eyes.

I dug my fingernails into his skin tearing at his flesh. I dug my teeth into his chest drawing blood, but not even that seemed to calm me. I tugged at the old tattered jeans ripping them off all but the waistband which held on like the soldier who still believed in patriotism. I walked to our bags scattering the contents everywhere until I found a tube of gel and marched back to the bed.

I should have paused when I saw he had rolled onto his knees… but I didn't.

I should have stopped when I couldn't see his face… but I didn't.

I should have known when I couldn't see his eyes… but I didn't.

Instead I smeared the sticky gel over my fingers sliding them inside him not exactly gently. If I had been able to see his face I would have known that I was making a mistake, but I couldn't and in my… rage or psychosis or whatever what going on in my head it never occurred to me that this wasn't the smartest thing I have ever done in my life.

Working my fingers around I struggled to stretch him and maybe there was some small bit of sanity left in my brain for doing that at least. But obviously it wasn't much for as one hand was doing that the other was covering my cock with more gel. Without pausing for a breath… without stopping to consider the ramifications of my actions I removed my fingers from his body and slid my cock in… although somewhat more tender than my fingers had entered, but not enough to save me. My very presence there sealed my doom.

I reached a hand around to cover his cock as the other supported my weight on his hip, but found it batted away. Again… that should have been a sign… should have been a warning… should have been a clue, but it wasn't and so I pressed on recklessly pounding in and out of his ass and when I came it was with a roar akin to something a warrior would cry on the field of battle in ancient times when men fought hand to hand with nothing more than swords.

My release was my weakness although I didn't realize it until it was too late. No sooner had I pulled out than I found myself flipped over on the bed hitting my skull on the baseboard and looking up into the eyes of an emotion I have never witnessed before. As the fever of whatever it was that had overcome me cooled all of the warnings I should have heeded sooner came rushing to the surface and I knew deep in my heart that the dream just very well may come true.

I opened my mouth to speak only to find a hand around my throat like a vise making sure that I could not utter a sound. "I think, bitch that for one night you have done enough things that you were not permitted to. If I were you I would NOT commit the sin of speech." My understanding must have registered in my eyes for God only knows it could not have come from my lips. Slowly his hand rose off my throat and he eased from the bed leaving me to cough and gag as I gasped for air.

Turning onto my side I watched him look around then pick a smaller bag up, which I vaguely remembered tossing out of a larger one earlier. His chest was riddled with hand prints, scratches and bite marks and as I fought to regain my composure I wondered what I had been thinking…. Then I remembered that I hadn't been… thinking that is. I watched him pick various items out of the bag wondering why I never knew that he owned such items then forgot to think as he looked up at me.

His hands were tucking various things through the tattered remains of the jeans clinging to his waist…. Handcuffs and a studded whip where slipped through, black metal nipple clamps attached by a chain were added, and a leather cock ring with studs and two loops seemed to finalize the mixture making my eyes widen and my face loose what little color it had.

Something in my head kept screaming that I had been through much worse than this, but it was fighting a losing battle. As Jim stomped back to the bed I turned and scooted back until my back was resting against the headboard, but it was useless. There was no escape from this and I knew it. Somewhere along the way Jeff had been muted and I weakly wished that he would come back for his tiny presence might have reminded me what I could survive.

Jim lifted the hand cuffs and tossed them at me hitting me in the lip. If I had felt like Raven I would have made some smart assed comment about what he wanted me to do with them, but for some reason Raven had deserted me. For the first time in my life I had absolutely no idea who I was and it wasn't making this any easier. Not taking my eyes off of him I put the hand cuffs on with difficulty hoping that he had the key somewhere. "Put your arms on top of your head," he commanded speaking for the first time and quietness of his tone gave me goose bumps. If my safety wasn't an issue in my head before it certainly would have been now. I had heard that tone from Jim a handful of times, but tried not to think of them because they made even Raven squeamish.

Next came the nipple clamps and having Jim that close to me in the state he was in was more than slightly unnerving. After placing one on each nipple, he tightened them much harder than anyone but possibly Jeff could have enjoyed, but then that was probably the point. I tried not to wince, but it eventually became impossible not to make a sound. I think that may just have been what he was waiting for because as soon as I whimpered he stopped tightening them smiling darkly and my eyes closed too frightened to see anything else.

That though was a mistake. My sightless state rendered me unable to prepare myself for what was coming up and so when the studs of the whip dug into my skin I screamed more from startle than pain. As my eyes flew open looking at him with a wounded expression he just tisked at me. "Keep 'em open and you will know what is coming next time."

For a quick moment Raven flared up and I wanted to cry out that I was bring punished unjustly, but the marks I had put on his chest called me a liar pushing him back into wherever he was hiding. Then once more Jim was in front of me taking my cock into his hands as he placed on the cock ring snapping one loop on behind my balls and the other just below the tip.

The pain from the nipple clamps was excruciating, and silently I dammed myself for enjoying it as I felt my cock hardening. I tried to tell myself that it was from Jim fondling my cock, but again I wasn't letting myself off easily. I watched Jim hoping that keeping my mind busy would take my mind off the pain and again he looked around them room… this time apparently looking for his CD's. After several moments of looking and glaring at me he found them hiding behind a chair and walking over to the room's stereo popped the CD in selecting one song which was put on repeat.

Jim had always been one some odd mission to find a song that described me perfectly and about three-ish years ago he said he found it. He even bought me the band's CD and highlighted the song on the song listings on the back of the case so I wouldn't forget, but I stubbornly refused to listen to it. I didn't want to know what Jim thought of me… it scared me. But now I was being given no choice. And as Staind's Epiphany came on I winced as the lyrics ripped through me.

Your words to me just a whisper
Your face is so unclear
I try to pay attention
Your words just disappear

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

So I speak to you in riddles
'Cause my words get in my way.
I smoke the whole thing to my head
And feel it wash away
'Cause I can't take anymore of this,
I want to come apart,
or dig myself a little hole
Inside your precious heart

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

I am nothing more than
A little boy inside
That cries out for attention,
Yet I always try to hide
'Cause I talk to you like children,
Though I don't know how I feel
But I know I'll do the right thing
If the right thing is revealed

'Cause it's always raining in my head
Forget all the things I should have said

Ruthlessly the song played over and over and each time the words pierced me more and more. I tried desperately to push the feelings away that they brought to my heart, but they wouldn't go away. Feeling betrayed I looked at Jim… a man I had called friend longer than almost any other. Stone faced he watched he unmoving for a long time. Then as he spoke, quietly yet his words ringing in my ears as if he'd screamed, he advanced upon me the whip hanging at his side.

"You asked me to hurt you, Scott. Did you think that I would waist my time beating you pointlessly like all the other little fools you have associated yourself with? Pain should be for a reason Scott. Pain should have a meaning and a perspective. Simply inflicting pain to inflict pain is meaningless. I wanted to make sure that you knew why I was hurting you Scott. And now you know."

Kneeling on the bed in front of me he let the whip fly as he continued talking and I wasn't sure what hurt worse… the studs or the words. "You have treated me like a fucking WHORE for too long Scott Levy. Crawling into my bed when your bitches and your tormentors got too much for you expecting that I FIX YOU and yet in the morning you always scurried away leaving me to feel like some fucking prostitute. I have loved you and cared for you more times than God knows you deserved letting you crumble my self esteem into nothingness just because I wasn't as pretty as the others or as willing to buy into your self pity."

"I love you you goddamn fool, but I am not taking your CRAP ANY MORE! You will NOT treat me like I am a whore worth nothing more than some crumpled bills left on a nightstand. Hell I never even got that from you. It is time that you make a motherfucking DECISION SCOTT. You need to decide if you want to completely self destruct or if you want to live and be happy. You have one last chance with me motherfucker and then there's no more. No fucking, no fighting, no hanging out, not even a phone call… NOTHING! Do you understand?"

I knew there were tears running down my cheeks and blood running down my chest, but it was nothing to the shambles he had left inside of me. It was as if his words had acted like a bomb crushing everything I was leaving a waste of nothingness behind him. I watched him toss the whip aside and cried out when he yanked off the clamps tossing them aside as well. But my eyes widened as he crawled towards me on his knees until he was straddling me pressing his body as close to mine as he could.

My chest heaved with sobs I didn't even know I was letting out as one of his hands cradled my chin. Slowly his head lowered towards me and by the time his lips touched mine my eyes were shut, but that didn't diminish my sight any. In my head I could see everything as if watching through some non existent camera. His other arm rose and that hand touched my stubble covered head moving it in a circle as my lips parted and our tongues touched.

I had kissed Jim before surely and yet suddenly I couldn't remember a single one other than the one that was happening right them… like none of the others had mattered. Forcefully our tongues danced as if each trying to claim dominance, but just then I heard Jeff's voice in my head whispering to me. "Just give in," he urged and for once I listened to him and in that second everything changed.

The kiss evolved. Slowing down and heating up. Jim's hands became restless roaming over my body stroking my wounds and pressing into them. Relieving pain and at then causing more. The perfect combination as if he just knew what I wanted. My arms fell looping around his neck imprisoning him where he was because I needed him close to me not because I wanted control.

One of his hands dropped to the bedding as if searching for something and when he broke the kiss I thought I would die from the loss. He leaned back as far as my arms would allow reaching again for something I couldn't fathom and when he came back holding the tube of lube I blushed not having thought of that, but pulled him back needing his lips on mine once more.

I could feel his hands fumbling and barely realized that he had released my aching cock until I felt a cool sticky substance being rubbed over it again. This time it was me that broke the kiss and my chest heaved for air as I looked at him slightly confused.

He had an adorable crooked grin on his face as his eyes sparkled at me. "You then me," he said and I nodded as if I understood what that meant. When he sat down upon my cock though thinking went out the window and this time I was happy that I was able to watch his eyes as he road me and when I came, sooner than I liked because I had already come once earlier, it was his name that was screamed from the bottom of my soul.

"I'm sorry," he breathed in my ear before ducking from the circle of my arms and grabbing my ankles pulling me to the end of the bed giggling slightly when my head bounced off the headboard. Squeezing more lube out into the palm of his hand he warmed it briefly before coating his fingers and slipping them inside of me. My head fell back as he worked to stretch me making sure to brush my sensitive spot with his fingers as he stroked in and out, back and forth.

My mind which was normally always active had come to a screeching halt and I could not have formed a coherent thought had my life depended on it. All that it saw, all that it felt, all that it knew was Jim. I watched him lean over and kiss my stomach just before straightening and easing himself into me. The look on his face was worth any pain I had suffered to bring me to this point.

It was like a man who had come home after a long absence and for a moment my heart hurt for putting him through that. But then he moved… and all I knew again was him. If I was Jeff I could probably remember every second of that coupling and put it into some pretty poem, but I'm not. I am after all only one Scott Levy. All I can tell you is that it wasn't the hottest fuck of my life, or the hardest, or maybe even the best, but it was the one that I will hold the closest to my heart, because it was the one that finally ended the dream.

Jeff was right. In order to end the dream I had to let him hurt me…. Hurt me in a way that no one else could and kill whatever it was inside of me that was hell bent of destroying me. But what he didn't say… or maybe what he said and I refused to remember was that it was the healing part that would keep it away.

I never had the dream again after that. Not once. Jim and I didn't become come old gay couple that walked down the street holding hands, but I did give up the others… or at least most of them. For some reason my relationship with Jeff evolved after that as well, but Jim didn't seem to mind because Justin and Stevie were gone at least. Somehow he had changed me that night in that bed and in some strange way his dream prophecy had been right. I had come to a bloody end.

But neither of us complained. I had peace for the first time in my life and he had what he had been after all along. A part of my heart that belonged to him and no other and he had some bloody dreams to thank for it.

The End!