RAYNAR
He’d been sitting in his usual spot in the living room. Everyone knew it was his spot because he cleaned it regularly. Everyone knew he was a clean freak; it came with his job. Sure, they’d
seen the places he had cleaned, but they hadn’t seen them a day after or even a couple hours after.
The smell only grew worse and worse as it sat there. Sometimes it took him hours to clean certain places because they had left the body there for him to dispose of first or he was busy cleaning something else. Either way, it wasn’t fun, but it was his job. One he did well.
Raynar sighed and pushed himself off of the seat. He was sitting around the living room waiting for Rogan to walk by. Every once in a while, he would sit and watch as people went by because he had nothing better to do. But he was there to look at Rogan whenever he came and went.
It was no secret Raynar was bisexual, and he didn’t try to hide it, but he also didn’t want to flaunt it either. He always kept his staring to a minimum whenever he was at the main house. Raynar didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, but he couldn’t help it either.
No one was going to understand him being a switch here. So, he looked but didn’t show any interest. He didn’t want it to get out that he was a switch. Theirs was a male dominant field and he needed to be dominant to show them they didn’t have to worry about him.
The last thing he wanted was for them to question his ability to do his job.
Raynar started to walk toward the front door. He wasn’t going to get to see Rogan and part of him didn’t want to. He’d embarrassed himself, showing his Little side to Rogan when he didn’t want to.
“Raynar!” Kirk yelled his name.
He forced a smile on his face and turned around. “Yes?” Everything in him was hoping they didn’t have a job for him to do.
“Just wanted to check in on you,” Kirk said. “See if you needed any help.”
Raynar scoffed. “Cause you would help me clean up the blood, piss, and puke off the floor.” Kirk grimaced.
That was what he thought. No one ever wanted to help clean, but everyone always wanted in on the action. Well, almost everyone. Raynar didn’t want any part of it.
“Yeah, well, not that, but anything else.”
He sighed and shook his head. “No, I don’t need any help.”
“Do you think we could host another party at your house?” Dane asked as he walked over.
“When is it?” Raynar asked, cautiously. He hoped it was on a weekend so he had an excuse to say no. Last time they’d cleaned up after themselves, but the clean freak inside of him had to clean the whole house right after the last person left. He’d been exhausted and slept for half a day.
“I don’t know for sure,” Kirk answered. “We’re still trying to figure out some things but maybe soon?”
“Do I know who the party is being thrown for or what the occasion is?” Raynar asked.
He didn’t let just anyone into his house. It was his sacred place where he could be whoever he wanted to be and didn’t have to pretend.
“Storm and Miles,” Dane replied. “We’re thinking of throwing them a little party. Show them we accept Storm as family.”
“Would it be soon or in a couple of months?”
Kirk and Dane shrugged their shoulders. “At least a month out,” Kirk said.
“We wanted to use your house since you keep it so clean,” Dane explained.
Kirk elbowed him in the ribs.
“What are you hitting me for?”
“You’re not supposed to say that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth.”
“Because it’s impolite, but I guess you wouldn’t know that since you’re off on your own all the time.”
Dane glared at Kirk. He was an assassin for the Ricci Crime Family. Most of his jobs he was on his own and was rarely at the main house. He lacked some social skills and cues.
“It’s fine,” Raynar said, waving his hand. “Just let me know when you have a date and I’ll see if I can do it.” “Thank you,” Kirk replied.
“Do you keep your house so clean because of your job as the cleaner and getting rid of bodies?” Dane asked.
“Dane!” Kirk exclaimed. “Stop.”
“I’m just curious. No one has asked him this question and I want to know.”
Raynar shook his head. When Dane wanted to ask a question, he asked it no matter how bad it was. It was who he was.
“Yeah, that’s part of the reason. I see a lot every day and I want a clean house,” Raynar replied. That was part of the reason. His house growing up had also been a pigsty and he’d hated it but couldn’t do anything about it. Once he’d tried cleaning up, but his dad yelled and slapped him, telling him it wasn’t his stuff so don’t touch it.
Maybe it was part of the reason why he loved to have a clean house and it just grew into being a clean freak. He kept everything spotless so that when there was a mess, it didn’t take long to clean up. But if several people were over at his house, then he had to clean everything, even if people didn’t enter the room. He would know he didn’t clean it and wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it until it got done.
“So what came first? You being an amazing cleaner or you being a clean freak?” Dane asked.
“Dane!” Kirk said. “Shut the hell up.”
“No and you can’t make me.”
“If you don’t want to answer it, Raynar, you don’t have to. You know how Dane can be.”
“Cleaner first. My dad was the previous cleaner and I learned from a young age,” Raynar replied. It wasn’t a lie. When he was old enough to talk and understand things, his dad started to take him along to jobs to learn and help out.
Dane opened his mouth again and Raynar kept his expression neutral. He didn’t want to answer any more questions. Dane liked to pry into people’s lives by asking questions until they answered. Raynar often wondered why he wasn’t interrogating people. Maybe it was because he lacked self-control sometimes and he would kill the person if they said something wrong.
That was probably why.
Before Dane could ask his question, Raynar’s phone started to ring. It was a specific ringtone for a specific person. Rogan. He felt his cheeks heat up as he pulled his phone out.
“I’ve got to answer this,” he said to Dane and Kirk.
Kirk wiggled his eyebrows at him before they walked away.
“Hello?” he said.
“Raynar?” Rogan said through the phone.
“Yes? Do you need anything?” Raynar didn’t tell him he was about to leave.
“Could you come downstairs to the basement and clean up some blood and puke?”
Raynar held in his sigh. It was always a clean-up job and never anything else. He shouldn’t have been expecting anything else, since there wasn’t anything between them. But he wished there was and hoped with each phone call he was going to say something else besides ‘Can you do a cleanup?’.
“Is there a body?” Raynar asked.
“No body this time. Not a regular thing, just some blood and vomit,” Rogan replied. “I know you were about to go home and relax since we don’t have anything for the next couple of days. I’ll make it up to you.”
Raynar’s cheeks got even redder, if that was possible. He was going to make it up to him, but how? How did Rogan know he was about to go home? How did he even know he was at the main house? He hadn’t announced it to anyone he was there.
“Okay, I’ll get my stuff and be there in a couple of minutes,” Raynar said. “Just blood and vomit?”
“Yes, Ray. Just blood and vomit.”
His whole body relaxed and lit up at the same time when Rogan called him Ray. Everyone called him Raynar and nothing else. But to hear Rogan call him a nickname, it lit his whole body on fire.
“Could you also clean it up quickly? Doesn’t need to be perfect but I should be back with the person in about ten, maybe fifteen minutes,” Rogan said.
This time Raynar did sigh. Did Rogan think he was a super cleaner? Cleaning took time and didn’t just happen in a couple of minutes.
“I know you like to take your time, but she’s taking a shower right now and going back in the chair. I would like for things to be clean, and they don’t have to be perfect.”
A girl? Was she the prisoner they were holding in the basement? They normally didn’t keep girls in the basement.
“Has the blood dried?” he asked.
“Yes, some of it has and some of it is new,” Rogan replied. “I know you’ve got a lot of questions and maybe soon I’ll answer all of them. But right now, I just need you to clean everything up to your best ability in ten minutes.”
“Okay. There might be stains on the floor.”
“That’s fine. There are already stains so nothing new there.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you. I’ll make it up to you.”
Raynar let out a sigh as he hung up the phone and made his way to his car. He needed to be quick in gathering everything. He hated leaving a job half-finished, but Rogan said he needed to be gone in ten minutes.
After grabbing his cleaning supplies and a trash bag, he quickly made his way down to the basement. The first thing he saw was the dried-up blood on the floor and the fresher red blood. That was going to leave a stain, just like all the other ones in this room.
Soon, he needed to spend a day and start to clean everything really well. Who knew how many germs were there on the ground?
A shiver ran through his body as he started to put some hydrogen peroxide on the ground where the blood was. He was going to let it sit there for a bit while he cleaned up the puke before he got to the blood. Hopefully, it would break down a lot of it.
He put on some gloves and held his breath as he started to clean vomit off the ground. There wasn’t much of it, thankfully. What had they done to this girl to make her puke? Was that all of her blood or was there other blood from other people?
For some reason, Raynar felt bad for the girl and worried she’d lost too much blood. Was she petite or was she bigger? Either way, it didn’t matter. But Raynar couldn’t do anything about it.
He threw away the pieces of paper towel and started to work on cleaning up the blood next. His least favorite thing to do. But it didn’t matter because it was his job and would always be his job until he died.
With a sigh, Raynar cleaned up the last little bit to his best ability before gathering everything and heading back up the stairs. His ten minutes were almost up, and he needed to get things out before Rogan and the mysterious woman came back.