Skin is all that separates him from the AIDS virus, which pulses through half of the 25 clients Ray massages each week at Laughing Buddha Massage Therapy in St. Petersburg, Fla.

He knows it's enough. But even 25 years after scientists identified HIV as the virus that causes AIDS and nailed down the means by which it spreads, Ray finds others are still ignorant and afraid. For some AIDS patients, their massage therapist is their sole source of physical contact.

"There's still a stigma there," he says. "I get people that say, 'You're the only person who touches me.' "

On a Monday morning inside his 2730 Central Ave. office, Ray kneads the sole of Sherry Huell's left foot. He moves carefully around a sore.

"You know I'm ticklish," Huell says.

"Like that?" he asks, stroking her arch.

"Yes, just like that," she says, laughing.

Ray, 40, who has been a licensed massage therapist since 1997, says he takes standard precautions. If there's an open sore or cut, he works around it.

Mosquito bites splotched the legs of one woman he massaged. He wore gloves for that.

But if a client says the wound isn't contagious, Ray trusts them.

"I'm not going to worry myself to death about something like that," he says. "Jesus worked with the lepers; Mother Theresa worked with the lepers."

Evidence shows that Ray's faith isn't risky. HIV has never been transmitted from a massage therapist to a client, or vice versa, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Its primary paths of transmission are through unprotected sex and sharing needles. But the CDC says urban legends still circulate the Internet.

"The whole thing is education," Ray says. "If you know you're not going to get it from touching someone or you're not going to get it from hugging them or kissing them, then you don't have to worry about it."

Although it is about noon, Ray's office is dim. Candles illuminate a gold Buddha statue. Smoke curls from an incense stick beside the massage table.

His hands slide along the skin of Huell's back, pushing, pulling, and spreading over her arms. They dig deep into her scalp, circling to the rhythm of a cello.

Huell, who was sent to Ray two years ago through Medicaid's Project Aids Care waiver, will tell you the power of his touch.

"I was, like, drawn to him the first time I met him," the 48-year-old St. Petersburg woman says. "He doesn't act like other people do about touching."

Huell, a recovering alcoholic and cocaine addict, says she was snubbed from Alcoholics Anonymous functions after sharing she has HIV.

She's also banned from seeing three of her five grandchildren.

Kathy Rooker, 51, who has AIDS, can relate.

Although she lives with her daughter and her daughter's husband in Largo, Rooker says it's as though they're afraid of her - which is why Ray is so refreshing.

"I look forward to my Wednesdays," she says. "Just for the simple fact that that's my massage day."

It wasn't always that way for Rooker.

When Medicaid told her to see a massage therapist about three years ago, she refused. Because of nerve damage caused by an HIV medication, massages hurt. Now, Rooker says, she can't live without them.

"Ben knows how to massage without killing me," she says. "I can go in there, strip down to my underwear, hop up on the table and just relax."

Ray shifts barefoot around the table during his sessions. The muscles in his left shoulder tighten under the tattoo of a Buddhist prayer, Om Mani Padme Hum, the selfless vow to win enlightenment for all.

The Buddha of compassion is inked on his right tricep. Temple guards sandwich his navel. The star of eternal life nestles between his shoulder blades.

"My mom wants me to stop now," he says, laughing.

His favorite tattoo, the Laughing Buddha, sits on the small of his back.

Ray, whom clients call their "Laughing Buddha," says Buddhism is more of a philosophy of life than a religion.

"I try to be as compassionate as I can be," says Ray, who's planning his second trip to Thailand. "If I do good things for people, good things will come back to me."

Anthony Barros, a coordinator for Aids Service Association of Pinellas, says Ray's philosophy extends to the community. He says Ray raises money for AIDS walks and organizes benefits for Ed's Place, a nearby creative learning center for children affected by AIDS.

"He's such a bright light," Barros says. "He always sees that glass as half full."

Ray says optimism is his way to cope. Living in Chicago for seven years, he lost 11 close friends to AIDS.

Unfortunately, he says, it's been no different since he came to St. Petersburg in 1994.

After losing five clients to AIDS in 2004, even the Laughing Buddha needed a sabbatical.

"I was coming home depressed all the time," he says. "I just got burnout."

But he returned to the massage table, to people like Huell.

She lies face up on the table. A delicate cross rests on her collarbone. Ray holds his hands, palm down, over her chest and stomach. Eyes closed, he stands motionless, feeling the slow pulse of her energy. He sends a prayer, for whoever's listening, to help her.

Behind him, two stuffed figures rest on a shelf: Thor from Marvel Comics and Wolverine from the X-Men.

Although they add to the clutter of his office, he says he'll never throw them out. They came from a client who died of AIDS.

Ray says there must be a reason for all of their deaths. What he doesn't understand is the suffering that comes before then.

And as long as people aren't educated about AIDS, Ray says, those infected will continue to encounter fear and alienation at their time of greatest need.

"Some of these people live totally isolated, by themselves," he says. "Some of these people just want someone to sit and listen to them."

Interested in more? Click here to see the multimedia project "Healing hands," or click here to see the design project "hands that heal."