Danny

Some people would call Danny boring.

Not Ashli, no, not at all.

“Shhh, we'll wake your Mom.”

“I'm quiet. Hold on.” Ashli held the door knob while shutting the door, preventing even the snick of the latch from attracting attention.

“What were you doing?”

“Getting something.” Grinning, he held up the looped heating element his mother had used to keep her turkey-giblet gravy warm.

“Oh, no. No, no.” Danny turned over.

“What?”

“Put it back.”

“C'mon, it'll be fun.” Stopping to plug it in, Ashli set it on the coaster that decorated the bedside table. “You know you'll like it,” he whispered, climbing into bed next to his lover. Dropping one kiss and then another across Danny's tan shoulders, he pushed back his boyfriend's ink-black hair and dropped a few more kisses down the nape of his neck. “Just a few,” Ashli murmured. “A couple. Nothing serious.”

“It's not safe. I don't know how hot that thing gets.”

“It'll be okay.”

“I could hurt you.” Turning over, he whispered right into Ashli's pretty skin, “I could hurt you badly.”

“Please, just a little. It's going to feel so good.”

“Fine, hold on.” Climbing to his knees and clambering over Ashli, he picked up the element. “Fuck, it burned the coaster.”

Ashli giggled. “Guess that one's going home with us.”

Danny took the time to glare before trying the element out on his thumb. “Ow! Okay. I guess it's all right. The coating helps. Five, no more.”

“On my thighs,” Ashli begged, breathing hard, kissing Danny's neck.

“Stuff something in your mouth, a sock or something, and grab the headboard. I swear, I should say no.”

“You love me.”

Danny scooped a sock up off the floor and handed it to Ashli.

“I thought I might use the sheet.”

“Bedding gets in the way. The odds on it catching fire, possible. So, no. Sock. I am not going to account for anything extra tonight.” He smiled shyly. “And I kinda like it.”

Ashli stuffed the sock in his mouth and then grabbed the headboard. Settling himself on Ashli's thighs, Danny pinned down Ashli's legs before setting the element on his inner-right thigh for twenty seconds.

Ashli screamed.

Sock, good idea.

Waiting for him to recover, until Ashli's full gaze was on the element, he started again, top of the left thigh for fifteen seconds. The element was definitely getting hotter, although Danny wasn't sure if that was because of perception or a property of the actual device itself. There was so much about this toy he had yet to learn.

Top of the right thigh, ten seconds.

Outside skin on the left thigh, five seconds.

Just a dab on the abdomen. Ashli arched up into it, screaming, trying to follow the pain.

Grabbing the plug, Danny hanked it out of the socket and held the device at arm's length while it cooled. With the other hand, he helped Ashli get the sock out of his mouth. “You okay?”

Sitting up, Ashli licked over Danny's lips and pouted. “No more?”

“No.”

Fingers, long thin ones that Danny sometimes pictured breaking in his most secret fantasies, curled around his erect cock and rubbed in an oh, so, friendly manner. “That's okay. It did the trick. Put that thing down.”

“I don't want it to burn the house down.”

Grabbing the element, Ashli tested it with his fingers to be sure it was cool enough, before setting it on the coaster again. Then he flipped Danny onto his back and fucked him most thoroughly.

The next morning, before dawn, Danny snuck into the kitchen and returned the gravy warmer. Returning to the bedroom, he stuffed the burned coaster, which he vowed to replace, into his overnight duffel, under his used underwear. Slipping back into bed, he heard, “We're getting one.”

“I suppose I should be glad you didn't decide to steal your mother's.”

Turning over, Ashli grinned at him. “I admit, I considered that. Or even just asking mom for it.”

“Oh, god.”

“But I knew how crazy that would make you. Come on, you'd better get some more sleep. I'm going to make you drive home. I have to work tomorrow.”

Snuggling back down, Danny whispered, “They are aware it's a holiday? And a weekend? The weekend of a holiday, in point of fact.”

“I volunteered. They needed people to take shifts in case things go kablooey. You know how it is.”

Danny sighed. “Yeah, I know.” What he knew was that Ashli liked his job an awful lot. He lay awake thinking about just how much while Ashli drifted off, snoring softly.

They slept until Ashli smelled eggs and sausage. He roused Danny, who'd only just fallen asleep.

“What is it?”

“Breakfast. You can get a shower if you use the robe.” He pointed out the pink bathrobe his mom had left them.

“I can sleep in your old bedroom, in your old bed. I can even suffer eating the encyclopedia of Ashli's favorite meals, slightly burned on the underside.”

Ashli giggled.

“But I am not, ever, wearing your mother's old bathrobe.”

“She means well.” He got up, stretching.

“It just screams campy, John Waters movie. I think I can get to the shower and back in jeans and a t-shirt.”

“Suit yourself.” Ashli opened the closet and took out and old, ratty t-shirt, something left over from high school. Throwing it on, he bent over, digging around some more to find his old track pants. Danny heard the slight hiss as bending exacerbated the burn on his abdomen.

“Sore?” Danny asked. “They're blistered. You should really wash.” He frowned. “We don't have antiseptic or anything.”

“I'll handle it.”

“You're going to ask your mother for antiseptic? What are you going to tell her it's for?”

“This is my goddamned house! I know where the fuckin' antiseptic is!” He tried to put his pants on too quickly and got his legs tangled, forcing him to sit on the edge of the bed. “Look, not everything is a crisis, okay.”

Danny nodded.

“Go get breakfast. I'll take care of this.”

That breakfast was among the more horrible experiences in Danny's life. Ashli's mother and his
Aunt Lorraine were both chattering at him, telling him embarrassing Ashli baby stories. While normally very funny, Danny was having trouble paying attention.

“... and everytime I would put a fry on his high-chair thing, he would give this war cry.”

“War cry?”

“He absolutely attacked those fries,” Aunt Lorraine said, stubbing out her cigarette and then fishing around on the table for her pack.

“Lori, Danny doesn't smoke, do you dear?”

“No, but it's okay. I'm used to Ashli smoking.”

“He's fine with it, Kay.” She lit up another slim something or other. She puffed on it for a second while Ashli's mom stared at her disapprovingly. “Don't ever let a smoker quit, kid. They're turn into a goddamned evangelist.”

“I care if you die. Is that so bad?”

“I'm gonna die if I stop or if I don't. I've been smokin' since I was fourteen. Stopping now ain't gonna help. It'll help Ashli. Work on him.”

“Oprah says it would help.”

“She did?”

“Yeah.”

Aunt Lorraine thought about that.

Danny stayed out of it. He couldn't stop staring at the cheese sauce, which Ashli's mom was keeping warm by using the illicit gravy warmer. It bubbled a little.

“You want cheese sauce, honey?” Aunt Lorraine asked.

“Huh? No!”

They both stared at him.

“Uh ... feeling a little ... stomach kind of odd this morning.” He tried to smile. “That's all.”

“Why didn't you say so?” Aunt Lorraine put out her cigarette.

Ashli breezed in and plopped down in the chair next to Danny. His hair was still wet, curling around his ears. It looked cute. Made Danny want to lick away the little water droplets there. He got odd urges sometimes. Instead he offered Ashli his plate. “My stomach is grumbly. Want this?”

“Sure.”

“I'll make you fresh eggs,” his mom offered.

“This is fine.” He took the cheese sauce and fairly drowned the eggs in it.

Danny got up and went to the bathroom before he started laughing at the table and was forced to explain himself. 'Why yes, Mrs. Currelli, I used that very same sauce warmer last night to burn your son for sexual purposes before he fucked me through the mattress. Hysterical, isn't it?' He somewhat doubted she would get the joke. Splashing water on his face, he dried himself off and returned to the table.

“... get back,” Ashli was saying. “Hey, you okay?”

“Fine.” Danny slid into his chair. He stared straight ahead. He was not, under any circumstances going to look at Ashli's messy plate full of gloopy cheese sauce and egg detritus.

“Do you need sandwiches?” his mom asked. “I'll make you sandwiches.”

“We're good.”

“I have all this leftover turkey. Who else is going to eat it? Mr. Dorman, next door? He'd think I'm hittin' on him.” She elbowed Aunt Lorraine and they laughed.

“It would only make us fall asleep.”

“Yeah, turkey has that stuff in it,” Aunt Lorraine added, lighting herself another cigarette.

“Triptofin,” Danny supplied.

“That stuff.” She gestured with her cigarette, haphazardly flinging ashes over the table. “Saw it on the news. Some guy ate turkey and then he fell asleep at the wheel and then crashed his car and died.”

“No,” Kay crossed herself.

“It's true, swear on a stack.”

Danny wrapped the front of his foot around the back of Ashli's ankle and rubbed it, pleased that they'd gotten out of taking dry turkey and canned dressing home. He loved Ashli's mom, he really did. She was absolutely the most supportive, wonderful PFLAG mother you could hope for. She had raised Ashli on her own after her husband left her when Ashli was only seven and then the bastard had subsequently shot himself, leaving her without even alimony. Danny admired her and he kind of even loved her, but she couldn't cook worth shit and neither could Auntie Lorraine.

“We gotta get out of here.” Ashli stood and Danny followed. “We've got a four hour drive.”

“You boys be careful. Are you sure you got everything?”

“Yeah, I packed the car.”

“Want me to take a look around?” Danny asked.

“I got it all.”

“You should check the bathroom,” Kay argued. “How many times did I have to mail your toothbrush to you at college?”

“Mom!”

“And to your boyfriend’s too.”

“Mom!”

“I'll take a quick look,” Danny told her.

“Thanks, dear. He always thinks he has everything. Look under the bed too.”

“I know, his socks will be there.”

“This one's a keeper,” Kay told Ashli, wagging her finger under his nose. “When are you gonna get married?”

Danny escaped before he had to listen to that conversation. He'd heard it often enough in one-sided format while Ashli spoke to his mother on the phone. In the bedroom he did indeed find the sock under the bed. The one he'd made Ashli stuff in his mouth. Biting his lip, Danny stuffed it in his pocket.

If he jerked off into the sock should he consider that an all new, sick fetish or just an extension of his current perversion?

Ashli's glasses, expensive frames, prescription, couldn't read without them, were sitting on the bedside table. Danny tucked those into the collar of his shirt. A brief tour of the bathroom did indeed turn up both of their toothbrushes and Ashli's shampoo, but not his conditioner. Interesting.

Back in the bedroom, Danny looked around one final time. Would it be worth shaking out the bed?

“Find anything interesting?” Ashli asked from the doorway.

“Not too much.”

“Tell me I didn't forget my socks.”

Danny pulled it out of his pocket. “Almost did.”

“Fuck.”

“Ashli?”

“What?”

“Is there a lock on the door?”

Grinning, Ashli shut the door behind himself and locked it without even looking. “We have to be quick. Are you hard?”

“Yeah,” Danny told him, unsnapping his jeans, pushing them down his thighs.

Ashli shoved him. Danny landed on the bed with a little bounce. “A sock did that?”

“I remember the way it looked shoved in your mouth. The way you screamed.”

“Fuck.” Ashli dropped to his knees on the old rag rug and pulled down his boyfriend's briefs. “Wow.” He'd been here before with other boyfriends, looking down at disheveled grace and hastily parted thighs on his faded blue bedspread. But that was years ago, during college. He hadn't brought a boy home in years.

“Ashli,” Danny whispered, tangling his fingers in Ashli's hair and yanking on it, pulling him closer.

He hardly ever got to suck off Danny. Danny was too touchy, too hard to trip. His wires crossed in the oddest places. Ashli hardly ever had dick in his mouth now. Not like this. Danny covered his mouth with one hand, trying not to make noise. He wanted to rip that hand away, listen to his lover, but Danny would never forgive him if Mom and Aunt Lori heard them.

Ashli didn't tease. There wasn't time.

Danny came, curled up around him, forcing his dick chokingly deep into Ashli's mouth, his throat, biting his lip to stay quiet, the sock still clutched in one hand.

As soon as Danny let go, Ashli fell back on the rug. “Fuck.”

“You okay?” Danny asked.

“Oh yeah. Get your pants on, we have to go.”

Danny stood, pulling up his pants and snapping them. “Oh, I found your glasses.” He handed them over.

“Thanks, I would have missed those.”

“No problem.”

“Should we shake out the bed?”

Danny laughed. “I considered it, but it doesn't feel too lumpy.” Picking up the toothbrushes and shampoo bottle from the night table, he nodded toward the door. “Let's go before they miss us.”

“Did I forget everything?”

“Oh, nothing more than usual.”

Ashli let that go.

Amazingly, they escaped without any more incidents or having sandwiches forced upon them. Finally, in the car, Danny pulled out of the driveway and got on the interstate before asking, “So, did we forget anything?”

“I thought you checked.”

“I did, but this is the moment when you're supposed to think of stuff that you might have forgotten to do.”

“Did you call your mom yesterday?”

“That's not exactly what I'm talking about.”

“Well, did you?”

“Terry picked up the phone. I left a message. I'll call her back.”

“Terry?”

“My brother?”

“I know who he is.”

“Well, it is hard to keep my family straight. There's so many of them. I can't even remember all my -”

“What did you say?”

“I asked if Mom was there. He said she was busy. I asked him to ask her to call me back. He said he would pass on the message. We hung up.”

“He didn't even wish you a happy Thanksgiving?” Ashli asked, incensed.

“I didn't wish him one either. You know he doesn't like me. We never really knew one another and I'm everything he hates in this world.”

Ashli scrunched down in his seat, getting comfortable. “You don't hate him,” he groused.

“I suppose not. Why should I?”

“Because he's a bastard? Maybe?”

Danny smiled, pulling out to pass an SUV. “You're beautiful.”

“What?”

“Being all outraged on my behalf. I'm not a damsel in distress, you know. I can handle my family.”

“Speed limit is 70,” Ashli informed him as he watched the speedometer inch up over 85.

“I know.”

“Just, you know, checking.” Ashli got comfortable. “Do you ever engage with anyone?”

“What does that mean?”

“Do you ever fight with anyone?”

“We fight.”

“No, I don't think we ever have.”

“We fought this morning. Over that stupid antiseptic.”

“You call that a fight?”

“Wasn't it?”

Ashli propped his feet up on the dash and shut his eyes. “No, I wouldn't call it that. I yelled and you accepted it. I need to sleep.”

“Are you working all day tomorrow?”

“Twelve hour shift starting at 3am tonight.”

Danny nodded. Ashli must have fallen asleep because he didn't say anything else.

Was this how a relationship ended? Out with a whimper. Ashli was right, there was supposed to be shouting and screaming and Danny shutting himself in the bathroom and taking pills like some sort of Joan Crawford wannabe. That seemed unlikely to happen.