Danny

Ashli was Danny's first relationship since college, and even in college he'd only had one or two before realizing his problem. His problem. What a polite way to put it. That's what the psychologist had called it, his problem. Danny called it a lot of other things in his head, his perversion, his nightmare, his curse, even his damnation when he was feeling particularly melodramatic. Ashli called it 'the coolest thing.'

Back in high school he'd dated girls. You know, like all the other good boys in Forsyth, Utah; population 15,000. He was known as a good boy. That meant he hadn't knocked any girls up and been forced to marry them quick before the baby was born. He'd certainly kissed girls and dutifully felt them up in. That was what it felt like, duty.

He knew he would rather be kissing his best friend, Jimmy. He was fairly sure that meant he was going to be damned like those people in Sodom and Gomorrah, but he didn't meet anyone else damned like him until college. Little known fact, there are gay people at BYU. Just, you know, in the interests of not getting kicked out, as a group, they kept quiet.

But he wasn't just gay, oh no, he was gay with extra sauce and twelve kinds of spices. Exclusive paraphilic sadism the psychologist had called it. The man looked very sad when he said it.

“Don't you have some kind of pill to fix this?” Danny had asked.

No, there was no pill. He needed to make people suffer to become sexually aroused, like some kind of Nazi. No one seemed to think that was important enough to stop, that a pill should be made. Sadist-wellbutrin, that's what Danny wanted.

“Perhaps if we discover what incident in your childhood might have caused this,” the psychologist told him. He agreed to see Danny for free because as a college student Danny didn't have any money and because Danny was such an extreme, interesting case.

They explored his childhood, looking for anything that might have caused his plight, but they couldn't find it. Not with any satisfaction.

“Some people are born this way, Danny,” the man finally told him.

“Then there would be a pill or something.” He remembered sitting there on that couch, his head in his hands. “I don't need my boyfriend to wear white socks. I have to cut him with something! That's sick! I'm sick!”

“You just need to find someone who enjoys that.”

“Who in their right mind would enjoy that?”

Danny had his answer now. Ashli enjoyed that. Ashli enjoyed anything Danny did to him. If Danny didn't put limits on it, there would be no Ashli in the morning for Danny to enjoy tomorrow. He had to be careful. Ashli would let him do anything. Ashli enjoyed it all.

His beautiful Ashli.

When the doctor had diagnosed him as incurable, he'd told Danny about the BDSM community. He had encouraged Danny to go out and find people who would enjoy the things that Danny needed.

The first party he went to, he thought he was going to crawl into a corner and die, he was so uncomfortable. He didn't know any of the customs or what to do or who to talk to or not talk to. He thought he was going to leave until a kind mistress took him by the collar and sat him down to talk.

They talked all night. Ivy was absolutely fascinated by what Danny was telling her. She told him the realities of his situation.

“You won't make a good master,” she told him. “You're not dramatic. You can't create the fantasy subs want.”

“I don't want to control anyone,” Danny said.

“That might also be a problem for you.” She smiled. “Danny, a master has to love his or herself before she can love her sub. You don't love yourself.”

Danny couldn't disagree with that.

Ivy let him play with her pretty Benjamin a few times. She taught him how to inflict pain for the purposes of pleasure. She wouldn't let him stay too long or be with Benjamin too much. He found out why later, Ben had developed at crush on him.

“You're dangerous,” Ben told him, one of the few times he dropped his role enough to have a conversation. “You enjoy it so much. You just ... you're gone. I know I'm not safe with you.”

“And that's attractive?” Danny asked.

“Whenever I'm with anyone, the safeties are always on. It's intriguing, that's all. Kind of the way the edge of a cliff is intriguing.”

Danny wasn't sure he liked that analogy.

“You need to learn to be safe before you have a sub of your own,” Ben told him.

“I don't think I want a sub. I don't think I'm cut out for this.”

“Ivy told me why you do it. Don't you have to? I mean, find someone?”

“I could always go to seminary.”

“Don't be stupid. This is a gift.”

“Gift! Gift!” Danny smacked Ben so hard his head snapped backwards. He hadn't even realized he'd gotten out of his chair, but he was standing, his blood rushing through his ears, staring at Ben's split lip. Pulling back his hand, almost in slow motion, he backhanded Ben, knocking him the other way. Raising his hand again, he stopped, his breath hissing out between his teeth.

Ben looked up at him, waiting to see if he'd strike again. Fear. Ben was afraid he'd strike again.

Danny put his hand down, slowly.

Fumbling with Danny's jeans, Ben fell out of his chair, onto his knees and sucked Danny's cock into his mouth as soon as it was free of his briefs. It was a quick, messy blow job with lots of spit. When he was done, Ben just stared for a moment. Then he got up and left without saying anything.

Ivy never spoke to Danny again except for a strange encounter in a grocery store almost a year later. Neither did Ben.

After that, Danny kept to himself. He graduated and moved away to somewhere where people wouldn't know him. He found a roommate who didn't want to be his buddy and paid his half of the rent.

He got a job as an accountant, which didn’t really put his college degree in physics to good use, but the job gave him what he needed most, a way to learn control. He lied on his resume and said he only had a two-year degree so he could get the job without anyone asking why he wanted to work at something he was over qualified for. He walked to work everyday at precisely the same time. He worked from nine to five. He took lunch at one. He walked home at the same time.

Everything in his life was under his control until he met Ashli Currelli.

Ashli ran roughshod over his entire schedule, picking him up after work to take him to dinner, keeping him out all night and up all night. Then sleeping in late the next morning. Danny actually took vacation.
They'd met in K-Mart. Ashli was looking at motor oil and asked Danny for help. Apparently Danny looked like a K-Mart clerk to him. Ashli never would admit to that later.

“What are you trying to do?” Danny asked.

“I have to oil a chain.”

“You can't oil it with that.”

“No? It's oil isn't it?”

“So is olive oil, but that's not going to help you either.” Danny tilted his head this way and that, trying to figure out if the blonde guy was putting him on. “You do know what WD-40 is, don't you?”

“Yeah! That's what I'm looking for!”

“Squeaking chain?”

“Well ... no, not exactly.”

“What exactly are you trying to do?”

He frowned. “Shine it.”

“Okay. What kind of metal is it?”

“Steel, I guess.”

Danny frowned back, trying to figure out why you'd shine a steel chain. “Wipe it off with a chamois. Wait, is it a bike chain? Don't clean a bike chain.”

“It's not a bike chain, but it's really dirty.”

“Spray it with a hose.”

The guy shook his head. “It's small.”

“Run it under the sink.”

“I can just put it in the sink?”

“It's steel. Why not? Is it a medical bracelet? You can just soak that in a little soap and water.”

“It's something like that.” He smiled. “I'm Ashli.”

“Uh, hi.”

“You have pretty hair.”

“Oh!” Danny's hand flew to his hair. “Oh, I'm Danny.”

“I knew you were gay.”

Danny blushed.

“You want some coffee?”

He didn't know why he didn’t say no. His plan was to say no to any such invitation for the rest of his life. But Ashli ... those eyes, that smile. He'd been lost from the first moment. He wanted to split those butterfly, thin, pink lips, sink his teeth into Ashli’s thick neck until he bled, break his stubby fingers.

For a week, Ashli enticed him. Taking him out, courting him like a teenage girl, making out with him on park benches, copping a feel when he thought he could.

Finally, Danny just - he had to put a stop to it. Walking out the door from work, he was somewhat unsurprised to find Ashli waiting for him. He was leaning against his red Thunderbird convertible looking absolutely bitable. Danny seriously considered ignoring him and walking the other way, but he knew he had to deal with this.

“Hi.” He hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder. “Give me a ride home?”

“Thought I might.”

Ashli held open the car door so Danny could climb across to the passenger seat. It was a busy street they were on. A reasonable act. He looked at it for a moment before tossing his bag in the back and crawling across. Ashli slid into the driver's seat behind him.

“Mind if we go by Mamma Rio's on the way home?” Ashli pulled out into traffic, not even headed in the direction of Danny's place, already going to the restaurant he'd chosen.

“I have plans tonight. I can't.”

“What kind of plans?”

“Just some stuff to do.”

“What? You can't tell me?”

“It's just stuff.” Danny squirmed.

Ashli pulled around the block, headed back toward Danny's place. “Just stuff, stuff?”

He took a deep breath. “I'm counting recipes.” It was the biggest kiss of death he could think of and Ashli obviously recognized it as such from the way his eyes narrowed.

Nothing more was said. When Danny got out of the car and grabbed his bag, he looked up at Ashli to say goodbye, but Ashli wouldn't even acknowledge him.