Danny

Avernion - Thanks so much! I hope you continue to find this story interesting. :)
***

Danny quickly found himself back in the comfortable realm of automatic pilot again. Sweet cold. When his roommate asked if he'd eaten dinner, he lied and said he had. He sat on the couch in his usual spot reading about the Armenian massacre.

Paul, his roommate, answered when there was a knock at the door around nine. Ashli stood on the doorstep. He was determined. And a bit surprised. “Paul?”

“Ashli? What are you doing here?”

“You live here?”

“Well, yes.”

“I, uh, I'm looking for Danny.”

“Why Danny? Little Danny?”

“He's taller than you are.”

Paul grinned. “He's just ... so quiet. He's little Danny. What? Need your taxes done or something? Who told you he's good? He's really good. Best kept secret in -”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Tell him to go away,” Danny called from the couch. He could see the door perfectly well from where he was sitting.

“That doesn't look like a recipe!” Ashli yelled at him. “Paul, let me in.”

Danny got up and went to his room.

“Come back here!” Ashli yelled. “I love you! I love you, you ass!”

Danny's bedroom door slammed closed.

“I think you should leave,” Paul told him.

“I love him. I really do. He's not like you think he is. He's perfect.”

“What I think is that you're delusional. He's a Mormon.”

“He bites my lips when I kiss him.”

Paul thought about that. “I'll talk to him.”

“Thank you.”

“Wait here.”

Paul knocked on Danny's door and asked to be let in. At first he didn't think Danny was going to admit him, but after a moment he heard a soft invitation. Danny sat on the bed, eyes downcast, his fists clenched.

“Hey, so you're gay. That's interesting.”

“Yeah.”

Paul sat on the bed. “I didn't know that. I mean, because usually, that's the kind of thing you'd tell your gay roommate. It's not like you'd get a negative reception.”

“It wasn't important. I mean, it's important, but since I wasn't in a relationship, it wasn't.”

“And you're dating Ashli Currelli.”

“Was. He and I are over.” Danny laughed, digging at his cuticles. “That sounds so much like high school. Oh, we're sooo over.”

“So.”

“Absolutely.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“Ashli is a little much for you to handle.”

“Because he's into leather?”

“He told you?”

Danny finally looked at his roommate, gauging. “No. You know him.”

“And?”

“You're into leather. Leather is a community. And you're concerned, so it's a fair guess that - ”

“Wait,” Paul put out his hands, stopping Danny where he was in his explanation of logic, “how did you know I'm into BDSM?”

Danny thought about that question carefully before answering it. “All the little things?”

“Such as?”

“The pants, the parties, coming home with lipstick on ... one time there was a whip mark across your upper arm. Someone must have screwed up. Ummm ...”

“I see.” Paul made himself comfortable. “It's more than that, Ashli I mean.”

“How much more?”

“Ashli likes pain. Lots of pain. He can't get enough. Nobody can handle him. You have no idea ... you're too innocent to even imagine the needs of someone like him.”

“Oh.” Danny jumped off the bed and ran out into the living room.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

Ashli sat on the couch, waiting, his head in his hands.

“How?” Danny demanded.

“What?”

“How did you know?”

“The look in your eyes. You looked at me like,” he swallowed hard, trying to articulate it, “like I've always wanted to be looked at. It was something like, 'he's so beautiful, I want to break his fingers.”

“I wouldn't.”

“That's too bad.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“It ...”

“Just try it. Maybe it’s not wrong.”

“Danny?” Paul asked.

“Come home with me,” Ashli enticed. Standing, he offered his hand. Danny took it.

That night, he came with someone else for the first time since the experience with Benjamin. He used a razor blade to slice open Ashli's chest and then rode him, mixing blood and semen together over open wounds, between Ashli's nipples. It looked incredible.

He was lucky Ashli didn't get an infection.

Danny convinced Ashli to go to a doctor and have it looked at. He'd cut a little more deeply than he'd meant to and the next morning when Ashli really should have cleaned it with soap and water, maybe something anti-bacterial, instead Danny licked away the dried white, red and pink splatters, forcing back open the wounds, while they rubbed themselves together.

People did stupid things in the first bloom of a relationship, which was about the only reason Danny forgave himself for that or any of the stupid things that followed.

The doctor Ashli went to caused the most problems. He was fine, of course, but Carla was a friend of his and she was concerned. She told Paul everything. Danny had originally thought doctors were supposed to be confidential about your personal information, but no, apparently not.

So he'd come home to the joy of Paul confronting him about cutting up Ashli.

“Excuse me?”

“Scarred. We do not scar people.”

A delicious chill ran down Danny's spine. Scarred. Pretty blond Ashli, baby with puffy, red scars across his chest. “How do you know this?”

Paul told him all about Carla. Danny was less than impressed.

“You know that her medical license can be revoked for telling you, right?”

“Is that all you care about?”

“This is none of your concern.”

“I thought Ashli was too much for you, I really did. How in the fuck was meek little Danny going to handle Ashli Currelli? I had no idea you're a psychopath!”

“Well, it's always the quiet ones.”

Paul didn't seem to think that joke was funny. Nor did he think Danny moving in with Ashli was a good idea, but since Ashli worked such odd hours, he wanted Danny to move in as soon as possible.

“I'm a work-a-holic,” he said. “It's like masochism only with ambition.”

“I have a cat,” Danny warned.

“Is she toilet trained?”

“Well, a litter box, yes.”

“Will I be expected to clean it?”

“No.”

“Fine.”

So, Danny and his cat, Cali, moved in.

Paul tried to stop it. On the day Ashli came to pick up Danny's meagre amount of stuff, he called on former friends of Ashli's to try to talk some sense into him – well, they were former now. He spit in their faces. “You called me an issue and now suddenly you want to save me?”

“He's a psychopath,” Paul told him, trying to talk sense.

“No, he's a sadist. A real one. You're a play one every other Saturday.”

Danny stopped in the doorway, watching, holding a box with his bedside lamp in it and several books and important pots and pans. “You're a top?” he asked Paul, a little disbelieving.

“Yes! If you can be, so can I!”

“I'm not,” Danny told him, simply. “I'm taking the crock pot. That's okay, right? I think only Mom uses it.”

“I'm the top,” Ashli told them all smugly.

“Only most of the time.” Danny handed him the box. “I'm going to grab the afghans and there are some more books. We don't need the bookcases, do we? I'll leave you the furniture if you want it or we'll just carry it to the curb,” he told Paul.

“I'll sublease furnished.”

“You can add $200 to the rent that way, I think. Be sure to invest it in your 401K to hide it from the IRS,” Danny told him.

Paul nodded.

Ashli shook his head, giggling.

“What?” Danny asked.

“You're the weirdest sadist. We don't need the bookcases, unless they're real wood.” He followed Danny inside to take a look. They were furniture Danny had brought with him from Utah, so they were solid oak and so was the dresser and the bed.

“Hand-made,” Danny told him, “but not in the family or anything like that. I can part with it.”

A hard decision, but in the end they only took the bookcases with them.