Danny

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Avernion: Ashli is terribly thoughtless, but lovably endearing at the same time. I think it's what makes him so great.

***


Danny spent all morning at work squirming in his chair. Finally, at lunch, he asked Maria if she had any aspirin.

“Headache?” she asked.

“I hurt my back.”

“That so sucks. Virginia and I are going out for Mexican. Want to come?” she asked as she dug through her purse. It was black with tons of pockets; easily the size of a winnebago. Frustrated, she started emptying it onto her desk.

“I just want this day to end.”

“Oh, what's going on?”

“Besides being in pain?”

“You've looked like all wasn't right in blissville for at least a month. I haven't said anything.” She switched which pocket she was digging through, from the front pocket to the middle-super-size-me one. “I would never say anything.”

“How many people know?”

“I said I wouldn't say anything to anyone.”

“Right.”

“But I was talking to George down in shipping. Did you know he's gay?” She held up a tic-tac box for inspection. Empty. Wait, one more stuck to the bottom.

“No, didn't know that.”

“He thinks you're cute.” She shook the tic-tac box, but the one stuck to the bottom didn't budge. She shook it harder.

“That's nice.”

Disgusted, she pitched the tic-tacs in the trash and revived her search for the ibuprofen in there somewhere. “What happened, dear?”

“Why would something have happened?”

“You're not even interested in poor George. He poses for some of the pictures on the boxes, you know. We could walk over and see just what you're getting into. Have them right there in inventory.”

“Just what I need, a boyfriend whose dick is all over product boxes in inventory.” Danny contemplated that for a moment. “Tell me he doesn't have a dildo named after him.”

Maria looked up from her purse, a little horrified.

Danny giggled.

“You don't think the ... the ...”

“I do.”

She gasped, hand to mouth. “That's returned all the time,” she squeaked.

“And we tell people, right here on the website, no refunds on dildos.” Danny sat back in his chair, hissed in pain, and sat back up again.

“That's it,” jumping up, Maria dropped her purse on her desk, sending Mary Kay samples and those little travel tissues flying everywhere. “Up!”

“What?”

“Up, right now!” Grabbing his arm, she forced Danny up out of his chair and almost pulled him over his desk. Her strength always surprised him. She was the one who pulled the boxes of copy paper out of storage for everyone and each time he saw her lugging them across the office he was newly amazed. After all, she was only five foot four, even if she had wrestled in college.

“Wait, wait,” Danny pleaded. Pulling out of her grip, he straightened his polo shirt and then came around the desk himself. “Now, what?”

“Up with the shirt.”

“Excuse me?”

“Let's see it.”

“We're in the middle of the office. I can't take my shirt off.” He gestured, taking in the clear windows all around them, looking out into the hallway, and consequently back in. “Anyone could walk past.”

She frowned, taking in what he was talking about. “Miguel is out until three. Let's use his office.”

“We can't just -”

“In there or out here.”

Sighing with all the melodramatic effect he could muster, Danny stomped off to Miguel's office, Maria close behind. Miguel was their supervising manager in the returns division of the finance department. He generally took a three or four hour lunch while he went home, drove the kids everywhere they needed to go, dropped off lunches they needed, and then popped in on his wife at her office for a quickie. They were trying for their third child. Danny couldn't quite understand how two children took so much time, but Miguel could spend hours just describing his younger daughter's first steps over and over again, so that was probably his answer. He wondered if anyone would ever be that devoted to him.

Realizing the inevitable, as soon as Maria shut the door, Danny pulled off his shirt, turning so she could see the bruises on his back.

“Holy Jesus.”

“He didn't mean to.”

“Es stupid! Do you know how often I hear that?”

Danny turned, setting his ass on the desk. “No, really, he didn't. We were ... anyway, he shoved me is all and I slipped kind of and fell into the shower door. I'm telling the truth.”

“He shoved you.”

“I was going to leave him anyway, if that makes you happy,” Danny announced, pulling his shirt back on.

“Good, drop his ass. Drop and kick, preferably. You don't want to do it, I'll do it.” She opened the door, letting them back out into the office. “He's hit you before?”

“No, never.”

“Why were you leaving, then?”

Danny laughed. “Because I'm not good enough for him.”

***

Back at the house, Ashli and Josh spent the day cleaning, cooking, and figuring out what to do about the shower door. Well, Josh cooked. He knew Ashli well enough to kick him out of the kitchen.

“It can't be here when he comes home,” Ashli was saying as he leaned over the counter separating the kitchen from the breakfast nook. “If it's here, he'll just have to think about it. I don't really want him thinking about it.”

“So, replace it.”

“You think Home Depot has that shower door? It's, you know, nice. Not a grandma door.”

“Loews is more likely.”

“I'm being dismissed, aren't I?” he asked, sulking and stealing a carrot from the cutting board.

“Get out! Out!”

Laughing, Ashli left.

As soon as he was reliably gone, Josh washed his hands and crept into the boys bedroom. He wanted to see what this Danny-person was like for himself.

The afghan on the bed certainly wasn't Ashli's. It was much too comfortable looking and despite being pretty, the silver and purple stripes distinctly clashed with Ashli's picture perfect, red, micro-suede duvet. It certainly made the bed more inviting.

Browsing the bookshelves, Josh trailed his fingers over historical accounts of massacres, genocide, the Holocaust. Concerned, he pulled out a novel about Algiers and flipped it open to the middle, beginning to read. Torture. It was a manual on torture. In quite vivid detail.

Maybe it was best that Danny did leave. Psychos had obsessions with torture and mass murder.

Looking around, Josh dropped down next to the bed. He knew Ashli never ever looked under the bed, let alone kept anything there, but maybe Danny ... Bingo! He pulled out the footlocker and opened it. Not sure what to make of the contents, he lifted out the Book of Mormon and opened it. It was not hollow. In fact it appeared to be well read and possibly loved.

In the front it said, 'For Danny. May you be the man God envisioned at your birth and walk hand in hand with the Almighty all your days. Love, Mom and Dad.' It was written in a woman's curly script. Josh had received enough Christmas gifts from Mom and Dad to know what that meant.

Putting the book down, he inspected the heavily notated and worn Tax Code volume. It was only a year old. Of course, it had to be. There were new tax laws every year. How much preparation and devotion had gone into into his tax work for a year old book to look like this, Josh wondered. Along side its place in the box there was a calculator with one of those paper things on it, a second calculator, this one scientific-programmable, and pens, pencils, and several clean legal pads.

Buried underneath all that was a diploma. 'Daniel Kevin Marshall, Bachelors in the field of Physics from the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at Brigham Young University.' Physics? And he was happy working as an accountant at a local warehouse?

Josh had deliberately left the plain, brown journal until last. This was snooping of the very worst kind, but if he was going to do this relationship thing, he had to know if Danny was dangerous or not ... or that's what he told himself.

The first several entries described sexual encounters between Danny and Ashli from what seemed to be the beginning of their relationship, in clinical detail. There was no passion in the telling. In fact, Ashli's name was truncated to a simple initial and the details were downright anal.

A.'s feet were spread two feet apart. I bent his body over the couch arm at a 100 degree angle forcing some blood into his head, but not enough to incite a dizzy spell.

Delivered thirteen strikes with the leather flogger, five on the top of his left thigh, five on the top of his right, and three more on his stomach.

A.'s errection did not dampen during the application of hot wax.

Josh shivered, unsure if he wanted to jerk himself off or be disgusted. This boy's mind was too clinical, too passionless to deserve Ashli.

He kept reading, unable to put the book down. Despite his best effort not to, one hand crept down to his crotch, pressing on himself. Just the slightest pressure for now.

He didn't find the first fantasy until he was twenty pages into the journal. Suddenly the entries changed. Some entries were still brief recitations of facts, but more often they were divided into three parts.

The fantasies would go on for pages and pages in loving detail. Here he gave Ashli various monikers, my beautiful Ashli, or pretty-pretty Ashli, or even beloved. They described horrible acts often impossible to carry out; things like drowning Ashli, making love to his dying body while pretty-pretty Ashli choked and struggled, and then kissing him until quite magically he awoke from death. Where before there had been no description, suddenly it had no end. The journal text went on for an entire paragraph about the exact shade of blue Ashli's lips would turn.

In the second part it would be rewritten. Suddenly Ashli was just A. again and the acts were possible. Holding A. underwater until he choked or struggled, pulling him up to let him have some air, and then immersing him again. All the while manipulating his prostate to make A. come.

In the third part it would be written entirely again, this time fleshing out all the details. How long A. would be underwater at a time. Where exactly Danny's hands would be. Where it was to be done. How deep the water would be. It even listed a temperature for the water.

Engrossed, Josh kept reading until long after he should have stopped just in case Ashli got home.

Long after.

“Something interest you?” Ashli called from the doorway, his voice cracking across the room like one of Danny's whips.

“Oh!”

“That's Danny's.”

Josh put the diary down.

“You never could leave anything alone, could you? How in the hell did your mom hide your Christmas presents?”

“I usually bought my own. She just gave me money.”

“I'm so not surprised.” Walking forward, Ashli grabbed the journal and dropped it into the footlocker. “Put it away.”

Josh did. Getting up, he followed Ashli out of the bedroom, hanging his head. “Have you ... read it?” he finally asked.

“No.” Turning on him, Ashli shoved him up against the wall. “I don't know what you found and I don't want to know. I mean, that book, it's Danny's and it's about me. I've watched him keep it and ever since he started it our sex life has gotten better and better. If he chooses not to share, I'm not going to bother him about it.”

“He wants to -”

Ashli covered Josh's mouth with his hand. “I don't want to know.”

Pulling Ashli's hand away, Josh insisted, “I need to know that everything between you was consensual.”

“Of course.” Stalking out into the kitchen, Ashli grabbed various tools, caulking and such, he'd bought, slinging them up onto his shoulders. “Danny would never hurt me.”

“He hurts you everyday.”

“Not that way. You know what I fuckin' mean. But me, I hurt him. What does that make me?”

“A bad boyfriend?”

“Don't you have cooking to do?”

Josh went back to cooking, making a feast for Danny's return. It was something he was good at. Josh could plan a gourmet menu, execute it, and draw custom menus for place settings at the table within the space of three hours if need be.

In the background he could hear Ashli working on the door.

***

At the office, Danny went to lunch with Maria and Virginia, then came back and had some more ibupropfen before working his way through the afternoon. Maria kept handing him returns for the Georgous Monster Dildo. He could have killed her. Every time he laughed, his back hurt and he laughed so hard every time he saw that name.

“If that's really, you know, a cast of his nethers, you could do worse,” Maria told him.

“I am not going to date a guy just because he's hung.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm not a size queen.”

“Maybe you just haven't had it from the right, large dicked guy.”

“Maybe I'm a top and it doesn't matter.”

Maria narrowed her eyes. “Right.”

“Okay, but maybe I'd prefer the dicks that ... umm, are reasonably sized. What's wrong with that idea? That ... er, space is small, you know.”

“I thought if it was bigger you'd get more feeling from the whole g'spot thing.”

“Prostate.”

“That.”

Danny frowned. “I like what I like.”

“Fine, fine, leave George crying on the loading dock, pining for you.”

Danny sighed. “He's hardly pining for me. I've heard that he goes to bars and picks up SWiTs with, 'I'm George and I have a dildo named after me.'”

“SWiTS?”

“Sweet young things.”

Maria giggled.

“Besides, I still love Ashli, even if it isn't going to work out.”

***
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