When All the World Sleeps

by J. A. Rock

  Bel didn’t want to give himself credit for Daniel’s improved sleeping habits, but he couldn’t help preening a little. What other explanation could you give besides the fact that Daniel felt safer? He followed a routine, listened to Bel, trusted him, and as a result, he was sleeping better. His hallucinations were less frequent. His night terrors had all but stopped.

  Bel wanted to suggest they get out of the cabin more, that they spend more nights at Bel’s house. But he wasn’t sure how Daniel would feel about that. He was curious, now that he’d commandeered Daniel’s computer, to see if Daniel would come over to use it.

  Bel was still trying to figure this whole dom thing out. He spent a lot of time online, reading about rules and punishments and daddies and boys and sirs and subs, compulsively deleting his history as he went. He’d read an article just the other day on revoking privileges as a means of disciplining a submissive. Sounded like a bizarre thing to do to a grown man, but Daniel hadn’t seemed to mind. But was that good or bad? Was Daniel supposed to mind more?

  The punishment part of his and Daniel’s relationship didn’t appeal to Bel nearly as much as the being-in-charge part. He liked the idea of leading, of protecting, of looking after Daniel. And he wanted Daniel to follow because it made him feel safe and happy—not because Bel would punish him if he didn’t.

  And so far, that seemed to be how things were working. Except there were those moments Bel knew Daniel wanted more. Wanted pain.

  Bel could never imagine wanting pain himself, but the more he read, the less the idea of masochism bothered him. What bothered him in Daniel’s case was the why. Over the last few weeks, Bel had seen pictures and videos of guys getting whipped and apparently loving it. But Daniel never asked Bel for pain in the moments he was relaxed, caught up in pleasure. He asked when he was anxious or angry. He asked when he felt shitty about something he’d done. He’d never broken Bel’s rules until last night. But he’d asked Bel to hurt him the day he overheard his coworker Trixie call him a psychopath. The day he saw his father in town and his father hurried on without talking to him.

  So Bel hadn’t hit Daniel at all yet. Needed to figure out first if it was gonna fuck with Daniel to do stuff like that. If it was gonna fuck with Bel to do stuff like that. And they hadn’t done much more in bed than jerk each other off. Bel had tried to blow Daniel last week, but Daniel had seemed weird about it, so they’d gone back to handjobs. That same night, Bel had woken when Daniel slipped out of bed. Daniel went to the bathroom, and at first, Bel had thought he was awake and just taking a piss. But when Daniel didn’t come out after a few minutes, Bel got up and knocked. Still nothing, so Bel had gone in and found Daniel digging in his palm with tweezers, blood sliding down the heel of his hand.

  “What’re you doing, Daniel?”

  “Got a splinter. Look.”

  Daniel had showed him his hand, but all Bel could see was blood.

  “No splinter. You’re sleeping. Let’s rinse that out and go back to bed.”

  “Gonna fuck me if I go back to bed? Gonna use your cock?”

  Daniel had grinned wickedly, and the idea of fucking this man who was standing in the bathroom, asleep and bleeding from his efforts to remove an imaginary splinter, made Bel sick. Then Daniel had stepped forward and tried to grab Bel’s cock, and Bel had shoved him back harder than he’d meant to. “No, Whitlock! Don’t you ever fucking do that. You hear me? You ain’t awake. Rinse your hand and go back to bed.”

  Bel hadn’t told Daniel about it the next morning, and though he saw Daniel studying his injured hand, Daniel never asked what had happened.

  Now Daniel stirred. “Hey,” he mumbled, turning to face Bel.

  “Hey yourself,” Bel said.

  “You have a good night?”

  “I’ve had better. How about you?”

  Daniel nodded and yawned. “It was okay. Liked the book.”

  “Good. You can keep that here.” Bel gestured to the iPod and speakers. “I never use it.”

  Daniel smiled. “So I lose my computer but I get your iPod? I’ll have to get in trouble more often.”

  Bel grinned back. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “You ought to give me a real punishment. Use your belt or something. I’d behave then.”

  Daniel was still smiling, albeit awkwardly, so Bel gave himself permission not to take the comment too seriously. Even though he had a feeling Daniel meant it seriously. “Who’s in charge here?” Bel asked, walking to the bed and leaning down to kiss Daniel.

  “You are.”

  “That’s right.” Bel raked his fingers through Daniel’s hair and tugged lightly. “So who decides when and if I take my belt off?”

  “You do.”

  “That sounds about right.” Bel patted the sleeping bag, right over where he figured Daniel’s cock was. Daniel gave a tiny gasp. Bel reached up to loosen the drawstring. “Let’s undo you.”

  Daniel pulled his arms out of the sleeping bag and let Bel unfasten the restraints.

  “Now get up and get dressed. We’re going into town. New bakery there I want to try. You been?”

  Daniel sat up, rubbing his wrists. “No. I don’t really go into town. Awake.”

  “Well, today I’d like you to go with me. If you want to.”

  Daniel looked uncertain. “Not a good idea, Bel.”

  “I think it’s a great one.”

  “You sure you don’t mind being seen with me?”

  “You spend too much time shut up here, and I want a donut.” Bel tossed a T-shirt at him. “Get dressed and come on.”

  Daniel pushed himself from the sleeping bag and swung out of bed. “Bossy.”

  Bel couldn’t hold back another grin. “I am, ain’t I?”

  “Wasn’t a compliment.” Daniel turned to face the bed and pulled on the T-shirt.

  Bel walked up behind him. Put his hands on Daniel’s shoulders and slid them down Daniel’s arms, to his wrists. Pushed himself against Daniel and bent him forward slightly, hands braced on the bed. “Wasn’t it?” he whispered.

  Daniel turned his head slightly toward Bel, his eyes downcast. “Might have been,” he admitted.

  Bel squeezed his wrists. Pressed his lips to the back of Daniel’s neck. “You like rules.” He kept his voice low, little more than a release of breath against Daniel’s skin. “Here’s a rule: you walk through this town like you got every right to be here. You don’t mind about how anyone looks at you, what they say to you. You got it?”

  Daniel arched, trying to roll his shoulder against Bel’s lips, seeking more contact. Bel pushed his thumbs against the insides of Daniel’s wrists, feeling the pulse there. Daniel finally exhaled. “I’ll try, Bel.”

  Bel kissed him again, leaving his lips on Daniel’s skin for several seconds before releasing with a small pop. “That’s all I’m askin’.”

  * * *

  Daniel went into Logan every weekday for work, but that didn’t count. He parked at the library, sometimes walked to Harnee’s to buy groceries, and drove out of town again as soon as he was done. He didn’t talk to people, and he sure as hell didn’t saunter down the sidewalk like he had as much right to be there as the next man. When Bel pulled up a good two blocks from the new bakery, Daniel thought about refusing to get out of the car.

  “Maybe I’ll just wait here,” he said.

  “You’re coming, Daniel,” Bel said, and that was it.

  It was morning. The school bus rattled down the street, heralding in what passed for Logan’s peak hour. Which was a couple of trucks and a few stray dogs, mostly. Daniel almost smiled at the thought, until he remembered he was living in a cabin in the woods and had no right to look down on Logan at all, one-horse town or not. Those couple of years away in college counted for nothing now. Not with where he lived and what he was. So what if he’d once ordered Thai takeout every Friday afternoon and ate it while Jeff’s girlfriend tried to get him to come to the Student Socialist Alliance’s screening of some grainy Eastern Euro
pean film with subtitles? He wasn’t exactly urbane now, was he?

  He didn’t get to look down on the people in Logan, because they were already looking down on him.

  Daniel could feel every fucking stare as he walked with Bel. Could imagine the whispers that followed them. If it hadn’t been for Bel, he would have cut and run. Although shit, it was stupid to draw strength from the guy who’d forced this on him in the first place. If it hadn’t been for Bel, he would’ve been safely hidden away in his cabin.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d just walked down Main Street, counting the same cracks in the sidewalk that had been there since he was a kid. He could remember skipping over them, swinging from his mom’s hand. Could remember her laughing at him when he told her he didn’t want to break her back by stepping on one. Even now, he didn’t like to step on them. The childish superstition had turned into a habit somewhere along the way. Burrowed into his subconscious and made a home there. Didn’t matter. Of all the things in his subconscious, it was the most harmless.

  The morning was warm, edging a little toward humid. There was enough of a breeze to keep it pleasant. When Daniel was a kid, the breeze from the west of town had smelled like freshly cut timber, the same as his dad’s clothes. He’d loved that smell. The sawmill had been closed for a few years now though. It had employed over a hundred people. A closure like that hurt a town as small as Logan. There were a few empty storefronts on Main Street nowadays. The bakery they were heading for had been a shoe store when Daniel was a kid.

  He pulled up short when Bel stopped.

  “Thought we were going to the bakery,” he said.

  Bel pushed the diner door open. “Can’t have a donut before breakfast.”

  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

  Daniel followed him in.

  Must’ve been about six customers in the place. Daniel kept his gaze on the floor as he followed Bel to a free booth. Heard conversations stop as he passed and then pick up again, full of whispers.

  He slid into the booth opposite Bel. Picked at a blemish on the shiny veneer of the table.

  Bel opened a menu. “What do you fancy? I might get bacon and eggs, and a milk shake.”

  There was a sign on the counter of the diner promising the best milk shakes in Logan. Which was true, given the only other option was the machine at Harnee’s. They still made milk shakes the old-fashioned way at the diner, with real milk and ice cream.

  “Not that hungry,” Daniel said quietly, but took a menu anyway and read it to keep his face down.

  “I’ll order for you if I have to,” Bel said, “so you might as well pick something you want.”

  The waitress appeared. “What can I get you, Bel?”

  “I’ll have the bacon and eggs, Sue-Ellen,” Bel said. “And a vanilla milk shake.”

  Vanilla, Daniel thought. No surprises there.

  Sue-Ellen tapped her pen on her notebook. “And what about . . . what about you?”

  “Same, please,” Daniel said, his voice rasping.

  Bel reached over and plucked the menu out of Daniel’s hand. He put it with his own and passed them back to the woman. “Thanks, Sue-Ellen.”

  She moved away.

  Daniel stared fixedly at the table. “Wish you hadn’t brought me here.”

  “Gotta leave the cabin sometimes,” Bel told him. “Look at me.”

  Daniel lifted his gaze. Bel’s face was serious, his eyes dark with concern.

  “You got every right to be here, Daniel,” Bel said. “You know that, yeah?”

  “I guess.” Knowing it and feeling it were two very different things.

  Daniel wondered what people would make of seeing him eating breakfast with Bel. Couldn’t be good for Bel. Daniel wondered what sort of courage it took for Bel to do this, or if Bel had done it without thinking it through. Or maybe he knew exactly what sort of shit would start flying, what sort of sneering rumors this would start, and he didn’t give a damn. Was it possible anyone was that confident? Bel was just stupid, maybe.

  It had been a long time since Daniel had eaten a decent breakfast, or at least one that was more than toast and peanut butter. Their plates were heaped high when they arrived. Daniel’s still was fifteen minutes later, but Bel had demolished his.

  “Not hungry?” Bel asked.

  “If I eat any more, I’ll be sick,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah, probably a good idea to save room for the donuts, anyway.” Bel reached out and speared a piece of Daniel’s bacon with his fork. Put it straight in his own mouth.

  Daniel’s face grew warm. He couldn’t help glancing over to the counter where Sue-Ellen was watching. You didn’t do something like that—take the food off a guy’s plate—unless you were friends. Or more. It was the sort of careless intimacy that said too much.

  Bel flashed him a grin. “Stop thinking so hard. You got that same look on your face you did that summer before you graduated, when you were walking around with your head stuck in that chemistry book.”

  Daniel wrinkled his nose. “You remember that?”

  Long days at the river, when he was supposed to be watching Casey. Watching she didn’t disappear with Jim Belman, probably, although their mom hadn’t specified that. Daniel had studied instead, ignoring Casey and her friends the way they’d ignored him. Except for that one kid.

  “You coming in?” the skinny kid had asked, dripping from the river and dappled with sunlight. “It’s real nice.”

  “I remember,” Bel said with a smile.

  Daniel played with his straw. “You were a nice kid, worrying I was being left out.”

  “Nah,” Bel said. “Just wanted to see you take your shirt off.”

  Daniel couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped him. Then he realized what he’d done, and his heart beat faster.

  On the other side of the diner, someone’s cutlery clattered to the floor.

  Fucking murdering freak faggot, Daniel thought, coming in here and laughing.

  “I gotta—” He slid out of the booth. “I gotta use the bathroom.”

  He hurried away from Bel, keeping his gaze down again—safest that way, safest to not make any eye contact—and pushed the door to the bathroom open. Went into a stall, locked the door, flipped the toilet lid down and sat there.

  Sat there and made himself breathe.

  Five minutes passed, maybe more, and then the bathroom door squeaked open.

  “Daniel?”

  Daniel sucked in a breath. “Yeah, Bel?”

  “Your breakfast’s getting cold.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute.” He closed his eyes and waited to hear the door squeak again. It didn’t. “You still in here?”

  “Yep.”

  Daniel opened his eyes again. “You can wait outside. I’ll be out soon.”

  “I’ll wait here.” Silence. “You want to tell me what happened just now?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you don’t want to, but you’re going to.”

  Daniel made a face at the stall door. “You think?”

  “Yep.”

  Fucker. Daniel sighed. “I laughed, Bel.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Yeah, it is.” Daniel picked at a thread hanging from the hem of his shirt. “I came into their town, where I killed a guy, and I laughed.”

  “This is your town too, Daniel.”

  “No,” Daniel murmured. “No, I don’t think it is.”

  “Come on out and finish your breakfast,” Bel said.

  Daniel didn’t want to. He wanted to stay in the stall, away from people looking at him and whispering about him, but it wasn’t going to happen. Not with Bel pushing. Dumb anyway. He’d have to get up and walk out at some point. Might as well be now.

  “Can we just go back to the cabin, please?”

  “No. We’re eating breakfast, getting donuts, and going for a walk first. Then we’ll go back to the cabin.”

  “I don’t want to do that.”

  “You ain’t in
charge, Daniel. Remember?”

  Daniel’s stomach clenched. “Yeah.”

  “So open the door,” Bel said. “Right now.”

  Daniel stood and opened the door. He stared at Bel’s face, searching it for signs of anger and finding nothing. “I’m sorry, Bel.”

  Bel reached out and curled his hand around the side of Daniel’s neck. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

  Daniel let the warmth of the touch soothe him.

  “You good?” Bel asked.

  Daniel nodded and followed him back into the dining area.

  * * *

  Daniel was jittery, Bel knew, but the longer they stayed at the diner the more relaxed he got. Or maybe it just wore him down to the point where he didn’t care anymore. Bel couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have every stare land on you like a threat.

  After the diner, they walked along to the bakery. Bel got half a dozen glazed donuts for later, and two for now. Daniel didn’t get anything except a bottle of water.

  “You watching your figure?” Bel teased him when they were back outside.

  “Already had enough sugar to last the whole day,” Daniel answered.

  They walked.

  There wasn’t much to see. One day soon, Bel thought, they should go down to the river and check it out. Make it a school day, when they wouldn’t be gawked at by teenagers who thought they owned the spot. Find a place in the shade under the old railway bridge and relax there for a while.

  “You need anything from Harnee’s?” Bel asked as they walked.

  Daniel shook his head.

  They turned off Main Street, passing the police station. Daniel dropped back a few paces, and Bel wondered why that was. He didn’t care if anyone saw him walking with Daniel. This was Logan—the whole town would know in a few hours that they’d had breakfast at the diner together. Daniel had done his time, so there was no reason at all that Bel couldn’t be his friend. Didn’t Uncle Joe play poker every week with that guy who’d held up the store over in Goose Creek in the ’80s? So maybe Tyrone had found Jesus inside jail—He was always in the last place you looked—but it would be on his record forever. Same as for Daniel. The difference, Bel supposed, was that Tyrone hadn’t killed anyone.