by Lisa Henry
“Yes, sir. I mean, yes, Bel.” Daniel’s voice was tense.
“You like it?”
“I do, Bel.”
“Fuck yourself until the next light.”
Bel listened until he heard the quick, wet slide of Daniel’s fingers moving in and out of his ass. Fuck, if they didn’t get home soon, Bel was gonna blow another load just listening to Daniel.
Logan was dead. Almost midnight on a Thursday—no one was around. Still, Bel kept an eye out for cops or late-night wanderers.
At the next light, he turned and started stroking Daniel’s cock. Daniel gasped and panted, still finger-fucking himself. Bel figured his neck and shoulders must be getting tired. “Take your fingers out,” he ordered. Daniel did so with obvious reluctance, slowly and with a groan that made Bel’s balls ache. Bel pinched his nipple as a reward.
The next light was green, but Bel stopped anyway. Turned, slapped Daniel’s ass, and kept driving. They were done with traffic lights after that, but Bel stopped a couple more times to roll Daniel’s balls, stroke his dick, or pinch or slap him. Daniel took it all.
When they reached Bel’s house, Bel parked in the garage and put the garage door down. Then he got out of the car and opened the back door. Couldn’t even take a minute to appreciate Daniel’s ass, he was so eager. He yanked his pants down, fished the condom out of his pocket, opened it, and rolled it on. Daniel heard what he was doing and whispered, “Please, Bel. Please.”
Bel tried to climb onto the seat with Daniel, but he didn’t quite fit. He pushed Daniel down into the seat well, guiding Daniel’s upper body onto the center console between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. When Daniel arched his back, his ass was just above the level of the backseat. Bel crawled onto the seat, spit in his palm, and guided his cock into Daniel. He braced his hands on the front seats and started rocking his hips. Daniel was loose now, but he still clenched every few seconds, sending shocks through Bel.
“That’s good,” Bel murmured. “You’re so good.”
He took his right hand off the headrest, reached under Daniel, and made a fist around Daniel’s cock. Bel pounded Daniel’s ass, imagining how Daniel felt with his aching nipples rubbing against the console, his ass already raw from the fingering. Daniel thrust into Bel’s fist a few times and came, and Bel followed a minute later.
Bel closed his eyes.
Shit. Just . . . holy fucking shit.
He pulled out. Eased himself off the seat and out of the car. His legs would barely hold him, but somewhere he found the strength to help Daniel out too. Drew Daniel in for another kiss, stroking Daniel’s back as he did, not minding the mess.
“Inside,” Bel whispered, kissing the sweat from Daniel’s upper lip. “Let’s get cleaned up.”
Daniel pressed his forehead to Bel’s and nodded. Followed Bel into the house.
“Next few months’ll go by fast.”
Daniel didn’t answer. Ms. Davenport’s office was neat as always. She had a card on her windowsill and he wondered who had sent it and why. Birthday? Get well? There had been occasions where he’d almost fooled himself into thinking he and Ms. Davenport were friends. It was a dumb thought, but it had helped him when he’d felt like complete shit, utterly alone and hated by everyone. Ms. Davenport had believed him. She’d spoken to him, not like he was crazy or dangerous, but like he was just a regular guy who’d ended up in temporary trouble.
“Any idea yet what you want to do after?”
Daniel almost smiled. People had asked him that when he was getting ready to graduate from college. Now someone was asking him what his plans were post-parole. “Might go on vacation.”
“I feel you.” Ms. Davenport rolled her eyes. “I’d give anything for a break from Logan right about now.”
“I was kidding,” Daniel said. “Don’t have a clue where I’d go, even if I did want a vacation.”
Ms. Davenport nodded. “Well, it’s not like you have to have any big plans. But you’ll have options now.”
“Don’t know what to do with ’em.”
“Enjoy them.” She paused. “I can’t order you to get out of Logan, but it sure would make me happy to know you were doing something better than cleaning up the library.”
“Not much else I’m good at.”
“That’s bullshit.” At Daniel’s startled look, she added, “Sorry. Should I be more professional? I think that’s baloney.”
Daniel felt a cold sadness settle in his guts. “Well, maybe I’ll figure something out someday. But right now, I’m here.”
“Fair enough.” Ms. Davenport placed a hand over Daniel’s file. “I suppose we’re done here.”
Daniel hesitated. He didn’t like that Ms. Davenport was frustrated with him. It made him frustrated with himself. “How would I . . . how would I get a job anywhere else? With my record? Feel like I’d be worse off in some other town. At least here, people are sort of used to me.” His face heated, but he went on. “They still talk about me here, but it’s the same old stuff. Somewhere else, it’s gonna be a whole new set of rumors, a whole ’nother set of gawkers to get used to.”
Ms. Davenport got up and placed his file in her cabinet. Came back and sat across from him. She leaned back and clasped her hands over her belly and just stared for a minute. God, she was ten times more intimidating than Bel at his wickedest. If Bel could learn to do that stare, Daniel’d be a goner. “Maybe some people’ll talk wherever you go,” she said. “But why would you let that stop you? There’s places that aren’t so goddamn bigoted. You ever been to New York?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Nobody there gives a fuck who you are or what you’ve done. You can walk around wearing a garbage bag, and people just stare straight ahead.”
Daniel thought about it. USC at Aiken hadn’t been quite that anonymous, but it had been better than Logan, where you couldn’t sneeze without someone telling their neighbor about it.
Maybe I want to stay. Maybe I don’t want to let myself forget what I did. Need to be around people who’ll remind me.
But that wasn’t quite right either.
Maybe I want to stay because now I got something worth staying for.
“There’d be better treatment options for your condition, somewhere else.”
“There’s no cure for it,” Daniel said a little too sharply.
“I know that. But there might be ways to make it better.”
Daniel didn’t answer.
“Give it some thought,” Ms. Davenport said. “You’ve done your time. It’s not really my business, but for someone like you, I think staying here would be a life sentence.”
“Bel likes it okay,” Daniel said, before he could stop himself. “I just mean . . . he and I got some things in common, and he’s happy here.”
Ms. Davenport tapped a pen against her desk. “Bel’s never known anywhere else.”
“Well, neither have I, really.”
She shrugged. “It’s not that I have anything against Logan. A little too much Jesus and not enough forward thinking, but I don’t think it’s horrible. So do whatever you want to do. I’m sorry I stuck my nose in.”
“It’s okay,” Daniel said, getting up. “I wish someone would tell me what to do sometimes.”
Like Bel does. Wish we could both stay here and he could tell me what to do. Why’s it got to be more complicated than that?
He thought of Clayton. Of the pig’s head. The noose. The fire.
Because if Daniel stayed here, it would never be finished.
If he stayed, he’d always be surrounded by hate. A hot strike of fury hit him. Clayton and his buddies had wanted to watch him die. They’d laughed. And it wasn’t only other people’s hate he had to live with. There was his own too. And that well ran fucking deep. Deeper than Daniel wanted to acknowledge.
There were those moments where everything disappeared but his rage, and he knew he’d meant to kill Kenny Cooper. Knew Cooper had deserved it. Knew Cooper would have killed him,
back in that field, if someone hadn’t happened along.
“Can you speak? What happened? Can you stand up?”
Daniel didn’t even know who it was.
“Can you stand up?”
So much blood. The glow of a cell phone screen. The man trying to explain to a 9-1-1 operator where they were.
The cold.
“Say something.”
And somewhere in there, he’d slept.
Woken in the hospital. The questions.
“Who did this?”
Cooper would finish the job if Daniel told. And Daniel had thought death wouldn’t be a bad idea. He’d been ready to tell, except then, his father: “Daniel, what did you do?”
Healing. The swelling going down. He could open his eyes. His jaw was wired. Couldn’t afford dental work. Nothing to be done about the missing back teeth.
“Did you see the guy? Was it more than one?”
People had figured out it was Kenny and his gang. Maybe Kenny had bragged.
Had a gun, Daniel wanted to tell them. Was going to kill me.
Casey was right. He wanted to fight back, sometimes. That feeling rose in unexpected moments, but ebbed when he thought about what he’d done to Kenny. Gone beyond revenge.
Or had he?
Because he’d ended up hurting himself in a way that went deeper, lasted longer, than anything Kenny had done to him. Kenny had left him with nightmares.
But murdering Kenny had left him alone.
“If I thought you wanted to stay in Logan because you loved it, I’d let you be,” Ms. Davenport said. “But I think you’re staying because you think you don’t deserve a life anywhere else.”
Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’re worse than John.”
Ms. Davenport grinned. “He tell you the same thing?”
Daniel didn’t return the smile. “I think it’s weird that all you liberal people come here just so you can look down on us.”
Her grin fell away. “Excuse me?”
“What are you doing in Logan if you think all the ‘smart’ people who could do a lot better ought to move somewhere else? What are you, like those missionaries that go to Africa and try to get people to be Christians? You’re forward thinking. You’ve been to other places. And you want to settle here where you got to drive twenty minutes to get to a movie theater? You want to keep doing parole for addicts and dealers and wife abusers? I lived in the city, and there was nothing that great about it.”
He was lying. Well, not exactly lying. There’d been more to do in the city; there’d been better food and a feeling that he could breathe. The city had felt like a destination rather than a crossroads. And yet, it hadn’t changed his life. People weren’t better there. Just had some different ideas. He’d been so excited to leave Logan when he’d been in high school. And then he’d come crawling back.
This is my home now.
This is what I am.
Where I belong.
This is where I have some crazy, fucked-up kind of hope.
Ms. Davenport looked at him evenly. “I’ve got my reasons for being here. And I’m sorry. I guess it was rude of me to think you don’t have yours too. I don’t look down on anyone here. Well, maybe some people. But I’m not a missionary.”
“Sorry I went off,” Daniel muttered. His heart was going fast. It had been pretty stupid of him to lecture his parole officer.
“Not a problem. Consider the subject dropped.”
Daniel wasn’t sure he wanted to drop it. He wished he could believe in a place where people didn’t hate him, didn’t care what he’d done. Where he could go to a pharmacy program and get a decent job and live in a space bigger than one room.
Maybe Bel would come with me.
For some reason, that idea didn’t seem crazy.
Daniel went to work that afternoon, and all he could think about was Ms. Davenport saying, “Sure would make me happy to know you were doing something better than cleaning the library.”
And he wanted to say fuck her. Wanted not to think about what she’d said. But he couldn’t stop imagining a place where people didn’t stop to stare at him. Where no one threw bottles at his house or left nooses on his mailbox post. There was a pharmacy school in Charleston. There were people there who didn’t hate him. Didn’t even know him.
If I paid my debt to society, then is it okay to start answering just to myself? I won’t forget what I did.
Casey said it was okay to fight back.
He let himself imagine a little further. A place where he could breathe. Where he felt safe.
Where he and Bel—
He stopped.
He and Bel. Would Bel ever leave Logan? Why would he? Why give up his home—his life—for Daniel?
But the thought made him so genuinely fucking happy that he let himself have it. He left Logan, and Bel came with him, to the place where the world didn’t seem like an endless night he wandered through, awake and on edge. It had color and beauty, which were his as much as anyone else’s to appreciate.
Could that place be Logan? It seemed strange to even think it, but what if Bel kept helping Daniel, and Daniel got stronger? Strong enough that the stares didn’t bother him. That he could feel good walking through the town with Bel.
What if Daniel made Logan his home instead of his prison?
He swept between the children’s literature aisles. It wasn’t that simple. He was locked up in all sorts of ways.
But for now, he’d imagine. He’d think about Bel in the orchard. About how with Bel, Daniel had become the person Marcus had wanted him to be. Strong, using the pain to anchor himself, to move forward. To take and to give and to be something other than trapped.
A knock at the side door startled him. He glanced around, not sure where Carl, the security guy, was. He’d probably gone out to smoke and had ended up wandering over to the gas station for a sandwich. Daniel walked toward the door.
Clayton McAllister stood on the other side of the glass.
Daniel froze. Clayton was gesturing for him to open the door. He pounded on the glass, looking over his shoulder every few seconds.
Fucking hell.
“Open up!” Clayton yelled. “Please!”
What, did the guy have a sensor or something? Could tell when Daniel was starting to feel some hint of happiness, and was coming to wreck it.
Daniel glanced around the library again. “Carl?” he called.
No answer.
“Please!” Clayton was yelling on the other side of the door. “It’s an emergency.”
No way in hell was Daniel going to open the door for Clayton. What the hell kind of emergency could involve Clayton needing to get into the library? Clayton had probably never used a library in his life.
But shit, if Clayton was on the run from a maniac or something—sweet justice though that would be—and Daniel didn’t let him in . . .
Clayton wouldn’t stop pounding, wouldn’t stop begging Daniel to open up.
Clayton wasn’t going to try anything in a public building. Carl would be back any minute anyway. And Clayton was gonna break the glass if he kept at that.
Daniel pushed open the door. “What the hell do you—”
Clayton shouldered his way into the building, followed by R.J. and Brock.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Daniel said, shoving Clayton in the chest before he could really think about what he was doing. Fear and anger warred for dominance in him. “What do you mean, coming in here?”
“Left my phone in here earlier,” Clayton said. He didn’t look panicked anymore. There was a grin pulling at his lips. “Need to look for it.”
“You’re lyin’. What would you have been doing in a library? Can you even read?”
“Ouch, Whitlock.”
Brock laughed.
Clayton took a step toward Daniel, and Daniel backed up. “You’re right. I didn’t lose my phone. Just came to talk to you.”
Brock and R.J. crowded closer to Daniel. “�
�Bout what?” Daniel demanded.
“’Bout you showing your face in my town,” Clayton said casually.
Breakfast with Bel. Walking around town that morning like he belonged there. He’d known it was a bad idea. Known it would cause trouble, even though he wasn’t wrong for doing it. Cold dread snaked through him. But he willed it to stop, and it did.
“My town too,” Daniel said.
“That what you think?” Clayton’s voice was soft. “Think you can show up at the diner with your cop friend and expect people to treat you like you ain’t a murderer?” He paused, watching Daniel. “Are you a murderer, Whitlock?”
Daniel stayed quiet. Wasn’t like he could deny it.
Clayton nodded. “Right. I wanna talk about how things go from here.”
R.J. reached out and pinched Daniel’s arm. Daniel staggered back, hitting a shelf of picture books and knocking several to the floor. R.J. and Brock laughed, but Clayton didn’t. “The hell do you mean?” Daniel stepped forward, anger finally overtaking fear. What the hell did Clayton think he was doing, coming in here and ruining Daniel’s first good dream in years?
“I mean the law didn’t see to it you paid for what you done to Kenny. So I’m gonna.”
“You can fucking try,” Daniel snarled. “But I done my time, and this is as much my town as yours. And you don’t know shit. I paid. I paid more’n you think.”
Clayton gave a lifeless smile. “Fuck you, Whitlock.”
It was then that Daniel recognized the hollowness in Clayton. Daniel had felt that himself in the months after Kenny had attacked him. And he’d felt it again after Kenny’s death. After the trial. After his jail sentence. Sometimes there was loss without grief. Sometimes the person you were mourning was yourself.
Maybe Clayton had grieved for Kenny, but Kenny was gone now. Clayton had had years to come to terms with it. But he was still running on an old anger.
Sometimes it’s a slow burn, ain’t it, Clayton? Sometimes you don’t even see how it’s ripping you open new every day. Sometimes you live with it for years. And then one day, you snap.
