by Lisa Henry
“Whitlock. I said get in the car.” Bel stepped toward him, and Whitlock cringed back. Stared at Bel with eyes Bel remembered from nights at Harnee’s—unfocused, bloodshot, the sockets bruised looking. He blinked in the glare from the headlights.
“You wanna walk all night, or you wanna ride home?”
Whitlock took a couple of steps toward the cruiser. Nodded at the back door. “In there?”
“Yeah. In the back, Whitlock.” Bel climbed in behind the wheel. Whitlock hesitated.
“Get in the goddamn car. You’re lucky I don’t arrest you. What’re you on, huh? If I searched you, what would I find?”
“You can search me,” Whitlock said softly. He walked closer to Bel, who tried not to look at the front of his jeans. Whitlock leaned against the cruiser, one arm on the roof, his hip cocked, drawing the fabric of his T-shirt tight. “Want to?”
“Back of the car,” Bel repeated. “You get in now, it’s a ride home. You don’t, it’s cuffs and the station.”
Whitlock gave a sharp inhale that made Bel’s dick stir. Then he grinned, said, “Yes, sir,” and stepped away from the window.
Bel couldn’t see Whitlock’s face as he slid into the backseat of the cruiser. Whitlock pulled the door shut and then sat staring straight ahead through the partition.
“Tell me how to get to your place,” Bel said.
Whitlock didn’t answer.
“You can do that much, can’t you? Not so trashed you can’t tell me where you live?”
No answer.
“I can get out to Kamchee, but you gotta tell me where your cabin is.”
Whitlock glanced out the window.
Bel turned and slapped the partition. “Damn it, Whitlock!”
Whitlock jerked in the seat. He struck the partition right back, then fumbled for the door handle, but he was locked in. He planted his hands in a wide stance on either side of him, drew his legs up onto the seat, and stared down into the seat well as though it was full of alligators or something, shaking.
“Nutcase,” Bel muttered, stepping on the gas. They headed toward Kamchee. Bel kept sneaking glances at his passenger. Whitlock’s breathing gradually slowed, and Bel saw him looking around, confused but obviously trying to orient himself. He looked up finally and met Bel’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I’m under arrest?” His voice sounded different—harder. Wary.
Bel shook his head. “I don’t have time to screw around with that. Tell me how to get to your place.”
“My car?”
Bel held his tongue. The guy was slower than a frozen creek, and Bel hated how much he liked looking at him. Only thing more fucked up than being a murderer was having a hard-on for one. “You can get it tomorrow.”
Whitlock closed his eyes briefly and nodded. Told Bel how to get to his cabin.
“Not real smart, was it?” Bel asked. “Goading Clayton like that?”
“I don’t know.” The words were almost inaudible.
They drove in silence a while longer, until Whitlock pointed out the turn to his cabin.
When he let Whitlock out, Bel suggested, “Sober up.”
But Whitlock seemed plenty sober now. Didn’t sway or grin. His expression was focused, almost angry. “Thank you for the ride,” he said stiffly.
He walked up the gravel drive and let himself into the cabin. A light went on. Bel got back into the cruiser and let out a sigh. He didn’t want to think about the shit Dav had told him. She claimed there really were people who did things in their sleep and had no recollection later, and that Daniel Whitlock had been a model of good behavior since his release. Of course he had been—he didn’t want to go back to fucking jail. Dav ought to know Whitlock was no saint.
Bel recalled Whitlock’s reaction when he’d slapped the partition. The lashing out, the confusion, the fear. The change in Whitlock’s voice, in his body. Was it possible . . .?
No. You had to be awake to drive yourself into town. To get down those stairs at Greenducks. To kiss Jake Kebbler out back by the dumpster.
You had to be awake.
The can was on the floor, on its side, tangled in the little string Daniel had set up so carefully on its pulley system before going to bed. Must have knocked it down there after getting the key. The straw was on his pillow. And strewn over his mattress were the open cuffs, wrist and ankle, and a tangle of chains.
Fuck.
He’d fucking drunk it.
He’d known as soon as he came to in the back of the cop’s cruiser that drinking from the can had been the only way out, the only way to get the backup key to lower within reach. He should have known better than to set up the backup system in the first place, but in the last few days, he’d worried more than usual—what if something happened and he needed to get free? What if he couldn’t wait until morning when enough light had crept around the blackout curtains to see the combination to the lock that he’d taped on the wall the night before, his eyes squeezed shut?
He’d thought the system would be complicated enough, gross enough, that his sleeping brain wouldn’t be able to get around it. Drink the liquid to get the key for the left wrist cuff. Find the key for the right wrist cuff taped to the wall at the furthest extent of his reach. He’d practiced when he was awake, and he needed to be a fucking contortionist to do it. The effort to free himself had left him panting, exhausted. And that was before he’d filled the can with the most disgusting fluid he could think of.
Which meant he’d drunk his own piss to get to the first key.
The thought sent Daniel straight to the bathroom, where he went down on his knees in front of the toilet and vomited. Mostly beer. So great, drinking beer as well.
And fuck, he was tired. Whatever he’d been doing, he was tired.
He was always tired.
It was back to the ice locks, then. They only bought him a couple of hours of sleep, but at least he couldn’t get out of them. No more emergency backups. Better to risk his own life than risk hurting someone else. Or worse.
He rubbed his face. God, he needed to sleep. But more than that, he needed to be able to trust that he’d stay put while he slept. He wished he knew why he was so hell-bent on getting free lately. Two nights ago, enough moonlight had apparently crept between the curtains to allow him to read the combination on the wall and make an escape. Tonight he’d drunk piss. And God knew what all he’d done once he was out.
When it first started happening, Daniel had thought his parents were playing some sort of elaborate joke on him.
“Daniel! What happened here?”
The living room wall had gone from beige to neon green overnight. The same neon green his sister Casey had bought to paint some banners for school.
He’d looked, astonished. “It’s green!”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t . . .” But there was green paint all over his hands, his pajamas.
“Don’t lie to me, Daniel!”
He’d stood there for a very long time in his paint-splattered pajamas, waiting for his mom’s face to break into a smile. Waiting for the punch line that never came. Until, very gradually, it dawned on him that it wasn’t a joke. That he’d done this thing. That saying over and over that he didn’t remember sounded like the most pitiful lie in the world.
There were other incidents too; some small and some not so small. His parents had started locking his bedroom door at night. Daniel had gone out the window. Climbed onto the roof and down the gutter pipe, they figured. They’d started talking about mental illness then. No doctors, though. Couldn’t afford it, and more importantly, they didn’t want word getting out that their son wasn’t right.
In college, it got worse for a while, until Daniel found Marcus, and Marcus beat him so hard that his body was too exhausted to move. All the other trappings of that—the bowing and scraping, the leather gear, the getting fucked—were inconsequential as long as Marcus beat him. Or he’d wanted them to be inconsequential, until he’d gotten u
sed to sleeping beside someone. Started to think Marcus was more than a means of keeping himself under control. Shit, he’d liked the guy. But in the end, Marcus couldn’t deal with a partner who didn’t get off from the pain but needed it in a whole different way. Nothing sexual about Daniel’s masochism.
After Marcus, Daniel hadn’t gone looking for a relationship like that again—or any kind of relationship. Too much work, trying to explain what he needed and why. Too hard to think about someone else walking out on him when he couldn’t be what they wanted. But recently, he’d been drawn once more to the idea of what his and Marcus’s arrangement was supposed to have been. He wanted someone who could keep him contained, keep his body exhausted—nothing more.
He looked at the marks on his wrists. Finding someone to control him would mean no more piss-can pulley systems. No more great escapes. No more late-night trips to Greenducks and waking in the morning with an ache in his ass and no memory of what had happened. He pushed his arms together to make the bruises match.
Gonna have to get tested again. Though maybe I didn’t get up to any of that. He shifted experimentally. Nothing hurt. He could usually tell when he’d been fucked. No one in the Greenducks crowd went easy on him.
So what did I do?
Clayton McAllister. Officer Belman said he’d goaded him. Where the hell had he found Clayton?
Had he been looking for him?
“Dumbass,” he whispered.
He rose from the bathroom floor and walked back into the main room. Ignored the bed and sat down at his desk instead. He turned the computer on and blinked in the glare from the screen.
In prison, they’d given him drugs to make him sleep. Dumb, because sleeping wasn’t the problem. And the drugs only made it harder to wake up. Left him feeling sluggish and spaced out for days afterward. What he needed was something like he’d had with Marcus—but with someone who didn’t mind beating him, even if he didn’t get off. Someone who would keep him contained. There was a guy online he’d messaged yesterday who lived about thirty miles from Logan. Claimed to be a dom looking for a 24/7 slave. Promised he didn’t care if Daniel never came. Said he preferred it that way.
Master Beau. His profile picture was a pair of high-shine leather boots. He’d said he wanted Daniel naked, on his knees with his arms bound behind his back, to lick those boots.
Need you to chain me up, Daniel had responded. Keep me under lock and key.
24/7, Master Beau had promised.
I got a job.
Don’t need a job. Ur master will take care of u.
I got parole. Can’t miss appointments.
U won’t.
Master Beau hadn’t even asked what the parole was for, which sent up a red flag. But Daniel was hardly the only one taking a risk here. Might have been stupid, agreeing to submit to the guy without having laid eyes on him. But no way in hell did Master Beau know what kind of crazy he was courting.
Daniel felt a little guilty for that, but it would be okay. As long as Master Beau locked him up, it would be okay. He couldn’t hurt anyone.
Clayton. Might fucking hurt Clayton.
I want to hurt Clayton.
He clenched his fists. The strength of the desire was frightening, but it vanished quickly, leaving him gasping, choking.
He wasn’t going to hurt anyone else.
Didn’t want to.
But he needed someone to make sure he didn’t. Couldn’t.
He typed out a message: When can we meet?
Looked at it for a while, and then looked at the open cuffs on his mattress and the empty can of piss on the floor. His stomach churned.
He hit Send.
The floor polisher droned as Daniel ran it across the lobby of the Logan library. Vibrations ran up his arms and across his shoulders, where the muscles were pulled tight from the few hours’ sleep he’d finally gotten. He’d woken with the sheets tangled around his throat from his efforts to get free again. The ice locks worked up to three hours, as long as he kept the cabin cold. But Daniel always took some time to fall asleep, afraid someone would walk in and find him chained to his bed. Which was dumb, because it wasn’t like he got visitors.
His parents never stopped by, and Casey was away at college now. Daniel liked to think that was the reason she didn’t contact him—too busy making friends and having fun—but he knew it wasn’t. They had never been that close, not once she was old enough to realize what a freak he was. Must have felt like growing up in a lunatic asylum for her, the whole family acting as Daniel’s unwilling wardens. Covering up his craziness until it all went to hell that night and there was no way anyone could hide it anymore. When the police came knocking and found him in his bed stinking of gasoline, his hands blistered. The look on Casey’s face as she’d peered around her bedroom door: caught between horror and terror. Afraid of her own big brother.
After prison, he’d moved out to the cabin in Kamchee, where his family didn’t have to look at him every day.
They were better off forgetting him.
Earlier in the afternoon he’d walked the five miles into town, because he didn’t know where his car was. Didn’t take long to find—the lot beside Greenducks. No sign of his keys though. Daniel had been checking the ground, hoping every glint of light would resolve itself into keys but finding only broken glass, when Mike had appeared from the bar.
“You have fun last night, Danny Boy?”
He hated being called that. He’d just shrugged and kept looking.
“Oh, man, you and Jake was tangled up like a pair of panty hose!” Mike had laughed, showing broken teeth. “Looked like you was gonna fuck right there in the bathroom before you took it outside.”
Daniel hadn’t said anything. Turned his burning face toward the ground and headed for work.
Now, with the doors of the library locked behind him and the polisher droning across the floor, Daniel let his eyes drift close.
He could write a fucking paper on sleep deprivation.
The way it slowed everything down, like he was swimming through molasses. The way he started to talk to himself, like a dumb, drunk kid with a hundred things to say. The way it made him dizzy. Drained every ounce of strength from his body and left him a shambling mess.
He blinked—saw fire, dripping like water down the walls. Jolted as the adrenaline rushed through him, and blinked again to clear his vision.
He stepped away from the polisher and leaned against the wall. Placed his palms flat against it, sucked in a breath, and held it until his lungs burned. Until he found his balance again.
He liked working in the library when it was closed. Liked the silence and the smell of the place: books, floor wax, and the slightly stale scent once the air-conditioning was turned off. Mostly he liked that he didn’t have to talk to people. He saw the way they looked at him, knew what they thought. There’s the freak. Wonder if he’s gonna snap.
People hated him. They were afraid of him. He was afraid of himself.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked his messages. Opened a new one from Master Beau: Meet me at my place tonight. Gonna ride u so hard.
So much for introductions, but Master Beau was desperate for a slave to ride hard, and Daniel was desperate for a lock he could trust. Beggars weren’t choosers.
He sent back: Got no car.
Excruciating minutes passed until he got his reply: I’ll pick u up slave.
Daniel stared at the message for a while, thinking of every single reason why this was the dumbest idea he’d ever had in his life, and then thinking of the look on Casey’s face the morning after he’d burned Kenny’s house down with Kenny inside.
He sent Master Beau the directions.
Bel was still thinking about Daniel Whitlock when he arrived at Dav and Jim’s the next evening for the barbecue. Whitlock’s cabin—too small for a guy to live in. Didn’t he feel cramped, claustrophobic? And what business was it of Bel’s?
He’d brought a package of ribs, but Dav a
nd Jim already had plenty of meat, so he stuck the ribs in the freezer and nearly tripped on Stump as he stepped back. Dav whacked a bag of frozen hamburger buns against the counter to separate them and Stump skittered from the room.
“Dog’s dumb as balls.” Dav stuck the buns in the microwave.
“Jim having any luck training him?”
Dav shook her head. “Gun-shy. And we paid fifteen hundred for him.”
“Well, maybe it was the name you stuck him with. He thinks you ain’t got any confidence in him.”
“I don’t.”
Stump’s full name was Dummer’nastump. He was purebred lab, and Jim had bought him to duck hunt with, but so far the pup was a disappointment. For hunting, anyway. When it came to sitting on the couch staring adoringly at a guy, nobody could do better.
“Jim need a hand with the barbecue?” Bel asked, peering out into the backyard where his brother was firing the thing up.
“You know better than to ask that,” Dav reminded him. “Grab yourself a beer and help me with the salads instead.”
“Working tonight.” Bel got a soda out of the fridge and leaned on the counter. “Hey, I saw Daniel Whitlock last night.”
“Oh yeah?” Dav tore into a head of lettuce. “How’s he doing?” Dav was Whitlock’s parole officer. Only one in the town who believed Whitlock’s bullshit story. Made Bel feel awkward, bad-mouthing Whitlock in front of her, but it gave him some small satisfaction to be able to deliver evidence that Whitlock wasn’t the upstanding parolee she thought he was.
“He came staggering out of Greenducks, high as a kite.”
Dav put the lettuce down and wiped her hands on her shirt. “Daniel’s never failed a drug test yet. He doesn’t even drink beer.”
“That’s bullshit. Could smell it all over his breath last night.”
“I know what you think,” Dav said, fixing him with the same steely gaze that had hurried Jim to the altar—a man didn’t say nothing except yes, ma’am when Dav got that look, for fear of losing his balls. “I know what this whole damn town thinks, and maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up here, but I don’t buy the tweaker stuff. He’s not using, and he’s not crazy. Out of every offender who’s walked into my office, Daniel is the only one who doesn’t lie to me.”