Bear Hunting Read online

  Bear Hunting

  By R.W. Clinger

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2015 R.W. Clinger

  ISBN 9781611527155

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  Bear Hunting

  By R.W. Clinger

  Part 1: Blue Danning

  Chapter 1: Bear Blog, March 28

  Chapter 2: April Fool’s Day

  Chapter 3: What Blue Doesn’t Know

  Chapter 4: King’s Barbells and Boxing

  Chapter 5: When A Stranger Calls

  Chapter 6: Cliffy’s Cafe

  Chapter 7: The Bear’s Den

  Chapter 8: Show Me Your Chest

  Chapter 9: Memorabilia

  Chapter 10: Bear Blog, April 4

  Part 2: Grant Stevens

  Chapter 11: The Whiskey Club

  Chapter 12: The Musician

  Chapter 13: A Drink on Me

  Chapter 14: Homework on You

  Chapter 15: Walk this Road Tonight

  Chapter 16: Beautiful Bodies

  Chapter 17: Lay with Me Awhile

  Chapter 18: It’s Alright…Alright

  Chapter 19: Blue Visits

  Chapter 20: Bear Blog, May 6

  Part 3: Denver Rawlston

  Chapter 21: Bump Into His Skin

  Chapter 22: Holiday Proposition

  Chapter 23: On Bretton Way

  Chapter 24: What Toby Does

  Chapter 25: What Toby Reads

  Chapter 26: What Toby Watches

  Chapter 27: What Toby Continues to Watch

  Chapter 28: Muddled

  Chapter 29: Getting to Know Denver

  Chapter 30: Bear Blog, August 1

  Part 4: Carey Cunningham

  Chapter 31: He’s Maybe Mr. Right

  Chapter 32: Body Parts

  Chapter 33: King Time

  Chapter 34: Bear Blog, August 15

  Chapter 25: Breaking Rules

  Chapter 36: The Final Piece of the Puzzle

  Chapter 37: This Can’t Be Happening

  Chapter 38: Minding Matters

  Chapter 39: Nothing Happened

  Chapter 40: Bear Blog, August 28

  Part 5: Jim Bone

  Chapter 41: Millard LeCarre

  Chapter 42: The Bear’s Den

  Chapter 43: The Favor

  Chapter 44: Uninterested

  Chapter 45: Ending Things like Polite Men

  Chapter 46: Sunlight

  Chapter 47: Bear Blog, Jim Bone 1

  Chapter 48: A Late Evening Visit

  Chapter 49: Sometimes You Can’t Help Who You Fall For

  Chapter 50: Fool

  Epilogue: December 20

  Part 1: Blue Danning

  Chapter 1: Bear Blog, March 28

  Where are all the gay bears hiding in this city? And what length do I have to stretch to find one?

  Tell me, because I want to know.

  Let me rant, if you will.

  I go to the Rocoll Museum over the weekend in search of bears. The museum is busy in downtown Templeton because the weather is nice. Spring is here early along Lake Erie. Pennsylvania is lush with green and fresh smelling. There is no more snow. The sun is out. The wind is light and comfortable against my face. Bustling comes to mind, without all the Christmas shit and snow.

  Bears like museums, right? Well, smart, savvy, and artistic ones do? Mostly right-brainers, I’m sure. I’m on the prowl for a masculine, aggressive, hairy thug with biceps the size of Smart cars and wavy abs like a professional wrestler’s. I prefer blue-eyed ones over brown, but I’ll take what I can get, because I’m horny and want some dick. Truth is I just want to be pawed and clawed, and that means I want to be thrown on a bed, or over a sofa, have my jeans and T-shirt ripped off with a bear’s teeth, and listen to him growl as he enjoys some rocking sex with me. It’s mating season for bears, right? Yes, it is. Don’t even think of convincing me otherwise.

  I find out that the Rocoll Museum is filled with uppity, well-dressed twinks with narrow and tight asses more than bears. Flannel isn’t anywhere to be seen. Beards and massive male frames aren’t present. Accountant-like queers or paper pushing queens are present, which disturbs me. I’m the only bear in the place, to speak honestly. A cub more than a bear, but whatever.

  Skinny male bitches with clean-shaven faces hit on me, and want me. Sam, a librarian. Mike, an insurance salesman. Philip, a lawyer. Theo, a pianist. None of the white collar men know what I’m in the mood for—a guy with a hairy chest, a beard, a massive splay of back, and a giant (uncut or cut, it really doesn’t matter to me) dick.

  I push the skinny bitches away. Out of my way. Go away. Be gone. And I want to hang a sign around my neck that says No Trespassing and wear it when bears aren’t within my vicinity.

  So where are all the bears in Templeton? At Cliffy’s Cafe? At The Bear’s Den? At My Independently Owned Bookstore? At The Whiskey Bar? At the YMCA? At the Templeton Zoo?

  Tell me, because I want to know.

  —Toby Cartwright

  * * * *

  He takes a break from clicking the keys on his laptop, rubs his chin, and thinks, Did I forget anything? Did I ramble too much?

  Toby thinks his headshot on the website needs updated. He has longer brown hair in the picture and now it’s short. Plus he has narrow sideburns now that he didn’t have when the pic was taken. His eyes are a dark foggy blue, which never change. He’s a handsome twenty-one year old on the screen in front of him, but now he’s twenty-four and runs his own blogging business, which is paying his bills. The picture definitely needs updating, not that he has changed much.

  He reads his work again, recognizes his rant as somewhat flavorful with some spice, and decides to upload the piece to his blog, which is called Bear Blog. The upload takes a minute. No biggie. He looks at the time and sees that it’s almost midnight. He yawns, decides to skip a shower, and heads to bed, dreaming of a chateaux in Aspen filled with bear models and three New York City photographers.

  Chapter 2: April Fool’s Day

  It’s a joke. An April Fool’s Day gag. It has to be. This is what Toby thinks as he sits across from Professor Blue Danning’s desk, admiring the guy’s hairy jaws, six-two frame, and thick black head of hair. Toby wants to run his hands all over the English professor at Templeton College. Against his chest. Over his steel-structured shoulders. Down his spine. He wants to cup both palms against the bear’s ass, providing the taut orbs with a pair of squeezes.

  Dave King, his best friend of twenty years, set him up again. King is always good for a laugh. Plus, King lik
es to embarrass the hell out of Toby, ever since they were in grade school. King has to be behind this meeting with Blue.

  The classroom inside Templar Hall at Templeton College isn’t anything to write home to mother about, or blog. There are five rows of chairs across and five back; a perfect grid for college students. Three windows overlook an enchanting courtyard that one might see in a Shakespeare play. A desk is seated in the center of the room at its front, positioned near the chalkboard. Two cream-colored file cabinets are in the far left, front corner. One is decorated with a faux copper bust of Walt Whitman.

  Blue distracts Toby. The way the man smiles. The discreet way Blue scratches one of his pecs and a hard nipple through his lime green dress shirt. And how Blue’s aqua-colored eyes squint when he says the words recall, disrepair, and rekindle in their conversation. Toby feels the cock in his chinos bounce with new life. If he doesn’t stop gazing at Blue, concentrating on the man’s waist, attempting to deduce how big Blue’s dick is when its fully erect, and wishing that their two bodies could rub together in a sinful dance, a full erection will build between his legs, and another embarrassing moment will happen in his life, with a spurt of semen in his pants.

  “Are you listening to me?” Blue asks. He stands near the chalkboard in a pair of khakis and loafers. The dress shirt looks two sizes too small for him, but Toby doesn’t care, since Blue looks tasty in the material.

  “I’m trying to listen to you. I just don’t believe what you’re saying.” Toby licks his lips, studies Blue’s left nipple again, and desires his lips around the material-covered lump.

  “I want to use some of your blogs for my Elements of Writing class during the upcoming, summer semester. They’re fun and funny. Plus, you’re quite creative with what you have to say.”

  “So you’re a fan?”

  He nods. “I’ve been a faithful follower since you started Bear Blog three years ago.”

  “I should hug you for saying that, even if it isn’t true.”

  He laughs. “But it is true. And something tells me that you’ll find any excuse to hug me.”

  Toby waves a finger at the man, enjoying their meeting, but still finds it confusing. “You’re a bear, and you know I love bears.”

  Blue blushes ever so slightly. Pink fills the areas under his eyes and above his beard. “You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

  “The last one was three years ago. He decided he liked my Aunt Rita more than he liked me. They’re still lovers.”

  “Jesus!” Blue says. “That’s horrible.”

  “What’s even more horrible is that she’s pregnant with his baby.”

  “Unbelievable!” There’s a stack of papers in front of Blue that look like printed copies of Toby’s blogs. Blue taps an index finger to the top page of the stack and says, “So you’re okay that I use your blogs as a teaching tool, right?”

  “No,” Toby says, shaking his head.

  “Damn,” Blue replies, and shares an adorable smile that rocks Toby’s world a little bit, causing his dick to sting with excitement. “You’re going to make this hard for me.”

  Toby grins at him, winks, and stares at his waist. “I intend to make something hard in this room, Mr. Danning.”

  Chapter 3: What Blue Doesn’t Know

  “When did you speak to Dave King?” Toby inquires about his best friend, wanting to walk around the desk, rip the clothes off the bear, and lick every part of the professor’s body, wetting his appetite with the guy.

  “Who?” Blue asks, sharing a befuddled look with Toby, raising one eyebrow higher than the other. It’s sort of a comedic look, but real.

  “Never mind.” Toby clears his throat and shakes his head. “You can’t use my blogs to teach with. I don’t like to share my work that way.”

  “It’s pretty public online, though, isn’t it?” Blue argues, tilts his head ever so slightly to the right in confusion and confrontation.

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want you to use my craft as a teaching tool. It’s not intended for that kind of use.”

  “What use is it intended for?”

  “Entertainment purposes regarding queer bears in this city.”

  “I don’t understand,” Blue says. He finds a seat in the metal office chair at his desk. The chair is sleek and aluminum, and quite handsome, just as he is.

  “Let me be frank, Mr. Danning. The shit I write is all fluff. You shouldn’t be teaching it to your students. You should maybe be teaching Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, or Truman Capote. Your students are paying a lot of money to attend this school and you shouldn’t rip them off by teaching about blogs.”

  “Are you calling me a thief?”

  Toby thinks about this for a second, purses his lips together, and nods. “That’s exactly what I’m calling you. My blogging has no literary value whatsoever. Any fool can figure that out. Templeton students deserve better. They should be learning how Willa Cather used to write.”

  “Willa Cather?” Blue is surprised to hear that Toby knows who Willa Cather is and does a funky dance with his eyebrows again.

  “And other famous authors, of course. Old and new.” Blue doesn’t know anything about Toby, does he? Blue is unaware that Toby graduated with an English degree from Templeton three years ago. Nor does Blue know that Toby was offered a job to teach at the college, but kindly rejected the position because the pay wasn’t all that fair. And Blue is totally in the dark about Toby’s once-affair with the previous English Department Dean at the college, Walter Bliar, which was quite the scandal back then since Walter was married for twenty years and had three sons.

  Blue rubs his chin with two fingertips, widens his eyes, and says, “If I may be so bold to say, Mr. Cartwright, you have to rethink the opportunity I’m giving you.”

  “Will the college be paying me a sum of money to use my work?”

  Blue shakes his head and admits, “I highly doubt that. The English Department surely doesn’t have a budget like that.”

  “How disappointing,” Toby says, stands, and begins his exit. Over his right shoulder, feeling smug and a little irritated at the moment, he says, “Thank you for wasting my time this afternoon, Mr. Danning.”

  Blue doesn’t have time to respond. Another thing he doesn’t know about Toby is that the young man makes his exits quickly and without him hawing around.

  Chapter 4: King’s Barbells and Boxing

  David Lee King is a massive bear at two hundred and forty-five pounds. He stands at six-three, is twenty-five years old, and enjoys the company of ladies rather than men. How Toby has become friends with the man is easy to explain. The two boys grew up together in the same neighborhood and eventually turned into men. They went to the same grade school, junior high, and high school. Then they went to Templeton College for four years, rooming together in Marcus S. Sainter Hall. Dave obtained a degree in nutrition and Toby obtained one in English, although he had always seen himself working in a library with a library science degree. Dave dated pretty blonde girls and Toby dated their queer brothers. Dave was married to Teresa Banter for two years while Toby dated a guy by the name of William Williams, but Teresa decided she liked geek cock instead off Dave’s plump cock, and the marriage fell apart after she slept with the computer guru who just happened to have the same first name as her husband.

  Although King has a place to live (293 Hochner Road, which is a Tudor by the lake that he has paid a quarter million dollars for) he prefers to stay in the efficiency apartment above his gym, King’s Barbells and Boxing. Truth is he thinks about selling his Tudor since he is never really there, but Leonard, his younger brother of nineteen, is staying in the place while he attends Templeton College. There is no reason to kick Lenny out on his ass because King loves him. Besides, Dave thinks that Lenny is a replica of himself, a clone of sorts, except younger, which strokes Dave’s ego a little more than it should. Both have the same light blue eyes and thick black hair. Although King wears his as a crew cut, Lenny prefers a shoulder leng
th do. And both are cute, ladies’ men, and girlfriendless at the moment.

  The history of King’s Barbells and Boxing is elementary. After graduating from Templeton, King applied for business loans. He borrowed one hundred thousand dollars from the bank, another twenty from his grandmother, Isabella King, and created his dream place of employment, a gym and boxing ring.

  He has owned the business for the last three years, which is paying his bills. The country has gone through some bad times with the economy, which has affected small businesses in western Pennsylvania, but King’s gym has stayed afloat and he manages to pay his bills, fill his stomach with protein, and have just a little extra cash on the side. These days he’s making enough to bank ten grand a month after paying his bills. Frankly, he has it good. Especially since he has Toby Cartwright as a best friend.

  Toby arrives at the gym shortly after two in the afternoon. He’s come to work out, King realizes, since he carries a gym bag over his right shoulder. There’s only one person with a free membership and it’s Toby. How can he charge the guy when they’ve known each other for almost all of their lives? But Toby does pay for his fruit drinks and bottles of water.

  They meet in King’s office, which is small, cluttered, and smells of protein drinks. King watches Toby slump into a chair next to the door. “What’s going on, pal?”

  “I think I’m being stalked, but I’m not sure.”

  King rolls his eyes, sometimes being impatient when it comes to Toby, and asks, “You went to see that professor at Templeton College, didn’t you?”

  “Blue Danning.”

  “And what did he say?”

  Toby tells King every detail about his visit with Blue. He adds, “I find him attractive, but yet he kind of frightens me at the same time.”

  “Is he sexy?”

  Toby nods. “Sexy as hell. A big bear. Beefy. Handsome. Smart. Just my type of guy.”

  “So you kind of like him?”