Sugaring Ben Read online

  Sugaring Ben

  By R.W. Clinger

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2016 R.W. Clinger

  ISBN 9781634860475

  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.

  * * * *

  Kenito, always.

  * * * *

  Sugaring Ben

  By R.W. Clinger

  Chapter 1: Frazzled

  Chapter 2: Meeting Ben Cutter

  Chapter 3: Addie’s Game

  Chapter 4: Kent Karson and a Big Dick

  Chapter 5: Hays Golden (I)

  Chapter 6: WRDR and Home Life

  Chapter 7: Please Stay

  Chapter 8: The Next Morning

  Chapter 9: When No Means Yes

  Chapter 10: Whirlwind

  Chapter 11: Hays Golden (II)

  Chapter 12: Riverside

  Chapter 13: Wassamere College

  Chapter 14: Friday Evening

  Chapter 15: A Hard Catch

  Chapter 16: Kat and Flaws

  Chapter 17: Hays Golden (III)

  Chapter 18: Stranger

  Chapter 19: The Flaw

  Chapter 20: Threat and Watching

  Chapter 21: Ben’s Return

  Chapter 22: Hays Golden (IV)

  Chapter 23: Don’t Look Back

  Chapter 24: Kat Explains

  Chapter 25: Play Nice with Her

  Chapter 26: Being Hays Golden

  Chapter 27: Tinderdale Bridge

  Chapter 28: The Sound of Rain

  Chapter 1: Frazzled

  Sometimes I felt challenged by the weather. The wind during the middle of October. The blistering sun in a humid August. A heaping amount of snow over the holidays. Rain during the springtime. The weather became my life, feeding me and paying my bills.

  I attended Temple for four years and worked at WJTW in Johnstown right out of college. The middle of Pennsylvania became nauseating for me, and I had to get the hell out of there before I lost my mind because of all its grassy hills and minimal population. So I moved northwest, to Radar, next to Lake Erie, and surrounded myself with the small towns of West End, Templeton, and Dunbar.

  A man could be happy in Radar at thirty-four, right?

  I was happy and almost thirty-five.

  I calculated the saltbox with its steeply pitched roof at nine hundred square feet, cozy for one person. The catslide roof reached the first story in the back. The central chimney warmed the place quite well during the winter months. The abode felt compact and had very small windows of diamond-paned casements. To my surprise, the place stayed cool in the summer and quite warm during the winter. Most saltboxes existed in and around New England, but I was fortunate to purchase the one on Lakewind Drive in 2009 from one of my friend’s parents, Lou and Becky Reese. The wooden shingles were original; a holdover from the days of thatching. I knew that few original saltboxes survived throughout time, and was pleased to know that mine was of historical value, spanning back to the days of the Iroquois Indians.

  I had neighbors to my left and right, but they weren’t visible. Old Lady Gwendolyn Tucker—she looked exactly like Michelle Obama, passing as the president’s wife’s twin—lived on the property’s right side and minded her manners. At fifty-seven, she became a widow, currently lived alone, and reached out to senility with an unfriendly hand. None of her six children visited her, although she had twelve million dollars in the bank, which none of them were getting when she died. To the property’s left resided a young bride and groom, Yarley and Colten Bitter. He worked as an architect, and she dabbled in freelance writing. Both nodded at me in passing when necessary and, like Lady Tucker, minded their manners.

  Not even four months after moving into the saltbox, Beginnings arrived. I thought her a rare breed of feline with her oil-colored pelt and golden eyes. She purred upon our greeting, wanted inside, and mewed for some milk. I believed her to be seven months old, not a day older, and she whirled around my legs as I served the saucer-covered milk that she desired. Sometimes an outside cat, she never ran away, although she had plenty of opportunities. Somehow, someway, she and I had become best friends and ate together in the kitchen, napped on a daily basis side by side in the sunroom, and occasionally took walks to the lake, but neither of us enjoyed much swimming.

  Beginnings. I loved her name.

  Something told me that she liked it, too.

  How couldn’t I love her since she loved me in return?

  * * * *

  Sleep came to the west garden. The narrow beds of roses, daises, and tulips were covered in ice and two inches of snow. The maples surrounding the area looked like claws reaching up and out of the earth. The bronze birdbath was covered with thick plastic and duct tape, protected from the cold and biting winter ahead. I personally despised the garden when it was asleep, relishing its beauty in the springtime and summer months. Although I loved the winter months, particularly snow, ice, and the wind, I didn’t enjoy the season for taking things away from me, breaking me somewhat, and causing a disturbance within me of its peculiar greediness.

  Although the calendar told me that it was the beginning of March, a thin crust of ice lay around Lake Erie. Wind from Canada blew turrets of waves toward the shore; white angry water broaching the rocky bank. Most would have agreed that nothing about the day was beautiful. I was in a league of my own, relishing the prickly cold with a smile spread across my face, ready for its havoc and remaining days of winter ugliness.

  Beginnings twirled around my ankles, purred, and mewed. She, too, just happened to be a member of my Meteorologists Who Enjoy Winter group. Or maybe she just wanted milk from the refrigerator, which would only give her a mediocre stomachache.

  Because I had been with WRDR for years, I had earned my weekends off. My assistant, Kent Karson, forecasted the weather on Saturday and Sunday. To wake on a Saturday and enjoy a cup of lemon-flavored tea with honey and Beginnings could not have been a better gift. I relished both with the icy and chilly view, satisfied with my position in life, thanking the good Lord in heaven that I was safe, healthy, and happy.

  Not two minutes into my lake-watching, my cellphone buzzed on the kitchen table. I spun around, snatched it up, and saw that Catherine “Kat” Shaw interrupted my enjoyable task.

  Having been my friend for the last decade, a true fag hag if there ever was one, I loved the woman with all my heart and soul. Had I not enjoyed the company of men, Kat would have certainly filled the “wifely” position in my life. Unfortunately, our body parts didn’t mix. Also, she currently had an older dentist in her life, a Dr. Brent Lumley, whom she was quite affectionate with and p
lanned on marrying in the future, some two or three years away.

  Kat and I had gone way back in our lives together. She was the same age as me, prettier, and attended Temple at my side. Thereafter, we separated as adults often do following college. She moved to Miami for a few years, and I discovered Lake Erie. Eventually, she grew weary of Miami and a lying and cheating Hispanic businessman named Edwardo Padilla, and moved north, residing next to Lake Erie in a two-bedroom Tudor on Walnut Line Drive some three miles from my saltbox. Happy as a freelance editor for a small publishing house called Dessner, we talked regularly, were the best pals, and always in each other’s business.

  “Kat,” I said after pushing the green button on the phone’s flat screen and holding the device up to my left ear.

  “Are you up and dressed, Sand?”

  Sandford Phillip Oliver—me—had never slept in, not even when I was a child. Sleep barely became my friend throughout the years, let alone a lover.

  “I’ve been up. Watered and fed, and let out to pee.”

  “Good.” She coughed, clearing her throat, and then cut to the chase of why she had called. “I want you to meet Ben Cutter this morning for brunch. You can drink orange juice or something if you already ate. We’re gathering at eleven at Estuary.”

  “The pastry chef Ben Cutter?”

  “The one and only.”

  Ben had his own baked goods show on WDEN, which was syndicated to seven other stations. His show, Sugaring Ben, brought in a lot of viewers. Women over thirty had fallen in love with his ginger looks. And gay guys all around wanted to sprinkle sugar on the guy’s muscular chest and lick it off.

  “Why do you want me to meet him?”

  “Because you’re single, and he’s single. You’re both professionals, and I’m thinking the two of you need to start a romance.”

  I laughed. “You’re out of your mind, Kat. Are you drunk?”

  “I haven’t had a single Bloody Mary this morning. But I can’t promise you that I won’t stay sober during brunch.”

  I didn’t want to burst her bubble of playing hook-up artist, but I had to. I couldn’t and wouldn’t go to brunch to meet Ben Cutter, who was totally out of my league: wealthy, famous, a celebrity of all things. The guy was so much better than me. He had millions in the bank and drove a Jaguar around Radar. The owner of Marshdale Estate, some two miles north of my saltbox, had recently showcased his Colonial in an uppity magazine called Lakeside Architecture. Plus, he appeared on a variety of cooking shows, Good Morning America, and currently held a position of being one of the hundred most beautiful men by People.

  Truth told, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all to learn that he had seven cars, three other estates on the East Coast, and a prized chateau in France for skiing. He probably had investments all over the world with billion dollar-making corporations, gaining more millions in his bank accounts.

  No, I couldn’t go to brunch and embarrass myself. Not with Ben Cutter. Never.

  I wouldn’t.

  Even if Kat had wanted me to.

  * * * *

  Kat insisted I go to brunch. She drove to my abode in her shiny red Mercedes, forced me to dress, and caused me to roll my eyes.

  I told her, “You’re ridiculous. There’s nothing normal about you.”

  “People have called me pushy, but never ridiculous.” She passed me a cable knit sweater. “Put this on. Ben will like it.”

  Kat was one of those women who liked her hair big and bottled blond, her nails long, and dressy. Robust in size and broad-shouldered, she could have been considered a man in drag. Far from beautiful, but not struck with an ugly stick, I adored her nonetheless, relishing her company and prolonged friendship for the last decade.

  One could not have considered me a model by any means. My hair was an inky black, I stood at six-foot and weighed one hundred and seventy pounds, and my jaw was fairly cut. Playgirl was not calling me for a cyber centerfold. Nor were advertising agents because my pretty boy days were long over. Mediocre came to mind regarding my appearance.

  I slipped the sweater on, over a pec-clenching T-shirt.

  Kat’s phone chirped inside her purse, which sat on the edge of my queen-sized bed. She looked at me in the sweater and turned her view to her purse. “It’s the dentist. I should get this.”

  I approved of her relationship with Dr. Brent and considered him lovely the way he treated Kat. Often, he had given her flowers, chocolates, afternoons at the Finest Spa for generous backrubs, and jewelry. He also took Kat on weekend trips to the Falls, New York City, and Chicago. Truth told, if Dr. Brent were gay, I would have dated him myself. Although a liberal and believing in gay rights, to put it rather bluntly, Dr. Brent didn’t do dick. Too bad for me.

  Kat lost color in her face as she spoke to the doctor. A tear surfaced at the bottom of her right eye and fell down and over a cheek. She shook her head and said, “I’ll be there as fast as I can. Not to worry. We will both get through this together.” She then told her goodbyes to her boyfriend of two years, ended the call, and said to me, “Binky fell out of the second floor window, pushed through the screen, and broke one of his legs.”

  Binky just happened to be Dr. Brent’s oversized orange tabby with bright green eyes and a bad temper, his loving pet for the last seven years, and his longest relationship.

  Somewhat in a panic, still shaking her head, holding her tears back, she said, “I have to meet him at the Rosdel Animal Clinic. Dr. Michaelson is waiting for us.”

  “What about brunch with Ben Cutter?” Sometimes I only thought of myself; shame on me.

  Making her brisk exit from the bedroom, she called over her right shoulder, “Do us proud and meet the pastry chef. Feel free to tell him of my emergency. Have a good time. I will be sure to call you later today.”

  “But…” I craved a strong argument with her, believing her idea preposterous.

  Before I realized it, she was gone, vanished from the saltbox, leaving me alone, unsure of what just had occurred between us, and frazzled.

  Chapter 2: Meeting Ben Cutter

  I couldn’t understand why I was nervous concerning the brunch date with Ben Cutter. Part of me wanted to back out of the event, fearing the celebrity because of his sugary greatness. I mean, come on, he had cookbooks with his name on their tasty-looking covers, a chain of bakeware simply called Cutter, and other money-making endeavors that reeked of power and fame: aprons, dish towels, dishes, and candles. Honestly, I was no one compared to him, a weatherman who everyone in the community hated because I sometimes called the weather wrong. Go figure.

  Unfortunately, I had to represent Kat Shaw and attend the brunch. Leaving Ben at a table by himself at Estuary and wondering if he were being stood up by his fellow guests seemed rude. I couldn’t do that to him or to Kat. Therefore, I finished dressing, listened to my nervous stomach rock and roll, and left the saltbox.

  To be frank, meeting Ben Cutter wasn’t such a bad thing to happen in my life. Many gay guys would have been jealous of me, and women would have clawed at the opportunity to have brunch with the famous millionaire. According to local newspaper articles about the man, and brief television interviews with him, he was easy to get along with, an exceptional conversationalist, and polite. Most women described him as adorable with his red hair and melting green eyes, and those men who were attracted to him, both gay and straight, thought him Herculean and on the cute side.

  While driving east to Estuary, sitting behind the wheel of my Fusion—yes, I could have afforded a vehicle that was grander and flashy, but I felt responsible to save the planet and its wasted gas—I recalled the previous year and the Men of Radar Calendar, a collection of beefy and sexy semi-naked Radar men that raised money for the AIR Foundation, Autism in Radar. At thirty-four, Ben Cutter just happened to be Mr. July and lounged on a lime green inflatable raft in his pool. He sported sunglasses and a fruity-colored drink with too much fruit. His square-cut trunks clung to his middle and thighs, and shined a bright yellow.
The man’s grin spread across his handsome face, showcasing his pearly whites. Sunbeams reflected off his freckled cheeks and sloped nose. Now he was thirty-five, even more appealing and quite handsome. A legend in our small but wealthy community along the lake.

  What interested me the most about Mr. July just happened to be his chest: ripples of muscles, ginger-colored hair, and pink nipples. His V-shaped massive chest shined in the summer sun, dappled with just a teaspoon of sweat, and left me uncomfortable and hard every time I looked at its perfection.

  * * * *

  Estuary could not have been anymore divine, which caused me to feel out of place. Think swans in a fountain, a Colonial-style mansion, fish-shaped hedges, a faux statue of David near its entrance, and other bare-chested sculptures such as Tethys, Adonis, Atlas, Sebastian from the Bible, and Neptune. Nothing at all about the restaurant screamed cheap, easy, and lowbrow.

  A boyish host of twenty-two with curly brown hair and intoxicating hazel eyes greeted me inside the dazzling foyer. The young thing named Rudger, who was dressed like a penguin, recognized me from my work, which rarely happened in my life.

  “Mr. Cutter awaits you. Follow me.”

  The host escorted me through a ballroom that looked like a scene out of Beauty and the Beast and into an elegant dining room splayed with numerous round tables, glittery chandeliers, and leaded-glass Newport windows. Most guests were dressed in sweaters and wool pants. Women and extravagant gays wore French scarves. More penguins waited tables, grinning from ear to ear, being polite for grand tips.

  The music was Bach, which fell from overhead speakers that were secure in the restaurant’s high ceiling. I couldn’t tell if the piece playing was Wie Schön Leuchtet der Morgenstern or Die Freude reget sich. Music really didn’t move me the way it had for other people in my life. Kat enjoyed country, adored Blake Shelton, William Michael Montgomery, and an upcoming star, and personal friend of Kay’s, named Sylvan. For me, music became just a clutter of noises compared to the sound of the weather, mostly wind and rain, which enlightened my senses.