The Charmer Read online

  The Charmer

  By R.W. Clinger

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2018 R.W. Clinger

  ISBN 9781634866170

  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.

  * * * *

  The Charmer

  By R.W. Clinger

  I work at Robinchex Puzzle Company. I’m in charge of wrapping puzzle boxes in plastic. An interesting job. Nothing fancy, but I really like to do it. The job pays the bills. I have health insurance and a retirement plan. I get a slew of vacation and sick days. There’s no reason why I should leave my job.

  After putting in my eight hours, I decide to have a strong drink at The Hoffstetter Inn on Mayden Street in downtown Pittsburgh, near the old Heinz factory on the North Side. The redbrick and steel building stands seven stories high. Brass doors with lion-shaped handles welcome visitors. Most of its interior is designed with black and gold hues. There are over sixty bedrooms to rent, a restaurant with the same name, and a common bar.

  The Hoffstetter was built in late 1891 by brothers Robert and Joseph Hoffstetter. For the next thirty years, it thrived through the steel-making years of Pittsburgh. Things had slowed down during the Great Depression, though. Robert hung himself in the lobby, losing close to a million dollars in stocks. Joseph vanished, leaving behind his hotel. Rumors suggested he ran away with a young farmer. The two had fallen in love and vanished to Hollywood. Joseph had never been seen since. Nor was he viewed in Hollywood films.

  Thereafter, the hotel financially fell into the city’s hands. It sat empty from 1929 to 1941. In the spring of 1941, middle-aged alcoholic Marshall Weddington paid pennies to the city for the hotel. Marshall, unfortunately, died from alcohol poisoning less than three years later. Enter Fitz Hoffstetter-Murrer in 1955, Robert Hoffstetter’s love child to his mistress, Miss Jane Murrer. Fitz was born in 1929 and raised by his mother in Pittsburgh. He went to Yale for business, played the stock market wisely, and purchased six buildings in Pittsburgh, including his father’s abandoned hotel.

  I love The Hoffstetter Inn because of its turn-of-the-century extravagance: eighteen-foot-high doors off the lobby, gold banisters wherever I look, mahogany chairs, steel beams inside the lower rooms. English furniture, Pittsburgh Plate Glass windows designed by architect/artist Arthur Bentingstein, and so many other intricate features.

  Frankie O’Toole mans the bar, a third-generation bartender at the place; his career for the last fifteen years. He’s a handsome ginger at thirty-five, married with children. I know he’s witnessed more than I can imagine within The Hoffstetter throughout the years. A true friend of mine. Honest. A good listener. I rely on seeing him behind his U-shaped bar, a white towel always hanging over his left shoulder.

  Frankie’s all smiles when he sees me enter and knows my drink of choice: two fingers of whiskey over three ice cubes. He has my drink ready for me. “You’re three minutes late, Pete. I’ll make you a fresh one.”

  “It’s fine. Thank you,” I tell him as I sit at the bar. “I’ll drink it the way it is.”

  “Someone was just here to see you.”

  “Who? What woman?”

  I’m a handsome man at thirty-five. I have a job. I’m not crazy. City women always find these facts out about me, learn that I’m single, and desire me. Good men are hard to find among so many women. I’m a good man who wants to find another good man. Frankie will tell you if you don’t believe me.

  “It wasn’t a woman. A gentleman. Big. Blonde. Blue eyes. He looked like a Hollywood actor.”

  “You just described Chris Hemsworth.”

  Frankie chuckles. “Sorry, I didn’t see if he had a hammer.”

  “Too bad. I’d bed any of the Hemsworth brothers, even at the same time.” I wink at him. “If given the opportunity, of course.”

  Marilyn Monroe, Rock Hudson, Prince, and Janice Joplin sit around Frankie’s bar during happy hour. They’re not ghosts. They simply look like dead icons. The quartet is scattered around the bar, searching for new lives, fresh dreams, something, uncertain regarding their current positions in the world, perhaps lost.

  I finish my drink. Frankie makes me another one. While doing so, he’s on the phone with his wife, Carly. Their oldest daughter has lice, again.

  He mumbles something like, “Fucking public school. If I made enough money, I’d send all three girls to private school.” Frankie slides the fresh drink in front of me and meanders away to wait on Marilyn and Rock, who now sit beside each other, flirting.

  “Peter Find,” a masculine voice says to my right.

  It’s not someone I already know, or he would call me Pete, like most of my friends and acquaintances. I turn my head to the right and see Thor standing there: awesomely tall at six-four, awesomely muscular at two hundred thirty pounds, awesomely handsome with short hair, under-the-sea blue eyes, and blonde fuzz on his cheeks and chin. His hands are massive, too. And his lips are almost pink. He looks older than me. Maybe by just a year or two because of the acute wrinkles around his eyes. Thirty-eight, tops. I look at his style of dress and approve: tight khakis against his Herculean-like legs, sky blue shirt glued to his chest, nipples hard and pointy, and a brown leather belt at his middle that matches his Italian loafers.

  “Pete,” I mutter to him. “People call me Pete.”

  He extends one of his plate-size palms for a shake. “I’m Waverly…Wave Yorkshire.”

  I shake his hand, stare into his eyes, and become somewhat lost. What I see isn’t proper: our bodies twisting around on a king-size bed in one of The Hoffstetter’s upstairs rooms; Wave drawing his tongue along my chest, his teeth nipping at my nipples; his cock inside me, separating me into two equal halves and.

  Politely, he asks, “May I sit down?”

  I love a man with manners.

  He…he looks at me and studies my six-foot frame, one hundred seventy-five pounds, and Tom Brady smile, hair, eyes—the works—before he sits to my right. I become his prey, or at least I feel like his prey. It doesn’t bother me. On the contrary, it turns me on.

  “Of course.” I don’t offer men drinks. Never. It’s not in my character. But I do offer to buy Wave one, maybe because I’m attracted to his hulking frame and easy smile. “What will you have?”

  “Ginger ale over ice. Sorry. I don’t drink.”

  “Never apologize for saintly behavior.”

  “I’m not a saint.” He chuckles. “I just don’t like the taste of alcohol.”

  “I respect that. Would you rather continue this in the restaurant? We can move there where it’s quieter.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m good. He
re’s fine. It’s better lighting. I’ve always thought the restaurant a little dark. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  Frankie prepares Wave his ginger ale. He discreetly winks at me and grins. The grin says: Have fun with the stud. Even straight guys like me think he’s beautiful.

  I ignore Frankie and ask Wave, “How do you know my name?”

  “You’re the lawyer, Peter Find.”

  “You’ve got the wrong Peter Find. There are two of us. You do know this, right?”

  He turns in his swivel chair and faces me. “What do you mean?”

  I tell him what I know about the attorney, Peter Find. “He’s been in business for the last seventeen years. He’s older than me. He’s married to Lillian Daye, the artist. They have a cottage-like house in Brentwood. I’m nothing like him.”

  He scratches his chin, perplexed. “There are two of you?”

  “Yes. If you want the defense attorney, you’ve got the wrong Peter Find.”

  “Is there any relation between the two of you?”

  I shake my head. “None whatsoever. I’m quite boring and work for a puzzle company. I wrap puzzles in plastic for a living.”

  “You work at Robinchex Puzzle Company?”

  “For what feels like forever. What do you do?”

  He takes a sip of his ginger ale, swallows it down, and chuckles. “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”

  “So, you’re a bounty sniper, right? Wealthy people pay you big bucks to take out their enemies.”

  He shakes his head, grinning. “I’m afraid not. I’m a professor.”

  “Over at Car-Mell?”

  He nods, keeping his stare glued to my face, perhaps liking what he sees.

  “With robots?”

  “Close but no cigar.”

  “Bigger things, I’m sure,” I tell him, knowing the college works to create biological bombs, aggressive computer viruses, and houses poisonous swamp creatures.

  Rumor has it there’s is a nuclear bomb facility hidden under the university. Everyone who lives in Pittsburgh hears about the secret facility but doesn’t know if it really exists. Maybe Wave works there.

  He says, “Huge things.”

  “Dangerous things?”

  “Of course,” he tells me: confident, alluring, and sexy as hell. He smiles, winks.

  Is he flirting with me? I’m not sure. I’m so bad at such man games. Shame on me. “You can’t talk about your job then?”

  “I’d like to, but then I would have to be killed.”

  “That’s too bad. I’m sure you have some amazing things to tell me.”

  “Secrets are dangerous, Mr. Find. Some are so gruesome, you don’t want to hear.”

  I sigh and take a drink of my cocktail: soothing, pleasant, just right. “I’m sorry I’m not the Peter Find you’re looking for.”

  “Me, too.” He winks again.

  He is flirting with me. I can’t remember the last time a guy played such a game with me. Three months? Maybe four? It’s a comforting emotion that folds around me.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Pete. Even if you’re the wrong Pete.”

  I’m about to ask him to have dinner with me, just the two of us, either here or elsewhere. It doesn’t happen, though. Wave stands, nods, and ends our conversation and brief meeting.

  He tells me, “My search continues for the attorney, Peter Find.”

  I stand, shake his hand, and steady my gaze on his. “Until we meet again, Waverly Yorkshire.”

  His grip is tight on my own, so very much like Thor’s. I slightly lower my head and finally see his hammer between his thick legs. It’s outlined in his khakis, six inches soft, cut; a massive tool that interests me to the fullest. Overpowered by the mass, I’m weak in the knees. Maybe he is a superhero from another planet. Can be. Possible. I can only hope.

  “Goodbye, Pete.”

  “Goodbye,” I tell him, sad to see him walk away.

  What a good-looking, tight ass. He’s the first guy I’ve been interested in for quite some time.

  * * * *

  Ira Baye, my best friend, and I go way back. I can’t even remember when we haven’t been friends. For most of our lives, we’ve lived in the same area of the city. While growing up in Pittsburgh, attending public school, he and I shared the chicken pox in third grade. During high school, he went to the prom with Lisa Chandler, and I gave her twin brother a blowjob in his aunt’s basement. During our college years, Ira went to Carlington in Erie and obtained a degree in writing. I chose Pitt, majoring in business. When Ira graduated from college, he moved back to the city. He found a job at Masterton Publishing as an editor and continued to live in the city. He still lives by me, a half mile away.

  “Google Waverly,” Ira Baye says, scanning Netflix for a horror movie to watch.

  He’s crashing at my apartment on Strand Street for the night because he’s having a fight with his current boyfriend, Lou Rexroad; something about Ira spending too much money on his art supplies and not making anything from his oil pieces.

  Ira adds, “Everyone Googles people when they’re attracted to them. It’s our culture.” He looks over his right shoulder. “He’ll be easy to do homework on because of his name. I’m sure there’s not a lot of Waverly Yorkshires in the world.”

  I stand at the two-person table behind the small sofa and thumb through bills. “It’ll be a waste of time. He’s looking for a different Mr. Peter Find. My drink with him meant nothing.”

  “Untrue.”

  Electric bill. Car insurance. Book of the Month Club bill.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he didn’t pop you in the face when you checked out his dick. Some guys would have done that. Wave is different, I guess. Plus, you told me he was flirting with you.”

  “Are two winks really flirting, though?” I ask.

  “Could be.”

  “I don’t think they are. He was just a nice guy getting information out of me that I didn’t have. He needed to see an attorney, not me. Again, he found the wrong Mr. Find.”

  * * * *

  Ira has laptop sex with his boyfriend on Skype. Approximately twenty minutes to one in the morning, they play makeup. I hear him tell his laptop/Lou, “Let’s strip out of our pajamas and jack off.”

  Frankly, I want to tell Ira to get off my sofa and go home. He can fuck his boyfriend in their shared apartment. It’s too late, though, since he blows his load after two minutes of stroking. Too bad for all of us involved, I guess.

  The next morning, I tell Ira, “You need to dry-clean my sofa. I know you jacked off on it after I went to bed.”

  “It all ended up on my chest,” he admits over coffee. “Besides, you know I have a low sperm count. My loads are minimal. I never did produce a lot of sperm-goo.”

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t care how much you’re jacking out of your dick, Ira. You’re missing my point. Guests sit on my sofa. I take naps there. The last thing I want to do is smell your cock-juice in my dreams.”

  “Whatever,” he says. “I’ll have the fucking sofa dry-cleaned. End of discussion.”

  I’ve known Ira Baye for the last twenty years. He won’t be dry-cleaning the sofa, even if he says he will. Ira doesn’t work this way. He’s stubborn and does what he wants. Honestly, I can’t believe he has a boyfriend because he doesn’t really get along with men very well and never has. Lou Rexroad must have the patience of a god to deal with his shit. God Himself knows I don’t.

  “Are you going to work today?” I ask him.

  He works at Masterton Publishing as an editor. Basically, he sits at his desk and overlooks the Allegheny River and the Andy Warhol Bridge. Sometimes, he reads thriller/mystery manuscripts by rookie authors trying to make it big. Ira calls it a lazy job and the only one he feels good about keeping. Sometimes, he chooses a best-seller that changes the literary world, like Girl on a Train.

  “I’m working from here today. I’m reading this mystery called River Death. It’s set
here in Pittsburgh. River Dancers are dropping off one by one, most of whom are queer. It’s a hate novel that I’m kind of enjoying.”

  “Who wrote it?”

  “A guy by the name of Jake Harding. He’s married to the poet Faye Worthington. It’s not Harding’s first book, but it’s probably one of his best in my opinion. I expect good things to happen with it at Masterton.”

  Ira doesn’t know I had drinks with Jake Harding once at a party before the author wrote books for a living and before he married Miss Worthington. Nor does Ira know I slept with Harding, which wasn’t half bad at the time: rough, a lot of biting, and lots of lube.

  Such a strange bird Harding was during a cocktail party we shared a few years before. Easy on the eyes and flirty. No filter. Somewhat rude. He admitted to me over vodka cocktails that he sometimes liked to bang men who looked like professional football players.

  “I really like Tom Brady. I’m sure you hear that all the time, Pete. To tell you the truth, you could dress like a quarterback, and I could fuck you over a bathroom sink or somewhere. Both of us can score.”

  I told him his fiancée wouldn’t approve.

  He said, “Maybe she’ll want to join us.”

  No thanks on my part. Three drinks later, I changed my mind, and we fucked in a stranger’s bedroom. Faye never knew about it.

  I say to Ira, “I read one or two of his books. Not my thing. Too much blood and gore. Not enough mystery. He’s a butcher at writing and storyteller.”

  “Yes, but I like it. He’s quite graphic. His sex scenes are over-the-top wicked. They’re frigid. And his murders scenes are the same. He gives Robert Riley a run for his money. I really like Harding better.”

  He’s not that talented, I want to tell Ira. You’re putting him in a class of his own, and it’s not at all similar to the shitty one I’ve placed him in. Harding might be good at fucking, but he isn’t worth reading.

  “I have to get ready and go to work,” I tell Ira, changing the subject. “Maybe you can stay at your place tonight with Lou. What do you say?”

  “I’ll think about,” he says. “I can’t promise anything, though. I’m still really pissed off at him for spending too much money and not helping me with rent and food.”