Carpool

by R. W. Clinger

  Carpool

  By R.W. Clinger

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2018 R.W. Clinger

  ISBN 9781634867238

  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.

  * * * *

  Carpool

  By R.W. Clinger

  Luke Masterson enjoys the same morning routine five days a week, Monday through Friday: his alarm clock sounds at six o’clock in the morning; he presses the snooze button twice; he downs two tall glasses of water and goes for a two-mile run; showers; dresses for his busy workday at Melner Publishing (white dress shirt, khaki-colored chinos, the latest leather heels from Italy in two shades of brown); grabs two Red Dragon apples for a late morning or late afternoon snack. Off he goes. On his way. His day is just heating up.

  Summertime. August in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, near its three rivers. It drips with sex, heat, and handsomeness. He wants to think the day beautiful and stunning, a radiant lady in a dazzling cocktail dress with a vintage clutch, but he can’t. He despises summertime (and he’s not fond of well-dressed ladies) and heat and humidity and the sun. Always has. Always will. The temperature sits at eighty. It’s predicted to climb to one hundred today, or even higher. Hotter than hell. Horror movie hot. He’ll sizzle and burn to death like a warlock or a vampire by three this afternoon. No joke.

  Luke takes the elevator into the basement. His Nissan Leaf, an all-electric car purchased ten months before, is parked in spot B-7 in the parking garage beneath the apartment building, next to the Monongahela River. He unplugs it from the front, climbs in, and starts the engine and air conditioner. A full charge puts a smile on his face. He can’t remember the last time he’s paid for gas but loves the extra money in his pocket. He backs out of the parking spot.

  The console speaks to him in her Angelina Jolie voice, “You have one new message, Mr. Masterson.”

  He presses a button next to volume.

  Angelina says, “Meeting this morning with Mike Tangsten. Eleven A.M. at The Royal.”

  Tangsten’s a new writer at Melner Publishing. Creates horror novels. Melner will publish three of his novels in the next eighteen months: The Meadow, The Worshippers, and Midnight Asylum. Working titles pending, of course. Luke’s job is to do a dog and pony show for Tangsten: wine and dine him at expensive city restaurants, show off the city, and let Tangsten experience its exciting ins and outs, both dirty and appealing.

  He loves his job. Been doing it for seven years now. He does everything at Melner: pony shows, sometimes editing, flies to New York City for book conventions, and helps design book covers. He has a degree from the Art Institute of Monongahela in graphic arts and a minor degree in digital design, both of which are useful for his elastic position at Melner. Honestly, he doesn’t know what his job title is, but he doesn’t care. When Bob Brishner, the owner of the small publishing company, provides him with a task, he gets is done, no argument. This is in Luke’s nature. A listener. A jumper. A man who produces.

  It’s carpool time. His carpool. Something he’s been in charge of for the last few years. And it’s his turn to drive this week. Luke pulls out of the garage and heads west, closing in on the city. As usual, morning traffic is a bitch, even in August when the kids are off school and families are on vacation. One of the city’s four hundred bridges under roadwork can cause a backup for the remaining three hundred ninety-nine.

  He leaves his neighborhood of Russell and ends up on East Carson Street, which turns into Debner Avenue. The neighborhood of South Sulton near the Hot Metal Bridge welcomes him. South Sulton has the reputation of having nightlife: young men and women gather at bars to play darts, drink heavily, and feed the neighborhood restaurants with their hard-earned money. Most residents of the city call the area eclectic, liberal, and young. A party place not for the mild and far-right.

  Right on time: 8:30. Luke’s carpool buddy for the last five years, Perrin Lerue, lives on Blasé Street in a one-bedroom studio apartment. Luke parks in the front of a gay stripper bar called Willie’s and waits patiently for Perrin.

  One minute passes. No sign of Perrin. No problem. He’ll wait it out.

  Perrin is never late. Always on time. Always standing on the curb, waiting for him in every imaginable form of weather: blistering heat, high winds, the residue of an east coast hurricane, or a blizzard.

  If Perrin’s sick, he sends Luke a text message that reads: Staying home today. No need to stop and pick me up.

  Or something similar, conveying the point that he won’t be going to work.

  Luke checks his text messages on his cellphone. One is new from his sister, Valerie. She sends him a picture of a baby panda hanging from a bamboo tree. Cute. Nothing important. Smiling material. But there’s nothing from Perrin. No announcement that he won’t be going to work today.

  Two minutes pass. No sign of Perrin. Luke beeps the Leaf’s girlie-sounding horn. He looks up and through the windshield, hoping to see movement in one of Perrin’s apartment’s windows. Nothing. Only a sunshiny glare of white, yellow, and silver mixed.

  Three minutes pass.

  “Hey, buddy,” Luke says, becoming irritated. “Come on, Perrin. We’re on a tight schedule here. We both start at nine.”

  Four minutes pass. More irritated, he turns off the Leaf and climbs out. He enters the building to the right of the queer bar and climbs the four flights of iron and cement stairs. By the time he reaches the fourth floor, he’s soaked with sweat, overheated. He’s not puffing, though, fit. Luke works out three times a week at MuscleButts Gym on Layland Street after work. Thank God the squats and cycling have finally paid off.

  A gray steel door welcomes him on the fourth floor. He knocks once. Nothing. He knocks twice. Nothing.

  “Perrin, are you in there?” he yells through the Superman-strength metal.

  Nothing.

  Luke digs out his set of keys on a Pennywise character keychain: one key for his apartment, one key for the Leaf, one key to his sister’s house, and one key to Perrin’s studio apartment. He slips Perrin’s key into the lock, turns it right, and listens to the lock click open. He’s in.

  * * * *

  Three black, short-haired felines are lined up in the studio apartment’s foyer like Hitler’s Third Reich soldiers: Fury, Exterminator, and Princess. The trio has golden-shimmering-evil eyes. Princess hates Luke, hisses and growls. She’s the devil compared to her brothers. Her tail swings left and right, and her eyes of death stare him down.

  When Luke walks quietly and calmly around the trio, he whispers, “I loathe pussies. I’m a dog man.”

  Princess obviously understands English, or at l
east the word dog, and hisses again. She flings out a paw with extended claws, ready for battle. More growls. So much dramatic growling. Jesus, she’s a feisty kitty with too much attitude. RuPaul in cat form.

  As Luke crosses the living room area, he thinks Princess will run after him and jump on his back, digging her needle-like claws through his white shirt, penetrating their knife-sharp points into his shoulders or spine. This doesn’t happen, though, at least not this morning. Maybe in the future it will, but for now, he’s safe.

  He walks through the studio apartment: lots of Swedish furniture in calming green hues; homoerotic black-and-white photos by the local artist, Arman Chess; wall of hardback books by Edmund White, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Armistead Maupin, Michael Cunningham, and others. The apartment looks tidy: no clutter, clean everywhere, smells like pine. He sees a paperback copy of Ben Tyler’s Tricks of the Trade on the Z-shaped coffee table. A business card from Halo’s Bar hangs out of its center. Halo’s is owned and operated by Miles Halo, one of Perrin’s best friends.

  Two bamboo walls that almost reach the high ceiling block off Perrin’s bedroom. According to Perrin, the bamboo came from Congo, but Perrin likes to tell stories about adventures he’s never taken around the world. Such a storyteller. The guy should be a fiction writer.

  Luke walks through the bamboo doorway and stops. Perrin Lerue is still asleep, on his back and sprawled over his bed. Luke takes note that Perrin’s naked. How can’t he since the Frenchman is beautiful in the warm rays of August light?

  Perrin has the body of a god: lanky with some black hair on his chest, pink nipples, eight abs, muscular thighs sporting very little hair, and legs that look like a runner’s. His cock is six inches limp, nicely cut. The man’s ball sack droops between his legs, its curls of black hair freshly man-scaped.

  Luke likes the guy. Always has. Always will. It’s more than a crush these days. It’s infatuation. It’s lust. It’s finding Mr. Right in a world of demented Mr. Wrongs. If asked about his feelings for Perrin, he’d tell you, “He’s my man. He doesn’t know it yet. Someday he will. I’m holding out for him. No one can replace Perrin. No one. He’s everything I want in a guy. Prince Charming all the way.”

  Luke feels fire rush through his body. Turned on by his friend. Attracted to his friend. Drawn to his friend. More than just a friend in his mind and heart. Something he’s never told or shared with Perrin. More than puppy love. More than just lust. Luke suffers from hardcore love for the Frenchman. Over-the-top emotions he drowns himself in, dying inside. Silenced. He’s too afraid to tell Perrin how he feels about him because he doesn’t want to ruin their friendship. Perrin’s a good friend. No. Wrong. Perrin’s a great friend. An amazing friend for the last five years, three months, and six days. Luke’s best friend. Luke doesn’t want his I’ve-Found-the-Man-of-My-Dreams emotions to ruin the masculine beauty they share as friends. No way. Not in this lifetime. Never. So Luke keeps his affections for Perrin under wraps, hidden. It’s best this way. Honestly, it is.

  Luke shakes his head. Tries to clear (and clean) his thoughts. He licks his lips. He feels—Damn! It’s happening again!—the cock between his legs firms. Fully hard. An erection for the taking. Completely turned on because of Perrin’s morning nakedness.

  He can make love to Perrin right here and now, with Perrin’s consent, of course. Luke can strip out of his fashionable work clothes, drop them to the floor, and climb between Perrin’s legs. He can take Perrin’s dick inside his mouth, cause it to grow hard, and perform a throat-clenching blowjob on the Frenchman, bringing him to the brink of orgasm. He can fetch a condom and lube from Perrin’s nightstand (Luke knows they are kept inside its top drawer because Perrin had once shared this information with him during a recent conversation about safe sex) and apply both to Perrin’s tool. He can climb on top of the dick, lowering his tight bottom over its rounded tip, falling…falling…falling on the shaft, and…

  Luke feels a spurt of goo leak out of his hard dick. It’s not urine. No way. It’s pre-ejaculation. One bubble. Just a drop of cream that causes him to feel as if the world implodes on itself. Relief. Excitement. Pure torture for him. Something he doesn’t have full control over, and probably never will when he sees Perrin naked and thinks about seducing the man, rubbing their bodies together. Lovemaking.

  Sometimes, his mind races with lucid imagery to their passion and indiscreet intimacy. Fiction inside his head. Naughty scenes in a homoerotic novel unfold. Luke feels Perrin inside him. All eight inches rushing…pushing…thrusting…pounding inside his body, breaking him apart. Perrin’s grip on his hips, sturdy and clawing. Perrin’s intensely blue eyes shining bright, staring into his brown eyes. The Frenchman’s chest slick with translucent perspiration because of his gyrating action, laboring. Luke’s dick and balls smacking against the hairy triangle of pubic hair beneath Perrin’s navel. Gliding together. Up and down motion. Wild, animalistic grunts and groans. Writhing in synchronized bliss. Minutes passing of man inside man. Men riding each other, offering extraordinary pleasure. Lust. Deep sex. Love between men. The way he wants his life to turn out: being Perrin Lerue’s lover.

  He imagines, daydreams, and becomes lost in sexual thoughts while he stares at his sleeping friend. Another bubble of pre-ooze leaks out of his joint. He feels dizzy, out of breath. His temperature rises, and he begins to shake as the two characters inside the folds of his mind come together, releasing their loads: Perrin exploding his man-load inside the latex that separates their two bodies and Luke on Perrin’s muscular chest, without his cock being touched, caressed, grappled, or tugged.

  * * * *

  Perrin opens his eyes and yawns. He smiles at Luke. He’s not shy and doesn’t cover his nakedness. “What are you doing here, Luke?”

  “We’re running late. I don’t think your alarm went off.”

  Perrin looks at the alarm clock to his right, on the nightstand. It flashes off/on/off/on/off. “The electric must have gone out again. It’s always a problem.”

  A summertime power surge in Pittsburgh. It’s happened before. It will happen again, Luke thinks. “How fast can you be ready?”

  “In three minutes. Don’t forget, I was in the military.”

  Luke recalls Perrin telling him a few years ago. The Army. Four years. Posted in Berlin, Germany, after boot camp. Perrin did something with Military Police. A guard or watchman of sorts. The details have become misplaced in Luke’s mind, confusing.

  Luke pulls out his cellphone and looks at its screen. “Three minutes and counting. We can still make it downtown in time if you can pull this off.”

  Perrin jumps out of bed. His dick and balls flop around; it’s another turn-on for Luke. Perrin rushes to the small bathroom located behind more panels of bamboo.

  Luke plays on his phone while the Frenchman showers. A designing game: living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, and patios. He’s doing well at the game, achieving high scores from other designers who vote on his decorated rooms. He wants Perrin to play the game with him, but the guy doesn’t have an interest in interior design. Perrin’s an accountant. Has been for the last twelve years. He works for Dasher, Posh, and Lee, two floors down from Melner Publishing.

  As Luke decorates a patio with chairs and an antique coffee table on his cellphone, he hears the shower. Steam rises behind and above the bamboo panels.

  “Hey, Luke!” Perrin calls. “Give me a hand back here!”

  Luke can’t. He won’t. They’re just friends. They can only be friends. Nothing sexual is going to happen between the two men. He won’t strip down to his bare bottom and climb inside the shower with Perrin. They will never be lovers. Never.

  “Coming.” Luke tucks his phone away, planning to continue his game later. Maybe on his first fifteen-minute break at the office. He walks behind the bamboo panels.

  There’s no shower curtain, although there should be. Sprinkles of shower water moisten the cement floor. Perrin’s chest is covered in soapy suds. The white bubbles define every
muscle on his chest, shoulders, and thighs. Water mixed with lather drops to the tub’s concave structure. Suds hang on the accountant’s nipples and the end of his cock. Soapy lather decorates his biceps and abs. A beautiful sight. An art piece. Pure eroticism.

  “Can you hand me my razor off the sink?” Perrin asks, busy with a bar of white soap and the shower’s spray, rinsing.

  “Shh…ure,” Luke murmurs, obvious frazzled, still hard, over-the-top excited. He grabs the disposable razor and walks to Perrin, who takes it from him.

  “Thanks, bud. I usually shave at the sink, but I don’t have time this morning.”

  “You’re running out of time,” Luke says, staring at the stream of transparent water that falls off the tip of Perrin’s cut and beautiful cock. He licks his lips. He can’t stop staring at the friend.

  “Almost done. I can do this.”

  Perrin goes to town with the razor and shampoo. Yes, shampoo. VO5. Kiwi scent. Who does this? Only Perrin. Not that Luke judges him. No way.

  Perrin turns off the shower and climbs out. He uses a teal-colored cotton towel: ruffling black hair, handsome face; over one shoulder; over the other shoulder; the area between his pecs; over his rigid stomach; one quick swirl over his goods; along one thick and muscular thigh, and along the other thick and masculine thigh. Done drying. Let evaporation do the rest for him in the spots that he’s missed. He tosses the towel in the sink.

  “Almost ready. It will take me a minute to get dressed.”

  He’s right, Luke notes. Perrin slips into a pair of black and skinny chinos, black loafers with no socks, and a white dress shirt that looks freshly pressed and placed on a hanger. He buttons up the shirt with skill and speed. Black tangles of chest hair hang out the top, which is sexy to Luke. And Perrin’s nipples are firm, pointing through the light cotton.

  “One more thing,” Perrin says. He grabs a tin of hair product, twists it open, dips in two fingertips, and spikes the front of his hair, creating model perfect looks for any magazine cover. “Done. I’ll grab my leather satchel on the way out.”