Charlie Chol scratched his unruly brown hair feeling a little uneasy. Finishing depositing some of the beer he'd consumed against the wall disfigured with graffiti, he shook off the clinging droplets and placed his best friend away and zipped up.
It was the other use of his best friend that was the problem. Charlie appeared to be losing interest in females. Deeply disturbed about that Charlie mounted his motorcycle but the key wouldn't fit. Was he drunk? Of course not, he thought. Wrong bike. Right model but wrong color. His was red.
Charlie rode out of town and into the sunset, at least where the sunset had been captured in the woolly clouds four hours earlier. Or was it five? Christ his mom would clobber him and serve his dinner cold, being so late. So he called her and said he was okay and would stopover for the night somewhere more convenient and where he wouldn't be berated for arriving home late.
His mom said good night Charlie sweet son. Keep safe.
Er, did she say good night Charlie you loser? Fucking phones. Why don't they make them so a guy could hear with the bike engine ticking over?
He had three places that he'd be welcomed to bed down, usually. But Aunt Peg's live-in pal was a nasty type, a complete wastrel, and was home from the oilfields so he wouldn't go there and Keyhole Pete said he was calling in on Widow Jamieson tonight so would give her a miss. Instead he went to the home of his sister Anna and husband Jason.
Jason was asleep so he got a good fuck although Anna complained that he smelt of beer. Anna was always complaining about something. But being a great babe she cleaned up she made him bacon and egg sandwiches, his favorite.
Munching away Charlie said, "I've got woman trouble."
Anna pricked up her ears. "Oh, who have you gotten pregnant?"
"No one you idiot. Unwanted pregnancies are no longer considered fashionable."
"Fashionable is a big word for you."
Charlie ignored the slur. "Nah I mean I was banging this slut last night -- I think you know her, Milly Brown's eldest."
"God Charlie, she's a baby. Only eighteen. And what are you -- forty?"
"Stupid cow. You are forty and I'm thirty-five."
"Oh yeah."
"Well the little tramp pulled out her cell phone and called a friend while we were doing it, ignoring me completely. Then Averill...um...what's her surname?"
"God, you mean our minister's daughter?"
"Yeah, you know I like to plow new ground. But that's the one. Anyway, I was at it so long because she wasn't moving or squeezing me and then she put me right off when she pulled out her file and began doing her nails. These babes today who call themselves hot are a real turn-off."
"Either that or you are the turn-off."
"What was that?''
"Nothing."
Charlie swatted a mosquito digging into the side of his nose and the blow made his eyes water. "Well, whatever. None of them are a patch on you."
"Oh darling, care to go again? I'm open and extra moist."
"Okay, it's an alternative to going to bed and sleeping."
Anna gave Charlie some advice next morning as he prepared to ride off to his motorcycle store, with his wimpy brother-in-law glaring at him. "Darling, try a woman my age. If they don't have cooperating brothers by the time they're forty they are thinking their days of getting it are numbered, that is if they ever think about sex."
Charlie was thinking about it when he ran into the back of a cop stopped at a red light. The cop got out, ticket book in his hand, took one looked at Charlie and said, "Oh Christ, not you." Checking that the motorcycle tire had not even left a mark on the bumper of the patrol SUV Sergeant Billings winked at Charlie and returned to his vehicle just as the lights changed. Charlie belted on around the sergeant giving him the fingers and received acknowledgement with a brief blare of the siren and a five second flash of lights that cleared the way ahead for Charlie, considered by many as Summerville's most-loved character. A quarter of the town's population rode bikes sold by Charlie. His competitors had gone broke.
* * *
One afternoon a curvaceous thirty-something came in and said she wanted a motorcycle and patted a black and chrome tourer and said, almost shyly, "This big one is for me. I fancy getting my thighs around him I mean it."
"Really?"
"Oh yes."
"Look ma'am, come out with me and I'll demonstrate a similar big bike that has been knocked around a bit. Now I put it over on its side like this and let's see if you could lift it provided you managed to wriggle out from under it without any more damage than torn leather trousers and a tear in your derrière or perhaps you were safely thrown off as you toppled...do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes of course but why are we talking derrière?"
Charlie delivered his killer smile at quarter throttle. "I haven't had a good look at yours yet."
She blushed and said she'd been warned about Charlie Chol.
"Hi, and you are...?"