Misadventures with a Sexpert Read online

  Misadventures with a Sexpert

  Elizabeth Hayley

  This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2020 Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Design by Waterhouse Press

  Cover photographs: Shutterstock

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For our Padded Roomers, the real sexperts.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Acknowledgments

  Don’t miss any Misadventures!

  Excerpt From Misadventures with a Lawyer

  More Misadventures

  About Elizabeth Hayley

  Chapter One

  GRAYSON

  “Yo, Grayson. Boss Man wants to see you.”

  As I sat behind my desk, looking through pictures I’d taken this morning of an elderly women’s knitting circle, I willed myself to take deep breaths. If I’d known ten years ago I would one day be beckoned by a stoner serving as the intercom for my disheveled and squirrelly “boss man,” Mr. Thomas, I would have quickly sought out the nearest set of knitting needles and jabbed them into my ears.

  Instead, I slowly rose, turned, and waved to Dax—our resident intercom extraordinaire and film critic who only watched horror movies—before making my way to what Mr. Thomas considered his office.

  It was, in fact, more of a closet, with a small desk that must have been assembled inside it because there was no way it would have fit through the doorway. There were also two small filing cabinets stacked one on top of the other, a metal stationary chair for Mr. Thomas, and a stool for whomever he dragged inside.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  “Ah, yes, Hawk, come on in. Close the door behind you.”

  “It’s Hawkins, sir.”

  “What?” The man’s beady eyes shrank even more, making his confusion clear.

  “My last name. It’s Hawkins, not Hawk. You could just call me Grayson, or Gray, if you’d like.”

  “If I wanted to call you a color, I already would have. A hawk is highly intelligent and has exceptional eyesight. Can the same be said of you?”

  Accepting the battle was already lost, I shook my head.

  “I didn’t think so. You should be flattered to be compared to a bird of that caliber.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of it that way,” I muttered as I accepted defeat.

  To close the door, I had to crowd his desk, nearly toppling over the stool as I wedged my way in. Once that ordeal was over, I righted my seat, sat, and propped my foot on one of the rungs of the stool.

  He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his desk, and steepled his fingers. “I’ve let Willow go.”

  The sole of my shoe slipped off the stool’s rung, causing me to lurch forward and almost careen into the desk.

  “Oh. That’s a shame,” I said as I sat back down.

  I found myself secretly envying Willow, the person in charge of maintaining our social media accounts. Or who used to, anyway. I wasn’t exactly sure what it took to get fired from the Daily Gazette, but I was hoping to find out. The story behind it would probably be the most newsworthy thing to enter the office in quite some time.

  Though as I had that thought, I also realized I wasn’t being fair. I didn’t have to be here. Every day, instead of saying “fuck this place” like a normal functioning adult would, I came into this looney bin of a newspaper office.

  It was supposed to be a way for me to find myself again in a low-pressure environment after leaving the opposite in New York, but the place had more loonies than a subway car after last call.

  “Hmm, yes, it is a shame. For her. She’s not getting a reference from me, that’s for sure.”

  “What did she do?” I asked.

  He waved me off. “You know I’m not one to spread rumors.” Which was a bald-faced lie. The man would’ve made the editors at the National Enquirer salivate with the way he traded gossip. “But let me warn you that putting your own personal ads into our paper won’t be tolerated. I still don’t even know what D slash s means, and part of me hopes I never find out.”

  Nodding along like the good plebeian I was, I tried to figure out what any of this had to do with me.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I’ll need you to take over her job for the foreseeable future.” He began moving papers around on his desk as if the conversation was over. Which it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

  “I’m sorry, what now?”

  “Well, I figured since you already take all our pictures, you could just upload them to our social media accounts, add a few pithy comments, and voilà, you’re done.”

  “But…I hate social media. I don’t even have a Facebook page of my own.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make it work. Willow did it. How hard can it be?”

  “I thought you were considering letting me draw some comics for the paper. Social media coordinator is a far cry from that.”

  When I’d moved to town and interviewed for the photographer’s job at the Daily Gazette, I’d expressed my true goal was to create pictures instead of just snapping photographs. Being a photojournalist had been lucrative for me, but I wanted…more. And my early midlife crisis was as good a time as any to make that happen.

  Mr. Thomas had told me that while the paper didn’t currently have a comic section, he wasn’t opposed to the idea. Though six months later, I still hadn’t been given the green light to draw anything.

  “Hawkins, we don’t need comics for a paper. We do need subscribers to buy said paper, though. And creating a presence on social media is a big part of accomplishing that.”

  He must have realized I was about to tell him to shove this job down his smarmy throat, because he quickly sat back and looked at me intently.

  “Tell you what. You can work some of your comics into your social media posts. If they attract attention, I’ll let you start adding them to the paper. How about that?” His face looked like an eager Cocker Spaniel’s, and that was probably the only thing that kept me from smacking him.

  I wanted to rail against this man and this insignificant job, but I didn’t. I’d gained a good deal of notoriety for my photos over the years and had even been featured in National Geographic once. I’d traveled the world and met interesting people, but none of it meant anything because it wasn’t what I wanted. It hadn’t made me who I’d truly wanted to be when I was a kid devouring comic books for inspiration.

  So instead of telling Mr. Thomas to shove this social media bullshit up his ass, I found myself saying, “Do you have a list of the accounts and
passwords?”

  Chapter Two

  GRAYSON

  “Eff my life,” I whispered for at least the twentieth time in two hours. That was how long I’d been sitting in the Coffee Bean, the local coffee shop I’d started to frequent just to get out of the house. It was also how long I’d been tinkering with some of my most recent photos—a task that wasn’t nearly as thrilling as taking them.

  It was just about the only thing I missed about my old job. Someone else edited the photos so I didn’t have to. As I clicked on various buttons to brighten up the background or adjust contrast, my fingers itched to draw.

  Ever since I’d moved to Monroe six months ago, I’d been coming to the Bean a few nights a week, and I’d hoped that being out in public and surrounded by people would get my creative juices flowing. Now that I had Mr. Thomas’s permission to post some of my drawings on Instagram, I was more eager than ever to create something the public would find as interesting as I did. Unfortunately, I hadn’t found anything yet.

  Not that the people I observed at the coffee shop weren’t interesting. Tonight I had the pleasure of observing an elderly woman who wore a magenta mink coat despite it being a mild spring day. She kept darting her eyes around the room before dropping pieces of her muffin into her purse. I hoped like hell she had a pet in there she was feeding.

  Then there was the middle-aged man dressed in a business suit sitting by the window, talking loudly on his cell phone in between voracious bites of a croissant sandwich. He kept saying things like “live a little” and “how do you know you wouldn’t like it?” My mind ran through a variety of possibilities for what they could be talking about. Rock climbing? Skydiving? Bondage? Pegging? The options were endless.

  A young blond-haired guy was typing frantically at another table. I wanted to storm over there and demand to know what he was writing about. How dare he have direction and inspiration while I sat here slurping tepid coffee and cursing whichever muse was in charge of creative thinkers? Because that bitch had fallen asleep on the job.

  If I were being truthful, she’d left way before I’d left New York and its mile-a-minute pace I had to abandon once my life became a living joke—with me as the punch line. Too bad no one found it funny.

  Or maybe they might. Maybe I should draw up a visual of my last few months, because who wouldn’t want to laugh about a train wreck of a marriage? That was one thing I’d learned from my years as a photojournalist: human beings loved depressing shit. As long as it wasn’t their own shit.

  It might make them feel better about the poor grades they’d earned in grad school or the credit card they couldn’t pay off because they’d spent their money on courtside Knicks tickets. At least they could be thankful their wife wasn’t banging their best friend.

  Scrubbing my hands over my face, I groaned quietly. To hell with it. With my editing done and nothing worth drawing, I would just have to try again tomorrow night.

  Just as I was about to close my laptop, the bell above the door jingled, signaling a new customer. I glanced up as I began to lower the lid, but I halted the motion. A woman with long black hair entered and approached the counter. I opened the laptop again so I could pretend to work while I watched her order.

  She smiled at the barista and ordered something I couldn’t make out, and then she paid and waited patiently for her drink. I was more than happy when she took a seat two tables away, facing me. She offered me a small smile, and I averted my gaze, realizing I’d been staring.

  I wasn’t quite sure what it was about her, but I was drawn to her—though certainly not in a way that established any sort of romantic interest. That ship had sailed…before hitting an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic and sinking to the depths of the ocean, never to be seen again. My heart would not go on. But I could still find someone attractive, sexually speaking. I was a red-blooded male, after all.

  The woman’s dark hair was bone straight and glistened like she starred in Pantene commercials. Wearing tight black jeans and some kind of white gauzy top that was off her shoulders, my attention was drawn to her collarbones, which I never realized I was into before now, but it was a revelation.

  I also realized I was skirting the same level of creeper status as the guy in the business suit, but I no longer felt like leaving, so I attempted to refocus.

  A few minutes later, the bell sounded again, and a guy walked in wearing a polo that was stretched so tightly over his protruding muscles, I thought one wrong move might cause the entire thing to shred into tatters. He didn’t approach the counter but instead scanned the room and began walking toward the raven-haired woman.

  “Hey. You Elsa?” the guy asked, his voice gruff.

  The woman stood and stretched a hand toward the brute. “Isla actually. Long I, and the S is silent. Nice to meet you. Mick, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Sorry I’m a little late. I got held up at the gym.”

  Of course you did, I thought as I watched Muscles McGee sit down.

  To keep my eyes off the man and look busy, I clicked around aimlessly on the internet. But before I knew it, I was doodling in my notebook—bulging biceps and veins, an exaggerated forehead, and a jaw so square, a geometry teacher could use it to teach right angles.

  I used to sketch constantly in high school, but that was before I got married to Miranda and got caught up in the rat race that was New York City. I hadn’t been drawing as much as I’d have liked over the past few years, but I was trying to fix that now.

  It made me wonder why I hadn’t drawn any caricatures of Dennis sticking his dick in my wife on the granite countertop of the kitchen I paid for.

  “No worries,” the woman—Isla—said as she also lowered to her seat.

  The two sat in silence that made even me feel awkward. Then Isla said, “So, tell me about yourself.”

  I looked up from my sketchbook and typed nonsense on the keyboard so I could focus on the man’s reply, but the gods weren’t on my side. A couple walked in, and the six or so employees of the coffee shop all squealed.

  A loud, “Hey, bitches,” pierced through the air as a short, well-endowed woman struck a pose. “Did Jamaica agree with me or what?” They all started asking questions about what had evidently been the couple’s honeymoon.

  None of them seemed to care that they were turning the quiet shop into a noisy hub. Unable to make out the finer points of the conversation between Isla and Mick, I went back to my visual representation.

  The couple went behind the counter, making me think they also worked here, as their decibel level ebbed and flowed like ocean waves.

  In between outbursts, I was able to learn that Mick was training to be an MMA fighter, but his coach was currently in prison on some “bullshit charges,” so he was working as a trainer in the meantime. He was also Instagram famous and was contemplating starting an OnlyFans. I didn’t exactly know what that meant and wasn’t sure how this guy would be capable of getting “fans,” but that made it even more impressive. Maybe I should ask for some pointers.

  I couldn’t hear what Isla did for a living, but I did make out that she hadn’t dated in a while, went to the gym sporadically, and was interested in monogamy. It might have been my imagination, but I thought she’d stressed the word monogamy on purpose. If she had, I hoped it had the desired effect, because Mick couldn’t quite keep the disgust off his face and didn’t stay much longer.

  The couple that had returned from Jamaica didn’t stay much longer than Mick, the woman claiming she’d see them in the “salt mines” tomorrow. With their departure, all was quiet again, which I was grateful for as Isla grabbed her cell phone and made a call.

  “Hey.” She sighed heavily. “I should’ve listened to you. He was as horrible as you predicted.” Isla smiled as she listened to whoever was on the other end of the line. “I had to go out with him. He was the only one who messaged me who could actually meet up this week.” She listened again for a moment before continuing. “You and Kaitlynn are the ones who m
ade me promise to go on one date a week. I’m only holding up my end of the bargain.”

  Now I was even more curious than I had been. Was she doing some kind of dating experiment? Was she actually interested in any of these guys, or was she just getting her rocks off by leading them on?

  “You should’ve seen it. I mentioned monogamy, and he practically flew out of here,” Isla continued. “I made a new profile on a different app and have a couple of messages that look more promising. I think I’m going to stick to Wednesday nights at the Coffee Bean. That way, if I go missing, you have a starting point to begin the search.”

  I heard a screech through the phone.

  Isla laughed. “No, I don’t think that’s funny. I’m sorry my hypothetical kidnapping upset you. Okay. Got it. Yes. I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ll tell her. I promise. Bye.”

  Chuckling, Isla placed her phone on the table and rummaged around in her large purse, pulling a tablet from it. She cast a glance my way, making me avert my eyes quickly again so I didn’t appear like the stalker I was kind of guilty of being.

  As she began typing away on her tablet and sipping her coffee, I thought about leaving, but something stopped me. It was like my muse had finally woken the fuck up and was poking at my brain with an idea I couldn’t quite latch on to yet.

  Sometime later the bell over the door jingled, but I didn’t look up to see who entered. Not until a deep voice said, “Are you Isla?” did I raise my head. Had she been perusing her hookup apps on her tablet this whole time? Jesus, this chick was savage.