I am feeling old this morning, old and tired and very, very alone. I shouldn’t say alone, ’cause I’m not really. I have my friends and I have my family. I am just feeling sorry for myself, don’t pay attention to me. I’m not old. I’m not even fifty; I have a lot of years left in me, if I’m careful, even with my lycanthropy. But it’s just that I’ve been with Richard now for over half my life. He is so deeply ingrained in me, so imbedded in my heart, that… hell, I don’t know what.
Just exactly why am I so upset with him? It’s not like I haven’t thought that scenes like that weren’t taking place when he was gone, that he wasn’t with strange men in strange places. What makes this time harder to bear? Because I know the other man? Because I actually saw them together, saw him with someone else for the first time? Does that actually make a difference in the scheme of things?
Max, you’re weakening. I can see the signs. Why don’t you develop some self-respect? It isn’t right that he cheats on you, then comes back to you and carries on as if nothing has happened. Don’t you deserve to be treated with some respect, some dignity? Some fidelity? Have you ever cheated on that man or even considered the possibility? No, never. It’s not in my makeup, not part of who I am.
Damn. I’m talking to myself. Perhaps I should just reserve a rubber room now, have a nice rest, no worries, no cares, no responsibilities.
Who am I kidding? I would still think about him, even there.
Why do I want him back so badly? Why do I just want to curl up in his arms and forget everything, forgive everything, and carry on with our lives? Take him back into our bed and get naked and sweaty and make love until I am sure that I am the only thing on his mind again, the only man in his life? To feel his lips on mine again, his arms wrapped around me, his body pressed up against mine… Max, quit it! Why am I torturing myself this way? I must truly be a glutton for punishment.
Just because he has called me doesn’t mean that he is still in town, you know, or even still anywhere close by. After all, what is long distance for if not to reach out and touch someone? But somehow I know that he’s nearby; he isn’t far away, and if I would but give the word, he’d be here.
It’s funny how sometimes when you think of your life with someone, the things you’ve done and shared together, how seemingly small things are magnified, how the times that you remember aren’t necessarily the major events or milestones, but just the little things, the silly things you did as a couple that the rest of the world wouldn’t even be interested in, but which are utterly fascinating to you.
Like the time we were walking around the neighborhood in Webster Groves. We just wanted to get out of the house but didn’t have the money to go anywhere, and we came across a little girls’ handmade hopscotch game. Richard dared me to play it with him—how could I refuse? We laughed like escaped lunatics as we tossed small rocks across the colored chalk outline and made asses of ourselves all over someone else’s sidewalk. And then three little girls clad in jumpers poured out of the house, giggling, delighted to see us as they joined us in the game and showed us the finer points of hopscotch.
Or the time we went to one of the many parks that grace St. Louis County and stood atop a footbridge that surmounted a small creek, enjoying the freedom of a temperate day in spring. We blew bubbles out of little plastic bottles, pursing our lips around little plastic wands and watching the iridescent balls float about in the gentle breeze as we tried to outdo one another to see who could blow the biggest bubbles, a strange sort of pissing contest indeed.
And then there was the time we went to Chicago, just me and Richard, alone in the Windy City.
Friday, March 21, 1980
SINCE our birthdays are only a day apart, we have always simply combined them into one date and celebrated them together. Logical, don’t you think? And since we’re together anyway, it has always worked out well for those people we’ve celebrated the occasion with. I still give him shit about being an entire year older than me, and he retorts that it isn’t an entire year as he was born on March 21, 1955, and I entered this world on March 20, 1956. I reply that it’s close enough to a year not to quibble about it. But he quibbles anyway.
For my twenty-fourth birthday, Richard’s twenty-fifth, my mother did something very unexpected. She gave us a joint gift: a weekend trip to Chicago. She paid for two airline tickets and reservations at the Ramada Inn on South Lake Shore Drive, within walking distance of the Museum of Science and Industry and a short drive from the Shedd Aquarium. She also gave us a little spending money.
We were thrilled to death and delirious with excitement; neither one of us had ever flown before, we were getting to go to Chicago, something we had both wanted to do, staying in our own hotel room, and best of all someone else was paying for it! What more could we ask for?
Mother booked us an early morning flight to give us more time to be there and enjoy the city, and she even drove us to Lambert airport herself so we wouldn’t have to park my car in the overnight lot. It wasn’t much of a flight between St. Louis and Chicago, maybe an hour in duration. But it was going to be one helluva hour ,we decided.
Naturally, we couldn’t both get window seats, not and sit together, too, so we decided to take turns, flipping a coin for the privilege of going first. Richard won. Big surprise. I accused him of cheating, and he merely stuck out his tongue and told me not to be such a big baby. So what else could I do but pout? Which lasted all of two minutes, ’til he kissed my pout away. We then proceeded to settle ourselves on the plane, in our agreed-upon seats, gawking and rednecking at everything around us like we just fell off the damn turnip truck.
There were three young stewardesses who were working that particular flight, and they were very sweet to us, as well as very attentive. Especially to Richard. I’d already noticed that women seemed drawn to my boyfriend like hummingbirds to nectar. Men, too, which didn’t sit as well with me. The women I could endure, knowing what I knew about my lover. The men were a different story, although to his credit he never acted as if he were interested in any of them or even noticed that they were attempting to gain his attention. He seemed to be rather oblivious to them, in fact. But I noticed. I sure as hell noticed.
At this time of day, there weren’t a lot of people heading to Chicago, so the young stewardesses felt free to check on us a bit more often than might be expected for a one-hour flight. Can anyone say three-hour tour? If so, does that make me Gilligan? Or Mary Anne? And Richard Ginger perhaps? Okay, no sense in following that path, is there?
After about half an hour of being in the air, discussing the things we intended to do when we got there, it was time to switch seats. Richard stood, moving over me so I could crawl under him and gain the window view, but instead of resuming my space, he kept going, turning to face me. “I’m going to the john,” he announced, rather unnecessarily, I thought.
“Okay,” I replied, wondering if he was waiting for applause or permission.
He caught my eye, motioning with his head toward the back of the plane, as if intimating that I should go too. “I’m good,” I insisted naïvely.
Richard laughed, leaning over the empty seats between us so that I alone could hear him. “Wanna join the Mile High Club?” he whispered throatily. For a moment I just looked at him like he had taken leave of his senses. What the hell was he going on about? And then it suddenly came to me, and my eyes grew big. “You mean you want to… I mean… you and me… we….”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. C’mon back, last one on the left.” He pursed his lips, blew me a kiss, and walked away without looking to see if I was following or not.
Of course I followed him. Was there any doubt about that?
He was already out of sight by the time that I got back to the aft compartment, or whatever the hell it is you call the back of the plane. When I knocked tentatively, hoping I’d picked the right door and that I wouldn’t be accused of being a pervert or something, it opened just enough for him to pull me inside the con
fines of the plane’s lavatory. And when I say confines, I am not exaggerating. I’ve seen pictures of prisons with bigger cells. The two of us barely fit in there together. I had to wonder how he thought we were going to do anything in there, but then I realized people did this all the time, so it must be possible. But desirable? To have sex in a bathroom? In an airplane? I was beginning to think that we had both gone ’round the bend big time, and perhaps this wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had, when he began to rub my crotch with the palm of his hand, catching my eye with his, and suddenly I knew why I was there, and why I intended to stay.
He caught my lips up with his; I surged against him, and in the youthful exuberance of our coming together we damn near fell over the chemical toilet. “Richard, you know you’re crazy, don’t you?” I managed to whisper, even as my cock grew harder at his touch, and I felt a rush of adrenaline from what we were doing, a sense of adventure in knowing that the other passengers on this plane were so close and so blissfully unaware of our activities. At least I assumed they were, not having paid any attention to who might have been looking when I wandered back.
He ran his tongue lightly over my lips, and I grew weak at the knees, as usual, at his touch. I knew I would do whatever he asked of me, gladly, willingly, any time, any place—even in a cramped little bathroom thousands of feet in the air. I also knew we didn’t have a lot of time, as I did not intend to still be in there when the plane landed in Chicago.
As if he read my mind, he unbuckled my belt, drawing my pants down around my knees, underwear, too, freeing my already stiff cock, which he began to stroke, at the same time one-handedly pushing his own pants down. There was a definite lack of finesse involved in what we were doing, nor time for any true preparation such as we were usually careful to do, but somehow I found myself being quite turned on despite that. “Turn around, babe,” he whispered, “I’m afraid we’ll have to forgo the missionary position for the sake of space.” Our favorite position, as we like to look into one another’s eyes, watch each other’s expressions.
“Did you think to bring lube?” I questioned him as I turned away from him, bracing myself with my hands against the wall over the toilet. In reply, I saw him reach for the bottle of hand soap that sat on the edge of the tiny sink, and I could only imagine what he intended to do with it, which became most evident when I felt his slick cock begin to poke between my ass cheeks. He encouraged me to spread my legs a little more, leaning against me, his hand snaking around me to reach my own cock, which he continued to stroke, his fingers splaying around my balls. I tried to keep from whimpering too much, having no idea how soundproof this place was and not wanting to provide the in-flight entertainment.
I felt the head of his cock probing about my love hole, so I pushed back against him, as if by dint of sheer willpower I could encourage it to find its way inside, and was rewarded when I felt the pop as it pushed past the ring of muscles of my sphincter. He thrust himself inside in one fell swoop, and I gasped, feeling the air suddenly leave my lungs as I took him in his entirety. “Oh yeah!” he breathed huskily into my ear, his breath so hot, his tongue so moist as he licked my earlobe. I leaned my head back against his, shivering at his touch, moaning softly.
He bucked up inside of me, hard, so hard that I damn near lost my balance, and he had to grab my hips to stabilize me, not that there was any place to really fall, but it would have been painful nonetheless. Not to mention embarrassing. “Again!” I demanded breathlessly, and he obliged me. I twisted my neck so that we were face-to-face, and I took his lips with mine, nipping at his sharply, feeling the moisture bead lightly in the little cleft of his upper lip. It would have been a lot easier had we both not had our pants hanging down around our legs, hindering us, but there was also luckily nowhere to go. He pulled me back against his hips as he continued to plunge his hotness inside of me; with as little traction as he had, he was doing a damn fine job of it, to the point where I was becoming inured to our surroundings. He moved his hand back to my neglected cock, which was oozing pre-cum already, smeared it in his palm, and stroked it in time to the pounding he was giving my insides. I bit his lip so hard I drew blood, but neither one of us noticed as it trickled into my mouth.
Harder now, harder—oh yes, oh yes, oh yes—more I wanted more, more, more! “Richard,” I moaned, his name a familiar repetition against his lips. I could tell he was becoming lost in the driving rhythm of our bodies as he continued to pound me mercilessly. I tightened my muscles around him, squeezed his cock tightly, which only set him off more. I knew I was close, and I knew that he was too; I already knew his body well enough to know the signs. “Oh baby, in me, in me, in me,” I began to chant as an encouragement for his release.
Suddenly he exploded. I could feel the warmth of his ejaculation as his cock spasmed inside of me, releasing streams of his milky fluids deep within. He bit down on my neck as he came, smothering his usual need to cry out, and that drove me into my own release, all over his fist and the tail of my shirt. Good thing we brought extra clothes, I remember thinking. We stood there for a minute, catching our collective breaths, not wishing to move. Not yet.
Richard kissed my neck tenderly and licked the spot he had sunk his teeth into. “Congratulations, we are now both members of the Mile High Club.”
I chuckled as I straightened myself up so he could withdraw from me, and then I pulled up my pants and did up the belt. “Congratulations to us,” I replied. “But we better get back to our seats before we land, don’t you think? And don’t think I don’t realize that I just lost my whole turn at the window, or that I won’t get it for the return flight.”
“I thought we’d spend the return flight in the john,” Richard laughed. Regular comic, he is.
I glanced in the mirror and set myself to rights as much as possible. The swollen lips I could do nothing about, but I doubted anybody would even notice. “Like hell,” I replied, even though I knew if that was what he wanted, that’s what we would do. “I’ll go out first, then you. Look casual, will you, not like the cat that swallowed the canary?”
“But I didn’t swallow a thing,” he protested. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Hardy har, you’re so funny.” I kissed the tip of his nose before I exited the lavatory, looking around carefully. No one was paying any attention. I walked casually down the aisle, as if I had been up to nothing more the usual bathroom business, slid into my seat, and picked up one of the magazines out of the pocket on the back of the seat before me.
One of the stewardesses, a perky brunette who had been most attentive to Richard, approached and leaned over the seats to address me with her professional smile. “We’re going to make our approach soon, if you’d fasten your seat belt, please.” She glanced at the empty seat beside me. It didn’t take a Kreskin to figure out what she was thinking.
“In the bathroom,” I volunteered. At that moment, up strolled loverboy, and she became very flustered, trying to get out of his way so he could resume his seat, turning quite red when she managed to press her boobs against his chest—accidentally, I’m sure. She almost tripped in her embarrassment. I gave Richard a look when he sat down.
“What?” he asked innocently.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Just buckle up before she offers to do that and tries to cop a feel.”
He laughed but did as he was told anyway. As we were exiting the plane a short time later, the three young stewardesses individually passed him their phone numbers on slips of paper which, as soon as he entered the terminal, Richard tossed carelessly into the trash. To my complete satisfaction, of course.
Chicago was fabulous, and the three days and two nights we spent there were incredible. The hotel was great; our bed was certainly comfortable. Or beds, actually, as we got a room with two double beds in it and slept in one each night, although I’m sure the maid realized we only used one at a time. Being alone and on our own was exciting, like discovering a new world, one in which only the two of us existed. It made us yearn ev
en more for our own home, which, at that point, was only about a year away, although we didn’t realize it.
We played games in our room, as you can well imagine, and we played games out of it. For example, the elevator game. There were four elevators, two and two, in a hallway near the main lobby. And thirty-three floors in the hotel. We would each take a separate elevator and push a floor at random, and then when the doors opened we would wait to see if the other one had chosen the same floor. Of course, with all the possibilities, that didn’t happen very often. But when we did, we got together again in one elevator, went down to the first floor, and then up to the top, kissing the whole time, before starting the game over again.
We also went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which is a very hands-on place, and touched and fiddled with everything that we could find, and visited the aquarium, with its multitude of fascinating creatures, holding hands as we toured its dark interior.
Not that we were afraid to show that we were together, but we were always aware that there those who disapproved of our relationship. Some were vocal about it, and we’ve been called a few nasty names in our time—faggot, queer, and pervert being just a few—while others simply glared their disapproval. And if you remember anything about Richard, you’ll recall that he doesn’t back down from a challenge, and he gives as good as he gets, which has resulted in a few fights over the years. With others, I mean, not between ourselves. And luckily those have been few and far between.
To the Max Page 36
