Fasten Your Seat Belts and Eat Your Fucking Nuts

by Joe Thomas

  As I placed my empty glass on the table, the front desk clerk pushed open the door and said, “The washing machine is fixed. It’s all yours.”

  “Thank you. Alright guys, it’s been real but I got shit to do. Don’t drink too much.” I stepped away from the table and pushed in the stool.

  “Don’t be a slam clicker, Joe. Come back and have one more.” Connor insisted.

  “You bitches don’t give up,” I said. Everyone laughed but Lori, “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  Keeping my promise I returned after starting my laundry and proceeded to enjoy a few more drinks. Two intensely strong gin and tonics to be exact. Connor picked up the tab on these drinks. When the timer went off alerting me my clothes were ready for the dryer, I excused myself but hurried back. Officially drunk and over the hump of holding anything back—I let Lori have it.

  I started with her boyfriend, “I think your boyfriend’s gay. Totally gay. He’s gayer than me.”

  “He’s not gay. Why would you say that?” Steam began to rise off her upper lip.

  “Because he’s gay. I bet he takes it up the ass.”

  She frowned and pushed her glass aside, “I really don’t think you’re being nice. Why are you saying that?”

  I’d hit a nerve. “I’m only speaking the truth.” I put one hand in the air, the other on my drink, and pursed my lips. That’s my go-to gesture when destroying someone’s happiness. It let’s you know I stand by my statements. It’s the exclamation mark at the end of my verbal assault. But I hadn’t finished, not yet. While Lori’s mind raced for a response I glanced at Connor who was thoroughly enjoying my attack on her. He ate it up like a bag of rainbow Skittles. That encouraged me to push on, “He probably wants you to strap on a dildo and tear his hole up. Have you torn up his hole?”

  Brian and Connor were literally hunched over in hysterics. They could barely speak which added fire to my flame. When a group of people laugh at my jokes, I take it to the next level. A hint of comedic advice: always take it to the next level or you will lose the people around you. Nothing’s worse than losing your momentum when telling inappropriate stories to strangers. Possibly getting called into the human resource manager’s office might be worse, but if the jokes are great, who gives a fuck?

  When my glass was empty, another one magically appeared thanks to Connor. He placed it on the table in front of me while I continued destroying Lori, “I can tell you wanna fuck. It’s written all over your face. You probably want all three of us to gang bang you, right?”

  “No. I definitely don’t want that.” Her pleasantries were officially over. She also stopped drinking. Who could blame her? I’d have left the party if I was on the receiving end of my commentary. But I did not care. I lost count of how many drinks I had and this was payback for lying to me at the beginning of the trip. And for introducing me to her gay boyfriend.

  My barrage of inappropriate comments continued spewing across the table at her, “I think you do. I think you want to be spit roasted by these two pilots. One in the front and one in the back. Sound good?”

  Lori shot daggers at me. Sharp ones. Fucking Miracle Blades. The same knife that allows you to cut a metal pipe, carve out a heart, and julienned it before devouring it. That knife. She was angry. Reporting me to human resources was well within her right. I expected one of her stipulations to ending my flight attendant career included a front row seat to witness management ripping the wings off my uniform and tossing them in the trash.

  Without warning, Connor punched me full force in the left knee, “You’re fucking hilarious, Joe. Holy shit. Dude! I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time.”

  “Connor. If you punch me like that again I’ll call human resources on your ass. I got them on speed dial.”

  Another round of laughter by everyone but Lori. At that point she was done. Completely over me. The only way she’d laugh at me now was if I slipped on the floor and busted out a few teeth. All four of us became quiet for a few moments while collecting our thoughts. An odd silence. Brian finished his beer and placed the glass down, “Well guys. It’s six-thirty and we have an early show tomorrow. I think I’m done.”

  We all agreed in unison. It was time for me to go anyway. The alarm on my phone went off 20 minutes prior alerting me that my clothes were done. It was time to go to bed. My mouth had caused enough trouble for one layover. Brian and Connor closed out their tabs while I stood by the door next to Lori. She hated me and refused to speak to me. Who could blame her? I let it slide off my back.

  Brian, Lori, and I headed through the front lobby towards the elevator while Connor took an immediate right outside the bar pushing through the glass doors leading out onto the patio. I had no time to worry about where he was going. Right before the three of us reached the elevator I said goodnight to them—Lori ignored me—and turned making my way down the hall. Following the tacky hotel carpet, I turned again positioning me about 10 feet from the laundry room doorway. Just before reaching the laundry room, a door opened at the end of the hallway and in walked Connor. An odd short cut but it appeared he was heading towards the stairs.

  He failed to notice me so I yelled, “Stop loitering in the hall.”

  Turning to make eye contact, he proceeded to pull down his pants, present me his full moon, and then as quickly as it happened yank his shorts back up and disappear into the stairwell.

  The shock of what happened stopped me in my tracks. If the maid had been vacuuming, my eyeballs would have been lost forever. My mind was in full spin cycle as I stepped into the laundry room. What straight guy moons a gay guy in a hotel hallway? Had this ever happened before? What was going on? Was I having a stroke? I grabbed the dryer and leaned forward taking a few deep breaths.

  “It’s most likely the alcohol.” I said to myself while throwing my clean clothes into the bag and riding the elevator up to the third floor.

  Entering my room I reiterated the words out loud, “It’s just the alcohol.” I felt better. And grateful it was in fact, not a stroke. Dumping my clothes out onto the bed, I began folding each item but as I stood there staring at my colorful Target underwear—his beautiful white ass kept popping up in my mind. Any attempt at shaking these thoughts from my head were useless.

  Underwear. Ass. Socks. Ass. White t-shirt. White Ass.

  What was I supposed to do? Was he sending me an invitation? How fucking stupid did I have to be to not pick up on it? He practically handed his ass over to me on a silver plate. A silver plate! I’ve never even had Thanksgiving dinner served to me on a silver plate. I felt the urge to fish for more information and find out his motives. While pacing back and forth in front of the bed I thought, “What would Evan do?” Knowing exactly what Evan would do I picked up my cell phone and shot Connor a text.

  I was glad I had his number. My fingers shook as I typed: “Yo. That was fun. I hate when the night has to end so early.”

  Within seconds he replied: “Yeah man. That was fun. You r fuckin hilarious.”

  While folding clothes, I went back and forth from my socks to my cell phone. After a few minutes of normal guy banter, I decided to bring up sex. If there’s one thing I know about straight dudes, they love talking about sex. Sports. Drinking. Tits. Fucking, That’s about it. And usually in that order. I responded: “Lori wants to fuck. She’d fuck both of you. You could totally fuck her tonight.”

  Taking the bait he typed back: “Lololol. I’d fuck her. I’m a whore.”

  The conversation was beyond juicy: “Then get you some. She wants it.”

  He didn’t respond. Not wanting the conversation to end, I came back with another comment. A point blank one. A ‘get some dick before bed or go home’ kinda text: “You might not wanna moon a gay guy in the hall.”

  A follow up quickly appeared: “I don’t know why I did that. If I was gay I’d be a top.”

  Our conversation was beyond hot. I was sexting with a pilot and it wasn’t even my birthday. I expected him to pass out within minutes lea
ving me to reread the text messages while jerking off. For some reason, I felt the desire to counter with: “I’m not gonna go there about you being gay.”

  Without skipping a beat, my cell phone vibrated delivering a message I never saw coming: “Why? Do you wanna hook up or something?” The response came quickly enough leaving me to believe he had already typed out the words waiting for the perfect time to hit send. He found it.

  Dead. Did I just die? Maybe the roof collapsed and I was in my afterlife. An afterlife which included a hot straight pilot making the moves on me via text message. All this while folding laundry on a layover and with a number of alcoholic beverages. I’d hoped my afterlife excluded doing laundry for eternity but if it included pilot cock, I’d be happy.

  Staring at my cell phone for a few seconds seemed reasonable. More like a few minutes because words had escaped me. How was I supposed to respond? Honestly, the smart thing would have been to put my cell phone down, shut off my light, and go to bed. But I am a human being and human beings make stupid mistakes.

  Or in this case, a smart mistake that checks off the pilot box on my cock-sucking resume: “Sure. I’ll suck your dick.” Simple and easy. As if I was asking him to get me a cup of coffee.

  “Dude I’m fuckin nervous. I’ve never done this before,”

  I replied with sweaty hands: “We aren’t getting married. If you want your dick sucked just let me know.”

  A few minutes went by before he answered: “I have to make a call and then I will get back to you. Hang tight.”

  I became quite nervous. What the fuck was I thinking? My heart thrashed around inside my chest ready to burst out of me like the creature from Alien. If Connor was nervous about this being his first time with a guy, I was equally nervous for allowing it to go this far. At any moment I could have texted him back and stopped this entire conversation but the excitement had me second guessing my moral judgement. Moral judgement? What’s that? Those two words buzzed around my head the entire hour I hadn’t heard back from him.

  Have you heard of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex? No? Neither did I until researching it for this book. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a portion of our frontal lobe. It is the section of the brain that assists us in making moral decisions, even when we know right from wrong—like being faced with the moral dilemma of sucking a straight pilot’s dick or aborting the mission before suck off. Such a difficult predicament, and one I was left on my own to solve. It seemed that the entire frontal lobe portion of my brain was inoperative. Broken or missing, I couldn’t tell, but impossible to fix on such short notice. It must have snuck out for a late night stroll and got jumped in some dark alley in Detroit. I’d be sure to slap flyers alongside the highway on the way to the airport.

  They’d read something like:

  Dear Citizens of Detroit,

  I’ve completely lost my fucking mind. And my morals! If you find a lonely moral compass in the gutter, please return it to the lost and found department in baggage claim at the airport.

  Sincerely,

  Flight Attendant Joe

  But now that I think about, maybe it abandoned me that night in 1998 when I was sucking dick for Jesus while tucked away inside a McDonald’s stock room. Holy shit! What if I never had morals to begin with? Was that possible? It couldn’t be. I’m a good person. I’ve never robbed a bank, murdered someone for their wallet, or pushed an old lady down to get to the front line. There had to be another explanation. Maybe my frontal lobe battery had simply died and needed to be recharged? A good night sleep would fix that up. Right?

  Around 8p.m., I concluded Connor either fell asleep or came to his senses. At least one of our frontal lobes worked. I shut off the lights and crawled into bed. Flipping through the television channels, I realized it was for the best. Sucking pilot dick on a layover was a really bad idea. A really, really bad idea. I promised myself after the hospital suckathon that I’d never allow myself to become dickmatized at work again. Especially while being a flight attendant. Who did I think I was? A twenty-something female with big tits and no brains? Not me. My moral compass simply pointed south towards one of their crotches.

  When my cell phone vibrated I almost shit the bed. I picked it up so fast it wobbled around in my hand and fell to the floor. It was a text from Evan: “Hey quizeeeeen. You up?”

  I ended the conversation quickly telling him it was late and I had an early report. I placed the cell phone back on the bedside table when it vibrated again. Figuring it was Evan, I waited a moment before checking the message.

  Connor came through loud and clear: “You still up for it? What r u doing?”

  What was I supposed to do? I could play it off like I had fallen asleep. The right thing to do was easy enough but that’s not what I did. My brain screamed, “Do the stupid thing. Do it!” That’s what happens when your frontal lobe is all fucked up. Judge as you’d like, but we have all made stupid decisions; thought with our sexual mind instead of our rational mind. I answered: “I’m up. Watching tv.”

  “I’m scared. What if this opens Pandora’s Box?”

  That should have been my cue to evacuate the airplane. Abandon ship. Sadly, I hung on for dear life. If he was questioning his sexuality, did I really want to be the one helping him out? And by out, I meant of the closet. A huge benefit of being a flight attendant was having fun on layovers, not ruining lives. Was all this happening for a reason? What if he was gay? Would his fiancé rather know he was gay now or after they were married? Was I actually helping her out by offering up my services? Yes, of course. My moral compass was back. Resting awhile must have restarted it. As a firm believer in things happening for a reason, it became clear my task was to help him out of the closet or to realize he was straight. Either way, dick was involved.

  However it went, I was helping. Doing a good deed. Giving back to the community. It’s amazing how we can trick ourselves into believing our bad decisions are for the betterment of others. After the last sliver of my morality faded, I continued with the conversation: “We aren’t getting married. I’m sucking your dick. Don’t be dramatic.”

  “Lol. u always hit on your pilots like this?”

  What the what? If memory served me right, he was the one who brought up the topic of hooking up. And the fucker mooned me in the hallway. Total pilot move. Blame everyone else. Was that how the story would go down in the history books? All my fault? Hell no. Saving the text messages to prove my innocence was imperative. Did I say innocent? Alright, I was far from innocent, but this was a joint venture, not a solo job.

  And just to set the record straight, those scandalous text messages were deleted years ago.

  I started getting annoyed: “Listen man, you brought it up. You coming over?”

  “I don’t know. All this sounds really hot. I’ve just never done this before.”

  His indecisiveness dragged on longer than a stuttering flight attendant trying to read the safety demonstration. This back and forth dick sucking ping pong talk had become exhausting. He either wanted it or he didn’t. Calling him made perfect sense but that seemed too real. Conversing via text message kept our entire conversation in a fantasy haze. We continued texting: “It’s up to you. Let me know.”

  “Should I come there or you come here?”

  There’s nothing worse than an unsure pilot: “Come to 304.”

  He responded one final time, “On my way.”

  I flung myself out of bed and turned on one of the lamps. Skipping around the room like a prom date about to lose her virginity, I ran over to the door and propped it open with the safety latch so he could walk right in. No need knocking. Alerting any flight crews of our soon-to-be devious act was unthinkable, but more for him than me. Can you imagine having to sit in the flight deck somewhere over Lake Erie trying to explain to your captain why you were sneaking into a male flight attendant’s hotel room? We’d surely be found hours later at the bottom of the lake. My heart raced like a fat guy waiting for Five Guys. And I only h
ad one hot guy coming over. If he was nervous about opening Pandora’s Box, I was wrecked about opening Joe’s Mouth. It took him about three minutes to rush down the hallway and enter my room.

  “Hey.” He closed the door making a beeline towards the bed.

  I shut off the lamp allowing the television to shine throughout the room. “You want me to turn off the tv?”

  “No. It’s cool.” He sat on the bed and looked around the room.

  He looked gorgeous. Much sexier than when we hung out at the bar. Sporting a white tank top, basketball shorts, and wire-rimmed glasses he almost had me melting into the carpet. The poor housekeeper. What a mess that would be to clean up.

  “You want to watch porn? I have my laptop,” I had no clue what to say, “I can find you some straight porn to watch. Do you need it?” Interacting with him reminded me of how frightened I was the first time I placed a penis in my mouth. All my experiences and I still found myself shaking in my boxers. Why was I not cooler about this scenario? I should have been. As cool as the cucumber I was about to meet. We sat in silence for a few seconds. My mind raced. What do you offer a straight pilot besides the blow job? Vodka? A Hustler magazine? First class meal? I had leftover chicken salad in my small refrigerator but that was my lunch the next day. Completely off limits. I’ll suck your dick, but I won’t starve myself. I have limitations.

  “I don’t need porn. I’m good.”

  I moved over to the bed. “Can you believe this? I can’t believe you’re gonna let me suck your dick.”

  “Please stop talking before you freak me out.”

  “Sure. Sorry.” Oops. Leave it to me to scare off the straight dick before it made an appearance. Connor laid down the number one rule, stop talking and start sucking. Now, I may be rusty on my Catholicism but I do believe that’s the commandment that comes right before, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Those weren’t his exact words but I read between the lines. A bunch of uncomfortable lines. The entire situation was fucking awkward. I felt awkward, and he had to feel equally awkward. That’s what I thought until he leaned back against the pillows and I noticed he wasn’t feeling awkward at all. He was hot! And harder than lava rock.