by A. Nybo
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The Great Aerodynamicist
By A. Nybo
Thinking he’s up to the task, droll Irishman Donnell, who is new to Australia, has almost completed assembling a model steampunk flying machine for his nephew’s Christmas present. Then an accident involving a parachute, some superglue, and his mouth lands Donnell in the emergency room with two of his fantasy men… only one of whom is real.
DONNELL WIPED down the counter amid the evening push of a grand total of three customers who perused the sandwich display with the enthusiasm of clients in a dentist’s waiting room.
The moment property settlement was through, which he hoped was in a few weeks despite Christmas, he’d close Mikey’s Sandwich Bar and get it fitted out so he could turn it into a twenty-four-hour café. A decent product would undoubtedly draw the shift workers from the nearby police station and hospital, which he was convinced would make the business profitable. A good coffee alone would encourage a greater turnover than Mikey’s sad sandwiches.
The current owner’s recent accident had been the final decider for Mikey’s to go on the market. Fortuitously, Donnell had not long arrived in Melbourne, Australia, and was looking for such a business. It wouldn’t take much to make it a going concern. Of course, any new business was hard work, but this one had a potential customer base currently begging to spend their money on scrumptious delights.
With the evening rush depleted from three to one, Donnell was about to complete the last order when the customer decided to add a café latte to his outrageously large order of a lone premade curried egg sandwich.
Donnell poured the last of the milk into the jug, went to the kitchen, and pulled another four liters from the walk-in fridge before returning to top the jug up. As he bent to stow the milk in the bar fridge below the counter, the bell over the door chimed.
When Donnell straightened, over the shoulder of his current customer, his gaze met the merry brown eyes of the semiregular whose indefinable heritage had blessed the world with the most beautiful man Donnell had ever seen.
The golden-brown skin was so smooth and blemish free, Donnell suspected it wasn’t real—nor were the man’s almond-shaped eyes or the smile that always graced his mesmerizing lips. No, this was Donnell’s fantasy that happened to be at least a dozen steps closer to real than an imaginary friend. Although he would never be completely certain exactly how real until he’d touched the man. Now there was a fantasy—one that almost made Donnell swallow his tongue.
An excessively loud and embarrassing noise came from Donnell as he cleared his tongue from his throat. Right. Back to coffee making.
With the measured amount of milk in the jug, he lifted it up under the frothing wand and moved it up and down. His gaze wanted to go to Almond-eyes, demanded to. While he valiantly battled his main focus, his wayward peripheral vision accessed the most beautiful of sights.
Almond-eyes was dressed in neat-fitting gray trousers and a white short-sleeved button-up. He wasn’t carrying a bag of any sort, so maybe he’d simply ducked away from work. Although, if he worked around here, he’d come in more often, surely—especially with such a wondrous array of foodstuffs available. Donnell’s inner sarcastic bastard was on it today.
His peripheral vision strained to collect details, but the harsh burning sensation on his hand caused Donnell to jump. “Ouch!” He almost dropped the jug but managed to set it on the stainless-steel counter before more scalding milk frothed onto his skin.
With jerky, barely coordinated movements, he cleaned up the mess and poured the remaining milk into the takeaway latte. Thankfully he hadn’t spilled so much that he had to start again. He put the heat barrier on the cup and set it on the counter in front of the customer.
So eager to have license to legally look at Almond-eyes as he ordered, without coming off as a pervert, Donnell almost asked the current customer whether there was something else he wanted, to hurry him along. But the man held out a twenty-dollar note.
Money.
Yes, Donnell, you had one job… and you’ve managed to fuck it up twice so far.
He took the money, rang up the order, put the twenty in the till, and… his brain short-circuited. There was currently nothing in there except the part that was excruciatingly aware of how Almond-eyes would be watching his clown act and thinking what a twat he was—unable to complete a simple transaction.
The till readout showed how much change to give, and Donnell mentally repeated it several times, trying to get it to mean something. Finally he grabbed some change, which may or may not have been correct, and handed it to the customer.
“Have a nice evening,” said Donnell.
Almond-eyes had moved to one side, looking in the sandwich display case. The initial disappointment of not having the immediate opportunity to look into the guy’s eyes was quickly overcome by the opportune replacement of being able to check out his physique as he bent to take a closer look at the sandwiches.
However, from the other side of the case, his view was so obscured, he’d have to duck his head a little to get a good gander. He wasn’t that much of a perve.
Hmm, yes he was.
He dipped his head a little and was rewarded with a view that made his heart skip and roll in his chest like it was in an aerial dogfight. Through the glass was a sight more perfect than Donnell could have ever hoped to see.
The way he was bent, the guy’s head was tilted up, his chin high enough to expose the smooth slide over golden skin, right down the front of his neck. The swell of his Adam’s apple leveled out onto the plane of his throat that led down to the vee of his collarbone. Just beneath was the top of a soft cotton undershirt. Oh, how Donnell wanted to run his tongue down that smooth skin—all in the name of science of course. How else would he be able to discern if the texture really was as smooth as it appeared? There were those tiny ridges in his throat where Donnell’s tongue could….
Almond-eyes began to rise, and Donnell’s gaze darted down to the counter.
“Hello.” Donnell cleared his throat and wiped his hands on his apron. “What can I get for you?”
The full force of the guy’s smile was like a kick to Donnell’s knees, and he feared he might drop to the ground. “Is that an Irish accent?” Almond-eyes asked.
“Aye, ’tis,” said Donnell, hamming it up since the guy seemed to like it. “From down near Waterford.”
Almond-eyes nodded, and Donnell tried to think of something else to say, but his mind refused to cooperate.
The guy looked back to the cabinet. “Are there any sandwiches left besides chicken and cheese?”
The normal sound of the man’s voice allowed Donnell some respite. If it had even a hint of that smoky quality he liked so much, he would have melted into a puddle.
“Ah….” Donnell’s attention flicked over the remaining sandwiches.
He bent to take a closer look at the labels, and his gaze went straight through the glass at the front of the display case to Almond-eyes’s crotch. Hmm, he dressed to the left. Donnell’s imagination flipped the perspective, so it was as if he were looking from the outside of the display case in. From the outline of Almond-eyes’s family jewels, Donnell thought a museum display case might be more appropriate.
Christ, he was a fucking pervert. He was sick. Maybe that was why he was suddenly so hot, although it was kind of warm for evening. He had to invoke the Force to drag his focus down to the sandwiches where he tried unsuccessfully to decipher the letters on the preformed packs. Surely, they were written in Egyptian Arabic.
H
e straightened. “I can make you one. What would you like?”
Almond-eyes looked at his watch. “Um, no that’s okay. I’ll take one of those.” He pointed to the line of sandwiches.
“Would you like anything else? Coffee?”
“Thanks. But the sandwich will be great.”
Donnell doubted that very much.
When their eyes met, the guy smiled, and Donnell cursed himself soundly as the heat rose from beneath his shirt to climb up his neck. An image of himself with floaty red dots of embarrassment streaming from his pores made his face burn more—feckin’ translucent complexion.
The moment the bell over the door rang, ushering Almond-eyes’s departure from the shop, Donnell let out a sigh. “Why don’t you just go and hide beneath the island counter in the kitchen, you feckin’ eejit,” he muttered to himself. “They’d find you there and say, ‘Och, what are you doing there, Donnell?’ And I’d say, ‘I’m protecting the masses from my pervy tendencies.’”
He walked to the end of the counter so his gaze could follow Almond-eyes a few moments longer. His brows pulled down as he watched Almond-eyes where he’d stopped on the sidewalk, with the heel of his palm to his forehead. Almond-eyes made to walk off but stalled and stood still for a long time. Then he rubbed his face. Donnell wondered if he should go out and see if he was all right. But then, Almond-eyes threw the sandwich in the bin and crossed the road.
Donnell moved to the front of the shop so he could watch, his concern mounting. Almond-eyes halted on the other side of the road and seemed to waver for a moment before he continued down to the hospital. Donnell wondered if the semiregular visits to Mikey’s coincided with some form of treatment. It saddened him to think Almond-eyes might be battling an illness.
He turned to the clock above the kitchen doorway. Another three hours until closing time.
IT WAS 11:00 p.m. by the time Donnell was sitting at home with a beer and the model steampunk flying machine on the table before him. The few remaining parts that needed to be affixed were strewn around the dragonfly-bat-sailboat mashup. Was that what his nephew, Jimmy, liked so much about the genre? That it was a highly organized mess?
“That’s not what your ma would say about your room, lad,” he mused as if Jimmy were there. His neck was bent at an awkward angle and eyes focused on the tiny slot where the sail wires were inserted. “Fact is, I don’t think anyone would say it about your room. Certainly not me.”
His attention back on the gears, with great precision, Donnell used tweezers to maneuver the final cog to sit atop the little dab of superglue. It slotted into place. Brushing his unruly dark curls from his face, he sat back to admire his handiwork.
Once the glue was dried, all three sets of cogs could be inserted into the inlays on the side of the dragonfly body. Then it would only be a matter of putting on the sails, and for the grand finale—the parachutist in the crow’s nest.
“You poor wee bastard,” he said to the parachutist who he knew to be sitting a few inches to his right. “They’re determined you’re going to be left hanging in the sail wires the moment you jump. Who in their right mind would have you deploying your wee parachute where there’s no room for it to open without catching on something?”
Donnell had never assembled a model craft of any sort before and hadn’t realized it was so advanced. It certainly wasn’t an ideal gift for an impatient thirteen-year-old whose attention span lurched like a drunk’s stagger home from the pub.
Initially he was going to present Jimmy with the unassembled model, but his sister, Fiona, assured him the parts would be scattered from one end of his room to the other within the first hour, and then they’d gradually all make their way out into the yard on the bottom of Jimmy’s shoes. Donnell had suggested he take it back and get a refund, but Fiona assured him Jimmy would love the present—if it was already assembled.
Perhaps it would be impetus for Jimmy to explore the world of modeling. It was for Donnell. He’d already decided he was going to get another one. The painting and assembling of Spunky Mal, as he’d affectionately named the model, had been a kind of zen experience—after the initial frustration of trying to understand where some of the parts went.
He picked up the little parachutist and looked at the gun belt slung on its hip. It was undoubtedly meant to be Captain Mal. A fan of both the Firefly TV series and its illustrious captain, he’d initially called the model Steampunk Mal. The more he worked on it the shorter the name became. Steampunk had become S’Punk, had become Spunk, and then the final incarnation was Spunky Mal. Donnell especially liked the way that gun belt sat around Captain Mal’s hips. Mm-hmm.
“I wouldn’t mind clinging to your thigh meself,” said Donnell as he tested the cog to ensure it had stuck.
With one of the sails spread neatly on the table, he ran the glue nozzle along both edges of the cloth. He reached over to get the tweezers and his elbow struck his beer bottle. Like a slow-motion movie, he watched in horror as the neck of the stubby tilted over, hit Captain Mal, and flipped him across the corner of the sail. An amber tidal wave headed toward the cloth at an alarming rate. He snatched up Captain Mal, righted his beer, and pushed the model out of the way of the frothing ocean.
“No,” he squeaked as the tidal wave continued toward the sail. He put the captain between his teeth and snatched up the material. “Fucker,” he said around the little parachutist.
Satisfied the tidal wave had settled to a lake, he went around the bench to the kitchen and set the stubby in the sink. Ensuring the draining board was dry so he didn’t get the sail wet, he went to reach for the dishcloth, but the sail stuck to his fingers. He tried to flip it off, but it wasn’t going to be dislodged.
With his sail-free hand, he grabbed Captain Mal’s feet and went to open his mouth, but his teeth were locked fast. Stunned, he tried several times to eject the parachutist before the true horror of the situation sank in. Captain Mal, the wee bastard, was holding his teeth together with his inordinate strength—or superglue.
When wild flapping around the kitchen didn’t send the sail flying from his fingers, he unsuccessfully tried to peel it away. Angrily, he tore it off, taking off several layers of skin. He screeched his pain around the captain and was surprised he hadn’t bitten Mal in half.
“This was not the fantasy I had of you giving me head,” he said, his speech distorted by the captain.
He searched the internet for home remedies. Apparently, margarine could assist removal. It was midnight, and he didn’t have any margarine. Would butter do? The thought of applying unadulterated butter into his mouth made him want to puke. Oh God, what if he threw up and couldn’t open his mouth to let it out? He’d choke to death.
Another suggestion said it would wear away in a few days. That was great, but he got a sore jaw from giving an extended blowjob—he didn’t care to think what that said about the quality of his oral skills—and he couldn’t imagine what it would feel like having a parachutist in his mouth for days.
Yet another link told him to go to the dentist ASAP—same problem as the margarine—not available at midnight. No, the only truly useful suggestion also happened to be the most embarrassing. Front up to the local emergency department where the medical fraternity could have a good old laugh at his expense. Still, if their laughter was what it took to set both himself and Mal free….
By 1:00 a.m. his jaw was sore, he was tired, thirst was setting in, and the internet wasn’t offering any other useful solutions.
The emergency department was starting to look like the only real choice. There was a possibility that if he went to sleep, the parachutist might come loose, but what if it got caught in his throat? Or worse, if he inhaled it and it entered his lungs?
Embarrassing as it might be fronting up to ED with a parachutist stuck in his mouth, it would be a lot less painful and easier to retrieve than it would otherwise be if it came loose in the night to end someplace it shouldn’t.
Whose fucking idea was this modeling sh
ite anyway?
HE WAS lucky it was 1:30 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. The ED was as empty as Mikey’s Sandwich Bar at lunchtime. The receptionist was the only person he’d come across, and he was thankful that she’d settled on a smirk at Captain Mal’s feet protruding onto his lower lip.
Barely had he lowered himself to a chair in the waiting room when he was ushered through and directed to sit on a gurney. Why the curtain was pulled around his cubicle was a mystery since he was the only one there. Maybe it was habitual. Or maybe they wanted to save him further embarrassment.
An approaching laugh caused him to tense as he suspected he was the reason for that laugh. The curtain opened, and the doctor hesitated, the smile on his lips frozen. His beautiful almond eyes widened momentarily before he regained control over his expression.
Every fiber of Donnell’s being went into a violent blush. Any pretense of pride in tatters, there was nothing else for it. Donnell grinned broadly, showing off Captain Mal’s boots in all their grandeur. So, the man wasn’t ill and attending the hospital for treatment—he was a bleedin’ doctor.
“Hello. I hear your teeth”—Almond-eyes made a waving motion at Donnell—“are glued together.”
“Uh-huh,” said Donnell with all the grace the captain would allow.
Almond-eyes, or Dr. C. Beck his name tag assured Donnell, moved to stand to one side and dipped his head to get a closer look. Trying to minimize great gusts of beer breath onto the doctor, Donnell breathed so lightly through his nose he hoped the doctor hurried or he’d soon pass out from lack of oxygen.
The doctor squinted. “What is that?”
Donnell’s answer was distorted by Captain Mal, and although the glue was well and truly dry, he was still wary of putting his tongue near the little beast in case it, too, got stuck.
“Sorry. Here.” Dr. Beck took a pen from his pocket and handed it along with a clipboard to Donnell.
He took it and wrote. A parachutist. And angled it to Dr. Beck.
