Tangled Sheets

by Michael Thomas Ford

  Seeing them both come sent me over the edge. I groaned loudly as my load flew from my cockhead and covered my gloved hand in sticky streamers. Some of it fell to the floor as I shot repeatedly, and several long spurts stained the front of my shirt in wet streaks. Somehow I managed to keep the car steady as my body rocked with an intense orgasm from my boots to the top of my cap. It was all I could do just to stay on the snowy bridge as I gasped and shuddered from the intensity of the release.

  When I was finally able to breathe again, I looked at the monitor. In the back, my two passengers were putting themselves back together, fumbling with shirts and pants and ties. When they had restored themselves to some semblance of order, Aronson kissed the other man deeply and then lowered the window. As it opened, I hurriedly tucked my sticky cock back into my pants and zipped up. I snapped off the monitor and pretended that nothing was out of the ordinary.

  “This was a lovely ride,” Aronson said evenly when the window had fully descended, his voice betraying nothing of the passion I had just witnessed in him. “But we’ve finished our business and I think we can go back to the hotel now.”

  Without another word, he rolled the window back up. We had reached the other side of the river, and after handing my return token to the sleepy tollkeeper, who seemed more than a little surprised to see someone traveling in the snow, I turned the limo around and headed back into Manhattan. As I drove across the bridge through the snow and fell out of the night sky and back into the glowing hands of the city, I fingered the sticky glove now resting in my pocket and lost myself in the music pouring from the radio, replaying my winter’s tale in my mind.

  Going Down Under

  Australian man. Airplane. Forbidden sex. Did I need a reason?

  I have to confess, I don’t particularly like to travel. Or rather, I like the excitement of going to new places; I just don’t like the process of getting there and coming back. Sitting for hours in hard plastic chairs waiting for connecting flights, trying to read incomprehensible train and bus schedules, and navigating through foreign cities without knowing the language are not things that make me look forward to leaving home, no matter how enticing the destination. Once I get there, I’m fine. It’s the coming and going that make me wish my wanderlust didn’t kick in quite so strongly every few months like a bitch going into heat.

  So when my editor called me in and said she was sending me to Sydney to cover the Australian rugby finals for the magazine, I took the news with mixed emotions. On the one hand, spending a week down under looking at a bunch of sweaty ballplayers was certainly no hardship assignment. On the other, it meant a twenty-four-hour plane ride to get there. I wondered if I could just get something to knock me out for the trip so I wouldn’t even know what was going on until the plane landed and someone woke me up.

  But as usual my desire to see someplace new won out, and a few days later I found myself boarding a Qantas jet with a crowd of other folks taking the late flight to the world’s end. As I passed from the heat of the New York evening into the artificial coolness of the airplane, I breathed in the sweet smell of the jet’s piped-in air and felt it fill my head with its reassuring etherlike touch. I waded through the tangle of people milling in the aisles and trying to push their bags into the overhead compartments and found my seat. I had requested a window seat over the wing because there’s more leg room in that row, and if I was going to have to sit for a day and a night, I wanted it to be somewhere I could at least stretch out. The layout of the plane was such that there was one seat next to mine, and I prayed no one would be in it.

  After stowing my one bag, I settled in. There was nothing else to do, so I watched the other passengers getting on. My eyes were on the alert for any talkative old ladies or small children, both of whom make any kind of enclosed travel a misery with their tendencies to tell rambling, uninteresting stories and to kick the backs of the seats. I also wanted to see if anyone was heading my way to take my preciously guarded companion seat.

  The plane filled up quickly, primarily with business types and couples, none of them toting children or the elderly. As more and more poured into the cabin, the seat next to me remained wonderfully unoccupied, and I started allowing myself to believe that it might just stay that way. I opened the in-flight magazine thoughtfully provided in the seat pocket that also held my airsick bag and emergency evacuation procedure card, and thumbed through looking for pictures of rugby types to pass the time. Unfortunately, there weren’t any to be found, so I started to read an article about the quaint eating habits of koalas.

  I was halfway through the article when someone dropped a large book onto the seat next to me. Startled, I glanced sideways, my eyes coming to rest on a buckle holding closed a brown leather belt that cinched a pair of chinos. Moving my gaze up, I traveled over the planes of a blue cotton work shirt until I came to a man’s face. He was busily cramming his carry-on bag into the overhead and wasn’t looking at me, so I had time to look him over.

  About thirty, he had auburn hair that was cut short but was slightly tousled, a lock of it falling over his forehead as if he’d been running. He was a large man, standing an inch or two over my own six-two frame, and his face was wide and rugged, his jaw and neck flecked with a dark shadow even though he was clean shaven. His shirt was open at the neck, and there was a splash of the same auburn hair visible in the exposed hollow of his throat. His sleeves were rolled up his thick forearms, and his hands were wide and strong with thick fingers, one of which was encircled by a thin gold wedding band.

  He finished storing his bag and sat down. When he looked over at me, I saw that his eyes were a light gray. He smiled slightly and held out his hand. “Hi,” he said in a rich, low voice heavy with an Aussie accent that made me take notice instantly. “I’m Aiden. Looks like we’re stuck together for a while.”

  I took his hand and his fingers closed around mine warmly as his flesh pressed heat against my palm, his wedding band a cool accent on my skin as he held my grip for a few moments. “Nice to meet you,” I lied, bitterly disappointed that I wouldn’t be sitting alone. “I’m Tom.” Great, I thought, not only do I have to sit next to someone, but he’s the one attractive man on the whole flight and he’s married. It was going to be one long trip.

  Aiden shifted around in his seat, getting more comfortable. His chest was wide, and he filled up the space easily. I felt the pressure of his shoulder against mine as he settled back and stretched his long legs, trying out the space, and it left an unexpected warm feeling when he sat up again. “Not so bad,” he said. “Usually I can barely move.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, putting my magazine away as the takeoff light went on and the stewardesses started their canned spiel about what to do in the event of the plane tumbling into the sea. The plane was taxiing into position, and I turned my attention to the view outside my window. I could still feel where Aiden had rubbed against me and tried not to think about it as the runway fled away beneath me in a dirty river. The plane shook lightly as it gained speed, and soon I felt the wheels leave the ground as it leapt into the air. I watched the familiar sight of the runway dropping off abruptly into the water of the bay, and looked down as the plane rose higher and higher and the visible landscape closed in on itself like a kaleidoscope coming into focus.

  When we passed up into the arms of the clouds and the plane was surrounded by nets of white, I sat back again. Aiden was leaning back, his fingers gripping the armrests tightly and his eyes closed. He was breathing shallowly, and the muscles of his neck were tight. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” he replied. “I just don’t like takeoffs. Once we’re actually up, it’s okay.”

  “Well, we’re pretty much there,” I said. “I think you can open your eyes now.”

  Aiden blinked a few times, looking past me at the view outside the window. His hands released their hold on the armrests, and he wiped them on his pants. “That’s better,” he said, obviously embarrassed. “I know it soun
ds weird, but once I see the clouds, I kind of feel like the plane can’t fall through them. Like if something happened, the plane would just sort of sink into them and float around until it could be fixed.” He looked at me quickly and then looked away. “Pretty strange, eh?”

  I laughed a little. “No, not really,” I said. “I think it’s kind of nice. Beats the hell out of the alternative.”

  It was his turn to laugh. I noticed he was turning the ring on his finger absentmindedly. “Bet your wife will be glad to have you back,” I said.

  He stopped fingering his ring and leaned back, the smile on his face fading into a harder line. “So what takes you to our great island?” he asked, ignoring my question. His voice was polite, but it had lost a bit of the friendly tone it had had a moment before.

  I told him about the sports magazine that I work for, and about the story I was working on. He seemed mildly impressed but didn’t ask any questions. He seemed to have gotten very shy all of a sudden. When I asked him about himself, he said something vague about having been in New York on business and that now he was going home. Then he opened his book and started to read. Since he seemed not to want to talk any further, I went back to my magazine. Before long, I was deep into an exposé on the pleasures of rock climbing in the Australian outback and had almost forgotten that Aiden was even there.

  When I finished reading everything I could in the magazine, I looked at my watch. We’d only been in the air for forty-five minutes, and already I was bored. I looked out the window into the swirling vortex of clouds moving past the plane and thought about what Aiden had said. I wondered why the mention of his wife had made him fall silent and looked over at him. He was still reading, his eyes scanning the page slowly, and he took no notice of me. Oh well, I thought, at least he isn’t bothering me with endless chatter.

  Reaching down, I pulled a paperback out of the small bag I’d pushed under my seat. It was a thick one, something I’d picked up at the airport book shop thinking it would last me through most of the long trip. I leaned back in my seat and opened it to the first page. It was an occult thriller, something about a man being haunted by the ghost of a girl who’d been killed in the house he bought and who was now causing no end of trouble. Despite my disdain for the writer and his megaselling books, I found myself deeply engrossed in a matter of minutes, grudgingly turning the pages to see what would happen.

  After about eighty pages, I suddenly realized that something was pressing against my arm. Turning my head slightly, I saw that Aiden had shifted again so that he was leaning against me slightly, his arm lightly pushing against mine. He was still reading and didn’t look up at me, but the pressure didn’t let up. I went back to my book, not moving my own arm and wondering if he was aware of what he was doing. I tried to get back into the story, but my concentration wandered as I felt the heat of his body through my shirt, never moving. To my surprise, my cock started to swell.

  I tensed my arm slightly, to see if Aiden would move away. When he did, I felt disappointed and chastised myself for pushing him away. I tried to lean more in his direction, to resume our contact, but he had shifted his weight to his other side, and I would have had to practically fall over to touch him. Deciding that it was all an accident, I resumed reading. Unfortunately, my prick was half-hard from the unexpected contact with Aiden’s body, and all I could think about was how his arm felt against mine.

  Before long, I had created a whole fantasy scenario in my head. I imagined finding Aiden naked, lying on his back in the white sand of a beach. His skin was damp with sweat, and I was rubbing my hands over his muscular back, feeling him tense and release beneath my touch. I imagined stroking the strong mounds of his ass, the way it would feel to rub the hair on his thighs. I pictured him rolling over, his cock stretched out along his belly waiting for me to take it in my mouth. After a few minutes, I could almost feel him fucking me, my back in the warm sand while his strong hands parted my thighs and his dick slipped inside my asshole.

  My cock was fully hard now, making an obvious bulge in my pants. I held my book over it, hoping Aiden couldn’t see, and tried to forget the image I’d just conjured up. If he did notice, he wasn’t looking at it and went on turning the pages of his book every few minutes. I put my hand on my crotch and pretended to look out the window while I tried to will my hard-on away. The sky was quickly moving from a dark purple to the blackness of night like a bruise forming beneath the skin, and the cabin was growing dimmer with every passing minute as the plane dived headlong into the darkness. Throughout the plane small spots of light were bursting into life as people turned on their reading lamps.

  I sat for over an hour just staring out the window and watching the night fold in around the plane. The images of Aiden faded away slowly as I watched the stars come out, and I had almost managed to get things back to normal when I felt something move along my leg. Aiden’s knee was pressing against mine, and his touch was like fire, instantly making my dick fill with blood until it was hard again. Oh shit, I thought, this guy is going to drive me crazy, and he doesn’t even know what he’s doing.

  I left my leg pressed against Aiden’s while I continued to look out the window. The pressure remained constant, never increasing or decreasing, for a good fifteen minutes while the picture of his naked body flooded my mind once more and I imagined slurping on his big cock. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I moved my knee closer to his, pressing more firmly. Much to my surprise, he didn’t move at all. After a few minutes, I stole a quick glance at him to see what he was doing. He was sitting in the half dark, his book on his lap and his head back. His eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly. His hands were clasped over his book, the fingers loosely entwined in one another. He was asleep.

  Leaning back in my seat, I felt my arm press against his once again. This time, he didn’t move away from me. The feeling of being forced against him in the confined space of our seats was very arousing, and I closed my eyes as I once more thought about making love to him. My hand worked playfully at my hard cock as I imagined sucking Aiden’s dick and pictured his hands moving over my body. I tried to envision the hair on his chest, how it would look tumbling down his belly, how it would feel beneath my tongue as I worked my way over his nipples to his stiff tool. I ran my tongue over my lips as I thought about taking his fat balls into my mouth, sucking the sweat from them while he moaned above me.

  The fact that I couldn’t actually take my cock out and jerk on it made me even hornier. I knew I was probably leaking like crazy inside my boxers. The more I thought about making love with Aiden, the harder I got. I rubbed myself as much as I could in such an open place and wished to God I’d had the sense to grab a blanket from the overhead compartment when I got on. I even thought about going into the bathroom and jerking off, but that meant moving past Aiden. It also meant giving up the torturous feeling of his body pressed against mine. Even if he was asleep, I was still getting off on having him so close but so untouchable.

  Putting my hand on my knee, I let my fingers hang down and brush lightly against Aiden’s leg. The rough material of his pants met my fingers as I traced a small circle on his leg, waiting for him to abruptly pull away. But he stayed where he was. Emboldened, I made a larger circle with my fingers, pressing a little more firmly. When he still didn’t move, I felt my heart beating faster. This is nuts, I told myself. The man’s asleep and you’re getting all hot over him. I moved my leg a little closer to him, until our calves were tight against each other.

  I took my hand away and continued to press my knee against him. A few minutes went by that seemed like hours as I thought about what to do next. Aiden’s eyes were still shut, and his hands hadn’t moved. Then I felt his leg rise up slightly along mine, as though he were rubbing against me. It was a small movement and could have been made in sleep, but it was enough for me to take a chance. I put my hand full on his thigh, my fingers pressing into hard muscle. His leg was broad, and my hand stretched across it heavily as I rubbed
him, waiting for him to leap out of his seat and start yelling.

  Instead, he pushed his leg up against my hand, moving his hips forward. His eyes stayed closed, but one hand moved down to rest on top of mine, the big fingers closing around mine. I almost shot a load at his unexpected touch, the way he held me making my balls ache. I looked at his face and saw that the muscles of his jaw were fluttering, as if he was very nervous. Still, he left his hand on mine, rubbing me gently where I was touching his leg. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed what we were doing, but the cabin was shrouded in darkness, and the passengers across from us were sleeping soundly.

  Drawing a deep breath, I brought my hand up Aiden’s thigh to his crotch, where I rested it right on his cock. He was hard, and his prick made a thick line under his pants. I rested my hand there for a few moments, while the realization that he’d been as hard as I was dawned on me. He moved his book so that it covered his crotch, my hand hidden beneath it. He held the book open so that anyone coming by would see only the dust jacket lying flat across his stomach.

  He still made no move to open his eyes, but his hand continued to rest on mine, pressing it down on his prick. He was large, and I felt along the length of him while my own cock sent shivers of anticipation throughout my body. Feeling his dick while surrounded by so many people was getting me really worked up, and I wanted more. I reached under the flap of his fly and found the tiny metal head of his zipper just beneath the buckle of his belt. Gripping it tightly, I tugged down slowly, the small teeth gnashing silently as I opened him up.

  When I had his zipper open, I slid my fingers inside and into the warmth of soft cotton Jockeys. After some fumbling, I slipped past the waistband, pushing his underwear down slightly as I grabbed his cock. His dick was hot in my hand, long and thick with a rounded head that pressed against my palm like a stone warm from hours in the sun. I gripped it tightly in my fingers, feeling the heat pulse beneath the thin skin, the vein on the underside swelling and ebbing. My hand rested in his pubic hair, and I felt the muscles of his belly tensing as he breathed slowly.