Men of London 06 - Flying Solo (2 page)

“Fi, you know I hate this part of the job,” he whined, batting his eyelashes at her. It worked sometimes, but from the look of wrath on the face of the woman in front of him, not this time.

“We
all
know how you feel about it,” Fiona said, her hands busy with the bag as she tried to capture the flow of copious, foul-smelling projectile matter gushing forth from the bug-eyed kid in seat 16C. “But I think I need another bag. Do you think you can grab one?” The sarcasm in her voice made Maxwell tut as he rummaged in a nearby empty seat for an empty sick bag.

“Not helping, gurl. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, remember? We’ve had this discussion before.” He pulled the bag out with a flourish and handed it over. Fiona promptly shoved the full bag of sick in his hands and he wrinkled his nose in disgust. The other passengers around him looked a little grossed out too. Maxwell popped the bag into the waste bin underneath the cart he’d been pushing down the aisle when the kid had decided to go all Vesuvius on them. He couldn’t move back to the galley until Fiona had finished her clean-up operation.

A few minutes later, the kid, who turned out to be a ten-year-old unaccompanied minor, had been shuffled off to the bathroom for a wash. The area around the kid had been sanitised with air freshener and antiseptic wipes and Maxwell was pushing his near-empty trolley into the galley so he could ready it for landing.

It was a short flight and they were only fifteen minutes from touch down at Frankfurt Airport. There, Maxwell would take a twelve-hour break as he waited for the plane to fill with the next contingent of passengers and luggage. Once all were on board, he’d be flying back to London City Airport where he was based.

He loved his job mostly—the travelling, the people he met, the anonymous blowjobs in the bathroom—but he was feeling a little jaded by it all. At twenty-seven years old, he was nearing the age when both the constant travelling and the hurried sexual hook-ups were starting to lose their glitter. His favourite fuck buddy and good friend Oliver Brown was out of the running, having pledged himself to Leslie Scott, the kind of man Maxwell could only aspire to have one day.

Maxwell heaved a deep sigh, wishing he had his cute occasional-travelling-partner-in-the-air, Finchley ‘Finch’ Morton-Harcourt the Third, on the flight. Finch was adept at sucking Maxwell’s balls down into his pink, angelic mouth and performing the blowjob of the century in the bathroom. Sometimes they used the quiet recess of the first-class cabin when it was fairly empty. Both of them had learnt to hold in their moans and gasps when they were at work. Thoughts of that greedy little mouth around his cock made him harden in his trousers and he smiled dreamily. His number one flight attendant narrowed his eyes at him.

“Max, are you ill? You have a weird expression on your face, like you have gas. Please don’t tell me you’re going to puke like that little horror earlier,” said Grant Tooley—and yes, his boss knew all the jokes there were about his unfortunate name. Grant took a voracious glee in levelling a fierce stare at a would-be joker before ripping them to shreds with his rapier-like tongue. He also wasn’t fond of children, preferring his King James spaniel, Melissa, to any human. This included his wife of three years, Annie. Maxwell never quite knew how she could play second fiddle to a yappy dog, but acceptance of her place in Grant’s life was something Annie dismissed with a wry grin.

Maxwell sniffed. “I was thinking. It happens occasionally, you know. I’m not just a pretty face.”

Grant snorted. “The day you think about anything more serious than whose cock you’re going to suck when we land, or which guy you’re going to plough next, will be the day I give up my membership in the Spaniel Appreciation Club and buy a Rottweiler.” He shuddered. “Never going to happen.”

Maxwell squinted his eyes at Grant in sympathy. “Are you sure you’re straight? I mean, the Spaniel Appreciation Club. You sounded so gay there I thought we might be having a moment.”

He evaded Grant’s angry thump to his arm and hightailed it out of the gallery, narrowly missing Fiona as she carried bin bags to the disposal area.

She opened her mouth to say something, but the intercom blared and the captain’s announcement they were about to descend echoed in the air. Maxwell escaped to his seat and buckled in, sticking his tongue out at his friend as he did so.

When they landed, he’d get something to eat, change his shirt, and take the time to chill out. Maybe he could even find someone to hook up with.

*****

Getting home to his studio flat around midnight was like being given a Nigella Lawson cheesecake. Maxwell loved Nigella. If he’d been straight, he might have married her, or at the very least had her as a sugar mommy. She was sexy, comforting, familiar and the very thing to make a rainy day brighter.

It was raining a May downpour as if God had smirked and flushed the celestial toilet not once but twice. Maxwell was weary and stank of sweat and puke because some old dear had heaved her insides all over his shoes soon after landing. It had obviously been National Puke on Cabin Crew Day.

He splodged into the hallway of his small, ground floor flat near the docks less than half a mile away from London City Airport, and switched on the table lamp in the narrow hallway. He left his suitcase propped against the wall. Locks of normally gelled and immaculate hair fell in wet streams down the side of his face, dribbling cold water onto his already chilled neck and back.

The area Maxwell lived in wasn’t the best or safest place to live, but it wasn’t too bad in his opinion. He’d been in far worse situations and could take care of himself. He’d had no trouble to date and most of his neighbours were friendly, if a little suspect.

Luckily the downpour appeared to have kept the various bad elements indoors, something for which Maxwell was thankful. Despite its uncertain location, it was still expensive, but affordable. The flat’s most attractive feature was the fact he could walk to work without relying on public transport. A friendly taxi driver called Boris occasionally gave him a lift in return for a six-pack of Sol beer. Boris hadn’t been out on the route tonight so Maxwell had walked home.

And now he was pissed off. It had been a boring stopover with no envisaged hook-up because he’d fallen asleep for hours when he laid down for a quick nap. It was raining and his flat was cold—the fucking heating hadn’t come on again—and the only thing cluttering his fridge was a salad that looked as if it was being terraformed.

Maxwell was fed up with coming home to an empty place.

“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I, Maxwell Christopher Allan Lewis, past confessed slut and major player, want a man to share my life with. No one is more surprised at this revelation than I,” he grumbled as he watered his half-dead pot plant. Perhaps it might rejuvenate by some kind of miracle. If not, it would be delegated to the corner of the room where so many of his other plants ended up. He could have built a compost heap with the desiccated remains of his not-so-leafy friends.

He couldn’t even have a pet, for fuck’s sake, because he travelled too much. He’d love a goldfish, but his friend Leslie told him fish were ‘sensitive souls’ and needed a lot of upkeep. Leslie’s aquatic friends passed on at an alarmingly rapid rate and the man had claimed airily that ‘it was just the way fish were.’ Maxwell grunted. He didn’t think he could cope coming home to a floating corpse in the fishbowl time and time again.

“I guess I’d have it for a
little
while at least,” he muttered as he set about cleaning out his fridge and battling with the heating to turn it on. Maxwell had a bad habit of talking to himself. Sometimes, far beyond in his past, he’d been his only company and he’d broken the loneliness by holding conversations with himself. It had gotten him some trouble when he didn’t pay attention to his words.

He had a weekend break now, which was a blessing. Maxwell wanted to kick back, drink, dance, fuck someone, be fucked, and try get out of the ridiculous doldrums he was in. He blamed his ex-fuck buddy Oliver and Oliver’s adored boyfriend, said fish-killer Leslie, for his current mood. Seeing them so happy together had awakened something in him. The knowledge you could come home to someone special, who’d listen and be there for you when you needed them instead of being just another bonk in a bed; Maxwell wanted that emotional connection to a man so badly. It was a desire he thought had been tucked away into the murky closet of his past and not brought out in a while.

His less-than-idyllic teenage years had meant he’d learned to be self-sufficient. Having a home with heat and running water, a way to put food on the table instead of rooting in rubbish bins or begging, and a warm bed to sleep in without the demand of ‘added extras’ were things he would be forever thankful for despite the lack of any significant love life. Sometimes small pleasures were enough to live by.

He changed into comfortable sweats and a ragged tee shirt picked up off the sideboard in his bedroom—he didn’t believe in putting all his stuff
inside
the wardrobe. He made himself a cup of coffee, and out of habit, checked his sex worksheet. Maybe he could find someone worth asking for a booty call.

This sheet, appropriately named
Sexcella
was a work of art on which he recorded most of his sexual conquests. Casual one-off relief in the plane, airports and bars for blow- or hand jobs were excluded. There were physical descriptions and pertinent details about the man in question, like the length and girth of his cock, how good his blowjob skills were, his sexual performance in actual fucking and what their potential relationship factor was. The higher Maxwell rated them overall, the odds got better he could see himself with them in a longer term relationship. He was picky; nothing less than a five suited his needs. All the men so far ranged no more than a three and a half. Finch was a three and a half. Relationship-wise, he didn’t cut it. He had an understanding partner at home who didn’t mind his up–in-the-air escapades as long as Finch came home to him. Maxwell didn’t think he could ever be in an open relationship like that.

His list was longer than a shopping list but shorter than a listing of the Top 25 Eligible Gay

Bachelors. He’d started it years ago. He’d bigged it up to his friends and colleagues, telling them loftily it contained a lot more names than it did. It had become a self-fulfilling prophecy and he’d gone along with the game. His friends thought he was a man slut, but the reality was he’d been quite discerning in compiling it.

One day, he’d find a Five, and he’d no longer need it. Unfortunately, tonight was not the night and he couldn’t even dredge up the enthusiasm to call a Four he knew.

There doesn’t seem to be any point…I’m destined to be alone and horny.

Instead he switched on the television. He wasn’t in the mood to play
Mass Effect
on the X-Box; he needed to alleviate some tension and watching porn was a good way to get relief. Watching Nicky Starr’s porn films were even better. The man was a god. The fact Nicky was also his friend Oliver in his porn star persona didn’t deter Maxwell at all. He and Oliver had had an arrangement until Leslie came along. Max didn’t begrudge Oliver his new happy status; he bemoaned the lack of his own. Watching Nicky’s tight, sexy body getting it on with a Leslie-like twink always made Maxwell horny. What was the fun in having a world-class adult actor as a friend and ex-fuck buddy if you couldn’t watch them in action?

As Nicky pounded the twink’s delectably tight and perky arse, Maxwell imagined himself sandwiched between them, seeing Oliver and Leslie in his head. He knew he was a bad boy fantasizing about his friend and his boyfriend, but he didn’t care. A man had needs.

Later, sticky and sore, as he’d been rather enthusiastic in tugging his poor dick, Maxwell opened up the sleeper couch and went to bed. The jacking-off activity had done nothing to assuage the empty feeling inside him.

He drew the duvet over his head, hugged a spare pillow close to his chest and tried to forget he was sleeping alone.

Gibson Henry hunkered down in his uncomfortable aeroplane seat on the aisle, scowled and made sure his earphones were tightly pressed against his ears. Even with the pounding rhythms of Black Sabbath blaring in his ears, the wails of the baby in the seat in front of him was akin to long-nailed fingers being scraped down a chalkboard. The infant’s squalls sent chills down his spine, making him edgy. Depending on his mood, Gibson either listened to classical music inspired by video games, or heavy metal. Today was a heavy metal occasion.

He had to grin and bear the flight because if he ever wanted to see his family, the journey to where they lived in Cramond, outside Edinburgh, was a necessary evil. His mother, father and brother had moved up there about five years ago for his father’s job. His only sibling, Richard, had insisted Gibson travel to their parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary this weekend. Their dad had been ill recently and Richard thought it would help his recovery to see his youngest son.

Gibson didn’t travel well in a car, getting bored at endless hours behind the wheel without anything to keep his fingers busy. Not to mention the fact he didn’t own a car anyway. Driving a hire car from Canning Town, where he lived, to the seaside village of Cramond had not been an option. Sitting on a plane he could at least work on his game design.