Diverted Flight

The reason I wanted to be a lawyer was the man who lived next door. His name was Mr. Johnson. He was nicer than my father. He never beat his son. He never got drunk. He took his son to baseball games. Mr. Johnson was a lawyer, and I wanted him to be my dad. When I was a teenager, I wanted him to be my secret lover. I never had fantasies about other boys just about Mr. Johnson. He was a corporate lawyer, so I wanted to be a corporate lawyer.

I’m not sure whether my desires about Mr. Johnson kept me from dating. I cannot imagine that I actually expected him to show up one day and confess that he had always loved me and wanted me. I wanted to believe that I was just focused on the prize. Whatever the reason, I never had an interest in anyone until my senior year of college. His name was Liam. We were in the same study group for a Constitution class that was part of our pre-Law studies.

Liam was friendly toward me. He invited me to guy events like watch parties for baseball games. He shared jokes with me. He even invited me to a guys-only party at the lake when his dad brought their boat down. When his father would try to redirect his behavior, Liam would tell him that it wasn’t his circus and he wasn’t his monkey. His dad usually backed down. I attended all these things hoping he might confess that he was actually interested in me as more than a friend. Or maybe he would tell me that he was really horny and would ask me to help him out with a blowjob, as a friend, of course.

I’m a smart guy, but I’m also an idiot. Liam had more girls following him around than a boy band has girl followers. They giggled and laughed and tried to get his full attention. I know he was having sex with several of them, but I still hoped it was just a phase he was going through. Maybe he was covering up his gayness to get into law school. That was the idiot part of me.

Every Friday, the same routine occured. Liam knew he would be getting some girl to go off with him. He acted so self-assured and cocky. I hated that about him, but still, I wanted to be with him.

The hopelessness of the situation became apparent to me when I saw him go into his room with two girls. The next time I talked with him, I searched his blue eyes. I found nothing there for me. I decided to cut him out of my life, but it was difficult. I saw him less often, but I was still drawn in. I began to show up less often at parties. Sometimes I gave an excuse via text. When he was in the room, I lied to myself that he might see me differently. When he wasn’t around, my heart ached to see him.

The day of graduation finally arrived, and I fought the tears that wanted to spill forth at the thought that I would never see him again. I knew that it was best that I not see him again. After graduation, he came up to me and hugged me. My eyes filled with tears. “It’s an emotional day for sure,” Liam said. He held my gaze for longer than I expected. I thought maybe, at this last moment. “I’m going to miss all the fun we had.” Then he turned and walked off. I was left standing there with my heart torn from within me.

* * * *

Imagine my surprise when I saw Liam at first year orientation for law school. I was friendly and polite. He didn’t have his fan club around him, and he seemed serious about things. He came up and shook my hand. He told me he wasn’t sure if he would get in, so he didn’t want to say anything.

“I’m putting my party days behind me. I’d like to be a better study partner than I was. I didn’t really pull my weight.”

I nodded. “Well, you were involved in other activities.”

“Maybe we can put the past in the past.”

“I’ll not mention it again,” I promised him.

We interacted as colleagues during the next three years, but I made sure we didn’t get too friendly. I still had feelings for him. I realized that the feelings weren’t going away. Every now and then he would fill my thoughts as I pleasured myself late at night. I made sure I had other plans when he asked me to attend non-school events. Life was difficult enough without my hoping a straight man would turn gay for me.

After graduation, I turned into a corporate cog in a big international company. I spent most days reading contracts. After about a year, I started to travel to other cities to read contracts or to explain contracts. It was not the exciting life I expected.

I had been transferred to Chicago with a promotion; although, it sure didn’t feel like one. I was on my way back from LA when a winter storm advanced faster than expected, and our plane was diverted to Dallas because O’Hare was closed. As soon as I could use my cell phone, I secured a room at the Airport Hyatt. The plane stopped at the gate, and I waited for the passengers to deplane. There was no reason to push and shove. I took my carryon and made my way to the concourse. I followed the signs to the exit from the gates. I wondered whether I should grab a bite to eat while still here, or should I get room service. I was thinking that I’d be spending another lonely night with my hand when I saw Liam sitting in one of the many airport bars.

He looked sad and pale. I thought that I had been successful in putting him out of my mind for the past two years. I wanted to walk past him, but I couldn’t. I walked up to him and sat in the next seat. His eyes seemed tired. “Liam?”

He looked up at me. His eyes seemed to brighten as he recognized me. “Joshua, what are you doing here?”

“An act of God.”

“God sent you?” he asked. “But I’ve been praying to see you again for the past two years. What took so long?”

I sat in the chair next to him. I wasn’t sure what to say. I looked at the drink he had in his hand. “What’s in that?”

“It’s rum and coke. I use it to dull the pain of loneliness.”

I took it from him and drank it.

“But I wasn’t finished with it.”

I turned to the bartender. “Does he owe you anything?”

The bartender shook his head. “Liam, when does your plane leave?”

“It doesn’t. Cleveland’s closed.”

“OK. Grab your stuff and come with me.”

Liam smiled. “You have a place staked out at one of the gates?”

“Maybe. But this time you don’t get a say. This is my circus, and you’re my star monkey. So grab your shit.”

I grabbed his computer bag and walked out. Liam was right behind me. “Where are we going?”

I remained silent. I found the tram that took us to the hotel. I checked in. I told them I ran into a friend who didn’t have a place to stay. They gave him a key, but didn’t charge me extra. Liam had stopped asking me questions. I think he was a little drunk when I saw him in that bar. He had sobered up by the time we got to the room.

I was hungry; I’d only had some crackers and a diet Coke on the plane. There was supposed to be lunch, but it was cancelled when the plane was diverted. “Do you still like Thai?”

Liam looked up at me from his seat near the window. “Yeah, you know I love that stuff.”

“Chicken, shrimp, or beef? Well, probably not beef or shrimp. You always ordered it with chicken.”

“Chicken’s great.”

I ordered room service, Chicken Pad Thai and Chicken Pad See Yu with two cups of Tom Kha soup. There was water and soda in the refrigerator, so I knew we were set.”

I sat down facing Liam. He was staring out the window. He looked at me. “How can you remember that I love Chicken Pad Thai?”

“Well, Liam, I met you about seven years ago,” I started.

“That economics class our junior year.”

“Yep. And I’ve been dishonest with you every day since then.” I kept looking at him. His gaze shifted from my right eye to my left eye. Then he looked down at his hands.

“It’s confession time, isn’t it.”

“Yes,” I told him, “it is.” How would I confess everything I had hidden from him? Should I hand him a written list?

“I think you know about my sins of commission,” Liam began. I could see him chewing on his lower lip. “The crimes of omission are the ones I need to confess.”

“I was talking about my sins of omission,” I told him.

Liam looked back out the window. “Mine have to be worse.”

“Well, if you want to go first, have at it.” My cowardice was winning.

“Joshua, I want you to know that I am terrified to say the things I’m about to say. I’m worried that you’ll hate me and that I’ll destroy what little friendship we have left.”

There was a knock at the door. Our food arrived much faster than I expected. I got up. “The truth can only make our friendship stronger. We’re no longer kids. We were kids when we met. We thought we were adults, but we weren’t. We’re about to prove that we’re grown up now.” I opened the door, and the cart rolled in. We put the food on the table, and I signed the receipt.

I sat back down, the food in front of us. “I have two questions for you Liam. Do you still want to go first? And, do you want to share? Because that Pad Thai looks really good, and I’m willing to share some of mine.”

Liam nodded. “That’s yes to both. We are still friends, aren’t we?” It was a statement rather than a question. He began.

“First of all, I’d only fucked two girls before I met you. They were always hanging around, but I only did it to see what it was like. After I met you,” he paused. Tears filled his eyes. “After I met you, I started to fuck them all the time because I was afraid people would realize that I had fallen in love with you. I didn’t want them to call me queer because I had seen that happen in high school, and the guy killed himself. I was so afraid, but I wanted to be around you, so I did everything I could to get you to spend time with me. One of the arguments I had with my dad was over you. He thought there was more going on between us. I couldn’t push you away. I found out where you were going to law school, so I applied there, too. I hated law school, but I got three more years with you. And I hate being a lawyer, and the sad thing is, I’m really good at it.

“Since law school ended, I’ve been miserable. You went away, and I hate myself for not telling you how I felt. I’ve prayed every night that you’d come back into my life.” He began to sob. “I see a therapist now because last year at Christmas, I felt so alone that I thought about killing myself.”

I got up from my chair and went to him. I grabbed his hand and kissed it. “I knew I was in love with you when you told the professor you’d signed up for the economics class to learn how to make cookies and bake a turkey.”

“What?”

“I told you that I was lying to you all these years. I was afraid that if you knew I was in love with you, that you would not want me around. You fucked so many girls that I knew you had to be straight. I thought you were a slut, but I loved you anyway.”

“So, if I would have told you, you would have told me, and we would have spent the last seven years together?”

“No.”

“Why no?”

“Because we were kids. We’re men now. We’ve got more perspective on things.” I thought for a minute. “You know why God made us wait until this moment? I needed to realize that I needed to stop avoiding you to protect myself. You needed to go through the despair of loneliness and start therapy so you could handle what’s about to happen as we start living our lives together. That is what you want, right.”

“Yes, it is. But I hadn’t thought about the ramifications.” Liam’s brows pulled together, I could sense the worry.

“Liam, you don’t need to worry about the ramifications. You’re strong enough to handle them now. So am I. And together, we’ll be unstoppable.” I fed him a bit of Pad Thai. I took a bigger bite.

“You’re right. It needed to be now for us to have a successful relationship.” I sensed a newfound joy in his demeanor.

I knew that I was happier than I had been in years. I took a few more bites of food and realized I was no longer hungry.

“Should we put the leftovers in the fridge for tomorrow?”

“Yes. And then I want to take a shower.”

“I can put the stuff away.”

“But, I’m going to need someone to scrub my back,” I put my hand on Liam’s cheek. There was more stubble there than I realized.

“I can help with that. Oh. Yeah, I want to help with that.” He grinned.

“I might need some help with my front as well.”

“Of course. I’ll be available for that, and possibly more once I brush my teeth.”

That made me laugh.

After brushing our teeth, we stood naked in front of one another for the first time. Liam was a good four inches taller than I was. He had a gymnast body build, whereas I was more of a swimmer type. The strong five-o’clock shadow of his face was accompanied by a hairy chest and abs. His back was as smooth as my chest.

We stepped into the shower, and he immediately kissed me. The lip and tongue action gave me an instant boner, but he acknowledged that he needed to shave to prevent my getting beard burn. I had never shaved in the shower, but Liam told me he always did. It was fun to watch, but I have to say that I distracted him several times by grabbing his dick or trying to finger his hole. He finished shaving, and the kissing improved by leaps and bounds. We finally rinsed off, stepped out of the shower, and helped each other dry off.

I was excited and a little nervous about what would happen next. I looked over at Liam. He was as sexy in that moment as any time in the past seven years. “You know,” I said, “I’ve been in love for seven years. You’ve been in love for seven years. But we’ve only been in love for about an hour.”

He looked at me. He drew his brows together as though confused and said, “You were always better at math.”

“Before we go in the other room, let’s do some more math. You’ve had multiple partners. I’ve had well, one, if you count Mr. Hand.”

“Wait, I’m ahead of you on this one. How many times has Mr. Hand fucked you in the ass?”

I pretended to think about it. “Well, actually, he wanted to a few times, but he never went through with it.”

“So the answer is none. Your ass is virgin territory. I on the other hand have never fucked a man.”

I waited for the punchline.

There wasn’t one. “Just before we graduated from college, one of the girls I was with was reported to have chlamydia. So, I got tested, and I was clean. I was told to get tested after 3 more months. I had another test 4 months later, and I was still clean. My only partner since then has been Monsieur Main and Monsieur Autre Main.”

“So you’re ambidextrous when you jerk off?”

“Actually, Mr. Right Hand likes to jerk, and Mr. Left Index Finger likes to play with my ass.”

“OK,” I said. “This is one of your problems. You’re too verbose. The bottom line is that it’s safe for us to fuck without condoms, right?” He nodded. “Which is good since we don’t have any.”

Liam lifted a finger to ask for permission to speak. I nodded. “We don’t have any lube either. And I understand that you need lube to butt fuck because rectums don’t make lube like vaginas do.”

“I thought we could use spit, but we can just give each other handjobs.”

“No, I’ve got spit; I’ve got lots of spit.”

“Then take me in the other room and get my ass wet. I’ve been waiting too long to feel you inside me.”

Liam reached around my back and held my chest from under my arm and with his other arm he picked me up behind my knees and carried me to the bed. He placed me near the center, and I spread my ass cheeks. He started licking my ass and spitting into my hole. I had no idea it would feel that good. I kept moaning and saying yes. At one point, he spit into his hand and rubbed it over his dick. He positioned himself. I felt the head of his dick pushing against my sphincter.

I looked up at him. “I love you,” I whispered. He pushed his cock inside me. I gasped. There was a momentary feeling of discomfort, and then this pressure that felt awesome.

He leaned forward and kissed me. “I love you.” And then he began humping me. As his dick pushed inside me, there was this incredible sensation that I cannot describe. As he pulled out, there seemed to be negative pressure that made me want him to push in again. He covered my mouth with his and began to pump faster. I could feel and hear his balls slap me. Suddenly, he groaned, and I felt an increase in pressure within me.

He pressed his lips next to my ear and kissed it. “That was the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had,” he whispered. “And I’ve just realized something. I’ve fucked a lot of times, but this was the first time I made love.”

Tears filled my eyes as I kissed him and he kissed me. I had never been happier, and I couldn’t imagine being happier than I was in that moment.

Then Liam rolled onto his back and said, “It’s your turn, my love.”