Their eyes had met briefly as each was scanning the others in the American Airlines departure lounge for the flight from Chicago's O'Hare Airport to Los Angeles. That they lingered there for even a few seconds before moving on and they returned to take a second look meant they both knew it was enough to register mutual interest. When men were devoted to "the way" it didn't take more than few seconds of eye connection to discern both the interest and the preferred position. For decades there had been signals, more locally established than internationally, but for the more serious of men, the eye connection was enough. For some reason one always seemed able to recognize one of his own.
Gus Hall, a thirty-nine-year-old, expensive-suit-wearing big man, once a six-foot-two, 230-pound professional football team power back, was on a two-month round-robin trip around the States on a recruiting assignment. Once a talented football player, he had found that his real talent was in assessing and cajoling the talent in others as a recruiter.
In stark contrast, twenty-three-year-old Tony Scarlotti, Italian dark, slim, dressed in a white cotton polo shirt and jeans, with purposeful, stylish slits at the knees, a well-under-six-foot community college degreed restaurant waiter and sometimes clothes model and community theater stage actor, was taking his first airplane trip to as far away from the East Coast as he could get.
Fate would have it that they wound up side by side in a two-seat window section in business class, with Gus nearly overfilling the window seat and Tony politely gravitating toward the aisle of the aisle seat to give the big guy a little extra room. Try as they might, that didn't keep their thighs from rubbing together, and quite soon they stopped trying to prevent that, both conscious of the contact there. Gus's sports franchise always sent Gus at least business class, not the least in recognition of his size. Tony had been upgraded by chance by an obviously gay gate podium attendant who was smitten with him and wanted to be favorably remembered--as he would remember and masturbate that night to visions of coupling with Tony. Tony had the effect on many gay guys. Some gay submissives had naturally attracting sex pheromones. That was Tony.
"So, this is what business class is like," Tony said after an awkward silence when neither one knew what to say. They only recognized that there had been an understanding look of mutual assessment and appreciation between them in the departure lounge. Neither had had an inkling then that they were destined to be seated in the same row in the aircraft. Each was what the other liked, and both, from the knowing looks they had exchanged and the instinctiveness of their species, were acknowledged, without vocal confirmation, to be gay, compatible, and seeking. Gus had stood off to the side and watched, with amusement, the effect Tony had had on the gate attendant.
"You haven't flown business class before?" Gus asked. "They don't have first class on this flight." He didn't mean to be dropping that he was used to flying first class, but that's what he'd done.
"I haven't flown much of anywhere before," Tony said. "I'm just a small-town Indiana boy."
"Which town?"
"Wabash. It's sort of in the upper middle of the state."
"I've never heard of it."
"Of course you haven't," Tony said.
"Sorry, I didn't mean that badly."
"That's fine. Wabash is a good place to be from. And, as for business class, I got upgraded. The flight isn't near full and the gate attendant saw that it was my birthday and upgraded me."
"I saw that. I'm not sure the birthday was the motivating factor. He was flirting with you, you know."
"Yeah, I think so too." Tony was young and sassy. If he'd misjudged the interest of the man sitting next to him, that was just too bad--but it wasn't likely. The way the man had run his eyes over Tony's body had been much too obvious in intent. He wasn't ashamed of what he was, and the man could think what he liked about that.
"Sorry if that put you off," Tony said.
"It didn't. I can see why he'd flirt with you. I hope that didn't put
you
off," Gus said.
"It didn't. I'm gay. The gate attendant obviously was too."
"Oh, OK," Gus said, a bit sheepishly. He'd wanted to know for sure, of course, and now he did. He could try to cover for it as a gaff or take another tack. He tried the other tack. "Maybe it was seeing from your driver's license that it was your birthday. So, I guess then happy birthday. How old? And when we reach altitude I'll have to buy you a drink. But I won't take that back. I can see why the gate attendant would have flirted with you. I'm sure you are sex on a stick to him."
"Thanks, a drink would be nice. It's my twenty-third... birthday. You travel a lot? You're in planes a lot?"
"Yes, I'm a recruiter for the Tennessee Titans professional football team. This week it's L.A."
"Oh, does that mean you are a football player--or were--yourself?" It was obvious the man had been a bruiser of a football player, but Tony wanted to continue the conversation. He had a weak spot for big bruisers.
"Yeah. I was a power back with the team when it was the Housten Oilers, which turned into the Tennessee Titans. Retired at thirty-five, though, four years ago. Football's in the blood, though, so I'm still with the program."
"Your wife must be tired of you doing all of this traveling."
"Don't have a wife." He gave the sexy dark haired, dark eyed, young man a meaningful look and dug in deeper. "I don't swing that way. Never have."
"So, you swing--"
"Oh, yes, I swing. I like to think I swing low. And, in case you wondered. I agree with the gate attendant."
"Oh, how?"
"I think you're sex on a stick and quite worthy to be flirted with."
"Oh." There was an awkward moment when Tony looked away and down. Gus wanted to think it was a moment in which the young man checked out his basket. "I thought you might be a professional football player or something when I first saw you," Tony said, lightly touching Gus's forearm with his fingers. Yes, it was an open invitation for intimacy.
You're going to let me fuck you if we can get hooked up, aren't you? Gus let run through his mind. He had taken off his jacket and put that in the overhead bin and was sitting in his shirtsleeves, which ended at his wrist with rather large, gold cufflinks in the shape of footballs. Tony touched one of them, clearly impressed with how expensive it must be. From where the cuffs ended, Tony could also see that the man was tattooed around his wrist. He wondered if it was a sleeve tattoo. That gave him a little thrill. On his part, Gus had already eyed Tony's cotton polo shirt and been able to discern that the young man had bars pierced in his nipples.
"You are a big guy and all that," Tony continued, "but, as you moved around the departure lounge, you looked like you move well on your feet. I notice that sort of thing. I do some clothes modeling and we had to take dance classes."
"Moved like a hot knife through butter I was told back when I was carrying the ball through the defenders' line. I like to think I have smooth moves both on and off the field." And in the bedroom, Gus thought. "Sorry that I'm big. These seats just aren't built for a former power back like me." And, yes, my cock is as big as the rest of me, Gus thought. "It's why I go first class when I can. Bigger seats. The team pays the extra, knowing I'm a big guy." Would like you to know how big a cock I have for you, went through his mind. You have such slim hips. Would love to split the difference of those with what I got for you.
"Oh, I like big guys," Tony said.
"You do? That's a surprise. But, yes, I'm a big guy." They both understand what he was declaring--where he was big.
He gave Tony a top-to-bottom scan, happy to have a chance to do so again after having done it in the departure lounge--purposely showing interest. He pressed his luck and took it even further. "I would think you'd shy away from big guys. You're a small guy, and so slim. You've got really narrow hips." What he wanted that to convey, which he obviously did, as Tony gave a little smile and a discernible shudder, was the assurance that he was hung--that he could split the difference of a narrow-hipped guy like Tony with a big one. If Tony was tight, he'd suffer. That was a fetish of Gus's--splitting the narrowness of a small guy's pelvis with a big, thick one to enjoy him suffering but at the same time wanting it all. He had a fetish for the small guys.
Tony understood exactly what the man was saying. "I like big guys," he repeated. "Doe that tattoo go all the way up?" He was fingering the inking that extended below the cufflink line on Gus's wrist.
