Flight 12

Flight 12 – a serial novel by Travis Creel

CHAPTER 12: APPAULING DEVELOPMENTS

Previously, at the Phallic Tower:

• Paul encounters a blue dodecagon, prompting him to strip naked and attempt to kiss Dai. The next morning he wakes up wearing only a jockstrap – and unable to remove it.

• Harry and Seth find a flight manifest listing only the passengers on the right side – minus Seth. All of their birthdays are in December, and the same numbers appear on the floor of the Phallic Tower.

• Seth receives a note indicating that he can lead the group off the island, but only if he remains in the nude. He has been circumspect about explaining his nudity to most of the guys.

In Aruba:

• Jordan (Augie's girlfriend') and her sister Jen have connected with Miles, Vic's boyfriend. Having learned that Flight 12 has disappeared, they are intent on suing Zen Tropical Airways. The internet has virtually no trace of ZTA's existence – but Miles finds a reference to a parent company, Stimulever. Jordan is a biological male who has withheld that fact from Augie, hoping to have the operation' before the naïve and religiously conservative Augie discovers the truth.

In flashbacks:

• In high school, Augie, although fiercely homophobic, fellated a classmate, Anthony, then feared that the act would condemn him to hell.

• • • • • • • • SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2 * * * * * * * *

THE PHALLIC TOWER – SETH

• You have to talk to them, Seth. You have to tell them about this.

• Harry –

• Seth, they – whoever `they' is – consider you the leader. So lead.

He had a point. Yesterday I was wearing Augie's briefs and Ed's weskit, and had to awkwardly explain that the rest of my clothes had been stolen. And here I was, once again naked.

Harry, as usual, was right. Everyone knew that we were experiencing strangeness. They needed to know what I knew.

I gathered everyone by the Phallic Tower.

• A lot of you are wondering why I'm naked and why Paul is dressed in a jockstrap. I don't have the answer to that. We all know that bizarre things have been occurring. Some of us have even speculated that we are dead. I have been assured that that is not the case.

This got a reaction. Assured? Assured by whom?

• This morning, I received a note, addressed to me personally, written in fancy calligraphy. It says, "You are not dead. You are not dreaming. You are on planet earth. There is a way off this island. Only you can make it happen. But you cannot do it with clothes on."

• We are definitely under the influence of a higher power – I don't mean God in the traditional sense, but there's something out there more powerful than us. A power who built this giant phallus, who made the dodecagons, who took away our door handle last night. Some of you may not have noticed, but we were sealed in.

• (Harry) I can vouch for that. Gary tried to go out last night and couldn't.

• (Tim) Gary? Who's Gary?.

• (Harry) Sorry, I meant Ray. He reminds me of someone I know named Gary.

`Ray' didn't object, so Harry must have guessed right. Eventually, they'd have to know about the multiple personalities, which I presumed predated Flight 12. But that information could wait; premature disclosure could make them worry that the island had caused it and might do the same to them.

• The door opened only after I read this note. Last night I went to sleep wearing clothes; this morning, for the second day in a row, I woke up naked. Paul woke up today in a jockstrap. Leo's clothing, left outside, also disappeared overnight. There is no trace of the missing clothing anywhere.

• This morning we also found a flight manifest that excluded myself and the entire left side of the plane. I don't know what that means. We've discovered multiple occurrences of the number twelve. There are twelve of us, twelve colors on this tower, twelve sides to the dodecagons, all of your birthdays are in this, the twelfth month of the year, and we got here on Flight 12. Too many coincidences to be coincidences.

• We're up against some kind of supernatural force. That sounds ridiculous, but it's the only explanation that makes even a modicum of sense. I have to take them seriously when they say I can get you out of here. And if I have to stay naked to do that, I'll stay naked. I'm sorry if that offends any of you.

Judging from the way most of them were focusing their eyes two feet below my face, I'd guess it didn't. Except for Ed and Augie.

THE PHALLIC TOWER – AUGIE

I saw them looking at Seth's junk. There are a lot of perverts in this group. I guess I shouldn't call them perverts. I'm not sure, but I think Harry is one of them, and he seems nice. Seth's nice, too, but he's naked again, which really freaks me out. The others? Jasper might be – not sure. Dai's from San Francisco – he doesn't look gay, but do Chinese guys ever look gay? Leo's queer, which bugs his dad of course, but that's really all I know about him. Vic looks like a football player, he can't be a homo. Lucas and Tim – nah. But then I didn't think Cody was, until he said his name was Ray and wanted me to suck his dick. Total perv. And this morning, this guy Paul had stripped down to a jockstrap – how sick was that? That's like half the group that's queer – maybe more.

I know I shouldn't be judgmental, but I do worry about their souls. And about my own. Would God ever forgive me for that episode with Alfonso? Yes – God is forgiving, and I've repented that sin, but I still think about Alfonso sometimes. And that worries me. I wish one of these guys was a pastor I could confess to. I think I could talk to Harry, but not about an attraction that was burning through my memory and I couldn't expunge. Not if Harry was one of them himself.

Seth gave us this little pep rally speech, basically declaring himself in charge. Well, that was okay, I guess. He seemed to be a natural leader, even if he was naked. He went on to organize another expedition, hunting for something we could use to get ourselves out of here, as well as food and water – water was essential.

I was trying to figure out who to group with, but before I knew it Ray came bounding up to me and asked to be in my group. I didn't want to be rude, and he was polite about it and everything, it's not like he was trying to groom me or anything – that's what they do, isn't it, groom people to turn them gay? But I thought if I could get someone big and strong – and straight – to be our third, it would be okay. So I asked Vic, who seemed to understand that I was asking him for protection, and said okay.

We took a path through the woods to the east, heading toward the beach, where we knew there were coconuts. I hoped they'd open if we dashed them on a rock or the floor of the tower – but food was only the secondary objective. Rescue was the first.

I steered Vic away from a path that would take us toward where the yellow medallion was – knowing how Ray had gone berserk seeing it. But instead of finding that yellow medallion, we found a green one.

THE WOODS – VIC

I felt like a chaperone on a date, there to make sure the guy behaved appropriately toward the girl. I'd been there when Ray had gone nuts, seeing the yellow decawhatzit on the forest floor and urging Augie to blow him. So when Augie asked me to go with him and Ray, I knew immediately what the story was. Ray had obviously pressured him into being in the same group.

Everything was fine until we saw that green granite slab – the decawhatzit. Never in a million years could I have predicted what happened next. While I'd never heard Augie make comments that were blatantly homophobic, it was clear he was uncomfortable with those of us who preferred our own sex. (Miles, how I wish I could tell you I was alive and how much I love you.) But the moment we got within sight of the green decawhatzit, Augie went off the deep end. Not Ray – Augie! Ray, if anything, was as stunned as I was. For Augie had rushed toward the slab, stood on it, and started tearing off his clothes.

• Augie! Augie, stop that.

• (Augie) Ray! Ray, come fuck me. Take me, Ray! I want your cock!

Before I knew it, Augie was stark naked. And Ray, whom I might have expected to grin widely, drop his pants and accept the invitation, looked horrified.

• (Ray) What the hell are you doing? Get your damn clothes on.

Augie didn't, and started to dance. Enough was enough. Part of me was scared to venture onto the thing, afraid it might do something weird to me, but I remembered yesterday people had gone onto the yellow decawhatzit without it affecting them, so I went after Augie, and pulled him off the thing. Briefly, I thought I saw a design in the center – a goat? I looked again, and it was gone. Probably my imagination.

Away from the decawhatzit, Augie looked at me, stunned.

• (Augie) Can you get my clothes, please? I don't want to go back there.

• Augie, what the hell happened?

• I don't know. I just – did I say anything? It seems like I did, but I don't remember.

• Yeah, you . . . well, never mind what you said. Are you okay now?

• God, I'm so embarrassed. I don't know why I did that. It was like – it was drawing me in, like I just HAD to strip naked and dance on it.

• (Ray) How'd it get to be green?

• What do you mean?

• (Ray) It was yellow a minute ago, now it's green. And where are the others – Seth and the British fellow? And the fat guy. And . . . shit, this ain't the same place, is it?

I realized that he was talking about the yellow decawhatzit we had seen yesterday on the way to the phallic tower – the one that had made HIM go crazy. It was as if Ray had forgotten everything that had happened since then.

• Ray –

• (Ray) Shit, was he here?

• Who?

• (Ray) Ray.

• You're Ray.

• (Ray) The hell I am. Don't you remember? I just met you a little while ago. Cody Benson. Listen, is the little pervert got his clothes back on? I don't want to look.

• He's . . . getting there.

• (Cody) Ray's been here, hasn't he? That's why he was shouting for Ray to fuck him.

• (Augie) WHAT?!

• (Cody) Yeah, you did, you little sicko. That's truly disgusting. You tear off your clothes and go dancing around and beg Ray to fuck you in the ass.

• (Augie) I did no such thing!

• . . . Yeah, Augie, you did.

• (Augie) I . . . I couldn't have. I'm not like that. I don't – (to Cody) You – you're the one who wanted me to suck your dick.

• (Cody) Oh, shit, kid, you're too much. I ought to lasso you up like a calf who needs branding.

• (Augie) . . . When I first met you, you said your name was Cody, but then you said your name was Ray, and you wanted me to . . . have sex with you.

• (Cody) No, that was him, that weren't me. I'd never do that. I ain't never – I don't even do that with women. Now don't you go spreadin' that around, I should never have said that, but if I don't do that with women, I surely ain't never gonna do that with no seventeen-year-old boy.

• (Augie) I'm almost twenty.

• (Cody) Well, you look seventeen.

• (Augie) I'm not a pervert, Cody, Ray, whatever your name is. I have a girlfriend.

ORANJESTAD, ARUBA – JORDAN

There was nothing more to be gained at the airport. In the end, ZTA told us . . . nothing. Well, they did tell us that the plane never reappeared on the controllers' radar. And, obviously, it had never arrived here – or anywhere else. So it was logical to conclude . . .

That Augie was dead. That Vic was dead. Miles and I were both devastated. And furious.

We had moved on to the hotel that Augie had booked for us. Miles cancelled his hotel reservation and got a room at our hotel so we could coordinate efforts.

At the stroke of midnight, Miles had contacted a friend named Nick who had computer hacking skills. Miles told him how and where he had found that single reference to Stimulever, which looked like it might be the parent company of Zen Tropical Airways; maybe Nick could access them somehow.

This morning, Miles was on the phone to lawyers. They were unsuccessful in finding a way of contacting Stimulever, but we weren't about to give up.

It was about two in the afternoon when we got a phone call from Nick. Jen put us all on speaker, but it was Miles who did the talking.

• (Nick) Found them. Briefly.

• (Miles) What do you mean, briefly?

• Well, I finally hacked into their homepage. I mean, they had firewalls within firewalls, I had to get help from friends – but I didn't tell them what it was about.

• And?

• I found their home page. For about thirty seconds. Then it vanished. I think maybe they got wind of the fact that someone had gotten past all their smokescreens and disabled it.

• Shit. They're obviously terrified of lawsuits if they're going to all of this trouble to hide. So, do you think there's any way to get it back? I mean, we need names, addresses, all that stuff.

• All is not lost.

• Why?

• I got a screenshot before they pulled it down. And took a photo with my phone, as well. I got names, I got the address of their corporate headquarters.

• Fabulous!

• They're in Switzerland.

• Not so fabulous. Can we sue them in Switzerland, Miles?

• We're going to damn well try. Can you send us the pix you took with your phone?

• Will do. Hey, good luck, you guys.

• Thanks, Nick.

We had a three-way high-five. Miles went back to his room to pass on the information to the lawyer. Jen and I went to the bar to celebrate and wind down from a tumultuous past twenty-four hours.

• (Jen) So how are you holding up?

• Horribly. I feel such guilt, Jen.

• Guilt? Why? They forced us to get on the first plane, they wouldn't let Augie on it.

• That's not what I mean. I feel guilt because – oh, this is terrible.

• Of course it's terrible, you've –

• Jen, shut up. That's not what I'm talking about. Augie dying . . . it . . . it solves a problem.

• . . . ?

• In a way.

• I'll wait. . . . Okay, what problem?

• I didn't want to have the operation.

• . . . Oh?

• . . . I was only going to have the operation because of Augie.

• And now you don't have to, is that it?

• Yes. Part of me is relieved. Relieved, Jen. I wanted to stay a man, and I wanted Augie. I knew I couldn't have both, so I decided to give up being a man. I loved him that much, Jen. I thought, it will be okay, I won't miss my cock and balls because I'll have Augie and that's really all I want. But . . . I didn't want to give them up, that's why I was dragging my feet on the operation.

• Weren't you transitioning before you met Augie?

• . . . Actually, no. I was transitioning because of Augie.

• Explain.

• Ever play truth or dare? Well, I got dared.

• Dared to do what?

• Go to a conservative church in drag.

• Is this story going where I think it's going?

• Yeah, I think so. I went to Augie's church, because my friend Marcel said it was one of the most reactionary churches around, where they preached about the sins of homosexuality. He dared me to walk in there in drag. Well, I was scared silly, so I decided that if I was going to be in drag, it was going to be the most convincing drag possible, so that no one would guess.

• And you met Augie.

• It was like magic. The chemistry was instant, and he was so sweet and so naïve. I had to see him again, so I went back the next week. And then he asked me out, and I just had to keep up the pretense. The more I got to know him, the more I fell in love with him – and he with me – but I knew that if he knew I was really a man that he'd never forgive me.

• And you've kept this up for how long?

• Six months.

• You had to know you'd have to tell him sometime.

• Well, that's when I started to have thoughts that – if I had to – I'd get my cock and balls hacked off and just live as a woman.

• Jordan, that's so dangerous.

• He actually met me once, as me. He came by one day as a surprise. I was just me, male me. I told him I was Jordan's brother, visiting from out of town, and that Jordan had gone out shopping. He was all like, wow, I can tell you're her brother, you look just like her'. Fortunately, I had told him about you, and I had invented a brother Jeremy just in case I needed him in an emergency – which I did. But after that, I thought, maybe I'd better stay female all the time. It was right when I was changing jobs, so I applied for the new job as a pre-op trans female. I dressed every day as a woman, and I thought, I can get used to this. I can do this all the time. The only problem will be when Augie and I have sex, or he gropes in the wrong area.' But he was so religious, and so shy, and so conservative, that I knew he would never do that until our wedding night.

• Shit, Jordan.

• So now I can go back to being Jordan Murdock, dude. And I'll tell my job that I changed my mind.

• Shit, Jordan.

• Yeah. I know. And that's why I'm feeling guilt.

• And that's why you should. That was so unfair to Augie.

The truth hurts. She was absolutely right. At least now he'll never know.

THE PHALLIC TOWER – PAUL

After Seth spoke to us this morning, I felt better. He may have been stripped naked – twice, apparently – but he'd clearly been anointed in some way. He was our leader, and he was supposed to be naked, and somehow his nudity was important – and essential for getting us off the island.

So maybe my almost nudity was important, too. It was horrifying both to find my clothes gone and replaced by a jockstrap – and to find that I could not remove it, resulting in the humiliating event of having to piss through it when my need to piss exceeded what I could tolerate. Fortunately, with my open and exposed backside, I could still evacuate my bowels, but that was small comfort indeed.

After seeing Seth's borrowed clothing vanish, not to be replaced, no one was eager to lend me clothes. Dai gave me his shirt, a red polo shirt with blue stripes, which left him bare-chested (and oh what a nice, smooth, muscular chest it was). The shirt wasn't long enough to cover my ass, but it made me feel less naked. Dai is a good man, I like him . . . in more than one way.

Seth was forming groups for another expedition. No one wanted to team up with me – I was too weird, too freaky. Seth, though completely naked, was accepted, but I was a sideshow, the guy who had gone off his rocker when that blue dodecagon appeared. I was a weirdo, like Ray was a weirdo, and thus to be avoided. I think people still liked me, but feared that I would contaminate them somehow.

I wondered especially about Dai, whom I had tried to kiss. It was subconscious, but there was a reason I chose Dai. He was gorgeous. And – was it my imagination? – maybe he liked me a little in the way I liked him. The fact that he lent me his shirt – maybe that was a sign. But he hadn't weighed in on yesterday's event, whether he was offended or possibly turned on – and I wasn't about to ask.

I thought I'd just hang around the tower while the others went off, maybe search the nearby area for berries or something, but then Seth and Harry asked me to join them. Harry said maybe if we found a stream I could wash my jockstrap along with myself. That seemed like a good idea – water was crucial to our survival, and if we found a place to bathe – well, we'd all be pretty gamey soon if we didn't.

There ought to be water on this island, and on my expedition yesterday I'd seen an area where the geology looked conducive to being near a stream. I thought I might have even heard the sound of running water, but once I saw that blue dodecagon, all other thoughts vanished from my head.

I mentioned this to Seth. He frowned. But water was so important, he agreed that we head in that general direction, maybe I could find the place that made me think there was water nearby. There was another thought in my head, which I kept to myself. Only to hear Harry voicing it aloud.

• (Harry) Seth, are you worried about going in the same area as the blue dodecagon?

• (Seth) Yeah, to be honest, I am. I think it's risky.

• (Harry) It could be good. (turning to me) I mean, it made you take off all your clothes yesterday, right? You want to take off that jockstrap, and can't. Maybe if you went there, you could.

Seth looked dubious, but said nothing. I was determined to find that blue dodecagon with expressly that goal. I couldn't think of a really negative consequence – if I went berserk and demanded a blow job like Ray had, well, they wouldn't be able to give me one unless my jockstrap was off.

We set out and I found the area that made me think there was water nearby. And we found it – a nice burbling brook with lots of clean, fresh water. It wasn't deep enough for me to wade into up to my waist, but I splashed some water on my front, which seemed to ease the stain a little. I took a risk, peeled off Dai's shirt, and lowered my body so that I was lying prostrate on the water. The stones made it uncomfortable, but the water felt good. And when I got up, my jockstrap was marginally cleaner.

• Thanks, Harry. Good suggestion, although it could be better.

• (Seth) Let's get ourselves hydrated while we can. If we can't transport this water, at least we can bring everyone here and they can drink from the stream.

We spent the next few minutes doing just that. We were on the side of a gentle, wooded hill, and as I looked to the top of it, I saw something that didn't belong.

• What's that up there? I think it might be a plane fragment.

• (Seth) Another one? Do you think it's the left half of ours? Or from yet another plane?

• (Harry) We won't know until we check it out.

• If you don't mind, you guys go check it out. I'm going to see if I can get my jock any cleaner.

They went traipsing up the hill toward the wreckage. I did not, however, attempt to clean my jock in the water. I wouldn't need to clean my jock if I could take it off – and maybe the blue dodecagon would help me do that.

I went to pick up Dai's shirt and . . . it wasn't there. I'd left it on top of a nearby rock while I lay down in the water. It had been there when Seth and Harry started to traipse up the hill. But now it was gone.

This time there was no question about it. No one had come along to take Dai's shirt. The island wanted us unclothed – or at least less clothed.

I had a pretty good idea of where the blue dodecagon was from here, and – noticing Seth and Harry facing away, nearing the wreckage – I took off in the opposite direction. If I'd asked, Seth would not have let me go near it. I had to go while I had the chance.

I found it, about five minutes' walk. And as I approached it, it seemed to me the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The loveliest shade of blue, the most regular of shapes. But it was not the same as yesterday. At one of the twelve corners, there was a bright blue phallus, six feet high and a foot in diameter. This big blue phallus, perfectly formed, with its veined shaft and magnificent glans. I wanted to embrace it. I wanted to kiss it.

I rushed down onto the platform and threw my arms around it. I felt my arms sliding down the shaft, as if I was stroking it, slowly. Wild thoughts ran through my head – a fantasy of bringing this penis to orgasm. I started to raise my arms to begin the act of stroking it up and down – and found I couldn't. My arms wouldn't raise. My head was touching the phallus, almost kissing it – and I wanted to – but I also wanted to jerk this penis off, and yet my arms seemed paralyzed three feet off the ground.

Bent over this low, I started to feel uncomfortable and shifted my feet for a better position – and couldn't. I looked down. My feet seemed to have melted into the dodecagon. Everything below my ankles was covered in a sea of blue. And in the blue, I thought I saw the image of an animal – a rabbit?

I was trapped. I couldn't move. And then, my feet started to drift further apart, spreading my legs further away from each other – and opening a cleft between my buttocks.

I felt something slithering up my leg, like a snake. Or a vine. It insinuated itself up my thigh, weaving in and out and I felt stimulated. Yes, that kind of stimulated. I was growing hard, with the sensuality of whatever it was that was climbing up toward my groin.

Only it wasn't climbing toward my groin. It was climbing toward my ass. I felt it reach my perineum, then slither up toward my cleft, upwards, upwards, slowly toward my anus. And then, when it reached it, it darted inside.

A thrill pulsed through my body as it invaded my rectum. It writhed within me, delighting the sensitive tissue in my inner sanctum. And then it seemed to expand and stiffen into a cylindrical probe. My ass felt as full as it had ever been when a man fucked me. And then it – whatever it was – did just that. It started to fuck me.

It pushed in and out and in and out, plowing me hard, the pleasant pain exploding inside my body.

"Yes! Yes" I cried, loving every instant of it. I was in love with this big blue phallus and whatever it was that was drilling me like there was no tomorrow.

"Fuck me! Fuck me!"

I began to scream at the top of my lungs as, my arms and feet still immobilized, I had no choice but to submit to the rabid pulverization of my ass. I have had anal sex before, but not like this. This was –

All of a sudden it withdrew. My arms were freed, and my feet reappeared beneath me. I looked behind me to see what had fucked me, and there was nothing. I just stood there in awe, not comprehending what had just happened.

And then the ground collapsed from under me.

THE WOODS – HARRY

It was indeed wreckage from a plane – a fifth one, this one with black seats. Seth found a torn boarding pass for a passenger named Mackenzie – the first name ended in `an', that was all you could see. And, once again, it was Zen Tropical Airways, but this was Flight 3, from Cancún to Georgetown, Guyana.

Valuable information, I suppose, supporting my theory that there might be as many as twelve planes that had crashed on this island. But not really all that useful – we already knew things were strange.

What was useful was that we found three one-liter water bottles. While they wouldn't enable us to bring much water back to the tower, it was a start.

We headed down the hill to where we had left Paul trying to clean his jock and found . . . nothing. Paul was gone. So was Dai's shirt.

• (Seth) Shit. It's like he just vanished.

• You mean disappeared? Like your clothes?

• I don't know. Maybe he put on Dai's shirt and went back.

• He wouldn't do that, without us. . . . Seth.

• Yeah?

• It's his birthday.

• You think that's significant?

• I don't know. Our birthdays were all on that manifest. But I don't think he vanished into thin air. I think he went to find that blue dodecagon, and waited until he was alone to sneak away. He knew you wouldn't let him go.

• And rightfully so. Those things are dangerous – one turned Cody into Ray, this one made him strip naked.

• Well, who knows, it might be helpful. I don't know what more harm it could do to him than it already has.

• Yes, that's exactly right. You don't know.

• That looks like footprints. I think he went downstream. Let me see if I can follow his trail. You wait here in case he comes back looking for us.

I left Seth and followed the track of footprints. The footprints faded and I had to guess from trampled-down leaves where he might have gone. Until I heard something.

Yelling. Paul's voice. And it sounded like he was yelling `fuck me!'.

I hurried in the direction of Paul's voice until I saw, in a little valley below me, the blue dodecagon. Paul was hunched over toward one edge, bent over at the waist, his arms in a circle, as if embracing a column of air. His legs were spread far apart. And his body was jolting back and forth as if . . . well, as if he was being fucked.

But there was no one fucking him.

And then the blue dodecagon seemed to fall into the ground – and Paul with it.

[COMING UP NEXT: CHAPTER THIRTEEN – SOMETHING AMBER, SOMEONE BLUE]