Flight 12

Flight 12 – a serial novel by Travis Creel

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PHALLIC TOWER

Previously:

• As the group (Seth, Harry, Augie, Ed, Cody, and the most recent addition, Vic) proceeds toward the `lighthouse', they find a mysterious yellow granite dodecagon (twelve-sided figure) on the forest floor, which causes Cody to go berserk, whip out his stiff cock and demand that someone blow him – preferably the religiously conservative Augie. He then declares himself to be Ray Onslow, not Cody Benson.

• The group finds plane wreckage – only it's not from their plane. A boarding pass identifies it as ZTA Flight 4 from two years ago. Moreover, when they do reach the dome, they see that what they had hoped was a lighthouse is actually a tower shaped like a giant penis.

• Harry, who is both attracted to Seth and admiring of his compassion and leadership skills, tries to help him solve the puzzle of the island. He notices a correspondence between the sites of Federal Reserve Banks (on a map that Cody found) and the group's hometowns.

• Seth is searching for his boyfriend Abe (who we now know has survived), while the British knight, Ed, is searching for his son Leo.

In flashbacks:

• Abe reveals his disastrous second date with Seth, in which Seth fucks him in handcuffs, over his objections. Abe, while responsive physically, is enraged and resolves never to see Seth again.

• Seth reveals that his series of boyfriends over the last few years had been an attempt to rebound from a man named Sean, who had hurt him in some way. His most recent boyfriend, prior to Abe, was named Ian.

• A therapy session suggests that Cody has three personalities, including Ray and one named Gary.

FLASHBACK: SETH (CLEVELAND) – November 24-25, a year ago

The phone rang.

• Hello?

• Seth?

• . . . Ian???

• . . . Yeah. Is it all right I called?

• I . . . I'm not sure. It depends on why you called.

• I just wanted to see how you were. Whether you've moved on. Seems like you have?

• You're not trying to get us back together?

• No. I've moved on.

• Jude?

• That didn't develop. We're just friends. I haven't moved on TO anybody, just –

• From me.

• (chuckling) Yeah. Listen, my friend Jason saw you at Studs and Stripes the other night. Said you left with a really cute guy.

• He was. He is. Why do you care?

• Because I care, Seth. Look, I'm still fond of you. And I want you to be happy. We could have been happy, together. Only – well, you know. . . .

• I wasn't giving you what you wanted in bed.

• You don't know who you are, Seth. You're a natural dom. You think because of what Sean did -

• Leave Sean out of this –

• • that you have to hold back, that you can't –

• Leave Sean out of this. I'm sorry I even told you about him.

• Okay, I get it. So tell me about the guy you were with. How'd it go? Are you seeing him again?

• Tonight, in fact.

• Ah, so there's a there there. So you liked Abe?

• You know his name?

• Jason knows him. He said he goes for stronger types – he saw him volunteer at a slave auction.

• . . . Really?

• My friend Jude's a psychologist. He says you should be aggressive with Abe.

• He knows Abe?

• No, but he knows the type. Be aggressive, Seth. Show him who's boss. Jude thinks he'll like that.

I should never have listened to Ian. I showed Abe who was boss, all right. I cuffed him and fucked him even after he objected. I thought he was playing a role. Br'er Fox, whatever you do, don't throw me in the briar patch. Well, he wasn't playing a role. He left before I was even out of the shower.

I called Ian the next day.

• Oh, shit, really? You didn't, Seth.

• You told me to be aggressive.

• Aggressive doesn't mean handcuffs. Where'd you get handcuffs anyway?

• Sean left them. I never threw them out.

• You haven't learned the lesson of the "Me, Too" movement. No does mean no. You can persuade, you can wheedle, but if he says `no', you have to respect that.

• Shit. I guess I don't have enough experience to know when someone is teasing and when he's sincere. I really blew it. And the thing is, Ian. I like him. I mean, I REALLY like him.

• Then you can't give up.

• Oh, come on. After that? If he sees my name on his phone he won't answer it.

• Ah, so he put you into his phone. A good sign. This might be redeemable, Seth.

• How?

• Let me think about that. Like I said, Jude's a psychologist. He might have some ideas.

• • • • • • • • SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1 * * * * * * * *

THE PHALLIC TOWER – HARRY

One of Seth's theories was that he was dreaming all of this. I was beginning to wonder if I wasn't dreaming this up myself. A plane full of hot men, everyone seemingly either gay or homophobic, a crazy person insisting that one of us blow him, and now this giant phallus – was it all a product of my vivid imagination, stemming from my own issues with homosexuality? Mind you, I had no issues with accepting myself as gay. I knew it when I was fourteen. I had issues with other people accepting me as gay.

No, Harry, this is real, and it's a puzzle to be solved. The map is a clue. Seth's nudity is a clue. The yellow dodecagon that drove Cody berserk is a clue. The wreckage of ZTA Flight 4 is a clue. And this giant penis is the biggest clue of all.

And then I saw the door.

• It's not just a sculpture. There's a door.

• (Seth) Maybe it is really a lighthouse?

• Then where's the light? It seems closed up top, like –

• (Ray, cackling) Like a cockhead.

• Yeah, like a cockhead.

• (Seth) We've got to go inside.

• (Ed) You want to go inside a giant penis? That doesn't strike you as – well, rather perverted?

• We came all this way to see what this was, see if it can get us off the island. We're going to stand around outside and admire it?

• (Ray) I'm admiring it. It's the only penis I've seen that's bigger than mine.

• (Seth) Harry's right. There's a door. Maybe there are people inside who can help us. How will we know unless we go in? It's a building, Ed. It's not perverted to go inside a building, no matter what it's shaped like.

• (Ray) Maybe it's an amusement ride. There's a shaft inside that will shoot you out the top. The orgasm of your dreams!

• (Seth) You're not being helpful.

• (Ray) Yeah, sorry, I'm just horny. (Looking at Augie) You could help with that, you know.

• (Augie) I'm not going in there.

• (Ray) Fine, you and me can stay out here and have fun.

• (Seth) All right, guys. Stop thinking of it as a giant penis and think of it as just a building. Maybe there's someone inside. We're going in.

The wind picked up.

• I think it's going to storm.

• (Seth) And we've just found shelter. A timely find.

• Unless it's locked.

Seth led us toward the door – which wasn't locked. He stepped inside, followed by Vic and Ray. Ed and Augie were reluctant to go in. I stayed at the back of the group, to encourage Augie (there was no trying to influence a British knight, he would make up his own mind). But the two of them surged forward the moment we heard voices.

Voices. Joyous voices.

Seth was right – there was someone inside. I rushed inside the phallus. There were two remarkable sights. I don't know which to describe first.

Let me start with the interior of the phallus. (No, there was no amusement ride that would shoot us out the top like an orgasm.) It was as light as the interior of a room full of windows – but there were no windows and no visible light fixtures. I couldn't understand why it wasn't totally dark. The walls were decorated with the same colored stripes as the exterior, shading from red to yellow to blue back to red, in gradations. A dozen colors in all.

On the floor was a dodecagon – a polygon with twelve sides. The shape we had encountered in the forest that had prompted Cody's bizarre behavior. But that one had been solid yellow. This was divided into twelve wedge-shaped segments, like slices of pizza if the crust, instead of being round, had straight sides. Each wedge was a different color, in the same order as the stripes along the wall.

That, however, was of secondary importance. The main thing was that the room was not empty. There were five men inside. Five men who had been seated on the right side of the plane. We had found the others. Alive.

If Amazon had held a sale on hugs, it would not have been more successful than what was going on inside that – well, let me call it a room. High-fives abounded. Permutations of "Boy, am I glad to see you" and "I thought you guys were dead" spiraled around the room. I refrained from hugging, wishing to avoid an erection – but bumped fists a couple of times.

Not everyone was filled with joy. There was one crestfallen face – Ed's.

We had found five men in this room. There should have been six.

I went over to him.

• (Ed) He's not here. Leo's not here. Why the hell isn't he here?

It was my first hug. I put my arms around him, but – why am I surprised – he pushed me away from him. Whether he didn't want to be hugged by a gay guy or he was repulsed by me in particular, I didn't know.

• He'll show up, Ed. He got separated, probably. We were all separated, right? We still found each other. But he'll show up. It was drawing us here, Ed.

• It wasn't drawing me here. I was just staying with the group.

• This place – I don't know how to say this, it sounds too weird – but it wanted us to come here.

• . . . That's crazy.

• Yeah, it is. But Leo will come. I feel certain of it.

• Unless he's the one person who didn't survive. What am I going to tell Beatrice if –

• Do you want to go out with me and look for him? I think it would be easier for him to find us than for us to find him, but if you want –

• I feel useless just staying here. Maybe –

A clap of thunder interrupted us.

• (Ed) Bloody hell, now the storm is really coming. And he's out there.

• So he'll be seeking shelter, won't he? You can see this thing from quite a ways away. He'll come here to get out of the storm. You don't want to go out looking for him in the middle of a thunderstorm.

• No, you're right. Wait till the storm is over, then we'll see.

• He might be here by then.

If he's still alive.

Introductions commenced. The new guys were Jasper Adena, Tim Fallon, Lucas Heidekker, Paul Eton and Daisuke Omi. They all had one thing in common – they made my hormones go crazy. Especially the three guys in their thirties – Lucas, Jasper and Daisuke.

Lucas was hyper-masculine, full of swagger and with a body to die for. Not with the muscularity of Seth or Vic, but solidly built, hairy-chested, and, looking below the belt, appearing every inch the stud. I meant `every inch' literally. I hoped he was straight, as if he was gay I was going to covet him.

Jasper was on the short side but oozing testosterone, and dressed elegantly, in a silk shirt – I felt like his chest was going to be a wall of fur if he took it off. How I longed to run my fingers through it. He seemed to be a collection of hormones held in by skin. I could imagine him out clubbing every night and never going home unescorted – but by which gender I couldn't tell.

Daisuke ("call me Dai") looked gay to me, but Asian guys were hard to suss – apologies if this is subconsciously racist. He was about 5'9", and had an ass I was jealous of.

Tim looked a couple of years older than me, with a beak-like nose that made him look vaguely avian. Tallish, with an athletic body and masculine enough that, as the saying goes, I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating crackers. Reminder, Harry: (a) he probably isn't gay, and (b) even if he was, he wouldn't be in YOUR bed.

Paul was probably only 25, but already balding – which looked good on him. It was hard to assess how sexy he was, given the baggy T-shirt and sweat pants he was wearing. He was another whose sexuality was hard to assess. He was an inch or two shorter than Dai.

We exchanged stories. Seth explained how we had met each other, one by one, and set our sights on the tower, hoping to find people who could help rescue us. He was uncomfortable relating that he had awakened in the nude, but when you walk into a place wearing nothing but an ill-fitting vest and a pair of briefs, it warrants explanation. He just said that someone had stolen his clothes, and that Ed and Augie had generously donated what little he was wearing. He left out some notable details, like the yellow dodecagon that made Cody/Ray go nuts, and the mysterious map. Which reminded me.

• Where are you guys from?

• (Dai) San Francisco.

• (Tim) St. Louis.

• (Lucas) Chicago.

• (Jasper) New York.

• (Paul) Richmond.

Bingo. One-to-one correspondence with the cities on the map.

I looked at Seth. Seth looked at me. He had taken notice. His nod said, yeah you were right, Harry. I don't know what it means, but you were right.

Dai Omi told the story for the five of them. They had likewise awakened separately and found each other one by one, drawn to the phallic tower without knowing why. Had they seen the wreckage of the airplane?

Yeah, they had. But it wasn't our plane. It had red seats.

RED seats?

They'd found a boarding pass. It said ZTA Airlines Flight 7, from September of last year.

There was now no doubt in my mind. Either we were all dead, I was dreaming, or there were supernatural forces at work here. None of the options comforting at all.

But then, life was full of non-comforting options, wasn't it?

FLASHBACK: HARRY (DEVON, PENNSYLVANIA) – twelve years ago

What did I know? I went on Grindr. It was foolish, but it was the only dating app for gays I'd ever heard of. I didn't post a picture. I listed my age as 18, overshooting it by three years. My profile was pretty vague. NEW TO THE SCENE. PHILADELPHIA AREA. NEED A GUIDING HAND. ANXIOUS TO HAVE YOU PLUMB MY DEPTHS.

Yeah, I got responses. I knew they wouldn't be from guys my age, because guys my age weren't supposed to be on Grindr. I figured I would screen out anyone over 30 or so, or anyone who came on too aggressively. I didn't respond to those. But one guy seemed interesting. His profile name was NICENEASY2, which sounded comforting.

• HEY, HARRY. (Yeah, I used my real name, dumb.) HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY?

• I'M GOOD. (Good and nervous. Okay, admit it.) A BIT NERVOUS.

• BECAUSE YOU'RE NEW TO THE SCENE?

• YEAH.

• WHEN YOU SAY `NEW', DO YOU MEAN LIKE TOTALLY NEW?

• YEAH.

• THAT MUST BE SCARY. YOU'VE GOT TO BE VERY CAREFUL ON AN APP LIKE THIS. THERE ARE A LOT OF BAD DUDES ON HERE.

• I KNOW THAT. I'M CAUTIOUS.

• THAT'S GOOD. SO WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

• TO BE HONEST, I JUST WANT TO HOOK UP WITH SOMEONE. SOMEONE NICE. SOMEONE WHO'LL BE PATIENT WITH ME.

• LIKE A MENTOR?

• EXACTLY. I WANT TO GET INTO THE GAY WORLD AND I DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW.

• IT'S VERY INTIMIDATING WHEN YOU'RE JUST STARTING.

• WAS IT SCARY FOR YOU?

• OH, YEAH. I THINK IT'S SCARY FOR EVERYONE THE FIRST TIME. HARRY, IF IT'S YOUR FIRST TIME, YOU'VE GOT TO PICK THE RIGHT GUY. DON'T RUSH INTO THIS TOO FAST.

• (Okay, take a deep breath and go for it.) DO YOU THINK MAYBE YOU'RE THE RIGHT GUY?

• MAYBE. I THINK WE SHOULD CHAT MORE FIRST BEFORE WE MEET, THOUGH, DON'T YOU?

• YEAH.

Totally reassuring. He wasn't some kind of sexual predator. And when he saw how young I was, he would understand, wouldn't he? I'd be discreet, I wouldn't get in trouble, I'd tell him I always looked young for my age, okay I was only seventeen and not technically old enough to be on Grindr, but it was only one year (cutting my lie from three years to two years, that wasn't so bad, was it?) and it wasn't like he was picking up some little boy.

• DO YOU LIKE MY PICTURE?

• (Did I!) YEAH.

• YOU DIDN'T POST YOURS.

• I'M SHY. AND I DIDN'T WANT ANYONE TO SEE IT. I'M NOT EXACTLY OUT. I DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW I'M GAY UNTIL I'VE ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING GAY.

• BEING ON GRINDR IS SOMETHING GAY, HARRY.

• YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

• YOU MEAN YOU WANT TO HAVE SEX.

• WELL, AT LEAST KISS OR SOMETHING. I MEAN, YEAH, I WANT TO HAVE SEX, BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THE FIRST THING.

• SECOND THING?

• LOL. IT DEPENDS ON THE DUDE.

Spoken way more mature than I was. Like I had thought this all out.

• COME BACK TOMORROW, HARRY. BUT POST YOUR PICTURE. IF YOU'RE GOING TO COME OUT, YOU HAVE TO COME OUT.

• I DON'T KNOW.

• AND IF I'M GOING TO BE YOUR MENTOR, I'M GOING TO SEE YOU ANYWAY.

I wanted him to be my mentor. God, I wanted him to be my mentor. I'd seen his picture; he was way out of my league (not that I had a league). I knew the only way I could get him to pay attention to me was if he felt he was helping me. It wouldn't be because he was attracted to me. It would be like doing a good deed, helping a shy teenager out of the closet, helping me overcome my fears.

If I could just get this guy to accept me, to like me for who I was, then maybe it was possible. Maybe other people would like me, too. Maybe . . . maybe it would just be something I could do. If I could just get past this hurdle.

I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere with the kids in my high school. I had to take this risk.

I posted the picture.

• NICENEASY, I DID WHAT YOU SAID.

• YEAH, YOU DID HARRY. A LITTLE SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T MENTION.

• I TOLD YOU, I LOOK YOUNG FOR MY AGE.

• THAT WASN'T IT. YOU'RE FAT, HARRY.

• (Wow, body slam.) YEAH, KINDA.

• KINDA? LISTEN, KID, NOBODY'S GOING TO WANT YOU LOOKING LIKE THAT. IF YOU WANT TO COME OUT, YOU'D BETTER LOSE THAT WEIGHT.

• I THOUGHT MAYBE – YOU SEEM LIKE A NICE GUY, I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT TAKE SOME PITY AND HELP ME OUT.

• PITY? HARRY, DID YOU GO ONTO GRINDR LOOKING FOR A CHARITABLE INSTITUTION? THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN IT FOR ME, TOO, YOU KNOW. I SPECIALIZE IN VIRGINS. I LIKE TAKING A GUY'S CHERRY AND I CAN DO IT NICE AND SLOW AND I CAN MAKE HIM FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT. BUT IT HAS TO FEEL GOOD FOR ME, TOO. I DON'T GO AROUND FUCKING LITTLE FATTIES JUST TO MAKE THEM FEEL BETTER. NOW FUCK OFF.

After my picture went up the only responses I got were from guys who hurled snarky insults at me.

• OBVIOUS WHY YOU'RE STILL A VIRGIN, FAT BOY.

• NEW TO THE SCENE? YOU'RE NOT NEW TO THE DINNER TABLE.

• YOU WANT TO GET STUFFED? LOOKS LIKE YOU ALREADY ARE.

• IF YOUR DICK IS AS FAT AS YOUR ASS, YOU MUST BE A STUD.

• HARRY THE HIPPO! GO FIND SOME MUD TO WALLOW IN.

• LET THE INNER YOU COME OUT. THEN YOU MIGHT BE THE SIZE OF ONE PERSON, NOT TWO.

I stayed firmly in the closet all through high school.

[COMING UP NEXT: CHAPTER SIX – HUNTING AND GATHERING]