Author's note: I have always been interested in the way fate plays such a large part in our lives. This is another story exploring that theme. The kind of coincidence described in this story does happen albeit maybe once or twice in a lifetime and that may be all it takes to change your life.
A friend of mine once told me a "true" story of a male colleague he worked with and who travelled a lot, telling his wife he was in Singapore on business. He travelled to Columbia (location changed) with his mistress and met his wife in an elevator in the Cartagena Hilton. She was with her lover. After that, they divorced more quickly than they otherwise might have done.
Twice, I have met friends unexpectedly whilst on holiday and far from home. I was alone the first time and with my wife on the second occasion, so there was no harm done.
Marilyn Monroe said, "I believe everything happens for a reason." Unlike her, and the protagonists in my story, I don't. I prefer to believe," Shit happens."
A better title for this story might have been
Everything Happens For a Reason or Maybe Shit Just Happens.
Unfortunately, story titles this long are not accepted.
Constructive criticism, both positive and negative, is always welcome.
As always, any grammatical errors or typos are down to me alone. Please remember authors on this site, me included, aren't writing for financial gain and mistakes are virtually inevitable. It is a sad reality that errors inevitably show themselves only after a story has been submitted for publication.
Everything Happens for a Reason.
I was a virgin when I flew out of Vancouver one Friday, just after New Year in 1980. Fourteen hours later, when I arrived at Heathrow, I was, strictly speaking, still intact, but I had become a wiser young man, and my sexual education had started.
My flight was scheduled to fly out of Vancouver in British Columbia in the late afternoon arriving in London sometime the following morning. As often happens when flying, things did not go to plan.
I was in the departure lounge when the airline announced a three-hour delay to my flight and of another flight to Winnipeg, but for passengers to proceed to the airline hospitality desk where a meal voucher would be given to each one of us. Predictably enough, several hundred people arrived at the airport restaurant within a short time and a queue quickly formed. In the line just ahead of me was an attractive young lady wearing a long Afghan sheepskin, coat reminiscent of the 1960s. I studied her as we moved slowly toward the counter and was mentally undressing her when she appeared to lose patience. I watched her grimace, and her mouth formed the words, "fuck this for a game of soldiers," as she turned and headed out of the room and was lost to my view.
I did not see her again before I took my cattle-class seat on the 747. The cabin was part-empty with many unoccupied seats, and soon the reason for our delay became clear. Immediately after take-off the pilot unannounced an unscheduled stop in Winnipeg, and a collective groan passed around the cabin. Winnipeg was eleven hundred miles and three hours flying time east, and still over eight hours flying time from London.
It was then that my neighbour, in the seat next to me, informed me that he was a member of a fifty-strong group of university students who had been returning from Tokyo, and who had arrived almost three hours late into Vancouver. They had thought that they had missed their connecting flight home, the last of the day, and that they would be staying the night at the airport.
Then, on their flight from Japan, the pilot had informed them that their flight to Winnipeg "had been held to accommodate them."
It was obvious what had happened. In place of two flights, the airline had rolled them into one and then delayed the flight to wait for a large group of its customers arriving from Japan.
I remembered the quote "
Everything happens for a reason,
" swore quietly to myself and reached for my book.
***
I expected to wait on the plane whilst it was on the ground and hoped for a rapid turnaround. It was not to be. We were asked to wait in the airport departure lounge whilst the plane was re-fuelled, a "small technical hitch" was sorted, and the plane de-iced before departure. The captain had told us it was minus twenty degrees centigrade outside and it was snowing lightly.
It was just before ten o'clock local time, and I headed for the bar. I decided I needed a drink and didn't want to wait until I got back on the plane; even though, there, all the booze would be free. The room was deserted. Apart from a couple sitting in the corner the only other person present was the barman.
I sat at the bar and ordered myself a large whisky on the rocks. The barman was not a talkative man and moved to the end of the bar, where he stood with a bored look on his face and polished glasses.
I was contemplatively sipping my drink and looking out of the window at the dark frozen airport tarmac when I sensed someone sitting at the bar a couple of seats to my right. They had arrived very quietly, and I had not heard them.
"A gin and tonic with ice and lemon... a double please," said a female voice in a very English accent.
I looked across and did a double-take. My companion was none other than the girl in the Afghan coat. She wasn't looking at me but was looking directly forward toward the bar and appeared to be pointedly ignoring me, I looked down at my glass, took a sip, and sat silently trying not to look at her.
She spoke without moving her head.
"That's the second time this evening that I've caught you looking at me."
I looked sideways at her.
"What makes you think I was looking at you?"
"I saw you," she replied and turned to face me, and as she did she smiled.
"Nothing wrong with window shopping."
She was every bit as attractive as I had thought she was when I saw her in the line back in Vancouver. Shoulder-length wavy black hair framed a pale white freckled face, and intelligent green eyes looked back at me.
I didn't know what to say. Was this beautiful woman giving me the come-on?
"I'm Melanie," she said, holding out a dainty white hand. Her beautifully manicured fingernails were cut short and painted red.
I took her hand.
"Robert. Pleased to meet you."
"Oh, Likewise."
She took the seat next to me and we talked. She was a staff nurse working in Liverpool. I was a journalist working for a local newspaper in Exeter. Both of us had been visiting our parents for Christmas and the New Year and were travelling home after the break. Both of us were feeling very horny. As we sat in the bar talking I knew that I was: I only learned, later on the plane, that she was too.
I was sitting in an airport bar in Canada in the middle of winter with the most beautiful woman I had ever met and shortly we would fly four thousand miles and never see one another again. Even if I wasn't a twenty-four-year-old virgin I would have problems bedding her..... Or so I thought.
***
We sat and talked some more, and soon I had another double and Melanie another single. It was then that we heard the last call for our flight and hurried back to the gate. As we entered the front of the aircraft, we were welcomed back on the board by the senior flight attendant. She took one look at us and smiled.
"Welcome back on board. The fight is over half-empty. May I suggest the drinking, smoking, and swearing section at the back of the aircraft for you two?"
We did as she suggested and walked to the back of the plane. There, behind the rear bulkhead, were maybe sixty empty seats. We were spoilt for choice, but eventually, I sat by the window about halfway down on the left and Melanie sat next to me. I had wanted to sit over the emergency exit with a little more legroom, but she had different ideas and had moved on. It was a straight choice: extra legroom or Melanie. Melanie won.
It was approaching midnight In Winnipeg when the plane took off. Most people settled down to sleep straight away and the cabin lights had been dimmed, but when the flight assistant came around with blankets and pillows, Melanie ordered us both a "large" double.
We finished our drinks, and I was feeling nicely relaxed and ready to sleep. Melanie handed me a blanket and whilst I covered myself she put the other blanket around herself, snuggled up against me, and put her head on my shoulder. The smell of her perfume was in my nose and my penis was erect and hard inside my jeans when I felt her hand on my groin, gently exploring my hardness.
She stopped abruptly, threw off her blanket, reached under the seat in front of her, and retrieved her handbag.
"I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere," she said, smiling and sliding out of her seat before disappearing toward the back of the plane.
Ten minutes later she was back. She didn't sit but leaned over and whispered.
"Your turn. Go to the toilet and get rid of your underpants."
I looked at her in astonishment.
"Did you hear me?"
"I think so. Where shall I put them?"
She giggled and I realised she was just a little drunk.
"Well, I can't very well give you my handbag, can I? Put them in your pocket or shove them down your trousers. The problem is that if you did that the flight assistant might think you've got a hard-on."
She giggled again.
"You have got a hard-on, haven't you?"
***
When I returned to my seat, Melanie was sitting in it covered with a blanket. I sat next to her and pulled the other blanket over myself. She looked across at me expectantly.
"I'm a virgin," I whispered.
"Better and better. Don't worry I'll show you."
She raised her lips to mine, and we kissed. She tasted of peaches and cream, and she smelt of jasmine. I felt her tongue inside my mouth, and I kissed her back. As we kissed, I felt her take my hand in hers and place it on her right breast. She had removed her bra and pulled her jumper up with her other hand.
Her breast was round and firm, and I could feel the nipple hard between my fingers. She stopped kissing me, looked up at me, and smiled gently, and then I felt her hand slowly pull down the zip on my fly.
"Pull down your kegs," she said. "Just a little."
Trousers pulled down around my thighs, I felt the coarse fabric of the aircraft seat on the cheeks of my naked bum. For a moment I wondered what I was doing, but then the thought left me as I felt her hand around my prick.
"Oh my," she murmured. "You're not just choice, you're big as well."
Then, as we kissed, and I played (inexpertly?) with her boobs, she slowly pulled my foreskin up and down. I'm sure if I had not drunk the best part of a quarter bottle of scotch I would have come straight away, but as it was, my penis felt like metal as she slowly wanked me off.
Her hand stopped moving and I heard her softly speak. Her tone was different - husky and pleading.
"Now touch me, please. I'll show you how. First, put your left hand down behind my back and inside my skirt and hold my arse, then put your right hand where I show you."
I slipped my hand under her bum as she raised herself off the seat to let me slip my hand inside her skirt. Her cheeks were firm and warm beneath my touch. The skirt lay loose around her. I knew she wore a below-knee cowboy skirt with boots; I'd seen it in the bar. The skirt had a row of buttons down the front, but now they were all open, and under the blanket with her legs a little spread she was open to my touch. She took my right hand in hers and guided me to the slit between her legs.
"Use the flat end of two fingers on me. Small circles. Gentle but firm. On my clitoris. I'll tell you when you've found the right spot."
Her sex was slick with her juices as I found her bud and started to rub.
She sighed softly.
