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.
