Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 12:27:31 EDT From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com Subject: Eighty Seconds EIGHTY SECONDS By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM WWW.TOMMYHAWKSROGUEMOON.COM It would be so simple, I thought to myself as I jumped from the plane. Such a simple thing it would be, when you're skydiving, to not pull the ripcord. Death, then, becomes a case not of doing something to yourself, it's just...not doing anything to stay alive. You savor those eighty seconds from jump to pulling the ripcord, that moment that tastes so much like Death, like wine from a limited stock to be relished for its unique essence. The wind whipped my face into a frenzy. A lot of that was the fact that I was falling, of course. Down toward the drop zone near the airfield below, a spiderweb of landing strips and roads and ramps and there, right in the middle of the drop zone was the large white cloth on it with the bulls-eye target, to mark the point where I was to land. "Whoo-hoo!" came the yelp from Ralph as he zipped past me. He was the acrobat of our little club, he was the one who used the precious moments of free-falling to turn loops, somersaults or, in this case, to angle his body so that he fell across my path; to me, it was like he came flying by like a large orange bird. You can do that...if that's what you want to get out of the skydive. Me...I thought about life and death. That moment when I had to choose to live...and if I wanted to. I'm not that depressed, really. I mean, I wasn't the kind who spent their afternoons with a therapist, or with a bottle, or who fingered knives as I considered drawing them across my throat. My days were spent in a corporate office, wearing a silk suit and a carefully drawn tie, and I dealt with money that was spent and won and lost by the thousands and hundreds of thousands, talking to people to whom the money was only a small part of their pie, or people to whom it was their big chance, or people who couldn't afford to lose a single red cent if they were going to stay afloat. I did it all, and I did it well, but I don't want to talk about it outside the office. What I did was what I did on my Saturday afternoons, I waited for that chance to get aboard the mid-sized plane, usually a renovated propeller job rescued from Air Force surplus or something, and I sat on the bench and I waited for this short time when I could just choose to not pull the cord and could let my life end as it would upon the hard, hard ground below.... But today, like all the others, when the altimeter began to hit 2500 feet and the other parachutes began to employ, I sighed (too damned short a time, just under a minute and a half) and I reluctantly grabbed my ripcord and yanked it at 2000 feet. The parachute took about another ten seconds to grab hold of me, then it yanked damned hard and I was dangling, safe once again, ready for work the next weekend again. Ralph came in right on the bullseye as usual. He had this stunt parachute that he could use to steer himself around. My own was a simpler, cheaper parachute of the non-stunt variety, I was lucky if I could land anywhere close to the rest of them. But that day I came down less than a hundred feet from the edge of the same white square of cloth that Ralph was hogging. Others were landing around in other parts of the drop zone and I gathered my chute up, the endless yards of cloth and managed to make a rough ball in my arms, and trudged back to the group. I had chosen to live...again. A sigh escaped my lips as I walked. It would just be so easy if one day the chute didn't open, if I could let all be that tragic flaw in equipment. If you don't pull your ripcord, people learn about it, they start calling it a suicide. Ralph was being his usual effusive self on the walk back to the airport, and I ignored it like I usually do, with a vacant smile and one-word answers to any questions, better than a glare and stony silence for ending any interest in people talking to you. There was the tedious wait to get space to lay out and roll up my parachute, then I put it in my car and got out of there like usual. That night, I felt more social than usual, so I got myself dressed and went out to a bar. Not looking to pick anyone up, not looking to socialize exactly. I just wanted to be around people. And there was Ralph at a table with some friends of his I didn't know. "Hey, Lyle!" he called to me. "Hey, man! Hey!" That with a waving hand, meant come on over, and I did. Ralph wasn't my top choice for company at a bar, but he'd do for a while. He introduced me around the table and then ended with, "Lyle here's a member of my skydiving club. We went diving together earlier today." One of his friends (Micky?) was a counterpart to Ralph, for he belted out, "Are you talking about the kind where you jump out of a plane, Ralph?" and apparently I had walked up on a game of "double entendre" because they all laughed a lot more than that comment deserved. I decided to throw a bit of cold water on that, mostly because I was looking for quieter company and if I could quiet this group down, I'd get what I came looking for. "You've never jumped out of a plane before." I said. "You can't have sex while skydiving, it's impossible!" "What's impossible about it?" Ralph wanted to know. I looked at him. "You're kidding, right?" I semi-sneered. "You're traveling around 120 miles per hour straight down, the wind's whipping you loudly enough you can't talk or even breathe right, you get only 80 seconds of free-fall time, and you expect to have sex during that?" "It's possible." Ralph asserted. "Yeah." I agreed. "Just damned unlikely." They made room for me at the table. What followed was not the night I expected to have by any means, I got into the mechanics of discussing sex in the free-fall and the alcohol was flowly freely enough that, about an hour and a half into this, I found myself agreeing to have sex with Ralph during a special jump the next day if he could arrange it. Sex with Ralph wasn't going to be the real problem here. Ralph is a guy barely out of college, some six or seven years younger than me, and his body was "fresh out of college athletics" sharp and clean. Me, I had to keep a diet of steady workouts, and it was a battle I was slowly but steadily losing. Ralph kept his hair blond and short (I think the hair color was a dye-job; his body hair was a light brown), he had this "Abercrombie & Fitch model" look about him that made the idea of helping him prove or disprove a stunt like this not such a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I was skeptical about the DZ letting us have sex in the plane before the jump, but he swore that if he rented us a private plane for just the two of us, we could skydive naked and the DZ wouldn't care. Since Ralph was the one who pushed the limits on such things, I took his word for it. I went home that night and had some satisfying dreams, of Ralph and me jumping out of that plane, our bodies kissing and caressing, the wind down to a gentle sort of murmur, not the hurricane-force howl it was during a jump. Our bodies meshing, his manhood within me, myself buried in him, the glory of sex ending with the ground embracing us as our bodies impacted. You're supposed to wake up when you have that sort of dream, and I did, but not with the start-and-gasp of a nightmare. Just that awake was the only other place to go. Same reason I would pull the ripcord each time, life was all there was to choose if you wanted to keep on going. I gave up about the fifth time I had that dream, it was 5:30am and I just made some coffee and watched informercials (all that's on that early on Sunday morning, unless you wanted to watch some picayune church's televised service) until it was time to go to my mother's for Sunday lunch. I got a call on my cell phone about 1:30pm, which annoyed me (was the office calling me in?), and it was Ralph, I'd forgotten I'd given him my cell phone last night. "Yeah?" I said in lieu of hello, forgiveable in a call received on Sunday afternoon from your office. "Lyle, it's Ralph. I got us a plane for 3:30pm, can you be here by then?" "Uh. Oh, sure." I said. "I'll be there. 3:30pm. And Ralph, they agreed to our little...stunt performance?" "Like I said, they don't much care. We'll drop in a nearby field instead of the main drop zone." Ralph said. "They'll send a taxi out to pick us up." "I'll bring my cellphone on the drop, then." I said and hung up. "You're going skyjumping again today?" My mother launched into me. "Lyle, why do you do such dangerous things? You know it scares me, you jumping out of planes like that, I keep worrying about you. What if the chute doesn't open up? I get these dreams sometimes, you know they're warnings, they tell me you're going to die like that one day. Please, honey, don't go, you stay with me today and we'll...." And you can imagine the rest of my visit from that. I don't care to get into any more. I think my mother wants to suck every bit of joy out of my life. Nothing was going to happen when I jumped, most likely. Accidents almost never happened...almost. Normally you go into the airport lounge and hang around until it's your time to leave. But Ralph spotted me and he intercepted me well outside. "The plane's over at Hangar Three." he said. "We got it to ourselves until it's time to take off; it's already been checked over." "What for?" Ralph looked at me and grinned. "Can't screw around in the lounge, now can we?" I had to smile back at that. "No." I agreed. "And we got to get ourselves right up to the edge before we jump out the door." he finished. "Eighty seconds, remember? So we spend the next half hour inside the plane driving each other right to the edge. Come on." And I followed his tight, high-set, little ass right out to Hangar Three. The pilot was there, a guy I'd flown with before, and he just motioned us on in and shut the door behind us. Ralph and I were alone in the plane. "You got any second thoughts here, Lyle?" Ralph asked me. "If you do, I can get Jeremy out here to do it with me instead. He's back at the lounge and will meet us with his car out at the drop point." "You changed your mind about me?" I asked him instead. "Hell, no." Ralph said. "But if you and me are going to succeed in making it in mid-air, you got to go with it all the way. All the way up and all the way down." All the way down. Those words made me shiver in the thought of my dreams of the night before. All the way down. "Yeah, I'm ready." I said. "Damn right I am." For all of it. Whatever might happen. Anything at all. This could be my last time kissing another man. My last time to make love. I felt a goatish burst of urgency rush through my loins, I grabbed Ralph and I kissed him hard. My moustache tickled his nose and he chuckled as I sent my tongue diving into his mouth. I thrust my cock up against his crotch and rutted against him and he chuckled more, and pulled away. "Hey, hey, slow down." he said. "We got to last a half hour here, or I'm going to waste a shit-load of money on this private jump I set up." "You said you wanted us to go right to the edge." I said huskily. "Well, come join me on the rim. Keep me from falling over." I grabbed Ralph's crotch with my hand and I squeezed that hard joint I found inside there. He wasn't wearing any underwear. Well, that made sense, today of all days. I was and was already regretting it. "I...I thought we could maybe play with each other." Ralph stammered. "I got some magazines here, too." "Screw that." I said in a voice graveled with my lust. "I don't need them." And I knelt down and I caught the second zipper, the one that zips down and all the way around to the back of the jumpsuit, the one that lets you take care of business without having to take the entire suit off. Unzipping it unfettered both Ralph's powerful young cock and his full, healthy balls and I slurped those balls first, just to taste the ripe, rich flavor of them! "Ah, ah, shit!" Ralph hissed. "Man, if I'd known you were this hot, I'd've put the make on you long ago! Damn!" I worked those balls like a pair of succulent plums in my mouth, sucking all the juices out of them before I released them to hang slimily in their basket. Now my tongue raced up the shaft above them, a long larruping slup of tongue like a dog's busily working over a moist bone as I laved his pud with my mouth juices, tasting the raunchy masculine essences that seeped through the dun-colored pud's skin, and Ralph was groaning and he waited for me to get to the very top of it, licking off a stream of clear pre-come that had oozed from his slit and then, only then, he gasped out, "Enough, let me get down and get you ready, too! Ah, hell, we got to wait for a half hour! And I was thinking we wouldn't have enough time!" "You brought magazines, even." I smirked as he squatted down and then lay himself down on the floor. "Afraid the older guy wouldn't have what it takes, eh?" I unzipped my own jumpsuit's lower zipper and fished my cock out of my jockstrap. "You're not that much older than me." Ralph protested. "I figured we'd both need it! Shit, man, you're blowing more than my cock here." "Shut up and suck." I said. He was getting close to questioning my motives here. If he realized my thrill of skydiving was something other than the raw adrenaline rush, he was going to ruin my chance here! Ralph's mouth on my cock was thrilling, but there was a cold calculator in back of my head keeping my passions in check. I had to wait until we were skydiving to come. I had to wait until then, only then, could I be so exhausted and dazed by the lack of proper oxygen (you get some through your skin by osmosis, but it does handicap you from exerting yourself too much in the dive, all the action movies notwithstanding), that I could forget the earth was below me until it was too late. This was my chance, I wasn't going to let it get away from me! Poor Ralph didn't have my balance-mechanism in place, the wretched stud was groaning helplessly when the door opened and our pilot walked in. I guess he was expecting to see two men having sex, for while I was prepared to cover myself, he just got in, went to the front of the plane, and started us up. "Better hold onto something for the take-off." was his only comment, and Ralph and I separated long enough to comply, taking adjacent seats. My cock was raging with anticipation and I know Ralph was panting heavily, for he was fumbling at the oxygen tank like an urgent asthmatic. "Get ourselves juiced up." he panted. "Got to be able to stay alert for the jump." I nodded and we traded off the mask as we took deep breaths. I'd had oxygen before on some jumps, while striving for that longer jump (but you can't get high enough to make a difference, a couple of minutes was the max and the cold and the expense made it not worthwhile), and I knew I would get a sort of rush like alcohol from it, the brain soaking in oxygen is revved up to max. It made the world seem brighter and happier, like a mild sort of anti-depressant would (though I'd never taken one, I'm guessing here). Ralph leaned over and sucked on my wet pud a few times, then he said, "Now do mine. I want to be right on the edge for the jump. God, I'm ready to explode right now, my nuts are about to pop." "We'll make it, don't worry." I said to him, calm as an undertaker at a funeral, wearing the same kindly, sympathetic, professional smile. "It'll all be done soon." "God, this is going to be so hot!" Ralph gasped. He took another deep drag on the oxygen mask. "Creaming in mid-jump, man, oh, man! Nobody's going to believe us who hasn't seen this. Got some friends on the ground, but even they might now believe us." "Don't worry about them." I said again. "Relax. We'll make it like never before." I closed my eyes and felt a delicious shiver running through my body. This must be like what it is before you die, this sense of calm peace and serenity. No more work stress, no more nudging, whining mother, just...eternity! It took us a while to climb up to the right height and make it back to the airport, but then the pilot shouted out, "Two minutes to jump!" Two minutes left to live. Time for us to exchange one more lubricating, stimulating oral work on each other, and then over to the door, undog the hatch, and open it to the great emptiness. "We jump together on three." Ralph panted. "You ready?" "One!" I said instead. "Two! Three!" And we jumped, me just ahead of Ralph. My cock dried out almost instantly upon contact with the air. I fanned my arms and legs wide, I'd have to let Ralph come to me, he was the acrobat.... And there he was, face to face but upside down, and he caught my arms and I caught his, and we walked ourselves down each other to our flapping puds. Ralph had done down from the jump, so had I. I caught his prick and let this body shield me from the whipping, racing, howling air, and I was atop him and he had his back blocking him. His cock was alive, the adrenaline was converting to passion for him all right. Me, I had my own adrenaline going here. The ultimate ejaculation, borne out of the last breaths I'd take.... Yes, yes! Ralph's mouth was deep and warm and hungry. My cock was boiling from the long stint of pleasure-making inside the hangar, we were two hot studs ready for ejaculation. Eighty seconds from jump to ground. I knew that like a litany. No time for finesse, or care, or anything but raw male rutting. I wanted not just to come here, I wanted to squeeze Ralph's salty spunk out of him before we hit. I wanted his last sensations to be raw delight, and my own to be erotic exhaustion, and then the taste of oblivion, the ultimate chaser to wash it all down into the darkness. Unless death beckons, you can't conceive of the thrill that gives you, I was giddy, I was intoxicated by the thought, I was on the edge of more than passion's completion, I was on the edge of nirvana! Eighty seconds total. How many had passed? Who cared? Only thing mattered was to complete this one act and the rest would be the joy of post-eroticism, I could snuggle up before we struck and were blended together in death by the impact. Ralph inside me, me inside Ralph! God, yes, I wanted all of it, I wanted it now, I wanted him, damn, come, you fucking hee-hawing bastard, you fun-loving, light-laughing, joy-exulting nut-basket! I'd have you in me, all of you!" I sucked him hard and fast and hard and I didn't need to breathe at all, whether oxygen or my own drive to complete this or both, I can't say. Ralph was mute due to the wind, I couldn't hear anything but the roar of the air around us, but then his cock got hard, got hot, began to pulse, and I felt the hot salty sperm jet out of him into my mouth. God, yes, yes! All of him in me, all of him! Like the scream of an eagle, my climax hit me, I wanted to mix with him, take him into me, drink him down and be drunken down in return, let our joys unite us, now and forever! Now, God, now! And I squirted my squim into his clutching, ravenous maw while he spewed his spunk up into my clenched, rapturous mouth, his hot joy de vivre poured into me in liquid form while he guzzled my deposit of joy de morte, I felt myself exalted, transformed, renewed! All of this, all of me, all of Ralph, it was good, it was more than good, it was unique and precious and I never wanted it to end, ever! Done, I felt Ralph kick himself away from me and we were separated for the landing. Landing? Automatically, I checked my altimeter. 2,500 feet! The top of the recommended height to pull my ripcord. But would I? I looked down at the ground below. Good God! It was hard down there! Hard and cold and ugly and cruel! I wasn't going down there! No, no, no! I yanked my cord so hard I nearly broke my fingers. The parachute rippled out as always, a beautiful reassuring white that spread itself like gossamer wings and as it reached fullness...YANK! I was jolted, my teeth clattered against each other and my body felt bruised like it usually never did during a jump. But I was done, I was safe, and I looked up at the reassuring inverted bubble overhead and over at Ralph's colorful rectangle, and I laughed, long and hard and I kept on laughing all the way down to the ground where I struck hard, but struck safe, and the canopy covered me like a blanket wielded by a loving mother. I thought to zip myself back up before I got out from under my chute. Ralph had landed nearby, of course he could choose where to land, he was well ahead of the others coming out to meet me, a van driving over the rough ground, coming to pick us up. "Are you all right?" Ralph wanted to know? Not laughing this time, he was serious and concerned about me. "Me?" I laughed and put an arm around his shoulder. "Ralph, I haven't felt this good in years! Come on, let's get back to the lounge and I'll buy you a drink to wash it all down with." Ralph's smile rose to the surface like a goldfish in a bowl of murky water, shining and clean, and he said, "Now you're talking like a true skydiver! Come on, I'll buy the second round." I gathered up my chute and I walked with him over to the van. Along the way, I looked up and saw another plane disgorge its load of weekend adventurers. I wondered if one of them was like me, tasting death rather than life in the plunge? But I knew one thing. If I ever skydived again in the future (and would I?), it would be strictly for the fun of it, like Ralph always had. In those eighty seconds with Ralph, Death had lost its unique savor. I had a taste now for something new. THE END Comments, Complaints or Suggestions? Send E-mail to Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM. WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM WWW.TOMMYHAWKSROGUEMOON.COM