I stood over him, my legs trembling. He reached back to undo my pink satin bra, slid it forward and dropped it. Standing there naked, for a second I forgot the plane was flying on its own! It was black through the window. I wasn’t sure if we were flying over mountains or water, but I closed my eyes. If I couldn’t see it, it didn’t matter. I placed my hands on the ceiling again, pressing my body forward into him. He was so at ease, so in command as he gently urged my legs farther apart, reaching up to pinch and circle my nipples, like I was an instrument panel he knew exactly how to operate.
“How does the autopilot know what it’s doing?” I asked, so deeply aroused by his thumbs now expertly parting my cleft, I thought my knees would give.
“It listens to me. I tell it what to do and it follows my instructions,” he said, leaning forward to kiss my clitoris, now centered between his thumbs.
“Mmm, you taste so good, my darling,” he murmured, his fingers now joining his mouth, slowly gliding in and out, agonizing me. I felt every knuckle against my most tender parts, prodding my clitoris forward, as his mouth fully encircled me. I grabbed his head as it moved beneath me. Then I felt that rush, fast and hot, and the mounting energy as his urgent tongue fluttered and flicked, his fingers darting in and out. All I could do was shut my eyes and arch back, dying and shuddering as I exploded with a new kind of pleasure, moaning into the ceiling, his tongue lapping relentlessly at me, my hand over my mouth to muffle my cries.
“Oh my god! Oh yes … yes!” I whelped, trying to steady my legs as he urged his pants down, rolled on a condom and eased me down. Still in a daze, I felt every vein, every ridge, as I wilted onto his lap, my thighs straddling him in his captain’s chair, my feet barely touching the ground. A firm arm wrapped around my back, he moved up and into me, his brown eyes pleased as he took in my body, and I faced the fucking front of the plane and the window and, holy shit, would you look at that view! No, don’t look. Close your eyes, Dauphine. Don’t look!
“How much higher can this plane go?” I asked as he sped up his thrusts. Oh! The feeling of fullness!
“Much higher,” he whispered, as he began to grind hard beneath me, his hips gyrating, his arms weighing my hips down. “You just have to know how to drive it properly. You just have to have a feel for the plane, and its limits.”
With that, he turned fierce, and our bodies began pulsing harder on the chair. I grabbed the back to gain leverage.
“Oh god.”
“Can you feel how hard I am, Dauphine, how hard you make me?” he groaned, pumping up into me, holding me down to increase the friction of his pelvis against my clit.
“Yes! Oh yes. There,” I murmured, but he knew. He didn’t need my instructions.
I felt the heat building behind my belly button again, and again I came, falling forward as he turned the room into a blur, gripping my hips to take his own pleasure with a fierce resignation that came just after mine. He shuddered to a blissful stop, panting, my torso draping over him.
“That was incredible,” he said, breathless too, running his fingers across my back as it rose and fell. I opened my eyes to the windows again, clusters of lights below signaling sleepy towns full of people with no idea what was happening in the darkening clouds above their heads. And I was okay and the plane was okay and we were so alive.
“Better get you dressed, my darling. I’m afraid we went a little over schedule.”
He carefully lifted me off him and bent to hand me my sweater. As he stood to pull up his uniform pants and tuck and button his own shirt, I stepped into my panties and pulled my skirt up, finger-combing my hair back into its ponytail. We exchanged grins, each of us kind of proud of the other.
By the time Eileen knocked a few minutes later, the only thing that might have given us away, had Captain Nathan not snatched it from the floor and placed it under the plastic cap of an empty Styrofoam cup, was the condom. Then he reached around me for the handle to the cockpit door and pulled it open. I gave Eileen my widest, most guileless smile, my arms behind my back, my bracelet scratching the plastic wall.
“How is your visit going? A lot less stressed about flying, I hope?”
“Very much so,” I said. “Captain Nathan has taken the fear right out of me.”
“He does that well,” she said, with no hint of lasciviousness. “Let’s get you back to your seat, Dauphine. It’s rather warm in here. Here’s your Gatorade, Captain. We don’t want you dehydrated.”
She took me by the arm.
“Thank you, Captain,” I said. “Flying will never be the same for me.”
“I’m glad I could be of some help. Oh! Before you go, Dauphine,” he said, reaching into his shirt pocket, “we like to give visitors a little something. For trusting us. You’ve earned this.”
He handed me a small blue box.
“Dauphine gets her wings!” exclaimed Eileen with a little clap.
“Thank you,” I said, as Captain Nathan stood and gave me a deep bow.
By then, First Officer Friar had returned. “It was good of you to keep the captain company,” he said, squeezing past us. “It’s lonely up here sometimes.”
Eileen led me back to my seat. Was I imagining First Class eyes on me, noting my slight dishevelment, the flush in my cheeks?
Once seated and buckled up, I discreetly lifted the lid to the small blue box. Inside was a brooch shaped like wings, the airline’s logo in its center. Under the cotton puff, another gold-hued ornament, my Step Three charm, Trust written on the back. I pinned the wings to my sweater. The elderly woman seated across from me gave me a thumbs-up. What she made of the charm I then secured to my bracelet, I’ll never know. But after it was firmly in place, I pushed my seat back, slid my earphones on, closed my eyes and floated in a dream for the rest of the blessedly uneventful flight.
11
CASSIE
IT WAS ONLY a matter of time before Mark Drury made his way to the Café Rose for Sunday brunch, a newspaper tucked under his arm, a sheepish grin on his face. He didn’t have my number and I hadn’t called him since our one-night stand almost two weeks ago.
“Hello, Cassie,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Very fancy,” I said, “and very early. One o’clock in the afternoon. Did you have to set your alarm?”
“Funny.”
I brought over a menu, flipped his coffee cup and filled it to the brim.
“I’ll be right back to take your order.”
“I’m in no hurry. Unlike you,” he said, snapping open his paper. He was referring to the morning after, when I had left his place rather quickly. The last time I saw him he was tangled in mismatched sheets, softly snoring.
I rolled my eyes at him and headed to the kitchen.
When I returned, he ordered scrambled eggs, Boudin sausage and toast, which he ate in a matter of minutes. When I removed his empty plates, he ordered a large house salad.
“For digestion. Like the Italians,” he said.
After his salad he asked about the soup special.
“It was curried cauliflower, but we’re all out,” I said, just as Dell walked by with a platter of eggs Benedict.
“I’ll thaw some of that minestrone. Won’t take a minute,” she offered.
“Sounds perfect,” he replied.
“You’re mighty hungry today, Mr. Drury.”
“I’ve got a gig tonight. Always makes me hungry. Why don’t you come see us? We’re at the Spotted Cat.”
He pulled a flyer out of his pocket and handed it to me just as Will, covered in white dust from head to toe, rounded the corner and headed upstairs. I wasn’t sure he caught the tail end of our exchange, so I raised my voice.