I'm the Co-Pilot

Lethem 6/90

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Everything in this story is actually happened. Maybe not all at the same time or in the same exact sequence, and some stuff that happened on different trips gets conflated in my mind, but that's a consequence of time going by. It just keeps on doing that ya know.

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All of the inadequately described and yet quite enjoyable sexual activity in this story occurred between characters, yes if you knew me you would agree that I am quite a character, who were at least 30 years of age back in June of 1990 or thereabouts. God that makes us over 60 now.

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"I treat him to coffee and keep him in Cokes,

I laugh at his corn and his horrible jokes.

And once in a while when his landings are rusty,

I come through with "yessiree Captain" it's gusty.

I'm a lousy Co-Pilot and a long way from home."

-Oscar Brand

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June 1990, 1000 feet over Brazil approaching LTM Lethem, Guiana

"Icarus Air, Douglas November-Four-Two-Seven-India-Charley is approved for landing at Lethem, we are cleared for a straight in approach on runway Two-Niner." Mimi said repeating the very 'British' sounding controller who was actually in Georgetown not Lethem.

Lethem was a small market town of maybe a thousand souls as far inland as you could travel from Georgetown without entering Brazil. Georgetown on the coast, was the capital and largest city in Guiana, which until recently had been British Guiana. Unlike Belize to the north Guyana's relationship with Britain was not a friendly one. In our descent to earth we would lose radio contact with them momentarily, if we had not already.

Mimi adjusted the four throttles and their attendant mixture controls. "Flaps," she called.

I moved the Flap Selector Handle up to unlock it and then down to lower the flaps to the first keyed position. "Flaps," I confirmed after checking the indicator on the instrument panel. She was fine tuning the flight controls, adjusting the three trim wheels, ailerons, elevator, rudder.

As we approached the airfield facing the low early morning eastern sun we were in Brazilian airspace. We flew over the Brazilian mining supply town that was the actual destination of our load. Bonfils, population maybe four hundred, and then over the Takatu River and the international boundary before touching down at the airfield a quarter mile inside Guyana.

Lethem Airport was not IATA (American), or ICAO (UN), compliant with an unlighted runway only six-thousand feet in length, no staffed control tower and no facilities whatsoever. Basically, it was a big flat space with a couple of decrepit old buildings. We had to leave MIA in darkness to arrive just after dawn maximizing daylight hours to unload, load and get off the ground before dark.

Mimi turned the yoke and added a tiny bit of pedal to visually line the airplane up with the runway, crabbing the airplane in the crosswind.

"Landing gear," she said.

I lifted and pushed down the handle. Then I watched the indicator and the lights calling to her out their confirmations as they occurred.

"Down... Locked... Three Green Lights."

Mimi was an old pro. She flared at half of our wingspan give or take two inches and the wheels barely chirped as they gently touched and began rolling on MacAdams asphalt and aggregate invention. She reversed all four propellers slowing us down much more quickly than usual in deference to the shortness of the runway before calling out to me.

"Flaps Up."

I returned the Flap Selector Handle to 'ZERO' as she moved the propeller pitch handles to 'NEUTRAL' and shut off the flow of fuel to three of the four big radial engines using the mixture control. Once the propellers had stopped spinning she moved their three throttle controlls allowing centrifugal force to purge the cylinders of potentially dangerous liquids.

"Flaps Up," I confirmed.

We had flown into the wild west carrying gold dredging equipment and mining supplies. It wasn't even a max load because without facilities at Lethem we had to carry fuel for the outbound journey inbound as well. It was to my mind a bad scene all the way around, the only place I really hated to fly into.

We tried to be prepared, in addition to our ever-present Colt Government Models we had a couple Mini-14s stashed on board the plane and bandoliers of ammo for them, but four against the world... Those odds truly sucked, I didn't want to be here in the first place let alone stranded here overnight.

As three of our propellers started to windmill and purge their cylinders, Mimi moved the fourth pitch selector, the one for number four, to the taxi position and adjusted its throttle and attendant mixture control to bring us over to the apron. Then she shut off the master switches on the three engines that had already been shut down. Once we stopped moving with a gentle application of the main wheel brakes George got up and walked back through the cabin.

I saw our customers waiting. It looked like break-time at a poorly-cast Hollywood War Movie set. Two Guyanan Army jeeps with heavy machine guns, some Toyota pickups with heavily armed men and several forty-year-old DUKWs, amphibious versions of an Army deuce-and-a-half truck.

The DUKWs would carry, meaning smuggle, the load we had on board across the Takatu River once the proper official palms were greased on both sides. By weight we could load out five of them, there were six, that was good. One trip they only had four and on that day they waited to finish unloading until one DUKW returned.

George manually unlocked and then he used the control panel to open the airplane's cargo door. We kept that one engine going to provide hydraulic pressure to operate the door. Once it was open and locked open he waved to Jamie, and she tapped me. I gave Mimi the thumbs up and she pointed at the engine controls between us.

I shut down engine number four, the outboard one on my side of the plane, just as she had numbers one through three. Its propeller windmilled and eventually joined its compadres in rest but with a different pitch angle. The other three had stopped spinning at some point as we moved from the runway to the apron.

Lethem was a case study in how totalitarianism and anarchy could co-exist. One government was communist and the other fascist, but they were both equally corrupt, and organized crime on both sides of the river was rampant. Since they agreed that they were the 'most equal of the pigs' and everyone else was merely bacon everything between them was usually pretty copasetic.

The big mining company paid to play on both sides of the river and was therefore untouchable. I felt a sadness for those living here. None of this phased Mimi, after all she was one of the few female pilots to fly into Utapao Thailand for Flying Tiger Lines. Hauling equipment and parts for the B-52s that she called Buffs, Big-Ugly-Fat-Fuckers, that the Strategic Air Command had stationed there.

There were a few rebels in the hills of Guatemala, but troops and private security personnel were everywhere in the city, there was no street crime to speak of. There was street crime in Belize City, but no rebels, the airport was safe, Hopkins and the highway were safe, and the resorts were safe.

In Belize tourists were convoyed from the airport, maybe to a nearby plantation for a tour, then to the old colonial city in daylight and there put upon boats to enjoy a week of fun in the sun. They were spared having to see a real country with real issues, disfunction and poverty. Lethem was different, there was no law there.

I never left the relative safety of the airport at Lethem, and I never wanted to. I had heard the stories about the gold miners on the other side of the river. Members of adversarial indigenous tribes, they supposedly raided their rivals, stealing the young women to provide unwilling staff for the many whorehouses at the mines. I didn't know if that was true, where I grew up the salacious nature of a rumor was valued approximately five times as highly as its veracity.

But the devastation that the hydraulic dredges did to the savannah and the ensuing destruction of the Vaquero's, cattlemen's, way of life... That devastation was a scar on the earth clearly visible from the air, and I felt dirty for being a part of it.

As intense as our games were, we were informed consensual players. We studied reviewed film, planned it before we did it. We were extreme; our playtime was invigorating, passionate and sustainable.

The Rapanui, Brazilian Indians and Vaqueros were not willing participants. I felt that we had not done our due-diligence before signing this contract. We needed the money, and the money offered was superb, but I was planning on arguing and voting against renewing this contract when the subject came up for a discussion in the future.

While our customers very slowly unloaded the airplane, Jamie and I walked over to talk to the local Rapanui Indians who were driving up in their ancient trucks. They were farmers and orchard tenders, and were hanging around waiting at the boundary of the airfield. Near, but not too close to the armed miners that they clearly feared.

Hopeful businessmen who came after hearing our approach to try and barter or sell their Mangoes and Cashews for us to buy and bring back to Florida. We took them Cokes and small gifts to start the negotiations. These traders and the cattlemen were the only people down there whom I really understood. We came to terms and then returned to the aircraft.

Once our customer's convoy of DUKWs were loaded and moving to the river crossing the Guyanan soldiers on the gun mount jeeps left the airport. Driving back to Georgetown I presume. It must have been a desirable gig to just hang around and accept their pay without ever speaking to us. Which was just fine by me. I mean why talk to us, the mining company had already paid them their supplementary stipend. We went out and greeted the local farmers whom we had earlier come to terms with.

Now that the miners were gone, the farmers drove their battered old trucks up to Nine-India-Charley. We were already experienced enough to keep dollars and unobtainable American consumer goods hidden in the unused baggage compartment to barter with local farmers and others we needed anything from.

By three in the afternoon we had paid for a load of Mangoes and nuts for Kristin to sell in Miami. The cargo was loaded, and tied down. The front strut indicated that the airplane was in balance and we were starting up number engine number four. We got the cargo door closed and locked; everyone got buckled in and we started the other three engines. Three, One and then Two in that order.

We completed our checklist items; we ran the engines up on the apron. Being unstaffed Mimi made the required announcement on the frequency assigned to the field as printed on the Jeppesen Chart and I flew our greasy mostly light grey bird off the runway. Miami was about four to four and a half hours in front of us depending upon winds.

As much as I disliked Lethem, it was a solid money maker for Icarus. It was our contract not a FSL, Fayetteville Springdale and Lowell, contract so we made money off of both ends. Only twice as far as the average trip for Sam we made almost four times as much money. We had been doing pretty well with Icarus and FSL, which pretty much meant Sam, who held the notes on the airplanes was impressed.

Fayetteville Sam, not to be confused with Bentonville Sam as he called that other Sam, the one that turned a variety store on the square in Bentonville Arkansas into the worlds biggest retailer... Sam was connected to the trucking firm we sold our original agency to. Our outbound loads usually consisted of their express packages, lots of American consumer goods for retail sale. Mixed in was the occasional airplane full of live baby chicks, which always left around midnight or two am due to the temperature.

Occasionally we would make flights up to Fayetteville Municipal, FYV in Fayetteville Arkansas, to pick-up those chicks. Those trips were big triangles, but pure profit, The ones to IAH, Houston Intercontinental, they ate at our bottom line, so we tried to schedule them for a return leg from Guatemala or Belize. Houston actually being fewer air miles from those points than Miami.

We were doing well and our clients were doing well. In a couple of years when Mimi and Mitch retired we had paid off the notes on the three DC-6s, and traded up to a single DC-8-73 that held slightly more than the three prop-jobs combined. It also flew twice as far at more than half-again the speed. It was a very long way from that dirty old Beech.

Guyana was our longest trip, just a tad further than Curacao, so as we flew over the island of Hispaniola halfway home Mimi took over and I caught a little nap. We had just traversed the eastern Caribbean Sea and that certainly influenced my dream. It was a beautiful memory from our too brief stay on Curacao flying around the five Dutch islands with runways long enough for our Commandos.

I loved the old Curtiss CW-20, the C-46 that flew the hump in the big one. I loved flying the Caribbean. loved Curacao, I loved the beaches there and snorkeling with turtles, walking through the old town and sampling the food. I loved our little vila near the airport with its many memories.

I loved the thick padded black leather cuffs that were on my wrists and holding me suspended from the ceiling of that villa by a sturdy rope. My toes were an inch or two from the floor. I loved the matching cuffs on my ankles attached to two lighter ropes tied to the side that spread my legs far apart. I loved being completely naked and totally helpless as my lovers touched me. As they spanked, slapped and flogged my buttocks and fondled them once red.

As they stood behind me fondling my breasts and belly and mound. As they sampled my increasing degree of wetness as their erections, that narrows it down, tickled my lower spine. I loved not being able to say, "lower down please guys, take a couple fingers of my lube, put it on you and push it in me." I loved not being able to say that, even as I wanted them to do that, because I loved the ball gag in my mouth muffling me.

I loved the black leather blindfold over my eyes as we played 'who is fondling Lisa now.' It, with 'who is eating Lisa now,' and 'who is buggering Lisa now,' are among my favorite games. We tried playing 'who is throating Lisa now,' but the blindfold would not stay in place. Not that I really minded.

One of my girls because... George's hands were on my breasts playing with my nipple studs. Punch's penis was on my left hip, and he was gently biting my neck. My girl who was in front of me was furiously two-fingering me and my juice must have been running down my leg and her arm. Someone was licking my rosebud, and then pushing a digit inside of me.

Those two fingers working my cunt became three and in a short while four. A mouth joined in the pleasurable assault upon my pussy. I came as four fingers became an entire hand. A different, female mouth was kissing my breasts and my right side. I knew it was Eva from her technique. So I had Punch and George and Eva figured out. That had to be Lillian fisting me, because Jamie had just started biting my ass. That meant Kristin was fingering my ass.

"I win," I thought to myself. Well, actually I won the moment Lillian walked out of the bedroom into the den, gave me an impish smile, and handed me the four cuffs and told me to, "get naked and put these on."

I orgasmed again from the attention my body was in receipt of, predominantly the fisting. My lovers stepped back from me. My legs were unclipped so I could stand. Wobbly at first, then my wrists were unclipped. The four soft leather cuffs were unbuckled from my wrists and ankles, and I was kissed a dozen or more times by my lovers.

Still blindfolded and gagged I was slowly led over to a narrow bed with the extra mattresses piled upon it and laid sideways across it on my belly. My blindfold and gag were removed...

As she switched the radio's frequency to 124.85 for Miami Approach Control, Mimi gently nudged me and I returned to work from my sweet dream. But that is life. There is always tonight, tomorrow and days to come when I can complete my interrupted memory. Or even better we can reenact it.

When I can be walked over to a bed or a padded table of the perfect height by my lovers and bent face down upon it. There I can take one of my boys' beautiful penises into my mouth and deep into my throat. While the other's gorgeous penis penetrates my butt. Where they can time their thrusts coordinating them either both-in-both-out or one-in-one-out, to my delight. Doing this as my girls slap my buttocks or lightly flog them and my back.

Or we can replay one the the greatest moments from my life. Where I similarly laid on my back on a padded table in our playroom in the 'House of Ill Repute' in Erewhon Texas. Each of my girls holding one of my arms or my legs while Punch throated me and George buggered me. Then the boys switched sides George in my throat while Punch fucked me vaginally. That was exactly the way that all seven of us did it when he impregnated me all those years ago.

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Lisa Ann