(The author thanks Nanarie for editing: any mistakes are mine and not hers.)
Grounded, it’s five am and the plane should have left at one. I sit on the hard plastic chairs, bored in the fog-bound airport, every crackle of the tannoy a quick shot of adrenaline, knocking back sleep and bringing false hope.
“Could the janitor please come to…” and I stop listening, my heart slowing, my eyelids drooping from wakefulness into the half-closed approximation to sleep is all I can manage. I run my hand over my face, feeling the rough growth of stubble gracing it and sigh. My back is stiff from the chair and I remember what a crime-novel obsessed friend had told me about the chairs in interrogation rooms. They’re sloped forward, so that the suspect, or “perp” as he had colourfully put it, is constantly on edge. Perhaps the same principle applies here, the slope encouraging you to get up, get going, and get gone. Unlikely, but regardless the only way I can stay on the smooth, orange plastic L-shape on the row of five we’re occupying is to lie flat out, my legs making a triangle with the linoleum floor, pitted with cigarette burns and scuff marks. I reach into the black travel bag at my side and root around for a distraction. My fingers close on the solid, intimidating weight of Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Great yes, but not the best book to read when you haven’t slept in twenty-three hours. Then I find a slim, metal object, expensive, extravagant, and with that lean beauty of a device built solely to serve its purpose, my MP3 player.
I switch it on and navigate through the menus, almost settling on a song then moving on. Willie Nelson, On the Road Again - too on the nose. Sweet Home Alabama, chancing fate a bit. Finally I settle on R.E.M.’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and jog the dial through to Departure, in the hope that serendipity will work it’s strange magic. It does… and the blue light on the player fades to grey and the text melts into the background and the battery dies. I’m too tired to get angry, so I sigh, and put it away, zipping up the black bag. Next to me my girlfriend exhales in a long, low snore. I look down at her head in my lap, her dyed-blonde hair balled (if you’ll forgive an unintentional pun) in my groin and running down my leg, gently tickling me. Her head’s tilted back slightly, her mouth gaping, tongue pressed lightly into her left cheek, uvula soughing almost imperceptibly as she breathes. She’s sprawled over the first three seats on our row, leaning on me in the fourth, with our hand luggage on the fifth and final seat, protected by my proprietary left hand. I take my right off the back of the seat and caress her chest, running my fingers over the side of her neck and over the hollow there, and down over one of her small, perky breasts, cupping it briefly and playfully tweaking her nipple into semi-hardness. In case anyone is watching, I put my hand on the back of the chair again. She gives a gentle moan, and a ripple runs up her body - a slight switch of the hips, her smooth buttocks arching slightly on the seat, her breasts hitched daintily, as if imploring me to touch them again. “Ohh…. yes” she breathes, so quietly that I almost don’t hear it. She’s wearing a thin cotton T-shirt with a picture of Garfield on it, no bra and her arousal is made even clearer by the small, sharp point of her nipples scratching the fabric, giving Garfield’s ears a three-dimensional quality. I think back to when we first met.
“Sarah, this is Guy”, said my friend Jack.
“Hey”, I said. Sarah said “Hi” and leaned in to kiss my cheek. I caught some floral scent, mango perhaps, carried on a zephyr that faded like a dream. We talked for a few minutes as U2 sang about what a beautiful day it was. We bandied the usual social lies back and forth, pleased to meet you, heard so much about you, how do you know…and as we did, I studied her. Her hair was blonde (whether it had been newly dyed, and the black roots invisible or whether I simply didn’t notice them then I don’t know), and her body slight. She was tall, perhaps an inch or two shorter than my six feet, with long, slender beautifully shaped legs, the exquisite arcs of her calves blending into her knee and the thigh building into the moderate swell of her buttocks. Perfect curves, emphasised by her painted-on jeans. Moving up, there was a slight gap between where her jeans stopped and shirt began, a tantalising glimpse of her panties in the dark material protruding - perhaps unintentionally - from her trousers and a hint of a taut, flat belly, her belly button a small hollow sighted occasionally when a movement gusted her top. Her blouse was only partially buttoned - the bottom two and top three were undone. The fabric was translucent, giving a view of her lime-green bra, its large cups swamping the small swell of her breasts. Her face was pretty, her eyebrows perfectly curved, her mouth likewise, with ripe, moist lips, her eyes a deep brown. Pretty, but it would have been a characterless beauty, unexceptional if not for the slight imperfection of her nose. At some point (I later found out it had been a wayward tennis ball), it had been broken and set just slightly crooked. The subtle effect enhanced her face - without it she would have joined the ranks of those slightly beautiful women with no real style of their own - undifferentiated, homogenised prettiness trying to emulate the Maybelline elan of a second-rate model.
“Get you a drink?” I asked as The Beatles now, wandered through Penny Lane. She wanted a Coke. I got it and a beer for me, straight from the cooler, condensation beading on the neck. We talked some more, enjoying the lively, hustling bustle of the party around us as men and women searched for fulfilment on a Friday night through the twin intoxicants of alcohol and sex. I’ve always been aroused by a woman finding me desirable - the glance at my groin or the pleased smile directed at my face - Sarah actually looked me up and down and ran her tongue round her lips. It’s desirous to be desired. Simply Red flushed out of the speakers, singing about a rollercoaster or some such.
“Euch, I hate this song” she said, smiling.
“Me too.” I looked her straight in the eyes, trying to gauge her possible reaction.
“Listen, you want to get out of here?” I said it as innocently as I could (a casual acquaintance of mine once asked a perfect stranger if she’d like to fuck, as if they were in an adult chatroom - Tia maria doesn’t come out of silk, apparently). Needless to say, I was pleased when she said, “Let’s go to my place.” Jokingly I replied, “I only meant, I’d like some fresh air.” Her face turned red and she stuttered until I cut her off with a quick, hard press of my lips against hers, one of my hands resting on her firm ass.
“Only joking”, I said.
It was a strangely passionless walk back to her flat, just a brisk stroll through the streets, casual talk. She stayed in a mid-price flat, about a mile from the city centre - couple of bedrooms, the rooms seemingly spacious, lot of work put in to achieve the effect. I sat in the living room, on the floral pattern couch as she readied herself. She came back in wearing just the green bra from earlier and a pair of plain, black cotton panties. I went to her and kissed her, leaning in to it, my tongue playing across her lips. I entangled my hand in her hair and stroked the top of her head and squeezed the back of her neck as my other hand cupped her right breast. She broke away from the kiss and led me through to her bedroom. It was plain, deep pink on the walls, a wardrobe and double bed, both made of pine, blue sheets. She unhooked her bra and let it drop from her small breasts, the silky fabric gliding easily over her smooth young skin. It caught for a moment on her swollen right nipple - a gorgeously pale rose - and the bra fell unevenly to the floor. I undid my shirt and slipped out of my jeans, standing in my boxers, my mildly engorged cock bulging with pleasant thickness against the material.
I went to her and knelt in front of her, my hands resting on the waist of her panties, my nose so close to her pussy that I could smell her arousal. She gave a sharp little breath of air and I paused .
“Is there something wrong?” I asked.
“No, go on.”
