Where are we going?" Gloria asked when, after having gotten her out of bed early the next morning, we were walking out to the plane.
"Today is sightseeing, by air. The American Southwest as you've never seen it," I answered. "We have reservations for today and tomorrow in Sedona, but it's getting there that is going to be fun."
We took a meandering route, mostly easterly in the morning, and then south to Sedona after lunch. Lake Mead followed by Zion National Park from the air; breakfast in Kanab before following along the mountains to Bryce Canyon National Park. We turned to Lake Powell and followed it back south, stopping for fuel and a light snack at Page, Arizona, before heading on our longest leg, south across the desolate badlands of Northern Arizona.
The barren landscape seemed practically uninhabited at first glance. An occasional scar in the landscape, a barely seen power line -- but without doubt it was one of the most desolate pieces of Arizona there was.
"Jimmy?"
"Yeah, babe?" I answered, glancing away from our flight path and the instruments for a moment to Gloria. Her hand reached out for me, I took mine and dropped it from the control wheel. She pulled it to her lap, just holding on.
"Did you like last night?
I wondered where this was going, but answered truthfully after a moment. "I did. A beautiful lady, a good dinner; a sexy show that turned us both on followed by a romp in the hay -- what wasn't there to like?"
"What about the night before -- with Mary and Steve?"
Uh-oh. I wasn't sure what I sensed, perhaps insecurity? I couldn't tell. "What about it?"
"Did you like it? Sharing me with Steve and Mary?"
Ahh - interesting choice of words, 'sharing.' The thoughts of potential jealousy or insecurity didn't seem to match her mood or her question. I didn't just throw out an answer however, thinking about the answer before I did. Although Mary and Steve had become, in just two short meetings, intimate friends -- that's all they were to me. Sex with them had been fun, mutual satisfaction without any repercussions as far as I'd been concerned, but still - knowing Gloria's conservative background, her mental, if not physical, abuse from a dominant husband - I was aware that nothing she asked was flippant or trite. "Yeah, I did. I loved seeing you enjoy yourself with Mary, and the two of us pleasuring her, and all of us pleasuring you..." I stopped short of saying anything about Steve fucking her. "What about you? Did you like it?"
"Uh-huh. I did." Her gaze went past me to the outside, but she didn't let go of my hand. "Even when we went back to the room, I wasn't completely sure. But when you came back from your shower, when it was just you and me and Mary -- I just
knew
I wanted to share you with her, for
you
to give her the pleasure you give me. And then sliding your cock into her, knowing I've felt the exact feeling that she was feeling, that I was
sharing
my pleasures with her, I guess that's when it really clicked in my mind that there really
is
a difference between sex and love. You've given me so much pleasure with no strings attached and suddenly I realized that it was a two way street. I hadn't
really
felt that way with Ronnie. until then. I hadn't given myself to Steve, or accepted his gifts to me, until then. And then you were fucking Mary and I was watching, and I wanted to cheer her on. I wanted to have her tell me how good it was having your cock in her, and I wanted to help -- I wanted us to make her cum. And right in the middle of it I felt from her that it wasn't just that Steve wanted to fuck me, but that
she
wanted to share Steve with me, for him to give to me exactly what you were doing for her. You know what I mean?"
"I think so." Ok, this was good.
"I'd had this little bit of doubt, feelings of cheating. Even though you've been having Janet and I knew about it, and I've been with Ronnie, still -- there was this feeling that somehow I owed you something. And it was in that moment that I realized that wasn't the case at all. It was more like we were weren't just taking, but we were sharing. Friends showed up and we invited them to share with us -- and we had plenty to go around."
"I was just sitting here thinking, if Mary and Steve invited me to go to visit them for a weekend, would I go? It wouldn't be any different than when you were watching while I was sucking Steve and she was going down on me, or when he was fucking me and she was kissing and playing with me -- except that you wouldn't be there. And I realized that just to go up and spend a weekend with them, without you, wasn't what I wanted, I'd want to take you with me. I want to share you with them, to let them experience how wonderful you've been to me. Remember when I talked about looking for my Prince Charming to sweep me off my feet and take me to his castle to live happily ever after?"
I did. "Yeah, barely. That first weekend, after I met you on the plane -- you'd said something about meeting your knight in shining armor? I think that was it."
"You let me know almost immediately you weren't my knight in shining armor -- but you really were. You didn't take me to your castle where we would live happily ever after, but you did help me out of my own dungeon, to find out I have my own castle that I can live in without having to depend on some jerk like my ex, and sharing myself with others isn't a bad thing."
I glanced at her again just as I had been doing, never for long, just keeping her right in there along with my quick scan of the instruments and the watch for other airplanes outside the window. Something behind her head caught my attention and I stopped, looking more intently. "There's another plane," I said, my arm coming up to point it out. The other plane was crossing our path, and appeared to be below us, but hadn't moved in relation to the windshield so I wasn't sure that we weren't on a collision course. "Black spot, just ahead of the wing, I told her, immediately returning my scan to everywhere else. It's never the plane that you see that's the problem; it's the plane that you don't see. Now that I knew he was there, it was only a matter of tracking his relative movement.
"Oh, I see him," Gloria said. "How in the world did you see him? He's so small."
She pointed him out to me this time, and relatively I could see he would be passing ahead of us as long as he kept his present path. "You just see things out of the ordinary; something that didn't belong. He's on your side, so just keep an eye on where he is for me until we pass."
"So what are you saying? That you enjoyed playing with them the other night? That it turned out Steve was a good lay?" I asked, returning to the conversation when the present danger of another aircraft had lapsed.
"Yeah, I guess," she giggled, pulling her hand away from mine to slap my arm. "He did me good, but not as good as you do."
"Oh I don't know about that," I answered, "you're just more experienced with me."
"No, it was more than that. You get in my mind, you know what I need, but I had to guide him to what I needed." I never answered; my eyes having just spied Meteor Crater directly off the nose, probably 30 miles ahead. The wonders and precision of modern GPS navigation never cease to amaze me.
I began to let down from our altitude and slowed, dialed in the airport control frequency for nearby Winslow airport to listen for other aircraft in the area, allowing us to circle the nearly perfectly round hole in the ground of Meteor Crater National Monument several times. Afterward, turning back West we followed Interstate 40 and then flew around Flagstaff and the Sacramento Mountains, seeing the nearly perfect cinder cone volcano of Sunset Crater, before turning south again and letting down through the Red Rock cliffs to our destination of Sedona.
After tying down the plane, Gloria stepped in front of me when I went to reach into the baggage compartment. I stopped and her arms went loosely around my neck. "That was the most amazing trip I've ever been on."
"Liked that, did ya?" I asked, slipping an arm around her and hugging her to me.
"I've seen things today I never thought I would -- and all in one day. I had no idea how
fast
it really is to fly, at least when you don't have to go through security lines and traffic jams. And the most amazing thing -- that hour between Page and Meteor Crater -- after we left Lake Powell I don't think we saw
anything
until we got to the Winslow area. I didn't even see any roads."