This is the third part of a series that starts with Monogamish--The Courtship. I hope you will enjoy it. If you finish this installment, you know the drill: vote, favorite, and especially comment, please. All the time-wasting BS you hear at the start of every YouTube video. More importantly, please note again that this series will jump from category to category as it goes along. Check back periodically to see if the next installment is up, or simply follow me for updates.
As always, I aspire to make my stories merely plausibly ridiculous, or maybe ridiculously plausible. Either way, this ain't real life, so don't lecture me on realism. I just hope that, given these two highly-improbable characters, you will feel like the ride makes some semblance of sense.
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MONOGAMISH -- The Bachelorette Party
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Linda and I seated ourselves in First Class. It was both of our first times there.
"Champagne before takeoff, ladies?" inquired the flight attendant as we stashed our bags under the forward seats, which were unfathomably far in front of our own.
"Already? Before take-off?" I asked in surprise.
"Of course."
"Please," we both said. As she stepped back to the galley, we looked at each other. "I knew we got free drinks, I didn't know they started before takeoff," I said quietly.
In moments, the attendant was back with our glasses of bubbly.
"This is wonderful," Linda said to her. "Thank you. Amy gets married next weekend so this is a nice little extra celebration!"
"Congratulations," our booze angel of the sky told me.
"We are on our way to New Orleans for her Hen Do," Linda went on.
"Wise choice," the attendant laughed. "I'm actually based out of Nola. It is a great place to party, and this is a great time of year for it." She swept off to hand out champers to other First Class passengers that deserved it less than me, such as the florid, stressed-faced man right across the aisle with four spreadsheets open on his laptop already.
"How long have you lived over here?" I snarked to Linda. "We've all told you a thousand times, we don't call them Hen Dos in America. It's sexist, girlfriend!"
"Oh, like 'Bachelorette Party' isn't just as sexist."
"True... but it's sexier!"
The six other members of our expedition got on the plane then. They had reserved an entire row across, back in coach.
"Look at you two," grumbled Kerrie as we held up our champagne and smiled at them innocently. "In the hooch already!"
"Get back to steerage, peons," Linda answered airily, taking a delicate sip with her pinky extended.
Various retorts were issued to that sally, but my friends are good citizens, and good citizens do not delay a plane's boarding process to blow raspberries. They deliver them on the fly.
There was the briefest of pauses in the flow of passengers.
"Psst!" I heard, and looked for the sound. The worn-out old guy, who had to be at least forty, and had a balding pate, was leaning over. He wore a sudden, subtle, conspiratorial grin that transformed his whole appearance into something pretty damned sexy. "Girls, we don't let the peons know we call them that up here..."
We giggled and raised our glasses. If we didn't stop toasting, we'd need a refill before takeoff. He turned back to his spreadsheets, and was instantly the frumpy, hunched, suit-wearing non-entity he had been before. You just never knew.
Linda and I were in First Class, with everybody else in (shhh!) peon class, because, well, our jobs made it possible.
Linda had graduated early, and had a much better job in most ways than I did. It had better benefits like more vacation, and involved a lot of international travel, so she had lots of miles to use for the heretofore mythical upgrade to First Class, at least on such a short flight. I also had a good job, just not as fun as hers, or with equivalent benefits. But it paid just as well, and I traveled for mine a lot, too.
Except that while Linda flew to London and Paris regularly. I flew to Lewiston and Paducah. But all those short hops added up as well, and here we were.
There was a delay for a few connecting passengers, and we definitely got a refill before leaving the gate. Then we had to slam them when the Sky Goddess of Booze came to collect the glasses for takeoff.
As the soft acceleration on the runway pressed us gently back, Linda turned to me. "So Amy, really, are you ready for this?"
"Absolutely, girl!" I chirped. "This weekend is going to be a blast!"
"I meant for next weekend. And every weekend after that."
"Absolutely," I said again, serious as a heart attack.
"It's just, you were Team Single 'Til I Die barely a year ago. Less than that," Linda said seriously.
"That was before Team Marriage included Todd."
"You were fucking him, among others, for a year before that," she said tartly. "Hell,
I
was fucking him about the time you started up."
I need you to realize, Linda was not trying to talk me out of anything. She just challenged every belief her friends had to make them stronger. Or make them go away. "Now you, out of all of us, are getting married," she went on in mock skepticism.
"Hey, I was happy with the old situation, until I decided I wasn't much interested in fucking the 'among others' any more, and told Todd. He's the one who escalated things directly to marriage! I was just going to be happy with monogamy." I looked at her from a morally superior plateau.
"An escalation you instantly gave into!"
"I did not. I made him wait all of six and one half hours before I said yes. I was playing hard to get," I informed her.
Linda just shook her head. "So if you two have been all monogamous for the seven months of your engagement, why are you so all fired up about being Amy, the wild woman this weekend?"
"Because I'm not married yet, and this is my last chance to be sexually irresponsible. I'm going to take it."
"And Todd?" she asked. "How will he take it if he finds out? And what if he goes all nuts this weekend, too?"
"First of all, he better go all nuts," I said firmly. "I told him if he didn't fuck at least one stripper, I was going to be pissed. Just now. Back in the terminal."
"Amy!"
