Tom McKay hated to fly. Absolutely hated it.
If he had his way, Tom would travel exclusively by car or bus or train, anything but getting into a plane and flying Lord knows how many thousand feet above the ground.
But alas, sometimes life doesn't work out that way. It certainly hadn't for him.
Like it or not, Tom had been forced to take air travel halfway across the world for an important business meeting with the company's top clients, and though he'd fought tooth and nail to have someone- anyone, else take his place, in the end, the duty fell to him.
Which was how he found himself on a red-eye flight with his fingers practically digging into the armrests of his first-class seat, his heart beating like a jackhammer from the moment he sat down.
He couldn't read, couldn't pay attention to anything on the screen on the seat in front of him, couldn't eat a bite of the provided meal, and most certainly couldn't sleep. Every second since they'd left the safety of the ground behind had been spent worrying and waiting for the inevitable catastrophe Tom had always envisioned would occur if he ever stepped foot on a plane.
His only refuge, such as it was, had thus far been looking at the flight attendant whenever she made her way along the aisle of the otherwise empty cabin he'd found himself in. And, if nothing else, those brief moments had caught his attention and got his heart beating for completely different reasons.
Seeing as he actively chose not to fly, Tom had no way of knowing if all airlines still had their flight attendants dress the way this one was, but he was quite glad that this one had seemingly chosen to. There was just something about the slightly retro attire that suited the woman he'd snuck glances at these past few hours amazingly well.
A dark blue jacket and skirt kept her upper body looking quite modest and professional even as they showed off her incredibly well-toned legs, wrapped up nicely as they were in a pair of dark nylon stockings which dove-tailed magnificently into a pair of black patent leather heels.
White nylon gloves covered her hands, and a red and white scarf wrapped around her neck along with a dark blue pillbox-style hat resting atop her long, dirty blonde hair completed the look and brought a smile to Tom's face whenever she made an appearance in the cabin.
Every time he heard the clicking of her heels coming down the aisle, for a few seconds all his worries, all that tension, every nightmarish vision which filled his head about what could possibly go wrong, they all melted away when she passed him by, only to return once she made her way into the next section of the plane.
Over the course of the last several hours, those moments had been the only thing keeping him together. But it wasn't enough.
There were still several hours to go before they landed, and at the rate things were going, he was liable to have a heart attack or at the very least embed his fingers into the material of the armrest so deep the crew would need to forcibly remove them. Tom almost wished he weren't alone- at least if he had a chatty seatmate, it would've been a distraction of sorts. Such as it was, he was on his own.
While his mind reeled over and over again with a seemingly never-ending barrage of fears and worries of fiery crashes or wings falling off mid-flight, the familiar sound of clicking heels on the floor suddenly reached his ears, followed by the sweet scent of the flight attendant's perfume, and for a moment. Tom felt alright once more.
However, the clicking stopped after a few seconds, and with a quick glance at the aisle, he realized why.
The flight attendant was standing beside his seat.
Gazing upward, Tom took in the sight of her in earnest, having been forced to make do with small glimpses whenever she walked by. Her dark eyes looked down at him and her pink lips were pursed in a smile, both of which only added to her beauty. She was absolutely stunning, and the addition of her uniform made him feel better in more ways than one.
"Excuse me, sir." she began, her voice sweet and slightly accented- Russian, if he had to guess, or something similar, "But I've noticed you seem a little... how you sat, tense? First-time flyer?"
Tom nodded. "Yes... Just not really a fan of being up in the air you know?"
She smiled but quickly turned her attention to the armrests. "Well, you are certainly the worst case I've ever seen... Perhaps you could let go of those before you hurt yourself?"
Try as he might, Tom could not bring himself to do even that. It was as if somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, he was convinced that if he let go of the armrest for even a second, that was when the catastrophe would occur. It was foolish to be sure, a little childish as well, but his mind was made up. "I... I don't think so... I'm sorry..."
The flight attendant sighed and rolled her eyes- not in a mean way, but more as if she had seen his type before and was more or less going through the motions. "Then maybe I could get you something to drink? To take the edge off?"
He had considered this earlier in the flight, but alas, he wasn't a big drinker, and besides, if something were to go wrong, he preferred having all his mental capacities working. Even if they weren't liable to do him any good once the panic overtook him or the plane crashed into the ocean or something similar.
"Thank you, but no... I'll be fine... I think."
The moment she'd started talking, Tom had struggled to keep his eyes on hers and not move along her body. It wasn't easy- her uniform offered so many things to look at, though truth be told, his gaze was practically begging to stare at her legs and her heels and to think about what her stocking-clad feet looked like inside them.
One of the reasons he'd enjoyed watching her walk by, besides her beauty, was that. Tom had a bit of a foot fetish, and there was something about women in uniforms such as these that got his blood pumping more than anything else. And like it or not, it certainly was now, especially to one particular part of him.
And she'd noticed it.
Having seemingly exhausted her usual options, the flight attendant had been racking her brain, trying to come up with something else that could help- it was her job to make sure the passengers had an enjoyable flight, and this one certainly wasn't. Yet as she looked him over, she noted his slightly calmer demeanor around her, as well as his eyes' inability to stop themselves from looking down her body.
