Copyright 1999 Del Edwards (a nom de plume)
Her name was Porticia Ortho, she had told him and even presented a business card with her name on it as she sat next to him on a long cramped flight most of the way across the country. Hell, anybody can have a card printed with an invented musical name like that. Probably the rest of the information on the card was bullshit too, he thought. He had already settled into a window seat and was mentally forming his progress notes which he would shortly key into his laptop computer which was resting of all places, on his lap.
She had shiny black hair. As bright as the feathers of a raven sitting on a barbwire fence on a cold winter day. It was done in a pageboy, a long pageboy, his favorite and it was striking against the tailored tan business suit she wore. After a moment of eye contact as she stood in the aisle she glided into the seat next to him. Her profile was strong and clean. She turned her head toward him and made eye contact once again.
He was trying to get past the dark green silk of her blouse to caress her breasts with his eyes. She had seen it many times before. Sometime in the distant past it had irritated her but now she just gave a little smile of acknowledgement and tossed her hair flirtatiously. This was a good-looking man. Could she distract him for part or most of the long flight? It was a game worth playing, a way to pass the boring time of flight, travelling perhaps five hundred miles an hour but with the sensation of moving very slowly.
"On your way home after a week in the fields of commerce?" he asked her.
"Yes exactly, and you?" she responded.
"The same but with a project progress report to do so I can have the weekend to myself," he told her.
The roar and roughness of the thumping, banging takeoff gave way to the hydraulic whine of the landing gear being tucked into the belly of the plane. He dealt with the change of air pressure by swallowing consciously a couple of times and flipped open the screen of the laptop computer. "This goddess wants to toy with me just as a way to pass the time," he thought as he brought the laptop to attention with a command to accept his written words.
"Friday afternoons are that way," she added innocuously.
Ah, she's just chattering... women call it chatting, he thought to himself. They blither to fill 'dead air' as the radio diskjockies say... or they relate and emote to some sister in pain. Jeez, they can't even go to the bathroom by themselves, except on a plane." He examined her slim, firm, supple form again... the well-formed thighs, the flat abdomen, the rise to the breasts under the blouse and jacket... lots of the slim ones wear a bra more to hold the padding in place than to support moving flesh. But that's okay, 'cause when I undress her I want the proud flesh to stand out waiting for my touch, he decreed to all who inhabited the inside of his head.
She pulled at the edge of his field of view as she smoothly open the screen of her own laptop. Her lithe body coiled under the concealment of the tan suit but the undulations of the dark green blouse gave away the certainty that she was about to strike. The intuitive assessment center flashed a message across his mindscreen. "This is a hungry and demanding woman," shimmered in red in his mindseye. Such a bitch to think that she could on a Friday afternoon by the sheer amount of her beauty, fly into a man's life and lure him away from the soft, dedicated flesh, spirit and soul that was called Marsha.
He set to his task and in thirty-five minutes had recorded the activities of the week at the site. In the executive summary he told the bosses he was a half a week ahead of schedule and anticipated being a full five work days ahead by the end of next week. He clicked Save. It has been two weeks since Marsha had visited him at the job site in Aruba. John enjoyed what he did for the corporation. Lots of power and responsibility went with the job. And there was the satisfaction of seeing projects move from paper to hard reality.
Many an evening in some out of the way corner of the world he had bowed to his electronic mistress, the laptop that was resting on his thighs, pouring over rolls of blue prints and construction schedules. Sometimes he swore out loud at her calling her the Critical Path Method Bitchgoddess. But she had been faithful to him through several projects, spotting glitches, bringing conflicts and potential disasters to his attention. Her memory was faultless and her intellectual skills impressive. So much so that he had cloned her twice. Except for the report he had just finished there was an exact duplicate of her in his checked baggage. The triplicate was a permanent resident in the company vault. He got some strange looks when he asked that holes be drilled in his vault box so that power and data cables could be strung into the box... He didn't mind if people thought he was a bit eccentric. It sort of went with his reputation for being meticulous. He was being paid well for those traits. John was the kind of man who never shouted. And when his voice dropped to a whisper, silence surrounded him and all within earshot strained to hear every syllable so that they might instantly obey his instructions. He gently closed the laptop and glanced at the beautiful woman to his right.
She also closed her laptop and engaged his eyes momentarily. Then she leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, "Are you married?"
He shook his head 'no' and made a question mark in the air with his finger and then pointed to her. She responded with a shake of her head, raising her eyebrows. He correctly read the raised eyebrows as openness and acceptance, an expression of willingness to go further. She leaned toward him again and whispered, "You're travelling to be with your lover?" His eyes locked onto hers and he nodded slowly. Again he drew a question mark in the air but used his thumb as a pointer this time, aiming it at her chest rather than her head.
Porticia Ortho pressed the dark green silk blouse to her breastbone with her index and middle fingers, accentuating the small firm breasts under it as she shook her head 'No.'
He liked the directness she displayed and the gesture with the fingers to her breast spoke to him somehow. He glanced past her to the middle-aged man in the aisle seat to her right. He was trying very hard to not be obvious as he tuned into their conversation of whispered words and hand gestures. She nodded her head once and held up her index finger in the universally understood handsignal of 'wait a moment.' Her nail polish was lavender and perfectly applied to finely manicured nails. From somewhere she produced a gray cable and plugged it into her laptop. Then she moved the gray cable end toward his universal serial port like a penis seeking warm, wet friction and the satisfaction of ejaculation into his hard drive. Androgyny reined as she pushed her plug firmly into his port. With grace and flair she opened the screen of her laptop and motioned for him to do the same, flicking her wrist twice while giving the 'thumbs up' sign. He wondered for just a moment if her medium-length, lavender-painted fingernails would draw his blood when she cried out in orgasm.
When he opened the screen of his laptop, the challenge was waiting for him. "I'll bet you call her on Wednesday nights and jack off, screaming your passion for her onto the phone."
"I like the way you get right to it. Maybe I do, and what about you?" he typed and transmitted to her.
"I have no one to scream to," she responded.
"A beautiful woman like you, ha!" he typed to her.
"More a curse than a blessing. Men flee from me," she wrote.
"Your story touches me deeply," he wrote.
"Asshole! I have the same wants and needs as any woman... the supercocks come at me and I flee. I had hoped you were a regular guy... you are an attractive man, involved and unavailable damn you!"
"Wait, ... I am sorry to be so cynical... I have been up against some really snotty bitches. Tell me of you..."
"There is no man in my life at the moment so I was taking a shot... okay?" she wrote.
"I'll take that as a compliment, thank you. How long have you been solo?" he typed.