Up in the Air Again

"Holy cow!" she said as she looked tentatively down below. "This place would give termites a wet-dream!" She looked appreciatively, almost longingly at the huge expanse of woodwork as she climbed down below. "What kind of wood is this?"

"Cherry. Except the sole, uh, the floor. Those are teak planks."

"No shit? Where are you?"

"Aft."

"You mean there's more? Just how big is this thing?"

"Told you. I've got an overcompensation problem. Through the galley. Follow my voice!"

Evans walked through the galley and into a huge cabin in the very rear of the boat. "Shit, Paul, that bed's bigger than the one I have back, uh, well, you know."

"Yeah, I know. Did she give you a rough time?"

She walked over and sat on the edge of the bunk. "I guess it could have been worse, you know? We never really got a chance to talk. She just put two and two together then walked out the door."

"Not the most mature reaction, but understandable, I guess."

"Maybe. But the funny thing is, I think she'd have understood if I'd moved on to another woman. I guess it's just such a frank repudiation of so many basic assumptions."

Overton was looking at Denise, at the trembling lip and the quivering eyelid -- all the classic symptoms of chronic stress, and he reached to her, took her in his arms. Her hair in his face, he breathed in, took in the now familiar scent of her and drifted back to Half Moon Street and the impossibility of their union. He ran his hands down her back, drew closer still and whispered "I love you so much" into her ear.

She pulled back a bit, looked at him through smiling eyes. "You do, huh?"

"It's a fact. Better get used to the idea."

"Paul, I don't ever want to get used to that. If I get used to it, I'll begin to take it for granted. And I don't ever want that to happen."

He nodded, brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

"Anyway, before I forget to say it, I love you too, Paul Overton."

Now it was his turn to smile. "That feels good."

"Now, don't take this the wrong way, but the last time we showered was in London. That was, like, twenty hours ago. I stink, and I need a shower. I don't suppose there's one on this tub, is there?"

"Tub? Tub? You calling my baby-doll a tub?"

"So. There's not, huh?"

"Well, not one. There are two."

"Shit."

"Well yeah, if you need to. There's two holes for that, too."

"Paul?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Before or after?"

He smiled, began unbuttoning his shirt but she stopped him, moved to his belt.

"I didn't have much to eat tonight. Still kinda hungry, ya know."

"Amen to that, darlin'."

_________________________________

They slept in that next morning, woke with a start to the sound of thunder crashing overhead. Overton hopped from the bunk and dashed to an electric panel and flipped a couple of breakers, then tip-toed back to the waiting warmth of her open arms. He slid in beside her, took her face in his hands and her face to his. They played tentatively while sheeting waves of rain pounded the deck overhead between blinding flashes of lightning and deep rumbling thunder, then he rolled on his back and as quickly Denise mounted him, took him in her hand and guided him inside.

"Oh God, yes. So good. So good," he gasped as he reached for her breasts. They were on a raging sea now, a sea of their own making, a sea of crystalline vibration, resonant need, renewal, heads thrown in ecstasy, panoramic insanity as an electric charge between gripping hands, orbits ever higher, squeezing thighs, wet kisses hot breath dancing tongues -- hands seeking hands, need meeting need, love seeking resolution, soul seeking soul.

Re-release, release . . . oh, this song of life . . .

. . . mind seeker . . . seek . . .

. . . chance dancer . . . dance . . .

. . . cloud flyer . . . come, fly . . . now . . .

She holds still inside this moment, lost inside craving penetrations of need now as undeniable as gravity; she feels the boat rocking as if in ancient music, hears water lapping against the hull through diamond shards of rain overhead. It is, she feels through seeds of this release, as if her orgasm has become part of some vast oceanic womb. She rocks back, leans back, looks up through the glass hatch directly overhead as banks of scudding black clouds race by -- now the clouds are close enough to touch . . . am I flying? -- and the power inside this moment comes to her, holds her as powerfully as his hands have all through this need. She is as one with this womb, is as one with the rain and the clouds and the thunder. And she is as one now, as one now with this man.

So good . . . this re-release . . . release . . . so good, this song of life . . .

________________________________

All storms pass.

Life goes on, if but tentatively for a time, while broken limbs fall down to rushing streams and tumble towards the sea. The sun returns and bright eyes turn to its warmth, spirits of wounded souls reach for the solace of sky; words of passion take wing on earthborn breezes and drift in ancient rhythm -- seeking release again and again.

________________________________

"United two three heavy, taxi to position and hold short of the active."

"Two three heavy -- holding short." Overton backed off the throttles and tapped the brakes as the 747 crept forward again. It was a Tuesday afternoon and they had been caught up in the usual rush hour pile-up of air traffic waiting to take-off; now, after waiting for almost forty minutes Overton was ready and anxious to get on with this take-off. On this off-season mid-week flight the old girl was less than a quarter full, and Overton always enjoyed taking off under these conditions. So lightly loaded, she seemed to want to leap into the air and climb at impossible angles back into the currents that would carry her around the earth at will.

"Checklist complete," Evans said, her voice flat and dull, full of tortured memory.

"United two three heavy, clear for take-off. Contact departure on one two seven decimal seven."

"Two three rolling, departure on two seven seven." Overton advanced the throttles slowly again and taxied to the runway centerline, then with barely a pause pushed the throttle levers forward to the stops. He smiled at the sudden acceleration, watched as the speeds reeled by quickly, and he pulled back on the stick barely half way down the runway. She leapt into the sky with the vicious pull of a predator, and Overton smiled when he thought of the people behind who would gasp in wonder as this huge bird took wing so furiously. Evans worked the departure frequency while Overton gently handled leaving the pattern, and their long journey across the Atlantic began again.

He had helped Denise get the last of her belongings from that physician's house over their last days off, but the two women had a minor confrontation as that day wound down, and Denise had been as fragile as a dove's wing ever since. Edgy and close to tears, they had driven the rented van back to the storage facility and unloaded her things before returning to Mystic and the boat, and Evans, now hollow from this first taste of bitter combat, soon grew brittle and darkly moody as the stepped back on board. He had made a salad for dinner but she wouldn't eat. She hardly spoke at all before drifting back to the aft cabin and retreating to the safety of her dreams.

But she had seemed better this morning, spoke gently and with assurance that things were alright, that the darkest part of the storm had passed, yet Overton felt some holding back within her words and her movements, and a sharp chill had taken him and held him while he watched her wake and dress. The long drive into the city passed in near silence, her mute, shattered confusion during the briefing in the dispatch office had not gone unnoticed, either, and that was cause for no little concern itself. There were, after all, policies about conduct in the cockpit that reached well beyond the confines of their time on the job. Simply living together now was in violation of about a half dozen company rules, and any actions they took that implied an improper relationship would be dangerous for them both. Marriage was out of the question unless one of them wanted to look for a position with another airline.

Now, as they climbed to the northeast along the Maine coast, he looked at her as the sun's last rays bathed the cockpit in fierce amber flames. She was fidgeting with a dial on the overhead panel, half her face suffused in honeyed-tones, half lost in shadow.

So much can lie dormant in the shadows.

A practiced team in this office, Evans worked beside Overton quietly, efficiently, hardly ever a wasted word or motion took her away from the almost symbiotic relationship she had with an airplane. But not tonight. She was all business on the outside, but smoldering anger hissed from the shadows, obscured all understanding of memory and understanding, and Overton realized he simply didn't know her well enough yet to read her moods.

He picked at his rubber-chicken sandwich for a while, then lost his appetite for the first time in weeks. He felt acute loss, bereft of the all-encompassing future he had constructed in his mind, and suddenly sure that she had had a sudden change of heart, he too grew stonily silent and preoccupied with his vaulting fear. He sat in silence, terrified that the hopes and dreams of the past month would evaporate in the fading light.

He fought back this terror -- fought to hold on to this fragile dream -- as they slipped deeper into the night. He looked down into the infinite darkness below, occasionally spotting the infinitesimally tiny lights of fishing boats working the Georges Bank eight miles below, then his eye drifted to the heavens just on the other side of the glass, just inches from his face. He looked at the impossibly bright stars that blazed in a sky so far from the light of distant cities, a sky so used to concealing danger and betrayal. He was surrounded by frozen darkness in every dimension, and as if in some relativistic trap, he felt time stop, felt himself adrift in a sea of exploding stars, felt waves of warm water washing over his body.

"I've got to hit the head," he heard her say, and he automatically donned his oxygen mask and scanned the panel. He couldn't even watch as she pushed back and left the flight deck. He looked at a couple of cells on the weather radar, listened to traffic ahead adjusting course around them, then asked Oceanic Control if they too could divert around the storm.

He was changing the heading on the flight director when he heard it: the deep, retching sound of Denise vomiting, the running tap, then more vomiting. She'd been gone almost fifteen minutes he saw, and suddenly he grew worried.

Ten more minutes passed, then she came back and settled into her seat, unbridled misery etched on her flushed face.

"You alright?" he asked, his voice muffled by the mask.

She turned, looked at him, nodded as she tossed him a benign smile, then took a paper towel and wiped her forehead.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yes, sir. Fine. Right as rain."

'Sir,' he said to himself. 'Sir? What the fuck is this?'

He shook his head, cleared the cobwebs from his mind, took the oxygen mask off and told her about the course change, then excused himself and went back to the head. She'd managed to clean up her mess pretty well but the tiny space reeked of anxious bile. He washed his hands and ran cold water over his face, then looked at the stony reflection he saw in the mirror. It was a stranger, he saw, someone he might have known once. But unrecognizable fears distorted the face in the mirror, and he turned away, dried his face, returned to his seat.

"You alright?" she said.

"Fine. Right as rain." He heard her laugh and he turned away, didn't want her to see the fear that gripped his heart. He craned his head further back, looked back at the pulsing glow of the strobe on the wingtip, at the gentle flexing of the wing, and he remembered who he was. The Captain, the man in control, the man whose very presence elicited admiring eyes and warm respect wherever he went.

"What a fucking load of shit!" he said, probably louder than he realized.

"What's that?"

He shook his head, kept his face averted. "Nothing. Just thinking out loud."

"Sounds fun. Uh, we're coming up on Shannon."

"Already? My-oh-my, time sure flies when you're having fun."

"Paul? Are you crying?"

"What? You kidding? Just allergies kicking up." He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face and eyes, pretended to blow his nose. "Okay, your airplane. You want to hand me the checklist?"

___________________________________

Evans taxied off the runway, followed a line of jets towards Terminal Three and brought the old girl in smoothly to the gate. Overton began shutting down engines, running through final checklists while Evans began filling out the endless reports that had to be dropped off at Operations on their way out.

Suddenly she bolted from her seat and made for the head, but she didn't make it and dropped to her knees, vomited on the cockpit floor. Overton scrambled from his seat and knelt beside her, felt her trembling and helped her into the head. When she was safely in he left the cockpit and walked downstairs and smiled as people filed out the door, and he asked one of the flight attendants to find the Gate Agent. A few minutes passed, then he saw the uniformed agent approaching.

"Sir?"

"Uh, we've had an accident up in the cockpit." Overton watched the man's eyebrow arch as only one schooled in Britain can.

"Indeed."

"Can you get a crew up there asap?"

"Right away, sir."

He walked back upstairs and into the cockpit, expected to find Evans still in the head, but was surprised to see her back in her seat, working on reports.

"Need a couple of signatures," she said as she handed him the clipboard.

He stepped over the mess on the floor and took the reports. He looked them over, made a couple of notes on one then signed them. "Got a crew coming up to take care of that stuff. Let's get you out into some fresh air."

He helped her up and got her bag, lead the way down the stairs and they darted out without a word to anyone, then made their way to through Customs and on to Operations. She ducked in the first restroom they passed and stayed in there for what seemed like half a minute, then she popped out smiling:

"Had to brush my teeth. I hate dragon mouth."

"Nothing worse. You alright now?"

"Yeah."

They dropped off their reports and picked up the crew billets and chits, and Evans ducked into an office and made a call.

"Looks like the Hilton," he said when she came out. They walked out into the terminal. They walked for a few minutes, then she stopped, looked at Paul.

"Come on," he said. "We'll miss the crew shuttle."

"Nope, my turn today. Follow me."

Almost as they had a month ago, she led him down to the Heathrow Express; once inside Paddington Station she led him through the teeming throngs to the taxi stand and pushed him inside the first cab she saw, wordlessly handing the driver an address before she sat. They roared off into brutal mid-morning traffic while Overton looked at her with questions now flying across his face.

They made their way through the city and soon turned up Half Moon Street. The taxi stopped at the Fleming and she pushed him and their bags out; a porter took the bags and she led Paul off toward the reception desk, but not before telling him to go sit in the lobby and wait for her. She fetched him a few minutes later and took his hand, led him to the lift and punched in their floor, and then led him happily back to the same room they'd shared six weeks ago to the day.

She opened the door and led him in.

Nothing had changed; the room even smelled as it had, and she went to the windows and opened them, took a deep breath of the cool air and held out her hand.

He came to her, but she stopped him.

"Would you open that," she said, pointing to a bottle of champagne in an ancient silver ice-bucket.

"Yeah, sure. What's the occasion?"

He opened the bottle in the presence of her silent gaze and the rumble of distant traffic, filled two glasses and walked to her side.

"Okay. I give. What shall we drink to?"

She handed him an envelope. "Why don't you have a seat, then read this."

He sat, opened the envelope, read the card she had so carefully composed with Miriam Davies at her side two days ago.

His hand began to tremble as he read the words on the card, a wave of tears swept his eyes as he looked up at her. "You're sure?" he asked.

"Oh yes. We made quite sure. She helped me write this, you know." She said this calmly, teasing him with a million unforeseen implications.

"My God."

"Oh come on now, Paul. Surely you expected this?"

"My God."

"Now Paul. He might have had a hand in this, but as recall, I think you did most of the work." Her eyes sparkled, a tiny laugh like distant sighs parted her lips.

"My God."

"Did I misunderstand you, Paul? Didn't you say you wanted a family?"

"Oh my God."

"Paul, shut up and take off your pants."

He looked up at her as if he'd misunderstood.

"I'm hungry."

Now he understood.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"One thing, though. You think you could see your way clear to marrying me?"

He looked at her again as he stood. "Well, let me think about . . ."

"Paul? You can shut up now."

They laughed, stood close and held on to one another, their union now complete in so many ways. She kissed him, ran her fingers through his hair while she basked in the glory of her ruse. The fight she and Miriam had staged for his benefit, all her help getting the results back in time, everything. Everything a best friend could have done, Miriam had done.

She ran her hands to his belly and let it drift down, and she rubbed him, then slipped her hand inside and stroked him.

"Paul, I said I'm hungry. Now take off your goddamn pants!"

"I've heard you gals get all sorts or strange cravings . . ."

She pushed him down -- cutting him off -- then took him in her mouth. She'd never once thought it would be so hard to take him with such a huge grin on her face.

*

(Once again, this is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons and events herein depicted is simply coincidence. AL)