Aurora - Way of the Goddess Pt. 06

"That's Rebekah with a 'k' and an 'a' and an 'h'." Ally dutifully explained.

"They're coming to Canberra with us." Vicky said. "VIPs."

"Welcome aboard." the pilot smiled. Skin by Nivea, teeth by NASA.

"Ben's riding shotgun today." Ally explained as he and Watson shook hands. Beck extended her own hand in waiting. Eyes like saucers, it took every ounce of willpower not to stare at his crotch.

"Been on the Stream before?" the young man asked, shaking Beck's hand. Beck shook her head, bedazzled. "Not quite a magic carpet," he smiled broadly, "but she's close."

"You gonna need fuel?" Vicky asked.

Ally shook her head. "We tanked up at Tulla and she's hardly used a sip. We'll top-up in Canberra where it's a bit cheaper."

"Ladies," Ben gestured at the waiting stairs, "Mister Watson. If you'd be so kind to climb on board."

Beck's knees went weak at the very suggestion.

"Who was the kid?" Vicky asked, following Ally's round butt up the airstairs.

"Aww... poor little mite just had a heart transplant." the pilot replied. "He's only ten. Should see him. He's about the size of a five year old."

"One of the lawyers' kids?" Watson asked, third in line.

"Nope. Bogans from the badlands. It's Roger's idea. We're giving free rides to hardship cases if there are any spare seats."

Vicky shook her head and muttered, "Who'd a thunk?"

"The mother was as thick as two short ones-" Ally went on, "but you can't help feeling sorry for her. Poor dumb bastards. How the other half lives."

'No,' Watson thought, ducking his head, turning right into the spacious cabin. 'how the other ninety nine point nine percent live'. Disillusioned, stupefied, eking out a living- sick kids, shit jobs, up to the eyeballs in debt.

Beck came up the steps behind him. Setting foot in the plane, she turned on the spot and went, "Wowww!"

Which was something of an understatement. The aircraft was configured for executive transport, with six armchairs upholstered in beige leather, one of them behind a cantilever walnut desk. There was a settee on the left, with a drinks cabinet and workstation opposite. Picking up her cap, Ally stuffed it into a suit locker. "How do you like my office?" she asked Beck.

Beck leant past her to look into the cockpit. The instrument panel consisted of four huge flatscreens beaming high-definition colour displays. There were dual-control yokes in front of the sheep skin-covered seats, and between them, a huge, computer-crammed centre-console, sprouting thrust levers, reversers, flaps, airbrakes.

Heading aft with an air of comfortable familiarity, Vicky sat herself down behind the cantilevered desk and pulled out her laptop. Looking up, she gestured with her eyes at the seat across from her. Sitting himself down, Watson called Beck and pointed at the rear-facing chair directly in front of him. "Wanna sit here?"

Beck remained rooted to the spot, head and shoulders inside the cockpit, trying to take it all in. A technological wonderland, straight out of the movies. Ally put a hand on her shoulder. "How'd you like to ride up front?"

"Can I?"

"You'll have to stay quiet because we'll both be pretty busy, but if your dad doesn't mind."

"Dommy? Can I?"

"You sure that's okay?"

"It would be our pleasure," Ally replied, "wouldn't it Ben?"

"Well, nobody else ever takes any notice of us." the male pilot smiled. "At least it'll make us feel more important."

* * *

It was like being shot out of a cannon. Minutes after the wheels left the ground, the plane was climbing like a homesick angel, punching through a few puffs of cumulus, bound for orbit. Up in the jumpseat, wearing a headset so she could listen-in to the incomprehensible chatter, Beck dutifully kept her mouth shut, busting to ask a million questions, remaining true to her vow of silence.

Back down in steerage, deep in the embrace of the plush leather seat, Watson sat, chin propped on a fist. He would have jumped at the front-seat ride himself, truth be known, if only to revel in the female pilot's energy, to smell her perfume. But also to enjoy a once in a lifetime look at the inner workings of this incredible process; high speed travel in a sixty million-dollar biz-jet, up near the stratosphere. Still, none of it was wasted on Beck. She sat, harnessed to the utilitarian jump seat in his stead, absorbing every instant.

Perched behind the desk across the aisle, outwardly serene, Vicky was busy wrestling with riot of thoughts and emotions. Some unknown force had toppled her gyros. Her heartbeat had gone all erratic and there was an indescribable sensation in her groin- a kind of heat, a sort of weight, all tingly and throbbing and deliciously slippery. She didn't know it, but a lifetime's cultivated piety had just crashed headlong into the rocks of desire and in spite of the inculcation her body knew better.

Watson spent most of the journey watching the summer-brittle landscape scroll past way down below, but every now and again he stole a glance at his travelling companion. Once or twice when he looked he found the young woman's eyes on him, whence they quickly darted away to seek refuge in the laptop. Imagination running wild in the privacy of his mind, the old man crafted an entire fantasy out of the few fleeting glimpses of Vicky in her borrowed bikini. Not that they could ever be realised, of course, not without laying waste to the young woman's beliefs, but dreams were free and the possibilities unlimited.

Meanwhile way down in Vickydom, hormones were popping like fireworks in a New Year's sky. It wasn't Watson's doing, in fact, it was Beck's. Her natural perfume had permeated the cabin, igniting Vicky's own hyper-sensitised chemical pathways. Not only had she been recently fucked, even if it was by a couple of females, she was now in a state of high arousal in the proximity of two, incredibly beautiful archetypes- Ally and Ben- and the impossibly high-tech environment they seemed to manage with such consummate ease.

Beck knew by instinct she was in a situation of potentially spectacular lethality, high up in the sky, travelling at high speed, without the merest inkling of how to control this fabulous death trap. Were these two pilots, alternately rattling off checklists and talking to Air Traffic Control, swapping the odd insult and clearly enjoying themselves, were they to be somehow teleported away, it was an odds-on bet the passengers were as good as dead. And not just dead, but atomised, annihilated.

The landing, just on evening, was the icing on the cake. Manoeuvring over the hills to the south of the city to intercept some invisible beam, Ally hand-flew the Instrument Approach just for fun. Miles away, the tiny splinter of runway drifted into view, tilting and rotating until it was lined up, dead ahead. It seemed impossible at first that they could ever stop on such a short strip, but as the miles dropped behind and the altitude decreased, the world and the runway filled more and more of the windscreen.

The landing gear came down and the flaps extended as the engines throttled back on final approach. Racing over runway markings that looked like the keys of a piano, the aircraft pitched nose-up and the engines dwindled to a whisper. There was the merest thump and they were on the ground and Ally looked at her copilot, grinning.

"Eight." he said.

"Eight?" Ally scowled. "Geez, you're a hard marker."

"Seven, then." he turned and winked at Beck. "You were two feet off the runway centreline."

* * *

"I'm going to be a pilot!" Beck announced breathlessly for the twentieth time on the limo-ride to town. "Damon, that's it. I'm going to be a pilot. I'm going to be just like Allycat."

Vicky rolled her eyes. "Just like Ally? I don't think the planet could handle it."

Watson palmed his forehead. "I knew this would happen."

"How about the zoo tomorrow?" Ally smiled, hugging Beck's shoulders, "Then she'll want to be a zoo keeper."

"No!" Beck shook her head, "My mind's made up, I'm totally serious. I'm gonna fly."

Watson looked at Vicky. "Can I sue?"

"You know," Ben sighed, "it might be easier just to spend your dough on a good psychiatrist. Aviation's the pits. Ask any pilot."

"Unless you go to the military." Ally said.

"Which is worse, cos' you have to take orders off morons, who'll just send you to your death then get a medal for it."

"At least you get to blow shit up!" Ally grumbled. "A civvy-driver with no experience is worth less than nothing. You work for some cockrag turnout, flying some flogged-out old shitheap around, surveys, freight runs, the odd dodgy charter-"

"Don't care." Beck shrugged, "As long as it's flying."

"You gotta work like a slave, live like a dog-"

"But I love dogs."

"-no showers, sleeping in a swag, living on two minute noodles."

"Two minute noodles?" Ben cried. "Sheer bloody luxury. I was lucky to get chicken bones and sawdust."

"Yeah, well, it was only the one packet, fuckhead... I beg your pardon, 'esteemed colleague'... and it had to last me the first five years. And I had to cook them in battery acid."

Ben drew a breath. "You had battery acid?"

"I love two minute noodles." Beck said, and it was true. It was one of their favourite storm snacks.

Ben gave Ally a nudge. "And what about the exams?"

"Don't even ask."

"Exams?" Beck echoed, having had hardly a day's formal schooling in her entire life. "Love 'em."

"Flight checks twice a year, getting beaten up in the sim."

"And instrument checks," Ally added, "and night flying checks.."

Ben looked at her, frowning. "Bloody hell, Cat. Why do we bother?"

"I dunno." Ally hefted a shoulder. "Beats working for a living I guess."

* * *

The Hyatt Hotel on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin dated back to the 1920's, when much of the capital city was still rolling pasture. In fact the lake on whose shores it now stood was merely a vision when the hotel was built, the nascent city divided by a slow muddy river. Set in a prime location, spitting distance from he seat of power and a plethora of government offices and embassies, the sprawling brick edifice had survived nigh on eight decades, and the city's gradual transformation from sleepy Bush Capital to sprawling suburbia.

As the limo pulled up and the doors opened, Watson caught Beck's arm. "Try and look like a rock star." he whispered hoarsely.

"How do rock stars look?" Beck whispered back.

"I don't know. Drugged out and grungy?" He ruffled her hair and arranged a tangled blonde hank carefully over one eye. "There. And try to look aggro."

"Act natural." Beck said with a thumbs-up. "Gotcha."

While Beck and Watson, uncomfortably, and Ally and Ben like it was second nature, ran the gauntlet of a fawning reception, Vicky tore off in the limo to meet their fixer, his fee of five thousand dollars, hard cash, in her handbag. With his intimate knowledge of bureaucracy, and a complex network of secret passageways within the federal machine, their man in Canberra had personally overseen the production of Beck's passport, achieving in a day what would normally have taken weeks.

"Captain Watson," the concierge smiled, "welcome." He nodded at Beck, "Miss Watson. We've put you a few doors down from your dad."

As Watson pulled out a dog-eared wallet for the inevitable preauthorisation, the concierge raised a hand. "That won't be necessary thanks, Captain. It's all been taken care of. And Captain Blake, Captain Sorenson, welcome back."

As they headed for the lift in a loose gaggle, Ally tilted her head and looked up at Watson. "Captain? I thought you were a writer."

"Err... right. That's just one of Tanya's little jokes."

"Well are you? A captain?"

"Me? Now and then."

"Of what?"

"A forty-five foot cutter rigged sloop, named 'Aurora'. It's my office, kinda like your plane is yours."

"Interesting. Do you live on the boat as well, Rebekah?"

"Uh huh." Beck nodded, a little perplexed. Where else would she live?

"And you're a mermaid. Of course. Suddenly it all makes sense."

* * *

On his back on a bed made up with stiff white sheets, the old man stared out the double-glazed window, watching high-flying banners of cirrus turn burnt-umber in the sunset. The city's telecom tower, poised like a rocket ready for liftoff on a nearby mountain, turned gradually orange in the dying light. The room's air conditioner whispered quietly to itself, barely ticking over to maintain Watson's preferred temperature of twenty-four degrees. He was just drifting off when the phone on the bedside bureau began to warble and, flopping onto his side he picked it up.

"Captain Watson? Sorry to trouble you. This is Simon from reception."

"Simon, g'day. What can I do for you?"

"Miss MacDonald wants to know if you can join her at Griffin's. That's our meeting room downstairs. In fifteen minutes if you can manage that."

Watson's first thought was that there had been a hiccup with the passport and anxiety welled in the pit of his gut. "Did she say what it was about?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, no, she didn't. Just asked me to pass on the invite. Fifteen minutes? Will that be okay, or shall I call her back to reschedule?"

"Was she calling from her room?"

"From her mobile, Sir."

"Can you give me her number?"

"No, Sir, I'm sorry I don't."

"But you'll call her back if I can't make it?"

"Spot on, Sir. Fifteen minutes. Can do?"

Watson looked at his wrist, remembering as he did so that he had long since discarded his watch. "That should be no problem, thanks."

"Thank you Captain. I'll let her know."

A few minutes later, there was a tentative knock at the door. When he opened it, he found Beck outside, looking startled. "A man just telephoned." she said. "He told me I had to go to the lake."

Watson shepherded her inside. Turning around, she jumped backwards onto his bed and sat bouncing up and down. "The lake?" the old man asked.

"Lake Griffin. Out there."

"That's Lake Burley Griffin, idjit! Griffin's a room."

"Why on Earth did he want me to go there?"

"To meet Macca."

"Ohh, is that what he said? I thought it sounded a bit odd. Go to the lake for MacDonald's."

Watson lay down beside her and rubbed a tress of her spun-gold hair between finger and thumb. "I'm not sure they serve McDonalds in the lake, Moosh. Though I could be wrong. Anything's possible in this place."

Beck lay her head on his chest and, almost by reflex, her hand slipped under the waistband of his jeans. Her cool palm wrapped around his flaccid penis which after twenty or thirty seconds was no longer flaccid. "Careful, Moosh, we have an appointment you know."

"Oh... did he call you too?"

"Uh huh."

"To meet Macca?"

"Uh huh."

"What's she want?" Beck frowned, still gently jacking him.

"Ouch!" Watson winced as his burgeoning erection maxed-out its confines. "I don't know." he shrugged, sliding a hand down the back of her dress to stroke her back.

Beck lifted her head and looked him in the eye. "Feel like a quickie? I'm pretty horny."

It was tempting. But they were guests, and the young woman they were scheduled to meet had been working herself to a frazzle on their behalf. "Well, we could, but I'd much rather make it a slowie later on."

"You're on." Beck nodded on his chest, then yawned. "We've had a good time the last couple of days." she said sleepily.

"We have had a good time. And all because we helped fix some idiot's boat."

"Do you still think Roger's an idiot?"

"Well he was," Watson shrugged, "last time I looked. But he's a loveable idiot, don't get me wrong."

"Not to mention fuckable."

"I'll let you vouch for that. So what's been your favourite? Over the past few days?"

Meeting Tan? Meeting Caddy? Meeting Maya? Home movies, double dildos, Fisting, tribbing, sex, sex and more sex. The mall, the museum, the zoo, the pool?

"The flight down here. With Allycat and Ben." Beck replied.

Rolling onto her back, she slung a leg over Watson's belly then, taking his hand, pushed it down the front of her panties. She was wet. Not just moist or damp, but sopping, and Watson's finger sank into her folds without resistance. "You'll wet those duds if you're not careful."

"I already had to change them once." Beck sighed. "It was that plane ride. You know what Ben called Ally? He called her an aerosexual! And just like that," she snapped her fingers, "I realised. That's what I am."

"Aerosexual?" Watson snorted with laughter. "That's probably some sort of in-joke."

"Well it's not to me."

"But it's a joke-name, sir. Like Biggus Dickus."

"Why? I mean there's homosexuals, right? And bisexuals, and-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get the picture." Watson pushed his finger up to the second knuckle in her sucking insides.

Beck closed her eyes. "Mmm.. that's nice. How long can we stay, Dommy?"

"In the hotel?"

"On holidays?"

"We're always on holidays."

Beck slapped him. "You know what I mean. How long can we hang out with Tan?"

"Not long." Watson sighed. "Our flight back home's the day after tomorrow. And then it's back to boring old me."

"And back to boring old me."

Watson pulled his finger out and sucked it dry. "Except there's nothing boring about you."

Beck's cheeks bunched in a smile. "Well you're still boring."

Watson shrugged, not even faintly stung, and she rolled on top of him. "Just kidding, right?"

Bottom lip out, the old man wobbled his chin. Beck cradled his head against her chest and rocked him from side to side. "Aww... poor baby. Here, have a suck on Mum-mum's titty."

"It's gonna take more than, you horrible little girl."

"Is that so?" Beck stiff armed herself up. "Well guess what? Later. You're in luck."

* * *

Griffin's was a quiet little nook set off to one side of the main hall, luxuriously appointed with plush antique furniture, boasting a great big fireplace, presently dormant. As Watson walked in, resplendent in his finest jeans and a white-collared, light-grey polo shirt, three figures inside rose and applauded.

Watson propped. Vicky had let her hair down so he hadn't recognised her at first, until her luscious lips parted in that incandescent smile. She was dressed in a short, blue, pleated summer dress, covered in a montage of Manga characters, with a plunging back and a hem that coincided perfectly with her tan line. She'd swapped her trusty high-heels for ankle-length platforms, taking years off her looks and boosting her to eye-level

Standing by a couch on the far side of a round glass coffee-table, Captain Alley Cat was clad in skin-tight aquamarine jeans, rolled up at the ankles, set off by candy-pink high-heels, and a light cotton jacket over a fawn silk shirt. With the stroke of an eye-liner she'd gone from clean-cut young professional to voluptuous femme fatale, a tantalising butterfly fresh out of her shiny sixty million dollar cocoon. There was more to the young woman than met the eye, Watson realised, but then again, there always was.

Tall, blonde and broad shouldered, even more imposing in civvies than in uniform, Ben was dressed in navy blue slacks, red and black shoes by Gucci, and a plain, pinstriped white shirt. A stranger walking in might have been forgiven for thinking they'd strayed onto the set of The Young And The Beautiful, and Watson suddenly felt every one of his way too many years. He felt a presence at his elbow and Beck crept under his wing, warily eyeballing the strangers.

"There she is!" Vicky hailed, "Our very own, the one and only, our International Girl of Mystery, L two four one, nine nine three one zero. Ladies and Getlemen, may I present Miss Rebekah Watson!"

Ben and Vicky raised brimming flutes of French Champagne- Watson wouldn't have been surprised if they showered in the stuff- while Ally marched over with her strangely masculine gait and parked a crystal glass in each of their hands.