Flight to Sanity

Rachel gave him a playful punch in the arm, as he trailed off his sentence, while leering at her.

They laughed together again. In fact, Rachel noticed, when she was with Richard, she did a lot of laughing, and they were a great deal more playful together than she and Frank had been for...actually she couldn't remember the last time that she and Frank had been 'playful' together.

Richard handed Rachel a copy of the article that he was working on, in fact was doing the final edit on before he would email it to his publisher. He did have a deadline, but it wasn't for a couple of days, and he was actually ahead of schedule. But his story had worked to get Rachel over to his house again.

While Rachel read his draft in the living room, Richard went back to his office and went back to work on his story. He gave her about fifteen minutes to read it, and then returned to the living room.

"Well? What did you think of it?" he asked her, expecting a positive response. It was a pretty well written piece, he thought.

Rachel stood and approached him.

"Richard, this is VERY good," she said, as she more-or-less grabbed him to give him a hug.

"Why thank you, Rachel, I'm glad you like it, because your opinion is very important to me," he replied, laying it on, "Actually, I care more about how you feel about it than I do about my editor."

Rachel was flattered, and while her arms were still around him, she stood back a little and looked up into his face and smiled.

Richard smiled back at her, and leaned over and began to kiss her again, where they had left off two weeks before. But this time, as he kissed her, Richard took advantage of Rachel's tennis outfit.

As their tongues intertwined, Richard was running his hands up and down her back and shoulders, to the small of her back. Finding no resistance, he slipped his hand under her the short skirt, and began caressing her ass. He like what he felt, and Rachel was becoming more and more aroused, as she felt his strong fingers invading that space that had been off-limits to anyone but Frank for all of these years.

She continued to kiss him back, but now Richard's hands were under her shirt, gently massaging and kneading her breast, and when she still didn't resist, his fingers felt their way under the knit sports bra.

Rachel had been excited by Richard's fingers and hands on her body, and breasts, but when she felt his fingers gently rolling her nipples, which felt as if they were extended an inch, she almost orgasmed right then. There was an electricity that ran from Richard's fingers, through her nipples, and down to her clitoris — she was tingling, almost out of control.

Thank god, Richard backed off at that point. Rachel collected herself.

She almost couldn't say anything to him; she was on such an emotional high. The endorphins were raging in her.

"Oh my god, Richard!" she panted, "That was crazy. But I've got to go now."

Richard agreed,

"Yeah, I've got to finish this article, if I wish to keep living in the style to which I am accustomed. But Rachel," he said in a low voice, "I haven't been so excited by a woman as I have been by you, in years."

"There is a real electricity between us," he continued, "and I'm lost. I don't know what to do. After all this time, I meet the kind of woman who I would love to have kids with, and she's..."

"Yes, I'm married. But I have to agree with you — there is a powerful attraction there, Richard. I'm sorry; I'm so confused right now. I have to have some time to think," Rachel pleaded.

Richard put his arms gently on her shoulders, and placed a delicate kiss on her lips.

"I know. I feel the same way. Take your time. Give me a call, I don't want to rush you, or put pressure on you. I guess you can tell the way I feel about what's happened," Richard concluded, as Rachel left.

Rachel lost her tennis game that day pretty badly.

"Rachel, you are not focused today," called her partner, who then laughed, "not that I mind. You pay for the drinks!"

*** As Rachel had left his house, Richard was congratulating himself on another successful hunt. Rachel was definitely ready and randy, yet another proof that the slow approach, developing an emotional bond over a period of time, was almost always going to bag the game.

Richard figured that Rachel would be calling and begging to have him bang her within two weeks.

Richard was not one of those men who tried to break-up marriages, quite the opposite. In fact, he was discreet, never told a soul about his pursuit of married women, and so far as he knew, none of the women with whom he had affairs had ever divorced — at least not because of him.

He wasn't disrespectful about their husbands, he didn't get off on sending home 'cream-pies' or any of the more kinky pleasures that seemed to motivate some cuckolders. He just liked free-and-easy pussy and ass, and liked married woman because they didn't immediately begin expecting to hear wedding bells.

In fact, when they started looking like they were losing their emotional ties to their husbands, and transferring them to him, he would kiss them good-bye and send them on their way.

He figured that Rachel might be his little sex toy for, oh, perhaps three- to six-months, maybe even a year.

He wondered, as he always did prior to consummating his sexual conquest, how experienced Rachel would be when the time came. Not that it mattered — he would teach her what she didn't already know.

Richard was always amazed at how many husbands refused to give their wives oral sex, even if they demanded it for themselves. What an epiphany it was the first time he would go down on a woman who had never before had a mouth, lips and tongue playing with her sex organs. And when he would reach in with his fingers and find her g-spot at the same time; let's put it this way, women could get really angry when they discovered the pleasure that their husbands had been unwilling to give them.

There were still a fair number of married women who didn't know how to perform a good blow-job, or had hang-ups about swallowing. But once he had expanded their sexual horizons, they were always anxious to please, and were happy to be instructed.

Similarly, he wondered about whether Rachel and her husband, Fred or was it...oh yeah, Frank, ever had anal sex? Again, it didn't matter, because he would be screwing her ass sooner or later. He had noticed how turned on Rachel had gotten when he was fondling her tight little ass, and when he had slid a finger a bit deeper into her crack, she didn't pull away or seem to mind.

No, he was going to have a lot of fun with Rachel.

But, for the moment he had to get back to work, keep the money coming in.

***

Frank had just picked up his breakfast sandwich and coffee from the fast-food joint in the airport, and sat down looking with a blank stare out the window. He would finish his breakfast and try to schedule a later flight; then he would call the clients, as early as they would arrive, to explain his dilemma and see if they couldn't see him this afternoon. Damn, he thought, a lot of effort, probably all of it wasted.

As he watched out the window, he recognized his flight as it finally reached the head of the line on the taxi-way, and pulled out onto the runway for take-off. He put down his food for a moment and watched as the aircraft gained speed and became air-born. Without Frank Stevens, he mentally added. A lighter load, he thought with a smile, recalling his New Years resolution to lose 20 pounds. His breakfast muffin was definitely not helping on THAT front.

His eyes continued to wander, traffic, both service vehicles as well as other aircraft moving around on the tarmac. He found himself idly watching his flight as it went out of sight over the low mountain a couple of miles from the airport. He was about to get back to finishing his breakfast, when...

From over the mountain there came an explosive flash, followed several seconds later by the sound of an explosion which caused the windows in the terminal to shake.

Like everyone else in the terminal, without realizing it, he was standing up, staring. Could that have been... he continued to look as a black cloud of smoke began rising over the horizon.

Then all hell broke loose.

Alarms went off, and he watched as all of the fire equipment located at the airport rushed towards the smoke.

The aircraft still awaiting take-off stopped in place, although several incoming planes were still landing.

Frank looked back at the gate from which his flight had departed, and saw the gate personnel, looking as if they were in shock, talking on the airport phone system. The signs announcing the next flights were being changed to 'Delayed Indefinitely' and the airline staff people were running around in a clearly panicked state.

Within minutes there were police and fire department helicopters and vehicles passing in front of the terminal windows, on their way to the wreck site.

In a state of shock himself, Frank sat back down and actually finished the last bite or two of his breakfast, without noticing. He realized that he was finished, so he picked up his trash, and his briefcase in hand, stuff the trash into the trash-can by the entrance of the restaurant, and walked slowly back to the gate.

Half-way back, Frank was suddenly ill, and rushing into the closest men's room, delivered the breakfast that he had just eaten into one of the toilets. Ten minutes later, after rinsing his mouth, using a wet paper towel on his face, and washing his hands, Frank straightened up his clothing and started again for the gate.

He wanted to confirm what he thought had just happened — that the flight that was to take him to his meeting in Chicago had crashed, and to let the airline staff know that he wasn't on the plane. He figured that they would be trying to account for everyone on the flight, and although Frank had gotten his boarding pass, he didn't know if they would know that he hadn't actually made the flight.

Approaching the gate, he went up to the young man behind the counter, who was busy tapping away on one of the ubiquitous computer terminals.

"Excuse me," Frank started, in a very low-key way, thinking that the airline might want to know that he hadn't been on the doomed aircraft.

"Could you please go sit down, sir, I'm busy right now," came the terse reply.

"I'm sorry I can see that, but I thought..." Frank tried to continue.

"Sir, just go and sit down. We are dealing with an emergency here," was the impatient, now rather angry response.

Frank was getting a little huffy himself by this time.

"I think that you should know..." he tried for the third time.

"Sir, if you don't just go and sit down, I'm going to call security!" he said with an angry glance at Frank.

Frank just stood there looking for perhaps ten-seconds. He looked at the man's badge that said 'Manny LoCisco,' then he turned and walked silently away.

Fuck'em, Frank thought. Fuck'em all.

Frank walked all the way out of the terminal an out to his car in the short-term parking lot across from the terminal. He sat there in his car for a couple of minutes looking out of the front windshield, and then he began to shake.

He found himself shaking uncontrollably, and realized that he was crying as well. He could hardly breathe. He recognized that he was rapidly approaching a state of hysteria, so he sat back in his seat and closed his eyes, and began to breathe slowly and deeply. Over the next few minutes, he regained a modicum of control, as he got the adrenalin rush under control. He could still see the cloud of smoke above the terminal building from his parking space.

Finally, with his body under control, Frank reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He needed to call work and his wife and let them know he was alright.

He tried to dial, first his home number and then his work number, but he wasn't able to get through; all of the local circuits were busy. News of the crash had spread. Cell phones, the traveler's boon, were completely useless when everyone was trying to make calls at the same time.

Thinking for a minute, Frank knew there was nothing that he could do at the airport. There wouldn't be any flights by his carrier, probably not for a couple of hours, more likely, maybe for a couple of days, until the crash site has been secured, and some reasonable explanation for the crash developed.

Slowly and carefully, Frank backed his car out of the parking space, drove to the exit and paid the small parking fee, and exited the airport. He originally thought of going back to work, but then realized the futility of that, and headed for home instead.

He needed to hug and hold his wife and kids. He needed to let them know how much he loved them. He needed to understand how it was that he was still alive.

***

Rachel had made up her mind. She was going to call up Richard, and try to see him that morning.

It wasn't a decision she was making lightly. She knew that if they ended up at his house, they would probably have sex. She would become one of those women, desperate, in a complacent marriage, reduced to having an affair.

It was something that she never thought would be possible, she loved Frank too much. But she was weary; she needed the affection and emotional support that Frank hadn't been giving her for at least a year, if not longer. She realized she had been increasingly been relying on Richard for that support instead.

While she felt guilty about her feelings towards Richard, on one hand, at a subliminal level she held Frank as ultimately responsible for the distance that had allowed them to drift apart. Unconsciously, Rachel had been increasingly emotionally dependent on Richard, and the concept that the next step would very likely lead to a physical and sexual relationship with Richard as well was no longer unthinkable.

To be honest, after her last encounters with Richard, just the memory of his mouth covering hers, his hands roaming over her body, the excitement of being with another man after being with Frank and Frank alone for more than fourteen years — twelve years of marriage and being together exclusively two years before that — was giving Rachel an endorphin rush; her brain and her glands were anticipating the pleasure to come. It was part of that chemical process of obsession that drives men and women to do irrational things, risking everything to get that jolt of pleasure.

Rachel started to reach for her cell phone with Richard's number programmed onto the quick dial, when suddenly the phone in the kitchen rang.

It was Rachel's friend Ellen, and she seemed to be breathless and horrified.

"Rachel, are you watching the news?" she demanded.

"No, I was thinking of going out for awhile," Rachel replied.

"Wasn't Frank flying to Chicago on the commuter flight this morning?" Ellen persisted, and it sounded to Rachel as if she might be trying to keep from crying.

"Yes, but he's coming back tonight," Rachel told her.

"I think you need to turn on the news, Rachel; right now," she said with a sob, before she hung up.

Rachel, sensing the urgency in her friend's voice, immediately grabbed the remote control for the small television in the kitchen and flipped the power on. She sat wondering what was going on as the set warmed up. When the picture finally came on, it was still set to the cartoon channel that her children had been watching at breakfast, so she switched it to the station that had the local news.

The news channel was showing pictures from the helicopter that normally did the morning traffic reports, looking down on a scene of destruction and carnage. Rachel could hardy recognize what she was looking at — irregular pieces of metal laying in a widely spread pattern all over the area covered by the camera. The area was blocked off, and surrounded by fire trucks, police cars and emergency vehicles of every sort. Small fires still burned all around the wreckage.

It took Rachel a moment to take in the scene, before she heard the voice of the news anchor.

"The commuter aircraft, which holds 48 passengers and four crew members, was Flight 1170 to Chicago. We understand that there are no survivors, although officials on the scene emphasize that they are still searching. It seems unlikely, though, that any survivors will be located, since most of the areas that have not yet been searched are those places where the fires have been too intense for emergency crews to approach...The crash occurred less than three miles from the airport, in less than a minute of take-off..." he droned on.

The shock of what she was seeing threw Rachel back into her stool, almost as if she had been pushed. Where there had been her body's chemicals of pleasure and anticipation, instead now there was adrenaline — her blood pressure was leaping sky high, and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears.

Her peripheral vision was shrinking into a classic 'tunnel' where all she could see was the television screen in front of her face. She couldn't hear the words anymore. All thoughts of Richard disappeared.

She was screaming over and over again,

"FRANK, FRANK, FRANK!"

After several minutes of screaming, crying, and hyperventilating, Rachel slowly, like molasses dripping from a jar, collapsed into a heap on the kitchen floor. She was weeping and wailing, repeating his name, out of control for perhaps twenty minutes.

She never heard the door open, and her friend Ellen, tears streaming down her face as well, enter to find her in the kitchen. She got a glass of water, gently helped Rachel into a sitting position, and got her to take a few sips. Then Ellen was able to get Rachel back up and into a chair, where she held Rachel in her arms as she was racked with sobs.

"Frank, I'm so sorry, oh Frank, oh god, I'm so sorry," Rachel rambled.

"It's OK Rachel, it's not your fault, it's not something that you did," Ellen told her, trying to comfort her.

Ellen looked at Rachel, hardly recognizing the woman as her friend. Her face and eyes were swollen; her hair, always so perfectly prepared, was a wild tangle. As she picked her up from the floor, there were stains on her clothes from food that had fallen from the counter when Rachel had collapsed. A mental picture suddenly came to Ellen of women from millennia past, tearing their clothes, putting ash on their faces and hair to show their grief.

"No," Rachel sobbed again, "You don't know. I'm an awful person. I blamed Frank. I told myself that he wasn't giving me enough love and affection. I didn't even say goodbye to him this morning."

Ellen just held her, comforting her, until Rachel had calmed down a little, when Ellen made a suggestion.

"Rachel, why don't we call the airline and see what they know. Maybe they can tell us something," Ellen gently prodded Rachel to action.

Rachel nodded in the affirmative, her eyes swollen, tears running down, her nose running. She grabbed a tissue and tried to wipe away the liquid evidence of her grief, while Ellen turned back to the television and tried to write down the phone number that they were giving out for families of passengers to call.

When Rachel and Ellen heard the front door lock being turned and the door opening, they looked at each other in a momentary terror, until a voice called out,

"Rachel! Rachel! Where are you?"

Rachel's face suddenly changed, a look of hope replacing the despair.

"FRANK! Is that YOU?" she screamed, looking as he came around the corner and found them, Ellen and Rachel together in the kitchen, staring with looks of complete shock on their faces.

Frank took the last two steps, as Rachel threw herself into his arms, and they stood there in a silent embrace for minutes. Rachel's tears, now of joy, where falling onto Frank's shirt, as he kissed her face, her neck, her hair, and finally her mouth. In their passionate reunion, they were oblivious to Ellen standing there. When they stopped to take a breath, Ellen, with her own tears of happiness, interrupted.