Modern Day Cavegirls - Bobbi's Tale

That took maybe five minutes and they were pulling into Bobbi's driveway. The small house at the end of it with three others nearby looked like nothing other than what it was; the sort of plain-jane, nothing special house that was erected in the millions back in the day.

"Don't expect much," she smiled a little uncomfortably, "There used to be about five buildings here to house migrant workers who came to work on this farm back in the 1920s and 30's. Dad and I tore them down years ago. These buildings were built by my great grandfather for the foremen and their families, since they stayed year round.

That was a long time ago. I've fixed it up a lot and put in more electrical service because I got tired of having to unplug everything just so I could use my hair dryer, but it's still nothing close to a normal house today."

She pointed, "I was born in that house right there. Momma's been dead for a long time now, but my father still lives there with his girlfriend."

She saw the curious look that Malikah wore and she smiled, "Dad and I keep weird hours, though at least his are regular. He does get in late some days. Me, I come and go when I need to. I moved in here just before Momma got sick. I didn't want to disturb them."

Bobbi set everything down to unlock the door. As they stepped inside, Malikah asked, "Is this ice a big problem when you fly?"

"Sometimes," Bobbi nodded, closing the door after Malikah "Icing can be a huge danger if you're in the right conditions for it to form and don't notice it in time. Usually, the weather people know when those conditions can occur and it gets posted into the weather reports that all pilots access before they fly.

But that stuff back there? I'd guess that it was a big surprise for everybody - especially us. That's why I mentioned it to the tower. They'll pass it on and tell anyone who is on their way there, so they won't get the kind of surprise that we got.

If I knew that was there, I'd have come in on the back course from the other direction. The Twin Otter is very good when you're in a spot where you need to haul it around in a tight turn. It was made for bush flying and it's very tough. One was even used in a rescue down in Antarctica."

She looked into Malikah's eyes and saw something there, and so she was almost, though not quite, prepared for what came next.

"What is the worst icing - as you say - that you have ever flown through?"

Bobbi saw that look and she just knew that it was a request as well as a question. Malikah was asking for a no-bullshit answer; and not just a 'hey, no big thang' reply.

They weren't a customer and the provider of a service any longer. She suddenly felt the way that they were already friends and that it was the time to answer straight up.

She looked down, "I've flown through worse when I was in the Air Force, but it wasn't the same thing. A Hercules can bull through a lot. That's why they use them to fly through hurricanes to measure the winds.

As a civilian pilot, ... "

She sighed heavily, "That was it."

She could have sworn that the only sounds then came from their breathing and the moment seemed to last forever.

Malikah had seen and felt the tension in Bobbi as she'd flown their approach. Not being a pilot, she hadn't been aware of the peril at the time. But she'd put it together now, and she also saw that her question had an effect on Bobbi.

Malikah did not want that - not in the one who seemed to possess the amazing ability to make her laugh freely and feel thrilled just to be near her. She decided that she knew at least something of what seemed to be hanging between them. Maybe it was time to push herself for once, as well as push whatever this was between them. Why not?

Malikah reached for Bobbi and then Bobbi was amazed to feel that embrace - something that she'd never experienced in her life - not like this. She was shocked at the feeling but she managed to raise her arms and hold onto Malikah.

"I didn't expect icing," Bobbi said, almost in a whisper, "It's summertime. I, ... I got us down as fast as I could into warmer air. If we weren't that close and in the mountains, I'd have turned back, Malikah. I'd never have risked it, but there, ..."

"I know," Malikah whispered back, "I know, Bobbi. I only asked because I suddenly knew why you were so intent and silent then. My luck to travel with such a pilot."

Bobbi wanted to shake her head, but there was no room for the gesture, "Any decent pilot would have - "

"Stop," Malikah sighed, "I was not with any decent pilot. I was with Bobbi and happy to be."

She drew back and looked up very slowly and they just fell into each other's eyes.

Before Bobbi could will herself to move or do much of anything other than breathe in the soft scent of Malikah, the girl reached up and then turned up her face a little as she kissed Bobbi very softly.

It lasted several seconds and then Malikah broke the kiss and whispered, "Thank you."

"But, ... but you weren't in any real danger yet. We were in warmer air and losing the ice pretty fast, and - "

She stopped, finding Malikah's finger against her lips. Two seconds later, the finger was gone and Malikah said only, "My thanks was for the kiss. I have never done something like that before.

Have you, Bobbi?"

Bobbi struggled for a moment. How the hell to answer that?

But it looked to her that Malikah didn't want to back away, so ...

She nodded once, "I've always been attracted to girls too. I never acted on it much, mostly because I never found the chance to - other than a couple of times in the Air Force."

Her shrug was an almost imperceptible thing, "I've never had any kind of serous relationship if that's what you mean. I've always been stuck in my closet, wandering around in there lost most of the time and shit-scared to do anything about sneaking out of it."

Malikah nodded and drew back a little more, "I had thoughts when I was at university in Algiers. I even had a pair of friends that I knew were like me. But I was never that brave to even try.

Where I am from, Bobbi, such a thing is a little rare in some ways and if it happens, it is always hidden. But I lived in a Berber village and I am not a Berber. Well, that is what most of the people there were.

There were none like me there. I was the only Imouhar, so I was already left alone all of the time - except for the men who often came to ask for me as though they were thinking of me for a wife. I knew that it was a bad choice for me to make.

Mostly, I was the loneliest girl in the village. And of course then, I had all the time in the world for my thoughts because nobody came to ask or tell me things."

She moved back just a little more and Bobbi wanted to reach out to stop her. But then she saw Malikah's dark hand reaching up to find the zipper on her flight suit.

She pulled it down past her navel and then she opened it enough to reveal her breasts to a large degree.

"There are no mountains here to crash us into. I wish to see your smile, Bobbi."

Bobbi's shy response was instant and they both sighed.

Bobbi's fingers were fumbling as they flew to her own zipper and she yanked it right down. "And I want to see if you can manage a sloppy grin," she smiled with a soft chuckle.

They both stared and then they embraced again, not saying anything for a long time.

"What is Imouhar?" Bobbi whispered after a while

She felt Malikah's smile against her cheek, "You wish to learn of my mystery? You can learn all that you wish on the internet, only do not use that word. You will get more results if you search for Tuareg."

Bobbi was confused, "Tuareg? I thought that was ..."

"I will write it down for you," Malikah sighed as she nuzzled her face against Bobbi's neck, "We are a people without a country, since everyone carves up the Sahara for themselves and they do not ask us - the ones who have lived there the longest. It is a word which we do not like, but it is how most others know of us.

There was a quiet grumble in between them from Bobbi's stomach and Malikah pulled back to look up.

"Are you still hungry? We should either eat what Damian provided or put it away in the refrigerator," Malikah said.

"If I can sit with you and talk, I'd be very happy," Bobbi smiled.

Malikah knew what this was and she shook her head, "No. I will eat a little and you will eat with me, Bobbi. Only for a little while and then even you must sleep."

So they ate a little and talked for half an hour, sometimes reaching in through the open zippers just to touch each other's skin for a moment since it always brought renewed smiles to them both.

And by then, the sky was just beginning to lighten.

"We'd better try to get some sleep" Bobbi sighed, "I've waited too long to just sleep in on my first day off. You can have the bed and I'll sleep - "

"In the bed - with me, I hope," Malikah grinned carefully, "I think that we will only sleep. Why should either of us sleep badly when there is such a large bed?"

"I like a double bed so that I have less chance at waking up on the floor. I kind of toss in my sleep," Bobbi said.

"You have never had me there in it to calm you," Malikah smiled and for some reason, it actually made sense to Bobbi.

Bobbi had no argument for it and they just went to bed, peeling off their opened flight suits to get into bed naked.

"This could be a challenge," Bobbi grinned a little, but Malikah held up a finger between them.

"I will be here for a time," she said, "I find such wonder about your body and I think it is the same with you. Something such as this deserves to be discovered when we are rested. You do not know it, but I need this. I am out very far just to lie with you like this. I enjoy it and wish also to go farther, Bobbi."

Bobbi put her arm around Malikah, "I hear you, and you're right, dammit."

Bobbi was just reaching for the light switch on her bedstand light when she heard Malikah laugh quietly and it ended in a rather sweet giggle.

"What?" she asked.

Malikah wrapped herself around Bobbi very slowly and laid her head on Bobbi's chest with a smile. "I think that there is so much here for us both to feel fascination over. I love how we are so different, but I have been ... stuck, I think you would say, over your lips. I have never seen lips so light and lovely. It made me wonder if there were other things on your body like that."

She lifted her head to smile at Bobbi with a look of absolute delight, "And now I see that there are!"

She kissed Bobbi's nipples once each and then she put her head back down.

Bobbi reached to caress Malikah's head and the top portion of her long braids because she had no words.

She'd felt Malikah's kisses, of course.

What amazed her was that she'd felt the kisses on her skin, but she could have sworn that she'd felt them actually land somewhere deep inside of her chest.

They drifted off in a little while, each one wondering about how good it felt to sleep with another.

---------------

Somewhere around eight o'clock, Bobbi opened her eyes in warm sunlight and found Malikah on her side against her and looking down at her with her arm lying over her belly.

She smiled and kissed Bobbi once, "Go back to sleep," she whispered, "I am enjoying the light of the new day as I look at you. I woke up and watched the light come in the window and travel across the room to find you."

Bobbi reached up and pulled Malikah down, "This isn't the Sahara, sweetie. I don't have the brain to think deep things like that through at this time of day. Come on and hold me some more if you really want me to sleep."

Malikah nodded and eased herself down while Bobbi rolled over onto her side to face her and Malikah immediately put her leg over Bobbi.

After a moment, Bobbi said, "Aren't you going to ask me what I meant?"

Malikah's face could still take Bobbi's breath away. She didn't smile or anything. She only looked and nodded, "Something that I have learned about you.

Sometimes, nothing needs to be said, so there is no need to ask anything. I am here and it is enough, Bobbi. Go to sleep."

-------------

"Don't you ever sleep?" Bobbi asked over the rim of a cup of strong coffee as she considered the breakfast that Malikah had ready for her.

"You were awake when I found you looking at me and now I find that you've been busy cooking while I slept after that."

Malikah pushed the plate of food across to Bobbi, "If you had not been flying the whole day yesterday. Would you have slept if you found me in your arms as we were?"

Bobbi shook her head, "No. I don't think that I'd have been able to close my eyes. I'd be afraid that when I opened them, you'd be gone and that it was only a dream."

She sat back then in a little surprise, "Whoa. That was a little deep for me this early in the day."

Malikah smiled, "I was not flying. I was with you. So you might imagine the way that I felt to see you with me and my want to look at you. I slept Bobbi. But I always woke up to see if you. ... were still ..."

"Ah-HAH!" Bobbi grinned, "I get it. So you feel that way too. As long as you're not tired from it, Malikah. I can't explain it, but I think that I got a little comfort from it, as though you were watching over me or something. It felt very nice to me.

It was a little embarrassing, lying there thinking that you could see all of my flaws, with me probably snoring and drooling."

But Malikah only shook her head, "I saw nothing like that, and there are no flaws. Eat."

------------

Malikah looked thrilled to sit in the pilot's seat of the Caribou. She looked around at all of the exposed wiring and piping.

"Not too pretty in here is it?" Bobbi grinned, "Back when this was made, there were no cosmetic covers for anything that wasn't meant to haul passengers. It does make it a lot easier if you've gotta fix something, though."

They climbed out and walked across the ramp toward the Quicksilver's hangar. As they neared it, a man opened the door to step out into the bright, midday sunshine.

Bobbi grabbed Malikah's hand and almost dragged her over, "Dad, I'd like you to meet Malikah. Damian called me and asked me to get her out of civilization so she could unwind. I haven't heard her stuff yet, but she's a singer."

John Sorrensson looked over and held out his hand with a smile, "Well, uh, ... I guess I ought to welcome you to the wilderness. Hello, Malikah. I hope you like mountains. That's what we've got the most of around here."

"I see this," Malikah smiled, "and it is so nice here. I live in Chicago now, but before, I am from Mali and Algeria. Nice if you like sand."

He chuckled and turned to Bobbi then, "I need to get the Air Tractor out, Bobbi. There's a pair of fields I've been wanting to get to all week and it's good weather for it right now, but you've got me blocked in with the Savage. I was about to move it myself," he grinned,"but you're here now."

"No worries," Bobbi smiled, "I was just gonna haul it out anyway. I want to stop polishing it long enough to actually fly it now and then."

-------------

In no time, it seemed, Bobbi disappeared and came back a minute later driving a strange-looking low-slung sort of tractor affair.

"What is it called again?" Malikah asked, "A mule?"

Bobbi nodded, "It's for moving planes around. This one's got a ground start cart built-in. I'm going to drag out the Savage and then Dad can pull out his crop duster and get going. You and me, Malikah, we're gonna play."

Fifteen minutes later, Bobbi's father was taxing away and Bobbi opened a large door in the side of the big blue airplane. The interior looked cavernous in some ways.

"I like it more now," Malikah said, "It doesn't look like an upside down dead spider like this. Why were the wings up?" she asked, holding her arms so that her forearms were bent over her head.

"You can't put a plane this big under the deck of an aircraft carrier," Bobbi said, "That's why a lot of Navy planes are made to fold up at least some of their wings, so they can fit in the elevators which take them up and down. There isn't an inch of spare space on the deck of one of those things, no matter how big they are.

I unfolded the wings and my dad looked up under each one to make sure that the wings showed that they were locked.

This is a North American AJ-2P Savage. They were developed and ordered out of about the dumbest reason that I can think of here in the light of a twenty-first century morning. This - all of this huge thing - was so that the Navy wouldn't feel left out of the arms race in 1948.

The US Air Force had all the toys then. The latest thing was the nuclear bomb and the Navy didn't have any - since you don't really need them on ships, and they didn't have any aircraft at the time which could carry them. I guess that nobody had figured out a way to launch missiles from a submarine yet.

So somebody somewhere came up with this. The mission sounds even dumber to me.

Anyway, the idea was to keep a pile of these on aircraft carriers out in the Mediterranean. If things got stupid, they'd launch these, each one carrying a fifteen thousand pound nuclear bomb. They were fast back then, faster than any jet, but the jets caught up and passed these birds by in a couple of years anyhow.

It's got three engines; the two on the wings and a jet built into the tail. The jet is only used during takeoff and if they needed a high-speed dash in and away from a target.

They were supposed to fly in through Bulgaria and Romania down low, climb on just the two prop engines to 30,000 feet until they were about 45 miles from the drop point, and then light the jet and go like hell before dropping that one bomb on a Soviet naval facility. Once they'd done that - assuming that they were successful - they'd turn around to run back home as fast as they could go with everything still flat-out and howling.

It's even nuttier when you think that it was unarmed and couldn't shoot at the jets that were sure to be chasing it all the way.

This one here wasn't made for that, though. There were thirty made to be high-speed photo-reconnaissance planes. The bomb bay is still there, and I've got the cameras which went in there. They'd fly over what they wanted pictures of and open the bomb doors and they had big flash units that they'd fire off as they took their pictures."

She pointed, "There's also a camera in the nose. I have all that stuff and the manuals on how to service and use it. I just need to find sheet film now.

Anyway, we're not interested in that today. Let's just go and fly it. I know a great place to have a late lunch, but it's in Alamogordo and that's two hundred and fifty miles from here, so we'd better get going."

Malikah's jaw fell open. "Two hundred and fifty - We cannot do it. We will be there in the evening."

Bobbi grinned, "Why not? This big fat cutie can fly at three hundred and ninety knots up at thirty-four thousand feet. That's almost four hundred and fifty miles an hour, though we won't be going that fast."

-------------

Malikah sat in the cockpit and stared through a pair of mirror sunglasses that Bobbi had handed her. She felt the trickle of her sweat under the helmet that she was wearing and the oxygen mask itched her cheek, so she was thankful to be able to leave it hanging until the time that Bobbi would tell her to put it on.

One engine was already running and Bobbi was cranking the second one. It rattled over and started with a roar before settling down.

"Hey, you're not belted in yet," Bobbi said, "Can you stand up and look back through the canopy? I need you to tell me if the intake cover for the jet moves back."

Malikah stood up and turned around, not knowing what she ought to be looking for. But then she saw a flat expanse of metal sliding toward her to disappear into the body of the plane. She was looking at the mouth of a gaping hole in the back of the thing, like a horizontal cave to walk down into.