“About thirty seconds,” I responded.
“Really?” she replied with surprise, and paused to think out the obvious.
“So you already know if you would sleep with me?”
“I do.”
The woman burst out laughing and might have continued on for several more seconds had we not been interrupted by the flight attendant who came by to buckle us in for takeoff. High into the heavens we climbed, leaving behind Dallas, thoughts of my clients, and the perfume of the exotic dancers.
“So how long do you think it takes women?” she asked, after the roar of the jets quieted down.
“Less time than they will admit,” I replied slyly. “How long do you think it takes?”
She looked to the ceiling of the cabin for the answer.
“At least a full date, so… I say three hours,” she replied.
“Like I said…”
“Fine. But how could you know so quickly? You don’t even know my name.”
“No, but what I do know is very important,” I replied.
“For instance?”
“I know that you enjoy being out of town, that you find it exciting.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, as though I had just raised her skirt an inch.
“I just know.”
“What else?”
“I know that you enjoy the fact that I noticed you, that I complimented your glasses and told you that you were beautiful.”
“That’s too easy, what woman wouldn’t?”
Once again, we were interrupted by the flight attendant, who had appeared to take drink orders.
“I’ll have a glass of the merlot,” said the woman, after a quick look at the beverage menu.
“Water for me, no ice,” I stated.
“You’re not joining me, you asked my age, and you haven’t introduced yourself! I am inclined to believe you are a bit rude,” she said in jest.
“How about I just call you Dallas?” I replied, ignoring the other aspects of her statement.
“My husband called me that when we first met,” she informed me.
“What are the chances?” I asked myself, shaking my head. “Not him again?” I replied, going for the easy laugh. “Why did he call you Dallas?”
“I guess because he’s originally from Jacksonville,” she replied.
“Well that makes perfect sense.”
“Why do you want to call me Dallas?”
“So that you never have to worry that I might try to find you.”
Dallas shifted in her seat, understanding the implications of my statement.
“You are very persistent, but I told you I’m married,” she stated without taking offense.
I sat there looking at her blankly.
“Happily married, with two kids,” she added, for extra support.
“Really?” I asked, sincerely intrigued mostly because I believed her.
“Really.”
“And on all of these little trips to LA or wherever you go to sell telephones, nothing ever happens?”
“Of course not!”
“Don’t say of course not like I’m asking you if you kill baby seals! The rest of the world is something less than monogamous.”
“That may be true, but I’m not answering for the rest of the world.”
“Fair enough, but why?”
Dallas sat back pretending to interpret the question but actually buying time to respond.
“Because I made a vow.”
On the odd chance that she was being truthful, it was my obligation to respect the answer.
“How long have you been married?”
“Sixteen years.”
“And in that sixteen years, you never ventured outside your marriage?”
“Never.”
“Has he?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How old are your kids?”
“Fourteen and twelve.”
“And even when your kids were little and taking all of your time, he never went to Vegas to blow off steam?”
“Well I know he never went to Vegas, but the answer to your question is that I don’t think he did.”
“So why do you think this is? I know you are getting offers.” I catered to her vanity with my question.
As she gauged her response, I watched a few of her protective layers dissolve.
“I do get opportunities. Men talk to me, they always have. And there have been times…”
I noted that she enjoyed my pointing to her attractiveness and waited patiently for her to continue.
“There have been times that I was attracted to someone…” she trailed off again, vaguely protective.
“So what held you back?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought it would call into question the value of the marriage I think I have.”
“Have you ever imagined another person while making love with your husband?”
“I have,” she admitted with a blush.
“Have you ever had a flirtatious relationship with another man, someone you worked with and knew if you weren’t married there might be something there?”
“I have, but...”
“Did you ever confess your attraction to this person?” I asked without giving her a chance to explain further.
“Never,” she replied firmly.
“So is imagining another man during sex or having a flirtatious relationship cheating?”
“I don’t think it is.”
I paused in thought and sipped my water.
“Have any of your girlfriends had affairs?”
“Yes.”
“How did it begin?”
“Innocent flirting, I suppose,” she replied without much resistance.
“And did you see it coming?”
“Yes, but there were also problems in the marriage.”
“Was your girlfriend not getting sex from her husband?”
“As well as other things.”
“Was it right for her to find sex and those other things with another man?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “I suppose the correct thing to do is either work it out or move on without any behind-the-scenes activity. But things aren’t always that clean cut. Sometimes there are little reasons that are bigger than a person’s desire to do what makes them happy.”
“Like say, children?” I asked.
“Absolutely.”
“When your children have grown up safe and sound, will you be more likely to take chances with your marriage?”
“I hope not, but I am sure it will certainly allow for a more objective evaluation.”
“Because you find yourself attracted to other men?”
“Sure, but that’s natural,” she said defensively.
“Of course it is, just like sex itself. All people are capable of infidelity. The question is when and why. Even for you.”
“So you are suggesting that it’s inevitable that I will cheat?” she asked flatly.
“Not at all. You will decide to cheat mostly based on whether or not you think you can get away with it,” I replied. “At least that’s the case for most people. They put it out there as a morality issue, but really they remain faithful out of fear of getting caught, plain and simple.”
The flight attendant returned to refill our glasses.
“I’ve had plenty of situations while out of town where there was not a recognizable soul in two hundred and fifty miles,” she argued.
“There are a thousand ways to get caught, and half of them have nothing to do with anyone recognizing you.” I replied. “Most people give themselves away because they want to get caught.”
“I don’t know if I agree with that,” Dallas replied.
“Believe it darlin’,” I said in my best Texas drawl. “A lot of people either admit it or semi-intentionally do something to get caught just to relieve themselves of the guilt. Others do it to hurt someone back. It’s all really very understandable. So if you did let
me take you out for drinks in LA, back to your hotel room and out of that lovely outfit, my guess is your biggest risk would be your own conscience.”
“You are dangerous. Certainly a bigger risk than my conscience.”
“So then you can keep a secret?”
“If the secret is you taking off my clothes, I am inclined to think I might have to.”
After a moment of contemplating the suggestion and taking another sip of wine, she spoke in a more serious tone.
“It’s kind of depressing, because I have always secretly taken comfort in knowing that if I really needed to get it out of my system, I could. But you make it sound hopeless, like you can’t scratch the itch without blowing up your life.”
“I don’t know that I would call it hopeless, certainly not if it’s for the right reasons.”
“How can there ever be a right reason to cheat?”
“If it’s an exciting and pleasant distraction without emotional or physical repercussions, what’s the problem? It would be no different than a really gratifying massage.”
“Easier said than done,” she stated.
“Perhaps.”
I was intentionally tracking her neckline with my eyes, aware that she was allowing me do so.
“Have you ever been with a married woman?” she asked, trying to break the mounting tension.
“I have,” I replied, offering nothing more.
“It wasn’t an issue for you?”
“The only issue for me was not getting caught by her significantly larger husband.”
“And if we were to have an affair, it wouldn’t bother you that I’m a wife and a mother?”
It was an important question, and I paused to think about my response.
“I wouldn’t want you to do anything that would cause you a problem. If what you needed was an anonymous and safe temporary escape, that might be something I would be a part of.”
“So the answer was yes,” she stated mischievously, referring to my thirty-second decision.
“You already knew that.”
“It’s still fun to hear,” she replied.
“So you think people in both good and bad marriages cheat?” she asked.
“I hope so, or else the great majority of marriages are bad,” I replied.
“I don’t believe that many people are fooling around,” she argued.
“Perhaps my sampling is a bit skewed,” I conceded.
“That’s a nice way of saying you’re hanging out with the wrong people.”
“Maybe. But I still think the number is still pretty high.”
“Do you think we’re supposed to be with only one person?”
“I think it’s unnatural, particularly for men.”
“So it’s a cultural imposition?”
“Yes.”
“And you think this is mostly for men?”
”Generally. I think women are intended to be bisexual. But that’s just me.”
“I bet it is,” she replied, laughing at the hypothesis.
“So where’s the line?” she asked.
Dallas was leaning forward, engaged eye-to-eye and gently biting her lower lip. I wondered if it was interest in my words or my pursuit.
“I think that a random interlude with no emotional connection is for the most part harmless and maybe even healthy.”
“Like the full-service massage.”
“Exactly,” I replied, rewarding her with a rub of her hand for paying attention.
“What about a recurring affair?” she asked.
“Well, on some level it doesn’t even matter if the people are physically engaged if a relationship has developed. Say two co-workers occasionally find time to lunch together. Maybe there’s an attraction, maybe they begin to confide in each other about the deficiencies in their marriages. They lie in bed at night with their respective spouses, fantasizing about what it would be like had they chosen each other instead.
This is the kind of cheating that is only an office Christmas party away from tragedy.”
“Tragedy?”
“Tragic because true intimacy is impossible when you’re plagued by worry that your two worlds will collide.”
“This whole conversation is tragic,” she stated.
“Why?”
“Because it sounds so hopeless.”
“But you already said you have a good marriage.”
“I do, but…”
“Then enjoy it for what it is and don’t beat yourself up if you ever happen to veer off course for an evening,” I said. “Keep it to yourself and head on back to the ranch.”
The captain came on to inform us we were landing, and the flight attendant collected our glasses.
“Are you suggesting that tonight is that evening?” she asked directly.
“That’s not for me to decide. All I know is that your three hours are up.”
I had finished my cocktail reception obligations, graciously refused several last-minute dinner invitations and switched my hotel reservation from the Peninsula to the Four Seasons in the car ride over. I had been waiting in a far corner chair in the lounge for about an hour, nursing a Stolichnaya and splitting my time between keeping watch for Dallas and spying on a Hollywood has-been who was drinking himself into the stratosphere from a couch in the adjacent sitting area. It was already 8:45pm, and I was betting that she had taken dinner on Central time, and would finish with a nightcap in the irresistibly famous bar.
As predicted, at 8:55pm Dallas entered alone, still wearing the black Chanel suit, and looking even more beautiful than I had remembered. Just watching her traverse the room was worth having skipped dinner. She went directly to an open spot at the bar and ordered. I sat back and gave her a moment to settle in.
“What a pleasant coincidence,” I said to myself. It would have been nice had I planted the seed on the airplane, but there was no sense in being too hard on myself, as it had been a very busy day.
As I lifted myself from the chair, I noticed a tall “Tom Selleck” type slithering directly towards her. I waited to see the reaction and held my breath as she met him with a kiss on the cheek that shot a torpedo through the hull of my plan. I sat back and watched the bartender slide two glasses of red wine across the bar, confirming for me that she had been expecting him. For over an hour, I watched her patiently from afar, running my finger around the rim of my glass and sipping small mouthfuls of the vodka. As the minutes ebbed away, their body language began to flow into a continuous rhythm of extended gestures and touches. A second and then a third glass of wine led to hand holding, whispers and private giggles.
A husband and wife team, in from Denver, took the couch to my left and began scanning for celebrities.
“We saw Goldie Hawn in Brentwood this morning,” the wife boasted.
“Well you’ll get plenty of that in here,” I replied.
“That’s what the bellman said.”
The husband caught sight of the inebriated actor and elbowed his wife.
“God, he looks awful. Remember how adorable he was in that movie…”
I tuned her out and contemplated sending an anonymous drink to the aging actor. It was a tough room and, always partial to the alcoholics, I figured he could use a friend.
Dallas’s companion made his grand gesture towards the door at 10:17pm. She resisted at first, pulling back from his grasp and shaking her head at his inappropriate proposition. At 10:22 they took their last sips and headed in my direction. I beat them out the door without being noticed and advanced to the patio. From outside, I could see them make their way through the foyer, past the center flower arrangement and over to the elevator lobby. They held hands for a moment, his eyes asking for the answers to my questions. Dallas looked on the edge of surrender, biting her lower lip in indecision just as she had on the airplane. I could tell that her head was spinning from the wine when she placed a steadying hand on the edge of the concierge desk. Tom Selleck tried to push her off the fence with a last effort attempt
to make her laugh, while subconsciously twisting his wedding band. The man and I waited anxiously for her final decision, each for our own reasons. With her last ounce of strength, Dallas reached forward and pulled him in for my kiss on the side of his mouth and left him standing alone as she disappeared into the elevator.
Chapter Seven
AA Flight #268
Columbus (CMH) to New York (LGA)
It was a scorching summer day as I entered Port Columbus International Airport in Columbus, Ohio a full three and a half hours earlier than my flight was scheduled to depart. I had arrived in town the night before and planned on working through most of the day to complete negotiations on a transaction that had been false-starting since early spring. Things didn’t go as I’d hoped, however, and the discussions went into a death spiral during breakfast and soon thereafter could be heard splattering across the Columbus countryside for miles around. I picked myself up from the wreckage, and from a good five feet out, tossed my deal file into the conference room trashcan to send exactly the right message. I then made a beeline to the airport in hopes of finding an earlier flight back to New York.
The earlier flight turned out to be a beat-up 737 that had long since been overbooked. I explained my situation to the man at the ticket counter, but somehow he did not understand my desire to avoid wasting another three hours in Columbus, as he appeared destined for a considerably longer sentence. Eventually, the counter clerk turned me over to his manager, a rough looking woman who quickly grew tired of dealing with me. She put me in first position on the standby list, and had herself a good laugh when I inquired as to the likelihood of an opening in first class.
“Quit while you’re ahead,” she recommended in a politely threatening tone.
Frustrated, I continued on to the gate to see if I could better my chances of getting a seat, even if it was in the tail cone. I tried my charm with the gate attendant, who was politely receptive but took offense when I argued that her clock was slow, providing an unfair advantage to stragglers.
Airplane Rides Page 10