Airplane Rides

by Jake Alexander

  “I have a job as long as I still have two more children. When I am done with that…” he trailed off, giving the notion some thought.

  “Well, then I can go fishing on the river of pity if I like,” he continued with a smile, and turned his attention to Candice.

  “Or maybe I can help someone else’s kid.”

  Chapter Eight

  UA Flight # 196

  San Francisco (SFO) to New York (JFK)

  Katherine was a picture perfect San Francisco woman. Long and healthy sandy blond hair, hazel-green eyes, a five-foot-six lanky build and a natural beauty that required very little cosmetic enhancement. Like many of the people in San Francisco, she was well-educated, ambitious and, of course, prided herself on the well-balanced priorities that elevated her above the more myopic east-coasters. She was no stranger to men and had enjoyed a number of interludes with female partners. She prided herself on this as well, but would not have described herself as bisexual, simply experimental.

  Katherine was in control and defining the adventures. It was the common thread that wove each of her relationships together. She continuously reset the boundaries of outrageousness for the people around her, often pushing them past limits just to make sure that she still could. She would require practical men to drink and dance all night, initiate sex with conservative men in the car on the way to Christmas midnight mass and tempt innocent girlfriends into their first same-sex kisses. Without question, Katherine was a firebrand carefully disguised in an upright exterior, and logging enough adventures to win the respect of even the most experienced of men.

  By the age of twenty-seven she found herself on a successful investment banking track and was surrounded by a new group of people who shuttled between the power worlds of San Francisco and Manhattan. It was in these circles that she met Roger, a man six years older than she and the founder and manager of a successful hedge fund based in San Francisco. Roger was handsome, confident and skilled at the art of raising money from others for high-risk investment. The affluent and intelligent placed millions of their dollars under Roger’s command and Katherine was very impressed. Within weeks, they were effectively living together, and within four months she made it official, moving into his stunning Russian Hill apartment with sweeping bridge-to-bridge views of the San Francisco Bay. For three years, Roger and Katherine worked at building their life together.

  Roger’s “no limits” mentality began to show up in their sex life, and Katherine enjoyed his fascination with her past exploits. Over dinners and in cab rides, Roger coached Katherine into revealing her secret sexual encounters. He developed favorite stories that he would ask her to retell him as foreplay. Like most men, Roger had never enjoyed the pleasure of a ménage a trois, but it was not something he thought he should be denied. As he grew more comfortable and secure with their relationship, his suggestions that the couple bring a woman into their bed went from the occasional kidding to a borderline demand. Katherine, unwilling to share him, fended off his requests, but was secretly delighted that he was viewing her as the more advanced partner in this obviously important facet of their relationship. Without further hesitation, she assumed her most comfortable role, and took charge of their sexual direction.

  One by one, Katherine introduced Roger to each of her old tricks, beginning with the tame and eventually moving up to the more exotic of her repertoire. She was careful not to overwhelm him, or worse yet, cause him to judge her. It began as innocently as getting him to say how he wanted to be touched and getting him to admit he enjoyed watching her perform her favors. She progressed into lingerie, first beautiful and sexy and eventually dangerous. Within a year, pornography and sex toys were introduced, and by the second anniversary of their living together, the couple had advanced into bondage and light sadomasochism. Eventually, they were dosing themselves with Viagra-Ecstasy cocktails and locking themselves in their apartment with gallons of Evian. They were engaging in some kind of deviant sex almost every day, but Katherine could not escape the reality that months had gone by since they had made love.

  The couple raised the stakes of their personal life as well. They enjoyed each other’s families and developed a common circle of friends with whom they socialized frequently. They dined on tuna tartar at Aqua and rabbit tort at Rubicon. They sailed the San Francisco Bay and mountain biked in Marin. They enjoyed the more opulent rewards of their respective financial successes. Matching 911s, wine weekends at Auberge du Soleil in Napa, skiing in Lake Tahoe and spa retreats in Maui were all part of the program. On Katherine’s thirtieth birthday, Roger threw an elegant surprise party in the private dining room at Charles on Nob Hill. The small room was packed with the twenty people who made up their inner circle. They waited quietly as Roger and the maitre d’ guided Katherine into the room, and they yelled “Surprise” in a sophisticated tone. Each of the decadent twenty sipped Dom Perignon over a course of cracked lobster laced with tarragon butter, enjoyed Flowers pinot noir with duck confit, and paired rack of lamb with ‘82 Chateau Haut-Brion. At the end of the meal, Roger stood at the front of the room with his oversized Bordeaux glass high in hand.

  “Tonight we feast in celebration of Katherine’s thirtieth. To a girl who has everything, most of all the love of the people here tonight, happy birthday darling!”

  The room was alive with clinking glasses, and those within reach stole a quick kiss. It was a beautiful group, a beautiful meal and a beautiful toast. Unfortunately, Roger was wrong. Katherine didn’t have everything, only its illusion.

  As Katherine progressed into her early thirties, the idea of motherhood naturally began to work its way into her daily thoughts. Conversations between her and Roger turned to marriage, and at the age of thirty-one, she accepted his proposal for a life of “everything” together. The acceptance evolved into a three-year engagement during which Roger’s quest for sexual extremes distracted the couple from other aspects of their relationship. His request to bring another woman into their bed turned into pressure and somewhere inside Katherine’s heart, a conflict was emerging. Roger’s acquired addiction for sexual adrenalin was now detracting from the domestic image she had once imagined. She held her ground and refused Roger the threesome, closing the door on the possibility in an alcohol-fueled confrontation outside of a sushi restaurant on Chestnut Street. As the line in the sand was drawn on that otherwise perfect San Francisco evening, Katherine officially rescinded her title as Managing Director of Sexual Activities and with it, control.

  Privately she grew troubled that Roger’s distractions had grown into obsessions. Despite her apprehension, wedding plans were eventually made and family members from opposite ends of the country purchased airplane tickets on instructions to convene in Palm Beach for the ceremony. Katherine coordinated most of the events from afar, but decided that a trip to make final arrangements was in order. Selection of the band was a last-minute item, and three weeks before her wedding, she flew into West Palm on a mission to secure the entertainment and confirm final details. She checked into the same hotel that she would be staying at weeks later with her family and friends, and began her first night at a club where a band she was considering was scheduled to appear.

  Watching from the audience, she was taken by a handsome Cuban guitarist four years her junior. After the show she waited for him, and together they negotiated performance terms over a long series of mojitos. Like a conferencing salesman in Vegas, Katherine liked being out of town. She was temporarily anonymous and had enough cash to be in charge. She was excited by the young Cuban’s attention to her, and by his diminishing respect for her pending wedding. As the alcohol set in, the distance between their faces decreased until they could almost taste the mint from the cocktails that laced each other’s lips.

  “I brought him out to my rental car and went down on him,” Katherine said, with every intention of shocking me.

  The beautiful and proper woman could not help but laugh into her glass of chardonnay as I waited patiently for her to continue
her story.

  “I knew the next day I was in trouble, but it was too late,” she continued after emptying the glass.

  “Too late?” I asked.

  “It was easier to go through with it and just annul it afterwards. Everyone enjoys the party and we send back the gifts,” she replied almost cavalierly.

  For a moment I thought I caught a glimmer of sadness, but it disappeared when the flight attendant arrived offering a welcome refill.

  “The wedding was a blast,” she continued on an up note. “I danced with the guitar player.”

  Again she tried to drown her laughter in the wine.

  “Did anyone know what was going on?” I asked, without expecting much resistance.

  “A couple of my bridesmaids were on to me,” she said with a scheming smile.

  “My girlfriends who knew me!” she clarified. “They knew something was up the night before. We were very drunk and I made them go see his band. I was a mess and if they hadn’t forced me home, I might never have shown up the next day.”

  Katherine sat quietly for a few moments, wedding scenes floating through her head, far different from those I would have guessed she had conjured as a young girl.

  I was taken by her beauty and excited by her sexual appetite, but at the same time was conscious of what it had cost her.

  “How long did you wait?” I asked, disturbing her from her thoughts.

  She looked at me for a moment, registering the words and interpreting the question.

  “About three weeks,” she replied.

  “How did he take it?”

  It was the first question I had asked that made her visibly uncomfortable.

  “Not very well.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Mostly that I was sorry.”

  Her expression begged forgiveness.

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said ‘get out’.”

  Her intoxicated laughter returned and once again she employed her remedy.

  “So did you?”

  “Did I what?” she asked on the completion of a swallow.

  “Did you get out?”

  Another glass drained, she ignored the question and scanned the cabin for the flight attendant. She began to fiddle around inside a large brown suede tote bag. From it she pulled the components of a CD player, first the player and then the headphones. The headphone cord had unwound in her bag and tangled with the other items. Out they came one by one, hanging from the taut headphone cord like fish from a long line.

  “You leaving me?” I asked with a smile, nodding towards the headphones.

  “Not just yet,” she purred, pretending to be very relaxed, and smiling through her glassy bedroom eyes. There in front of me, I was observing Katherine using her allure to control the situation and get me off the scent.

  “So what happened to Roger?” I asked.

  “He went off the deep end for a while, jumped into work, then…”

  She faded off into another memory as the flight attendant showed up to refill her glass.

  “And then what, Katherine?”

  She returned her gaze to me, locking her eyes onto mine and smiling as though she were about to perform some exotic pleasure. I couldn’t help but feel she was baiting me, creating reasons to continue her story, each chapter suggesting the ways she might stir me.

  “I got out. Went to a friend’s house for a few days. I was a wreck, he was a wreck. Neither of us ate. We both dropped a bunch of weight. Then I went back a few nights later. We talked and cried all night.”

  She paused a moment for a sip of strength.

  “And then I left again.”

  “He wanted you to stay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you stay in touch?”

  “Every day!” she proclaimed. “You have to realize, we were best friends. Our worlds were completely overlapped.”

  “How did he manage?” I asked, returning to the answer she had censured earlier.

  “Immersed himself in work, and then he just continued on, crazier and crazier.”

  “Finally hit a double?”

  Her smile answered my question.

  “He called me the second it was over, couldn’t wait to tell me.”

  I looked at her thoughtfully, deciding which of my questions to ask. I glanced at the headphones and chose the one which had the best chance of a reply.

  “So he got it out of his system?”

  “That was just the beginning,” she replied.

  “What do you mean?” I said, again aware it was bait.

  “From there things just got bizarre. He did the ménage thing for a while with a couple of twenty-two year-old dancers from North Beach. I guess the thrill of that wore off because he started migrating towards the bondage thing. One night we met for drinks and he was telling me all about it. We were a little looped and he made me come back to the house so that he could show me how some woman had shaved him clean.”

  She flared her eyes at me to demonstrate how extreme the sight.

  “I mean really clean and he was wearing a ring around his…”

  “Did you have sex with him that night?” I asked, intentionally cutting her off and taking back control of the conversation.

  Katherine burst into a wicked laugh.

  “He made me tie him up and beat him with a riding crop. So yeah, I had sex with him,” she replied, vying for pole position.

  “So Roger’s life spiraled off into a never-ending series of perverted encounters?” I asked, casting some bait of my own.

  “Pretty much,” she replied, nodding her head and dressing it up with an unconvincing smile.

  “And what about yours?” I asked gently.

  “My what?”

  “Your life. How are you doing?”

  She cast a frustrated glance at her empty wine glass that I might have noted but assumed it would only make her more self-conscious.

  She squared off with me, trying to distract me with her beautiful stare.

  “I’m fine. I’m dating a great guy. I’m happy.”

  Her words were even less convincing when viewed head on, but her delivery was flawless.

  “How long have you been dating him,” I asked.

  “Four months.”

  “Does he know about everything that happened with Roger?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “Does he know how sexually advanced you are?”

  Katherine played the question over in her mind, examined it for insult but decided it was benign.

  “He knows I have certain talents,” she replied in a seductive tone.

  “I bet you do!” I replied, placing my hand on hers, pulling it in the direction of the armrest and holding it long enough to confuse its meaning.

  I looked her over, waiting to see how long it would take for her to retract her hand from my gentle grasp. Her story timeline added up to about thirty-six years, and I studied her face looking for confirmation of my estimate.

  “So what about children?” I asked delicately.

  “What about them?’ she asked, pulling her hand away.

  “Do you still plan on having any?”

  “When I’m in the right relationship,” she said with a touch of hostility.

  “This guy you’re dating. Any chance?”

  “Too soon to tell,” she snapped.

  I let the topic sit and called in a specialist for assistance.

  “We’re going to switch to red, the pinot noir,” I informed the flight attendant, who soon returned with the fresh glasses and a bottle.

  “How long will you be in Manhattan?” I asked her as she sipped my selection.

  “Two days and then I’ll be out in East Hampton for the weekend,” she answered, appreciating the change of topic.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Royalton,” she replied.

  “Very nice,” I said with approval.

  “That’s where I always stay,” she informed me
with an air of elitist pride. “ I love the rooms.”

  “I’ve only been there for drinks,” I admitted.

  “The rooms are great and they have these very deco cool stainless steel bathtubs. I want you to come have a drink with me and I’ll show you.”

  “You’re going to show me your bathtub or your riding crop?”

  Katherine smiled at the sound of it and the knowing smile returned to her face.

  “And then what?” I asked her.

  Katherine looked at me quizzically.

  “I deliver you into motherhood or head off to Palm Beach and reminisce with the Cuban about how talented you are over a couple mojitos?”

  “Neither of those options appealing?” she asked coldly.

  “I don’t really like Florida and you’re about as ready to have kids as I am to join the seminary,” I replied with a laugh of my own.

  “That’s not true,” she protested quietly. Her words slurred ever so slightly.

  “My mistake,” I replied, not caring enough to argue the point. It would prove much faster to take her up on her bathtub offer.

  Slowly Katherine the perfect, Katherine with everything crumbled before my eyes.

  She tried to shrug off the rejection as if it weren’t really an offer and hid behind her sixth miniature glass of wine. The flight attendant stopped by for refills and we both held our half-full glasses for topping off.

  “No sense in letting them run dry,” I said, smiling at the woman, who returned the gesture by pouring to the brim.

  She clearly hadn’t read the section of her handbook about not encouraging the passengers to get blotto drunk, but then again, first class did have its privileges. I figured as long as Katherine kept her mouth shut, we wouldn’t get cut off.

  “What are we drinking to?” I asked, raising my glass and turning to face Katherine.

  She seemed to appreciate the renewed attention.