Her first impression as she walked down the aisle of the Concorde was how small it was. With only two seats on either side of the aisle and little more than twenty five rows of seats plus the galleys, the plane seemed tiny in comparison to the vast jumbos she had been on before.
A stewardess took her boarding card and indicated her seat two rows in front of a bulkhead in the middle of the plane. She had the window seat. A young boy, no more than eighteen or nineteen, she guessed, already sat in the aisle seat.
'Excuse me,' she said. 'Can I get by?'
She saw the look in his eyes as he turned towards her. It was as though all three symbols on the fruit machine had all just clicked into line.
'Sure thing,' he said at once leaping to his feet to let her past. His accent was American and his mouth was open as he stared at her, his eyes devouring every inch of her body in the clinging red dress. As she sat down he was looking at her legs. He saw more than he bargained for. His mouth opened wider and she heard him swallow hard as she pulled her skirt down over her thighs and made herself comfortable in the seat.
'I'm Oscar Caplin,' he said extending his hand as he sat back in his seat.
'Stephanie Curtis,' she took his hand and shook it lightly, hardly gripping it at all.
'First time?'
'Sorry?'
'First time on Concorde?'
'Oh. Yes it is as a matter of fact.'
'Great, isn't it? This thing flies faster than a bullet, did you know that? 38,000 pounds of thrust with reheat, 4,000 mile range. It burns 5,368 gallons of fuel an hour. We travel twenty-miles every sixty seconds, that's over a mile every three seconds.'
'Really?'
'They say that there isn't a fighter plane in the world that could scramble and catch up once we're airborne. They'd run out of fuel. We cruise at 42,000 feet. Another mile and we'd be in outer space.'
'Amazing.'
'Am I boring you? Would you rather I shut up? I know you Britishers like your privacy. I won't say another word.'
'No please. I think it's really interesting.'
'So are you.'
'Sorry?'
'Well interesting isn't the right word. You're exceptional. Beautiful, I mean. Perhaps I shouldn't say that.' Suddenly he blushed.
'Well I'll take it as a compliment.' Far from finding the boy irritating Stephanie enjoyed his enthusiasm.
'It was one.'
For a second he just stared at her, the blush gradually leeching out of his cheeks. His gaze was interrupted by the stewardess bearing a tray of glasses.
'Would you like a glass of champagne before take-off?' she asked. 'Or we have bucks fizz. Or plain orange juice?'
'I'll have champagne,' Stephanie said feeling definitely festive.
'I'll take the orange juice,' Oscar said.
'Cheers, Oscar,' Stephanie held out her glass to be clinked. 'Nice to meet you.'
'And you,' he responded immediately. 'Here's to your first trip at twice the speed of sound. See that?' He indicated a rectangle LED display set into the bulkhead in front of them. 'That's the air-speed indicator. We go subsonic until we're clear of the land. Then they kick in the afterburners and we're off like a bat out of hell.'
'You've done this a lot then?' she asked.
'Pa is rich. Seriously rich. He likes me to come home every term. I'm at Oxford reading English.'
'And you always go Concorde?'
'Well he sends me the ticket. Who am I to complain? It'll probably turn me into a spoilt brat of course. I'll be impossible to live with, but what can I do?'
'Sit back and enjoy it, I'd say.'
'What about you? What do you do? You must be a model.'
'No. I used to work in advertising. Now I've sort of retired.' She could hardly tell him what she really did.
'Are you married?' Stephanie saw the way his mind was working; she had 'retired' because she'd found a rich husband.
'No, Oscar,' she wiggled the third finger on her left hand 'I'm unattached.'
'Sorry,' he said sensing a reluctance to discuss the matter further. 'None of my business.'
The plane had taxied to the runway and was now rolling gently forward to turn into take-off position. Stephanie heard the engines being throttled up and the plane accelerating. In seconds the plane was airborne and banking to the west. From her window she saw London stretched out beneath her.
A few minutes later, after the captain's announcement that their flight to New York would take three hours, they reached the coast of Somerset.
'He'll turn the afterburners on in a minute now. Watch the air speed.' Oscar said quietly.
The plane was still climbing. As the coastline disappeared behind them Stephanie suddenly felt another surge of power, not as strong as take-off but a definite kick nevertheless. The figures on the LED display quivered at MACH 0.89 and then, in seconds moved passed MACH 1.00, flickering and changing constantly until, no more than five or six minutes later, the display was reading MACH 2.20.
'Twice the speed of sound,' Oscar pronounced unnecessarily.
'Amazing.' She meant it.
'I never get used to it,' he said.
'Don't think I would. It's so exciting.'
More champagne was served and a delicious meal. Though it was only breakfast time the meal was in fact a lunch. Oscar chatted pleasantly and since Stephanie was too excited to sleep or read, she was glad of his company. His eyes frequently drifted to the diamond-shaped opening in her dress or down to the hem of her skirt and her slender long legs.
'So how does your father earn his money?' Stephanie asked as they were served coffee. She refused the offer of liqueurs. It was, after all, only eleven o'clock. When they arrived in New York it would still be eight-thirty in the morning.
'He's something big on Wall Street. He was in commodities but now he's changed to stocks. Apparently he made most of his money out of junk bonds, then got out before they all blew up.'
'I thought they were illegal.'
'Not exactly. Anyway no one ever pinned anything on him.'
'And what about women, Oscar? Have you got a girlfriend? The way you've been looking at me I'd say you haven't had sex in a month.'
Oscar blushed again, this time spilling his coffee in the process. A stewardess appeared immediately.
'It's all right,' he said waving her away, 'I'd drunk most of it.'
'Shall I get you another cup, sir?'
'No. No thank you,' he said recovering his composure though his face was still the colour of a beetroot.
'I don't mind you looking,' Stephanie said putting her hand on his knee. 'In fact I find it very flattering.'
'I didn't mean to...'
'I like it.'
'Do you?'
'Why shouldn't I? You're an attractive man.' It was true. Oscar had thick curly hair, a firm strong chin and dark brown eyes. He was obviously fit. He was tall. And he was young.
'I can't remember being this close to anyone as great looking as you. I guess it makes me stare. It's just that you've got such a great bod.'
'Thank you.'
'I don't suppose you'd like a date. I could show you New York.'
'I've seen New York, Oscar.'
'Yeh, but I bet I could show you places you haven't seen.'
'I bet you could.'
The stewardess cleared away the coffee and Stephanie folded the table back into the seat in front. She crossed her legs. Half an inch of stocking top slid out from under the hem of the skirt. Oscar's eyes flitted over it. He tried to concentrate on her face.
'You didn't answer my question,' she said. 'What question?'
'Do you have a girlfriend?'
'No one steady. Do you really want to know when I last had sex?'
'Not especially.'
Stephanie looked out of the window. They were so high the clouds below seemed a long way down. She could actually see the curvature of the earth, or was that her imagination? The sky up here was so blue, a pure almost azure blue. Perhaps it was t
he height, or the speed, or just the pure wonder of it all but she felt peculiarly coquettish, capricious, flirtatious and wicked. Not only was she high, she felt it.
'What would you do?' she said smiling.
'Sorry?'
'If you took me out. What would you do to me, Oscar? Would you fuck me?'
It was a good job the coffee had been taken away or it would have hit the ceiling. He looked at her open-mouthed.
'Do you know what I like?' She leaned her head back on the seat so her mouth was close to his ear. 'I like to be fucked slowly, really slowly, for a long, long time. Would you do that for me?'
'Yes,' he managed to speak.
She put her hand on his knee again and this time squeezed it hard. 'Would you lick me?'
'God, yes...' he said in the same strangulated voice.
'You're making me hot,' she said. She uncrossed her legs and opened them slightly, no more than an inch.
'Am I?' he said.
'Stewardess?' Stephanie called as an attendant walked by.
'Madam?'
'Can I have a blanket?'
'Certainly madam.' The stewardess reached into the overhead locker and extracted a small red blanket. Thinking it was for Stephanie's exposed legs she arranged it over her lap. The moment she had gone Stephanie threw the blanket over Oscar's lap and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers.
'What are you doing?'
'I know what I'd like to do.'
Under the blanket she reached up to the flies of his trousers. His cock was already hard.
'You can't do that here,' he whispered in alarm.
'I'm doing it.'
'People will notice.'
'That doesn't seem to be putting you off, Oscar. You're very hard.' She found the zip of the flies and pulled it down. His penis had already forced its way out of the front of his boxer shorts. Her hand closed on his throbbing erection. He moaned loudly. It sounded like a moan of pain.
The couple in the seats across the aisle heard the noise and both looked at Oscar to see what had caused it. The man in the window seat was in his sixties, portly, with an almost completely bald head and piggy eyes. His wife, assuming the large gold ring she wore on her finger had been given to her by him, was blonde, bleach-dyed blonde, and in her early fifties. She was wearing a tailored pinstriped suit with a frothy ruched white blouse. Her legs were crossed. She had good legs.
The bald man went back to his newspaper. The woman pretended to go back to her book but Stephanie could see her eyes glancing at the bulge in the blanket.
'You'd better keep quiet,' Stephanie said squeezing his cock firmly.
'What are you doing?'
'Isn't it obvious? Do you want me to stop?'
'Yes. No.'
'Make up your mind.' She loosened her grip on the tumescent flesh.
'No.'
Stephanie moved her hand up to the tip of his cock and ran her finger round the rim of his glans. He moaned again.
The woman across the aisle looked up from her book more surreptitiously this time. She crossed and recrossed her legs and shifted in her seat. Stephanie had turned to her side and was looking straight at her. For a moment their eyes met. Then Stephanie saw her eyes drop to the bulge in the blanket. The very smallest of smiles flickered over the woman's face.
Stephanie pressed the hard cock into Oscar's belly.
Rather than circling it with her hand she rubbed it up and down with her palm.
'Oh that's good,' he whispered. 'Why are you doing this?'
'It's an experiment.'
'Oh, oh...'
The woman across the aisle looked up again.
'An experiment?' Oscar hissed.
'To see what it's like to come at twice the speed of sound.' She rubbed harder. The blonde woman could see the bulge in the blanket moving up and down, like an animal burrowing in the ground.
'Oh...'
'Be quiet.'
'I can't.'
She felt his cock beginning to pulse, his spunk rising. She increased the pressure, moving her hand faster.
'Eargh...' he moaned loudly as she felt her hand covered in hot sticky fluid. 'Eargh,' he repeated as if the first cry hadn't made everyone in the plane look round to see who had made the noise. Oscar was, once again, blushing beetroot red.
The woman across the aisle caught Stephanie's eye. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger and moved it up and down in the air a couple of times. Stephanie nodded. The woman smiled, a knowing, conspiratorial smile.
'Sorry,' Oscar said. 'I've always been noisy.'
'Have you got a handkerchief?'
Oscar extracted a handkerchief from his pocket without disturbing the blanket. Stephanie cleaned her hand and wiped his cock dry. She stuffed it unceremoniously back into his trousers and zipped him up. There was a wet stain on the blanket.
'You're an extraordinary woman.'
'I know,' she said.
Stephanie relaxed back into the seat and watched the world rushing by the window. The fact that she had just wanked a perfect stranger, the fact that it had even occurred to her to do it, worried her not at all. Sex used to be surrounded by taboos and inhibitions. It was inextricably entangled with emotions, relationships and problems and obsessions. It meant more than it actually was. But her experience with Devlin had changed that. Sex for her was just sex and no more. It was simple, straightforward. She took what she wanted when she wanted. She was in control.
It was a wonderful freedom. Stephanie was not going to bow to inhibition or guilt or any other obsequies. It was like exercising a muscle that had been allowed to atrophy for a long time. Gradually the strength of the muscle increased until it felt strong and powerful. It energised all the other muscles and made the body feel strong. And the Greeks had been right. A strong body meant a strong mind.
The slight forward pull indicated that the sleek white plane was decelerating. The captain announced that they would be landing in twenty minutes and the MACH meter dropped to 0.89 again.
'We're coming in,' Oscar said nervously not at all sure what Stephanie expected of him now.
'I know. The captain just said so.'
'Listen. I really must see you again.'
Stephanie smiled. 'Must you?'
'I mean I would like to. Really, really like to. Take you out. I've never met anyone like you.'
'I should hope not,' Stephanie teased.
'Don't tease me,' Oscar said sharply.
'I like teasing.' That was true she thought.
'Do you?'
'Yes. It turns me on.'
'Will you come out with me please?'
'I'll think about it.' That was not a tease. Stephanie had no idea whether she would have any time for Oscar.
'I'll do anything. My father is very rich.'
'What's that got to do with it?'
'Nothing. I just meant...'
'That you could buy me. I'm not a whore. Do you imagine that every woman who is sexually,' she searched for the right word, 'direct, is a whore?'
'Oh God no.' Oscar was desperate. He had no idea how to entice Stephanie with words. He was confused. 'I just... I can't... It's just that I...'
Stephanie took pity on him.
'It's okay. Calm down.'
'I can't.'
'Give me your number. I may call you. No promises though. You understand. No promises. I'm going to be busy. I may not have the time.'
'Oh, thank you.' He took out an Asprey's gold-cornered notepad and scribbled his number on one of the white cards. 'Day or night. Anytime.'
'Okay. We'll see.'
'Stephanie,' he said seriously.
'Yes?'
'Even if you don't ring I'll never forget you.' He looked disconsolate and was trying to put a brave face on it without much success.
'Oscar, I like you. Do you think I'd have done what I did if I didn't like you? I don't suppose I'll ever forget you either.'
Privately she decided, if time permitted, she would call the boy.
She genuinely liked him. It would be interesting to see more of him, and to take further what she had already begun. But she had no intention of telling him that for his own sake.
They fastened their seat belts as instructed and heard the four Olympus engines change tone as the plane dived into the thick cloud over Manhattan. A few minutes later they landed faultlessly at J. F. Kennedy airport in New York. It had taken just three hours and thirty-five minutes to cross the Atlantic.
Devlin, in a black astrakhan coat with a fur collar, waited on the other side of customs. Stephanie bounded up to him, delighted, as always, to see his ugly, misshapen form. She kissed him on both cheeks and took his arm as they walked through the busy terminal to the waiting limousine, a redcap following with Stephanie's luggage.
'Pleasant flight?' Devlin asked.
'It was sensational. That plane is wonderful. And look at the time. It's still only eight thirty in the morning.'
'I'm glad you enjoyed it.'
'I loved it,' she said squeezing his arm tightly.
It was cold outside and Stephanie was glad of the fur as they waited for the chauffeur to bring the stretch Cadillac around to the terminal entrance. With a squeal of tyres the car drew up the curb and Stephanie climbed into the back while Devlin waited for the redcap and the driver to load her luggage. The back of the car was luxurious, a large leather bench seat, thick wool carpets, a television and an earphone. The windows were all blacked out. No one could see inside.
Stephanie made herself comfortable on the back seat.
The redcap was tipped generously by Devlin who then settled down beside her as the car pulled away.
'Would you like a drink?' he said indicating the bar built into the partition behind the driver.
'No, I've had quite enough champagne on the flight.'
Devlin appeared nervous and uneasy, as though he wanted to say something but was not at all sure how to put it.
Stephanie's Domain Page 14