Captain Charming (Tales of 1001 Flights)

by Alice May Ball

  “Her moans were in fact a magic spell. The power of the spell fell upon the thief, and under its power, he understood that tonight would not be the night for him to steal the jewel he had coveted so long.

  “Normally, this would be a difficult decision, because he spent weeks planning this heist, using every source of information he could get to determine where he would be able to find the jewel. He knew if he spent just three minutes in the princess’ chambers, he’d be able to take what he wanted the most.

  “Yet, the power of her moans trapped him. He could see that there was no way he would succeed tonight, not with her awake and playing with herself.

  “So with all the will he could muster, he pulled himself away. Left the entrancing sounds of her moans and he left her, sneaked away as silently as he entered the tower, but just as he turned, as he was about to leave, she saw him — and their eyes met.

  “His eyes were full of desire, and hers were consumed in heat.”

  THIRTEEN

  AGGER’S STORY ENDS abruptly. So much so that I wait. I think that he’s just paused. I wait and give him time to resume.

  But he doesn’t.

  When I can’t hold out any longer, I nudge him on. “And?” I say, “What happens next?”

  So far, it definitely qualifies as intriguing, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s mind-blowing, the way Jagger’s been hyping it up.

  “That’s it for now,” Jagger answers. I can hear his smirk, the jerk.

  “Nope,” I protest. “Not happening. I want to know what happens next. You have to tell me. You can’t not tell me now!”

  “My, my, you’re getting feistier by the day,” the pilot replies. “I should spank you, the next time I see you.”

  “How very presumptuous of you,” I remark, although my body tingles at his mention of spanking me. His strong, large hands… mmm.

  “Seriously, though. The remainder of the story is for another time. Who knows, this might be a really long one, with many cliffhangers,” Jagger boasts.

  “Uh, are you trying to pull a 1001 Nights on me? You know, in the original legend, Scheherazade only started telling those stories because if she didn’t, she’d get her head chopped off,” I dig deep into my knowledge of mythology to explain to him. “Beware you don’t get your head chopped off!”

  “Don’t worry,” Jagger says. “There will be more to the story. You’ll be glad you waited.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I answer, letting myself lean back into bed, switching the phone from my right ear to the left. “Let me guess. He goes back the next night, this time she isn’t playing with herself, she’s got her legs wide open for him, she gets laid real good by the thief who’s also got a giant dick, and they fall in love. Naturally, they both live happily ever after!”

  Jagger puts on his dramatic disapproving voice. “Tsk,” he says. “You have such little faith in my abilities as a storyteller. You know, this was exactly as I intended. To have you be a giant brat, protesting me splitting this story into parts.”

  “Parts?” I point out. “So it’s not just part one and part two?”

  “I never said that.”

  “It was implied, Captain!”

  There’s a pause on his end that I’d like to assume also comes with a shudder of delight. “Now, I need to get some shut-eye, because I only have a few hours left here before I have to get ready to fly again.”

  “Ah,” I say knowingly. “Stalling, so you can figure out how to paint yourself out of this corner with the story!”

  “Naw, I already have the story mapped out. There’s an outline and a mind map and everything, believe me,” Jagger says, clearly triumphant at my interest in his story. “Now, like I said, even pilots need sleep, because otherwise they crash planes into the Alps.”

  “Please don’t do that,” I quickly say, horrified.

  “I won’t. But especially not now, because you said so,” he reassures me.

  “Okay, in that case, I’ll wait. Call me when you land. Make sure I get the rest of that story,” I tell him. He hangs up first, although we make a game out of it, daring each other to be the first one to end the call. He eventually relents.

  I’m willing to admit to myself here that I’m intrigued. Not just by the story, but by Jagger’s willingness to handle my most difficult, stubborn sides. I put him up to unrealistic challenges that would be hard for anyone to manage, and yet he passes them with flying colors.

  If he’s got something to prove, I’d say he’s doing a pretty good job of it.

  I wake up the next morning in a panic. Six missed calls, all from Sonya. Of course! As I fall back into my real life with a bump, I instantly remember. I asked her to come over and help me move my stuff out.

  Plus, she’s the one with a car.

  “Okay, I’m sorry! Let me buzz you in!” I groggily say as I pick up her seventh call.

  My best friend comes up, carrying empty boxes. “What the hell were you doing just now that you missed all of my calls?”

  “Uh, sorry… I was asleep. I mean, can you believe the time? It’s way too early,” I say with a dry, tired voice.

  “Alexa, it’s eleven thirty. Noon’s just half an hour away.”

  “God, Sonya, you’re starting to sound like Helen. Except Helen would never get on my ass for waking up late, considering she only wakes up around five in the evening, mostly so she has a few hours to do her makeup and go to whichever club it is she’s haunting that night,” I quip. “Anyway, what do you think? I’ve got most of my stuff packed away.”

  “Most?”

  “Well, I’d certainly appreciate it if you helped me make a last pass of the apartment, just to establish if there’s anything that obviously looks like it’s something of mine,” I suggest. “Or anything that I’ve forgotten to fix or clean.”

  “Fine, I’ll start doing that. In return, you’ve got to tell me about your hunky hookup,” Sonya says, grinning at me.

  I lead her to the bedroom, first and foremost. Sonya’s never been inside, so I take a lot of heart from the way even she’s impressed by my place.

  Helen’s place, that is.

  “Well, I told you he’s a pilot, right? He’s been busy. Flying a lot. Internationally. He likes to call me when he lands. It’s cute. But I’ve also made it clear to me he can’t call me unless he’s got a story,” I explain.

  “What do you mean, a story? Like a report on how his flight went?”

  “Not that,” I shake my head at my best friend. “Think. He’s got to make stories up, fictional ones, to keep my interest. If I’m intrigued enough, I’ll go see him. But a guy as cocky as him shouldn’t imagine he’s automatically entitled to sex, just because he’s hot as hell.”

  Sonya bursts out laughing. “Alexa, you love having sex with this guy. You know that the only person who loses out by denying him is you, right?”

  “Well, I’ve got him sufficiently addicted,” I grin.

  “You’ve got to have one of those golden vaginas. Magic and glitter coming right out of you. Honestly, this turns me from jealous to plain angry. So you’ve actually managed to ensnare the handsome, cocky Casanova? Just by letting him sleep with you twice?”

  “We never actually slept together. They were just, you know, casual things,” I correct her.

  “Casual things don’t end up taking all your time, Alexa.”

  “True enough,” I shrug. “Anyway, he’s got to come up with a story. And I’ve just realized that the reason I like doing this, is because it gives me a bit of a buffer zone. He doesn’t know where I live, so I’m mostly anonymous. I don’t want it to be a case where he thinks I’m a person I’m not, you know? He might be expecting Helen and receiving Alexa. Just because I wore a few classy, designer dresses and shoes those times I’ve seen him, doesn’t really mean I’m any less valuable than people who can afford to buy those expensive clothes.”

  “I hear you, you’re preaching to the choir here,” Sonya says. “So what are you going to do
about it?”

  “No idea,” I shrug. “Something, eventually. He’s only seen me decked in Helen’s things, I imagine he thinks I’m some rich girl who does nothing. Well, I’m going to have to correct that impression, sooner or later.”

  Sonya nods, pointing out a brooch I forgot to take from a desk drawer. “I gave that to you!”

  “You did, I’m sorry! It’s just that the brooch is black, and the drawer is grey, I didn’t see too well…” I soothe Sonya.

  “You’re going to miss this place, aren’t you?” the ever-inquisitive journalist notes. “You were hardly here that long, and now you’re going to have to bum over at my place, until you get back on your feet.”

  “I know,” I frown, not wanting to accept the reality that there is only a lot of stress facing me in the immediate future. “I guess I’m going to have to go back to my old life. Jeans, flannel, waiting tables.”

  “If he’s worth it, he’ll embrace you completely,” Sonya promises.

  “But if he’s not, he’ll lose interest,” I counter. “And I’d do anything so he doesn’t lose interest in me for something I can’t control.”

  Sonya drops me off back at Helen’s place. All of my stuff is with her now, but I still have one last night in the apartment. My anxiety surfaces in the compulsive way I keep telling myself to clean the place, even if I’ve already done it.

  Helen’s going to be back tomorrow evening, and if I leave the place without a thorough, deep cleaning, I can just see that Helen will pull out some white gloves and start searching for dust, ready to bitch me out over not keeping her place spotless clean.

  This is particularly unfair, because I know for a fact that when I got here, there were whole rows of bookshelves that probably hadn’t been dusted since she moved in. Behind the fridge, there were small cobwebs.

  She can’t demand perfection if she herself isn’t taking care of everything!

  Of course, as a stepsister, I do have a small responsibility to be good to her, and do my best to keep her from too many troubles.

  I make dinner for the very last time at the apartment, scouring through her cabinets for ingredients. I decide to make a lush, avocado-focused deconstruction of a burrito, using bread that isn’t quite perfect for the job — several pieces of Indian naan bread, made organically in Portland, of course — along with four types of salsa.

  Apparently Ben’s obsessed with salsa.

  I’m hoping she’s seriously jet-lagged after her long flight, because at least that means she’ll be too tired to deal with me.

  Oh, Helen.

  Dinner is good, but dessert is even better. Helen keeps two tubs of ice cream in the freezer — one that’s half-empty, and another that’s untouched. Given both tubs have an expiry date for today, I decide it’s worth it to finish her ice cream, as a final chore.

  While I’m digging a scoop into the tub of Rocky Road, I get a phone call. Helen should still be in the air, so I guess it’s either Sonya or Jagger. Sonya just saw me leave her apartment. There could have just been something she suddenly thought of, though. Otherwise she would have no reason to need to immediately call me again. I hoped. I hoped, it really could only be one dashing gentleman.

  “O Captain, my Captain,” I say, exaggerating the words of poetry with a played-up moan.

  “Goddamn, Alexa,” Jagger laughs. “That… that did things to me.”

  “I’ve been missing the sound of your voice too, flyboy,” I reply, setting the ice cream down to the couch armrest to my right. “How was your flight?”

  Jagger makes a hmm sound, which he quickly explains. “I don’t think I recall you ever asking me how my flight went. This is nice. Well, there’s nothing much to it. Big-shot client, small corporate jet crew, I have to bring the guy to airport X or Y before meeting time Z, and I always do a good job. Pretty easy.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing,” I say, enjoying the self-assured state he always embraces when he talks about work. The sound of his voice, the dips and turns, it carries his words like a dance. Like a swirling, turning current below the conversation.

  We trade snippets of our day. I mention helping someone else move, obliquely describing my big departure from Helen’s place. I make it sound like it’s a friend, but I don’t explicitly mention Sonya. Its like we’re talking over a dinner table. But underneath, in the darkness under the white linen all kinds of other stuff is going on.

  The flirting flows and runs between us. It goes back and forth so well I swear, every time I talk to him, he seems to get smoother and smoother. There’s nothing he doesn’t have a snappy comeback for. And every time, he’s firing more on target. And I am, too. When he laughs, that’s when the warmth in his voice clearly drives through and he makes me squirmy and hot.

  “I’m always so turned on when I talk to you,” Jagger says, as he inevitably does, his voice carried on weighty breaths.

  “No, no play until you’ve done work,” I shut him down.

  “What are you talking about?” I know he knows what I mean. “I don’t have to fly again until tomorrow,” Jagger has a glint in his voice than makes me think of his flashing teeth.

  “Not that work,” I explain, patiently waiting for his incredulity to be much less pronounced. “I mean the fact that you owe me, buster. You’ve got part two of a story. Part two of two, I hope, because I really don’t want to have to keep pressuring you to tell me more stories.”

  “Hah! Why’s that?”

  “It makes me feel like you’re just winging it, making things up as they go,” I observe. “Is that the case?”

  “There’s always room for some improvisation,” he admits, but then he adds, “I can tell you this story is as tightly-plotted as possible. Like I said, I’ve been thinking about this. And okay, okay, I did make you a promise.”

  “That you did,” I tell him.

  Jagger clears his throat, pulling away from his phone, his voice sounding a little less close. Distant, even. But after he’s done clearing his throat, his dominant, confident sound returns. “Very well. So, where were we?”

  FOURTEEN

  HE THIEF and the princess, part two,” I settle back into my pull-out couch in the Zurich pilot’s lounge.

  It’s a quieter airport, meaning there’s no chance of anybody I’d have to share the room with right now. We have a night-long layover and a 5am flight, so company policy is to pay for hotel rooms for the pilots and crew. But I’ve got my phone call with Alexa lined up, so I turn down the hotel room, picking the pilot’s lounge, because it’s nearer. Only a short walk away from the plane.

  I ask her, “Are you sitting comfortably?” and her purring, Mmm-hmm, lights my fire.

  “Then I’ll begin.”

  She sighs.

  “After the thief came so close to being caught, the first time he climbed to tower of the bewitching and enigmatic princess, you’d think the thief would have second thoughts. That he would know better than to try again to steal her jewel. That he would see the risk was too great.

  “But, oh no. You would be wrong to think that. In fact, his need to have her jewel has only gotten stronger, taken an even stronger hold on him. And, the poor thief can do nothing but relive his experience at the tower. The image of the beautiful princess, her enchanting curves, dripping in milk and honey. And the sounds of her long moans and sighs, unbearable to him because they are so long and deep. Her moans have reached into him and taken a hold of his very soul.