Flying High (17 page)

So I was thrilled when he said, “We have a bed right here,” and tied me to the wrought-iron railing, my wrists over my head, my body naked, hot and wet and ready for him. The fans blew a mechanical breeze over us, and I drew in big gulps of the cool air as Adrien kissed his way down my body. He held on to my waist as he nuzzled the tender skin of my inner thighs, licked me right on the indents of my hips, those ticklish spots, before bringing his mouth to my pussy and suckling my clit. I couldn't think for a minute, couldn't worry about this vacation that I emphatically did not want to take.

“Don't we have a perfectly good bed?” Adrien murmured when he stopped for a breath.

I think I nodded. I might have moaned. All thoughts of air travel were replaced by the journey to orgasm as Adrien began to make those looping circles that I love best, love most of all when he has me bound so that I cannot fight. I have to give in. Who'd fight against pleasure like this? Not me. Not really. But being forced to take the endless rotations of his tongue, of his fingers, being fixed in place while he has his way with me: that nearly makes me see stars.

Which reminded me…

“Sasha says there aren't any lights anywhere. Nothing but the moon and the stars.”

“Really?” Adrien asked, slipping back up my body to reach for something in our toy drawer. Quickly, he placed a blindfold
over my eyes and fastened the strap under my smooth, flat-ironed hair. “With a blindfold on, doesn't matter if there are lights or not.”

Oh, god, he was right. Who cared if there were lights? Who cared if we had one of those power outages that often happens when the city gets too darn hot for its own good? No, that's not the same as living in the wilderness, but it's about as close to camping as I ever get.

In this manufactured darkness, I kept up my monologue. Sasha had not only put the idea in my head—she'd given me the gift of a five-thousand-dollar vacation. Guilt had me nearly as giddy as Adrien's tongue.

“Sasha said that the nights were so still you can hear yourself breathing.”

“I hear myself breathing all the time,” Adrien said, bending down to me, letting me lift my head to press my ear to his broad chest. The steady rise and fall of his breath soothed me, as much as the sound of traffic outside our window.

Would I be able to handle no sound at all?

Adrien pumped himself over my body, and even with the blindfold on, I could visualize what he looked like: long dark hair pushed off his forehead, dark blue eyes focused intently on my own face, watching for the changes in my expressions that would let him know I was getting closer. His cock dipped between the lips of my pussy, and I could feel how wet I was. He thrust in again, slim hips meeting my body, and then he rotated slowly, so that his cock stirred me up inside. Finally, I gave up playing little-miss-travelogue. Fucking Adrien always takes me away—as neatly as a jet slicing through the dark velvet sky. I couldn't speak when he worked me like that: on a bed, in the middle of the night, with the hot air around us and the lullaby of traffic out our window.

But that made me think of one more selling point: “You're all by yourself,” Sasha had said. “You and Adrien would be the only people there. Your own private oasis. Your own private island.”

Adrien undid the bindings on my wrists and slid the blindfold from my face. I hadn't come yet. Neither had he. I felt as if I might melt in the heat; melt from desire, from the way he was watching me. Somehow, I didn't realize his plan until he pushed up the window and dragged me out onto our fire escape. I was naked, and I gripped on to the cool metal and looked down at the San Francisco traffic as he positioned himself behind me. His body was warm and strong, and he held my hips and drove in, hard.

No noise
, Sasha said.
No people. No lights. No sound.

But fuck me, I like the noise.

And I found myself adding to the cacophony as Adrien rocked his cock in to the hilt. I couldn't keep myself quiet as he wet his cock with my own juices, then slipped the head between the cheeks of my ass, pressed there—ready, waiting.

I groaned and lowered my head to my chest, desperate to climax. Adrien ran one hand down the front of my body, as his cock pushed into my ass. His fingers landed naturally on my clit, rubbing, rubbing to get me over the edge, to loosen me up to the pain-pleasure of the throb of his cock. His fingers became my metronome, ticking, tickling, so that he managed to time my climax with his own.

If we were all by ourselves, then we couldn't be exhibitionists, could we?

If we were all alone, then just like that tagline for
Alien
, nobody would be able to hear me scream.

 

Adrien shepherded me back inside the apartment, pulling me
after him to our shower. “No running water,” Sasha had said. “You don't mind after a day or so. You get used to it.” Even under the spray of our shower, we could hear the rush of the traffic rumbling by. When we turned off the shower and walked into the living room, air-drying in the heat, we could hear more sounds: a low bluesy number from our neighbor's stereo, the
tap-tap
of the leaky faucet in the kitchen.

“So how do you get there?” he asked, really focusing on the concept for the first time. I watched him lift the envelope from the coffee table—the crisp manila one that held the tickets.

“A big plane to a little plane,” I said hopelessly. “A little plane to a scooter to a boat to a bike.”

When was the last time I'd been on a bike? Not a stationary bike at the gym, but a real live cycle? I remembered mine from elementary school—outfitted with a banana seat and fancy high handlebars. Little fluttery streamers were attached to the ends of the bars, and they flapped in the breeze. The body of the bike was purple spangled. I didn't think that's what would be waiting for us at the other side of the river.

“Do you want to go?” he asked next. I could tell that he was game, as I'd thought he'd be from the start. He was always game, up for a fuck on the balcony or a wild trip to a lonely island. Sasha had said, “So romantic.”

Who was I to say no?

 

But I
did
say no.

To myself. I said
No fucking way
as I looked at my reflection in the mirror. What would I do without a bathroom? Without a mirror? What if I got food in my teeth? How would I floss?

“You're superficial,” I told myself, and I agreed wildly with me. Yes, superficial. Yes, I like the soft fluffy towels and the Rembrandt toothpaste and the fabric softener and the scent of
Febreeze. I'd choose walking on a treadmill any day over walking on an honest-to-goodness wilderness path. Why couldn't Sasha have given us a trip to the Four Seasons hotel? Why did she have to want to remake me in her own image? If I were to do the same things to her, I'd flat-iron her frizzy hair, buy her a bikini wax, give her a full-on spa treatment; throw away her butt-ugly shoes.

A jet to a six-seater to a scooter to a boat to a bike
became my mantra. Over the next few days, whenever I caught myself relaxing, that image would find a way into my thoughts, and fresh panic would fill me. How could I go through with the trip? Why would I want to spend my anniversary in a humid hell, where my hair would go back to its natural jungle state and there'd be no place to plug in my iron?

Adrien didn't appear to have the same sort of worries at all. He seemed to enjoy the thought of our impending vacation. If anything, he reveled in taunting me.

“Don't forget to pack the netting,” he said, and while I thought he meant French Net, he really meant
mosquito
net. What do you bring to a place with no power? There'd be no coffee brewing. No hair-dryer. No stereo. I like my accessories. I like to sit on the floor of the bathroom and dry my hair while reading fashion magazines. I am a city mouse. I've never wanted to be a country mouse. But what had started as a notion for our anniversary—“You'll love it,” Sasha said, “You need it”—had turned into something of a challenge.

“Let's go through the list together,” Adrien offered, “and I'll spank you for any item you've left out of the bags.”

That was more my speed, and I draped myself over his lap as he lifted the paddle, punishing me for the shortsightedness on my part to have forgotten pills to disinfect the water and extra matches so we could light our own fires.

The paddle cut the air, landing with a stinging blow on my tender cheeks as Adrien chuckled at my failures: failure to accept that we were going to a jungle, that running out of hairspray would be the least of our worries.

He spanked me with the same fierce determination with which he approaches every project, and soon I was beyond wet, forgetting why he was slapping my ass with the paddle and wanting only for him to stop so he could fuck me.

But when he pushed me off his lap, he didn't do what I hoped. Instead, he spread out the contents of my suitcase on the floor. And then he couldn't control the laughter. My pretty sundresses, my strappy sandals, my contact lenses: all were shoved into a heap as Adrien repacked for me.

A humid sensation settled over my shoulders, weighing me down when I looked back into my bag: beige, bland, boring. The suitcase could have been packed by Sasha.

 

“Do you have everything you need?” my sister asked the night before our departure. She and Jarred had invited us to their favorite vegan restaurant.

“I think so,” I lied, worried stiff.

“Remember the citronella candles,” Sasha said knowingly.

“And mosquito repellent,” her husband advised over our after-dinner chais. I noticed they were both still scratching their many different bites. Sasha had a welt on her shoulder the size of a silver dollar. “Spider bite,” she said with what I sensed was pride. I wore my own welts under the short pleated skirt. Ones Adrien had given me.

I'd rather be paddled
, I thought,
than paddle a boat
.

Would I even survive?

“This will be good for you,” Sasha said, and I wondered why
all the things I dislike seem to have that stamp on them: tofu, wheatgrass juice, flaxseed; things that Sasha lives for. I looked at the welt on her arm and shuddered.

 

The night we were leaving, Adrien drove us to the airport in our little convertible, parking as close to the runway as we could get. I didn't question why he hadn't driven us to long-term parking, didn't ask him what he was doing when he set his seat all the way back. Somehow, I simply knew he wanted me to climb on top of him.

I pulled up my traveling dress, the one that the catalog had promised would not wrinkle no matter how many times the fabric was torqued and twisted. My plan had been to change to jeans before the trip in the six-seater. I lost my panties in our wheel well and pushed my way on top of Adrien's cock.

He gripped me, pulling me down on him hard, then lifting me back up. As always, his cock took me away with the feeling of being split open by him, of being connected to him in the most primal way. We didn't need to leave the city to find ourselves. We were right here. I thought of our best-laid plans, the plane to the plane to the scooter—and then the roar of a jet overhead made me stop thinking. My hair stood up on the back of my neck. Goose bumps prickled my skin.

This was by far the loudest sound I'd ever heard, a throb that seemed to start within me and radiate out to my toes, to the tips of my straight-ironed hair. As the plane took off overhead, Adrien fucked me faster, lifting me up in the air with the power of his thrusts. I could tell that he was groaning, but I couldn't hear a sound except the roar of the plane. And I realized that I don't ever want total quiet. I don't need darkness. Lights at the end of a runway are among my favorite sights. Landing at SFO thrills me—the sight of the city spread out twinkling on the
ground, like glittering multicolored jewels on a party dress.

“Fuck me,” Adrien mouthed. I could see his lips move, but I couldn't hear a word. I pounded my body against his and fucked him just as hard as he was taking me, slammed my body to his.

The next jet took off overhead as I found my stride.

He worked me until we were both covered with a sheen of sweat. We came together as another engine shook the ground around us. I saw in his eyes that he never had planned on making me go through with the trip. He'd simply gotten the mileage out of going along with the game.

Maybe next time we'll make the plane—the big plane to the little plane to the scooter to the boat to the bike. But tonight, we just watched the jets take off as Adrien ripped our tickets into tiny pieces and let the confetti flutter off in the breeze.

 

 

 

 

 

“Morning, Cheryl.”

“Aubrey!” Cheryl hugged her longtime friend and copilot. “Today is the day! Aren't you excited?” She kissed a trail down Aubrey's cheeks.

Aubrey laughed and wiggled free from Cheryl's embrace. “I've been looking forward to this all year.”

The two pilots settled into their seats. Cheryl prepared the plane while Aubrey flipped through the passenger list.

“Marjorie and Cynthia…Tom and Eliza…Jane came back. I'll be glad to see her again.”

“Did Toni make it? I know she was wavering for a while.”

Aubrey scanned the list. “I don't see her name. Didn't she just have a baby?” Her eyebrows furrowed.

Cheryl caught the look and reached over to stroke her cheek. “What? Your ex signed up?”