A Real Hoot | Mile High Scrub | 7

Sex in the Sky; Rising to the Occasion

A damp scamp — Brad

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Braddon looked back at Carrie. What other secrets was she hiding? He was certainly keen to find out, but he might have to wait for the full reveal.

“No wonder they laughed when I tried to upgrade you,” he said. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Carrie raised her glass to him.

“Well, apart from the obvious, obviously,” Brad went on. “But we’ve got the whole cabin to ourselves, and we have no competition for the showers. I take it you know about the showers?”

She nodded. Of course she would. Emirates was famous for their First shower suites.

“Once we’re in the air, you might want to take a look at them, imagine the possibilities.”

“And maybe get rid of some of this coffee and champagne people keep on pushing at me.”

“If you don’t want to drink your Dom…”

“No fear. It’s good. Very good. But I don’t know if I can squeeze another dinner in. Will they be disappointed if I say I’m not hungry?”

Brad shook his head. “They are getting paid for this. And we’re doing the paying. It’s not their feelings that you have to worry about. Just say you don’t want dinner right now. It’s a long flight, you might get hungry later.”

By now announcements were being made, the attendants were moving around the cabin, the doors were closed and the jetway retracted.

Carrie drained her flute, handed it to the attendant who magically appeared, and settled in to watch the safety video on her wide screen as the huge plane began to move.

Brad savoured his last mouthful of the Dom. He hadn’t spotted the vintage, but it had to be at least ten years old. They aged it for seven years, and if it wasn’t an exceptional year, they didn’t lay down a fresh vintage.

One of the attendants smiled at him as she collected his glass. The jet trundled down the taxiway, and Brad caught glimpses of the international terminal, the Flounge perched on the roof. Normally he’d be sitting by the window enjoying the view, but…

He switched his entertainment screen to the camera view. Straight down showed nothing but tarmac, straight forward showed tarmac and undercarriage, but the camera perched high on the tail gave an unbeatable panorama of the brightly-lit terminals, the jets in their slots, the wide main runway as they halted at the threshold for a Virgin 737 to pass.

He looked to his right. Carrie was switching through the channels, checking out the movie selection. But she had a free hand.

He reached through the partition and traced his way down her arm until he found her fingers. She looked down as his hand touched and held hers. He gave it a squeeze and she returned it.

Not his everyday takeoff, for sure. How long had it been since he’d travelled with a companion for anything but work?

He felt his hand being rearranged into a more comfortable position. That bloody divider. Even with the screen down it was an awkward reach.

Carrie moved his hand up along her body and let it go when it reached her chest. Not the best angle, for sure, but he could feel a nipple harden under his touch.

He’d like to undress her right now, but instead he traced the outline poking the thin fabric out and then reached further over for its twin. She moved her body to accommodate him.

“Perhaps I could come over there and get a little closer?” she murmured.

“I’d love it,” he whispered back, “but we’re not entirely private here. If you look up you’ll see a camera on the front wall. There’s another behind. They are probably giggling at us right now.”

“Let them giggle,” she said, tilting her chest forward. “I’m your partner, yes?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling them. We need to be discreet on this flight, though. We might have the cabin to ourselves, but if we force them to take note, then they will be forced to write it up.”

Carrie moved his hand back down to her lap.

“What are you telling me? That we can’t find some private time together?”

“No, the airline has a high moral standard officially; we just need to be careful and give them a chance to avoid seeing anything they might need to do anything about.”

“Well, they aren’t going to be walking around the cabin until the seatbelt sign goes off, are they?”

The plane tilted and rose into the air, a fine sight on Brad’s screen. Somehow the shock of takeoff had, when he turned his attention back to the seat beside him, hiked Carrie’s skirt up, spread her legs and brought his hand in her lap a little closer to heaven.

As the airliner climbed into the sky over Sydney, made a slow curve to the right and set a course for Dubai, a third of the way around the curve of the globe, Brad was descending into hidden depths, exploring the soft contours of a secret valley concealed between lightly forested slopes, dipping down into moist crevices, and slowly rubbing against a small ridge that managed to push back against his busy fingers with increasing urgency.

The chime of the seatbelt light going off and the sounds of the cabin crew unsnapping their seatbelts brought Brad back to reality. Withdrawing his hand back to his side of the partition, he whispered, “Sorry, Carrie, they’ll be asking us what we want for dinner.”

“Urrgh,” Carrie responded. “You. Now.”

Her breathing steadied, she smoothed her skirt back down. “I was so close. Um, I might go and put these magic pyjamas on. See if they moisturise my skin or whatever. Besides, my undies need changing. That was an exciting takeoff. My compliments to the pilot.”

The tall dark and beautiful — hell, they were all beautiful — flight attendant watched Carrie stride off towards the restrooms at the front of the cabin.

“You gave her too much coffee,” Brad said.

“Oh, Sir!” she protested, “It was the tiniest of cups!”

She held her fingers to show how small it had been, and her teeth flashed perfect white in what would have surely won a gold medal if there had been such a thing as the Smile High Club.

Brad had to rein in his thoughts.

“We dined very well in the lounge,” he said. “But I think we could each fit in the caviar. And another glass of that lovely Dom, if you haven’t finished it off in the galley.”

Her lovely features became wistful. “If only,” she sighed, in what became a South London accent, “but that crew manager’s a real sar’nt major ‘e is. Carn’t do nuffink ‘cept by the rulebook. Puts a little pencil mark on the label, so ‘e does.”

“Some airlines, they’d be having a party down in the crew rest areas.”

“Not this one!” Her voice became all business again. “And what time would you like for your showers?”

“Well, there’s just the two of us, does it really matter? I’ve had the showers explained to me before. Half an hour per passenger, five minutes of shower water, I know where all the controls are. I can run Carrie through it, and give the crew a break from having to do a briefing each.”

She considered. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Two passengers, two showers; it’s not as if we are going to have a scheduling problem, now is it?”

She caught a look at Brad’s face and wagged her finger. “Oh ho, none of that, Sir! You get caught and there’ll be all sorts of crap flying about. Mostly in my direction. There’ll be a CSA waiting to clean the shower suite after you, and they’ll know exactly what’s been going on.”

“CSA? Oh, you mean the short ladies in the brown uniforms?”

“Cabin Service Attendants, they are, and they get all the — pardon my French, Sir — shit jobs.”

“I’ll bear it in mind.”

The champagne arrived first. Brad took a sip and let the bubbles work away at the problems ahead. Carrie hadn’t been on the agenda for today, and had interrupted his plan to spend a fair chunk of his time working. His laptop was crammed with files that needed his attention, and doubtless his assistant back in the office would be adding to his burden once he got an internet connection.

On the other hand, there was nothing particularly urgent, and he had three weeks of no court hearings or appeal boards on his calendar stretching blissfully out ahead of him.

Blissfully stretching out. His mind was wandering again, just as she returned. Grey pyjamas baggy and loose, hair down, oooh, clearly no bra underneath…

“You look like you’re ready for a slumber party.”

“This mine?” She reached for the flute and took a taste of the bubbles. “Oh, heaven, you’ll have me drunk and helpless in no time at all.”

“How was the shower suite?”

“Most satisfactory!”

Brad felt his expression droop a little. He had been kind of hoping to press that particular button all by himself. Not to mention the fact that he could feel an itch that needed scratching.

“Oh, don’t look like that,” Carrie said. “You had a hand in it. So to speak.”

She leaned through the partition and reached out for a kiss. “Thank you,” she murmured into his ear a minute later. “Perhaps I can do something for you later on?”

“Mmmmm, that’d be extra good.” And it would, but he really wanted to get his eyes on what lay under the pyjamas. What he had seen already — and touched already — just intensified the hunger that no five course meal could sate.

Not just his eyes, neither. He remembered the feeling on his tongue as he had danced it around those excited nipples.

Brad looked down at himself. He’d have to be careful if that growing bulge didn’t distract him too much.

“Here, let me fix that for you.”

An elegant hand reached down into his lap area and he started. The flight attendant — Judith, right there on her name tag — was pulling out his tray table.

She spread a cloth over his table, and then proceeded to arrange an impressive array of dishes and implements and condiments for his caviar.

Another flight attendant was serving Carrie.

“Enjoy, Sir!” He could fall in love with Judith’s smile and twinkling eyes. One woman at a time, Braddon.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “I feel I’m in paradise already!”

When they were alone once more — just the two of them and enough food for a feast — Carrie handed over her phone.

“While I was in there, I took the opportunity to make a picture. Have a look.”

Brad raised his eyebrows. This was the right sort of photographer! Something for his eyes while his mouth was busy with the tangy tastes of sturgeon eggs. He turned the phone over. Bum. No exposed flesh. Just one of those airliner information signs: “Max. 2 occupants in shower.”

Mmmm. Even better. Something else to keep his senses full.

“Look at all this stuff!” Carrie exclaimed. “I thought they’d give me a can of caviar and a spoon.”

“Caviar, blini pancakes, egg white, egg yolk, chopped onions and cream. Marks taken off for using a metal spoon. Ruins the taste. Use a corner of blini instead.”

“Done this before, Brad?”

“Once or twice. Emirates has the best caviar service going.”

“Perhaps you could show me the exact best way to eat it?”

She leaned across and handed him a neatly rolled hand towel, obviously freshly liberated from the bathroom. He looked at it in astonishment.

“Just put it in your lap, sweetie. Hold it for me.”

She had a hand down there under the tray table now, and Brad felt his zip slide down.

Brad had enjoyed Emirates’ trademark dishes in the past, but this meal was certainly one to remember.

“I understand the significance of most of the ingredients,” Carrie said, teasing him out, “but where does the onion come in?”

“Take your time,” he advised, when Carrie had begun on her own dish, making murmurs of exaggerated appreciation that she evidently found amusing. “There’s a couple of problems I need to solve, and we can’t do anything for a few hours. Perhaps you might like to get back to what you were doing in the spa?”

Her eyes widened.

“Sleeping, I mean!”

Emirates may fly modern aircraft and have state of the art infrastructure and systems to handle the enormous network and passenger loads, but in some respects they are still working in the Stone Age.

Their flight attendants are gorgeous, immaculate in every way, but although they get flown around the world like real jet-setters, once they are off the plane they are guarded and supervised and have few opportunities for mischief. Any perceived infractions and they run the very real risk of having their contracts terminated and being sent back to their home countries. Opportunities for appeals or justice are limited in the UAE where they don’t speak the language, have no union to represent them, and women are treated as second-class citizens.

The Cabin Service Attendants don’t look like supermodels, come from the bottom rungs of UAE worker society, and do all the dirty jobs like cleaning the washrooms so the flight attendants don’t get their uniforms soiled. They have the lowest status of anybody on the aircraft.

But the jobs are keenly sought after, the standards are high, and as a frequent passenger, I’ve always been given exceptional service.

A fresh episode every day. Based on a true story.

Britni

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