How I joined the mile-high club

‘So we’re just going to email, for a while, right? Until we know what's up. No phone calls, no texts.’

He sees my face change.

‘I’m just checking we both remember it the same way before you go.’

****

Seat 27A is narrower than I think I can stand. I surprise myself when the steward comes around with supper by announcing that I’m 4 months pregnant and need two meals. I am neither pregnant nor hungry, actually. I’ve barely been eating or sleeping in the states - Ari and I both had stomachs rigid and ragged with the stress of trying not to notice a thing. I want to feel full now; I want the fastest, deepest sleep I can get. The man in the next seat smiles as I reach over him to accept my second tray. I offer him my brownies, my chocolate mousse. I’m only interested in meat and starch. I fill and empty my mouth.

It works, kind of, all that salt, all those carbs. I flutter into a doze, but I’m repeatedly pulling up short of sleep, avoiding with a jolt that vulnerable state where you can’t not think about what hurts. I really do not want to dream. No reading, then, since it puts me out for the count. No music - nothing associative. I need other people’s stories, stories with endings. As many films as I can cram into 10 hours of suspension over earth. Thank Christ his parents paid for me to fly Virgin. Their in-flight is great. I navigate alphabetically through most of last year’s idiot box-office smashes before settling on Harry Potter and the goblet of fire.

The steward checks on me. Am I comfortable? If I need anything, I have only to ask. And since I am pregnant, if I wish to use the first class bathroom, that will be perfectly acceptable. I thank him without a scantling of remorse and return to the headphones and seatback screen. My neighbour lowers his seat and falls asleep; the trays are collected, the lights on the plane dim, and I settle in miserably, eyes front, with as much attention as I can muster. I’m so exhausted that I don’t know whether it’s hindering or helping. The emotions the film provokes are delicate and unlikely - I’m chilled by the reincarnation of a malign sorcerer, I’m moved by the loyalty and courage of magical children. I mourn the death of a winged horse. Trying not to cry is pointless. Nothing and anything are the same hideous thing. I give up looking for a feel-good movie and cue up Transamerica.

I’ve been crying resignedly for over an hour, carefully focused on the screen, when my neighbour touches my arm. I’m surprised, look for the steward, expecting to have to perform some task, return a bottle or a tray, but my neighbour only takes my hand. He’s bigger than I am and taller, and has a gentle, broad face. I withdraw my hand and wipe my eyes and nose. His skin is greenish by the screen glow. I don’t know what to do. It seems rude to just return to the film; I press pause on the handset and look at him again. His face is full of concern. He lifts the armrest between us, gradually, and puts an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his chest. It’s comforting and derealising at the same time, and something relaxes. It’s helping to feel grateful to a stranger. He pulls his blanket over me carefully, and my arms settle into position, one around his waist - his body is wide around, and soft - and the other curled under my chin. It’s not until I’m nearly asleep, and the waist arm gradually drops to his lap, that I realise he’s hard.

Well fucking well. You neighbourly horndog in the sky, you. To get so hard at the thought of comforting a crying pregnant lady hardly speaks of a healthy libido. What a gross bourgeois fixer! But I soon realise that in this situation, for some reason, spite + selfpity = arousal; I’m grinning inside myself. I’m about to go home to absolute uncertainty, and the knowing sympathy of every single one of my friends. Why wouldn’t I touch this guy’s dick? I imagine him screaming girlishly in protest for a second, swallow a giggle, and get straight to work on his zip. He puts his mouth on my hair, and we begin to wrestle slowly around together under the blanket for access to breasts and genitals. In the plane’s false atmosphere, we are the exact same temperature. It’s like being in the womb with a twin you can eat. I use both hands on his cock until they‘re wet, then alternate between his cock and his balls, thumbing them gently with my palm underneath. He lifts himself off the seat, huffing gently like a horse on the top of my head, and sticks his thumb through the gauze of my bra as he comes. His face is so silly and sweaty, his hair sticking straight up from all the static we made under the nylon blanket, that it’s impossible to despise him properly. He looks like an exclamation mark. But it’s also impossible to let an exclamation mark make you come, even when it has two uncomfortable fingers inside you and a hot fat thumb on your clitoris. I grab his wrist and pull his hand out of my knickers, and he tries to kiss me in the confusion. I don’t think so, mister. I wriggle back to my seat, and one of my headphones falls out of my ear. He gets busy, blushing, cleaning himself up. I stare and stare at him until he can’t look at me, and then I fall asleep.