She sat rigid beside me, hands clenched, knuckles white
against the metal of the armrests. We’d had a drink while waiting in
the airport, and she’d just ordered another from our flight attendant
in his white and blue uniform, slightly rumpled. Cute, though.
Maybe if she got sufficiently drunk she’d relax enough to survive this
trip. I was matching her drink for drink…they were free, after all,
and we were on vacation.

“How are you doing?”
“Not too bad. You?”
“I’m fine. You know I love flying.”
“I hate you.”

She didn’t mean it, of course. Eight years of friendship
couldn’t be cancelled out by a little acrophobia. But I resolved to
be a little more careful what I said. Time was passing much too
slowly.

Three hours later; almost halfway to England. I, for one, was
thoroughly bored and that rumpled flight attendant with the shock of
Midwestern brown hair and mindless calf eyes was starting to look more
and more inviting. In an effort to distract her, we’d been
complaining about our respective ex-boyfriends and talking about the
joys of sex through the last two or three drinks, and both of us were
now horny as hell. That one of us was bi, and the other one straight
only added to our frustration. We’d gotten to that sad point when we
boasted about all the strange places we’d done it, and all the odd
people we’d done it with.