Picture Perfect - Chapter 5

Sat on this for a bit, have given some minimal tweaks to phrasing from the draft, but otherwise largely the same to what you might have read already. I'm not 100% convinced but can't tell if that's just where my heads at right now so I'm putting a pin in this one and letting myself get more earnestly stuck into the handful of words I have for QT:UK instead. Seems like the healthy way to play things.

Chapter 4 is landing on LitErotica tomorrow to break my drought there, but I'm going to let you guys have this one to yourself for a bit.

Enjoy

***

Mile High

Dani’s picture looked up at me from my phone screen, taken in a bar I knew well in the Queen West area of Toronto, looking heart stopping in a leather jacket and with a new, shorter haircut I’d spent weeks encouraging her to be brave enough to try. But for once, she wasn’t alone in one of her selfies and it was hard not to miss the way the arm of the pretty south-asian girl she was with rested familiarly around her waist, or how she was looking intently at her rather than the camera. Or how easily Dani was smiling. 

I’d been messaging her enough to know she was meeting someone, this was at least the third date she was having with the woman, who I’d learnt was called Priya; but the increasingly coy way that Dani had been talking made it obvious just how much she liked her, something the picture confirmed. It was the most I’d ever seen her actually at ease with herself and as delighted as I was for her, the hypocrite in me couldn’t work out if it hurt. 

I shifted with the phone still in my hand, failing to get comfortable in the rigid, economy seat of the red eye flight that was still boarding around me, with the clicking of overhead lockers just audible over the familiar sound of the music in my earbuds and lyrics that once again felt pointed.

I can feel the night passing by like a mistake waiting for me.

It was the better part of a day since I’d actually left Santiago, with two flights already having brought me as far as Lagos for my final connection down to Dar E Salaam and the experience of shuffling from gate to plane to gate meant that I felt like I was slowly waking up in a cold sweat from my Chilean fever dream; unmoored under artificial white lights. Floating despite how heavy everything felt. Uncharacteristically, I had barely even thought about what I was going to do when I actually reached my next location in Zanzibar. A couple of the Near Horizon’s writers had reached out to me, asking if I’d want to work together while they were there and I’d almost used that as an excuse to leave my notebooks untouched, delaying thinking as if I was worried at this point that I would be risking letting things finally catch up to me if they did.

The attendant flashed me a smile as she passed, on her way to help another passenger stow a bag, friendly rather than interested and I returned to my screen to message Dani back before the doors closed.

*R - you really like her huh?

Three dots quickly appeared on my messaging app, to show she was replying, only to vanish again shortly after. She repeated starting to type several times over the following minutes as she worked out how to respond to me, only for the response to be brief when she finally did.

*D - ...Yes

I quickly reacted with a heart, and hesitated for an awkward second myself as I tried to decide if the question I really wanted to ask was suddenly too forward, but without questioning why I wanted to know.

*R - have you, you know, yet?

*D - No.

*D - I mean, I really want to. But I don’t want her to feel like I’m just leading with sex and fuck this up.

*D - You know?

I felt a knot in my chest out of nowhere, that only eased with a sigh, and was glad she wasn’t there to see my face. Leaning my head back against the seat I looked out of the window at the lights moving on the dark runway, rather than at the message, and only replied several long moments later with what was barely an answer.

*R - got to go, will talk when I land if you’re still awake?

The app showed she was ‘typing’ for what felt like an eternity again before displaying what felt like an equally strained response.

*D - Have a safe flight  x

We still weren’t quite ready to leave, but I swore at myself, and switched on flight mode anyway.

It was well after midnight local time, and the departure time was apparently unfriendly enough that the half full cabin didn’t seem like it was about to get much fuller. The rest of the row beside me was empty, and despite my efforts to try and stir it, the bracelet had been quiet enough since leaving Chile that I’d stopped hoping it might save me from another 6 hours stuck with my own company. The thing is, Harvey likes to give you the idea that her timing is impeccable and, almost as soon as I’d tucked my phone away, I felt her metaphorical hand on my shoulder causing me to startle inwardly. She’d probably noticed my latest distraction several minutes earlier and kept it to herself. Perhaps back at the gate, or at least as we were boarding the plane, but it was only as she was actually passing me that Harvey prompted me to look up.

Given how many times since I’ve found myself being fucked in airplane bathrooms, it’s a little surprising I got as far as I did before my first such encounter, but it only took me a single glance to realise I would with her. She appeared North African, almost as tall as me, and only a little older, with deep bronze skin; dressed for comfort in an oversized sweater with a pattern inspired by traditional weaves and pants that wouldn’t have been out of place in the gym, but that still managed to flatter if not flaunt her figure. The wavy curls of her hair were pulled up into a messy ponytail that offered up the elegant curve of her neck for appreciation, with high cheekbones and eyebrows just heavy enough to oddly suit her. As I watched her, she looked back in my direction, briefly making eye contact from behind dark rimmed glasses, only to awkwardly evade it as she eased towards her own similarly empty row of seats, taking a laptop from her bag before stowing the rest of her luggage above her. 

She was beautiful; but also the sort of woman I avoided wasting my hopes on, conventionally feminine enough that I’d have presumed her disinterest long before I allowed myself to feel foolish, or her to feel uncomfortable. I would have told myself she got enough of guys thinking they were being subtle in the little stolen glances of appreciation without my own uninvited attention, but Harvey’s pull was unmistakable and a few moments later I caught her turning to risk a look of her own in my direction. 

I smiled at her, and even after she shyly turned away, the expression weakly lingered.

‘Try not to smirk too hard,’ Harvey’s voice teased, the first thing she’d bothered to say to me in days. ‘People are going to think you’ve lost it.’

‘Says the voice in the back of my head,’ I replied with an idle thought, my sarcasm performative as the woman’s smile gave me something new to think about. And yet with that sudden return of anticipation, I realised there was a low, creeping, hesitation beneath it. ‘Besides, I wasn’t smirking.’

I could feel something from Harvey that had been missing for a while, a certain smug satisfaction that seemed to suggest this was suddenly back on her agenda, and not mine and that there was something at play beyond just humouring me. I didn’t quite give voice to it, but my suspicion must have been obvious enough for her to notice.

‘Maybe I can tell she’s The One,’ the voice answered inwardly with what amounted to a verbal shrug, ‘and you’ll be rid of me by the time we land.’’

‘You don’t actually believe that, do you,’ I replied, knowing she was barely trying to hide that she didn’t, having gotten good enough at reading the little cues to how she felt in a way that would have counted as body language for anyone else. But she could read me back, and feeling my unease, her tone turned reassuring.

‘Probably not, but stranger things have happened. Have a little trust, you need this one Riley.’

I glanced back down the cabin, just as the crew were making their final checks before we left the gate, and saw the sweater-wearing woman stealing another look. It was hard not to want to believe Harvey and I thought back to something Anton had said, about how sometimes, if you caught her in a good mood, she might just tell you what she wanted you to learn from a situation. It was obvious she was hoping for something, but she read my thoughts, and answered again before I could even begin to ask.

‘If you want me to tell you what you’re meant to figure out here I can’t, because you already know. You just need to decide you’re ready to hear it from yourself.’

I tried, one last time, to pretend that I didn’t know what she meant, but it didn’t help the odd rush of nerves as I heard the plane doors close; akin to walking into an exam I hadn’t revised for, knowing I was heading straight for something I’d been acting like I could keep avoiding. The same feeling I’d had picking up my phone knowing my ex was about to dump me, while still being unable to admit to myself it was over. 

Despite my love of travelling I’ve never quite managed to stop the little, skipped heartbeat any time a plane takes off, but this time it was buried under anticipation of a different kind and I barely noticed as we headed down the runway. 

The bracelet continued to pull all the way up, until we hit cruising altitude and the seatbelt sign blinked off, releasing me into the cabin. Around me, the other passengers were already trying to get settled in, waiting for the lights to be dimmed and to be left in what little peace there was to be found in their worn, faux-leather seats but the other woman however had opened up her laptop on the tray table in front of her, attempting to work on some sort of presentation between furtive glimpses in my direction. Harvey’s influence simmered. I could practically feel her cajoling me, offering me the easy way or the hard way if I demurred, and so I slipped from my seat and made my way in the woman’s direction, trying to push any tension from my mind. Perhaps, I argued, if I could show enough of an open mind like Harvey wanted, I’d be able to stay a step ahead of what I was hiding from.

As I got closer I was able to see her screen better, although I’d be lying if I said I really understood the powerpoint slide she was busy working on. Languages I can do, but I’ve always been a C- sort of girl when it comes to science and while I could recognise the odd word talking about kidneys, I struggled to parse the rest of the medical seeming jargon and diagrams. My curiosity was only held for so long however; she’d been waiting for me, whether she realised it or not, and she looked up the moment I approached, with a nervous smile and sweetly broken English.

“Hello? Can I be of help to you?”

There was an endearing hint of awkwardness to her. Something that I couldn’t quite place the source of, unlike her accent, which I’d spent just enough time in Morocco to be able to be relatively confident in. And the soft little inflections to her voice put me in mind of a girl I’d had a good thing with on that trip, right up until the point where, like with so many others, it wasn’t.

She relaxed, just a touch, when I tested out a response in French.  “I wasn’t sure if you might like a bit of company? But I can leave you in peace if you’re busy.”

“Well I was…” she hesitated and considered her laptop, before losing whatever argument she was having with herself. “Ok, why not?”

“Don’t let me distract you, if whatever you’re working on is important,” I offered, despite already taking the seat next to her. Not distracting her wasn’t really an option Harvey was going to give me, but it still felt wrong not to do the obligingly apologetic little dance around things. 

“No, please, a distraction sounds good. I can never settle on flights like this so…” There was a brief sense of frustration at herself that I recognised as her eyes hovered back over the screen. The all-too-familiar feeling of straying back to a project over and over to tweak at the edges past the point where it’s finished. I’d been there myself enough times myself, agonising between tiny adjustments to white balance and saturation that no-one else would ever notice right up to my deadlines, often leaving someone else with an empty space between the sheets next to them in the process.

 “So you’ve nothing to stop yourself stressing about whether you’ve got every last detail perfect, no matter how anxious it’s making you, or how foolish it feels?”

The insight surprised her, and the inward embarrassment to her smile came as an admission that I was right, to herself as much as to me. “Something like that, yes.”   

“Well, as one perfectionist to another, if you work out how to stop yourself from doing it let me know,” I joked, before offering a casual hand to her. “I’m Riley.”

She took it, giving a small squeeze in return, before easing down the lid of her laptop. “Imaan.” 

Our eyes met, the look held longer than I got the impression she would normally be bold enough to manage, as if Harvey had her own hand and was gently tilting her chin up to face me. I’ve sometimes wondered what it feels like for the people on the receiving end of the bracelet’s influence. Are they aware of the little pulls and tugs she gives? Or does it feel more like the world is simply lining up around them, leaving a path it feels natural for them to walk down? Do they come away from meeting me and ask what got into them? With Imaan, it was harder to escape the idea that Harvey was having to work to sweep her along, even if the little blushes and murmured answers made it clear she was enjoying the attention almost as much as I wanted to enjoy giving her it.

“Do you mind if I ask what I’m distracting you from?”

“If you want,” she said, teasing me with coyness for a moment, before returning to the first of her slides, showing me a logo for the African Association of Nephrologists and the name Dr Imaan Aziz. “I’m presenting at a nephrology conference in South Africa in a couple of days. It’s one of the first big ones since the pandemic stopped them from happening in person. And I’m letting myself overthink things.”

I knew enough to know that nephrologists were kidney doctors, and I tried picturing how the casually dressed woman in front of me might look in her professional environment, with even that being a world away from the grey academics I had in my head as inhabiting such conferences. And I found the obsessive, pretentious, photographer part of my brain disappointed that my camera gear was checked away in the hold, unable to escape acknowledging how compelling a subject she could have been as she sat there working. It was easy to imagine how I might frame her to come up with the sort of picture I loved. There was something honest to be captured in the contrast; between the appealing unfussy traveller and the expectations of her work. Not that how beautiful I found her hurt either. 

Harvey gave a wave of amused frustration at just how quickly I could slip into thinking about photography, one I don’t think she meant to be nearly as loud as it was, but it was still enough to puncture my thoughts as they started to wander.

“Let me guess,” I began asking. “You have an idea as to how you want things to go and keep worrying you’re not going to match it?”

“I like to think so.” Imaan smiled, as another hint of her earlier tension eased away. “But you know how it is. There’s always that voice in your head, asking you to check one more time.”

“Believe me, I know that feeling,” I said, unable to stop myself from giving a dark laugh. “Although the voice in my head’s been a little more surly than that recently. Sometimes it’s worth listening to, and others you just want to tell it to shut up.”

‘Hilarious,’ Harvey’s voice drawled, equally unable to help herself from chiming in sarcastically in the back of my mind. The retort was followed by a sharp jolt of turbulence from the aircraft, only lasting a second, but enough to throw Imaan forward in her seat. She reached out to steady herself, one hand propping against the seat in front of her, while the other landed on the inside of my leg. It rested there for a second, and I became aware of how close her body was to mine, only for her to pull away as soon as she realised.

Harvey gave a self-satisfied mental smirk, and I knew immediately there was no sense in asking her if she was powerful enough to cause the plane to shake like that, or if it was just a lucky coincidence. Meanwhile Imaan struggled for an apology, and I looked to reassure her by returning the unintended gesture, giving a gentle stroke across the top of her thigh. I could practically see her heart skip, and I hurried to find something to say before the silence became any more loaded.

“Honestly, I feel like all I’ve been doing lately is finding distractions to save me from myself.”

Her eyes flickered down to my hand, still resting on her leg and she wavered for a moment, as if she still needed to talk herself into going along with whatever might be about to happen between us. “Is that working for you?”

“I don’t know,” I lied, forcing a smile. “Maybe? Ask me again when we land.”

I leaned back, letting the weight of the suggestion sit with us both for a moment and waited to feel another tug from Harvey to help us along, but it didn’t come. Instead Imaan made up her mind without it and warmth spread across her face as she met my gaze again.

“Well, if we both need a distraction, I don’t suppose I’m suddenly going to start making big changes to things mid-flight. There’s only so many ways you can present data on dialysis patients, no?”

“Honestly? I have no idea, there could be thousands for all I know,” I joked, the comment making her seem all the more impressive to my mind with how casually she talked about things that were beyond me. “I’m the last person you should be asking something like that.”

“No? What sort of things should I be asking you then? What’s waiting for you in Tanzania?”

The question caught me off guard with how she phrased it and I hesitated before answering, saved by the presence of one of the flight attendants preparing the drinks trolley at the end of the aisle, half silhouetted in the dimmed lights. 

“Hold that thought, if we're going to share stories, let's do it properly.”

I was expecting to buy us a couple of hot drinks, briefly taken with the idea of cosying up to her with something warm as we talked, but was pleasantly surprised to learn that if she was muslim, she wasn’t observant enough to avoid leaning over and ordering a miniature bottle of red wine for each of us. We sipped them in the dark as I told her stories about my work and travels (although my latest trip required some editing) and in return I got to hear about hers. Imaan done her internship in the US before falling for an American, the first woman to make her realise certain things about herself, and so far the only. She explained how they’d broken up after almost 10 years, just before the pandemic, and how what was meant to be a brief spell back at home in Morocco to reset her life, had become a protracted stretch of bruising isolation and self recrimination. God, I could relate to that. And I didn’t even have the additional weight of being a medic during the crisis that she did, or the burdens of a conservative family, two things that left my own gnawing angst feeling petty and uncomfortable.

It all meant that the more she talked the more I began to understand the nature of the faltering, teenager-like awkwardness my attention brought out of her. She was still piecing her confidence back together, and although she didn’t say it I got the distinct impression that mine were the first advances she’d felt ready to open herself up to in a long, long time. There was excitement there too, however, once I realised to look for it; in the little glimmer of anticipation in the brown of her eyes and the way her breath would hitch when I touched her. And I had to admit, I’d have been floundering much harder than she was if, after ten years, this had been my first attempt at starting over.

What it did mean however, was how carefully it made me want to tread, aware of the damage I could do with the bracelet if I didn’t. I had only just started to see the results yet of little nudges Harvey gave my partners as I left or the effort she took not to leave heartache in her wake, and the last thing I wanted to do was to tear another hole in Imaan’s life. But then I wasn’t exactly avoiding reasons to hold myself back either.

A few hours later in the flight, we found ourselves wrapped up together beneath one of the airline blankets, with the armrests pushed up so Imaan could lean against me. Between the dull thrum of the engines and the dark of the cabin, everything outside the row of seats we were sharing felt dim and remote, the world briefly focused down onto each other’s stories, and the relaxed press of her body against mine. 

I’d finished telling her about my own trip to Marrakech a few years earlier, comparing notes on places to eat and dance in her hometown, and we’d slipped into a contended quiet. There was an understated anticipation lingering, as if Imaan knew just as well as I did what direction we were heading in. But she seemed content to let me draw things out. I could tell she wanted to say something, but was hesitating, and I stroked my hand across her arm as I encouraged her to open up.

“What are you thinking?”

She exhaled, part way between a sigh and a chuckle. “Right now? I’m mostly worrying about saying something foolish and ruining the mood.”

That made me laugh gently. “I thought I was meant to be distracting you, from agonising about how you were going to say things.” 

“Oh, you have. I’d still be sitting here looking at the same slide if it wasn’t for you. But…” Imaan trailed off, thoughtfully, resting her head on my shoulder. 

My fingers continued idly across the weave of her sweater, unsure if either of us were finding the gesture comforting rather than distracting and I wondered if I should stop. “But?”

“I care about how this goes now too. Which means I have something new for me to second guess.” 

I made a face at that, unable to tell how much it bothered me, or to quite put my finger on exactly why it did. “You don’t have to.”

“I had the importance of thinking about which words I use drummed into me in medical school. If you want to tell me not to then I’m already a lost cause.” Her voice tried to be playful, but there was a small self-conscious strain that came through regardless. She shifted in the leather seat, before reaching up to take my hand, linking her fingers through mine.  “Besides, you don’t have to over think things with me either. But you still are, aren’t you?” 

I paused, and the aimless weight I’d been feeling returned.

“A little,” I conceded.

Imaan looked up at me from behind her glasses, giving a beat of consideration before leaning in to kiss me. The gesture was hesitant, uncertain in herself more than in me, brushing her lips against mine in a manner that might have been fleeting, had I not drawn my arm around her and pulled her towards me, wanting to lose myself in her. I pressed against her, felt her breath sighed against my cheek as we broke for a moment, then kissed her again.

I felt her savour me, and even when we stopped, she didn’t pull away, her forehead left resting on my own.

“So, how long have you been thinking about how to do that,” I asked, my voice low and quiet, but only dimly aware of not wanting other passengers to overhear us.

“About an hour. I decided to take a calculated risk.”

Our breath mingled, the sense of warmth I got from her starting to go to my head as I wrapped an arm more tightly around her. “Good call.”

Imaan’s fingers traced gentle patterns on my arm, her touch soft yet electrifying. There was still a slight, hesitant note to her however. “Riley, what do you think people would say if they saw us right now?” 

I made a point of looking around. The rest of the cabin was empty enough that no-one else was immediately in clear view, just a sense of other people out there, close by in the half-darkness. Until hooking up with Val and Emmy I would have flat out denied any sort of exhibitionist streak, outside of sending nudes to people who’d already seen everything, but since then…the idea of what we were about to get up to left me with an unmistakable thrill, pulsing through my better judgement with how transgressive it felt. 

“Probably that we’re making the most of a long flight,” I replied, chuckling. “Or they’d be jealous of me.” I shifted, drawing the dark blue of the airline blanket up to the level of our shoulders, the fabric just barely large enough to cover us both. “Maybe we just need to make sure we don’t get caught?”

I leaned in again, capturing her lips in a deeper kiss, doing my best to feed her confidence, and trick myself out of any of my own doubts. 

“The alternative is that we stop,” I said, offering her an out I knew she wasn’t going to be allowed to take, even if she wanted to. But the small shake of her head she gave was emphatic enough that I knew it wasn’t Harvey’s doing directly.

“No. I don’t want that.”

She pushed up against me, her hand wandering beneath the blanket to give a light tug at the hem of my top, testing whether I would stop things from going further. I didn’t, melting into her instead, no hesitation from either of us as we made out in our seats, our straying touches beginning to explore the contours of each other in slow increments. 

Her hands slid under my shirt, fingertips grazing slowly up my back, sending a pleasant shiver running through me. And I responded in kind, finding her soft stomach with my hand eased beneath her sweater, caressing the smooth expanse of her skin.

“I’ve never done this before,” Imaan whispered against my lips, her breath hot and ragged. 

She went to speak again, attempting to continue the thought, but her breath hitched as my hand worked its way past the elastic of her pants. For a second, her fingers caught my wrist, holding me, hesitating, but it was only the briefest contact before she let go. I continued and found the wet heat between her legs with an eager rub. It must have been a few days since she’d last shaved as I found a light fuzz there, already pearled with her arousal, her lips already waiting to yield to me as I teased slowly at the edges and traced the furthest point of her thigh. Imaan gave a long, needy moan, loud enough that I wondered if the passengers sitting a couple of rows ahead might have heard her. But I was past caring if they did.

“Neither have I,” I admitted, my voice husky. “But I really really want to.”

Imaan gasped against my mouth as I continued with another stroke and failed to restrain herself from arching her crotch forward towards me. I toyed with her, even as she rocked against my touch, allowing myself to be bold without being urgent. For some reason I felt like she deserved more than a hurried release, even if being the one in control is less familiar for me and held her there, managing to briefly deny her attempts to respond in kind. I was only able to hold out for so long however before allowing her to fumble with my belt, neither of us willing to break our kisses as we loosened it and settled for me raising my ass enough to wriggle my jeans awkwardly down my thighs. And unlike me, once she was given what she wanted, she didn’t draw things out. She gave a single grope as her hand pushed into my panties, before two of her fingers immediately curled towards my waiting pussy. Imaan was skilled enough to wait for the first, hungry clench at the tip of her fingers to ease before sinking into me fully with her second thrust, and it was all I could do to not curse loudly enough to wake the whole flight.

The first real pause we were forced to take came when I attempted to unclasp her bra. At some point I had lifted her sweater enough to appreciate just how much it had been concealing her chest, with my eyes quickly drawn to the ample cleavage between her honey coloured breasts. Even as she fucked me with her fingers, I wanted better access to them, wanted to see and touch her and we broke our kiss just long enough so that she could ease back and do the job for me. The blanket was only just large enough to leave us unexposed to anyone who might walk past, but not so large that I didn’t get a glimpse of a brown, suckable nipple with broad areolas as she moved. Imaan caught me looking, and responded with an appreciative smile. She knew she was beautiful, but it had obviously been a long time since she’d allowed herself to enjoy anyone new looking at her like that, letting her know just how special she was with their gaze alone. 

After another moment, she glanced past me, and satisfied we weren’t about to be disturbed, lowered the blanket just enough to offer me another peek.

“I wish I could see you properly,” she exhaled, reaching to paw at my own chest. My much more modest figure meant that it was much easier for her to push my bra up enough to toy with one of the hardened little nubs capping my tits, making me groan with how sensitive they were for her. She was right that it was a shame that we couldn’t just peel our clothes from each other. She was someone I wish I could have enjoyed every inch of. Worshipped every sun drenched curve. But then something might have been lost from our encounter if it had been that easy, half the gratification for us both coming from how snatched and illicit it all felt. I suppose we could have headed for the plane’s bathroom and tried to find just enough cramped privacy for the nudity, but, in the moment, moving had very little appeal. Neither did the thought of the awkward fight to make a space like that feel sexy. Her words were enough however to give me an idea, one that caused a slightly wicked grin to spread across my face.

“Maybe I have the next best thing?”

Imaan’s curiosity kept her off me, long enough for me to retrieve my phone from one of my pockets. I flicked it open to the gallery, already knowing the image I was looking for. The selfie was one of my favourites of myself, a nude I’d taken for Dani before I’d even left Canada, during one of our bored sexting sessions. In it, I sat on the edge of my bed, posed in front of my bedroom mirror with my legs spread, one hand holding the camera while another teased a vibrator suggestively, just above my exposed pussy. I flipped down the tray table in front of Imaan’s seat, and can still practically hear the way she slipped into Arabic for the whispered little moan she gave as I set the screen down in front of her.

“Oh, zwina”

“You like that,” I asked, with a gratified little chuckle at her reaction. 

Imaan nodded, biting her lip as she did so. She’d stopped fingering me as we’d fumbled with her bra, but I realised it had strayed back towards my crotch when she began to idly rub her fingers against me again. I don’t think she’d even noticed she was doing it, just left horny enough that she needed to toy with something and had simply found the part of either of our bodies that was nearest in reach, but I definitely wasn’t going to complain.

My attention picked that moment however to stray back to the aisle, and the rest of the plane, the light from my phone doing just enough to prick the dream-like little bubble we’d wrapped ourselves in. I thought about how easily anyone walking past would be able to see my screen, before realising how since Imaan and I had first kissed, no-one else had moved. Even the attendants had been nowhere to be seen, busying themselves in the pool of light near the plane’s galley without straying anywhere near the pair of us. It had been just long enough to feel odd, and I suddenly wondered if Harvey’s little nudges weren’t just extending to Imaan.

The voice in my head responded smugly to my thought, as if it had been painfully obvious all along. But then maybe I should have questioned sooner how no-one had paid attention to Lydia and I fucking in her boardroom, or how Emmy’s staff watched me following after her and Val without comment.

‘Of course I’m stage managing things for you, you didn’t think you were actually being discrete did you?

I wanted to protest that we were being discrete, but then I considered how loudly each little gasp, moan and chuckle must be carrying in the otherwise muted aircraft. For a second, I hesitated, only for the bracelet’s unseen hand to give Imaan a firm push, leading the Moroccan woman to whimper and bend her fingers back inside me, forcing me out of my own head. It’s generally not Harvey’s style to lead me on too directly, although I’m sure she could have, but that was one of the handful of occasions where I’m unsure if she got impatient enough with me to pull away my restraint, or if my mind was just horny enough to sweep me along on it’s own. Either way, I cursed as my pussy twitched, then clenched around Imaan’s touch.

Besides me, the other woman rubbed her thighs together, her gaze still fixed on my picture, and it was hard to miss the haze of lust as she looked at my body. I encouraged her, with a kiss against her cheek, wanting my lips on her but not wanting to force her to look away, mumbling as I reached back below the blanket in search of her.

“Here, let me take care of things for you.”

This time there was no teasing her. Her folds parting for me as my fingers mirrored hers, each of us strumming inside the other’s core, encouraged on by the little bucks and flicks of the other’s hips. We masturbated each other, with her looking at my picture, the hotter she got the less she seemed to want to look away. And with me watching her, the pleasure on her face doing almost as much for me as my nude was doing for her. I’ve experienced a lot with Harvey, and maybe it was the mindset I was in, but I can tell you there was very little as gratifying as seeing a woman as gorgeous as Imaan was, squirming in pleasure, knowing that just looking at you is what’s causing her to get off so hard. She felt incredible, hot and damp and velvety, fluttering tighter around me every time I allowed my thumb to drawl its way across her clit, something I found myself delighting in doing in long, firm circles.

Her free hand worked its way up to knead at my chest, causing me to respond as she pinched my nipples with a daring sort of roughness I can only imagine her ex must have enjoyed. I moaned, just slightly too loudly to have been ignored under any other circumstances. And as I did so, I strained towards her, arching my back just enough to cause the blanket to slip. It fell low, leaving Imaan’s tits invitingly exposed to the cabin air, but she was too distracted to notice at first. Instead, as she approached her limit, I was treated to the curve of her chest rising and falling in increasingly ragged shudders.

Idly, I imagined what it would be like if Harvey lost control of the situation at that moment, just long enough for one of the crew to wander towards us. At first, it was just a flicker of a fantasy, but it was one that practically licked at my cunt with how hot it felt to picture, and I quickly returned to it. I imagined them standing there, watching as Imaan and I pleasured each other, seeing what my touch and the sight of me was doing to the stunning woman who sat, writhing half nude beside me. How good it would feel to have their eyes roaming across me, just like it had done when it had been Emmy watching. Barely able to keep myself from pulling the blanket from Imaan entirely, I leaned over and rolled my tongue across one of the hard, dark, peaks capping her chest. She moaned , both in protest and encouragement, and although her hand briefly strayed to try and pull the cover back up, when I pushed it away she made no further attempt to stop me.

Whether it was the situation we were in, or simply how she was, Imaan wasn’t vocal with things. She didn’t curse or scream even as I did my best to push her as hard as I could manage. Instead she was all quiet gasps and whimpered moans, as if breathing was something to be snatched at between what she was feeling. It was only as her eyes finally balled up, her face contorting, that anything approaching words finally passed her lips.

“So close…”

I felt her tremble seconds later. Her attempts at fingering me became unfocused, slowed, then stopped altogether, hand free hand pressing against the frame of the plane’s window as she clung to the moment, then came apart, uncoiling like a spring. Her mouth hung open, silently, and she rode my touch for several long moments, with another shudder of her hips seeming to come every time I thought she was done.

Imaan rested, her expression dreamy, for as long as it took her to realise that I hadn’t come yet. It was only then that her movements became anything close to insistent for the first time since we’d started, her willingness to take things slow replaced by a desire to make sure I followed her with my own climax. I’d already got painfully close watching her, and even though the break in her attention had brought me back from the edge, it didn’t take her long to find the rhythm again.

She kissed at my neck with long, grateful touches of her lips against my skin, while her bare chest pressing against me and her fingers pumped. She tested a small graze with her teeth, nipping at me, and when I gasped she did it again, as if coming had emboldened her and left her playful. It must have been obvious when I was getting close, because she picked up her pace and leaned more of her weight against me. I’m sure I swore, but suddenly her mouth was practically touching my ear, and all I remember is how she whispered to me, soft and seductive. 

“You made me feel so, so good. But now it’s your turn. I want to watch you.”

The first wave of my climax washed over me, and I brought my hand to my mouth to stifle the noise. 

“Come for me.”

I arched, overwhelmed, and she matched her intensity to me perfectly, with the firm, urgent thrusts slowing to slower ones that worked their way through me with each new wave, drawing them out, until the last, long, languid shudder finished. Even then she didn’t let go entirely, massaging me with her palm as our tongue’s met. 

For a long, blissful moment my mind swam. I drifted, letting myself feel empty, and clung to the feeling rather than face the dim awareness of what came next. But slowly, the world around me came back into focus, as the distant hum of the plane's engines and the soft rustle of the blanket reminded me of where I was. 

I noticed my eyes were closed, and I opened them to find Imaan looking back at me. Her expression was thoughtful enough to make me remember what came next, and even as she rested against me, her head on her shoulders, the quiet contentment that should have been there was instead spent waiting for her to speak.

“If I’m honest,” she murmured, then paused, carefully. “I needed this. But the idea of rushing into something with you is a little intimidating. I don’t want to have to try and live up to your expectations right now, or have you fail to live up to mine.”

And just like that, the moment was broken. I’d heard those words before, or something very like them, from another voice, in a very different context. And I hadn’t quite realised how clearly they’d stuck with me.

“I’m sick of failing to live up to your expectations Riley”

Something inside me that I’d been holding cracked. I’m sure if Imaan had realised she would have hated how I suddenly felt, and would have tried to find some other way to say things, but then, she wouldn’t have been honest. Which was something I was having to try very hard to stop my face from being, spared by the fact that the rest of the cabin seemed to suddenly move back to life again around us. The lights felt brighter, the engine sounds less concealing, the world brighter. Another passenger, several rows ahead, stood to get something from a locker overhead, prompting Imaan to quickly cover herself, fixing her clothes beneath the blanket.

I shifted, slightly uncomfortably, and she mistook the movement, placing an apologetic kiss on my cheek. “Sorry. If that’s not what you wanted to hear.”

The kiss did its best to pull me back from the place my thoughts had gone to, and I forced myself to smile. “Don’t be,” I tried to reassure her, not wanting to explain. “This was a distraction, remember. If all I get with you is a flight, I can still be grateful it’s been that much. Especially if I helped you put yourself out there again.”

“It was…good to be in the moment. Not perfect just…” she caught herself and tailed off, realising I didn’t need her to find the exact words.

I began to reach for my phone, realising my nude body was still on display with people now moving about again, with the idea of being seen back to feeling uncomfortable rather than titillating. As I did however, Imaan moved first, her hand falling on the device to claim it before I did. Some of the nervous embarrassment from earlier crept back into her expression, along with no small amount of unearned guilt, but with them there was also a re-found confidence, and a playfulness in her eyes.

“I got to see all of you. But you never actually got to see all of me.” She looked, pointedly, in the direction of the green, vacant bathroom sign at the end of the cabin. “Let me give you something to say thank you?”

As much as I might have wanted to ask her not to leave me on my own, she was already moving from her seat before I could respond, and even if I had I don’t know if I’d have been able to stop her from that one last act as she clung to the high of what we’d done. She was doing it for her, as much as for me and I can’t blame her. Knowing how this all ends at least, I’ve been able to enjoy in hindsight the picture she took with my phone, a selfie of her own from the plane’s bathroom; with her pants eased down, and the grey of her sweater pulled up to give me a better view of her chest than I ever managed to get in person. My current girlfriend jokes that of all the women I’ve ended up with pictures of, Imaan is the one I was the stupidest to let get away. She might have been right, but I wasn’t thinking straight. We crossed the tarmac to the terminal together, sharing one last hug at the gate before Imaan disappeared towards her connecting flight, and left me to face myself beneath the journey’s final haze of white airport light.

I managed to live up to the promise I had made myself on the descent not to let her see me buckle, but only just and barely got as far as far as another bathroom, just ahead of immigration, before the thing I’d been hiding from the entire time I was in Santiago finally caught up with me. Harvey had been right, but it had taken Imaan’s exact words to make it impossible to avoid any longer. With the door safely locked behind me, I leaned my hands against the sink, and let myself look at the hurting face staring back at me from the mirror. 

I’d heard enough women give me their honest feelings over the last month, and each time, I’d buried them. I’d taken what I hadn’t wanted to hear, and pushed it down, rushing to the next bed that would have me in the hope of numbing everything long enough to escape seeing myself in what they were saying. 

“If I’m honest you’re a little too intense.”

“...your perfectionism is too much for me.”

“...you’d say I let you down.”

“...I’d be scared you’d be waiting to leave”

“...you’d break my heart.”

It wasn’t all of my encounters, but it was enough. Voice after voice, woman after woman, from Cassie onwards, said with a kiss and a smile but still who managed to be fucking echoes of the worries I’d heard from one particular person long before. The one who had hoped I could change for her. And who’d caused me to give up on trying to when she left. 

“I’m sick of failing to live up to your expectations, Riley.”

It was her voice that came through again over all the others, with the final thing she’d said as she’d walked out the door for the last time, repeated back to me almost word for word by Imaan. 

I watched the girl in the mirror run a hand through her blue hair to stop it from shaking, seeing the insecurities and distance that had been obvious to everyone else but that she hadn’t been ready to admit. How she was too broken to be with. She turned on the tap, ready to splash her face, but ended up standing there numbly listening to the running water instead, her eyes fixed on me until she finally spoke out loud.

“Hey, Harvey?”

“Yeah Riley?”

“Is this meant to hurt?”