Laura at 30 000 Feet

A good female friend of mine once confessed at a dinner party an amusing event that happened to her on an aeroplane. She had been flying alone, economy class from London to San Francisco, and was sat next to a small, overweight, middle-aged man. The cabin lights were dimmed for that dubious time period when flight attendants arbitrarily decide it is bedtime (regardless of the fact it is daylight outside and only 2 o’clock in the afternoon), and she woke from a nap to find she was inexplicably masturbating the fat man sitting next to her.

She couldn’t recall whether she had initiated the activity in her unconscious state or if he had taken advantage of her sleeping arm, but either way she shrieked in horror and let go immediately on realising what was going on. She told us that for the remainder of the journey the little man winked frequently at her, as though they shared a secret equally beautiful to them both.

This funny story lived with me for a long time and when travelling on an aeroplane, I would no longer fear the peculiar phenomenon of flying but rather, who I might start touching up if I closed my eyes for a few minutes during the flight.

And then something happened to me that wasn’t a million miles away from my friend’s aeroplane story. It’s an incident I still think about whenever I’m flying, and indeed one I daydream about quite regularly when I’m nowhere near a plane.

I have racked up quite a few air miles in my life. My work as a journalist frequently takes me on long-distance trips overseas. Most of these flights have now disappeared from my memory as ‘lost time’ in that way certain events in our lives - like waiting for buses, walking the dog and filling in taxes - have a tendency to do. But one particular flight, from Vancouver to London, will be etched in my mind forever, with the same eternal brilliance that the sun has punched a hole in the sky.

I was 29 years old at the time, flying Economy on a fully-booked flight which left Vancouver around ten in the evening. I had checked in late and was unable to get my preferred seat on an aisle, finding myself in a window-seat instead, which had two other seats between the aisle and me. I found my space before the inhabitants of the two empty seats beside me had found theirs, and I anxiously surveyed the passengers flooding through the cabin, hoping upon hope that the most unpleasant looking ones – the overweight, the most unclean looking, the youngest kids - were not going to be my immediate neighbours. I don’t wish to sound like a snob, I have nothing whatever against people who are fat, filthy or children (or even those that are all three), but as I’m sure you are aware, it’s every man and woman for themselves on a flight. All love and tolerance for your fellow humankind is abandoned to the moral free-for-all that is an economy class flight. Being in transit is a mysterious limbo where your ethics, goodwill and personality are suspended.

It wasn’t long before I discovered my seat-neighbours were to be an attractive looking mother and her extremely sexy teenage daughter. The daughter must have been around 18. She had long sun-streaked brown hair and the most beautiful green-black eyes, thick with a naïve but devastating layer of mascara on the lower lids, and a few cute specks of make-up glitter on her cheeks. She wore a white vest top with what looked like a loose gym-bra underneath, and a pair of pale blue jeans that stopped at her calves. The nails of her toes, visible from a pair of straw sandals, were painted silver and chipped. She was chewing gum and intermittently created little pink candy-bubbles from her moist-looking lips. They would pop and burst before her tongue sucked them back in again.

As if I was not lucky enough to have this delicious babe as one of my neighbours for the 12-hour flight, to my delight she took the seat right next to me, her mother preferring to be seated on the aisle where she could stretch her legs. For once in my life, I thought, I’m ahead. I gave silent thanks to the God that tends to be remembered on those occasions when we want something or have just been given something we know we didn’t deserve. It was going to be a joy to be sat next to this gorgeous girl. We smiled a polite hello to one another as she sat down, and although she didn’t seem too bothered by mine, hers successfully melted my heart. I gathered from a conversation she held with her mother about where to find the cellophane-wrapped blanket beneath the seat, that the girl’s name was Laura. Ah… Laura, I thought to myself. The most beautiful of all women’s names. Although I had naturally never thought twice about the name before.

I had flown enough to know the importance of wearing comfortable, loose fitting clothing for a long flight, so I was dressed in a t-shirt and jogging pants. After twenty minutes or so of pre-flight rituals – i.e. reading the movie brochure in order to feel disappointed about what films are being shown, and ignoring the safety demonstration – the plane was up in the air. We were all being handed rolled up hot-towels by the flight attendants who served them to us with tongs from a silver tray. Everybody took one – people will take anything that is offered to them when it’s free – and I watched other passengers wondering, just like me, what the hell they should do with them.

The gorgeous teenager beside me was having a problem plugging in the flimsy headphones we had been given to access the in-flight “entertainment”. I came valiantly (but casually) to her rescue and showed her how to attach them to the power-point on the arm of her seat. She was warmly grateful and smiled a beautiful smile my way. I noticed she had the most divinely soft looking, sun-bronzed skin and the kind of sexy, pouting lips that rarely revealed her teeth, despite the fact she was continuing to chew gum like it was an Olympic sport she was in training for.

On her cheek she had a beauty spot which on anybody else would have simply been a mole. I noticed her slender-fingered hands had something illegible scrawled on the back in crude felt tip. This luscious brunette was blissfully unaware of the sexual allure that almost dripped from her. Her breasts were small – no more than a modest palmful each – but they suddenly struck me as the perfect size and form of any breasts, simply because they were attached to her. The proximity of her long bare arm to mine was painfully close as she fiddled with the radio stations on the arm of the seat.

A short while later the flight attendants announced that dinner would be served. It was gone 11.30pm and I doubt many passengers were hungry - most of them having probably eaten before the flight - but the plane was in the air and we were all forced to surrender to the benevolent dictatorship of in-flight planning, and eat an indigestible tray-meal nonetheless. The male flight attendant served a supper to Laura and her mother and then asked me if I wanted the “chicken” or the “fish”.

“Neither”, I replied politely. “Nothing for me”.

“Oh, but you must eat something”, the attendant insisted, looking worried, as though he were a robot about to malfunction at this strange request that fell outside his program.

“Really, I am ok”, I promised him.

“But there won’t be any more food until breakfast”, he went on, still trying to thrust a foil-covered tray in my direction.

“No, honestly”, I said, struggling to remain affable. When he had finally given up and moved his trolley on, I added under my breath: “Leave me alone!”.

It was loud enough for Laura to hear and she chuckled sympathetically, having just witnessed the exchange. It was a warm, sexy little laugh that made me feel a little closer to her.

Several hours passed and it became time for the flight attendants to dim the lights in the cabin and begin showing the in-flight movie. I can’t remember what the film was, but it doesn’t really matter on an aeroplane when all movies seem rubbish whatever they are, on that pokey little screen with bad sound. I had begun watching the film with my headphones on and Laura had done the same. After a while I had fallen asleep; it must have been at least 4am by now. When I awoke I quickly remembered where I was and how uncomfortable I was, and noticed that Laura was looking down at my lap.

It’s a funny thing on a flight but when a guy falls asleep during the hours he would usually be in bed, his body tends to involuntarily respond the way it does if he were asleep at home. I realised quickly that what Laura was staring at was the crotch of my jogging pants where there was a prominent tent sticking up. I had a full-scale, fully-charged up erection that was so blatantly apparent, it looked obscene. As casually as I could, I opened the blanket up that was at my side and spread it over my body, pulling it up to my neck from underneath, like it was a duvet. Laura caught my eye and grinned at me. It was a knowing grin. I grinned back with a more innocent, embarrassed one and closed my eyes again, probably a little red-faced.

The next thing I knew Laura appeared to check that her mother was asleep and then discreetly slid her right arm under the side of my blanket. I opened my eyes sharply and looked straight at her. She looked right back with the sexiest mix of excitement and wonder on her face. We continued to keep our eyes fixed on one another for most of what followed.

I felt Laura’s arm under my blanket slide down my chest and locate the bulge on the outside of my jogging pants. I was still as hard as a javelin and a delicious grin crossed her face when she discovered the fact. I think my expression must have been an interesting combination of fear and arousal. I made no attempt to prevent or assist the delicious assault but inside I was thanking God again and promising to be good in future if the molestation would only continue.

Laura’s hand pressed down on my erection and she rubbed it a couple of times through the cotton of my jogging pants. I then felt her fingers fumble to loosen the string-tie around the waist. It took her a while but suddenly my trousers felt looser. I puffed out the blanket a bit more in the area around my lap to hide the appearance of any motion down there and I felt Laura’s fingers meet my skin as she slid her hand beneath the waistband. Still looking intently in my eyes, she took hold off my naked erection and began to very slowly move the foreskin up and down. I couldn’t believe I was here. On a crowded aeroplane at 30,000 feet, being wanked by a teenage stranger while her mother slept in the seat next to her. .

After twenty seconds or so, she stopped and pulled her hand out from my trousers. The disappointment must have been stark in my eyes because she immediately smiled again, and this time provocatively raised one of her dark eyebrows. She reached down for her own blanket and pulled it up over her body until, like mine, it was concealing her lap and torso like a thin duvet. I’m not the fastest bloke at the best of times but I cottoned on pretty quickly to what she was inviting me to do, and I slid my right arm across from under my own blanket until it found the edge of hers. She turned her body more sideways to face me and stared again with the most beautiful look of concentration.

My hand found its way to her vest and I began to run my fingers along the thin material. I could feel the warmth of her skin beneath. Her lips parted and although no sound came out, I sensed her breath was now coming deeper and faster. She had the first sign of trepidation in her eyes which joined the look of excitement and wonder that remained there. I ran my hand in a straight line up the centre of her vest until it found her bare shoulder blades and I trailed my fingers across her breasts. They were spongy and soft but nonetheless felt heavenly. I grew more confident and gave each a squeeze before finding the entrance to her bra strap, and sliding my hand inside. It was a tight fit but I was able to take one of them in my palm. The nipple was smooth and warm.

After exploring the flesh of her breasts in this way, I let my hand stray down to the waist of her jeans. I found the skin of her hot, flat stomach and caressed it a few times. With each motion of my hand I allowed my fingertips to stray a little farther under the waistband until they were brushing the top edge of her underwear. Her eyes acquired a look of fierce concentration as though powered by an electric current being generated by my touch.

After a short time I unpopped the top button of her jeans and caressed down her abdomen again. This time my fingers were able to reach the first inch or so of her pants. I unpopped a second button and now I could feel delicate curls of hair from under the soft material. One more pop and I was able to reach right in and feel the flesh of her thighs where they met her panties. It was so soft it felt like skin that had never been touched before. Letting my stroking fingers come to rest between her legs, I felt that the crotch of the pants was very faintly damp.