Martin"s Secret
Chapter 7: Love in the Air

After climbing to forty thousand feet, Martin switched on the jet’s auto-pilot and scanned the displays and flight controls for anomalies while Jessica went aft to explore the passenger cabin. He had positioned them a few thousand feet above most commercial traffic and they were flying through relatively calm air.

After a while, Jessica poked her head through the vinyl curtains separating the cabin and flight deck.

“There’s a mini-shower back there, I’m going to see if it works.”

“Wish I could join you,” he said.

Martin started inputting Tampa Bay Regional Airport on the plane’s flight management system. The small, towered airport in west-central Florida near the Gulf of Mexico was home to a National Guard contingent, a couple of Coast Guard planes, some hangars and a variety of small civilian aircraft and hangars. An industrial park bordered the north side, administration and maintenance offices and U.S. Highway 41 made up the eastern perimeter and the south and west borders were patches of wooded acreage crisscrossed by rural county roads. In case the jet was reported missing, he figured security was minimal at the facility forty miles north of Tampa.

They were outside the forty-five-mile radius and twenty-three thousand foot altitude jurisdictions of Denver TRACON, one of the nation’s busiest flight control facilities, which meant mandatory communications with traffic control were infrequent. When they flew over Colorado’s border with Oklahoma there would be even less ground-to-air chatter since their route did not take them over any military posts.

Jessica returned from her shower wearing faux-leather pants and a white, front-zip top with half sleeves; the outfit followed her figure without a foraying into exhibitionism.

“Custom tailored by top Walmart designers,” she teased as she sashayed into the cockpit like a lingerie model.

“Mercy!” marveled Martin.

“What?”

“You’re gorgeous.”

“Why thank you, Rhett,” she teased in a southern twang. She wanted him, but had no idea why she called him Rhett in a southern drawl.

“I don’t think they talk like that in Florida,” he poked, eyes still adulating.

“Well, maybe they should.” Jessica laughed and curtsied putting one sandal behind the other, but turbulence thumped the plane and she quickly took her seat and buckled up. She could feel his eyes on her as the shoulder harness pressed against her breasts when she breathed.

When Martin realized he was borderline gawking, he side-eyed the cockpit displays and fumbled with the cabin-temperature control.

“It’s warm in here,” he stammered.

Jessica sensed his awkwardness and giggled. “I like when you look at me like that. How long has it been since you were, you know, with someone?”

Martin was embarrassed by the inquiry because he couldn’t remember ever having sex, but he felt confident in his abilities.

“I don’t remember anyone that way,” he admitted, staring at clouds plastering the windshield and disrupting the starlit view.

“Would you like to know me that way,” she cooed, immediately regretting the overture. I’m gonna need a parachute if he rejects me, she thought.

“Just the thought of knowing you that way has me in sensory overload.”

“Wait, not now, you have to fly the plane.”

Martin picked up the device and thumbed its keyboard. A drone version of the aircraft’s basic flight controls popped up on the screen.

“I’m going to take a quick shower and scrape off the restaurant condiments,” he announced.

The thought of being alone at the controls of a jet streaking through the night sky at more than five hundred miles-per-hour panicked Jessica.

“Wait, you’re leaving me alone? I’m not a pilot. What if something happens?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got that,” he said as he manipulated the hand-held device.

Suddenly, the autopilot disengaged and the jet’s nose pitched down two degrees. He tapped another key on the device and the plane expeditiously leveled off.

“It’s like flying a drone,” he said and released his safety harness to make his way into the passenger cabin.

Jessica’s unblinking eyes darted from the plane’s avionics displays to the swirling clouds sporadically blanketing the windshield.

“Please hurry,” she shouted side-eying Martin without moving. “I’m not comfortable with this.”

Twenty minutes later Martin buckled into his seat clean-shaved wearing black, Ben Hogan trousers, a white, puma-striped golf shirt, black loafers and a Golf-Galaxie cap.

“So you figure me for a golfer,” he said, taking off the cap she bought for a second gander.

“You could be a Denver Broncos quarterback but you’d look silly walking around in a football helmet,” she quipped.

“I would at that,” he agreed and smiled.

Martin didn’t remember if he was shy or extroverted but he was not feeling timid as he unbuckled each of their safety harnesses, switched off the overhead lights and gently pulled her across the console onto his lap. Inhaling the lingering fragrance of her raven black hair as he stroked it further seduced him.

“I think I like golf,” he said in a raspy voice, tossing the cap aside.

Soon, Jessica felt his passion from her perch.

“Oh my! You’re not as shy as I thought,” she said with a come-hither smile.

Martin wrapped his arms around her and they kissed fully, each passionately exploring the other in the cockpit’s glow, ultimately sharing the ecstasy of fervent, uninhibited lovemaking as the jet streaked through the star-lit night.