35,000 Feet above the Atlantic: Monday 16th October 2017
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Fear. Excitement. Despair. No, that’s wrong. Frustration, not despair. And a strange bedfellow. Irony. Do you remember the kaleidoscope toy from when you were a kid? That was the mental picture in my head as I sat slowly drinking my seventh gin and tonic at 35,000 feet above the Atlantic. My mind turned the kaleidoscope’s grip so the prism turned. My emotions tripped between fear, excitement, frustration, and trust. And then back to fear. And back around the loop I went. I was looking at my watch, working out exactly when I could talk to Sue. It was eleven hours since I’d kissed my sleepy wife goodbye as I pulled myself out of the cab at JFK. We’d only managed four hours sleep, after first James and then Francis had fucked Sue. Well, at least Sue managed four hours sleep. I wasn’t so lucky, tossing and turning as I wondered what the next three weeks would hold. I’d be eight thousand miles away fixing a project up in the mountains on the Malawi-Tanzania border. And Sue would be alone in New York for three weeks; alone with Francis, James, and Jenny, three people who she’d already known carnally. And Sean, someone who wanted to know her carnally. As we’d left the house at six-thirty that Monday morning, these four unexpected house guests had still all been soundly asleep as Sue and I jumped into the cab and headed to JFK. Sue might as well have been asleep. I’d wanted to talk to her about what had happened on Sunday night and to discuss the next three weeks. But she was pretty much dead to the world, barely awake as she snuggled up next to me in the back of the cab. I tried to get a conversation going, but virtually all I could do was get across a very basic message; please, let’s not let anything happen before we’ve had a chance to talk about it. I think this message got through. But honestly, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. And my lack of certainty that my message had landed with Sue was only amping up my worries and need to talk to her. As I looked at my watch I realized we’d already been flying for thirteen and a half hours. But it was still half an hour before we’d be back over land. Then it would be possible to make a ruinously expensive air-to-ground call, to try and put my worried mind at rest. The hands of my watch seemed to be going around with a snail-like pace, as my emotions spun around in a way that left me feeling almost punch drunk. Fear. Excitement. Frustration. Trust. And then there was irony. Irony that fate had somehow staffed the plane with a senior air stewardess who bore an uncanny resemblance to Sue. Estelle was maybe five years younger than Sue and was a white South African lady who filled out her uniform in a way that was very pleasing to the eye. It was a pretty empty flight, and I was one of only two customers in a Business Class designed for sixteen. Consequently, Estelle and I had spent plenty of time chatting. Like Sue, she had green eyes and long brown hair. And there was certainly a superficial similarity in the face. I was glad of the distraction, but in some ways, her similarity to Sue acted as a constant reminder of the sexy wife I’d left back home – left behind in a veritable bullpen of sexual predators. I didn’t think I was flattering myself when a little voice told me that she was flirting with me. As she asked me where I was traveling and when was I heading back. Casually letting on that she had a couple of days in Johannesburg before her next flight. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The last few minutes before we made landfall seemed to take forever. But finally the handset showed a call was possible and I dialed Sue’s number, hearing the voice I craved. “Hello,” answered Sue’s sleepy voice. It was just before one a.m. on Tuesday morning for Sue. “Hi, honey. It’s me.” I had no idea what her screen showed. How do these things even work? “Hi, baby. I wasn’t expecting you to call until later. I thought you said it was a nineteen-hour flight.” “We’re still in the air. But we’ve just made landfall and so the phones on the plane are working.” There was silence at the other end. I guess Sue wasn’t going to be at her most chatty at one in the morning. So I took a deep breath and came straight to the point. “Sue, honey. In the cab this morning, I’m not sure how awake you really were. Do you remember me asking you not to do anything before we’d had a proper chance to talk?” There was a deathly silence at the other end of the phone. I felt my heart sink. “Sue?” Still silence. “Are you there, honey?” A long pause. Still, silence at the other end. My gut twisting and feeling like it was being put through one of those old fashioned hand mangles. “Sue, honey, are you there?” “Yes, baby, I’m here.” I could hear the nerves and tension in her voice. I took another deep breath and screwed up my courage. “Judging by your silence and the tone of your voice, is there something you need to tell me?” There was another long pause. This time it was Sue screwing up her courage. “I’m so sorry, honey.” I closed my eyes as the mangle ratcheted my gut another couple of notches. I tried to calm myself. Not knowing what to say. And not able to say it, even if I had known what to say. There was then a very expensive silence as neither of us knew what to say. Finally, I managed to move things forward. “Sue, honey. You better tell me what happened. We’ll get past it, I’m sure. I know it was a genuine mistake, honey. What happened?” I braced myself as I waited to hear the worst of it. “I’m so sorry, Pete baby. I was so sleepy this morning that I didn’t really take in anything you told me in the cab. If I’d have understood, of course, it would never have happened.” Sue paused, “Are you angry with me, baby?” Sue went quiet again, her apology given. But I needed to know more. “I’m not angry with you, honey. I know you’d never have done it if you’d known. But I need to know what happened.” I could almost picture the pained look on Sue’s face. The tone of her voice comforted me some, letting me almost see her remorse over the phone. Sue started sharing the details with me. “It was after work… I was so dog tired after surgery. After so little sleep. I really needed a coffee. So it seemed only natural to go for a coffee. And well. We got talking. And one thing sort of led to another. After what happened last night after dinner, it just sort of seemed only natural. Especially as it’s been so long. Can you forgive me, honey? It really was a genuine accident.” As Sue’s words trailed off, I felt my Adam’s Apple bobbing up and down. My blood felt seven parts adrenalin to one part blood. I knew she wasn’t doing it intentionally. Dragging it out. But Sue was telling me what had happened – but she wasn’t telling me who had happened. “Sue, baby, of course, I can forgive you. I know it was an accident. But who was it? You’re driving me crazy, honey. I know it happened after work. So I’m guessing it was Francis or Jenny.” I heard a giggle from the other end of the phone. “Does it have to be one or the other?” Seven parts adrenaline became eight parts. My mind filled with the mental picture of Sue being seduced by her two work colleagues and friends. It was such an erotic image and thought that all my fears and terrors temporarily left my mind. I was filled with an overwhelming need to know more. Not helped by the earlier gin and tonics, my throat felt parched as I struggled to find my next words. Aware that Estelle was directly in front of me, signaling five minutes until we started the landing routine and my call would end. “Sue, baby. Are you saying what I think you’re telling me? You better tell me all the details.” Again the sound of giggling. My forty-four-year-old wife and mother of our grown son no doubt blushing as she found the words to describe her night of passion with her male and female lovers. As the giggling died down, Sue tried her best. “It was Jenny who started it. I was making coffee and she came up behind me in the kitchen. The next thing I know is I can feel her hands on my hips. And then she was feeling my boobs. And well, one thing led to another. Do I have to spell it out?” Part of me wanted to scream out Yes, but that wouldn’t have helped. So instead, when I’d pulled myself together sufficiently I asked: “And what about Francis?” Before Sue had a chance to answer the Captain must have shut off the air-to-ground phone system as the line suddenly went dead. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I was a nervous wreck for the next four and a half hours. I’d heard half of the story and I was then left hanging as events conspired to isolate me from communicating with the outside world. According to the schedule, we’d have a ninety-minute layover in Johannesburg, which would have been plenty to fire up my mobile and re-establish contact with Sue to find out what had happened with Francis. But we were delayed forty minutes circling round and round in a holding pattern before they finally allowed us to land, Estelle helpfully telling me it was because they were waiting for the President’s plane to land. This meant that we were rushed across the airport to make our connecting flight, a battered and very unsophisticated old Boeing 737. No air-to-ground phone on this beast of the nineties. Two and a half more hours heading North to Lilongwe, and then finally I could switch my phone on and call Sue. “Hi,” my favorite but still sleepy voice answered, now nearing six in the morning for her. “Hi, honey. You were telling me about Francis,” aware that my breathless speech betrayed my urgent need for more information. A pause. Followed by a question. “What had I told you? Before we were cut off.” I know she didn’t mean it. But the woman I loved was driving me crazy. “Nothing! You’d told me nothing. Nothing apart from Jenny feeling your hips and then your boobs.” Yet another pause. And then finally, I started to get some information. “You’ve got to remember, honey, I didn’t really take in what you said in the cab.” “Okay, I get that, baby.” There was another pause from Sue. As if she was trying to work out whether or not to tell me something or not. Her mind made up, she finally spoke again. “Would you be mad at me if I told I’m in bed with Francis right now?” I wondered long and hard about how to answer Sue’s question. I knew she’d not gone against my request intentionally. But the truth was I was feeling both hurt and let down. But I knew that now wasn’t the time or the place to make a big thing of it. That could wait until we had more time and we were both less tired. “It’s okay, Sue honey. I know it was a mistake.” “Thanks, darling,” Sue replied in her best apologetic voice. “I have to shower now honey and get ready for work. Let me hand the phone to someone who wants to talk to you.” Even before I heard his deep voice I felt a sense of dread, knowing whose voice I’d hear next and really feeling totally unwilling and unable to deal with it. “Sorry man. We royally screwed up again, didn’t we! Sue and I really screwed it up this time.” These last two and a half years I’d gotten to really know and like Francis as a good friend. I could hear the regret dripping from his voice. And despite the way I was feeling right now I couldn’t find it in me to be angry with him. In a funny way, I was less angry with him than I was with Sue. After all, I’d not snuggled next to him in the cab and asked for nothing to happen. “Sorry, man. We thought it was okay with you. We thought we had your green light after what happened Sunday night.” He sounded just like some hackneyed defense attorney making some plea in mitigation. “You better tell me all about it.” I did and I didn’t want to know the details. I knew it would hurt and upset, just as I knew it would excite me. “It was before work. Sue was in early having dropped you off at JFK. We had about ninety minutes before she had to start theater.” Alarm bells started ringing all through my brain. I knew from Sue’s confession that she and Francis had spent the night together. That they’d had coffee with Jenny. But from what Francis was starting to tell me it was worse than that. Sue had gone directly from dropping me at the airport to the hospital to get fucked by her Nigerian lover. I’d been going through security and immigration and she’d been bent over his desk getting herself another portion of his big black cock. Not even waiting for me to be up in the air!
