Free The Mile High Club by Rachel Kramer Bussel Page B

begging to be sold? No one understood these monoliths. They had flashy lights like Christmas on the side, and crate-loads of attendant gear to facilitate belching of green and white barred paper from a big printer that made the sound of a thousand knuckles cracking.
    For a budding salesman gifted in the hard sell, computers were the stuff dreams were made of. How tough could it be?
     
    The sun was setting as I mounted the stairs pressed to the fuselage of a big yellow plane on the tarmac of some nameless small city, bound for yet another. Truly, I had lost track. A handful of early successes had given way and my numbers were charting down. The sales of these big computers seemed to cycle hot and cold, and I was never at my best in the cold.
    I was thinking of going back to selling commercial stoves, where grease-splattered diner owners knew the value of a quality stove, where my convincing presentations could amplify that value.
    Tonight the seat of a Boeing 727 would again be my easy chair. I needed to clear my head. I needed a distraction. I’d sampled more than one Layover Lizzie: a stewardess stuck in a podunk city waiting for her next flight. I’d adapted my “fast read” sales pitch to sort out the women interested in such excursions. Make that pitch; if the client doesn’t bite, move on.
    This stewardess had fair skin and bright blonde hair framed in that damned yellow outfit. I didn’t give her a second thought as I passed. But later, when she made the preflight check, her coquettish smile, painted burgundy beneath eye-matching electric
blue eye shadow, lit up the cabin. I read her nameplate: Jacqueline.
    Down the aisle some old curmudgeon pretended he didn’t know how to buckle his seat belt. His grumbly voice let out a couple of laughs as she bent over to assist him. His hand sneaked around and pinched her shapely butt.
    She gave a patronizing, tight laugh as she pushed his hand gently away.
    I recalled when my mentor once winked at a beehived brunette barmaid somewhere in Wyoming. “I’d sure like to get into those panties.”
    She winked back. “Why’s that, hon? There’s already one asshole in there.”
    His smile fell like a luckless horseshoe.
    When Jacqueline brought me a scotch, I tossed out my favorite icebreaker to Hughes Airwest stewardesses. “Is it true what they say in the commercials?”
    “What is that, sir?”
    “That you say ‘yes.’”
    “Well, we do our best.”
    I gave a sly wink.
    She smiled softly.
    The exploratory touch, the “innocent” graze of a passing knee with an innocent swoosh was met with a focused gaze that burned on my retinas like a sudden flashbulb on a dark night.
     
    A few weeks later, Jacqueline greeted me warmly as she took my boarding pass. When she served my scotch, I tested the waters again. She hadn’t said yes the last time, but I thought the moment worthy of another sales pitch. Casual, ever casual, the backs of my knuckles touched the base of her silky thigh while I “reached” under the seat for my leather valise. Her eyes
connected with mine. They didn’t squint, didn’t widen. She let me linger for a moment before she eased her leg from my graze.
    I was more deliberate in the dark cabin when she brought a refill. My fingers curled around the back of her knee to the base of her thigh. She watched the scotch pour. She finished as my fingers trailed up her thigh just under the bright yellow miniskirt.
    I was sure I saw her wink in the dark cabin as she continued up the aisle. I pivoted my hard-on parallel with my pinstripes.
    The plane descended toward a yawning sunrise. “Jacqueline, we should be arriving just in time for breakfast. I know a great diner just in town.” I smiled as she paused to check my seat belt.
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Gartner, but I have plans.”
    “I thought you Hughes Airwest employees say yes!” I gave a sly wink.
    “Well, we do our best.” Her lips curled in a tight smile.
     
    Not long later, Jacqueline and I met