Cabin Fever: The sizzling secrets of a Virgin air hostess… (12 page)

With so much hedonistic fun to be had down-route in Joburg, it was always a bonus if you could share the experience with your friends. So in February 2000, Suzy, Jonathan and I requested a trip there together. It couldn’t have come at a better time. I’d barely seen Jonathan recently and our break would take in Valentine’s Day. I’d even bought some props to spice things up a bit: the
Kama Sutra
; a 3D Mould-a-Willy kit; edible knickers; raspberry sorbet edible body paint and a couple of racy negligees from Ann Summers. My case was like a travelling sex shop – the security guards at Heathrow had a field day scanning my case, giggling and nudging each other like children.

I wasn’t the only one anticipating some action. Suzy was in the late recovery stages of a bitter relationship break-up – the phase where she was re-immersing herself, with newfound verve and confidence, in the dating game after weeks of crying and not eating. Jimmy “big chin” Forsyth had dumped Suzy after falling for another crew member. For a while we were extremely concerned for Suzy. It hit her hard. But after lots of TLC from us girls, her depression gradually lifted. Now she was spreading her wings – and her legs – by embarking on no-strings-attached flings with a number of stewards. In our previous week’s crew briefing on our way to St Lucia, she realised she’d slept with every steward in the room. It was payback time for Suzy. “I’m chewing them up and spitting them out,” she said.

This particular trip to Joburg was a five nighter – and we planned to make the most of every minute. There were some
gregarious characters among our crew: our captain Nathan, a towering six-foot-four figure, well spoken but bumbling, with a penchant for fancy dress; Sindy and Katie – both big-time exhibitionists who appeared to be joined at the hip, and Adam, who had Mediterranean looks, fancied himself as a bit of a stud and was itching to bed Suzy. About fifteen other equally flamboyant and colourful personalities completed our merry throng.

Our first night began in a civilised manner with a slap-up dinner and wine at the Butcher’s Shop steak house in Nelson Mandela Square. From there the group fragmented. Some headed up to Nathan’s suite for a room party, while the rest of us shimmied along to the hotel bar for cocktails, where we managed to piss off a group of over-the-hill BA hosties sporting floral Laura Ashleyesque dresses and reading glasses. They took one look at us glamorous young Virgin girls strutting in and immediately looked the other way. They were even more infuriated when the two pilots they’d been sitting with decided we were far more interesting than them. The two men – both in their mid fifties – couldn’t leave their seats quickly enough and were soon mingling with our mob, gathering at the bar. One of them, who introduced himself as David, “pilot for British Airways”, sidled up beside Suzy and me. There’s a standing joke among hosties: “How can you tell who’s a pilot at a party?” The punchline being: “Because he will tell you.”

“Can I get you lovely ladies a drink?” David said, his crinkly eyes fixed on Suzy’s huge cleavage.

Suzy instinctively rippled her body like a pole dancer into an S-shape, flashing David a treacly smile. “We’ll both have Screaming Orgasms, please.”

David self-consciously rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand. I noticed he was wearing a wedding ring. “Two Screaming Orgasms coming up,” he said with a nervous laugh, then shuffled
to the bar, crossing paths with Jonathan, who was headed in our direction holding two goldfish-bowl-size glasses of Pinotage.

“Who’s that?” he said, cocking his head over his shoulder.

“Ah, that’s David,” I said. “He’s a BA pilot … he’s off to get me and Suzy a Screaming Orgasm.”

“I’ll give you a screaming orgasm you’ll never forget later,” said Jonathan, handing me one of the glasses.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

I sipped my wine, enjoying the sensation of the velvety liquid trickling down my throat. A fog of laughter and high-pitched conversations filled the room, drowning the languid background jazz music. I spotted David’s friend, smoothing down his wispy comb-over and chatting up a vampish hostie, whose fake boobs were popping out of her little black top. I glanced over at the BA hostesses, who were still shooting us hostile looks that screamed: “We were once like you.” It made me smile.

“Here, Suzy,” I said, motioning towards them with my glass. “Do you think that’ll be us one day?”

“Hell no,” she laughed. “We’ll still be partying when we’re ancient.”

Just then David returned with our drinks on a tray. “Two Screaming Orgasms,” he said.

“So, David,” I said, reaching for my glass. “I see that you’re married.”

“Was married,” he said hesitantly.

Me and Suzy exchanged knowing looks. Of course he was still married – we’d heard this old chestnut many times before.

“Does you wife not understand you?” I said with a sarcastic tone.

I took a sip of my Screaming Orgasm, then another sip of wine. “David, meet my boyfriend, Jonathan. He’s training to be a
pilot too. We’ll leave you two alone to talk planes – thanks for the drink.”

Then I edged into the crowd with Suzy, leaving Jonathan and David to their geeky aircraft chat.

A few drinks later and we were becoming far too rowdy. The drinking games had started and we were getting foul looks from some of the other guests who were trying to enjoy a civilised tipple in a relaxed environment. The BA hosties had long gone and, when Sindy and Katie started kissing and fondling each other in an overly dramatic manner “just for a laugh”, we decided that was probably a good moment to make our exit, too.

“Let’s take this upstairs,” shouted one of the stewards as the two girls broke away from each other in fits of giggles, lip gloss smudged clown-fashion around their mouths. Drinks were downed in record time and off we clattered like a drunken, cacophonic marching band, through the lobby, into the lift and up to Nathan’s suite to wreak more havoc. Realising he wasn’t going to pull, David had made his excuses and left. His mate, however, must have got lucky; he was nowhere to be seen when we left – and the vampish girl he’d been fawning over had vanished, too.

Nathan answered the door to his suite wearing a ten-sizes-too-small salmon T-shirt dress, which left nothing to the imagination. He was also wearing a rabbit shower cap with inflatable ears and holding a glass containing a scarlet drink resembling mouthwash that was garnished with a cocktail parasol.

“About bloody time,” he beamed, flinging open the door. “Come on in.”

“Fucking hell,” said Adam, staring at Nathan’s bulging crotch as we spilled into the room, “What yer come as this time?”

Nathan glanced down at his groin, bunny ears drooping forwards. “I must say, it does feel rather snug down there.”

Adam shook his head. “See all yer meat and two veg in that, mate.”

“I’ve exchanged clothing with Natasha,” Nathan explained in a serious tone. “She’s wearing my chinos and polo shirt.”

But Adam had now lost interest in Nathan’s dress and was raiding a table loaded with booze bottles along with Suzy.

“You look a million dollars in that, Nath,” I said, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Fantastic figure.”

“Knockout,” added Jonathan, patting his shoulder as we walked by.

Nathan laughed loudly – he had one of those booming upper-class laughs that reminded me of a character out of
Blackadder
. “I do like to keep in shape. You know what they say: a moment on the lips equals a lifetime on the hips.”

Nathan’s suite was huge. Pilots always get the best rooms, and that’s why they’re used for so many crew parties. The main room – a sprawling lounge with its own office space – was a hive of activity. There were bottles and items of clothing strewn across the floor, and Puff Daddy’s “Come with Me” was uh-huh-ing and yeah-ing from the stereo. People were laughing and counting out loud, as a girl with bubbly blonde curls, wearing nothing but a pair of bikini bottoms and a diving mask, was performing a headstand against the wall. Others sat on the huge window ledge, smoking cigarettes. On a giant television screen, encased in the ornate solid teak cabinet, a peroxide-blonde woman was giving a streaky-haired guy a blow job, as a long-haired man pounded into her from behind. The whole porn-in-the-background thing actually started as a prank played on many nasty pilots whom no one liked – we would drink their room bar dry and order porn so they had a huge room bill – but it had actually caught on and became a common background scene at a lot of our room parties. On one
of the sofas in the room, a girl was simulating a deep-throat blow job on a banana as her friend fell about laughing.

“Forty nine, fifty,” chanted the headstand spectators. The girl’s legs fell to the floor over her head so that all we could see was her arse swallowing the tiny triangle of orange bikini. She stood up, picking the fabric from her bum. “I feel all dizzy,” she said, reaching for a miniature of rum resting on top of the teak cabinet. “Someone else’s turn now.”

Suzy returned from the table with three glasses containing a viscous beige liquid. “I’ve made Mudslides,” she declared, her eyes radiating mischief.

“She’s taking it up the backside now,” said Jonathan, nodding at the television.

The semi-naked headstand girl came skipping towards us, her boobs now covered by a white T-shirt that was so thin you could see the brown tinge of her nipples through it. “We’re all playing truth or dare,” she said excitedly. “Come and join in.”

I don’t think I’ve been to one room party that hasn’t involved a game of truth or dare. They’re inevitable. I tended to opt for truth rather than dare. It was a no brainer: firstly, you could lie through your teeth, and secondly, everyone was so off their tits they wouldn’t remember anything you’d said anyway – although this did backfire on occasion. I wasn’t a prude; I did my fair share of dares. I just didn’t see much point in flashing my wares to all and sundry every time.

This time though, emboldened by Mudslides, vodka, Screaming Orgasms and wine, I accepted a dare from Nathan, which, astonishingly, didn’t involve flashing or streaking, or performing naked headstands.

“I dare you to fill up the lift,” said Nathan, motioning towards the door with his bunny ears.

This was a common pursuit on trips – to pack the elevator so full of furniture that no one could get in. Sometimes we’d even stack furniture outside hotel room doors so the boring crew who hadn’t come to the room parties couldn’t get out. It was all taken in the lighthearted way it was meant.

“Easy peasy,” I said, handing my glass of mud to Jonathan.

One by one I carried and dragged pieces of furniture from the hallway and Nathan’s suite along the corridor – a chest of drawers, coffee table, two swivel chairs, an armchair and a standard lamp. I was spotted by a few guests leaving their rooms as I assembled the furniture by the lift. “We’re just moving things around – having a change around,” I said with a terrible South African accent. When the corridor fell silent again, I made my move. I called for the elevator, praying no one was inside it. I watched the floor numbers flash by on the digital display, giggling to myself, until the doors pinged open. The lift was empty. I blocked the door with the armchair and set about filling it up. I couldn’t stop giggling. As I heaved the last piece of furniture – a chest from the corridor – into the lift, I heard a door close followed by hurried footsteps.
Fuck
, I thought,
I’m going to get caught here
. I tried to crouch behind the armchair still blocking the door but there was hardly any space to stand, let alone crouch. I’ll just walk out, I reasoned, and act shocked. As far as anyone else was concerned, I could have found the lift in this state. So I casually stepped out of the lift … and bumped into Suzy, naked aside from a skimpy pair of black knickers tied at the sides.

“Ah, Suze,” I said, “Thank God it’s just you.”

“I got the topless knock-down ginger dare,” she said, peering into the lift and laughing. “Looks like you’ve passed your dare – no forfeit for you.”

Then she turned, hammered three knocks on the door opposite
the lift and sprinted down the corridor giggling. I heard voices calling after me as I darted back into Nathan’s suite.

The party continued, getting louder and wilder as the hours slipped by. Every drink I guzzled was a different colour: red, green, blue, pink, yellow. More and more people were stripping off. A hostie called Francesca was flashing her recently purchased double-D implants, saying, “Go on, touch them,” to anyone who was interested, like they were just hats she had bought. We were all pulling moonies at the window and one guy did a full strip and ran down the corridor and back with his cock slapping his thighs.

It was almost 4am when a security guard arrived to “investigate a number of complaints”. He’d been knocking on the door for some time but no one had heard him. It was only because Nathan had noticed the phone ringing that he knew he was there. Nathan turned the stereo off and answered the door. The security guard – a stocky South African man – did a double take when he saw Nathan, who was still sporting his salmon dress and bunny cap.

“Can I help you?” said Nathan, covering his groin with his huge shovel hand.

The security guard walked into the room, almost tripping on an empty Bacardi bottle at his feet.

“You’re the Virgin Atlantic party?” he said, stating the obvious.

“Yes, that is correct,” replied Nathan.

Drunken sniggers filled the room.

“We’ve received some complaints. May I speak to your captain?”

“Well of course,” said Nathan, removing his bunny cap, “I am the commander.”

The security guard shook his head. “You’re disturbing our other guests. And the furniture in the elevator … is that from here?” He glanced around the room, searching for missing pieces,
his eyes momentarily fixing on the lesbian spanking scene now playing on the television.

“I’m terribly sorry,” said Nathan. “We’ll clear everything up – and you won’t hear another peep from us.”

The security guard raised his hands. “Please keep the noise down.”

“Of course, of course,” vowed Nathan, ushering him out the door. “Like I said, not a peep.”