The Seduction of Suzanne (23 page)

They talked and laughed through the serving of the meal, the clear up – Suzanne was appalled at the litter of plastic her food had generated, and earnestly stacked everything as tidily as she could – and on through the long hours of the flight as people switched off screens and lights and pulled blankets on, reclining their seats for sleep. The cabin lights were dimmed. Window shutters pulled closed. The hostesses stopped circulating up and down the aisles. Eventually it felt like they were the only ones awake on their section of the plane. Absorbed in each other.

“I keep thinking how weird it is to be in this plane, flying to another country,” she said in the pause as a topic of conversation lapsed. “I can’t get over this feeling it’ll all disappear any second. I keep thinking I’ve forgotten something, left it behind. I have. It’s my home. The empty house. Everything on hold.”

He listened attentively and nodded his head in understanding, though he contradicted: “Not on hold. Your lifestyle is on hold, but you are definitely moving forward. Or sideways, on a new path.”

She bit her lip, considering him, then asked: “When did you get so wise? When did a beach bum, a surfer, learn how
to. . .to. . .” she paused, looking for words that fit, “do what you’ve done. With me I mean. When we met I had no intention whatsoever of doing any of this. Not in a million years. But here I am. And I’m feeling good about it. So how did you do it, hmmm?”

He looked away, looked back at her, opened his mouth to take a breath, closed it again and scratched his head. “I think it was just the right time for you. You were ready, even if you didn’t
think you were.” She got the distinct impression he had almost said something different, then changed his mind.

“Maybe,” she replied, hearing her own doubts in her tone. “But I think you have quite a way with people. At getting them to do what you want. You’d be a good leader. If you ever get serious about work you should give management a try, I reckon.” People would naturally follow him.
She
would like to follow him. Not that he acted like her superior. He was always respectful and at times deferential. But that was part of his skill, really. He led by inspiring. Building her up and up until she felt ready to fly.

And it was a rare quality. She hadn’t encountered it before. Maybe it was all that travelling, meeting people in all different walks of life and learning lessons about getting on with everyone along the way.

Or perhaps he was just a wise old soul in a young man’s body.

“Hey, how old are you? I just realised I don’t know.”

“Twenty-eight. How old are you?”

“Twenty-four. It’s kinda funny we didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t it. I know exactly what to do to make you scream with delight,” his voice had dropped to a husky breath of noise as he moved his mouth to an inch from her ear, “what to say when I’m deep inside you so your inner muscles flutter and grip me just so,” she watched his pupils dilate with the memory, feeling her own nipples draw up tight with a flash of arousal, “but there are still some things I just don’t know at all about you. Liiiike,” he drew the word out as his fingers slid to clasp her wrist, measuring the speeded pulse there then sliding delicately up the skin of her inner arm, “what’s your favourite colour?”

She squeezed her thighs together and a shiver of pleasure shot down her spine.

“Oh. Ah, blue.”

“Mmmm. Mine too. Like the sky and sea. A woman of good taste.” He bent his head, nuzzled his way down her neck to her collarbone, trailing little kisses. She tilted her own head back, feeling dizzy, to give him better access. “Very good taste.” He bit her throat, a painless nip, and then his tongue flicked out lightly to soothe the spot. She moaned and then blushed furiously, thinking of the people in the seats in front and behind them. The third seat in their row of three was empty, but it was hardly private here.

“Justin!” she hissed, embarrassed and aroused.

He met her gaze and there was a gleam of pure mischief in his eyes that made her stomach lurch with terrified excitement. He pushed the armrests on either side of him up so they were flush with the seat, undid their safety belts, pulled her into his lap and extracted two blankets from under their seats. Then he shuffled over to lean against the wall of the plane, his legs lying along the seat, taking her
with him, closed the window shade and covered them both with the blankets.

Suzanne
’s heart was thumping furiously by the time he had her how he wanted her, one hidden hand on her breast inside the bra he had deftly unclasped, the other delving between her thighs, and her sitting squarely on an erection that was growing by the second in little pulses and jerks she could feel through the thin fabric of her shorts.

“Justin!” she whispered, in desperation. But she didn’t say ‘no’ so he didn’t stop, his skilful fingers plucking at her bead-hard nipple, the other hand rising as high as her waistband then sliding back down inside her shorts and panties, his fingers lodging with precision on just exactly the spot where her nerve endings quivered in anticipation. She gasped as he reached it, a sharply indrawn breath, and he stilled and settled apart from the subtle motions of those wicked fingers. Looking down at the folds of the blankets she realised they weren’t even stirring. There was no sign to anyone looking on of what was happening to the aroused and increasingly agitated woman beneath. Eventually she had to move, the urge to squirm was so intense, and as her clenched thighs relaxed, he took advantage of the increase in space to swoop two fingers deep inside her, the palm of his hand now taking up a steady, gentle grind on her clitoris as those fingers moved in and out of her. Oh, no more than an inch of movement each way, but what an inch.

Suzanne wanted to scream. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t make a sound. She had never needed to be silent as they made love, other than that one time on the lawn, conscious of the neighbours. Now she could do nothing but grip Justin’s thighs with her hands, dig her nails in and grit her teeth. He started to rock ever-so-slightly and suggestively underneath her.

She could feel herself winding upwards towards orgasm, that feeling that had grown so familiar these past days. She clamped her eyes shut, trying not to pant, knowing she wasn’t quite managing. The sensation started in the backs of her knees, gathered speed and momentum as it rushed up the backs of her thighs and exploded through her genitals into the rest of her body as a heady rush of sensation that made her gasp and moan softly.

Frantically she looked around to see if they were being watched, but the darkened cabin was quiet, the people straight in front of her as she sat sideways on the seat were unrecognizable sleeping lumps under their own blankets. The heavy drone of the engine muffled the sounds that seemed so loud in her own head. No one was moving.

Except Justin, unbuttoning the waistband of her shorts and manoeuvring her upwards, holding her clear of his lap so he could slide shorts and underpants down around her thighs. Then he transferred the globes of her bottom from one broad palm to rest on his sinewy forearm as his hands were busy between them. She realised his
plan too late, befuddled by her own pleasure and his jerky speed.

He freed himself from the confines of his board shorts, the sound of Velcro making her jump. She heard the tearing noise of a little foil packet opened in haste, and suddenly the head of his penis was stroking over her soft folds, questing and then sliding into her as he breathed a sigh of relief hot in her ear and pulled her down on top of him, sheathing himself deeply inside her.

She quivered and shook with the sudden fullness exactly where her body yearned for it, stretching her while his hand resumed its place with fingers stroking her clitoris.

Other than that he was still, though she could feel him pulsing and twitching against the giving walls of her inner passage. It felt so decadent to sit like this in his lap, their bodies joined, locked together in pleasure, while her thighs were pressed together as tightly as ever. 

The secretive rush of it, the awkward, exquisite sensation were enough to push her over the edge into another orgasm, and she felt the flutter he had described only moments earlier as her body gripped and released his penis with contractions of pleasure that made her lay her head back on his shoulder, dazed and boneless. Replete.

He waited, fingers at rest though his body remained as taut, his erection as huge as ever within her. He gave her maybe as much as a minute before he moved again, his hands coming to grip
her hips and hold them still while he tilted his own pelvis beneath hers to set up a rhythm of short, devastating thrusts. It was less than an inch of movement but it was enough. Within moments she felt his muscles tense, his hard body going rigid beneath her as he swore softly and fervently in her ear.

She was amazed. Who would have thought? As she squirmed upright he helped her, lifting her far enough that she could pull her underwear and shorts back up, then refastening his own clothes. She gave him a fulminating glare, pretending indignation. It made him laugh softly and pull her head close for a passionate kiss. She bit him, but not hard. He laughed again and she let him go, fished her backpack out from under the seat, and scuttled off to the toilet.

Once she had figured out how the door worked, she shut herself in. In the mirror she looked ill, her skin yellow and her eyes a bloodshot pink. After a moment of horror she realised that most of it was simply an effect of the pallid, greenish light. She washed as best she could, brushed teeth and rebraided her hair before returning to her seat.

She found herself blushing as Justin looked up at her, hesitating in the aisle. If she hadn’t known better, she would never have guessed by looking at him exactly what they’d been up to not twenty minutes ago.

He slid his tablet back into his cabin bag and held out his arms in invitation. She went to him for the cuddle he offered, curling up against his chest, his arms around her, her head on his shoulder. It wasn’t the most comfortable position for either of them. He was too big to be completely at ease in these little seats.

But she was very glad he was so physically affectionate. She was hungry for his touch, and it was good to be held. He pulled a blanket around her and eventually she fell asleep like that.

She drifted in and out of her shallow doze. The continuous dull roar of the plane’s engines kept waking her. When she finally awoke completely she felt befuddled and not really refreshed, slowly opening gritty eyes to find the lights were still down. In the semi-darkness she could just make out Justin’s face. He was asleep, head tilted awkwardly to one side. She eased herself carefully away from him, moving by inches so as not to wake him.

Checking her watch she discovered only three hours had passed, which explained the tiredness. Trying to sleep again was unappealing. She extracted her book from her bag, fumbled with the overhead controls until she finally worked out that the light switch was in the armrest, and settled down to read.

The hours passed slowly. Suzanne found it hard to concentrate for long stretches of time, with the sound of the engines continually boring away at her skull. Justin was almost completely motionless, only his chest moving slightly as he breathed. She wished that she could have managed to sleep for longer herself. This whole business of international travel turned out to be remarkably tedious, after the first bit. The only thing to relieve the monotony were the occasional glasses of orange juice and packets of crackers offered by the cabin crew. Eventually other people started one by one to wake and switch on their own lights. Then the cabin lights came on, and Suzanne began to smell hints of cooking from the galley.

Finally Justin stirred, his hand moving to brush his thigh questingly. She realised that he was sleepily searching for her. Finding her gone, his eyes shot open with a start. When he saw her sitting in the aisle seat and looking at him, he relaxed and gave her a lazy smile.

“You look bored,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I’d really like to be out of this tin can,” she replied, tedium making her feel acid. “How much longer is it going to be?”

“It’s . . . quarter past nine in the evening back in New Zealand,” he said, checking his watch unhurriedly. “The flight takes twelve hours, and we left at eleven thirty, so we’ve been in the air for nearly ten hours. A little more than two hours left.”

“And all that when you’re just barely awake,” she said with admiration.

“I do my humble best.”

“So what time will it be there when we arrive?”

“Oh, about half past three in the morning, on the same day that we left. We flew back to the night, and on through it. LA is twenty hours behind Auckland. If you open this shutter, you should see darkness.”

“Really?”

He slid the window’s shutter open to demonstrate. He was right. It was pitch black out there. All she could see was the reflection of the cabin’s interior.

“New Zealand’s the first country in the world to see each new day,” she said, suddenly remembering that she’d been told that before. “I’d forgotten.”

Conversation lapsed for several minutes. Justin appeared to be sunk in thought. Finally he roused himself, and said with unusual hesitance:

“
Suzanne, there’s something I should tell you.” But as he opened his mouth to speak, an air hostess appeared at her elbow, and asked her whether she’d prefer sausages or an omelette for breakfast. Distracted, it took her a moment to decide. When they had both been handed trays of food, she turned to him again. “Sorry, what were you-”