The Mile High Club
A Short Story by Annabel Boardman
I used to pee in airplane sinks cause I was scared of the sound of the flush. It took some considerable gymnastic skill, but it was satisfying and erotic to face myself in the mirror and piss, controlling the flow with my pelvic muscles so as not to flood the sink. Just one leg thrown up and no panties.
For a long time this was the most interesting thing I had ever done on an airplane. Then came the fateful day when I boarded a Delta flight from New York to LA, and two hours in made a hushed, horny pact to join the mile high club with the attractive stranger sitting next to me, Mister E in row 25 FED. We had to climb over the aisle person, the gatekeeper, who watched us with sinister judgement, as we both conspicuously got up from our seats.
“So as not to disturb you more than once, we’ll both go and be quick” I said to her.
People are disturbed no matter what.. I thought. And then I thought of every agitated, uncomfortable, drooling, snoring, strange smelling, crying, tensing, festering person on the plane, shifting achingly, unsettled with every single one of their bones out of alignment and the blood pooling in their extremities, threatening to clot. Oh the humanity, restless, with bruises forming on joints, pinched uncushioned vessels! Oh the static electricity creeping through the carpal tunnels! And, oh God, I realized the pressure inside the cabin was much greater than outside. Maybe right then about 5 pounds per square inch of difference, and the outside air was thinner, lighter, sucking, greedy.
Hmm, pounds per square inch, or PSI, which is like the sound of pressure starting to leak, and also kind of like me pissing in the sink. Pssssss. But I thought, “right now I don’t give a fuck what the other passengers think, I just need him to pound my square inch.” Oh boy, I had no idea. So we were on our way down the aisle and the flight attendant stopped us. I’m like wtf how did she know? We must have had this horny conspiratorial swagger about us. We must have been a bit too gleeful and bright eyed for people crammed into economy class. She couldn’t comprehend our joie de vivre. But no it was because we were approaching some turbulence and the captain had turned on the seatbelt sign. Ok we went back and sat down and I was just showing my new sky boyfriend a trick I can do with the seat belt buckle when I guess it happened, and it happened in about an instant.
There was a sound so loud that for a moment it knocked me unconscious. My supple body, suntanned from my summer vacation, went limp as I fainted, and as the plane jolted, my arms lifted above my head. All of the oxygen masks deployed as the cabin depressurized through the busted window in row 25 FED, and all of my clothing was ripped off me, including my socks. I bet there was a shining millisecond where my body rose up from my seat, graceful and naked as the day I was born, but nobody saw it because I was instantly sucked through the busted window in row 25 FED and out into space. Or I would have been, had I not gotten stuck, like a stepsister in a washing machine, halfway through the portal. I always knew that, when it came down to it, my surprisingly fat ass would save my life. And thank God Almighty that the valiant young man next to me was willing to risk it all, even cancellation and assault charges, for he grabbed my buttery thighs with both hands and held fast. Half-outside the plane I regained consciousness, scalded by the freezing atmosphere, and what I saw I won’t ever forget. A hundred thousand blue concentric steps – in the shape of a diamond. An inverted pyramid, with all of the wind in the world rushing towards its center.
Annabel Boardman is a 5 foot, 3 inch writer based in New York City. She is unsure if she believes in “free will,” but that’s not up to her to decide.
IG @ textilecone
