should Carlos prove to be a pain, or gay, or even a masochist – I’d had enough of Kip for a while – it would be nice to know a decent-looking Dutchman in the city. But it was a hell of a long flight and I didn’t want to end my game just yet, so I knocked back the wine and put my seat into recline and my sweatshirt behind my head.
‘Sleep.’
I closed my eyes and astonishingly drifted off.
I awoke to find Peter Verhoeven immersed in my Marie Claire .
‘Hey, Bliss van Bon. Good sleep?’
‘OK.’
He put the magazine down. ‘Oh no, are you going to carry on with that stupid game?’
‘No, give me a chance; I’ve just woken up.’
‘Good. I’m just reading about what women really want, and I was hoping you’d tell me if it was true.’
I glanced at the article and then along the row to the woman next to him.
‘She’s Dutch. She doesn’t speak English,’ he explained.
‘Hope she speaks Spanish if she’s going to Lima.’
‘No, she’s getting off in Aruba to visit her son, who works there.’
‘OK. What do women really want? Right now, a gallon of water and a mouthwash. Any offers?’
Bless, he produced a big bottle of Vichy. That got me looking at him with new respect. If there’s one brand of mineral water that tastes different to me, that’s it. It’s got that sort of salinity that tastes, frankly, like cunt juice. I told him.
‘Oh, Bliss,’ he said intimately, moving slightly closer. ‘What a lovely thought. Even nicer to see you drinking it.’
I immediately put my mouth firmly round the neck of the bottle and tipped it down. Not all at once, so I could lift it from my lips just a trifle carelessly and spill some down my T-shirt. As if rehearsed he produced a clean white handkerchief and after hesitating while I nodded approval touched it delicately to my wet throat. I closed my eyes to savour the progress of his hand wrapped in fine cotton as it caressed my collarbones and slowly moved down the front of my top, carefully and gently ‘drying’ me. I hadn’t realised I had spilled so much water but he had to go as far as the satin of my cream bra before he was satisfied.
‘Silly girl,’ he reproved me. I opened my eyes. He was leaning over me, his handkerchief now on the magazine he had put in my lap while he did the wiping-up operation, his fingers trailing across the swell of my breasts above the T-shirt. ‘I think you’re dry now.’
‘Oh no, I’m not. But you’ve mopped up the water I spilt, thanks. I’ll be more careful this time.’
I took another slow swig of the water then handed it to him. He put his mouth where mine had just been and swallowed.
‘I’m not sure if you’re quite right about the taste of this water. I need a comparison.’
‘That’s a shame. It’s too public here, and if you think I’m following you into the toilet for a fuck over someone else’s pee you’ve got another think coming. I grew out of that sort of thing a long time ago.’
He laughed. ‘I can imagine, and I wouldn’t dream of asking you to. Who I had in mind was the stewardess with long blonde hair. Think I stand a chance?’
Oh yes, that’s more like it. ‘Do I get to watch?’
‘Why not?’
I could think of one or two reasons, like arriving in Lima so wired I’d want to sit on Carlos’s face before I even saw it, or the effects of a dramatic increase in blood pressure a mile and a half up in the air, but the thought of a private sex show was too much to turn down. I crossed my legs, not easy in a 747, and squeezed my sex muscles and my thighs. With the seam of my jeans pressing into my crotch I was just a finger’s breadth away from an orgasm. Peter watched me and I had absolutely no doubt he knew exactly what I was doing.
He replaced the magazine on my lap and wordlessly offered me his empty wine bottle.
‘No, tacky. Let’s just continue our little chat for a bit, if that’s all right with you. Then maybe after we leave Aruba you can try out the taste
Marteeka Karland and Shelby Morgen