Flying High by Rachel Kramer Bussel

I take the blanket and tuck it under my arms, leaving my hands exposed and out of mischief. To Paul’s “Sweet dreams,” I smile politely and turn my head toward the neighbor on my right, a silver-haired gentleman who’s already snoozing under his sleep mask.
    I close my eyes.
    The dreams that await me are definitely not sweet.
    So, what’ll it be? Masturbate now and get it over with or futilely resist the inevitable for another half an hour and then do it?
    I squeeze my eyes tighter. I made a vow. I’m too old for this. I’m a responsible executive. Playing with myself in public is a nasty habit and I have to stop.
    Come on, you know that cute guy got you so worked up, you won’t get a wink of sleep if you don’t diddle yourself .
    I curl my hands into chaste fists. I have to think of something—anything—besides sex. What about Alice Munro? A great writer, so controlled in her prose. She’d never masturbate on an airplane. Then again, her stories are always full of sexual yearning. I flash on a scene in her latest work about a young man who’s troubled by the urge to stroke the velvety skin of his
sister-in-law’s birthmark. It was slightly perverse, but the idea made me a little warm and tingly inside.
    Now I’m very warm and tingly.
    In desperation, I turn back toward Paul, hoping some pleasant conversation might rescue me from my own troubling urges. Unfortunately, he’s already asleep, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, his lips slightly parted. I study his face, the thick eyelashes and kissable mouth. His hand is even more appealing—he is indeed hogging the armrest—with long, sturdy fingers and a tracery of veins on the back that reminds me of a hard cock. My left arm prickles from the warmth of his body. We’re close enough that we could be in bed together, dozing after a satisfying fuck.
    I sigh and turn away. I fly often enough for business that it should be a bore, but airplane travel still arouses me in some primal way. The moment I arrive at an airport and get that first whiff of jet fuel on the breeze, my blood starts to race with the promise of adventure and escape. That pulse still throbs now, down there , between my legs.
    My fingers twitch.
    The throbbing quickens, fueled by the drone of the jet’s engines.
    All right, there’s no use fighting it. I am going to masturbate under the blanket on this flight.
    With careful nonchalance, I slide my hands under the blanket and rest them on my thighs. Over the years, my nasty little habit has evolved into a careful system to bring myself off with a minimal chance of exposure. I close my eyes and fantasize like hell while I squeeze my secret muscles, sometimes lingeringly slow, sometimes as quick as hummingbird wings. I do this until I get myself so hot it takes just a minute or two of direct stimulation to come. Then I lift my hands slightly and clasp my right wrist
with my left hand, forming a tent that lets my pussy finger wiggle away unseen until I achieve the desired result. After that comes the extra bonus: sweet, untroubled sleep straight til breakfast.
    I don’t need to search far for my fantasy today. My lewd mind steals Paul’s large, tanned hand and copies it three-fold, one for each breast, the third to rest over my mons like some avant-garde artist’s vision of a fleshly bikini. On cue, the hands cupping my breasts begin to pleasure me, expertly tweaking and palming my nipples, which really do stiffen and rise under my shirt. Down below, the middle finger of Paul’s extra hand slithers into my cleft to tease my clit with a soft, circling motion.
    Meanwhile I work my cunt muscles—squeeze, release, squeeze, release—until I’m almost squirming in my seat. Before long, it’s time to ease my hand under the elastic of my yoga pants and finish up the job.
    As a final precaution, I take a quick peek at the old guy, who’s snoring