The cabin attendant directed me down the aisle to my seat on the left. Although, to be honest, I don’t know why she bothered as there were probably only five other people on the entire plane. I’d never seen a flight so empty, but I guess a combination of economic downturn and a major televised sporting event contrived to provide me with perfect travel conditions for the four-hour flight ahead.

I stowed my carry-on, took my seat and settled down to read for a few hours. But no sooner had I started the first chapter of my newly purchased airport page-turner than someone stopped in the aisle beside me.

I turned towards the white cotton trousers and looked up at the beautiful brunette standing above me. I managed to stop my mouth from falling open, and also from staring at the slender line of bare skin that was showing by her partly unzipped vest top.

“Erm…” Her voice was as sweet as honey. “I know this is kind of weird on this flight, but I think you’re in my seat.”

I took my boarding card out of my pocket and looked at it and laughed. She was right and I shifted one over into the correct seat. I preferred the aisle and I don’t really know why she insisted on taking that seat, given that she could have just sat across in one of the other spare seats. But I had no problem at all with the idea of her sitting beside me for the next four hours.

“Sorry,” she said as she sat down, “But they usually insist on us being in the right seats. Something about identifying the bodies in case we crash.”

I laughed: so she was beautiful and intelligent. Now I had to think of something to say in reply.

“I think you’re the only woman on the plane,” I said, “So they can probably just do it by finding the body without a penis.”

She blinked slowly and looked at the floor in silence, probably wondering what the odds were of being sat next to the biggest weirdo on the plane when most of it was empty seating.

Why on earth had I said that? Ah well: I didn’t stand a chance with her anyway. I decided to return to reading my book before I made things even worse. She took out a magazine and began to flick through it, but she seemed to spend more time stifling yawns than reading any of the words.

Take-off was thankfully uneventful, and once the seatbelt lights went out the cabin crew made a pass-through to try and sell us drinks and snacks. Once they had passed the brunette turned to me.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “But I think now we’re in the air we’re okay to shift around. So I think I’m going to relocate across the aisle and try to stretch out for a sleep.”

I smiled to hide my disappointment, but then I wasn’t surprised that she was trying to get away from the weirdo who mentioned a penis as the first thing he said.

Without waiting for a reply she moved across the aisle and reclined her seat fully back. At least I could take advantage of the extra legroom, so I moved back to where I’d originally sat. I much preferred an aisle seat myself. Although I realised it made it look as if I was following her.

“Is it still warm?” she asked me from across the aisle, glancing down at the seat that she had vacated and I’d just jumped into. I wasn’t going to say “yes”, which was the truth, and given my previous foot-in-mouth moment I decided just to smile in reply. She smiled back, with more than a hint of amusement on her lips. Perhaps she realised I wasn’t really a weirdo, just a bit awkward sometimes? I mean, she wouldn’t say something like that to someone she was genuinely worried about, would she?

“I’m probably going to fall asleep,” she said, “But can you do me a favour?”

“Sure,” I said, eager to please. I guessed she’d want me to watch her bag, although if anything went missing then with the small number of people on the plane it wouldn’t be the hardest whodunit in the world to solve.

“I sometimes get a bit… active in my sleep. Arm waving and stuff…” She glanced at the floor and bit her lip a little. She was so cute. I might just spend the whole flight watching her sleep instead of reading my book, I thought, and then realised that, yes, I really was a weirdo.

“Anyway,” she continued, looking back at me, “If I do, can you wake me up?”

“Erm, okay,” I said. I didn’t like waking anyone, and it would mean touching her, I was sure, and no matter how I did that I was sure to do it wrong. I couldn’t touch her leg, and her arms were bare so that would mean touching skin… I bet it would feel smooth and soft. It looked like it would feel smooth and soft. I tried not to stare.

“Thanks”, she said, “I’ll likely just drift off again. I just don’t want to get too deep and start having vivid dreams.” She glanced down at the floor again. What was she scared of?

I nodded and smiled and pretended to go back to my book. The brunette slumped down in her seat and closed her eyes, and I realised that she was right about how tired she was as she was asleep within a couple of minutes.

I stared at her as she laid there, her mouth open a fraction and her chest rising and falling. She didn’t look like she was wearing a bra beneath her vest top, and if I stared closely I could just about make out the outline of a nipple beneath the soft material. I felt my own chest rise and fall as I took a deep breath, imagining what her breasts would look like without even that thin covering.

She stirred in her seat and murmured. My head turned quickly back to my book lest she wake and find me staring at her, but I needn’t have worried. Her arm lifted above her and hit the back of the seat but even that didn’t cause her to wake. I turned back to studying her. It wasn’t spying on her, mind; I was studying.

Her breathing seemed even faster now and she raised her right hand and then let it fall onto her chest. Her movements were clumsy, almost like sleepwalking.

And then her hand ran across her neck, pulling the vest top this way and that as she stroked her skin. It looked so good to touch and I wondered what kind of a dream she was having. Should I wake her now? This didn’t seem particularly worth waking her for, and she’d only been asleep five minutes.

Her hand gripped at the neckline of her top and tugged gently downwards. I was treated to the sight of a little more bare skin; the soft, pale flesh at the top of her breast. I took another deep breath, but then I stopped as her fingers gripped the zip and, pulling clumsily downwards, she slid it, inch by inch, stretching the vest top fabric as the straps pulled at her shoulders; but the zip kept moving downwards.

I was transfixed as a line of tanned, smooth skin became wider and wider down her front. My mouth fell open at the same time as her vest did and a beautiful, rounded breast with a small brown nipple came into view.

I thought to myself: I should do something. I should wake her now. But what was I to do? Stand up and loom over her while she was lying there with her vest unzipped and her breast exposed? Wouldn’t she think that perhaps I had something to do with it? Or that I should have stopped her earlier?

I couldn’t think of a way that would end well, so I just sat and stared. The brunette’s hand ran across her bare stomach, pushing the blue fabric aside as it moved. She stroked at her breast and murmured quietly. I realise now, that if she’d awoken at that point, she would have been looking straight at me as I gawped at her almost naked torso.

Her hand moved up and stroked her chest, pushing the vest aside and exposing her other breast. Her fingers played around her nipple and another murmur escaped her lips and her back arched. I couldn’t have looked away even if I had wanted to.

Then her hand slid down her front, across her smooth, flat stomach, and she pushed it into her white cotton trousers. She reached deep inside and the next murmur was more of a whimper, higher pitched and a little louder. Her fingers struggled inside the tight fabric as she massaged between her legs, and then her other arm moved to her waist.

Again, clumsily, still asleep, her fingers fumbled at the button. Her hand pulled out of her trousers and slid her zip down. Then, with both hands, she pushed her fingers down along her waist, over her hips, pushing inside her white cotton trousers.

Her trousers slipped down an inch, and then another inch, and then I realised her hands were inside her underwear too. She seemed to be struggling to push the bundle of fabric further, but then she lifted her backside off of the seat.

With the newfound freedom she pushed again at her trousers. They slid over her buttocks and suddenly she was bare to midway down her thighs. Her back arched and she moaned as she ran her hands up her sides and over her breasts, and then back down again, over the tops of her thighs, reaching inwards and between her legs.

As she whimpered again she brought her knees up and, with one hand still between her thighs, the other pushed and pulled at the top of her trousers. They bunched over her knees and, then with another push they were down around her ankles, her underwear mixed in there somewhere.

She leant back into her seat and I looked her long, tanned body up and down, bare from her ankles to her shoulders, her unzipped vest hanging behind her. The hand between her thighs continued to rub up and down and her breathing became faster and faster. Her other hand massaged her body and squeezed her breast. Her back arched and she rubbed at her chest and her neck as her hand moved faster and faster between her legs.

Her body began to pulse with the rhythm of her hand stroking and probing between her thighs. Then quiet, softly spoken gasps escaped her lips as I watched her quiver at the orgasm that overtook her. I realised I had matched my breathing to hers as the seat creaked to her pulsating rhythm. And then, finally, she let out a long, low sigh and slumped down into the seat.

Instinctively, I knew she was about to wake up. I turned my head to face forwards, closed my eyes and forced my body to go limp. Well, all the parts of my body that I had control over at least. I heard a tiny whimper and then movement.

“Shit,” a voice said quietly, and there was the sound of rustling and folding fabric as she struggled to pull her underwear and trousers back up. I heard her zip fasten and I struggled to supress a smile. I kept my eyes tightly shut and wondered what must have be going through her head on waking to find herself naked and with a feeling of post-coital drowsiness.

I listened carefully, and not without a certain degree of sadness, as she zipped her vest up, and then she emitted a long sigh and the seat creaked again as she fell back into it.

“Not again,” she said quietly to herself, and then there was another creak as she stood.

I opened one eye to watch her walk down the aisle towards the restroom. I decided that it was best if I maintained the act of sleeping until she returned, lest it seem just a little too convenient. I guessed that we still had a couple of hours until landing, and for the first time on this flight I found myself hoping that there was enough of the journey left for the beautiful brunette to fall back to sleep again.

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