The Gift of Shame (17 page)

‘I’d love to,’ she breathed.

The Captain nodded as if this confirmed his own judgement. Looking across at his maturely handsome face, Helen felt a stab of insight. This man, in charge of a highly sophisticated aeroplane, was all that stood between her – along with approximately two or three hundred others – and plunging to her death. It was his skill that kept her safe and, quite suddenly, she thought of him as no longer a man but, given his power of life or death, some kind of latter-day deity. That thought combined with his obvious good looks – not to mention the uniform – caused her body to heat up as an air of highly charged eroticism blanketed the flight deck.

Meanwhile, the Captain was addressing the apprehensive Michelle. ‘Are your passengers settled down?’

‘Yes, Captain,’ murmured the girl.

‘And so you have some time to devote to us?’

The girl flashed a side-long glance at the attentive Helen before nodding.

The Captain’s voice came once more into Helen’s headset. ‘There is a strict dress code for the new recruits,’ he said, his voice light and amused. ‘It is my duty to now check that Michelle has conformed to that code.’

‘What “code”?’ asked an avidly interested Helen.

‘You will see,’ said the Captain, before turning to address Michelle directly. ‘Are you properly dressed?’ he asked.

She nodded, her hands already anticipating his next order as she reached for the buttons of her blouse.

‘You understand it is necessary for me to confirm your report?’

Michelle, anxiously nodding, whispered, ‘Yes.’

‘Very well. Continue.’

Helen’s eyes grew rounded with excitement as she saw the woman’s trembling fingers complete the opening of her blouse to reveal her pleasantly rounded, pink-tipped breasts.

The Captain continued his commentary. ‘New girls are not permitted underwear on their inaugural flights,’ he told Helen.

Helen found herself, enormously aroused, unable to take her eyes from the woman now unzipping her uniform skirt and handing it to the First Officer, who was hovering behind her ready to take it. Michelle then turned to face the Captain wearing only a pair of high-heeled shoes, hold-ups and an apprehensive expression.

‘At this point …’ the Captain said through the headset, ‘it is necessary to check if the initiate is truly enjoying herself. Would you care to assess her condition?’

Barely believing she was doing this, Helen agreed enthusiastically and, with no doubt of what was being asked of her, removed the headset and stood to look directly into the face of the startled flight attendant.

Feeling that the past few days had primed her for this unconventional moment, Helen spoke words which, even to her ears, sounded alien. ‘Hands on your head.’ The girl nervously obeyed but visibly shuddered at Helen’s next order. ‘Spread your legs.’

Michelle almost stumbled and fell as she shuffled her uncertain feet apart and the First Officer had to extend a steadying hand.

Filled with a surging sense of power, Helen held her gaze as she reached down and, with her fingers, felt the woman’s spread inner thighs which were seemingly melting with excitement. Helen’s voice came out burdened with an unfamiliar huskiness as she reported Michelle’s condition. ‘She’s ready for anything.’

‘So what do you suggest we do with her?’ he asked.

Helen looked to him. ‘You need me to tell you that?’

The Captain shook his head. ‘But what about me?’ he asked. ‘Do you not wish to check on my “readiness”?’

Helen hesitated a moment as her impulse to go immediately to the man was tempered by an even greater impulse to survive. ‘Who’s going to fly the plane?’ she asked.

‘Madame!’ protested the Captain. ‘Computers have been flying the plane since we left the Charles de Gaulle air-traffic control. You have nothing to fear but my penis.’

Fearlessly, Helen went forward and, kneeling at his side, felt a surge of unutterable daring as she reached for his trouser zip. He was standing tall and aroused as she searched him out and leant forward to tease him before plunging him deep into her throat.

As she hungrily sucked, she fantasised about the context. The Captain had her life in his hands since he controlled the sophisticated machine that contained them all, and it thrilled her to imagine that her safety depended on this man’s pleasure. It was, therefore, with some affront that she felt Michelle’s breasts brush past her bobbing head and realised that the attendant was being bent over her own kneeling figure to plunge her tongue into the Captain’s mouth. She was even more distracted to feel Michelle’s knees pressing against her and, breaking off for a moment, she turned to see that the First Officer was vigorously taking Michelle from behind.

A slight pressure on her head brought her attention back to
her
‘duties’ and she took the Captain once more into her mouth as Michelle started screaming in orgasmic ecstasy. Then, pressing forward, Michelle all but thrust Helen to one side in her anxiety to reach and straddle the Captain in his seat, where, having torn his cock from Helen’s grasp, thrust it deep into her own spread thighs.

Helen had little time for resentment when she, at the First Officer’s urging, turned to be confronted with an enormous, risen penis standing out from his uniform trousers. The distant roar of the engines sang in her ears. This was a moment out of time and she felt like a woman truly privileged to be breaking every one of polite society’s conventions. Thinking only of the hurt Jeffrey had delivered to her, and revelling in this opportunity for instant revenge, she took the risen flesh deep into her throat where her taste buds were immediately assailed by the taste of strawberries. It was the first flavoured condom she had ever tasted and, for some reason, it struck her as hilariously funny.

11

HELEN STEPPED FROM
the plane feeling more an alien than a visitor. Even the pristine blue sky and the all-embracing heat seemed to mock her – and ask her what she imagined she was doing. Having left Paris in precipitate haste, feeling feverish and confused, she now found herself filled with the doubts and bewilderment of a refugee and the suspicion that she might have made a momentous mistake. Since the flight from Paris to Guadeloupe was classified as domestic, there were few formalities on arrival other than to reclaim the baggage.

It was in the baggage hall that Carla, accompanied by a stick-like young man, found her. ‘There you are!’ she cried, closing to embrace Helen as she might have her oldest and dearest friend.

Surprised as much by the warmth of the greeting as anything else, Helen relaxed, aware that everyone in the baggage hall was excited to find a famous face – Carla’s – in their midst.

‘Qito is beside himself with excitement,’ Carla told her as she supervised the young man retrieving her one, sad-looking, bag. ‘Did I introduce Jimmy?’ she asked as they started from the baggage claim hall. ‘Jimmy travels with me everywhere. He claims to be my hairdresser but actually he simply cannot live without me.’ Only Carla’s self-deprecating shout of laughter took the edge off her remark. ‘We are only two minutes from the harbour,’ she added.

‘Harbour?’ asked Helen.

Carla nodded. ‘We are guests on my friend’s yacht.’

Coming out of the airport was, for Helen, fresh from the wintry north, like stepping into an oven. On the short walk to the waiting car, Helen was struck by the fetid balmy air, perfumed by the scent of uncountable flowers striking at her nostrils like a cheap perfume. There was a spiciness to it that caught at the back of her throat like the very essence of excitement.

It seemed impossible to believe that this place, drenched in sunshine and filled with the colour of flowers, could be on the same planet as the wintry grey streets of Paris or London.

‘I’m surprised Jeffrey hasn’t come with you,’ murmured Carla as they sped through the alien streets of this other world.

Distracted from gazing in awe at the colours of the overwhelming green of the flora and the equally colourful dress of the people, Helen turned to her. ‘He doesn’t know I’ve come yet,’ she said adding, in the face of Carla’s incredulous stare, ‘he was still in Germany when I made up my mind.’

This seemed to give Carla pause for some thought until, her brow clearing, she smiled. ‘Qito will be flattered,’ she said.

As the car started drawing into what appeared to be a mixed mooring for expensive boats and workaday fishing boats, she was reminded of the yacht. ‘Whose yacht is it?’ she asked.

‘It belongs to a man called Martinez. He has loved me for twenty-two years and will do anything for me – or, of course, Qito.’

Beginning to wonder just how many devoted admirers, like Jimmy, Carla might have, she heard herself blurting out: ‘He’s your lover?’

The scorn seared through Carla’s reply. ‘No! He loves me but that doesn’t mean we are lovers. Impossible!’ Carla’s tone suggested she thought the question was ridiculous.

A chastened Helen was further distracted when the car drew
to
a halt at the gangway of a boat which seemed to her to have the proportions of a minor warship.

A white-uniformed crewman leapt forward to open the doors of the car and Helen stepped out to better see the sleek lines of the beautiful craft. Two other crewmen, both oriental, appeared as if by magic to seize on her one piece of luggage while she and Carla, with the weedy hairdresser, Jimmy, coming a poor third, walked up the gangway to where a smiling man in his mid-fifties was waiting to greet them.

‘Martinez!’ cried Carla on greeting the man. ‘This is the English girl that Qito is so madly in love with!’

Martinez wore a moustache and his fiftyish, handsome face was sparkling with two rows of teeth which seemed to be crowding out of his tanned face. Murmuring in Spanish he bent low over Helen’s hand before straightening to add, in a pleasantly accented English, ‘Qito will be beside himself that you’ve come.’

Never having seen a yacht like this before, far less ever been on one, Helen found it hard to believe that anything like this could be private property. On board, the boat seemed even bigger than it had from the outside. Martinez waved forward a petite, slim Chinese girl who wore a very tight-fitting cheongsam and what appeared to be a permanent smile.

‘Tsai, would you show our guest to the Golden Stateroom.’

‘Of course,’ said the brightly smiling girl.

Helen was led from the aft deck through a huge sunlit deck cabin that was furnished with an extravagance of white leather couches set about beautifully carved oriental tables. Beyond that was a carpeted hallway leading to a short flight of winding stairs which gave, in turn, into a lower hallway which was bounded on one side by wide windows and on the other by several doors, each of which seemed to have a panel of different colour. The door which was opened for her revealed a room
walled
with gold panelling and soft velvets, while the gold-bordered white carpet was so silkily smooth she felt guilty to even tread on it.

‘This will be yours,’ Tsai told her and started a conducted tour of the facilities during which, she noted, that her baggage had not only arrived but been unpacked and her clothes hung in closets. She marvelled at the speed with which this must have been done.

Gazing in at the glittering gold bathroom, the dressing room and the king-sized bed, Helen could only reflect that her own apartment would comfortably fit in here and leave room to spare.

‘It’s incredible,’ she murmured when, at the end of the tour, Tsai stood smilingly awaiting her verdict. ‘I never imagined there could be cabins like this on a yacht.’

Looking around, Helen felt uneasy with her lack of experience with anything as grandiose as this before and, since there was no one to ask but Tsai, turned to her. ‘What do I do?’

Tsai seemed puzzled by the question. ‘Do? You do as you wish.’ Helen nodded and let the girl go, before turning to survey her meagre wardrobe. This totally unexpected journey to a warm climate left her with very little choice. She was still pondering on the best compromise when her legs felt suddenly weary and in need of rest. Not wishing to further crease her dress, she slipped out of it and lay down on the top of the bed intending to close her eyes for a few moments. Helen drifted into a dream in which she imagined she was flying in an aircraft so big it had a dance floor on which naked couples were either upright and dancing, or horizontal and copulating.

Ghostly hands seized her and lifted her to be impaled on a huge pink phallus that dominated the interior of the aeroplane. Jeffrey was there, encouraging the two uniformed pilots to
bear
down with all their weight on her legs while her mother sat on a high stool knitting and shaking her head in disapproval.

She was startled awake as she consciously felt a hand laid gently on her forehead. Opening her eyes, she saw Tsai standing over her. ‘Madame is not well?’ the girl asked.

Helen, in truth, was not sure how she was and, for a moment, even felt unsure of
where
she was. It was only when she heard the slap of water against the yacht’s sides that she remembered. Seeing Tsai was still patiently waiting for an answer she shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’

Swinging her legs to the side of the bed she realised that she had lain down naked. Someone had, while she slept, covered her with a white linen sheet.

‘Madame Carla sent me to enquire if you would wish to join the company for dinner tonight,’ Tsai said. ‘If so, it will be in one hour.’

‘Is it night already?’ asked Helen, looking to the long narrow windows that lined the seaward wall of her stateroom.

‘It is seven o’clock in the evening,’ Tsai said. ‘Come, let me help you. It is difficult if you are not used to the sea.’

Beginning to suspect that life had become unnecessarily complicated, Helen allowed herself to be led into the bathroom which, she saw, was now dominated by a massage table which had been put there since she last saw the room.

‘I make you feel better,’ Tsai said with enthusiastic confidence. ‘Just lie on the table and I massage you. You’ll feel better.’

Feeling that she could cope only with the least line of resistance, Helen obediently stretched herself face down on the towel-covered bench, and, feeling that her body was a mass of knotted tensions, was grateful to feel Tsai’s hands soothing away the aches with oils. ‘That’s marvellous, thank you,’ she sighed, giving herself over entirely to the girl’s expertise.