In a heated daze, she gets up from her seat. His hand falls away from her tummy and, just like when he let go of her hand before, her skin feels bereft. She feels bereft.

Everything is clammy and cooled from perspiration and it makes her cringe. Poking out of the sea of airplane seats, she feels exposed even though there’s really nobody looking at her. Her knees are… all watery and wrong, but the floor is also heaving gently below her feet, so it balances out.

She considers the slim space between the seats. It was already difficult to get into her seat when there wasn’t a beverage protruding from the back of the other seat, and when he wasn’t sitting in the middle spot, all long legs, and thick thighs. And he is not showing the slightest inclination to get up and let her pass by easily.

So she holds on to the headrests in front and in their row and takes a wide, climbing step over his legs.

It puts her face to face with him. She is standing over him, wide-legged and balanced on her toes, her upper body awkwardly bent towards him. She sways.

He grasps her around her middle, maybe to steady her, probably just because he wants to. Boldly. His hands seem big enough, his fingers long and strong enough to reach around her waist entirely.

He looks up at her. He feels so very open. She could fall into him like she could fall into a well. And she is open herself, all balanced precariously, about to spill out over his legs and belly and chest.

Time stands still for a long moment.

His gold-freckled gaze travels languidly from her eyes to her lips, to her chin, to her neck, to her chest – left, right – to her belly, and then down to the wide-open V of her thighs.

Speaking of rides-

Suddenly aware of how spread she is, she pulls herself away, out of his gentle-yet-firm hold, and struggles to continue on. Ungainly, she half-stumbles, half-jumps, half-falls into the aisle, almost collides face-first with the backrest of the closest center section seat, then blindly turns left and just… walks. Her all-wrong waterknees fortunately still work, plus, she can move hand-over-hand style from one seat to another to make sure she stays upright.

Paia passes through a purple curtain, faintly aware that it must be there for a reason. This section of the plane is a tad more spacious and almost deserted. There’s one person. Paia doesn’t even take note if it’s a woman or a man. She just keeps walking, quickly walking, slipping by the next curtain.

Restroom. Restroom. Panties. Finger. Sweetness.

The next section is more spacious still, but there seem to be a lot of humans milling about. Someone is shouting. Someone else is shouting back. The smell of coffee and vomit is thick in the air. There’s a baby that’s crying shrilly.

A meltdown. On a plane. That’s inconvenient.

That could have been me.

Taste. Come back to me. Great detail.

That could still be me.

The bird rustles its wings and lifts its head from where it was tucked in. It blinks slowly, and the world loses color.

Paia squints and passes by the small crowd of flight attendants unnoticed, crosses the last section that has nothing but six fat, empty leather seats, and then reaches a solid door. No more curtains.

We can’t get any farther away from him.

She turns to the side and catches sight of a lavatory sign, a little glowing green man in a box. Sanctuary! She immediately throws herself at it.

The door is a narrow, folding, feeble-seeming thing, revealing a surprisingly large space behind it. At least two full square meters. She snaps the door shut. The sliding lock seems very sturdy.

It’s a slightly curved space, dressed in faux wood print. There’s a free-standing loo of brushed metal, its lid closed, a slinky-looking commode with a large sink underneath a window, and a fairly large mirror that Paia avoids looking into. A line of lights installed along the slanted-but-not-low ceiling gives the lavatory a warm yellow glow. Everything smells strongly of disinfectant and roses. The toilet paper end is folded into a precious little origami fan and there are no water stains on the washing basin, no soap stains on the tap.

Paia crouches down on the equally spotless floor, pressing her back to the commode for stability, and puts her head in her hands. Her pulse is pounding, fluttering against the inside of her skull.

And at the apex of her thighs.

The bird cocks its head. She turns her face to see the window. She cannot look out of it from this angle, but she can see the milky sunlight.

This was all a mistake. A big mistake.

The sunlight bleeds what little color it had, right in front of her eyes. Her neck starts to itch with feathers. Her heart speeds up to more closely match the agitated pulse of her avian.

She looks down at her hands and sees her fingernails – the ones on her right hand still rimmed with Bhas’ blood – lengthen and curve into thick, dark hooks. Her fingers crook themselves.

“No, no, no.” She makes a fist and tries to push the claws back inside with her palm.

I can’t stick that into my c---

The panic and – and disappointment – make her whimper.

Tap-tap.

A knock on the door with the tip of a finger, the edge of a fingernail.

The bird cries. It sounds just as angry as the baby having a meltdown in first class.

Tap-tap, tap-tap. It sounds like the ‘thu-thump, thu-thump’ of a human heart.

“Open the door.”

Tap-tap.

“Or I will break it down.”

Tap-tap.

“Now, Paia.”

His voice is quiet yet loud enough to carry over the airplane sounds. Loud enough to drown out her bird.

Her bird eyes pull towards the window again, towards that milky, cloudy light, and the bird wants out out out – Paia feels sick and light-headed. And very scared.

For some reason, his name is on her tongue. Like a small piece of chocolate. The kind her mother gave her whenever she had a flight as a kid. It was soothing.

Operating the sliding lock with curled claws, crooked fingers, and shaking hands is almost as impossible as opening her safety belt buckle was, but she somehow manages – panting, sweating, cursing under her breath, with her eyes closed against the glare of the light that her bird eyes see–

And then the door is open and Bhas pours in through the too-narrow gap, closing the door behind himself smoothly. Taking up more space than even this spacious first-class lavatory offers.

His eyes blaze with agitation. At once, his hands go to her upper chest and her stomach and push, push until she is crowded hard, almost violently, against the commode, pinned against the glass fiber plastic wall. His middle pushes against her drum-tight belly. One massive thigh wedges between hers.

“Did you forget that I told you you wouldn’t fly in here, Birdie?” he growls at her. His breath bathes her face. Even the air from his lungs is pushing against her. “Is it your forgetful bird brain, or are you just trying to be naughty?”

“Bhas.” Paia invokes his name like an anchor. She screws her eyes shut because, in her bird vision, he is nightmarish to look at. Her balled-up fists push against his solid chest. “Bhas.”

He grabs her left fist and forcibly uncurls her fingers with his. Her claws score his skin, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Paia, love.” He clucks his tongue. “You can’t stick your fingers into your sweet pussy when they’re like this,” he admonishes gently, saying exactly what she had been thinking just moments before. He pushes against her talons with the pad of his thumb as though he could push them back in when she couldn’t. “You’d hurt yourself and that would be such a shame.”

‘The bird has never cared about that,’ Paia wants to say, but her tongue is all knotted up and her brain is going one hundred and forty-eight miles an hour. Terminal velocity.

“Do you want to fly so badly?” He captures her twitching gaze with his own steady, stern one. “I’m going to make you fly.”

And then he shoves his thigh up into the juncture of hers until she is forced onto the tips of her toes, and the pressure is right there, so insistent, so great, so good. “Ah, ahh,” is all she can say, huffing it through her nose.

He slides a hand around to the small of her back, and then squarely onto her ass, and jerks her closer abruptly, brings her down harder onto his thigh, guiding her pelvis into an almost violent rocking motion.

“You’re a naughty bird.” His teeth are whiter than snow in her bird vision. “Naughty birds get forced to act like horny little dogs. Humping legs.”

“Ah-nnn,” is all she can reply. She tries to hide her flaming face in his chest, but he grabs the hair at the back of her head and compels her to face him.

“I can feel your heat through both our pants and I can hear your soaked pussy squelch,” he tells her. “Come on, Paia. I want you even hotter and louder than this.”

The rocking becomes more frantic.

Her pulse is racing, flying, tripping.

Her panties are utterly drenched.

Something is building. Gearing up. Like a sneeze, but slower. Like a yawn, but much bigger. Embarrassingly like she needs to pee. Like the moment before take-off, when the winds haven’t decided yet whether they should grab her wings or not. Like tears building up in her eyes, except her whole body is fixing to roll down her own cheeks, and it makes no sense and it’s scary but also, also-  

“We’re not done until you leave a wet spot on my thigh, Paia.”

Bhas rolls his hips with her, undulates against her, breathing harder.

Oh. She can feel… him there. His… him. Pushing. She tries to avoid, evade, just in case he…

He lets go of her hair and quickly sticks his hand up her shirt. No warning. No question. No hesitation. His palm slides up over her fluttering belly and grasps her small breast possessively. His skin is electric. It is enough for her to cry out.

“Focus,” he admonishes. “You owe me a wet spot, and I want to see you fly. Now, do as you’re told, you bratty little bird.”

His cruel, clever fingers find her nipple through the elastic material of her now-insensible sports bra, and when he tweaks and pinches her there, it feels like he does the same to her clit. When he pushes and prods her, between her legs is pushed and prodded in sync. When he twists her nipple and grinds his pelvis against her, rubbing his erection against her soft middle, and pulls her pelvis against himself so that her pussy slides through its own wetness, she-

Is.

Flying.

Apart.

“Ahh!” Her throat is half-bird, but her cry is all human. “Bhas!” The sky spins and contracts to a pinpoint.

His mouth lays itself over hers, white sharp teeth and all, and eats all of her cries without chewing. His lips feel less soft than they did before when he kissed her ear, but somehow, they’re perfect and right.

Even his tongue in her mouth feels and tastes just right. Her tongue being sucked into his mouth – right.

The stiff, wet pressure of him down against the softness of her belly…

Her name, a sigh, falling from his lips directly onto hers. All so very right.

Her cunt spasms, wetting the inside of her pants, even soaking through her jeans in patches.

“Good girl,” he purrs. “Good, good girl. Such a wet girl. Such a pretty, messy pussy. Keep going. Give me all of that.” He keeps jerking her pelvis, keeps yanking her crotch back and forth over his thigh, and her tender cunt clenches at the excessive friction, too much, too good, much too good-

“Please!” she gasps out. “Bhas!”

The motion eases, slowly, slowly. Their dance ends and they come to stillness. At least some parts of them do.

Her heart drums in her ears. She is panting.

So is he. He sucks in air through his nose with every deep inhale. Smelling her.

“Open your pants.” His words come out clipped. He keeps pinching her nipple, massaging her boob, almost distractedly. “Unbutton. Unzip.”

She reaches down between them, no hesitation, and does as told. My claws have vanished, she realizes only as she easily threads the button through the buttonhole and pulls the tab down one-handedly.

He moves his leg just a fraction, just enough so that she can come down onto the soles of her feet again, but still standing wide-legged and exposed.

“Put your hand into your panties.” His voice is so soft and also as sharp as the edge of a cliff.

She does as told, even though it is a tight fit.

Her skin and pubic hair and the cotton of her panties – all soaked in perspiration and arousal and release. Her crotch is so wet that her underwear feels like the bottom piece of a swimsuit.

“Mmh, that sound.” Bhas looks down between them and closely observes her hand vanishing into her pants. “Dirty.”

The touch of her own fingers against her lower lips catches her by surprise. She is swollen, a little raw from all the friction, a little sore, and searing hot.

“Are you feeling yourself?” he asks quietly, and when she hesitates, demands, “Tell me.”

She nods and opens her mouth to say ‘yes’, but no sound comes out. Only air.

“Inside, Birdie,” he orders her. “One finger. Make it slow.”

It is tender. Puffy. It almost feels a little numb, or like it’s not her at all, and the idea of someone else’s fingers—“Uhn!” Against his orders, she quickly slides the first knuckle between the slick, throbbing labia and into the wet cave.

“Deeper,” he growls. “Slow.”

She shivers and reaches deeper. Her juices bubble thickly out of her, slurping, tickling along the root of her finger, and spilling down the back of her hand.

“Very good.” A purr.

She shivers more. “Bhas.”

“Is it tight, Paia?” He slowly squeezes her breast. “Is your satisfied pussy tight and hot and twitchy?”

She nods jerkily. Her finger feels snug in her channel. Her muscles breathe around her. The sensation gives her goosebumps all up and down her spine.

“Say it,” he urges quietly. “Use your words.”

“Tuh... Tight,” she half-whispers. “Hot.” She looks at his lips. “Wet.”

“Good.” His simple praise rings with honesty. “Now pull it out. And put that finger in your mouth.”

The shiver grows to a quake. Her cunt sucks on her finger as she pulls it out. The sound it makes, makes Bhas growl and moan a low “Fuck”, and then again, “Fuck, Paia”, when he watched her as she lifts her glistening finger to her face.

Opens her mouth. Closes her lips around the first knuckle. Touches her wet skin with the tip of her tongue.

“Ah, shit,” Bhas hisses. “Paia. Quickly, tell me.”

“I…” She sucks her lower lip into her mouth to capture more of that taste. It’s not a bad taste. “I don’t… It’s not like… anything I know.” The smell is strong, not unpleasant, reminiscent of sweet-sour sweat, but the taste? Earthy? Watery? Windy, with a little spice? Like her own saliva, gently flavored with honey…? “Maybe…“

“Fuck,” Bhas says again, louder, and then he is on his knees and roughly yanking on the waistband of her jeans, yanking it down to her thighs. The move smears her wetness on the inside of her legs. The exposure to the cold air makes her gasp.

With another noise full of yearning and arousal, he buries his face in her crotch, burrowing his nose into her tuft of pubic hair. He sets his upper lip right to the peak of her slit, then opens his mouth, juts his chin forward, and seals his lips around her flesh. Shoves his tongue into her hot crevice.

His tongue is half-human, half-cat, slick, rough, made of fire.

“Oh, fuck,” she hears him say and it sounds like a sob, like something she wasn’t supposed to hear, something private. “She tastes like fucking heaven.”

Paia cries out, half-human, half-bird, shocked, shaking, suddenly red-hot all over.

Panicked by her own loudness, panicked by the torrent of sensations, she shoves her knuckles into her mouth and bites down on them until there’s familiar pain.

Her other hand holds on to his head, grabbing a fist of his hair because she needs to hold on to something, and the steadiest, strongest thing in the entire world right now is him.

Bhas moans and moans, murmuring prayers about her taste, her scent, her heat, and the sensation of her thick syrup on his tongue, lips, and skin. Chanting and cursing her name, caressing it as roughly as his tongue caresses her cunt.

“Fuck, fuck, Birdie, so filthy, pretty little Paia.”

Her thighs tremble madly. He holds on to them with both hands and both arms, pressing her to him and holding her upright. Without him, she’d surely fall. She’d fall right out of the sky, like a silly bird. And like a silly bird, she’s singing for him.

“Bhas, please, oh, please, I can’t-“

He laves her clit, her slit, the rim of her opening, reaching inside just a fraction of an inch with the spearhead of his cruel, clever tongue.

She scores his scalp with her fingernails and tugs his hair.

He drinks her in long, deep gulps. Drinks her all up.

And she feels not like a human or even like a bird, but all liquid. A cloud. A puddle. Melted wax from a blazing candle. Not flying but falling, dripping, into his hot mouth, spilling over and running down his chin, dripping down onto the floor.

Drip, drip, drip.

***

“Thank you for flying with us. Have a nice day. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you for flying with us. Have a nice day. Goodbye.” The flight attendants sound weirdly robotic, saying all the same words in the same way over and over again as the few passengers file out of the plane.

Paia keeps her head down. Her face feels red. Humans have a name for this, she thinks. Mile high club, or something? She does not feel like she’s part of a club now. The opposite. She feels like a newly minted outsider.

This time, it’s not a bad kind of outsider-ness, though. It’s like… she now knows something that nobody else does, and that’s why she cannot be a part of them anymore. She has found a wind current that nobody else knows about, and now she must soar on it, away from everyone.

“Thank you for flying! Take care. Thank you. Goodbye.” The lady with the philtrum gives her a wide, lipsticky smile as Paia trudges past her.

Paia wishes she could soar out of this plane more quickly.

Have any of the cabin crew noticed? Heard them – heard her? (They must have. I was loud.) Maybe smelled her? (They’re humans. Their noses are deaf.) Or maybe just looked at her face and know that she… she flew. And fell. Dripped.

Paia is not entirely sure what happened after Bhas… got up off his knees. Everything went soft and formless, like both the human and the bird had decided to just sit on a branch, turn their backs, let the milky second eyelid slide over their irises, and barely watch things through the fog from a distance.

She knows he helped her wash up a little, making a mess of that cute little origami fan. He redressed her – pulled her panties up, smoothed the crotch over her pussy and butt to make sure she didn’t have a wedgie, even zipped her fly for her, which was strangely more intimate.

He led her back to her seat, hovering behind her in the aisle like a herding dog, then buckled her up, pulled the plastic blind down to shut out the sunlight, and told her to have a nap.

She did because all of her eyelids were endlessly heavy. She used his upper arm as a pillow and smelled him when she drifted into an exhausted sleep.

The rough bump-and-bang of the plane touching down startled her awake again.

The seat next to her was empty.

She didn’t dare to look for him. Not proper.

(Okay, she may have looked for him when she took her small suitcase from the overhead bins. But only a little.)

Half in a trance, she trots along with the humans. In a herd, they find their way through the sprawling airport – to the correct baggage claim carousel, through customs, passport checks, security, and out into the hall, where a few people are waiting hopefully to welcome their loved ones and pick them up after their flight. People with signs, with flowers, accompanied by excitedly yipping dogs.

Nobody is waiting for Paia, with or without signs, flowers, or pets, and it’s a relief. She checked all the faces, a little nervously, anxious to recognize or be recognized… but all is well.

The doors to the outside are just a short walk away now. Less than a hundred steps.

Except that… she doesn’t want to step outside yet. She doesn’t want to find a bus or a train or a taxi.

Something else needs doing first. She just doesn’t quite know what it is.

She scratches her nose and catches a whiff of—an earthy, watery, windy smell. And a fiery one, men’s shampoo, and male sweat, with feline musk and fur underneath.

Her belly flutters.

She wants to find a restroom, actually.

Looking around the enormous hall and at all the humans running this way and that, she picks a direction and starts walking, hunting a little green man in a box for the second time today.

The wheels of her small suitcase whirr loudly as she pulls it after herself, half-running – the action itself causing the queasy feeling of being chased – towards one of the smaller departure halls, then down a side corridor and around a corner, towards a section of the airport that’s reserved for ‘premium passengers’, none of whom apparently fly midmorning on a weekday. There’s only a cleaning lady scrubbing some windows all by herself, her cart parked nearby. Even the loudspeaker announcements are softer here. Everything is muted and abandoned.

The back of her neck prickles and the feathers of her nape ruffle. She looks around. Nobody there?

Paia shoulders a restroom door open – it seems hilariously oversized and sturdy in comparison to the last one she used – then walks past the sinks and the mirror – still not looking in those – and around the corner. There are four cubicles. She drags her suitcase into number three (because she once read in a magazine that the first and last cubicles are always the dirtiest, and the ones in the middle, especially the odd numbers, are the least used and cleanest), squeezes in with it and wrangles the door shut. It’s a matter of centimeters and she has to stand on one leg to swing the door past, but once it’s shut, there’s just enough space to stand around and breathe. 

So she stands there. Shuts her eyes. Breathes like she once saw in a YouTube video for pregnant ladies and people with panic attacks (or was it pregnant ladies with panic attacks?).

Not that she’s having a panic attack. Not quite, anyway. Does panic have a more ambiguous or positive cousin?

Is there something like a ‘giddy attack’?

Her underwear is still clammy. She should put on a fresh pair. That’s why she opens her pants and unzips and-

Stands there. Gulping air, feathers ruffling.

Her hand slides down her sweaty body to the even sweatier center. Underneath the elastic band of her cotton panties – the ones he fixed for her – teasing, testing, doing things that she had never done before today, still hadn’t done on her own yet, things she still doesn’t really want to do on her own…

And still, she wants to-

Tap-tap.

***FIN***

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