Chapter 1 - Economy
“Can I help you with anything, Sir?”

Bob looked up with surprise from the shirt he was inspecting, probably the drabbest and most sack-shaped in the store. Wearing his close-work glasses, he was easy to sneak up to because everything beyond arm-length was a dim blur.

Like a ship from a fog bank, the shop assistant drifted into his field of vision and coalesced as a solid shape. Bob sighed inwardly. Pretty! Story of my life. It seemed a cruel irony that pretty girls so often approached him – to ask him the time, or for directions, or any number of other things that to a normal person might be conversation starters – and Bob froze like a hunted animal. Guys he could handle. Older women he could handle … usually … unless he found them attractive … which was actually pretty often. But young women … pretty women … young, pretty women like this one for instance? Forget it. His jaw would drop open, he would feel a tightness clamping down over his chest and he would forget to breathe. All he could think about was how beautiful they were; how they could snap their fingers and have any guy at their command; how they must loathe talking to a dork like him, their skin crawling with the need to be away from him and return to the beautiful people with whom they belong.

With these thoughts flashing through his mind, Bob opened his mouth to say “No, thanks” when he stopped, his jaw hanging open as was usual in these situations; but although he was thinking about all of his caligynephobic reactions to pretty girls, he wasn’t feeling any of them. Caligynephobic? How is that even a real thing? Fear of beautiful women … madness!

He had been pretty mellow and zoned out since he got off the plane at Coffs Harbour airport. In what was probably going to remain the single most extraordinary experience of his life (it’s all downhill from here, Bob; and you’re only 19!), Bob had lost his virginity and joined the Mile-High Club in a twenty minute whirlwind of panic and passion with Vicky, a slim and beautiful flight attendant on the shuttle from Sydney.

Rather than dismissing the pretty shop assistant, Bob quickly grabbed at what was probably a temporary surge of confidence and asked for help.

“Actually I think you probably can help,” he said, smiling as he absently brushed at a lock of black hair that always seemed to fall behind his glasses but never between the barber’s scissors. “I’ve just flown in and my suitcase must have gone to Melbourne. I need some clothes for tonight; I’m going out.”

It was only a white lie. His suitcase was safely beside the bed at his grandmother’s house, filled with baggy shorts and t-shirts that were completely appropriate for bumming round the house and beach, which was all that he had planned to do until Vicky tipped his life upside down. Not that things would be any better with access to his wardrobe at home; there was a very good reason why Bob didn’t own clothes suitable for going out at night: he’d never done it before.

“Oh, that sucks,” she sympathised.

Bob had a brief surge of panic when he thought she was sympathizing with the long-suffering citizens of Coffs Harbour having to share their evening with a nerd like Bob. He quickly recovered when he realized she had bought his lost-luggage story.

“Where are you going?” she asked, smiling as she warily eyed the plain jeans and t-shirt that Bob was still wearing from when he arrived. “What sort of clothes will you need?”

As he had left the plane, the other flight attendant named Celeste - who had orchestrated Bob and Vicky’s adventure in the airplane bathroom – had hinted to Bob where she and Vicky could be found that night. Bob had played it back in his head a hundred times trying to understand why two beautiful girls would want to see him again. He would normally cross the street to avoid them, but this post-coital mellow vibe was driving all sorts of odd behaviour and now he was just going with the flow. He didn’t honestly expect anything on the scale of this afternoon’s adventure, but maybe he would cough up the courage to ask for Vicky’s phone number. Heck, maybe he would cough up the courage to actually use it when they both got back to Sydney.

“Um, I’m not sure what I should wear,” he began. “I heard about this place called The Beachcomber. Do you know it?”

“Of course,” she said with a musical laugh. “Coffs isn’t that big. The BC is pretty cool; good crowd, surf theme, lots of craft beers on tap and live music if you go back on Saturday night. It’s fun; you’ll have a great time.” She stepped close enough for Bob to smell her perfume and he felt an imaginary electric charge as she touched his fingers, taking back the ugly shirt he was holding.

“Well you won’t be needing this,” she said frowning at it distastefully. “Unless you’re planning to kick on after the BC to a mediaeval theme restaurant,” she briskly tucked the hideous shirt back into the rack and un-self-consciously took his hand, leading him to another part of the store where the clothes had colours and patterns and shape. “It’s a pretty casual pub,” she explained as they walked. “I go in after work just wearing this.” She pinched the figure hugging cotton spandex mini-dress away from her slim waist; Bob heard it whisper across the fabric of her bra, drawing his eyes fleetingly to that place where he took mental snapshot of her firm, round breasts; the outline of her nipples just barely visible under the stretchy fabric.

Bob stood back as she flipped through a rack of shirts. He was sneaking a glance at her bottom – firm and round with the cleft clearly visible like a seam down the tight mini - when she turned back around and caught him red handed. He looked up quickly with a blush as she handed him a casual shirt utterly unlike anything he owned.

“Here, try this on,” she said, a smile rising to her lips as she pretended to ignore his embarrassment. “And …,” she continued, reaching into a rack of three-quarter length shorts. “Try these as well.” She held the shorts up to Bob’s hips, her fingertips improbably touching bare skin around his kidneys even though his untucked t-shirt fell well below the waist of his jeans. She stood back, regarding the clothes … and his groin … with a critical eye; Bob could feel the warmth of her fingers on his skin and realised with horror that his cock was hardening behind the veil of the shorts that she held over that region.

With a lunge he grabbed at the clothes, holding both layers in front of the growing bulge in his jeans. The shop assistant directed him to the change rooms and with more than a little relief Bob retreated behind the louvered door and drew a shuddering breath. As he slowly changed, pausing to rearrange his uncomfortable erection, she stood just outside the door firing questions over the top. What’s your name? Bob. Where are you from? Sydney. How long are you in Coffs? Couple of weeks. Where are you staying? With family (not “at Gran’s”!). What do you do? Going to uni in March. What are you studying? Physics and maths. And a dozen more.

She introduced herself as Amy and answered her own questions with the adroitness of a good conversationalist working with an extremely poor one. She was 20, grew up in Coffs, still lived with her folks but was saving up to move out; she was working in retail but wanted to get in to hospitality because that’s where the money was in a coastal holiday town.

She managed to break down Bob’s defences and he relaxed a bit, relieved beyond measure when his erection slowly subsided while answering her barrage of questions. As he buttoned up the shirt and inspected himself in the mirror, Amy caught him off guard by asking if he was going to The Beachcomber with anyone. Without thinking, he responded that he was hoping to meet a girl … and then closed his mouth with a snap as he realised he was laying himself wide open to ridicule, thinking she must be giggling behind her hand trying to imagine what sort of desperate girl would want to meet a dork like him.

“Oh,” she said quietly, following it with a long pause. “Your girlfriend?” Amy’s voice sounded a little less confident.

No, nothing like that, he assured her. He explained awkwardly that they had just met today and she probably wouldn’t turn up anyway and he’d probably just grab a beer or two and then head home. Maybe not even bother going himself. No sweat, no fuss, who said anything about a girl?

Throughout this exchange, Bob had been inspecting the clothes in the mirror and was amazed. Not only did they fit him perfectly, but the man looking back at him in the mirror looked … normal; like anyone you’d see on the street who didn’t have antisocial tendencies, an unhealthy obsession with geeky pastimes or a soul crushing insecurity talking to women. Huh! He wondered why he had never asked for help picking clothes before.

He opened the door and caught a confused and disappointed look on Amy’s face before she lit up with a smile.

“Hello Handsome!” she purred, studying the fall of the shirt off his shoulders; touching him, smoothing the fabric over his pectoral muscles and admiring his trim boyish shape. Amy span him around so that he was side on and ran a hand over his stomach and the small of his back, holding them there and sending flutters of excitement through his body as she explained that the tapered cut at the waist worked perfectly with his shape. She spent more time than seemed strictly necessary making sure that the shorts were comfortable, slipping her fingers under the waistband, smoothing them over his backside, and kneeling with her face a few inches from his groin, making sure that the legs were the same length, tweaking at the ends while she closed her palms over the tops of is calves.

“I think you’re ready to party,” she smiled, jumping to her feet with a bounce that echoed for a moment through her full breasts. She helped Bob select a pair of shoes that looked good without socks and the image was complete: Coastal Casual.

Amy rang up his purchases at the register, probing Bob gently with more small talk. She offered him a discount on more clothes if his suitcase didn’t turn up, and to Bob’s shocked surprise he heard himself tell her that he might just take her up on that. As he walked out of the store, he reflected that the entire process seemed indistinguishable from flirting scenes that he had seen in movies. Honestly, how do people ever hook up when beautiful girls like Amy seemed like they were flirting even when they were serving dorks like him.

Chapter 2 - Business

“Quiet night?” Bob asked the bartender as he drew Bob’s first beer.

“Oh, early days yet, mate. We don’t pick up until a bit later, but mark my words, the first group of girls arrive from the beach around seven-thirty and the crowds aren’t far behind them, if you take my meaning.” He raised a speculative eyebrow at Bob as if to suggest that he could work fast and get the drop on the competition.

Bob had already been back to his grandmother’s house, showered, shaved, changed into his new clothes, walked fifteen minutes to The Beachcomber and it was still only 6pm. Mental note, Bob: a night out doesn’t start until the sun goes down. That’s probably one you could have figured out for yourself.

Looking around, he could see that most of the other patrons were older couples eating an early dinner in the booths, plus a couple of men drinking alone at the bar. He was probably 25 years younger than anyone else in the place, but pattern analysis was his strong suit so he took his beer to an empty bar stool near the television and settled in for a long wait. As luck would have it, the TV was tuned in to the cricket; one of the very few sports that he found not just tolerable but enjoyable. There seemed no end to the numerical analyses that could be applied to cricket; bowling and batting averages, aggregates and records by player, team, series, calendar year, opponent, ground and countless others … it was a mathematician’s wet dream.

He lost track of time watching the game, but at one point he found his beer glass empty and it was almost magically replaced with the slightest of nods to the under-worked bartender. The bar wasn’t getting any fuller, but most of the older folk seemed to now be replaced by younger people like himself. Bob felt a surreal moment of disorientation as he looked about and considered that this is exactly how aliens would stage a covert invasion: snatch people away and replace them with alien stooges so that nobody would notice the change.

A young man with shaggy, sun-bleached hair dropped on the bar stool next to Bob, trailing a wake of eau-du-surf: salt, sand and something sweet and organic that could have been beeswax. A moment’s eye contact with the bartender and a gesture at the Pale-Ale beer tap and then seconds later he was sipping the foam off his beer with a satisfied sigh as the bartender made change.

“How’re we going?” he asked, gesturing at the TV with a nod.

“Three-f’r,” Bob responded, as a cricket lover he was secretly overjoyed to be able to use one of vanishingly few forms of slang with which he was fluent. “The openers went cheaply, but the middle order’s putting up a bit more resistance.”

The other man nodded knowingly. “Much in the pitch?” he asked.

“A bit. All three wickets were caught behind. If we can get two-fifty then our blokes will have something to bowl at later.”

They watched in companionable silence until the end of the over and then the man turned to Bob and held out his hand. “Spike,” he introduced himself. “How’re y’doing?”

“Bob,” Bob replied taking the proffered hand. Spike shook it in a complicated series of grip changes that looked like something from an American movie, but he did it naturally without making Bob feel awkward.

Spike led out with a volley of skilful small talk; he was engaging without being nosey or creepy. It was his first day in Coffs after driving in from Port Macquarie. He was on a twelve-month surf-safari around Australia and planned to stay maybe a week before moving on to Byron Bay for a longer stop, maybe work in a surf shop to top up his funds.

“So you’re here on your own, too?” he asked after extracting Bob’s short story: finished school, going to uni next semester, flew in this afternoon and staying a couple of weeks.

Bob nodded and drained his glass. Spike shot the barman the universal signal for “two-beers.” “You can get the next one,” he nodded to Bob as he paid for both.

“So,” Spike went on. “We’re both in need of a wingman.”

“A what?” Bob looked confused.

“A wingman. A bro. A partner in crime,” he explained unhelpfully. “Look, I’ll take seconds. I mean, you’re a decent looking bloke, so your seconds are probably a lot better than I could do on my own.”

A light switched on in Bob’s head; he was talking about picking up girls! Bob almost laughed out loud at Spike’s tragic misfortune to attach himself to the one person in the bar most able to repel a woman, any woman, attractive or otherwise. The idea of two men working together to meet girls struck him as simultaneously absurd and eminently sensible at the same time. Just the sheer number of things that could go wrong: how do you decide who gets which girl? What if you both want the same girl? What if they both want the same guy? What if two hit it off and the other two don’t? Or – and this was so horribly perfect that Bob understood it would almost certainly happen: what if you started out with one pairing and then everybody wanted to switch? It was utter madness. But was it really? What was the alternative? Work alone? Girls don’t go out alone – at least Bob didn’t think they did; how could one guy pick up a girl who was out with her friend? No girl would leave her friend alone? It could only work by targeting one girl from a group of three or more? What sort of guy had the confidence to do that?

Until today, Bob had never given any of these questions a moment’s consideration. Until earlier today, Bob had also been a virgin who had never had a conversation with a girl.

“Wingman!” Bob said, smiling and feigning relief. “Sorry, I thought you said wig-man. I was about to tell you ‘No, mine’s all natural’,” he laughed; holding a handful of his own tousled locks.

Spike laughed along with him for moment and then flashed his eyes at Bob. “Whoa, batter up. Six o’clock … coming towards us.” Bob started to look around. “No!” Spike hissed, “Wait ‘til she goes past. Oh, man, she’s gorgeous … be cool.”

From the corner of his eye, Bob saw a red shape approach in the bar mirror and then pass behind him.

“Hi Bob. Love the shirt.”

Spike’s eyes almost popped. Bob was fumbling frantically on the bar for his glasses but the owner of the voice didn’t stop in his close-range blind spot; she continued on towards the ladies bathroom, looking over her shoulder and waving. As she moved away, she came into focus for Bob: her flawless bottom flexing and swaying gently from side to side in time with the glossy blonde-brown curls that hung perfectly framed in the deeply cut back of her slinky cotton-spandex mini dress.

“Oh! Uh, hi Amy,” he raised his own hand in recognition, holding the glasses now rendered useless by distance. It was lucky she didn’t stop; he might have fumbled with them for ages trying to get them on to see who it was.

Amy disappeared around the corner into the bathroom and Spike turned back around to face Bob with eyes wide and jaw open. “Bullshit!” he grinned.

“What?” Bob laughed at the surprise and amusement on his new friend’s face. “I met her today in town.”

“Please tell me she’s here with a friend,” Spike implored with mock seriousness.

“Who? Amy? How should I know,” Bob said with a wave of his hand. “She’s probably here with her boyfriend.”

“Oh my God!” Spike leaned forward and put a hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Are you waiting for a written invitation? Dude, she doesn’t have a boyfriend; she’s into you! Big time!”

Bob didn’t get an opportunity to explain how ridiculous Spike was behaving because a change in the glare from the setting sun outside drew his eye and suddenly the doorway was framing a shapely silhouette – the delightfully familiar silhouette of Vicky the flight attendant.

Wearing a sleeveless white sundress that shone like a halo, Bob could see the slim curves of her hips, waist and breasts as a gorgeous shadow before of the setting sun. Vicky walked slowly through the door, looking around but not seeing him; and Bob felt a physical pang of loss when the sundress lost its translucence as she moved into the artificial light of the bar room.

Celeste emerged from behind Vicky, stunning in a tailored white tunic, black short-shorts and open-toed sling-backs; her radiant red hair spilled in cascades of glinting curls over one shoulder and formed an open parenthesis around the full curve of her right breast. She took Vicky’s hand and guided her to a booth, expertly signalling an order to the barman before they sat down. Bob hadn’t noticed any table-service in the time he had been at the bar, but watching the speed with which the barman brought around two glasses of champagne, he doubted that sort of thing mattered for the likes of Celeste.

She rewarded the man with a big smile and a compliment that Bob couldn’t hear, but the barman grinned like a schoolboy and colour rose to his cheeks, so Bob guessed it was the sort of thing people liked to hear from a beautiful woman.

Bob kept watching Vicky and Celeste from the other side of the room. They were seated directly behind Spike and Vicky was turned side on to them and slightly away, so even though she was scanning about the bar, she didn’t make eye contact with Bob.

Meanwhile Spike was enthusiastically coaching Bob about how he should handle the whole Amy situation and had assumed that Bob’s lack of eye contact meant that he was eagerly watching for Amy’s return so that he could instantly swing into action. In actual fact, Bob wasn’t listening to a word; he was waiting for Vicky to look around, desperate not to miss a chance at catching her gaze.

“So, Plan A is see if she’s with a friend, or if she can call one,” Spike recapped, ticking off points on his fingers. “If that doesn’t fly then …,” he paused, expecting some kind of affirmation from Bob. “Bob! Bobby! Earth to Bob; are you reading me?”

“Huh?” Bob flicked his eyes to Spike and then back over Spike’s shoulder to Vicky across the room.

“What are you looking at?” he asked. “C’mon man, don’t make me turn around like a dickhead. She’s over there isn’t she? Is she talking to a guy? Oh fuck, she’s standing right behind me, isn’t she?”

Two guys had just approached Vicky and Celeste’s booth. They had improbably styled hair and open neck shirts unbuttoned about half way down their hairy chests. From his years of schoolyard geekdom, Bob identified them immediately as belonging to the genus Sleazebag. Species: Asshole. One guy was a head taller than the other and wore a thick, gaudy gold chain around his neck. He seemed to be the leader; the shorter guy was just smiling and nodding and leering at Vicky.

Bob saw Celeste smile half-heartedly - nothing like the sunbeam she turned on the barman – she shook her head at Gold Chain and said something that Bob couldn’t hear.

“Oh, shit!” Bob muttered under his breath.

Curiosity got the better of Spike’s cool vibe and he reluctantly turned around, smiling when he saw who Bob was watching. “Bob,” he laughed. “I love your ambition, man. You are bloody bro-tastic, mate. You pass on the third hottest girl in Coffs so you can take run at one and two with your wingman.”

Still watching Vicky and Celeste trying to deal with the sleazebags, Spike continued: “That redhead is smoking hot, mate, but shit, there’re no loser with those two so you take your pick, my friend. I’ll take the other and be bloody grateful for it.”

Taking a long last look he added “Those guys are getting shot down though, so we’d better get a Plan B sorted ….” As Spike began to turn back around, Bob brushed past him walking purposefully towards the girls.

“Bob! No, man! Not cool!” he hissed. “At least wait for those guys to drag away their bloodied corpses.”

Bob either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. “Cluster fuck!” Spike muttered. He jumped up and dumped a fifty dollar note on the bar. “Bottle of champers and four empties, my man,” he blurted urgently to the barman. Pointing towards where Bob was walking, he added “Keep the change if you can meet me at that end of the bar in fifteen seconds.”

With a practiced dexterity borne of half a lifetime in a pub, the bartender whipped a full bottle from the fridge, handed four champagne flutes to Spike and then shadowed him up the bar as he ripped off the foil and cage, popping the cork and handing it over without breaking stride just as they reached the far corner of the bar.

At the booth, Bob was behind the assholes and trying to move into a gap where Vicky could spot him.

“Actually we’re just waiting for our boyfriends,” Celeste said, losing her serenity and sounding tired and more than a little annoyed. “So you’d really be doing us a favour if you didn’t let them see us chatting to a couple of hot guys.”

“Oh well, we’ll just keep you company until they get here and then we’ll sneak away,” Gold Chain crooned. “They won’t even see us.” He made to sit beside Celeste but she slid down the bench to block him. The gap opened up and Vicky spied Bob standing back and looking nervous.

“Oh, here they are now,” she smiled at Bob. “See ya later, guys. Thanks for keeping the creeps away from us.”

Still standing, Gold Chain looked around at Bob, four inches shorter, considerably narrower and looking decidedly uncertain. The even shorter sleazebag laughed and took his cue from his taller partner: “No way is that guy your boyfriend.”

Vicky stepped quickly out of the booth and between the assholes. She put her arms around Bob’s neck and pulled herself up onto the toes of her flat sandals to kiss him deeply on the lips. Understanding that this was part real and partly staged, Bob slipped his own arms around her narrow waist, feeling the cotton move sensuously over her soft, bare skin, and kissed her back; meeting her tongue with his and matching its intensity; tasting the sharp tang of champagne in her mouth.

She slowly broke the kiss with a soft “Mmmmm” and dropped back down to her heels without moving away; her body still moulded into Bob’s and her small, firm breasts pressing into his chest. She blinked a few times and looked into his blue eyes, brushing away the stray lock of black hair.

“Hello, Bob,” she husked. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Moving her arms down and around his waist, she gave him a welcoming squeeze, as if to suggest that the kiss was by no means just a prop to get rid of Gold Chain and his creepy sidekick.

At that moment, Spike arrived with his bottle and cluster of glasses. Pretending not to be surprised by the beauty in the white dress who was still wrapped around Bob, he stepped up to Gold Chain and touched him on the chest with the fistful of glasses. “Problem?” he asked.

Gold Chain looked down at Spike, who was a bit shorter than Bob but a hand’s width broader than the tall guy through the shoulders and easily the same again deeper in the chest. Gold Chain took a moment to observe the thick, bunched muscles of Spike’s surf-toned body and then blinked and stepped back.

“No problem,” he said, coughing a croak from his voice. “We were just doing a bar run and checking whether the girls wanted anything.”

“Need any more drinks, ladies?” Spike asked without taking his eyes off Gold Chain.

“No thanks,” they trilled in unison with obvious amusement, wanting to laugh but understanding that it wouldn’t help.

“Righty-o, then. Hasta mañana,” he said as they stepped away in unison and turned.

“But don’t get any onya,” Celeste finished the old flip off with a song in her voice as they retreated.

“Sorry about that,” Spike smiled at her. “I was just covering my mate,” he gestured at Bob with the bottle. And then maybe a bit reluctantly: “We’ll leave you alone; just give us a hoy at the bar if those dicks come back.”

“Bob, grab your friend’s bottle and pour us a drink,” Celeste giggled at his reluctant chivalry, sliding back across the bench to make room. I don’t think he wants to sit with us.”

Spike did a double-take at Bob, seeming to notice for the first time that Vicky was still locked onto him even though the sleazebags had gone. She tipped back up onto her toes and stole another kiss, laughing at the clueless look on Spike’s face.

“Spike, this is Vicky,” Bob said, smiling as he watched Spike’s confusion melt into realisation. “And that’s Celeste. You’ll like her; she’s a schemer, too.”

“Bob!” Celeste cried in mock outrage, patting the seat beside her for Spike. “I’m an enabler, not a schemer!” She watched Spike’s thighs bunch as he lowered into the booth and studied his tanned and rugged features while he was occupied setting out the glasses and pouring the champagne.

“Consider your favour repaid, Bob,” she said, still eyeing Spike hungrily. “In full!” referencing her role in bringing Bob and Vicky together on the plane earlier that day.

“Huh?” Spike said, looking up as he waited for the bubbles to settle from the first pour in each glass.

“Never mind,” smiled Celeste, touching his thigh and shivering at the latent power in his thick muscles. “We’re just glad you two came along.”

“Bob’s the man,” Spike said, looking across as Bob and Vicky sat down. “I was going to sit there and let you two cut those guys down on your own.”

Vicky was holding Bob’s hand under the table and gave it a long squeeze.

“To Bob, then,” Celeste said, taking a glass and toasting.

They all clinked glasses and drank, Bob blushing deeply to the roots of his dark hair.

~~~
Sometime after 9pm, the lights went down and the TVs switched from sport to pre-mixed music videos. The music was pumped through the bar’s sound system and some coloured lights outlined an area of uncarpeted floor that could be charitably described as a dance-floor. It would probably work a lot better with the live music on Saturday night, but the selection was mostly nice, safe retro numbers; although Bob noticed that Vicky was unconsciously tapping along and moving to the music in her seat.

They had all swapped stories of how they came to be here, leaving out the lurid details of what happened on the airplane. Spike balanced up what he was hearing against what he saw when Vicky and Bob found each other again and correctly reasoned that he wasn’t getting the whole story.

Bob re-told the tale of how Celeste lured him back onto the plane and as good as asked him out right in front of the captain and co-pilot. Celeste gave a very uncustomary “Aw, shucks” look – she may even have been blushing – and everybody laughed at her gall.

“Should Vicky and I give you two some private time?” Spike laughed, gently squeezing Celeste’s bare thigh under the table as if to suggest that he had no intention whatsoever of leaving her alone with Bob.

“No!” Bob and Vicky exclaimed in perfect wide-eyed unison, and they all collapsed in gales of laughter again.

The threads of conversation deepened as the alcohol did its work. Spike and Celeste did most of the talking; but Vicky paced her contributions matching Bob’s level of involvement and made sure that they interacted as a quartet and not two separate couples. She surprised herself by dropping some of her preconceived ideas of Celeste as being a bit of a diva; Celeste was what she was: beautiful, confident, and fiercely loyal to the people she liked. Vicky hoped she would stay with Celeste for the rest of her traineeship; she could see a rewarding friendship blooming with the older woman … just so long as she was careful to never get caught describing the beautiful thirty-year-old as “the older woman.”

“So Celeste,” Spike steered the conversation back to what was clearly most interesting to him. “What’s the dream?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, sipping her drink and watching him with amused eyes over the rim of her glass.

“Where to from here?” he explained. “Stay in the skies? Go into training full-time? Management? … You know; the dream?”

“Paris to New York route, First Class cabin,” she replied without hesitation.

“Really?” Spike asked, clearly surprised.

“Hell yes! It’s the number one job in the industry. The perks are incredible; you can live like royalty!”

“I thought First Class was just Business Class with blow-jobs,” he said smirking, clearly trying to get a rise out of her and feeling comfortable enough to introduce the topic of sex.

“Oh, that’s just a myth,” she dismissed him with a wave of one perfectly manicured hand. “We do blow jobs in business class too; they’re just not included in the ticket price.”

Spike had his own drink to his mouth at that moment and ended up spraying it out his nose in laughter, which rapidly morphed into a coughing fit as he tried to expel the champagne from his lungs. The others all laughed too; at Celeste’s lightning comeback and at Spike’s bruised karma.

“I think I must have missed that day at the academy,” Vicky giggled, feeling emboldened after a few glasses of alcohol. “Do they run make-up courses?”

“Well you laugh,” Celeste said, smiling and waggling a finger at Vicky. “But as we speak there is a mock Boeing 777 training cabin set up next door in the conference suites of our hotel. It’s part of the ‘100 Years in Civil Aviation’ celebration.

“I was in there this afternoon donating my old rookie uniform to the cause. Tourists come in, dress up like captains or cabin crew and try out the … wait for it … First Class suites!”

Vicky’s eyes widened with alarm as she mentally translated what Celeste was saying in the context of her own joke about missed training. At the same time a thrill of excitement coursed through her core, making her vagina tingle and her nipples harden. She discretely leaned forwards against the table so that she could cover her breasts with a forearm, embarrassed that the others would see her arousal.

“So …,” Spike leaned back, smiling as he turned half towards Celeste.

“Yes?” She mirrored his movements with a mischievous smirk.

“So there’s a first class cabin …,” he continued.

“Uh huh.”

“With those big, lay-back seats?”

“Huge ones! With TVs and privacy partitions.”

“Here in Coffs?”

“Right next door.”

“And they let you in there?”

“They scanned my keycard so I wouldn’t have to pay the entry fee,” Celeste was clearly enjoying herself. “I can go back whenever I want.”

“Interesting,” Spike said, sitting up straight again and facing Bob across the table. “I need another drink. Bob? It’s your shout my fine new friend.”

Bob went to the bar as directed and returned with a new bottle of champagne. As he was about to sit down, the music changed: Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers. The video clip on the TV was of course the sexually charged scene from Ghost with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze. There was a chorus of groans from around the room and one wit yelled “Hey, do you want some crackers with all that cheese?”

Cheesy music or not: “Oh, I love this song,” cried Vicky, jumping up from the booth and grabbing Bob. I think you mean ‘This song makes me horny’, she silently chided herself. In point of fact she was already horny, and The Righteous Brothers weren’t doing anything to improve the situation. What she really needed was to get naked and alone with Bob, but failing that she would see if she could douse the fire inside whilst clothed and in public.

“I want to dance!” she commanded, taking Bob’s hand and striding to the empty dance floor.

“But I can’t dance!” cried Bob, surprised into such a candid admission; yet still he followed Vicky, such was her force of will.

As she reached the middle of the floor with Bob still an arm’s length behind her, Vicky pulled back hard and pirouetted twice, sundress flaring out and flashing her plain cotton panties to the polite applause of a few guys fortunate enough to be watching. She stopped herself against Bob, pressing into his body from her breasts down to her knees. Bob took her in his arms and with hips swinging slowly in time with the music, they moved together as one; Vicky’s hands sliding up Bob’s sides, over his shoulders and through his hair; mirroring Demi’s sensuous crafting of the turning clay on the TV screen.

She could feel him hardening against her pubic bone and silently wished herself taller so that she could press him against the aching lips of her pussy. Figuring that a nice chaste kiss would look pretty normal, she replayed her greeting from earlier in the evening and stood up on tip-toes to kiss him briefly with soft, gentle lips before slowly lowering herself back down, taking care to position herself above the hard bulge in his shorts, slowly lowering her weight onto it and using the pressure to open herself up beneath the thin cotton sheath of her underwear. Her continued descent forced her to slide inevitably down and over his cock and a lightning bolt of sensation crashed through her groin as her panties scraped mercilessly across her unprepared clitoris. It was raw and unexpected but - unlike when a guy pinged her down there before she had gotten warmed up – it was warm and welcome and exciting as it fizzed through her nerve endings.

Vicky gasped with the intensity of it and before she could think about what she was doing she was back up on her toes and kissing Bob harder, biting at his lower lip and moaning encouragement when his tongue met hers. She ground her pussy into his cock to open herself back up and then pressed deeply into him, touching and teasing more of those lightning bolts from her clitoris with his straining cock while she kissed and whimpered into his soft lips.

Bob broke the kiss with a gasp and “Vicky, no! I’m going to ….” She realised she was dry humping him (actually sweetie, not that dry, and it almost got a lot wetter) with what was now about a hundred eyes watching. Unable to control the grinding of her hips, in desperation she turned around so that it was her bottom touching Bob’s hardness. Already embarrassed, still she desperately hoped that her wetness hadn’t had time to soak though her panties and leave a stain on the front of her dress.

Tipping her head backwards to rest it on Bob’s shoulder, Vicky reached up and buried her hands in his hair, feeling the thick locks running between her fingers like Demi’s wet clay in the music video, which was now reaching its crescendo. Bob folded his arms around her and laced his fingers over her flat belly just above the pubic bone and Vicky longed to sink down so that his long fingers would close over her breasts. While she leaned back against his shoulder, Bob lowered his head and closed his lips around the sensitive tip of her ear, touching it with the tip of his tongue and making her shiver with passion.

As the music faded incongruously into Lipps Inc.’s Funky Town, a crowd of cheering onlookers burst in spontaneous applause which then – led by Spike, who was whistling loudly through his fingers – progressed to a standing ovation. By unspoken mutual agreement, Bob and Vicky abandoned the lights of the dance floor and made for a couple of stools in the darkest corner of the bar. Vicky discretely checked the front of her dress and although badly creased it was otherwise dry and unmarked. She looked up to find Bob watching her, shifting uncomfortably in his seat and trying not to smile.

“Sorry about that,” she said, wide eyed and more than a little abashed, then they both burst into laughter, holding each other to stop from falling off their stools.

When Bob was a little less uncomfortable they made their way back to their booth, the guys they passed clapping Bob on the shoulder with smiles and Atta Boys, while the girls looked jealously at Vicky. Celeste and Spike good-naturedly showered them with laughter and cat calls and pieces of paper torn up into confetti.

“Twenty-three ‘likes’ already!,” Celeste exclaimed gleefully, holding up her phone with a picture of them kissing, Vicky on her toes with hands plunged deeply into Bob’s hair, looking almost incandescent with the lights reflecting radiantly off her dress.

“You guys are going to be celebrities,” she continued. “Perhaps we should get out here before your fans start calling for an encore.”

“Fine by me,” said Spike, and by unspoken agreement they all got up to leave. “The night’s still young, though. Where are you taking us next?”

“Somewhere close,” smiled Celeste as she discretely tucked the half-full bottle of champagne into her bag.

First Class is a continuation of the story of Bob’s holiday to Coffs Harbour that began in the book Best on Board. We also catch up with Spike from Ingenious Toys, Dirty Talk and Wedding Cake Island.