Chapter 10: Last Call Departure
The motel balcony, the rising sun, the smell of salt and their own sweat—it all collapsed into the sterile, echoing cavern of the airport terminal. The shift was jarring, from the open dawn to the artificial night of fluorescent lights. Channah’s hand was vise-tight around Ryan’s, her heels clicking a frantic tempo on the polished floor.
“Bloom, flight 422, final boarding,” the voice crackled, impersonal and absolute, from the overhead speakers.
She didn’t look back. She pulled him past the newsstand, past a family arguing over spilled pretzels, and shouldered open the heavy door to the women’s restroom. It was empty but for the ghost of lemon-scented cleaner. She dragged him into the last stall, slamming the bolt home with a metallic clang that echoed in the tiled space.
The walls vibrated with the deep thrum of a jet engine powering up just outside.
“Channah—” he started, his voice rough, but she was already on him.
Her mouth found his, not with the tenderness of the morning but with a desperate, consuming hunger. Her fingers worked his belt buckle with a frantic clatter, yanking the leather free. She dropped to her knees, the thin fabric of her dress pooling around her. The cold, damp floor seeped through instantly.
“We don’t have time for this,” she breathed, her words hot against the fly of his jeans, but her actions screamed the opposite. She undid the button, the zipper, her teeth scraping against the denim. She pulled his cock out, already hard and heavy in her hand. She looked up at him, her bangs falling across her eyes, her porcelain skin flushed. “I need to feel you. One more time. Right now.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She took him into her mouth, deep, her throat working around him with a practiced, greedy intensity. Her tongue swirled around the head, her lips stretched tight. Ryan groaned, his head thudding back against the cold metal of the stall partition. His hands tangled in her red hair, not guiding, just holding on.
“Fuck, Channah,” he hissed, his hips giving an involuntary jerk.
The main bathroom door swung open with a swoosh. The click-clack of another woman’s heels entered, followed by the sound of a suitcase rolling. Channah didn’t stop. She sucked him harder, deeper, a wet, obscene noise filling the small space. Ryan clenched his jaw, his whole body rigid. He could hear the woman humming, the rustle of a bag, the running of a faucet a few sinks down.
Channah pulled back, a string of saliva connecting her lips to his glistening tip. She rose, her eyes dark and wild. She turned, bracing her hands against the wall, the position arching her back and pushing her ass out against him. She looked over her shoulder, her expression a raw mix of defiance and need.
“Do it, Ryan. Fuck me. Before I get on that plane and this all becomes a memory.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. He pushed her dress up around her waist, revealing the pale curve of her ass. He ran a hand over the skin, still warm from the morning sun, and then brought it down in a sharp, stinging smack. The sound cracked through the stall. She gasped, a sharp, choked-off sound, and pushed back against him.
He guided himself to her entrance, finding her wet and ready. He pushed inside with one long, brutal thrust, burying himself to the hilt. She cried out, a muffled sound she stifled by biting her own arm. He held himself there, deep, feeling her clench around him, a tight, silken fist.
The faucet stopped running. The heels began their click-clack again, moving toward the stall next to theirs.
Ryan began to move. Short, hard pumps of his hips, the slap of their skin meeting a frantic rhythm underneath the drone of the idling jet. He leaned over her, his mouth at her ear, his long hair brushing her neck.
“You’re so fucking tight,” he whispered, his voice a ragged growl. “You think you can just fly away after this? After taking my cock in a shitty airport bathroom like a fucking animal?”
“Yes,” she gasped, the word barely audible. Her body was trembling, her knuckles white where she pressed them against the wall. “That’s the point.”
He drove into her harder, faster. The stall door rattled on its hinges. He could feel the orgasm building in him, a tight coil in his gut. He slid a hand around her hip, his fingers finding her clit, rubbing rough, frantic circles.
“Come for me, Channah,” he demanded, his breath hot in her ear. “Come all over my cock. Let me feel you come while that plane waits for you.”
A sob escaped her, then a guttural moan she couldn’t contain. Her body seized, clamping down on him in a series of violent, pulsing waves. He felt her come apart, her internal muscles milking him, and it was enough to shatter his own control. With a choked groan, he buried himself as deep as he could and emptied into her, a hot, claiming rush that seemed to go on and on.
For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing, mingling with the distant, final boarding call for her flight.
He slowly pulled out, the reality of the cold, grim stall rushing back in. They fumbled with their clothes, not looking at each other. The silence between them was heavier than any they’d shared on the balcony.
She straightened her dress, ran a hand through her disheveled hair. She looked at herself in the small, scratched metal mirror on the stall door—a stranger with smudged lipstick and desperate eyes.
“I have to go,” she said, her voice flat.
He just nodded, tucking himself in, zipping his jeans. The animal urgency was gone, leaving a hollow, aching space.
She unbolted the door and stepped out without a backward glance. He heard the click of her heels fade away, swallowed by the hum of the terminal.
Ryan stayed in the stall, leaning against the door, the scent of her and their sex still clinging to the air. He looked at his own reflection, a greying, tattooed man hiding in a women’s bathroom, the ghost of a woman he’d never stopped loving already a continent away. The jet engine outside roared to life, a sound of finality that vibrated through the bones of the building, and through him.
The jet engine outside roared to life, a sound of finality that vibrated through the bones of the building, and through him. Then he was moving.
Ryan shoved out of the stall, his legs carrying him through the bathroom door and into the bustling terminal before his mind could catch up. The gate was just ahead, the jet bridge door still open, a lone airline employee about to swing it shut. "Wait!" The word was torn from him, raw and desperate. He slid his boarding pass—a digital impulse buy made while leaning against the vibrating stall wall—across the scanner and stumbled onto the bridge.
The plane was a tube of pressurized silence and stale air. He moved down the aisle, his gaze scanning the rows until he found her. She was by the window, already buckling her seatbelt, her profile pale and composed. She looked up as his shadow fell over her. Her eyes, wide and startled, flickered from his face to the empty middle seat beside her.
"Going my way?" he asked, his voice low.
A slow, wicked smile touched her lips. "You're fucking insane."
"Yeah," he breathed, sliding into the seat. "I think you broke me in that bathroom."
The plane began to taxi, the movement pushing them back into their seats. Her hand found his, their fingers lacing together with a familiarity that defied the decades. It was a silent, electric connection amidst the drone of the engines and the flight attendant's safety spiel. He could still smell her on his skin, a mix of her perfume and their sweat, a scent that was now trapped in this metal cylinder with them.
As the plane leveled off, she unbuckled her belt with a definitive click. "Come on," she said, standing and taking his hand. She led him down the aisle, past dozing passengers and flickering screens, to the small lavatory at the back. She locked the door, the click echoing in the tiny space. They were pressed together, chest to chest, in the humming, dim light.
"Last chance to be sensible, Professor," she whispered, her breath warm against his neck.
"Sensible was twenty years ago," he growled, his mouth finding hers.
This kiss was different from the frantic one in the airport. It was slower, deeper, a claiming. He backed her against the sink, the cold porcelain a shock through her thin dress. His hands slid under the fabric, cupping her full breasts, his thumbs rubbing rough circles over her nipples until they were hard peaks. She arched into his touch, a low moan vibrating in her throat.
"I need you inside me again," she gasped, her hands working at his belt. "Now. Before I remember why this is a catastrophically bad idea."
He turned her around, bending her forward over the sink. Her palms flattened against the mirror, fogging it with their heat. He pushed her dress up around her waist, exposing the pale swell of her ass. He ran a hand over the skin, still faintly pink from his slap in the bathroom, then parted her folds from behind. She was already slick, hot, ready for him.
He guided the thick head of his cock to her entrance, pressing against her wetness. "You feel that?" he murmured, pushing just the tip inside, making her gasp. "This is what you did. You turned a fifty-year-old man into a stalker who buys last-minute tickets."
"Just fuck me, Ryan," she begged, pushing back against him. "Stop talking and ruin me."
He drove into her with a single, deep thrust that stole the air from both their lungs. She cried out, the sound swallowed by the constant hum of the aircraft. He set a relentless, pounding rhythm, his hips slamming against her ass with each thrust. The entire small room shook with their movement, the metal door rattling in its frame.
"God, you're so deep," she choked out, her head falling forward. Her red hair was a mess against the mirror. "Your cock feels so fucking good. Don't stop."
He gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her soft flesh, holding her steady as he plowed into her. The angle was perfect, each stroke hitting a spot that made her thighs tremble. He leaned over her, his mouth near her ear. "You came all the way across the country for this? For my dick in a airplane shitter at thirty thousand feet?"
"Yes," she sobbed, her body tightening around him. "Oh god, yes, just for this."
He could feel her climax building, the internal fluttering that gripped him like a fist. He slid a hand around her hip, his fingers finding her clit. He rubbed it hard, fast, in time with his thrusts. "Come on, Channah. Come all over my cock. Let everyone on this plane feel you shake."
Her body went rigid. A sharp, guttural cry was torn from her as her orgasm ripped through her, a violent, clutching wave that squeezed him relentlessly. The intensity of her pleasure tipped him over the edge. With a ragged groan, he buried himself to the hilt and erupted, pumping his hot release deep inside her in pulsing jets.
They stayed like that for a long moment, slumped against the sink, their breathing ragged in the tiny, overheated room. The plane hit a patch of turbulence, a gentle bump that felt like the world reminding them where they were.
He slowly pulled out, the reality of their situation seeping back in. They were two middle-aged people, disheveled and sticky, hiding in a bathroom on a flight to New York. She turned around, her face flushed, her bangs stuck to her damp forehead. She looked at him, her expression unreadable.
He tucked himself back into his jeans, his movements slow. She smoothed her dress, a futile attempt to regain dignity.
The fasten seatbelt sign pinged on overhead.
Without a word, she unlocked the door and slipped out, leaving him alone with the scent of their sex and the drone of the engines. He stared at his reflection in the smeared mirror—a man who had just chased his past into the sky, with no idea what would be waiting for him when they landed.