Beso de la Muerte (Kiss
of Death)
*Disclaimer in Chapter One.
Chapter Two:
I was mentally kicking myself already, and the
plane had yet to take off.
What the hell had I been thinking when I
agreed to let not one, but both
of my boyfriends take me on vacation, to Mexico, no less?
I was effectively cornered, with Richard in
the window seat to my right
and Jean-Claude in the aisle seat to my right. I was pretty sure
they'd
gotten me the middle seat on purpose, to keep me from bolting for
the exit at
the last second and getting my ass off of the plane.
I was dressed in my office clothes, since Bert
had demanded that I take
my five appointments for the night before I could abandon him for
the two
week vacation. At least he'd scheduled them to leave enough time
for me to
wash the chicken blood off of my hands and face.
Jean-Claude was sitting beside me, completely
still. If I didn't glance
at him from time to time, I wondered if he'd disappear completely.
Every time I looked at Richard, he was smiling
to himself, like he had
some little dirty secret and was very happy with himself.
Knowing that Jean-Claude and Richard had
planned this little adventure
together, I was betting he did have some dirty little secret. One
that I
wasn't going to be happy with when I found out what it was.
The plane began taxiing down the runway,
picking up speed and I looked
down at my hands, gripping the armrests so tightly that my
knuckles were
white.
"What is the matter, ma petite?"
Jean-Claude asked, humor lacing his
voice.
I turned my head to glare at him. "Nothing,"
I said.
He raised an eyebrow, but wisely didn't argue
with me.
Richard did it for him. "Are you still
afraid of flying?" he asked,
sounding mildly surprised.
I turned my head slowly to look at him. "Fuck
off," I said sweetly.
Richard grinned. Some people you just can't
insult.
I could feel Jean-Claude smiling as I turned
back to face him. "Not one
word," I said threateningly.
He spread his hands and gave me his best
innocent look. It wasn't very
good. "I was not going to say anything, ma petite."
I was going to say something else, but instead
was sucked against the
back of my seat, still clutching the armrests for dear life as
the plane
rocketed into the air.
I could feel my heart pounding in my throat
and stubbornly told myself
that I was being irrational, that flying was safer than driving.
But, phobias
aren't swayed by logic, and I was still fighting to keep myself
from letting
out a little whimper.
I relaxed my death-grip on the armrests when
the plane leveled out and I
couldn't feel the dizzying speed any more.
"Are you okay?" Richard asked. I
could hear the smile in his voice.
"Shut up," I said irritably.
Jean-Claude chuckled softly on my other side
and I resisted the urge to
pop him in the mouth.
Ignoring both of them, I settled back into my
seat and waited for the
captain to come over the intercom system and say something to the
effect of
'hold on for dear life, we're going down'.
After an hour without an announcement of any
kind, I relaxed a little,
suddenly glad that Richard had the window seat instead of me. If
I had to
look out the window, I was going to be sick.
I was feeling a little woozy already. Looking
out the window would have
been it. Someone would have gotten the coffee I drank spewed all
over them.
Come to think of it, maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad
thing. At least
I'd have gotten to see the look on their face.
I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to pretend
that I was in a car on the
highway somewhere, not in a plane twenty thousand feet off of the
ground
going six hundred miles an hour. It didn't work, but,hey, I tried.
When we got off of this plane, I was going to
kick Richard's ass. For
some reason, I felt like the plane had been his idea. Jean-Claude
was too
technophobic for it to have been his.