VenCo(20)

This girl was powerful.

“Lucky,” she called.

The girl twisted as best she could to look Meena’s way, shocked to see a stranger in her dream.

The violets were growing, tangling in Meena’s toes and cutting the thin webs of skin between them. “Dig! You need to dig.”

Meena could feel herself fading. She was actually being kicked out of Lucky’s dream.

“How? With what?” Lucky shouted back, frantic.

“You have it with you. It’s always with you now.” Meena reached into her sleeve and pulled out her own spoon, holding it up in a hand that was almost transparent now. She could feel the soft give of her pillow under her head.

Lucky reached into her voluminous skirts and pulled out her spoon.

“Just dig. And then come home,” Meena said out loud, into the dark of her own bedroom. She sat up, sucking air between her teeth. She had pins and needles up to her waist. Gently rubbing her legs, willing the blood to move, she breathed out. “Holy fuck, who is this girl?”



Lucky woke up, sweaty and tangled in her sheets. In her right hand, she was clutching her little silver spoon.





8

A Dark Arrival




“Hello, Mr. Christos. I’m Vivian, and I’ll be your host for this flight. Is there anything I can do to get you settled in?” She was cheerful, as her job required, and pretty in a milk-fed kind of way, a little too pale for his liking. But it had been a long time since he’d been out and about, and he would take what he could get.

Jay Christos handed her his blazer and settled into his first-class pod. “Not unless you can divert coach passengers to a different aisle, so they don’t bump into me as they board.” He didn’t make eye contact. He wasn’t joking and didn’t care if she thought he was.

She gave a short, flustered laugh. “I’m afraid I can’t manage that, sir.”

“Then I guess, Vivian, the answer is no. There is nothing you can do to get me settled in.”

There are two ways to make an impression on someone: be exceedingly kind or be a total dick. Jay preferred the dick move; it made the target feel grateful when you ceased to be one.

So when Vivian brought him a bowl of warmed cashews on a silver tray, he smiled up at her, a slow smile that seemed to grow the longer he took her in. No words, not even a thank-you, just that smile. It made her blush.

Later, he ordered the best red wine off her shitty cart and asked her if she had ever been to the South of France. She had. And so they bantered about their shared travels, until the woman seated behind him grew tired of waiting and loudly demanded a whiskey, neat.

“Well, I guess you’d better get her that drink,” he said, leaning in as if he and Vivian had a secret, making sure she caught his quick glance down her blouse.

The next time she came by, ready for more play, he refused her. Instead, he snapped that the cashews were stale and asked her to take them back and open a new tin. He couldn’t have hurt her more if he had told her she was too fat for her uniform. That was the beauty of the game. Once he got it rolling, it took so little effort to maintain the momentum, pushed by the woman’s self-doubt.

For the next four hours that was how it went. Sometimes she’d catch him eyeing her appreciatively and other times she would catch him laughing. Both brought her blood to her skin. Was he laughing at her? Did he notice her lingering too long? As soon as she retreated to a stance of professional courtesy, he’d touch a finger to the inside of her wrist as she delivered his wine or comment on her jewelry. Push-pull, push-pull.

In the quiet stretch before cabin cleanup, about forty-five minutes before landing, Jay slipped through the curtain and into the semi-dark galley where Vivian was checking her phone.

He’d been so quiet she jumped when she noticed him. “Oh, Mr. Christos! Can I help you with something?”

“I’m hoping you can,” he said, and put a hand on her lower back and pulled her against his length.

“Oh god.”

“Almost.”

And because of all that push-pull, instead of asking him to return to his seat, she allowed him to guide her into the first-class lavatory and yank up her skirt. She actually was too thick for her uniform, and her ass gave a satisfying bounce when it was released. He took it in both hands and growled in her ear, pressing her against the sink and lowering his face into the shallow of her collarbone and biting at her. Then he spun her around so that all that good flesh was heavy against his front and peeled her lace panties down her thighs.

He wasn’t unreasonably cruel, so when she came by twenty minutes later to collect garbage and remind people to fasten their seatbelts and to put their chairs and tray tables in the upright position, he smiled at her conspiratorially and complied with her instructions. He accepted his jacket back from her with gratitude, and as he passed her as he disembarked, he said, “I had a lovely flight, Vivian. Thank you for everything.”



As she watched him walk up the ramp and away from her, Vivian was pissed. That was it? No “Here’s my card,” no “I have a hotel room for the night if you’d like to join me”? But as he turned the corner and disappeared into the main terminal, the oddest thing happened. She couldn’t figure out why she was staring up the walkway. Her head felt fuzzy. She must be jet-lagged. Too many long-distance flights this week. She decided she would check into the airport Sheraton and order room service. No drinks with the crew tonight. Clearly, she needed to rest.