Before two weeks ago, she hadn’t spoken to her father in over seven years, but somehow the phonecall convinced her to pay the sorry bastard a visit. So we’re at the airport, masked up and mobbed around the gate, waiting to hear our boarding group called so we can cram into the big metal tube and get off in Alabama.

The gate agent calls our group and we walk down the jetway, onto the plane, and find our seats. My girlfriend likes to sit by the window, so she crawls in while I put our luggage in the overhead compartment. Before taking my seat, I help a funny old man who’s trying to ramrod his oversized bag in at an awkward angle. He seems appreciative, but it’s hard to understand what he’s saying through the dentures. I take my seat and get comfortable as boarding finishes up. Then we’re off to the runway and up, up, and away.

It’s kind of chilly on the plane, so I ask the flight attendant for a blanket once we reach cruising altitude. He says of course and calls me hunny and grabs one from the rear of the aircraft. I like that he called me that. When he brings it back he says here you are hun, and I like that too. I look up at him and smile. His muted red lipstick draws attention to the wide gaps between his teeth. His eyes are kaleidoscopic, slowly spinning spirals set above a massive mangled mouth. He looks like an insane clown. He puts his giant white-gloved hand on my shoulder and swaggers off.

I put the blanket over mine and my girlfriend’s lap and look over at her once we’re covered up. I think she’s beautiful and tell her so. She peers at me through the corners of her eyes and scrunches her nose in deflection. She isn’t always good at taking compliments, but she’ll sometimes take other things, so I reach under the blanket and put my hand on her leg. She places her hand over mine and I rub the inside of her thigh, work my way up. “Is it okay?” I whisper. She replies by leaning back in her chair and unbuttoning her pants.

I start slow and keep my gaze forward. The flight tracker on the back of the seat in front of me shows the plane is barreling through the sky at just over 450 mph. It hardly feels like we’re moving. I stay focused on the task at hand and look out the window to the clouds below. They seem to roll past us, carted beneath the plane by some heavenly conveyor belt while the stationary aircraft remains suspended in the sky. My girlfriend reaches into my jeans. The plane hits some minor turbulence and I increase pressure, move my hand faster. She presses her head into the chair, eyes closed, looks away toward the window. All of this: the two of us, the plane, the smiling clown floating down the aisle behind the aluminum beverage cart, the clouds below us and the muddied earth further down, all moving in various directions at various velocities while sling-shotting around the sun at close to 70,000 mph. With my free hand, I crack the tab on my Diet Coke. It doesn’t spill. We’re getting close now, almost there. The guy in the seat between us will need to wake up soon.

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