Casey swore as she threw on her flight suit. She was late for the bus, her head was pounding from all the alcohol she’d drunk the night before, and she was dreading seeing Captain Hardesty this morning. She expected to be chewed out for being late, but when she got to the bus, the flight commander was missing and so was Montgomery. Captain Hardesty was sitting by herself in the bus, and Casey preferred to stay outside waiting for the rest of the crew. Captain Stavros and Montgomery showed up a few minutes later looking rather green, and they were both wearing sunglasses. The bus ride out to the base was unusually quiet. Casey sat way in the back, away from Captain Hardesty, next to a snoring Montgomery.
This was the epitome of awkward. Casey would have to sit next to Captain Hardesty in a compact airplane all day, concentrate on flying complicated instrument maneuvers, and try not to think about what she’d seen and heard last night. After spying on Kathryn having sex with the Blond Bitch, Casey’s desperate need to flee caused her to slip and almost fall off the twelfth-story balcony as she leapt to her own balcony. Maybe that would have been better.
Last night was a terrible mistake filled with regret. She wished she could purge the images from her mind. After she’d made it back to her own room, Casey couldn’t stand the thought of hearing them through the hotel wall, so she’d gone down to the bar and had two more stiff drinks. Some guy kept hitting on her and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She finally escaped his clutches by pretending to be sick in the ladies’ room and went back to her room via the service elevator. When she walked down the hall to her room, she couldn’t prevent herself from stopping at Kathryn’s door to listen for more sounds of sex. Silence this time. Maybe the Blond Bitch had gone home to her husband or maybe Hard-Ass had fucked her to death. Screw both of them.
Casey had begged for sleep as her emotions fought a pitched battle. She knew Kathryn was gay, but she hadn’t imagined that she might have a girlfriend. She never would have pictured Kathryn with a married, bleached blonde with big, fake tits who wasn’t even cute. The whole scene made her angry and disappointed, but worst of all, jealous. How could she possibly be jealous? Kathryn was her instructor, not her lover. She couldn’t allow herself to think about this anymore, as they were almost back to the base. She would have to focus on flight planning her mission back to Willie, fly the jet as best she could, and process the whole incident after she got home.
Inside base operations, Casey efficiently plotted her course on the chart, wrote out her flight plan, and did the fuel and time calculations with her whiz wheel. Captain Hardesty looked it over and made no corrections.
“What departure are you expecting out of here?”
“The sign says to expect to fly runway heading, then get a vector to the Boulder VOR, ma’am.”
“Brief me on the weather.” Captain Hardesty’s questions were clipped and short, like she was irritated with Casey.
“The weather briefer said to expect moderate turbulence until we climb above fifteen thousand feet, then clear skies the rest of the way to Willie.”
“Let’s get out of here.” She snatched up her helmet bag and stomped out the door.
“Great. This is going to be a fun ride today,” Casey muttered.
They got airborne before the other crews and hit the turbulence on climb out just as predicted. The heat of the desert and the turbulence was not helping Casey’s headache or her stomach. She was fighting the jet just to keep her airspeed under control, and she wanted to cheat with the instrument hood and peek outside at the horizon.
“Watch your speed,” Captain Hardesty barked.
“I’m trying, ma’am, but this turbulence is really rough.”
“Stop making excuses and just do it.”
The rest of the ride only got worse after that. Casey couldn’t get her brain out of first gear, and she was mentally behind the jet. She started to turn the wrong way in holding because her situation orientation had completely abandoned her, and she missed intercepting the localizer on her first approach.
“My jet, Casey. Take the hood off and look around. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you are flying like crap today. Get your bearings, then put the hood back on and let’s see if you can get this jet on the ground.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Fuck. Get it together, Casey.
The next approach was slightly better but still not good. It was as if all her flying progress had left her and she could barely hold her heading, altitude, and airspeed. After they finally got on the ground, Casey was dreading the debriefing. They walked back to the flight room in silence. Casey got a great big drink of cold water to try to make her head feel better before she went to face the verdict.
“I should bust you on that ride, Casey. That was the worst I’ve seen you fly. What is going on with you?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and I don’t really feel that well. I know that’s no excuse. I won’t let it happen again, ma’am.”
“You’re damn right you won’t let it happen again or I’ll bust you so fast it’ll make your head spin. Did you stay out all night drinking with the guys?”
“I had a few drinks with them, ma’am.”
“Well, I’m going to pass you on this ride, but just barely. You’re better than that, Casey. Now go home and get some sleep. You’re dismissed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Casey left the flight room glad to get out of there.
*****
Kathryn heard Barb Arnau walk into the flight room with her student. She overheard Barb say to him, “We debriefed everything in the air already, and you know what you need to work on. If you don’t have any questions, you’re dismissed.”
“Thanks, ma’am. See you Monday.”
The flight room was momentarily quiet since none of the other crews had returned from their cross-country trips yet.
“How was your cross-country, Kath? Do anything exciting?”
“It was fine.”
“Well, we had a lovely trip to Dyess. Did you know they actually have a gay bar in Abilene, Texas? I snuck away from the group and had a good time despite it being a tiny place.”
“Good for you.” Kathryn never looked up from her grade book.
“What’s up? Is anything wrong?” Barb sat next to her.
“I screwed up big time, Barb.”
“What happened?”
“It was after we got to Nellis.”
“Do not tell me you hooked up with that whore, Jill Eller.”
“I’m afraid I did. It was a complete disaster.”
“Where was her macho fighter pilot hubby, Sam? Screwing every woman in Las Vegas, I assume.”
“Jill said his unit was deployed to Korea for two weeks. She didn’t tell me he was out of town until after we had already gotten there.”
“Kath, are you actually surprised she just ‘forgot’ to mention that her husband was nowhere around? Even you aren’t that blind when it comes to conniving women.”
“I guess if truth be told, I was kind of feeling the need to be with someone, even if it was Jill.”
“And what led to this urgent need to hook up with Miss Skank?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve just been feeling really lonely lately. So I let her seduce me and, once again, it was extremely disappointing.”
“Goddamn it, Kath, if you just wanted a woman to sleep with, I could recommend several nice actual lesbians here on base. Instead, you hook up with a selfish slut who pretends to be bisexual because she doesn’t have the guts to admit she’s really gay but can’t live without heterosexual acceptability. Did you really think it would be different this time?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking. I just needed to connect with someone.”
“So, how was it with Jill?”
“One-sided, as usual. She begged me to do her, but she didn’t reciprocate.”
“So what else is new? I have a suggestion for you, Kath. After this class graduates in four weeks, the base softball team is playing in a tournament in Flagstaff. Why don’t you play with us? We can get out of town for a bit, there will be lots of women there, and maybe you’ll meet some real lesbians for a change. What do you say? It’ll be fun.”
“I’ll think about it. It does sound fun, though.” Kathryn smiled for the first time all day.
*****
Casey rang the bell at Trish and Rhonda’s house. She’d come straight over after her disappointing last flight. She was thankful they didn’t mind if she just dropped in.
“Casey! Come on in, girl. We’ve missed you. Everyone just left. We were having a pool party earlier.” Trish wrapped her in a big hug and held her tightly. Casey’s eyes welled up.
“Rhonda made her famous ribs and we’ve got lots of leftovers.”
“Thanks, Trish.” Casey’s stomach growled at the smell of the delicious ribs.
“Where the hell have you been? We had some hot women here today. Too bad you missed it.” Rhonda set a big pile of ribs in front of her.
“I was gone all weekend flying my first cross-country trip. These are yummy, Rhonda.”
“So how was it? You don’t look too good, Casey. Are you okay?”
There was no use trying to hide it from them. They could always read her like a book.
“My flights were great up until today.”
“What happened?”
“I was flying with Captain Hardesty, and it was really challenging flying in Southern California, but I was doing okay. I was learning a lot.”
“Is she the instructor you talked about before? The one you call Hard-Ass?”
“Yes, that’s her.”
“So what went wrong?”
“Well, I did something really stupid and almost busted my ride today. I went out with the guys in Las Vegas, had way too much to drink, and I kind of spied on Captain Hardesty when she was having sex with a woman.”
“You did what? Okay, I want all the dirt now. Trish, you have to come and hear this. Spill it, Casey.”
“I just wanted to talk to her. The guys took me to a stripper bar, and I felt the need to talk to her about dealing with the guys, plus I just wanted to see her. When I was about to knock on her door, I heard voices inside and I had this burning need to know who she was with.”
“So then what happened?”
“I got this crazy idea to climb over to her balcony and spy on her. I saw her having sex with another Air Force woman, who was married to a man, supposedly. I almost fell off the balcony and we were twelve stories high.”
“Jesus, Casey, what got into you? You are not normally insane.”
“I know. It was really stupid. Then I had to sit next to her today on the flight home, with a nasty hangover, and I couldn’t fly for shit. She was mad at me and almost busted me on the ride. I really screwed up this time. I’m not sure how to fix this.”
“Casey, why did you feel so compelled to see her? I mean, you almost fell off a balcony?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking, but I just had to see her. The thought of her with that other woman made me crazy.”
“In all the years we’ve been friends, I’ve never heard you talk about any woman like you talk about her. Are you falling for her?”
Casey looked at Trish and Rhonda but couldn’t speak. Could this possibly be true? Oh. My. God. I think I may be falling for her. What the hell am I going to do now?