Chapter 5
5
I waited until my wellness break the next day to check Pilotdate. When I logged in, my heart soared—I’d received twenty-two messages from individual pilots! I inspected the tiny profile pictures placed beside previewed snippets of their messages. Nearly all looked similar to one of the pilots on my vision board: a man with a crew cut wearing aviator sunglasses.
As I peered more closely, I saw that many of them were in fact the same photo I’d placed on my board. For a moment, I was awed by the board’s power. Was it possible I’d manifested this particular man, whom I’d assumed was a stock model? Had this pilot, in the fervency of his desire for me, somehow multiplied himself, fractal-like, so that all his duplicate selves could message me simultaneously, using slightly different approaches, thus maximizing his chances of a positive response? I wanted to assure him that such a scheme hadn’t been necessary. I was more than receptive. I was stocked and fueled, my safety inspection complete. I was a cockpit of a woman—a warm, buzzing cavity ready to receive him.
But as I reviewed the messages, I found they all contained identical text: AVIATOR FLASH SALE 30% OFF RAYBANS PROMOTION ENDS WEDNESDAY! PROMOCODE #PILOTSWAG www.sunglassesforcheap.com/?pilotswag.
So Pilotdate.net was merely a front for a sunglasses-oriented spam operation. My hopes sank into the hollow core of the yoga ball on which I’d stationed my pelvis. I should have known the pilot dating site was too good to be true. I’d have to try my luck on one of the more conventional platforms, but first, I needed better photos.
In the break room at lunch, Karina was in higher spirits than usual. While she tended to be jollier at the start of the week, before the strain of moderating took its toll, she seemed even more buoyant than on a typical Monday. She must have been invigorated by the VBB, in spite of the other women’s criticisms of her board.
“My friends thought you were hilarious,” she said, dipping a spoon into one of the yogurt parfaits left over from brunch. “Everyone’s been talking about your board on the group chat.”
“I’m glad it went over well,” I said, though I felt a little offended, as my board was not meant to be humorous. “I was nervous at first, because my board was so different from everyone else’s.”
“That was the great thing about it. It’s your vision, for your life. There’s no right or wrong way to do it.”
“Esme and Morgan seemed to think otherwise.”
“Yeah, they’ve got it all figured out.” Karina rolled her eyes.
“Stacy seemed nice.”
“Stacy’s cool. She runs a dog rescue.”
“And Judy, with the long neck.”
“Judy’s my best friend from high school.” Karina paused. “I don’t think her neck is that long, is it?”
“I suppose not,” I said to be polite, though Judy’s neck was indeed freakishly long.
As I peeled the wrapper from a Nutri-Grain bar, I mentioned, in an offhand way, that I’d made a profile on a dating site.
“Ooh, exciting,” Karina said. “Are you talking to anyone yet?”
“I think I’ve only matched with bots so far.”
I didn’t mention Pilotdate.net specifically, as I knew she’d find it strange I was limiting my search to pilots. Instead, I asked her to review the photos I’d taken in my bedroom. Karina winced as she scrolled through them.
“These are pretty intense,” she said.
“I was trying to look seductive, I guess.”
“You might be putting out the wrong vibe. You don’t want guys who are just looking for a hookup.”
“Definitely not,” I said, disgusted by the prospect.
“You might want to save these for someone you’re already dating. For the apps, I think it’s best to look friendly and approachable. Your everyday look. Do you have anything like that?”
I shook my head.
“We could take a few now,” she said, which was what I’d hoped for.
Karina agreed natural light would be best, which meant venturing outdoors. Before we left the office, I stuffed my jacket pockets with Nutri-Grain bars to eat on the go, so I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to pack my body with life-sustaining calories. The sky was partly cloudy, with a few persistent spreading contrails, indicating a high degree of moisture in the air. We strolled to the middle of the overpass that spanned 280. Below, cars surged like fish in a crowded stream. I breathed the gasoline-scented air, feeling it cleanse me from within.
I posed while Karina took photos with her phone. She told me to lean back with my elbows on the railing. Next, she had me turn my back to her and look over my shoulder invitingly. She took a few close-ups of my face and some full-body shots. I tried smiling and not smiling. I tried looking sexily confused, my lips slightly parted. I pretended to laugh. I put my hands on my hips, affecting a sassy demeanor. “Good!” Karina said, snapping away.
Soon she said we had enough, and we needed to get back, as our break was almost over. She promised to review the photos and send me the best ones. I felt secure in my friend’s manicured hands.
—
I texted Kevin on my bus ride home, asking which dating site was best. He had offered to help, after all, and I wanted to nurture the connection we’d made yesterday in my room.
For someone your age, I guess OkCupid? he wrote.
Back in my room, I crafted a profile on OkCupid. In my bio, I answered the prompts as honestly as I could without seeming too weird. I disguised my devotion to planes as a benign love of travel, which the VBB had taught me was a ubiquitous passion. For “What I’m doing with my life…” I wrote, My day job is in tech, but I travel as much as I possibly can! For “On a typical Friday night I am…” I wrote, Flying somewhere, or visiting my favorite bar that overlooks the runways of SFO! For “You should message me if…” I wrote, You’re a commercial pilot for a major airline. Please do not message me if you have a different job!
I uploaded a few of the photos Karina had taken of me. I was pleased by how normal I looked in them. I could have been a stock model myself, my image summoned by the search term “woman on overpass.” For a male opinion, I sent a screenshot of my profile to Kevin, who texted back immediately, presumably from his own superior room inside the main house. Looks good, he wrote. Knock ’em dead.
As I drifted toward sleep, I attempted to fantasize about a hypothetical pilot. I imagined straddling the uniformed man as he sat in the captain’s seat, his facial region a blur that occasionally resolved into the features of the pilot I’d seen on the AirTrain. He ran his hands beneath my shirt and massaged my breasts. My back grazed the control panel’s gadgetry. Through the cockpit door, I stared down the length of the plane’s body. As long as I focused on the plane, I could make myself come, imagining the pilot as an appendage of the aircraft, a human dildo the plane and I could use as a sex toy. This seemed promising, but I was unable to export this fantasy from the plane’s interior. I assumed my pilot would prefer to make love in a conventional setting, such as a bedroom. My imagination faltered when I attempted to conjure such a scenario. I could visualize only snippets of sex scenes from movies, which I found dull and unpleasant.
My prior sexual experiences were embarrassing to recall. First there’d been Brett, my coworker at Subway in the John Wayne Airport. I got the job shortly after I turned eighteen, at which point I was finally eligible to work in the airport. From behind the counter, I gazed out the windows, watching planes mill about like contented farm animals, commingling with catering trucks, power washers, and luggage carts. My closeness to planes, coupled with my inability to fly on them, kept me in a state of constant, frustrated arousal, and one day I asked Brett if he’d like to fool around in the walk-in fridge. Brett was a surfer in his early twenties, an affable young man who always smelled of alcohol from the previous night’s partying. He thought I was joking at first, but the novelty of my offer must have enticed him. We made a plan to wait until our manager took her lunch break, at which point we went at it in the walk-in, Brett thrusting into me while I braced my hands on a wire shelving unit. We repeated this transaction a few times, getting our routine down to two minutes flat, but on the fourth day our manager returned early from her break to find the counter unattended, and fired us both. I never saw Brett again, thank god.
My second partner, Freddie, provided a more instructive experience. Freddie was a married HVAC technician I met in my English class at Bakersfield College, six months after my flight binge. Since washing up in Bakersfield, I’d been working at a non-airport Subway—luckily, my previous manager must not have reported my activities with Brett to the corporate office. Al had begun pressuring me to go back to school, saying I couldn’t work at Subway for the rest of my life. I knew he and Denise were annoyed by my tenancy on their living room couch, so I enrolled in a single class to appease them. Freddie and I were assigned to work together on a project, and when I realized he was flirting with me, I figured there was no harm in giving sex with people another shot. Our trysts unfolded in a single-user restroom on the college’s campus or in the back seat of his Range Rover, parked at a sparsely occupied edge of the student lot. From Freddie I learned the basics of sexual technique, and more important, I learned how to pretend to enjoy sex. I could recede to an inner chamber of my mind, imagining planes while Freddie penetrated me. It wasn’t so bad, and sometimes I did enjoy it, though I was only playing a role.
Our affair ended when I stopped going to class. Our final essay prompt was “The American Dream: Alive or Dead?” I chose “alive” but gave up halfway through. Any topic that didn’t relate to planes bored me. I tried to write my essay with a plane theme—I argued that the aviation industry was robust, and so, the American Dream lived on!—but when I met my professor during office hours, he said my argument, while rich in pathos, was deficient in logos, and so I thanked him and never returned to campus. In his essay, Freddie planned to argue that the American Dream was dead, though he didn’t actually believe this, being a small business owner. Of course the American Dream was alive, he said, but there was more evidence for it being dead, and he just wanted to pass the class since he’d spent five hundred dollars on it.
Back then, I was still reeling from the excesses of my flight binge. I was shocked by the depths to which my obsession had dragged me, and I wanted only to be normal. I hoped that, through repeated exposure, my desire for planes would be displaced by an ordinary desire for people. It hadn’t worked, and I no longer suffered from such delusions, though I didn’t mind the idea of sex with people, if it served my larger interests. I figured that a pilot’s harried schedule meant I’d have to endure sex only a few times a month, freeing me the rest of the time to pursue my real love objects, with the help of my husband’s family flight benefits. I wondered if a pilot’s close relationship with planes would allow me to more easily transfer my affection for planes to him. Perhaps I could reveal to him a sanitized version of my obsession and be accepted. We were both, after all, people who’d devoted our lives to planes.
On my wellness break the next day, I opened the OkCupid app and was pleased to find I’d received several dozen messages. Unlike with Pilotdate.net, they all appeared to be from authentic humans, though as I scanned their profiles, I was disappointed that none of them seemed to be pilots. Their bios contained no references to aviation whatsoever. They must not have read my profile carefully, as I’d explicitly stated I was only interested in pilots, and usually all they’d written anyway was hey .
I showed Karina the messages at lunch. She scrolled my inbox with one hand while forking kale into her mouth with the other.
“Some of these guys look all right,” she said, showing me a picture of a fellow named Josh whose profile I’d already inspected.
“He’s not a pilot,” I said.
“He doesn’t actually need to be a pilot, does he? I thought you were just looking for a guy with a job.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be specific in our goals?”
“Sure, but there’s a limit.” She regarded me skeptically. “Why do you like pilots so much, anyway?”
“I thought it made sense to be with someone who could get me discounted flights.” This wasn’t a lie, exactly, though it was only part of the truth.
Karina laughed. “That’s messed up, Linda. You’re hilarious.” She continued scrolling through my messages. “I can’t believe you actually enjoy flying. I hope I never have to fly again. It’s such an unnecessary risk.”
Before I could refute this ridiculous statement, a banner appeared at the top of my phone screen.
Hiya Linda, someone named Simon had written. Pilot here. Wanna bang?
“Ew,” Karina said. “You should block this guy.”
But I dared to believe I’d found him, after only two days on the apps. I refrained from writing Simon back, as I didn’t want to be distracted by the thought of messages streaming in to my phone while it remained out of reach in a locker. I was determined to maintain my position at the top of the whiteboard, rather than falling behind my closest competitor, 39284F, who I suspected was Farhad, a quiet worker who sat in the interior row.
On the bus ride home, I reviewed Simon’s profile. His bio made no mention of being a pilot, which seemed suspicious. I was aware of the deceitful ways people presented themselves online, having posted on aviation subreddits for years using the fictional persona of a retiree named Greg who lived in Ottawa, but I tried to keep an open mind. What if the universe was promptly manifesting an item from my board, and I rudely rejected it as a scam? The risk of being duped by Simon was nothing compared to the risk of insulting the universe. Anyway, if Simon was a pilot, it made sense he’d want to keep it low-key, as Kevin would say. As I’d learned from those horny articles about pilots, many people objectified the profession in a way that might make the actual pilots uncomfortable. On his profile, Simon had posted five photos, all shot in low light, most from the neck down. His abdominal muscles were sharply defined, like corn on the cob, which I assumed some women found sexy.
Hi Simon, I wrote, in response to his earlier message. I don’t know about sex, but I’d love to hear more about your job as a pilot!
Back in my room, I lay on my bed, eating salted peanuts from 7-Eleven and exploring plane content on my laptop. I grew aroused watching a compilation of takeoffs and landings at London Heathrow. I allowed the algorithm to guide me to a detailed tour of a 747. The camera lingered on his undercarriage, panels stitched together at the edges with bolts, then moved toward his wing, pivoting to display the eye of his powerful Rolls-Royce engine. I plumbed my underwear with salty fingers.
My phone pinged with a message from Simon. I fly all over the world, he’d written.
Oh, I replied, using my free hand.
I’m drowning in stewardess pussy.
Wow.
On the right side of the page, more enticing fare beckoned. “Falling from the Sky at Over 34,000 Feet per Minute,” one title read. I clicked it, and a simulation began, re-creating an incident that occurred in 1979 involving a 727 operated by TWA. I knew the case of Flight 841 well. Eighty minutes into a flight from JFK to Minneapolis, the 727 had rolled to the right, and soon was spiraling toward the earth, dropping from 39,000 to 5,000 feet in a span of sixty-three seconds. The captain was ultimately able to steady the plane and make an emergency landing in Detroit. Miraculously, there were no casualties. While the NTSB determined the cause to be mechanical failure involving one of the wing slats, I suspected otherwise. I believed the 727 had been overcome with desire for a passenger on board, and sought to claim that person as his soulmate. He’d almost succeeded, thwarted at the last moment by his quick-witted pilots.
What airline do you work for? I wrote. On my screen, the 727 dove through the night sky.
Delta, Simon wrote, and I came.
I closed my laptop and wiped my hands on my thighs. I texted Kevin, explaining the situation and asking what I should do next.
Ask if he wants to get coffee, Kevin advised.
I followed his instructions. Simon and I agreed to meet at a Peet’s in Millbrae on Friday evening, between my shift at Acuity and my flight to Phoenix.
—
“You’re meeting up with that creep?” Karina said at lunch on Thursday. “The guy who opened with ‘Wanna bang?’?”
I stood at the microwave, listening to my popcorn pop. I’d been reluctant to tell Karina about my date with Simon, fearing such a reaction.
“He might be a little rough around the edges,” I said, “but we had a nice conversation last night.” The timer dinged. I set the bloated bag on a plate and flayed it down the middle with a butter knife.
“What does he look like?” Karina asked. I handed her my phone, open to Simon’s profile. While she inspected his photos, I raked my thumbnail along the inner surface of the popcorn bag, then used my lower front teeth to extract the flavorful orange crud from under my nail. “He looks fit, at least,” she conceded, placing my phone on the table. “Okay, Linda. What are you wearing on your date?”
I hadn’t thought about it. “What am I supposed to wear?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Karina said. She popped the lid off a yogurt. “Something casual, but sexy. Pulled together, but not trying too hard. A timeless, versatile, day-to-night look.”
I must have looked baffled because Karina laughed. “Let’s go shopping!” she said.
I was reluctant to spend money on clothes when I should be saving it toward future flights, but I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to learn from Karina. I suspected she viewed me as frumpy raw material she could shape in her image. As a younger person, I hadn’t been included in such rituals of feminine comradeship as shopping trips and makeovers, due to my habits of lingering near gas pumps and staring with eerie fixation at the sky. In elementary school, my friends had been the other two weird girls, Abigail and Meera. We’d gravitated toward each other like mice huddling for warmth. The popular girls had seemed like a different species, and we observed them from a distance, with awe and fear. I assumed Karina had been a popular girl, and I was honored that she wanted to teach me the ways of her people. I reflected that I was on track for the monthly bonus, having succeeded in keeping 39284F at bay.
“I can spend fifty dollars,” I said.
“Perfect,” Karina said. “I’ll pick up the tab for happy hour.”
Later, at the sushi place, we sat at our accustomed table against the back wall. As always, I gallantly offered Karina the superior bench seat, while I sat on a metal stool that jutted into the dining area, my back continually jostled by servers on their way to the kitchen. I observed Karina as she studied the menu, though we’d memorized its offerings. Her arms appeared hairless where they protruded from the sleeves of her ruffled pink top. Her foundation had caked and her forehead was shiny, but her beauty was undiminished, the imperfections only adding to her appeal.
We requested the cheapest bottle of warm sake on offer. Karina ordered a hamachi jalapeno roll and a spicy tuna roll, while I ordered edamame and vegetarian gyoza, which I knew Karina would eat half of, while I could enjoy no portion of her rolls. I’d committed to a vegetarian lifestyle ten years ago, hoping to save money while also decreasing my overall carbon footprint. I would do my part in upholding the untenable status quo, which, for the time being, still allowed relatively affordable air travel. It was an unfair arrangement, as we always split the bill fifty-fifty in spite of Karina consuming three-quarters of the food, but I never complained, grateful as I was for her willingness to spend time with me beyond our working hours. I viewed the edamame and gyoza as a friendship tax.
Karina poured me a cup of sake and insisted on cheers-ing my foray into online dating.
“So what else do you know about Simon?” she asked.
“He flies for Delta,” I said. “That’s about it.”
“How old is he?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Isn’t that pretty young for a pilot?”
I sipped my sake, considering. “I suppose it is. Should I ask him about it?”
“Might as well wait for tomorrow.”
Our food arrived. Karina transferred a segment of hamachi jalapeno roll to her plate and began extracting chunks of fish with her chopsticks.
“You only like the fish?”
“Sorry,” Karina said, seeming embarrassed I’d noticed. She shoved the hollowed lump of rice and seaweed into her mouth. “Old habits die hard.”
“From high school?” Karina had previously mentioned having an eating disorder.
“I guess that’s when it started. My friends and I were, like, competitive dieters. I was so hungry all the time, I almost failed out my senior year.”
“But you made it to college.”
“Yeah, SF State. They’ll take anyone.” She eyed me. “Did you go to college, Linda? I can’t believe I’ve never asked.”
I recalled that Karina had been in the kitchen while the women of the VBB interrogated my educational background. “I took a different path,” I said. “I wanted to be a flight attendant.”
“What happened with that?”
The memory resurfaced, painfully. It was a few months after I’d been fired from the John Wayne Subway, and I decided it was time to go after the career I’d always wanted—one that would pay me to fly. My mom helped me prepare for a flight crew recruitment day, held at the Anaheim Convention Center, using her expertise from working as a bank teller at a Wells Fargo branch. It was the high point of our relationship. We got matching French manicures and shopped at Target for my interview outfit: a beige silk top, black trousers, and pumps. When the day arrived, I excelled at each stage, using tips gleaned from an internet forum. I nailed the group interview, in which I collaborated with other applicants on the creation of a fictional tourist island. I proceeded to the one-on-one interview with a recruiter, whom I impressed with my knowledge of the 737’s development, as well as recent advances in aviation safety. That night, we went out for Mexican food, my family’s customary celebration dinner. Al and Denise drove in from Bakersfield, though they might have been seizing upon any excuse to escape that wretched town. I was toasted with margaritas and two orders of queso. Never before had I given my loved ones a reason to be proud of me. We were all pleasantly surprised by the turn I’d taken.
My glory was short-lived. A few weeks later, I began training on a simulator, a cross section of an actual 737. I found it difficult to focus inside the simulator, which roused in me the same sensations I experienced on real flights. The trainer scolded me after I fumbled the safety demo. Then we were led through a drill featuring heavy turbulence. As the simulator rocked, the other candidates moved through the protocol we’d been trained in, while I collapsed into a seat, liquefied by desire. The drill was paused, and I claimed to have had a panic attack, which disqualified me from further training.
“I realized it wasn’t for me,” I told Karina.
“Yeah, it seems like a shitty job,” Karina said. She’d brought out a makeup compact from her purse and was applying lip gloss using a little wand. I was relieved she didn’t press for details.
From the sushi place, we proceeded to Stonestown Galleria in Karina’s vehicle, a tan Honda Accord. At Forever 21, I submitted to my friend’s expertise as she brought garments to my dressing stall. I tried on several dresses, feeling silly in all of them. Karina removed her own shoes and pushed them under the curtain, instructing me to put them on so we could ascertain the outfit’s full effect. I modeled in the trifold mirror, my foot flesh overflowing Karina’s little shoes like underbaked dough. The last dress was gold, in a ridged fabric Karina said was called satin plissé. It was sleeveless, with a high, ruffled neck, the lettuce hem rising a few inches above my knees. It was less formfitting than the previous dresses, and at twenty-two dollars, it lay within my budget. I pulled the curtain aside, and Karina coaxed me from my stall as though I were a traumatized dog from Stacy’s rescue.
“You look amazing,” Karina said. She asked me to turn around so she could assess the back. I was familiar with this procedure from shopping trips with my mom. My mom loved clothes, and I humored her attempts to bond with me over them, though I disliked confronting my form in the dressing-room mirror.
“Yep, this is the one,” Karina said.
“Isn’t it a little much for a coffee date?”
“Not at all. It’s a day dress.”
I bought the dress, though I’d begun to have doubts about Karina’s taste and understanding of social norms. At Nordstrom, Karina selected a pair of “sensible heels”—cream-colored leather sandals with an ankle strap—and a sequined gold clutch to complement the dress. I balked at the combined price of shoes and clutch, a whopping ninety-seven dollars, but Karina insisted I should at least get the shoes, which would prove useful for many occasions. I caved and bought both items. Next, we headed to Sephora, where Karina asked an employee to give me a free mini-makeover, resulting in my acquisition of a tube of Dior lipstick along with several perfume samples. I bought us milk teas at the food court, having by now opened a valve through which money poured freely. I’d regret my profligacy later, but in the moment it felt thrilling to squander my resources, which I normally kept in tight restraint. Karina offered me a ride home, but I declined, preferring to flaunt my mini-makeover on the bus.
Back in my room, I lay in bed sucking my chunk of 737, basking in the smell of my product-laden face. From my vision board, which I’d mounted on the wall next to my flight map, Guillaume Faury gazed down at me approvingly.