Chapter 16 First Class #2
She laughed again.
Peter relaxed.
They ate.
Peter told her he had been in Los Angeles for meetings and had bought gifts for three nieces, all of which he suspected were wrong.
“What did you buy?”
He listed them.
Natalie winced at the second.
“That bad?”
“How old is the niece?”
“Fifteen.”
“Do not give her that.”
“But the salesperson said it was popular.”
“The salesperson hated you.”
“I knew it.”
“What else?”
He described a hoodie, a set of pens, and a makeup palette whose brand name he pronounced so incorrectly that Natalie had to cover her mouth.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“You’re a man who bought a fifteen-year-old girl a makeup palette. Enough said.”
Peter looked wounded. “I was trying.”
“I can tell. That is why I’m going to help you.”
He leaned back. “Please help me.”
So she did.
Somewhere between the soup and the second glass of wine, Natalie became aware that Peter was trying very hard.
He did not push. He did not make her uncomfortable. But he wanted her attention and, once he had it, he had no idea how to keep it.
So he tried everything.
He asked questions. He followed up. He made jokes, some decent, some so visibly constructed that she appreciated the effort more than the joke.
He belonged to a category of men she had started noticing again: men who try.
Peter was not smooth.
Aaron was smooth. Aaron didn’t have to try. Aaron always said the right thing.
Peter reached for the wrong fork, noticed her seeing, switched forks, to see if she had seen.
Natalie smiled.
There was something unexpectedly kind about awkwardness.
This awkwardness: a man trying, failing, trying again, just giving it his all, never giving up.
After the meal, cabin lights dimmed.
Peter’s seat became a bed. He examined the controls.
“Do you understand this?” he asked.
Natalie pressed one button on her own console. Her seat reclined halfway.
Peter looked impressed. “You’re good with tech.”
“No, I can read instructions.”
“Ah. When all else fails…”
He pressed the wrong button and raised only his footrest.
“Strong start,” Natalie said.
“I want my feet to arrive before the rest of me.”
A flight attendant came by and assisted him with a professionalism that did not acknowledge incompetence. Peter thanked the woman sincerely.
When she left, he said, “I am usually more competent on the ground.”
“I believe you.”
“Thank you. That sounded almost true.”
They both rested for a while.
Natalie did not sleep. She lay beneath the soft blanket with the screen dark in front of her and listened to the low, continuous sound of the aircraft moving through the night.
She turned her head and glanced across the aisle.
Peter had fallen asleep with his glasses still on.
She smiled.
Hours passed.
First class dissolved time into lighting changes, offers of tea, offers of water, offers of snacks, offers of things no one in economy imagined being offered because they were too busy calculating whether their knees would survive.
Natalie drank champagne, then water, then oolong. She watched half of a French film then turned it off. She ate fruit. Later, a flight attendant brought a charcuterie board as a snack.
Peter woke during the charcuterie.
“Did I miss food?” he asked, alarmed.
“Yes.”
His face fell.
Natalie pointed to the board. “But more food continues.”
“First class is spiritually hazardous,” he said.
“You can’t help but be greedy. You don’t want to miss out.”
“I could become a terrible person in about three more flights.”
“You’re already talking to strangers across aisles.”
He nodded. “The decline has begun.”
He ordered coffee. She ordered tea. Natalie shared the charcuterie with him. They leaned over from their separate seats, passing observations across the aisle as if they were neighbors leaning between apartment balconies.
Peter told her about Hong Kong logistics, which was more interesting than he had warned her. He knew docks, timing, warehouse problems, customs delays, the secret life of objects moving across borders. Natalie told him about galleries, buyers, artists, the strange theater of price and taste.
He listened with full effort.
Not perfect understanding. Effort.
Sometimes he got things wrong.
“So a collector is basically an investor,” he said.
“Sort of.”
“And an opening is a sales meeting with wine.”
“Cruel but not entirely wrong.”
“And art advisors are—”
“Careful.”
He held up both hands. “—all high priestesses with unimpeachable taste.”
Natalie laughed.
The laughter was easy now.
Peter glanced at her left hand. Then at her face. Then, gathering courage, said, “May I ask something slightly personal?”
“You may ask.”
“Are you traveling alone because you prefer traveling alone, or because someone foolish is not traveling with you?”
Natalie looked at him.
“Someone else being foolish,” she said, “is not the problem.”
Peter took that in and kept trying.
God, she was starting to love that, a man who tries.
“Are you involved with someone?”
The question was direct enough to be honest and careful enough not to corner her.
Natalie thought about Aaron’s hand around hers in the hotel room. Skye on the carpet. Danny’s face on the phone. She thought about the woman who went to Hollywood and the different woman who was now coming back.
“I’m complicated,” she said.
Seemingly before Peter even knew himself, he asked, “When the plane lands, do you want to share a taxi?”
There it was. Peter wasn’t asking to share a taxi. He was asking, after the plane lands, would you be willing to fuck me?
Natalie’s heart beat quickened.
She wanted to. God, she wanted to.
She imagined it: them both naked, her on top of him, Peter’s cock in her pussy, her giving him the time of his life, a lay that he’d never forget, Peter cumming into her, his face contorting into complete happiness when he cummed. He’d love and treasure every second of it.
And, God dammit, Peter deserved it.
He’d spent half this flight just trying to make this happen and, even though he was terrible at it, he just simply didn’t give up.
It’s not the result, Natalie thought, it’s the trying, the effort, the willingness to fail spectacularly and just try again.
To care enough to try again.
She wanted to say yes but she couldn’t.
She couldn’t because she knew Peter wouldn’t allow it to be a one time thing. After it was done, he wouldn’t say thanks for fucking me. No, he’d try to extend it. He’d try to turn it into a relationship. Then he’d keep trying and never give up on that.
Oh, God, she wanted him to have the fuck if he’d just let go the idea of a relationship.
But he never would.
Natalie sighed. “Sorry, Peter,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. “I’ve got to get home.”
Peter nodded, as if this were useful data. “Thank you for being kind about it.”
Natalie smiled gently.
“Understood.” He placed one hand over his heart. “I will retreat with dignity.”
“You don’t have to retreat. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the flight.”
He did not sulk. He did not become cold. He did not pretend he had never been interested. He simply accepted the line and kept being kind across it.
After that, the conversation became better.
Lighter. Funnier.
Here was Peter Wang, across the aisle in wrinkled first-class pajamas, glasses slightly crooked, trying to make jokes about art galleries because he wanted her to smile, even though he had been told kindly that nothing sexual would happen.
Peter never knew how close he came. Over the next hour, there were several instances where she almost said Peter, forget what I said early. Yes, let’s do it. We’ll share a cab over to my place and I’ll fuck your brains out.
The cabin lights slowly brightened as morning approached somewhere beyond the windows. Breakfast came: congee, scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, fruit, pastries, coffee, juice. Peter accepted everything, then looked overwhelmed by abundance.
“You don’t have to finish it,” Natalie said.
“I paid for it.”
“Did your company pay?”
“My company is me. So yes and no.”
She nodded.
The captain’s voice came over the speaker, smooth and distant.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our initial descent into Hong Kong. We expect to land in approximately thirty minutes…”
Around them, the cabin shifted into arrival: tray tables cleared, seats adjusted, blankets gathered, passengers returning to themselves after fourteen hours of being softened by altitude and service.
Natalie leaned over and looked out the window.
Clouds moved below them in grey layers. Beyond them, somewhere, the city waited: Sheung Wan, Galerie Cho Chou, Danny’s apartment in Mid-Levels West, the Friday table she had walked out of, the backroom, the boxes she had not yet packed but suddenly knew were coming.
Peter leaned slightly across the aisle.
“Well,” he said. “I hope I was not too irritating.”
Natalie turned to him.
He looked exactly as he had at the start: kind, nervous, hopeful, trying. Maybe a little more rumpled now. More human.
“No,” she said. “You were very good company.”
Relief moved across his face before he could hide it.
She leaned closer, lowering her voice beneath the cabin noise.
“Thank you, Peter. For keeping me company.”
He smiled.
His smile was not smooth, practiced or cinematic.
It was just real.
“My pleasure, Natalie.”
The plane tilted gently, descending toward Hong Kong.
At last.