Flash Fiction: Window Seat

This story features Ava, a cis woman (she/her) and Darcy, a non-binary person (they/she). Content note for public sex.

You know that feeling when you have an itch, but absolutely nothing you do relieves it? You scratch and scratch, but that tickle is still there, under your skin, taunting you?

That’s how Darcy felt sitting next to Ava on the flight to Belgium.

They knew fantasizing about airplane sex was a cliche. Hollywood scenes flashed through her head: hurriedly pulling down pants and hiking up skirts in cramped bathrooms, couples fucking at the speed of light (seriously, do these people ever use a condom?), emerging together to miraculously empty aisles, no airline attendants waiting to admonish them for bad behavior.

There was just one difference between this cinematic daydream and Darcy’s reality. In the movies, it was mostly strangers who punched their Mile High Club cards. In real life, Darcy was shoulder-to-shoulder, thigh-to-thigh with her girlfriend who she hadn’t seen in almost a year—and she wanted Ava so badly it physically hurt.

Ava and Darcy had promised to find time to take a trip together at least once a year. To many people, such an arrangement might sound absurd, but for them, it worked. Both had nesting partners at home, demanding jobs, and finances to consider, but every fall, they had a standing date: two weeks away in a new locale. On heart-wrenching nights, when the ocean felt too wide and deep, Zoom calls and app-controlled vibrators held the keys to connection.

Of course the distance was hard—anyone who claimed the contrary would be lying—but the relationship they had built over the past three years more than made up for it. What’s more, Ava and Darcy shared an understanding of how invisible it could feel to be a queer femme in a relationship with a straight, cis man, no matter how wonderful their nesting partners were.

Being together felt freeing, beautiful, and different—not better, just different. Both Ava and Darcy had lived with their nesting partners for close to a decade and knew their bodies inside and out. Being with them was a special kind of comfort; a coming home. When Ava and Darcy were with one another, though, they kept each other on their toes—they were adventurous, silly, and impassioned. Each of their relationships were delectable in extraordinary ways.

For the past two years, Ava had met Darcy in Los Angeles. They spent one vacation driving the Pacific Coast Highway and exploring the California Redwoods and another jetting about Tokyo. This year, Darcy felt it was only fair to meet Ava in her continent for a change.

That’s how they ended up here, on the hour-long flight from London to Brussels, fighting to keep their hands to themselves—a battle they were destined to lose from the beginning.

Darcy couldn’t stop staring at Ava. The seat’s overhead light illuminated her brown skin and the air conditioning gently blew her wispy bangs back from around her forehead. Ava turned and smiled, first with her eyes, then with that slow burn of a smile that melted Darcy every time. She squeezed their hand, Ava’s soft skin enveloping Darcy’s.

As if reading their mind, Ava leaned in, planting small kisses up the length of Darcy’s upper arm, shoulders, neck, and cheek. Parting her lips, Ava moved closer and whispered in Darcy’s ear.

“I need you. Now. Here. Please.” She moved away again, biting her bottom lip in that sultry way Darcy couldn’t resist.

Darcy looked around. They were on a near-empty flight—one that was so short, there wasn’t any time for beverage or food service. They might be able to get away with this. She turned the air conditioning on full blast and pressed the call button.

“What are you doing?” Ava asked, giggling.

Darcy shot her an impish look. “Just wait.”

“Our air conditioning seems to be stuck on high. Could we get a blanket or two?” The attendant was extremely apologetic—Darcy felt bad about that—but he brought over two light blankets.

Darcy lay the blankets over their laps and turned off their overhead lights. “Go over there now. No, no, not over there. Why are you unbuckling your seatbelt?! Just turn the other way!”

Neither partner was dominant or toppy. Sometimes this created a quiet, loving calamity when it came to negotiating sex, leaving both Ava and Darcy dissolving into a puddle of laughter on the bed—or, in this case, in the back row of an airplane.

Eventually, Ava rested her head against the window, her body turned away from Darcy. Darcy turned slightly, too. To any passersby in the aisle, they looked like two people resting together after a long day.

Darcy slipped their hand inside the waistband of Ava’s leggings. They paused briefly, taking time to run their fingertips over Ava’s ass, tracing skin she hadn’t felt in almost a year, but Ava arched her back, inviting Darcy further. She was ravenous.

With no underwear in sight, Ava’s leggings were soaked through. Did she prepare for this? The thought caught in Darcy’s throat, propelling her heartbeat faster and faster. She could feel her pale skin turning red with need and heat.

Darcy reached farther underneath Ava’s clothes and found her cunt slicked with wetness. They teased her clit, all the while knowing that’s not what Ava was ultimately after. Ava squirmed, gripping her right armrest, and let a whimper escape her lips only Darcy could hear.

Darcy traced her fingers from Ava’s clit to her opening. Any sense of silliness vanished completely in the wake of a sudden atmospheric shift as the gravity of spending the past year apart rushed toward them. Darcy pushed their fingers inside Ava, relishing the feeling of being inside her again after so long.

Ava began to grind her hips, pulsing to an invisible rhythm only she and Darcy could feel. They moved in tandem, breath fogging up the window.

As Darcy fucked Ava deeper and harder, Ava reached down the front of her leggings. Darcy curled their fingers, putting pressure on all the spots that drove Ava to the brink, taking delight in feeling her girlfriend’s cunt tighten around her.

Ava’s body started to shudder; a silent explosion so massive it felt like it came from the last three hundred and thirty four days of being apart, not an airplane quickie. Their sex was usually sensational, but there was just something about the first reunion fuck that Ava couldn’t get enough of.

She turned back to face her partner, chest heaving, face flushed. Before she could say a word, Darcy broke the silence.

“Can I taste you?”

“Please, but won’t we need to wait…?”

Darcy put her pointer and middle fingers in her mouth, savoring the way Ava covered her skin. She couldn’t wait for the full course.