Chapter One: Mission Ritual
The only sound in the dimming summer evening light inside the airplane hangar was his grunting and her moans and sighing. She was perched on her ass on the worn wooden desk off to the side of the two P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers taking up most of the room in the hangar. A lightbulb hanging on a chain above the desk swayed back and forth in the breeze coming from the open hangar doors, the arc of the sway seemingly matching the rhythm of his thrusts inside her, as if he was gauging the coordination of the rhythm. And perhaps he unconsciously was, as his mind was only half there. She was the one who had wanted this. She had come to the hangar while he was waiting for something else entirely and had initiated the fuck.
Her full skirt and petticoats billowed around her waist. Her knees rested on his hips. Her hands clutched his bare buttocks, pulling him inside her with each jarring thrust. Her white cotton panties were on the concrete floor of the hangar, resting on top of his trousers and briefs, which were puddled around his ankles. Her calves were covered with rough, white cotton knee socks. He'd bought her sheerer stockings but she hadn't dared wear them anyplace yet. Her husband took her nowhere but the local pub and she hadn't come up with an excuse for owning them. They certainly weren't something that her husband could have given her. She put them on occasionally now and again while her husband was in his fields and she wanted to feel rich and decadent.
He held her in place on the edge of the desk with a hand on the small of her back. His other hand cupped a pendulous breast and thumbed the brown nipple couched in a nickel-sized aureole. He'd already pinched and prodded the other nipple as she was giving out little yipping sounds and while he was moving his bulb into position. He'd rubbed his cock head through her folds and over her clit until, through her heavy breathing, she'd reached down, put him in position, and pleaded, "Now. Now. Take me now," through clenched teeth.
He'd almost laughed at her adoption of the accent of some American actress or the other she had seen at the local cinema. This was all a movie drama for her, giving herself to the handsome, ill-fated American aviator on the eve of flying his last mission out over the English channel.
She'd arched her back, given a little cry, opened her eyes wide when he entered her—thick and hard. She doubled her panting and murmured, "Alex, Alex, Alex," as he held barely inches inside her, for her to take his measure and blossom open for him. He knew this was when he should utter her name too, but he suddenly couldn't remember what it was. Eleanor? Emily? Ellen?
Instead, he muttered, "Beautiful. You're so fine." This must have satisfied her, as he could sense the tension draining out of her and feel her go soft inside, spreading open for the shaft throbbing inside her. He reared back, thrust forward, giving her all of it. She screamed; dug her nails into his buttocks; flung her body about within the confines of his strong embrace; cried out, "Mercy, give me mercy," until, riding her hard and fast, she settled down to the rhythm, murmuring, "Yes, yes, yes. Oh, Alex, yes."
Five, maybe six minutes, and he had released his seed, pulled from her, smoothed the front of her skirt down, and rolled to the side to perch on the desk on his rump next to her. His nice-sized cock was still half hard, jutting out. He was young, healthy, and virile. He'd be able to go again within twenty minutes. Perhaps she knew that, as she reached over and wrapped a hand around the shaft. Before, this was when she would go down on her knees before him and take it into her mouth until he'd given her an after ejaculation and it had started to go flaccid.
But not this evening. After he'd offered her a Lucky Strike cigarette, she said, with a bit of regret, "I can't stay. There's a to do at the pub and Harvey will expect me to meet up with him there." She took the cigarette and lowered her head to the flame he produced from a lighter he retrieved from the desktop—another gesture she'd learned in an American movie, he knew. Lucky Strike cigarettes were American military ration and the designated cigarette of the fighter-bomber squadron that had named itself the Luckies.
Harvey was her somewhat dim husband, who worked a bit with the plane mechanics at the aerodrome and on his ancestors' small farm on the outskirts of Duxford the rest of the time. He was a good fifteen years older than she was, dull as a rock, and nothing close to being able to handle or satisfy her. She worked in the scheduling office at the aerodrome. Once she'd gotten off the farm, the future was sealed for her. If Alex hadn't succumbed to her needs and advances, it would be some other American flyer fucking her. After he was gone, it would be some other American aviator fucking her. It was like they had made it a club. They died their hair blonde and went to see American patriotic movies on Saturday night with their girlfriends and they suddenly were in a pool of women who opened their legs for the American aviators.
At least that's how he reasoned the situation. Not that he hadn't fucked another man's wife before—or, for that matter, some wife's husband. Alex was a modern man, and he was an American fighter-bomber pilot in the later stages of the Second World War. The first world war, originally termed the Great World War, had been fought to end all wars. They all knew better now—and they knew this war they now were in wouldn't be the last one either. He was painfully aware of the mortality rate in his chosen field. He wasn't one to pass up a fuck no matter what the origin—female or male. He just took on different roles, depending on who his sex partner was.
"That's a pity," he said, blowing a stream of smoke out. It was the best he could think of doing. He was still trying to work out her name. And she had just appeared this evening. He'd had other things to do, not the least being checking over
Lucky Linda
for tomorrow's bombing raid over Belgium.
Lucky Linda
was the name of his P-47, which he loved dearly—the fighter-bomber, not the namesake Linda, who had sent him a Dear John letter more than a year before. He'd been good up to that time—fighting for home and hearth and the honey left behind. She too had died her hair blonde as soon as war had been declared. Since his world had fallen apart, he'd been sewing his oats like there was no tomorrow—because maybe there wasn't. And that's when the young woman revealed the reason for her visit.
"You go up again tomorrow, don't you?"
"Yes," he answered.
"I hate this," she said. "We never know if they are going to come back. I can usually tell by the sound of you boys taking off when you'll be back—and I find myself outside, looking to the sky, counting the planes. There always are more going out than there are coming back."
"Yes," he said and took a puff on his Lucky Strike. This wasn't what he wanted to hear the night before a mission. Mentally, he was retreating from this. This wasn't what he wanted to think about; this wasn't what he wanted to be doing. She needed to shut up about it. He needed to fuck her quiet.
He covered the hand she had wrapped around his cock and used it to set them both in a stroking motion. His cock instantly came to life. He wanted her on her knees, in front of him, moving her mouth over the shaft. He wanted to experience
la petite mort
—the little death of orgasm—again, so he didn't have to think of the other form of death.
But he didn't want to force her to suck him off. He knew she'd do it if he pushed her to her knees. He knew why she was here now. She was here in case he didn't come back tomorrow. It was a "thing" with these English girls. Young women who never would have done this in other circumstances were giving themselves to the American airmen as some sort of connection to—service to—the war effort. Giving them a night-before fuck in case they didn't come back the next day. Gaining grieving status with their girlfriends if one of their boys didn't make it back. Suddenly given the regard that their girlfriends accorded to Ingrid Bergman on the big screen, which would last until an aviator some other woman was fucking didn't make it home. The longevity of grieving sympathy didn't go much more than a week in this phase of the war.
He hadn't had to force anyone—or seduce them—since he'd arrived here. They buzzed around him and the other American aviators like bees. They always came to him, begging for it. Well, nearly everyone.
"Where is it tomorrow?"
"Where is what?" he asked.
"Where do the planes fly?"
He was on his guard. Was there another motive here. She worked in the scheduling department. She probably knew as well as he did. But there was a "loose lips sink ships" security drive going on now. Was she here to give him a royal sendoff or to check on his discretion?
