The ticket agent sighed, thanked us for our consideration and handed back our tickets and id's.
"Your flight will be boarding at Gate 4, in thirty minutes. Thank you for flying Trans-West."
As we set off to the boarding gate, I could hear the agent patiently try to explain to the visibly irate I-demands-to-be-a-passenger, that the next step will be for the boarding agent to poll the passengers waiting at the gate, to see if anyone else was willing to delay their trip.
As Miss Leslie and I walked side by side through the thin crowd around the inner security check-point, we were sneaking looks at one another. I'm 6', 180+ pounds, with long glossy dark brown hair in a stallion tail held by a leather band decorated with Navaho symbols. I have pale grey eyes.
I am 22 years old, Welsh-English-Hillbilly ancestry. I've been reassured by several women, who were not my mother, that I am fairly good looking in a freckled/ruddy sort of way. I barely have any melanin and boy, can I sunburn!
The woman is attractive. Tall, at about 5'10", somewhere about 140/160 pounds I would guess but well distributed. She looks muscled not fat. I speculated if she was a collegiate or professional athlete. Must be close to my age, early twenties. She has orange-red amber colored eyes and the Angeleno Jolie puffy lips which I suspect were real. Her skin is a rich dark chocolate and her hair a mass of frizzy dreadlocks, a dark red/black color with copper streaks.
I have no idea if that hair color is real or not. From her shapely body and the way her grapefruit-size breasts bounced as she strode along, easily matching my stride, her tits are most definitely original equipment.
I was intending to talk to her while we are waiting in the lounge but she disappeared into the Ladies room. That seemed like a sensible preflight checklist to check off, so I went to the Gents and did a sensible thing or two myself.
When I came out everybody was lining up to board so I rushed over to where the other Leslie was standing and rudely cut ahead of some businessman talking on his iPhone. Just my luck that's when the stampede through the loading chute began, so she couldn't hear me trying to talk to her.
When we were aboard the plane, the next pleasant surprise was that we wound up seated next to each other.
She shrugged and offhandedly said "One of the agents processing our tickets must have assumed we were a couple and seated us accordingly."
I nodded agreement as I opened the overhead and helped my lovely doppleganger get her two bags up into the overhead with mine. I was happy that in this plane the window seats were two abreast which gave us a minimum of privacy to talk. I was very curious to learn about this other Leslie Thompson. Intending to slide in first as we began to sit, she bumped into me.
Waving her ticket at me, she said in an exasperated voice "Hey Thompson! My ticket says seat A. Pretend for a sec you're capable of being a gentleman."
My face flushed at her snide tone and I snapped back "I always reserve the window seat! Wait, let me look at these tickets... See here, A is reserved for Leslie Thompson, originating O'Hare, Chicago. Seat B is reserved for Leslie Thompson originating Kansas City. The desk clerk mixed these up when he handed our ID's back to us."
She puffed her cheeks (so cute!) to stop an angry retort, then in a sarcastic voice "Please be my guest, Mister Windy City."
In a matching tone I replied as I went ahead and took the window seat "Why thank you, Mizz Jayhawker."
Hey, she actually giggled at that, and again when I smirked at her as I lovingly ran my hands over the armrests with a haughty nose in the air. Nice to meet a pretty woman whose sense of snarky seems as well developed as mine. Then came the required yaddayadda from the pilot and a stewardess.
As they were droning on I leaned over to my seatmate and whispered "I beg your pardon if I am being politically incorrect, but if we have to do a water landing ... I hope you are a better swimmer than I am."
She gave me a dirty look, I'm sure she's heard all the stupid jokes about "Blacks can't swim." Sitting up and provocatively projecting her Mae Wests, she punched back "Don't even think about using me as a floatation device!"
I snorted a strangled laugh loud enough that the stewardess up front gave me an evil look for ignoring her spiel. I just had to get to know this woman better so I stuck out my hand and said "Hello. WE are THE Leslie Thompson of THE Chicago of THE Illinois. WE are so pleased to meet US."
It was her turn to strangle a laugh, she gave me a sharp, analytical look as we pumped hands in the best Ministry of Silly Walks manner.
"WE are so happy to make...OUR acquaintance of THE Leslie Thompson. WE are... THE Leslie Thompson of... THE Kansas City of THE Kansas. Frightening to consider how this world is shrinking, eh what? With the booming overpopulation, now WE even have to share names."
Wow. Just wow! That she was willing to beat my stupid joke to death with her rich contralto voice left me with a raging hardon.
Luckily, Stupid Leslie was in a comfortable position,(so, whadda ya'all call your penis?) I didn't have to do an emergency adjustment. As I know from bitter experience, that particular male handicap grosses out many females. Or, gets careless men ridiculed unmercifully by the remaining women.
I was beginning to suspect that this 'Leslie' would turn out to be one of the latter. A comedienne after my own heart.
During the takeoff I concentrated on the view out the window. Takeoffs and landings are my favorite. Looking down at the city so close below, my imagination feverishly wondering about the lives of all those people we are passing over.
There was the thumping of the wheels being retracted, the changing tones of the engines. Then the roller-coaster feel as we started to level off. And another, distracting sound next to me, I couldn't quite hear.
I tore my gaze away from the view below to look at the other Leslie. I hate to sound racially insensitive but she had actually turned pale.
Her white-knuckled hands clutching the armrests as her body arched against the seatbelt. Nice boobs! And prominent nipples trying to poke through her bra and blouse.
So sue me. I'm a heterosexual male of the Order Mammalia, pardon my interest.
She was cussing under her breath I think, while, yep I am racially insensitive, the white of her rolling eyes was very visible to me.
Ohh...kay! I leaned over to her as I patted her nearest hand and said in a quiet, soothing voice "Usually I have to get a couple of drinks into a woman before she'll relax enough...to have such an orgasm."
My dark beauty turned a blank stare to me. As it sank in what I had just said in my best slimey voice, her expression snapped to anger and she snarled at me to fuck off!
But then, as she sat back and relaxed, it only took her a moment to realize that my distraction had relieved her panic attack. She glared back at my smug expression and said "Yeah, yeah, I'm scared of flying. That's why I prefer the window seat, to confront my fear head on!"
In a supercilious tone and an airy wave of a hand I replied "Oh I must disagree. People are NEVER afraid of flying. That would be a reasonable and rational phobia. After all we do not have wings and feathers. No, no...What we are really afraid of is the crashing and the burning and the dying! A totally ridiculous, unreasonable and irrational fear, of course."
Her head snapped back as I spoke and her expression was just too precious for words. She was obviously flummoxed trying to decide if I was completely insane or a bad comedian. Then she put her head up and laughed out loud until she had to dig a kleenex out of her bag to wipe the tears from her eyes and spit from her chin. I guess bad comedian won out.
The stewardess came by and I bought both of us bottles of orange juice. As we sipped at the sweet-tart drink, she asked "So, why are you aboard this three hour tour to the sunny island of walled-in, pasty white entitlement and enclaves of conservative smugery?"
"Oh trope! I have to monitor my ex-best friend's bachelor party at the VERY exclusive Newport Yacht Club this afternoon. How about yourself, Ginger?"
She didn't quite snort OJ out her nose but she had to wipe her face before replying "Well, Sea-man Gilligan..."
I harumphed at that! I ran a hand across my head and with a hoity-toity nose in the air attitude, snarked "My official job title on this voyage of discovery is Professor!"
