The Layover Game

Nik Hartley was thirty-four years old and he had been flying the same Denver to Newark route for six years, and if you told him that was a complaint he would laugh at you. He loved it. He loved the routine of it, the little rituals, the same sandwich spot in Concourse B, the same gate agents who knew his name. But sitting alone in the first-class lounge at Gate 17 at half past midnight, with a fuel-system fault keeping his airplane out of service, he felt something he had not felt in a long while. Not dread. Something closer to a thrill, actually, which was a strange thing to feel about a maintenance delay at midnight.

The lounge was empty. Emptied, really, since the last flight out had gone at eleven and the staff had more or less given up on the room. Fluorescent lights buzzed over leather seats that still smelled faintly of somebody's expensive perfume. The coffee machine gurgled to itself, half full, nobody left to drink it. Somewhere down the corridor a baggage cart rumbled, and then went quiet, and then rumbled again like it was bored too. Nik had been counting it, because counting was what pilots did with boredom. Four passes in an hour, and he had never once heard a driver's voice or a reverse alarm.

He had texted his sister Carla, who was forty-one and lived in Aurora, that he'd be stuck overnight. She had texted back a thumbs up and "take the hotel, dummy," which was fair. Hotel voucher was already arranged, shuttle at whatever ungodly hour the maintenance crew finished, which could be four a.m., could be noon. Nobody knew. That was the thing. Nobody knew, and Nik found himself weirdly okay with that.

His life was a list, was the thing. Wake at five. Coffee, gym if the schedule allowed, preflight, pushback, land, hotel, sleep, repeat. His last relationship had ended two years ago, friendly, no drama, just a woman named Rachel who said "you're wonderful, Nik, but you're also a schedule with a face," and honestly she had not been wrong. He had thought about it a lot since. Not with any pain. Just with curiosity. What was out there that a schedule with a face never got to see?

So a mechanical delay at midnight, with the whole airport gone soft and quiet around him, felt almost like a gift. He'd never say that out loud. A pilot who celebrates a fuel fault is not a pilot you want on your crew. But sitting there in a leather chair with his tie loosened, watching the empty lounge, he felt like a child, no, scratch that, he felt like a man handed a snow day at age thirty-four, and he wasn't going to look that particular gift horse in the mouth.

He got up, stretched, wandered to the coffee machine. Poured a cup that was definitely hours old and tasted like it. Drank it anyway. Why not? The night was his.

* * *

That was when the lounge door swung open and Shannon Ortiz came in carrying a bottle of water and her own bad mood, or what he assumed was a bad mood until she saw him and smiled.

"Oh good, I'm not the only idiot in here," she said.

Nik laughed before he could help it. "Hey. I thought you went to the hotel hours ago."

"I did. Then I remembered my tablet is in my carry-on, which is in crew baggage, which is apparently locked somewhere in this airport until maintenance signs off." She held up her water bottle like a little trophy. "So I came back to sit in a dark lounge and be angry at myself. And you are?"

"Stuck. Fuel system. She's down till they figure it out."

"Ah, the fun one." She dropped into the chair across from him, crossing her legs and settling in like she owned the place. Shannon was the lead flight attendant on his crew, forty-two years old, been with the airline longer than he'd been flying for it, and she had one of those faces that always looked like she knew something you didn't and found it funny. "You know we'll get the text at six a.m. saying they fixed it at three, right?"

"I know."

"And we'll both say great, wonderful, and then we'll be zombies on the return leg."

"I know that too," Nik said, grinning. "You always this cheerful at midnight?"

"Always. It's my brand." She poured herself a cup from the machine, sipped it, and made a face. "God, this tastes like it was brewed during the last administration. Actually no, skip that, it tastes like the lounge machine's been alone with its thoughts."

He laughed again. Easy, that was the word. Talking to Shannon was easy in a way that caught him a little off guard, because on the plane she was all business, crisp announcements, calm voice, the works. Off the plane she was apparently a person who made jokes and drank terrible coffee.

"So how long you been flying this route?" she asked him.

"Six years. Denver to Newark, back and forth, like a ping pong ball."

"Six years! Wow. Doesn't that get old?"

"Honestly? No. Or I didn't think it did until tonight." He gestured at the empty lounge with his cup. "Weird as it sounds, this is the most interesting thing that's happened to me in months."

"Months?" She raised an eyebrow. "Nik. Buddy. That's sad."

"I know it's sad! I'm aware. I fly, I sleep, I go to the gym, I do it again. Rachel used to say I was a schedule with a face."

"Rachel, huh?" Shannon leaned back, interested now. "The ex?"

"Two years ago. Totally friendly. She's married now, happy, good for her. But she had my number, I think."

"Everybody has a number," Shannon said, and then she tilted her head. "Well. Most people have a number. Some people have a whole filing system, but that's another story."

"What does that mean?"

"It means nothing, drink your terrible coffee." But she was smiling in a way that said it meant something.

The baggage cart rumbled by again. Nik looked at her, at the lounge, at the clock on the wall that said 12:47 a.m., and he thought about how the night had no shape yet. No pushback time. No gate. Just hours, and a colleague he apparently liked more than he'd realized.

"So what's your story?" he asked. "You've been flying longer than me. Why this route?"

"Because my ex took the house in Chicago and I wanted nothing of hers, including her city." Shannon said it lightly, like she was reporting the weather. "Denver suits me. Mountains, sunshine, weirdly good food. And I've got friends here."

"Friends. Just friends?"

She looked at him over her cup, and for a second there was that knowing look again, the one that said she was deciding something. "A few. A few more than friends, once upon a time. Nothing right now. You?"

"Nobody since Rachel. Which, again, I know how that sounds."

"Hey, nothing wrong with taking a break. You learn things in the quiet stretches." She stretched her legs out, flexing her ankles, and he noticed she had the kind of calm that people who sit for a living get, or maybe people who are sure of themselves. Hard to say. "What do you do on the quiet stretches, Nik?"

"Fly. Sleep. Gym."

"God!" She laughed, not mean, just amused. "You really are a schedule with a face. Rachel sounds like a smart woman."

"She is. Was. Whatever." He drank the terrible coffee and winced and she laughed harder. "What about you? What do you do on your quiet stretches?"

For a moment he thought she wouldn't answer. She looked at the coffee machine, at the flickering light over the snack counter, and then back at him, and something in her expression shifted, still easy, still friendly, but more careful somehow.

"I have hobbies," she said.

"Hobbies. Like what, knitting?"

"Sure. Knitting." The smile again. "And some other things that would surprise you."

"Try me. I've got a dead airplane and all night."

Shannon studied him for a moment, and Nik had the distinct feeling of being measured for something, though what he couldn't have said. Then she shrugged, casual as anything, and said, "Maybe I will. Ask me again when the coffee's better."

"The coffee's not going to get better. That machine is all we have."

"Then ask me anyway."

He opened his mouth. Down the hall, a door banged, footsteps, then nothing. The lounge settled back into its hum. Nik realized his heart was doing something unprofessional, and that the night had just picked up a shape after all, and that he had absolutely no idea what it was yet.

"Okay," he said. "What are these mysterious hobbies of yours, Shannon Ortiz?"

She set her cup down on the floor, leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and looked him right in the eye.

"Well," she said. "Since you asked so nicely."

She was quiet for a second, like she was doing one last check of the weather before takeoff.

"I've been a dominant in the kink scene since I was twenty-six," she said. "Fifteen, sixteen years now. Relationships, play, the whole deal. That's the hobby. That's the filing system."

Nik blinked. "Dominant. Like, whips and chains dominant?"

"Sometimes. Mostly it's less movie, more conversation. I like giving people structure. Telling them what to do, how to wait, when they're allowed things. Some people find that relaxing. Deeply relaxing. More relaxing than anything else in their lives."

"Huh," said Nik, who could not think of a single smarter thing.

"That's it? Huh?"

"I'm buffering. Give me a second." He laughed, and to his surprise he wasn't embarrassed, or not much. "Okay. Second buffer done. So you've done this with, what, boyfriends? Partners?"

"Partners. A couple of long ones. Nothing right now, like I said. And it's not always romantic. Sometimes it's just somebody who needs an hour where they don't have to make a single decision, and I'm the one holding the wheel." She picked her cup back up. "Why? Does it scare you?"

"No. I mean, I don't think so. It's just not a world I know anything about." He stared at the coffee machine. "Except, well."

"Except what?" she asked, and he could hear the smile in it even though he wasn't looking at her.

"Except I've thought about it. Read a little. You know, late at night, the internet being the internet. And it did something for me, which felt strange, because I'm the guy who flies the airplane. I'm supposed to be the one in charge of things."

"So?" Shannon said. "The best submissives I've ever played with are people with big jobs. Captains, surgeons, one very intense dentist. They spend all day being the responsible one. Do you know what a gift it is, for them, to hand that over for an hour?"

"No," Nik said honestly. "What's it like?"

"Have you ever been on vacation, and the first morning you realize nobody needs anything from you? That feeling, but concentrated. Turned up. Somebody else says when you move, when you speak. Your only job is to do what you're told and feel everything."

The baggage cart rumbled somewhere far off. Nik sat with it.

"I've thought about that," he admitted. "A lot, actually. Never said it out loud before. Rachel and I never, we were very, I don't know, equal? Polite? Nothing wrong with it, but it never went anywhere interesting."

"You were a schedule with a face in bed too?"

"Shannon."

"Sorry. Sorry. A little." She was definitely laughing at him. "Okay, so let me ask it plainly, since we've got an hour or six. Have you ever tried anything beyond what you call normal? Even once?"

"No. Never. Vanilla dating my whole adult life, and it just never came up, and I never had the nerve to bring it up." He looked at her. "That's the whole confession. Thirty-four years old and my big secret is I read some articles."

"Articles." She snorted. "The internet is a terrible flight instructor but it's a decent discovery tool. Fine. So you're curious. Curiosity's free. Acting on it, that's the part with terms and conditions."

"Terms and conditions. Great, I love paperwork."

"You'd be shocked how much of this is paperwork," she said, and she meant it. "Okay. Nik. Here's what I'm offering, and you can say no and we go back to talking about airports and it never comes up again. Are you listening?"

"I'm listening."

"I would like to do a scene with you. Right here, right now, tonight. Nothing public, nobody's coming through that door, and nothing that leaves a mark you'd have to explain to a doctor. You follow my instructions for a while. I decide things. You don't. We stop the second you say so, any time, for any reason, and I mean the second."

Nik's mouth went dry, and not from the bad coffee. "What kind of instructions?"

"To start? Small stuff. Kneel. Be quiet. Hold still. Answer a question honestly. That's the whole starter menu." She counted on her fingers. "If it's going well and you want to keep going, we go further, but each step gets asked about first. Nothing happens that you haven't said yes to on purpose. That's the deal, and it's not a flexible deal."

"What if I say stop and then change my mind?"

"Then we talk about it like adults. But if you say stop, everything stops, and I don't sulk about it and I don't hold it against you. That's the entire craft, honestly. The restraint is the craft." She set the cup down again. "One more thing. This stays a one-night thing unless both of us decide otherwise later, and I use protection with anyone new, no exceptions, in case we get that far, which we may not, which is fine. And this is separate from work. Whatever happens tonight or doesn't, it never touches your flying, your evaluations, or how I do my job. If you say no right now, tomorrow is exactly the same."

"Okay," Nik said, and then, because it was true, "That all sounds, actually, really reassuring? I expected it to sound scary."

"It scares people who don't like the idea. For people who like the idea, it sounds like a relief." She watched him. "So. Say yes or say no. Out loud, plainly. I'm not reading between any lines tonight."

He thought about Rachel, who would have thought this was hilarious. He thought about the empty lounge, the dead airplane, the clock saying almost one in the morning. He thought about how long it had been since anything had made him feel like this, which was awake.

"Yes," he said. "I want to try it. With you. Tonight."

"Good." Something in her posture changed, straightened, not dramatically, more like a dial turning a quarter notch. "Then here's how tonight works. First, your safe word."

"Safe word? Like in the articles."

"Exactly like in the articles. You say 'red,' everything stops, no questions, no debate. If you want to pause and talk, you say 'yellow.' Do you understand?"

"Red stops everything, yellow means slow down and talk."