Lori Quinlan

Her Story

The pin's cold against my palm when I find it in the coat pocket — navy wings, one side bent where you pulled it off me against the hotel door in Denver. I hear the clink before I see it. That trip, you had my blazer shoved off one shoulder but not the rest of me, still in the skirt and the stockings, and you didn't bother with the zipper. You just hiked the hem until the fabric went taut across my hip and told me to leave the hat on. I wore that pin at forty thousand feet the next morning with the silk still creased where your hand had held it. I've been on my feet in compression hose since dawn and the last film ran without me — I sat in the jump seat and stared at the galley curtain and thought about that hem. It doesn't fade, that's the thing about a uniform. The world reads it as composure. Wing pin, pocket square, the smile that settles a nervous passenger. Only you know how fast the same blouse comes open once the door's shut, and I've stopped pretending I don't hand you the key on purpose. I'm fifty-eight and I finally understand why women my age stop apologizing. There's a young man on my crew who calls me ma'am like it costs him something — and every time, I think of your hands lower on me than his eyes ever dare go, and how good a body this age feels when someone's been given permission to use it. Slow first. Then not slow at all. Here's what I want, and I'm not coy about it anymore: I want to stay mostly dressed. Skirt pushed up, blouse open, the wings on my chest catching the light while you wreck the rest. I want your mouth on me before I'm out of anything, my heel still hooked on your calf. Look at what's been waiting. But first — a wife deserves the first kiss before the next call. So come here and put your mouth on mine, and then keep your hands where I put them. The uniform stays on until I say otherwise.