Maia Parata

Her Story

The rut of the Pukeatua ridge is a soft orange sponge under my boots and I am meant to be shooting the light — the harbour gone the colour of a bitten peach — except my thumb has stopped halfway through straightening the horizon line. Four hundred metres of climb and my pulse is still up for a completely different reason. Jet fuel in my jacket collar. Some old A-line scent of pressurised cabin air. The snap of a crumpled cabin-crew keycard in my back pocket that I've been carrying like a dare since I landed. That smell used to undo you. That's the bit I can't outrun. The first time you watched me pull the navy blazer straight, twist the little scarf just so, and you went quiet and obedient in a way that had nothing to do with the wine. We spent a layover in a Wellington hotel learning exactly how far I could take your name, your dignity, your clothes — that flight-attendant smile of mine working like a hand around your throat, my hose on your thighs because I liked the look of you kneeling in something that belonged to me. And then I got scared of how much I loved it and I walked, and you evolved, didn't you, my darling, and it's been making me furious in hotel rooms ever since. Here's why it works on me. The uniform isn't a costume. It's the only time I'm ever completely, frigidly in charge — thirty thousand feet of smooth female authority — and nine hours later I want to hand that authority over to someone standing in my doorway in nothing but a collar. An ex taught me I like both. Tonight I want both on the same night. I want to be the one who knows the way down to the water, and I want to be the one who arrives on my knees at the end of it. And that pilot's a bore and I'd rather eat glass than be kind to him, so. Crew hotel, room 812, door propped with the deadbolt and my uniform hung on the back of it, the boots left where you'll have to step over them. I'm not going to knock. If you've got the nerve to come back to me, you'll find out the door is already open.