Fun

The seatbelt sign dings off somewhere over the coast. Business class, two seats in the row, and a curtain behind them. Mia has the window. Remy has the aisle, which means she cannot hide her face in a stranger’s shoulder.

Mia waits until the drinks are down.

“Uncross your legs,” she says, quiet enough for the row and not the cabin. “You sit like you’re still sore. Are you.”

Remy’s ears go red. “No.”

“Liar. You walked onto this plane like his cock was still in you. It isn’t. Get used to that.”

Remy stares at the screen in the seatback. Mia does not let her have it.

“Six months,” she says. “Same project. Same hotels. You don’t get fucked. You don’t get a stranger in a bar. You don’t get a coworker who thinks you’re fun at dinner. I will know. And you do not get Adam. His cock is at home. You are in the air with the wife who already used you and took your panties.”

Remy’s hands are fists on the armrest.

Mia smiles into her water. She was in a car when Lana unpacked. She does not tell Remy any of that. She tells her the name, who she is to Adam, and the plan Adam put in her ear the night before.

“His ex?” asks Remy.

“Lana,” Mia says again. “He was going to taunt her until she begged for it. Not a polite ask. A beg. The way you begged after he used your throat and you admitted you’d lied about every man you claimed. Once she breaks and asks, he stops teasing. Then he treats her like a fucktoy. Uses her when he wants. Bends her over the counter. Fills her. Puts her back to whatever she was doing. You understand the difference. You slept on the floor and went home. She stays in the arrangement.”

Remy is flushed down her chest. Shocked. Turned on. Angry at both.

“That’s—” She swallows. “He’s going to have her there, using her like that, and I—”

“And you get me,” Mia says. “Different plan. Not his cock. Not her place. Something else. I’ll tell you when I feel like it. Not on this flight. You can sit with the picture until I do. He teases her. She begs. Then he uses her whenever he wants. You get none of it.”

Remy looks at her hands. Her nipples are tight under the blouse. She does not argue.

Mia checks her watch.

The first of the month. Eight in the evening at home. She knows what Adam said he would do to Lana, and she knows a girl is supposed to be at the door.

She looks at the time again. Then at Remy, wet-eyed with a want she is not allowed to spend.

“Almost eight,” Mia says. “Be quiet. I’m waiting to hear that my husband did exactly what he told me he would.”