Page 104 of Space Oddities

He laughs. “Yeah, I’m not what you’d call a feelings guy.” He shrugs. “That’s what the first wife said, anyway.”

Someone brushes past me walking to the bathroom. I watch as a woman opens the tiny closet restroom and shuts herself inside.

My breath hitches.

“So how did you get comfortable flying?” My voice reaches a higher octave than usual.

“Mind over matter.” He points his phone at me. “Beat your fear into submission.”

I rub my hands on my pants again and try to take a calming breath. “And how do you do that?”

Flight attendants begin the beverage service, their large metal cart blocking the aisle, cutting off access to the door. Black dots float around my vision.

“You got to go to your happy place.”

I’m so freaked out I want to laugh. But when I finally focus on him and see how serious he is, and also how jacked he is under his fitted polo and khakis, I don’t have the nerve. “Like in Happy Gilmore?”

“What’s that?”

I shake my head, trying to clear the dots. “Nothing.”

He narrows his eyes at me, then taps his temple with his finger. “The happy place is where you train your mind to go. Like meditation.”

“Did they train you to meditate in the Army?”

He snorts. “Fuck no. My second wife taught me that.”

“I see.”

“The Army just threw me out of a plane a few more times in the name of exposure therapy and called it a success when I stopped vomiting.” He snorts. “But really I’d just learned not to eat twenty-four hours before a jump.”

“I’ve done that before.” Trish’s hands sliding down the backside of my pants. Her knees sinking to the floor. I shift in my seat. “Exposure therapy.”

“Yeah. That takes a while. So while you wait for that to work— go to your happy place. Visualize yourselfnoton a plane. Some place warm.”

The reminder of Trish’s dedication to my exposure therapy homework puts a genuine smile on my face.

“Yeah.” Crew Cut nods at me. “Whatever it is you’re thinking about now, keep thinking about it. Make it your happy place.”

I nod back, then close my eyes. Trish. Trish is my happy place.

Trish in a bikini by the pool. Her wet skin glistening in the sun. Her pink painted toenails curled in orgasm.

I pull at the denim at my knees, trying to give my tightening crotch more room.

“I guess that’s one way to do it.”

Jarred from my fantasy, I open my eyes. The Army guy smirks, nodding toward my lap.

I flush like a teenager caught whacking off by his parents.

“Please.” He waves away my embarrassment. “I’m Army. Ain’t nothing I haven’t seen in the barracks.”

The flight attendant chooses that moment to wheel her cart between us. I snag the in-flight magazine from my seat back and place it over my lap.

“Anything for you gentlemen?” the man asks, smiling once more.

“Give that boy a stiff drink. I’m buying.” Crew Cut chuckles. “On second thought, better mix it. He’s stiff enough already.”

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