Yearn (10 page)

Startled again by the hostess's voice, Jerome sat up, hiding his erection with the script. Ever the consummate actor, he didn't even blush; instead he held up his glass to avoid the embarrassment of having the hostess bend down to fill it.

“Why not?” he replied, adopting the smile he'd crafted for his role in
Loser.
And now the smile, empty as it was, worked, and something in the hostess began to glow—some might have called it sexual hope—like the faint light of a ship caught in fog.

“I loved your last film,” she murmured, but loudly enough for the Chinese woman to have heard.

“Me too, wasn't that a fabulous role?” Again, Jerome let his gaze slide across the aisle. The mysterious businesswoman was engrossed in the in-flight magazine. It was as if she hadn't heard at all. She was utterly impervious. A shiver of pure ecstasy ran down his spine, then tightened around the head of his penis. Oh God, did he want her now.

Oblivious to his flurry of desire, the hostess bent over him to place a small bowl of cashew nuts on his side tray. A wave of the perfume Poison, sickly and cloying, drifted down with her movement, and for a second Jerome had a flash of the tiny apartment the hostess would return to between flights—the large flat screen that dominated the living room, the cat that would be waiting instead of the ex-husband, the cat litter tray beside the fridge in the tiny kitchen alcove. Suddenly Jerome felt very claustrophobic.

“And you did win the Oscar.” The hostess's voice dropped half an octave, an affectation he imagined she thought seductive.

“Oh, I blame that on the director and the screenwriter—us actors, we're just glorified puppets, really,” he joked, hoping she would leave him alone but meanwhile adopting the false modesty that had endeared him to many a TV host and journalist—a rehearsed response. The hostess smiled indulgently, then moved on to the next passenger, leaving him alone with the Chinese woman once more.

Jerome glanced across—still no reaction or even an acknowledgment. How delicious. Well, she could wait. He would seduce her but he would take his time, test his skills by doing it as slowly as he liked—after all, the flight was a good ten hours long and they'd only been in the air for an hour. Besides, wanting her was almost as erotic as having her, Jerome concluded, such was the mentality of a man who always got what he desired. Smiling to himself, he opened the script he had to read for his meeting in London.

The lines of the first page seemed to writhe around seductively as Jerome tried to rein in his concentration. The script was an English period drama, set in the mid-nineteenth century, about a great rivalry between two famous Victorian biographers that had ended in a huge sexual scandal that had ruined both of them. Jerome was to play the part of the younger biographer, D'Arcy Hammer.

Restless, Jerome flicked through the pages, scanning only his character's lines. He arrived at an extended monologue: a scene between D'Arcy Hammer and Clementine, his young fiancée, a role that had been offered to the latest English ingenue to be catapulted to Hollywood. Hoping to absorb himself in the psychology of Mr. D'Arcy Hammer and temporarily forget the alluring woman sitting so close to him, Jerome began reading:

D'ARCY LEANS FORWARD AND POKES THE FIRE, HIS FACE NOW FLUSHED WITH EXCITEMENT AND SOMETHING ELSE—THE MANIACAL GAZE OF THE OBSESSIVE.

D'ARCY

You have to understand, Clementine, what it must have been like for Banks, suddenly finding himself in this tropical paradise, this alien world where very few white men had walked before, and to feel this great passion, this irresistible attraction to a woman whose customs, appearance, and language were as strange to him as Eskimos might be to us. And yet love or perhaps primal lust . . .

C/S OF CLEMENTINE BLUSHING AND YET SHE CANNOT TAKE HER EYES OFF THE YOUNG WRITER.

D'ARCY (CONT'D)

...I believe, transcends the constraints of civilized society. It is pure; it lies in the heart of all of us, dormant. Unbelievably dangerous, and yet . . .

HE LOOKS INTO THE BURNING HEARTH.

D'ARCY (CONT'd)

...the young Joseph Banks had the courage to thrust his hand into the fire. . . .

C/S OF D'ARCY: HAS HE GOT THE COURAGE TO THRUST HIS HAND INTO THE FIRE? WILL HE INCLUDE THE SECRET JOURNAL IN HIS BIOGRAPHY AND RISK RIDICULE? HE GLANCES ACROSS AT CLEMENTINE—THEIR EYES LOCK.

CLEMENTINE

I believe in the real you, D'Arcy. I don't care what my uncle says, or what your adoring public believes. I know the truth of the man I love, whatever the future holds.

AND D'ARCY HAS MADE HIS DECISION.

 • • • 

Jerome stopped reading and gazed out the window at the azure twilight that had become that moment's time zone, the dull roar of the plane's engines behind him. The role had caught his imagination. Here was a man who'd found someone who loved and desired his private persona, the vulnerable, fallible human side. D'Arcy had found someone who hadn't cared about his fame or money. Who cared if it had ended badly? This character could have been him, 150 years ago, another brave explorer of human nature who yearned for true intimacy, just like he did!

Now he could see D'Arcy crouched before that Victorian fireplace; he could feel his own chest encased within the tight velvet waistcoat, the starched stiff wing collars, the heightened pleasure of the proximity of the young woman D'Arcy wants but cannot have until marriage, the young biographer's ability to live through his subject's adventures—Jerome felt it all now.

As if in response one of the actor's eyebrows started to twitch as his face adopted the expression he imagined would suit a character like D'Arcy—a combination of haughtiness and vulnerability. He could make this work. He had run the same gamut of emotions as the troubled young biographer! He could play D'Arcy. All the acting possibilities began to run through his mind. Searching for role models for the character, gestures he could use that he'd observed in friends, other actors, the few young aristocrats he knew personally, he began to put together an emotional palette he could draw upon.

Just then a movement down the aisle distracted him. He looked up. The steward was now standing over the Chinese businesswoman, asking whether she was ready to order dinner. Her shining jet-black hair was illuminated by the pool of overhead light, the shadows transforming her pale face into a prism of sharp planes in perfect symmetry that was broken only by the length of her eyes and the large full mouth. And there appeared to be a gleaming, wry intelligence in those black eyes.

Was he falling in love or in lust? He wondered, then decided it didn't matter; the most important thing of all was that he was still unknown to her. He was every man and no one, plain Joe Blow with all the advantages and disadvantages that came with that. But there was something else that made the prospect of seducing her even more erotic, and that was the anonymity of air travel. In this nether-time they could be anyone. They were citizens of the sky, bound together by a restless need to keep moving. Surely that in itself indicated a need to reinvent oneself over and over with each new country, each new destination, so there was a double anonymity—the fact that he was unknown to her and the fact that both of them were literally in no-man's land. Jerome, fancying himself as somewhat of a philosopher, played with the notion. He'd always liked sex in the air, but up until now he'd only made love on private planes. The public domain was a whole other ball game, one that was far riskier and far more exciting—it violated all conventions.

With her he could choose to be his younger self, the idealistic and intense young actor with all the choices in the world or the questioning, more secretly vulnerable self he was now, or anyone else, for that matter, but one thing he would not be was Jerome Thomas the film star. And fuck, that was sexy. Now he was erect again, rock hard, his cock pressing up against the blanket over his lap.

Pretending to read his script, Jerome surreptitiously studied the woman's every movement; it was the careful observation of the hunter. Again, she seemed to be oblivious of his interest. There was no subtle angling of the body toward him, no unconscious preening—the hand to the hair, tongue running across lips, fingers stroking skin—to indicate that she was even aware of the gaze of an attractive man, never mind a world-famous film star.

The steward described the menu. The businesswoman looked up at him. It appeared she didn't speak or understand English. The steward then repeated the menu in fluent Mandarin.

The woman broke into a smile and the severity of her beauty softened. It was then that Jerome was absolutely convinced he must act. Like the fearless D'Arcy Hammer he too would thrust his hand into the fire—or in this case, hopefully, between those smooth slim legs. Determined, Jerome lifted his pen from his breast pocket and wrote in the margin of the script:
Rom, you will have her by the end of the flight.
It was a promise to his secret self, his hidden persona. It was a commitment.

He pulled out the TV screen set into the side of the booth. The touch screen came on and he pressed the
YOUR JOURNEY
icon. Immediately a graphic of the plane flying across a curved map of the northern hemisphere came up. They were now somewhere over the icy plains of Alaska, as far as he could tell, and there were about eight hours to go before arrival. Eight hours to find a way of getting her attention, charming her without language or the advantage of his fame, and then seducing her without causing a disturbance or a newsworthy scandal. It was a deliciously erotic and extremely dangerous prospect, one worthy of both Jerome Thomas and D'Arcy Hammer—the question was, how? Across the aisle, the woman donned her headphones and, with eyes closed, appeared to be listening to music, her long delicate fingers tapping the arm of her seat. The in-flight magazine now rested on her lap, open. It was then that Jerome first noticed she was wearing a wedding ring. Good, he thought. In his experience married women were easier to seduce and less likely to have any emotional expectations afterward.

Reaching into his trouser pocket, he pulled out a second-hand wedding ring he'd bought years ago as a ploy to wriggle out of any unwanted advance; instead he'd discovered that presenting as a married man usually engendered one of two reactions. One was to make him even more desirable, which depressed him as despite never having been married himself he still liked to think the institution was sacrosanct. Or it would put women (and sometimes men) at their ease, as if the experience of marriage both gave him more gravitas and made him more trustworthy.

Just then he noticed that the in-flight magazine lying on the businesswoman's lap had flipped one page and was open at the movie section. The page was dominated by a large photograph from his latest film and featured him in character dressed as a beekeeper, the lead character in the movie
Loser
. Startled, he almost got out of his seat; instead he forced himself to remain calm and, surprised at the intensity of his own reaction, tried to steady his racing heartbeat. He hadn't been this nervous since receiving his Oscar. It was an epiphany, a sudden understanding of how much the seduction meant and how the opportunity that now presented itself was once in a lifetime. Jerome had to stop her from seeing the promotional image in the magazine. He had to stay unknown to her. Had she already recognized him? Was his last chance of looking into the mirror and remaining anonymous lost? Fearing he was too late, he glanced across the aisle—her eyes were closed; she hadn't seen the photo yet. It was a matter of seconds—he had to move fast. Disentangling himself from his seat belt, he got up and stood in the aisle. Pretending to reach for something in the overhead locker, he swung and deliberately let the sweater that was draped over his shoulders fall across the lap of the Chinese woman. It slipped onto the magazine, covering the photograph completely.

The businesswoman opened her eyes. An expression of outrage at having her personal space so rudely violated flashed across her face. She sat up, adjusted her skirt, and broke into a torrent of angry Mandarin. Ignoring her fury, Jerome, adopting his most charming smile, apologized in English, then bent over her to collect his sweater, keenly aware that by doing so he would certainly be close enough so that she could catch the scent of both his pheromones (the allure of which he strongly believed in, especially as he'd been voted Sexiest Man of 2002) and his very expensive Parisian aftershave. As he collected his sweater he also managed to knock the magazine onto the floor. Again, smiling and fixing his most seductive look upon her, he handed the closed magazine back to her. The unspoken protocol of first-class passengers keeping to themselves was broken. The woman gazed up at him. It was impossible to completely read her reaction in those black eyes, but Jerome was undeterred; if anything her apparent perplexity excited him further, as did the sight of her slim thighs visible under the taut silk of her skirt. Still smiling, he pressed his hands together in front of his face and bowed as if he were a Tibetan priest. The gesture broke the tension as, laughing, she bowed back. Flushed with the success of the first strike, Jerome returned triumphantly to his seat. “The seed is sown, Rom,” he said silently to himself; now it was merely a question of time.

Moments later both the hostess and steward fussed around the two passengers, setting their tables with the customary white linen tablecloth and real cutlery, followed by their meals. The lights had now dimmed and each passenger booth was like a small island of illumination, the gentle drone of the engines like the great internal workings of a huge bird in which they were cocooned.

Jerome loved flying. He loved the neutrality of the environment—it was timeless, nationless, and best of all out of reach of the frenetic world stretched out beneath them. He finished his Dover sole and a glass of bone-dry sauvignon. Now he was intensely conscious of every movement his neighbor made, as if there were an invisible web linking his arm to hers, his hands to the small white fans of her own. He didn't have to look at her. It was as if he could feel the shift in the air around them with every gesture she made. It was a waiting game, a question of knowing when to reel in that taut thread of erotic possibility, he concluded, stretching his long legs against the footrest that, when raised, converted the seat into a full-length bed—useful in a private jet but not so useful in the polite and chaste atmosphere of a first-class cabin on BA, he noted.