I wriggle my bottom. It was not a sensual wriggle. It was not a provocative wriggle. It was a desperate wriggle. Anything to ease the back breaking, mind number ache of being crammed into an over small, over hard, economy class seat on a twenty-two hour intentional flight that the travel agent had promised would save her a fortune.
I had known it was a mistake right from the beginning. How can you save a fortune when you don't have a fortune in the first place? The travel agent's spiel was obviously based on faulty logic. On the other hand, I had not exactly been overloaded with choices. The price was right for my limited finances. I did feel, however, that the travel agent should have explained that the price was for the very worst seat in the Boeing 457.
She was jammed, literally jammed, in the middle seat, crammed between one elderly woman and gentlemen, so big that he had to be a retired wrestler
I eased myself onto my Left hip, gained some relief from the pressure on the base of my spine,
Eyes watching me, lifted my own to meet them. He looked stiff and staid. A walrus moustache added interest to his fleshy face. From the few words I had heard him speak over the past twenty-two hours, he had a British accent. He continue to stare.
From the glazed look in his eyes, I figured that the long journey had broken down the famous British reserve and he no longer gave a damn whether or not it was rude to stare. Or perhaps his bottom was hurting, too, I thought sympathetically.
In any event, I was used to being stared at so it didn't worry me. In countries where people were generally dark in coloring, my hair had been the main object of fascination. For some genetical reasons, it incorporated every shade variation from almost pure white to deep yellow gold. It's long, silky fairness was woven into a single thick plait over my shoulder at the moment, but it still seemed to strike people as something worth looking at.
By rights, my eyebrows and eyelashes should also have been fair, but they were light black, which tended to add an intriguing Smoky emphasis to my blue eyes. The retired wrestler stare at my eyes for a long time before his gase slide down my nose and mouth.
I had a rather wide full lipped mouth. It balanced up my high cheekbones and my squarish jaw line so I didn't mind it being a bit on the wide side, although she sometimes thought my face was all teeth when I smiled. I had noticed people seemed to get distracted by my smile. I tried to remember not to smile too much, but most of the time I forgot.
As I did now. The poor man had to be suffering, probably much more than I was, so I smiled sympathetically at him. He was holding a cup of coffee in his hands. Out of the corner of her eye, I saw the hot liquid spill over the rim and tickle onto his fingers.
"Sir, your coffee," I warned Kindly.
The coffee slopped more alarmingly. The big man grabbed his lap, emitting a cry of pain. He stood up, heedlessly dropping the cup on the floor as he rushed straight to the restroom.
"Sorry," I whispered, but in his anguish he didn't hear me .
It was an unfortunate fact that these nasty little incidents seemed to follow me around like a cat, blighting the general happiness of my life. I heaved a deep sigh. I genuinely regretted what had happened to the big man. On the other hand,his abrupt removal gave me room to think without being distracted by the anguish in my bottom.
I stretched all my limbs, relieving my cramped muscles before luxuriously spreading myself across both seats. Thought imperative. There was barely thirty minutes to land and the "fortune" the travel agent had saved my only amount to the coins on necessary for one telephone call and the fare for a very short taxi ride. One block at most, which wouldn't get me very far, and would leave a lot of walking at the end of it.