Chapter 30

The next week I called Shawna again as they were unloading the plane in Napa, and she finally mentioned to me she had a date that weekend so could not go to a concert with me. And I gave a sigh after she hung up, knowing it was over. At least for now.

I was getting ready to start my fall classes, and thankfully a gal I had suggested to Pavel was a good match. I knew Brittany from class, and when I ran into her at school and I mentioned that my boss was possibly looking for another pilot she jumped at the chance. I got permission to take her along on one of the trips, and she was amazed at the plane. But after taking the controls when we were in the air also was amazed at how easily it handled.

That Thursday she had Ivan give her a check ride, and she took over the Wednesday flights Which meant that I could take more of a full class schedule in addition to returning to game nights. And when we returned to the first game of the month at my place, I was not surprised when Kelly remained after the rest left. And not long after we were back in my room fucking like rabbits.

As I was pumping away she was saying how much she loved my energy, and how good it felt. And after I filled the first condom we were cuddled together and I asked her if she wanted to go to the convention in two weeks with me. Pete could not make it down, but offered me two tickets for Labor Day.

“Oh, sorry. I’d like to, but I already have plans George. Maybe next time?” But she was soon sucking my cock again, and after cumming in her mouth she got dressed and left. And at least I knew I would not be completely without sex, as each of the other gals I had been with all seemed to finally have somebody else.

The next day I was in class and saw that Pavel was trying to call me. So once the class ended I went to the quad and called him back. “Oh good, we have change maybe for next weekend. George, can you fly from Friday to Monday?”

I thought for a moment, as that was the weekend of the convention. But I was only thinking of going just one day as not even Shawna or Kelly could join me, so I said I could. “Good, company I work with needs to take people up to place called Oroville. They fly up Friday, need to fly back Monday. Can this you do?”

I told him I probably could, but to let me get home and check my charts. “Pavel, I will need to check the charts to be sure. I need to check distance, airports, and things like that as I have never been there before. I will give a provisional yes, but let me make sure first.”

“Oh, this you like brother. He also not like to just say yes to make me happy but want to be sure. OK, call me tonight, I need answer though soon.”

Thankfully English Composition was my last class, and I decided to just head into the classroom we used for the aviation class instead of going home to check the charts. I told the instructor what I needed and she waved so I pulled up the charts. I was able to find Oroville, and it was even farther north than Napa. But after checking the distances with a ruler I decided that with the extra tank it was within range with a full load of fuel. And they had an airport, but it had no air traffic control so I would have to be a bit more careful as nobody was controlling landings and takeoffs.

I called Pavel and said I could do it. I then asked about weight and he chuckled. “Oh, you only take people, equipment going up in truck. We get you hotel so you have place to stay. We pay you $1,500 for weekend, is OK?”

I told him that was fine, and having some time to kill headed on out to Burbank. Julie smiled when I came in and gave me a hug, and even Abe came out front and we shook hands. We talked about computer things for a bit, then I mentioned I needed a laptop.

Julie asked what for, and I admitted sometimes I got caught out of town on flights so having one would help the boredom. She nodded and said that was a good idea, and asked why I did not just get one from my brother.

“Oh, I don’t need anything like that. This will mostly be for when I’m traveling and not my main system. I don’t want to spend that much money for one.”

I looked through their used notebooks, and saw one that caught my eye. It looked different, and thicker than most. I asked Julie about it and she nodded. “Yes, a Panasonic Toughbook, we just got that in.”

“Panasonic? I didn’t know they made computers.”

“Oh yes, they do. Never made much of a name, but then they decided to specialize. They only make laptops now, but really rugged ones. This has a magnesium shell, and has special mounts to protect the drives from vibrations. Peek inside a cop car sometime, and I bet it’s a Toughbook. The military loves them also, drop them from ten feet or run over it with a truck and they still work.”

I saw it was a bit older and slower than most of those out, only 1.5 GHz and an 80 gig hard drive. But it did have a DVD player and CD burner, and that would keep me entertained if I wanted to watch a movie while I was on the road. I went ahead and got it, and saw Abe putting it in a nice carry bag.

“Abe, that’s OK. It’s just going in my flight case, I really don’t need a bag for it.”

“Don’t worry about it, all our laptops come with a bag. If nothing else you can use it if you’re not flying, or give it to somebody else.” And it was a nice bag, so decided to go ahead and get it. But when I asked if he had any other software he could add to it, he smiled and took me to the back.

He handed me a folder full of disks, and I started going through it. I added about a dozen games, a movie player and CD burner, and a few other things. “Abe, what’s this?”

“Oh, Microsoft Streets and Trips. It’s a navigation program, with that you can plot out a trip, and it will tell you how to get there. It can even print out a map telling you where to turn.”

“Well, that might be nice if I’m driving I guess. But for flying, not much use as there are no street signs.”

“Oh, it can use GPS also. Hold on.” He went into the front, then came back and handed me a box. Inside was a different but similar program, and it had something about three inches by three inches, and about a half inch thick.

“This is a GPS receiver. You can add this and it’s like one of those fancy units you put in your car.” I told him to add that also, and when I got into my car I gave Ivan a call. I told him what I had gotten, and asked him what the voltage inside the plane was. Then swore softly when he told me it was a 28 volt DC system.

“Well shit, I was hoping I could just add a power inverter.” He asked me what I was trying to do, and I explained I had gotten a laptop and it had a GPS capability. And that it might be nice on long flights, but the power was not compatible.

“Oh, I call Pavel, don’t worry. Go ahead and come up here now, I fix you up.”

“Ivan, don’t worry. This is for my own use, no reason to get Pavel involved.”

“Trust me, he and I talk already. He want use plane too, and ask already about power. I already make converter, it here in warehouse. I have harness too, so have power in front and back, you see. Come on up, this planned already and is fine. Was planned for maintenance next month, but I just call and tell him we do now.”

I went ahead and drove to the airport, and just over an hour later was landing in Camarillo. And saw Ivan with his golf cart as I powered down. He helped me with the inspection and tying it down, and asked me how she was handling. And I admitted I loved it, even if it was a tad slower than I cared for.

He laughed, and soon we had the back open and he brought in several boxes. First he crawled under the cockpit with a test meter, and soon had an empty radio bay removed and put in a new one. And it had a regular round adapter like a car cigarette lighter and two wall plugs.

“Here, this five hundred watt inverter, and twelve volt. Either one be fine. Also is reset.” He showed me where he had mounted the inverter, and it was a decent job. It was a commercial unit, but he had moved the reset button to the panel, so if it popped I would not have to crawl under the controls to press it.

He then put something similar in the back, and he said that was a thousand watt inverter. “Here, this better, maybe watch movie or play game if passengers here. Pavel ask this, says daughters want this if they take trip.”

I showed him the laptop, and he smiled. And with him helping we soon had the puck mounted on top of the wing, and the cable carefully run into the cockpit. I fired the laptop up, and saw it was in low power mode. “Remember, plane not on so no power. I run cable so only to power when engine running.” I got the software running, and in less than a minute it showed us as being just outside the airport.

“Nice, not as good as one for plane, but better than nothing. Here, we take flight.” He secured all the tools and after getting clearance we took off. And together we watched the display, and it was great but not perfect. There was a bit of a lag, and it kept trying to jump back as if we were on a road with our location. But it did not interfere with any of the other instruments or radio, so that was great.

He was flying around a bit as I checked with the settings, and found the one to turn off the automatic road tracking. There, that was even better as our location did not try to constantly jump to the nearest road. But it would still do that if trying to plot long distances instead of showing where I was. Not perfect, but still a huge improvement. I even laughed when I saw it kept trying to warn us we were going over the speed limit.

It was getting dark as I dropped Ivan off and thanked him for his work. “Is alright George, I not think of computer for that. You say brother’s shop sell?”

“Yes, I got it all there. Let them know that you are a friend of Pete’s, and that you want this program and I’m sure they will give it to you. The GPS was about two hundred, the laptop about six hundred. But is a military laptop so sturdy.”

“Yes, I like. And cheaper than unit for cockpit. I get one I think, and knew few others that maybe want. Next time you come back, I try to put in mount.”

It was just past sunset when I was in the air, and for one of the first times was landing at night. That was not something I was real comfortable with, but everything went fine.

On Friday I got to the airport early. This time I was in my black slacks and white shirt, but threw on some coveralls to do the inspection. I swept the plane out and made it as clean as I could, then pulled down and secured all the seats. The laptop was secured with some bungee cords on the co-pilot seat, and I had already completed my inspection and stashed the coveralls when two vans arrived as well as Pavel in his car.

I shook his hand as he introduced me to Rocco, and I shook his hand. I even smiled when I saw that Peggy, Dani, and Mary were three of the passengers. He thanked me for doing this for them, and I said it was not a problem at all. And I saw they all looked a little nervous as they approached, surely the apparent age of the plane making them so. I introduced myself to them, and assured them that although it looked old, the plane was actually less than twenty years old and was in excellent condition.

We secured all of their gear, and I gave them all a modified safety brief that I remembered Harve and Tina used. Pointing out the emergency exits, seat belts, and what else was needed. Mary asked where the bathroom was, and I laughed.

“Sorry, we ain’t got one here. See the box back there? Inside is a blanket and urinals. Just use that, I will take care of it when we land.”

Soon I was in the air, and we were on the way. I noticed Peggy was holding the hand of one of the crew nervously, and Dani and Mary were holding hands. But one of them was looking around and smiling, and I realized I knew him!

I was positive that was Jake Pierce, and he was a porn actor. And I recognized the older gal back there, as well as at least one of the guys about my age. And now even more of some of the things Linda had said started to sink into place. As one of the older gals was introduced to me as “Sherry”, and her husband Buck was the cameraman.

They were going up to film a porn movie! And that feeling I had seen the girls before now made me realize where I had seen them before. They were porn actresses!

Thankfully the flight was uneventful, if long. And a few times I would see at least one of the gals hold the blanket for another as they made use of the primitive bathroom. And once we were on the ground there were two vans waiting for them. I had just finished the post-flight inspection and was starting to tie her down when they said they were ready to go.

“You all go ahead, I still got to tie her down and do a few more things. Can you come back for me in about an hour?”

They assured me they could do that, so I waved and started to tie her down. Once I finished the logbook and threw away the urinals they had used, I was having a smoke when I saw the van returning so quickly got my bags and locked up. And when the van pulled to a stop, I was a bit surprised to see Mary was driving. I got in the front, and we headed towards town.

“So I see you finally figured out who we are” she softly said, and I nodded. “And yes, we are here for what you probably think. Rocco arranged to get a houseboat for the weekend, so we are shooting a family vacation scene.”

I admitted I had thought they were familiar the other night, but could not place them. “But to be honest, once I recognized Jake Pierce it was rather obvious. I honestly had no idea what you all did.”

“Oh, only Dani and I are still active. Peggy retired, but helps out still. She’s my sister in the series, and Lili is still my mom. The original guy that was my dad retired a while back, so she married Jake, he’s my new stepdad.”

For the rest of the drive back into town she explained all about the series, and that Peggy was along because she was dating the sound guy. I admitted I had seen a few of them over the years, and it was different. “Oh yes, Holly Wood created it right before she retired. It’s kind of incest, but not like that old Taboo series as there’s no real incest. But as Jake just joined us two episodes back, I’m still trying to seduce him. And Dani is supposed to seduce his son while we are up here.”

She grinned, and asked if that was a problem. I just shook my head and told her not at all, it was just nothing like what I had expected. We got into town, and pulled into a motel where Rocco handed me my key. “The van will be here at 8:00 in the morning to take everybody to breakfast, than we will take off and leave you here for the day. Dinner again at 6:00, you can go with us or get it on your own. By Sunday night we will know if we need to do any more shoots or not, so we should be leaving on Monday before noon.”

I got settled into my room, and was at least thankful that the room had Internet. I went ahead and put on some jeans and a shirt and went out. I saw a diner a few hundred yards down the road, so headed there.

I saw about half the crew there eating, and Mary waved to me so I sat with her and Dani. When Mary asked me what I would do for the weekend, I admitted that I would probably just stay in the room. “I mean, there’s not much in this town from what I can see. And I would have to walk everywhere. I got some movies before we flew up, and I can walk to the store about a mile away if I want more.”

As we were walking back to the motel Dani asked me if I would treat them any differently now that I knew. And I did my best to assure them that I would not. “I mean, you all are a bit older than I am. And, let’s just say that I have a family friend that was once in the industry. I know you all were just being nice the other night, and I enjoyed our time hanging out. And know that is all it was.” They both gave me a smile, and waved once we got back to the motel.

After taking a shower I was laying on the bed watching the Daredevil movie on the laptop. Peter had mentioned the comic, and it caught my eye so I bought it. And when there was a knock on my door I told them to hold on as I paused it and threw on some jeans.

What I did not expect though was to see Mary outside. I saw her hold out her hand which had a bag in it, and she asked if I wanted a drink. I invited her in, and she almost immediately handed me the ice bucket. When I returned, I saw a bottle of vodka, a bottle of orange juice, and a package of cookies on the desk.