Chapter 4

The jet was too loud, too cold, too small. We were always flying, it seemed. We waited to fly and flying was just waiting to land. It made no sense and I tried not to think about it.

"Cindy! What a pleasure to fly with you again!" one of the flight attendants said to me, but I didn't remember her.

"Fuck off," I whispered. What a pleasure to wait with you again. That's what she should have said. I might have smiled at her then.

She looked tired beneath too much make-up, and her English was thickly accented, even for a German. I ignored her and everything else, just wanting this to be done with. I knew what it was, why I was being so moody all of a sudden. New York did that to me, even if it was just a two hour layover. Like I was going back to my unfinished life. At least the flight attendant was leaving us finally, greeting someone else she'd waited with perhaps, but probably not.

"Here." Sofia opened some pills, giving me a couple Valium because I was being so mean to everyone. She pressed them into my hand and reached into her carry-on for a bottle of Evian.

They'd probably put me to sleep for most of the cross-country flight. That would help, maybe, or at least give Sofia and Mr. Goethe some time alone to talk about me. I didn't want to sleep though.

"No." I shook my head and spit the pills from my mouth. "No! Leave me alone now. Get the hell away from me!"

I shrugged off Mr. Goethe's hand and Sofia knew better. She moved to another seat, next to a window. After a moment Mr. Goethe moved to join her and I was left sitting alone in the center of the first row of first class. Everything was as it should be and I could almost relax. Most of the other first class passengers had gone up to the lounge and I was happy to be rid of them.

flash

It's painful to be flashed by a camera when you don't expect it. The man was a professional, of course, someone industrious and inventive enough to somehow reach me at a vulnerable moment. I was frightened by it, which sounds silly, but I was, and angered by the intrusion. My life had become a rude thing and I would have been glad to be rid of it right then. Other times, in other places, I wouldn't have cared. I might even have smiled for the guy, since he was just trying to do his job. Mostly I tried to cut people some slack, but not just then and that was too bad for him.

Eva, the lithe blonde with pale skin and blue vampire eyes, my avenging angel, reached him first. The man was unlucky that way, because she went not for the camera, but for his balls. The girl ripped at them viciously through his khaki trousers, the way she was trained, I suppose. It was bad luck too that she was behind him, pulling the man backwards by his crotch into the aisle and off-balance. That made it much easier for Wolfgang, my wolf in the fold, to punch the man's unprotected face.

The violence frightened me, the way it always does, but there's something exciting about it too. They beat the man while everyone else watched, while I watched, until a few seconds later when a woman near the back finally found the wits to scream. It was the flight attendant. She wasn't so happy anymore. Not smiling so much. The man, the photographer, was bleeding and trying to curl up into a small harmless ball, while Eva and Wolfgang tried to kill him before they were stopped. It was an interesting thing and I didn't say a word.

"Enough!" Mr. Goethe shouted. He'd gone white as a sheet, ghostly as the clouds through which we soared. "Get the film and get him out of here."

They did as they were told, with more kicking and some verbal abuse. Eva and Wolfgang swore at the man as he crawled back, through the doorway into business class. Eva threw his camera at him, empty and harmless with the lens cracked and splintered. They were breathing heavily, like everyone else, my two bodyguards, but they were happy too and smiling at each other. They looked like they were going to fuck right then and there. It must be a curious thing to be so satisfied by violence, I thought. I was shaking with the adrenaline rushing through me and suddenly glad it was over.

"It'll be in the papers," Sofia predicted and Mr. Goethe was nodding, already making a list of people to call. "We have to protect her..."

"I know," Mr. Goethe reached for the air phone. "I'll call New York and..." I didn't listen to much more than that.

This kind of thing didn't happen often, obviously, and it was going to cost me a lot of money, I was sure. Whoever that guy was, he'd just won the lottery and would step off the plane in New York with a check and a story about some really bad turbulence. Eva and Wolfgang would have to avoid Mr. Goethe for awhile. He hated writing checks.

"Sit with me," I said quietly to them.

Eva sat down to my left and Wolfgang paused, perhaps thinking I was upset, but finally sat in the seat to my right. The flight attendants, and there were three of them now, were talking with Mr. Goethe and Sofia. The other passengers, the three or four still seated with us in first class, were talking as well, whispering amongst each other and glancing at us nervously. It was kind of enjoyable, now that it was over. At least I wasn't so bored anymore.

"You have blood..." I looked at Wolfgang, " ... just there." I pointed at a few crimson spatters from the photographer's nose that had landed on Wolfgang's forearm.

"I should clean up." He made a motion as if to rise, but I stopped him.

"I'd like to talk first," I said, but that sounded like a demand and I frowned, softening. "Please?"

"Of course, Cindy," Eva answered for both of them, and her English, although somewhat limited, had that formal quality I've always found amusing in foreigners. Wolfgang's was much better, but he only offered a small shrug as he used a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his skin, wetting it first with his tongue.

He looked like a handsome rogue, a pirate maybe, with his long brown hair and quick brown eyes. The man wasn't large, not even very tall, but he was exceptionally fit. They both were and I enjoyed those special occasions when I could see them undressed and admire their bodies. At that moment he wore Armani, like Eva, a casual suit in black linen. Eva had a skirt of course, worn fashionably short, and her blouse was red beneath her blazer. Wolfgang's shirt was white, with the cuffs rolled up after removing his coat shortly after take-off. They looked like rock stars to me and that's how I preferred to dress them.

"What was it like?" I asked them. "Beating that man?"

I saw Wolfgang's eyes moving, glancing at Eva, and I turned my head to look at her. They were searching for a reply in each other, I thought, looking for the right answer when all I wanted was the truth.

"What do you mean?" Wolfgang's voice was soft, very cultured and not nearly so guttural as I'd expected him sound at first sight.

"I don't know," I sighed. "I've never hit anyone. What's it like?"

"You wish to beat someone?" Eva asked me and I laughed at her seriousness.

"No!" I shook my head, wondering if that was really true or not. For the moment it was, I decided, and that was enough.

"It's like sex," Wolfgang said. "The bad sex."

"The bad sex?" I looked at him.

"The good sex," he shrugged with a careless smile.

"Ja." Eva agreed. "The blood is quick. It's very nice."

"Hmmm..." I smiled at her.

"You should try," she said and I narrowed my eyes. "Fighting is like fucking."

"I think I'd be afraid of fighting someone," I sighed.

"Are you afraid to fuck?" she teased me, licking her thin red lips and she really did look like a vampire.

Eva was a total Goth and I could easily imagine her ten years younger, clubbing in Berlin all dressed in black with her face painted and pierced. I bet she'd been really hot when she was like 17 years old, the kind of girl I'd always been jealous and even terrified of, and that made me smile.

"The first time?" I asked her. "Yeah. I was scared."

"But not anymore, ja?" Eva smiled and tilted her face so a lock of pale blonde hair fell across her cobalt eyes. "That is also fighting. Like you are a virgin again."

"Is it?" I shook my head with a soft laugh. "I have no idea what that means."

"We can teach you," Wolfgang offered.

"To fight?" I looked at him.

"Well..." he grinned at Eva and then they both looked at me, " ... We already know you can fuck, Cindy."

"Heh!" I stuck my tongue out at the man. We'd fucked many times, and always the three of us, or sometimes four, with Sofia joining in. But Eva and Wolfgang were always together and I wondered what it would be like to have them one at a time.

"You are very good at it," Eva said, reaching for my bare thigh and I wasn't going to stop her.

"So are you," I told the girl, turning in my seat and reaching for her.

I kissed Eva while Wolfgang watched us. I spread my legs as she slid her hand between my thighs, moving higher beneath my skirt. No one else could see us, sitting in the front like we were, and the nice thing about first class is the room. There was more than enough for us to do whatever we wanted and even if we were caught, I wouldn't care. People expect that sort of thing from models for some reason, and maybe with good reason, all things considered.