Destination Unknown

The quiet of the A321 Neo allowed Saidbh to hear the cacophony of foreign accents on the early morning flight from Dublin to New York. The week post St. Patrick’s day was already a heavy period for trans-Atlantic traffic but the unexpected shutdown of London Heathrow for almost a day had impacted demand even more severely.

The cabin lights dimmed, and the passengers aboard Aer Lingus Flight 327 from Dublin to New York City settled into their seats, eager to get the long transatlantic journey behind them. Saidbh Donnelly, a tall statuesque stewardess with a well-defined face and pleasing pointed nose, began her final safety demonstration before takeoff in the typical perverse style of forced enthusiasm and smiles that almost seems to accentuate the fatigue and joylessness cabin crew felt doing the performance.

The quiet of the A321 Neo allowed Saidbh to hear the cacophony of foreign accents on the early morning flight from Dublin to New York. The week post St. Patrick’s day was already a heavy period for trans-Atlantic traffic but the unexpected shutdown of London Heathrow for almost a day after a suspicious fire cut off it’s power had impacted demand even more severely.

With her bright ginger hair, pale face and green uniform she stood like a living tricolour as the glint of the early morning sun illuminated her as the in the cabin as the taxiing aircraft turned to allow it’s entrance, the light creeping into place upon her like the wall at the end of the solar passage at Newgrange. She didn't know that in a few short hours, her world, and everyone else's on this flight, would be irrevocably altered.

This flight contained an assortment of Irish students, young Americans heading home after spending a week in Ireland during the week of St. Patrick’s day and many others whose connecting flights to North America had been disrupted by the fire at Heathrow. It was a young crowd, no children, none beyond middle age and a surprising diversity of nationalities who all had the same story of their only way to North America being through this Aer Lingus flight as or through a connecting flight.

This sense of being apart of something meaningful, having a mission with a definitive end, undoing the snare in the flight backlogs helped distract Saidbh from her disappointment at missing what was supposed to be an April 1st day off with Michael. Saidbh always loved April Fool’s Day with Michael, it was always a surprise or adventure, a private tradition between the two of them. This year he had asked her to take the day off to enjoy his most elaborate series of surprises and fun deceptions yet. He had planned to propose but had done it that morning in bed instead. Saidbh had been elated, Michael was now her fiance. Fiance; so exciting and sexy compared to a mere “boyfriend”, “husband” or the depressing “partner”.

Saidbh caught herself staring back at the ring, a beautiful sapphire inlaid in silver. Her delicate hands, so enhanced by the added attention to her appearance her job demanded, wore it well and a spike of excitement ran up her spine each time her gaze returned to it during every moment of downtime or opportunity for distraction.

The first trio of hours had slipped by unnoticed. The occupants of the plane, though pressed together were separated from each other psychologically. Strangers remained strangers, no amount of physical proximity could overcome or merge their bubbles of personal intimacy, intensified by the biggest barrier to spontaneous or deep interaction, foreignness, otherness.

But quietly drifting through the air was something that would soon turn all that on it’s head. Saidbh’s face bore a confused look as she noticed what increasing numbers of the rest of the plane’s occupants were too, a scent of vanilla and, even more concerning, a very faint visible haze. Correlating with this seemed to be a change in the air and mood in the cabin. The passengers seemed more alert and talkative, more talking amongst themselves and stares between them, some more lingering than from a shared confusion as to what was causing the smell of vanilla or the haze.

As the minutes passed the pilots became increasingly agitated at not being able to identify the source of the gas as they mulled declaring an emergency. As the pilots were busy preparing to declare an emergency and going through checklists to ID possible sources for smoke the engaged Saidbh, who was feeling uncomfortable with some of the thoughts she was starting to have about certain male passengers volunteered to enter the cargo hold to check on the AC unit for any gross signs of malfunction.

Saidbh squeezed herself down below to penetrate below, the new aircraft not countering to assault her crisp uniform with much defilement. As she made her way past the avionics bay she was caressed by walls and pipes along the way to the primary air conditioning unit. The air collected from the engine turbines was sent here to be purified before being pumped into pipes in 3 areas of the plane, the cockpit, mid cabin and aft cabin.

As the unit came into view Saidbh almost had a heart attack. The unit which from the outside is supposed to be a large featureless metal box had some kind of device haphazardly attached to it. As she collected herself she began to approach it despite the fear and anxiety welling in her; her white face fainted illuminated from light reflecting from her torch. She just got just a mere step or two away from being in reach of it she heard a sudden high pitched noise as it released a cloud of gas that enveloped her, the substance penetrated deep into her clothes, skin and lungs as she gasped first in shock and then from the powerful release of adrenaline the gas seemed to instantly trigger in her.

A small video screen and camera flicked on. A beautiful Japanese woman appeared. Surprise, concern and finally a mischievous grin flowed across her delicate face. “Oh, we expected the pilot, a man, to be the one to interfere...”

Saidbh could still only muster a prolonged and staccato in response as her body produced a surge of adrenaline in response to the sudden inhalation of the gas.

“Nevermind, I am certain I can get through to you.”

“Who are you?! What is... happening to me!” The words were stuttered but still shot out of Saidbh’s throat and echoed in the cargo bay. Her breathing was heavy, bordering upon hyperventilation.

The woman on the screen smiled and brought herself closer to the camera, her face now filling the frame. A childlike smile “It’s all very simple actually. I am a member of a group called Make Love Not War or MLNW for short, the device of ours you’ve discovered and which has... discovered you in turn we’ve christened the Cultural Unity through Pheromone Induced Desire or C. U. P. I. D.”

The woman giggled as she observed Saidbh’s face still trying, and failing, to maintain her composure. “The gas you were hit with and which we have been... mmm... pumping through this aircraft is an interesting cocktail which binds to certain neuroreceptors. It causes your body to flood with dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. I’m not sure on the how but it also gets, what is the phrase in English, wires crossed. You’ll become incredibly aroused and horny, more than you’ll have ever experienced before... but only for those who seem foreign or exotic. You’ll become hypersensitive to every little thing that makes a person seem different or foreign, their appearance... their voice... their mannerisms.”

As Saidbh began to process this she could feel the truth in her words, as her thoughts turned to the passengers, a strange and irresistible urge grew within her. Wires were indeed crossed, any little trigger that registered foreignness was eliciting a powerful sexual response in her. Her recent memories of the faces and voices in the cabin above seemed to set off cascades of arousal and seemingly nothing else, like a stuck circuit in her brain.

A wry smile crossed the face of the women on the screen betraying her enjoyment of Saidbh’s emotional reckoning with her present inner thoughts and desires. “Unfortunately the anti-tampering protocol you triggered used the last of the gas. The passengers and crew above you are insufficiently dosed to achieve our objective. They are close but not quite over the edge. They are like dry tinder in need of a spark to produce fire”.

Saidbh listened, adrenaline flowing through her as she attempted but failed to maintain her composure with all her might. She involuntarily licked her lips as she stood transfixed to the little screen.

“And since we have no more ability to influence this plane, that task of sparking that fire, we can only leave to you.” The woman seemed more pleased with this statement that Saidbh had ever seen before.

“You understand what we want you to do?”

Saidbh nodded like a child.

“Good! We’ve also equipped the cabin with cameras to watch and broadcast live all over the internet.”

A shudder of fear and disgust still managed to run through Saidbh but it wasn’t quite enough to dissuade her, rather every moment made her more excited.

“I see you’re fully committed, then go on, don’t waste precious moments of this.”

The screen went black and Saidbh hesitated for a moment before beginning a swift and purposeful march back to the cabin, enjoying the caress of the pipes on her backside this time.

Her emergence into the cockpit, was unnoticed by now deeply agitated pilots speaking to ATC about the plane cabin being infiltrated by some kind of gas or smoke of unknown origin.

Saidbh wasted no time explaining they didn’t need to worry, that she had stopped the flow of the gas into the cabin and to call the rest of the crew to the cockpit for an urgent meeting. She convinced the succumbing crew about MLNW, about the aphrodisiac, about how she didn’t care and how they should take this chance to enjoy themselves.

Saidbh, flanked by two other stewardess, Aoife a petite blonde with a round face, bright blue eyes and rather distractingly plump pair of breasts and Niamh, a tall svelte beauty with long raven hair and grey eyes.

Saidbh began her inflight announcement, they would play a game, each side of the plane got one of the stewardess and for every question about Ireland the nearest non-Irish passenger going down the plane correctly answered, their stewardess would undo a button on her blouse. The passengers were transfixed, the game had the intended outcome of breaking the ice. The winning side claimed their prize, Aoife was to give a very special VIP treatment for any foreign passport holder on her side. Niamh’s side got the consolation prize of her being blindfolded and having to walk down the aisle to be groped as she passed.

Saidbh then took the passports of every Irish woman onboard and began throwing them all over the cabin, the closest foreign passenger was to pick them up and the most exciting game of cé leis é began. Some men were fortunate to have multiple passports, there were more Irish than any other nationality after all; they would have to share foreign lovers.

Saidbh’s work was done as the plane turned into a orgy as everyone sought to complete a collecting of passports, having sex with at least one holder of every passport onboard, except their own, of course.

She sought out a shy lanky bespectacled Indian student at the top of the cabin, unlucky not to have picked up any of the throw passports, hours before he would have sexually repulsed her but now, now he was all she wanted. She mounted him without a second thought.

As Saidbh’s body was once again illuminated by a creeping doorway of light penetrating the window as the plane subtly pitched in the air, this time exposed in all of it’s glory. She was naked, her once pristine bun cast to oblivion, her skin glistening with sweat, all that remained of her uniform was her silk scarf, her alabaster skin tinged red raw from head to toe. As she came the plane tilted subtly once again and the light receded from her body. Now dark, a silhouette of black against the windows, the sharp features of her face outlined as she pulled her head back and extended her tongue to touch her top lip before letting out an almighty guttural moan of primal satisfaction. For a moment she was still but for some slight moment of her fingers, her engagement ring glinting. Her face turning to look at it once again.

The Japanese woman still watching from the onboard cameras, along with millions of others couldn’t tell if Saidbh was more or less aroused by the sight of the ring. All she knew for certain was that there was no such thing as the aphrodisiac gas she described, it was just caffeine, ethanol and vanilla scent in an aerosol. That was beyond their means but the fire at Heathrow and manipulating the passenger manifest to fill it with only a selection of young adults, that was possible. But she had no intention of ruining the show by calling the lucky passengers April Fools.