“It’s an honor, thank you.” I looked at my watch. “I’d like to receive my award via mail.”

“I don’t think you understand how serious this is,” she said. “According to the real test results—not the ones you scammed somehow, you’re exceedingly below the average in three out of four emotional areas. You’re socially detached, yet somehow manage to function in social environments.” She clasped her hands together. “I haven’t personally tested you, but I think you use your career as a means to get away, to cope with some type of issue you’re internally suffering from. Not only that, but your sleep tests showed high levels of...”

I tuned out her voice as she continued to talk, only catching a few words like “psychotherapy” and “threshold” but my attention to her sentences waned with every word that left her lips.

Leaning forward, I flipped through the binders on the edge of her desk, thumbing through the thick pages. I lifted the file baskets and the notebooks, setting them down when I saw nothing underneath.

Still ignoring the sound of her voice, I stood up and walked over to the wall of taped airline policies. I stood in front of the one that announced the ‘100% No Employee-Fraternization’ rule and grabbed the paper’s edges. I slowly peeled it from the wall, glancing at the drywall behind it.

Nothing...

I put it back and checked behind another policy, then another. I was checking the wall behind the fourth one when I heard the sound of her heels clacking closer to me.

“Mr. Weston?” She waited for me to turn around, finally stopping her long-ass spiel. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m searching for the point of this conversation, since it’s clearly not going to fall out of your mouth anytime soon.”

Her jaw dropped.

“Is it attempting to come out now?” I asked. “How much longer do I need to stand here and wait for it?”

She took a step back and narrowed her eyes at me. “The point is, since you have an ‘FCE’ on your profile, I can’t force you into the mandated therapy we offer our pilots here on the health plan. But based on the results of your tests, I think it would greatly help if you saw a professional at least two or three times a month. Hell, five to ten times, if you can manage it.”

“See how brief and concise that was?” I walked toward the door. “You could’ve summed that shit up ten minutes ago.”

“I’m going to find out how you passed that test, Weston.” She followed me. “I refuse to swallow the results as they are, and I promise you, when I figure out how you managed to get our best doctor to give you a clearance—”

“How about just asking me what you really want to ask me?” I interrupted her as I twisted the doorknob. “Ask me.”

“Fine.” She crossed her arms, hesitating. “Did you proposition our lead doctor and trade a sexual favor in exchange for passing clearance results?”

“First of all,” I said as I opened the door. “I’ve never had to proposition anyone. Ever. Second of all, if by ‘sexual favor’ you mean, did I fuck her against her office window until she couldn’t breathe, or did I ask her to get on her knees so she could suck my cock until she swallowed my come, then yes. But not in exchange for clean test results. She’d already promised to pass me after the way I ate her pussy.”

All color left her face. “I don’t—I don’t believe you. No one here on this airline’s staff, let alone someone that high up, would do that.”

“If you’d like to re-test me in the same way,” I said, returning her business card and tucking it into her front pocket, “Let me know. However, contrary to what you so adamantly said seconds ago, you will swallow every result...”

GATE A2

JAKE

New York (JFK)

“This is the final boarding call for Flight 1487 with service to San Francisco.” “Passenger Alice Tribue, please return to Gate A13 for your passport as soon as possible.” “American Airlines Flight 1781 with service to Toronto will now depart from Gate 7.”

The familiar sounds of John F. Kennedy International welcomed me home as soon as I stepped off the jet bridge a week later. Despite two sixteen hour flights, I hadn’t slept well since my interview in Dallas, and I didn’t feel the slightest hint of exhaustion.

I walked through the terminal, pulling my luggage close behind as the most cliché song in the history of aviation sifted through the speakers. A cover of Frank Sinatra’s “Come Fly with Me,” complete with an orchestra, was inspiring the most tone deaf of passengers to sing along as they rushed past the gates.

Pilots from other airlines walked on the other side of the hallway in their freshly-pressed uniforms, giving slight nods as they passed me by. The flight attendants at their sides blushed and smiled, offering me small waves and winks that went unanswered and ignored.

All I could think about right now was how today officially marked the lowest of lows in my career. A fresh start of all the bullshit I thought I’d escaped.

When I first started flying gliders at sixteen, everything in regards to aviation was an art. Every facet, from the engineering of a plane, to the actual flying itself, held intrigue, creating a perfect balance of craftsmanship and allure.

Newly designed aircrafts were something to clamor over, new routes were planned and praised for pioneering the unthinkable, and each move an airline made received its rightful due in the press. Spectators stopped and stared at the new Boeings and Airbuses in complete admiration from below, passengers acted like they actually gave a fuck, and flight attendants were more than pretzel serving waitresses at thirty thousand feet. For pilots, there was even an art to effortlessly jetting from city to city, landing in hotel after hotel, and fucking a different woman every night.

Yet, somewhere between new regulations, greed, and even with the advanced technology, all of that changed. Now, a pilot was nothing more than a bus driver who shuttled ungrateful-ass passengers across the sky. And that perfect balance of craftsmanship and allure was no longer seen; it wasn’t even remembered.

“Excuse me, Captain?” A man wearing an ‘I Love NY’ shirt suddenly stepped in front of me. He held up his cell phone, extending it toward my face. “Would you mind taking our picture? We’ve tried to do it ourselves, but I keep cutting my head off in the frame.” He laughed and pointed to his family—two young boys and a woman in a yellow dress. They were laughing and posing in front of a blue “Welcome to New York” sign.

I didn’t take the phone from him. I stared at his family, their laughter becoming more and more unbearable with each passing second. One of his sons waved at me, holding up a toy plane in his other hand, smiling and waiting for me to smile back.

“Captain?” The husband looked at me. “Can you please take our picture?”

“No.” I stepped back. “No, I can’t.” I noticed a flight attendant walking toward us and nodded in her direction. “But I’m sure she’d be happy to help you.”

I didn’t give him a chance to respond. I walked away and headed straight for the parking garage.

I needed to get the fuck home.