It Started in an Airplane

Prompt: Write about infidelity.

Time: 10 minutes

Result:

Quite honestly, when he first sat down, I was pissed. Here I was, settling in for a ten-hour transatlantic flight, and who had to squeeze into the seat beside me but the six-foot muscly guy with a buzz cut. There were two skinny Asian women across the aisle and a fourteen-year-old in the seat behind me, but I got stuck with the giant.

Hunkering down, I settled in until the flight took off, trying my best to stay as far from the left armrest as I could. Inevitably, however, as I almost always do, I began to do the head nod . . . .

The next thing I knew, the ground was shifting beneath my . . . cheek! Jerking upright, I looked in horror at what I had been using for a pillow: my giant seatmate's shoulder. And that wasn't the worst of it. Right there, squarely atop the sleeve of his clean white T-shirt was a large, dark drool stain.

"I'm . . . I'm so sorry." I looked at the armrest, my lap, anywhere but his face. "I . . . this is so embarrassing."

"Don't worry about it." He grinned and waved away my apology. "Wasn't using that shoulder for anything else."

I laughed awkwardly, wishing I could have wiped the crust out of the corner of my mouth before he started looking at me.

"No really," he assured me, sensing my discomfort. "I kind of . . . liked it."