A CHANGE OF PACE... Bermuda (Part 164a)

A CHANGE OF PACE… Bermuda (Part 164a)

When I pulled up the driveway it wasn’t even 5pm. I was home in time to help Elle take the kids and their clothes over to her mother’s house. That, thankfully, took some of the ‘heat’ off me. It was still daylight when we got back home which made it easier for me to pack our things. We had one large suitcase and had borrowed another from my parents. Even with two I had some doubt about getting all that Elle had laid out packed. Elle and I had a ‘discussion’ about taking our tennis things and she won which added a last minute ‘wrinkle’ to my packing. I had a fairly small bag that we’d used when we’d gone to Florida in the Spring that could be used for our sneakers and tennis balls. I’d hoped to avoid taking anything but the two suitcases as it would mean something else to keep track of, and I knew we’d have to carry the tennis rackets on board with us. I just foresaw chaos. I decided I’d wear long pants and a sports jacket to save space in the suitcase. Elle had already planned on wearing a Summer dress so when we got in bed we were all set to go. Just shower, grab a bit of breakfast, get dressed and be on our way. As excited as we were neither of us slept well. At 6am Elle was already her way down to take her shower. She’d laid out the clothes she was going to wear and as I looked at them I noticed that she had two pair of nylon fancy panties, ones she seldom ever wore. That, to me was a good sign but… I was immediately concerned about the trip itself. I felt she should wear a full package (two Carter’s heavy cotton panties with three sanitary pads and a full pair of plastic pants) like she wore at night. When she returned I told her of my concern but she wouldn’t hear of it and made a point of holding up the fancy panties she’d picked out. All I could do was smile.

Our flight was around 11am and Cliffy said we’d need a little over two hours to get to the airport. That meant we had to be ready around 8am… and we were. The only thing was that Cliffy wasn’t there. We’d locked the house and taken our bags out by the garage to save some time and I was getting a little concerned by the time I saw Cliffy’s large Pontiac station wagon coming up the drive. Only it wasn’t Cliffy… it was his wife Beth with their daughter. She explained that they’d been at a family gathering at her sister’s house and Cliffy was hung over. She said she didn’t trust him because they hadn’t gotten home until after midnight. There wasn’t much I could say… or do. If there was one good thing it gave Elle a chance to get to know Beth. It also spared her having to listen to Cliffy and I talk about racing for two plus hours so she was happy. I wasn’t, especially when I learned that she’d never done an airport run. We were late in leaving and adding her uncertainty about how to get us to the Eastern Airlines terminal had me a bit worried.

That Tuesday was also the first day back to work after the Labor Day holiday. Not that I knew that much about city bound traffic but it seemed like an awful lot of cars for that time of day as people should’ve been at work. I’d never been to the big airport for the city so I couldn’t help Beth and being in the rear seat didn’t help me with trying to read direction signs. When we were finally on the roadway to the terminal it was after 10am… still plenty of time. When we said our good bye to Beth she assured us that Cliffy would be there to pick us up Sunday afternoon. I carried the bags into the terminal while Elle had the tennis stuff. I’d never seen many airline terminals and this was, by far, the biggest. I casually walked up to an open window (remember, this is 1968 and before the single line system was instituted) and handed the clerk the tickets. She looked at them and I heard what sounded like an “Oh my!”. Before I could ask what was wrong she told me that if we were to run, we might be able to catch the flight before it left. I remember looking at my watch and it wasn’t even 10:30am. I just stood there for a few seconds before I heard her almost scream “You have to run!” as she pointed us towards a doorway. I grabbed Elle’s hand and pulled her in that direction. It was as we passed through the doorway that I realized I didn’t have luggage tickets but kept on running. Elle was a few steps behind me but my thought was that if I could get to the gate in time they’d hold the plane for a few seconds more allowing Elle to catch up with me.

The clerk at the check in had called the gate and been able to get the plane to wait. The gate person told us to hurry as we passed though the door. Now, as I just mentioned, this was 1968 and they didn’t have the moveable tunnels to get you out to the plane. We had to go down a flight of stairs, walk across the tarmac and then climb a set of moveable stairs to get on board the plane. By the time I was on board I was wet with sweat. The stewardess (that’s what they were called back then) told us to take the first seats we came to and to get our seatbelt fastened. I’m not sure we had them buckled when I felt the plane moving. While catching my breath I realized we were in the first class section. There were only a few people around us and I remember counting but ten seats in all. I wasn’t sure that we’d be allowed to stay once we were airborne. As the plane was making its way to the runway Elle tapped me on my arm. I turned to look at her and she had this pained look on her face. Then she whispered that she was about to pee.There was nothing I could do but think back to the conversation I’d had earlier about her wearing a ‘package’. I saw her trying to pull the hem of her dress out from under her and immediately released the latch of her seat belt. It only took her a few seconds to get the dress up and around her waist so I was able to re-attach the latch before we took off. 

It was impossible for me to know when she released her bladder and my concern was just where the pee was going to end up. The seats were more like comfortable living room chairs and were made of leather (not vinyl… really) so I felt sorry for her having to sit for almost two hours in a puddle. It was while thinking about that when it came to me that there was a good chance of our luggage not being aboard the plane. It was at that time that I realized this was not going to be pretty when we landed. When we did I told Elle to remain seated until everybody else was off the plane. My thought was that, hopefully, her dress wasn’t wet and if she stood up and draped it around her the wet panties wouldn’t wick though the material of her dress. Once off the plane we could check on the luggage and make a plan. She didn’t have anything to add so that’s what we did.

To some degree our plan worked. She was definitely not happy but didn’t have a lot of choices. The only option she had was to ‘go commando’ and if you remember way back when the two of us were getting serious she absolutely would not go without underwear, even if wet, when she was out in public.This mentality was still in effect. The first stop was the ladies room where she used paper towels to absorb some of the wetness. After returning we made our way to the baggage claim area. By remaining standing air could get up and around her wet bottom and help to dry the nylon panties even more. My premonition about our luggage proved to be right. I was told they had it all, including the tennis rackets, and would arrive on the next flight due around 3pm. When they said it would be delivered to the hotel I finally relaxed. The next stop was the hotel.

To be continued...