Porn Star (5 page)

“How long can we fly on autopilot?”

“Till the gas runs out,” she replied.

“No shit, how much do we have?” Dennis asked
annoyed.

Scanning again at the control board, Cassidy
found the fuel gauge and replied, “Says three quarters full on both
tanks. Don’t ask me how long that will last, I have no idea.”

“It should be good for a few hours I’d think,
we were going halfway across the country.”

“Yeah, I suppose we have a few hours, but he
could be out for the rest of the day.”

“At least we have some time to think. Grab
his headset radio and call for help.”

“I told you I could land this thing,” Cassidy
snapped back.

“There are twelve people in the passenger
section who would like for you to get some help. This isn’t about
your ego. I don’t give a shit how many DVD’s you’ve been in, this
is a plane, not a porn shoot.”

Cassidy sat and thought for a moment. “Fine,
give me his radio.”

Dennis pulled the headset off of Jerry and
gave it to Cassidy who wrestled it onto her much smaller head.

“Hello?” she asked and waited for a reply.
Nothing.

“It’s broke,” she said and started to pull
the headset back off.

“Hold on, there must be a button you push or
something, let me look.”

Cassidy put the headset back on and took some
time to study the control panel getting familiar with the
layout.

“Here, now try it,” Dennis said.

“Hello?” Cassidy said again into the
radio.

“This is Topeka tower, please identify
yourself,” a voice said over the headphones.

“Hi Topeka, this is Cassidy Rayne
speaking.”

“Cassidy Rayne, can you give me your call
numbers please?” the tower replied.

“Um, where do I get those?” she asked.

“What is the nature of your call?” Topeka
tower asked.

“We have an emergency, our pilot has had a
seizure.”

A brief pause. “How is the plane
holding?”

“We are doing fine so far, it says on the
control panel that the autopilot is on.”

“Hold for a moment,” the tower replied and
the radio went silent. “Cassidy, we have several unidentified
targets on radar, I just need for you to find your identification
numbers, and they should be either on the control panel or maybe on
a flight plan.”

Cassidy scanned around and found a series of
numbers and letters from a readout on the control panel. She read
them to the tower.

“We have you on radar heading South East,”
the voice called from the tower. “Is there anyone on the plane who
can fly?”

“No, but I’ve landed a plane a few
times,”

“You’re not a pilot?”

“No, I’m a porn star. I’ve been in over three
hundred DVD’s”

“Ok, that won’t help but maybe we can figure
something out. Give me a second.”

The radio went silent again and Cassidy
noticed Dennis getting more and more nervous over her shoulder in
the aisle. “It’s ok big boy,” Cassidy said trying to calm Dennis
down.

“Are you sure you can land this thing?”
Dennis said gritting his teeth and sweating.

A voice cracked back over the headset. “This
is Charles Lightpole speaking, who am I speaking with?”

“My name is Cassidy Rayne.”

“Miss Rayne.”

“Call me Cassidy.”

“Cassidy, my dispatcher tells me you have
limited flight experience, is that correct?”

“I’ve landed a few times,” she replied.

“What kind of plane was that?”

“I don’t know, it had four seats and room in
the back for a few bags.”

“Was it a high or low winger?”

“What?”

“Were the wings at the top of the plane or
the bottom?”

“On the sides,” she replied.

Another pause, this time much longer. “I need
for you to turn the plane, do you think you could do that for
me?”

“Sure, just tell me what to do.”

“Alright, on the control panel, there is a
dial that controls heading. I want you to put in this number.”
Charles read off the number and Cassidy punched it in. The plane
slowly began to turn to the right and the shadows on the dash board
began to slide sideways in the light.

Just then out of the corner of her eye,
Cassidy saw Jerry the pilot raise his head and point out the front.
He mumbled and frothed at the mouth but no actual words came out.
Jerry looked over to Cassidy as to get her attention and she looked
to where he was pointing.

It was difficult for her to make out what he
was seeing. Pilots are used to picking out objects against an
unfamiliar horizon, but Cassidy could only make out patches of
farmland below and a blue sky above, Then she saw it, an oval
shaped silver object, like a football made of chrome reflecting the
clouds that surrounded it. It was difficult to make out how far
away it was based on the background of blue sky and no frame of
reference, but it was getting larger and larger by the second and
coming right at them. “What the fuck is that?” she asked.

More mumbles and frothing from Jerry but no
response. Dennis stuck his head further into the cockpit to take a
look but had no answer.

“What’s going on?” Lightpole asked over the
headset radio.

“Something’s coming at us, in the sky,”
Cassidy replied.

“Hold on, let me check something,” Lightpole
replied. A few seconds later he came back on. “I have no contacts
anywhere near you for a hundred miles. Can you describe what you’re
seeing?” he asked.

Taking a good hard look Cassidy replied.
“It’s a huge silver football.”

“How huge?” Lightpole asked.

“Bigger than a truck.”

“Like a pickup truck?”

“No, like a semi, no, it’s bigger than that.
Maybe bigger than a boat.”

“Like a dinghy?

“What’s a dinghy?”

“No concentrate, I want you to tell me what
it’s doing?”

Cassidy paused and watched the object get
closer and closer. It grew larger in the window and began to open
like a taco shell. “It’s going to eat us,” she replied.

“What does that mean?” Lightpole asked
frustrated.

“It’s opening up like a huge taco shell. Like
a huge mouth and it’s coming right at us.”

“Listen closely now. I want you to take off
the autopilot and steer the plane away from the object. Can you do
that?”

“Done,” Cassidy said after flicking the
autopilot button to off. “Which way should I turn?”

“I can’t see the object so you’ll have to
make that decision, just do it before it hits you.”

Cassidy turned the wheel to the left and the
plane made a sharp dip to the dismay of the passengers. “How is
that? Is it working?” she asked Lightpole.

“Radar shows you turning west, good job, what
is the object doing?”

“I don’t see it anymore, I think we lost
it.”

Dennis poked Cassidy on the shoulder and told
her to look out her right window. “Don’t be so sure,” Dennis said,
panic in his voice.

Cassidy spoke on the headset, “It’s following
us!”

For a good minute the headset was silent.
Cassidy continued to turn the plane to the left in a circle until a
warning buzzer sounded from the instrument panel and a voice
alerted to a potential stall.

“What are you doing?” Dennis asked. “You’re
going to stall the plane!”

“What the fuck is a stall?” Cassidy
replied.

Jerry, the pilot was now lucid enough to
reply. “It’s when your airspeed isn’t fast enough to maintain
lift.”

“He’s back!” Dennis shouted, let him fly the
plane.”

“Are you alright?” Cassidy asked the pilot,
can you fly this now?”

Jerry took hold of the controls and tried to
get a grip on them. His hands felt numb and he couldn’t tell if he
had them in his hands or not.

“What’s wrong?” Cassidy asked.

“I think I had a stroke or something, I can’t
feel my fingers.”

“Can you talk me down?” Cassidy asked.

Dennis, now shocked and a tad pissed chimed
in. “You said you could land this, why are you asking him for
help?”

“Because I would be stupid not to ask for
help dumbass. I’m no expert.”

Jerry rolled his eyes back in his head and
went back out like a burned out light bulb. More drool and froth
ran down his chin onto his shirt.

“Fuck,” Cassidy said under her breath and
spoke into her headset loudly. “Hey, are you guys going to help us
here? This plane is going to stall any second and I have a pac man
trying to eat me up here.”

Lightpole’s voice came back over the headset.
“Stop turning to the left and straighten your course, which should
fix the stall warning. And as far as the object following you, we
are trying to get visual confirmation from another plane. It will
take a few minutes to get one close enough to see anything.”

“By then we will be gone, I need to get this
thing on the ground before we disappear for good.”

Cassidy straightened out the plane and the
stall warning stopped.

“You have a lot of scared people back here,”
Dennis said.

“I’m not to happy myself to tell you the
truth,” she replied. “I’m doing the best I can. Now help me find a
place to land this thing.”

Cassidy woke up the next day in a groggy daze
surrounded by machines, tubes and blinking lights. It didn’t take
long for her to realize she was in a hospital room and immediately
felt to make sure she still had her arms and legs. Satisfied she
was still intact, she took a deep breath and tried to remember how
she got there. Nothing, no memories at all. Then she heard a beep
and the sound of a voice from a speaker. “Miss Miller, this is the
nurse, are you alright?”

Pissed, Cassidy replied, “My name is
Cassidy!”

“Do you need any pain medications Miss
Miller?” the nurse replied.

“I said my name is Cassidy, stop calling me
Miss Miller!”

“The doctor will be in to see you soon, if
you need anything, press the nurse call button on the side
rail.”

Cassidy took a long deep breath and looked
for anything she could use to look at herself. The bathroom was
just across the room but she was tied to a pole with an IV line
sticking out of her hand. The room she was in wasn’t anything
special, she assumed she must not have been hurt too bad or there
would be more machines and more people around. Now to figure out
how she ended up in this hospital room in the first place.

The last thing she could remember was being
in a plane heading to a photo shoot. She remembered getting on the
plane, she remembered Dennis her photographer but that was it. Then
the door swung open and a doctor and nurse entered the room. Both
female, one with a chart in hand and the other following.

“Hello Miss Miller,” the woman in the lab
coat said. “My name is Dr. Kerr, and this is Alice my nurse. How
are you feeling today?”

“I don’t like woman doctors,” Cassidy said
flat and to the point.

“Why is that?” Dr. Kerr asked.

“I don’t think women are cut out to be
doctors, that’s a man’s job. Women are nurses.”

“Now a days there are lots of female doctors
and male nurses as well, times have changed a lot since you were a
child.”

“Male nurses? Are you fucking kidding me?
What man would be a nurse?”

Alice, trying to fight off her anger replied,
“Me and my husband are both registered nurses.”

“How is that working for you honey? Is he
banging his boyfriend on the side?”

Dr. Kerr, sensing a huge argument stepped in.
“Miss Miller, I need to assess your condition if you don’t
mind.”

“Go ahead, assess away,” Cassidy replied in
disgust.

“First, I need to know what you remember from
the accident.”

“Accident? What accident?” Cassidy asked
confused.

“Ok, before I continue, maybe I should fill
you in on what occurred yesterday.”

Cassidy lay back in her bed watching the
doctor anxious to get an explanation. For once she was silent.

“You were in a plane crash. It happened about
twenty miles from here in a pasture.”

“Was anyone killed?” Cassidy asked.

“No, no one was killed and there were only
minor injuries. You were banged up the most because you were in the
cockpit when the plane hit the ground. You actually saved the lives
of everyone on board.”

Cassidy smiled and felt very proud of
herself. It was a feeling she was used to being a self-absorbed
porn star. “Where are the reporters?” she asked looking around.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Kerr replied. “I didn’t
see anyone at the nurse’s station or in the hall.”

“This is big news! There must be someone out
there with a news crew or something. I saved a plane full of
people.”

“Now don’t get a big head Miss Miller, what
you did was a good deed, but there is no reason to brag.”

“Oh, my name is Cassidy Rayne by the way, I
don’t go by Miller anymore.”

“I have to go by what the chart says,” Dr.
Kerr replied. “I do have a question for you though.”

“What’s that?” Cassidy asked.

“When you came in, we did an assessment for
injury and we noticed that you have no pubic hair, do you have some
sort of condition that doesn’t allow it to grow?”

“Of all the things you could have found wrong
with me, that’s what you noticed? It’s called waxing, I don’t like
pubic hair.”

“Waxing?”

“You’ve never heard of waxing? How do you get
rid of hair?”