Transition Plan Chapter 121 – The First Mile High Club

Authors Notes: Surprise! Reports of my imminent departure are premature. So… For more than a week I went through Tarzan 'writing withdrawal' after not writing or editing every day and publishing twice weekly for months. It actually drove me crazy... Plus, my move to a new site isn't giving me the satisfaction and new exposure I was hoping for, so I am continuing a very limited presence here. I've learned that not being dependent on any one creative writing site is the right thing to do, so I'm reviving my D.A. account too as another means to showcase my work.

So today you get a little bonus. As you might have expected, in my many drafts for the "Searching for Jeanne" story, I have a few left over scenes that really didn't have a fit anywhere because the story development changed, or would make the story too long or too distracting. The result of that is that I've redrafted several of them to give you a few Jack and Jeanne 'one shots' or drabbles. Please don't expect a weekly publishing schedule. These will come out randomly. There's a lot of Jack and Jeanne fluff and simple playtime together. No heavy duty action right now. They deserve to play as a couple after 8 years apart.

…1924-ish…

It was a time of many transitions for the Clayton's and Jacot's. They had been together constantly for nearly a year and were never closer.

Jack and Jeanne were snuggled together in their gigantic bed in Castle Greystoke watching the sun rise in their window, thinking about their coming day together, still savoring their tantalizing intimacy from the night before, highlighted by one of their closest emotional 'connection experiences' ever. This would be their last day at Castle Greystoke for a few months, and was the daybreak of a new adventure.

The circumnavigation of Africa was complete and successful beyond all their expectations. Lily and Okpara were married, their honeymoon was over, and had moved to Nigeria to be part of Abassi's royal family there. Jack knew they were busy acting like newlyweds, despite all the crowded conditions and no privacy in the Abassi long house. They were too much in love and too full of desire for each other to worry about such things and they weren't the only sexually active couple in that family. Jeanne's parents were back in Lagos too. While Josephine took care of Etienne and chaperoned Michelle and Paul's relationship, Armand returned to his military job at the Allied Headquarters there, still viable organization for diplomacy long after the Great War ended. Tarzan needed to tend to the business affairs of Clayton Enterprises from the Castle study and radio room. Jane wanted to devote all her time to Andrew.

That left Jack and Jeanne to be free to do whatever they wanted. So they decided they wanted time together alone as a couple prior to going to the University in the coming semester, by disappearing deep into the land of the Mangani to be natural mates alone with their gorilla brethren and animal friends.

Because time was short until the first semester began for them at the University, they decided to fly from Scotland to Nigeria. They hugged a tearful goodbye to Tarzan and Jane, took the few things they would need in the jungle to the Clayton aerodrome that had been carved out of their forest lands near the Castle, and met their private pilot and plane that awaited them.

"Good day, Lloyd," Jack smiled walking hand in hand with Jeanne.

"Good morning Viscount Jack and Lady Jeanne," he replied cheerfully. Lloyd looked dashing in his flight suit, a modification of the RAF uniform in Clan Clayton colors and crest on his command pilot's wings.

Jack and Jeanne wore matching flight suits and leather helmets with goggles. Jack wore his pilot's wings insignia too, and Jeanne had crew member wings that Jane had made especially for her. The young French woman could barely contain her excitement for her first airplane ride. She was so excited she was bouncing, like she always did privately around Jack.

"Please Lloyd. Jack and Jeanne. We'll be together for weeks."

"As you wish, Jack," the pilot answered politely.

Former Major Lloyd was now retired from the Royal Air Force, had become the Clayton family's personal pilot, and was flying the venerable deHavilland DH4 Sleeper Jack and Lloyd flew in years ago that was now part of the fleet of Clayton vehicles, having been purchased from war surplus. It was repainted in clan colors and coat of arms insignia. It was in immaculate condition, gleamed in its shiny paint, and despite the breakdown and near crash on its way to Dar es Salaam years ago, it was still one of the safest of all aircraft flying. Normally, Lloyd transported Tarzan in the civilian DH4 for urgent business meetings in Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, and Berlin instead of by boat and train.

Occasionally the Lady Jane would go with him, but hadn't lately because of her need to take of care of Andrew. She had never left any of her children in the care of nannies when they were in Scotland. The reason why was simple. There were no nannies in the land of the Mangani, though her servant Elisabeth had visited the treehouse and lived with the family in the gorilla troop a couple of times, to her amazement with each encounter. Kala, Archimedes, and Elisabeth had become friends, as the most elderly of all the Mangani. Tarzan and Jane weren't so sure they ever should have gotten them all together, as the three seniors constantly told embarrassing stories about the pair as children, which entertained their Mangani family members and animal friends endlessly. Especially Terk and Tantor. But it was all in good fun.

Takeoff preparation was quick and soon they were in the air and headed south, after first taking a breathtaking circle around the Castle. Lady Jane was on the parapets and waved to them with Andrew as they departed over the horizon. It was very satisfying for Jack to return to the cockpit. He was now a licensed pilot, and Lady Jeanne was excited beyond words with the experience of her first flight to Africa. Peerage did have its privileges.

…A few weeks later, over the Sahara…

Jeanne got very used to sitting in Jack's lap most of the way so she could feel the freedom of the air in her face, and get the spectacular view from the open cockpit. It was a little tight with both of them in the cockpit, but they didn't ever mind being close. Along the way she even tried a little stick time, though this particular day she was in a 'Bad Meriem' teasing mood. Jeanne joked to Jack about which 'stick' to use, and intentionally grabbed his privates before actually taking the DH4 control stick.

"Oops, that's not it. It's too long," she said mischievously, and then grasped the actual aircraft control stick. Jack just grinned. But it got him thinking. Thoughts he should not have had.

At the start of every flight day from each aerodrome at which they stayed overnight in guest quarters or the tents they brought with them, Jeanne tucked her long hair up tightly into her custom-made leather aviator's helmet and goggles, so it would not fly in Jack's face, and she looked like a perfect example of an aviatrix in her form-fitting flight uniform and knee-high leather boots. Jeanne was beautiful in so many ways, but dressed as a female aviator, she seemed especially attractive today to Jack. Jeanne read all about and admired the exploits of Amelia Earhart and Jackie Cochrane to prepare herself for the long flight with Jack.

For several hours Jack and Jeanne flew the old plane and let Lloyd doze in the front cockpit under the deployable instrument hood to give him some darkness and quiet for awhile. Refreshed, Lloyd awakened and communicating by hand signal as they always did, Jack handed the controls back to his pilot. Jack indicated he and Jeanne were going below to rest, so they threaded their way one by one to the tight sleeper cabin for a water break and some lunch they got at their last aerodrome stop the day before. Afterwards they would nap. They could only sit up or be prone on the cushion and pillows that doubled as a lounger and bed.

Jack wanted to be prone so they spooned to watch the amazing scenery scroll by. Jeanne looked out the window staring at the enormous rolling dunes of the Sahara below them. A long camel caravan could be seen in the distance. She knew it was still more than two weeks to Nigeria, examining the map laid out in their cabin with her husband. Sierra Leone was their next stop, hopscotching all the airfields in predominantly French-held colonies of western Saharan Africa. Jack skipped a stop in Morocco. It would have been too much stress for Jeanne.

She was not prepared for Jack's rising emotions that she had set in motion fondling him earlier as they spooned and watched out the window. In a single move, he pulled off her cap, letting her black hair fall all around them, instantly unzipped the flight suit from her neck to below her belly button, reached down far below her waist and grasped her, and kissed the nape of her neck intensely from behind.

She startled and gasped at his move, scrunched up with a full body set of goosebumps, and mildly complained, "Jack! Goodness me. Really? Up here, dear?"

"Who will disturb us? Besides, it's like whenever we're in a really tall tree canopy," he grinned. He knew that making love among the beauty and music of the cape parrots and other birds - who often warbled to them while they coupled - was one of her favorite settings.

Jeanne certainly had no answer and could think of no objection to that, so she happily accepted the unusual conditions of his advances. She turned around, took a deep drink of those handsome lips, snuggled under him, wrapped her arms around his neck, kicked off her unzipped flight suit and pulled his off as well, and what followed between them was exhilarating beyond words.

Lloyd felt a low frequency vibration in the venerable old DH4 that he had never felt before, and he checked all his gauges. He looked at the wings and tail assembly, and none of the control surfaces were loose or moving that he didn't have full authority over. The rocking felt like a mild Dutch Roll.

He looked behind him, seeing the empty cockpit, so the rhythmic throb through the fuselage wasn't anything Jack or Jeanne were doing with the engine or flight controls. There wasn't much instrumentation back there anyway. But something was curious and it caught his eye. Lloyd sat up a bit taller in his seat, and looked down into the sleeper area accessible from the couple of access steps attached to the back cockpit. He was expecting to see the pair munching on some baguettes and bottled grape juice as they always did about this time of day. But what he really saw was the heavily muscled bare back and bottom of Viscount engaged in a cadence with his Lady that matched the DH4's odd vibration. The Viscount's body was partially obscured by a set of delicate, completely bare olive-colored feminine legs and feet crossed at the ankles. The Viscountess' heels were pressed against the small of Jack's back, which amplified their joint movement.

The Great War veteran looked away quickly, smiled to himself in great amusement, and flew on while the vibration ultimately peaked and then subsided. Not long afterward the pair once again popped their heads into the back cockpit but their longing looks for each other betrayed them. Lloyd had experienced quite a number of 'aviation firsts' in his long flying career, but this was something that would be forever omitted from the aeronautical record books that he never expected to see.