She glanced up and caught me looking, but instead of quickly avoiding my gaze the way most western women would do, she smiled. It was an electric smile. I kept walking, however, determined not to dispel the magic of this brief encounter. I had not the slightest inkling of the role she was about to play in my life.

      I was at JFK early in the morning, for my sins, to travel to a job interview on the west coast. Making my way through security, I had to go through the usual tap-dance to see if I was carrying any dangerous sandwiches or cans of Coke, then made my way to the departure gate. I sat in a corner and started reading a novel, taking little notice of the other waiting passengers, and didn't even look up when they started to board the aircraft. I like to get on last and spend as little time as possible cramped up in a seat too small for my body.

      That was why, when I boarded the plane, I received the shock of my life.

      The aircraft was one of the older Boeing 727 fleet used by American Airlines, offering seat pairs along the windows. I'd chosen an aisle seat from one of these pairs since this involved fewer occasions when one had to get up to let neighboring passengers in and out of their seats. I'd picked seat B17, even though other aisle seats had been available. Perhaps the Gods were tweaking my fate, because seated in A17 next to the window was the pretty SAS stewardess from the terminal.

      She glanced up at me as I stored my bag in the overhead bin, and I caught the faint frown of recognition as she tried to remember where she had seen me before. "Hello," I said as I seated myself beside her and buckled the safety belt across my hips.

      "Hello," she replied in that lilting accent so characteristic of Scandinavian women. Now that I could see her in close-up, I saw that her eyes were powder blue, glinting like sapphires against the backdrop of her translucent skin. She was utterly enchanting.

      "Or should that be hei?" I asked, recalling one of the very few Norwegian--or was it Swedish--words I knew. She smiled that electric smile I'd glimpsed in the terminal, and I promptly fell in love.

      "Du snakker norsk?" she replied, and while I could guess at the question there was no way I could respond in kind.

      "I'm afraid not," I admitted.

      "Well, that's all right," she said graciously. "It gives me a chance to practice my English."

      "It already sound pretty good to me," I said. She smiled at this but did not comment further. "What brings you to American Airlines?" I said before I could stop myself. After all, it was scarcely any of my business.

      "Oh, I need to get to San Francisco urgently and SAS has no flights going there from here."

      "Nothing too serious I hope?"

      "Well, in a way yes," she said, her expression suddenly troubled. "My brother has been involved in a motorcycle accident and is in hospital."

      "Oh no. That's too bad. I am sorry."

      "He is all right," she added hastily, "but he has broken his right leg just below the knee by riding his motorcycle." I winced, and she nodded her agreement with this sentiment. "It was his own fault I think. He rides...um, very dangerous?" I just loved the way she didn't quite get some of the words right.

      "But he's going to be okay?"

      She nodded. "The doctors say so. But I must go to him. I am all the family he has."

      "Good. Oh, and by the way, I'm David."

      "Britt-Ann," she supplied, and we shook hands. What wonderfully soft skin. Sigh.

      We chatted for the next hour or so, mostly about her brother, the loss of her parents and how much she missed them, and for my part I told her all about my extended family and all their amusing quirks. Along the way, we both accepted complimentary drinks of coffee and water, and I even paid out for a pretty questionable airline meal. Britt-Ann declined the food, probably having tasted more airline food in one month than most of us have to face in a lifetime.

      Finally, she yawned expansively and said, "Please forgive me. I do not wish to be rude, but I worked all last night on a flight from Oslo to JFK, and I am so extreme tired. Do you mind if I sleep?"

      "No, of course not. Go ahead. I have a book to read anyway."

      She smiled, laid back her head and in less than five minutes was doing the thing I'd spent most of my adult life wishing I could do - sleeping of a plane. The flight to San Francisco was scheduled to be 6 hours and 28 minutes, and she stayed under for most of it, demonstrating just how thoroughly exhausted she was.

      On the second occasion I left my seat to visit the toilet, it occurred to me that Britt-Ann had consumed just as much liquid as me and yet had not woken up once to empty her bladder. I felt a little frission of excitement at the prospect of her waking up with a full bladder and in urgent need of the lavatory. I toyed with the idea of feigning sleep in the hope that she might feel unable to disturb me, effectively forcing her to wait. Cruel, I know, but I can't help the fact that a girl with a full bladder turns me on, especially when she's as attractive as this one. As it turned out, this mean little ploy was unnecessary because, for the second time that day fate just took over, with spectacular results.

      The aircraft was just forty-five minutes out from San Francisco when it encountered unexpected turbulence. The fuselage gave a huge lurch, the kind that sends your stomach up into your throat. It was violent enough to wake Britt-Ann from her deep slumber. She came to looking startled, relaxed for a moment as she remembered where she was, then looked troubled again.

      She caught my eye and asked, "I have been asleep long?"

      "Yes. For hours," I told her. "We're almost there."

      "Oh," she said, looking a little chagrined. "I'm sorry."

      "Why?" I asked, unable to hide my amusement.

      "For being such bad company," she said.

      "Not at all. You clearly needed a good rest."

      She smiled, and then the plane gave another violent lurch, eliciting gasps from several of the passengers around us. Britt-Ann opened her mouth, presumably to say something more, when the captain's voice came over the intercom -- far too loud as usual -- to tell us what we already knew, also as usual. "We're going to keep the seatbelt sign on until we're through this patch of rough air, so please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts. We're hoping to get permission to drop down to a lower altitude and maybe avoid some of this, but in the meantime we apologize for the uncomfortable ride."

      I caught movement in the corner of my eye, and without actually watching her directly, I was aware of Britt-Ann crossing her legs. This was never an easy task in a tight space, and in general airplane passengers didn't usually attempt it. I thought I knew why she had done so though: she did need to pee -- had to be quite desperate surely? -- and she was trapped in her seat with the plane bouncing all over the place. It had to be agony on her poor bladder.

      I looked at her, and when she reacted to me looking, I smiled. She smiled back, but it wasn't the same electric smile I'd witnessed before. This one showed signs of strain. I flicked a glance down at her lap and realized that she was pressing the palm of her right hand on her upper thigh

      Determined to make her admit to her predicament, I remarked, "You look as if you don't like flying. Isn't that unusual for a flight attendant?"

      "It isn't that," she started to reply, then stopped.

      "Sorry," I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. "I'm being nosy."

      "Actually," she resumed, , "I need to go to the lavatory," speaking quietly now so that I could only just hear her over the plane's laboring engines, "but I can't." She pointed to the illuminated seatbelt sign, and I felt a very positive stirring inside my pants. It was no longer just an inference on my part; she actually was in trouble. I felt a total heel for enjoying her predicament, but as I said before, I just couldn't help it.

      "I hope it isn't too serious," I ventured a little boldly. "I suppose you were asleep for a long time."

      Her cheeks turned scarlet at my discussing something so taboo, and clearly embarrassed, she swallowed hard and nodded. "Yes," she went on quietly, I slept so long, and now it is urgent."

      "I'm sorry," I said, keeping my voice down too. "Will you be all right?"

      "I don't know," she admitted candidly, then leaned forward for a moment, the hand on her leg balling into a fist which she used to pound on her thigh. "I hope so," she added, but she didn't sound at all confident.

      The minutes ticked by and the turbulence did not abate, despite a drop in altitude. Beside me, Britt-Ann took to staring out of the window and the wall of gray cloud, her legs still tightly crossed, her fist still beating out a tattoo on her thigh. She interspersed this with tapping the heel of the foot resting on the floor, making her knees bounce up and down and making it almost impossible for me not to stare at them. I noticed too that the hem of her skirt had ridden up a little way, so that she was now exposing some four of five inches of very shapely thigh. Feeling myself react even more strongly to her struggle to maintain control, I lowered my book onto my lap with apparent carelessness, but making sure that it at least partially covered my groin to help conceal my embarrassing bulge.

      Twenty minutes out from San Francisco International Airport, I felt the pressure building up in my ears again, telling me that the aircraft had just begun its descent in preparation for landing. This meant, of course, that the seatbelt sign would now stay lit until we landed and the plane had taxied to the gate. Britt-Ann seemed to be aware of this too because she suddenly bunched her legs, hanging her head forward so that her blonde hair fell forward to conceal her face. The poor girl was in terrible trouble, and I honestly did feel sorry for her. Over the irregular drone of the laboring engines, I was sure I caught a soft moan coming from her.

      Perhaps five minutes later, the turbulence subsided somewhat, and was no worse than the usual descent through cloud. Several announcements had been made about turning off electronic equipment and observing the requirement to remain seated. Several times during all this, I noticed Britt-Ann look round between the headrests towards the lavatories, as if she were contemplating disobeying the lit signs and making a dash for the toilet. I wondered what would happen if she did. Would the flight attendants cut her some slack, a comrade in distress and all that?

      Next thing I knew, Britt-Ann had reached up and pressed the call button got one of the flight attendants. I was, it seemed, about to have an answer to my unspoken question. A minute later, a female attendant responded, leaning in over me to catch Britt-Ann's quietly-spoken words. "I really need to use the toilet. May I leave my seat?" she asked, and I could hear the heartfelt plea in her request.

      "I'm sorry," the attendant told her, doing her best to look contrite. "I'm afraid no one can leave their seat when the seatbelt sign is lit."

      "Oh, please," Britt-Ann begged. "This is so very urgent otherwise I would not ask. I don't think I can wait."

      "I'm afraid you'll have to. You can't leave your seat while--."

      "Please," Britt-Ann interrupted, her voice both louder and more anxious by this time. "I really have to go to the toilet."

      "I'm sorry," the flight attendant repeated firmly. "I can't let you go. You of all people you realize that we have to set an example."

      Britt-Ann stopped arguing and simply leaned forward, uncrossing her legs and, interlacing her fingers, gripped her knees with her hands and began rocking backwards and forward. The flight attendant watched her for a moments, apologized once more, and then moved off, leaving the poor girl to her dilemma.

      "That was pretty mean," I remarked after a minute. At first, I didn't think Britt-Ann was going to respond, but then she made herself straighten up for a moment to look at me. In a taut voice, she said, "She is only doing her job. I will have to wait."

      A few minutes before we were scheduled to land, the aircraft banked left. Past experience told me that the pilot had been ordered into a holding pattern because there was no immediate window open for landing. Britt-Ann knew this too of course, and I heard her whimper, "Oh no."

      A few seconds later, the pilot was back on the intercom. "Owing to the bad weather, I'm afraid we've been bumped to a later landing slot. In the mean time, we'll be circling the airport, and as soon as I get the go ahead to land, I'll pass that on. I apologize for the delay, but we'll do our best to help those of you with connections on to other destinations. Thanks for your patience."

      Beside me, Britt-Ann began unashamedly wiggling her legs, her hands rubbing vigorously against her knees. I was quite sure by this time that the poor girl was not going to make it, and I sat there in tense anticipation, doing my best to keep my own embarrassing reaction hidden.

      I wanted to reach out am grab one of those hands, hold it in mine and tell her that it was all right; that no one would think badly of her if the worst came to the worst. These things just happen sometimes. But of course I didn't do any of these things.

      As the 727 continued circling for another ten minutes, the movements of the girl beside me became steadily more frantic. She had really started to rock her body back and forth now, and in the last few minutes had even taken to pressing one of her hands against her groin, although she had not gone so far as to shove it under her skirt yet. In the corner of my eye, I watched this desperate performance in fascination, doing my best to keep my breathing under control as my erection grew harder and harder, my balls tightening and threatening to shoot their load. If it came to that, I doubted that I would be able to hide what was going on with me.

      But then, I thought to hell with it. This was the chance of a lifetime to witness something like this, a girl trapped in a public place, struggling with a full bladder and unable to do anything about it. I didn't know anyone on the plane, so why should I care what they thought of me. And as for this beautiful damsel in distress, after today I would never see her again either, so what did I have to lose?

      The time of our scheduled landing came and went, and still the Boeing continued to circle, shuddering periodically as it vectored through the expansive weather system. Britt-Ann continued to fight the inevitable, rocking her body and bouncing her knees, doing everything she could to suppress the desire to pee. I wondered if her panties were still dry, or if---as seemed more likely--she had started to leak into them? What I would have given to find out.

      "This is the captain," the distorted voice blared over the intercom. "We"ve just been given permission to land and we"ll be starting out approach in a few minutes. We"ll be on the ground momentarily."

      Britt-Ann raised her head, and as he hair fell away from her face, I saw her agonized expression, and again my heart went out to her. "Why do they say momentarily?" she asked of no one in particular. "It will be at least another ten minutes."

      "Yeah, I know. Stupid expression," I agreed. The devil in me made me add, "Then we"ll have to wait another ten minutes while we taxi to the gate."

      "Ohhh!" she gasped, quite loudly, and I knew my words had rendered the desired effect. "Don't," she added, the word almost indistinguishable from a grunt.

      "Sorry, I apologized, but of course I wasn't.

      Somehow, the poor girl managed to contain herself during the glide in for landing. She kept her head hung throughout so that I could not see her face again, and I wondered if she might be crying behind their veil of blonde hair. I desperately wanted to brush it aside and console her, but again I resisted the urge. She was in pain and probably feeling extremely irritable, and my intrusion into territory so heavily burdened by social stimga would certainly not be welcome. We were, after all, virtually strangers.

      Looking past her bent and rocking body, but still peripherally aware of the way she was jiggling her legs around and holding her distended abdomen, I watched the ground coming up to meet us. Just before the wheels touched down, the plane lurched slightly as a air gave it a final jab in the ribs. As a result, the bump when the wheels did finally make contact was enough to jar one's filling loose. Britt-Ann literally squealed in alarm and finally sucumbed to the temptation to thrust her hand up her skirt and press between her legs. It was pretty obvious that the poor girl's muscles had given way, and she was doing her utmost to regain control.

      The flaps rose along the wings and the engines went into reverse, rapidly decelerating the aircrfat until it was moving at no more than thirty miles per hour. Britt-Ann chose that moment to unbuckle her safety belt, simultaneously turning to me and saying, "Excuse me please. I have to get out."

      I reflexively reached for the buckle, despite knowing that I should not release it. Then I recovered my wits. "Now? Are you sure?" I asked, knowing perfectly well that she was more than sure. She was out of her mind with desperation, and had resorted to this public display in a last desperate attempt to reach the toilet and retain at least some dignity, rather than continue sitting in her seat and wetting herself.

      "Please," she begged. "I must."

      "Okay," I said, and made a play of not being able to release my buckle.

      After delaying her for several more seconds, I finally popped the buckle and was about to get up when the voice of one of the flight attendants came over the intercom. "Please remain seated until the aircraft has come to a complete stop."

      "I can't!" Britt-Ann tried to shout, but her words were mostly submerged by a sob. Her cheeks, now a brilliant red color, told of her mortification.

      "To hell with her," I said, referring to the flight attendant, and stood up to let Britt-Ann out into the isle.

      "Please return to your seats," the same voice barked over the intercom.

      But I couldn't, because Britt-Ann was now standing in the way, no longer moving. I briefly wondered why, then I looked down and saw several wet streaks spreading down the front of her navy-blue skirt. "Oh no," she gasped as she covered her scerlet face with her hands as pee streams down her legs and onto the carpet at her feet. "No," she whispered, the sound almost smothered by her pressing hands.

      I stood there, no longer trying to conceal my throbbing erection, and watched the poor girl wetting herself, soaking her skirt and her pantyhose. I could even hear the sound of her pee gushing out between her legs over the drone of the engines. It just kept on coming, and Britt-Ann just stood where she was, probably paralyzed with embarrassment.

      I was so engrossed by what was happening to her that I hardly noticed the arrival of a flight attendant--the same one Britt-Ann had spoken to earlier who had refused to let her use the toilet. "Do you realize the penalty for disobeying flight crew instruct--? Oh."

      I glanced up at the flight attendant and found her looking down at the huge wet patch on the front of Britt-Ann's skirt, and then at the puddle soaking into the carpet at her feet. "Oh," the flight attendant repeated, momentarily unsure how to handle the situation. Then, recovering her professionalism, she said gently to Britt-Ann, "I'm very sorry, but I'm must ask you to re-take your seat until the aircraft has stopped moving." After a brief pause, during which she presumably remembered how everyone would stand up and block the aisles as soon as the plane was stationary, she added, "I'll make it a priority to get you through the the lavatory."

      With justifiable anger, Britt-Ann flashed her an angry look and replied, "It hardly matters now, does it."

      She maneuvred herself backward and regained her seat as instructed, and I imagined how she must feel, sitting down in wet panties and skirt. I sat down again too, unable to resist staring at her soaking wet skirt as I secured the buckle of my safety belt. Noticing me staring, Britt-Ann swallowed heavily and said, ""i'm very sorry."

      "Don't be," I told her. "It was hardly your fault. I think you should sue them for the distress they've caused you."

      She smiled weakly. "You are an American, so you would say that. But she was only doing her job."

      "Well, yes, I suppose so," I agreed with apparent reluctance, although really I was delighted that the flight crew had done their job. If they hadn't, I would have missed one of the most glorious wetting accidents of a lifetime.