Honor was breathing hard, her heart thudding heavily in her chest as she ran to the first car she saw with the plastic taxi light on the roof. A weight had settled in her chest, heavy and oppressive, making it hard to breathe and she was feeling faint, her legs weak under her. But she needed to get away from there, away from the hotel, away from Bangkok, away from Thailand; she needed to get away to somewhere as far away from David and what she had seen as she could.

She got to the taxi and pulled open the rear car door, startling the driver who had been snoozing in his seat awake. He swung his head around as she entered the back seat.

"Airport, please," she breathed out, her head sinking down to her chest in sudden nausea, her voice coming out in a sob even though there were no tears in her eyes, as if her tear ducts were still processing what her eyes had seen. "Please take me to the airport ..."

She realized that the man was saying something only when she looked up and saw his mouth moving. The only thing she could hear was the the music playing in the restaurant when David and his lover's lips met as her mind replayed the scene over and over again in her head. It took most of her willpower push the images away and concentrate to sift through the heavy Thai accent to make sense of what the driver was saying.

"... Madam," the rather rotund man was saying, tone apologetic but with a touch of impatience, "I am saying I am sorry but I already have customer. I am waiting here for him. You take another taxi, okay?" He gestured at the running meter affixed to the dashboard.

Honor stared at him and then blinked as what he said sank in. Then the nausea returned and she lowered her head again, breathing harsh and uneven, swaying in the seat and making the driver's eyes open wide in alarm at the thought that the young woman was going to faint or throw up in his taxi. But then she took a deep breath and mouthed a quiet "Okay."

The driver let out an audible sigh of relief as the lady opened the door. Honor's hand shook as she grabbed a hold of her suitcase and swung her feet out of the car; she felt weak, as if all her energy had been drained out of her and it was just the inertia of moving keeping her up - the fact she still needed to get away. Away from David and Jillian, and the knowledge that the man she had loved with all her heart for more than three years had been spending his nights with another woman.

She felt dizzy and she shut her eyes for a moment as her feet settled on the asphalt. When she opened them, a pair of black polished dress shoes had come to a halt next to her heeled strap sandals. She looked up to see two dark eyes ringed around by a pair of rimless glasses looking quizzically down at her. He was dark complected, a mix of races, his dark haired cut very low and broad shouldered, wearing a dark suit with a blue shirt and tie of near the same color and holding a briefcase in his hand.

"I'm really sorry, but I think this is supposed to be my taxi," the man said.

She looked at him without really seeing him, in truth only registering the gist of what he was saying; he was the customer the taxi driver was waiting for. She could think of nothing to say to that so she just nodded weakly and attempted to stand, finally successfully making it to her feet with her suitcase held in her hand. The man's eyes narrowed as he watched the young woman, for all intents and purposes, struggle to get to her feet from the taxi and then sway unsteadily when she finally made it, closing her eyes and putting one bracing hand on the open door to steady herself.

"Are you alright, Miss? Are you hurt?" he asked, his face a stern mask of concern as his eyes quickly and carefully ran all over her five foot and two inch frame, looking for any tell-tale sign of injury.

Honor opened her eyes then and blinked at the man. She opened her mouth to reply that she was alright. That she wasn't hurt. That she was going to wait and get another taxi to take her to where she needed to go. But all that came out of her mouth was a loud sob - the tears started then, falling thick and fast down her face.

"I just need to get to the airport," she cried quietly. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should be embarassed, crying in front of a total stranger in a strange land, but the truth was that she was not alright; she was hurting and it threatened to bring her to her knees unless she could get away.

The man looked at her, his eyes travelling all over her face. "Alright then," he said, nodding curtly and gesturing with his free hand, "Get in. Let's get you to the airport."

________________________

The thirty minute drive to Suvarnabhumi from the center of Bangkok was mostly spent in silence, the only interruption coming just after the cab had gotten on the express way. The man had extracted a phone from his pocket and dialed a number, leaning back into his seat, openly examining the woman sitting beside him with a neutral expression on his face as the phone rang. "Hello, Deji. Something came up and I think we should meet tomorrow instead." A pause as he listened to the man at the other end. "No. Everything's alright. Around eleven would be fine. I'll call in one or two hours when it's all settled. Thanks a lot, Deji. Bye."

"I'm sorry," Honor said, voice sounding small. She turned her head to look at him, eyes swollen and red, trying to quiet her sobs.

He looked at her. "About what?"

"Making you miss your appointment."

"Don't be absurd," the man said, a small hint of a smile on his lips that didn't quite extend up to his eyes. "You didn't make me do anything."

Honor didn't know how to respond to that. "Why are you helping me?"

He looked at her again and said, "Because I want to."

Honor fell silent after that, lost in her own thoughts, remembering David's last phone call to her just a little over two days ago. He had told her that he was missing her, that he wished she was there with him, how he was aching to make love to her after more than a month since he left to head this latest project for his law firm in the Asian Far East. Honor had been in bed in his T-shirt and panties, cuddling a pillow tight to her breasts and wishing it was him, her sex wet and heated as she luxuriated in the tenor of his voice, imagining what would happen when he opened his hotel door to find her in front of it.

Now she wondered if David had taken Jillian's clothes off with the same hunger that she'd imagined him removing hers in her fantasies, whether he had pushed his hardness inside her moist heat within a minute of her appearance at his door, his mouth repeatedly taking her lips as he feverishly made love to her. In her fantasy, Honor had fully expected him to cum before her, happy to allow him selfishly sate himself after so long away from her. But then he would take her again and make love to her until she came as well, clutching the sheets around her and crying out, probably with her shoes still on her feet ...

But it was no longer her featuring in her fantasy with her fiancee. The woman lying underneath David Brenner with her legs clamped around him this time was Mrs. Jillian Blake, her fashionably tall and thin body with its perfectly shaped breasts, small but high and perky quivering under the force of David's passion as he rode her over and over again, listening to her call out his name in her husky voice, even huskier now with a lover inside her.

Honor began to cry again. She wondered if Jillian had been in the room when David was talking to her that night. Whether Jillian had sat smiling silently and patiently waiting for her lover to finish his call to his oblivious fiancee before they fell into bed to make love again. She wondered if David was smiling in amusement as he listened to Jillian make a similar call to the husband she was cuckolding, assuring him of her love even as she prepared to spread her legs for another man. The thoughts that went through her mind included the two lovers naked and entertwined with each other 'as' they spoke with Tom and her back home - who would know when they were three and half thousand miles away? David's hand could very well have been on Jillian's small and perfectly perky breasts as he was telling Honor he was 'missing' her, Jillian's hand exploring his body as she spoke to her husband ...

She suddenly felt numb, her limbs heavy in her seat, her tear-filled eyes staring and unseeing at the Bangkok skyline. The weight in her chest made the pain almost physical, and her breathing had become quietly laboured. She felt the beginning of a headache with her nausea and knew that it would be a mistake to try and eat anything for a while despite her hunger. She just needed to get away. Go back home to her apartment and try to mend. She abruptly remembered the numerous pictures of David and her she had arranged around her apartment, his clothes and shoes, the souvenirs and knick-knacks they had bought together and she started to sob anew under her breath.

Throughout, the man across from her in the back seat sat silently, looking at her but making no move to ask her what was wrong. The taxi driver was also watching her, his eyes regularly leaving the road to concernedly regard his new passenger in the rearview mirror.

He had been surprised when his customer had let the clearly distressed woman in on his fare and then proceeded to tell him to go to where she had asked him to take her. He had at first thought that the two of them knew each other from back in their native land but the silence in the back seat made him conclude that they were actually just strangers chance met in a foreign land. He had been surprised, but pleased. At first. Going to the airport would cap a very lucrative evening of driving the man around and waiting for him with the meter running. But the woman's quiet crying and the haunted look in her eyes almost made him wish that his thickset customer had refused the woman at the Excelsior and asked to be dropped at his hotel just five minutes away. He knew what a broken heart looked like and he could tell that the dark haired woman's heart had been utterly shattered in one horrible moment.

She reminded him of his own encounter with heartbreak. When the girl he had set his heart on marrying fell in love with a boy from another town and ran off to marry him instead of the boy who had spent almost a year working up the courage to talk to her and then spent the next two wooing her until she had finally agreed to marry him. His euphoria at her assent was not to last. Less than three days later, a rival had appeared on the scene and effortlessly taken his love away with nothing more than a smile and a gesture for her to come with him.

It still hurt, sixteen years and a wife - another woman - and two children later. The taxi driver found himself holding back a sigh of relief when the lights of Suvarnabhumi appeared - the lights of aircraft descending into the airport and ascending into the sky had heralded their getting closer even without the overhead signs telling motorists their distance from the massive port that was Thailand's main air hub.

Minutes later, the taxi pulled up in front of Departures, and Honor turned to the man sitting beside her. "How much ...?"

"Don't worry about it." His face was neutral, his tone firm as he looked at her.

"But ..."

"Just have a safe trip." His voice brooked no disagreement, and Honor shut her mouth.

She stared at him through red eyes, wondering, and then she finally whispered. "Thank you."

He nodded, curt. "You're welcome."

She opened the door and dragged out her suitcase, and as he and the taxi driver watched, she walked a tad unsteadily into the terminal building, pulling the little suitcase behind her. She disappeared behind the automatic sliding doors. Horns sounded behind them of waiting cars and their impatient drivers, and the taxi driver put the car into gear to begin the journey back into the city center.

"Stop," said the man quietly, "I think I'll get off here too."

The taxi driver had hoped that the man would ask him to take him to his hotel, another thirty-minute drive with the meter running, but he was a philosophical man, and therefore he was easily able to kill and bury his disappointment. He had made quite a lot more money than he had expected to make when he had woken up that morning. And besides, he could join the other drivers at the airport taxi stand and make some more money going back into town. So he hit the meter to display the total fare for his best customer in a long time.

The taxi driver watched the thick-set man walk into the terminal building in his rear view mirror as he pulled away to join the queue at the taxi stand.

________________________

Honor found the Aerothai ticketing and booking counter easily enough. It was approaching eight o'clock in the evening and the airport was significantly less busy than it had been when she had left it just a little under two hours earlier. There were only two people on the queue ahead of her and one of them was called to a counter as she joined the line.

Her head was already pounding and her legs felt rubbery as she stood and waited. Her mind was betraying a masochist streak as it replayed the scene of David and Jillian's lips meeting on the dancefloor, focusing on the little details this time; the way the Jillian in her thin and lacy evening dress had melded herself against David's body, the way David had held her tight against him, the way they'd held hands as they walked off the dance floor to their table, Jillian's nipples proudly pointing the way.

The very image of lovers long involved and comfortable with each other. Lovers who were soon going to be naked and wrapped around each other, secure in the unbeknownst-to-them erroneous knowledge that the partners they were betraying were both on the other side of world, both of them unaware of their secret.

The Thai woman in her mid-thirties at the Aerothai counter blinked, instinctively recoiling backwards when she saw her up close. The whites of her eyes were much closer to blood red than they were to white, lifeless, vacant and yet filled with pain. Nonetheless, she gave the potential customer a bright smile and asked her what she could do to help her today.

"I already have a ticket," Honor said, voice raw and rough, bringing her e-ticket printout out from her bag and handing it to the counter assistant. "I want to go back home tonight. Please."

The assistant took a glance at the printout and glanced up at Honor with a confused look, "But you just arrived today ...?"

A tear rolled down Honor's cheek. "Please." Her voice broke, and she had to swallow to continue. "Please. I just want to go back home."

The lady behind the counter wanted to ask if anything had happened to the raven haired woman in front of her, anything that should involve the police being made aware. "Ma'am, are you alright?"

Honor looked at her. "No, I'm not alright," she said, just like she had said to the reception ladies at the hotel. "I just want to get on the next flight out. Please."

The assistant stared at her for a second more, and then shaking her head in a mix of genuine confusion and sympathy, decided to do as she was asked. She typed in the ticket's reference number and frowned as the details came up on her screen. "This is a special ticket, Ms. Banet. You can't change the dates of travel without paying a fee."

At that moment, Honor was ready to give anything to be out of Thailand, away from David and Jillian having sex in their hotel room. She reached into her bag and brought out her wallet. "How much?"

"Eight hundred and twenty dollars or the equivalent in Baht, Euros or Poun ..."

"Here," Honor extracted a credit card and handed it to the woman. "Take it."

The ticketing assistant accepted it. "Okay. But I have to tell you that the next flight you can get on for your return is at 11:35 AM tomorrow." The clock on the wall behind her had both a digital and analogue face. Each one said the time was seven minutes past eight.

Honor's hands shook and she had to close her eyes to make it past a sudden dizzy spell. "Is there an earlier flight on another airline?"

"Ma'am," the assistant reminded her, "your ticket is a special fare; we can't endorse it to another airline and you won't get a refund if you don't fly with us."

"I don't care," Honor said, voice suddenly harsh. "Is there an earlier flight on any other airline?"

The assistant pursed her lips. "No, I do not think so. Not to your destination." She paused for a moment and then pointed at a tall machine with a rollerball mouse, a key board and a screen at waist height standing by itself along the concourse just a few meters away from the payphones. It was covered in the motif of a perfume advertisement. "But you can check with the Route Planner over there. Maybe there's a route that can get you home faster."

Honor followed her finger to look at the machine and abruptly spun on her heel to go to it, leaving her ticket information and credit card in the hands of the bewildered ticket assistant. The Thai woman thought to call out to her to collect her belongings but decided instead to wait and see if the obviously distressed woman would indeed find an earlier flight - she didn't expect her to.

Honor obeyed the instruction to 'Press Enter To Begin' that was floating on the screen over the video clip that was playing. Immediately, the video of yet another famous supermodel holding up a bottle of perfume disappeared.

'Welcome,' the machine said in an accentless female voice. A globe appeared on the screen and a dot labeled 'Bangkok, Thailand' appeared over a spot in Asia. A high altitude picture of the airport she was standing in, taken at night so it was beautifully lit up appeared with a white background surrounding it. 'You are here. Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand.' Menus and information came into being on the white background. 'Please select your destination and preferred time of departure.' The instruction was also written at the top of the screen. 'The route planner would provide you with all possible routes to your destination that meet your specification.'

Honor made her selection and picked the option to arrange the results by time of departure and travel time from her current location. She clicked on the 'Submit' button and a revolving hourglass appeared on the screen. It only lasted a few seconds and then the machine made a chirping noise and displayed the results. The first route plan on the list with the earliest departure time from Bangkok and the shortest amount of time spent in the air before the final landing at her destination had 'Aerothai International Airlines' in the 'Carrier' column and '11:35am' in the 'Departure' column.

Honor braced herself against the route planner's metal surface to let another wave of nausea pass before she went back to the Aerothai ticketing counter.

"Book me on tomorrow's flight," she said to the waiting assistant.

Minutes later, Honor pulled her little suitcase to the row of faux leather upholstered benches lined up along the huge concourse wall, and sat down to wait the fifteen or so hours for her flight. She stared at her feet beside the suitcase, remembering arriving at the airport back home with nothing but a smile on her face and her handbag with her passport and credit cards inside.

She remembered buying the suitcase at duty free, remembering her initial ignoring of it for the more traditional and disciplined black and navy blue ones displayed beside it. Then she remembered that she did not want to be sensible, disciplined Honor Banet on her holiday with David, and for that reason alone, she'd bought it. She remembered next whipping out a credit card at the 'Temptations' store and how she had spent the next half hour carefully picking out the thinnest, filmiest and most sexily cut lingerie she could find. Then she had gone to the beachwear section and done the same, carrying more than a reasonable number of bikinis and sarongs to the counter.

The older woman had looked at her over the rims of her glasses as she tallied up her purchases, and then she had taken a finger and meaningfully tapped it on a stack of thick handbag sized magazines by her till. They were all copies of the same publication, shiny dark green along the spine and back cover. 'For Adults Only' the yellow block writing said on the spine.

"Trust me," the other woman said, raising her eyebrows, "you're going to love it." She cast an openly admiring look at the ring on Honor's left hand. "Congratulations ... that's a very beautiful ring."

Honor felt herself blushing with pleasure. "Thank you."

"I think he deserves a reward for that." The woman raised her eyebrows again and tapped on the stack of magazines.

Smiling and feeling decidedly naughty, Honor picked up the magazine perched on top of the stack and got a good look at the front. A well built man in swim shorts and an appropriately beautiful woman in just the lower half of a bikini were locked in an all body embrace on a hammock in the middle of a verdant, sun-filled glen. The woman had a flower in her hair and she was lying on top of her lover so her bared breasts were pressed and hidden against his chest and her parted lips were suspended over his own as she lovingly smiled down at her man and he smiled up at her. 'Temptations' presents The Holiday Sex Guide - Special Edition' read the large headline with both the companies' logos.

It was then Honor noticed the 'Temptations' logo imprinted on the model's bikini bottom. She figured out the rest of it as she flipped through a few pages of the magazine as the cashier ran her purchases through the till and put them into her open suitcase on the counter.

All in all, it was a very clever utilization of an advertising platform - sex did, indeed, sell. Apart from featuring very illustrative diagrams and long 'expert' articles on sex; how - and in what old and new positions - to have it, when - all the time - to have it on a holiday, why one should have it as much as possible, and where to have it - a few of the places suggested would require the consumption of a huge amount of mind altering inhibition destroying substances - every woman featured, most in very provocative poses with extremely well-toned men, was wearing something - or everything - produced by the 'Temptations' company, and most were risque to being just on the cusp of indecency, and a significant number were well beyond that.

"Trust me," the lady repeated. She winked at her. "You can have a good holiday. Or an absolutely fantastic one." She handed honor back her boarding pass. "Especially where you're going."

"Tell me," Honor smiled, "are you talking as a satisfied customer ... or are you just trying to get me to buy a dirty magazine?"

"Both," the lady said, not missing a beat.

Both women laughed, and then the older woman leaned forward and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, a small but decidedly naughty grin on her face. "Check out the 'At Home' article, my dear. As a customer, let's just say I have a very, very happy man at home."

Honor giggled along with her, and then she paid for the magazine and threw it into the suitcase, feeling a little heat rising in her cheeks as she sent a wink of her own in response to the cashier's parting whisper. "Go get him!"

A small travel toiletry set and three sets of 'normal' clothes from another set of stores - a sundress, two blouse tops, one pair of matching airy linen pants, jeans and a pair of capris - later and she was done 'packing' for her trip less than half an hour before her flight to Bangkok's final boarding call - all done in the departure lounge.

Honor returned to the present. It all seemed so long ago instead of just the day before as she remembered the pretty young Thai receptionist telling her, "He checked in with his wife. Three days ago." And the scene played in her mind again, David and Jillian Blake kissing until Jillian's nipples on her perfect small breasts had gone taut in arousal. Honor looked down at her left hand, and saw the ring glittering on 'the' finger. She twisted it around a few times, then she finally pulled it off her finger and opened her bag. She unzipped one of many small compartments and carefully put the ring inside.

She suddenly felt drained, and she felt her body going limp and numb as she leaned back on the bench. She was dimly aware that it was shock and pain along with the exhaustion from a long intercontinental flight that were finally arriving together and crashing into her body. Her head was pounding and the 'thing' that had made its home in her chest suddenly weighed a ton.

She began to cry again. And slowly, all the sights and sounds around her began to fade, her eyes slowly drifting closed as her body shut down on its own. She was only very dimly aware of a strangely familiar pair of black polished dress shoes appearing in front of hers as everything went dark.