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Arthur Shappey was the first person Martina had met since puberty who'd looked at her face before her tits. It was refreshing.
Everyone looked at her tits first. Male, female, straight, gay. It was practically unavoidable; they were each almost as big as her head, and hard to miss. She'd learned the hard way to tell the difference between someone looking because they were simply her largest feature, and someone looking because they wanted to do something with them.
"Wow! Your hat's brilliant!" the steward enthused, seeming far younger than he appeared.
Martina smiled. "Thanks."
"I'm thinking of making myself a hat, for stewarding. There's no passengers on the flight tomorrow, but, you know, I could make one tonight! In honour of your first flight with MJN Air! We could be hat buddies!"
Martina smiled at his enthusiasm as he kept prattling. First flight tomorrow, load of cargo to Toulouse, meet the co-workers today. As far as jobs went, this one was off to a fair start.
Her first piloting job had been rife with inappropriate behaviour from her co-workers and superiors, and she hadn't even gotten to do much actual piloting. During her first month as a pilot, it had been nearly unbearable. One flight she'd been coming back from the bathroom to return to her usual place in the jump seat as the relief pilot and heard the Captain and co-pilot sniggering.
The first officer's amused voice had carried through the cockpit door. "...event of a water landing, she could use them as a flotation device!"
Raucous laughter had burst from the flight deck. Martina had felt her face go as red as her hair.
"How would she ever manage to pull the stick back far enough on take off?"
"I don't know, but she can pull my stick back anytime."
The laughter had gotten even uglier. Martina had turned round and gone back to the bathroom, and started applying for other piloting jobs the next day.
It had taken a few months but this job with the tiny little one plane airline had turned up. Despite the dubious side-eyeing the owner had given her CV and her chest, she'd gotten the Captain's position. Not getting paid, but perhaps once she'd proved herself, that might change. In the meantime, being the Captain meant people would have to respect her, and at least keep their comments and stares to themselves.
A man in his fifties sauntered through the door of the Portakabin before seeing Martina and coming to an abrupt halt, gaze riveted openly on her bustline.
Well, there was hope of that at least, Martina thought sourly.
"Ah! Douglas! This is Martina Crieff! She's the new Skipper, for the flight tomorrow! Captain Crieff, this is First Officer Richardson!"
"Pleasure to meet you, Captain Crieff," her new co-worker said to her breasts, before flicking his eyes up to her face, then back down to her breasts and away.
Knew it was too good to last. She sighed in resignation. "And you as well, First Officer Richardson."
---
The morning before the flight, Martina jerked a brush through her hair. It's only my first flight as Captain, and it's not like I'm getting paid. I can find another job and-
Martina sighed. Face the same prurient rubbish somewhere new where I'm not the Captain. I'm not going to give up before I've even started.
She tied back her hair and got dressed.
---
After they reached cruising altitude, Martina could almost feel the First Officer's frequent lingering glances to her cleavage. She'd meant to get a looser fitting shirt before starting, maybe a good sports bra to... compress things somewhat, but her budget being what it was, that hadn't happened.
Best to confront it and get it over with now. "Did you have something you wanted to say, Mr. Richardson?" she snapped icily.
Her new First Officer tore his gaze away from staring and looked out the window. "Nothing I wanted to say, no."
Martina clenched her jaw. "If not say, than what else?"
The co-pilot coughed. "Ah. I'm sorry, that likely sounded inappropriate."
"Yes it bloody well did."
"If it helps, I was primarily amazed that the overstressed top button on your blouse held out for as long as it had before giving up entirely about two minutes ago."
Martina looked down in horror to see her blouse gaping open far wider than intended and swore.
"If the Captain wishes," her first officer continued blandly, "I can take control while you repair your wardrobe malfunction."
"I, I- yes. You have control."
"I have control." The First Officer kept staring directly out the window as he wrapped his hands around the controls. "There should be safety pins in the first aid kit. Ask Arthur where it is, last I saw it it was keeping row B from wobbling."
Storming out of the cockpit in furious embarrassment, Martina crossed her arms over her chest and went to find the steward and the first aid kit.
---
"Found it!" Arthur said from inside a cupboard in the galley. "I thought I'd put it somewhere for safe-keeping! It was behind the Ready-Brek. Now you can fix your top and it won't be so breezy around your, um-" Arthur peered out and pointed at her cleavage. "Those."
Martina snarled with frustration. "I hate these bloody things! They make it hard to find clothes, I have to buy shirts two sizes bigger than I am and alter them by hand so they don't look like a sheet thrown over a pair of melons on a stick, and everyone, everyone stares!"
"Do I stare, Skip?" Arthur said gently as he crawled out of the cupboard and handed over the first aid kit. "If I do, I'm really sorry."
Martina sighed. "No, Arthur. You don't, and I really appreciate it."
Arthur grinned. "It is hard not to, though, because you are really pretty. And that's not just because you're extra bouncy up front!"
Martina slumped and slouched off to the toilet with the first aid kit, clutching her shirt closed over her cleavage.
---
Blouse repaired, Martina remained sitting on the closed toilet, looking at her still-red face in the tiny mirror.
I can spend the rest of the flight in the loo, can't I?
She sighed yet again.
Captains do not hide in the loo. She mustered what remained of her dignity and left the bathroom.
Re-entering the flight deck with what she hoped was ninja-like stealth, she waited in the doorway in case there was another discussion about her breasts on the go. Seeing as her co-pilot was the only one in the flight deck though made the likelihood of a salacious conversation minimal. God only knew what thoughts the man was having.
She returned to her seat, saying nothing, face still cooling down from the molten lava flush of embarrassment.
"I have control," she said, putting her hands on the steering column, reflexively glancing that the motion didn't undo her emergency repairs.
"Indeed you do," said the first officer, leaning back from the controls.
Martina was determined not to look at him. Probably for the remainder of the flight. Possibly for the rest of the time she was Captain of this tiny airline. She certainly didn't want to know where he was looking. Her face burned as she stared straight ahead.
"If it makes it any better," Mr. Richardson volunteered after a while. "I'm old enough to be your father."
"It really very much does not make it any better."
"Ah."
Awkward silence fell like a stalled Cessna.
"I'm not going to lie to you Captain Crieff," Richardson continued after a long silent plummet. "I do find your... natural assets to be distracting. It's quite a struggle to look away, because, well..."
"I know, all right?" Martina snapped. "Each of them on its own is bigger than my head, they enter a room a full minute before I do, you keep thinking I'm smuggling melons. Trust me, I've heard it all before."
"I meant to say, if you're finished, they are quite lovely. As is the rest of you."
Martina gripped the steering column tighter, clenching her teeth. "Oh yes. And then there's the other kind of reaction. The kind where because I've got big tits, people think I'm easy."
"Captain Martina Crieff," The First Officer stated. "The last thing I would ever think of you, in any context, is that you are easy."
She shot him a glare sideways, but only saw him looking out the window with an expression that seemed somewhat sad. She didn't know what to make of that.
"It goes both ways though, doesn't it?" First Officer Richardson continued. "Everyone you meet meets your tits first, as you say, but at the same time, you keep them between you and anyone you meet. 'Anyone who talks to me can't be interested me for myself, they must only be interested in my tits, so I'll just act like everyone is something I've scraped off my shoe.' It's an assumption that does nobody any favours, particularly you."
Glaring out the window, Martina felt the grips of the column creak in her white-knuckled fists. Old enough to be my father doesn't mean lecturing me like a child.
"The underlying posit in that assumption though, is that no one will see anything worth knowing in you; you assume that, and over time, you start believing that the only thing people might pay attention to you for is your appearance. You become so habituated to being defensive about your breasts that they become a barricade to getting to know anyone."
Her eyes stung as she glared forward. "If you're working up to some sort of lewd 'thrusting ramparts' quip, I've heard that one too."
"See?" Richardson chuckled drily. "Again, defend and deflect."
Martina let a tight laugh escape. "So you're 'different', are you? You see the 'real me'?"
"I'm not going to pretend I don't find you attractive, Captain, but I'd-"
"Right. Fine." Martina snapped. "What colour are my eyes?"
"Pardon?"
"Without looking, right now. Tell me what colour my eyes are."
Beside her, First Officer Richardson hesitated.
"I thought as much. And that is exactly why-"
"Caesious," he said.
"...what?"
"Caesious. A fine, light and shifting blue-gray-green. From the Latin for sky."
Martina blinked. "...oh."
"Now it's your turn. What colour are my eyes, without looking?"
"Well, I... I-" She set her jaw. "Blue."
"No, they're brown. You can look now if you like."
"No, that's fine," Martina muttered.
"I'd like to flatter myself that you weren't distracted from my eye colour because you were staring at my breasts."
Martina shot a glance at her co-pilot, and saw the corner of a smirk. She snorted. "No."
"So..." Richardson drawled, leaning back in the co-pilot's seat.
Martina tensed, waiting for an extension of the apparently well-meant paternal lecture on assuming the worst of people or her own self-worth or personal barricades of one kind or another, but instead-
"Songs with locations in the title."
"What?"
"Flight deck game, to pass the time. Songs with locations in the title. I'll start. 'Moon over Miami'."
"Oh!" Martina frowned at the sudden topic change, but definitely didn't want to carry on the previous topic further. She glanced over at Richardson... Douglas, who was idly looking at the flight deck ceiling, humming faintly to himself.
Her grip eased on the controls. Not great, pretty horrifying actually, but I've had worse. Far worse.... Maybe this place won't be so bad after all.
Shoulders relaxing, Martina set to thinking up song titles.