"You're thinking again." Dom grinned, turned to Karl, who was, as always, just watching him with that little smile and that enigmatic look on his face. They were at cruising altitude and Karl had put the auto-pilot on so he could stretch his legs a bit in the small plane. Dom had been so shocked when Karl had announced they were going to be spending their day off flying to the coast. "You want to rent a plane?" Dom hadn't even known what to say. "Karl, do you even know how to fly one?" When Karl merely continued to stare at him, Dom had sighed. "Of course you do. Tell me something -- is there anything you can't do?" "Knit." "What?" "I don't know how to knit," Karl had clarified. The memory made Dom laugh. It had been such a shock to hear Karl make a joke. He gazed at Karl again, who smiled at him. "You should do that more often for me," Karl commented. "What's that?" "Laugh. I like hearing it." Dom continued to smile, but ducked his head. Karl's off-hand compliments still made him a little shy, probably always would. Karl let him take the controls after awhile, crouched behind him, instructed him as he took the steering column. The heady rush of power raced through Dom. This was dominance over nature, over life. This was total control. With a flick of his wrist, he could send the two of them hurtling down toward their deaths in the mountain range below. And for one moment that seemed to stretch before him like an eternity, Dom imagined doing just that. He saw the plane buckle and burst into flames, felt heat and then fire and then nothing -- it would be just him and Karl throughout eternity, together. Perfect and forever... But, of course, he pulled back, kept his present course high above the clouds, as he knew he would. The plane soared safely above the mountains, above the earth. "I would have let you do it, you know." Karl's voice was low in his ear, that seductive, soft accent washing over him. "I know," Dom answered. And knowing that had been the only thing that had stopped him. Onto Part Eighteen
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