“Now boarding coil class!”
“Haha! That’s me!” Wren smoothed their skirt and gathered their carry-on bags, pulling the straps over their fuzzy caramel hair. As they headed to the gate with the few other coil class passengers the crowd muttered how lucky they were.
Wren smirked; they sure were. The airline just recently introduced coil class, and seats were limited. For good reason, Wren assumed; it would have been expensive to install electromagnetic coils for a lot of seats.
What did Wren even think an electromagnetic coil would do a million feet in the air in a plane? Well, whatever it was, they were stoked about it, practically skipping to the gate. They halted, less stoked about the staff member they checked their boarding pass with, though they tried to hide their aversion.
The staff member was a lamia. Lamias were fine in their own way, Wren supposed, but those big tails always freaked the human out. They were so huge they could crush someone just by slithering around them. Wren shuddered at the thought. Already squatter than most humans, they didn’t need to feel any smaller.
Once Wren was through the gate their spirits lifted thinking about the electromagnetic coil. They thought it was such a cool concept that they’d bought a ticket as soon as they could.
Wren hurried onto the plane and stored their bags under their chair before they noticed how big the seats were—they almost dwarfed the short human. Wren wasn’t too pleased about that, already feeling small as usual, but they figured the electromagnetic coils under the seats must’ve been pretty big. That would explain why there were so few tickets sold.
Just as Wren settled in their seat they sat straight up—someone a few seats ahead was being wrapped up by a lamia! Those coils dwarfed the passenger. Why would they—Wait, somebody across the aisle was, too. Why would lamias even—
Wren shook their head. These lamias wore the dark blue flight attendant uniforms, with the flat hat and ascot. Why did this plane hire lamia flight attendants?
When the minty green tail slithered over the next seat and towards Wren realization hit the short human like a five hundred-pound snake.
“Welcome to coil class!” the flight attendant said, her grassy green hair tied tight in a bun. She gave Wren a warm smile, but the human passenger entered a panic.
Why didn’t they explain this in the advertisement? Wren’s brain screamed.
Turns out, they had. Wren just had the attention span of cotton candy.
“Please secure all baggage underneath your seat or in the overhead compartments,” the flight attendant said. She apparently did not notice Wren backing into their seat and looking for the nearest exit. “When it is time to leave the plane the crew will direct you to your door.”
Oh. Well that’s helpful. But Wren wanted to leave now!
They watched, frozen in horror, as the tail lowered to the floor before slithering towards them. The short human pulled their legs up the seat. They tried to clear the lump in their throat and ask to leave the plane.
“No, wait!” Wren said. They gasped as the scaly tail slid around their ankles. Their eyes widened before slowly drooping; the tail was softer and more forgiving than they’d ever imagined. It squeezed around their lower legs but stopped.
“Sorry, is something wrong?” The flight attendant frowned and looked at Wren.
Wren relaxed their legs back down and settled on the seat. With a brief sighing gasp they muttered, “N-No. E-Everything’s fine.” They smiled, lopsided as they tried to restrain their grin. “Please, um, go ahead.”
The flight attended smiled and nodded, and she resumed winding her tail up Wren’s legs, already as wide as Wren’s arm over their ankles and contouring to their skin like the softest water.
“We ask that your seats and table trays are in the upright position for take-off, and that you please fasten your coils at this time.”
Wren smiled as the thick tail squished their legs together and slithered around their thighs. The coils massaged their legs all at once as the scales kneaded over their skin. Wren’s skirt rumpled among the tail as it became thicker like a strengthening stream, deep enough now to obscure Wren’s shoes from their sight.
“If you’ll sit up a moment, please,” the flight attendant said. Wren raised themself, wobbly and lax, and the flight attendant slipped her tail under them for a seat softer than any Wren had ever had the pleasure to settle into. From there the attendant wrapped around Wren’s hips, distributing the human’s weight among her coils to hold them and slide her tail beneath and around Wren’s bottom. The bumpy waves of each loop felt like a massaging slice of heaven squeezing all over Wren.
By now Wren felt groggy, if not downright sleepy, and they sank further into the scales; the attendant wrapped around their waist and abdomen, holding Wren’s arms in the coils for their protection. Wren would have no use for them; they wouldn’t move for the entire flight. For a moment Wren wondered if they would really sit in the coils the whole time, but their thoughts scattered as the attendant’s tail squeezed around their chest, kneading their upper arms. Wren’s eyes lost focus as their grin softened.
The heavy coils sank down on Wren as the lowest loops grew thicker than their waist. Wren would have slipped off the chair from their body going slack were the lamia attendant not propping them on the seat. Still, the human slid submerging into the coils as the tail wrapped around their shoulders. The soft downward squeezing plunged Wren into a dream-like state, every part of their body below their head weighed down by the massaging coils.
In a moment their head joined the rest of their body; the attendant slid her tail over the back of Wren’s head and up around before slithering to the next seat. Every inch of Wren’s skin exposed to the scales tingled as the tail rubbed winding around them. Wrapped from head to toe in snaking, sublime scales, the thick coils only grew heavier. The massive coils squished against Wren as much as each another, pushing the loops down, Wren with them. The surreal experience, once a terror to the coiled human but now bliss, sank their mind further into weighted scales as the tail gained heft over their face. Every loop below Wren’s chest was broad as their shoulders, so thick that they piled around them, and the tail covered Wren’s mouth, the highest loop enveloping their upper head.
Wren felt like they were entering a trance. The soft muscles held them tight as the tail contoured to their body, massaging every corner. The thick coils gave Wren little vision, not that they could focus their sight; the majority of their brain tuned in on their squeezed sense of scale-filled touch, dulling their other senses and leaving the plane’s cabin with a hazy appearance.
As if from far away Wren heard the lamia flight attendant say, “Comfy?”
Wren couldn’t answer. There was no need. No need to speak, no need to move, no need to do anything but let the scaly muscles subsume them for the rest of the flight.
“We will now be taking off . . .” The rest of the attendant’s speech was tuned out by Wren’s mind to focus on the sublime scales.
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