As she was getting to her feet the door swung inward violently and knocked her back. The edge of the bed caught the back of her legs and made her sprawl back onto the mattress. Khalid stepped into the room, closed the door behind himself, and locked it.
She was making to sit up and get back on her feet, but he swung wildly at her face. She recoiled enough to take most of the force out of the blow, but something hard and sharp sideswiped her across the cheek and sent her back onto her ass with tears welling out of her eyes: not out of emotion, but an involuntary response to being struck in the face. Had she just been pistol-whipped? She reached up to wipe the tears from her eyes and felt something hard and cold press into her forehead: the barrel of a gun. It kept coming, obliging her to roll back. She ended up supine with the top of her head against the aft bulkhead, the frozen TV monitor and the control panel of the DVD player above her. The gun came away. She blinked away tears and saw the muzzle of the weapon aimed at her from maybe two feet away, Khalid holding it in his right hand, using his left to undo his trousers and pull them down. A totally erect penis snapped out. Zula was not a huge penis expert, but she knew it took at least a little bit of time for one of them to get that hard, which made her realize that Khalid must have been standing outside the door for a while, getting himself ready for this. All the other men in the cabin must have fallen asleep.
The thing with the gun was ridiculous. If he pulled the trigger, the plane would depressurize. She wondered if he understood this. But she had to assume he really was that stupid. Once the bullet had gone through her head, she would not be able to enjoy the satisfaction of watching these men lose consciousness from lack of oxygen.
Now that Khalid’s intentions were clear, Zula wanted nothing more than to get her pelvic region as far as possible from him. But she was trapped in the back of the cabin. She planted her elbows in the mattress and levered herself up, scooted back, got her hands beneath her, pushed up to a sitting position. Khalid read this as lack of cooperation and became incensed, lunged forward, got a knee up on the bed between her knees, pawed at the waistband of her jeans. She pushed his hand away. He wound up to slap her across the face. She blocked the attack with one arm, but its force moved her sideways and made her head bounce against the front panel of the DVD player. A crisp mechanical noise sounded from behind her skull, and she heard the sound of the DVD being ejected from its slot.
Meanwhile Khalid was taking advantage of her disarray to undo the front of Zula’s jeans. He was jerking down on the waistband, trying to peel them off her, but this wasn’t working. Partly because he was only using one hand. But also, as Zula understood, partly because the steak knife in her pocket was trapped against her thigh and making it impossible to turn the garment inside out. He was yanking wildly, furiously, shaking her all over. She reached up to brace her hands against the bulkhead behind her, just to prevent her head being slammed into it. Her left hand came into contact with the ejected DVD.
Peter in the tavern at the Schloss. Snapping the DVD and cutting his hand.
Khalid seemed to have lost patience with doing everything one-handed and so he did something to his pistol—placing it on safety?—and then tossed it behind him so that it thumped onto the carpeted floor just in front of the door. He then made much more rapid progress on getting Zula’s jeans peeled back from her waist and buttocks. The knife swiveled around and made a long scrape on her thigh.
While he was thus distracted Zula had pulled the DVD from its slot and bent it between the thumb and fingers of her left hand, compressing it almost into a U. She was afraid to just snap it in half—it would make a loud noise, he would notice.
The jeans now bridged the space between her thighs and formed a barrier to Khalid’s progress. He had only made matters worse for himself. Looking down at her vulva, exposed but temporarily unreachable, he saw the blade of the steak knife jutting out from the pocket.
He let out a cry of rage. Getting back to his feet he gave the garment several terrific jerks, pulling both legs completely inside-out. Her butt was bouncing up and down anyway and so she swung her hand underneath it, let her weight slam down on the bowed DVD, felt it crack in half, the noise muffled by the mattress and by the flesh of her butt.
The jeans were now dangling from her ankles, the knife far out of her reach. Khalid shoved his hand in, groped for the pocket, and drew the weapon out triumphantly. Then he stepped in, ramming a knee down between hers, and then bent forward to plant the heel of one hand against her chin. He shoved her head back and then placed the blade of the knife against her throat.
Zula chose that moment to swing one arm down and around in a broad, blind scything motion, slashing at Khalid’s penis with the sharp corner of a DVD half.
She definitely made contact with something. He reflexively moved both hands down to his groin, leaving the steak knife resting on her belly.
Nothing was there to support the weight of his upper body and so his head leaned forward. His eyes bulged in astonishment—conveniently for Zula who rammed up with both hands, aiming for each eye with a DVD shard.
Some instinct told her to close her eyes as she did this and so she didn’t see the results. But she heard a howl from Khalid and felt him toppling backward.
Letting go of the DVD halves, she pawed at the knife on her belly but only succeeded in knocking it away; it bounced across the bed and fell into the crack between the mattress and the wall.
Just as well. The important thing was the gun. She rolled up and fell from the bed and crawled on hands and knees toward the door, where she reckoned the gun had come to rest. Khalid was right next to her, pawing at his face and screaming.