As strange as it may sound to some, my best friend is a lesbian. I'm a divorced, thirty-two-year-old guy from Mumbai. I fly a helicopter for the Indian National Coast Guard. Priyanka is the twenty-eight year old doctor/observer that works with me every day. Both of us are sworn officers and both of us have done military time of course - it's a departmental requirement - but, due to the specialty skills we possess, we found ourselves fast-tracked through the mandatory patrol time and put as quickly as was feasible into the aero-detail. Not that we minded of course, both of us had joined the department with aspirations of helicopter assignment anyway.

It's a job I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I used to fly for the Navy before, anti-submarine helicopter s off of a frigate, which sounds worlds more exciting than it actually is. Flying a Coast Guard helicopter not only pays better but is more challenging, more exciting, and all-around more enjoyable. If I can keep this assignment until I retire, I'll die a happy man. Priyanka feels the same about her role. She used to be a civilian doctor in Pune. From what she tells me it's every doctor's dream-job to work on a medical helicopter full-time. She not only gets to do that but also has the exciting enhancement of Coast Guard work to go along with it. Neither one of us have ever taken the Captain's exam, knowing that if we passed it and were promoted, we would be yanked out of aero-detail and placed back in the streets. That's a thought that doesn't even bear contemplation.

We began flying together two years ago, shortly after both of us were freed from street patrol. Priyanka, as I've mentioned, is from Pune. She'd grown up there and lived there all of her life. It was where she'd done her patrol time. I had grown up in Bangalore but had been assigned to Bombay in the Navy and had lived there ever since. It was where I'd done my patrol time too. So our department, in its infinite wisdom, assigned us to the Marine Drive area as aero-detail newbies, a part of the state that neither one of us was the least bit familiar with. Let me tell you we were a pretty cute team trying to navigate the helicopter around unfamiliar ground on the night shift for the first couple of months. In that time, we became friends, very good friends. Between trying to figure out where the hell we were or where the hell we were supposed to be, we would have long, sometimes intimate conversations. I learned probably more than most heterosexuals know about the lesbian sub-culture (and more than one tip on proper cunnilingus technique) from her. Our discussions in the helicopter have always been animated and without restraint. I've always prayed that we'd never get into an accident, not for fear of physical harm, but so that some investigator, listening to our flight recorder, wouldn't hear what we routinely discuss together in the intimate confines of the helicopter cockpit. They sure as hell wouldn't be able to put a transcript of that in the newspaper.

Being friends with a lesbian is the best of both worlds. I could talk to her like she was a guy but without the macho blustering that is an inevitable part of male-male friendships. I didn't have to exaggerate the size of my cock, or make up fake sexual encounters to impress her, or be afraid to admit to unmanly emotions. I could also talk to her like I would a woman, but without sexual or commitment-orientated undercurrents that define those relationships. Priyanka could be feminine when the situation called for it, letting me know what women really want, discussing fashions or interior decorating schemes. She could also out-cuss and out-sleaze a long-shoreman. She could give valid advice on how to install a new sprinkler system in my yard or what might be wrong with my car. She could drink most men twice her size under the table. She was the best drinking and barhopping companion that I've ever encountered in my life. She also played a mean game of teen patti. If not for the sex thing, we probably would have married each other, we got along so well.

A few weeks ago our shift started as usual. We changed into our flight-suits (separate locker rooms of course), put on our uncomfortable and bulky shoulder holsters which contained our department issue guns. .40 calibre pistols, weapons that we were unlikely, at best, to ever need in our current assignment (we were required to wear them on duty but you couldn't wear a gun belt on your waist in a helicopter), and checked out the helicopter before patrol. I did the pre-flight checks while Priyanka inventoried and tested the medical equipment, Coast Guard and fire department radios, and made sure our street maps were all there and intact. We put on our flight helmets with the intercom system speakers and microphone in them and then I fired up the helicopter and took us up to begin our routine patrol duties.

We came on shift at 3:00 in the afternoon, a busy time of the day, and, as such, we were immediately sent to a call in Thane to assist the police with a terrorism/burglary search. Thane PD is a separate agency from ours but they do not have a helicopter of their own so we spend a lot of our time doing mutual aid for them. The great dept. of course charges them by the call, making the decision to call us in that of a sergeant or above, but they were still shameless in their requests. We didn't mind. Thane, in this particular neck of the woods, was where the action was.

In the two years I'd been assigned there, my working knowledge of the area had improved to the point where I knew the geography better than any other place I'd ever lived or worked before. Without even needing a map consult, I turned the helicopter to the northwest and started heading for the location while Priyanka dialled up that frequency on our radio system and told them we were five minutes out. They gave us the run-down on what they wanted us to do; check the roof of the warehouse in question for suspects, jimmied sky-lights, or anything else out of the ordinary.

"Copy that," Priyanka told whomever she was talking to on the radio. She then turned to me. "Let me tell you what our plan for the day is."

"What's that?" I asked her, keeping half an eye on the landmarks below us as I cruised at two thousand feet above ground at ninety knots.

"We need to get ourselves a trauma transport today, sometime between now and eleven."

I raised my eyebrows. "Need to practice your skills?" I asked.

"Fuck my skills," she snorted. "There's a new ER nurse at the trauma centre. She's a hot one. And I'm pretty sure she's of the sisterhood."

"Yeah?" I said, genuinely interested. "What's her name? Did she tell you she's a lesbo?"

"Her name is, get this," she paused dramatically, "Sunny. Isn't that a bitchin' name? She's the busty chick I was talkin' to when we brought in that auto accident guy last week. The chick with the nice tits." She sighed for moment as she thought about it. "She didn't actually say that she was gay but, you know, we can tell these sorts of things. The way she was talkin' to me, the things she said. I think she's one of us." She quickly amended herself. "Uh, I mean one of me."

I knew the nurse of whom she was speaking. Priyanka was right, she was pretty hot looking. I'd wondered about making a move on her myself but hadn't had the opportunity. If there's one thing I'd learned in my career it's that women loved helicopter pilots. They would practically drop down and give you a blowjob right there when they found out what you did for a living. "Are you sure she's gay?" I asked, though I'd learned to trust her instincts on this matter.

"Reasonably," Priyanka told me. "Like I said, we know these things. There's a signal they give off."

"Well ain't that a bitch," I said, shaking my head sadly. "I was thinking about tryin' a little something with her myself."

"Hey," she said. "Leave her alone. There's so few women in this freakin' town for me to fuck but you got them throwin' pussy at you left and right. She's a sister, I'm tellin' you. Trust me."

"I'll take your word for it," I assured her.

We handled that call, which turned out to be nothing, and several others, which also turned out to be nothing. We were cruising around Interstate 90 east of Thane, quite close in fact to the Idaho border, when Priyanka's ears perked up. She'd been listening to the fire department scanner. "There's an auto accident call on I-90 at Brantford Road," she told me excitedly. "Let's head that way."

I knew what she was thinking. If there was a helicopter requested for medivac, she wanted it to be us so she could go see her nurse. "Medi-flight will get the call," I told her, informing her of nothing she didn't already know. Medi-flight was a helicopter, staffed by two nurses (and a pilot), that operated out of the Thane trauma center. They jealously guarded what they considered to be their calls. It was understandable. They were always under the threat of budgetary cuts or even elimination. The more calls they ran, the more they justified their existence. Our lieutenant, obviously acting on orders from above, had told us long ago not to be so enthusiastic in jumping their calls. Our budget, after all, was not in any such jeopardy and our admin was not so fond of medical or trauma aid calls anyway since they took us out of service for about an hour and half each time.

"We don't jump their shit that often," Priyanka said, almost pleadingly. "And they can't deny us if we're right overhead, can they?"

I turned my head and looked at her, appraising the near-desperation in her brown eyes. "When was the last time you got laid?" I asked her.

"Too fuckin' long ago," she answered. "I've rubbed myself to sleep thinking about this nurse ever since I first laid eyes on her."

"Good enough for me," I replied, turning the helicopter back towards the west and putting on the power.

When the fire department asked for a helicopter to be dispatched five minutes later, we were only about ten miles away, much closer than downtown Thane, which was where Medi-flight was based.