Cruising altitude.

I've been up in the air a lot this winter. Literally. Covering the country on a book tour inevitably requires miles and miles spent aloft, racking up frequent-flier numbers and equally high airborne telephone bills. But don't expect a consumer report on which airlines to fly for the best meals. Conde Nast can take care of that quite nicely, thank you. No, this is a report on the chilly nature of airplane travel for lesbians.

Or perhaps you haven't noticed? Granted, air travel is horrible enough for everyone, from businessmen to grandmothers, given the oxygen deprivation and absence of legroom. But at least men get the compensation of flirting: Straight men get to flirt with the stewardesses, and gay men get to flirt with the stewards. I've seen such transactions in action enough to know what I'm missing. If a gay man wants a better seat, all he has to do is be cute and bat an eye and--bingo!--that buffed airline clerk brightens his day. And there's generally some eye candy passing down the aisle, biceps tastefully tucked into a steward's uniform.

But we lesbian passengers are left forlorn, our seat belts dutifully fastened and our seats stuck in the upright position. Admittedly, I don't usually get hot for stewardesses. Big hair doesn't do it for me--nor does the ex-cheerleader look. Not to be a snob, but I thought that Stepford look went out back in the early '60s when I ditched my pageboy.

Granted, I don't have the best gaydar. Maybe the worst. During my single days one of my friends once offered to walk behind me at parties to point out the girls trying to flirt with me.

But this in-flight problem zooms right past gaydar malfunction into the darker zone of lesbian invisibility. The closest I ever got to special attention on an airplane was one long transatlantic flight spent listening to the heartbreak tale of the jilted gay steward, who gifted me with a bottle of wine from first class for my trouble.

Still, it's fun to imagine a lesbian chapter of the mile-high club. I've heard all those tales of bisexual stewardesses, far from home and husband, with a yen for a fellow stewardess or maybe the odd lesbian passenger. On this winter's 14-city book tour, after enough stress and sleeplessness to tip me over the edge, I suddenly found myself fabricating fantasies of sexy stewardesses and wish-fulfillment scenarios. I imagined layovers in hotel rooms in strange cities, long drinks in airport bars, flights abruptly grounded by blizzards, in-flight turbulence throwing us into each other's arms. Alas, no such luck: My trips inevitably ended as chastely as they began.

It finally occurred to me: Maybe this airborne dyke deficit is the result of a conspiracy. Maybe the airline's insecure husbands have also heard those stories about bisexual stewardesses on the make. Maybe they realize that integrating the ranks could allow some cute butch number to get her hands on some guy's faithful wife. Presto! A secret corporate pact bars any recognizable lesbians from serving with pride. My pleasure has been sacrificed to protect heterosexual marriage.

Oh, I might as well admit it. I just don't have the right approach. Years ago I happened to be on the same flight with Sandra Bernhard. That was back when she had an agent whom she later made fun of in her shows. The agent rode in first class. Sandra had traded in her first-class ticket to get two coach seats for herself and her young girlfriend (this was prehistoric; i.e., pre-Ingrid).

I know all this because I'd been upgraded to business class, where the guy next to me happened to be Sandra's collaborator on a new project. Back and forth she swept, from coach with the girl to first class with the agent, stopping to chat with my seatmate--and with the stewardesses. I could see Sandra in the galley, flirting with one stewardess. She emerged with a wink and a slip of paper in her hand, stopping to show my new pal the phone number she'd scored. I guess I have to work on my repartee--or get an agent. Or at the very least develop a taste for women with big hair.