Hypothetical Hitch-Hier

The lad grinned across at me, pleased for the lift. I wasn't going exactly where he wanted, but I could take him to a motorway junction twenty miles short without too much of a detour. He'd have to sort himself out from there: either stand in the cold with his thumb sticking out, like he had before I pulled up, or otherwise pay for a bus.

He didn't look like he had a huge amount of money, though.

"You were in a pretty deserted place to be hitch-hiking," I said. "No wonder you had to wait for so long for someone to pull over."

When he'd climbed into my car with his rucksack he'd muttered that he'd been waiting for a good three hours.

He smiled. "Yeah, the guy before you chucked me out of his car."

That sounded ominous and I wondered if he might be a nutter. The main reason I rarely pick up hitch-hikers is the fear of them turning out to be serial killers.

Judging by outward appearances, this lad had looked like he was fairly normal though: a university student trying to get a cheap ride cross-country, most likely. His dress was hardly smart but was a long way from looking dishevelled, while the stubble on his face suggested only a couple of days' growth rather than being the full, unkempt beard one might expect from an escaped lunatic.

"What did you do to upset him?" I enquired, trying to sound as casually chatty as I could.

If he was weird enough to have been thrown out of someone's car, I was going to have to figure out how I was going to extract myself from the position I'd got myself into without tipping him over the edge.

"He wanted me to pay for the lift he was giving me," he said.

"Pay?" I asked, incredulously. "I thought the whole point of hitch-hiking was that you don't have to pay?"

"He wanted payment in kind," the lad explained. "Payment of a kind I wasn't prepared to offer."

I looked over at him with surprise.

"How do you mean, 'payment in kind'?"

He grinned broadly at me. "I think you know what I mean."

I smiled back and nodded. Of course I did.

"But he was a bloke, you said? Was he gay?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. I think he was just... well... a bit horny, I guess."

I glanced over at him and chuckled. As well as feeling relieved that he didn't seem to be a psycho, I was intrigued that the conversation was taking such a promising turn.

"So what did he want you to do?" I asked. "Or wasn't he specific?"

The lad tittered at my curiosity. "He was very specific."

I was becoming more and more pleased that I'd bothered to stop. There'd been something about him standing there on such a quiet road -- his bright red cheeks, perhaps, looking raw in the cold wind, or his fine, blond hair being blown about under his hood -- which had appealed to me in spite of my reservations about hitch-hikers.

Perhaps it was time for introductions.

"I'm Rob, by the way," I said.

"I'm Dane," he offered back and I noticed that his eyes were a deep shade of blue. "Nice to meet you, Rob."

"You too, Dane," I smiled.

After driving a little way further and mulling over what he'd said, eventually I was unable to stop myself from posing what seemed like the obvious question.

"So... er... what did the guy ask for, Dane? If you don't mind me asking?"

"I don't mind you asking at all," he affirmed, "as long you don't have any requests of your own."

I laughed like the very idea was absurd.

"He wanted..." Dane started before tailing off uncertainly. "He wanted me to... well... to give him a blowjob, I guess you'd call it."

He looked over at me and I realised he thought I might be offended by his use of such a word. I grinned to show I wasn't as sweet and innocent as he might suppose.

"So that wasn't what he called it?" I asked him.

"No," Dane replied. "He actually said, 'I'll drop you off at any address you want if you suck my cock and swallow my cum'."

Again he peered at me as if trying to see any suggestion that I might be shocked but I just shrugged like it had been largely what I was expecting.

"Bit of smooth-talker, then," I suggested and he laughed.

We drove on a little further with me wondering how best to approach this opportunity which I had had the good fortune to stumble upon.

Obviously he'd refused the guy and had been promptly dropped off on the side of a lonely back-road, so any clumsy attempt I made to try and follow in my predecessor's unsuccessful footsteps might be met with the same firm rejection.

I'd have to play this rather more carefully. Pick my way slowly so as not to startle him.

Even if I did get rejected, I mentally vowed that I wouldn't just abandon him in the middle of nowhere. He was a nice enough lad -- seemingly harmless and with a friendly smile -- and I'd take him all the way to the motorway roundabout I'd promised him when I'd picked him up. From there, his options were numerous and I wouldn't be just leaving him to face the evening cold on some god-forsaken B-road like his earlier lift had.

But if he did want to play along with me -- even if just to flirt with a man who was old enough to be his father -- well, then I might repeat my predecessor's promise and go the extra twenty miles to take him to his destination.

"I wouldn't even dream of asking you for anything sexual in return for the lift, Dane," I began.

He smiled appreciatively, thinking that was all I had to say.

But I went on: "If I did, though, I'm sure I could come up with something rather more imaginative than a common-or-garden blowjob."

He peered at me again: now it was his turn to be intrigued by the direction of the conversation.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Like I said, the lift is totally free. I'll drop you off where I said I would."

"But if you were to ask for something in return?" he prompted. "Something sexual?"

"Well, as I'm taking you to where you want to go, the question is somewhat moot," I replied. "I was just making the point that I would have more imagination than to ask for something as boring as a blowjob."

"I thought all guys like receiving blowjobs," he said.

I smiled. "If I want a blowjob, I can get my wife to give me one any day. I don't have to try and seduce young lads I pick up at the side of the road."

He laughed at that and nodded.

I'd been divorced for over ten years but he didn't need to know minor details like that.

"So what would you want, if you were to ask for something?" he persisted.

I chuckled like this was all just idle banter. "It's not really relevant, Dane, since I'm not desperate enough to have to ask you for sex to take you where you want to go."

"I get that," he said. "I'm just interested to know what you would ask for if you were to."

I nodded. "Okay. Well, to be honest, I haven't really thought about it."

Oh, Robert, you big fat liar.

"But if I were to have to think of a suitable 'payment in kind'," I went on, "I suppose it would have to be something that my wife couldn't offer me. That would be sensible, wouldn't it? Something I couldn't get served up at home..."

He shrugged. "I guess so."

I continued driving and he mulled over what I'd said. If he'd expected me to elaborate on what I might have in mind, he was disappointed: I maintained my best poker face and acted with the same nonchalance as if we having a conversation about what subjects he was studying at uni.

Eventually, after a few miles, he broke the silence to ask: "So what sort of things do you not get served up at home?"

"Sorry?" I asked, turning to look over at him and feigning a look of bemused enquiry.

"What you were saying," he added quickly, realising that -- out of context -- his question could be construed as way too personal. "You know... about what you would want as 'payment in kind'?"

I suppressed a smile. This was all going very nicely.

"Oh that," I said, as if only just remembering the gist of the previous conversation; as if the subject had been of such little consequence to me that I had all but forgotten it. "Well, like I said, I don't really know..."

"You said you'd be imaginative. That the guy who gave me a lift earlier had been a bit too predictable..."

I liked the way he was trying to draw me out. He probably thought he was being subtle but I could see straight through his game.

"I'm sure I could come up with something rather more interesting than a bog-standard blowjob," I agreed. "But as I said, the point is moot, because this time your lift comes with the compliments of the chef."

He nodded and then looked out of the passenger window, no doubt becoming frustrated that he couldn't persuade me to divulge my secret desires.

After we'd driven past a few more fields and farmhouses, he said, "I'll drop it if you want me to, but it's an interesting conversation while we're driving along. What we're talking about is hypothetical -- I understand that -- but I'm curious to know what you might ask for from a male hitch-hiker if you wanted some kind of sexual payment from him."

I had to chuckle. He was being far more persistent about this than I might have hoped. I had assumed that we'd move on to chat about other things for a while and then I would have to be the one to bring it back up once we were more comfortable with each other. I hadn't expected him to keep at it like this, behaving like a terrier refusing to drop a stick.

"Okay, Dane," I said, "let's have the conversation for the sake of making the drive less boring. But let's keep it hypothetical, like you suggested."

I thought it wise to depersonalise this a bit. It would give me far greater latitude with how I might choose to phrase things if we weren't necessarily talking about the two of us.

He nodded, and I went on, "So we have a hypothetical straight and happily-married driver contemplating asking his younger but equally male hitch-hiker for something which he wouldn't be able to get from his wife."

"That's the top and bottom of it," he agreed.

"So what do you think that 'something' might be?"

"I dunno," he laughed. "But I agree with you that he would probably ask the hypothetical hitch-hiker for something a little... well... exotic, perhaps."

"Exotic?" I smiled. "Meaning what exactly?"

He laughed more loudly, clearly amused that I was being so coy with him. I drove on, still smiling, waiting for him to speak.

When he did, he said: "Maybe... I dunno... maybe the guy would want to try giving the hitch-hiker a blowjob...? He couldn't try that with his wife, now, could he?"

Ah -- so that was where he hoped I was going with this!

I was having none of that. My sights were quite firmly set a little lower and further around the back.

"Why would a married guy want to suck some young lad's cock?" I asked, aware that I was taking the vulgarity of the language up a notch (or should that be 'down a notch'?) but wanting him to feel able to talk more candidly to me.

"To see what it tasted like?" he suggested.

I shook my head. "Not very convincing. If he was that curious, he'd have tried it before."

"Maybe this is his first opportunity?"

I looked over at him and threw him a conspiratorial smirk. "We've both been around a bit, you and me, Dane. We both know that if a bloke wants to see how other blokes' cocks taste, there are far easier ways of going about it than risk getting thumped by a hitch-hiker."

"Okay," he persevered. "In that case: because he's done it before and he enjoyed the taste?"

He was nothing if not determined. I rather liked that about him.

I nodded. "That's more believable, but I'm not sure a straight bloke would be that interested in sucking another guy's cock. After all, he chose to marry a woman, so he must have at least some attraction for female genitalia."

Dane laughed. "Some guys like it both ways."

I laughed back and nodded over at him. "How right you are."

"Okay," he said again. "Let's say he isn't interested in sucking the lad off. What else might he find attractive about him?"

"I'm not sure," I said, again laying on the bashful innocence as thickly as I could. "What else has our hypothetical hitch-hiker got?"

Dane chuckled. "I suppose the driver might be interested in the lad's bum."

I couldn't help but grin, thinking: now you're talking!

"I suppose there is a certain vaginal quality about a bum," I suggested. "So I could see why our married man might be interested in that."

"I've always thought bums were more like tits," Dane observed.

I was pleased that he now felt confident enough to use a word like 'tits'.

"Yeah, I can see that too," I agreed. "But either way, why would our straight guy be interested in having a vagina or breast substitute, when he has the genuine articles on tap at home?"

"For novelty value?"

I laughed. "Well, yeah, there is that. But why would a bloke want to fuck an arse when he could fuck a pussy? I mean, pussies are rather nice, Dane -- I don't know if you've yet been lucky enough to have noticed?"

He grinned across at me. "Yeah, they are."

So he wasn't a virgin -- at least not in the heterosexual sense -- which made the outlook even more promising.

"Okay," he went on. "So let's say he doesn't want to suck his hitch-hiker off and he isn't interested in bending him over -- what else might he want to do?"

"With the hitch-hiker's bum?"

Dane shook his head. "We've ruled out the cock and the bum, haven't we? You said our hypothetical straight guy wouldn't be interested in either of those."

"I didn't rule everything out," I said. "I just said he might not be interested in fucking the lad up the bum."

"What else could a guy do with another guy's bum?" he asked.

Oh Dane, I thought, you have so much to learn!

I shrugged as if this was the first time I'd ever contemplated other possible uses for that particular part of the male anatomy.

"I suppose," I said, after driving a little further, "there is something our driver could do with his hitch-hiker's bum which would give him a very different experience from anything he'd get from his wife's pussy."

"What's that?" Dane asked, and I really think he had no idea.

"Well... it's very rude," I said with deliberate hesitance. "And you might be quite shocked. I'm a little bit shocked that I thought of it myself!"

Ha ha, I thought. As if.

"Something that's ruder than butt-fucking?" he asked.

He'd said 'butt-fucking'. He really was getting comfortable with me now.

"Yes," I confirmed. "It is, rather."

"I'm not a little kid," he said, sounding scarily like an echo of my son. "You can tell me what it is -- I don't shock very easily."

"How old are you, Dane?" I asked. I realised that I probably should have posed this question earlier.

"Nineteen," he replied.

The same age as my son.

"Well, I guess in that case you're old enough to know about giving oral sex to a woman?"

He threw me a derisory laugh. "Of course I am! I'm in my first year at uni -- I've played around a bit, mate!"

Not as much as you're probably about to, I thought.

"Okay," I went on. "Well, suppose our hypothetical driver enjoys tonguing his wife's orifice and might be intrigued to know what it would be like to do the same thing to his passenger."

"I thought you'd already ruled out the guy giving the hitch-hiker a blowjob?" Dane asked.

"I'm not talking about a blowjob," I said. "My scenario involved the driver tonguing an orifice."

Dane went quiet while he thought over what I'd said. For a short while I worried that I really had shocked him, but eventually he asked, with an equal measure of curiosity and disbelief, "Do you mean he might want to lick the lad's butt?"

I nodded as nonchalantly as I could. "If a guy likes oral sex with a woman, the idea of trying the same thing on another male, using the only comparable hole, might also be exciting to him on some, animal level."

"But it's a butt!" Dane emphasized with the same incredulity. "Why would he want to lick the hole that a guy shits through?"

I laughed. "It could prove to be a very intimate and erotic experience... who's to know?"

"I can't believe a guy would do that to another guy!" Dane exclaimed, stifling a sceptical laugh.

I laughed back. "I told you I would be a lot more imaginative than your previous lift!"

He chuckled uncertainly. "Well, you were right about that -- I didn't expect you to come up with that!"

We drove on for a while and I let the conversation drop. I wondered whether perhaps I really had repulsed him, in spite of his claim to be difficult to shock, and I didn't want to push the topic any further than he was comfortable with. I expected him to go quiet for a while and then, after a few miles, to start up a new conversation and that the subject I had so deliberately raised would be conveniently forgotten.

However, he surprised me after just a minute or so, by continuing to pursue the theme which had seemed to unsettle him.

"So, Rob... let's be honest with each other. If you were going to ask me for payment in kind for the lift, would that be the thing you would want from me?"

I smiled. So we were dropping the hypotheticals, were we?

"It's okay, Dane. We can drop this topic if you want to. I've made it abundantly clear that the lift is for free."

"But if you did want something in return," he persisted. "Would that be what you'd want?"

I shrugged. "I just think it would be interesting, that's all. It certainly would be something I'd never do with a woman."

"But you'd do it to a guy? You'd lick his butt?"

I chuckled. "I'm not sure. I would just be intrigued to give it a try."

"But the smell...?" he continued. "Wouldn't it make you retch?"

"I don't know," I reiterated with a casual shrug. "It might prove to be quite stimulating. I wouldn't like to dismiss it out of hand before I'd tried it."

He went quiet again and I drove on as if unaware of the obvious interest Dane had in the activity I'd suggested. Having never even thought that such a thing could have a sexual element, he now seemed mildly fascinated by the idea.

After another couple of minutes he asked, "Have you ever done anything like that before?"

"No," I lied. I didn't want to freak him out by admitting how much I enjoyed what I knew to be called rimming. "But it's something I'd be curious to try."

"Why would you be curious?" he asked. "I mean, I've never even thought about doing anything like that. What is it about the idea that's made you curious?"

I turned to him and threw him what I hoped would look like just a friendly smile. I didn't want him to feel as if I was deliberately hitting on him, which I obviously was.

"Okay, here's a pretty poor attempt for me to explain it. Do you ever sniff your own underwear to see if it's clean?" I asked.

He looked embarrassed and so I tried to encourage him: "You can be frank with me, Dane -- after all, you're probably never going to see me again in your life once I've dropped you off."

He hesitated and then shyly nodded. "Well, maybe... okay... yeah, sometimes I do. Doesn't everyone?"

"Of course," I smiled.

"I mean, sometimes when you're living out of a rucksack," he went on, "the dirty pairs get mixed up with the clean pairs. Sometimes you need to just have a quick sniff for hygiene reasons."

"And did you ever, occasionally, get a whiff of the back of them and found that the smell wasn't too unpleasant?"

He nodded again, a little more confidently. "Yeah... I guess."

I hesitated before, continuing, wondering how far I dare push this at such a crucial stage. Eventually I settled on: "Sometimes, I've gone from finding that whiff 'not too unpleasant' to finding it... shall we say... quite appealing."

"How dirty are we talking here?" Dane asked a little worryingly.

I smiled again, trying to make my manner as unthreatening as I could.

"Just normal wear from a pretty average day," I guess. "Maybe a bit sweaty, but with a definite male bum smell from where they might have ridden up a few times."