Clint and I had negotiated hard on me saving more money by letting him drive me to Myrtle Beach to meet up with my buddies for a week in the surf. He'd wanted to go the slow and easy route and stop for fun and games for two nights as the price of travel, but I told him that was not going to happen. In the end, I gave him one more straight fuck and he promised to drive me all the way through to the South Carolina coast.
But Clint knew something I didn't. You can't get from where we were to Myrtle Beach in one day in anything slower than an airplane. He made like he was giving it the old college try, but in the outskirts of Charlotte, North Carolina, I saw that we just weren't going to make it and agreed to stop for the night.
He drove into a posh area of the city and pulled up to a stop at a pretty elegant looking Marriott, the SouthPark.
"I can't afford this, Clint," I said.
"Well, I can," he answered. "If I'm going to sleep anywhere but my bed, it's going to be in a better bed. That's what my daddy taught me about traveling, and that's the way it is with me."
"Surely there's a Red Roof around here somewhere," I whined.
"There certainly may be," Clint countered, "but I'm staying here. You might walk down in that direction and see if you can see one."
We just sat there, the motor still humming at us, him waiting for me to get reasonable.
"I can't afford this hotel," I said stubbornly.
"You can stay here a whole hell of a lot cheaper than at the Red Roof Inn," he said with a sly grin.
"Meaning?" I asked. But I didn't really have to ask. I knew what he meant.
"A night free in a high-quality hotel room. God, it isn't as if sex is a nonrenewable resource for a quick-loading stud like you, Ben. Come on. It's not like I'm an ugly ogre or something—or that you have something I haven't seen or fucked before."
I didn't say anything, but I opened the car door and swung my legs out and he had the trunk popped before I got back to it.
The restaurant Clint picked out was even glitzier than the hotel.
"Shit, look at these prices," I exclaimed. "This'll cut my food budget in half for the week at the beach."
"I'll pay, of course," Clint said, glowering at me, signaling for me not to embarrass him and attract the attention of waiters who were buzzing around us.
"I can just imagine what that will cost me," I said in a clipped tone.
But Clint didn't say anything; he just buried his face in the menu.
"What?" I asked, "What?" And then I just stopped and stared at his knuckles clutching the menu—realizing.
"So," I then asked sarcastically. "What's it going to cost?"
I looked at the menu. "What's the scale like between the shrimp and this juicy Delmonico steak?" I laced my voice with just as much sarcasm as I could manage.
Clint took a swig of the wine he'd ordered and pushed my filled but thus-far-untouched glass a bit toward me. Then, with a blissful smile he gave his terse answer in a hoarse whisper. "A bit of bondage for the shrimp. Dildo play for the steak. You can have the chicken, of course, but I hardly think that would be worth my investing in a condom."
"Very funny," I replied. He was putting me on. Well I'd show him. When the waiter appeared, I ordered the Surf and Turf—a Delmonico steak piled high with fried shrimp.