Hitchhikers

Circa 1987

Carl had a soft spot in his heart for hitchhikers. He'd done plenty of it himself back in the day—back when it was still safe. But these days...

Carl had laid down the law with his two daughters, Brenda who'd just turned 18 and Ashley who was two years younger. "I don't care what the situation is, young ladies. I don't ever wanna see you out on the road with your thumb out, understand? If you're stuck for a ride you call me or your mama, period." There were just too many horror stories out there. It was like a sickness had come over the country, an epidemic.

So when Carl, headed north in his pickup on I-65, spotted the slender young man with the green bag at his feet and his thumb out, he just had to stop. "Not much room up front here," he said to the boy, who looked to be about his elder daughter's age. "Just throw your bag in the back. You military?"

"Huh? No," the young man said, climbing in. "Oh," realizing his road savior was probably referring to the green bag he'd just tossed in the bed. "Army surplus. I have a big wardrobe and it holds a lot of clothes. It's like you can never fill it up."

He slammed the passenger's door to as Carl, attention turning back to the road ahead, raised eyebrows. Wardrobe? What have I got here?

Carl waited for a semi to pass before accelerating off the gravelly margin into the right-hand lane. The truck had a lot of power—V8 hemi. Carl didn't offer a hand but he looked back over to his right and said, simply, "I'm Carl by the way."

"Oh. Francis. Thanks for the ride."

Frances. That's a girl's name, right? "Don't mention it. How far up you headed, son?" putting a spin on the latter. The boy wore tight jeans and a button-down plaid shirt with the sleeves partly rolled up. Sneakers, no socks. He was quite slim and good-looking—almost in a feminine way. His hair dark in need of a trim and wavy. If this boy—forgetting the age difference for a minute, if there was any—had shown up on his doorstep to pick up Brenda instead of that gas station attendant he would've been just fine with it. The kid didn't have one rough edge about him. Looked like a college student, well-heeled, smart, kind. But that was at first glance and who knows what you can tell about people, even after you know 'em awhile. Especially after you know 'em awhile.

"Chicago," Frances replied.

"They call you Frank?" Carl asked hopefully.

"Nope. Francis."

"That's cool." Carl arched his back—as if he'd been driving for too long. "Well, ain't goin' that far. But I can take you to Indianapolis, the outskirts anyway."

Francis parroted, "That's cool." And, "Chicago's not all that far from there."

"Nope."

They rode in silence for a brief spell. Then, "Where you comin' from?" Carl asked.

"Louisville."

Carl glanced over his right shoulder as if the Louisville skyline, such as it was, would still be visible out pickup's cracked rear window. "Well shit. The last guy didn't take you very far."

"Nope." Francis sighed. Exasperation. "I asked him to let me out."

Carl looked over. This was getting good. "Why's that?"

"He got a little...out of line."

"How so?"

"I'd rather not say." Then he said it: "With his hands. Well, one of them anyway. I'm used to being groped by strangers but...but not in situations like this."

Carl drove in silence staring straight ahead, trying to digest all this. He's a boy not a girl. What type of boy gets groped all the time? And puts up with it—except in situations like this? Carl asked warily, "What were you doing back in Louisville?"

"Oh, I had a gig."

"Gig?"

"A job."

"Mind if I ask what type of gig? Job?"

"Uh...I had a, like a two-week engagement at a club there. I'm a dancer," Francis said, smiling, if nervously, for the first time since climbing aboard. Carl, by contrast, was frowning:

"You mean like a supper-club type place? A Broadway musical type deal?"

Francis looked down into the footwell, into the relative darkness, wondering how far he should take this. The last time he ended up getting dumped out on the side of the highway, 25 miles north of Louisville. "No. Not exactly. Not at all," he admitted. "I dance solo up on a stage. I guess...guess the term for it is...exotic dancing."

Carl gave his passenger a sharp look. "You mean like a girl at a strip club?"

"Sort of. But I don't strip."

Another look: "You're naked?"

"No sir. No. I'm dressed."

"That's good t'hear," Carl said, ungripping and regripping his finger-slotted steering wheel. His frown eased as he asked further: "What do you wear up there? On stage?"

"Um, briefs. You know, like bikini-style. Usually black or dark-blue."

"And this is a club where women come to...watch you?" Carl had heard of such a thing. Bachelorette parties and whatnot. Equal opportunity he guessed it amounted to: horny women tucking dollar bills in a man's underwear rather than the other way around. Wasn't the end of the world, he figured.

"There are some women there sometimes," Francis said in a hopeful tone. "But...mostly it's men. Other men."

"Oh." The word, the syllable, sounding, sinking like a concrete block just dropped off a bridge. Francis's slender body tightened. It was about at this point that the previous guy kicked him out of his truck. But Carl gave a little shrug, a kind of concession. "Well..." And best of all the truck wasn't slowing down.

"So it's a gay thing," Carl deduced. "Is that word now?"

"Yessir."

"You don't have to call me gay," Carl blurted. "I mean...! You don't have to call me son, sir." He gave his head a second shake. "You got me all tongue-tied all of a sudden."

"Sorry."

"No, it's not your fault." About two miles of silence ensued. It was mid-summer and the cornfields, left and right of I-65, were at full height and formed a dark, dense, almost impenetrable black-green as far as the eye could see. "So you...dance for tips? Is that it? Sort of?"

"Well, yeah. Tips are a big part of it. But I get an hourly wage as well. Usually about fifteen dollars an hour, three or four hours a night. Twenty minutes on, twenty off. After sets, you know, you kind of mingle with the crowd, the guys. They buy you drinks, tip you some more. That's where the groping I mentioned comes in. They're not supposed to put their hands on you, except back in the V.I.P. room...but nobody pays any attention to that. It's like hanging out with a bunch of octopuses..."

Francis laughed. While Carl's mind seemed to be fixated elsewhere. "So they have V.I.P. rooms at these places? Just like a strip club?"

"It is a strip club. But yeah, they do."

"And you take guys back there?"

Francis, feeling ever more confident of his tenuous situation, grinned. "If they're willing to pay I do."

"How much?"

"Usually twentyfive."

"And for twentyfive dollars you sit on their laps?"

Francis nodded.

"And gyrate and whatnot? In your little panties?"

Francis looked over at the truck's driver. He was middle-aged. Full head of graying hair, however. Stoutly built. Rough-hewn. But a softness underneath Francis felt he could sense. Though not, at the moment, in the front of the man's jeans. Francis, laughing, asked, somewhat amazed, "How did you know I dress up in panties?"

"You— I didn't. It's just...an expression."

Francis felt liberated, the wind belting past at 70 miles an hour. He grinned. Went for it: "No, panties, a bra, stockings...thigh-highs usually, I have a bunch of different wigs, the blonde one's my favorite...lipstick, makeup...you can't see my toes at the moment but...I keep my nails painted too. Bright-red like my lips."

"So you're a...you're a transvestite or something."

"Not exactly. I only dress in women's underwear—up on stage. Or anywhere, really. I still have all my...male equipment so to speak," Frances giggled. "No tits. I've thought about it but...I'm really just a, I guess you'd say, crossdressing sex-performer. Exotic dancer. That's my...shtick."

"Stick?"

"My deal. My...niche."

Carl swallowed. A lump that felt the size of a gland. "So you'll...you'll go to Chicago next and...and do the same thing? Dress up on stage and give...give lap dances and stuff?"

"Yeah," Frances's casual reply, the dancer's languid body having settled comfortably under truck's restraining shoulder belt. "It's pretty much the same every place. Aside from Florida, though, I try to keep it north of the Mason-Dixon Line if you know what I mean."

"Why's that?" glancing over.

"Why do you think? Cause I don't like getting beat up in the parking lot after a show?"

"Oh."

A few more miles of silence ensued, during which Carl tried to regulate his breathing and remind himself he had a wife and two daughters back home. And two dogs. He couldn't resist, however:

"Mind if I ask you a personal question?"

"Another one?" Frances grinned.

"Oh, right. I guess I've..."

"No, go ahead. You seem like a cool guy..."

Carl wet his lips. Cool guy you little prick? I'm giving you a hundred mile ride aren't I? "Underneath. Are you wearing those panties right now?"

"Which panties?"

"The ones you dress in up on stage?"

"Oh no. They're too expensive. Lace and all. I'm wearing regular, you know, Jockeys. Never know when you gotta use a public restroom out here. Guys looking at you with your pants open. No, I'm strictly male today—aside from the toenails you can't see."

The boy was smiling. And Carl wondered if Frances was flirting with him. Or worse, taunting him. He—Carl—pointed: "Open the glove box."

"The...?"

"Glove box. Open it, please."

"Why?"

"I want to show you something important. Open it."

Reluctantly, timorously, Frances obeyed. The metal door thudded open and a weak, yellowish light informed the insides. An automatic pistol lay handle-first atop what looked to be a thick owner's manual...

"Hey man," Frances said, "this isn't cool."

"What isn't?"

"This fucking gun."

"No need to swear, son. That's for self-defense. Forget about it. As long as you aren't a danger to me...Tell me what's underneath."

"It..." Frances's voice had suddenly gone hoarse. He cleared it. "I don't know, man. Some kind of manual?"

"No. Between the manual and the gun. What? Don't be a goddamn pussy. Lift the gun—carefully theres's no catch—and pull it out. Understand?"

"What is it?"

"Something right up your alley. Pull it out and you'll see."

It was Frances's turn to swallow. Thickly. Another weirdo. How did he always wind up with guys on the road like this? From now on he'd take a fucking Greyhound. So what if it took three times longer to get to his destination?

"Pull it out, young lady," his ride persisted.

Frances lifted the pebbly, sure-grip handle of the pistol with thumb and forefinger and nothing more—as if it were a sheet covering what most assuredly was a corpse. Quickly, he plucked out what lay underneath after nixing the febrile idea of tossing the gun out the window. An act which might incite something even worse.

The panty was cotton. White cotton with pink trim at the waist and around the legholes. It faced him, panty's V-front as he held it up in pickup's midair. In the clubs Frances wouldn't be caught dead wearing such a coarse thing. It was silk—or that wonderful new microfiber material—or nothing. On the minimal front, now however, was a stylized, whiskered and smiling pink cat while above the embroidered image it read "HELLO" and below, toward the nexus, "KITTY."

"My daughter Kendra's," the driver said. "I stole it a couple months ago," he smiled, proud of himself. "Sometimes I'll leave the house, go out deep into the fields and park there and jerk off into it. Then I get guilty and have to wash it of course. It's clean—I've washed it about a dozen times," the man laughed, as if at a joke he felt clever. It looked it, the faded panty.

"How much would I have to pay you, Frances," he continued, "to take all those boy clothes off, including your Jockeys, and dress up in Kendra's panties? I bet they'll fit you."

Frances, still thinking about the ominous pistol, had a thought: he slammed the glove box door closed with a knee. "Well you've been really nice to me, sir. Carl. Driving me all this way. I'll pull them on for free, nothing."

"You will?"

"I just worry about being seen."

"Seen? Nobody can see us. This big ol' pickup? It's not like I'll be stopping or anything. You pull on her panties, slide over closer, I..."

"I could do that," Frances said warily, feeling, well, trapped. Had the crazy asshole sped up, the wind whipping past?

"Everything though. I want you in nothing but Kendra's panties."

"Kendra's your wife?" Frances asked nervously, forgetfully. His sneakers were off, painted nails at last exposed in footwell's darkness. Now he went to work in the tight cab's confines pulling down his jeans. Jeans and Jockeys, all in one stubborn, downward thrust. It wasn't like he'd never been waist-down naked in front of a man before. In a car.

"Daughter," Carl corrected. "18-year-old daughter. Didn't I tell you that? Honestly think an overweight 40-something wife would wear Hallo Titty underwear?" butchering the brand. Though whether intentionally or not Frances didn't know. He was still thinking, worrying about the glove compartment, the gun as, shirt off, his entire shaved body exposed, he dipped the daughter's panties into the footwell, spread them wide, inserted his painted feet and began pulling the white and pink cotton up as his slender ass rose off vinyl.

Frances sat. It was perhaps one size too large for him, the panty, but who was counting?

"Slide over," the driver said.

"No...seatbelt?"

"I'm a safe driver. Slide over."

Frances obeyed—as the man's right hand instantly fell to slender thigh and ran up and down it. "Smooth," he said.

"I...I keep my body shaved. For obvious reasons."

"You could use a shave up top this morning, son."

"I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting...and all my shit, my makeup, is in the bag. The back."

The driver made a kind of gurgling sound. Laughter, the boy decided as the man's hand rose far enough up to give his balls and limp cock a feel, a grope. In his daughter's panties.

"Nice." The speedo, Frances noticed, flirting with 80 mph. "You feel good. Too bad you don't have tits."

"I know," Frances said, looking down. Not at himself but between his bare legs, at the black transmission hump. "I..." He decided to risk it: "Do you...ever feel your daughter up?"

Carl gave his next-to-nude passenger a hard, painful even, squeeze. A grope. "What do you think I am? A pervert?"

"No, I..."

Carl rolled his head back. In laughter. The truck momentarily crossing lane's white perforated line. "You're right, Frances. I fantasize about it. But..."

They passed a semi. Left lane. The driver, Frances felt sure, looking down on the little truck's cab at a nearly naked boy in Hello Kitty panties. Jesus! Carl was unmoved.

"I'm about to cum in my pants, you realize that."

"I..."

"So how much do you charge out in the parking lot at one of these gay clubs to, you know, give a blowjob?"

"That's not allowed." A statement, like most, being both true and untrue. It wasn't allowed by management but...Kendra—Frances that is, had given her share of after-hours blowjobs in the parking lots of various clubs in cities around the country.

"Bullshit, cutie! How much?"

"OK. Maybe...twentyfive?"

Carl laughed. "That's all you get. Twentyfive? The same as for a lapdance in the club?"

"Usually more. I'm too...generous I guess," the hitchhiker said. Carl said:

"Fuck! I'll pay you forty. Two twenties. Pull my pants down while we're driving. Give me a few strokes. Then go down on me. Forty bucks. Do you swallow?"

"Always, sir."

"I like the sir part, you slut. I'll pay you when we get to the exit outside Indy. It's in my wallet. Can I call you Kendra?"

Whatshername was leaning over to the left, assiduously unbuckling a belt, unzipping a pair of bulging jeans. Even from here she could smell the stale pee. She could see the relatively fresh yellow stain on the front of his cotton Jockeys she pulled down. But that was OK. She would...persevere. As the dancer had done so many times before. "For forty dollars, daddy, you can call me anything you—"

The Indiana State Police would conclude that the red pickup had crossed the median and slammed into the oncoming Accord. Three dead, only the pickup driver surviving. It was a bad one, even for the man determined to be at fault. Shoulder belt and all, his chest had still smashed against the steering wheel, breaking ribs, a breastbone. Punctured a long.

But far worse, the horrific impact had pushed the truck's V8 hemi into the cabin. It took them over an hour to extract the driver and his useless, soon-to-be nonexistent legs.

The really curious thing was why a young man—a boy—virtually naked in cotton Hello Kitty panties had been hurled through the windshield 30 feet into a cornfield, neck broken. Lots of things broken. Dead on impact. Or why the driver, when they arrived at the horrific scene, I-65 closed down in both directions, had his pants open, his limp penis exposed, and bloody.

When Carl, or whatever his name was, finally awoke in the ICU of one of Indianapolis's fine hospitals, his first thought was not "What's happened to my legs?" but...How do I explain to my wife and daughters the fact that a naked boy in my daughter's panties was in my cab? The hospital room was empty. He wept.

Carl quit the interstate just shy of his exit, south of Indy. He needed gas. He did and he didn't. The story had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Gone sideways, south. Back to Louisville.

He leaned over, right, and opened the glove box. It was still there, Kendra's panty, under the WWII vintage Colt .45. Rusted. He lifted it and extracted the white-and-pink cotton wonder. The first time he used it the panty hadn't been washed. Stolen from the hamper. The smell! His own sweet daughter's!

Not that fucking long ago you pulled into a gas station and an attendant came out and filled your tank for you, and thanked you for it. Now it was all self-serve. Carl set the nozzle on auto-fill and headed for office, panty tucked in the back pocket of his jeans. The skinny kid behind the counter recognized him. He'd dated—a bad choice on her part he felt—Kendra at one point.

"Hey Carl."

"Sam. Key to the men's room?"

"Oh sure. How's Kendra?"

Fuck you! Carl wanted to say as he headed around the corner. The bathroom was a tile shithole. Grey-green. Disgusting! Looked like it hadn't been cleaned in three weeks. Fucking lazy kid! The mirror above the dirty sink. That was another disaster. Looked like pizza had been served on top of it. Jesus! And the smell!

Still...

Carl lowered his pants in front of it, the lower half. He still had a hard-on. He still had legs. The boy? Dark, dark. Forget about him. This was all about Kendra now. This was more...intimate.

Her cotton panty wrapped around his cock now as he masturbated in the blur. He'd be damned if some gas station attendant won his daughter over.

He'd been thinking about it, her, and more, for over a hundred miles. He came quickly, inevitably, a big load in panty's white, pink-trimmed seat. God he'd love to penetrate her! Shoot his load in his daughter's wide, sweet ass. He'd seen her after her shower once. Twice. Many times. "Oh, daddy."

He washed her panty out in the dirty sink. He wrung the watery sperm out but it was still—so, so—damp. He tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans as he emerged from the men's room. He returned the fucking key.

The kid was tall, slender, about twenty. A sweet face. Pussy!

Home was one exit away.