Hypothetical Hitch-Hiker Ch. 02

He shook his head defensively. "No way, mate. It won't happen. I'm into girls - I'm totally straight. I don't know why I did what I just did. I haven't got a fucking clue, to be honest."

I nodded. "I'm straight too. Like I told you, I've been married."

It was certainly true that I'd been married. I just wasn't any more.

"I've always been curious," I went on, "to try some stuff with other men. Unlike you, I don't feel guilty about it - I actually would like to try some other things now that I know how much I enjoy it."

He shook his head again, and it seemed that what I'd said had made his mind up for him. He didn't want to hear me trying to justify what we'd done: he'd decided that he wanted to forget about it and pretend it had never happened.

"You can drop me off at the motorway junction," he curtly informed me. "I'll phone my mum if I can't get a lift."

Usually when guys have had a few minutes to recover from what they perceive to be their first 'gay' experience, they gradually bounce back from their initial misgivings and are soon able to put things into perspective.

Not Dane, though.

Considering how upbeat he'd been immediately after his climax - he'd laughed when I'd started cumming, for Christ's sake - the more time that passed after the event, the deeper into bitter self-recrimination he seemed to plunge.

When I dropped him off at a layby near the motorway roundabout, I hastily scribbled my mobile phone number onto the back of a petrol receipt. At first he refused to take it, but when I insisted and kept holding it out towards him, he snatched it from me and tersely thanked me for the ride.

As I drove away, I watched him through the rear-view mirror as he went through the obviously pointed gesture of scrunching up the paper I'd given him and throwing it into the gutter. He looked up at my rear-view mirror after he'd done so: he'd wanted me to see his opinion of me.

"Whatever," I thought as I signalled right at the roundabout to head back out into the countryside and towards home.

===

A few days later I heard my phone beep at work with a text message and, thinking it was from my son asking me to record some programme for him on the Sky box, I waited until I'd got home and had poured myself a glass of wine before I sat down to look at it.

It turned out it was from an unknown number and it read: [Soz I got freaked, Rob. Not ur fault. Hope all ok. Dane]

I smiled. It was rather sweet in a way.

I texted back, taking the time to spell words fully and punctuate correctly in a way that inexplicably infuriates my son.

[Hello Dane. I thought you threw my number away!]

I waited a few minutes before my phone beeped again.

[I did but then chnged my mind. Glad I did!]

I imagined him waiting at the junction for his mum to drive over and pick him up, gradually starting to feel less ashamed of what he'd done until the compulsion to go back to the side of the road to pick up the paper he'd discarded became too strong.

I mulled over what to say in reply but before I'd been able to come up with anything that didn't sound either too flippant or too mushy, my phone beeped again with another incoming message.

[If a guy needed lift back to uni, would you b up 4 having a hitch hiker in ur car again?]

I chuckled. A ride for a ride, perhaps?

I felt I could be a little bolder in my response.

[Of course, Dane. But what would this hypothetical hitch-hiker be willing to do for his driver in return?]

He sent me a grinning face with the tongue sticking out before a proper message came in.

[He could bring his dirty laundry!]

I had to laugh at that. Weren't students supposed to take their dirty laundry home with them from uni, not the other way around?

I sent a smiley face back. I was pleased that Jake, my son, had taught me how to text. I would never have imagined that the skill would prove so valuable.

Within a few seconds, the phone beeped again. [U up 4 it then?]

I keyed in my message. [Very much so.]

[I'll be at same m-way jnctn u dropped me off. Sun 3 pm. That ok?]

I chuckled at his reply. He wasn't prepared to give me his address: that would be a step too far for now.

[Fine by me], I texted back. [Looking forward to the scenic route.]

I got another grinning face and then a final, [C u on Sun Rob!]

I took a long drink of my wine and then beamed at the smiley face he'd sent me as if it was Dane himself I was looking at.

How far would my hypothetical hitch-hiker let me take him this time?