What a Long Strange Trip

We got back to the room, well-fed and ready to get some decent sleep before hitting the road early. I wanted to get to Billings and that was about an 11 hour drive. Add stops and it would be closer to 14. The AmericInn's free breakfast started at 6am, so we planned to eat and be out of there by 7am. I put in the call for a 5am wake-up as Angie grabbed something out of her roll-aboard and disappeared into the bathroom. When I heard the shower fire up, I realized I didn't know what her night routine was, so I punted. I grabbed the bed farthest from the door (and bathroom), changed into bed pants and a Tee.

I usually sleep nude, but I figured I could strip off after she was in bed and the lights were out. For some reason, pajamas or any other kind of night clothes just make me feel like I'm suffocating. I'll blame it on my mother and her idea of "swaddling clothes." I set up my laptop, connected to their wireless and checked my email while I waited for the bathroom. When she came out, she was in one of those long blue and white UW Huskies shirts that can double as a nightshirt.

"Can I get a nightcap, Steve?" she asked, looking at the bed I picked, then sitting on the end of hers. "And the shower's available if you want. I doubt even I could use up all the hot water."

"Name your poison," I told her as I moved to the fridge. "And I'll just shower in the morning, I think. Unless I stink too bad." I said this last in jest. I was pretty sure I was okay in the scent department.

She got up off the bed and walked over to me, glancing at the bottles on the bureau. "Something stiff," she winked, then added. "Rum and something. Mountain Dew. Over ice." I turned to start putting ice in a glass and she stepped into me and took a deep sniff of the side of my neck and shoulder while she pressed those impressive mountains of flesh into me. I held still. Kind of like a rabbit being sniffed by a hound.

She stepped back and smiled again. "Not bad at all," she murmured. "You can definitely wait until morning." I kept my mouth shut and finished fixing her drink, handing it to her as I headed for the bathroom.

"Back in a minute," I told her as I closed the door. I had several things to think about, sitting on the can, not the least of which was her casual teasing. I didn't want to misread it. I hadn't had much interaction with her before this trip. In fact, I avoided Accounting like the plague. We always disagreed on my expense reports.

It seemed to me that she was either very naturally friendly, and a flirt, or maybe she was warming up to me, feeling me out. I know I was suddenly interested in her. My chances of finding someone who shared my interests had been approaching nil as a limit. Now here was a woman with a practical, rural background, a "gun nut" like me, and... Well, I'd always said my three main interests were Sex, Guns and Making Things. She seemed to be into making things, based on our conversations about growing up, and she was definitely into guns. That left...

A big question mark. I sure as hell didn't want to offend her by suggesting anything other than the platonic agreement we had for me to take her to Spokane. But I didn't necessarily want to put her off, either, just in case she was thinking along more lascivious lines. I guess just playing it cool and letting her level of double entendres and teasing set the pace. That decided, I washed up and headed back to bed. She had her covers pulled down but was sitting on the edge of the bed.

"34D-24-36, 130 lbs., shaved, bi and I swallow. Yes I'm a natural redhead, yes the tits are real. Oh, and yes, I like anal, too. And I'm very selective." That's what she told me when I started to pull my covers down.

"Excuse me?" I was pretty sure I heard her. Just not sure how to respond.

"Those are the questions most guys I've dated wanted to know about me, especially recently. I figured I'd get it out of the way. We're both adults, right, Steve?"

"Uh, yes..." I drawled, really not sure where this was going.

"I like to sleep in the nude," she went on. "It's a lot less confining. But I don't want to shock you. Do you have a problem with nudity, Steve?"

"Um, no... not per se," I answered honestly.

"Do you have a problem with me being nude?" she asked.

"No..."

"Good!" She stood up and peeled off the UW shirt, leaving me breathless and trying very, very hard not to show it. She was awesome. Or, at least, to my jaded fifty year old eyes she was.

She was exactly what she said she was. I fumbled for something to say.

"Um... how tall are you?" I quipped, with a kind of sorry... in it. She laughed and her eyes lit up, and her tits jiggled, and I decided to sit down before I started tenting too bad.

"Five-foot-six," she smiled. "That's a question the guys don't usually bother with... I like that." She walked over to the ice bucket and made another drink, then walked back to the bed, putting her drink on the nightstand and getting in, sitting up with the covers up to her waist. Then she picked up her drink, nodded it my direction and said, "thanks!"

I took a swig off mine and decided to tell her.

"Um, Angie... if it doesn't bother you... actually... I prefer to sleep in the nude as well," I admitted. "I was going to wait until lights out so I didn't offend you."

"So go ahead," she nodded. "It won't bother me."

"Um..." I hesitated.

"Is there a problem?" she asked, jumping to the wrong conclusion. "Some hideous scarring you think will offend me, or something? Don't worry about it... it won't."

"No, no scarring..." I let out a sigh. "Just this erection that's decided to show up out of nowhere. I don't want you getting the wrong idea."

"Showed up because of me?" she asked, actually sounding delighted. "Believe me, Steve, I won't be offended. I would consider it a compliment. But if you really need to, you can wait until the lights are out. I heard you put in the wakeup call for 5am. I'm going to finish this drink, kill the light on this side and snuggle in. Cheers!" She started taking a serious pull at her drink.

And I had a decision to make. This might be an opportunity to let her judge whether she wanted to pursue anything. Maybe that's what she was looking for. If she didn't like what she saw, it could just be a "no big thing" occurrence and we'd go on without bringing it up again. I didn't see any way that I'd lose by going ahead, so I did.

"Okay, thanks," I told her as nonchalantly as I could, then pulled off my Tee. As I bent over to step out of my bed pants, I caught her watching out of the corner of her eye.

"Now that's a nice sight," she commented as I stripped off and settled into the bed. Then I realized my drink was nearly empty and the refill was on the bureau. I closed my eyes and had a quick talking-to with myself. I decided that casual and sophisticated was the best way to go. So what if I was sporting a hard-on? Men got erections, so what? She'd been married, it wasn't anything new to her... I probably was the only one embarrassed. So I sucked it up and got back out of bed, went and made another drink and brought it back to bed and climbed in. She watched me the entire way.

"Goodnight, Steve," she told me as I sucked down half my drink and settled in. "See you at five." She reached over and flipped off the lamp on her nightstand.

"Goodnight, Angie," I told her as I drank down the rest of my drink and turned off my light. "See you at five."

* * * * *

Five A.M. came way the hell too early, and interrupted a really nice dream involving a shapely, redheaded 34D. I grabbed the phone on the first ring and figured I'd gotten it fast enough that Angie hadn't woken. There was enough ambient light that I could walk me and my morning wood to the shower. I figured I'd wake her after I got out. Of course, I also left the door unlocked, just in case she needed the bathroom. I did have a little practical experience with women, after all.

I was pleasantly basking in the hottest shower I could stand when I heard her.

"You usually take a shower or a steam bath?" she asked, from the toilet. Right before I heard water on water. "God, it's thick in here."

"Steam bath, when my muscles are sore," I told her, turning my back to the frosted glass. "You okay?"

"I'll live," she told me. "I'm pretty sore, too. Being cooped up in the truck. But, still, I think I'll skip my morning workout, so we can eat and get on the road. If the place we stop at tonight has a jacuzzi, though, you may have to pull my sorry ass out of it when it gets late."

"What's your morning workout?" I was trying to figure out if she could squeeze it in anyway.

"Oh, some weights and a mile, maybe two if I'm feeling frisky," she told me. "Just trying to keep my weight reasonable without being fanatic about it."

"You do a mile every morning?" I asked. I know I sounded incredulous.

"Most mornings," she told me as she stood up. "Watch it, I'm going to flush. Don't want you scalded."

I appreciated the warning, but it wasn't necessary. There wasn't any temperature fluctuation.

"Those days are gone," I muttered to myself, thinking about a mile a morning. She closed the door on the way out.

I got out, got dried, got dressed and found she already was. I was beginning to think I was being hunted. She had on this really nice little -- and I mean little -- ivory sundress with a halter top that barely contained her blessings and a short flared skirt that hugged her waist and hips perfectly. We went to eat and she drew all the attention, and completely didn't seem to notice, and then we finished packing the truck and headed out.

She had me stop at a grocery, where she picked up a bunch of sandwich fixings and some snacks, and stuck them and some pop on ice in my cooler. She explained we could picnic at a wayside or something, and not have to hunt down a fast food joint. She bought a couple of big 32 oz. coffee mugs when I stopped to gas up and filled them, hers with French Vanilla and Hazelnut, and mine black with a boatload of sugar. She'd been paying attention at breakfast. We got on the highway and a few minutes later, she turned to me.

"Mind if I snooze a little?" she asked. "I didn't sleep great."

"No, fine, go ahead," I told her. "It's all boring Interstate. Sorry if my snoring kept you up."

"You weren't snoring," she told me. "Not bad. It was just my mind spinning. But if you aren't offended, I'd like to nap some."

I gestured to the pillow and she smiled, piling it against the door, relaxing into it and closing her eyes. I made myself get my attention back on the road. Experience had taught me I could get between 375 to 400 miles on a tank of gas, highway. So I figured to stop every 200 to 250 to gas up (to be on the safe side) and use the restrooms. That meant Fargo, Bismarck, Glendive and Billings. I'd rented an aerodynamic trailer, so I wasn't going to be slowed down too much, although the mileage would suffer.

I'd glance over at her occasionally, just to see her dozing there, peacefully. A lot different than when Asshole was yelling at her. Eventually, I stopped looking and just zoned into my own thoughts, watching the miles roll by. We were still just short of Fargo when I looked over to tell her we were going to be stopping, and nearly lost it.

Her dress was up over her hip, her left boob was mostly out of the halter with her nipple standing way out, her hand was between her legs and she was gently rubbing against it, with her head still against the door and her eyes closed. My penis and the seatbelt started to have an argument over territory. My mouth, wisely, stayed shut.

I looked back at the road with that image seared on my retinas. After a few moments' desperate thinking, I decided to just let it go, let her wake up naturally when we stopped and to pretend like nothing had been going on. In other words, try to play the gentleman. Try because I'm not always that successful at it. I had plenty of erotic flights of fancy to keep me company the rest of the way to Fargo.

I got off the Interstate just after we crossed into North Dakota and found a gas station. When I pulled up to the pump and stopped, Angie stirred, with a little moan. As I was opening the door to get out, she seemed to come awake, looking a little confused at first, and then a little embarrassed as she noticed the dress in disarray and her hand in her crotch. I just kept right on going to the pump, pretending that I hadn't noticed. I was pumping gas when she got out the other side.

"You want a refill on your coffee?" she asked, holding up our mugs. "I need to hit the Ladies'."

"Yeah, sure," I told her, then watched her walk across the breezy apron to the store with that micro dress whipping around her fine ass and legs, and for the first time in a very long time wondered what sex in public would be like. As in, just bend her over the hood and take her.

Knock it off, Steve, I lectured myself. This is a Good Samaritan run, regardless of what your hormones are telling you. No... I didn't believe myself, either. But I needed to behave.

She came back with the coffee and the cleavage, then suggested I pick up a small bag of ice when I paid for the gas. She walked around the truck a little while I took care of business, personal and otherwise, and came back to the truck heavy one bag of ice. We drained the water out of the cooler and refreshed the ice, and then we were on our way.

"You're not going to say anything, are you?" she asked me flat out, after we cleared Fargo on the Interstate.

"About?" I asked, pretending to watch traffic. There wasn't any.

"About my little show back there," she said, and unfortunately, I knew exactly what she was talking about.

"Nope. Didn't see it, didn't hear it, not going to talk about it." I think I was confusing her. She sat back and sipped her coffee.

"When's the next stop?" she asked after awhile.

"Bismarck, I think," I told her. "About three hours."

"I may need to stop before then," she smiled, indicating the coffee mug. I nodded my understanding.

She was quiet again for awhile, then told me, "I hope I wasn't embarrassing you."

"Nope," I told her, keeping my eyes on the road. "Embarrassing is not the word for it."

"What would be the word for it?" she asked, and her voice was fairly neutral. I couldn't get a read off of it, positive or negative. I decided to be honest.

"Oh, probably enticing, or exciting, or fascinating, or awesome, or interesting, or phantasmal, or none of my business," I told her. "One or more of those."

She smiled. She tried to hide it, and it was a cute effort, but she failed miserably.

"You're being funny to make me comfortable," she told me.

"No," I answered, "I'm being truthful and keeping it light because I like you and I don't want you to feel embarrassed about something natural. If you need some relief, go ahead. I'll try to keep the truck on the road."

"Now you are making fun of me," she chided.

"No, I'm not. Seriously," I told her. "I'm too damned old to play games. That's for the young and bored. After my divorce, those women I dated, that I got intimate with, were in it for the same thing I was... feeling good, no strings attached. I've given up on criticizing people. I just walk away. Well, maybe there are still some things in some people that I criticize, but they're usually the people I actually want to keep a relationship going with. I'm not going to get all holier-than-thou critical of anything you choose to do."

"After seeing that piece of work that's your soon-to-be-ex-, I'm surprised you haven't made the office gossip pool for how many nights out, looking for a decent lay. But if you're doing you to avoid entanglements while you get divorced, more power to you. Don't let me get in the way."

She looked at me thoughtfully for quite awhile before telling me, "you really are serious, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am," I nodded and put my mind back on the road. She went back to her Droid and watching out the window.

We went almost an hour like that, her listening to her Droid and me driving. And thinking. The scenery outside the truck was kind of nice, but that's not the scenery I was thinking about. Eventually, I broke my silence.

"What are you listening to?" I asked.

She realized I'd said something and sat up, popping out one of the buds. "Excuse me?" she asked.

"I asked what you're listening to," I iterated.

"When?" she asked.

"Just now."

"Chopin. His Études. Opus 10. Numbers 1 through 12. Valentina Lisitsa. I think she's marvelous."

Okay, that one surprised me. I don't know Chopin. Or, I probably know something he did, but not like she was rattling off.

"Do you play piano?" I asked. "You hadn't mentioned it before."

"Some," she smiled. "It's been awhile. I like listening to classical music while driving, though, and Chopin goes with the scenery."

"How about you couple your Droid to my stereo's Bluetooth?" I suggested. "We can both listen."

She got a kick out of that, and a few minutes later, we were rolling along to the sound of Chopin. And Mozart, and Liszt, and Hayden and Verdi and a bunch of others. Then, just to blow my mind, she brought up the collected Hooked On Classics series... the first four albums, anyway... and we listened to those. It sure made the stretch to Bismarck fly.

We got there around noon and I pulled off to find gas and restrooms. When I was done and she got back, I'd figured out where to do the picnic lunch we'd talked about. But I wanted to surprise her. For some reason, I was getting a kick out of seeing her happy.

I'd picked the Missouri River Natural Area and Trailhead in Morton County. Right off of the Interstate, big enough to give us some privacy even if the anglers were out in force, and a really nice view of the river. She had this delightful look of curiosity on, the whole way from the gas station until I pulled into the parking lot.

"Nice..." was her simple comment as she looked around.

"Okay, I don't have to unhitch the trailer to open the tailgate," I told her. "Let's make up whatever you were going to do and take it down... oh, that trail," I told her, pointing. "Should be a nice place to lounge around near the river's edge."

"You're on," she smiled. "Could you get a couple of sodas, each, for us out of the cooler? It won't take me long to put something together."

We busied ourselves and in ten minutes or so, we were walking over to the riverbank. I'd lucked out on my guess and we actually found a deserted little area with an old wooden picnic table and a trash can chained to it. We had a really nice view across to the sandbars, and some people playing out there on them, with their dogs chasing around. Angie laid out the food, then surprised me again.

"Don't freak," she told me, and that's never a good sign. Like "don't panic..." or "don't look now, but..." You sort of want to do whatever it was you were just told not to do. I looked at her with admitted apprehension.

Before she sat at the table to eat, she pulled her halter straps to the center so her tits were bared, and then raised her skirt -- confirming the lack of panties -- and sat down, now with significantly more flesh exposed.

"I just really like the feel of the breeze on my skin, and the scent of the woods and the water just really make me happy," she tried to explain. "You already know what I look like, and you're being a gentleman, so I'd like to picnic with less covered up. If I could get away with it, I'd go nude."

I thought about that for a minute.

"You know, not including us, there were two vehicles in the parking lot. Obviously, they didn't come this way or we would have seen them. So they must be fishing downriver a bit. They aren't in sight. And the people on the sandbar can't see us that well, especially with the table between you and them. So... why not? I guess it would take you less than thirty seconds to get the dress back on, if you had to."