This is the third installment of “The Hitchhiker’s Gratitude”; a story inspired by, and originally submitted as a response to, [this prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/DirtyWritingPrompts/comments/f4ft7z/wp_turns_out_the_hitchhiker_you_picked_up_is_more/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) by u/RedFredHunter.
*Note: This particular installment does not feature an actual sex scene. Due to its length, I saw fit to post this segment as Part Three, and the following sex scene as Part Four.*
***
“Still aiming for Bakersfield?”
“Mmmmnnnh… What?”
“*Kitty*, wake up.”
“I’m… awake…”
“You sure?”
“No.”
“I asked if you were still wanting to go to Bakersfield.”
Kitty groaned as she forced herself to sit up in bed, drowsiness still weighing down her eyelids like lead. She paused to regain strength, exhausted by the small effort, then raised her hands to her face.
“What time is it?” She mumbled into her palms.
“A little after five.”
“In the morning?”
“Sure as hell ain’t five in the afternoon.”
“Why are you up so early?”
“I’ve gotta get going. Got a load to drop off, and it’s still a long drive to Bakersfield.”
“Fuck…” Kitty sighed, running her hands up and to either side of her face, smoothing back her unruly hair as she finally managed to blink her eyes open.
She turned to look at Steven, standing at the other side of the bed, already fully dressed.
“We were in the shower…” Kitty remembered.
“Last night, yeah. I never did get around to washing your back… But I think the other thing sorta made up for that…”
Kitty was silent, still fighting to stay awake, staring down at the puddle of sheets around her.
“*Kitty*?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you coming with me?”
“You’re leaving, now?”
“Soon. Next thirty minutes, or so.”
“Yeah… Okay… I’m coming…”
“You need to get dressed. As much as I like the view, right now…”
In the dim light streaming into the room through the slat-shaded window, Kitty registered her own nudity – bars of pale blue and transparent gray alternating across her exposed bosom.
Sniffling, brushing another wayward strand out hair out of her face, Kitty began to scan the room for her tank top. Identifying it, hung on the back of the nearby chair, her panties and folded jeans beneath it on the seat, her sandals neatly placed in front of it on the floor, Kitty looked up at Steven.
“You folded my clothes?”
“Just your pants.”
“Thanks?”
“This place has a small laundry room for guests. Ran your things through a rinse and a dry.”
Kitty mounted strength, pulling herself completely out of bed, and strutted around it to Steven’s and the chair’s side.
The taller, burlier trucker watched her as she walked. A small bruise on her naked hip reminded him of the rosy marks he had left on her skin, the night before.
It reminded him of the hot water streaming off her, pouring onto him. It reminded him of the soft skin he had pawed at and grabbed. It reminded him of the savory, sickly-sweet taste of her core, and the warmth and wetness his tongue had only just been given a chance to explore.
He watched her, patiently, as she groggily got dressed; pulling the royal-blue undergarments up her long, shapely legs, following them with the skin tight jeans, then stepping into her still-dusty sandals.
She turned to him as she fumbled with her tank top, hoisting the fabric up, shimmying into it, then pulling its caught hem down over her breasts.
“Thank you.” She mouthed in a soft voice. “Everything’s still warm…”
“Welcome.” Steven responded, simply. “You ready to get some coffee? Lady at the front desk said there’d be some in the lobby.”
The wind that had buffeted them as they crossed the lot the day before had died away almost completely, but an entourage of thick clouds on the horizon it had blown from promised its return – the advance party of a brewing storm.
The bell above the lobby door chimed again as Steven ushered Kitty in to escape the morning chill. The door slammed shut on its own behind them as they stepped further into the room. Adjoining, through a doorway, was a small space with a table set up, biscuits in a basket at its center. A coffeemaker sat on a nearby countertop, plugged into a wall outlet, its pot nearly full.
Kitty marched over and collected a mug, pulling the pot free of the machine and pouring before returning it.
Turning, she quietly made her way to the table, pulling out a chair and sitting down, taking a biscuit from the basket after a moment’s thought. Steven parroted her routine, but declined to take a biscuit when Kitty motioned to them.
“Steven?” Kitty asked after a sip of coffee.
“Yeah?”
“Last night… after the shower… did we…?”
“No.”
“You didn’t… you know…?”
“While *you* were asleep? No.”
“You could’ve woken me up for it…”
“I could’ve…”
“Instead, you did laundry for me… I bet we could’ve… in the amount of time that must’ve taken…”
“We probably could have…” Steven took a sip of coffee, himself.
“But you did laundry for me, instead…”
“Mmm hmmm…” He hummed into his cup.
“Why?”
Steven thought for a while, even after setting down his mug.
“Your clothes were wrinkled and stained. Figured they needed a good wash…”
“You know what I’m asking…”
“I do…”
“You’re dodging the question…”
“I am…”
“I don’t understand… Do you not want to…? Was it bad when… in the shower…?
“*Kitty*…”
“What?”
“It… It would just… It’d feel… If we did, it’d feel…”
“Feel what?”
“It’d feel *transactional*…”
Kitty knit her brow.
“It… Would… Feel… *Transactional*…?” She punctuated, venomously, after a moment’s quiet.
Steven was silent, looking at her with a measured expression, no doubt trying to anticipate just how volatile their conversation had just become.
“*It*… would feel *transactional*…” She repeated. “*It* would?… But the rest didn’t?”
“*Kitty*…”
“You seemed pretty eager to let me suck your dick in the truck, Steven. That didn’t feel *transactional*?”
“*Kitty*.”
“You seemed pretty eager to hop in the shower with me and bury your face in my ass, too. That didn’t feel *transactional*!?”
“That’s different…” Steven defended himself. “That’s… What we’re talking about now is different… It is…”
“*Sex* is *sex*, Steven!” Kitty shouted. “I don’t care if it’s my mouth or my pussy around your cock; it’s still sex, and you didn’t have a problem with it being *transactional*, yesterday!”
“This is different!” Steven maintained, matching her volume.
“How!? How is it different!?”
“*Kitty*…” Steven spoke, lowering his tone. “I don’t have a condom on me…”
The blonde fell silent, sitting back in her chair, having risen almost to a full stand in anger.
“This old mom’n’pop place *definitely* doesn’t sell them, and I seriously doubt…” He continued, softly. “I *seriously* doubt that you – a broke Wyoming hippie hitchhiking your way across California – are on any sort of regular pill…”
Kitty remained silent.
“I don’t mean any offense by that. I’m just thinking about how practical the… *the arrangement* we came to on the road really is…”
Steven took another sip of coffee, and joined Kitty in her silence for a few moments.
“You’re right.” He finally resumed. “What happened in the truck, yesterday afternoon, and what happened in the room, last night, were just as *transactional* as… as the other thing… But they were also much, *much* less…”
“*Risky*…” Kitty finished for him, earning an affirmative nod.
“Giving and getting head is one thing… *Sex* is another… You really wanna run the chance of getting pregnant, just because some random trucker gave you a lift to Bakersfield and paid for a hotel room and a cup of coffee along the way?… You’re not that desperate, *Kitty*…”
Kitty was silent, leaving her coffee and biscuit alone on the table.
“I promised to get you to Bakersfield… So I’m gonna get you there, if you still wanna come with me… But you’re off the hook, as far as owing me anything goes…”
He finished his coffee in a final swig and stood from the table.
“I’ll be in the truck. Gotta leave soon.”
Kitty stared into her coffee as he strode out of the room. She breathed a heavy sigh as she heard the bell ring, and the door crash. She had *leapt* from drowsy disorientation to gratitude, gratitude to inquisition, inquisition to indignation, indignation to boiling anger, and finally from boiling anger to quiet humiliation… and it wasn’t even six in the morning, yet…
Exhausted, yet again, she stood, leaving her cooling coffee and once-bitten biscuit in their places on the table.
The bell chimed again.
The door slammed again.
Kitty trudged her way across the lot towards Steven’s truck, wordlessly climbing up into the passenger’s seat, not knowing whether to be insulted by or relieved with the exchange over the breakfast table…
She pulled the passenger door shut. Her indecision on how to feel about Steven didn’t make any difference in how appealing Bakersfield was… and she wanted to be out of the cold; away from that motel…
Gray desert bled into orange and gold as the truck raced down the endless highway and the sun rose higher and higher in the sky. Kitty stared, almost forlornly, out the passenger window, still turning a bit of a cold shoulder to the trucker on her left.
Eventually, as the hours crept on, she managed to nod off, again, her throbbing head coming to a rest against the cool glass on the relatively smooth ride, so high above the blacktop.
Steven glanced over to her, from time to time, as he drove. The colorful sky at daybreak slowly became uniform – a harsh, stark blue bereft of any punctuation by clouds, except at the horizon where some still clustered; rumbling, darkening, growing…
He was concerned for his blonde hitchhiker, having come to like her in the short time he’d known her… He liked her for more than just the big tits and the humming blowjob… She was a wanderer, like him. She was sharp, and talkative. She was passionate, and unfiltered.
He had worried he’d offended her by rejecting her offer… He knew he’d offended her by telling her why…
He’d enjoyed it when she took of her shirt for him. He’d enjoyed it when she had sucked him off. He’d enjoyed it when she’d stripped for him, and teased him. He’d enjoyed it when he made her fall over, cumming. He’d enjoyed sleeping next to her, feeling her warm, soft, naked body against his as they slept…
He would’ve enjoyed going further with her; doing exactly what she’d told him he could…
He would’ve enjoyed fucking her…
However he wanted…
*For as long as he wanted…*
But, that he would’ve enjoyed it – and that she had been willing to let him – didn’t make it right… Especially considering he wasn’t likely to see her ever again after dropping her off in Bakersfield…
Still, he looked to her from time to time as he drove on towards that city, hoping that she might say something to him, or that her body language might change… Hoping she might forgive him.
Regardless of whether or not she did, he’d promised to get her to Bakersfield.
He’d get her to Bakersfield.
By a half past two, that afternoon, Steven’s truck was purring up towards its destination; the loading dock of a small warehouse. As he approached, he sounded the horn, waking his sleeping passenger.
Kitty sat straight, jerking upright in her seat.
“Wha-? Where are we?”
“Bakersfield. We’re a little bit early; it’s a few minutes after two thirty.”
“How long was I asleep?”
“First I noticed, you were out cold at around eleven, this morning. Not used to light sleep; long, early days?”
“I am, it’s just… Thought I had a break from them, back at the motel…”
“Yeah… Speaking of which… You okay?”
“Yeah…”
“You sure? You seemed pretty upset, at the table… Then on the ride, here…
“You could’ve just opened with ‘hey, sorry, I don’t have a condom’, or some shit like that…”
“That was only part of the reason, *Kitty*…”
“Yeah…”
The metal garage-type door at the top of the loading dock began to clatter open as Steven idled. A trio of men – one, evidently in charge, carrying a clipboard – exited through it as soon as it had cleared the height of their heads. They waved to Steven and he, waving back through the windshield, began to turn around.
“Where are you going?” Kitty asked.
“Nowhere.” Steven answered. “Trailer opens from the back; I gotta turn the rig around.”
“Oh… They’re not mad at you for being early?”
“They might be. But, they’d be madder if I was late, so I’m okay with it.”
Steven looked at her.
“We’re in a pretty dense neighborhood of industrial warehouses,” He noted. “Mind spending a little more time with me? I can take you to a more *accessible* part of the city once all this shit’s been unloaded…”
“Okay…”
“I am sorry about this morning.”
“I’m still… It was a stupid idea, and you were right, but…”
“You had… *have* every right to be angry.” Steven interjected. “But, I like you, Katherine. You’re good people, and I didn’t want you thinking that you had to…”
“*Pimp* myself out by the mile?”
“I was gonna put it more delicately, but yeah. You’re worth more than that…”
“What you said in there, at the table, Steven…” Kitty opened up, candidly. “The way you talked about… about what we did… Calling it *transactional*… That made me feel like a *whore*… You weren’t concerned about being delicate, then…”
“I’m sorry…”
“Steven… You… You could’ve fucked me in that hotel room… On that bed… Had your fun, blown your load inside me, dropped me off, here in Bakersfield, and left me to handle the consequences on my own… You didn’t…”
She turned to him, her expression difficult to decipher
“As insulting as I thought our talk was, this morning… As fucking pissed off as it made me… As pissed as I still am… As much as it made me *feel* like a *whore*… It made me realize you weren’t gonna treat me like I really *was* one, when push came to shove… You’re a good guy, Steven…”
Before he could respond, there was a tap on the glass, and Steven turned his attention to the clipboard-bearing man. Rolling down the driver’s side window, he spoke to the man, words muffled out by the rumble of the engine. Pulling away from the conversation, Steven cussed and sharply turned the key, shutting down his truck.
“What’s wrong?”
“Those three idiots were the only ones scheduled to unload my trailer; I gotta go help.”
Shoving his door open, Steven shimmied his way into the dock, his heavy, black steel-toed boots clomping against the concrete, audibly.
“Guess those actually will come in handy,” Kitty smiled. “Sorry I joked about ‘em, last night.”
Steven smiled back at her.
“Nah… You might be onto something… Might look into getting some comfier shoes while I’m here in town… I’ll be back, soon.”
He turned and walked out of view.
When she began hearing the loud, heavy noises behind her, Kitty opened her door and jumped out of the truck. Reaching underneath the passenger seat, she retrieved the small purse she had stashed there when Steven had first picked her up.
Closing the door, almost certain none of the men loading heavy crates and pallets off the back of the truck could hear it, Kitty made her way down a small staircase to the side of the dock and began to walk towards the road…
Kitty walked for a long while before she made it to the “more accessible” part of town Steven had mentioned… or at least the outskirts of it. Setting eyes on a drugstore, she picked up pace towards it, her sandals flip-flopping with every step.
“Welcome in!” A cashier greeted.
Kitty smiled at her in response.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a phone I could use, would you? I wanna call a cab…”
“Sure thing,” The cashier responded, brightly. “Payphone, very back of the store.”
Kitty thanked the cashier and made her way further into the small establishment.
Digging some change out of her purse and depositing it through the slit in the heavy, wall-mounted box, Kitty took the receiver off the hook and flipped through a book of phone numbers, looking for a taxi service.
Finally finding one, choosing it arbitrarily from the list, she dialed in the number and listened for the tone. Twirling the spiraling cable around a finger on her free hand, impatiently, she turned and leaned back against the wall.
Something on a shelf, nearby, caught her eye.
Kitty had a thought, and debated it, silently, in her head.
The phone against her ear crackled as someone picked up the other end of the line, giving her a cheery, professional greeting.
“Hello?” The answerer asked when Kitty didn’t reply. “Hello?”
Kitty hung up and made for the thing that had caught her interest. She had a new plan.
Steven frowned as he walked back to the cab of his truck, its trailer finally empty, cargo all safely stowed away in the warehouse. The effort of moving the heavy merchandise had left him sweaty, breathing hard. The extra paperwork the clipboard-bearing shift manager had made him fill out had left him with a headache. He’d been hoping he’d get to see Kitty, just one last time, at the end of all of it.
Still, he could imagine her impatience to be back on the road again, and couldn’t blame her for leaving. He was just upset he hadn’t been able to wish her well before she had.
Hauling himself back into the driver’s seat, Steven started the truck, shifted into gear, and pulled out of the loading bay. It was almost four in the afternoon, now, and, though he wasn’t on a tight schedule to pick up his next run, he wanted to be out of Bakersfield; a search for more comfortable footwear could wait…
He’d almost made it back out to the highway before something caught his eye, and he decided to turn left instead of right.
The truck hissed to a halt, and a pair of flip-flopping sandals raced across the road to reach it. A petite, curvy blonde in a blue tank top made her way around the front of the rig and to the side, her thumb raised up the entire way. She pulled herself, with a little difficulty, into the passenger seat, and slammed the door behind her.
“You got room for a passenger, *trucker*?”
“Uhhh… Yeah…”
“Good. Where’re we headed?”
“We?”
“*We*.”
“You walked off… Figured Bakersfield was where you wanted to part ways…”
“It *was*… and we did… Then I changed my mind, and now I need a ride somewhere else, so I flagged down the first trucker I saw…”
“Really?”
“Nah, I was on my way back to that warehouse… Was hoping I’d catch you before you left…”
“Why?”
“‘Cause I wanted to hitch a ride with you.”
“Thought you’d still be kinda pissed about this morning…”
“I am.”
“So why do you want to ride with me?”
“I’m not *that* pissed at you… anymore…”
“You’d be even less pissed at someone else, so why -“
“I know you, *Stevie*… I mean, I’ve known you for, like, a day, but that’s better than nothing…”
There was a long pause as the two looked at each other, studying each other’s expressions. Kitty turned and began to rummage through a large plastic bag she had brought into the cab with her.
“What’s that?” Steven asked.
“I still owe you for the room.” She responded. “And since you didn’t like what I was offering, last time…”
She produced a cardboard box from the bag and handed it to Steven before he could protest.
“I got you these…”
Steven gingerly opened the box, revealing a piece of thin tissue paper. Peeling it aside, a pair of large, deep-blue sneakers came into view.
“Wow!” He marveled.
“They looked like they were your size. Decided to save you a trip to the store.”
“Thank you… You didn’t have to get me these…”
“You didn’t have to give me a place to sleep, last night, but you gave me one, anyway. That means I owe you… *Owed* you…”
“I couldn’t have just let you freeze out in the truck… Or bake, then freeze off the side of the road…”
“I know. But I still want you to have these.”
“Thank you… I appreciate it…”
“You better.” She cracked a smile. “Ate up a good chunk of what little cash I had on me.”
“I’ll have to pay you back, somehow.” He smirked, teasingly.
“Where are you headed, now?” She ignored the jab.
“San-Diego. Pick up my next run, there, late tomorrow afternoon… But I figured I’d get there early; around eight, tonight, if I left here, now…”
“Where’s that run take you?”
“Out of state, this time, actually.”
“Thought you stayed in California…”
“Most of the time I do. But not always. This time, bosses have me running all the way up to Colorado Springs.”
“Never been there…” Kitty admitted. “San-Diego, once or twice, but not Colorado Springs. Mind if I ride with you, all the way?”
“If you’re okay riding all that way, with me.”
“I think so. But I’ll let you know if I want out, anywhere along the way, like you offered…”
“Alright, then, let’s get going…”
“Just a second. I have something else for you.”
“Hmmm?”
Kitty set to rummaging through her bag again, this time pulling out a much smaller box. Steven strained to identify it as she held it, but Kitty quickly lobbed it at him.
The box bounced off Steven’s chest after he made a fumbling attempt to catch the unexpected projectile, then came to a rest on the seat next to his leg.
Taking it in hand and examining it more closely, Steven froze, staring at its markings… Then he turned the wide-eyed look on Kitty.
“Those are for the talk, this morning.” She said, flatly. “You were concerned about risks… Those get rid of risk…”
“*Kitty*…”
“I’m not offering to have sex with you to pay for the ride, *Stevie*.” She preempted his protest. “I’m giving you *those* so you actually have one on you next time you want to fuck a girl…”
Steven stared at her for a while longer before he finally nodded his Thanks. Closing the shoebox, he twisted, carefully wedging it in the small storage space between the back of the seats and the rear wall of the truck’s cab…
The box of condoms, he gently stuffed in his pocket…
Silently, he put his hand on the gearshift and put the truck into drive.
“Hey, *Stevie*?” Kitty approached as they began to pull off the side of the road.
“Yeah?”
“Just don’t save those all for the next girl… Okay?”
Steven looked at her.
“I thought you didn’t want to…”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You -“
“I told you I wasn’t going to have sex with you *to pay for the ride*… Even before, I never *really* was…”
“But… Yesterday, in the truck, you said -“
“You remember how I told you the last guy’s car had air conditioning?… And how I decided to show my tits off for him while I cooled off?”
“Yeah…”
“I hadn’t even talked to him – or his wife – about paying for the ride… I took off my shirt because he was cute and *I wanted to*…”
“Then why’d you bring up the subject with me?”
“I accidentally spilled the beans about being short on cash… and I was worried you’d drop me off, again, when you realized I was broke… Remember I asked you if it was a problem?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t.”
“But I didn’t know that, at first…”
“Ah.”
“When you didn’t kick me out… I was so relieved… And you were really handsome, so… So the whole ‘showing you my gratitude’ thing was kinda just a cute excuse to… you know… But then you didn’t pick up on that…”
“Oh…”
“That’s why the conversation, this morning, pissed me off so much… That’s why I *really* felt like a *whore*… Because you basically told me I was one… I know you didn’t mean to, but that’s what it sounded like to me…”
They were silent, again, for a long while.
Steven finally piped up.
“You sure you want to have sex with a guy who put you through all this?”
“Definitely.”
“Why?”
“Because the guys who didn’t put me through all this wound up being assholes… That ex I told you about? The one who *taught* me to hum for him? He was only with me because I looked like his ex and he wanted to have his cock sucked…”
Kitty leaned back in her seat as she continued.
“The guy before him used the ‘no condom’ excuse, once, to fuck me in the ass… You could’ve pulled that off…”
“Didn’t occur to me.”
“That’s my point… You weren’t thinking with your dick like they were with theirs. They were treating me like a slut to have their fun with and forget about… You were looking out for me.”
Kitty’s tone and expression became lighter, warmer, as she spoke.
“You didn’t know me… You didn’t have to rescue me from the side of the road, but you did…”
“Wouldn’t have been right, leaving anyone out in the middle of nowhere, like that…”
“You could’ve taken me for every penny I had… You didn’t…”
“Instead, I took a peek under your shirt and unzipped my pants.”
“I *gave* you that peek, and *I* unzipped your pants, smarty… You even said that you ‘weren’t gonna ask me to do anything, but if *I really wanted to*’…”
“All right, all right, you got me…”
“I can talk to you… And you understand… And you listen… And you talk to me like I’m a person…”
“You are a person… And you’re a hippie hitchhiker and I’m a truck driver. Only real difference, there, is I get paid to ride the highway, and don’t smoke as much pot…”
Kitty laughed at that.
“You’re cute.”
“So are you.”
“You knew me for less than a day and wound up looking out for me more – and better – than people I knew for years did…”
“You’re good people, *Kitty*…”
“So are you, *Stevie*… Even if you don’t think with your dick enough for your own good…”
She grinned at him.
“You can make up for that once we get to San-Diego, though…”
***
*Questions, comments, constructive feedback appreciated. Hope you all enjoyed the read!*
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/iqtnqp/the_hitchhikers_gratitude_part_3_mf_plot