Happy Trails

Fighting tears of frustration, I climbed the bus steps with my oversized backpack and a crumpled hamburger bag. I was embarking on an eight-hour ride from my parents’ Maryland home back to my university in Ohio. The station was closed, I had nearly taken the wrong bus, and I had forgotten to bring my paperback novel. By the time I boarded at the last possible minute, all of the seats were filled with families, old folks and other college students. I squeezed my way to the back of the noisy bus where there was one vacant seat in the next-to-last row.

I flopped into the seat and tried to calm down, mechanically flashing my seat mate a tight smile. As I took deep breaths, I could feel his gaze, and a moment later I really looked at him.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he replied with a sly grin. He was about my age, probably another student. He had a trendy goatee and black earlobe-length hair like a wet seal. His exotic eyes were black and long-lashed and he had a narrow, golden-brown face. He looked like a young pharaoh. He looked like my first boyfriend.

For the first hour we rode sitting upright, not speaking, not touching. I kept giving him sidelong glances through a blonde curtain of hair. I had a navy wool overcoat; he had a black leather jacket. We used our coats as blankets and to define soft, polite barriers. The boy smelled…not good, exactly, but not bad, either. He smelled like leather and laundry and cigarettes, and like a slightly exotic young man who’d been on a bus all day.

After a while, he shifted so that his knee lay touching mine, but I didn’t move away. It felt pleasantly cozy. We both relaxed into drowsy boredom and our bodies seemed to flow gradually together. Our coats began to overlap. By the time I fell asleep, my mind drifting through disjointed sexy images, I could feel the entire length of his body against mine.

Hours later, we both woke with a start when the bus pulled into a station. We blinked at each other like newborns and I sat up, embarrassed. I had been leaning against his shoulder as we slept; had he noticed? Finally, he spoke again: “How far now to Pittsburgh?”

“About an hour, I think. Is that your stop?”

“Yes, I’m going back to school. Where are you going?”

“Cleveland. I’m returning to school, too.”

He smiled and looked out the window. I looked at his cheekbones. A few minutes ticked awkwardly by. I was wearing a soft, grey turtleneck that clung to my breasts, and on a naughty whim, I stretched extravagantly, pushing my breasts up as half a dozen pairs of young male eyes homed in.

Without looking at me, the young man stretched his left arm, the one closest to me. He put his hand on the seat between us, next to my ass. I could feel his fingertips just brushing my denim-clad thigh. When I didn’t move away, his fingers crept under my ass cheek a bit, casually, still as if by accident. I didn’t move or look at him, but my heart began to beat faster. He took his hand away, and I inwardly moaned with frustration. A moment later, he leaned toward me and cupped my breast, still studiously gazing off to one side. I quickly assessed the situation. I was bored and horny and a stranger had his hand on my breast. I could decide to make a big noisy fuss, or I could decide to reciprocate.

He sighed as my hand slid across his thigh. We kissed briefly, tongues fluttering, while he worked his hand under my shirt, the better to maul my breasts. I was really warming up to the kiss now, and I squirmed as I felt my panties begin to grow damp. In a flash, the chalky darkness gave way to the harsh green lights of a tunnel. Startled by the spotlight on our clandestine activities, we pulled away. The green strobe lasted for an eternity of seconds, long enough for me to see some appreciative smirks on the faces around us, then it was dark again.

I arranged my big coat over us. He grabbed my hand and pulled it into his lap, and I stroked his cock through the straining fabric of his khakis. He moaned and unzipped his fly, and my hand began softly milking him. His cock was smaller than my boyfriend’s and thin, with a round head. I stroked him for a few minutes and he began to fumble at the zipper of my jeans, but I stopped him; I knew we didn’t have much time before the Pittsburgh station. I smoothed his slippery fluid around the head of his cock, squeezing gently, and fretted my fingers along the ridge underneath. He pulled roughly at my tit with one hand, and the other hand gripped the armrest for dear life.

My mind buzzed with shame and glee. I was jerking off a stranger on a Greyhound bus -- how delightfully sordid! It amused me to think how we must seem to the people around us, as two distinct and anonymous bodies suddenly entangled in a brief sexual flurry. Now he was panting and pinching my nipple hard, thrusting his pelvis toward my busy palm. Suddenly he stopped thrusting and gave a low growl, and I felt his semen flow over my hand. As he tried to catch his breath, he gently wiped my hand on his shirttails.

The bus pulled into the brightly lit garage as we tidied our disheveled hair and clothing. He leaned forward onto the seat in front, resting his head on his forearms. I looked straight ahead, smirking, while a heard of flushed college boys bolted from the bus. When they had all gone, my seat mate collected his belongings and squeezed past me.

“Goodbye. Thank you,” he whispered as he stooped to kiss my hair.

“Happy trails,” I replied, smiling and shaking his hand goodbye with my sticky one.