Brad's Road Trip

Note: This is the eighth chapter in what will probably be a fairly long series. If you haven't read Chapters 1-7, this section won't make any sense. I mean, the sex scenes will mostly stand alone, but there's a pretty significant back-story. Anyway, thanks for reading! Feedback is appreciated! Special thanks to AnInsatiableReader for helping me clean it up.

Day 7

Wednesday, June 17

Charleston, SC to Sumter, SC

Well... this might change things.

The bathroom mirror was covered with thick fog, thanks to my gargantuan 45-minute shower, starring water so hot it could peel the paint off a Porsche. That was just as well, because I had no desire to look at myself at the moment.

How the fuck could I have let this happen?

More importantly, how the hell was I going to tell Kelly?

More than that, how was I going to cope if she got disgusted and never wanted to talk to me again?

Of all the uncomfortable things that had happened this evening, that was the least comforting thought of all.

It was well after 3 a.m., and I couldn't help but chuckle at the difference a day makes. Twenty-four hours ago, I'd just finished breaking bratty little Beth of her massive attitude problem and was sleeping peacefully 50 feet from the Atlantic Ocean.

Now, about the only good thing I had was a belly full of pancakes and eggs from the local IHOP. The bad things? By my estimation, there were three.

1. A seven-hour drive that needed to start no later than 6 a.m.

2. The hangover had decided not to wait until after I woke up this time, so the only thing stronger than my desire to stab my temples with a pitchfork was my desire to vomit all over this Days Inn. The shower had helped some, but not nearly enough.

How the hell did this happen? And why did I let it keep going?

Those were the questions in my head as I wandered out of the bathroom, in the general vicinity of the king-size bed parked in the middle of the room. I'd asked myself those very things so many times the past three hours that the questions might as well have filed citizenship papers in my cerebral cortex.

I found a clean pair of boxers from my duffel bag and collapsed onto the bed. As my head hit the pillow, my left knee hit something else. I moved my hand down to find and remove the interfering object, but it was my cell phone. Which brought back...

3. A ridiculously tough phone call I had to make.

Kelly.

It was after 3 a.m. here, but only a little after 1 a.m. her time. She'd probably be driving home right now, no doubt waiting for that familiar ringtone to go off. She'd crack a huge smile, pick up the phone and drop some kind of line that, despite my current state, would make both heads deliriously happy.

Then, I'd tell her the truth and listen while she turned those curse words against me and hung up without so much as saying goodbye.

Maybe I wouldn't call tonight, I thought. It wasn't appealing, the idea of leaving Kelly hanging when I'd promised I would call. But my head was pounding, my stomach was pulling a gymnastics routine that would make an 85-pound Chinese teenager proud, and my brain was wrapped in a sheet of cellophane.

Yes, I thought. The smart thing would be to wait until I could think clearly. Definitely. Easiest no-brainer in the history of mankind.

So of course, my fingers punched her speed dial, and my ears waited patiently for her voice.

"Great timing," she said. "I just finished a little mini-fantasy about you bending me over the chair in my office and pounding me while the rest of the crew cleaned and closed up."

See?

"Hold that thought," I said. "And all the details that go with that thought, too, because I definitely need to hear this in its entirety at some point."

"At some point," she agreed. "But reality is better than fantasy, and I'm guessing you have some reality to tell me?"

"I do, but..." I started. It wasn't like me to mince words, and even though she'd only known me for a week, she knew that.

"Brad? Everything ok?"

"Yeah, it's just..." I trailed off again.

"What did you do?"

I've never been one to lie or even wait to tell the truth when it's going to be a sticky situation. So, I came out with it.

**********************************

12 hours earlier...

The Shell station looked like it had been built before people actually needed to buy gas.

The store itself was a cross between a condemned barn and the type of trailer you see a lot of on the Weather Channel during tornado season. The cheap aluminum overhang was one nasty gust of wind from collapsing on anyone stupid enough to park under it, the pumps themselves were probably the last gas pumps in America without a credit card reader, and the sign with the prices was missing about half its numbers. The parking lot butted up against thick woods that were undoubtedly hiding bodies.

So why had I been parked at this God-forsaken gas station a few miles south of Santee, South Carolina, for the past 30 minutes, with my doors locked and the engine running?

Well, Robin Williams put it best: God gave men a brain and a penis, but only enough blood to run one at a time.

And with what Kelly's voice was doing to me on the other end of the phone, my penis currently had the floor. That would have been blatantly obvious to anyone who peered through my windows, and I hadn't even touched my dick since I'd left Charleston. Breathing took a concentrated effort, so driving was completely out of the question.

"Jesus, Brad," she panted, raising my body temperature by another degree or two. "You've turned me into a bubbly pool of goo."

"You?" I asked, my breathing every bit as heavy as hers. "You obviously have no idea what you do to me, Kelly. None."

She giggled softly, clearly coming down off her orgasmic blissful high as slowly as possible. "Seriously, baby. I'm gonna have to change my sheets."

"Mmmm," I hummed, audibly smacking my lips together. "Tasty."

"God, I wish," she said. So did I.

Instead of the normal game we usually played, where I teased and tortured Kelly until I told her to cum for me, I'd simply told her the story of what happened the night before. Before I began, I told her I was only going to stop when she came. I wanted her to play with herself continuously, and make herself cum as many times as possible. The story started when I got to the bar, and I didn't stop until Beth was passed out on the desk.

My unofficial scoreboard had her at six, and with each orgasm, my jeans and my cock were ratcheting up preparations for war.

"Brad?" she asked, turning my four-letter name into a five-syllable word. The way she said it, it almost needed an 'R' rating.

"Yeah, baby?"

"My clit is still throbbing."

I won't lie -- I actually shuddered, and I groaned into the phone. If my cock hadn't been so constricted, I'm pretty sure I'd have cum right there in my pants.

"So I guess you liked that, huh?" I asked. I know -- dumb question.

"Oh, fuck, yeah I did," she said. "I can barely move right now."

"What was your favorite part?" I asked.

"Oooh," she moaned. "When you threw me on the bed, and forced your cock down my throat."

Jesus, I thought silently. Her saying that, and replacing Beth with herself in the story, was unbelievably hot.

"Or..." she continued, "maybe it was when you forced me to shout to the people on the beach before you'd let me cum."

I was about to make a comment, but she kept going.

"Oh, no," she said. "It was definitely right at the end, when you came all over my tits, and my face, and in my mouth."

"You know if I wasn't on the set of Deliverance right now, I'd be shooting cum all over my car, right?"

That made her moan, too. "I'm sorry, baby," she said, making sure I knew she was anything but. "Am I making things uncomfortable for you?"

"Incredibly."

"It serves you right," she said.

"For what?"

"For telling me the hottest thing you've ever told me, and not actually being here in person to follow through."

I couldn't argue with that.

"Oh," she said. "You mentioned something about cops in your text this morning."

I laughed. "Yeah."

"You didn't get arrested, did you?"

"No," I answered. "Let's just say, Beth will never be accused of being a quiet girl."

"Disturbing the peace?"

"Yep," I answered. "Two different complaints. One from the hotel, and one from outside on the beach."

"Nice!" she exclaimed. "They give you a ticket?"

"Surprisingly, no," I said. "I think the guy was impressed about me making her get permission. He said he'd never heard anything like that before."

"Ooh, look," she said. "Your creativity is good for something besides getting me off 30 times a day. It got you out of a ticket."

I chuckled. She wasn't ready to change the subject yet.

"So, besides talking to the cops," she said, "what was your favorite part?"

"Geez," I said, ignoring the thing about the cops. "I don't know. I guess, the overall feeling of just being so totally in control. Taking what I wanted. She'd been a huge bitch all night, and honestly, it just felt good to knock her down a couple pegs."

"I bet it did," she said. "I'll have to remember to do something like that in the future, if you'll promise to do the exact same thing to me." She giggled again. "But really, what was your favorite specific thing about it?"

"Honestly?" I asked.

"Of course, Brad," she said.

"Telling you all about it right now."

She was quiet for a few moments, but her heavy breathing into the phone kept my cock at attention. "You really mean that?"

"You know I do, babe," I said. "I wouldn't lie about something like that."

"I wish you could see how big my smile is right now," she said quietly.

"I wish you knew how happy that makes me," I answered. I know, I know; uber-mushy cheesiness. But right in that moment, just knowing how happy she was, just about made me want to shout at the top of my lungs.

Any temptation to do that was interrupted by a click. We both stayed quiet, willing whoever it was to hang up, but they didn't, and a second later, it clicked again.

"Shit," Kelly said. "It's work calling me. Let me see what they want."

"OK," I replied. "Go ahead and clean yourself up afterward. Grab a shower if you need to, or whatever."

"What?" she asked. "You don't like the idea of me all naked and sloppy, my pussy dripping for you?"

I groaned again. "You're evil, Kelly. Seriously, it'll give me a few moments to calm down and get back on the road. The longer you stay naked, the later I get to Sumter."

She laughed. "You're a little distracted, huh?"

"More than a little."

She agreed to call me later and hung up. I got out of the car, and despite the state of the station, I went inside. I needed about 10 minutes to pick a soda, and it had nothing to do with being indecisive. When I finally bought my Dr. Pepper and Doritos, my brain had reclaimed at least some of its rightful blood, and I got back on the road.

Tim, J.T. and Billy had woken me up at 9:30, pounding on my door and reciting the entire room service part of the Tommy Boy movie. When I rolled out of bed to get the door, I realized Beth was gone. It wasn't until after I got back from our five-mile beach run that I saw her note, sitting atop the plastic-wrapped cups in the bathroom.

"Brad," she wrote, using the hotel stationary. "I'm very sorry about last night. Please apologize to your friends for my behavior. I know you won't believe me, but I wasn't myself at the bar. I'm in a bad place right now, but that's no excuse."

"As for you and me," the note continued into a second paragraph, "truly, that was the best sex I've ever had. I'm still buzzing from it six hours later. You gave me exactly what I needed. I know it sounds strange and weird, but I needed to feel forced into it, at least at first. Without knowing it, you helped me get my head screwed on straight again. You'll never know how much that meant to me. Until we meet again, Beth."

I thought back to the conversation Christine and I had, after she'd ditched Beth, and I smiled. I understood it better than she knew. I also remembered what Sonya said to me before I dropped her off in Jackson on Sunday. Apparently, sex with me had a healing element to it. I couldn't help but chuckle.

There was no phone number or e-mail address on the note, and a quick survey of the hotel room revealed that she'd left nothing behind by accident. Without talking to Travis, I had no way to contact Beth. That was probably for the best, I thought.

After I showered and checked out, I met J.T., Tim and Billy for breakfast at a local island spot. Travis had gone back to Christine's place shortly after we all left the Windjammer, and Julia and Sheila had gone to visit some of Julia's family in downtown Charleston.

J.T. and I finally got to talk business over our French toast and eggs. His family was in the aviation business, and flying had been my hobby since my early teens. I had designs on building a small private aviation company in the near future, so I thoroughly picked his brain.

Shortly thereafter, I left for Sumter, South Carolina, about two and a half hours northwest of Charleston. Around 1 p.m., Kelly called me back, and it wasn't long after that that I had to pull over or risk totaling my car.

I had just crossed over Lake Marion on I-95 when the phone rang. That was a quick shower, I thought to myself, and braced myself to hear Kelly's sultry voice on the other end of the line.

"Hey, baby," I said without looking at the screen first.

"Aw, hell, nah," a thick, country accented voice said. "Tell me the military didn't turn you gay, Bradley."

I laughed into the phone. "Hey, Adam," I said to my cousin. "I just thought you were someone else."

"I fuckin' hope so," Adam said. "Where you at, man?"

"Bout an hour or so out," I answered. "Coming up on Summerton in about 10 minutes."

"Excellent," he said. "We got a couple stops to make first, but then we're getting' our drink on."

My mom was born and raised in central South Carolina, and three of her siblings still lived out here, with all their kids. I was coming to town to see the family, most notably Adam, my second cousin. He was a few years older than me, but we'd always been good friends growing up.

"Already?"

"What you mean, already?" he fired back. "You ain't gettin' here 'till damn near 3. We won't get to the bar till 4:30 or 5. How late do you pussies usually start drinkin' in the Marines?"

I just rolled my eyes and chuckled. "Whatever you say, man."

"We're already down to just 9 or 10 hours of drinkin,'" he drawled. "Just call me when you pull into town."

"All right, Adam. Talk to you in a bit."

********************

Cold beer and good company usually meant no pain. Tonight... not so much.

I was sitting at a table in a no-name pool hall in Sumter, South Carolina, watching a few hapless people struggle to put round balls into corner pockets. Instead of being my usual boisterous, flirtatious self, I was peeling labels off Sam Adams bottles. There were eight in the pile so far, and we had only been here for an hour and a half.

Our first stop had been my hotel, but we only stayed there long enough for me to get checked in and throw my bags in my room. Next up was the graveyard, to visit my grandparents. My grandfather had been dead for 12 years, but my grandma had just died a few years earlier. This was the first time I'd been back since her passing.

Adam waited by the car --- "headstones creep me the fuck out" --- while I went up to the dual gravesite. I hadn't expected this visit to be a bowl of cherries by any means, but I actually left feeling somewhat optimistic and at peace. I hoped my grandparents had better things to do in heaven than sit and watch their graves, but it helped to think they could at least hear my silent thoughts.

The optimism vanished at dinner, at some buffet place in downtown Sumter. I was happy to see most of my family, but I had some bad history with two of my aunts, Edna and Alice. They didn't even wait for the waitress to get our drink orders before they started laying into me. By the time I stormed off to the buffet table, they'd accused me of corrupting a few of their grandkids, ruining their family and --- oh, yeah --- indirectly killing my grandmother.

Of course, none of that had actually happened. That sect of the family just had a problem with anyone who lived life their own way and stood up for themselves and the things they cared about, and that was pretty much me in a nutshell. Adam, his grandmother, Stella, and his mom, Sherry, repeatedly told me to simply ignore the other two, even right during dinner where they could hear, and that would have made a lot of sense. Instead, I said maybe two words during dinner, silently debating the merits of slashing two sets of tires in the parking lot versus spending the night in a backwater South Carolina jail.

Half a dozen beers and a couple hours had done nothing to lessen my seething anger. Even talking to Kelly hadn't improved my mood. I told her all about the late lunch with my family and the events that led up to it, as my personal anecdote for the day. In my mind, I figured it might show her that I'm willing to stick up for what I believe in, even if I squash a few feelings along the way. But after the call ended, I wondered if it just made me out to be a pig-headed jerk that likes to fuck up families.

She'd wanted to cheer me up the way only she could, but she had to go back to work for the second half of her split shift. So, I'd taken a rain check and trudged back into the bar.

"Still pissed off?" Adam said as he rounded the corner with a fresh round. I just looked at him -- that was all he needed to know.

"Man, I done told you I'm sorry 'bout that," he drawled. He hadn't had as many beers as I had, but he was in the neighborhood. "Mom said Aunt Edna had promised to be quiet about that shit."

"I shouldn't have even come up here," I said. "You, your mom and your grandma could have come down to Charleston yesterday and hung out with me. All the good parts of Sumter; none of the bullshit."

"Just a bunch of old, married women, Bradley," he said, using my full first name like he always did. "My mom and grandma, they done got divorced years ago. That's why they're easy to get along with --- ain't gotta put up with any of that marriage shit. Alice has been married to the same dude for 25 years. God help that poor mother fucker."

I chuckled along with him. Adam was very famously anti-marriage, having given up the only serious relationship he'd ever had because she wanted to get married. It hadn't been such an unreasonable request after being together for five years, I thought, but it was a deal breaker for him. He blamed everything on marriage --- the sinking economy, troubles in the Middle East, the New York Yankees. If it was bad, you could bet Adam would find a way to tie it back into the bounds of holy matrimony.

"What about Aunt Edna?" I asked. "Her prick of a husband's been gone a while now."

"Yeah, well, you oughta know by now, Bradley," he said, extending his beer bottle to me for a toast. "Sometimes... a woman is just a big 'ol bitch."

I laughed out loud as we clicked bottles. Adam had a way of making me do that, and he always had. We'd grown up as next-door neighbors early in life. He and my sister were the same age, so they'd hung out together a lot, while his sister, Amber, was born three days after me, so we'd paired off as well. But really, all four of us were pretty tight throughout our childhoods.

That all changed when I was eight and my family moved away. Adam and I had stayed in contact throughout the years, but I hadn't seen Amber since we'd moved. I'd talked to her on the phone once or twice, but not since I was 12 or 13. I'd hoped to see her both times I'd come back, but things hadn't worked out. She was backpacking through Europe when my grandma passed away, and didn't find out about the funeral until it was too late to come home. This time around, she was serving an internship in Asia --- Thailand or Taiwan, I couldn't remember which.