HITCHHIKERS -- DAY 1
Jill giggled suddenly as we crossed the Willamette river. "You remember crazy sex?"
I glanced at my wife in the passenger seat of our little Mazda. We'd not had a vacation in two years because of work pressures, so the prospect of three days at Cannon Beach was a major excitement. The bottle of wine we'd split at dinner was probably contributing to Jill's giggles, too. Alcohol had always hit my five-foot-nothing wife harder than most.
"Just barely."
"No pun intended?" Jill giggled again. "You remember the weekend we spent naked?"
I'd almost forgotten. It was the summer of our college senior year and we were living in a cheap apartment near Providence Park. We'd crawled out of bed after late morning sex and I'd been about to pull on a pair of shorts when Jill stopped me. "Let's not bother with clothes today, it'll be much more convenient." I had a sudden recollection of having an almost continual hardon as we moved around the apartment in the nude, fixing breakfast and lunch and pretending to study, while Jill periodically dropped to her knees in front of me for enough of a blowjob to get me stiff again.
Jill reached across to touch my crotch. "How many times did you fuck me that weekend?"
We were almost out of the Portland traffic now. It was just as well, having an erection while driving through the city could be seriously unsafe. Especially when I took both hands off the wheel to waggle all my fingers in the air. "And how many times did you come?"
Another giggle. "Even more than you, Nick. I had that great furry vibrator then."
We'd been married for five years and were now having sex just once or twice a week. Getting high-pressure jobs in the tech industry after we graduated had dramatically changed our sex lives. We still liked fucking, but it had become more of a release after a ten- or twelve-hour workday than the wild romping we'd enjoyed before.
I glanced at Jill as we turned onto Highway 26. At twenty-seven, she was a great looker, with dark curls, blue eyes and a wide smile, and a cute ass and nice boobs as well. I wasn't totally unattractive, in shape and close to six feet tall with short brown hair, but definitely not in the same class. "It all seems a long time ago." I heard the sadness in my voice. We'd lost something very fun in our lives.
"So let's try to make up for it a bit this weekend," Jill smirked at me.
"Yeah," I replied. I wasn't sure how well we'd succeed, even with the bottles of wine we'd packed. I hoped the weather would stay dry so we could at least get some time on the beach. The forecast was mixed, but it had been a sunny afternoon and some sunbathing next day looked possible.
We were pulling out of a gas station just before the turnoff to Astoria, with maybe forty-five minutes to go to Cannon Beach, when we spotted the young couple by the side of the highway. They were sitting on a couple of backpacks, with the girl holding up a sheet of cardboard: "CANNON BEACH PLEASE!!!!"
I didn't usually stop and pick up hitchhikers, but Jill put a hand on my arm just as I was about to change out of first gear.
"What?" I asked. "Pick these kids up?"
"I like the 'PLEASE' on their sign. That's kinda sweet."
The car was still coasting as I passed the boy and girl. They looked all right, I thought, a lot cleaner than some other hitchhikers I'd seen.
"Okay." I braked and pulled onto the shoulder. "It'll be our good deed for the day."
Looking in the rearview mirror, I saw the young couple jump up, grab their backpacks and run towards us.
"Can you take us to Cannon Beach? Please, please?" The girl asked breathlessly as she reached us.
Now she was standing next to the car, I could see she was a cute little thing, maybe twenty years or so old, barely as tallâor shortâas Jill, with a mop of red curls and a freckled face with a wide mouth and green eyes. She had a small silver stud through her nose and was wearing torn faded jeans and a dark tee-shirt. Her boyfriend was tall and skinny, with a straggly blond beard and an innocent look, in blue shorts and a ratty-looking tan jacket.
I gave Jill a quick glance. She nodded.
"Sure," I said. "If you don't mind being squeezed in the back seats with your packs."
"Hey, no prob," the boy said. "We've been waiting here for over an hour. A trucker picked us up outside of the city, then was headed to Astoria, so he had to drop us here. It was looking like we'd never get a ride this evening."
I waited until they had fitted themselves and their backpacksâeach with a sleeping bag attachedâinto the car, then pulled back onto the highway.
"We're Jill and Nick," my wife told the young couple.
"Catie and Alex," the girl replied from the backseat. "We're really happy to meet you." She grinned. "Really happy."
"Where are you going in Cannon Beach?" I asked.
"We're gonna camp in the big park," the boy responded. "Right by the beach."
"Tolovana State Park?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Great," Jill said. "We're going to be in a motel close by."
We continued to chat as I drove west. Jill told the young couple a bit about us, where we lived in Portland, our college programs, and our jobs in tech. Catie told us they'd been out of high school a couple of years but had only hooked up six months earlier. They'd each had a year of college and then dropped out. She was waitressing in one of Portland's many brewpubs, and Alex was delivering pizzas. They were sharing an old house in Clackamas with several other young people.
"It's real cheap," Alex offered, "But way crowded."
"Yeah," Catie added. "And thin walls, too. Kinda inhibiting, sometimes, you knowâ" She stopped suddenly. "Ooh!"
I looked in the rearview mirror. Alex seemed not to be too inhibited. He was running a finger back and forth across one of Catie's breasts. I winked at Jill, then had to focus on driving as I passed a big semi truck.
Our chatting stopped as I took the turn onto the coast highway. Catie and Alex's play had halted, but glancing back I noticed the red and green printed words seemingly oozing downwards on her black tee-shirt.
"What's Puke Boyz?" I asked.
Alex answered: "It's a heavy metal band from Chicago or someplace. Catie liked them when they played in Portland."
"They sure were fun," Catie added.