Road Trippin'

"Again," she said, "it's okay. I'm a girl, you're a guy. It's only natural."

"Mmmpf," he said.

"Do you need to go into the bathroom real quick and, you know...take care of yourself?" she asked.

"Oh my god," he said. "I seriously don't see how I could do that right now."

"Why not? Won't it help?"

"I'm sure it would, but...with you out here, knowing what I'm doing in there...I just think that's a little much."

"Well, I just did it," she said.

Duncan turned himself over to face her, even though he couldn't actually see her face at all.

"You did!?" he asked. "When!?"

"When I was in the shower, duh," she said.

"Wow..." he responded. "What did ya' think about?"

"I'm not telling you that!" she replied.

"Ugh, fine," he said.

"So if I can go in there and do it," she continued, "why can't you?"

"Nah, that's different," Duncan said.

"How so?"

"When you did it, I had no idea what you were doing in there. But if I go in there and do it, you'll know exactly what I'm doing. See what I mean?"

"Hmm...fair point."

"So, I'm just gonna have to live with being horny for the night, then."

They didn't speak for a few moments. Just when Duncan had figured Zoe had fallen asleep, she spoke again.

"Turn over on your stomach," she said.

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

Duncan turned over, driving his hard cock into the mattress, not knowing at all what Zoe had planned.

She scooted just a little bit closer to his side of the bed, and then, much to his surprise, he felt her fingertips graze his bare back.

At first he flinched, causing her to quickly take her hand away.

"Oh, sorry!" she said, a slight hurt in her voice. "I thought that-"

"Oh, no!" Duncan interrupted. "I only jumped because you startled me. You...you can do that. I mean...I'd like it."

"Okay," she said softly, returning her hand to his back.

She started at the top of his back and used all of her fingers to lightly trace all the way down to the waistband of his shorts. Then, she turned her fingers so that her fingernails were touching his skin, and retraced her path back up his back.

Duncan immediately felt relaxed and soothed, her touch sending a warm tingling sensation coursing all over his body. She continued to trace lightly over every inch of his back for the next several minutes before curiosity got the best of him.

"So, not that I'm complaining," he began, "but why are you doing this for me?"

Zoe didn't respond for a few moments.

"I dunno," she said softly after a while. "I just thought it'd make you feel better and take your mind off your...situation."

"Oh."

"Is it working?"

"Yes."

"Good."

He felt her fingers travel up to the back of his neck and spend some time there, and that quickly became Duncan's new favorite spot. She ran her fingers underneath his hair and started lightly scratching his scalp.

"I know we've talked about this before," Zoe said, "but I've always been jealous of your hair."

Duncan turned his face towards her, staying on his back.

"And as I've said before," Duncan said, "I've always been jealous of your hair. Hell, I've always been jealous of...well, most things when it comes to you."

"Wait, what?" she said, temporarily stopping her petting of him.

"I mean, nothing extreme, and certainly nothing that ever made me feel angry or upset at you. But...yeah, you've always been kind of this model of perfection. Perfect grades, star athlete, and everybody loves you."

"But your grades are good too! I just applied myself a little more."

"I know, and again, I'm not trying to make you feel bad for being good at things. I realize that I chose not try as hard in school as you did, and that I chose to quit baseball my freshman year of high school, and I choose to smart off to Mom and Dad. Looking back on it all now, I guess that I wish I had followed your lead a little more."

Zoe didn't say anything for a moment, then resumed scratching his back.

"Well, I think you are pretty great yourself," she said finally. "Wouldn't change a thing. And for the record, there are some things about you that I've always been jealous of."

"Really? I find that hard to believe."

"It's true. Like, how brave you are and how you have no problems standing up to anyone. Duncan, I ate a vegan diet from the time that I was 13 all the way up to a couple of days ago, and it wasn't because I loved eating like that. I just have this innate desire to please people, particularly our parents. I never once cheated on that diet, and believe me, there were many opportunities to do so."

"Yeah, but that just shows your dedication and self-control!"

"No, it's more about me not wanting to disappoint Mom. I should have stood up for myself like you did and told her that I didn't want to eat like that."

"I never knew you felt that way about it, Zoe."

"Yeah, well...I did."

"It's funny," Duncan started. "Here we are trying to convince the other one that they are better than us. I guess it's pretty cool that we both see the best in each other."

Zoe scooted up right beside Duncan, facing him and laying her head on his pillow. She propped her leg up on his back and wrapped her arm around him.

"I think so too," she said softly, lightly tracing circles around his shoulder. Then, in not time at all, they were both asleep.

***

Duncan woke up and realized three things in succession.

One: it was still night time. He came to this conclusion based on the fact that the room was still dark.

He had always prided himself on his potential to be a detective.

Two: he had to pee. It wasn't an overwhelming need to pee, like it had been the night before, but just enough to where if he ignored it, he'd just keep waking up over and over until he took care of the urge.

The problem was, and this was the third thing that he noticed, he was, just like had been the case the night before, fully erect. And not only was he fully erect, but at some point in the night he and Zoe had shifted their bodies around to where he was spooning her, and his dick was pressed firmly up against her ass.

At first he just laid there and listened, looking for any kind of sign that Zoe might be awake. After a minute or so of listening to her very consistent breathing, he determined that she was asleep. So now it was just a matter of moving carefully enough so that he didn't wake her. Their relationship was changing, that was for sure, but he still didn't think either one of them were ready for his penis to be wedged in between her butt cheeks like it was.

Her round, squishy butt cheeks.

In one swift motion, he rolled away from her and popped up out of bed. He turned back around to face her after he stood up, staying perfectly still and listening for any indication that he woke her up. Satisfied that she was still asleep, he made his way to the bathroom.

"Goddammit," he said to himself with an eye roll as he stood in front of the toilet with an erection. Once again, he closed his eyes and pushed all thoughts of anything sexy, or really anything at all, and focused on picturing his urine sitting right at the edge of a blocked hose, and he just had to unkink it.

The sound of Zoe shrieking in terror from the other room interrupted his thought process. In a flash, he folded his erection back up into his shorts and ran back into the bedroom.

"Zoe!?" he cried out as he ran towards the light switch by the door. "What the hell is it!?"

He turned on the light to find Zoe lying in the bed with everything but her terrified eyes hidden under the covers.

"Where did he go!?" she asked in a panic.

"Who?"

"There was a man!"

Duncan looked around the room for any sign of an intruder. The door was still locked with a bold and a chain lock. He quickly searched every crevice and closet in the room, finding no sign of anyone.

He returned to the bed and sat down gently beside Zoe.

"Tell me what happened," he said softly.

She pulled the covers down so that her whole face was showing. She looked pale and petrified.

"I woke up, felt around in the bed, and noticed that you weren't there. Then I rolled over on my back, and I saw a figure standing at the foot of the bed looking at me. I figured it was you, and just as I was about to ask what you were doing, I heard the sound of you raising the toilet seat in the bathroom. Then, I screamed."

Duncan approached his next question very carefully.

"Do you think it's possible that you were dreaming? Or that maybe the shadows played a trick with your eyes?"

"Nope," she said matter-of-factly. "There was a figure. A head, shoulders, arms, legs...all of it."

Duncan decided not to go against her on this one, figuring no good would come out of telling her that she didn't see what she clearly knew she saw.

"You wanna sleep with the lights on?" he asked soothingly as he rubs the bulge under the blanket that was her arm.

"Nuh-uh," she said. "What time is it?"

Duncan checked the clock on the nightstand by the bed.

"Almost 4:00," he responded.

"Can we just leave please?"

"Absolutely," he said without hesitation.

Zoe stayed right by Duncan's side as they gathered their things. He asked her if she wanted to take a shower, promising that he would stay in the bathroom with her and turn his back so he couldn't see anything. She agreed, feeling like a hot shower might make her feel better. Duncan stood in the doorway and faced the other direction as Zoe got undressed and hopped in the tub, figuring now was definitely not the time to steal glances of her body.

"You mind if I pee real quick?" he asked her after she had fully gotten settled in the shower. There was a thick shower curtain that prevented him from seeing anything at all.

"Go ahead," she said.

He peed, and then returned to his position in the doorway.

"Are you okay, Zoe?"

She didn't say anything for a moment. The smell of strawberries filled the bathroom, and even despite the past twenty minutes or so, it still gave Duncan butterflies in his stomach.

"Yeah, I think I'm feeling better," she said, "now that I know it wasn't a real person or anything."

"Oh, so you think it was a dream or something?" Duncan asked.

"Oh, no, it was definitely a ghost," she said simply.

"Uhhhh...come again?" Duncan said.

"It was a ghost for sure. How else would he have gotten in here?"

The hairs stood up on the back of Duncan's neck as he thought about the possibility of a ghostly man standing at the foot of their bed, watching them as they slept. Then he came to his senses.

"There's no such thing as ghosts, Zoe," he said.

"Well then how come I saw one?" she asked.

"We don't know that-"

"Trust me on this one Duncan, I know what I saw."

He decided not to fight her on it anymore. He could tell that she felt very strongly about the conclusion she had come to, and he didn't feel the need to tell her otherwise.

"Okay, I'm ready to get out now," she said to him. "Is your back turned?"

"Yep," he assured her.

"You're not lying are you? Not trying to take advantage of a wet naked girl in a vulnerable state?"

"Perish the thought," he said dryly.

Zoe got out of the shower, dried herself off, and got dressed. They finished their packing, again with Zoe never leaving Duncan's side, gathered their bags, and walked out of the room into the dark morning.

"I guess I'll go let them know that we're leaving early," Duncan said. "You wanna just meet me in the car?"

Zoe locked her arm around his and held him tightly.

"Nope," she said.

"I'm sure the ghost won't follow you to the car, Zoe. You'll be fine. There's no way this decision could ever come back to haunt you."

A sharp pinch on his bicep caused Duncan to yelp in pain.

"There will be no more ghost jokes, brother," Zoe said dangerously. "Understand?"

"Yes ma'am," Duncan said with a sly grin on his face.

"Now walk me to the front desk, please," she said.

When they entered the office of the receptionist, the same man was sitting there from the night before.

"Leaving so soon?" he asked as he saw them enter.

"Yeah, we're just trying to get an early start," Duncan replied. "We've got a lot of driving ahead of us."

"Alright, I hear ya'," the man said. "You ain't see that haint now, did ya'?"

"Sir?" Zoe asked. "What is a haint?"

"A spirit!" he replied. "A specter! A wraith! An apparition!"

"A ghost!?" Zoe asked.

"Well, that's one word for it, I suppose," the man replied.

Zoe turned to look at her brother with a shit-eating grin on her face.

"Told ya'!" she said in a voice that sounded way to chipper for someone who believed they had just seen a ghost.

"So you seen it then!?" the man asked excitedly.

"Yep!" Zoe responded, "and someone doesn't believe me."

The man glanced up at Duncan and smiled.

"She saw it son, trust me. I've done heard way too many people talk about how they seen it for it to be fake."

They checked out of their room and made their way back to their car.

"I'm sorry if I didn't believe you," Duncan said as he started the car, "and I'm sorry I made fun of you."

Zoe patted his leg and smiled.

"That's okay!" she said sweetly. "If our positions had been reversed, I'm sure I would have had the same reaction that you did."

"So are you feeling better then?" Duncan asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Zoe responded. "I guess you could say that getting confirmation about what I saw really raised my spirits."

"Well I'm glad to hear-" Duncan began before stopping abruptly. He looked sideways at Zoe and saw that she was wearing a very silly grin on her face.

"It raised your spirits, huh?" Duncan asked dryly. "Really?"

Zoe burst out laughing at her own corny joke.

"So you can make ghost jokes, but I can't?" Duncan asked.

"Correct," Zoe said, stopping her laughter immediately.

They got on the road and continued to head east. They were about an hour away from Tennessee.

"Uggggghhhhhh," Duncan sighed loudly.

"You good?" Zoe asked.

"Sleepy," he said.

"Oh, well why didn't you say so? Pull over and let me drive."

"No."

"Why not?!"

"Because it's bad enough that you consistently drive 15 or more miles per hour under the speed limit, but doing that at night would be even more dangerous. Someone could easily be speeding along and then crash into us from behind because of how slow you're driving."

"And how fast they would be driving," Zoe added.

"True, but we can't control what other people do. All we can do is put ourselves in the best situation not to be affected by their decisions."

"And that means you driving while you are about to fall asleep?" Zoe asked.

"Exactly."

"Well, we're going to need to think of something to do to help you stay awake then."

"Just stay up and talk to me," Duncan suggested.

"Eh, I'm not that interesting," Zoe said. "Ooh! I've got an idea! How about I sing to you?"

"No!" Duncan responded immediately.

He looked over at Zoe and, even with how dark it was, could tell she was staring daggers at him.

"Alright, fine," she said testily. "How 'bout a game? Like 'I spy'?"

"I spy?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay," Duncan said, "I'll go first. I spy something black."

Zoe paused for a moment to think.

"Umm...is it the dead of night?"

"You guessed it!"

"Okay fine," Zoe said, "that wasn't the best idea of a game to play when it's dark out."

"It's okay, Zoe, really. I'll be fine."

They got quiet for a little while. Duncan took to slapping himself lightly in his face, hoping that would do the trick. When Zoe didn't speak for a bit, he figured she had dozed off.

Then, all of a sudden, while he stared dazedly ahead at the road, he felt her push a couple of her fingers under his nose.

"Zoe, what the hell are you-HOLY FUCK!"

The most wonderful smell Duncan had ever encountered entered his nostrils. A beautiful earthy, sweet, and slightly sour smell. It was a smell that, although he didn't know why, caused his blood to start coursing furiously throughout his body.

"Zoe," Duncan began slowly as she took her hand away, "what did I just smell?"

"My vagina," she said simply.

"Fuuuuuuuck," he uttered slowly, collapsing forward onto the steering wheel as he drove, breathing more rapidly than before.

"You like it?" she asked.

If she could have seen the enormous bulge in his shorts, she wouldn't have had to ask that, he thought.

"Honestly," he began, "that is the probably the nicest thing I have ever smelled in my entire life."

"Oh, well...thank you!" she said sincerely.

"And, not that I'm complaining," Duncan began, "but...why?"

"Are you still sleepy?"

"Not after that I'm not!" he exclaimed.

"Well then that's why," she said simply. "And you're welcome."

Duncan was indeed very alert after that interaction. They drove along in silence for a while, and even though Duncan wasn't remotely sleepy anymore, he found himself craving more of Zoe's scent. He purposefully took a deep, yawning breath and slowly released it.

"Sleepy again?" he heard her ask.

"Oh, just a little bit," Duncan replied, trying not to be super obvious.

Zoe didn't say anything, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw her slightly recline her seat back. With one eye on the road, he watched in the dark car as she slid her hand up the leg of her shorts. He listened closely and thought he distinctly heard a slight sloshing noise as he watched Zoe move her hand around inside her shorts. Then, after a few seconds, she brought her hand out and, once again, placed two fingers underneath Duncan's nose.

"Dear god," he moaned. "You are, like, the best sister that anyone has ever had, Zoe."

"Ha!," she laughed as she pulled her hand away. "I think someone could argue that this makes me the worst, actually."

"They'd be fools if they did," he said. "Seriously, you should bottle that and sell it."

"That's kinda gross, dude."

"Nuh-uh. I'd pay like twenty bucks for a tiny bottle of that."

"Twenty bucks!?" Zoe said, sounding slightly offended. "That's it?"

"Okay, more like 50,000 then," Duncan corrected.

"That's better," she said.

As he drove, Zoe reached over and prodded his shorts with one finger, lightly poking his stiff erection.

"Figured as much," she said aloud, returning her hand to her lap.

"Well, I had no chance after what you just did to me," Duncan said.

"That's true, I guess you didn't," Zoe agreed. "You should really take care of that, you know. It's gotta be frustrating."

"Like you wouldn't believe."

"How 'bout tonight," she said, "wherever we stop to sleep, I go wait in the car for a while and give you time to do what you need to do."

"At this point," Duncan began, "a 'while' could probably just mean you run out to the car and get your bag, then come immediately back into the room. I'd be done and asleep by the time you did that."

"That bad?"

"Yep," he said.

"Hmm...well this could be an interesting day then."

"What do ya' mean by that?" he asked.

"Oh nothing," she said coyly, not saying anything else on the matter.

In no time at all they were in Tennessee. They faced a beautiful orangey-pink sunrise as they drove. Duncan was still perfectly alert, and gave his permission to Zoe to take a nap while he continued driving, which she took him up on. About an hour and a half later, she woke up.

"Hungry!" she exclaimed.

"Hungry," Duncan agreed.

"Pancakes?" she asked hopefully.

"Pancakes," Duncan agreed.

They found a local breakfast place a few miles down the road. They ordered a stack each of fluffy, hot pancakes with real maple syrup. Duncan ordered a side of sausage links and gave Zoe half, and Zoe ordered a side of bacon strips and did not give Duncan half.

"Can we not spend all day in the car again?" Zoe asked as she dipped a piece of bacon rolled up in a pancake into her syrup.