The Escapee Hitchhiker

I thought I she was a mirage. Temperatures outside the truck were around forty degrees and there was a cyclone brewing off the Kimberley coast. Here, on the side of the highway, was a woman walking northward. She wore sandals (not the best protection against harsh, sharp spinifex), shorts, a button up men's shirt and no headgear. A small backpack hung from her shoulder.

I have a strict no hitchhiker policy on my rig but I simply could not leave anyone out here in the hot Pilbara sunshine so I gently hit the brakes on my B double and drew up alongside her. Walking around the front of the rig, she nimbly stepped up on the side tanks to ask where I was going.

"Doesn't much matter," I answered quietly. "I can't leave you out here. I'm going straight through to Port Hedland."

"Can you take me with you, please?" she asked in a little girl voice.

"I don't normally take hitchhikers but you don't look like an axe murderer and I can't leave you here anyway, so get around to the other side and climb in."

"Thanks." She smiled, throwing her little backpack into the sleeper box and settling back in her seat.

Wheeling the rig back onto the highway, I waited for her to begin some sort of explanation but she looked straight ahead, leaning against the passenger door, seatbelt neatly separating her breasts.

Finally I broke the silence. "What were you doing out here and how did you get here?"

"Got a lift with a truckie at the Carnarvon fuel stop. He told me later what he expected in exchange for the lift was and when I refused, stopped the truck and told me to get off. He threw my backpack onto the road and I think something inside is broken. Nothing more to tell, really."

"So where are you going?"

"Away from Perth."

She certainly was achieving that goal. We were 1100 kilometres away from the city with another 600 or so to go to reach the iron ore port of Port Hedland, where I was due to drop off my load.

"OK then. I can take you as far as Port Hedland but from there you're on your own. We should get there around midnight."

It took longer than I thought because swirling winds ahead of the cyclone, accompanied by blinding heavy rain, slowed the rig down. By 3am however, I wheeled into the company yard and disconnected the trailers for the local boys to distribute in the morning. Now usually when I arrive at this hour of the night, I park in the back corner of the yard, curl up in the sleeper box and sleep until the guys from the depot wake me up with a coffee next morning. This time however, the yard was under several inches of water, I was soaked to the skin and it was still raining heavily. Sound asleep in my sleeper box was my hitchhiker, with a light blanket covering her slight frame.

A small motel in town was a popular spot for truckies to stay overnight. It was clean and reasonably quiet and boasted one of the best kitchens in the district. I needed dry clothes, a dry bed and some much-needed sleep so I fired up the truck and made the short hop to the motel. My passenger awoke when the big diesel fired up again and I told her where we were headed.

"Can I stay in here?" she asked.

I realized that she was traumatized from her earlier experience and definitely not ready to trust me so I agreed, suggesting that she might like to use the room for a comfort break and a shower before falling asleep again. Rain was pelting down, making visibility difficult. Flashes of lightning lit up the sky and thunderclaps were so loud as to be audible above the engine noise.

After collecting a key from the registration desk, I opened up the room, returning to the truck to let her have first turn at the bathroom. I remained in the truck until she returned, shielding herself from the rain with a tiny plastic raincoat. Her wide smile when she returned reassured me that she appreciated the gesture.

With my kitbag in hand, I dashed into the room, quickly showered, slipped into a dry pair of boxers and fell into bed. I have an uncanny ability to fall asleep in seconds and tonight was no exception.

I won't let thunderclaps interfere with my sleep, but above the noise was an incessant banging. Wearily I struggled back into consciousness and recognized the additional noise as someone banging on my door. Forgetting for a moment that I was only dressed in a pair of boxers, I staggered across to the doorway and wrenched the door open. A shivering, drenched hitchhiker stood in the doorway.

"This lightning is scaring the crap out of me," she blubbered before I had the chance to say anything. "Can I sleep in here please?"

"Ummmm, you do realise that there's only one bed in this room don't you? There's no lounge to relax in either, so either we sleep together in the bed or I go out to the sleeper box in the truck."

"No, no, no!" she cried. "I don't want to be alone in this weather."

"Do you have any dry clothes?"

"Everything in my backpack is soaked in shampoo and perfume. Perfume bottle broke when the bag was thrown on the road and it in turn punctured a plastic shampoo bottle. I need to wash all my stuff tomorrow."

Reaching into my kitbag I pulled out a dry tee shirt, handed it to her and rolled back into bed with my back towards the middle. I was asleep again in moments.

When I woke up the force of the rain had increased, pelting against the windows. The wind screamed outside. Several of the motel's palm trees had already lost leaves. A soft, warm body snuggled into my back, an arm slung loosely over my chest.

She woke as soon as I moved so I turned towards her. She was prettier than I remembered her yesterday. Her innocent face, devoid of makeup, smiled weakly. There was pain behind those big eyes, I thought.

"Well seeing we've slept together, you'd better at least tell me your name." I grinned at her.

"Janie," she smiled. "And thank you for being a real gentleman."

"You're welcome, but we need to do a bit of planning. You have no clothes you can wear, so you can't even make it to the dining room. I need to report to the depot by midday to collect the trailers and start the trip home again and you need to make some decisions about your movements, young lady."

She reluctantly gave me her size to allow me to slip into the town shopping centre, where I bought a pair of shorts, a couple of durable long-sleeved shirts and a pack of panties. She didn't reveal her bra size and I wasn't about to guess. On the drive back to the motel, the radio weather report was worrying. The cyclone was due to cross the coast to the north of us within hours. There had been torrential rain throughout the region ahead of the cyclone and extreme rainfall was expected in its wake.

The short dash from the truck to the motel doorway was enough to get me thoroughly wet again and I literally burst through the door. Janie was grateful for the clothes and retired to the bathroom while I rang the depot. They were not going to deliver the contents of my trailers today because of the weather risk. Furthermore, two rivers south of the town were close to flood levels, leading authorities to advise motorists to delay travel until after the cyclone had passed.

"Great," I thought. "Stuck up here in a cyclone when I should be out having dinner with my wife Marie celebrating Valentine's Day. And what am I supposed to do about Janie?"

When I phoned Marie, she was not surprised at the turn of events, having followed the progress of the cyclone on TV for the past 24 hours. She seemed unusually pissed however, that we would miss our Valentine's Day dinner. That wasn't like her at all, making me wonder what was behind her outburst. I told her about Janie, which didn't do a lot to improve her frame of mind.

What I discovered much later after returning home, was that Marie had been targeted by one of her work colleagues, a teacher at her local school. His strategy was straight from the Sleaze 101 handbook, making complimentary comments about how good she looked, how her dress looks great, fetching a cup of coffee during the lunch break and graduating slowly to going off site after school to share a coffee at a local café. All harmless stuff on the face of it; grooming techniques which usually pay off for the patient practitioners of the craft. This guy was an expert. Also married, with a wife and three kids at home. Nice!

My occupation made her an obvious target. Marie had to deal with loneliness, managing important household decisions without being able to discuss them with me and at times, needing to deal with the level of sexual frustration that comes with being apart from your lover.

To Marie's credit, she never crossed the line, considering her little trysts to a café no more than a get-together with a friend or colleague. There was no inappropriate behavior, but it was during a visit to their favorite café that Marie vented her frustration about the cyclone that had forced me to stay in Port Hedland. As a result, she had to cancel our dinner reservations for Valentine's and she also let slip that I had collected a female hitchhiker along the way.

Back in Port Hedland, I finally managed to get Janie to open up a little. Married only six months earlier, she and her husband had a huge row about finances, both said things they would later regret and she decided to have a break from the pressures of newly wed life in the city and ran away.

With very little cash and no credit card, she caught a bus to Geraldton, about 400 kilometres north of Perth, and decided to hitchhike further, with no real destination in mind. A friendly older couple gave her a ride to Carnarvon, where she met a truck driver who jumped at the opportunity to take her for a ride, only his notion of a ride was considerably different from her own, leading to the roadside where we met.

I asked her whether she had spoken to her husband. Sheepishly, she admitted that she had not, acknowledging that he would probably be worried sick. I agreed with that assessment and offered her the use of my phone to make the call. When the conversation started, I walked out of the room, out to a small overhead shelter that offered a little protection from the heavy rain and waited.

Ten minutes later, Janie stuck her head through the door of the motel room, calling me back inside.

Her excitement was obvious. We were not aware that another pair of eyes were watching us.

Janie's husband, as expected, was terrified that something awful had happened to his wife and reported her absence to police missing persons. They were convinced, however, that she would be holed up with a friend not far from home and so far had not put out a statewide alert. He apologized profusely and begged her to come home immediately. She pointed out the that all flights were grounded because of the cyclone, but he promised to buy her a ticket for her to collect from the Port Hedland traffic counter so she could catch the first available plane home. She was ecstatic. Ahhh, young love!

The weather would not let us leave for at least another 24 hours, so we headed for the dining room. Janie stopped so abruptly that I bumped into her from behind.

"That's him!" she hissed. "That the driver who picked me up in Carnarvon and dumped me on the roadside because I would not let him into my knickers."

I followed her gaze and there was the slimeball of the highways - Jim Radcliffe, a renegade driver who struggled to hold down a job for more than a couple of months and who was accused of several sexual assaults, though none had managed to stick in the courts. He surveyed us with a greasy grin as we made our way to a vacant table so I positioned Janie to have her back towards him. The euphoria of the recent phone call forgotten, we dined in relative silence. Jim sidled up to me when I rose to pay the bill, with Janie still seated at our table.

"See you collected the bit of fluff I left on the highway for you," he grinned. "I guess you scored last night, seeing you're sharing a room. Does your wife know? Maybe we can organize a little threesome tonight so that she never finds out."

"Listen asshole," I spat at him. "We're not all like you. First of all, my wife DOES know that this young lady is sharing my room and unlike you, I have not leaned on her for sex."

"Aw come on! You really don't expect me to believe that do you? Let's both show her a good time tonight, OK?"

He was becoming obnoxious and belligerent and I had to put a stop to this, because Janie and the rest of the diners could hear every word.

"No, you despicable idiot. That's not OK. The lady has a husband. She does not need this sort of disrespect. Now piss off and leave us alone."

That message got through. He slammed his signed dinner voucher onto the counter and stormed outside. I paid our bill and rejoined Janie at the table while we finished our coffee.

"I'm sorry you were subjected to that."

"It's alright Mike. It is not your fault."

We prepared ourselves for the dash through the rain and back to our room, which left me completely blindsided by Jim Radcliffe, who only had to stand by and throw out his foot to send me sprawling into a muddy garden bed. Janie squealed in surprise but I told her to keep running into the room and lock the door. Radcliffe was on me in a flash.

"You might not like it Mikey my boy, but I'm going to have that little bitch tonight, with you or without you - your choice."

Radcliffe was a big bastard. He towered over me by a good three inches and he was in good physical shape. I needed an edge if I was going to get out of this scrape in one piece. What do you do when the odds are against you? You fight dirty. The garden gave me the chance to do just that. Although I was now flat on my back with Radcliffe sitting on my belly, my hands were free so I grasped a fist full of muddy earth and slapped it hard into his eyes. He roared in protest and brought his hands to his face. He was off balance enough to allow me to slip out from under and the attack was over. My first kick broke at least one rib, and the follow up, directly to the groin, doubled him over into a doggy position.

"Are we done here?" I yelled at him. "Or do you want more."

He was still trying to remove the mud from his eyes and was finding it hard to focus.

"We're done for today, but you'd better start looking over your shoulder from now on. I won't forget this."

"I hope you won't forget it too. Remember if you kept your cock in your pants this would never have happened."

Janie did not lock the door as instructed but stood in the doorway watching. She was breathing heavily when she ushered me inside and led me straight to the bathroom.

"Right, get those clothes off and into the shower with you. You're filthy and you stink."

As she turned to give me privacy she said over her shoulder: "And by the way Mike. Thanks."

That night was pure agony for both of us. Janie and I were separated in bed by my boxers, her panties and a borrowed tee shirt. She leaned over me, her breath sweet and kissed me gently on the lips.

"I've never had a man fight for me before," she whispered. "You are a very special man. I owe you so much. You know that If you want me, I won't fight you off. Nobody will ever know."

I groaned. It was the sweetest offer but as I considered it, I realized that Marie would see through me in a split second when I got home and although I was sorely tempted, I could not betray her anyway.

"We would know," I said sadly and turned away.

I twisted to kiss her tenderly, turned back to back and fell asleep.

In the morning, it was my arm that was draped across Janie's body. My hand rested comfortably on her breast and my early morning hard-on was settled hard against her butt cheeks.

"Morning sleepy head," she grinned at me. "I didn't have the heart to move your hand. Besides, it felt rather nice."

I unsuccessfully tried to hide my morning wood and ignoring her girlish giggles, dashed for the bathroom.

TV forecasts told us that the cyclone had crossed the coast and was dropping in intensity, but heavy rain continued, cutting off the main highway at two bridges, where not only was water streaming over the handrails but the approaches had been undermined and washed away. It would be many days before the road re-opened. My depot manager confirmed that the inland road was also cut for a few days so we were effectively stranded. If I wanted a few days at home, air services were back to normal from today - ironically, Valentine's Day.

I parked the truck at the yard and one of the handlers drove Janie and me to the airport. We were seated together for the trip home.

"Looks like I'll be having that Valentine's Day dinner with Marie after all," I smiled.

Her husband was waiting for her in the arrivals hall and the two fell together as lovers do. My kit bag was cabin luggage so I quietly headed for the exit when the husband rushed up behind me and shook me firmly by the hand.

"Thanks," he beamed. "I think I owe you a lot more than I can ever repay."

He seemed like a decent kid and I wished him well. Janie trotted up behind him and leaning into me, planted a scorching kiss on my lips.

"I'll never forget you." she whispered. "Thank you for everything."

I turned away so that they couldn't see me getting teary and bade them farewell, finding a seat by the terminal window as they walked together out of my life. I dialed the number of the swanky restaurant we had booked for our Valentine's Day dinner and asked them if it was possible to reinstate my original booking for this evening at such short notice, pointing out that I had been stranded by the cyclone.

"Why Mr Martin, your wife already re-booked for you two days ago. I have you and your wife due to arrive for our special Valentine's banquet at 7pm sharp."

I thanked the guy sincerely, with a million thoughts running through my muddled brain. Two days ago? I did not even know that I was going to be home two days ago, so why would Marie re-book? Something was not adding up. If she booked two days ago, she must have planned to dine with someone other than her husband. That did not sound like my Marie. She has had ample opportunity to stray but she has always remained loyal and faithful. I trust her implicitly.

If my hunch was right, I had to know. Dismissing my first instinct to phone Marie and let her know I was back, I decided instead that if she booked for Mr and Mrs Martin, then Mr and Mrs Martin would be there to enjoy the occasion. It was late afternoon and time was rapidly running out.

The chinos and open neck shirt I wore on the plane were hardly formal dinner wear but they would have to do. I wandered through the city looking for a florist. The first had only remnants left and with the clock ticking down, I hurried to the next. And the next. Finally I found a florist stand in a small arcade which specialized in native flowers, which in February, are well out of season. I've no idea how they do it, but they are Marie's favorites and I happily paid a king's ransom for a large bunch, hailed a cab and arrived at the restaurant with ten minutes to spare.

As I strolled casually through the entry, brushing aside a row of floating red heart balloons, I ran headlong into a very distressed Marie, tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Mike!" she screamed. "Oh, no, Mike. You shouldn't be here. I am just leaving. This was a terrible mistake. Please take me home so I can explain everything."

I wrapped her up in my arms and let her sob, much to the amusement of the maître d', who must have wondered what on earth was going on. At my nod, he ushered us to our table, where a single red rose stood in a slender crystal vase. I revealed my bunch of flowers from behind my back.

"I think you'll find these more to your liking," I whispered in her ear.

She stood like a mouse surrounded by a legion of hungry cats, desperately looking over my shoulder towards the entrance. She stiffened suddenly, causing me to turn and follow her gaze. A guy in his mid-thirties stood talking to the maître 'd, pointing at Marie. When he realized she was not alone he began to turn away.