The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking

(Tip of the cap to Rogers Waters for the title)

*

It was a dark and stormy night. (Well, actually it was)

Certainly darker, and far more stormy that Regina Wellstone was comfortable driving in. If it had just been rain, the 38 year old CPA would have been able to make it north to her home in Sioux City with both eyes closed. When the soft pitter-pat of sleet began to hit her windshield just as she pulled out onto Highway 29 out of Omaha a little after 10pm however, Regina started to feel queasy. That feeling was only heightened when the tires of her Prius began to shimmy on the increasingly treacherous pavement below.

She knew she should have taken the offer of her client that evening to stay at a hotel back in Omaha since some mixed precipitation was in the forecast, but Regina decided to soldier on. The analytic part of her brain quickly noted the absence of traffic flowing south down 29, so she knew the storm was most likely worse the further north she went. Unfortunately, there were things going on at home that were pulling her up that slick and desolate stretch of rural Iowa highway.

In a sign of the times, Regina had family issues her rearing hadn't prepared her for. Having grown up in a relatively traditional household, with a Father who worked 50 hours+ a week, and a Mother who stayed home to raise the four kids, Regina could have easily latched onto a guy right out of high school, married and started a family of her own. For whatever reason, she wanted to blaze a trail of her own in the world and wound up going to college and getting her accounting degree before meeting the man she would eventually marry in her late 20's.

While it wasn't exactly a fairy tale, Regina's relationship with her Husband, Kenneth, was pretty stable and the couple had two kids, an 8 year old Son who was planned and a 5 year old Daughter that had been a little bit of a shock.

Between Ken's executive job at a finance company and the part time work Regina did balancing the books of a large farm co-op in the area, paying the bills had never been a big problem for the Wellstones. Like many people swimming peacefully along however, the recession in '08 caused things to get far more choppy.

Ken was laid off and really didn't pursue a new job considering the unemployment check was more than he could get working at a new place. Things were OK for about a year, Ken had even taken an active role in being 'Mr. Mom' while Regina took on more hours at her job and even began to do some word of mouth freelancing work during tax season. When Ken didn't show any 'giddy-up' when his benefits ran out however, things around the house slowly began to deteriorate.

For starters, Ken started to drink. It was no secret when the two were dating years ago that Ken's Father was an alcoholic, but Ken had always gone out of his way to say he'd never tread down the same path. Between the hit to his self esteem from losing his job and all the free time on his hands, Ken found himself self medicating in ways he'd swore he never would. It had started out as a couple of innocent beers in the afternoon but eventually Kenneth gravitated towards something more potent until Regina would find him drunk most afternoons when she made it home from work.

The family's finances increasingly strapped, Regina sadly found it necessary to hire a babysitter for her two kids just so they wouldn't have to come home everyday from school to see their Father wallowing around in his self-pity. Thankfully Ken Wellstone wasn't a violent or angry drunk, but his obnoxious and dim-witted behavior wasn't something Regina wanted her children exposed to if she could help it.

One the evenings such as her current work trip to Omaha, Regina would make arrangements to leave the kids with her Sister just so she wouldn't have to rouse them at such a late hour just to drive them home.

Among the problems she faced being away from her kids far more than she wanted, it allowed Ken to play the 'good guy' in all this. Even though the kids were with the babysitter a good bit of the time, he never missed an opportunity, sometimes subtle and sometimes not, to dig at Regina in front of the children for being gone so often.

Wired thankfully to take the high road whenever possible, Regina resisted the urge to remind the kids the reason she was gone so much was because their Father was too lazy to go out and get a job. Still, it was undeniably a hot button issue for Regina, and holding all those emotions in inevitably created a bubbling and toxic witch's brew inside her.

Her part-time job at the co-op certainly wasn't enough to keep the family afloat, so Regina found herself having to branch her accounting skills out until she'd corralled several jobs outside Sioux City. Considering the distance between towns along the western Iowa and eastern Nebraska border, Regina often found herself saddled with a two to three hour drive each way when she was tending to the accounts she couldn't manage over the computer. Thankfully she'd acquired a handful of clients in Omaha so she could commit one full day every so often to drive down and knock them all out at the same time.

The long and lonely, windswept stretches of farmland highway also provided Regina with ample time to process stuff in her head, not that that was always a good thing considering the way her seemingly ideal life had spiraled out of control. There would be no thinking about anything other than the pavement in front of her on this night however, as it quickly disappeared beneath a wintery mix in front of her.

Needless to say, as narrowed as her focus was, Regina barely saw the dark figure trudging up the right shoulder of the highway when she approached at about 45mph. Pulling her car to the left just in time to keep from drenching him in a wave of slush, Regina babied the steering wheel to keep from spinning out as she drifted back into her lane.

"Holy Cow...why would anyone be out walking anywhere on a night like this..much less the interstate," she mumbled to herself, the beating of her heart audible over the raspy hum of the defroster in the dash.

Stealing a quick glimpse or two in the rear view to see the figure behind her gradually disappear into the fog, the gnawing pest of Regina's conscience began nipping at her ears.

"Its so dark out here, some tractor trailer might not have time to move over without hitting him," that nagging voice chimed in.

"Well..anybody crazy enough to be out walking in all this deserves what they get," she gasped defiantly under her breath, trying to wash the image of the hitchhiker out of her already overburdened mind.

"Yeah..you're gonna feel really great when you pick up the paper in a day or two and see some poor, unfortunate guy either froze to death or got flattened down here on Route 29," her conscience continued to grind.

"You'll feel even worse when its you in the paper being found strangled to death by an insane drifter," her common sense rightfully countered.

By now, Regina's knuckles were white as she gripped the wheel, and not just from the stress of driving through such deplorable conditions. Quite a bit more internal dialogue volleyed back and forth inside Regina's head as she sat erect and motionless in the driver's seat.

Another mile marker tripped into the Prius' rear view when suddenly the late model Toyota drifted into the slow down lane for the next exit up ahead.

"What do you think you're doing?" her inner rationale begged, but no sane answer was forthcoming.

"Well..if you're gonna do this..at least call somebody so they know where you are...just don't tell them what you're about to do," Regina Wellstone made that final deal with herself as she took the exit then doubled back the way she came.

Driving south until she came across one of the state vehicle turnarounds on the highway, Regina proceeded northbound again, keeping her eyes peeled for the hitchhiker she'd just seen.

"Couldn't have been more than maybe a dozen or so cars and trucks come by here since I passed him," Regina whispered out loud, her gut filling with a mixture of dread and relief when he was no where to be seen.

Relief, that she didn't have to make the ultimate decision whether or not to give him a ride, and dread, given the fact that she thought with all the stuff she was dealing with in her personal life, that maybe she was now starting to have hallucinations.

Regina had pretty much resigned herself to the idea that one of the other drivers had stopped and given the man a ride when she saw a shadowy figure taking refuge under the shelter of the highway overpass where she'd taken her detour minutes earlier.

___________________________________

It was a pretty dumb decision, even by his standards.

Anton Samuelson was a 20 year old exchange student from Switzerland who'd spent the previous semester at the University of Nebraska. While he hadn't exactly made the Dean's List, Anton had passed all his courses but decided instead of heading home for the holidays, he'd spend his Christmas break hitchhiking across the US the way he'd done several times back in Europe.

A true passion for adventure fueling him, Anton made it as far as Omaha before he realized he'd perhaps bitten off more than he could chew. Having grown up in a chilly climate and spending countless hours with his childhood friends skiing the Swiss Alps, cold weather wasn't something that bothered Anton all that much.

Saturated quickly from the mixed precip, and chilled to the bone from the ceaseless wind whipping across the frozen tundra of America's breadbasket, Anton found himself wandering through the whipping frigid Hell along the Iowa/Nebraska border.

He really only had himself to blame. Several people back at the library he'd spent the day at made mention of a storm rolling in later that night, but his youthful exuberance and eagerness to get on with his trek easily won out. Spending the better part of the afternoon at the Omaha library answering his email, stealing a nap up in the stacks and taking a bath essentially in one of the bathroom sinks, Anton set out a little after 7 that evening. By 11 or so, he was shivering under an interstate overpass, his clothing drenched from the icy castoff of passerby's.

____________________________

"Twenty minutes from now you're gonna be dead," Regina told herself, her right foot pressed on the brake as she guided her Prius into the breakdown lane beneath the overpass.

"You can press it back over on the accelerator and get the hell out of here," her inner voice railed but her body suddenly became as still as her car.

"Your phone's still sitting there..you haven't made that call like you promised," her conscience chided.

"What am I supposed to say to my Husband..'Oh..I'm down here stuck in a ice storm and I think I'm going to pick up this nice guy hitchhiking up the highway?' Regina shook her head and huffed, knowing the concern it would raise with Ken even if the two weren't on the best of terms at the moment.

"You could call your Sister and just tell her you're gonna get a room for the night and wait out the storm," the lucent voice of common sense chimed in, perhaps for the last time of the evening.

A whisper of serene calm trickled briefly through Regina's body, sensing that getting a room was likely her best option. It was a feeling that evaporated in a snap when she saw the dark figure seated outside stand up on the concrete incline of the bridge support and start heading towards her car.

The following thirty seconds seemed to unfurl faster than any half minute Regina could ever remember. The man who had just been sitting on his perch under the bridge had appeared on the passenger side of her car in the blink of an eye.

"Thank God for automatic door locks," she thought in a panic as she jerked her head to the right.

All she could see through the slightly fogged window was the man's soaking wet black sweatshirt, and the grim outline of his white hand reaching for the door handle. Regina's heart trampolined into her throat she she heard his failed initial attempt to open the locked door.

"Now he's starting to bend down," Regina quivered, everything spinning so fast now in her head that she clutched both her mitten clad hands around the steering wheel to keep from coming apart.

In her heart of hearts, she fully expected the face of Satan to peer at her through the passenger side window. And if not Lucifer himself, at least the gnarled and snaggle-toothed face of an old and grizzled man who'd been rode hard and put up wet more times than he could count. The first strains of a scream had even began formulating in her throat before she'd even seen his face in anticipation of the evil surely present.

The scream that was just about to blare from her lips lodged squarely in her throat however when, instead of the horribly jagged and weathered face she was expecting, Regina was met with one that provided nothing but innocence and vigor.

"He's just a kid," she winced, the buzzing hive of her nerves settling somewhat when she realized how young the stranger seemed.

"Ted Bundy seemed sweet and charming too," her conscience jabbed, but it was helpless to stop the maternal urge inside Regina from guiding her hand over to unlock the Prius' door.

"God..Thank You for stopping," the hitchhiker immediately gasped, opening the door in a frantic rush before easing his soaked and shivering frame down into the passenger seat.

"His accent...," Regina thought to herself, her mind still awash in the surreality of what she'd done.

It sounded European to her untrained ear, but she had no clue which part. All Regina could do was sit there and listen to him thank her several more times as he wedged his sleet covered backpack between his boots in the floorboard.

Ramping the car's heater up to full blast when she saw the stranger twist off his gloves and hold his bluish pale fingers in front of the vent, Regina's first reaction from his youthful appearance was that he might be a runaway.

"Oh...Yeesss," he sighed when the warm exhaust began de-thawing his numb digits.

The analytic part of Regina's brain, the one she depended on for her profession knew the risks of picking up someone off the interstate. She was literally putting her life on the line. Seeing someone as strapping, and as visibly healthy as this guy, reduced to such a shivering mass of humanity, the nurturing part of Regina's soul understood how his life would have been on the line if she, or someone else, hadn't taken the chance and picked him up.

"What's your name?" the most obvious of questions slipped from her lips.

"Anton," he replied quite amiably through his chattering teeth.

"Regina...Regina Wellstone," she followed, both appearing to want to politely shake hands but quickly deciding not to from the binding of their heavy coats along with the cramped positioning of their bodies.

"Where are you going?" Regina soon asked cliché question number two.

"Miami," the young man answered with sheepish but sharp comedic timing. "I think I might have taken a wrong turn somewhere."

Immediately sensing the stranger's seeming worldliness in the minute or so he'd sat down beside her, Regina was pretty sure he wasn't a runaway, at least not from anywhere around there.

"Maybe if you could just get me up to the next town....I'll take my chances finding a room," he offered, smelling the obvious and understandable trepidation seeping from the woman's pores.

"...OK," Regina nodded her head in slow motion and agreed, as if in a fog.

"The weather forecast says this stuff is supposed to keep up through the night..I was thinking about pulling over for the night myself," she added, the words sounding dry and flat as the intermittent wipers screeched across the dry windshield from being under the overpass.

_____________________________________

Anton had hitchhiked quite a bit across parts of Europe as a youth. While it probably wasn't the safest mode of travel back home, it definitely had its perils in the US. Having garnered more than his share of stink-eyes when he told some of the people back at college how he planned to spend his holiday break, given his penchant for reckless adventure, Anton decided to try hitchhiking across the US anyway. Now, less than three days into his ill-timed excursion, Anton found himself in the passenger seat of a thankfully warm car, rescued for the frozen plight that most certainly awaited him.

Regina's unease continued to permeate the cab of the car however, and once again she nearly yelped out in fear when she saw Anton reach for one of the zipped compartments of his bulky bag.

"Here's my passport," he offered, handing the stoic and suddenly very silent woman beside him the chilly document.

The three previous people who'd taken the chance to pick him up had all been truckers, and all of them, while exhibiting a fair amount of caution, seemed more than happy to ferry him a little further up the road. The last thing Anton ever expected was for a woman traveling all by herself to stop and give him a ride, even under such extreme circumstances.

Still, as he stole a peek over to his right and caught Regina in a moment of distant contemplation, a vague sense of excitement stung him in a place he was very familiar.

"Switzerland," she said, loud enough for Anton to hear when she scanned the passport, very much appreciating the gesture, and certainly feeling a little more at ease given his openness.

"You do this often..just wonder the highways in the middle of the night?" Regina handed him back the dark blue booklet and asked in an disapproving, motherly tone.

"Not on a lot of night's like this one," he tilted his head and laughed heartily.

Anton proceeded to tell Regina a little about his background and how he wound up hitchhiking along the Nebraska/Iowa border, and with each word she felt more comfortable in his presence.

Ten minutes after she'd pulled over, only one other vehicle had passed and the two shared a poignant sigh of agreement that it would have been a very long night for Anton if she hadn't stopped.

"The next city up is Missouri Valley..there might be a few motels up there but they may be filled because of the storm," Regina wondered aloud. "Guess the only thing we can do is head up and check."

Anton nodded his head as if to say 'you know you're way around here far better than I' before Regina shifted the Prius into gear and pulled back out onto the road for their slow slog north. It didn't take long for the sleet to start hitting the windshield once they left the cover of the overpass and when it did, the two inhabitants inside the car happened to turn and share an extended and greedy glance at the other at the exact same time.

_____________________________________

The roof of the motel could have been crashing down on top of her and Regina Wellstone wouldn't have known the difference. The concussion of the 20 year olds savage thrusts sent one debilitating jolt after another up and down the 38 year old woman's spine as she buried her writhing face into the scrunched pillow below. It seemed as if her muffled cries only egged the young man on as he plowed her from behind, hurling his rigid cock at a dizzying array of angles until she was blissfully cowering in the center of the bed.

Regina could still taste Anton's warm seed fresh on her palate, and even in her flummoxed state she couldn't get over how he'd recovered so gloriously since his first nut to be pounding her so ruthlessly from behind. Regina was sure at some point everything that happened over the previous hour might one day make some sense, but as she knelt there on all fours, her body as well as her moral will stripped bare as she allowed a man barely half her age to have his utter and complete way with her, all she cared about was feeling every morsel of joy the young stud was bringing her.