Hypothetical Hitch-Hiker - 1. Chapter 1

The lad grinned across at me, pleased for the lift. I wasn't going exactly where he wanted, but I could take him to a motorway junction twenty miles short without too much of a detour. He'd have to sort himself out from there: either stand in the cold with his thumb sticking out, like he had before I pulled up, or otherwise pay for a bus.

He didn't look like he had a huge amount of money, though.

"You were in a pretty deserted place to be hitch-hiking," I said. "No wonder you had to wait for so long for someone to pull over."

When he'd climbed into my car with his rucksack he'd muttered that he'd been waiting for a good three hours.

He smiled. "Yeah, the guy before you chucked me out of his car."

That sounded ominous and I wondered if he might be a nutter. The main reason I rarely pick up hitch-hikers is the fear of them turning out to be serial killers.

Judging by outward appearances, this lad had looked like he was fairly normal though: a university student trying to get a cheap ride cross-country, most likely. His dress was hardly smart but was a long way from looking dishevelled, while the stubble on his face suggested only a couple of days' growth rather than being the full, unkempt beard one might expect from an escaped lunatic.

"What did you do to upset him?" I enquired, trying to sound as casually chatty as I could.

If he was weird enough to have been thrown out of someone's car, I was going to have to figure out how I was going to extract myself from the position I'd got myself into without tipping him over the edge.

"He wanted me to pay for the lift he was giving me," he said.

"Pay?" I asked, incredulously. "I thought the whole point of hitch-hiking was that you don't have to pay?"

"He wanted payment in kind," the lad explained. "Payment of a kind I wasn't prepared to offer."

I looked over at him with surprise.

"How do you mean, 'payment in kind'?"

He grinned broadly at me. "I think you know what I mean."

I smiled back and nodded. Of course I did.

"But he was a bloke, you said? Was he gay?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. I think he was just... well... a bit horny, I guess."

I glanced over at him and chuckled. As well as feeling relieved that he didn't seem to be a psycho, I was intrigued that the conversation was taking such a promising turn.

"So what did he want you to do?" I asked. "Or wasn't he specific?"

The lad tittered at my curiosity. "He was very specific."

I was becoming more and more pleased that I'd bothered to stop. There'd been something about him standing there on such a quiet road – his bright red cheeks, perhaps, looking raw in the cold wind, or his fine, blond hair being blown about under his hood – which had appealed to me in spite of my reservations about hitch-hikers.

Perhaps it was time for introductions.

"I'm Rob, by the way," I said.

"I'm Dane," he offered back and I noticed that his eyes were a deep shade of blue. "Nice to meet you, Rob."

"You too, Dane," I smiled.

After driving a little way further and mulling over what he'd said, eventually I was unable to stop myself from posing what seemed like the obvious question.

"So... er... what did the guy ask for, Dane? If you don't mind me asking?"

"I don't mind you asking at all," he affirmed, "as long you don't have any requests of your own."

I laughed like the very idea was absurd.

"He wanted..." Dane started before tailing off uncertainly. "He wanted me to... well... to give him a blowjob, I guess you'd call it."

He looked over at me and I realised he thought I might be offended by his use of such a word. I grinned to show I wasn't as sweet and innocent as he might suppose.

"So that wasn't what he called it?" I asked him.

"No," Dane replied. "He actually said, 'I'll drop you off at any address you want if you suck my cock and swallow my cum'."

Again he peered at me as if trying to see any suggestion that I might be shocked but I just shrugged like it had been largely what I was expecting.

"Bit of smooth-talker, then," I suggested and he laughed.

We drove on a little further with me wondering how best to approach this opportunity which I had had the good fortune to stumble upon.

Obviously he'd refused the guy and had been promptly dropped off on the side of a lonely back-road, so any clumsy attempt I made to try and follow in my predecessor's unsuccessful footsteps might be met with the same firm rejection.

I'd have to play this rather more carefully. Pick my way slowly so as not to startle him.

Even if I did get rejected, I mentally vowed that I wouldn't just abandon him in the middle of nowhere. He was a nice enough lad – seemingly harmless and with a friendly smile – and I'd take him all the way to the motorway roundabout I'd promised him when I'd picked him up. From there, his options were numerous and I wouldn't be just leaving him to face the evening cold on some god-forsaken B-road like his earlier lift had.

But if he did want to play along with me – even if just to flirt with a man who was old enough to be his father – well, then I might repeat my predecessor's promise and go the extra twenty miles to take him to his destination.

"I wouldn't even dream of asking you for anything sexual in return for the lift, Dane," I began.

He smiled appreciatively, thinking that was all I had to say.

But I went on: "If I did, though, I'm sure I could come up with something rather more imaginative than a common-or-garden blowjob."

He peered at me again: now it was his turn to be intrigued by the direction of the conversation.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Like I said, the lift is totally free. I'll drop you off where I said I would."

"But if you were to ask for something in return?" he prompted. "Something sexual?"

"Well, as I'm taking you to where you want to go, the question is somewhat moot," I replied. "I was just making the point that I would have more imagination than to ask for something as boring as a blowjob."

"I thought all guys like receiving blowjobs," he said.

I smiled. "If I want a blowjob, I can get my wife to give me one any day. I don't have to try and seduce young lads I pick up at the side of the road."

He laughed at that and nodded.

I'd been divorced for over ten years but he didn't need to know minor details like that.

"So what would you want, if you were to ask for something?" he persisted.

I chuckled like this was all just idle banter. "It's not really relevant, Dane, since I'm not desperate enough to have to ask you for sex to take you where you want to go."

"I get that," he said. "I'm just interested to know what you would ask for if you were to."

I nodded. "Okay. Well, to be honest, I haven't really thought about it."

Oh, Robert, you big fat liar.

"But if I were to have to think of a suitable 'payment in kind'," I went on, "I suppose it would have to be something that my wife couldn't offer me. That would be sensible, wouldn't it? Something I couldn't get served up at home..."

He shrugged. "I guess so."

I continued driving and he mulled over what I'd said. If he'd expected me to elaborate on what I might have in mind, he was disappointed: I maintained my best poker face and acted with the same nonchalance as if we having a conversation about what subjects he was studying at uni.

Eventually, after a few miles, he broke the silence to ask: "So what sort of things do you not get served up at home?"

"Sorry?" I asked, turning to look over at him and feigning a look of bemused enquiry.

"What you were saying," he added quickly, realising that – out of context – his question could be construed as way too personal. "You know... about what you would want as 'payment in kind'?"

I suppressed a smile. This was all going very nicely.

"Oh that," I said, as if only just remembering the gist of the previous conversation; as if the subject had been of such little consequence to me that I had all but forgotten it. "Well, like I said, I don't really know..."

"You said you'd be imaginative. That the guy who gave me a lift earlier had been a bit too predictable..."

I liked the way he was trying to draw me out. He probably thought he was being subtle but I could see straight through his game.

"I'm sure I could come up with something rather more interesting than a bog-standard blowjob," I agreed. "But as I said, the point is moot, because this time your lift comes with the compliments of the chef."

He nodded and then looked out of the passenger window, no doubt becoming frustrated that he couldn't persuade me to divulge my secret desires.

After we'd driven past a few more fields and farmhouses, he said, "I'll drop it if you want me to, but it's an interesting conversation while we're driving along. What we're talking about is hypothetical – I understand that – but I'm curious to know what you might ask for from a male hitch-hiker if you wanted some kind of sexual payment from him."

I had to chuckle. He was being far more persistent about this than I might have hoped. I had assumed that we'd move on to chat about other things for a while and then I would have to be the one to bring it back up once we were more comfortable with each other. I hadn't expected him to keep at it like this, behaving like a terrier refusing to drop a stick.

"Okay, Dane," I said, "let's have the conversation for the sake of making the drive less boring. But let's keep it hypothetical, like you suggested."

I thought it wise to depersonalise this a bit. It would give me far greater latitude with how I might choose to phrase things if we weren't necessarily talking about the two of us.

He nodded, and I went on, "So we have a hypothetical straight and happily-married driver contemplating asking his younger but equally male hitch-hiker for something which he wouldn't be able to get from his wife."

"That's the top and bottom of it," he agreed.

"So what do you think that 'something' might be?"

"I dunno," he laughed. "But I agree with you that he would probably ask the hypothetical hitch-hiker for something a little... well... exotic, perhaps."

"Exotic?" I smiled. "Meaning what exactly?"

He laughed more loudly, clearly amused that I was being so coy with him. I drove on, still smiling, waiting for him to speak.

When he did, he said: "Maybe... I dunno... maybe the guy would want to try giving the hitch-hiker a blowjob...? He couldn't try that with his wife, now, could he?"

Ah – so that was where he hoped I was going with this!

I was having none of that. My sights were quite firmly set a little lower and further around the back.

"Why would a married guy want to suck some young lad's cock?" I asked, aware that I was taking the vulgarity of the language up a notch (or should that be 'down a notch'?) but wanting him to feel able to talk more candidly to me.

"To see what it tasted like?" he suggested.

I shook my head. "Not very convincing. If he was that curious, he'd have tried it before."

"Maybe this is his first opportunity?"

I looked over at him and threw him a conspiratorial smirk. "We've both been around a bit, you and me, Dane. We both know that if a bloke wants to see how other blokes' cocks taste, there are far easier ways of going about it than risk getting thumped by a hitch-hiker."

"Okay," he persevered. "In that case: because he's done it before and he enjoyed the taste?"

He was nothing if not determined. I rather liked that about him.

I nodded. "That's more believable, but I'm not sure a straight bloke would be that interested in sucking another guy's cock. After all, he chose to marry a woman, so he must have at least some attraction for female genitalia."

Dane laughed. "Some guys like it both ways."

I laughed back and nodded over at him. "How right you are."

"Okay," he said again. "Let's say he isn't interested in sucking the lad off. What else might he find attractive about him?"

"I'm not sure," I said, again laying on the bashful innocence as thickly as I could. "What else has our hypothetical hitch-hiker got?"

Dane chuckled. "I suppose the driver might be interested in the lad's bum."

I couldn't help but grin, thinking: now you're talking!

"I suppose there is a certain vaginal quality about a bum," I suggested. "So I could see why our married man might be interested in that."

"I've always thought bums were more like tits," Dane observed.

I was pleased that he now felt confident enough to use a word like 'tits'.

"Yeah, I can see that too," I agreed. "But either way, why would our straight guy be interested in having a vagina or breast substitute, when he has the genuine articles on tap at home?"

"For novelty value?"

I laughed. "Well, yeah, there is that. But why would a bloke want to fuck an arse when he could fuck a pussy? I mean, pussies are rather nice, Dane – I don't know if you've yet been lucky enough to have noticed?"

He grinned across at me. "Yeah, they are."

So he wasn't a virgin – at least not in the heterosexual sense – which made the outlook even more promising.

"Okay," he went on. "So let's say he doesn't want to suck his hitch-hiker off and he isn't interested in bending him over – what else might he want to do?"

"With the hitch-hiker's bum?"

Dane shook his head. "We've ruled out the cock and the bum, haven't we? You said our hypothetical straight guy wouldn't be interested in either of those."

"I didn't rule everything out," I said. "I just said he might not be interested in fucking the lad up the bum."

"What else could a guy do with another guy's bum?" he asked.

Oh Dane, I thought, you have so much to learn!

I shrugged as if this was the first time I'd ever contemplated other possible uses for that particular part of the male anatomy.

"I suppose," I said, after driving a little further, "there is something our driver could do with his hitch-hiker's bum which would give him a very different experience from anything he'd get from his wife's pussy."

"What's that?" Dane asked, and I really think he had no idea.

"Well... it's very rude," I said with deliberate hesitance. "And you might be quite shocked. I'm a little bit shocked that I thought of it myself!"

Ha ha, I thought. As if.

"Something that's ruder than butt-fucking?" he asked.

He'd said 'butt-fucking'. He really was getting comfortable with me now.

"Yes," I confirmed. "It is, rather."

"I'm not a little kid," he said, sounding scarily like an echo of my son. "You can tell me what it is – I don't shock very easily."

"How old are you, Dane?" I asked. I realised that I probably should have posed this question earlier.

"Nineteen," he replied.

The same age as my son.

"Well, I guess in that case you're old enough to know about giving oral sex to a woman?"

He threw me a derisory laugh. "Of course I am! I'm in my first year at uni – I've played around a bit, mate!"

Not as much as you're probably about to, I thought.

"Okay," I went on. "Well, suppose our hypothetical driver enjoys tonguing his wife's orifice and might be intrigued to know what it would be like to do the same thing to his passenger."

"I thought you'd already ruled out the guy giving the hitch-hiker a blowjob?" Dane asked.

"I'm not talking about a blowjob," I said. "My scenario involved the driver tonguing an orifice."

Dane went quiet while he thought over what I'd said. For a short while I worried that I really had shocked him, but eventually he asked, with an equal measure of curiosity and disbelief, "Do you mean he might want to lick the lad's butt?"

I nodded as nonchalantly as I could. "If a guy likes oral sex with a woman, the idea of trying the same thing on another male, using the only comparable hole, might also be exciting to him on some, animal level."

"But it's a butt!" Dane emphasized with the same incredulity. "Why would he want to lick the hole that a guy shits through?"

I laughed. "It could prove to be a very intimate and erotic experience... who's to know?"

"I can't believe a guy would do that to another guy!" Dane exclaimed, stifling a sceptical laugh.

I laughed back. "I told you I would be a lot more imaginative than your previous lift!"

He chuckled uncertainly. "Well, you were right about that – I didn't expect you to come up with that!"

We drove on for a while and I let the conversation drop. I wondered whether perhaps I really had repulsed him, in spite of his claim to be difficult to shock, and I didn't want to push the topic any further than he was comfortable with. I expected him to go quiet for a while and then, after a few miles, to start up a new conversation and that the subject I had so deliberately raised would be conveniently forgotten.

However, he surprised me after just a minute or so, by continuing to pursue the theme which had seemed to unsettle him.

"So, Rob... let's be honest with each other. If you were going to ask me for payment in kind for the lift, would that be the thing you would want from me?"

I smiled. So we were dropping the hypotheticals, were we?

"It's okay, Dane. We can drop this topic if you want to. I've made it abundantly clear that the lift is for free."

"But if you did want something in return," he persisted. "Would that be what you'd want?"

I shrugged. "I just think it would be interesting, that's all. It certainly would be something I'd never do with a woman."

"But you'd do it to a guy? You'd lick his butt?"

I chuckled. "I'm not sure. I would just be intrigued to give it a try."

"But the smell...?" he continued. "Wouldn't it make you retch?"

"I don't know," I reiterated with a casual shrug. "It might prove to be quite stimulating. I wouldn't like to dismiss it out of hand before I'd tried it."

He went quiet again and I drove on as if unaware of the obvious interest Dane had in the activity I'd suggested. Having never even thought that such a thing could have a sexual element, he now seemed mildly fascinated by the idea.

After another couple of minutes he asked, "Have you ever done anything like that before?"

"No," I lied. I didn't want to freak him out by admitting how much I enjoyed what I knew to be called rimming. "But it's something I'd be curious to try."

"Why would you be curious?" he asked. "I mean, I've never even thought about doing anything like that. What is it about the idea that's made you curious?"

I turned to him and threw him what I hoped would look like just a friendly smile. I didn't want him to feel as if I was deliberately hitting on him, which I obviously was.

"Okay, here's a pretty poor attempt for me to explain it. Do you ever sniff your own underwear to see if it's clean?" I asked.

He looked embarrassed and so I tried to encourage him: "You can be frank with me, Dane – after all, you're probably never going to see me again in your life once I've dropped you off."

He hesitated and then shyly nodded. "Well, maybe... okay... yeah, sometimes I do. Doesn't everyone?"

"Of course," I smiled.

"I mean, sometimes when you're living out of a rucksack," he went on, "the dirty pairs get mixed up with the clean pairs. Sometimes you need to just have a quick sniff for hygiene reasons."

"And did you ever, occasionally, get a whiff of the back of them and found that the smell wasn't too unpleasant?"

He nodded again, a little more confidently. "Yeah... I guess."

I hesitated before, continuing, wondering how far I dare push this at such a crucial stage. Eventually I settled on: "Sometimes, I've gone from finding that whiff 'not too unpleasant' to finding it... shall we say... quite appealing."

"How dirty are we talking here?" Dane asked a little worryingly.

I smiled again, trying to make my manner as unthreatening as I could.

"Just normal wear from a pretty average day," I guess. "Maybe a bit sweaty, but with a definite male bum smell from where they might have ridden up a few times."

He paused before clarifying, less worried and more intrigued, "And it's that male bum smell which you find 'quite appealing'?"

I chuckled, struggling to maintain an air of casual normality. "Just a bit, yeah. Enough to make me curious, I guess."

"And does it make you... well... horny?"

Now it was make or break time. If I said 'yes', I risked freaking him out, but if I said 'no' I was possibly forestalling any further developments which might happen.

I decided to play it safe. "A little bit, perhaps."

He went quiet and I thought I might have lost him.

I turned to him and smiled again. "You probably think that's really disgusting..."

"No, I don't," he responded. "It's not something I've ever thought of as being sexy, but I can sort of see how it could be."

Oh, nice one, Dane, I thought. Good answer.

He thought about it for a little longer, before asking, "But isn't that something you could experiment with when it's you and your wife?"

"I don't think she would have a male bum smell, Dane. I'm no expert, though."

He chuckled and then asked, "So it would have to be a male smell?"

I nodded. "It's the maleness of the smell that arouses me on my own underwear. I would imagine that the gender of the bum's owner would very much determine the nature of the smell."

He went quiet again and we drove on a mile or so. Again, I started to worry that I'd gone too far and that I'd lost him.

I'd played it too fast; freaked him out by being too direct.

But then he asked, "So you think you would find the smell of another male's bum as... well... arousing as your own?"

"I don't know," I said, lying again. "I've never had the opportunity to find out."

"Haven't you sniffed any other guys' dirty underpants – in the gym or whatever – since you're so intrigued by the idea?"

I shook my head. "Like I said, Dane, I've never had the chance. I had my son living with me at home until last year, but it would have seemed a bit inappropriate to have a sniff of his."

Dane laughed at that. "Yeah, and some!"

The conversation tailed off again and I thought, for the third time, that he might be about to let the subject drop. After a good five minutes, though, during which we passed through a village and I took what I knew to be an unsigned shortcut through the National Park, he spoke up again.

"If you like," he started, with his voice faltering in his uncertainty about what he was going to say, "you can have a sniff of one the dirty pairs I've got in my rucksack."

I swung my head around to look at him and he was immediately apologetic. "I'm sorry, Rob! That was a really stupid thing for me to say! Forget I ever said it!"

I smiled at his sudden apprehension. If I'd thought I could have got away with a conciliatory pat on his knee, I'd have given him one: as it was, I didn't.

"I was just surprised by the offer, Dane," I reassured him, instead. "That's why I looked over at you like I did. I certainly wasn't offended!"

He relaxed and beamed back at me. "I thought you were, like, really appalled. Your face looked... I dunno... stunned!"

I smiled again, facing the road. "I know it's a bit of a weird fantasy, and, to be honest, I've never told anyone about it. I suppose I was surprised because I hadn't expected you to be so willing to indulge my curiosity."

He shrugged. "I owe you one for the ride, I guess."

"I told you, you don't."

"It's pretty bizarre, though, isn't it?" he went on, laughing and disregarding what I'd said. "Me paying you for the ride by letting you sniff my dirty kecks!"

"I wouldn't put it like that," I suggested. "You make it sound as if I'm taking advantage of you. As far as I'm concerned, you're just helping me to find out if it's just my own smell that attracts me or whether other guys' smells do too. It's almost scientific, in a way."

He laughed again. "However you want to dress it up, Rob..."

"Well, since you're being so obliging," I went on, "I'd be happy to drive you the whole way home. Right to the door, if you like."

"Really?" he asked. "That would be awesome, mate. It can take ages for people to stop and give you a lift with all the stories of nutters hitching lifts."

Not to mention all the nutters picking up hitch-hikers, I thought dryly.

He thanked me several times and seemed so pleased by my offer that I wondered if there was more to it than just the avoidance of an evening getting cold by the side of the road. I suspected he might see the extra lift as a justification of what he was allowing me to do for him: that he wasn't just wilfully giving some sordid old a man a sniff of his used underpants; he could tell himself afterwards that he'd only reluctantly done so in return for being driven all the way home.

He unzipped a pocket on his rucksack and started fishing around inside it.

"I've been staying with a mate for three nights," he told me. "I've got a few dirty pairs in here somewhere."

He ruffled through scrunched-up teeshirts and socks and eventually found a pair of white boxer trunks which he examined. I could see from the momentary glance I got how discoloured they were.

He laughed and quickly stashed them back away. "You really don't want to smell those!"

Then he found another pair which met with his approval.

"Yeah, these should be okay," he announced. I glanced over and saw they were also white and had a DKNY waistband. "They're not too stained but they're pretty whiffy. My mum used to say you could strip wallpaper with my dirty underwear."

I laughed, looking back towards the road ahead.

"Do you want to put them up to my nose?" I suggested. I wanted him to feel he was in control of what I was allowed to sniff.

He reached his dirty shorts out towards my face but then giggled and pulled away. "I can't believe you're actually going to sniff my smelly pants! It's really gross!"

I chuckled. "You're doing me a favour, Dane – it's something I've always wondered about."

"Are you sure you really want to, thought?" he felt it necessary to clarify. "I mean, my dick, my bollocks and my arse were all cooped up in these for going on twenty-four hours."

I smiled over at him. "I think that's rather the point, isn't it?"

It occurred to me from the time-span he'd quoted that he must sleep in the underwear he'd worn that day, much like my son does. That, I anticipated, would result in an altogether more satisfying sniffing experience.

He recovered his confidence and then held them out again. He asked, "Which part do you want to smell first? The front or the back?"

"It's the back I'm most interested in," I admitted. "But let's start out front. It might be more fun to take the scenic route!"

He fiddled with the underwear, orientating the gusset of them in his palm, and then pressed them towards my nose.

"This is where my knob lies in them," he helpfully informed me as I sniffed at the material.

He really had no need to have told me that: the sharp, acrid bite of stale urine told me all I needed to know. It wasn't unpleasant, and indeed was mildly arousing on some level to know that I was smelling something so personal about him, but compared to the far more interesting scents I knew to be lurking just inches away, the whiff of his dried pee wasn't something I wanted to dwell on.

"It has a certain appeal, Dane, but it's not really my thing," I declared.

He withdrew his shorts and repositioned them on his hand and then chuckled at the memory of something he'd forgotten.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Try this."

He pressed them back up to my nose and I found that the smell on this part was much richer and more conspicuously sexual. There was an alkaline tang to it with a heavy, salty undertone.

I sniffed a few times, enjoying a familiar odour imbued with Dane's own idiosyncratic hormonal tang, before smiling and asking, "Were you a naughty boy in these briefs, Dane? Late one night, perhaps?"

He chuckled and withdrew the undershorts, telling me, "It was early one morning, actually, but yes, I was a little bit naughty given that I was a guest in the house."

I laughed back. "An attentive host should be flattered that the guest felt so comfortable that he was able to rub one out in the guest room."

Dane fiddled with the white trunks again and offered them back to my face for a third sniff. I expected that this time it would be the back of them he was letting me smell, but the odour on the material lacked the familiar pungence that I'd come to recognise as belonging to the male behind.

The smell was altogether more sweaty and musky, with hints of Dane's own sexual juices bringing it a distinctive fragrance.

I sniffed a few times, enjoying the aroma, before offering a guess at which part I was sniffing: "Is that where your sweaty bollocks spent a day jiggling around, by any chance?"

He laughed at that and admitted that I was correct. "You could turn this into a TV game show," he added.

I smiled at the thought. I'd definitely Sky Plus that.

Then he withdrew the shorts again and turned them over to find what I knew would be their most flavoursome spot.

"Are you really sure you want to do this?" he asked, making it doubly clear which particular area of the flimsy cotton I was about to be presented with.

"Why would I not?" I retorted. "I thought this was the whole purpose of what we were doing."

"You didn't seem that interested in the parts you just sniffed," he said. I wondered if my apparent lack of enthusiasm was, in some way, slightly insulting to him.

"I told you, Dane – it's the back I'm intrigued by. The front of my own briefs has never been something I've found particularly attractive."

He took a sniff himself and announced that they were indeed particularly smelly.

"I think my mum might have been right," he said. "You could probably even strip paint with these."

I smiled. "Are you sure you wore them just the one day?"

"Yeah, but I was in the back of my friend's parents' car for a few hours. I think they must have ridden up quite a lot."

"Sounds like they make the perfect test for me. Come on, let's a have a whiff of them!"

He reached them out towards me again before losing his nerve and pulling back, giggling, one last time.

After he'd recomposed himself, he felt it necessary to make absolutely certain that I knew what I was getting myself into.

"You realise – don't you – that this is the smell of my bum? That this is actually quite dirty and I'm about to push it under your nose?"

"I am fully aware of what it is I'm about to smell," I said.

"If you think it's really nasty – if it makes you feel sick or something – just pull back and I'll put them away. We'll just forget it ever happened."

"Absolutely," I agreed with a nod.

He reached forwards again and pressed his dirty underpants towards my face. Even though they were an inch or so from my nose, just one gentle sniff had me almost swerving the car at the intensity of his bum odour.

"Oh, Jesus!" I called out and, misinterpreting my reaction, Dane pulled his trunks away. I grabbed his arm and shoved them back up to my nose. At first I sniffed tentatively at them but then, gaining in confidence and finding the aroma so arousing, I burrowed my nose more firmly into the fabric. I couldn't believe how much the material was oozing with his pheromones and how exciting it was to smell his rich, masculine redolence seeping from the cotton.

"Do you actually like it?" he asked with apparent disbelief.

I smiled and nodded into the well-soiled seat of his underpants, moving my nose around as I sniffed them to find their most odoriferous spot. I could feel my cock steadily hardening and I knew that this young man would soon be able to see from the front of my trousers how much the back of his shorts was affecting me.

"That's probably the best bit there," he said, guiding a small discoloured patch of material up to my nose. I inhaled from it intently, feeling my heart race at how deliciously ripe it was with his roughest and most carnal stink.

I called out, "Oh God, yeah! That is so fucking hot!"

He laughed and moved the material against my nose, guiding me to smell further up along his butt-crack, where the scent was sweatier but far less intensely pungent. It was nice to smell where the material had pressed between his buttocks as he'd sat in the car, but after the electrifying pleasure of where my nose had just been, I found the pathway he was leading me along increasingly disappointing.

I pulled away and told him, gasping for breath, "I liked the smell more where you had them a few seconds ago."

"That's right where my hole was," he informed me.

I smiled, still panting. "I'd rather guessed that."

He returned the material to its earlier position and pressed his fingers up against it, pushing it up into my nostrils. I breathed in as deeply as I could and revelled in the sheer, raw power of his arse on the cloth, then inhaled in short, rapid bursts like a sniffer dog, determined to extract every molecule of scent from these intoxicating underpants.

"Oh God, yes!" I cried out, as I fed on the smell of his bum.

He laughed again and said, "Are you sure you can drive while you're enjoying this so much?"

I nodded with my face still pressing into his shorts. "I can see the road fine," I muttered through the white material under my nose.

"I wasn't thinking of that," he explained. "I was worried about the amount of blood that seems to have rushed to your... er..."

I pulled away from the seat of his underpants and looked over at him. He was glancing down at my crotch, now straining with excitement as my large and prominent bulge looked like it was threatening to burst my zipper.

"I guess that answers the question about whether I find other guys' bum smells arousing," I said.

"You couldn't make it any clearer," he laughed, taking the trunks from my face and tucking them back into his rucksack.

I turned back to face the road and kept driving along roads that were climbing steadily upwards into the wooded hills of the National Park.

We both went quiet for a while and I mused on how to play things from here.

Dane had seemed remarkably unconcerned that my crotch had been so blatantly aroused as I'd sat alongside him: if anything, he'd viewed my prominent erection as a source of amusement. It was also encouraging how quickly he'd lost his reservations about letting me sniff his underwear: once he'd seen how much I enjoyed the smell of the back of them, he'd been surprisingly eager to titillate me by pressing the dirtiest part of the material up into my nostrils.

I suddenly wondered if he himself had been getting horny.

I glanced across at the front of his jeans. There was a suggestion of a bulge but nothing too obvious. If he had developed a hard-on, he'd all but lost it by now.

I decided to let him take the lead from here. If he had been aroused by what we'd been doing, the likelihood was that, given a little time, he'd try to push our playfulness a little further. And if hadn't been aroused, there was probably no point in me trying to coax more from him – I'd only end up looking like even more of a pervert than I already did.

It was only when we'd ventured quite deep in the forest that he broke the silence by chuckling and saying, "Aw... Rob... your boner's gone soft again!"

He was peering at my crotch.

I turned to throw him an encouraging smile. "You sound almost disappointed, Dane!"

"I was impressed – that's all. I've never seen a guy do that to his trousers – you were nearly bursting out of them!"

"It's a while since I've felt so horny, to be honest," I told him, switching my lights on in the gloom. "I always suspected that I'd get turned-on by another bloke's bum smell, I only never knew how much."

Oh, Robert: what a big, fat fake you are.

"Why was it so exciting?" he asked. "I mean, it never did anything to me when I sniffed them."

"It doesn't really work with your own," I explained, slowing the car as the road became steadily more bendy as we got into the hills. "Like I told you, whenever I've sniffed my own underpants I've been intrigued by the smell, but getting my nose stuck into someone else's was in a totally different league."

"Maybe I should try it," he suggested with a dubious laugh.

"Maybe you should," I agreed.

"Next time I stop over with a mate, I'll have to have a sly sniff of the back of his skiddy boxers in the bathroom."

He laughed again and I chuckled as if amused. I immediately knew how I should reply but I didn't want to say it too quickly and appear too calculated.

So I let his joke settle fully before I made my move.

And then, as casually as I could, I came back with: "Well, if you are really are keen to see if you'd enjoy the same thing that I did, you could try it a lot quicker than that."

He looked over at me, interested.

"What do you mean?"

I smiled, trying to maintain the impression of amicable indifference, and then said, "You're not the only one who has dirty laundry with you."

He continued staring at me, failing to understand, so I went on, "I'm actually on the way home from a meeting organised by the engineering company I work for. I stayed over last night in a hotel near Preston."

"So?" he asked blankly.

"So..." I smiled. "I've got yesterday's dirty underwear in my holdall in the boot."

"Oh," he said, ponderously, as my meaning dawned on him.

I turned again and smiled more broadly at him. "It's just an idea, Dane. A rather filthy one, I admit, but just an idea nonetheless. Feel free to say no."

He nodded slowly, carefully considering my suggestion.

At length he said, "To be honest, Rob, I'd feel kind of uncomfortable. I mean, it seemed like we were just having a bit of giggle when I watched you sniffing mine, but to sniff yours... well... it'd be a bit different, wouldn't it?"

I shrugged. "If you don't want to, there's no big deal. It was just a silly thought I had, knowing that you were curious to try it yourself."

"I kind of am," he said, his voice betraying how tempted he was by the idea I was proposing. "But what if I was really grossed out by it? After you've been so nice, giving me the lift and stuff, I'd feel really wrong to let you see how... I dunno... disgusted I was if I really didn't like it."

I smiled. "I tell you what, then, Dane. If you do want to have a sniff of mine – and I'm really not forcing you – at the same time, I could have a sniff of the really rough ones you wouldn't let me see, and if –"

"The rough ones?" he queried, cutting in.

"Yes," I chuckled. "The ones in your rucksack that you said I really didn't want to smell."

"Oh, those!" he laughed. "Yeah, they were a bit grim!"

"Well, if you give me a sniff of those –"

"You'd actually want to smell them?" he interrupted me again. "They're a bit... you know... worse for wear!"

"I think I probably would enjoy smelling them," I admitted, "but I could match my reaction to yours. If you turn out to be disgusted by what you smell on mine, I could do the same with yours – that way neither of us would be offending the other."

He smiled and nodded at the inventiveness of the suggestion. "Sounds like it might work..."

"Do you want to give it a go?" I asked, having just noticed a sign for a picnic area which was five-hundred yards ahead.

"Go on, then... yeah!" he laughed. "It'll be a bit weird but it might be kind of interesting."

"I'll have to pull in," I informed him. "My overnight bag is in the boot."

"Okay. As long as no-one else is around."

"I don't suppose they will be," I said, indicating right to turn into the picnic area. "Not in this weather and with night starting to fall."

I pulled into the gravel car-park, which was completely deserted as I'd expected, as Dane laughed again at what we were about to do.

"I can't believe we're going to sniff each other's skanky briefs!"

"And perhaps hugely enjoy it!" I added.

"Don't get your hopes up, dude!" he playfully warned me. "The only huge response you're likely to get from me is a huge pile of puke!"

I chuckled, straightening the car up in a space even though there was clearly no need to do so. "Well, even if that turns out to be true, it's good for lads your age to be sexually inquisitive. At least you'll know that stuff like this isn't for you."

He laughed again. "I think I can pretty much guarantee that already, but I'm up for going along with it. I mean, like you said, we'll probably never meet each other again..."

I nodded at his assertion but it occurred to me that, if he did enjoy what we were about to do, I might well offer him my phone number before dropping him off.

I opened my door and got out of the car. "Okay, Dane – see if you can find that especially... er... fragrant pair you stashed away, and I'll get mine out of the boot."

He started rummaging in his rucksack again and I went to the back of the car to retrieve my own. They were a pair of white Calvin Klein hip-briefs and were at the top of my holdall in an old supermarket carrier bag along with my dirty socks and the shirt I'd worn for the meeting I'd been to. When I pulled them out I found that they were almost completely unsullied. There was a faint yellow patch of dried urine in the excessively stretched pouch at the front, but the rest of them were as clean as when they'd emerged as new from their wrapper.

I took a quick sniff of the back of them, the open lid of the boot preventing Dane from seeing me, and found them to be delicately but distinctly infused with my scent. There was a subtle bum whiff to them, mainly sweaty but with a characteristically male earthy undertone – just musky enough to be erotic while lacking the powerful pungent punch I would ordinarily prefer.

I hoped they'd be stimulating enough for Dane: if he had an under-developed sense of smell, he'd glean very little from these largely sanitary briefs. I was tempted to quickly hitch my trousers down and give the crack of my arse a quick wipe with the back of them to get my scent more strongly onto the material, but I worried that might make their smell too intense for him to enjoy and that I would actually spoil things between us in my haste to try and arouse him.

I therefore closed the boot and returned to the front of the car.

"Okay," I said, brightly, retaking my seat. "Here's the ones I wore yesterday."

He smiled at me a little sheepishly. "Mine are... well..."

I banged my door closed. "What?"

He chuckled with obvious embarrassment. "Let's just say... I don't know if you're gonna want to smell them."

"I'm happy to give it a shot," I said, shrugging. "As long as you're comfortable about me doing so."

He nodded. "I'm okay with it. I mean, if I'm disgusted by yours, I won't be so embarrassed knowing what I've given you to sniff!"

"How do you figure that out?"

"I guess it'll make it more like the sort of stupid stuff I'd get up to with my mates. Doing stuff to disgust each other... seeing who gets grossed out first!"

I smiled. "Yeah, I suppose that makes sense."

He looked over at my underwear. "You like Calvins, do you? I've always found they're a bit baggy."

I held up my briefs, showing how hugely stretched and distended the pouch of the crotch was. "I like something with some room out front. As you saw, I need the material to have a lot of give at certain moments."

He chuckled. "Yeah... I guess you must fill yours out more than I do. I tend to go for brands that are a lot tighter."

So he wasn't as well-endowed as I am, the thought occurred to me. That wasn't in any way off-putting – a man's cock size is largely irrelevant to me as my interests lie very firmly around the back – but it was worth noting that the bulge at the front of his trousers I was hoping to see would not be as obvious as I might otherwise expect.

He said, "We'll have to do this together, then, won't we? So we can match our reactions, if that's still the plan."

"Sounds good to me," I agreed, reaching up to switch on the overhead light in the gathering dusk.

I passed him my briefs and he passed me his boxer trunks in return. I could immediately see how stained his were: I saw his cheeks redden a little when he saw me look down at them.

"You're gonna be totally groded out, aren't you?" he asked self-consciously.

I couldn't help but smile. My son often used the word 'grodey', especially with reference to my choice of clothing, but I'd never heard the term 'groded out'.

"I doubt it," I reassured him. "You saw my reaction to the first pair I sniffed. Judging by how much smellier this pair looks, I think I might well be about to burst my zipper."

He smiled back and looked slightly less uncomfortable. "I don't think my zipper's gonna be under any strain, Rob. This probably isn't going to be my sort of thing at all."

Suddenly an idea occurred to me. I seized it with gusto: usually such potentially useful notions only occur to me long after the moment has passed.

"If it's all the same with you, Dane," I began, trying to choose my words carefully but not wanting to give him a chance to move the conversation on. "Since you said you're not as... er... well-equipped as I am in the briefs department..."

He looked at my quizzically. I was going to have to be a little more direct.

"I mean, since you're far more able to hide your arousal than I am," I went on, "I think it would be fairer for us to... well..."

"What?" he asked.

"Hitch our trousers down," I suggested. "So that we can both see from our underwear how turned-on we really are."

"I dunno..." he started, his expression quickly becoming guarded.

"Well, it's all very well you claiming that you're going to be disgusted, but I'd like to see the evidence for myself."

"But pulling our trousers down together, mate... it's a bit... you know..."

"Only to the tops of our thighs," I sought to clarify. "Otherwise, I would be at a distinct disadvantage, wouldn't I? My reactions are pretty... well... explicitly displayed while yours are more discreetly hidden."

"My knob's not that small!" he countered with a certain amount of huffiness. "It does grow bigger when I'm in the right mood!"

"But you said your underwear was tighter than mine is. It'll keep things... you know... reined in. I think it has to be a fair comparison..."

He nodded and then threw me a reluctant smile. "All right, then, Rob... but only for a couple of minutes..."

The two of us sat up from our seats, loosened our belts and undid our buttons and flies, and then hitched our trousers down to the tops of our thighs.

We were both wearing white underwear, both crisply clean on the outward-facing surface, but that was where the similarity between us ended. Mine were Calvin Klein hip-briefs but his were, like the two dirty pairs I'd seen, longer in the leg. The pouch of mine was abundantly packed with the fattened mound of my softened but still sizable cock and with my huge bollocks poking upwards like a pair of plums. His, on the other hand, was far less extravagantly proportioned, the rod of his organ looking thick but insubstantial alongside the barely visible bulges of his shrivelled balls. My legs were quite thickly hairy and the bush of my pubic hair spilled out from the legs of my briefs. His legs, only just visible beneath the hemline of his shorts, were all but hairless and if he did have a bushy pubic bush like mine, the fuller style of his underwear was able to conceal it.

I smiled and said, "That seems a bit fairer."

He chuckled and shrugged. "I can't believe I'm letting you talk me into doing this stuff. I've never done anything even remotely like this before."

I thought I ought to pick him up on that. "I'm not trying to lead you astray, Dane, nor to talk you into doing anything you're not comfortable with. If you want to call it day here and now, just say and we'll get back on the road."

He looked up at my face and his smile slowly faded. I thought for a second that he was going to call my bluff and start hitching his trousers back up.

But in the end he didn't.

He just shrugged and said, allowing his smile to return, "In for a penny, in for a pound... let's get on with it!"

I grinned back at him, pleased I'd made the point to him that it was his choice to continue and that he mustn't feel pressured.

I really didn't want to come away from this troubled by the guilt that I'd taken advantage of a young hitch-hiker who'd been standing out in the cold. Whatever further happened between us, I wanted to be able to look myself in the mirror tomorrow and know that this young lad had gone into it just as willingly as I had.

"Okay," he said, turning my underpants over in his hands and figuring out which way round was front and back. "How should we do this? Should we start at the front or get straight to the back?"

"I think we should start with the front," I proposed. He might find he liked that more.

"The scenic route," he reminded me with a grin.

"Exactly," I agreed.