Strangers on a hotel bed

As they approached Dickinson, ND, coming from southwest Montana and bound for St. Paul, the clock was approaching 3am. He looked to his co-pilot and suggested that they find a place to sleep for the night.

She had gotten his number from the ride board on campus and had just met him a few days ago to discuss the trip back at the end of Spring semester. They had left late in the day, which had set back their departure and pending arrival to the homeland, which irked her slightly. She trusted him enough to catch a ride home with him, but she wasn't sure if she trusted him enough to share a hotel room with him. All she knew was it was 8.5 more hours to the Cities, and she was exhausted.

He stopped the tired old Jeep Grand Cherokee at the AmericInn & Suites and offered to go check on vacancy. Her 3 a.m. mind was writing the game plan for how she would eschew any and all advances (or worse) that might ensue.

As he came back to the car he had a funny look on his face which she couldn't discern. "Well, they don't have any double rooms either," he said. "the only room they had left was the honeymoon suite, so they gave it to us at a reduced rate." He grinned.

She laughed, too, at the irony of the situation and began amping up that game plan as she brought in her things.

There was only one bed in the room, but it had 6 pillows and was a California King, so they could each have their own hemisphere and be separated by pillows. "I won't sleep naked tonight." he assured her. And although the Jacuzzi tub was a nice respite for the two of them in their makeshift swimwear, nothing really got any hotter.

As she had nestled on to her side of the bed, and he had turned off the TV, he rolled over and flopped his leg over the great wall of divider pillows, talking to her as he was drifting off to sleep.

"So you've never had sex?" he asked, referencing an answer from their game of 21 questions on the lonely stretch of eastern Montana highway.

"Nope." she replied.

"Do you ever want to?" he asked.

"Someday, but not yet." she said.

He sighed in disbelief. "I can't believe you've held out for this long," he said.

"It's not that hard." she said, blowing off his amazement of her will power.