Look, I know I'm not supposed to pick up hitchers. It's not smart for me, and it's not smart for the hiker. But it was a rainy afternoon, and the guy up the road looked really dejected. He was somewhat small anyway, and his shoulders slumped over as he slogged through the mud. All alone in the half-dark like that, he reminded me of my cat when I had rescued him as a stray from a sudden downpour. The kid had a yellow poncho on and wasn't carrying any bag or even a gas can. I supposed he was just walking some short distance, and I could drop him off and be on my way in five minutes.

I pulled over and lowered the passenger window. "Where you headed?"

The guy leaned down and looked in through the opened window. Except it wasn't a guy. She was maybe twenty or twenty-one, and she was soaked like she wasn't wearing the plastic poncho at all. If there's anything that makes my heart melt more than a kitten in a rainstorm, it's a beautiful young woman in a rainstorm. The look in her eyes told me that she knew it wasn't smart taking rides on the back roads, even if -- or maybe especially if -- the car's a Lincoln. But it also told me she wanted desperately to get out of the rain.

"I'm going west," she said.

Nice and specific. "I'm going cross-country to California on business."

She considered that for a moment. I tried to look non-threatening, without looking like I was trying to look non-threatening, you know? I was concerned about this girl, with nothing but what she was wearing, trying to reach an unknown destination. But if I frightened her off, I wasn't going to do any good. She looked into my face, then back down the road in both directions. Visibly, she came to her decision. "Okay."

I unlocked the passenger doors and told her to put her poncho on the back floorboard. She did and got in, putting her purse between herself and the passenger door.

She stared out the window at the passing countryside and at the patterns the rain and wind made on the glass. She could also probably look at my reflection that way, too. Checking me out. Obviously, she didn't feel like talking. That was fine with me.

For about half an hour we were like that, me trying not to look at her, her trying to hide the fact that she was looking at me. I had the radio turned down in case she wanted to talk, but she didn't want to talk. But you know how it is when two people are in a car, you have to talk or the silence grows oppressive.

"So what's west?" I asked at last.

She finally turned her head to me. "What?"

"I said, 'what's west.'"

"Oh. My parents. They live in Seattle."

"I see," I replied, knowingly, but still in the dark. She looked too old to be a runaway trying to get back home. And she didn't have that tired, wary look I had seen in news documentaries. Maybe she was just down on her luck, trying to get to a support system on her own. I shrugged inwardly and concentrated on driving.

She didn't seem inclined to volunteer more information, so I turned the radio back up. The local public radio station was on, and I heard the last minute or two of something by Bach, I don't know which piece, but he's one of the few composers I can recognize without a program. They thanked the sponsors, and mentioned my company's name. I pointed at the radio and said, "That's me. Or my company, at least. My name's Mark Ferguson."

"I'm Grace," she replied.

"Nice to meet you, Grace."

"No, not 'Grace.' G-R-E-Y. Grey."

"Grey? That's an unusual name," I commented. "At least it is around here."

"Yeah, well. My parents were hippies, you know? The way they told me, they wanted to name me after whatever the sky was when I was born. But they happened to be in Seattle, and I was early. They couldn't really name me 'Overcast' or 'Gloomy, ' so--"

"Grey," I finished, grinning.

"Exactly." She glanced at me and I saw her smile for the first time. Her lips curled momentarily and I caught a glimpse of her white, even teeth. Then she turned back toward the window, and all I saw was her hair and half an ear. Her neck was thin and graceful, the left tendon standing out clear as her head was turned. Her hair was unstyled, hanging straight down her back. It was brunette, I suppose, when dry, with golden brown highlights. What I thought was a man's scrawny body was, instead, a young woman's athletic body. Her blue work shirt was tucked tightly into baggy army fatigues -- the old olive drab kind, not the camouflage that soldiers wear now -- and showed off high, pointed breasts and a stomach without an ounce of fat.

She saw me staring at her, and she turned her head to stare back at me. Her face was... beautiful, but that doesn't begin to describe it. She had a high forehead and intelligent green eyes. Her nose sloped down and out, and flared outward in wide nostrils. Her lips were neither full nor thin, and always seemed to be slightly open. Her face still retained some baby fat, but her high cheekbones were just discernible. It was a face that would age well, going from pretty to beautiful to striking to handsome as the years passed.

I was getting uncomfortable, and looked away. "The airport's coming up in a while," I said. "If you want, we can call your folks. I'm sure they'd be willing to wire you a ticket to Seattle."

Grey stretched out her arms. "Thanks, Mark, but if it's all right, I'll just tag along with you for a while."

"Fine with me, but it's going to take about three weeks for me to get to the coast."

"What do you do, for a living, anyway?"

"Oh, I own a small company that makes machine tools for light manufacturers. I make the machines that make the machines that make the prizes in your cereal, is how I put it." She smiled at that. "We just started writing software for companies that want to network machines from different manufacturers. I'm not sure how that works, and my people tell me that in a few years everything's going to be cross- compatible, anyway. I don't know what that means, either, but it'll get a foot in the door for us."

I looked at her and saw her staring out the windshield, not listening anymore. "Sorry. I talk too much, I know. Just tired of the quiet."

"Oh, yeah." Then, for fifty or sixty miles, she told me about her life. How her parents had finally settled down after she was born, settled down too much, in fact. At fifteen, she just got tired of her life, so she decided to quit. She hit the road, heading south and east. She wasn't a runaway, she said. She just left home a little early. She knew the dangers, so she avoided big cities, where it was hard to live and easy to get into serious trouble. By the time she was seventeen, she was in North Carolina and had just sort of... stopped. At least that was how she phrased it.

She floated around the state for a year or so, mostly living with college students around the Triad and Triangle, working in textile factories and restaurants. Then she met Randy. She was in love, or thought she was, and moved in with him. He had a good job as an electrician, and they were talking about getting married and starting a family. Then the recession hit. People were afraid to build, and Randy's jobs dried up. There were bills to pay, more than Grey could handle. A friend of Randy's got him into selling drugs. It's the kind of thing that just happens. Several of my relatives had been busted for the same thing under the same circumstances. It's really not that big a step from moonshine to marijuana to cocaine.

Randy started using, and to pay for his own habit, he had to sell more. A way to make ends meet became a way to make a living. Grey was getting scared, and when Randy started selling to kids, she got angry. She decided to clear out for good. She took every penny Randy had, called the sheriff and told where he kept the drugs, and left. She left her clothes behind and just walked out. She hadn't even decided to head back to Seattle until I stopped on the road.

Suddenly I thought of something. "Grey, I'm registered at some pretty expensive hotels for the next few days. I'd better stop and cancel those, and we can stay someplace cheaper."

"Don't worry," she smiled, as though at a private joke. "I got enough from Randy to pay for expense-account hotels for a couple of weeks, and to buy some new clothes, too."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Don't worry about me."

We made small talk almost all the way to Knoxville. Grey turned out to be an intelligent, witty young woman. She was widely read as far as I could tell, history and art, the sciences. I never seem to have time to read more than sales and R and D reports. Once she opened up, despite her name, she was very lively.

As for me, she seemed impressed by my CD collection. She thought it was "cool" that "an older guy" like me (she grinned widely when she said that; I'm only forty) would like the Chili Peppers and the Hoodoo Gurus. On the other hand, I was amazed that she was able to sing along with Battlefield Band. I told her about my family, but she was reticent to talk about hers, except to say that it had been so long since she had seen them, that she wanted to work herself up to going back home.

When we got to my hotel, I escorted her to her room. I told her when my meeting was, and that I'd drop her off at a mall so she could shop for whatever she needed while I was busy. She said goodnight, and I went on up to my own room.

The next morning, we had a quiet breakfast in the hotel restaurant (separate checks, she insisted) and left. I dropped her off at a shopping center off the interstate and told her when I'd be back and where to meet me. Then I went to my meeting. I don't like taking "fun" vacations, so every year or two, I make the circuit of the company's bigger out-of-state customers. It's a policy that pays off in repeat customers and a lot of word of mouth business, and I can write off about a third of my vacation. The meeting went well, and I went back to the shopping center, only half-expecting to see Grey there.

But she was waiting for me, bags in hand, wearing a white blouse and knee-length dark red skirt, and medium heels instead of sneakers. She looked much nicer than she did in the work shirt and fatigues and maybe a couple of years older. She stepped off the sidewalk and we put her purchases in the trunk. I complimented her on her new clothes. When she thanked me, she reached up to loosen my tie a bit and said, "If I'm going to be travelling with you, I think I ought to look the part."

Okay, this was probably a perfectly innocent remark. But at the time, I wasn't sure how to take it. On the drive into Tennessee, I had certainly noticed how attractive she was, and had wondered what she would be like as a bed partner. But then, almost every man thinks that about almost every pretty woman he meets. The fact that my long-time lover and I had split up not long before didn't make matters any easier. But this girl was not even quite twenty yet, half my age. So I tried to put her eyes and legs and the perfume she was wearing out of my mind.

The next day was nothing but relaxation. When I vacation, I like to do absolutely nothing. I'm not a work hard/play hard kind of guy. No golf or tennis, just sitting by the hotel pool, reading a book. As I said, these meetings I had scheduled for the next couple of weeks were mostly just to make sure everything was running smoothly, so I didn't have any paperwork to wade through.

At any rate, I was sitting by the pool, trying to finish "The Creators" so I could move on to something lighter, when Grey stepped up beside me. "Are you nearly through with that?" she asked. I looked up to see her standing above me, wearing a soft pink one-piece bathing suit and matching knee-length wrap. A bow held her hair away from her face.

I thumbed through the remainder of the book.

"About a hundred more pages, I think."

"Can I borrow it when you're through? I left my copy at Randy's about half-read."

"Sure. This won't take long."

She dropped the wrap and sat on the lounge chair beside mine. She reclined and tilted her head back, enjoying the warmth of the late spring sun. Her eyes were closed, so I took the opportunity to look closely at her. The suit was cut low front and back, and high along her hips. Her skin was smooth and just barely tanned on all the parts I could see. Her legs were well-toned, not too muscular. Her arms were the same. Her fingers were delicately crossed beneath her breasts and a smile played across her lips. I then noticed that her eyes were cracked open. I think I may have blushed as I turned my attention, but not my concentration, back to my book.

I had gotten through about half a page when Grey spoke again five minutes later. "Do you think it's warm enough for a swim?"

I considered. She was probably quite beautiful when wet but not moping. "I think so."

She stood and and removed the bow, facing me. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye while pretending to read my book. She turned and I saw the rest of her suit, what little of it that there was. It was one of those "thong" suits. I could see faint, almost invisible tan lines across her buttocks where she had worn a more respectable bikini the previous summer. She dove cleanly into the water, feet and legs together, and for a split second, that exquisite posterior was pointing skyward, filling my vision.

I didn't burn with passion for her, I didn't want to possess her body; nothing so cliched. Part of me sexually appreciated the display of her body, but for another part, there was an aesthetic appreciation of the grace of her movements, of the proportions of her form. I found myself to be tantalized more than anything else. She swam possibly a dozen laps, using different strokes. I watched her the entire time, and she saw me watching her, but I didn't turn away, this time.

When she came to the edge of the pool after her final lap, I was waiting for her, towel in hand. I helped her out like a gentleman and handed her the towel. "You swim beautifully," I said, more softly than I meant to.

"Thank you. I--"

"Excuse me, Miss."

We turned to find that we had been joined by the manager of the hotel. When he had our attention, he continued. "Some of our patrons have requested that I ask you to change into a less revealing swimsuit, or to not use the pool." I noticed two women, about sixty years old but trying to look forty, sit down and begin talking and looking in our direction. Despite the sun hats and dark glasses, they looked like they had just come from a DAR function. It was obvious that the manager approved of Grey's attire about as much as they did.

For a moment, I thought Grey was going to protest, and I was eager to see it. But she didn't. "All right. I was going to have lunch anyway. Would you join me, Mark?" I said I would join her shortly. I wanted to stay and tell this glorified desk clerk that I would be checking out and not patronizing his hotel ever again. But Grey's actions made me forget what I was going to say.

She had gathered up her wrap and tanning lotion. The wrap and towel were draped over her arm, and she swung the lotion back and forth in the other hand. Her route took her right past the Daughters, but she didn't acknowledge their presence. But then the bottle of lotion flew out of her hand to land directly in front of the women. So Grey bent to pick it up. From the waist. Facing away from the women. She gave her hips a little shake, and the look on their faces as she did that made me laugh out loud. Grey winked at me and continued on inside the hotel with the most arrogant walk I have ever seen a non-feline do.

I went up to my room, half-hoping that Grey would be waiting in the hall for me, wearing that suit. She wasn't, of course. I hopped in the shower to wash off the sunscreen, dried off, dressed, and was out the door in fifteen minutes.

I went down two floors to Grey's room. I could hear a blow dryer running in her room, so I knocked harder on the door than usual. It hadn't been completely shut, so it swung open smoothly. I looked around the open door and saw Grey staring at me in the mirror above the sink outside the bathroom. She was completely naked. All I could see, however, were those eyes, looking out of the mirror at me. The rest was just an impression. I stammered some sort of an apology and stepped back into the hall.

Grey came out not long after. Again, she was dressed conservatively, but her dress highlighted her figure. Neither of us said anything about what I might have seen. I wanted to tell her that she looked beautiful -- and she did, in a belted navy dress and white half-jacket -- but I feared she would take it as a reference to my view of her naked. If I had had more confidence, I would have, but I was looking for a clear, a very clear signal for her. Mainly because I didn't want to look foolish before her.

Lunch was filled with wonderful conversation. I suppose the food was delicious, at least Grey said it was. But all my senses were concentrated on her. Sure, it sounds hackneyed, but it's the truth. I was terribly fascinated by her. It wasn't really love, though the physical and emotional attraction was there. No, I was interested in the totality of Grey. Her laugh and wit, the way she whispered when she thought she might be overheard even though all we were talking about was my intinerary.

I realize I haven't mentioned much about Grey's part of our conversations. That is because I find it impossible to isolate a short fragment for illustration. I could relate her explanation of why she both loved and hated the rain. About taking her general equivalency diploma and taking a semester of college just because people might otherwise think she had quit high school because she couldn't handle it. About her theories on the cyclic nature of history -- I think we argued that one the whole time we were on the road. Which do I pick and which do I ignore? I can't, so all I can do is give an overall impression of Grey, which built up slowly, evolved over the weeks, until I had this complete picture of a woman I was happy to call my friend, and possibly more.

The next week went much like this. Little Rock and New Orleans. Scintillating conversations. More probably- innocent remarks from Grey, and ambiguous feelings on my part. I found myself staring at her more and more. A few times I think I caught her staring at me. One day, out of the blue, she brought up our relationship, if I can call it that. We were watching a pay-per-view movie in my room when she just asked me flat out, "Mark, how come you haven't made a pass at me?"

This was making me uncomfortable for some reason. Maybe I thought my sexuality was being questioned. I tried to joke my way out of it. "Just never got around to it I guess. Would you like me to make one now?"

But Grey was having none of that. "I'm serious. I've been with you for ten days now, and not once have you asked me to spend the night in your room. Hell, you haven't even put your hand on my knee in the car."

If she wanted a serious answer, I would give her a serious answer. Of course, I had been wondering myself why i hadn't tried anything. "Look, Grey, first of all, I'm twice your age."

"That hasn't stopped other men."

"Then there's the fact that, when we first met, I thought I might be taking advantage of your vulnerability."

She was actually indignant for a second. "I am not some helpless puppy who needs your protection."

I held up my hands in a conciliatory gesture. "I know that now. But by the time I figured that out, I thought we were more friends than anything else. I just didn't want to damage that by making some kind of unwanted advance." Yeah. When was the last time you heard a guy say "we can still be friends?"

The conversation just seemed to die after that. The movie ended and Grey went to her own room. Idiot! I yelled at myself inside my head. I couldn't have asked for a clearer signal than that, and I had blown it. I didn't think that Grey was the type of woman who would throw herself at a man after even such a half-hearted rebuff as I had given her. So I resolved to stop thinking of our relationship as anything more than friendship. I had just talked myself out of a potential lover, I thought. Naturally, my ambiguity resolves itself right after I shoot myself in the foot.

Dallas was covered in conventioneers. We were late getting to the hotel and discovered my reserved room had been rented. Naturally there was nothing for Grey. An hour's search found one hotel room (in Dallas!), so I gave them my credit card number and we followed the directions. It was a small motel that the interstates had ignored, but there were double beds and the room was clean. Grey seemed to take the change in accommodations well. I, however, was worried. Here I finally had her in the same room with me for the entire night, and I had as much as told her I wasn't interested. How was I going to act calm? How could I broach the subject? You know, Grey, I've changed my mind: I'd give my left arm to sleep with you. Sure.

So I told her I was going to look up an old friend and would probably be out late and she should just go to bed without waiting up. Of course, I didn't have a friend; I just didn't want to face the next couple of hours with Grey. After cruising around and getting lost, I found myself in the parking lot of one of those big strip clubs that caters to businessmen. Big mistake. The last thing I needed to calm my nerves was to be in the middle of a big room filled with horny convention-goers and twenty to thirty naked women. The shriners or plumbers or whatever the hell they were were crude and obnoxious, but they had lots of cash, so these tanned, bare-breasted beauties kept parading past me.

They grow 'em big in Texas, and if they don't grow 'em, they can make 'em big. But there was this one girl. She had straight brunette hair and comparatively small breasts. Other than that, she didn't look much like Grey. But I had her do a lap dance anyway. Great invention, lap dancing. You can't touch her, but she'll touch you, except where you want her to touch you. But that was okay, because I was thinking of Grey. I imagined Grey's hands on my face and chest. I looked at my watch and saw it was midnight. Grey would probably be asleep, so I gave the dancer a generous tip and left. I could at least be in the same room with Grey, watch her sleep, listen to her breathe. I'll bet she's beautiful when she's asleep, I thought. Of course, she's beautiful when she's awake.

She was beautiful. And she was awake.

She was watching something on television, a movie, I think. She was wearing a floor-length dressing gown of pure white, and her hair shone. "Did you see your friend?" she asked me.

"Uh, yeah, I saw him."

She stood to turn the television off. "I can't seem to go to sleep. I'll just go in the bathroom and read, so you can go to bed." For some reason, she was more stunning than ever, standing there in the dim light.

"No need. I can handle a few more hours awake."

"Oh. Okay." She sat back in her chair, and I sat on the bed. We just sat there, saying nothing for the longest time. I thought she might be as tense as I was.

"Mark," she said at last. I sat up, doing my best to look attentive. "I know how you feel about me. But I'm afraid I don't feel the same way. So I think it's best that I go on alone."

Jeez. The only thing worse than having Grey beside me and being afraid to touch her would be not having her beside me at all. "Grey, you don't have to... I mean, I can control my feelings for you."

She stared back at me, dumfounded. "But you said you weren't interested in me. Didn't you?"

She was attracted to me, too.

The weight on my chest disappeared.

"Yes, I did. No, I... I mean, I did, but I didn't mean it. That is, I wasn't sure how I felt, or how you felt about me. So I took the safe way out."

Like in an old melodrama, we were in each other's arms. We just held each other. I was relieved more than anything else, because the self-torture was over. The passion could come later. Right now it was enough just to know that I had her, that my feelings were reciprocated.

But the passion couldn't wait for Grey. Her mouth sought mine, and, finding it, clamped tightly to my lips. The morose young woman I had picked up in the rain, the vivacious young woman who had captivated my imagination, had become the passionate young woman who was crushing me in her arms. How many more Greys were there? I was eager to find out.

I returned her kisses with equal fervor. We nibbled on each other's lips and exploring tongues. I inhaled her perfume. Perfume? I gently pried Grey's delicious body away from mine. I looked at the dressing gown in a new light. With trembling fingers, I untied her belt. The satin robe fell open to reveal Grey, dressed for seduction in a camisole and panties, garters and stockings, all white.

"I wasn't sure if I wanted to seduce you or not," she explained, somewhat bashfully. "I wanted to, but I wasn't sure if it was what you really wanted. You know?"

"I know. I know exactly. When did you get these?" She actually blushed, the first time I'd ever seen her do that, and she was heartbreakingly beautiful. "That first day in Knoxville. I had an idea."

I chuckled and pulled her back to me. I let my hands roam over her. Soft satin and silk, soft skin. I felt warm fingers unbutton my shirt, soft moist lips against my chest. "I suppose the swimsuit was for my benefit also?"

I felt her head nod against my shoulder. "And the open door afterward. But you were a perfect gentleman, damn you." She nipped at my chest with her teeth.

I laughed in surprise. I took her tightly by the waist and threw her on the bed. I landed on top of her, hands and knees on either side of her, my weight just barely pressing down on her. "I suppose you want some kind of barbarian, hmm?" I growled menacingly and ripped at her robe. Of course, all I did was pull it off her shoulders. She just giggled.

Then she gave me the most serious look she had ever given me. "I just want you."

We kissed again, long and deep. Grey pulled my shirt off my back and tossed it away. She ran her hands up and down my arms, touching nothing but the hairs. I never knew my arms could be an erogenous zone, and maybe they're not, except with Grey. She explored every curve of my torso while I kissed her. My shoulder blades and the crook of my neck, every vertebra, even my "love handles" and short ribs. I was uncomfortable but still highly aroused by the whole thing.

She unbuttoned and unzipped my pants, and I kicked off my shoes. Awkwardly, because I didn't want to break our kiss, I slid my trousers and underwear off. Now I wanted to do her. While I find sexy underwear erotically and aesthetically pleasing, it's much more fun to take them off. I sat on the bed and she stood between my legs, her nylon-clad legs just barely brushing against my erect member. Her dressing gown floated to the floor, forming a small cloud around her feet. I untied the fastenings of her camisole from the bottom up, to prolong the delicious waiting before I finally saw her breasts.

Ah. They were everything I imagined them to be. They stood straight out from her chest, two rounded-over cones not large enough to sag even a millimeter. The slopes formed two pink nipples that were extensions of the breasts more than separate features. I placed my mouth over the left one and sucked on it. Her skin tasted like spring, of some soap other than the antiseptic kind in the motel shower. Sweat was just beginning to form along her sternum, and I licked the moisture up on the way to her right breast. I twirled my finger around the areola of the one I had abandoned while I nibbled on the one in my mouth. Grey moved her hands up to my head and rubbed circles through my hair.

Then, taking my hands in hers, she moved them down to her hips. The garters had tiny ruffles on them, something I hadn't noticed in the poor lighting. Her panties were on the outside of her garters, but I wanted to save them for last. I unclipped the garters from each stocking. It took a nice bit of feeling around since my eyes were closed so I could concentrate on the taste of her skin and the sound of her heavy breaths. When the stockings were no longer attached, I worked the clasp on the back of the belt and pulled the garters through the waistband of her panties.

Again, I took her by the hips and laid her on the bed. I pulled the low-heeled slippers off her feet and placed her stockinged right foot on my shoulder. I ran my hands down her leg until I reached her stocking top. I willed myself to go no further. Using my palms, I rolled the stocking up her leg, while weaving long patterns with my fingertips along the wondrously smooth flesh of her leg. When one leg was bare, I repeated the process on the other leg, and it was even harder to stop my hands from moving up beyond her stocking top.

All this time, Grey had been playing with her breasts, cupping them and rubbing her hands along the undersides, tweaking the nipples. Her hands made a few abortive movements down to her pelvis, but she was apparently forcing herself to wait like I was. But I would wait no longer. I took the waistband of her panties in the hooked fingers of each hand and pulled them down her thighs. I kept my eyes on the stark white silk. I wanted no half-glimpses of her sex. I wanted to see all of her at once.