In the summer of 1969 I had a girl named Beverly. I had always thought she was out of my league.
Everyone called her Bev. We went to high school together, a couple of years apart, but were never close. I thought she was unfriendly and didn't like me, almost to the point of being a bitch, and too obviously considered herself comely. She was comely indeed, gorgeous in fact, but she gave me the impression that I was merely something unpleasant that she wanted to avoid stepping in. What changed all that was a party in the woods we had each gone to one night in the spring. It was four years since I'd graduated. I went part time to the local community college and most of the party goers were home from college, big universities and expensive private colleges, for the summer.
There weren't a lot of people there who were friends of mine. It was a small town so I knew nearly everyone there but never hung out with any them. They were the rich kids and jocks from the good side of the tracks, and I was just a farm kid. But there was nothing going on this particular night with any of my gang and a guy named Pete, who I liked, had suggested I come out and party. I was kind of a bookish guy and for all Pete's higher social status and jock club charter membership he was a reader too. He wasn't embarrassed to have read poetry and we talked easily about how different things we'd read affected us. So I decided to go to the party and see how it went.
Since I already didn't fit in I kind of mingled unobtrusively and made mental notes about the behavior and appearance of the attendees. My own crowd behaved every bit as foolishly as these kids but I could be as big a snob as any of these rich pricks. It's how cliques work. I wandered around not caring if I was a fish out of water and watched and listened. Things were beginning to take on the atmosphere of a drunken orgy. Young men and women were pairing off and making out and groping each other openly. Couples were fucking in cars and a couple of girls were dancing nearly naked in front of a bonfire. After about a half hour I noticed that Bev was there and looking quite perturbed. She was having what appeared to be a heated argument with a guy who I assumed at the time to be her date, possibly even her boyfriend. It was Ron Jackson, one time captain of the football team, a guy I judged to be a singularly obnoxious asshole. I headed over their way to listen. Who doesn't enjoy watching a good fight? He was apparently trying to get her to do something she objected to. She kept repeating "No!" over and over again. I eavesdropped shamelessly. It didn't matter. No one was paying any attention to me.
I thought Beverly Parker was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. I thought it then and I still do. I reckon that's why it irked me so much that she was utterly indifferent and even hostile to me. I didn't expect her to gush over me and declare her love and admiration, but she could have at least been polite. I dated some fine looking girls when I was a young man. Two or three of them were more than just pretty, they were objectively beautiful. Nobody was in the same category as Bev though. She had the deepest, darkest large brown eyes under dusky natural eyebrows. Those eyes were so dark as to appear almost black until you got close and gazed into them, set wide in a subtly round and pale face. Her nose was perfection itself, straight until it finished above a wide soft mouth in what was not quite a button tip. Bev had densely thick and luxuriant dark brown hair that began above an intelligent forehead. She wore it long and parted in the middle. She stood about five three or four and her shapely legs appeared firm but feminine rather than athletic. Just looking at her made me ache to touch her and kiss her. She had spent her freshman year at State University and like a lot of the party goers was freshly home for the summer.
In dribs and drabs I gathered that their argument came down to him wanting her to blow him right there and then in front of everyone. She wasn't having it. She finally grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him off into the area where all the cars were parked. The light of the bonfire didn't reach there completely but you could see pretty well in a flickering light. I wanted to see what was going to happen so I followed by a circuitous route, staying out of sight. Bev and Ron ducked behind a big Lincoln Town Car. I hid between a pair of Chevys and watched.
Bev clutched at Ron's jeans and slowly yanked down the zipper but she didn't appear to be particularly enthusiastic about it. She kept looking around guiltily. He began breathing harder as she reached in and fished out his cock. As I watched she knelt, took him into her mouth and began bobbing her head on his hard dick. She blew him for two or three minutes and then he pulled her up and pushed her back onto the trunk lid of the Lincoln. She protested, saying she didn't want to fuck. He asked her why, was she on her period and she told him no, she didn't want to have sex with him. She didn't want to take her pants off where other people could see her- which was exactly what he was trying to do while they argued and struggled. I heard her say at least four times that she did not want to have sex. I half considered going over there and trying to put a stop to it. But it wasn't my business and she didn't even like me. And I wasn't anxious to get my ass kicked by the star quarterback, a very likely outcome. Christ knew how many of his buddies were close by. So I hesitated but continued to stand there and watch. He finally succeeded in stripping her pants off and with one pant leg stuck around her left foot, he bulled and pried his way in between her thighs and it looked like he was probing for her pussy with his cock.
This looked like rape and I was just crouched there like a pervert and a coward, afraid of taking a beating. And I had no doubt it would be a beating. I probably couldn't whip this rich bastard. Oh, I'd get my licks in and maybe he'd know he'd been in a fight, but it meant a certain ass kicking for me. Throwing caution to the wind on impulse I took a deep breath and charged out from between the two Chevy's. I was only fifteen feet away but I had a head of steam up by the time I arrived and drop kicked that son of a bitch right in the nuts. Captain Ron dropped like he'd been shot. I struggled to untangle the pant leg twisted on Bev's foot.
"A bunch of his friends are here." she hissed at me and I whispered yeah, probably about a hundred, but she was on the same page as me, worried I'd get a serious beating. She shook her head and whispered back "Only maybe ten!"
I looked at her. "Really?' Only ten? What a fucking relief!" Suddenly her pants came unstuck and and I grabbed her hand and told her "Run!", hoofing it for my truck with Bev in one hand and her blue jeans in the other. I drove an old '53 GMC pickup- primer gray, of course- and I opened the driver's door and pushed her in and across the bench seat, tossing her britches at her and jumping in after her. I turned the key and punched the starter button on the floor with my toe.
Nothing. The old foot starter buttons were notoriously cranky.
"Fuck me runnin' " I muttered and stomped it again, harder. This time it caught and the six volt starter cranked over slowly, but the engine fired instantly. I tuned it up often, more than I needed to, but it always started immediately because of that. The old timers who laughed at me for being so fussy about tuneups could go fuck themselves. It was my pickiness and obsession that saved my ass that night. Probably it saved Bev from a bad night too, although I didn't think Ron would be in the mood to fuck anybody for a while. He would likely not be engaging in any self abuse either.
I sprayed gravel leaving and heard it pinging on the sides of a few expensive cars, Camaros and Road Runners and a Mustang or two. I didn't spare my beloved truck that night. I hauled ass out of there and when I came to the road I started to chuckle. I'd kicked Jackson in the balls and lived to tell about it! So far. I was in my element now, country roads and farm land that I knew like the back of my hand. I had smoked dope and swigged beer with my friends out there cruising the back roads and I could drive it blindfolded. I had not switched on the lights and kept them off. I wasn't sure anyone had seen me drop the hammer on Ron, and I was pretty sure he didn't know who or what had hit him. There might not even be anyone chasing us but I wasn't going to hang around to find out.
I flew down Bald Hill Road in the dark praying I wouldn't hit a deer and Bev clutched her jeans on her lap. She hadn't even tried to put them back on yet. I stayed on Bald Hill Road all the way til I came to County Line and pulled the light switch as I turned north. We were getting onto some roads where there might be a little traffic and it wouldn't do to drive with no lights now. I barely slowed down to turn at Coon Hollow and when I got to my folks' farm I pushed off the light switch and swung into their drive.
"Maybe we'll take a minute here so you can get dressed." I told Bev. She looked embarrassed now, like it hadn't occurred to her that she was sitting bare assed on the seat next to me.
"Thanks." She pulled on her jeans and asked "Where are we?"
"This is my mom and dad's place. We're safe here and if they come out to see what's going on they'll just figure....well,you know...that I brought you here for...ahhh...some privacy." I grinned at her. That girl looked awful good sitting over there half naked, just a couple of feet away. I hated to see it end, but I was sure she was in no mood for romance, especially with the likes of me. But she grinned back at me and said "You've got balls, Hunt. Thanks."
"I aim to please, young lady. I wish I'd had the balls to take a crow bar to that asshole."
"You got me out of there without getting raped, Hunt. You did fine. You're my fucking hero, you know that? I couldn't fight him off by myself. He's too strong. If he ever tries that shit with a girl again he's gonna have the memory of your boot up his ass to think about. It looked like you really hurt him." She giggled merrily.
"Probably did. I got him square in the cojones. It's entirely possible that he'll be singing soprano now. And it doesn't bother me one fucking bit."
"Nor I compadre, nor I." We grinned sappily at each other. Then she asked "So, are we staying here a while?"
"Oh! Fuck no, we don't have to. I just wanted a safe place to park for a minute and sort of take stock, let you get your pants back on. We can go now if you're ready."
"I'm in no particular hurry. I did dodge a bullet and although I'm mad as hell at that fucking Jackson I feel kind of, I don't know, exhilaration? Relief? I mean it was a near thing back there and out of nowhere this knight charged up and saved my ass. Really. My ass. And it turns out he's pretty cute. You never had the time of day for me before tonight. What's up with that?"
"Bev, you always looked at me like I had the plague. I'd have sworn you thought I had cooties. But...I couldn't let him just force you."
