To the Reader:
This story (8 book pages) follows the relationship that grows between the local high school bitch and one of her fellow students as he rescues her from a sprung animal trap out in the wilds.
The
Romance Genre
' is defined by story content: Initially two people meet, they experience disagreement, dislike, sometimes even bitterness, but circumstances of the story's plot drive them together, and during it's course, they find at least the beginning of happily-ever-after
(HOA)
***
Darla Farnsworthy was damn good looking, and she knew it. She was also the bitch from hell.
Every person in Johnsonville's little high school with a pair of balls seemed to have made a bet with himself he could successfully date her and thus win the school's
1977 Stud of the Year Award.
But all gave up 'before the movie', took her home, and for months afterward reinforced her reputation.
Another factor in play here was these guys didn't need Darla. The other pretties in our school more than willingly took up the slack, so these
School Stud
contestants voluntarily removed themselves from the
I'll get Darla Into Bed
competition and went their merry way, circulating among the more accommodating candidates.
Darla's parents worried about her, I learned later, as any parents would worry about their daughter who seemed so unhappy: a date now and then, all of which ended in disaster that quickly spilled over emotionally onto the rest of her family. After her eighteenth birthday, her unhappiness continued its gallop in this undesirable direction, making life at the Farnsworthy home progressively more miserable every passing day. Donald Farnsworthy had more than he could handle, and told his wife so. At its present decay rate, their marriage wouldn't stand the strain much longer, and he knew it.
"What are we going to do, Don?"
"I don't know, but I gotta figure out something."
Mrs. Farnsworthy shook her head in baffled agreement.
"Maybe I should dump her off somewhere on the streets of the Fillmore District one dark night with no money, naked except for a pair of your spike heels, and then let those street thugs up there bang some sense into her. Maybe that would solve her problem."
"Oh, no!"
"Well?"
A smile crept across her face. A quick, if not initially agreed-upon screw with her husband of now twenty years had certainly changed her life. Amazing what two college freshmen could learn about life and each other in the grounds-keeper's storeroom during the second half of the season's first football game!
He saw that smile on her face and knew exactly its source. From college, she'd followed him back to his tiny hometown and become
That lady behind the counter
at
Farnsworthy's Grocery & General Store
. He often marveled that he could have been so lucky. Like Darla--whose name they chose because it sounded short for Darling--his wife, Bessie, was beautiful. That she was blonde, too, didn't hurt. In his eyes she was
worthy
of that description by a huge margin. To everyone who met her, Mrs. Farnsworthy was a darling, too.
How his genes when mixed with Bessie's could have produced the daughter they'd spawned within nine months of that football game dumbfounded him. Luckily, their three sons appeared to have dodged the
bitch virus
and would turn out successful.
Me? I was just another boy in Darla's high school class, a pretty good looking one, if I say so myself. (At least my mother said I was.) 6'-2, dark curly hair, good physical condition, with a young James Garner sort of face.
In Mid-July of 1977 when we'd both graduated and turned eighteen, Darla made the huge mistake of getting all over me about something that was entirely her doing. As that played out, I vowed either she would apologize and be decent about it or suffer the consequences.
That Saturday afternoon, I took a spur-of-the-moment trip to our local river--a slow-moving creek, really, that wound the length of our valley--thinking I might plink some with my graduation present .22 cal. rifle, then wet a hook and see if anything bit. To get there, I rode my new-to-me Yamaha 80 Enduro fifteen miles down a dirt road, about halfway to the next town. I touched off a dozen .22 rounds at tin cans, just to watch them jump while hanging from a handy wire fence. From there, I rode another mile further to a place I knew I could easily get from the road to the creek. I retrieved my pole and rifle, then headed through the creek-side willow thickets to the water.
What did I find as I emerged on the water side of that string of thickets? Darla Farnsworthy, naked except for ankle-high boots, standing on the creek-side gravel beach, and apparently preparing to take an uninvited swim. I don't know why she tried to cover herself, but she did, which really surprised me. It also gave me a great look at what her teenie-weenie bikini didn't hide.
"Get out of here!" she screamed at me.
I just stood where I was; I had more right to be here than her. Far as I knew, my Uncle Barney Lewis owned this strip of creek-bottom. That was one reason I chose this location for my fishing attempt in lieu of property back up the road a ways.
"Get out of here!" she continued screaming (evidence of a very limited vocabulary, I concluded).
So I stood there a while longer, while she continued screaming the whole time. But I'll admit, her vigor tapered off some when I didn't respond, and every once in while, she'd do something with her right foot. She kept looking at me like I should take an interest in her and whatever she was doing.
I ignored her, but instead climbed onto a rock overhang from where I might see what her foot-fiddling business was all about.
Once up there with a mostly clear view of her, I cleared the remaining cartridges out of my Ruger 10--22, and locked its breechblock open with a handy stick of brush cut from the closest bush. After that, I pointed the rifle's scope at her foot. The scope's 9-power magnification showed what her problem likely was. She'd stepped completely into a cocked, and now sprung, 10 inch, long-spring, muskrat trap in the only orientation she could have that didn't take all the hide and flesh off her dainty, booted ankle. Compounding her predicament? Whoever set that trap had stapled its tether chain to a downed log, so without tools, she was anchored there for the duration.
So? What should I do?
I climbed back off the rock and walked toward her.
"Don't shoot me!" she screamed before I got within fifty yards of her.
"Look bitch. You're not worth the five cents the bullet would cost."
"You can't talk to me with language like that. My parents will have you thrown in jail."
"I just said that, and they won't, so go fuck yourself. I know your parents; they're not assholes like you."
That stopped her mouth for maybe a half second before she came back with, "Get away from me, you bastard!"
So I defaulted to complying with what she said she wanted. I headed back through the willow thicket toward my transportation. I did so to make her believe she was left there alone to help herself out of her predicament. What I did instead, was climb the back side of another rock outcrop, bringing me up to where I could watch her without being seen.
She went through all the standard, useless female motions, jerking the chain binding her to that cottonwood log, crying, screaming, cussing like I still cannot believe a girl that good looking could, and finally sitting down and weeping. I had a powerful urge to go help her, but I knew deep down, she had not yet reached the 'grateful for assistance' personality stage.
