IT WAS EARLY SPRING AND SHE SAID YES(L Douglas St. Ours) IT WAS EARLY SPRING AND SHE SAID YES


Her looks struck me...I was twenty and after flunking out and thumbing the country and doing roughneck jobs I was back in the only school that would accept me...there was a small library in a converted barn and she worked there part-time...a student like me but as I learned later she was eighteen...and I thought a beauty like that has got to have a boyfriend...but after gazing at her for a few days...I checked out a book and asked her out...it was early spring and she said yes with a smile that floored me.

She lived way out in the country...I knocked on the door and her ruggedly friendly father invited me in...I met the mother too...then their daughter appeared radiant in a summer dress...we left for a lawn concert...earlier I had bought a jug of cheap wine...we found a spot as dusk approached...the combination of the wine and the concert and her soft flesh in that short dress corkscrewed me into a desire to ravish her that night.

But I poked and prodded her about her relationships as she nervously swigged most of the wine...at last she revealed that she had a boyfriend who was playing minor league baseball bus circuiting the south...then she said she wanted me...but before I could respond the wine got her sick...I needed to get her to a bathroom but the campus hosting the concert was all male...so I escorted her to the closest dorm...and took her into the mens room where by then I was practically carrying her...I helped her into and stall and closed the door...when three guys bulled in...apparently they noticed me dragging this helpless beauty into their dorm.

One was a swaggering lug with a big mouth...the other two his lustful followers...Mr. big mouth shouted...we want some of this action...I didn't speak...I didn't snap...I erupted...I threw him against the wall...trying to bang his head through it...but all I managed to do with his skull was to crack the tile...he slumped down..then I turned my attention to his shocked sidekicks...who had froze in their tracks before bolting out of the bathroom...then from the stall I heard a thud...my date had passed out...her panties down to her ankles...but my desire had dissolved and died...all I wanted to do was help her...so I struggled to get her dressed and then carried her to my car.

She was moaning and vulnerable...her eyes closed all the way to her parents' house...she was disheveled and ragged out like she had been raped...oh god what was I to do...her father would assume that I liquored her up and then took advantage of her...we arrived and the house was dark...to facilitate my escape I kept my car running and left the driver's door open...with difficulty I lifted her out of the car...I gently sat her by the front door and then I rang the doorbell until I saw a light come on and her father approach and then I broke and ran jumping into the car and took off...the father never would have believed my story.

I saw her a couple of days later...she remembered nothing.....she saw me and smiled..but I was unable to speak to her again...I felt shame...I was shaken..the rock that had been me became the stone in my stomach.



by L DOUGLAS ST OURS
January 2011

---