The Deerhunter Story, It’s hard being a teenager. [MF]

These days, they would say she had an “anxiety disorder” or some boring clinical DSM-5 label like that. But back then as a 90’s teenager we just said she was “wound a little tight”.

And she was.

Her kid brother and I were in the same grade. He was way too cool to be hanging out with me regularly, but he’d introduced his sister to me and we hit it right off. Her and I were built nearly identically, both tall and rail thin. She was blonde, and had incredible legs that made the Eight-Dollar Uber all the way from her ass to the ground. She was plain as paper and nearly as flat. She only wore a bra for emotional support, and to keep from walking around with her high-beams on all day.

She was cute, but in the kind of way where you had to get to know her to see it. Most people never got that far, and she had long ago locked her heart away deep enough that the average guy would get bored and pull the eject handle inside of the first month.

We had a few things in common though. We were both built entirely out of elbows and knees, and we shared a similar late-teens complexion that closely resembled the surface of Mars. We both came from the same side of the tracks, the wrong one, and we were both complete outcasts at school. Despite all this, we actually made a pretty decent couple.

She was sweet, kind, gentle, and terrified of her own shadow. I was loud, obnoxious, and insufferable. You know, a teenage boy. Our entire relationship was based around the fact that once you got her pissed off a little bit she could hold a pretty solid conversation. Despite her kind and gentle nature, she had one hell of a temper and a wicked fast wit. If you poked her a little, she’d come out of her shell far enough to pay it right back in style.

It was the first time I had a relationship based entirely on tormenting each other, where all we did was fuck or fight. It wouldn’t be the last. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of other couples like that. Once you experience it firsthand you can spot them in public a mile away. I don’t envy them, and I certainly wouldn’t want to live like that for years on end. But with the right girl, at the right time in your life, it can be fun for a few months.

It was November in Michigan, and the snow was fresh enough that it was still white on the roads. The whole world looked like a postcard when she picked me up in her massive land-yacht of a car for our date that night.

Her car looked like something out of a Tarantino movie. It was an early 80’s Chrysler Cordoba, with the tight sporty performance of an aircraft carrier, virginal white, and had the aerodynamics of a brick. It got about 5 gallons to the mile on a good day, and the only thing uglier than the outside of the car was the blood red interior with it’s velour bench seats.

We were nerds. We didn’t go to clubs and such, and we didn’t have any other friends with cool houses to go hang out at. She lived in the middle of nowhere in Marne, and I lived in the middle of nowhere in Coopersville. Our idea of a date was to burn ten bucks in gas driving aimlessly for a few hours until we got bored with talking, found a quiet spot, and put our lips to better use.

We found our quiet spot for the evening. It was one we’d been to a dozen times before. Out on the dead-end of 32nd Avenue off of Aurthur, in the middle of nothing but farm fields. Out there your neighbor is often a quarter-mile up the road, and the only thing anywhere near us was the wood products company that had closed up for the night hours before.

You can be certain that anyone who lived on the road knew damn well we were there. People keep a good eye on their surroundings out there, and behind every window is an eye. But they were used to young lovers wandering back in the evenings and enjoying a little privacy at the end of the road by the highway. We never caused any problems, and we respected their property, so they respected our privacy and never called the cops to run us out. It was just a nice “do unto others” system. Life’s different out in the sticks.

We’d been together for a while now, and she was just starting to get comfortable with the idea of simply being naked in my presence, much less actually having sex. Every date night I watched her fight one hell of an internal struggle between her anxiety and her hormones. She was wholly uncomfortable with being so vulnerable, but she also really enjoyed sex. My job through all of this was to simply be supportive and not pressure her. More nights than not, that resulted in me playing my own personal game of tug of war and thinking about her really hard in the shower. But we’d been together enough times now that her hormones won out more often than not, and she was really starting to learn to enjoy herself.

Tonight, hormones beat anxiety in her internal battle. We climbed into the back seat and set to fogging up the windows with the enthusiasm for fucking in cars that is only known to people who haven’t had the chance to have their own place. The windows were dripping, and so was she. For half an hour we awkwardly entwined, legs and arms braced against anywhere we could fit them in the confines of that ugly old car.

Christ she was loud. She completely lost herself in orgasm, and for a moment, she was free. In that instant she revealed her secret inner self and completely let go. It was magnificent to behold a woman experience such unrestrained pleasure, but the sounds of her high pitched screaming off the glass bubble we were in could make your teeth shatter. For a woman who was so quiet and reserved every other moment of her life, damn she could yell.

We thrusted, we pulsed, we moaned, we rocked that car for half an hour and I was just about to bring it all home when I was wrenched back to reality with the knock on the window.

And that’s when shit went sideways…

She went from screaming in pleasure to shrieking in fear without even bothering to take another breath. I have no idea how it happened, I was having my own moment of freaking out at the time, but somehow she managed to untangle herself out from under me, get completely dressed, and be sitting all the way in the front passenger seat before I even realised I wasn’t inside her and was left there trying to figure out what the hell to do with the condom.

In a moment I would come to deeply regret an hour later, I stuck it in my pocket, got myself sorted, and hopped over the seat.

Some asshole was knocking on the driver’s window.

Now, we’d have seen headlights if someone came down the road. We were young, paranoid, and had played this game enough times to know damn well to keep a decent lookout. You can’t see through fogged windows, but you can sure as shit notice headlights, especially out here where there’s nothing but farms and dark.

And yet….some asshole was knocking on the window.

I figured it had to be either a cop or an axe murderer, because who the hell else would be knocking on the window in this situation. I’d seen the movies, and it’s always either a cop or serial killer – either way my fate was sealed.

So I cracked the window a few inches.

“Have yooose guys seen any deeeer?” he slurred. He was drunk enough to be having a vowel movement. The stench of beer breath overpowered the smell of sex in the car.

My brain made the complicated and unpleasant sounds of a new driver learning how a clutch operates.

He was commode-hanging drunk, armed with a shotgun, and trying to hunt deer in the dark. I will never know for certain if he simply wasn’t aware of the half dozen laws he was breaking at that moment, or just didn’t give a shit.

She was vibrating with a combination of fear and rage, seething in the passenger seat and gave me a look that said “MAKE HIM GO AWAY!”

Well, fuck.

I stepped out of the car into the cold and pulled on my coat. It was dick-shrivling cold out there, but our mighty hunter was as toasted as a Lucky Strike. He had a nose like Rudolf, a mud caked Remington in one hand, which he was carrying by the action, and a Miller High Life in the other hand. This man was having a good night.

Thankfully, my redneck heritage and family of raging alcoholics had prepared me well for this experience. There are angry drunks, funny drunks, and confused drunks. They’re all fucking annoying, and my family wreath sprouted all kinds. He was the confused sort.

“Hi there, I’m Chris. Are you doing alright, sir?”

“Hawi….. I’m Bob.” he said, his muzzle drooping into the snow.

“Are you having any luck out here tonight? Get anything yet?” I asked, knowing damn well the only thing he was going to get was either pneumonia or arrested.

“Nope, and I’m almost out of beer.”, he held up his can and developed a slight list to port in the process.

The secret to dealing with a drunk is to be calm, polite, but still gently adopt that tone of a second grade teacher. You won’t get them to do what you want by pushing, you have to pull, gently.

“Well then maybe it’s time to go home. It’s getting kinda dark and hard to see.” (it was nearly Ten and pitch black outside) “You want a ride home Bob? That sounds like a good idea to me.”

I heard her smack the window, hard, and looked over to see her subtle 1 finger hand signal. Her mouth was open wide and she was violently shaking her head.

“How about I give you a ride Bob? You’re lookin’ a little rough for walking.”

“Naaawwwwww trucks over there” he said, pointing off to the West down an empty service road, that I knew damn well was a dead end about a quarter mile up. It only went to a billboard next to the highway. “She’ll get me home.”

“You sure you’re ok to drive Bob? You don’t want to just take a walk? It’s a nice night out.” I said, as I shivered.

“Gotta draaaive hooome, i’m too fucked up to walk.” His stance oscillated in heavy ethanol seas, and he was clearly taking green water over the side, but remained mostly upright. Mostly.

“That’s a nice piece you’ve got there, keep her out of the snow though or you’ll rust the barrel. Can I dry it off for ya maybe a little?” I asked.

He held out the shotgun and nearly fell on his ass in the process, but he shot a leg forward and caught himself just in time.

I accepted the muddy shotgun and checked the action, not only was it unchambered, it wasn’t even loaded. His pockets weren’t bulging and I was pretty certain he hadn’t remembered to bring any ammo with him at all. He wasn’t hunting, he was walking. At least I didn’t have to worry about him shooting us, himself, or someone’s fucking cow.

It happens.

I took the soggy condom from my pocket and stuffed it in the action, working it down into the breech and chamber with my finger. Because fuck you Bob for ruining my night. He likely won’t remember meeting me at all, and I can only imagine the questions he’ll have when he finds it; or when his wife finds it in the trash.

“There ya go, sir. You get home safe ok?” I said, and pointed towards the two-track headed East along the side of the field; the opposite direction from where he said his truck was.

“Gurnnnnnaaaaght” said Bob. He sloshed and weaved off in the direction I had pointed.

I got back in the car and she was incensed, like I had somehow caused this. I knew better than to try and argue my way out of it and just started the car and let her go off. Now, I’m certain that she was actually forming words and even sentences. It certainly felt like I was being sentenced. But given her rage-induced lack of oral punctuation, her lung capacity, and her decibel level, I just wanted to die. The combined effect was a cross between Charlie Brown’s teacher and Dino on cocaine.

I drove the five miles back to my house without saying a word. I long ago learned when to recognise the point when words wouldn’t help, so I held mine. I pulled into the driveway, gently put the beast in Park, and got out while leaving the engine running. Without a word I just closed the car door, and headed towards the front steps of my parent’s house.

A moment later she backed out of the driveway.

It took two-and-a-half decades before she would speak to me again.

Fuck you, Bob.

Source: reddit.com/r/gonewildstories/comments/g1wvds/the_deerhunter_story_its_hard_being_a_teenager_mf