Ardyth of the Great Plains

Ardyth was walking down the gravel road, a walk of a short quarter mile from the farmhouse into town. Finished with her chores, cleaned herself up, now she would wander around town a while before it got dark out. Getting dark earlier these days, autumn was here.

Ardyth walked along, humming a tune from the latest Beatles album. She was wearing a worn grey sweatshirt and patched blue jeans, second hand men's clothing. It was impossible to find store bought women's clothing in Ardyth's size. But no clothing could conceal her ample bust, her sturdy powerful farmgirl physique. Ardyth stood over six feet tall, and she was well accustomed to carrying buckets of water and hefting bales of hay. This is the girl who singlehandedly pushed the family car out of a snowbank when it got stuck in wintertime. This is the girl whose muscles rippled, broad shoulders and powerful arms, when she worked in the fields during the wheat harvest.

Now Ardyth came to the edge of town, and she waved her gigantic farmgirl hand at a passing pickup. Mr. Jensen waved back. Folks in these parts always waved at a passing vehicle.

From this approach the town always presented the same profile, the big tall grain elevator in the middle, flanked on either side by the steeples of Emmanuel Lutheran and St. Joseph. The town of Medicine Wheel, North Dakota, population 219.

Now wander down Maple Street, turn right on East Second, and soon Ardyth found herself back behind the Standard station. She slipped in amidst the grove of spruce trees back behind the gas station. Ardyth liked it back here. Hidden amidst the trees, she could spy unseen on people going by.

Hid among the spruces, Ardyth saw two young boys riding by on Schwinn bikes. Then a car, a Nash Rambler. Then, walking along... it was Jerry! He was coming from school, walking home from some after-school activity.

Immediately Ardyth knew what she was going to do to Jerry. Breath held tense in her large chest, she tiptoed out of the trees as Jerry passed by. Hard for a girl as large as Ardyth to be stealthy, but she sneaked up behind him... and all of a sudden, without warning, she grabbed him from behind.

"Mmmmmmmmmhh!!! Mmmmm, mmmm hmmmmm mmmmmmhhh!! Mmmmmmhhhh! Mmmmmmhhhh!! Hhhmmmm, mmmm hmmmmm..." Ardyth seized Jerry from behind, she clamped her colossal smooth strong powerful farmgirl hand TIGHT over his mouth and more than half his face. She clamped her huge right hand steeltight over his face, she wrapped her strong left arm around his arms and body from behind, and she lifted him right up off his feet and held him suspended in the air.

"Mmmmmmmmh!! Mmmmmhh... mmmmm hhhmm hhhhmmmmmmm, mmmmmmmhh!!" Jerry jerked and squirmed and struggled in Ardyth's tight unbreakable grip, his feet dangling in the air. He writhed and twisted in her arms, he made frantic muffled noises from behind her gigantic powerful silencing hand. "Mmmmmmhh, mmmmhhh!!!" But even struggling against her with all his strength, he couldn't get away. She was much too strong for him. With a big smile on her broad pretty Scandinavian face, Ardyth held Jerry up in the air effortlessly, like a dangling jerking mmmmphing puppet.

"Mmmmmmmmmhhh! Hhhhmmmm mmmm mmmmmhh... mmmmmmhh... mmm... hhhmmmmmh!" Ardyth backed toward the cluster of spruces, holding Jerry aloft with ease, keeping her gigantic smooth beautiful farmgirl hand clamped tighter than a steel vise over Jerry's mouth and nose and the entire lower three-quarters of his face. "Mmmmmmmmhhh!!!!" She carried Jerry back into the grove of trees, where she set his feet down on the ground again. But she kept him held tight in her arms, held tight in front of her, squeezed back tight against her, with her arm wrapped steely-tight around Jerry's body and arms, and her huge colossal warm strong farmgirl hand kept squeezeclamped savagely tight over his mouth and nose and much of his face, so that he could only make these soft meaningless frantic stifled noises.

In amongst the shade of the trees, Jerry writhed and thrashed and wriggled like a wild animal in Ardyth's tight crushing embrace. "Mmmmmmmhhh... mmmmmmh, mmmmmmm... mmmmmhhhhh.... mmmm, mmm hhmmmm mmmmmhhh!!" But it was no use, he couldn't break free. He had no chance of ever getting away from Ardyth, no matter how wildly he struggled against her, no matter how he barked and gnarled from behind the unbreakable iron grip of her gigantic soft warm muscular work-strengthened farmgirl hand. "Mmmmmmm, mmmmmhh!!!" Jerry's eyes peered out above the vast expanse of Ardyth's huge smooth long broad hand over so much of his face. Snuffling noises indicated that he was breathing, somehow, with great difficulty, forcing air laboriously in and out of his nostrils and between Ardyth's big cable-strong farmgirl fingers.

"Mmmmmmmh, mmmmmm mmmmmmm! Hhmmmmm... hhhhhhhh, pphhhhhh... mmmmhh... gghh'hmmmmmm, mmmm! hhhh'hhhhh..... pppphh... pphhhhh... mmmmmhh..." Ardyth squeezed Jerry harder and harder in her arms, she hugged him tighter and tighter and TIGHTER, and she wouldn't let him go, she just held onto him inhumanly tight as he strained and thrashed and twisted, trapped in her steely tight arms. She pulled his head back against her shoulder, and with a broad grin she looked down into Jerry's eyes just barely peeking out above her large soft smooth warm elephantine hand clamped oh so tight over his mouth and nose and most of his face.

"Mmmmmmmh..... mmmmm........ mmmmmmm....."

Ardyth grinned as she looked down into Jerry's silent pleading eyes. No, she wasn't going to let him go. She wasn't going to take her huge strong farmgirl hand away from his face, no matter how hard he struggled and made muffled noises. Ardyth just held Jerry tight, she just kept her hand clamped over his face like a tight mask of living flesh and bone, as his struggles grew weaker and more sporadic. She kept holding him tight for could've been fifteen, twenty minutes. It was beginning to get darker out. Ardyth kept Jerry hugged tight, squeezed, immobilized in her arms, looking down into his eyes, holding him with her enormous smooth soft hand vise-clamped over his mouth, until he was physically and emotionally exhausted.

Then, like a girl crooning a lullaby, Ardyth began softly singing: "Let me take you down 'cause I'm goin' to... Strawberry Fields... nothing is real... and nothing to get hung about... Strawberry Fields forever... Strawberry Fields forever..."

At long last Ardyth took her huge farmgirl hand away from Jerry's mouth. She kept him cradled in her arms, holding him from behind with his arms pinned down. Sweat was glistening on Jerry's face where Ardyth's hand had been covering it. Jerry was breathing fast, panting, hungry for more oxygen.

"Hey," said Ardyth, "you doin' anything Friday night?"

"Not really, how come?"

"We could go some place."

"There's nowhere to go."

"Well, we could hang out," said Ardyth. "Or, I don't mean like hang out. I mean like, maybe if you asked me out?"

"Ardyth!" Jerry sounded scandalized. They had known each other all their lives. They were close friends. Their families sat in adjacent pews at Emmanuel Lutheran. They had been in school together, until Ardyth graduated from Medicine Wheel High, class of '67. They had been playing this inexplicable attack-and-smother game for years, since junior high at least, Ardyth attacking Jerry and holding him, shutting him up, not letting him go no matter how hard he tried to get away. But ask her out... nobody ever asked Ardyth out. Everyone knew Ardyth, everyone liked Ardyth. But nobody, not even her friend Jerry, had ever asked out big strong pretty six-foot-four Ardyth. "Ask you out? You mean... like on a date?" Jerry was trying hard not to sound incredulous.

In the gathering gloom a tear ran down Ardyth's cheek.

"Well... okay." Jerry's eyebrows sheepishly went up. "You wanna go out on a date Friday night?"

"Okay!"

Jerry warily eyed Ardyth's powerful arms, still wrapped around him. "Uh... pick you up at eight?"

Ardyth walked back home in the twilight with a song in her heart. On the road from town out toward the farmhouse, the land always presented the same aspect: wheat fields stretching out on the flat North Dakota plains, far as the eye could see. Telephone poles. Oceans of wheat gently dancing in the wind. Flat plains, dotted here and there with farmhouses and barns. And there was a song in Ardyth's heart.

It was 1968, and Ardyth was twenty years old, and this was the first time she had ever been asked out on a date.

Meanwhile, back in town, Jerry slipped into the house through the back door. He slipped into his room, locked the door behind him, dropped his pants, lay back on his bed, and furiously relieved the wild overpowering tensions which had built up inside him. Damn! That funny game with Ardyth always did this to him! That funny game which the two of them had played together for years... Ardyth attacking him, holding him with her hand over his mouth, not letting him go no matter how he struggled...

Jerry didn't know what to make of their peculiar little game. It had a powerful effect on him. But he couldn't relate it to anything else in his experience. He couldn't connect it with any concept or categories he knew. He had no idea how to classify it. He didn't even have a name for it. It was just... that funny game Ardyth played with him. He'd never heard about anything like it, on TV or in movies or in books or anywhere. It wasn't exactly sex, and it wasn't exactly wrestling, and it wasn't exactly anything he'd ever heard of...

It was 1968, and Jerry was eighteen, and he had no idea how to classify or categorize or even think about the peculiar attack-and-smother game Ardyth always played with him.

That evening at supper out at the farmhouse, Ardyth's father lost his temper. "No! I am not going to have you go the way of your friend Carly!"

"But Daddy..." Ardyth was almost in tears as she spooned out mashed potatoes onto her plate.

"No. The Beatles, I suppose that's a lost cause. And your Rolling Stones... but there is a limit, young lady, to the music I will allow in this house!"

"Dad-deeeee..."

"Next thing I know, you'll be burning incense again. And you know what I told you about incense. I will not allow you to burn anything in this house that smells like marriage-a-wahnah!"

"But Daddy, Carly didn't give me any marijuana! I told you..."

"No, she just became a hippie, and smoked the stuff herself, and ran away and joined a commune down in Missouri!"

"You're not being fair to Carly! She's not a bad person!"

"Her own family disowned her, and I say rightly so. These hippies and these protesters are getting altogether too far out of hand, they're going to take this country right down the drain..."

As Ardyth got up from the table sobbing, she saw the sympathetic look in her mother's eyes. She fled from the dining room, and from behind her she heard her mother's voice: "Oh, Martin..."

Ardyth fled upstairs to her bedroom, slammed the door, put a Beatles record on her phonograph, and sobbed and cried into her pillow. Somehow, for reasons she herself couldn't fathom, she found strange comfort in the thought of the game she always played with Jerry, grabbing him by surprise and holding his mouth. Ardyth always liked that game; she liked it a lot, even if she couldn't begin to understand what it was about.

Friday night arrived, and Ardyth dressed in her best jeans, and a white knit sweater, and sensible saddle oxfords. She checked herself in the mirror, gazed at her pretty face, reached back and fiddled with her hair, the long blonde pigtail running down her back.

Jerry arrived at the farmhouse, driving his old 1949 Ford pickup. Jerry was proud of his truck. It didn't run at all when he got it, but he'd worked on it in his backyard and got it running like a top. Jerry came into the house. Ardyth's father was eyeing him like, Do anything to my daughter and I'll get out my shotgun.

It was a short drive to town, and they stopped at the cafe for supper. Burgers, fries, Pepsi. Afterwards they walked down the street to the drugstore, where Jerry and Ardyth shared a chocolate malt, sitting together in one of the two booths. Ardyth noticed the alarm in Jerry's eyes when she reached across the table and engulfed his hand in her own so-much-larger hand, but it didn't make her let go. She kept on holding his hand, let any Friday evening drugstore patrons stare.

Afterwards... well, Jerry had been right. There was nothing to do on a Friday night in Medicine Wheel, North Dakota. And it was much too far to drive to Minot. Jerry drove Ardyth round and round town in the moonlit dark in his pickup. Past the huge red brick edifice of the school. Past the Standard station. Past Schmiedicke's grocery store. Past everything in town at least twice. The only action in town was some fellows playing euchre on the hood of a Ford Thunderbird out in front of the Standard station.

At last Jerry came to a stop and parked next to the grain elevator, down by the railroad tracks. "C'mon, let's check this out," he said. Ardyth didn't know what he meant, but she got out and followed him, across the tracks, into the shadow of the grain elevator, between two large stacks of creosoted railroad ties. And there, with some hesitance and awkwardness on both their parts, Jerry ended up kissing Ardyth. Kissing her on the lips. She didn't even have to prompt him, he kissed her. Awkwardly, but he kissed her.

It was 1968, and Ardyth was twenty years old, and this was her first kiss.

There was more hugging, and more kissing, and then something which surprised them both, though it really should have surprised neither of them. Jerry turned around, he turned his back on her, and then he reached down and took hold of her hands and lifted them toward his face.

And without missing a beat, Ardyth did it. She clamped her huge strong smooth farmgirl hand tight over Jerry's face. Tight! Her colossal left hand over his mouth and nose and the entire lower three-quarters of his face. Tight!! She clamped her enormous smooth beautiful long broad powerful farmgirl hand hard over Jerry's face, and Jerry went, "Mmmmmmmhh, mmmmm hmmmmmm mmmmmm, mmmmmhh mmmmh hhhhmmm! Mmmmm hmmmmm mmmmmm!"

And there in the shadow of the grain elevator, between the two huge piles of railroad ties, Jerry squirmed and thrashed around as Ardyth wrapped her other arm tight around his body from behind. Jerry wriggled and struggled in Ardyth's tight bearhug, he made frantic stifled noises from beneath her huge strong face-covering hand. She only had one of his arms pinned down, and with his other arm he reached up, he tugged and pulled and pried on Ardyth's huge strong hand clamped over his face, but she was far too strong for him, and he couldn't budge her hand over his mouth no matter how hard he pulled on it. Ardyth had her hand locked over his face in an unbreakable mouth hold!

"Mmmmmmm, hhmmmm mmmmmhhh, mmmmmmmm'mmmm, mmmmmmmmhh!!" Now Jerry got his other arm free, now he was reaching up and pulling on her hand with both his hands, but she was still too strong for him, and even with both his hands and every ounce of his strength he couldn't pull Ardyth's huge soft warm firm muscular farmgirl hand off his mouth.

Ardyth reached up and she clamped her right hand in place over her left hand, so that now she had both her big mammoth smooth beautiful hands fastened steel-tight over Jerry's mouth and nose and much of his face.

"Mmmmmmmmmmhhh!! Mmmmhhhh, mmmmmm hmmmmmmmm!!!" Jerry was writhing and twisting, he was turning his head back and forth, he was reaching up with both his hands and pulling just as hard as he could on Ardyth's gigantic hands, but she was much too strong for him, and she kept her big oversized smooth farmgirl hands locked tight over Jerry's mouth and face no matter how hard he struggled. "MMMMMMMMMMMMHHH!!" Jerry couldn't get away from Ardyth's unbreakable mouthhold, he couldn't get away no matter how vigorously he struggled against her, and Ardyth wouldn't let him go, she wouldn't stop holding his mouth.

She pulled the struggling Jerry's head back hard against her shoulder, so he couldn't move his head any more, and she continued to keep her hands squeezed unbearably tight over his face as he mmmmphed and reached up and futilely wrestled and pulled and pried on her mouth holding hands. "Listen to me, Jerry," she spoke into his ear, "I need an answer from you, and there's only one right answer. But I'm not going to let you talk, I'm just going to keep my hands over your mouth. I'm going to speak, and you're going to listen."

"Mmmmmmmhhh... mmmmmm, mmmmm hhhmmmmm??" Jerry still kept tugging on Ardyth's unbreakable tight mouthlock, but now he was tugging more lightly, pawing her huge smooth hands lightly, stroking her enormous soft warm muscular farmgirl hands locked over his face, and his noises dropped to an occasional soft mmmmph.

"Listen, Jerry. Listen up. I don't know what this is you and me do together, this -- this, this thing we've been doing now for years, I'm doing it to you right now, and I don't know what it is, and I don't know what to call it, but it's -- it's precious, and here we are, out here in the middle of nowhere in the Great Plains, and my life is going nowhere, and you're going to graduate in the spring, and you'll probably get drafted and sent to Vietnam, and my life is going nowhere, and I, I think we've just got to jump the track and get free!"

"Mmmmmmhhh.... mmmmmmhhh, mmmmmmmhhh..." Jerry was motionless now, his hands resting on Ardyth's huge hands, so much larger than his, her gigantic warm smooth farmgirl hands locked over his entire face almost up to his eyes. He was silent now. He was straining to breathe.

"And, and I don't know where I'm headed, but I want you to stick with me, Jerry. We've always been good friends, and I can't even put a name on this freaky thing we do together, but it's a part of you, and it's a part of me, and it's an important part, it's very precious. And if we're going to get free... this, what I'm doing to you right now, I have no idea, but it's part of it all... Think it over, Jerry, let's stick together, I'm not going to let you talk, I'm not going to let you answer now, but just think it over... where you're headed, where I'm headed, and this, this freaky game we play is definitely part of the mix..."

Ardyth muttered, "Carly ran away to Missouri... We could do worse than that, Jerry, you and me..."

And Jerry was quiet, mostly, with some mmmphing and struggling, as Ardyth kept both of her large large smooth beautiful warm soft incredibly strong farmgirl hands clamped tighter than steel over his mouth and much of his face, late into the night, there between the stacks of railroad ties, in the shadow of the grain elevator, on a cool autumn night in the middle of nowhere, Medicine Wheel, North Dakota.

It was 1968, and Ardyth was twenty and Jerry was eighteen, and they had no idea what this peculiar practice of theirs was, only that it was a part of wherever they were heading, trying to get free.