Congratulations on Fashioning Your Prom Dress From a Deer Hide!

Normally woods people don’t go to the city people’s prom. It isn’t for them. It’s not a place where they can fit in or belong. It’s a crude replacement for the woodsy ritual of sharing an elk carcass together and then sewing clothes for one another out of said elk’s remains. But you’re different. You learned to read and write, in defiance of your parent’s wishes. You hunt using slightly better made tools than other woods people. And you love outside of the woods. In fact, your eye has fallen upon a particularly pretty city boy of late and, as fortune would have it, this boy has asked you to be his prom date.

But woods folk know nothing of the ritual of prom, and you only know about a handful of details, largely drawn from your participation in city people’s culture. You know that prom-goers are supposed to have flowers, called corsages, that signify their love for one another, and that ladies, come prom-time, wear dresses.

Since almost all of your clothes are leather vests and pants this second bit poses a problem for you. You can gather up some wildflowers and make a corsage, no worries, but if you wanna have a prom dress you’re going to have to take matters into your own hands. Woods money isn’t accepted in any dress shops we’re aware of, so that’s out. The only option, as we see it, is for you to go out into the woods today and kill a deer, then fashion a crude dress from its hide.

So today you’re going to take a personal day. First you’ll tie a brief note informing the school that you’re sick to the leg of a pigeon and release the bird. Then you’ll gather up your hand-made bow and arrow and creep through the underbrush until you find an appropriately majestic stag. Then you’ll draw your bow and release your arrow, catching the elegant beast in the throat. It’ll tumble to the ground, kicking up dirt and brush in its death throes. You’ll run up to it, knife in hand, and slit its throat in one practiced gesture. Then you’ll make a slit from neck to belly and carve out its inside, racking its meat on makeshift structures formed from branches until it finishes dripping and then tucking it into hide sacks so you can bring it back to your woods family for future consumption.

Once that’s all done you’ll start on the really fun part of the process: you’ll begin making your dress. You’ll stretch the hide, tan it and sew it by hand using a bone needle and thread made of your own hair. When all’s said and done you’ll have a flowing, elegant number that shows just the right amount of top boob and hints at what pleasures lie underneath within that taut, muscular package you call a body. Then you’ll make a hat out of the stag’s head, which makes you look like a sexy deer-woman. You’ll get some charcoal and make dark slashes underneath your eyes and then you’ll board the nearest bus and head off to the prom.

When you arrive people will all fall silent. Then the boy, the cutest boy in the whole wide world, who has found himself so taken with you, will notice you standing there in the entrance. Then he’ll grab your hand and kiss the back of it. You’ll smile, a wolfish thing, and wait for him to raise, to look you in the eyes. Then you’ll grab the back of his head and pull him in for a voracious kiss. When you release him he’ll be breathless, gasping for life. After the longest pause so far in your brief, interesting life you’ll share a smile and go get some punch. After all that the two of you will start dancing to Kanye songs, grinding your little hearts out. Later on you’ll have sex in the cute boy’s bed, which will be really different than sex in the woods. It’ll be amazing.

Congratulations on Fashioning Your Prom Dress From a Deer Hide!