Page 43 of Among the Screaming Trees

Again, Fox reaches for her, only for Aspen to jerk her hand away. The movement drains all softness from his face, plummeting his frown. He’s hurt, but remains stoic, not wanting her to see how much her action wrecked him.

“Aspen. What do you not agree with?” Jack asks, dumbfounded. “All of us are here for you.”

“My voice matters. That the four of you and your big personalities won’t drown me. I need to keep my identity, and I’m not sure that’s possible with all this machismo. The only way I agree with any of this is if my voice is important. I don’t want to drown you out, nor get lost in the chorus. We all matter equally. Either agree with that or fuck right off and leave me alone.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Fox

STINGING NETTLE (URTICA DIOICA)

She’s a fucking firecracker. She’s perfect, and her voice does matter. By advocating for equal importance, Aspen has also gone into bat for me and my silence. I want to scream her name as I come, not just in the shower where I practice my words while I rub one out, but deep inside her while she writhes under me. Yeah, I want my first time to be special, and she’s more than special, she’s made for me.

I never set out to be a twenty-year-old virgin, but life and catastrophe threw themselves in front of our sedan that fateful night. Four ventured out, and only one would return; only, returning is a stretch. When my frigid, blue body was dragged from the wreckage that should have claimed me, part of me died that day. The car came to rest upside down in a precarious snowbank after skidding on a patch of black ice my dad didn’t see. He’d been drinking and arguing with everyone in the car about what a safe speed was. Thirty hours trapped upside down, hanging by the belt that tethered me to the seat, and my sister dying slowly under me from what I later found out was internal bleeding. I prayed to the distant howl of wolves to come and take me, too.

My injuries were severe, minutes away from third-degree frostbite developing into fourth-degree levels and death. I lost three toes, the tip of one ear, and part of my left pinky finger. The rest recovered to a patchwork of scarred skin and mottled, gnarled lines like deep silvery gouges where cells couldn’t repair. My torso bears shredded marks similar to a wolf attack, so I keep a base layer of clothing on to prevent aghast faces and pearl clutching, and for my mental rehabilitation. If I don’t let others in or their words cut me further, then I can protect myself. It’s worked for well over a decade. These emotional scars are harder to treat than the physical variety. There’s no compression garments for this shit. Visit after visit with well-meaning professionals with kind eyes and associative images were all told to fuck off, not with words, but fists. I burned through five or six, from memory, before I was tagged as too difficult and parked in the foster system. That’s when the real emotional scarring picked at flesh and tore muscle from bone. Kids who were bigger than me, parents who only wanted to get to know me better, and no one needed to hear about our little secret. That’s right, no one needed to know where the bodies were dumped after the second fucker dared deign to put his filthy tongue and hands on me. My mouth did not exist to worship the genitals of foster families; it was mine. An entry point for food and drink to pass to the stomach kept me alive. To talk was optional, so I opted out. It didn’t matter if you had a voice or not when a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound man wanted to slide his stubby cock over your tongue or pin your front to a wall to sink it somewhere else. What did matter was my size and growth rate. Two hundred and sixty pounds of fat and gristle were no match for one hundred and thirty pounds of furious resistance.

I was fortunate at fourteen to land with a not so predatory family in a district with a decent school and teachers who taught outside the middle and gave a shit. My heritage and love of being outdoors were channeled into an embryonic liking for botany. My mother’s Southern Tutchone heritage held stories of how her people used the land and animals and plants in harmony, working with nature’s gifts, not fighting against her by emptying forests and filling rivers with colored sludge. Once I decided to further my studies, a scholarship opened up at Wyldan University’s Anchorage campus. Through countless negotiations from my counselor, she could persuade Wyldan to offer me a place further east near my mother’s people. The call of the wild was the howl of the wolf in the darkness, the huff from migrating caribou across riverbanks and into the dense growth on the other bank, and the beauty of an Aspen. One solitary Aspen on campus moving with quick steps and a folder full of notes tucked under her arm resting on curvy hips. She moved like she didn’t have a care in the world, or a second to spare for anyone, other than when she locked eyes with me. Eyes like fern moss, complete with the complex network of fern-like fronds; the striations of varied green and gold in her irises took the air from my lungs. She was the first person to look at me and smile, rather than look away. She doesn’t remember orientation day, but I do.

Now this little tree, this goddess of sublime perfection, has planted herself into my garden. Whether she realizes this, her existence comes down to the four of us, well five if you count Aspen, and I’ll stop at nothing to make sure she’s safe. She looks at me and not past me. Like the missing tips of my ears and finger don’t matter, or the silvery scars are mere surface dents, but the substance underneath is undamaged. I’m incredibly flawed, and the only cure… is her. I would sacrifice anyone in that room to ensure her safety. I don’t care how many degrees hang on a wall, or whose family set up the university. Importance isn’t measured by framed paper or diversified revenue streams, her importance is measured by how my heart beats when she’s near, and how I can’t go a day without being close to her, smelling her scent or stealing one of her smiles. I gifted her Arroyo Willow because Foxglove would have been way too basic for her brilliant mind. No, she’s going to work for this one. The willow was chosen because of its prevalence in the Muir Woods. While we may exist on the border of Wyldan, I want Muir on her mind, like she is embedded in mine.

Classes are set to return tomorrow, marking three days of no schooled commitments. It’s been three days of strategy planning, syncing schedules, and around the clock protection. Prof and Doc are doing what they can at an administrative level, while Luk and I are tasked with the student responsibilities. Walking her to and from classes and checking out who is in and around her dorm. At the professor’s insistence, all Tali’s and Aspen’s food was thrown out, and new, unopened stuff brought in. He paid for all of it, without them knowing, of course. Luk and I helped unload the groceries, double checking seals and triple washing produce. It’s the little things, I guess. He’s not taking any chances; none of us are. They’re also doing a deeper dive into Ryan Fuerdler. The guy seems decent, but looks can be deceiving. We all knew he was Tali’s Larcher, because there is no way the doc or prof would have let him anywhere near Aspen. The thing about Luk and me, we didn’t ask. We demanded, and we claimed. Eli and Jack knew if they fought us on this, Aspen would lose. Had the doc tried to take me out, and the prof targeted Lukaz, then Aspen was out there alone and at the mercy of some guys with sick senses of humor and no moral code. Are our values any better? Fuck yeah, they are. We’re obsessed with all of her; we don’t just see her cunt as a dumping ground for another batch of cum. Someone like her should be adored, worshipped, thoroughly claimed. Not fucked and forgotten.

Her little limbs curled around me from behind while I made coffee with the new beans. Following Luk’s declaration to the entire office that I was still a virgin stung like a motherfucking stinging nettle. Instead of the tiny needle-like hairs injecting histamine under my skin, I was awash with guilt and shame. Why didn’t I have sex earlier? I wanted to. Hell, there were times growing up where a pretty girl would catch my eye, only for her to turn away repulsed. If, on the off chance, someone gravitated toward me, I shut that shit down early because I suspected they had an agenda. I was the freak. The kid missing parts of his body that froze off, along with his ability to speak. Then I was the subject of curiosity, guys stealing glances at my naked body in the shower, only it wasn’t the roadmap of scar tissue they were looking at, it was my cock. When flaccid, it hung heavy and long.

“Dude should totally be in porn,” one kid said, while his friends laughed.

“Do you think his voice migrated down to his dick?” laughed another. The taunts grew, along with my hatred for anyone around me. They itched like the cheap, synthetic fibers of the dollar-store blankets I’d find on the bed in any house I was assigned to. Most people mimic those cheap fibers. Wound together with others to form a fake fabric and placed wherever they can do the most harm. Their purpose isn’t warmth or shelter—it’s damage. Aspen radiates a type of raw authenticity I’ve never encountered before.

“Fox, I can do that. You and Luk are my guests. Let me take care of you.”

Her voice is an angel’s plucked harp, rich and melodic with a hint of sexy twang. I could listen to her read a dictionary. I wave her away, content to look after her as my girl. I couldn’t give half a fuck if I have to share her with three other guys, at least she’s mine in some capacity. When the time is right and we’re both comfortable, we’ll have each other physically as well.

“Let Fox make the coffee, I have a spot saved for you right here,” Luk says, indicating his groin. “Face or pussy, I’m not picky.”

“Eww, I am,” Tali says, appearing from her bedroom. “If you are going to fuck, please not in the common areas.”

“Common areas such as mouth or pussy? Sure, Tali, if Aspen is up for anal, that’s on the cards too. All she has to do is ask.”

I suck a breath through my teeth as Luk braces for impact. Tali exhales a longer “Ewww,” hugging the walls, so she doesn’t venture too close to him and catch any of his crudeness.

“I think she meant common areas such as the living and kitchen, Luk, you dick,” Aspen jests, settling herself sideways onto his lap and smacking him on the back of his head, rousing his hair.

“Ow, baby. That hurt,” he whines.

“It hurt me more than it hurt you,” she clarifies, and kisses his cheek.

A knock at the door signals the end to any conversation about anal and common areas. Tali makes her way to the door, hollering that she’ll get it, even though none of us make any effort to cease what we are doing and answer instead. Me with the coffee, and Luk groping Aspen’s tits like they’re stress balls. I’d prefer Tali did it, anyway. If Aspen decided to answer the door, she’d be flanked by Luk on one side, and me on the other. I extract a fourth cup because I’m in Tali and Aspen’s shared space, and the nice thing to do would be to make the co-host a beverage. I don’t consider myself nice, but I can be. I can try, at least.

After some muffled conversation, the door closes, and Tali wanders back into the main space. “I thought it would be for me. It says samples, but it has your name on the box, see.”

Sure enough, in thick black letters, are Aspen’s full name and this dorm address.

“What did you order?”

“I don’t know, Tali. Nothing that I remember. Everything I needed for school, I brought with me or picked up in Anchorage.”

“That’s because Wyldan is so old and quaint; there are no decent stores here. Can you imagine if they had a Hobby Lobby? Or Home Depot? I swear we all lucked out coming here instead of the Anchorage campus. Do you know there is a Taco King and an Arctic Roadrunner on the same block? Or perhaps one is further down; anyway, my point is, they can study without living in the woods. I feel like we are the backwater, lumberjack cousins that never get invited to anything because we are so remote.”