by V. K. Ludwig
I glanced after Ayanna who continued along the trail, stumbling over roots, falling to the ground and pushing herself back up under curses. She would never find the way to the school. Perhaps not even back home to the cabin.
My pulse slammed into my earlobes. Still. No sign of Adair. I shouldn’t have listened to her. Shouldn’t have let her go with him. God damn it! Why did I allow her fuck with my brain? Why did nobody tell me she would turn my brain to mush with the tip of her finger? And not even twirling around the tip of my cock. No, on my fucking shirt, still a quarter of an inch away from actually touching my body.
Argh. To hell with it!
I spun around on my heels and sprinted after her.
“Did he touch you?” I yelled behind her.
I wanted to know. I had to know. Did he feel her skin? Her soft skin that wrapped around her tight body without a single blemish?
She didn’t respond. I let my voice rumble “Did he fucking touch you?”
Ayanna jerked around, wisps of hair stuck to the foamy corner of her mouth. “No! He didn’t touch me!”
Phew! He didn’t touch her. I bet he was just his not-so-charming self.
“Then what happened?” I asked, “Why are you so pissed off?”
“Nothing happened.”
I didn’t know much about women, but I knew this was a code word for something happened, but I don’t want to tell you. I pushed my legs into a couple of strong sprints until I caught up with her.
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
She didn’t answer.
“How am I supposed to protect you if you don’t tell me what's going on?”
She didn’t even flinch at my shout.
Without thinking, I grabbed her by the shoulder. “Look at —”
“Don’t touch me!” She boxed my arm away with a strength I expected no woman to have.
Blue veins pulsed along her forehead, her eyes a mix of desperation and inexhaustible fury. I dropped my arms by my side like a useless pair of weapons. She sobbed, and a new wave of tears waited just behind those thick black lashes of hers.
For a moment, she belonged neither to the Districts nor to the Clans. She was all woman, standing in front of me in all her frailty, speaking to the most primal parts of my soul.
“You can’t touch me,” she said once more, this time a mere breath of exhaustion. Her entire body shook. And then, within the fraction of a second, she threw herself against my chest in a long drawn out wail. She swung her needle-thin arms around me and squeezed so hard, it almost tickled my sides.
I flung my arms up in an ‘I’m not touching her’ kind of manner, flabbergasted by the thought of where else I could possibly put them. A prime example of why I was a poor choice for a guard. What did anyone ever teach me about women? Staring at weathered playboy magazines for the past twenty years helped nothing with this situation.
Ayanna rubbed her face into my shirt, and her hot tears soaked through the fabric and onto my naked skin. “You are supposed to hug me back.”
I looked down, my chest hiding her droopy eyes and red nose underneath every breath. “Oh…”
My body stiff and movements awkward, I placed one arm around her waist and cupped the back of her head with the other hand. With every earthquake of a sob, her soft hair shoved in my rough palms.
I took a deep breath, and at the exhale, I relaxed my body and carefully pulled her deeper into the hug. Fuck! She fit into my embrace like someone had molded her for it. My torso and limbs seemed to be devouring hers like a shelter, making her stronger, while something of hers softened a place deep within my ribcage. She was mine at that moment until she sobbed her final sob and pulled her arms from me.
We walked back to the cabin in silence, and I sent Bry a quick message that she wouldn’t come to school that day. Not to my surprise, Ayanna stormed inside and locked herself in the bathroom the second she recognized the robin’s nest in one rafter.
“Ugh.” I flung myself into the rocker. “Call Oriel.”
My holo-band lit up. Oriel’s face appeared in front of me, startling the squirrel on the banister into a screech of terror. “What’s up, man?”
“Don’t ask man. It’s a mess,” I growled. “Dude, why didn’t anybody tell me how complicated women are? I feel like you guys set me up or something.”
“The way I see it, you’ve got no right to complain.” He frowned. “I had to live with my sister for nineteen years, and nobody gave me any warning either. You didn’t touch her, did you?”
“What? No!”
I forced my eyeballs into the top right corner for a quick touch count. Ok, once. But that didn’t count because she wouldn’t quit running away from me. And the other times didn’t count because, well… she touched me!
I shrugged my shoulders. “Just help a brother out, would you.”
“Is it going to get me in trouble?”
“Not if you keep your mouth shut.” I rubbed the nape of my neck. “Besides, Rowan is still pissed at you because you blew the engine on his truck, so why would you care?”
He tapped his nose. “Right… there’s that. So what is it?”
“If a woman is upset, what can they do to calm down?”
“Why did you upset her?”
“Why…” I took a deep breath. Unbelievable. “Why do you assume it was me?”
His huge face stared at me for a moment as he considered my question.
“Ok, ok,” he said. “My sister likes to go for a walk by herself to clear her head.”
“Nope. Can’t let her walk off by herself.”
Muffled sounds came from the inside of the cabin, and Monk sat underneath a tree staring at a squirrel which complained with loud barks. Oriel sighed and threw his head back.
“It would help if you tell me why exactly she is upset,” he said.
“Yeah, about that.” I cleared my throat. “I have no clue.”
His face disappeared. Instead, the hologram displayed everything from a shaky wall to dirty socks on the floor. Oriel’s moaning sounded distorted and annoyed.
“River… you are her guard! How can you not know?”
“Do you always understand why your sister feels the way she feels? Or why exactly she is upset?”
“Um.” He thought for a moment, gripping a tuft of his mohawk as if he wanted to pull it out. “No. Actually, I almost never understand why she is upset and why she feels the way she does. She’s irrational like that. But I can tell you she likes to take a bath when she has to settle her poor nerves.”
“A bath?” I asked him.
“Yeah but like, a warm one. No not warm. Hot. I’m convinced something’s wrong with their internal thermostat. If it feels like it’s gonna melt the flesh off your bones, it should be just right for a woman.”
I stroked my beard. “I think I can manage a bath. As a matter of fact, I’ll get started on it right now. Thanks, man!”
“No pro—”
I hung up before he could finish his sentence. There was work to be done. My holo-band turned dark, and I rubbed my hands together.
I jumped up and ran behind the cabin to the barbecue pit. Like spices to a fire, I sprinkled kindling sticks onto the dead lumps of coal. Three well-seasoned oak logs created a pyramid which soon spat wild flames from the top.
Moisture bubbles popped and the ember infected bark crackled, creating that familiar sound of comfort and warmth. As the air around me cooled off, however, it seemed to suck the heat right up, and none of it ever reached the surface of my body.
Wading into the creek beside my home, I let my hands glide over the surface of the river rocks, smoothed by the trickles of century-old water. I grabbed the largest and tossed them into the make-shift sling I created using my shirt.
The huge iron kettle moaned underneath my determined tugs, and I hung it on the frame above the soaring flames. One by one, I plunked the rocks into the kettle. It tossed and shook hit by their weight. A deep livestock through served as a tub which
I pulled across the bunched up loam and close to the fire.
Then came the tough part. Armed with two buckets, I walked back and forth between creek and tub at least a dozen times. By the time the water spilled over the edges of the through, the river rocks had begun to puff steam into the afternoon air. A pair of nippers and ten minutes later, I had dunked the stones into the through and warmed the icy soul of the creek's water into flesh boiling heat.
I approached the bathroom door with softly placed steps. At the touch of a knock, I bumped my knuckles against the solid pine. A fabric muffled sniff answered. “I need to be alone, please.”
“That’s cool.” I pressed my cheek against the door. “But next to the shitter isn’t the right place for that, don’t you think?”
Silence. “I prepared you a bath,” I said.
A screeching stool shoved around on the hardwood floors on the other side, and limbs rumbled uncoordinated. Then she opened the door, but only wide enough to peek one-eyed through the gap.
She blinked warily. “A bath?”
I took a step back and pointed at the herb bunches, hanging upside down on a thin rope from one beam to the other. “Lavender or rosemary?”
She said nothing, but let her eyes wander to the pale purple flower heads. With two towels underneath my arms, I dragged a chair all the way to the bathtub to hang the towels on it. I pulled the lavender from my pocket and sprinkled it into the water. As soon as it touched the surface, the pieces sank down to the bottom. They left no trace behind other than their scents, which wrapped us in a sweet and flowery blanket.
“Monk is on the porch chewing up an antler,” I said. “He barks a warning whenever someone comes close to the cabin. This part of the forest is like a jungle though. Nobody can see you here.”
“But what about you?”
Her lashes fluttered above innocent eyes. What about me? I wanted nothing more than to see her. Let my eyes feast on her perky breasts she hid so well behind all those linen tunics, dresses, and shirts. I’m not gonna lie, I thought about peeking from the loft window. But I knew I would end up rubbing my cock the way we did when we were boys, glancing at the few girls we had through drafty gaps between logs. The word inappropriate came to mind. For fuck’s sake. I’m her guard. How am I supposed to protect her from horny guys if I wasn’t any better myself?
“I won’t look if that’s what you mean. I will sit on the porch in case you need me. Just listen to my voice, and you will hear where I am or if I move. I’m an exceptionally gifted singer, you know. I studied all the great songs from the twentieth century.”
I winked at her and placed the towels onto the chair along with a bar of goats milk soap. Then I cleared my throat and let my sing-song voice blast from deep within my lungs.
“When my Granny was 23
She planted a chestnut tree.
When my Granny was 24
She went shopping in Baltimore.
When my Granny was 25
She stole a car and went for a drive.
When my Granny was 26
She went into politics.”
Chapter 14
An arrow
Ayanna
My stomach cramped from hip bone to hip bone. It was as if a doorman stood broad backed in front of my brain. Closed for a private party, I had no way of getting inside to reason with it. Adair was a bit of a jerk, yes. But why would I even care? It’s not like I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. A small sample tube would suffice.
It totally made sense, but the doorman just shooed me off. Crestfallen, a wave of nausea tickled the little dangling piece at the back of my throat. Something inside me made my stomach convulse at the slightest thought of getting my hands on his sample. I did not understand what it was, but it reminded me of an uninvited guest who had used up all my toilet paper.
Sitting behind the massive rectangle of a desk, I shoved on my stool which wobbled from side to side, threatening to buck me off at any moment.
“Are you still not feeling any better?” Bry kneeled down and placed her hand onto my knee. “Do you want River to take you to the clinic?”
I shook my head and gazed over the lively room. Clay and Florabel slithered their hands across the interactive board, like snakes who side-wind across the desert sand. The movements of their limbs turned from waves to serpentines to images of inner focus. River sat cross-legged in the corner beside a colorful pile of books. On his lap, Silas listened to a story about a snow hare and a fox, his face as ashen as his hair.
“He has a way with kids, doesn’t he?” I lifted my chin in River’s direction.
“Yeah,” Bry said. “I think they have some sort of connection. Perhaps because they have so much in common. But he usually comes once a week to read to all the kids, probably because they don’t judge.”
“What do they have in common?”
Bry sighed. “Did he ever mention his mom to you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“She came to the —”
River stared at us, and Bry quickly pretended to rummage for something deep within the file drawer. He winked at us, then focused once more on the paragraphs between his hands.
“She came to this clan the night he was born,” she whispered. “Soaked from rain and with only one shoe on her feet. All they got out of her were her name, a baby boy and screams that penetrated people to their cores. She died that night, and Old Jacob took care of him. Raised him like his own son.”
I stared at River from the corner of my eyes, my heart beating slow and heavy. Why didn’t he come up in my search when I looked for potential donors? Tall, strong and with a quick mind, he met the criteria and… Stop it right there, Ayanna! He is your guard. Having his child would be… weird. Where are those silly ideas suddenly coming from?
“What does that have to do with Silas?”
“Silas is… special,” she said. “He was brought here from I don’t know where when he was just a few weeks old. Poor guy suffers from seizures although they have gotten better now that the Districts trade us medication for him.”
“What are seizures?”
Bry arched a brow as if I asked on which planet we lived. “It’s caused by an electrical change in his brain. Most of the time he only loses control of his muscles, but two or three times he was also unconscious for a few minutes. It’s a scary sight for sure, but I think he is getting better as he grows.”
“Aren’t you concerned that your baby might come up with such a condition as well?” I asked. “Or perhaps even something worse?”
A cold tickle climbed up my neck as I waited for her reaction. Maybe I had crossed a line? Seizures. A new word in my vocabulary. I’ve never heard of a child in the Districts suffering from this condition… nor any other condition. Furnished with only two beds per district, our clinics greeted the occasionally sick with nothing but an endless echo of their own voice.
“Look at them.” She pointed at them and took both my hands into hers. “Do they appear sad to you? Nobody in this village would think twice if you asked them if Silas should be in this world or not. If you carried a child inside you for ten months, nursed it from your breast and sang it to sleep in the cradle of your arms… would you really care if it didn’t turn out as perfect as you hoped?”
That shut me right up. Sweat formed on my palms, and I pulled my hands back. Her question burned like acid poured over my conscience. Once I breathed in the sweet scent of her skin like hot shortbread dipped in milk, would I really care if she wasn’t perfect? I couldn’t answer her question, and doubt clawed at my throat.
“You don't have to answer just yet. How about I asked you the same question again a year from now?” She winked with a clicking sound from her tongue, then she eyed the room and leaned in closer. “Did you bring the water?”
“Yeah.” I pointed underneath the desk. “It’s right here. I can only bring you a couple of bottles because they are really, really heavy.”
She tugged on the backpack, and the cl
acking of glass against glass made me peek over to River.
“Damn it,” she said. “I didn’t think of that. Tell you what, tomorrow I will bring a huge plastic jug with a funnel. It’ll be much easier for me to carry it that way.”
At the clap of Bry’s hands, the interactive board disappeared, and the children settled into their routine of returning their work material to wicker baskets. Silas picked up one book after another and handed them to River, who placed them neatly onto the sagging shelves. I insisted on ending our first school day with a community circle which excited the kids. River refused to take part until we convinced him to stand between the two boys of the class so he wouldn’t break any laws.
After the children left, Bry walked over to my desk and picked up the backpack which clacked once more, as they bunched against each other.
River hurried behind the desk. “Let me help you.”
“No!” Bry and I yelled at the same time.
Too late. One strap clung to the crook of Bry’s arm, while the other dangled from River’s hand.
“Why is this so… what the fuck did you put in here?”
“Um…”
My eyes darted back and forth between River and Bry.
“E-empty glass bottles,” I said. “For… um… for the baby?”
He narrowed his eyes and sucked one of his cheeks deep into his mouth.
I had nothing to do with this. Well, perhaps a little. But I could always say she begged me for it and I wouldn’t refuse her because she sounded so desperate. It’s not her fault that her husband overwhelms her with his… desires. River let his cheek pop back out and pulled his lips into a paper thin line instead. Uh-oh!
Bry tugged on the backpack and flung one strap over her shoulder. “For the nipples, River.”
“Nipples?” he asked, a red hue spotting his cheeks.
