house or laze around the farm most days, maybe curled up on my bed or in the living room and then at night, he’d prowl around the perimeter of the farm.
Occasionally, we’d hear howls and cries and Rogue would come into my room in the morning to lick me away, his face and ears covered in little scratches from his battles the night before.
“Oh, no!” I would cry out. “Poor Rogue!” And I’d shower his face with kisses while he wagged his tail and dangled his tongue out of his mouth, a big goofy grin on his face.
And so, Rogue was with us, all throughout my childhood and adolescence. It was great to have him around, waiting on the front porch for me when I got home school, tail wagging and excited to see me.
Even though I have two brothers and a sister, it was pretty clear that Rogue loved me best. He’d only beg for table scraps from me at dinner and I’d always save a little napkin full of food for him later in the evening.
Rogue also protected me all throughout that time. Starting when I was maybe twelve, I gained a lot of weight. I’m not as chubby now as I was then—now, I’m pleasantly curvy, with big boobs and a big butt and those child-bearing hips you hear so much about, but when I hit puberty, things definitely developed out of proportion to each other. I certainly did look pretty funky, with boobs way too big for my frame and lots of acne. Everyone goes through these phases, I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with!
Anyway, I got teased and bullied a lot at school. Not only for my curves but for my kinky, nappy hair. One day, after a particularly merciless bout of teasing from a girl named Marissa who had cornered me in the bathroom with her friends and forced me to text all the boys in our class with pictures of me in my underwear, I came home sobbing and threw my arms around Rogue.
Even though I knew he couldn’t understand me, I told him through my tears what had happened. He looked at me with his silent, sympathetic face as I told him the names of all the girls who had been mean to me, who had teased me so fiercely, so cruelly.
And with that, he darted out of my room. We didn’t see or hear anything from Rogue for two days but I did hear about him at school.
I overheard conversations between the girls who had teased me: all of them had experienced the same thing—dreams about a wolf, standing over their bed, growling at them, baring its teeth and drooling on them. They were all legitimately terrified and eventually, they noticed that any time they bullied me, the wolf would appear.
Before long, the bullying stopped. I never knew how Rogue did it: how he knew where the girls lived, how he got inside their homes without anyone knowing and managed to find the girls and convey his very specific message to them: Leave Shaniyah alone or I will return.
But the most important story I have to tell you about Rogue begins the night of my eighteenth birthday. It was near the end of my senior year and my friends and I were all planning to go off to college at the end of the summer.
My parents had decorated our barn really nicely for my party, with lights and candles, and they’d even gotten a caterer and a great local band. Most of the senior class was coming and, more exciting, Tom Simms, my then-crush, said he had a special birthday present for me.
“He’s going to fuck you!” my best friend Callie said with delight as I tried on yet another party dress in my room.
Rogue made a growling noise and rubbed his snout against his paws. He had been looking depressed all day, and spent most of his time hanging out on my bed, looking up at me with his big, sad eyes.
“Ugh, do you think that’s what he wants?” I asked with a giggle.
The dress I was wearing definitely showed off my curves—it didn’t make me look fat. Rather, it just made me look like a sizzling, smolder voluptuous lady of the night—exactly