Dutch

by Madhuri Pavamani

  No matter how fleeting, how nearly nonexistent those touches were, I wanted whatever he was willing to give me. His heat, his fire, his agony. I wanted to wrap myself in all of it and let him touch me the only way he could, which was akin to not touching me at all.

  “Juma?” Marina snapped her fingers in my face. “You there, girl?”

  I pulled back in surprise, losing myself in him when he was nowhere and everywhere all at once. I should have been paying attention to Death’s deputy, but instead I was thinking on a man who kissed me and ran. Marina cupped my face in her tiny hands and eyed me suspiciously.

  “What?” I asked.

  “His name, out with it.”

  I rolled my eyes but said nothing.

  “Come on, Juma,” Marina continued, still holding my face in her hands, “I’ve known you since you were damn near a baby. I can tell when something is up and right now, something is up.”

  “Nothing is up, Marina.” I gently removed her hands and smiled. “Really.”

  “Bullshit. You’re a liar.” She pointed at me. “Just so we’re clear on that. Today, my beautiful girl, you lied to me for the first time ever. And you broke my heart.”

  I fell back against the couch and groaned. “Don’t do that, Marina.”

  “Why? It’s true. You just killed me.”

  I leaned over, pulled her close, and kissed her full on the mouth, loving her almost as much as I loved my ma. “What makes you so sure it’s a man? I’m an equal opportunity lover.”

  “Because I’ve seen some of the most beautiful, intelligent, funny, charming women fall all over themselves for you. You’ll spend the night with them, fuck them silly, let them do all kinds of wicked things to your body, and then you’ll move on to the next encounter, as if they meant nothing. And then there was Augustus.”

  She let that name hang in the air between us and suddenly I was back in college, sitting on the steps at Columbia, smoking cigarettes and skipping class, when he walked by and stole my breath. Tall, dark hair, a smile to light the heavens. Augustus Oh. That man, what a number he did on me right then and there, the second our eyes locked and he walked over to introduce himself.

  “I’m not saying you look the same as you did back in the Augustus days,” Marina said, her keen s studying me head to toe, “because you don’t. Because now you’re all grown and shit. But don’t get me wrong, this is about a man. Something with a penis has done this to you.”

  I laughed because, as ridiculous as she sounded, she was 100 percent correct. A man did this to me. A very dark, troubled, tortured man, and I wanted him to keep doing it to me again and again and again. Because I wanted to save him even though he probably didn’t want saving. I wanted to do it anyway.

  Because if I could save him then he could touch me the way I wanted to be touched, over every inch of my body, with his warm breath and his fingertips and his lips and his eyes and his voice, and he could love me the way he wanted to love me but was scared to and so instead he slammed me into a door and acted like he was going to be all brutal and vile and fuck me from behind all the while wanting nothing more than to be that man who could touch me and kiss me and hold me and love me.

  “Oh, Marina.” I laughed, suddenly wanting to change the course of the conversation. “I am not lying to you and trust me, there is only and will only ever be one Augustus.”

  What did it say about a person when the lie came so easily, rolled off the tongue so naturally, and never tormented the soul? I didn’t know and I didn’t care, I just wanted to move away from discussing Marina’s suspicions because I wanted to keep him all to myself and because I didn’t want to hear anyone tell me to stay away from him stop thinking of him forget him.

  Because I didn’t want to do any of that. I wanted to be consumed devoured owned, no matter the consequences.

  “Ain’t that the truth.” Marina laughed, probably remembering something about Augustus that she loved, some little tidbit that only she knew since she had spent so much time with him while he pled his case to Death.

  All to no avail. Even with Marina in his corner, Death still wouldn’t approve his reclamation, for she knew he loved me and she was having none of that. Her decision was gut-wrenching, but a part of me was also relieved. For I loved Augustus, but we were young and I did not want to bear the burden of his return. Only Death understood my dilemma, without me needing to say a word, and so she acted when I could not and saved me from a life less lived.

  I loved Augustus but I loved me more.

  “So.” I pulled Marina from her memories. “Who’ve you got for me now? Please tell me they live in Punta del Este and I get to spend my days surfing and my nights eating steak and drinking wine.”

  Marina laughed as she pressed her palm to mine, transferring the files of my next Deader, an award-winning filmmaker who died on a trip scouting locations in Cambodia. It was now my job to successfully reclamate her.

  I groaned, long and loud, knowing this case was going to be tough, as my next assignment was a darling of the international film community. Marina stood and smiled, ready to get back to work.

  “That’s what happens when you’re the best, baby girl.”

  “Jackson is the best,” I countered as I rose and made for the door.

  “Jackson is second best,” Marina corrected with a pointed stare. I blew her a kiss and made my way back through the crowd, searching for my next assignment. I found her seated on a couch, smoking a cigarette, surrounded by beautiful Deaders also smoking cigarettes and laughing and drinking and generally looking as fabulous in death as they probably had in life.

  I patted my hair, caught a glimpse of my ass in the mirror, and headed over to introduce myself, chat for a second, and make a plan to meet later. Her friends and acolytes caught a glimpse of me before she did, so busy was she fawning over herself in the tiny mirror she kept hidden in her clutch.

  I stopped in front of her and waited as she finished applying her lipstick before raising her eyes to meet mine, her expression of haughty disdain quickly transforming into what could only be called relief and elation. I smiled and studied her, introduced myself, and quickly let her know that although she lorded it over everyone, I was my own woman and answered to no one, not even her. I politely suggested she enjoy herself tonight, that I would find her in the morning, and then I bid my adieus.

  I wove my way back through the crowd to the main bar and then out into the night air of Herald Square, hoping all the while that Death was not lingering near the exit, as I just wanted to make my escape in peace. I didn’t want to explain my need to be elsewhere, my inability to spend the night sexing up someone who mattered little, my keen desire for a nameless dark damaged soul.

  I escaped undetected, crossed the subway tracks, and ran, bursting out of the tunnel just in time to catch the downtown train back to Tribeca. Exiting at Franklin Street, I stood on the corner and looked around, studying the intersection for anything out of place, knowing this block of land like the back of my hand. It was so late and although the air was warm, few were on the street at this hour. If a Keeper was coming for me, my Keeper, then they would be stupid to plan an attack now—I would see them coming a mile away.

  Resting my hands on my hips and closing my eyes, I listened to the night, stretching my neck from side to side, working out the kinks of the day. And then I felt it, a shift in the energy near me, a sense I was not alone. A quick inventory of the weaponry at my disposal set me at ease—short blade at my calf, another on my hip, and a slightly longer blade on my back. I was ready to fuck someone up if push came to shove. I opened my eyes and rubbed my neck before turning to head downtown.

  “Are you following me?”

  I continued walking downtown as if no one had spoken, as if I hadn’t caught a hint of a laugh.

  “I could easily ask the same of you,” I replied and continued walking.

  “Then ask.”

  “That would presume I care.”

  “And you don’t?”<
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  “I do not.”

  Silence.

  I reached North Moore and turned left toward my building. I was again alone and exhaled long and slow, the sigh full of relief.

  “And what if I care?”

  I whipped the blade off my back and turned so fast—it was a gut reaction, a product of my nerves and knowledge—the Keepers were coming—that he had little time to defend himself. His arms flew into the air, signaling his lack of ill will, his defenseless position, while my eyes darted back and forth, up and down the street, wondering how he’d snuck up on me like that, trying to calm down and convince myself all was fine.

  “Juma,” he whispered.

  “Don’t,” I hissed. Finally, after several long and very tense seconds, I removed my blade from his neck. The knife was sharp and deadly and it had easily broken the delicate skin of his throat. I watched the blood trickle from the wound as he stood before me with his arms outstretched, probably wondering if I would attack him again. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

  “I usually am not greeted by a machete to my throat.”

  “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” I repeated.

  And he relented. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be, asshole.”

  “Nice fucking steel though,” he said, trying to sound light.

  “Language, mister.”

  “Said the girl who called me an asshole,” he quipped, but remained rooted in place, his hands still in the air. I eyed him, my heart still racing, my mind retracing my steps, all of me wondering how he managed to get so close without my knowledge.

  “Because you are an asshole.”

  He smiled but I did not and eventually his smile faded as we stood on the deserted street in silence, at an impasse. I refused to speak, to give him the satisfaction, because I knew he expected me to speak, to break the uncomfortable silence enveloping us in its awkward cocoon. But I was stubborn and determined not to play into his ridiculous mind games.

  Because I was not like all of the others.

  And I was still recovering from finding the mysterious dark stranger from the subway station who captivated from afar, the man from the bar who fucked with my head instead of fucking my body, following me home late at night as if he knew I needed him, as if he needed me, too.

  I shook my head to rid myself of such foolish thoughts, knowing that was hardly why he was here, that he needed nothing of substance from me, nothing of import, and probably just wanted to fuck. Which left me feeling unsettled and irritated until I glanced up at him and noticed his arms were still in the air. I cracked a slight smile despite myself.

  “Is it okay if I put them down?” he asked, chuckling but also serious, as if he was unable to discern my mood and needed a little reassurance. I nodded and he relaxed, but I still didn’t speak, not trusting my voice, afraid it would betray my most personal thoughts.

  “Thank you.”

  I smiled and watched as he cleaned his neck with the back of his sleeve, doing little besides smearing the blood and making the cut look worse. I moved to touch his throat then suddenly stopped; he watched me with a rather feral look in his eyes.

  “No touching. How could I forget?”

  Something shifted in his expression and for a moment, I believed he regretted the line he’d drawn in the sand between us, but only for a moment and only because I wanted to believe it. I knew it wasn’t true, I knew he regretted few of his decisions. And in an effort to exercise some self-preservation, I crawled into myself, deep, far from where he could touch me, torment me, and I waited for him to turn on his heel and head back down North Moore Street and away from me.

  Instead, he spoke.

  “Juma.”

  And I became lost in the sound of my name on his tongue and wanted nothing more than to hear him say it again, with his lips pressed to my ear as his hands touched my mouth and my throat and then made their way down to the cut of my clavicle and the curve of my breast and his fingers grazed my nipples then came to rest on the curve of my hip.

  “Juma.” He spoke my name with purpose and I realized I had completely tuned him out as I fantasized about touch and heat and lust, and there I was doing it again.

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t know my name,” he offered.

  I studied him for a moment or two or three because I couldn’t look away because he was so very beautiful in his deadly anguish and dark pain with his full mouth and thick brows and his deep brown skin that made me think of summer nights.

  “Because I never asked,” I replied, “because it didn’t matter.”

  Those words cut him, I could tell. He flinched, and although the movement was slight, I knew I had seared his soul, burned myself into him forever, of that I was certain. And perhaps I should have felt some elation upon accomplishing that feat, hurting him, causing him pain, but I did not because, even though there exists a second of smug satisfaction, there is never a moment of joy in hurting those we love and I already knew I loved him. I just wasn’t sure I liked myself loving him.

  I fished around in my bag for the keys to my place, unable to watch the many varied and tortured emotions in his eyes, needing to get away from him lest my self-preservation became my death knell.

  “Dutch,” he said, ignoring the fact I never asked his name because I did not want to know because I did not want to care. I just wanted to love a nameless person. It was so much easier. Loving a Dutch involved heartache and sorrow and misery. Loving a man who pressed me against a door and almost fucked me but could not bear to touch me in tenderness or affection was simple and certainly involved no heartache or sorrow or misery because it was so disconnected from any sort of rational reality. It was such a bizarre and twisted love it could be ignored or pushed to the back of one’s mind or simply forced to fade.

  “You want to get some coffee?” he asked out of the blue.

  “No.” I laughed but my eyes did not smile. “I want to go to bed. Good night.”

  I didn’t say his name, I couldn’t bring myself to let it cross my lips because once it did, it was real and then I was most definitely fucked. And as much as I wanted this man to fuck me, hard, against the wall of my building, crashing into me again and again, I also didn’t.

  “Juma.”

  “Stop saying my name like you know me,” I pleaded, not meaning to sound so desperate but knowing my words left little to the imagination.

  “I’m sorry,” he replied, and, if I dared to believe, seemed sincere.

  “Don’t be sorry. Just don’t do it.”

  He started to say something and then stopped, as if he thought better of it. With any other man, at that very moment when his lips were parted in doubt and hesitation, I would have wiped all of it away with a deep kiss full on the mouth, my tongue tasting him as my body pressed into his. But not him, as he could not tolerate touch and despised the thought of my lips pressed anywhere to his body, so I sat back and waited for him to close his mouth and retreat.

  “Fair enough.” He leaned against the steel bars outside my building where people chained their bicycles during the day—and that looked so naked and alone at night. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I would come downstairs and run my hands over the posts, trying to make them feel less lonely, which was laughable, I know, but still.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked, as he watched me watching him. I said the second thing that came to mind, because I wasn’t going to admit to feeling sorry for the steel bars outside my building.

  “That I cut you pretty deeply.” I moved toward him, forgetting about finding my keys and going inside, and pointed at his throat, maintaining enough distance between us that he could relax and not worry about being touched. “It’s still bleeding.”

  He reached up and wiped the blood again, this time with his long, perfect fingers that I had imagined night after night touching my pussy, teasing my tits. “Oh, shit, you’re right.”

  He laughed and it reached
his eyes and against my better judgment—because really, anything involving this man went against my better judgment—my insides exploded and suddenly I was no longer cells and organs and tissue but was reduced to a seamless mix of desperate fierce heated love.

  I had to pull it together.

  “Can I see your blade?” he asked.

  “Fuck you.” I reacted without thinking, my hand instinctively touching the weapon at my hip.

  “Slow down, sister.” He leaned away from me, his eyes bright and amused. “Not going to steal it, just want to check out the steel.”

  “And I said fuck you. Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to touch a woman’s weapon?”

  “Actually, no. It’s doesn’t usually come up with most women I meet.”

  I kind of smiled and I kind of felt the smile in my eyes and he saw what I kind of felt and he softened and had I not been watching him so closely so intently I would not have noticed his edges dulling a bit the corners rounding out but I was watching and I saw it.

  “That said, trust that I would never touch a woman’s weapon,” he replied, his eyes round and full of mock horror and I couldn’t help laughing because I knew he was such a liar and he knew he was such a liar and given the chance he would snatch my blade and drag it across my throat so fast I wouldn’t see my own death coming if it blew me a kiss and said hello all in an effort to avoid whatever was inside me and outside me and all around me that made him want to be inside me and outside me and all around me.

  “Answer a question,” I said when our laughter died down and the silence consumed and encroached.

  He raised a brow, and although I noticed his corded arm twitch, he did not say no.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Why?”

  “You answer questions with questions?”

  “I never even said I would answer your question.”

  “Because I asked.”

  “And why did you ask?”

  I sighed and if I was being honest with myself, my heart hurt a little, but I persisted because it was him and he already had my heart. It was his to hurt.