Dutch

by Madhuri Pavamani

  He was tall and blond, Hitler’s motherfucking wet dream, and he said something to her as he leaned close and placed his order. Whatever he said pleased her as a smile curved her lips while she watched him. He piqued her intrigue and I fucking hated him, his broad shoulders and expensive clothes, roguish hair and that goddamned slick smile that said I’m rich, I’m good-looking, I have a big dick, and I’m going to shove my big dick all up in your gorgeous, perfect pussy.

  She said something to him that gave him pause, probably something incredibly dirty and sexy, and then his hand was on her thigh, so close to her pussy. She responded to his touch and it was so raw and visceral that I couldn’t hate him because he was giving her what she deserved and what I could not ever give her no matter how fucking badly I wanted to. And so instead I watched.

  Her nipples were peaked and she spread her legs slightly when he said something to her about taste and from her heated reaction, I imagined it had something to do with his mouth and where he planned to put it. She paused, one beat, two, three, before letting him lead her back into the night.

  His dick was hard and he wanted her so badly he didn’t care who saw what was desperately trying to escape his jeans. They fell out of the bar and were wrapped around each other immediately, oblivious to me standing just feet from them, close enough to hear her sighs and gasps and her “Fuck me right here.” And he did just that, against a car parked in the street where it was a little darker and a little harder to tell exactly what he was doing or it was a little easier to pretend you didn’t know he was fucking her silly right out in the open. Then he pulled out and grabbed her hand and they were off.

  I followed because I couldn’t not follow because it was Juma and I don’t know, I just couldn’t not do it. And so I watched as he cupped her ass in his large hand and his Patek Philippe reflected the light from a streetlamp and her mouth sought his while her fingers twisted in his blond hair. It was sickening because I wanted to be him, pressing my mouth all over her skin, tasting her sweat, muffling her cries as we fucked on the street and yet . . .

  They disappeared into his building.

  I saw him slam her against the wall of the elevator and hitch her legs around his hips just as the doors closed and they rose into the sky to fuck under the stars because that’s what a guy like him did with a girl like her. He owned her orgasm while he worshipped her body with his mouth and his hands and his dick.

  FUCK.

  A sharp pain in the pit of my stomach had me forgetting all about Juma and Hitler’s Wet Dream as I tried to catch my breath and think straight. I swigged some Scout, lit a smoke, and swigged some more before turning on my heel and heading back to my place. My thigh and my back were bleeding again, my eye throbbed, and I generally felt like fucking hell but that all paled in comparison to her.

  I’m fucked up.

  I sat down on a metal stoop and hit send on the text, receiving a response immediately.

  Where are you? Exactly?

  I’ll come get you.

  I would have laughed if I wasn’t in so much pain.

  You were right.

  Beautiful brown woman will

  be the death of me.

  Pause.

  A really long fucking pause because that Chinese motherfucker was sitting somewhere with a goddamned grin on his fucking beautiful face, relishing the moment.

  You fucking Paki lying

  sack of shit.

  I started to type a response

  Who are you calling

  then a flash of purple and there she was. And I never finished my thought or hit send or anything concerning my phone or Avery because fuck she was beautiful and did things to me I didn’t want done and I fucking hated her for that.

  “I think I’ve figured it out: you’re a goddamned vampire.”

  She jumped out of her skin and appeared positively terrified and in that split second there was nothing more I wanted to do than pull her into my arms and tell her it was okay that no one would hurt her but that would be a lie because I existed and everything about me would hurt her. I swore a hint of anger flashed in her eyes and I wanted it to be true, I fucking wanted her to hate me so badly, I needed her to hate me so she could stay away from me, but just as quickly as it appeared it disappeared. And in its place was something altogether different and disconcerting and dangerous because it resembled concern and care and if there were two things I didn’t deserve from anyone, especially her, it was those.

  “Oh my god.” She dropped to her knees and studied my face. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

  “It’s fine.” I waved her off, needing her to move away from me, ill at ease with her proximity. “I’m fine.”

  She kept staring at me and her eyes filled with tears and the last thing I wanted was her sympathy.

  “Did you have fun fucking the blond?”

  My words had their intended effect and she pulled away, leaning back on her heels, her concern gone, replaced by something I couldn’t put my finger on because I didn’t know her like that but I suspected it was going to be curt and honest and painful.

  “God, did I,” she replied, her eyes closed as if she remembered something divine, “his mouth and hands and dick and the things he did with them. To me. It was epic. He was epic.”

  I listened and I took it because it was deserved and I shouldn’t have made her do it but I couldn’t help myself, I was so fucking pissed and bitter. And confounded by everything about her and everything she did to me without doing anything at all but existing.

  “That much was apparent when he rammed into you against that car on Warren Street. You obviously have a thing for big-dicked men.”

  “And women who eat good pussy,” she replied, her eyes hard and her voice like ice.

  “And blonds,” I hit back at her.

  She started to say something, hurl another brutal response at me, but paused midsentence, her lips parted but no sound. And I prayed it wouldn’t fucking happen, she wouldn’t soften, because a fuck like me didn’t earn it, wasn’t worthy of it, but it happened anyway. Her eyes filled again as she studied me, really saw me and I had to look away before I let her do what I know she was thinking she wanted to do because god knows I wanted her to do it. I needed her arms around me, pulling me close and holding me but fuck that.

  Fuck her and her tears.

  “I hate blonds,” she finally replied, “but I needed someone who wasn’t dark and dangerous with brown skin that reminded me of the beach and the sun whose eyes weren’t haunted whose tongue didn’t hurl knives aimed at all of my vulnerabilities and who could touch me. Everywhere. Even in places I didn’t know I needed to be touched.”

  Her eyes killed me, her brutal honesty was torture, and I wondered why she couldn’t just lie. A lie would be so much easier to handle.

  “You’re a fucking whore.” Another knife hurled from my tongue.

  She bit her lip and studied me and I wondered how I appeared to her. Most likely a fucking mess; with my nearly blind eye and gashed mouth, I was hardly alluring. But I sensed she was looking past the physical, digging underneath the shit to unearth the stuff I buried long ago and didn’t want any motherfucker to find. Ever.

  “And stop looking at me like that, goddammit,” I hissed.

  She remained silent but stepped toward me, watching me all the while, as if she didn’t trust I wouldn’t hurt her, reach out and grab her, when she knew very well that was the last thing I intended to do.

  “I can smell the blond all over you,” I sneered as she pushed into my space, fitting herself between my legs and getting too. fucking. close. She smiled but it wasn’t happiness and my stomach flipped, worried I had maybe broken her. Finally.

  But no. Not yet.

  Because she then leaned closer still and placed her mouth right at my ear, conscious of not touching me anywhere but all over me regardless.

  “You can smell him all over me, asshole,” she whispered and I practically came right there, “because he was all over me
, everywhere. My titties, my arms, my legs, that little spot behind my knee, my ankles, my ass, my shoulders, my throat, my pussy. Everywhere. And when he finished he went back for more and I gave it to him because his hands were so big and his fingers so long and his dick was fucking huge and he knew just. how. to. use. them. and he wanted to use them on my titties and in my pussy and in my ass, again and again and again.”

  She leaned away from me and her eyes were cold and harsh and exactly what I deserved. “So fuck you and your observations and judgments. Fuck. You.”

  Her voice was low and her language was cutting and her heart was in it, all 100 percent of her stood behind those words.

  “You’re still a goddamned whore.”

  I watched her eyes for any surrender but there was none, just her steady gaze and whatever was spinning through her mind as she ingested and digested my words and my disdain and my putrid fucking soul. Seconds passed and neither of us moved and she was still close and I could still smell her and I’d lied. She smelled nothing like him and only like her. Lemons and honey and grass and light. Just like that night in the bar. And I lost some of myself in all of that so when she pushed away and stood, it was unexpected and the absence of heat, her heat, cut to my fucking black pit of a soul.

  I looked up and met her stare and for the life of me, I had no idea what she was thinking, no inkling, she completely shut me out and immediately I regretted everything. I wanted a redo, another chance, but fucks like me got nothing of the sort. Nor did we deserve it. And so I watched in mild horror as she ran her hands over her skirt as if trying to piece herself back together, then turned to leave.

  “Juma.”

  I knew she didn’t want me to say her name. Ever. But I couldn’t help myself.

  She stopped but did not turn back to me and I knew I had won.

  Or lost.

  “You hurt my feelings, Dutch.”

  I so desperately wanted to hear my name cross her lips and yet, right there, right then, my name on her lips sounded like death.

  “And you can’t make it better because all the things I would need you to do to make it better, you can’t do and I’m starting to think even if you could, you wouldn’t do them for me because you really do think I’m just a fucking whore who’s not worthy of being touched in tenderness and kissed like I matter, that all I’m good for is a place to stick your dick and tell me to shut up because you can’t stand the sound of my voice.”

  I thought she was going to say more but she didn’t and by the time I realized she was done and there were no more words between us, she was halfway down the block. I watched her walk, the sway of her hips, her narrow shoulders, her long neck, and I wanted to own all of her despite the fact I had rights to none of her.

  And I kept thinking she would look back.

  Just once.

  But this wasn’t a goddamned movie and she wasn’t going to turn around at the last second to tell me how much she loved me, needed me, wanted me. This was real life, my real life, my real fucked-up life and that was her, perfect her, beautiful her walking away, never turning around, disappearing. And for a second that thought shook my dark soul like nothing else and I stood rooted to the ground like that banyan I used to play under as a kid, strong and determined and unmoving. Only I wasn’t a goddamned banyan tree, I was Dutch Mathew, a Keeper for The Gate and I was watching the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life, the woman who shook me up and made me feel fucking crazy and out of sorts, the woman who I desperately wanted to touch and kiss and whisper in her ear how fucking perfect she was but could only claw, scratch, and maim her. I was watching that woman vanish.

  Only then I wasn’t because I was running and my insides screamed and blood leaked from my wounds but I didn’t give a fuck because all that mattered was catching her.

  “Juma!” I shouted as I neared but she wasn’t stupid, that was one of the things I found so wildly sexy about her, she was goddamned smart as hell, and she sure as fuck wasn’t going to stop walking just because I shouted her name. The name she silently begged me never to say. Ever. And so I kept running and perhaps she realized I wasn’t going to stop coming after her because she halted and waited with her back to me and her eyes downcast and at that moment I fucking hated myself for doing that to her.

  I held onto the railing outside her building for support because I was fading fast and pulled myself along until I was standing before her and any other man, definitely Hitler’s Wet Dream from earlier in the evening, would have lifted her chin and met her sad eyes. And I wanted to but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fucking bring myself to touch her and so I waited until she looked up at me and then I fucking died.

  “Jesus, Juma.” I ran my hands through my hair, uncertain of what to do with them. “Don’t do that. Fuck.”

  She just shook her head and cried.

  I did it. I broke her just like I knew I would, like I thought I wanted to, but now that she was in pieces, big, jagged pieces all about my feet, I wanted nothing more than to put her back together. I just didn’t know how.

  “This is not me!” she shouted and furiously rubbed at her eyes, her mascara running down her cheeks. “I don’t cry and I certainly don’t cry over deranged callous men who can’t touch or talk or even smile who hurl pain at me every time I turn around, who almost-fuck me but cannot bear to see my eyes or kiss my lips or touch my throat. I’m fucking Juma Landry! Do you have any idea how hard I worked to become me? What I suffered through to make it here to this moment in my life only to have you come along and ruin everything with your darkness, your wretchedness, your mean spirit? And yet, I crave you like some sick drug and I hate myself for it but even more so, I hate you.”

  Her last words were a whisper, lost among her tears and sobs and heaving shoulders, but I heard them. Loud and clear. Until I didn’t because suddenly the whole world was black.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JUMA

  There were certain sounds as you went through the business of living that were just gross. They made your stomach turn your insides queasy.

  People heaving was one, gunshots another, and a big one for me was the thunk a body made as it hit the ground. The sound that was both heavy and soft, hard and squishy, and made my skin crawl because when you heard it you knew the cause of the thunk was either dead or pretty damn close.

  As I stood there so angry with myself for crying in front of that asshole, hating him in all his darkness, his cruel words, his inability to stay away from me—because come on, why was he even watching me fuck that guy against that car anyway—a part of me, the part that couldn’t help studying him and learning him and burning him onto my eyeballs, the part that wasn’t livid and sad and tortured but functioned in a separate plane where all that mattered was memorizing and reveling in his beauty, that part of me noticed. The pallor, the sweat, the unfocused eyes, the need to hold on to something to remain upright.

  But he said he was fine and I shouldn’t worry so I didn’t because fuck him and I kept crying and wringing my hands and talking about all the ways he hurt me and was going to hurt me again and again and again when I heard it.

  Thunk.

  And for one two three four five six seven eight beats I pretended I didn’t, that the thunk didn’t happen, but it happened. And when I finally looked he was down on the ground, out cold or dead.

  I shuddered and then cursed him up and down thinking it would be just his style to die on me, quite fitting, the ultimate fuck you, whore! but I felt his wrist and there was a pulse so the ultimate fuck you, whore! would have to wait for another day. Because today he was alive. Although barely.

  He was lying on his side when I dared touch him to take his pulse, half expecting his skin to catch fire so horrified of my touch was he. After determining he wasn’t dead I had to figure out my next step and while thinking it through I gently rolled him onto his back. And that’s when I saw the blood.

  “Oscar”—I pushed open the door and called for my security guard—“co
uld you help me? My friend had a bit of an accident.”

  Oscar was huge, at least six feet ten, and as we stood together on the landing looking down on the prone figure of “my friend,” I felt he was making some pretty quick pretty serious calculations.

  “Juma, your friend”—when he said friend, his eyebrows went up as if suggesting he knew we were not friends at all—“is fucked up.”

  “I can handle him if you just help me get him upstairs.” I looked down at Dutch’s body, not wanting to meet Oscar’s stare, worried he would read more in it than I wanted to let on.

  “Fuuuuucked up.” Oscar walked down the steps and hoisted Dutch over his shoulder, then headed back into the building and up to my apartment, placing “my friend” on the bed without another word spoken or question asked.

  “Good luck, Juma,” was all he said as he closed the door behind him, leaving me with a dying man in my apartment. For a moment after the door closed, I froze, uncertain of my next move, but then I saw the blood and all hesitation went out the window. Grabbing a large bowl from the kitchen and a washcloth from the linen closet, I ran some water until it heated then set about the task of undressing him to find the source of his injuries.

  Lying on his back, facing me, his eyes closed, battered, and bruised, from the neck down and belt up he seemed fine so I left him in his shirt and began removing his jeans. I prayed he wouldn’t wake and find me touching him because I feared his reaction to such a transgression on my part a violation of his body when he knew I knew he could tolerate nothing of the sort. Those concerns faded fast as I realized his jeans were dripping in blood, completely soaked at the crotch.

  What the fuck, I thought as my pussy clenched in solidarity with whatever torture his body parts had endured. I could tell from the bulge in his underwear that he was still intact but I had to be sure he wasn’t bleeding and even though it felt a little wrong to feel inside his briefs, it felt more right to do so. I closed my eyes, as if that made what I was doing to him less invasive, and pushed my hand around feeling everything making sure it was all there and when my hand came away relatively clean, I breathed a sigh of relief.