Dutch

by Madhuri Pavamani

  because for the first time in my life

  I was shaken

  and stirred

  all heat and breath and blood

  yearning and need

  and for the first time in my life

  I wasn’t afraid

  because I completely forgot to fear

  and yet . . .

  I walked through the subway tunnel with my hands in my pockets and my head elsewhere despite the fact I needed to be very present in the here and now. I was working on my most complicated Deader ever, my Alighters were fanned out all over the globe, and we had only just begun. We had weeks of work ahead of us and I needed to keep my team focused on the task at hand. And yet.

  “Juma.” Her cold crept up the back of my neck and settled in my shoulders even before her voice registered. I glanced sideways but kept walking, holding my breath as I crossed into her realm, trying to prepare myself for that initial chill, failing. As always.

  She twined our fingers and smiled. “The day you cross without shivering will sadden me like no other.”

  I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it, then laughed. “And the day you stop speaking with such hyperbole shall sadden me like no other.”

  She smiled and we continued along deep in our own thoughts, that moment in my kitchen having moved our relationship to a whole other level, one of mutual love and respect without all the drama and nonsense. Silly chitchat was no longer necessary and the long silences we shared with each other were both comforting and comfortable.

  “Have you ever considered doing something different?” she suddenly asked, a strange tone to her voice.

  “I haven’t,” I admitted, then added, “mostly because it’s not an option and I already daydream enough. I hardly need to add something new to my list of things that can make my mind wander.”

  I laughed, trying to lift her mood, with little success.

  “And what if you could?”

  “Could what?”

  “Could do something different. Would you?”

  I studied her for a moment, those large, wide-set eyes, so open and beseeching, and wondered what was going on with her, was this part of the reason I hadn’t seen her in so long, that she’d been scarce as of late.

  “It would depend,” I replied without elaborating.

  “On what?”

  “Mistress, what is this? A test of my loyalty to you?” I asked, my tone incapable of hiding my frustration with her cryptic questioning. She cupped my face in her hands and ran her finger along my lip, then leaned close and kissed me, just a brush of softness, then another, and another.

  My hands found her waist and ran over her hips, pulling her close as my lips parted and her tongue dipped inside for a second just a tease, enough to make me moan and my pussy flood with warmth. She smelled my desire and ran her fingers under my skirt and over my panties and I knew I shouldn’t be letting her do it, that I should exercise some self-control around her but why? I asked myself. Why should I stop doing something that felt so good and made both of us so happy?

  “Juma?” Her voice fucked my ear as her fingers teased my clit and I gasped and tried to hold it together.

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  “I want an answer to my question—would you do something different?”

  And here I pulled away from her mouth and her arms and her everything because I knew she was serious, this wasn’t a game, she wasn’t testing me. This was real. And as my da would say, my answer needed to be straight, no chaser.

  “If I knew what the option was, then I could better answer you, Mistress,” I replied, my tone as serious as hers, “but without any details it is difficult to answer because I have a rather decent life. If you’re telling me most of it could stay the same and I would no longer have to worry about Keepers and my horrific deaths, then yes, I would do that something different.”

  “Would you be me?”

  The question was so bizarre and outlandish and damn near insulting that I could do nothing but laugh. At its inanity, its absurdity, its impossibility.

  “I cannot be you,” I insisted, “there is only one you.”

  She must have noticed my growing alarm because her eyes softened and some of her desperation diminished in the face of my reaction. “Of course there is only one me, but would you want to do what I do”—she smiled beatifically and I calmed—“if you could?”

  “Yes, I would,” I answered her honestly and without hesitation before adding, “not that it would ever happen, but certainly, I would do it.”

  She smiled and her tension dissipated. Something about the whole exchange felt very strange like absurdist theatre but I pushed it out of my mind. She was simply playing her games, letting her mind wander like the rest of us.

  “And how is your lovely Deader?” she changed the subject as we neared her office.

  “She is splendid.”

  “So I heard,” she replied, a mischievous gleam in her eye, letting me know she was back to herself and whatever had transpired between us was already forgotten.

  “Just so you know, I didn’t fuck her,” I informed her as I continued past her and down the hallway in search of my Deader.

  “I heard that as well,” she replied, and I could hear her laughter long after she disappeared into the privacy of her office.

  That had been my chance.

  I should have given voice to my suspicions, said something to her then, asked her, but she seemed out of sorts and not in the right frame of mind and I did not want to add to whatever was troubling her. Instead, I entered a massive dining room in the middle of a stunning dinner party full of beautiful food, beautiful music, and beautiful people. If the festivities were any clue, the Mistress was definitely feeling back to her old self. I relaxed a little, grabbed a Macallan from the bartender, and spied my assignment in a corner with what I could only assume to be some new friends.

  She was lovely and laughing and I didn’t want to ruin that for her so I slipped from the room without being spotted and headed for our work room. It was abuzz with activity as computer screens everywhere the eye fell lit up with data, incoming and outgoing, all in preparation for our pending reclamation. I had the room to myself, and I locked the door to make sure I would not be disturbed and went to work.

  First, I touched base with my team of ten Alighters, getting a detailed report on their last few days and next steps, suggesting different strategies and checking rosters of names of people our Deader had had contact with, cross-checking them with my team, and making sure we hit everyone necessary. No one reported any Keeper sightings, which boded well for us, and led me to believe The Gate had no idea we intended to reclamate anyone.

  And finally, I reached Kobe and got the rundown on his task of prepping the husband. He would be the last person we dealt with because we needed to research him the longest, do our most detailed and thorough work where he was involved to ensure the reclamation came off absolutely seamlessly. Kobe and I talked and analyzed and strategized for hours and by the time he begged off for exhaustion, it was almost four in the morning.

  I closed my eyes, leaned back in my chair, and breathed deeply. And he came to me. That half-smile of full lips, pained memories, and hope. The eyes, dark and wild and hot. The skin so warm and rough in places, brown and inviting, much like himself though he would never agree to such terms. And his hands, god, his hands.

  I wanted his hands everywhere on me but they were somewhere else tonight, doing god knows what to who knows who. And so my own would have to suffice as I thought back to this afternoon when he crossed the kitchen with that look in his eye that drenched my panties left me dripping wet craving him like a fiend. I parted my legs just a bit and slid my hand under my skirt and over my panties and pretended my fingers were his as I touched and circled and teased just like I liked it.

  Moving faster, but still light as a feather, my breath hitched as I imagined his lips on my throat and his tongue circling my nipples, while his fingers dipped into my puss
y then pushed into my mouth to have me taste myself as he moved down my body to do the same. I knew my orgasm would eclipse my fantasy, I wouldn’t be able to hold back, I could feel it already throbbing building booming, in my pussy, my thighs, my feet. I needed the release I’d been denied since finding him bloody and damn near blind, waiting for me, all dark and danger. I felt him kissing my pussy just so, his full lips his tongue fucking me, and exploded against myself, desire running down my lips, drenching my fingers.

  I sighed and settled and smiled despite myself.

  “You are a bad girl, Juma,” I muttered aloud, smirking as I gathered my notes and slipped from the room, locking the door behind me. The dining hall remained in full swing as Art Blakey’s Moanin’ played in the background while folks drank and danced and enjoyed their deaths. I couldn’t help thinking a room reverberating with the smooth sounds of Blakey would be my definition of heaven and Death would be hard pressed to get me to return to the living, but I hardly believed most of those in that room shared my love of Blakey or of Death.

  I caught the eye of the bartender, waved good night, and kept moving.

  I reached the back door and was about to step into the subway tunnel when I turned around and retraced my steps, knocking on the door before I could change my mind.

  “Come in.”

  I stepped into the office to find a stunning, perfectly naked woman staring back at me. She was tall and willowy and her olive skin glistened with sweat. She was being blindfolded and bound, then stood with her legs slightly parted as instructed by the light tap to her inner thigh. She was circled and studied, and as her excitement grew she swelled with anticipation. The scent of her desire was intoxicating and finally she was touched. A finger traced the seam of her pussy up and down up and down then slipped inside and fucked her as the room filled with sighs and gasps and all sorts of moans.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I stood in the doorway transfixed by the scene playing out before me.

  “Don’t be sorry.” Death smirked. “Come join me.”

  “I couldn’t.” I shook my head and approached the bound woman who was thoroughly turned on by whatever salacious activity had preceded my arrival. I brushed my lips against Death’s before pulling away and rubbing her impossibly stiff nipple. “She’s yours.”

  “She would also love to be yours.” Death smiled and kissed the woman’s pussy, never once taking her eyes off me as I licked the woman’s nipple then proceeded to move my lips down her body until Death and I were kneeling side by side, watching her pussy drip, taking turns catching the juice as it rolled down her thighs.

  I had done this so many times before, but this time the possibility of that gorgeous woman and all the wicked things Death and I could do to her body held little interest. I pulled away and watched them for a second, my thoughts elsewhere.

  “Something tells me even though this is all very tempting, you’re not really here looking for a threesome,” Death said, studying me through slitted eyes.

  “No, Mistress, I’m not.” Here I paused because here was where I chose to face my darker fears my worrisome suspicions my very real nightmares and ask her the question that had been sitting in the back of my mind since that night outside my building when he came upon me unseen and unheard. When he never flinched as my weapon pressed into his throat, when he never questioned the fact I carried a weapon at all. And a machete at that.

  His injuries from last night and his impossibly quick recovery were the final testament, all the proof I needed, and yet.

  Perhaps she would tell me otherwise, laugh, call me ridiculous, and order me to stop being so melodramatic. Perhaps she would quell my fears, ease my suspicions, slay my nightmares.

  The only way to find out was to ask.

  “I was actually wondering if you know Dutch Mathew.”

  There.

  I did it.

  I said his name out loud.

  To her.

  It was out there in the atmosphere and no longer strictly inside my head, making me crazy and just a little sick.

  And she froze and I knew right then and there her answer, but I still needed to hear it spoken aloud.

  “Why do you know that name?” Death turned to me, her expression grim and suddenly serious.

  “Why do you know that name?” I replied.

  “Juma,” she cautioned.

  “Mistress,” I countered in the same tone.

  She quickly removed the olive-skinned stunner’s blindfold and bindings, whispered something to her, and sent her on her way before turning back to me with wild eyes and cheeks aflame. She circled me as if making sure all of me was present and accounted for then stepped closer and touched my face my arms my throat my breasts my hips, her eyes full of concern.

  She finally seemed satisfied that I had passed whatever examination she felt the need to conduct and brought her eyes back to mine. Gone was the flash of fear, the hint of urgency, and in its place was steely determination. I was going to bend to her will, of that she was certain.

  “Why do you know that name, Juma?”

  And because she was like my other ma, the sexy one, the dangerous one, full of fits of jealousy and rage, but also loving and kind, I confessed.

  “Because he is my everything, that’s why.”

  She stared at me her mouth slightly agape, as if not quite able to believe the words that escaped my lips, then put her head in her hands and remained perfectly still for a moment. She appeared to be putting together exactly what she was going to say to me, how she was going to phrase it just so when I already knew without her saying a word.

  Her actions were answer enough.

  But I played along, mostly because I think she needed me to.

  “Let’s back up,” she finally spoke. “Where did you meet Mr. Mathew?”

  Mr. Mathew sounded so strange rolling around in her mouth; I sensed she knew him as Dutch but I wasn’t going to pry. I also knew she’d fucked him but I wasn’t going to pry about that either.

  “In a bar I go to. My cousin owns it and it’s open late, so when I can’t sleep, I head over there.”

  “And he approached you?” and here she tensed.

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Hardly.”

  “Juma, please, let’s not play any of your games this evening.” She gritted her teeth. “Just answer my questions.”

  “Hmmpf, funny you say that.” I couldn’t help myself, her tone irritated me. “I could make the same request of you.”

  “But I am Death and you are not.” She smiled coldly and I knew I had pushed her far enough. “So start talking.”

  “He did not approach me.” I relented and behaved. “In fact, he wanted nothing to do with me at all, made his desires perfectly clear, painfully so, but I couldn’t stay away. I pushed and persisted and thought I finally broke him only to have him turn around and break me.”

  She listened and her eyes softened because she knew him and his black heart, the vile words he tossed around like nothing, the knives he used with no restraint. “Oh Juma.” She touched my cheek and looked a little broken.

  “It’s okay, Mistress,” I assured her, because I already knew without really knowing, “just say it.”

  But she could not bring herself to utter the words, probably because she knew my deepest fears the nightmares I suffered the paralyzing anxiety and yet.

  “Please,” I implored, “I need to hear you say it. To put an end to the voices in my head, the incessant worrying.”

  She remained silent and watchful. And in the face of her concern I grew in stature, in size, in strength, until I became convinced I could handle anything, that nothing could throw me. I was unshakeable, unbreakable, unmoved. I was larger than life and no longer scared. I was a warrior, a fighter, a beast. More than any of that, I was ready, and as I steeled my breath and hardened my resolve she took note and shifted and sighed.

  “I do know Dutch Mathew,” she began, the litany of words that I knew but didn’t know, that I needed but
didn’t want. “I have known him since he was sixteen and young and bright and beautiful.”

  And here a pang of jealousy coursed through my body because I wanted to meet that version of him but knew it had died a long time ago well before his youth had passed, and although the beauty remained it was haunted and tortured and cruel.

  The man I knew had his brightness stolen long before I came along and offered my shine.

  “I have known him since he was sixteen and became a Keeper for The Gate.”

  Keeper.

  The Gate.

  Those dreaded words.

  And the irony, oh, the irony.

  I was so worried about him being the death of me but in a poetic sense—metaphorically, otherworldly, romantically. Not literally.

  I laughed because it was all too much.

  Death caught my eye and held my stare and smiled sadly. “Sometimes the gods can be quite cruel.”

  “It is fine,” I lied.

  “It is hardly fine,” she replied.

  “Please do not hurt him.” It had to be spoken because she had killed to protect me once before.

  “I would never.”

  “You most definitely would, which is why I am telling you not to do anything of the sort. Do not even let the idea cross your mind. He is mine and if anyone is going to kill him, it is going to be me with my blade with my hands.”

  And here my eyes filled and my breath caught and I needed a moment to pull it together and not break into a million despair-filled pieces.

  “Understood,” she promised, and I believed her.

  I stood to leave and then remembered. “Do you know Kajal? His Kajal?”

  “Of course I do,” Death replied, “she was my Kajal, too.”

  I let those horribly perverse words settle into my psyche and considered pressing the issue of how Kajal belonged to them both, then changed my mind, asked nothing further and simply took my leave. I didn’t need anything more from her, she had given enough, the rest of the story was his to tell should I decide to ask him.

  I walked home in a bit of a daze, my mind replaying every interaction glance touch he and I had shared, wondering at the perversity of our situation, concerned the truth might break him.