Juma

by Madhuri Pavamani

  Juma didn’t seem to care as she worked both of their belts and zippers and had them as naked as she in a matter of seconds and where they were just moments earlier looking like a trio out for a night at the opera, now they were all hard dicks and her dripping pussy. They sandwiched her, the footballer at her back, his dick tucked into the perfect seam of her ass as he fingered her pussy while the shorter, leaner, covered-in-tattoos Monsieur Artiste kissed her and pinched her nipples and the night filled with her sighs and their grunts and all of it was murder to my fucked-up, cold, dead heart.

  “Juma,” as she pressed her ass against the footballer and “good fucking god,” as she guided the artist-type’s tatted fingers to her soaked pussy and “holy shit,” as she spread her ass and Mr. Footballer slowly slid his perfect footballer dick deep inside and she sighed because she loved being fucked up the ass and he closed his eyes because nothing felt better than being balls deep in her ass and then “don’t stop,” she pleaded as Monsieur Artiste wrapped her leg around his waist and rammed into her pussy and they held onto her and fucked her at the same time, the footballer’s and the artist-type’s balls banging against each other as they took her and she begged them not to stop and they promised never to stop but I knew better.

  They couldn’t fuck her forever because it felt so goddamned good being inside her and there was only so long they could go on before the pressure became too much and they couldn’t hold out any longer and they would explode, their loads shooting into her pussy and ass and filling her up with all of them until they were nothing but an exhausted pile of sweat and come and kisses.

  I knew all of that because once upon a time, the man touching and sucking and fucking Juma Landry was me.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Until I uttered my Don’t touch me, Juma and sent her away to do whatever it was she did on a daily basis and to maybe think of me while she did it but to also work on moving far from me until we landed here, in this time and space of footballers and artists and touches and sucks and fucks and me standing in the darkness, hidden and unseen, watching her share her body, listening to her sighs, witnessing her grief.

  I thought I’d known torment and despair, but nothing compared to putting myself through the torture of watching her with them, knowing she was anything but happy and light and oh-so-Juma. I had withstood all sorts of physical punishment, but that self-imposed assault on my senses seemed nearly impossible to weather and as I stood in the shadows of her apartment and watched those men touch her body tenderly after taking her with such desire, and studied her sad eyes for more minutes than I cared to remember, I wondered who I would be, what version of Dutch Mathew would survive, when I came out the other side of that lust-filled, devastating but deserved, tortuous night.

  11: JUMA

  He was not here.

  He did not occupy your space

  breathe the same air as you

  desire you

  * * *

  inhale exhale inhale exhale

  wash repeat rinse

  sigh . . .

  I gazed around the apartment, my eyes doing a slow wander over the space, everything hushed and dim and still and relaxed, my walls and furniture and art in a state of repose, inward-looking and calm. A light breeze full of warmth and summer ruffled the curtains and I turned toward the open window, curious as to when I’d opened it. Or rather, when he’d opened it.

  He’d been here.

  I knew it.

  No matter what my saner self—that woman full of knowledge and wisdom and common sense—knew, my gut knew better. And what my gut told me was that all of that dark danger, quiet sadness, untouchable grief had existed for some span of time—how long I would never know—within my vicinity, close enough to touch me, wrap me in some of him, love me.

  It had to be him.

  I needed it to be him.

  The rhythm of the lilting fabric of the curtains held my attention for I don’t know how long, the undulations slow and soothing like a woman moving her hips real sexy for her lover as he watched from the corner with heat in his dark eyes that saw only her as she wove her seductive magic under and over and around him until his black cloud of despair lifted and his tormented eyes met hers as he begged for something he couldn’t quite put into words so instead he stood and wrapped her in his danger and

  and

  and

  I blinked hard and broke the spell—Dutch—as a silent cry lost itself somewhere in my being, the despair too deep and cutting to piece itself into actual sound but fully able to rule my sense and sensibility and give me moments of pure uselessness and futility, seconds of thrashing slashing bashing within, while little more than a sigh rose to the surface. A lifetime of him would never be enough for me—I needed all of his lives wrapped around all of mine.

  Instead, barely a trace of Dutch existed anywhere in my apartment despite the fact he’d bled out on my floors, he’d run his hands over my furniture, his laughter had bounced off these walls. After everything, I was left with nothing.

  I turned away from the window and closed my eyes as a quiet sigh escaped my parted lips, the sound commingling with others of the night, easily becoming lost in the quiet language of my soul’s witching hour.

  He always pulled me under at this time, when I undoubtedly woke up next to some man or woman or both or many who in no shape or form seemed anything like Dutch because I couldn’t bear to think of Dutch and yet, every goddamned time he was there. Everywhere. It was like a part of him stayed behind after he left—Don’t touch me, Juma—and took up a home inside my deepest self, the part of me even I had trouble reaching because he knew if he burrowed that deep I would never manage to rid my being of his dark danger. I would crave him always. I would ache for his brown and muscles and sinew his snark and bitterness his sweet and tender.

  And I wanted to cry but learned early on it was impossible to weep when so much that mattered vanished into thin air, leaving me half a woman forced to move onward an incomplete soul doomed to forever mourn her lost love her dangerous magician her other half. No tears captured such grief—I was a bottomless well of sand and dust and the rotted carcass of our fiery union. I was long past expecting any water to quench my thirst.

  Deep breaths, girlfriend.

  one

  two

  three

  four

  Yesssssss, you got this, girl.

  I pushed my memories of him me us back into my innermost reaches and calmed and quieted and continued . . . being Juma . . . without Dutch . . . half as light but fucking dark as ever.

  Feeling cramped, I shifted slightly on the bed as I contemplated unwrapping myself from the men on either side of me, their arms and legs long lines of fair-skinned muscle curved around me and all of my brown. I glanced at the taller, darker man, the more beautiful of the two but hardly the more charming, and studied the planes and lines of his face, the strong cut of his jaw, the slash of his lips, the lush of his lashes, and I sighed.

  He and his partner in crime—the tatted-up bad-boy bon vivant, the man who ate pussy like a king and made me come so hard and so fast he sent my head spinning—were anything but dark and dangerous, snarling and full of rage. They were light, lovely beings whistling their way through life, charming the panties off the beautiful women of this city, fucking without a care, laughing in the face of their fantastic existence.

  They knew only pussy and bourbon, thousand-dollar steak dinners and nights at the symphony, beach homes in the Hamptons and getting their dicks sucked at brunch. They worked hard and played hard and the women who loved them loved hard. Their cocaine-fueled fast life was a blur of late night sex parties and early morning conference calls, power lunches and even more powerful dinners. Here and there, they met a girl like me, one they could pleasure at the same time, one who enjoyed fucking as much as they, who enjoyed no-strings-attached even more. One who longed for a lost love of brown and sinew, snarl and kisses, a love who left her bewildered and sad, lonely and hurt wit
h his inexplicable disappearance, his disavowal of their happiness. One who needed to lose herself in as many others as she could stand in an effort to forget him.

  Even though forgetting him was impossible.

  I closed my eyes and stilled, the quiet calming my despair soothing my soul.

  The ink of the bon vivant’s tattoos snaked up his arm and disappeared behind his shoulder, a beautiful dragon occupying his back, looking deadly and fierce and quite the opposite of his playful smirk and mischievous eyes. I raked my fingers through his silky blonde hair, pushing the strands behind his ear to reveal a small design of concentric circles, and thought of eternity and time immemorial and ashes to ashes dust to dust and the winds of my arid soul and before I could delve back into Dutch, because he and all of his dark danger were exactly where I was headed, the bad boy stirred and reached and pulled me close.

  “Juma,” he whispered, with his eyes closed and voice full of sleep, “my Juma,” as his lips pressed tenderly to my throat and his hands slipped between my legs and holy fuck he knew his way around a woman’s body, “god, you’re so wet.” He kissed me as he slid his fingers into my pussy and I closed my eyes and against my better judgment pretended the bon vivant was brown and lithe and all clipped consonants with a hint of other and he watched me grind on his hand for a second, none the wiser that I wished him someone else.

  I touched his cheek, hoping to tether myself to him and his mischief instead of the darkness of another. He turned with a smirk to press a kiss to my palm before moving down my body with his soft lips, finger-fucking me the entire time. I reacted to his touch, more instinct than desire, as my hips rose to meet his lips so I could feel his luscious mouth all over my pussy and he made me come hard and fast and then he fucked me soft and slow while he rubbed my clit and we came together in quiet bliss and the whole time his better-looking counterpart remained right there next to us lost in a deep sleep.

  And I remained lost in Dutch.

  Because the fact was, no matter how I tried to distract myself—touching sucking fucking—I couldn’t shake the feeling he had been here somewhere anywhere, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but my apartment that had once felt so devoid of the deadly Keeper now thrummed with some aspect of him left behind, some piece of Dutch he had once been so careful to safeguard and now entrusted to me, of this I was certain. It was purposeful, he meant for me to feel him, he wanted me to ache, or perhaps he simply wanted to fuck with me, laugh in the face of my need, my inability to move past him, no matter how hard I tried.

  Fuck you, Dutch, you goddamned beautiful asshole.

  A pulse of air escaped my lips and the bon vivant kissed me, assuming, I’m sure, my sigh was that of the sated, a woman happily fucked multiple times multiple ways by multiple men in one night, who now simply needed a kiss and some shut-eye. I smiled in the face of his sweetness, ran my fingers through his blonde locks, and kissed him to sleep so I could escape the confines of the bed and the men and our sex and do what I’d been wanting to do since the first hint of Dutch teased my senses: walk.

  I stood and stretched and watched them sleep for a second before moving toward the kitchen and that space that reminded me of him and me and our angst and trepidation, his sadness and my desire. His need and my burn as he pressed me against that wall and did things to my body without even touching me.

  Just like now.

  I poured myself a whiskey and opened the hidden drawer under my farmer’s table, the one not a soul knew existed but me, mostly because I’d made the drawer myself to hide my most private self from prying eyes and ears and Death. Everyone deserved a few secrets and that drawer was full of mine. The smoke of the whiskey touched my tongue just as I spied the three-and-a-half by two-and-one-eighth inch box of cancer in the drawer. The black eagle and the blue letters against the yellow box all came together to read AMERICAN SPIRIT but really what it read was Dutch.

  I remember finding his pack after that horrible night of blood and pain and healing and that glorious morning of words and touch and him on me and despite the fact I never once smoked a cigarette in any of my lives, I pushed open the pack and slid out one of the slim sticks. I brought it to my nose and inhaled long and slow, awash in memories of the smoke that lingered on him here and there. A tease on his breath, a whiff behind his ear, a lingering hint along his throat, so sexy and masculine and so very him.

  I grabbed a lighter and pulled a chair near the window and settled in as the city made its first movements of the day, a simple stretch really, a downward dog made up of bakery trucks and coffee carts and New York Times delivery men. I loved this time of morning when the sun had yet to kiss the streets but was already making its mark on the skies, turning the black of night to the grey-blue of 4 a.m. I ran the smoke under my nose again, then struck the match, and lit it just as I’d watched him do countless times over.

  He made it look so goddamned sexy and effortless, one fluid motion of brown and sinew and lips and ahhhhh . . . deep inhale. I knew there was nothing sexy about the way I handled that smoke but I inhaled anyway and it filled my lungs and it was horrible and disgusting and gross but it was also him. And in those initial seconds of smoking my first cigarette in the quiet of my apartment as two men who’d fucked me snored in my bed and my furniture and art and walls hummed with the energy of another man altogether, I felt so very alone and yet deeper into that other man than I had felt in months.

  I smoked and sobbed and remembered him and me and us and when the cigarette burned down to nothing more than a nub, I put it out, wiped my tears, and closed that chapter of my lives.

  12: DUTCH

  The second I returned to Kowdiar Palace, the gossip and whispers followed me everywhere, crept up my arms, goose-bumped my skin, and left me with a sick chill in the Indian heat.

  “Does he know?”

  “When did he return?”

  Goddamned bullshit and fuckery lurked in every corner, slunk down every hall, lingered in the smiles on every face in the building.

  “I heard she has a lover.”

  “This is just another Mathew power play.”

  Fucking busybodies with nothing better to do than talk talk talk. I couldn’t escape them if I wanted to, their words like shards of glass tearing at my eardrums, their souls abhorrent, worthless wastes of space.

  And yet, I should have listened, paid attention to the rubbish spoken behind a cupped hand.

  “She’s a Keeper but the family is Ren.”

  “They’ll force him. They always do.”

  * * *

  I stood on the stage this evening, towering over my mother, Shema Mathew, leader of the Junta, the legislative arm of The Gate, and only vaguely listened as she spoke to a room of Ren, Junta, and Keepers.

  “ . . . built upon rich and revered generations of tradition, we gather tonight as one family of god-like beings granted the gifts to maintain a balance between the living and the dead.” She energized the crowd because unlike Khan, these idiots liked her. They loved the way her low voice curled around her consonants and hinted at her privileged childhood of British nannies and private tutors. She wooed them with her rare smiles, the real ones that made her eyes dance, and her sincere-seeming laughter. She sucked them in with this extravagant and impromptu celebration of The Gate, a night that promised good food, exciting conversation and plenty of humor, but I knew better.

  Or at least I should have known better, that was for damn sure, because when my sister, Veda, called earlier this afternoon, every atom that came together to make up Dutch Mathew should have been on high alert and on the lookout for some serious fuckery. Veda was nothing but fuckery.

  “Dutch?”

  “Veda.”

  She laughed and I imagined her seated somewhere, long legs stretched out, twirling a lock of her hair and sipping a martini, doing nothing that mattered because she was a complete and utter waste.

  “That’s not happiness to hear me, big brother,” Veda joked but it hardly sounded funny.

>   “What do you want, Veda?” I asked.

  “I want to see you,” she replied. “Is it too much for a girl to see her brother?”

  That I want to see you was my warning. I should have known right then shit was going down and it was major. And it was probably already happening—players were in motion, targets in sight—if not fait accompli.

  “Cut the crap, Veda. What do you want?” I asked as I exhaled smoke and punched out a text.

  Is J safe?

  No idea, she’s impossible

  Can’t track her

  * * *

  With those seven small words, Veda became the least of my concerns.

  “I’m in my room, stop by whenever.” I started to hang up.

  “Where’s the fire, Dutch?” she asked, and her voice sounded like a smile, the twisted perverse type that made you want to punch it right off.

  “Fuck you, Veda.”

  I hung up before she could get in another word. And had I not been goddamned preoccupied with all things Juma, I would have considered and then reconsidered my twisted and deranged sister’s demand—I want to see you—and my guard would have been up. That bitch never wanted to see me.

  Instead.

  “What the fuck, Avery?” I practically shouted into the phone when he answered, immediately forgetting Veda altogether.

  “Relax, chap.” Avery laughed but I was hardly amused. “She’s too fast for me, Dutch.”

  “I asked one thing of you.” I fumed and smoked and paced in front of the windows of my sunlit room. Overlooking hills covered in lush shades of green, I saw nothing but red.

  Avery continued, his voice casual and slightly amused, as if I wasn’t on the verge of losing my shit. “But Kash is good at this stuff and seems to enjoy the assignment. Between us, I think he has a bit of a crush on your beautiful brown woman.”