Blood & Milk (19 page)

Makumu handed Kasisi a spear, and I almost dropped the gourd cups I was holding.

“Damu show great bravery,” Kasisi said. “He ran against wildebeests to save Momboa and Jaali. I award him this honour spear,” he said, handing over the spear to Damu.

Damu took the spear and bowed his head. The crowd was quiet, clearly stunned at this proceeding. Damu, still speaking to the ground, said, “I am only happy my brothers were not harmed.”

Amali and Damisi, mothers of the boys we’d saved, both sang their praises, which started everyone singing.

His father had acknowledged him, for the first time. And publicly! Damu found his way back to me, holding his first-ever spear. He looked about ready to burst. He was shocked, that much was clear, but he was proud and so fucking happy.

I wanted to take his face in both hands and kiss him until he broke for air, and I was grateful for the two cups I was holding, otherwise I probably would’ve done just that.

He somehow looked flush and pale at the same time, if that was even possible for someone with his skin colour. But his eyes… wide with pure joy.

“Did you see?” he asked, obviously still in the not-believing stage.

I snorted out a laugh. “Yes, I saw. Everyone saw.”

He looked over the spear. It was dark wood with some carvings, and a metal tip. He was still grinning as he admired the details, and I was reminded of a kid who got the one thing he wished for on Christmas morning. “It’s an
esururu
. Spear for not warriors.”

So they gave him the equivalent of a participation certificate. Didn’t win anything, but thanks for trying. It should have pissed me off, but the look on Damu’s face told me all I needed to know.

“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered. “And I’m so happy for you.”

He gave me a grinning-nod. “Thank you.” Then he pointed to the carvings near the tip. “Look at this.”

It was beautiful, I had to admit. But it wasn’t really the spear I was so thrilled about but what it represented.

“Your father said you were very brave,” I reminded him.

Damu’s gaze shot to mine, like he still couldn’t believe it. “Yes, he did.” Then he laughed. “He did.”

Some of the younger warriors came and asked him if they could look at his spear, and he proudly showed them. As he talked and laughed, I caught the eye of Kasisi and gave him a smile and a nod of thanks. He returned the unspoken gesture. A silent discussion passed between us before he turned away, and I could feel eyes burning into the side my head.

Kijani. He’d obviously just witnessed the gesture between myself and his father, and he didn’t seem too pleased. And of course, Damu―the brother he despised―had just received praise and a gift from his father, which had to have gotten under his skin.

In Kijani’s eyes, it would never matter how much praise he got from Kasisi. He could have, and probably did, sing Kijani’s praises every day of his life, but it was all for naught if Damu was praised just once.

Damu didn’t seem to notice it, or maybe he was just used to it. But we ate our meat, as always, away from the men and away from the women, as we, in their eyes at least, didn’t quite fit in to either box.

Maybe it was the buzz from whatever kind of tea we were drinking, but it annoyed me more than it did before. Though Damu’s happiness couldn’t be dampened, and I certainly didn’t want to see that smile leave his face, ever.

Knowing no one could hear us, I said, “I can’t wait until later. When we’re alone.” Then I leaned in, “I’ve never lain with a man who had a spear before.”

Damu burst out laughing, but quickly looked around us. When he was sure we were out of earshot, he reprimanded me. “Not speak of such things out here,” he said.

“No one is listening,” I said quietly. “But I still can’t wait. If I close my eyes, I can imagine the feel of you.”

He pointed his finger at me, a glint of daring in his eyes. “Stop, Heath Crowley. You make me think of such things.”

Now I laughed. “That was my intention.”

He shook his head at me and finished eating his meat. “You are bad.”

I probably would have been offended if he weren’t smiling when he said it. “I mean it though, Damu. I am proud of you. As is your father. You deserve it.”

He stared into my eyes and whispered, “I owe it to you.”

“No. You earned it on your own. You’re a good man, Damu. It’s just a shame it’s taken until now for your father to see it.”

“Kijani not think so.”

Ah, so he did notice.
“He’s just jealous. Ignore him. And anyway, I think his anger is directed at me. He thinks I’m the reason the tax man came. He blames me for your father wanting to make an income from tourists.”

Damu finished his meat and sipped his tea. “Kijani not like you because you dream.”

“Oh.”

“Do you not see?”

I shook my head. I had no idea what he meant. “Because I dream?”

“You are like Kasisi. Prophet.”

I shrugged. “Not really. I don’t choose it.”

Damu smiled. “Heath Crowley, you would be Diviner.”

My eyes almost fell out of my head. “I would what?”

He chuckled. “You be chief. Not Kijani. Chief is not warrior. Chief is one who sees.”

I shook my head vehemently. “Oh no. No I wouldn’t be.”

“This is why Kijani not like you. When Kasisi and he go to elders meeting with other tribes, Kasisi tell them all you dream of tax man visit. Then it happen. Then you dream of stampede and it happen.”

Was he fucking serious?
There was no way. Just no, no way. “I don’t mean for it to happen. And I wouldn’t want the responsibility of Kasisi. Kijani can have it. I would never want that.”

“Kasisi tell me the other day. When I talk to him, he says you have divining dreams. You be sent here to save his sons.”

“He said that to me too,” I admitted. “And my sole purpose wasn’t to come here and save Momboa.”

“No?”

I shook my head. “It was to meet you.”

A shy smile quirked at the corner of his lips. “You believe this?”

“I know it. I dreamed of it. Of meeting you. I didn’t know it was you at the time, but looking back, I can see now it was.”

We were both quiet for a while, and with food in my belly and a buzz of tea in my brain, I felt great. I held up my now empty cup. “What is in this tea?”

“You like?”

“I’m kinda drunk.”

“It is honey ferment and leaf.” Damu said with a tipsy smile. “We only drink on special celebration.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “The stars are really pretty here.”

He laughed and stood up, holding his spear. “Come. We sleep.”

I remembered the makeshift lube waiting for us in our hut and certainly didn’t need telling twice.

* * * *

My head was swimming with the alcohol buzz, and I crawled on all fours from the small door to the thin mattress along the far wall. It was pitch black inside, there was no fire for light, and given there weren’t any windows and the ceiling was five foot off the ground, I had to go by feel.

Which wasn’t all bad.

Damu was already on the bed. I felt up his calf and trailed my hand up his thigh. “I can’t see a thing,” I mumbled, leaning in for a kiss. He tried to deepen the kiss but I pulled away. “I wish I could see your face when you’re inside me.”

Damu moved so quickly, somehow manoeuvring me so I was on my back and he was above me. “Whoa,” I said, the dark room spun around me. “I think I’m drunk.”

Damu pressed his weight between my open legs, rubbing his long erection, hot and hard against me. “Do you wish for this?”

I bucked my hips into his and moaned. His mouth crashed to mine, silencing me. “No sound,” he murmured against my lips.

I writhed underneath him, every nerve ending alight with desire. I was drunk, for the first time in over a year, and I was desperate to feel him inside me. Desperate to feel him want me. Desperate to feel alive.

“Yes, I want you,” I said, barely breathing the words. “I need you inside me.”

My words sparked something in him, and he kissed me deeper and ground himself against me, like he was trying to crawl inside me. He kissed down my jaw, and with his lips at my ear, he whispered, “Need you now, Heath Crowley. I cannot wait. You possess me in ways my body does not understand.”

God, if he doesn’t fuck me soon, I think I might die.

I pulled at my shorts, trying to get them down, which wasn’t easy given he was between my thighs. Damu sat back on his haunches and dragged my shorts and underpants down, pulling them off one leg. He leaned over, I assumed, to grab the bowl of makeshift lube, and I pulled my shorts off the other leg, leaving myself naked from the waist down.

I lifted my hips in anticipation, so keen for what was about to happen. When Damu’s slicked fingers found my arse, I couldn’t help but moan. He leaned over me, his fingers pushed inside me, and his lips were soft against mine. “No sound,” he murmured.

I whined as he stretched me, needing more and running out of patience. “Please Damu,” I whispered. I didn’t care how desperate I sounded.

His fingers were gone from my hole and I was fraught at the loss. Okay, this was more than desperate, this was frantic. I felt shattered and splintered in all the wrong directions, and only when the blunt head of his cock pushed against my entrance, as he leaned down to kiss me as he entered me, did I feel centred again. I felt whole again.

He slid into me slowly. His tongue filled my mouth as his cock filled my arse. My knees were up at our chests, giving him full access, and only when his balls pressed against me did he breathe.

“This is…” he started to say, but stopped. His mouth found mine again, and he shuddered as he pulled out and thrust back in. He slid his arms under my shoulders and held me as tight as he could, and he rocked into me over and over. Our tongues slid together and I touched his face, his neck, ran my hands up his back and over his arse, pulling him closer every time he thrust into me.

He felt just as good as I knew he would. It had been weeks, and this was worth the wait. This was everything.

A groan strangled in his throat as he buried himself in me, rocking his hips into me before pulling back only to slide right back in to where he belonged. “You are…” he mumbled into my neck. “You are…”

I could barely form coherent thought, but I needed to know. “I am what?”

He pulled back a little, stilling his cock inside me. “You are…”

I could see his face in the darkness, the warmth in his eyes. “Tell me.”

“
Képer áinéí,”
he murmured. “
Képer áinéí
.”

My heaven. My heaven.

I couldn’t help it. With both hands on his face, I brought his mouth back to mine and angled my head to consume him with a kiss. It was enough to bring him undone. He thrust into me sharply, deeper than he’d ever been, and groaned into my mouth as he came.

Only this time he didn’t stop. He kept fucking me, leaning up off me and taking my cock in his hand. He pumped my dick and slammed into me until he ripped my orgasm from my bones.

Trembling, unable to take anymore, but not wanting it to ever end, I came hard. Damu collapsed on top of me with a sweaty, sticky mess smeared between us, and I held him as tight as my leaden arms would let me.

I was exhausted, sated, and I didn’t want him to ever move. The fractured feeling was gone. I felt whole again, and I knew without doubt it was Damu’s doing. He’d put me back together again. He hadn’t just fixed me, he’d
saved
me.

I tightened my hold on him and kissed the side of his head, unsure of where we would go from here. For the first time in almost two years, I was now thinking about my future. I didn’t know where or even how, but I knew it involved Damu.

He stirred on top of me, but I held him right where he was. He was still inside me, and I couldn’t bear the thought of him being anywhere else. He mumbled into my neck, “Képer áinéí.”

I closed my eyes, unable to hold sleep at bay any longer. I repeated his words back to him. “My heaven.” And he nuzzled into me.

Drunken sleep curled itself around me, like smoke, pulling me under until there was nothing but darkness.

* * * *

I stand back in the shade of the trees, a good forty metres from the graveside, while the funeral procession goes on without me. Jarrod would have hated that. He would have hated his parents for not letting me be there, for forbidding me to be there. They were angry, I was angry, everyone was fucking angry.

I was angry at the world, I was angry at God, I was angry that the sun still shined. Didn’t it know it was supposed to rain the day he was buried? Wasn’t the sky supposed to fucking weep?

No, I wasn’t allowed to attend his funeral. They’d made it very clear when they told me. Unable to comprehend the loss, and without the will to fight, I had simply nodded that I understood.

I’d always understood. It was me and Jarrod against the world, our families refused to accept what we were…