7 comments/ 13794 views/ 9 favorites The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 01 By: TaLtos6 ***This is a story with a bunch of characters in it that I found I quite liked. They were originally developed for use in A Big Shiny Blue Marble, but sadly, they didn't make the cut. I re-read the story a while ago and I thought it might fly if it was presented as a separate -- and very finite -- finished work of say two to four chapters for Mother's Day. And I didn't make it, wanting to get another piece of the Marble up. So to set the stage, the world in the second half is the same as in the Marble series -- same demons, same 'Humanity after the Fall' scenario. It starts long before that though. The female protagonist here is a complex sort of girl. It caused me a few headaches at first. She comes from a few different and distinct background sources, and she's very well spoken at times. At other times though, such as when her blood is up, she tends to fall back on her roots and what comes out of her then is a Jamaican patois, and that was my problem. There is no written form of that. All that I had was to try to write her lilting inflections as best I could and it still gave me fits. I've known many women who speak it, but to WRITE it and not have my girl in this come off badly was the trouble. But I like the character very much and if you have any trouble reading her lines now and then, just try to think of how 'Calypso' might sound in that pirate movie. Same sound to it. That's the best example that I can think of which would be available or known to many readers. She wasn't patterned after that character, though. She's patterned after Jacquotte Delahaye, aka "Back from the dead Red", a female buccaneer who was active in the Caribbean in the 1650s for about a decade and took to the life out of her desperation and poverty. Born of a Haitian mother and a French father, Jacquotte was a famous beauty, known for her mix of African features and flaming red hair, as well as faking her own death. She was never brought to justice. There's a great story right there, if you think about it. :) A word about the adjective 'dread' as it applied to pirates of the time. You were a dread pirate if you had the ability (and the stones) to attack a town - not just another ship. About the flags. The black flag or the more ornamented "Jolly Roger" in all of its designs was used as a warning to heave to and one could expect a degree of mercy. But if you didn't and were prepared to defend yourself, the red flag came up and no quarter could be expected if the raiders were going to have to really work hard at beating you down to rob you. Hoisting (or 'heisting', if the pirates were from the local poor) either one was asking to be hung if you lost or were caught. Anyway, this will be late for Mother's Day, since I'm typing this only now, but hey, if you're a mom and you like to read a bit about swashbuckling (or even buckle swashing), this is for you from me. Hope you like it. 0_o ----------------------- From Humble Beginnings ---------------------- Bessie Fox walked along the ancient concrete quay in the dark of the late evening. There wasn't a thing going on in the whole of the harbor -- there never was - and that was fine with her. There hadn't been a thing going on for her in ... She asked herself out loud in a quiet voice, "Ow long has it been now?", and she answered herself with a sad and soft sigh, "I don' know." She vaguely remembered that she'd been born in the Year of Our Lord 1698 and she knew that her family had been a little bit different, to be nice about it. Her grandmother had come from Scotland via England alone at a time when it perhaps wasn't the safest thing to do for a single woman to travel that far by herself -- if she wasn't wealthy enough to afford a manservant for things such as protection and maybe a little amusement in the dark of the night. But then, the women of her family had never really been on the shy side, she guessed, and most of them from what she knew hadn't exactly been defenseless either. So old Winifred had come across when she was a young woman, looking for a safer place to be what she was and she'd made her home on the island of Jamaica. And being what she was, she'd set up in a little cove which was half mangrove swamp back then and by luck and happenstance, she'd met Tumweh, a runaway slave. The two became inseparable for most of their lives together, Winifred practicing and teaching the skills which she possessed while Tumweh built upon his power as a houngan asogwe, or high priest and practitioner of obeah and voodoo. Their union had produced three daughters, which was quite a bit of luck as far as Bess was concerned. Old Winifred had left Scotland, running from the witch hunts there and for a bit of good reason. In her family, it was said that the ability ran in threes in girls and Winifred was the third daughter of a third daughter, just as Bess herself was the third girl-child born to her mother, Millie, who was Winifred's third girl. What Bess knew without doubt was that in the 'thirdlings' as these girls were called, the ability seemed to grow the longer that the chain ran unbroken. All of the girls became skilled witches in their own right, but it was in the 'thirdlings' that it was seen to be most evident. She'd asked about it one time as she sat on Winifred's knee while learning the phrases which would be used to funnel her young will. "Aye, that's right," her grandmother said with a smile, "Look at what you're doing here," she pointed at the small trinkets which Bess was causing to tumble in the air for her own amusement, "Your mum's a strong one, but she wasn't doing at twelve what you can do at six. You've the gift quite strongly, little fox. And it doesn't all come from my blood like your hair and your eyes do. You're the thirdling of a thirdling three times over, but your grandda outside there, he's a seventh son." Bess stopped to lean her hand against a piling, looking at it there in the darkness after a moment once she'd realized what she'd done. She was becoming more and more solid, and she wondered about it for a moment but then went back to her memories. She'd been born in the same bed where her mother and all of her aunts and sisters had been born, in the same old ramshackle house built on pilings far back from the cove, upstream a little in the swamp. Old Winifred had laughed when she'd laid eyes on the howling little thing as she began to clean her up after her journey down her mother's birth canal. "She's got more of me in her than any of the others, "Winifred had chuckled as she'd swabbed her daughter's brow, "Mark you this, Millie, red hair already -- a full head of it and I daresay that I'll be looking at my own green eyes looking back at me in this little face afore long." She kissed little Bess then and smiled, "There's some strength in this wee bairn even now." Her abilities and determination might have come from her Scottish ancestry and her African heritage -- and that came from any of several directions, but her strength of spirit came from her father, a poor Spaniard who'd been forced into becoming a plain and lowly sailor. With nothing but a short life on a squalid ship before him, he'd made good his own escape and come where he'd been welcomed by the largely black and Carib Maroons in the little community. They might have been as poor as anyone else, but they were a happy family and Bess couldn't remember a day in her life when she hadn't seen her handsome father smiling. ------------------------------ The coming of the Sea Witch Molly Hawke ---------------------------- Her name hadn't been Molly then; it was just something which fate had brought her later on. When she was a little girl, she liked to wander off for hours, often ending up by the seashore where she'd sit herself down and hope for a sailing ship to pass by, since she loved to see them. As she grew up, Bess became a rare beauty, turning out lean and strong for a girl and though she tried to hide it a little, that wild hair and those eyes in a girl with her mixed African and Spanish background was bound to get her noticed. The red mop and the bright eyes came from Winifred, the Spanish features from her father and being that all of the women in her family were of African descent and spoke patois, even Bess often joked that she had no idea who she was, but she hoped to find out one day. She'd been married once, quite young and she'd run away from her husband once she'd grown tired of his cruelty to her and how he always sought to manipulate her. Their last meeting, where he'd caught up to her at an inn where she was working was the parting of the ways. He'd held her arm tightly enough to hurt and told her that she'd live as his wife again and die as his wife too, if necessary. It had only caused Bess to laugh. She could speak well in good company, since she'd been taught by Winifred, but when she was feeling a little playful or was in a mood, then the patois would rise quickly to the surface. "That will be some hard to do," she smiled slowly into the hard eyes which only then began to widen as the lout started to realize his peril, "I can only be the widow of a dead man, not his wife. I not run from you to save me life. I run away to save yours. But you come 'ere now and say I must go with you. I say that you must leave me be and go outside. It will be some time, but you find that you can't leave the square until your death come to you later tonight." The next day, her husband was found dead in the main square of the town, his guts torn out and everyone wondering how that could be since there had been no screams heard by anyone, and by the blood, it was plain that it had been done there in the square. Unfortunately for Bess, her quiet statement had been overheard by two serving girls there at the inn who wanted to prevent the rise in Bess' popularity among the clientele. They wasted no time in going to the constable. While the authorities were trying to determine if there was a way to lay charges and searched the town for her to hold her while that happened, Bess met and joined up with Alexander Hawke, a young English-born privateer who made quite a good living raiding Spanish and Portuguese towns all over the Caribbean. It was said that his own personal fortune was enough to buy many a small town for his own, but he'd never settled down, preferring to stay at sea as much as possible rather than live on land. Hawke had a small flotilla of ships under his command and he used the three largest as his flagships, depending on which one he happened to be on at the time. He and Bess became lovers and when the mood was on her, she was the only woman on those ships who could walk the decks almost naked, wanting to feel the sun on her brown skin and knowing that she was perfectly safe there as she almost strutted the deck in bare feet and if the day was calm enough for it, she'd take her pretty walk by jumping onto the railing and walking there. In the doing of all of that once she'd become a familiar sight to them all, she'd become known simply as 'Hawke's Moll' and eventually, even she referred to herself as Molly Hawke. Indeed, what she did wear then might best be described as the very sparse clothing and armor which related more to her new occupation, often not much more than a cutlass on a sword belt with a brace of pistols stuffed through it. She was fond of carrying a cut-down fowling piece as well, and it hung from a holster on a wide belt worn as a sash over her shoulder. There was always a bit of turn-over in the men, new ones coming to them drawn by the bright prospect of making a fair bit of coin at what was essentially politically sanctioned piracy. It would sadden her a little when it happened, but she knew the way that men could be and so when she felt the unasked-for and unwelcome touch of a rough hand on her backside, she'd warn the man once loudly. "Take your hand off me while you still have it, you stinking goat," she'd say in a voice which wasn't loud, but it could be heard rather clearly all the same as she switched to her more natural way of speaking, "De nex time, I'll 'ave your manhood off and spattered over de deck for you to clean away." The trouble was that some men had it in their little minds that when a woman says 'no', it really means 'yes', or at worst, 'maybe later'. More than once every three months, she'd have to make good on her warning as a man took more daring liberties with his hands. By then a lot of times, the sight of her drawing her piece would make all but the most foolish or stupid back away quickly, but there were always some who preferred to think with their dicks. Those ones would end up weeping in pain and regretful shame as they bled into a wad of rags held between their thighs while they were forced to wash their own blood off the planking. She'd originally thought that after her ' lessons', men like that would prove useful, no longer having the distraction which had caused them so much trouble, but the sad fact was that they all died within four days at the outside, no matter what was done. She had two primary functions as far as Hawke's business went. She proved herself to be a quick study and in very little time, could demonstrate that she could handle a sailing ship as well or better than any man. In a fight with another vessel, Bess could command a ship's crew with telling effect -- yelling commands in her Jamaican patois even as she helped swab out the hot barrel of a cannon herself prior to reloading it and laying it onto its next target. And once the fight was gunwale-to-railing, she was among the first ones over to the other deck with a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other. The other thing that she did for them all was either influence the weather -- or guide the ships around and between the storms of the Caribbean. Nobody was sure which it was, though she'd often proven to them all that she was worthy of their trust. At night, Molly Hawke lay in the arms of a rather handsome man and she loved the way that his hands felt on her body. So often, he'd ask her to just stay with him there in his cabin and he could stare at her body for hours, so taken with her loveliness and the way that she did anything, from sitting and darning his clothing to just the way that she could sit at the window and watch the sea. More than once, Hawke had given her command of an armed (and very fast) Bermuda sloop, a regular sloop-of-war, and one armed ketch. And one time to Hawke's amazement, she'd used them to carve through a squadron of Spanish warships, there to escort and guard a convoy of gold-laden galleons. "How in the world can we get a bit of that?" Hawke had asked as they'd watched from the shadows of the trees as the galleons had been loaded the week before, "I am loathe to say it, Molly, but I think this nut is too hard for even us to think of cracking." "De trouble wit these ones, "she'd had said in a lilting tone, "is that dey are so bound up in their importance." She pointed off a way, while not being too obvious about it, "Look at dem, " she said, indicating the armed escorts which lay at anchor at the far edge of the harbour, "Every little ting is correct an' perfect because to them, it more important to look their best. When you carry your nose in the air; that is when it happen that you trip over something small. It even happen to Spaniards," she smiled. She put her arms around Hawke's neck, "Give me a ship and I can show you. While he wonder what it was that him trip over, I'll carve off him legs and he'll 'ave no stomach for the fight. Do this and I will hand you at least one galleon, Alexander, my love." On the day that the galleons sailed, it had been overcast. As the day went on, it grew more so and a mist began to form as the wind held and the world seemed to close in on them all a little in a gentle rain. The warships guarding the galleons held off a mile distant, fearful of collisions in the fog. It was near six that evening and the first of the meals was being served to the captains and higher officers when three ships were spotted by the lookouts. They came racing out of the fog flying no banners or flags at all and as they pulled into sight, they spread themselves to pass through the squadron at speed with every rag they had up billowing on their masts. Other than this manoeuvre, it was as though the three ships weren't aware of the warships at all. The commodore in charge of the escorts was surprised, but it was clear that the newcomers appeared to be just as surprised by their meeting in the fog and took up their formation so that they could pass right through, and everyone doubted from their course and speed that these three ships even knew of the convoy in the first place. No one but Bess knew that all of them had been wrong. The commodore ordered the guns to be loaded as a precaution, but the crews had been looking forward to a bit of supper and things went a little slowly as the Spanish deckhands stood at the railings of their ships, trying to see and speculate on who this was and what they were about. Three of the captains of the warships suddenly found themselves on the wrong ship, since they'd been invited to dine with the commodore -- an occurrence which Bess knew would happen the first evening out. She stood alone at the wheel on the quarterdeck of the Bermuda sloop, knowing full well that every man with a spyglass would be watching. There were lots of her own marksmen lying hidden out of sight on her decks, but she knew that everyone only saw her as she kept her mast and yardarms from striking the slower ships that she was overtaking. All that she wore was a pair of tight breeches stuffed into high boots and, while she wore a white shirt borrowed from Hawke - since it would be large and offer her freedom of movement while being visible, it was mostly open and her breasts were easily seen. She wore a kerchief on her head to keep her wild red hair out of sight and trouble. The Sea Witch Molly Hawke was about to make her mark and become a bit of a feared name on the Spanish Main - or what was left of it by then. They were still almost thirty yards away from passing through the squadron when Bess looked over - straight into the eyes of the watch officer on the nearest of the warships. He called over with a laugh, asking her what sort of whore that she was and the soon to be famous Molly Hawke smiled back and replied in clear Castilian Spanish that she was the sort known for breaking huevos -- eggs; a word which might also mean testicles in that language. While dozens of Spaniards gaped at her breasts, she drew one of her pistols, yelled out an order as she cocked it and she fired as she began to pull directly across, killing the man instantly. The Spanish officers jumped at the sound and they stared as they watched the covers over the gunports of all three ships open and the dark muzzles of the cannons protrude from them ominously. There was nothing they could do but scramble, knowing that it would do them no good now. The lambs were about to maul the lions, and right in their dens, too. The Spanish crews braced themselves as best they could, but when Bess' cannons began their booming songs, they weren't singing at the sides of the Spanish ships. The gun crews of the warships watched in disbelief from their own ports as the raider's guns passed them by only yards away; elevated as much as possible to aim higher. The raiders were right beside them, and not one Spanish cannon was loaded and ready to fire yet. Bess wasn't aiming at them; since that was where the best armour was on a warship anyway. Her guns below-deck were loaded with chain-shot and the air was filled with the whining buzz and smoke as the rigging on each of the four ships was shot to ribbons. Bess yelled again and the crews manning her deck guns jumped to their stations to haul back the tarpaulins from their pre-loaded guns and open fire, raking the Spanish decks clean of humans. Any man fool enough to even stand was obliterated in an instant. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 01 Bess had made certain beforehand that everyone knew that their success depended on speed, surprise, and audacity and that once the cat was out of the bag, she'd need all the withering fire that every one of them could give her or the Spaniards might recover. Bess didn't even slow down. She just ran straight on, the cannons and carronades of her three boats roaring as quickly as their crews could swab them out and reload to fire again. The effect was that each of the Spanish escorts was ripped up on at least one side and the middle two were raked on both sides by accurate fire from only yards away. Enough gunmen had run onto the decks of 'Molly's Marauders' to prevent the Spaniards from even beginning to think about returning the musket fire which was keeping their heads down. As they began to pull away, Bess gave the last signal, urging the deck crews to try for the masts themselves with cannonballs. Between the three ships, five guns were ready by then and answered her cries. Three masts fell over into the water just as the last of her boats raced clear. In one pass through, the escorts were crippled. None had any usable sails and to get out the spares and get them rigged would take hours, longer in the dark, since it would be night by the time they were done with that and replacing the shot-up rigging. And worse, three out of four had at least one mast shot down. Once her boats were all safely through the gauntlet, Bess changed her course to stay as close to dead-ahead of the stricken escorts as possible since there was little in the way of guns carried there on any ship. She grinned, pleased with the way that her course also happened to be the one that got her to the galleons the quickest. She knew that the Spaniards mounted oars on their ships, but they couldn't row after her and change their sails all at the same time and splitting the tasks would double the time needed for both. By then, Alexander Hawke and his ships had forced one of the fat galleons to heave to and she sat almost dead in the water as her crew tried to make a little headway to stay near the rest of the flock with their oars. Without anyone to shout a beat to them, the rowers only floundered. Bess and her little fleet now joined the rest as they pounded the sterns of the fleeing herd with their guns to send them off, taking great pleasure in kicking the shit out of the captain's quarters on every one that they could by sending chain and grape shot in through the windows. Within fifteen minutes, the convoy was scattered, each captain deciding to make his own luck. One prize sat striking her Spanish flag in surrender and another was barely making headway as any of the crew still alive fought to put out the blaze on the foredeck. They'd set out to take one galleon, but had instead taken two. Setting a prize crew aboard each one after the fire was out; they turned away as it began to grow dark. The stricken escorts hadn't arrived yet and only fired the small and ineffective swivel guns at them, since they did not want to turn so that they could bring their main guns to bear. To do that might feel a little pleasant for a moment or two, but it would only invite the broadsides of every one of the attacking ships and they'd have to sit there and be demolished. After that, Hawke gave her the captaincy of the Bermuda sloop, which she promptly re-named Sea Witch. But that had been before -- long before, when she still held the love of the man. As she thought about it afterward, Bess saw that it was perhaps not the best thing to show up one's lover at his own game. A man like Alexander Hawke came with an ego which exceeded the size of his manhood by a fair margin. As well, the problem with privateering was that it was based on the shifting sands of political affairs far from them all in Europe. When England and Spain entered into an uneasy truce, it became clear that some fish would have to be tossed into the skillet. Hawke's error lay in not staying abreast of current affairs. He'd taken three prizes on letters of marque which had been rescinded without his knowledge right after they took the galleons. "Who is that boy?" Alexander asked as he saw Bess walk into the inn that he was staying at one morning, leading a boy of about eight by the hand. He was naked inside one of her shirts, but not looking particularly ashamed. He looked to be more in wonder at all of the things that he saw than anything. It was a far cry from the look that he'd worn when she'd first seen him. "I took him from a Dutch merchant on St. Maartin a week ago," she said, her jaw set, "He's from one of the Arawakan tribes. He comes from Hispaniola from what was said to me. I even know the place. I'll keep him with me until I can go there again. In the meantime, he is my little friend." "Why?" Hawke asked, barely half-interested. "Because near me, he has a chance to live without the fear that I saw in his eyes. He was paddling in his canoe when he was enticed aboard a ship which was anchored to take on fresh water. I brought him to see if I could buy a pair of breeches and a shirt here in the market to fit him." "Do as you like," Alexander said, "it's what you always do regardless." She ignored him and did in fact find him at least a pair of breeches and two shirts to wear. The troubling thing to Bess was the feeling that she'd gotten from Alexander's comment. It cast him in a bad light to her mind and it showed her something telling about him. He'd started out so in love wither, but at his heart, Bess now knew that she'd loved a very selfish man. She doubted if he'd have ever felt the things that had come to her to only see the fright in the boy's eyes. Alexander wouldn't have cared a fig at what he saw. How much would he have cared if they'd made a child together? It had been a little daydream of hers for a time now, but she knew right then that she'd never be the mother of his child. Bess kept the boy with her for the next month and a half until she could find out exactly where he'd been taken from and she sailed there when she could to return him. For the first week, she'd slept with her arm over him so that he'd stop shaking. They didn't understand each other at first, but eventually he managed to charm her with his smile and growing up where she had, she knew parts of three Arawakan dialects, so they soon found that they could converse a little. When she stood in a little clearing surrounded by angry tribesmen, the boy spoke for her and they released her with their obvious, but incomprehensible thanks as she knelt to kiss the boy goodbye, telling him to stay away from ships and the people on them. She rode back to her ship in a canoe loaded to the gunwales with fish and fruit. "Where have you been?" Hawke asked when he stepped on board her ship the next day, "They told me that you went ashore." "I did," she replied, "I took my little cabin boy home." Alexander's face paled and his mouth fell open. "You went there alone and they let you go? No man has ever come out of those trees." She shrugged, "I'm not a man, am I, Alex? I know that I made at least one mother happy." He looked at her curiously then, "Why would you care?" ----------------------- First Betrayed, then Spurned ------------------------- Bess was at home visiting when Alexander had been caught at an inn. Ever hopeful of a quick end to the troubles of the hour, the chief constable and his men had asked as to the whereabouts of the beautiful woman pirate with the red hair, since the Spanish ambassador wanted her as well for killing his son. Hawke was hopeful, but for a different reason; he wanted to plea-bargain -- offering something up so that he might live to sail away. In the blink of an eye, he gave her up, telling where the Sea Witch could be found in exchange for a chance to run, pointing out that he'd likely be guilty of another murder or two if he had to fight his way out of his current predicament. The chief constable agreed, knowing that this had been an accidental meeting and he'd only brought one man with him. At that instant, miles away, Bess dropped her bowl of soup in shock, knowing that she'd been forsaken as it happened. The next thing which was done was for Alexander Hawke to tell the constable that 'Molly Hawke' had acted without his knowledge or consent and so she was guilty of piracy, but the Crown saw a chance to rid itself of at least two of its troubles at once, though as agreed for now, Alexander was allowed to leave and was not pursued. Bess almost ran out through her mother's door and down the path to the rickety old dock where her little boat was tied. Jumping in, she set the oars into the oarlocks and began to row. It was over a mile around the bend in the channel to where her ship lay at anchor. She sent runners to where the crew was celebrating with messages that they had to sail within two hours. Once underway, Bess decided on sailing to Tortuga to apply for her own letters of marque, though it was said of her that she may have been at least two women for the strange way that she could appear when it was supposedly well-known that she was elsewhere. She tried to plan and manage things for her and her crew, but as she did, she thought about the other trouble that she had. Like a lot of people who grew up privileged and are accustomed to taking what they want, Alexander Hawke had a roving eye and it wasn't all that long before Bess knew of it and she dropped hints to warn him, but Alexander could be a stubborn man -- even in matters where it was not his conscious will which was involved as the driving force. She didn't catch him at it right away; she just knew that it was going on. Bess even knew why that was. A fair portion of her time was being taken up in running the ship which she'd been given. Where Alex relied on rumors and luck to guide him in finding his prey, Bess used her ship to hunt for wrecks on the coastlines after storms -- which it was said that she'd produce if she knew that a fat prize was sailing near places where she knew the nearby inhabitants. By then, there were no more Caribs on many of the islands, but there were sizable groups of Maroons -- people whose numbers were made up of runaway slaves and others of mixed, mostly Afro-Carib blood. Bess would stop now and then near groups that she knew to work out arrangements as to the salvaging of the wrecks. It was her way of offering something a little more steady to her crew -- who grew to love her for it, as well as the people who tried to eke out a meagre living as they hid from the landowners who were looking for them. As far as Alexander's dalliance, not long before the evening when Hawke had betrayed her, Bess had heard about the wench involved and went to see her one night as she stood at the edge of town waiting for the coach that Alex said that he would send for her. "Keep away from my man," Bess said quietly to the shocked woman from very close up to her ear, "I only say it to you one time and that be here and now." "Where did you come from?" the light-haired girl asked in a shaky voice as she spun, trying not to scream in alarm, "There was no one here a moment ago." "A lot can happen in a moment, Miss Cherrie Lynn," Bess said, dragging out the syllables and pronouncing the first name almost as 'cheery'. She was in a mood now and her patois grew thick as she spoke. "I know that not your name and I must say that you 'ave done well to have had only that face, a pair of bosoms and a cunt to carry you this far from England. But now you are playing with fire, girl. I come ta give you warning." "I told no one that I would wait here," the woman said, "How did you know I would be here?" "I know what you will do before you have the thought," Bess said, "I come from people who have other uses for the dark of the night. You know of what I speak?" she asked as she held up a hand to stroke the small lizard sitting there a time or two looking past it into the blonde's eyes. "You," the girl said, "You are one of the - " "Ay -- yah," Bess nodded with a smile, "you don' need ta say the name. It what I am. Me dance on hot coals and me walk on glass splinters if I've a mind to and it suit me. It my way that I know of the craft of my grandmother who have skin as white as yours and it my way to know obeah and hoodoo and they not the same thing. If you can't keep your 'ands off my man, it go badly for you." She lowered her hand and Cherrie wondered what happened to the little lizard then. The girl was trying to show a little of her own backbone for a moment. Bess even saw it coming before she said the words. "Perhaps it says something that he finds that he must seek another for his pleasure," she sniffed, though there wasn't much depth to the front she presented. Bess lifted her other hand and Cherrie jumped a little as a flame sprang out of her palm, "Another ting like that spoken to me will buy you de hair burned off ya head, girl. Watch that tongue while you still have it. What it say," Bess replied in a long hiss, "is that him a fool. What it say is that him not up to what I can do for a man. I can break him back when I fuck with him easier than you might break a match, dear. He lie on me and it all him can do to catch him breath. I ready long before Alexander to fuck again. Him fall asleep and me ready to only begin then." She raised her hand again and Cherrie saw that it was empty, but a second later, she saw the lizard appear and she knew that it was alive. Bess looked at the lizard again for a moment, "But me stay with the man that me love. At leas' until I find that my 'eart is hurtin' me overmuch. When that 'appen, Cherrie, you'd best not be near to him then." She looked at Cherrie Lynn with a sad little smile, "What it say is that him think he must find someone who more a match for him low drive. It my problem, woman, not yours. Keep away." She turned then and Cherrie Lynn watched Bess walk off into the darkness. Just as she left Cherrie's view, the sky lit a little and the coach came into sight. The blonde wondered how it could be possible. She hadn't shifted her gaze. One second, she was looking at the strange woman's back and the next instant; she could see the coach coming. She looked around and there was no sign of anyone. Cherrie was going to decline the coachman's offer, but the coachman remained on the bench and when the door opened, it was Alexander himself. A few kisses and Cherrie forgot all about her earlier meeting as she climbed into the coach. In a dark grove of trees not far off, Bess hung her head. "What it say," Bess whispered to herself, "is that you are the fool, Bessie." On the afternoon when she'd decided to end it, they were all at the harbor on Antigua. Bess had asked her crews for their confidence and armed with that, she planned to tell Hawke that they were done in more than love. She waited as the air grew hot and almost turbid with humidity -- a perfect day for a captain to do little, other than play with his latest conquest. In her mind, Bess could hear the actual words as a feminine voice chuckled and said that by her count of her days, she dared not allow him the thing that he wanted today, but she told him that she'd give him so much in other ways that he wouldn't miss it at all. As the echoes of the words spoken to Alexander Hawke by the woman that he held at the moment a few hundred yards away died out, Bess set her jaw. He'd betrayed her and said nothing in warning to her when they'd met afterward. Despite her warnings, he was still playing around. Enough was enough. She knew a little about a lot of things. One of them was how large the reward was for Alexander Hawke. She didn't care about it in terms of her own gain, but its size was convenient to her in another regard. It meant that there was a demand for him. Another thing that she knew was that the governor of Antigua had gone to school with the son of the governor of Jamaica. Her runner was already on his way up to Government House in Kingston with news of where Hawke could be found. When she judged the time to be right for it, Bess stared at Hawke's ship until the lookouts lost the battle to stay alert and lay their heads down on their arms. Then she nodded to her own men and the Sea Witch slipped her mooring and with only one small sail on the forward mast, Bess gave her quiet commands and her ship slid almost soundlessly closer so that her quarterdeck lay across Alexander's stern. Bess picked up her glass and looked through the open window for a moment. She could see a blonde head lit by the sunlight bobbing over something and she guessed that the something must be her ex-lover's cock. Bess smirked; turning her small signal cannon and aiming it a little carefully. She didn't want to chance hurting the girl so she aimed a little higher, through the glass of the upper panes. She turned and her ship's mate handed her the slowmatch. Bess didn't hesitate in lowering it to the little cannon's touch hole. It wasn't exactly a roar -- more like just a bang, but there were satisfying shouts and screams after the top half of the window disappeared. A pair of wide-eyed heads appeared through the lower opening and Bess smiled as she spoke. "What kind of man you be, Alexander Hawke, that you can't see your peril when it come to you? Look at me hair and me eyes. Look at me face and skin. I told you when we began. No woman share lightly. A woman who is Scottish, Spanish and Maroon, she not share at all, ya know. You think you can play with another woman behind the back of a witch who love you? Not for long," she said, shaking her head, "not for long. You can't play one minute past the time when she stop loving you. And that is now." She stared for a moment as she recognized Cherrie Lynn, wanting to be certain that she'd made no mistake and so she pointed as a puff of a breeze blew her red mane a little, "I warned you. Now I say the words to damn you." Her hands moved as she spoke words in a language that none of them knew and her hand carved motions and symbols in the air. "You want each other so much, "she sneered, "then you must fuck like stoats now." She glared at the blonde, "You will be with him child by the dawn, for him cannot stop now. For just this one day and night, I give you to each other and you find that you can' stop, neither of you. But by the dawn and I daresay long before," she smiled, "He will want you no longer, and yet he will not be able to leave you behind. I chain you to him as a weight aroun' him neck." Her eyes opened wide then as she saw something which caused her pain and regret, knowing that what she sent would cause her to be damned as well. It wouldn't be the same, but her doom was clear enough to her now. "You will hate him and yet you will need him so. But he will not want you," she said, her voice rising. "I curse you with the truth of what will come." She knew what was to come to them anyway by then, but to know one's end before it arrives can be a particularly cold curse from the lips of an enemy. Another thing which Bess knew was that though Cherrie would become pregnant, the child would be still-born, but there was a limit to what Bess would tell. "You will need me again, Alexander Hawke, but it will not be my touch that you crave then. You will die hanging from a yard." She looked at Cherrie, whose jaw was still open, though her horror was growing, "On that day, you will be free -- just when you yearn to hold him the most." Bess looked up and called to the men on her deck for the single sail to be set again and as the sheets fell and began to billow, the Sea Witch began to move slowly away. Bess hung her head and began to weep at what she knew of her own fate. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 01 Back aboard the ship of Alexander Hawke, two people looked at each other in a bit of horror, but it only lasted a moment. He rolled Cherrie over and the two of them fell to the floor and began to copulate. Fifteen minutes later and at a distance of a hundred yards, Bess called for the sail to be slackened and for the ship to go hard to starboard. As the Sea Witch turned and slid almost to a stop, Bess stepped down the stairs to her gun deck and called for the four guns of her starboard forward battery. "On your own time," she said, as she walked down the middle of the deck with her green eyes blazing and feeling her own hot tears on her cheeks, "I want one round only from each piece, aimed at the forward waterline. Try for ten feet abaft the prow." As each of the crews made ready, Bess walked away and back up the stairs. By the time that she stood on her main deck again, the third and fourth shots crashed into Hawke's ship and she was beginning to settle where she lay in the shallow water beside the pier. It might be the evening when the governor's troops arrived, but she knew that Alex wasn't going far. They 'd probably come to their senses and step off the stricken ship in good time, but if what she felt was true, they'd be in a bed at an inn before long, neither one being able to think of anything else. --------------------------- The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke ------------------------ Bess called for full sails and asked for a course to Martinique. She wasn't that fond of the French, but she'd heard that they were offering letters of marque. She didn't understand the politics involved and by taking the letters, she was, in effect, becoming a weapon of the French in the eyes of the English. To her, one was the same as the other and she sailed off. Bess hadn't been at home when the governor's troops came for her and they found the little cove to be deserted. She was on a small islet with her crews celebrating and hiding some of their gold. If she was going to be an outlaw, she reasoned, then she was going to be a feared one. Recognizing that her hitting the Spanish naval officer had been a fluke, Bess had sought for and purchased only matched sets of duelling pistols for their high quality and reliability. Her favorites were two sets in the Queen Anne style, for she loved the fine decorative work and she practiced with them often. She was on the deck of the Sea Witch one day the next March when she heard a shout and felt the pull as more sails were called for by her watch officer and she heard the order given to hoist the black flag, which signified that they were pirates. She looked at the water around them and saw a dark shade of green and looking off in the direction they were sailing in, she could see that it grew lighter. "Belay that," Bess said and she pulled the deck man aside and told him to tell any crew who had heard him that they were not going onto action, "I make the decision for this," she said quietly, "now go calm them down and when you're done, come back to me quickly. I want a word, Willem." When she had him alone, she asked who had spotted the vessel that she saw up ahead and the deckman told her it had been the lookout. She called the man down and asked to see his spyglass. "From now on, you must keep your glass clean, "she said to them both. "From this far away, I can tell that you want us to rob a sponge boat. It a nice thought, Willem, but I already have sponges for me baths and there is no money there. Also, you dive for sponges where the water is shallow and it likely full of rocks and shoals. Now get us outta here and back into blue water, Willem. You keep us here for much longer and me soon shit meself. Not a word to the others, mind. This is none a their business. Get us hard to starboard and away." Later that day, she gave a smiling nod to Willem' request that he call for more sail to pursue a running merchantman. Bess looked with her own glass and thought for a moment. "She not too big, but she sit low for a trader, so she have a bellyfull of something. Show her a Spanish flag and try to get us closer." When they were at three quarters of a mile, she had him call for the full rig of sails, "You may tell the men now and have them prepare for it. When you get us inside of a quarter mile, you may pull down the Spanish flag and run up the black one. Get us alongside but we must still a keep a bit of distance. Tell the gunners that I want the port side loaded. This one will need a tender stroke before we squeeze him balls." "Why, Bess?" Her mate asked and she nodded, "It don't feel right to me, that's why. Look how hard they're running. They have every sail they own up. Pace them and put a shot over the bow -- use a good gunner for this. I want no holes in their bow." The reply to their warning shot was that all four of the guns on the near side of the merchant ship opened fire. "The master is a fool and he frightened. Get us away some more," she said to Willem. "I need almost a half - mile. She only have carronades and they be small. Give me some room and let me know." She turned away then to load her pistols. When she looked up, Willem stood there to report that they were ready and that Bess had been right. With only carronades facing them and not cannons, they weren't in much danger at this range. Bess was thinking ahead to the danger of the small cannons which could swivel through a wide arc. They were under three feet in length, but they were most often mounted at deck level and loaded with grape shot. That made them a hazard which needed to be considered. Bess nodded, "Then heist up the red flag and tell me gunners that I want their hull left alone. Give them a reason to heave to. And before we get close, I want all the swivel guns set on the railings on the near side for them to see. If they have only four guns to a side, then I doubt they have more than four swivel guns at most. We've got a dozen, so I want to show them off. The first Spaniard who shoot a swivel gun, I want him dead, but don't alla you fire at the same time. " After three volleys, the merchant hove to and sat in the water as Bess pulled alongside. She stood at the rail and bellowed out in Spanish that she wanted them to strike their colors. It turned out that there was only one fool aboard and he was the master of the ship. He yelled back that it would never happen, but Bess could see that the crew over there looked as though they'd rather live than fight a shipload of them. She looked up and ordered the red flag run down. "Heist my pretty French one now! "she called out. She knew that in raising a pirate flag, she'd declared them to be pirates and not privateers. Doing that was like asking to be hung, but the reasoning was that the black flag was a warning to heave to and be boarded peacefully, if possible. Hoisting the red flag meant that all bets were off and there would be no quarter given. Showing herself now to be a privateer after all, now that she was this close, would give the Spanish crew a hope for better treatment and that hope was what she read in the faces of those men. "Who are you?" the captain called over and in her best Spanish, she called out, "I am Molly Hawke, and you are a fool, Senor." The effect of that name was a visible ripple as it ran through them. While the other captain stared, trying to figure out what this all meant, Bess yelled over that she'd spare any man who surrendered peacefully. The captain drew his pistol, but he was clubbed down by his own men. Bess thought it a little odd, but the mate of the other ship explained to her later that the crew were not hired, but were indentured servants to a very wealthy family back in Spain, and that they'd been mistreated all of their lives by the current head of it -- who now lay dead. It was a bit of a dicey thing, but they sailed for Tortuga, holding off until after dark before coming into a little cove where the merchant ship was gently run aground and anchored. Over the night, the wealth aboard was distributed and Bess made allowances for the hardships suffered by the Spanish crew. By the dawn, they were gone and the English governor had a something to scratch his head over. At that time, what pirates there were based on the island were most often employed to hunt those still plying their trade, but Bess was known there to be working under French letters - which was an even bigger headache if she were to be prosecuted on the island, for there was a large French population there and no matter what, neither the French or the English minded it if the one of the Spanish boats came to a little harm. They all had memories of Spain's four previous invasions of the island and the murders which had come of that. It was a little tight, but they stayed out for two days before Bess could meet up with her other boats and together, they sailed into the main harbor on Tortuga as though nothing had happened. Once ashore again, the Spanish crew disappeared into the dark little streets, most of them eager to sample the joys that a man might find wandering the brothels of a place known to have over two thousand whores. Sad to tell, but most of them would be penniless again within two days, but that wasn't Bess' problem. She was present, though disguised, when Alexander Hawke had his day before the magistrate weeks later. She found that the mind of the judge was rather malleable to her will, even at a distance of a hundred feet and more as she made certain that there would be no clemency shown. As her former lover was led off in chains to the sounds of Cherrie Lynn's weeping, Bess remembered what her grandmother had said when she'd been told of it all. "You cannae trust an Englishman," the old Scotswoman muttered, "not most and especially not one from a fine family like him." She turned then with her eyebrows raised, "Oh! You didna know who you were trying to please? He's almost a laird in England, though a lower one and it's not saved him from his fate. Probably his Da was too cheap with the bribes. It's a sad thing to have te say te you, little fox, but what did you think would happen? Did you think that he'd take a dark-skinned lovely like you home to England when he grew tired of plundering?" The proscribed punishment of the day for those convicted of piracy was the gibbet, a cage of iron bands in the shape of a man. The prisoner was locked into it either living or dead, though in most cases it was after being hung, his hands at his sides and he was hung in that thing from a yardarm set there on the docks for the purpose. The crows came for miles to pick at the man who couldn't lift a finger in his own defense. Bess was there as well to see it, though she waited until the crowd had lost interest for the moment before she sidled close by and looked up. This was what was to happen to her if she hadn't known of her man's treachery, she thought. Alexander Hawke had no eyes and only half a face by then and though most of his ears had been pecked away, he heard her as she spoke to him softly. "I 'ere ta do you one last kindness, me love, "she muttered, "but if you want it, you mustn't say my name out loud. I come ta give you release and peace, but you must tell me that it be what you'd want." He begged her then, though he had no lips anymore to form the words and she said goodbye as she stepped away a little. No one saw the tiny poison-tipped dart or the thick straw which Bess used to shoot it at him and he sagged -- still held upright in the gibbet - a dead man in only seconds. When she turned to go, she found Cherrie Lynn there pointing a pistol at her breast. Bess smiled then as she stepped forward and slapped it out of Cherrie's hand. "You don't want my blood on your hands," she said, "It would be only your sparing me my own dark fate if you kill me now." "But I'm to have a child and no father to help me raise it," Cherrie said as she began to sob. "Nothing has changed then," Bess said, "Alex was only tied to you because of me. Were it not for that, you'd raise his brat alone anyway. Alexander was never one to waste his time on a child. He was a spoiled child himself." She stepped away and raised her chin, "So don' come crying to me now that you had what you wanted when you take him from me. I warn you, Cherrie. Stay away from my man, but you don' hear me. All that I see was two women weeping, but I was wrong. I 'ave done alla my weeping for him. I here only ta ease him passing and that nothing to do with you." She stepped forward and raised Cherrie's chin with her finger, "I give you a sparing in my own way, though you will never see it for the kindness that it is." She leaned in very close to the blonde woman's ear and said, "Your child will be stillborn, so you may find someone to take him place." As Cherrie began to wail in her sorrow, Bess walked back up the quay to find a tavern, hating Alexander and Cherrie both, but most of all, she hated herself. Bess went down to the little cove where she had a small fishing boat manned by a crew of men and they slipped off to where her ships lay at anchor. She was curious about something which she'd seen in the port. "I saw pictures and words that say something about rewards for pirates," she said to the mate of the Lily, her sloop-of-war, "What it mean, 'dread pirate'?" "Not sure," the man said, "I think that if you take a ship on the open sea, then you're a pirate, if you have none of those letter things. But if you attack a defended town, that makes you a dread pirate." She nodded, "Then we sail for Nevis on the morning tide. I want to send a message, since most of the English slaver ships pass through there." "What message?" the mate asked and she smiled, "Me born the child of a slave. Most of my family were slaves, and there is Fort Charles there. I can send me love and become dread in one afternoon, I think. We hammer the fort and rob the town." They flew no flags as they slipped into the thickly fogged harbor four days later. The harbor was all but silent as the fog thinned away. When the seven o'clock gun was fired at Government House, it was answered by twenty-six others, but those ones were not just firing powder. As the bombardment continued, Bess sent her boats ashore. "Don't dawdle," she told her raiders as her cannons boomed behind them, "There are only a dozen cannon in the fort, but they are hard to stop. Get in and get what you can, but I don't want to hear of murder if it can be avoided." She turned to the group of men who'd had experience as troops once, "There are smaller guns at the edge of the town. Spike them for me and I can give everything to the guns of the fort." An hour later, there was only token cannonfire from the fort, but it was sporadic and far from accurate. Bess guessed that there might only be two pieces left in action and she felt that they weren't a threat. An hour after that and they were away with heavy purses and chests stolen from any slavers they found. "Do you feel like a dread pirate now?" the mate said with a smile. She shook her head, "I might be at the wrong time of the month. Today?" she shrugged, "No." During the rare occasions when she reflected on it, Bess decided that she wasn't particularly happy with her life in terms of her relationships. Her husband had been a bastard, plain and simple. She really couldn't come up with a better word. Her time with Alexander had been nice at first, but he was given to sneaking around and she'd always found that she'd had to tread softly around that ego of his. A month after she'd helped him take two galleons and not only one and it was as though she hadn't even been there to hear him tell of it. After Alexander's death, Bess would often take a large room at an inn and stay awhile if things were too hot out to sea and there were times when she'd surprised herself. Her standards for men varied a little, but it was important to her that they smelled as though they bathed fairly regularly. As well, they ought to be good-looking, she decided and they had to possess a mind and know a thing or two about treating a lady well. Those were her standards, though depending on the man and her mood, everything but the regular baths might fall by the wayside now and then. The Wayward Maid was a favorite of hers and she often stayed there. Her first mate Willem was a stalwart drinking companion of hers and he quite often took up the task of keeping an eye on Bess if she appeared to be tottering a little too deeply into her cups. It led to some interesting incidents now and then. There was the time that she'd argued with him gently, saying that she needed no one to watch over her virtue. She told Willem to go on and make sure that he had a good time himself, for he worked so hard in her service that she wanted him to enjoy himself. He shrugged and took up a seat so that he could see just what she'd get herself into without his running interference for her. If a man by chance passed her muster and she thought that she might be in the mood for a little fun later on, she'd sidle a little close to him and tell him the she'd be in her room at the Wayward Maid later on, forgetting that it was where she was at the time. On the particular evening when she'd shooed Willem away, she made to go upstairs and found three men waiting for her. She looked over and saw Willem grinning at her. She pulled herself away from her admirers and stumbled over to where Willem sat. "They all look familiar, Willem," she said, "Do I know them?" He nodded with a sigh and said, "Yes. I hope they look at least a little familiar, Bess. You've invited all of them to spend the night in your room." Bess looked confused, "I have?" Willem nodded, "You have." She began to turn away and then looked back at him, "All three -- on the same night?" "Yes, Captain," Willem said doing his level best to keep it together, "All three. The same night, and that be tonight. I watched it all from here." "Oh," she said turning back to the three of them, "Well, let's go then." She wasn't disappointed that night. Well at first anyway. They took her one after the other and it felt so nice to her to just lie back and allow them this. But after a while, she felt that she was thinking about doing this with another man. She didn't know which man; she just knew that she'd have wanted a whole afternoon and evening of sensual play as well as a lot of good fucking. The three that she had now had been drinking at a tavern, so there wasn't much more than this to be had, was there? It came to her a little later, after she found herself in a bed with three sleeping men -- two of whom snored quite loudly -- that she'd never had what she'd discovered as a gentle want in her. A good rain storm had the effect of making her ache for a good man's touch and a day or a long night of never getting out of bed, other than to make water. She suddenly realised that she wanted to have a lover just one time who could make her have to crawl from the bed to do that and stagger back to his arms afterward on slightly wobbly legs and gently aching hips. She'd never had that before. When she caught up to Willem late the next morning as he was leaving his room, he asked how it had gone and she grunted once and said, "I think I still need you, my friend. I finished them all. They're all asleep and here I am, leaking out of everywhere with me head pounding fit to burst. I can't spot a good man to save me life. How did it go for you?" "Alright, I daresay, "he nodded, "But now I want to be back at sea." She leaned around him and peered into the darkened room, since the drapes were still pulled shut. "Willem? There's ... well, there's a young lady and a young man asleep in the bed." The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 01 "Yes," he nodded, "You told me to make sure that I had a good time, so I did. Now I've spent all of my money on that pair. They're cousins and you can't buy one without buying them both. I need to get back out to sea before I fall in love." They walked down the stairs together in silence and it wasn't until after they'd settled up and begun to walk back to the harbor that she turned and asked, "Is there really a danger of that? You'd fall in love with those two?" He didn't look at her and he just spoke as he walked on, "More than I already have? Yes." After that, she took more of an interest in Willem, since without saying a word to her he'd undertaken her care and had always watched her back. She watched him for a time then as he went about the business of being her second in command. Willem had come from humble beginnings, being one of the bastard sons of a lower English lord who'd burned through his wealth as though it was lamp oil and died penniless. But that hadn't had any effect on Willem one way or the other, since he'd been the only child of an English servant girl who'd been brought along when her lover had sailed to the New World and then left her there when her belly began to swell. He was a bit older than his captain, with hair which couldn't seem to decide on which shade of brown it wanted to be. Strong and fit, and having no fear of either work or sailing through anything in even a bathtub, as he often joked, it wasn't hard to like him. After his incident with the couple of cousins, She decided to undertake his care and the next time that they were in Tortuga, Willem found her beside him as he was drawn inexorably up the long hill toward the Wayward Maid. "What are your plans, Captain," he asked a little cautiously. But she smirked at him, "I intend to see that you get your money's worth this time and more. In fact, it will be my money's worth, since I will be buying the cousins on your behalf." Willem stopped then, "I can't have that, Captain. Look here --" "Bess", she smiled, looking up only a little at him, since she was a tall girl to most. "Bess?" Willem's features twisted a little along with his head in confusion, "I thought you were Molly." "Bess," she nodded as she held her smile, "It me name, you know. What I given when me born, Willem." He shook his head, "Alright, look here. Bess, I can't have you doing that. I have no wish to be in your debt more than I already am for giving me a life which is my own and where I needn't have to work myself into the ground. It wouldn't be right to me." "So instead, you work yourself into the deck for me, Willem? Is that what we are about? No," she shook her head, "I'll not have it. I'll see to it that you enjoy yourself once with no cares over your money." "But --" Bess stood before him with her hands on her hips and a bright green glare in her eye and she said, "Fine, Willem, If you won't take the gift of my money, then we'll pool our gold together and we'll both buy them." "Uh," he looked very confused now. "Together, Willem, and we'll take our pleasure at the same time, If that does not please you, then I'll have you in a bed to myself and we'll save a barrel of gold." His jaw dropped and it made her laugh, "Come on, let's see what our luck brings." A few hours later, Willem groaned as he spent into the young man underneath him and he lay back to catch his breath and reach for the bottle again as he watched Bess. She was on her back with her legs up while the girl lapped hungrily between her legs. "I would never have had the thought to see you like this," he smiled, "in a bed with a girl loving you in this manner." "I have never done it before," Bess heaved a little breathlessly, "But my little lover here is so good at this and for what this costs, I will have my money's worth." Bess threw her head back and bucked as she held the whore's head gently. The way that Bess looked to him, Willem knew that he'd never leave her and would always seek to protect her. They kept at the two whores for two days, but on the third, they just stayed in bed together. Their relationship changed after that. Bess would seek out Willem and see him issuing orders as the ship was squared away for the night and when he was done that, he'd turn and she'd just look him in the eye and tell him to follow her. The next thing he knew, he was in some corner of the quarterdeck in the shadows where she'd sink to her knees because she wanted to feel his cock in her mouth. Sometimes he'd come to her as she was deciding where they ought to go next to turn a bit of cash. He wouldn't say a thing to her. He'd get to his knees and she'd feel him there under the table when he kissed his way up her bare leg slowly. And she finally knew the bliss of loving with a man who'd give her all that he had as he loved her slowly for hours in a rainstorm. It wasn't a love which had sprung out of the air in the way that a flower might seem to almost jump out of the ground in the spring. I was something which came out of need and respect between them. For the first time since she'd stepped aboard Alexander Hawke's ship and begun her metamorphosis into the dread pirate Molly Hawke, Bess could catch glimpses of a life with Willem after this. They spoke of it, and began their plans. They only needed just a little more gold to pay out their crew and pay for passage to somewhere where no one knew their names. --------------------- Capture and Forgetfulness ------------------- It was only a matter of time before Bess was apprehended and when it happened in an ambush on a sandy beach one evening, Bess watched Willem fall in her defense as musket-fire rang around them all. Her tears streamed down her face as she kissed his already-dead cheek and got to her feet, stuffing her dueling pistols into her waistband as she did. She reached for her shirt and drew it around her shoulders as she began to walk. She saw who it had been, a dark-haired young soldier with a pinched face who had managed to get close enough to shoot from behind a tree. In an instant, she saw that his hope had been to be able to improve his lot by rising on the fame of being known as the one who had killed the infamous first mate and lover of the pirate Molly Hawke. Her first quiet words as she walked brought a crash of thunder as the lightning which had birthed that sound tore across the heavens over them very close by. Rain pelted down as she walked through the darkness, a half-naked woman with dark skin and red hair with green eyes which blazed in her hatred. Out in the cove, the wind whipped the tips of the waves clean off as froth and the sky flickered with her wrath. She was hit in the meat of her thigh, but she walked on as though she didn't feel it. The soldier was trying desperately to reload his Brown Bess musket as she came to him. When he raised the piece and cocked the hammer, Bess pulled it out of his hands, shot another soldier who was running over to help and then she beat the first one with the musket several times. As he lay on the ground crying and holding his bleeding head, she knelt over him and drew one of her pistols. "Ya came for Molly Hawke," she said, "Well now you face her with no tree to hide behind, coward. We 'ave business, you and I." He whimpered and tried to hide his face. Her rage brought a bolt of lightning down on a nearby palm which fell and pinned three men under it, killing one of them. "Look at me, you little mouse." She grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head to look into his eyes. "Look at me before you die. You're no man if ya can't face me like a man faces what come to him over what him do." She saw into his terrified gray eyes as they filled with his fear. "Ay-yah," she said as she got her first look at him clearly. "I 'ave done nothing to you to make you shoot down the man that I love. But I do something now and seal my own fate into the bargain. Ya wanted to make it better for yaself by killing what was mine?" She lowered her face to his, "Me take all that you have - all that you are and will ever be." He tried to look away again and she laid her pistol down on his chest and punched him in the face over and over until he could do nothing more than weep like a child. Her knuckles bled freely from being ripped open on the shards and stumps of the teeth that she'd broken in his mouth, but she felt none of it. She only smiled at him. "Your bad luck to get outta bed today, boy." He began to whimper as Bess picked up and cocked her piece with her thumb and began to mutter at him, holding his terrified eyes with her own gaze the whole while. "Ya spirit not rest after this, ya know, not after my curses upon your filthy little soul," she said, "If I see it when my own soul wanders, when I am dead, I be sure ta torment you forever." He began to bawl like a small boy. She shot him in the face and jammed her pistol down his throat as far as she could. Bess stood up then and threw down her pistols after seeing that her men would fight to the death for her -- and they were losing in the face of a determined -- and numerically superior force on the beach where she and her crews had often gone to let off a little steam. "Run if you can!" she shouted as she stepped forward painfully now, feeling the musketball in her thigh. The English colonel that she faced over the twenty yards of sand ordered his men to cease fire and he stared at her. "Stand where you are and declare your name." After two years, Bess felt as though she'd had enough. She looked at the bodies around her, and wanted to drag this out longer so that more of her men might get away. She pulled off her kerchief and looked the man in the eye as she pointed at the ruined body that she'd left and spoke in a clear voice. "Such brave heroes, who shoot down a man for protecting his woman. I am Molly Hawke," she said, and the next thing she knew, she was in irons. Her jailors were quick to fetch a doctor for her leg and to determine that she was not discernibly pregnant. They wanted to have her in the gibbet as quickly as possible to prevent her from 'pleading her belly' if she was with child. Bess wasn't pregnant anyway and the ten days of her imprisonment passed quickly. When she asked about a trial, she was told that only freemen were given trials. It was a lie and she knew it, but there was nothing to be done about it so she sat in her cell and waited. On the day before she was to be hung on the yardarm she had a very few visitors. Her mother and grandmother and a few others made sure to pay the guards well so that they might have the needed time alone with Bess. When the jailors looked in on them, they saw that all of the women had gone, though no one saw anyone leave and Molly Hawke lay as though dead on her bunk. The doctor was summoned and he was not able to find any sign of life. There was no pulse or breathing going on and he saw no fog on a mirror held to her nose and lips. The point of a blade pressed into her soles drew no response and so he declared her dead and her body was released to her grandfather the following day. Old Tumweh took her home, muttering over her all of the way and though all of them did their best to bring her out of the trance, they gave it up after two days of trying and she was laid into a rough-made casket with a letter from her mother while her family grieved. They didn't bury her because they knew that she wasn't dead. They looked at her often and she looked to be asleep. She slept through the lives of her family and was still in the box when the last one passed, a nephew two generations on. He died an old man of eighty-three at his home on the other side of the island. He'd never seen his great aunt awake. And no one, not a soul, had seen it when she'd awakened. When she'd realized that no one lived near where she'd woken up, she'd wandered around a little and found that no one lived in the whole area anymore. When she'd been a girl, there were about a hundred other Maroons living in a community all around her. Now there was nobody. She left and walked away through the swamp until she found drier ground and eventually, she'd reached the coast, having seen few if any people. Those that she did see couldn't see her and her efforts to make her presence known had all ended badly, so she just walked on. Finding herself on the northern shore, she looked around until she found a boat. She didn't know it, but she was near Montego Bay and she'd found a fishing boat leaving for a day's work. She rode it looking at the men and deciding that she wanted to move on. A little quiet thought and she found that the elements still responded to her will in a small way. No matter what the concerned fishermen did, they found themselves sailing northward to land on the southern shore of Cuba where Bess stepped over the side and swam to shore. From there, it was the same story. She saw few people and kept heading as north as she could sense. Another much longer fishing boat ride and she found herself wandering the bayous of Louisiana and feeling more at home. That was where she met Brian. It wasn't the normal sort of meeting. She only noticed him because he could see her for some reason. He was sixteen and Bess told him quite often that he was beautiful, with dark eyes and long shiny black hair and skin a little darker than that of the others of his tribe. He was an orphan, but he told her a little proudly that he was almost a man and he was already running a trapline, catching his own food and hunting as well. All that, and he had a boat, so the two of them became friends and she stayed with him for almost two years. Brian had confided to her that he felt drawn to other men. She remembered the way that he'd fallen silent as he'd told her. There was an awkward silence then for him and a wondering one for her until she'd asked him why he'd stopped speaking and he'd told her that he'd been waiting for her scorn or at least her disapproval. She laughed then and said that she was relieved because from his silence, she'd thought that she'd said something wrong. The two of them had laughed together over it and they remained very good friends until the day that he'd almost been murdered. He hadn't been killed, she thought bitterly afterward, but it still marked the beginning of the end. When she found him, he'd been beaten three-quarters of the way to death and through her tears for him, Bess saw the cause of it at once in the jangling and painful images which flooded his damaged mind. From his memories, she saw what had happened. He'd been baited into coming alone to meet a man who'd expressed a reciprocal interest. That man and two others had beaten Brian to a pulp. She took care of him and did her best for him, but though she was able to find his mind, she couldn't help him reconnect to his body. He was only a little passenger -- a little bit of consciousness who was trapped inside a body that he no longer had control over. As his body slowly healed, she tried and tried, but though she found that she could 'get inside' and operate the nervous system connections, she couldn't find a way for him to do that. Instead, she found that he was getting smaller and weaker. One day about two weeks after the beating, she slipped inside and found that what was left of Brian told her that he wanted to die. She stayed with him for the ten days that it took for that to happen and then she buried him. After that, she hunted the ones who had killed her friend. She found the trio far back in the bayou, which she thought was rather convenient. They were drinking by a fire and she just walked up and bound them where they stood after they'd jumped up to run. She told the terrified men that she was a friend of the young man they'd beaten and that he'd died as a result. She noted that they didn't seem regretful in any way, other than the strong want to escape which she could read in them. "You don' understand," she said, little more than a wavering image before them in the semi-darkness there. That was what she was to them -- a wavering image who spoke with an island accent. "The boy you beat down. Him name Brian and 'e was my friend. Him never harm a soul and him die for what?" She came closer and two of them began to soil themselves as she screeched painfully into their ears. "WHAT HIM DIE FOR?" She looked from one to the next, "Since you will not answer me, I take away your ability to speak." They stood where they had to. Bess allowed them only what they needed to breathe, to see, hear and think. "It take me friend a few weeks to die, ya know. It my desire to see you suffer just as long and more. It take time, but I have plenty to devote to three stupid things like you. I going take away everything that you have, and the first thing I take is ya 'ope, but that will only be after I beat you as you beat down my friend. I was there to take care of him. But there will be no one here for you to wash you and wipe ya ass after you shit yourself." They began to make sounds then, desperate noises and nothing comprehensible. She left them standing there, held up by nothing more than her vengeful will as she went from one to the other and administered everything which she'd found in Brian's memories. Sometimes she used her fists and her feet. Other times, she used the same club which had been used on Brian, since it was there. The beatings took almost an hour and still she let each of them stand while she beat them one at a time. They couldn't move much or even try to get away. At times, she let them fall down, but it was only because she'd remembered not to overlook the way that they'd kicked Brian while he lay begging for his life on the ground. "The body die from thirst," she said pleasantly, "not from starving. Ya beat Brian so hard that ya leave him broken inside. Ya break his body and his will. You break his mind. It my task and my pleasure to return the favor," she said as she swung the very end of the club against the mouth of the one who had broken so much of Brian. "How important is it now what you want to lie against in the dark? Does it matter to you now what Brian wanted? Him want to be loved, and if he cannot find that, then he only want a little joy in a quiet place." She swung the bat upward and in two strikes, she broke more than one soft organ inside another one of them and she made sure that one external thing there would never rise again. She slid inside their heads and laughed at the damaged little things which they'd become. Over the days, friends and family of the three came seeking them, but found only a burned-out firepit, empty and half-empty bottles, and bags of stolen property. All of it lay scattered in a clearing which was clearly deserted but rang with the cries which the trio had made as Bess had broken ribs and smashed teeth. She let the sound play over and over and watched as the people searched everywhere, walking right past the three men who stood in her iron grasp. When the last of them finally died, she left them in heaps to rot where they fell. The next day, she took Brian's boat and though it took her months, she didn't leave that boat behind until she could go no further and began to walk. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 02 ***We rejoin Bess in her travels. 0_o ------------------------- Happy Girls, all of the Time ----------------------- She had no idea anymore of much of the intervening years where she wandered aimlessly, but she knew it one day when she stopped; suddenly feeling as though she'd come back to herself deep in the interior of what had once been British Columbia. It was where she was, but she didn't know that then. She could remember sitting up one day from the bed of leaves and debris which covered her to see Pok there looking at her. Pok was a demon of some sort, well on the smallish side when compared to the ones that she occasionally saw here and there after that. Bess didn't know when or how it had happened that she'd gotten this companion, but she had apparently. When she was a girl on a Caribbean island, the only sorts of demons she was cognizant of were the sort mentioned in the Bible, or the ones which she'd seen her grandmother raise now and then, and they were the same kind. She'd even mastered raising them herself after a time. But what she saw all around since she'd awakened were different creatures altogether. For one thing, without even a thought of surprise, she knew they wouldn't understand the words of her attempts at command if she said them. For another thing, she knew that they wouldn't give a shit either. It took a long while, but as she sat there that 'first' day, half-buried in leaves and wondering what to do and what had happened to her, Pok began to speak in a halting manner, the words hissing out from between the thin lips in a pidgin-like style which was most comfortable for the demon. It was the damndest thing too; the little demon could understand what Bess said in any of the languages which she knew, though there seemed to be some difficulty in understanding what was said back to her. Pok was thin and was somewhere near her size, though perhaps half a head or so shorter and had leathery gray skin which Bess later found to be at times as soft as silk and at others it seemed a little rougher, though not sandpapery or anything. There were horns on that head, too, rather long and rearward-pointing. She could see wings back there and the feet which she found herself looking at were more like the feet of some sort of bird of prey. From looking, Bess decided that Pok was a male. There was a pair of very small lumps on the demon's chest, but nothing which she thought might be called breasts and if they weren't, then they were just barely pectoral muscles. With a little imagination, it might be said that Bess could see a bit of a feminine shape. She saw male genitalia though, at least that was what it looked like to her; the penis appeared very ... well, modest, one might say. In answer to her questions, Bess learned that they had been together for a long, long time. Pok had been pulled in an invocation and had found Bess wandering and speaking in many languages. The demon had been alone too and just began to take care of Bess, making sure that she did nothing to harm herself, since it was obvious that there wasn't a lot of thought going on inside her then. During the conversation, Pok had suddenly looked around, sniffing and the next thing that Bess knew they were lying together in the sticks and leaves. Pok was on top of her telling her in whistling whispers to be still and quiet. With a wave, they were completely covered by the leaves, though Bess did have a bit of a one-eyed view through an opening. It didn't matter about the other eye for the moment. She just got it closed in time and she knew that there was a fair layer of dirt over it. She saw about twenty large demons fly overhead in a group and they were out of sight a few moments later. "Not move," Pok said, "More come." Sure enough, Bess saw another ten or so a minute later as she lay under the warm demon. "Why are we hiding?" she asked, "Are they -- " "Bad, "Pok said, "very bad for you and more bad for Pok." Bess looked into the demon's face then from very close up for a moment as she thought that she could feel something begin to rub against her thigh lightly. "What are you doing?" she asked, feeling a little stupid, since it was more than a little obvious. "Pok make feel good you. Feel good Pok," came the reply and while Bess was putting that together, she felt herself being penetrated. At about any other time in her adult life, somebody doing this under circumstances like these would find themselves in a rather painful and rapidly-worsening situation. But Bess did nothing for a couple of reasons. For one thing, she could feel this, and as much of a surprise as it had been, it felt very pleasant and warm to her. The size still wasn't much of anything, but it did feel good, she admitted as she moved her arms to hold Pok, amazed that doing that felt so familiar as well. Bess saw that no matter how she moved now, Pok would cause the leaves to re-arrange themselves on them a moment later. "This feel to me like it a common thing with you," Bess whispered, rocking her hips a little, though she didn't raise her legs. "Yes," Pok said, looking into her eyes, "Always this. Name? You know name you?" Bess got it and smiled a little, "Bess." "Ah," Pok grinned back, humping a bit more urgently now. "Pok never know." The demon stretched a little to get nearer to her face, "Pok can ...?" Bess smiled, liking this, as incredibly odd as it was to her, "Kiss? Is that what you want?" The face nodded and Bess stretched a little herself and opened her mouth, astounded at what she was doing, but feeling taken away in the moment. The first orgasm, when it came to her wasn't earthshaking in any regard at all. But it was nice and to someone who hadn't had anything like this for herself in as long as it seemed to have been, it was rather notable. Something else which came to her was that the demon's scent didn't seem to carry that much of a male essence to it yet it seemed so familiar and comforting to her, she thought, brushing the thought away since her next one was a question to herself, asking why it mattered. Bess told herself the truth. She was lying with a demon. She was being fucked very gently, it felt very nice, and it hadn't happened in an unknown period of time. Now was perhaps not the time to be picky. She smiled down a few minutes later at the pair of eyes which now regarded her from where the most amazing mouth was enjoying her tits. It had happened because Bess assumed that she was a little too large for Pok and the demon had made sure to allow Bess her pleasure more than once before sliding out and moving back a little. Bess didn't mind it at all when Pok pushed her legs up a fair distance and began to slip into her anus -- which was a surprise. Bess knew herself and she usually required a fair bit of loving and pampering from the right man before she'd ever allow something like this. Yet she seemed to be willing to allow the demon this and found that there was no pain or stretching and before she knew it, really, Pok was lost in pleasure and Bess raised her legs higher still and rocked her hips in time for the demon, enjoying the sensations. The really odd thing about it all to Bess' mind was the feeling of familiarity which came to her in this. She could see that Pok was deriving a lot more from it now. Pok didn't stop for a long time, but eventually, Bess heard the strained and quiet gasps and she felt the shudder and wondered about that for a moment. She'd never known a man to finish in quite that way, though the incredibly warm glow that she felt spreading though her was a very nice touch, she thought. Afterwards, Pok suggested that they'd better be getting home, and of course, this raised the question of just where and what 'home' was, but her friend didn't seem perturbed in the slightest as she led Bess away, pausing often to sniff and listen as well as scan the skies. "I feel as though I know you well, Pok," Bess remarked, "I liked that, but I think that we have done that before." Pok looked over for a moment, "Not matter, Bess. You gone sometimes and go into air," she waved her hand and it came to Bess that Pok meant that she'd disappear. "But Pok always find you. You feel good now? Nothing wrong? Bess look like she know herself now. Never happen before. Bess always lost." As she listened, Bess was startled to hear a lilt in the intonation of the demon's speech, so she asked. "Where are you from, Pok? You sound to me like you come from the same place that I do." Pok's head shook, "Pok come far. Not same as Bess. You talk. Pok learn you. Not know talk before. Pok learn you. You talk. Pok learn." They arrived at a cave and Pok led them inside. It was a little cozy in how it felt, but there was space and there was a small firepit in the middle which Pok had going in a minute and Bess watched as the smoke from the fire wafted up and away somewhere. "We live here?" she asked and Pok nodded. "How long?" Bess asked and Pok developed a confused expression. "How many winters?" Bess asked, refining the question as she thought about how she knew Pok's name. The demon sat holding up ten fingers while looking at her own hands. Finally, the hands were held up to Bess and she stared as the hands were opened and closed a few times before Pok shrugged, "So many winters and more, we are." Bess blinked and looked at herself, but saw nothing to indicate the passing of any time or the ravages of aging. She looked and felt as she always had, but... Pok had indicated more than sixty years. "And we have lived here as a couple?" Bess asked, clearly astounded, but Pok's head shook then. "We ... friends alla time. Alla time sleep there we," indicating the rustic but comfortable-looking bed. Bess asked if they were married or anything then and Pok found the question to be hilarious, laughing for a long time. "We make happy, Bess and Pok, "the demon nodded with a little chuckle. "Happy girls alla time we." And the next discovery was that Pok was a female. She allowed as how her kind was different from the 'usual' sort of demons which might be seen now and then, but she was a little pointed in showing Bess when she sat down and leaned back, indicating that what Bess had thought was the demon's scrotum was really her outer lips and what she'd assumed to be a penis had really been the largest clitoris that she'd ever seen in her life. As it was then, it looked to be perhaps a little less than two inches, but Bess was certain that what she felt had been a fair bit longer, though not anything like what she remembered on some of the men she'd bedded. When she looked closely, she saw that it only resembled a penis. From a few inches away, it was obviously a clitoris and she watched as it seemed to retreat and disappear to take its place at the front of what looked to be a very small vaginal opening. Bess wondered about that until she heard the tone in the demon's voice as Pok tilted her head, "You not remember? Not know Pok?" She looked down then and it was plain that there was sadness washing over the small demon then as she said, mostly to herself, "Not know Pok. Not recall Pok." She sighed then and it ended in a tiny croak, "Not love Pok." Bess moved then to sit beside Pok, "I feel like I am just meeting you, but even so, I feel that I know you well." She reached out and touched the demon's cheek, leaving her hand there until Pok looked up at her, her cheeks showing the lines left behind by one tear on each side. "I must love you, Pok," she whispered as she brought her face closer until their cheeks touched, "Why else would it feel this way to me to feel your face against mine? How would I know that you and I love to whisper to each other even when we don't need to?" She drew her head back and looked into the dull red eyes, "And we do love to do that, don't we, Pok? See? I know this and yet I am just learning to know you. I did know your name, and I know your scent and how it feels to be against you. I think you shouldn't worry. I just need to remember." Pok shook her head, "No! Pok like Bess this way. Bess look ... calmer. More like friend Pok." Bess looked puzzled then. "How was I before?" The demon looked nervous and a little afraid then as she spoke, "Bess not recall something. Alla time angry for it. Can't remember who she is. Not know name. Sometime not nice, but alla time angry. You stay like this. Pok like this," she nodded hopefully. She regarded Bess' face then as though searching for something there, "Pok love Bess. We friends long-time. Still same-same?" Bes nodded, getting the rhythm of the demon's speech, "Same-same. Pok and Bess." She pulled the demon close and kissed her ear, feeling as though she wasn't so lost anymore from the way that a little more came back to her with each passing second, "Same Bessie. Same Pok-pok." She felt the demon's smile at hearing the pet name which Bess sometimes would use before. She pulled back, "But that's here," she said pointing to her own heart, "Up here," she pointed to her forehead, "How can I not know that Pok is a girl? Some things I can't remember, but I know who I am again and I know you." Apparently, both genders of whatever Pok was were very similar in appearance, from what she said. "We find way be happy, "Pok said, "No males here, so ..." she pointed from herself to Bess and back, "Find way we." As strange as all of this was to hear, Bess could recall it more and more. Pok was a demon, but Bess did have feelings for her as the minutes passed and after a delicious supper prepared by Pok, they went to a stream to wash and then it was off to bed, where again, Bess felt great familiarity. She asked many questions and Pok patiently explained that they were very close friends and they were lovers, but that each of them had always wanted to find a male. But Bess couldn't be left alone for long before she'd wander off and blunder into some kind of trouble. "Live together we," Pok said, "Better than alone. More .... fun, more... " She sighed and shrugged, "Better together we than alone. Bess get lost, Pok find. Pok feel alone, Bess alla time help." With the demon in her arms, Bess felt warm and comfortable. She'd noticed that as Pok had gotten to feel better, her clitoris had returned to looking as though it was a male organ. Now, she could feel it as Pok humped against her hip very gently. It took Bess a little time, but she had very vague recollections of times like this, so she stopped Pok and shifted position. With Pok lying on her back, Bess smiled and remembered what she knew of making love with this demon girl. Pok's clitoris behaved just as her own did -- it was only larger, that was all. So Bess knew and remembered that Pok would have orgasms from that part of her being stimulated. At the same time, Bess could recall learning that Pok's vagina was a tiny thing which felt good if it was stimulated, but orgasms from only that were few and far between, for all practical purposes impossible. Bes didn't care now. She lowered her head and licked and sucked in almost the same way as she knew how to for a man. As Pok's pleasure began to take her, Bess made sure to drool as much as she could onto the six inch wonder whenever it wasn't in her mouth. She spit on her fingers and worked at licking Pok's lips and stroking her clitoris, alternating frequently from one to the other, lest anything even begin to dry out. Pok drew her legs back, holding onto her own knees as she writhed. "Pok-pok," the demon whispered softly and Bess felt a little joy to recall this, so she smiled, "Pok-pok-pok," making the noises while nuzzling her face against the large mound. "Pok-pok-pok," she chuckled, dragging her lips over everything and it caused her friend to cry out in pleasure, but Bess remembered this now and so she moved her head a little and slowly pushed her tongue inside. Pok groaned and gave in, her hips hitching up and down. Bess knew the sign and she dragged her thumb over the wetness before using the same thumb on the underside of the clitoris in her hand and that was it. Pok arched her back and called out Bess' name. Bess followed that sweet vagina as it rose before her and she made sure to help with the angle of the clitoris. Pok didn't do this every time, she suddenly recalled. Far from it, but now and then, she could squirt when she came. Her vagina would absolutely run with a flood and the same thin and clear fluid would be ejected in several spurts from her clitoris. In this position, Bess knew that Pok liked it if she ejaculated onto herself and allowed Bess to lick it away. Minutes later, Pok's breathing became steady and slow again while Bess finished searching for any juice which might have gotten away. She remembered that it was always a losing proposition. It was difficult enough to do with a man, but to get everything which a female demon might spurt was an impossibility, since it was about as thin as water. Pok thanked her in a sighing whisper and then she asked, "So, Bessie remembers again?" "I remember enough, little Pok," she said raising her head to smile, "More every minute, I think, and it was this. It was you who brought it back to me." "It was?" the demon smiled back and she was clearly thrilled when Bess nodded. "There is nothing in the world that I love to smell more than your sweet honey, little Pok." She bent her head down and licked one of the nipples. With a motion more serpentine than even most snakes, it seemed, Pok moved and Bess found herself a little disoriented. She was lying on her side then, feeling Pok's kisses all over her mound. As she noticed Pok rolling her onto her back and watched as those tiny vaginal lips began to descend over her mouth, she felt the beginnings of her rapture just there, feeling as though it was just over the hill, it seemed, and beckoning to her. She felt Pok nuzzling, pressing her face against Bess. Bess knew that she only had to wait for a moment or two and there it was, she told herself. "Pok-pok-pok-pok," the demon giggled busily into Bess cunny and then Bess was lost, giving up everything but trying to keep her breath as that long demon tongue began to work its magic. "How did we meet?" Bess asked later as the two of them lay listening to the quiet crackle of the fire. Pok turned her head, "Not remember that too? You call me here. Not like to walk alone." As the demon spoke of it, Bess had fuzzy recollections of her failed attempts to perform a conjuration from memory. She had no idea how long it had been since she'd gone under the trance to feign her death. She allowed that perhaps her memory hadn't been perfect and it was a rather long invocation after all. As well, she now conceded to herself that she hadn't been terribly specific, other than sending her commands for a lost-soul demon to appear and do her bidding. As she recalled the event and went over the words of it in her mind -- which she could now recall almost perfectly, she realized her error at the time. She hadn't specified a male who could act as her traveling companion and protector. She'd been prepared as always in case the summoned one arrived in an angry state and sought to kill the conjurer. She'd been a little prepared for anything -- as much as she was able to be. The bright flash of light and the thunderous bang hadn't even startled her. These were things which were common in conjurations of the sort that she'd attempted that day. What had startled her was the arrival of Pok, a thin thing full of fear who'd looked around herself with her eyes a big as saucers. Bess smiled as the remembered it now, just as pleased that she could remember it at all. Pok was there in an instant, crouching in fear and then looking around. Bess stood before her in the center of a Circle of Protection, ready to face some sort of hellish abomination and the pair had blinked at each other. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 02 Bess had been so startled that she'd forgotten to concentrate on the shielding wall of force which surrounded her and she'd stepped forward. At that instant, Pok lept at Bess, falling to her knees weeping and begging in words which Bess had no knowledge of. It wasn't until sometime after Pok had figured out how to make herself understood that she was able to tell Bess that she'd been facing a cavern full of large and ugly males of some sort in a place that she'd blundered into in naivete and found that her only way out had been blocked. Pok lay next to her now, able to read a little of what passed through Bess' mind. "You save me that day," she said, "You pull me to you. Pok must come, not know where and I so afraid. I see you, Bess, and I know you can send me back, so I cry then." She put her arm over Bess and slid her body onto her after it, "I know that I want to stay. Not know if you keep me. Not want go back." It was true, Bess thought. She hadn't understood any of Pok's frantic blubbering at the time, but as soon as they could understand each other, Bess had promised Pok that she wouldn't ever send her back because they needed each other. So they remained together, two unlikely individuals, bound together by their friendship. Whenever Bess said that it was time to move on, Pok only nodded and off they went, wherever their fortunes took them. "This is a nice place we have," she said to Pok quietly, "Why did we come here? Do you remember?" "You say we had to go,"Pok replied, "Farmers angry, you say. Hunt Pok soon." "Ah yes, "Bess smiled, "that's right." "What right?" Pok asked, "Pok like it where we were." Bess shook her head, "We had to leave, Pok. You were killing too many sheep and calves. They thought it was wolves at first and started to hunt them until you dropped out of the sky one day at high noon and killed a cow right in front of the farmer who owned her. Then again," Bess sighed, "it might have been a bit much, the way that you were eating the cow right there and everything." "Had to," the demon protested, "Bess say to stop dragging dead things home." "You're probably right," Bess groaned as Pok settled against her and covered her with her wings so that Bess could pull the covers over them. "But I'm glad that I'm here with you and I'm happy that I seem to be remembering." "Pok happy too," the demon whispered as she laid her head on Bess' shoulder and closed her eyes. Feeling the wind in her face as she stood looking out over the low mountains the next day, Bess decided that where it came from must be West and so they began walking to the coast to where she was now. Pok never complained whenever Bess told her that they had go travel on. It was what she'd been summoned for and so they just went. Bess didn't know the place had ever had a name, but they'd been living in Earl's Cove ever since. Her 'awakening' seemed to force her to take stock of her existence and in doing that, Bess had discovered that she still had a body of her own of sorts and it had been "coming back to her" ever since, though in a 'one step forward and two steps back' sort of way. Until now, Bess had never wanted much of any sort of contact with another human being. Meeting Brian had been a startling discovery, but as she walked and wandered, she hadn't wanted much of anything to do with people. She was no longer one of them, she reasoned and like it or not ... Aside from faithful Pok, who was a blessing to her, Bess was alone anywhere that she went. ----------------------- Not Alone ---------------------- Her introspection was cut short by a sound far off in the deserted boatyard and she drifted quickly back to the large building where she'd spent the better part of the last long while, though she did hang near to the open door to try for a look at the source. To her surprise, she watched as a single human figure drew slowly nearer guiding a horse by the bridle. As she watched him approach, her eyes widened as she saw the last of the washing that she'd left out earlier in the day and had forgotten about. Bess pointed, thanking her luck that she'd only put out the two sheets at the end. Pok worked quickly, snatching her laundry off the line silently and dashing away. Slipping inside, she closed the door in the darkness behind them and made silently for the little room where they tended to prefer to be. Clayton Tanner was walking along a wandering sort of path that took him to what might be described as an aisleway between buildings. He knew roughly where he needed to be but he wondered a little after a moment. He hadn't been paying attention in much of any way, other than to make sure that he didn't land on his nose from tripping over something, but he now looked from left to right a little carefully and then off to his left at something which was not there. It was nothing more than a detail which he thought that he might have seen and not noticed at first, but now he was looking for it. He could have sworn that he saw ... at least one bed sheet hanging on a makeshift clothesline? He stared for a long minute and saw no sheet or anything in the darkening gloom so he walked on. If it had been daylight, he likely would have seen the clothesline, at least and the thin figure who'd rushed to retrieve the sheets at best. But he saw nothing and so he wandered on. When he found the building that he sought he was a little more confused, since he found the door to be unlocked, but he stepped inside anyway and set the lamp onto an ages-old oak desk so that he could see what his self-admitted foolishness had bought him. Not that he'd been looking for more than a boat when he'd come the first time, but he still couldn't believe what he'd found, though he told himself that a look in the daytime would be infinitely better. Clayton knew boats and ships and quite by accident, he'd found something which he could work on as a labor of love. He didn't know how it could be possible, but after staring for an hour, he'd found an old journal which told all of the tale -- or the most important parts of it at any rate. Hundreds of years ago, before the great troubles of which he knew little, there had been a war which raged over most of the globe. Along with the battleships and cruisers, besides the corvettes and the destroyers, submarines, and the aircraft carriers, several of the navies of the world had wanted -- or thought that they did -- somewhat smaller combat craft, the better to kill each other off with. These craft had to be inexpensive to build, they had to be quick and they had to be able to rush in, toss a torpedo or maybe two and dash away again before they were noticed and shot to pieces. The British answer to that requirement was the Motor Torpedo Boat. The American design was the PT boat, both of which carved out some adventures for themselves in the daring exploits of their crews. The German reply was what the English called the 'E-Boat'; 'E' for 'enemy', but to the Kriegsmarine, it was the 'S-boot' or Schnellboot, meaning simply, 'fast boat'. Since it was intended to be used in the North Sea and the English Channel, it had to be capable of rough sea operation and it had to have a good range, as well as being fast. A very few outlasted the war and one at least found a home among fans in a yard where once its enemies sent their own ships to fight it. Somehow, somewhere, there was apparently one man rich enough to want one of these for his own. Not being able to purchase one of the survivors, he had one built -- a more or less faithful replica, though he had the hull made of aluminum rather than wood. At that point, the tale became a bit foggy after the boat was finished and launched. What happened after, Clayton had no idea about, but somehow it came to this backwater halfway up the British Columbian coast for a re-fit. That was when the world changed -- while this craft was on the slips of this small drydock. Clayton looked from one end of it to the other, still not quite believing what lay before his eyes. What was left intact now was this little ship; not quite a hundred feet long and this building. It had taken his breath away when he'd first seen it. After a while, he'd gone for a little walk and found the storage tanks of diesel oil, untouched after all of this time, and probably only because nobody knew what the foul-smelling stuff was good for. Clayton had spent a whole day and the more that he'd looked, the more sure that he was that this would work. He made his way back to the old man and asked about it all. The old man knew nothing about anything even remotely nautical. He only owned the yard where nobody ever went. He looked at Clayton and said that he wanted a hundred and ten gold for it all -- the yard, the buildings, the sheds, and whatever was there. In the end and after a bit of careful haggling, Clayton Tanner walked away one hundred and six gold lighter, wondering just how big a fool he was, since there was only him to do any work which might be needed. But as with many people who hear what they interpret as the call of the sea, what he'd really bought was a dream. Now here he was, all alone in the middle of the junk that he'd bought with night already here. He got his sleeping bag out and prepared to sleep on two of the old desks. An hour after she'd been standing outside of the curtain to her 'room' listening to him snore softly, Bess crept out and walked over to where the man slept. She looked at him and she wondered what all of this had been about and what it meant. She'd seen it when he'd come here a few days ago and watched as he'd poked around in all of the old junk in the building, but she'd thought that he was looking for something specific and that if he found it -- whatever it was that he'd sought, then he'd take it and go. It had happened before, though not often. There had also been a few times when a few men had come who were more interested in drinking and once they'd felt the flush of the liquor, they'd begun to destroy things. She'd acted then, since this place might not be much, but it was where she and Pok existed and since she liked it here, she considered it their home. The things that she'd shown them then ... giving them reasons to run for their lives and never come back. There were even two of them still here, rotting quietly under the wreck of the shack that Pok had flattened on them. She asked herself how long it had been since and she had no answer to it. She only knew that it had been maybe a decade or two. Bess crept a little closer after a time, not wanting to know, but not being able to help herself at the same time. He was perhaps thirty years old, from what she saw and seeking a little deeper in him, she gleaned that he was a month or so shy of that mark. She saw a man who looked to be unafraid of work and she allowed herself only a few moments more to observe him before she went back to lie down in her room, feeling things inside of herself that she hadn't felt in so long. Mostly, what she felt only upset her a little. They didn't look too much alike, but in him, Bess saw a stranger who had only really been in love once in his life and finding nothing there but pain, he'd moved on, trying his best to tell himself that he wanted no part of that foolishness ever again. Bess knew exactly how he felt. At least she thought that she could relate. ---------------------------- Bess grew more than a little perturbed over the course of the next few days. She'd been here alone with Pok for the longest time, having the run of the place, but now this newcomer was poking all over as though he owned it or something. It was unsettling to her. What was perhaps worse, she told herself often, was that she couldn't help but want to be near him a little, since without even knowing that she was there, he was intriguing to her as she watched him. She tried to force herself to leave him for a while, but there was really nothing for her to do here, other than exist quietly and so she kept returning. Sometimes, she stood nearby in a puffy dress, an old favorite memory of hers. Sometimes she was there as she'd been when she commanded a crew as a privateer -- and sometimes, when she wasn't feeling too cold, she just perched herself somewhere with nothing on at all. The trouble to Clayton was that since she'd been here alone for so long, she'd forgotten to really pay attention to her appearance. She had a tendency to drift a little, her body becoming either a little more or a little less solid now and then. She wasn't aware of it, but there were times when she was at least a little visible to him. Clayton was a man who could deal with the real -- the here and now and like that. He neither believed nor ascribed to the tales of ghosts that he'd been told about this place when he'd first heard about it. He was looking for a boat and he knew where he wanted to go. All of this was just the machinations which were required to get him there. The first time that he thought that he saw someone; it had startled him a little. But after blinking once, whoever he thought that he'd seen wasn't there. It happened every so often, and he thought little of it, other than feel a little twinge of fear in his breast. Clayton was perhaps only really afraid of one thing -- that he'd develop the malady of the mind which had taken his father when he was a boy. It had been years by now and his father was dead, thankfully, but the last few times that he'd gone to see the man, all that there was to see was a bound and quivering form hunkered down in fear of his delusions and on his knees in a corner of a padded cell. He knew that whatever the strangely-named sickness was which had taken his father from him; it had begun something like this. He worked all the harder, hoping that he wasn't about to lose his mind now. Washing was an issue out here and Clayton always hauled some water for the purpose, placing the buckets near to the old wood stove that he kept lit. Where he was here, the winters were seldom cold, but the climate was wet and damp. He didn't know it, but Bess and Pok could have kissed him for it. -------------------------------- A Little Stolen Love -------------------------------------- Bess could have done far more than kiss him as she sat watching him wash both nights afterward. She noticed that he never used all of the buckets, either. Once he was asleep each night, the first thing that she did was steal over and very slowly wash herself, trying not to splash or slop any water around. When she was done, she saw that what she'd dripped was not more than he might expect to find there from his own washing. She was quiet about it and it was a bit of work being so careful, but she was able to take the bucket outside, pour it away slowly and bring back a three-quarter full one, placing it near the stove. She was glad that she'd done it the next day, since that was the water that he shaved with. After working all day at something, he'd eat something which he'd prepare for himself and then check that he'd locked the doors and he'd crawl into his sleeping bag then. He kept it unzipped as more of a blanket and she'd noticed that. That would be the start of Bess' trials -- knowing that there was a man right there naked and she probably wasn't anything which would be of use to him or the other way around. It had made her want to cry again. But after getting hold of herself, Bess began to wonder about things and she'd crept forward very slowly. Knowing without a doubt that he was deeply asleep, she'd lifted the edge of the sleeping bag very slowly and he'd rolled onto his back. Bess gazed at his body, suddenly knowing that this was going to get far, far worse for her because she already knew that she wanted him. Almost before she knew it, she leaned down and kissed the thing that she suddenly found that she ached to touch. Her kiss lasted far longer than she'd have ever had the thought of. A minute later, and Bess was pressing her face against it very softly, pleased to suddenly find that she was fairly solid. She inhaled his scent, happy that she was able to and she kissed it again. When she drew back to admire it, she noticed that it was hardening. Bess knew enough about the way that things were to know that most all men have many erections every night as they sleep. While she smiled a little, she saw that it was hardening fully and it made her ache again. Rather than just curse her rotten luck as she'd been doing for who knew how long, Bess carefully took him in her hand as gently as she could and she leaned down again as she opened her mouth and used her lips and tongue to very carefully and gently ease his foreskin back. Her first taste of him almost drove her to her knees and she had to fight to remain still and gentle for him. She sucked very gently and she was rewarded after a time, though she was more than a little distracted, having to keep at least some of her awareness on his state of consciousness and stay ready to disappear if he even twitched his eyelids. When he came, it was without fanfare on his part. He made no sound, he just gushed a ton into her mouth and she kept her motions gentle, refusing the urge to suck even one bit harder in order to get more, if that were possible. She stood back up and looked at him, a little worried for a moment that there had been a few drops which she'd missed, but she knew that a lot of men also came in their dreams, so she didn't think that he'd particularly notice anything. "I don' know who you are," she whispered so softly that even she had trouble hearing herself, "but I thank you and I 'ope that you don' consider what I have done here as thieving from you at all. If it mean anyt'ing to you sir, I want you to know that you're very fine to this girl. You sleep well now." She began to cover him slowly, only a little quicker than she'd pulled the covers back. She was almost inside her little room to lie on her bunk there when he woke up a little and wondered why it was that he felt a little wet. He didn't really think about it until the following day when it crossed his mind. His skin had been a little wet and he knew that he'd ejaculated; only there were a couple of things which were wrong with that. He never had 'wet dreams'. He'd never had one in his life before -- or at least, before now. The thought was based on his knowledge of himself, just as the one which followed was; He always came a lot. Never just a few drops -- a ... lot. It was a mystery to him how there could be so little, if he'd let this go in his sleep. Most curious of all to him was the way that the tip of him was dried and sore from being exposed. Clayton had always been one of those males with a slightly tight foreskin. Retracting it was never an issue, but afterwards, putting in back was always something that he did himself. It never did that automatically. It also never retracted by itself while he slept. So he had a conundrum for which he had no explanation, wondering if masturbation could be an act which could be done as one slept and if so, then was that what this was? Thirty years old and this was beginning now? The next night, it was the same thing, pretty much. Bess found that she couldn't keep the hope of having a chance to do it again out of her mind. This time, she was just as careful and gentle, finding that she had some feeling for him somehow. Sure, he was asleep and she supposed that she was using him in a way. She thought about that for a moment and then her clothes disappeared so that she could at least touch herself as she did this. She still had no answer to her wondering thought about whether she was stealing from him. All that she knew was that she could get him to come again and this time, she was feeling even more thankful to him for all of this. The thought that she could take the seed of a living man -- even like this - pleased her a great deal, because to her, it made her feel just a little like a living woman again, rather than just some lost thing. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 02 Pok had crept out with her this time, and she made matters slightly worse as she caressed Bess while she stood bent over Clayton. As much as Bess enjoyed that, she found it distracting while she focused on loving him while trying not to cause him to wake. Finally, Pok asked if she might try a little and when he came a few minutes later, they both were able to have a little. Pok stood up and crept back to their bed as Bess whispered her thanks once more. "I come back because I can't help meself. You're a beauty to me and ... and I just can't keep away. Forgive me, sir, an' I wish you very pleasant dreams." She kissed him then, as softly as she could manage on his cheek before she stole away. As she pulled her covers up, wondering why she suddenly felt the need to that night, Clayton woke up. He felt the same things that he'd noticed the night before and this time his cheek felt a little wet. Reaching up to touch the place gave him something to really wonder about now. He wondered if it had anything to do with the woman that he kept thinking that he saw every once in a while. What the hell was happening to him? In the tiny cabin that they shared on the little ship, Pok was frigging Bess like a wild thing and they had the hardest time remaining silent. He went back to sleep a minute or so later, but when he woke up in the morning; he felt as though he was almost in a relationship with the apparition, a little sure that she was not just something that his mind had created. Bess wasn't really sure herself what had gone wrong all that time ago, but she'd taken years to come out of her stupor and when she did, she'd found that decades had passed and her family was gone, the house little more than a bit of wreckage on a few pilings in the mangrove swamp. Her hair and her nails had grown somewhat frighteningly and after dealing with that mess, she'd decided after a time that she ought to be going somewhere for some reason, but she didn't know where. There was a lot more time and details to it, but the end result was that she'd come here long ago and had been here ever since. She only wished that she might know what she was now. Bess lay in her bed next to Pok, her mind reeling a little over a vague feeling of discovery that she seemed to have made. She didn't need to eat all that often and found what she needed in the forest a few hundred yards off. She often didn't eat at all until she thought of it. At first, she'd been upset in a huge way, feeling as though life had passed her by somehow in a way that she wasn't cognisant of. She'd given up her endless weeping some time ago, but the fact remained that she was something for which there was no other thing. She could very often feel herself disappearing and at those times, she'd found that she could pass through other objects and vice versa, and yet at other times, she seemed to be solid in relation to the world around her. It didn't matter, she thought somewhat bitterly. Here she was, God only knows how long after she should have passed from this earth. She looked fine and she was healthy as far as she knew. It was just that she was alone here, trapped at a perpetually ageless twenty-five years old. The thing of it was, that on the occasions when she did eat, she really didn't feel as though she'd actually eaten anything. Her stomach didn't feel to her as though it had anything in it, though she knew that it did. She'd eaten something, felt the food in her mouth and felt it when she'd chewed it and swallowed. She eliminated it as waste the next day and as unpleasant a thought as it was, she knew that it was just as it had been when she was a woman living in the world where she belonged. It just didn't feel as though it was sustaining her. When she thought of it like that and how seldom she ate, she wondered what was keeping her 'alive', if that was what she was. Her moment came when she thought back to how it felt to have her mouth filled with the man's semen. It was warm and she liked it, just as she did long ago, but more to the point, it was pleasant to her to do it and she loved the way that it felt when she swallowed it. Her eyes opened wide as she realized that after suckling him, her gut felt as though she actually had consumed something then. In terms of quantity, it had been a lot for her to swallow to be sure, but still it was only a man's semen and getting it down had not been like trying to guzzle a mug of tea or anything, and she just felt as though her belly had something in in now. She smirked to herself and chuckled softly. She sure hoped that he didn't miss what she took and as an afterthought, she hoped that he liked it somehow. She found that the man slept a little restlessly some nights and she didn't try to do anything then. The fifth night, she was fairly certain that she'd heard what sounded a little like a growl from him, but it was so quiet and it had happened so quickly that she wasn't sure that she'd really heard anything. No matter, she thought, he was sleeping soundly a few minutes later and so she caressed him and lowered her head once more when he was almost hard. That was something else that she liked about him. When he was hard, well, he had the hardest phallus that she'd ever held. The thought of climbing onto him crossed her mind, but she couldn't think of a way to do it and get away if she had to. Just then, she listened as he growled again. Bess was rather taken by the sound. He sounded like any man, but he also -- She suddenly knew that she'd taken too long thinking and listening. She hadn't been paying attention and now his hand was on her head. He wasn't pressing or anything like that, but she wouldn't have been surprised if he did. He was asleep after all. She wasn't particularly afraid, but she now wanted to be away from here and what she'd been doing was not something that she wanted to have as a starting point to a relationship with anyone. She wasn't even thinking of anything very personal. She just didn't want to be there when he awoke suddenly, since that could easily happen now. And what would she say then? 'Oh, hello. I was just creeping by and I found your cockstand here waving in the breeze. I didn't think you'd mind if I played 'bumblebee' for a little while to see if I might have a little nectar.' It was a bit of work to get his fingers out of her hair at first until she had her flash of insight and she stopped sucking him. They stayed like that for a couple of minutes, him beginning to snore again with his hand on her head and her slowly moving her mouth away. At length, he rolled away from her with a snort and she made her escape. Inside her room, she smiled after a minute and had to force herself to keep from laughing. She wouldn't get her little meal tonight, but she still thought that it had been a bit of fun and at least he hadn't pulled out any hair. ------------------------------ Not Quite the Invisible Girl --------------------------- She realized with a start that the man could see her on the sixth day. He'd been walking past when she'd seen him stop, looking down. He was on his way a moment later and Bess relaxed then, thinking little of it. She'd been far more interested in the shiny thing that he'd laid out outside the day before and the cubes and boxes which went with that. She didn't know what it was for and she'd almost forgotten about it when he'd come in and turned on a little thing which had some sort of rope connection to the thing outside and it gave off a pale bluish light inside with no flames or smoke or anything. Bess was astounded at first, but then she looked down at herself, still wondering what had caused him to stop on his way by. That was when she saw her own shadow. She thought about that with a rising sense of alarm. The whole time that they'd been like that, him standing there not six feet from her and then walking away, she'd been completely naked. She was a little embarrassed over it, but then she shrugged to herself. A human usually might feel shame at being seen without clothes. What did she have to feel ashamed about anymore? In retrospect much later, she recalled the moment and found that her estimation of him had risen then. That he must have been at least partially able to see her and yet he hadn't lost his mind was one thing, since many people can tell themselves anything to explain away what they think that they might have seen and not really been sure. But to have that uncertainty and then see your explanations dashed since you'd seen the shadow of something -- or someone who was real and solid enough to cast a shadow. He'd worked about an hour longer on whatever it was that he was doing there and then he'd climbed on to his horse and ridden slowly away. Bess had watched him as he'd left and as he disappeared out of her sight, she'd burst into tears, crying as she hadn't cried in over a century, she guessed a little later. It came to her some time later that he hadn't run away as though he was fearful for his life. He'd left a lot of his things here. After what had happened to her in her life, Bess was more than reluctant to pray. It sure hadn't helped anything for her before, after all. But she did it anyway and wondered why it was that she already seemed to need him somehow. She reached out and touched the little blue light, amazed that something could give light like this and yet remain cool to the touch. She wandered over to where his sleeping bag lay and she curled up there feeling like a lost kitten, wanting to be near to something which smelled of him. She was still sitting in the middle of his sleeping bag on the oak desk when he came back. He didn't look around at all and it seemed to her that he didn't see her. A quick look at herself to be sure and then she looked up at him. He didn't appear to look around him at all now. She wondered about that a little. For as long as he'd been here, she'd seen him stop rather often to look around himself and she suddenly knew that he must have felt her looking at him all of this time. He was cooking something, she noticed and the smell of that made her stomach remind her that she hadn't eaten in maybe a week. She got up and drifted over a little nearer to where he stood. He had a pot of vegetables headed for a boil in a few minutes, she guessed and then she saw the cuts of meat that he was cooking. He turned to work at a small cutting board and in seconds, she watched him begin to fry up some onions. She was happy that he'd returned. Quite clearly, he'd gone to buy some food for himself. She looked at the quantity and then at him, a little surprised, but still with the thought that she'd really like a little of a taste of what he was making for himself. She hadn't eaten anything like this in so long that the mere thought of that was a little painful. These thoughts were all a little hopeful and pleasant to her and it set the stage for the shock of it when he began to speak, though he didn't turn his head. "I don't know who or what you are," he said quietly, "but I hope that you can eat some of this stuff -- otherwise I'm wasting food and I hate to do that. And if you can eat any of this, I'd like it very much if you could eat dinner with me. That way, I'd know for sure that I'm not going crazy." Bess stood transfixed, looking at the back of his shoulder as he kept cooking. "I don't know, "she answered as levelly as she could, when really, she was the one who now wanted to run away screaming because clearly, she was losing her mind if she could imagine that he was talking to her now. "but I think that I must try. I cannot think of how long it has been since a gentleman has asked me to dinner with him." She raised her hand and looked at it for a moment, "You cannot see me, sir. How is it that you knew that I was here?" He turned his head back then and he smiled a little. She thought that her knees might fail her at that moment. He shrugged, "Look down." Bess looked down and then she knew. The little bluish light was behind them and she was casting a long shadow which stretched out next to his on the floor. "Ah," she said, the smile on her face evident in the sound of her speech, "It's that bit of wizardry that you have there, the cold blue light. I thought that it allowed you to see me in its light." "No," he said, "It's just a light to see by. Where are you from? I can hear something in your voice, but I don't know what it is, or where it's from." "I was born on Jamaica," she said, "but I have no knowledge of how long it has been since I was there. It may shock you to know, but I find myself in the enviable position of being a female who quite honestly does not know her true age. I think that I can say that I am older than you are by some margin. And this is my tone when I wish to be polite, though that has not happened in almost as long a time as it's been since I was born. I normally speak differently." She shook her head, "That is, I used to. I don't know how long it's been since I've spoken much at all." He smiled again, "Why not speak the way that's most comfortable to you?" She looked at herself and made sure that she was clothed in the finest dress that she held in her memory as she made herself visible to him. "Might I 'ave the honor of knowin' your name, Sir?" she asked, switching to her patois. The change in her speech caused him to turn and he smiled, "That's a lovely dress, though a bit much for where we are. I do like it, though. And my name is Clayton Tanner." "Claytan," she smiled in pleasure as she pronounced it in her way with a nod, "A fine strong name, to be sure. I am Bess." "Just Bess?" he asked and she shrugged a little, "Just Bess. It all I was given when me born. My grandmother used to call me' little fox' because of my hair. I s'pose that I might have been Bess Fox. Later, I took my man's name for a time until he died. His name Hawke." "Then to my way of thinking," Clayton smiled, "you are Bess Fox once again, and I hope that I can call you that, since I think it suits you." He looked at her for a moment before he turned the meat in the pan, "I hope I'm not being rude, and I have to say that you're beautiful to me, but I ... I don't know ... " She held up her hand, "I don't know either. For the longest time, I thought me dead. At times, it seem so, and yet at other times, it not like that at all. I used to think I a ghost, but ..." She reached out her hand to touch his arm, "See? I am warm." "But you can eat, "he said, almost like a question, and she nodded, "Yes but ... I don' know what it do for me. I don' feel that I 'ave eaten anyt'ing." "Maybe it doesn't matter," he chuckled, "as long as it tastes good and it does you some good." He found a couple of chairs and Bess provided the candles. She tried to tell him what she remembered of her life. "After my mother put me in the trance, I didn't wake up for a long, long time, and when I did, everything and everyone was gone. I wasn't at the jail anymore, and my home was deserted and fallen-in. I started to travel north and it took forever to get here. I've been here for a long while, living in that," she pointed. I must be a ghost," she said, "but I'm not a person anymore either. I've been this for so long and for almost all of it, I've been alone, though the last while, I've had a bit of company in a friend. She lives here as well, but I don't see her now. She might be out getting food." As she spoke, Clayton sat listening attentively. After a time, he noticed that she seemed to need the telling of it and as he thought about it, it came to him that if she'd been like this for a long time, it was no wonder that she'd feel some attraction to someone who was living. He reached for her hand and she stopped speaking to look up at him. "Have I been prattling?" she asked, looking a little embarrassed," I'm sorry if I was." "You might have been -- to somebody else, Bess. I was enjoying it, myself. I'm always alone and I don't get to hear another person's voice all that often. I have to admit that I got lost somewhere in it a while back. I was going to ask you to stop and go back, but I just found myself listening to it all. Maybe I ought to apologize to you. What do you do here?" She shrugged, "I just stay here and do nothing, since I have nothing to do. I have no plans, nothing. I guess I'll have to stay here. I have nothing else and nowhere to go." "Maybe so and maybe not," Clayton smiled, "I mean, I own all of this now. I bought it last week, but I don't think I'd mind it if you stayed. I don't know anybody here but you. You'll have to move your quarters though, unless you want to come along." She set down her glass, "Come along?" "Yes," he nodded, "If what I want to do works out, I'll be leaving in a while. I'm going to sea." "How?" she asked, "In what? And why I have to move?" "I'm going to sea in that," he pointed, "Your room is the captain's quarters. I've seen it as I've walked by. I don't mind if you stay there, but if you want that, then you'll have to come along, since the room is in my boat, and my boat will be leaving one day." "For a short time," she smiled, "I was a captain, but I don't think that you would want to know of it, and anyway, that is a barge of some sort to be towed behind another ship, one which has sails." "It's not a barge and it doesn't need sails -- that is, if the engines will work. And you're wrong," he smiled, "I'd love to hear all about your time as a captain." "What is the year?" she asked, "I have just had the thought that I have the chance to know with you here." "2473," he smiled and Bess almost fell over. "It can't be," she said, falling back to her patois in her shock, "unless they count it different now." "No," Clayton said, shaking his head a little, "it's 2473 Anno Domini, the year of our lord. Why?" "It mean I fell asleep in the cells at Port Royal and now seven hundred and fifty years pass by?" "You're right," he smiled, "or you must be. You sure don't look almost eight hundred year old to me." She wanted to change the subject, not liking the possibility that she was correct, "How soon must I move from my room?" "You don't have to move at all, "he said, "Just stay there, but I'll need to tramp by a lot while I try to get the engines working, so you might want to hang another curtain for privacy. You said that you've been here for a time, no need to move if you don't want to." She looked back at the hull which was suspended over the drydock, "That thing can sail with no canvas?" He tried to smile a little, "Try to think that while you were asleep, as you say, a lot of things have come and gone. That hull is over four hundred years old, but it's been out of the water for almost all of the time. I need to see if the hull can be made tight and if so, then the engines must be made to work again. There are a lot of horsepower waiting there to be used." She didn't understand it and so the next while was spent trying to convince her. "Alright," she smiled, "I wait until the day when you show me these magic horses and how it is that a ship might sail with no wind." From him, she learned that he knew of an island with a supply of meat where he planned to live. "How you know of the place?" she asked him. "My family comes from there," he'd said, "I was a boy there." He looked at her a little, thinking for a moment, "It's not anything as warm as what Jamaica must be like, but it's warmer and a lot sunnier than it is here." "Then I want to come," Bess smiled, "I've been here too long and if I must sail there, I like it already. I truly don't know how I can be alive. I slipped into a trance as a living woman and all this time has passed me by. I don't feel as though I've lived much at all beyond my two years as a privateer." The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 02 Clayton's jaw fell open as he leaned forward, "You were a privateer?" Bess looked down, "Why do you ask? Is there still a price on my head? There cannot be, for I found a letter from my mother in the box where I was which said that my body had been released to them as it was supposed that I was dead. I don't know what happened, but I was only supposed to appear dead. The letter said that no one could revive me." She sat back on her chair, drawing her legs up as she remembered, "I was a privateer with my man, Alexander Hawke. I went by the name Molly Hawke then. I had one ship at first, a Bermuda sloop and she was my favorite and very fast -- quick to turn and she could sail upwind as easy as falling down. Eighteen guns, she had at first, but I added a lower half gun deck and eight of the guns on the top deck were moved down and I put carronades on the upper deck. When she came to me, I named her Sea Witch. Next, I got a sloop-of-war, the Lily, She wasn't as fast or nimble, but she could dance all the same and she mounted eighteen carronades, thirty-two pounders. Last was little Bluebell. She was only a ketch, but she was seventy feet and she had ten guns." She looked over at him in surprise, seeing the understanding there in them, "You know what a sloop is?" He nodded, "Yes, a ketch as well," and he began to explain the differences between the two types, astounding Bess at the same time that he'd know. Clayton smiled, "When I was a boy, living on the island, I used to spend hours playing pirate. For my birthday, my father went to the mainland and he bought me a few books on pirates. I would research every pirate and privateer that I could. I've read of Molly Hawke. You were supposed to be hung, but I never found out if it was true, and since I can see that you're not dead, I --" "How do you know?" she asked. "Excuse me," Clayton said, "What did you just say?" "I said, how you know that I not dead?" she repeated, the level to which she was upset beginning to show in her increasingly accented speech, "Even I not sure. I 'ave been hopin' for alla dis time that me not a ghost, but I 'ave no way to know. Me know that I was alive once. I can remember being a little girl and growin' up. I recall bein' married to a cruel man and den I recall bein' with Alexander. I recall that I was 'urt because he was seein' other women behind me back. I remember seein' 'im hang in a gibbet." He saw her eyes beginning to fill a little as she went on, "I was in love with Willem but he died in a trap. I recall 'ow I caught and that I was not goin' to get a feah trial because the Spanish ambassador want me dead so much and there was no one to speak for me to any magistrate. My mother and grandmother come and they told me that they must put me under and they'd get me out because the guards would think me dead. Then I recall nothing for a long time. When I wake up ... When I wake -- " Bess began to cry and Clayton sat in silence for a time, guessing that she needed it. He took her hand in both of his and he stroked it. She wound down after a while and he got up. When she looked at him, he was on one knee beside her, offering her his handkerchief. She took it with her thanks and after wiping her face, she blew her nose and looked at him. "I can disappear -- even if I don't want to sometimes. I can go trew t'ings sometimes. Me never get any older. I eat only when I remember to. That not right," she said, "Living people don't do that. So," she hung her head and he heard her voice breaking a little, "I must be dead. And if me dead, then the only t'ing that I can be is a ghost." She looked up and her lip was trembling a little. "If it matters to you what I think," he said, "I disagree. You're not dead. I don't know what you are, exactly, but to me, if you're not human, then you're a pretty good approximation of one. We've only been talking to each other for a little while today, but ... I guess I've known you were here for a couple of days. I thought that I was making you up at first. THEN I thought that maybe you were a ghost, but not anymore." He shrugged. You're not a ghost," he smiled. "I'm not?" she asked, "Please, Claytan, tell me somet'ing that I can hold onto as proof." "Hold my hand, Bess," he said quietly and she reached for his hand. "Can you feel my hand in yours?" She nodded and he smiled a little, "I can feel your hand in mine and it feels warm to me. It feels good to me to hold your hand. But you want proof, I guess. Right?" he asked looking up into her face. She nodded, "Something." "Ok," he smiled, "but it's not going to be pretty." Bess wondered what he meant, but he seemed to be willing to help her, so she tried to prepare herself for something. "Look in the handkerchief," he grinned a little, "Ghosts can't do that." She opened the handkerchief and grimaced at what she saw for a moment, "No," she smiled a little," I guess they can't. What am I then?" He shrugged, "That, I don't know. But I do know that you feel warm to me and I think you're beautiful. You can eat food and you have good table manners," he chuckled. "That's enough to make my mother like you right there. A hell of a step up in her eyes from the sort of girl that I used to spend time with." It made her laugh a little which was what he'd hoped it would do for her. He picked up his unused spoon, "If you need more proof, then you'll need to be quick, Bess. Hold this up to your mouth and breathe out, and with luck, we'll know a bit more." She did as he asked and smiled to see the bit of moisture there on the metal from her breath. "So you can move air. Ghost can't do that," he smiled, "And I do hope that will suffice for you, since the only other thing that I can think of would be to ask you to make water on my hand and I'm certain that I could tell you that it felt like hot piss -- but please don't ask it of me." She laughed, "I must pee quite often,..." she looked away for a moment, "As much as any girl, I expect. I have thought of these things before, but they never seemed to me to be any sort of proof of anything. Yet with you here telling me, I find that I am prepared to believe it. But the next question still remains." "I don't know what you might be if you are not human," Clayton smiled, "but I believe that you must be, or you wouldn't look as you do. And if you are not human, then at least you are a female who makes me smile when she speaks to me." Bess looked up a little shyly, "Thank you Claytan. I am in your debt for your concern and the way that you desire to help me." He nodded and went to sit down again. "Do you know," she began, "that just now, as you went over there, I felt the want of your warmth." He chuckled, "That only adds to my conviction that you are a female -- and it adds to my suspicion that if you are not a human one, then whatever you might be must be very close to one indeed." She smiled then, amazed that he could make her feel so much better. But then she fell silent for a moment, looking down in thought. She was wondering about things and so she finally looked up and over to him. "I know it not true, you know," she said in a quiet voice, "what you said about your mother." He looked up from his plate then, the forkful of food forgotten on the utensil, "You know of it?" She nodded, "Enough to know that it was said to ease my mind -- and I am truly thankful, Claytan, but I know that the one which you spent time wit' was not anyone who you would want your mother to meet." It was the truth, but Bess was making an incorrect assumption about him, though he didn't know that yet. Her confusion stemmed from something else that she felt in him which confused her since he hid it. That was what she felt and so she assumed that it had to do with orientation, which was rather far from the way of things. He looked a little perturbed for a moment and then he looked a little sad. After a moment, he said only, "It wasn't our intent -- what happened. It just, ..." She nodded, "It just 'appened, I know that. I can see some t'ings in ya mind and in ya 'eart, Claytan. I don't fault you for it and it don't change the way that I see you." "How do you see me, then and how is it that you can know?" he asked, as he remembered the forkful of food and put it into his mouth before he laid the fork down. She grinned at that and pointed a little, "We spend such time ponderin' what I might be that we forget you. What you did there with the food just tell me that you are a male, Claytan, for a male would do as you have done and finished a bit of food which was in the way of our conversation," she nodded in a decisive manner. "How was I known when you read about Molly Hawke?" "He looked a little blank as he recalled it, "I read about the Sea Witch Molly Hawke." She nodded, "And how do you suppose that she got to be a witch in de firs' place? Claytan, this have nothing to do with me disappearing. I am a witch, Claytan. Me born a witch, ya know. Me mother was a witch and me grandmother was a witch and her mother before her and so on. My grandfather was a houngan asogwe, and -- " "A what?" He asked. "Never mind," she said, "You best not know, because THAT have a lot to do with me disappearing, for certain." She reached for his arm, "To me, you are a handsome man, one that I can see meself wantin' to spend time with and work beside. I can see a little into you. There is a lot of work facing you here and I see that you are at least a little hopeful that I can help you with some of it. If you teach me, Claytan, I will do as I can for you -- and I mean that with a bit of hope." She laughed a little then, "Me want a friend, you know," she said a little coquettishly. "It too cold and lonely here for me. Seeing you here and meeting you now is the best turn of fortune that I have seen in alla my time since I leave Jamaica, other than meeting Pok." She looked away for a moment and then she regarded him, "Let me hold your hand again." He reached for her and when she had his hand, she smiled at him, "I must tell you something, Claytan. A long time ago, I leave Jamaica and land on Hispaniola -- a place that I think you call Cuba. I walk from the south to the north and I sail until I reach Louisiana. And there, in the swamp, me find a boy, Brian. Nobody could see me then, but him can. After a time, we were friends and I learn a few t'ings. He was a man, but him want another man and it that want in him which cause him ta die in the end, beaten down by three men for what he want." She shook her head, "And all that he wanted was the same as all of us want. Him wanted to be loved. But he did not die right away. I did my best, but his mind was far from his body. It like he was just there, but him lost the way to control anything. I found a way to go inside to be with him for a time, and then he die. But I learn something from being in there. You say me female and I guess that part at least is correct. I born a girl and I grow as a girl until I become a woman. Like most others, I learn that I want a man's touch and I crave to have his thing in me. I never minded having it in me ass either -- sometimes I really liked it - if the man gentle with me and put me in the mood for it." She looked at him as she slid her thumb over the back of his hand for a moment, "But I never crave to have it there. While I search for a way to help Brian, I find his memories and from them, I come to know how a man can crave the touch of another man. It all the same," she said with a small wave of her other hand, "to want the love of someone, and it is a form of Hell to never be able to have it." She tilted her head as she looked at him a little intently, "I see some things in you and they are the same as anyone might have. But I see that there is something else -- something different about you that I never see in anyone before." The statement had been a little incorrect and purposely worded that way. She had seen someone with these things inside of them, she just remained silent about it because to her limited knowledge, it wasn't possible. She read some similarity to Pok in him and it made no sense. She sat back a little and smiled, "I find that I want to know you, Claytan and I am someone who has not wanted to know anything of another person in so long. I only hope that you might feel a little like I do." He nodded, but said nothing for a moment. He looked at her plate and then he asked her if she wanted any more, but she shook her head. "Then please, Bess," he said, "Come here." She stood up and walked over to him, looking down for a moment, "You have never been with a woman, have you?" He looked up, "I have but not for long. I was in love but I guess it's a lie what they say about love being blind. After I left, I never wanted to be close to anyone ever again. I've been with women sometimes, but never for more than a night or so." "It alright," she said as she reached out to touch his hair, "You can be with me tonight if you wish it." "I hate to say it, and I'm afraid that it might ruin things, but I'm not sure that I do," he said, "It's not that we don't know what you are. I don't care about that. You're easily the prettiest woman I've ever seen in my life. I guess I'm just not sure if I want to try." "But you find me fetching at all?" she asked and he nodded, "Yes, very much." She ran her fingers through his hair for a few moments, just sensing him. "Please, Claytan, Stand up and we can see how it feels to hold each other. I haven't felt that it a long time." He stood up a little slowly and she smiled up at him, "I was wrong, you know. You are so fine to me, I must revise my estimation." She put her arms around his neck and stretched up a little to kiss him and that was the start of a very long kiss indeed. Bess made no comment of it, but it came as a thrill to her to feel his response to her and the wonderful way that it felt to have him press against her a little. But there was something about him that bothered her a little. He was tremendously attractive to her and she liked everything about him that she'd noticed. And yet, it felt as though he was holding back a bit somehow. "What is it, Claytan, "she asked, "there is something wrong, isn't there?" He nodded, "I'm afraid." She chuckled a little and she touched his cheek, "What in the world would a man like you have to be afraid of? I'm not goin' to hurt you, you know." "I'm afraid to do very much. I -- I might lose myself." She held him tightly then, "We don't know each other at all well yet, but I think that it is my favorite part -- to lose myself to the feeling. Just tell me yes, Clayton, and you can have someone to sleep against you who would be happy to share her bed with you. If you feel uncertain, we can wait until you are sure." "That sounds so good to me, Bess, "he said, "but it's something else. I don't think I can really talk about it." "I understand," she said, "But I'm not going to go away, you know. I just feel a hope in me for you." She began to walk away then, only feeling a little foolish. Clayton saw it and asked her to wait. "I just need some time," he said, "I came here to buy a boat. I didn't think that there would be anyone here." She looked at him and nodded before she thanked him and walked to her room. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 03 ***So this is the final chapter of this one. I could go on with a few adventures for Bess and crew, but I've gotta get back to the Marble, since things are heating up there. 0_o -------------------- Bessie and the Bible ---------------------------- During the next few days she watched him work like a fiend. It was as though their meeting each other seemed to spur him somehow. He taught her how to work basic tools and taught her to be a little careful not to snap the heads off of bolts -- after the first time that she did it. She didn't know whether he was trying to hide it from her, but she did manage to find the odd moment to look at him as he worked. At first, it had only been out of a desire in her to admire him a little, but it soon grew to where she had to try not to allow her jaw to fall open at his strength. She'd never seen a man do things such as he could with apparent ease. In truth, he hadn't wanted her to see anything like that, but there was more here than a man might be able to do and he only had one block and tackle and one come-along and a few sling straps so he dared not break anything. She was sleeping one morning when she was awakened by a sound that she'd never heard in her life. It was a whine which rose and fell a few times and then it stopped. She was about to close her eyes again when it began all over again, and this time it was followed by a deep clattering rumble. She ran back to find him standing watching some machinery as it made that sound which Bess found vaguely unsettling. "Claytan!" she shouted, "What are you trying to do? Why must you vex a girl when she tryin' ta sleep? I almost hit me head on the ceiling, just now." He didn't turn his head. He only stood with no shirt on from the early morning's work. He looked at the machinery and smiled, "Over one thousand horsepower." While she gaped at it, trying to comprehend, he shut it off, turned and then his jaw fell, "Oh, Bess." She looked down and realized that she was naked. Her first thought was to disappear, but then she almost shrugged. What was there to hide anyway? What was it that she had which needed to be hidden away? There was only Clayton here and she liked him a lot. She looked at the distance between them and saw nothing which might do more to her than perhaps get the soles of her feet a little dirtier, so she just walked to him a little slowly. "I like what I see in your eyes, you know," she smiled, "It say that I still have at least a little in the way of charms. Do you think that it might be enough to get you to come to my bed for a little while?" He was about to reply when her eyes widened and she shouted, "Your horse!" They ran to the door, hearing the frightened nickering and whinnies which sounded more like screams as his mare tried to pull against her tether to get away from the trio of demons who were trying to corner her. Clayton was out of the door before she could stop him and she ran after him, fearful of losing far more than the horse. The sounds that she heard from Clayton when he confronted them were like nothing that she'd ever heard before and she stared as she saw what the bare top half of him looked like now. The smooth skin of the man that she'd felt so attracted to was gone, replaced by ridges of gray musculature and Christ in Heaven; he had a pair of leathery wings. The three newcomers reeled from the harmless-looking little spheres which he threw from his hands and one of them fell over in his attempts to get away. It seemed a little surreal to Bess, but he looked more like the demons than he'd ever looked a man. One of the monsters backed away a little to try and come at Clayton from the rear, and he howled in pain as Bess hit him with a piece of four by four that she picked up and swung like a club at his head. The sound alerted Clayton and the soft little round glow that seemed to float over hissed and sizzled once it had touched the demon's flesh. While he wailed and bellowed in agony, the little ball moved through him, carving a painful path to his heart. It was over in another minute, three demons lying dead while Bess looked at his back as he stood looking down at what he'd done. She saw a little blood glistening in the sunlight where it lit his shoulder. His breath threw clouds of fog in front of him as his chest heaved. She stood waiting, knowing at last what she'd gotten only glimpses of when she'd looked at him. She'd seen something, but nothing had prepared her for this. "I'm sorry," he said quietly as soon as he had the breath for it, "I didn't want you to see this." Bess thought about it quickly. She decided that there was more to a friendship than appearances and she found that she still liked him. She tried to steel herself, wondering how much demon there was in him like this and knowing that when he turned, she'd better be prepared to at least appear not to mind the way that he'd look then -- whatever it was. She had no idea. She'd seen demons before and they'd never bothered her, since she'd just disappeared before she was noticed every time. What she'd seen in terms of their faces had always repulsed her a little. She walked to the very nervous and still somewhat frightened mare and began to try to calm her as best she could, "There is nothing to be sorry about, Claytan. You did as you had to do. I knew there was something about you which you wanted hidden." She stroked the horse's head and jaw, reaching to draw her fingers over the skin near to her ears without tickling. "The question which I see before us," she crooned as though she was saying it to the horse, "is that you have now seen me as I am, with none of the clothing which I can show myself wearing." With her patois, it sounded as though she'd said 'weering' and he liked that. "You looked to be interested in me then," she said, "Now I have a chance to see you as you really are and I find that I want it so much. Will you let me see it Claytan, or will you hide yourself away from me forever?" "I can't imagine why you'd want to see me like this," he said, "This is what has frightened people away from me all of my life. This is what I keep hidden away or I'd never have the chance to speak to anyone." "You feel that it is what cost you a love long ago?" She asked softly, "If so, then you're wrong, I think. You may look different like this, yett I find that I still like you. But I see that my friend Claytan feels shame which is not his to bear, the way that I see it." She walked toward him slowly, "There is a sad fact, Claytan and it is a truth which I was taught a long time ago. People -- that is, human people, are often quite stupid -- or they can be. You know quite a lot of human history, Claytan, so you know how they can be to anyone who looks different. I was a little fortunate in that I was usually in a position where I could ignore it, but even so, I was in a place where the color of my skin would only allow me to go so far. I would go to buy powder for my guns or rope and canvas for my rigging and if it was a place where I had never been before, the man would speak to my ship`s mate, Willem, before he would ever speak to me. If I went alone, he would ask me for the name of my master, thinking that I was a half-breed slave. I`d want to kill him over it, but what would that do for me? So please, Claytan, let me see you." He was still looking down, "My father was human, a man who fell in love with a female demon." He turned his head a bit and in doing that, she was able to see at least a little of his profile. The flesh of his face appeared to be stretched over the underlying bones a little and his lower jaw was just a little pointed, but she knew that she was looking at someone who was not all human and to her mind that required her to be careful not to judge him by human standards. He was very different in this way, and the longer she looked, the more that she could find features which she liked in a rather inexplicable way until she thought of Pok and had her answer. But for certain, she was not repulsed at all. "And that is how it would be said," he went on, "a man who was in love with a female demon. Anyone who saw her only saw a woman. I'd have thought that demons are close enough to humans that the females would merit at least the same word. A demon woman loved a human man. I am the result. My family was the only one like that on the island, so we hid it -- or tried to. By the time that we were driven off the island, my father was already insane -- a family thing, we were told. I loved a girl, and she saw me like this while I was asleep," he shrugged, "She was disgusted and worse, I could see it in her face when she thought about how often we'd slept together. She wouldn't listen to a thing that I said. She only grew more frightened." Bess stepped over and she put her hand on his shoulder, "I see nothing which disgusts me. I like you and," she chuckled, "I never see wings like this before. Pok have wings, but not this large. So you can fly?" He nodded, still not looking at her directly, "I don't do it very often, but I can." "I like your horns," she smiled and he heard it in her voice and it confused him. "Why?" he asked. "Think about it," she said as she stepped up to where her hand could reach for his face, though she didn't do it just yet, "Imagine that there were angels here right now. I'm not saying that you're bad or that you're good in that way, but imagine it. Who do you think would look better to a girl like me? Whatever was wrong with that girl you knew, I can't say, Claytan, but I know what me like, and it not harp music, you know." It made him smile a little and he turned his head fully then and she touched his cheek. "You look different, but there's not a thing wrong to me." He looked past Bess and he saw where the demon that she'd hit had fallen and what was left of his body from the little orb. "You hit that one pretty hard. I think I was more surprised than he was, though he felt the pain." She smiled as she tried to adopt a serious air with her hand on her hip, "That was only my first swing that him feel. Him knock half me clean laundry offa the line and it land in the dirt for me to wash again. That worth him life!" They laughed about it and after a few moments, Clayton began to get the horse saddled. Bess asked and he turned to her, "Not three minutes ago, you as much as told me that you have no real clothing. You said that what I might see on you is nothing more than something that you place there to make it look as though you're clothed. We're not going to do a thing more today until you have something on you to keep you a little warm. I have a little gold to spare for this." He shook his head, "What the hell do you do in the winter?" "I stay in the building," she said, "and it not really cold here in winter." She pointed eastward. "Over the mountains, that is where the winter get cold." He handed her the horse's reins then and walked away, returning in a minute with a heavy sweater, a pair of loose pants which had a drawstring waist and a heavy cloak. After Bess put the articles on, Clayton set her onto the horse and he climbed up carefully to sit in front of her. "Where now?" Bess asked and he only said, "Town. We might be back in time for supper if we hurry." Bess reached around his waist and pulled herself against him, "Whatever you say, Claytan," she smiled, her cheek against his back," I'll do as you say that I must." She wasn't quite as threadbare as she'd said. Bess had one sweater of her own which she wore as clothing on the coldest days and she stayed inside. But with these things on her, Bess felt warmer almost right away and she was thankful. "Must we really go to town?" she asked "I feel guilty that you'd spend your money on me. Why?" "Because as lovely as you are to me," he smiled over his shoulder, "I think that you ought to have some proper clothing and you said that you wanted to be with me. I won't feel good now, knowing that what you wear does nothing to keep you warm." "Will you change back before we get there?" she asked. "Yes," he nodded, "Why?" "Because you are bleeding a little from your shoulder. Keep going and I 'll see what I can do to mend you." "There might be a clean rag or two in the saddlebags," he suggested as he began to reach for the injured spot. She slapped his hand lightly, admonishing him a little that he'd only get it infected. "You know there are rags in them?" she asked and he shook his head. "I don't really know what's in them. I've never really had a good look. I just put what I need in them and when I unpack, I've found a few little things that I didn't know were in there. I always just put what I find back in. The bags came with the saddle," he said with a shrug," The saddle came with the horse." Bess looked down on either side of her. Where she was, the saddlebags were a bit of a backwards stretch, but she managed it twice to feel for things in the bags. She felt something which might have been a book in the bottom of one and she ignored it for the moment. She found the rags and after a bit of close examination to ascertain just how clean they might be, she was satisfied and jammed them between Clayton's lower back and her own belly for the moment to keep them there. She went for the book and sat with her jaw open at what she held. "Claytan," she said, "There is a bible here." "What?" he asked, "You mean like the Holy Bible?" "Ay-yah" she sighed with a bit of comfort and great satisfaction, "If it not important to you, may I please have it for my own?" "Sure," he shrugged, "I didn't know it was there or I'd have taken it out. I need the room more than I need the weight of it and the space it takes up." He heard her gentle laughter over his shoulder, "Then if you don't want to carry it in there anymore I must find meself a pack for my back for I will carry it with me always." "Well you're very welcome to it if it provides you comfort," he said. "It do more than give comfort, Claytan," she smiled as she leaned forward and kissed his rough gray skin, "It depend on the person. To most Christians, it a holy book. It that for me as well, but in me hands, if I can remember to do as I was taught by old Winifred, you have given me a mighty sword, you know You just guide the mare and forget about me for a little while. I must look for what I can do for that wound." Well it might have been possible to forget that Bess was there -- if she'd sat still, but she began to chant a little and in doing that, she moved a little to her own rhythm and suddenly, Clayton felt a little warm water on his shoulder, soothing the slight pain that he felt from his torn skin. It was followed by a gentle breeze which Bess sent from her mouth to dry it and by the time that she was done several minutes later, there was nothing to be seen on him in terms of injury. "You'd best change yourself back soon, Claytan," she said quietly, "I feel people not far off." He looked at his shoulder, "How in the world did you do this, Bess? I can't see that anything happened here at all." "I told you, Claytan," She smiled, "I am a witch. It part of what I know. This part ya call conjure, or you might know of it as hoodoo. In the hand of one who know, this," she said gesturing with the book, "this is a talisman all by itself. With it open to the Book of Psalms, I can cast all sorta things if we have need. I just need to remember more. I must get to where I can recite with only the right page open and me fingers on the words." He tried to take it all in and understand and he couldn't, really. But that didn't matter to Clayton. Bess said it was important and so it must be. "Why did you make it sound so, ... as though doing that would be a great task or something?" She sighed a little sadly, "Because there was no school for me, Claytan. When I was a girl, there was no school for the children of Maroons." She set her jaw in a bit of determination, "I learn at the knee of my mother and old Winifred, my grandmother. It 'as been a long time since then, but your hurt is mended, and so I can still conjure. Now I must set my mind to remember and practice reading again." "So you know voodoo then? "he asked. "That not what I said," she grinned, "I said hoodoo and it not the same thing at all, but I know of that too." At the small settlement there, Bess earned her share of looks when they walked in, with her feeling a little like a girl stuck in an accordion, since Clayton's clothing was far too large for her. She insisted on clothing which was made more for working and even so, when she walked out wearing what fit her, she drew very different looks now. "It's my hair and my eyes," she said with a bit of a helpless shrug, "They tell only one story, but my features tell another and my color tell a third. I can't help it." "I know the story," Clayton smiled, "You look awesome." "Awesome?" she asked, "What it mean Claytan, that I frighten people here?" "No," he grinned, "that you're a beauty." Bess had always known that her appearance was a little striking for all of her life. She'd never really considered herself to be a beauty, so Clayton's words elicited a response from her that was just as unusual. For perhaps the first time in her life, Bess had no retort to it. "Why do you look so shocked now?" Clayton asked, "Have I said something wrong?" "No," Bess smiled shyly, "Until now, the only ones who ever said that were my mother and my father and a girl can't take that to mean anything. When Alexander said it, I took it to mean that he wanted me for his pleasure." "If those were the only times that he said it, Bess, then I think you must be right -- and I think that he must have been a fool." She chuckled a little as they walked and she looked up, "I think he was, in many ways." He took her to an eatery where they ate a fine seafood dinner before they rode back, arriving well after dark and wondering about the flames which they saw as they drew near. Pok had returned in the meantime and finding the carnage, she'd just dragged the bodies into a heap and lit them up to burn them. Bess introduced Pok and it was a bit of a strange meeting until Bess finally figured it out. This was the first time that Pok had seen Clayton as he really was and in his natural form. Before she said what had come to her mind, the two stood looking at each other as though they were each looking to find similarities between them. There were similarities, to be sure, but they weren't seeing them at first. It was like a dog looking at a cat. Pok was a demon of which the holy books of many faiths spoke. To Bess' mind as she explained it, Pok was one of the many sorts of demon which were 'native' here and lived on a lower plane. Clayton, along with the others which were now so prevalent here were 'newcomers' from another place and plane entirely. They shared a few traits, physically, but they were different creatures. There were long moments where the two stared at each other, but they found enough commonality to try to get to know each other eventually. --------------------- Helping out Pok ------------------------ The cabin on board the boat was a little crowded that night, and guessing what might happen, Pok said that she wanted to find another place to sleep. Bess asked her about it privately and Pok shook her head, saying that she wanted Bess and Clayton to become closer. To her, it was what was needed, and it gave her an incentive to look for someone herself. Bess wasn't sure that it would happen, but Pok indicated that she was certain that it would. They needed time together and some privacy, that was all, and with that, Pok moved to another bunk in what had been the radioman's nook. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 03 Bess was concerned about Pok. They each had their issues, Bess being prone to wandering into scrapes and Pok tending to feel alone. So Bess made her friend promise not to just disappear. "We are friends for a long time," she said, "that doesn't wash away in the rain, Pok, and I don't want to lose my friend over this, either." Pok assured Bess that she'd be fine, though to herself, she hoped so as she watched Bess walk back to the cabin. "I'll sleep on the desks," Clayton said, "I'd never want to cause a problem." Pok was back in an instant, shaking her head. "Clayton stay. Please stay with Bess. "You do no such thing. Pok is right," Bess said, her accent growing thick, "unless ya want to be in flames. I spend the whole day looking at a very appealing, good-looking man. I know him fancy me and him treat me well. But I know there is more underneath. I wait the whole day to see you as you were when you were born, Claytan." She began to remove her new clothing as he watched and she stood in the narrow aisle, "Come Claytan. Let me see." She waited with a soft smile and Clayoin nodded, drawing his sweater over his head. By the time that his pants were off and he stood straight in the aisleway, Bess found herself staring as he changed. The wings brushed the ceiling and three other points in the passageway on each side, and she could see a long tail lying behind him and moving a little. His eyes cast a dim yellow glow around in whatever direction that he looked and his hair spilled over his shoulders like some soft shower of gold. Everywhere on him, she saw the ridges of muscle and what looked like plates of armor, though she knew that they weren't completely unyielding. He grunted very softly as the last of his transformation was completed and then he stood looking a little sheepish and very cramped, having to lean forward to keep his horns from knocking things. Clayton felt uncomfortable and a little stupid, but he felt a hope for something and he knew now that Bess wouldn't be put off. He was a bit unsure anyway, and the quiet gasps that he heard made it a little worse. But when he looked, he found that he had to look away and he fought hard to keep his face straight. Bess' lovely mouth was open and she was slowly sinking to her knees in astonishment and awe. Pok was already there, and reached up to guide Bess' hips so that she wouldn't sit on her. They stared at him, not really believing that he was really there for the way that his skin flickered a little. It wasn't much, but if one looked a little, it could be seen. "What is that?" Bess asked, indicating the phenomenon, and he shrugged and looked a little apologetic, "If I was outside, ... it's sort of, ... well, it's something like St Elmo's Fire. I can suppress it here, and even make it disappear, but it's not comfortable to do." Pok's eyes ran down over his chest, over the abdominal ridges to his thighs. There they stopped and shifted upwards a little, locking onto -- "Pok must go," she hissed into Bess ear as she turned, beginning to get to her feet as well. Bess pulled her back down. "Why?" The smaller demon began to whimper softly, "He strong and fine. Pok want him only to see him and he not for Pok." She looked down, appearing to be fighting off the urge to cry, "Pok cannot have him. He is for Bess and -- " She exhaled and it came as a tiny groan, "Pok cannot take him. Pok too small." Bess looked over the thin shoulder at Clayton who looked very concerned now. She needed to comfort Pok, but she didn't want to lose this chance at the same time. Given who she was and her long relationship with Pok, she was likely the only person who could understand that, though Pok might have wanted to be civilized about it, without meaning to, she'd seen a male demon. It didn't matter that he wasn't the same as she was. Her body didn't make that distinction and now she tried to fight down her rising lust. "Claytan," Bess hissed, "I have no way to know. If you feel yourself in lust, can you control yourself enough to at least guide it?" He wasn't sure what she meant and it was evident in his face, so she went on, "I promise Clayton. You may have me. I obviously want you. Pok wants you as well, but unless what you have there can shrink instead of grow, ... I don't want her hurt and she seems to be losing her own control." To no one's surprise, he only said, "I don't want to hurt anybody." Pok's head looked back from Bess' shoulder, "Sorry," she said, "Need. Pok, ... need." She groaned and forced herself to look away. "Then if it's not something that would hurt you, Bess, let Pok go. I won't hurt her." Pok was out of Bess' arms and in the air an instant later. Clayton caught her and she writhed against him. "Come on, Bess," he smiled as he indicated the small bunk, "I've never done this before with two girls and all, but I can understand how Pok might feel. I'm close enough, I guess." He got onto the bunk and leaned back against the wall. Bess reached to hold his hardening phallus for Pok, who, though she couldn't fit it into her mouth like this, did her best to show her appreciation anyway, groaning and licking noisily. Bess reached around and began to toy with Pok's wet slit as she watched Pok carefully and tried to explain. "She told me once that most of her kind are very promiscuous, once the mood is on them. Pok always said to me that she wants only one male, not every one that she lays her eyes on. Usually the girls are a little small and get torn the first time and most don't care, but she told me that for the right male, it would relax and open for him." She smirked a little sadly, "So far, you are not the right male." "No," Clayton smiled back just as sadly, "but I'm the one that her body is driving her to." "Exactly," Bess said as she looked into the whites of Pok's eyes, since that was all that there was to see there. "I hope not, but she might try to spear herself on you. She hasn't had a male in all the time that I've --" "Never, " Pok growled and hissed, far lower than Bess had ever heard that voice, "Pok never have male before. Want only the one," she groaned, "but never see male like you, ohhh. Need. Pok waaant." Clayton thought as he listened and then he smiled as he reached for her, "Come here, Pok. I think we can do something to help." As she stared up at him, Clayton sat up a little more and when Pok crept forward a little cautiously, he reached for her face and her eyes closed. "Are you sure that this is alright, Bess?" he asked. "I'm dumb enough to wreck my own happiness. I just want to help her past this." Bess still held his shaft as she nodded, "If you can do that without getting inside of her to rip her open -- no matter what you both might want, then yes, Claytan. Please help her. I've never seen her like this before." "Is her virginity that important to you?" he asked, and Bess shook her head. "I think the best thing for her would be to throw it away, but I know her and she'd be very sad if she did that. She's always wanted to find a male for her by herself, for herself. Where she's from -- wherever that is -- the boys just take the girls. Pok wants a boy who cares. That's what she's wanted all of her life. How can you help her?" He smiled as he drew Pok against him and he kissed her for a moment. Pok's eyes rolled back again and her body shook. She moaned when she felt his gentle touch on her clitoris. "Come, Pok," he whispered and she moved forward a little more, looking very skittish and yet wanton at the same time. He drew her to him, being very careful and quite prepared to seize her if she tried to mount him. She looked from his face down between her thighs as he guided her so that her small lips came to rest against the bottom of his thick hardness and he guided her, showing that he wanted her to slide herself over him. She looked from there to his face again, "What this do, Clayton? Pok want it inside." He nodded, hushing her and speaking to her very softly as he held her slender hips, "This is only to make me wet, Pok. I will not let you have it." Pok groaned in a bit of frustration then, even as what he was doing felt so good to her. He reached for her long clitoris again after wetting his fingers against her lips. "Press this against me, sweet Pok, and we can play our own game." She looked up and he could see that she trusted him now, so she allowed herself to be pulled against him until her clitoris was against that thing of his and she hissed in pleasure and began to rub herself there. She threw her arms around his neck and laid her head down on his shoulder as she moaned. Clayton controlled this and Pok allowed it, feeling her first climax as it began to come to her. Bess lifted Pok's tail and slid her hand underneath, rubbing the line of Pok's lips for her, but she found that she had to be careful then. Now and then, the feeling would overcome Pok and as she cried out, her wings would rise and she'd flutter like a bird who was trying to land on a narrow windowsill and Bess would find her face slapped then. Clayton coaxed Pok and told her that she was very beautiful and the first time that he said it, her eyes snapped open and she stared as he nodded and then she clung to him and wept a little. When he came, it seemed to cement something for her and she relaxed, her motions against him much more languid and carefree, as though she now didn't need to prove anything to anyone -- herself included. When they finished, it was a couple of hours later and Bess had fallen asleep beside them. Pok sat back and held his wet and softening phallus for a little while as she slid the tip along her cleft. "Pok like Clayton," she smiled, "Now Pok love Clayton because you help Pok. Thank you." She leaned forward and kissed him very softly for a moment, "Please be good male for my friend, but -- "she looked down at Bess there beside her, "maybe not tonight. Pok say small secret, Clayton. Bess alla time a little cold. You keep her warm." She slowly and carefully disentangled herself and kissing the air in his direction, she walked smiling to her bunk. Clayton moved and stood up, straightening his back as much as he could in the cramped passageway before he climbed back onto the bunk and eased himself down beside Bess, who opened her eyes and smiled at him. Her smile widened when he put his arm over her shoulder and she felt his leg do the same thing for her hips. She felt his shaft press against her labia back there and it seemed to signal to her that if she wanted it, well, there was something for her as well that night. She thought about it, actually fighting off the urge to raise and lower her hips a little so that she might rub against him, but as attracted to him as she felt herself to be, she wasn't in the mood now for any sort of tussle with him. Clayton settled it for her when she felt his wing slide over her and she knew that she wouldn't be needing much in the way of covers tonight. She pushed herself back a little and groaned for what must have been a full minute as she felt that fat thing of his pressing inward, sliding in so slowly until she felt the press of his balls against her, just at the same time that she knew that he took up all of the room that she had for him there. "What now, Claytan?" she asked as she moved a little so that the last of her syllables came out as a groan and he matched it. He whispered softly, "I know that you're tired, and I'm sorry that we took so long, Bess." She smiled again as she sighed, "It alright, Clayton. You helped Pok and it surprise me. I should have known that was the way to do it. What do you want now?" She watched his arm move out into space ahead of her for a moment as he stretched a little. Then it was back onto her again and feeling so good. "I think that I'd really like to show a girl named Bessie how I feel about her." Bess lifted her head and stretched a little to kiss him for a moment, "You want your Bessie-girl now? Come on then, you sweet man. Take your Bessie a little slowly and she yours. I have seen that you can keep your fine mind in control of your beautiful fat prick. That is a rare quality that I have seen very little of in my time. We can play harder tomorrow, my love. I have all that I need tonight. You go until you come, my darling boy. I haven't felt a prick in me in so long and tonight I can feel that I have one. Rock me slow and I am yours." He kissed her ear, "You were mine before this, weren't you?" Bess chuckled just a little and then she groaned out her words, "So you are a demon after all, Clayton, if you know that. I wanted to be yours the first I taste of that thing. I give up now. I will go where you go if you will have me. I'll sail around the world if you say that I must. Just show me that you can love me and give me this sausage now and then." It made him laugh low and long, "Now and then," he said, kissing her ear as he began to fuck her a little harder. ------------------ Preparations -------------------- The next day, Clayton woke up and seeing Bess there looking at him, he smiled and she smiled back. "I think that you are turning me back into a living girl," she whispered, "I feel things that I have not felt in so long." She smirked more to herself then, "And only one of those things is the way that it feels to wake up so happy and comfortable against a fine man, and just know that it can't last." He grew suddenly concerned then and his face showed it. "Did I do something wrong?" "No," she groaned a little as she moved to get up, "I only meant that I have the want to lie here with you for hours yet, but I must get outta the bed to pee." She kissed him very softly and smiled, "Please keep my place warm for me, Claytan." He moved over obligingly and sighed. He had to go too, but it was a moment, he decided. A few seconds later, Clayton's eyes flew open and he was up and running to where he'd heard her strident hissing at him. He joined her at the window in the door. "That cat there wants to attack the horse," Bess whispered to him. Out there in the yard, his horse was standing nervously at the end of her tether, tugging it as far as it allowed her to go. In the opposite direction, there was a large cougar. The cat was hunkered down low and looked perplexed and hesitant. In between the two, standing in a low but very wide squat, stood Pok. Her hands now resembled clawed talons and her expression was one of tense watchfulness as she shifted slowly from side to side. Her wings were up, but only a little, as if in readiness as well. "She's making a mistake," Clayton said, "that mountain lion might have had the idea to go for my horse, but I can see that it wants just a little opening from Pok to be gone in. Pok might get hurt." Bess shook her head, "You're right, I think, but watch Pok now. This is something that I've almost never seen in her." As though they'd been overheard, Pok's tail came up slowly behind her head and the end of it stopped in a spot directly between the tips of her horns. As they watched, the tip suddenly changed and Clayton could see a thin and rather pointed thing there at the very end where it stood pale and glistening for a moment. Pok's weaving movements stopped abruptly and a second later, two two creatures were a blur of motion. The cat rolled backward on the ground with a venomous spike in its throat and Pok was on it, her tail held high with a second thin spike already moving into place. A second more, and Pok's tail flashed downward between her thighs to embed the sting into the cat three more times rapidly before the large feline slumped in death. Pok stood straight and reached down to drag the cat off. A moment later, she was back and trying to calm the nervous mare. When she stepped into the building a little later, she faced a very curious Clayton who wanted to know what she had in her tail, since his own was nothing like hers and was only used for stabilization and balance when he flew. She looked a little embarrassed over it all. "Pok can hunt and fight, but not against many. Take time for each sting to come." She held up the end of her tail and he regarded it for a moment, taking it in his hand. "There's nothing here now," he said, "Nothing like what I saw." The last six inches of her tail now began to glisten a little and Pok reached for her tail and began to lick it, "This comes after. It for, ... she looked over at Bess. "It's for healing," she said, "I suppose that it's there afterward in case there are any wounds on one like her after a fight. Maybe the assumption is that they'd usually be injured. I don't know what that is, but it's about the best ointment for anything at all that I've ever seen. It even tastes good." Pok nodded as she licked on, looking to Clayton like a little kid with an ice cream cone. She held it out to him and he licked it once and smiled as he walked away. Clayton had the second engine running briefly and by noon of the day after that, the final engine was rumbling. Most of the next week was devoted to seeing if the hull was still sturdy enough and then the smelly work with the tar began as Clayton painted every seam that he could heavily. Bess and Pok threw themselves into sorting out the mess inside while Clayton built up a couple of pumps and generators to be driven off the motors if need be. After that, he rebuilt the stuffing boxes, the seals where the propeller shafts left the boat. A failure here would let the boat fill with water in little time at all. It took a lot of courage then, but Clayton slowly opened the valves to flood the drydock. As the water level rose, they all walked back and forth, peering into every nook and cranny, looking for water seeping aboard. There were small leaks here and there, but they were fixed in no time. Best of all, the boat was now afloat and since it was in the water, that allowed Clayton to actually run the diesels now with no fear of them overheating. As it sat now, the engine temperatures could be regulated by taking in sea water and running it past a set of heat exchangers or by opening intakes to allow air driven by fans and forward motion as well as the water. "What these?" Pok asked, looking up from the side of the basin and pointing. She'd seen the round cover plates for so long, but had no idea that they had a purpose. "They're supposed to be torpedo tubes," Clayton said, "The real ones carried two tubes like this and four torpedos." He had to explain the purpose of the weapons and how they had been used. "This boat is a copy. The man who had it built wouldn't be able to have or use things like that and he wanted to keep the look of the thing, so he made the covers able to pull away and he hid the radiators in the tubes. The engines are cooled by water at slow speeds, but when he wanted to go faster, he'd open the tubes and run the fans." It went way over Pok's head, but she laughed and didn't mind. She was excited that they were doing this in order to go someplace. Pok might have been a little childlike in some ways, but overall, she was very bright and intuitive. With everything swept out and clean, they faced the formidable task of getting the electrical systems to work again after hundreds of years. Not every bulb lit up, but after Clayton had explained basic electricity to Pok, she amazed him with her ability to find faults so that they could be repaired. At last, they opened the outer doors to the drydock and the ones which rolled down from the ceiling and he idled out into the early spring sunshine. Pok grinned, but Bess stared to see a boat which needed no sails as it moved. "I have sailed at over fifteen knots," she said, "nearly twenty if it was my Bermuda sloop. How many knots can this do?" The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 03 She had been about to say "with a fair wind", but thought better of it. Clayton just smiled, "These were a little famous for their speed." "What then, Clayton? Can they make more than twenty?" He nodded, "Let's just see if she holds together first. If she does, I think I can guarantee you a ride at over twice that speed. The original ones could make fifty knots on all engines wide open." Bess laughed and shook her head, "That can't be so. Nothing moves that fast on the water." Clayton smirked a little and pointed to the engine compartment, "Less than a hundred tons -- almost four thousand horsepower between the three engines, and a hull that lifts a little at speed" was all that he said. After a large lunch, the three of them spent the afternoon just sitting on the quay to look at her or they walked from one end to the other trying to get used to the motions of a watercraft. Clayton had little trouble and Bess had none at all, but poor Pok seemed a little unsure. Pok could see that after the meal, Bess was looking at Clayton and though she was a little surprised to see it, she already knew it for what it was, so before they really had a chance to begin anything, she announced that she was going to fly off for likely the afternoon, but she'd be back later. "Pok hear Clayton's story about island. Want to go see. Want to find it." "But you will come back, Pok?" Clayton asked, "Bess needs you and, well, I need you too." The little demon smiled and walked back to them, "Not go away long," she said as she hugged the two of them. "Pok alla time want live with you." She was gone a few moments later, climbing as she headed south. Bess made love with Clayton all afternoon, but they kept asking each other about whether Pok might be unhappy. Finally, Bess decided it in her mind. "Pok wants her own male, Claytan. She loves me and she's probably starting to love you as well already, but she knows what she wants. I think she will search for your island, but she will also keep her eyes open for the other thing. Now that I think about it, I know she will come home". Pok was back hours later and they showed her what she meant to them. She looked at them a little suspiciously as she lay in the bunk with them. She was happy and she was a tousled mess as she lay between them in their arms, but she thought that she saw something in them. "Why?" she asked, "We happy alla time. Pok can have this any day and Pok happy. Why now? Like this? Miss Pok so much?" "We wanted you to know how we feel," Clayton said. "We were afraid that you were unhappy," Bess added, "You're my closest friend, Pok. You took care of me for so long when I wasn't really myself. You mean very much to me. To us." "Silly," Pok smiled, "Always come back. Pok always come home." She stretched to kiss them both, "Pok cannot go, Bess. Pok here because have to be. You forget again?" Then she remembered what she'd come back to tell them and she grew excited all over again and it was some time before Bess could get the reason out of her so that it could be understood. Pok could barely hold still as she told of it. "Pok find place where are many ... many .... "she looked at Clayton, "What thing we live in?" He looked at her, "Building?" She shook her head in a little frustration, "No. This. Where Bess and Clayton and Pok sleep. What this?" He didn't get it but Bess did. "Boat?" she asked and Pok laughed and nodded. "That way," she pointed, indicating south, "not know. Bess say she had boats -- " The pantomime was a little surreal, but at length, she told of flying south to look for Clayton's island. She found many, but judged that he must mean much farther. As she flew, she had to dodge other demons now and then and that confused Clayton a little until Bess explained that Pok could change her skin tone in much the way that a chameleon could. Pok shook her head, not wanting them to dwell on that and eventually she told of seeing ships sailing and of other ships which reminded her of what Bess had told her of her life long before. "You saw ships robbing other ships?" she asked, and Pok nodded smiling as she almost collapsed from the fatigue of trying to get her meaning across. "Not know what way to go by them, our boat," she said, "Pok can help. Bess can help, but Pok see many like that. Some make bang." Bess felt her jaw drop a little, "You mean they ..., " she tilted her head, "have guns? Like cannons?" The smaller demon shrugged, "Not know, but like you say when you on boats. Bang. Then see place with boats. Have guns too maybe, but not move. Not work maybe. Not have ... what catches wind." They went out to the oak desks and after lighting the old lamp, Clayton spread out his maps on the old desks. "Can you show me where you saw that place, Pok? It will probably look different on a map than what you saw from the air." Pok thought about it and ran her finger along the map, showing where she'd seen the things that she had. At last, she seemed a little unsure, but her fingertip drew a small circle near the end of a large island. Clayton laughed, "You have managed to find what many have looked for if that was where you saw it. That has to be Esquimalt. It was an old navy base, but most just call that a legend. Maybe we can find something there. It's on the way -- sort of." "Where place we go?"Pok asked and he smiled, reaching for another chart. "That's farther on south," he said as he unrolled the map. He pointed at a smaller land mass. "Here it is," he said, "That's the correct old name." Pok squinted and looked up at Clayton, "Pok not read." "The right name is South Catalina Island," he said, "But today, people just call it Catlina." Clayton got out his collection of charts and began planning their course and it all went well until Pok asked the one question which caused them all to look at each other. "What about horse?" They thought about it and discussed it some. "There's room," Clayton said, "But I don't know how she'd take to that. I can build her a stall and we can stow some feed for her. You're right, Pok. I don't like the people in the town, and I don't want to just turn her loose here." Bess smiled, "I can keep her calm with only seven words." Their preparations took up the next week and Clayton found a lot of empty drums which he began to fill with strained fuel and roll aboard the boat to fill the tanks. "We'll need to fill these again. This is the other side of sailing without sails," he told Bess, "With full tanks, we can go over eight hundred miles. With these tanks here and a few more full and aboard, we can double that, but we'll have to pump the fuel out and into the main tanks by hand pump. Come on, let's go for a ride." They motored out and left the little harbor, turning south by southwest to cruise slowly down the strait, keeping Hardy Island on their right. As they neared the end of the little strait, Clayton turned around and since he now knew that there were no floating obstructions, he advanced the throttles and the boat lunged forward. He laughed to see Bess eyes grow wide in surprise at how fast they could go and their instruments indicated just over fifty knots. As they idled into the harbor again, Clayton was relieved to see that the two girls had learned his lessons on tying up well. ----------------------- Pok's Peril ---------------------- Jody Schlesinger was miserable and then some as he sat with his hands bound in front of him in a wagon along with several others -- new whores, or about to be. Barely twenty, he cursed his heritage for what it had given him. His mother had been a lovely woman and though it wasn't the way that he remembered her, she'd been fairly petite and many of her traits had gone to him; the short stature, thinness, and the light brown hair just like his mother's. Another trait which he'd found himself saddled with was his face. He didn't think that he even could manage to look 'manly' if his life depended on it. He thought of his mother again and for the thousandth time, he ached at how she'd taken sick and died when he was just a young boy. His father had always looked at Jody as something of a disappointment and that was evident in the man's face at the best of times. As Jody had grown -- always slowly and never by much, that disappointment eventually turned into an ability to ignore his son as though he wasn't present in the room sometimes. When Jody reached his teens, his father remarried and his new stepmother had a son, Thomas. Thomas was much larger and stronger than Jody even though he was only a few months older and it took him no time at all to see the lay of the land. He could say and do whatever he liked to Jody with impunity. And so he did. But Jody's fate hadn't been prepared to leave him alone just yet. The fever took both Thomas' stepmother and Jody's father within weeks of each other. Sadly, it spared Thomas. At the time that Jody's father had remarried, Thomas was already running with a bad crowd and as time had gone by; he'd gone from just a young thug to something of a profiteering mastermind who ended up running all or most of the criminal activity in town. Not long after they'd found themselves alone, Jody decided to strike out on his own, but the thought had come to him too late. Thomas began abusing Jody and though he couldn't explain it to himself, the thin boy found himself thinking that if his stepbrother could only set aside his slightly sadistic nature, Jody didn't mind all that much. It could feel good, but Thomas loved hurting Jody as much or more than he liked to fuck him. Worse, he sometimes brought a few of his friends over and everyone but Jody had a great time then. Thinking about it when he was alone, Jody guessed that he was the same as anyone else in that he wanted to be loved. He'd never had a girlfriend and it came to him as a bit of a surprise when he realized that he'd never even had a friend who was female. He didn't think that he had anything against girls, but they were just other people to him, and ones who never showed him the slightest interest whatsoever. Jody was supposed to look after the house as well as sleep with his stepbrother. But though he worked at it from pretty much the time that he opened his eyes, it was never good enough for Thomas. Finally, Thomas met a girl who could keep his interest and though Jody had initially hoped that now he'd be left alone, it hadn't worked out that way. Thomas' girl didn't like Jody and the next thing he knew, Thomas had said that he wanted them all to get along better, so he took Jody to an inn for a hot meal and a talk. Neither the meal or the talk materialized. Jody was sold and in chains within two minutes. Once he knew what was happening, he'd refused and he'd even tried to fight for his freedom and get the hell out of there, but the place was often used as a front to trade in young people and there had been plenty of muscle there to prevent anything like one of the unfortunates there getting away. It wasn't until sometime later that night, after one of the slavers had used him that Jody was bashed over the head with the truth. "You'd better get used to it," the overgrown pig had said with a pleased grin, "The boss brought you here to get rid of you. And the way to do that so that you'll never be more than a pleasant memory to him is by selling you to us. You'll only be here for a day or so, and then it's off to the south with you and as many as we can stuff into the back of a wagon." Jody's thoughts came back to his present situation and he looked around himself from his vantage point nearest the back of the wagon. There were seven other unfortunates here with him. Given that none of them were very used to this life, it was common that at any point, there were at least two people weeping softly, the young girls mostly, though not always. It never became too much of a pity party though; one or both of the men sitting up front would bellow for them all to shut up. That would still them all for a time, at least as long as they could cry quietly. He didn't know why, but the unhappiness of his life suddenly came crashing down on Jody then. He wasn't normally given to feeling much self-pity. Somehow, he usually kept that held at bay. But it was there all the same, just like any of them and now the way that it rose up in him was going to get him beaten if he couldn't master it soon. He looked down. His hands were bound and it was the only way to hide his tears as he wept, hoping that one of the crazy flocks of demons found them and if he could be granted just one little piece of luck, Jody held a wish that he might be killed quickly, since he'd realized that wherever they were going to, that place required more and more unlucky people such as himself to satisfy the demand and enrichen the slavers in the process. The very next thought was a question about why that was, and the thought after that was the answer. Because none of them lived very long lives, wherever they were going to. He hung his head and sighed, trying to study the patterns in the worn and dirty wood of the wagon in an attempt to divert his feelings. He didn't mean to; it had come out with no warning and it hadn't been loud, but before Jody could clamp down on it, a single sob escaped him and he hung his head even more. Seven miles away and from eight thousand, four hundred feet above the ground, a single being heard that sob out of all of the others. It was more of an awareness really, but it was enough to cause that being's eyes to open even wider. Though it was just the single sob of a young man who suddenly found that he held no hope at all for himself, it was a pathway which that being could use. That sort of pathway had been exploited by others of the type, but this particular being wasn't hungry for that sort of thing. This particular individual held no interest in possession or anything of that nature -- the pathway was all that was required to guide on. The wings ceased beating and spread wide as the creature heeled around and turned back, using the wind aloft as a driving force from behind. This was something which had never been felt. This was something from a weary young heart and the reverberations were felt as the chord was struck. The being had never known what this heart wanted either, though its needs had been taken care of. As it came rocketing back, the skin changed color to match the surroundings and the ears strained to hear the actual sound and not only the feeling. They were heading up a long bumpy pathway in between two thin hills not far from the water when Pok came streaking in. She saw Jody and knew him as the source right away. Slowing and moving to the other side of the wagon, she stared as he raised his tear-streaked face and her heart felt as though it had stopped with a crash. There was a wagon-full of very forlorn people here, and she could tell that the pair of men in front had something to do with it. But she also knew that there was more to it. If she killed the men right here and freed the ones in the back of the wagon, they might die anyway -- she had no idea if any of them could take care of themselves out here, and if there was one common trait among them, she could see that they were hungry and thirsty. For one thing, she had no idea what the right thing to do was here. For another, she was spellbound as she hung from the bars on the side of the wagon, staring into the bluest eyes that she'd ever seen. Her own eyes were vertical black slits with gray irises which were locked onto the most beautiful human that she'd ever laid them on. As she stared, she felt things going on inside of herself which had never happened to her before, but she knew what they were. She had no idea why or how, but she knew without a doubt that this boy was the one. It surprised her that he was human. Pairings for her kind were rare, other than females being forced by males of other types or at best, a pair of her kind finding each other for a bit of lust. Something like the hopeful attraction that she was feeling was a very, ... Well, if it happened any more frequently that it did, it might be called a freak occurrence. Pok was something without really even a name for the type, though human casters such as Bess' long-dead grandmother called them lost soul demons. It had nothing to do with their souls, the term relating to the way that these thin and slightly small ones tended to be and act, as thought they were feeling a little lost all of the time. Pok had been there for most of her existence, in fact. Her time with Bess had been a relatively recent and very happy occurrence because she certainly didn't feel lost these days. She had Bess, and Bess now seemed to be with Clayton. That meant that she had to make room to allow that and Pok understood it. Pok even felt a lot for the male and she was even happy that he was what he was. It meant that she'd now have help in looking after Bess. That Clayton had feelings for Pok was a good feeling as well, but the very best thing for Pok's little heart would be to find her own mate and the possibility that she was looking at right here almost made her tremble. She didn't know if it could be done and she was almost afraid to try, but she found a want in herself to help and then see where it went. She could see in an instant that he wasn't a powerful male for likely any other sort of demon and even for a human male, he was a bit small and weak-looking. But she could see his heart as far as spirit went and she liked what she saw there so much. He just needed help and some confidence. Her kind weren't really the monsters of demonkind by any stretch themselves. His cerulean eyes opened wide in shock and wonder at how his wish seemed to be about to be granted. He was looking at a demon, horned and winged - tail and all - who had appeared it seemed because he had a wish to die. He recovered quickly and wished that this end now. Pok's eyes opened wide and she shook her head, waving her clawed hand at him from side to side. She held her finger to her lips and lifted away to come to him, wondering how it was that he could see her when none of the others could. She moved to situate herself behind him and bent her head forward. "Not tell," she hissed softly into his ear, "Not tell, please. Not look or others see." He turned his head a little and felt his cheek touch her warm fingers, "Who are you?" he whispered. "Want to be boy's friend," she whispered, "Not know what to do. Boy can see me?" He nodded a little, wondering if this was an apparition somehow, but then he remembered feeling the warmth on his cheek," Yes." "Not be afraid, boy," she hissed, "Where you go?" "I don't know," he whispered back, "They're taking us to be sold again, I think." "Sold?" Pok didn't understand, but she thought about it quickly. "What name you?" "Jody," he replied, "Who are you?" "Pok," she said with a little smile from the other side of the bars, "I Pok. I watch. See you here. Not be afraid." "Listen boy," she whispered, "If you outside, free, what you do? Pok have home. Boy want go with Pok? Safe there." He looked at her and he didn't really understand, but he got one word from it. "Safe?" The demon nodded, "Safe. Better than here. Not be ... sold. Jo-dy stay Pok's home and think. Choose best way then, not, ... not this." He nodded, but he didn't believe what he heard very much. He didn't know anything about demons but what he'd heard and from that, he knew that they ate people, so he said, "I'd do anything to get away. What can I do to help you?" Pok smiled and twisted her head a little curiously, "Pok ugly. Jo-dy not afraid Pok?" Jody twisted his head and looked at the demon. He saw those eyes and the thin way that its skin seemed to be almost stretched over that face. As he looked, he saw horns growing out of the head and sweeping back. He looked at the hands which held the bars of the cage and saw long clawed fingers. He was facing a painful death at some point, so he shook his head. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 03 "Pok want look better to boy," the thing said, "but here, no. Need this to hide. Want help boy." The eyes widened a little as he moved his bound hands to touch the long fingers tentatively. He felt the warmth there and he looked up, "Please tell me the truth," he whispered, "I want to be free, but nothing is ever good for me. If you get me out of here, ...." Pok watched as the blue eyes welled up and one tear overflowed his lower lash, "If you're here looking for a person to kill for food, please be quick and let it be me. Promise me, and I'll do anything to help you." The eyes widened more and the demon shook its head, "Not want food. Not want hurt boy. You wait, you see, Jo-dy. Pok want friend. Pok help." He eased his cheek back against the fingers which grasped the cage, "I can wait. Where would I go?" Pok drew her head back and looked at him curiously. She saw the slow tears from his eyes and knew that he had no hope anymore. She had to blink away the beginnings of her own tears. But his next whisper almost caused her to fall off. "And you're not ugly, not to me, uh, P-Pok." "Boy wait," Pok said, "please." He felt the way that the fingers slid away and he nodded, leaving his head against the bars. Pok hung upside down under the wagon. She saw the metal straps which held the axles and the way that they were covered in grease. An idea came to her because of something that she often saw Clayton do and she knew that this smeared stuff was important. She hung down a little more and she scooped up some of the coarse sand and pebbles from the roadway and she began to pack it against the rotating axle. In a few minutes, it looked far drier than it had and she could hear the way that the aggregates were already grinding in there. A few minutes work on the other side and the quiet grating was an even better sound to her there. She crawled back up to hang from the rear again. "Boy," she whispered, "Jo-dy." He turned his head, looking a little surprised that the demon was back and hadn't been something from his imagination, "Pok?" He saw the fingers as they curled around the bars again and he tried to lean his face against them, but the creature hissed softly to him, "No. Fingers have sand now. Wait. Wagon stop soon. Hold hands here." He reached up, thinking that the demon wanted to hold his hand or something, but he stared as the coarse fibers began to smoke a little. He looked up and saw the demon's eyes glowing softly. Then the demon was gone. Jody blinked, but he saw that he was alone, looking through the bars at nothing but the scenery. "What was that?" A girl said, "I saw something just there, on the other side of the bars." Jody looked down and saw that his bonds were still smoking a little. He hid his hands away and tried to twist them as carefully as he could. Nothing much had changed, but he found that he could force them a little, He looked back, "What? What are you talking about?" The bars rang a little dully when one of the men banged a club against them, "Shut up back there!" The girl looked down. They rumbled on a few minutes in silence as Jody kept trying to work the crude rope which bound his wrists. It hurt a little, but it was something that he could do. When he looked up, he saw Pok there smiling with a little nod. The long fingers beckoned gently and he held up his hands again, twisting himself around better. The eyes there glowed again. It took a few tries, a little at a time, since Pok didn't want to burn Jody or cause too much smoke, but eventually, Jody could pull his hands apart. He put his wrists right back together again to keep up the impression that he was still tied. Whenever he looked back, the girl wasn't looking at anything but her feet, lost in her own thoughts again. As they went on, Jody could feel something underneath him. There was a rumbling, but it wasn't the way that it had sounded before. Now what he heard was the same as what he felt. The men felt it as well and they stopped at the crest of a rise. One of them set the brakes and got off to walk back and look under the wagon. He began to curse loudly in another moment. The other man got down and walked back, but before he did that, Jody caught the motion of him setting a shotgun down on the seat. "Quiet, Jo-dy," he heard Pok whisper and he nodded slowly, looking up only a little to follow a bit of motion and see the demon there on the roof looking down through the bars at him with a smile after it had crawled silently up there. He held his hands together and pointed with one hand toward the front. The other captives were watching the men, so he mouthed the words, "On the seat. Shotgun," and Pok looked forward. She didn't know what the article was, but it was gone from the seat in another moment and she set it down on a fallen pine trunk out of sight. "There's sand in the bearings," the driver said, "both sides." "Well ya got more grease, dontcha?" the other asked. "Yeah I do," the first man said, "but it'll just drag this out. I'll hafta get in there and wipe it out the best I can before I put more on." "Well, do it," the other one said, "We're on a ridge here, sitting ducks for --" Pok groaned softly and looked ahead. She saw the dark shape out there, maybe two miles off and closing. The man under the wagon stared as the other one fell beside the wagon on his face with something sticking out of his neck. The others in the wagon began to scream and cry out at the sight of a demon with glowing eyes staring at the lock and the hasp which held the back of the wagon closed. The screaming grew louder as the metal began to glow. "Jody," Pok growled, "push. Help Pok. Push." She pointed behind him, "Other ones come. Hurry!" Jody looked back past the others and he could just see movement if he looked between the heads of the horses. "Not friends, Jody. Bad ones. Help Pok. Push!" Jody lunged at the door and he felt it give a little. He looked over and saw that the metal was hot enough to bend a bit. Pok glared at it and the area which was yellow grew to about five inches around. Jody lunged again and the lock gave way, the back of the cage swinging open wide. He jumped down and found himself looking at the other man. But the man's expression seemed a little distant and then he fell. Jody looked over and he saw Pok, its tail peeking over its head. The other people were cowering in a heap at the front of the wagon. "Come on!" Jody yelled at them, "Get out. There are demons coming!" He didn't stop to think, but it came to him a little later that it might have sounded a little stupid. Pok wasn't hidden at all now and that was what they saw, a demon. "Not that one," Jody cried as he pointed, "There!" But at that moment, the flock that Pok had seen had followed the contour of the land and had dropped out of sight into the valley that they'd just come out of. Jody didn't know it, but Pok knew why. They were obviously looking for food and staying just over the trees, since the forest there was thick enough to prevent them from seeing anything from high up. Pok was under no illusions, however. She knew they'd crest the ridge in seconds, and then ... Jody couldn't convince a single one of the others to step out of the wagon. He couldn't believe it. Suddenly, he felt a somewhat painful impact against his side and then he was falling over the edge of the ridge on the side facing the ocean. But then he realized that he wasn't falling or tumbling in any way. Pok had him in a tight grip and she was flying him off. He felt the arms and he also felt something else against his back. He looked up at the crazy view of treetops above him and the underside of a demon's neck below that. As they neared the bottom of the slope, Jody grunted in Pok's grasp as she began to beat her wings. She balanced the strokes of her wings against her need to keep their speed up. All around him, Jody could see shifting colors as they rippled and slid over the demon's body. She looked down at him once and then she was looking forward again. "What happened?" he asked. "Other people not come out," the demon said with effort as it flew. "Pok not wait. Can't help anyway. Stupid people." She looked again and saw him trying to look back, "No, Jody. Not look." What she'd seen was the flock descending on the scene they'd left behind. Some of them were trying to pull the sides of the wagon off. The horses were already down and covered by feeding demons. "Pok not wait. Must go. Hope Jody. Hope they not see." "What's in my back?" "Shot-gun." "What shot-gun, Jody?" He was stuck for a moment and then he looked up, "Bang-stick." He watched the demon's lips curl at that. "Where are we going, Pok?" "Not think Pok can get to home. Pok not big. Jody not big, but ... Hard to fly." "You're not like those other ones, are you?" "No," Pok said, "They see us, then we food too." They were headed back north and in the wide channel, there was a stiff breeze against them. It would have helped Pok to rise and soar under other circumstances. Here, like this, she was too dirty a shape for that and she didn't want the height anyway. She could shift the colors of her appearance, but she couldn't shift Jody. All she knew was that she likely wouldn't be able to get them all the way back to Clayton's property like this. But as they passed between a couple of islands, they slipped down a little and Pok found that at this height, the headwind was gone and the going was a lot easier. She still had a way to go, but she felt a little more hope now. She risked a look back and she saw that they hadn't been noticed, or maybe if they had been, the temptation of the amount of food right there must have been enough of an incentive to remain and not give chase. Pok felt Jody shivering and she looked ahead. Irvines Landing was there. It was a little town and she didn't want to go there, but she knew that she was getting better mileage out low over the ground effect of the water than she'd get over the woods, so she went on, turning right after the town to fly up the channel. She didn't know the units of measure. She just knew that she could likely make it now, though if Clayton were here, he'd tell her that she had eleven-odd miles to go. ---------------------------- Who says you can't change a man? ---------------------------------- Clayton was a little tired now. He'd spent a large part of the afternoon filling barrels with a hand pump to give Bess a break at it. While he did that, Bess was using the blue light to look into other empty drums to see if they were clean. It was a bit of luck to find that in one area, there were a lot of clean nd empty drums which smelled like the stuff that Clayton had to told her they wanted. When she'd told him, he'd smiled and guessed that it had once been a place to fill drums and sell the stuff. Whenever he had a full drum, he'd cap it tightly and ease it onto its side so that he could roll it onto the wharf. From there, he'd lift it to carry it aboard and set it down with the others. For this sort of grunt work, he'd elected not to ruin his clothing, so he was in the shape that Bess now liked to watch him in. It was the first time in his life that he didn't feel ashamed and he had to admit that it did feel pretty good. Jody was freezing, but he wasn't concerned over that. What bothered him more was the way that Pok didn't speak to him anymore. It had been a while now and he could tell that the demon was past being tired. He could hear the deep breaths as they flew and they sounded ragged to him. As they came around a bend in a long turn, he saw some buildings off to the right and they seemed to be heading that way. Then they were nearing a ship and that was when he felt her giving out. They sank rapidly and Pok flared to slow down, but Jody heard the groan and then they were tumbling a little on some wet and cold grass. Jody looked over and Pok's head was in front of him. He saw heaving ribs there behind the horns and closed eyes. "Pok? Pok, are you hurt?" He began to grow concerned, but he felt the claws of one hand as they closed over his hand. Jody was worried, but his cares increased suddenly as he saw a huge demon walking toward them. He looked around, remembering the shotgun. Seeing it, he crawled to grab it a little frantically. When his hand closed around it, he moved back to Pok and placed himself in front. Jody had never held a firearm in his life before. They were something from the long past and only people with some money could afford to pay what a finder wanted to sell one for. But he had this one and he'd seen what others did when they wanted to use one. He moved the sliding piece on the underside backward and ahead one time. It had already been loaded, so the round in the chamber was ejected, the unfired shell flying up to pass Jody's nose, but he raised the thing in his shaking hands and pointed it at the demon, who had stopped by then to stand staring. "Don't come any closer or I -- I'll shoot," Jody said, wanting to curse the way that his voice sounded so thin and frightened. "What did you do to Pok?" the huge demon asked and Jody felt his jaw drop. Just then, a woman stepped out from around the corner of the building. "Pok?" she asked in a concerned tone. "POK!" She came at a run and Jody was even more confused. He felt Pok's hand on his leg, trying to get his attention. He looked down, "Friends," came as a wheezing sound to him. He set the weapon down and the large demon began to walk toward them again. "I didn't do anything to him," Jody said, "He -- he saved me and carried me here." The fingers on his thigh moved again and he looked down. The demon groaned once and looked up, "Friends, Jody?" He reached under Pok and lifted gently, nodding, "Yeah. Thank you, Pok." Bess was there then and began to mutter over her friend, running her hands over the exhausted creature. As she did, Jody found that he felt better as well for some reason. Clayton picked up the shotgun and he set the safety. "You really don't know how to use one of these, do you?" When Jody turned, he saw the demon smiling a little and holding the shotgun, pointed away as he shoved the ejected shell back into the loading port, and he shook his head, "No. Pok took it from the wagon. I was afraid." "Here," he said handing the thing back, "I've set the safety so that you don't shoot your foot off." Turning to Bess, he said, "I can carry Pok to the bed if you think she's ok." Bess nodded, "Yes. Some warmth and a lot less wind would be better. I think there's enough soup left. I'll make something hot as a drink." The large demon knelt and reached to pick Pok up, cradling her very gently, "Who's your friend?" he asked quietly. "Jo-dy," Pok sighed, as she leaned her head against Clayton's chest as he carried her away. "Where's he going?" Jody asked, "Where's he taking him?" "Claytan is going to put Pok to bed for some rest," Bess said, "You may come with me. This no weather to be standin' 'ere dressed as you are, boy. Come, I have something for you to wear." Jody looked down. When he'd been shoved into the wagon he'd had a loincloth and a cloak. Both of them were gone now. All that he had were his cloth shoes. The cloak must have still been in the wagon and the loincloth .... He guessed that it had come off sometime during the flight. He tried to cover himself as they walked but the woman only chuckled. "If it give you some warmth," she smiled, "then you may hold onto yaself like that. If it outta shame well, it not needed here. I have seen things like that before, you know." She led him into the building and guided him with her hand on his elbow to keep him from tripping over anything while his eyes adjusted to the dimness, "What ya name, boy?" "J-Jody Ma'am. My name is Jody. Will Pok be alright?" "I expect so," she shrugged, "and my name is Bess. What happened? Pok is not in the habit of carrying anyone. Where did she get you from?" Jody stared, "She? Pok's a --" Bess laughed, "Pok is a girl. I understand, Jody. What she is, well, it can be hard to tell, I think." She handed him a large sweater and a pair of baggy pants. Jody thanked her and as he put them on, he told her what had happened. "But there were eight of us in the wagon." Bess looked down as she stirred the large pot for a moment, "If there were demons close by and on the way and it went as you said, then there are none left alive now. So it seem that Pok has surely saved your life. She had to leave when she did. To stay would have been her death too. Pok can do many things but she can't fight more than a couple of those ones and they not the same as what she is. Claytan is closer to those ones, though he is different as well." As he watched her, Jody began to see her features. He'd never seen a person who looked quite the way that Bess did, and he thought that she was very beautiful. "What is Pok?" he asked and he saw her smile then, "She is my dearest friend, Jody. We have known each other for a long time. Pok is a demon to be sure, but she is something from the old style -- ages old, though I don't know her age. She come because I call to her long ago. There are many kinds of demon like outta the pages of a bible, and she is a kind like that. These others that are around here, they are something new. Pok's kind live far below and are held there. Most don't ever come here but some few now and then. Claytan is a half-breed. He is part man and can hide what him look like if he wishes it so." She began to ladle some of the soup into two heavy mugs and he watched the intent and careful look on her face for a moment. She looked at him for a second, "What did Pok want you for, if the demons were not close by when you spoke with her?" Jody shrugged, "I just remember that I wanted to cry. I was sold by my stepbrother and the ones he sold me to were saying that I'd be taken south to be sold again. They told me that I'd be a whore for somebody. Pok came while I was in the wagon and I thought that he -- she was there to kill me because I wanted it. I told her that I'd do anything to help if she'd kill me quick." Bess looked over with concern, "But Pok would never do that. She can easily kill what she want for food. She don't need to break humans outta cages for it." He nodded, "I know that now, but not then. She said she wanted a friend. I thought she was a male demon and that he wanted me ... well I'm used to that and I thought that it might be better than dying." Bess had to set the mugs down so she wouldn't burn her fingers and she laughed a little then, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh at you, Jody. I know Pok very well. She is always ... well, it not surprise me that she find a want to help you. She is a good person, though she may not look like one. Please, sit down here and listen to me." As Jody sat down, Bess drew a deep breath and thought to do her best. "Pok almost never wears anything. She is very warm inside herself. You thought she was a boy. I'll allow that what she have look like what a boy have and it even fool me once, but you may trust me, Jody, Pok is a girl. She think like a girl, she act like a girl and she have a heart like a girl. I know her, Jody, so well. I have a doubt that she even have the thought of it at the time, but I can tell you that to do something as brash as what she has done to get you outta harm's way, there is something inside of her which drive her to it. If you are thankful and her looks don't put you off at all, then you might find yourself with a demon girl who cares for you." Bess laughed a little then, "And it could be that you find the same thing even if you are put off, but in such a case, Jody, be careful. Pok might have killed two men and flown herself into bed from exhaustion, but she can be hurt easily. The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 03 Have you ever seen a girl? I mean all of a girl? I mean nothing by it, but you have a look about you that makes me doubt it a little." He wanted to tell Bess that he'd not only seen a girl, but he'd been to bed with a few. But if she was anything like what she showed to him now, then he guessed that she wouldn't believe him anyway. He shook his head and looked down. Bess reached over and lifted his chin, "It nothing to hang ya head over to me, boy. Tell me what you know." "I've -- I've only seen what's there a time or two when they kept us together," he said, "I never had a friend who was a girl. I ... I know what's supposed to go in there, but I don't know where in there it's supposed to go. I -- I never got to find out." She tisked at him a little to see him this way, "Hold ya head up, Jody," she said, "So you don't get a chance before. So what? You think there aren't girls who have never seen what a boy have? Not everyone grow up in a home with brothers and sisters, you know." She explained the general topography and the purpose of the various components to him. He sat fascinated and wondered why she would bother, but he listened intently anyway. Then she explained what Pok was built like and his eyes seemed to grow in size. "But why would she be like that?" he asked, "Is that normal for them?" Bess shrugged, "I come from people who had cause now and then to raise a demon, " she said, "And I don't mean like from a baby. I mean to summon one and have it do one's bidding, so I have seen them before. But I never see one like Pok in me life before she come to me. She tell me that the boys and the girls of her kind are rare, but that they all look alike in this way. The boys have a prick and the girls have their little pearls like the girls here have, but in them, it can come out very far. What I am saying is that if you have a mind to, and the chance for it, you might find that playing with Pok can be a little like playing with another boy, that is all. Now come," she said getting up, "I want to get this inta Pok before she feel a chill. She some overheated when she land here. That mean that she'll cool down and then feel the cold, and I hope that it don't turn inta anything." She handed him a mug and they set off, walking out of the building and across the rough grass on their way to the boat. "You have done that before, play with another man?" He began to look down and found her voice a little louder then, "Just answer me, Jody and stop trying to hide in the dust on the ground. What you take me for, a pickney? I a woman who knows and there is no shame in it, just tell me yes or no." "Yes," he said, "Sorry." "Well that's better then," she said. She led him onto the plank up the side and took him to the radio nook where Pok sat up in bed with the blankets up around her chin. "You feel cold, Pok?" she asked and the demon nodded, a little uncomfortably. To everyone's surprise, Jody sat down on the bed and thanked her. She smiled shyly at him and nodded. "There, " Bess said, sounding like a den mother somehow as she set the other mug onto the desk, "Here's something warm for you both. If you feel better, then be sure to let me know before I start dinner, but there's no harm in staying right there if it feels better to you that way." She turned around to walk back to help Clayton again, "You are both old enough for it, so if there is a brain between you, Jody should get into bed with you to warm your bones even better, Pok, but that is up to you." She drew the curtain and they heard her steps walking away and off the boat. "How do you feel, Pok? He asked after a moment. "Tired," she replied, "Pok is tired. Not made to fly boy around." "You saved my life," he said, "What can I do to help you?" She was looking down as she began to speak quietly, "Jody can stay? We go soon, look for place to live. Boy can come. You want place to live, Jody?" There was an awkward moment, but it only lasted until he remembered the way that she'd sounded when she'd been lying exhausted on the ground after saving his life and flying with what to her must have been an impossible load all of this way. He took her mug for a moment and setting it down, he grabbed a second pillow and placed it against the wall behind them. In the doing of that, Jody saw that Pok now wore a T-shirt, but that was all. He tried not to think of how she'd managed to put it on with her horns there and all. When she'd sat forward, he'd noticed it because her wings were outside of it, through slits somehow. He couldn't imagine how she'd have managed to get it on at all. He heard her voice again in his mind. There was something in there, the way that she'd asked him if they were friends. Jody stepped out of his pants and he pulled the sweater over his head and began to get into the bed beside her. Pok stared at him a little, but he didn't seem to notice it as he reached for the still-steaming mugs of soup. He handed her one and held his own carefully as he pulled the blankets back over them both. "I don't have anything, Pok, but I do have one friend in the world and I want to be with her. She's tired and feeling cold right now and I want to make her feel better." They talked for a little while and sipped their soup. He asked her how she'd killed the guards and she told him, showing him her tail. "Pok not big," she said, "Need something to fight with." When he asked her how she'd managed to fly with him, she looked a little nervous then. "Jody trust Pok," she said and he wasn't sure if it wasn't some sort of question. "Pok not sure. Know that Pok can't lift Jody without hill to jump from." He seemed satisfied with it until she continued. "Have to get off hill before others come and see. Like dogs they -- see it move, chase it. Pok not big, but have big wings. Pok think it might work, so ... grab shot-gun, and grab Jody, run for edge and jump." He looked at her with wide eyes then and she shrugged, "Not have choice, Jody. Fly or die. So, we fly." When the mugs were side by side on the desk later on, Jody leaned back and put his arm around Pok. She looked up at him and he kissed her softly. She stared at him and he shook his head and pulled her close. "Different," he said, "very different. But not ugly." She rolled onto her side toward him and carefully placed her leg over him. "Lift blanket a little," she said, and when he did, she moved one wing over them and asked him to put the blanket down again. She kissed him back then, reaching for his face with her hand as the kiss lingered and became deeper. When she broke the kiss, she put her head onto his chest, being mindful of her horns and she smiled as she closed her eyes. "Jody is beautiful boy. Not ugly at all." There was a long silence then until Pok couldn't hold it in anymore and she began to chuckle and he did as well. Pok felt tired, but now she also felt very content and so she began to drift off. Jody asked if it would be alright to lie down and so they moved the pillows and she was in his arms and almost asleep in a minute. "Friends, Jody?" the little voice came to him again and he nodded, "Oh yeah." She lifted her head only a little at that, "What kind friend?" "I dunno," he smiled, "How many different kinds are there for you, Pok?" "Two," she replied with a yawn, "friend and ... boyfriend. Pok never have one of those before. Want one now." She raised her head and crawled onto him so that she could look down, wanting to see it if he felt put off or anything. She would have normally assumed that he would be, and would normally never have asked it. But she thought that after what it had taken to get him here, if she didn't stand any chance at all now, then she likely never would with him and she hadn't lied. He was very beautiful to her and there was a part of her which believed that he was the one, so she thought that she may as well get this over with sooner rather than later. He was smiling at her. She took it as a good sign. "I've never had a girlfriend before," he said. She kissed him again and put her head back on his chest. "Huh," she exclaimed very softly and moved to get comfortable, "Now Jody has one. Not mind demon girlfriend, Jody?" "No," he said in a whisper just before he kissed the top of her head in between the places where her horns began, "I think they're the best kind." She put her arm over his shoulder and sighed. --------------- He must have drifted off at some point. Jody opened his eyes and looked right into Pok's vertical irises. She smiled after a moment. "How do you feel?" he asked and she told him that she felt better but that hours had passed. It was dark outside. He looked up past her without moving her head. The little space where they lay was bathed in a dim yellow light and he heard a soft hissing sound overtop of a dull rumbling. "Clayton charge batteries," she said, "Big batteries. We go soon." "What's that sound and the light?" he asked. "Big sound is engine for charging batteries," she said, "Light is from radio," she pointed and he could see the dials lit a little softly. "Radio works, Clayton say, but nothing to hear. Only sssss. I like soft light and sound. Have other light here, but ... too much. Want little light here with you," she smiled as she kissed his nose. They were like that for a while until the engine was shut off. Pok heard Clayton's call to her that she could have a few more minutes of light and then she had to turn the radio off. She answered that she would. She reached for a plate on the desk and held it up to him. "Bess make sandwiches for us," she said, "Bess come to see us, but Jody sleep, so I have these for you." He sat up, "I don't know if I can eat them all." She laughed, "Jody have girlfriend now. I help." Between them, they were done in minutes and then Pok put the plate on the desk and turned off the radio. Before she'd done that, Jody noticed that she wasn't wearing her T-shirt anymore. She came back to bed but now she didn't want to sleep again. She kissed him and nudged him over backwards, holding him as she 'kissed' him all the way down and when she had him like this, she began to kiss her way down his front until she was kissing and nuzzling her face into his crotch. Jody had never felt anything like it before and he was hard in seconds, though he was feeling a little shame at the size that he could offer and he felt that it was going to be a disappointment to her. He couldn't have been more wrong. Pok was so very happy when she'd gotten him hard and she fussed over it and praised him. He smiled in relief and stroked her horns. She looked up in a minute, "Jody, Pok very small inside. Very small," she held up her little finger to him and he could just make it out in the dim moonlight which came though the curtain. "This small. Girls like Pok never find right fit and always hurt, but want it so much." She held onto what he had and stroked it while she reached for his neck and pulled herself to him. "But there is little secret. Like this, Jody is too big, but ... Pok want Jody. " She kissed him and her tongue slid between his lips for a moment and then she was looking at him again, "Pok want Jody. When Jody sleep, Pok hold this long time. Pok feel. Pok learn Jody." She took his hand and she slid off him a little to spread her legs. Taking his hand in hers again, she pushed his middle finger up and she sucked it for a moment. "Move hand with mine." He followed, allowing her to guide his hand and in a few seconds, Jody Schlesinger knew that he was getting an education here. She pushed his hand so that his finger penetrated her and she smiled, "This not go before, Jody." He felt her shift her grip on his hand and then he knew what she wanted from him, so he did it very carefully for her. Pok sighed and groaned a little, giving him little clues all the while. He felt her growing wet and a lot looser to his finger and then she pushed him back again. "Pok know you not do this with girl before, Pok never have boy before, " she said as she moved herself onto him to mount him. "Jody, " she whined a little, "Pok want you and ... Jody not look at Pok's face now, alright? Pok not want scare boyfriend." Jody looked at her and her face had changed a little, not in what it was, only that her want of him now showed plainly. He reached for her hip and for one of her horns with the other. When she looked at him, he smiled to see how her eyes looked. "I have never seen anything so beautiful as this, Pok, "he said, meaning it, "I have never seen anyone so lovely as you right now. I don't need to look away. Do it, Pok." She gave a thin wheezing gasp, and her eyes rolled out of sight as she slid the tip of him along her slit and he groaned louder than she did. She eased herself down to a point where there was resistance and then she looked at him -- though she wasn't looking at him. "Pok," he whispered, "Can you see me like that? " Uhh --ahhh, she answered while nodding, "Not need eyes to see now. Pok sees Jody. Beautiful boy. Pok's boy? Want to be Pok's boy?" He groaned again, the tightness and the pressure of the obstruction getting to him, "Yes!" he hissed, "I want to be Pok's boy!" Her head went back as she forced herself down on him with a hiss of pain, which passed quickly and then she was fucking on him, her eyes alternating between being open and closed. To Jody, it was a thrill to see her like that, her head lolling back or hanging down sometimes and then rising up with her eyes wide open, nothing visible there but plain golden orbs which shone very softly in the darkness. She leaned forward to place her hands on his shoulders as she fucked him and he did his best to thrust for her at the right times. What he felt was incredible, she was so tight and leaning forward this way allowed her to almost plow furrows through his thin pubic hair with her long clitoris. She seized his hand again and she brought it to her mouth, licking it with her long tongue and covering it with her saliva before she moved it again to hold it on top of her clitoris. He couldn't be sure, but what he thought that he saw there looked to be at least as big as his penis was and he was amazed and happy to see it. He let go of her hip and began to trace her nipple with his fingertip and it caused more plaintive moaning from Pok "Want to be Jody's girl, she moaned , "Want to be Jody's girl. Need to, ... must be Jody's girl." "You are Jody's girl, "he said, "I want you, Pok." "Want you," she echoed, "Want Jody," she whimpered from behind her golden eyes as her hand flashed up to hold his against her nipple. Her face showed concentration as though she was performing involved and complicated mathematical functions in her head, but it passed along with the rest of her doubts. She was sure now. Jody was the one. He thought that he felt a gentle burning somehow, but then he'd never done this before, so what did he know? Deep inside Pok, there were machinations going on that even she wasn't aware of fully. The burning that he'd felt was the tiny incisions which were made to take a microscopic amounts of his blood. As they copulated, her body was developing its mimicry. Her body had decided that this was indeed the one, and as such, it tried to find out about the one and what he had which made him what he was. It was why her type of demon all looked similar. There were signals flying everywhere throughout Pok's nervous system and there were changes underway. There were also the very same change bodies being produced in her to give to him through a secondary set of tiny incisions. At dozens of sites on his penis, tiny amounts of his blood were being returned to him, each unit modified to defeat any reaction from his immune system - if it came to that, though it usually never did. All that her body knew was that a male had been successful in mating with it. Since he hadn't torn her and ruined the tissues which were at work now, he must have been special somehow to be surviving it this far along. Tiny probes were firing into him, to heighten this for him -- if his heart survived it, of course. Similar changes were underway in Jody's body to set about the longer, more profound changes which her body had decided would be required in the perfect mate for her. In a part of her brain, it was determined that they were both sufficiently near enough to their release to be able to feel the enhanced effect already and so the appropriate receptors in both of them were stimulated. The simultaneous orgasm begun, that part of her brain -- which she had no knowledge of -- stepped back, as it were. They were perfect for each other now -- as much as it was possible for her body to manage. That was all that this was -- a first coital act and initialization. The coital act between them which would result in young was assured to happen now, at some point down the road. This was what her ancestors had evolved to. None of them knew of it, but it was there all the same. If Jody hadn't been the one, this would not have happened. But he had been selected and so he'd been made the perfect mate for the one called Pok. In turn, Pok had been made the perfect mate for Jody. Both of them were screaming. --------------------- Bess and Clayton let the curtain go gently to give the couple some privacy. In the dark passageway, they looked at each other in a bit of wonder and a lot of concern. As they crept back to their own bed, they began themselves as the discussed only a little. "It can't have been too bad," Clayton whispered, "they're both breathing and they look asleep. I'm sure they're fine." "I don't know," Bess said, "I saw that too, but there were other things which bother me now." Clayton nuzzled his face into one of the two finest breasts that he'd ever seen, "Like what?" She groaned as she felt him enter her, and she looked up into his very handsome face, "Like the way that it has been minutes since they ended up that way, with her fallen onto him. They're unconscious. I feel it in both of them, but I don't feel anything wrong. She still has him inside of her, "Bess whispered, "He hasn't fallen out yet, and I saw that even though she is unconscious, she's milking him still. I've never seen anything like that before." "I hear you, Bess, but though it's unusual, that doesn't mean that anything's wrong, as you say." She sighed, getting into this now, but needing to say one more thing before she allowed him to take her away, "All of the years that I have known Pok, she hasn't had a single hair anywhere on her body. She's growing it now on her head, though, Claytan. I saw the bristle. She'll be a blonde by the morning if it doesn't stop soon." ------------------------ Jody woke up first and he looked down at Pok who was still sleeping on his chest. Her long blonde hair looked like a golden spray around her head. He moved it a little do that she didn't have it in front of her nose or her mouth. That hair had been one of the things that had attracted him to her in the first place, he thought, as he put his hand onto her shoulder very gently, not wanting to wake her. But she awoke from it anyway and she lifted her head to smile at him, "Good morning, Jody. Did you sleep well?" Jody smiled and nodded, falling in love with her smooth voice all over again. "I have to pee though." She moved to allow him to go up on deck so that he could pee over the side and when he was done, he came back to bed. He watched as she rose up to look down on him and reached out for one of her perfect breasts and she almost giggled, before she grabbed him and rolled them over.