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Aboard the Lady May Ch. 01

By: storyteller51



For any history buffs, this story requires a bit of suspension of disbelief. I know Felix's voice is a bit anachronistic (somehow I just can't manage to think like an eighteenth-century man), which I tried to somewhat overcome by using a third rather than a first-person point-of-view. Also, the rate of homosexuality among sailors was probably not as pronounced as I imply (sodomy was, after all, a capital offense), and women discovered aboard ship disguised as men were not automatically condemned to being repeatedly raped and passed around by the crew. Often they would act as chambermaids for the officers until such time as they could be safely returned to port. This is just the product of my (too) active imagination and (too) many history classes. And this is my first submission here, so please let me know what you think and whether this is worth continuing on with. Thanks. 

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The boy was fine-boned and slight, with pale skin that shone vaguely blue in the moonlight filtering through the open porthole window. Smudged dirt or bruises—Felix didn't know which—shadowed the thin planes of his face, and his eyes were wide, dilated and nearly black in the dimly lit hold. When Felix reached out to place one rope-roughened hand on the slope of his shoulder, the boy jerked and stepped back until he was pressed flush to the seamless planked wall. Felix followed, moving slowly, and his hands remained gentle. One hand on either shoulder, he began to explore the boy's exposed throat and his shoulders through the thin, dirt-smeared shirt he wore. The neck was slender and long, soft skinned, untouched by even a hint of whiskers, and the collarbones were fragile and prominent beneath Felix's stroking fingers. When his thumbs met in the hollow at the base of the boy's throat, he could feel the frantic, rabbit-jump thump of his pulse in pressure that briefly intensified against his skin when the boy's throat moved in a quick, convulsive swallow. 

"You don't need to fear me, boy," Felix said softly, then reached up to brush the dirt from his cheek. The mark didn't lessen, and the boy flinched slightly. A bruise, then, Felix thought and gentled his touch even more. 

"I'm not going to hurt you," he continued. His voice was hoarse from a lifetime spent shouting into the wind, and he persisted in touching the boy, hoping to calm him, to accustom him to his touch. "I'm just going to teach you. To show you how to protect yourself." 

The rasp of his voice was like fine-gauge sandpaper. His big hands cradled the boy's head and scratched softly at his scalp. The boy's hair was dirty between Felix's fingers and of indeterminate color, but cool and soft and straight. A small, sobbing sigh escaped the boy's lips and echoed back in the quiet hold. How long has it been, Felix wondered, since anyone bothered to touch him with affection? A cold nose turned and pressed into the cup of Felix's palm like a kitten leaning into a caress. Quite a long time, he decided. 

The boy was the fourth in a year Felix had been given to gentle. His appointment to the post began after one new recruit—terrified by an older crewman and abused to the point of madness—had slipped quietly overboard with a rucksack of lead shot slug across his back. As one of the few sailors onboard who could actually swim, Felix had been the one to dive into the drink, a rope around his ankle and a cannonball cradled in his arms to speed his descent. But the boy sank fast in the black of the cold north Atlantic, and Felix was hauled to the surface, frozen and gasping, half drowned himself, without either the cannonball or the boy. Before he was even dry he beat the man bloody who tortured the boy, then threw him, toothless and insensate, over the starboard rail. Neither an officer nor one of the tars saw fit to fish him out. 

Afterward Felix took it upon himself to guard the new boys the Lady May picked up. He couldn't, he knew, keep the seamen away from the lads, but he could teach and protect them, and punish the men who abused them. Danny—his first charge—had been red-haired and cheerful, safe under Felix's paternalistic eye, and a great favorite among the crew before he succumbed to fever and died, raving and wasted, still sucking spasmodically on the gray flannel rag Felix had soaked in broth and slipped between his blistered lips. 

Peter and Luke—his second and third boys—had transitioned well to the manner of life at sea and were content in their knowledge that Felix would protect them or, at the very least, that he would avenge them and help them to heal. It was better than they could hope to expect aboard another ship, and Felix was respected by the men and quick with his fists so that he'd had cause to beat just one man—a drunken carter called Kenzie—in the past six months. 

This new boy, though, was different than either Danny or Peter or Luke. He was younger, his skin softer, his bones more slender, his pale face almost pretty in the cool moonlight. For the first time Felix felt his body begin to respond to a boy's presence. He had used his mouth and hands on his earlier charges to teach them to expect pleasure, but he had never been aroused by their touch, and he had used a series of gradually-widening candles to adjust their bodies to a man's invasion. He had felt tenderness for them and an abstract appreciation for their smooth, almost feminine skin, but no desire. When he woke once in the night to find Peter sucking softly on his shaft in a gesture of appreciation, he'd stopped the boy and thanked him, then sent him back to sleep in his own canvas hammock. 

Felix could not deny now that he felt desire. He cupped his hands over the boy's shoulders and slid them down his arms. He could circle the thin limbs with his thumbs and index fingers all the way up past the elbows. When his fingers probed the hollows of the boy's armpits, a soft release of breath—nearly a giggle—feathered Felix's chest through the open vee of his shirt. The straight lines of the boy's ribcage and thin hips were nearly perpendicular, but the soft swell of his backside filled Felix's hands surprisingly full, and he groaned as his cock twitched inside his pants. He squeezed once and released, using his whole hands to knead the yielding flesh, and the boy whimpered, pressing himself back into Felix's touch. 

Felix took this for ascent and, without pausing to think, thrust his hands down the back of the boys rough-cropped trousers. Bare of undergarments, the twin globes were smooth and cool beneath Felix's wind-chapped hands. His touch was initially soft, then grew firmer when the boy whimpered again and leaned forward to press his brow against Felix's chest. When Felix felt the boy's mouth, warm and wet on his exposed skin, he firmly filled one hand with a buttock and withdrew the other to bring around to the boy's stomach. He hesitated for a moment, rubbing his thumb in the shallow, downy navel, then the boy licked his chest, and Felix arrowed his hand, thrusting down beneath the boy's waistband. 

Felix froze. He had expected sparse pubic hare and stones like marbles in their softly wrinkled sack—a small, tender erection that would erupt beneath his stroking touch in mere moments. Instead he found his palm filled with a plump and lightly furred feminine mound. The boy—girl! Felix realized in a burst of lust-fogged clarity—thrust her hips forward once, then registered Felix's stillness and ceased all motion herself. Her forehead and mouth remained pressed against Felix's chest, but she began to tremble again and her breath came in quick, panicked gasps.

Felix registered her fear, but it had been years since he'd had his hands on a woman. Before he could stop himself, his fingers delved and probed. He used his knee to nudge her thighs apart, then stroked the entrance to her body. She was soft as velvet, but tightly closed and just barely damp enough to allow one fingertip to slip between the supple lips. She gasped at the rasping contact, then cried out when his thumb angled to find her hidden clitoris. He pressed and twisted against the nub, causing her body to shudder, and she wrapped one hand around his thick forearm and jerked hard. 

It took Felix several seconds to register the girl's protest, and even then he had to force himself to stop. He reluctantly withdrew his hand, but could not stop his fingers from dragging through her folds or his index finger from flicking its blunt nail over her slightly distended clitoris. She cried out again, and then his touch was gone, and he stumbled back several steps to bend over, breathing heavily with his hands propped on his knees. 

"You're a girl," he growled, then wished he hadn't sounded so rough. 

"Yes," she answered needlessly, and folded her arms across her chest. Had it been possible for her to recede further back into the woodwork, Felix suspected she'd have done so. 

"Why?" he demanded. 

She said nothing, and he glanced up to find her looking at him, her brow furrowed and mouth pursed—a very full, feminine mouth, he now realized. 

"Why am I a girl?" she asked. 

Felix laughed painfully. "Why didn't you tell me as soon as I began touching you?" he clarified. "Surely you knew I was bound to notice." 

"I—" she began, then broke off. She licked her lips and Felix had to look away or risk leaping forward to lick them himself. She drew a deep breath and released it, then spoke to her feet in a quick, embarrassed rush: "I thought maybe you wouldn't know, that you wouldn't touch me in front. No one else ever has before. It was dark, and they just—" She gestured vaguely at her backside, and Felix felt himself tense with rage. 

"You've been buggered before?" he burst out. The girl flinched, and he wished he'd thought to use a more delicate term. 

She nodded and began to speak quickly, sensing his anger but misreading its cause. "Only a few times," she said and held one hand out as if placating him—or, Felix thought, as if she were holding him off. "I swear," she continued, "only three times. Four perhaps. And I can hold myself tight so you'll never know." She turned her hand over so it was palm up, pale and defenseless, beseeching in the blue moonlight. "Please," she begged. "Don't be angry. Just give me a chance. Let me show you."

Felix took a quick step forward, and she flattened herself against the wall, flinching, her thin arms raised and crossed to shield her face. He stopped, appalled, and regarded her small, cowering body. She couldn't weigh more than seven stone. She was thin to the point of emaciation, and Felix abruptly remembered the bruises mixed with the dirt on her face. The signs of abuse were there for anyone to see. He just hadn't taken the time to put together the pieces, which was unusual for him, as his main goal was to protect and comfort his charges. His only excuse was that he'd been aroused for the first time in so long that he'd lost focus on anything besides the sudden swelling of his body and the softness of her skin beneath his hands, the firm thrust of her backside and her warm breath on his skin—

He scowled, disgusted with himself, then reached behind his head to jerk firmly on his thickly tarred pigtail. The pain carried a sharp burst of clarity and cleared the lust from his eyes. 

He began to move forward again, but slowly this time, his callused feet bare and silent on the smooth planked floor. When he grasped her wrists gently, she flinched but allowed him to pull them down from her face. He released one wrist to cup her cheek. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across her prominent cheekbone, and after a moment she turned into his touch, nuzzling his palm as she had before. 

"I'm not going to hurt you, girl," he whispered, then wondered aloud, "What did the men say when they sent you to me?"

"Nothing," she said, sounding small. "They just opened the door and shoved me in. And then you started touching me, so I thought—"

"Aye," he interrupted. "I know what you thought." And she was right, in a way, but he couldn't bring himself to admit that just yet. Instead he said, "They send all the new boys to me. I protect them. Show them the ropes aboard the Lady May. Help them adjust. The other men," he gestured vaguely at the decks above, "they haven't the patience for the task." 

Quickly, before she could ask any questions—and because she looked as though her legs were set to buckle beneath her—Felix bent and scooped her up in his arms. He raised her high against his chest, thinking he'd been generous with his estimation of seven stones, then turned his back to the wall and slid down to the floor. He crossed his legs, adjusted her in his lap, then pushed her head down against his shoulder. He began to stroke his fingers through her roughly chopped hair and wished suddenly that he knew what color it was. 

He started to ask, then she turned and pressed her face to his throat, and he could feel the hot warmth of her tears on his skin. He kept his fingers moving in her hair and whispered to her, striving to make his raw voice as soothing as he could: "All right, girl. All right, now. You go on and have yourself a cry. You deserve it. You just soak my shirt, and I'll keep you safe. I won't let anyone hurt you. All right, now. Hush, girl. Hush. You're safe."

She sobbed open-mouthed against his neck for so long, Felix grew worried. There was hardly anything to her—hardly any meat, and not much moisture either, he reasoned. She would cry herself dry and spend strength she could ill afford to lose. Then finally, when Felix thought she must surely pass out from exhaustion and lack of air, she began to still. She hiccupped and sighed, then drew her knees back to her chest, curling as tight as she could, ensuring that not an inch or a toe or a hair of her hung off his lap. Felix kept one hand on the back of her head and wrapped his other arm around her entire body, hugging her tight enough to feel the pulse of her heart and the thick, slow thrum of her blood through her veins.

"Thank you," she said after a while, her mouth still muffled against his neck. "I haven't wept since my father died."

"When was that?" he asked.

"Six years ago," she answered, then added, "He was the one who brought me to sea. He was a sailor before he met my mother, then she died, and he said he couldn't stand the land anymore. I told him if he left me, I'd cut off my hair and follow him, so he cut it himself and brought me along." She paused then and reached up to touch the cropped strands hanging limp and dirty around her face. "I used to have pretty hair," she said wistfully, and Felix couldn't help but smile. 

"What color?" he asked, seeking to assuage his curiosity.

"Red," she said. "Like my mother's." 

Felix smiled to himself; he'd always had a fondness for redheads. Then he was quiet for a moment, figuring the numbers in his head. As a boy, he had taken her for fourteen or younger, but as a girl—and a malnourished one—she could easily be several years older. And her father had died six years before, which meant she'd been at sea with no protector, a girl masquerading as a boy, for more than a half-decade. It was a miracle she'd survived, much less that she'd never been discovered. Felix shuddered at the thought of what would happen to her if the crew learned the truth of her sex, then vowed silently that he would never allow that to happen. 

"How old are you, girl?" he asked and steeled himself to set her away from him if she was anything less than sixteen. 

"Nineteen," she replied. "Nearly twenty." 

Felix sighed in relief, then reached down to grip her chin and gently force her face up to his. "Are you telling me true?" he asked, glancing meaningfully down at her body.

She smiled slightly, easily reading his thoughts. "I was born the third day of June," she said, "1721. My mother died when I was nine. I spent four years at sea with my father. He died just before I turned fourteen. Now I'm nearly twenty." She paused to glance down at her stick-thin limbs, curled tight, barely taking up a third of his lap. She shrugged. "I've always been small," she said, "and it's not as though I've been dining at the King's table these past years."

Roused by even the indirect mention of food, her stomach growled loudly, and she blushed, looking away. 

Felix laughed and tightened his arm around her until she squeaked. "Soon," he promised, "I'll get you some food." Then the thought of leaving the hold, of facing the rest of the crew, caused his smile to fade. 

As if she sensed his thoughts, the girl wiggled to free one arm from between the press of their bodies, then reached up to touch his face. "What's going to happen to me?" she asked.

Felix sighed and grasped her hand, brought it to his mouth, kissed her fingers.

"I won't be able to keep them away from you," he admitted. She tensed and tugged on her hand, but Felix maintained his hold and spoke against her small, cold fingers. "It's the way of men at sea." Then he added without thinking, "I'm surprised you've been buggered only four times."

She winced, and he reminded himself again to treat her with more delicacy. She was still ensconced on his lap, surrounded on all sides by some part of his body, but he could feel her withdrawal.

"It was more than that," she confessed, talking to his chest rather than his face. He tensed, and she drew even further into herself, speaking quieter, seeming to shrink even more. "I'm sorry I lied," she whispered. "I thought you were angry because you weren't the first. I didn't want you to—" 

She broke off and tugged once more on her hand. This time Felix let it go. She touched her cheek, then her mouth, and Felix wondered if it was really as full as he'd thought, or merely swollen. 

"Fourteen times," she blurted a moment later. "And it would have been more than that. Much more. But I'm small enough to hide sometimes, and usually they'd let me—"

She touched her mouth again, and Felix wanted to howl with anger. He wanted names of both men and ships. He wanted descriptions, and ports of call, and his own vessel and crew. He wanted months to hunt down every bastard who'd ever touched her, to beat them toothless before he pitched them overboard to watch them sink into shark infested waters. And then he wanted to join them himself because he knew that he was helpless to stop it from happening again—and because her admission brought the image to his mind of the girl on her knees before him, his hands in her red hair, guiding her soft lips' rhythm on his thrusting cock. He'd let her pull back just enough to lick the swollen head, to press her pointed tongue into the shallow depression at the tip, then he would draw her forward again until he bumped the back of her throat. He'd force himself deeper, instructing her to swallow and hum, to use her nails on his thighs and backside, then to swallow again, and to swallow, and to keep swallowing.

He grew stiff and throbbing beneath her, and she felt it happen. She tensed, preparing to spring from his lap, but Felix tightened his arms around her. 

"Easy," he whispered, his lips in her hair. "I said I wouldn't hurt you, girl, and I meant it. I can't help what my body does. I want you, and I'm not sorry for that." Not very sorry, he amended silently. "But I'm not going to hurt you." His hands rubbed up and down her back, stroking the lumps and hollows of her spine, and she slowly began to relax. "Anything I ever do to you," he said, moving so his lips were right by her ear, "it'll be because you want me to. And anything you do to me, it'll be because I already did it to you, and you loved it so much, you want me to feel the same pleasure." 

His hands moved on her back, her neck, in her hair, until the tightly curled constriction of her body began to lessen by degrees. She rested her cheek against his shoulder and didn't fight him when he grabbed her outermost ankle and used it to draw her leg down and out. He shifted to drape her straightened leg over one of his own, then hugged her other leg tight and bent to his chest. She was at ease and breathing shallowly, trustingly spread, and Felix wanted more than anything to prove to her—and to himself—that she was still capable of experiencing pleasure. 


Aboard the Lady May Ch. 01



The trousers she wore were old and threadbare, so when he cupped his palm gently over her mound, he could feel the soft heat of her even through the coarse fabric. She tensed slightly but didn't try to escape, and then her hips moved, thrusting her pelvis up and into his touch. 

"Good girl," Felix whispered in her ear. He pressed inward with his fingers, then rotated the base of his palm against her, making her gasp and arch. "That's my good girl," he repeated, and his whole hand began moving in a slow, rolling massage. "Let me show you," he said. "Let 

me show you what pleasure is. The way it's supposed to be. The way you can beg for something your don't even know exists." 

He made a fist to align his knuckles, then began to rock the bony ridge lengthwise against her. His hand tipped up, and the second knuckle of his index finger pressed hard against her clit. His hand tipped down, and his pinky and ring fingers nestled into the wet warmth seeping from her body's core. She moaned and fisted one hand in his shirt, and Felix, sensing her pleasure in this caress, opted for a moment not to change methods.

"Remember how it was before?" he whispered in her ear, maintaining the same rocking motion with his fist. "How, even though you were frightened, for a moment you didn't want me to stop? How you moved with me and put your mouth on my chest?" She nodded, but he wanted her to acknowledge the truth aloud so he could hear the pleasure in her voice. He persisted, demanding, "You remember?" as he dug in hard with one knuckle and twisted. 

"Yes!" she gasped, her too-thin body convulsing as he maintained the pressure, rotating his knuckle slowly back and forth. "I remember."

"Do you want me to stop now?" he asked. He relented for a moment, then pressed in harder and began to wriggle his hand like a landed fish. 

She shook her head wildly, gripping fistfuls of his shirt, and her mouth was on his skin again, wide open and pressed to the warm flesh disclosed by his low-throated collar. With her cheek pressed to her bent knee, she was coiled shivering into a tight little ball, all but the one out-slung leg, splayed uncomfortably wide to grant Felix access to the humid hollow between her thighs. His knuckle still twitched and pressed on her clit, and he could feel the moist vibration of her moans on his chest. It wasn't enough. He wanted to hear them as well. 

Forgetting in his urgency to be gentle, Felix unwound his arm from around her bent leg and raised it to grip a handful of her hair. He tugged once, hard, and her head fell back, drooping like a daisy on a broken stem. Blue moonlight illuminated her pale face—eyes tight shut, mouth open and twisted as if she were in pain—and a keening cry escaped her lips once she was no longer muffled against his chest. Felix found the small sound beautiful. 

"Do you want me to stop?" he demanded again. 

She said nothing, just thrashed her head again from side to side, and Felix pulled his hand away from her until only one fingertip still touched the drenched fabric covering her crotch. She moaned long and low, and tried to press her face back against his chest. Felix tightened his hand in her hair and wouldn't let her. He began to trace his fingertip slowly over and around her sodden mound, managing somehow to keep the contact light even when she thrust her hips up and into his touch. 

"I asked you a question, girl." Felix reminded her, watching her face as his fingertip continued to move—slowly and a bit deeper, then so quick and light he only knew he was still touching her by the way the coarse fabric of her trousers snagged his rope-frayed skin. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No," she said. Her voice was deep and raw, making her sound for the first time like the boy she pretended to be. "Please," she groaned, and wrapped one hand halfway around Felix's wrist. She tugged as her hips thrust, seeking desperately to increase her contact with the fingertip that circled and pressed and danced away, disappeared altogether, then reappeared suddenly to thump once against her clit before withdrawing again. She cried out at the brief pulse of pleasure, then began to beg in earnest: "Please! I need you to—" she struggled for words, yanked once on his wrist, then settled for, "Please, more. Touch me more. Please!"

"Touch you how, girl?" Felix taunted. He was thoroughly enjoying the way each word sounded as though it were filed and hammered and torn from her throat. He scratched his fingernail lightly over her the entrance to her body, at the site where the heat and seeping wetness seemed to be concentrated. "How is it you want me to touch you? Tell me. Let me hear you say the words."

She bit her lip as her hips twitched, then she burst out: "On my skin! Like you did before. Not through my clothes. And please!" She arched her back away from the arms that were wound around her—one braced low and curled around her hip, the other wrapped high to fist in her hair. "Please," she moaned again. "Please! I hurt."

Felix asked, "Where do you hurt?" Her neck was bent back, long and white, luminous in the dark hold. When she swallowed, the tendons played under her skin in a slow, sinuous slide. "Tell me where," he insisted and bent to press his lips to the soft dip in the skin beside her ear. 

"I—" She dragged one hand across her shirtfront from shoulder to shoulder, shuddering as the insistent scratching of his finger continued. "My chest," she blurted and arched her back again. "Please. It's so tight."

Felix lifted his head from her throat as his finger ceased its movement. He had thought only fleetingly about her breasts. He'd noted her chest's flatness and assumed that she was either naturally small or that her extreme thinness robbed her of what flesh she would normally possess. Whatever the case, he was so entranced by her body—by the fact of her femininity—that he hadn't much cared. Now, though, he wondered. 

Confident that he was no longer in danger of frightening her, Felix acted quickly. He shackled both her wrists in one hand and raised them high above her head, then whipped her frayed shirt up and off in one smooth motion. She let out a small surprised sound but made no move to stop him or to evade his touch after he flung her shirt inside-out somewhere into the darkness of the hold. 

"Christ almighty, girl," Felix said, sounding pained. 

His stared as his fingers lightly traced over what he'd uncovered. She was by no means buxom, but the dingy linen bands that wound round her chest, rendering it boyishly flat, were obviously strained to suppress the soft mounds underneath. Even in the dim light, Felix could tell that the skin at her armpits and along the sides of her ribcage was chafed and marred with pressure bruises, and the slightly darker tinge to her skin along the bandages' edge—purple as opposed to the pale blue of the rest of her moon-washed body—hinted at dangerously impeded blood flow. 

"Can you even breathe?" he asked as his fingers began a frantic search for the place where the bands began. 

"Shallowly," she replied.

Felix heard the smile in her voice—still breathless from her arousal and, he realized now, from her sheer inability to draw a deep breath—but he refused to be amused. "Are you stitched into this thing?" he demanded, not noticing her wince as he pawed her aching, abused breasts. 

"Here," she said.

She stilled his hands with the cool press of her own, then wriggled her fingers beneath the fabric over her sternum. Her breath hissed between her teeth as she carefully extracted a tightly twisted knot, and Felix knew that he would find a permanent impression in her skin when he finally succeeded in freeing her. 

She picked at the knot for a moment, then Felix was there with a small, sharp knife.

"Stop!" she cried as he began to carefully slice through the bands. "I've need of that!"

"We'll think of a better way," Felix said, not pausing as he counted on her fear of being cut to keep her from moving. "You keep wearing this, girl, you'll damage yourself." 

She said nothing to that, just went very still, and Felix was suddenly afraid of what he'd find when the bands were removed. He worked as quickly as was prudent, but for all the fabric was old and obviously worn, it was surprisingly tough, and he was further hindered by the way the multiple layers cut savagely into her skin. If she so much as dared to breathe too deeply, Felix knew he would stick her.

Even before the bands were fully severed, the smell wafted up to assail him: hot salt, and unwashed flesh, and the stink of suppurating infection. He held his breath and continued his careful sawing, and when the last cut was complete, the bindings did not fall away, but rather had to be peeled. Forcing her to lean away from him, Felix drew back the left side, then the right, and the fabric made a thick sucking sound as it was pulled away from her skin. 

Felix wanted to swear, but even after nearly two decades at sea, he didn't know any words vile enough. Her breasts were lovely—firm and high and surprisingly large enough to fill his palms, with small, dark nipples that were drawn in tight and sharply erect; they were also covered with blisters and abrasions and sores in all stages of healing—some softly scabbed from the dampness beneath the bandage, others freshly erupted and tar-dark on her skin, all mingled with older scars as shiny as fish scales. His hands hovered over her, aching to touch, to bring her comfort, but he feared that he would only cause her more pain. 

"Ah, girl," Felix said, sympathy thick in his voice, "do you hurt very much?"

She shrugged, refusing to answer, and Felix realized that she was embarrassed. He understood her reaction, reasoning that she would be as bothered by the destruction of her breasts as she was by that of her hair and any other visual remnants of her womanhood. He did not, however, want her to think that he was at all repulsed by her. 

Deciding that his rejection would cause more damage than the pain of his touch, Felix cupped his left hand gently over her right breast and raised his other to her cheek. He stroked the puckered nipple with his canvas-rough thumb while simultaneously forcing her face up to his. 

"Look at me, girl," he said and waited until her eyes finally complied. "You've nothing to be shamed for. It's hard enough keeping clean at sea, what with the salt and the sweat and the muck of the work, even when you're not forced to wear cloth so tight to your skin, and not able to change it but, what? once, maybe twice a month?" 

She nodded, biting her lip as tears brimmed in her eyes and, ogling her mouth, Felix realized that he had yet to kiss her. In need of comfort as she was, he decided it was past time to remedy his lapse. 

Her eyes grew wide then fluttered closed as his face descended toward hers. The brush of their mouths was soft at first, just touching the one against the other, without any pressure on either side. Then the girl sighed, and her warm breath across his lips made Felix groan and respond more strongly than he had intended. He changed his hold on her face, moving his thumb to her chin, then pressed down hard so her mouth fell open. Quickly, giving her no time to react, he thrust his tongue inside to rub against hers. She tasted pleasantly of grog and something sweet that he could identify only as woman. He grazed her lip with his teeth and, with skill he'd forgotten he possessed, sucked her tongue back into his mouth. And then she was kissing him in return. 

It was obvious she'd never been kissed before—at least not in any way he cared to think about—but he found her ineptness arousing and sweetly endearing. It was further evidence of her essential innocence and her uninhibited willingness to respond to his touch despite the abuse to which she had been subjected. Their teeth clacked as she awkwardly mashed their noses together, but Felix patiently taught her to angle her head, to advance and retreat with her lips and tongue rather then her entire jaw. Before long she was kissing him expertly—thrusting her tongue inside to stroke a moan from his mouth, then tangling with his and teasing him to follow her back past her lips. He found a hole in the top right line of her molars, and when he tentatively probed with his tongue, he found the wound fresh, the gums still jagged, tenderly swollen and tasting saltily of recently spilled blood. 

Felix pulled back slightly, intending to ask how she'd lost the tooth—although he suspected he already knew—but she was not ready to relinquish his lips. She leaned forward, following his mouth, and whimpered as the movement forced her torn breast into firmer contact with the hand that still covered it. He tried to pull back, to lighten his touch, but she grabbed his wrist and held firm, her message clear despite the negligible amount of strength she used to secure him. 

"I don't want to hurt you," Felix whispered into the breath of space she allowed to form between them. 

"Then don't," she said and pressed her mouth to his again, as if that settled the issue.

And, in a way, Felix supposed it did. He drew back his hand, despite her feeble protests, until he'd released all of her breast but the nipple. When she realized he didn't intend to stop touching her altogether, she released his wrist and began instead to run her fingers down and up his forearms to where they disappeared into the rolled cuffs of his shirt. Her fingertips were callused and hard as his own, but somehow smoother, the nails just long enough to scratch lightly at his skin. Felix, in turn, rubbed his thumb over her nipple, then plucked and twisted until she bit his lip hard enough to burn. He laughed softly, then curled the arm she leaned against down and around her. He stroked her stomach, trailed his fingers over the corrugated latter of her ribs, dipped his thumb into her navel and circled it in time with the one on her nipple. She moaned into his mouth and squirmed, mindlessly rubbing the rounded globes of her ass over the length of his hard cock trapped beneath her. 

Felix tore his mouth away from hers. She was panting, her breasts rising and falling rapidly, while Felix's breath hissed through his nose in short, rapid bursts—as tightly controlled as the leash he'd placed on his desire. He could have her trousers off, he knew, and be inside her in seconds. She was a virgin and she would cry out, but in surprise more than pain. She was more than ready for him. Her body was throbbing and swollen with need. Felix could feel the pounding of her pulse everywhere he touched her, and the scent of her musky secretions hung thick and sweet in the air around them. He could imagine the buttery slick grip of her inner muscles, the pouting lips he'd briefly touched that he knew would cling and slide along his rigid length, the way her short nails would score the backs of his thighs, dragging him closer and deeper while her long, thin legs wound around him like velvet ropes, sanded smooth by sea spray and the rub of her rough trousers over her skin. And it would be, like all of her previous sexual encounters, what he wanted, rather than what she chose for herself.

Instead of giving into the demands of his long-deprived body, Felix kissed her hard. He lapped at the seam of her lips like the sea along the ship's stern, then dragged his mouth across her cheek and down the side of her neck. She arched to give him better access as he worked his way back up, planting sharp, nipping kisses along the way, until his lips latched softly onto her earlobe. He sucked and scraped with his teeth, then scored her ear with a quick plunge of his warm tongue. She gasped, surprised by the sensation, and by the cool brush of air that followed as he whispered in her ear.

"Tell me your name, girl," he demanded and traced his tongue along the shell of her ear.

She shivered and said, "Jemima."

"Jemima?" 

His mouth paused in its ministrations. He could see her as a Persephone or a Morwenna, Rhiannon perhaps, or any of the other nymphs he knew from song and legend. But his mother's cousin had been called Jemima; she'd baked bread that floated on air and been broad as a well-fed broodmare. He'd loved her dearly and had never entertained a single carnal thought about her enormous, pillowy breasts or the thick thighs delineated whenever she wore her wrapper and stooped to bank the fire before bedtime.

"Jamie," the girl amended, and Felix felt her fingers plunge into the tarred hair at the nape of his neck, tugging urgently. "I go by Jamie."

"Ah," Felix said, "of course." He tested it, whispering, "Jamie," then repeated it twice more and decided he quite liked it. It was short and pretty and he could call her by it in front of the crew without anyone suspecting a thing. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "I'm Felix."

"Felix?" she said and her fingers stilled in his hair. "I'd have thought Marcus or Patrick. William, maybe. I had a dog once named Felix. He was small and yappy. Not at all like you."

Felix let out a sharp bark of laughter, deciding he liked much more about the girl than just her pretty name and delectable body. He squeezed her in a tight, sideways hug, careful not to smash her sore breasts, and kissed her until they were both desperate for air. 

"Nonetheless," he panted when their mouths finally parted, "my name is Felix."

"Felix," she whispered against his lips, and copied him by saying it three times. "It's a nice name, I suppose."

"Thank you, Jamie."

"You're welcome, Felix."

They both laughed. And then his thumbs were back on her nipples, both of them this time, twisting and rubbing until her back arched and she raised her mouth for another kiss. He obliged her, using his tongue and suckling her own as one hand abandoned her breasts to make its slow descent down her abdomen.

Smoothly, he extracted his tongue from her mouth. "What do you want, Jamie?" he said, the backs of his knuckles slowly stroking the hollow between the two halves of her ribcage.

She looked up at him, dark eyes wide in her face, obviously surprised he would ask.

"Don't you want to rut on me?" she asked.

This time it was Felix's turn to wince; they both needed to work on their terminology.

"Very much," he said, thrusting his hips up beneath her to illustrate his point, making her eyes pop even wider. "But what do you want?"

She smiled as she melted against him. Her body went limp and boneless. "Your hand," she said. "I very much like the way you touch me. But please," she added, "not through my clothes. On my skin, like you did before, the time I made you stop." 

"Will you make me stop again?" he teased, his hand already inching toward the waistband of her pants.

"No," she breathed into his mouth and arched, irritated by his slowness. "Please, Felix." 

"Be patient," he said, pulling unhurriedly at her laces. "I want you bare, Jamie. And I want you begging."

"I just want you," she whispered.

Felix swore, suddenly unable to continue with his torment, and began to tear at her fly. 

"Let me," she said, sounding satisfied as she kissed his chest, and her nimble fingers had her pants undone in seconds. 

Felix gripped fistfuls of fabric, tearing it down her thighs, not caring when the fragile material fell apart in his hands. He'd already determined to find her new clothes—ones that were softer and concealed more so she wouldn't be forced to abuse her body in order to remain safe. 

Her legs, like the rest of her—like he'd imagined they would be—were long and too thin, white washed pale blue by the cool moonlight. Beneath his callused hands her skin was smooth, nearly hairless as far as he could tell, and the curls at her thighs' juncture were neat and tight but not thick enough to completely cover the swollen folds that peeked shyly from beneath. He arranged her on his lap much as he had before: the leg closest to him bent and pressed to his chest with her other splayed as wide as the hip would allow, and all the while he never took his eyes off her plump, downy mound. Her secret hair, he knew, must surely be red, but in the hold it looked as inky dark as the nighttime sea. The contrast between it and her white, white skin struck Felix as the loveliest thing he'd seen in his life. 




Aboard the Lady May Ch. 01



When he finally cupped his palm over her naked cunt, they both sighed in relief. Felix parted her quickly, dragged his middle finger through her sodden slit, then continued up under her clit's protective hood to lave the firm nub with her juices. He was through teasing her. And himself. He wanted her screaming her pleasure into his mouth. He wanted to watch her thighs quiver while his thumb scrubbed her clit and her inner muscles clamped tight on his invading fingers. And he wanted it now. 

Felix aligned three fingers along her body's entrance and began to rub briskly, creating slick friction softened by the copious liquid that seeped from between her cunt's puffy lips. She arched, gasping, then let out a soft sob when his thumb pushed back her hood and began to knead her clit in rhythm with his surging fingers. He pushed his thumb and fingers apart, then retracted them back, forcing her sodden folds together then apart, then together again, over and over, all the while mashing them flat against her prominent pelvic bone. 

With his other hand, he pulled alternately on her nipples, less gently than before, until they stood out long and hard as wooden toggles. Each tug of his fingers made her back bow, causing her entire body to move in rhythm against his—her chest rising and falling, drawn by his grip on her nipples, and her hips bucking wildly, seeking to simultaneously evade and to gain closer contact with the hand that labored furiously over her cunt. Felix could feel her body growing tighter and tighter, her muscles hardening and beginning to shake as he hurled her mercilessly toward climax. 

He changed the angle of his thumb slightly so the hard-callused ridge at the tip scraped her clit. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound that emerged was tiny and high, nearly inaudible over the sounds of the shifting ship and the wet sluice of his fingers through her dripping folds. When she tried to turn her face away, to bury it against his chest. Felix released the nipple he was flicking and tangled his hand in the short stands of her hair. 

"No, Jamie," he said. "Let me watch your face. Let me see how beautiful you are."

He continued to strum her clit as he began to work his long middle finger up inside her body. Drenched as she was, it still wasn't easy, and he could feel the small tongues of muscle that fought his invasion.

"Easy, girl," he ground out through his teeth, twisting his finger until it was seated in her up to the second knuckle. "That's it. Relax, Jamie. Good girl. Don't fight me, now." 

Thrusting his finger in teasing pulses, Felix patiently worked at her while his thumb pressed her clit and stirred in tight, rapid circles. Gradually, her body softened, and he was able to sink his finger deep by exerting hardly any pressure. She had no hymen—the result, he suspected, of years spent climbing the rigging and straddling masts—but she was still small and impossibly tight. He slowly slid his finger out, then thrust it deep again, nearly wincing at the way her hot walls viced around his plunging digit. She moaned, biting her lip, and began rocking her hips in temp with the quick rhythm he commenced. 

"Go ahead and shout if you want, girl." Felix spoke into her upturned face, still held immobile by his hand in her hair. "No one'll hear. And if they do, they'll just think I'm breaking you in. A little yelling's to be expected."

Still biting her lip, her head began to thrash from side to side. She was close. Felix could tell. Stopping to penetrate her had postponed her imminent climax, but she was back on the edge, and Felix knew the sensations were only intensified by the extra time he had taken as well as by the fact that he was now able to stimulate her from both inside and out. He stabbed his finger deep a dozen times then, without warning, withdrew it completely. After a split second in which she gripped his wrist and let out a piercing cry, Felix crossed his middle over his index finger and thrust both full-length back inside her.

The additional thickness paired with the ridged bumps of his crossed knuckles drove Jamie past her breaking point. Still clinging to his wrist, her hips surged upwards, her eyes rolled back in her head, and her mouth opened so wide Felix could see the hole of her missing top molar. He was prepared to seal her lips with his own if her shrieks grew too loud but was pleasurably surprised when no sound at all broke free and he was not forced to obstruct his view of her face. Watching the muscles in her throat visibly constrict, Felix doubted she was able to breathe, much less scream. And as she flailed against him, he released her hair to wrap his arm around her, tight across her shoulders. Immediately, her hand that was not gripping his wrist flew up to twine with his free hand, both of which he pressed against his own galloping heart.

Between her rigid, widespread thighs, he was relentless, stroking Jamie through her convulsions of ecstasy until she drew a deep shuddering breath and dry sobs began to wrack her small frame. Peeking over his arm, Felix watched her scarred breasts heave with each choking breath and was tempted to continue his caresses, to prolong her climax for as long as possible. He doubted, however, that Jamie's frail body—weakened by prolonged hunger and abuse—was capable of withstanding another onslaught of the torturous pleasure. Regretfully, knowing she was so sensitized from the hours-long buildup that with the slightest effort he could send her hurtling over the edge again, Felix gently withdrew his thumb from her clit and his twined fingers from inside her still-spasming sheath. She cried out softly as his fingers slipped free, then whimpered when he cupped his big warm hand over her tender cunt and pressed firmly inward, not seeking to stimulate her anymore but letting her know that he was still there—that he hadn't abandoned her in this unknown place where her mind wouldn't function and her body behaved like a volatile stranger.

While successive tremors still wracked her body, Jamie curled tight and snuggled against Felix. She closed her thighs, trapping his hand between them, and pressed her face to his damp, shirt-covered chest. Each small movement was painful for Felix, who was struggling to ignore his unassuaged desire, but he hugged her as tight as he dared and pressed his mouth to her sweat-slicked brow. Her heartbeat gradually slowed as her breathing evened, and Felix realized that the wetness seeping through his shirt was more than could be attributed to just perspiration. Silently and without moving a muscle, she was crying.

"Are you alright, girl?" Felix asked, his voice gruff with concern. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

She shook her head without looking up from his chest, and Felix released the tense breath he was holding. His arm tightened around her slightly as he dragged his mouth down her salty forehead to kiss the translucent skin at her temple. 

"What's the matter, then?" he asked.

She was silent for a moment then turned her head to the side so she could speak.

"I'm sorry," she said, and Felix heard the small wet sound when she paused to lick her lips. "I don't mean to weep. It's just—this is the first time since my father died that I've felt safe." Felix was shocked by her admission, rendered speechless, and when he said nothing, she quickly added, "I'm sorry. You must think I'm a terrible ninny. Crying all over you—"

"No, girl," Felix interrupted, finally finding his voice, surprised by how difficult it was to force words through his constricted throat. "Don't apologize for that. I was just—surprised. A bit flattered. You've no real reason to trust me."

"You didn't hurt me," she whispered.

Felix couldn't stop the fist that held her hand to his heart from clenching tight. She winced, and he immediately lessened his grip, murmuring an apology. She nodded and turned her forehead back to rest against his chest, but Felix couldn't relax as easily as she seemed to. He was angry—furious that her standards were so low, that her previous encounters with men had trained her to expect pain, and that she could think of nothing more to ask of him than that he not hurt her. Not wanting to upset her, he forced his breathing to remain slow and even, but his heart, he knew, was pounding loud against her palm. He could only hope that the strength of his rage wasn't thundering perceptively through his veins. The last thing he wanted now was to frighten the girl. 

In order to calm himself, Felix forced himself to think of what had just passed between them—the exquisite sensitivity of her flesh, the uninhibited beauty of her response, the evidence that she had not been irrevocably damaged by all she'd survived in the past. Pressing another kiss to her temple, he smiled slightly when she sighed and settled more closely against him. Then he promptly grimaced. He had no idea how he could possibly keep her safe. He could not keep her to himself; the other crewmen would never allow it. And if anything happened to expose her secret, she would be passed around belowdecks and used until she was too broken to interest even the most depraved among them. The best she could hope for was survival, and Felix was abruptly certain that the embers of humor and affection that she'd somehow kept kindling during the past six years would be doused forever. 

He'd be damned if he would allow that to happen. 

Felix kissed her temple once more and tightened his arms around her, then shifted to settle his shoulders more comfortably against the planked wall. 

"We'll manage, Jamie," he whispered into her hair, still damp with sweat, "somehow. I promise we will."

But she said nothing, and the sound of her deep, steady breathing filled the hold like a kitten's contented purr. Moving carefully, Felix groped for her discarded shirt, then draped it gently over her side that wasn't pressed to his body. He didn't want her to become chilled while she slept.



Aboard the Lady May Ch. 02



If anyone's actually reading these, I apologize for the horribly long wait. Being a grad student eats my life. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think (if anything).

__________________ ___________________

Jamie was roused from a deep and dreamless sleep—the first she'd experienced in the six years since her father's death—by a loud pounding that seemed to shake the hold around them. Before she was fully awake she registered a stream of swearing in Felix's rough voice and felt her body being briskly, but gently, lifted and set aside. Despite the noise and her annoyance at being wakened, Jamie felt herself smile slightly. Felix. Whoever it was on the other side of the door, he would make them go away. He would keep her safe. He'd promised. 

Then her eyes flew wide, and she began to grope frantically for the fragments of her discarded clothing. There was someone at the door. She was naked, and there was someone at the door. If any of the sailors besides Felix were to see her body, were to discover the truth that she was in fact a woman instead of the young boy she portrayed, the previous abuse she'd been subjected to would pale to nothing in comparison to the treatment she would endure at the hands of sixty sex-starved men. 

Still fumbling in the dark, Jamie found only useless scraps of fabric. Her pants were shredded, her shirt worse than threadbare. The bands she'd used for years to bind and flatten her breasts had been sliced from her body by Felix, resulting in severed strips of dingy linen, the longest of which was barely the length of her arm. Worthless. 

She looked around quickly for a place to hide, but the small hold was empty. She'd witnessed the unloading of the cargo in Bridgetown but hadn't stopped to wonder that they'd taken on nothing else. They must have been en route to another port—on Hispaniola, perhaps, or any of a dozen other islands—to fill the holds before heading north to the colonies or to England. She did not know as yet where the Lady May's homeport was. Not that it mattered. Knowing none of these things mattered. But Jamie couldn't seem to stop her mind from leaping from one irrelevant subject to the next. It was better than wondering who Felix was talking to—his large body angled to block their view into the hold—and how soon he would be thrust aside and the door flung open. 

Despite knowing it was hopeless, that she was mere moments from being found out, from being taken away from the only man other than her father who'd ever treated her with kindness—despite knowing all this, Jamie had never been one to surrender without a fight. The first man who'd sodomized her when she was barely fourteen had lost an eye in the encounter, which likely accounted for the viciousness of the beating that followed, leaving her unable to move for the next several days. Her own knife was gone now—left behind by accident when she'd abandoned her previous ship to beg a spot on board the Lady May—but the small, sharp blade Felix had used to rid her of her clothing lay forgotten on the plank floor, shining silver in a shaft of cool moonlight. 

Jamie snatched the knife by its smooth bone hilt then scrambled backward to press herself into the darkest corner of the hold. She folded her knees in tight to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, hugging herself with one and using the other to point the knife toward the open doorway where Felix was nodding, making a move to step back. Now, Jamie thought, It will be now. And it took all of her considerable courage to keep her eyes on the doorway rather than to sob and bury her face between her upthrust knees. 

When Felix merely closed the door and turned around, walking back toward where he'd left her in the hold, Jamie did sob then. She wasn't going to be taken now. It would happen. Sooner or later it would happen. But not now. She had more time. With Felix. She'd have more time with Felix. 

* * *

The girl wasn't by the porthole where he'd left her, still half asleep, and Felix glanced around, momentarily panicked, but then found her an instant later. Even if the harsh sound of her sobbing hadn't drawn his attention to the corner of the hold, the space was well enough lit with moonlight to delineate her small, white form from the surrounding darkness. She was curled into a tight ball, obviously terrified, using two hands to brandish his own sharp blade before her. 

"Christ," Felix swore, then, "Jamie." And he was by her side in an instant.

Afraid that she might cut herself—or him—Felix gripped both her wrists in one hand and used his other to carefully extract the knife from her grasp. She didn't fight him, and as soon as he released his hold, she reached out, her hands twisting fistfuls of his shirt, climbing him as if he were a mast and his clothes the rigging. He caught her easily, one arm beneath her bottom, the other spanning her back, and lowered himself fully to the floor. He settled her on his lap, holding her in much the same way as he had while she slept, except now her arms and legs were twined about him, her muscles strung so tight Felix could feel the tension thrumming through her body.

Neither spoke for a moment. She clung to him like a limpet, and Felix began running his hands over her exposed skin. He traced the sharp protrusions of her shoulder blades, counted the knobs and knots of her spine, stroked her thighs as far back as he could to where her legs wound around him. 

"I have no clothes," she finally whispered, the choked words muffled against the side of Felix's neck. "I thought they'd come in, and I have no clothes."

"I know, girl." He'd had the same fear himself, but they hadn't come for the girl—or boy, as they thought she was. They'd come for Felix himself. He told Jamie as much.

"Why?" she demanded, far from comforted. If anything her limbs gripped him more tightly. "What do they want with you?" 

He laughed softly and began trying to loosen her arms from his neck. "It's alright, girl. They mean me no harm." Then when he'd made no progress toward freeing himself, "Jamie, you have to let me go. There's a man hurt. They need me." 

That caused Jamie to draw back, obviously surprised. "You're a surgeon?" she asked.

"Carpenter," Felix corrected, taking advantage of her confusion to extract himself from her suddenly pliant limbs. "Man fell from the rigging, has a bad break. If there's sawing to be done, it'll be me who does it." 

"Oh," Jamie said. And then wide-eyed, with more understanding, "Oh! You must go." 

Not wanting to distract him further, Jamie scrambled off Felix's lap. She was unable, however, to stop herself from reaching for the tatters of her ruined clothing, or from reclaiming the short knife Felix had taken from her and set aside. 

Intent on his duty, Felix stood abruptly and brushed his hands once over his clothes, making sure everything was in place. His mind was already on the wounded man three decks above. Thaniel was his friend, and one of the few tars Felix could trust to look after his boys in his absence. He was also experienced, a lifer like Felix himself. It made no sense that he'd slipped; Thaniel wasn't the sort to make careless mistakes. 

Felix would need bandages, water, whiskey, his saws, hot iron to seal the flesh, lanterns for light. There would be plenty of men to hold Thaniel, but he'd need either Peter or Luke to assist as well, as they both had swift, nimble fingers that were smaller than the average sailors'. In fact, Jamie would make an ideal...Jamie. 

Felix glanced down at the girl and swore again softly. She was back in her corner, not so obviously petrified as before, but his knife was in her hand again, and her lap was piled full of tattered scraps of fabric. He couldn't leave her like that.

"Here, girl." Felix stripped his own shirt past his head and knelt before Jamie. "Put this on." Rather than waiting for her to take the shirt, Felix dressed her himself. He tossed the rags of her clothing aside but left her the knife, just made sure not to snag the fabric as he pulled her arm through the sleeve. "Don't leave this hold," he instructed, never taking his eyes off her face. She nodded, wide eyed and serious. "Good girl." He began to turn back the sleeves. It took four wide cuffs before he could see her fingertips. "I'll be back as soon as I can, but if this takes as long as I'm thinking it might, I'll send one of my boys."

"No—" Jamie began, but Felix shushed her, soothingly.

"It's alright, girl. Luke and Peter won't hurt you. They're loyal to me. In fact, I think they'll like having a little sister." He paused then, considering. "Although, you're actually a year or so older than they are." 

He shrugged then, dismissing the thought, and gripped her shoulders, which were barely wide enough to span the neck hole in his shirt. He knew he was speaking too fast, but he had little time to spare, and he wanted to be sure the girl would allow others to care for her in his absence. 

"Listen to me now, Jamie. This is important." She nodded. "Don't leave the hold," he repeated. "If Luke or Peter comes in, you can't scream. It'll attract attention." She nodded. "Do as they tell you. Eat and drink whatever they bring. I'll look for some clothes for you, but that may take a bit longer. Alright?" 

She nodded again, and Felix smiled encouragingly. He kissed her brow, her nose, once hard on her mouth. She leaned into his kiss, but he drew back, pushing her shoulders away from him when she attempted to follow. 

"Stay here, girl," Felix said. "Wait for me. I'll be back, and you'll be safe. I promise."

Jamie nodded once more, and watched Felix rise. He looked back once, and then he was gone. The sound of the closing door sounded to Jamie like cannon fire, and she winced, scooting as far back as she could into the darkened corner. Drawing handfuls of Felix's shirt up around her face, she breathed in the salty tang of sweat and sea, then closed her eyes and imagined he were beside her—just out of her reach, but close enough to sense and to smell. 

"I'll be safe here," she whispered. "He promised me. I'm safe here." 

Jamie began repeating the words to herself over and over again. She was trying very, very hard to believe them. 

* * *

As frightened and determined as Jamie was to guard herself, she was equally as exhausted. The few hours she'd slept in Felix's arms had been wonderful, but weren't nearly enough. After staying upright for as long as she could, she began slowly to sink toward the floor. The tattered rags of her clothing made a passable pillow, and once she was lying down, Jamie's eyes dropped shut as if weighted with anchors. She would sleep very lightly, she promised herself, and only for a moment. She clutched Felix's knife so the blade pressed flat to her chest, and then all was oblivion.

It might have been hours or days later when she finally awoke. Sunlight poured through the open porthole along with the loud and shrill squawking of seabirds. They must still be within a few miles of shore, Jamie thought groggily, likely traveling northwest toward Guadeloupe and Antigua. Then her ears registered another sound—one that was manmade and that she knew very well: the steady drag of waxed thread through canvas. She wasn't alone in the hold.

Jamie scrambled upright, clutching a thick woolen blanket to her chest—a blanket that she did not remember having before she fell asleep but that she was grateful for, as the rough itch against her sore breasts informed her that Felix's oversized shirt had fallen from her shoulders while she slept, hopefully after she was already covered. Then, casting a frantic glance around the hold, she quickly located the source of the stitching. Sitting cross-legged less than five feet from her side, his back braced against the wall beneath the open porthole, was a heavily freckled tow-headed boy. More of a young man, Jamie quickly amended. For all that he was slender and barely bearded, his face had none of the softness of boyhood, and he was nearly twice her size. He was also staring at her, his hands frozen in mid-stitch, with eyes the brightest shade of green she had ever seen.

Startled by his close scrutiny as well as by his presence, Jamie pressed herself back deep into the corner, still clutching the blanket tight to her chest. The boy raised one white-blond brow while the opposite side of his mouth tipped up in a half smile. The expression gave his face a comical lop-sided look, and Jamie felt her own lips twitch in response. 

"It's a mite late for that now," the boy said, dropping his eyes to her white-knuckled fists that peeked over the blanket's edge. His voice had a thick Irish lilt and was deeper than Jamie had anticipated."If I was wanting to strip you bare and have my way with you," he continued, "I'd have done so hours ago. Not that you'd have required much stripping, mind." 

The quick grin he flashed made Jamie abruptly aware that she'd lost her shirt before he entered and that he was the one who had covered her up. She felt herself flushing and was unable to meet his eyes as she fumbled beneath the blanket for the sleeves of Felix's shirt. Once she was as decently covered as possible, she allowed the blanket to fall to her lap, then reached up to smooth the jagged strands of hair around her face. She usually struggled to suppress such feminine gestures, but there was little point to pretense now, and she enjoyed the rare luxury of being able to act naturally. 

"What time is it?" she asked, eying the angle of sunlight on the hold's floor.

"Half past the seventh in the afternoon," the boy answered, returning to his work.

Jamie jumped in surprise. "Three-thirty?" she squeaked. Then whispered, "Holy Mary." Felix had left before the eighth bell of the mid watch; she'd slept for nearly twelve hours. 

"Aye," the boy laughed, glancing up between stitches. "Luke bet you'd go on til sundown. I said you'd wake by four." His smile widened. "Helped me win two shillings off the sod, you did."

"Glad I could help," Jamie answered, returning a slight smile. She was finding it very hard not to like the boy. Then, Peter and Luke, she thought. "You're Peter?" she asked. 

"I am." The boy nodded without looking up. "Luke'll be by to spell me shortly. I've got first dog tonight, and we promised Felix we'd not leave you alone."

"Where is Felix?" Jamie asked, unable to keep the concern from her voice. He'd been gone a long while now.

Peter was quiet for so long Jamie thought he wasn't going to answer. Then his voice came choked and so low she could barely hear it: "Thaniel didn't take well to having his leg cut. He's like to die. Felix won't leave while he still breathes."

"Thaniel?" Jamie whispered. "Is he the man who was hurt?"

"Aye," Peter replied, but would say no more. 

The man was obviously a friend and, despite her curiosity, Jamie decided not to push for more information. It was strange, though. While it was far from unusual for a sailor to be injured while performing his duties, to fall from the rigging on millpond water was a beginner's trick, and this Thaniel was obviously not new to the ship, or else Felix and the boy Peter would not be so attached to him. 

Still wondering, Jamie settled back to watch Peter work. All sailors were skilled with a needle, but it was apparent to Jamie after watching Peter for only a short while that he was exceptionally proficient. He manipulated the scrap of canvas, twisting it in his lap first one way and then the other, working all the while with his tongue tipped between his teeth and a silver thimble on his left forefinger. Eventually he tied a deft knot, then broke the thread with his teeth and held the canvas up for Jamie's inspection.

"For you," he said, his grin back in full force.

"For me?" Jamie echoed, and Peter nodded, leaning to toss the canvas onto her lap.

"It's a vest," he explained. "I made it quick, though, so don't judge me by it. I'm actually quite the haberdasher when I'm not rushed."

Jamie investigated the cream colored vest and, despite Peter's claim that his work was rudimentary, she found it to be remarkably well made. Rather than a single sheet of canvas, he'd stitched three together, then cleverly hemmed the edges so she'd not be chafed by the coarse fabric. A row of wooden toggles lined the edge of one front flap, while matching waxed-thread loops had been stitched along the other. The garment was thick and sturdy and could be securely fastened. Jamie blushed again, suddenly understanding its purpose.

She glanced up to find Peter watching her, grinning still.

"Aye," he said, apparently reading her blush. "Felix said you were needing something to hide your bubbies. That way you can stop mashing them flat."

"Oh!" Jamie gasped and, without pausing to think, threw the vest at Peter's head.

Peter ducked, laughing, then retrieved the vest from where it had sailed past its mark. He brushed it off, folded the garment over his forearm. "You're not wanting it, then?" he asked, feigning affront. "And after all my hard work. Fine then, you ungrateful wench. It's a mite small for me, but I can let it out, clever as I am. Wear it myself, I will."

Jamie found herself laughing then for the first time in more years than she could remember. Weak as she was, her muscles soon began to ache. She subsided into quiet hiccoughs but found herself unable to stop smiling, which was ridiculous, really. Nothing had changed. If anything she was more vulnerable than she had been now that two people in addition to Felix were in on her secret. Not that she believed Peter would purposely betray her—because of his obvious loyalty to Felix, if for no other reason. And, if Luke were anything like his friend and mentor, he wouldn't turn on her either. But the more people who knew, the more likely something was to slip. Jamie knew this. It was the reason she'd never confided in anyone before—not that there had been anyone to confide in, really. Still, even if her safety aboard the Lady May were illusory at best, it was an illusion she was not yet ready to relinquish.

Letting lose a final quiet chuckle, Jamie held out her hand demandingly. "Peter," she said, "give me back my vest." 

* * *

When Luke came to relieve Peter a short while later, Jamie found herself immediately drawn to the second boy in a way that couldn't compare with even her near-instant camaraderie with Peter. Luke was of a size with his friend and had brown eyes and brown hair that constant exposure to the sun had not managed to substantially lighten. He arrived carrying a bucket in one hand and a mug in the other, with a trencher held in the bend of his elbow and pressed to his chest for balance. The stew it contained was delicious—thick with fish and fresh vegetables taken on board in Barbados—and the milk in the mug was the first Jamie had drunk in months. When she was pleasantly full, Luke produced a cake of soap from his pocket and asked if she'd like to wash her hair in the bucket of water he'd brought. Jamie just barely refrained from throwing herself into his arms and kissing him. 

It was not until he dispassionately suggested she remove Felix's shirt while she washed that Jamie understood what it was about Luke that appealed to her: He did not look at her with longing. The sailors who thought she was a boy, albeit a small and pretty one, wanted her out of the mistaken belief they might touch her and pretend she was a woman. Even Peter, for all his harmlessness and humor, had obviously enjoyed the sight of her bare breasts and thought nothing of teasing her about them. Luke was different. He wanted her as neither a feminine boy nor as an actual woman. He wanted—if Jamie were not mistaken, remembering the soft tilt to his lips when he first entered the hold and found her laughing with Peter—his friend. Jamie wondered if the knowledge that Peter might turn to him for lack of another option but that he could never return his feelings were the reason for the sadness she sensed reflected in Luke's wide brown eyes. 




Aboard the Lady May Ch. 02



Acting on impulse, Jamie leaned forward and gently kissed Luke on his cheek. Then she stepped back and shrugged, causing Felix's shirt to lose its precarious hold on her shoulders and fall to the floor at her feet. Luke smiled, understanding her act for the gesture of trust it was, and appreciating her recognition of his nature without his having to tell her. 

"I can see why Felix likes you," Luke said, and his wide smile dispelled some of the sadness in his eyes. 

"Why is that?" Jamie returned, hoping to prolong his lighthearted moment.

"You've got great tits." 

He said this straight faced, and Jamie fell to the floor laughing. Stronger now, with food in her stomach, she was unable to stop for a long time, and Luke finally quieted her by the effective means of grasping the back of her neck and plunging her head into the bucket of water. It was, to Jamie's surprise, fresh and not salt, so that when she came up for air, coughing and sputtering, she was at least not obliged to pummel Luke for stinging her eyes with seawater. 

"Behave yourself now," Luke instructed, lathering soap between his palms.

"Me?" Jamie demanded. "You're the one who—" Then she trailed off, her words ending on a long groan of pleasure, unable to maintain her indignance when Luke's strong fingers began massaging the soap into her scalp. 

Long after it was necessary but before she was ready for him to stop, Luke warned her to hold her breath, then dunked her head twice more in the water. He deftly squeezed the excess from the short strands, then used her woolen blanket to absorb the worst of the wetness. Next he helped her stand and began to wash the rest of her body with the softest cloth Jamie had ever felt. She wondered where it came from and whether there were any more she might use for her monthlies, irregular as they were owing to her unnatural thinness. Before she could ask, however, Luke began to gently wash her breasts, distracting Jamie and causing her to draw in a sharp, hissing breath between her teeth. 

"Sorry," Luke murmured but did not allow his compassion to dissuade him from thoroughness. He washed each abrasion and blister, sponged her dirt-encrusted scabs until the muck loosened and pulled free, then withdrew a small salve pot from the deep pocket in his canvas pants. "This will sting," Luke warned as he removed the lid and an acrid scent filled the air.

"What is that?" Jamie asked, wincing from the first application of the liniment on a newly reopened sore. 

"You don't want to know," Luke returned. "It's Felix's receipt, though. Very effective."

Jamie nodded, comforted slightly by the thought that Felix was at least indirectly responsible for the care she was receiving. She was surprised then by the sudden realization that, as much as she enjoyed Luke's gentle, nonthreatening caresses, they paled in comparison to the heated feel of Felix's hands on her body. She remembered the night before, the way she had arched and gasped in his arms, begging him to touch her until she was beyond reason with the burning need of it. She was still slightly confused by her memory of the moment when his fingers had moved inside her and her entire body had seemed to erupt, but she was eager to experience it again—to see if the sensations could be recreated, or if they were an aberration resulting from her blind desire to feel irrevocably bound to another human being, if only for an instant.

Jamie was so distracted by these thoughts, she did not notice that Luke had moved and was kneeling behind her until she felt his warm fingers tenderly separating her buttocks. She flinched and stepped forward, but was drawn back by Luke's strong grip on her hips. 

"Hold still, Jamie," he said, his voice soft but implacable. "Let me take care of you." 

All thoughts of Felix and of pleasure vanished from her mind. Jamie could think of nothing then but the hard hands that had bruised her flesh, mindful to only their own pleasure; the damp press of a man's hair-roughened stomach against her back; his fetid breath on her neck and the brutal thrust of his shaft into her unprepared anus. She began to cry softly, feeling Luke part her again, knowing he would find the fresh tears and bruises as well as the dried blood and semen Felix had not thought to check for and that she had not yet had time to wash away. 

"I thought so," Luke growled behind her, his voice hard for the first time since she'd met him. "Felix didn't say anything, but I thought so." 

"He doesn't know." Jamie cried harder as Luke washed her with the soft cloth, her embarrassment too much to be contained. She had wept more in the past twenty-four hours than in the previous six years of her life combined. "He knows, I mean, that it's happened"—she groped for the proper way to explain—"just not...so recently." 

"When did this happen?" Luke asked. 

The cloth was gone then, and his finger was on her torn flesh, rubbing in the burning liniment. Jamie gasped in pain and tried to move away, but she was prevented from stepping forward by Luke's arm wrapped firmly around her stomach and his grip on her opposite hip. 

"Yesterday morning," she admitted, whimpering as she felt his finger moving inside her. He was helping her, Jamie knew, but it hurt, and she was trying very hard to not become angry with him.

It was at that moment that Felix chose to reappear. Jamie looked up at the sound of the opening door, then sobbed and bowed her head, beyond humiliated that he had returned to find her like this. Felix took in the scene in a glance: Jamie weeping and devastated, her body naked and clean but for his green salve on her breasts, and Luke kneeling behind her, holding her still while obviously administering to her damaged rectum. Not wanting to embarrass her further but needing to know what Luke had found, Felix began speaking to his charge in Greek. He would be able to tell very soon, he knew, whether Jamie understood the language or not. 

"How bad?" Felix asked. Jamie showed no reaction, and he sighed with relief.

Luke shrugged, trying his best to be gentle as he withdrew his finger from Jamie's body. Still, she cried out, and from the look on his face, Luke knew Felix felt her pain even more acutely than he did himself. Unable to look at either man and unbearably conscious of her nakedness, Jamie bent to retrieve the wool blanket and wrapped it quickly around herself.

"Nothing you haven't seen before," Luke said, watching Jamie's movements from the corner of his eye. "It is recent, though."

"How recent?" Felix demanded. 

"Yesterday morning, she said."

Felix had to turn away then, afraid that Jamie would become frightened of him if she could see the look on his face. He took several deep breaths before he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, then felt Luke's slim hand on his shoulder. 

"She does not need your anger, my friend," Luke said softly.

Felix knew he was right but could not keep himself from snapping back, "How do you feel when you think of Peter being used against his will?"

Felix felt guilt when the hand on his shoulder flinched, but it was a valid question.

"I suspect, the same way you feel right now," Luke admitted. "But it is better for you, Felix," he continued sadly. "She at least wants your comfort." 

Felix knew this was the truth, and he felt sorrow for his friend but could do nothing to remedy the situation. Peter did love Luke as well as he was able, Felix knew, but it was simply not in Peter's nature to fall in love with another man. Felix allowed himself to think for an instant how he would feel if Jamie had been irreparably damaged by her experiences and had decided to turn away from men altogether. The brief stab of pain he felt must, Felix thought, be akin to the anguish Luke lived with everyday.

"Will you please bring more water, Luke?" Felix asked then, reverting to English. He did not want to exclude Jamie any more than was necessary to spare her embarrassment. "I'm covered in blood," he explained.

Seeming to notice for the first time that the fabric beneath his hand was indeed stiff and black, caked with dried blood, Luke gingerly withdrew his touch from Felix's shoulder. The new shirt Felix had procured after giving Jamie his usual one was destroyed. When Felix gave it to him, Luke decided, he would burn it. There would be no cleaning it, and using it for shark bait seemed sickeningly disrespectful.

"Of course," Luke said, taking a step toward the door. Then, not really wanting to know the answer but unable to keep himself from asking, he whispered, "Thaniel?"

Felix looked up to meet Luke's eyes, then sadly shook his head. It was all the answer Luke needed. He had been there for the initial surgery; he had no desire to know how the man had died as well. He returned Felix's look for a long moment, then moved again toward the door. 

"Luke," Jamie called suddenly, arresting his progress. 

He turned back, looked at her expectantly. 

Jamie wanted to go to him but couldn't bring herself to move so close to the door. She settled for smiling at him instead. "I wanted to thank you," she said, brushing the last of her tears from her cheeks. "You've been very kind."

He returned her smile, but the sorrow was back in his eyes. "It was my pleasure," he told her, nodded once, and then he was gone. 

Jamie stared at the closed door long after Luke had left. She was unsure suddenly how to act around Felix. Thoughts of him had occupied her endlessly throughout the day—his kindness, the promise of his protection, the way he touched her, how he made her glad for the first time in a very long while that she was a woman. Yet she had spent only a handful of hours in his presence and, in fact, she knew very little about him. 

Able to think of nothing else to say, she nodded toward the door after Luke. "He's very sad, isn't he?" she asked, then finally forced herself to face Felix. He was watching her silently. "Does he love Peter?"

Felix looked surprised for an instant, then he nodded slowly. "He does," he said, and began walking toward Jamie. He half expected her to run but was pleasantly surprised instead when she took two steps forward, meeting him halfway. Raising his hands, he cupped her face between them. His thumbs brushed her still-wet cheeks and, bending quickly, he pressed a brief kiss to her brow. "You're quite clever," he said, admiring the blush that filled her pale face at his praise. Then he added, "But you've had to be clever, haven't you?"

Her face, still held in his hands, began to crumple. Fresh tears filled her eyes—eyes that Felix suddenly realized he was seeing in daylight for the first time. He'd thought them black by moonlight, but with the rays of the fading sun seeping through the open porthole, he realized they were in fact a very dark shade of blue. Like India ink, Felix thought, or undiluted indigo. Slightly lighter at the center of the iris, and fading to navy near the rims. Felix only wished they were dry and alight with laughter, rather than threatening once more to overflow with misery. 

"Hey, girl," he said, jostling her face lightly between his hands. "Haven't we had enough of that now? You're like to shrivel and dry up to nothing."

She laughed, as Felix had meant her to, but there was no joy in the sound. Her embarrassment from Luke's treatment was still too fresh, and even though she hadn't understood the language he and Felix spoke, she knew very well what words had passed between them.

Determined not to weep anymore, she sniffed, blinked rapidly. "Luke told you, didn't he?" She knew there was no need to elaborate.

"He did," Felix admitted, understanding instantly what she meant. "But why didn't you tell me?" 

Jamie's shoulders hunched, her whole body seeming to shrink inside her blanket. "You'd not have touched me," she said. 

Felix shook her face, a little roughly this time. "That's not true, Jamie." He was unable to keep his voice totally devoid of anger. "There's nothing you could tell me that would make me not want to touch you. But I might have made you more comfortable—" 

"No!" she interrupted, shaking her head so forcefully she broke free from his hands. "It was bad enough with Luke. I couldn't bear for you to—"

"Jamie," he interrupted in turn, moving his hold to her shoulders. He understood she was embarrassed, but she wasn't being reasonable. "Who do you think takes care of Luke and Peter?"

Her mouth worked silently for several seconds. "Oh," she finally managed, stuttering, "But I thought...I assumed they—with each other?" 

"Sometimes they do," Felix said, stroking up and down her arms through the rough wool. "But their watches don't always match up. They're the drudges on board, and they're kept busy by the men besides. They tend to sleep when they can. I'm ship's carpenter. My duties aren't so fixed as theirs, and no one flogs me for not jumping with the bells." 

Jamie nodded. She knew these things. She'd been aboard ships for nearly half her life. Felix called her clever, but if she'd behaved for the past six years the way she had since she'd come on board the Lady May—crying at the drop of a hat, drawing attention to herself, asking foolish questions instead of working things out on her own—she'd not have lived to see sixteen. Her only excuse was that the feeling of safety Felix and the boys provided relaxed her past the point of prudence. She would have to be careful to not become careless.

"I'm sorry—" she began, but was stopped by the press of Felix's mouth on her own. 

"There's been enough of that, as well," he said when he'd pulled back. "You're not to apologize for anything ever again. You hear me, girl?"

She nodded, said without thinking, "I'm s—" 

Then Felix's lips were on hers again, and the giggle he sucked from her tongue was a genuine, happy sound. His whiskers had grown during the day, Jamie noticed, but she didn't mind. She enjoyed the contrasting textures of his lightly wind-chapped lips, his beard roughened cheeks, and the slick thrust of his tongue until they were drawn apart by a soft knock on the door.

"Luke," Felix whispered an inch from her lips. "I'll just talk to him for a moment. He'll not want to stay. He has sad moods, likes to be by himself at times." 

"That's a trick aboard ship," Jamie grumbled. She'd spent years pining for a few moments' privacy, which she'd been generally unable to attain.

Felix laughed lightly, kissed her pouting mouth, then moved toward the door. He opened it only far enough for Luke to pass through a fresh bucket of water. Several cloths followed, a small cake of soap, two mugs, wooden trenchers, a loaf of brown bread. Jamie wondered briefly if Luke had ever served in a tavern, as he seemed to have an uncanny knack for carrying a multitude of objects at once. 

Felix deposited Luke's offerings behind him on the floor, then turned back to speak to the boy. His voice was too low to carry, so Jamie took the opportunity to really study Felix for the first time. The night before his face had been cast in shadows; she'd had only a vague impression of height and breadth. And since he'd reentered the hold she'd been either too embarrassed to look at him or too busy kissing him. 

He was big; she'd been right about that. His head just barely cleared the doorframe, and she judged his shoulders to be nearly three times as wide as her own. His nose in profile was high bridged with a bump, Jamie thought, that was the likely result of an unset break. She'd have to ask who slugged him—and whether or not he'd deserved it. Both his brows and whiskers were a medium brown, but his hair, sun scorched as it was, showed varying shades of copper and dark gold. Studying the thickness of the queue at his nape, Jamie was struck with jealousy that his hair was much prettier than her own. Grabbing one of her severed tresses, she pulled it to her nose and sniffed. It was clean at least, red again and not gummy with grease. She had Luke to thank for that. 

Felix nodded once at Luke, then stepped back from the door. Turning toward Jamie, he couldn't help but smile to find her cross-eyed, scowling at a chopped-off stand of her hair. 

"It'll grow," he said, picturing her for an instant with a waist-length skein of hair, falling like fiery silk down her back, long enough to get lost in. He nearly groaned at the idea.

Jamie released her hair, shoved it back from her face. She looked up at Felix and all but swallowed her tongue. Good Lord, she thought, The man has dimples. 

Forcing an unconcerned shrug, she said, "I'll just have to cut it again. I look like a girl when my hair's long."

Felix's smiled widened at the obviousness of the statement. "You could braid it," he suggested. "Shove it up under a cap."

Jamie sighed. "Then a strong wind comes up, snatches it off my head, and the next thing you know I'm being passed around like a camp follower, only without the pay."

Felix scowled, his dimples disappearing. "You'll keep it short," he ordered. 

Jamie nodded, quick to agree in the face of Felix's anger. "I'll keep it short," she echoed. She took a cautious step forward and reached out from beneath her blanket to touch his hand. He grabbed it quickly and threaded her fingers through his own. "I didn't mean to upset you," she whispered. "I'm sorr—" Then his grip tightened, one eyebrow raised, and Jamie stopped talking. 

He tugged her hand, raised it to his lips. "I'm not upset," he said, but they both knew it was a lie. Neither of them, however, wanted to address the issue just then. 

Changing the subject, he said, "I'm filthy, but so hungry I'm like to die." After a moment's hesitation he gently removed his hand from her grasp. "A compromise, I think." Then, raising his arms over his head, he quickly stripped his shirt and threw it into the darkest corner of the hold. He said, "I can't stand to wear that a second longer." 

Jamie was suddenly speechless. She had grown up surrounded by shirtless sailors. Neither half- nor wholly-naked men were anything new to her. Felix, however, was different. In addition to being so firmly muscled her fingers itched to see if they could find any skin at all to pinch, he was covered with the most beautiful tattoos Jamie had ever seen. She'd noted before that he was inked but in the predawn darkness had been unable to make out the shapes. 

"Oh!" Jamie gasped, "They're lovely." 

And then her hands were on him. Mermaids in varying shades of blue and green and black covered his chest, torso, and shoulders. They were nothing like the wicked creatures portrayed in myths, but rather had gracefully serpentine bodies and faces so serene they made Jamie think of the Madonna. Her fingers traced the sinuous fins, touched their flowing hair, the occasional bared breast. Circling Felix, she tried to keep count but lost track at fifteen.

"Who are they?" she breathed, unable to stop touching him. "How many do you have?"

Felix laughed at her obvious fascination. "Nineteen," he said, "and they're my family."

Jamie's hands froze at that. "All these women are in your family?"

He nodded. "Aunts, cousins, sisters." He turned and, reaching, tapped a slightly wizened face on his shoulder. "My grandmother." 

"Your mother?" Jamie asked, her fingers still moving wonderingly over him. 

He turned again and tenderly touched a figure on the left side of his chest. 

"She's beautiful," Jamie said, feeling somehow unworthy to touch the lovely creature.

"Yes," Felix agreed, "she was."

"Was?"

"She died," Felix said, brisk now, dismissal obvious in his tone. 

He bent abruptly, retrieved Jamie's blanket, and hurriedly rewrapped her body. She hadn't even noticed she'd dropped it. 

"Thank you," she said quietly, wondering why she seemed to keep upsetting him.

Felix's fingers beneath her chin forced her face up to his.




Aboard the Lady May Ch. 02



"You did nothing wrong, Jamie," he said, easily reading her face. Peter and Luke had been the same when they first came to him—easily hurt, quick to feel guilt. Luke hadn't changed much. "I'll tell you about her," he said. "About all of them. Just not now, alright?" 

She nodded, and he smiled, one dimple reappearing. 

"Let's eat." Reaching out, he grabbed her hand, pulled her toward the rapidly cooling food Luke had left. 

"I already ate," Jamie protested, still slightly unsure of his mood.

Felix stopped, eyed her meaningfully. "You can stand seconds," he said, but he softened the remark with a smile so wide Jamie couldn't help but return it. 

"You're likely right," she agreed, then proved the point by wolfing down her second bowl of stew as quickly as she had the first. She drank only a sip of milk, though, then pressed the rest on Felix. "I can't," she insisted. "I'll burst." And Felix shrugged, downed the glass in two gulps. 

Sated, with the dishes set aside to be disposed of later, Felix reached for the bucket of fresh water. "Help me," he invited Jamie, reaching back to unbind the leather tie from his hair. 

Loosened, it spilled about his shoulders, glossy and thick with different colored curls. Jamie, unable to resist, reached up and lightly smacked the back of his head. 

It hadn't hurt, but Felix raised one brow. "Why did you do that?" he asked.

"Your hair is prettier than mine." She scowled, and Felix laughed, jostling her into a tight hug that cost Jamie her blanket. This time neither of them thought to retrieve it. 

Upside down, his large body awkwardly bent over the bucket, Jamie washed Felix's hair in the same way Luke had hers. Working the soap through the strands, she used her short nails to scratch his scalp, then touched the nape of his neck where his hairline grew to a definite point. Like a widow's peak at the wrong end, Jamie thought, and she was secretly pleased to know something about him—undeniably small as it was—that he likely didn't even know himself. 

Rinsing his thick hair was a chore that left them both soaked with soapy water, which Felix said was just as well, as he'd needed a bath anyway.

"Well, I didn't," Jamie grumbled. "I've already had one bath today." 

"Yes," Felix agreed, running a soapy rag down her stomach, "but Luke doesn't appreciate you naked and wet in nearly the same way I do."

Flushed with both embarrassment and pleasure, Jamie raised Felix's arm, seeking to wash away every trace of Thaniel's blood. "I imagine he'd like to see you, though," she said.

"He has, " Felix laughed. At Jamie's questioning glance, he explained, "He doesn't find me at all appealing. Seems I'm much too big. He called me a painted ape once." 

Jamie paused in her pursuit of cleaning his ears. "But you're not hairy," she protested. 

Felix laughed again, then spread his arms wide. "It's my arms," he said. "They're too long. Apparently I look ungainly." 

Jamie moved so one of her hands was flush with his, then stretched her other arm as far as it would go. Her opposite hand just barely crossed his chest to his shoulder. She arched one brow. "Ape indeed," she said, and Felix hit her in the face with a wet cloth. 

She caught the cloth, sputtering, prepared to take revenge. Then she noticed the position they were in—him half naked, her wholly so, her bare breasts pressed to his stomach, his hardening shaft against hers, startling hot even through the thick tar that coated his trousers. For only the second time in her life Jamie felt the intense pleasure of being near an aroused man who was wholly focused on her and whom she didn't have to fear. Feeling safe with him, and bold because of it, she placed her flattened palms on his chest, then dragged them slowly down toward his waistband. Her fingers twisted in the ties, and she felt the shudder that shook his frame, the increased swelling against her stomach. 

"It seems," she said, smiling, stretching her neck to kiss a mermaid on his sternum, "that there's still more of you that wants washing." 

"Aye," Felix said, "there is," and his voice sounded as strained as if he'd spent hours shouting into the wind. 

He wondered briefly if it might be too soon for her, if he should stop her before he couldn't stop himself. But she was smiling, obviously not frightened, and if she wasn't thinking of her rape only the day before, he certainly had no desire to remind her. These seconds he spent thinking, Jamie spent loosening his laces. Then without warning she reached in to touch his cock, and Felix's whole body jerked in response. 

Surprised by the violence of his reaction, Jamie withdrew her hand. "Did I hurt you?" she asked, suddenly uncertain. 

Felix shook his head, slightly frantic, and reached to recapture her wrist. He aligned her fingers with his, wrapped her fist around him. The relief of her touch was almost too much to bear. "No," he groaned. He withdrew his hand and was pleased when Jamie's remained. "You didn't hurt me." Her fingers tightened slightly, and he ground out, "It's just...a lot to feel."

Jamie smiled then, understanding, recalling his callused touch between her thighs the night before. It was indeed a lot to feel, and she was suddenly curious to see how much he could take. Watching her face closely, waiting for any sign of fear or resistance, Felix wondered suddenly if he should be worried by her newly calculating expression. Then her hands began to move, and he thought, Yes—he should be very, very worried. 

One of her hands was too small to completely circle his shaft, so she used two, linking her fingers to make a warm cave, then stroking slowly while her thumbs rubbed his underside. It felt wonderful but was slightly dry, so Felix was relieved when she touched his spongy tip, collecting the moisture that had gathered there before eagerly resuming her rhythmic caress. She was, Felix quickly decided, diabolical. Lightly squeezing from time to time, but never changing tempo, and all the while pressing open-mouthed kisses to his stomach and as much of his chest as she could reach. She needed a stool, Jamie thought, smiling. Or better yet—

Her hands suddenly dropped from his cock, and Felix felt staggered by disappointment.

"Jamie," he groaned, "please—"

He fell quiet, though, when she gripped the waistband of his pants and quickly stripped the garment past his hips. "Step up," Jamie said, pressing one hand to the back of his knee. And Felix tried, but his balance was off so he nearly fell. Jamie laughed, straightening, and pushed against his chest. "Sit down," she teased, "before you fall down." 

Quick to comply, Felix dropped to the floor beneath the open porthole. He leaned back, eyes closed, grateful for the wall's support at his shoulders, and concentrated for a moment on slowing his gasping breaths. Jamie was experiencing a similar difficulty. Staring at Felix—bathed as he was in the red rays of the fading sun, damp hair streaked with gold, his skin glowing ochre—he was, she thought, breathtaking. She stared for so long, Felix finally opened his eyes to see where she'd gone. His brow furrowed slightly then as he misread her awe for hesitance. 

"Jamie," he said, gently as his rough voice would allow, "we don't have to—"

Before he could issue his full offer to stop, Jamie knelt and, with one strong jerk, finished ridding him of his pants. He laughed then, opening his arms, and with more eagerness than seduction, she crawled up his body. His thighs were so wide it made straddling him awkward, so she sat instead, scooting forward until they were belly-to-belly, his shaft trapped between them, her wet folds caressing his hair-roughened scrotum. She wrapped her legs around him, increasing the contact, then reached up to grasp the back of his neck. 

"I'm not scared," she whispered, dragging his mouth down to hers. "You're just nice to look at." Pausing, she bit his chin, then said, "I got distracted." 

Felix kissed her, tasting milk and stew and Jamie, then shifted to raise his knees. He pushed back lightly, inviting her to recline on his thighs, and they both sighed when the changing angle pressed their loins more firmly together. 

"I can understand that," Felix said, raising his hands to her breasts. "Becoming distracted, I mean." 

She'd need more liniment later, but the sores looked better already—clean and healing pinkly. Her nipples were hard and straining upward, but Felix thought he could do better yet. He licked his thumbs, then returned to gently brush the nubs. He wanted to taste her, but his salve contained pennyroyal oil, which worked wonders on wounds but could be poisonous if ingested. Later, he thought, and began to roll her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. 

Jamie arched her back, enjoying the sensation, but she wasn't content this time to be the only one touched. The base of his cock was trapped, pressing lengthwise into her slit, but the shaft protruded upward, his broad head nearly purple and begging for attention. Taking her cue from Felix, Jamie licked her thumbs and then reached down to stroke his tip. His hips jerked upward at her first touch, and Jamie's body rose slightly before settling back even more closely than before. 

"Do that again," she said, her thumbs still moving, and Felix complied, bumping her upward so she could sink back against him. "Again," she moaned, but he didn't have to be told.

Moving his hands to her hips, Felix took a firm grip, shifting her narrow body and pressing so her cunt lips spread on either side of his shaft. One thumb still rubbed his spearhead, so when he slid her upward along his length, the base of her palm bumped her clit. She gasped, and the free hand she'd pressed to his chest curled slightly, her short nails gouging his firm skin. The pleasure was so intense, Felix knew he could withstand it for only a short while.

"Jamie," he moaned, bending to press his mouth to her brow, "I need to be in you." 

She couldn't manage to speak, but nodded frantically and immediately moved to raise herself over him. 

"Wait," Felix insisted, "I'll not hurt you." And he slid one hand between them to test her readiness. The two fingers he pressed to her entrance were swallowed whole with nearly no pressure on his part, and Felix swore, thrusting twice before withdrawing to the accompaniment of a thick sucking sound. "Now, Jamie," he said and altered his grip to lift her. 

She set her hands on his shoulders for balance, while Felix shifted their position. His broad head butted her swollen opening, and Jamie tightened involuntarily, tensing against the thrust that would carry him deep. Rather than entering her with force as she expected, however, he simply stopped supporting her, opting instead to allow her slight weight to impale her slowly. As each muscle relaxed, she sank incrementally downward. When she lodged partway, Felix reached between them to tease her clit. After the fourth pass of his callused fingertips, her sheath spasmed suddenly, permitting his entrance deep inside. They both groaned when her bottom finally settled on his thighs, then rested for a moment, each panting against the other. 

He'd thought to ask if he was hurting her, if she needed to stop, but Jamie began to shiver and shift in such a way that told Felix his worry was unwarranted. She whimpered his name and tried to move more forcefully, but she didn't seem to know how, and Felix remembered that, despite her past, she was still innocent in many ways. Reaching back, he gripped her thighs to forcefully unwind them from his waist. He bent her knees then and set her feet on the floor, providing her with all the leverage she needed. 

"Move now, Jamie," he said, raising her briefly with his hands on her hips, but she quickly understood and took over the motion.

She rode him, Felix thought, not with the rough cadence of a woman on horseback, but like a porpoise riding the swells of the sea—sinuous and graceful, gasping for air on the upstroke, then sinking back slowly to join him beneath the surface. With the colors of the sunset reflecting off her skin, her short hair shining a rich red, she leaned forward until the tips of her breasts just grazed his chest. She whimpered, and, thinking to bring her more pleasure, Felix slid a hand between them. He stroked her tightly-stretched flesh only once before she gripped his wrist, pulled him away. 

"I want it to last," she moaned into his mouth, and Felix grimaced, knowing it would likely kill him to give her what she wanted but that he would try his best nonetheless. 

She continued to raise and lower herself slowly, flexing her slim legs to half stand until just the head of his cock was sheathed inside her, then sinking back to swathe him anew in her slick heat. Leaning more firmly into his chest, she discovered a new angle that rubbed his tip against a spot on her inner walls that was slightly yielding and so sensitive she could barely stand the contact. Her pace increased then as her strokes shortened, forcing him again and again to nudge the spot that caused her cunt to clutch and ripple around him. 

When Felix was a moment away from breaking his resolve—from toppling her onto her back and thrusting furiously between her widespread thighs, forcing her climax so that he might follow after—Jamie's legs gave out. She collapsed against him, sending his shaft so deep he hit her cervix, and they both moaned. 

"I can't anymore," she half-sobbed, restlessly twisting her groin against his. "Help me, Felix."

Her plea was the permission he'd been waiting for. Bracing her back with his arm, Felix cupped her head in one big hand. He used his other hand to anchor her hip, then rose to his knees and kept rolling. He followed her body down with his own, and once her back and bottom were braced on the floor, he shifted his hands behind her thighs. He forced her high and wide, then leaned into her, used his weight to fold her in half. Reaching between them, he palmed her mound, ground her clit with the heel of one hand. Then he started to thrust.

Jamie came almost instantly, back arching, her body leaving the floor but for her neck and shoulders, crying out so Felix bent to seal her lips with his own. The tongues of muscle in her cunt gripped his cock so tight, he nearly screamed himself. Then he surged into her twice more and felt himself explode. The years in which he'd not touched a woman, the endless hours spent helping others to find their pleasure while taking none for himself—all poured into Jamie while he couldn't seem to stop thrusting. Relentless, he forced her from one climax straight into a second. Her hands moved from his shoulders to his hair, and finally fell limply to land palm-up on either side of her face. Feeling the last of his strength drain along with his seed from his body, Felix grunted, shifted into her once more, then just barely managed to straighten her legs before collapsing on top of her. 

She'd gone overboard in a storm once when her father was still alive. Jamie remembered the smothering force of the waves, the crush of her father's arms when—against all odds—he'd managed to fish her out, and her inability to draw a deep breath even when they were back on deck, him pounding between her shoulders while the wind continued to whip their wrung-out bodies. Lying beneath Felix, drenched with sweat and half flattened by the solid press of his weight, was strikingly reminiscent to Jamie of her near drowning. She struggled for several moments, barely able to breathe, before she had the presence of mind to poke Felix forcefully in the ribs. 

He raised himself immediately, bracing his forearms on either side of her head, and managed to support the bulk of his weight despite his own strained breathing and the shudders that continued to wrack his body. 

"I'm sorry," Felix gasped. He was reassured by the springy rise and fall of her ribs that caused her still-hard nipples to stab repeatedly into his chest, but he still worried he'd hurt her. "Are you well, girl?" He panted, "Have I smashed you flat?" 

The small, breathless giggle that came from beneath him brought an answering smile to Felix's lips. "I'll take that as a, 'no,'" he said. Then, shifting his weight, he slipped one broad hand beneath her bottom and kept her body anchored to his while he rolled until he was sprawled on his back with Jamie draped across his chest. He spread his legs so her thighs fell between his, using the added gravity to press their groins more firmly together, and managed to stay inside her despite his softening cock and the seed that slicked her sheath. Her arms bent, Jamie gripped his ribs, while Felix raised one hand to cushion his head and used the other to languidly stroke the length of her back. 

After a long while, when they had both mostly regained their breath, Felix slid his fingers into the short, tousled silk of her hair. Gripping the back of her head, he gently forced her face toward his, then waited for her to look at him so he might read the truth in her dark blue eyes, shining black now in the rapidly dimming dusk. 

"Have I hurt you, girl?" he asked. "Are you sore at all?"

Jamie shifted against him, experimentally flexing her vaginal muscles, focused inward so that she didn't notice Felix's grimace or the slight tightening of his fingers in her hair. She wiggled then, resettling herself, and he barely suppressed a low groan.

"Aye," she said, answering Felix's question. "I'm sore. But not at your end." 

Jamie knew he'd wanted the truth, but she regretted her admission when his muscles turned stiff as driftwood beneath her. His remounting desire died instantly, and Felix released her hair to skim his hand down her spine, stopping when his palm hovered over her backside, just barely touching her tender flesh. Drawing his other hand from beneath his head, he groped in the darkness, grunting in satisfaction when he found the jar of liniment he'd left beside their piled dishes and the bucket of cold wash water.

She smell of the salve alerted Jamie to Felix's intent, and she stiffened against him, tightening her buttocks against his suddenly determined touch. "No," she said, and would have wriggled away but for the arm he clamped across her narrow back. Her struggles caused his softened shaft to slip from inside her at the same instant his slathered finger began to probe her torn anus. "Please, Felix," she whimpered. "It hurts. Please." 

Felix was gentle but insistent, forcing his blunt fingertip past the ring of her sphincter and smearing the salve inside as deep as his second knuckle. He hated the way Jamie buried her nose against his chest, her body shaking, but he knew from experience how easily such wounds could putrefy, difficult as they were to keep clean. When his finger popped free, she shuddered but did not cry out, and Felix reached again into the darkness, fumbling for the wool blanket, which he drew over her before slipping one hand beneath to resume his soothing caress of her bare back. 

Angling his head awkwardly, he half raised himself to kiss her temple. "I'm sorry," he said. And he was sorry for her discomfort, although he did not regret his actions. He would do it again if necessary, and it pained him to know that it would be. 

Jamie said nothing for several minutes, then she raised her head to press several kisses to the center of his chest. Felix, having feared her withdrawal from him during those long moments of silence, sighed in relief and enfolded her with the arm that wasn't supporting his head. Jamie returned his half-hug awkwardly, as she couldn't wrap her arms around him, and she softened atop him, her muscles reverting to their blissfully limp, post-climatic state. 

Drained from his long and exhausting day, Felix was nearly asleep when Jamie spoke softly against his chest.




Aboard the Lady May Ch. 03



Felix's transition from sleep to consciousness was, as always, instantaneous. Opening his eyes, he blinked once against the pale predawn light, and was wholly alert before he drew his first waking breath. Despite the deep pleasure he took in the warmth of Jamie's still-sleeping body sprawled atop his chest, he became immediately aware of two sources of discomfort. One was his neck, cricked at an awkward angle against a makeshift pillow comprising Jamie's destroyed clothing. The second was his cock, fully erect and throbbing, rising between Jamie's smooth thighs. Thin as the girl was, she didn't provide a thick enough barrier, and the head of his shaft protruded to rub against the rough wool blanket covering them. Felix shifted slightly and winced from the raspy fibers that snagged his sensitive skin. 

He toyed briefly with the idea of lifting Jamie, tipping her hips, and using the swell of the ship's movement to softy fuck her awake. It would, he thought, be delicious to coax her swollen folds into permitting his invasion, teasing her, entering by increments as he had the night before. Only the thought of her recently lost virginity kept him from acting on the impulse. The fact that she'd lost her hymen—likely years before—to her physical work as a sailor didn't necessarily preclude any soreness, and, always aware of her past, Felix was as yet reluctant to initiate any sexual contact to which she had not consciously consented. 

Administering to her body's needs, however, was another matter entirely. That had to be done, and if Felix could finish before she awoke, he could perhaps spare her the embarrassment to which she seemed particularly susceptible. 

Doing his best to move smoothly and silently, Felix tightened the hand that still rested on her backside and raised his other to cradle her head. He rolled then, taking the blanket with them, and landed on his knees so that Jamie lay on her back and he knelt above her, his body arched, hands still beneath her to cushion her landing. Gently extracting his hands, he rose to a kneeling position and paused for a moment to study the girl. 

She was still deeply asleep, her short red hair framing her face in choppy waves. Unlike other redheads Felix had known, only a faint trace of freckles smattered her nose and cheekbones, and both her brows and lashes were several shades darker than her copper locks. Beside her bright head, one hand lay palm-up while the other rested in the severe hollow of her stomach. Her abraded breasts, nearly flattened against her chest, rose and fell with her steady breathing. Pathetically thin and bearing multiple dark bruises, her body showed only slight signs of improvement from the day and a half she'd spent on board the Lady May. But she was clean now at least, and deeply relaxed, seemingly at peace. She had a meal inside her—two, in fact—and Felix would see to it that she had as much good food as she could hold. It was one of the few things he could promise her with any measure of certainty. 

Hoping to finish before she woke, Felix moved to gather his salve pot, a clean cloth, the wash bucket. The water was cold now, tinged gray-pink with coal soap and Thaniel's blood, but it was all Felix had at hand, and he needed very little water anyway. He dipped the cloth, wrung until only moisture remained, then moved between Jamie's slightly sprawled legs. Wishing he had a pillow to slip beneath her hips, Felix settled instead for one of his hands, tipped up to expose her more fully. 

He used the dampened cloth to clean his dried semen from her inner thighs and pubic hair, then wiped between each fold before he covered one finger with the fabric and gently washed inside her body. Jamie shifted at his invasion, moaning softly and opening her thighs slightly wider, making Felix smile at the trust she gave to him unconsciously. Pleased not to see any of her blood on the cloth, he used it then to wash his still semi-hard shaft before tossing it quickly aside. 

He'd lowered her to the ground and was fiddling with the lid on the salve pot when Jamie gasped, snapped her legs together, and bolted upright. She blinked rapidly, obviously still disoriented with sleep, then sagged in relief when Felix reached out, shushing her. Setting one big hand on her shoulder, he began to rub it and the back of her neck, while Jamie closed her eyes and breathed deep, waiting for her heart to fall from her throat and settle back into her chest. It took several minutes, then she swallowed once and tilted her cheek to rest against Felix's thick wrist. 

"Alright now?" he asked. 

Jamie opened her eyes to find Felix's face bent close to hers, his concern evidenced by the deep crease between his eyes. She turned to kiss his wrist, then straightened. "Yes," she said, slightly shaky, still battling the last remnants of panic. "I don't often wake naked with a man between my legs, is all." 

Felix smiled despite his slight sense of guilt, then raised the salve pot for her to see. "I'm sorry," he said. "I was trying to use this before you woke, seeing how you hate it so much."

"Felix—" Jamie recoiled, the pleading apparent in her tone. 

His hand, still on the back of her neck, slid around to silence her imminent protests. She looked at him, dark blue eyes beseeching over the top of his hand, and he felt the force of her appeal but did not allow it to dissuade him from his intent. 

"I don't do this to hurt or shame you," he said. "You do know that, don't you, girl?"

Unable to speak, she nodded, her mouth moving against his hard palm. 

"And I won't have you healing improperly," he continued, "becoming ill, hurting for any longer than is necessary."

Jamie's head bowed, but Felix could still read resistance in the rigid lines of her body. The chords in her neck were starkly defined, her back mainmast straight, both hands fisted atop her upraised knees. Taking his hand from her mouth, Felix resumed massaging her neck and shoulders, but she was so tense now there was hardly any give at all to her skin. He waited, hoping she would concede freely, but after several minutes she remained stiff and unyielding. 

"Please, Jamie," he whispered, "don't make me force you."

Had it been possible, Jamie would have tightened her muscles further still against Felix's touch. She felt a quick spurt of fury that he would appropriate her pain, that he would take her reluctance to hurt him and use it in such a way that she was forced instead to hurt herself. She unfisted her hands from atop her knees and gripped the joints until they groaned in protest, all the while biting her tongue to keep bitter words from spilling forth. 

Then her shoulders slumped, her anger draining away as quickly as it had erupted. As he said, he did not mean to hurt her, and she would rather have his empathy—as imperfect as it must necessarily be—than his indifference. Still, though, she could not quite manage to look at him while he did this. 

Moving quickly, not giving her mind the chance to rebel against her body, she rolled to her knees then leaned forward, curled herself into a ball, pressed her forehead against the rough wool blanket while her hands gripped fistfuls of fabric. 

Felix, having read her rage as well as its near-instant retreat, opted not to dawdle. His mother'd had a saying about bitter medicine, how it was best swallowed quickly, and though he could not remember its exact wording, he recalled the principle well enough. Then, when he'd coated his index finger in the salve and was just beginning to rim Jamie's bruised rectum, he remembered his grandmother's secret addendum to the adage—the dollop of honey she'd drop in his tonic, winking as she whispered that a touch a sugar couldn't but make the bitter better. 

Felix smiled in fond memory of his grandmother and, holding his greased finger still, leaned forward to brush his mouth across Jamie's back. She jumped, surprised by the soft touch, then sighed as Felix's wind-chapped lips began to skim the length of her spine. His free hand stroked her side, counting ribs that felt like coiled rope beneath her skin, then slid further down to touch her belly. Curled tight as she was, Felix struggled for a moment to worm his hand between her stomach and thighs, then succeeded in sliding his hand through to the other side. Taking her opposite hip in hand, Felix raised his forearm, forcing Jamie's backside up while he simultaneously nudged one knee between her calves, widening the space between her thighs. 

"Felix," Jamie began, "what—?" But she never completed the question.

Releasing her hip, Felix dragged his hand back across Jamie's stomach, then quickly changed course to angle toward her naked, newly-washed cunt. Still more distressed than excited, she wasn't wet, but there was enough moisture between the soft lips of her sex for Felix to dampen one fingertip, which he then drew higher and used to trace small circles on and around her clit. 

Jamie gasped, surprised by the intensity of the touch, and her hips twitched involuntarily away from the unexpected stimulation. The motion, however, served only to force her into firmer contact with the index finger of his other hand, which was still behind her, still slick with liniment, and still poised to penetrate her tender rectum. Sucking in another sharp breath, Jamie reversed the movement, thrusting her pelvis forward, then cried out at the force with which she mashed her clit against Felix's callused fingertip. 

"Felix—" she whimpered. Her hands were fisted, gripping wads of the wool blanket, while her sleekly muscled flanks quivered slightly with the repressed desire to move in either one direction or the other. "I don't—" Felix's finger moved on her clit, and she moaned, "Why?"

"Why what, Jamie?" Felix leaned forward then, allowing her to feel the heat of his body along her back, and hoped the sensation made her feel safe rather than trapped. He whispered, "I like to touch you." Dipping briefly back inside her body's entrance, he was pleased to find her slick secretions now flowing freely. "I though you liked it too."

"Yes..." The word came out in a slow hiss as Felix's fingers dragged through her folds, spreading wetness. "I do. But—" She broke off, stiffening as the light pressure against her anus began suddenly to increase. 

"But you didn't think I could make you like this," he finished for her, pressing gradually inward as his salved finger rimmed around and around her sore opening. At the same time he flattened the hand in front of her, palming her mound, and began to rock the bone at the base of his thumb back and forth across her clit.

Jamie shook her head, the rough fibers of the wool blanket rasping her forehead. She hadn't thought he could make her like this—and she wasn't sure she wanted him to. Astute as she was, Felix's actions smacked of some intent other than distracting her while he helped her body to heal. She felt as if he were laying the groundwork, beginning to prepare her as quickly as he thought was prudent for her future role on board the Lady May. She didn't blame him for this; she was in fact grateful for his honesty in admitting that his protection could only go so far. At the same time, however, she'd hoped to avoid this truth for another day or two—to revel in the thought of belonging, if only for a moment, to nobody but Felix. 

Still, even while the slick finger that gently eased past her sphincter inevitably recalled memories she'd far rather forget, Jamie couldn't keep back her low groan of pleasure or stop her hips from shifting backward, impaling herself a bit more, stopping only when the thick ridge of a knuckle nudged her stretched entrance. 

Felix encouraged her backward movement by pressing even more firmly against her mound. Her clit was swollen, firm as a kernel against the base of his thumb, and he concentrated there, increasing the speed of his rocking motion. When he crooked his hand, shifting to slip one finger between the lips of her neglected sex, Jamie shuddered and gripped a fold of the wool blanket between her teeth. Felix began to move his fingers, slowly, thrusting first with one then the other while his opposite hand pulled back, and she bit down hard, closing her eyes as she moaned around the moist fabric in her mouth.

Jamie was lost, her attention turned inward, focused wholly on Felix's touch inside her, behind her, so she didn't notice when the hold's door creaked slowly open. 

Felix did.

Reacting instantly, Felix set more of his weight on Jamie's back, forcing her flat, hiding her breasts against the blanket, while at the same time he shifted his hand to fully cover her mound, concealing what was—or wasn't—underneath. He maintained his fingers' steady rhythm inside her, and Jamie shifted against him, her body insistent, seemingly oblivious to Felix's sudden tension, and to his deep sigh of relief when Peter's face peeked around the door's edge.

Peter started, his freckled face flushing red, but made no move to retreat. His eyes were glued to Jamie's sinuously writhing body. All of her secret places were covered by either her position or by Felix's hands, but she was still naked and it was still obvious what Felix was doing to her, and how much she was enjoying it. 

Felix cleared his throat once, then a second time before Peter finally raised his gaze from Jamie's nakedness. Felix didn't blame the boy, knowing as he did from Peter's past admission that he'd never touched a woman outside his family, much less seen one fully undressed. Still, Felix knew it would upset Jamie to have another observe her in her moments of passion. She seemed neither shy nor particularly inhibited, but she was, Felix suspected, a deeply private person. She had good cause to be; her life depended on it. 

Peter shook his head to break his fascination then smiled an apology at Felix, who merely quirked one brow in question. 

Raising the bundle of clothes he'd brought, Peter mouthed, 'Where?,' all the while making an admirable attempt to keep his eyes from flicking back toward Jamie. 

Felix shook his head. 'Later,' he mouthed. 

Peter nodded in understanding. If he were to leave the clothing now, Felix would have to explain the items' sudden appearance to Jamie after...

Felix held back a chuckle as Peter flushed redder, easily reading the direction of the boy's thoughts. His amusement faded, however, when Peter didn't immediately withdraw, but rather continued to stand there, staring, in the wide open doorway. It was all well and good, in Felix's opinion, to admire a woman, to want her, but it was another matter entirely when a man's lust put her at risk. 

Felix cleared his throat roughly and was glad when Peter flinched, recognizing the anger in the sound. 'Close the door,' Felix mouthed, his lips' movement deliberate, and Peter nodded, jumping at once to beat a hasty—and thankfully silent—retreat. 

Glad the boy was finally gone, Felix redoubled his efforts to bring Jamie to pleasure. He ceased alternating and began instead to softly stab both fingers inside her at once, filling her cunt and rectum simultaneously, while he used the base of his thumb to keep constant, steady pressure on her clit. Jamie groaned loudly around the blanket in her mouth, and the muscles in her entire body began to tense and tremble. 

The entire exchange with Peter had taken less than a minute, but it still seemed miraculous to Felix that Jamie's eyes had remained closed, that she hadn't noticed the change in his demeanor, that she'd stayed wholly unaware of Peter's unwitting interruption. It might not have been disastrous had she become aware of her rapt audience, but it would definitely have curtailed her imminent climax and would also have thrown off the rest of Felix's impromptu plan. He'd more than succeeded in getting her to welcome his finger inside her rectum, but now he waned to see if he could take her even further.

Felix continued to caress her until she was sweating and shivering, until the muscles in both of her passages were fluttering around his fingers, until the muffled sounds coming from her mouth had deepened from soft whimpers into harsh, animal-like grunts. 

And then he stopped.

Jamie cried out, her teeth releasing the blanket. She tried to push back against him, but Felix predicted the movement and acted accordingly. Even while she hunched herself backward, seeking the touch that had brought her so close to bursting, Felix's fingers were a heartbeat ahead of her, withdrawing faster than her attempt to keep up with his retreat. When both fingers slipped free, leaving her aching and empty, Jamie let loose a sobbing lungful of air and began mindlessly to twitch her hips from side to side.

The sway of her backside was as mesmerizing to Felix as if he were a sea snake, and she a kelp forest he might hide himself inside. Her unnatural thinness didn't matter. The bruises on her hips that he knew were too small and closely spaced for his hands to have made didn't matter. The abraded lines across her back where her breast band had rubbed didn't matter. None of it was of any consequence. To him, she was lovely. He stared for several moments, unable to break his gaze. 

"Felix," Jamie gasped, her frustration evident. "Please, why did you—?" 

He gently gripped her hips then, forcing her to stillness, and Jamie stopped talking. 

Changing the angle of his body behind her, Felix leaned forward, bending his knees to slide the hot length of his cock between her thighs. They both shivered as he slid forward, his shaft pressing lengthwise between her wet folds, until the broad head rubbed up and over her clit. Then he began slowly to reverse the motion.

"No—" Jamie moaned, thinking he meant to leave her again, but then she sighed in relief when he withdrew only partially before moving forward once more. 

This time, when Felix's groin was pressed firmly against Jamie's backside, he leaned forward, arching his large body over her much smaller one, covering her completely. He supported his weight with one forearm propped on the blanked before Jamie's face, and she shifted, wrapping one hand partway around his bicep. She gripped his fingers with her other hand and raised her brow from the damp wool blanket to resettle against the hair-roughened muscle of Felix's forearm. 

Felix squeezed her fingers in return, then kissed the side of her head and raised his free hand to tease her clit as his hips resumed their slow thrusting motion. He could feel her beneath him, sweating and trembling, and knew she was still on the brink of release.

"Jamie," he whispered against her ear, then paused to softly bite the fleshy lobe. "Can I come inside you?" 

He braced his thumb in front of her clit, then nudged it from behind with the head of his cock. Jamie jerked and pressed her forehead even harder against his forearm.

"Yes!" she gasped, tugging on his fingers that were twisted through her own. "Please."

"You're sure?" he asked, his hands and cock still assaulting her sex from both sides. "You're not sore at all?" He rubbed his cheek against her tousled hair, adding, "I don't want to hurt you, girl."

"Yes," she said, then quickly, "No! I mean, no, I'm not sore. And yes, I'm sure. You won't hurt me."

His hips drew back, and Jamie whimpered, anticipating the heavy pressure against the entrance to her sex. She'd lied to Felix. She was sore. But she didn't care. Even if it did hurt, she knew it couldn't possibly be worse than the hollow throb between her legs and the fierce cramps constricting her muscles into knots. She felt like a pocket watch that was wound to the point of rupture, her body rigid and shaking, ready to shatter.

Felix's slowly dragged his cock backward across her slit, but then instead of beginning to enter her, he continued his retreat, shifting his hips higher to settle the spongy head of his shaft against her liniment-slick anus.




Aboard the Lady May Ch. 03



"No, Felix!" Jamie cried. 

She made an abortive attempt to crawl forward, to escape him, but Felix clamped his arm around her hips and settled a bit more of his weight on her back. She still struggled, bucking and thrashing, but she was pinned, helpless in his strong grasp. The sounds that emanated from low in her throat were those of a trapped animal, and Felix felt hot tears begin to flow over his forearm. Both the tears and her instant terror settled like ballast inside his chest, but he was determined to see his plan through to the end. He only hoped she wouldn't hate him afterward. 

"Hey, girl," he murmured, nuzzling her temple. "I'm not going to hurt you. Have I ever hurt you? Hush now, Jamie. You're safe with me. Easy, girl. Hush, hush."

Knowing she couldn't hear him in her initial panic, Felix continued to whisper until she gradually began to settle. She stopped fighting him first, then her breaths became more even, and lastly her small keening sounds receded into leaden silence. 

Felix noticed then that sometime in her struggle she'd released his hand and drawn her fist back to her chest. He felt the small rejection like to blow to his entire body—like a gale-force wind had slammed him into hard timber and rigging. Quickly, not giving her the chance to object, he shifted to reclaim her hand, then rewove her fingers through his own. She didn't fight him. Her flesh felt cold. Felix immediately set about restoring her warmth. 

"Talk to me, Jamie." His lips moved soft in her hair. "Tell me why you're frightened."

"You know why," she wept and turned to bury her face against his bicep. 

She didn't sound angry, but rather small and frightened. Felix would have greatly preferred rage. 

"Because of this?" He thrust gently against her anus, not trying to enter her, only exerting a light pressure.

Jamie nodded and tried briefly again to wriggle away from him, but his arm was still clamped around her hips. 

"Have I done anything to hurt you yet, Jamie?"

She shook her head, her wet face still pressed to his arm.

"Then why would I hurt you now?" His hips began to rock back and forth, increasing the contact in feather-light pulses, still making no effort at penetration. "Didn't I ask if I could come into you?"

She pulled her head back slightly, relenting to speak. "Not there, Felix. Please."

"Of course not," he said, softly reassuring. "I won't come inside you until you ask me to. Alright, girl?" 

Her relief was palpable as her whole body softened beneath his.

"Yes. Alright," she breathed. Then, "Thank you." 

"Don't thank me yet," he whispered, but gave her no time to reply to his cryptic comment. 

He released her hips and, before Jamie could draw in a breath, began moving his hand on her again. He combed his fingers through the folds of her sex which, despite her drastic decrease in arousal, were still wet and swelled, extremely sensitive to even the lightest touch. Jamie shuddered and moaned, and any questions she'd meant to ask flew immediately out of her mind. 

Felix remembered how he'd brought her to climax the first night they met—his thumb on her clit, two crossed fingers inside her sheath—and angled his hand to recreate the caress. The familiar approach, he hoped, would both soothe and excite her, knowing as she did how good it felt, and also remind her that he'd not harmed her even then, when he'd been a stranger and she was at her most vulnerable. 

His fingers, however, wouldn't slide inside her sex. Despite the copious wetness he encountered when he parted her lips, she was as tight as if he'd never split her the night before. Felix hoped that residual tension from her upset was to blame, that he would be able to coax her body into softening, that he wouldn't in fact be forced to hurt her in order to prove his point.

Opting for the moment to only stroke her cunt's wet entrance, Felix pressed two fingertips into her slit and began to rub slowly back and forth. His attack on her clit was much more direct. He pressed down hard with his thumb, then alternated scrubbing in brisk circles with flicking its distended tip with his blunt nail. 

Jamie reacted as if their encounter hadn't gone so horribly awry—as if he hadn't brought her within a knife's edge of orgasm by forcing her to accept an unwanted caress, then abandoned her and left her desperate for release, then hurled her into an abyss of sobbing, mindless terror. She called out his name, jerking under the sharp lash of pleasure, and felt the now-familiar coil of desire begin to wind tightly once more in her belly. The continued soft thrust of Felix's cock against her anus was a worry, a vague distraction, but it was by no means enough to impede her response to his skilled fingers and their relentless assault on her flesh. 

Back bent so he could bring his mouth to her ear, Felix briefly tongued the lobe then took the soft bit of flesh between his lips. Parting his jaws just slightly, he sucked inward, deliberately scraping both sides of the lobe as he drew it back between his teeth. Jamie tilted her head to ease his reach, then groaned long and low, pressing her brow against his bicep when he suddenly stopped circling and flicking her clit. 

He waited an instant, allowing her time enough to draw in her breath to protest, then purposefully dragged the rope-roughed pad of his thumb along her slickened nub. Her indrawn breath caught in her throat, choking her, only stuttering free when Felix eased into a new rhythm, petting her clit with slow, one-directional strokes. All the while, his two fingers continued to tease her cunt while his cockhead nudged and rubbed her anus.

Felix released her earlobe from the suckling warmth of his mouth, then licked it once, nibbling gently. "Now, Jamie?" he asked, the words whispered cool on her wet skin. "Do you want me inside you now?" He punctuated the question with a slight downward shift of his hips.

The fear was softer now, easier to bear—as if the morning glow now lightening the hold had somehow sanded down the sharp-edged dread. Jamie's reaction, though, was still swift and reflexive, wrenched from her by violent memories, made evident by her anguish-filled voice. 

"No, Felix," she moaned, head shaking, her brow slick with sweat against his skin. "Please, don't. I don't want—" 

"Alright, girl," Felix interrupted, having received the exact response he expected. "Don't go mad on me again. Didn't I promise?" His two fingertips eased inside her sheath, finding less resistance than the first time he'd tried. "Tell me, Jamie," he insisted, steadily deepening the penetration, "what did I promise?" 

His knuckles stretched her swollen flesh for an instant before sliding inside, and Jamie fought to keep enough breath to speak. "You promised," she panted, "you promised you'd not come into me."

"Until when?" he asked.

She was soaked, her cunt clutching his fingers, sucking them in bit by bit. The relief of her deep, inner ache was near instant, but incomplete. Distracted, wanting more, Jamie bore down, clamping his fingers deep inside her sheath, using muscles she'd discovered just the night before, attempting to prevent his inevitable withdrawal. 

"Until when, Jamie?" Felix insisted, knowing she'd completely lost track of their conversation. He was having trouble remaining focused himself. The feel of the silky heat inside her body was almost more than he could stand. If he was to have any hope of retraining control, of seeing this through to the end, he needed her to relent. Soon. 

Realizing she'd still not replied, Felix stopped stroking her clit, held his fingers perfectly still inside her, but retained the light pressure on her anus. Her hand that was twisted through his began gripping and releasing, tugging insistently on his fingers. She said his name, and it was a soft plea that Felix felt more than he actually heard—the desperate clenching of every muscle in her body paired with the hot exhalation of sound against the inside bend of his arm where her face was buried. 

"Tell me," Felix said, his lips still close to her earlobe. "Tell me exactly what I promised you, Jamie."

She struggled for a moment to speak, to find the words he wanted to hear. Though she was confused, able to gather only stray wisps of thought, Jamie knew she'd answered this question before.

"I already said." She spoke faintly but audibly, repeating, "Felix, I already said."

"Tell me again," he insisted. "All of it, this time. You've not got the whole thing yet."

"I have!" she cried. Her voice was thickening, becoming increasingly frantic. "You promised, Felix," she said, tugging again on his fingers. "You promised you'd not come inside me."

"Until when, Jamie?" he repeated. He nipped her earlobe, soothed the sting with his tongue, continued to rock his hips so his cock rubbed between her buttocks. "I promised I'd not come in you until when?"

"Until I asked you too!" she burst out without thinking. 

Jamie froze beneath him, hearing the echo of her overly loud words in the hold. She realized suddenly where he was taking her, what he was forcing her to do, and she started to cry quietly. They were desolate tears, useless ones too, because they did nothing to stop her from wanting him.

"Ask me, Jamie," Felix said. 

Without withdrawing his fingers from inside her sheath, he parted them as far as her tight tissues would allow, then slowly crossed one digit over the other. Jamie shuddered, shaking her head, tears mixing with the perspiration that soaked both her face and his arm. 

"Ask me," he repeated. 

Felix began a soft finger fuck, gentle but deep, and his thumb resumed its caress of her clit. Helplessly, her hips thrust into his touch, and he followed the forward motion with his own, keeping the smooth head of his shaft firmly nestled between her ass cheeks. Then she pushed back against him, and Felix felt her sphincter give a little, parting under the increased pressure. He drew back as quickly as he could, but not before a pain-filled whimper was ripped from Jamie's throat. 

"I'm sorry, girl," Felix said quickly, anticipating her panic, her justified anger. "I didn't mean to. I know you haven't said—"

Then she thrust back again, and Felix was too stunned to speak. Suddenly he was the one constantly pulling away, endeavoring to keep their contact light. Her movements, though, were irregular, impossible to predict. Felix finally relented altogether, allowing her to grind against him as she wished. The danger to her still-healing body was minimal. Without considerable pressure on his part, she wouldn't be able to get even his broad tip inside. Felix simply held still, clinging to her obvious distress as an anchor to prevent his cooperation, to keep from tightening his buttocks and exerting the necessary pressure to force himself inside. He concentrated instead on his fingers' continued efforts to bring her pleasure—his middle and index fingers crossed, slickly thrusting, and his thumb rubbing rough circles over and around her clit. 

Jamie's ass was on fire. The pain was real, vibrant and terrible, worse than the nastiest rope burns she'd endured, when her flesh was flayed nearly to the bone and the hurt kept on for days. Still, she couldn't keep herself from thrusting back against him—even when spots of light flashed behind her tightly shut eyes, and her fingers gripped Felix's so tight her nails might have rent his skin had it not been leathered thick with callus. She wanted to stop, but then she'd move again. And in the moments when she held still, shivering as she recovered from the pain, she felt Felix's fingers working zealously between her thighs, and the knife-bright tingling that radiated from her anus shot straight through her groin to the most sensitive spot where Felix's thumb continued ceaselessly to rub.

She'd started to sob. Partly from the pain, Felix thought, but largely because the pain he caused—that she caused herself—did not come close to diminishing her body's need for release. 

He'd never intended to bugger her. He'd meant to show her that she didn't need to dread what would happen to her in the future, that it was something she might desire, that even if there were slight pain—which there likely always would be—she should still expect pleasure for herself. Instead, Felix feared, he'd succeeded only in showing an abused young woman that the single thing she'd ever had any control over—her own body's response—was not hers to command after all, that she could be taken over and manipulated into welcoming the act she feared worse than anything else.

Felix kissed her copper-bright head, softly, regretfully. He could taste her sweat through the curls. Then leaning close to her ear, he whispered, "Now, Jamie."

He didn't phrase it as a question. He wanted only to end this before he damaged her even further. Jamie, however, responded as he'd originally intended—as if she needed to beg to be filled, to finally be permitted the climax she more than deserved. 

"Yes," she sobbed, barely able to breathe. "Please, Felix. I can't anymore. Help me, please."

It was the same thing she'd said the night before, but under drastically different circumstances. She'd been riding him then, driving them toward mutual fulfillment, only her body had been too weak to complete the climb. Now she seemed broken, dejected, not begging for pleasure so much as an end to what he was putting her through. 

Moving quickly, Felix withdrew his hand from her sex, then reached between her legs to grab his shaft. He lowered himself slightly, adjusting the angle, then notched his cock's broad head between her lips. Before Jamie could voice her shock at not being buggered, he clenched his ass and thrust smoothly inside, groaning in relief when she accepted him easily, with no apparent pain.

Even if he'd been capable of gentleness, Jamie wouldn't allow it. She bit down hard on his arm and threw herself back into each thrust. His free hand pawed her stomach, groped her dangling breasts, then joined his other arm in front of her so he was wrapped completely over and around her. His hips thrust wildly, driving with all force and no finesse. When Jamie came several strokes later, Felix felt her teeth break the skin of his forearm. The pain flared hot up his arm, and he cried out, finding his own release in the next instant.

His climax was akin to agony, wrenched from deep inside his balls, and Felix shuddered from the sensation of having his shaft so violently wrung out. It went on so long he had the brief, ridiculous thought that he might not survive. And then it finally began to ease, and Felix was surprised to find that his weight was still supported on his forearms, that he hadn't dropped flat, crushing Jamie beneath him—Jamie who, judging from the furious trembling of her body, didn't seem to have recovered any faster than Felix himself. 

He was abruptly more exhausted than he ever remembered being. He wanted to collapse as he had the night before, to weep, to sleep with Jamie tucked safely within his skin. In the last instant before his strength gave out, he managed instead to wrap one arm across her shoulders and hug her tight to his tattooed chest. When he threw himself backward onto his knees, he brought Jamie with him. She settled high on his lap, her thighs sprawled on either side of his. Her thin fingers were still viced white-knuckle tight on his hand while, a few inches up the same arm, her teeth had yet to release their mouthful of his flesh.

Reaching up, Felix cupped Jamie's jaw and squeezed lightly, then with more force when her mouth still wouldn't open. He didn't think she meant to hurt him—although he wouldn't have blamed her if she had. 

Her eyes were tightly shut; her face was pinched white and wet with tears; quick breaths bellowed in and out of her nostrils. Felix doubted in that instant that she knew who she was, much less where she was or what she was doing. Far from gratifying him, the thought caused him acute pain. He had pushed her much further that he should have, and her reactions had been far stronger than he'd anticipated. Peter and Luke, when subjected to roughly the same treatment, had been angry, but quickly came to see the reasons behind his actions. Jamie, Felix thought—actually, he hoped—would not be so quick to forgive. He didn't deserve it. 

Felix tightened his grip slightly more on Jamie's face, and her mouth fell open. She coughed, spouting a small glut of blood, so Felix wasn't surprised by the deep, circular wound on his forearm that was sullenly bleeding and already starting to bruise. He ignored it for the moment. He'd borne far worse injuries. His concern then was entirely for Jamie.

Leaning back against his chest, she coughed again, then jerked her hand free of Felix's to reach up and wipe her mouth. She coughed twice more, gagged once, and Felix feared she was going to vomit. Then she spat blindly, just missing her own thigh, and her stomach seemed to settle. It was hard to tell against the dark wool blanket, but Felix thought the glob of saliva was tinged deep pink with his blood.

She continued to rest against him for several minutes, her scarred breasts heaving as her breath gradually evened. When she finally opened her eyes—deep blue in the now bright morning light—she glanced back over her shoulder and blinked groggily up at Felix, her brow furrowed as if she knew him but couldn't quite recall his name.

Then she froze.

Her soft, exhausted body stiffened atop his lap. All the muscles that had been limp as loose rigging an instant before were transformed into weathered hardwood. Her neck was still bent, allowing her to look back at Felix, but her eyes were wide now, alert and accusing. 

"Why did you do that?" she ground out. Then, without waiting for his response, "Why didn't you do it? I wish you'd just done it."

"No, Jamie." Felix's arms had fallen to his sides. He wanted to raise them, to stroke the warmth back into her resistant skin, but he doubted she'd permit his touch. "Even if you were healed," he said softly, "I'd have hurt you horribly. You're not ready—"

"Not ready?" she broke in. She spoke quietly, but there was a brittle quality to her words that cut straight through Felix's deeper tones. "No," she agreed and shook her head infinitesimally. "I don't think I'd have ever been ready for that."

"Jamie—" he began, not sure what he meant to say, but she erupted into motion, and Felix lost his thought altogether in the sudden flurry of limbs.

Bracing her hands on his thighs, Jamie used the leverage to launch herself off his lap. She winced as her swollen inner tissues were wrenched by the too-swift separation of her sex from Felix's, but his answering grunt of discomfort brought a small, bitter smile to her lips. 

She managed to stand for a moment, but her legs were cramped from their prolonged crouching position and refused to support her weight. She fell, landing hard on her hands and knees, and groaned from the shock of pain to her already-sore joints. Unable to rise, she crawled forward a few feet before the effort to move any more became suddenly too much to manage. She groped out with one hand and was thankful to find the planked wall within her reach. Spending her last dregs of energy, she forced her body to turn over, then scuttled backward until her back was pressed to the cool wood. Once settled, her body crumpled, folding in on itself—her legs bent back to her chest and her arms wrapped around them while her face pressed into the crevice between her knees. 

She felt confused and unaccountably hurt by what she could only perceive as Felix's betrayal. The fact that he'd brought her to pleasure in the end didn't matter. What he'd put her through before had been terrifying, brutal and cruel, and all the more shocking because she'd come to trust him so quickly, so completely. Physically, she was hurt only slightly—and mostly due to her own body's unwanted response—but emotionally, she felt battered worse than if she'd endured an actual beating. 




Aboard the Lady May Ch. 03



When the wool blanket was draped over her shoulders, Jamie flinched before she realized what was touching her. Then she gripped the fabric, gathered grateful handfuls, shifted until it fell into place and covered her pale nakedness. Though she never looked up, she sensed Felix standing above her. He was silent, unmoving, but undeniably there. She felt the heat and breath and heft of him as surely as if he were tucked in beside her, sharing his warmth beneath the fragrant, sweat-damp wool. And she was tempted for an instant to raise one arm, to offer a bit of blanket she knew would not come close to covering him, to invite him down—carpenter that he was—and give him a chance to shore up the damage he'd done, to recaulk the chinks he'd carved in her hull so she might float unmanned once more. 

Because the urge was so real, and because she was as angry with herself for her weakness in wanting to make the gesture as she was with Felix for his actions against her, she wrapped her arms even more tightly around her legs, gripping both wrists to keep herself still. 

"Please," she whispered before her resolve softened, "won't you leave me be?"

He said nothing, and she didn't hear him move, but then the door clicked softly shut and Jamie knew she was alone. Even without the hint of sound, she'd have known he was gone by the sudden dearth of warmth in the hold and from the familiar fear that settled into her chest. While she no longer believed that Felix was the perfect protector he'd first seemed, she was still certain that he, along with Peter and Luke, were all who stood between her and the fate from which she'd barely escaped aboard her previous vessel. 

She'd thought of the frigate Ariadne several times since she'd sought safety on board the Lady May: the first night when Felix found out she'd been buggered; the afternoon when Luke discovered fresh blood on her body; that morning when Felix's rough treatment recalled the pain and shock of her most recent rape. Now, however, left alone with only her own thoughts for company, the rest of the memories—the ones she'd fought so hard to suppress—came flooding back, inexorably as a rogue wave. 

She'd fallen soundly asleep. That was her second mistake. Her first was that she'd gone to her berth. Usually she napped lightly, or if she sensed her exhaustion ran too deep to control, she'd hide herself, find a secret nook, slip inside a coiled rope or crawl between boxes where no one but she could fit. But she'd been up all night, shining the captain's silver. The merchants of Bridgetown were to board the next morning, to breakfast with the officers, to discuss the worth of the ship's cargo in terms of sugar, molasses, and casks of rum. 

She'd been up all night, and then she sat on her narrow bunk. Just for a moment, she told herself. Just to rest before she hopped to swab, to clean the crystal, to set the captain's table. 

And she'd fallen asleep. Deeply asleep.

If she'd not been so tired, she might have woken in time. Or if one of the tars had thought to nudge her when they left for their morning's shore leave. Or if Benton were a normal man and not the soft-shod spook who the sailors swore could sneak up on anyone, God included.

She'd not fought. She woke with the crushing weight on her back and the hot hand, sour with sweat, over her mouth, and she'd not fought. She concentrated instead on breathing through her nose, on not vomiting, on holding her thighs tight together to protect the secret in between. She knew Benton wouldn't finish quickly. He never did. But this time, with the ship all but empty around them, he'd obviously felt free to take his ease.

He used her once. His hands moved from her hips to her thighs, to her stomach and chest. He felt the firm-packed flesh beneath her shirt, and his hands paused. Just for an instant. Then he gripped one knee and jerked her thighs wide. He laughed and licked the back of her neck. 

She had fought then. 

Jamie couldn't remember where the knife came from. She only knew one second she was unarmed, that she was groping behind her, frantic for any soft bit of flesh to dig her nails into. And then the hilt was in her hand. Her father's knife. She'd thought for a moment he was nearby, that he must have handed it to her, and she remembered what he'd taught her years before. 

Her thighs were forced wide, one of Benton's hands between them. He used his other to paw her bound breasts, to search ineffectually for the bandage's edge. He was hard again. 

Jamie reached between her legs, sharp blade in hand. 

She slashed deep. A lucky strike. Found the large vein in his thigh on her first try. Felt hot blood erupt on her skin. Leapt forward when his hold slackened, before he recovered from the shock, then rounded and attacked again. Stomach and chest, over and over. Kept stabbing long after he ceased to rear up, ceased to flail his fists, ceased to see, ceased to breathe. 

She'd scrubbed off the blood, desperate to be clean. She remembered the shock of cold water, gooseflesh like sandpaper on her bruised skin. She remembered freezing. She dressed. She ran.

She left the knife. 

Jamie didn't know why she left the knife. Somewhere in the blanket, maybe imbedded in Benton's chest, she'd left it, and she didn't know why. Her father's knife. The knife with the gold from her mother's wedding band, melted, inlaid into the handle, filling in the etched letters—Evangeline. The knife named Evangeline whom every man on board the Ariadne knew belonged to the redheaded cabin boy. 

She left the knife, and she ran, and she lied to Felix. 

When he'd first touched her, first discovered the truth of her sex, Jamie'd told him he was the first to have done so. She'd acted sweetly afraid—and she had been—but more than anything else she'd been enraged, furious because he knew the truth. He knew the truth, and she'd left her knife, and she couldn't do a damned thing about it. And in that instant, Jamie knew, if she'd had her knife, she'd have killed him too. 

But then he'd held her while she cried. He'd touched her in ways she hadn't thought possible. He'd cleaned her, fed her, offered her the first friends she'd had in years. And he hadn't hurt her. Until that morning, he'd been nothing but wonderful. 

Now, Jamie mused—huddled deep within her wool cocoon, wracked by the wrath of her unwanted memories—it hardly mattered if Felix weren't precisely the white knight he'd seemed. 

For a while, for a single sweet day, she'd allowed herself to pretend she'd escaped, that she'd found a safe place and people with whom she might share a bit of her true self, even if they weren't able to wholly protect her.

Now she'd remembered, and with that memory came the knowledge that none of it mattered: Peter's laughter, Luke's soft mothering, all the gifts Felix gave her, along with the hard truths he forced her to endure. None of it mattered because she couldn't keep any of them. She likely had weeks, perhaps a month or more, but word spread fast from port to port. Especially the murder of a well-liked boatswain—that news would travel even faster than most. And slight and redheaded as she was, she wasn't by any means inconspicuous. 

Now, if she could somehow keep her secret safe in the time before her crime caught her up, she would count herself well blessed. It wasn't a great hope, Jamie knew, but it was the only one she had left—the prayer she'd go to the foreyardarm, still intact, as a woman whole, able to find some ease at least in the thought she wouldn't be hanged in vain.



Aboard the Lady May Ch. 04



Heads up, everyone--not a lot of action here. (Pretty much none, really.) But it is a novel, so you've got to have some plot somewhere. My apologies for any disappointment...



Luke leaned back slightly for balance as he walked forward down the slanted ladder. His arms were laden with a bucket of water, a stack of clothes, a bowl of porridge, a cup of milk. Neither fresh water nor milk were standard commodities aboard the Lady May, but the rain barrels were full, and they'd taken on a half dozen cows at port in Bridgetown two mornings before. The small herd was en route to a rich Spaniard's plantation on Hispaniola, but until they arrived the animals would need to be tended. Having spent his first twelve years on a farm in the Province of New York, Luke knew how to care for the animals, and he'd offered his services in return for as much of the milk as he wanted. With six cows on board there was plenty of the rich liquid, which few of the other men had a taste for anyway, seeing as they were all more fond of their grog. 

Luke didn't care for milk himself, but he did enjoy the silent company of the gentle beasts—the heat of a flank against his cheek, the soft feel of a full udder, the familiar thick scents of straw and shit which seemed somehow sweeter than he recalled. In any case, the milk wasn't for him, but rather for Felix's newest foundling. 

Despite having spent just a few hours with the girl, Luke found he liked her very much, that he was drawn to her in some inexplicable way. There was something in her eyes—dark blue and sad as he often felt—that was wrenching and impossible to ignore, impossible to resent. Luke couldn't even begrudge her Peter's flushed face and obvious erection when he'd found Luke a short while earlier and thrust the clothes into his hands, asking him to please bring them down to Jamie. Whatever Peter had seen in the hold had both aroused and upset him deeply, and while the girl was the obvious cause of the former, Luke doubted she had anything to do with the latter. Only Felix's disapproval could distress Peter like that, and Luke knew from experience that his friend had no respect for closed doors. 

As he deftly navigated the maze of passageways, the sailors Luke encountered nudged him good naturedly, trying their best to upset his burdens. It wasn't malicious, but a game they played, as Luke was renowned among the crew for his steady hands and imperturbable balance. On a dare from Peter to prove his skill he'd once walked the bowsprit from end to end with an imported porcelain tea service balanced atop his head. Despite the success of the caper, Captain Fitzhugh had been less than amused, and Luke spent the rest of the day cleaning the heads until they gleamed. Still, though, if there were a delicate job to be done in a storm or a flock of sea birds to be shot on rough seas, more often than not such tasks fell to Luke who, far from minding the accompanying jibes, was pleased to have a skill, to have respect, to be valued on board for more than just his youth and smooth skin.

Rounding a corner, Luke came to the door and briefly rapped with two knuckles. Felix knew his knock, so when there was no response, he figured the girl must be alone. 

"Jamie," he called, hoping to dispel her fear, "it's Luke." 

A moment later the door eased open. He slipped in quickly, nudged the door shut with one foot, then bent to set down his cargo. 

"Breakfast," he said, "and clothes. Warm water to wash. Fresh milk too." He arranged items, pulled clean cloths from his pocket, searched for the knit cap he swore he'd tucked in his vest. Absently, he continued, never once looking up, "Mind you don't get used to such luxury. It's only as we're fresh from port and set to dock again before week's end." He found the cap beneath his belt and shook his head in disgust. He was getting forgetful as Peter. "Best eat your gruel quick." He produced a spoon from inside the cap. "Hot, it's not half bad. Turns thick as tar when it's cold, though." He patted his pockets, found the small pot of honey he'd snatched from the galley. "There," he smiled, held it out with a flourish. "A bit of a treat—" He looked up then for the first time and froze. "Jesus," he swore.

He was on his feet in an instant, abandoning his wares. The girl stood stiff, unnaturally still. She was wrapped in the wool blanket, which Luke could now smell was soiled with sweat and with sex. He cautiously set one hand on her shoulder, stroked the hair from her face, and she didn't flinch, didn't even look at him. She looked frail and drawn, paler even than the milk he'd brought, and her eyes were swollen, bruised, rimmed in angry red. It was obvious she'd been weeping.

"Jamie," he said and stroked her hair again. "What's wrong? Where's Felix?"

She said nothing for a moment, and then her eyes finally focused, settling on Luke. "I made him leave," she whispered.

"Did something happen?" Luke asked, "Did he hurt you?" He didn't sound angry, but rather confused, as if he couldn't conceive of Felix having done such a thing.

Jamie shook her head, and her eyes fell to Luke's throat. "He—" She hesitated, licked her dry lips, began again. "He made me think he was going to." Her voice was flat. She continued to stare straight ahead. "He held me down. He...he scared me. But then, he didn't do it."

Luke sighed and drew Jamie into his arms. Settling his chin atop her head, he began to gently chafe her back and sides, and was struck anew by the girl's terrible thinness. He felt her wet face against his throat and wondered again precisely what Peter had seen.  

For several moments he struggled for words. "It's not...what you think," he began haltingly. Then, "Felix—he didn't do it to hurt you, Jamie. Or to scare you. Well, yes, he did. In a way, but—" Luke paused, drew in a deep breath. He was making a terrible muck of this, he knew, and he felt a brief surge of annoyance that Felix had left, that he'd frightened the girl and then hadn't stayed to explain. 

Drawing back slightly, Luke tucked a knuckle beneath Jamie's chin and forced her face up toward his. Her eyes were glazed, still unfocused, but she was at least looking at him. 

"At first it feels good," he said, deciding to be direct. Judging by the smell of that blanket she wore, Felix had obviously been. Very direct. Jamie was small, but she wasn't a child, and Luke wouldn't patronize her by treating her as one. 

He continued, "It feels better than good. Wonderful. Like nothing you ever knew before. And he touches you so slowly, for such a long time, that you think he never means to bring you release. But it builds, and then, finally, when you're almost there, when all you need is a moment more—he stops. He stops, and you think you're going to die, and you beg him. You beg him, and then he comes back, and in that instant you're so grateful, you almost love him."

Jamie was staring at him, seemingly transfixed, and Luke had to pause and swallow thickly, to collect himself. This was something he'd thought he moved past a long time ago, and he was somewhat surprised by the vivid strength of his memories.   

"And then he scares you," Luke said, his voice growing harsh. "Maybe hurts you a little. But it's the fear that's so awful because you know it's deliberate. You know he's chosen something private, something you shared with him in confidence, and he takes it and turns it to use it against you."

For Luke it had been teeth—the feel of teeth on his shaft. He was bitten often by his former crewmates. Badly. They'd used it against him, a constant threat when he showed signs of defiance, to make him carry out their commands. In punishment he was flogged four times, nearly keelhauled once, locked up by the ship's mates and left to starve for days at a time. And none of it mattered. He'd continued to commit his crewmates' crimes because they knew what he feared most, and they were able to control him utterly.

Jamie shifted, reaching up to touch his face, and Luke realized he'd stood quiet for a long while. Her fingers curved, shaped to cradle his cheek, and he leaned into her touch, finding more comfort there than he'd thought possible. He opened his mouth to be done with the story, to finish it for good, but Jamie's hand moved to stop him from talking. Nodding once, she took over the retelling:

"He promises not to hurt you, and you believe him. But the threat's still there. The fear's still real. And it doesn't go away. It matters less and less, though. Until it doesn't matter at all. Until it wouldn't matter even if he really did hurt you. Until you're ready to beg him to hurt you, if that's what it takes." 

She moved her fingers from Luke's mouth back to his cheek, felt the fine, barely-there whiskers, then dropped her hand to his chest. His heartbeat felt thick and heavy against her palm, rapid but not erratic. His upset was easing.

"That's the worst part," she continued, whispering, staring at her hand where it rested on Luke's chest, "that he makes you ask for it. He makes it your choice, makes it so what you fear most and what you need most are the same thing. And he makes you feel angry...angry and weak." 

She looked up then, smiling slightly, and finished it: "At the same time, though, it makes you feel strong, or at least stronger—to know there's something inside you that's stronger than fear, some alternative, something else to hang onto when you're too scared breathe. So the terror isn't automatic. So there's another option. So later, when it's real, you'll be able to think and not just panic."

Stunned into silence, Luke could only look at her wonderingly. It had taken him days to work out what she'd come to see within an hour, and longer still before he could be near Felix and not feel overcome with rage. After a week had passed Felix had finally suggested Luke hit him, if that's what it would take to make him feel better. Luke complied. He didn't think Felix had expected him to be so strong.  

"You'd already worked all this out," Luke said, voicing his admiration.

Jamie shrugged, staring again at her hand on his chest, her brow slightly furrowed. "Partly," she said. "Even right after, when I asked him to leave—I wasn't so angry as I knew I should be. Part of me...I didn't want him to go, didn't want to be alone." Her fingers curled into the flax fabric of Luke's shirt, gripping tight so the open throat stretched wide. "Hearing you," she continued, "what you said helped. And then I knew. Then I could finish it." She glanced up but quickly dropped her eyes from Luke's. "I'm surprised, though," she said. "I didn't think that he'd...with you—"

Luke smiled, amused by the flush that stained her cheeks, and reached to rescue his shirt before she mangled it beyond repair. "He didn't—" he said, "I mean, he doesn't touch us. Not in the way you're thinking, anyway." Wrapping her hand up in his, he brought them both to rest against his wrinkled shirtfront. He hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "Felix—with Peter and I, he's only ever done what is needed. For us, I mean. Nothing for himself. Not ever."

He used their joined hands to bump up her chin, saw by her frown and pinched brow that she didn't understand.   

Still forcing her face to stay raised to his, he said, "The sailors, the men—most of them, they prefer women. But they can use us. They can pretend. Felix—" Luke paused, shrugged, then said simply, "He can't. His body, it won't work." 

Her eyes widened briefly in comprehension, then a slow smile spread across her face.

Luke chuckled, said, "Like that, do you?"

She cocked her head, considering, then nodded. "I don't know why," she said, "but I do."

"You know why," Luke returned. He felt his smile fade, felt a surge of jealousy that had nothing to do with Felix and everything to do with loneliness. "You like it," he said, "because it means he's yours."

Jamie felt something sweet and bright swell inside her chest, filling her so full for a moment she thought she might float, or explode, or maybe just breathe freely and easily for the first time in years. Then she shook her head, remembering, and stumbled several steps back from Luke. Surprised, he reached after her but succeeded only in grabbing a handful of damp wool. Jamie kept retreating, leaving the blanket behind, until her back was pressed to the wall beneath the porthole, and she slid down, naked and shivering, as her body curled into a walnut-hard ball.

Luke followed, flung the blanket back around her, and knelt. Worried, reminded of her near-frozen state when he'd first entered the hold, he grabbed her shoulders, shook her more roughly than he intended. "Jamie," he said, "what is it? Tell me what's wrong."

When she raised her head her eyes were glazed again, unseeing, and fresh tears streaked her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she whispered, gazing over Luke's shoulder. "I keep forgetting—for an hour or a few minutes, it can be like it wasn't me. And then I remember." Her breath caught in her throat, a panting sob that caused her whole body to contract under Luke's hands. "I remember," she said again, "and I can't stand it."

Assuming she was referring to her rape, to the most recent man who'd hurt her, Luke gentled his grip on her shoulders. He stroked her hair, trying to comfort her as he had before, but this time she tensed her muscles against him, pressed herself back closer to the wall. 

Remembering times when he'd not wanted to be touched himself, Luke retreated. He settled an arm's length away, cross-legged on the floor. Asked, "Do you want me to find Felix?" 

Jamie shook her head miserably. "No," she wept. "Please don't. I can't keep him. He's not mine."

"Why?" Luke asked, confused. "Why can't you keep him? I know he wants you."

She flinched from Luke's words, began shaking her head again. "Don't say that," she said. "He can't. He shouldn't. They're going to catch me. They're going to hang me."

"What?" Luke bust out. Too concerned to respect her desire for distance, he leaned forward, gripped her arms hard. Demanded, "What do you mean, Jamie? Tell me now." 

She said nothing, but Luke insisted, shaking her slightly and repeating his plea. She didn't relent, and he gripped her chin, forced her face close to his. 

"Please," he said. "Talk to me. Tell me why you're frightened."

It was the exact thing Felix had said to her that morning when he was on top of her, pinning her beneath him, forcing her to face her fears. Distracted by the memory—which seemed somehow sweet now in comparison to the other bloody ones swelling inside her mind—Jamie spoke almost without noticing. "I told you," she said, her voice low and oddly monotone. She repeated, "I told you yesterday that the morning I came on board—"

"Yes, Jamie," Luke interrupted. He saw no reason to make her say it. "I know. You told me. It's alright. It wasn't your fault."

She shook her head again, wrenching her chin from Luke's grasp. 

"No!" she cried. "You don't know!" and there was something violent in her tone that kept Luke from contradicting her, that made him think perhaps she'd endured something even worse than he'd imagined. 

Part of her rebelled against telling Luke the truth, as if saying the words aloud might somehow make them more real. She'd already started, though, and she couldn't just stop—he'd tapped her leak, and now she couldn't help but speak. "That morning," she whispered, "that last man—he touched me more than most. He found out what I am." She hesitated, licked her lips, forced herself to look Luke fully in the face. "I stabbed him," she said. Luke didn't react, didn't shove her away, didn't even seem particularly surprised. To make sure he understood, she clarified, "I killed him." 

Luke nodded. He'd understood, but he was thinking, sorting out the implications.

A moment later he asked, "Nobody heard anything? Nobody saw you?"

She shook her head. "The crew, they were all on shore. The others were locked up. And the officers, they were holed up with the sugar barons, bargaining, in the captain's cabin."

Still nodding, he said, "And when you ran, when you jumped ship, did anyone see you then? See which ship you boarded?"

"I—I don't think so," she whispered, "no one I knew, anyway. But there's always people on the docks. I'm small," she reached up to tug a strand of her hair, "but I'm redheaded. I stand out. People, they tend to remember me." 

"You were dirtier then," he said, "your hair was darker." It was a feeble hope to cling to, though, and he knew it. Felix's first boy, Danny, whom Luke had known only briefly before he died of fever, had red hair, and he'd drawn attention wherever they went. Luke brought his hands back to grip her shoulders, stared hard at her, said, "Think now, Jamie. This is important. Had you fought before? With the man you killed? Would the crew have cause to suspect you?"

She cringed, nodding. "He—Benton, he was always roughest with me. The men knew. They knew I didn't like him, that I'd hide from him at times. But he organized the cargo, kept some space aside for the crew. He'd find buyers for their goods, help them get the best price. He was well liked."

"Jamie—" Luke breathed, his worry having suddenly intensified.

Jamie nodded, knowing what he was thinking. "He was the boatswain," she whispered.

Luke swore, released Jamie to shove rough hands through his hair. A regular seaman wouldn't have been so bad, wouldn't have cause much of a stir. But the murder of a master mariner—someone with special skills, someone who would need to be replaced, someone who was popular—would garner more attention, would merit an investigation, and would warrant a search for his killer. 

Then certain things Jamie had said began to fall into place. Benton, she'd said. Luke knew that name, knew it was important. She'd also mentioned the sugar barons, had said, 'the others were locked up.' Luke went suddenly still, remembering which ships had been docked at Bridgetown. 

"The Ariadne," he whispered, and Jamie flinched, confirming his suspicion. He gripped her shoulders again, squeezed tight through thick wool, said, "The Ariadne, Jamie? You were on board a slaver? You killed the boatswain on board a slaver?"  

Jamie lowered her eyes, saying nothing because there was nothing to say. It was hard enough to find regular men to serve aboard slavers. Faced with filth and foreign disease, the constant threat of rebellion, death tolls equally as high as those plaguing their human cargo, only desperate men—or criminals—would sign on for service. A skilled man, one who could find employment elsewhere, and one who was renowned for his ability to keep a shipment of slaves alive and contained on a months-long voyage—a man like that was all but irreplaceable. 

The Lady May docked often. Luke visited the typical sailors' taverns. He'd heard the rumors, and he now knew exactly who it was Jamie had killed. Benton, she'd called him, but he was mostly known as 'the Breaker.' Slaves who shipped under his watch were considered half-broken already by the time they'd crossed the Atlantic, and as such fetched premium prices at auction. Jamie had not only killed the friend of brutal men, she had severely compromised their future profits. It was a crime that would be neither forgiven nor easily forgotten.

"Anything else, Jamie?" Luke's voice was faint. He didn't see how the situation could possibly be any worse, but he still had to ask. "Is there anything else we should know?"

Jamie nodded without looking up, then winced when Luke's fingers bit even more deeply into her arms. "The knife," she whispered. "My knife—the one I used, it's...distinctive. It was stolen a few times, but I always got it back. Everyone knew who it belonged to."

"And?" Luke said, not yet seeing the significance.

"I left it." Jamie said it simply, baldly.




Aboard the Lady May Ch. 04



Luke swore, bowing his head. "Where?" he asked.

"I—I'm not sure. Somewhere on the bunk, maybe. Or still...stuck in him." She shuddered, swallowed thickly, repeated, "I don't know."

Luke's fingers gentled on her arms, began to stroke again rather than squeeze. Exhausted, Jamie leaned forward until their foreheads touched, then sighed, resting against him. 

"It's bad," she said.

"Yes," Luke returned.

"They're going to hang me."

"No!" He spoke with more adamancy than conviction but hoped Jamie couldn't tell the difference. He released her shoulders to search out her hands, then joined them with his, linked their fingers together. "The four of us," he said, knowing there was no need to specify who exactly he meant. "We'll sit down together. We'll make a plan. Peter's plenty devious, and Felix will rip apart the Ariadne bare-handed before he lets anything bad happen to you."  

Jamie shook her head, rolling her brow against Luke's. "You shouldn't," she said. "None of you should. You'll get in trouble, and—"

"No," Luke interrupted, but gently. "We keep the men content," he said. "Without us, they're like to rebel at the first bit of trouble, and the captain knows it."

Jamie could think of nothing to say to that, and Luke seemed content to sit with her for as long as she wanted. He wasn't Felix, but he was still nice to be with. His hands were strong, and he smelled warmly of gruel and weak grog. Despite her distress, the scents teased her empty stomach, which promptly began to roil and growl noisily.

Luke squeezed her hands once then sat up. Flashing a brief, reassuring smile, he glanced around for her forgotten breakfast, spotted it on the floor by the bundle of clothes he'd brought. He winced.

"It'll be stone cold now," he said. "Like trying to choke down wet cloth."

Withdrawing his hands from Jamie's, he stood and went to retrieve the porridge. He drizzled in honey, a bit of milk, stirred vigorously, then tasted it, grimaced, added more honey. Seemingly satisfied, he returned to Jamie, handed her the spoon and bowl and milk.  

"East fast," he said. "It's not so bad."

While he set about readying her clothes, Jamie raised a cautious spoonful to her mouth. She tried a bit, decided Luke was right. It was sweet but cold, the texture fibrous, sticky and hard to swallow. Her stomach, though, wasn't discriminating and welcomed the food, demanded more. She obliged her body's desire until she was satisfied, then looked up to find Luke watching her. She tipped the bowl forward, raised one brow, asked silently if she had eaten enough. Luke nodded, pleased. She'd gotten more down that he might have managed. 

Slowly sipping milk, Jamie looked up over the cup's pewter rim. Luke was frowning, picking at a loose thread on a piece of clothing, and she almost smiled, recognizing the same intent expression he'd worn while tending her injuries the day before. He was so earnest, and he seemed so certain that between the three of them, he, Felix and Peter would think of some way to save her. While she didn't yet feel anything even approaching hope, Jamie trusted them to try, to do their best, and at the very least to keep her company in the last weeks or months of her life, however long she had left. 

Although she was troubled by the thought that Felix might come to care for her and then be forced to watch her go to her death, she knew the concern wouldn't be enough to keep her away from him—or him from her, if Luke's words were true, and Felix did indeed want her for reasons other than the fact of her femininity and the compulsion he felt to guard all those he perceived as weaker than himself. If their situations were reversed, and he were the one who was likely to die, Jamie knew, despite the fact that she'd not yet known him two full days, she would do anything in her power to protect him and, in case of failure, she'd be certain to spend every second with him she could. She didn't want to hurt Felix, but she'd been lonely for so long, and she was selfish enough to hope he'd feel the same way. 

Jamie gulped down the last of her milk and squared her shoulders, decided she'd moped and hidden herself for long enough. She thumped down her empty cup, and Luke looked up, one eyebrow arched.

Jamie met his gaze squarely. "What happens next?" she asked, feeling stronger than she had in days. 

Luke nodded toward the oversized sailors' slops Peter had cut down for her to wear, the navy shirt and brown trousers to be paired with her thick canvas vest. "First," he said, "you get dressed. Then we go abovedeck. And afterward, the four of us will have that talk." 

"Afterward?" Jamie said. "After what?"

Luke squared his shoulders, turned his head to look out the open porthole. His throat moved for a moment before he spoke. "After Thaniel's funeral," he said. 

* * *

Peter volunteered to sew the shroud. He was quickest with a needle, and in the August heat the body was already starting to stink. Working steadily, he didn't think of the man inside the sailcloth—the tales he'd told, the friend he'd been. Peter had done this chore many times before, and he found it easiest to pretend the body belonged to a stranger. For a while, for the first months he'd been on board the Lady May, in his mind every corpse became a man he hated—men who had used him roughly, without consent, with no remorse. He'd sewn the last stitch through each nose with enjoyment until, one by one, he'd buried them all. 

Now, however, they were nobody. Unknown faces. Empty slates. People he couldn't pick out of a crowd. Felix said it was better that way, easier, less wearing on the soul. Over time Peter had come to agree. Whether it was love or hate, friendship or animosity—he found it too draining to handle the remains of anyone for whom he felt strongly. In lieu of losing a bit of himself along with every body he washed and weighted and watched slip into the sea, he took away their names so they became nothing more than a task to complete, a means of earning his keep, unpleasant for sure but nothing that might plague his sleep or harden his heart. 

Despite the speed with which he worked, his stitches were small and straight, evenly spaced, perfect Xs in black waxed thread marching up the front of the salt-stiff fabric. He might disavow for the moment who the man had been in life, but Peter saw no reason to not sew him up snugly. Even a stranger deserved to be tucked in tight one final time. 

He set the seam up the chin and over the mouth, looped around to cover the brow, then found himself staring at the strong, beaked nose that poked through the open hole. His hand began to shake. "Jesus." Peter breathed, "Sweet swiving Christ."

Eyes closed, he saw Thaniel drunk on purloined bourbon, laughing, reaching up to playfully pull his own nose. "Had to go to sea." He'd grinned. "With a great neb like this, what real lass would have me?" Then in a singsong, "Aye, boys, the sea—She's the only lady for me." 

A hard, warm hand closed over his cold one, and Peter jumped, his eyes flying open. 

"I can finish if you'd like," Felix said, having suddenly appeared by his side. 

Peter was pleased to see Felix, glad to know he was forgiven for his blunder that morning in thoughtlessly exposing Jamie's nakedness to anyone who happened past the hold. Adamant, though, he shook his head. "No," he said. "You've worked on him enough already." 

Felix winced, and Peter realized how his words might be heard—as an accusation that Felix had played a role in Thaniel's death.

"I didn't mean that how it sounded," Peter whispered, unable to look at the older man. "I just...you sewed his leg back on. You shouldn't have to—"

"I know," Felix said, nodding. He squeezed Peter's hand once before releasing it, then stepped away, used his boot tip to kick at the clotted sand thrown down to absorb the blood on the floor. "He didn't scream when I took it off." His voice was low but even. "Seemed only right to give it back." Felix glanced up then, flashed a sad smile at Peter. "Thaniel'd not want to be hopping in heaven." 

Suppressing a shudder at the sound of the dead man's name, Peter decided instead to cling to the moment of levity. He snorted, asked, "And what makes you think they'd be letting him in heaven? A right blackguard he was, with more sins on his soul than I've got pinpricks on my fingers. Make a surly angel, he would."

Felix looked away as Peter reached to set the last stitch. "Aye," he said. "You're likely right. Man like Thaniel'd be plenty bored with heaven in a sennight or less." 

* * *

The men all stared at Jamie on her first venture abovedeck—as she'd expected they would—but with more curiosity than the speculation she had anticipated. She was dressed in her new clothes, covered from chin to toe, and Luke had assured her she looked thoroughly unappealing. He'd meant it as a joke, Jamie thought, but she'd been pleased by his comment. With her breasts unbound for the first time since they'd budded at age thirteen, she felt vulnerable, oddly exposed, as if anyone might glance at her once and know instantly she was a woman. 

In an attempt to regain some sense of security, she'd started to shove her short red curls under the knit cap Luke had brought, but he'd snatched it away, refused to let her wear it. When she'd objected, demanding he give it back, Luke had mumbled something about the funeral, how hats were forbidden during religious service. Jamie'd conceded that was true, but he wouldn't look at her, and she knew propriety wasn't Luke's true excuse. For some reason he wanted her hair uncovered, she just had no idea what his reason might be.  

Luke had ushered her through a maze of narrow hallways, up ladders, past cabins—the two of them moving like minnows along with the rest of the crew—until they'd finally emerged on the top deck. There'd been light in the small hold from the single porthole, but being fully exposed to the sun for the first time in days felt to Jamie like she'd returned to the world after suffering from a protracted illness. Everything seemed a little too bright, too sharp, too loud, and she found herself clinging to a bit of Luke's shirt as he weaved through the thick press of bodies, having easily spotted Felix due to the older man's superior height. 

Jamie was used to being pinched and prodded by the men with whom she sailed, but excepting the sidelong looks almost everyone directed her way, she progressed through the throng seemingly unnoticed and wholly unmolested. She thought perhaps this was her first glimpse of what it meant to be under Felix's protection, and she found the benefits not nearly so insignificant as he'd made them seem. He may have been incapable of keeping her only for himself, but if she could expect to pass hours at a time without being mauled or manhandled, it would be a vast improvement over the constant dread she had previously endured on the Ariadne as well as the other ships aboard which she'd served. 

She felt Felix's eyes on her the whole time they made their way through the crowd, knew he was able to focus on her easily because of her bright hair, but once she and Luke reached the spot where he stood with Peter by the starboard gunwale, he seemed unwilling—or unable—to look at her. She remembered then he still thought she was furious with him. While she was annoyed that he'd prescribed treatment for her past without consulting her, and that he'd then allowed her to chase him away without explaining, leaving her hurt and confused until Luke had helped her to understand, she thought this day would be unbearable enough without her heaping more guilt onto his broad but already overloaded shoulders.    

Counting on the press of sixty-odd bodies as well as Luke's strategic stance at her back to hide her actions from the surrounding sailors, Jamie sidled up to Felix. She thought holding his hand might be too conspicuous, but she was unable to keep from touching him altogether and settled instead for wrapping one hand partway around his thick forearm. 

He tensed at her first touch, and Jamie felt a shudder run through his big body. She squeezed his arm reassuringly, then glanced up to flash him a discreet smile. He was looking down at her, some unnamable emotion burning bright in his eyes, and Jamie felt the arm she clutched turn until his palm was pressed to her thigh. His fingers curved to her worsted-covered leg as hers were around his forearm, and all the while she found herself unable to look away from his eyes. She didn't think she'd noted their color before. They were brown but, like his hair, were shot through with gold and nearly red striations. Like mahogany, Jamie thought, cut crosswise to display the grain and then shined to a high gloss. She didn't know how she had failed to notice something so lovely. 

The captain began to pray for Thaniel St. James, who'd been an able seaman and a good friend to them all, and Felix finally turned away. By then, however, Jamie knew it was too late. He cared for her already, and she was going to hurt him terribly. 

* * *

"The hell she is," Felix growled, incensed by Luke's soft pronouncement that Jamie believed she was soon to be hanged. 

The four of them—he, Peter, Luke, and Jamie—were back in the hold, arranged in a three-point circle. Jamie had originally seated herself by his side, but Felix was having none of that and had promptly pulled her atop his lap. Then he'd thrust her slightly away and removed the damnably thick canvas vest she wore. He wanted to feel her body through her shirt without the additional layers of unyielding fabric between them. Luke had smiled to see them so close, while Peter flushed, his freckled face filling in red. For himself, Felix wouldn't have cared if they were both mortified. When Jamie had approached him on deck, touched his arm, smiled up at him, allowed him to hold her—as well as he could at the moment—he'd been astonished. 

He'd expected her to hate him. If not permanently, for at least a while yet. Even Peter, who, despite his antics and distractibility, was exceptionally bright, had needed a few days to come to grips with what Felix had done and to forgive him. Sensitive as Luke was, it had taken him considerably longer, and even so, Felix had deemed his recovery to be exceptionally quick. 

And he had never been lovers with either Peter or Luke. His relationship with Jamie, Felix thought, gave her cause to hold him to a higher standard, to expect more from him than to be treated as just another one of his charges. Instead, his feelings for her had actually caused him to behave worse than he would have otherwise. Not only had he taken his pleasure when he was with her that morning, he'd also allowed her to send him away—he'd allowed the distress he felt for having caused her pain keep him from providing the explanation he knew she needed.  

Now, however, none of that seemed to matter. Felix expected it likely would again later, but for the moment he could think of nothing except the tale Luke was quietly relating.

When they'd first arrived in the hold, Jamie had asked Luke to speak for her, pleading her inability to tell the story twice in the same day. He'd complied, and Felix felt his arms contract more tightly around the girl with every word Luke related. All the while, though, Felix was faced with the uncomfortable realization that he was nearly as bothered by what he was hearing as he was by the fact that, for the second time now, Jamie had confided in Luke rather than in him. It was a selfish thought, he knew, and one he had no right to entertain after the way he had treated her that morning, yet it persisted nonetheless. If she had really forgiven him, a small voice inside Felix kept insisting, wouldn't she have sought him out first? 

Then Luke told of how she'd stabbed the man, Benton—a man whom Felix was only sorry he'd not killed himself—and he felt Jamie burrow against him. She turned her face into his chest, wrapped her arms around him as far as they would go. She squeezed with more force than Felix had thought possible, and he came to see the true measure of her fear—a fear that ran deeper even than the ones from which he'd already attempted to free her; a fear so debilitating she was only able to function by pretending for hours at a time that it didn't exist. 

Luke, Felix realized then, may have been there at a moment when she was no longer able to pretend, but he—Felix—was the one she turned to for comfort, the one she clung to so tightly he could feel her muscles tense and shaking, and the one she continually opened her body to when there was no reason in the world she should either trust him or want to do so. Felix had thought before that he understood the extent of the faith she placed in him, but the more he learned of what she had been through, the more he came to realize that her acceptance of him was nothing short of miraculous.  

Luke told of the Ariadne, of the knife left behind, of the slavers who were doubtless after the girl, and it took all of Felix's concentration to keep his touch light, to stroke Jamie's back and hair and sides softly, to keep from crushing his arms tight and bruising her with the force of his fury—a fury that seemed to creep and spread like tendrils of cold seawater beneath his skin, filling him so frozen-full it seemed a wonder he could still move his hands, that they remained brown and supple, that they'd not gone dead numb from the sucking, glacial weight of his rage. 

Felix knew anger. He'd felt it before, too many times to count. He'd broken every piece of furniture in his family's house the day he buried the last of his sisters; he'd spilled the lamp oil and lit the torch, then just barely refrained from setting the place aflame. He'd beaten men senseless, killed more than a few. Most who'd deserved it, perhaps some who hadn't. He knew the mindless need to destroy, to maim, to make someone pay. 

His violence before, though, had always been artless, impulsive, born of the needs of a moment and gone as soon as the initial blaze faded. What he felt now was ineffably different. It was cold and calculated, both controllable and simultaneously unstoppable—and utterly frustrating because he had no target, no direction, no faces, no names. The last man who'd hurt Jamie was dead, and those who would avenge him were as yet unknowable. Felix knew he could kill a man or two, three, perhaps four, but he couldn't dispatch an entire ship's crew. 

"She's sure she's going to be hanged," Luke concluded softly. "And soon."

"The hell she is," Felix growled, and his hand fisted tight in Jamie's hair. He felt her wince, forced his fingers to retract one by one, then allowed her to sit up when she pressed her palms to his chest. 

Despite being seated on his lap, Jamie's head still didn't quite reach Felix's chin. She reached up, set one hand on his cheek, and turned his face down toward hers. "They'll find me," she said. "They'll take me. They'll hang me." One side of her soft mouth quirked in a quick half-grimace. She whispered, "You can't stop them." 

"The hell I can't!" Felix burst out. "I—"

Jamie moved her hand to cover his mouth, shook her head. "You don't know what they're like," she said. "You think you do, but they're...worse. They're brutal, cruel. And if they can't control their cabin boy, who will trust them to break a slave?" She shook her head again, said, "No. They can't let me go. It's more than just pride. More than revenge. It's business."

Felix grabbed her wrist, removed her hand from his mouth. "Then you have to disappear," he said. "We'll be in Charleston, hopefully before month's end. You can go ashore, travel inland, get away from the ports. You can find a position, be a woman again."

"A position doing what?" Jamie demanded. "Whoring?"





Aboard the Lady May Ch. 04



"No!" Felix snapped, appalled by the idea. "I didn't mean—"

"What else am I fit to do?" she interrupted. She jerked her wrist from his hold, gestured at the ship around them. "This is all I know," she cried. "All I'm good for. I've not been on dry land for more than a few days' time in ten years!" 

She pushed against him as if she were rising to leave, and Felix set his hands on her waist, held her gently but firmly. When he spoke his voice sounded hoarse, forced—as if he'd swallowed a barnacle. "You might marry," he ground out. "The backcountry's wild yet. Men settling new land, they're always in need of wives. I'm sure someone—"

But Jamie was already shaking her head. "And sell myself for food and a roof over my head?" she asked. "No, Felix. I've already said, I'll not be a whore."   

They were silent then, glaring at each other. Felix moved his hands from her waist to her shoulders. He wanted to shake her until her teeth came loose. There was one sure way for her to save herself, and she refused to even consider it. He didn't want her to marry. Just the thought of sending her off with some frontier farmer to spend her days pregnant and strapped to a plow—it was enough to make his guts clench in protest. But at least she'd be safe. Safe, he admitted, and trapped, unhappy, subject to the whims of some unknown man...

"Christ," he swore. He released her shoulders, shoved one hand through his loosely queued hair, said, "We need an army."

"We have one," Luke said, and Felix and Jamie jerked to look at him, having both forgotten he and Peter were present.

"What?" Felix demanded. "What are you thinking?"

The two boys were staring at each other, conversing silently in a way that normally amused Felix but which he now found infuriating. 

Peter reached up to tug a strand of his pale hair, arched one brow.

Luke flicked his eyes toward Jamie's red curls, nodded once. 

Peter grimaced and made an obscene gesture.

Luke nodded again then, frowning, dropped his gaze.

"What?" Felix repeated, nearly snarling. "Luke, if you don't tell me—"

Luke shook his head and waved one hand at Peter, transferred the burden onto his friend.

Felix shifted his glare to the other boy. "Peter..." he began and allowed his voice to trail off warningly. 

Peter swallowed hard. His eyes flicked from Jamie to Luke, then back again to Jamie. "Danny," he blurted. 

"Danny?" Felix said, surprised, "What about him?"

"Who's Danny?" Jamie broke in, sounding confused. 

Felix barely spared her a glance. "Another boy," he said briefly. "My first. He died of fever a year or so back." He looked back at Peter then, demanded, "What about Danny?"

"Do you remember—" Peter paused to lick his lips. Began again, "Do you remember what happened when Danny fell asleep on watch? When Fitzhugh tried to have him flogged?"

Felix's lips thinned. He did remember. He'd come close to killing his captain that day, and consequences be damned. Fitzhugh had kept Danny with him, in his cabin all night, then sent the boy aloft for the morning's first watch. Danny had been weak, battling a bout of the recurring fever that would eventually kill him, and he'd fallen into a fitful sleep slumped over the rim of the crow's nest. When Fitzhugh spotted the boy, he'd fired a pistol shot to wake him, ordered him down to the deck, then tried to have him stripped to the waist and bound by the gunwale. Felix had been nearby, finishing repairs on a rain barrel. He'd had his mallet. He'd been ready to act. But the crew had beaten him to it. More than twenty of them, they'd formed a circle around Danny, refused to let Fitzhugh or the other officers anywhere near him. Rather than force the issue and risk mutiny, Fitzhugh was obliged to stand down.

"Aye," Felix said. "I remember. What of it?"

"The men loved Danny," Peter said. "They protected him." He glanced again at Jamie, then flushed, looked pleadingly at Luke. 

Luke nodded, rubbed one knuckle beneath his nose. "Jamie's redheaded," he said. "She'll remind the men of Danny. I've heard some say it already—that there's a likeness."

Felix looked down at the girl, studied her thoughtfully. The hair, he supposed, was near the same shade. But the shape of her jaw was all wrong, her build was far too delicate, she had only a few freckles whereas Danny had been more spotted than not, and her eyes—the dark blue eyes that seemed huge in her too-thin face were nothing like Danny's, which Felix was fairly certain had been hazel. He shook his head, opened his mouth to deny the resemblance, but Peter cut him off.

"You'll not see it," Peter said, "because you know what she is. Truth is, I don't see it myself. But the men—they see red hair, they think of Danny. Most won't look past that, and the few who do won't care."

Jamie sat up straighter on Felix's lap, pushed against his arms until he allowed her to turn to face forward. "That's why you wouldn't let me wear the cap?" she asked Luke. "Because you wanted them to see my hair?" 

He nodded, repeated Peter's words: "The men loved Danny. They protected him." He looked down at his hands, said, "If we can make them love you, they'll protect you too." 

"How do I make them love me?" Jamie asked. She glanced from Luke to Peter, tilted her head back toward Felix. Neither of the boys would meet her gaze, and Felix looked angry, mean. From her angle beneath his chin, Jamie couldn't see his eyes, but his jaw was solidly locked, his dimples nowhere to be seen. He was rigid, focused straight ahead on Peter and Luke. If his hands hadn't remained gentle on her shoulders, she'd have flinched from him then. 

"No." The world fell from Felix's lips in a clipped burst. He lifted one hand from Jamie's shoulder and banded it low across her stomach, pulled her back tight to his chest. He repeated, "No!" with more force. Then, "She can't." To Luke, he said, "You've seen how it is. You know she can't. She needs a week at least. Two would be better."

"What?" Jamie settled one hand on Felix's wrist where it was pressed against her waist. She could feel him stiff, shaking with anger, and she was prepared to dig in with her nails if he started to squeeze. "What do they want me to do?" she asked. Then, glancing back at Felix, "What don't you think I can do?"

Felix didn't look at her to reply, "They want you to let one of the men bugger you. To prove your use to the crew, your selflessness. Tonight?" He asked the last as a pointed question.

Both boys nodded, but Peter was the first to speak. "If someone could see," he said, "see her bruises, see...how she's hurt, he'd spread the word. By morning everyone'll know she's been treated rough. They'll be angry. They'll think her brave. They'll start to love her." 

"We could try," Luke injected softly, "try to tell them ourselves, but it won't have much weight coming from us. The men know we'll speak as you ask us to," he said to Felix.  

Felix was shaking his head, holding Jamie tighter still to his chest. "No," he said. "We'll wait. She can win the men over slowly. She needs time. She needs to heal. She—"

"She needs you to stop speaking of her as if she weren't here." Jamie spoke quietly but firmly, determined to reclaim her place in the conversation. It was true she'd asked for their help, but she was sick of being ignored and talked around as if she were a child. She stroked Felix's wrist to ease the sting of her words, then looked at Peter and Luke in turn. "I'll do it," she said.

"No." Felix still didn't look at her, but his arm across her stomach contracted so she could barely breathe. "No," he repeated, "you won't." 

Jamie dug in with her nails and squirmed, and his hold loosened slightly. Wriggling, she managed to turn a bit toward his chest, then she rested her head on his shoulder, reached up to turn his face down toward hers. Several moments passed, however, before he relented to look at her. His expression when he finally did was cold, emotionless, but the nearly-red flecks in his eyes shone with molten heat. "I have to," she whispered.

"No, girl," Felix said, and his words were weighted with all the desperation he wouldn't show in his face. "You'll wait. You need to wait. A week or two won't make any difference—"

"Yes," she interrupted. "Yes, it will." She allowed her hand to fall from his cheek to the bit of chest exposed by his open-throat shirt. She touched the face of a mermaid whose name she did not know, asked, "We're bound for Charleston, you said?"

Felix nodded.

"But I assume we'll stop along the way to take on cargo?"

"Guadeloupe for pineapples," Felix said. "Saint-Domingue for Indigo and Cotton. Cuba for coffee."  

"And what of the Navigation Acts?" Jamie asked. 

Felix shrugged, frustrated by this digression, but said, "Fitzhugh's brother is customs inspector in Charleston. He gets a bit of contraband, and we get our documents saying all enumerated goods on board have shipped through England." 

"You're smugglers?" Jamie asked, surprised.

"And you served on board a slaver," Felix returned. "Jamie, what does this matter?"

"The Ariadne—" She paused to lick her dry lips. Began again, "The Ariadne has a hold full of slaves set for the rice fields."

Felix swore, released his hold on Jamie. His hands flexed for a moment, as if he wanted to hit something, then fell to land limply on the planked wood floor. 

"Carolina?" Peter whispered. 

Jamie turned slightly to look at him. For the first time since they'd entered the hold, his skin was pale white rather than pink beneath his freckles. "Charleston," she confirmed, then said, "They're a few days behind us. They'll take their time bartering with the sugar barons. But they'll not be stopping along the way as we will. They'll catch us up," she whispered. "We'll likely dock within a day or so of each other." 

Luke sighed, shoulders slumped, said, "And a ship that left Bridgetown the day their cabin boy disappeared won't go unnoticed." 

Jamie shook her head. "No," she said. "It won't." Then, "Right now I may remind the men of Danny, but how many of them will turn down coin to tell whether or not there's a new redheaded boy on board?" She paused, then, "How many will hold out if they're beaten? Threatened with gaol? Pressed into serving aboard the Ariadne?"

"Three, at least," Peter said.

Jamie shot him a shaky smile. "Yes," she agreed. "I know. At least three." 

She could feel the pulse in Felix's chest pounding rapidly beneath her fingers. She glanced up to find that he was staring down at her. His face was still smooth, blank, but his eyes gleamed nearly maroon in the forenoon sun. "One of the men," she whispered, and hated the way the tendons in his throat tensed. "You choose—Whoever's most likely to talk, maybe embellish a bit. You choose, and I'll do it." 

Then she hooked her fingers in the collar of Felix's shirt, pulled the neck wider until the mermaid fashioned after his mother appeared. She must have been a remarkable woman, Jamie thought, to raise a son who continued to love her so much. She touched the serene face, imagined the lips bore a slight smile of approval. Jamie would be brave, she determined, and strong. She would endeavor to deserve the woman's son.  

She rested her head against Felix's chest and was pleased when his arms wrapped back around her. "I'll do it," she whispered again. "I don't have the time. I don't have a choice." 

* * *

Dom Lyttle didn't like whores. He'd known one once—a pretty girl named Pearl who worked the docks in Philadelphia. She was blonde and buxom and blind in one eye, though you'd have never known it to look at her. She had lovely eyes, Dom recalled. Sometimes blue, then green, as changeable as the sea. He'd told her that once, and she'd smiled, called him her merman, asked him to think of her on his travels whenever he saw the color.

He found the aquamarine in Brazil, shipped from the mines in Minas Gerais to São Luís, where Dom came across it at a vender's stall and bartered his last quarter's pay for the stone. It was rough-cut and dull, but big as his thumbnail, and Dom knew of a goldsmith in the Somers Isles who he thought might shine it up a bit. The resultant ring was stunning even to Dom's untrained eye, and he'd pictured it worn proudly on Pearl's slender hand. He'd pictured a small house near the river in Philadelphia, a passel of children with blue-green eyes, and one day his own sloop for short trips along the coast—north, perhaps, to Boston or south to Carolina. 

When he returned to Philadelphia nearly a year after he'd left, he spent several days searching for Pearl. He asked around, followed fruitless leads, and finally found her—ensconced in a fine stone house, living as a rich man's mistress. He hadn't minded. She'd had no cause to wait, to expect his return. He told her of his plans, presented the ring, said they'd be married just as soon as he summoned the preacher. 

She laughed.

She'd laughed and shown him her silk dresses, the imported porcelain in her cupboard, the cache of jewelry secreted beneath in a hidden drawer—the emeralds and diamonds and ropes of pearls. She'd take Dom's ring, she said, as a memento. It was pretty, and he was handsome, and she'd thought of him often. But she wasn't about to trade her snug house and small luxuries for a riverside shanty and a life as a fishmonger's wife. Then she'd raised her skirts to her knees, said her patron was away on business, asked if Dom might like to share her bed that night. She was lonesome, she said, and he wouldn't have to pay anything but the ring. 

Dom had considered for a moment. She was still lovely, with shapely calves beneath sheer silk stockings and large breasts shoved high by her square-necked dress; if she'd taken too deep a breath, he imagined he'd have seen her nipples. Then he noticed her eyes, glinting with avarice toward the pocket where he'd tucked the aquamarine, and decided he'd rather dip his cock into the most pox-ridden trollop on the docks than come within three feet of that venomous sea snake. 

He left without a word, threw the ring in the river. And he'd not used a whore since.

He didn't hate all whores on principle. In hindsight he didn't even hate Pearl—he'd been overeager and arrogant and too proud to tell her he'd never expected her to live as a fishwife. Fitzhugh allotted senior men small portions of the hold in which to ship their own cargo. Dom was thrifty and smart, and he drove a hard bargain, so while he'd not be deemed rich by any man's standards, he was far from the pauper she'd thought him to be. 

And the next time he'd passed through Philadelphia, Pearl was back on the docks, having been dismissed by her patron for seducing the man's teenaged son. She'd pouted and laughed, seemingly as frivolous as ever, but Dom had noticed the carefully patched dress, the new lines by her sea-colored eyes, the two missing teeth in her grin and the matching bruise—faded but still visible—mottling her jaw. He'd felt pity for her then and considered their score settled.

Notwithstanding this forgiveness and recognition of his idiocy, Dom still couldn't bear to bed with a whore. No matter how comely she was, or generously endowed, he would think of the payment—He would think of the fact that the woman was far more interested in the contents of his coin purse than that of his pants, and he would invariably lose all interest. The Lady May occasionally stayed in port long enough for him to seduce a loose woman for free, but that happened once a year, if that. 

He'd first turned to one of the ship's boys—the redheaded one who'd died of some sickness—out of desperation several years ago and, to his surprise, he'd been neither disgusted nor left unsatisfied by the encounter. The boys were young and soft and warm, and they expected nothing from him but a bit of consideration and perhaps a kind word or two. That, Dom thought, was little enough to ask. He'd never been brutal with his female partners, and he saw no reason to treat the boys any differently. Even if he had, the thought of Felix would have quickly changed his mind. Dom had seen a few sailors beaten by the huge tattooed man, and the ones who survived were never quite the same again. 

Still, Dom liked Felix, even respected what he did for the boys. He'd been a teenaged sailor himself, and Dom remembered well the helplessness of always wondering which man might be the one to do him permanent damage. There could be no guarantees. There never were at sea. But Felix evened the odds as much as he was able; he gave the boys at least a fighting chance of making it safely to manhood. Dom wished there'd been someone there to do the same for him.

Thus, when he stood smoking his pipe by the starboard rail, and the blond boy, Peter, approached him and put forward his request, Dom was surprised but not unwilling. 

"The new boy?" Peter asked, joining Dom at the rail. "You've noticed him?"

"Of course." He loosed a stream of smoke into the late afternoon sky. "He's redheaded," Dom replied. "Like the one who died."

"Aye." Peter nodded. "He looks a mite like Danny."

Dom nodded in return and continued to lazily blow smoke. He wished the boy would get to the point. "What of him?" he prompted. 

"His name's Jamie," Peter said. He paused for a moment, then, "He's...frightened. He's been hurt. Badly. He should wait awhile, but the stubborn eejit insists he'll be doing his duty, one way or the other. 'I'll not shirk,' Jamie says. Keeps saying it over and over."

"And?"

Peter cleared his throat. "We," he began, "I mean, Luke and me, we hoped you might oblige him."

Dom arched one brow, slanted a downward look at the boy. He was amused to see Peter flushed pink beneath his freckles. Just to provoke him further, Dom asked, "You want me to bugger the boy? This Jamie?"

Peter said nothing for an instant, then, "Aye. You've always been...kind to Luke and me. Never hurt us, I mean. The boy," he paused again, "Jamie—he couldn't bear to be hurt again right now, I don't think." 

"What of Felix?" Dom asked. "What does he think?"

"He...understands," Peter said slowly. "He's not happy, mind you. But he understands about duty, Felix does." Dom nodded but said nothing, and Peter added, "He'll be there. Felix, I mean. I thought you should know. He won't leave Jamie alone." He shrugged. "Just in case."

Dom snorted. "Just in case I need to have my head mashed flat, you mean."

"You won't," Peter said, but he sounded unsure.

Dom snorted again, hawked a wad of tobacco-flecked mucus over the rail. He upended the dregs from his pipe into his palm, smothered the heat with his leathered fingers, then shook the few leaves into his inside vest pocket. Thrifty, Dom was. Always thrifty. 

He hooked the toggle on his vest, turned to face Peter fully. "Now?" he asked.

"Oh...um, aye," Peter said. "If you don't mind."  

"I'll mind if I end up having my head mashed flat."

"You won't," Peter repeated, but he sounded more uncertain than he had the first time. 

* * *

Felix was furious, Jamie knew, but resigned. He stood in the corner of the hold, stiff as a figurehead, crushing her hand in his while he refused to even look at her. Luke, on the other hand, was subjected to the full force of Felix's incensed attention, answering the same questions over and over until Jamie knew all his responses by heart. 

"He'll talk?" Felix demanded. "You're sure of it? I won't have her do this for nothing."

Luke nodded reassuringly. "He'll talk," he said. "You've heard the story of the 'perfidious Pearl,' haven't you? He tells it every time we dock, every time the men make for the brothels. And it changes a bit each time. Pearl gets prettier, and the ring gets bigger, and her lover gets richer. Next time he tells it, she'll likely be swiving Thomas Penn himself."