Seize the Booty! (Erotica Arcanus) (4 page)

Over the years, I've come to find that my favorite vantage point of a woman's breasts is from beneath them.
As a connoisseur of that particular body part, I have made it my business to study them from every angle, to assess their heft and shape and taste. I've enjoyed those of the small, pointy variety and those so cumbersome they flopped over either side of the woman's ribcage, and every possible variation in between.

All of them look better from beneath.
With the curve of the breast, sloping upwards toward the nipple's peak. It is the most utterly perfect thing, and there on the beach is where I witnessed it first, and it was Ann Bonny who revealed it to me.

She dug both of her palms into my chest as she lowered onto me, letting out a slight grunt as she adjusted her hips to fit me inside of her.
From the moment the tip of my erection came into contact with the warmth of her sex, I wanted to be deep inside of her. She held me down though, forcing me to endure an eternity of excruciation as she rocked back and forth, taking a little bit more of me inside of her each time.

"Do not rush," she whispered.
"Close your eyes and lie still. Try to focus on what is happening."

I felt the cool sand under my heels and heard the bird's song in the trees looming over us.
I smelled the sea and Bonny's sex and my own sweat. In that one moment, as the tip of my sex budged up against the uppermost wall inside of Bonny's cunny and made her yelp with pleasure, I felt connected to every living thing in the entire world.

"That's it," she whispered.
"Just like that, Fawkes. Take in as much of it as you can, for life is strange and the chance may never come around again."

Her sex was so slick I felt its wetness dribbling down the insides of my thighs, and she was bouncing and bobbing on top of me with wild abandon. I could not contain my excitement at all, it was as if she were reaching down into my nether parts and pulling the orgasm out of me.

I grabbed her by the arms and came harder than I ever had before, or since. I spent myself inside of her and with ever shuddering thrust, she gasped. We lied there like that for a long time afterwards, without even taking my cock out of her. Then, in that perfect moment, as my eyes closed and all I could smell was the sea and her body, she started moving her hips. And then I felt my cock start to stiffen again.

The surf crashed against the shore with a loud clap, and I opened my eyes and sat up in the bright morning sunlight, terrified for a moment that the
Ace of Spades
had sailed off without me. I spun around in the sand and saw Calico Jack sitting next to me, twirling one of the island's long flower stems in his hands. He had fashioned a garland of the flowers around his neck and wore several of them in his hair like Bonny had. "So, young Mister Fawkes, did you enjoy your feast last night?"

Something in the way he said it made me wonder if he meant the food we'd all eaten or the way I'd devoured Ms. Bonny later on.
I nodded slowly and said, "Everything was delightful, sir. Thank you again."

"My pleasure, lad
die," he said. He popped the flower's head off of the stem he was holding and flicked the petals out into the water, watching them float away on the returning tide. "She was right, you know," he said. "I love only the sea. I have tried to make myself believe it were not so, but some things are not malleable. Some things are absolute."

The image of Bonny's naked body leaned against mine was burned into my brain, but now in the light of day it seemed as if it had happened a lifetime ago.
Where had she run off to? What had she said to the captain? I would not have left her alone on the beach, that much was certain, I decided. I pulled my knees up to my chin and said, "I believe I saw my own mermaid last night, and now I have only a deep sense of fear that I will never see it again."

The captain stood up and brushed
sand off his pants. He smiled gently as he extended his hand and said, "There will be many more mermaids for you, old son. Trust your captain on that."

I followed behind him along the surf, heading back toward the
Ace of Spades
. "So you truly have no feelings for her?"

"Are we still talking about the sea?"

"No, for Ms. Bonny. For Ann."

"Of course I do.
She is a loyal and worthy shipmate. Excellent with a rapier, as well, which I found out one drunken night last April. Actually, she is quite adept at fisticuffs as well, come to think of it."

"I meant as
your
woman. What I'm asking you, sir, is are you angry with me for last night?"

He stopped in the sand and turned on me with one eyebrow cocked, his voice deadly serious, "Why?
What happened last night?"

I stammered for a moment and said, "Nothing
. Not a thing, sir."

Calico Jack let out a loud laugh and clapped me on the shoulder, "I jest with you, lad.
Of course I am not cross with you. Did you at least get your tackle kissed for good luck before we set sail again?"

I felt my cheeks boil with embarrassment, and the captain laughed so long and hard that he was left gasping for air.
Finally, he collected himself and said, "Run along and help the men load up. This island is a treasure trove of supplies."

By noon the sun was directly over our heads, soaking our shirts to our bodies.
Most of the men stripped theirs off and cooled themselves in the clear blue water while they loaded crates of lemons and nuts onto the small boats to send back to the ship. Read carried a heavy crate from between the trees, sweat dripping from the cuffs of her shirt-sleeves. Her bulky vest was soaked through, and still she worked as hard as anyone else. I suddenly felt sorry for her. Certainly, the captain would not object to having a second female aboard. Why, then, all the secrecy?

I dared not remove my own shirt.
The other hands were tanned and muscled, some of them almost as tattooed as the captain, their bodies' turned into fine-tuned instruments, carved by the work they performed each day on the sea. I was just now beginning to lose the sickly, ghostly pallor born of living below decks. Perhaps if Ms. Bonny had not been there, I'd have considered it. Not that it would have made a difference what I did. She was standing knee-deep in the water, her loose pants pulled up over her thighs as she squatted down to hoist up crate after crate into the boat beside her.

I splashed toward her and said, "I'll take that" but instead of thanking me and handing it over, she scowled and moved to place it on top of the others.
"I can do me own work, Mister Fawkes," she said. There was no trace of familiarity, let alone romance, in her voice.

"Yes, of course," I muttered.
"I was simply trying to be helpful."

"Then go and fetch us some more crates to load," she said.
She turned away from me to reach down and cupped the water in her hands to splash it over her face. There were a million things barreling through my mind to say to her, but nothing that seemed adequate enough at that moment. Instead, I charged up the beach to do as she said.

Within a few hours, our labors were finished and
we all piled into the rowboats to return to the
Ace of Spades.
Fat Matt slugged me on the arm as I rowed and said, "What's the long face for, Mister Fawkes? Had too much rum last night, did ye?"

I had been thinking about Ms. Bonny.
How just a few hours before her breasts had rested in the palms of my hands and our tongues had played against one another. No words had been spoken. No promises made. I looked up at the first mate and said, "Aye, sir. I've got a pounding head is all."

"That's no problem, lad," he said.
He reached into his vest and withdrew a small bottle. "I keeps this for emergency situations. Here you go. Take a swig."

I uncorked the bottle and swallowed a mouthful in one gulp.
My hand flew to my mouth to keep from vomiting it back up. My insides were on fire from the back of my mouth to the pit of my gut. I closed my eyes and shook my head fiercely, moaning, "Gods, no more."

Fat Matt laughed as he took the bottle back and slid it back against his chest.
"Tha's good stuff, boy. I made it me self from the potatoes onboard."

"I thought they were all spoilt."

"They were," he said with a toothy grin, "Tha's what gives it a little kick!"

By the time we climbed back on board the ship and unloaded all of the crates it was sunset.
The water sparkled orange and red as if a bright fire burned just beneath its surface. The sun looked as if it were being swallowed by the sea, as if it had been speared by Neptune's trident and he were reeling it in to rest beside his throne.

I looked around for Bonny, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Neither, for that matter, was the captain. It occurred to me that they were probably together in his cabin. Jealousy stung my heart like the needle of a spinning wheel, but it was undeserved and I knew it. I moaned with self-loathing and hurried away from the others, needing to be by myself. I leapt for the ropes dangling from the mast and shuffled up the wooden pole like a monkey, desperate to get away.

I climbed and climbed until I reached the top and sat on the crossbeam, staring out into the sea.
Perhaps Calico Jack was right. Perhaps it would be women like Ann Bonny who drove me to accept the sea as my only mistress too.

I leaned my head against the cool mast and sighed.
Had my father longed for my mother while he was at sea? Had she been a woman at some port? A prostitute? Someone else's wife? I'd never known her and he'd never spoken of her. It was one of the many great things I intended to ask him, should I ever find him again.

As I looked out at the darkening sea, with its encroaching fog and cloud cover too dense to see the stars above, I made out something in the distance that made me sit up and squint.
Like a ghost ship materializing from nothingness, I saw a skull and crossbones appear at the top of a dark mast with black sails. A menacing-looking Jolly Roger flapped in the wind as their ship, more than twice the size of ours, and it was sailing directly at us.

5. Swords
Up

"First mate!" I called out from atop the mast, trying to get the fat bastard to look up, but in the wind and the hustle aboard the deck as men carried the various crates back and forth, my voice was drowned out. "Enemy vessel approaching!" I cried.

No one heard me.

I looked up
in horror to see that the other ship was almost within cannon range and we had not yet even hoisted our anchor. "Help! Captain! Bonny! Anyone!" I shouted until my voice went hoarse.

Still, no one heard me.
My only choice was to try and climb down the mast and alert them then. That would cost precious minutes we did not have. I clenched my eyes shut, trying to think, when a plan formed in my mind that was too urgent to reason through. "Dash it to hell," I muttered as I undid my belt and pulled out my tackle to unleash a stream of urine, aiming it directly over the heads of the other ship mates.

One of them instantly lifted his hand when he felt water splashing the top o
f his head and turned to look, only to receive a face full of it. The rest of the mates began screaming with laughter, even as the one I'd pissed on threatened to keelhaul me and worse, but instead of defending myself, I flapped my hands and pointed feverishly at the oncoming ship.

Fat Matt's eyes widened as he
finally looked up and saw the
Maidenhead's
bow cutting across the water toward us, her cannons aimed at our defenseless starboard wall. The first mate reared back his head and bellowed, "Battle stations!"

The other ship was near enough that I heard
one of the bastards shout, "Fire!"

A
series of fuses sizzled in the distant through the darkness and three of their cannons erupted in a haze of grey smoke and hellfire. The impact shattered the wooden slats along the ship's hull, rocking us sideways so hard that we actually dropped three feet into the water on one side. The mast holding me up swung me back and forth violently, trying to buck me off and fling me to my doom, and it was all I could do to hang on.

"Fire!"
I heard again, and three more guns blasted us, sending a half-dozen of our crew members over the side in a burst of blood-soaked sea water.

I was slipping from the mast and had to wrap my legs around the cross-beam, terrified that we were going to capsize.
At least the other crew members might stand a chance of diving into the sea, but from this height, I would either die from the crash or drown, buried under the wreckage of the ship.

What a stupid death! I thought bitterly.
Trapped up here like a bird when I should be down there fighting with my crew.

Water poured in through
the
Ace of Spade's
ruined hull and we had not even gotten her anchor out of the water. The crew was scattered below on the deck, staggering around, disoriented by the blasts and useless.

A tall, older man wearing a ragged jacket
made of patchwork black velvet and a large, misshapen, hat put his foot up on the bow of the
Maidenhead
and sneered, "Where be the fearsome and famous pirate captain known as Calico Jack?" 

None of the men on our deck moved nor spoke.

The Maidenhead's captain lifted his finger and s
aid, "Prepare to fire until this disgrace to the sea is nothing more than splinters, men!"

The captain's door opened and Calico Jack emerged, dressed in his finest jacket with his own hat firmly positioned on his head.
He met the other captain's gaze with steely nerve and said, "I am the one called Calico Jack. Pray, tell me your name so that I might know who dares violate the laws of the sea and attack another vessel when she is anchored and defenseless?"

"N
one other than Captain Barto Morris," the other man said with a dramatic bow of his head. "At last, we meet."

Calico Jack nodded, his eyes twitching from side to side as he tried to decide if he should know the name or not.
It was clear he did not. "Ah, yes … at last we meet, sir. I have longed to match wits with such a worthy opponent. What say you disengage from our position and allow us to meet in true combat, as the law demands?"

Morris leaned down on his knee and said, "Tell you what.
Send over Ann Bonny and any supplies ye have on board an' I'll consider it."

Fat Matt leaned into Calico Jack's ear and whispered
knowingly, "I reckon it's a trap."

The captain rolled his eyes
and pushed his first mate back and walked to the edge of the starboard deck, close enough to make out the details on the faces of the opposing crew. "I refuse," he said.

"You are not in a position to refuse me anything," Morris said.

"I refuse, and furthermore, I challenge your honor and that of your whole crew.
To reclaim it, I offer you the chance to cross swords with me on the beach. We shall row out alone and duel for either ship. Winner take all."

"No," Morris said.

Calico Jack looked mystified, "No? But, surely you−"

Morris sighed and said, "I grow weary of talking to you, captain.
I figured you would never surrender, but to be so boring, well, I am sorely disappointed. I thought better of you." He turned to look at his crew and said, "Prepare the cannons."

Calico Jack looked at the damage to his ship and the haggard faces of his crew.
There was no way to mount a defense, and he knew it. The ship was going to be destroyed and all of them killed. He turned to take one last good look at the
Ace of Spades
, from the bowspirit to the mast. That is when he saw me hiding behind the main sail.

In that one brief moment that our eyes met, it was as if the light of hope flickered in the captain's eyes and he nodded slightly at me in a manner that would indecipherable to anyone else.
He turned back to Captain Barto Morris and said, "We surrender."

"Like hell!" Fat Matt shouted.
"Those lilly-livered scallywags set one foot on this ship an' I'll rip out their innards with me bare hands! Just let them try!"

A few of the crewmembers behind him raised their voices to protest but Calico Jack silenced them with a sharp glance and said, "It is
for the best, old friend. Trust your captain." He turned back toward Captain Morris, "Allow me to welcome the captain onto his new ship. I assume you'll want to plunder the stores as well?"

"First, bring Ann Bonny forward so that I might have a look at how I'll be spending the next few weeks at sea," Morris sneered.

"Of course," Calico Jack nodded. He snapped his fingers in the air and said, "Miss Bonny? Come here please."

The
Maidenhead
was near enough to our ship that its crew began laying down planks from their hull to ours to cross. The crossbeams from our mainmast and their rear mizzenmast were more than ten feet apart from one another. Ten feet with nothing but thin air separating them. I inched out onto our crossbeam, having to balance myself as I let go of the main mast, trying to get as close to the other ship as possible.

Calico Jack looked up in time to see me wobble and flail my arms to keep from falling over.
"Er, Miss Bonny!" he said loudly. "Right this moment, if you please."

The crossbeam creaked as it swayed in the air, and just as I was about to be found out,
the one called "Mister" Read pushed through the rest of the crew members toward Calico Jack's side and declared, "I am Ann Bonny!" She grabbed her vest with either hand and tore it open to reveal her tiny breasts.

Captain Morris grunted in disbelief at the sight of them and said, "
This
is the famous lady-pirate everyone talks about?"

"That's right!" Read said.
She left her shirt open for all to see, "Whatever scurvy dog wants to lose his hands, let him try to come forward and lay upon these."

None of the
Maidenhead's
crew moved. Captain Morris looked from Read to Calico Jack and said, "She certainly isn't as she was described to me."

Read tried to fashion her scowl into a lop-sided smile and Calico Jack swallowed dryly, trying to remain nonplussed.
"You do know how tales grow in the telling. Perhaps you were thinking about a different lady-pirate, Captain?"

Captain Morris lowered himself onto the plank and stormed across to better inspect Read's lamentably small and unimpressive breasts.
"Where's her generous bosom? Her long flowing hair? Her bewitching beauty?"

"Come now, Captain!" Calico Jack said, feigning shock.
"Have you ever seen such sparkling eyes? Such pearl-white teeth? Why, her nipples are the color of the pinkest rosebuds. In fact, I think any man should
jump
upon seeing them!"

"Jump?" Morris said, leaning down to squint at Read's nipples.
"Jump overboard, you mean."

"Just
jump
anywhere!" Calico Jack said, giving me a quick glance. "And
quickly,
I might add."

"How's her cunny?" Morris said.

Calico Jack groaned and said, "Bloody awful. It's the biggest scandal in the Caribbean. Here, see for yourself."

All of the
Maidenhead's
crew and most of my own leaned in to see Read undo her trousers and pull them down to the tops of her thighs, and I took the largest breath I could and took off running across the crossbeam. I dove through the air, suspended over the sea far below as I stretched with all of my might for the
Maidenhead's
sail. I missed their crossbeam and would have plummeted to my doom had I not managed to grasp the low-hanging ropes that their own rigger had failed to tighten. As I clung to the ropes and gasped for air, I said a silent prayer thanking Neptune for all shoddy work done by lazy sailors.

Three sailors manned cannons aboard the Maidenhead, keeping them on our crew while the rest of her men disembarked to board us.
I shimmied across the crossbeam directly over their heads, while, luckily, all of them were too busy trying to get a good view of Read's hairy quim to notice. 

"It's dryer than glasspaper," I heard Calico Jack say.
"I won't go near it. Gave me a rash for two whole weeks the last time I became desperate enough to stick me pego in there."

Captain Morris frowned at Read's sex and lifted her face by the chin to inspect it from different angles.
"Not all that bad, considering. She can use her mouth, I'm sure."

Calico Jack's eyes flicked past Morris's shoulder to watch me creep across the
Maidenhead's
deck, heading for the stairs leading down into the galley. "Of course she can," he said with a smile so quick that the silver in his teeth sparkled. "But I must warn you, she bites. And she has jagged teeth. Worse than a rabid dingo, really."

Morris scowled as Read pulled up her lips to show him her teeth.
He cast a sideways glance at Calico Jack and said, "I think you are trying to trick me, sir. I think you do not want your private pleasure tampered with by another man, so you are trying to talk me out of doing so."

Calico Jack shrugged and said, "Have at it, mate.
Do not say I did not warn you."

Morris snatched Read by the arm and said, "Don't mind if I do.
We'll use your quarters first, if you don't mind."

Read's eyes widened in horror as the captain began to drag her toward the steps and Calico Jack's hand flew to the hilt of his sword, "That's quite far enough!"

Morris stopped and looked back at him as all of his men drew their own swords, driving back the crew of the
Ace of Spades
. "You don't stand a chance, lad," Morris said. "The only decision you have now is whether or not you want to be marooned on this island or have me yank out your guts and nail them to the mast." When Calico Jack did not respond and did not continue drawing his sword, Barto Morris snickered and pushed Read up the steps.

"No!" Read cried out.
"Captain! Someone do something!"

Another woman's voice called out from behind the crew, "That is not the woman you are looking for, Morris."
Ann Bonny stepped out on the deck and pulled off her large, floppy hat, revealing her face to the bright afternoon sun, "I am."

Captain Morris looked down at her carefully, taking in the sight of her ample bosom and
long, flowing hair. It was evident that whatever prize he'd expected to find aboard the
Ace of Spades
had just been realized. "Mister Jerome?" he whispered, trying to find his voice as he looked her up and down with such open lust that it was a wonder she did not burst into flames on the spot. "Send this magnificent creature up to my new quarters so that we might get better acquainted."

The crewman reached for Bonny's arm but she pushed him away and said, "I will walk up on my own, thank you."
She pointed at Read and said, "First you must let her go."

Morris wrenched Read's arm behind her back until she cried out in pain and said, "This little thing?
Oh, I think we may find some use for her as a reward for her attempted deceit. The sooner you join us up here the sooner I will stop her arm from breaking. What say you, Miss Bonny?"