by Noah Harris
Many of the pirates burst into a cheer. Others were less enthusiastic and studied him with doubtful eyes. He did not blame the doubters, for he had doubts himself. When he had started his speech, he had not known what he was going to say. He knew now that he could not return to respectable society even if the crew of the Manhunter allowed it. No doubt, Captain Stone had spread word that he would be wanted for murder and maiming - and that he had turned pirate. Thomas could change his name and appearance, but he would always be looking over his shoulder for the law. Captain Stone had colleagues in every port and a brother who was a ship’s captain in the Royal Navy. Thomas would never be safe.
But he had not intended when he started to speak to finish by requesting membership to this band of cutthroats. That request had only come as the logical conclusion of what he had said before.
He had no choice but to turn pirate. The world had already made him one.
Captain Seawolf looked at him through narrowed eyes. “That was a mighty fine speech you just gave, lad. You could turn preacher with that voice. I hate preachers. A preacher got me kicked out of my hometown because he suspected my true nature. Almost burned me at the stake, he did. You a preacher, lad?”
“I am no preacher.”
“You are no pirate, either. You’re just making big speeches in order to save your skin.”
“Wait until we board the next ship and you’ll see,” Thomas said, meeting his eye.
Captain Seawolf turned to the others. “What do you say? All in favor of giving him a chance, say aye.”
“Aye!” About half the crew replied.
“All in favor of getting rid of him in some fashion, say nay.”
“Nay!” About an equal number voted.
The vote was so close that Doctor Hartencourt had to make a tally in the logbook. Thomas stood, sweating and fidgeting, as each man made his mark in one column or the other and the doctor counted. At last, the announcement came. Out of a crew of more than a hundred, Thomas won by three votes.
He let out a great sigh of relief and leaned against the mast for support.
“Don’t get too comfortable, lad,” the captain said. “You don’t get in with votes alone. You still have to earn it, starting now.”
Thomas bit his lip. Every ship had hazing rituals. On the Virtue he had to box with the biggest member of the crew. He’d put up a good enough fight that the men accepted him, even though he was laid up in his hammock for two days afterwards.
“Each man gets three tasks,” Doctor Hartencourt said, looking at him over his tiny reading spectacles. He raised a finger. “One, you must give yourself to the figurehead.”
Thomas glanced at the figurehead adorning the prow, a carving of a muscular nude man with a giant cock of pure gold sticking out like the horn of a unicorn. The snickering of the crowd told him that his suspicions as to the doctor’s meaning were correct. The man had meant his words literally.
The doctor raised another finger. “Two, you must face the captain with cutlasses drawn. Blades covered, of course. No need for you to lose a limb, although you will perhaps suffer a broken bone or two.”
The pirates cackled. Captain Seawolf crossed his arms and grinned.
The doctor raised a third finger. “And three, you must prove the equal of Maggie in a drinking competition.”
The bullish master gunner thrust her fist in the air and everyone cheered.
Thomas chuckled. “Well, at least there are only two difficult tasks.”
“Ha!” Maggie barked. “You think a little cocksucker like you can go mug for mug with me? I’ll down all my drinks and half of yours, too, and then drink your blood for dessert!”
The crew howled with laughter. Thomas gave her a patronizing smile.
“Do you accept the challenge?” the doctor asked.
Thomas didn’t see that he had much choice. “I do.”
Gonzalo rushed to the prow with a big jug of olive oil. He nimbly climbed up on the prow, got onto the figurehead, and poured a liberal amount of olive oil over the golden cock. Once he was finished smearing it over every inch of its surface, he got back on deck, doffed his cap, and bowed to Thomas while extending his hand in invitation to mount the figurehead.
Thomas studied the golden cock. He’d never thought of something that big ever fitting inside him. It was a good two feet long and as thick as his wrist. He looked around uncertainly at all the leering faces, took a deep breath, and stripped.
“He’s a nice-looking lad,” someone remarked.
“Nice-tasting, too,” Frenchie added.
“It’s good to see him in the sunlight,” another said. Thomas thought he recognized one of the many men he’d tumbled with in the crew’s quarters.
He passed through the crowd, feeling all eyes upon him, and paused at the prow to study the golden cock gleaming in the sun.
“Better make haste before the oil drips off,” Gonzalo advised.
Trying not to think, Thomas climbed onto the carved oaken statue and grabbed the golden penis. It was so slick with olive oil that he nearly slipped off into the sea. Wiping his wet hand on his ass crack, where every last bit of lubricant would soon be needed, he grabbed onto the muscular arms of the figurehead and straddled the cock. Now he hung face up, and saw a crowd of pirates grinning down at him.
“Don’t slip, or it will be the sharks that get a taste of that ass.”
“Get to it, you scurvy dog! What are you afraid of?”
“Come on, be a man’s man!”
Thomas got into position and tried to ease the cock’s thick head past his sphincter. He hissed and gritted his teeth, but it would not push inside.
“Force it, lad. Once quick thrust, and it’s in.”
Thomas tried pushing again. The ring of his ass stretched painfully but still would not give.
“Come on, any real man can do it.”
Thomas imagined what would happen if he failed now. He’d be scorned, rejected, and probably killed. He had to prove that he was worthy of these people’s trust. For men and women like these, there were only two kinds of people—their shipmates and the enemy.
Strengthening his resolve and trying to relax his muscles, he threw caution to the wind and pulled hard with his arms.
He screamed as the thick golden member drove into his behind.
Gasping, reeling with sensation, he almost let go of the figurehead. Self-preservation kept him from doing so. With another effort, he pulled closer to the oaken man, who looked down at him with an impassive face. Several more inches pushed up his stinging hole.
The movement of the ship over the waves sent currents of pain and pleasure through the young sailor and pushed the massive golden penis further inside him inch by excruciating inch. Thomas’s arms trembled with the effort of holding himself up. He could feel his grip slipping, fingertips going white as they strained to support his entire weight. He knew he would soon lose hold, but if he tried to adjust his grip he’d slip immediately. Sweating, gritting his teeth, he watched in terror as his fingers slowly gave way.
Then all of a sudden, he lost his grip, but instead of plunging into the water he twisted painfully, the cock inside him wrenching, and he ended up face down in the middle of the most powerful orgasm he’d ever had. Streams of cum shot into the foamy sea below and his ass clenched painfully onto the golden cock.
The figurehead’s manhood held his weight, and Thomas hung suspended, the last spurts of his jism dribbling into the water as the cheers of the men standing above filled his ears.
He hung limply, utterly spent, until a wave pulled the prow of the ship up sharply—and him with it. It plunged him down on the golden penis, impaling him further with overwhelming pain and pleasure.
The prow came down at a sharp angle, and Thomas’s breath caught as he slid almost to the end of the cock to drop into the sea.
Again, the prow lifted, and he sank down hard on the golden penis. With a sickening realization, Thomas understood what the pirates had done. Th
ey had turned the ship into the wind, letting it be tossed about as it chopped through the waves. Again, and again, the ship raised its prow over a swell and dove down on the other side. Thomas slid back and forth on the giant shaft, feeling the full power of the Manhunter thrusting into him. He was delirious with sensation, his mind a blank. Only feeling remained.
At last, they pulled him off. He lay panting on the deck. Radbert kneeling to give him some water.
“How the hell did a tight youth like you ever survive such treatment?” Thomas asked.
Radbert giggled. “No one has ever done that before. It’s not actually part of our initiation rite. We just made it up.”
The entire crew burst into laughter. Pirates rolled on the deck, clutching their sides.
“You bastards! I could have been killed.”
“Oh, if you had fallen into the drink, we’d have fished you out,” Seamus said with a grin.
“And you certainly gained our respect,” Bill Husk the marksman said. “Even if you don’t make it through the other two trials, every man-lover on this crew will know they are no match for you.”
This led to more mirth.
“I’m not sure I can stand,” Thomas said as Radbert helped him get dressed.
“There is no hurry,” the captain said. “You can face me later, and after that, drink!”
Everyone cheered, especially the two ladies.
“Perhaps we should have had our drinking contest before you skewered yourself on the figurehead,” Maggie said, sitting on one of her prized cannons with her arm around the other female pirate, who everyone called Fanny. “I’m amazed a sober man could pluck up the courage to do such a thing, gullible as he may be.”
Thomas looked at the two women cuddled up against one another. He had not spoken to them much in the few days he had been here.
“Are you two…lovers?” he asked, putting words into a suspicion he had held since he had boarded the ship.
“Is that so surprising to you? You love men. Hell, you even love male statues,” Fanny said.
“I don’t think I have ever met a pair of lady lovers before.”
“You have met many and have not known it. It is easier for us to hide, since no one thinks it amiss that we cuddle or share quarters. It is not to be open with our desires that we came to sea, like so many of these bum peddlers, but to have a life free of domestic drudgery.”
“You were lucky to find such a ship as this.”
“I found it first,” Maggie said. “I joined the Royal Navy dressed as a man and worked my way up from seaman to master gunner on a man o’ war.”
“That explains your skill. Were you not discovered?” Thomas said. He tried to imagine her dressed as a man. She would have made a husky, beardless youth, and a convincing one.
“Not for many years. Then one of the ensigns discovered my secret by accident. I was careless with the privy door one night like you were. He threatened to go to the captain unless he could have his way with me. When I refused, he decided to take what he wanted. I killed him on the spot and dumped him out a gun port. They never did discover what happened to the missing ensign, but I feared for my life and jumped ship at our next port. I worked a few ships, turned pirate, and eventually ended up here.”
“And you?” Thomas asked Fanny. Now fully dressed thanks to Radbert, he remained lying on the deck, propped up a bit on his elbows. He didn’t even try to sit.
“I was a tavern girl at one of the ports, one of the few girls who didn’t sell her body for extra wages. A woman like us ran the tavern and kept watch over me. When Maggie here came in one day she was dressed in her man clothes. She started making eyes at me and dropping suggestions. I was ready to break a tankard over her head until she revealed herself to me. She asked me to join her and I did.”
“Are you a gunner, too?”
“No, I have other abilities.”
In a flash, a dagger appeared from the loose sleeve of her shirt and flew, burying itself in the deck between Thomas’s legs, a finger’s breadth from his balls.
Thomas flinched as the crew laughed.
“An impressive demonstration, although an unnecessary one,” he said. “I’ll not try to force myself on you like the sailors in your tavern. While some man-lovers dally with women as well, I am not one of them.”
“Then you’ll make a good shipmate, assuming Maggie doesn’t drink you to death.”
The pirates allowed Thomas to rest for most of the day. Come evening, they gathered on deck once again. Frenchie produced a pair of cutlasses. He fitted a narrow, grooved length of wood onto the edge of each sword and wrapped them in leather. Thomas raised an eyebrow when he saw how little of the material the quartermaster used. Normally for a sparring match, one would put on four times as much padding. The doctor had been right. The blows from these could break a bone even if they did not break the skin.
Captain Seawolf removed his heavy red coat and limbered up.
“I’ll make it fair for you,” he told Thomas. “A buff coat is good padding against blows. That’s why the soldiers wear them. You and I, however, are going to be on an even keel in this fight.”
“Very well,” Thomas responded, slicing the air with his cutlass to get the feel of it. “Be warned that I am fast on my feet. I feel quite loose-limbed today.”
Captain Seawolf grinned. “I wonder why.”
“Let’s get to it.”
Thomas lunged forward, aiming a blow for the captain’s broad chest. The bigger man batted the blade away and made a hard swing for the sailor’s neck. Thomas leapt back, and the blade whooshed through the air.
The two men circled each other for a moment, then leapt forward once again. Their leather-wrapped blades thudded against one another several times in rapid succession, each man trying to get past the guard of the other.
For a time, the fight seemed equally matched. Although Captain Seawolf was by far the more powerful, Thomas was nimbler and able to dodge as many attacks as he parried. He was slowly tiring, but the captain’s breath came more heavily, too. Both men focused with furious concentration, not hearing the encouragement and advice called out by the crowd. The two were alone in the world, a world of feint and parry and attack.
It could not last. A misread feint led Thomas to make a desperate defense to a hard slash. He stopped the main force of the blow, but the captain’s sword forced through his defense to smack him in the shoulder. In the instant that his shoulder flinched, the captain knocked Thomas’s sword aside and hacked at the sailor’s head. Thomas ducked to one side and raised his free arm.
A jarring pain lanced through his forearm as the padded blade came down with a terrible force just in front of the elbow. Nevertheless, Thomas managed to swing his blade, slapping Captain Seawolf across the jaw. He had meant to hit with the edge, but in his pain and confusion, he had inadvertently turned his weapon.
The blow lacked full strength, but it turned the captain’s head and forced him to take a step back, giving Thomas time to retreat.
The two stood, studying each other from three paces away. Thomas could barely move his left arm. It throbbed with pain. If he hadn’t blocked that blow with his forearm, the sword would have got him square in the skull and he would have been knocked unconscious or worse.
For his part, Captain Seawolf had a bright red mark on his face. He raised his free hand to his swelling lip and brought away blood.
“Well, well, well. The little minnow has teeth,” the captain chuckled.
He dove back into the fight.
It was all over in a minute. Weakened by the terrible pain in his arm, cowed by the fury of the bigger man, Thomas only managed to land a couple of weak blows on the captain’s sides that barely slowed him down before a hard thrust to the stomach left the sailor curled up on deck.
As he lay coughing, he dimly heard Captain Seawolf call to his men, “What do you say, lads? Did he do well enough?”
A loud shout in the affirmative did little to make Thomas feel
better. He saw the captain’s face looming over him, his cheek and mouth swollen on one side from the blow Thomas had given him across the face.
“Well done, boy. The hardest part comes next.”
Later that evening, Thomas and most of the crew sat in their quarters. The bedding had not yet been put down, because before any lovemaking, there was drinking to be done.
Maggie and Thomas sat on kegs facing each other. Thomas had a thick cushion under his rump, which still sang with pain from the treatment the figurehead had given it. Between them, another keg that acted as a table. Two glasses of fine crystal, no doubt stolen, stood on the keg. Frenchie served as waiter, a bottle of rum in each hand.
“Here are the rules,” the quartermaster said, holding up the bottles of rum for all to see. “You each drink until one of you falls over.”
“That’s it?” Thomas asked.
“That’s it. This isn’t chess, my friend.”
Thomas shrugged and looked at the bullish woman.
“I’ll go easy on you,” he said.
“Ha! I’ll go easy on you, you limey cocksucker,” the master gunner shot back.
Frenchie filled each glass to the rim. Thomas and Maggie raised their glasses, toasted each other jauntily, and drank. Thomas let the rum flow down his throat in big, easy gulps. While no drunkard, he enjoyed a good bottle of rum, and this was fine stuff indeed. He had earned a reputation as a man who could not be drunk under the table. It had helped him keep up the appearance of being a normal fellow—people generally thought of his kind as weak and effeminate. As a strong sailor who could hold his liquor, he could pass for normal.
