Swallow it Down

by Addison Cain

  And they were all in on it.

  She meant to answer with something canned. A general “I’m fine.” But her eyes finally lifted from that tablecloth… and it wasn’t her guests she saw.

  It was John.

  Perched at Table #6. Having fun as he lined up for a turn. He laughed, though didn’t engage in the banter.

  He didn’t have a tongue. The captain had told her so.

  She wasn’t sure how she got there, or why she thought a goddamn cookie sheet would serve to kill him. The drag on each swing—thanks to the shape of her chosen weapon—slowed down momentum and reduced impact.

  Not that it mattered when sanity had fled. Beating him with all she had, she screamed that she’d kill him for doing this to her. Turning the cookie sheet to its side when it clicked that it would be far more effective to reduce wind resistance.

  Going straight for the throat.

  Six months!

  She’d been on the ship at least six months for him to have earned his way up to Level 15.

  When his fist landed in her gut, when he took her down like a linebacker to steal the rest of her air, she refused to let him steal the rest of her life.

  Rage fortified. Claws going for the eyes.

  Men tried to pull them apart. There was a great deal of shouting when she tore an eyelid.

  When she bit back.

  “I’ll fucking kill you, John! You’re a dead man!” It took at least three burly men to tear her from her prey. “Don’t think you can hide behind the boys. I’ll find you, you coward! I SAVED YOUR LIFE AND YOU SOLD ME TO MONSTERS!”

  One of many who had grappled her to the floor lost a grip and earned a broken nose for it. “Christ, she’s strong, Captain!”

  But she didn’t care. Her attention was laser-focused on a boy held back, who was also bleeding, but who was not fighting for freedom. Because he felt safe being male, and she was just a dumb whore.

  “You’ll die, John. I’ll see it through!”

  Her line of sight was spoiled by an all too familiar face, a person who dared say, “Don’t look at him. Look at me. Hear what I’m saying to you, Eugenia. If you don’t calm down, I’m going to have to calm you down. And I’m asking you not to make me do that.”

  Fuck all of it! “Aaron, I can’t do this anymore.” Tears, desperation. All the things she’d kept in. “I can’t.”

  Gaze so heavy she’d rather carry a thousand tons, he murmured, “Take a deep breath for me.”

  She did, one that shook all the way into her aching ribs. And then another one. And another. Until she stopped fighting and the men cautiously let her go.

  Not that she hesitated to slap off their arms as if it made any difference.

  Looking down at herself. At her stupid outfit and the way her tits were held back with nothing but a couple buttons. The front of a silly shirt tied under her bosom, midriff on display.

  Li Wei would have hated that outfit. His conservative mother would have had a heart attack at first glance. Neither of them would have ever hit her.

  And they were dead.

  And it was over.

  Undoing that first button was remarkably easy. The second one, nothing at all. After all, it was a question of math. Could be reduced to statistics. A desperation worse than any mental lapse to escape that horrible place.

  Her third button popped, the captain squinting as he demanded to know, “What are you doing?”

  Giving in. Giving in as she flipped up the pleated skirt and let the men see lace panties. “Who wants to go first?”

  Not one of them moved to take her, wide, wet eyes begging, no matter how they gawked. “Come now, red light special at Table #2. I’ll go for as long as I can take it. Five-thousand tickets a ride.”

  And still, no one touched her. After all their offers—after all their rejected presents and dirty talk over chess—not one of them made a move.

  So she did. Standing, the captain mirrored her movement.

  Which suited just fine.

  His tickets were as good as any other man there. Hand to his buckle, she fought off his restraint. “Face-to-face the first time? Isn’t that how it goes? Ass in the air after?”

  Oh, was he mad. Mad enough to give her a shake. “That’s enough out of you.”

  “I’m not joking!” Red curls went flying as she fought to pull his shirt from his pants. “I want off this goddamn boat, and if that means I have to fuck everyone on it to get there, then I’m ready.”

  The clown of the show started laughing, John’s amusement meaner than any slight she’d heard in her entire life.

  The sound off, because he was missing a tongue for telling tales.

  Not that it mattered.

  Not really.

  The only thing that mattered she couldn’t reach, despite his ugly guffaws. “I’ll even fuck John.”

  The captain’s command was given lightly. “Throw him overboard.”

  Order followed before John might comprehend why, those nearest him hoisted him up and sent him cartwheeling through freefall.

  He screamed all the way down. And must have landed feet first, bones shattered, to yell as his broken body tried to swim and sank.

  A good minute, he thrashed for life, not a soul at the party making a sound.

  One soul swallowing it down as if a kiss had touched her lips for the first time in years.

  Opening her eyes, infinitesimally lighter in spirit, she met the captain’s hazel gaze and said, “I thought foreplay was against the rules.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Aaron didn’t find her quip funny. Looked angrier than she’d ever seen him. “Go to my room. Clean yourself up. I want you naked on the bed when I get there.”

  It wasn’t so bad a plan. She’d start with the captain and get him out of the way. More importantly, the rest of the men might be more eager if she wasn’t bloody and wild-looking. Brushing her hands on her mussed skirt as if smoothing the Chanel suit she’d worn for her Harvard Med scholarship interview, she pulled herself together in a way that would have made her mother proud.

  And walked away without a word.

  Operating on instinct, allowing no thought, she washed herself, felt no pain as grit was scrubbed from abrasion. Raided the pirate king’s medicine cabinet for precious aspirin and bandages. He’d charge her for them, but she needed to be a presentable fuck.

  Because her new goal was nothing but tickets, tickets, and more tickets.

  Wet curls combed, her pussy shaved for the first time in her life, she sat at the edge of his bed and stared forward. There was no acknowledgement when the door opened, no acknowledgment of the man who had come to take what she sold.

  Kneeling down in front of her, he held ice to her cheek, hushing her when she startled.

  “I don’t need that.”

  “I say you do, troublemaker.” Another hand to her knee, he gave it an easy squeeze. “It’s going to swell up something awful if you don’t hold still.”

  A little spite, a lot of bitterness. “Are you going to order me to call you Doctor while we do it?”

  “I technically am a doctor, so you wouldn’t be the first.”

  She rolled her eyes, which didn’t help the headache.

  With a chuckle, he explained, “Multiple PHDs, former professor at Tulane. I taught history and philosophy.”

  “You have got to be kidding me…”

  Smirking, he confirmed, “Dr. Aaron Kingston.”

  Jealous down to her toes that he’d made it academically further than she had, Eugenia sneered. “And here I thought you were some kind of renegade cowboy soldier.”

  “Former Navy. Family tradition. My grandfather was the governor of Mississippi. Also a family tradition.”

  “What a fancy pedigree… one which explains a lot. Mississippi had a terrible track record for human rights.” As much as he was right about the ice, she didn’t have time to waste. “Let’s stop with the small talk. I have a bunch of tickets to make. And it isn’t my night to
be in here, so I want Hellen’s tickets too. Unless you can go more than once…”

  Voice husky, he made a promise. “We’re going to go more than once.”

  “All right then.” And she scooted back to get on her hands and knees.

  Or, tried to scoot back and was caught. Tired of the endless struggles, she put up a token effort before flopping still and laying an arm over her eyes. “I don’t want to do it face-to-face like this matters. I know what you said about first times, but you have a pass. Can we please just get it over with?”

  “Look at me, Eugenia.”

  Obeying the order, she found him standing between her legs, unbuttoning his shirt while he held her eyes. While he took his measured time removing one item of clothing after another, exposing brawn, defined abs, a body that would have graced GQ pre-bombs.

  Hair on his chest, strong laborer’s body, southern aristocracy. Cocky, because he was born to it. And he did have an unusually large penis.

  One that, frankly, made her a bit nervous.

  A hard cock that pulsed with the beats of his heart as it grew even larger. Foreskin drawn back, that delectable ridge running along the bottom.

  “No one is going to want to fuck me after that rips me in half.” And it was going to hurt. And there was a mental quota that didn’t have time for recovery nights. “Hellen can keep her tickets.”

  He laughed when she tried and failed, again, to crawl away. “I know it’s a bit daunting, but considering your medical training, I’m fairly certain you grasp that the vaginal canal was designed to stretch.”

  “For babies, not for massive, freakish cocks!”

  It didn’t look like he intended to argue anymore, creeping over her to plant a kiss right on her mouth.

  “Aaron! Kissing is not allowed!”

  Not that her swallowed complaints stopped him from dipping his tongue into her open mouth. Just like the secret lovers who kissed in dark halls on a boat where rules lead to misery and misery led to survival. Languid and keen, he drank her down no matter her lack of reciprocation. Nipping her bottom lip before kissing her jaw.

  Holding her still by the roots of her red hair.

  Getting his money’s worth as he took every last taste.

  “Kiss me, Eugenia.”

  If it would end this sooner, then fine. She kissed him.

  And he groaned, settling further against her body, and began to nudge his knee so she might spread hers. Which was the point, right?

  So she threw her all into that kiss, taking in equal parts to what he gave. Letting his tongue play over hers, allowing the invasion as his chest hair tickled her nipples.

  Always the mind reader, he abandoned her mouth to suck a pink tip into his mouth. A bit too hard—absolutely perfect. Nipping and sucking and all tongue. One, then the other. Kneading heavy breasts, pressing and pulling flesh in a way that stole her senses.

  Then that wicked mouth traveled down her stomach. Until he was kneeling between her legs and she was spread wide before him. Gripping her hips, he pulled her straight to his mouth.

  And she got to experience the tongue thing. And, Jesus, it really was something worth bragging over.

  Sore fingers fisting his covers, dying inside because it felt so good, Eugenia locked her thighs around his face and took.

  When he entered her with two fingers, she tensed, then survived a full-body shudder when he curled them upward and found a place inside her no other ever had. Growing rougher with that come-hither motion, what should have hurt was the exact opposite. She didn’t even need that masterful tongue on her clit.

  She came, drenching his hand, and fairly certain she was an inch away from the afterlife.

  It went on and on as he did things no southern gentleman should. A pirate until she begged him to stop and he still refused.

  Orgasms shouldn’t last so long. And no lady should saturate the coverlet while a pirate ate her alive.

  In a daze, she caught the way he let a string of spit leave his mouth to coat the overlarge cock he worked in his hand. Registered that he had crept over her body to position himself to take what she had preserved—the only symbol of who she had been before bombs fell and the world grew poisoned.

  The last piece of her.

  A simple hole where the first penis ever was slowly pushing forward, breaching a place that should not have mattered anymore.

  But did. She felt the loss of so much when pain snapped her out of despair.

  A burning sting washing away unattainable history, dragging her mentally kicking to the present.

  “Relax.” How softly he said it for a man that was so hard. “There you go. A little more. You can take me. I promise.”

  This man and his promises, and his rules, and his unwavering self.

  A man who was right far more often than he should be—who had claimed there would be blood. There would be, whatever remained of her already torn hymen annihilated.

  Breathing too hard and too fast. Tense, embarrassingly nervous, legs shaking, and unbearably full of someone else, Eugenia held his eyes as he talked her through her first time.

  Held them when he began to rock his hips. To fuck her.

  Held them when it started to feel good despite the sting. His body working over hers, his lips singing praises. Hands keeping hers pinned by her head, so there didn’t need to be a struggle.

  And she held them when, for some inexplicable reason, her vagina began to pulsate. When she joined his rhythm.

  Climaxing all over the first cock that had ever been inside her—thrown by the force of it—she turned her head and bit his wrist until he bled just as she did.

  Until her muffled scream came to an end, and she floated in between a placated body and a disconnected mind. Too stupid and inexperienced to grasp what followed upon his growl.

  It wasn’t until he pulled out and a trickle escaped to drip over her anus that it registered.

  He came inside her!

  And because math is where she hid when everything needed to be sorted, counting the days, Eugenia knew it wasn’t safe. Tried to remember the probability of conceiving during ovulation, even as he laid kisses on every inch of her flesh he might plunder.

  “It’s a six-percent chance, right? No, at my age, that can’t be right. Is it ten? Fuck, is it thirty?” Struggling under him, unsure why he wasn’t moving, considering this was the rule that was never broken, she shoved and shoved at a strong male body that would not be moved. “Do I wash it out?”

  But there was no washing it out, not pinned as she was. Not when the captain was not in a talking mood no matter her panicked questions or attempts to reach down and remove what was turning from cream into a watery mess. Not when he refused to speak with her unless it was to lick at her breasts and tell her how delicious they were. Complimenting every last inch. Describing in detail how she’d felt around his cock.

  Seeking out the secret places on her body that distracted and hardened her clit—that unlike past lovers he had no problem finding to tease.

  He fucked her again and again. Made her come.

  Ejaculated inside her with intention.

  Until the sun came up and she begged for rest.

  One of the most traumatic days of her life, followed by an inexplicable night that marked her as something she’d yet to come to terms with, too tired to fight back.

  Someone sore and desperate for sleep. “Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, you know. I can’t keep up with you.”

  On so many very fucked-up levels, she could not keep up with him in most ways.

  “Rest, love.” There was another, sensual, deadly kiss before he turned her into his body, hooking his leg over her hip. His arm her pillow, the other one her prison.

  Chapter Twelve

  It wasn’t the sound of the shower that woke her. It was the door.

  Joan bearing burlap bags of God only knew what. Joan with a friendly nod as if she had walked in on the familiar scene of another naked woman sitting up on the cap
tain’s bed. Because this was commonplace, and Eugenia was no different than the rest of them.

  The same women Eugenia had silently judged. The same women who had been far more savvy and now ultimately ten steps ahead of her. Who’d earn their freedom long before the uptight redhead did—the idiot redhead and her goddamn, unimportant virginity.

  “Joan, I need your help.” It didn’t matter that she was naked, bruised thighs, lovebites, fingermarks, and other signs of exactly what happened on full display. It didn’t matter that Eugenia was frantic now that some sleep had returned her sense of reason. Only one thing mattered.

  “Are you sore? I prepared an ice pack that should help with the swelling. It’s wrapped in soft towels you can rest right between your legs. And don’t forget to drink a lot of water and urinate often.”

  How kindly sage advice was administered. How naturally, because this was a common event and the man truly did have a horse cock.

  “No. Listen.” She took the old woman by the shoulders, knowing her kiss-swollen lips shook as she pleaded. “He came inside me. I didn’t know to stop him. The morning after pill? Is there some trick the women use? What do I do? Joan, help me!”

  Gentle hands urged her back to the bed, to spread quivering thighs for an extremely personal view. “Let’s take a look, okay? Up with you, girl.”

  Woman.

  Though women probably didn’t freak out over spilled semen in such epic proportions.

  “Let me guess.” Eugenia winced when ungloved fingers slipped inside her to poke around. “You’re a gynecologist.”

  “Midwife.” Said with such pride. “There, I feel it… your cervix is soft. You’re fertile. Now you wait. Should it take, you and Brooke will deliver a couple months apart.”

  Brooke? She’d been back a day and it was already confirmed she was pregnant? And of course the old hag was in on the whole fucked-up enslavement of her own sex!

  “You’re so goddamn lucky you’ve gone through menopause.” Shoving Joan away, pulling bedding over her body because this could not stand, Eugenia went from desperate to furious. “Enough with the madame act. How do the other girls keep a baby out? There has to be some post-apocalyptic trick, right? Some chant? Poison tea?” Woman-to-woman, she called her out for Joan’s part in all the ugliness. “For the love of God, don’t let him do this to me! I will not go to Level 9.”