by Jamie Hawke
“Fucking weird,” she said, but gave him a wink before turning and sauntering off. Something about that smile caught his attention, and he couldn’t help but watch her hips swaying with each step. Not bad at all, minus the whole pirate thing.
A buzzing sound came from just outside the door, and the chanting resumed… “The teeth, the teeth!”
This is it.
Frank opened his eyes and stared at the doorway. What would Trent do right now? The guy always seemed to have it figured out, including how to get two college girls to go down on him at once. Frank couldn’t even get one to, let alone figure out how to break out of a pirate prison.
He had no idea why that particular thought came to mind, but he also knew the answer as soon as he’d asked himself the question.
He would figure this out. Simple. Whatever it took, he’d survive. It was time to man the fuck up and make his own breaks in life.
BOOM! An explosion rocked the cell, knocking him to one knee. Curses outside and someone yelling to protect the captain, footsteps. Frank looked up and the doorway was empty! For a moment. Then a man ran past and threw something into the cell—a small, black object that had something attached to it, something that looked like a makeshift wick, lit… A grenade!
Frank kicked it back desperately as he ran for his life, and dove through the doorway just as the grenade exploded and tiny pieces of metal impaled themselves in the wall inches from his head. Frank recovered, checking his body. Safe, no hits. But pirates were everywhere, running and fighting. Maybe not so safe.
Nearby, a pirate fell with a hole in his forehead. One jumped over him and came at Frank with cutlass raised, but a small pirate, not much bigger than Frank, leaped into the way and impaled the charging man with a saber. Then the smaller pirate turned… Not a man, but a fiercely beautiful, petite female pirate, whose shirt was open far enough to show her gorgeous cleavage. Now that he had noticed, there was more about her—the way her sky-blue eyes stood out almost silver in the moonlight, the way her full lips seemed to pout even while she stared at Frank, wild and determined.
“With us or them?” she said, confused eyes taking in his outfit. “Speak!”
“You, you!” The answer seemed to make sense—anything to not get killed in the moment.
“Good.” She checked her back to make sure there weren’t any other pirates needing killing nearby, then asked, “Where’s Sightless Sid?”
“They…” He couldn’t get it out, but motioned to the cells behind him.
Her eyes went wide and she rushed to check. A moment later she came back, cursing.
“Who did this?” she demanded.
“I—I don’t know… but they said ‘the teeth.’ They kept saying it, and there was this—”
“Aye, no need t’ go on.” She pulled him with her away from the prison, leading him down the hill and toward the ships in the bay, slicing down more than one pirate on her way. “We know the teeth… we know him well enough.”
“Who is he?” Frank asked, jumping over a bloodied mess of pirates.
“The worst thing to happen to these seas. The devil himself, as it were.”
She stepped aside to reveal a rowboat that they were apparently going to take out to the ships, but then she motioned back and he turned to see, at the top of the hill, an imposing shape, a profile he’d learned all too well from watching pirate movies—the sword hanging from the hip and the wide-brimmed captain’s hat.
“That be him,” she said. “We call ‘im the Devil, but he likes to call himself the Pirate King.”
4
Frank turned from staring at the Pirate King’s profile to see the pirate woman had moved in close. He instinctively stepped away from her, but found her leg behind his, a devilish smile on her full lips. Again his eyes darted down to her cleavage, subconsciously, and he imagined her taking him right there in the sea.
“Before we go…” she said, eyes narrowing, and then commenced dunking him in the water.
Without any warning to take a breath, Frank sputtered, water filling his lungs. He thrashed to stand, but a moment later the woman was pulling him up. She sniffed once, said, “Not enough,” and pushed him back down.
This time he caught his breath and tried to break free of her grip, but was surprised to find her strength was greater than any man he’d ever dealt with.
A second time she pulled him up, this time releasing him. He stammered, trying to think of a threat to make sure she never did that again, but all he could do was hold up his hands as if they were in a schoolyard fight.
“Relax, little trout.” She stepped back, hands up in mock surrender. “You stank like piss and the worst sorts of defecation. Surely you didn’t expect to come on my ship smelling like that?”
“I… I….” She had a point. He had stunk horribly after falling into that muck in the cell. And now he was clean, even if it meant almost drowning. “Thanks?”
“There’s the attitude,” she said as she lifted a pistol and shot a pirate who was about to splash into the water after them. “Now if you don’t mind, we need to flee a failed rescue attempt.”
“I’m alive, so you didn’t fail.”
“Trust me.” She gave him a quick once-over. “It’s a failure.”
He frowned, but when she took a step toward him, he obliged and quickly got into the rowboat.
“Row,” she ordered, glancing over her shoulder to the fighting that was thinning out on the shore.
“Why?” Frank asked. “Why are you rescuing me?”
“None of your business….”
Frank rowed until the muscles in his arms burned, but still the ship behind him seemed barely closer at all. The pirate woman was looking at him now, her pained expression once again altered to become somewhat amused.
“You really aren’t with him then, are ya?” she said. “The Pirate King, I mean.”
“I’m not from around here.”
“Aye, I gathered as much. Sightless Sid, as he recently became known, was our key to overthrowing that tyrant. He had information, see… He’d infiltrated the Pirate King’s forces, learned himself some secrets, and lost his sight for it.”
“I’m sorry,” Frank said, still not sure if he belonged to one side or the other here, but at least this woman didn’t have him in a cell that smelled like rotten mushrooms slathered in barf, yet. And anyone losing their eyes for a cause deserved some sympathy.
“Indeed…. And you see why getting you instead would be considered a failure.”
“Sure….”
He looked over his shoulder, glad to see they were making some progress now, but not too excited to see several men in bandanas and scraggly beards leering at them from the ship’s starboard bow. Others were scrambling up from rowboats, making a hasty retreat from the shoreline.
“Where exactly are you taking me?” Frank asked.
“Safety.”
They reached the side of the ship and quickly climbed aboard, where Frank was happy to see the majority of the pirates had turned to manning the riggings and other duties required for setting sail—if they were too busy to question him, he wouldn’t complain.
“The Captain’ll want a word with you,” the woman said, and Frank felt his heart sink. She looked him up and down, lips pursed and eyes narrowed. “You know anything about sailing, boy?”
He looked around, trying to think how he could be useful. Doing his best to stand tall and speak like them, he lowered his voice and said, “I know how to swab a deck, and I know left is port and right is starboard.”
“So you know as much as a toddler,” the woman said. She shook her head with frustration, her curly flaxen hair resisting the confines of the bandana and falling over her shoulders with the movement. One long curl slipped into the open neck of her shirt and nestled in her cleavage, drawing Frank’s gaze and making him wish he could take its place. “You won’t be much use up here then.”
Two men climbed aboard, one about the size of an ox, the other t
all but lanky.
“Me an’ Ox here, that’s th’ last of us,” the lanky one said, gray eyes taking Frank in. “Who’s this, then?”
“Take him to the hold,” she said.
“Ya want us t’ torture ‘im?” Ox said. “Get information?”
The woman looked over at Frank, as if considering the question, as the two men took hold of him, one on each arm.
“Wait, what?” Frank tried to struggle, but it was like pushing against a brick wall. “You said the captain would want to talk with me! You said… I mean, I thought we were on the same side here.”
Others had stopped to see what was going on, and Frank heard the word “prisoner” floating on the wind. This wasn’t looking good.
The woman leaned in, no longer looking kind at all. “For all I know, you’re one of his spies. Aye, the captain will have a word with you, but at his own liking.”
She waved her hand and the pirates hauled him off. To his credit, he didn’t struggle, but only because he was too terrified. His feet clunked down the stairs, and even when they had locked him in a cell and laughed in his face, he couldn’t think straight. His head was a swirling mess.
The pirates finally stopped taunting him, likely growing bored with his lack of response, and went back above to help sail the ship.
It was then he remembered—the compass! His hand went to his pocket and, sure enough, it was still there.
“You’ll all be skinned alive fer this!” a raspy voice ranted, and a moment later a short pirate was dragged in by the other two and thrown into a cell near Frank’s. “The Pirate King’ll have ye hanging by yer bollocks as ‘e slices open yer throats, ye hear me?”
Ox backhanded this short pirate before locking the cell, giving Frank a ‘good luck’ glance, and leading the lanky pirate away again.
The short pirate rattled the bars, screaming and cursing, until he finally noticed Frank.
“Ah, one of us then?” the pirate said. “How’s it I don’t recognize ye then?”
“Frank,” Frank said, not sure why he said it.
“Well that just explains it all then, doesn’t it?” The pirate kicked at his cell door one more time, then sat down next to the bars across from Frank. “The names Gregon, but ye can call me what the rest of ‘em do… Goldie.” He smiled to reveal a mouth full of gold teeth.
“Like Goldie Hawn?” Frank said, stifling a laugh.
“Aye, sure. Never heard of ‘im, but it sounds a right good pirate name.”
“Yeah, definitely.” It probably was best to leave it at that, and not piss off a man like this. Taking a second to observe him more, Frank noted a long scar down the left half of the man’s throat, a series of small tattoos below his right eye that Frank had at first mistaken to be moles, and a lazy eye. The man’s clothes were much nicer than many of the pirates he’d seen on this ship, and he wondered if there was a disparity between the levels of wealth between these two groups of pirates.
“Ye weren’t one of ours,” Goldie said after some silence. “But yer not with the rebels?”
“The rebels?”
“Christ, boy. Ye know nothing? The rebels, these mighty fine folk whose ship we ‘appen to be on.”
“What’re they rebelling against?”
“The Pirate King, o’ course!” Goldie stared at Frank like he was looking at a child. “The Pirate King’s been conscriptin’ folks for years. With ‘im, ye become slaves or ye become privateers. Freedom o’ the open seas, ye see.”
Frank tried to recall his history classes and constant Wikipedia searches following the first time he’d plowed through the Pirates of the Caribbean movies… The only pirate king he could recall was the one called Blackbeard. Edward Teach. Could that be who he’d nearly met back in the jail cell? Or… was he mistaken, and it was Captain Morgan? It was all so confusing without access to the internet right in front of him.
“And there’re other pirates—er, privateers, who are fighting back against the Pirate King?”
“If ye want t’ call it that. I’d say it’s more o’ a constant beating ‘e gives them, and they keep comin’ back fer more, but yeah, they’re tryin’.”
“Wow.” Frank leaned against the bars, elbows resting on the metal plank that ran across the middle. “This world is jacked up.”
“No, no Jack here.”
Frank glanced over to see what Goldie was talking about, but the pirate had curled up on the floor and his eyes were closing.
“Just ye an’ me, lad,” Goldie said, then started snoring loudly.
Great. Frank leaned against the bars like that for some time, listening to the rhythmic slap of waves against the side of the ship, wondering if at any moment a fleet of pirate ships would appear on the horizon and blast their ship to smithereens. Or maybe the British—weren’t they fighting pirates in the real history of it all? Frank racked his brain, but the most he could remember from history class was that the Johnny Depp movies weren’t all that accurate.
Instead, when someone appeared, it was the pirate woman. She approached, eyeing him, and then undid the lock on his cell door. Frank sat up taller, started to rise, but then she was in and had a boot on his chest, pushing him back down.
“Who are you really, boy?”
He wasn’t sure what sort of answer she wanted at this point, so said, “A friend. As I said before, I’m with you. I want to help.”
“Maybe that’s true, maybe it ain’t.” She lowered her boot, motioned him up, and then the corner of her mouth rose in what could almost be a smile, but not quite. “Nothing like a good bit of torture to find out.”
Frank’s heart pounded, his stomach already balling up in pain. Torture? The last thing he wanted to do was cry in front of this lady, or show weakness in any way. He stood tall, chest out, and said with the bravest voice he could manage, “Do your worst.”
“Oh, my worst?” she said. This time, the smile was genuine. And terrifying. She stepped up to him, so close he could smell the cherry tobacco on her breath. Her hand came up to his face, fingernails moving along his neck. It was almost a threat, and almost ticklish.
Frank gulped, suddenly aware of pressure in his pants as blood flowed south. She held his chin, looking into his eyes, and then… looked down. He hadn’t wanted to draw attention to it, so hadn’t been able to adjust or hide his erection in any way, and damn was it showing.
“The fuck is that?” she said.
“Nothing.”
She eyed him, her smile a playful grin now. “Oh, come… it’s clearly not nothing.” Her fingers moved down from Frank’s chin, tracing his chest to his abs, and then grabbed him by the balls. “If you betray us in any way, I will tear these off, you got that?”
“I would never.”
She nodded, eyes never leaving his, and then her touch was soft, caressing as she said, “Good. I’d hate to see them go to waste. A good pair is wasted as fish food.”
Frank wasn’t sure now if she was trying to scare him or seduce him. He licked his lips, wondering if she wanted him to kiss her or something, then shuddered as her hand rose, moving along his cock on the outside of his pants, before grabbing it hard.
“Torture,” she said with a wink, and then laughed as she turned and walked out, relocking his cell behind her.
She was right, in a very confusing way. The blue balls pain only took a few seconds to kick in, and he was left standing there with a raging boner. When he finally managed to lie down and drift off to sleep, his dreams were invaded by the image of Sally in the dorm room before his Jedi fencing match, only now when the woman turned, it was this pirate instead, taking him in with her knowing eyes and devilish grin.
Hot damn, that was an image he wouldn’t mind never losing.
5
“On yer feet, boy!” a loud voice yelled and, before Frank could react, two men, the pirates who’d dragged him down here, had him by the arms and were dragging him up the stairs and into the bright sunlight.
“You taking me to the cap
tain?” Frank managed, finally pulling his legs beneath him so he could stand on his own and squinting as his eyes adjusted.
“The captain?” Ox laughed. “You’ll be seeing ‘im sure enough, aye. But not ‘til we’ve asked ya some questions… our method o’ asking.” The pirate smiled, but not in a nice way.
“None of that now,” the woman pirate said.
“Sorry, Esmerelda.”
Frank stared, taking in the sight of her sky-blue eyes and knowing gaze, and smiled at the thought of her small but strong hand on his cock last night. As much as he appreciated the view, though, for now he was hoping she’d brought him breakfast. Instead, she tied his hands with a rope.
“Follow me,” she said, holding it in one hand and leading the way over the side to a rowboat with him following like a dog on a leash.
Unlike when he’d landed on the other beach at night, during the day the white sand on this one—wherever it was, he had no point of reference—sparkled. The water was a turquoise blue and so clear it was transparent, and palm trees lined the jungle ahead. The pirates soon reached land and then made their way through the jungle, hacking and slashing at branches with their cutlasses.
This was unlike any setting Frank had ever found himself in. The sounds of exotic birds filled the trees and brush all around them, a sweet scent like coconut oil carried on the breeze, and flowers grew on trees in vibrant purples and reds.
“What, never seen a jungle before?” Goldie asked, pulled up alongside Frank by the two other pirates.
“No talking, prisoners,” Ox said.
Goldie leered at Frank and allowed his captors to drag him on ahead. More than once, Frank noticed Esmerelda glancing back at him with a raised eyebrow, but she walked in silence. He thought of trying to be smart here and talk his way out of the situation, but every time he opened his mouth it was only to say something about food or to ask when they’d find a bathroom. Both earned him a confused glare from her.
