Wolves

by W. A. Hoffman

  Pete crumpled to sit with his back against the gunwale and his face full of pain.

  “Will?” Gaston queried.

  I turned to find his Horse had fled before my sudden anger. I could see Him standing well back and watching me with wide eyes. I shook my head helplessly and fought tears.

  Gaston kissed my cheek and then clapped Pete’s shoulder and said, “Will carries a great wound: he does not like anyone to poke fingers in it.”

  Pete sighed and nodded. “IKnow. IWereBein’AFool.” He met my gaze earnestly. “I be sorry,” he said distinctly. “Truly, Will. ItJustBe… IActLikeAnArse. ItBeAThingILearnt WhenIWereYoung. ItKeptMeFrom Gettin’Wounded AsYou’veBeen… An’InOtherWays.” He shrugged. “Now IMissMyMan.”

  His words truly finished placating my irrational anger. I smiled weakly. “I forgive you. I cannot imagine how I would behave if I thought I might lose Gaston to… some ambition of his.”

  That was a lie: I did know: I had gone slowly mad when I thought I might lose him to Chris and marriage and his title. Pete was going slowly mad. In that light, I felt great empathy for him.

  Pete grimaced and nodded sadly. “ItNa’BeMight. ’EBeGone.”

  “Oh Pete, I am sorry,” I said. I could hold the tears at bay no longer.

  He was as close to tears as I had ever seen him. “Nay, nay,” he said with a sigh. “INeedTa LetItGo. ’E’llMakeSome TalkO’ UsBein’Tagether WhenWeReturn, But… It’llNe’erBe LikeItWere: AforeSarah: Afore’IsArm: AforeMorgan. ThingsChange. WeJustDon’ LikeItNone.”

  I glanced forward and found Chris watching Pete with sympathy. I grimaced: I was not sure when we had begun to speak loudly enough for him to hear.

  “INe’erThoughtThere’d ComeADay WhenAGirl WouldBe MyOnlyOption,” Pete whispered and sighed.

  “As for that,” Gaston whispered. “He is my… cousin.” He shrugged.

  Pete frowned and studied him. “DoesThat MeanNay, OrDoesItMean GoSlow?”

  Gaston sighed. “Go very slow, please. He is wounded by my hand: I will not let another harm him.”

  The Golden One scratched his head and appeared thoughtful. “Aye,” he said at last. “IWillBeKind. IFeelHellBent OnBein’AnArse, ButThatBe ’Ow ItStartedWithStriker, An’Look’Ow ThatTurnedOut.”

  “As many poets have noted,” I said, “love is the greatest prize of all, but it is a thing we must expose our underbellies to in order to experience its beauty. It often hurts.”

  I expected him to ask what love had to do with it, but instead he asked, “DoYaThinkPoets BeFoolsOr WiseMen?”

  I grinned. “It is hard to say, I feel most like to string pretty words together in order to gain another’s bed; or because they have been too long in the bottom of a bottle; but on occasion, one of them stumbles upon and records a great truth that speaks to all men.”

  He chuckled in a sad way. I fancied it was the sound a man makes when he realizes he has come to the end of the rope he was using to climb down from a great height, and he realizes he must drop the final distance.

  He crawled forward toward Chris. “WhatYa’Doin’ Lazin’About? ’OwMany PushUps YaDo?”

  She snorted and crossed her arms while considering him speculatively. Then she leaned forward and asked him some quiet question I could not hear above the wind. And then I saw him quite clearly decide not to be an arse. He leaned forward and answered her with apparent sincerity and a thoughtful mien. She listened, and moved to sit beside him so that they could converse with their heads together and the rest of us deaf to their words.

  I looked to my matelot and found him smiling at me. “Change is not always bad,” he said quietly.

  “As long as it does not involve losing you,” I replied.

  “That would not be change: that would be the end of life.”

  “Death is change,” I said sadly.

  He smiled and urged me to join him on the stern bench. Once I was there, he wrapped his arm around me. I found great comfort in his solidity in the wind.

  The sun was directly overhead, and we were nearly due north of the point the Spaniards occupied when we saw the grey smudge of a storm emerge from the haze of the eastern horizon. It was coming in fast, carried on winds that had begun to push the sea into swells—which we now climbed up and down. We had already turned to the southeast to angle our way a little closer to the shore. Now Cudro turned us to take the wind across our beam and we clung to the windward gunwale, trying to keep our weight on the rising side of the boat as our little craft heeled over and scooped water over her leeward rail. My balls were well up next to my belly, which was considering heaving a great deal. Everyone looked as tense and frightened as I felt. I prayed to Poseidon.

  Several hours later, the rain hit. Cudro had straightened our course to the east again, so that we ran into the wind and took the swells head on. We were now much closer to shore, but far too far to swim in the heavy seas if the need should tragically arise. And sadly, we were still quite close to the Spaniards. I considered the irony of our sailing right into their bay after we had sailed all night to avoid them.

  We had lashed everything down, and now we took turns bailing. The storm was not a bad one: I had weathered far worse on my voyages, but not on a boat less than a score of feet long.

  Interminable hours later, the wind and rain abated. We were still afloat.

  I pried the tiller from Cudro’s exhausted hands and sent him forward to derive what warmth he could from his sopping wet matelot. I sat and shivered in the cold in the aftermath of the activity until my matelot wrapped himself about my waist and pulled me off the bench and down into the hull. There at least most of my body could be hidden from the wind and spray if I kept my shoulders hunched and my head low.

  I could see nothing. I held the tiller so that it pointed directly at the mast, but in truth I could not tell if I was sailing a straight course until the clouds finally parted. Then I found the North Star—ominously close to our bow—and put it above a notch in the rail beside my left shoulder. I told myself sailing east was best until dawn.

  Gaston slept in my arms for a time and at last relieved me so that I could doze draped around him. I woke to his prodding. The horizon was bright directly ahead of us. Our little craft was still intact, though our sail was quite tattered. Cudro and Ash slept together amidship; and to our amusement, Pete slept curled protectively about Chris in the bow. We watched the sun rise without rousing the others. It was a glorious thing to know there would be another day.

  Once the sun was too bright to gaze upon, I looked elsewhere. I saw only sea. My balls again retreated to my belly and my stomach roiled. With a great deal of cursing—on his part and mine—I roused Cudro. He turned us south. All eyes were now wide and upon the horizon beyond the bow. All mouths were now assuring one another we could not have sailed so far east that we would miss the island by sailing south. We were all very relieved when at last a grey-green smudge emerged from the haze.

  There were mountains ahead of us—and off our starboard side—when the wind rose and the clouds once again gathered on the eastern horizon. We decided we were sailing into the great vee of a bay I had seen from the mountain; and that if we headed to the closest shore we would be well past the Spaniards. So we turned west and only caught the start of the storm before we managed to get ashore. We turned our craft on its side and huddled beneath it.

  “We’ll likely be seeing this every afternoon now,” Cudro rumbled in the stuffy gloom.

  I could barely hear him over the pounding rain and I yelled in response. “Let us stay close to land as we were before, and only sail when it is clear.”

  “It’ll take months to get there if the eastern coast is full of these peninsulas,” He said loudly. “We’ll be sailing in and out of them for the rest of the year. And then we have the coast near Santo Dominga.”

  “Aye,” I snapped. “So what would you have us do? Hand ourselves over to the Spanish? Steal a larger craft? Walk across land? Return to Tortuga?”

  “
I don’t know!” he roared back.

  “Then kindly shut your mouth,” I yelled. “We are alive, free, and traveling in the direction we wish to go. That is far more than many men ever achieve in life.”

  Pete laughed. “Aye, QuitYurWhinin’.”

  Cudro cursed and grumbled in Dutch for a time.

  I fancied melancholy fell in the huge drops of rain, like ink dripped down from heaven. I clutched Gaston and he murmured a query.

  “Do not let the melancholy claim me,” I hissed in his ear.

  His hand went to my crotch, and I expected a poignant but eventually melancholy drift toward Heaven and down again. The rain and wet hair was already minding me yet again of my first tryst with Shane. Instead, Gaston grasped my balls and twisted until I jerked and smothered a groan with my teeth in his baldric.

  “Please me,” he growled in my ear.

  I took a sharp breath. “Or what?” I hissed back with a grin.

  He snorted and tightened his grip threateningly. “Or I will make you sorely regret your lack of appreciation for being alive, free, and sailing in the direction we want—with me.”

  I laughed into his shoulder. “Oui, my lord.”

  He squirmed about and rolled atop me. I accidentally kicked someone in the process.

  “Oh for the love of God, do you two ever stop!” Chris complained.

  “Non,” Gaston and I said as one.

  Then my man was shedding his wet clothes and tugging at mine. Garnering more chuckles from Pete and curses from Chris, I doffed my tunic and breeches. Then my matelot dragged me from beneath the boat and out into the rain. I did not see he carried his belt until we reached the closest grove of trees. By then I could not have been happier unless he carried a scourge. I howled with delight and the freedom of knowing no one would hear me above the storm.

  He proceeded to pinch and kiss and bite me until I was more than ready for the thrashing he gave my buttocks and thighs before plundering my arse with enough abandon to leave him on his knees laughing and gasping breathlessly in the aftermath of his pleasure. I laughed with him, and only reluctantly remained standing, leaning on the tree, where he held me with one feeble hand. Once he had his wind back, I came to understand his intent for keeping me on my feet as he finished me with his mouth. I stopped laughing for a time, but it returned as soon as the light faded.

  Then we held one another: the moments filled with sweet kisses and giggles. At last we grew cold and knew we must return to the boat. We made our way there hand in hand, only to stop a score of feet from it when Chris emerged from beneath another tree to step into our path. We were naked, and I flushed from head to cock as I realized what he might have seen. Gaston tucked the belt coiled around his hand behind my back.

  Chris was apparently thankfully oblivious to our nakedness, and had seen nothing to make him view us oddly. He had far more on his mind.

  “Pete is making advances,” he said.

  I cursed silently as I realized the state we must have left Pete in.

  “Well,” I said, “is that a bad thing?”

  Chris looked from one to the other of us, and seemed to see our nakedness for the first time. He quickly pulled his gaze back to our faces and squared his small jaw. “I am not blind!” He turned and began to walk back to the boat, only to pause and yell over his shoulder, “Or stupid. Or…” He stopped and stomped back to us. “He does not like women and he has a matelot! I will not make the same mistake…”

  I stepped in close. “He is not me, and aye, he has thought this through. He knows what he is about.”

  Chris fluttered between dismay and wonder. “I can have him?”

  I nodded tightly. “If you wish.”

  Hope dawned in his bright blue eyes, and then he shook his head with frustration and fear. “Non, I will just get pregnant again!”

  “I do not think he has any interest in that hole. I could be wrong, but…”

  Chris frowned with confusion and then his mouth dropped open and hung there as if the wind had stolen his words.

  I strained to hear what they might have been, and was forced to realize I was regarding dumbfounded silence and not a missing piece of the conversation. This was truly not a conversation to be had while shouting in a storm.

  “Explain your concerns to him,” I pleaded.

  “Non! Not in there with Cudro and Ash listening… or you two daft bastards! I will not do anything else either. And I will not do that… that… Non, just non!”

  Gaston tapped my shoulder, and I looked to him and then to where he pointed. Pete stood outside the boat, his shoulders hunched against the wind and rain. He could not have heard anything we said, but he was watching.

  “Then speak with him out here!” I yelled to Chris and pointed.

  Chris turned and regarded Pete with fear and consternation. He clutched at me as I began to walk past him. “Non, Will, do not leave me out here!”

  “You are a big boy!” I replied.

  “Non, I’m not!” he wailed.

  “He will be kind,” I assured him with sincere gentleness.

  “I’m not afraid he’ll hurt me,” Chris said with desperation.

  “You cannot live in fear of the other.”

  “He is a man. I cannot be a man if…” He flinched at what he saw in my eyes. “I did not mean it that way! I meant… You said if I am to be a man then I must be manly. I do not wish to be manly with him! Damn it, Will,” he sobbed. “What I want to do with him makes a lie of all my claims to manliness.”

  I took his shoulders and shook him lightly. “Then be who you are! Do as you wish! That is the essence of manliness.”

  “Truly?” he squawked.

  “Truly.”

  He at last nodded acquiescence.

  I left him and turned to find that my matelot had retreated to stand shivering near Pete. At the sight of Gaston’s hunched shoulders and pinched expression, I was filled with a new concern as I hurried to them.

  “Get inside,” I ordered Gaston. He complied with a tight nod. “You might well have won,” I told Pete. “She is scared of pregnancy, though.”

  “Don’tWant ThatHole.”

  “She is scared of that too.”

  “AllMenAre. That’sWhyThey NeedBeGentledDown,” he said with a grin as if I were daft.

  I shook my head with amusement and pushed him toward her. “Go and warm her.”

  Then I ducked beneath the hull after Gaston.

  “What is happening, Will?” Cudro asked in French.

  “Pete and Chris are determining if they wish to be matelots,” I said. Gaston’s skin was clammy and his teeth were chattering. “Now please help me with Gaston. He has caught a chill.”

  “Well, what the Devil did you…” Ash began to ask and quickly quieted at some grumble from Cudro.

  Then the big man was next to us and shedding his wet clothes. Gaston did not protest as I pushed his back to Cudro’s chest. I then pressed my back to Gaston’s chest and pulled his feet and hands over and under my legs as necessary to bring them in reach and chafe them vigorously. My matelot held me and bit the belt he still carried to keep his teeth from knocking together. Cudro rubbed Gaston’s sides and thighs. Meanwhile, Ash hung our few wet and damp blankets along the inside of the gunwale so that they blocked the wind from whistling around the end of the overturned craft and inside the hull to blow upon us. I would have asked him to start a fire, but I knew not what was dry enough to burn within a hundred leagues—perhaps the inside of the trees: of course, by the time we got the insides on the outside, they would be drenched in this rain.

  We would have been well enough—it was not truly cold—if we had not been wet and tired; and of course, if Gaston did not still ail. I almost cursed our stupidity, but then I recalled how very much he had enjoyed our play. We would simply have to take more care in the future.

  “Now, what is this about Pete and Chris?” Cudro asked when Gaston stopped shivering.

  “Pete needs a matelot,” I said.<
br />
  Ash snorted and sighed.

  “You’re saying he truly needs a matelot—in all ways—and not just…” Cudro asked.

  “Oui,” I said. “I do not know if it will assist Chris in being manly, but as we have discussed, it will surely serve to hide him better amongst us.”

  “Oui,” Cudro said with a chuckle. “No one would believe Pete would bed a woman.”

  I shrugged and chuckled. “True, but truth be known, stranger things have happened.”

  “Such as?” Cudro asked.

  “Well, here we are; and truly, did you ever think you would hold Gaston naked in your arms?”

  My matelot, and even Ash, accompanied Cudro in filling our shelter with laughter.

  We were entangled in a less compromising—for Gaston—knot of naked bodies when Pete and Chris returned. There was still enough light to see, and they paused with surprise upon slipping past the blankets and under the hull.

  “Strip and join us,” I said. “Gaston caught a chill and we are trying to stay warm.”

  Pete was already nearly naked, and so it was little for him to do as I asked. Chris took his time, though, and chastely retained his chest wrappings. He joined the huddle with his back to Pete.

  “I am glad it is dark,” Ash said. Then he squawked and laughed in response to something Cudro did—at least I assumed it was his matelot.

  “This is awkward,” Chris said quietly in the following silence.

  “Well, we could engage in some Bacchanalian revel,” I said, “but we have no wine.”

  “Have you ever participated in an orgy?” Ash asked with humor.

  I felt several bodies around me tense. I chuckled. “Do we really wish to discuss this now?”

  “Why the Devil not?” Cudro rumbled with amusement. “A hard prick makes me warm.”

  “Yours or another’s?” I teased.

  “Oh, God, will this go on all night?” Chris asked with a laugh that was truly good to hear.