Shanghaied

by K'Anne Meinel

  “Wait! Don’t go!” Mel ordered her, leaning against the door with her hand to prevent the other woman leaving.

  “Don’t…Let me go…” she said petulantly, feeling embarrassed. Melissa didn’t want her. She didn’t….

  “Wait a minute,” Mel soothed her, trying not to laugh in her own embarrassment. She was not sure if she should touch her friend or not. “What is this about?”

  “Let me go!” she gasped, tugging at the door handle, trying not to let Melissa see her tears.

  “No,” Mel said succinctly, able to hear the tears in her friend’s voice. “Tell me why you came here. Why did you try to kiss me?”

  Keeping her back to Melissa, not looking at her directly or letting her see her mortification seemed to help. Abigail couldn’t open the door without Melissa’s cooperation because she was just too big and strong, and she didn’t want to make a fuss. The servants or her mother and brothers might hear, and she didn’t want to alarm anyone that might still be up. This was all so embarrassing, not at all like she had fantasized. Melissa was supposed to wrap her strong arms around her, hold her, and return her kisses. She remembered how she had looked with the other woman. “I saw you in Belgium…” She gulped, trying to get the lump out of her throat. Maybe Melissa didn’t want her. It had taken Abigail so long to work up her nerve, and she thought after the auspicious day they’d had maybe this was it…maybe this was the one chance she would have…. “I saw you with that seamstress…” she continued.

  Mel was floored. She had been utterly discreet with the woman. Both women had enjoyed each other, but they knew it was fleeting, like enjoying another woman’s body but no commitment and no messy emotions. Mel pulled away from the door, allowing Abigail to leave if she wanted. She walked backwards, away from the petite blonde, shocked that she knew. No one else had ever known…not her father and not his mistresses. Ever since New Orleans, when she had been taught by one of the best madams, she had been extremely discreet. Now, someone knew. Now, someone could expose her.

  Abigail slowly turned, the tears drying as she saw the ashen look on the bigger woman’s face. She hadn’t expected that.

  “Maybe you misunderstood…” Mel began, backing up and away from the blonde, ready with an excuse. She felt the bed behind her knees and sat with a thump, too shocked to react and knowing her excuse was feeble and a lie.

  Abigail shook her head. They both knew it wasn’t true. “I saw you kissing her in the shop. I saw her come to our suite at the hotel more than once.”

  Mel was astounded. That had been early spring and now, it was nearly summer, and her one true friend was revealing what she knew. Suddenly, she frowned as she thought about the matter at hand. “Why did you kiss me just now?”

  Having the tides suddenly turned on her again, Abigail’s breath caught in her throat. She thought of leaving. She had the means now but not the will. Her legs wouldn’t let her leave. Her eyes bored into Mel’s dark eyes, and she was trapped. “I wanted…I hoped…” she began, wringing her hands in her agitation. She was finally able to drop her eyes to the floor, which seemed to help make it less intense. “I wanted you to want me like that woman.”

  Mel was now speechless. She had never expected this. There was no way she could have predicted this. Yes, she had been attracted to Abigail for many months, but never—except in her wildest fantasies perhaps—had she thought that Abigail would want her too. She opened her mouth to speak, not once but twice. It was like a fish gasping for air. Finally, the silence began to get to her. She could see that Abigail was about to run off, and she didn’t want this between them. She didn’t want to hurt her friend. Intending to let her down with a safe rebuff, the sensible thing to do in this situation, instead what came out was, “I do want you.” She was just as shocked as Abigail at her words.

  The blonde looked up again to see if Melissa was serious. She was stunned to hear the very words she had hoped to hear. “You…you do?” she stuttered.

  Mel was having difficulty speaking. She nodded instead. Gulping loudly in the silent room, she squeaked out, “I never thought you would want this.” She gestured at herself.

  “I do,” she answered fervently. Her legs still wouldn’t work. They wouldn’t propel her forward to Melissa, sitting on her bed in her nightgown and robe. Her legs wouldn’t help her escape from the room or this uncomfortable situation either. “I’ve thought about it a lot since I saw the two of you.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything before?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Not half as afraid as you are making me now,” Mel mumbled earnestly.

  Abigail heard her though and smiled for the first time in this uncomfortable meeting. “I’ve never seen you afraid,” she stated, starting to feel a little braver. She had feeling in her right big toe now. It was a tingling, so there was hope for her legs again.

  “Geez, Abigail. You can’t ever tell what you saw.” She realized she sounded like she was back in the schoolroom and they were talking about tattling.

  “I wouldn’t,” she said, shaking her head. There, her other toes were starting to feel the cold in the wood floor of the room. “I haven’t said anything since I saw you two.”

  “Maybe you should have…to me.”

  They exchanged a look.

  “What’s it like?” Abigail asked.

  “What’s what like?”

  “Being with a woman?”

  “I don’t know that it’s any different from being with a man. I’ve never been with a man.”

  “Have you been with many women?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “Well, I think it’s quite a practical question. If we are going to be together, shouldn’t I know how many partners you have had?”

  “What do you mean if we are going to be together? Who says we are going to be together?” Mel was feeling distinctly uncomfortable now.

  Mel’s musings were interrupted by a roar on the deck above. Several of the men in the other hammocks snorted as they sat up so suddenly, they nearly upended themselves. Mel, not wanting to return to reality, was very angry. It had been so lovely thinking about that time with Abigail. It was a far cry from the situation she found herself in now.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “One. Two. Three…” The men counted the five lashes that were being meted out to the poor boy in unison. Danny had been caught cheating on one of his lovers with another man. The fact that he had been shared around by these men meant nothing. It was their right and at their discretion who he was with. That he had gone off with another man and had been caught meant he had to be publicly punished and taught a lesson. The other men on the ship were watching the cocky little twit get his comeuppance.

  Danny screamed with every lash from the long, black whip. It was designed for maximum punishment, ripping his shirt and his skin to shreds. His men didn’t want to kill him, just warn the boy from straying again. After the fifth lash, they cut him down from the main mast post, which was now flecked with the blood and skin of its newest victim. There were others that had been tied here and lashed, some to death. Mel shuddered.

  “What? You don’ think der boy deserved the lashin’?” one of the men asked Mel, noticing her reaction and ready to rib her over it.

  “Oh, probably,” she answered, not willing to debate it with him. She was just glad she hadn’t ever warranted a lashing. Her back still hurt a couple weeks later from where Seamus had struck her twice with his short, almost crop-length, little whip. Those leather fronds had hurt like the devil. She could imagine the sobbing boy’s pain. His back looked horrible. She hoped her own back wasn’t infected but was unwilling to go to the ship’s surgeon for anything. She’d washed as much of it as she could reach. She’d even stood in the rain to clean it further, volunteering to be out on deck doing her duties through the latest storm. She’d even allowed a wave to catch her, the sting of the salt spray causing her pain as it soaked her shirt and touched her back. She knew it m
ust be healing after all this time, but still, some of her work made stretching difficult.

  In the coming days, the boy lay on a bunk with one of the men that claimed him tending to him. Despite the sores on the boy’s back, they continued to use him, and Mel was thoroughly disgusted with these men. They were the dredges of society, and she wondered that the officers on this ship didn’t interfere. She didn’t begrudge them having sex with each other, but this was a boy, and even if he claimed to be sixteen, he looked twelve. They had used and abused him from day one. The boy was no longer arrogant and stayed out of everyone’s way. He was doing his duty as they saw fit and laying on his stomach to avoid the pain in his back when off duty. This seemed to increase the adoration of the men, who felt they owned him and were delighted to see him so helpless and laying there for them to abuse.

  Mel avoided that area of the ship where they played cat and mouse with the boy. They didn’t use each other. They were adults, and what they did between themselves wouldn’t have bothered her nearly as much. But this was a young boy, and he had only done what he had to do to survive. He’d been foolish and been caught, but his punishment seemed to go on and on. Before they reached the Orient, he had been used up, and his burial at sea angered Mel further. What an absolute waste of a human being. His death only inconvenienced those men. They eagerly anticipated getting to port, so they could search for another poor unfortunate soul to shanghai and use. They talked about getting two, in case one should sicken and die. Mel fantasized how long it would take for these men to drown as she remembered what she had done to Seamus many weeks ago.

  Mel and the others from San Francisco were once again locked below. The officers on this ship weren’t stupid, and they knew that given the opportunity, they would all desert the ship. Only longtime sailors or those who really wanted to be at sea would stay. It gave her a better understanding of why these men were allowed their indulgences: from drinking rum until they were drunk to abusing a boy until he died. The officers knew these men had nowhere else to go and would continue to work so long as they had a place on this ship. The men were given shore leave once the cargo they were selling was ashore. Many visited whore houses, some searched for more cargo, and some went off on their own errands as the ship’s officers sought out others of their own status and prestige to associate with.

  Mel listened to the men who returned, many of them drunk. They were enjoying their leave and just using the ship to sleep in. The ship was a lot safer than sleeping in a whorehouse where they could be robbed. Some places they might even lose their lives. Mel could hear them through the door she was locked behind with the others as they compared notes. She waited until all was quiet in the small quarters where she was imprisoned with the other men, waiting until they were asleep, so she could pull down her pants and squat over the slop bucket. She had her period and sloshed the bucket to hide the blood, her rag completely useless as she surreptitiously ripped some additional material from the bottom of her thick shirt to pad between her legs and the coins hidden there. The cramps were making her nearly mad. She wished for some activity she knew would lessen the pain, or perhaps, some tonic from the surgeon, which contained things she didn’t want to know about.

  After five days, they were allowed out under the watchful eyes of their captors as they helped to ready the boat to leave. Five more unfortunate souls had been shanghaied into service and were down below awaiting their fate. Without Seamus, the other two greeting these new men weren’t as robust in their intimidation and bullying of the captives. Mel shook her head as she heard one of the protesting men, his cries in what she could only assume was Chinese, going unanswered as he was beaten. She herself gazed at the land that was rapidly receding from the horizon, measuring the distance and wondering if she could swim it.

  “Don’t bother,” Humphrey grumbled near her ear in a low tone. “The sharks’d get ya before you got thirty feet.” He’d seen her gaze.

  Mel flushed, feeling as though he had read her mind and hurrying to do her work. The sooner she was done here, the sooner she could find a quiet spot to clean herself up. The days of her bleeding had left her moody and sore. The blood made her feel vulnerable and raw. She still cramped a bit, but the hard work she threw herself into helped soothe the pain. Would she ever truly be clean again? she wondered.

  Mel managed to win a shirt in a poker game with some of the men, using the skills she had acquired in New Orleans so long ago. She was grateful for the nearly new material on the shirt. It was a lot better than her own torn and battered shirt, which she discreetly tore up for future rags. She even managed to replace the cloth surrounding the valuable coins she was still carrying, rolling them anew. The other cloth had become so soiled she knew she stank. They all stank. Most of the men weren’t very fastidious. Even the officers on the decks above them weren’t very finicky. They hid a lot of their body odors with perfumes and powder. Even when they had gone ashore, they covered up with these things rather than simply bathing to get rid of the odors.

  She watched the newly shanghaied men adapt to their captivity with varying degrees of success, wondering if she and the other men from San Francisco had behaved in this way. She no longer remembered. It seemed so long ago as she worked through her miserable days, weeks, and months. A couple of the men were truly wild in their desire to get back to land. One had dived off the ship, and sure enough, in these warmer waters, the sharks had quickly taken him. Not in the thirty feet Humphrey had predicted but near enough that anyone who had been thinking of diving off to save the man rethought it. It was exciting while it lasted. They went back to work, laughing and talking about the man’s death as though it were nothing. Mel was disturbed and continued her work with a will, not participating in their gruesome talk and ignoring them as she did most of the time.

  “What’s with ‘im?” one of the new men asked, trying to get the lay of the land and resigned to being shanghaied. It wasn’t his first time, and his skills would have him settled in no time.

  “I’d stay away from ‘im,” Humphrey told the man, watching as Mel used her strength to help bring one of the replacement masts up from below, freeing up others who weren’t quite as strong. The strain against her legs showed powerful muscles against the tight-fitting breeches she wore that were sadly in need of replacement.

  “Why? ‘E somethin’ special?” he laughed, his grin showing missing teeth.

  “No, but ‘is fists ‘ill cuff you sideways,” he grunted out as he continued coiling rope around the capstan. The new sailor was supposed to help him. “And iffin youse don’t want a cuff from me, you’ll do yer work.”

  This startled the new man enough that he quickly caught up the ropes they were coiling, which had become loose as they brought in the anchor. The ropes now needed straightening before being used again. The capstan was a round piece of wood that wound the heavy rope, and this time, it had slipped the many coils and they were now recoiling.

  It took another week or so before Mel could sink back into memories of Abigail and the night of her eighteenth birthday. It was these times she lived for that relaxed her enough to sleep well. Most times she was tense and unable to sleep soundly due to the many men around her, who could rob her or expose her at any time, if she wasn’t careful. The memories kept her alive. She didn’t know why, but she had survived this far, and she was determined to see how she could escape this nightmare. As she drifted into the memories again, she couldn’t help but skip ahead to the bad ones too. She firmly squashed those down as she concentrated on Abigail’s eighteenth birthday night.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You don’t want me?” Abigail asked boldly, her fears of rejection returning quickly. Her eyes widened, ready to start crying.

  “Abigail,” she entreated, wanting to rise and take the young woman in her arms. She just sat there instead. “You don’t know what you are asking.”

  “I think I do,” Abigail responded, suddenly looking older than her eighteen years. Mel felt trapped at that
moment as she gazed in those beautiful, violet eyes.

  “No, you don’t want this life,” she argued, trying to keep her head on straight as she contemplated being with her friend, someone she had wanted for a while, but she was unwilling to lose a friendship over what she desired.

  “What life?” Abigail asked, feeling able to walk forward and get closer to Mel. Tentatively, she sat on the edge of the bed but well enough away from Mel that she wasn’t crowding her. Still, she was near enough if…. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. Was it just to be held by this strong and capable woman, or did she want to be kissed passionately as she had seen her kiss the modiste? She’d thought about it often enough that she was certain she wanted the kiss…and maybe more. But what was more? She knew how horses did ‘it.’ She couldn’t help but know that from being around the farms and studs and observing it, but as a well-brought-up Englishwoman, she pretended she didn’t know how animals procreated. She’d seen dogs, ducks, and even one of the servants futtering another, but she wasn’t sure how two women could do it, and she wanted to know so much more.

  Mel sighed, knowing her blonde friend’s curiosity might be her undoing, if she wasn’t careful. She knew there was no hope for the two of them. She couldn’t very well seduce an earl’s daughter, who was destined for better things than an American woman could offer her, even a wealthy American woman. Abigail had to make an advantageous match, produce heirs, and be a dutiful wife. Indulging in a relationship with a commoner such as an American was thought to be, would be frowned upon. Their friendship was only allowed because of her father’s wealth. She understood that and accepted it, but she wanted more too. She had tried not to fantasize about it, but she couldn’t help thinking that someday, she wanted a companion forever. Not a man but a woman that would be hers…until death doeth part them. Dare she hope, even for a moment, that this young woman could be the one? No! She must not indulge her own fantasies this way. She had to set her friend straight. She began hesitatingly.