Since the Cayman island, Gaston had not seemed prone to discuss the subject of our intimacy. When I was sure he was asleep, I would ease myself and feel guilty for it afterwards: a thing I put much thought in after our discussion of sin. I had initially wondered why I felt guilt, if I was so sure masturbation was not a sin. Then I realized I felt guilty because I was sinning against myself: I was not ashamed of what I was doing, but I was allowing myself to think I should be. It troubled me. I was doing something wrong to no other person than myself. This would not be the first time.
I heard the devious laughter seeping from my memories, taunting me that I had walked this path before. My waking mind did not truly think so, as there were a great many differences between what had transpired between Shane and me and what was transpiring now. Gaston did not engage in the hypocrisy of desiring me and then despising us both for it, as Shane had done. Gaston did not want me.
He did not seem to want anyone, not even himself. Despite the physical intimacy that life upon the sloop demanded, I had not once caught him easing himself in any fashion. I clearly recalled his admission that he was seldom moved, but it truly seemed impossible that any man would not be moved at all. I did not dare broach the subject with him.
I knew our wolves were aware we did not engage in carnal acts. How could they not know? Pete’s face often contorted with unspoken words when Gaston left my side after politely rebuffing this or that advance I had made, or when I escaped my matelot to spill my seed over the side yet again. Pete apparently always talked himself out of offering whatever counsel he wished to give, because he never said anything. I did not make inquiry and force the matter, because I did not want to admit to him, or anyone else, that I might have been in need of advice upon the matter. It was between Gaston and me; and despite, or perhaps especially because, we were forced to sleep side by side with other men, I wanted it to remain a private matter.
One night as we sailed north yet again, the entire ship was in fine spirits. The musicians were particularly inspired, and rounds of dancing rattled the planks. Pete and Striker had been trying with limited success to teach me to dance a jig. I was sure that with the addition of a little liquor, I could manage it handily. Sober as I was, I felt stiff and awkward, but I pressed on gamely. Gaston would have none of the endeavor, except to watch with great amusement. As I could not envision someone of his mien and reserve dancing, I did not even attempt to cajole him into participating.
When I was tired of it, I left the wolves to dancing with one another and joined Gaston where he sat on the cannon by our alcove. He welcomed me into his embrace. Flushed and happy, I was overcome with the urge to kiss him, so I did. It was a light and chaste press of my lips to his. From his reaction, an observer might have thought I bit him. He became very still and his hands were on my chest, holding me off. His eyes held a warning look I knew all too well.
The apology immediately sprang to my lips. I always did things I had to apologize for. Anger surged from somewhere deep in my soul. I did not know the reproving look in Gaston’s eyes from him; I knew it a thousand times over from Alonso and Shane. I was so damn tired of apologizing.
I began to pull away, only to have Gaston grip my tunic. “Do not.”
“Obviously,” I hissed. The anger must have reached my eyes, because he recoiled ever so slightly.
“Will, calm yourself. People are watching.”
“You care far too much about what others think, when you should be worried about my thoughts at the moment.”
I expected anger, but his eyes only held betrayal. It doused my rage. I embraced him as hard as I could manage, as if somehow, in one physical gesture, I could crack him out of his shell. He did not fight me. He returned it. And so we held one another with bruising intensity for a time, while I silently swore at myself.
I experienced the feel of his lips on my neck with more wonder than titillation. Then his fingers slid under my tunic and caressed the soft skin of my sides and belly. It tickled. I bore it because I did not dare stop him. His face was pressed into my shoulder, so I kissed his temple. I longed to pull his head back and cover his mouth, but instinct told me I had pushed my luck as far as it would go tonight, and he needed to lead us wherever we would wander now. So I mirrored his touch back upon him, and let him explore as he would.
I was jostled from behind by some of the dancers, and we started. His eyes flashed anger over my shoulder at the others. With a chuckle, I steered us into the corner of our alcove. We stood together, and the flirtatious petting continued. I was on fire, and several times I watched the dancing and held him at bay. This, of course, only spurred him on. He was teasing and coy and grinning as he drove me to distraction. I was amazed at his change of spirit on the matter, and resolved to enjoy it while it lasted.
As the music ended and the lamps were extinguished, couples broke away or groups of men sat about and talked. Our wolves did not join us immediately, and we sank to the floor in the shadows and some degree of privacy. Gaston’s fingers played along the tender flesh between my navel and the top of my breeches. He slid his leg farther up mine, so that it almost brushed my turgid member. He worried my shoulder with small nibbles. He batted my hand away when I tried to touch him. It reminded me of many an experienced lady I had dallied with, and I felt taunted to the point of reprisal. I had passed beyond mere arousal and aching need and into the realm of desperate craving.
With an amused growl of hunger and frustration, I decided I had had enough and swiftly rolled atop him, so my leg was between his thighs and my chest upon his shoulder. I intended to kiss him. I stopped short at a small pain in my ribs. I looked down and saw the glint of steel in the moonlight. He was still and his eyes hard. With a long, slow breath I pushed myself up and off him and moved to sit at the end of the alcove. He quickly sat and pressed himself in the corner. He embedded the knife in the gunwale.
I was gripped with a red-hot fury like I had experienced few times in my life. I could not see him for the blood haze in my eyes. I sat very still, thinking that if I moved, I would spring upon him and strangle him. When I could trust myself to look at him, I found him glaring at me. His eyes glittered dangerously in the lamplight. Snarling, I stood and walked away. I did not know where I would go, as there was nowhere to go on the ship; but the quarterdeck stairs were before me, and I mounted them and made my way to the stern rail, where I stood and gulped air until the blood stopped pounding in my ears. My eyes focused on the moonlit waves in our wake, until they took on a mesmerizing quality and my breathing became normal again. Then I did not wish to think of what had occurred.
“I take it the honeymoon is over,” a voice beside me said quietly in English. I looked round with surprise, and found the Bard standing nearby, with his back to the rail and a pipe in his hands, which he was cleaning intently. I glanced further around. Men were spread all about, but they were sleeping or talking quietly. We were relatively alone, though I could have touched three men if I bothered to stretch out my leg.
When I did not speak he continued, his voice pitched for my ears alone. “Everybody ends up back here some night. I’ve been figuring one of you would, sooner or later. You two have been too damn happy, chattering away in French for hours and making doe eyes at each other.”
I had not thought how others saw us; and I sighed, “Go to the devil,” with far less rancor than I usually would have delivered the words. I did not want it to be about what the others saw. And in the end, it had not been.
He chuckled. “I’m just poking fun at you, which is of course why you’ll get riled. Funny how that works.” He looked up from his pipe to grin.
“I am already riled, you are just adding fuel to a blaze,” I said with some humor, as I was not angry at him. His presence was actually a relief.
“Your first fight is good.”
I gave him an incredulous look and wanted to scream that this was not a fight: the man I thought I loved had just pulled a knife on me. That was not an argument. That was
an act of betrayal.
Instead I said, “And why is that?”
“If you can’t fight, it won’t last.”
“Is this why they call you the Bard, because you stand about on your stage and dispense wisdom on love and life?”
He frowned at me. “I never thought of that.” He cocked his head. “Nay, I don’t think so. Our old surgeon started calling me that after we met, never explained why. We were introduced and he said, “Oh, so you’re the bard”, and that was that and it stuck.”
“What is your name?”
“Francis Bacon.”
I chuckled in spite of my dark spirit. “I think I have your explanation. Some believe that William Shakespeare was not intelligent or deft enough to write all that he is credited with; and they say that an associate of his was the actual author, a man named Francis Bacon.”
The Bard chuckled. “That explains it, then. Our last surgeon was a man of letters.”
As Cleghorn was nearby, I did not ask if this man was well-schooled in his profession as well. “What became of him?”
“He had a condition of the heart that he knew would kill him one day, and sure enough it did.”
“That is a sad thing.”
“I do not know that. He was a jolly fellow, as he was not sure if the next day would be his last; and therefore he lived as if it was, and enjoyed himself.” He lit his pipe and took a pull. “It changed the way I regarded my own days.”
“In a way, are we all not unsure if tomorrow will be our last?”
He nodded. “Aye.” He grinned at me as if that were the entire point.
I sighed. “What makes you the master of romance?”
“I know nothing of romance; I know a great deal of matelots.”
“So why do you not have one?”
This earned me an even wider grin. “Because I know a great deal about matelots.”
He shrugged. “I had a partner once. He’s dead now. Haven’t found anyone since. I just watch everyone out on that stage, from up here, and I have plenty of time to think and to see who lasts and who doesn’t over the years.”
“And being angry enough to want to kill him is a good thing?” I asked with no small amount of exasperation.
“Aye. If you didn’t love him as much, it wouldn’t make you as angry, now would it?”
He was correct. As I was calmer now, I could see that. Alonso was the only relationship of any duration I had experienced. We had not fought. If angry, we simply avoided one another until it passed. We had not experienced the bloom of romantic love, either. We had been partners in business and living arrangements for months prior to his decision to seduce me and my decision to let him. I had thought we had love. As I now knew all too well, it paled in comparison to what I felt for my red-headed demon.
“Hmmm,” the Bard muttered and moved farther away from me at the rail. I regarded him curiously, and he flicked his gaze up and behind me. I turned and spied Gaston watching us from the alcove. I could not read his expression at distance in the moonlight, but his stance was stiff.
There was nowhere to go on a ship. We would have to talk. I beckoned for him to join me. He turned and sat. This rekindled my anger.
“May I sleep up here tonight?”
The Bard was chuckling quietly. “Sure.”
He shrugged and returned to his bed in the fore starboard of the quarterdeck, which happened to be right above my own sleeping place in the alcove. I was thankful he did not appear to speak French.
I sat where I had stood and watched the waves. I vowed that I would not apologize. I had done nothing wrong. I would not appease him. I had some pride.
I had been dozing, finally, when I felt another’s presence. I looked up to see Gaston. He squatted in front of me. The dim lamp light was on me and not him. I could not read his face. I felt he was searching mine, though. He reached toward me, his movement tentative. It was curious. My sleep-addled mind was not alarmed, yet I was bothered. If I had not known it was he, I would not have thought it was; and I could not discern exactly why. It had something to do with the gentle and exploratory touch of his fingertips on my lips. I frowned at the shadowed face that was now inches from my own.
Someone moved nearby, and he started and crouched: more like an animal than a man. His face had turned into the light. He appeared to be afraid; but it was a child’s fear, not a man’s. I was baffled.
“Gaston?”
He looked to me again, and then closed the gap between us, diving into my arms to wrap his own around my chest. His breathing was fast and ragged. I embraced him, and he calmed slowly. It seemed as if I were sheltering a child.
Then, finally, it came to me. He was mad. He was having one of his bouts. This was just another face of it.
I cast a net through my recollections and strained the night’s events, trying to ascertain when he had stopped being himself. It must have been when I held him so tightly after I snapped at him. He had been the Gaston I knew up until that moment. And then, during the embrace, there had been that first little kiss upon my neck, and then the questing fingers had begun.
I was such a damn fool.
The predawn light found us still locked in one another’s embrace. I woke before him, which was rare. I wondered if he would be himself when his eyes did open. I looked about; men were beginning to stir. If we wished to avoid days of questioning looks, it was time to move back to our alcove. I clasped his shoulder and shook him gently.
He was disoriented, but it was Gaston who looked about with confusion, and not some other part of himself. He frowned, and I knew he was trying to remember. Then he regarded me with suspicion quickly followed by guilt.
“Now, now,” I soothed and rubbed his back. “Let us return to our little hole, and then we will talk. I will tell you everything I remember, and what I fool I am, in that I did not know until the end that you were not yourself. And I apologize for that, most sincerely.”
“You need tell me nothing. I remember.” He frowned and his hand went to the knife at his belt, the one he had pulled on me. “Are you well?”
He looked me over quickly, stopping at the small hole in my tunic and the even smaller prick-point on my skin.
“I could have killed you,” he breathed.
“Yet you did not.” I thought of the danger in his eyes after he had pulled the knife. I had been too rage-blind to understand. He could have easily killed me, but even in that state he had chosen not to.
“I have not behaved in that manner before,” he whispered. “Never.” His eyes were imploring.
I guessed his meaning, but I asked anyway. “Flirtatiously?”
He nodded. He was studying me intently. His hand darted out and caressed my cheek. It was as quickly gone, and his gaze was tinged with guilt as it dropped from mine.
“Come now,” I whispered. “Let us go and talk. I do not want to be here when the others wake.”
He nodded again and we found the lee of the ship and relieved ourselves. Without us in their way, Pete and Striker had sprawled across the entirety of the alcove. I prodded both of them gently until they rolled on top of each other with sleepy curses. Then I pulled Gaston down to lie with me. We cuddled together, our noses touching.
“My memory is broken,” he sighed, “like that of a dream. Please tell me what you saw.”
I whispered the entire chain of events as best I could recall them. He closed his eyes and occasionally swore to himself. I rubbed his back and kissed his nose.
He was silent for a long time after I finished. We lay there and listened to the ship waking about us. Over Gaston’s shoulder, I saw Pete smile when he saw us together. I was sure that they had all thought, as the Bard had, that we had quarreled. None would know the truth, as I had almost been blind to it myself. None could know the truth. In the future, I would have to do so much better by him.
“It is like a horse,” Gaston whispered. He smiled weakly when I looked to him again. “I know you are an excellent horseman, yet…”
>
“You know no such thing,” I grinned. “You have never seen me ride.”
“I have heard you speak of the animals, and I see how you apply yourself to things you enjoy. You are an excellent horseman, whereas I am not.”
“Thank you, but…”
His fingers found my lips. “I am not fond of them and have little experience with them. I am making an allegory. Be quiet.”
I chuckled and nodded.
“My thoughts... emotions, my mind, is like a big unruly horse which I ride. Most of the time,” he stressed this and I nodded. “I have the reins well in hand and go where I wish. But there are times when it is a skittish creature; and it takes the bit in its teeth and runs where it will – and all I can do is hold on. And there are times when I am so tired… of always having to tell it where to go... that I wish to simply drop the reins and let it wander about. But that can be dangerous, for without me there to guide it, the animal becomes more and more prone to starting at nothing and running wild. I am not sure, Will, but I believe I tried to hand the reins to you last night for a time. You were so very angry at me. I wanted to make you happy, and I could not do it as I was.”
I was stunned, and then deeply touched. I pulled him tighter. “Gaston, I do not want you to be other than what you are, despite how selfishly I may behave. I will do better next time, I swear it. I am sorry I was such a fool in so many ways. You said a thing which… was something I have heard before. The irony was that you meant the opposite of how it had been wielded against me in the past. But it mattered little to my heart. All my heart saw was that it was being wielded against me at all. And I do not wish to live in fear of that particular blade any longer. At every step of my life, I have been told that my desires are wrong. It cuts worse when it comes from those I desire and… who I have reason to believe desire me. Though throwing you in with the others is not truly fair, as I do not think you desire me, nor do I think you wish to censure me for desiring you.”
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