Summary: Edward is a captain on a merchant vessel sailing to the Americas in the 17th century. Along the way, he is tempted by a mystery beyond his understanding, beyond his control. Or so he thinks. Entry for TFA Summer Fantasy Contest.

Rating: M-rated for language, moderate sexual content (in archaic prose).

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Twilight. Stephenie Meyer retains all rights. Yay her!

The Embrace of the Ocean

Her Majesty Bess, the Queen Elizabeth, is my lady, and the wide blue ocean is my mistress.

Reason dictates, therefore, that my ship is the slippery maiden whose so-called virtue I once besmirched near a haystack, during a harvest festival, in my last few weeks belanded in my native country. Indeed, my vessel, The Fair-Haired Strumpet Lass of Kent, is named after that clever and buxom nymph. Whatever her name was.

Once aboard this hulking mass of creaking wood and mended cloth, however, we usually call the craft Madam Peggy.

Call me what you will, but I will answer to Edward in the timeliest fashion. Cap'n if you have the unlucky providence to be under the bullwhip of my command.

And I am the witless whoreson rascal who has decided to take this bark afloat, full of the worst sort of men, to seek out our combined fortune in the New World.

The Spaniards, those Papist demons, have already plotted much of the passage west, but there are still parts of the map that read "Thyre be dragons." With pictures of such treacherous creatures that to catch glimpse of them might set one's hair on end or turn it white before its time, were it possible that such sea monsters even exist. A theory which I regard with much skepticism.

Especially since I have other things that require my time and mental powers to consider. For we are now three weeks underway, and the worst of the trials have started.

Three particular tribulations plague a nautical man on any voyage. Of course, the possibility of pirate attack is omnipresent, but it is, in fact, boredom that kills the everyson sailor. Because boredom leads to wrestling and knifing and gambling and thieving and buggery. All of which can lead to murder, and all of which can best be avoided by keeping a trained fiddler on board.

The other two hardships of the briny life are that the teeth fall out and the flesh of your mates begins to reek with the odor of unkempt stables after about a fortnight afloat on the waves.

There is no cure for the first, and no reason to correct the latter. For what need has a gentleman of fine-smelling balms, when there isn't a lady on board to converse with while daubed with the precious scent of spices and flowers and treebark and leather?

By rights, buggery ought to, but somehow never requires, a bouquet. Nor is it flaunted and therefore requires none of the finesse of actual courtship. It doesn't care what its participants smell like. It is done quickly and in the darkness. Many times, one man doesn't know who exactly his other partner is.

Have I ever given in to this particular weakness? No. But, my eternal soul as my witness, I have indeed pondered it. I would bring the ships-boy to my cabin one evening, and keep him as my own exclusively for the course of the travels, if were to give in and pleasure myself in that way.

My hand is equally adept at giving me pleasure, however, and I don't have to worry about corrupting another man's soul in the bargain, when it is just myself alone in my chambers. Thus it is settled with me.

Yet, the mind wanders, when a man is left alone to his own devices. And, indeed, I have heard things and seen things of late that I simply cannot explain away.

Take, for example, this breathless circle of hell that we have been caught in for the last several days. No winds. Stalled out. Drooping cloth. Stale air. Our sacks as empty as our stomachs, since I have put us all on rations until we start moving again, in one direction or the other.

I normally sit the midnight course on the top rail of the stern, and last night I swore I saw… no, it can't be… but there was movement on the rocks… to the north… a flash of light from what I thought might be a mirror… but nothing short of some kind of phantasm could abide there, in that dire spot… could it? 'Twas naught but my fancy run mad… wasn't it?

Music. Methinks, I hear music, I then said wordlessly, before falling into the oddest of dreams.

I was swimming in a shady pond of fresh water and yet the temperature of the liquid was surprisingly warm. A wriggling form made a ripple on the grass on the alternating bank and I began to approach it, to see what it was.

I kicked my legs several times before realizing that I was not wearing any trousers. In fact, I was wearing no clothes at all, and neither was the lady on the ground.

And yes, as my vision grew more clear, I realized it was indeed a lady. Naked and pink and winsome and fleshy, with hair dark as pitch and gunpowder and sin, she spread open her legs, wide to the world, and pulled herself up slightly by her knees to gaze directly into my eyes.

Now, I have seen cunny in my day. And most of it I would rather not see ever again, by Christ. But I felt drawn to lie beside this lady, except right then I heard a voice pulling me back from the vision.

"I says, C'pn, I's here to relieve yer of yers duty, m'lord. Or whatevers you say. I was just taking ohvantage of the facisimiles, I was. But nows it me turn to watch, sir. C'pn. Sir. M'lord."

I squinted as I tried to figure out whose irritating twaddle had pulled me back into reality, a reality I had been all too content to escape from.

John Tyler. Had naught but two teeth left in his entire head, but had a gracious gift for the handling of ropes when the gale-force winds ripped through the sky.

"No, no. 'Tis acceptable. Acceptable. I think she will be waiting for me… when I get… back to my slumber… at least I hope… let us hope…"

"She, m'lord? I dons't think I've eva heard Lil' Mike called that before. But he probably woold do a bit of the missus if you asked him for it. Youse wants that I should go get him for yer?"

I took one swipe at Tyler's temple with the flat of my palm, and then turned to leave without giving him any further explanation.

Simpleton. Idiot. Moron. To think a ships-boy would satisfy me on a night such as this.

But if she… what to call her… if the beauty were to visit me again in my sleep, what was going to be real? This world of the body, or that world of the mind? They felt one and the same as I basked in the warmth of her magnificent wiles, but now the illusion was fading and I wasn't sure which way my sails were leading. Towards reality or towards myth?

Just to be more able, if the body and the mind were indeed both being summoned by this apparition, then I ought to do what I could to make that body more fit and pleasing to my lady love. That much I decided as I walked away from my post.

So, I went down to the galley and boiled up a pot of water on the stove. Then I stole a spoonful of salt in a tin cup and took both the kettle and the mug back upstairs to my quarters.

I felt quite the imbecile, to be bathing myself in the wee hours of the morning. I had to be sure I was of an adequate level of hygiene, however. And so I scrubbed what grime I could off my face and hands, put a few bits of cologne behind my ears, and then rubbed my teeth with a paste of salt and water.

It stung like the devil, but at least my mouth felt like it could actually approach such a fair maiden and not shrink from the matter at hand.

At hand, I looked at my knuckles. Yes, I supposed it would come down to my hand at some point that evening. But maybe if I were asleep when I did my small daily amount of sin in my own contentment, then both God and myself would askew the guilt in the morning.

I removed all my current wardrobe, which was not my occasional wont, and placed myself betwixt my bedclothes utterly nude and then shut my eyelids most forcefully, demanding my consciousness to give way once again to the pleasant oblivion of before.

"Blasted wrath, I cannot take this much longer!" I muttered after two hours, as I rolled over onto my side to stare at the wall.

All of a sudden, I was there once again with her, my lady, by the pond, under the trees.

It occurred to me in that instant that I may have been asleep this entire time and only just then let myself go enough to the point that the damsel could find me.

"You have come so far," she spoke though I did not see her lips move. "Yet you still have distances to travel. I wait for you, though you slumber. I wait for you, though you dream."

"I know not what you mean, precious one!" I cried. "But tell me your name and I shall make you mine own. God's own body as my own earnest witness, I shall!"

"My name is She. She who is. She who was. She who will be. And you may now have what has always been yours, Edward, if you so wish it."

I ran an arm under the curve of her back, and she bent herself upwards to meet my embrace. We pressed long length to long length as my hands floated over her surface.

A sudden dip between her legs and my fingers were already warm and wet, but I knew not what from—myself in the body, or herself in the dream.

I lifted one appendage towards my mouth and licked at the moisture. Salty and sweet. Like honey mixed with the brine. I moved my mouth down my lover's fine bosom, past the peaks that quivered at my kiss, towards the inward pull of her ribs. Then I sank lower towards her navel. My tongue lolling across such luscious texture as it went, quite nearly of its own accord.

I gnawed at the puckering edge of skin there with my teeth. I almost felt like drawing blood. I wanted to consume this strange entity before me. She. I wanted She, and only She. She.

My elbows dug into the back of her knees as I forced open her nether regions to the full display of both my eyesight, and my hunger. She responded by bending her toes in pleasure and needling them into the soil.

She wracked her body up and down as I gave pressure with my mouth's organ, in little swirling circles and long silken strokes. I felt fingers in my hair and shook my head as if negating any of the sin I might be committing. She responded by gripping me until I thought I would arise bald.

It was surprising to me that I felt my own spasm the moment the same impulse shuddered through her lithesome body. I thought it would require penetration to sate me after such a feast, but this time, I was like a young boy who had just found out suddenly he had turned into a man.

Without awaking, without touching, without even really intending to, just like a youth might do, I had come into the sheets. If indeed this wasn't fact, and the rest of my perceived life just a lie.

Lie, fact. Dream, reality. The concepts seemed rather distant at the moment.

I felt satisfied and mortified and drowsy all at the same time. I almost let go, slipping out of the dream.

Then the nymph moved most delicately beside me. And just like that, I was once again hardened and ready for a rousing fine fuck.

"More, more!" I grunted. "I have not had my fill of you yet, whoever you are. For this instance, you must be above me. Your hair, falling down. Let me shift so that you can… that you can…"

At my merest suggestion, she moved so quickly and deftly this… this… dare I call her such… but what then, if not a siren? Or perhaps, was it possible, was she a mermaid? Or a succubus?

Verily, were all the fairytales of my youth coming true? Would this self-titled "She" bend herself next into the vindictive Medusa? Or perhaps the crafty sorceress Circe of legend? Would I awake to find myself a chunk of inert stone? Or a squealing filthy pig?

Or perhaps I had already gone mad from the voyage, or perhaps I was drowning under the tide.

If the former, I may never recover. If the latter, my lungs would burst from the lack of air and I would die in the embrace of the ocean. Quite happily.

The embrace of the ocean, I felt it all around my erect member. Strong, and with enough watery effusion of desire for us both to move easily, her well-formed cunny tapered and then pummeled around me, time and again. It tugged at me, as I convulsed and stuck my stiff point of arousal.

The motion was wrenching a thick wire of bliss from my innards and I felt momentarily that I might lose my soul through my belly.

Such bliss. Such bliss. I felt I should thank her and, looking up, her heaving chest met my sight. I grappled at her shoulders and soon she was being thrust down towards me in equal force as she pulled my long pointed sword upwards into her sheath, and I suckled greedily at her nipples.

We made a chorus of sound together with our love-making, rhythmic and forceful like thunder. Like the pounding hoofs of the crowned horses of the God of the Sea echoing their stride out across the wide expanse of the sand.

She princess of the ocean, me prince of the sands. I bent back my head and what was shot forth from my manhood was thick and wet and foamy like the churn on the beach after a storm.

I was now beyond exhaustion, and I would have once again let go into the dark haze of deep rest, except for a niggling thought which ravaged my mind.

"My gratitude and devotion shall follow you, forever. I love you. My heart will never be far from you, beautiful one. But tell me, fair child of Poseidon, how be it that you know my name?"

"Because we know everything that you like. So, you can have everything you've ever wanted, before you even know that you've wanted it," the coy temptress spoke, this time finally moving her lips and saying strange and frightful words. "It's this new computer-tracking program we have, for increased customer service. Kind of scary if you ask me. Way too Big Brother. For example… you like chai tea rather than coffee, scones rather than muffins. You read a lot of Greek mythology. All that is available with this button here, on my scanner. And let's see… it's Edward, right? You always come in here on Tuesday. Yes? Yes? Do you hear me? Okay. Now listen, Edward, I like you. I really do. You seem smart and you have no clue how many women around here think you are super-hot. But I'm going to have to ask that you step away from the naval history section and stop dry-humping all the books. I mean, seriously… you have actually been licking this one… what is it called? 'The Embrace of the Ocean'. I'm going to have fill out paperwork and return that one to the publisher, Edward. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Oh my fucking-shit-fucking-damn-it-hell! I screamed in my head. What in the name of the sweaty ball-sack of John Paul Jones have I been doing! In public!

"Hey, are you alright, pal?" my new companion continued, reaching out to touch my shoulder. I could feel the heat of the contact through the cloth of my shirt. "I mean, I could call someone for you, if you need me to. A wife? A girlfriend? A husband? A boyfriend? Your dog?"

"Nope! Nope! Divorced. And not even a dog. Jake died last year," I finally found my voice.

"So, you are profoundly unattached, then?" the woman responded, and I gauged the tone as friendly and took a moment to glance over at her name tag. "That'll be good news for all the ladies around here who pretty much want to molest you."

"Unattached. Yes. Yes, I am unattached… Bella, is it?" I took the risk and moved my gaze upwards to her eyes. Beautiful eyes, brown eyes. Who would have thought a mermaid could have brown eyes? And yet, there she stood, my dream girl, my mermaid. With brown eyes and dark hair. So perfect, I paused to appreciate her beauty before I finished my apology. "And I am really, truly sorry about the book. But, you see, I'm a professor of military history over at the university and my teaching assistant Eric said that you had one of the only copies of that book available in the tri-state area and so I came down to see if that was really true."

"Uh-huh," Bella nodded her head, as she clutched the tainted volume in question to her breast. "That still doesn't explain why you have been sneaking in here alone for over a month without buying the book. Watching me stock the shelves… I've seen you, Edward, so don't deny it… but then, for some reason, running away whenever I try to talk to you. Or why I just found you practically french-kissing this book a minute ago."

I rocked back and forth on my heels for a bit. Yeah, this apology was way above my pay-grade. Better just to lay on the charm.

"Well, you know, Bella. I could just offer to buy that book from you at triple the listing price and then take you out of coffee. Or tea. And you can write off this entire thing as a schoolboy crush."

Bella looked around for a bit, I thought perhaps for her manager. That's when I realized that on her badge, below her name, it said "Store Manager."

Good. Management. That means I am not asking out a freaking teenager or something like that.

"You know what, Edward… or Professor… Cullen, I should say, as it indicates here," grinned Bella the Bookstore Manager/Dream Mermaid as she turned back to face me directly. "Today is your lucky day. I happen to have two tickets to the grand re-opening of the aquarium downtown, and my best friend just canceled on me. So it's a date. Meet me at… let me text you the address… here, type in your number… it's at six, and then we can see about drinks… no, I don't think I've tried that restaurant… you know, if you really like this book, then you should maybe try this title… yeah, I think they are underappreciated too… the validity of that entire series has been called into question since… no, no, no… it's okay, really, actually kinda sweet… I haven't met anyone with crush on me in so long… you are so… fascinating… to me…"

Enthusiastic. Helpful. And, most importantly, intrigued with me, I thought to myself as I walked out of the store with the book, a phone number, a date, plus still a bit of hard-on. Talks a bit more than my fantasy, but I might just like where this is headed.

As I ambled, okay… who am I kidding… almost skipped, down the street, I could already hear a new story in my head:

"Thus the brave sea captain finally drifted away into his thoughts, and when he woke up, several weeks had passed and his crew was just setting foot onto colonial soil. And there, on the dock, was the prettiest dark-haired and brown-eyed girl he had ever seen. She nodded at him and told him her name was Bella. Then he followed her home, pled his troth to her for the rest of his life, was buried beside her. And his heart was never far from her, ever again."

Or something like that. We can work out the details later, my mermaid and me.