Auction
By: 1000th Ghost
The happily ever after was exactly what she wanted, and it fit so perfectly with the storyline, and therefore it, of course, could not last.
She barely had time to digest that she was back safe in Port Royal with her beloved Will and that all that fussy business with pirates had been resolved before the pirates returned.
She was not even sure if they were the same band of pirates that had ransacked Port Royal what seemed like an eternity ago, but she was sure that at least some of the pirates looked familiar.
Last time, she had fortunately been able to somewhat fend for herself. This time, as she slumbered away in her father's mansion, her sense of relief was so great that she did not even murmur until the pirate was actually next to her bed, and the gag had been stuffed into her mouth.
She was obnoxiously calm throughout the entire ordeal. The other girls in the room she had been roughly escorted into screamed and carried on like Elizabeth might have at one point. Elizabeth, however, was primarily annoyed that her sleep had been interrupted. Pirates no longer scared her, nor did being kidnapped nor threatened. She could get out of this one way or another, and nothing her captor was planning could possibly be worse than what she had already been through.
It wasn't until the pirate started distributing veils among the frightened women that she began to feel slightly unnerved. A single rope which he tied around each woman's waist so they were trapped in a chain unnerved her a little bit more. But it was when the line of women was led outside and a banner proclaiming "Auction: Take a Wench for a Bride" met her eyes that she became as terrified as her fellow victims.
"What be I offered for this winsome wench?" the auctioneer asked the drunk, leering pirates who crowded around the platform where a rather large woman was on display. "Stout-hearted and corn fed she be..."
Elizabeth could barely stand to look as the woman smiled and shimmied and seemed practically eager to be scooped up by a scoundrel. Perhaps she should be sympathetic; the poor girl might think that, given her appearance, this was the only way she could ever get a husband.
But the men began a chant of "We wants the redhead!" for the next woman in line, a red-clad prostitute with jutting breasts who was creeping the hem of her skirt up and up her leg.
"Strike your colors, you brazen wench! No need to expose your superstructure," the auctioneer barked, which did little to discourage the redhead's seductive teasing.
There were only two women standing between the redhead and Elizabeth, and she was suddenly overcome with such an intense feeling of hopelessness that she uncharacteristically burst into tears. She was strong and brave and had a will of iron - all traits one would not expect to find in the governor's pampered daughter. She had clashed swords with pirates, drank rum on the beach, faced the living dead.
But this drove her to tears. She valued her virginity above all else - clung to it, really, as a symbol of her impeccable morals and good upbringing even in the midst of the questionable company she found she preferred.
She was saving herself for the man she loved and under holy matrimony at that. Only after the union was sanctioned by her heart and by God would she consent.
And this - being given to the highest bidder, more of a slave than a wife, sharing a bed and her body with a stranger, a filthy, perverted, cruel man - this was more than she could bear.
An old woman patted her on the back consolingly, and Elizabeth realized how foolish she must look. A silly, little girl crying over a marriage.
"I've heard that pirates do it better," the old woman whispered, and Elizabeth jerked away.
Why, this might seem rather exciting to the fat woman or the wanton woman or the old woman! The two girls who remained ahead of her appeared to be primping.
Elizabeth hunched her shoulders and covered her face with her hands, alternating between sobbing into a handkerchief and praying as the women were auctioned off, and she drew closer to the auctioneer. Perhaps no one would want her. Perhaps they would just let her go home-
"Do I hear six? Who'll make it six?"
"No one," she silently begged, "no one will, no one, no one-"
"Six it be...six bottles of rum!"
Her hands immediately dropped. Jack! There was no mistaking that voice.
She beamed into the crowd. There he was, Captain Jack Sparrow, come to rescue her from something or another for the umpteenth time.
"I'm not spongin' for rum!" the auctioneer countered. "It be gold I'm after..."
Jack shrugged. "Well, luckily, I have that too-"
"Six!"
There was no mistaking that voice either. Darling Will, her one true love, come to buy his bride. Elizabeth relaxed immensely.
She would have to thank Jack after this nonsense was over, of course. He had stepped up to save her - how very noble. But now Will could simply "buy" her, and they could get married like they were planning to in the first place-
"Seven."
"Seven?" She hadn't exactly meant to say it out loud, but the shock was too great to be contained. What did Jack mean by bidding higher than Will?
Will appeared befuddled as well, for his "Eight" came out timid and uncertain.
"Nine!" Jack grinned, his gold teeth flashing in the light of the torches. "And six bottles of rum."
"Nine pieces of gold and six bottles of rum." The auctioneer held up his hand to finalize the sale, and Elizabeth was surprised that she did not cry out "NO!" "Going once, going twice-"
"Twelve!"
Oh, thank goodness, Will. She did not know what ridiculous game Jack was playing, but she did not appreciate being the pawn in it, and she wished he would stop.
Less than a second later, Jack's "Thirteen!" rang out.
"Jack!" Will hissed, or as close to a hiss as he could manage while communicating with a man in a different area of the crowd. "What are you doing?"
Jack gestured grandly to the banner and shouted in a voice that promptly killed Will's attempt to keep their dialogue private, "I'm buying me a bride! Can't you read?"
Elizabeth briefly wondered if Will or Jack was literate and then wondered why she wasn't more concerned over the meaning behind Jack's statement.
"B-but she's..." Will sputtered, "...she's my bride!"
"In actuality, young Will, the present situation is that she is no one's bride - a fact that is fortunately being corrected through this fine venue. Why, she could go to any of these gentlemen."
Above the din, Elizabeth overheard a pirate offering rum to some frightened alley cats.
"'Gentlemen'? Jack, you know perfectly well that I am the only-"
"Ah, you're a bloody blacksmith," Jack interrupted, and Will was silent. "Fourteen!"
"Sir, you were the last to bid," the auctioneer informed him.
"Was I now? Well, then, thirteen, unless the eunuch bids thirteen and then some, in which case, FOURTEEN!"
"I may be a blacksmith," Will spoke up, apparently finding his voice again, "but you're a-a-"
"Pirate, just like your bonnie lass up there has always wanted."
Elizabeth squirmed under his charmingly lecherous gaze.
"Told me she had researched all about me, she did. Ever since she was a child. Seems only proper that she should be lawfully wed to the man who held her fascination."
"Elizabeth does not want a pirate!" Will insisted, a bit too steadfastly for Elizabeth's liking. "She wants to be in a house with white, linen tablecloths, and flowers for her hair, and-"
She practically expected him to say "corsets".
"Alas, one would need money to provide for that stifling lifestyle, which you, as a blacksmith, do not have." Jack paused. "Which is, consequently, why you cannot outbid me and my multitudes of potentially nefariously obtained treasures."
"Why do you..." Will's shoulders slumped, and he looked utterly defeated. "Why do you even want her?"
"Peas in a pod," was all he replied, and this time the smile he cast towards Elizabeth could almost be described as "kind".
"Thirteen. Going-"
"Jack." It was meant for his years only, even if the entire assembly heard it. It was ambiguous enough that even she did not know what it meant. Jack apparently interpreted it as a desperate plea, for when Will offered fourteen, Jack did not bid any higher.
The auctioneer's "SOLD!" seemed to drop like a rock into her stomach, and when Will grabbed her possessively and guided her away from the crowd, all she could think was that she had not even said goodbye to Jack.
More importantly, she thought, as she lay in her bed, back at her father's mansion, she had not been able to explain herself to Jack.
She was not completely sure what it was she would have said, but something in her whispered that her "Jack" utterance had not been remorseful.
The explanation-that-could-have-been continued to play in her mind the next morning as her lady-in-waiting laced up the dreaded corset of her wedding gown.
Will had decided when they had parted ways the night before that they should be married the very next day. She mentally questioned if that counted as a proposal or not - he had never exactly asked her more than demanded.
"It's all for the best," mouthed her reassuring reflection, but her eyes contained nothing like reassurance.
What was more notably missing from her eyes, she resolved, was excitement. She looked the part of a bride, but the beautiful, blushing glow at the prospect of the ceremony and the wedding night and their life together and love was nowhere to be found.
"Elizabeth. It would never have worked between us, darling. I'm sorry."
Jack's words irrepressibly rose to her conscious, and she fled from the busy lady-in-waiting, realizing that only one person could offer her her reassurance.
He was standing leisurely at the railing of The Black Pearl, looking as if he had been waiting for her.
She waved to him and struggled up the narrow gangplank awkwardly in her flowing gown.
"Hullo, love," he greeted her. "You look absolutely ridiculous."
She may have torn and sullied the dress a bit running to the dock, but "ridiculous" seemed to be an overstatement.
"I...I have to ask you something."
"Yes, I assumed that you would."
"You did?"
He laughed. "Lizzie, I think we both know that you would never actually consent to wedding him."
"Why. Tell me why, Jack." She clutched onto his upper arms, wanting to shake him. "He's a nice man. He's handsome. He loves me. Why doesn't marrying him feel right?"
His arms clutched her upper arms, and for a moment she thought that he was either mocking her or was going to throw her off.
"Because..."
Then she was turned and shoved against the rough, wooden wall, and his lips had invaded hers. She was not entirely sure what to do about it, but that did not seem to matter to him, who apparently knew everything about it and more besides. His lips urged hers apart - no, not urged, forced - and he tasted hot and dark, like rum and lust. If she made a sound, she was not aware of it until he grabbed her hips and ground himself into her. She moaned into his mouth, loudly, and then again and again as his movements continued. Stronger and harder, and now one hand was in her hair, destroying her - he was right, "ridiculous" - formal, piled swirls. She wanted to scream "More!" but his plundering lips would not give her a chance to, and her mind was too clouded in a swimming, throbbing fog to allow for intelligent speech.
"...he never kissed you like this, did he?"
The End