The Love Egg

Part II: Receiving A Queen

The Livingstones' residence was buzzing in preparation of the arrival of Sancha Argento, for the European actress had made many requests that must under all circumstances be met before she would even consider setting foot through the front door.

It would therefore come as no surprise that the master of the house was doing everything within his power to thwart them, a mission which caused his wife much annoyance.

"Jack!" she cried aloud, snatching the half-mutilated bouquet from out of his grasp; Signora Argento had requested that there be a vase of pale pink roses in every corner of every room the Italian would enter or pass during her stay with them, and as such, the man had taken to crushing every petal he came across, regardless of colour or species. He was just about to destroy a priceless orchid, but Sierra's words stopped him in his tracks. "What do you think you're doing? Oh, look at the mess you've made!" she chided him as one would chide a misbehaving puppy.

Jack looked sullenly up at his wife in resentment, and then slowly turned to look at the trail of petals behind him. "…Happy anniversary?" he tried, spreading his arms wide and throwing his fistful of petals up into the air, scowling when they landed in his hair.

Sierra narrowed her eyes at the comical sight and grabbed his wrist, pulling him petulantly forward, defaced bouquet clutched tightly in her other hand. "See what you can salvage," she snapped at Beckham, handing over the flowers before pulling her husband up a flight of stairs and into the master bedroom, where she slammed the door shut and all but threw poor Jack onto the bed. She was silent for a moment, leaning against the door as she glared at the man, who swallowed and moved up the mattress slightly.

"…Why?" she said at last, clearly frustrated. "Oh, Jack, for the love of God, why? It's only Flavio."

Jack couldn't believe that a woman who he had always prided upon as being so intelligent could also be so dense, and a mixture of anger and disbelief forced him to choke out, "Because. It's. Flavio."

"Now, you don't know that for sure," Sierra proceeded to patronise, and Jack gaped at her, knowing full well that she had all but confirmed Sancha's true identity a mere half hour before. She smiled at him slightly, stepping deliberately forward, and seated herself on the edge of the mattress, her finger reaching up to rest playfully on his lips. "Her name is Sancha Argento, and ripping apart roses won't change the fact she thinks highly enough of us to grace our residence with her presence for an unspecified amount of time… And possibly money." She paused to smile coquettishly before adding teasingly, "And besides, we both know you fancy her."

Jack narrowed his eyes at his wife, and she chose that exact moment to thrust her chest slightly forwards and inhale deeply, an action which helped to calm Jack's blind fear/anger slightly. "You speak as though the King himself is coming to stay," he accused of her, unconvinced by her feeble argument, and she smiled wickedly in response.

"Well, in a very literal sense, we are receiving a queen," she told him, leaning forwards to give him a quick peck on the cheek. "And he was a king at the opera, don't forget."

"Was he?" Jack asked, finding the combination of her nuzzling at his neck and the way her fingers had slipped under his shirt to circle one of his numerous scars distracting.

"Yes," she murmured, slowly unbuttoning his waistcoat, and he closed his eyes as her lips pressed teasingly against his jaw. "It said so on the playbill; Flavio, re di Longobardi."

That simple statement had Jack jerking away from his decidedly amorous wife, causing her to cry out in offence.

"Oh, honestly, what's wrong now?" she snapped at him, her fingers reaching up to straighten her hair.

"Do you honestly expect me to bed a woman who has invited one of the greatest threats to mankind into my house and allocated him a bedroom in the same wing as my own!"

"Now you're just overreacting," she scolded. "Oh pumpkin, really…" she added as he turned away from her, crossing his arms. Out of habit, she instinctively pulled her bodice down a little lower before moving towards him, her hands reaching out to rest on either of his shoulders.

"Be reasonable, Jack," she soothed, her fingers gently kneading his skin through the layers of clothing he wore. "The last time we saw Flavio was eight years ago, remember? He left your ship the moment he was married." There was a pause as she craned her neck to look up at her husband's face, smiling smugly on seeing that his eyes were closed in relaxed pleasure. "To a woman," she continued, her hands trailing down his back and twirling around his waist in a loose embrace as she leaned forward, chin resting on his shoulder whilst she whispered softly into his ear, "A woman he'd impregnated beforehand. Don't you think this means that, under all the skirts and petticoats and stockings and corsets and powder and feathers and wigs and rouge and fans and jewels and swooning over attractive men, there might just lurk a lover of women?"

Jack, for his own part, wasn't really paying much attention to her persuasive, if slightly illogical, whispers; he had found his eyes slipping closed as she had gently chased away the tension in his shoulders, and now he was concentrating on the way her fingers playfully fidgeted with his shirt, and how her lips were brushing his earlobe.

Many times in the past had Sierra used this tactic for her own nefarious ends (only three months ago she had used this technique to triple her monthly shopping allowance; Jack had been annoyed, but this had faded when he had found out she had spent a quarter of it on rum, which she personally didn't drink a lot of), so he really should have been on his guard, and if he had been, he might have had the presence of mind to enquire that if Flavio was as happily married as she claimed, exactly why was he masquerading as an actress, and when, in the name of all that was holy and otherwise, the hell did he find the time to learn to sing opera; but the man was so lost in her uncharacteristically gentle, loving touch that he hadn't the heart to contradict her. Sierra nipped gently on his neck in silent triumph; shoulder massages helped her to win a lot of arguments which she might otherwise have lost, and she was secretly grateful that the man was not yet impervious to this swaying charm as he now was with so many others.

And that was how Sancha Argento was granted permission to stay under the Livingstones' roof. (The fact that Lady Livingstone may have casually promised to ask her good friend, the beautiful blonde courtesan Emily Warren, to join them in the marital bed within the next month or so may or may not have contributed to this particular decision.)

It was a decision that Lord Livingstone would regret making, and sooner than even he would think.


"Sedano!" Sancha cried, flying into the parlour quite unannounced and pausing breathlessly, meticulously counting the number of roses in a vase on a cabinet beside the door before glancing around at every other corner in the room. "I can't come in here," she said suddenly, voice rising with fear, backing away even as Lady Livingstone rose, arms outstretched to greet her old friend.

Sierra allowed her eyes to widen as her lower lip trembled in a semblance of a pout. "Oh, Flavio, why ever not?"

The actress merely pointed to a far corner, and Sierra turned to see an empty vase. She also noted that her husband was seated only a few feet away, an exaggerated look of innocence on his face.

"Jack. Roses," she commanded, like one would a dog, her hand making an impatient gesture as she spoke.

"Beg pardon?"

"Put them back," she said, and he blinked at her. Sighing, she stalked towards him, her fingers pulling and tugging at his coat, slipping in and out of his every pocket, whilst Jack merely sat back with a smirk. "I won't hesitate to strip you," she warned, and Jack's leer merely widened at this.

"Even with Flavio here to watch."

The ex-captain froze, glancing towards the door, where the actress stood watching both man and wife with an intensity most worrying before falling back to look into his wife's unsmiling eyes, and reluctantly pulled out a handful of crushed flowers from beneath his seat.

"Thank you, darling," she simpered most sarcastically, frowning at the pale crushed blossoms. She stood, walking languorously towards the vase, and placed the blooms into the fine china.

She was just straightening the stalks when she stumbled forwards with a shriek, losing her breath as Flavio darted across the room, arms wrapped tightly about her waist and squeezing every bit of air from out of her lungs, squealing like an excited piglet as he did so.

"Oh… Oh God… Flavio," she choked, batting her hands feebly at his wrists. "Jack!" she pleaded, but the pirate merely took one look at the scene and, with the somewhat selfish thought of, If I'm not careful, that could be me, darted behind the elaborate couch, leaving Sierra to deal with the affectionate sodomite on her own.

It was a few minutes, but soon his wife's coughing and gagging had faded, to be replaced with mumbled words of Italian and the rustling of clothes as she indubitably attempted to straighten herself. Cautiously, Jack slowly rose from his crouching position as far as he dared to witness Sierra saying something excitedly in Italian, touching the cherry-coloured skirt of her houseguest, to which Flavio had responded with a flattered giggle and a girlish twirl. Sierra laughed, her hands coming together in a clap before reaching up to pull gently at one of Flavio's golden curls.

The man was more than happy to simply watch (as the alternative was to interact, and God only knows how dangerous that might be), eyebrows rising as he witnessed the pair of them acting like a pair of superficial schoolgirls, tugging at one another's clothing, examining and adjusting their hair, fingering one another's jewels and hairpieces, arms repeatedly wrapping about the other's shoulders in an innocent embrace, leaning closer the better to kiss—

Wait a minute, Jack thought suddenly, frowning at the sight of his wife and a gender-confused, nationality-confused, identity-confused… just generally confused, ah, individual, pressed together in a kiss. Well, the kiss could be innocent enough, as it was merely a slight joining of the lips; perhaps they'd both intended to peck one another on the cheek, and had collided, because there was absolutely no way that Flavio, despite his sham of a "marriage," could have found Sierra, striking creature that she was, attractive. So perhaps the fact that Flavio's pale hand had snaked about Sierra's corseted waist and was pulling her as close to him as their skirts would allow was simply the man's way of balancing himself from the shock of it all. And the way Sierra's hands were wrapping themselves about his neck and back; merely attempting to support him before he collapsed on her, of course. Surely… And in the course of all the excitement, their tongues just happened to have slipped into one another's mouth…

Before any member of the room quite realised what was happening, Flavio was being pulled off of Lady Livingstone with a hysterical shriek, head pulled painfully back as he was dragged by his lovely flaxen hair away from the English aristocrat and back out into the hall.

"Beckham!" Jack Sparrow barked, ignoring the ridiculous number of trunks being pulled up the stairs by several heavily-panting servants as he yanked the opera singer along with more force than was perhaps necessary. Merely moments later, the loyal butler had appeared at his master's elbow with a polite bow.

"You snarled, My Lord?" he queried, his manner so detached that he barely raised an eyebrow at the cursing woman weeping pitifully for her lovely locks. Jack had then proceeded to order the butler to remove all of "Sancha's" belongings and toss them back out into the street, but Beckham had responded that he was under strict orders from his mistress to prevent such a thing from occurring, and had apologised profusely, to which Jack had replied that the servant escort Sancha up to the smallest, coldest, most uncomfortable room in the house. Beckham had apologetically answered that the Livingstone wealth was such that the architecture was flawless, and such a room, even if one was to take the kitchen and servants' quarters into account, did not exist.

"Well, just get rid of him!" Jack had snapped, and shoved poor Flavio into Beckham's arms before stalking back to the parlour with every intention of reproaching his unfaithful wife.

The reprimand died on his lips as he entered to see the lady in question resting on the couch, skirts scattered about her, her hand lazily flapping back and forth in a pathetic imitation of a fan as she breathed heavily, a wide smile on her face as she gazed off somewhere into the distance. She looked up when her husband entered, and seemed to become slightly more aware of herself and her surroundings.

Slightly.

"He's such a good kisser…" she sighed dreamily, her dark head falling to rest on the elaborately carved furnishing. "Oh Jack, wait… Don't be like that… Come back…" she absent-mindedly protested when her long-suffering husband had turned on his heel and stalked out of the parlour. Sierra's inane grin widened, if that was possible, and sitting up slightly, she repeated, a little louder, "Such a good kisser…

"Almost as good as Emily…"

Despite himself, Jack had come slinking back into the parlour to seat himself beside her, glaring all the while, his expression unchanging as the woman curled up in his lap, murmured several apologies between kisses, and proceeded to relate to him the heartfelt tale of her time in the convent before he had appeared with a pistol aimed at her pretty head; how she had been befriended, and later seduced, by two young, attractive and naturally acrobatic lesbian nuns (one a blonde, the other a redhead, for variety's sake) and how they had then proceeded to make wanton lustful sinful carnal licentious love in the carrot patch they were supposedly tending (why they chose the carrot patch, of all the places in the vegetable garden they had had access to, I shall leave to your imagination); of how the Mother Superior, herself a stunning and suspiciously big-bosomed nymph (who was far too young and nubile to have realistically gained the position of Mother Superior) had discovered them one sultry Caribbean day as she made her rounds; how she had immediately gathered them all in her Spartan room, stripped them of their hastily-donned habits, and had the three temptresses all whipped for their lascivious sins, and how they had all secretly enjoyed it, and how their "unnatural arrangement," short-lived as it was, was well worth the fires of eternal damnation.

This is why I married her, Jack thought fondly, his fingers toying with her dark hair as he leant down to place a lingering, affectionate kiss on her cheek. She may have her flaws, but at least she always tells me the truth.

TBC

AN: A little filler for now; next chapter, Flavio tells us the wonderful moving heart-wrenching true story of his life… As a Neapolitan goat.