Almost But Not Entirely Quite Unlike Fan Fiction
The True Story of the Beautiful Mad Pirate Woman Angélique
Chapter Two
Josie was sailing with us that time, as she often did. I would have never admitted it, but it was good to have another woman aboard. She was considered fanatical about being clean and kept a large tub for bathing. I never made use of it when Josie wasn't aboard, but used it often when she was.
Josie liked to fuss over me when she had me to herself in her cabin. She put scent in the water and gave me perfumed soap. I squawked a little for effect but went along with it. Sometimes she even lathered up my hair as if I were a young child. I let her do it.
"You have a lovely figure, you know," she said one night.
I shrugged bashfully and stared down at my feet, trying to overlook the scars. Maybe that was true, but who could tell? "They seem to get bigger," I cupped my breasts.
"Mine have done as well," she nodded. "I don't know why that is."
"They're harder to hide now."
"Well s'a good thing you don't have to hide 'em no more," she replied. "You weren't born for hard work."
"I do plenty of hard work," I frowned at her.
"But you weren't born for it," she shook her head. "I can tell. You're right dainty when I see you like this."
"Aw, you've been readin' courtly love stories again, haven't you?" I teased her.
After the bath, I sat quietly with my head resting on her knees, letting her comb the tangles from my hair. It was a sleepy sort of peaceful. She gave me a glass of better-than-average wine.
"I wish you'd find yourself a nice young man to take care of you," she went on.
"You first," I joked. Her husband Dirk was a pirate through and through, and not a young man. But he was always kind to her.
"Don't you get cheeky with me about my Dirk," she chided me playfully. "He's a good man. You could do worse."
She was doing something to my hair, tugging at it in unfamiliar ways. I was feeling too languorous to protest.
"I want you to try something on for me," she suddenly blurted.
I looked up at her indifferently and laughed when I saw her pull a dress from her trunk.
"Come on!" she insisted. "Do it for me."
The dress was magnificent. It had been years since I'd worn anything so fine. The skirts were long and full, the ample sleeves tapering from elbow to wrist. The bodice was cut low and left my shoulders bare.
"Happy now?" I asked.
"Come see," she led me to a looking glass. She'd dressed my hair and put pearl combs in it. I smiled bashfully and looked down at the floor. "See how nice you look," she gloated proudly.
"Well I ain't goin' out there lookin' like this," I pointed to the door.
She nodded. She understood. "You look like a lady, Solange."
I spun around and stared at her, startled. "How d'you know my name?" I whispered.
She hunched her shoulders and took a step back. I wondered if she feared for her safety. "I heard a story," she explained. "We saw a portrait in Martinique. The likeness was striking, so we asked who she was. They said she was a rich man's daughter who threw herself from the parapets into the sea rather than marry the man they wanted her to marry."
"Threw herself into the sea?" I snorted with amusement. "Only in a manner of speaking."
"Is it safe?" I heard Cap'n Jack bellow at the door.
"No!" I hollered at him. "Go away!"
"Are you decent?" he shouted back.
"No!" I insisted.
"Good!" he answered, and came swaggering in, knowing full well that Josie herself would have barred the door if I had really been indecent. He seemed to be looking around the room for me and started violently when he realized who the damsel in disguise was.
"Sol-ange!" he crowed.
I scowled at them both. "Did you tell everyone?" I asked Josie.
"Your secret is safe," Cap'n Jack circled me like a puffed-up peacock performing his idea of a mating dance. He scooped up my hand and pressed it to his crotch. "I could take you to my bed."
"You're very lucky I don't have a knife," I reminded him.
"The same thought crossed my mind as well," he laughed. "Sol-ange. Sol, meaning earth. Ange, meaning angel. An angel on earth."
"And a devil at sea," I joked.
"That you are," he nodded proudly. "But I could make you the angel of my bed."
"For tonight, yes," I answered sarcastically. "And then I should earn the dubious distinction of being one of your countless, one-night conquests."
"You know me too well," he kissed my shoulder. "Nevertheless, you do look lovely like this. You should keep the dress," he nodded. "T'would make a clever disguise. No one would recognize you, 'cept for me, o' course."
"Aye, aye, Cap'n," I saluted. "Pay the lady," I pointed to Josie.
He gave me a sidelong glance, smirking mischievously. "Only if you spend the evening with me dressed like this."
"Only if you put on the dress and dance a jig for the crew."
"Then we go halfsies."
"Halfsies it is," I nodded.
Josie let me keep the pearl combs as well. I changed into my own clothes, bundled the dress under my arm and went to hide it in my cabin. I was happy to have it, really, but I'm not sure why. Somehow it had made me feel pretty again, the same way people might feel regal if they put on a tin crown.
I went out and climbed up to the crow's nest before any of the lads picked up the traces of perfume that lingered on my skin. More than anything, I wanted to be alone. I pulled the collar of my shirt up over my nose and breathed in the fragrance of the perfume. One so misses the scent of flowers at sea.
Martinique came back to haunt me. Would that the world were big enough to let me escape, but it wasn't. I'd forgotten about that portrait. I had been about sixteen when it was painted. Sixteen and ripe for the pricking, or so the world thought. The fact that the actual pricking had been done two years before was a closely guarded secret.
Why does anyone choose a pirate's life? Because some of us would rather be free in our graves than live as the world expects us to. The sea is a hard life, but many of us have learned that death isn't the most dreadful thing in life, though it is without a doubt the very last thing. There are more dreadful things than death, and there are truly dreadful things that can happen to a woman at sea. I know, because I'd been through it, about two years after I'd fled from Martinique.
But somehow... somehow I think those dreadful things are worse for a man. Women expect pain in life. We accept it, in a way. We endure the pain of childbirth because we know it's the price we have to pay to bring a child into the world. We endure the pain of rape because we know that's the price we pay for defiance. I'm not sure men ever accept that sort of pain.
And you can tell. Those of us who have endured it can recognize it in each other, although it's something we never speak about or revisit. I knew Cap'n Jack was haunted by something unspeakable in his long, mysterious past. I would have fought to the death to protect that unspeakable vulnerability in him, just as I knew he would fight to the death to protect mine. Because they don't kill you when they take you. You're more valuable to them alive. A woman can be ransomed back to her family, if they'll have her back and if they're willing to pay. Otherwise you're traded off to slake the lust of another pack of filthy miscreants, or worse, sold into slavery. They'll keep you alive if they can ransom you, barely alive if they can't, and that is a fate worse than death.
But I'll tell you something I learned, which probably seems odd to say, but rape is an acquired taste, and there are a great many men who have no stomach for it. I'd even venture to say that most men take no pleasure in it. Many do it simply because their mates expect them to. I'd feel their limp little dicks press against my bruised flesh, but they couldn't muster an erection. Just lie there humping and grunting and faking their orgasms like a common whore. Then came that furtive look as they stuffed it back into their breeches, that look that said please don't tell. I couldn't speak their language anyway, so there was little danger of that. Besides, I steeled myself to be quiet about it. Discretion is the better part of valour, wot. Sometimes they'd slip me a crust of bread or give me a drink from their wineskin as a token of thanks. But there were some who had indeed acquired a taste for it, and those were the truly horrific and unspeakable moments of captivity.
I can't say I was lucky to escape because it wasn't a question of luck. They simply underestimated my resolve, what with me being a fluffy, harebrained woman, and them being drunken, knuckleheaded oafs. But it isn't an indignity that anyone would choose to suffer twice. I don't know how long it took before I could bear to have another person touch me afterwards, but the waking horror eventually passed into the realm of nightmares. I know now that I'll never go living into their hands again.
And I'll tell you something else that might seem surprising, but it hurts less when you suffer those kinds of indignities at the hands and prick of a stranger. I know that because the man who first pricked me at the unripe age of fourteen was a baboon-faced git who was supposedly one of my father's most trusted advisers. I'd known that simian sycophant for most of my life, but I hadn't known how irresistible a fourteen-year-old child with perky breasts can be to a man who's had too much wine. I'd endured the expected when I was taken captive, but I'd never expected that type of cruelty at fourteen.
I managed to explain away the torn dress, but no one saw the bruises, the blood and semen on my thighs. No one heard me sobbing in the night, or the silent scream inside me every time I laid eyes on him afterwards. I was sick with grief, sick with pain, sick with rage, and then sick with nausea until my mother remembered the torn dress and guessed what had happened.
They sent me to England, allegedly to visit a dowager auntie, but there was no auntie. Just an asylum for other girls like me who had gotten themselves into trouble. Who knew there were so many immaculate conceptions in this day and age? And when the baby was born, I refused to see it. What if I should see that baboon-faced leer in the baby's countenance? I'd want to wring its neck. And what if it should be a girl in whose eyes I would see all the innocence I'd lost and sadness I'd endured? I couldn't bear it.
They assured me that the child would be well cared for. Loved, even. The bastard children of well-to-do girls didn't end up in the orphanages, or so they claimed. I never knew what became of the child. Then I was sent to stay with an honest-to-goodness auntie in the country to recover from my "illness," then off to France for a year or so to become a lady. The archery lessons were about the only thing that ever came in handy, although it's always useful to know how to sew enough to patch your clothes and mend a sail. The bit of recreational fencing they taught us was practically useless, but I perfected that later, once I got back to the West Indies.
The portrait was painted shortly after I returned to Martinique. I was expected to enter into society then. Entertain offers of marriage. I told my mother there was no way. Not yet. And so they sent me off to spend the summer with a proper Governor's daughter in Barbados. Perhaps they thought that she would help me see the light and persuade me to embrace my lot in life.
Her name was Isabella. I didn't expect that we would have much in common and we restricted ourselves to proper ladylike platitudes for the first few days. The maids were ever so pleased and kept pointing out what a nice friend Miss Isabella had found in Miss Solange. Isabella smiled at them benignly, but it made me wonder who was supposed to be coaching whom.
It ended up that Isabella had a taste for fine wine and thought it would be great fun if we helped ourselves to a lot more of it than a lady ought. And then everything was funny. Hysterically funny. We sat up late at night with our plundered wine bottle giggling at everything and nothing. She had an impetuous way about her. Her mother had passed away when she was a young child—she had no memory of her—and her father had done his best to raise her on his own, albeit unconventionally.
She'd spent a great deal of time at sea and loved the sea. In fact, her intended was a dashing young sea captain. They were to be married in the fall and she hoped that they would always be able to live by the sea. She couldn't wait for me to meet her young man—he was so handsome and kind—and couldn't wait till they were married and sailed off to England together. She imagined that England was full of wonders and adventure and begged me to tell her all about it. I told her that I'd spent my time with an auntie in the country (which was the truth, just not the whole truth) and couldn't really say.
"Have you ever done it?" she asked me one night.
I knew that the proper, ladylike response was supposed to be no. Which wasn't a lie, really. I hadn't done it. It had been done to me.
Isabella couldn't wait for her wedding night. She couldn't wait to try it. She'd even tried to seduce her young man, but he was too well-mannered to take her up on it.
"He treats me like a bit of a china doll sometimes," she wrinkled her freckled nose with something like distaste. "But I know that will change once we're married and we can."
After that, she insisted that I call her Izzy. Seems nearly everyone did, except for the maids. It took almost a fortnight before her intended returned from wherever he was, but by then I had discovered that Izzy was an accomplished rider and swordswoman, and a very capable sailor. We spent the mornings riding, and since we were generally left to our own devices, Izzy would quickly change out of her riding habit and into a pair of breeches as soon as we arrived at the stables so that she could ride like a man. She insisted that riding side-saddle like a lady defied all good sense and gravity—a fact that I defy anyone to dispute.
After lunch, she would say "Let's go play pirates!" It sounded like a childish game to me at first. We'd don sailor's uniforms and run aboard one of the ships. The disguise didn't fool any of the real sailors, who were all too accustomed to Izzy's high jinks. She took me over every inch of the ship, taught me everything an able-bodied seaman needed to know—including how to fire the guns. She had a genuine passion for it. And sometimes she would leap down with a bloodcurdling cry and challenge one of the men to a sword fight. She could hold her own against them too, and even managed to disarm them from time to time. When that happened, she would shout "Huzzah! Huzzah! The ship is mine!" and earned herself the privilege of going sailing in earnest the next day. She ran up and down the length of the ship, and did everything but swab the deck. She could read a compass, plot a course and steer the ship back into the harbour at the end of the day. Which always made her sad.
"I wish I were a man," she would lament as she dragged her heels back home. In short, she would have made a righteous pirate. She was a crack shot as well and practised almost daily (whenever she hadn't managed to earn herself a day at sea) at a makeshift shooting gallery in the sand dunes.
Archery had taught me that I could hit the target nine times out of ten if I imagined that I was aiming at the baboon-faced ravisher's left eye. I discovered that my aim was even better with a pistol. Izzy was delighted. I found her passion contagious and learned everything I could from her—not because I was already planning to turn pirate, but because it was grand fun and fiercely empowering.
We were forced back into our ladylike dresses whenever her intended returned. There was a lot more archery when he was around because he didn't feel that loud bangs and the smell of gunpowder befitted a lady. Archery was something a lady could do in the peaceful tranquillity of her private garden. He didn't exactly disapprove of riding, but felt that Izzy would no longer wish to do so once they were married, and was prepared to overlook such sport until then. She was considerably more subdued when she accompanied him aboard a ship, but I reckoned that this was simply a different sort of game for her: practising to be a proper ship captain's wife.
The really galling thing was fencing, and while he did deign to fence with her, he did it perfunctorily, never as if he were facing an equal. There were times I was certain he had to be a better swordsman than that. Other times I knew that Izzy could have easily disarmed him and didn't, and I had to wonder why. Was it because it wouldn't earn her a day at sea? Or was she just playing nice?
But sometimes Izzy grew exasperated with him and stomped her little feet and told him to fight like a man—which usually succeeded in getting his dander up. He really was very handsome, and he truly was very kind to her, and I had no doubt that he loved her. But I questioned whether she would be as happy as she dreamed once she was married. Izzy herself never seemed to doubt it.
I never saw Izzy again after I returned to Martinique. She wrote to me from England and urged me to come visit. I wonder if she too believes that I threw myself from the parapets into the sea. Perhaps she's been tempted to do so herself.
I was expected to receive suitors once I returned to Martinique. I found them all too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too exasperating or too dull. I did hit upon one that almost fit the bill, except that he seemed to be more interested in making love to my brother. The situation was getting desperate, since my younger sister was keen to marry her young man and couldn't do so until I was frogmarched up the aisle first. Where was my Petruchio? They must have had scouts searching all over the West Indies for him.
The man I did fall in love with was a blacksmith, which proved unfortunate for both of us. We might never normally have crossed paths except that he had come to see my father about something and been told to wait. I struck up a conversation with him, mostly out of hospitality and politeness. We talked and talked and talked. It was only when people heard us laughing together that they finally remembered that the poor blacksmith was still waiting to see my father.
After that, we looked for opportunities to bump into each other. It was magic with him. Conversation flowed effortlessly. It seemed we could never run out of things to say to each other. Before long, I was creeping out at night to see him. I dressed up as a boy and he took me to all the wickedest parts of town just because I was curious to see them. The streetwalkers would ask us if we were looking for a good time and I would giggle uncontrollably before we ran off together, hand in hand. We shot pistols and fenced together, just as I had with Izzy. He was the one who first taught me how to handle a knife.
And soon it was love, the sweetest and kindest love I've ever known. The only love, really. Despite all our wild high jinks, there was only tenderness in the way he touched me, kissed me, made love to me. I could never get enough of him. There were days I wanted to bang my head against the wall because the yearning for him was so unbearable. I could hardly wait for night to fall so I could slip out and be with him again, love him again. I felt no fear when I was with him. Only perfect trust and love. I told him everything about my life. Everything. He told me everything about his. We slept together in countless nooks, lofts and hayricks because there was just nowhere we could go. Then he'd escort me back to my parents' house before dawn and see me safely over the garden wall before he disappeared into the night. I slept until midday and spent the rest of my time daydreaming listlessly until night liberated me again.
We both knew it would be impossible for us to be together in Martinique, but there was the whole world! I could nick a load of baubles from my father's house—no one would miss them, really—and we could sail away and start fresh in a new place. He tried to talk me out of it, unsure that I truly meant to spend the rest of my life as a lowly blacksmith's wife. I was certain that I could never be happier. We both knew we had to get out of Martinique, and soon.
The last of the Petruchios was a dog-faced cur who seemed quite determined to have me, regardless of my appalling indifference. Someone ratted me out and he had me followed. I crept back into my parents' house one night and had only just made my way to my bedroom when I heard the shot. My blacksmith lover lay dead at the foot of the garden wall.
I fainted, and went mad with grief afterwards. No one could understand why. My parents were desperate to marry me off by then, and the dog-faced, murdering cur seemed to be it. The only Petruchio left in the West Indies. My only consolation was that I still had my blacksmith's shirt and could still catch his scent on it—for the moment.
I cut off all my hair, bound my breasts good and tight, donned my blacksmith's shirt and boy's disguise, and fled out to sea. I've never set foot in Martinique since. I wore that shirt like a shield for my broken heart, refused to wash it until I couldn't even remember his scent anymore, wore it close to my skin until it became a rag, refused to part with it until it was ripped from my body when I was captured.
Even now, as I sat there weeping for him in the crow's nest, I knew that if I were to slip my hand between my legs, I could still release waves and waves of unquenchable pleasure at the thought of him. It's an impossible wonder to me, that pleasure. I didn't think I would ever be able to feel any sort of sexual pleasure again after I was taken captive. How long was I held captive? I don't know. Every moment of it seemed like an eternity. It had been over seven years since my escape. Over seven years since I'd been with a man.
I lived in constant fear after I escaped, kept my face and hands chronically sooty so that no one would be able to tell that I couldn't grow a beard. I was too frightened to attract any notice, so I laid low, despite the fact that I knew I could do just as good a job as any of the men. I grew so thin that I stopped menstruating for a time, which was a blessing of sorts, but made me wonder if I'd lost my womanhood as well. Perhaps I was just nothing anymore. Lost to everyone who had ever known me. Anyone who had ever cared. I wasn't even sure whether I cared anymore. The struggle to stay alive overwhelmed me at times. The thought of falling overboard or dying in my sleep seemed almost merciful.
Perhaps it was a form of suicidal desperation that drove me to the Black Pearl because I'd heard of her, of course. Who hadn't? The most fearsome pirate ship in the Spanish Main. And I'd heard the legend of Cap'n Jack as well. I think my only plan was to come aboard, lay low and see how quickly they would cut my throat. It didn't happen, of course. Despite his lawless reputation, Cap'n Jack actually runs a very tight ship.
I grew bolder, started taking my place in the day-to-day running of the ship. The first battle came and I was still alive at the end of it. So far, so good. Then came another battle and another, and I found myself fighting for my life again. Fighting because I wanted my life back. It became a joyful thing to wake up alive.
The moment of reckoning happened when I came face to face with you. You looked me straight in the eye and you knew. You knew what I was. I knew that you knew. After that, you seemed to be in my face everywhere I went. Sometimes you supervised. Other times, you gave orders. There is very little I can't do aboard a ship. Only some of the very heavy lifting—which many of the skinny, runty ones can't do either. The big, beefy brutes would push us aside and handle it instead. But Cap'n Jack was of the wiry persuasion himself and wasn't overly impressed with brute strength. He preferred agility and cunning in his men, which were skills I had in abundance.
You ordered me all over the ship. I knew you were testing me. I did it all. Did it just as well as any man. Did it better than most. And when we fought, you kept a sharp eye, too concerned with how I was handling myself to notice that your opponent nearly had you until I sank my knife into his throat. I couldn't resist pulling my tongue at you then. We worked and fought side by side, but you scarcely said a word to me back then. Except sometimes, when we were almost alone and nobody was within earshot. You spoke to me with the kindness and courtesy a woman expects from a man. You asked me how I was getting on.
I can't remember how long I'd been aboard when I was summoned to the Captain's cabin. He sat there, eyeing me in his inimitable way until the door had closed behind me and we were quite alone.
"Lass," he began.
I stared at him defiantly, wondering if he was now going to have me run through.
"What do they call you?" he asked.
"Call me what you like," I answered.
"Wotchoo Like?" he squinted at me. "It won't do."
I shrugged, a little perplexed.
"Can you read, lass?"
"Aye Cap'n."
"Write?"
"Aye."
"Keep accounts?"
I hunched my shoulders. "I suppose I could."
"Write a sonnet?"
I blinked with surprise and reined in a grin. "English or Italian form, Cap'n?"
"You're grubby," he fluttered his fingers at me, almost as if he found it distasteful. "I don't like grubby in my officers."
"Well I ain't one of your officers, that's why," I told him.
"Well I'm about to make you one, lass, so pay attention."
"You can't make me an officer!" I protested. "I'm a woman!"
"I can do whatever I bloody well like," he shot back. "I'm cap'n of this ship, savvy?"
"Aye, aye, Cap'n," I saluted him perfunctorily.
He gave me a sidelong, appraising glance. Not as a woman, but as a pirate. "You're good," he nodded. "I need good. But I don't need grubby, so freshen up."
I rubbed my sooty nose with my sooty hand, wondering how I could explain the impasse to him.
"Since you're a woman, you can be a woman," he went on, "but I don't recommend you go prancing about my ship in your petticoats. I don't need to have the men chasing after you so's they can peek up your skirts."
"I wouldn't fancy that either," I tried to explain. "But I am a woman."
"I don't like secrets, lass," he shook his head. "If you want to keep you secrets, then be a man, keep your head down and stay out of my sight. I wish you luck. But if you want to be my officer, then be a woman. No secrets."
"I'd never be safe, Jack," I whispered. I don't know why I felt it would be all right to call him Jack, but somehow I knew. Maybe I'd already recognized that he and I shared the same scars.
"Lass, I've just watched you kill four grown men, all at least twice your size," he pointed out. "If any of my men are stupid enough to tangle with you, you can go ahead and cut off their balls with my blessing."
The Captain wanted me ensconced in my own cabin before my secret became public. I think he wanted to be sure that I could sleep relatively safely, and I appreciated that token consideration. Beyond that, I was on my own. There was some disgruntled muttering, two attempted ambushes, and a number of picked fights. Fortunately, none of the crew had realized how good I was with a knife and that I could wield one with my left hand as well as I could with my right.
It's amazing how quickly you can give a man pause by pushing the tip of your knife into his groin. Even if you miss your mark, the soft upper thigh and underbelly provide many other excellent targets for disabling them. Sometimes permanently. I earned a modicum of respect but knew I still had a long way to go before I truly proved myself. That happened over time.
The funniest incident was when one of the men came clambering up the stairs shortly after I was outed and hollered "Cap'n! Cap'n! He's a woman!" I was standing beside Cap'n Jack at the time.
Cap'n Jack squinted at him as if to point out that the man had just uttered a grammatical impossibility. "He's a woman?"
"She's a woman, sir!" the sailor jabbed his finger at me.
Cap'n Jack turned to look at me, then threw up his hands and staggered back on his heels in horror as if I had suddenly turned into a giant squid.
"So she is!" he nodded, congratulating the other for his keen eyesight.
"S'bad luck, Cap'n," the sailor reminded him.
"Well, we've had naught but good luck since she come aboard," Cap'n Jack reasoned. "So maybe it's good luck. Maybe we should have more women aboard, savvy?"
"Maybe," the sailor shrugged and walked away.
The thing I discovered about Cap'n Jack as time went by was that he truly liked me. He liked the fact that I was a woman. And I don't mean that he liked me the way he liked all those tavern wenches in Tortuga and elsewhere. It was more like he respected me as a woman pirate. An equal, like.
I soon found out that I wasn't the first woman he'd sailed with. In fact, he remembered the women he'd sailed with better than he remembered most of the men. He often said that women who went to sea had more balls than most men did, and were a damned sight smarter to boot. They had to be. But he staunchly maintained that there were things a woman simply could not do.
"I've seen enough good women pirates die trying to prove that they're men," he went on. "You're not a man, so don't try to convince me that you are. When the battle gets rough and you can't breathe anymore, you get yourself away. Go catch your breath, get the cramps out of your hands and legs, bind your cuts if you have to. You catch your breath, and you come back fresh. Because maybe by then I'll be the one who can't breathe anymore. You stay alive and you come back fresh to finish 'em off."
Josie once said that she thought I was the perfect woman for the likes of Cap'n Jack, and while that might be true, it wasn't something I ever considered. I hadn't gone to sea to service the men. As a father-figure, brother-figure, friend, comrade in arms and Captain he was the best. But not as a lover. Not for me, at any rate.
There's a reason why people believe it's bad luck to have a woman aboard, and it's spelled s-e-x. The Pirates' Code explicitly states that a man's lady is his chattel and is therefore untouchable. You can't steal from a shipmate and you can't fuck with his lady. A lady like Dirk's Josie had been around long enough and often enough to know her place and what to do when the going got rough. But a wench who went from man to man was sure to cause trouble. Either the men ended up fighting over her, or she came topside screaming for protection because she'd gotten more than she bargained for. Best you could do at that point was lock her in the brig and get rid of her at the first available opportunity.
And so I had remained celibate for over seven years because I simply didn't feel there was any alternative. But I did find friendship and companionship aboard the Pearl, and that became more precious to me than any tumble could have. I stopped hiding under layers of grime and soot. Growing my hair and wearing earrings again was hardly a statement because many of the men did so as well. But I sometimes played at being a woman and wiggled my backside every now and then for a laugh. I earned the esteem of my shipmates, the respect of other pirates, and the breathtaking freedom to be able to walk the streets of any pirate haven as a woman in boots and trousers, with dignity, and unmolested. A pirate's life for me!
The other thing I found heartwarming was the feeling of solidarity with my shipmates. We knew we were the best, and we were all fiercely proud of each other. When you're part of an elite team, you have to watch each other's backs because there's always some asshole lurking in the shadows, looking for an opportunity to prove that his dick is bigger. But when we weren't fighting for our lives on land or at sea, and we weren't hard at work, there was good camaraderie. I was one of the boys, but I was also everyone's wayward kid sister and sometimes I was their confidante too.
Men can be funny that way. Even the best of them can be a bit indifferent and cruel with the women they bed, but a lot of them really enjoy talking to women. There are things they can say to a woman that they can't say to their mates. If a woman is reasonably intelligent and stops yammering long enough to listen, they're sometimes quite willing to pour their hearts out to her. I guess they know that women won't think less of them for it. And as time went by, I got to know the men on board better than anyone else did.
But I never, ever forgot that Cap'n Jack was the man who had made it all possible. I had come into my own under his formidable aegis, and I remain convinced that it couldn't have happened aboard any other ship or under any other captain. Many people say he's mad and he's certainly eccentric, but his crew love him. They love him and each other the way he loves the Pearl, and that's saying something. I've come to trust Cap'n Jack more than I've trusted anyone since my long-dead blacksmith. But it isn't at all the same kind of love. I wasn't even certain if I was capable of that kind of love anymore. My scars ached just thinking about it. It hurt too much.
But you? You'd been a thorn in my side for some time now. Like the pea in the princess's bed. Things had been clear between us when you had a place to call home, even though there were times when, after a few drinks, I noticed that you were looking at me with unabashed desire. It made me feel a little giddy and a little shy too, but looking is harmless and you'd had a lot to drink. S'normal for people to get lonely at sea sometimes. I was sure no one noticed but me.
And after you found your woman in the arms of another man and left your home forever, we became fast friends. You confided in me, trusted me with your grief, were grateful for our friendship, just as I was. But I don't think it ever occurred to me that we should become lovers. I knew you were too shaken up and heartbroken. I knew because I'd walked that road myself. Sometimes I'd still get those looks from you after a few drinks, but I chalked it up to inebriation. You were still in mourning.
But, oh, I'd be lying if I tried to pretend the attraction wasn't mutual. How could I help but notice your burly good looks? I caught your scent in the breeze and that unnameable quality about you that made me go weak in the knees sometimes. It had been years since I'd experienced anything that could make me feel so female. And then I noticed that you seemed to have the same effect on every woman who crossed your path. I wondered if you knew. Sometimes I teased you about it. You shrugged it off, smiled a little bashfully, but I could tell that you knew. Women had been throwing themselves at your feet for as long as you could remember.
There were times I craved your nearness, just to soak up that feeling of being female again, but there was little or no physical contact between us. Cap'n Jack thought nothing of draping his arm around my shoulders, giving me a peck on the cheek or forehead. I knew I was at liberty to do the same with him. But you were nigh untouchable. And when I did manage to steal a hug, you were stiff, reticent, almost cold. I started testing the boundaries, touching your arm when I spoke to you, rumpling your hair when I was feeling mischievous. You didn't object. In fact, I think you enjoyed it. You simply found it difficult to reciprocate. That sort of thing didn't come easily to you.
Then the Governor's daughter re-entered your life. You came back from Jamaica with a smile on your face and a spring in your step. I was genuinely happy for you. You were full of vim and vigour, the old heartache apparently gone. But still I got those looks from you. And by then I knew you weren't as untouchable as you had once appeared to be. I sometimes wondered what would happen if, after a few drinks, I leaned close and kissed you on the mouth. Somehow I sensed that you wouldn't object. But what if you did? What if you pulled back and told me I was out of line. It would feel like a slap in the face. My scars ached at the thought of it.
No, better not try it, I told myself. Let it be. Besides, you were involved with another woman now. The script I held was that of faithful friend, not femme fatale. And there was the Code to consider, and what was best for the Pearl. S e x spells trouble. Shipmates cannot be lovers. Besides, who knew if the attraction was mutual? Maybe I'd just imagined those looks. And they'd always come after several drinks. Just that demon rum that got you in its sway.
But last night... last night you kissed me. You were the one who pulled me close and initiated it. I hadn't been entertaining smouldering thoughts of you, so you couldn't possibly have sensed that I wanted you to do it. And you'd just come back from being with the Governor's daughter, so it couldn't be that you were feeling desperate for a woman's touch. You'd been with her only a few days before. So what was it, then? Or perhaps it was nothing. Just the moonlight, starlight, rum and all of the above. Just a pleasant way to end the day. That's all.
I sat high in the crow's nest, watching you do your rounds. Were you looking for me, I wondered? Would you recognize me if you looked up? But you didn't look up, and for that I was grateful. Which isn't to say I wouldn't have enjoyed a repeat performance of last night, only that I knew it wouldn't be right. I watched you go below and knew you'd repair to your cabin for the night. It was safe to come down.
We sailed into a dreadful storm the following day. Within a week, half the crew were ill and, being men, wretchedly ill.
"Angélique!" I heard Cap'n Jack bellow from his quarters one afternoon. I had no doubt that he was summoning me, but...
I glanced up at Dirk. He shrugged. "S'better than Lassie," he reckoned.
I strode in to see my Captain, not bothering to take a seat. "We've got to head for port, Jack," I shook my head. "We don't have enough able-bodied men to defend her."
"Aye," he nodded.
I was on my way out when I paused to look back at him again. "Angélique?" I asked laconically.
"Your secret is safe," he pointed out.
You waited for night to fall. We were alone in the dark when you announced that you were returning to Kingston. And then you kissed me again. Just once. A parting kiss. I was too weary and tipsy to give it any thought. I headed back to my cabin and fell fast asleep. I don't even think I dreamt about you.
Months passed. We occasionally heard news from others. Seems you were still in Kingston. Again came the rumours that you were now sailing with Barton and his men. The reports no longer came as a shock, but none of us quite knew what to make of them.