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Chapter Nine
The battle sounds that had been the day and the bustling aftermath had finally given way to the stillness that was late evening. There was not a sound that could be heard, save for the nature of night - tree frogs and cicadas singing in disharmony. A faint breeze, soothing, yielded the strong scent of Butterfly Jasmine, enhancing the ambience of the room, that was lovely in the illumination of the candles that burned about, glowing upon the straw and the wood. Madi released a languid breath, her eyes closed as she listened to the steady beat of his heart. It was amazingly calming. She mused as she caressed his taut abs, exhilarated by his closeness.
Her body still felt tingly and warm, covered in perspiration, as was his, her heart full with emotions for this man – John Silver. Madi relived what had happened moments ago, replaying in her mind what she had, since they'd finished, the pain that came when he joined his body to hers and the hint of pleasure that followed. She recalled how riveting it was, watching him undress, revealing his body that was tanned from his life in the sun as a pirate, and the cut of his muscles, so hard and beautiful. Then there were his eyes, a gorgeous blue that awakened a passionate tenderness within her, and his touch that exposed to her sweet pleasures she had never in her life imagined.
She wanted him again. She shyly thought. She wanted to feel his mouth on her breast and the tension of him entering her. Would it hurt? She wondered, but quickly concluded that it would not, for the pain of his invasion had abated as the rapturous act had gone on. A sultry flush washed over her at the memory, pooling in her core. She knew that this was not the appropriate course, to give herself to a man without having taken the proper steps - the approval of her mother and the blessing of the community, followed by a ceremony of commitment.
Nonetheless, though she had always been taught that duty and tradition was imperative to her role, and would aid in sustaining a flourishing village, listening to one's heart, how it speaks to them, was most essential to making choices that were right. After all she had endured, losing her father so unexpectedly, and going through the battle for the island, watching death come so close, then pass over her, and Silver, to strike those around them, affirmed to her how short time could be, that one never knew when it could be taken from them.
John Silver was an amazing a man, who had touched her deeper than anyone ever had. He supported her, comforted her, understood her and inspired a mirth unlike any she'd felt before. Thus, she had given herself to him. If they lost the coming battles, if they lost each other. She would be happy in knowing that she had not wasted time shying away from their connection, and what he meant to her. And though she knew that her mother, and her community would not understand, would denounce her choice to bind herself to a white man, a pirate, she felt it was right. She knew it in her soul.
"Are you alright?" Silver quietly asked as he gazed tenderly upon her, his heart full with reverence and love.
"I am." Madi softly replied, feeling more than what she'd stated, but unable to construct the words for the wondrous emotions that were brimming inside. "And you?" She then asked, her eyes innocent and adoring as she met his stare.
"Alright does not quite express the felicity I feel." He confessed, as his hand lovingly stroked her back. "I had once believed that I knew happiness, when I succeeded at an elaborate scheme, or deceived some poor soul out of money, but I see that I had not a clue of what it truly means until now."
"I find myself concluding the same." She concurred. "That is not to say I have not known happiness, because I have. However, what I feel in this moment is so profound…it is like nothing I can describe." She revealed, leaving him moved to the depths of his soul, driving him to take her lips, to worship their soft warmth, to devour them with devoted passion. They moaned at the fire that ignited within them, their mouths melding together in heated hunger, when Silver slowed the siege, yearning to go on, to again cherish every part of her, but needing to stop, due to her newness to this, and thus her not yet being ready, maybe, for him to engage her body again.
"What?" He breathed after their lips parted, still so close, titillating, ardently watching as Madi shyly dropped her eyes.
"When you arrived on this island with Flint and your crew, never once did I think that my path would lead here." She declared in a hushed tone, returning her gaze to him, her desire for him immeasurable as was her want of them just to talk, to exchange in a discourse and, or just to hold each other, treasuring every element of the moment.
"Are you certain?" Silver whispered as his hand drifted from cheek, then down her shoulder, meandering over her arm, inciting a fervent shiver. "Because I seem to recall you eying me with great interest as I and my crew were carted off to a cage." He lightly declared.
"I will concede that I found you, intriguing from the start." Madi casually stated. "But that was due to who you are, a pirate." She claimed. "For many seamen have landed upon these shores, but none have been pirates."
"You cannot possibly expect me to believe this." He skeptically replied, mirth in his voice. "When there were 50 other pirates standing before you, yet you chose to ogle me."
"Ogle?" Madi humorously scoffed, as she hoisted up on one arm, lighting Silver's heart. "That is absurd."
"Are you denying this?"
"I am denying that I ogled you." She countered. "Besides, your gaze was hardly fleeting. I recall you were just as vigilant in your awareness of me as I was of you."
"I was curious about the beauty whom I'd come to behold. For I had never in my life been so captivated by another person." He huskily replied as his hand brushed over her bare thigh, inflaming the fervor within her.
"And now? Does your curiosity remain alight?" Madi quietly asked, binding his stare, stirring the flame, with the blaze in her brown gaze.
"I will answer if you concede the true reason why you found me intriguing." Silver softly proposed, then pressed his lips to her, tasting them with a burning chasteness, inciting her to moan, to answer his question in earnest.
"You were a pirate, but you were truthful and courageous with mother." She breathlessly whispered. "And you were… incredibly fetching." She sexily admitted, exciting his confidence, launching his heart to the heavens, when she topped her utterance with a loving kiss.
"It is stronger than ever." He sighed against her mouth, when she slowly ceased the kiss, answering her earlier question, then captured her lips with tenderness, groaning at her sweet taste, before they returned to an embrace. Silver feverishly quaked as her soft curves rested against his form, her head settling upon his chest and her hand fervidly stroking his abdomen. They lay silent, in a peaceful repose, relishing the bliss of the moment, when Silver voiced what had only then began to pester his thoughts.
"I must confess, that in the mist of this joy, I cannot help but be concerned about the repercussions of our new-found closeness." He whispered aloud.
"Minds will most certainly be curious about you being in my home at such a late hour, but no one would dare speak of it to my mother, unless their suspicions were proven to be founded."
"Yet, suspicion will be cast upon you." He expressed as his hand slipped to her lower back, roving it with gentle warmth. "I do not want to cause you any unwarranted trouble."
"You should have considered that 'unwarranted trouble' before you took to my bed." She murmured with a small smile, her eyes affectionate as they lifted to his.
"Perhaps I should have." He playfully uttered. "But it is impossible to ignore wanting when the object of it was so incredibly tender with ardor, and urging me to yield to what I acutely desired."
"Then this is my doing, and yours?" Madi quipped.
"Yes." He surely smirked, before kissing her smiling lips once more.
"Truthfully, we should take precautions." She said, her voice fluttering at the impassion he'd sparked.
"Of course." He concurred, his tone low with fervor, from their fondling tongues. "Despite the rapport I have established with some in your community, I don't think they or your mother would appreciate how our relationship has evolved."
"They would not." Madi quietly confirmed. "They would not understand why I have chosen you, a white man, a pirate and for some the enemy. Learning what has happened here has the potential to reignite the tensions in our alliance which despite today's win is still very fragile."
"Then it is best I go." Silver declared with hesitance.
"No." Madi rejected. "It is late, and the night has grown quiet. Thus no one will know how long your visit has gone. Stay." She murmured as she held his gaze and her hand hotly drifted over his stomach, then lower, so close to his shaft, making him tremble with fire, when she slipped her hand over him, tentatively teasing his length, deepening his arousal, causing him to groan instead of voicing his intended question "Are you certain?" (You want me to stay). She then lowered her mouth to his chest, and faintly, smokily kissed his pecs, emulating the caresses he'd previously bestowed upon her, but infusing them with her own variation, gently biting, after laving him with her tongue.
"Madi." He hoarsely keened, then gently pulled her from his chest and fiercely fastened his mouth to hers, shifting her beneath his form as he tongued her with torrid affection. Madi intensely moaned, burning with yearning at the fire in his kiss, the feel of his firm chest, tantalizing against the peaks of her breast, and his hard shaft sliding over her moist folds. She spontaneously writhe, as she slipped Silver a deeper tongue, expressing her desperate need, driving him to seize her. He plunged into her, palming her ass, gently kneading it as he bound her hips to his frame, invading her walls with passion. Madi expelled an intense cry, the fiery bliss overwhelming the lingering pain that had once been her virginity. She met his thrusts that were powerful, loving, instinctually lifting her hips to his, astonished by the pleasure it spurred. Whilst she felt a strange heat, flooding her limbs, her walls impulsively tightening around him, causing Silver to groan in delicious pleasure, when her body began to quiver as the fervor exploded into a blinding whiteness, taking her over the precipice, into a wave of incredible ecstasy.
Silver felt his breath slow down, into a quiet intoxication, blending with the calming rapture of the exquisite woman that lay beneath him. He lightly kissed her forehead, then drifted to her lips, sweetly tasting them, before catching her beautiful brown gaze, which reflected every bit of tenderness and heaven he felt in that moment. Silver caressed her cheek, and was mesmerized as her eyes fell closed and she ardently shivered at his touch. If he was uncertain before, confused by what he wanted, there was no confusion any longer. For he had seen what his life could be, experienced what he could have here with the Maroons, here with the woman he loved – Madi and who he believed loved him. He knew what he wanted. What he'd denied, and didn't know he desired. His heart soared at the thought, of the possibility of what someday he dreamed of having, a life with Madi. Silver swept her lips again, with a chaste tongue, rousing her to a silent moan, then slid from atop her form, drawing her to him as he came to rest on his back. He stared above, thinking of everything and nothing, mindlessly counting the straws that intricately formed the roofing of the house, all the while delighting in the sensual feel of her nakedness against him, when her curious caress, innocent yet smoldering, lead him to a thought.
"It happened when I was a child. In a street fight over food." He quietly answered, before she could ask, explaining the scar that could barely be seen just under his ear.
"You had to fight for food as a child?" She softly, compassionately questioned her hand slipping down to rest over his heart, comforting him at the dire memory.
"Not always." He replied, then for a moment became silent, struggling to say more. "For some time, my mother and I lived with a woman who was of no relation to us, Mrs. Thompson, until I was seven years old." He continued. "She was the closest thing I had to family. She took care of me as long as I could remember, taught be scripting and language, was more of a parent to me than my own mother."
"And your father?" Madi cautiously asked and sadly watched as he swallowed a swell of distressing emotion, then answered.
"I never knew him."
"I am sorry."
"Do not be. I realized a long time ago that contemplating his existence, what he could have been to me was a thought that could only fester into something foul and destructive in my life. So, I stopped caring about who he might be, for he never had relevance to me." Madi felt his pain, the deep wound that was him missing a father and hugged herself to him, lightly kissing his chest, further freeing his thoughts…
"Mrs. Thompson died when I was seven." He resumed, his eyes still on the ceiling, his mind fixated on his past. "And my mother and I moved into a workhouse as a result."
"A workhouse?" Madi replied, confused.
"It is a place where the destitute are forced to go when they become too poor to survive on their own. There, they labor for food and lodging." He detailed. "I suppose my mother and I were living off Mrs. Thompson's charity. Perhaps the woman sympathized with my plight being a child born to an uncaring mother, since I don't recall her ever being particularly kind to my mother." He realized aloud. "When the woman died, my mother and I had no place to go. Therefore, we moved into the workhouse."
"What was it like?" Madi quietly asked the question she was certain had an answer that was dreadful and was troubled to find her deduction was correct.
"Awful." He answered, nearly inaudibly. "I was separated from my mother and was only allowed to see her once a week, and though she was never much of a mother to me, she represented consistency, stability and when I couldn't see her…" He stopped at the memory of that torturous time that he'd not revisited in ages, but wanted to do it now, because he needed Madi to know all of him. "It was very hard." He said. "Even so, I got along, dealing with the minimal food, ragged clothes, scarce education and brutality from the adults and other children. I was at the workhouse for a month, when the weekly visits with my mother stopped."
"Why? What happened?" Madi queried with alarm.
"She left." Silver scoffed, bitterness in his tone. "She told the Headmaster she could do better on her own."
"But she came back?" Madi declared in disbelief. "Once she got to a better plac…"
"No. She did not." Silver injected, causing her heart to drop. "It was difficult for me to accept." He said, his voice turning strained at the tearful hurt wakening within him. "But with time, I accepted the truth. She made no secret that I was a burden to her and always did her weekly visits with me out of obligation." He shakily revealed as Madi continually stroked his chest, and he consumed the peace she yielded in the mist of the tumult that was his past. "I don't know why she did not leave me after Mrs. Thompson died. Perhaps she did not want to live with the guilt of leaving me out in the world alone." He repeated the reasoning that at the time he'd entertained.
"But you were alone in the world." Madi commented, struggling to restrain her anger at Silver's mother, to not inflame his already heightened emotion.
"Yes. But after that, after I accepted what she had done, I never thought of her again." He sighed, then drew a deep breath, forcing away the grief that was threatening to overwhelm him at the reopened wound that was his mother, who'd abandoned him. Silver then went on to detail the next phase in his life, which was another horror that had come a year later and was not much better than the work house. He and several boys were sold into an apprenticeship with a chimney sweeper, and though the arrangement started off well enough, with the man promising to take great care of them, which he had, in the beginning –feeding and educating them well, while they were training as sweepers. However, within a month it all went to "shit." The work had been relentless as was the cruelty - beatings, withholding of what little food they'd get, verbal intimidation, and then death. Every week there was at least one them, the child sweepers, who died or was severely injured, either from the fire of a chimney they'd descended in error or suffocating from soot while doing a cleaning.
"It was there that I learned the art of deflection, that if Mr. Daniels' attention was on the other children, it would not be focused on me, and I quickly used that method on them all. For it was not just Mr. Daniels that could be cruel. The children who were a bit older and had managed to survive the perils of being a chimney sweeper could be just as vicious." Silver had declared, then went on to tell Madi how he'd learned from Solomon Little, a fellow child sweeper who died not long after Silver arrived at the apprenticeship. "He was a scrawny chap who was hardly threatening but was clever in how he turned them against each other. I rapidly learned to do the same, stoking those feelings of detestation with a word here or an inference there, steering their hate towards each other. As a result, I would remain safely above the fray." He said. "I was spared, surviving months in that hell but I knew I wouldn't survive there forever, that one way or the other, I would die in a chimney or be irreparably injured or brutalized by Mr. Daniels or one of the older boys. So, I fostered an escape and never looked back."
"Where did you go?" Madi asked, mesmerized and morose at all he'd suffered, but wanting to know more, of every experience he'd had.
"The streets of Salisbury. I lived there for a short time, until I found that I could not hide there for long. Mr. Daniels did not take too kindly to his meal tickets running off. So, I managed to hop a wagon transport north to Bristol where I survived on the street before I learned how to use my youth to insinuate my way into homes." Silver then spoke of how being in people's homes resulted in various strange and precarious situations. "But I learned quite a bit through those experiences, did more reading than I ever did in my life, because I came to see that a child with great intellect gained significantly more sympathy than one without." He said as he briefly glanced upon her. "I spent five years scheming my way into homes between Bristol and Bath or living on the streets, picking pockets and telling colorful tales to avoid jail, a beating or worse, looking out for myself." He dolefully reflected. "I saw many things, so many unspeakable horrors, but I survived."
"You survived it alone?" Madi questioned with melancholy, hoping that he at least had one friend through some of the dreadfulness he'd faced.
"There was an acquaintance here and there, but never a lasting association." Silver confirmed, now gently brushing her cheek, wanting to dispel her woe, to assure her that despite everything he was alright. "It was not wise to take on a partner. For being a joiner, attaching oneself to anyone would inevitably lead to disaster for both."
"I am so sorry you have suffered such horrors." She emotionally conveyed, the loving empathy in her eyes, touching him more than words could express.
"It is the past, and I am beyond it." He whispered, then tenderly tasted her lips, warming her inside. "But now I have ruined what had been a felicitous evening with the history of my tenebrous past." He softly smiled, attempting to lighten the mood.
Madi eyed him with adoration, admiring his strength, how despite the vileness he'd suffered, he had not turned malevolent, and at his core was a good man. "It is still a felicitous evening." She then quietly countered. "Because you have shared with me a part of who you are, your spirit, that is not easily accessible."
"Not just a part, all of who I am." Silver huskily contended, quickening her heart, compelling her to seize his mouth, enticing him with a scorching kissing, stirring him to requite her ardor, to ravage her with fierce hunger as he shifted her beneath him once more.