How My Perfect Life Was Inverted

Chapter Twenty: What Men Should Say

That first day on the Black Pearl was the worst that I'd ever experienced in my life. After eventually finding the galley, I was treated to a surprisingly delicious leftover stew of some sort… Which exited my body the way it came in only mere hours later. And then I found out, from a very pretty woman by the name of Anamaria who constantly scowled at me, that as well as keeping a wary eye on the captain's daughter, my other tasks included clearing the galley as well as the dishes, making certain that various ingredients were in order. Then I had to mosey over to another cabin on the first deck that was used as a storage cupboard for medical supplies and set everything there straight. Basically, I was sent from one cabin to another the whole day, tidying and cleaning and organising. It seemed too much for a woman as lazy and disorderly as myself; doubly so if you take into account the fact that the only physical activities I willingly participated in that weren't ripped right out of the Kama Sutra were usually related to cultivating my appearance. Vanity could be a terrible thing at times.

Pearl, however, had a far worse time than I did. Whether it was his determination not to show any favouritism towards his daughter, the fact that he was a heartless man of no sentiments, or just a real bastard with a sadistically warped sense of castigation, I would never know, but Jack had sent orders for Pearl to clean out the cheap wooden buckets used as chamber pots.

"Papa's so cruel," she whined to me sometime in the afternoon when, utterly exhausted and having just hacked up some more of my stew, I had collapsed on the bed with plans of dying in my sleep beginning to form within my mind. "And the crew's quarters are absolutely disgusting; they have rats and maggots in rotting food in the corners and I think I found a few missing teeth…"

"Lovely," I groaned, my hand massaging my burning throat whilst my exhausted eyes slipped closed.

"Are you going to sleep?" I heard Pearl's voice ask from far away.

"Hmm," I grunted, and within moments had lost consciousness.

When I'd returned to the land of the living, I found myself lying in inky blackness with only a single flickering lantern on the table as company. I breathed in and, once again, felt my vomit defying gravity as it rose in my throat. It looked very likely that I was going to die from excessive vomiting.

Wiping my mouth on my sleeve as I surfaced from the sick bucket for the third time that day, I looked blearily around the room, searching desperately for a mirror. Pearl was nowhere to be seen; I assumed she was jumping around the deck in a very annoying and adorable manner. Stumbling with a balance that made me very glad I had never considered the career of tightrope walking, I made my way to the little desk, opening one of the drawers.

Inside was a beautiful handheld mirror and matching brush and comb, ornately carved from ivory and inlaid with silver. I picked up one of the detangling devices in a half-dazed wonder that can only spring from a combination of nausea, vomit, and fatigue. I dug deeper into the drawer, pulling out a handful of brilliantly coloured ribbons. I even found a few bracelets; nothing too elaborate or valuable, mostly just a small stone dangling off a chain or cord.

Jack really did spoil his little girl. Within reason, perhaps, but spoiling was spoiling, no matter how low the costs were.

I picked up the mirror, and recoiled at what suddenly peered back up at me through curtains of tangled, greasy hair. There were spots of dirt on the bridge of my nose and cheek; on my forehead and above the eyebrow where I must have wiped away sweat in the day; my eyes had a dazed, sluggish quality, as though I was on some kind of marijuana. I looked absolutely horrible, and not at all like the pampered girl who constantly spends a slightly excessive amount of time at the mirror preening herself to perfection.

It was, for me, a very terrifying thought. You should have seen how close I was to tears when I realised there wasn't a decent hair conditioner in this time period, and in this climate; frizz terrified the hell out me.

I dragged the comb through my oily locks, very nearly pulling my hair out of the roots the numerous times it snagged. If I hadn't been so narcissistic, I would have cropped it short long ago. As it was, I was attempting to grow it out; so practicality would have to wait until I was somewhere past sixty.

I looked dejectedly around the room, deliberately ignoring the rumbling of my stomach—what's the point of eating food if it doesn't stay in there long enough for my body to absorb any of the nutrition, anyway? My eyes fell upon the dark, perverted tome of Jack's, and I felt my stomach churn—what if Pearl had read it whilst I was recuperating from the cruel torture entitled manual labour? I made a start for the book, accidentally knocking it onto the floor as the ship made another unexpected lurch. My eyes widened in illogical panic as I watched the hardback opening as it tumbled swiftly to the floor, landing on the wood with a much too audible thud—what if Jack was one of those people that went into cardiac arrest at the thought of bent pages? I mean, he probably wouldn't murder me for it, but you never know…

I dropped to my knees and grabbed the Whoremonger's Guide, wincing when I realised that some of the pages had fallen out. This must have been a very old book…

I turned the Guide over, grabbing the loose papers and flattening them out against the intact pages. Despite myself, I began to read the line: "Although neither a whore of the bulk nor alcove, the widow aforesaid has entered our pages on the merit of living as a woman of intrigue…"

I tore my eyes away, but not before I saw a part of "mother of seven children, including the disgraced Lord John Raven", and slammed the seceded sheets onto the open page. Just as I was about to close the cover, a part of the paper caught my eye, and I leaned forward, just to check that my eyes had not deceived me. I pulled out the yellowing sheet, squeezing my eyes shut and opening them again, as if the mirage would twist and change into something—well, a little more believable.

Nope, the calligraphic Chinese writing remained exactly the same as before.

Shaking my head in confusion, I slipped the Chinese page back into the Guide and gently closed it, standing and moving towards the door. Hey, I wasn't going to leave anything with the word "whoremonger" in the title lying around Pearl's cabin; not even if it was a thin slip of paper entitled "The Whoremonger's Guide to the Vatican".

Making my way down the corridor and up the single flight of stairs, I was surprised to see the dark, star-dotted night sky; surely I hadn't slept that long, had I? Looking around the deck, I saw two or three dirty men scrubbing half-enthusiastically at the deck, whilst two or three more patrolled lazily across the floorboards. Lanterns hung from the main and mizzen-masts, and I saw, above the double doors leading into the captain's cabin, on the quarterdeck, a familiar figure steering the ship.

I made my way towards him, climbing up the steps near the cabin with the two carved mermen guarding the entrance. He turned at the sound of my footsteps, greeting me with a friendly—even if a little forced—smile. "Lovely view this evening, don't you think?" he welcomed with a gesture at the velvet sky above.

I glanced at the glittering stars overhead, shrugging indifferently. "I guess." I held out the Whoremonger's Guide To London. "I think this is your… guide… to London…" I said, feeling more than a little awkward at handing the rather, ah, incriminating volume over to him.

Jack, who had reached out to retrieve the book, did a double take, and snatched his hand back as though the very presence of the book burned him. "That's not mine," he said quickly, looking down at the spine where the words The Whoremonger's Guide To London were accusingly stamped in gold.

"Yes, actually, it is."

"No, it really isn't."

"I have reason to believe that this," and I shoved the tome directly under his nose, "is one of your possessions."

"And I have more reason to decisively suppose that it isn't," he maintained, pushing the black volume away from him with two fingers and looking up at me through his lashes as he kept his face indignant and innocent.

I shook my head ever so slightly, more to erase the effect his gaze was having on me than to protest my case further. (Well, it had been a long time…) "Pearl found it in your room."

Jack's brown eyes widened in comical alarm. "Pearl?" he parroted, looking utterly horror-struck. I couldn't help but smile at the picture he made; the fearless pirate captain standing regally at the helm of his ship, worried that his daughter was reading what I could understandably assume to be pornography. You couldn't get that from Treasure Island.

"Yes, she did," I confirmed, enjoying the effects my words were having on him. He looked uneasily from the wheel where his hand was resting to the stairs leading down to the half-deck where his little girl was supposedly located, evidently unsure how to proceed.

"I swear on my mother's chastity that the book isn't mine," he insisted stubbornly, his free hand raised in a solemn vow.

I snorted. "Your mother couldn't have been very chaste if she gave birth to you, now, could she?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Are you insulting my mother? Why are you doing that? You've no right to attack her, she hasn't done anything to you—"

"Well, you brought her up!"

"But that doesn't necessarily give you leave to insult the woman that brought me into this world!"

It was on the tip of my tongue to point out that the woman that had brought Jack into this world did, in fact, deserve a lot more than a few malicious turns of phrase, but I held my tongue and, half laughing, shoved the tome into his stomach instead. "Just take your Whoremonger's Guide and end this—this—ludicrous conversation!"

He looked down at the hardback pressing into his abdomen and sighed. "Very well: I shall accept this bound manuscript—which, might I add, was not, until this very moment, a book I could count as a part of my extensive collection…" I nodded, satisfied that at long last he had accepted my entirely helpful and selfless deed, and turned away.

"However…" I felt his fingers wrap around my left wrist gently, preventing me from reaching the stairs, "I think I'd rather enjoy continuing this conversation, but perhaps a little later…"

I felt myself beginning to smile, before Pearl's words from the night before came screaming back to me. "Why's that?" I asked lightly. "Because it's quite obvious we won't exactly be talking…"

"Now what on God's green earth would give you that idea?" he asked of me, his eyes widened in artificial innocence. I shook my head, declining his offer, and tried to move away, but his grip only tightened. "That's a rather unfair presumption on my part; I might actually be harbouring a genuine interest for you and—"

"In using the term 'might', you are implying that you don't actually harbour any interest in me at all," I pointed out. And it usually wouldn't have bothered me, but…

"That's all just a matter of wording, though," he brushed off, "and 'might' implies that I do much more greatly than it suggests that I don't…"

"Yeah, but why would you want to waste time talking to me when you already know everything about me? I mean, I'm just a whore, aren't I?" His grip slackened in surprise at hearing his own words being cheerfully thrown back at him, and I immediately stalked away before he could grasp my wrist again. Reaching the top of the stairs, I paused, swirling back to face him. "Oh, and Jack?" I called sweetly. "My name isn't Sahara. That's a desert in northern Africa." And I slipped down the steps, hand on the railing for balance, and made my way to the captain's cabin.

"Oh, you're awake," Pearl noted sleepily in surprise, closing the worn brown book she'd been using as a pillow. I lifted her up in my arms, and she leaned her head against my shoulder, yawning adorably. "Can I take that book with me?" she asked endearingly of me.

Warily, I glanced at the spine: The Seaman's Grammar. Although why sailors needed English lessons was slightly beyond me… "Of course," I told her, attempting to scoop up the well-used item without dropping the child. She twisted in my grip and reached down to pick the volume up for me, settling her arms comfortably round my neck, and I made my way through the open doors. Above me I heard Jack and the vaguely familiar voice of that man Pearl and I had found sleeping with the pigs arguing quietly but heatedly. Idly, I wondered if it was about me and my given name, but then I dismissed the thought when I heard something about "much too far for a second venture, ye daft blighter".

I made my way down the stairs, counting the doors and opening one that led into a dusty cabin full of what looked like unwanted loot. I tried the next one down, which was locked, but the third looked vaguely familiar in the faint lantern light. I settled Pearl down onto the mattress, and she immediately curled up into a ball, twisting her head into a more comfortable position on the pillow, and I pulled the ruffled blanket over her. I smoothed her hair away from her forehead, and looked down at her sleeping face without actually seeing her.

I was wondering if coming onto the Black Pearl was the right decision after all. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely adored Pearl, but I was beginning to get the vaguest feeling that a pirate's life just wasn't for me. I should have just stayed in Tortuga and wave Pearl off. Yes, I would still be a whore, but only for a few more weeks; Andrew had said he'll buy me from the Garter when he'd returned from a little "business" trip. Unless…

Unless he was lying. But he couldn't have been… could he? My eyes narrowed in thought. Andrew had seemed… very enthusiastic. And hasty; the time that passed between the first time we met and when he'd proposed was not sufficient enough for two people to actually get to know each other. And this… "business" of his was surprisingly conveniently timed…

I felt my cheeks heating at my utter stupidity. Of course Andrew hadn't actually meant to marry me—I hadn't even gotten a ring! His ship had just been unfit for sailing when he'd first sailed into Tortuga, so he just thought he'll have some fun and embarked on a three-month fling with the first whore that he'd met. And I was just so surprised and overwhelmed with actually meeting a man that didn't treat me like a blow-up doll, I just fell for him immediately. He'd acted completely desperate and needy, just so I would take pity for him and fall for his little performance… In a way, he was very similar to Jack. But at least Jack didn't make any false promises to me.

I looked towards the partly open door, feeling my body shaking with anger. The strangest urge to gain vengeance on Andrew and prove to myself that I wasn't in the least affected by his using me in the way that he had surged within me. With one last glance at Pearl's sleeping form, I strode to the table, opening the door of the lantern and blowing the candle out. The sudden darkness that fell upon the cabin meant that yet again I had to use my wonderful sense of direction and attempt to find the half-open door. Turning, I stumbled forward with my hands in front of me, feeling my palms meet the smoothed wooden surface of the wall.

I'd half-expected that; clearly my arrogance was beginning to wane. My hands continued to slide against the wall, until at long last I felt the slightly raised frame, and I grabbed the edge of the door and slowly pulled back. Thankfully, the hinges didn't creak as much as I'd expected. When I was out in the hallway, I turned back to the black cabin where Pearl slept peacefully and quietly pulled the door shut. I turned my head to the right, seeing the faintest glow of lanterns falling upon the stairs, and started forward.

I was surprised that nobody commented on my presence as I stole across the deck, looking up towards the helm. The gently glowing light of the lanterns illuminated a raven-haired figure in a straw hat grasping the wheel firmly; that must've meant that Jack was in his cabin, then.

Good.

Taking six or seven steps, I rapped smartly on one of the closed doors, pulling it open before Jack even had the chance to reply.

The many candles scattered throughout the large cabin cast a flickering light on a hatless Jack Sparrow, comically frozen in the act of removing his coat. "What's the matter?" he asked of me, clearly caught off guard at my unannounced appearance. I shook my head, closing the door behind me and turning the key. Just in case, I slid the bolt from across one door to the other, and spun to face him, uncertain how next to proceed.

Jack was simply staring at his doors as though he'd never seen such a thing in his life. Hesitantly, he raised his eyes to meet my gaze as I started towards him, right hand rising with a faintly questioning index finger. "What—" he began, but I interrupted his question by burying a hand into his hair and raising myself ever so slightly on my toes the better to kiss him fiercely and fervently.

I bit my lip to hold back my laughter when I'd pulled away. Jack stood there, finger still raised, kohl-smudged eyes gently closed, lips ever so faintly puckered. He opened his eyes, blinked rapidly a few times, and shook his head, causing his various hair accessories to clink. "Alright, love, I'm a little perplexed—"

My fingers unbuckled the belt-like gun holster he wore slung over his shoulder, slipping it off and setting it down on the table, right next to the open Whoremonger's Guide To London, and I wordlessly started on his belt.

"Well, I'll admit I'm past perplexed and am just plain bewildered…" He watched in disbelief as I set the leather strap next to the holster and began to untie the faded streaked sash around his slim waist.

"Uh, love?" I looked up from the knot I was working on and met his faintly astonished gaze. "If you could offer me an explanation so that I can get some sort of idea of what startlingly rare variety of logic it is that you're using, exactly, might you please tell me precisely what the hell it is that you think you're doing—"

"Am I not good enough for you or something?" I asked, lowering my hands to rest on my skirt.

"No! No no no no, it's nothing like that at all—I just don't really understand you…" He paused, clearly about to elaborate, but then I began my very short little soliloquy.

"It's because you don't actually know me, you see," I explained, resuming my work on the obstinate knot. "You know, because we've only actually talked for five whole minutes since we'd met—how long ago? Four, five months, right?"

"Actually, five months and three weeks," he quipped unexpectedly. "You were that lovely little nun I'd met in one of the French settlements of Hispaniola, were you not?" I'd completely forgotten about that first encounter; I looked up from my untangling, surprised that he, of all people, still recalled that when he wasn't even certain of my name.

"How can you still remember that?" I asked of him, my mind swirling with a wide array of reasons; he'd never forgotten the first time he saw my eyes, or heard my voice, or saw my smile… (If I had for some suicidal reason been smiling.)

What he'd said in return was not inkeeping with that list. "Well, I'm not certain about other men, but it's not every day that I impersonate a cleric of the Church of England…"

I narrowed my eyes at the completely inoffensive answer. Did the man know nothing about women? "That's the wrong thing to say," I informed him.

"Beg pardon?" he said, clearly caught unawares by my surprise reprimand.

"To a woman," I continued. ""When you're in a situation such as this—" I slipped my finger between the sash and his breeches and gave the stubborn knot a hard pull that caused Jack's body to jerk towards me "—you don't ever say something like that."

"But it's the truth; it's how I remember that day: I impersonated a priest."

"That may be," I replied, "but in a romantic situation such as this, you should be saying something so disgustingly clichéd it sends even a schoolgirl screaming for a sick bucket, such as 'That was the first time I saw your breathtaking beauty, and I'll never forget it.'"

"'That was the first time I ever saw your heavenly breathtaking beauty,'" Jack mimicked, looking down into my eyes, "'and I'll never forget the day I first saw one of God's holy angels.'"

"That would have been a lot more effective if you weren't so bloody sarcastic," I snapped at him. "Be romantic."

"The position we find ourselves in can hardly be described as romantic," Jack pointed out. "You slip in, you lock the door, and now you're stripping me—that's not romantic, Sierra: it's unnerving." I glanced pointedly down at his breeches, raising an eyebrow. "…But it's also seductive, so I'm really not complaining," he amended, smiling sheepishly when I'd raised my eyes to his.

"Well, I was trying to be seductive, not romantic."

"Then why are you asking me to play the lovesick pup now?" he demanded, visibly somewhat baffled.

At long last, I pulled the sash from around his waist, twirling it in my fingers as I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. "I don't know—it was just a really random whim! I'll still end up in your bed tonight, whether romance is involved or no."

"Well in that case…" Jack suddenly growled, and he grabbed my arms and pushed me towards the bed.

…I hoped we weren't loud enough to attract any attention from the crew…

-x!x-

AN: Seeing how I'm already pushing the "T" rating to the limit, I'll stop right there. Oh, and I only need ten more reviews to 100, so if all of you can click on that little button, I'll greatly appreciate it…

blushingbeauty86: Actually I've changed the fetish into a bunny phobia… but how I'll write a rabbit in is beyond me… And yep, I do put my characters through hell; I'm kinda sadistic that way. And you'll be highly idealistic if you think that everything's going to be all roses from here on…

VagrantCandy: It's a good thing you don't want to know, because I'm doubting you'll ever actually find out exactly WHY Jack has a Whoremonger's Guide to London… At least until I think of a reason…

love2rite: Thanks; it's nice to know you're still here reading this!

TigerTiger02: Fear not, there's absolutely no way Will would possibly commit bestiality with bunnies; donkeys? Perhaps… Yeah, I wasn't certain if I should put the whole religious fanaticism in in case some people got offended, but then I realised that if a person was to read on after what I described happen to Pearl, either they didn't offend very easily, or just didn't take things personally as an insult, which wasn't at all what I'd intended it to be; I respect all religious beliefs. Anyway; I've seen three films so far that focuses on drag queens: Stage Beauty, which dealt with the introduction of actresses to the stage in seventeenth-century London; Beautiful Boxer, which is a Thai drama based on a true story; and I'm A Lady, a Thai comedy which deals with a group of college-bound drag queens creating a cheerleading squad because the college's captain won't allow "fags"; I'm just going to order a bunch of DVDs from Amazon this Christmas…

Little Miss Anapants: That's OK, you've a legitimate, even if cruel, reason… The fly-swatting idea I got from my friend, who was once up all night trying to murder an annoying fly; I knew other people had the same problem…

Emiline Grace: Thank you very much for the compliment; was there anything particular that you liked, or anything that you think this could've done without?

Anne la Jordanie: She WAS sick on the way to Tortuga—in 865 different ways. Go back to the chapter "An Introduction to Society and Piracy" and control-find the word "lesbianism", then read that paragraph if you doubt me… Ugg boots? Aren't they those really fluffy furry "fashion" accessories that look as though the designer was an Eskimo on an expedition across the North Pole? And… coral? Does the typical American teenager have NO fashion sense whatsoever? Sadly, Goths aren't more common here; unless you happen to live in Camden…