Chapter Four- The Dark Side of the World

Two Days Later

Gillette is wringing his hands. "Alone, sir! You cannot be serious, sir," he groans.

I fold my arms. "Tell me what you know of Tortuga, Mr Gillette?"

It appears that Gillette knows a great deal. "It's filled with taverns, cut-purses, drunken louts with nothing but murder on their minds and then there's the... the... erm, brothels, sir. Whores. Thousands of them. Please don't go, sir."

"Brothels, you said?"

Gillette nods reluctantly, looks miserable.

"And you propose that I let a group of sailors loose in the whore capital of the world! I'd never get them back! Are you out of your mind, man?!" I could almost laugh at the expression on Gillette's face.

"Send an officer with them."

I allow myself a small smile. "And which of my officers do you suggest I trust?"

Gillette looks crestfallen. I am one mean bastard. But there's something on Gillette's face that tells me I've involuntarily hit the mark. Gillette wants to go to Tortuga. My ridiculous straight-laced Lieutenant wants to visit the famous brothels of Tortuga!

Well, he's going to be disappointed.

Tortuga

There are men everywhere. Some are passed out on the ground, many more are laughing and stumbling and singing, half-full bottles of run never far from their lips, others have their hands up whore's skirts or their faces buried in bosoms. I try to act inconspicuous as I gingerly thread my way through the narrow streets.

I turn the corner into a narrow alley and freeze. My God.

Directly in front of me are two young men. They're kissing, bodies pressed up against one another, moving to the same rhythm.

The Greek sin...

I try to turn back the way I came but another figure is blocking my way. He's just a boy, perhaps seventeen and reminds me of Will Turner; too pretty for his own good. "You want something?" asks the boy, backing me up against a stone wall. He runs a finger down my chest and the finger keeps moving downwards.

I recoil away from the boy: from his smell, his touch. "I don't... Don't... Can't..." I stammer.

"Can't?" whispers the boy. "I should certainly say you can," he laughs with a meaningful glance downwards.

I push him away with such force that he hits the opposite wall of the alley. A moment later his fist slams into my mouth and I taste blood as I fall to the ground.

The world is spinning and the boy is standing over me. He doesn't look much like a boy anymore. "What's to stop me taking you now," he growls.

"He's mine," says a familiar voice but I can't quite place the speaker.

The world turns black.

I have no idea where I am. I can smell smoke offset with rum and dirt and sweat. Below there's the sound of

"And really bad eggs,

Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!"

My head is pounding and I'm reluctant to open my eyes. Damn it, though! I have to know who's singing. I open my eyes a fraction. I'm lying on a narrow bed and the coverlet is stained. I don't like to think what with. I force my eyes open a little further and realise I'm in a small dark room, lit only by a candle next to the bed and moonlight filtered through the open window.

"A pirate's life for me!"

I turn my head to see the singer and my neck crunches. The singing stops.

"Sounds nasty," says the voice just as I manage to turn far enough to see that the speaker is Jack Sparrow.

"Sparrow," I croak. My throat is dry.

"Captain Sparrow if you don't mind. Here." He walks across the room and holds a flask to my lips. He puts his other hand round the back of my head to support me. I hesitate and he smiles at me- really smiles instead of grinning or smirking. "It's not poisoned," he says softly.

I don't see that I have any choice in the matter. I try to raise my arms to hold the flask myself but my whole body feels like lead and I sink back down from the effort. "Just drink," says Sparrow, a little more firmly. He uses the same tone that I would reserve for a petulant child. Slowly, I open my lips and take a sip. It's not water, of course, but neat rum and I have to struggle not to splutter.

"Good stuff, eh?"

"Vile," I say, once he's removed the flask from my mouth. "I hate rum."

"That's because you're uneducated!" he grins at me. "Or maybe it's because you areeducated. What would you drink?"

"Brandy, perhaps. Or else port." With one huge effort I manage to sit up.

"Take it easy," Sparrow says. He actually looks concerned, God damn him. I ignore his words and scan the room for possible exits. The window is on the second floor- I suspect we're above a tavern. There's a door but a smiling, swaying pirate blocks the way. "You wouldn't be thinking about escape now, would you?" He shakes his finger at me. "And after you came all this way to see me..."

Anger bubbles up inside me. "I did not come here to see you! I came to arrest you!"

He kneels down by the bed and leans close to me: so close that I move away from the heady sense of rum on his breath. "So that's why you came hear alone, unarmed? To capture me?"

I nod weakly, edge away from Sparrow until I'm perched precariously on the far end of the bed. Sparrow follows me across.

"I'll tell you the truth. I'll tell it and then you can choose what to do with it, savvy? The truth is you got my letter. You had to know what I meant- you, my dear James, were curious."

"It's Commodore Norrington to you, pirate."

"Then I should have to say: today was very nearly a case of curiosity killed the Commodore!" He laughs- a short, harsh bark of laughter. It strikes me that the pirate probably doesn't laugh all that often. I'm not altogether sure it's an agreeable sound. Then again, what could possibly be agreeable about a pirate?

That dream, says a nagging voice in my head. That dream was very agreeable...

"What happened to me?" I ask, reaching a tentative hand up to my throbbing head. "I can't remember a thing after coming ashore."

Sparrow gently –almost tenderly- takes hold of my wrist and guides my hand first to a swollen lump on the back of my head. "Where you fell," he says. He then guides it to my equally swollen jaw. "Where you were hit."

"Who hit me?"

Sparrow looks evasive. "A man." I'm surprised to find that his long fingers are still encircling my wrist. He can probably feel my heartbeat. The intimacy is startling.

"Why did he hit me?"

"He wanted something."

I glance down in shock at my hand, where the pirate's thumb is softly tracing circles over the pulse.

"What did he want?" I ask him, my voice cracking and my hand trembling as I entwine our fingers together. I don't know why I do this; I just know that I want to.

"To have you," says Sparrow, very quietly.

I frown at him; clutch his hand even tighter. "I don't understand."

"Rape, sodomy, buggery... Call it what you like." Once again, there's a harsh bark of laughter. "I thought you were in the bloody Navy!"

I stare at him. "I don't-"

"Evidently!"

I sit in silence for a while, trying to digest all the new information. Sparrow, who does not seem to like silence, starts humming an upbeat tune in a jaunty, off-key kind of way. After a couple of minutes, he reaches for the flask of rum with his free hand and drinks deeply. "You see it's exactly what I said. You know, that night in the dungeons-"

"The Greek sin," I reply. "Men with other men." I can feel myself blushing furiously. "I had a dream..."

"Yes?"

"You and me. We, err, well we-"

"Ahhhh." The pirate exhales softly, his hot breath ghosting across my neck.

I look down at my right hand, tightly gripping his left and part of me understands. "The dream was good."

"Of course it was." Sparrow is not watching our hands but instead seems focused on the area of skin just under my ear.

"Can I have more rum?" I ask.

He hands me the flask; lets me drink by myself this time. "You hate rum," he says.

"I do." But I also know that I need the fire in my belly to do what I'm contemplating doing.

I hand Sparrow the now-empty flask. He lets it clatter to the floor and pulls me up so that I'm kneeling on the bed. He's still incredibly strong for his size. We stay still for a few moments. I still feel vaguely weak and dizzy and I have to hold onto him just to stay upright. He leans forward and whispers in my ear "forget what you think you know about me. You don't anything that you think you know."

He makes me look at him, right into his eyes, which are darker and deeper than I remember. Then he moves forward once more and slowly –and by God, I'm shivering- places a kiss on the exposed skin under my ear before biting down gently. And God help me, I moan as the pirate moves up my jawbone, kissing the skin softly.

It's nothing like my dream was. Sparrow is being so tender and so loving and still I turn my head as he makes to kiss me on the lips. "I'm a man of honour," I breathe. My last piece of resistance.

"So am I," he murmurs. "In me own way..."

It's not a lot but it's enough. I turn my head and kiss him properly and somehow laugh into the kiss because I never imagined that his beard would tickle as it does.

Tbc...