Author's Note: Chapter 19 has apparently been delete by FanFiction but this work is repeated on ArchiveOfOurOwn or Ao3 as it's sometimes called. The name of the story is the same, Golden Age Pirate as is my handle of RaiderWolf. Sorry, but that's the way this ball bounces.
Author's Note, Supplemental: I've reuploaded the chapter without the words and it shows to be there, hope it stays there.
Chapter 20 – The Sad Tale of Rapunzel Corona
1638
"Rapunzel Corona"
I sat alone in the nearly bare room they gave me, waiting for Flynn to come. I knew he would, he had to. He loved me. We were betrothed and he had my father's, the governor of Saint Martin's, permission to do so. He just couldn't leave me to these pirates that had kidnapped me from my home.
The sound of my door being unlocked drew my eyes to it. The pirate in charge of that place was a woman, which surprised me. They called her Mother Gothel, as she loved to raise young boys into pirates. She was getting on in her years even then, but she still had hundreds of men who were loyal to her. Men, she had told me when I arrived, who were used to her bringing young women back to use for their 'pleasure.'
The way she had said that last word had sent chills down my body. I was sure it wasn't something good, not with the evil way she smiled as she said it, then looked down at my petite body and long golden hair that I was capable of standing on and pulling back up to my chest. As she left, she had locked my door and left me nothing but a barred prison window to look out of, but there was nothing to see but trees. I wouldn't know when Flynn came until he unlocked that door.
As I sat on the bed, it was my hope that it would be Flynn to come rescue me, but the door swung open to reveal Mother Gothel with one of her young pirate boys behind her. My hopes dashed, I collapsed in on myself as I wondered what she wanted with me.
"Come, Rapunzel," she said, extending her hand to me. "I have a surprise for you."
"What is it?" I asked her, standing and looping my long golden braid over my shoulder like a baldric to keep it out of the dirt.
"Come and see," she said, taking my arm and walking me back outside.
I was worried that it might be some gruesome entertainment as the pirates seemed to love torturing and hanging people who crossed them, or so I'd been told as I'd eyed the gallows on my way in. Now as we walked back out the door, I could tell that's where we were headed as several hundred men seemed to be gathered around those gallows, then one man who was bound with his hands behind him was forced up the stairs to be their 'entertainment.'
I could still tell that much from where I was, but as Mother Gothel led me closer, I lost sight of the man on the gallows in the sea of taller men and their big hats. It was only as we arrived at the foot of those gallows that any hope that Flynn was coming to rescue me were completely dashed. He was bound, both hand and foot, on the gallows platform as a large graying haired pirate fitted him with a noose.
"It seems you had a caller," Mother Gothel said, her voice light and cheerful as she gestured to Flynn. "He wasn't so nice as to announce himself and killed several of my men. Murder is a crime even on the mainland, punishable by hanging."
"No," I said, not wanting any of this to be true. Flynn couldn't be captured. How would I escape? "You can't do this!"
"I can, and I will," Mother Gothel said. "I am willing to overlook his crimes and send him on his way but you must give something back."
"What do you want from me?" I asked her just wanting to go home already. If Flynn was alive, maybe he could come back again.
"Your hand in marriage," she said cheerily, and my mouth fell open from the shock.
"You want me to marry you?" I asked her as she ran a finger under my chin to close my hanging mouth. I couldn't believe she wanted me to marry her, it was so wrong.
"Not me, my dear," Mother Gothel said, then nodded to the graying haired man coming down the gallows steps.
"That honor would be mine," he said, coming to stand over me as my eyes barely reached the top of his chest and forcing me to look up to him as he loomed large over me.
"No, you can't," I said, trying to get past him and up the steps to Flynn. Dozens of arms suddenly grabbed me from behind, and I was pulled back the one step I had taken and held so solidly I could do nothing but dig a hole underneath me. "Let me go!"
"Now, now, Rapunzel," Mother Gothel cooed, smiling at me as I struggled to get free. "You can't hope to best three hundred men alone when your betrothed here couldn't. Now, what shall it be. Shall you watch Flynn Ryder hang, or shall you marry Cecil Clayton?"
I looked back up at Flynn, seeing him gagged there and the horror on his face with that stupid bit of putty still on his nose as he watched. All they had to do was yank that lever, and Flynn would die. "Promise me he goes free," I breathed, unable to believe the choice I was making but only thinking that if he were alive, he might come back and free me, marriage or not.
"Certainly!" Mother Gothel shouted, as everyone cheered. A pirate behind Mother Gothel handed her a large black book and it was only as she held it out in front of her that I saw it was a Holy Bible. "Now, both of you place your hands on the Bible, no need to be heathens about a thing like marriage."
I placed my hand on the heavenly tome, fear gripping my heart. Why make us marry on the Bible like this, unless, and then it hit me. It was to make me swear on God's Holy Word that I would take Clayton for my husband, and swear off Flynn for as long as he lived. Looking up at Flynn, I had no doubt that Clayton would die as soon as Flynn returned, so I had to be his wife only till death parted us. But if I didn't, the knowledge that Flynn would die kept running through my head. He couldn't die. He couldn't.
Clayton placed his hand on top of mine, and Mother Gothel started the marriage ceremony. "Good people, we are gathered here today to join my Quartermaster, Cecil Clayton, to this woman, Rapunzel Corona. Cecil Clayton, do you take Rapunzel Corona to be your wedded wife, foregoing all whores and the plunder of any women we take as slaves, to love and cherish, till the day you gasp your last?"
"I do," he said, and my heart beat faster. I looked up at Flynn, seeing him squirm and try and break free, but he could barely move his arms.
"Rapunzel Corona," Mother Gothel continued on, "Do you take this man to be your husband, to love and cherish him, giving yourself only to him and to carry his babies, forsaking all other men for as long as you both shall live?"
"I do," I said, feeling as if I was betraying Flynn by saying those two words and saving his life.
"You may now kiss and seal the deal," she said, and I faced the man I would now call husband and felt a tear in my eye.
Clayton leaned over, taking me in his arms to make me feel small and insignificant, and pressed his lips to mine. I returned the kiss as if I were kissing my father, but Clayton pressed me into him and held me there, his jaw working over mine. When he let me go, I couldn't help but feel sullied, but he was my husband, I reminded myself. I was his, and I felt a tear run down my cheek at the thought.
"See dear," Mother Gothel said, as she tossed the holy tome to a man behind her and wrapped me in her arms. "It wasn't so bad. You're one of us now. Which leaves your formerly betrothed."
I turned to see them cut Flynn loose, but only one person was on the platform with him, and his hand was still on the lever that operated the fall gate. "Drop him," Mother Gothel said coldly and the man gave a yank on the lever.
I could do nothing as the gate dropped out from under Flynn as he fell through into empty space. For a brief moment, I thought it might have been some cruel or sick game and the rope wasn't secured and this was just for their own sick fun. But the rope jerked taut with a twang, and the noose tightened on Flynn's neck to make his eyes bulge and gasp for air.
He began to jerk, struggling to free himself, and I could only fall to my knees as he failed. The roar around me as he struggled only intensified as he finally stopped kicking, and I placed my hands over my eyes to block out the horrible sight. He was dead, and I was married to a pirate.
"Why?" I choked out, and I felt a warm light arm around my shoulders.
"He would only have come back again and again and again to rescue you," Mother Gothel told me, her voice low but easily heard over the loud cheers around us. "You can't truly belong here as long as you hold out hope for him, and that wouldn't be fair to your husband now would it?"
"No," I said, hating to agree with her. I had been hoping he would rescue me, but now?
"Good," she said cheerily, giving my shoulders a squeeze. "We have a feast prepared and then you can have your wedding night."
The rest of the day was a pretty much a blur as I was forced to attend my own wedding reception. I just wanted to go to bed, but somehow, the thought of bed squeezed my heart tighter in my grief. I couldn't eat as I didn't feel hungry and the drink they gave me tasted bitter in my mouth. Everyone time I looked up, though, all I could see was Flynn hanging from the noose where they'd left him hanging.
Soon, darkness crept over the trees, but the partying showed no sense of dying down. Torches were lit around the clearing, illuminating everything but the torture area clearly. It was the first time I could look up without seeing Flynn, but all I saw now was the path the torches made from our table to a small building, Pirates and women who wore hardly anything at all lined up along the torches, but not a person stood in the path created.
"It's time, my dear," Clayton said, taking my arm and slightly lifting me to my feet.
I rose, mostly as I was numb to what was going on, and he led me down the path. Mother Gothel opened the door for us as we got closer, and I could see the bed lit by candlelight inside. Fear turned my gut, and tears stained my cheeks as it dawned on me that I was about to be 'known' and start creating life for my husband.
"No," I whined, and tried to pull away from the man.
"Look boys," Clayton yelled, yanking my arm to pull me close to him. I spun, trying to get away, but his strong arms wrapped around me, and lifted me off my feet. "She finally wakes up!"
"Think maybe I should help you get her settled down?" Mother Gothel said as I squirmed to get free.
"You can't do this!" I shouted, my brain finally starting to work even after feeling numb all day. "You killed him! You said he'd go free if I married Clayton and you killed him! This marriage is off!"
"I think maybe you should," Clayton said, carrying me to the door. I braced my legs against the door frame and he only chuckled as Mother Gothel hit me under my knees with an arm. My knees buckled and Clayton forced me through where he dropped me onto the sandy floor as Mother Gothel closed the door behind her. "She's going to be a fighter."
"They all break in time," Mother Gothel said as she lowered a bar across the door. "Now, you want me to hold her or do you want to do it?"
"You hold her," he said, reaching down to yank me to my feet. I tried to get away, but my feet only dug into my skirt and I heard the fabric tear. In the moment I needed to get my dress out of the way, Clayton found my arm and pulled me upright, before spinning me to face Mother Gothel who grabbed my wrists, though she held my wrists with her arms crossed.
"You need to face your husband for this," she whispered, raising her arms and uncrossing hers, which crossed mine and spun me to face my husband, now with my arms above and behind my head with my chest sticking out.
"Been some time since I done this," Clayton muttered, as he began untying the front of my dress. The knot slid apart, and he began to tug the string free.
"You just need to loosen it," Mother Gothel said from behind me, a touch of scorn in her voice. "Her neckline is loose enough you can slip it down off her."
"No," I whined, as Mother Gothel twisted my arms around so they were now held behind my back. With my dress loosened, Clayton raised his hands and began forcing my dress off my shoulders. I couldn't help but feel as if it betrayed me, as the fine cloth slid off my shoulders. I gasped as the cool air slid across my skin as my dress was lowered, revealing my body to the man.
"Such pale, pretty skin," Mother Gothel cooed in my ear as the dress revealed my bosom to the room. I couldn't help but cry as the string was jerked at again so Clayton could slide the dress over my hips. Eventually though, the dress was slipped to the floor as Mother Gothel let go of my arms and the dress fell , which left me in nothing but my pantalets. The light, material was nothing though, and soon joined my dress on the floor.
"Exquisite, isn't she?" Clayton asked as Mother Gothel held me now by the shoulders to face my husband. I covered my bare chest with one arm, and used my other to try and cover my lower half, but neither did anything to cover all my exposed skin.
"Quite," she said, moving behind me. "Come Rapunzel, join me on the bed so your husband can remove his clothes.
I moved dumbly away, backing up and almost tripping over my dress. Mother Gothel pulled my arm and I fell onto the bed where I backed up against the wall, still trying to hide my body.
"Rapunzel, didn't you ever learn not to wear shoes to bed?" she scolded, then reached down and undone the snaps and tossed my shoes off the bed.
I was truly naked now, and could only watch in horror as Clayton stripped his clothes off in front of me. What drew my attention was the large meat pole that stuck out from his body as he lowered his trousers to the floor. It was so odd, and so large that I couldn't help but notice it.
Mother Gothel caught my gaze and gave me a light pat on the thigh. "Magnificent, isn't it?" she said, as Clayton used his hand to rub the thing, making it bigger and stick out more. "You're so lucky to get a real man on your wedding night."
The words didn't sink in until Clayton started to climb on the bed where he reached out and grabbed one of my legs and pulled me away from the wall. I tried to crawl away, but Mother Gothel put a hand on my shoulder and held me, while Clayton started to climb in between my legs. I closed them tight, refusing to open them even though Clayton tried.
"Now, Rapunzel," Mother Gothel cooed, her hand running down my shoulder and over my breast. "Open your legs for your husband. He has territory to conquer."
"No," I told her, feeling her hand move and caress my right nipple.
"Open them," she said, her light cheery voice darkening. I shook my head, then she began pinching my sensitive nipple. My breath caught as pain flared through my chest, but I held them closed. Soon she relaxed her grip and I caught my breath as she dug her fingernails into my nipple. The pain was a thousand times worse, and I screamed, finally opening my legs to Clayton. He climbed on top of me, spreading my legs with his body as he crawled on top of me, forcing me to look at his chest hair.
Mother Gothel finally let go of my nipple, and Clayton began to fondle my bosom, his meat pole rubbing again the hairy spot between my legs. There was nothing left to do but try to push him off of me, but I no sooner got my arms up to push him off than Mother Gothel grabbed my arms.
When Clayton removed his hands from my bosom, and began to shift over me, I briefly hoped it might be over. I was wrong though, as I felt his meat pole, which was somehow both hard on the inside with a soft outside, press into my hairy area.
"What?" I gasped, as it all felt so unfamiliar and strange. It was wrong, and I wanted it to stop.
"She's so tight," Clayton said, then spit into his hand as he adjusted his position on top of me. He used his spit on hand to rub his meat pole, and I took the opportunity to get my arms between us. Mother Gothel grabbed my arms, and twisted them above my head, leaving me defenseless.
"Noo," I moaned, as Clayton started to press his meat pole back into my hairy place. He pressed it in, and I tried to twist and squirm away as it burrowed its way into me. He was too close, too strong to stop or push away, and I could only howl as he pressed into my being.
With a howl of pain, his meat pole slid inside of me; it's feeling of burning hot skin completely at odds with my insides. As it burrowed deeper, something inside me suddenly resisted his burrowing. Clayton scooted closer, leaning over the top of me as tears ran down my cheeks. His meat pole hurt my insides and around my hairy place, and there was nothing I could do as he started to pull it back out.
"If she were any tighter," Clayton grumbled over me, as his meat pole slid in and out of my hairy place, "I couldn't get it in."
"Stop," I panted, finding it hard to breathe as he started to push it in again. I felt it hit my barrier, but Clayton gave a shove with his meat pole that broke it. Pain flooded my hairy spot, so intense that I was forced to scream.
"Hold up," Mother Gothel said, and Clayton stopped his meat pole from burrowing deeper into my insides. I felt Mother Gothel's hand as she rubbed her finger around my hairy place, then brought it up to where I could see. It was blood; bright crimson red that I could feel seep out of my hairy place. Clayton had wounded me, and it made me cry.
"Say goodbye to your innocence, young lady," she said, wiping the blood on my still sore bosom.
"Goodbye," I breathed as Clayton began to burrow his meat pole deeper into me. Every bit of it was intense pain, and every bolt of pain in my lower area made it harder to breathe.
With Mother Gothel holding my arms above my head, I had nothing to stop Clayton from burrowing his meat pole until he had forced it all into me. When he had, he began to pull it out, making it happen in one motion, then in another forced it back in again. It was what he seemed to want to do, as he began moving it back and forth within me, making my bosoms bounce on my chest with the force of his burrowing in me, each time he seemed to somehow burrow deeper in my being and force the air out of my chest.
Soon, I was panting from his burrowing so deep and fast in me. The pain seemed to lessen as he continued, or maybe I was getting used to dying. It was all too different, the burrowing seemed to be making a path into my being, touching something in my soul as he began to 'know' me even though I wanted him out and off me.
I cried; for myself, for my beloved Flynn, for the child I was sure to produce. The longer he seemed to burrow in me the less I could breathe, until with a loud grunt, I felt something burning hot shoot out of his meat pole and into my belly. Clayton held his meat pole deep within me, locking the hot stuff in me and sealing our beings together.
Mother Gothel let go of my hands, as she somehow sensed what had happened. Clayton himself lowered himself to the bed, his meat pole finally sliding out leaving his hot presence behind and an aching sense of loss in my hairy place. Sensing my chance, I got wobbly to my feet and bolted for the door, the pain in my hairy place making it difficult to bring my legs together even as the heat faded in my belly.
"Rapunzel," Mother Gothel called from the bed as I worked to unlock the door. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I'm not going to be with him again," I told her, finally lifting the bar off the door to make it open.
"Oh?" Mother Gothel said as I opened the door, stopping short as I saw the crowd outside. Having forgotten them, it shocked me in into being still. "So you'd rather be a common whore? Well, I'm sure there's a group of men just outside the door waiting for you."
There was indeed a group of men just outside the door, seven of them in fact. One of them had his meat pole burrowing in a raven haired young woman in a yellow dress with her blue top pulled open to reveal her bosom. The men didn't seem to notice me as they cheered their bald little compatriot on, each time he burrowed deeper in her hair place it made her bosom bounce, as Clayton had done me, but she made no sound. As I looked into her eyes she turned her head to look at me, but I saw no hatred there; just a blank stare.
As the man over her made a loud grunt, he got up off her and one of his friends fell to his knees to take the raven haired woman. She made no attempt to close her legs, and if it weren't for the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, I wouldn't know she was alive. The second man soon began to burrow in her, making her chest bounce as well, and her face was turned back to face her new man as he moved inside her.
I felt sick to my stomach, backing away a step and soon felt Mother Gothel's warm presence as I backed into her. She wrapped her arms around me, nuzzling my chin even as I watched the scene unfold in front of me.
"Is that what you want?" she asked. "To be taken by man after man, each one stealing the fire from you until you're like her? She doesn't enjoy it, not anymore. She'll lie there, allowing as many men to take her as want her. One day, one man will get her pregnant, and she won't know whose child she carries. Is that what you want?"
"No," I sobbed, feeling sorry for the young woman who lay in front of me.
"Then come back to bed," Mother Gothel said, shutting the door and the horrible scene out. "Clayton will be recovered soon, and you can ask him to be in you again, unless you'd rather be out there."
"No," I said, allowing Mother Gothel to turn me back to the bed. I walked back, and crawled back in beside the man who had taken my innocence from me, innocence that stained the sheets red with my own blood.
"Now, what do you say?" she said, as I lay back beside the man who had married me, a man I had put my hand on a Bible and swore to love and cherish. Flynn was dead, his body still hanging from the gallows, and I was the wife of the naked man I lay beside.
"Please, my love," I said softly, using the words my father often spoke to my mother instead of calling her by name.
Clayton stirred beside me, climbing back on top of me, though this time I spread myself for him. Clayton didn't spit into his hand this time, and instead slid his meat pole directly into me. I braced myself for the pain I had felt the first time, but instead my body accepted it, welcoming it back as it seemed to feel an aching, missing part of me.
"You're doing better, my dear," Clayton said, caressing my cheek with his hand.
"Thank you, my love," I told him, and he began to burrow his meat pole in and out of my hairy place.
The feelings of it burrowing into my being returned, and instead of fighting it, I allowed it. It still ached to take him deep into my being, but it seemed to lessen with each burrowing of his being. This was my life now, I figured. Cecil Clayton was my husband and would be until he died.
After seeing me take willingly to my new husband, Mother Gothel left us to be alone. After my husband wore himself out breeding me with his child, I fell asleep in his embrace with his seed hot in my belly. It wasn't until dawn and the light outside making the hut walls glow that I felt Clayton stiffen as if he were waking up and heard him grunt several times before relaxing, turning in the bed though, I got a shock.
"Come on Rapunzel," Eugene told me as he wiped his knife on the cover I cowered under. "We have to get out of here."
"My clothes," I told him, and he looked around and threw me dress. I pulled it on, forgoing anything else as I cinched up the chest while he looked out at the pirates.
"Just..." he said as he peaked in and saw me standing there barefoot and looking ready to bawl my eyes out. "Just stay quiet and follow me."
I nodded my acceptance as he opened the door and I followed him out the door, the young woman still laying in the sand in the same basic position I had last seen her in though now asleep. I looked for and found what I didn't want to find, Flynn still hanging from the gallows though my one brief look showed they had disemboweled him sometime in the night. Eugene pulled me along, getting me back into the woods and to the ship before anyone knew we were gone.
=o=0=o ***Colonel Owen Hunt, March 17, 1660*** =o=0=o=
"It took us two weeks to get back to Saint Martin," Rapunzel said as she ended her story. "And I knew I was pregnant with Clayton's child before I ever set foot on dry land."
"So you faked being crazy and the part about Flynn Ryder to have Eugene marry you?" I said as I put the last pieces together.
"A woman knows," Rapunzel said with a smirk. "He might not have ever said as much but since we first met I knew I had caught his eye, he just wasn't the type of man to court an intended woman. I bullied my father into allowing us to marry just as soon as we got back, but Eugene needed no extra encouragement to take me as his wife. No one ever suspected Maximus wasn't his and he tends to look like my father, but I see so much of Clayton in him that there's no doubt about who his father was."
"Why pretend to stay crazy, though?" I asked her and she looked down at her now straightened clothes having redressed ourselves during her long story.
"So Eugene wouldn't leave," she finally said, giving a hiccup of a sob. "I've been afraid for so long that he would, but he does take care of me. He gave me another wonderful son not long after Maximus was born, but there are times I can tell he doesn't want to be around me. His pained looks aren't hard to miss."
"Ever think that comes from pretending to be someone he's not?" I asked her pointedly and wished I had taken proper psychology when I was in college to better help her understand. What good did 'Marriage and the Family' do for me when I was such a flop with women? "Eugene told me he once carried on acting like Flynn for you, so that shows me he cares more for you than he lets on. Given that, he probably doesn't want to endanger you by trying to fracture your world view that he is Flynn but he's tired of pretending to be someone he isn't."
"So what should I do?" she asked me.
"Just call him by his name," I told her as I finally stood and offered her a hand. "Let him know that maybe somehow, someway, you finally see the truth and let him be who he is. You can at least take that much off his shoulders, even if you never tell him he only has one son."
"Thank you," she said as I pulled her to her feet. We embraced briefly before I escorted her back to the mansion, now dark in the waning hours of the night. Thankfully my night vision was excellent and I was able to steer a nearly blinded Rapunzel from the moonlit yard into and through the dark house without problem until we came across Eugene sitting in a chair with a three candle candelabra giving off a soft light in the ballroom, making me wonder if he hadn't just been sitting due to his bad leg and I hadn't seen him before we left.
"Rapunzel," Eugene said as he noticed the brown haired woman entering the room. I hung back in the dark hallway, allowing the two a moment as Eugene struggled out of the chair. I watched the two embrace, then as Eugene caressed her cheek when they broke apart. "I was worried about you. It's not like you to wander off into the dark."
"It's okay, Eugene," she told him and he wrapped his arms around her. With a tear threatening to make its glistening appearance, I wandered through the mansion and to the door to let the two have their time alone. As the old saying goes, this just wasn't my rodeo anymore.