For anyone who thought I'd fallen asleep for twenty years - I'm still here!

This story is M. Yes.

Buccaneers

Part 1

I was an alert and responsive baby, so my parents repeatedly told me. I was inquisitive and advanced as a child. As a teenager I became challenging, and by young adulthood had progressed to impossible.

Now in my twenties I was facing disinheritance, my mother and father having given up their indulgence. There was much wringing of hands, accompanied by stiff-upper-lip utterances and grave pronouncements as to what befell well-born young men who succumbed to vice.

These were not entirely unwarranted as I had, in fact, succumbed to vice. Parental expectations had been too burdensome a load for my shoulders all these years, and the discovery of opium and whores had been a welcome diversion. In my younger days, while still earnest, I'd performed exceptionally well at school and was headed in my father's footsteps for medicine, at the very least. But my serious Pater had two decades ago chosen a Beauty to marry and breed from, and I had had the uncertain fortune of inheriting a face and body that both women and men swooned over. At school the masters either hated me or flattered me, in direct proportion to the accord they reckoned my attractiveness and my father's wealth was due. Some of them were Fairies, and these fawned on me to a degree that was sickening. I had no regard for men whatsoever, and was more than delighted when the scullery maid, sweet Charlotte the harlot, introduced me to the globes of pleasure and grove of treasure that was womankind.

So, profligate, I emerged from school with barely an educational credit to my name. Money I despised, in those days. I had enough of it to cover a bed in golden coins and sleep in the discomfort. I could ask for it in banker's notes and roll around on the floor in them, if I so wished. Indeed, I did that, with dear Charlotte, and with other girls I met on street corners and in public houses, and took to the lodgings my father paid for near the university.

It was a miracle I hadn't contracted the pox, and hadn't sired an army's worth of progeny, with the number of times I had found my release in the arms of a woman, or behind one.

Despite my dismal academic performance, my entrance to university had been approved, and I had rarely gone, spending most of a year or two sleeping the day through and spending nights lounging on my back on cushions with a hookah pipe between my teeth. There was more to be learned meandering through my own mind than through dry textbooks, listening to some dour professor reciting facts for those of the population who would repeat them, parrot-fashion.

Other nights had been spent in other pursuits. I enjoyed frequenting taverns and listening to wild music played on the flute and fiddle, and I loved tales of sea serpents and whales, mermaids and pearls. When I heard there was employment to be found on vessels in far away waters, stealing from the Spanish, I pricked up my ears. I imagined swordfights against swarthy opponents, clambering up rigging and springing back down to the deck to cuff a Spaniard about the ear - all for the glory of England.

On the day my father called me into his salon and expressed his extreme disappointment that I was a wastrel and an ingrate, instead of feeling shame I saw liberty looming.

"Edward, I have done everything I can for you," he said.

From his point of view, I could understand that this was true.

"You have failed to dedicate yourself to your studies, and instead have pursued a course of dissolution. I am afraid that irrespective of your placement in the best schools, with the best tutors, you will amount to nothing," he continued. "A young man has a degree of - curiosity - about some matters, I understand. Particularly those pertaining to women. I know the young ladies of our social circle will certainly not partake in the alleviation of that curiosity, and that before a man is married, it is as well that he is experienced in these matters, since his bride will definitely not be. A few visits to a certain type of premises for educational purposes are beneficial to a man. However, the frequency of your presence in brothels is not unknown to me."

I didn't really want a lecture.

"Furthermore, it has been brought to my attention that you have not only repeatedly visited houses of ill-repute, you have been observed in reduced states of fitness leaving opium dens. Edward, such pursuits take an enormous toll in more than one area. Your cognition, both short and long term, will be undoubtedly affected, and your purse will be greatly diminished. Alternate views of reality are seductive, but they come at a price. Addiction is costly, Edward, and will take a grievous toll on your health. You would be as well to desist from such activities immediately. Furthermore, I simply will not continue to fund them."

Funny how when you're but a lad, your father knows everything. Now that I had seen a few things, and had a few experiences outside of my home, I saw that my father wasn't half the expert and authority I'd always taken him for. I saw him as a dullard, who knew nothing but textbooks and phials, and medical apparata and bandages. If somebody fainted, or cut themselves, or swelled up mysteriously or developed spots, Carlisle knew what to do. While certainly useful, this seemed a narrow area of specialization when there was a whole world in all its variety and splendor right outside our door.

So he wouldn't fund me anymore?

Fine.

I loved the docklands where the ships pulled in. I loved the yelling, and the quick outbursts of hot violence and hotter love, where sailors punched one another and kissed women within seconds of either act. I loved the aromas that drifted from the ships' holds - exotic tea from lands further than I could imagine, and coffee from countries sun-drenched and mountainous. Even wilder were the fragrances I learned were from spices: cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Picturing the unknown origins of these powders was incredibly exciting to me. I thrilled to the sight of piled crates with their secret cargoes, and to witnessing all the comings and goings of the port, the embarking and disembarking of people seeking new lives.

There was a ship tied up, and she was jaunty and seemed to float a little higher above the waterline than the others. On a whim, I sidled past ropes and crew and ascended the gangplank and asked for the first mate.

"What would ye be wantin? I'm a busy man," he said sourly, appraising me with a negative glance. I was attired in the only clothes I had, which were finely tailored and finely woven, and perhaps the reason for his disapproval. I may not have looked like a seaman, but it had come to me in a flash - if I was to take a position on a ship, my father would be free of me, and I'd have a job that would give me both board and a wage. I wouldn't be mixing with the effete and dreary youths I'd been all through school with, and I'd have a real adventure.

"Employment," I answered.

The man snorted and shrugged. "Are ye stronger than ye look, lad?" he asked.

I'd played rugby and I'd rowed in school, and though I was as slim as my mother, I had both strength and endurance.

"Yes, I am," I declared. "When do we sail?"

He shook his head. "You're far too clean, and yer hands are too pretty for this life. But if ye insist, ye'll soon see. We sail tonight for the Windward Passage, and yer wage will be a gold coin if you're still alive when the ship makes it back to the King's England. Get up now and find Garrett, he's the quartermaster, and tell 'im Jim sent ye."

The deck moved only slightly beneath my feet as I went astern, looking for Garrett. I found him soon enough - a huge man with teeth missing and a gold ring in his ear.

"Well, hello there Pretteh!" he hooted, and men about him stopped what they were doing to look at me. "Will you be joining our merry company, then? Out to steal from the Spanish what they would steal from us? I'd like to hope you're worth more than your clothes, young Pretteh, I'd like to hope. Now roll your sleeves up and take a bucket. The deck needs a decent swabbing afore the afternoon's through because we like it to reflect the sunset. Don't we lads?"

Someone thrust a bucket at me, and someone else a mop, and thus I was occupied, failing to notice when we cast off and actually set to sea. All of a sudden, I looked up and the dock was receding, and my careless whim had become a reality.

My trousers were stolen from me the first night. They were woollen, and unlike anything anyone else on board was wearing. I was held down as they were pulled off, and then men fought over them, until they were so torn as to be unwearable anyway. What rough types were these? They cared not for my admonishments, and my pointing out the folly of their quarreling over the garments to the point that they were rendered unwearable. I slept fitfully in a hammock in my drawers, wondering whether I'd lose them as well.

Garrett roared with laughter when he saw me the next day. "The Pretteh has legs like a maid!" he guffawed, and I could have punched him on the jaw for that jibe, but I didn't. There is an order of authority at sea, and without it there is mutiny. A sailor on his second day aboard can hardly challenge the order when the rest of the crew may well have known one another for years. I held my tongue, and Garrett sent a deck hand to find me new trousers. They didn't fit, but a length of rope about my waist secured them well enough, and that was the beginning of my life at sea.

The first few days were hard, as I suffered greatly from motion sickness. I learned very quickly to have a bucket next to my hammock, as I found I had to clean up after myself. Wiping the floor of vomit on my knees even as I vomited anew was not an experience I was prepared to undergo twice. No-one was friendly to me, and hostile whisperings and mutterings followed me as I went about, attending to the endless scrubbing I had been assigned to. There was never enough to eat, and the water was brackish though we were so recently out of port. Even if we had fair sailing all the way, it would be weeks before we reached our destination, and I was already regretting my foolish and impetuous decision.

Looking back, those were the halcyon days.

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Pleased to be re-making your acquaintance, me hearties!

How much does it cost for a pirate to get his ears pierced?

A buck an ear!

Stay tuned for the further adventures of Pirate Edward!