Categories > Original > Fantasy
Dedication: for Lilith, if she still exists, for teaching me a lot about why I love pirates, but mostly for Chris: Master and Commander.
Finally, on that last weekend in May, warm weather had embraced Newfoundland, and I scrambled into my uncle's dory to escape everything--family, conversations, friends--and bask for a few precious hours. I had my current-favourite pen and my hardcover notebook. I had a paperback history of the province, and I had--though I felt slightly silly about having--a parasol, an actual parasol, which I had ordered for myself online but had felt too self-conscious to use in town. I had, in short, everything necessary for a deliciously unproductive day, and with the sunshine on my back and the parasol shading my face I underscored the productivity theme by promptly falling asleep.
Falling asleep alone in a boat, any boat, is a deeply stupid thing to do. They say there was a young girl once who ended up in St. John's because she'd fallen asleep in a rowboat in the Netherlands. I mean, you never know what currents will seize you. You'd think I'd be safe, in a wooden boat firmly tied up at the dock, but something must have come untied or unraveled, because I woke when the boat nudged up against land. I climbed out, thankful for my Tevas as I stood in the shallows, and dragged the boat onto the pebble beach. I felt like a prize idiot; chance alone had moored me on a tiny island, no more than five minutes across from the clearly-visible dock. Still, now that I was here, I thought I'd enjoy a spell on 'my' island before rowing home. I threw my Tevas into the boat (I'd rather be careful where I walked than have wet straps chafing my feet), grabbed my notebook and pen, and set off to circle the mini-island.
The far side of the island was sandy. I stood gazing out across the ocean to the far, flat, frightening line of the horizon, marveling at the out-there-ness, too contemplative--and, I suppose, still too drowsy from sun and sleep-to pay proper attention to quiet clicking, rattling sounds haunting the beach. Until a voice spoke, just behind me. "What have we here?" it asked, and I jumped and spun to face it, and then froze, my whole body chilled in the sunlight. Sun-bleached, bone-white, impossible--they stood in front of me, a horde of articulated skeletons, moving with horrible clicks and clatter to encircle me. Two seized me by the arms, and the mineral strength of their animate bones was dreadful. I whimpered. The one in front of me snatched my fanfiction notebook from the sand where it had fallen. It grinned at me, but that, my mind gibbered hysterically, was inevitable; skulls couldn't help grinning, could they? They were all grinning.
"Some punishments," the one in front of me said conversationally, "are most fittingly doled out on earth--it depends on the nature of the sin, you see. Greed, for instance--greed ties this crew to this land, because we coveted its riches." It was thumbing through my notebook as it spoke; I'd have shrieked with outrage in any other circumstance, but if I let myself start shrieking now I knew I'd never stop. It paused, the matte skull tilting as it read, the pits and pocks of long-worn bones clearly visible in the daylight, and then its jaw dropped slightly.
The empty eye sockets lifted to stare at me. "It seems your besetting sin is lust," it said, a terrible amusement in its voice, and my heart thumped in fear. It walked closer, reached one skeletal arm to lift my skirt; I struggled, but the two clutching my arms snickered and held me firmly. I shut my eyes, but there was no escaping the cool, hard, lifeless hand that pushed itself down into my underwear, or the fingerbone that fondled me, skillfully handling me, lightly rubbing the flesh on either side of my clit, darting back to teasingly enter me, swiftly returning to stroke my clit again, a butterfly-light but persistent, knowing touch. I was shockingly aroused in spite of my terror, or perhaps because of it. It was agony when the touching stopped and the bones withdrew; I opened my eyes to see why, and gasped, my eyes widening with awe, my spine stiffening in unconscious respect.
The figure that strode onto the beach, he--I presumed he--whose presence had caused the whole host of skeletons to fall silent and clatter themselves to attention, was gorgeously arrayed in a red, flared, gold-embroidered coat, a graceful foam of lace at collar and cuffs, a rakishly tilted hat perched on an extravagant wig of black curls. One gold canine tooth gleamed in its handsome skull. "Booty is mine, Smith," it remarked to the skeleton that stepped obediently back from me, "and I have a huge thirst." For a moment it towered over me and I stared up at it. Then it knelt in front of me, pulled a knife from its belt and cut away the sodden silk of my underwear, pocketing the scrap, and bent its skull to drink from me, gently pushing my willing legs further apart.
This time I kept my eyes open, fastened on the dazzling red and gold, and responded eagerly to the ghost tongue, crying aloud as I came. After all, he was exquisite, stylish, masterful--after all, he was a Captain...
Afterwards they released me, and I fled back to my boat, back to my real life, only later realizing I'd left my notebook captive. I wonder if I dare go back for it?
Finally, on that last weekend in May, warm weather had embraced Newfoundland, and I scrambled into my uncle's dory to escape everything--family, conversations, friends--and bask for a few precious hours. I had my current-favourite pen and my hardcover notebook. I had a paperback history of the province, and I had--though I felt slightly silly about having--a parasol, an actual parasol, which I had ordered for myself online but had felt too self-conscious to use in town. I had, in short, everything necessary for a deliciously unproductive day, and with the sunshine on my back and the parasol shading my face I underscored the productivity theme by promptly falling asleep.
Falling asleep alone in a boat, any boat, is a deeply stupid thing to do. They say there was a young girl once who ended up in St. John's because she'd fallen asleep in a rowboat in the Netherlands. I mean, you never know what currents will seize you. You'd think I'd be safe, in a wooden boat firmly tied up at the dock, but something must have come untied or unraveled, because I woke when the boat nudged up against land. I climbed out, thankful for my Tevas as I stood in the shallows, and dragged the boat onto the pebble beach. I felt like a prize idiot; chance alone had moored me on a tiny island, no more than five minutes across from the clearly-visible dock. Still, now that I was here, I thought I'd enjoy a spell on 'my' island before rowing home. I threw my Tevas into the boat (I'd rather be careful where I walked than have wet straps chafing my feet), grabbed my notebook and pen, and set off to circle the mini-island.
The far side of the island was sandy. I stood gazing out across the ocean to the far, flat, frightening line of the horizon, marveling at the out-there-ness, too contemplative--and, I suppose, still too drowsy from sun and sleep-to pay proper attention to quiet clicking, rattling sounds haunting the beach. Until a voice spoke, just behind me. "What have we here?" it asked, and I jumped and spun to face it, and then froze, my whole body chilled in the sunlight. Sun-bleached, bone-white, impossible--they stood in front of me, a horde of articulated skeletons, moving with horrible clicks and clatter to encircle me. Two seized me by the arms, and the mineral strength of their animate bones was dreadful. I whimpered. The one in front of me snatched my fanfiction notebook from the sand where it had fallen. It grinned at me, but that, my mind gibbered hysterically, was inevitable; skulls couldn't help grinning, could they? They were all grinning.
"Some punishments," the one in front of me said conversationally, "are most fittingly doled out on earth--it depends on the nature of the sin, you see. Greed, for instance--greed ties this crew to this land, because we coveted its riches." It was thumbing through my notebook as it spoke; I'd have shrieked with outrage in any other circumstance, but if I let myself start shrieking now I knew I'd never stop. It paused, the matte skull tilting as it read, the pits and pocks of long-worn bones clearly visible in the daylight, and then its jaw dropped slightly.
The empty eye sockets lifted to stare at me. "It seems your besetting sin is lust," it said, a terrible amusement in its voice, and my heart thumped in fear. It walked closer, reached one skeletal arm to lift my skirt; I struggled, but the two clutching my arms snickered and held me firmly. I shut my eyes, but there was no escaping the cool, hard, lifeless hand that pushed itself down into my underwear, or the fingerbone that fondled me, skillfully handling me, lightly rubbing the flesh on either side of my clit, darting back to teasingly enter me, swiftly returning to stroke my clit again, a butterfly-light but persistent, knowing touch. I was shockingly aroused in spite of my terror, or perhaps because of it. It was agony when the touching stopped and the bones withdrew; I opened my eyes to see why, and gasped, my eyes widening with awe, my spine stiffening in unconscious respect.
The figure that strode onto the beach, he--I presumed he--whose presence had caused the whole host of skeletons to fall silent and clatter themselves to attention, was gorgeously arrayed in a red, flared, gold-embroidered coat, a graceful foam of lace at collar and cuffs, a rakishly tilted hat perched on an extravagant wig of black curls. One gold canine tooth gleamed in its handsome skull. "Booty is mine, Smith," it remarked to the skeleton that stepped obediently back from me, "and I have a huge thirst." For a moment it towered over me and I stared up at it. Then it knelt in front of me, pulled a knife from its belt and cut away the sodden silk of my underwear, pocketing the scrap, and bent its skull to drink from me, gently pushing my willing legs further apart.
This time I kept my eyes open, fastened on the dazzling red and gold, and responded eagerly to the ghost tongue, crying aloud as I came. After all, he was exquisite, stylish, masterful--after all, he was a Captain...
Afterwards they released me, and I fled back to my boat, back to my real life, only later realizing I'd left my notebook captive. I wonder if I dare go back for it?
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