“Amelia? The whore you were with all last night?” Alaric asked.
“Don’t be throwing stones now. I saw you rushing off to that Devil Woman’s tent, you know.” Thomas leaned in closer. “Which, by the way, is something I’m going to need to hear all about. But not ‘till the morning. So, can you float me a little cash then?”
“Thomas, don’t tell me you’ve spent all of your take already.”
“No,” Thomas huffed. “Not all of it. I just…haven’t anything foldable, if you get me.”
“Fine. How much does this French Technique cost?”
“Should be safe with twenty,” Thomas said, shooting a quick smile at Amelia, who was chatting unconcernedly with Chastity.
“Twenty!”
“If I have any extra, I’ll give it back to you!”
“How much did you spend on this woman last night, Thomas?”
“Oh, and you’re telling me a mystery woman in a posh dress wasn’t at least this much? And Amelia tells me that the Red Lady has special talents, too.”
“Fine.” Alaric dug immediately into his pocket, causing his trousers to brush over his silk wrapped cock yet again. He was not allowing this conversation to go any further. He was not explaining anything he liked about visiting Anisette to Thomas. And if Amelia was too occupied to talk to Thomas about Anisette’s “special talents”, so much the better.
“You keep the whole twenty, and in the morning we’ll go through what you have left of the booty for a repayment. All right?”
“Ah, Buck, you’re a true friend. You know, I think Chastity still has her eye on you, if you’ve got the cash or the energy left.” He jerked his head in Chastity’s direction, but Alaric didn’t even look over at the woman in blue, or her cold, fake smile.
“That’s the last of my cash, I’m afraid. Enjoy your taste of culture. I’ll see you back on the ship.”
“Thanks, Buck. And tomorrow, you and me. A gentleman’s chat.” Thomas slapped Alaric hard on the back, waved the cash at Amelia, and rushed back to her.
Alaric continued his agonizing walk back to the ship, which awarded him more time to think than he felt a man needed.
Handing those bills to Thomas had made him realize he hadn’t paid Anisette a cent yet. That wouldn’t have worried him so much after the first night, considering she never touched him and didn’t so much as undress. But now that she had actually done something to him, Alaric was worried about what she had meant when he asked her the price and she simply replied, “You.” But he was significantly less worried about that than he was about how he was going to survive until sunset tomorrow when he could feel her hands around him again every time he moved. He was also a little worried about why he enjoyed what she did to him as much as he did.
He knew what “The French Technique” was. Tosser had mentioned it once and later that day, Alaric had accidently walked in on Tiv and Tosser right in the middle of it. It was a service prostitutes often provided, where they would put your cock in their mouth. It was supposed to be incredible (though Alaric had never heard of anyone paying twenty pounds for it), and it was very much what the men on the ship thought of when they thought of prostitutes. Several times on the way to the carnival, the other pirates held discussions about the types of pleasures they would like to take part in before they took back to the air. Putting on a show and not even being touched was not on anyone else’s list.
Alaric would have to make up something to tell Thomas, because there was nothing that could possess him to tell Thomas the truth: Anisette had just watched him, told him when he could and couldn’t touch himself, told him whether or not he could come, and then had tied him up like this. Wrapped his cock up like a gift to herself.
Or that he loved it.
Anisette made demands on his body, but not on him. She told him how to perform, not expected him to know how already. She looked on him in lust as no woman ever had. No woman had looked at him at all in his former life. The Chinese girl had looked at him as an obligation, and Chastity, for all her false flirting, looked at him with nothing more than hunger for his pockets.
He wasn’t a disappointment to Anisette. She petted and praised him, and while he would never admit it to his compatriots onboard The Revenge of the Saint Mary, he was desperate to return to her tomorrow night, show her his obedience and earn whatever reward she offered him.
Alaric finally came to the ship, greeted Jimmy and Tosser, who were standing sentry, and returned to the crew’s quarters. He peered around as he entered, surprised to find them almost empty again. Tiv was gone tonight, though Ollie was still in his hammock, pulling at his pipe. Alaric threw himself down into his own hammock and stared up at the ceiling, trying not to think about what kind of reward Anisette might allow him tomorrow.
He wanted to touch her as he had never wanted to touch any woman in his life. This day and night of distress would be worth it just for a kiss. Hopefully kissing her hand hadn’t upset her. He had felt compelled by something outside himself to do it, and it had seemed so unavoidable at the time. But it had certainly not been within the rules of doing only what, and everything that, Anisette told him to.
It occurred to him Anisette had never forbidden him to touch himself between taking his leave tonight and his order to return tomorrow. She had only forbidden him from removing the little cage of ribbon.
He held his breath, unable to shake the feeling he was disobeying, and looked over at Ollie, whose glassy eyes indicated he had already chased the dragon too far to notice anything Alaric was doing.
Alaric unbuttoned his trousers, slipped his hand down underneath his fly, and began pulling at himself. Not even a few pulls in, the other side of Anisette’s challenge became apparent. As he grew hard the silk woven around his cock became punishingly, painfully tight. It was uncomfortable enough to make him stop in the hope he could return to soft and escape her possessing, phantom grip. But it was still enough like her hand around him that he didn’t want it to stop. He gritted his teeth and tried just rubbing the bare head of his cock. The tease was only frustrating, not bringing him any closer to satisfaction, and only made the ribbon even tighter. He groaned, but choked the sound off as he heard footsteps and drunken laughter above him on the deck of the ship.
Alaric rolled onto his side, away from the entrance to the crew’s sleeping quarters and waited for a moment, but no more footsteps followed.
He replaced his hand on his cock and squeezed, looking for some way to power through the discomfort enough to come, or to make it painful enough to lose his erection. Having his compatriots find him with his hand down his trousers would be embarrassing, but he wouldn’t survive lying here trying not to touch himself as they stumbled around, nor would he survive them seeing what he wore around his cock.
He tugged at himself harder, whimpering as the sensation, the desperate pleasure spiked with pain, got worse and worse. Footsteps, this time accompanied by the drunken baritone of the Captain yelling out his favorite sea shanty, sounded overhead.
Panicking, Alaric rolled onto his back, turning his head toward the door so he would see anyone coming down the ladder to the quarters, and fumbled for the knots at the bottom of his cock, brushing tauntingly against his balls. He tried to keep track of how the ribbons unwrapped, hoping he would be able to recreate Anisette’s work in the morning. The singing grew louder, and Alaric turned back to his side, spitting in his hand and tugging at himself furiously, conjuring image after image of Anisette’s masked face watching him. He felt the heat spread from his cock out along his body, like steam screaming through pipes, and burst weakly with a swallowed moan, just moments before someone started puttering down the ladder.
The pirates staggered around for a few moments. A large thump and a roar of laughter indicated at least one of them had fallen out of his hammock. Alaric did his trousers back up with one shaking hand, moving cautiously to avoid catching the eye of his sudden potential audience.
There were a few more thumps, a few
more gales of laughter and a couple more strings of song before the hold quieted, and a gentle chorus of snores started up.
Alaric reached down and scooped the discarded red ribbons off of the floor, tucking them into his pocket with trembling hands.
Chapter Three
Jane carefully pinned her little hat into her hair and self-consciously smoothed the brown cotton of her traveling dress before heading for the back of her tent, which, like all the other prostitute’s tents, was set right up against a little group of trees. She peeked her head out of the back flap of the tent. After being assured no one was around, she stepped purposefully out into the woods, far enough into the trees it would be hard to see her if anyone did step outside for some air, but not so far that her clothes or hair would suffer for it. She walked a wide loop into the woods and around to the gravel road which lead into the middle of the carnival, feeling utterly naked without her mask as she walked onto the carnival grounds. It had been years since Jane had gone out in the carnival during the day. She had seen everything in it too many times, and nothing ever changed.
She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She had never gone out after one of her men before, and while she could try to convince herself she was sick of reading in her tent, or that she wanted to check in on how Alaric was faring with the little game she had started last night, it was pointless to pretend. She just wanted to see Alaric. She had caught herself lingering over her plans for him tonight, picturing his rounded muscles and half mast eyes in higher color than was necessary, imagining the little noises he made in his throat, the high pitched moan he made as he came. She had even found herself humming along.
She was also interested, for the first time, in what one of her men was like outside of her little world. The feeling was disquieting. Alaric was quite a specimen, Jane couldn’t deny it, but perhaps after tonight she should let him fall by the wayside. She was still looking to retire, and she had little faith she could bring a pirate far enough under her influence to make him a possible candidate for a more permanent companion. Even if that pirate’s sweet and gentlemanly gesture had made her heart flutter like it never had before.
She strolled around the carnival, looking through all of the places one usually expected to find a pirate. She wandered into the wooden shanty on the other side of the grounds from The Row, where pirates were welcomed as either providers or smokers of opium, but there was no sign of Alaric. He wasn’t in The Traitor’s Head either. There was probably no reason to look for him along the midway of the carnival, where the palm, card, and rune readers staked their tents and parked their wagons. Everyone knew pirates were suspicious of having their fortunes told. However, there was no reason she couldn’t return to her tent through middle of the carnival, just in case Alaric was one of the less suspicious.
As she set her feet in that direction, she caught a sudden swell of white and grey out of the corner of her eye. It was a balloon, rising out of the woods on the far side of the carnival over the sky.
She watched, entranced, for a moment, expecting the other balloons to rise and carry the ship away, but the balloon just continued to rise by itself, until it seemed to be about half full, then it sunk down again. She set off toward the other side of the carnival, past the last few booths and tents out into a little grove of trees. She came most of the way up to the old fashioned ship before she was stopped by two barrel-chested pirates with broad, dumb faces.
“Wrong place to be, lady,” one of them barked.
Jane was suddenly reminded of the primary reason she didn’t go out into the carnival in the day, without the mystery of the night, her mask, and the rumor she was a demon behind her.
“Oh, my apologies,” she said, in a falsely bubbling voice. “I simply love dirigibles. What are you working on out here?”
“That ain’t no concern of yours,” the swarthier of the two pirates replied.
“Shove off!” the other hissed.
She shot them both the dirtiest look she could summon, but before she turned to storm off, she caught sight of one of the men on the deck, standing underneath the falling balloon, arms stretched out to catch it.
Alaric.
Alaric with his teeth clenched. Standing with his firm legs spread broadly. He looked down at her for a moment, his eyes flicking past her before the falling silk of the balloon fell into his arms. He ran his hand over it, pulled something from his belt, and touched it to the balloon.
"Oy! Get out or we'll take you out!”
"Tosser! Will you stop harassing ladies and get your lazy ass up here!" Alaric’s strained voice barked from up on the deck. “We’re damn near done with this one, and I’d like to eat at a reasonable hour!”
The ape in front of her froze for a moment, then faked a lunge at her, which Jane ignored, before he turned and headed back up to the deck, his fellow gorilla in tow.
So. Alaric, clearly showing the effects of her mark, was more than just another pirate.
Interesting.
And the major impediment to his leaving her and the carnival behind was falling away, patch by patch.
****
With several hours of sunlight left to the day, Alaric went out to find some peace. The crew had spent its entire morning working on finding and patching the holes their terrible landing had torn in the balloons. Each time they did this, Alaric worried a little more about how sudden their next landing may be. A patch, or even a hole, here and there wasn’t much to worry about, but each of the balloons was becoming pretty raggedy, and they were fast approaching the point where they would have to replace the balloons all together. Alaric had, in fact, tried to get the Captain to shell out for some higher quality silk while they were in China, but to no avail. They were patching the balloons that kept them from falling out of the sky with the same cheap silk a few of the crew members were currently out in the carnival trying to hock for booze money.
None of the pirates were particularly keen on departing from a safe area full of food, drink, and women, but the captain was on Alaric to get the balloons repaired as soon as possible. While the carnival was a great place to make money, it was not the place to resupply, and they needed balloon gas and provisions more than they needed to get drunk.
The repairs were going much faster than Alaric had anticipated. Unlike in America, when they’d had to repair both the ship and the balloons, Alaric had some help this time around. While Thomas was terrible with money and stupid around women, he was quite handy with a needle and thread, and Greyson had once apprenticed for a tailor. The damage wasn’t even as bad as he had expected it would be. One of the balloons had barely been impacted by its collision with a tree.
And then today, he himself had worked like a demon, desperate for some part of his body to not be touching silk. The guilt and worry over directly disobeying Anisette had eaten at him all night. After an hour or so working on the deck he had gone off into the woods to relieve himself, and been gone a suspicious amount of time as he attempted to recreate the complicated braid that Anisette had so easily worked around him. It looked about the same, but didn’t seem to be quite right. Instead of Anisette’s phantom grip it was an odd mix of uncomfortable looseness, with a bitter pinch that seemed to travel along the length of his shaft, biting him at random.
By the end of the day, Alaric had needed to get away from the grating voices of every stupid argument being held between the pirates, he needed to get away from the touch of silk on his skin, and he needed to go somewhere isolated, where he could take his mind off of everything.
Alaric wandered out into the trees, away from the carnival and his ship. After walking until everything was out of sight, he found a small clearing, basking in the warm late afternoon sunshine.
He pulled his sketchbook out of his satchel, and leaned against a small rock outcropping, attempting several positions before he found one that somewhat lessened the discomfort between his legs.
He opened the black leather cover and flipped through the pages. The f
irst few were all from his soul-sucking job in London. Mechanical drawings. Pipes and balloons and patterns and gears. A few ghoulish cartoons in the style of the penny dreadfuls depicted him and his foreman in various states of death and violence. Then after a few pages, they all became of the sea and sky. Birds flying. Trees and imaginings of the beautiful places he had heard of but hadn’t thought he would ever see.
Then the first one in color instead of charcoal. One of the first things he had bought for himself with his ill-gotten earnings had been a set of color pastels. Thomas had teased, but harmlessly. Alaric had never shown the other pirates his drawings. It wasn’t something he liked to show off. The first picture in color was a gathering of trees, a lot like this clearing. They had been in the dry and dusty American southwest for too long, and he had longed for the smell of plants. Of anything that wasn’t gunpowder and dirt.
There were a few drawings of the other pirates. A few of women, the occasional shop keeper or tavern matron whom he had actually met. A couple of imagined women. Some pictures of only beautiful imaginary faces, a few pictures of beautiful imaginary bodies. There were pages and pages of the girl from China, in various states of undress and with a myriad of expressions, most of which he had never, in fact, seen her wear. Alaric hurriedly flipped past them.
Finally he reached a blank page and pulled out his pastels.
All he could think of was red. Red light, red silk, red leather, red skin. He grabbed the red pastel and brushed it across the paper, shifting in discomfort again as the pinch in his binding moved.
A shimmer of red blossomed across the page. Red silk ribbons, running like streams across the page until they all poured into each other, turning into a balloon under his hands. He tucked the red pastel back into his box and took out a brown one, carefully laying in a brown carriage underneath the balloon, not unlike the box he had spent his last few of nights on top of, performing for Anisette like a dog in a ring. He picked up a green, a light yellow, and a flesh color and sketched himself in, leaning heavily against one side of the carriage, eyes trained on a blank space.
The Promise of Silk Page 4