Cross Bones

by Editor Anne Regan

  Sule opened his eyes again and looked at Olaf, who smiled back guilelessly and set the basket of bread on the nightstand.

  “Did you leave some heat for me?” Olaf asked, unbuttoning his shirt.

  Sule dragged himself out of the tub, feeling boneless. A twist of lust curled in his belly and buzzed through his veins as Olaf dropped his shirt on the floor, exposing his broad, muscled chest and stomach covered with a light dusting of blond hair. Sule dried himself with the bath sheet but kept staring as Olaf unfastened his trousers and let them drop as well, then finally untied the leather thong from around his plait and shook his hair free.

  Sule, more or less dry, laid the bath sheet over a chair near the tub as Olaf stepped into it and threw himself onto the bed, rubbing his hand over his own hair, which dripped onto the sheets. It had grown nearly long enough to tie back with a thong as well. When it was short, he knew it looked odd, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking a swing at Enrique, who’d called him “puffer fish” the first time he’d seen it.

  They didn’t talk as Olaf bathed and washed his hair, nor did they say anything after he had dried himself and crawled up onto the bed, until he picked up the leather thong and tied his wet hair up into a topknot.

  Sule snorted. Olaf looked at him curiously, and Sule laughed outright, saying, “You look ridiculous.”

  “Oh, really?” Olaf asked, and his grin was all the warning that Sule had before he was knocked back onto the bed and covered with two hundred pounds of cool, clean Norwegian.

  “I’ve been dreaming about this,” Olaf murmured into Sule’s neck. “Finally having you naked in a bed.”

  “Why do we need a bed?” Sule asked, wrapping his arms around Olaf’s waist and then sliding them down to his arse. “We do well enough on the ship.”

  “We can do better than ‘well enough’,” Olaf answered, sliding down Sule’s body.

  OLAF’S right, of course. He’s been right all along.

  HOT, wet mouth coming down over his prick, and as many times as they had done this, it still felt as good as the first time to Sule. He sighed, then laughed as his hands touched that ridiculous topknot, and he spread his legs wider as Olaf pressed a finger just behind his balls. Sule began to see the attraction of a bed in a room with a lock on the door—comfortable, room to lie down fully, no need to rush, no listening for people nearby. Olaf was moving slowly, lazily, as if they had all the time in the world, which was not strictly true; William wanted them back on board before nightfall, but that was hours away, and oh, Sule thought as Olaf worked his tongue, do that again.

  Olaf’s finger disappeared from that magic spot behind Sule’s balls, then returned, slick, and pushed back farther, sliding smoothly over Sule’s hole, then slipping into it. Sule gasped and jerked up into Olaf’s mouth. They had done this before, on the ship, but they’d used spit or the clear liquid that would drip from the ends of their hard pricks, neither of which had felt this good.

  Sule didn’t have time to ponder the difference; he was too busy shooting into Olaf’s mouth and clenching around his finger. His climax seemed to go on forever, and when he finally opened his eyes, Olaf was wiping his hands and mouth on the wet bath sheet.

  “Better, right?” he asked, grinning. Sule grinned back, nodding, and pulled Olaf down on the bed.

  He had never taken Olaf into his mouth before, but that combination of mouth and finger had been so spectacular that he was still humming with pleasure, and he went right to it.

  Olaf seemed to enjoy Sule’s efforts—strangled groans, hands fisted in the bed sheets as Sule licked and sucked, trying to mimic the motions that drove him mad when he was the recipient. He could tell Olaf was trying to keep his hips on the bed and was thankful for it.

  Sule hadn’t thought he would enjoy the act, despite the number of times he’d seen Olaf climax with Sule’s prick in his mouth and his own prick in his hand. But there was something exciting about having that heavy thickness in his mouth, the only part of Olaf that felt as warm as his tongue.

  Olaf took one of Sule’s hands and poured something on it—oil from the carafe. Sule slipped his finger into Olaf, heard him groan, and felt himself getting hard again. He rubbed against the mattress, finding what he thought was a good rhythm of hands and mouth, but after a few moments, Olaf pushed him away, breathless. “Wait. Stop.”

  A flare of anger burned away the pleasure coursing through his mind and body. “What’s the matter?” Sule asked, sitting up. He thought about how quickly he could be off the bed, into his clothes, out of that room.

  “I want you inside of me when I climax.”

  Sule blinked. Olaf was looking at him, smiling slightly, but Sule could see the nerves working in him. He nodded. “All right.”

  Olaf blew out a breath, then turned to lie on his stomach. Sule stared down at his back. In the light coming in through the curtains, he could see old scars that lay in nearly parallel lines. Almost like the scars on his own back.

  In a daze, he reached out, ran his finger down Olaf’s back. Olaf rumbled approval, bringing Sule back to himself. Questions and bad memories would have to wait.

  “Use the oil on your fingers, like before, but this time stretch me, open me up, but carefully. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.”

  Sule reached for the oil with hands that shook just a bit. He wasn’t sure he wanted to do this, but Olaf had asked, so he did want to do this. He wanted to know who the other men were who had fucked Olaf, who had beaten him—were they the same men? But he didn’t want to know. He wanted all these buzzing thoughts out of his head so he could concentrate and do better than “well enough”.

  He did just what Olaf told him to do, sliding his finger back into that warm, tight space, adding oil and another finger, moving slowly in and out until Olaf begged him to stop, rising up on his knees. “Now, please, Sule, inside me, now.”

  He couldn’t do it.

  The scars, the thoughts, they swirled in front of his eyes and inside his head, tearing away at his desire, softening his prick, and leaving him with the old simmering bitterness.

  Olaf turned his head. “Sule?” Sule shook his head. Olaf pushed himself up and sat back on his heels, then turned around and took Sule’s hands. “Tell me.”

  Sule had no idea where to begin. “How many other men,” was all he could get out.

  Olaf laughed. “Not so many. That’s why I needed you to be careful, to go slowly.”

  “Who did that to your back?”

  Olaf’s face turned serious. “My father.” Sule looked up at him, and Olaf sighed. “He caught me with another boy when I was sixteen. He beat me with a chair leg and threw me out of the house. Cold, even through that—all he said to me was, ‘Get out’. He didn’t even raise his voice.” Olaf cleared his throat, gave Sule a small, bitter smile. “I’ve been carpenting at sea ever since.” He rubbed his thumbs over the backs of Sule’s hands. “What else do you want to know?”

  “Do you always lie with black men?”

  And now Olaf laughed again. “No. You’re the first.” He put his hand on Sule’s cheek, then leaned forward and kissed him.

  SULE has never been kissed. He was too shy to talk to girls when he was twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen, and after he was enslaved, he was too angry to think about other people or any kind of affection. He’s twenty-five now, and up until a few seconds ago, he was still angry.

  OLAF moved his lips over Sule’s, toppled him back onto the bed, still holding one of his hands, and then kissed him again. Sule was almost as shocked as the first time that Olaf had licked his arm, but he caught on quickly, kissing Olaf back, opening his mouth to suck on Olaf’s tongue, sliding his own tongue over and around Olaf’s.

  Olaf’s beard rubbed against Sule’s, the soft hair on his chest tickling Sule’s nearly hairless one. Olaf tasted just like the breath that Sule had felt on his neck, his cheek, his mouth, every time they had met on the ship for their games.

  But it didn’t feel like
a game anymore. Olaf poured oil into his hand and stroked it onto Sule’s now hard prick, then moved onto hands and knees again. “Slowly, please,” he said, resting his head on his hands.

  Sule did go slowly, moving in and out with small strokes until Olaf’s passage was coated with oil and Sule was completely inside him. “Am I hurting you?” he asked for the fourth time since he had first pressed the tip of his prick into Olaf.

  “No, you’re not,” Olaf answered for the fourth time, and then added, “You certainly have a grand opinion of the size of your prick.”

  Sule would have laughed, but Olaf moved his hips forward, then pushed back, and all Sule could do was gasp. When Olaf moved again, Sule was ready and picked up his rhythm, sliding in and out of him, slowly and smoothly, over and over, until Olaf began to mumble and moan, reaching back to pull Sule’s hand off his hip and intertwine their fingers on the mattress.

  Sule could hardly believe how good it felt to be inside Olaf, but part of him also couldn’t believe how much noise Olaf was making. The man who had barely said two words his first two weeks on board, the man who would sit, smile, and drink his rum and water while everyone else hollered and shouted around a driftwood fire on the beach, was now moaning and pouring out a stream of words in what must have been Norwegian, because Sule couldn’t understand a thing he said.

  He did understand that Olaf was close, though, so he clutched their intertwined fingers more tightly, reached underneath Olaf with his free hand, and caught his hard, bobbing prick. One, two, three strokes with his hand, still slick with oil, and Olaf cried out, shaking, clenching around Sule’s prick, gripping Sule’s other hand so tightly that Sule would feel the bruises the next day. But just then he felt nothing but bliss, falling into his own climax, pouring himself into Olaf, who had collapsed onto the bed.

  Just before he fell asleep, Sule wondered what it would be like to have Olaf do that to him.

  WHEN Sule woke up, it was dark and quiet. He started to sit up but found he was trapped by something large and heavy thrown across his waist. It was an arm, attached to an even larger and heavier Norwegian who lay spooned up behind him, snoring gently, his naked body warm against Sule’s back.

  Sule lifted Olaf’s arm off, jumped out of bed, and ran to the window. The position of the moon in the sky told him that they were hours late returning to the ship. “Damnation,” he muttered and turned to shake Olaf, who simply rolled onto his back, dragging the covers with him. Sule stared at him, taking in the blond hair lit up like a beacon in the moonlight, the paleness of the skin on his chest and legs, the face that looked so young in sleep despite the beard. He knew he needed to wake him, they both had to return to the ship, but he was too caught up in the quiet beauty of the moment.

  And that was when he felt the difference, the change in him. He was quiet. The simmering anger that had been inside him for ten long years was gone. Even the lust that had recently replaced it was gone, leaving nothing inside him but a silent emptiness.

  It was awful.

  He felt his heart stutter, and he stumbled away from the bed. Snatching up his clothes from the floor, he dressed quickly and fled, bolting from the room, running down the stairs and out of the tavern, running through the town and all the way to the cove where the ship lay at anchor. He tripped as he ran across the sand toward the water, falling to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.

  He was still there when William rowed a boat out himself and helped him back to the ship. William suggested a trip to the sick bay, or at least to his own bunk, but Sule, having caught his breath, was wild. “I have work to do,” he said, pushing past William and immediately regretting his tone. He turned back to apologize, but William had already gone below, so he spun on his heel and went to find his inventory book.

  The run back to the ship had made his blood race, a good, familiar feeling, so Sule was doing as many physical tasks as he could justify to Josiah, the second mate, and the rest of the larboard watch. He was up the rigging, examining the wear on the lines, when he spotted something bright in the distance—Olaf, the moon shining down on his hair, returning to the ship.

  Sule’s heart began pounding again. He watched as Olaf boarded the ship, pulling a box of tools and a bolt of cloth up after him, and then looked up at Sule. They exchanged a long look, and Sule felt that quiet come over him again as he looked down into those brown eyes. Quiet and still and strange and terrible. He jerked his head away and climbed higher up the rigging, reaching for that anger that had kept him warm and alive for so many years. When he looked down again, many minutes later, Olaf was gone.

  THE next day, they weighed anchor and sailed farther north. The nights were getting colder, and Sule handed out extra blankets to the crew, trying not to remember what had happened near and on that trunk.

  A week had passed since they’d left Beaufort, a week during which Sule spoke to Olaf only when he had to, and Olaf didn’t speak at all, just nodded and did his job.

  The simmering had started up again inside of Sule, but it wasn’t anger or desire this time; it was guilt. Guilt for running out on Olaf without saying anything after that night in town, and for ignoring him as much as possible after that. Sule had never imagined that he could feel guilty for mistreating a white man, but he realized he had mistreated Olaf, who had been nothing but kind to him. More than kind; he had gone to great lengths to make Sule’s body sing. And it had taken a week without that singing to make Sule understand that maybe there was something worse than a silence that used to be filled with anger.

  THEY landed near Norfolk weeks later. There had been no raids at all, which, strangely, sat well enough with most of the crew, especially since they would be paid for delivering an almost legal shipment that William had negotiated in Beaufort.

  The men took turns going ashore as usual, and Sule went to ask Olaf if he would need a translator. Olaf shook his head, and Sule’s guilt began to burn.

  “I’m sorry I ran away that night,” he blurted, and Olaf’s head snapped up.

  “Why did you?” he asked.

  Sule shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know.” Olaf stared at him, then went back to planing a piece of lumber.

  Sule clenched his fists. What could he say? That he ran because his head had gone quiet for the first time in a decade? That he was afraid he’d lost himself, or his mind? He opened his mouth but all that came out was, “I hope that we can be civil to each other.”

  “Of course,” Olaf replied, not looking up from his work.

  Sule hesitated, then walked away. He didn’t know what he had expected from Olaf, but in that room above the tavern, he’d thought there had been some kind of connection between them, far stronger than just that of crewmates. Maybe he had been imagining things, or maybe he had broken that connection by stupidly running away from something good.

  WHEN it was Sule’s turn to go ashore, William sent Olaf with him. “You did well last time,” he said, clapping Sule on the back, “helping him get what he needed. I’m glad you’ve been able to get past your dislike of the man.”

  “He’s been fine,” Sule said between stiff lips.

  “Well, look after him again, will you?” And then William was off, talking with Mr. Mercy, the quartermaster, about another possible shipment of nearly legal goods.

  NEITHER Sule nor Olaf spoke as they were rowed to shore, and once they arrived in town, Sule asked again if Olaf needed any help. Olaf shook his head, and they each went their separate ways.

  Sule found the freedmen’s part of town and got a shave and then a meal. As he sopped up the last of his soup with a piece of bread while evening fell, he noticed a man across the room watching him. The man smiled and raised his mug. Sule shrugged, raised his own mug, and took a sip. He had just taken a bite of apple when the man sat down next to him. Jean-Paul wasn’t quite as dark as Sule, nor as muscular, but he had a quick smile and a way with words.

  They had a drink together, and then Jean-Paul glanced
over at the door of the inn in a way Sule instantly recognized. Heart pounding, he paid his bill, waited while Jean-Paul did the same, then followed him outside and around the back of the building. Here was a chance for his body to sing again.

  But as soon as Jean-Paul touched him, it felt wrong. Wrong hands, wrong mouth. Sule tried to pull away, but Jean-Paul grabbed Sule’s hand and pushed it against the front of his trousers, pulling at Sule’s shirt and muttering in French against his neck. Wrong language.

  Sule pulled his hand away and gave Jean-Paul a shove, knocking him back a few feet. Wrong size, wrong weight. “I changed my mind,” he said, turning and hurrying back toward the street while Jean-Paul shouted something after him in French. He stepped around the corner of the inn and ran right into someone coming from the other direction.

  “Sule.”

  “Olaf? What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you. Mr. Mercy found me, said we have to go back to the ship, now.”

  Before Sule could say anything, Jean-Paul came strolling up behind him.

  “Is that what you’d rather have?” he asked, looking Olaf up and down. “White meat can be tasty once in a while.” He laughed and threw an arm around Sule’s neck.

  Sule shook him off. Grabbing Olaf by the elbow, he hurried them away from the inn.

  “Why do we need to go back to the ship?”

  “I think he was saying that the captain’s got a new agreement, and they need all hands to load the cargo.”

  Sule nodded. They walked quickly back to the place where the boat had set them ashore and waited to be taken back to the ship.

  “You might want to straighten your clothes before you go back,” Olaf said, scanning the water.

  Sule looked down and saw that his shirt was halfway out of his trousers. He swore and tucked it in, then took a deep breath.

  “I want to let you know, nothing happened back there.”

  “Why do you want to let me know?” Olaf asked, turning to look at Sule. “It’s your body. You can do what you want with it. I don’t care.” Then he turned back toward the sea.