My Pirate Lover

Finally, Josephine stood admiring her reflection in the mirror. The door behind her opened and Lance stepped inside.

  “Oh, Josie,” he breathed.

  Josephine smiled at him in the mirror then turned around to face him. “What do you think?” she asked.

  “If I told you what I was thinking right now you’d probably slap me, lass” said Lance, his eyes roaming over her.

  “Lance?” said Josephine, fiddling with one of the frills.

  “Yes, Josie?”

  “Do you remember when you told me that you’d never lay a hand on a woman without her asking you to?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well,” she raised her eyes to him. “I’m asking you to.”

  It had taken Josephine an hour and twenty-seven minutes to put on the dress. Lance had her out of it in ten seconds flat.

  They kissed passionately, but when Josephine wrapped her arms around him, he gasped in pain.

  “Lance, your back!” cried Josephine.

  “It will take more than a few licks of the cat to stop me loving you tonight, Josephine!” cried Lance. He swept her up and dropped her on the bed. Then he shed his own clothes as if they were on fire.

  When he joined her on the bed, Josephine squealed with delight.

  They all but devoured each other with lustful hunger.

  “Oh, Josephine,” said Lance, his voice hot and husky against the soft skin of her throat. “How I’ve wanted you!”

  Josephine wanted to tell him that she’d longed for him too but her vocabulary had been reduced to moans and sighs and when he finally took her, the wild, salty thrill of him completely took her breath away.

  #

  Josephine snuggled closer to Lance and sighed with drowsy satisfaction.

  Lace gave a satisfied sigh of his own and kissed the top of her head.

  “Do you want to join the party now?” asked Josephine.

  “No party could compare to laying here with you, lass,” said Lance. “Nay, I’ll keep you in my arms for just as long as I can.”

  With those words he squeezed her tight as if he’d never let her go.

  #

  Up on Ripple Thief’s deck, a small crowd braved the storm. They were there to help set up the Lightning Circle and to say goodbye to Josephine.

  Josephine was dressed in her jeans and t-shirt, which Lance referred to as her other-world clothes.

  Lance finally had the two Lightning Circles. He handled them as if they were explosive.

  “Be careful not to touch the glass,” he warned.

  “Why not?” asked Josephine.

  “There’s lightning about, lass. It activates the glass, see?”

  Josephine looked and gasped with surprise. The pearly surface of the glass was moving like ripples across water.

  “If you touch it,” Lance went on, “you might slip through into another time.”

  “How do you make them work?” asked Josephine.

  “You move the shadow on the sundial to set the time of day you want to open a portal to. And then to set the date, you twist the monster’s tongues and the little numbers on the dial move, see?”

  Lance was shocked to hear the year she came from.

  “Two thousand and eleven?”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” said Josephine. “I’m not a cyborg or anything.”

  Lance positioned one of the Lightning Circles on Ripple Thief’s deck and sent the other one out with some of his men in a longboat about fifty meters away.

  “What now?” asked Josephine.

  “Now we wait, lass.”

  They waited. Above them the storm wind whistled through the rigging and made the sails billow and snap.

  The air fizzed with electricity and lightning-- which they’d been waiting for-- flashed all around them. Josephine felt as though she was at a disco with strobe lighting.

  “What happens now?” she asked.

  “You’ll see, lass!” said Lance.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  A bolt of lightning suddenly veered off its downward path and hit the Lightning Circle.

  It should have smashed to pieces but instead it bounced off. Because the glass was tilted, the lightning shot off it at an angle back up into the clouds it came from.

  The rebounds from both Lightning Circles criss-crossed through the sky, flying past each other but never connecting.

  “What we want,” Lance explained, “is for two bolts to hit each other!”

  Not long after, two bolts collided. Sparks exploded and a big, fat lightning bolt plummeted straight down towards the water. It stopped and hung in the air as if snap-frozen.

  The bolt was in the centre of a beam of sparkling, white light, some seven meters across.

  Josephine’s eyes grew wider and wider as she watched a shape appear in the beam, just below the point of the lightning bolt.

  Josephine drew a sharp breath. It was Little Bounty.

  #

  Lance and Josephine boarded the waiting longboat and Lance took the oars. They made the trip in silence.

  When they reached Little Bounty, Lance tossed up a grappling hook. The rope stretched all the way back to Ripple Thief where his men were waiting for his signal. When he did, they pulled the rope, moving Little Bounty inch by inch until the bolt of lightning that was frozen above her was no longer going to hit her when it unfroze.

  “I dare not move her anymore,” said Lance, signalling his men to stop. “Or else they’ll pull her right out of the beam and she’ll fall into this time.

  That done, Lance pulled up the oars. He and Josephine just sat there, unable to look at each other.

  Until then, they’d had the technicalities of setting everything up to keep them distracted. Now the moment to say goodbye was upon them.

  “Don’t go, Josie,” said Lance suddenly.

  Josephine felt overcome by emotion. She shook all over, her heart pounded and her vision blurred.

  “I have to,” she said. “For Katie.”

  Lance nodded. “I knew you’d say that, lass, but I had to try.”

  “Come with me?” Josephine asked, eyes bright with hope as well as tears.

  “I can’t,” said Lance.

  “But you got the Lightning Circle and defeated Bloody.”

  “There are more Lightning Circles out there and there’ll be another Captain Bloody. I swore I’d find them all, Josie.” He paused and an ironic smile played across his lips. “Maybe if I left this world to go with you, the future would be different. You might be one of those cyborg things you mentioned.”

  “It’s incredibly arrogant of you to think you’re so important to the world,” said Josephine, smiling at the sight of him smiling. “But it’s also probably true. This world needs a hero.” Her smile faded. “So we both have our duty and it tears us apart.”

  #

  They climbed aboard Little Bounty. It was all exactly as it had been when Josephine was carried off by Bloody’s pirates. The passengers were all there, holding on for dear life and-

  “Katie!” Josephine made towards her niece but Lance held her back.

  “She can’t hear you, Josie.”

  Josephine’s eyes grew even wider. “That’s me,” she said. Josephine stared at her own body, crouched on the deck next to the unconscious skipper. “I, I,” she stammered. “There are two of me!”

  “I wish that I could keep one,” said Lance, turning her towards him.

  “But she doesn’t know what I know,” said Josephine. “She’ll just sit there on the floor and let Martin drive everyone right back into Captain Bloody’s beam. I’m different now. I’m not the woman I was before.”

  “I guess your world needs a hero too,” said Lance.

  They stood facing each other.

  “Goodbye, Captain Breakheart,” said Josephine.

  “Goodbye, Josephine of the other-world,” said Lance and swept her into his arms for one last kiss.

  Josephine had discovered that portals could transpo
rt people from one world to another. That was exactly what kissing Lance did for her. Just the touch of his lips upon her own transported Josephine to a place of red-hot desire and melting bliss, back to the most intimate moments of their night of passion.

  When they finally parted they breathed hard and their eyes burned with longing.

  The pure light of the beam sparkled around them, turning everything to silver and ice.

  It was pure agony to step out of his arms. Lance never took his eyes off her as he backed up, swung down from Little Bounty and took his seat in the longboat.

  He went further and further away from her with every stroke of the oars until he was out of the beam’s light, then he sat there, gazing back at her, his heart breaking at the loss of the woman he loved.

  The beam grew brighter. Josephine forced herself to move. She went to her body and stared at it.

  She sat down, into herself, taking the same position. She had pins and needles all over and felt as though she’d put on a bodysuit that was too tight. Now there weren’t two Josephines-- just one, crouched down next to the unconscious skipper.

  Josephine wanted to dive into the water and swim back into Lance’s arms but she forced herself to stay where she was. She had to save Katie. She had to at least try.

  One sound rose above the storm and gave her strength even as it broke her heart; it was Lance, calling out that he would always love her.

  #

  There was an explosion of white. The lightning bolt struck the water like a silver spear, narrowly missing its target. It scorched Little Bounty’s side and nearly capsized her with the wave it caused.

  Thunder boomed. Sheets of rain poured down at different angles and great waves rose up and dumped salty, foamy sea water on the little catamaran and her screaming passengers.

  It was very hard for Josephine, now that Katie was unfrozen and crying her name, not to go to her but Josephine held strong. She had a job to do.

  Josephine looked up. Martin Slackson was at the wheel.

  “Martin!” cried Josephine, still feeling somewhat jet-lagged from her travel through time. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

  “Don’t be stupid!” Martin cried back, as he continued to push, flick, and twist every control he could reach.

  Josephine gritted her teeth. She pulled herself to her feet and yelled above the storm.

  “Move! You’re going to get us all killed!”

  “Just shut up and mind your own business! You’re just a silly girl!”

  Josephine swung back her arm and slugged Martin in the jaw.

  “That’s Captain Josephine to you!” she yelled.

  Josephine stepped over Martin who sprawled on the floor with a hand to his jaw and his eyes bulging out of his head like Lenny’s.

  Josephine grabbed the wheel.

  She had only moments before Captain Bloody’s beam froze them. She tried to steer the catamaran away, back towards the shore but the wind fought with her, dragging them deeper into the heart of the storm.

  With a cry of determination, Josephine forced the wheel to turn. She felt as though her feet were welded to the floor; nothing was going to budge her from that wheel now.

  The storm gave one last attempt to drag them back. A swell rolled towards them, getting bigger and bigger until it rose like a mountain in front of them.

  The passengers screamed out that they were going to drown, surely that huge swell would reach its peak and break, tip the boat over and wash them all from the deck.

  Instead of trying to veer away from the mountain, Josephine powered on towards it.

  The only way to avoid flipping the Little Bounty was to meet the swell head-on.

  The swell burst up beneath them, throwing the catamaran’s nose into the air until she was almost vertical. For a few heart-stopping moments it seemed as though Little Bounty would flip backwards.

  Her nose tipped down again and she sailed through the air, a bird instead of a boat.

  Little Bounty crashed back onto the water, jerking her passengers around terribly but remaining upright.

  They were through the worst of it now; the storm was behind them and if Josephine could keep the catamaran on course they’d be okay.

  Still clutching the wheel, Josephine looked around to check on Katie and the other passengers.

  The grandfather or possibly father of the two naughty children was hugging them tightly, one under each arm while they cried.

  The elderly couple were embracing, exchanging words and kisses they thought they’d never be able to share again.

  Katie zipped across the deck and flung her arms around her aunt, and nearly bowled her over.

  “Oh, Katie,” said Josephine, wrapping one arm around the trembling girl. “It’s so good to see you, sweetheart!”

  “We’re alive! We’re alive!” cried Katie.

  “Of course we are,” said Josephine, ruffling Katie’s wet hair. “I promised, didn’t I?”

  #

  Some fifteen minutes later Josephine brought the catamaran into dock.

  The passengers of Little Bounty were shaken but escaped with only superficial injuries.

  One by one, they shook Josephine’s hand and thanked her for saving their lives. Josephine’s face reddened at all the attention but she tried to be gracious.

  An ambulance was called and Martin Slackson was lead away, spluttering about how Josephine had assaulted him and he’d be pressing charges.

  The skipper woke up as he was strapped to a gurney. His first concern was for his passengers; his second concern was for his boat.

  When he was told what Josephine had done he said that she and Katie could ride free whenever they pleased, which Katie was thrilled to hear. As she pointed out, she still hadn’t seen a whale.

  It wasn’t long before Janet came running up to Little Bounty, her face red and tear-stained.

  She smothered her daughter with hugs, kisses and worried questions then stood up to confront her sister.

  Josephine sighed. The last thing she needed was a torrent of criticism.

  To Josephine’s surprise, Janet threw her arms around her and squeezed tightly.

  “I’m so glad you’re alright!” cried Janet.

  As soon as she could, Josephine excused herself and hurried to the public toilets behind a fish and chips shop.

  Her hands were shaking as she locked herself inside a cubicle. She reached down the front of her t-shirt and pulled out the gold locket.

  She squeezed her hand around it, tears stinging her eyes at the thought of how great a distance was between her and the man who gave her the locket.

  Josephine bit her lower lip and carefully opened the locket. There it was: a shining fragment of Lightning Glass from the Circle Lenny had dropped.

  Josephine smiled to herself. No one noticed when she’d snuck the fragment inside the locket. One day, she thought, stroking its cool, pearly surface with her fingertip, she’d use the fragment to take her back to a time of swashbuckling, heroes, tall ships and treasure.

  One day, she’d see her pirate lover again.

  The End

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