Brethren

by W. A. Hoffman

  “May I say one thing?” I asked. To my relief, his face relaxed into resigned amusement. He nodded. “I wish I had some talent at the arts, so I could sketch or sculpt you. Or in some way show you what I see when I look upon you. Then you would know that I do not find you revolting. The scars are horrible, but underneath, you are exquisite. And I would have you know that, if I could.”

  “You are kind and delusional,” he sighed. “And a fool.” He smiled sadly on the last.

  I handed him my musket and doffed my gear and clothing. My manhood proudly saluted him with an obvious disregard for his words. His eyes widened with surprise.

  I shrugged. “He does not dissemble well at all, and usually does his own thinking, much to my dismay.”

  I could see the effort he put into pulling his eyes back to my face. He looked young. If he had been another, I would have swept in like a hawk and pressed the advantage of surprise; but this was my matelot, and not a conquest. And even more, this was Gaston; and after last night I was not sure how he would react. I walked into the surf and rinsed the day from my skin.

  A minute later he joined me, and scrubbed the blood and sweat caking his own skin away.

  “Will, I am sorry.”

  “For what?’

  “That I do not favor men.”

  I cursed silently under the weight of those words. “You do not know how many times I am sorry that I do. It has been the bane of my damn existence.”

  “And now the irony of your existence,” he said. “Here you are amongst the Brethren where it is acceptable, and yet you are with me.”

  I did not find his comment amusing, and I looked at him sharply. He was studying the surf quite somberly.

  “It is not fair,” he added. His eyes met mine. “I will do what I can.” Then his gaze darted away and he appeared distraught. He quickly returned to the beach and set about cleaning his clothing.

  I stood there for several minutes with one thought: When? I was unable to convince my manhood it was not now, and chose to ease myself there in the surf. Then I came in and washed my clothing.

  He was not looking at me or speaking.

  “Is there anything else I should know prior to engaging in another verbal sparring match with Cudro?” I teased.

  Gaston frowned, but with thought and not anger. “I can think of nothing at the moment.”

  I watched the play of muscle under his scarred skin as he wrung out his tunic. In a way, it looked as if he had armor imbedded in him instead of scars. There were thin strips of skin between the tracks.

  “May I ask a question?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you still have sensation…?”

  He froze, and I bit my tongue. There was a trace of betrayal in his eyes. He was barely within arm’s reach. Without moving any closer, I held up my hand where he could see it and slowly moved it to his shoulder to stroke lightly from the undamaged skin and onto the scars with my fingertips. It was textured but soft. He held his breath, but he did not pull away. I moved closer and ran my fingers up to the soft unmarred skin of the side of his neck and then down across his shoulder and back. He closed his eyes. I continued, moving my body closer and spreading the area I touched in increments until I was caressing his entire back in light strokes.

  “May I ask you a question?” he whispered.

  “Oui.”

  “Is it not disgusting to touch?”

  “Non, it is a different texture. In truth, normally I avoid scars, but in this case... Well, there are so many, it is simply your skin and not an anomaly; and so I do not find myself reacting to it as I would with another.”

  “It feels good,” he whispered. “The scars are dull in sensation, but the skin in between is very sensitive, and the mix of the two is pleasant.”

  I clawed my hands and scratched a little, and he arched like a cat. I grinned.

  “Since you say you have not had a lover, then I would guess no one has touched you thus…”

  “Oui.”

  “Thank you for allowing me to.”

  “You are welcome,” he said.

  I do not know if he opened his eyes to watch the beginning of the sunset as I massaged and scratched his back. I know I did gaze at it and felt content.

  He must have opened them at some point. “It is getting dark: we need to return.” He sounded sleepy.

  I stopped my ministrations, and there was an immediate tension in his shoulders.

  “I can do that again anytime you wish.”

  He relaxed and twisted to face me. “Oui.”

  I grinned. Our faces were very close and I was overcome with an urge. I kissed the scar on his forehead. His eyes widened with surprise and then he smiled. Then his eyes flicked to my crotch, where my manhood was thankfully quiescent at the moment.

  “I saw to that earlier,” I assured him. “It may return, though. If it troubles you I am sorry, as I have no control over it.”

  “I understand. I will not be offended. I do not suffer from that problem, though.”

  I was incredulous. “You do not? You have never looked at a woman and felt the blood rush hither of its own accord whether you wished it or not?”

  “Non.”

  “A naked woman?”

  “Non.” He stood and dressed quickly.

  I stood and did the same, but at a slower pace. “Then in all due seriousness, how do you know you favor women and not men?” I asked.

  He smiled grimly. “Because my blood does not rush when I gaze upon you either, or Pete or Striker, and they seem to engender blood rushing in many a man.”

  “Oui, Pete could get rise out of a dead man, or woman. Do you pleasure yourself?”

  He rolled his eyes. “On rare occasion.”

  “What do you think of when…?”

  “How good my hand feels,” he said flatly.

  “So you are not awash with carnal desires in any form?”

  He sighed heavily. “Non.”

  “That would perhaps explain why you have not felt the urge to take a lover. As we have discussed before, I have been at the mercy of my desires since my privates learned to crow.”

  “It is my understanding that most men are, and I am the exception rather than the rule,” he said.

  “Oui. May I continue to pry?” I asked as we gathered our weapons and started up the beach.

  “Could I stop you?” he asked with wry amusement.

  “Probably not. How old were you when…?”

  He stopped and turned to me. “Will, that is not to be discussed.”

  Even in the twilight I could see the warning in his eyes. I held my hands up in supplication. He let it pass, and we continued walking.

  We were challenged by the man at the perimeter, and I was pleased with this. It meant we had some security. We passed him and continued on, until we could see the dull glow of the boucan pits at a distance through the trees.

  “May I have your leave to annoy Cudro?” I asked quietly as we approached.

  “In what manner?” I could hear the amusement in his voice.

  “Oh, I would make a thing clear to him, but it will require touching you.”

  “I do not mind you touching me.” He stopped and turned to me. I could barely read his expression in the dark. “Unless…”

  I guessed his exception. “I will not touch your privates, or attempt to induce you to arousal.”

  “You mock me.”

  “I assure you I do not. I take such things quite seriously.” I was sure he could hear the amusement in voice, even if he could not see me grinning like a fool.

  “I should hit you.” He started walking again.

  “Please do not.”

  As I hoped, everyone was still awake, and we were the last ones in. What was not in my plan was the presence of Bradley. He was conversing with Liam and Cudro, and all three watched our entrance into camp by the low light of the boucan pits.

  “Captain,” I offered politely as we neared them. In all of yesterday’s debates
upon the ship, he had avoided looking at and addressing the two of us. I was interested to see what he would do this night.

  “Will… Gaston,” he said and nodded in greeting. Then he returned to speaking with Liam and did not offer a polite inclusion into the conversation. This could be interpreted several ways, the simplest being that whereas he was calmer now and past his anger, he still wanted nothing to do with us.

  We sat in the sleeping space we had utilized the night before and prepared to retire. I complained at the heat and smoke, as we were close to the fire pits. Gaston patiently explained that the smoke would keep the insects away. As I had woken that morning with only a dozen bites and I could see the damn insects swarming all about, I acquiesced quickly to this logic.

  Once our weapons were checked and situated, I slid behind Gaston and pulled him almost into my lap. He did not resist, and leaned against me in a natural enough fashion that it would not have been observed that we had not embraced in this way before. He felt good in my arms, and for a moment I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder. I reveled in the feel of his back pressed to my chest. We had slept the last two nights in each other’s arms, but not consciously on the first or with great comfort on the second, as after his minor bout I had been too tense to enjoy it. Perhaps tonight would be different.

  He turned his head to whisper in my ear. “Your plan is meeting with success.”

  “Is it now?” I murmured and opened my eyes. Bradley had slipped away and Liam had crawled into Otter’s lap. Cudro was staring at us: not with anger as I had suspected, but with unabashed longing. I almost felt guilt, until I remembered everything the man had done. I slipped my hand beneath Gaston’s tunic and across the wall of his stomach. This elicited a small contented sound from deep in my matelot’s throat. Cudro turned away. My manhood, which had been partially alert, sprang to full attention.

  Unfortunately its growing tumescence was at an inopportune angle and pressed between us. I slipped a hand down to adjust the situation and murmured, “Sorry, do not be alarmed or offended.”

  He tensed and then relaxed.

  “You are aroused at holding me thus?” he whispered.

  “Oui.” I did not mention the sound he had made, lest I make him overly conscious of such things and less prone to do them in the future.

  “Does it not trouble you?” he asked.

  I considered the question, not in terms of how to answer it to my best advantage, but in all sincerity. “Not especially. It would prefer I pay it more attention, and it aches some with need, as it always does in that state. But as it does this on a regular basis, I am quite used to ignoring its demands when they are inconvenient.”

  He was quiet for a while, and I thought the matter closed; and then he spoke. “So we can sit thusly and you will not be angry with me for…. doing nothing?”

  “Oui.” I did not attempt to explain that we tread a fine line between the comfortable ache in my loins of the moment and a degree of arousal which would make action or avoidance necessary. Even as I left the words unsaid I regretted it. Every second I slipped farther from that “oui” it became harder to recover from, as if I had walked into a room and the door was closing behind me. I knew the room was going to become more like a cell with every passing encounter between us, because every time we touched, I would want more, and my manhood would be more eager. Yet I did not want to disturb him this night, not with there being a promise of greater intimacies between us in the future. If he allowed me this now, he might allow me more tomorrow, and the problem would see to itself in time.

  Oddly, I felt as if I were seducing a maiden and not a boy. A man should have understood the demands and whims of his manhood enough to understand mine. Gaston spoke as if he did not have one, and I wondered how seldom he was aroused. My concern over this was tempered by my knowledge that he had not engaged in any contact with others or had many objects of desire. Thus his manhood may have descended into a form of torpor from which my presence might awaken it. Unfortunately, I took the risk that once arisen from slumber it might want nothing to do with me.

  The next morning, I arose in a leisurely fashion: lying there in the sand for a good amount of time, watching the fronds and leaves and the small clouds wave about in the blue sky. I only resigned myself to sitting upright because Gaston kept nudging me with his foot and calling me lazy. I noted that he did not seem predisposed to move any farther than a seat on the log we had slept beside. We were both possessed of a fine humor.

  As there was nothing for us to do immediately concerning the boucan, we took our time maintaining our weapons, shaving – which neither of us had bothered to do in several days – and eating more roast pork. Gaston even reapplied his mask, and I wasted a little time wondering if I liked him better with or without it. I could not decide.

  We went to watch the ship being hauled ashore for careening. I had never seen a ship careened before; and Gaston explained the process as we watched most of the crew tow the North Wind onto the beach. She was allowed to list to one side so that half her hull was exposed. I was surprised, in seeing her thus, at how deep and thin her keel was. I could now see why the walls of the hold sloped so quickly down. I asked Gaston of this, and he said he knew too little of ships to explain why she had been constructed thus, but it might have something to do with why she was so fast under sail. Many ships he had seen were rounded upon the bottom, like large troughs, especially the Spanish ones; and they were not known for their speed or maneuverability.

  After the ship was lying on her side, a team of men set about scraping away the barnacles and seaweed adhering to her. Then another team reapplied pitch and tar to the planks and seams of her hull, until she gleamed black in the sun. In the tropics, this had to be done every three months or so, to prevent her from leaking and to keep her from being fouled by all the things that would attach themselves to her. Once this side was completed, she would be pulled over to lie on her other side and the process repeated. It was hard and hot work, and I did not envy the men doing it; though the sheer number of them seemed to make what we watched go quickly.

  We returned to the pits, and Liam sent us to gather more firewood. And so we spent the day in the slow but steady acquisition of such, so that I was not taxed and Gaston was not driven from his good humor. As my hands were still healing, he did not allow me to wield the axe; and I was left with hauling cut wood back to the pile. Between trips, I found myself with little to do but sit in the shade and watch him work.

  “I am trying not to feel guilt,” I said.

  He finished hacking through a branch and came to join me. “For?”

  “Doing so little. I suppose there was some truth to what you said while mad.”

  Gaston frowned. “Will, I do not always remember what I say during those times.”

  “You said I was as a child for this first year in the tropics, and I should allow myself to be cared for, and there is no shame in it.”

  “Oui.” He smiled.

  “I feel I will need to adjust to more than the tropics, but to a different way of life. I have always considered myself to be a hearty soul, capable of enduring hardship without complaint; but in truth, I have slept most of my life in a feather bed and never had to perform any sort of labor. I feel weak and pampered in comparison when I look upon all of you. The only exercise I ever engaged in involved the sword, and I have been exceedingly lax in that of late.”

  “As have I, as I have had little call for the skill,” he said. “In the few duels I have been involved in, the other man has not known how to face a real blade, and has only been familiar with using a cutlass, which you saw yesterday in its true use as a meat cleaver. It is not a weapon of speed or finesse. In facing a man with one, a swordsman need only have the most rudimentary skills and be fairly quick. In the raids and taking of ships, the Spaniards have not been duelists either. As for your other comments, you will change as time passes, and I do not doubt that, in a year, others will think you have lived here as
long as I.”

  “Truly? Will I look like Pete?” I teased.

  “Non.” He was quite serious in his delivery.

  I laughed.

  He remained serious. “I only meant that no one looks like Pete, you will…”

  “You do not need to explain.”

  “Oui, I do. I wish for you to understand that I do not find you…. revolting.”

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing again, as it was obvious he was in earnest and this admission had taken effort on his part. “Thank you.”

  Embarrassed, he turned back to chopping wood, and I left him alone for a bit by hauling more back to the pits. His admission had pleased me on a number of fronts, but I thought it best not to tell him so or allow the matter to be dwelled upon.

  And so when I returned, I asked, “Where did you learn to fight?”

  “In school.”

  “I never attended school. I had a gifted tutor for my education in letters and a number of instructors for combat, and an excellent sparring partner.”

  He gave me an amused frown before moving on to another branch. “I was not speaking of the sword. You asked where I learned to fight.”

  “So you are a master of pugilism as well?”

  He snorted. “I once took a boy’s eye with a compass during geometry instruction.”

  I sprayed the water I had been drinking and laughed. “Truly? I do recall you mentioning something of being expelled from a number of schools.”

  “Oui. For that I was in the cellar for a month on bread and water, until my father agreed with the headmaster to send me elsewhere.”

  “Gaston, I am beginning to envision your childhood as a living Hell.”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps. It was not pleasant. I remember little good of it. I have heard worse, though. In that instance, the boy was the son of a Duke, and the matter was not taken lightly.”

  “Why did you take his eye?”

  “He did not like me, no one ever liked me, and I had called him stupid. He and his friends had offered to trounce me on the yard, and I suggested we attend to the matter where we were. Desks went flying and he tried to hit me. I had learned that since I never had the advantage of size, I should always avail myself of whatever weapon was at hand. I was holding a compass. I did not mean to take his eye, but I did mean to hurt him and his eye was available.”