Matelots

by W. A. Hoffman

  “I do not want to take you as I am now,” he said earnestly. “I wish it to be a thing of beauty, a solemn thing. I am not… ready. And not here, in the dirt. Not when I will not be able to see you. I am sorry.”

  He pulled my hand from his member.

  I understood. “My love, it will be a thing of great beauty to me no matter where or when it occurs, but I will let you choose the time and place of it. Am I to understand that, as you are now, it is simply a matter of choice?”

  “Oui,” he breathed, and leaned down to kiss me.

  I kissed him hungrily, my thoughts racing.

  “Can we not give you pleasure then, without….?”

  He had silenced me with another kiss. I heard him rummaging in his bag beside our heads, even over the pounding of my heart.

  “I will think on it,” he teased.

  I reached for him, but he swatted my hand away. His hand closed over my member and I gasped at the coolness of the salve.

  “But first, I wish for you to take me,” he whispered.

  I wanted that very much, and my cock swelled nearly to the point of pain as he lubricated me. And then I remembered why that was so very poor an idea.

  “Non,” I said firmly and gripped his hand. “I said never again. You took it poorly last time. I will not…”

  “Trust me?” he snapped.

  I winced. “My love…”

  “I reacted as I did before because I was sane,” he said fiercely. “I made a decision to do a thing that the Horse did not want. Now I am mad, so it does not matter. This is a thing the Horse wants. It is different. I will not go mad and threaten you, because I am already there.”

  I wrestled with that and my words were slow in coming. “I see… a difference in the perception of the matter, oui. But, my love, I feel…”

  He moved so very fast, and my hands were pinned on either side of my head.

  “Do not,” I breathed.

  He shifted forward, and my greased cock slid happily under him and then rose to point up between his buttocks. He squirmed down.

  I closed my eyes. “You are not prepared,” I hissed.

  Waves of desire radiated from my balls as my cock head brushed his opening. I did not think he could manage the angle, though, not while pinning me. Neither did he, apparently. He released my left wrist, and his hand darted to my cock.

  I did not struggle. “It will hurt,” I said calmly. “I would not have you…”

  “You are mine,” he growled.

  He sat, impaling himself fully upon me in one move. I groaned in pleasure and he in pain. Then all was still, save for our panting and the surf. I looked to the first stars beginning to glow above us.

  “It will hurt no less to pull away,” I said gently.

  He spasmed so around my member that I felt it had been captured in a vice. I hung somewhere between misery and ecstasy. I rubbed his thigh and back with my free hand. He was rigid with discomfort.

  “My love,” I said lightly, “we must relax you, else I fear we will live thus the rest of our days; which will surely be numbered, as it will be difficult to find food this way.”

  He gave several small pained barks of amusement. “I did not think it would hurt so.”

  “You were relaxed and prepared before,” I said with gentle amusement. “I would have spared you this.”

  “By denying me,” he hissed. “I will prove you wrong. And do not say you are not enjoying this.”

  “I am not enjoying your pain in the least,” I protested.

  “Non,” he grumbled, “your cock is enjoying my hole, as you are still as hard as when I took you in.”

  I sighed. “My love, you are gripped so tight about me I cannot remove myself, or likely spend myself for that matter. I can no more go limp than a hanged man can breathe. Now release my other hand and let me do what I might to calm you.”

  He did as I bade, and I located the salve where he had left it by my hip. I began to massage it into his thighs and belly. He held himself very still and straight, with his head thrown back such that he could gaze upon the heavens. I could not know if his eyes were open or not.

  His grip upon me eased, and I sighed with pleasure and he with relief.

  “How are you feeling now?” I asked.

  “Very full of you,” he said.

  I was gladdened by the touch of amusement I heard. “You feel very good about me now,” I said. “Very good indeed. Yet, if you wish to dismount and have me rub your back for a time, I will not begrudge you.”

  His head came forward, so that I knew he gazed at me. “And if I do not wish that?” His words were warm and seductive.

  My breath caught. “Then I am at your mercy.”

  His fingers traced a path they always did: up my ribs to find and toy with my nipples. I let the desire I had been holding my head above pull me under. With a sigh, I squirmed beneath him and reached for his hips. He grabbed my wrists again, but this time he held my hands on his legs. He began to move, tentatively at first, and then with greater purpose; never in long strokes, but enough to tease and please me in increments. I had no control over the matter, and my only warning of what he would do next came from the twitch and play of thigh muscles beneath my fingers.

  I did not need to see him in the dark to know he was grinning down at me as he always did when teasing me so. And I was not so far lost to my pleasure that I did not hear when his breathing changed from slow and steady breaths of concentration to little pants of pleasure. When he began to shift his thrusts and steady his rhythm, I realized with wonder that it was not so much for my benefit as for his. I pulled my right hand free, and this time he did not swat me away as I reached for him. My greased fingers found his hard cock and I nearly came at the feel of it.

  I tried to recall the names of stars as I stroked him. Only when he finally reached the brink and pumped in my hand with strangled cries of pleasure did I let myself follow him over the edge. I exploded as I fell, rushing up and out to Heaven and back again, and then I reached bottom and found a pool of delight that soaked my very soul in warmth and love.

  He collapsed atop me, gasping. I laughed with the joy of it all. Then he was moving again, kissing me intensely and patting me over and over again, as if to assure himself of my existence. I bore it with a smile, but my ribs were quite relieved when he at last pulled away to stagger out into the surf and roar hoarsely at the stars.

  It was now so dark I could not see him, yet I stumbled after, listening for sounds of his splashing until at last I tripped upon him where he knelt in the waves. He was sobbing. I sank into the shallow water with him, and pulled his head to my chest and held it there.

  After a time, he squirmed about in my grasp until he could nuzzle my neck and chin. “Thank you,” he whispered in my ear.

  “I will bring you pleasure whenever you wish, my love,” I said. “As you well know, we need not engage in sodomy to do so.”

  “I have not trusted myself.”

  Sadly, I thought I would not know how much I trusted him on the entire matter until I saw how he behaved when we rose on the morrow.

  “It felt so very good,” he murmured. “I know it felt much the same the other time you pleasured me, but I was very far away that night…. It is as if it were a dream.”

  I smiled at the night. “Well, I believe it has been said that if we could remember pain in any exactitude, we would not move for fear of causing ourselves more; and if we could remember pleasure in all its glory, we would not find the need to move at all.”

  He chuckled. “I will be glad to let that pain pass from memory.”

  I held him tighter. “I know well how it felt.”

  I also knew what Shane had done to me had been somewhat worse: he had never greased himself at all, choosing instead to allow my blood to lubricate his thrusting.

  Gaston stilled and then gasped, “Oh Will…”

  “Non. Non,” I said quickly. “Think not on it. I do not wish to. I apologize for saying anything a
t all.”

  “If I ever see the damn cousin, I shall rip his cock off,” Gaston growled.

  “I will help you. I have fantasized on such a thing myself.”

  “And what else will you do to him?” he asked.

  I chuckled, and allowed myself to glance upon old memories of my imagined acts of revenge. “I would impale him upon a pole; though, I would not wish to sully my member, or the act, by using my own.”

  “I am sure some implement will be available,” Gaston said. I saw the glint of teeth in the starlight.

  I grinned in return.

  He apparently sobered, as I could no longer see teeth, and he took to stroking my cheek gently. “I am pleased I know more of what happened to you. If I combine how I felt when I have been beaten, with how I felt upon impaling myself upon you, with the times I have felt humiliated, I think I might know how horrible it was for you. But you are correct; we cannot remember pain in such a way as to truly capture it. So I cannot feel as you did.”

  I found that both sweet and disturbing. “I suppose you could always flog me someday, so that I could understand what you felt.” I realized he could not see my smile. “That is a jest. Not that I would not wish to understand what occurred with you, but that…” I sighed, even before his fingers found my lips to stop my words.

  “Being flogged as I was is akin to being impaled over and over again. I never want you to understand that,” he said earnestly.

  “But now I do,” I said somberly. Though I could not feel it, I could now imagine the ever- building pain he must have suffered. I felt a chill crawl up my spine from the water. I stood, and pulled him after me.

  “Then I never wish for you to experience it,” he said.

  “And you must never suffer rape,” I said a little more harshly than I intended. “We have suffered enough to know pain; we need not do more in the name of empathy. Though I know that is not truly what you meant to imply.” I was not entirely sure why I had become so upset.

  “Will?” he queried, and his arms stole about me before I could reach the dry sand.

  I thought on how I would answer him, and a vision of the cause of my duress came to me. I saw Shane going at Gaston as he had gone at me: Gaston beaten bloody and dazed, face down over a bed, while Shane thrust away at him with a demonic snarl on his face. I gasped, and stared at the stars in the hopes of burning the image away.

  “The idea of you suffering as I did disturbs me greatly,” I told him. “I would rather suffer it again myself than see, or even know, that the same was done to you. I do not wish to discuss this anymore.”

  He did not release me. “I did not wish to taint so fine a night.”

  I turned in his embrace, and stole my arms around him to caress his buttocks. “It need not end on such a note. If I were to anoint you with oil, do you feel you could…?”

  He silenced me with a kiss; and we found that, aye, indeed he could, thrice more. It seemed he had years of penned jism just dying to escape him. And though none of it entered me, I did not care. I was so very pleased that at last he seemed free of his impotence.

  Thus, I woke at dawn, tired yet sated, and felt all was truly fine with the world. I did not think the Titans could pull the smile from Gaston’s face.

  “It is light now, so you can see me, and we have this beautiful dawn to remember it by. My arse is yours,” I teased.

  He sighed happily and shook his head. “Non, not yet.”

  I heaved a sigh of mock exasperation and he chuckled.

  “We must move now,” he said.

  He was preparing cartouches, and he handed me several. I stuffed them in slots in my bardiche. He did not make many, as we were not supposed to shoot, and the paper and powder would not remain fresh for more than a day in the humid air.

  “I was thinking you could teach me to swim as you have promised,” I said as he finished.

  “Non, I will not have us about in the waves with no weapons,” he said.

  “Well then, speaking of the need for all of this defensiveness, we need to spend some of our time teaching you what I know of dueling.”

  “Oui,” he sighed.

  He tossed me a jar of hogs’ fat, and we took turns applying it to one another, which nearly delayed our leaving. But all too soon, we were working our way inland.

  As we forced through underbrush so thick we had to hack a path with cutlasses in places, I wondered how anyone could hunt cattle here; and then we broke through to the edge of another meadow, much like the one by the bay, but higher in the hills. This one also had less marsh grass and more clumps of brush here and there. I did not see any cattle.

  Gaston was intent on studying the trees behind us. “Hush,” he breathed. “Did you hear that?”

  I listened to the omnipresent buzz of insects and the symphony of bird calls and thought that, if anything, I heard less than I had before. Then I knew that was precisely what he meant.

  “Move,” he whispered, and pointed across the field. “Stay low.”

  I understood his meaning, and despite the increased strain on my already-displeased body, I bent at the waist and kept myself below the tops of the grass and brush as best I could, while working my way along the line of a shallow roll of ground. And then the brush was gone, and there was just tall grass. I would have to crawl through it in order to avoid being seen from the trees. Thankfully, there was all the other brush between us and the side of the field we had entered. I waited for Gaston to join me, to see in which direction he wished to go.

  And then I saw we had a larger problem. I do not know how the bull managed to see me prior to my realizing it was indeed a threat. I suppose it has much to do with my thinking of cattle as being generally docile creatures one herded about and milked or slaughtered. This one was not interested in either activity. He was great red creature, with horns far wider than my arms could span. He pawed the dirt fifty or so yards from us. He was in motion before I brought my musket up.

  Gaston appeared and dropped to his knees in front of me with a hissed, “Do not shoot the head.” He fired before I did.

  Then time slowed. The bull was charging straight on to us. Gaston’s ball struck its withers and did not slow it. I had my musket up. All I could focus on was that massive head. I understood, though: the ball would not penetrate the skull. I was aware of Gaston reloading. I wanted to scream that he should run. It was too close. I dropped the muzzle of my musket down and to the right, to the fleshy fore-shoulder just visible beside the wagging head. I fired. The ball hit true and the animal staggered for a single stride. I already had a cartouche in hand and the musket down. Gaston fired. His ball hit the other fore-shoulder and the beast staggered for a single stride again. I was ramming the ball and patch home. I could not remember if I had added the powder. It did not matter. We would get one more shot. Somehow, there was powder in the pan and the musket was at my shoulder. I fired. I hit. The beast’s left front leg gave way and it spilled into the dirt before us. And then I was thrown sideways as Gaston plowed me from the collapsing bull’s path. Then he was upon it, cutlass in hand. Blood sprayed as I collapsed to my knees. The animal had landed where I had stood.

  And then we were not alone with the dead beast.

  “Gaston!” I cried, as I leapt to my feet and pulled both pistols.

  But he had already seen the five men appearing out of the brush to surround us with aimed muskets. We stood back to back beside the bull. Gaston had a pistol in his left hand and a cutlass in his right. I eyed the two men I could see clearly on my side of the circle. I recognized neither of them. As they had not fired, I spared a glance over my shoulder to the other men. Two flanked Gaston as their comrades flanked me, and one man stood squarely before my matelot.

  “Le Croix,” Gaston growled.

  “Gaston,” a man said. I placed him as the one directly in front of Gaston.

  “You will pay for what you did to our good surgeon,” the man said in French. “We have no quarrel with your matelot. It is his sad
fortune to pair with you; do not make it sadder still. If you wish him to live, tell him to drop his weapons and leave. If you move, I will fire and drive the ball through both of you.”

  I thought them fools. Primarily because they thought I would walk away, and secondly, because one should not bring a musket to a pistol fight. Muskets are weapons best used at range. All five men were very close.

  “My love,” I said in English. “Do you trust me?”

  “In all things,” Gaston replied.

  One of the men to my right translated my words to French. I thanked the Gods for this distraction, as I saw the two men before me glance to their companion as he spoke.

  “Since we are men who must always be in the right,” I said with emphasis on the last. “Down!”

  I was moving as the word left my lips. I felt Gaston move behind me. I trusted him. I could do nothing else. I squatted, swung my right pistol up and around, as if it were a weight at the end of my arm, and I dropped my chest to lie atop my right thigh. When I saw the man who had addressed Gaston, I fired. At less than ten paces, the ball took no time to tear out his throat. He had fired into the air above me. Gaston was gone.

  Then I was rolling forward, the left pistol tucked to my belly. When I saw the man closest to me, I snapped the piece up and placed a ball in his left shoulder before he could depress the muzzle of his long musket enough to reach me. He fired into the ground.

  Another ball slammed into the ground near my hip, and I dove up and away from it to my feet. My rapier was drawn before I spied the other man who had shot at me. He was swinging his now-empty musket at me like a club. I thrust up and under, and ran him through. As I began to pull back, his head was severed from his shoulders by a cutlass swing.

  I stood. Gaston was looking for more targets, now that he had decapitated my last one. Across the bull, there were two bodies in the grass.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I was slowed a bit by my injuries.”

  He snorted derisively and kissed me quickly. “Reload,” he hissed, when he left my mouth.

  I did as he bade. We spied other men approaching at a run as I reloaded my second pistol. Thankfully, they were friends and not foes.