Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

by Jules Verne

  I’d complained earlier to my steward of skin made dry by the sea air and had been provided a jar of salve which he told me was made from seal fat. It sat on my bedside table, awaiting its true purpose. The sight of it made my throat was dry. I felt as nervous as a virgin bride. My hands shook when I let Ned into my room. I was unable to meet his gaze.

  He gripped my arms and pulled me to him. “Look at me,” he ordered.

  I did. I faced the unabashed lust in his eyes.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

  Logic dictated that I should say no, but my response was not logical. It was primal.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled. “You should be.”

  After that was a blur. He ripped my clothes from me, stripping me bare, and though he kissed me as he did, though his hands caressed me, it was his utter domination of me that made me whimper with desire. It was his strength that made me weak. Nobody had ever touched me the way he did. Hints of pain yielded pounds of pleasure. I nearly wept from the force of my desires.

  He turned me around and pushed me face down onto the bed. He held both of my wrists to the small of my back in one strong hand, pinning me beneath him. He straddled the backs of my thighs. His erection bounced against my bare flesh. He was breathing hard.

  “Professor,” he rasped, his voice thick and husky, “am I too rough?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No.”

  He kneaded my buttock with his free hand, squeezing hard enough that I cried out.

  “Don’t you come,” he said. “Not yet.”

  And then, he slid a thick, well-greased finger home.

  It was all I could do not to scream from the pleasure. I bucked my hips, trying to push towards his hand, but he held my wrists. He put more weight onto my back. The finger withdrew. I nearly sobbed to have that ecstasy stolen from me.

  “Please,” I panted.

  Ned brought his hand down hard on my buttock. It shocked me, and I gasped.

  “Be still,” he ordered.

  I tried to oblige. I buried my face in the thick blanket that covered the bed. I tried to slow my breathing.

  “Good boy,” he said.

  I felt his finger again at my entrance. The anticipation of it was glorious. I wanted desperately to push towards him, but I held still. “Good,” he said again, and then he rewarded me, sliding into me with such exquisite slowness that I had to bite the bedspread to keep from crying out.

  “Such a good boy. So willing and ready.” His finger moved slowly as he spoke. “Hot and tight and mine to do whatever I want with.”

  Yes, yes, yes, I wanted to say, but I could only lie there panting as he had his way with me.

  “Tell me, Professor, are you ready to be fucked?”

  This time, I did speak. “Yes.”

  His fingers withdrew, and then his palm came down again on my buttock.

  “You’re going to look at me when I fuck you,” he said, his voice thick and hoarse.

  He smacked me again, harder than before. This time, it wasn’t just the pain of being spanked. The sting was momentary, but after it came such a rush of euphoria that I gasped.

  “Are you ready to be fucked?” he asked again.

  Yes. But I choked back that answer and whimpered instead, “No.”

  “Good boy,” he said. He smacked my flank again, not nearly as hard. The tingle it raised on my flesh became waves of excitement, coursing through my veins, igniting some new stirrings deep in my groin.

  “Your backside looks awfully pretty with my red handprint on it.” But he didn’t smack me again. He caressed my skin, as if to soothe the sting of his blows. “Don’t you worry, Professor. I’ll fuck you soon enough. But first, I’m going to stretch you wide.”

  That glorious pressure against my rim again. I bit down on the bedspread, choking back a sob. Finally, he pushed inside, not one finger, but two this time sliding into place. I couldn’t move to meet him. I couldn’t arch my back or thrust my hips. I could only lie there and take the length of his digits. I screamed into the mattress, thrumming with pleasure as he caressed my tender flesh. In and out he moved, with a slow deliberateness that was the sweetest torture I’d ever felt.

  “My good Professor. I love so much to make you squirm.”

  And squirm I did, as much as I dared while pinned beneath his weight. I gasped and moaned. I whimpered. I begged. And still his fingers teased and stroked.

  A third finger slid in with the rest, nearly the full width of his hand twisting inside me.

  A moment of pain, followed by a flash of mind-numbing pleasure. His hand turned, brushing past that amazingly sweet spot. I didn’t know how long I could keep my release at bay. Still, his fingers moved, caressing me, teasing me, until I screamed, “Ned. Please.”

  He chuckled, but his hand withdrew. The sudden emptiness was shocking. I moaned, deseperate, now that he’d stopped, to have him start again.

  “Patience,” he said. He released my wrists. His weight shifted from my thighs. “Turn over and let me see you.”

  It took me a moment to make my muscles obey. I felt as if I was vibrating, expanding, without any substance at all. Flesh and desire and nothing else. I was ready to beg if he didn’t touch me again soon.

  I rolled over and looked up at him.

  In all our times together we’d either been about the ship fully clothed, or in the privacy of his cabin with no light to see by. This was the first time I was able to see him wholly naked in front of me, and he was magnificent. His arms and thighs were solid and roped with muscle. A patch of woolly hair on his chest trailed down past his navel to his thick hard cock which bobbed before me. His hard hands were clenched in fists. And his eyes, always so strong and piercing, stared at me, pinning me to the bed as surely as his weight had before.

  He knelt on the bed between my thighs. He leant over to look down at me. “Am I too rough?” he asked again.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “You can be honest, Professor. I don’t want to cause you pain that isn’t pleasure too.”

  It was true I’d never had the two so perfectly combined. I’d been with men who liked to inflict pain purely for their own excitement. It was an experience I never wanted to repeat.

  I’d also been with plenty of men who were gentle, to the point where I’d wanted to scream,

  “I’m a man, too, not a wilting flower!” But Ned was neither of those things. I’d never been with somebody like him, a lover who gave pain in small measure to feed my sexual stirrings.

  A man who seemed to know where one sensation became the other, and truly understood how to push me, not for his benefit, but for mine.

  How to put that all into words though? As it turned out, I didn’t have to. Whatever joy or desires I felt, it seemed he saw it on my face, for he smiled at me. “Good.”

  He leant down and kissed me. Once again, I was amazed at the sudden change in him.

  Where before he had been rough, now he was gentle. His hand caressed my side. His lips played over mine.

  “You’re amazing,” he whispered. “So perfect. So smart and strong, but so soft when you want to be.”

  He lay on top of me and kissed my neck. I took his cock in my hand, stroking him as he held me. “I’ve dreamed of this so many times,” he told me as he nipped at my ear. “I want you so many ways, I can’t decide how to take you first.”

  I wrapped my legs around his hips. “Any way you’d like,” I said.

  He made a low sound, something between a growl and a groan. He gripped my thigh, his fingers digging into my skin. “I hope you don’t regret saying that.”

  “I won’t.”

  He pushed my hand away from his cock and sat up between my legs. His eyes, always passionate, made me shiver.

  “So pretty,” he said. He placed his hands on my knees and moved them slowly up my thighs. “So soft.” He gripped my hips. His thumbs brushed over the sensitive flesh just
inside my hip bones. So close to my groin, and yet leagues away, waking that deep, desperate ache within me. I whimpered, and he smiled in response.

  He reached over to the table by the bed and scooped some grease onto his fingers, although his gaze never wavered from my face. He wrapped his fist around his thick erection and began to stroke himself.

  “Touch yourself,” he said.

  I immediately began to reach for my cock, but before I could grant myself that pleasure, he brought his palm down hard on my flank. I gasped at the pain, then moaned as a wave of euphoria washed over me in its wake.

  “Not there,” he said. His fist still stroked slowly up down his own cock. “Your hips, where my hands were.”

  I did as he said, caressing myself, first along my hipbones. I let my fingers roam wider, exploring the tender junction where my thighs met my pelvis. He continued to watch me.

  His eyes were heavy-lidded with desire, his breathing heavy, but his hand continued to fondle his manhood.

  When he didn’t object, I moved my hands inward, not to my cock, but low between my legs. I caressed the loose skin that held my aching balls. I squeezed gently, and the sensation made me ache in the most glorious way. I had to close my eyes. I arched into my own hand, squeezing again and heard Ned moan in response.

  “Keep one hand there.” His voice was husky, so sexy and demanding I didn’t doubt he could make me come just by speaking. “Use the other on your chest.”

  I obeyed. I cupped the pliant heat of my scrotum in one hand and slid the other up my chest. I stopped there, looking at him for direction, unsure what he wanted.

  He stroked himself faster now as he watched me. “Your nipple.”

  I touched that tender bud of flesh, caressing it until it was hard against my fingers.

  Shivers of delight arose within me, washing like the waves of the sea down my abdomen to my hard, aching cock.

  “Pinch it,” he ordered.

  I did, without hesitation. I did it as I imagined he would have, hard enough to cause a flash of pain, and as it eased, the surge of desire. I moaned, arching my back, closing my eyes. I squeezed again, as hard as I could make myself do it.

  Ned made a sound low in his chest, almost a growl. There was such desperation in the sound it made me open my eyes, but I barely had time to register the heat on his face. My lover had forced me to wait, but now it was he who could hold back no longer. He grabbd my thigh and pushed it hard, up towards my shoulder. His other hand groped for my greased and aching hole. Then the head of his cock pushed against my rim.

  He would not turn back now. I knew that, although I could not have said how. His heightened lust was upon him, driving him forward. There would be no more teasing.

  He groaned, this time in frustration at not being able to enter me fast enough.

  I relaxed. I pushed down. I opened up. I let his length slide deep inside. I was more than gratified by the deep rumble of pleasure it elicited. “Professor,” he rasped.

  At last, he was in me. He was part of me, claiming me as he had promised he would. It felt magnificent, as if his cock had been made for me. He filled me up, but not to the point of discomfort. He was a hunter, and I wanted nothing more than to fall victim to his strength.

  “Fuck me.” I said.

  And he did. My valiant harpooner needed no more prompting than that. He used both hands to push my legs towards my chest. He began to thrust, hard and fast. His fingers dug into my thighs. I bounced against him, arching my back to find the most pleasure. I grabbed my own erection and stroked hard to the rhythm of his cock slamming into me.

  It was rough. Nearly painful. But beautiful too. The lights were on. We had a soft bed.

  We had all the privacy in the world. I had no doubts. No shame. Nothing but the pleasure of knowing he was mine and I was his and we were alive and together. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The tendons on his neck stood taut under his skin. He panted hard, driving into me, smacking my flank, and with that wave of pain-euphoria, I could take no more.

  I screamed out, not caring if anyone heard. Ned gripped me and drove himself deep, every one of his muscles tensing as he spent himself inside me. It was violent, yet glorious.

  Perfect in a way I could never put into words. I imagined this was close to what his prey must feel when his harpoon struck home. Defeat, and yet what pleasure to be defeated by such a man.

  He was the most amazing specimen of strength and virility I’d ever laid eyes on, and in that moment, he owned me heart and soul.

  * * * *

  The very next day I started my diary of these adventures, which has enabled me to narrate them with the most scrupulous accuracy, and one odd detail, I wrote it on paper manufactured from marine eelgrass.

  Early in the morning on November 11, fresh air poured through the Nautilus’s interior, informing me that we had returned to the surface of the ocean to renew our oxygen supply. I headed for the central companionway and climbed onto the platform.

  It was six o’clock. I found the weather overcast, the sea grey but calm. Hardly a billow. I hoped to encounter Captain Nemo there—would he come? I saw only the helmsman imprisoned in his glass-windowed pilothouse. Seated on the ledge furnished by the hull of the skiff, I inhaled the sea’s salty aroma with great pleasure.

  Little by little, the mists were dispersed under the action of the sun’s rays. The radiant orb cleared the eastern horizon. Under its gaze, the sea caught on fire like a trail of gunpowder. Scattered on high, the clouds were coloured in bright, wonderfully shaded hues, and numerous ‘ladyfingers’ warned of daylong winds.

  But what were mere winds to this Nautilus, which no storms could intimidate.

  So I was marvelling at this delightful sunrise, so life-giving and cheerful, my body still heavy and languid and more than a bit sore from our night of lovemaking, when I heard someone climbing onto the platform.

  I was prepared to greet Captain Nemo, but it was his chief officer who appeared—

  whom I had already met during our first visit with the captain. He advanced over the platform, not seeming to notice my presence. A powerful spyglass to his eye, he scrutinised every point of the horizon with the utmost care. Then, his examination over, he approached the hatch and pronounced a phrase whose exact wording follows below. I remember it because, every morning, it was repeated under the same circumstances. It ran like this,

  “Nautron respoc lorni virch.”

  What it meant I was unable to say.

  These words pronounced, the chief officer went below again. I thought the Nautilus was about to resume its underwater navigating. So I went down the hatch and back through the gangways to my stateroom.

  I found Ned there, just rousing from slumber.

  “Dressed already?” he asked.

  “Indeed. It’s after seven.”

  “Stop being so efficient and come back to bed.”

  I laughed, but I obliged him. I undressed and slid back under the covers into the circle of his arms, wrapping myself in the aromatic warmth of his bare flesh. He nuzzled my ear and kissed my neck.

  “Are you sore?” he whispered.

  “Only a little.”

  “Then I’ll be gentle.”

  And he was. All of the power he’d shown me the night before was gone. Now he was sweet and careful, pushing into me slowly, kissing me as he did. We moved together. Not thrusting this time, but rocking together, rolling our hips, holding each other tight until we reached a glorious culmination that left me weak and trembling.

  Five days passed in this way with no change in our situation. Every night I spent in Ned’s company, exploring the bounds of pleasure. Every morning we made love again.

  Afterwards, I climbed onto the platform. The same phrase was pronounced by the same individual. Captain Nemo did not appear.

  I was pursuing the policy that we had seen the last of him, when on November 16, while reentering my stateroom with Ned and Conseil, I found a note addressed to me on the table.


  I opened it impatiently. It was written in a script that was clear and neat but a bit ‘Old English’ in style, its characters reminding me of German calligraphy.

  The note was worded as follows:

  Professor Aronnax

  Aboard the Nautilus

  November 16, 1867

  Captain Nemo invites Professor Aronnax on a hunting trip that will take place tomorrow morning in his Crespo Island forests. He hopes nothing will prevent the professor from attending, and he looks forward with pleasure to the professor’s companions joining him.

  CAPTAIN NEMO,

  Commander of the Nautilus.

  “A hunting trip,” Ned exclaimed.

  “And in his forests on Crespo Island,” Conseil added.

  “But does this mean the old boy goes ashore?” Ned Land went on.

  “That seems to be the gist of it,” I said, rereading the letter.

  “Well, we’ve got to accept,” the Canadian answered. “Once we’re on solid ground, we’ll figure out a course of action. Besides, it wouldn’t pain me to eat a couple of slices of fresh venison.”

  Without trying to reconcile the contradictions between Captain Nemo’s professed horror of continents or islands and his invitation to go hunting in a forest, I was content to reply, “First let’s look into this Crespo Island.”

  I consulted the world map, and in latitude 32 degrees 40’ north and longitude 167

  degrees 50’ west, I found an islet that had been discovered in 1801 by Captain Crespo, which old Spanish charts called Rocca de la Plata, in other words, “Silver Rock.” So we were about one-thousand, eight-hundred miles from our starting point, and by a slight change of heading, the Nautilus was bringing us back towards the southeast.

  I showed my companions this small, stray rock in the middle of the north Pacific.

  “If Captain Nemo does sometimes go ashore,” I told them, “at least he only picks desert islands.”

  Ned Land shook his head without replying. After supper was served to us by the mute and emotionless steward, I fell asleep in my lover’s arms, but not without some anxieties.

  When I woke up the next day, November 17, Ned had already left my room. I sensed that the Nautilus was completely motionless. I dressed hurriedly and entered the main lounge.