Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (32 page)

We held still and silent, and I could hear, or rather not hear, them doing the same. I guessed that, upon returning from their trip to Heaven’s bowers, they now sought to ascertain if they had actually heard us and if we were awake. So we all lay there like mice who have dropped crumbs in earshot of a cat.

This was interrupted by the clatter of two men staggering into the room, shedding weapons, and slamming the door in their wake.

“Let me find the lamp,” Striker gasped.

“Don’Need It. Know This Arse In The Dark,” Pete said drunkenly.

“This arse best be the only one you know in the dark,” Striker chided with amusement.

There was a muffled “ow” from Cudro’s bunk.

“I just kicked someone,” Striker said with a laugh.

“Don’Care.”

“We just be leavin’.” I did not recognize the voice.

There were sounds of people moving about. In the dim illumination I saw bits and pieces of faces and shoulders as they donned clothing and left us.

“Now,” Striker said, “let me go. Need the damn lamp.” He was laughing quietly and there were sounds of struggle from the shadows near the forward wall. “I am too drunk to climb to ours in the dark.”

“Don’Need The Damn Hammock. Table.”

“Nay. Will and Gaston,” Striker gasped, but he was laughing again when he fell onto the table above us.

“Don’Care.”

“I will spend myself, you bastard, and I will not do it atop them,”

Striker said firmly.

“Floor,” Pete snapped.

“Wait,” Striker called. He slapped the table hard. “Are you bastards awake?”

“How could we not be?” I assured them.

“Why the Devil did you not tell us of this marriage twaddle?” Striker roared.

“Oh Gods,” I sighed.

“Leave It! Fuck Now! Fight Later!”

Striker found this all very funny. He collapsed to the floor next to me.I shook my head, though no one could see my gesture. It would not be the first time we had lain beside them while they coupled.

Thankfully, Gaston did not seem as tense as he had before. I could feel the rumble of his amusement through my sore ribs.

We could hear clothes being shed.

“Damn It All! Where’sThe Pot?”

Striker laughed harder. “On our hammock, you bastard.”

Gaston reached above my head and retrieved ours. I heard him open it, and then felt him thrust it toward the pair. This was rewarded by a muffled “ow” from Striker.

“Thank Ya!” Pete was chuckling now. “Hold Still!”

“It’s your own damn cock,” Striker said.

“Shut Your Hole!” Pete muttered with amusement.

“That’s the last thing you want,” his matelot retorted.

Gaston and I were chuckling now. Then Pete apparently got his member where he needed and Striker’s chortling was arrested with a groan I felt in my bowels. We fell silent again, listening to the wet sounds and heavy breathing of their trysting.

Aroused by this activity and Gaston’s presence, and no longer cowed by my aches and pains, my cock stirred steadily toward its full glory until it found itself trapped in a fold of my breeches. I eased a hand between Gaston and me to allow it freedom.

Gaston rumbled anew with amusement and rose on his elbows above me. He commenced to slowly press his groin along my member until I gasped and dug my fingers in his shoulders.

“Roll over,” he hissed in my ear. “If you feel you are able.”

“I feel it will be worth the trouble,” I gasped.

I ignored the complaints of my aching muscles and complied with delicious anticipation. He pushed our breeches down and I felt the hair of his pubis against my bare buttocks. His member tickled me as well, but even my arse could tell it was flaccid. Still, the sensation was intriguing and my cock tightened further still. Then he urged me to rise a little, and bracing himself on one elbow behind me, slid a greased hand beneath me and around my member. I squirmed about. The pain became not just a series of twitches as I moved, but a solid ache; and then suddenly it receded, growing more and more distant as my lust eclipsed all. I experienced nothing but need and pleasure when at last we were braced as was needed for him to hump my rear such that it drove my cock into his palm.

The old fears had disappeared along with the pain. I knew with every fiber of my being that the man upon me in the dark was Gaston. And if he had been erect, I would have opened for him without reservation – nay, I would have sucked him inside with abandon.

In my clawing about, I encountered the table leg, and Striker’s hand upon it, gripping as tightly as I wished to do. My initial reaction was to pull away and find another handhold for leverage, but he released the leg and caught my hand before I could withdraw. Our fingers quickly twined together, and we used one another for the leverage we sought: he pushing up, and I pushing down. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Pete in the patchwork light, his intense face framed by Striker’s feet: as if perhaps he lay on the floor with Striker above him.

I grinned. I felt peace and love folded about me like a good blanket on a cold night. Our grunts and sounds were a lullaby for my soul, and they drowned out all others from the ship. I found myself flowing, rowed ever faster with each spasm of pleasure from my member, toward an oblivion peopled by those I loved and was loved by in return. For a giddy moment, I wondered if somehow Gaston had dosed me with laudanum.

But nay, he had dosed me with something else, and my heart ached to breaking with how much I loved the man that was providing me such pleasure this moment in exchange for none of his own.

Striker came first, with a sound that spoke of seeing great beauty and a grip that nearly broke my fingers. At this, I christened our new mattress as the room was illuminated in the white light of Heaven behind my closed eyes. I saw us all clearly, standing there before the gates of rapture. I fell to earth and our bed, my cock still twitching fitfully in Gaston’s now trapped hand, and it was my turn to laugh.

My love fell atop me, panting and chuckling on my shoulder. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss all of them, but Striker and Pete were too far away. I squirmed mightily under Gaston until he moved so that I could roll over onto my back once more. His mouth was upon mine before I could ask.

We held each other and savored languid kisses until the now discordant noises our companions were making brought forth seemingly brilliant lamplight. I closed my eyes and cringed. I did not welcome it: I had seen all I needed to see this night. Then I peeked, and found Gaston’s amused emerald orbs gazing upon me with adoration. I realized I did need to see the real world, as I could never capture with my memory how very much I enjoyed gazing upon him.

He moved to accept a bottle and took a long swig. Then he swiftly descended on me, and I opened wide to gulp the mix of fruit juice and rum he emptied from his mouth to mine. I gasped in the aftermath and he licked the escaped dribbles from my cheeks.

“I am loved,” I whispered in French when his gaze returned to mine.

“Oui,” he breathed on my lips.

“You are loved.”

He smiled. “Oui.”

There was a heavy sigh from beyond the table, followed by a chuckle from the room’s fourth inhabitant. We looked out to find Pete had moved to sit with his back to the windows next to my head, and Striker–

apparently after lighting the lamp now swinging from the beam overhead – had sagged onto a chair to sit as he often did, with only his shoulder and the edge of his buttocks in contact with the wood. His long legs stretched out like a bridge to his matelot, and his heels rested between Pete’s legs. They were naked still, and watching us with amusement.

“Sometimes I wonder how long you two will remain so in love that you adore cooing at one another,” Striker drawled with a grin.

I awarded him my middle finger. “I hope for all eternity.” Then I grinned. “Are you implying that it is a thing that will fade? Is it a thing you two once engaged in that has since faded?”

Striker made a disparaging noise and Pete laughed.

“Never,” Striker scoffed. “The most romantic thing Pete does is let me make his arse sore for a change.”

The adoration in his eyes as he regarded his matelot belied his words somewhat.

“So there were no halcyon days of your courtship where you sat about and whispered endearments to one another?” I teased.

Pete groaned. “Nay! ’EKnows ILove’Im. No Need Ta Say It.”

I frowned at that.

Gaston answered. “It is good to hear. I know Will desires me, yet I enjoy seeing his cock hard at the sight of me.”

“Aye,” Striker said admonishingly to his matelot.

Pete regarded all of us with narrowed eyes and then stubbornly crossed his arms.

Striker chuckled. “Well, I love you, you bastard.”

“Not My Way,” Pete said. “An’Ya Be Mad At Them.”

“Ooohh,” I said. “Such a feint!”

Striker laughed. “He’s right. What’s all this marriage twaddle? Are we such good friends I must hear these things from Julio?”

I was amused. “I see why you are riled now. Would you have been less troubled if you had heard them from Liam or the Bard?”

He grinned. “A little.”

I laughed. “I am sorry. We did not intend to tell them of it, but…

events, or rather the conversation, this afternoon took such turns as revealed all. If we had set out to inform people of that in particular, rest assured, we would have made mention of it to the two of you first.”

“Pretty words,” Striker said with mock disdain. “And the deed is done. Now what of it?”

“As a Lord, I am expected to produce a legal heir. To that end, my father is sending me a bride. I want nothing of it.”

“I want puppies,” Gaston said, taking the blame for the matter yet again.

Pete frowned. “We Got Puppies. We Left’Em With That Girl.”

“Children,” Gaston clarified.

“What The Devil For? Puppies Be Cuter.”

I chuckled. “Those are my sentiments.”

“I’ll say,” Striker said thoughtfully. “There are few things as ugly as an infant. When my son was to be born, my uncle warned me of such, and then he hauled me away to the tavern because the womenfolk would not let a man be about. Finally they sent someone round to fetch me. I ran back to the rooms, and this midwife tells me it was a boy, and hands me this tiny bundle of blanket.” He indicated the size with his hands. “And I set it on a table and opened it up. And there was this wrinkled, red, offal-smeared, screaming…” he frowned in memory and shook his head, “babe. I nearly fainted. I could not imagine how such a thing could have issued from my dear wife, as she was quite lovely.

“Later, he became pinker and rounder. Yet he still didn’t look right: his head was too large for his body.” Striker considered his crotch, and fingered his flaccid member in drunken thought. He grinned. “They are rather like a prick. They must grow into their head and wrinkled skin.

Same color too.”

“Striker, you possess a poet’s soul,” I said.

He snorted and sighed. “I suppose he looked fine… later.”

At Striker’s change in tone, Pete stilled. I remembered that Striker’s son and wife had died while he was at sea.

“Would you want another one?” I asked carefully.

Striker smiled sadly. “I suppose. As I said, they don’t stay ugly. I would see one grow into a lad.” He looked to Pete with guilty eyes and looked away.

“Children seem to be an issue that haunts all matelots,” I said.

“Aye,” Striker sighed. “One man always wants them, and the other does not. So you will marry this bride?”

“I do not know,” I said truthfully, and looked to my matelot.

Gaston sighed with a rueful smile. “We tried to find a bride we could favor. It brought me to madness and caused her to flee.”

Striker laughed, and then sobered to ask kindly, “Because of your madness?”

“Nay,” I answered for him. “The matters were coincidental and not necessarily related. We do not know what this bride my father sends will bring us to, though. I may abandon my title entirely.”

“Not for me,” Gaston said quietly.

“Nay,” I chided, “for my own self-serving reasons of wishing to spend my life with you as opposed to living under the aegis of a thing I have never placed much value on.”

Gaston slumped to the floor beside me, to lie staring up at the bottom of the table.

“All matelots have some battle that can never be won,” Striker said quietly into the silence.

“If They’reTa Stay Matelots,” Pete added.

I hoped that was not the way of it. I felt that there was some threshold we would cross in the near future that would be the final arbiter of such matters. I did not know what it would be, though. I surely knew I did not wish to dwell in limbo over the matter until such time as my father might pass away.

In the morning, we were woken by Cudro’s booming voice. I looked about blearily and was thankful we were under the table. The cabin was now full of men. Striker and Pete had gained their hammock overhead, but the other two berths, the floor, and even the top of our table were filled with men. Besides the wolves, I recognized only two of them.

With a scowl, Cudro went about prodding and kicking until all filed out the door save the wolves and Gaston and me. Then he sagged onto his hammock and swore quietly in Dutch before groaning, “God damn rum,” in English.

“Amen,” Striker intoned from the ceiling.

“Drink water,” Gaston said.

“Do not know if I could keep it down,” Cudro sighed.

“Are we ready for the day’s business?” Striker asked.

“We are underway with the morning wind, though the Bard is in quite the snit,” Cudro said.

“How so?” Striker asked.

“He counts ninety-two men on deck, and I just chased another ten out of here.”

“Gods!” I exclaimed. “We only sailed with eighty-five on the Mayflower, and she was larger by a quarter.”

“I expected as much,” Striker said, and his head emerged over the edge of their hammock.

I wasn’t pleased to be beneath him, as I was concerned he might retch.

“Pierrot said the French are packed just as much,” Striker said. “All the men are bored and broke and we’re the first to sail. Damned idiot Morgan won’t sail until after the New Year. So everyone is looking to escape the ports with us so they can sit about on Cow Island and eat free beef and drink free water.”