Rum, Sodomy and the Lash Ch. 10

If Kitty had not known him better, she could have sworn that Captain Prince was feeling guilty about the severity of the punishment he had meted out to her. He was uncharacteristically solicitous for the remainder of the week, bathing her bottom and massaging lotion into her cane welts each night until they blackened into bruises then faded altogether; allowing her to stay in bed as long as she liked; even permitting the wearing of her shirt in the cabin. It was as if her Spanish escapade had somehow endeared her to him, notwithstanding the necessity of ensuring that it would never happen again.

As a subconscious response to this softening of his heart, Kitty went a little further than vowing never to set herself up for such harsh treatment in the future. She began to imagine a life with him that did not end with her escape or his capture. She began to seriously assess his suitability as a partner.

Of course, there were many negatives. He was a dangerous criminal for a start; no matchmaker would be impressed with his career credentials. He was estranged from his family and all polite society...but then again, so was she. He was overbearing, arrogant, demanding and patronising.

But...so very, very sexy. It maddened her on occasion that she craved his touch so, but he intoxicated her like no other man ever could. He was a skilled lover, he was intelligent and well-educated, a good conversationalist with cultured tastes. And...he seemed to care for her, in his own strange way. And -- most annoying of all -- he was absolutely right about her need for a man who could handle her; she had a grudging respect for him that she had never had for anybody else of the male sex. It was this, she had to admit, that made him so irresistible to her. She had never been treated like this, would never have expected to be treated like this, and would certainly never have expected to even tolerate, let alone like it. Yet she did. They seemed to fit together.

One week after her ill-advised trip to the mainland, Kitty was finally able to sit on a chair again and they celebrated the event with a dinner. The trip to Spain was still recent enough that they had plenty of decent food aboard; they had a meal of salt cod with rice and peppers, washed down with a fine Sant Sadurni cava. Sadly, Tom was unable to serve them, as he still languished in the brig waiting for his lash wounds to heal, but Kitty did not dare ask after her erstwhile accomplice.

"I've been wondering," began Kitty delicately, laying down her fork for a minute. "All I ever do is lie abed or perform simple household duties. I need some diversion. My mind is falling into disrepair."

"You want to make yourself useful?" asked Prince, pausing mid-chew to consider Kitty's words.

"If I could. Of course, I can't take on the role of full crew member. But isn't there anything a lady could help with?"

Prince chuckled softly. "The crew would tell you that you're already doing a fine job, Kitty. Before you fell into my clutches, I was a considerably harsher commander. But now my...frustrations are adequately contained, I am almost civilised."

"Oh." Kitty felt unaccountably dismayed at this. "And is that all I can be? A vehicle for your relief?"

"You would like to be more?" He propped his chin on his hand, regarding her quizzically. "Even though you despise me heartily and will be in the front row, cheering on my execution, when the inevitable day arrives?"

"I won't. I don't," said Kitty, under her breath, resenting having to make this admission.

Prince was silent for a moment, weighing up the likelihood that she was speaking the truth. "Well, if that is so, Kitty," he began eventually, "I am very glad to hear it." He held her eyes with his long and hard, watching the frisson that shuddered through her at the intensity of the contact.

"Tell me, Kitty, what kind of education did you receive?"

Kitty paused to think. Young women of her class were seldom properly educated; rather they accumulated 'accomplishments' that were deemed appropriately feminine and genteel.

"I can read and write well. I can play the piano, sing, embroider and draw a little. I also learned French and dancing."

"French and dancing," repeated the Captain, fighting to keep a sarcastic edge out of his voice. "But you read well. What do you like to read?"

"I prefer novels; I very much like to read stories," said Kitty enthusiastically.

"Not much call for novel reading aboard ship," said Prince flatly. "But I've a book you could study." He took a weighty volume from his shelf and passed it to his curious mistress.

"It is about medicine?" she said. 'Anatomy of the Human Body' was the title, with a subtitle of, 'Diseases and Complaints Thereof, with their Causes and Curatives'.

"I keep meaning to read it properly, but I rarely have the time. None of the crew can read; if you could get yourself a basic understanding of medicine, they might not die so bloody much. Pardon my language."

"I should like to be a physician," smiled Kitty, pleased to have a concrete role at last.

"You wouldn't like tending to some of the complaints my men pick up," cautioned Prince. "Especially when they're fresh out of port. Still, I won't visit anything of that nature on you."

Kitty had no idea what he meant, so she simply shrugged and began riffling through the dusty pages of the book. A number of perplexing diagrams and lengthy Latin terms met her disquieted eyes.

"Oh, I don't know any Latin," she exclaimed.

"I can help you with that," said Prince, sipping at his fizz. "More wine?"

"Thank you, Captain," she said, fluttering her eyelashes coyly at him.

"I think you can call me Jake," he said.

"Oh no, I couldn't do that. It is not a gentleman's name," she objected. "And besides, we are not married. It is most impolite to use first names."

"I do it all the time. Are you calling me coarse?"

"It's...well..." Kitty saw too late the corner she had painted herself into. "But Jake cannot be your name. You say you were well-connected in society before you...went...did what you did."

Kitty blanched a little at the stern look on the pirate's face. "I was christened James," he told her. "But I changed it to suit my calling."

She snorted a little. "Calling?" she said. "You make it sound like the priesthood."

"In a way it was for many years," he said smoothly. "At least, as far as celibacy was concerned. The life of a pirate captain is a lonely one, Kitty. The riches are hard won and life expectancy is short."

"Why do you do it then?"

He sat back, one leg elegantly crossed, and ran long fingers through his hair. "Necessity, for one thing. I had to get away, and I found life at sea suited me. I had a knack for handling a ship, and for handling a crew. I'm good at piracy. I'd never been particularly good at anything before, if you discount wenching and spending money."

"Could you not have fled abroad and begun a new life?"

"It was my original plan. But the sea called to me. I wanted to stay on the waves."

"Don't you fear capture?"

"Oh, all the time. But I am very good at eluding the Navy. They are blundering dunderheads, in the main. They lack imagination. One can wrongfoot them with ease."

"You are really a very wicked man, aren't you....Jake?"

"As you well know," he said in the low voice that so thrilled her. Her eyes widened and her bosom began to heave. "Come to bed, lady, and I'll show you my wicked ways."

It was too good an offer to pass up.

*

"Don't lie to me, Kit, you would up and leave me the moment a British vessel took me aboard; I dare swear you dream of my apprehension and imprisonment each night."

Captain Prince was lying prone on the vast bed wearing only a billowing shirt and a sword belt containing a small dagger; Kitty lay next to him on her back, her creamy naked skin fascinating her lover, whose fingertips traced its contours languidly.

"No, indeed, I do not," Kitty denied the charge, relishing the tingling that danced across her body at Prince's attentions. "I did at first, of course. You were so cruel and hard."

"Nothing you didn't deserve," growled the pirate, tweaking a nipple so that she yelped. "You needed to understand who was in charge, just as any of my crew does. It took a long time."

"Well, if you say so. But we are beyond that now, you and I, are we not? There is true...affection...between us, I think."

Captain Prince pondered this for a while, his hands performing a thorough reconnaissance of Kitty's breasts and stomach.

"I won't deny you're a fine filly," he said. "I like your spirit. I certainly never tire of bedding you."

"I'm not bloodstock," objected Kitty, trying to sit up indignantly, but finding her head returned quite firmly to the pillow by a hand pushing against her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Kitty, but I know you for what you are, and that is a deceitful, opportunistic little minx scarcely two rungs above me in the moral pecking order. I cannot shake the suspicion that all this billing and cooing is your attempt to lull me into a false sense of security before you pull another stunt like your trip to Barcelona."

"It isn't," wailed Kitty, and she meant it genuinely.

Life on board the Occidental Orchid had improved substantially over the past few weeks. She was ploughing steadily through the anatomical reference book and had tended to a few cuts and bruises; even a sprain or two. The Captain still guarded her jealously and for the most part she was confined to the cabin, but time passed more pleasantly now she was not constantly plotting escape. She had begun to regard the cramped rooms as her home, and enjoyed putting her feminine signature on the place in various ways. She looked forward each evening to the hour when the Captain would return from a long day of overseeing his crew and planning his next maritime heist, and join her at table for a leisurely dinner followed by a heady brew of conversation and fornication. Sometimes she wondered if she even loved him. He seemed to have imprisoned her heart as well as her body.

"Well, my sweet little captive," he crooned, his lips as close to hers as they could get without touching, "I am not of a mind for argument tonight. Ravishment is more my intention."

Kitty's sigh was swallowed into his mouth as he owned her lips with his plundering kiss, simultaneously plunging one hand between her thighs. Well-used as Kitty's female assets had been by him, their charms were not fading in his orisons. The delicate scent of her juices was such a contrast with the rank odour of his usual tavern-wench conquests; he had made do with flesh that was pitted with the taint of past disease before Kitty's succulent softness had fallen into his lap. It was a miracle, he mused, that he had escaped without some pox or other, and he had resolved to keep only to his high-born mistress from now on, and make the best use of her luscious endowments.

Her back arched as his fingers dipped lazily into the glistening pinkness of her labia, and he loosed a throaty chuckle into her sequestered mouth when he felt her legs kick out. He slapped at her thigh warningly and she settled down, obediently accepting the imperious onward march of his fingers into her hot, wet core. He skewered and thrust them up inside her, never allowing her a pause for breath from the dominating kiss that kept her pliant to his will. His thumb rested on her clitoral button, circling slowly in opposition to the rapid tempo of his fingerfucking; soon enough he perceived that Kitty was losing all control of her senses, her breath catching in her throat, her hands clawing at the sheets, and he increased the intensity of his actions accordingly, releasing her lips just in time for her tempestuous climax to spill out and drown all other sounds in its violence.

"I do enjoy the way you come," he murmured, stroking a finger that smelled of her along her lower lip. "It's so...honest. You can't hide yourself from me when I'm bringing you to your completion. It is at that moment that I feel you truly belong to me."

"I do, Captain, I do belong to you," asserted Kitty breathlessly.

"Come, Kitty, no more of your dissembling," said Prince sternly, determined not to believe her. "Get on to your knees, lower your head to the mattress and keep your legs parted. I mean to have you from behind now."

Kitty complied with his unequivocally voiced order and positioned herself according to his instruction. She knew the Captain favoured this variation because it perfectly illustrated the power dynamic between them; him in control, her vulnerable and submissive, offering herself to him without reservation.

As ever, the Captain took his time, taking in the sight of all that was available to him and relishing it before moving to touch her. The perennially delicious dilemma of whether to penetrate her upper or lower entry passed leisurely through his mind; the anal route was his favourite, but he preferred to keep it for those occasions when he felt Kitty might need an extra reminder of her subordinate status rather than allow it to become commonplace. He would drive his wedge of stiff flesh into her tight little pussy tonight, but perhaps he could ream her out with a couple of fingers too by way of compromise. Yes. That was the plan.

Kitty was tense with waiting. She wondered anew how he would take her tonight, hoping for the more conventional method. It wasn't that she was averse to being taken in the Greek fashion; indeed, she found it powerfully stimulating and her orgasms were more intense than the usual kind. It was just so nerve-racking and uncomfortable trying to accommodate his enormous member in the confines of her back passage that she always feared he may damage her. Additionally, she could not in that position escape the consciousness of his complete domination for as long as the act lasted; which he realised and frequently, to her hot-cheeked shame, remarked upon.

Tonight was to be no exception. Carefully inserting his manhood into Kitty's narrow channel with his steadying hands on her hips, he chuckled darkly at her little mewls and whimpers, her now-traditional expression of slight discomfort at the way she was stretched by him.

"You will take all of this, my love," he told her. "You will accept what I give because you are mastered by me. Isn't that so?" A rude little thrust up into her depths indicated that he wanted an answer.

"Ah...yes, Captain. Yes," she gasped, feeling the familiar split-asunder sensation before she accustomed herself to the aching fullness.

"All this is for my use, Kitty, whenever and wherever I require. You may not deny me. You understand this?"

Kitty stretched her eyes and emitted a low 'O' as the Captain possessed her fully, moving backwards and forwards with initial slowness, moaning himself as her velvet warmth clamped down on his sensitive muscle. Once an exquisitely frictive rhythm had been established, the Captain moved his hands to Kitty's arse cheeks, kneading them as he ploughed in and out, then preparing her inner ring with practised thumbs until he could slide a finger, then two, into the yielding space behind.

Kitty had experienced this kind of double penetration on many occasions now, and, though she would not admit it to him, she found it wildly arousing to be opened so completely. The Captain had only to synchronise his dual invasive appendages to bring her screaming into an orgasmic frenzy fit to wake all below decks.

"That's it, that's what you need, my lady," hissed Prince, ramping up the pressure in the quest for another of these outbursts from her before he was done. She writhed and groaned beneath him, sure she could not take any more, squirming to elude his determined thrusts but knowing even as she did that she would not be able to. The Captain rode her hard, wringing out every last drop of juice from her core before he released his seed in his customary fashion, withdrawing from her and splashing it across her backside to avoid an inconvenient conception.

Kitty fell forward, exhausted, sore and strained in every thigh and buttock muscle. He was never easy on her. But she found she liked his manner of usage, and she turned to her side to smile dozily at her conqueror. Sweat poured from his brow and into his eyes; his hair lank, his chest heaving. God, he was a man. The man. The only man for her.

She would tell him so. "You are the only man for me," she said, her voice hoarse and cracking from the force of her climactic yelling.

He smiled, stroked her face. "I'm the only man you've known," he said.

"I mean it!"

"Hush, Kitty. Sleep now. Sleep in my arms."

They slept.