The Jolly Roger Earrings

You tend to listen when the person telling you to do something is wearing a cutlass and carrying a cat o' nine tails with a dildo for a handle.

I dropped to my knees. I reached into the bucket of soapy water for the sponge. The water was almost scalding hot; but I started swabbing the deck, just like she'd commanded me to do. She propped one leather boot on the bucket's rim and watched me. My hands were hot and red, my cock was rock hard, and all I could think of was those damn earrings.

Meg was always smiling. When the library's computers were crashing or when she was booting brats out of the children's section, she was still smiling. It was always hidden just behind the tight lips. This was about all I knew of Meg, apart from her functional fashion sense, until I noticed the earrings.

I'd gone in looking for another audio book. I played it safe and picked up Elmore Leonard's newest. Meg asked how I was doing, and I gave the usual non-committal answer. She could've asked me if I'd just come from rehearsal at the Peking Opera and I probably would've answered the same way. This was how I thought of Meg. She was just a woman who worked at the library. She was a passing acquaintance. She was a face in the crowd who liked to dress in sweaters and Capri pants...until I noticed the earrings.

It was when she turned her head to look at the computer screen. The wink of metal in her right earlobe caught my eye. She wore a tiny skull and crossbones earring in each lobe. Two tiny death's heads grinned at me with decadent glee that I was now, with sponge in hand and iron rod in pants, just beginning to appreciate.

The earrings led me to look, really look, at Meg's head. She was a cute woman in her forties with wavy black hair that just tickled the base of her neck. She had an elfish nose, Wal-Mart glasses, chocolate eyes, and puffy cheeks. Her red and white-striped sweater made her look more like a member of a barbershop quartet than a librarian. She was a comfortable woman, both in size and demeanor. I imagined her whole life being geared toward comfort, almost complacency. I imagined her living in a warm house with two cats, lots of books, and late nights with a cup of chamomile tea and maybe a vibrator tucked under the pillow of the couch.

I stood there at the checkout desk and realized that I was thinking more about Meg than I had ever done before. All my previous thoughts had been limited to chatty thoughts about the weather and if she'd put the return date sticker on the right spot of my book so the library's anti-theft alarm wouldn't go off. Now, I was wondering if she had a vibrator in her living room.

She slid the audiobook back to me with her pleasant, meek smile. The smile was different now, even if she didn't mean it to be. The earrings turned the simple, even somewhat patronizing, smile into something mischievous and almost deadly.

I almost said something, but I took the audiobook and left. It was just a weird fashion choice, and that was all.

Tell that to the log in my pants.

She walked behind me, inspecting the spots I had scrubbed. The cutlass now held by her side in her other hand. She tapped on the deck with her knee-high boot, and I stopped scrubbing.

"Here. You missed this."

I turned around on my knees. Her boot tapped on a spot I had scrubbed. I reached to scrub it again, but her foot didn't move. I looked up at her, asking a silent question. She moved the cutlass, and I thought she was going to smack me with it. She tapped the side of her boot.

"Clean it," she said.

I squeezed water out of the sponge and into the bucket. She brought her boot toward my face as I moved forward with the sponge.

"With your mouth, boy."

I hesitated a moment too long. She kicked the bucket over, causing the soapy water to pour through the slats of the deck. She flipped the bucket over with her cutlass and propped her foot on the bottom.

"Now," she said.

The security light on the back deck made her skull and crossbones earrings sparkle as I kissed the leather instep.

I caught myself watching Meg from a distance the next time I went to the library. The Jolly Roger earrings were gone, replaced by cubic zirconium. She was trying to get a piece of paper out of the Byzantine workings of the copying machine. She was bent at the waist, twisted at the shoulders, and crooked at the neck trying to look up into the gears, rollers, and inkjets. Her childbearing hips and ass, wrapped in another pair of Capris, stuck out and waited to be slapped.

I cleared the bizarre, naughty, yet unavoidable, thought from my head and approached her.

"Get one caught?" I asked.

She turned up from her yogic twist, blew a tuft of hair out from behind her glasses, and smiled.

"Yeah, a piece of paper's caught in there somewhere. I can't find it."

"I took one apart once. Let me see if I can find it."

It was the first time I kneeled at her feet.

We were engaging in idle chitchat when Ellie, a wonderfully cute college sophomore with short curly hair, lickable freckles, and D-cups always wrapped in rock band shirts, came up to us.

"Meg, do you know where the DVD projector is?" Ellie asked.

Meg told her, and then a strange thing happened. Ellie simply said, "I..." and didn't finish the sentence after receiving a sharp look from Meg. The authority in Meg's face was only there for a second, but it was undeniable. Ellie dropped her head in embarrassment. She said thanks, and then hurried away. I found the paper, yanked it out, and forgot about Ellie until the reception dinner a week later.

Tonight, however, Ellie was chained to a mast with her dress hiked over her freckled behind.

I kept licking Meg's boot. She put it down and gave me the other.

"You brigands!" Ellie yelled from the topless mast that jutted up from the deck. She tried to look back at us, but found it difficult with her hands chained over her head and her feet chained at the ankles to the deck. "My father will send the entire British fleet to find me and see you all hanged as traitors to the crown!"

"Your father is in Davey Jones' locker, girl," Meg said with a laugh. She put her boot down and turned to face Ellie, whose eyes had now grown wide with fear. Or was it gleeful apprehension? I stayed kneeling on the deck, and would've been laughing at this scene and its cliffhanger serial dialogue, were it not for my intense desire to jack off.

"No one's coming for you, girl. You belong to me and me crew now," Meg said.

"No, no!" Ellie pleaded in her best Polly Pureheart voice.

"Oh yes, and you'll follow the rules of the Lady Death."

"Never! I'd rather die!"

Meg swished the cat o'nine tails up Ellie's naked thighs and backside. Even in the lone light of the back deck, I could see that Ellie's cunt was glistening and waiting for any attention it could get.

Meg cracked Ellie's backside with the cat o'nine tails. It made a wet smack that caused Ellie's head to snap back and her hands to spring open in the shackles. Another blow slapped her cheeks, and Ellie let out a deep-throated grunt. I stayed on my knees, transfixed.

"I think you'll be a fine wench for me crew," Meg said, her pirate grammar shaking me out of my trance.

"Never! You may torture me, but you'll have to rape my dead body before I'd lie down with your or your crew! I – "

"Shut your mouth, girl!" Meg said and spun the cat o'nine tails around in her hand. She crammed its thick black silicone dildo end into Ellie's mouth. Ellie resisted, but only for a moment. Her eyes briefly rolled up in pleasure before she dropped her head in mock defeat.

Meg turned to me. I felt a strong urge to resume scrubbing the deck.

"Keep an eye on her, boy," Meg said, "If she sasses ya, give 'er a couple'a lashes." She turned for the house, but looked back over her shoulder to give me a sly grin. "And whatever else ya like. I'm off to check somethin' below decks."

All I could say was, "Aye, aye, captain!"

The reception dinner for library volunteers was hot from too many bodies being stuffed into one big room in the library. I was surprised at the number of people there, and also humbled by the enormity of others' actions on behalf of the library. I helped out with Meg's summer school program every summer, while others seemed to be part-time librarians without the schooling.

I was trying to figure out how the wandering stage magician had pulled off a card trick when I heard Lisa, the head librarian, asking for some "strong guys" to help move a podium from the basement to the big room upstairs. I swallowed my last bite of cake and raised my hand.

A farmer who had donated a large collection of old, almost perfectly preserved newspapers to the library's historic collection, joined me. We followed Lisa to the basement, through the children's section, and into a back room. I was first through the door, so I was able to catch a glimpse of Ellie sliding through a door into another hallway that led to the back emergency exit steps.

I considered saying something, but guessed Ellie was fetching something for the party. Lisa advised the farmer and me on how to best maneuver the podium to the elevator, and I forgot about Ellie until we got upstairs.

We put the podium in the big room, and I assured Lisa that she would do a fine job with her speech. My attention wandered as she spoke, and I noticed Meg and Ellie were nowhere to be seen. All of the staff was there except them.

I wondered if Ellie had left and Meg was busy. I wondered if Ellie was having a smoke in the emergency exit stairwell. I wondered if they were in the restroom, or if Meg was making a phone call, or if they were both downstairs away from prying eyes.

My eyes wanted to pry, so I got up and walked out of the big room without anyone seeming to care. Lisa was showing photos of library activities for the past year when I went downstairs.

The children's section was as quiet as...well, a library. The back room was still unlocked, and I slid in like a shadow. I stood in the dark and listened. I had to calm my heart, which was pounding in excitement of being caught down here without an excuse. I listened for a bit longer, and then heard a quiet echo of a voice saying, "Say it." Another voice echoed something I couldn't make out.

Following the echoes, I moved to the emergency exit door. As I got closer, "Say it" became a stern command from beyond the door. The door had a window in it with wires criss-crossed through the panes of glass. The voices beyond were booming off the walls of the emergency exit stairwell. They were voices of pleasure. Carnal, wild, fucktastic pleasure. I stood to one side of the door and looked through its window.

Ellie was on the steps, lying back on some of the other steps. Meg was buck-naked and astride Ellie's face. Her white ass flexed and bucked on Ellie's mouth. Meg held the handrail for support while Ellie grabbed handfuls of Meg's white buttocks.

"You like that, don't you, girl?" Meg asked. I could see Ellie's chin bobbing as she nodded. Meg reached back with one hand and gave one of Ellie's nipples a hard pinch through her shirt.

"Say it!" Meg shouted and then rose up from Ellie's wet mouth.

"Aye, aye, captain," Ellie said. A light bulb went on above my head then.

I realized that Ellie had almost said this when she came up to Meg and me at the broken copier. She asked for the DVD projector, Meg told her where to find it, and Ellie almost said, "Aye, aye, captain;" but she caught herself. It explained the strange look from Meg, the awkward pause, and Ellie's silent dismissal. How long had this weird relationship been going on?

"You're a fine wench, aren't you, girl?" Meg asked as she twisted and pinched Ellie's nipple some more.

"Aye, captain," Ellie said between breaths.

Meg held onto Ellie's head. A strange shudder rippled down her white body as she came. She cried out a long, echoing "Oh!" that reverberated in the stairwell like feedback through a bass amp.

They quivered together for what seemed like a long time. Weren't they missed upstairs? Wouldn't someone be looking for them by now? Meg got dressed as Ellie wiped her lips and chin with her fingers. They kissed, and I backed away before they saw me. I scuttled into a dark spot and crouched there. They came through the door with big grins on their faces. Meg gave Ellie a playful swat on the behind.

"I'll see you tonight on the Lady Death. Wear something I can tear off you."

"Aye, aye, captain," Ellie said, her eyebrows raised in happy expectation.

I watched them leave, waited a couple minutes, then snuck out of the back room, up the stairs, and to the men's room so I could jack off in one of the stalls. It didn't take me long.

I found Meg in the main room just as Lisa was finishing up her presentation of certificates to outstanding volunteers. Ellie was on the opposite side of the room. They were skilled at the deception. There was no apparent body language between them, save a quick glance or the way Ellie's gaze would drop so she wouldn't look her captain in the eyes. You wouldn't see it unless you knew to look for it.

During the "stand around and chitchat about nothing" time that inevitably overwhelms every party; I spotted Meg speaking with an older couple near the shelves of audiobooks. She kindly listened to them ramble on about the old library. Seeing the demure version of Meg again thrilled me even more than seeing her humping Ellie's face. I was in on the secret, unbeknownst to her and Ellie. Now, as I watched her laugh at a little quip from the old man and then put a kind hand on his shoulder, all I could think of was how that hand just got done playing with a pair of freckled D-cup tits.

I felt like a spy, but thought it would be fun to break my cover. I found an old VHS copy ofThe Black Swan on the shelves. I took it to Meg just as the couple left her. She smiled and shook my hand, her eyes lighting up as she saw the movie in my hand.

"Great choice," she said.

"You've seen it?"

"Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, directed by Henry King in nineteen forty-two."

"So you have seen it, then?"

She laughed, a bit embarrassed.

"It's one of the classics of the pirate movie genre. I'm a big fan."

"I loved the Johnny Depp pirate movie."

"Best movie of two thousand-three," she said with utmost seriousness.

"Would you make me a list of pirate movies? I have nothing else to do all weekend."

"You could borrow mine." She was blushing. This face-fucking, pirate-loving woman was blushing. She told me she'd bring them to the library the next day. I thanked her; she thanked me and then laughed some more, almost bumped into a bookshelf as she backed away, and left to mingle. I noticed I had another erection. I held the videotape at my waistband and moved to a quiet spot to calm down.

I went in early the next day to get the movies. Meg was nowhere to be found, and neither was Ellie. The short, part-time assistant gave me a box of movies with a note attached that had specific instructions to give them to me and call Meg in the storage room if I showed up between nine and ten, which I had.

The short woman called on an interlibrary phone, said, "That guy is here for his movies," hung up, and walked away without a word. I stood at the counter for a couple minutes before Meg came up from the stairs that led to the children's section. Her skin was flushed, and the first inch of her hair was damp with sweat.

"Been working out?" I asked.

"We're moving things downstairs," she said.

"You and Ellie?" She was taken aback, but just for a moment. "I didn't see her around, so I just guessed." Her laugh was one of relief. I hefted the box into the crook of my left arm.

"This is quite a collection," I said.

"I have lots of books at home too, if you're ever interested."

"I'm interested." I let the moment hang there before I saw a joke I couldn't resist. I reached into the box and pulled out a DVD. "Horatio Hornblower? Is this from your private collection?"

She laughed with a cute, snickering sound and then explained the history of the Horatio Hornblower novels and their author in such fervent detail that I thought she was going to pass out. I thanked her again, promised I'd return them in a week, and headed out.

I almost ran into Ellie on the way. She came down the stairs from the upper level and almost body-checked me. I made a laughing apology, but she returned a cold stare.

I watched all twenty films, and was surprised at how much I enjoyed the adventures of Mr. Hornblower. Meg was just as surprised that I had watched them all. She recommended several books, and one day took me into the library's stacks to show me some.

By then, I had learned not only much about piracy on the high seas, but also much about Meg. We both liked Klimt paintings, Jamaican jerk chicken, and the Rolling Stones up to theSome Girls album. She did Pilates, and I ran mini-marathons. She ate little sugar, and I ate no red meat. I was about to ask her out for coffee when Ellie came around the corner. I caught sight of her first, and she gave me the evil eye again.

"Lisa wants you, Meg," she said.

"Tell her I'll be right there," Meg said without much of a look back.

"She's getting ready to leave for lunch. I don't think she can wait."

Meg's face grew stern for a moment before she flashed her smile and told me she'd better get back to work. I asked about the coffee. She blushed, smiled, and said yes. She turned and headed down the aisle. Ellie obediently stepped aside, shooting more daggers from her eyes at me.

Those same eyes now pled with me as she jerked at the chains holding her to the mast. Meg had gone into the house. I was still on my knees, not sure whether to laugh, scrub, or fuck Ellie from behind. My mind was paralyzing my body through indecision.

Ellie broke the spell by spitting out the dildo, much to my disappointment; she looked great with a mouthful of cock. It thumped to the hardwood like a dropped kielbasa.

"Good sir! Please release me! You have my word that my father will reward you beyond measure!"

I wanted to laugh, but Meg came out of the house wearing nothing but her boots, cutlass, and a magnificent plumed pirate hat. Her white body was now seen to be strong under the softness, probably from the Pilates and the low sugar diet. She looked at the cat o'nine tails and then at me.

"What's happened, boy? Did the wench try anything?"

It was the first time she'd asked me a question during this role-play. I wasn't sure how to respond. I almost said a simple, "No," figuring the less I talked, the better. I changed my mind, however; and with a delightfully mischievous spark of inspiration, I let the dialogue from twenty pirate movies come out.

"The only thing she tried, captain, was to use her womanly wiles to escape. She tried to seduce me, captain. Promised me riches, she did." I even threw in an Irish sea dog accent for reasons I didn't know.

"Did she now?" Meg asked and turned to face Ellie, whose expression reminded me of a melodrama actress tied to the tracks. "Why don't we show her what wenches are used for on the Lady Death?"

She beckoned. I stood. We walked to Ellie, who growled and spat at us.

"Do your worst!" She said.

"Get undressed, boy," Meg ordered. "It's time we taught this wench some manners."

"Aye, aye, captain," I said, and then pulled off my striped shirt.

This was quite a turn of events from earlier this evening.

I had stopped by the library and walked Meg to the coffee shop. Ellie shot us another strange look before we left, which was immediately returned by Meg. Ellie scurried away like she was late for an important appointment.

Later, when I saw her tied to the mast on Meg's back deck, I realized she had been.

After our first date at the coffee shop, we set up another to do a book exchange. I'd bring her some crime fiction, and she'd bring me another pirate novel. Ellie was again nearby when we made the agreement. She slowly walked by, like a panther scouting prey. I kept waiting for her to growl at me, but she walked to the circulation desk to check in books. She did it without looking at them, never taking her eyes off me.