The Sea Rat

"M'ladies?" he said nervously, bobbing his head to them. Izlyn forced herself not to laugh at this scarred and grizzled maritime outlaw.

"I require practice," Kathea said matter-of-factly. "In a certain technique you had wished to try with me earlier."

* * *

Kathea had seemed bone-tired when she drifted off to sleep in Izlyn's arms, but in the morning she flitted around the little cabin like a firefly.

"We could tell them to wait till tomorrow," Izlyn suggested. She recalled days of over-indulgence, when she had rubbed herself raw and required an extended break from such bed-play. "Are you not sore?"

In answer, the Princess gave her ruby ring a little kiss.

"Mother, thank you," Kathea said. "I believe I could fuck an army."

"Don't start getting ideas," Izlyn shuddered, shaking out the horrid freshly laundered wedding dress for another debasement.

As Kathea had urged, this time Izlyn allowed the men to come in twos, threes, even four at once.

Izlyn gaped, fascinated, as one young man pulled Kathea into his lap, and he and his best mate took her ass and cunt together, rocking into a matching rhythm that bore the girl off along waves of pleasure.

While one man fucked Kathea from behind, Izlyn watched as a barrel-chested man, his ears pierced in several places, gripped the sides of the Princess's head firmly, fingers bunched in her golden hair, and thrust into her mouth with a solemn and relentless intensity. Izlyn could even see her lady's throat wax and wane around his cock.

She watched Kathea's fingers closely but they only stretched and wriggled, at times clinging together, or else seeming to reach for some relief, but never forming the hand signal Izlyn was looking for -- even when she choked and drooled and gasped for air, spit trailing down her jaw and chest.

The queue grew as the sun rose higher, and soon there was a continuous stream of men fucking her by every method a pirate company could think of.

One preferred to slide his prick between her breasts until his spend decorated her chest. Another dared to suckle at her cunt, heedless of his crewmates' seed dripping down his chin, until her thighs clamped around his neck and her back twisted in ecstacy, shaking her loose from the man who was trying to get his cock between her coral lips.

There was even a pair of lovers who fucked her in a chain, one man buggering his partner, who himself had his prick deep in Kathea's cunt.

Others, as on the day before, merely passed by during their working hours to give her a quick fondle or a friendly slap.

More time must have passed than Izlyn had been aware of, because after a while a bell rang in the next watch, and many of the men still in the queue muttered their dismay as they shuffled off to their posts.

Kathea, breathing raggedly, eyes wild and bright, was momentarily left alone. Her gaze found Izlyn.

"W-won't you take a turn, Izzy?"

If there had been any inch of Izlyn's skin not on fire, it burned now.

"What a mess you are," she murmured, taking in the entirety of Kathea's person -- her hair a tumbling, sticky nest, her dress all askew, her cheeks and bottom glowing red, her body spattered and flowing with pearly lakes and streams, her bare breasts trembling with each heavy breath.

Izlyn felt like a bit of a mess herself, but all that was safely contained beneath her petticoats, where her thighs had been squeezing together all morning, flushed with animal need.

"Don't tell me you're worried about propriety," Kathea croaked.

Izlyn knelt over her. She set the skin to the Princess's lips and let her drink.

"Frankly," Izlyn said sternly as she adjusted the parasol against the sun's new angle, "I'm worried that you need air."

"I need you more."

She shouldn't do this. There was a reason Kathea's betrothed had not wanted her in his household. There were things even a Woman of the Bedchamber really oughtn't do with her liege-lady.

On the other hand, perhaps she could guard the Pricness less distractedly if her own needs were taken care of.

Shaking, she lifted her skirts up over Kathea's head, letting them drop around her.

A few of the men who had just come off watch were approaching, shimmying down ropes or jogging along the heaving deck. They were presented with the sight of a slender, courtly woman, her fine yellow ballgown spilling out in a wide, rumpled circle around her, leaning against the mast next to a pair of bound wrists that emerged from beneath her skirts.

From beneath that expanse of delicately embroidered yellow silk, a hungry mouth moved against her, and Izlyn moaned, grinding her hips against those delicate lips, that clever tongue.

Then, Izlyn was quaking with desperate release that seemed almost to tumble her off the deck and into the ocean depths.

At last, she rose up again, and she could breathe. A few of the men were making catcalls.

Izlyn stood, dusted herself off, and stepped back to her observation post without a sound.

She nodded abstractedly to the two closest men, and they approached Kathea, grinning.

The Princess parted her legs for them and they felt for her cunt, fingers teasing, dipping, spreading, swirling.

Kathea's eyes blazed into her, and her smile glistened.

* * *

On the third morning, just as Izlyn was leading Kathea back to her station by the mast, a young man whispered to her.

"The Captain wants her in his cabin."

He led them to a well-furnished little room. Ghelect, tall and craggy, was hunched over a mahogany desk. He shifted his chair around as they entered, stretching like a cat as he leaned back to regard them.

"I didn't think you had it in you, milady," he said, fixing his gaze on the Princess. "If you truly are a lady."

He turned to Izlyn, brows low, eyes dark.

"From what I have observed, I'm inclined to believe the ugly rumors among certain of my crew -- that you are a lady of quality, but that your companion is a servant girl, whom you have cruelly obliged to masquerade as a wanton peeress for your own wretched purposes."

"Then you have observed nothing," Kathea shot coldly. "We have dealt fairly with you, and you do Izzy an injustice by allowing such a rumor to spread."

"Very well," he said. "If you truly act of your own accord in this scheme, then I would have a taste of your charms myself."

"What's wrong?" Kathea sneered. "Aren't you man enough to come out on deck and drop your britches in front of your crew?"

Izlyn tried not to grin. The Sea Rat's brows climbed.

"Now, hang on," he murmured. "I remember that book."

He stood up, almost tipping his chair over.

"You bloody high-born harlot," he choked. "You've been living out a damn novel on my ship?"

"You read pirate romance novels?" Izlyn said.

For a long moment, they all stared at one another.

"We will never speak of this again," Ghelect said firmly. He grasped Kathea by the wrist. "And you. You. I ought to bend you over my knee and give you a good, firm spanking."

"Then let's put on a show," Kathea said sweetly.

* * *

On the first two mornings of the journy, Kathea's bottom had been gently reddened by the occasional playful smack. But the spanking she received from Ghelect was far more comprehensive.

They had brought a chair out onto the deck, and there he sat with the Princess face down in his lap, skirts rucked up.

The Captain's large, strong right hand rose and fell with a remorseless cadence -- until Kathea's round backside blazed like a sunset, striped by a web of finger-marks; until tears ran freely down her face; until she let go of her control entirely and dissolved into sobs.

But still, she did not relent.

Out on the deck, the crew watched her punishment with a low buzz of excitement. Izlyn could feel such a thrill deep in her own belly, radiating lines of heat throughout her body.

Ghelect paused, caught Izlyn's eye. She nodded.

"Enough," she said, approaching to kneel beside the chair. "I wish to verify that this girl has been sufficiently punished for her wantonness."

Kathea hissed in pain when Izlyn's hand touched her ass. Then, she gasped when Izlyn's fingers drifted lower, into a region of soft, downy golden hair running with dew -- and then, slipping so easily inside her eager cunt.

Princess Kathea was sobbing now, but it was a different kind of sob, relief and hunger and desperate pleasure.

Izlyn joined her slender fingers together and fucked her lady, deep and hard, and with her other hand she circled the hood of Kathea's cunt.

The sobs built into a wail that seemed to billow the sails all around them. Then Kathea went silent, taut, clamping down around Izlyn's fingers and then finally shaking her loose.

For a few seconds, they just breathed together, long, hard gasps.

"Yes, well done," Izlyn said, standing up. She felt light-headed. "Now fuck this man for me."

With Ghelect's help, Princess Kathea hauled herself up unsteadily into a seated position in his lap, head leaning back heavy against his shoulder, wincing at every touch of fabric against her bottom.

He unfastened his trousers and sank her down onto his prick.

Izlyn kissed her very softly as she fucked him, brushing the tears from her cheeks and whispering soft encouragements. And with her other hand, she brought Kathea to another climax, agonized, pleasured breath hot on her ear, mewls of need driving her on.

When at last Kathea rose from the Captain's lap, there was no question of any further activity today. Izlyn saw the Princess look around at the assembled pirates, as if she were doing arithmetic. Izlyn quickly led her away, back to their cabin, before anyone could suggest otherwise.

There were a few groans from the crew, but she cut them off with her most aristocratic glare.

"Come," she muttered to her lady. "Time for a rest and a wash. And we'll see if the Captain has any more of that cheese."

* * *

Kathea's worries about the 2,000 silver decams proved unfounded.

"Goodness, no, your highness," said the pale clerk who had been managing the duchy's financial affairs in her long absence. "That won't be any problem at all. I shall draw it from the palace account."

They returned to the now rather unfashionably decorated reception room where Captain Ghelect and his quartermaster were waiting.

"This place was quaint when I was a child," Kathea said. "Now, it's downright humiliating."

"Humiliating," Izlyn said, cocking an eyebrow. "I believe that word holds considerable weight, given your depth of experience on the subject."

"Hush."

They arranged the transfer of a small, heavy wooden chest.

"Give my regards to the Duchess," Ghelect said.

"I will," Kathea said. Her eyes sparkled, and the corner of her mouth crooked up fetchingly.

Izlyn wanted to kiss those lips again. Later, she thought.

"I admit I had been worried for the two of you. It gladdens me to know that you have such a formidable friend here. Is she here?"

He regarded Kathea sharply. Did he know? Finally, his gaze softened.

"Well," he went on, "I'm sure the Duchess of Aqualae wouldn't be caught dead with the Sea Rat in her reception room. But I thank her all the same."

"I'm sure she thanks you as well, Captain," Izlyn said.

"And if your ship should ever return to this harbor," the Princess said, clasping her small, soft fingers around his great hands, "I do believe the Duchess may have another commission for you."