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Message-ID: <50484asstr$1108419003@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 11:28:56 -0600
From: Elf.M.Sternberg@giganews.com (elf.sternberg@speakeasy.net)
Subject: {ASSM} Aimee' in Pyu Rika: The Sea Voyage (mf, slow)
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Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 17:10:03 -0500
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The Sea Voyage

The docks smelled of three hundred years of discarded fish innards,
old tar, seagulls, and somewhere upwind Aimeé was quite sure a sailor
smoked the cheapest tobacco ever harvested. The bright sunshine of
morning did nothing to dispel the impression that the docks of
Barraminum existed for one purpose only: to ship the wealth of the
colonies back to the Imperium.

She thought briefly of the leaflet she had picked up yesterday, but
one of dozens that had been available to her, either handed
surreptitiously or simply nailed to every available post and wall in
some sections of the city. If there was anywhere that those leaflets
should be layers deep it was here at the docks, but there were none to
be found. Yet here was where the city's poor, that portion of it that
still had work, most saw the results of their labor flow ship by ship
across the sea to the Emperor and his majestic city on the sea.

"Are you Mage Aimeé?"

She started at being addressed by a stranger, but turned and looked in
the direction of the speaker. He was taller than she by a head, and
rounder too, although his massive hands were knotted with the kinds of
muscles that could only come from years at the wheel and ropes of a
sailing vessel. He wore a black beard and a blue cap. She nodded for a
moment, and he said, "Good. I was told to expect ye'. I'm your
Captain. Captain Alec Shondar."

"I'm pleased to meet you," she said, watching with some mild annoyance
as his facial features took on the same cast as that of all men when
they heard her voice. Well, not all men. Neither Filo nor Darynn had
reacted that way. There were good reasons why she appreciated those
men in her life.

He recovered quickly enough. "Neither of the others has shown yet, and
we must get moving quickly if we are to take advantage of the morning
winds. They come off the plains and blow reliably, but by noon they'll
wander in the other directions and we'll have to tack against them for
the rest of the day. I'd like to get as far away from here before that
happens."

"I cannot call them or make them come any more rapidly, Captain."

"I am merely speaking, Mage," he said. "Do you know which is mine?"
She shook her head. He gestured over towards a ship small enough to be
anchored at the docks. "That's the Swift Teacher. A crew of
thirty-five, and cargo space for barely three tons, but she'll easily
take Mages anywhere they want to go, especially those who are paying
double what the school is offering." He smiled. "Ah, there's my own
mage now. Hektor! You're on time for once."

Walking along the poured stone road was a tall, lanky figure who must
have come from a stock identical to Filo's, since he had the same
curly red hair and the pale grey eyes. His nose was sharper and his
mouth tighter, but that may just have been worry. "I promised I would
be, Captain, and I am," he said, flashing a small smile that vanished
as quickly as it appeared. "I have already checked, and we will have
clear weather. I am going to say that we'll have two days of clear
weather, but I cannot tell any more than that."

"Any hints beyond that?" Shondar asked.

Hektor shook his head. "None."

"Well, two days of fine weather is more than any man can ask for.
Hektor, this is Mage Aimeé. She is accompanying us on our trip to Pyu
Rika."

Hektor turned and bowed. "It is an honor to meet you, Mage. I am but a
humble apprentice in a humble profession."

Aimeé returned the bow. "It is an honor to meet you, Apprentice
Hektor. The Captain misspeaks; I am but an apprentice as well, and in
an even more humbling profession than yours."

"'Apprentice Aimeé. You are apprenticed to Master Darynn! I remember
hearing about your trial. I am, uh, truly honored to meet you, then."
Even as he spoke, his voice became flustered. "Excuse me. I must make
my place on board the Captain's ship."

Aimeé bowed again and watched him leave. She sighed. "One of these
days, I shall understand men."

"If you do, Apprentice Aimeé, will you also tell me the secret of
women?"

Aimeé shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't know there was one."

Shondar laughed. "You haven't talked to many men, then! Ah, here are
your companions!" She turned and saw Darynn walking, carrying a mage
staff, but a metallic one, topped with a statuette of a dragon curled
on itself, sleeping. He had the look of a man in his older prime,
strong and healthy, but she knew that such appearance were the result
of profound magics. Darynn was much older than he looked, and he was
fading even then into his old age. Next to him stood Talen Silisto,
who was even older that Darynn and looked the part. He wore a hat
against the sun, his heavy face lined with age and the signs of at
least one bout of the pox. How that had happened to the man most
agreed was one of the five most powerful in the New World with no-one
at hand to cure him was a mystery Talen had not chosen to divulge.

She bowed to both, dipping deeply on both knees in a sign of respect
for Talen. She knew Darynn would have laughed at the symbolism, but
she took it seriously. A formal distance had served her well with her
first master. She hoped it would serve her well with others who held
power over her.

Behind them, a pair of porters pulled a small wagon laden down with
their boxes. She had brought a single bag and a large chest; they both
seemed determined to bring entire laboratories with them on this
voyage.

"We are assembled, then," Shondar said, commenting not at all on the
size of their personal cargo. "Let us be aboard and away." He turned
and walked towards his ship without waiting for them. Aimeé followed,
as did the rest.

As they approached, three men came down and began to assist them with
the bags. Another ran past at a pace that implied a brief run. "Where
is he going?" Aimee asked.

"To inform the harbor-master that we will be leaving. Our flag and
notice of our course will be hung from that tower there." He pointed
to a white tower a half-mile north-west of their position. "Others
will be informed of our coming and the coastal guard will not be
alarmed at our pace."

They were quickly assisted into the ship. The crew busied itself with
preparations for departure, leaving Aimeé adrift about where to go or
what to do. "Mage Aimeé?" She turned and saw Hektor standing there.
"Please come below and stow your belongings."

She followed the tall, almost deadly earnest and desperately nervous
young man down a narrow stairway to a collection of cabins at the back
of the vessel. "This one is yours."

"Thank you, Apprentice Hektor. And please stop calling me 'Mage'! I
have not earned it."

"Many of us think you have."

"I have not!" She turned to look at him. "I was lucky. I'm just an
apprentice. That is all. What skills and talents I have are
undeveloped and unready for the title of Mage. Hektor, I don't deserve
the label. It is wrong."

He bowed his head, his face flushed with embarrassment. "I did not
mean... I, I... we--"

"Hektor, I'm just a student." She held her hands out to him, palms up.
"I just wish to be allowed to study in peace."

He nodded, retreating awkwardly. She sighed. She had encountered that
attitude among a few students and never been sure what to do when she
did. She wanted to like her fellow students, especially since in the
case of Hektor she was going to be on the same ship with him for four
weeks and friction between mages in such tight quarters could be
problematic in the extreme.

Her cabin was small but unremarkable. It had an ordinary bed and a
hammock, the latter she had been told necessary for rough weather
which would toss her out of a flat mattress. The ceiling was low
enough to cause Mage Darynn to have to bend over while maneuvering in
his, she thought. Or perhaps he got a different room, one with higher
ceilings. She rather doubted it. There was a dresser, nailed into
place she was pleased to see, and next to it her one massive trunk had
been left, unopened. The wood was carefully hewn and painted.

Her days were not regimented on the shore, she thought. She had her
studies, which she accomplished by their due time and without the
kinds of difficulty her other students seem to suffer, the mysterious
distractions of mischief and courtship. Darynn offered to her that
neither mischief nor courtship were mysteries to her, and so did not
tempt her in much the same way.

But now, looking at her darkened room with its one small window, she
wondered what she might accomplish all these weeks stuck on board one
small ship (and it was by all accounts a small ship) with little to do
but her studies and conversations with her fellow mages.

The ship seemed to suddenly tilt to one side, accompanied by much
creaking of wood and a strangely loud cracking sound from somewhere in
the middle of the ship. She heard no voices of alarm so she left her
room and went up to the main deck. There were men moving with
deliberation upon the ropes, casting lines to one another and shouting
out orders and confirmations, a call-and-response of responsibilities
swirling about her. For a moment, she held the illusion that the ship
was the living thing, the men merely its parts, interchangeable, and
if one fell over the ship was ill until healed in the next port.

"It is magnificent, is it not?" Darynn asked her. "All these strong,
young men going about their duties, each full of body and spirit. And
there are no feeble minds on a sea voyage, Aimeé, trust me of that."
He smiled, enjoying the display.

She stood with him on the deck, watching the long, rocky straits of
Barraminum slide by. The Swift Teacher maneuvered surely, running with
all sails billowed to their fullest. They passed by small towns that
lined the straits, fishing or lumber or a bit of both. Smoke curled
from the chimneys of mills. Aimeé's memories began only in the
orphanage, and she wondered if she came from a family on those shores,
or further inland, up in the mountains, or down south where the farms
and sheep herds were as thick as summer gnats.

At noon, bread slathered with a thick preserve was passed around. They
passed by the Island of the Emperor's Eye, its lighthouse standing
bright white against the blue sky background, and then the Swift
Teacher took to the open sea.

Aimeé had never seen the sea before, and although she had read about
it, the reality of it, the frightening emptiness as it reached all the
way to the horizon, where the sea and the sky met in an unbroken line,
momentarily terrified her. She looked back at the land, watched that
island with its one, tall tower, beckoning her home. The clarity of
the air meant that it did not disappear, but merely shrank in size and
curved away until even that was gone and they were alone in the vast,
wide sea. "It does that to everyone their first time."

She regarded Captain Shondar. He appeared both amused and sympathetic
with her plight. "I hope ye are not afraid, Apprentice Aimeé. This is
all ye shall be seeing for the next four weeks. Ye have been standing
here for almost three hours, did ye know that?"

She had not realized. In her hand she clenched one small hunk of the
remaining bread, and she passed that to her mouth, chewing slowly.
"What will I do for all this time?"

"Yer teachers will find work for ye. And if ye know anything about a
needle and thread?" She shook her head. "Well, we will teach ye. There
are always ropes and clothes that need mending. And ye are all invited
to the Captain's table for the remainder of the voyage."

She smiled at him, and he grinned back. "I thank you, Captain."

"Thank me when ye have been returned to Barraminum, and not a moment
earlier," he said. "Every voyage is a game of dice, and the gods are
doing the rolling." His eyes searched over the deck of the vessel.
Aimeé had seen a look similar to it in Darynn's eyes, deep in the
throes of a spell of seeing. Shondar was seeking something, but he
knew not what. He would know it when he saw it.

Eventually, he turned his attention back to her. "I seem to have a
better crew this trip."

"Is it always a different crew?"

"I have thirty-three men, the Apprentice Hektor, and myself. Six of
them I count as officers, who will share my table now and then. But
the men, there are nine with which I am unfamiliar. I am looking for
the mistakes they have made that my own men may have missed. I do not
see any."

"Is that good?"

He grunted. "It is probably the best I have ever witnessed."

"I count myself fortunate to be on such a lucky vessel."

He smiled. "If ye were a sailor, ye would not say such a foolish
thing. But ye will learn."

"I hope to, Captain."

"Ah, Aimeé. Making nice with the Captain already?"

She turned to see Darynn standing beside her. She had not been aware
of his presence. "I think the good Captain is attempting to make nice
with me. He seems to think I need reassurance against the loneliness
of the sea."

"And do you?" Darynn said.

She nodded. "It is frightening."

"I have taken it upon myself to craft a curriculum, if you will, while
we are at sea, Apprentice, in the hopes that you will not lose your
training before we arrive at Pyu Rika or on the journey home." He
gestured towards the narrow stairway leading down into the rear of the
vessel. She knew that she would have to learn the names of the parts
of the ship before long.

"Excuse me, Captain. My studies call."

"Indeed," he said.

[sigsm.gif]

A week passed. Aimeé spent most of her day either on the deck or in
her room, and in either place she studied her texts and cast minor
spells. She co-ordinated with the increasingly awkward Mage Hektor for
those times when her presence as a spell caster did not disrupt his
concentration, and the four mages on the boat had achieved a state of
harmony.

Most of her studies concentrated on investigation. The history of a
thing, the nature of it, perhaps a glimpse of its previous owner, or a
sense that one was near the previous owner. Magicked items had more of
that than mundane items; they seemed to have a story they wanted told.
There were so many different spells for knowing a thing and all of
them gave only small parts of the whole. She saw Darynn and Talen
daily, conversing together in low tones. She wondered about what they
discussed.

She practiced in her room, raising her eromancer's powers through her
own fingers. She had learned to appreciate her own strength and lust
and the way she could use it to great effect. More and more in her
private moments, when she was not thinking about casting a spell, she
found herself wondering about Captain Shondar. Such a big man, so
powerful in his presence. She wondered if being a ship's captain
required such a bearing.

Not today, however. Today, she studied only the mundane aspects of
spell creation in the investigative arts. She was a little annoyed at
the interruption, being deep in a section on the necessity of perfect
handwriting in the making of scrolls of revelation, and had wanted to
reach the end of the lesson and practice. "Miss? The Captain asks that
you join him for dinner."

"I shall be there in a moment," she said, remembering "the way a lady
should speak," as Bethsany had instructed her. She carefully packed
away the books and pen and inks and closed the latch on her trunk,
then rose. She had no idea what she looked like and only one mirror
which she reserved for ritual purposes. She worried that she would
begin to stink on this trip, as Darynn had taught her the benefit of
regular bathing. She had already discovered the head, latched and
battened in case of storm, and the rigmarole through which she had to
go in order to use it. She had been warned, twice, that her failure to
latch it down properly could sink the boat and that she was the only
one on board with a 'lady's head.' The men, she learned, merely
pointed and urinated off the lee side of the ship.

She pulled another layer of clothing over her head and cinched a vest
over her shoulders, brushed out her hair. She hadn't thought about how
she would wash herself on a ship where there would be no new water for
days on end and every drop that fell from the sky needed to be
preserved somewhere. She would put out a catchbasin of some sort, she
supposed, then bring it back in here and wash.

She knocked on the door to the Captain's Cabin and was let in. The
table was short, and with eight people arranged about it it would be a
tight fit. The room, as it was, would barely hold all of them anyway
and still have space for service. "Ah, Miss Aimeé! I am so pleased you
could join us!"

She bowed, suddenly nervous. She already knew she liked Captain
Shondar, but there was the matter of his voice. She wanted to cower
whenever he spoke. He committed every act with volume. She wondered
what sort of noises he made in the heat of passion.

A collection of faces came to her, Bethsany, Lilli, Meli, Brandy. The
girls of the brothel where both Darynn and even Teltirray had thought
she might learn the skills and acts of love. Each woman knew one or
more men a night, hundreds in a year. What did that do to them, she
wondered, the touch of a man, the attention of one? She had known
three, she thought, and each of them viewed her differently. Teltirray
had approached her as a matter of power, as if they would never be
equals and so he had every right to dominate her, overpower her,
control her. Darynn, in contrast, viewed her as one whose power had
the potential to equal and exceed his own. She had a kind of power
there, but it was tempered by the knowledge that neither of them was
attracted to the other in a romantic manner. Filo, on the other hand,
was interested in a romance he could not sustain and his interest was
tempered, as it must be, by the knowledge that she was both a superior
mage and wealthy in her own right.

Her reverie ended abruptly as she sat in her chair next to Darynn's,
who in turn sat next to Mage Silisto. Opposite her were a collection
of faces she had come to know: Shondar's first mate, Merrilin, and his
other officers, Ferranti, Bozia. They were both thin and wiry, but of
different casts: Ferranti hard and hungry, Bozia relaxed and
unconcerned. At the opposite end of the table, to her right, sat
Hektor, looking as nervous as she felt.

"Is the sea treating you well, Miss Aimee?" Bozia asked gently as a
young boy placed the first serving before her.

"Well enough," Aimee replied.

"We've not seen you much topside," Shondar said.

"I have my studies. They keep me busy. I wouldn't want to be a
disruption to the men anyway."

"They know you are here," Shondar said. "And I don't believe it its
bad luck to have a woman aboard my ship. Such sentiments do not become
a man who has traveled with so many Mages as I."

"Your men don't feel the same way," Talen Silisto pointed out.

"True," Shondar said. "But they're hardly the interested-in-women
type. Sailors have a taste for sodomy even before they head out.
Sailors who cross seas, that is. The ones who stick to shore work are
more acceptable in their passions."

"I should have been a sailor!" Darynn said.

"And we would have lost a great mage, had you been one," Talen Silisto
said.

The third round of dinner was passing by, a palatable mixture of meats
and vegetables, when Shondar said, "And you, Apprentice Aimee?"

"Sir?"

"We all know what Darynn and Hektor study, and Talen here has revealed
his great love of books and papers. What is your field of study?"

"I follow my Teacher, master Darynn," Aimeé said softly. "I raise
power with my sex."

"You do that already with your great beauty," Shondar said, the first
soft thing he had spoken all evening. "Surely you are bewitching
enough without mastering some eldritch art."

"So I am sometimes complimented," Aimeé said, her face candle-hot with
embarrassment. Her eyes sought something else to see, she could not
face Shondar. "But if I am to be more useful than a prostitute,
Captain, and live a happier life, I must have more than just my face."
She felt oddly confident. He had admitted his interest in her. "That
is not to say that I never practice my skills for pleasure, Captain."

She saw the confusion cross his face. He hadn't expected her to take
the initiative in quite that way. The rest of the table had grown
silent, spectators to a familiar dance. "I see," he said, lifting his
narrow wineglass to his lips and holding it thoughtfully. "I am not
like my shipmates. The world of women is not frightening to me,
although it is foreign territory to all men, naturally."

"I would not say I was frightened by women," Bozia said. "Merely not
interested."

"You are a most difficult case, Mr. Bozia. It is a good thing you are
so competent."

Bozia grinned.

Dessert passed around, propelled again by the young lad who had served
them all through the evening. He could not have been more than ten or
eleven years old, she thought, and she wondered what kind of cruelty
put a boy like that on a ship. The same world-encompassing cruelty
that put a girl like her on a slave-block when she was his age.

She had been freed, but that did not mean she was free. Teltirray had
seen in her both the joy of her own body and the strength of her youth
and, for a time, had made her hate both. She had regained the strength
of her youth, but she wondered if her joy at her own bodily pleasures
would be forever tainted by his touch. She wanted it to be otherwise.

The officers filed out after a time, leaving only the Captain and the
Mages. "This is but the end of the first week of a five week voyage,
my gentle Mages," Shondar said, "and I would speak to you without my
men at hand. They know we are heading for Pyu Rika, and they are
nervous. The Bones of the Dragon are enough to frighten even the
strongest of sailors. They are a superstitious lot, whatever I may
have said. I have made this voyage before, with Master Darynn, and I
ask for the same privilege as last time-- that we be allowed to sail
over the horizon for the three days of the Ritual."

"Of course," Darynn said. "Why would you expect it to be otherwise?"

"The last time, Darynn, you went alone. Now you bring not just
yourself, but three others. I hoped that you did not want us to be
about in case one of them was caught with a wish to leave the comforts
of Pyu Rika suddenly."

Darynn glanced about the tiny room. "I don't think we'll be having
that kind of trouble, Shondar."

"I hope not." For a time, it was quiet in the room.

"Well," Talen said softly. "If you'll excuse me, I believe I must take
some air."

"And I have a casting to do," Hektor said suddenly. Aimeé did not need
to glance into his thoughts to know that he would rather have been
anywhere else but alone with a pair of eromancers.

"So, Darynn, this is your Apprentice," Shondar said after the door had
closed. "After all these years you take another, and this time it is a
pretty girl. Are your tastes changing in your old age?"

"No," Darynn said. "She is the best student I could find in that
season. There has been none like her in quite a while, and there will
probably not be another like her for as long a time as that." He
regarded her with the open admiration that made her blush intensely.
"She will be a Mage, Shondar, not one of my playmates. And for Magick,
I care not what she carries between her legs."

"So you say," Shondar. "And you, Aimeé, how do you find yourself in
this?"

"I am... learning. It is hard. Darynn rescued me from a terrible man,
a man who kept me as a slave even a century after His Majesty banned
all slaves from the face of the Earth."

"And... eromancy?"

"Is a pleasure to work, even to practice," she said. "Why, Captain, do
you want me to practice on you?"

Shondar was taken aback once more, and she smiled. He leaned back in
his chair and said, "I have been, for most of my life, a celibate man,
dear Aimeé. My passion is for the sea and the life it affords me."

"I am not asking for your hand in marriage, or coin from your purse.
I'm asking you for the passion you proclaim you have for women. Can
you have it for me?"

"You are serious."

"Very much so," she said. Darynn's eyes measured her seriousness and
registered his approval, and for a moment she basked in that gaze. "I
will not be a slattern, but I cannot pretend that I wish to a husband
and a house, either."

"Just for tonight, then?"

"If we find it unwelcome, then yes, just for tonight. Otherwise... we
shall see." She smiled. The scars inside ached gently, but they were
overwhelmed by the warmth in her belly, the promising pleasure to
come.

"Then I shall not refuse you," Shondar said.

"If this is the course of the evening," Darynn said, "then I am going
to go onto the decks and sing bawdy songs with the men. To make some
noise. Good night, you two." He pushed his chair back, bowed to the
two of them. They rose and bowed back. He left.

Aimeé walked around the table and faced the good Captain. She tilted
her head back to look at his scruff, bearded face. "Are you frightened
of me, Shondar?"

"Alec. Frightened of you? No. Mages do not frighten me, nor young
women. If I have a worry, it is that I shall disappoint you."

"I am not so experienced that I have a measure against which to be
disappointed." She touched his shirt and his body beat loudly against
her palm. She felt desire trickle within her groin. "All I ask is a
night of pleasure."

"It is not so simple."

"It is," she whispered, her hand sliding down the front of his shirt
until it reached his belt. "All men say it is not simple, when it is
they who wish it was the most simple of things."

"My cabin," he said, his mouth full of confusion, "is over there." He
led the way through a glassed door to the right, and on the other side
was a space twice as wide as the bed built for one. He closed the door
and looked for her.

She was already reaching out for his belt, pulling at the cord that
held his pants on. Before he could react, his pants fell about his
ankles. Aimeé looked at the tent his prick made through his loose
undergarment, very unlike a loincloth, and appreciated that Captain
Alec Shondar would stretch her more than any of her other lovers. He
was truly gifted, if one could say that, with his prick.

She stroked it through the material, watching his face contort into
shapes that might have been pain. "Do I bother you, Captain?"

"Women are meek creatures and mages never are. I do not know which
kind of creature you are."

"Both," she said. The heft of his prick felt warm even through the
thin cloth, and she wanted to see what it looked like. "Take off your
clothes," she implored him. "I want to see what you look like."

He still had his boots on. He sat down and pulled them off, then
kicked off his breeches and his underwear, then pulled his tunic over
the top of his head. Aimeé's attention followed every new exposure of
cloth, every new revelation of the body underneath. Shondar, she saw,
would feel like a bear in both the girth of his belly and the fur that
covered him. He sat on the bed and looked up at her. The desire in her
swelled like his prick, the monster with a soft upward curve and a
helmet of dark pink, so pronounced it looked like a separate garment,
an addition, an accessory that one might remove. She blanked to think
of what might be underneath. She had better thoughts.

She knelt before him, looked into his eyes. There was a probing,
desperate look in his face. He almost seemed to be pleading with her.
He was afraid. She wished to know why, but she could not ask. Instead,
she lowered her eyes to his prick. It was handsome, unmarred. She
raised her hands to it, caressed it, felt its bulk once more, felt the
warmth of him under her palms. The skin was silky, the smell manly
without being unpleasant.

She had seen the men stand in the rain and scrape themselves clean. It
might not be the Baths of Cortane, but cleanliness was truly a sign of
civilization, and the men kept to it with the attention of penitents.
Shondar led them, sure in his role as the keeper of civilization and
order aboard his ship.

That was the source of his fear. She was a woman, and in his eyes, in
his tradition, she was the source of disorder, the sower of trouble,
the distraction of men's hearts from their responsibilities. She would
have to somehow convince him that she kept no grip after tonight, that
he was free of her even after they had loved.

She lifted his prick, her hands sliding down under his balls, his sack
with its precious cargo small and tight against the base of his shaft.
They were as hairy as the rest of him; it seemed that the only places
on his body not covered in fur were his prick and half his face. He
groaned, his legs trembling. "Easy, captain," she said.

"Only for you!"

She smiled and stroked her hand along his prick, watching the skin
roll up over the head, then down again. It was truly huge. Her nether
mouth watered to feel it. But she would taste it first.

He groaned as if possessed as she took the head of his prick into her
mouth. It tasted sweet, she noticed, but like no sweetness she had
tasted before. A sugar not found in any fruit, but it was surely there
as her tongue played along the silky underside of it, her teeth
scraping the top of his hood, then taking another inch, maybe two. It
was all she could take at the moment, barely half his length. His body
shook. Surely he was not about to climax, she thought.

But he was. She had barely bobbed her head thrice when her mouth was
flooded with a bitter salted reward. She sighed, her lust aroused but
also frustrated by the quickness of it. "I am sorry."

"Did you know it would be so quick?"

"I had hoped not. It has been so long, and I am not much with my own
hands, unlike many of my men."

She stood up. She stood over him. She pulled her vest off, pulled her
outer tunic off over her head, revealing only the thin shift she wore
underneath it. Her breasts, already full and womanly, made prominences
in her top. Then she pulled that off as well. He watched her, his eyes
hopeful, and even as she watched his prick twitched with life. She
wondered if she would be able to get this reaction out of men forever.
She knew she would not. "Lie down, Captain."

He did as she said, his belly a rounded hill in the middle of the bed.
It was, she realized, mostly muscle that had alternated between being
let go and being worked hard, and she caressed his belly and chest
with her hands, straying only occasionally to mischief down at the
tangled forest that grew up about his prick. "Touch me," she said. His
hand came up and laid trembling fingertips on the skin of her breast.
His touch sang anticipating promises to her imagination. Perhaps
that's all they would be.

She touched the skin of his thighs. She did not want to be the
aggressor. She wanted him to fuck her. To take her. It would probably
not work the usual way, with her on her back, but perhaps on her knees
the reach would be enough. She prayed it would be.

She leaned over and kissed his chest, found a nipple hiding under a
bush of black tangled hair, and bit it gently. He groaned, his hand,
his one hand, pawing at her breast, squeezing it, stroking her skin,
slipping along one side and down to her ass, holding her cheek in his
hand and squeezing. She moaned, now, wanting him to be more sure, to
touch her sex, to get a feel for the wetness that lived in her. His
fingers did slip there, did find her furred, hungry lower mouth, did
find the nectar that dripped from her. She felt those fingers pry at
her, coarse, strong fingers that sought her opening. She twisted
against his body, getting closer, giving him better reach. He slipped
a finger within her. "You are very wet."

"It happens," she said. "I desire. You."

He smiled at her. "You are too kind to a man, Aimeé."

"It is something I am." Her hand slipped down the curve of his belly
and found his hardened prick. "Something you are, is ready for
something I am."

"Yes," he agreed. "It is."

"I want you to take me. I do not want to be on top," she said.

"I would crush you if we did as... a man and woman do."

She stretched out on the tiny bed, tight against his body, belly down,
then bent her knees in, lifting her ass. "Would you crush me like
this?"

She knew that from where he lay he could only see the raised slope of
her back and, maybe, the hint of her cleft, but no more. He stared,
unbelieving. Then he shook his head. "Like an animal."

"Like I deserve, if you cannot be comfortable doing it any other way,"
she said. "Please, Alec."

He rose and maneuvered behind her. She could not see what he did, but
she felt his hands upon her hips, felt his massive prick find her
hunger, felt him spear her. "Yes, Alec, yes," she urged. "I want you."

He thrust into her. She felt herself open wide to receive him, and she
whispered sweet unintelligible blessings to him and his prick. Each
drive into her body was accompanied by a surge of pleasure, each
withdrawal held sweet anticipation of the next. She loved his slow,
manly thrusts, each growing more confident as he realized he would not
disappoint her, not on this second try.

That flared helmet of his prick glided along the flesh inside her,
touching her. She could not help but thrash and moan underneath his
cock, his belly battering her buttocks with each thrust, his hands now
holding her hips like bruising vises. She could not believe this was
the same man who had been so unsure when they had started. Now he was
in a sea that all men understood and that she could not stop even if
she wished.

She heard bed timbers creaking under the effort like this vessel would
in a storm, heard the ritual thump of the headboard against the wall,
and felt his hands grow even stronger in their grasp of her hips. He
was lost in his ecstasies. She too.

The pleasure inside her grew relentlessly until it would not hold
back, the levees of nature broke free, she came, she screamed, she had
just enough sense to muffle herself in a pillow underneath. The sight
and sound of a woman's climax was too much even for Shondar, who came
three thrusts later with a scream of his own. He muffled it with a
hand that left her right hip cold. That sent the solid rhythm of their
lovemaking off-balance, and for a moment they hung there before
Shondar crashed to the bed beside her, barely catching himself as his
head aimed for a wooden bedpost.

"Girl," he gasped. "You are a witch."

"And you are a warlock with that prick," she replied. "A true man of
action." She leaned over and kissed his cheek gently. "You mastered me
as truly as you master this ship."

He smiled. He laughed. "You do know how to make a man happy, Aimeé!
You do." He caressed her back, touching her down the length of her
spine to her buttocks. "I am honored by your attention."

"And I by yours."

"Will you want this again?"

"Perhaps," she said. She could see the look of disappointment on his
face. "It is all a question of responsibilities, Captain. I have mine
and you have yours. But if you wish-- it is your ship."

He paused. "You think of how the men view me." She nodded. "A wise
concern. This is no secret, not even now. We made too much sound even
without our voices." His grin was wide, showing uneven teeth. "But
they will follow me, and if you defer to me in all matters of the sea,
so too shall they."

"I could do naught else," she said. "I want to get there and home,
alive, and you have the years to do that."

He nodded. "You should return to your room soon," he said. "There is
not space for you here, nor a lady's head."

She smiled, then stretched out beside him, her body once more the
beloved petted housecat. "I shall take your advice." She rolled close
to him, her breasts against his chest, her hips curling about his
belly. She could feel his prick against her thighs, trying to return
from its own post-coital slumber. "Are you heroic?"

"Never," he said. "It is not wise, on the sea, to pretend to be a
hero."

"I see." She eased herself up, then leaned down to kiss his prick one
last time. "You and your prick are beloved warriors in my heart,
Alec." She rose, gathering her clothes. She assembled just enough of
herself to walk down the short hallway to her room. He watched her
garment herself, each layer further obscuring the lithe body that he
had just loved. "Good night, Captain."

"Good night, Apprentice Aimeé. Sleep well."

"I shall."

She returned to her room, where she immediately undressed, washed
briefly, and slipped into her own bed. She stared upwards, unseeing in
the darkness, and thought about what she had just done. It was not
like with Filo, where she had had more control, more power. With
Shondar, there had been an equality, they were both hurting in their
own way, both afraid for their own reasons. That made understanding it
harder.

Eventually, she slept. Ensouled scars ached like scratches cooled with
honey.

  _________________________________________________________________

Aimee: The Sea Voyage

This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
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display, and perform the work under the following conditions:

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For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license
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permission from the copyright holder, Elf M. Sternberg
(elf.sternberg@speakeasy.net)

--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/  
"The apocalypse may be closer at hand than even John Derbyshire thinks:
what the hell is Elf Sternberg doing reading Derb's columns?"
		-- Charles Murtaugh

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