Susanna Valent

The Pirate Queen

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Susanna Valent

The Pirate Queen

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THE PIRATE QUEEN

SUSANNA VALENT

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(c) Copyright SUSANNA VALENT, 2002.

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave.

Ellora's Cave, Inc. USA

Ellora's Cave Ltd, UK

This e-book may not be reproduced in whole or in part by email forwarding, copying, fax, or any other mode of communication without author permission.

Edited by Allie Sawyer

Cover Art by Darrell King

Susanna Valent

The Pirate Queen

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Warning:

The following material contains strong sexual content meant for mature readers. The Pirate Queen has been rated NC17, erotic, by three individual reviewers. We strongly suggest storing this electronic file in a place where young readers not meant to view this ebook are unlikely to happen upon it. That said, enjoy…

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Prologue

Lucy Ellen Russell stood at the rail, gripping it tightly with one hand, holding her cape shut with the other. Her little packet, the Commerce, was sailing from Plymouth despite the incessant rain.

Lucy would have loved to pretend that she was sailing away from all her worries, off on some grand adventure, off to where she was unknown and where no one could control her. She was certainly leaving England behind, but her problems were only just beginning. Below decks were the distant cousins who had functioned, marginally, as Lucy’s stepparents since her mother’s death when she was eight. Her father had been lost at sea years before that, and Lucy was an only child.

They were a grim pair, Charles and Eunice DeVere, unwilling to have Lucy on their hands one minute past her eighteenth birthday, which was imminent. Therefore, they were escorting Lucy to Canada to deliver her to her new fiancé, a business associate of Charles’, a fur trader who lived in the settlement of Montreal. Half-French, half-English, Lewis Richard was twice Lucy’s age and looking for an English wife. Lucy’s fate was sealed. Charles and Eunice would examine some land they were considering as an investment, hand Lucy over, conduct their business and sail back to England. Lucy would almost certainly never see them again. While that was probably a good thing, for a young woman in late 18th century Canada no prospect was less than grim. Lucy fully expected to be carried off by Indians, a bear or childbirth fever before she was twenty.

A particularly heavy gust of wind drove the tears from Lucy’s cheeks and replaced them with seawater. Lucy had hated her life since her mother died. A pittance of a legacy had allowed her to pursue a meager education in French and English literature, with which she had hoped to find a post as a governess. Not enough to live independently, not enough to free her from a husband, should she wish it. This meant, at least to Charles and Eunice, that Lucy might return periodically, between postings, and cost them money. They had money to spare, but this was reserved for their own spoiled offspring. They took their allotment of Lucy Ellen’s legacy, which they certainly didn’t need, and treated her as a servant into the bargain. They were of the opinion that her inadequate education would serve her just as well as a trader’s wife on another continent.

Oh, God! Lucy thought hopelessly. If only I were a man! I could run away. But once I gets me with child, there is no escape! Lucy heaved a sigh and turned to go below. It was not the first time suicide had occurred to her as an alternative.

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Chapter One

“Get us some more coal!”

“Find the cabin boy!”

“Open the port-hole!”

“Empty the slops!”

“Close the port-hole!”

Lucy Ellen gritted her teeth. It was the 20th day of a month-long crossing. At least a month, she reminded herself. More likely six weeks. The tiny cabin smelled, Eunice was always seasick, and the food was inedible.

Lucy left the foul chamber in search of Jacob, the cabin boy, and some fresh air.

Wandering aft, she stood below the poop deck and listened to the talk of the men above her. A small group was gathered, discussing the sky, their speed and their position. It looked to them like more bad weather. Lucy sighed and went back below. She felt filthy, not to mention depressed and hopeless. After seeing to all of Eunice and Charles’

petty wants, she sank onto her tiny bunk and wept silently until she fell asleep.

Lucy awoke to find herself on the floor. It was pitch dark and her head hurt.

Hauling herself up, Lucy realized the storm had hit. She stumbled around, feeling for a candle, then cautiously opened the door to the passage. She knew she could light the candle in the galley. Charles and Eunice were moaning in the dark, but Lucy ignored them.

The Commerce pitched crazily as Lucy inched her way aft and down two decks. The wind screamed through the rigging, a din above which the shouts of the sailors could only occasionally be heard.

Maybe we’ll sink and I’ll drown, Lucy thought, fighting fear with apathy. Who would miss me?

No one was in the galley, all hands having been called aloft to reef and furl sails to keep from losing them. The little packet pitched and threw Lucy across the floor of the galley. Even in the dark, Lucy could see the glow of the covered brazier, spinning from its gimbal; she picked herself up again to wait for a safe moment to open the device and light her wick.

Realizing the danger of making her way through the pitching ship with an open flame, Lucy elected to sit down on the galley steps and wait out the storm well away from her noxious relatives. Here, she felt safe and pleasantly isolated. The bobbing of the ship was putting her to sleep, so Lucy blew out the candle and hunkered down to wait the whole thing out.

* * * * *

“Miss Russell!”

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Someone was shaking her shoulder. It was the cook.

“Wake up, young lady. Your people are looking for you.”

Blearily, Lucy came awake. The pitching had stopped and she had to pee. “Oh, thank you,” she said demurely. She lit the candle but carried it forward to the head instead of the cabin. Charles and Eunice could wait a few minutes longer.

Wreckage was strewn everywhere. Shading her eyes against a hotter-than-usual sun, Lucy could see that they had lost all of one mast and part of another. The crew was working to rig sails on what remained of the masts and yardarms. On the quarterdeck, the first mate and the captain were arguing about their position.

Lucy let herself into the head and did her business while trying to breathe through her mouth. The lit candle was a help against the noxious fumes, she discovered.

Returning to the cabin, she found Eunice and Charles seated side by side on one bunk, surrounded by utter chaos. With a resigned sigh, Lucy set about putting the cabin to rights while refusing to acknowledge the complaints and nattering her cousins heaped on her.

Excited shouts roused Lucy from her automaton-like housekeeping activities.

“Excuse me,” she said softly to her relatives.

“Wait! You’re not done here yet, missy,” Eunice declared.

“I shan’t be long. I just need a bit more air. It’s rather close,” Lucy said, and taking her parasol against the bright sun, she went on deck to investigate the commotion.

Keeping well out of the way, Lucy pushed her bonnet off her blond hair and put up her parasol. Idly, she stood watching the knot of hands who were hanging over the starboard rail forward, trying to identify a ship that had just cleared the horizon. One sailor had gone into the rigging of the mainmast with a spyglass and was calling information down to the mates below.

“Is there a flag?” the first mate inquired.

“No, sir. I don’t see none.”

“How many masts?” another mate called up.

“I see only two at present, sir,” the sailor responded.

“How rigged?” asked the second mate.

“Fore-and-aft rigged, sir,” the sailor said, continuing to scan the approaching vessel.

Lucy remembered that meant sails were arranged parallel to the keel. The second mate had taken a fancy to her and had been endeavoring to charm her with sea-craft in his spare moments.

Their discussion interested Lucy only in that this other ship might have supplies or the ability to help repair the Commerce and tell them where they might be compared to where they had been before. Lucy hoped they were closer to Canada, as the idea of extra time on the packet made her intestines gurgle. Wanting to know as soon as possible, she remained where she was.

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“Gorblimey! Shit!” the sailor in the rigging suddenly yelled. He almost dropped the telescope in his mad scramble to regain the deck. “’Tis the Jolly Roger they’ve just broken out!”

“Bend on all sail!” the captain ordered.

The mates scampered about blowing whistles and calling all hands to once again, but in moments it was clear even to Lucy’s unpracticed eye that the damaged little packet could not escape the fully-rigged pirate vessel. In those moments before they were boarded, Lucy Ellen Russell knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would never become Mrs. Lewis Richard.

Finally a mate noticed Lucy standing, rooted to the spot amid the bustle of getting the little ship moving. “Miss! You must get below! All the way to the bilges, and quickly! Send your uncle up to help repel boarders.”

“Oh! At once, sir!” Lucy said, snapping out of her daydreams. Pirates were serious business. And not becoming Mrs. Richard might also mean not becoming eighteen years old, either. Or even a few hours older. Grimly, she gathered her skirts and went down the ladder.

Entering the cabin, Lucy spoke rapidly, almost babbling with fear. “Eunice, you and I must go farther below. Charles, you must get on deck to repel boarders. There are pirates coming!” She gathered her few valuables in her pockets and reticule. “Come now,” she squeaked, taking Eunice’s arm. Her fierce grip startled the older woman

“I . . . I can’t,” stammered Charles. “I paid for this passage!”

“Blast you, Charles! Be a man for once, will you?” Lucy snapped. Her voice shook.

She pushed Eunice out and dragged her below to the bilges where the captain’s wife, the missionary woman and her two little girls were already huddled. The pious woman gathered them close and began to lead them in prayer.

Four decks over their heads, they could now hear the muffled sounds of running feet, and the ship lurched as it banged against the pirate ship. Distantly they heard the sounds of musket-fire, metal on metal and horrible screams, followed by crying abruptly cut off. Almost as one, the women and girls put their hands over their ears and moved closer together, as if that would somehow save them. Pressed against her cousin, with the elder missionary daughter on her other side, Lucy tried to remember what she could about pirates. Obviously they were barbaric, mercenary and merciless. All of the passengers of the Commerce would be robbed, raped if applicable, and then, if not skewered on cutlasses, sold. Lucy almost, but not quite, wet her pants.

Come, girl, she chided herself. If nothing else, compared to marrying some stranger, it will be mercifully quick.

Suddenly the hollering and pounding stopped. Now there were only the sounds of feet scurrying back and forth above them. Lucy guessed the pirates were searching everywhere for booty, and in the course of this search, she and the rest of the females would be found and disposed of. It was hot, humid and dark in the bilges and Lucy found herself praying just for it to be over, regardless of the outcome.

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The answer to her prayer was immediate. The hatch above them opened.

“Well, and what have we here?” a rough voice demanded. A lantern was lowered partway. “Aha! It’s the lovely ladies at last! Come up, ladies, if you please,” the intruder invited with a bow and a flourish.

The women looked at one another, motionless.

“Oh, all right then,” Lucy said, resigned, and she made her way up the ladder where a strong hand gripped her arm. An unshaven jaw was thrust into her face and she recoiled, almost falling back into the bilges.

The arm held her securely, however. “Oh, aye, and here’s a prize!” the pirate, for so he appeared to be, exclaimed. “You stay close by me, missy, for the Captain will reward me well for finding you.” He yanked her behind him and bellowed, “Avast! The rest ‘o ye come up now, or I’ll send One-Eyed Max down after ye!”

At this, the ladies and girls crept up the ladder to be escorted up and forward by their captor. As soon as they reached the deck, they saw blood everywhere. The merchant crew had been replaced by an assortment of men and women wearing colorful costumes and festooned with gold and strings of beads. The British sailors were nowhere to be seen. Before Lucy could react, the pirate who had found her hustled her across the deck to where the two ships were lashed together by grappling hooks, ropes and a makeshift plank bridge. The man, who in the light looked younger, perhaps 25

years old, sinewy and burned dark by the sun, suddenly hoisted Lucy off her feet and leaped onto the planks, ran across and hopped down onto the deck of the pirate ship.

Lucy heard screams behind her and decided not to try to twist around to look.

Instead, she pressed her face against the muscular, sweaty shoulder of her pirate. Back aboard his own ship, he shouted to his mates in a guttural patois that had a French sound to it. Lucy couldn’t understand it, but their laughter needed no translation.

Quickly, the young man carried Lucy inside the wooden superstructure of the pirate vessel, kicking open a door to throw her in a heap on a large, unmade bed.

“Sorry, luv,” the pirate apologized as he bound Lucy’s hands behind her with something relatively soft, not the rope she had expected. “Oh, and by the way, don’t bother screaming,” he advised. The door slammed shut behind him.

Lucy rolled over, heart pounding, and tried to assess the situation. From what the pirate had said when they were forced out of the bilges, she deduced this must be the Captain’s cabin. So whenever the pirates were done looting, murdering everyone else, and destroying the Commerce, the Captain would return and rape her.

Reviewing the events thus far in more detail, Lucy belatedly realized that some of the pirates were women. Female pirates!! How did women get to be pirates to begin with?

Lucy wondered. Should I try to talk myself out of being killed? Can I offer to join this crew?

But you don’t know how to do anything, she reminded herself. How much use will pirates have for Milton and French verb conjugations?” she mocked herself.

Lucy’s thoughts were interrupted by a fresh wave of blood-curdling screams, and then a flurry of pounding and scraping. The pirate ship lurched and Lucy smelled Susanna Valent

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smoke. She had to guess the louts had set fire to the packet and were now heading for their lair, some remote island where God only knew what would happen to her, if she ever got there at all. Meanwhile, all of her belongings were gone up in smoke, sent to the bottom, or adorning the pirates who had taken them by surprise. Her clothing, what little there was; her precious books, priceless for a poor young teacher, all gone. It didn’t seem worth living to Lucy, without the few things that defined her life so far.

Suddenly the door of the cabin was thrust open. “Bon jour, Mademoiselle!”

Lucy jumped and gasped, her eyes wide. Towering over Lucy was the tallest woman she had ever seen. The blonde stood over six feet tall in her bare feet, and she was indeed barefoot. Her hair was hacked off short and her brown eyes were alive with intelligence and curiosity. And her French was perfect.

“Bon jour, Madame,” Lucy said hesitantly.

“Madame le Capitaine,” the pirate corrected good-naturedly.

Amazed, Lucy repeated the words, unwilling to believe them even as she said them.

“Aha, so you speak French, ma belle! And your accent is tres bon,” the Amazon observed, thumbs hooked into her belt. “Excellent! I speak English as well, but I prefer French, if you do not mind,” she said, and with a trace of gentle sarcasm she switched back, making it clear that they would speak French from that moment forward. “Claude was right, a treasure.”

Lucy quickly realized the Captain referred to the young brute who had carried her over.

The pirate queen sat down on her bed, reaching for Lucy’s hands. “Turn over, cherie, and I will untie you, but if you resist me, it will go badly for you. That I promise.”

Lucy obeyed, sighing with relief as her hands were freed. She turned back over, sat up and rubbed her wrists. “But why would I resist you? You are a woman yourself, and I have done nothing wrong to deserve punishment.”

“Why, so I am,” responded the gentle giant, and she pushed Lucy onto her back and mounted her swiftly.

Lucy gasped and pushed at the pirate’s shoulders. “Madame! What are you doing?” she demanded. Lucy could not dislodge the larger woman.

The Captain sat up astride her captive, hands on hips. “I am Jean-Marie St. Honoré, captain of this vessel, and your owner. You, mademoiselle, are my prisoner and my slave. Did I not warn you not to resist me?” St. Honore asked, cocking her head and raising an elegant blond eyebrow.

Despite issuing the reprimand, she did not seem at all angry, and her smile was quick and engaging, distracting Lucy from her distress.

“But, what on earth do you mean to do?” Lucy persisted, bewilderment clouding her blue eyes. Pink spots colored her cheeks, which the pirate captain found quite enchanting.

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“I mean to take you as my lover, my little innocent. But of course, you are a virgin.”

St. Honore held Lucy down easily with one hand and began casually undoing Lucy’s bodice with the other. Jean-Marie took her time, enjoying her exploration. She found the reticule with Lucy’s jewelry and tossed it onto her desk across the room. “This you will not need either.”

Lucy watched this with both hopelessness and utter bafflement, even as the pirate unbuttoned her own shirt and tossed it away, revealing firm breasts with nipples like musket balls. “Of course I am a virgin! I was on my way to Canada to be married,” she explained, hoping to dissuade the pirate from whatever she was about to do. “How can I become the lover of another woman? You are being quite absurd, Madame!” Lucy insisted, beginning to struggle again.

St. Honore laughed. “That I will gladly teach, and you will quickly learn if you wish to keep body and soul together.” The pirate got off Lucy, pulling her off the bed. “Come look,” she commanded, hauling Lucy to a porthole, where she thrust Lucy's head outside. “What do you see?”

“Ouch! Madame! The ocean!” Lucy sputtered angrily. “Oh, please, why would you hurt me? I am defenseless! I have done nothing wrong!”

“Yes, this is the ocean,” St Honore ignored the question for a moment. “And in the ocean live sharks, as you can see.”

The sleek predators had smelled the blood off the killing on the Commerce and were still visible as the little packet sank slowly, astern of the pirate sloop. Lucy’s head was yanked back in, where Jean-Marie confronted her. “And if you do not eat me, they will eat you for dinner.”

“Eat you?”

“Ma Dieu, what a child!” St. Honore exclaimed, exasperated. “How old are you?”

she demanded, peering at her prisoner intently. Without waiting for an answer, she sat down on her bed again, and pulled Lucy into her lap. “Come, my sweet, we will do this a bit more slowly, I think. Now, your age?” she asked again, gently.

“I will be 18 in a month, Madame,” Lucy said, shaken by the violence and strength of this woman who was nothing like any other woman she had ever met, heard of or even imagined.

“Listen to me, then…what is your name?” St. Honore asked.

“Lucy Ellen Russell,” Lucy said carefully, concerned that any response would set the pirate off again.

“Listen well, then, my Lucy,” St. Honore said, keeping Lucy firmly in her grip. “I have just finished executing almost everyone from your pathetic little ship. Of the men only the cabin boy and one sailor remain. Excepting the missionary woman and her little girls, I have even executed the women, including some tiresome bitch of an Englishwoman. Your mother, perhaps?”

“My cousin,” Lucy muttered, shrinking inside. Eunice was irritating but harmless.

This woman was an utter barbarian.

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“Bon. The mother and daughters I will put ashore as soon as I can, for I am loath to kill children. You I will keep for my amusement. If you do not please me, I will give you to my crew for a plaything and they may do with you as they wish. Do you think you would prefer it?” She bent her head so she could see into Lucy’s eyes.

Lucy supposed that meant rape and certain death. Whatever this pirate was proposing might be preferable. Lucy swallowed and licked her lips nervously.

“Madame, I…I was raised as a Christian, and I do not understand what you expect me to do.” Suddenly the tears that Lucy had been controlling burst from her and she sat sobbing wretchedly in the Captain’s lap.

“Sacre bleu!” the Captain groaned in frustration. She got up and hunted for a clean handkerchief, which she handed to Lucy, stroking her curls. “Dry your tears.”

The pirate undressed while Lucy was composing herself. When the young woman seemed reasonably calm, Jean-Marie undressed her as well, but gently, then helped her captive slide between the sheets with her.

“We will begin again,” St. Honore’s voice caressed Lucy.

She was, despite her profession, no barbarian at all. She had deflowered many a young woman before, and she had done it so that her lovers had begged for more.

When she was done, Lucy would beg, too.

“Madame,” Lucy began apprehensively as the pirate hovered over her. Lucy’s eyes widened as Jean-Marie’s lips descended to a delectable young nipple. “Oh!

Oh!…Madame!” Lucy groaned, feeling her young body’s peculiar response to the blond giant’s tongue.

This was by far the most unexpected thing that Lucy had ever encountered. She was shocked to find she liked it. “Madame,” she moaned again, not wanting to give herself permission to enjoy it. In passing she realized she had been taught sex was wrong. But the time for worrying about it was past.

“Shhh.” Jean-Marie whispered. “Ma cherie, you are so lovely.” She moved up over Lucy, nudging the younger woman’s legs apart with her knee. Carefully, she lowered herself until they were breast to breast. Even more gently, Jean-Marie kissed Lucy’s lips, pressuring them open tenderly with the tip of her tongue.

It was Lucy’s first kiss, and she groaned into it, overwhelmed with the sensations lavished on her by this unusual woman. It left her gasping in the pirate’s arms. It seemed to Lucy as if she were drunk, or dreaming. She had thus far received only vague and incomplete information about sex with men. This was totally beyond her, yet here she was, doing it. She was naked under another woman, and one who had her there under duress.

Jean-Marie had threatened Lucy with both rape and death, but Lucy’s fright and confused tears seemed to have worked a change in the Captain. Now, with the pirate’s hands and mouth on her, Lucy’s entire being awakened, and she began to respond, putting her arms around her owner’s waist, opening her legs to accommodate the larger Susanna Valent

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woman’s body, yielding to her lover’s kisses. St. Honore may well have seemed a barbarian, but she was thrilling as well, Lucy was discovering.

Jean-Marie St. Honore grinned as she took ownership of her young slave. She leaned to one side and expertly thumbed a nipple to attention, then she sucked it until Lucy writhed under her.

“Good, my little Lucy,” the pirate approved. Slowly, teasingly, her strong hand moved from Lucy’s breasts to the curly golden bush that guarded the prize the pirate sought.

The stroking of her mound caused Lucy’s hips to buck upward of their own accord, and Jean-Marie smiled her approval. “So, you respond to the touch of a woman, even though you are a virgin,” she noted. “It is almost a shame you have never been with a man. Now you will never know how lucky you are.” Even more entrancing to this dominant woman was the rush of liquids that bathed Lucy’s thighs. “Oh, you make it easy, my little one,” she murmured, and with that, she deftly entered Lucy with her fingers.

“Oh…Madame…please…” Lucy gasped, not yet fully aware of what had happened. There was none of the pain about which Eunice had intimated when instructing her about wifely duty. It was a smooth, pleasant sensation. “What are you doing?” she asked Jean-Marie plaintively.

“I am making you a woman. Now hush.” Jean-Marie kissed Lucy to silence her.

When she was done turning Lucy into a responsive bedmate, she would permit questions. But not now, not when they were both on the verge of great pleasure.

Lucy clutched at Jean-Marie’s firm backside and pressed up into her. The pirate’s body was firm and hard, the way Lucy had imagined a man’s might be, yet it was soft and rounded in the places where Lucy herself was more yielding: thighs, belly, breasts.

It felt good to be in the arms of a strong woman, somehow comforting and familiar.

Lucy had experienced precious little physical affection since the death of her mother. It was comforting and arousing at once, and so Lucy gave herself to the pirate queen.

St. Honore thought she felt Lucy’s surrender, but one could never be sure this quickly. She continued to tease the younger woman with glancing strokes against the slick, swollen clitoris that had come to life under her expert tutelage. When Lucy’s excitement was at a peak, Jean-Marie gently withdrew.

“You must want it very, very much, and you must earn it,” she whispered over Lucy’s lips. With that, the pirate spread her own legs and guided Lucy’s hand up to touch her own aching center. “Follow my lead,” she instructed, and she began to move Lucy’s fingers in the pattern she desired.

Lucy allowed herself to be led. She had never touched herself or felt orgasm, so she put her faith entirely in her lover. The older woman’s canal gripped Lucy’s fingers each time Lucy slid them inside, and Lucy guessed she was doing it right when she heard Jean-Marie sigh and groan into their kiss. Lucy mimicked the pirate’s movements until Susanna Valent

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St. Honore released her hand, and then continued to do as she had been taught on her own.

Jean-Marie writhed pleasurably atop her captive, and now willing, slave. The young Englishwoman learned fast. “Oui…yes…like that,” Jean Marie encouraged.

“And then…I will give you the same, my sweet…oh…yes,” she gasped. “Oh, Lucy…“

Thrusting urgently, Jean-Marie parted Lucy’s lips with an eager tongue, and Lucy sucked it in sweet response, clutching at the demanding body that ground against her.

She noticed the smooth hardness of that backside as it clenched.

“Lucy…Lucy…don’t stop. I’m coming…yes…yes.”

Anxious to keep Jean-Marie’s favor, Lucy complied, even though she didn’t fully grasp what was happening.

“Uhhhhhhhh…oh, God!” Jean-Marie cried sharply as she bucked in climax on the smooth, soft body of her young lover. “More!” she demanded. “Again!” Lucy continued her caresses until Jean-Marie sighed deeply and sagged, saying simply, “Stop. That is enough. More than enough.”

They kissed, as Jean-Marie explored slowly, although Lucy still burned, not yet knowing exactly for what. Then Jean-Marie rolled onto her back, pulling Lucy over on top of her. “You learn quickly, cherie. You please me very much.”

Lucy was hot and flushed and acutely aware of the ache deep between her legs.

“Madame, you will touch me again, won’t you?” she pleaded.

St. Honore grinned, relaxed now. “I should make you beg for resisting me before.”

“Then, Madame, please, I beg you,” Lucy said, trembling with unknown needs, looking beseechingly into the pirate’s eyes. Cautiously, she lowered herself toward Jean-Marie’s lips, and sought a kiss.

St. Honore could not help but be enchanted by this innocent aggression. “Shhhhh, of course, my sweet. Come here, let me show you,” she said, moving Lucy into a comfortable position above her.

“Mmm…mmm…Madame,” Lucy sighed as Jean-Marie probed slowly.

“You may call me by my Christian name now, I think,” the pirate chuckled, feeling Lucy’s slick hardness.

“Jean-Marie,” Lucy whispered, her eyes closing in bliss. Almost of their own volition, her hips began to pump, but the stronger woman held her tight to keep her still.

“In good time,” the Captain promised, ”you will have all that you desire.”

Lucy groaned aloud, eyes squeezed shut in concentration as she squirmed against Jean-Marie. “Oh, please, please,” she pleaded, wanting more of that touch, more of what the pirate had already taken from her, wanting her torment to end, understanding only the pirate could do this for her. “Jean-Marie…oh…oh…mercy!” Lucy squealed as orgasm became imminent.

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“Yes, I know you want it now,” St. Honore acknowledged. Her hand slowed.

“Oh! No, don’t stop! Don’t stop!” Lucy begged, her eyes wild. “Oh, you mustn’t stop! Please!”

But the pirate had not stopped completely. Her stroking had only become somewhat less regular, to keep Lucy suspended where she was. “Will you belong to me?” Jean-Marie asked, her fingers moving lazily in Lucy’s cleft.

“Yes! Yes! I promise!”

“Will you serve me willingly? Will you give yourself to me alone?” Jean-Marie pressed, torturing Lucy slowly.

“Oui, Madame! I am your slave!” Lucy almost wept. “As you wish! Only touch me!”

“Bon. You may have what you desire,” the pirate smiled, and she sped up her strokes so that Lucy’s hips jumped and she climaxed, sobbing, in the big woman’s protecting arms.

“Oh God! Oh God!” Lucy cried as her body shook with pleasure. “Oh, Jean-Marie!”

she screamed, at last.

Jean Marie eased Lucy down beside her in the bed. “Ma cher Lucy,” she whispered, kissing her new lover.

“Ma capitaine,” Lucy whispered back, curling tightly into the arms of her pirate queen. She heard the French Amazon laugh, deep in her chest, and then she was asleep.

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Chapter Two

When Lucy awoke, she saw Jean-Marie at her desk, partially clothed in her outlandish costume and going over some ledgers.

Jean-Marie looked up at the rustle of bedclothes and closed her books. She smiled and held out her hand to Lucy, who immediately climbed out of the bed and ran into Jean-Marie’s arms. The pirate held her close and kissed her hair. “Ma petit bijou,” she murmured. “Come, let me show you around.”

Lucy flushed with pleasure. No one had ever called her a little jewel or anything remotely as complimentary. She followed obediently as Jean-Marie showed her the tiny, primitive head, which would henceforth be Lucy’s responsibility. She would also change the bedclothes, keep the cabin tidy, look after St. Honore’s wardrobe, and serve the Captain at her table.

“And will I do this…forever?” Lucy wanted to know.

“As long as you please me, I will give you clothing, and you will be able to move about the ship. You cannot escape and the weapons are kept locked up. Should you misbehave, however, you will be stripped naked, if you are clothed, and punished swiftly. I advise against it,” the towering pirate warned.

“Oh, please don’t hurt me,” Lucy cowered, frightened again.

Quickly Jean-Marie pulled the trembling young woman against her. “Only obey me, and I will not. I do not want to, I promise. I only want to take pleasure with you.”

Lucy looked up at her. She nodded and asked, “If I…if I am good, and please you, you will not send me to Canada, or back to England?”

“You may stay, and perhaps you will be a pirate one day, too,” Jean-Marie said agreeably. “But you will first serve me as my cabin-girl, and prove your trustworthiness. We shall see.”

“But, this piracy, is it not difficult and dangerous?” Lucy persisted. To her it seemed Jean-Marie had no concerns for a future that to Lucy seemed unstable in the extreme.

Jean-Marie released Lucy and sat down again, motioning the young woman into her lap. “Well…I am careful about my targets, and about many other things as well, such as destroying all evidence. I am somewhat concerned about that missionary woman and her children. She may know enough to betray us to the authorities. But killing young ones is something I cannot bring myself to do.”

Lucy was glad of that, although she had yet to reconcile all the other murders in her mind. She pushed that thought aside for the moment and asked, “What will you do with them?”

“You are full of questions!” Secretly Jean-Marie approved. She liked a woman with an inquiring mind like her own. “We are very near Bermuda. I will put them ashore on one of the outer islands with some water and a torch which the mother may use to signal at night. Anything more than that would be dangerous to us. Taking her closer to Susanna Valent

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a town could get us caught. Staying with her until someone comes is equally a danger.

Then, we will sail deep into the Caribbean, and never return to these waters. I had never meant to come this far north in any event.”

“I see,” Lucy nodded. “But the others? What happened to them?”

“Yes, Lucy, I had to kill them. Grown women and men are both useless and dangerous to me. They talk, and I do not deal in ransom. Keeping them and arranging meetings is risky business. Too risky. The ship we plundered for everything of value, and then we scuttled it. The assumption will be that you sank and all were lost in some storm. You very nearly were anyway,” she remarked philosophically.

Lucy swallowed hard. This woman was harsh, too harsh to argue with any longer.

Charming, yes. Also bloodthirsty. Lucy moved on despite her misgivings. “Did you find…a trunk with my things?” Lucy asked, afraid of the reply.

“Your many books!” St Honore laughed. “Oh yes, those I kept. I have not many opportunities to read. And you may have one or two of your other items if you are good, as well. Not the clothing, of course. Most of your things are useless on the Femme Fatale. Pantaloons and a little shirt will serve all your needs, when you aren’t in my bed,” Jean-Marie leered, and that elicited a giggle from Lucy.

The pirate then set Lucy on her feet. “Now, I will send for my supper, and you will attend me, and then I will see about some simple clothing for you.”

“I am to serve you naked, Madame?” Lucy was aghast.

“You are to remain naked whenever you are in my cabin. It is my preference,” Jean-Marie stated firmly.

Lucy lowered her eyes. “Oui, ma Capitaine.”

Jean-Marie nodded, satisfied that Lucy was properly submissive. “Good. Give me your loyalty, Lucy, and we will be happy together for a very long time.” She stepped to the door and shouted orders to a nearby sailor, then turned to her new slave. “Get into the bed and close the curtains. I will not expose you to the rest of the crew,” the pirate said kindly.

Lucy complied quickly and in moments there was a knock followed by the sounds of a meal being delivered.

“Come out, Lucy,” Jean-Marie commanded as the door closed.

Following her owner’s directions, Lucy laid out linen, plates and cutlery and served the seated Jean-Marie. As nearly as Lucy could tell, there was nothing for her to eat, but she said nothing.

St. Honore nodded, pleased that Lucy was learning her duties as well as her place.

When Lucy stepped back from filling the plates and goblet, the Captain instructed,

“Bring that little stool and sit beside me.” She pointed to the corner of her table.

Lucy squatted there, naked, fearing to utter a word of complaint, because she was hungry. From time to time, Jean-Marie fed Lucy from her plate, a morsel of this, a bite of that. Lucy grew flushed with embarrassment at this, being fed like a dog from the Susanna Valent

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plate of her mistress, but she was in no position to object. She had agreed in the throes of her first love-making to be this woman’s slave. Her surrender had been complete.

She could not turn back. This she understood despite the Captain’s gentle kindness thus far.

Captain St. Honore was an observant woman. “You do not like being fed like this, I know. But it pleases me, and you will grow accustomed to it, as you will to the rest of your duties.”

Lucy looked up at the blond giant, whom she found quite beautiful. “Oui, Madame,”

she said in a small voice.

Jean-Marie smiled and gently stroked the nape of Lucy’s neck, making her shudder.

“Bon.” The hand slid down and caressed Lucy’s nipples, drawing a gasp. The pirate smiled broadly and returned her attention to her beef, which, in all fairness, she shared quite liberally with her slave. But it was always in a manner and amount of her own choosing, emphasizing Lucy’s total loss of independence and control, and this pleased Jean-Marie very much indeed.

Jean Marie ate with pleasure, but impeccable manners. Feeding Lucy seemed almost an afterthought, her attitude casual, as though she were feeding a dog an occasional treat. She would glance down, offer a forkful of meat or potatoes, then for several minutes, nothing. Once she handed Lucy a slice of fresh bread, not hardtack or the grey mass of tasteless dough that had been a staple of dining on the Commerce.

Lucy found herself feeling grateful for each bite. She tried not to lunge at it, but the beef was so tender and delicious. When the juice ran down her chin, Jean-Marie kindly handed her a linen napkin. Thus Lucy was drawn closer and closer to her owner. Her beauty, her paradoxical kindliness, her manners; all these were more attractive to Lucy than piracy was repellent.

The cabin itself was relatively well-appointed, Lucy noticed as she was forced to wait between bites. There were brass fittings, polished wood, clean linens. Of course, it was all stolen, but clearly the Captain had impeccable taste.

When Lucy had cleared the remains of dinner, Jean-Marie directed her to clean the head and polish the boots she occasionally wore. After pouring herself a cognac, the pirate went on deck to see to her ship and her crew.

Lucy went immediately to work. The head was an opening with a wooden seat over a hole that led to the ocean, and above it was a tank of salt water for flushing. Lucy scrubbed it on her knees, naked, with a brush and lye soap. Then she sat on the low stool and applied polish and elbow grease to Jean-Marie’s high, black, silver-buckled boots. Lucy worked feverishly to have her tasks done when Jean-Marie returned from her inspection. Thus the Captain found her when she returned with an armload of clothes for her slave.

“Bon, Lucy. Your industriousness pleases me. Here, try these on.”

Lucy examined the pile. “Please, Madame, may I not have some undergarments?”

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Jean-Marie laughed, showing even white teeth. “You may, but you must wash them yourself. It will only add to your duties.”

“Please, Madame,” Lucy asked again, her cheeks red.

“Put something on for now and you may look at the contents of your trunk for underclothing. It is still on deck,” Jean-Marie agreed.

Lucy took a yellow blouse and purple knee-pants and put them on. She had never worn trousers in her life and still felt almost as exposed as when she was naked. Worse, the rubbing of the seams against her needy clit kept her aroused, and so her eyes hungrily followed Jean-Marie’s every move.

“Come.” Jean-Marie beckoned, and she kissed Lucy roughly, forcing her legs apart to feel her.

Lucy felt sudden heat. She moaned and clung to the Captain.

“Remember you are mine,” Jean-Marie cautioned, then led the way on deck.

Above decks, the sun was just setting and the pirates not on duty were relaxing with pipes and musical instruments. Lucy stayed close to the Captain, understanding that everyone knew what the pirate had done to her, and what she now was. The pirates did indeed look at her curiously and smile knowingly, but they all knew better than to comment on their Captain’s desires, behavior or property. However, the pirate who had captured Lucy boldly dropped her a wink, and Lucy blushed.

Lucy was all but writhing with desire for the Captain. Her face felt flushed, and she was nearly naked in her little pantaloons. Surely everyone knew what Jean-Marie did to her new prisoners. Perhaps some among the crew were now laughing at Lucy’s humiliation. She wished not to need Jean-Marie so desperately, but this was nothing she could control. All control rested in the capable and demanding hands of the pirate queen. There, again, that brutish young man was leering at her! She resolved to ask Jean-Marie about him later.

The sloop was neat and ship-shape, much more so than the miserable merchant packet they had destroyed. Lucy’s trunk stood against the outside wall of Jean-Marie’s cabin, and at her nod, Lucy opened it and went through her belongings. She pulled out underwear and toiletries, and turning to Jean-Marie, she asked humbly, “Would you like some of my books now?”

This public display of submission pleased Jean-Marie greatly and she murmured.

“Choose one or two for me, if you please.”

Lucy turned back to the trunk, ignoring high-button shoes, long dresses, petticoats and stockings she knew she would no longer need, selected some books and closed the trunk. Books were valuable, she knew, and the Captain’s interest in them would keep them safe for her. If the rest was sold without Lucy’s permission, she knew there was nothing she could do about it.

Lucy held her things in her arms and sat on the trunk waiting and trying not to feel so terribly self-conscious. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, listening to the harmonica, fiddle and tambourine played by some of the pirates while the others Susanna Valent

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danced, sang and smoked. Music in any form was a treat and this was a kind new to Lucy’s ears.

A parrot squawked and startled her. Standing over her was the loutish young pirate.

“I am Claude, and this is One-Eyed Max,” he said hesitantly, holding out the bird with his fist shut. Sure enough, the green and yellow parrot had only one eye. With it he regarded Lucy curiously. “You can scratch the back of his neck.”

Lucy had never seen such a bird, and carefully did as Claude suggested. He winked and bowed theatrically and took Max away for his supper. Lucy watched him go. He was, she supposed, attractive in a rough way. Squat and fair, his sun-bleached hair hung in ringlets to his shoulders. At least, Lucy thought, he is kind to the bird.

Jean-Marie then came and sat beside her, and there they stayed, holding hands as though they had been lovers for quite a while instead of mere hours.

After some time, though, the Captain appeared to grow restless and she growled,

“Come along, Lucy.”

Lucy gathered up her things quickly and went with the Captain to the spacious cabin which was now her home. Lucy put the books immediately on Jean-Marie’s desk, and the rest of her things in a small storage space the pirate queen granted her.

Suddenly St. Honore spun Lucy about roughly. ”And why are you still dressed? I want you naked this instant!” She gave Lucy a swat on the ass and watched hungrily as the young woman quickly disrobed.

“Now you will undress me,” she directed, and watched with amusement as Lucy fairly leapt to obey, her young breasts bouncing in the light of the lamps.

Jean-Marie grabbed Lucy as soon as she had folded all of their clothing away. “I did not give you any dessert. We will rectify that omission now,” she purred softly, squeezing Lucy’s smooth, round, backside. She pressed Lucy backward to the bed, and mounted her, riding easily and gently as Lucy opened her arms and legs to accommodate her Captain.

This time was better than the first for Lucy because she knew what to expect and was no longer afraid. Already, Lucy found she was grateful to her new owner, who had already proven herself better than a husband. Captain St. Honore was more than capable of protecting her from whatever other dangers there might be, and she had promised to take good care of her new slave as long as she was willing and obedient.

Lucy was both, if not downright eager.

Returning her captain’s kisses, Lucy was thinking about how she could be a pirate as well as a slave while she was this powerful woman’s lover. Then, as their activity intensified, Lucy gladly stopped thinking and surrendered again to Jean-Marie. She was anxious to please this exciting woman, and equally anxious to be pleased in return.

Suddenly, Jean-Marie rose above Lucy, changing their positions. She straddled Lucy’s head with her thighs, and pulled Lucy’s face up between her legs. Immobilized, Lucy quickly caught on that this was the “eating” to which Jean-Marie had referred Susanna Valent

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earlier. Tentatively, Lucy began to explore the salty, hot womanhood of her captain. The pirate kept herself clean, Lucy was glad to discover. In fact, Jean-Marie was as sweet as she was rich, and it took no time at all for Lucy to really want to eat her fill of her lover.

I have a lover! My God, I can’t believe it! Lucy thought. But then the demanding, writhing pussy of the Frenchwoman on her face made further thought both impossible and unnecessary.

Jean-Marie groaned in happy abandon. Though she would never admit it so early, she was in love again. According to her personal code of honor, she had freed her last slave after two years’ service, and the little Spaniard had run home to Seville. Jean-Marie had been surprised and saddened, but at twenty-eight, she was fast becoming a realist.

She looked down at Lucy’s hair, long and golden, like corn silk, spread beneath her thighs. The young woman was attractive and innocent, and her idiot relations could probably have netted a nobleman with her. They hadn’t recognized their treasure when they had been alive, but St. Honore would not repeat their error.

Gently she rocked on the tongue of her precocious young slave. She was coming!

And so easily! Perhaps once given her freedom, this one, having nowhere else to go, would stay.

* * * * *

In the morning, Jean-Marie made Lucy pleasure her again, but, unlike the previous day, she did not reciprocate. “You will make love to me morning, noon and night,” the Captain told her young slave, “and if you please me well, and all your duties are completed properly, I will reward you with pleasure in the evening. It is good discipline for you, and will keep you attentive to me, and to my needs.”

Lucy’s swollen clit throbbed hotly between her legs, but she swallowed her disappointment and nodded. “Yes, Jean-Marie. I understand.” After all, she reasoned, until the previous day she had never come at all. She doubted she would have if married to a man, either. Lucy had never even heard of an orgasm before. Eunice certainly had never mentioned it, and one might have expected her to, to make marriage seem more desirable. So, Lucy thought, if I am allowed one every day, how can I complain?

Still, she licked her lips hungrily as she attended the Captain’s morning toilet, and her breakfast. Finally, St. Honore left Lucy to her duties in the cabin and went on deck to mark their progress. It was with relief that Lucy saw her go, the older woman’s presence was so stimulating to her now.

According to the instructions she had been given, Lucy stripped the bed to air until the evening. She scrubbed the deck and the head. There was a pile of mending for her to begin, and until Jean-Marie’s return, she was to attend to that. Lucy was not to leave the Captain’s cabin without permission, she was not to touch herself, and she was not to be idle. She was forbidden all furniture but her stool, nor was she to open trunks, drawers Susanna Valent

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or containers of any kind. If she ran out of things to do, she was permitted to read her books. Then, in the afternoon, she would wash the bedclothes and other laundry on deck. That, Jean-Marie had decreed, would do for a start, and Lucy couldn’t have agreed more.

As Lucy worked, she considered her situation. Lucy realized that Charles and Eunice had not been kind, and on balance, she wouldn’t miss them. She hoped they hadn’t suffered, but that was in the past. Moreover, Lucy’s prospects in Canada had been bleak. True, Jean-Marie had been as unfamiliar as Lewis Richard would have been, but Lucy would not get with child from this mating, and she was free from cold weather, wild animals, unpredictable natives and strange diseases. From what Lucy had seen, Captain St. Honore was more than capable of protecting her from whatever other dangers there might be, and she had promised to take good care of her new slave as long as she was willing and obedient. Since Lucy was both, if not downright eager, she need never fear returning to the restrictions of being a frail and inconsequential Englishwoman.

Lucy was soon panting from her exertions. It was hot on deck. It was also hot in the cabin, although the ports were usually open. Jean-Marie had told her, as they lay drowsily tangled before falling asleep, that the Femme Fatale had been raiding small ships in the Bahamas, found themselves battling a gale for days, then, when the storm finally left them, they were north of Bermuda. They had begun beating south again when the spotted the little packet. St. Honore would never have taken her sloop so far north, she had said, where the weather was bad and the pickings were slim, but the dismasted ship had been irresistible.

Lucy wiped her brow, now not so sure that being in the southern Atlantic was such a good thing. Certainly, she was wearing less clothing than before, but what that clothing did to her! As she knelt, and scrubbed, and squatted, the tight pantaloons rubbed her newly-awakened pussy, when she was allowed clothing, reminding Lucy that she was not yet satisfied, nor was she likely to be for a long time. Lucy wasn’t sure if it was worse to be clothed, to work on deck, or naked to work in the Captain’s cabin.

The pirate queen’s discipline was rewarding, ultimately, but it was very hard on a sensuous young woman.

Up on deck, Captain St. Honore took the spyglass from her first mate and scanned the horizon. On the first likely islet they found, they would abandon the missionary woman and her daughters and head due north again, in case the woman had any clue about the points of a compass. Once this islet was out of sight, they would swing south and make all possible speed to Freeport, where they could sell their haul and fatten their bank accounts, or drink away their shares as they saw fit.

Her mates assured Jean-Marie that Jacob, the new cabin boy and Ian, the young seaman from the Commerce, had accepted their new places among the crew. As each and every one of this contingent preferred their own gender for love-making, finding new hands was not always easy, and sometimes conversion proved more effective than recruiting.

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Jean-Marie nodded, satisfied. She was a good, if stern, captain, and always divided her spoils fairly, except, of course, if one counted comely young women. These she kept for herself until she tired of them, in which case they could join either the crew or the fishes. This was how she had come to claim a dozen women in her company. Even when given their freedom after two years, most elected to stay aboard the Femme Fatale.

Only a few had not preferred the life of free women loving women to whatever they had left behind.

Jean-Marie spent the rest of the morning inspecting all that had been taken from the Commerce, assigning what was needed to the stores of the sloop and inventorying the rest for sale in port. New accounts were begun for Lucy, Jacob, and Ian from the Commerce. When the sun was directly overhead, Jean-Marie took her sextant and computed their location, logged it, and went in to her new lover. She left the marooning of the prisoners to her first mate.

“Lucy!” Jean-Marie greeted her happily.

Her slave jumped up from her stool and ran to her for a hug. “Mmmmm, Jean-Marie,” Lucy sighed, nestling in her captain’s arms.

Jean-Marie was pleased that Lucy seemed neither resentful nor afraid any more.

After all, she was being treated unfairly, used, confined and humiliated. Yet she was, at least superficially, content. It was perhaps momentary, a result of being released from servitude to her cousins, of being young, of being caught up in an adventure the like of which would never even occur to most young Englishwomen. As the days of monotony and slavery set in, Lucy could become sulky and withdrawn. It remained to be seen.

Jean-Marie backed to her desk chair and lifted Lucy into her lap. “How is your work progressing, my sweet?” she asked, pushing Lucy’s legs apart.

Lucy squirmed and turned to kiss her lover. Her hips arched at Jean-Marie’s touch and the pirate laughed. “Yes, I know you desire me, but I have asked you a question.”

Lucy had to catch her breath. “Uh…oh…I have done all but the mending…which I have started but not completed…and, and…I am ready to do the laundry on deck.”

Jean-Marie’s fingers entered Lucy’s wetness and she shuddered.

“Oh! Ma Capitaine!”

“On your knees,” Jean-Marie growled, rising. She stripped off her breeches and sat down again. Lifting one leg over the arm of her chair, she directed Lucy’s tongue between her legs. There, as her young lover caressed her, Jean-Marie relaxed.

Lucy pursued Jean-Marie’s pleasure with an eager tongue, finding the swollen clit, encircling it gently, stroking it smoothly, speeding up, slowing down, experimenting to see which her things new owner liked best. This did nothing to relieve Lucy’s frustration but Jean-Marie enjoyed three climaxes without moving except to caress Lucy’s golden tresses.

St. Honore sighed and let Lucy lick her clean. “Lucy, Lucy, you are becoming an expert. That is very good. Now run get my dinner.”

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Panting with exertion and need, Lucy rose from the wooden deck on rubber legs.

She fumbled her clothes on and followed her nose aft and below to the galley. The cook looked up, smiled understandingly, and quickly prepared a tray with covered dishes.

Lucy brought it back to the Captain and laid out her meal before her on the chart table.

“Now bring your stool. Do not wait to be told,” Jean-Marie chided.

“I beg pardon, Madame,” Lucy apologized. She removed her blouse and pants and squatted, naked, at the Captain’s knee to see if she would be fed.

Jean-Marie ate; Lucy studied her. The Captain, tall and broad-shouldered, had large but graceful hands. Her blond hair was bleached even lighter by constant exposure to the sun. Her brown eyes were warm, intelligent and passionate, yet Lucy had already seen those eyes flash with anger. This woman killed regularly and forced people into slavery. She stole from legitimate businesses and sank their ships. Why then, did Lucy need her attention, desire her touch, seek her approval? Lucy herself was too inexperienced to understand it, but when she bent her head and kissed Jean-Marie’s hand, and felt the pirate’s answering caress, she all but wept with happiness.

* * * * *

Jean-Marie showed Lucy how to rig her hammock and awning on the quarterdeck after dinner.

While Lucy labored over the laundry tubs in the hot sun, Jean-Marie lounged in the shade with a new book. She glanced at her slave from time to time, enjoying the way her long hair caught the sunlight, the sheen of sweat as the young woman worked, her shapely calves as she knelt on the hard deck.

Jean-Marie did not think of herself as cruel, but she was demanding. Lucy’s obedience and character would be tested, and her efforts would be rewarded when she deserved it. Whatever respite or pleasure Lucy acquired would thus be all the more appreciated.

When Lucy had washed and hung every last item, including her own laundry, she sank to the deck in the spot of shade under Jean-Marie’s awning and rested. Watching her mistress’ form in the hammock above her, Lucy burned with need. Her sexual appetites, now awakened, were insatiable—yet, her desire to please her captain already superseded her own needs. I’ll please Jean-Marie until I drop from exhaustion, Lucy promised herself.

The ocean was beautiful, the sun warm, the food excellent, and Lucy felt free, compared to the restrictions of her former life. And when she was good, Jean-Marie touched her. Lucy’s eyes closed and she slept on the rough wood beneath Jean-Marie’s hammock.

* * * * *

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In the evening after dinner, Jean-Marie took Lucy on deck to enjoy the music and the moonlit ocean for a while. This time the pirate queen took Lucy into the hammock with her, and held her and teased her there. Although they were above the other decks, where the crew could not see exactly what was happening, Lucy worried that her soft cries of desire could still be heard.

Jean-Marie seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, which had caused Lucy to wet her recently reacquired undergarments. Jean-Marie was teaching Lucy to kiss, seductively nibbling her lips, tenderly sucking her tongue, nuzzling her ears. At the same time, the giant’s hands were busy inside Lucy’s shirt, gently rolling one nipple, then the other, between expert fingertips.

Lucy writhed as much as she could, but Jean-Marie’s weight had her pinned to the canvas, and her options were limited. Trying to gasp silently, Lucy clung to her owner, concentrating both on the sensations, and on what seemed to please Jean-Marie best.

While Lucy did sometimes think about being overheard, she did not worry about the crew being jealous because they were not at all deprived. As she had heard sighs and cries of delight from the mates’ cabins, the fo’c’s’le and the holds from time to time throughout the day, she was hearing them tonight as well. As long as the ship was crewed according to Jean-Marie’s exacting specifications at all times, the officers did not interfere with the private lives of the sailors. The periodic sighs and moans she heard fascinated Lucy and stoked her already raging fires. When might the pirate queen have mercy on her?

At the moment, though Lucy wriggled like a puppy as her new mistress controlled her completely. “Oh, Jean-Marie, you are so wonderful to me,” Lucy purred.

In reply, Jean-Marie’s tongue gently entwined with Lucy’s, and she slid over slightly so that Lucy was completely covered by her, sliding her knee between Lucy’s legs. Thus they remained until the French pirate was ready to take her lover to bed. But having been well-satisfied all day, she felt nothing like the urgency she had created in her slave.

“Come now, Lucy, and I will have you,” Jean-Marie whispered, as though oblivious to the heat in Lucy’s loins.

Hand in hand, they went indoors. And there on the freshly-made bed, Jean-Marie put Lucy down under her, spreading Lucy’s legs with her own so that the younger woman could not close them, could not even have the comfort of her own thighs rubbing together. Thus the voracious captain was caressed to repeated orgasms by the eager slave. While Jean-Marie received pleasure, she reciprocated with kisses and cries of ecstasy that tortured Lucy all the more.

When Jean-Marie was sated, she momentarily freed Lucy, only to position her on her back in a vise-like brace, and in this position she ran her fingers through Lucy’s thick, golden thatch, bringing her hand away wet and glistening. With a sultry look at her lover, Jean-Marie slowly licked her fingers clean and went back for more, making Lucy writhe with anticipation.

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“What, do you want it all at once?” the pirate teased her slave.

Immediately Lucy went still in obedience. “No, Madame. I will accept whatever it pleases you to give me.” It had been hard to wait all day, but Lucy would gladly have waited even longer. Jean-Marie was with her now, touching her, playing with her. Lucy could ask for no more.

Eventually, Jean-Marie slid down the bed and put her face between Lucy’s firm young thighs. She tasted clean and wonderful to the enchanted pirate, and Jean-Marie was pleased to gorge herself on this feast.

Lucy’s eyes widened as she felt the play of the pirate’s tongue over her womanhood, probing, teasing, caressing her to madness. Then she exploded in climax, screaming her owner’s name without the least inhibition.

Jean-Marie laughed, knowing her crew was listening and that they were reminded once again what an irresistible lover their captain was. She liked to be thought of as lusty, healthy, and strong, a leader to be admired, feared and obeyed. If she was desirable as well, so much the better. If the Captain was happy, so were the ship and the crew. And the Captain was very happy indeed.

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Chapter Three

They docked in Freeport three weeks after Lucy’s capture, three blissful weeks, in her opinion. Although the lookouts had scoured the seas all day every day, no ships of a size they could handle had come their way. Jean-Marie wisely limited them to small merchant or private vessels, nor had she ever taken on a naval vessel. Lucy was glad.

She wanted them to stay safe.

“Dress me to go ashore, Lucy,” Jean-Marie commanded. “I want a velvet suit, my boots, hat and sword. Be quick!”

Lucy obeyed swiftly, dressing Jean-Marie in regal purple, adding the shiny sword that hung on the wall of the cabin when it was not in use. The large feather that decorated the Captain’s hat looked at once fetching and outrageous.

“May I come with you?” Lucy asked.

“You may not. This is a business excursion. In fact, I must confine you as most of the crew will be ashore on various errands. Take a flask of water and a book or two, and I will lock you in the head.”

“Oh, please, Jean-Marie, not in there! I will not run away!” Lucy promised, pleading. As a child, she had been locked in a closet several times by Eunice and had a fear of enclosed places.

“This instant!” Jean-Marie snapped. She brooked no further discussion, grabbing Lucy by the arm and thrusting her into the privy. A book and water bottle soon followed, and then Lucy heard the sound of metal on metal. She was a prisoner once again. Soon she heard the sound of the Captain’s boots on the wood floors, going out of the cabin, onto the deck and off the little ship.

Lucy bit her lip to keep back tears, but she was soon weeping. I’ve done nothing to deserve this! And where would I go, a half-clothed Englishwoman in a port full of dangerous strangers?

She struck the door ferociously with both fists at once, meaning only to vent her frustration, which was now greater than her fear, and then jumped back, startled when the wood gave way slightly. Curious, Lucy jiggled the door a bit, and again, it moved.

Some part of the brass lock was coming loose from the wood outside in the cabin!

Lucy stopped to consider this. If she could get out, she might also get back in, and thus be free until Jean-Marie’s return. Slowly, carefully Lucy worked the door back and forth. There was a dull “clink.” The door opened all the way. Lucy peeked out cautiously. From the door hung the entire lock and brass fitting, intact. The screws had pulled away from the doorframe. Lucy picked them up. Now, she realized with a sinking heart that she could not make it look as if she were locked in again. Jean-Marie would catch her in this act of defiance and punish her.

Lucy sat down on her little stool with the lock in her hand. She was stunned. Jean-Marie had threatened her with death when they first met. Her captain had told her the Susanna Valent

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punishment for disobedience was a humiliating beating. And this was not a simple error, it was willful. She should have stayed locked up. Jean-Marie had even given her a book and water. Air and light came in through a tiny porthole, high up in the chamber.

It was not a closet. “She will kill me,” Lucy mumbled to herself. “What can I do to prove I am loyal and obedient? Oh, God, don’t let her hurt me.”

Lucy put the hardware aside and looked around the cabin. She stripped the bed and gathered all the laundry, took it on deck and scrubbed it exactly as she had been at sea. If any of the few crew left behind to guard the ship thought anything of her being on deck unescorted, they said nothing.

Once the laundry was drying, Lucy went below again and immediately undressed, lest Jean-Marie suddenly return. Lucy decided to wax furniture, scrub the deck and head, and put everything else in order according to the Captain’s pleasure. She then carefully bathed herself, and finding nothing else to do, lay down to wait on the hardwood floor for the return of her Captain. Sitting and reading might strike the angry captain as too recreational for a slave who had been naughty.

* * * * *

“Lucy! Wake up!”

Lucy jerked awake. Captain St. Honore’s boot was planted firmly on her ass.

“Ma Capitaine.” Lucy whispered, face to the floor. She was afraid to even look up at Jean-Marie.

“What are you doing out here?” the Captain demanded, walking around to stand at Lucy’s head.

“The lock was loose, and I came out,” Lucy mumbled against the wood. “I was afraid, ma Capitaine. It was…Eunice punished me when I was little. Oh, please, do not be angry at me for this!” When Jean-Marie did not respond, Lucy threw her arms around the pirate’s ankles and wept against the polished leather. “Please don’t punish me! I didn’t run away! I did all that I could to please you while you were gone,” Lucy sobbed.

Jean-Marie considered this. She had seen her laundry drying on deck as she came back aboard, and she certainly hadn’t set anyone to guard her slave, not specifically.

Looking down at Lucy’s hair spread over her boots as the young woman clung to her, she felt a surge of desire, but discipline had to be maintained. She opened her coat and removed the leather belt from her trousers.

“Get up, Lucy,” she commanded. “You must not disobey the Captain of a ship. It is my responsibility to keep order and discipline so that in times of battle, people will obey without thought, and thus remain alive. When I give you an order, you must assume it is in your best interest to obey. Do you understand?”

Lucy stood before her, weeping. “Oui, Madame,” she sobbed.

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St. Honore turned her slave around, bent her over the bed, and whipped her bare bottom with the belt.

Lucy screamed with pain and fear and Jean-Marie stopped for a moment. It was hard to beat that pretty, squirming backside, and it hurt her heart to see Lucy in pain.

Jean-Marie wished fervently this was not necessary, but it was. By the time Jean-Marie had reddened Lucy’s pretty bottom with the twelfth stroke, Lucy had slid to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

Jean-Marie wiped tears from her own eyes, glad no one else could see them. This was not the first time she had had to whip her own lover, but God willing it would be the last. Leaving her there, Jean-Marie summoned her bo’sun and had Lucy hauled, naked, to the brig. A few minutes later, Jean-Marie appeared there to see that her orders had been carried out.

“Lucy, come here,” she ordered.

Lucy approached the door of the cell and knelt on the rough planks with her head down. She was still crying.

“You were willfully disobedient. While the lock was loose, it would have held if you had not forced it. For disobedience and damaging my property, I sentence you to ten days confinement at hard labor with bread and water. Your sentence is reduced to five days because you did your work and did not attempt to escape.”

“Oui, Capitaine,” Lucy mumbled at the floor.

“Very well, I will see you in five days,” Jean-Marie declared, and she went away, leaving Lucy alone in the damp half-light of the brig.

Lucy looked around. It was larger than the head and had bars across one side instead of the wall. She decided she could bear it. She must, if she wished to return to the Captain’s bed. She hauled herself to the narrow bunk and lay down on her stomach.

Some time later, while Lucy lay in an anguished stupor on the straw mattress, Jacob the cabin-boy appeared with a wooden box, followed by the bo’sun who unlocked the door so that the box could be pushed in. Lucy showed no interest in the box, but as soon as she was left alone, she got up and examined it. It contained the Captain’s boots, polish and rags, clothing to be mended, a sewing box, a flask of water and a loaf of stale bread. Lucy pushed it away and curled up on the mattress again to cry. She could not believe the harshness of her punishment. Except for pulling the lock loose, what have I done?

It’s too much to bear now I am in love with her! What if I did something really wrong? Would Jean-Marie kill me? I have been so good! This was my first mistake, and I stayed because I love her! I thought she loved me, too! I must have been wrong. How I wish I did NOT love her now!

Late that night, when Lucy had been alone for hours, and was sure her lot could get no worse, she heard Jean-Marie’s voice cry out in ecstasy. Her captain had taken another lover.

* * * * *

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The next morning, Lucy rose with the sun, her jaw set, and shined the Captain’s boots. She then took up the alteration of the pile of shirts and trousers. Most of St.

Honore’s wardrobe had started out as men’s clothing and required various adjustments to allow for her hips and breasts. Lucy worked diligently. She was determined now to do whatever she must to stay alive, to be fed, perhaps to be clothed, to be released from the brig, and to keep Jean-Marie from beating her again. All of her previous labors had been done gladly, out of love. Until Lucy heard Jean-Marie’s cries of pleasure in the arms of another, she would have borne all of her punishments with whatever stoicism she could muster. But to be thrown aside for another for no reason was beyond endurance. Now she was bent on nothing but escape, to get away and give her broken heart a chance to heal. She didn’t know where she would go, but perhaps she could find an appointment as a governess even here in these islands. She had heard talk of wealthy planters.

When the bo’sun came around midday with her food allotment, Lucy gave him the boots and the mending she had completed so far. He nodded sympathetically and presented her with another pile, which she accepted without comment. But when the bos’un had gone again, Lucy retreated to the mattress to weep more tears of loneliness and frustration. She could see no point to rushing through her work; she had four more days to endure. Eventually she fell asleep, leaving her second loaf of stale bread uneaten.

When Lucy next awoke, it was very bright, and she cringed, disoriented and afraid.

She covered her eyes and curled into a ball on the unfamiliar surface.

“Lucy, Lucy, my love, it is all right. It is over,” came the soothing voice of Jean-Marie. “I missed you so, I have released you three days early.”

“No!” Lucy shrank from the other woman. She was in the Captain’s bed, but she withdrew until she was in the far corner against the cabin wall. “Leave me alone!” she hissed.

“Oh, Lucy, do not do this. I will not hurt you,” Jean-Marie tried to reassure her, reaching for her again.

Lucy gathered her wits. “You already have hurt me! You whipped me for nothing after confining me without cause. You threw me aside and took another lover,” Lucy spat at the pirate. “Why do you not make me walk the plank, or keel-haul me? Throw me to your pirates and let them rape me,” Lucy suggested, stopping to catch her breath.

“Everything you did to me when you made me your slave, I accepted, and I fell in love with you! How could you treat me so? You do not care for me, Madame, no matter what you say!” Lucy turned away and waited for the lash to fall again, for surely it would.

Jean-Marie was truly shocked. No one had spoken to her in that way since she had been second mate in the employ of another captain. No one among her crew dared defy her, especially once an example was made and a precedent was set. If you didn’t like St.

Honore’s discipline, you found another berth. Everyone knew that.

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Jean-Marie stared at Lucy’s quivering form for a moment, then sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. She did love Lucy! But she had no idea how to make her believe it. She took a deep breath and was glad no one was near to hear her. “Lucy…I…I am sorry. Please…I did not take another lover,” the big pirate said, bemused, not sure where else to begin.

Lucy looked suspiciously over her shoulder at Jean-Marie. “But…I heard you.”

Jean-Marie was red-faced. “It was only a noise I made, to make you think so. I was on deck above the brig when I did it. The others saw me. You may ask them if you wish.”

“You wanted to hurt me all the same,” Lucy accused. Despite her anger, she found the pirate’s obvious discomfort reassuring.

“I wanted you to need me,” Jean-Marie confessed, “and to want me, and to know how completely I control you.”

“Of course you control me!” Lucy snapped, angry again. “You confine me and use me, you take away my belongings and keep me naked. What more control can you possibly need?”

“You disobeyed me,” Jean-Marie pointed out, feeling as stupid as she ever had in her life.

“You did not listen to me when I begged you not to lock me up, and I proved my loyalty to you by working hard and then waiting here on the floor. If that does not show you that you control me, nothing ever will,” Lucy said with finality, turning back to the wall once again. Tears overwhelmed her control.

Jean-Marie found this unbearable. “I control you only as much and as long as you let me,” Jean-Marie admitted softly, looking down at her hands. “It would not be effective if you did not want it.”

Lucy turned back toward her, curiosity in her eyes. “Is this so?”

“Of course. I only go as far as you permit, and now you have told me how far I may go, if indeed I may do anything at all.” Jean-Marie’s voice trembled, and tears began to slide down either side of her nose.

Lucy moved closer to her. “Then you need not beat me, and you need not lock me up. You need only to command me and I will obey you,” she said firmly. “I obeyed you out of love and desire, and because I trusted you, ma Capitaine. It hurt me very much to be punished for no real reason. Yes, I did break out, but I was terrified. I tried to tell you!”

Jean-Marie blinked back tears. “I am still your captain?”

“Only promise to be fair and kind as you were before,” Lucy begged.

She slipped off the bed and knelt before Jean-Marie. “You are a big bully. A spanking and a night without an orgasm would have sufficed.” Then to emphasize her love and respect for her Captain, she took the pirate’s hand and kissed it as she had the first time Jean-Marie fed her.

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Chills ran up and down Jean-Marie’s spine. Lucy was so sweet and innocent, and in her pride she had almost ruined everything. She took Lucy’s chin and cradled it in her hand. “My little Lucy, I will not be so strict again. From now on, I will tailor both discipline and punishment to fit your lovely nature like a glove.”

“Do you promise?” Lucy demanded.

Jean-Marie sighed and wiped away her tears. “I do. I will be merciful and just from now on, as long as you obey me and serve me willingly and cheerfully, the way you always have.”

“Bon, ma Capitaine. Then, may I undress you? You must be very warm,” Lucy offered, playfully tugging at the pirate’s boots.

“As a matter of fact, I am burning up,” Jean-Marie laughed. “Perhaps you can…assist me.” She reached down and caught Lucy’s breasts, immobilizing her. She massaged the nipples with her thumbs, causing the young Englishwoman to gasp and cry out with desire.

“Please…Jean-Marie,” Lucy whimpered.

“Then undress me this instant,” Captain St. Honore growled. “Why do you delay?”

With a giggle of relief, Lucy went to work disrobing her captain. She had it in mind to show this sometimes demanding, sometimes vulnerable lover, exactly how much she meant to the young woman she had freed. Lucy’s prison may have been a gilded cage, but the door was already open.

“Jean-Marie, lay back. Let me pleasure you,” Lucy whispered, kissing her way up the pirate’s smooth, densely-muscled thighs.

“Ah, Lucy, yes,” Jean-Marie breathed, scooting back in the bed to allow Lucy plenty of room for whatever she wanted to do.

Lucy followed slowly, nuzzling and nipping, letting her nipples stroke Jean-Marie all over. Soon the musk of both women was thick in the cabin, and Lucy’s head descended to where Jean-Marie most wanted it.

“Lick me, sweet Lucy,” Jean-Marie urged. She thrust impatiently against Lucy’s tongue, for Lucy was not the only one who had gone two days without any loving.

“It is you who are sweet, Madame,” Lucy mumbled. She took it slowly, savoring the richness that was her lover. In the weeks they had been together, Jean-Marie had taught her many things about pleasing another woman, and Lucy was not only an avid scholar, but willing to try new things on her own. Experimentally, she spread Jean-Marie’s legs wide and lowered her nipple down to graze the throbbing clit that pulsed in the glow of the lamplight.

Jean-Marie watched Lucy’s breast dipping in and out of her sex as the nipple stroked her, and she groaned aloud. “Make me come,” she demanded.

“You will come, ma Capitaine. Depend upon it. Do not be in such a hurry,” Lucy admonished.

“But I have missed you,” Jean-Marie complained.

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“I am here now,” Lucy murmured, sliding up to lie on the pirate’s chest to kiss her.

She teased open the lips of her captain with her tongue, and tenderly they explored one another, finding their way anew.

Jean-Marie clasped Lucy to her, pleasantly surprised when her lover’s knee found it’s way between her legs to tease her. She arched to meet it, and was rewarded with answering pressure. Then it slid away again, and Lucy worked her way back down to Jean-Marie’s bush. This time, the captain clamped Lucy’s head in place with a strong hand, lest it wander off again without her permission.

Lucy did not struggle, for this had been her intent all along, to let the pirate lay claim to her and conquer her once again. Lucy had been assertive enough for one evening. Now she would be the slave she was meant to be once again, for however long her lover required.

“Lucy, do not stop. I command you, my slave,” Jean-Marie ordered.

Lucy shuddered with pleasure at both touch and tone of voice. Jean-Marie was right; it did please her to permit herself to be dominated. She resolved to give it further thought later, when the delectable womanhood of this powerful female was not so distracting. She licked fervently, but not feverishly, allowing her hands to roam over every part of her lover’s body that she could reach. Jean-Marie writhed gently, a gasp or a sigh now and then confirming that Lucy’s technique was indeed effective.

When the Captain started to pant and thrust more urgently, Lucy concentrated her strokes on the throbbing bud that pleaded for release. “Mmmm, I feel you are coming, my love,” she murmured against it, making Jean-Marie all but whine with need. “Yes,”

Lucy said. “Give me your pleasure now, Madame, I beg of you.”

Jean-Marie loved hearing that kind of talk from a slave, and it sent her over the edge, gasping for breath as she exploded on Lucy’s lips and tongue. “Oh! Yes! Yes, Lucy ! Ah, ma Dieu ma Dieu ma Dieu! ”

Lucy pressed into the boiling pussy with her entire face, absorbing the pirate’s pleasure into herself with a huge sigh of satisfaction. This was what she had been missing: not her own ecstasy, but Jean-Marie’s. “Je t’adore, Madame,” she whispered against the Captain’s thigh.

Jean-Marie’s hand was gentle, stroking Lucy’s hair. This slave would gladly wait, the Captain knew. Tonight she would have Lucy again, and not until then would the pirate grant her release.

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Chapter Four

“Lucy, today I will show you Freeport. Would you perhaps prefer a dress for this excursion?” Jean-Marie asked as she breakfasted the next morning. She cut a slice of succulent ham and held it out so Lucy could eat it.

“As Madame desires,” Lucy responded, when she had finished chewing.

“Bon. You will choose a summer dress from your trunk, and whatever else you need. It is warm, do not forget,” the pirate queen reminded her.

“May I then take a parasol?” Lucy requested.

“Of course. I want you to be a credit to me,” the pirate smiled.

When Jean-Marie, wearing a new linen suit this time, escorted Lucy to the gangplank some time later, a horse-drawn carriage stood waiting. Jean-Marie handed her up and they proceeded slowly along the waterfront, looking at the various ships and the government and commercial buildings. Lucy was fascinated with all of the black people she saw, with only a white face here and there as some sort of supervisor, or ladies such as herself out in carriages shopping or visiting one another.

“Jean-Marie! What beautiful skin and faces these people have! I look like uncooked dough compared to them!

“Now, my sweet, you have a lovely English complexion. We are not all meant to look alike. But I confess I find the differences most attractive, everything from café au lait to mahogany. It is like a grand buffet, is it not?”

“But then, Madame, have you ever…?”

Jean-Marie understood the unfinished question. “To be sure, I have! I have needs that must be met, as you well know.”

Lucy sat back, wondering if Jean-Marie might return to that buffet for seconds.

Lucy then began to ask about the functions of the buildings, and the government of the island, hoping that Jean-Marie would pay attention more to her than to the lovely native women, who to be sure, wore less than any European woman Lucy had ever seen out in public.

Jean-Marie soon ordered the driver to take them into the countryside, and once they had gone far enough along the shoreline so that all traces of civilization were behind them, the carriage stopped beside a grove of palm trees on a secluded beach.

“Excellent,” Jean-Marie approved, this time in English. “You will return for us in three hours, as agreed?

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, and he hopped down to assist Lucy, and to remove two wicker baskets from the rear compartment. “I’ll take these into the shade for you.”

Jean-Marie and Lucy followed more slowly as Lucy was unaccustomed to walking in sand. She assumed Jean-Marie had planned a picnic in this enchanted spot, and she was partially right.

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Once the horse and driver had driven away, Jean-Marie checked her pocket watch and announced, “Now, young lady, it is high time you learned to swim!”

“Swim!” Lucy gaped. She had only recently learned to bathe regularly. She didn’t know any women who knew how to swim, and precious few men, either.

“Yes, swim. We live on the water. We work on the water. We fight on the water. We can very easily fall in the water, and then what?” Jean-Marie demanded, throwing her coat aside. “Help me get these boots off, Lucy.”

“I will drown,” Lucy complained, kneeling before Jean-Marie in the sand.

“You most certainly will not, if you can swim. Now, do not argue with me, slave, or you will be soundly spanked and sent to bed without pleasure,” the Captain told her.

She was still smiling, but as always, she meant it.

Lucy knew that Jean-Marie did not bluff, and as soon as the pirate was naked, they worked together to strip Lucy bare as well.

Even so, she had to ask, “But what about sharks?”

“You are a mouse. Look out there.” The Captain pointed toward the horizon. “What do you see?”

“A line of foam?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, it is the reef. The sharks feed there on the fish, and they do not come here. It makes this beach safe and calm for swimming,” Jean-Marie explained patiently.

“Oh,” Lucy said in a small voice. She had run out of excuses.

“Now, I am sure this will be most distracting for me, and I hope for you as well,”

Jean-Marie teased, “but you will very soon be swimming like a fish.”

Lucy doubted that, and hesitated at the edge of the turquoise sea until Jean-Marie picked her up and carried her out to chest-deep water.

“Don’t let go, don’t let go!” Lucy shrieked. She squirmed madly against Jean-Marie’s chest, and the pirate, holding her young woman tight, bent to kiss her and calm her into cooperation.

“Stop it. You can stand here, sweet, silly little fool,” Jean-Marie laughed. She set Lucy down gently. “Relax, hold onto me if you like, and enjoy it.”

Lucy’s arms were around Jean-Marie in a death grip as the warm water lapped at their bodies. “Don’t let me go,” Lucy pleaded.

“No, not yet,” Jean-Marie agreed, but she let herself float free so that only Lucy remained standing on the sandy bottom. “Look, see how easy?”

“I can’t, I can’t,” Lucy protested weakly.

“You will, because we float,” Jean-Marie said with elaborate patience. Her temper was being tested. She allowed herself to sink down again so that she was standing.

“Now you will float. Try it.”

And because Lucy was so much smaller and could not resist, Jean-Marie soon had her floating on her back with the pirate’s outstretched arms just beneath her.

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Panting with fear, Lucy lunged at Jean-Marie, who stepped deftly away, and so with each lunge, Lucy was forced to swim toward her. She was awkward at first, but her fear of losing contact with Jean-Marie drove her to splash and flail, until at last she was moving without assistance.

“Jean-Marie! Do not leave me!” Lucy implored as Jean-Marie kicked lazily away on her back.

“Catch me,” the pirate invited, remaining just out of reach. She stayed where the water was shallow enough to stand. “Come on!”

Lucy lunged after her mistress, and Jean-Marie shot away again.

“Oh! I will drown! I am afraid!”

“You waste too much time talking. Stroke, don’t wave about. Slice through the water.

Lucy splashed comically, but of course she stayed afloat. Every time she neared Jean-Marie, the pirate evaded her, until Lucy was swimming at last. She was clumsy, but she gained confidence with each minute.

Then Jean-Marie led Lucy to deeper water, where she taught her to float face down, to hold her breath, and to make a shallow dive.

Once Lucy was managing well enough, Jean Marie gave her a short demonstration.

“You may have to stay afloat for a long time without touching the bottom. Watch me.”

She lay on her back and spread her arms. “If you inflate your chest, your head will stay out of the water. Come, try it.”

Lucy, now less frightened of the water than of Jean-Marie, obeyed.

“Up, up, keep your head up,” Jean-Marie coached. “When you float, you must conserve your strength. The same face-down. Observe.” She took a deep breath and floated on her belly, occasionally lifting her head for a breath. “Sometimes in a battle, you must play dead, so the enemy, and sharks, will leave you alone.”

“Sharks?” Lucy shrieked.

“Yes, so learn well. You may now make a shallow dive, I think,” the Captain announced and she took Lucy to slightly deeper water, where she demonstrated the technique. “Take a deep breath, hold your nose if you wish, and kick yourself down.

Women float more so than men, so we must work harder to dive.”

Lucy went through her paces until she was able to stay underwater for several yards before popping up for air.

“Magnifiique! It is enough for one day!” Jean-Marie declared at length, when Lucy had come up for the fifth time. ”We must get into the shade or you will burn to a crisp!”

“But Madame! I have only just begun!” Lucy complained, having decided she rather liked swimming. Water streamed from her hair.

“Then we will swim again before it is time to go. Now, into the shade and let us have a little lunch and a nap, my sweet,” Jean-Marie prodded, and the lovers went up the beach into the grove, hand-in-hand.

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As Lucy laid out the picnic, Jean-Marie dried herself and gave Lucy the towel, and then they sat down cross-legged on a blanket to eat. Lucy hand-fed the pirate as if she were a Middle Eastern caliph, taking food only when Jean-Marie told her to feed herself.

When Jean-Marie had had enough to eat, she sprawled full-length on a blanket and gave Lucy her dessert, coming to the eager young tongue several times before drifting into a light sleep. Lucy curled beside her, writhing with need but afraid to touch herself for fear her Captain would wake.

She is demanding, but she is also wonderful, Lucy thought. She will let me come tonight, I know it. Lucy turned on her back and tried to relax, looking up at the sky through the palm fronds that shielded them from the sun. In less than a month, her life had been transformed into something extraordinary. Lucy ticked off the items in her mind. My lover is a woman. My lover is a pirate. I am her slave. I live on a ship. I live on the Caribbean Ocean. I will never return to England. I will not go to Canada. I will not marry Lewis Richard, or any other man. Those were ten things, but there was one more. “I am in love,” Lucy whispered, still amazed. “I am in love.”

She turned her head and studied the slumbering giant and tried to understand how she could have come to love any woman so much, let alone such a woman. Lucy felt reborn into a new world where old rules didn’t apply. And that is exactly what we call it, Lucy remembered, the New World. I was so afraid to go to Canada, I felt so badly used by my cousins, and Jean-Marie came down like an angel and rescued me. She even killed people to keep us from being caught, and now no one will even look for me. I am safe here. So safe, she thought, moving to rest her head on Jean-Marie’s chest.

“Come Lucy! One more quick swim before we must dress and return to town,”

Jean-Marie was saying. She prodded Lucy with her foot. “Up! It is hot.”

Lucy had to agree, and went willingly into the water where they reviewed the morning’s lessons.

“So, have you been touching yourself while I was sleeping?” Jean-Marie purred as they floated in the gentle waves.

Lucy blushed furiously “No, Madame! You have told me not to.”

“Let us see,” the Captain grinned, pulling Lucy close to her. She slid a finger or two into Lucy’s pussy, and found wetness there from their earlier lovemaking. “So, you were excited for me?” Jean-Marie teased.

“I am always excited for you,” Lucy sulked. “But you refuse me until the evening.

Every day,” she added unnecessarily.

Jean-Marie stroked Lucy’s swollen clit until the young woman groaned in her arms, then let her go. “So I do. A randy young woman excites me, too. It pleases me to know you burn with desire for your Captain.”

“Then you should be greatly pleased, Madame,” Lucy remarked.

“You find me a harsh mistress?” Jean-Marie wanted to know.

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“Madame le Capitaine is most demanding, but not cruel,” Lucy had to admit.

“Thank you very much,” Jean-Marie said. “Come here.” Without waiting for Lucy to comply, the pirate sliced through the water, and captured her slave again, and teased her mercilessly with tongue and fingers until Lucy begged.

“Madame, have mercy,” she implored, trying to get the one last stroke she needed to come.

Jean-Marie held her away. “Ah-ah-ah, my little slave. Remember this lesson: the more you complain, the more I will torment you with your own desires. You will wait to come. Now, we must get dressed before the driver returns and finds us naked.” With that, Jean-Marie chased Lucy into the grove where they dried off and got back into their clothing. Lucy whimpered with frustration as she pulled on her undergarments. She would have them wet in no time with her need for the Captain.

Once they were back in the carriage, Jean-Marie asked conversationally, “Have you a ball gown?”

Lucy grimaced. “My allowance never stretched to anything of the sort. My cousin gave me an old one of hers to wear from time to time, and then took it back again. All I have with me is practical clothing for Canada. This dress is the only lightweight one Eunice felt I would need in the cold north.”

“And it fits you well, although it is a little plain,” Jean-Marie observed, fanning herself with her plumed hat. “We will remedy that. You must be properly turned out for the Buccaneer Balls, must you not?”

“Buccaneer Balls?” Lucy repeated cocking her head.

“Dances! Balls for pirates, who like a good party as much as anyone else, except we are never invited. So we make our own. And you must appear the lovely and gracious consort of the Pirate Queen, is this not so?” Jean-Marie twinkled.

Lucy stared up at her in wonder. “Is it? Are you the Pirate Queen?”

Jean-Marie only laughed. “We shall see!”

Lucy glanced at Jean-Marie from time to time as they clip-clopped back into town.

Was there such a thing as a Pirate Queen or was Jean-Marie making mock of her still-innocent lover? Even if there was such a personage, Jean-Marie was very young for such an office in Lucy’s opinion, though she was powerful and commanding and certainly had a regal presence. As Lucy turned the idea this way and that in her head, she found she rather liked the idea. How Eunice would have reacted, had she lived, to such a turn of events was impossible to imagine. Now Jean-Marie and the crew of the Femme Fatale were Lucy’s only family, and if they thought Jean-Marie was the Pirate Queen, then as far as Lucy was concerned, Jean-Marie was that, and more.

She moved closer to Jean-Marie, who draped a protective arm around her shoulders and favored her with a lidded glance. It reminded her of the way the pirate looked at her when she was about to make love with her, and Lucy shivered with anticipation.

The evening seemed impossibly far away.

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* * * * *

“Lucy, give me that dress,” Jean-Marie demanded when they were back in the cabin.

“But why, Madame?” Lucy asked, though she undressed quickly in order to give the pirate the immediate obedience she demanded.

“Because I wish it, my sweet one. You must trust me,” was all Jean-Marie would say.

“Oui, Madame,” Lucy nodded, and handed the dress over.

“You will not need it for some time. We will leave port tomorrow to see what may come out of Cuba. I trust this meets with your approval?” Jean-Marie smiled with gentle sarcasm. She continued, “Now be about your chores. You have much still to do.”

She took the dress and left Lucy to her labors in the cabin.

Lucy sweated through the afternoon, working first in the Captain’s cabin and then doing tubs of laundry on deck. Finally she was able to snatch a quick nap in the shade of Jean-Marie’s awning when she was finished. All she could think was that she must not be too tired to meet the Captain’s demands in the evening. Tired or not, Lucy needed to come. Every time she looked at the pirate, or their eyes met, or either one touched the other, Lucy’s neglected, aching sex burned anew. Let her touch me tonight, please God, if you are listening, let her touch me, Lucy prayed.

Jean-Marie sensed her slave’s desperation. She was not given to lengthy explanations of her behavior to any other person, so she did not bother to tell Lucy that pleasure denied is all the more intense. While Jean-Marie was personally willing to sacrifice intensity for frequency, she used the combination of denial, desire and intensity to control her slaves and make them dependent upon her. And, she had long since discovered that slaves begging for release gave the most incredible oral sex, and she intended to keep the extremely talents Lucy needy for the rest of her pirating days.

That evening, when Jean-Marie had finished her meal, she ordered, “Shine my boots now, my slave. Sit there on your stool.” Then, when Lucy had brought her rags and polish, Jean-Marie rested her boots on Lucy’s bare lap and nodded to her to begin.

Desire flared in Lucy’s loins. She was humiliated to discover that, if she could have, she would gladly rubbed her wet, aching pussy all over the pirate’s boots to relieve her needs. Thankful that her hands were busy, so that Jean-Marie could not see them trembling, Lucy bent her head over one big boot and went to work, cleaning, polishing, buffing. The movement of the boot on her thighs as she worked was maddening. She knew Jean-Marie was doing it to torment her, and she dared not raise her eyes to her lover’s, knowing what triumph she would read there.

Lucy did not realize that she was panting with need until Jean-Marie remarked,

“Lucy, if you mess the shine on my boots with the juice from your hot little pussy, I will make you lick it off.”

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Lucy moaned, “Oh God, Jean-Marie! You drive me mad with desire.”

“How mad?” Jean-Marie asked slyly.

“I…I would do anything!” Lucy exclaimed.

“Show me,” Jean-Marie demanded.

Lucy looked down at the boot in her lap. It seemed to beckon her. “Very well, Madame,” Lucy said, and she allowed the boot to rest on the stool between her legs, whereupon she slid forward and straddled it, polishing it with her pussy. “Oh, Madame,” Lucy moaned, cupping her own breasts. She began to rock on the pirate’s boot while playing with her nipples. “May I come this way, Jean-Marie?”

The Captain stared down at her slave, fascinated with this evidence of her submission and need. “If you can, you may. I would like to see it.”

“Mmmm. Ohhhhhh, it feels so good, Madame,” Lucy said with a shudder. It was true. The boot leather was smooth and warm, and the leg of the pirate inside it was strong and muscular.

Jean-Marie found the writhing seductive, and she began to move with her slave. “If I let you do this, you will clean these boots with your tongue, and you will pleasure me as I demand.”

“Oui, ma Capitaine. Anything you say,” Lucy promised, grinding her hips. She grunted with the effort, releasing her breasts to grip the pirate’s leg. “Oh, God, Jean-Marie, you cannot imagine what I feel,” she sighed. “Your boots are perfect for this.”

“Only a slave would think so,” Jean-Marie replied. She felt very warm and was beginning to need her slave’s attentions. Yet she had promised Lucy release. She allowed her slave to continue. But Lucy would pay.

“I am your slave, Madame le Capitaine, and nothing more,” Lucy readily agreed, writhing feverishly. Her swollen clit throbbed incessantly as she dragged it again and again over the pirate’s boot. “Please let me come, please!” Lucy pleaded, as though she were afraid Jean-Marie would withdraw this instrument of both pleasure and torture.

“You may come now, but you have exposed your need to me, and I promise you, I will use it,” Jean-Marie growled. She wanted Lucy’s tongue. Right now. To retract her permission would be cruel and unfair but she was sorely tempted. She had to let the desperate young woman come on her boot.

Lucy bounced up and down, breasts bobbing. The sight gave Jean-Marie all the more reason to quickly finish off her slave. She grasped Lucy’s shoulders and held her down, driving her boot up into the Englishwoman’s sopping pussy.

Lucy gasped at the sudden intensity, then climaxed wildly, shrieking with ecstasy.

Had Jean-Marie not been holding her, she would have lost her seat and fallen to the floor.

Jean-Marie looked down at her, then rose and opened her pants. “Get up and lick me, slut. Be quick!”

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Still gasping with exertion, Lucy struggled to her knees and plunged into the hot pussy of her mistress. Jean-Marie’s legs closed around her head like a vise. Which each stroke of Lucy’s tongue, Jean-Marie thrust back, until she burst in the eager mouth of her young slave.

“Oh, God!” Jean-Marie shrieked, for she had been stimulated long and hard before demanding her due. She snapped her hips up and down, seeking more pleasure, and Lucy satisfied her as promised, again and again, until they slipped away from each other.

As the pirate sagged, dazed, in her chair, Lucy made good on the rest of her promise, licking her juices from the high boots and shining them again. She then licked the stool itself clean under the watchful eye of her mistress.

“Very, very good,” Jean-Marie murmured. “Tres bon. A better slave I have never had, Lucy. But now I know a little bit more about you, eh? I shall put it to good use.”

* * * * *

The next afternoon, after lunch, Jean-Marie had Lucy, but as usual for the middle of the day, she left the younger women writhing with need. Pretending to ignore this, Jean Marie rose from the bed and dressed.

“Now finish your work. I must speak with my mates, evaluate the ship’s stores and readiness, and later I will come below. And I warn you, do not touch yourself. Do not think for a moment that I cannot tell when a woman is in need.”

“No, Jean-Marie, I will not touch myself,” Lucy promised. She got out of bed and pulled out her pile of mending, seating herself on the low stool to do it.

But she disobeyed. As soon as the door was closed behind the pirate, Lucy’s hand strayed into her crotch. She rubbed slowly, finding even that bit of contact a relief from the throbbing. I must not do this, Lucy told herself. I mustn’t.

“LUCY!” The door banged open. Jean-Marie had snuck back to check on her. She was laughing. “I knew you could not do it! But, since you have not come, the punishment will not be so severe. Get off that stool and lick it clean. Then get into bed.”

Lucy had all but fainted with shock when Jean-Marie burst back in, but she gathered herself. She knelt on the floor while Jean-Marie stood over her, hands on hips, and licked her juices off the shiny wood surface of the stool. This all but made her swoon again.

Jean-Marie was impatient. She lifted Lucy off the floor and made her climb onto the high bed.

“I think this will cure you of that nasty habit,” Jean-Marie said, rummaging in a chest. She pulled out a handful of scarves.

“Spread your arms and legs,” she requested sweetly, her eyes dancing. As soon as Lucy obeyed, Jean-Marie tied her to the posts, putting one more scarf over her eyes as a blindfold. “I will not gag you. If you moan and beg, it will only excite me more,” she Susanna Valent

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remarked. Then she tucked a towel under Lucy’s butt as she did not want her evening pleasures interrupted by bed-making. Then the pirate began to stroke Lucy’s clit.

Lucy began to writhe, “Ah! Madame, please, please!”

Jean-Marie’s answer was a kiss, a very deep and sensuous one, making Lucy suck her tongue, nibbling her lips. Her free hand teased Lucy’s hardened nipples. As soon as Lucy began to pant with imminent orgasm, Jean-Marie withdrew without warning.

“Now, you may lie there and decide if touching yourself is worth it,” she whispered in Lucy’s ear, and then she left, closing the door on Lucy’s cries for mercy.

Lucy was beyond humiliation. She did not care who heard her. “Nooooo! Don’t leave me like this! Ma Capitaine! Madame, please come back!” She humped and thrust helplessly at the air, but that brought her no relief at all. She pulled at her restraints, but these were the knots of a professional sailor. In an agony of need, she writhed back and forth, trying to draw her thighs together. The heat was intense. She had never been this close to orgasm before without coming.

Lucy wrenched herself all around the bed until she was exhausted, her howls subsiding to moans and then whimpers as she ran out of energy. She felt the moisture trickling between her legs, and she began finally to weep. It had been a long day, and Lucy was tired and frustrated and her Captain was angry with her. She was helpless and miserable and once again, afraid.

When Jean-Marie returned in less than an hour, she found Lucy still in tears.

“Why do you weep, little one? I have not beaten you,” Jean-Marie soothed as she removed Lucy’s wrist restraints. “Do not touch the blindfold.”

“Because you are angry,” Lucy said in a small voice.

“I assure you, I am not,” Jean-Marie said.

Suddenly there was a weight on Lucy’s chest, and a delicious soft, moist pussy in her mouth.

Jean-Marie sighed with contentment as Lucy began to eat her out. “You see, if I were angry, I would not let you make love to me,” she explained gently to her captive lover, whose hands now roamed over her hips and thighs as she tried to stuff as much pirate into her mouth as she could. “Yes, Lucy, show me how much you want me, and I shall be very happy with you indeed.”

Lucy lapped eagerly at Jean-Marie. The tone of her lover’s voice reassured her, and the thick liquids that oozed from her inflamed Lucy’s desire once again. Her body began to answer with a hard clit and nipples, and her juices again flowed freely.

“Ah, Lucy!” Jean-Marie cried in approval of her slave’s enthusiasm. She had to grab the headboard to keep from toppling over as her thighs began to tremble with anticipation of her orgasm.

Lucy, still blindfolded, was gobbling her mistress as if her life depended upon it.

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Jean-Marie made love to her. So she pleasured madly and without coherent thought.

With every stroke of her tongue, every caress, she begged with her entire being.

The uninhibited moaning of her slave drove Jean-Marie wild. Never much for self-discipline anyway, in moments she was spilling her ecstasy on Lucy’s face, down her breasts, in her hair, everywhere. Jean-Marie didn’t care who heard her, and everyone aboard was soon well aware of their Captain’s wild exertions in bed with her slave.

“Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh! Lucyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” St. Honore screamed, almost doubled up with the intensity of it. Gasping, she stayed on Lucy’s face and came again, and rested there while the young woman cleaned her, before sliding down to thank her with kisses for the gift of her love.

“Lucy, Lucy, you are wonderful. Let me free you,” Jean-Marie murmured tenderly, untying her and removing the blindfold. “I wager I will not need to come again for a week,” she groaned, rolling onto her back.

Lucy turned and pressed urgently against her Captain. “Madame,” she whimpered, weak with fatigue and need.

Jean-Marie looked at her fondly. “Give me a moment to recover. I told you I was not angry. You need not fear.”

Lucy sighed and lay still, heart pounding with anticipation. She did trust Jean-Marie, now, after several tests, but it was so hard to wait! She looked longingly at her beautiful pirate lover, at those full sensuous lips, the expressive eyes, the smooth skin bronzed by the sun, and those wonderfully strong hands. Although Lucy would not ask again, she was unable to keep from pressing herself against the trim, well-muscled body, even though the heat of lust washed over when she did.

“Very well, my sweet one, you have been very patient. Come now, relax and let me have you,” Jean-Marie soothed, turning on her side.

Lucy lay back immediately, spreading her legs wide open for her lover. Jane-Marie did not touch her right away, but began with feather-light kisses. When Lucy reached for her, Jean-Marie said, “You will keep your pretty little hands under your backside, unless you wish me to tie you again.”

Lucy snatched them back and tucked them away where they could not be seen.

“No, Madame, I will obey you,” she promised.

“I know you want to, but let us see if you can,” Jean-Marie teased.

Lucy merely panted, unwilling to say anything that would risk her captain’s displeasure.

“Yes, you are quiet and still because you want me to touch you,” Jean-Marie observed, walking her fingers from Lucy’s breasts down to her bush. When Lucy jerked convulsively, Jean-Marie walked them back up again, where she began to toy with Lucy’s nipples, sucking one, stroking the other, and then alternating lips and fingers.

She straddled Lucy and lowered her own nipples to touch Lucy’s, and then teased her lips open with them. Lucy suckled fiercely, writhing and moaning in a beautiful display of passionate need.

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“Ah, Lucy, you arouse me even now, you are so lovely, so desperate,” Jean-Marie sighed, but she did not stop what she was doing, not precisely. Instead, she began to move lower over Lucy’s body. Lucy gasped at each sensation drawn from her by the Captain’s lips, fingers, nipples, even her eyelashes. The younger woman was as tight as a bowstring, and Jean-Marie had yet to approach her aching center.

Lucy squeezed her own ass with her hands. She was splayed as wide as she could be, offering herself. Arching up with her hips, she whimpered wordlessly as Jean-Marie zeroed in on her clit. Jean-Marie lined the insides of Lucy‘s thighs with kisses, finally settling in with her face down in the beautiful, sopping pussy that had been awaiting her attention for almost 24 hours.

“Uhhhhhhhhhh!” Lucy groaned. She wanted so much to touch her mistress, but she dared not. She had to keep that tongue where it was to get the release she craved, and that meant absolute obedience. “Please, please, I promise to be good,” she chanted, hoping to hit upon the incantation that would end her agony. Although if questioned, Lucy would have been forced to admit it was the most exquisite agony anyone had ever endured, and, given a chance, she would gladly endure it again.

Jean-Marie licked Lucy slowly, edging her closer and closer to the point of no return. Once Lucy went over, all the tension of waiting would be lost, and Jean-Marie was reluctant to relinquish control of what she had created. She mercilessly teased Lucy to the brink of orgasm not once, not twice, but three times while her slave begged for mercy.

Each time Lucy’s hips began to jump, Jean-Marie would withdraw. “I must teach you patience, eh?” she asked, leaning down to kiss Lucy instead of stroking her clit.

“When you can lie still, I will begin again.”

“How can I lie still when I am forced to tremble at your touch?” Lucy whimpered.

“How can you stop me even as I begin to come?”

“I will show you,” Jean-Marie said, and she skillfully took Lucy to the edge again.

“You see? When your backside goes rigid, I know to stop.” And she stopped.

Lucy groaned in agony, loving her mistress all the more for her power. “Then I must not get stiff.”

“You will. It is not something you can help,” Jean-Marie grinned. And the diabolical pirate began to torture her slave again. Despite her own previous satiation, Jean-Marie was again highly aroused. She was tempted to torture Lucy further by demanding pleasure of her again, but then she had a better idea.

“Lucy, how badly do you want to come, my sweet, hmmmm?” Jean-Marie whispered. She had moved back up the bed to kiss Lucy while waiting for her to cool down enough to be aroused again.

“Very much, Jean-Marie, oh, please let me come. I am dying! You cannot know,”

Lucy pleaded. She was sure her ass was bleeding where she was digging into it with her own nails to keep her hands from her lover.

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“Well, then, will you wait until the day after tomorrow to come again?” Jean-Marie inquired.

Lucy was sure she could wait two days if she could come now, as long as she had ample warning to prepare her mind for it.

“Yes, yes, Madame, if you please! Only let me come now, and I will wait!” Lucy begged, humping upward at Jean-Marie trying to get more contact.

“Good. You have given your word, remember,” she said.

“Mercy, my love, please,” Lucy moaned.

Jean-Marie stayed where she was, slid her tongue gently between Lucy’s lips, her fingers into the juicy cunt, and brought her young lover off at last.

Lucy squealed with delight. It felt as if she were giving birth to a cloud of pleasure between her legs. She saw stars, she thought she heard screaming from far away, not entirely sure it was her own voice. Ecstasy surged and spilled out of her, and she babbled hymns of thanksgiving to her pirate queen, who did not limit her but permitted her the first multiple orgasm of her young life.

“Now, young Lucy, tomorrow you will live for me alone,” Jean-Marie reminded her gently as the happy slave lay glowing in her arms.

Lucy looked up at her, every feeling evident on her sweet face. “Ma Capitaine, I already live only for you every day. Je t’aime, Jean-Marie.”

The pirate was momentarily taken aback. It was early for such a declaration, but Lucy was no ordinary slave. Jean-Marie took Lucy at her word. “I love you, too.”

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Chapter Five

Lucy could not keep from glancing over at her Captain from time to time as she did the tubs of laundry. They rode just behind a headland, in shallow waters that permitted the draft of a sloop but probably not that of the schooners for which they were hunting.

Lucy thought that Jean-Marie looked magnificent, striding the quarterdeck, spyglass in hand, volleying questions to the lookouts in the crosstrees. The pirate queen was sure of her prey today for some reason, and she wore sword and pistols in anticipation of a battle. The guns were already run out and loaded with grape- and chain-shot. The sloop would hold fire until short range where such mast-crippling munitions would be most effective.

It was almost sunset, however, before the lookouts cried out, and the Femme Fatale bent on sail. They hoped to catch a schooner making an unprotected run through the Straits of Florida in a bid for the open sea and ports along the eastern seaboard of the fledgling United States. Jean-Marie was a skilful sailor and a master tactician, priding herself on her knowledge of tides and reefs. She gave chase and drove the schooner aground on a coral shelf as the tide was going out. Lucy dumped her washtubs as the decks were cleared for action. She took her finished work below but soon crept back topside to see the action, half-fascinated and half-terrified for her lover, the woman who was both her lover and her captain.

The men on the schooner knew they were doomed. Several jumped overboard and began swimming for the nearby island. Jean-Marie let them go. If the sharks did not get them, the inhospitable island would. If they were picked up, their memories of the incident would be faulty, clouded by time, the failing light, and their haste to get away.

Instead, to be certain of her prey, she fired a barrage of chain-shot through the schooner’s rigging, which killed several more sailors.

As they drew close enough to board, Jean-Marie sent Lucy below so that she would be safe and out of the way. Lucy went reluctantly, but she knew that to disobey the pirate now would bring severe punishment. Besides, she had no desire to see any more bloodshed. She admonished herself that she would have to get over this if she wished to be promoted from slave to pirate.

Almost as if Jean-Marie was reading her mind, as soon as the ships were lashed together, Jacob, the cabin boy came for Lucy. “The Captain’s compliments and you will report to her on the schooner’s deck at once!” he said shrilly, his eyes wide with excitement. Lucy remembered that this was his first official engagement, too, since he, too, was taken from the Commerce.

She went back on deck as reluctantly as she had left it. Looking across to the captive schooner, she saw a row of screaming, swearing men kneeling on the deck, which was already running with blood. Jean-Marie had her sword out, and as casually as Lucy herself might pick flowers, she sauntered down the line, and beheaded all of them from behind, to avoid the spouts of bright red arterial blood.

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Lucy promptly threw up over the side of the Femme Fatale. The heads had bounced and rolled like boulders going down a hill before being kicked over the side by other pirates. Casually, St. Honore wiped her sword on a piece of dark blue cloth that looked as if it had once been an officer’s coat. It went over the side along with the heads and the bodies, whereupon a feeding frenzy of sharks ensued right under their noses.

Lucy threw up again. If she was going to be a pirate, she had better find something to do to keep her away from the slaughter. She looked around for some job that might keep her on the Femme Fatale during attacks, and that was when she spotted the sharpshooter in the crow’s nest. Now, if someone would teach her about muskets, she could stay up there and pick off anyone who was a danger to the boarding parties.

Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted. “Lucy! Come here at once!” Captain St.

Honore called, and Lucy was obliged to make her way to the dying ship full of blood and gore. As soon as she arrived, she slipped on what she was afraid must have been an eye, and fell to her knees, retching. Jean-Marie scooped her up and carried her back to the Femme Fatale, telling Jacob to make her lover comfortable until her return. Lucy had no idea why she had been sent for at all.

Once they had left the scuttled ship behind, Jean-Marie settled affairs to her satisfaction and went to see about Lucy.

“So, you were unwell. How are you now?” she asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed where Jacob had made Lucy lie down. She had sent for Lucy as a test, and the poor thing had failed, but there was no need to berate her.

Lucy knew she wasn’t supposed to be in the bed without permission, but she had been too sick to even think of moving. “Madame, forgive me,” she began weakly, but Jean-Marie put a finger to her lips.

“Hush, my sweet. It is all right to be in bed. But what are we to do with you?” the Captain wondered.

Lucy winced. If she could not pull her weight, Jean-Marie might well feed her to the fish. “Madame, let Jacob become a sailor, and I will take his place, and do my own work as well. Or,” she thought she had better make this suggestion quickly, lest Jean-Marie think her a coward or a shirker, “teach me to shoot a musket, and I will climb the masts and protect the boarding parties.”

Jean-Marie’s eyebrow went up. “You would not be afraid of the gun, or of such height?”

“I am willing to try, Madame. Please, tomorrow, can some of the sailors perhaps teach me to climb?" Lucy asked sweetly, taking the big pirate’s hand.

“Well, it is unusual, but we will see. You must do something. You cannot hide here forever, nor are you of any use to me throwing up all the time. But I understand that seeing such gore up close is most unsettling for a beginner. I am willing to make some allowances. Particularly if you…compensate me in bed,” Jean-Marie suggested with a conspiratorial wink.

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Lucy understood that she had better be recovered by the time the Captain wanted her that night, and she nodded quickly, “Oui, Madame.”

“Good. Rest if you like, but see to your personal toilet, and I will check on you later.” With that she was gone to inspect that cleanup and storage were proceeding as they must, now by lamplight, as it was fully dark. She must also get the ship anchored for the night, to avoid running into a reef. They would continue their search for likely prey in the morning.

As soon as Lucy could, she got up and bathed and changed the bed for the Captain’s evening pleasures. She would have double the usual laundry tomorrow, but it could not be helped. Who ever would have guessed that pirates, whom everyone thought to be dirty, could be so fanatical about cleanliness? Jean-Marie would not sleep in a bed in which she had slept or made love more than twice, and she bathed or swam every day, fully naked! She demanded that her pirates bathe weekly, and wash their clothes and air their linen. These habits, she said, she had picked up from Arabs off the coast of Africa one year, and they had so impressed her that she insisted her crew follow her example. She also carried a doctor, albeit not one you’d find in any decent posting, as a regular crewmember, and made sure that stores and water were fairly fresh and free of vermin. Fresh fruit came aboard at every stop.

Beyond these things, however, Jean-Marie insisted on nothing but industry and obedience. Her crew could drink and whore to their hearts’ content off duty, and she did not care if they saved their money, spent it or heaved it overboard. If they swore, she was not concerned, and as to their religion, that was left to them, as she had none herself. This was yet another reason why there were only same-sex lovers on her crew.

Rougie, the second mate, and her lover, Mathilde the sail-maker, would never have found other work. They were inseparable off duty, and very dear to Jean-Marie, as both had been her lovers.

Jean-Marie gave consideration to Lucy’s request as she went about her own duties.

She had the prerogative of protecting her lover by locking her in the Captain’s cabin during every engagement. None on the crew would object, although they might not respect they way she exercised her power. All of the Captain’s previous slaves had been required to perform some sort of hazardous duty like any other sailor. None had been so sweet and refined as Lucy, though. While Jean-Marie was less than thrilled about Lucy climbing the masts to perch 50 feet above the deck, being shot at by marksmen from other ships while trying to maintain her own balance and shoot back, it was probably, on the whole, safer than boarding. Safer for the Femme Fatale anyway, as Lucy would be less than useless in a fight. She loved Lucy, but had no illusions about her abilities as a pirate yet. She had barely begun her training.

Jean-Marie decided to let Lucy try to be a sniper. If all else failed, she could carry ammunition and water to the gun crews, and clean up after them when they left their cannon to board their victims’ ships. She could inventory and keep track of ship’s stores, assisting the second mate. One way or the other, there would be work for Lucy to do.

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* * * * *

As Lucy, now refreshed and feeling much better, smoothed the sheets over the bed, she shivered in delicious anticipation of Jean-Marie’s return.. They would enjoy a leisurely dinner and then the Captain would enjoy the services of her slave. This was the night Lucy had promised to dedicate solely to Jean-Marie, and despite the certain deprivation, she found she was looking forward to it. It would help erase the memories of the horror on the deck of the schooner, and prove her value to her mistress at the same time. Lucy never forgot how she had gotten there and who she had become. She was still there, technically, against her will. In addition, she was property, the same as any black slave in the Americas. She knew she was treated far better than most slaves.

After all, she shared her owner’s bed! But she still had two years’ servitude before she could make decisions about her own life again.

Jean-Marie entered the cabin, stooping, as she always did, to get through the door.

Lucy wondered fleetingly why the doors on sailing vessels were always so short.

But in the presence of her pirate, trivia such as that was soon forgotten.

Jean-Marie handed her sword to Lucy to hang up. She knew she had nothing to fear from her slave, because Lucy was small and knew nothing of weapons. Yet. But Lucy was also madly in love. St. Honore knew all the signs, for she could read them in herself as well.

She stepped over to Lucy and embraced her from behind. The little gasp as Jean-Marie cupped Lucy’s breasts pleased the pirate, and she turned her young lover around gently, taking her in a kiss that told Lucy everything she needed to know. Bloodthirsty and ruthless a pirate as St. Honore was, she was still an emotional, tender and caring lover.

When Lucy could breathe again, she whispered, “Let me undress you, ma Capitaine.”

Jean-Marie was panting, too. “Do that. Bring me a robe,” she directed, seating herself so Lucy could pull off her boots.

Once she was naked, Lucy brought her a silken robe that had been taken in a raid. It had probably been a gentleman’s dressing gown, originally, but with St. Honore’s height and dash, she wore it with elan.

Lucy thought she looked delicious in it. She brought her own stool and a pillow so the Captain could put her feet up to read comfortably, and then busied herself with the proper disposition of Jean-Marie’s apparel. It was almost impossible to believe that this woman, who had personally decapitated six men in a fountain of blood this afternoon, was placidly reading Voltaire before supper.

Lucy went to get Jean-Marie’s supper from the cook. Several of the crew were sporting new clothing from today’s haul. Lucy noticed Pierre, the clown of the crew, and Ian, fooling around wearing women’s clothing. The flame-haired Rougie laughingly put a feathered hat on Lucy as she passed.

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“Now you look like a real pirate, Little Miss England!” she laughed, and the others laughed, too, so that Lucy had to join in.

Lucy was intrigued by the other pirates, especially the women. She avoided them, though, lest Jean-Marie think her disloyal. But now Rougie had approached her, so Lucy hoped that was all right. Rougie was a compact woman with red hair pulled back in a casual braid. Off-duty, she was always good for a joke. Lucy was also sure it was Rougie’s voice, raised in ecstasy with Mathilde, that she often heard. As Rougie was third-in-command however, it was best not to argue with her, as her disciplinary style was much the same as the Captain’s.

“Keep it,” advised Rougie. “It becomes you, and it will amuse le Capitaine.”

“Merci,” Lucy said agreeably, and she excused herself to go about her business. She decided that she liked this young woman, even if it was likely she had once been Jean-Marie’s lover. Clearly, that was no longer the case, as the slim, dark sail-maker had laid claim to her.

When Lucy returned to the cabin with the tray, the pirate did not even look up until her slave called her to the table, and then she saw the hat. “Ah! Un beau chapeau!” she laughed. “Come tickle me with your feather!”

In reply, Lucy removed the hat and made Jean-Marie a sweeping bow as she had seen gentlemen do.

The pirate was charmed with Lucy, as ever, and she pulled her close for a kiss before sitting down to eat. Lucy joined her on the low stool and ate what she was given without comment, looking up at her Captain with undisguised admiration. Here was a woman singularly capable and independent of all patronage, bullying and hierarchy.

She killed her foes like insects, and Lucy doubted any man could best her in battle.

“Madame, if it pleases you, will you tell me sometime how you came to be a pirate?”

Jean-Marie looked down her long nose at her slave. “Yes, some night if we are not too tired after making love, that will make a good story. But not tonight, as it is already late, and we have not yet begun.”

“I look forward to it,” Lucy said. After all, Jean-Marie was well-read and well-spoken, and presumably no one is born a pirate. It was an intriguing mystery to be solved at the Captain’s leisure.

Lucy cleared the table and carried the tray to the galley allowing Jean-Marie her private time to prepare for bed. The pirate was settled and ready for Lucy upon her return. Lucy knelt at the side of the big bed, awaiting permission.

Jean-Marie reminded her. “Tonight is all mine, you know.”

“Oui, Madame. Your pleasure is all I need tonight. You make me content in so many ways,” Lucy said earnestly.

“Come here, then” Jean-Marie invited, lifting the covers for Lucy to join her.

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They twined immediately in an embrace that sealed one to the other. Killing made St. Honore’s blood run hot, and she covered Lucy with kisses before mounting her to take pleasure quickly. When she was done for the moment, she rolled off and lay back, saying softly, “Lick me slowly now. Make me come again for you, Lucy.” She closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the skills of her slave, whom she had taught well.

Lucy settled happily between Jean-Marie’s strong legs. She had gotten lucky in that there had been no time for the usual mid-day lovemaking, so she was not quite as wild for relief as usual. Of course, she had also been reminding herself all day, when she was not otherwise occupied, that she had better keep her fires banked for tonight. That didn’t mean the young woman was not aroused; she was. But she was focused, as she had often had to be in her short life, on the requirements of the moment. Wishing got one nowhere, so she was determined to make the best of her immediate fate. She squirmed pleasantly from the heat between her own thighs, and contented herself with enjoying herself vicariously through her mistress.

In any event, Lucy thought her present fate one very much to be envied. Captain St.

Honore was a beautiful, powerful, wealthy and relatively young woman. If one had to be owned at all, and most women were, this was the best of all the worlds, Lucy knew.

And what a luscious woman, too! And so very warm and sensuous. Even now, when she was receiving pleasure, Jean-Marie was loving, kind and appreciative. Her happy sighs told Lucy that she was doing everything right. She varied her strokes to keep Jean-Marie excited as well as certain of her next climaxes. She clung to the pirate’s hard, tight ass, moaning with her as they rolled back and forth in anticipation.

Jean-Marie had said “slowly,” and that was what she got. She could feel the juices being sucked out of her by tender lips, and she could not keep from crying out. The young Englishwoman between her legs had met every demand so far. There was only one difficulty that Jean-Marie anticipated, but that would be dealt with in good time.

Perhaps Lucy, who had been most resilient and adaptable thus far, would rise easily to the next occasion as well. Lucy was willing and obedient enough as Jean-Marie’s only slave, but that might change at any time. For now, though, the tongue inside her was heavenly, and Jean-Marie could not remember ever having had a lover quite so eager to please. Lucy was not obsequious; far from it. She had a mind of her own, but she was respectful and obedient, and these were a must. As long as Lucy submitted to her, Jean-Marie would permit her lover to exercise her intellect and her tongue in every way.

“Would you like to turn over?” Lucy whispered. Jean-Marie had taught her to pleasure every orifice, and Lucy knew better than to wait to be told.

“Yes, my little one,” Jean-Marie responded. The questing tongue was now in her anus, and it made her toes curl. She clutched her pillow and groaned loudly. Her little pirate-slave was ravishing her and Jean-Marie surrendered. “Bon, oh, that is so good.”

Stealthily, Lucy reached for her new hat, and with one hand, detached the feather.

This now found its way between the captain’s nether cheeks.

“Lucy!” Jean-Marie gasped in pleasure. “What is that?”

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“Can you not guess, maitresse? “ Lucy demanded saucily.

“Mmmm, your lovely hair?” Jean-Marie tried, wiggling her butt for more.

“Noooo, “ Lucy drew the feather down and between the parted thighs, there caressing the tender flesh.

“Ah! It is the feather. How exquisite!” She turned over again, and Lucy massaged her nipples and pussy tenderly, exchanging kisses with her owner all the while.

Soon it was too good to be endured further. “Finish me,” St. Honore instructed, and then she waited.

Lucy’s tongue caressed her with great respect. Lucy sometimes held back, when she sensed this was what Jean-Marie wanted, and at other times, gobbled her with abandon.

Tonight the approach was slow and measured, and the Captain approved. Her hand was tangled in Lucy’s long hair, where it provided a silken loincloth.

“You are so good,” Jean-Marie sighed, panting now, her thighs trembling harder and harder with each stroke. “Uh…uh… ma Dieu…Lucy…now…now… yesssss…ahh-AAAAAHHHHHHH!” She almost rose off the bed as she came, her climax vibrating the timbers.

Giggles were stifled here and there on the Femme Fatale among those who were not similarly engaged. Their lusty Captain would not have found acceptance in polite circles of French society. Anyone else would have called her a whore and a scoundrel, but they called her “Madame,” and counted themselves lucky to do it. That particular sound usually heralded a pleasant new day, and they all looked forward to it.

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Chapter Six

Predictably enough, the Captain arose late and announced a day of recreation. “We shall kill that pig we took and roast some of the meat ashore,” she decreed. “Find us an island, Marcel,” she ordered her first mate. “I will review the accounts from last night until we arrive there.”

The lookouts raced aloft to scan for likely beaches. Jean-Marie interrupted Lucy’s morning chores with an order to her second mate. “Rougie, take my slave and teach her to climb the rigging.”

“Oui, ma Capitaine,” Rougie answered, and soon Lucy was getting her first pirate lesson.

“You must remember the rule of three,” Rougie coached. “Two feet and one hand, or two hands and one foot on the rigging at all times.”

Lucy nodded and the mate had her climb slowly up and down, to and from the first spar until she was satisfied Lucy could go higher. On the way, she taught Lucy the names of all the ropes, which were called stays or sheets depending on their function.

Lucy’s head spun with new terms, but she did not forget the rule of three. By the time the lookouts had spotted a good beach for a barbecue, Lucy had been into both crow’s nests.

“Good! Next, we teach you to shoot, eh?” Rougie clapped Lucy heartily on the back.

She went off to supervise her boat as all hands were going ashore. There they would fill casks of water and hunt for fresh fruit while the cook’s party dug fire pits.

After Lucy and Jean-Marie had been rowed ashore in the Captain’s gig, Lucy was sent to help collect firewood while Jean-Marie mingled with her officers and crew, keeping tabs on their morale. Jean-Marie was always conscious of the fact that she had ex-lovers in the crew, so she was careful not to show Lucy any more favoritism than that of being her current lover. Since none of her freed former slaves had shown any desire to continue doing the Captain’s laundry, scrubbing the Captain’s head, or any of the other demeaning tasks to which the Captain’s sex slave was put, grumbling was usually not a problem. But a good Captain always listened for rumbles of discontent.

A squeal declared the pig’s demise and the wood-gatherers hurried back with arms full of driftwood to get the blazes going. Lucy nearly dropped hers when Jean-Marie grabbed her and a shovel and took them both down the beach out of sight of the crew, for a little private recreation.

“Why do we need a shovel, ma Capitaine? Will you bury me alive?”

“Goodness no! What a waste!” Jean-Marie laughed. “You and I will dig a hole. Like so,” she said, making a rectangle in the shade of some palms. “You dig and when you get tired, I will dig.”

“How deep?” Lucy asked, still perplexed.

“Sit,” Jean-Marie ordered.

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Lucy dropped like a stone and Jean-Marie placed a hand on her head. “About that deep.”

Lucy looked up at her but no further explanation was forthcoming. “As you wish.”

She got up and began to dig, but as soon as she looked tired, Jean-Marie took the shovel away and finished the job.

“You will need your strength,” she explained with a grin. Tossing the shovel aside, she commanded, “Strip, sit in the hole, and face the trees.”

“Jean-Marie, please do not bury me,” Lucy begged. “You know how I fear small spaces.”

“We will not fill it in. There is no need. Quickly now, I have been wanting you all morning.” As she spoke, Jean-Marie removed the cut-off pants she wore for excursions like this, and sat down at the edge of the hole. She spread her legs on either side and pointed.

Lucy examined the arrangement and lowered herself in. When Jean-Marie slid further over, it exposed her all the way from front to rear, unlike in a bed, where of necessity one part or another was inaccessible.

“Now lick me everywhere, and do not stop until I tell you,” the Captain ordered.

Lucy found she had to fold her legs under her and scoot up, but that was not a problem. Jean-Marie was already dripping, so she had apparently been giving this idea considerable thought for some time. Lucy also found the angle extremely convenient for her own neck and jaws. It was perfect for providing pressure. “Oh, Jean-Marie, this is wonderful!” she murmured into the cunt of her beloved Captain.

“You have no idea,” Jean-Marie sighed back. It was good to be the Captain.

Lucy found this new position very exciting, and she was soon as deep into Jean-Marie as she could get, whimpering with the pleasure of submission. She oozed out into the sand around her while the Captain luxuriated in the sensations of Lucy’s uninhibited enthusiasm. “Oh, Jean-Marie, I want to feel you come!” Lucy groaned, her tongue a machine inside the pirate queen.

Jean-Marie’s fingers dug into the sand as she approached climax, and Lucy, sensing this, pressed harder, flicking the hardened clit wildly, covered with juices already. “Ma Capitaine, pleeeeease!” she moaned, rubbing her entire face in the clenching pussy. Her moans were almost as loud as the Captain’s.

“Yes, yes, do me, do me,” Jean-Marie panted, pushing into Lucy’ mouth. “Ah! God!

Ooooohhhhhhhhhh!” she shrieked, erupting.

Lucy grunted with the effort of maintaining contact through several sets of spasms, and then, when Jean-Marie seemed almost comatose on the sand above her, Lucy licked her clean, tenderly nuzzling the warm, sated flesh.

Vaguely, Jean-Marie became aware of Lucy and lifted her legs to release her from the pit. Lucy crept up and flopped on the sand beside her owner. “You are wonderful, Madame,” she sighed.

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Jean-Marie only smiled, and pulled Lucy close. They began to kiss. Jean-Marie purred, enjoying the taste of herself on Lucy’s lips. She reached for her shirt to brush the sand from her fingers, and then she entered Lucy, making her arch for more.

Jean-Marie withdrew. “Into the water,” she decreed. “We are sticky.”

Lucy closed her eyes in resignation and got up to follow her mistress. In the shallow waves, Jean-Marie pulled Lucy to her, and entered her again.

“Madame, have mercy,” Lucy pleaded. “You know what you do to me.”

“In fact, I do.” Jean-Marie whispered over her lips. She held Lucy there, floating against her, teasing her slowly. When Lucy was panting and certain Jean-Marie would stop, the pirate demanded her orgasm, at last.

Lucy came until she cried, flailing and splashing in the Captain’s strong arms.

“Madame, je t’aime,” she gasped.

“Bonne année! Today you are eighteen!” Jean-Marie laughed.

“I forgot! Merci, ma Capitaine!” Lucy cried, throwing her arms around her lover’s neck.

Jean-Marie swung Lucy around in the water. “You are my sweetest, dearest love.

Come up on the beach. I have something for you.”

“I don’t need anything but you, Jean-Marie,” Lucy said seriously. “I have everything else I need.”

“Perhaps there is something you want, without needing it,” Jean-Marie suggested, lacing her fingers with Lucy’s as they walked.

Lucy looked at her. “I cannot imagine what.”

“You are delightfully simple. Everything pleases you,” Jean-Marie teased.

“Everything about you, Madame,” Lucy agreed.

Jean-Marie pulled Lucy down on the sand in the shade. From her shirt pocket she removed a small package. “You may open it.”

Puzzled, Lucy picked the paper apart. It was her reticule, which she had not seen since she first came aboard. Inside was her mother’s jewelry, intact.

Lucy began to cry again. “Oh, Jean-Marie! I thought you must have sold it!”

Suddenly Lucy was overwhelmed with memories of her Maman. This jewelry was all she had to remember her dear mother by, and she sobbed in Jean-Marie’s arms. Lucy had thought it all gone, and had resolved never to think of these bits of jewelry again.

Jean-Marie blushed, for at first she had meant to sell it. But then she had simply locked the pieces up for Lucy. She explained, “The day I captured you, and you wept in my lap, I was enchanted as never before. You have been an exemplary slave, Lucy. I could not take your few things from you. But, I think you missed something,” and she poked among the simple items. “Look!”

Lucy found a heavy gold chain, shiny and fairly new. “This is not mine.”

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“It is now. It is your chain of love,” Jean-Marie said seriously, taking it and putting it around Lucy’s neck. “To remind us that you are mine. Enjoy it.”

Lucy thrust aside her curiosity about the chain’s origins. She knew enough about pirates to understand it had not been bought, but the sentiment was no less genuine than if it had. It was something of value that belonged to Jean-Marie, and it pleased her to bestow it on her lover. That was enough. “Madame is too kind to me,” she whispered, and she took Jean-Marie’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you.”

Jean-Marie blinked away tears of her own. “Come. I think that pig must be almost ready to eat by now!”

They found the crew in various states of undress on the beach, peeling fruit, drinking rum, swimming and playing their musical instruments. Pierre and Ian were pretending to sing a duet in high falsettos to the amusement of the others. Each pirate took a turn on the spits that roasted parts of the hog, and Jean-Marie and Lucy were no exception. It smelled wonderful, and before too long, everyone was feasting.

Later on, they moved a little way out to sea. Jean-Marie did not like to anchor in shallows overnight where they might be trapped.

Later, when the two women had made love again, Jean-Marie admired the play of the lamplight on Lucy’s new chain and soft golden hair. “You are very lovely, my English rose,” Jean-Marie murmured.

Lucy kissed her. “You make me feel lovely, Jean-Marie. I cannot imagine any man would make me happier than you.”

“No, I do not think so. I have been with men. There are some pleasures in it, but on the whole, the woman has too much to lose. But perhaps you would prefer a husband?

It is more normal.” Jean-Marie tried to sound casual, but she knew the appeal might wear off. It had happened before.

Lucy stared at her captain in surprise. “Madame! No, you are the best husband, or wife, that I could find. You are always close to me, you care for me, you give me gifts, you allow pleasure. I never saw the like between husband and wife, and I do not want what they have.”

“I cannot give you children.” Jean-Marie pointed out.

“Then they cannot kill me in childbirth, nor will I lose a child to disease. Besides, you can always capture one for me, can you not?” Lucy teased gently. “No, for with you, I am free of all but this slavery, which feels more like love to me. Promise, Jean-Marie, you will never free me.”

Jean-Marie looked down at the sheets to hide her emotions. “No, I will keep you, I think. Now, shall I tell you my story?”

“Oh, yes, please!”

“Once upon a time, there was an awkward and ugly young French noblewoman,”

Jean-Marie began.

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Lucy gasped. She might have guessed the aristocratic, good-looking Jean-Marie was no commoner, but the Captain shushed her.

“But since she was a mere daughter, this young woman had no future. Moreover, because she was schooled and tall and strong, most men, except the old or very ugly, would not even look at her. So her father, the Count, determined to find her a husband in the Indies, where he was a landowner.”

Lucy snuggled in closer, looking up at the face of her beloved. How she enjoyed the rumbling of Jean-Marie’s voice in her chest. She felt so secure.

“He and his daughter got on a boat and they came to Martinique, where he showed her off in what passed for high society in that place. The young woman was sullen and brooding, sensing no more life for herself on the island than in Paris. So, because she was large and desperate, she hacked off her hair with a knife, stole her papa’s clothing and some money and weapons, and ran away.”

Lucy simply stared at her lover, fascinated.

“This young woman, who was all of sixteen, disguised herself as a boy and sought passage on boats to anywhere, willing to do anything. Finally she was taken as an apprentice sailor, and she had to make herself a false penis of leather and horn to piss through, so no one would know she was a woman. She would change ships every so often, so no one would realize she would never get a deep voice or need to shave.”

“Eventually, she spotted a woman doing business in a disreputable tavern in Kingston, and the runaway followed this woman because she was alone, yet certain of herself, unlike so many women who seemed both nervous and dependent upon their men. The woman had her own ship, and the French girl sought passage, revealing her true sex. The female captain, believing women are easier to control, took her aboard. It was here that the young woman lost her virginity to a young man, and had sex with several others. The captain knew the secrets of not getting pregnant, and these she taught to the young woman also. And then she taught her how to love women as well.”

Lucy nodded as she digested all this enlightening information.

“But, after a few very mundane and not very lucrative trips among the islands, the captain announced to her crew that they needed more money. She thought they should turn pirate and try their luck. The crew included some very adventurous types, and these talked the others into agreeing to do it once, and they found a small Spanish ship near Cuba and took it. But a bad thing happened.”

Lucy shivered and tightened her grip on Jean-Marie.

“The Captain was killed, and the mates, knowing there were several women in the crew, took these women and raped them and turned them into slaves. They were on the ocean and could not escape, because they were too few. They were kept locked up except to do the cooking and cleaning and to be fucked. They were not sailors anymore.

They were no better than whores.”

Lucy’s eyes began to fill with tears, but Jean-Marie shook her head. “Do not worry.

A good thing happens soon.” She took a breath. “But these men were not especially Susanna Valent

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good pirates, and their leader was not very bright. He decided to attack a Portuguese merchant vessel much too large for him, and they were quickly conquered. When the Portuguese let these four women out, they begged only for a boat and their personal possessions so they could be free again. They did not want to return to their former lives. The Portuguese let them go, because they had the pirate ship and her booty for a prize.”

“The women took the largest boat from the pirate ship, and they sailed it to Freeport, where they sold it and pooled all their money to buy a bigger ship. They visited whorehouses and taverns and found other women and some boy prostitutes to be sailors with them. The two biggest women campaigned against one another to be captain, but the winner permitted the loser to stay on the ship as first mate. Everyone knows there are few opportunities for women and the new captain was understanding of this.”

Lucy nodded. She knew by now who this captain must have been.

“They had thought to have a regular transport business, but soon found no one would hire them, so they went back to being pirates. Here and there, they collected new crew, when someone died or left for other reasons. Since any new member had to respect the Captain and take her orders, they found few men willing to sign on. The few they found were men who loved men.” Jean-Marie gave a Gallic shrug and Lucy laughed.

“And the crew sometimes found a new and better ship, selling the older one, and today the ones who are left are all on this ship. And I am their captain still.”

Lucy lay back with a sigh. She had somehow become the consort of nobility, something she could never have done any other way but by being taken by pirates. And Jean-Marie had been all over the Caribbean on all sorts of vessels for twelve years! She certainly had the right to be the Pirate Queen, if there was such a thing. “It’s all very romantic, isn’t it? I mean, as long as you don’t mind all the blood.”

“And as long as I don’t mind being hunted like a criminal, which I am,” Jean-Marie pointed out.

“Do you ever think the life of a plantation owner’s wife would have been easier?”

Lucy inquired.

“Listen to yourself,” Jean-Marie advised.

“What do you mean, Madame?”

“You ask me if I’d be happier as a wife, yet you have described me in terms of a husband. Can you see me not as an owner myself, not as a businesswoman, but as someone’s wife? In other words, as property?”

Lucy had to stifle a giggle. She couldn’t even see Jean-Marie in a dress, let alone such a role. “Absolutely not, ma Capitaine. You belong to no one, it is true. But are you not afraid, ever? That you will be recognized, or remembered and caught? Everyone knows St. Honore, so the crew says.”

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“Yes, but we steer clear of the authorities, and this is not my real name. I took the name of the captain who died, my lover, to honor her. And each ship we are on, it is only ours for a while. We change the name, we paint it a new color, we return frequently only to those ports which are safe. And we stay away from the navies. They do know of me, although they have never seen me, so this is the paramount rule: avoid all ships of war. Do not forget it,” Jean-Marie said seriously. “Now, it is late, so I wish you sweet dreams, my Lucy.”

“And you, my love,” Lucy replied.

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Chapter Seven

After another two weeks and another successful encounter, the Femme Fatale returned to Freeport. There, booty was sold, supplies were bought and some repairs were made to the ship. The crosstrees had been taken down with chain right over Lucy’s head in their most recent engagement, and Jean-Marie wanted them replaced before they made a run south to Jamaica.

Lucy had done well enough, climbing the masts with the snipers to observe their technique in battle. Had she been any higher, she would have been carried away with the crow’s nest, as Robert almost was, but he had gotten tangled in a sail, and was thus spared with only a broken shoulder. From this Lucy learned much, primarily that she would still need a lot of practice to sit up there with a musket, powder horn and a pouch of balls while being shot at. Jean-Marie was sorely tempted to send Lucy down to the powder magazine as a runner and be done with it, but every job had its hazards.

Even being locked away could make you the victim if the ship was set ablaze, or sunk.

However, more pleasant thoughts occupied Jean-Marie today. She was eagerly expecting a delivery, and she paced impatiently on deck. She had sent a runner as soon as they arrived at the repair dock, and Captain St. Honore was not a patient woman.

“Jacob!” she yelled at the cabin boy.

He came on the fly, snatching off his cap to stand before her. “Oui, Madame?” He was endeavoring to learn French as quickly as possible to please his new owner.

“When did they say they would come?” she demanded as if she had not already asked this very thing.

“As soon as the delivery wagon returns, Madame. Your order is ready,” he told her, as if he had not already delivered this message no more than half an hour ago.

“Very well,” she grumbled. “You may go.”

“Merci, Madame,” he said, making himself scarce.

Her lips quirked in a grin. She liked instant obedience in men and women alike.

This one pleased her with his eagerness, as did Ian, the former British sailor. And why should they not be eager and obedient? They certainly ate better than before! If they missed their families, they could go home in less than two years.

St. Honore looked around at her little ship. Clear now of wreckage, it was all as it should be except for the top ten feet of the mainmast. It would take about a week before the repairs would be complete. A nuisance, but a necessity before the long voyage around Cuba through the Windward Passage to Jamaica. On the way, they would look for more prey on the high seas and still arrive in plenty of time for their engagements.

Frustrated with waiting, Jean-Marie fetched some brass polish and sat down on a hatch to polish her spyglass. This was a job she entrusted to no one else but Lucy, and Lucy was busy with her laundry. Jean-Marie could have sat and watched her all day, but if her crew was working, she ought to be doing the same.

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“Captain!” called Michel, the third mate. “A wagon!”

Jean-Marie set her work aside and went to the gangplank. It was her delivery, and without conversation, she led the carter to her cabin personally, tipping well and sending him off. She laid out the items herself and went topside once again. There was no rush, and she was savoring the anticipation.

Now, she relaxed in her hammock, polishing the spyglass and keeping an eye on Lucy’s backside. The slave wore royal blue pants today, and a purple blouse that showed her gold chain. Jean-Marie thought the combination very becoming, and found herself looking forward to her own lunch and Lucy’s “snack.”

When the watch changed at noon, St. Honore had enough sunshine and polishing.

“Come, Lucy. My lunch,” she added unnecessarily, heading for her cabin.

Lucy scampered straight to the galley to do the Captain’s bidding. Jean-Marie left the door open for her and quickly relieved Lucy of the tray so that she would not drop it when she came in.

“Oh! Ma Capitaine!” Lucy let out a little shriek. Spread upon every surface was a garden of lovely dresses, linens and lawns, satins and lace. All were light enough for the tropics, and elegant enough for a queen.

“A wardrobe sufficient for any slave, I’ll wager,” Jean-Marie, said, satisfied with Lucy’s reaction.

“Are…are they mine?” Lucy gaped, fearing to touch them.

“Of course. Half a dozen. Four day dresses and two ball gowns, all in Parisian style.

Enough for a year at the rate you will use them here and there in port.”

Lucy looked at them and then at her. “Enough to last my entire life, I should think,”

she corrected gently. She went to the Captain and threw her arms around her. “Oh, Jean-Marie, thank you,” she sighed. “But how? And why?”

Jean-Marie kissed Lucy’s hair. “Because we will not be in a port where we can buy fine clothing again for a while, and you will need them now and then. They were patterned from your own dress, which is in that box,” Jean-Marie pointed. “Tomorrow you will wear one and you may shop for all the little bits and pieces that go with them. I do not shop, but I will bring a book and wait in the carriage.” She swatted Lucy on the rear and cleared her table of the dress that was displayed upon it. “And now, Mademoiselle, my lunch, if you please.”

“Oui, Maitresse,” Lucy said. “And after, I hope Madame le Capitaine will permit her slave to thank her properly.”

“You may be sure of that,” Jean-Marie smiled.

Jean-Marie fed Lucy from her plate, and then sat back and watched with satisfaction as her slave carefully put away all her new finery. “You may pleasure me now, my sweet, and then I will take my nap and you will finish the laundry, is that understood?”

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“It is, Madame,” Lucy nodded. She set the tray in the passage to carry away later, locked the door and knelt, naked, at Jean-Marie’s feet . “S’il vous plaît, Madame, ” she said humbly, and Jean-Marie rose so Lucy could take her pants off and ravish her.

Lucy’s face was in her pussy in a flash. She put her entire being into each loving lick she gave to Jean-Marie’s clit.

Her passion made the Captain gasp. “Lucy,” she whispered, “Oh, yes.” Jean-Marie leaned back in her chair, one leg flung over an arm to allow Lucy the greatest possible access. It was not the same as a hole dug on the beach, but it worked nicely all the same.

Lucy’s tongue fairly lifted her from her seat, so intense was her desire to give all her love to her Captain.

“Jean-Marie, je t’aime, je t’aime,” Lucy murmured when she stopped to take a breath, and then she was inside her lover again.

It was so wonderful, Jean-Marie could hardly stand to come and end it all, yet she was as powerless to hold back as Lucy was to leave her, even if she had wanted to, and she did not. Lucy’s tongue swirled round and round the slick, pulsing clitoris, and the more it pulsed the harder and faster she stroked it in response. She loved having Jean-Marie’s legs wide open to the light, so that she could see as well as feel what she was doing. Her arms were tightly around the pirate’s waist to keep them tightly together as she worshipped with her tongue.

Jean-Marie rocked in her chair under the assault. “Oh, Lucy, Lucy,” she groaned.

She had never been done so enthusiastically by a slave, or for that matter, a free lover.

This woman did not seem to care what she received, as long as she was permitted to give. When Jean-Marie said, “wait,” Lucy waited. This did not mean Lucy did not desire her touch or her tongue. Lucy loved sex, and the longer she had to wait, the wilder she was for it. But she did not sulk or complain while waiting, and she did not hold back when demands were made upon her. It was as though, if she could not come herself, she was perfectly capable of enjoying herself through her dominant lover.

“Please, Jean-Marie, please!” Even now, Lucy begged for the treasure of her lover’s orgasms. Whenever she felt the clitoris burst in her mouth, it was almost as good as if she had come herself, and she wanted that very much. She knew she had to wait until evening for her own release, so she would immerse herself in her Captain’s for now.

This woman was giving her more than she had ever dreamed of. There was no such thing as having to please her too much.

Jean-Marie granted her slave’s request, and came, gushing sweetness into Lucy’s mouth. Lucy could feel Jean-Marie’s pleasure sliding down her cleavage, where she would enjoy the scent for the rest of the afternoon. Lucy’s clit pounded in response to the orgasm of the Captain, and she shivered with anticipation at the thought of what awaited her later: Jean-Marie’s touch. It was enough. Lucy licked her lover clean, relishing the special taste, and then she left her, half-asleep in her chair, to finish her work on deck.

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* * * * *

“I will have a pipe on deck, Lucy. Make up the bed,” Jean-Marie ordered after dinner. She left her slave to clear away the dishes and went topside to enjoy the night breeze.

Sometimes Lucy found the constant bed-changing and washing of sheets tedious, but the alternative was worse. As she went about this task, though, an idea dawned on her, a way to repay her mistress for her kindness, and when the bed was ready, Lucy set about rearranging some of the other furniture. Then she went up to the quarterdeck, where she knelt on the planks until Jean-Marie noticed her and pulled her up and into the hammock with her.

Jean-Marie worked her hand inside Lucy’s pants and began to caress her. “So, have you finished your work?”

“Mais oui, ma Capitaine,” Lucy sighed as the skillful fingers found their mark. She knew what came next.

“Very good. And you will pass my inspection?”

“If I do not, the Captain may discipline me, of course. Ah! Maitresse!” Lucy gasped.

She was very wet.

“You smell as if some strong woman has been using you for sex,” Jean-Marie teased.

“Only the strongest,” Lucy agreed.

Jean-Marie’s lips devoured Lucy’s, and her gentle fingers massaged the swollen, juicy clit that was reserved for her alone. Lucy clutched at Jean-Marie, helpless and loving the sensation. It was tight, hot, and almost a little frightening. Jean-Marie could decide at any moment to stop.

The women lay in the hammock, seeing the stars reflected in one another’s eyes.

Jean-Marie stroked Lucy gently, out of the sight of the crew. When Lucy could not control herself, she arched to the touch, and Jean-Marie backed off.

“Ma belle Lucy,” Jean-Marie whispered, her silken touch making Lucy pant.

“Ma cher Capitaine,” Lucy groaned, enjoying the nearness of her climax.

Jean-Marie loved feeling Lucy writhe under her. The power she felt over this woman was intoxicating. She could not get enough of her, no matter what other women she might encounter. It was a game they could play for hours. However, Jean-Marie had less control than Lucy, and after a while, the pirate knew that unless they went below that instant, everyone would know how ready the Captain and her slave were for each other.

“Let us go, Lucy,” Jean-Marie urged, and she led her woman below.

“And what is this?” Jean-Marie demanded. At the side of her bed were her chair and a trunk, both topped with a pillow. There was space enough for a person to stand between these two displaced items.

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“It is a hole in the sand, Madame,” Lucy said saucily. “If I may undress the Captain?”

The light went on in her mind. “Ah! Bonne idée! You will also need a pillow, down there in your hole.” Jean-Marie tossed one on the floor, lay back and let Lucy do with her as she would. With her legs supported by the extra furniture, Jean-Marie was as exposed to Lucy’s ministrations as she had been on the beach. The woman was a genius!

Dripping, Lucy undressed and knelt to do her duty to the Captain. Her own needs were again forgotten, although they would surely intensify as Jean-Marie was satisfied for the third time that day. She loved the sensation of being up to her neck in Jean-Marie, as though the pirate was devouring her entire body, absorbing her. Lucy’s hips thrust at the bed of their own volition as she sought her lover, and Jean-Marie smiled when she felt the bed move. This woman was totally enslaved to her as no other had ever been.

Jean-Marie abandoned herself to Lucy’s tongue, groaning without inhibition when that tongue entered her delicately from the rear, then slid out to the front again to re-enter her there. Lucy could sometimes be as delicate and precise as she was aggressive and passionate, and all Jean-Marie had to do was lie there and enjoy it. But when Lucy’s nipple entered her, and she pressed her breast completely into Jean-Marie’s pussy, the Captain lost whatever tiny control she may have had, and came and came and came, howling her slave’s sweet name.

“It is much easier to do you with my breasts from this position,” Lucy remarked lazily as Jean-Marie lay there seeing stars. “I hope you liked it.”

“You are the devil in disguise,” Jean-Marie whispered. “You suck the strength right out of me.”

“No, Madame, you are infinitely strong,” Lucy responded, and she licked the Captain submissively until she groaned in climax once again. “See, I knew you could do it.”

“Come here,” Jean-Marie said, offering Lucy a hand.

Rising gracefully, the young woman brought her pillow and climbed into the bed with the Captain. “You are a very, very, very strong woman,” Lucy said, punctuating each word with a kiss on the Captain’s lips, neck and breasts, “And, I love you very, very, very much.” She punctuated those words as well.

“Why?” Jean-Marie asked simply.

“Because you love me, and you show it in so many ways, I cannot keep up with you,” Lucy confessed. “I defy Madame to show me a man who is a better husband than you are.”

“You had better not defy Madame, if you know what is in your best interest,” Jean-Marie teased gently, kissing her lover’s lips tenderly.

“I will not. In all truth, I plead with her to show mercy,” Lucy sighed, spreading herself wide for Jean-Marie’s hand.

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“You have ached for me all day, have you not?” Jean-Marie inquired, turning on her side. She placed her hand gently on Lucy’s soaking bush, but did not move it.

“For you and because of you, Maitresse,” Lucy whispered.

“You will ache even more,” Jean-Marie promised. Her thumb now rested on Lucy’s clit, making the girl tremble. “You struggle not to move. Your submission pleases me.”

She took her hand away and instead bent and suckled Lucy’s breasts mercilessly.

Lucy’s head thrashed from side to side. She wanted to urge her lover’s head down between her legs, but as a slave she had no right to do this. Jean-Marie had taught her that when the Captain gave pleasure, the Captain took her time and made every decision, and Lucy’s job was to be still and accept what she was given, and be grateful for it. All Lucy could do was gently stroke Jean-Marie’s thick blonde hair, or clutch at the bedclothes, and moan. Any effort to direct their lovemaking would be met with the reprisal of being made to wait for the next day. Lucy had needed only one lesson of that kind, and she had come to like being entirely in Jean-Marie’s control. There was nothing as exciting and stimulating as submitting to Jean-Marie.

Of course, she could beg. Jean-Marie liked that. “Madame, s’il vous plaît,” Lucy moaned. Her pussy bubbled hot juices.

Jean-Marie slowly kissed her way back to Lucy’s mouth, allowing her hand to slide between Lucy’s legs. “Yes, my love?”

“Please, Madame, I am on fire for you,” Lucy whimpered.

“I know that,” Jean-Marie chided ever so gently, and Lucy subsided instantly.

But Jean-Marie would not press this young woman too far. Lucy had been obedient and attentive all day, as she was every day, and she deserved her single moment of pleasure. Now there was only one rule left for Lucy to obey. “Do not move, love,” Jean-Marie reminded her. But if she did, the only penalty was delay, and Lucy sometimes did this on purpose, to extend her ecstasy. It was true. Pleasure delayed was pleasure intensified.

Lucy gasped as the pirate edged her closer and closer to pleasure, and then she twitched slightly in her eagerness, and Jean-Marie held back, eliciting a long groan which she stifled with her lips. Then the stroking began again, and Lucy asked, “Please kiss me, Jean-Marie.”

Jean-Marie let Lucy taste her tongue, but only a little, before pulling back slightly to tease her, and then they kissed again, and again. They were still kissing when Lucy’s ass clenched and her entire body rose from the bed in orgasm. “Oh! Jean-Marie! Jean-Marie!” Lucy screamed.

The pirate enjoyed this announcement to her crew that she thoroughly owned and controlled her slave, and she made no effort to quiet Lucy’s cries of delight. She did, however, withdraw her hand after Lucy finished her orgasm. Multiple orgasm was the Captain’s privilege, extended to her slave only on special occasions. Lucy accepted this without a murmur, as she accepted every other condition that Jean-Marie dictated. Lucy was her slave, and she liked it that way.

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Chapter Eight

They were at sea once again. Lookouts, this time including Lucy, scoured the sea for a target. If they found anything, she would stay aloft and start shooting, for she had been practicing every day since they left port. She knew to keep as much of the mast as she could between the other ship and herself, nor was she to try to shoot at other snipers. Her targets were the officers on the decks of other ships, while the other sniper of the Femme Fatale would target their opposite numbers.

The first ship they spotted was trouble, a British frigate that immediately gave chase. No fool, Jean-Marie and turned tail immediately, calling Lucy down out of the rigging. “Some naval vessels will pursue any ship that does not look like a merchant vessel. If they see we do not wear uniforms, they may investigate,” she explained as the sloop plowed through the mild chop off the east coast of Cuba.

“Then why do we not wear uniforms?” Lucy wanted to know.

“That is only one thing. Our sails are many different colors and we fly no flag,”

Jean-Marie said. “Wearing uniforms would not be enough. Falsely flying the flag of any country makes you guilty of anything from treason to fraud, depending on the country.

We could do without that. All we want is to attract no attention, strike, plunder and get out.”

That seemed wise to Lucy. Although Jean-Marie and all her crew bore scars from close battle, and the occasional fatality could not be avoided, they remained largely intact due the discretion of their Captain. Jean-Marie kept the crew size down to what she could support with their selective raids. Although there were pirate vessels with crews of one hundred or more, Jean-Marie was not interested. The larger the group, the more difficult to maintain the intense personal loyalty she cultivated. Several small ships a year kept them fed and in clean clothes and new rigging with some left over.

And having a small ship kept them out of conflict with larger pirate vessels with all-male crews, opponents they simply could not handle.

After a couple of hours without closing any distance, the frigate broke off. As long as the Femme Fatale was neither suspected of nor caught in an act of piracy, they were not worth further attention. Jean-Marie declared they would lay low for the next day or so, before beginning to search again, while using the favorable winds to speed them on their way to Jamaica.

Late the next day, they spotted a mark. It was a coastal ship working the southern shores of Cuba, and while not carrying gold or anything of immense value, it would have food and cloth for sails and clothing, and other sundries. A little money, certainly, from trading, and it would be welcome prey.

Lucy shot at the other deck as long as she could, not really sure if she was hitting anything, or if the shots that landed were from other shooters. As soon as the ships were lashed together, the Captain of the little schooner and his men gathered to repel boarders. Then Lucy could not shoot, because her crew was too intermingled with the Susanna Valent

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other, so she just watched in fascinated horror as the other Captain challenged Jean-Marie with his saber.

The other captain was dark and powerful, but not as tall as Jean-Marie. Almost no one was. He did not have her reach, but his motivation was just as strong. It was a battle to the death, nothing less.

“My ship for my life!” the swarthy man yelled.

“Or my ship for mine,” Jean-Marie agreed. It was that or be branded a coward. If the captains agreed, the crews were bound. Whoever won could take both ships and some lives might be spared. This relieved the crews of having to fight one another.

They circled one another on the main deck of the schooner, as all hands still standing stopped to watch. Jean-Marie had her height, agility and experience. The other captain had his strength, wits and familiarity with his ship, on which they stood. One more thing Jean-Marie had was confidence. In her mind, she had already won, but she was not about to let her opponent know that. Jean-Marie was very cagey, never letting him back her up against anything. She kept an eye on all routes of escape lest he gain any advantage that would level the field, where he was at a disadvantage due to Jean-Marie’s height and skill.

“So, you think you, a mere woman, can best me? I am Phillipe Perez, sword champion of all Cuba!” he boasted.

“How is it that I not have heard of you, then?” Jean-Marie shot back.

“You must be deaf and blind as well as dumb!” he jeered, making a run at her.

His thrusts were strong. But Jean-Marie successfully parried, and in so doing was better able to take his measure. When he shot by, she whacked him on the ass with the blade of her cutlass, giving her crew and lover a cheerful wink, to let him know she had let him off the hook for the moment.

The crew of the Femme Fatale whistled and booed him, alternating with cheers for their captain.

Then Jean-Marie slipped. Everyone gasped with horror, and Lucy clutched the mast, afraid to look. His eyes wide open, unable to believe his good fortune, Perez charged. Suddenly Jean-Marie’s cutlass came up, and he was skewered. She rose from her knee and let his momentum carry him to the rail, where he tore loose from her weapon and fell over the side. It had been a feint all along. The sharks arrived quickly and soon there was nothing left of Cuban sword champion Perez.

The other crew stared, stunned, and then, before they could be rounded up, they jumped over the other side, all but a terrified boy, who was quickly collared and dragged before Jean-Marie. “What do we do with this one?” Marcel, the first mate, asked.

He looked about nine or ten, possibly the son of one of the sailors who had jumped.

“Find out who he is,” Jean-Marie ordered, and he was handed off to Luis, a Spanish-speaking crewman who interrogated him.

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In the meantime, the trader ship was ransacked. Lucy climbed carefully down from the mast, her legs still rubbery from her fright when Jean-Marie had gone down.

By the time she reached the deck, the boy was being bundled off in an old skiff with some jugs of water, to seek out some relatives. They told him which way Cuba was and wished him luck. Perhaps he would catch up with a sailor or two from his scuttled boat, if they had not already drowned.

As soon as all booty was stowed, they set sail for Jamaica again. A celebration broke out early in honor of the Captain’s victory, and Lucy crept close to her. She had been badly frightened.

“Ma Capitaine,” she whispered, putting her arms around Jean-Marie’s waist.

“What is it, cherie?” Jean-Marie asked, encircling her with an arm.

“I was afraid for you. Must you do that?” Lucy asked.

“Of course I must. I must fight for my ship and my people. Would you have me refuse? The crew would not follow me then,” Jean-Marie explained. She led Lucy to a hatch where they sat down. Robert handed Jean-Marie a bottle of rum, and she took a swig, passing it to Lucy, who sipped it carefully.

“Oh! Madame! That is very strong!” Lucy exclaimed.

“This is part of the reward of being a pirate captain. I must be brave and win all my duels, or die trying. If I were not captain, what would I be?” Jean-Marie drank again, then put the bottle aside for the moment.

“I do not know what you could be,” Lucy answered honestly. “You do not wish to be a wife, and I do not, either. There is little else a woman can do. Even a teacher has a superior, and lives in a house with others to watch over her. I do not know a job for women other than that.”

“In the tropics, sometimes, a woman may own a little shop. Sometimes her husband dies, and she keeps it. But usually a son takes it away,” Jean-Marie explained. “To me, it is better to be a pirate, and die on the sea in a battle, than be a slave to any man ashore, even a wealthy one. I hope you understand. I do not wish to die, but there are many things worse.”

Lucy nodded. “I know you are brave and strong, Madame, but I love you, and I fear for my own life if something happens to you. I would have no life at all. I would be alone, and goodness knows what might become of me.”

“I will be careful for your sake, then, eh? And now let us celebrate our prize. You will dance with me?” Jean-Marie invited.

“I…I do not know the steps, Madame,” Lucy demurred.

“I will teach you!” the pirate announced, pulling her up, and so she managed to distract her young lover from her concerns until it was time for dinner and bed.

As Lucy undressed Jean-Marie, the pirate told her, “It is traditional for the victor in a duel to be rewarded by her lover in bed.”

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Lucy looked up at her and burst out laughing, “Why Madame, if you are not rewarded every night, I don’t know what else to call it!”

Jean-Marie cocked her head. “That is true. But you will reward me all the same.

Because bedding such perfection is reward enough for any conqueror.”

Lucy gasped. “Oh, Madame, you give me too much honor!”

“Not at all, ma cher Lucy. Not at all,” Jean-Marie told her, and pulling Lucy into her bed, the beautiful pirate demonstrated again for her slave exactly how much she was loved.

For a change, because Lucy had been very frightened by the duel, Jean-Marie was especially gentle. She concentrated on Lucy’s breasts. Sucking one, then the other, she raised the perfect nipples to hardness while Lucy moaned and trembled at the Captain’s touch. Then Jean-Marie dipped into Lucy’s seething vagina, bringing out moisture to coat her slave’s breasts, from which she licked it off. By doing this again and again, Jean-Marie slowly drove the younger women mad with need. Then she rose above her and straddled Lucy’s face, channeling her slave’s desperation into the kind of exquisite love-making that no one else could give her. Lucy lapped Jean-Marie with the devotion a conqueror deserved, clinging to her muscular backside and thighs to seal them together.

When Jean-Marie had all but drowned Lucy with her ardor, she bucked hard and came all over her, filling her mouth to overflowing. Sated, she waited above Lucy until the lusty Englishwoman had cleaned her properly. Jean-Marie laid down again, still breathing hard, and embraced her anxious lover.

“And what should I do for you, do you think?” Jean-Marie inquired, her fingers already straying to Lucy’s brimming slit.

“As always, ma capitaine, you are the best judge of that,” Lucy said. She had found submissive words worked wonders on her demanding owner.

“A sensible young woman,” Jean-Marie observed, but she teased Lucy no more that evening. It had been a long, hard day for both of them, and Lucy had more than earned her reward. The Captain’s fingers found their way deep into Lucy’s canal. With her thumb on a clit as hard as a wet stone. Jean-Marie pumped in and out until Lucy shrieked in ecstasy. This delighted Jean-Marie. Lucy was completely in her control, and everyone knew it.

Later, Lucy lay awake thinking hard. There must be some way to get this courageous woman off the high seas before she got herself killed in the pursuit of freedom and honor. But the solution was still a mystery.

* * * * *

The Femme Fatale sailed on to Kingston, capturing but one more small prize, a fishing vessel. In the lively port they traded their booty for what they needed, but after only a day, they sailed on. South of Montego Bay lay Port Royal, a small island which was primarily a pirate stronghold. Known only to pirates and their few associates, it was one place they need not fear the government of any nation.

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As soon as they arrived, St. Honore ordered, “Lucy! Tonight you will wear your new red and blue gown for me!”

“Oui, Madame. As you wish, of course. But why?”

“Because tonight we will go to the ball. All of us will go, and so you must be properly turned out.”

Jean-Marie left the cabin for Lucy to prepare herself in private, then shooed her on deck so that she herself could change.

“I will help you, Madame,” Lucy protested.

“No, you will muss your gown. I will not be long. Go sit where it is breezy and comfortable.” The pirate firmly shut the door, leaving her slave no choice. Having no access to a hairdresser, Lucy wore her shining hair long and loose over her shoulders, which were left bare by the gown, a preference of the Captain’s. Her gold chain gleamed against her fair skin. Her bodice was red with gold trim, and the skirt was of alternating panels of red and blue satin over a series of stiff petticoats. It was not easy to sit down in it, but Lucy managed, enjoying the stars as they came twinkling out, one by one.

While Lucy watched the stars, the crew came out on deck all clad in smart red and blue uniforms. Their transformation astounded Lucy. Officers worse dress swords and had more gold braid, the ratings and sailors wore daggers and less braid, but they were all neat and clean, women and men alike, right down to Jacob, the cabin-boy. Rougie’s trademark red hair looked aflame. The women’s uniforms were indistinguishable from the men’s, but their figures identified them easily. Lucy alone wore traditional feminine dress.

Finally Jean-Marie stepped on deck, and Lucy jumped up. The Captain was splendid in royal blue with red facings, brass, braid and sword gleaming. From her blue tricorn to her to her silver-buckled boots, she was perfection. Eight sailors flanked the gangplank, and the bo’sun pulled out a silver whistle to pipe them ashore. Captain St.

Honore gave her arm to Lucy, who quickly took it, suddenly trembling in anticipation.

As soon as they stepped off the ship, however, all the sailors broke ranks and headed for the festival.

“I thought you said we do not wear uniforms,” Lucy questioned as they walked along the waterfront.

“Oh, these are just costumes in colors of the ship. I have chosen the colors of the French Revolution. How do you like them?” Jean-Marie asked.

“It is all very exciting,” Lucy said. Balls had been an extremely infrequent event in her previous life, and never had she had such a dashing escort.

The festival was held in an enormous saloon with two levels, one for more serious diners above, and another for dancing and carousing below. Tonight all the lower-level tables had been removed except for those around the walls, to allow the rest of the room to become a dance floor. Jean-Marie and Lucy were directed around the outside to the Susanna Valent

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garden at the rear of the building, so that all the Captains could make their proper entrance into the ball.

Jean-Marie patted Lucy’s arm. “We are last this year, so have patience. There are more than forty ships in port.”

“And why are we last?” Lucy wanted to know, looking around at all the pirate captains in their finery. Black and silver, purple and gold, emerald and scarlet, the combinations were endless and dazzling. Waiters passed among the officers with glasses of champagne on trays.

“Why?” For an answer, Jean-Marie pointed to a servant, who was approaching with a purple pillow on which rested a crown. Jean-Marie removed her tricorn and gave it to the young man, and settled the crown on her head.

“Because I am the Pirate Queen. As I told you,” Jean-Marie smiled simply.

“Majesty!” Lucy said, and made a deep curtsy to her Captain and Queen.

Jean-Marie quickly raised her and kissed her. “It is purely ceremonial, really, just for fun. The Pirate Queen, or sometimes King, summons the pirates to the balls, oversees the collection of dues, decides the entertainment and menu, and presides over the next election.”

“And when is that?” Lucy asked, impressed nonetheless.

“In two more years. We have two balls a year, and also we have contests on the beach, and displays of our greatest trophies,” Jean-Marie elaborated.

“Oh? And what trophy will Your Majesty display?” Lucy wanted to know.

“You.”

Lucy gasped. “You would display me, Madame?” She went pale, imagining some scene from the slave markets of which she had heard vague tales as a girl in England.

She clutched the pirate’s arm. “Please, no!”

Jean-Marie laughed out loud. “Yes, but only on my arm, as I do tonight.” She took glasses from a passing tray. “And I assure you, no trophy will be as envied as mine. To you, my sweet Lucy,” she toasted, and they drank.

From inside they heard the strains of a march, and all of the pirates jostled their way into the line. “The most junior captains are first, up to the seniors, and we are last,”

Jean-Marie said.

“I would never have expected such ceremony among pirates,” Lucy remarked as they moved forward.

“Twice a year we meet and negotiate deals and territory and conduct other business. The rest of the time, of course, it is war,” Jean-Marie said philosophically.

“Were I to take the Femme Fatale into these fellows’ waters, they would come after me as surely as the Spaniards or the French.”

“I hope it does not come to that,” Lucy said, her brows drawing together. Some of these men and a few women, even in their finery, looked ferocious, with hooks and pegs, and some missing eyes or teeth or parts of ears.

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“Nor I! Now, head up and smile. I want them all to be jealous of me,” Jean-Marie said, and they climbed the stairs to the second floor gallery, from which they would descend into the Buccaneer Ball.

A trumpet fanfare announced the Queen of the Pirates and her consort. As they went down the stairs, many of the pirates doffed their hats and bowed, and many more waved their hats. There were also a few good-natured whistles and boos, but Jean-Marie bore these most cheerfully. She stopped to return the bow at the foot of the stairs, while Lucy dropped a curtsy.

Jean-Marie then led her slave away to the head table, and immediately platters of roast meats were brought, along with side-dishes such as sweet potatoes and plantains, tropical fruits and wines. The orchestra began to play a variety of dances which set Lucy to tapping her foot and humming. As soon as Jean-Marie had had enough of the various delicacies, she led Lucy onto the floor and demanded a waltz.

Lucy found the atmosphere intoxicating. Many of the men and not a few of the women were staring at her with open curiosity. She was unused to so much attention, and it was both flattering and a little intimidating.

“Why do they look at me so?” she asked Jean-Marie as the pirate whirled her around the floor.

“Have you not noticed you are the loveliest woman here?” the Captain asked her.

“They seldom see such innocence and beauty. Remember, we are all scoundrels! We have no access to gently-reared young ladies.”

Lucy accepted that and followed the expert Jean-Marie through two dances, then begged to sit and rest. It was later, during their third dance, that another pirate cut in on Jean-Marie, who had to gracefully relinquish her partner, “It will be fine,” she whispered in Lucy’s ear as she let her go.

But it was not. More and more pirates cut in again and again until Lucy was bring pulled in all direction by men who were anything but gentlemen. She looked anxiously for Jean-Marie, but she was disoriented. Lucy could not even see her, nor could she move from the crowd which pressed in on her.

Jean-Marie saw her lover’s distress and began to make her way through the packed bodies to retrieve her treasure. Suddenly, a drunken pirate jumped in front of her and pulled his sword.

“You’ll have to fight me for her!” he raged. “She’s wasted on you!”

Jean-Marie’s own sword was out in a flash and a space cleared. Backing away, she shrugged out of her coat and flung it to Lucy, who caught it. “Do not make a fool of yourself,” she advised her drunken challenger, for although Jean-Marie had enjoyed some champagne, she was not drunk. Drunkenness was a loss of control she would not tolerate in herself, although she looked the other way when her crew overindulged.

Impatient, she jerked her crown off and tossed it into the crowd as well.

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but at the same time, seeing Jean-Marie in her billowing white sleeves, with her sword before her, her jaw set and the light of the lanterns shining on her hair, she didn’t know whether to swoon with love or fright.

“Let a real man show you what loving is like, not this she-male,” taunted Jean-Marie’s challenger, addressing himself to Lucy. “What I can give, she’ll never have.”

Feeling Lucy tense, Rougie grabbed her. “Let the Captain handle him. Do nothing that will distract her.”

“Lucy knows when she is well-off,” Jean-Marie remarked mildly. “Do you address your insults to her because you are afraid of me?”

That was all the drunk needed to throw caution to the wind. He launched himself at Jean-Marie. She let him back her up the staircase, then slashed his arm, knocking him back as his sword flew from his grasp. As he rolled on the ground, she stood over him, put her boot on his chest, and ritually nicked his cheek with her blade. “You are an ass.

Go back to your ship and sleep it off,” she advised. To the musicians she said simply,

“Play.”

A young woman returned Jean-Marie’s crown as she slid her sword into its scabbard. She went to Lucy who hugged her unashamedly before helping her back into her fine coat. “Come,” the Captain commanded, and she pulled Lucy into a lively gavotte that propelled the two of them around the room, inducing others to join in.

Soon it seemed almost as if the altercation had never occurred.

“Is this…normal?” Lucy asked, incredulous.

“At least once for every gathering, someone must fight over a woman, it seems. A beautiful woman is indeed the greatest trophy, hard to come by and difficult to keep in such fine condition,” Jean-Marie explained.

“Is that so? Then perhaps Madame le Capitaine should not work her slave so hard,”

Lucy teased her owner.

“Perhaps my slave should close her mouth unless she is licking her mistress,” Jean-Marie suggested, and Lucy blushed and her heart pounded in her chest. The Captain’s arms around her were at once reassuring and exciting, and Lucy found that suddenly she could not wait to return to the Femme Fatale. Although she had satisfied the Captain twice that day already, Lucy had not yet had her turn, and the strength she felt surging through her lover greatly aroused her.

Lucy murmured in Jean-Marie’s ear, “I am ready to lick you, now , ma cher Maitresse.”

“Bon. I am sure you are, and so you shall.” Jean-Marie promised. But for the moment, they danced, St. Honore’s embrace inflaming Lucy further. When she felt Lucy press eagerly against her, Jean-Marie smiled down at her and pressed back, keeping their bodies tightly together.

Later when they sat down to rest, Jean-Marie pulled Lucy into her lap and slid her hand under the full skirt. “Ma Capitaine!” Lucy cried, suppressing a little gasp.

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“I should not let you wear underwear with a dress. It interferes with my objectives,” Jean-Marie grinned. “From now on, it is forbidden. Find a privy and take it off.”

“But—“ Lucy began to protest, not knowing where she would put it once she did as she was told.

“This instant!” the Pirate Queen commanded, rising to force Lucy off her lap. “And make certain you bring it back to me.”

“Oui, Maitresse,” Lucy bobbed her head and ran off, lest the Captain lose her temper and punish her when they were alone.

Beet-red, Lucy returned a few moments later, the offending garment balled tightly in one fist.

Jean-Marie backed her into a corner and took it from her, forcing it down her décolletage. “Now, we can both enjoy your scent for the rest of the night,” St. Honore laughed.

Lucy was almost fainting from desire now. The Captain’s forcefulness and natural sensuality were almost too much for her. St Honore was a superb dancer, she had successfully fought a duel for her slave, she had made her remove her underwear in public, and she sprinkled suggestive remarks like exotic spices throughout their conversations. “Jean-Marie,” Lucy whimpered, her legs trembling under her. She was sure everyone in the place could smell her desire for her mistress.

“Oui, ma cherie?” the Pirate Queen inquired kindly.

“I…I…want so much to pleasure you,” Lucy groaned, afraid to let go for fear she would slip bonelessly to the floor.

“And that is exactly how I want you to feel. Now, I will take a turn with some of the other ladies and you can rest a bit,” Jean-Marie said, depositing Lucy in her armchair near the head of their table. “Do not play with yourself,” she warned with a wink, and then she was gone.

Lucy watched her lover as she whirled this pirate and that around the room in a flash of red and bright blue. Her Captain seemed endlessly energetic, and the sight of other women in her lover’s arms made Lucy’s temperature soar. She fanned herself, but the smell of her own musk rising from between her breasts, and elsewhere, made the attempt all but futile.

St. Honore pressed herself against each woman she partnered, letting Lucy see her obvious delight in their closeness. And these woman, including several from the Femme Fatale, were more than content to be led by this dashing strong woman who was both Queen and conqueror tonight. Some of them had been bedded by her before, and would surely have gone with her again, given the chance.

But they were not. St. Honore returned to Lucy, mopping her brow with a silk handkerchief when the orchestra finally stopped to eat their own dinner. “Once I get my breath, you will dance with me some more,” she said, grabbing champagne from a passing waiter. It was not a request.

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“Of course, Madame,” Lucy said, anxious to take her rightful place at St. Honore’s side again.

Jean-Marie smiled. Her trick had worked. Jealousy was an excellent aphrodisiac, and she could make use of it again and again. She took Lucy’s hand and gently kissed the palm, allowing Lucy to feel the tip of her tongue. “I want you,” she said so only her slave could hear, “and I will have you.”

Lucy swallowed, afraid her voice would tremble and betray her arousal. She merely looked up at St. Honore and nodded, her eyes round, giving everything away.

Jean-Marie herself could tolerate only one more set of waltzes. She stepped outside the saloon and spoke to a servant. A few moments later, they were summoned. The servant had procured a horse. “I will send it back immediately,” Jean-Marie assured the man, tipping him generously. She swung into the saddle, leaned down to give Lucy her hand and told her, “Put your foot on my boot.” Thus Lucy found herself quickly hauled up sidesaddle in front of Jean-Marie.

“Excellent,” Jean-Marie whispered into her slave’s ear. Another servant appeared with Jean-Marie’s hat, and she gave back the crown. Then she turned the horse about and they cantered off toward the Femme Fatale with only one thing on their minds.

Jean-Marie kissed Lucy generously all the way back to the little ship, and Lucy returned the kisses with equal fervor. The horse was sent back to the saloon with one of their sailors, and Captain and slave went immediately below. Giving her slave some needed assistance in removing her gown, Jean-Marie instructed, “I will have a pipe and be back in ten minutes. I want you and the bed ready for me at that time. Be quick. I am in need of you.”

“Oui, Madame,” Lucy said with a bow to her mistress. Ten minutes was not much time, and Lucy was glad. She needed the attentions of her pirate very badly. Her legs were wet and sticky with her desire for this demanding woman, and the cabin was already filled with the incense of their mingled musk.

When Jean-Marie returned, Lucy was kneeling naked beside the high bed. All of her finery was out of sight and the lamps were trimmed and lit. Jean-Marie stepped in front of Lucy and pulled her slave’s head against her groin. “Now,” she said. Lucy opened Jean-Marie’s trousers and slid them down just far enough to nuzzle the damp pubic hair that sprang out at her.

The Captain groaned and sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling off her coat as Lucy removed her boots, pants and underthings. The Pirate Queen could wait no longer, though. She made Lucy do her immediately, lying back on the bed with her shirt and halter still on. Lucy knelt on the floor, pleasuring her intently.

Both of them moaned aloud as Jean-Marie came in a surge. Though she usually desired Lucy to pleasure her until she was sated Jean-Marie stopped her and quickly tore off her own shirt. “In the bed now, Lucy,” she ordered, and pushing her slave back roughly, St Honore mounted her and split her legs. “Tonight I have something special, Susanna Valent

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something I bought from a captain who has recently traded with Eastern Asia,” Jean-Marie said, kneeling above Lucy and holding her legs wide.

“What is it, Ma Capitaine?” Lucy gasped, torn between desire and curiosity.

“When you asked me to tell you my story, I thought of this, and I went looking. Do you remember how I hid my sex when I was first a pirate?” Jean-Marie prompted, reaching behind Lucy for something between the mattress and the wall. “See?”

The Pirate Queen held up a device that approximated the human penis. It was attached to a leather sling, the like of which Lucy had never seen. “And…what is this, Madame?” Lucy asked.

“It is worn by one woman to please another. It comes from the harems of powerful men who have many wives, and cannot service them all regularly, so these are their playthings. I can wear it, and inside you, it will feel something like a penis, but better, since I am well aware of how that feels. And as for me, there is this little knob, that will pleasure me in return.”

Lucy was troubled. “Must I, Jean-Marie? I rather like you just the way you are. I like that you and I are both women.”

Jean-Marie did not wish to force Lucy, neither did she mean to deny either of them the pleasure of the dildo, which was beautifully made. She slid down beside her lover in the bed. “Look, Lucy, it is ivory, encased in smooth leather. It will feel warm and firm like my fingers, but larger, and I will not be rough. I will go very slowly, and if you do not like it, I will stop at once and never ask you to do it again.”

Lucy looked up into the blond giant’s face. She so wanted to please this extraordinary woman, and she was very aroused. “Is it the same size as a real penis?”

she wanted to know.

“I would say it is average,” Jean-Marie said. “In fact, look,” she said, turning it and sliding the dildo inside herself. “There. You see? It does not hurt. When I put it on, I hope it will feel like I am inside you.”

“Very well, my love. Let us try it and see. But please, Jean-Marie, be gentle,” Lucy requested.

“I am in no hurry,” the captain assured her. She pulled the harness on, adjusted the straps, and spread Lucy’s legs carefully. Then, holding the ivory phallus, she worked carefully in, staying up off Lucy on her elbows and knees as a considerate man would.

Almost automatically, Lucy lifted her hips to receive their new pleasure toy, and when she found it did not hurt, she pressed for more. This stimulated Jean-Marie, and they began then to move together. Jean-Marie leaned down and they kissed slowly, sensuously, exploring one another.

Jean-Marie’s driving movements were very exciting to Lucy, and she wondered why her lover had said she was lucky never to have been with a man. Jean-Marie’s eyes were closed in concentration, Lucy saw, which meant the pirate was enjoying herself, too. Lucy tightened her ass and pushed up, helping Jean-Marie find the right target and rhythm.

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Jean-Marie was enchanted. Lucy was as eager for this as she had been for everything else! She stroked in and out gently but firmly, taking careful note of her slave’s responses. It helped that Lucy was highly aroused from their initial lovemaking, and that she hadn’t come all day, for now she was groaning and begging Jean-Marie for release.

“All right, all right, do not be in such a hurry!” St. Honore admonished with a grin.

“I can only go so fast myself!” Then she leaned down and captured Lucy’s lips, thrusting smoothly and rhythmically until she began to shudder with the imminence of her orgasm.

“Oh, oh God…Lucy,” Jean-Marie gasped. “I cannot hold back anymore.”

“Then come! I do not mind. I want it for you,” Lucy encouraged. “Let me feel it, Jean-Marie!”

“Ma Dieu!” the big woman roared, writhing on top of, and inside, her lover. She found the sensation incredible, different than coming any other way she had discovered so far.

Finally, Jean-Marie lay still, grinning and panting. Under her, Lucy moaned and clutched at her, the slave’s desperation making her the perfect lover for the insatiable Captain. St. Honore pushed down slightly and began to kiss Lucy deeply, laughing into their kiss as the slave groaned. Jean-Marie wiggled her backside, making Lucy whimper with frustration.

“Jean-Marie, ma cherie, please, please,” Lucy begged. “Only touch me once, ma Capitaine, I beg of you.”

“Once? And for how long? Is this enough,” she asked, pulling out and moving over so she could swipe a finger through her slave’s cleft, which nearly levitated both of them off the bed.

“Please,” Lucy begged, reaching for Jean-Marie’s hand.

“You are impatient. You must clean me first,” Jean-Marie decided, and she rolled on her back and spread her legs. “You will kneel and do penance for your impertinence, slave,” she commanded.

Lucy knelt and removed the dildo in its harness, then plunged into the brimming and very satisfied pussy of her owner. Jean-Marie sighed and waited, so satiated that she did not respond to the questing tongue that deftly cleansed her, although she was sure she would when she was done with her slave.

“Enough. Come up here.”

Lucy was in the bed at Jean-Marie’s side in a flash.

Jean-Marie regarded her for a moment. “How is it I can never break you of this tendency to make demands upon me?” she wondered.

“Madame, you have told me time and again that you love to hear me beg,” Lucy pointed out, “and not only that, I believe it pleases Madame to discipline her slave from time to time. It arouses you, does it not?”

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A slow smile spread over the pirate’s face. “You know me too well, Mademoiselle. I will finish doing you with the dildo another time. You have worn me out and drained me for today.” She moved on top of Lucy, enjoying the thrusting of the woman’s body beneath her, so healthy and ripe. With Lucy’s pleas urging her on, Jean-Marie slowly kissed her way down Lucy’s body, enjoying the salty, satiny skin that was hers alone.

Finally she arrived at the nectar-filled opening, and she entered Lucy with her tongue.

The sweetness was indescribable, and once again, their moans of pleasure were a duet.

Lucy panted with need and excitement. Jean-Marie had been driving her mad since that morning, making demands, teasing, dancing, suggesting, and then torturing her with their new toy. It was not that Lucy minded, she loved the attention of her lover, but all of these tactics were very effective, and nonetheless for being very transparent.

Subtlety was not required to arouse the formerly genteel and sedate young Englishwoman. She now lived in the moment, and each moment was created by her lover, the Pirate Queen.

“Jean-Marie, Jean-Marie,” she babbled as the tongue teased and caressed her, now stroking the aching clit, now retreated to draw more sweetness from her cleft. “Take me, I beg you, Majesty.”

Jean-Marie liked that very much. The purely ceremonial office had yet another practical use! “Tomorrow, you will dedicate yourself entirely to me, is that understood, my slave?”

“It is, Majesty. Tomorrow everything will be for you alone,” Lucy promised. Every once in a while, Jean-Marie liked to demand just a little more of her, and on a night like this, Lucy would have promised her anything anyway.

“Then I give you this gift,” Jean-Marie stated matter-of-factly, and she gave Lucy her tongue until the young woman cried out in climax three times, until she wept with joy in her pirate’s arms.

“You are too good to me,” Lucy murmured as Jean-Marie pulled the sheets up. “It is when you do that, I know how much you love me.”

“I have never loved anyone more,” Jean-Marie told her sleepy lover, and then she blew out the lamps.

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Chapter Nine

The contests began on the beach the next day, and Jean-Marie took Lucy to see them. There were wrestling and swimming and weightlifting and balance and shooting contests. There was a mast-climbing contest on the largest ship. While the contests were being held, the ships displayed their best trophies, jewels and chests of gold and various religious artifacts from all over the hemisphere were displayed, with armed guards much in evidence. There were fine horses and even slaves, both male and female, who were prized for beauty, strength or both. Once the festivities were over, everything of value would be carried to port and sold off.

“So, you could display me, as these are,” Lucy said with a shudder, eyeing the chains.

“I have never displayed a human being,” Jean-Marie said gently, “except to introduce her as my lover. You are not for trade or sale. You belong to me.”

“But I am still a slave, displayed like wares or not,” Lucy pointed out with another shudder, but this time, it was one of pleasure.

“That you are,” Jean-Marie agreed amiably. She squeezed Lucy’s hand where it rested in the crook of her arm. “And you have given me every reason to believe that I am not the only one who wishes it so.”

“Madame, is correct, as usual,” Lucy smiled up at her.

In the afternoon, Jean-Marie had meetings to attend with the other pirate captains, and Lucy went back to work on laundry, alterations, scrubbing, and polishing. There were to be festivities on the beach at night and Jean-Marie had told Lucy she could only attend if she finished her work. Because Lucy was so tempting, Jean-Marie had doubled the usual guard to keep trespassers away from her slave when she worked on deck.

Lucy’s work, of course, included the pleasuring of the Captain when she returned late in the day. She grabbed Lucy and pulled her into the water for a swim, and then hung on the anchor chain while Lucy caressed her. Jean-Marie floated with her arms over her head. Lucy did all the work, kissing her mistress, reaching between her legs to pleasure her, sucking her nipples. Jean-Marie moaned softly, her big body shuddering deliciously as Lucy drew forth one orgasm, then another, and another. Lucy twitched with need, but she, too, gasped aloud with pleasure when Jean-Marie came. Not coming didn’t mean she wasn’t enjoying herself as well.

“Have you finished all of your tasks?” Jean-Marie inquired lazily when she was satisfied.

“Just this very minute, ma Capitaine,” Lucy said saucily. She ached to be touched, of course, but she was forbidden pleasure this day because of her promise the previous evening.

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“Then we will go to the barbecue on the beach,” Jean-Marie said, knowing that Lucy dared not lie. “And when we come back tonight. I will have you again.” She reached underwater to pinch Lucy’s shapely bottom. “Think about that.”

“Oh! I will think of nothing else,” Lucy promised with a little yelp. There would be a bruise, of course, and she would treasure it.

Lucy dressed in pirate fashion that evening, pantaloons and a blouse and a little jacket, and her hat with the feather that so amused St. Honore. Despite the informality of the event, many pirates, including Jean-Marie, wore pistols or swords. After the altercation at the ball, she wasn’t taking any chances. Although such behavior was commonplace when pirates gathered, things could turn bloody. Jean-Marie was not about to lose her slave or her life, nor would she show cowardice by leaving Lucy behind or avoiding the events herself. She wouldn’t have been elected Pirate Queen unless she had swagger and style, so she strutted around like royalty among her nobles, woe to any fool who challenged her again!

This suited Lucy fine, except she knew that once Jean-Marie’s blood was up, it would be a passionate evening. This would be hard to endure when there would be no relief for her. She willed herself to remember that her next climax would be all the more enjoyable for having to wait for it. She stayed close by her Captain, watching and eating and trying to pick up a few more words of the patois that the buccaneers spoke among themselves.

As the evening wore on, some of the pirates, having had too much rum to drink, became more boisterous, and that was Jean-Marie’s cue to depart. As they rose to leave six pirates from the Femme Fatale materialized from the darkness to see them home.

Walking casually enough, but with pistols drawn, they ambled down the beach to their ship, where Jean-Marie dismissed them to continue their revelry if they so desired. The Captain took her pipe on deck while Lucy made the cabin ready below.

“Ma capitaine, s’il vous plaît,” Lucy said quietly as she knelt beneath the hammock on the quarter deck.

“What is it?” Jean-Marie asked kindly, offering a hand to help Lucy in with her.

“Your cabin is ready, that is all,” Lucy sighed, settling into the encircling arms.

“And is my slave ready as well?”

“Oui, maitresse.” Lucy leaned on Jean-Marie’s chest. She was content and would remain so no matter what the pirate demanded of her. Lucy loved her Pirate Queen, a woman so strong that men gladly obeyed her, something the like of which Lucy had never imagined. She would never go back to her former life, even if it were offered to her on a silver platter, if it meant leaving Jean-Marie St. Honore. Since the pirate would never go, Lucy must stay.

Jean-Marie’s thoughts were also on Lucy. She believed the young woman was ready for the next stage of her discipline. It was training for future activities possibly involving other slaves, and very pleasurable for the captain, besides.

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She helped Lucy out of the hammock and rose to put out her pipe. “So, Lucy, we will go below, and I will teach you something new. This is something I will ask of you from time to time, like waiting a day. I do not require it constantly, so do not be alarmed.”

But Lucy was alarmed. “Will it hurt?” she asked, turning huge blue eyes upon her captain.

“You may find it…a trifle uncomfortable, but in a very stimulating way, and you may even come to anticipate it. I can safely say it does not hurt at all,” Jean-Mare promised.

Once Lucy had undressed both of them, they got into the bed together, and Jean-Marie positioned them on their sides, facing one another. Then she drew them together for a deep kiss, exploring slowly, caressing with lips, tongues and hands. Lucy could see already how this would be discipline for her, because today her needs were not to be met. Still, it was enjoyable, and she sighed and groaned as the Captain’s fingers found their mark.

Almost as if she had not decreed pleasure for herself alone, Jean-Marie tenderly stoked Lucy, even as Lucy made love to her. It was going to be hard to do this to Lucy, but as she had promised, it would not be often, and excellent practice for later on. Jean-Marie always assumed she would meet more women she might wish to add to her crew.. She paid careful attention to her young lover, and paced her own response, so that they arrived near orgasm at the same moment. As soon as she felt Lucy’s hips buck, she removed her hand, rolled Lucy onto her back and demanded, “Finish me, my sweet.”

Pinned, Lucy had no real choice. She whimpered pathetically into the kiss with which Jean-Marie sealed her mouth. Writhing, she pressed up not only with her hand, but her entire body, as though she could somehow achieve her own pleasure simultaneously with the Captain’s.

Knowing her partner’s desperation pushed Jean-Marie deep into orgasm, even more than the physical stimulation did, and she writhed in luxurious throes atop her slave. Lucy’s thrusting made Jean-Marie’s climax all the more intense. She reached down and held Lucy’s hand in place as she drove into the yielding body, coming with great, loud groans, again and again.

When she was done, she did not move over. Rather, Jean-Marie held Lucy as she was, legs apart and clit throbbing, and she kissed her tenderly. “I do enjoy it when you feel your pleasure through mine,” she reminded softly. “it increases the intensity of my climaxes. So I want you to want my orgasms, and ache for them, and enjoy them as much as you do your own. You are an excellent slave and a generous lover. I hope you will not mind this from time to time.”

Lucy clung to Jean-Marie. It was hard not to come, but not unbearable. In truth, when Jean-Marie came so hard, and practically in her pussy, Lucy’s clit had answered Susanna Valent

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with tiny, almost imperceptible shivers of delight. “For you, maitresse, I will do anything, if it pleases you,” Lucy sighed.

“It does, my Lucy, especially when you accept my demands with so much love,”

Jean-Marie said. Tears threatened to betray her feelings. Some slaves found this lesson very cruel. But her Lucy was not only resigned, she was happy.

“Of course I love you, Jean-Marie. You are ma capitaine,” Lucy said simply, and she took the pirate’s hand and kissed it.

Jean-Marie went to sleep satisfied in more ways than one.

* * * * *

Their last day in port ended with a dance competition in the big saloon. For this, all the pirates dressed in whatever finery pleased them most, and there was no formal parade into the room. Those who wished to see the dancing came early for good seats, or sent someone ahead to hold places for them. Thus it was not necessary for Captain St. Honore and Lucy to arrive until it was almost time for the contest. This was a very good thing because they had stopped off in a little grove between their ship and the town where Jean-Marie had had her way with her slave.

“Here, up against this palm,” Jean-Marie said, pushing Lucy out of the sight of prying eyes.

The Pirate Queen leaned back and dropped her drawers. She pulled Lucy close and demanded, “Do me.”

Held in the vise-like grip, Lucy could scarcely do anything else. Jean-Marie kissed her voraciously, her hands inside Lucy’s blouse, kneading her breasts. Lucy groaned against Jean-Marie as she stroked in and out of the hot, wet cunt.

“Down. Lick me,” Jean-Marie grunted.

They both fell to the sand and Lucy’s head was immediately pulled between strong thighs, where she licked the hardened bud frantically.

“Ah!” Jean-Marie groaned, all but doubling up as she came. With a sigh, she let go of Lucy’s head. “Clean me, and quickly, or we will be late.”

They slid in with the others from the Femme Fatale without any ceremony. No one noticed that Lucy’s face was flushed or that either woman was out of breath. They probably assumed the couple had run along the beach to get there on time.

The sailors enjoyed having their Captain sit with them on such occasions, and not only because she could be counted on to buy several bottles of rum The men studied Lucy surreptitiously, wondering how she managed to please the Captain so well so much of the time. To be sure she was beautiful, young and fresh, but that was not all. There was something else about her that made her special. The women in the crew knew; they had been the Captain’s slaves, too. But most of them had found that situation humiliating and were glad to move on up the pirate ranks. It never happened that any woman remained Captain St. Honore’s lover unless she continued Susanna Valent

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being her slave as well. The unrelenting submission they had been required to render was not something they would talk about with the men on the crew. But, if any woman could tolerate the rigors of the Captain’s bed indefinitely, then more power to her.

Under the table, Jean-Marie caressed Lucy’s leg. Lucy had her own evening’s pleasure before her, and she boldly grabbed Jean-Marie’s hand, turned it over and suggestively stroked the big palm. St. Honore’s eyebrow went up. “You shock me!” she cried in mock astonishment.

“Madame is far from shocked,” Lucy said sweetly. “Madame expects to be wanted, and to receive evidence of my desire.”

Jean-Marie favored Lucy with a look of amused tolerance. “We shall see. I find you most impertinent, Mademoiselle,” she said. But she left Lucy’s hand where it was, in hers, and squeezed it gently.

Lucy shivered in anticipation. She liked it when Jean-Marie threatened her just a little. It was all part of their play. Later that night, she could expect to be teased almost to madness, and then…Lucy almost wet herself again, thinking about it and had to stop before she lost control.

So far, the Femme Fatale had had few treasures to display on the beach, and they had won only one other contest. But tonight Michel and Rougie put on a blazing show that easily won the dance competition. Much gold exchanged hands in wagering, and Jean-Marie’s crew went back aboard richer than they had left. So all were in a good mood and looking forward to putting to sea. They had 24 hours to pass through one another’s territories, after which disputes must be resolved in battle, so every ship left port on the next outgoing tide.

Once they were at sea, Jean-Marie took her slave to bed. “You challenged me in the saloon, my little slut. What shall I do about that?”

“Use me, Madame,” Lucy suggested, lying back. She patted her chest. “Come, sit on my face, ma Capitaine. Let me love you.”

“No, that is too easy,” Jean-Marie said thoughtfully. “I know how to punish you.

Get out of my bed,” she ordered. “Kneel and eat me until I tell you to stop.”

This was nothing unusual and hardly punishment, but Lucy did not argue. She even moved the furniture to allow Jean-Marie to slide her butt off the bed to give Lucy full access, and then she gave her Captain the “fore and aft” attention that she liked best. Sliding her tongue deliberately in and out of both orifices, and thoroughly devouring Jean-Marie’s pounding clit, Lucy did her best to show not only love, but lack of fear.

Jean-Marie enjoyed this devotion so much that she almost could not bear to stop.

When Lucy entered her with her nipple and used her breast to caress her clit, Jean-Marie groaned lustily, abandoning herself to sensuous delight. Almost involuntarily, the pirate pressed back, trying to suck as much of the gorgeous globe of flesh into her as she possibly could. “Lucy…Lucy… ma Dieu!” she moaned, clutching the sheets in sweaty palms.

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But then the Pirate Queen remembered Lucy’s discipline, and she reluctantly eased Lucy out of her crotch. Sliding back up the bed just barely out of her slave’s reach, she spread her legs wide so that Lucy could easily observe the glistening pussy she had been loving with such abandon. “Watch, Lucy, and do not touch,” Jean-Marie ordered.

She was already panting. She had almost left it too late.

There, mere inches from Lucy’s nose, Jean-Marie began to pleasure herself. It was obviously not something she ever had to do, so there was no escaping this was being done only for a certain effect.

Lucy watched the long, graceful fingers sliding up and down the swollen clitoris, the puffy labia, all bathed with Jean-Marie’s glistening, delicious juices, and she began to whimper. “Please, Jean-Marie, let me do that,” she begged.

“Not…this time,” the pirate gasped.

“But, my Captain,” Lucy pleaded. “I so love to pleasure you!”

“I know, and that is why you may not share my orgasm with me. Oh…God…so good!” Jean-Marie moaned, rubbing faster and faster.

Lucy shut her eyes but then found she couldn’t keep from looking. “Oh, Jean-Marie!” she wailed, wanting to finish her lover. Her insides were twisted in knots, both of longing and anxiety from being kept from her lover. It seemed to Lucy that she had been kneeling on the floor forever, deprived of the ecstasy of pleasing her mistress.

“Oh, let me, please let me,” Lucy begged.

Jean-Marie’s backside lifted off the bed as she climaxed, and she rolled back and forth on the bed in ecstasy while her slave watched helplessly from the floor.

When Jean-Marie regained control of herself, she heard Lucy crying and sat up to see the young woman covering her face with both hands, tears squeezing between her fingers.

“I did not mean to anger you. I was only trying to excite you before, Jean-Marie,”

Lucy sobbed.

“Sacre bleu!” Jean-Marie sighed with exasperation. This one was very tender-hearted, to be sure! “Then you may make me come again. I did not know you would be so upset. Come, do it,” she invited, making room in the bed.

Lucy crept up, still weeping, and put her face in the still-hungry twat of the Captain. With earnest repentance, Lucy tongued her lover to another orgasm, which Jean-Marie was more than content to enjoy. Lucy’s eagerness and enjoyment increased with Jean-Marie’s response, and her tears ceased.

“Oh, Lucy, Lucy. I do not know what to do with you sometimes. You are not like any other woman I have ever had,” Jean-Marie crooned to her, stroking the long golden hair. “Now, come to me,” she urged. “I will have you.” She had meant to make the young woman kneel and masturbate to climax, but she no longer had the heart for it.

She positioned Lucy high in the bed, lay down between her legs, and slowly lavished her slave’s clit with all the love she knew how to show.

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Lucy felt it immediately. It was always good, when Jean-Marie did this to her, but this time she could feel the Captain’s remorse. “Oh, Jean-Marie, don’t worry. I will never stop loving you,” Lucy promised.

But worried or not, Jean-Marie saw to it that her slave came to her tongue until she begged for mercy. “Ma Capitaine, please. Please, I cannot take any more,” Lucy sobbed, but now it was with joy instead of sorrow.

“Good. I feel better, too,” St. Honore joked weakly, taking her place at Lucy’s side once again.

* * * * *

The Femme Fatale returned to her agreed-upon hunting grounds without incident, capturing and disposing of a laden trawler on the way. The catch was useless except for what the crew could quickly cook and salt. The ship was stripped clean of useful furnishings before it was scuttled.

“If it is smaller than we are, it is worth pursuing,” Jean-Marie said to Lucy, who was again washing laundry on her knees beneath the Captain’s awning.

Lucy was sure this was true, but she was glad to be clear of the trawler, which stank to high heaven. She’d never smelled anything so wretched in her short life. And she couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Her imagination, it turned out, had been woefully inadequate. The next day, off the southernmost reaches of the Bahamas, they sighted a small vessel.

“Ma Capitaine, what is it?” Lucy asked, horrified by the nauseatingly foul stench carried on the sea breeze as they approached.

St. Honore shook her head with disgust. “It is a guano boat. We must take it now, because they have seen us. They will return here to our grounds again and again. Soon they will understand we are pirates, and we could be reported. Bah!” she spat, and reluctantly gave the order to overtake the white-coated, foul thing. “An extra ration of rum to all who board her!”

“Guano?” Lucy panted, trying to breathe through her mouth.

“Bird droppings. For fertilizer. Quite profitable but highly undesirable, socially speaking,” Jean-Marie explained. “They harvest these rocky islets. They are like a rookery. It is vile. If nothing else, it will be a pleasure to burn the damned thing.”

With a sigh Jean-Marie put her spyglass aside. “Get my oldest and most worn clothing out, Lucy. I must set the example. I will come back quite naked, I assure you.”

“O ui, ma Capitaine,” Lucy said, thankful to be able to go below.

The repulsive little boat put up no resistance. No sailors came on deck to repel boarders, no one shot at them. The guano ship neither hove to, nor did it bend on sail, and as soon as the two were grappled together, Jean-Marie found out why. Huddled in the main cabin were two young women. Twins by the looks of them, they shrank into a corner beside the body of an old man. As soon as the pirates burst it, they wailed with Susanna Valent

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terror. In the hold was a young black man in chains. He was brought topside by two sailors, who spent the next five minutes losing their last meal over the side.

In the cabin, one of the women babbled to the apparent savages who stormed the tiny vessel, “Our father. He just died. Do not kill us! We are helpless! Just let us go! We have nothing!”

The other one looked at the pirates sulkily. “How could our misfortune get any worse? We live on a guano boat, our father dies, we are adrift, and then pirates capture us. Now you will rape us. What a fitting end.”

The first one screeched, “How can you joke? We are as good as dead? You are an ass!”

Twin number one just rolled her eyes, preparing to meet her fate.

But of course, none of these pirates were likely to rape any young women. The captives soon found this out when dragged on deck before Jean-Marie St. Honore.

“Good God, you stink!” The pirate announced. “Or is it this wretched ship?”

Turning to her mate she asked, “Is there anything worth saving?”

“Scarcely, Madame,” Marcel answered, trying not to retch. He reported what they had found thus far. Some clothing. A hold full of bird shit. Shovels, picks, a small sack of coins. Oil for lamps. Bread and dried fish.”

“Well, whatever does not stink, such as gold or jewelry, take it, set this thing alight and let us go.” She asked the twins, “Do you wish to leave your father’s body aboard, or weight it and put it over the side?”

They looked at her, dazed and confused. One was wetting herself with terror, the other was resigned and apathetic. This one, the darker twin squinted at her and asked,

“Who are you? I thought you were pirates.”

“We are. You will soon find out exactly how bloodthirsty and ruthless we can be,”

she promised. “Very well, hold the prisoners on deck and clean them up before you put them in the brig,” St. Honore ordered. “Before the rum is handed out, we must all have a bath. Now, get us out of here.” At that, all of the crew who had boarded stripped bare and threw their clothing onto the guano boat, which was set on fire.

Standing naked on her own deck, Jean-Marie then looked at the young black man, who had been pushed to his knees at her feet. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Moses,” he mumbled.

“You are a slave?” she inquired.

He nodded dully.

Jean-Marie noted the healed lash marks on his back and shook her head. “You may stay and be my slave for two years, and live by our customs, or you will go over the side. Can you swim?”

He shook his head.

“Answer carefully, then,” St. Honore advised.

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Moses considered. “I’ll stay.”

“Good. You will not touch the women. If you do, they will cut off anything they do not like. What you do with the men is between you and them. Take a bath.” With that Jean-Marie summoned the bo’sun to see to Moses. As far as she was concerned, he was now part of her crew.

In short order, the Femme Fatale headed for a nearby cove. There they anchored and took care of their hygiene needs. They wanted only to put the incident of the ugly boat behind them, and enjoy their ration of rum.

Although Moses was only too happy to wash himself, the two young women, Americans from the deep South by their accents, were strangers to regular bathing. The crew soon found themselves in a merry chase along the beach until the sisters were tackled, stripped and scrubbed. Then they were trussed and dumped in the sand before St. Honore, who was being thoroughly toweling off by Lucy.

Jean-Marie yanked their heads back by their hair and looked in their mouths. She shook her head. “Make them clean their teeth and nails, and trim this hair up a bit. I would say to shave it off, but more washing should solve most of the problem. Then show me again.” She turned her back as the sisters were dragged off, kicking and screaming.

Lucy looked up at her mistress. “What will you do with them?”

Jean-Marie looked down at Lucy. “Train them. But not now. Go find a shady spot and dig a hole. Be quick.” She winked and Lucy hustled to obey her lover.

After examining her new slaves again, Jean-Marie, a bottle of rum in hand, wandered to the grove where Lucy was working. “Here,” she said, squatting to hand Lucy the bottle. “It will relieve the stench in your mouth. But do not drink too much. It is hot.”

Lucy took a short swig, as directed, and handed the bottle back. Jean-Marie corked it and jumped into the hole. “I will finish. I do not want you too tired to serve me.”

Lucy smiled and slipped out of her clothing while she waited. Soon she was under her mistress in the cool sand, tasting a sweetness which more than overwhelmed their recent encounter on the sea. Jean-Marie writhed on her back, eyes shut in concentration, moaning as Lucy devoured her sex.

“Ah, ma cherie, you are so good,” the pirate sighed when she was done. She rolled away and helped Lucy out of the pit. “Come here. Do you like doing that?” she asked, gently brushing sand from her lover’s cheeks.

“Madame, I enjoy doing everything that you want,” Lucy answered honestly. She could have added, “even waiting,” although she did not. She knew Jean-Marie well enough not to give her any ideas about additional deprivation. As it was, Lucy was trembling with want and slightly concerned about Jean-Marie’s interest in the twins.

Lucy’s legs were coated with moisture from the intensity of her needs.

“Everything?” Jean-Marie asked with a kiss, a kiss designed to tease and inflame her already-excited slave.

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“Of course,” Lucy groaned. “Anything.”

Jean-Marie rose gracefully and pulled Lucy with her. ”Let us see how willing you are,” the Captain said, leading Lucy into the water.

Soon the young slave was on her back. The Captain’s hand was busy between her legs, their lips were merged. Even this, however, this did not stifle Lucy’s groans of desire and pleas for mercy.

“Madame le Capitaine, s’il vous plaît,” Lucy whimpered as the pirate drove her to the verge of climax and held her there.

“You said you would do anything to please me?” Jean-Marie reminded her. She stroked gently, and regularly, but just a trifle too slowly for Lucy to come.

“You drive me mad, but yes!” Lucy promised.

“Then you will not mind when I begin the training of my new slaves in bed,” Jean-Marie said smoothly, bringing her to climax with three powerful strokes.

Lucy’s body thrashed in pleasure as her mind struggled to grasp what her captain had said. Jean-Marie would be taking the new women as lovers, and soon!

As soon as she was done coming, Lucy began to weep in Jean-Marie’s arms. This was nothing the older woman had not anticipated.

“Shhhh, my Lucy, this does not mean I do not love you. You are my one and only true love, you should know that by now,” Jean-Marie comforted her as she held her young lover in the water.

“Then why do you want more lovers?” Lucy sobbed.

The pirate shook her head. “I do not want lovers as such. But I must train these girls to be part of the crew for as long as they are with us. I must make them bond with me and be devoted to me, even as the rest of you are. If they have not yet experienced physical love, it will happen very soon. They will thus be grateful, obedient and willing.

On the other hand, if they have been with men, this will amaze and thrill them.

Eventually, when they are bonded with me, I will let them go into the crew.”

“You will…make love with them instead of with me?” Lucy asked, understandably bewildered. “Where will I sleep? Who will take care of you?”

“I will make time for you every day. You will sleep with me when I am done with them. They will do the daily duties you may no longer wish to do. Would you not prefer to rest in the shade while they do my laundry, hmmmm?” Jean-Marie cajoled, her arm around Lucy’s waist as they went back to the beach together.

“And must I watch you or listen to you with them while I long for you? The crew will pity me, and I will be lonely. Why cannot the crew have them now? Jean-Marie, I want to be with you!” Lucy wailed, falling to her knees in the sand at Jean-Marie’s feet.

“Please, Jean-Marie, what have I done? Let me be your slave forever! I love you!” She threw her arms around Jean-Marie’s waist and wept like a child.

Jean-Marie’s heart ached, and she stroked Lucy’s hair to comfort her, but she held firm. “Because they must give me their loyalty. When I have initiated them, and have Susanna Valent

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given them discipline along with kindness, then they will be faithful to me and the ship.

This cannot happen without intimacy. It does not mean you are not my lover. You are, and you may always be, if you wish it. But from time to time, when a woman is captured, this must be done. Now come, and I will show you how good it may be for both of us. But you must trust and obey me, or I will let you go into the crew, and you will serve me as a sailor only. It is your choice.”

Lucy looked up into her owner’s eyes. She saw love, but also resolve, and she knew she would not sway her lover in this matter. “Don’t send me away, Maitresse,” she whispered, defeated.

Jean-Marie stooped and gently raised her slave, drawing her into a warm embrace.

“I will not. Never think that.” Bending again, she picked up the shovel and took Lucy firmly by the hand. “You belong to me. I am responsible for you. I will not break your heart.”

* * * * *

The twins, now clean from head to toe, knelt bound on the floor of the Captain’s cabin. The surly looks on their faces told Jean-Marie everything she needed to know.

“The sooner you accept your situation, the better we will all like it,” she told them in her accented English.

The one with the blond hair turned to Lucy. “What does this madwoman want?”

she hissed.

Jean-Marie bent and slapped her across the face. “Kindly address your remarks to me, my little slut. My English is as good as yours, besides which, I have yet to hear you speak a word of French.”

“Take me to the real captain, then!” the darker one demanded boldly. “I won’t be handled this way by any woman.”

Lucy laughed. “You would prefer to be beaten and raped by a man? You don’t know how lucky you are. This is the Captain, as you have been told several times. If you do not show her the proper respect, I will beat you myself.”

“Why do you help her?” the other twin demanded.

Lucy looked at Jean-Marie who nodded.

“Because she freed me, and she protects me, and I am happy,” Lucy snarled. “Now stop resisting your fate or she will chop you up for bait!”

Jean-Marie watched with amused approval. She had never tried this tactic before, but she had never had sullen twins before, either, nor a lover so eager to remain her slave.

The twins said nothing, not wanting to be slapped again, and Jean-Marie took this for a good sign. “Now pay attention, young ladies, and Lucy will show you what is expected of you. You will have lessons every day in pleasing me, and you will also Susanna Valent

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complete tasks for me under Lucy’s supervision. If you learn and obey well, you will earn limited freedom on my ship. If not, it is a long swim to Florida.”

“Why can’t you untie us?” demanded the blonde one, squirming. “We won’t do anything.”

“You have yet to earn trust,” Jean-Marie said. “Lucy?” she patted the bed, and Lucy went to her, falling down with St. Honore in a passionate embrace. Soon their clothing littered the floor and they joined in a frenzy of pleasure calculated to drive any onlooker mad with lust.

The twins were not just any onlookers, though. They were far less informed than even Lucy had been, and they began to try to escape from the room, still bound hand and foot, screeching and shouting for help. Jean-Marie looked at Lucy, and they laughed, and resumed their love-making. Unless Jean-Marie called for assistance, no one would heed the screaming of the twins.

Lucy was excited about being watched. This was a chance to get even with the twins for taking Jean-Marie’s attention away from her. If it made them wild with desire, so much the better. They would never take Lucy’s place, Jean-Marie had promised.

So, if Lucy could not have Jean-Marie exclusively for the next little while, she was determined to make the Captain realize that no one else could love her more. If the Captain wished to train the twins by example, Lucy was happy to do her part. She dove into Jean-Marie’s pussy and devoured her wetness. Jean-Marie arched to meet her and increase the pressure of the assault. Both women groaned, oblivious to the twins who were pressed up against the door and hollering to get out.

Jean-Marie had no intention of releasing them anytime soon, however. She usually took on only one new woman at a time, but with two, even she needed help. This was another reason for Lucy’s presence and participation. If both twins struggled at once, the cabin would be a shambles even though the Captain would surely prevail.

Jean-Marie would normally not even bother with anyone as resistant to training as these two were bound to be. They would long since have joined their father in a watery grave. But Jean-Marie had never had twins, and these two, Georgette and Loretta, had cleaned up pretty well. Their hair, now washed, was long and shiny. They were only missing one or two teeth each, and their complexions, now that they could be seen, were fresh and clear. They didn’t have Lucy’s delicate bone structure, nor her innocent sweetness, but had Jean-Marie never met Lucy, these two would have seemed quite the prize. Even so, if she could gain their cooperation and loyalty, having them all at once would make her the talk of the Caribbean!

However, to Jean-Marie, this was only a passing fancy. Once she had these sisters under control, she would dismiss them and give her undivided attention to Lucy once again. With this in mind, she murmured to Lucy, “Get down.” She was enjoying showing off for these recalcitrant young women.

Lucy scrambled to the floor and Jean-Marie flung her long legs over Lucy’s shoulders, lifting her hips and thrusting at once, making Lucy take the full burden of Susanna Valent

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her weight as well as her passion. Grunting with the effort, Lucy drove deeply into her mistress, squirting as Jean-Marie rubbed her pussy all over her face, hard. “Madame, have mercy,” she moaned through the mouthful of succulent flesh she was enjoying.

“Of course I will have mercy. I will come all over you,” Jean-Marie promised, stifling her amusement at Lucy’s exaggerated submission, which she knew was calculated to demonstrate to the twins what was expected of them. And she also guessed that it was Lucy’s intention to show as much respect and affection as she could, to keep the Captain’s attentions for herself.

The twins hid their faces from what was going on, although they couldn’t help but hear the women’s ecstasy, and they were forced to inhale the musk of the two lovers as well. They shuddered together, trapped. Georgette struggled not to look at all. Loretta, though, who had defined herself as a cynic from the moment the pirates boarded the guano boat, kept one eye open, just to be sure she missed nothing.

Jean-Marie howled in pleasure as her climax burst from her. “More!” she demanded. She wasn’t usually this blatant. Lucy knew exactly what her Captain wanted and complied fully, all the time. It was just more calculated effort with Georgette and Loretta in mind.

Lucy kept licking and sucking her lover with complete devotion, moaning loudly as she did it, and it really was not an act. She loved Jean-Marie, loved making love to her, and wanted desperately to be touched in return. And she would be, this very hour, because the twins also had to see there was something in it for the slave as well as the mistress.

Eventually, Jean-Marie was sated. “Lucy, my sweet, come up here beside me,” she murmured, holding out her hand to her slave.

Panting eagerly, Lucy complied. Jean-Marie put Lucy on her back and maneuvered her so that the twins could look right up into her pussy. Then she got out of bed and hauled them to the foot of it.

“Now, you will play close attention, unless you would like me to carve my initials on your tits!” Jean-Marie snarled at her captives. Then she hopped back in bed with Lucy, and began to kiss her deeply and stroke her lightly at the same time.

“Ah! Oh, Jean-Marie,” Lucy moaned, her hips gyrating in search of the Captain’s elusive fingers.

“You want it?” Jean-Marie whispered over her lover’s lips, nipping, nibbling, teasing, but never losing her place in Lucy’s sopping slit.

“Jean-Marie, please, I need you, ma Capitaine,” Lucy begged shamelessly.

“Then get it,” the Captain ordered, raising her hand a few millimeters. This had the effect of forcing Lucy to raise herself off the bed trying to maintain contact, and soon she was panting with exhaustion, too weary even to whimper.

“See? You cannot get it yourself unless I let you,” Jean-Marie said, much more for the twins’ benefit than for Lucy’s. “So you must wait for me to give it to you. And for that to happen, you must be very good indeed.” Thus Jean-Marie ended her sermon, Susanna Valent

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and she lowered both lips and fingers to the places where Lucy needed them. With a few moist, squishy strokes, she brought her lover off, pleasuring her repeatedly until the young woman sagged bonelessly in her arms, tears of happiness erasing all memories of previous discomfort.

Jean-Marie glanced down at her unwilling pupils, who were staring slack-jawed at the spectacle of two lovely women in love. “Well?” she prompted.

“Uh, I don’t know if I can do that,” Georgette finally said.

“You can, and you will,” the Pirate Queen assured her.

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Chapter Ten

With an iron grip, Jean-Marie imprisoned the head of her unwilling acolyte, Georgette, between her legs. “You must be more careful and not in such a rush,” she admonished. She turned to Lucy, who was lying at her side, and shared a long, lazy kiss. “You may have to finish,” she joked to her slave.

“Gladly, Madame,” Lucy agreed. She shuddered and pressed herself against the Captain. Never had she thought she would wish to see another woman pleasure her lover, but she found it intensely stimulating. Still, she knew enough by now not to share this nugget with Jean-Marie. Instead, she let Jean-Marie think it was jealousy that drove her to such passion, and submission that forced her to tolerate the so-called “training”

of the twins.

On the floor, Loretta awaited her turn. She was a bit more eager, and had earned her first orgasm the previous night. But neither of them could have been called accomplished. Part of the problem was that they had to service Jean-Marie while kneeling on the floor, hands bound behind their backs. This was a safety precaution as well as a form of discipline. The Captain did not permit them to use their hands to pleasure her, nor would she kiss them except when they were coming. For kissing and other forms of stimulation, Jean-Marie had Lucy, and she was discovering for the first time the enjoyment of being kissed by one woman as another went down on her. Had she been loved by all of them, it might have been even richer, but none of them had any delusions about that. Like most of her slaves before, Georgette and Loretta were anxious to serve their time and leave the sexual demands, head-scrubbing and clothes-washing behind. Jean-Marie had yet to tell them there would always be laundry. Lucy had earned her freedom from that, although the responsibility for the cleanliness of the Captain’s cabin would revert to her with the departure of the twins.

“Slow down,” St. Honore ordered, rapping Georgette’s skull. “Good God, woman, do you not wish to ever come yourself?”

Georgette grunted and Lucy giggled. Georgette was all speed and no direction, and St. Honore had kicked them out, back to the brig, three nights in a row. Finally Loretta had gotten the hang of it the night before. Watching Jean-Marie bestow an orgasm on the panting young woman, kneeling and still trussed like a hog, had been hard on Lucy at first. Loretta, had not, however, learned enough about kissing a woman yet, and she had not been invited to spend the night. After the bo’sun and his mate had hauled the prisoners below, Jean-Marie had made love to Lucy slowly and intensely, as if no one else existed in the entire world, and as if Jean-Marie had not come on another woman’s face moments earlier.

The Captain was especially attentive, and permitted Lucy several orgasms, as if to compensate her for whatever she was losing while the twins were being trained. And because Jean-Marie was so gentle and generous, Lucy found herself less inclined to sulk and mope. If she were good, she hoped, Jean-Marie would continue to be good, too.

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“Arrgghhhh, Georgette, that is enough. Lucy, pull Georgette out and put Loretta in,” Jean-Marie said, giving up in exasperation.

Lucy hopped up and did as she was bid, anxious to salvage what remained of the evening.

As Loretta began to lick the Captain out, St. Honore pulled Lucy close again. “I want to be kissing you when I come,” she murmured.

“Oui, ma Capitaine,” Lucy breathed, so excited herself that she did not trust her voice.

Jean-Marie took note of this and began to stroke Lucy’s nipples gently with her fingertips. “You wish to come also, do you not?”

Lucy’s answer was a moan.

“Patience,” Jean-Marie advised, and then she entered Lucy’s lips with her tongue, deft and teasing, until Lucy was tied in knots of need.

Loretta, having remembered the Captain’s requirements from the previous evening, applied herself with diligence. Jean-Marie looked down at her kneeling slave, and nodded. “Very good. You have not forgotten. Uh…oh…that is good,” she encouraged with a sigh, lying back again. She twisted languorously on the bed, keeping Lucy close and enjoying her tender lips. “Incredible,” she whispered.

Lucy could only guess, yet she did not want to know. What she really wanted was to feel Jean-Marie come, to have the twins leave, and to then pleasure the Captain herself. She didn’t envy the twins their time with the Captain; they squandered it and hardly appreciated it. But seeing Jean-Marie use them, feeling her use them, drove Lucy insane with need. She enjoyed it, but she also wanted Jean-Marie more than ever. The big Frenchwoman, her long lean flanks glistening with a light sheen of perspiration, glowed in the lamplight, and Lucy wanted nothing more than to lick her all over her body.

Jean-Marie stiffened with anticipation of her orgasm, and Loretta, sensing this was a good thing, pressed her face in and attacked the tiny, hard bud with enthusiasm, knowing now what happened next. If she was good.

With a gasp, Jean-Marie climaxed on Loretta, but the young woman continued licking as she had been taught. At the same time, Lucy also gasped. The sensation of Jean-Marie coming in her arms, even though another woman was licking her, was incredible. It had to be experienced to be believed. Lucy peppered Jean-Marie with passionate kisses as the pirate writhed in ecstasy. She dripped honey on the Captain’s leg in her frenzy to join with her, and then she licked it up, even as Jean-Marie’s orgasm rolled through her.

Soon, Jean-Marie gently stopped Loretta. “No, that is enough for now. You have done well.” She sat up and patted the panting slave lightly on her cheek, and lightly kissed her forehead. “You have earned your reward.” Sitting on the edge of her bed, she pushed Loretta’s legs apart and began to caress the wet, slick folds. “Pay attention, Susanna Valent

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Georgette,” Jean-Marie advised her other slave who was lying sullenly on the floor. “If you wish to come, you will follow your sister’s example.”

Loretta was trembling and whimpering on her knees now, pressing against Jean-Marie’s hand. The Captain grinned at her. “Yes, I know,” she whispered, holding her close. “Now you have had a taste, you always want it, hmmmm?”

“S’il vous plaît, ma Capitaine,” Loretta groaned, and then she jerked uncontrollably as she came, on her knees, on the floor, as every slave except Lucy had come at one time or another, before they earned entry into the Captain’s bed.

“Ah, you please me when you learn a little of my language,” Jean-Marie said, releasing Loretta to fall at her feet.

Lucy lay tensely on the bed, wanting her lover very badly. Her clit was a hot coal between her legs, but she wanted no one but Jean-Marie to know that.

“Lucy, call the bo’sun,” Jean-Marie ordered with a yawn. “I want to be alone with you.”

In the meantime, Loretta struggled back to her knees. When Jean-Marie turned toward her again, she kissed the pirate’s hand humbly and said , “Merci beaucoup, ma Capitaine.”

Jean-Marie shared a triumphant smile with Lucy. “You see? What did I tell you?”

Lucy nodded. This was something she understood perfectly, and it was fine, as long as she was not replaced in the Captain’s affections.

As soon as the slaves were hauled away with admonitions not to play with themselves ringing in their ears, Jean-Marie returned to her bed. Looking down at Lucy fondly, she invited, “Clean me up before you put your face in my pussy. I can wait. You are worth it.”

Lucy smiled up at her lover and went for a warm cloth, but when she returned to the bed, she asked, “Why did you not tie me up to train me, ma Capitaine?”

“Because you were sweet and gentle and happy to be rescued from your former life,” Jean-Marie said, tracing Lucy’s features gently with a fingertip. “There was no need.”

“Then, you do not find it…exciting, to have a woman on her knees, unable to do anything but pleasure you?” Lucy asked, all innocence.

“Yes, it can be, but I…“ St. Honore’s eyes narrowed. “Ah! I see. You find it exciting, is that it? You wish me to tie you up, my saucy little wench?”

Lucy blushed furiously, but she said, “I would not mind it if it pleases you, Jean-Marie.”

“Well, in that case, I would not mind, either. Get me a pretty silk scarf. Only the best for my English rose,” Jean-Marie directed, grinning.

Lucy jumped out of bed, eager to hide her beet-red face from her owner for a moment. Returning to Jean-Marie, she knelt on the floor and offered up her wrists and the scarf.

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Jean-Marie smiled down at her. “You surprise me again and again,” she remarked, turning Lucy around and winding the scarf to secure her wrists. She also put a pillow down to ease the discomfort of kneeling on the wooden planks, something she did not do with her resistant twins.

“Now, that is a very pretty picture,” Jean-Marie said as she slid down the bed and into Lucy’s eager mouth. “Very pretty indeed.”

Although Lucy had knelt many times to make love to Jean-Marie, she had always been able to touch her, and this had given her some measure of stability, control and freedom. Now all that was taken away, and Lucy had her first real glimpse into absolute slavery. Jean-Marie had even more control than before, and she used it to excite her slave, pulling back to make Lucy chase her pussy as far as she could reach, then pressing firmly against her face until she had to lean back to breathe. Then Jean-Marie locked Lucy’s head in place, and nothing could have freed the younger woman from the strength of those thighs. Lucy found the center of Jean-Marie’s pleasure and paid homage with eager, well-placed strokes of her tongue. Jean-Marie then convulsed in orgasm, filling Lucy with sensations of need and dependence that amazed her. She sank down, gasping, when Jean-Marie was done, and waited silently.

“Did you like it?” Jean-Marie wanted to know. She reached down and felt between her slave’s legs. “Yes, I see that you did. But you were frightened, no?”

“A little,” Lucy admitted. “But it made me want you even more.”

“It does not work that way for Georgette, I assure you,” Jean-Marie said with a smile. “Let me help you up.”

“No, Jean-Marie. This way,” Lucy begged. She had seen Loretta this way twice, and she wanted it, too.

“Ah?” Jean-Marie raised an eyebrow. “Very well, slave. Take your reward on your knees then,” she commanded, playing along with Lucy’s fantasy.

Lucy sighed and leaned on her lover, bouncing up and down on her knees against the questing, expert fingers. “Ohhhh, touch me,” Lucy implored, her eyes closed in bliss. “Please, Jean-Marie.”

“Yes, little love, I am here,” Jean-Marie reassured her, stroking deeply and tenderly, understanding what Lucy wanted. Soon her lover’s cries told the Captain she was close, and she bent and kissed Lucy as she came, crying out her name again and again.

Jean-Marie let Lucy lean there for a moment, but then she boosted her into the bed and removed the scarf that tied her hands. “Let me clean you up, my sweet,” she murmured. With that she slid under Lucy and had her delectable, brimming pussy until the happy Englishwoman was again screaming with pleasure, caressing Jean-Marie’s head and neck and all but sobbing with relief.

“Jean-Marie, I love you so,” Lucy hicupped, trying to get herself composed.

“I love you, too, and I hope they heard us down in the brig,” Jean-Marie responded, drawing Lucy close. “And remember this well, Lucy; although I may require them to pleasure me for their training, all of my feelings are reserved for you. The sooner they Susanna Valent

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learn and accept what has happened to them, the sooner it will be just the two of us again, I promise.”

“It’s all right, Jean-Marie,” Lucy murmured drowsily. “I trust you, ma Capitaine.”

* * * * *

It was the very next day that they came across a small galleon, stranded on a reef where it had run aground. Normally, this ship’s armament and complement of soldiers would have been too much for the Femme Fatale, but stuck as she was, she could not bring all of her weapons to bear on the pirate ship. Not only could the ship not be turned, but it was impossible to control the attitude of the cannons. They could not be swiveled, raised or depressed enough to fire on the sloop unless St. Honore brought them in too close at the wrong angle. As soon as the Captain had that figured out, she stood off and took down the galleon’s masts with chain and canister shot, and allowed her snipers to pick off the crew at leisure. Sensing their doom, many of the sailors, along with a group of soldiers, jumped over the side nearest the shore around the island which the reef protected. As usual, Jean-Marie did not pursue them, preferring to let nature take its course.

By the time they boarded the galleon, only a handful of sailors including the captain, were left.

“St. Honore!” he gasped as she jumped to the deck. Every Caribbean captain knew the legend of the Pirate Queen. There was no other six-foot, blonde Frenchwoman on the high seas.

“Say your prayers,” she responded, advancing.

He dropped to his knees. ”No please, Madame,” he began to beg. “I have a family…”

But she stepped behind him and sent his head flying over the side. “Had,” she corrected, heaving the body after it. She looked across at the twins, who were lashed to one of her own masts where they could see, but not interfere with, the seizure of the galleon.

As they gaped with horror, Jean-Marie turned to where the last two Spanish sailors had been rounded up. “Pay attention,” she called over to the twins, and then as soon as they finished babbling their “Our Fathers,” she neatly finished them off.

She handed her sword to Michel and let him wipe it off, then went back to her own ship and spoke to her slaves. “I warn you again, be cooperative. It will keep you alive.”

They looked up at her, white-faced and speechless.

“Well?”

“Oui, Capitaine,” they chorused.

She nodded, satisfied. “Good.”

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ship had been travelling with a convoy, began to leak and headed for an island to make repairs. On the way, she had foundered on the reef where the Femme Fatale had taken them

The holds, it turned out, were crammed with gold. True, it was a tiny ship, and carried less than a tenth of the value of the entire expedition, but even so, it was more wealth than St. Honore and her crew had ever dreamed of.

Jean-Marie had to supervise this for herself. “We are rich,” she gasped, squeezing Lucy’s hand.

“What shall we do?” Lucy wanted to know. “How can we sell it?”

“There are ways,” Jean-Marie said. “But we must leave this area immediately, as they may come looking for us.” She raised her voice and gave several quick commands, and the sailors moved urgently to finish their work and scuttle the galleon.

“Hurry, hurry,” Jean-Marie ordered, an eye on the sky. “I want to be well away from here by dark. Do not burn her, but hole her with shot. I do not want a column of smoke marking this reef. With any luck the tide will lift her and she will sink.”

Everyone raced to obey and soon they were away on the wind, making as much speed as they could despite their heavy cargo. “It does not matter where we go right now, as long as we go far,” Jean-Marie told her crew. “With this money, we can stop pirating if we wish. I will not argue with anyone who wishes to leave the crew.”

“What now, though, Captain? Where will we sell this booty?” Claude asked.

“We must take it to Port Royal eventually and sell it through, shall we say, certain merchants? This may cut into the profits, but if we try to dispose of it ourselves, we will be caught, or we will have nothing. What do the rest of you think?” she asked.

They turned to one another in animated discussion as their Captain waited patiently with Lucy.

“Will you give the twins a share?” Lucy wanted to know.

“I will give them enough to buy passage back to their God-forsaken Georgia, or anywhere else they wish,” Jean-Marie decided. “They have earned nothing else yet.”

Lucy felt sorry for them but forbore to say anything further, lest she anger her mistress. Besides, she thought I will soon have Jean-Marie all to herself again because of it, so why argue?

Jean-Marie listened to the various discussions, consulted with her mates, and announced her decision. “We will not go immediately to Port Royal. This is what might be expected by any authorities who come looking for the ship, and then for us. We have enough supplies now so we will lay low for a time, and fish. Let a month or two go by.

Then we can go into port and sell some pieces off. If it arouses suspicion, those of us who wish to do so can leave and hide again, or go to Freeport. And we will seize no more ships. Once in Port Royal, those who wish to remain pirates can find new berths.”

As they went below, Lucy asked Jean-Marie, “What will you do?”

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“I? You mean we, do you not, English rose? Will you not come and live with me always?” Jean-Marie asked.

“You once said you would always be a pirate, because there is nothing else a woman can do.” Lucy reminded her.

“Yes, because I had thought I must always earn my living somehow. This is enough money to last us both forever, especially combined with what is on account for us in the banks. We will sell a few pieces now and keep the rest for when we need it,” she explained sitting down so Lucy could remove her boots.

“And where will we live, and how can we avoid being noticed that we are two women without a man and no means of support?” Lucy wanted to know.

“I cannot answer all these questions at once!” Jean-Marie laughed. “I can barely understand what has just happened to all of us. There is much to consider, and we will do it together. Now, get my dinner, and then I will have the twins. Perhaps tonight Georgette will also have something to celebrate.”

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Chapter Eleven

The Captain lounged in her hammock on the quarterdeck, reading under her awning as the Femme Fatale sped southeast, deeper into the Caribbean, away from Cuba, away from major shipping lanes. On the deck below Jean-Marie, on an old rug, Lucy also reclined in the shade, keeping an eye on the twins who were laboring over a pair of laundry tubs in the sun. It’s not fair, she thought. Even though I am no longer doing it, there are two of them. Perhaps we should change the sheets every day!

They had made no stops, and, except for the vagaries of the wind, worked their way steadily east along the northern coast of Hispaniola. They planned to hide in the Antilles for two months until it was safe to return to Port Royal. There were plenty of islets and coves where they could fish, take on water and fruit, and make themselves scarce.

The lookouts were in the crow’s nests, not to find ships to plunder, but to look out for Spanish naval vessels. And this was fortunate, because it gave them the time they needed when the frigate spotted them.

“Damn!” Jean-Marie spat, throwing her book aside. She grabbed up her spyglass.

“They have much more sail than we do. We cannot outfight them, and we may not be able to outrun them. We are weighed down by the gold.”

“But, Madame,” Lucy said, eyes wide. “Why should they chase us?”

“They will chase anyone now, if they know of the missing galleon. For all we know, this was part of their escort. If they were smart, or we were unlucky, they may have figured out we are the ones.” She sent the twins back to the brig and turned to Lucy.

“Come below.”

Lucy’s heart pounded in her chest.

“Listen to me,” Jean-Marie said, pulling Lucy down on the bed beside her. “We have little time. They could catch us in an hour or a day, depending on wind. If we are taken, here is what you must do—“

Lucy burst into tears. “They will kill you!”

Jean-Marie nodded. “Yes, they will. And you must not try to stop them! You must put on your oldest dress, from England, and you will be locked in here, and when they find you, you must say you were my unwilling prisoner. Then they will not hang you. I will tell the crew this also, and none of you must speak any English. If you do, they will get a translation from the twins, and they will betray you. Let them send you to an English possession, and get a job as a governess. Wear as much jewelry as you can, and hide more on you. This will give you some safety and comfort.”

“No, Jean-Marie!” Lucy sobbed, and threw herself into her lover’s arms.

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loot and put it on! I insist!” She tried to smile. “This instant! Lucy,” she touched her lover’s cheek, “You must live. For me.”

“Please come back,” Lucy pleaded. “Please. I beg you, ma Capitaine.”

“I will come once more before they board us, if it comes to that. I give you my word.” Then she was gone to instruct the crew. Gathering them, she explained that she wanted to save as many as she could. “Tell stories of being pressed into my service against your will,” she suggested. She hoped she could thus save the youngest and the newest from the hangman’s noose.

Left to herself, Lucy also made preparations. She took two more dresses and fistfuls of gold chains to the twins in the brig. “Put these on,” she said. “If we are taken, you will be treated as freed prisoners. Goodness knows where they will take you, or send you. These will provide you a little money to get home.” She watched anxiously as they dressed, listening for sounds overhead. The whole ship strained before the wind, but Lucy was prepared for the worst already.

Loretta asked. “What will happen if they catch us?”

Lucy shook her head. “They will hang the Captain and the mates, and as many others as they find guilty. They may spare the doctor and some like Jacob and Moses, and of course, you and me. If they find out I was her willing lover, though, they will kill me, too. I have been a sniper for some months. You have seen me shoot.” She sighed. “It is up to you. They will certainly not speak English. If you find a way to tell the truth, they will kill us all, all but you, that is. I wish you luck.” With that, she picked up her skirts and raced back to Jean-Marie’s cabin to be with her again for as long as they had left.

Alone, Lucy curled on the bed and buried her face in Jean-Marie’s pillow. She wanted to inhale and absorb as much of her lover as she could before they were parted forever by the Spanish navy and death. Sobbing quietly, Lucy was startled at the sound of cannon fire, and then Jean-Marie burst in.

“Lucy, I must fight for the ship now, and I cannot come back,” Jean-Marie said, gathering Lucy close for a last embrace. This was made difficult by the pistol-belts and knives festooning the pirate.

Lucy didn’t care, holding on to her Captain with all her strength. “Let me fight with you! Let me die with you! I do not want to live without you!”

“Lucy, no. Now be good, and do all that I have said. I can’t die well unless I know that you will live. You have a future without me. Kiss me, and let me go.” She remembered Lucy’s religion and added, “I will be waiting for you in heaven. I promise.”

“Jean-Marie!” Lucy wailed, torn to shreds by loss and terror.

“My beloved,” Jean-Marie whispered, holding her tight. “Be brave, but do not look up when they bring you out,” she said, not wanting Lucy to see her body swinging from a yardarm. She kissed Lucy roughly one last time, and then she was out the door, stopping only to bar Lucy against the dangers which awaited her.

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Lucy collapsed to the deck in paroxysms of grief, oblivious to the cannon, the coming together of the ships, the popping of small arms, the clash of metal on metal.

Finally horrible shrieks of pain and death pierced Lucy’s grief-fogged mind. She could even tell which one had been Jean-Marie, but she was glad. She did not want to know.

She wanted her final image of her pirate to be as brave, handsome and loving as she had been when she went to fight. Not of her bloodied and dying.

Lucy came to her senses enough to grasp that if she was crying, the Spaniards might suspect it was not for joy. She settled on presenting herself as being in a state of shock, which she was. She dried her tears, looking at herself in the mirror over the washbasin. She straightened the bed to hide the evidence of her collapse upon it.

Finally, she sat down carefully and arranged her skirts around her and stared at the door, a genuine dazed expression on her face as a mask. They didn’t need to know the reason for the state of her emotions.

The Spaniards found her sitting demurely on the bed, dry-eyed, after things had subsided on deck.

* * * * *

Several hours later, Lucy found herself packed into a small cabin with three other women: the twins and Rougie.. The Spaniards had been unable to grasp that any woman other than Jean-Marie was a pirate by choice. All of the women were thus locked up in groups of four until the officers decided what to do about them. For now, all of the women had been made to put on women’s clothing, most of which had belonged to Lucy.

As for Jean-Marie herself, she had been captured alive. About half the male sailors and two of the women had been killed, and others were grievously wounded and not expected to live. All of them, including the doctor, were in the brig of the Spanish vessel. If he could save them, the Spaniards did not care, but none of their own resources would be wasted on the pirates. Again, Jean-Marie was the exception.

Because of her notoriety, she was being treated by the Spanish medical officer. They wanted her to live to stand trial in Havana.

The women came by this information by way of Rougie. Making use of her Caribbean patois, her French and a little Spanish, she had pieced it together by listening carefully to the talk of the Spanish sailors, who had no idea that any of the pirates understood anything. The women weren’t sure of every detail, but they had the general idea.

Lucy was beside herself that Jean-Marie was still alive. Keeping away from the cabin door, she and Rougie whispered in French, translating for the twins anything they felt was safe for them to know.

“How far is it to Havana?” Lucy wanted to know.

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“A week’s sail, more or less, depending on winds. Also if they have to stop other boats, who knows?” Rougie shrugged. Her lover, Mathilde, the sailmaker, was in another cabin, and she was desolate.

“And what then? Do they expect us to testify?” Lucy pressed.

“They may. And if you do not, they will suspect you,” Rougie reminded her.

“Then we have to get out of here,” Lucy said.

Rougie shrugged again.

“Do you not want to be with Mathilde?” Lucy was amazed. She would that minute have given up half her life to be in Jean-Marie’s arms once again.

“I am afraid to wish for what I cannot have,” Rougie explained, her eyes filled with tears.

“I prefer to die trying. Will you not join with me?” Lucy pressed.

Rougie heaved a sigh. “Very well. It is better than dying in captivity to a Spanish master.”

Lucy looked at her, and at the twins, trying to imagine what a man might think. “I have an idea. We don’t have much time, but it may work.”

“What?”

“These men, would they want sex from women?” Lucy asked.

“Are you mad?” Rougie demanded.

“No. I am desperate. Would they want it?” Lucy repeated.

“They may, but they also may not. The are Catholic, and some may have wives in Havana,” came the reply.

“Well, I will find out. If you will not help me, then please at least do nothing to foil my plans,” Lucy pled.

Rougie nodded. “I will even help if I can.” She jerked her head at the twins, huddled on the bottom bunk. “What about them?”

“I’m not sure yet. Let’s see how this goes.”

When a sailor came to bring them food, Lucy mimed difficulty breathing, and spoke very slowly and simply in the patois, requesting to be taken on deck. The sailor went for another person and another, until someone was found who understood, and she was escorted topside. After some misunderstandings, Lucy led the Spaniards to believe that the women were normally kept below and had little fresh air for weeks at a time. “Since we are not under arrest, and have been held prisoner, may we not have a place on deck to sit and take the air?” she asked very slowly in the patois, and this they were finally able to grasp.

The men drew away and held a discussion. Finally a small area was roped off where the women could come on deck. A couple of guards were posted and a few stools were provided. Soon several women were seated sedately next to one of the masts, their uncomfortable dresses pooled on the deck around them.

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“Now what?” Rougie asked, trying to act casual. She had moved close to Mathilde, and because they could get away with it, they had their arms around one another as women do when they are distressed.

“Which are the officers?” Lucy asked.

“The more gold braid, the higher the rank,” Rougie explained.

“Smile at them. Look interested,” Lucy instructed.

“And then?” Rougie was not yet convinced.

“If we can make them think we are helpless and trustworthy, they may begin to feel like our protectors and liberators. Be grateful and swoon a little. Let them pay court if they wish,” Lucy said, positioning herself so the others could hear her. “If I can get one to take me as a lover, I will. I will bear what I have to. I need access to weapons and freedom to move about. I see no other way.”

Some of the other women began quietly to discuss the idea, and Lucy said, “If you do not wish to do this, all I ask is that you do not betray me.”

“Do what you can,” Mathilde said. “If there is anything we can do, we will help.”

“Can you keep me from becoming pregnant?” Lucy whispered.

Several of them exchanged glances. “There are ways,” Rougie said.

“You must teach me,” Lucy insisted, and they put their heads together.

* * * * *

He looked like an old painting, Lucy thought. Pointed beard, doublet and hose, high boots, metal breastplate and helmet. Just the thing for a special evening with Jean-Marie, she thought woefully, and then Lucy pushed the thought from her mind and did what she had to do, as she had done when she lived with Eunice and Charles and was given the most noxious and humiliating chores.

It had been easy to fool him. After a halting conversation in which Lucy allowed them to discover that she was without husband or parents—“No mama? No papa?”

they had asked, and she had nodded sadly—he had begun his seduction of the innocent young virgin he thought she was.

Once again, she was the Captain’s woman, but she didn’t want to be. This man would set her up in Havana as his mistress, a fair beauty among the darker-skinned Spaniards. She could have a luxurious life, a safe life, and relative freedom under the circumstances.

It wasn’t enough. As he heaved and groaned on top of her, Lucy was grateful that Jean-Marie had taken her while using the dildo. Had she not, this would have been a worse horror than it already was. He thought he was gentle and no doubt he was by comparison to the others, whom she had heard screaming in the night. She hoped they would forgive her someday. On the other hand, perhaps this would provide the incentive they needed for their escape. Tomorrow night, she would find out who stood Susanna Valent

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with her. The women would surely be overmatched in strength, and had to depend on the element of surprise in order to gain control of the vessel.

* * * * *

The next morning, the twins came to Lucy.

“It’s lucky that we have now put our jewelry in the head,” Georgette hissed. “Do you know what they do to us down belowdecks?”

“No,” Lucy said, troubled.

“They tie us back to back and use us that way. All of jewelry we couldn’t fit inside us is gone!” Loretta whispered, ever watchful for their new “guardians.”

“I think they will sell us into prostitution in Havana,” Georgette went on. “They have been abusing us since they finally let us loose on deck.”

“I think they think if we were the prisoners of pirates, we are more worthless than anyone else. So get us out of here. We know you have a plan,” Loretta summed up.

“You would take a chance on getting killed?” Lucy wanted to be sure.

“This place is disgusting! Already we are crawling with fleas and lice! It stinks like our father’s boat. Death or the Pirate Queen is better than this. Once we get to Havana, we will never escape. You must help us!” Loretta insisted.

“All right. But if you betray us, you will die,” Lucy said. “If it is the last thing I do.”

“We’ll help. We will!” Georgette promised.

That made it a little easier. Since the twins were taken to the fo’c’s’le and used by the common sailors and marines, there would be inside help if needed when the plan went into action. In fact, Lucy doubted they would live through it, but she wasn’t about to share her beliefs. As they had already said they preferred death, so be it.

None of them had watches or clocks, but they had the ship’s bell system by which to tell the time. All of them were with usually their men at five bells of the first watch, or 10:30 PM. As soon as the bells sounded, everyone would do their assigned tasks at once. They would have an hour and a half until the watch changed at midnight. The twins, of course, being vastly outnumbered, would simply wait, but they would know when to expect the action to begin.

Not one of the men believed any of the women were capable of anything, despite the evidence of those who fought them as the Femme Fatale was overpowered. They seemed to think the women had only done it because they had been forced to, and they weren’t very good at it, or they wouldn’t have been caught. Therefore, once they proved willing lovers, they were allowed to roam at will, being seen as weak, harmless and inconsequential. When they gathered in clusters to talk in French, none of the Spaniards thought much of it.

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water invited disaster and was against Spanish naval regulations. With any luck, the pirates would return to it before the night was through.

As soon as the bells had sounded, Lucy calmly picked up a lamp and smashed her sleeping captor’s skull. Then she put on as much of his uniform as she could manage, collected all the weapons she could carry, and scurried next door. Here Rougie was putting on the clothes of her dead lover as well. They heard a scuffle break out in another cabin, raced in and found Adele, one of the able-bodied sailors, struggling with her man, who had not been asleep. “Don’t kill this one!” Rougie barked. “We need hostages.”

They tied him up, stuck a gag in his mouth, put on his clothes and collected his weapons.

“Should we leave him or take him?” Adele asked.

“Stay with him. When the others are ready, we’ll come back for you,” Lucy decided.

“We won’t be long.”

In the corridor, all of the women gathered, dressed in Spanish uniforms and loaded with weapons from the officers’ cabins. There were three hostages: two men who had struggled until more women arrived to help, and the priest, who had been subdued easily by Lucy and Rougie, according to plan.

They sent one woman ahead, down through the decks as a scout. Whenever a sailor was spotted, he was overwhelmed instantly by a three-woman team. At this time of night there were few afoot on the ship, which was why it had been chosen. Each time, more clothing and weapons were collected. All ten women now had uniforms of some sort, and they gathered up everything else they found, leaving naked dead men in their wake, but well out of sight.

The scout reported two men on guard in the brig. The women made some scraping sounds to bring one out to check on the source, and killed him. When the other came looking for his partner, they killed him, too.

Lucy grabbed up the keys and burst into the brig.

“Jean-Marie!” Lucy cried, running to free her lover. All of them were in leg irons, and the brig stank of human waste.

Jean-Marie sat up, startled out of a doze, and totally disoriented. Her head was bandaged and one arm was in a sling.

“Quickly!” Lucy said. “We have less than thirty minutes until the watch changes, and we must be in place!” They exchanged a brief kiss, but then Jean-Marie was all business.

The weapons and clothing were rapidly distributed among the sailors. The two officers were left in the cells, gagged and chained. The priest was hauled along with the freed pirates.

“How many are we?” Jean-Marie asked, struggling with the breastplate, tucking pistols into her uniform.

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Lucy helped. To her, Jean-Marie looked splendid.

“Twenty-five,” Lucy said. She had kept a running count. “You, eight women, and 13 men. The twins are in the fo’c’s’le, waiting.”

Jean-Marie nodded at two pirates still on the floor. “Those two are too badly wounded to be of any use. Four of you carry them to a safe place, where they can be left until the ship is secured.”

Rougie reported on the other crew as they worked their way up and forward. “Of their complement of 60, sixteen are on the Femme Fatale in the prize crew. Four officers are dead, two we left in the brig, and five men we killed on the way to get you. That leaves 33 of them for the 23 of us. A good number of these are in the fo’c’s’le making sport of the twins.”

“That will end abruptly,” Jean-Marie replied with steel in her voice.

Following Lucy’s instructions, which Jean-Marie endorsed, the pirates broke up into teams and waited at the hatches for the sailors on duty to start off watch. Ten were quickly hacked to pieces. That left two officers on deck, and the off-duty watch in the fo’c’s’le. Those, however, alerted by the screams of their dying comrades, came boiling out, armed and ready for the battle that ensued on the main deck.

Jean-Marie faced off with one of the remaining officers, Michel with the other.

Sparks flew as their swords crashed together. The twins came screaming out behind the sailors who had been abusing them, picked up dropped weapons, and fell on anything with a little pointy beard.

Jean-Marie was very concerned that the din of the encounter would bring the prize crew flying in the Femme Fatale, and she was right. When they were spotted, they had to be ready. “Try not to kill all of them!” She called to her crew. “If you can subdue them, let them live. We need hostages.”

Despite the superior weight, training and strength of the Spaniards, they were overpowered by the sheer number and ferocity of the pirates. The pirates lost two of their number to serious wounds, and the doctor was lost from the battle to treat the wounded. Still, they matched up well against the sixteen on the Femme Fatale. They had six hostages too, including the priest.

“Luis, Jorge,” Jean-Marie called to her Spanish speaking crewmen. “We will need you to negotiate with the other ship.”

Jean-Marie had to send some of her crew into the rigging to control the frigate, and one had to steer. Still they were more than the remaining Spaniards, and they had control of the frigate and all her cannon. Rougie and the twins went below to bring up the prisoners and the wounded.

When the Femme Fatale came alongside at about forty yards, Jorge called across to them, “Heave to and stand down! We have your ship, your weapons and these hostages.” At this the remaining Spaniards were pushed to the rail where they could be seen by torchlight.

The prize captain conferred with his men. “What do you want?” he called back.

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Through Jorge, Jean-Marie told him, “Only my ship. We will send a rope over, then you row over on the skiff. You can have your ship and all who are left alive. If you do not comply, these too will die, starting with the priest and then the officers. Then we will sink the ship you stand on, and sail away.”

“You have not enough crew,” the prize captain, a young lieutenant, called back.

“Believe me, we will make do. These cannon will fetch a pretty penny from the English. They will reward us well for capturing such a ship. And we will press your comrades into service and ransom them as well.”

Jean-Marie noted the tolling of the bells. “It is one o’clock. If you do not surrender in half an hour, I will take the head off this priest.”

Jorge translated, and added his own words, “I have seen her do it more times than I can count. Be wise and come off that ship. And do not bring your weapons!”

Jean-Marie ordered her crew to maneuver closer to the Femme Fatale, forcing her to cut speed. Then a boat was readied to carry a rope over as soon as the prize crew stood down. All they had to do was bring the rope aboard and make it fast, tying the two ships together.

The priest did not want to die. Babbling frantically to his officers, Luis and Jorge, he secured permission for them to speak to the prize crew. The senior remaining officer was brought to the rail. “Give up that ship! If we lose the frigate, we are all ruined! And you will be dead. If you could see the dead and dying here, you would not hesitate!”

The lieutenant shrugged. It was not his decision, and once they had their warship back again, they could pursue the pirates and recapture her. He gave an order and his men began to reef sail and lower the skiff to the waves. Both ships then hove to, to allow an easier transfer.

Jean-Marie, Michel and Rougie watched this carefully as they did not trust the Spaniards. Marcel, unfortunately, was wounded and lay waiting and hoping not to die.

“If they have any weapons, shoot them in the skiff,” Jean-Marie ordered her pirates.

The Pirate Queen and her crew, however, were so believed so fearsome and bloodthirsty that the returning prize crew did not try anything. Alerted by their skipper to his plan to retake the Femme Fatale once they had their own ship back, they were docile and willing to wait.

“Where is the rest of the crew?” the lieutenant demanded as he came aboard. He saw none but the hostages and a few bodies here and there. Most had been thrown over the other side of the ship, or hauled out of sight.

“In the brig,” Jean-Marie lied smoothly. “Now, come here,” she beckoned, keeping him near her and under guard.

All of the remaining Spaniards were tied hand and foot on the deck. Jean-Marie’s crew then transferred to the Femme Fatale, along with weapons, medication and their wounded.

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Finally, Jean-Marie forced the lieutenant into the skiff, and they were rowed toward the Femme Fatale with the other rowboat in tow. “Here is the key to the brig. When we are ready, you may row yourself back and free your crew,” Jean-Marie said kindly. “All your sails are furled, and there are less than half of you left. You will not catch us.”

The lieutenant said nothing, glowering at the woman who had somehow, with her ragtag crew, captured a Spanish warship. He knew the Femme Fatale was laden with gold and had not enough sail for any speed. In a day or so, he would take her again, and this time he would execute every one of them. Slowly.

Jean-Marie’s crew prepared for departure, not freeing the lieutenant until they were in the rigging, ready to make sail. Then they cut the line to the frigate and shoved him away. He was too busy rowing to notice that the gun ports on the Femme Fatale were quietly opened and the guns run out.

Suddenly, six cannon roared as one, holing the frigate below the water line.

Jean-Marie spoke rapidly to Luis.

“Quickly!” Luis shouted to the lieutenant. “You can still get aboard and free your men and escape before they drown. There is no one in the brig!”

Jean-Marie nodded with satisfaction. She had had enough killing, and she was sure the odds were against the sailors at such a distance from Havana anyway.

In almost that same instant, all sails were unfurled and they snapped and bellied into the wind, speeding the Femme Fatale on her way. The lights of the Femme Fatale were twinkling on the horizon when the twenty or so men, crammed into the frigate’s gigs, began the long row toward Havana.

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Chapter Twelve

“Jean-Marie, you are hurt!” Lucy cried when she was finally able to examine her lover in the lamplight of the cabin. Fresh blood darkened the Captain’s bandages.

“Yes, but I will be all right, little one. I will have the doctor sew me up again,” she said philosophically. “Let him work on those who are more badly injured first.”

“No! I did not free you to lose you! Go now!” Lucy said, stamping her foot. She had reached the end of her endurance.

Jean-Marie raised an eyebrow and thought to deliver a little discipline. However, Lucy then swayed and St. Honore caught her in her good arm to keep her from collapsing to the deck. “You are right. Rest. I am going,” she said. She pushed Lucy onto the bed and went out.

When the Captain returned a while later, freshly disinfected in the Arabian manner and cleanly bandaged, she found Lucy still asleep and gently undressed her as well as she could one-handed. Her wrist was broken and would take weeks to heal. The doctor had insisted on a tight, stiff splint or it would not work properly again. She was sure Lucy would be pleased to find her following the prescribed regimen.

She removed the Spanish garments and threw them in the passage, saving the armor, weapons and boots in which Lucy had expressed an interest. Then she went for water and bathed as well as she could with her handicap. They all needed to be deloused. The bedding would have to be beaten, smoked and aired. It was disgusting.

As soon as they could find a safe beach, all traces of the Spaniards would be expunged from the Femme Fatale and her crew.

Turning to get into the bed with Lucy, a pang of love shot through Jean-Marie and she felt dizzy, and not only from pain, fatigue and loss of blood. The young Englishwoman had proven brave beyond anyone’s wildest hopes, and everyone owed her their lives. Jean-Marie had not had much time to learn every detail of what had preceded her escape, but Lucy and the other women had willingly undergone something very much like torture and had then chosen probable death over some sort of life away from piracy. They could have saved themselves alone, but they had preferred to try to save everyone. And they had succeeded. Jean-Marie was at a loss for a way to thank them. Sinking into bed, she smiled, knowing she had all the time she needed to find a solution.

* * * * *

“Are you all right?” Lucy asked anxiously. They were lying naked in the shallows of some nameless island, having just finished making love.

“Of course. I just dozed off,” Jean-Marie reassured her.

“If you drown from making too much love I will never forgive myself,” Lucy cried, only half-joking.

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“You worry too much, little love,” Jean-Marie said gently, brushing strands of hair back from Lucy’s worried face. To Jean-Marie she still looked tired, and her eyes had lost some of her innocence. Even so, Lucy was becoming a beautiful woman. She had been through too much to ever be called a girl again.

The shouts of happy pirates reached their ears. They had bought turtles from a coastal trader and were roasting some on the beach. In a day or two they would have to move on to stay safe, but this was easy enough to do, as far south as they were now.

These were primarily French waters, and they had seen no Spaniards since they escaped the warship.

Behind them in the grove were two graves, those of Robert and Pierre. Lucy had cried copiously and put flowers on them every day. Marcel had lost an arm, and was still very ill. Ian had lost an eye. The doctor still hoped to bring them through. Then they could find places where they could live out their lives on the land.

Even now, Lucy’s eyes filled with tears. “I will miss them so much,” she whispered.

“Now, remember, they died happier than they would have in prison or at the end of a rope. Life at sea is hard and dangerous. They knew that,” Jean-Marie reminded her, attempting to comfort her.

“I know,” Lucy sobbed. “But they were good to me, and I couldn’t save them.”

For an answer Jean-Marie simply held her lover while she cried. There were no words that would take her pain away. Only time could do that. Jean-Marie blamed herself as well. Had she taken less gold, they could have left sooner and sailed faster.

But she had been greedy, and it had cost her nearly half her crew. No one else blamed her; they had all wanted the gold. But she hadn’t thought out the consequences carefully, blinded by the riches. Perhaps she could not even have stopped them from taking everything, but she would never know because she had not tried.

Jean-Marie did not mention this to Lucy. For her sake, her lover tried to put on the most cheerful attitude and urged Lucy to look to their future. Several possibilities presented themselves, which they would soon discuss. Once they sailed away from this island with the graves, Jean-Marie hoped some of the gloom would be dispelled.

The rest of the crew was happier than Lucy and Jean-Marie. They knew the risks and had taken them freely. The men had voted the women additional shares of the captured gold to reward them for their daring rescue. Moses was accepted and had found a lover in Jorge. The twins had decided to stay, and these new hands were all needed on the depleted crew. They would remain together at least until Port Royal, and perhaps beyond. No one knew for sure, and it didn’t matter. They lived day to day, the way they had as pirates, but without the concern of finding targets and disposing of them and their crews.

“So, do you wish to become Madame St. Honore?” Jean-Marie asked casually.

Lucy smiled. “Are you proposing, ma Capitaine?”

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“As much as one woman may propose to another, I am. I wish we could be more…conventional, but we can say our vows before our shipmates, and we can both have rings,” Jean-Marie suggested.

“No more twins?”

Jean-Marie roared with laughter. “I thought you were getting to like having the twins. You did get very excited.”

“Yes, but only because you said it was temporary,” Lucy was quick to clarify.

“No, no more twins. They have passed the most incredible of all loyalty tests, and they do not need that kind of training anymore,” Jean-Marie replied.

“Then I will be Madame St. Honore,” Lucy said simply.

“Good.”

“But does this mean you don’t want me to be your slave anymore?” Lucy inquired saucily.

“Not at all. All wives are slaves. You know that,” Jean-Marie countered with a smile. “Now, come, indulge me in a little game.” She pulled out a scarf, which she fashioned into a blindfold.

“Wh-what are you going to do?” Lucy asked. She was no longer afraid of Jean-Marie’s surprises, but she was endlessly curious.

“I am going to compensate you for not receiving a proper engagement ring,” Jean-Marie said, suppressing a giggle. “You will like it, and I will be very gentle.”

For one thing, she had to be careful of her wrist, and for another, she felt gentle. She felt gentle often lately in the presence of the deceptively simple young woman who had developed into such a wildcat. Meek as she often was in the presence of her Captain, clearly, Lucy was a terror when left to her own devices.

“Now, pay attention,” Jean-Marie said, “and see if you can tell me what this is.” She hauled out a leather sack which she had kept hidden from Lucy, and rummaged through it, laying out articles on their blanket.

She selected one, and began gently to stroke the insides of Lucy’s thighs with it.

“Oh! What is that?” Lucy asked. It felt cold, smooth and hard.

“It is your job to figure it out. You may have three guesses, and if you are correct, you may have it,” Jean-Marie said.

Lucy concentrated. “Can you…let me feel it somewhere else?” she asked.

“Yes. Keep your hands under you, though,” Jean Marie warned, and in a moment, Lucy felt the thing teasing her nipple, which stiffened against it.

“It feels like a stone,” Lucy said. “Why would I want a stone?”

“Why indeed? Try again,” Jean-Marie invited, moving the object to Lucy’s lips.

Lucy stuck out her tongue. “It is smoother than a stone. And it has edges. It is some jewel,” Lucy decided.

“Try once more.” Jean-Marie rotated the object.

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“Yes, a jewel or gem, but in a setting,” Lucy decided.

“Now this,” Jean-Marie said. “Spread your pussy wide for me.”

“Oh!” Lucy laughed. “A string of beads!” She writhed as the little balls slid over her pleasure center. “Jean-Marie, do not stop! That feels very good!”

Jean-Marie swirled the string round and round over her lover’s labia, in and out of her cleft.

Lucy thrust up. “I like that! Oh!”

“Taste them,” Jean-Marie ordered, running them over Lucy’s lips.

“Oh, they are…a little gritty. Not gold…pearls!” Lucy cried.

Jean-Marie laughed gently. “Lick them clean, my slave.”

Lucy did so eagerly, getting Jean-Marie’s fingers in the process.

“Now,” Jean-Marie said, introducing another item, but carefully.

“Oh, this is not so smooth. Chunky, rough,” Lucy’s brow furrowed behind the blindfold.

Jean-Marie moved up to Lucy’s nipples and tenderly stroked them with the mystery object.

“Smooth and rough, alternating. How very odd,” Lucy mused. “It is surely metal.

Some sort of jewelry, again.”

“Open your lips and feel it,” Jean-Marie instructed.

“It is a chain or string of something. Perhaps a bracelet,” Lucy guessed.

“We shall see,” Jean-Marie said, putting it aside. ”And now, the grand finale.”

Lucy waited. First, Jean-Marie let her taste the item.

“Oh! Cold and very hard. Bitter,” Lucy decided.

“Mmmmm, and what else?” Jean-Marie prodded, teasing Lucy’s nipples with it.

“Well, it seems quite long,” Lucy said as Jean-Marie dragged it back and forth.

“How does this feel? Jean-Marie asked, sliding it deep into her fiancee.

“Oh! Madame! It feels something like the dildo, except not as round. Oh! What could it be?” Lucy cried. “I will never guess this one.”

Jean-Marie grinned, pumping it in and out of Lucy, making her beg.

“Jean-Marie! Do not tease me so! I give up, and I want you to touch me!” Lucy demanded.

With a laugh, Jean-Marie took the blindfold away, sliding her hand up between Lucy’s legs. Lucy laughed, too and pulled the pirate as close as she could.

“Oh, Jean-Marie,” Lucy moaned. To her, it was as if both of them had returned from the dead. Every time they made love now, it seemed so much richer and sweeter than it had before.

“I am here,” Jean-Marie smiled. “I will never allow us to be parted again.” She continued her tantalizing stroking between Lucy’s wide-spread legs.

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“Nor I. Oh! Yes, please do that,” Lucy requested.

“No, you do it,” Jean-Marie demanded quietly, moving over on top of her lover.

Lucy reached up, enjoying the weight of her lover on her, and the lapping of the waves as they moved together in the shallows, until Jean-Marie came with a sigh.

“Ma cherie,” Lucy whispered, pulling Jean-Marie’s hand between her legs, to quench the fire she had kindled there.

“It is not evening yet,” Jean-Marie observed.

“You would make me wait, even now that we are engaged?” Lucy asked, amazed.

“More so. If you get it too often, you will become complacent and take me for granted. You will wait, and you will be quiet about it,” the Captain ordered, taking her hand away.

Lucy blushed but did not complain further. Jean-Marie was right.

The pirate noted Lucy’s compliance, and reached between her legs again. “Just a little, because you are so obedient,” Jean-Marie said, teasing.

“Oh, Madame, do not,” Lucy groaned, writhing.

“You love it,” the Captain observed. “You love to be hot for me.”

Lucy pressed against Jean-Marie’s powerful fingers, hoping her fiancée would change her mind. But the Captain did not, removing them before Lucy went too far.

“Later,” she said, giving her young lover a kiss. “Now, look here at your prizes.”

There on the blanket were an enormous emerald ring, a triple string of pearls, an emerald bracelet to match the ring, and a gold ingot as large as a well-endowed man’s penis.

“Oh, Jean-Marie! They are all so beautiful! And they are mine?” Lucy gasped. The lost orgasm was at least temporarily forgotten.

“All yours. You have earned them, and they will be lovely on you. The ingot you can bank, or have things made from it. You may choose.”

“Oh, my goodness! Oh, Jean-Marie! Thank you! Je’taime, ma capitaine,” Lucy murmured, as the Captain held her tightly.

“Je’taime aussi,” Jean-Marie whispered back. “I love you, too.”

* * * * *

The Femme Fatale paid a call in Martinique, and Jean-Marie took Lucy ashore to have some new gowns made. All the others had been lost in the encounter with the Spaniards, so the Captain postponed their “wedding” until Lucy could be properly attired. Also in Martinique, they had wedding rings made from their booty. One could always find tradespeople and artisans who asked no questions if they were paid enough.

Finally all was in readiness. A pig had been slaughtered, many shellfish had been prepared. Rum and other spirits were in good supply, and the beach was alight with Susanna Valent

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torches stuck in the sand. The little pirate band played merry dances. At sunset, they said their vows. Ian and Marcel joined them, having bonded during their weeks of suffering together under the care of the doctor.

It was not the ceremony that most interested Lucy. Jean-Marie looked so splendid in her red and blue uniform again that Lucy could hardly stop looking at her, but it was the honeymoon on which the young woman was focused. They were taking a skiff to an islet nearby and would not rejoin the crew for three days.

After the dancing and feasting was done, they changed their clothes. Jean-Marie raised the single sail so they could travel by moonlight across the little bay.

“Oh, Jean-Marie, I am so happy! I never thought it could be!” Lucy sighed, looking down at the rings on her fingers and then up at her pirate.

“It can be, I assure you, Madame,” Jean-Marie said, sitting down to take the tiller.

She beckoned to Lucy, who nestled on the seat beside her, as ever careful of her healing wrist. Almost all of Jean-Marie’s wounds had healed. The splint was smaller now, and the pain was less every day.

“So, will we always call one another ‘ Capitaine’ and ‘ Madame?” Lucy asked curiously.

“Only in bed,” Jean-Marie promised, kissing her new wife.

“If I am a wife, what are you?” Lucy pressed.

“I must be a wife, too. Although you once said there was no better husband than I,”

Jean-Marie grinned.

“I think it is better to be a wife, and have a wife, than a husband,” Lucy decided. “A really good wife is kind and undemanding.”

Jean-Marie growled, “You love it when I am demanding.”

“That is a different kind of demand,” Lucy said with finality.

“Good. Then I demand you make us a nice bed on the beach while I make a fire and have my pipe, and then you will pleasure me all night long, Madame St. Honore,” Jean-Marie said.

“Oui, ma Capitaine,” Lucy agreed quickly. Shortly after they landed, she was working on a smooth, soft bed for their first honeymoon night. Jean-Marie disappeared momentarily into the palm grove behind them. Lucy assumed she was answering a call of nature and paid her no attention.

Lucy was soon ready. She was eager for their joining, alone on this beautiful beach lit by moon and stars. As she stood looking at the moon on the water, her Captain came up behind her.

“Madame!” the pirate said harshly, “You will surrender to me at once!”

Lucy spun about and put a hand to her mouth. Before her stood a Spanish conquistador in full armor and carrying the appropriate weapons. The metal and high boots gleamed in the firelight. Jean-Marie looked splendid, and despite her armor, her womanhood was unmistakable. She was big and strong enough for the panoply, to be Susanna Valent

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sure, but she wore it with the confidence of a woman who is comfortable with her strength.

“Señora, I surrender,” Lucy said, quickly dropping to her knees. “Gladly.” There was nothing about Jean-Marie of the rough stinking men who had captured them. This was her woman, demanding but gentle. “Take me, I beg of you,” Lucy whispered. “You will not need your sword.”

“For you I have something better than a sword,” Jean-Marie leered, affecting a Spanish accent.

Lucy stifled a laugh. “Of course. And that is what I want.” With that she began playfully kissing the tops of Jean-Marie’s thigh-high boots.

Startled and aroused, Jean-Marie stepped back a pace before she steadied herself, gripping her pike in one hand, the hilt of her sword in the other. “Lucy,” she whispered, watching the darting tongue work on her leather, “slow down, or I will not last a minute when you touch me.”

“Good! I do not wish you to wait for your pleasure, ma Capitaine.”

“Then you will pleasure me repeatedly, Madame. I warn you,” St. Honore threatened good-naturedly, a twinkle in her eye. Then Lucy began licking her way up higher, past the top of the boots, and Jean-Marie was lost. She dropped her weapons and sank to the sand.

“Do me,” Jean-Marie commanded. “Use your mouth.”

Lucy looked into her eyes, in which the light of their small campfire was reflected.

They were warm and soft, belying the false harshness of the Captain’s words.

“It is my pleasure, of course, Maitresse,” Lucy whispered. She began to burrow between Jean-Marie’s legs, when suddenly she stopped and laughed. “Madame le Capitaine! What have you done to your pantaloons?”

“They are old. I tore out the seams to make your lot in life easier. Now give me what I demand, or you will walk the plank!”

Stifling her giggles, Lucy plunged back in, for she was as eager as her new spouse.

She slid under Jean-Marie’s hips, and stayed there a very long time. The heel of Jean-Marie’s high conquistador boot descended to Lucy’s backside and kneaded its roundness, making her moan with urgency. She writhed under her conqueror, enjoying the feel of the leather against her bare skin. Being unclothed while Jean-Marie was dressed not only made Lucy feel helpless, but all the more excited. She was defenseless and at Jean-Marie’s mercy, and it made her wet their blanket with desire.

Lucy licked her Pirate Queen madly until Jean-Marie’s pleasure surged against her lips, her tongue, all over her face, her moans delightful music to Lucy. She was glad that, for a change, the rest of the crew could not hear them. Newlyweds were entitled to some privacy.

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Jean-Marie finally ceased coming, but still she held Lucy in place, making her wait until her desire increased, and she struggled against the weight of the Captain’s hips and legs, encased in leather and armor.

“I beg of you, ma Capitaine, touch me. I am burning up with need,” Lucy implored.

Even on their wedding day, Lucy had satisfied her lover twice before the ceremony, and was still waiting for her own release.

Jean-Marie chuckled and lifted up, freeing her captive. “Come, sweetheart. You have waited long enough, and worked hard enough, and this is our special day.” She positioned Lucy in the crook of her arm and began to caress her nipples lightly with her fingertips.

Lucy immediately pushed against the breastplate, searching for more. “Oh, please,”

she whispered. “Ma cherie . . . “

“I want you to put your hands under you,” Jean-Marie murmured over Lucy’s lips.

“I know you find that very exciting.”

“Oh, Jean-Marie,” Lucy groaned, her eyes closing in bliss as she complied. “Yes, that is what I want.”

“After all, you haven’t even spent a year as my slave yet, and here I have married you. You still must still fulfill your contract of absolute obedience,” Jean-Marie reminded her new spouse, leaning down to suck each nipple lightly until they stood up like bullets.

Lucy simply writhed on the blanket, concentrating on the touch of her lover’s mouth and hands.

“You are so wet, so hot,” Jean-Marie observed. “You need me even more than when you saw the twins coming, tied up, on their knees, begging me.”

“I am begging you now,” Lucy said, looking up into the eyes of her Captain and lover.

“You will have to, if you wish to come. Now, bend your knees, so that I can see and feel you more easily,” Jean-Marie told her. When Lucy had opened herself fully, Jean-Marie began the lightest possible stroking of the Lucy’s exposed clit, so light it was almost imperceptible.

“Please, please, harder,” Lucy begged.

For a response, Jean-Marie instead stoked the insides of Lucy’s thighs. It was exactly the speed and pressure Lucy needed for an orgasm, but in the wrong place.

“Madame,” Lucy moaned, “you torment me.”

“You do not want it all at once, do you?”

“Yes! Yes, I do! I need you, my love, Oh, God, I need you!” Lucy wailed, desperate.

“And will you always need me?” Jean-Marie asked, bending close to Lucy’s lips.

“Oui, Madame le capitaine,” Lucy whispered, panting.

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“My beloved,” Jean-Marie said, and she kissed her way slowly from Lucy’s mouth, to her nipples, down her belly and through the damp wet thatch that guarded her rich pink pussy, glistening in the firelight.

Finally, when Lucy thought she must come or die, Jean-Marie’s tongue found her clit at last, and this time, the speed and pressure were perfect. Lucy erupted in a wordless howl. She shrieked and screamed again as pleasure tore through her like a hurricane. Her backside thumped the makeshift bed and Jean-Marie had to hold her down to make her come again.

Finally Lucy was drained, and Jean-Marie slid up next to her to hold her. “So, you are mine forever,” she observed.

“Forever, Jean-Marie,” Lucy whispered. “What happens next?”

“We will sail a little while, and see what happens. Does that suit you?” Jean-Marie asked.

“Whatever pleases you, pleases me, my love,” Lucy admitted, knowing Jean-Marie already knew the answer.

“Then we will see what tomorrow brings,” Jean-Marie remarked. But when she looked down, she saw that Lucy was already asleep. The pirate smiled. She quietly removed her costume and curled protectively around Lucy. Her buccaneer days were over. No matter what adventure lay ahead, being queen of Lucy’s heart was more than enough for the former Pirate Queen.

Finis

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