In The Nick Of Time

“If you want me Lizzie me girl, you’ll have to show me better than that!” Jack’s voice was nearly a growl as he grinned down at her, one hand tangled in her hair and the other around her back, keeping their glistening bodies close. There was one lantern lit within his cabin, but his dark dilated eyes shown with lust, passion, love and a bit of rum. But the rest of him, the long, lean, wiry expanse of his body claimed hers with a vengeance like Elizabeth had never before understood. How was it, she wondered, lying beneath him on his meager rack, filled to her carnal capacity with his hot, quivering, masculine flesh, that even she could think there was more to be obtained in their coupling?

“Jack,” she panted, more out of breath than he was, though it was not her who had been setting their furious pace.

He grinned again and gave her a sharp, short thrust that didn’t cause her pain but made her gasp in surprise. “Captain Jack, love” he playfully reminded her.

“Captain Sparrow,” Elizabeth, replied almost in tittering laughter, loving again that he was the pirate he was, breathing in the scent of the salt sea air that clung to him and made her feel alive and free. “I fear that I’ve nothing more to be plundered!”

A wide smile spread across Jack’s dark features, candlelight flickering over them and making him look all the more hungry and mischievous. Every licentious thing she now knew he’d taught her, but there was still much to educate her about. “Oh we’ll see about that, love!” Jack eagerly drawled, and before Elizabeth knew it he’d mightily flipped her over onto her stomach and drew her up onto her knees, keeping her legs spread as he moved closer behind her. “Ye may be wantin to steady yourself by grabbin the headboard.” He advised, and then Elizabeth felt his slick manhood plunge into her wet heat again as far as it would go.

“Oh, Jack!” She wailed, this new sensation tickling through her body and reverberating up her core. She latched onto the headboard of his bed and before she could draw a ragged breath, Jack began again, smoothly ramming himself into her and out of her again and again, getting faster and harder and stronger until she thought she’d never be able to keep up with him and wanted just to surrender her body to his.

“This is how the wild beasts do it, Lizzie girl,” Jack remarked, sounding as if his teeth were clenched tightly and he was short of breath, losing himself to the pleasure he felt. “This is what you want, isn’t it, love?” He panted without breaking his pounding rhythm.

Elizabeth’s body twisted and jolted involuntarily as Jack took her. She nearly couldn’t get breath enough to answer him. “Yessss!” She managed to hiss as one of his strong hands grabbed her shoulder and pulled her more into his satisfyingly savage thrusts.

“This is why you love me, isn’t it, Elizabeth Swann?” He continued, becoming more and aroused. She could feel the muscles of his stomach and groin quivering against her thighs and buttocks. An explosion loomed, for both of them.

“Yes!” Elizabeth cried out, feeling tears of joyous pleasure forming in her eyes, giving up any control she had left, wanting her Corsair, her Captain, her Jack to sail her through this storm of passion. “I love you, Jack!” The words left her mouth just as her body collided with his in a climax so rigorous that she could little tell if it were the two of them that shook and shuddered, or the entire Pearl herself.

All was suddenly still and quiet, except for Jack’s voice. “Then why are you marrying Will?”

With that, bright daylight streaming in through the window replaced the candlelight and all traces of the Pearl, and of Jack vanished. But the passion stayed, though Elizabeth was doing her best to chase it away. It had been bad enough when she found herself waking in the night with these dreams flitting around her head, but lately, as her wedding drew nearer, she found herself to be wide awake and daydreaming of Jack in explicit, shameless detail. And now, like she had for the last three months, she wondered why she was marrying Will.

She’d have been Mrs. William Turner nearly four months ago if she’d not motioned and begged and pleaded with her father, and with Will, to postpone the wedding until she could ‘plan the very last details.’ She’d hid her cold feet then well with the disguise of a perfectionist bride; she’d demanded a custom made china set prepared for the wedding guests, something that she and Will would have to treasure forever, an heirloom to be handed down in their family. Creating the china and shipping it from England would take time, but Elizabeth was of course agreeable to that, calling it a “worthwhile wait.” In the spare time she had before the china arrived, she would see about seeking out two very distant acquaintances she’d had in grade school so that they may attend the wedding…just as soon as she was able to learn the girl’s now married names and send them invitations. It was her wedding after all, she wanted everyone to be there and everything to be perfect! She just needed more time! But now, time was up, her wedding was tomorrow morning.

Actually, what Elizabeth truly wanted was Jack. She realized that shortly after something inside her heart spurred her to postpone her marriage to Will. Will…he was a good boy, a strong boy, a brave, handsome, winning boy…but he was just that; a boy. She’d never been in love before, and so how was she to know that what she’d felt for Will Turner had been infatuation, puppy love, something that would soon evaporate into an affectionate, yet only friendly, feeling towards him once it came down to him and her, without any adventure and turmoil on the high seas. Yes, Elizabeth did love Will, she always had, and there was a time when she’d felt a spark of desire for him, something that she expected would grow into a wildfire as they spent more time together back home in Port Royal. But, on the day Will took her, blindfolded, to the site of the home he was having built for them to live in as man and wife, Elizabeth was struck with the reality that Will was not who she loved.

“Okay, now you can see the surprise!” Will had smiled as he undid the blindfold and pulled it from her eyes, revealing the skeleton of what would become a large and lavish mansion. He was beaming, obviously proud to be constructing such a home for them and he held her hand tightly, anxiously waiting to hear her gasp in happy shock, and at first, Elizabeth nearly had as her eyes drank in the scene before her.

And that’s when it hit her. There it was, their grand mansion in its infant stages of development, surrounded by land, lots of land, with the town down a long and winding lane, the Governor’s Mansion, her old home, almost a speck in the distance. And the sea, the azure force that had come to mean so much to her, looked unreachable, like it had only been painted there as an afterthought on the canvas that was the view from her front window. No! No! This couldn’t be! She felt so far away from what she knew, from what she loved! Her hand had actually found its way to her throat, clutching at her neck as though she were being choked. How could she spend the rest of her life so far from the sea? And why did it matter? Because, Jack was out there on that sea, and as long as she was close to it, she was close to him.

But what was there to do now? The mansion she and Will were to live in was built and furnished, and might as well be land locked. And her wedding was tomorrow morning. And she’d be marrying Will Turner, a nice boy, whom she’d come to realize she loved only as she would have a brother. And Jack…it had been over a year since she’d even seen him. He likely didn’t even remember her now what with the many distractions his pirate life was wrought with. He’d written her once, many months ago, nothing personal, but Elizabeth still recalled every word in every sentence laid down by his hand.

Jack would be back in Tortuga by now, and no doubt drunk on rum, snoring away in some whore’s bed. Oh, to be that whore! Well, maybe not a whore, but to be laying there beside him, naked flesh to naked flesh, stroking her fingers over his knotty hair and softly telling him what a fool she was not to have accepted the proposal of marriage he’d made to her on board the Black Pearl as they sailed to find the still beating heart of Davy Jones. To be there looking into those deep, dark, kohl lined eyes and to kiss those supple lips again and tell him that she couldn’t imagine spending her life with any other man, because he was the only man who ever understood her spirit. To tell Captain Jack Sparrow that she’d follow him anywhere, that she wanted him, and that she loved him.

He’d be in Tortuga…hmm…wait, no! What was she thinking? Of somehow booking passage on a ship bound around the tip of South America and sailing for Tortuga on the day before her wedding? What would she do? Just sneak away without a word, leaving Will almost at the altar, just not show for her own wedding? Well, she would have to, if she was serious about following her heart, reckless though it may be. She couldn’t postpone the wedding, not again. If she were going to find her love, now was the moment to go! But what did she do once she found Jack, if she found him at all? What would she say to him? So far, all she had was “Jack, I’m in love with you! Take me to bed and make me yours forever!” Would he believe that? Would Jack care? Elizabeth sighed, smiled a bit, and got to her feet, looking out at the sea. There was only one way to find out!

* * *

Meanwhile in Tortuga…

A snoozing Gibbs woke to the sound of a dull thud, and then some cussing like only a sailor was capable of. He got to his feet and looked across the deck to see Jack with one foot in his hands as he leaned against the main mast, rubbing the toe of his boot. Gibbs looked skyward and by the stars noted that the hour had not yet reached midnight. It was early for Jack to be back, particularly when he and the crew had gone into town for some drinking and wenching. But, there stood Captain Sparrow, clutching his foot in pain, no doubt from having kicked at a line out of the frustration he felt, and stubbed his toe in the dark instead. Gibbs sighed, shaking his head. Not this again, he thought, not truly wanting to speak to Jack, but someone would have to before he took out his heartache on the entire crew.

“That you, Cap’n?” Gibbs called, moving towards Jack and wondering just how foul his mood would be this time.

“Aye,” Jack stomped his throbbing foot back onto the deck angrily. “Tis I, back early, and do you know why, Mr. Gibbs?” He asked, the melancholic annoyance he was wracked with showing in his tone and hand gestures.

Gibbs had a fairly good idea, but still, he asked Jack why, then stood back and patiently listened to how Jack had been having a wonderful, carefree evening of drinking and gambling and how he’d found “the most perfect, well seasoned whore…who even though she’d had cause to slap him in the face, still made herself available…” The story went on, the drinking of rum, the winning of gold, the walking in the moonlight down by the harbor with the whore, “just to set the mood a bit…” and then, Jack got to what Gibbs knew he’d get to.

“Nights don’t come much better than this one started out, savvy Mr. Gibbs?” Said Jack. “But do you know what can ruin a night like this one in a flash, Mr. Gibbs?”

“Nay, Cap’n, I can’t think of a thing.” Gibbs lied, but he knew very well what could do such a thing, for such a thing had ruined several nights, and days, for Jack for over a year now.

“Me, and the whore, we’re there, overlooking the harbor, and then there they’re a’comin…” Jack grumbled, his hand pointing to something that wasn’t there as it glided across the imaginary water at his feet.

“And, what would ‘they’ be now, sir?” Gibbs asked, now wondering just where this was going, but still, he felt he knew what Jack’s malfunction was.

Jack groaned in exasperation and threw himself down dramatically in a miserable heap on the deck. “Swans, Mr. Gibbs! Bloody swans!”