After the Boys of Summer Have Gone

It was amazing how the day had passed, between the bath incident and the story and the incredible lovemaking, it was passing fast. The sun’s rays grew long in the afternoon sky. In several hours the horizon would redden and darken as the evening settled on the island, and stars would shine down like little lanterns in the sky.

And you had accomplished nothing but break the law several times over.As tAs the steady thumping of his heart beat against your cheek, you didn’t give a rat’s ass anymore if the Marines stormed in right now to drag you to the gallows. You sighed, happy and content for the first time in a very long time. You felt a kiss on the top of your hair, and you craned your head so you could see Jack gazing down with a tranquil smile.

“Everything all right, luv?” he murmured.

You rolled a bit so you were half atop him, one leg draped lazily between his, chin and cheek atop your arms folded across his chest. “Mmmmmmmmmmm. I’m more than all right Jack. I am exquisite. ”

“Yes, you are,” he chuckled.

“I meant how I feel, silly,” you laugh.

“So did I,” the pirate matter-of-factly replied.

Closing your eyes you lay your head back against his flesh so you hear his heartbeat again. “You must have lines of girls waiting for you in every port.”

Jack snorted, his grip tightening around you for a second. “Nay lass. You would be surprised at just what I don’t have. First off, I don’t meet many real ladies in my line of work. A good knowledge of the working girl I have yes. Secondly, remember that item I mentioned about getting slapped a lot.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, confused at the twinge of joy you felt at his statement. “From the way you spoke I garnered that you had plenty of women. You do know how to please one, you can’t deny that.” You felt his chest heave as he stifled a sigh.

“T is is knowledge and the place to use it, luv. It’s been a long time since I’ve had call to use it.” Jack softly said. “I cannot deny that I am a man and have my weakness for the flesh that most men have. I have spent many a good coin on pleasurable company, and its gratifying interludes, BUT…” He paused and touch of regret barely skirted the edge of his words, “no matter the drink and flowery words the girls give ye, it is no more then business, even if they don’t find you repulsive. They don’t really care what you be doing to them. They just want their coin and you to come back again with more, and as soon as you leave there is another in your place, so your spot never grows cold or lonely for them. As loud as the girls’ moan and scream, it is not in their face, in their touch, or their kiss. Their satisfaction is the profit from it. So like most men, I enjoy the illusion for that which it is and do my business and get it done for my own satisfaction. Savvy?”

Shifting out from under you and guiding you to your back, Jack propped himself up on his side and elbow, looking down into your face, as if he was searching for something. He traced his finger up and down your cheek. “Today my business was your satisfaction, something I would never waste on the girls in my most recent…” He scowled and shrugged, “and sadly enough, thinking back, seems to be my more long term, past.”

You didn’t know what to say, and you didn’t know if the pirate was feeding you those lines he admitted he knew girls liked to hear. There was nothing about him in the somber and tender expression or tone that would have even given you the hint he was telling anything but the honest truth.

You started to talk, but he stops you with a small kiss. “For the first time in a long time, I was able to see the true ecstasy of a woman, and know it was real, and not the efforts of a whore to placate her client. Hearing you, seeing you, feeling you, and dear god could I feel you, when you reached that ecstasy, is one of those rare treasures that so many men carelessly overlook. But ye know how we pirates love treasure,” he said with a grin. “And speaking of treasure,” Jack began to fondle the dragon necklace around your throat, “this is quite lovely. Not the normal jewelry you usually find on a lady, in Europe anyway. Well made. Quite valuable. Find similarms qms quite a bit more in the Far East, but I’ve not seen anything quite like this.”

“It was a gift, a repayment, and a reminder. And I like dragons,” you say. “A creature maligned and even vilified by the masses and yet mostly misunderstood. They grip me in a way that is hard to explain, so they are special to me.”

“Dragons be misunderstood?” the Captain chuckled.

“Yes, they are,” you say. “I see dragons as the pinnacle of all that is free and wild and beautiful and intelligent and because of that, men must be able to dominate and control it or squash it out. We fear them and revile them. We think of them stealing our food and eating our virgins, but where do these stories really come from? Do we actually stop and think about them and what they do and why they do it? Because of the acts of a few, like the rabid wolf or the unmarqued privateer, they paint all the dragons with the same brush. Men like to paint everything with a brush. It does not matter the intentions or skills or worth of the painted. You are what they want to think and make of you, no matter how hard you fight it.” You barely hid the venom in your voice at the end.

Jack was strangely silent as he played with the gemstones, rubbing them thoughtfully between his fingertips. Trying to change the subject, you reach up into his hair and touch a long white bone that is woven into one of his twisted tiebacks. “Since we are speaking of adornments, what’s this?”

He hesitated before replying, still mulling over your remarks. “It’s a fid. A big fid. What’s a fid you ask?” He didn’t let you answer. “Sailors use them for fixing nets and splicing ropes togetheOne One day I put a small piece of one of my tails through it, and it’s been there ever since. It helps hold my bandana on. It’s more or less tied on with a leather strap so if I needed it…a simple slice with a knife, I don’t lose much hair.”

You touched the silver ring with the bright blue gemstone that sat on his right index finger, “Your own pretty trinket, Mr. Sparrow?”

“Oh, yes,” he chuckled. “My greatest bit of treasure. Actually my first bit of treasure ever, which is why to me, at least, it’s my greatest piece. My first assignment was on a buccaneer ship, the Raging Tide, not long after my man hair started growing in, so I wasn’t much more then a boy.” Jack gave you a sideways glance, and obviously pleased by your attention continued on. “In fact I wasn’t much but a glorified cabin boy to a bunch of drunken louts with no sense of code or honor. Horrible place, but it was a job for one in my delicate position of being too young for much. Didn’t know at the time the nature of their business, or the ‘other’ expectations that were to be demanded out of me.” Jack contorted his face oddly as if he were remembering something and you swear he almost shuddered.

You entwined his fingers with yours and gently squeezed his hand comfortingly. “Its okay. You don’t have…”

“Nay, it’s a good story actually,” he grinned, snapping out of his somberness. “There was this ugly, horrid Greek by the name Yialli, who was just the bane of my existence then. Through deceitful means he had become the Bo’sun of shipship and just ran me ragged. Got to give him credit though, I was forced to learn everything quite fast and quite proficiently to avoid his directed wrath. It was the undirected wrath that tended to haunt me and hurt me…Either way, it was about six weeks into my grand adventure on the sea that I discovered the true nature of the Raging Tide, as it took a Spanish vessel on its way home to the mother country loaded with all sorts of goods. Well, the miscreants went on their way to Tortuga to spend their new wealth, but since a vast amount of imbibable beverages were part of the captured cargo and they had not the best guidance or rules on the ship, their celebrating started very early. Yialli was three sheets to the wind by the time he was to dole out the shares of the booty, and when it came to my turn, he basically threw this old coral encrusted piece of junk at me, laughing the whole time and daring me to complain. I did the foolish thing and voiced my disparity at his inequity, and ended up with this for my efforts if you remember from earlier…” Jack ran a finger down the reddish scar in his right eyebrow and lower cheek, in his beard hair. “Bastard came damn close to taking my eye, but,” and he held his arm up with a flourish so the ring glittered in the light, “he didn’t, and I came up on the much better end of the deal. I have never seen someone so irate as that dog after I cleaned it up, and discovered it was a blue sapphire ring fit for royalty. I’ve not taken it off since the day I put it on too many years ago to even think of counting.”

“Well its simply beautiful,” you say cheerily with open admiration. Jacks giddy mood form the joy of his storytelling was horribly contagious. “So whatever happened after that?”

“Well,” Jack continued, “I knew from that moment on that my back was just waiting for the dagger, and spent a few sleepless nights until we reached Tortuga, and I left to find other fortunes. Ended up in the same line of work, slightly better ship, and well, here I am. I found out about a year later that the blasted Tide was taken by His Majesties Royal Navy, and all either perished in the battle, or ended up feeding the crows on the end of a rope. Yialli was made a few inches taller, much to my delight.”

“I’m glad you left that boat at Tortuga. I would hate to think what would have happened if you had stayed on.”

“Ship. Its all about the tonnage luv,” he sniggered in amusement. “And I didn’t become ‘Captain’ Jack Sparrow for being a fool.”

He gently lifted up your hand and kissed your fingers one by one almost making you forget your prior conversation, until he looked down on you in his contemplative, cockeyed way and asked, “Back to your interesting trinket there. Reminder and repayment for what?” You must have blanched, or flinched or both, because Jack sighed and comfortingly caressed your palm. “Like anything could shock a pirate, luv? Old boyfriend? Lover?”

“Sort of,” you very hesitantly say. “While it was bought with my money, it was a gift from my husband.” The caressing fingers stopped and she felt the pirate stiffen. “Do not fret, Captain. You shaint be getting another scar from a jealous man. At least from mine anyway. He’s dead.”

Jack let out a breath. “Oye. Good. No, not good. I’m sorry. ‘ow did he… you know?”

Your stomach started to tie in knots. How much dare you tell him? What would he think? What did it matter what he thought. You didn’t figure you could lie well to him even if you tried. He seemed to be able to see through you. “I killed him.” You murmured, barely audible, and pulled away, bringing the sheet with you, so you sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping it around you. It had been so long since you had actually thought about all that in your past, and it tore at you. “As bad as that sounds, I am not a Black Widow. Don’t concern yourself, Mr. Sparrow. I have no plans on killing you.“

“I had no fear of that milady,” he answered, and his warm body pressed up against your back. Placing his lips on your shoulder he let his warm breath tickle over your skin, his hands just touching your arms. “You can tell me, ease your soul,” he whispered almost inaudibly against your flesh, “or naught. I shaint condemn ye either way, or for what you did. Sometimes confession is good for ye so I’m told, and I know you are troubled by it. Savvy?”

“You know? How?”

“I’ve been there myself for forever and eternity. Nothing drives someone farther and faster then guilt, by either wanting to atone or escape from Ay Aye, I know.”

Your lips trembled as you struggled to find words. More of you then you realized must have trembled, because his arms encircled you and pulled you back against him comfortingly. Finally you heard yourself, and almost without thought the words came pouring out.

“There once was this young girl, only child to a well off merchant whose wife had died when the child was but a wee bairn. Her father never remarried, and of course she was spoiled rotten by her father, but not in the normal way you think. She was spoiled because he did not exclude her because she was but a girl. He did not rush the child from the room when business went on, so through watching and listening she learned. She was well educated. Her love of music was fostered with instruments and tutors to the point where she was convinced she could attend some of the renowned music colleges of Europe, except that none would take a woman.

At around the age of 16, her father went to speak to the master of a smaller academy in Germany, desperate to bring his daughters dream to some sort of fruition, but as her luck would have it, his ship was lost. In a short expanse of time not only was she was excluded from all the schools she wished to attend but then orphaned and the only heir to a minor fortune, so I want to say she wasn’t all in her right mind at the time. Young and overwhelmed. She continued to run her father’s routes as she thought he would have, but many were unwilling to want to deal with a woman, especially one so young, but she kept at it.

It was then the suitors began to show up at her door, fortune seekers for the most part; others who wanted to make her an honest woman and not a man want-to-be. One day a handsome young gentleman arrived, all in velvet and lace, son of lord as it were. He came at first with a business proposition, needing someone to help subsidize some shipments from the Far East, his contacts and sources, and her money to start. He actually followed her advice, which started her denial of instincts. After all, he was a lord; a man of noble blood and honor. The goods returned successfully and quite a bit of money was made. He presented her a necklace from that shipment, covered in dragons, as a token of his affection and appreciation. It was like her spirit he said. Making a long story short, he wooed her while they waited the long months for the ships and caravans to return with the goods. And she fell for his words, convinced he loved the simple merchant girl and her whims, ignoring the coldness in his eyes when they were alone and the distance in his kiss. She ignored her gut feelings and all that she had learned from her father.

He convinced her to buy a winery in France, as his inheritance was not solvent until his father’s death, where they would go live after they were married, and he would use his influence to get her into a music school nearby. Well that sold her, and they were wed. The wedding night, painful and cold, was a forbear of her husband’s desire to take and not give, but not being experienced in the ways of the world, the girl knew not the difference and bore it with resolve.

He packed her up and took her to France. They had stopped at an inn outside Rouen, and booked a room. She found it odd when after the evening meal, and retiring, he packed her up, and they left in dead of night in secret, leaving her maidservant behind, but she did not question as it was not her place. Then in the middle of nowhere, in a farmer’s field under the light of the full moon, they stopped …” You faltered, the long buried memories striking you like hot iron brands, the details returning in such vivid details that you started to flinch as you remembered. You did not feel the hot tears as they coursed down your face.

“He beat her mercilessly, over and over and over with fists and boots of stone. She could think of nothing she had done to deserve this. She was scorched by the fire of greed and contempt in his eyes as she begged for mercy in her fear and confusion. No one heard her screams, or if they did, no one cared. How long it went on she did not know, but it seemed forever, until finally darkness took her. He beat his new wife to within an inch of her life, then threw her in a watery ditch to drown. No one would miss an unknown English girl in the French countryside. As she floated in the water, he came down and took the necklace from her. Little did he know that this action saved her life, and when he dropped her head again and left, it fell on a branch, which barely kept it above the water line.

It was merciful fate that had sent her maidservant to steal after them, as she had never trusted nor liked her lady’s husband. She pulled the dying girl from the slimy water, and as luck would have it she lived. They say that what does not kill you makes you stronger, and she put this into her resolve to right the wrong against her. Hard won lessons that one tends not to forget.

What the ignorant girl never knew until then was that her lord was bankrupt, bereft of his money, having lost it on unwise transactions, women and gambling. What she also discovered was that all this time he had a mistress outside Paris, whom he planned to flee to after murdering his wife.

His great plan was cunning and almost worked. He leaves his wife at the inn to travel ahead, but the upstart young wife follows him in her wantonness, and she is beset upon by bandits, who rape and kill her, just in case she is identified. If that is the case he takes control of everything and he wins, later able to marry his mistress. If not, then he eventually takes his mistress and passes her off as the wife, for who in France knows whom she really is.

Shame that he tarried so long gallivanting with whores and wine and cards. Shame that he traveled alone, still half drunk to his mistress’s house, with the necklace as a gift, the original intended recipient. It was only after the dagger plunged into his heart did he recognize the swollen and hideously bruised and battered face of the one that wielded it. Never had the girl felt such fury and yet such release as she used the dagger as he had his fists on her. When it was done, he was barely recognizable. She knelt next to the body; her form covered in blood and gore from head to toe, retrieved her jewels from his pocket, and carefully put her dragon necklace back on.

The maidservant was worth her weight in loyalty and gold, as she helped the new widow remove his valuables and drag the corpse to a tree where they trussed it up and left it for the crows and any passersby. She allowed herself a short time to heal, and then went onto her winery, where the poor heartbroken woman learned that her husband never arrived ahead of her. As far as the world knows, Lord Geoffrey was found on the road to Arles, eviscerated by bandits. As far as I know, he beat me and left me to die… He beat me and left me to die like a dog in the gutter… like a dog…he just kept beating me…”

Not once had you ever relayed this story to anyone, and not once had you cried about it since that first night after you were pulled from the ditch and awoke. You had pushed it from your mind, as though it was a nightmare, a simple matter of survival. But now it was there, in the forefront, and you broke down, sobbing and weeping, repeating those last lines over and over as the betrayal replayed itself over and over in your mind.

He held you the whole time, having turned you to cradle you like a child, rocking back and forth ever so slightly, stroking your hair and articulating unheard words of comfort. By the time you regained even a sliver of composure, Jack’s chest was soaked with your tears, and the mortification of your weakness began to sink in. You tried to pull away, but he held you firm.“Nay“Nay, luv, stay,” the pirate captain said in that strange insightful way that he. “I. “I could tell ye I’m sorry, and I am, for what that miscreant did was deplorable, but we both know it doesn’t change what happened. I could tell ye that not all men are Satan incarnate as he was, but I think ye know that too, or you wouldn’t ‘ave laid with me in the first place. I can’t change the past; lord knows I wish I could. I don’t have much to offer you that would mean anything, but I can offer ye my sympathy, if you would have it. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, a subject I am well versed on, but you have overcome it and made well for yourself, and if anything came of that wretched ni you you should be proud of that.”

You started to wipe tears and moisture from your eyes and nose and face, not feeling quite proud at the moment. Reaching back, Jack pulled your pillow down and lay you back upon it, using the edge of the blanket to wipe the remaining tears away. He rose and fetched a fresh glass of wine and the bottle, handing you the glass and sitting next to you. He took a long swig straight from the bottle. You sat up, sipped at yours, your throat stinging and raw, not daring to look up at him, clutching the sheet modestly around your chest still.

“I’m sorry, Jacyou chokchoked out, your voice barely able to work.

“For what? Being human? Having feelings, regrets, skeletons in your closet? We all have those, silly woman!” His hand rubbed tenderly at your back.

“I barely know you, and yet I burdened you with something so dark, something I have ne’er told anyone. I can’t say what came over me.” You glanced up from under your lashes, ashamed.

Grinning in his sharp way that seemed to indicate he already knew the answer, Jack suddenly asked, “If ye barely knew me, what made you trust me to begin with, lass? Think about it. “ You couldn’t answer right away, and Jack continued after taking another long draught of the bottle. “You, dear woman, have been a pleasant surprise to old Jack here. You are not the regular dithering female that I usually cross paths with. Not many have the gift of inner strength, beauty, and true insight that you seem to have; the ability, innate or learned, to read people’s true intentions. My question is what you see and how you see it? How did you come to the judgment that I had not come to slit your throat for that mere bauble around your neck after having my way with you? What made you even start talking to this scurvy dog to begin with, when it was clear that was something you never did before?”

“Your eyes,” you reply your strength and resolve returning a tad. “That night in the pub. Your eyes spoke to me.” You hesitantly stroked his dark eyebrow with one thumb, outlining the faded remnants of the dark, oily kohl that had been smeared around them on the lid. “I saw what I had felt all these years, and I saw compassion, and caring, and potential.”

Jack took your hand in his and kissed your wrist as you caressed his face. “Not many see that in me.” His soft lips and facial hair on your wrist sent shivers down your spine, and you felt that small spark start to rekindle.

“Kindred spirits, I suppose,” you breathe.

His kisses worked up you arm to that superbly sensitive flesh at your inner elbow, where he lingered, listening to your inhalations quicken. Jack’s hand cupped your breast and fondled it, relishing its firm pliability, and working the ever-hardening nipple with his fingers until it could be no harder.

Instincts and hormones and adrenalin from your cry took over and startling both you and he, Jack found himself pushed back onto the bed, as you caught his lips with yours. Your hands on his shoulders, you straddled his thighs, pressing your chest against his without adding your full weight, wanting that precious contact with his skin. His fingers slipped between you, and into youft mft mound, between your swelling lips. You heard and felt the groan of approval for your forwardness from him in the deep kiss. You knew he could feel the wetness of your arousal that was already there as he slipped his fingers into your channel. Your hips moved of their own accord on his fingers as the probed and stroked inside you.

His thumb pinched hard the exposed nub and you jerked up with a gasp. The corner of his mouth turned upward in a pleased way, watching you squirm and gyrate as he increased the rhythm of his actions. “What do you want, luv?” Jack asked between your loudening gasps.

You pulled his hand away and looked down on him, his raven black haits its long tangled tendrils splayed out around him, and the hint of his gold-capped teeth in the wry smile on his face. You knew from those dark expressive eyes that the pirate was looking for something in your reply that was not what was the first response expected, but you hadn’t figured what yet. Moving up a few inches you didn’t answer him in words. His shaft was already steel hard beneath you, and you ran its length back and forth between your nether lips, slicking it with your hot fluids.

Jack groaned and grasped your breasts, squeezing them in his grip as you added weight and pressure and rocked on his flesh, matching his groans each time you ran it over your more sensitive swelling.

“What do you want?” Jack asked again, the eagerness burning brightly behind sheer lust in his eyes.

“You.” Your hand takes his manhood and it pulses in your grasp and he utters something unintelligible. You guide the tip to your opening, and lower yourself, feeling it slide in, stretching and filling your body.

Jacks hands grasp your hips and stops your progress. “Nay luv’. What do you WANT?” he growls out firmly, chastisement for your not understanding his meaning, yet patient in desiring your comprehension. His brows furrow in his effort and he stares you down, daring you to see what he means in his face.

A moment of claritruckruck you in your desire and you cry out, “Freedom,” and force yourself the rest of the way onto him. Jack smiled and releases you, throwing back his hands, letting you go. You rode him, unsure and haltingly at first, feeling the deepness of his entrance between rising and falling, and just rocking on his length. As you gained confidence, want began to grow steadily, your rhythm increased. Jack grasped at the pillow under his head in his fight to let you be, his fists clenching and unclenching as you gyrated on top of his body. Your hands rest on his shoulders, helping balance yourself on his body and give you leverage. His hips rose and tried to match your plunges with his own thrusts.

Guttural sounds and growls grew louder from the pirate as he watches your efforts, your head thrown back and fingers digging into his skin, trying to reach that pinnacle, just ever so out of reach. Suddenly he bucks strongly and flips you to the side, but not letting you onto your back. Jack kneels up, pushing his hair back again, cursing for need of his red scarf. “Get up. Get up on your hands,” he orders.

You look at him somewhat baffled, but did as he asked. You feel Jack come up behind you, guiding your legs apart and his hard shaft between them, and his intent becomes very clear. His one arm bends you over to gain better entrance, and the other supports your hip, pulling you back onto his length. After he fills you completely, Jack pulls you against his body, kneeling fully upright, your back to his chest. His lips kiss your neck, and his breath is ragged and hot in your ear as he takes your lobe and nips at it.

Jack rocks ever so slowly beneath you, his thrusts purposeful and strong in the short space he has to move. One of his hands grasps your breast, and the other goes down to feel the connection between you, where two becomes one. You snake one arm up and around his neck, through his hair, feeling the cool metal of the trinkets in its mass bobbing on your shoulder and arm. You pull him tighter against you, encouraging his gentle tongue explorations and the thrusts behind you. Your other joins his between you, and he moans loudly as you touch there, touch him. You can feel his slick skin and soaking coarse curls as he pulls in and out of your passage. He guides your fingers to your own body, entwining your fingers with his, and encourages you to touch and pleasure your own body.

Your body clenches around his shaft in response to the touch, and you lowhimwhimper, an amusing paradox to the pirate’s ever growing cries. “Grab the post luv,” he raggedly grunts out, and his hands grasp your hips after you do. With you bent over further, he has wide movement, and solidly begins to thrust deep into you. His hands pull you back harder and harder, and he leans over to kiss and bite at your back. You feel his balls slapping against you in his anxious enthusiasm. Sweat runs from his chest and face and drips onto your back like hot raindrops, mixing with your own.

His ever-audible groans criecries fill the room, almost drowning out your own exclamations of passion. You feel that exploding fire start to consume you, as you realize that Jack is near his climax. He grimaces in his fight for control, and you hear him call out, “Oh god, luv. I cant.. Oh dear god..” And it trailed off into a throaty roar as he came in wild abandonment, digging into your sweat-slicked flesh with his fingers that would later leave bruises.

This triggered something in your own psyche, and fell over the edge of pleasure, screaming his name over and over as you shuddered and writhed against him, daring not let go of the wooden bedpost lest you collapse. His groans choked up into a silent scream, and his teeth dug into your shoulder as he pulsed and surged his essence deep into you. Your body clenched and trembled around him, milking his body of all the seed that filled you.

Jack, gasping for air, practically collapses on top of you; the only thing stopping him is his sudden grasping of the wood, right above your own hands. The metal dangly on the end of his hair tassel swings back and forth, bopping you in the nose several times until he flings it back with a flip of his head.

Oh, sorry my dear,” he apologetically said, frowning as he poked a finger at the large bruised and slightly bloody mark he had left on your back. “I think I’ve branded ye. Left an unintentional souvenir.”

You release the bedpost and wearily sink into the soft bedding, and Jack slides in wrapping his arms around you. “Hell’s bells,” he says, suddenly, as his gaze is directed out the window at his angle. The sun had almost set, and the sky was a deep, dark red.

“What’s wrong, Jack?”

“The day’s all but passed, that’s all. Didn’t mean to alarm you.”

You felt a pain in your gut. “Does that mean you will be leaving now?” You hoped the disappointment wasn’t too evident in your question.

Jack only clutched you tighter to him. “I’ve till morning till I need be back on my ship, and my contact for my goods is long gone, so I’ve nowhere pressing to be and no fancy engagements I must be attending. So, if ye be so inclined, I might be persuaded to linger…”

You giggled, and turned in his arms so you were nose to nose. “What would be good persuasion to a pirate captain, I wonder?”

He stared off into the distant air a moment as if in thought, and smiled cattily. “A good dinner would be nice, and eventually some sleep, but first and most important...” He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching underneath and retrieving a metal bowl, “I desperately need a chamber pot. That, my girl, will work wonders for me,” as he strode off into the other room.

The rest of the night was spent suffering your maidservants perturbed stares as she brought you dinner and drink and new clothing for Jack, (much to his consternation and her sheer insistence that almost none of it could be saved but she purchased everything almost identical to what he had given her), listening to more of Jack’s stories of the sea, and making love until you both collapsed in exhaustion and fell into deep sleep enveloped in his grasp.

You did not feel the pirate leave your bed before the sun rose, nor any of his other actions before he stole from your abode.

He quietly dressed in a new crisp white linen shirt and new blue breeches, oddly offset by the old red and white tattered sash and comfortably worn long vest that he had verbally fought Ester for until the old woman gave in. He slid the red bandanna over his head, tying it beneath the large ponytail in the back, and pulling the small beaded and decorated top tail over the edge to hold it. Slipping his belt and weapons on, but leaving his boots off he strode over to your small writing desk and sat down. Setting his leather hat to the side he picked up a quill, and he sat for many minutes, poised over a sheet of parchment. All at once he began to write, the quill flying across with a soft scratching sound, and not stopping until he had filled the page with words. Signing it with a flourish, he blew across the wet ink gently to dry it, and folded it thrice.

He reached up and grabbed the long tail on his left side and finding the base near his skull, with a small penknife, he sliced it off and knotted the sliced end with a loose strand of thread that hung from his sash.

Jack Sparrow stood over your sleeping form for a long while, staring down expressionless, holding the letter, the hair and a small object. He set it on the pillow in the hole that his head had made while sleeping, then bent down and kissed your forehead. With deft fingers he removed the dragon necklace from your neck with nary a disturbance to your sleep, and slipped it into a long pocket in his vest. With that, he crept into the other room, where he slipped on his boots and in the darkness climbed out the casement and back down the tree from where he had first come.

Although you knew he would be gone when you awoke, when you did stir with the morning light and the litany of avian chorus to find his spot empty, you had to choke back sorrowful disappointment.
When you stood up is when you saw the letter and picked it up. Underneath you saw the long familiar hair adornment, wrapped around and threaded through something. You gasped when you realized what it was, and ever so hesitantly took it up. Jack’s silver and sapphire ring peeked out from under the hair when you slowly unwound it. He had run the hair through the middle and tied it in a simple overhand, then wrapped the rest around to shield it.

Weakly you sat on the edge of the bed, and unfolded the letter with trembling hands. Jack had a beautiful script for a pirate, but then you knew that he wasn’t just a pirate; that there was more to him then he let on, and that even now you so desired to learn about. Your hand flew to your neck as you read it, as you realized that your necklace was gone. You read the words several times, before folding the paper again, and holding it to your breast.

It read:

‘My sweet lady

I did not ever think my heart could or would be as heavy as it was when was to leave you this day. That in and of itself told me something and it is only fair that I tell you, to leave you with something.

It is rare when one meets someone truly extraordinary, who that in an instant can leave an indelible impression upon oneself, that cries out to beturetured and explored to its full potential. Even in my wide travels, that has only happened upon the rarest of occasions and in the most bizarre and unexpected situations. This has not broken that mold to be sure. You are most surely a dragon kindred, if the traits you told me be true.

My duties call me to be elsewhere, and with my code I must go. If it were not for my enormous responsibilities, I would tarry longer with you, for I desire to learn as much about you and your whims and dreams, as you said you did for mine.

With that, let it be known that if the Gov’ners men ever see need to hassle you, you can honestly claim to them that the dread pirate took advantage of you, stealing your precious jewels for his own nefarious desires. For your own safety, of course, I have done this.

If I for some addled reason that is best not dwelled on or explained, have happened to have misplaced and forgotten anything of my own property that you perchance run across, I ask you the boon of caring for it, until someday soon in the future I may retrieve them from your hands. If I have any say in the matter our paths will cross again.

If it be in your heart what be in mine, look to the seas at the sunset, and think of me, and know that I will be thinking of you.

Never surrender, milady, and never let them tell you what for.

Captain Jack Sparrow ‘

It was now four months later, and the tears seeped down your face the same as when you read that letter. You tightly held the ring and hair that Jack Sparrow had left, staring at the sunset, as you had every clear night since that day.

Laughter from small groups of people caught your attention, and you looked down onto local girls walking with some of the new sailors that had arrived in. The boys of summer had arrived in the form of new recruits and transplanted sailors and soldiers from the old world that the young girls of the island flocked to for attention and prospects. While some might stay, most would leave, and the cycle would start again.

You supposed that Jack was your boy of summer. A pleasant interlude and the memories would be something you would always cherish. You could always hope that maybe he might even remember you on occasion.

While the girls of the town would look forward to a new batch of young men every few months, or every year, you knew in your heart that there would be no others for you. Your summer was gone. If you were not alone before, you certainly were alone now. You had your songs and your new enterprises, and that would have to do, for you would never surrender to the chains that modern society deemed acceptable for you.

You opened your hand and gazed down upon the silver band with its bright blue stone and the dangling ornament that hung from it, moving in the wind. You would always have your sunsets, you thought; just like he asked, and in that way you would always have some part of him.

You almost screamed as smudged, dirty fingers encircled your hand with the ring, to hold it firm. A warm body pressed into your back and breathed into your hair. “Beautiful sunset, luv. I see you did me the courtesy of keeping that safe for me. Thank you very much,” you heard a familiar voice say.

Your legs almost collapsed out from under you as you recognized the dulcet, slurred tones, and you quivered in anxious shock, not daring to prove yourself right.

“I have to say,” the male voice continued,” I had a rough time of trailing the bit of crumbs you left for your new whereabouts, but they always forget that I am Captain Jack Sparrow.”

You whirled, and were nose to nose with the pirate Captain. His eyes sparkled mischievously from sockets with mostly fresh black kohl circles around them, and he had that amusing sideways grin that showed the gold of his teeth. Taking a half step back, you looked him up and down in disbelief that he was really here and this wasn’t some delusion of yours.

Jack was almost the same as the first time you saw him, in the dark overcoat, his white shirt a bit less tattered and only a couple of patches on his pants this time. The notable exception was where the dangling hair ornament had graced his head before, was a new line of stones threaded into a strand on his hair, all which looked mightily familiar as the stones that once graced your neck.

He saw your gaze and laughed. “I needed a safe place to keep those, and that seemed better then any other, and my head felt a bit lopsided and empty once I ‘misplaced’ the original.” Jack stepped in close to you again, a hand snaking behind to the small of your back “I have to admit, dearie, I had a bit of a time when I first got back to the Pearl, not hearing the end of it for several days as to how pleasant my new attire and fragrance be, especially from Gibbs.” He cradled your flabbergasted and awestruck face in his free hand. “My guts have told me that this will be a bad season, and not enough profit for risk for a bit o’ time. We had a couple of excellent months there, so being the responsible Captain that I am, I have stowed the Pearl in a sheltered harbor, and given the crew some time off to do what they need or want to. I was thinking, or more so I was hoping, that I could find a place to take up a temporary residence here on this nd, nd, maybe with some fair lady to keep me company. Would ye have any suggestions, luv?” Jack pressed his lips to yours, long and lovingly, then pulled back and waited for your reaction.

Searching for a voice, you were barely able to nod, the emotion radiating from your eyes. Then it truly struck you, and throwing your arms around him, you laughed and cried at the same time. “I didn’t think I’d see you again, Jack.”

“Aye, you know a pirate’s reputation. As I told ye before they could never resist a bit of treasure,” he replied as he swept you up into his arms and carried you back towards the inside, and teased on the way in, “Now, despite my crew’s taunts, I was hoping that you might be persuaded to that bath thing again, but this time with me, you know, to wash my back?”


FINI