The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 02

Pok had crept out with her this time, and she made matters slightly worse as she caressed Bess while she stood bent over Clayton. As much as Bess enjoyed that, she found it distracting while she focused on loving him while trying not to cause him to wake. Finally, Pok asked if she might try a little and when he came a few minutes later, they both were able to have a little. Pok stood up and crept back to their bed as Bess whispered her thanks once more.

"I come back because I can't help meself. You're a beauty to me and ... and I just can't keep away. Forgive me, sir, an' I wish you very pleasant dreams."

She kissed him then, as softly as she could manage on his cheek before she stole away. As she pulled her covers up, wondering why she suddenly felt the need to that night, Clayton woke up.

He felt the same things that he'd noticed the night before and this time his cheek felt a little wet. Reaching up to touch the place gave him something to really wonder about now. He wondered if it had anything to do with the woman that he kept thinking that he saw every once in a while.

What the hell was happening to him?

In the tiny cabin that they shared on the little ship, Pok was frigging Bess like a wild thing and they had the hardest time remaining silent.

He went back to sleep a minute or so later, but when he woke up in the morning; he felt as though he was almost in a relationship with the apparition, a little sure that she was not just something that his mind had created.

Bess wasn't really sure herself what had gone wrong all that time ago, but she'd taken years to come out of her stupor and when she did, she'd found that decades had passed and her family was gone, the house little more than a bit of wreckage on a few pilings in the mangrove swamp. Her hair and her nails had grown somewhat frighteningly and after dealing with that mess, she'd decided after a time that she ought to be going somewhere for some reason, but she didn't know where. There was a lot more time and details to it, but the end result was that she'd come here long ago and had been here ever since. She only wished that she might know what she was now.

Bess lay in her bed next to Pok, her mind reeling a little over a vague feeling of discovery that she seemed to have made. She didn't need to eat all that often and found what she needed in the forest a few hundred yards off. She often didn't eat at all until she thought of it. At first, she'd been upset in a huge way, feeling as though life had passed her by somehow in a way that she wasn't cognisant of. She'd given up her endless weeping some time ago, but the fact remained that she was something for which there was no other thing. She could very often feel herself disappearing and at those times, she'd found that she could pass through other objects and vice versa, and yet at other times, she seemed to be solid in relation to the world around her.

It didn't matter, she thought somewhat bitterly. Here she was, God only knows how long after she should have passed from this earth. She looked fine and she was healthy as far as she knew. It was just that she was alone here, trapped at a perpetually ageless twenty-five years old. The thing of it was, that on the occasions when she did eat, she really didn't feel as though she'd actually eaten anything. Her stomach didn't feel to her as though it had anything in it, though she knew that it did.

She'd eaten something, felt the food in her mouth and felt it when she'd chewed it and swallowed. She eliminated it as waste the next day and as unpleasant a thought as it was, she knew that it was just as it had been when she was a woman living in the world where she belonged. It just didn't feel as though it was sustaining her. When she thought of it like that and how seldom she ate, she wondered what was keeping her 'alive', if that was what she was.

Her moment came when she thought back to how it felt to have her mouth filled with the man's semen. It was warm and she liked it, just as she did long ago, but more to the point, it was pleasant to her to do it and she loved the way that it felt when she swallowed it. Her eyes opened wide as she realized that after suckling him, her gut felt as though she actually had consumed something then. In terms of quantity, it had been a lot for her to swallow to be sure, but still it was only a man's semen and getting it down had not been like trying to guzzle a mug of tea or anything, and she just felt as though her belly had something in in now.

She smirked to herself and chuckled softly. She sure hoped that he didn't miss what she took and as an afterthought, she hoped that he liked it somehow.

She found that the man slept a little restlessly some nights and she didn't try to do anything then. The fifth night, she was fairly certain that she'd heard what sounded a little like a growl from him, but it was so quiet and it had happened so quickly that she wasn't sure that she'd really heard anything.

No matter, she thought, he was sleeping soundly a few minutes later and so she caressed him and lowered her head once more when he was almost hard.

That was something else that she liked about him. When he was hard, well, he had the hardest phallus that she'd ever held. The thought of climbing onto him crossed her mind, but she couldn't think of a way to do it and get away if she had to. Just then, she listened as he growled again. Bess was rather taken by the sound. He sounded like any man, but he also --

She suddenly knew that she'd taken too long thinking and listening. She hadn't been paying attention and now his hand was on her head. He wasn't pressing or anything like that, but she wouldn't have been surprised if he did. He was asleep after all. She wasn't particularly afraid, but she now wanted to be away from here and what she'd been doing was not something that she wanted to have as a starting point to a relationship with anyone.

She wasn't even thinking of anything very personal. She just didn't want to be there when he awoke suddenly, since that could easily happen now. And what would she say then?

'Oh, hello. I was just creeping by and I found your cockstand here waving in the breeze. I didn't think you'd mind if I played 'bumblebee' for a little while to see if I might have a little nectar.'

It was a bit of work to get his fingers out of her hair at first until she had her flash of insight and she stopped sucking him. They stayed like that for a couple of minutes, him beginning to snore again with his hand on her head and her slowly moving her mouth away. At length, he rolled away from her with a snort and she made her escape. Inside her room, she smiled after a minute and had to force herself to keep from laughing. She wouldn't get her little meal tonight, but she still thought that it had been a bit of fun and at least he hadn't pulled out any hair.

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Not Quite the Invisible Girl

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She realized with a start that the man could see her on the sixth day. He'd been walking past when she'd seen him stop, looking down. He was on his way a moment later and Bess relaxed then, thinking little of it. She'd been far more interested in the shiny thing that he'd laid out outside the day before and the cubes and boxes which went with that. She didn't know what it was for and she'd almost forgotten about it when he'd come in and turned on a little thing which had some sort of rope connection to the thing outside and it gave off a pale bluish light inside with no flames or smoke or anything.

Bess was astounded at first, but then she looked down at herself, still wondering what had caused him to stop on his way by.

That was when she saw her own shadow. She thought about that with a rising sense of alarm.

The whole time that they'd been like that, him standing there not six feet from her and then walking away, she'd been completely naked.

She was a little embarrassed over it, but then she shrugged to herself. A human usually might feel shame at being seen without clothes. What did she have to feel ashamed about anymore?

In retrospect much later, she recalled the moment and found that her estimation of him had risen then. That he must have been at least partially able to see her and yet he hadn't lost his mind was one thing, since many people can tell themselves anything to explain away what they think that they might have seen and not really been sure.

But to have that uncertainty and then see your explanations dashed since you'd seen the shadow of something -- or someone who was real and solid enough to cast a shadow.

He'd worked about an hour longer on whatever it was that he was doing there and then he'd climbed on to his horse and ridden slowly away.

Bess had watched him as he'd left and as he disappeared out of her sight, she'd burst into tears, crying as she hadn't cried in over a century, she guessed a little later. It came to her some time later that he hadn't run away as though he was fearful for his life. He'd left a lot of his things here. After what had happened to her in her life, Bess was more than reluctant to pray. It sure hadn't helped anything for her before, after all.

But she did it anyway and wondered why it was that she already seemed to need him somehow. She reached out and touched the little blue light, amazed that something could give light like this and yet remain cool to the touch. She wandered over to where his sleeping bag lay and she curled up there feeling like a lost kitten, wanting to be near to something which smelled of him.

She was still sitting in the middle of his sleeping bag on the oak desk when he came back. He didn't look around at all and it seemed to her that he didn't see her. A quick look at herself to be sure and then she looked up at him. He didn't appear to look around him at all now. She wondered about that a little. For as long as he'd been here, she'd seen him stop rather often to look around himself and she suddenly knew that he must have felt her looking at him all of this time.

He was cooking something, she noticed and the smell of that made her stomach remind her that she hadn't eaten in maybe a week. She got up and drifted over a little nearer to where he stood. He had a pot of vegetables headed for a boil in a few minutes, she guessed and then she saw the cuts of meat that he was cooking. He turned to work at a small cutting board and in seconds, she watched him begin to fry up some onions.

She was happy that he'd returned. Quite clearly, he'd gone to buy some food for himself. She looked at the quantity and then at him, a little surprised, but still with the thought that she'd really like a little of a taste of what he was making for himself. She hadn't eaten anything like this in so long that the mere thought of that was a little painful. These thoughts were all a little hopeful and pleasant to her and it set the stage for the shock of it when he began to speak, though he didn't turn his head.

"I don't know who or what you are," he said quietly, "but I hope that you can eat some of this stuff -- otherwise I'm wasting food and I hate to do that.

And if you can eat any of this, I'd like it very much if you could eat dinner with me. That way, I'd know for sure that I'm not going crazy."

Bess stood transfixed, looking at the back of his shoulder as he kept cooking.

"I don't know, "she answered as levelly as she could, when really, she was the one who now wanted to run away screaming because clearly, she was losing her mind if she could imagine that he was talking to her now. "but I think that I must try. I cannot think of how long it has been since a gentleman has asked me to dinner with him."

She raised her hand and looked at it for a moment, "You cannot see me, sir. How is it that you knew that I was here?"

He turned his head back then and he smiled a little. She thought that her knees might fail her at that moment.

He shrugged, "Look down."

Bess looked down and then she knew. The little bluish light was behind them and she was casting a long shadow which stretched out next to his on the floor.

"Ah," she said, the smile on her face evident in the sound of her speech, "It's that bit of wizardry that you have there, the cold blue light. I thought that it allowed you to see me in its light."

"No," he said, "It's just a light to see by. Where are you from? I can hear something in your voice, but I don't know what it is, or where it's from."

"I was born on Jamaica," she said, "but I have no knowledge of how long it has been since I was there. It may shock you to know, but I find myself in the enviable position of being a female who quite honestly does not know her true age. I think that I can say that I am older than you are by some margin.

And this is my tone when I wish to be polite, though that has not happened in almost as long a time as it's been since I was born. I normally speak differently." She shook her head, "That is, I used to. I don't know how long it's been since I've spoken much at all."

He smiled again, "Why not speak the way that's most comfortable to you?"

She looked at herself and made sure that she was clothed in the finest dress that she held in her memory as she made herself visible to him. "Might I 'ave the honor of knowin' your name, Sir?" she asked, switching to her patois.

The change in her speech caused him to turn and he smiled, "That's a lovely dress, though a bit much for where we are. I do like it, though. And my name is Clayton Tanner."

"Claytan," she smiled in pleasure as she pronounced it in her way with a nod, "A fine strong name, to be sure. I am Bess."

"Just Bess?" he asked and she shrugged a little, "Just Bess. It all I was given when me born. My grandmother used to call me' little fox' because of my hair. I s'pose that I might have been Bess Fox. Later, I took my man's name for a time until he died. His name Hawke."

"Then to my way of thinking," Clayton smiled, "you are Bess Fox once again, and I hope that I can call you that, since I think it suits you." He looked at her for a moment before he turned the meat in the pan, "I hope I'm not being rude, and I have to say that you're beautiful to me, but I ... I don't know ... "

She held up her hand, "I don't know either. For the longest time, I thought me dead. At times, it seem so, and yet at other times, it not like that at all. I used to think I a ghost, but ..."

She reached out her hand to touch his arm, "See? I am warm."

"But you can eat, "he said, almost like a question, and she nodded, "Yes but ... I don' know what it do for me. I don' feel that I 'ave eaten anyt'ing."

"Maybe it doesn't matter," he chuckled, "as long as it tastes good and it does you some good."

He found a couple of chairs and Bess provided the candles. She tried to tell him what she remembered of her life. "After my mother put me in the trance, I didn't wake up for a long, long time, and when I did, everything and everyone was gone. I wasn't at the jail anymore, and my home was deserted and fallen-in. I started to travel north and it took forever to get here. I've been here for a long while, living in that," she pointed.

I must be a ghost," she said, "but I'm not a person anymore either. I've been this for so long and for almost all of it, I've been alone, though the last while, I've had a bit of company in a friend. She lives here as well, but I don't see her now. She might be out getting food."

As she spoke, Clayton sat listening attentively. After a time, he noticed that she seemed to need the telling of it and as he thought about it, it came to him that if she'd been like this for a long time, it was no wonder that she'd feel some attraction to someone who was living. He reached for her hand and she stopped speaking to look up at him. "Have I been prattling?" she asked, looking a little embarrassed," I'm sorry if I was."

"You might have been -- to somebody else, Bess. I was enjoying it, myself. I'm always alone and I don't get to hear another person's voice all that often. I have to admit that I got lost somewhere in it a while back. I was going to ask you to stop and go back, but I just found myself listening to it all. Maybe I ought to apologize to you. What do you do here?"

She shrugged, "I just stay here and do nothing, since I have nothing to do. I have no plans, nothing. I guess I'll have to stay here. I have nothing else and nowhere to go."

"Maybe so and maybe not," Clayton smiled, "I mean, I own all of this now. I bought it last week, but I don't think I'd mind it if you stayed. I don't know anybody here but you. You'll have to move your quarters though, unless you want to come along."

She set down her glass, "Come along?"

"Yes," he nodded, "If what I want to do works out, I'll be leaving in a while. I'm going to sea."

"How?" she asked, "In what? And why I have to move?"

"I'm going to sea in that," he pointed, "Your room is the captain's quarters. I've seen it as I've walked by. I don't mind if you stay there, but if you want that, then you'll have to come along, since the room is in my boat, and my boat will be leaving one day."

"For a short time," she smiled, "I was a captain, but I don't think that you would want to know of it, and anyway, that is a barge of some sort to be towed behind another ship, one which has sails."

"It's not a barge and it doesn't need sails -- that is, if the engines will work. And you're wrong," he smiled, "I'd love to hear all about your time as a captain."

"What is the year?" she asked, "I have just had the thought that I have the chance to know with you here."

"2473," he smiled and Bess almost fell over.

"It can't be," she said, falling back to her patois in her shock, "unless they count it different now."

"No," Clayton said, shaking his head a little, "it's 2473 Anno Domini, the year of our lord. Why?"

"It mean I fell asleep in the cells at Port Royal and now seven hundred and fifty years pass by?"

"You're right," he smiled, "or you must be. You sure don't look almost eight hundred year old to me."

She wanted to change the subject, not liking the possibility that she was correct, "How soon must I move from my room?"

"You don't have to move at all, "he said, "Just stay there, but I'll need to tramp by a lot while I try to get the engines working, so you might want to hang another curtain for privacy. You said that you've been here for a time, no need to move if you don't want to."

She looked back at the hull which was suspended over the drydock, "That thing can sail with no canvas?"

He tried to smile a little, "Try to think that while you were asleep, as you say, a lot of things have come and gone. That hull is over four hundred years old, but it's been out of the water for almost all of the time. I need to see if the hull can be made tight and if so, then the engines must be made to work again. There are a lot of horsepower waiting there to be used."

She didn't understand it and so the next while was spent trying to convince her. "Alright," she smiled, "I wait until the day when you show me these magic horses and how it is that a ship might sail with no wind."

From him, she learned that he knew of an island with a supply of meat where he planned to live.

"How you know of the place?" she asked him.

"My family comes from there," he'd said, "I was a boy there." He looked at her a little, thinking for a moment, "It's not anything as warm as what Jamaica must be like, but it's warmer and a lot sunnier than it is here."

"Then I want to come," Bess smiled, "I've been here too long and if I must sail there, I like it already. I truly don't know how I can be alive. I slipped into a trance as a living woman and all this time has passed me by. I don't feel as though I've lived much at all beyond my two years as a privateer."