Matelotage
Matelotage is published in the “Treasure Trail” anthology by Alyson Books
Napier opened his eyes and rolled over, his mouth sour and dry, his head sore from the previous evening’s revels. A warm wind was blowing off the coast of Hispaniola and Napier could tell from the stars that the ship was swinging around on her anchor; it was that that had woken him. He smiled grimly; they would sail with the new wind at dawn. His blood stirred at the thought of the open sea and the anticipation of the chase.
The captain’s cabin was unlit, but the moon, waxing strongly, shone onto Reuben’s curved spine and pale buttocks that were always a joy to wake to, whatever the hour. Reuben’s skin gleamed in the heat. He had kicked off the sheets in the night, and Napier’s eyes feasted on the contrast between his brown back, marked with the hazards of a sailor’s life, and the rounded temptation of his alabaster arse.
Like this, Napier thought, as he reached forward to slide his fingers into the warm crevasse, when he’s face down and I don’t have to see his lying face, I can almost believe he’s worth keeping. I should never have claimed him.
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But he had, and regretted it almost every moment since. Reuben Pyke had bewitched the captain, some of the crew believed, with his easy grace and his honey-eyed careless smile. He’d sauntered on board one drunken night, made his mark in the ship’s register, and from the moment Paul Napier had laid eyes on the newcomer’s pretty face and tight striped trousers, his blood turned to burning rum, and his loins to a sea on fire. Napier knew from that first moment how it would end: that he had to have him, had to claim him as a captain’s prize, had to pin Reuben Pyke beneath him and make him his own.
It was a smooth boarding. Reuben had fallen into bed with the captain with the same dangerous ease that he spitted an enemy or slit a throat, and for a while Napier had been content. Reuben was a willing fuck, a pleasurable whorish fuck, doing more in a night than Napier had experienced in a lifetime, but it came with a price: The crew grew sullen as Reuben began to display to them that, as the captain’s lover, he considered himself better than them. He began to wheedle and hint to Napier that he should have a greater share of the ship’s haul and when this was rejected out of hand, he disembarked at Cayenne and went missing for two nights.
Napier fumed and raged and drank; the crew stayed out of his way, knowing of his tempers, which were deadly in their fury. He rampaged below decks, setting off cannon and angering other captains whose ships were moored in the bay. Finally sobering, he sent a gang into Cayenne to bring Reuben back under a charge of desertion, and he was dragged aboard, bruised and bound. Napier lashed him himself, not trusting another man with the Cat.
Shortly after that it was rumored throughout the ship that Napier was drawing up a Deed of Matelotage, the binding sailor’s contract by which a man cleaves to another on board, closer than blood brothers, closer than wives. The only things that stopped the crew from mutinying were their fierce loyalty to Napier and the night of liberty he gave them in Cayenne, where they drained the town dry.
I should have hanged him, Napier thought, reaching for the a crystal bottle by the bed. Reuben stirred, as Napier slid oil-slicked fingers into his cleft and deep into his willing little hole. If this wasn’t so sweet, I’d hang him today, instead of leaving him behind. As Reuben woke, groaning in pleasure, Napier shifted, placed himself on top, propped up with braced arms, and slid home, sweet and easy like a ramrod into the barrel of a gun. Reuben began to buck under him, grunting with every thrust, rubbing himself against the bed linen.
“Merde, Paul. Did you not fill me to the gunwales last night?” Reuben’s voice was muffled against the pillow, but Napier took no notice. His hips snapped forward and back, his body slapping against Reuben’s creamy arse, till he felt his balls strangle and his seed spiral upward. He grunted in pleasure as powder sparks went off behind his eyes.
He rested a moment, letting his tongue taste the charcoal and sulfur of Reuben’s skin, and fell asleep again, his cock still buried in his mate.
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