penance, I felt a little calmer.
On our last night aboard as free men, Garnet joined me by the rail. The fitful wind veered into the east. About the bow the water broke into twin curves of luminescence, and the wake stretched out behind us in a sheet of pale green light. A moon like hammered gold hung above us. Other than ourselves, only a midshipman occupied the quarterdeck, and he drowsed by the capstan. From the forecastle came a mutter of voices speaking low and tense. I had noticed a deal of whispering aboard Pandora . She was not a happy ship.
Garnet turned his head to listen, and the faint gilded light flowed across his face. Something in the line of his throat, the shadow beneath jaw and cheekbone, and the little inwards tuck his mouth made at its ends stopped me dead. Pure beauty, almost too glorious to endure.
He looked at me, puzzled, as my mouth opened and my hands began to tremble. Such dark eyes, intimate as a man’s own fantasies. “Sir?” he asked, briefly uncertain. And then he understood. His mouth curved up, and his face lit with delight. He tugged me forward by the cuff. I swear to you I felt his touch on the material of my sleeve as though it were on my yard. I was mad—I freely admit it—mad with loss and need and regret. I think perhaps I wanted to be caught. I had tasted freedom and knew I could no longer live without it.
We made it no further than down the quarterdeck stair before he pulled me into the shadow of the great cabin, where between the ship’s boats and the arch of deck above lay a patch of shadow so dense we could not see each other, let alone be visible to others.
I hope those ladies who read this will forgive me for the comparison, but, ever had to piss? Ever had to hold it in so long it passed through pain to making you think you were going to die of internal strangulation if you did not let go? Ever have one of those dreams where you cannot find the privy, no matter how you search? You’ll sympathize with my state then. I wasn’t thinking. I’d got so used to having him when I wanted, I just couldn’t hold on any longer.
Dear God, the bliss! We were all mouths and teeth and heat. His hand is in my hair and the other hand’s down my trousers and he’s panting, “I never thought . . . oh Harry . . . I never thought I’d play this game with you .” And then the doors open and the captain comes out and everything shatters into smithereens like a plate dropped on a stone floor.
Disgrace.
Edwards paced up and down behind his desk, hands linked behind his back, lips pursed as though he had bitten into a lemon. Marines behind us, and our wrists tied with rope, and the cabin seemed to pulse ruby red with the force of everyone’s disgust.
I’d been afraid of it all my life, and here it was—exposure, ridicule, abomination, like being flayed and laid skinless on a nest of ants.
“My God.” Edwards turned and glared at us. “In front of my very cabin. Do you have no control at all? No self-respect?”
There’s a kind of joy on Garnet’s face, and seeing it shifts everything inside my head. By gradual stages, like sailing out of a fog, the obstruction cleared, my confusion lightened, my shame thinned and lifted; I understood. Garnet needed no refuge, no hidden isle moated all around by impassable sea. Inside himself, where no one else could touch him, he had learned how to be free. How not to be ashamed. “We thought you might like to watch, sir,” he said.
Edwards’ disapproval flickered for a moment. Something intense went through it, fast as lightning. It looked to me a lot like panic. The effort of compressing his mouth back into scalpel thinness made him dab at his forehead with his handkerchief. Reaching for his logbook, he opened it, took out the sheaf of ill-written notes that marked the latest page.
“I am”—he rustled through them, brought a sheet out and pressed it to his lips—“a little behind with my paperwork. I have not yet written up my log of the
On our last night aboard as free men, Garnet joined me by the rail. The fitful wind veered into the east. About the bow the water broke into twin curves of luminescence, and the wake stretched out behind us in a sheet of pale green light. A moon like hammered gold hung above us. Other than ourselves, only a midshipman occupied the quarterdeck, and he drowsed by the capstan. From the forecastle came a mutter of voices speaking low and tense. I had noticed a deal of whispering aboard Pandora . She was not a happy ship.
Garnet turned his head to listen, and the faint gilded light flowed across his face. Something in the line of his throat, the shadow beneath jaw and cheekbone, and the little inwards tuck his mouth made at its ends stopped me dead. Pure beauty, almost too glorious to endure.
He looked at me, puzzled, as my mouth opened and my hands began to tremble. Such dark eyes, intimate as a man’s own fantasies. “Sir?” he asked, briefly uncertain. And then he understood. His mouth curved up, and his face lit with delight. He tugged me forward by the cuff. I swear to you I felt his touch on the material of my sleeve as though it were on my yard. I was mad—I freely admit it—mad with loss and need and regret. I think perhaps I wanted to be caught. I had tasted freedom and knew I could no longer live without it.
We made it no further than down the quarterdeck stair before he pulled me into the shadow of the great cabin, where between the ship’s boats and the arch of deck above lay a patch of shadow so dense we could not see each other, let alone be visible to others.
I hope those ladies who read this will forgive me for the comparison, but, ever had to piss? Ever had to hold it in so long it passed through pain to making you think you were going to die of internal strangulation if you did not let go? Ever have one of those dreams where you cannot find the privy, no matter how you search? You’ll sympathize with my state then. I wasn’t thinking. I’d got so used to having him when I wanted, I just couldn’t hold on any longer.
Dear God, the bliss! We were all mouths and teeth and heat. His hand is in my hair and the other hand’s down my trousers and he’s panting, “I never thought . . . oh Harry . . . I never thought I’d play this game with you .” And then the doors open and the captain comes out and everything shatters into smithereens like a plate dropped on a stone floor.
Disgrace.
Edwards paced up and down behind his desk, hands linked behind his back, lips pursed as though he had bitten into a lemon. Marines behind us, and our wrists tied with rope, and the cabin seemed to pulse ruby red with the force of everyone’s disgust.
I’d been afraid of it all my life, and here it was—exposure, ridicule, abomination, like being flayed and laid skinless on a nest of ants.
“My God.” Edwards turned and glared at us. “In front of my very cabin. Do you have no control at all? No self-respect?”
There’s a kind of joy on Garnet’s face, and seeing it shifts everything inside my head. By gradual stages, like sailing out of a fog, the obstruction cleared, my confusion lightened, my shame thinned and lifted; I understood. Garnet needed no refuge, no hidden isle moated all around by impassable sea. Inside himself, where no one else could touch him, he had learned how to be free. How not to be ashamed. “We thought you might like to watch, sir,” he said.
Edwards’ disapproval flickered for a moment. Something intense went through it, fast as lightning. It looked to me a lot like panic. The effort of compressing his mouth back into scalpel thinness made him dab at his forehead with his handkerchief. Reaching for his logbook, he opened it, took out the sheaf of ill-written notes that marked the latest page.
“I am”—he rustled through them, brought a sheet out and pressed it to his lips—“a little behind with my paperwork. I have not yet written up my log of the
Similar Books
