"John Doe", a mysterious Pilgrim

The Netherlands were humid and moist and smelled of fish. Something that usually interested me, but I grew tired of after these many years.

My name is purposefully lost to history, but I go by the common name John. For the inquiring minds, I've adopted the musical note Do as my surname, in homage to my ability to make the fairer sex scream this note, and others across the spectrum.

I am an Englishman by birth, but I left the Isles when I ran afoul of King James and his court one too many times. As he did not favour the ladies, I had thought I had aided his recreations, but his advisors disagreed. I left my home country for the Low Countries, living in the court of the late Prince of Orange. His once-barren wife died in childbirth, naturally after making my acquaintance, and I find myself searching for a home once more.

For you see, I have a most peculiar ailment. If I do not lay with a woman, in the familiar and Biblical way, I grow most tired and ill, and my body begins to deteriorate at an alarming state. I noticed this in mother England less than four years ago, and after bespoiling my entire family line with another family line, made my way to London and Haarlem and now Leiden. I had dreams of visiting Paris and Seville and Italy and perhaps even the Islamic Turks, but these daily dalliances always stifled my grand designs.

Women are most understanding of my requisite need of their bodies, their wombs in particular. Men, too, offer little in way of apprehension, even when I rob them of their new wives or daughters' virtue, as I have done many times. While defiling a nun, I was informed that I suffer from the Curse of Solomon, a Biblical reference to which I, of former serf extraction, was unaware. It was interesting, but of no consequence, as that Dutch nun bore my seed, as did many in the years prior and the year since.

It was on one fateful night, while drinking to excess in a local tavern with a random wench, one who had borne my children twice over, that I ran across my latest prey. She was English, like me, and the newly-grown daughter of a congregation of Brownists. Puritans, some say, but a little less Hell-and-Brimstone than you'd find skulking London streets in my youth.

"My, my," I said, in my oft-unrefined accent to the woman of but eight and ten. I traced a finger on her uncovered face.

"Sir, you are too familiar!" yelled an authoritarian man, her father, in similar dark clothing as he stepped forth to bring me hassle. In a simpler tale, I would produce a knife, and take my liberties there. But this is not that simple tale.

My knife was my word, and my word was imbued by the "Curse" of Solomon. "My good sir, I beg forgiveness for taking liberties with thy offspring, but I suffer from an ancient malady you may be familiar with. It says that I must lay with your daughter, or a woman of similar extraction, within the hour. Or else, I will surely die."

The father looked at me. The daughter looked at me. I smiled my crooked smile at the two zealots as they realized my meaning. And, like that, I received my familiar gift.

Wordlessly, the daughter began disrobing, right in the dirty alley behind the unnamed tavern of ill-repute. The father attempted to shoo away onlookers, to no avail, before helping by laying his dark wool coat under his daughter's now-bare back.

She was a brown-haired Brownist, in multiple places. She had bathed within the week, but we need another after my defilement this evening. Her skin was as pale as tulips, an extravagance these imbeciles would have no familiarity with.

She looked at me pleadingly, and I removed my codpiece, showcasing a penis of perfect beauty, if I may say so myself, that had visited princesses and queens, consorts and mistresses, whores and the saintly. It fit in her like it did a thousand before, or else I would make it fit. And at my urging, she responded with those beautiful musical notes I hold dear.

Her father looked ill watching me rapture his child, but I paid it no heed. He was joined by beggars and drunks. Wenches and passersby. I, per usual, let the world fade away. This woman, of unknown nomenclature, was my world, and more specifically, her quivering envelope.

At her involuntary behest, I deposited my lifemaking fluid, and lay with her a little longer. Her sire coughed. "Sir, if you are done with your necessities, Desire and I must be on our way. We are leaving the country."

Desire, a fitting if odd name for such a fitting and odd girl. These Brownists had peculiar practices. I squeezed her breast and arose, gaining a good view of the woman's now dirty body in the moon and torchlight. My wench assisted in clothing me, as Desire's father surprisingly assisted in clothing her. He must be in a hurry.

"My good master," I said in faux-humility, "to where are you headed on a summer's eve such as this?"

"To port, and then to England, and then to the New World. Where we will not suffer the degradations these societies **** upon us. Present company excluded."

I looked at Desire as her bodice was replaced, covering up her supple breasts. For now. "I might have further need of your daughter's delectable cunt," I said, using the vilest word imaginable. "And I also tire of Leiden. I will join you on your voyage to the New World."

This was a command, not a request, and Goodhusband Whateverhisname would not deny. I joined him and the desirous Desire, as we skulked quickly to port.