“Please...Kill me...”

The smile drops from the Captains face. “What?”

You don’t want to say it again. You don’t want not to either. “Just...Kill-“

“Oh Please!” She sounds annoyed. Angry even. Good. Her arms fold together over her bosom as her eyebrows collide like warring armies. “You take a little dick and you’re already to give up?” Yes. You don’t say it. It would be as pointless as pointing out how little it wasn’t. “Bah! When I first took a cock up my arse I was only seven years old!” She looks at you, expectant. What are you supposed to say? How should you respond? You stare at the space beside her right ear instead. “And I...” Her lips thin as her mouth tightens. Whatever rousing story she was about to speak of dies in the paused air between you.

It’s her time not to look at you, finding something (or nothing) across the room more interesting for a moment. “And I don’t...” She sighs. “...have time for this.”

She looks older now. People, those you interviewed, placed her in her early thirties. Some placed her even older. Looking at her now, candle light wavering on her face, diluting away the makeup with soft yellow light, you can see it; a life time of years.

Her eyes flick back to yours and this time you don’t look away, can’t look away. You don’t want to go on, not after what they did. As your eyes beg her to finish the job, it’s hers that waver, hers that want to look away. She closes them instead.

“Come on.” She stands, walking over to the rooms other door and opening it to reveal a bathroom of some kind, poorly lit by candle light. “I have things to do. I don’t...have time for this.” She returns to grab you, putting her arms under yours and hauling you up and off the table. Either your scrawny form is lighter than you remember or the other woman, more than a head taller than you, has the strength to match. Regardless, she drags you towards the bathroom without complaint, locking her hands at your chest as she pulls you backwards. Your heels drag across the floor, the blood that had dripped and spattered them leaving thin trails behind you. Your eyes take in the fallen chairs, the table, the three pools of blood, the dotting trail that leads back to you even now. She takes you across the threshold and dumps you in a large brass bathtub, letting your legs be dragged in behind you. It’s cold to the touch. Blessedly so.

She opens her mouth to say something, but covers her silence with a heavy sigh, not out of place after such lifting. She turns around and walks out without comment, letting the door fall shut behind her.

The room is as you thought; a bathroom. A large mirrored dresser is nearby, cabinet below, as well as a sink and a full looking pitcher of water hidden in the shadows of its base. The privy has an elegant looking wood covering, lined with some kind of material to keep it’s sent at bay. It looks fancy, as though to convince its noble occupant that his shit is as noble as he is. The bath you reside in is huge as baths go; enough for your feet to not reach the end while resting your head at its lip. Admittedly, you’re not exactly a tall person, but it could fit someone of Captain Washkins’ height quite well. The number of buckets of heated water it would take to fill boggles the mind; you’d need a large team of people, lest the water be cold by the final bucket.

The light comes from two candles on the dressers surface, as well as a thin window near the ceiling that lets in a strip of moonlight. Said strip highlights a blank space on the tiled wall, which in turn add a dark pale radiance, only held in check by the flickering yellow, brighter by a hair. The rooms silence waits like a hushed audience before the sounds of the room beyond, and your mind, after its fatal **** wish, seems numbed to regular thought. So you listen, and see with your mind’s eye the other room…

Her footsteps pad away from the door, far across the room to where you think the far window might be. There the captain waits, until more footsteps sound above you, passing through the closed door like a ghost walking the ceiling. The Captains voice comes through, but not the words. When she finishes speaking through the open window to the patrolling roof guard, she walks out of the rooms only other exit and leaves you in silence.

It doesn’t last for long. The door unlatches and opens once more, spilling the sound of two pairs of feet into the room. You think that perhaps it’s her and the roof guard, but as she starts to talk, her muffled tone is far too accommodating. The man she talks to responds in turn and the back and forth is not one of captain and crew, but more of equals engaging in discourse. Her next appointment perhaps? Your mind blanks when it turns to her last one.

Muffled greetings turn to muffled debate as haggling takes place. It almost sounds like some distant marketplace, though the produce in play is lost through the closed door. The discourse soon fades to nothing, and as quickly as it faded, a new noise begins, both foreign and familiar. Moaning. Specifically a man’s moaning. You listen, in your little brass cage, as the moans grow into gasps and cries of pleasure. Eventually, they grow ragged and strained, grunting in ways familiar; that turn cold brass into coarse wood and rough flesh.

He gives a strangled cry as he releases inside you, crushing your breasts as grinds back and forth. Seed and blood mix in your colon as a voice whispers a question in your ear.

The moment fades, the noise returning to a room away. Cold sweat covers you. You try to scrape him out of your mind; to rid yourself of him. The mix of him and you that leaks from between your cheeks mocks the notion.

What follows is hard to keep track of. They talk further, but their voices soften. Eventually, his footsteps take one of them away, and a moment later, the remaining pair of booted feet come to your door. The Captain steps in, ignoring you as she goes to the mirror. She looks no different, at first. A comb takes to her hair, and only as it straightens do you see how it was tangled. A cloth wipes at her mouth and painted lips and you only see the smear the moment before it’s taken. Before today, seeing a woman re-paint her lips would have been a strange and eye opening glimpse into the world of whores and nobles. Now, your unfocused eyes barely follow the motions. She spares you a glance and a furrowed brow before departing once more.

The show repeats itself, though this time without the middle act. The next man brought to talk does only that, though the exchange lasts a little longer as a result. As you a small part of your mind silently wonders who these people are, the same part answers your own question: the merchants from the foyer. You remember them, the finely dressed men by the foot of the stairs. There were...five of them, right? Does it matter? To you, not much: ‘the matter’ has been well and truly beaten out of you.

Once he leaves, he’s replaced by another after a short moment. Words are exchanged; nothing more than a melodic hum to you, but the back and forth seems to stretch for the longest time. Eventually, nothing. No noise comes from the room. You would of heard them if they left; the man’s steps had been particularly heavy (or the floorboards particularly laboured) and you can’t help but imagine the fattest of the merchants you saw. He’d be going nowhere quickly...so what could they be doing? When it was the sound of a man’s lonesome moaning, it had been unpleasant, but this just seems ominous; designed to stoke even the most disinterested curiosity.

It ends with a squeaking gasp that could have come from either of them, and only the fit of coughing right after tips you off to its male origin. Conversation returns, but its short lived, carrying them to the door before disappearing again. The captain’s now familiar footfalls pause for a moment, before wondering about the room and eventually to your door. Oddly enough, it’s there that she pauses. You can almost imagine her hand outstretched to the latch. For whatever reason, she decides against it. The footfalls fade away, until the distant click of the rooms other door signals her departure.

Silence returns; that of emptiness rather than quiet and unknowable deeds. You expect her return to be swift, like before, but the minutes march on without remorse and no sound of boots or captains or merchants return. The other room fades from perception and your world returns to the tiled walls and copper tub you tried to be free of. It returns to the pain of the broken body you inhabit; one used and cast aside. It returns to the rubbish he made of you. You look at it. It still wears your dirt stained pumps. Blood shines on them in thicker drops than those that splashed up to your ankles. Above that are bare legs marred by an empty thigh strap. Your weapon was taken during your capture, but where is the vial? He must have taken it as well...during. Just another thing he’s taken from you.

On that subject, at the apex of your legs, under the cusp of your exposed crotch, a small dark pool quests slowly forward. The candlelight doesn’t reach it. Only the reflected glow of moonlight that pervades the room casts any ghostly illumination on its surface. It appears quite black. You once saw, in the course of your duties, a man stabbed and bleeding, rolling in the street and haemorrhaging blood, whimpering his final moments away. This is not that. It’s a small pool, even considering how long you’ve been here. How much can an anus bleed? From your hands tight bandages, you can rule them out as a source. There’s no denying which wound it comes from. The bandages of your hands have reddened angrily as you hold them up to the light. Just looking at them fills your pierced palms with blazing agony. It’s a good pain; a distracting pain.

Your chest is bare; the top you wore torn away and your breasts still reddened with mistreatment. Your stomach hurts. Its only when you see how red it is that you remember how he beat you first. You suppose your eye will bruise and swell as well in time. Such small concerns. You look at your hands again and let the blaze swallow it all into insignificance. If you still had the poison, could you unstopper it with these hands? The pain is easier to focus on than pointless questions.

You don’t know how long you wait. If you had taken stock of the strip of moonlight, you’d have seen how many tiles it crossed as it fell down the wall. At some point, the lower of the two candles had gone out and not even the thin trail of smoke remained when the noise of the captains return snapped you back from your world of misery. You feel no feelings of gratitude at her return, no relief at her distraction. You simply listen, letting the noise she makes drown out the beating of your heart.

It’s quiet at first. She walks about the room and stands in place from time to time. Eventually, she re-opens the door and murmurs to whoever is outside. Not her next guest it seems, only the messengers sent to fetch him. Her walk is different; softer and lighter, bereft of booted sole. Barefoot? Why should she be barefoot to receive her guest? You look at your own feet and realise you have no room to talk. Wearing shoes in a bathtub? Is there anything more ridiculous?

Whoever it is, the man makes an entrance with now familiar sounds of platitudes. Perhaps it’s a weak imagination, but his sound more...formal, more erudite and resounding. Bartering takes place in a healthy back and forth, before slowly fading and fading. Eventually, you can hear nothing of their words, though you’re sure they have not left the room.

Squeaks and shifts and small things dance at the edge of your hearing. Eventually, the cause reveals itself. “Oh fuck! Oh, it’s so bi- Oh! ... Oh. Oh. Oh! Uh! Ah! Ahh! Oh Fuck! Yes!” The captains voice is clearly audible through the door, as is the sound of creaking wood. Her voice and the wood join in a harmonious rhythm, creaking and moaning in time with each other, and her words continue, all a derivation of the same theme: ‘Harder’ ‘fuck’ ‘right there’ ‘so big’ etc. How would you have reacted in the past? Red faced embarrassment perhaps? You can almost picture the old you giving up and going home with shear awkwardness, or walking in and saying ‘excuse me, could you please stop. I’m here to kill you and you’re really spoiling the mood.’ Maybe that’s why you lost. Now all you feel is nothing, or annoyance. It’s like two cats screeching at night, only faker and cruder, and you’re too bored not to listen. It goes on and on and on, rising in volume before quieting again. He lasted about as long as...yours. You mouth feels suddenly dry for some reason.

Then it picks up again, the pause proving only a short break, but something’s different. She sounds different. No words come this time, only noise. Only cries of pleasure, real or pantomimed, come from the captain. Cries that grow into screams. The man’s noises come through as well, pleasure projected to the world. Both fill that room and come through the door again. A man’s moans and a woman’s screams. Cold sweat prickles your skin once more as the sound hammers you. The hands resting in your lap feel like a table pressing against your hips. You shift uncomfortably, only for a dizzying shaft of pain to **** its way up your colon. You want to go, but go where? The pain pins you; holds you in place as the noises continue. The copper tub, long since warmed to a bodies heat, burns hot as it presses into your back. He’s not here; you’re alone; so why are you breathing so heavily? Your heart feels like it’s going to burst. The man in the other room grunts with a pounding rhythm that sounds ever more angry and hateful and forcefully dominant with each thrust. The captains wordless cries sound weak in response; bled of pleasure and filled with fear and agonising pain instead, but for all she screams it’s not loud enough. The man’s grunts and snarls and shouts of satisfaction fill your room. You feel them on the back of your neck. You can’t breathe. The tub that was one the biggest you’d been in is now too small. It holds your hips steady. It doesn’t let you go. You can’t see it any more. He’s not here. Then why can you feel him-

“OOOOOHHH Fffuck! Yes! Ughhhhh. That’s it. That’s it.” The captains voice breaks the spell. Only your confusion and fear and shivers remain. The dying embers of their cries sound nothing like you imagined. Only joy lies in their depths, the man’s tired and unrestrained, the captains controlled and projected with sycophantic volume. Three people catch their breath in the aftermath.

Before long, the muffled talk returns; business or pillow talk. Both are likely the same for one such as the her. What follows is predictable: they talk and move as they likely dress. Eventually, the man leaves. Was that all five? Only if that time she took before was to deal with the forth. You wonder who or what she’ll do next.

Her bare feet pad towards your door, and this time they do not wait at the precipice. Stepping through in time with the open swung wood, the captain you came here to kill makes another appearance. She doesn’t look at you, but nor does she rush, walking calmly over to the mirrored dresser and looking at herself in its reflection. It’s an image that’s lost to you, being so low; the mirror reflects only the ceiling to your eyes. Nevertheless, the captain herself is visible, and you look at her despite yourself.

An odd moment to be struck by some esoteric revelation, but it is then that you realise beauty isn’t an emotion. You can feel nothing and still find something beautiful. Hers is a tattered beauty; her makeup run or smeared, her full body glistening with sweat, gold hair almost matted black with the night’s heated activities. More than that, the ragged quality is in her bones; she slumps as she leans on the dresser, lets the weariness show in her face and body. Every breath she breathes seems like a sigh of defeat, yet she is beautiful. Her dress, if you can call it that, highlights every curve and covers almost nothing. It’s a rich looking thing of purple silk with an almost transparent quality to its thinness, grpping tight and clinging to her body. Her skin glows beneath it, shining through, but it doesn’t need to or matter; the material clings in separate complex parts of lace, one to her legs and belly, and another to her chest, both open at her generous spilling bosom and hairless crotch. You’ve never seen anything so brazenly seductive; not in shops and certainly not on people. It could not find a more suitable place than the body it clings to now. You’ve seen statues of marble carved with less artistry.

The dresser clinks with its hidden contents as she pushes herself away from it. It’s a move that takes her a few steps to the rooms sink: a porcelain bowl set into a delicately carved wooden table. Her eyes glance at you as she moves; a half second flick that carries no readable meaning. At the sink, she steadies herself with one hand on the wooden table top before leaning down to grab the pitcher of water hidden beneath. It’s a move that thoroughly displays herself to you, intentionally or otherwise, and you see her lower lips and rear hole are both reddened with use, slick and spilling with male attention. No blood marks her rear, its ring a well-worn subject of her life’s story. Your mind flinches from thoughts of your own and all that Roland left behind. You bleed freely; is his seed in your veins now? Can you ever be rid of him so long as your heart beats?

You focus on her; why is she hairless? Even her stained rear seems devoid of hair; as though purposefully removed. Does that make it easier, you wonder? Is that why it hurt when Roland-

“I was like you once.” The strange words, spoken to a sink, accompany the splashing of clear water. “Lots of people were...” She pauses, thinking as the last few drops fall. “...and are, I suppose.” She tosses a rag into the bowl, letting the water sink into it before lifting it out and wringing it free. “All... happy and innocent and...good.” She waves it around idly, searching for the words before giving up. She takes the rag to her crotch and begins to rub its usage away. “Then, people like Roland...they take people like you and turn them into people like me.” Her words pause as she digs deep, clawing at her insides with the material in hand before a final wipe returns the rag to its bowl. “Broken people. At least I thought it was just...people like...” The rag fills, is lifted, and wrung free. There’s a thoughtful pause before it goes back to her hips. She lifts her leg up onto a wooden support below the sink, squeezing a creaking groan from it and letting her wipe her rear more effectively. “I was seven years old when I first went through what you went through now.” Her fingers press against her veteran rear, stirring free the seemingly endless seed within. “Well...I tell a lie, I think I was maybe eight or nine before anything quite like that.”

Eight or nine years old and going through- the memory returns; the searing pull at your hands, the endless push of his- you banish it, emptying your head with a shake. She doesn’t notice, finishing the job before returning the rag to the bowl once more. She stands, looking at the water. “You... I’ve been through some shit. My whole life, all I wanted to do was rise above it.” Time draws itself out, both slumped in silence, her lost in memory and you...simply lost. The moonlight shifts a little across the wall before she jerks up as if remembering you. She turns to look and your eyes meet for a moment before she looks away. The rag is in her hand again, travelling with her arm as it moves hesitantly, as if to offer it to you. She pauses, looking about the room as if searching for something to say. “Did you know I was nobility?” No expression comes to your face as her spilled secret hangs in the air. You didn’t know. Interview after interview in preparation for this and nobody said a thing. Could she be lying? Do you care?

The reveal itself demands more, and more comes. Perhaps it’s your silence that eggs her on, finally working some benefit after your disastrous capture. “I...I’ve never told that to anyone. Truth is, I don’t even remember my father. Just that...even as a child I remember him as a silly man. Like...like everything he did went wrong somehow. He would always yell about ‘debts’ to people.” She leans against the sink, looking down, lost in memory. “I remember who he sold me to better than him.”

Her broad shoulders somehow slumped further, rounding until the straps of her odd outfit slip down her arms. She brushes them away, letting it fall to the floor. Her voice seems small as she talks.

“I was his ward, technically; a far more polite term than child mistress.” A bitter smile crosses her lips. “Come to think of it, he called me a whore more than anyone else; I don’t think he even knew my name.” The smile fades, though it was never truly there. She continues after a pause, one that turned her mouth with sourness. “After a while...however many... months it took for him to tire of me...or perhaps realise my father couldn’t pay his debts...” Her eyebrows scrunched at the thought, as though she had just realised the possibility after all the years between. “Huh. Well, he sold me on.”

Her expression changes as she looks at you, breaking into a strange smile; not really happy. Perhaps nostalgic? It looks almost manic with her smeared lipstick and tear blurred eye shadow. Was that blurred when she came in? You can’t remember. She walks forward, dropping the top from her grip without care as she kneels before you; her receptive audience to the story she’s never told.

“‘The Plump Pillow’” She half-heartedly flourishes her hands as she says the words, like a showman, leaning on the lip of your tub with her arms. “A shabby little whore house that fronted as an inn in Rindosh port central. It’s still going, even now.” The smile slips a hairs width and her brows nit together with confusion. Whatever thought of hers prompted the reaction fades as she goes on. “I replaced Wendy.” The smile turns conspiratorial. “Nobody knows that. Well, I doubt there is anyone still alive who knows that. Wendy had died a few days before I got there -so drunk she choked on her own sick- so they named me Wendy; Wendy the wash kid. I’d spend all day washing stained sheets, and all night warming beds and...” The words, and half her smile, peters out as she looks down, leaving her mouth a slant. “...making stains.” She finishe limply. The cause is what she sees; the only thing down being you. You can’t bring yourself to cover your nakedness, overtaken as you are by the same uncaring impulse as your storyteller, but it’s not your body she sees. The pool spreading from your split hole had not grown much more, though as the captain covered some of the rooms light and obscured its progress, it was hard to tell. She keeps looking at the dark liquid as she talks. “That was when I went through what you just did...” A pained expression takes her. “...though he used oil, I suppose...”

She swallows, looking up at your face. You don’t know what expression you wear, or if you’re wearing one at all, but is seems to send her eyes away, darting about before gathering enough courage to return. Her hand lifts, stroking across your head and your hair like a puppy, or a child, and somehow, it’s not unpleasant. You at least don’t flinch at her touch. She doesn’t look away again.

“That went on for a few years. I had regulars that asked for me by name, even. When Captain Fairfax came along and demanded payment for some debt or other, I was almost sad to go, I think. Or... maybe I felt nothing? I don’t...” She shakes the thought away, stroking until her touch begins to bring something like comfort for the both of you. “Anyway, I’d serviced him and a dozen of his crew the night before and he seemed happy with the deal. Even that creep Sladvear.” The hand stopped, frozen for a moment by some fleeting memory. “He’d...well, let’s just say when the mutiny happened I made sure he was on the losing side.”

The moment passes and she steadily resumes her stroking and her story. Again, her eyes turn unseeing with memory, forsaking the present for the past. “I was the captains at first, but before long I belonged to no bunk and all bunks. Those who wanted it, took it, but those who wanted me to give it...they became mine. Not all the men... well, the captain didn’t see it coming. You know, none of them did. None of the men who used me even considered that I was using them.... because all the while, they were still using me.” A sad smiled plays at her lips. “Now, today, I’m the great pirate Wendigo Washkin. And how do I spend my time? Sucking dick and fucking fat disgusting men for coin. Some things never change...” She sighs lightly, letting the air slip from her loose mumbled words. “...they never fucking change.”

The hand stops, returning to the lip of the bath to lift her up, back on to her feet. After unbuckling the strange garter and rolling free her leg covers, dropping both, she takes a couple of short steps around to the rim, where your head rests, and gently pushes you forward by your shoulders. You don’t resist, bending forward and even gliding slightly across the well blooded copper surface beneath your buttocks. She steps again, this time forward, clambering naked into your tub and sliding down to sit behind you. It’s an odd moment, though not one whose strangeness you see, as the older, taller, fuller woman sits behind you. Her heavy legs split and rest alongside your own down the length of the bath, and soon she’s lowered enough to feel her breath on your neck. She sits in your filth; rear soon as soaked and blooded as your own. Why would she do that? She’d cleaned herself before so easily; why sit down in a stain that won’t ever wash out?

Her strong, warm arms wrap themselves around you with a tender pull, guiding you to lean back and rest upon her chest before returning to stroke your head. You sit in silence. Despite the feel of a body at your back and hips at your hips, no fear comes; no panic or sweat or memory. It’s a different feeling; a warmth instead of heat, despite the humidity of the aging night; a gentle softness instead of ramming hardness. Your own chest, its redness now faded, could never offer such comfort. Hers presses into your back, between the angles of your bony shoulder blades, like soft pillows. Her wide hips swallow yours and each of her thighs are worth two of your own. You’re like a child in the arms of a mother; your pain soothed with each stroke. You glower briefly; ‘she has no right to source such comfort.’ The bitter thought has no sting to it.

“How did I get here?” She whispers out the words; spoken to herself despite rushing past your ear. “When did I...” They still to silence, as though continuing in her head, and the minutes march on, passing into a timeless void, reducing the world to a room, a bathtub, a warmth. When her words return to break the silence, it’s not unnatural. It was as though they were always there.

“I have so much now, and yet so little. Money, and power, but...no friends. Not real friends. No...safety. All those other captains waiting to stab me in the back if I don’t lay on it for them. I... I thought...I don’t know, that I could be a high class whore at least. But I’m just a high stakes whore...” The pause stretches. None of the words are aimed at you; her silent audience. You simply listen, letting them be the only thoughts inside your head. “Everyone loses eventually.”

A large, unladylike sniff drags through her nose, wet and rattling. The hand at your head goes to her own instead, jostling you as she wipes her face. “The only power I’ve ever had has been between my legs. That’s not going to last.” Her voice is tinged with emotion; wobbling, despite its light and airy tone. “I’m too old for this; or I’m getting there.”

Reports have her age as only about a decade older than you, though some place her older. From the weary sounds rushing through her smiling sighs, she could almost be as old as you feel. Her arms come around you, holding you not in restraint, but comfort. A small part of you scolds yourself. How dare you feel kinship with this woman! How dare you lean into her warmth! Listen to her words and problems as though they were your own! “And you. You came here to stop me. To kill me. I never thought I deserved it before.” She’s like a fire in a gale, and you small and naked, drawn to it despite the destruction it’s caused. “But it’s going to be ok. I’m going to make it ok.” Her words burn. She who let him loose; who watched him **** you; who ignored your request. “I’m going to save you.” The fire roars, consuming you. Numbness turns to agony.

“I’m going to save us both.”

How can she say that? It’s so strange. Ridiculous, even. You almost laugh. The tears of laughter begin to prickle your eyes, blurring them before running down your face. Your shoulders shake with mirth. Your mouth twists.

You’re laughing. Why does it sound like sobbing?

“Come on. So long as you have no dignity, I have an ointment that should help...”

‘Did you enjoy that as much as I did?’ The whispered words jolt you from your dream. It has been a month since you last heard them echo in your head, and several years since you first heard them whispered into the back of your neck.

You look around at reality, soaking yourself in it, washing the dream away from your mind. You feel it return to your memories under the sight of your homes familiar walls; under the sight of shelves and furniture littered with happier memories. The dark thoughts slink back in your mind, like some beast returning to its cave. Its occurrences had become less frequent -time living up to its wound healing reputation- but still, you feel you may never be rid of it. Your hands and posterior ache, the old scars throbbing with your slowly calming heartbeat.

A deep sigh courses through your body, and you lean back into the padded chair that served as your unexpected bed. It was a poor substitute, despite its comfort. The embers of the fire had faded, the winter evening just beginning to creep its way in with its early darkness and chilling temperatures. You humph to yourself, remembering the winters of your youth; it’s not like winters were cold in the archipelago. Not really. Even north as it was, Selka Island was sheltered from the cold sea breeze by other, larger islands. You hadn’t even seen snow here.

The ache wouldn’t go; it never did when the dream came, until your little ritual was done. You close your eyes and remember, summoning the other memory and completing the story. You remember the two women naked in the bath, your wails muffled by Serena’s breasts. You don’t remember how long that went on for. You jump ahead to the unpleasant memory of the ointment, and the hook and cat-gut that closed your wounds. Nodding to her suggested plan, and even sniffling your own improvements to it. You remember the order she gave to the guards; how her clothes were so baggy on you; the guards return, drawn in by the promise of a turn with your body, and the look of surprise on their faces as they were cut down by their own captain. You remember arraigning them with the captains sword in hand while she packed up the valuables. How you hobbled away as the mansion burned down.

The memory stops at the sea. Apparently, with the saltwater on your wounds, your consciousness had fled, and it was all Serena could do to float you to the waiting boat. She’d dumped the most valuable gems and jewellery in the woods. A month later, when her necklace was handed in and the book closed on her villainous life, she returned to collect them; a final act of thievery. You’d suggested returning them. She’d called you adorable.

As the memory turned to the present; to the reward and your island home and a quiet life of retired adventure, the pain fades. In its place, with no knock on the quietly opened door, a dead woman enters the room and sits down beside you, perching on the arm of your chair. To anyone who knew her, the sight of her not-at-all charred corpse would have been quite a shock. Then again, perhaps it’s safe to say that the infamous Captain Wendy ‘Go’ Washkin really is dead. Serena just looks very much like her. After so much time, her golden hair had grown quite long again, now spun into a pleated braid and pinned into a ball at the back of her head. She wears far less makeup now as well, but a far **** smile. Serena; ‘a serene name for a serene life’, as she had said; she couldn’t remember the name she had as a child, and admitted, with shrugged shoulders, that she doesn’t care to.

You smile at her, and she at you. For all the painful memories still haunt you, you had forgiven her for her part in them. The last few years living together had had their ups and downs. At first, she had not left you alone, as though scared you’d follow through on what you’d once begged her to do. That had passed. Then you had acted as her jailor; fearing the sinful parts of her personality to be signs of returning dangerous habits. She’d chafed for freedom, but laughed when you explained. She did bring men back on occasion. ‘Once a whore, always a whore’ you suppose. She argued that she chose to retire, not to become some chaste priestess. You still can’t fault her on her logic, and the local lads of the village and passing ships certainly don’t complain either. Better she returns to whoring than more violent pursuits. When she brought the same one back three times in a row, you had suggested marriage. She had laughed harder and louder than you had ever heard her before or since. Said she was just happy with his stamina. When she stopped with him, she had said she didn’t want to make you jealous. You’re still not sure what that means; you had no interest in the man.

Over the peaceful year that followed, enjoying a fine house and the deepening friendship of each other’s company, she’d steadily eased off the company of the local men entirely, and while you’re glad for it, you hopes it isn’t because she saw how uncomfortable they made you feel. If it made her happy and kept her out of trouble, you were, and still are, quite willing to put up with it. Instead, you haven’t heard the tell-tale creek of her bed frame or the wall penetrating moans for weeks now, and feared, with not a little guilt, that she may become quite moody if this keeps up.

She hadn’t yet though. Instead, she had taken on some motherly qualities. Like how she would occasionally stroke your hair, like that day in the bathtub, or smile too wide when you help each other bathe. Recently, she’d taken to lingering at bed time, as if she wants to tuck you in. Just occasionally, in those moments, you think you see something predatory in her eyes, something exciting, like she has a secret she wants to share. Maybe she’s with child? If she is then her figure doesn’t show it; it’s still as trim and well maintained as the day you met.

Perhaps you should ask?

You lean forward and move the unfinished book from your lap to the table with intent to do so. As if waiting for that, she let herself fall from the armrest into the body of the chair, letting her wide hips push you to the side. She knows this is your favourite chair, though you admit there is just about room for two buttocks to occupy it.

“What are you up too?” She leans in close, pressing herself against you. She had been doing that more and more these days, not that you mind; you like the warmth and comfort.

How should you answer? Reading? Sleeping? Both? The choice is a far cry from the deadly games you played in the past: one you are happy to struggle with.

Sensing your indecision, or perhaps reading the obvious answer your downed book and favourite chair provides, she continues, dumping another book into your lap. “Could you read this book to me?” Her arm lifts and lands about your shoulders as she idly leans in, drawing you close.

You pick it up and read the black words flaking off its green leather bound cover. ‘The Pursuit of Warmth.’ It was one of her books; you’d never read it. More importantly... “Why can’t you read it?”

Your words sound more tired than you realise, and trigger a yawn you block with the back of your hand.

“Because I like the sound of your voice.” You look at her, doubtfully. She can’t keep the smile from spreading guiltily across her face. “What?” she asks with a chuckle. She can read just fine, though you admit, not as well as you. Her books tend to be a little simpler as well. Perhaps it’s a little difficult for her? Your unasked question is answered as she goes on.

“It’s about a noble woman and a teacher she hires.” She looks down at the book in your hands, continuing softly. “The two women start out at odds but become very close friends. Thought you may be interested...” You look at the book again, conscious of her arms comfort.

“That does sound familiar.”

She smiles. “I thought it might.”

So she wants you to read it together? That could be nice. Still... “So you’ve read it before?” You begin to thumb through the pages as she answers.

“Sure. Being able to read, clients would sometimes ask me to read to them. It’s a fun book. We can act out scenes if you like.” You’ve never been much of an actor, so you’re dubious of the prospect. Still, it could be fun.

You respond jokingly; “Oh? Would I be the noble or the teacher?” The pages are old and yellowed in places; its printed ink, large fronted, but smeared with careless use. Serena sounds quite excited at the prospect.

“We can take turns!”

Your thumb stops on a page, caught by the allure of an ink printed picture. You look at it in confusion, struggling to make out what it’s supposed to depict. The top right looks to contain what might be the face of a woman, and the more you look, the more sure you become. You tilt your head. It’s not poorly drawn, or badly inked by any means. It’s just that, if that’s her head, then, below that, further down, must be the head of another wom-

The book closes with a snap; Serena’s fingers over your own as they hold the books spine. “Ah ah ah – Spoilers.” You feel hot. The exact meaning of those inked lines slips between your fingertips as you look at the green cover, yet you feel...hot. Perhaps it was the hips and thighs pressing together, or the arm draping over your shoulder. Why are they suddenly so...noticeable? “We can get to that later. Come on. Let’s start at page one. We can see what happens from there.”

With a swallow of your dry mouth, and a slightly shaking digit, you open the book to the first page.

“’The Pursuit of Warmth, by Constance Farhorn. Dedicated to: my darling Bridget; m-may our love be...everlasting.’”

Serena’s hand drops from the back of the book to gently rest upon your thigh, and with an emotion unknown to you, you turn the page and eagerly begin to read.