Wally and Terry

"What the fuck?!"

Eleanor could only stand frozen as Wally and Terry looked onto her naked form with shocked looks of their faces, clearly confused to see their "male" friend Elliot with an obvious lack of manhood. Wally scratched the back of his neck, his mouth agape as he stared at Eleanor, his eyes darting back and forth between her breasts and her vagina, while Terry averted his eyes.

"I thought ... I thought you were a man, mate!" Terry said after a long moment of silence. "I mean ... Jaysus, you've lived with us for two years! And you've had a cunt this whole time?"

"Well ... I was born with it, so yes, I've had it this whole time," Eleanor replied, finally finding herself able to move enough to cover herself up.

"Jaysus," Terry muttered. Wally was still silent, his mouth still open like the slack-jawed idiot he was. She cursed silently at her luck. Of course these two would wander in, these two who had some of the loosest lips on the ships. These two, who gossip like a pair of fishermen's wives, had to be the first ones to find out her secret. She knew that she wouldn't be able to keep her gender a secret forever, but she wanted to reveal it at a later point, with people she felt more comfortable with.

"Listen you two," Eleanor said after another long moment of silence. "You have to keep my secret, all right? If the others find out ... well, who knows what they might do."

"But ... you're a woman!" Wally said incredulously, finally speaking up.

"Aye," Terry said. "Women don't belong on a ship."

There was the response Eleanor feared she would get. These two blindly following the idea society had laid out for women, without truly thinking about why. But, damn it, she was doing to make them think. "And why not," she said defiantly. "Have I not proven to be just as capable as any other man on the Lady? Have I been incompetent this whole time, all because I was born with a vagina rather than a cock?" Neither Wally nor Terry responded.

"Exactly!" she said fiercely. "Remember the time I saved you from being stabbed in the back while we were boarding that Spanish frigate, Wally? Or the time I saved you from drowning during that squall, Terry? Does those mean nothing, all because of this?" She gestured down to her vagina. Again, neither responded. Eleanor stepped towards them and stared them in the eyes. "I have proven every day for the last two years that I deserve my spot on that ship, and I will NOT have it taken from me, all because of your stupid superstitions!"

There was silence again, before the two crewmen glanced at each other and nodded. "All right, we'll keep your secret, Elli," Terry said slowly. "Though I doubt Elliot's your name, right."

"Aye, what's your true name? And why're you dressed up like a man anyway?" Wally asked.

Eleanor sighed and sat down on the bed. "My real name is Eleanor. Eleanor Rose." And so Eleanor - somewhat reluctantly - told them the story of her life, how she was raised in nobility, but ran away to have a life of freedom on the sea.

"Dunno if I really understand why you'd run away from all that money," Wally said when she concluded her tale.

"Because money is not important if you don't have something worthwhile to go along with it," Eleanor said, in the same tone of voice as a teacher would talk to a young, slow student. "I'd gladly give up all of the money in the world in exchange for freedom."

"I suppose that makes sense," Terry said, rubbing his temples. "Listen, as far as we're concerned, you'll be Elliot Budding to us for as long as you want to be. But you're not gonna pretend forever, are you?"

"No, not forever," Eleanor said. "But It'll have to be at the right time, otherwise I'm more likely to be **** and thrown overboard than kept on the crew." That was a sad truth. It was already hard enough keeping people out of her pants when they thought she was simply a pretty boy; it'd be next to impossible if they knew she was a woman before they respected her fully.

"Shame that you have to cover those up though," Wally said suddenly, his attention turned back to Eleanor's breasts. 'You have pretty tits."

"Wally!" Terry said, punching his shoulder. "She's a noblewoman!"

"What? Noblewoman or not, she's naked and she's got nice tits!"