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Most of the time the kraken was quiet down there, in the depths of Ed’s mind. But some days it stirred, tentacles rising to the surface, dredging up memories he thought he’d drowned ages ago. Faces, mostly, and voices—crying and pleading—each horribly specific and individual. The kraken would shove them in his face and say, You’re a monster, Edward Teach. Look at all the suffering you’ve caused. If your new “friends” knew the real you, they’d stuff cannonballs in your pockets and throw you overboard. And they’d be right to.
Before, he would’ve got drunk. Or started planning another raid. Or thrown himself into the latest idiot diversion Calico Jack had come up with. But these days, he went to Stede.
He followed Stede’s voice through the ship, which wasn’t hard; it floated easily down from the quarterdeck. “An entirely successful raid,” he was dictating to Lucius, whose quill was busily scratching at the logbook. “No actual doubloons were found, but we did capture a rather lovely armoire to replace—”
At Ed’s tread on the stairs, Stede looked up. “Ed!” His face broke into a sunny grin, as if Ed were a treasure chest washed up on the beach. “Glorious day, isn’t it? Fancy a little trip somewhere?”
Fuck, Ed was so unworthy of him. He almost turned back to go hide in the bathtub, or maybe the auxiliary closet, but instead he braced himself, staring a hole into the deck, and muttered the words into his beard.
“What?” said Stede. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
He took a breath. “Ed’s been a very bad boy.”
(“Oh my god,” breathed Lucius.)
Stede’s expression switched at once to concern. “I see,” he said. “Well, we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”
Lucius shut the logbook with a snap and began backing away. “I’ll just— I’ll just leave you two gentlemen alone, shall I? Yeah, I think that’d be for the best.” And he was scampering down the stairs to the main deck like the devil was at his heels.
Stede ignored the boy. He took Ed by the elbow, not ungently, saying, “Come along,” and steered him towards the captains’ cabin.
Ed took his place on the carpet, facing one of the large wing chairs, and stood with his hands behind his back like he was at a court-martial. Stede sat down with his usual grace, sweeping aside the skirt of his sea-blue satin coat and crossing his legs at the knee. Stede had great legs. Ed had heard that some toffs put stuffing in their stockings to make their calves look better, but Stede was born to wear close-fitting breeches and stockings. Ed thought briefly of kneeling in front of the chair and running his face down a stockinged shin, remembering the feeling of the silk against his lips—but no, he didn’t deserve that.
“Well, Edward? What have you done?” Stede sounded stern but not unmerciful, like a judge that was tough but fair, or a father who was a disciplinarian but not needlessly cruel. Stede’s voice could be surprisingly masterful when he wanted it to be, like at that fancy fucking party when he’d told Ed to Stand down now! and Ed had obeyed, to his own surprise.
Now, he swallowed. “Bad stuff.”
“Such as?” said Stede, giving him no quarter.
“I… There’s been some maiming. I’ve maimed people.”
“I see. Go on.”
Ed’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve really hurt people. Lots of them. Like, completely destroyed their lives.”
“And what else?” Stede was gentle but relentless.
“People were killed on my orders. Because of me.” His head sagged forward. “I killed them.”
For a moment neither spoke; the only sounds in the cabin were Ed’s tight, harsh breaths and the ever-present creaking of the Revenge.
“That’s quite serious, Ed.”
“I know,” he rasped, “I know.”
“Are you willing to submit yourself to be punished?”
“Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, I am. Give me whatever you think I deserve.”
“Good. Take off your coat, and go stand at the table.”
Ed unbuckled his jacket and shrugged it off, then placed it carefully on a side table, since he’d noticed Stede winced whenever he dropped his clothes on the floor. He walked to the heavy map table that stood against the back wall of the cabin. The row of stern windows above it let in afternoon sunlight reflected off the waves; it squiggled and danced against the cabin’s ceiling beams.
“And the boots.”
This was one of Stede’s diabolical strokes of genius, making him go barefoot. It was surprisingly effective. Made him feel vulnerable. Reminded him of when he’d first joined the Navy as a lad, without a pair of shoes to his name, hoping to make enough to support his mother after—
The kraken became restless and he tried to push away the memories. Stede’s voice brought him back to the here and now: “Pull down your trousers.”
He undid the buttons and pushed the leather down as far as his knee brace, leaving him bare to the sultry air of the cabin. His prick hung heavy between his thighs, getting stiffer even as his face grew hot with humiliation. Blackbeard would never let himself be put in such a position. (But Edward would.)
A broad hand came to rest on the centre of his back, warm through his worn purple shirt. “Down you go,” said Stede, quieter now but no less firm. He pushed Ed down until his cheek and upper torso lay against the table’s smooth mahogany, leaving his bare bum poking up in the air like a dolphin’s back breaching the waves. “Very good.” Ed shivered, and his prick bobbed in the air.
The hand patted his head, then stroked softly down his back, pushing up his shirt a little. It dipped into the small of his back and cupped one arse cheek in an ownerly sort of way that made him think of Stede fussing over the clothes in his wardrobe, straightening them on their hangers and smoothing out wrinkles with his hands. Something low inside Ed quivered at the thought.
“Hands.”
Ed put his hands behind his back, one wrist in front of the other. There was a rustle of fabric, which he identified as Stede pulling off his velvet cravat. In a moment, it was around his wrists, wound just tight enough and knotted confidently. Ed had shown Stede most of the sailor’s knots he knew, but for some reason the only ones Stede seemed to remember with any reliability were the ones he used to tie Ed up. A finger slipped around inside the velvet, to make sure it wasn’t too tight. As it left, Ed strained against his bonds a bit, feeling their immovability. His cockstand throbbed.
“All right?” said Stede.
“Yeah.” He was melting into the table, the tension bleeding from his shoulders. Nothing he could do now but give up control, and weirdly, knowing that made him feel safe. Maybe the safest he’d felt in his life. Of course, if it had been anyone but Stede… But Stede knew his limits. No flogging, for one; he’d had quite enough of that in His Majesty’s Navy, back before he’d said bugger this for a lark and turned pirate under Hornigold.
The floorboards creaked as Stede took a step back, and then…silence. Was Stede just looking? His breathing was audible even over the creaking of the ship. But then, so was Ed’s. There was a scrape that had to be the harpsichord bench being pushed out of the way. Next he heard a rustle of satin and pictured Stede peeling off his coat, then unbuttoning his waistcoat and setting it neatly aside.
Footsteps approached again as Ed lay obediently against the table. Stede brushed Ed’s hair back, and Ed rolled his eye to look up at him. Without a neckcloth, Stede’s fine linen shirt hung loose, the deep vee teasing Ed with glimpses of soft skin and chest hair.
“How many shall we make it today? Hm?”
Ed said nothing; it wasn’t for him to decide. Last time Stede had given him a little math problem to solve, which he’d done easily. Ed was good with numbers; you had to be, to navigate a ship. If you couldn’t reckon your longitude, you ended up sailing in circles round the arse end of nowhere, or—like Stede, bless him—running your ship aground because an island snuck up on you.
“What’s the date, Ed?”
Ed searched his slow-moving brain. “July, uh, fifteenth? Yeah, the fifteenth.”
“Then fifteen it shall be. Ready?”
There was a meaty smack, and Ed yelped at the blow on his left cheek. It stung, then felt hot. “One,” he gritted out.
The next was on his other cheek, every bit as hard as the first. Stede wasn’t going easy on him, and the man had strong arms and shoulders under his fancy linen (yum). Ed rocked forward against the table with every hit; he had to brace his feet against the deck to stay in place. He managed not to yelp again, but he couldn’t help grunting at every blow. “Two,” he gasped. “Three…” Smack! “Four…”
His whole arse was burning now, and Stede was zeroing in on the tender tops of his thighs. “Five…oh fuck.” Smack! “God, oh god. Six.”
After ten, Stede stopped, panting loudly. Ed pictured him shaking out his hand and rotating his shoulder. His footsteps retreated to a corner of the cabin, and Ed lifted his head, straining to see what he was doing. There was a swish, swish—the unmistakable sound of a sword cutting through the air.
“Stede?” said Ed hoarsely.
Stede returned to the table, carrying his smallsword in one hand. With the other he pushed Ed back into position. “Head down.”
Ed’s heart pounded against the mahogany and, increasingly, in his cock, which had no sense of self-preservation—more like the opposite. He had fooled around with a bit of knifeplay before, with Jack, but they’d both been very, very drunk, and frankly he counted himself lucky to still have all his bits attached. “Uh, Stede? Mate? What you gonna do with that?”
“Now, now, Ed,” said Stede in what Ed thought of as his schoolmaster voice, the one he used for instructing the crew. “Who’s in charge here?” The narrow tip of the blade settled lightly on his lower back.
“You are,” Ed whispered.
“That’s right. And what’s your job?” The sword skated lower, across his right cheek.
“To…to take whatever you give me?”
“Indeed.” Sliding between his legs, the steel tapped his inner thighs, one and then the other. “Now, are you going to be a good boy, Ed?”
Oh god. Oh fuck. It was pressing against his ball sack, the faintest pressure. He rocked up onto the balls of his feet, but the sword followed him. “Yes, Stede,” he whimpered. Any minute now the delicate skin would split, and the pain would be terrible… And he was so fucking hard it felt like he might explode.
The metallic pressure disappeared. “I knew you would be,” said Stede, his voice full of affection. Ed let out his breath and eased back down so his feet were flat against the boards again. He didn’t expect Stede to say, “What number had we reached?”
“Wha—?”
“Eleven, wasn’t it?”
Swish, swish, fwip! The sword came down on Ed’s arse and lit a stinging fire across both cheeks. “Ah! Fuck!”
“Count it off,” singsonged Stede.
“Fuck! Fuck. El-eleven.” The pain bloomed following the impact, burning through his senses like flame through a fireship.
Fwip! Fwip! Each strike built on the one before. Before long, the sensation had billowed out to fill his world from one horizon to the other. Fwip!
He blurted out the count as well as he could between shouts, which devolved into guttural groans. At some point he lost track of the numbers, along with the cabin, his body—everything but the pain. It enveloped him like a warm, buoyant ocean. His head was scoured clean, as clear as a quiet sea on a cloudless day. No thoughts. Just peace.
A hand was stroking his hair. “There you are, dear.”
Ed blinked, his eyelashes sticking together. “W’s I good?” His voice came out hoarse and his lips tasted of salt.
“So good, darling. You were perfect.”
Gentle hands undid the velvet knotted around his wrists. He groaned as blood returned in a rush to his shoulders.
“There, there. Just relax. Let me…” Stede began chafing his wrists, then rubbed his shoulders. Ed let himself be cared for, too wrung out to do anything else.
“Now, let’s get you up. That’s it.”
Feeling as wobbly as if he’d just downed half a bottle of rum in one go, Ed turned toward Stede’s lavish bunk and almost tripped over his own trousers, which were still around his legs.
“Steady! Here we go,” said Stede, as he unbuckled Ed’s knee brace and, propping him up, pulled the trousers over his bare feet, one leg at a time. After doffing his linen shirt, Stede eased them both onto the bed, reclining against the pillows and drawing Ed to lie back against him, head tucked into his shoulder. Ed felt him kiss the top of his head, while his hands stroked lightly under Ed’s shirt. Ed was bare of any other clothes. His cock had flagged to half-mast, but his balls ached like the devil.
“Mm,” said Stede in between kisses. “Let me take care of you.” He grasped Ed’s cock in one warm hand, and with a few strokes Ed was hard again, so fast it almost hurt.
“Ah! Oh fuck. Stede!”
“That’s it,” said Stede, almost as breathless as Ed. His hand moved faster, his grip relentless. “That’s it, kitten. Come for me.”
Ed’s balls tightened painfully, and then he fell off the edge of the world. Bellowing like a bull, he came and came, and Stede stayed with him, murmuring encouragement hotly in his ear.
After rather a lot of panting on Ed’s part, Stede produced a handkerchief to clean up Ed’s spunk, then covered them both with his scarlet dressing gown. Ed shifted until he could nuzzle his face into Stede’s tits—the best place in the world, in his opinion.
“All right there, Ed?” The smile was audible in Stede’s voice.
“Yeah,” sighed Ed, feeling boneless. Stede stroked his hair like he was petting a cat. Then Ed’s conscience pricked him: “I c’n do you. D’you want…?” It would require a superhuman effort to sit up, but he would do it for Stede.
“Shh, sh. I’m fine. Next time.”
“ ’Kay.” Next time, thought Ed, he would suck Stede off, slow and deep, just the way Stede liked it, until he was singing loud enough to embarrass the crew. He curled up contentedly under the scarlet silk, feeling his arse throb. No sharp pains, though. “You didn’t break the skin.”
“Hm? Oh, no. Not worth the risk of infection, I thought.”
Ed raised his head to look at him. “But…how? You hit me with a bloody sword! Didn’t you?”
“Oh, I dulled the edges.”
“You…dulled the edges?”
Stede’s mellow expression didn’t change. “Mm. Seemed safer.”
Ed stared. “You know, Stede, generally speaking, the idea of having a sword is to keep it as sharp as possible.”
“Well, yes…” said Stede, running his fingers through Ed’s hair. “But I don’t really use it all that much to be honest, and this seemed more important.”
This man is fucking mental and I love him, thought Ed, putting his head back down on Stede’s chest. It was fine, though, because Ed would always be right there, ready to take out anyone who touched so much as a single golden hair on his head. “S’okay,” he murmured, eyelids drooping. “I’ve got you.”
“Yes,” said Stede softly, stroking his hair. “Yes, you do.”