Note: Port-of-Spain is in Trinidad. To my knowledge there was never a Harlots' Row in this city. Beeswax and mineral oil were the original ingredients of Vaseline.
Charley's POV (con't.)
Stick With Me, Kid Part 11
I quickly learned the rudiments of cooking. After all, it was not much different from preparing potions. By the time the Wanderer was ready to shove off, I was able to produce an edible meal. And by the time she started the return leg of her journey, the crew was declaring me 'the best damn' cook the old tub'd ever had,' although I did not know how much of their approbation was due to not having to do the cooking themselves.
The Wanderer had just sailed into Port-of-Spain, our last port before we began the journey home. She would take on a cargo of coffee, sugar and cocoa, as well as the coal that would fuel us back to Hoboken.
I looked up from the dishes I was washing in the scullery. Lunch was finished, and I would not need to make dinner this evening. "Good afternoon, Frank Englehorn." I reached over for an apple I had on the counter beside me and tossed it to him.
"Thanks, Charley. We've dropped anchor." He took a bite from the apple and licked the juice from the thick, sandy moustache that now covered his upper lip. He had started growing it shortly before we had left Mrs. Hicks' boarding house for the Wanderer.
I sighed, knowing that with Frank Englehorn's steadfast sense of honor, the likelihood of discovering what his moustache felt like caressing my skin would be nil.
"The skipper's given us a few hours liberty. What do you say we hit the Dirty Dog for a drink?"
"I say that sounds fine."
We were standing at the bar when the man rolled in, roaring drunk.
"Where's that bastard, Englehorn? I'm gonna chew 'im up and spit 'im out! Fucker cost me m' ear!"
"Oh, hell," Frank Englehorn's voice was tired. "Jennings. He's first mate on the Sarah Jane; I thought I saw her docked at the end of the pier. He just doesn't learn. We had a run in a couple, three years back."
"What is this about his ear?" I studied the seaman carefully. He was scanning the saloon, and each time his head turned, his hair would whip to the side. The ear that should have been there was missing.
Frank Englehorn shrugged. "He wanted to prove he could draw and throw his knife faster than I could. He was wrong."
The drunken first mate spotted Frank Englehorn and let out a bellow. A wicked knife appeared in his hand as if out of nowhere, and he leaped at him, a little madness in his eyes.
It was over in a matter of seconds.
I stepped forward and knocked the knife out of Jennings' hand, and hit him on the back of the neck with a chopping motion of my hand. He dropped to the sawdust-covered floor, slamming his forehead against the foot rail of the bar. We stood above the unconscious seaman.
Frank Englehorn stared at me in amazement. The last time I had performed such actions had been in Rio de Janeiro; he had been in the thick of the fray as well and had not been able to observe them as closely.
I shrugged. "I could not permit him to hurt you, Frank Englehorn."
A piercing whistle shattered the stunned silence that had descended on the saloon.
"Shore Patrol!" Frank Englehorn said from between gritted teeth. Patrons of the Dirty Dog poured out of the batwing doors, none of them willing to have a confrontation with the men who enforced the law along the waterfront.
"I reckon the damn' fool tripped! He never could hold his likker," the barkeep observed dispassionately. He picked up a bar towel and began drying a glass. "You get your Chink friend outta here, Englehorn. I'll deal with the Shore Patrol. Jennings has made a bad name for himself all over Port-of-Spain. I think they'll be glad of an excuse to toss his ass in the hoosegow."
"Thanks, Lumpy. I owe you!" His big hand latched onto my upper arm, and he dragged me toward the back door.
It was dark in the alleyway behind the saloon, the moon's light dimmed by a bank of clouds. We made our way silently through narrow byways. The sound of footsteps behind us signaled pursuit.
Frank Englehorn shoved me into a cul-de-sac between two ramshackle houses and placed his body to shield mine. We stood motionless, our dark clothes rendering us invisible, as the Shore Patrol pounded past us.
We released the breaths we had been holding almost simultaneously, and he leaned his forehead against the top of my head, soft laughter stirring the hair at my temple. "You saved my life," he whispered.
"It belongs to me, now!" I tilted my head back to smile at him and found his mouth close to mine.
And then his mouth was on mine, and he swallowed my sigh.
Frank Englehorn's lips were warm and knowledgeable. He pulled back enough to run his tongue over them, and when he kissed me again, they brushed from side to side over my lips, causing them to tingle. I needed a fiercer pressure, one that would urge them to part, one that would demand entrance.
I pulled him against me, pleased to feel his arousal pressing against my groin, and murmured against his lips, "You want me!"
"Charley, I've always wanted you. Now I can have you!"
"Buddha save me from an honorable man!" I reached between us, finding that he was as hard as I, and I squeezed the bulge beneath my fingers.
He laughed again, but it was a strained sound. His large hands fumbled in haste to unfasten the big buttons that secured my pea coat. He yanked my shirt out of my trousers and worked one hand up under it, finding a nipple already tight in anticipation of his touch. I moaned as he rubbed his fingertips over it, squeezing and plucking it. The other hand was busy at my loins, shaping my stiffening prick, and even if I had not owed my life to him, by that action alone I would have been his.
However, I was determined to make him mine as well. I undid the front of his trousers. His prick, like smooth, hot satin, quivered in my hands. I fondled his shaft, measured its girth between my fingers, rubbed my thumb across the crown.
"Ah!" I gathered drops of his essence that were already beading at the tip.
"This surprises you, Charley? I'm always at this point when I'm anywhere near you!" He took my thumb and ran it over my lips. Involuntarily, I licked at them. The taste of him filled my mouth, and I growled in helpless wanting. He sucked my thumb into his mouth, and I felt my prick jerk and ooze pre come.
My hands dropped to the buttons that sealed the placket of my trousers. I hurried to open them and shove the barrier down off my hips.
He took my hands and placed them beside my head. "Keep them there," he ordered as he pressed them against the building. The silky hairs of his moustache grazed my palm, and his tongue teased the skin at my wrist. I shuddered when he bit down gently and sucked.
"Frank!" Although I had been trained to create an erogenous zone out of any part of the body, I had never before considered my own wrist to be one.
His hips pushed forward, and he aligned his prick with mine and begin a tormenting glide. The liquid that excitement caused to trickle from our pricks eased the way. He released his grip on my wrists, but I kept them at shoulder level, unwilling to disobey him.
"Yes," he whispered in approval. The moon chose that moment to come out from behind the clouds, and I could see his eyes, glittering deep blue with passion. He filled his hands with the curve of my buttocks and held me motionless while he rocked more and more strongly against me.
"I've watched you, Charley." His words were hoarse in my ear. "Those nights when you thought I was asleep, and you pleasured yourself in the hammock. I watched you skin out of your skivvies, and I wanted to be the one sliding them down your legs and freeing your prick. I watched you push down your foreskin and tease the crown, and I wanted to do that to you. I could see how flushed it got, and I had to lock my fingers together to keep from reaching across to take you in my hands." He released my buttocks, and now his hands were loosely holding our pricks as we strove for completion. "I wanted to see if you were as smooth and hot as I thought you'd be. And when you finally exploded in orgasm, my mouth would water, and I wanted to taste you. I wondered if you'd taste like cream or melted butter. I wanted to turn you over onto your belly and pet the smooth curves of your ass. I wanted to scoop your come up on my finger and smear it over your hole, and ease my finger up inside you. I wanted to find your sweet spot and make you melt in my arms. Are you going to melt for me, Charley?"
I opened my mouth to tell him that I would do whatever he wanted me to do, but all that came out was a breathless groan. My hips jerked helplessly once, twice, and I poured my seed into his hand.
"Yes!" Suiting deed to words, he stroked the liquid over the pucker of my anus. His finger circled and dipped into my hole, pressing a little deeper each time. I tried to spread my legs, but the trousers held them prisoner, and I whined impatiently. "Gently, my tiger. We have all night!"
"Frank, please, I must hold you!" My hands were still by my head.
"No." His smile was a white slash in his face, and all I could do was dig my fingernails into my palms, whimpers and moans spilling from my lips. Finally his entire finger was buried in my ass. He crooked it and pumped it, and in spite of the fact that I had just climaxed, my prick managed to spurt a few final drops of my seed.
With his free hand, Frank Englehorn pushed my shirt up out of the way and settled his mouth on the nipple that bore the gold ring. He curled his tongue through it and tugged lightly, then began to suckle. He wound his fingers in mine. His breath came out in panting huffs, his movements became erratic, and soon his seed joined mine on my belly.
He released my hand, carefully eased his finger out of me, and wrapped his arms around me. His weight as he leaned against me was the only thing keeping me upright. We were both breathless in the aftermath.
"It is permitted to move my hands now, Frank Englehorn?"
He laughed once more, and it was the sound of a man who was supremely sexually satisfied. I didn't begrudge him; I was also supremely satisfied.
I took that as an affirmative and dropped my arms to loop them around his neck. "We will be doing this again, Frank Englehorn."
"Lord, yes!" His moustache twitched as he smiled. "After all, my life belongs to you now."
"If I had known that was all it took, I would have pointed out that I had saved your life in Buenos Aires, when that senorita you were flirting with turned out to be a senora!"
"Well, damn! You have a point."
"Is that all you have to say?"
"No." He nuzzled the hinge of my jaw. It seemed that now that he had given himself permission to touch me, he could not stop. "Were you jealous?"
"Did you want me to be?"
"No, of course I didn't want you to be jealous!" But there was a note in his voice that convinced me otherwise.
"Frank Englehorn, I was so jealous I wanted to..." I suddenly realized I was speaking to a Westerner. I omitted what I would have done to the woman. "... to drag you back to the Wanderer and fuck you blind for even daring to look at anyone else when you could have had me!"
"Y'know, someday you're going to have to tell me how you learned to speak such good English."
"I also speak French, German and Russian," I told him.
His mouth opened and shut a number of times, and I laughed softly. Finally, he shook his head and joined my laughter. "Let's get our trousers done up and get back to the Wanderer. I intend to make up for lost time!" But before we did, he dried our mingling seed with the tail of his shirt, then took my face between his hands and stared into my eyes. "I'm very glad I didn't let Maude step on you!"
I would have told him that I was rather happy about that fact myself, but I was silenced by his mouth.
It was some time later when we stepped out of the cul-de-sac and strolled down South Quay Road. He had his arm around my shoulder, and the odor of sex clung faintly to us. When we were stopped by the Shore Patrol, they assumed we had come from Harlots' Row, and let us by with an advisory to make sure we saw a doctor if we found ourselves in any difficulties. The whores were generally clean, but one never knew.
The night watch on the Wanderer gave us a brief salute. "Did you hear about the donnybrook at the Dirty Dog?" We nodded. "Fuck if I miss all the excitement," he grumbled.
We bid him goodnight and went down to our cabin. Frank Englehorn turned up the wick on the lantern that hung from a hook in the ceiling and reached for me.
Once again his moustache caressed my lips, and I parted them with a soft sigh. "Frank."
"What's your real name, Charley?" His fingers became busy removing my clothes.
"Is it really important?"
"No. I'll call you 'Charley' anyway, but it would be nice to know my lover's name."
"I am your lover, Frank?" I stood before him naked. He rubbed his palms over my nipples, tugging gently at the one that was not pierced. I sank into the sensation.
"I want my ring on this one!"
I closed my eyes. "Yes!"
"And yes, you are my lover, so resign yourself to me." He undid my queue and threaded his fingers through the long, black strands, working his way to my scalp and kneading it sensuously. I hummed with pleasure. "I'm a crusty seadog, and I don't share."
"Neither do I share, Frank Englehorn." It was my turn to work on his buttons. I had his clothes stripped off before he realized it. I took a step toward his berth.
"On the hammock, Charley. On your back."
I shivered and sucked in a breath, doing as my lover bade me. I watched as he reached for a small jar that was on a shelf.
"Beeswax and mineral oil, Charley."
I was familiar with it. "It will ease your way into me."
His face flushed, and he licked his lips. He threw a leg over the hammock and seated himself on it. "How limber are you?"
I edged closer to him, then pulled my legs back until my knees were on either side of my head, leaving me exposed to whatever he chose to do to me. Frank stood, the cloth of the hammock high between his legs, and I angled my head to watch. He rolled my balls in his palm, weighing them, then held them to the side and dipped his fingers into the mixture. As he slid one finger into me, he leaned forward and ran his tongue up over the thick vein on the underside of my shaft. A second finger joined the first, and his tongue lapped over the tip of my prick, slid beneath the foreskin, probed gently.
"Frank!" My voice cracked, my head dropped to the pillow, and I stared at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. A third finger had joined the other two while I had been distracted. He did not move them, just let me get used to the feel of them filling and stretching me, and he swallowed my prick to the root. He swallowed, and the muscles of his throat massaged my shaft. "Frank!" I arched up into his throat, and then down onto those intruding fingers.
His laughter vibrated around my prick. He let it slip from his mouth while he removed his fingers, then he parted my ass cheeks and lined up his prick with my hole. At some point he must have coated his shaft, but I could not have told when. "Relax, my handsome tiger." His fingernails dragged lightly up the muscle of my thighs, and he leaned onto me, his shoulders pushing my legs even further back. With a steady, relentless motion, he pressed forward until his crown was past the guardian ring of muscle, and he was seated within me. Again he paused to allow me to grow accustomed to his girth. It burned, the shimmer of pleasure almost there, just out of my reach, and I whined in desperation.
"D'you know how hot you are, Charley? How tight? If I died now, right this second, I'd die a happy man!"
"Well, I would not be. I want many more times like this!" I wound my fingers in his hair and pulled his face close to mine. "Now, move, Frank Englehorn! Love me!"
His fingertips ran over the bare nipple. "Yes." He dipped his head to capture my lips, which I gave him willingly.
Each time he drove forward, the hammock would move, and each motion would drive him across my sweet spot. I was impaled on that shaft that plunged to the depths of my soul, and soon I was swearing in Cantonese and shuddering with the need to die the little death. I arched up and seized his shoulders, pulling him back down on top of me. The hammock began to swing wildly, and we were in danger of being spilled out onto the hard wood deck.
"Charley!" He sat up, taking me with him, driving his prick deeper into my bowels. He wrapped his hand around my prick and worked it with sure fingers until I was begging him in every language I knew to finish me.
I locked my ankles behind his back. His hands on the curve of my buttocks helped me rise and then sink back down, while his long fingers caressed the crevice, stroking the spot where we were joined, driving me wild. The sweat-damp hairs of his chest teased my nipples.
The barrage of sensation became too much. I sank my teeth into his shoulder to muffle my shout as I came.
"Charley!" His mouth was open on the side of my neck, warm, moist puffs of breath against the skin. I could feel his prick quiver as his climax overtook him, and my inner muscles clamped down on him, milking him as he filled me with his heat.
Slow, sweet minutes passed. Sweat cooled on our skin, and come. I whispered to him in Cantonese, telling him how much I cared for him, that I would kill anyone who tried to take him from me.
When we had rested enough to get out of the hammock without falling to the deck, we cleaned ourselves off, and he took me to his berth, where I spent the rest of the night in his arms.
And the rest of the voyage as well.
The tugboats had chugged out to meet the Wanderer and nudged her into place at the dock.
I was looking forward to a hot bath and a meal I had not cooked myself, and a bed that did not move when my lover and I were not making love.
I went down to the cabin I shared with Frank Englehorn to fetch our sea bags up top and discovered him staring at a telegram. He crushed it in his fist.
"Voyage over, honorable one."
"Yes." His gaze was troubled. "Sit down. I've got some news."
"You are uneasy." I forgot to use the pidgin English. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong. I just received a telegram from Dave West. The Merrimans won't be troubling you any longer. You can read English. Here, read it for yourself!"
He thrust the paper at me, and I skimmed it quickly. "This is very interesting! The Merrimans were forced to leave the Capital in disgrace." I wondered if I detected my own government's hand in that.
"Dave said he'll meet us at Mrs. Hicks' house and fill us in. But the long and the short of it is no one will be coming after you. You won't need to stay in hiding. You won't need me," he added so softly I almost missed his words. "It seems you're finally going to be shut of me." He did not sound happy about that, I noted with relief.
"My life belongs to you, Frank Englehorn. Ever and always, just as your life is mine. But perhaps it is you who wishes to 'get shut' of me? Perhaps you are tired of having a yellow-hide heathen for a lover?" Those were the mildest of the epithets that had been directed my way.
"NO!" he snapped harshly. "I mean, no. Charley, you have to know that I ... that I like having you with me."
"Well, then, I imagine it is a moot point."
He tugged on my queue. "If those yahoos ever heard you speak when you weren't playing the Chinese coolie, they'd never believe it!"
I let my shoulders rise and fall negligently. "As much as they claim to like me, or my cooking, if I did not they would try to punish me for being... what is the term... 'uppity'?... for being uppity."
"And you'd let them?" he scoffed. "I saw you take on all those sailors in that taverna in Rio de Janeiro. Not to mention what you did to Jennings in Port-of-Spain. I don't think I've seen anything like it."
"I said they would try, I did not say I would permit them to succeed."
"To think I worried that you couldn't protect yourself!"
I allowed a smile to curl my lips and gave a small, polite bow. I had thought that amusing. "When you are ready to go back to sea, honored sir, I will go with you."
"And if I decide not to go back to sea?"
"It does not matter, Frank Englehorn. I will still go with you."
He pulled me into his arms and ravaged my mouth with a slow, thorough kiss. With a final lick at my lips, he raised his head, satisfied by the expression he saw on my face. "Then I reckon that's settled."
"Yes, I reckon."
He gave the cabin one final sweeping look, then hoisted his sea bag over his shoulder. I did the same and followed him up the ladder and off the Wanderer.
tbc