Captain Drew

“So…” said Sir Frances quietly. “What you’re saying is that you want to do things with me? Things that you normally would do with a woman?”

Captain Drew grunted nervously, “Aye.”

“I’m alright with it,” said Sir Frances without hesitation.

The air in the stable had suddenly grown very warm, whether it was from the breeze that drifted in from the seashore—which was highly unlikely due to the fact that it usually drove in a chill—or from the different verbal atmosphere. For a second Captain Drew thought that Sir Frances had been joking, but the serious look in his eye revealed how humorless that he really was.

“You are okay with it?” asked Captain Drew with a sardonic grin. “Do you even know what it means to hold someone, let alone be held by someone? It’s messy, something that a prim person like you wouldn’t understand.”

Sir Frances grunted in response, “I’m not a child, regardless of how I seem to appear to you, Captain Drew. If I prove my worth to you, then can I join your ship?”

“Prove it to me?” asked Captain Drew with a barking laugh on his tongue. “If you think that you can handle it, then try away. Let me tell you this—being held is no field day. You won’t like it, not one bit.”

“Whatever makes you say that?” asked Sir Frances quietly, but Captain Drew had heard him regardless. Captain Drew peered over at him, curious but not asking. It was none of his business anyway. After all, there was no way that Sir Frances, who was as proper as they came, would be able to be held by someone like Captain Drew, who lived and breathed for the sea.

“You see,” said Captain Drew quietly, drawing nearer. “We are going to have to get close together, and we are going to have to do something like this…”

With one forceful movement, Captain Drew hauled Sir Frances forward and embraced him gruffly, his beard tickling Sir Frances’s prim chin. As he breathed roughly, smelling of ale and of the sea air as he pushed his tongue into Sir Frances’s mouth, he expected Sir Frances to run away. It didn’t happen. Sir Frances drew back, looking thoroughly excited and enthralled by the experience. The sea air came in even further, making the place smell thick and salty.
The moment was broken by the sound of laughter as a drunken stable-hand came shuffling in, his body dancing to its own rhythm. When he spotted the two of them, sweating and panting, he offered them a drink with a fine giggle. Captain Drew was grateful for the distraction, but Sir Frances was already pulling at his sleeve, a small smile on his face. He was practically screaming “again!”

“I can handle it,” said Sir Frances defiantly and eagerly, as the drunken man looked as confused as ever and glanced inside of his now empty glass. “I really can.”

Captain Drew sighed with a shake of the head. “Fine, if you think that you can handle it... It’s back to the ship with you, then.”