Page 81 of Paid to the Pirate

It became a routine each month where I’d use the cargo hold to take care of what I needed to. I wore longer, looser clothing to hide the evidence of my cycles and my increasingly fuller breasts. They weren’t large yet. But theyexistedwhere none ever existed before and where they shouldn’t reside on a scrawnyboy. I swiped gauze from the infirmary to bind my breasts flatter and to help soak up the extra blood. It was the only thing I could think to do.

Even with Miguel possibly on my side, it was brought to the captain’s attention that someone was pillaging the supply. Yet I had no better option. My prolonged and frequent absences during my cycles were noticed, but it was a necessary risk. I couldn’t allow the curve of my breasts to show beneath my shirts and I couldn’t get caught with blood between my legs.

Sometimes, for all the fear they brought, I lingered in the dark safety of the cargo hold and admired my breasts, examining them. They were the size of small apples now, the tips of my nipples growing and deepening into a dusky pink. I wished I had someone to talk to about the changes in my body. Not that I’d have fared better in the past, with only my father to look out for me, but it was a lonely existence on a ship full of men with no hope of female company.

Perhaps I’d stayed too long in the hull one evening, when I heard shouts from the crew echoing through the cavernous room.

“There he is!” Robert shouted, pointing at me. “Charlie’s been stealing!”

Terror roiled in my gut as I shot to my feet. Luckily, I’d just re-dressed, but I had no ready excuse as to what I’d been doing.

Quickly, the crew formed a semi-circle around me, blocking my exit. Redhands turned to address them. “I told you Charlie’s a thief!”

“And what am I purportedly stealing?” I cried.

“Rations,” Redhands declared with gleeful malice. “Someone’s been pilfering from the food supplies and taking gauze from the infirmary.”

My heart stuttered. Rations were missing? On a ship with a limited food supply, that was a far greater offense than thieving some extra strips of cloth.

“I - haven’t.” I stammered.

Where was Colt?

I looked around but the captain was nowhere to be found.

“Then why have you been sneaking off in here?” Robert asked. “What are you hiding?”

Having no acceptable answer, I could only shout, “I haven’t been stealing, it wasn’t me!”

Frantic, I searched the crew for a friendly face, but found none. At this hour Miguel was asleep, Colt must have been up to something in his cabin, and even Conks and Johnson were mysteriously absent.

“You’ve been stealing the food,” Redhands accused.

“I haven’t,” I swore. “You have no evidence.”

“You ate it! We know you’ve been sneaking off. What else could you have been doing down here?”

His words seemed to rally the men, which worsened when I had no acceptable answer.

“Punish him,” someone in the back of the semi-circle insisted.

Desperate, I looked to Maurice as the highest in command, but he wore an expression of satisfaction.

“The lash!” I heard James yell. “Give him the lash until he talks.”

“No!” I cried, but the crew had been whipped into a frenzy. I’d raised too much suspicion with my inability to explain my actions.

“Tie him up! Whip him! It’s the lash for him,” the crew chanted, eager to spill blood.

“Let me go!” I shouted as the first hand grabbed me. But too many hands followed, hauling me above deck. I couldn’t fight the men when they turned and shoved me against the mast. In the blink of an eye, my hands were tied together and then tied to the mast. The men were in such haste to see me whipped, they’d forgotten to remove my shirt and I felt the cool air as Robert carelessly knifed it open in the back.

My binding.

I pressed myself tighter against the mast in both fear of the lash and terror of being discovered.

“I told you, he’s the thief!” Robert proclaimed with gleeful malice, spying the gauze. “See for yourself.”

My stomach flipped wildly as Robert quickly slipped the knife beneath the cloth and cut upwards, stripping me of that last protection.

---