oneortheother
TMF Expert
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- Sep 16, 2008
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A foray into historical fiction. I'm not sure it'll see a sequel, but I hope you guys enjoy it.
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The Newest Harem Slave
Princess Li Wu rubbed her tears away with white knuckle, furious at herself for letting her tears be seen. She had to be strong, had to fight, had to persevere, but it was hard to remember that when you were sailing away from the only home you ever knew. She looked out of the window of the drab, pitiful cabin—it felt like an insult to her birth and station that she was sharing it with these others and she didn’t even have the privacy to cry in solitude. But she supposed she shouldn’t expect much more than that from these pirates.
Weeping noisily besides her was Christina Patten, the only true friend Li could be said to have on this accursed ship, though right now, Li wanted dearly for her companion to shut up. It was difficult enough to keep one’s composure without hearing the sounds of abject misery beside you.
Not that Li could begrudge her friend for her tears, though she might wish Christina keep them in or at least not sob and shake quite so loudly. Christina was a year younger at age eighteen, and she had just seen her father’s throat slashed open. Mr. Patten had been the local gwailo, a rotund, red-faced man with a balding pate. He had been far from handsome, but he had always been courteous and cheerful. Christina bore little resemblance to her sire, though she didn’t look very pretty at the present with her eyes red from crying. She had long flaxen hair that curled around her shoulders, clear, unblemished skin, a long high nose, and pale blue eyes.
Li had been his student for many years, and he had taught her English as befits an emperor’s daughter who might want to marry her to some western king in the name of an alliance.
Would her father pay her ransom? She didn’t know how much gold he would be willing to pay, especially when his new favourite concubine had given him three sons in the last five years. Once they had been born, Li had dropped from the heir to the fourth in line to the throne, and relations with her father had been frosty since he had discarded her mother when she had been caught in bed with their captain of guards.
If he didn’t pay, what would these women do to her? These women. Even those words sounded queer and strange in her mind, as if her brain couldn’t quite come to grips with what had happened.
She had thought a crew of pirate women were a fable, a myth, an impossibility. In her homeland, the most masculine profession she had ever seen a woman undertake was farmer, and she struggled to imagine how weak women would fare in something as aggressively masculine as military service. Yet these women had not just held their own, they had defeated the men of her royal guard, though Li had hardly thought the battle had been honourable. Though what did a pampered princess know of such matters of war? Li sighed. All that mattered was here she was on their ship, as with every heartbeat, she drifted further and further away from her home.
Li looked at the two guards who had been posted to watch them to ensure they did nothing stupid. They both towered over here, though that wasn’t saying much when Li was not even five foot in her best shoes. While her long black hair, petite frame, and tiny feet made her a traditional oriental beauty, it meant she was unlikely be much help in anything physically rigorous.
Not that the first guard looked very tough. She had a mop of messy dirty-blonde hair, high cheekbones, and freckled brown skin that could have indicated anything from south-Asian descent to a tan. With her slim, svelte frame, she reminded Li more of one of the hookers who worked by the docks than a pirate, though the boiled leather armour and dirk at her hip she wore did make her look a bit war-like. She was slouched over a chair, yawning.
The other guard was taller and infinitely more imposing. She had skin as dark as ink, and her black hair was braided with beads. She stood as stiff as a bow, with her large hands clasped behind her back. She had no visible weapons on her, though she looked like she might outweigh Li and Christina put together with her large, strong frame. She wore the same leather jerkin as her comrade, but she wore a sleeveless one which showed off the tattoos on her muscled arms.
Keeping her eyes on both of the guards, Li whispered to Christina in Cantonese, “Do you think we could overpower these two? Get their weapons?” Christina knew the language, of course. She had grown up in the Guangzhou province with her father.
“Chinawoman!” barked the black-skinned woman. Her voice was deep for a woman, and her English was flavoured with the spice of Carribean Li thought, as she remembered some traders who had stopped by a few months ago, though she couldn’t be certain. “No talking in your language here. I know the captain warned you.”
“Sorry, sorry!” Christina squeaked. Her blue eyes were bright with fear.
“Y’think sorry is enough?” the other guard said with an insolent smirk on her face. Her accent was similar to some of the western sailors Li had overheard speaking from her window—uncouth. “Y’think you can just go, ‘oh, sorry, guv’ and everything’ll be alright? Oh, you don’t get off that easy, princess.”
Li backed away a step, and then another, and her back was against the wooden wall of their tiny cabin. She hadn’t understood exactly what the woman had said, but the tone had made it clear how she felt—she was pissed.
“Okay, okay, we’ll stop!” Li raised her hands to try to ward them off, but the guards had other ideas.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Rose?” the black-skinned woman said.
“Aye,” Rose said, giggling. “Oh, you’ll stop alright, princess.” She tugged Li by the arm and threw her to the ground. Li grunted as the breath was knocked out of her, her chin bouncing off the mouldy wooden floorboards.
“No, please, don’t!” Christina said, taking a step forward. She tried to pull them by the shoulder and was shoved back to the bed.
“Stay outta this is you know what’s good for you, darlin’,” Rose said. She straddled Li’s back and snuck her hands under the patterned cheongsam tunic and squeezed. The grope at her small breasts Li understood. She had been expecting that ever since her father’s men had started dying, and it became clear she was going to be taken, but the nimble hands that snaked towards her armpits she…
A sharp shriek of laughter erupted from her as questing fingers plunged into her armpits, the fingers wriggling and wriggling.
“Nohohohoho! Pleheehhe stahahahap!” Li tried to reach back to swat at her captor, but her arms were too short and the fingers digging into her armpits made movement too difficult. She tried to squirm free, roll around, wiggle loose, but Rose’s body weight pressed her down to the ground, and she wasn’t strong enough to budge the wiry woman.
“She is a ticklish one, Maya!” Rose said over the sound of Li’s frantic giggles and snickers. “Ain’t that just dandy!”
“Allow me to see for myself,” Maya said and Li reeled in alarm as the large woman sat across her calves and began to unbuckle her high-heeled white sandals—they were a bourgeois western invention that many in her household had frowned upon, but Li had liked them for the simple fact they made her taller.
They did her no good here, however. A life of comfort and pampering had kept those milky-white feet soft as silk, and as soon as Maya raked her nails down those bare soles, it sent ticklish electricity coursing through her body. She squealed and clenched her fists and toes, but there was nothing she could do but laugh and laugh as her two jailors had their way with her body. Li found a fresh reserve of energy for more frenzied struggling when Maya’s fingers decided to tease her butt through the thin fabric of her cheongsam, where Li was dismayed to learn was a surprisingly tender spot for her.
They stopped at the sound of a sharp rapping of wood. “Try not to break our latest guest, ladies,” said the lank woman at the door. She had a low, husky voice that spoke of temptation and candlelit negotiations.
“Aye, Captain Ruby.” The two women got off Li, and the Chinese princess panted and panted as she tried to get her bearings.
From her seated position on the floor, the captain was a veritable giant to Li, though she probably was about the size of Rose. Captain Ruby was sharp-featured and pretty with pale skin. At the sight of her flaming red hair and the rubies in her ears, her name was no surprise. Her auburn hair was cropped short and barely passed the nape of her neck. She brandished a jewel-encrusted rapier at her right hip, and had a flintlock pistol on her left. Her name made perfect sense. Yet what didn’t make sense was the fact that Li had definitely heard these pirates call another women captain, a tall, powerful blonde woman.
But Li pushed such thoughts from her mind for now. Rose and Maya frogmarched them through the ship, up and out of the brig onto the deck of the great galley—it was a large vessel, and Li was surprised that the women were able to keep it running. The time was dusk, and everywhere Li saw women with skin bronzed from the sun and hands callused from work.
“Housewives stuck in miserable marriages, working girls, farmgirls, tavern wenches, all are welcome here,” Captain Ruby said, looking where she was looking and reading her mind. “Some need more training than others before they can perform their duties, but all come to enjoy the freedoms they have on the open seas.”
“Aye to that, capt,” Rose said with a grin.
“And me? Am I welcome to your ‘freedoms’ here?” Li asked.
“You’re a captive, unfortunately, so not exactly. But if you prove your worth, demonstrate your loyalties…” Captain Ruby gave a shrug. “That’s not my call, though. I’ll have to discuss with the other captains.”
“Other captains?”
They all stopped by the galleries at the end of the ship. Li had once been given an exquisite wooden model of a ship as a present (perhaps it was a bribe, in hindsight) from a local trader, and she knew the back of the ship was usually where the officers had their lavish cabins. Yet there seemed to be three cabins, all furnished with equal extravagance based on what Li could glimpse through the French doors. “We have three captains here. Captain of War, Captain of Commerce, and the Captain of Intrigues, me. Three heads are better than one. I know democracy is a foreign concept to you, but that’s how we like to run things here.”
“That seems backwards,” Li said before she could stop herself. Christina was nudging her but Li was not used to being interrupted. “What if you disagree with each other with how to deal with an enemy in battle? You’ll be arguing while your ship goes down.”
“In such a case, we would yield to the Captain of War, as that would be her domain of specialist knowledge,” Captain Ruby said, “but we’re not here to discuss political ideology.” She pushed open the doors to her cabin and beckoned that they enter.
Her cabin smelled of incense and sweet perfume. There was an ornate wooden writing desk, a looking-glass alongside a box of jewels, and a large feather bed which dominated half the cabin. “Allow me to welcome you officially to the Mistress Ambivalence,” Captain Ruby said with a sweeping bow. She kissed both the princess and Christina on the hand in a great show of courtesy.
“We don’t want to be here,” Christina managed in a quavering voice. She fell to her knees. “Please let us go!”
“Let you go? You’ve just arrived!” Ruby made a throaty chuckle. “Perhaps a quick tour of our operations will change your mind. Maya, Rose, escort our dear guest to Tink and tell her to show the lass a good time. I would like to have a word with the Princess.”
The two guards nodded and yanked Christina to her feet, and Li was alone with the pirate captain. Captain Ruby stared at Christina as she left. “I feel bad for that one. She has her father’s look.”
Li took a step back. “How do you know Mr. Patten?”
She snickered. “I don’t suppose you read the bible, but I ‘knew’ him, all right. He was a lonely man, and who could blame him, stuck in a foreign land without anyone to talk to. All it took was a few drinks, a few touches, a few whispered promises, and he took me straight up to your palace. I expressed an interest in Chinese cuisine, and he showed me your kitchens. Some poison might have made its way into supplies meant for your garrison. After that, it was child’s play.”
The Chinese princess shivered, remembered the shouts, the cries, the smoke, the rough hand waking her at night, and the dagger at her throat. “And now what?” she said in a monotone voice.
Captain Ruby clapped her hands together. “I’m glad you asked! Write a letter to your dear father informing you of your disposition. Tell him to negotiate with us regarding your release. That’s all.”
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Li said, but her mind was on how to circumvent this command. She could smuggle a message to her father—they wouldn’t tell her to write in English, would they? Maybe somehow she could include enough hints that she could be rescued without having to put her faith in the honesty of brigands.
“Hmmm, now that is a curious reaction.” Captain Ruby’s face had gone very still, and all trace of warmth on it had disappeared.
Li felt goosebumps. “What do you mean?”
“I expected you to protest, to beg, to rage, much like what your friend did moments ago. But you agreed, very willingly. Too willingly.” She leaned forward. “Do you intend to play us false, Princess?”
“No, no!” But even as the words escaped her lips, Li knew they sounded fake.
“I find it difficult to believe you. Besides, I would like to think things over, in case you have thoughts of deceiving us.” She shouted for guards. “Take the princess to Tink. Show her a good time.”
O-O-O
Tink’s workshop were near the bowels of the ship, but Li heard the shrieks long before they got there, echoing in the twisting corridor of the ships.
When the heavy oak door was pushed open, Li saw her friend in a contraption she had never seen before. The sight was so perplexing it took a moment to quantify what she actually saw. That black, brown, and grey bundle of fur and whiskers by her ankles… were those cats?
Yes, they were. But why… the sound of Christina’s frenzied laughter, interspersed with frantic begging answered the question. Christina was on her knees with her arms strung up, and her feet were forced into some kind of wooden box. Christina’s long, pale feet were pressed down into the box, so the toes were forced to clench, forming a sea of wrinkles across her high arches. Positioned above those wrinkly arches were small metal pipes which caused a white liquid to drip slowly down those soles to puddle around her toes. The liquid must have been milk or some kind of catnip, as the cats fought over prime real estate around Christina’s feet, and they licked and lapped as if they were starving. And like all cats, they had little consideration for others, showing no regard for how their rough tongues, stiff whiskers, and fuzzy paws would uncork squeals from the poor English girl. Christina had been renowned in town for her fine singing voice, and her father would often have her sing to their guests while a servant played accompaniment, and even now, her laughter was light and musical—a gross juxtaposition to the tortured look on her face.
And as if that weren’t bad enough Christina’s clothes had been stripped away, and her arms were strapped above her head. Maya was at her chest with a thin paintbrush in hand, and she wielded it as if she were creating some great work of art, delicately dabbing and stroking it along armpit, rib, and nipple with slow, tender strokes.
Rose had another paintbrush, and the woman had it positioned over Christina’s womanhood, which was shaved in the western tradition. This was teased across navel, thighs, and of course, those engorged lips. Li averted her eyes. It felt so wrong to her friend being tormented in such a manner.
“Those brushes vorking vell, ladies? Or did the other ones seem more effective?” came a drawling voice from the other end of the workshop. Li only saw her boots, for her face and body was hidden by papers. Then a spectacled face peered over them and the woman stood up, letting the paper of schematics flutter to the floor. “Guten tag, princess.” She had blonde hair slung back in a ponytail, round spectacles, and grease on her cheeks. She wore stained overalls and was a head taller than the princess, but just about everyone seemed to be on this ship.
“What are you doing to her?” Li demanded, a frown wrinkling up her white face. “Who are you?”
“Vell, I don’t mean to be rude, but vhat does it look like?” the spectacled woman gave a little titter. “Everyone calls me Tink. Inventing is my passion. I do some maintenance work here on the ship, but such devices…” She waved a hand at the box-like contraption where the cats clustered. “Everyone vants avenues to explore their creativity, yes?”
Li stepped forward and would have struck the blonde woman across the face had Maya and Rose not stood up.
“None of that,” Maya said, easily pulling the much lighter girl away.
“Captain Ruby says she wants you to show her a good time,” muttered one of the guards who had escorted Li from the captain of intrigues. “And by the looks of things, she could well use it.”
“Yeah, I can see from the colour in her face that she needs to calm down,” Tink said, stroking her chin. She saw Li looking at Christina. “Ah, you are curious about my invention? Perhaps you’d like to have a try?”
“No thank you.” Li gave the woman a hard stare, but she seemed not to notice.
“Ve keep cats to keep the rats down, and this struck me as another good use for them.” Tink’s voice was chipper, excited, and enthusiastic, while as she was talking, the cats continued their assault on poor Christina’s feet, licking as if there were nothing else happening in the world. Tink’s amiable smile did not waver even over Christina’s wails and screams. “But I regret to say your feet look far too small to fit in there. It just vouldn’t fit in vell.”
“Oh, great,” Li said in a dry, sarcastic tone.
“Don’t be disappointed!” Tink had a wide smile on her face as if she was totally unaware of the irony in Li’s voice. “Come back in a few days! But till then, perhaps she should visit Clem. Maya and Rose, you two stay here and help vith my studies.”
“Aye aye,” Rose said with a wide grin. She gave Li a mocking salute. “See you around, Princess.”
As the two guards grabbed Li by the shoulders and shunted her off to find this Clem, she shivered as the sound of Christina’s hysterics grew fainter and fainter. She had hoped that maybe only Maya and Rose were tickle and sex obsessed, but it seemed things were not that simple. Even these two guards seemed the same. Whenever Li’s gait slowed, one of them would give her a slap on the butt or a poke in the side to get her moving, and considering the fact that Li had much shorter legs than the two tall, strapping female sailors, it happened often.
“Who is Clem?” Li asked, turning back to look at the two pirates behind her. They both had brown tans, short dark hair, and dry, windburnt faces. They looked so similar they could have been twins.
Taller twin looked to chubbier twin for affirmation, then answered, “Clem the Alchemist we call her. She brews all manner of things in her cauldron.”
“Maybe she’ll brew a love potion to make you less grumpy,” chubbier twin said with a giggle.
“No, she won’t.” There was the sound of a hand smacking the back of a head. “She’s a woman of science, not some witch. If you make jokes about that in front of her, she’ll slip something into your food, and you’ll wake up in heat.”
“Tell me, is that not exactly what a love potion does?” As both women continued to argue behind her, Li wondered what kind of a woman this Clem might be. Her father had once been the patron of a local alchemist of renowned. The old man had always claimed to be able to turn lead into gold, but Li had only ever seen him turn her father’s gold into jars of useless junk.
When they arrived at Clem the Alchemist’s cabin, Li couldn’t say it was what she had expected. Inside the dark cabin, there were a dozen cloying smells mixing together. Li saw glass jars and clay pots, and vats of curious substances. The alchemist herself did not look very much like a witch, either—her skin was not green, her nose was small and un-warty, and she didn’t wear a hat or have long cracked fingernails.
Clem wore a coat that must have been white at one point, though it had been dyed and stained so many different colours that only a bit of the original white remained. Her hair was this same rainbow streak. It looked as if it had been coloured again and again, with only a bit of the prior colour remaining each time as a memento. Her hair was currently a bold silver that didn’t match her youthful face, though there were splotches around her scalp and the back of her head that were red, black, brown, and yellow.
“Well, well, so this is the princess I’ve heard so much about,” Clem said by way of greeting. “You here for some medicine?”
“Not exactly,” taller twin said, “lookin’ for something to ‘perk her up’. Captain’s orders.”
“Ah, I see.” Clem whistled to herself as she looked around her shelves for something appropriate with dye-stained fingers. She picked out a clear glass vial and a small tub of what looked like lotion and handed it to the twins.
As she repeated her instructions, Li’s stomach sank as she realised just what kind of evening she was in while she had to ‘think things over’. Her mind strayed to escape, the way it had constantly ever since she had got on this ship. But where could she escape to, right now? They were on the open seas! Even if she escaped her tormentors, the only option was to drown or come straight back to the ship. She would have to bid her time and wait for the opportune moment…
O-O-O
Time had slowed to an agonising crawl. Opportune moment, Li thought as she felt a cool wind brush against her bare skin, whenever you’re ready, feel free to present yourself, and the sooner the better, please.
She was blindfolded and gagged in what could only be the ship’s canteen. She could smell the spiced ale, the salt beef, and the sweet tang of citrus. She remembered Clem mentioning something about fruit being needed to stave off scurvy. She could also hear the clanging of utensils on plates, the thumping of brass cups on wooden tables, and the steady murmur of conversation.
However, she was not to partake in what was happening. Indeed, if her current bonds were any indication, she was to be the crew’s entertainment. She was bound eagle-spread to a round wooden table that smelled of spilled booze and varnish. Li could only presume it had been looted from some high-class establishment. Like Christina had been before, all her fine clothes had been taken away, though they had allowed her to keep her jewellery, presumably as a symbol of mockery. She still had her jade ring on her right hand, her golden necklace with the royal family’s seal, and the silver anklet she wore around on her left ankle. The anklet in particular seemed to be getting attention from those around her, who were stroking and touching it, though perhaps it may have merely be a pretence to touch her tiny feet.
Her heart thudded in her chest as every fibre of her body seemed to quiver. The air, the warmth, the humidity… she could feel it all. Just what was that strange oil they had rubbed into her body? They had rubbed it into her armpits, her ribs, her stomach, her feet, her breasts, and even her womanhood, and now everything was tingling, like an itch she just couldn’t shake…
She scrunched her toes, balled her hands into fists, and took a deep breath. The first sailors would finish their grub soon and come wandering over to enjoy a bit of post-meal activities, and what then? She remembered what Maya and Rose had done to her in their cabin and shivered as the sound of approaching footsteps and coarse feminine voices shook her from her thoughts.
“Oh, is this the Chinese princess?” It was a voice Li didn’t recognise. She didn’t seem to know any of the chattering voices, in fact. She didn’t know if that would make it better or worse.
“Sure looks like it.” The voices were speaking quickly, one after the other, and Li was struggling to keep track if they were different women or the same over the clattering din of the ship’s mess hall and her own hypersensitive body.
“She’s such a cutie!”
“Look at that birthmark on her foot! Do you see it? Right… there!” The second that the woman said “there” Li felt a finger scratch at a spot on her arch, and the Chinese girl squeaked in surprise.
“Gotta love that squeal!”
“Her feet seem pretty soft.” Li shuddered as another finger started to trace up her foot, from heel to her splaying toes.
“It’s her first time, isn’t it?”
“I think so.”
“Maybe we should be nice.”
“Should we?”
“Define ‘nice’.”
“Let’s just use one finger only… for now. See how she can handle it.” Li felt one finger on her foot again, right where her birthmark was. She chewed on her lower lip, crunched her toes shut, and willed herself not to shriek. But it wasn’t easy. “
“With feet that soft, I don’t know…” Another rough finger was on her other foot, poking around her toes. Li tried to flex her and squirm her foot away, but the finger just kept chasing after it while the girls giggled.
“You’re not getting away from me, cutie…” Another finger joined in on the chase from the other side, so her poor foot was being shepherded back and forth, trying to escape one marauding fingers only to dart back within range of the other. There was more giggling, and the sounds of wooden stools being dragged over. Great, Li thought, more of them were getting tired of just watching.
“And it smells like Clem cooked up one of her special oils.” A finger began to spiral along Li’s left breast, and she let loose a conflicted cry into her gag as it drifted towards her tingling nipple. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”
“Course you would.” It was hard to think with that finger there, slowly encircling that stiff bud like a bird of prey stalking a hare.
“Weren’t you after-meal entertainment a few months ago? Cos Captain Ruby caught you drunk on duty?” Another finger on the other breast. They were starting to nudge and prod the swollen and oh so sensitive buds that stood out from her small and firm breasts. And whether from the naughty fingers or from the alchemist’s concoction, she could feel her skin warming up all over as if she were feverish, especially the stiff tips of her nipples and her dripping womanhood. It was too much, too much to take, too much to endure… Blinded, she felt everything.
The women laughed, and Li laughed into her gag with them, though for very different reasons.
“In my defence... it was some damn good wine! But the poor girl… she must be so horny.” This woman spoke in a soft purr as one finger traced the line from between Li’s breasts to her navel and back again.
“You think she’s a bondage slut like Rosie?” This speaker was by Li’s right flank, and she was poking her finger all around her ribcage, trying to find which rib was more sensitive to be prodded and stroked. She seemed to find plenty which fit that category.
“Clem’s poultices have this effect on you… you wouldn’t understand it if you haven’t experienced it before.” It was the woman by Li’s womanhood, busily teasing her finger all along her slit.
“Guess I gotta steal me some of that stuff, then.” A finger was wiggling deep into her armpit, digging in as far as she could go. “Sounds fun.”
“Depends on if the person you’re with is feeling kind or not.” How many fingers were on her now? Li kept losing count. One, two, four, six… seven! And if each of the girls were only using one finger, then that meant… Oh, she had a very bad feeling about this.
“And are we feeling kind tonight?” A cheeky finger had slipped into her navel and was corkscrewing all about. Li tried to buck or saw her body from side to side, but her squirming only seemed to make it tickle more. Her struggles even earned her a chastisement from the woman tormenting her. “Stop it, silly,” the woman chided, slapping her lightly on the stomach, “if you keep moving, I won’t be able to get my finger out, now will I…”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then,” said the woman by her ribs with a laugh. She was pressing and prodding into them to make her flinch.
“Well… let’s see how it goes, hehe…” Li’s mind thrummed with alarm as the fingers being working more quickly. It felt unreal how much one finger could tickle.
At her underarms, one finger was skating up and down from bicep to the very centre of the hollow.
At her ribs, she had one finger on each side. They traced circles, squares, and letters with their fingertips, the light and scratchy massage wreaking havoc on her torso. And they unspeakably belonged to different women before their techniques and rhythms differed so unpredictably.
One finger continued to invoke ownership of her belly button, of course. It traced along the rim of her navel before diving in for another thorough bout of wiggling.
Each foot had one finger entertaining them. One of them had a long sharp fingernail that made her suspect it might be Captain Ruby herself, for she was the only woman Li had observed having long fingernails on this ship, but she might have been mistaken. Long fingernail was scratching her way up and down her crinkled sole in a quest to outline every single wrinkle in her petite pale feet. The other finger contented itself with playing with her toes. Every time Li tried to scrunch her small digits up to protect that tender the spot, the finger wandered downwards to stroke her milky-white arch until the combination of the tickling everywhere was enough to get those toes to reluctantly spring open, just in time for another tickling between them.
Vying for the dubious honour of ‘worst of all’ was the finger that scampered around between her legs. It stroked along her waist, along the smooth white inner thighs, and along the slick petals of her womanhood. Though worse of all was the way it would occasionally slip into her most secretive spot, where it would stay a few tantalising moments to spin her into a frenzy only to come back out and tickle around her groin again. When Li tried to thrust her hips up in ticklish frustration, it would even slip under to tickle the cheeks of her royal behind. The woman seemed to delight in keeping the finger in just long enough for moans to begin to be prevalent in Li’s breathy laughter before stopping and tear her back down to ground zero. If Li ever figured out who this cruel woman was with the skilful fingers and the sultry voice, revenge would be hers, at any cost.
“Awww, she’s getting quite loud,” one of the women observed. “What do you think she’s trying to say?”
“Must be begging us to stop.”
“Nah.”
“Yeah, I doubt it.”
“Look at how wet she is. She’s loving it.”
“Yeah, you know how these oriental girls are.”
“Maybe she’s asking us for more, then?”
“Now, that does sounds far more likely. Ain’t that right, you little tickle slut?” A hand ruffled her hair, while Li screamed denials into her gag and squirmed against the ropes binding her to the table even harder. She would have bitten that hand if not for her restraints.
“See? She said yes!”
The other women voiced their agreement, and the fingers teasing her feet suddenly turned into claws, and then two claws for each foot. Cheating, cheating, cheating! She wanted to scream, but the gag sucked up her words, and it was too late. Her gate was down. There were now twenty ruthless fingers scrabbling all over her soft, flawless feet—exactly twenty more than she could stand. Two teasing fingers had been bad enough, but twenty? She screamed with laughter, straining harder and harder against her bonds, but she only succeeded in chaffing her wrists. And when the lone fingers at her armpits, stomach, and ribs multiplied… it was all over.
“Tickle, tickle, tickle!” One of them, or maybe all of them were saying, she couldn’t be sure.
Sharp fingernails were flicking across her exposed, rock-hard nipples. She flinched and twisted from every touch at her midsection as hands reached out goose her sides, lobster-claw her ribs, stroke her belly. When one of them ran her knuckles along her ribcage, she laughed so hard she thought she might choke on the gag. Her blindfold was stained with tears, between her legs were stained with another kind of moisture, and her breasts were still tingling so badly.
“I feel bad for the poor princess,” said the voice by Li’s groin, though her fingers did not stop in their spidering motions from her inner thighs to her knees. “Your first night here shouldn’t be all bad…”
Li gasped and threw her head back at the sudden sensation. Something slick lapped against her womanhood. It was larger than a finger, and oh, so warm. If not for the table and the gag in her mouth, she would have arched her back and shouted with pleasure. She could feel the woman’s finger still lightly dancing along her thighs, so what was this?
It had to be a tongue, a magical tongue flicking across her throbbing womanhood. And suddenly there were loving tongues everywhere, tongues at her feet, tongues at her nipples, tongues at her stomach. Li found her body shaking, trembling, even when the devilish fingers returned and her groaning moaning became tinted with laughter once more. Would she… would she?
They were sucking on her big toes while ten cruel fingernails raked up and down each foot. They were licking her achy nipples while ten fingers tunneled each armpits. It was like pulled in two different directions at once. She wasn’t going to get anywhere. She screamed into her gag again, begging them to get on with it, begging them to stop this infernal teasing…
“Awww, what’s wrong, sweetie?”
“Are you on the edge?”
“Awwww, too bad.”
“Cootchie cootchie coo!”
“Let’s see just how long we can keep you there…”
O-O-O
“Good morning, my darlings!”
There was nothing good about his bleak, autumnal morning, Li thought. She crossed her arms and said nothing to the chipper woman who had introduced herself as Sapphire. Sapphire had honey-blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, blue-painted fingernails, and she wore robes of azure. She looked half like a priest for some sea-based religion and half like a whore because of the low cut of her bodice.
Christina stared at her feet and mumbled, “Good morning.”
“What’s wrong, honey?” Sapphire asked Li. “Didn’t sleep well?”
“No.” Li hadn’t been able to sleep last night due to the insistent rocking of the waves, her meagre dinner more than once threatening to come up out of her mouth. And that wasn’t even considering the nocturnal activities she had needed to endure at the hands of the crew.
“Well, I hope you feel better tomorrow.” Sapphire smiled and clapped her hands together. “Anyway, I’m here to train you in the art of lovemaking.”
Christina’s mouth gaped open. Her hand reached for her privates, but pulled away at the last moment. “This is some joke, right?”
“Afraid not, my lovely. You’re our captives, and our captains intended to sell you as pillow slaves to affluent members of society in the West. If it’s any consolation, it’ll likely be a much better life than the one you left behind.”
“How can you say that?” Christina exclaimed.
“Well, our last girl became the new wife of a high-ranked official in the East India Trading Company. She’ll own a hundred ships like this one.” Sapphire rapped a knuckle on the wooden wall. They were in the ship’s cargo hold tonight, where space had been cleared for whatever ‘training’ they were to undergo. Maya and Rose hovered in the background, the latter crunching on an apple as they ensured the girls did not misbehave.
“Chin up, girl,” Sapphire said, putting a hand on Christina. “The first skill I’ll teach you will be the most useful. How to kiss.”
“Oh, please,” Li said. “I know how to kiss.”
“Kissing your father on the cheek is not the same as a proper snog, Princess,” Rose called from behind them, chortling.
“Afraid she is correct,” Sapphire said. “Alright, ladies, so how’s about you show get in those stocks over there, and we’ll get started.”
“Stocks? Why do you need stocks for kissing!?”
“Once you can handle it under duress,” Sapphire said with a sly smile, “it’ll be like second nature. Now, are you going to get in? or am I going to have to tell the captain how uncooperative you were?”
Sapphire beckoned to the English girl, and Christina sat down in the stockade and pulled off her sandals. Li had never noticed before, but Christina painted her toenails a rosy red in the western fashion. It made a strange contrast seeming them beside Sapphire’s icy blue nails. Christina’s long blonde hair made an artful tangle across her shoulders as her wrists were tied above her head and a blindfold was slipped across her mouth. Left in nothing but a white vest, she shivered.
“You just be a good girl and watch,” Sapphire said, looking back to Li and winking. Sapphire walked over straddled Christina’s the younger woman’s hips and put her arms around Christina’s neck.
“Kiss me,” she said. When Sapphire bit on her lower lip and didn’t react, Sapphire’s long blue nails grazed down her armpits. “Rose, help get dear Christina into the mood.”
“With pleasure, darlin’.” Licking her lips, Rose brought her freckled hands down to the stocked, scrunched long feet before her and began to stroke them gently with the very tips of her fingers.
Light giggles began to trickle out of Christina’s pink lips shortly before they were snuffed out by a fierce kiss from their instructor. Either from ticklishness or from surprise, Christina could not keep up the kiss for long, and she soon broke away.
“Not too bad for a first time, hun,” Sapphire said in a low purr. She planted a few kisses on Christina’s collarbone while her fingers brushed down along her armpits to illicit a breathy squeak. “Try somewhere a bit higher, Rose.”
“Aye, aye.” Rose’s eyes glinted with greed at the Christina’s moist womanhood. As she put her head down there, her fingers danced across the ribs to make the English girl gyrate in ticklish frustration.
“Now, we try again,” Sapphire said, “kiss me better, or your armpits will get it worse.”
The kiss they shared next was longer, though Li could see Christina’s throat moving as she tried to process giggles trying to make their way out. When they separated, Christina tried to breath and guffaw at the same time, spraying Sapphire with spittle, which prompted the amused lovemaking instructor to give her underarms a quick tickling as punishment.
Sapphire put a nail on Christina’s neck and lightly stroked it up and down. “Good, good, you’re much improved.”
“T-thanks…” Christina’s voice was breathy, and there was no mistaking the way her hips were churning up and down undoubtedly in response to Rose’s skilled touch. Li found herself crossing her legs and flushing at the sight. She remembered vividly the encounter last night in the canteen… was her companion enjoying this strange situation as well? Perhaps.
“Alright, princess, it’s your turn,” called Sapphire, “I know you’re getting tired just sitting there. Wouldn’t want you to be bored or anything. You better do as well as your friend, or I promise you—it’s gonna be bad.”
And that was how Princess Li had her first kiss—in the most unromantic of settings possible.
O-O-O
It was amazing how fast two weeks had passed by on the Mistress Ambivalence. She had written the letter begging her father to pay her ransom in accordance to Captain Ruby’s wishes. Her first attempt at the letter had been in her native Chinese, where she had not so subtlety directed her father to murder the women who had taken her captive. Li had rather been betting on the fact Ruby would not be able to read her words, and she had won that wager… but somehow there were unpatriotic Chinese sailors on-board all too willing to betray their princess.
And her punishment had been horrific. She had spent the next three nights as Captain Ruby’s personal bedmate, which might have sounded erotic and exciting hearing about it (sleeping with a pirate captain!) but it had been exceptionally awful in truth. Naked, gagged, and bound to Ruby’s majestic bed, the Captain of Intrigues had used finger, feather, and tongue to push Li to the limits and then some. Even now, her toes curled just thinking about it. And Captain Ruby was a night owl happy to go hours and hours into the night till she found every single spot of Li’s that made her squeal. And Li had caved and written the letter, though she doubted her father was likely to lift a finger to do anything for a daughter he scarcely knew.
While she waited for that eventuality, life had settled into a strange routine. Every morning, she ate hard biscuits and drank frothy ale, though only one cup. At the mess hall, there were always sailors who drank more than their allotment, and they were tied down to spare tables to serve as entertainment and a reminded to stay sober. The uncouth Rose seemed to be a frequent offender, though she didn’t seem to mind. Li even got to tickle her toned, muscular sides one time while another was feathering her freckled womanhood—it was tremendously satisfying to get revenge on one of the ones who had tickled her before.
Afterwards was another ‘lesson’ with Sapphire, though now she was alone with the former prostitute. Next was another ghastly meal followed by some menial labour with Clem at her concoctions—the captains had decided she was too feeble for physical tasks, but that didn’t exempt her from tedious chores like putting labels on bottles. They never let her work with poisons though, the clever bastards, and she only ever worked with perfumes and dyes. Dinner was the worst, though the food was probably the best, with black bread, pea soup, and even a bit of salt beef on occasion, along with everyone’s daily fruit ration. The reason why she dreaded the final meal was she was forever nominated to be entertainment after the meal, eagle-spread and naked much like she had been the first night. Captain Ruby’s rationale was that she did it in the hopes it would help Li sleep well, but the princess knew better—the more tired she was at the end of the day, the less likely she could scheme at night.
But the ship was not without its share of fascinating sights. Li soon learned the most dreaded punishment on board was to be ‘figureheaded’. The silver figurehead of the Mistress Ambivalence had its arms outstretched as if crucified, and any woman who had performed her duties poorly or broke one of the ship’s rules would spend a day tied there, where the whole crew was free to torment them in any way they pleased. The spectacled engineer Tink even had tools tied beside the figurehead for ease of access. And because of the spot where the figurehead was located at the front of the ship, people would be walking past it at every hour, meaning you would not get a moment’s peace.
One day, it had even been Tink herself bellowing with laughter all day, her feet attacked by the bristly scrub brushes she had installed herself, all on account of some mistaken measurements. It showed that no one was beyond reproach, which Li had to confess what a concept she admired.
And things were changing for Li. The first few nights on board, she had gone to sleep to the sound of Christina’s crying, but things soon changed in such a way that Li grew to miss those dreary sobs. Christina did not possess the same value as a hostage, so when she showed some aptitude for cartography on account of her education and literacy, she had been whisked off to learn. She had passed her amorous lessons with ease too, and more than once, Li saw her demonstrating them with other women on-board. Her light singing voice had also won her friends. She spent most days and most nights with Sapphire now, and although Li was happy she was no longer weeping, that fact made was something she found more than a little unsettling. She had confronted her about it, a few days ago:
“Where are you going?” Li had asked as Christina crept out of their tiny cabin.
“Sapphire’s. It’s not so cold there.”
“Have you forgotten what they did? How they killed your father?”
Christina had shrugged. “My old life was to be a pretty little ornament who sang and danced and was polite. Here, I can be something different.”
“They want to sell you, remember?”
“They won’t. Not if they see how valuable I am, not once they see how useful I can be.”
So here Li was, sleeping alone in a draughty cabin, alone with her thoughts and alone in this foreign, dangerous world. How could she get out of here? She had glimpsed the other two captains beside Ruby. There was Captain Natasha, the Captain of War, who was a giant of a woman with alabaster skin and blonde hair. She looked like she could snap someone’s arms in half without much difficulty. Perhaps she could be outsmarted? Tricked?
Captain Kyra was the Captain of Commerce and as nondescript a woman as could be imagined. She always wore black, black tunic and black slacks that managed her black hair and black eyes. Even with all the laughter on board, Li had never seen her smile. A woman without emotions has no loyalty, Li thought, for loyalty is only irrational attachment to history. Could this woman be bought? Negotiated with?
She sighed and turned over, staring up into darkness. Clem had access to poisons, and Tink made weapons. Might there be something there? Could Christina be counted on to be on her side in a critical moment?
There were so many questions, so many options, and zero answers. And she was so tired. Her toes tingled, her womanhood ached, and her ribs were sore. Let sleep come, Princess Li thought, closing her eyes, and if she were lucky, the answers might appear in her dreams…
---
The Newest Harem Slave
Princess Li Wu rubbed her tears away with white knuckle, furious at herself for letting her tears be seen. She had to be strong, had to fight, had to persevere, but it was hard to remember that when you were sailing away from the only home you ever knew. She looked out of the window of the drab, pitiful cabin—it felt like an insult to her birth and station that she was sharing it with these others and she didn’t even have the privacy to cry in solitude. But she supposed she shouldn’t expect much more than that from these pirates.
Weeping noisily besides her was Christina Patten, the only true friend Li could be said to have on this accursed ship, though right now, Li wanted dearly for her companion to shut up. It was difficult enough to keep one’s composure without hearing the sounds of abject misery beside you.
Not that Li could begrudge her friend for her tears, though she might wish Christina keep them in or at least not sob and shake quite so loudly. Christina was a year younger at age eighteen, and she had just seen her father’s throat slashed open. Mr. Patten had been the local gwailo, a rotund, red-faced man with a balding pate. He had been far from handsome, but he had always been courteous and cheerful. Christina bore little resemblance to her sire, though she didn’t look very pretty at the present with her eyes red from crying. She had long flaxen hair that curled around her shoulders, clear, unblemished skin, a long high nose, and pale blue eyes.
Li had been his student for many years, and he had taught her English as befits an emperor’s daughter who might want to marry her to some western king in the name of an alliance.
Would her father pay her ransom? She didn’t know how much gold he would be willing to pay, especially when his new favourite concubine had given him three sons in the last five years. Once they had been born, Li had dropped from the heir to the fourth in line to the throne, and relations with her father had been frosty since he had discarded her mother when she had been caught in bed with their captain of guards.
If he didn’t pay, what would these women do to her? These women. Even those words sounded queer and strange in her mind, as if her brain couldn’t quite come to grips with what had happened.
She had thought a crew of pirate women were a fable, a myth, an impossibility. In her homeland, the most masculine profession she had ever seen a woman undertake was farmer, and she struggled to imagine how weak women would fare in something as aggressively masculine as military service. Yet these women had not just held their own, they had defeated the men of her royal guard, though Li had hardly thought the battle had been honourable. Though what did a pampered princess know of such matters of war? Li sighed. All that mattered was here she was on their ship, as with every heartbeat, she drifted further and further away from her home.
Li looked at the two guards who had been posted to watch them to ensure they did nothing stupid. They both towered over here, though that wasn’t saying much when Li was not even five foot in her best shoes. While her long black hair, petite frame, and tiny feet made her a traditional oriental beauty, it meant she was unlikely be much help in anything physically rigorous.
Not that the first guard looked very tough. She had a mop of messy dirty-blonde hair, high cheekbones, and freckled brown skin that could have indicated anything from south-Asian descent to a tan. With her slim, svelte frame, she reminded Li more of one of the hookers who worked by the docks than a pirate, though the boiled leather armour and dirk at her hip she wore did make her look a bit war-like. She was slouched over a chair, yawning.
The other guard was taller and infinitely more imposing. She had skin as dark as ink, and her black hair was braided with beads. She stood as stiff as a bow, with her large hands clasped behind her back. She had no visible weapons on her, though she looked like she might outweigh Li and Christina put together with her large, strong frame. She wore the same leather jerkin as her comrade, but she wore a sleeveless one which showed off the tattoos on her muscled arms.
Keeping her eyes on both of the guards, Li whispered to Christina in Cantonese, “Do you think we could overpower these two? Get their weapons?” Christina knew the language, of course. She had grown up in the Guangzhou province with her father.
“Chinawoman!” barked the black-skinned woman. Her voice was deep for a woman, and her English was flavoured with the spice of Carribean Li thought, as she remembered some traders who had stopped by a few months ago, though she couldn’t be certain. “No talking in your language here. I know the captain warned you.”
“Sorry, sorry!” Christina squeaked. Her blue eyes were bright with fear.
“Y’think sorry is enough?” the other guard said with an insolent smirk on her face. Her accent was similar to some of the western sailors Li had overheard speaking from her window—uncouth. “Y’think you can just go, ‘oh, sorry, guv’ and everything’ll be alright? Oh, you don’t get off that easy, princess.”
Li backed away a step, and then another, and her back was against the wooden wall of their tiny cabin. She hadn’t understood exactly what the woman had said, but the tone had made it clear how she felt—she was pissed.
“Okay, okay, we’ll stop!” Li raised her hands to try to ward them off, but the guards had other ideas.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Rose?” the black-skinned woman said.
“Aye,” Rose said, giggling. “Oh, you’ll stop alright, princess.” She tugged Li by the arm and threw her to the ground. Li grunted as the breath was knocked out of her, her chin bouncing off the mouldy wooden floorboards.
“No, please, don’t!” Christina said, taking a step forward. She tried to pull them by the shoulder and was shoved back to the bed.
“Stay outta this is you know what’s good for you, darlin’,” Rose said. She straddled Li’s back and snuck her hands under the patterned cheongsam tunic and squeezed. The grope at her small breasts Li understood. She had been expecting that ever since her father’s men had started dying, and it became clear she was going to be taken, but the nimble hands that snaked towards her armpits she…
A sharp shriek of laughter erupted from her as questing fingers plunged into her armpits, the fingers wriggling and wriggling.
“Nohohohoho! Pleheehhe stahahahap!” Li tried to reach back to swat at her captor, but her arms were too short and the fingers digging into her armpits made movement too difficult. She tried to squirm free, roll around, wiggle loose, but Rose’s body weight pressed her down to the ground, and she wasn’t strong enough to budge the wiry woman.
“She is a ticklish one, Maya!” Rose said over the sound of Li’s frantic giggles and snickers. “Ain’t that just dandy!”
“Allow me to see for myself,” Maya said and Li reeled in alarm as the large woman sat across her calves and began to unbuckle her high-heeled white sandals—they were a bourgeois western invention that many in her household had frowned upon, but Li had liked them for the simple fact they made her taller.
They did her no good here, however. A life of comfort and pampering had kept those milky-white feet soft as silk, and as soon as Maya raked her nails down those bare soles, it sent ticklish electricity coursing through her body. She squealed and clenched her fists and toes, but there was nothing she could do but laugh and laugh as her two jailors had their way with her body. Li found a fresh reserve of energy for more frenzied struggling when Maya’s fingers decided to tease her butt through the thin fabric of her cheongsam, where Li was dismayed to learn was a surprisingly tender spot for her.
They stopped at the sound of a sharp rapping of wood. “Try not to break our latest guest, ladies,” said the lank woman at the door. She had a low, husky voice that spoke of temptation and candlelit negotiations.
“Aye, Captain Ruby.” The two women got off Li, and the Chinese princess panted and panted as she tried to get her bearings.
From her seated position on the floor, the captain was a veritable giant to Li, though she probably was about the size of Rose. Captain Ruby was sharp-featured and pretty with pale skin. At the sight of her flaming red hair and the rubies in her ears, her name was no surprise. Her auburn hair was cropped short and barely passed the nape of her neck. She brandished a jewel-encrusted rapier at her right hip, and had a flintlock pistol on her left. Her name made perfect sense. Yet what didn’t make sense was the fact that Li had definitely heard these pirates call another women captain, a tall, powerful blonde woman.
But Li pushed such thoughts from her mind for now. Rose and Maya frogmarched them through the ship, up and out of the brig onto the deck of the great galley—it was a large vessel, and Li was surprised that the women were able to keep it running. The time was dusk, and everywhere Li saw women with skin bronzed from the sun and hands callused from work.
“Housewives stuck in miserable marriages, working girls, farmgirls, tavern wenches, all are welcome here,” Captain Ruby said, looking where she was looking and reading her mind. “Some need more training than others before they can perform their duties, but all come to enjoy the freedoms they have on the open seas.”
“Aye to that, capt,” Rose said with a grin.
“And me? Am I welcome to your ‘freedoms’ here?” Li asked.
“You’re a captive, unfortunately, so not exactly. But if you prove your worth, demonstrate your loyalties…” Captain Ruby gave a shrug. “That’s not my call, though. I’ll have to discuss with the other captains.”
“Other captains?”
They all stopped by the galleries at the end of the ship. Li had once been given an exquisite wooden model of a ship as a present (perhaps it was a bribe, in hindsight) from a local trader, and she knew the back of the ship was usually where the officers had their lavish cabins. Yet there seemed to be three cabins, all furnished with equal extravagance based on what Li could glimpse through the French doors. “We have three captains here. Captain of War, Captain of Commerce, and the Captain of Intrigues, me. Three heads are better than one. I know democracy is a foreign concept to you, but that’s how we like to run things here.”
“That seems backwards,” Li said before she could stop herself. Christina was nudging her but Li was not used to being interrupted. “What if you disagree with each other with how to deal with an enemy in battle? You’ll be arguing while your ship goes down.”
“In such a case, we would yield to the Captain of War, as that would be her domain of specialist knowledge,” Captain Ruby said, “but we’re not here to discuss political ideology.” She pushed open the doors to her cabin and beckoned that they enter.
Her cabin smelled of incense and sweet perfume. There was an ornate wooden writing desk, a looking-glass alongside a box of jewels, and a large feather bed which dominated half the cabin. “Allow me to welcome you officially to the Mistress Ambivalence,” Captain Ruby said with a sweeping bow. She kissed both the princess and Christina on the hand in a great show of courtesy.
“We don’t want to be here,” Christina managed in a quavering voice. She fell to her knees. “Please let us go!”
“Let you go? You’ve just arrived!” Ruby made a throaty chuckle. “Perhaps a quick tour of our operations will change your mind. Maya, Rose, escort our dear guest to Tink and tell her to show the lass a good time. I would like to have a word with the Princess.”
The two guards nodded and yanked Christina to her feet, and Li was alone with the pirate captain. Captain Ruby stared at Christina as she left. “I feel bad for that one. She has her father’s look.”
Li took a step back. “How do you know Mr. Patten?”
She snickered. “I don’t suppose you read the bible, but I ‘knew’ him, all right. He was a lonely man, and who could blame him, stuck in a foreign land without anyone to talk to. All it took was a few drinks, a few touches, a few whispered promises, and he took me straight up to your palace. I expressed an interest in Chinese cuisine, and he showed me your kitchens. Some poison might have made its way into supplies meant for your garrison. After that, it was child’s play.”
The Chinese princess shivered, remembered the shouts, the cries, the smoke, the rough hand waking her at night, and the dagger at her throat. “And now what?” she said in a monotone voice.
Captain Ruby clapped her hands together. “I’m glad you asked! Write a letter to your dear father informing you of your disposition. Tell him to negotiate with us regarding your release. That’s all.”
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Li said, but her mind was on how to circumvent this command. She could smuggle a message to her father—they wouldn’t tell her to write in English, would they? Maybe somehow she could include enough hints that she could be rescued without having to put her faith in the honesty of brigands.
“Hmmm, now that is a curious reaction.” Captain Ruby’s face had gone very still, and all trace of warmth on it had disappeared.
Li felt goosebumps. “What do you mean?”
“I expected you to protest, to beg, to rage, much like what your friend did moments ago. But you agreed, very willingly. Too willingly.” She leaned forward. “Do you intend to play us false, Princess?”
“No, no!” But even as the words escaped her lips, Li knew they sounded fake.
“I find it difficult to believe you. Besides, I would like to think things over, in case you have thoughts of deceiving us.” She shouted for guards. “Take the princess to Tink. Show her a good time.”
O-O-O
Tink’s workshop were near the bowels of the ship, but Li heard the shrieks long before they got there, echoing in the twisting corridor of the ships.
When the heavy oak door was pushed open, Li saw her friend in a contraption she had never seen before. The sight was so perplexing it took a moment to quantify what she actually saw. That black, brown, and grey bundle of fur and whiskers by her ankles… were those cats?
Yes, they were. But why… the sound of Christina’s frenzied laughter, interspersed with frantic begging answered the question. Christina was on her knees with her arms strung up, and her feet were forced into some kind of wooden box. Christina’s long, pale feet were pressed down into the box, so the toes were forced to clench, forming a sea of wrinkles across her high arches. Positioned above those wrinkly arches were small metal pipes which caused a white liquid to drip slowly down those soles to puddle around her toes. The liquid must have been milk or some kind of catnip, as the cats fought over prime real estate around Christina’s feet, and they licked and lapped as if they were starving. And like all cats, they had little consideration for others, showing no regard for how their rough tongues, stiff whiskers, and fuzzy paws would uncork squeals from the poor English girl. Christina had been renowned in town for her fine singing voice, and her father would often have her sing to their guests while a servant played accompaniment, and even now, her laughter was light and musical—a gross juxtaposition to the tortured look on her face.
And as if that weren’t bad enough Christina’s clothes had been stripped away, and her arms were strapped above her head. Maya was at her chest with a thin paintbrush in hand, and she wielded it as if she were creating some great work of art, delicately dabbing and stroking it along armpit, rib, and nipple with slow, tender strokes.
Rose had another paintbrush, and the woman had it positioned over Christina’s womanhood, which was shaved in the western tradition. This was teased across navel, thighs, and of course, those engorged lips. Li averted her eyes. It felt so wrong to her friend being tormented in such a manner.
“Those brushes vorking vell, ladies? Or did the other ones seem more effective?” came a drawling voice from the other end of the workshop. Li only saw her boots, for her face and body was hidden by papers. Then a spectacled face peered over them and the woman stood up, letting the paper of schematics flutter to the floor. “Guten tag, princess.” She had blonde hair slung back in a ponytail, round spectacles, and grease on her cheeks. She wore stained overalls and was a head taller than the princess, but just about everyone seemed to be on this ship.
“What are you doing to her?” Li demanded, a frown wrinkling up her white face. “Who are you?”
“Vell, I don’t mean to be rude, but vhat does it look like?” the spectacled woman gave a little titter. “Everyone calls me Tink. Inventing is my passion. I do some maintenance work here on the ship, but such devices…” She waved a hand at the box-like contraption where the cats clustered. “Everyone vants avenues to explore their creativity, yes?”
Li stepped forward and would have struck the blonde woman across the face had Maya and Rose not stood up.
“None of that,” Maya said, easily pulling the much lighter girl away.
“Captain Ruby says she wants you to show her a good time,” muttered one of the guards who had escorted Li from the captain of intrigues. “And by the looks of things, she could well use it.”
“Yeah, I can see from the colour in her face that she needs to calm down,” Tink said, stroking her chin. She saw Li looking at Christina. “Ah, you are curious about my invention? Perhaps you’d like to have a try?”
“No thank you.” Li gave the woman a hard stare, but she seemed not to notice.
“Ve keep cats to keep the rats down, and this struck me as another good use for them.” Tink’s voice was chipper, excited, and enthusiastic, while as she was talking, the cats continued their assault on poor Christina’s feet, licking as if there were nothing else happening in the world. Tink’s amiable smile did not waver even over Christina’s wails and screams. “But I regret to say your feet look far too small to fit in there. It just vouldn’t fit in vell.”
“Oh, great,” Li said in a dry, sarcastic tone.
“Don’t be disappointed!” Tink had a wide smile on her face as if she was totally unaware of the irony in Li’s voice. “Come back in a few days! But till then, perhaps she should visit Clem. Maya and Rose, you two stay here and help vith my studies.”
“Aye aye,” Rose said with a wide grin. She gave Li a mocking salute. “See you around, Princess.”
As the two guards grabbed Li by the shoulders and shunted her off to find this Clem, she shivered as the sound of Christina’s hysterics grew fainter and fainter. She had hoped that maybe only Maya and Rose were tickle and sex obsessed, but it seemed things were not that simple. Even these two guards seemed the same. Whenever Li’s gait slowed, one of them would give her a slap on the butt or a poke in the side to get her moving, and considering the fact that Li had much shorter legs than the two tall, strapping female sailors, it happened often.
“Who is Clem?” Li asked, turning back to look at the two pirates behind her. They both had brown tans, short dark hair, and dry, windburnt faces. They looked so similar they could have been twins.
Taller twin looked to chubbier twin for affirmation, then answered, “Clem the Alchemist we call her. She brews all manner of things in her cauldron.”
“Maybe she’ll brew a love potion to make you less grumpy,” chubbier twin said with a giggle.
“No, she won’t.” There was the sound of a hand smacking the back of a head. “She’s a woman of science, not some witch. If you make jokes about that in front of her, she’ll slip something into your food, and you’ll wake up in heat.”
“Tell me, is that not exactly what a love potion does?” As both women continued to argue behind her, Li wondered what kind of a woman this Clem might be. Her father had once been the patron of a local alchemist of renowned. The old man had always claimed to be able to turn lead into gold, but Li had only ever seen him turn her father’s gold into jars of useless junk.
When they arrived at Clem the Alchemist’s cabin, Li couldn’t say it was what she had expected. Inside the dark cabin, there were a dozen cloying smells mixing together. Li saw glass jars and clay pots, and vats of curious substances. The alchemist herself did not look very much like a witch, either—her skin was not green, her nose was small and un-warty, and she didn’t wear a hat or have long cracked fingernails.
Clem wore a coat that must have been white at one point, though it had been dyed and stained so many different colours that only a bit of the original white remained. Her hair was this same rainbow streak. It looked as if it had been coloured again and again, with only a bit of the prior colour remaining each time as a memento. Her hair was currently a bold silver that didn’t match her youthful face, though there were splotches around her scalp and the back of her head that were red, black, brown, and yellow.
“Well, well, so this is the princess I’ve heard so much about,” Clem said by way of greeting. “You here for some medicine?”
“Not exactly,” taller twin said, “lookin’ for something to ‘perk her up’. Captain’s orders.”
“Ah, I see.” Clem whistled to herself as she looked around her shelves for something appropriate with dye-stained fingers. She picked out a clear glass vial and a small tub of what looked like lotion and handed it to the twins.
As she repeated her instructions, Li’s stomach sank as she realised just what kind of evening she was in while she had to ‘think things over’. Her mind strayed to escape, the way it had constantly ever since she had got on this ship. But where could she escape to, right now? They were on the open seas! Even if she escaped her tormentors, the only option was to drown or come straight back to the ship. She would have to bid her time and wait for the opportune moment…
O-O-O
Time had slowed to an agonising crawl. Opportune moment, Li thought as she felt a cool wind brush against her bare skin, whenever you’re ready, feel free to present yourself, and the sooner the better, please.
She was blindfolded and gagged in what could only be the ship’s canteen. She could smell the spiced ale, the salt beef, and the sweet tang of citrus. She remembered Clem mentioning something about fruit being needed to stave off scurvy. She could also hear the clanging of utensils on plates, the thumping of brass cups on wooden tables, and the steady murmur of conversation.
However, she was not to partake in what was happening. Indeed, if her current bonds were any indication, she was to be the crew’s entertainment. She was bound eagle-spread to a round wooden table that smelled of spilled booze and varnish. Li could only presume it had been looted from some high-class establishment. Like Christina had been before, all her fine clothes had been taken away, though they had allowed her to keep her jewellery, presumably as a symbol of mockery. She still had her jade ring on her right hand, her golden necklace with the royal family’s seal, and the silver anklet she wore around on her left ankle. The anklet in particular seemed to be getting attention from those around her, who were stroking and touching it, though perhaps it may have merely be a pretence to touch her tiny feet.
Her heart thudded in her chest as every fibre of her body seemed to quiver. The air, the warmth, the humidity… she could feel it all. Just what was that strange oil they had rubbed into her body? They had rubbed it into her armpits, her ribs, her stomach, her feet, her breasts, and even her womanhood, and now everything was tingling, like an itch she just couldn’t shake…
She scrunched her toes, balled her hands into fists, and took a deep breath. The first sailors would finish their grub soon and come wandering over to enjoy a bit of post-meal activities, and what then? She remembered what Maya and Rose had done to her in their cabin and shivered as the sound of approaching footsteps and coarse feminine voices shook her from her thoughts.
“Oh, is this the Chinese princess?” It was a voice Li didn’t recognise. She didn’t seem to know any of the chattering voices, in fact. She didn’t know if that would make it better or worse.
“Sure looks like it.” The voices were speaking quickly, one after the other, and Li was struggling to keep track if they were different women or the same over the clattering din of the ship’s mess hall and her own hypersensitive body.
“She’s such a cutie!”
“Look at that birthmark on her foot! Do you see it? Right… there!” The second that the woman said “there” Li felt a finger scratch at a spot on her arch, and the Chinese girl squeaked in surprise.
“Gotta love that squeal!”
“Her feet seem pretty soft.” Li shuddered as another finger started to trace up her foot, from heel to her splaying toes.
“It’s her first time, isn’t it?”
“I think so.”
“Maybe we should be nice.”
“Should we?”
“Define ‘nice’.”
“Let’s just use one finger only… for now. See how she can handle it.” Li felt one finger on her foot again, right where her birthmark was. She chewed on her lower lip, crunched her toes shut, and willed herself not to shriek. But it wasn’t easy. “
“With feet that soft, I don’t know…” Another rough finger was on her other foot, poking around her toes. Li tried to flex her and squirm her foot away, but the finger just kept chasing after it while the girls giggled.
“You’re not getting away from me, cutie…” Another finger joined in on the chase from the other side, so her poor foot was being shepherded back and forth, trying to escape one marauding fingers only to dart back within range of the other. There was more giggling, and the sounds of wooden stools being dragged over. Great, Li thought, more of them were getting tired of just watching.
“And it smells like Clem cooked up one of her special oils.” A finger began to spiral along Li’s left breast, and she let loose a conflicted cry into her gag as it drifted towards her tingling nipple. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”
“Course you would.” It was hard to think with that finger there, slowly encircling that stiff bud like a bird of prey stalking a hare.
“Weren’t you after-meal entertainment a few months ago? Cos Captain Ruby caught you drunk on duty?” Another finger on the other breast. They were starting to nudge and prod the swollen and oh so sensitive buds that stood out from her small and firm breasts. And whether from the naughty fingers or from the alchemist’s concoction, she could feel her skin warming up all over as if she were feverish, especially the stiff tips of her nipples and her dripping womanhood. It was too much, too much to take, too much to endure… Blinded, she felt everything.
The women laughed, and Li laughed into her gag with them, though for very different reasons.
“In my defence... it was some damn good wine! But the poor girl… she must be so horny.” This woman spoke in a soft purr as one finger traced the line from between Li’s breasts to her navel and back again.
“You think she’s a bondage slut like Rosie?” This speaker was by Li’s right flank, and she was poking her finger all around her ribcage, trying to find which rib was more sensitive to be prodded and stroked. She seemed to find plenty which fit that category.
“Clem’s poultices have this effect on you… you wouldn’t understand it if you haven’t experienced it before.” It was the woman by Li’s womanhood, busily teasing her finger all along her slit.
“Guess I gotta steal me some of that stuff, then.” A finger was wiggling deep into her armpit, digging in as far as she could go. “Sounds fun.”
“Depends on if the person you’re with is feeling kind or not.” How many fingers were on her now? Li kept losing count. One, two, four, six… seven! And if each of the girls were only using one finger, then that meant… Oh, she had a very bad feeling about this.
“And are we feeling kind tonight?” A cheeky finger had slipped into her navel and was corkscrewing all about. Li tried to buck or saw her body from side to side, but her squirming only seemed to make it tickle more. Her struggles even earned her a chastisement from the woman tormenting her. “Stop it, silly,” the woman chided, slapping her lightly on the stomach, “if you keep moving, I won’t be able to get my finger out, now will I…”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then,” said the woman by her ribs with a laugh. She was pressing and prodding into them to make her flinch.
“Well… let’s see how it goes, hehe…” Li’s mind thrummed with alarm as the fingers being working more quickly. It felt unreal how much one finger could tickle.
At her underarms, one finger was skating up and down from bicep to the very centre of the hollow.
At her ribs, she had one finger on each side. They traced circles, squares, and letters with their fingertips, the light and scratchy massage wreaking havoc on her torso. And they unspeakably belonged to different women before their techniques and rhythms differed so unpredictably.
One finger continued to invoke ownership of her belly button, of course. It traced along the rim of her navel before diving in for another thorough bout of wiggling.
Each foot had one finger entertaining them. One of them had a long sharp fingernail that made her suspect it might be Captain Ruby herself, for she was the only woman Li had observed having long fingernails on this ship, but she might have been mistaken. Long fingernail was scratching her way up and down her crinkled sole in a quest to outline every single wrinkle in her petite pale feet. The other finger contented itself with playing with her toes. Every time Li tried to scrunch her small digits up to protect that tender the spot, the finger wandered downwards to stroke her milky-white arch until the combination of the tickling everywhere was enough to get those toes to reluctantly spring open, just in time for another tickling between them.
Vying for the dubious honour of ‘worst of all’ was the finger that scampered around between her legs. It stroked along her waist, along the smooth white inner thighs, and along the slick petals of her womanhood. Though worse of all was the way it would occasionally slip into her most secretive spot, where it would stay a few tantalising moments to spin her into a frenzy only to come back out and tickle around her groin again. When Li tried to thrust her hips up in ticklish frustration, it would even slip under to tickle the cheeks of her royal behind. The woman seemed to delight in keeping the finger in just long enough for moans to begin to be prevalent in Li’s breathy laughter before stopping and tear her back down to ground zero. If Li ever figured out who this cruel woman was with the skilful fingers and the sultry voice, revenge would be hers, at any cost.
“Awww, she’s getting quite loud,” one of the women observed. “What do you think she’s trying to say?”
“Must be begging us to stop.”
“Nah.”
“Yeah, I doubt it.”
“Look at how wet she is. She’s loving it.”
“Yeah, you know how these oriental girls are.”
“Maybe she’s asking us for more, then?”
“Now, that does sounds far more likely. Ain’t that right, you little tickle slut?” A hand ruffled her hair, while Li screamed denials into her gag and squirmed against the ropes binding her to the table even harder. She would have bitten that hand if not for her restraints.
“See? She said yes!”
The other women voiced their agreement, and the fingers teasing her feet suddenly turned into claws, and then two claws for each foot. Cheating, cheating, cheating! She wanted to scream, but the gag sucked up her words, and it was too late. Her gate was down. There were now twenty ruthless fingers scrabbling all over her soft, flawless feet—exactly twenty more than she could stand. Two teasing fingers had been bad enough, but twenty? She screamed with laughter, straining harder and harder against her bonds, but she only succeeded in chaffing her wrists. And when the lone fingers at her armpits, stomach, and ribs multiplied… it was all over.
“Tickle, tickle, tickle!” One of them, or maybe all of them were saying, she couldn’t be sure.
Sharp fingernails were flicking across her exposed, rock-hard nipples. She flinched and twisted from every touch at her midsection as hands reached out goose her sides, lobster-claw her ribs, stroke her belly. When one of them ran her knuckles along her ribcage, she laughed so hard she thought she might choke on the gag. Her blindfold was stained with tears, between her legs were stained with another kind of moisture, and her breasts were still tingling so badly.
“I feel bad for the poor princess,” said the voice by Li’s groin, though her fingers did not stop in their spidering motions from her inner thighs to her knees. “Your first night here shouldn’t be all bad…”
Li gasped and threw her head back at the sudden sensation. Something slick lapped against her womanhood. It was larger than a finger, and oh, so warm. If not for the table and the gag in her mouth, she would have arched her back and shouted with pleasure. She could feel the woman’s finger still lightly dancing along her thighs, so what was this?
It had to be a tongue, a magical tongue flicking across her throbbing womanhood. And suddenly there were loving tongues everywhere, tongues at her feet, tongues at her nipples, tongues at her stomach. Li found her body shaking, trembling, even when the devilish fingers returned and her groaning moaning became tinted with laughter once more. Would she… would she?
They were sucking on her big toes while ten cruel fingernails raked up and down each foot. They were licking her achy nipples while ten fingers tunneled each armpits. It was like pulled in two different directions at once. She wasn’t going to get anywhere. She screamed into her gag again, begging them to get on with it, begging them to stop this infernal teasing…
“Awww, what’s wrong, sweetie?”
“Are you on the edge?”
“Awwww, too bad.”
“Cootchie cootchie coo!”
“Let’s see just how long we can keep you there…”
O-O-O
“Good morning, my darlings!”
There was nothing good about his bleak, autumnal morning, Li thought. She crossed her arms and said nothing to the chipper woman who had introduced herself as Sapphire. Sapphire had honey-blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, blue-painted fingernails, and she wore robes of azure. She looked half like a priest for some sea-based religion and half like a whore because of the low cut of her bodice.
Christina stared at her feet and mumbled, “Good morning.”
“What’s wrong, honey?” Sapphire asked Li. “Didn’t sleep well?”
“No.” Li hadn’t been able to sleep last night due to the insistent rocking of the waves, her meagre dinner more than once threatening to come up out of her mouth. And that wasn’t even considering the nocturnal activities she had needed to endure at the hands of the crew.
“Well, I hope you feel better tomorrow.” Sapphire smiled and clapped her hands together. “Anyway, I’m here to train you in the art of lovemaking.”
Christina’s mouth gaped open. Her hand reached for her privates, but pulled away at the last moment. “This is some joke, right?”
“Afraid not, my lovely. You’re our captives, and our captains intended to sell you as pillow slaves to affluent members of society in the West. If it’s any consolation, it’ll likely be a much better life than the one you left behind.”
“How can you say that?” Christina exclaimed.
“Well, our last girl became the new wife of a high-ranked official in the East India Trading Company. She’ll own a hundred ships like this one.” Sapphire rapped a knuckle on the wooden wall. They were in the ship’s cargo hold tonight, where space had been cleared for whatever ‘training’ they were to undergo. Maya and Rose hovered in the background, the latter crunching on an apple as they ensured the girls did not misbehave.
“Chin up, girl,” Sapphire said, putting a hand on Christina. “The first skill I’ll teach you will be the most useful. How to kiss.”
“Oh, please,” Li said. “I know how to kiss.”
“Kissing your father on the cheek is not the same as a proper snog, Princess,” Rose called from behind them, chortling.
“Afraid she is correct,” Sapphire said. “Alright, ladies, so how’s about you show get in those stocks over there, and we’ll get started.”
“Stocks? Why do you need stocks for kissing!?”
“Once you can handle it under duress,” Sapphire said with a sly smile, “it’ll be like second nature. Now, are you going to get in? or am I going to have to tell the captain how uncooperative you were?”
Sapphire beckoned to the English girl, and Christina sat down in the stockade and pulled off her sandals. Li had never noticed before, but Christina painted her toenails a rosy red in the western fashion. It made a strange contrast seeming them beside Sapphire’s icy blue nails. Christina’s long blonde hair made an artful tangle across her shoulders as her wrists were tied above her head and a blindfold was slipped across her mouth. Left in nothing but a white vest, she shivered.
“You just be a good girl and watch,” Sapphire said, looking back to Li and winking. Sapphire walked over straddled Christina’s the younger woman’s hips and put her arms around Christina’s neck.
“Kiss me,” she said. When Sapphire bit on her lower lip and didn’t react, Sapphire’s long blue nails grazed down her armpits. “Rose, help get dear Christina into the mood.”
“With pleasure, darlin’.” Licking her lips, Rose brought her freckled hands down to the stocked, scrunched long feet before her and began to stroke them gently with the very tips of her fingers.
Light giggles began to trickle out of Christina’s pink lips shortly before they were snuffed out by a fierce kiss from their instructor. Either from ticklishness or from surprise, Christina could not keep up the kiss for long, and she soon broke away.
“Not too bad for a first time, hun,” Sapphire said in a low purr. She planted a few kisses on Christina’s collarbone while her fingers brushed down along her armpits to illicit a breathy squeak. “Try somewhere a bit higher, Rose.”
“Aye, aye.” Rose’s eyes glinted with greed at the Christina’s moist womanhood. As she put her head down there, her fingers danced across the ribs to make the English girl gyrate in ticklish frustration.
“Now, we try again,” Sapphire said, “kiss me better, or your armpits will get it worse.”
The kiss they shared next was longer, though Li could see Christina’s throat moving as she tried to process giggles trying to make their way out. When they separated, Christina tried to breath and guffaw at the same time, spraying Sapphire with spittle, which prompted the amused lovemaking instructor to give her underarms a quick tickling as punishment.
Sapphire put a nail on Christina’s neck and lightly stroked it up and down. “Good, good, you’re much improved.”
“T-thanks…” Christina’s voice was breathy, and there was no mistaking the way her hips were churning up and down undoubtedly in response to Rose’s skilled touch. Li found herself crossing her legs and flushing at the sight. She remembered vividly the encounter last night in the canteen… was her companion enjoying this strange situation as well? Perhaps.
“Alright, princess, it’s your turn,” called Sapphire, “I know you’re getting tired just sitting there. Wouldn’t want you to be bored or anything. You better do as well as your friend, or I promise you—it’s gonna be bad.”
And that was how Princess Li had her first kiss—in the most unromantic of settings possible.
O-O-O
It was amazing how fast two weeks had passed by on the Mistress Ambivalence. She had written the letter begging her father to pay her ransom in accordance to Captain Ruby’s wishes. Her first attempt at the letter had been in her native Chinese, where she had not so subtlety directed her father to murder the women who had taken her captive. Li had rather been betting on the fact Ruby would not be able to read her words, and she had won that wager… but somehow there were unpatriotic Chinese sailors on-board all too willing to betray their princess.
And her punishment had been horrific. She had spent the next three nights as Captain Ruby’s personal bedmate, which might have sounded erotic and exciting hearing about it (sleeping with a pirate captain!) but it had been exceptionally awful in truth. Naked, gagged, and bound to Ruby’s majestic bed, the Captain of Intrigues had used finger, feather, and tongue to push Li to the limits and then some. Even now, her toes curled just thinking about it. And Captain Ruby was a night owl happy to go hours and hours into the night till she found every single spot of Li’s that made her squeal. And Li had caved and written the letter, though she doubted her father was likely to lift a finger to do anything for a daughter he scarcely knew.
While she waited for that eventuality, life had settled into a strange routine. Every morning, she ate hard biscuits and drank frothy ale, though only one cup. At the mess hall, there were always sailors who drank more than their allotment, and they were tied down to spare tables to serve as entertainment and a reminded to stay sober. The uncouth Rose seemed to be a frequent offender, though she didn’t seem to mind. Li even got to tickle her toned, muscular sides one time while another was feathering her freckled womanhood—it was tremendously satisfying to get revenge on one of the ones who had tickled her before.
Afterwards was another ‘lesson’ with Sapphire, though now she was alone with the former prostitute. Next was another ghastly meal followed by some menial labour with Clem at her concoctions—the captains had decided she was too feeble for physical tasks, but that didn’t exempt her from tedious chores like putting labels on bottles. They never let her work with poisons though, the clever bastards, and she only ever worked with perfumes and dyes. Dinner was the worst, though the food was probably the best, with black bread, pea soup, and even a bit of salt beef on occasion, along with everyone’s daily fruit ration. The reason why she dreaded the final meal was she was forever nominated to be entertainment after the meal, eagle-spread and naked much like she had been the first night. Captain Ruby’s rationale was that she did it in the hopes it would help Li sleep well, but the princess knew better—the more tired she was at the end of the day, the less likely she could scheme at night.
But the ship was not without its share of fascinating sights. Li soon learned the most dreaded punishment on board was to be ‘figureheaded’. The silver figurehead of the Mistress Ambivalence had its arms outstretched as if crucified, and any woman who had performed her duties poorly or broke one of the ship’s rules would spend a day tied there, where the whole crew was free to torment them in any way they pleased. The spectacled engineer Tink even had tools tied beside the figurehead for ease of access. And because of the spot where the figurehead was located at the front of the ship, people would be walking past it at every hour, meaning you would not get a moment’s peace.
One day, it had even been Tink herself bellowing with laughter all day, her feet attacked by the bristly scrub brushes she had installed herself, all on account of some mistaken measurements. It showed that no one was beyond reproach, which Li had to confess what a concept she admired.
And things were changing for Li. The first few nights on board, she had gone to sleep to the sound of Christina’s crying, but things soon changed in such a way that Li grew to miss those dreary sobs. Christina did not possess the same value as a hostage, so when she showed some aptitude for cartography on account of her education and literacy, she had been whisked off to learn. She had passed her amorous lessons with ease too, and more than once, Li saw her demonstrating them with other women on-board. Her light singing voice had also won her friends. She spent most days and most nights with Sapphire now, and although Li was happy she was no longer weeping, that fact made was something she found more than a little unsettling. She had confronted her about it, a few days ago:
“Where are you going?” Li had asked as Christina crept out of their tiny cabin.
“Sapphire’s. It’s not so cold there.”
“Have you forgotten what they did? How they killed your father?”
Christina had shrugged. “My old life was to be a pretty little ornament who sang and danced and was polite. Here, I can be something different.”
“They want to sell you, remember?”
“They won’t. Not if they see how valuable I am, not once they see how useful I can be.”
So here Li was, sleeping alone in a draughty cabin, alone with her thoughts and alone in this foreign, dangerous world. How could she get out of here? She had glimpsed the other two captains beside Ruby. There was Captain Natasha, the Captain of War, who was a giant of a woman with alabaster skin and blonde hair. She looked like she could snap someone’s arms in half without much difficulty. Perhaps she could be outsmarted? Tricked?
Captain Kyra was the Captain of Commerce and as nondescript a woman as could be imagined. She always wore black, black tunic and black slacks that managed her black hair and black eyes. Even with all the laughter on board, Li had never seen her smile. A woman without emotions has no loyalty, Li thought, for loyalty is only irrational attachment to history. Could this woman be bought? Negotiated with?
She sighed and turned over, staring up into darkness. Clem had access to poisons, and Tink made weapons. Might there be something there? Could Christina be counted on to be on her side in a critical moment?
There were so many questions, so many options, and zero answers. And she was so tired. Her toes tingled, her womanhood ached, and her ribs were sore. Let sleep come, Princess Li thought, closing her eyes, and if she were lucky, the answers might appear in her dreams…
