Paid to the Pirate by Una Rohr
Chapter 35
Charlotte, the past
When I awoke in the morning, blood blossomed between my spread legs, staining the tan breeches before my widened eyes. With the way my legs shifted in the night, blood spread down my thighs, impossible to ignore.
“No, God, please no,” I whimpered. Waves of horror and panic washed over me.
What should I do? Why had my curses come upon me now?
They’d been so delayed, I’d wondered if they’d ever come at all.
This blood wouldn’t wash out and the crew would surely see. We were so far from shore… the danger I’d be in…
Crying softly, I found a clean rag and stuffed it between my legs to staunch the flow. I pulled my shirt free from my belt, letting it hang low enough to cover the apex of my thighs, but it wasn’t long enough to hide the stains.
What to do?
I spied the knife on the galley table. My stomach flipped as I resolved, if I can’t make it better, I’ll make it worse.
Before I had time to back out, I grabbed the knife and steeled my courage. Wincing, I sliced from my palm, up my forearm, careful to avoid my veins.
The blood-curdling scream I let out woke Miguel and everyone else on the ship. It was no act as I crumbled into a ball and further spread the blood all over myself, clutching my arm in a fruitless attempt to stifle the searing pain.
He couldn’t have arrived first -- not when Miguel was also sleeping in the galley. But somehow, Colt was the first face I focused on as I came in and out of a haze of pain.
“What have you done to yourself?” he asked, eyes blown wide in fear.
“N - not intentional,” I protested. “Was… cutting an apple…”
“Jesus, Charlie,” Colt said, scooping me up in his arms. “To the infirmary,” he commanded Miguel.
The infirmary was only one small staircase down from the galley, an oft-used little room in which I’d seen many shipmates patched up over the months. Once we arrived, Colt laid me on a makeshift table and Miguel turned my arm, examining. Then his gaze roved over the rest of my body. The hair on my neck rose.
“I need everyone out,” Miguel said calmly, quietly. “You too captain.”
I hadn’t noticed the crowd gathered at the door and spilling into the small room. At Miguel’s request, everyone departed, including a reluctant captain.
Miguel uncorked the rum -- something I’d seen him do many times before and an act which no longer surprised me. I turned my head and winced again, knowing he was going to pour the spirit onto my wound.
It stung worse than I anticipated and I screamed.
“I don’t think you need sewing up,” Miguel said, “but we’ll bandage this arm and you won’t be able to use it for week, possibly a fortnight.”
I nodded, glad his proclamation might grant me a reprieve from work I needed to tend to the new problem leaking between my legs.
Scanning my body, Miguel said, “Considering you didn’t hit a vital artery, that’s a lot of blood coming from one cut.”
I smiled weakly. “I’ve always been a bleeder.” My voice rose at the end, like a question.
Do you believe me? I seemed to ask.
Miguel’s warm eyes danced, as if to reply, no. But your secret’s safe with me.
My shoulders slumped, part from relief, part defeat. If anyone on this Godforsaken ship was going to know the truth, Miguel would be my first choice. But it would have been better if no one knew at all. It felt like dominoes were falling, too fast for me to stop.
I’d put on weight from the steady meals and my breasts were beginning to grow. The onset of my monthly bleeding arrived. Miguel knew the truth.
How many more dominoes would fall before I was exposed?
#
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 they existed where none ever existed before and where they shouldn’t reside on a scrawny boy. 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.
Oh God, oh God. Could they see in the darkness?
It was a moonless night and the torches glowed far from where we stood.
No one paid too much attention to my body as Robert held up the gauzy bands as proof. “The boy’s a thief, just like I said.”
I was sweating and shaking with fear, hearing the men either grumble in confusion or cheer Robert on. Feeling the air move behind me when Robert stepped back, I cringed. As I braced for unbearable pain, the ship rocked, riding an errant wave. It forced me to stumble backwards, away from the mast as much as the rope allowed.
“Stop.”
Captain Colt’s command sent chills up my spine. I hadn’t even known he’d arrived above deck. I heard the shock in his voice. The crew was behind me, but the captain had arrived from the side.
What had he seen?