going to Passionata’s Island, you should read this,” he’d said with a wink. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”
No doubt some lurid soft-porn epic, Ian thought, settling into his hammock beneath a nearby pair of palms and opening the book. Bryan’s idea of a joke. But since his encounter with Nicole had already put sex on his brain, why not?
BACK AT THE SHIP, Nicole prepared lunch while Adam checked his diving gear. “Why were you so rude to Ian?” she asked. “Now he’s going to think we’re ugly Americans.”
“Judging by his reaction to you, I doubt ugly is the first word he thinks of.” He spat into his snorkeling mask and rubbed the saliva around with his fingers.
“I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you.” She slapped cheese slices onto bread and began slicing an avocado. They’d be out of fresh produce before long—except coconuts, of course. And maybe she could find banana trees somewhere on the island. “Why were you so hostile to him?” she asked.
Adam set the snorkeling mask aside. “I guess I was looking forward to having the island to ourselves,” he said. “How do we know he’s not another treasure hunter, out to beat us to the find?”
“Isn’t that the way these things work—finders keepers?” She handed him a sandwich, then took hers and sat across from him. “Who owns this island?”
“The British government. They’ve talked about building an airstrip here for years, but nothing’s come of it.”
“That treasure’s been down there for three hundred years. Are you sure no one’s recovered it before now?”
He nodded. “Pretty sure. It’s hard to keep a find like that secret.”
“Then there’s no reason to believe Ian’s after it, or that he even knows about it.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll try to be nicer to him next time we meet.”
“We should invite him to dinner,” Nicole said. “I’ll bet he’s lonely.”
Adam laughed. “Did you see the look on his face when he saw you? Pretty impressive boner you caused.”
She stuck her tongue out at Adam, but she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t a little bit flattered. Seeing Ian’s reaction to her had given her an inkling of the power Passionata was talking about. And Ian was a very good-looking man. Someone who could make her time on the island that much more interesting.
“What are you going to do this afternoon?” she asked Adam, changing the subject.
“I’m going to do some snorkeling, try to pin down the most likely location of the wreck. I’ll take the Zodiac out. Do you want to come with me?”
She shook her head. “No. I think I’ll stay here on the yacht and read. I came to relax, after all.”
“Okay. But tomorrow I want us to go diving.”
“We can do that. Tomorrow.”
After lunch he inflated the Zodiac, fired up the motor and took off across the lagoon. Nicole brought her book out onto the deck and pulled a chaise into a shaded spot under the canopy. At last she could continue Passionata’s adventures, and learn more about her approach to male/female relationships.
The story has been told of how I and my crew, like the Sirens of legend, would lure sailors to the rocks and their undoing. When these lonely men, long at sea, would spy our fair forms reclining near the sea, most seductively arrayed and beckoning, they seldom resisted long. Even after word of the hazard we posed passed among the sailing crews, they were loathe to avoid us. Indeed, it is said many sought us out, though their defeat was inevitable.
What has not been told—until now—is what happened to those men who survived the wreck and battle. The fate of those who became our prisoners. The bravest and best of these became our slaves and courtesans. They served at our pleasure, as women have been made to do for centuries. But this time the women were in charge, and the men were at our mercy.
They were wont to resist at first, but soon learned the futility of this. And more than a few discovered a taste for subservience. For though they had been raised to always be in charge—in control—they discovered the erotic nature of surrender.
The chapter ended, and, breath quickening, Nicole turned the page and found the narrative interrupted by a note from the editor.
Though Confessions of a Pirate Queen first appeared as a serial printed in the London Times in 1715, the following portion of the original manuscript was deemed too obscene for public consumption, and was unknown for more than two centuries, until an original of the entire document was discovered in the London Times’s archives in 1993.
Here, Passionata’s narrative resumed:
When a woman is in control of a relationship, everything changes. No longer is she at the mercy of a man’s wishes and desires, subjugating her own wants and needs to his timetable. Now he must serve her desires. And, as the men who served the women of Passionata’s Island soon discovered, a woman in charge of her own sexual destiny discovers a true flowering of desire, and a capacity for sexual pleasure heretofore unknown.
It is an arrangement of benefit to both man and woman—as illustrated by the story of William D., a sailor who came to Passionata’s Island in the summer of 1707.
“We have the prisoners ready to present to you, madame.” My lieutenant, a dusky woman who had taken the name of Determinata, appeared in the doorway of my tower headquarters the morning after our most recent conquest of a British merchant vessel. The vessel had been carrying a cargo of gold bullion, silver coins and exotic spices, and we had spent a good part of the night securing the wreckage. Today the divers would begin retrieving the spoils from the hold and adding them to our stores.
“How many today?” I asked. It had been a large ship, but the battle had been fierce. The sharks would have feasted well last night.
“Seven. One is only a boy, but the others…” Determinata smiled. “There are some very fine specimens here.”
“Then I must see them.”
I followed her down the stone staircase and out into the plaza in front of the tower. It was a fine day, hot and clear. The men stood bare-chested, hands bound behind their backs.
One caught my eye. He was lean and tall, with the dark hair and fair skin of a continental. I stopped before him and he looked me in the eye, defiant. He was well muscled, with a fine dusting of black hair across his chest, narrow hips and strong legs. “What is your name?” I asked.
I could read in his eyes that he thought of not answering. But I kept my gaze on him, unflinching, and at last he said, “William.”
His accent was British and upper class. Perhaps the son of the ship owner, or a nobleman or tradesman who had purchased passage. Looking into his eyes, at the spirit there, I felt the heat build inside me. “William, you will come with me,” I said, and turned to walk back to my tower.
“Why should I come with you?” he asked, his tone haughty.
I didn’t turn around. I liked the question, but there was no hesitation in my answer. “Because if
