07

Reading these two chapters alone will not do the story justice. Please go back and read chapter 1-5. I promise it will make this part better.

This part isn't too BDSMy, but I wanted the people who read the first part to find it.

~~*~~

Chapter 6

Her quarters were an upgrade from the Northumberland. She was fuming. With only a half a glass of wine before storming out, she was hungry and humiliated. At least she had her journal. And she had been kissed like she had never been kissed before. If she closed her eyes the hunger was replaced by the kiss. She could still feel it; his lips as they pressed firmly onto hers, the parting of her lips, not willingly she was certain, his tongue first tentatively touching hers then becoming more urgent, his hand firmly on the back of her head holding her in place.

As she sat and reflected on the evening's events, a story came to her. It was a story she had read of a boy, born blind, who had suddenly and miraculously regained his sight when he was 8 years old. Rather than be happy, the story reported that the boy was traumatized as his reality had shifted. Isabelle realized this is how she felt. Blind all of her life, her reality seemed to be shifting. She had to examine if this was the gift of sight or the terror of too much information for her to process. As she now knew where Alex had obtained most of his information, she decided to check her journal.

As she checked her journal she was distracted by Alexandre. He was the most handsome man she had ever met, he had a wonderful beard slightly graying and the deepest brown eyes she had ever seen. She wanted to find out what had driven him to kiss her. Was it knowledge he found within these pages? Or was it something else? She read. She found her journal entries of William and her doubt about their marriage. She read her entries of hatred of all things intimate. Further down, she found her loves; her loves of all things science, of all things technical, her curiosity of how systems work. There were entries with comments on the latest scientific journals, complete with sketches and etchings. These were all things William thought were nonsense. They were part of her journal that she kept hidden. He wouldn't have his wife waste her time on them.

As she continued to read, she came across the truth. Her chats with Lieutenant Oxford on how British sailors worked. Alexandre must be looking for secrets. She was quite sure she didn't have any secrets.

She heard a knock and shook off her musings.

"Come in."

"Captain's compliments."

With that Soleil put a tray of food down and withdrew. Isabelle attacked the food ravenously. She ate and drank until she was sated. Satisfied. Satisfied, that was it, wasn't it? William was not the person she needed to be with. But why did she come to this conclusion? With whom then? Was there someone? Was this yearning for someone simply part of her restlessness? She pondered this while framing it in Alexandre's words. She thought, William is not my husband. But how did she know this? That feeling of recognition for Alexandre came over her. She quickly dismissed it.

As she sat mulling over these questions, the kiss kept intruding. The wetness of the kiss seemed to be reflected in wetness between her legs. Something she had never felt before, not like this. All at once it came to her: the captain felt that perhaps she was his soul mate, his partner, his wife.

She realized the absurdity of this sentiment and at the same time she realized it had merit. She would accept his dinner invitation and they would discuss this absurdity as well as her lack of secrets. At least she would get some more of the excellent wine.

~~*~~

Chapter 7

The next evening she dressed as a woman being courted. Her form-fitting dress was a simple shift that showed off her bosom and highlighted her wonderful hips.

When she arrived at the captain's cabin, she was welcomed by the captain but she was disappointed to see others in the room.

"Excuse me, Isabelle, I need to finish up then we'll have dinner. Please have a seat. My men and I will be done shortly. "

The men were intent on working out some problem of war. Isabelle sat and listened intently.

"We simply cannot fire at the same rate as the English. I do not understand how they do it," a young officer was lamenting. "We are the best disciplined crew in the French navy and we can only fire a volley every three to four minutes, while the English are down well under two minutes. How do they do it?"

Isabelle listened intently, however she did not know how the English were able to fire their cannon so much faster than the French. She edged closer to watch the men describe the process.

Swab, dry, charge, load, tamp, fire.

Isabelle mulled the words in her head, swab, dry, charge, load, tamp, fire. Isabelle asked for each step to be explained. One of the officers flat out laughed. After reading Isabelle's journal and her love of process and the technical, the captain had more patience and asked his men to explain.

After the explanation, Isabelle immediately recognized many areas where efficiencies could be gained. She explained to the men her ideas, and they laughed, saying she was going to save them seconds when they needed to save minutes.

Isabelle was hurt, certain she could gain the required time. Much like the hurt tigress, she was dangerous. She lashed out. "I've never seen such incompetence! It won't be in a single action where you save your time, it will be seconds at a time, three seconds here, five seconds there; that is where your minutes will be shaved."

"Madame, Surely you don't expect us to take advice from you?" an old French Officer went on. He was stately, but knew women had a place. The captain said, "Isabelle, come here, and tell us more about this notion."

Captain Cara was inviting her to have her say. When tackling a problem, the restlessness simply vanished and she stepped up and created a new loading procedure that should save Captain Cara his precious seconds.

She wistfully said that if she had a gunnery crew, she could prove her process. Many of the officers were skeptical. The meeting came to a close and the rest of the officers left, leaving Isabelle and Alexandre.

"Thank you, Isabelle."

"Alexandre, I got to use my mind to tackle a problem. I feel alive. It will be even more exciting if you train a crew in this process to see if it works."

"I will not be trying it; I do not see all of the little intricacies. I need someone who can visualize the whole process. I need you Isabelle. It will be unorthodox, but I need you to train a gun crew."

Isabelle, for the first time in her life, felt at ease. She was being asked to work as an equal, with her mind. She had never heard of such notions, women did women's work. She felt as happy as she'd ever felt. She felt validated. This Captain Cara was a strange man, to allow a woman to do a man's work. She hugged him, and they sat down to dinner.

They ate in Silence. Part way through the meal, Isabelle stated simply, "No, he does not."

With those words, Alexandre got up, dismissed his steward and walked to Isabelle's end of the table. He took her hand and lifted her out of her seat and kissed her. Isabelle felt not only lust, but also desire, the desire for her to be ... something.

Soon Alexandre was trailing kisses down her neck. In that moment she had to decide, this Alexandre was either a scoundrel or the man she was destined to be with. He was either trying to get information out of her and her time with Oxford or he was everything she had dreamt of. He was strong and brave, a hard man. You can't do this. He was undoing her bodice. She had to... he kissed her at the top of her breasts, she was frantic trying to decide, she had to ... he pulled her tunic off her shoulder. Alexandre kissed the newly exposed shoulder. Her, her mind was awash, she felt her dress being pulled down, and knew she must tell him to stop. Not even William had seen her like this. Her breasts slipped out of her underthings. She must protest.

"St.. sto... stop." she muttered, as his tongue found a nipple. William had never kissed her this way; she was lost in his tongue swirling around her nipple. He continued his ministrations. She held his head. She was lost. This is what it was supposed to be like, she thought.

Then he removed her small clothes leaving her naked. Never had she been naked with William, it had simply been a lifting of her night clothes, and even then she thought that was too much. She did not remember lying down. Her mind was racing. Alexandre kissed her right at the top of her rib cage. Then he kissed her again, this time lower, trailing kisses towards her belly. As his hands moved up her thigh, she thought... nothing. For the first time ever, her mind was quiet. No distractions, no sideways thoughts. For the first time in her life, she was feeling, not thinking. His hand had reached the point on her thigh where she was holding her legs together. She lay on her back as he kissed her chest, his hand on her thigh. Then her legs parted. She would have sworn she didn't mean for it to happen, but parted they had as his hand continued towards her... what? Oh, she was quite aware of the medical term for it but had always been uncomfortable with the name. She had admired Abigail's use of the words cock, just dirty enough, not disgusting or clinical. Alexandre's hand continued its approach toward her...

"Isabelle, the mound of reddish brown hair is striking, your vagina is divine."

Vagina? She liked that. As she thought about the term, Alexandre plunged a finger inside of her, then another. He moved his kissed upwards so that he could whisper in her ear. "Isabelle, since you joined me on this ship, I've dreamed of this exact moment."

Isabelle's mind was quiet, she could only moan, her hips were making small gyrations involuntarily. Alexandre whispered in her ear, promises, lustful things, loving things. Isabelle could hear, but couldn't process, her hips were moving, her mind blissfully only aware of what Alexandre was doing to her. He was kissing her. He had left his spot whispering in her ear and was now kissing her body. First he kissed an earlobe, then her neck, trailing kisses, cupping her breasts, kissing between them, kissing her belly, lower. Isabelle's reverie was broken. Where was he going? Surely no one ... and then he kissed her...vagina.

First he kissed gently, then his tongue parted her lips. His left arm was pressed to her chest, his right arm under her leg, and he licked her. She felt an electric current from her toes to the deepest pit of her stomach. Alexandre licked her again and then he did it again and again. Soon, Alexandre had settled into a rhythmic licking and Isabelle didn't know what was happening. He took his fingers and reinserted them inside of her... Her vagina, it was easier to think of it as a naughty, rather than or rather as well as a clinical term, her vagina was squeezing around his fingers. It seemed the pleasure came in waves, the peaks were getting higher, higher then suddenly her mind went blank, not quiet, but blank. She thought she was dying, her body convulsed, she felt herself contracting around Alexandre's fingers. A pulling of all of her muscles towards her core, and it went on and on. The emotions she felt ranged from intense love for this man, to complete acceptance. He had treated her as an equal in a society where that was unheard of. She broke down in tears at the depth of emotion she felt.

Slowly, Isabelle came back to herself. She was very quiet. She didn't know what to say. She had no idea how much time had passed. Her mind took off.

"Alexandre, what..."

"Isabelle, relax, that is the pleasure I spoke of earlier."

"But... Sex is something a wife must do... A duty... to her husband. It is for a man."

Alexandre laughed. "Isabelle, I hope you come to see things differently."

"What about you?"

"Isabelle, you need to think hard on this. You need to consider what just happened. For now you should sleep. You are probably exhausted."

As was always the case with William, she thought she was relieved that he didn't want to mount her, and yet she felt empty and wanted him somehow.

Alexandre covered her with a blanket as she lay on the divan and went to his desk. Isabelle drifted off, rather floated off to sleep, with thoughts of Alexandre in her head and not a thought for William her husband.

~~*~~