Mistress and Commander - Make and Mend
Both Dread Sovereign and her crew took a good pasting in a recent storm. And they all, the ship and her crew, need some shore leave. So this is an intermezzo in Mistress and Commander-To the End of the World. Again, strokers, this is not your kind of story.
The thin dawn rising on Port Stanley at the edge of winter kept the damp chill of the night close, as if afraid to lose both the cold damp and its own grey light to the sun. The sun was struggling to rise above the sealine. It was in for a fight against the thin dawn and the damp chill, thought Margarethe, as she pulled her robe close around her. But sun or grey dawn, there was work ahead, and not a little of that. Then maybe shore leave. It would be a tired Mistress and crew to go ashore then.
She went to the wheelhouse barefooted and looked about. Was all in order? Robin, trying it on as usual, had taken station in the sacred captain's chair, and obviously planned to un-ass the sacred chair as soon as he heard Mistress' approach. He would then jump up and look as if he had literally stood the whole dawn watch. He hadn't reckoned on the chill making him sleepy, the almost imperceptible swell in the harbor rocking him deeper asleep as he sat. His thin snore and dangling legs gave the game completely away.
"On your feet you damned lazy slob!" Margarethe screamed (yes, screamed, she was that furious). She grabbed Robin's wrist and hurled him to the deck. "As you saved my life you might get to sit in my chair for a minute or two if you grovel appropriately, but by Christ Jesus and His Blessed Mother you will never sleep on watch!" She dragged the shuddering man, blinking and stunned as he was, to the teak grating on the wheelhouse floor.
Holding him with one powerful hand, she half-lifted him from the deck and drove the other, fist clenched and powered with rage, into his solar plexus. He gasped, spasmed and fell back to the deck, clutching his guts. Margarethe unhurriedly got the three-eighths inch nylon stuff from her deck jacket, carefully hangared as it always was next the wheelhouse door, and tied his wrists to the grating. "A dozen of the best for me fine sleepy bucko of a watchkeeper," she snarled. "Count them--if you can." She pulled his shirt out of the way, loosened his trousers and slid them and his underpants off in a single motion, taking care not to tear them as she bared his buttocks. "Carefully, I paid for his fucking clothes," she thought. She stroked his bare ass gently once, to warn him.
Margarethe had studied flogging as her schoolmates studied languages, or science, or mathematics, or the fine arts of finding and securing a wealthy husband and a favorable ante-nuptial agreement. Navigation, meteorology, naval architecture and ship-handling filled out her curriculum, but flogging held pride of place.
The cat, black and supple, each of its leather lashes a good half-inch thick of top-grade cowhide left unfinished, would take the skin off back and buttocks and legs; in the wrong hands (or worse, in irresponsible, unskilled hands), it would leave the muscles showing white against the dripping blood and mangled tissue. That barbarism Margarethe would never allow; no blood, no torn tissue, no muscles white and distended. Just enough pain to make a wiser and better man or woman of her subject, and just enough sobbing and twitching by the subject to wet Margarethe's cunt and warm her breasts, to keep her in practice.
The cat sang out and tore from Robin the cry "One! Thank you Mistress!"
Again and again the cat sang, ripping the response from Robin's chest.
At the tenth blow, Jenny, fully dressed in jumper and trousers and with her heavy wool sweater in her hands, came into the wheelhouse. It was her watch, and she came without being called. She'd thought it strange Robin hadn't given her the ten-minute warning bump on the intercom; they'd made a pact, and Jenny had saved Robin's ass from Mistress' anger and her efficient lash enough times for him to honor it. Her mind on autopilot, she had wakened, washed hurriedly, and made a timely relief.
Margarethe delivered blow eleven. This was the reminding blow. Instead of landing crosswise on Robin's thoroughly welted back or butt or thighs, this was delivered head-to-butt lengthwise, so that the lashes caught not only Robin's buttocks, but the tips hit his scrotum as well. "Now that's artistry", thought Margarethe, as Robin's almost voiceless scream was lost in his retching and gasping, "most of those jumped up whores who call themselves "mistress" or "domme" would have torn his balls apart with that shot, or missed entirely and opened his prostate, or maybe a semi-skillful apprentice might have had him puking up his guts. But I can hit so the pain half-kills him, but he doesn't puke on my deck, and he can still jerk himself off by the time he next goes on watch. Damn me, no-- fuck my virgin cunt if I'm not the best!"
Now for the twelfth. Jenny knew better than to interrupt Mistress, despite her pity for the tormented Robin, who had shared her bed and tried to comfort her when Mistress was angry with her. She would only suffer the same fate if she interfered. She twisted the sweater in her hands and winced as the blow landed. Robin pressed his head to the floor in agony, his lips bloodied with his biting of them.
Whizzzzz! Craa-ckkkk! Robin screamed and screamed again.
It was a mind-fuck. The cat whistled like a Force Eight gust and landed right next Robin's head, missing his face by a scant two inches, the rush of air making him blink, but no lash touched him. He screamed again, and lay still.
"Ah, there you are, dear little Jenny Wren," said Margarethe. "Our Romeo of the watch was sleeping in my chair. He thinks he's a fucking Goldilocks, don't you, boyo? Well, right now he's Redback O'RedAss of the Aching Balls, aren't you, sweetcheeks?
Jenny, I'll stand watch, I'm a better watchkeeper nude in a bathrobe than this oaf would be in BDU and full body armor. Now you clean up Robin RedBalls here as best you can. And give us a good fry-up for breakfast, there's a love, we'll be re-stocking today, so don't spare the calories. And pray try to get this half-dead wharf rat in some condition to work."
It was a busy day Margarethe had planned. Having arrived on the Thursday battered by a near-hurricane, the Friday was the day to set in train repairs to
Dread Sovereign
, maybe even a scratch job of a re-fit if Margarethe could trust the Port Stanley yard with her precious love. And if the chandlers had the spares; Margarethe had all kinds of necessary tools in abundance (pun intended), and would work alongside the artificers, but though she stocked the spares lockers well, not everything needed was to hand.
So first breakfast, a duly chastened Robin proclaiming in hushed tones his Franciscan repentance, devotion and humility ("and I'll believe that when I see cast iron backstroking past Rotherhithe at low tide," Margarethe thought, "though he did save my life. I guess that makes him a worthy bastard, rather than a worthless one"). Then bring on the scones, the Devonshire butter, the Cambridge jam, the eggs, rashers of bacon, pineapple juice, and pots of sweet strong Keemun black tea (all this was the last of the Ferreira re-stocking from Recife--give the devil his due, the bastard swindled her on the cordage, but he did provide good food).