The Sweetest Thing

Life as a British subject and research into navigable northern waterways, added to the command of English, made the editing contributions of

Red_sky_reader

not only masterful but also indispensable.

Tremendous gratitude to

blackRandi1958

, winner of the 2017 editor of the year award, who not only fixed some errors but also added a bit of magic that will immediately be recognized by aficionados of this amazing author/editor/organizer.

And the good doctor of editing, SueDanym, as usual had the perfect prescription to heal remaining vestiges of my verbal disorders. Follow the link to the author's story page, and you'll find no one makes consensual sadism/masochism as tender, affectionate and orgasmic as this writer.

The German version of this story is posted in German Literotica as

Der Frachtkahn der Hoffnungslosen

by Egon Hoppe.

It was drizzling and cold outside the Horse and Jockey.

Few regular patrons had braved the weather, but Captain Ahab and a stranger sat at a table in a far corner of the room. As they sipped their Wells Bombardiers, they talked quietly.

Ahab was not his real name, he told the stranger. Names didn't matter for his crew. As long as they did their jobs, he didn't care who they were or what they were running from.

"I didn't realize there were still freight barges on this waterway," the stranger said.

"There aren't many," the crusty old sailor replied. "When the weather is nice, we get a lot of attention from passengers on the tourist ships. I fixed up my vessel with cabin, galley and a few bunks for the crew so I could stay away from the holidaymakers as much as possible."

"How do you survive?"

"As long as you're willing to take on any load, no matter how stinkin' filthy it may be, there's money to be made. Rusty machinery, coal and manure keep us busy. The Banshee is known for getting the job done."

The captain shook his head, causing his scraggly beard to sway. The stranger, who was staring into his brew, also had a beard, but it was thick, full and dark, unlike the one with white streaks which he faced.

The stranger ordered another round. Before he could open his mouth again, the captain asked him a question.

"So, you knew her when she was married. Where's she from?"

"I'd rather not say."

"She's never given us a clue. I don't even know how she found out we needed a cook. She just turned up in Sheffield, walked on board and said she could do the job.

"From the way she was dressed, I thought she was a demented squatter, but when she opened her mouth, I could tell that she had once been better off. I guessed her to be an alcoholic who ran through all her money and would do or say anything to get enough for her next bottle."

"Yet you hired her."

"I still don't know why. I took her to her cabin and told her to clean up before starting dinner. We were shoving off in an hour, I said, and if she didn't look presentable or the grub was bad, I'd put her ashore at the next stop."

"She must have been satisfactory."

"She's been on board more than six years. When you saw her at Tesco today, did she look like she used to?"

"Yes. I was surprised at how little she's changed."

"She's changed a lot. You should have seen her when she first came on board. Did you notice a kind of glow around her?"

"No. I didn't get very close. Do you know anything about her past?"

"Did she sleep around?"

"Yes."

"Then it's Fanny."

"So she still does."

"I wouldn't put it that way."

"Either she does or she doesn't. What other way would you put it?"

"She's found religion."

"How is that possible when she's whoring around?"

The captain looked uncomfortable for a moment. Then he went on the attack.

"Are you a private investigator?"

"What?"

"Nobody comes to Eggsborough on business and just happens to see a woman he used to know at home. Who sent you?"

The stranger thought about his answer before he spoke.

"Her brother and sister hired a professional to locate her. That's how I knew where to come. I'm a friend of theirs. I'm here to bring them more information."

"Her family's all dead."

"That's what she told you? It's true, in a manner of speaking. It's more the other way around. She was dead to them for a long time. Now they want to know how she is. I've brought some photos of the three of them and photos of her brother and sister taken recently. I can go and get them if you want."

"I believe you. So, they forgive her and want her to come home?"

"They want to know what she's doing. I think they were hoping she's changed. You told me she's still promiscuous. I'll give them my report. It's up to them, after that."

The captain looked at the man silently for almost a minute. He took a deep breath before he spoke.

"Her brother and sister don't deserve to have her back."

The stranger was startled.

"How can you say that? You've never even met them."

"You're right. It's hard for me to find the right words. They don't deserve her, and neither do we. I guess that's what I mean."

"Why did you say we? You don't know me from Adam."

"I didn't mean you. 'We' is me and my crew. We don't deserve Fanny, and her brother and sister don't deserve her. Nobody does."

The captain stopped. The stranger waited a while before he lost patience.

"Go on! Go on!"

The captain shrugged his shoulders.

"All right. I'll tell you about Fanny. You pass it on to her brother and sister. I hope they decide to damn her to hell. If they do, we'll take care of her and be thankful for every day she stays with us."

"You aren't making any sense."

"Never mind. Just listen. I'll give you all the dirt you've come for.

"I told you how Fanny came to work for us. It turned out she was a better cook than the one before her, but the guys gave her a hard time anyway. That's what they do with all the cooks. It breaks up the boredom when the cooks yell at them.

"Fanny never yelled at anyone. When they complained, she quietly said she would try harder. After a while, they stopped trying to get her goat, especially since the meals kept getting better. We couldn't believe how good they were.

"The grocery bills were the same, so I asked her what was going on. She told me she was studying some cookbooks so she could do a better job. I told her I didn't have money to pay her more, and she said it didn't make any difference.

"We began talking about her meals and asking her questions. She'd talk about anything except herself. If any of us asked a personal question, she wouldn't get angry. She'd just look sad and go to her cabin. Around this time, Ben first mentioned the glow. When she left the room, it seemed to get darker.

"One night, after dinner, we were talking about food. Rusty started it by going on about what a wonderful cook she was, and then the rest of us jumped in. She sat there looking at each of us and started crying. It was the first time we'd ever seen her react to anything we said. Like jerks, we kept piling it on. We weren't exaggerating much either.

"She ended up running to her cabin, and we didn't see her until the next morning. That night she made an amazing feast. We weren't stupid. Every chance we got, we laid it on thick, and the meals continued to be brilliant. Then one night, she shocked us speechless.

"She came out of the galley after cleaning up and cleared her throat. We were in the middle of a poker hand, but we all turned to her.

"I remember exactly what she said: 'You have all made me so happy that tonight I have to make one of you happy, or at least try. Who wants me to make him happy tonight?'

"We looked at her until she said: 'Won't anyone volunteer?'

"Old Rusty raised his hand, and she motioned for him to come to her. When he stood next to her, facing us, she said, 'Will the captain please come forward?'

"I went up, and she made me get behind them. She turned Rusty around so they both faced me. She said, 'We can't be happy until we're married, so Captain Ahab is going to marry us.'

"Leaning forward, she whispered into my ear. She told me to make it short and gave me two names to use.

"I said to her, 'Repeat after me: 'I, Vanessa, call upon these persons present to witness that I do take you, Sterling, to be my lawfully wedded husband.'

"Rusty looked at me when I said 'I, Sterling,' and didn't start repeating until she elbowed him in the ribs.

"After he finished his part, I said, 'It is my pleasure to tell you that you are now husband and wife.'

"I stepped back, and she waved for everyone to be quiet. Then she said, 'Now that we're married, we can have our honeymoon.'

"She took Rusty's hand, pulled him into her cabin and shut the door. Everyone was stunned. The rest of us waited. After about twenty minutes, I tried to get the game going again, but the rest of them weren't interested.

"We sat there for over an hour before the first guy went to bed. Jack told me he waited for more than three hours before he gave up.

"The next morning, Rusty was asleep in his bed and had to be shaken a few times until he woke. Fanny didn't say a word about the night before, and nobody else did either.

"That night the same thing happened, word for word, except this time it was Jack who was pulled into her cabin. That's the way it's been ever since, except she no longer asks for volunteers. We take turns."

"So, she has a different man every night?" the stranger asked.

"Except for when it's her time of month and once a year."

"What does she do with you?"

"Nobody talks about it. It's public, because everyone knows, but the details are completely private."

"Will you tell me this much? Does she ever talk while she's with you?"

"She asks questions. I thought I'd heard it all, but she asked me about things I had a hard time talking about. She wasn't embarrassed in the least, but she had to give me a few drinks to loosen me up first.

"I don't get you."

"She worked on me 'til she found out what I liked and didn't like. She'd try something and ask me how I liked it. Then she'd try something else and ask me again. That happened the first few times I was with her. After that, she knew all about me and did the things I liked. She still tries out new things every once in a while to see if I like them."

"And she does the same with all of you?"

"I don't know, because we never talk about it, but I'm guessing you're right."

"Is that all she ever talks about when you're alone."

"I asked her what she liked, and she told me it wasn't important because the only thing that mattered was making me happy. I figured out a few things she liked anyway, and I did them as often as I could. What really gets her going is driving me crazy. Then she lets go, and ... That's all I'll say."

"So you've never asked her why she becomes a bitch in heat every night?"

The stranger's voice was full of contempt and disgust.

The captain stood up quickly and almost fell over. He grabbed the table to steady himself and slowly sat down. His eyes flashed.

"If you want me to tell you anything else, you're going to have to apologize right now. What gives you the right to say that? Tell her family what you want, but I won't listen to you insult Fanny."

"All right," the stranger said in a calmer voice. "I apologize for saying that. It won't happen again. Has she said anything else to you about herself?"

"Yeah. One night we were docked in Skipton, and I took her to dinner at the Cock and Bottle. We both drank too much, and I kept at her until she told me a few things."

"Like what?"

"She said her name used to be Vanessa, and Sterling was the name of her ex-husband. He was the most amazing man in the world, according to her. She said she had been beautiful, conceited and cruel. She had her choice of boys and picked him because he was the best looking.

"She said she was too selfish to love anyone. She treated him like he was lucky she had married him. After the wedding, she walked all over him. To prove she could still wrap men around her little finger, she had a few affairs.

"She didn't try hard to hide what was going on, but he trusted her completely and didn't find out for a long time. Most of their acquaintances were aware she was cheating. She figured he must have known, but was afraid to say anything. That made her treat him even worse.

"When he finally found out, he didn't confront her. One night when she was with another man, he cleared his clothes and personal items out of their home. On top of the divorce papers, he left his ring and a signed note that said, 'I still love you.'

"She told me he gave her the house and everything they owned jointly. He never even appeared in court. Once the word was out that they had split, she became the most popular divorcee in town. She had her pick of young guys and loved wielding her power over them.

"She enjoyed tormenting them and making them jump through hoops before she'd bestow her favors. What really made her feel special was taking a man away from another woman. Her parents and siblings were ashamed of her lifestyle and kept away from her. She couldn't have cared less until she ran into a former classmate.

"The woman's boyfriend was one of her occasional lovers, and she knew the woman to be churchly. Fanny said she didn't hide her condescension when they spoke.

"The woman surprised her by saying she prayed for Fanny's soul and that God loved her. When Fanny asked her why she would say such a thing, the woman confessed that she used to hate Fanny until she met with her vicar. He suggested that she needed to love Fanny and pray for her because she was on a path to destruction.

"Fanny laughed and said if she was, she'd be taking the woman's boyfriend with her. The woman didn't even flinch at the insult. Instead she told her that her vicar had told her there were many harlots in the Bible, and God had created them for a reason.

"The vicar had spoken to her boyfriend and a few other young men in the church who slept with Fanny. They all assured him that they just used Fanny for relief so they wouldn't pressure their girlfriends before they were married.

"The vicar had also told her that in other countries, it was a tradition for boys to visit prostitutes, and often it was arranged by their own fathers. That way, on the wedding night, the boy would know what to do.

"The vicar had told her former classmate that if she ever talked to Fanny about her fiancée -- who had asked her to marry him that week -- she should thank her for training her future husband because it would lead to marital happiness. She said the vicar said to tell Fanny that if things ever got too hard for her, the vicar would be glad to counsel her.

"Fanny said she pretended not to care about what the woman had said but couldn't stop thinking about it. She gradually broke off with all the men she was seeing and spent most of the day in her empty home drinking.

"She had run into her former husband a few times, usually in a store or restaurant. Each time he saw her, his face fell. At first, that pleased her because it showed her he still hadn't gotten over her. In her mind, she still controlled him.

"When she was drunk, she began to see his face in front of her. This time his sadness depressed her. The next time she ran into him at the grocer's, she looked at him, ran out of the store and drove home so fast she nearly went off the road.

"As painful as her drunken delusions were, seeing him in person was a lot worse. She became obsessed with preventing it from happening again. She locked herself up in her house, but someone came to check on her. She figured if she kept it up, her family might have her committed to an asylum. She had to go somewhere where no one knew her and no one asked questions. That brought her to my barge. You probably know most of this."

"Some of it," the stranger said thoughtfully, stroking his beard. "Did she tell you anything else?"

"No, except I asked her why she insisted on being married to 'Sterling' every night before she took one of us to her cabin.

"She said she would appreciate me not telling any of the others, but after each wedding, she no longer cared which one of us she was with. She imagined she was with Sterling, and she was doing her utmost to please him in every way possible.

"She was practicing for the day when she would make him the happiest man on Earth -- especially in bed and at the dinner table. Her fantasy was to give him everything his heart desired. She said she was grateful to me and the crew because we were making her life happier, even though she would never have a chance to use the things she was learning. Turned out she was wrong about that, though."

"So, she did find somebody else, What happened to him? Did he find out about her and desert her?"

"No, it's a lot stranger than that. For a while, I had a young guy, Billy, on the crew. He didn't have any experience, but he was strong and could do the work of two men. He was good looking, and by the time we left a town, there were always one or two girls asking after him.

"He didn't run after women or go to whores. At first, whenever he wasn't working, he was drinking coffee and brooding, either on the barge or in a coffee house.

"When I hired him, I told him about what happened each night. Still, I could tell he was shocked the first time he was a witness at the wedding. At first, he didn't participate and never spoke to Fanny. But, as the guys got to know and like him, they prodded him to be married once, just to see what it was like.

"He finally agreed, and the next day, he was a changed man. After that, he took his turn like everybody else. About six months after he signed on, he asked me for a couple of weeks off to visit his family. He had to wait until we had a gap between loads, but he was patient. I wasn't sure he would be back, because it seemed like he was over whatever problems sent him to me. But he showed up again two weeks later.

"About three days after that, we were docked at Foulridge, and the men had a free day. I was getting ready to leave for town when I saw a pretty lass stalking back and forth outside the barge.

"I went to the head to wash up before leaving. A couple of minutes later, I heard screams. I rushed out and looked around.

"The screams where coming from the galley. The cute young thing was rolling on the floor with Fanny. She was pulling Fanny's hair and trying to scratch Fanny's face. Fanny was the one screaming.

"I pulled the woman off Fanny. She wasn't that big, but she had a lot of energy and tried to scratch her way loose from me until I gave her a good slap. That stunned her and calmed her down a bit.

"I held her on my lap with my arms tight around her. Fanny got up and came toward us. She asked the woman why she had attacked her.

"The woman began calling her whore, bitch, cunt and lot of other names until I squeezed her a little and she ran out of breath.

"Fanny asked her if she was Constance. That set the girl off again until I stopped her.

"Fanny told me I could let her go. She needed to talk to Constance in her cabin. I told Fanny no way. Fanny got her face right next to the girl and said that if she wanted Billy, she would have to apologize to me for my trouble. Then she had to come to her cabin and listen to her.

"The girl glared at her and didn't say a word. Fanny said that if she didn't agree, she'd be put ashore and never see Billy again.

"The girl began crying and finally gave in and told me she was sorry. Fanny made her swear to God and Glory that she would come to her cabin for one hour. They were there for two hours, and when the girl left, she hugged Fanny.