6

Captain Teeth

The grog from Aruba is no holy water. It’s gone to my head and messed with my innards. One moment, I’m swashbuckling on the deck, and the next, I’m in the drink—and not the potent potable kind. I fall face-first into the ocean. Come on, arms, move! Legs, kick! Waist, bend! Some part of me must fight the current before I drink the Caribbean. Each gulp of air yields the salty taste of certain death.

Like my rascally crew, my body won’t obey my orders. Would my arms swim if Chub were to yell at them like the nutmegs on our ratlines?

How easy would it be to sink to Davy Jones’s locker? I’ve drunk more seawater than grog tonight.

Chub and Catalina run the boat. I’m just a figurehead. Captains are nothing more than targets for boarding enemies, harbormasters, soldiers, cannonballs, and crew members with grievances. I haven’t been given a black spot because no one else wants the job. Another gulp of ocean slides down my gullet. If I drown tonight, the boat will sail the same tomorrow as it did today. They’ll miss me for a journey or two—maybe write a bawdy ballad about Ol’Captain Teeth’s sparkling smile or missing fingers. Me hearties are the closest I have to family, so remembrance in a drinking song is the best memorial I can hope to achieve.

If I close my eyes…

“No,” says a feminine voice beside me.

Is that a mermaid? I’d call her a siren, but the husky whisper isn’t a sweet song. Plus, protesting my drowning would be bad for business if she were a siren luring me to my death. I’m not a learned man, but I’ve wrestled the sweet trade since my teens. Death and business are my areas of expertise.

Let me go, wench.

“You can’t die,” she says when I resurface. “I won’t allow you to die.”

Her red hair tangles around my arms and legs. She hugs my waist to hold me afloat. How can she reach me from a yard away? I sink below the surface to collect an eyeful of dairy. Topless in stormy seas at night without another boat in sight? Maybe she is an imaginary mermaid conjured by rum. The flash of a shark’s belly could resemble the creamy swells of breasts in the murky deep. Maybe my destiny is shark food.

Doesn’t that take the biscuit?

How much seawater must I drink to lose consciousness and end this? I’ve lived a thousand lives—and cheated death twice as many times—since I stepped onto Blackbeard’s boat. Lost my birthname, my fingers, my virginity—I don’t remember in what order. I’m done with this lonely world. Is it too much to ask to be gone before I must leave Chub to his happy life on land?

“Stop making yourself heavy,” she scolds me as she drags me closer to her. How can her hair be so strong? “You can swim, imbecile, I’ve seen you—”

My ship groans in response to her captain leaving his post. She lists away from us as if turning a cold shoulder. A wave sweeps over my mermaid and me, but we resurface instantly, thanks to her powerful…hair? The boat rights itself in a quarter turn that I’m sure sent the helm spinning. She’s facing north and dragging our anchor at a good clip.

“If I’m not dying, I must right the wheel. Someone must wake the crew to batten down the hatches. No storm can take Patricia’s Wish .” I twist to dislodge the mermaid’s hold on me so I can return to the boat. If I can grasp Jacob’s ladder on the side of the hull, I can climb aboard before the ship’s wake drowns me.

My blood runs cold when I reach to untangle the hair around my waist only to find it’s a tentacle.

A large octopus tentacle. A red tentacle with the girth of my thigh.

Lightning flashes overhead to illuminate my first glimpse of my rescuer.

“Lady love,” I say in awe. Layers of fiery red hair frame sea-green eyes so bright they reflect white in the storm’s flickers. Her narrow shoulders and slender neck are human, but the muscular appendages wrapped around my body are other . She’s bold, untamed, stronger than most of my mateys, but dumb enough to risk her neck to save my arse from the storm.

“If you wanted to catch a pirate, your timing is worse than half the port authorities in the Caribbean. This isn’t the time or place for romance.”

“I’ve already caught and sampled you, Teeth! You couldn’t see you had your destiny in your arms when you had the chance.”

“So, you know something I don’t, and you think that makes you special? You pulled one over on Captain Teeth the Idiot. Well, so has everyone else! Being smarter than me doesn’t make you special!”

“You wouldn’t know what makes me special because you assumed I was another whore to warm your sheets! You don’t even remember me! ”

“I think I’d remember quiffing a Kraken!”

“I was in my human form. Blimey, you are stupid, aren’t you? Not to mention you’re as good as pickled in booze,” she snaps.

“Don’t let that steal the wind from your sails! I bet I was drunk the night we rode the St. George.”

“You humiliated me!”

“I’m sorry? If I apologize, will you let me live?”

“You don’t get to die,” she says with a fire brighter than hell’s inferno blazing in her eyes. “If I must suffer the loneliness—”

“You think I’m not lonely? I have an image to maintain, so my crew will work together to survive. A fierce captain keeps other pirates from looting the boat, the authorities from arresting us all, and troublemakers from causing a mutiny that can sink a boat. I can’t be myself. I lie to everyone but Chub, and he’s smitten with his intended. Loneliness is all I have…”

The waves slap at us. The rain pours in sheets. In the flashes of lightning, I study her expressions as they dance across her features. There’s more than the tough exterior she wants to show me. She’s a mirror of my innermost self that I hide from the world. A monster who regrets the choices of their youth because they led to an isolated existence.

“Let’s save this fight for when you’re not dragging us into the abyss,” she says when a clap of thunder shakes the earth. “Stop squirming! In these swells, you will never make it aboard before the boat’s riptide drags you under. Let’s make for land, and I’ll return you in the morning.”

“She’ll sink by morning!” I fumble with her tentacles to escape, but she’s locked my wrists to my waist in several loops of muscle. She’s in her element, and I’m three sheets to the wind. The pelting rain and dropping temperatures can’t sober my mind fast enough.

“Better the boat than you! You can’t save the boat from beyond the grave!” Strong, brave, and furious, my lady love is a force of nature. She’s beautiful and borderline terrifying. As much as I’d love to allow her to carry me away, I’m Captain Teeth first. I won’t abandon me hearties.

“A captain doesn’t abandon his ship!”

“A kidnapped one does,” she says through clenched teeth. Oh, thank the heavens, small square teeth sit between her lush lips instead of fangs. I kissed fangs in my past—not a fan of cut gums, scraped teeth, and busted lips. “Help me swim!”

“Can’t paddle when you’ve pinned my wrists, love,” I say with a smirk. She can’t see my expression as she swims away, dragging me within her tentacles. I’ll have to try harder to get a reaction. “Kinky, but now is not the time—”

“Kick your feet and use those abdominal muscles to keep yourself buoyant—”

“Aye, aye,” I chirp, just to see her pause to glare at me once more. My mates can’t blame me for falling into the drink and being carried away by my lady love. Not only has my search for her been common scuttlebutt on the boat, but choosing quim over duty is par for the course with me. Frequenting a brothel when I was supposed to be guarding Queen Anne’s Revenge was the reason Ol’Blackbeard cut off my marriage finger.

“If I knew I’d drag your sack of bones to shore, I’d have wished for my fated mate to be short and slender!” Her grunts and growls are precious.

How lucky am I? She recognizes me as a fated mate, so we can skip the song and dance where I must convince her I’m the one. I hate cream pot love and the dumb things men do courting their lady love. No sentimental gestures from me. She’s mine and knows it. I smile broadly as we defy death and make our way to the island on the horizon.

Sounds like she’s a short-heeled lass who fell under my marriage rod as well. No awkward first quiffing where I pretend to be sweet and loving. She knows my proclivities and still claims me. I just hope she wasn’t part of the orgies…or one of the fireships that made the inside of my britches itch. My lips clench shut before my booze-loosened tongue can ask her if Kraken can contract the pox, crabs, or heaven forbid—the Bube.

“I’m releasing you, so don’t be difficult. Climb onto the beach and stay out of trouble while I rest. If you drown yourself after I carried you for miles, I’ll haunt you in hell,” she scolds between gulps of air.

Her tentacles release me in a teasing caress that awakens my senses. Nothing is sexier than the way she crawls up the beach with her ruby tentacles rippling behind her. My path isn’t straight, and my strides are uneven, but I try my best to exit the ocean with a captain’s swagger. She collapses before she reaches the edge. Her cheek rests on the sand as rain patters in a halo around her. I scoop her into my arms—tentacles flopping over my elbow—and arrange her on my lap. Watching the storm against the safety of a boulder, I can reflect on the miracle in my arms.

She’s here. My lady love has found me. She resents how we met, but we can work on resolving our misunderstanding. However I treated her at our first passing, it wasn’t with the respect she deserves. Our paths crossed too soon, and we’ve been given a second chance. We can build a future on the sea. I’ve never aspired to retire as a farmer or island merchant like most of me hearties. Landlubbing domestication sounds like soul-sucking wretchedness. This little lady proves my destiny is naval excitement with a bite of danger until my bitter end.

We doze on and off as the ocean’s roar quiets to civil complaints. I dream of tentacles, and for the first time, I’m not frightened. I understand the octopus tarot card wasn’t an heiress but a Kraken…my Kraken. My fingers tangle in her thick, red hair and stroke her cheek as she sleeps. Her breath warms my flesh between my shirt buttons. I wish I were topless too, so I could feel my lady love—skin to skin.

“You’re awake,” she whispers before rubbing her face on my chest. Her tiny fists grind into her eyes as she rubs the sleep from them.

“The sunrise woke me,” I say in a voice rough with sleep. “The sweet trade trained me to sleep in short bursts.”

“Short bursts when the sun’s down?”

“Short bursts when Captain says so,” I say with a chuckle. I’m dazzled by her smile when she laughs with me. My lady love is stunning.

“Well, you’re Captain now,” she says, patting my chest. She sits up, leaving a cold spot in her absence. “You need to retrieve your boat.”

“We—” I stop when she places her hand over my mouth.

“There’s no ‘we’ that you have to acknowledge. I didn’t save you to earn your love or respect. The bond between us couldn’t allow me to watch you die.” She fiddles with a…scale?... belly button?... something at her waist, where she transitions from lady to octopus. “I must return to the sea before someone sees me, and I think you know the way to Maude’s tavern from here.”

“If you think I’m letting you slip away that easily, you buss my cheeks.” I grab her elbow to haul her into my arms but release her when she flinches. She’s not kidding. Will she allow some slight I don’t remember to keep us apart?

“Seriously, Teeth, I feel eyes on me. Someone watches us. It’s not safe for me to be on land in this form,” she says as her tentacles reach for the water.

“I don’t know your name! How will I find you?” Desperation pulls my heart into my throat. I’ve had two sober minutes with my lady love after a lifetime of searching. My ribs squeeze my stomach, and all the ocean water I swallowed gurgles in my belly.

“Our night together,” she says with a world of hurt in her eyes, “you called me ‘love.’ I liked it, so why change now?”

I called her ‘love’ because that’s what I call every whore I bed. All women swoon over it—making it easier for me to play under their skirts. The nickname keeps me from learning their names and allowing the guilt to chase me out to sea when I leave them behind. Promises of my return—which I never intended to keep—are easier to fabricate when they are nameless doxies and not people.

Shame lowers my chin. What have I done? Is this my punishment? Isn’t losing my sister Melanie to brothel life punishment enough? I never hurt or stiffed a working girl. If she said ‘no,’ I moved on—but who am I kidding? By the time I asked her rates, most working girls would sweeten my sugarstick for free.

“Teeth,” my lady calls from the sea. She’s waded into the water up to her hips as I’ve wallowed in my past. “Tell Maude that Sabrina sent you. She’ll assign a girl to take care of you.”