How to explain it? On the highest plane I might say it was the life instinct. On a somewhat lower plane, at least it took our minds off the dangers around us. In any case —“perpendicular” as it were—we stood together, joined together and provided a counterpoint rhythm of our own to the rhythm of battle.
Eleanor’s knees were off the ground now, her knees firmly clasped about my hips, her skirt gathered out of the way at her waist. Her weight rested on the fulcrum of my manhood itself and my passion was such that I sustained it without strain. My hands balanced it by supporting her burning, writhing hindquarters. I thrust and Eleanor twirled and for one long, building moment of ecstasy everything else was forgotten.
The moment ended in a spiral of released passion that shook the very wall of the alcove we were propped against. At some point in my lovemaking I had lost my turban. The silk pantaloons of my eunuch costume were bunched around my ankles. Eleanor’s dress was still pulled up around her waist, her breasts still bared. We stayed that way for a long time, savoring the last of our lust.
“You are a unique eunuch!” Eleanor of Aquitaine sighed.
My mind was just formulating a compliment by way of answer when she squealed loudly and I turned my head to follow her startled glance over my shoulder. It was a good thing I did. Saladin was standing there, a curved scimitar dripping Crusader blood clenched in his hand. His face was a mixture of surprise and ferocity. The surprise made him hesitate just a split instant. I barely managed to jump out of the way of his swinging blade before it hacked off half of my fundament.
“Impostor!” he shouted. “Uncircumsized dog! Defiler of queens!”
“Only one queen,” I attempted to explain as I stepped out of my pantaloons and backed away from him. “Honest, just this one!”
“Lowborn impersonator of a eunuch!” he hissed. “For betraying my trust, you shall die!”
“Can’t we discuss this calmly?”
We couldn’t. His blade whistled under my nose and I jumped away from him again. He kept swinging and I kept jumping until we’d reached the very edge of the parapet. Behind me the Crusaders were hurling spears at the defenders. Above me the Saracens were pouring boiling oil over the attackers. In front of me Saladin was wielding his scimitar like a pilgrim butcher with an axe who has cornered the turkey for his Thanksgiving dinner.
I took a step backwards. It was the last step I took in Damascus. It carried me over the wall. Below were the upturned, waiting spears of the Crusaders, above the descending heat cloud of oil. Automatically, I covered my still inflamed manhood as my half-naked body hurtled downward.
Hey, fellas, I wanted to shout: Make Love, Not War20 ! But it was too late . . .
Chapter Six
A SEAGULL ON THE WING NIPPED MY NUDE POSTERIOR as I flew past. “Ouch!” I commented. “Caw-pfui!” the gull replied shrilly, spitting out the bit of flesh between his beaks. Evidently my derrière wasn’t to his taste.
Since we were flying in different directions, that was the extent of our conversation. The gull continued its downward swoop, arcing out over the tropic blue waters, then sweeping back toward the deck of the fat galleon. Perhaps the bird sniffed the carrion, the fresh-let blood staining the planks. Perhaps he merely followed the bright—splashing sunrays to the glinting points of rapiers dancing a graceful retreat under the stampeding onslaught of broad swords.
I flapped my arms frantically toward white sailcloth, grazed an imperial Spanish flag and managed to get a handhold on a mast bucking in the sea wind. I slid down the mast a few feet, propelled by the impetus of my flight. My descent was stopped short by a crow’s nest and for a moment I perched precariously on the edge of it, high above the fray, stark naked.
The crow’s nest was shaped like a bucket. Now, from its bottom, beneath me, there came a loud, prolonged, wailing, female scream, which momentarily drowned out the sounds of the battle below. I bent to peer inside and immediately there was a second scream.
“Don’t be afraid.” I addressed the figure huddled there. The reply was a torrent of hysterical Spanish broken by sobs.
“Do you speak English?” I tried to make my voice soothing.
“Si.” The sobbing subsided to a series of loud sniffles.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” I assured her.
“Nothing to fear, Señor?” The voice was still trembling, but she had it more under control now. “You are an English pirate! You have the head of a crocodile, clawed feet like a lion’s, hooks for hands, and the staff of an ox to deflower poor Spanish virgins!”
“Oh, come on now, I don’t really have the head of a crocodile.” I leaned into the crow’s nest so that she might see my face more clearly.
“Your teeth are very long,” she said doubtfully. “And they do protrude a little,” she added.
“That’s because I was a thumb sucker,” I confessed. I dangled a foot towards the bottom of the crow’s nest. “See? Not at all like a lion’s. No claws.”
“Your toenails are very long and sharp.” She wasn’t convinced.
“They do need cutting,” I admitted. “But I’ve just been too busy to get a pedicure lately.” I pulled my foot out and let my hand dangle. “See? No hooks!”
“But they are not the hands of a nobleman. You have calluses.”
“A hangover from puberty. But it might have been worse. I could have sprouted warts.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing,” I told her. “Anyway, the point is that I’m not some kind of a monster. I’m a man like any other man. I don’t have a crocodile head or lion’s claws or hooks for hands.”
“And the staff of an ox?” She rose up a little to squint.
“Aha! You do!” She pointed.
“Well now, thanks.” I was flattered. “But you really are exaggerating.”
“The staff of an ox to deflower poor Spanish virgins!” she insisted.
“Not really. It’s just a fear reaction. As Kinsey pointed out in his chapter on stimuli, fear often causes arousal, a state of excitation in the male. And I remember reading somewhere else that hanged men invariably react in a similar manner. You see, I’ve just been through a rather frightful experience and . . .”
“You are a monster! A devil! A demon!” she insisted. “Didn‘t you fly through the air on wings?”
“Well, not exactly on wings. You see-—”
“Naked! Straight from hell! Come to wrest my virtue with brute force!” She was sitting up now, her eyes wild and gleaming, young and dark and very Latin, plump breasts fluttering against the white silk of the demure nightdress she was wearing. “RAPE!” she screamed vigorously,“HELP! RAPE!”
I jumped into the crow’s nest, sprawling on top of her and covering her mouth with my hand to silence her. “Hush,” I pleaded. “We don’t want to attract attention.”
“Warlock!” She bit my hand and wrenched free.
“Now I’m not anything of the sort. I’m just a perfectly ordinary man.”
“Then how do you explain flying through the air naked?”
“Everybody has their idiosyncrasies.”
“You’re going to rape me!” she persisted. “I’ve heard what you buccaneers do to Spanish women. You’re going to tear off my clothes and pry my thighs apart and rend me with your manhood!”
“I’m going to do no such thing!”
“You’re not?”
“I’m not.”
“Why?”
“I’m just not a rapist.”
“Don’t you find me attractive?”
“Very.”
“Aren’t I appealing?’