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 “You are.”

 “I know my hair’s a mess.” She fluffed out her long ebony curls. “But it’s very windy up here and I don’t have a comb.”

 “It looks fine,” I assured her.

 “Well then, what kind of a pirate are you?”

 “Undersexed, I guess.” I sighed.

 “You’re supposed to murder and pillage and rape!” There was a slight whine in her voice. “What’s stopping you?”

 “I’m feeling a little seasick,” I told her truthfully, increasingly aware of the pitching of the ship and the swaying crow’s nest.

 “That’s no excuse!” She was indignant. She took a deep breath and screamed again. “RAPE!”

 “Now you’ve done it!” I peered over the side of the crow’s nest, down the dizzying length of the mast. Not far from its base a Spanish type in Ponce de Leon pantaloons and a beard that seemed to come to a point as sharp as the sword he was just withdrawing from a sea—weathered neck heeded the cry. He leaped for the mast, obviously bent on rescuing the “damsel in distress.”

 “That’s Pedro, my betrothed,” the girl told me. “When Morgan fired the first broadside he took me from my bed, flung me over his shoulder and climbed all the way up here so that I would be safe from your boarding party.”

 “Morgan? You mean Henry Morgan, the buccaneer?”

 “The Scourge of the Spanish Main.” She nodded. “He is your leader, is he not?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “If he were here I’ll wager there would be no question of raping me. He would just do it. Particularly if he was naked.” Her hip moved against me snugly as we stood up in the crow’s nest.

 “From the look on your fiancé’s face, he wouldn’t have time,” I pointed out. “And neither do I.” What the hell, I wondered, was I going to do if that angry-looking Spaniard climbed up here and found me naked with his intended? “I don’t even have a sword,” I remarked aloud.

 “Ahh, but you do. And it’s unsheathed.” Her fingers barely grazed the hilt of the weapon to which she referred.

 “Phew!” I breathed easier. The Spaniard had barely started up the mast when he was assailed from behind. Now he was back on the quarterdeck fending off two scurvy-looking pirates.

 “Now there is time,” the señorita murmured.

 “Time for me to get out of here.” I scrambled over the edge of the crow’s nest, took one look down which filled me with sudden vertigo and panic, and scrambled right back into the crow’s nest again.

 “You changed your mind,” the señorita noted. “You’re going to rape me after all.” Her hand fluttered to her forehead dramatically. “A fate worse than death!” She got it on the record. “By the way, my name is Elena,” she added.

 I looked at her blankly.

 “I thought we should know each other’s names if I’m going to be a victim of your bestial lust,” she explained.

 “Oh. Steve Victor,” I introduced myself.

 “To the victor belong the spoils21 ,” she punned with avid resignation.

 “Look, I have no intention of behaving with ‘bestial lust.’ ”

 “HELP!” She started screaming again. “RAPE!” “You’re a pirate and you’re supposed to rape me and besides, you’re naked. Do you think when my fiancé finds you here with me like this that he’ll believe you didn’t rape me?”

 “I suppose not,” I sighed.

 “Well, if he’s going to think I’ve been despoiled and perhaps break off our betrothal because of that, then I might as well be despoiled.”

 “Don’t be insulted, but I’m really not in the mood,” I told her. “I’ve got a lot of things on my mind.”

 “Not in the mood? Then how do you explain that?” She pointed.

 “Fear. I told you. And probably seasickness too. It really has nothing to do with passion. Why sometimes, for no reason, in the morning—”

 “You find it hard waking up,” Elena interrupted impatiently. “You know, for a bloodthirsty pirate, you do an awful lot of talking. I’m really not interested in the dialectics. I think I’ll scream again.” She took a deep breath.

 I grabbed her and put my hand over her mouth again. After awhile I eased up the pressure cautiously.

 “You have your hand over my mouth,” she murmured.

 “I don’t want you to scream.”

 “You have your other hand on my left breast.”

 “Sorry. I must have grabbed it inadvertently.”

 “You’ve probably noticed that I’m not wearing anything under this thin nightdress,” she commented.

 “I noticed.”

 “And you’ve probably become aware that despite my disgust at your assault, sheer physical biology over which I have no control has made me respond to the intimacy of your brutal touch.”

 “I have become aware of that.” The nipple of her breast was hard in the palm of my hand.

 “And your seasickness seems to have grown worse.” Her soft belly fluttered as it pressed against me.

 “It’s just that there isn’t much room here. Proximity naturally—”

 “Naturally. And I’m just too weak to fight off your revolting caresses any longer.” She swayed with her lips pouting very close to mine and her long eyelashes fluttered closed.

 When I didn’t kiss her immediately she took another deep breath as if about to scream again. So I kissed her. Her lips clung to mine. Her nails raked my naked back. Her hips moved with a grinding motion under the long nightdress and her belly slapped against me rhythmically. Her long black hair trailed over my naked chest, tickling me.

 Elena was a small girl, petite, but curvy and extremely energetic. Her teeth bit my lip, drawing blood, and then darted to the juncture of my neck and shoulders to bite again.

 “Hey!” I protested.

 “I’m not going to submit willingly, you know. I’m going to fight every inch of the way!”

 It made me mad. Kinsey has observed that anger is frequently a sexual stimulus too. I ripped her gown at the neck and it fell away from one of her breasts. The breast was a delicate, creamy hue swelling to a small pink aureole and purplish nipple that was very long. Elena gasped and the nipple quivered against my chest.

 “You brute!” she murmured. She reached down and grabbed me. For a moment I thought she was attacking. But while her clutch was firm, it was lacking in any real menace. “I’ve never known a man carnally before,” she said. “I don’t know how to defend myself.”

 “You’re doing fine,” I assured her. I bent and my lips moved over the exposed, panting breast, fastening on the tip. She gasped again and her nails were sharp on the back of my neck, urging my lips to part more widely, pushing the breast flesh into my mouth, the tip hot and trembling against my tongue.

 Elena was tugging at me now. Her thighs were clenching and unclenching, the material of her nightdress bunched between them. I slid down to a sitting position in the crow’s nest and pulled her over on top of me. She was straddling my lap now, facing me. My hands slid up her legs, pushing the nightdress over her hips. They jiggled under my touch, fleshy and burning. I caressed them for a moment, then her tiny waist and the delicate round of her belly with the beginning triangle of down. She moaned as I touched the soft curls there and then her body jerked spasmodically and the firmly arched breast I’d bared slapped hard against my cheek.

 I slid my hands under her, pushing the material there out of the way. Her nether cheeks were fleshy like her hips, but firm, high and round, bouncing with the heat of her eagerness. They settled neatly into my hands, nestling and overflowing a bit as I pushed upwards to raise her.

 “Woe is me,” she sighed, “to surrender my maidenhood to the vicious passion of a pirate!”

 It wasn’t all hypocrisy. I realized that when I pushed her down on target. Elena’s virtue was as real as it was unwanted by her. And then it was demolished . . .