3. Jonto
Jonto
In the ten years since her twin had disappeared beneath the waves, Lord Jonto had become very adept at portraying herself as a man.
Not only that, but it had also only taken a few short years and too many times dealing with cheating, non-paying companies, or out-and-out thievery that she and Nico decided to give up the life of honest merchant mariners.
She and her loyal first mate had raised the flag of the Jolly Roger instead.
Over the years, she’d put together a top-notch crew comprised of good men and quite a few hardy women, all loyal to their captain and, to their way of thinking, his fair treatment of them and of the sailors whose ships they boarded.
Her armada of ships grew through her judicious selection of sailors from the hapless ships unlucky enough to have cheated the captain when she’d been an honest merchant transporting spices and goods across the seas.
Whenever she encountered those disreputable crews, she’d be the first over the gunnels with her sword raised high to capture the ship and all its cargo.
The surviving officers of those ships were sent away in long boats along with any of the sailors who either had no taste for the life of a pirate or were deemed too disreputable or cruel to sign on with Captain Jonto.
She’d then seize the ship and its cargo as her own, appoint one of her men as its captain, and mix selected members of her flagship crew with those who’d stayed behind to join her cause.
Her ship, the Morgan’s Jest, named in honor of her twin, Morgan Thomas Jontoreaux, was now the flagship over a fleet of ten vessels ranging in size from the Jest, a four-masted, fifty-cannon man-of-war, to three smaller three-masted, ten to twenty-cannon frigates suited for speed and maneuverability, particularly good to have in a battle or when running down fleeing ships.
She also owned two medium-sized, three-masted barques, with the rest of her fleet being made up of small to medium-sized two-masted brigs, which typically carried six to ten sails each.
All of her ships now bore her own signature flag, a fearsome kraken with its many arms wrapped around the Morgan’s Jest. Quite a few seamen wondered why Captain Jonto would have as his crest a monster attacking his ship.
What they didn’t know was that she pictured her twin brother as an immense, spectral kraken, both fierce and passionately loyal, holding the Jest in his arms and protecting her from harm.
Between Jonto and Nico, they’d become very astute at reading the political vagaries of the world around them.
They knew who was at war with whom, which side was the aggressor, and which side had the best interest of the common people at heart.
It was those monarchies they aided, often patrolling the seas and attacking ships of political entities they deemed cruel or evil in their intentions.
Quite often, the thankful king or queen they’d helped rewarded her with large sums of money, which, after she’d lined her own coffers, she generously handed out to the crews on her ships.
In that way, she became the darling of many kingdoms whose ships she ardently protected from other pirates and aggressive, tyrannical governments.
If those same kingdoms had known their victories had come by way of a woman, they wouldn’t have been so generous in their rewards.
It was during this time that she made the acquaintance of Captain Jack Dubbin, a pirate known for his fierceness in battle and for the loyalty of his crew.
Dubbin wasn’t a big man, by any means, maybe a little taller than Jonto, with muscular arms, a bulky body, and hard, dark eyes that said he’d as soon gut a person as speak to them.
Older than Jonto, maybe in his mid-forties, he’d been a pirate long enough to have earned a reputation as a bloodthirsty captain to avoid if at all possible.
That is until he got to know you. If the pirate liked someone, as he’d taken a liking to Jonto, then his smile softened the hard edges of a face hidden beneath a dark, ragged beard, and those eyes became, if not exactly tame, then at least a good bit friendlier than they’d been when they’d first met.
Quite often, one or the other captain could be found in his counterpart’s cabin playing cards or chess or talking about current events. On one such occasion four or five years into Jonto’s pirating life, Dubbin rose, stepped to his door, and locked it.
Startled and more than a little suspicious, Jonto jumped to her feet and pulled her dagger, which she kept in a sheath on her belt.
Dubbin held up both hands, showing he was unarmed.
There was a hungry look in his eyes as his gaze roamed Jonto’s body from her head all the way down to her boots.
“Put yer blade away. I locked it to keep folks out, not to keep ya in.” He stepped aside and waved at the door.
“Yer free to leave anytime ya like, but I think it’d be good,” his gaze traveled down to Jonto’s chest and continued down to her codpiece, “…fer ya to stay and listen to what I have to say.”
Curious, Jonto sized up the man, trying to decide whether she could take him in a fight.
Very early on, she and Nico had wrestled, not to see which could beat the other because that would have been laughable.
Nico was so much bigger and stronger that there wouldn’t have been any contest. No, they wrestled so he could teach her the best way to fight should she ever find herself brawling with much stronger men.
She’d learned a lot, and she could hold her own in most fights as long as the odds weren’t too horribly stacked against her.
Wary of insulting such a dangerous man, she slowly sheathed her blade and motioned for Dubbin to get on with whatever he had to say.
Uncomfortable with the way the other captain continued to eye her, Jonto crossed her arms and planted her feet shoulder-width apart.
“If it’s sex you’re after, I’m not your man.
I hold nothing against men who enjoy taking other men to their beds, but I’m not one of them.
” It wasn’t unusual for members of her crew to swim in the ocean, naked as the day they were born.
She’d seen their members extended on more than one occasion and had privately concluded she never wanted one anywhere near any part of her body.
Dubbin’s arched brows descended over a pair of amused brown eyes. He idly scratched the skin beneath his coppery beard. “But ya like havin’ th’ sex, aye?”
If the truth were known, because of her need to keep her true self secret, Jonto had never had any sex in her life.
But then again, if it were common knowledge that a rampaging, feared pirate captain was still a virgin, she or he would be the laughingstock of every ship sailing any sea in the world.
“Of course, I like sex. Are you daft, man?” She lifted her hands as though the question didn’t even rate an answer.
A speculative look replaced the amusement on Dubbin’s face. He cocked his head and asked, “Are ya open to new experiences, then?”
“I already told you I don’t care what you get up to with other men, but I’m not interested in having sex with you.”
“Are ya sure about that?” He smiled. “I’ll show ya mine if ye’ll show me yers.” At Jonto’s confused look, Dubbin sat, removed his boots, and then stood again to unbuckle his belt.
Jonto reached behind her back and whipped out her knife again. “That’s far enough.”
In one smooth movement, Dubbin pulled open his trousers’ buttons and lowered his pants and stockings to his knees.
Jonto stared in shock at the conspicuously missing penis.
In fact, her brain was having a difficult time matching what she knew about the man…
woman… to the coppery hairs covering Captain Jack Dubbin’s vagina.
She only realized her mouth had dropped open when Dubbin gently placed a finger beneath her chin and pushed her mouth shut.
Dubbin stepped the rest of the way out of her trousers.
“I can do all manner of wonderful things to yer body, Lass, bring ya pleasures ya might never have experienced before. And more importantly, as far as yer continued good health, anyway, I can show ya how to attach hair to yer chin and cheeks so that none will ever guess yer a woman and not a man.”
A heat so spectacular they could have seen the resultant blush on the Jest if she’d been out on the deck spread upward from between Jonto’s breasts and didn’t stop until it reached the very top of her head.
Furiously trying to gather her thoughts, she had to quickly decide whether she could trust this pirate captain who had so brazenly given up her own privacy to offer something that Jonto had craved for a very long time. All she could say was, “Why?”
“Why offer? Or why trust ya?”
“Both.”
Dubbin grinned. “The first is easy. I love sex with a woman, but, like I’m sure ya find, it’s near impossible to get when yer pretendin’ to be a man on a ship full of crusty friggin’ pirates.
Plus, th’ first time I saw ya, I wondered.
Yer cheeks are too bare,” she lifted a shoulder, “which happens to some men early on, but while ya got th’ look of a man, I see telltale signs of th’ softness in ya, too. ”
“And what if you’re wrong? What if I’m a man, and you just gave away the biggest secret on the high seas?”
With a shrug, Dubbin lifted her brows in apology. “Then I’m gonna have to kill ya.”
At Jonto’s wide-eyed, worried look, Dubbin held up a hand.
“Nothin’ to worry about because I know I’m not wrong.
I saw it ‘cuz I were lookin’, but others see what they expect to see.
After I’d spent time with ya playin’ cards and such, I knew.
” She shrugged. “As fer th’ second, I decided us lasses need to stick together, and, like I said, I miss th’ company of a woman and th’ taste of her on me tongue. ”