Letter to Jack, contd.
Jack,
We have just weathered a storm the likes of which can only be conceived in the turgid heat of these southern climes. Like a sailing ship, we are somewhat subject to the winds, and I feared as we neared the blackest cloud I have ever seen that lightning would be our undoing. But as Fate would have it, the Horizon was not struck, nor torn apart by hailstones, nor dashed into the sea by the gale.
In the light of morning, Jack, and in the clarity that comes after one’s life has been endangered, I find myself reexamining both my orders and the conversations with officers of the Company I undertook prior to my sailing. In the end I must conclude that this is one monumental translation mistake.
If the directors of the Company had known, truly, that we would be trading in flesh, and if that were the reason for their vagueness and secrecy, why indeed would they have bothered to send an actual Botanist such as myself? Perhaps I may comprehend now, at least, the urgings of the abbott to whom I pledged I would return the Flowers to their land if they should wither or wilt?
How fortunate that I have been able to convince the crew, however, that these women are specially trained gardeners themselves and that our true cargo is in the herbs they bring along with them. The crew's main concern has been feeding and berthing so many people, but a section of the hold has been converted by the addition of hammocks and a curtained doorway into something resembling a cabin for the women. They are quite pleased with this arrangement and have taken to decorating the space with various of their colorful silks, and the shipwright has even created a hatch in the hull which they may open to peer out and to allow fresh air to circulate.
Meanwhile, we have spent the majority of the currency originally intended for the negotiation itself on resupply for the return voyage, as we will be passing over some inhospitable landscapes.
Make no mistake, though, these women are no gardeners. Indeed, one would say that their interests are not vegetal in the slightest, but carnal.
I discovered this that first night, when I woke to an unfamiliar sound, and thought for a moment that a stray animal must have crept aboard. The sound was repetitive, a kind of keening, and I slipped from my berth toward their quarters to investigate.
There I found such a sight, one of the women curled on the floor, and I revised my thought: surely she must be airsick, it being her first time aboard a craft such as Horizon. I knelt beside her to give her comfort, but she clutched at my hand, her lips as ripe and plump as a plum as she licked them, and then she licked at my finger before guiding it to the place where she blossomed.
With her tiny hands around my wrist, she encouraged me to manipulate her in such a way that her cries became less pained and more of a pant of effort. It soon became apparent to me that she reached a peak, much as a man would! I had no earthly idea that women could experience such ecstasy. Did you know this, Jack?
Could the altitude have an aphrodisiac effect, I wonder? Perhaps I shall try to broach the subject delicately with the captain, for when I returned to my cabin, my own flesh was in such a turgid state that I felt it urgently necessary to relieve myself in a similar manner.