Ned

Our second storm convinced me that my epiphany in the crow’s nest wasn’t an isolated event. Apparently, being below decks in a storm made me sick. Being on the main deck, racing to secure the sails and make certain everything was as safe as it could be, was exhilarating.

I had just about decided to sign on as a permanent member of The Felicity’s crew. I enjoyed the work, and I had grown to appreciate the crew, as well.

Bailey and George liked to tell maritime ghost stories late at night while we mended the sails and nets. Tales of Davy Jones’s locker, of the monsters lurking in the depths of the ocean, of the sea serpents, whose sinuous snake-like bodies could be seen circling the ship in the distance, of the mermaids who would sing the sailors to their death, the sirens who could seduce a man overboard with nothing more than their voices.

I didn’t tell them that mermaids and sirens held no appeal for me.

No, my favorite stories were of the Omega Triangle—that magical, mystical part of the Caribbean where the kind of men who were prone to falling in love with other men went insane, seducing other sailors as many times as possible, as many ways as possible, until they had gathered enough sailors’ seed to create a child.

Then, the stories went, the pregnant omegas would bear their guilty secret away to an island in the Caribbean where such children were raised to believe they were not an abomination. The people there believed such children were not the product of sin, that the child of an omega male was not a monster of the ocean, but a perfectly natural, healthy child.

“And when those children become adults,” George said, “they grow up to be pirates, taking what they want by force, pillaging and plundering the ships on the open sea, and turning perfectly normal sailors into baby-bearing omegas, acting as if ‘twere perfectly normal for them to give in to their unnatural last and take on the role of bearing children like a woman.”

Yes. Those were my favorite stories. But not for the reasons old George expected.

I of course pretended to be horrified as he told the stories to the other sailors, their eyes wide and their mouths agape.

But I had been better educated than most of those men.

“You know,” I said one night when it was just the three of us—me, George, and Bailey—“there are stories in England of omegas existing in nature.”

“Aye,” said George, “but such a story would not instill terror into the hearts of young sailor boys.”

His comment surprised a laugh out of me. “Why would you want to frighten them with the thought of omegas?”

Bailey snorted. “It makes them better behaved, more likely to resist, when we run into pirates. If they’re terrified of being forced to have babies, they’re less likely to run off to join a pirate ship.”

“There are even stories that some of England’s kings have had babies in the past.” I glanced up from my work to see how the sailors reacted.

George shrugged. “I suspect most stories have a basis in truth. I’ve never seen sirens or mermaids, but I have seen sea serpents—or something very like.”

Bailey nodded. “And I swear I’ve seen pregnant pirates on the seas.” He leaned in closer to us, lowering his voice. “More than that, though, I’ve been on ships that have gone through the Omega Triangle, and I have witnessed the effect it has on men.”

“What kind of effect?” I couldn’t keep the fascination from my tone.

“It’s exactly like the stories we tell. Some men know go wild, begging others to take them. And some of those others can’t seem to resist. It’s like the siren songs of the mermaid tales, only all men.”

George shook his head. “Ain’t nothing wrong with sailors taking to each other for comfort. Men have needs, after all.” His mouth twisted. “But the desire to bear a child? It ain’t natural.”

I went to sleep in my hammock that night thinking of a lust so overpowering that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from begging another man to bury himself inside me. To release his seed in me. To make me his and to give me a child. I listened to the other men breathing in the dark hold around me, and my cock strained against my pants.

It was all I could do to take myself quietly in my own hand, squeezing and rubbing as I imagined another man planting a baby inside me.

At the thought of my imaginary lover’s cock emptying itself into me, filling me, I spilled into my palm, and I had to hold my breath to keep from moaning aloud.

George and Bailey might think such desires were unnatural. That a man wanting to give birth to children was disgusting.

I thought it sounded beautiful.