Pirate Booty by Jack Brightside

Author:Jack Brightside [Brightside, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780645042634
Publisher: Clan Destine Press
Published: 2021-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

7

Mermaids are Real and a Real Problem

The heat of the open ocean declared war on the pirates. Proper hydration did nothing to mitigate the sun screaming through the day. In a near health crisis, the crew of the Boattega sequestered themselves below deck where they waited to succumb to heat sickness. The purgatory held the crew in a state of sweaty near-sleep. Nobody smelled good. The effect on morale was pervasive exhaustion.

"All this, for some Spanish treasure?"

"We don't even know if the treasure is real!"

"Shut up," Kiira moaned at the crew. "You're giving me a headache. Stop talking." The humidity below decks shut the crew up. At least half of the moisture they breathed was human sweat. Kiira's damp skin wicked stray fibers. She brushed off a stray pubic hair, only to pick up an eyelash. Maybe it was a short pube, who knew.

Louis and Rodrigo were on the front lines of resistance to weather. In the honeymoon period of male friendship, they defied the sun, the weather, and all acts of God that told them what to do. Nothing would keep them from enjoying their new friendship, especially nothing as lame as near-death caused by heat exhaustion. They refused to alter their sleep schedule with the rest of the crew. At eleven in the morning, Louis and Rodrigo woke the crew as they stripped wood from the captain's quarters. They held conversations at full volume across the length of the ship. Their heavy boots created seismic reverberations below deck.

Rodrigo's only concession was to remove his shirt for manual labor. Kiira felt secondhand exhaustion from watching him sunburn in the sweltering heat. Her symptoms could also be attributed to dehydration caused by watching the tan pirate, wet with sweat, building a bunk bed. The erotic subtext was more than sufficient motivation to keep living.

"Yeah, we made the decision together," Louis explained. "He can't keep sleeping on that chaise lounge. A bunk bed will allow him to have his own space. Plus, the optics on two dudes sharing a room with one bed are not great."

Some people (Kiira) implied that if two dudes sharing a bed was exceedingly homoerotic, a bunk bed was not the solution.

"More room for activities." Said no one in a bunk bed, ever.

Kiira smeared hair back on her scalp. Asshole strands of hair caught in her mouth. "Bunk beds remind me of prison."

Louis whipped around to stare at Rodrigo in the top bunk. Rodrigo picked up his head and closed his magazine. In a moment of silence, they asked each other about it.

Louis turned back to Kiira. "Yeah, so?"

Rodrigo returned to his magazine. "Don't hate on prison."

Rodrigo and Louis force-fed themselves out of spite for the heat. It was physically challenging to watch them eat the way they did. Even more nauseating was the after-meal banter in the galley.

Rodrigo argued about something-or-other, to prove he was not affected by the heat. "Louis, they're real. I saw them."

"No, I believe you believe you saw mermaids," said Louis. "I do not believe in mermaids, and I actively doubt your mermaid catching ability.

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