PART I
MARCH, 1780
ATLANTIC OCEAN, TRADE ROUTE
FROM THE PERIPHERY of her dreams, Celia felt the bed depress beneath her, and though it could not possibly have been Dindi, Celia cast the irregularity of it to the back of her sleep-induced haze and remained settled in the darkness of slumber.
She should not have, she discovered, when a stranger’s lips pressed harshly against hers. Her eyes popped open, her heart lodged in her throat, and her stomach lurched—
Light eyes twinkled in the moonlight piercing through the darkness.
Then she tasted rum and cocoa.
She opened her mouth and wrapped her arms around the man’s broad shoulders, under and through his long silky hair, his skin cold and a bit damp from his midnight row.
“Ah, now that’s a greeting I didn’t expect,” he whispered into her mouth.
“Not even after I ordered my sails trimmed? I expected you days ago.”
He stilled, and she felt him smile against her lips. “And now we are becalmed.”
“Aye. I want my figurehead back.”
“Is that why you are so willing? You’ll fuck me to retrieve it?”
“If I must.”
He chuckled and hoisted himself off the bed to pull the linens back. “Share your bedclothes.”
“Why?” she asked as she moved to accommodate his big body and held the linens for him to slip in.
“Because I’m cold,” he said wryly, and proceeded to prove the point by rolling up against her so that they were cold skin to warm.
Celia squeaked. “God’s teeth, Judas. First you mistake me for a whore, and then you mistake me for a warming brick.”
“And yet you have not chased me out of your cabin for my audacious invasion of your ship and your person. You haven’t even fled to the other side of the bed.”
“You sound particularly pleased with yourself. I told you there were many ways to gain my undivided attention for a night or six.”
“And this is one of them.”
“It is now, although if you had a faster ship, you could have ordered me to heave to and boarded me.”
“I intend to board you, Madam, never fear. And I am keeping your figurehead.”
“Aye, I thought you might say that. I will simply sink your ship, then. If I cannot have it, neither can you.”
He ignored that. “I would like to discuss your questionable judgment in methods for running British blockades.”
Celia laughed. “And all this time I thought talking was the last thing you would wish to do.”
“In time, my love. In time. I’m intrigued. I want to know your mind as much as your body.”
“My mind is not engaged at the moment, Sir,” she murmured and rubbed her palm carefully down his body, thumbing his pap along the way, feeling the hard muscles of his torso—its scars—the peak of his hip, to the nest of curls around his cock. It was flaccid at the moment, but she would expect no less considering the cold. “And it won’t be long until yours is no longer engaged. Kiss me.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” he muttered as if he had no choice, pressing his mouth against hers again, opening her lips expertly with his.
It wasn’t the first time Celia had been tempted into bed by a virtual stranger, but it was the first time a man had made such a concerted and sustained effort to get her there.
It was also the first time she had bedded a man who was her equal at sea.
Aye, he was a special one, one she wanted to know better, and she did not ken why she was so hungry for a man she did not know that she would tolerate his violations of her property and her person. “Why?” she whispered against his mouth, her fingers running through his long, damp, salt-laden hair.
“Why not?”
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
*unzips pants*
You have no idea.
Pirates didn’t use zippers, like the Amish.
“I intend to board you, Madam, never fear. And I am keeping your figurehead.”
Well, Im guessing it was too late for her maidenhead.
*ba-doom kssh*
Where all the white women at on the zooms?
Y my peepee so hard?
You’re suffering from genetal ossification. Soom it will be extremely painful, then the flesh around the root will turn black, and it will fall off.
Sorry.
Admittedly, that diagnosis came from WebMD. At least it’s not cancer.
That’s no cod in the piece.
Indeed, their bunk is well-laden. *chk-chk*I freely admit that because I’m reading here, my mind may be inserting euphemisms where they may not belong. Well. When she talks about ‘trimming sails’ here, she perhaps is *also* referencing her care for her lady garden. (I’m either childish or sneakily sage…)
Your purposeful ones and other language choices nicely spice things up! I anticipate much more docking and boarding in their future.
No.
Sometimes the drapes are just blue
-1 Blue Waffle
thanks for the article.
interesting reading
So what you’re saying is, curtains in fiction should be blue, and other colors are aberrations intending to subvert expectations about fictional curtains?
So, you are saying he was depressed?
One of my high school English teachers claimed that in Catcher in the Rye, some chick’s green dress symbolized hope. I found that ridiculous, as if all you needed to fully appreciate literature was the right decoder ring. 🙄
I failed 9th grade English because of this shit. My brain just doesn’t work like that.
But do the drapes match the carpet?
I’d say the author accomplished her goal, then! The two of them, together with obvious tension… Wouldn’t be *my* fault I read more sexual mist in the air than she ‘intended’… I don’t recall being aroused when I started reading…
I was wise to include the ‘perhaps.’ It’s a fun part of being a p̵o̵l̵i̵t̵i̵c̵i̵a̵n̵ ̵P̵R̵ ̵m̵a̵r̵k̵e̵t̵i̵n̵g̵ … book-reader person! Just add ‘perhaps’ and other mays, coulds, woulds and shoulds to make everything as vague and indistinct as possible! Nothing you say really means anything and life happily drifts along. *makes cute ‘Agree with the Child’ face for cameras*
I failed 9th grade English because of this shit. My brain just doesn’t work like that.
Me too. “What was the author’s intent?” How the fuck should I know / probably to pay the fucking mortgage.
🥴
Someone is about to get a jolly rogering.
There was a retired journalist from some west coast newspaper, I want to say in LA or San Diego or maybe even San Francisco, who ended up an expat somewhere in Baja writing a blog. This would have been ten years ago and he may well be dead now, but does that ring a bell for anyone?
John McAfee ?
I said might be dead. John’s alive and plotting revenge.
Or doing PCP with Guatemalans and taking potshots at the American embassy with a Saudi Arabian-sourced 50-cal rifle, trying to put out the floodlights.
+ Bath Salts
The guy I’m thinking of was an interesting semi-conservative libertarianish (but honestly, if you’re at all conservative these days, you’re basically a libertarian. Maybe it’s the other way around) voice. I don’t know why it occurred to me today to think of him, but he had some damn fun articles I recall.
Good football game again tonight. Texas female fans seem much more attractive than tOSU females.
I’m spent. What a fucking game.
I lost my second dollar. Your score prediction was off.
I made that comment to a friend of mine. And Ive lived in Tejas.
“At this moment it may be heresy, but Lord help me, those Texas girls are cute.”
Yep, they are.
I wound up rooting for OSU, as Mrs. Dean pointed out that if UT wins the national championship, their fan base will be absolutely unbearable for many6 years to come, whereas the OSU fans will just preen and strut for a year or so.
Boioioinnnggg.
Up early waiting for a preorder….
Re: the Fallout 1/2 discussion – I think going back to a little after the original F2 release dates (maybe Fallout Tactics when the “new game” release patch came out right as the company was going defunct – the biggest issue for any updates was the legal issues with Interplay crashing and burning and splitting in 15 different directions (which impacted a lot of other old properties) – including D&D IIRC.
Really looking forward to Fallout 5: San Andreas.
Now it’s up to ND to squash those fuckeyes.
Was Texas robbed by the refs or not?
And how does longhorn steak taste like comparrd to angus?
Very chewy, as I understand.
Pie – do you have any recommendations for euro weather apps or sites? I used to use weatherbug – but they don’t seem to have any accuracy for the local radar picture for active rain, precipitation, etc – although the temps and other generic info seems ok.
Nope. I did not reasearch though. I use accuweather on my phone out of habbit not that accurate but dont know if others are.
I don’t look at European weather very often but Weather Underground seems to be pretty solid.
Thanks for the suggestion…seems to be about the same radar as weatherbug….must just be the local picture. Not like the “storm trackers” every US local station has with the ultra-detailed dopplers, etc. I’ll have to check later to see if Germany or the UK really have more detailed current pictures.
It was starting to rain on me outside (forecast is rain for most of the day) – not a visible blip on any of the radar pictures.
Good China Show episode from yesterday. Starts at a key segment covering Temu safety issues.
Good morning Glibbertariat!
😛☕️🤷🏽♀️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRYZijLZR-Q
🎶🎶
Morning.
Safe travels, UCS.
Thanks
Today is when I’m spending most of my time visiting the family. The long drive continues tomorrow.
Good morning Sean, U, Stinky, and Suthen, and good afternoon, Fishy and Pie!
😄
How goes?
Snowy (again/still.) At least I don’t have to go to work or anywhere else – just shovel the front walk.
How are you?
I guess I’m all right. I had a nice layer of glaze ice on my car, but the roads appear to have been cleared.
That’s encouraging! Still, be careful out there!
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/01/09/whitney-cummings-sarah-michelle-gellar-leads-flurry-of-hollywood-celebrities-turning-on-democrats-amid-l-a-wildfires/
I wanna see SMG in a MAGA hat.
Always liked Gellar, the hottest ‘90s girl next to Hit Me Baby One More Time Britney Spears but way more stable.
Concur.
Temu, TikTok, what the hell? It’s the Chinese, people. Everything they do is a scam or fraud of some kind. Do not have anything to do with them.
The TikTok ban/sale is being debated now. They are trying to make it a free speech issue. Should we have shrugged off the Rosenberg’s debacle because they were just exercising their free speech rights? How about this: The US govt works for the American citizen (dont laugh), they are not obligated to protect the rights of non-citizens. I dont hire workmen to fix my neighbor’s house, I hire them to fix mine. The US govt is just the hired help. They work for me, not the Chinese.
Just a thought.
I agree with you more often than not but not on this one. If American citizens want to use these platforms, which is admittedly stupid IMHO, and it’s interfered with their rights of expression and free will in general are being interfered with. Also, this will be expanded to other foreign and potentially even American owned companies. Don’t follow fed gov stipulations of various random kinds and you’re shut down.
NRO seems to think it’s better to focus on the security/privacy aspects than “freedom of speech” in this case due to it’s implications in the future. Which makes sense. This also seems to be going to be a broad decision – not the usual lib/con split.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/tiktoks-bad-day-at-the-supreme-court/
I dunno. The individual’s right to use the platform is unchanged regardless of who owns it. There wasn’t some kind of 1A objection to Musk acquiring Twitter, after all. It’s just not clear to me at all what Americans’ rights are violated by forcing a sale of TikTok.
As far as what Constitutional rights TikTok has, I think the Justices are onto something – if it is essentially an arm of the Chinese government, none at all. Also, one does wonder how far to push legal fiction of corporate personhood, which was created to allow them to enter contracts and sue/be sued in court (mainly to enforce contracts).
There was a time when Americans would refuse to deal with such an entity out of principle – no need for the government to dictate the terms.
https://x.com/DefiantWorld/status/1877846631783215222
😂🤣
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/lehighvalley/lehigh-county/allentown-area/police-investigate-after-item-resembling-noose-found-on-employees-desk-council-members-call-it-hate/article_2c8958cc-cfaf-11ef-b42a-9f3036bdf4e6.html
Nooses are back!
Racists everywhere!
🙄🙄🙄
“a small object that looked like a noose”
So, not a noose at all.
Show us a picture of the offending small object, ya fucks.
Just in time for Trump – what a coincidence!
Interesting perspective.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/01/an-alternative-to-buying-greenland-that-could-actually-work/
Only if Fetterlump gets to be Pope of Greenland.