THE GUN KETCH

'Oh, stap me, he's commanding the Bahamas Station!' Alan cried. 'They could ruin me if I treat 'em less than royal. Gawddd!'

'We took tea together this afternoon,' Caroline said. 'He said your commodore already had his wife, son and daughter out there. The son's in the Navy, too. A midshipman, I think he told me. Or maybe he'd just made lieutenant. I forget. They're a formidable pair. And with two wagonloads of goods. So they couldn't have left a poor parish,' she decided. 'Unless they looted it on their way out.'

'Two wagonloads, Lord,' Alan groaned. 'Where'll I stow it all? Maybe I should just give 'em my cabins for the entire voyage. And I'll leave 'em blue and rose, too. That ought to be grand enough for 'em.'

'I think they're lovely.'

'The Navy wouldn't. I should have painted earlier. Let them describe their quarters to Commodore Garvey once they get to Nassau, he'll think me a primping dancing-master.'

'1 still say they looked elegant,' Caroline decided aloud. 'Found lodgings yet?' he inquired. 'There's little time left.'

'I know, my love!' She sighed as she burrowed deeper into him with sudden ardor. 'I've seen several. I'll take care of it, never fear. Oh, God, this is going to be so hard, to watch you sail away, and here I am, in Portsmouth, where I don't know a soul! Four days?' She wailed softly.

'Four days we should make the most of,' Alan muttered, running a hand over her hip and thigh, delighting in her shivers of expectation. That night in Petersfield, they'd left a candle burning in their eagerness, and she'd come to him with a robe on, not a bedgown. A robe which slid down her shoulders and parted to reveal a girlish slimness, a veritable feast of creamy skin andproud young, close-set breasts, a taut, flat belly trimmed by riding, and long, incredibly fine and tapering smooth legs. He still had not gotten over the wonder of being with anyone so delectable, of her being his to caress and stroke into passion at a whim.

Like Venus on the half-shell, he exulted silently, like Aphrodite rising from the waves… but even better!

'You don't think me gawky and spindle-shanked?' she teased him as he nuzzled her graceful neck. 'You don't prefer more roundness?'

'God, Caroline, you're the loveliest woman ever I did see!' he told her truthfully. She rolled on top of him to kiss him, to receive his kisses as his hands slid down to her firm little buttocks to draw the bedgown higher.

She uttered a thrilling little laugh as he found her hips, as his fingertips brushed her bare flesh.

She sat up astride of him to lift the bedgown over her head, raising her arms high and inclining her head with her hair loose and long like a silvery shimmer in the almost-dark. His hands rose to take possession of her firm breasts and she leaned into his palms for support, and excitement.

'Rough hands,' she whispered, taking one so she could kiss it. 'A sailor's hands. Rough from all those ropes and things.'

'Too rough on you?' he grunted in rising ardor.

'Never a bit of it, my love,' she chuckled again, softer. 'I know it's not seemly, but I want you to teach me something new, Alan.'

'Wanton jade!' he teased, sitting up a little to nuzzle at her nipples, which had gone puckery-hard from his caresses.

'Your wanton jade!' she promised, going goose-pimply with rising delight. 'Only yours, darling. Make me yours again.'

He drew her down to him, enfolding her in his arms so they were drawn against each other, her knees up by his chest, and one hand of his stroking the softest, most intimate of her flesh.

'Oh, God, but making love is so…' she moaned, near to transport. Her hips were moving now against his hand, her upper body rocking slowly left and right. She began to slide off to draw him over, but he stopped her. 'Come to me, now,' she implored.

'Right where you are, love,' he grinned.

'Oh, yes!' she sighed, gasping as she felt his member brushing her. She slid down just a trifle, rose up on her palms as he fitted himself to her and thrust upwards with gentle but insistent pressure.

Down a little more she slid, then gave out with an inarticulate groan of surprise and pleasure as he slid deep.

'Riding St. George,' he exulted as she made more happy groaning sounds, each ending in a rising note.

'The dragon spitted, 'pon his lance below… ohh!' she laughed.

'Sit up, darling,' he coaxed. 'Sit up, Caroline!'

'Oh, it's so… oh, yes!' She bit her lip, rolled her head to either side. He took her hands and held them tight, their fingers entwined fiercely. Hips rocking, upper body swaying, her head far back and her throat bared to the ceiling in her ecstasy, she met his movements, anticipated and amplified them. 'Oh, so completely… so deeply! Jesus, I'll surely die of more! Ahh-hahhh!'

'Then I think we'll die together,' Alan panted, swooning, with the entire world reduced to the friction of moist flesh, and his own release building like the pressure from a powder charge in gun's barrel. Time slowed down, time had no meaning, the planet and its tawdry doings ended beyond what they could touch, feel, or hear. And then she broke, weeping with release, crying out as if given a tiny glimpse of paradise, and he took hold of her slim hips and firm little bottom, and drove upwards, reveling in the creaking of ropes that supported their mattress, the pump- washer sound of their two bodies fused, her astonished further cries as she collapsed on top of him with her breasts brushing his chest, and then the far-away groan he shouted to the night as his groin and his brain exploded into royal fireworks.

Neither of them had an ear for the irritated thumping of the lodgers next door. Not the first time that night, nor the second.

'It's so unfair,' she whispered much later, after their third congress of the night, just before well-earned sleep.

'What is?' Alan mumbled, his mind reeling.

'That we, at last, know joy of each other for such a short time before we must part,' she sighed, snuggling down inside his embrace, one thigh across his exhausted lap and her long hair draped over his chest. 'I wish you could smuggle me aboard your ship and take me wherever you go. To know so much pleasure from your dear hands, Alan. And then to be deprived for three whole years!'

'It's a hellish wrench for me, too, darling girl,' he admitted, eyes shut and almost glued together for want of sleep.

'If only we had longer, a year or more, so I might have grown accustomed,' she wished. 'Or does it ever cease to be such a wonder? Will making love with each other be forever this new and daring, dear?'With our enthusiasm, I'd wager deep on forever,' he chuckled as he stroked her long, smooth back.

'Spinsters succumb to the green sickness,' Caroline muttered.

'Now what would you know of that?' he chid her gently.

'Fall ill and die for lack of it!' she laughed. 'And their only cure is… this. Now I know how marvelous it is, I'll be taken to my bed for want of more! We both will. You'll sail back from the West Indies and find me wasted away to nothing, from want of you, and nought a cure for me but your rapt… attentions! None but your kisses and caresses will save me.'

'Then I wish us a very long recovery,' he rejoined.

Several long minutes passed as Lewrie began to breathe deep on the verge of slumber, then:

'Alan?'

'Ahmm,' he uttered.

'I can't go home to Anglesgreen.'

'Uhmm, I know.'

'And I don't know a soul in Portsmouth,' she went on softly.

'Uhmmhmrn.'

'Reverend Townsley is taking his wife out there. And your superior thinggummy in Nassau… he has his wife and daughter with him already. There're so many Loyalist families settling in the Bahamas. With their wives and children. We once considered Eleuthera, ourselves.'

'Hmm?'

'Why could you not take me with you?' she queried hopefully.

'Oh, Caroline, it's heat and flies, bad as India,' he grumbled, wakened enough to counter her. 'Mosquitoes,