![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mithenTitle: Carnival Night in Barcelona
Pairing: Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin
Warnings: Sexual activity between consenting teens.
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 3100
Summary: A midshipman and a student meet by chance in the streets of Barcelona on a night of masks and secrets.
Notes: Written for the Advent Calendar at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
perfect_duet . Takes place somewhat before Midshipman Jack Aubrey becomes infamous for smuggling a girl on board. *grin*
"Gentlemen, it is nearly midnight, and we have lost sight of our sacred duty," declared George Black. He took a long swig from his bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "And that duty is...to find Midshipman Aubrey a woman."
Cheers of approval went around the little group of sailors as they wove through the street, dodging merry-makers. The midshipman in question tore his eyes from a man who appeared to be eating fire, feeling his face flush. "I've had plenty of women," Jack Aubrey growled. "I'm not a boy."
Hoots of laughter met his assertion, and George reached out to rub his cheeks with a rough hand. "So true, young Jack, surely you've been shaving for weeks now."
Jack knocked his hand away. "Leave off, George," he snarled.
George glowered at him, but didn't strike him back. This may have been because despite being one of the younger midshipmen, Jack Aubrey was nearly of a height with the older boy, with wider shoulders. Instead, George addressed the rest of the knot of young men: "We all deserve a little fun tonight," he announced. "And there's no better time than Carnival in Barcelona! A city full of lovely masked wenches, a night where anything goes--" One of the other midshipmen said something about the captain warning them not to make trouble, the fragile peace between their countries...but George was having none of it. "How about that one?" He pointed to a woman in a low-cut gown wearing a mask of turquoise feathers and beads who was eyeing the group with a smile. "We could share her." He started toward her, but his progress was cut off by an impromptu parade carrying flaming torches and dancing on stilts. "How about it, Aubrey?"
He looked around, but Jack Aubrey was gone.
: : :
Jack continued with the parade for another few blocks. One of the masked figures, seeing his furtive look, had cast a cloak around him to cover his uniform and his distinctive yellow hair, laughing at his grateful look. When he went to return it, the clown just shook his head, still laughing. Jack handed him his bottle of wine and the clown saluted him with it and danced on.
Jack pulled the cloak more tightly around himself and moved alone into the Barcelona crowd, hearing the lilting sounds of Spanish all around him, feeling simultaneously totally alone and part of a strange and seething mass. In front of him, a woman took a man by the hand and pulled him into the shadows of an alley, her arms twining around his neck. Jack felt his blood stir: he'd wanted a woman, yes, but not as part of some crude escapade with George Black and the other boys. He wanted to lose himself in a woman's body, his hands in her hair and his flesh in her flesh. He wasn't nearly as green as the other midshipman seemed to think he was, but he didn't need to prove that to them, or to anyone.
He stopped at a stall and bought a blue beaded domino, watching the women go by. Many appreciative glances were cast his way, but he continued to walk the streets, his eyes scanning the crowd, a restless feeling gripping him. What was wrong with him tonight, he wondered--just find a willing girl and enjoy the release, you fool. And yet--
The crowd parted and a long hooded scarlet cloak gleamed in front of him. As Jack blinked, the figure turned, and he saw a white feathered mask in the recesses of the hood, a gleam of eyes in the shadow and just the hint of curving lips beneath the mask, pale and unpainted but somehow sensual.
Then the mask turned away and the figure began to move through the crowd again.
Jack found himself following, watching the movement of slender crimson-clad hips--not nearly as voluptuous as he usually preferred his girls, he reflected, and yet there was a casual confidence to the steps that somehow drew his eye. The wine and something more burned in him, and he moved into the shadowed alley with animal anticipation drawing him on.
: : :
The sun was setting as Esteban Maturin y Domanova gazed out of the window at the city. Firelight from bonfires was already starting to flicker along the walls, and the Carnival was approaching its height. Possibly his last Carnival in Barcelona. Soon he would be going back to Ireland and to school there, soon he would be Stephen Maturin once more. He sighed and tried to return to his biology textbook, but tonight even a diagram of the musculature of a swallow's wing failed to hold his attention for long. Faint music from the streets caught his ears, and he found himself thinking of Carnival, and of things he had heard his cousins whispering about: certain places of the city, and certain signs by which a person of...certain tastes could be known.
He had never dared, before. But tonight he was facing an uncertain future, and that uneasiness made it more difficult to ignore a side of him that he was usually able to push aside. One night before you go back to Ireland, a part of him whispered. One night that you can leave behind and never think of again.
One night.
An hour later, a slim figure in a scarlet cloak slipped over the wall of the Domanova villa. A domino mask adorned with white feathers--Columba palumbus, most likely--covered the top half of his face.
Stephen Maturin vanished into the streets of Barcelona, letting the crowd whirl him up and carry him along, abandoning his fear.
: : :
Shadows flickered along the red cloak as Jack pursued it through the darkening streets. He kept losing it in the crowd, then finding it again, feeling lust jump in him anew each time he spotted the patch of scarlet color. Scarlet, he decided to call her. His elusive Scarlet. It was maddening, to draw close and then have his quarry slip further away again. His hands itched to close on red cloth and pull his prey against him, hear their heartbeats up against each other as he plundered that coy curving mouth. He was almost close enough to reach out and touch Scarlet now, and part of him noted with surprise that they were nearly of a height. He'd been so busy watching the movement of those red-clad hips--his eyes fell to them again and he heard himself growl in anticipation as he closed the distance a little more.
Scarlet ducked around a corner into a quiet alley, and Jack followed almost at a run.
The alley was dark, with embracing couples moving in the shadows, sounds of pleasure and satisfaction murmuring along the walls. Jack ignored them, barely hearing them over the pounding of his own heart as he finally caught up with his tormenting mirage in a small alcove.
He seized the crimson shoulders and spun his temptress around, pushing the shoulders against the wall and bending to kiss the exposed throat with a groan of delight. Hands slid under his cloak, running down his body to come down to his hips and pull him close with--with surprising strength. And beneath Jack's lips--
Well, he was neither so drunk nor so lust-besotted that he didn't know an Adam's apple when he felt one.
He snapped his head up in shock and started to stammer some kind of apology, excuse, he wasn't sure what. But when he lifted his head, the figure in the red cloak pulled him into a kiss. It was a very assertive and unsubmissive kiss indeed, and although Jack kept intending to break it and explain the mistake, somehow his mouth never seemed to get around to it. In fact, his body was moving up against the figure--the young man, there was really no denying that particular fact any more--with a relish that should probably be mortifying, except it wasn't. He grabbed Scarlet's hips and pulled him hard against him, and Scarlet gasped and murmured something in Spanish that Jack couldn't understand but sounded admiring. Fingers went to his breech buttons; the white feathered mask gleamed at him, and under it the mobile mouth quirked and a pink tongue touched pale lips, a frankly sensual gesture that made Jack--God help him--groan out loud, his head swimming.
Scarlet went to his knees, looking up at Jack as he unbuttoned his breeches, still smiling. "Sí?" he murmured, and for a moment Jack thought he was saying "See?" as if in triumph at proof of Jack's undeniable and burgeoning turpitude. Then he remembered where he was, and struggled to find some language, any language. He should say "No," or whatever that was in Spanish. He should push away this temptation and flee the alley, back to the comfortable gibes of his compatriots.
He heard himself say "Sí," his voice faltering, and couldn't even bring himself to regret it.
The red-hooded head bent, and Jack gasped, almost staggering; in all his affectionate, energetic fumbles with various women he'd never encountered this. Wet slickness, the very slightest graze of teeth, an ungodly tantalizing shifting pressure that seemed to coax and demand and tease. It was so good, he was wound up so tight and needing release, and he could hear himself saying amazingly lewd things about that mouth and what it was doing and how good it was. He felt a flush of embarrassment at his own coarse language--he'd never speak that way to a lady, or even a woman--but then remembered that his Scarlet was Spanish and could make no sense of his words. Scarlet moaned something inarticulate but rapturous, and Jack took that as a sign he liked the sound of Jack's voice, so he stopped worrying about it and kept talking.
Climax took him by surprise in mid-sentence, words tumbling away into a wordless cry of satisfaction. He leaned against the brick wall, gasping with pleasure, and heard Scarlet swallow, which would have surprised him further if he had felt capable of anything beyond pleasure.
There was a gentle re-buttoning, and Scarlet stood, wiping his mouth. His once-pale lips under the white mask were deliciously reddened and swollen, and without thinking Jack leaned forward to kiss them.
But before their mouths could meet, Scarlet met his eyes and blurted out, "But...you are English!"
: : :
The blue-beaded mask halted inches from Stephen's face, then retreated, and he cursed himself. He had wanted so much to feel that mouth on his again...
"You...speak English?" The deep voice cracked slightly, and Stephen realized with a jolt that the broad shoulders had hidden the man's true age, which couldn't be much older than his own.
Only every nuance of each delightfully wicked and sinful thing you were just saying to me, which has left me nearly incapable of rational thought. "I have studied your tongue, señor."
The Englishman was blushing, the fair cheeks beneath the mask ruddy, but he chuckled slightly at Stephen's words. "And I yours now, apparently." He shook his head before Stephen could respond. "Never mind, it don't translate well, I'm sure."
Stephen touched the brass buttons under the heavy cloak. "You are a sailor?" He thanked heaven that after years of living in Spain his accent was indeterminate: neither side of his family would be delighted that he was dallying with an Englishman, of that he was sure.
Though when he thought on it, it was likely that it was the man they would disapprove of, more than the English. But at the moment, with the animal warmth of the man near and his own blood still stirred, neither seemed to signify.
The man bent and nuzzled his neck; a lock of his hair fell across Stephen's lips, thick and yellow and smelling of salt sweat. "Yes. I've never been here, never seen anything like this--I've never--" He broke off, lapping at Stephen's Adam's apple, and Stephen felt an odd quaver in his chest that stretched his lips upward: he'd come to Carnival seeking an experienced older lover to teach him the ways of the flesh, and ended up with a boy as inexperienced as himself!
"But you," the sailor murmured, "You're still..." His voice trailed off, but he pressed against Stephen and his meaning was plain enough, as was Stephen's muffled gasp. "I don't know what to do," he said helplessly. "Could we--is there some way I could--"
He swiveled his body in a sort of mute, confused explanation, and Stephen realized with a shock what he was offering. The suggestion was as unexpected as the thrill that went through him at the idea, but he shook his head, plucking the vaguely waving hand out of the air.
"I don't believe that's possible, but if you are willing to--" He drew the hand down toward the relevant portion of his anatomy, and the sailor's eyes widened.
"Yes, if you--ah, I would like--I mean, I wouldn't mind--" he stammered, sounding very young once more as he fumbled at Stephen's buttons.
He was much less articulate than he had been just a moment ago, Stephen mused. But then a warm and very large hand enveloped him completely and he gasped and pushed against it, his knees going weak.
A strong arm around him held him up, the other still caressing. "Oh," murmured a voice at his ear. "I like it when you make sounds like that."
Stephen bit his lip, but his pride was not strong enough to prevent another soft sound of delight from slipping between his lips. His head lolled back against a broad shoulder and he could feel his eyes sliding shut.
"You seemed to enjoy when I talked to you before, my scarlet one," the low English voice breathed in his ear. "Do you want me to keep talking?" Torn by delight, Stephen managed a nod, and a chuckle brushed his earlobe. "My masked tempter, my sinful white-feathered angel with the gorgeous prick." Stephen felt a complicated mix of hilarity and lust at the mix of the poetic and the crude, but the lust was definitely winning out. "I can't possibly make you feel as good as you did me--" At the moment Stephen fervently doubted that, but was in no position to argue, "--with your clever, lovely mouth, my own dear incubus. An incubus with a pert arse, you are."
It didn't take long; the strong calloused hand was tormentingly good, and the words in his ear urged him on. Any effort to remain clinically detached, to categorize and label his physical reactions, was stymied by the sheer physical presence of the man caressing him and murmuring in his ear. He shuddered as spasms wracked his body, relaxing back into the embrace of the man holding him, and felt a strange sense of unreality, of dawning surprise. Not at the pleasure: he had expected it to feel good.
He had not, however, expected it to feel right.
The Englishman kissed his ear, then his cheek, and Stephen waited for the wave of disgust and self-loathing to wash over him now that his carnal needs were met. But instead he turned his head into the kiss and felt only something that he suspected was close to happiness. Even the necessary acts of cleaning and tidying his blissfully-quiescent privates did not arouse repulsion.
It was very odd, he reflected as he buttoned his breeches, and allowed himself to be gathered up by fistfuls of cloak and kissed soundly once more.
: : :
"The night is over," murmured Scarlet, the white-feathered mask turning to gaze up at the graying sky.
Jack ignored him, nuzzling his neck, caressing the sinews with his lips. They had slaked their lust with each other a second time, and then a third; each time Jack had wondered if his lover would extricate himself and move on to another, and each time he had not.
Each time Jack had been relieved.
"You must get back to your fellows, and I to home," said the voice in its soft Spanish accent (Spanish? It seemed different from other Spanish voices. But perhaps Scarlet was from the mountains).
"I don't want to," muttered Jack.
"Nor do I, heart. But Carnival is over and we must return to reality." Long, slender fingers touched his cheek. "Believe me that I regret it as deeply as you do, but you know this--" a quick kiss, feather-light, "--can never work. You have your life and I mine, and we must live them. But--thank you. For everything." The red-robed figure stepped away from Jack, the narrow mouth nearly-smiling, though the lower lip twitched slightly. "Fare well, my sailor."
"Wait!" Jack put a hand to his own mask. "Don't I get to see who you really are?"
The almost-smile deepened, although Scarlet shook his head. "My dear, do you think you haven't?"
Then he turned and hurried from the alley, through the gathering gray morn.
Jack didn't move until the red cloak disappeared entirely from view.
: : :
They sailed from Barcelona that afternoon, with good tide and a fair wind. The other middies teased Jack mercilessly about slipping off, asking for ribald details of his evening. Jack largely ignored them, focusing on his duties, on the rough ropes beneath his hands and the scent of the sea. But as the wind filled the sails and the ship came to life beneath them, he gazed back at Barcelona for so long that even his friends nudged him. "You're a complete mooncalf today, Aubrey," one said with an almost-concerned laugh. "What exactly was your paramour like?"
Jack Aubrey closed his eyes, feeling the sea wind in his hair like deft fingers.
"Perfect," he said, and let the wind carry the word away.
: : :
Three months later, Stephen Maturin boarded a ship to Dublin. If he had been more withdrawn since Carnival, none worried about it; if he had seemed more at peace, none noted it.
For a while, he slipped down to Dublin Port to watch the ships come in, to look at blond sailors with wide shoulders. But he saw none with a sensual mouth or hands that could give pleasure, so eventually he stopped. It was just one night, after all. It was best to try to put it out of his mind, so he did. And he largely succeeded.
But now and then he found himself gazing out to sea, as if watching for a distant and longed-for sail.
Pairing: Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin
Warnings: Sexual activity between consenting teens.
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 3100
Summary: A midshipman and a student meet by chance in the streets of Barcelona on a night of masks and secrets.
Notes: Written for the Advent Calendar at
perfect_duet . Takes place somewhat before Midshipman Jack Aubrey becomes infamous for smuggling a girl on board. *grin*"Gentlemen, it is nearly midnight, and we have lost sight of our sacred duty," declared George Black. He took a long swig from his bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "And that duty is...to find Midshipman Aubrey a woman."
Cheers of approval went around the little group of sailors as they wove through the street, dodging merry-makers. The midshipman in question tore his eyes from a man who appeared to be eating fire, feeling his face flush. "I've had plenty of women," Jack Aubrey growled. "I'm not a boy."
Hoots of laughter met his assertion, and George reached out to rub his cheeks with a rough hand. "So true, young Jack, surely you've been shaving for weeks now."
Jack knocked his hand away. "Leave off, George," he snarled.
George glowered at him, but didn't strike him back. This may have been because despite being one of the younger midshipmen, Jack Aubrey was nearly of a height with the older boy, with wider shoulders. Instead, George addressed the rest of the knot of young men: "We all deserve a little fun tonight," he announced. "And there's no better time than Carnival in Barcelona! A city full of lovely masked wenches, a night where anything goes--" One of the other midshipmen said something about the captain warning them not to make trouble, the fragile peace between their countries...but George was having none of it. "How about that one?" He pointed to a woman in a low-cut gown wearing a mask of turquoise feathers and beads who was eyeing the group with a smile. "We could share her." He started toward her, but his progress was cut off by an impromptu parade carrying flaming torches and dancing on stilts. "How about it, Aubrey?"
He looked around, but Jack Aubrey was gone.
: : :
Jack continued with the parade for another few blocks. One of the masked figures, seeing his furtive look, had cast a cloak around him to cover his uniform and his distinctive yellow hair, laughing at his grateful look. When he went to return it, the clown just shook his head, still laughing. Jack handed him his bottle of wine and the clown saluted him with it and danced on.
Jack pulled the cloak more tightly around himself and moved alone into the Barcelona crowd, hearing the lilting sounds of Spanish all around him, feeling simultaneously totally alone and part of a strange and seething mass. In front of him, a woman took a man by the hand and pulled him into the shadows of an alley, her arms twining around his neck. Jack felt his blood stir: he'd wanted a woman, yes, but not as part of some crude escapade with George Black and the other boys. He wanted to lose himself in a woman's body, his hands in her hair and his flesh in her flesh. He wasn't nearly as green as the other midshipman seemed to think he was, but he didn't need to prove that to them, or to anyone.
He stopped at a stall and bought a blue beaded domino, watching the women go by. Many appreciative glances were cast his way, but he continued to walk the streets, his eyes scanning the crowd, a restless feeling gripping him. What was wrong with him tonight, he wondered--just find a willing girl and enjoy the release, you fool. And yet--
The crowd parted and a long hooded scarlet cloak gleamed in front of him. As Jack blinked, the figure turned, and he saw a white feathered mask in the recesses of the hood, a gleam of eyes in the shadow and just the hint of curving lips beneath the mask, pale and unpainted but somehow sensual.
Then the mask turned away and the figure began to move through the crowd again.
Jack found himself following, watching the movement of slender crimson-clad hips--not nearly as voluptuous as he usually preferred his girls, he reflected, and yet there was a casual confidence to the steps that somehow drew his eye. The wine and something more burned in him, and he moved into the shadowed alley with animal anticipation drawing him on.
: : :
The sun was setting as Esteban Maturin y Domanova gazed out of the window at the city. Firelight from bonfires was already starting to flicker along the walls, and the Carnival was approaching its height. Possibly his last Carnival in Barcelona. Soon he would be going back to Ireland and to school there, soon he would be Stephen Maturin once more. He sighed and tried to return to his biology textbook, but tonight even a diagram of the musculature of a swallow's wing failed to hold his attention for long. Faint music from the streets caught his ears, and he found himself thinking of Carnival, and of things he had heard his cousins whispering about: certain places of the city, and certain signs by which a person of...certain tastes could be known.
He had never dared, before. But tonight he was facing an uncertain future, and that uneasiness made it more difficult to ignore a side of him that he was usually able to push aside. One night before you go back to Ireland, a part of him whispered. One night that you can leave behind and never think of again.
One night.
An hour later, a slim figure in a scarlet cloak slipped over the wall of the Domanova villa. A domino mask adorned with white feathers--Columba palumbus, most likely--covered the top half of his face.
Stephen Maturin vanished into the streets of Barcelona, letting the crowd whirl him up and carry him along, abandoning his fear.
: : :
Shadows flickered along the red cloak as Jack pursued it through the darkening streets. He kept losing it in the crowd, then finding it again, feeling lust jump in him anew each time he spotted the patch of scarlet color. Scarlet, he decided to call her. His elusive Scarlet. It was maddening, to draw close and then have his quarry slip further away again. His hands itched to close on red cloth and pull his prey against him, hear their heartbeats up against each other as he plundered that coy curving mouth. He was almost close enough to reach out and touch Scarlet now, and part of him noted with surprise that they were nearly of a height. He'd been so busy watching the movement of those red-clad hips--his eyes fell to them again and he heard himself growl in anticipation as he closed the distance a little more.
Scarlet ducked around a corner into a quiet alley, and Jack followed almost at a run.
The alley was dark, with embracing couples moving in the shadows, sounds of pleasure and satisfaction murmuring along the walls. Jack ignored them, barely hearing them over the pounding of his own heart as he finally caught up with his tormenting mirage in a small alcove.
He seized the crimson shoulders and spun his temptress around, pushing the shoulders against the wall and bending to kiss the exposed throat with a groan of delight. Hands slid under his cloak, running down his body to come down to his hips and pull him close with--with surprising strength. And beneath Jack's lips--
Well, he was neither so drunk nor so lust-besotted that he didn't know an Adam's apple when he felt one.
He snapped his head up in shock and started to stammer some kind of apology, excuse, he wasn't sure what. But when he lifted his head, the figure in the red cloak pulled him into a kiss. It was a very assertive and unsubmissive kiss indeed, and although Jack kept intending to break it and explain the mistake, somehow his mouth never seemed to get around to it. In fact, his body was moving up against the figure--the young man, there was really no denying that particular fact any more--with a relish that should probably be mortifying, except it wasn't. He grabbed Scarlet's hips and pulled him hard against him, and Scarlet gasped and murmured something in Spanish that Jack couldn't understand but sounded admiring. Fingers went to his breech buttons; the white feathered mask gleamed at him, and under it the mobile mouth quirked and a pink tongue touched pale lips, a frankly sensual gesture that made Jack--God help him--groan out loud, his head swimming.
Scarlet went to his knees, looking up at Jack as he unbuttoned his breeches, still smiling. "Sí?" he murmured, and for a moment Jack thought he was saying "See?" as if in triumph at proof of Jack's undeniable and burgeoning turpitude. Then he remembered where he was, and struggled to find some language, any language. He should say "No," or whatever that was in Spanish. He should push away this temptation and flee the alley, back to the comfortable gibes of his compatriots.
He heard himself say "Sí," his voice faltering, and couldn't even bring himself to regret it.
The red-hooded head bent, and Jack gasped, almost staggering; in all his affectionate, energetic fumbles with various women he'd never encountered this. Wet slickness, the very slightest graze of teeth, an ungodly tantalizing shifting pressure that seemed to coax and demand and tease. It was so good, he was wound up so tight and needing release, and he could hear himself saying amazingly lewd things about that mouth and what it was doing and how good it was. He felt a flush of embarrassment at his own coarse language--he'd never speak that way to a lady, or even a woman--but then remembered that his Scarlet was Spanish and could make no sense of his words. Scarlet moaned something inarticulate but rapturous, and Jack took that as a sign he liked the sound of Jack's voice, so he stopped worrying about it and kept talking.
Climax took him by surprise in mid-sentence, words tumbling away into a wordless cry of satisfaction. He leaned against the brick wall, gasping with pleasure, and heard Scarlet swallow, which would have surprised him further if he had felt capable of anything beyond pleasure.
There was a gentle re-buttoning, and Scarlet stood, wiping his mouth. His once-pale lips under the white mask were deliciously reddened and swollen, and without thinking Jack leaned forward to kiss them.
But before their mouths could meet, Scarlet met his eyes and blurted out, "But...you are English!"
: : :
The blue-beaded mask halted inches from Stephen's face, then retreated, and he cursed himself. He had wanted so much to feel that mouth on his again...
"You...speak English?" The deep voice cracked slightly, and Stephen realized with a jolt that the broad shoulders had hidden the man's true age, which couldn't be much older than his own.
Only every nuance of each delightfully wicked and sinful thing you were just saying to me, which has left me nearly incapable of rational thought. "I have studied your tongue, señor."
The Englishman was blushing, the fair cheeks beneath the mask ruddy, but he chuckled slightly at Stephen's words. "And I yours now, apparently." He shook his head before Stephen could respond. "Never mind, it don't translate well, I'm sure."
Stephen touched the brass buttons under the heavy cloak. "You are a sailor?" He thanked heaven that after years of living in Spain his accent was indeterminate: neither side of his family would be delighted that he was dallying with an Englishman, of that he was sure.
Though when he thought on it, it was likely that it was the man they would disapprove of, more than the English. But at the moment, with the animal warmth of the man near and his own blood still stirred, neither seemed to signify.
The man bent and nuzzled his neck; a lock of his hair fell across Stephen's lips, thick and yellow and smelling of salt sweat. "Yes. I've never been here, never seen anything like this--I've never--" He broke off, lapping at Stephen's Adam's apple, and Stephen felt an odd quaver in his chest that stretched his lips upward: he'd come to Carnival seeking an experienced older lover to teach him the ways of the flesh, and ended up with a boy as inexperienced as himself!
"But you," the sailor murmured, "You're still..." His voice trailed off, but he pressed against Stephen and his meaning was plain enough, as was Stephen's muffled gasp. "I don't know what to do," he said helplessly. "Could we--is there some way I could--"
He swiveled his body in a sort of mute, confused explanation, and Stephen realized with a shock what he was offering. The suggestion was as unexpected as the thrill that went through him at the idea, but he shook his head, plucking the vaguely waving hand out of the air.
"I don't believe that's possible, but if you are willing to--" He drew the hand down toward the relevant portion of his anatomy, and the sailor's eyes widened.
"Yes, if you--ah, I would like--I mean, I wouldn't mind--" he stammered, sounding very young once more as he fumbled at Stephen's buttons.
He was much less articulate than he had been just a moment ago, Stephen mused. But then a warm and very large hand enveloped him completely and he gasped and pushed against it, his knees going weak.
A strong arm around him held him up, the other still caressing. "Oh," murmured a voice at his ear. "I like it when you make sounds like that."
Stephen bit his lip, but his pride was not strong enough to prevent another soft sound of delight from slipping between his lips. His head lolled back against a broad shoulder and he could feel his eyes sliding shut.
"You seemed to enjoy when I talked to you before, my scarlet one," the low English voice breathed in his ear. "Do you want me to keep talking?" Torn by delight, Stephen managed a nod, and a chuckle brushed his earlobe. "My masked tempter, my sinful white-feathered angel with the gorgeous prick." Stephen felt a complicated mix of hilarity and lust at the mix of the poetic and the crude, but the lust was definitely winning out. "I can't possibly make you feel as good as you did me--" At the moment Stephen fervently doubted that, but was in no position to argue, "--with your clever, lovely mouth, my own dear incubus. An incubus with a pert arse, you are."
It didn't take long; the strong calloused hand was tormentingly good, and the words in his ear urged him on. Any effort to remain clinically detached, to categorize and label his physical reactions, was stymied by the sheer physical presence of the man caressing him and murmuring in his ear. He shuddered as spasms wracked his body, relaxing back into the embrace of the man holding him, and felt a strange sense of unreality, of dawning surprise. Not at the pleasure: he had expected it to feel good.
He had not, however, expected it to feel right.
The Englishman kissed his ear, then his cheek, and Stephen waited for the wave of disgust and self-loathing to wash over him now that his carnal needs were met. But instead he turned his head into the kiss and felt only something that he suspected was close to happiness. Even the necessary acts of cleaning and tidying his blissfully-quiescent privates did not arouse repulsion.
It was very odd, he reflected as he buttoned his breeches, and allowed himself to be gathered up by fistfuls of cloak and kissed soundly once more.
: : :
"The night is over," murmured Scarlet, the white-feathered mask turning to gaze up at the graying sky.
Jack ignored him, nuzzling his neck, caressing the sinews with his lips. They had slaked their lust with each other a second time, and then a third; each time Jack had wondered if his lover would extricate himself and move on to another, and each time he had not.
Each time Jack had been relieved.
"You must get back to your fellows, and I to home," said the voice in its soft Spanish accent (Spanish? It seemed different from other Spanish voices. But perhaps Scarlet was from the mountains).
"I don't want to," muttered Jack.
"Nor do I, heart. But Carnival is over and we must return to reality." Long, slender fingers touched his cheek. "Believe me that I regret it as deeply as you do, but you know this--" a quick kiss, feather-light, "--can never work. You have your life and I mine, and we must live them. But--thank you. For everything." The red-robed figure stepped away from Jack, the narrow mouth nearly-smiling, though the lower lip twitched slightly. "Fare well, my sailor."
"Wait!" Jack put a hand to his own mask. "Don't I get to see who you really are?"
The almost-smile deepened, although Scarlet shook his head. "My dear, do you think you haven't?"
Then he turned and hurried from the alley, through the gathering gray morn.
Jack didn't move until the red cloak disappeared entirely from view.
: : :
They sailed from Barcelona that afternoon, with good tide and a fair wind. The other middies teased Jack mercilessly about slipping off, asking for ribald details of his evening. Jack largely ignored them, focusing on his duties, on the rough ropes beneath his hands and the scent of the sea. But as the wind filled the sails and the ship came to life beneath them, he gazed back at Barcelona for so long that even his friends nudged him. "You're a complete mooncalf today, Aubrey," one said with an almost-concerned laugh. "What exactly was your paramour like?"
Jack Aubrey closed his eyes, feeling the sea wind in his hair like deft fingers.
"Perfect," he said, and let the wind carry the word away.
: : :
Three months later, Stephen Maturin boarded a ship to Dublin. If he had been more withdrawn since Carnival, none worried about it; if he had seemed more at peace, none noted it.
For a while, he slipped down to Dublin Port to watch the ships come in, to look at blond sailors with wide shoulders. But he saw none with a sensual mouth or hands that could give pleasure, so eventually he stopped. It was just one night, after all. It was best to try to put it out of his mind, so he did. And he largely succeeded.
But now and then he found himself gazing out to sea, as if watching for a distant and longed-for sail.