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“Your furniture is insane,” Ed had said, running a finger along the damasked back of one of Stede’s many comfortable chairs. “Anyone ever tell you that? Where did this stuff even come from?”
“Well, that one you’re touching there I had shipped all the way from France…”
“Why the fuck would you do that?”
Stede had shrugged. “I figured all pirate ships were this well fitted-out. Surely if you’re pillaging and ransacking all day, there are plenty of opportunities to acquire Baroque chairs or beautifully carved chests of drawers. No? Never? Well, it’s not too late to start now.”
Ed, pacing around, had pointed to another cushioned item, and said, “I don’t even know what this one is called, man. It’s not a couch—it’s not a chair—like a skinny-half-bed-thingy? What’s it even for?”
Stede, thumbing his chin, had proposed: “You know, I’m not sure either. It isn’t exactly a settee, but not quite a chaise longue either…”
“What the hell are those? How many types of sofas are there?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Ed’s eager nod, accompanied by those pleading eyes, had sent Stede careening across the cabin, practically dancing his way to the bookshelf, to pull off a large folio of engravings of European Furniture and Decorative Carving, 1500-1700. They had sat together, then, on the not-a-chaise-not-a-settee, the book shared between their laps; Ed admiring the mortise-and-tendon joinery of English woodwork and Stede admiring Ed, the quick dart of his observant eyes from one engraving to the next, the rasp of his calloused fingers over the linen paper. The soft intake of breath as the page turns to some new stunning display. It was wonderful to have someone to share things with, he had thought.
***
Later. Afterwards.
“We can think of it as a blank canvas, can’t we?” Stede prompts. Spreads his hands and looks at the empty cabin through them. “Total redecoration. We can pick a new theme, something that suits us both. As befits co-captains.”
Ed, scuffing his boot on the planks of the deck, his arms crossed, makes a dissatisfied huffing sound. “All that stuff was pretty nice. Hard to replace.”
“Well, it would be easy enough if I just commissioned it to be built again. But I’m as poor as a church mouse, these days, as you know. A bit lacking in cash…”
“Church mouse doesn’t need furniture, does it.”
“This one does,” Stede says. “This one’s got high standards. You can’t just—look, you can’t just make do with a single spindly chair! You’re a high-level pirate! There ought to be a nice table for your maps, at least! You always looked so good, peering at your maps, using the little walky-leg thing to plot out the distance… Come on, let’s just start with a table.”
The compliment lands; a smile plays around the corners of Ed’s mouth. Then he casts his eyes away and resumes glowering. “I’ve got a table. Look, right there. Tabling it up.”
“No, Ed, that’s a desk. I’m talking about a table. Circular. Oval, even. Some mahogany inlays… Would look wonderful riiiight over here.”
“...Yeah, alright then.”
And so slowly the cabin fills up again. A beautiful round table with carved legs, snatched from a Dutch merchantman; finely upholstered chairs from the hold of a ship headed to supply the Governor’s mansion at Martinique; a sofa very nearly as comfortable as Stede’s custom-commissioned original, taken from a Spanish privateer who had originally stolen it all the way up in Charleston. Curtains and cushions and, of course, books.
But a space just aft of the library remains as yet unfilled. An empty slice of deck in between the new plush rugs. Nothing’s quite caught Stede’s eye yet. Color is important; arrangement, shape. And it can’t just suit his own preferences, particular as they are. He’s got Ed to consider.
Then they come across a French ship. Unarmed; manned by idiots, as they tend to be. Ed leads, as usual: hollering until hoarse, glint in eye and pistol in hand and even managing to scare Stede a bit. What a thrill.
As the crew scamper around, hollering and whooping and swinging their pikes and axes with a confidence far above anything Stede had managed to coax out of them in the early days, he makes his way into the unoccupied captain’s cabin. Ed enters a few moments later, having done his part and threatened the officers.
“What do you think?” Stede asks, pointing excitedly. The cabin is garishly decorated, full of mostly very ugly furniture. But in the very center, as if set there by fate for them to find, is a gorgeous chaise longue, upholstered in a blue and black arabesque damask.
“Yeah, looks good,” Ed says, with a quick glance and a nod.
“Right? It’s perfect. Go on, try it out,” Stede prompts. Ed, with a nervous glance to him, perches stiffly on the edge. “No, do it for real! Lie down! I need to make sure it fits all of you. The French tend to be undernourished and short of stature, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
Ed rolls his eyes but acquiesces. “There,” he says, stretching out. “Happy? Oh wow, this ornamentation on the frame is terrific…”
Stede does a few circles round, observing Ed and the chaise from all angles. Ed looks up at him expectantly. Using his substantive powers of visual imagination Stede transposes the sight into his own cabin and is immensely pleased: the morning light coming in when they’re on an easterly tack will fall beautifully across it.
“And you’re comfortable?”
“Mmhm. Very.”
“No hidden springs poking you or anything?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Right. Should we maybe… test it out, before deciding to take it on board?” Stede waggles his eyebrow. And his pelvis.
“Do you mean…” Ed begins, frowning. “I don’t think we should. Not right now.”
A real devil-may-care pirate ought to be all over this sort of thing, in Stede’s opinion, but Ed has demonstrated a surprising tendency towards prudishness. He doesn’t even like Stede kissing him in front of the crew, despite the crew doing plenty of kissing in front of him.
“Okay. That’s fine! Budge up.” He sits down, lifting and maneuvering Ed’s legs so that they’re lying crossways across his lap. Then, amidst protests, he starts the laborious process of removing Ed’s left boot, followed by the stocking underneath.
He digs his knuckles into the sole of Ed’s foot until Ed is making ridiculous noises. “You can’t—augh—give me a foot massage—eehh—in the middle of a raid!”
“Ah-ah-ah. Can too. Your paltry protests have no power here. Shut up and let me crack your toes.”
Ed shuts up. Snap snap snap go his toes. He squeaks a little bit with each one. Then Stede begins scratching up his ankle. “Ah… ahh yeah that’s the stuff,” mumbles Ed. He arches back on the chaise, exposing the dark stubble at his neck. Then he opens one eye. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I love you, Ed,” Stede says. The fact that he has had to repeat this on a regular basis of late doesn’t really bother him. He likes saying it. It’s ridiculously exciting that he’s even allowed.
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing, you lump. That’s it.”
Ed permits a kiss. Or really, prompts Stede to give him one by fluttering his eyes closed and leaning forward just an inch.
Then without breaking his steady gaze at Stede, Ed hollers, towards the direction of the chaotic deck: “Fang! Ivan! Get in here, we’ve got a sofa to move!”
“It’s actually a chaise longue,” Stede shouts in the same direction, at which Ed raises an eyebrow. “What? It’s an important distinction!”
***
It had been a piece of cake, really, reuniting with Ed. Just took a little creativity and persistence. A little fuckery. A little forgiveness, on both sides.
What’s far more difficult is figuring out exactly how to go about staying reunited. Stede is horribly afraid it will all fall apart again at any moment. That it will stop being exciting, to sleep beside Ed; to wake up there too, with Ed clinging to him like a particularly stubborn barnacle. Or that Ed will stop wanting to. The last thing he wants is for Ed to ever feel like he had once did, remaining with someone out of a sense of obligation until it all falls apart.
So far seems good, though, is the thing.
“Ed. Hey, Ed.”
“Mmm.”
“What do you want to do today?”
“Dunno. Stay here.” His face is almost entirely within Stede’s armpit.
“I was thinking,” Stede says, “we could have a bit of a hang on our new lovely bit of furniture. Sound good? Have breakfast there. Maybe do some reading. We could even invent some new sexual positions.”
Ed scoffs. “That’s not possible. They’ve invented all of them already.”
“What? Really? ... Even the ones that require the use of a pristine Venetian-built ornamental chaise longue?”
“Yeah, man. Believe me. The experts at the sex factory got it all figured out centuries ago. That’s like their whole job.”
“That seems unlikely. But if you’re sure…” sighs Stede. “I guess I’ll go get dressed.”
Halfway through pulling on his breeches he hears a loud sudden thump from outside. Darting out of the auxiliary closet he is treated to the bizarre sight of Ed lying upside-down, half-off the chaise longue, with his ass on the cushion and his elbows and head on the deck. His nightshirt—a black version of Stede’s—has slid down under the inexorable effects of gravity, puddling on the ground around his face. He’s naked underneath, of course. Tattooed legs akimbo; prick on full display: still heavy and at half-mast, this soon after waking.
“Ha!” Stede says. “You were trying to invent new sexual positions!”
Muffled from under the heap of fabric: “No I wasn’t.”
“Don’t move a muscle, I’ll be with you shortly—” Stede excitedly skids in his stockings across the polished deck and is at Ed’s side in a moment. After a moment of contemplation he decides to give Ed’s prick a friendly sort of hello-there tug or two. Then he dares to kiss its inviting tip.
“What are you—ohhh—fuckin’—help me back up first!”
“Are you sure? I could just—could be a bit of a thrill for you, upside down—”
“No, come on, man—”
“Just stay there—augh—no—”
Flailing ensues. Miraculously no knees meet noses; soon they both safely end up horizontal down on the deck, facing opposite ways. Stede on top, his face on Ed’s thigh, Ed’s prick mere inches away from his mouth. It would be very easy to just lean over and…
“This isn’t a new position at all. This is just sixty-nine but on the floor,” complains Ed from the general region of Stede’s own yard, which is now beginning to stand to attention.
“But you like it when I lie on top of you. You’ve told me that before!”
“Yeah, when we’re in bed. And when I can actually see your face. And, you know. Kiss it.”
Immediately Stede springs to his feet, so that he can turn around and offer his hand to Ed. Ed takes it. Stede helps him up and then gently lowering him onto his back again, this time onto the cushions of the chaise. As soon as he’s comfortable and looking up expectantly at Stede, Stede crawls over him and lays himself happily down.
Then they kiss for a while, just like that, lackadaisically, Ed’s hands coming around to grip and knead at Stede’s ass, roaming around to the back of his thighs… Ed tries to get Stede out of his already half-off breeches without allowing him to stop kissing him, which is pretty much impossible. Stede still tries, though, nearly falling back down in the process. Eventually the breeches are off and so is his shirt, and Ed’s nightshirt is disposed of too. Skin to skin they breathe together, kissing more until, all too soon, Ed inevitably begins to get antsy, starting to hum and twitch and grope around for Stede's cock.
He begins to sit up but Stede presses him back down. “I could stay here all day. Just like this.”
“Well I’m a busy man. Got stuff to do, y’know.”
“Is that right?”
“Uh huh,” says Ed. “C’mon.” He keeps wriggling around below; finds Stede's prick and then his own, gathering them together in his fist so that his every movement stimulates Stede as well, has his toes curling down on the cushions.
“Ah—that’s okay?”
“Yeah… really good… ah, look at us down there, it’s like you’ve got a fresh cock bouquet.”
He says it’s because it’s true: their two yards together pretty as a pair of tulips, in very different but complementary varietals: Ed’s thick and dark and cut, Stede’s pinker and more modest, foreskin stretched tautly back from the leaking head.
“Jesus,” laughs Ed, and starts kissing him again. As he tugs them off together he’s biting and nipping at Stede’s lips, rolling his nimble hips up, eagerly and quite expertly chasing both their pleasures. God, it feels amazing, but—
“Just a minute,” says Stede, “hang on, I don’t want to—not yet—”
“Are you close?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let me just—keep going—”
“No, if you could—I have a different idea—”
“You don’t like this?”
It’s hard to stop Ed once he gets going, even if Stede has what he’s pretty sure is a better plan. He can sometimes take it a bit personally.
“No. I do—” he kisses Ed— “like it. A lot.” Another kiss. “You’re really good at it. But here’s what I want to do now. Tell me if it isn’t up your alley.”
He leans down and whispers into Ed’s ear. Then draws back to observe the look on Ed’s face and finds it to his satisfaction. But just to make sure, he asks, “Would that be…?”
“Uh huh. Yeah yeah. Fucking do it. Please.”
He lets Stede position him: spread-eagle on the lower half of the chaise, feet planted on the floor, prick jutting straight up from its salt and pepper thatch, awaiting renewed attention.
After fetching a cushion from the nearby armchair for his knees—this is a very important step—Stede kneels off to the side of the chaise and promptly gets to work sucking Ed’s cock. Ed, sighing, grabs a handful of Stede's hair, begins to guide his movement up and down. The tighter his grip, the better his cock feels in Stede’s mouth: now how does one account for that?
A little while later (impossible to tell how long, really) the ship pitches, catching a breeze; as a result, Ed’s cock is thrust further down his throat than he is quite capable of on his own.
This clearly feels good for Ed—he lets out a really great sound—but causes Stede to splutter and choke.
“Fuck, sorry—”
“No, no it’s okay, I’m fine, I’m okay! Whew…” He massages his throat a bit, and then considers if he might actually be able to do that again on purpose, without suffocating himself. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t at least give it a go, now that it’s happened once on accident. Ed seems very close now, and what better way to see him to his finish…
Turns out that yes he can do it, and that yes Ed is close. One, two of those deep gulps, breathing through his nose as he swallows around Ed's prick—then Ed's hand tightens in his hair, nearly ripping some out, which is fine as he's got plenty to go around—and pulls him slightly off, his crisis flooding over Stede's tongue.
Stede lets it collect there; then he dips his fingers into his mouth and coats them with plenty of Ed’s spend before swallowing the rest. In amongst the plain-salt of it he can taste, just slightly, the pineapple they shared last night after dinner.
Ed is shaking his head. “Fucking hell. Oh my god, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Stede can feel himself turning red, like he always does when Ed says things like that. He never knows how to respond: he’s learned the hard way that turning down the compliment would just piss Ed off. So he looks away, focuses on working himself back up to hardness, making himself slick with Ed’s come, so that he’ll be able to quickly push prick-first past that welcoming furl of tender pink, just the way Ed likes it.
The chaise longue is perfect for this sort of thing, he realizes. What a marvelous piece of furniture. Could it have specifically been designed for buggering? He wouldn’t put it past the French, honestly. They’re always doing stuff like that.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Sorry. Was just thinking—”
“Yeah I can see that. Hope it was about me. And my sexy butthole.” This with a teasing gyration to demonstrate.
“Absolutely. Um. Right… anyway…”
And then, Ed’s arms holding himself in steady place around the chaise’s back, Stede kneeling between his open legs, pressing slow at first inside Ed, too slow for Ed, who meets him halfway, thrusting hurriedly forward so that before Stede knows it he’s fully sheathed within the tight hot channel of him.
Ed coaxes him into moving, whispering encouragements along the lines of do it, fucking do it, more, I want more, faster, yeah... Ed’s spent prick is attempting valiantly to rise again as he's fucked, getting maybe a quarter of the way there, flopping about at his stomach. At some point then he starts to cry which—while it had really alarmed Stede the first time it happened, to the point of having to pull out and hug him until he stopped, and also had made him cry too—Stede knows is to be expected at this point. Still…
“Don’t fucking slow down, what are you doing?” Ed says, his voice cracking.
“I can’t help it! When you cry like that I’ve just got to—here—” With some difficulty he hauls Ed up into his lap and, once he’s slid securely back inside him, covers his mouth and face in kisses. Ed’s arms wrap around his neck, nails digging possessively into his bare back.
“Thank you,” he says very quietly, as Stede starts to move again, “um, for that…”
Stede holds him close. “You know I really could do this all day.”
“I don’t think so. I think you’re about to come,” Ed teases, and, emboldened by this new upright position, begins bouncing on Stede’s cock now just to prove his point. “Yeah? Yeah? Am I right? Know I’m right, look at you, fucking beautiful, I fucking love you…”
Stede tries to hold off as long as he can, but it's no use. The things Ed is doing with his muscles down there are absurd. Unbelievable control. The kind of expertise only a man who can move his organs around inside at will to avoid fatal damage could have. He kisses Stede through his crisis; holds him steady, doesn't let him go anywhere.
Then all too soon afterwards, he moves to disentangle himself, and Stede has to avert a crisis.
“Oh—no, no, don’t—hang on—" While holding Ed in place, Stede strips off one stocking and then the other, pressing them into service as emergency prophylactics against—God forbid—staining the fabric of their lovely new chaise. “Good thing I was still wearing those,” he says happily, pressing them carefully up against Ed’s tender entrance to catch the seed as he pulls out.
Ed’s hand meets his there and takes over the business of mopping up. He says, “Well, they say that it's been proven, medically, that sex feels better with socks on. Blood flow and stuff right? And it was good, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t think that was because of the stockings,” Stede answers pointedly. At Ed's confused look he clarifies, "It was because of you, Ed. You were good."
"Right. Mm. Anyway I’m going to go wash these and hang them up to dry before they get all crusty.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Ed grins, kisses him, and darts nimbly (and nakedly) away. After he disappears from sight Stede flops down on his back on the chaise and stares at the ceiling, catching his breath; watches the new chandelier swing, hanging pretty, picked out together just like every other new object in the official co-captains' cabin.
He’s pretty sure Ed doesn’t have the attention span necessary for the type of all-day sex marathon Stede has conjured in his most private fantasies. That kind of intense concentration might only be borne of decades of all-night reading binges. And maybe Ed doesn’t even want—but no, Stede stops that thought before it starts, he definitely wants to be with Stede all day. That much he knows. There's plenty of proof.
So they might be able to work up to it. Perhaps if he told Ed it was to test the room's flow, now that all the furniture had been picked out. After all, they still hadn't made love on either of the armchairs, or in the reading nook...
***