146. GWENDOLYN, THEY EAT IT UP

GWENDOLYN, THEY EAT IT UP
(the wide, open Sargasso/a pirate's life)

I too was waltzing Matilda, hopefully, I figured,
right off the same gangplank we'd come in on.
This masterful speaker, the Captain, was effusive
in his oaths and daring but totally ineffectual in
his results : men had already mutinied twice over;
those two, anyway, hanging by their necks from the
yard-arm. Some nasty birds of the sea had been here
already - once picking out their eyes and another time
pecking away at their faces. Someday very soon,
I figured, they pop the bloat and we'd all be sprayed
with their slop. So much to look forward to on the
wide open Sargasso.
-
I'd met her once before, in the seaside brothel near
Baltimore. Totally fucking lovely she was; little did
I know she was paid to conscript bastards like me to
a deadly pirate-life at sea. I'd fallen head over heels
for everything about her : her tits, her pussy, her wide
thriving hips and beautiful lips. It was over in an
instant; drugged and stupefied, I was taken away.
We all awoke at sea, days later.
-
'How could you have done this to me?' I asked her
lethargically (for it little-mattered now). 'I did it
for us, and I'd do it again - just as I do it for all other
men.' Whatever that meant, she tore off her dress
and sat on my face. Not a bad start to a bad life at sea.
The flowing, flowered dress, I noticed, was floating
towards the edge, wind blowing it along. Twenty minutes
later I (along with three other blokes) was done with her
as she was with us. Sated - in that proverbial way of
Paradise and the Ideal - everyone slept it off on the deck.
We awoke some time later, fearsome wind howling and a
straight falling rain : as only rain at sea can be.
She'd re-dressed herself and was sulking along, yet happily.
-
My life after that wasn't much.
When we did reach Portugal and Spain,
for her, I took the Lord Jesus' name and
Christianized myself (again). Every life, they say,
has a second act - and if this was to be mine, I'd be
sure to want it back by making good on every notion.
Salvation, like sex at sea, is all in the motion.
-
I later lived a very good life in all of Europe's ports.
As for her... she stayed by my side, as a good woman ought.