Pirates of the Carribean — A Marketplace Tale, Part 1

Pirates of the Carribean is fanfiction based on Laura Antoniou’s Marketplace series, a fictional world in which there is a large and secret market for consensual slaves who serve their owners under contract. Laura recently released “No Safewords,” a fan anthology of tales by different writers set in the Marketplace world.

This tale also takes a page from the real-world phenomenon of modern high seas piracy.  Most people think that pirates are a thing of the past, but in fact, across the globe at least one boat a day is attacked by pirates looking to steal cargo, ransom the crew or owners, or steal the boat itself.

This story is a followup to “Foster Care,” where we meet the two main characters, Bette and Kelly, for the first time.  In this story, they’ve been together for close to two years. Bette is a “fixer,” a former Army medic who now freelances for The Marketplace, rescuing human property when things go wrong. 

Pirates of the Carribean — A Marketplace Tale

by Lily Lloyd

“Now you’re just fucking with me,” I say. “Pirates? What year is this? 1850?”

“You’d be surprised how big a deal it is, Bette,” Chris says. “Apparently high-seas piracy isn’t a thing of the past. You know, on a global basis there’s one or two attacks a day.”

“Please tell me they’re wearing knee high boots and swinging a cutlass, because that right there would make it worth the price of admission,” I say.

“Sadly, no — more like submachine guns.”

“Oh well. Swashbuckling was too much to ask for, I guess.”

Modern-day high-seas piracy falls into three categories: Eritrean pirates holding captives off the horn of Africa, looking for money to finance their ongoing war against Somalia; natives of Banda Achay, a rebel Indonesian province, hijacking boats in the straits between Indonesia and China, and narcotrafficantes looking to up their take by knocking off yachts in the Carribean, transporting drugs with them, and then pocketing the proceeds of the sale of the boat — after dropping the boat’s owner and crew into the Bermuda Triangle. Dead men, after all, tell no tales.

The Indonesians are really the class of the crop: recently, they’d hijacked a cargo container ship as big as a multistory parking garage, ran it up a river in China, repainted the whole thing, and then powered right into Port of Long Beach to sell the cargo right on the sunny shores of California.

Most pirates are never caught. There are still no real cops on the high seas: every corner in your hometown has a traffic camera now, but once you get out into international waters, the oceans are the last truly wild and lawless place on Planet Earth.

Chris Parker, my friend and Marketplace liaison,  is too nice to tease me about my choice of drink. Despite my badass credentials, I still like sticky-sweet, licorice-flavored Sambuca, and I like it even better if the traditional three coffee beans have been dropped into the snifter by the time it arrives in front of me.

“What are the coffee beans for, anyway?” Parker asked.

“Health, happiness, and prosperity,” I say. “That’s why there’s always three.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Chris says, clinking his beer bottle against my drink. “Speaking of which, how’s Kelly?”

I get a big stupid grin on my face and leaned closer to him. “Pregnant!” I say.

“Oh my God! Really?!”

“Really! But you can’t tell anyone, okay? We’re waiting until she’s 12 weeks to make any announcements, just in case.”

“This is so great!” Chris says. “Congratulations, Bette!”

“Well, you can take some credit for this,” I say. Chris had pulled me into a rescue mission to retrieve some some human property — folks who signed up to serve an Owner of their own free will under contract — from Costa Rica after their owner had gone off the deep end, apparently shooting his neighbor in the face with an AR-15 in a dispute over a noisy dog. I found Kelly in a Costa Rican hospital looking like she’d been dragged over a quarter mile of bad road behind a logging truck. My background as an Army medic, and my diplomatic credentials, made me the perfect person to escort Kelly back to safety in the US.

I brought her back home and served as her ‘foster owner’ for a year before exercising my option to buy out her contract. Kelly is my property — and also my wife, and now the mother of our child.

“I know this is a little…well, kind of a rude question, and you don’t have to answer me, but…how did you do it?” Chris asks.

“Oh, man,” I say. “There’s gonna hafta be a lot more alcohol for that tale.” Kelly and I are lesbians, so procreating via the conventional route isn’t an option for us. “Before we get too deep in our cups, though, why don’t you tell me about this job you’re trying to rope me into?”

A waitress comes by and escorts us from the bar to our table.

“How did you find this place?” I ask. “It’s so great!” The dining room at Lupo’s, in New York City’s Little Italy, is ringed with booths, each in their own alcove, and each with curtains that can be drawn shut, creating a private little bower for the diners within.

“Can you imagine what a bunch of perverts would get up to in here?” Chris asks.

“Remote control vibrators for all!” I say, laughing. “So tell me what’s going on.”

Chris pulls out a manila folder and opens it on the table as I pull shut the curtains.

“Ben Stanton,” Chris says. “Third generation marketplace owner. His family came over on the Mayflower and has had a love affair with boats ever since. Stanton’s pride and joy is a 42-foot sailboat, and three of his property are sailors; another one’s a shipboard cook. He’d tasked them with sailing the boat from Nassau to Rio de Janeiro for a regatta, but they never got there.”

“Has there been a ransom demand?”

“Yup. But the M.O. for these pirates is to take the money and then kill the hostages. Stanton’s hoping for a better outcome.”

“Any reason why he hasn’t called the cops?” I ask.

“He’s called plenty of cops. None of them claim jurisdiction.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly,” Chris says. “So what do you think? Can you help?”

“Well, I’m stumped about one thing: how do I get to the captives? I don’t have a boat and I can’t sail anyway.”

“We’ve got that covered,” Chris says.

[Go to Part 2, where Bette flies to a little tropical paradise which just happens to be Pirate HQ.  I've already completed this story, so you don't have to worry about long waits between segments ;-> -- Lily]