Pirates of the Caribbean — A Marketplace Tale, Part 10 (Conclusion)

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.

In Part 9, Bette manages to survive her star turn on her own personal episode of Shark Week.  In this part, Bette is reunited with Kelly and makes a promise to Rita.

I turn around in the inflatable lifeboat. My sharky suitor is still stalking me.  Maybe there’s just one, because really, when do you need more than one shark to get the job done?  The only time you need more than one shark is if it’s Shark Week and Animal planet needs to lower some numbnuts in a cage with a camera into the water.  If it’s not about ratings, one shark will do the job.

I see his fin flashing back there behind me, going back and forth.

If I was a shark I’d probably think he was flirting, poking the bottom of the raft with his nose as a way of saying, “Nice ass!” but since I’m not, I’m just trying to get away from him…and not run into any of his frat bros at Alpha Zeta Shark.

For awhile the fucking island doesn’t seem to come any closer at all no matter how much I paddle with my one fucking hand that I can only dip in the water after checking for shark, but then, gradually, I seem to be making progress, and then, it seems even faster.  I realize a current is sweeping me into the archipelago of tiny mangrove islands that shelter the bay. I can see the bottom now, through the crystal clear water.  I look back and my friend Mr. Shark is getting further and further behind. What’s the matter, baby, don’t like the shallows? Too bad, so sad, can’t stick around for a date.

Finally, I reach one of the mangrove islands.

The thing about mangrove islands is that the mangroves overgrow the entire island with knobby, bony, hard branches and the whole immovable thicket goes right down into the water.

I am so fucking far beyond caring about this that I climb right out of the boat and try to climb into onto, over the thing.  I just want to be on dry land because the only land sharks on earth are made by Cadillac and I’m down with that.

This was not a good impulse.

I catch the spear on one of the thicket of branches and fall forward.

I’m hanging from the spear hooked on the branch and I can feel blood running down my back DON’T TAKE IT THE FUCK OUT MOTHERFUCKER Christ I can’t even take my own fucking advice oh Christ

****************

I don’t know how but I’m back in the raft and the sun is beating down on me and I’m on my back and it’s too hot and then it’s dark and I’m in the mangrove again, tangled in the branches.  Everything hurts and nothing is right.  There are pirates and so I can’t move or make a sound or someone will cut off my ears but something is tickling my neck.

I look up at the stars and try to swallow.  I can’t tell if I’m facing up toward the stars or facing down, into the phosphorescent bay and its tiny twinkling creatures, but one of the stars near the horizon gets brighter and brighter and closer and closer and then I smell a familiar smell and hear a familar sound and Diana is walking across the ocean and out of the glow towards me and I can’t say anything at all because I’m just weeping and it’s been so long and everything hurts and nothing is right.

As she comes closer, I see something behind her skirts, which are as big as the sky.  No, not a thing, a person, peeking out from behind her, with dark glossy hair and big dark eyes.

It’s my mother.

NO! I shout.  NO!

************

I’m still shouting NO when I wake up in the hospital, though it takes me awhile to realize that’s what it is.

Kelly is there.

“It’s okay,” she says, “It’s okay.”

Kelly doesn’t look okay at all, I think. But then I’m out again.

***************

Next time I’m in slow motion.  It’s the drugs, I think.  But it takes me a long time to think.  I breathe in and I feel like I have to think about that too.  In.  Out.  No sudden moves, lungs.

“I don’t know if I can handle this,” Kelly says.  She’s sobbing.

“Carina mia, do you think it would be any different if you were married to a cop or a soldier?  You’d always be waiting for the knock on the door, or waiting for a moment like this.  Now it’s here and you are handling it.”

It’s Rita.

Kelly hiccups. “Okay,” she says. “But I’m crying.”

“I would think very poorly of you if you weren’t. Let me ask you something.  Would you feel different if you knew Bette would be home with you until after the baby was born?”

“Yes,” says Kelly.

“I have just one more question,” Rita asks. “I know you’re property, but your devotion to Bette is more than just devotion to service, isn’t it?  It’s devotion to her.  You love her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Kelly says, barely able to get it out through her sobbing.

“And people say there’s no room for love in The Marketplace,” Rita says, patting Kelly on the back. “Like there’s any crack too small for love to get in.”

I hear rustling.  They both have handbags I could go away for a week in, and I hear paper and lipstick tubes falling on the floor and all that beautiful cascading feminine noise.

“Wipe your face, baby, she shouldn’t see you crying.  There’s one more thing I want to talk to you about.”

I hear rustling.  They both have handbags I could go away for a week in, and I hear paper and lipstick tubes falling on the floor and all that beautiful cascading feminine noise.

“Well, let me see what kind of deal I can make with one-woman army over here, hm? I think we can get her home until el bebe arrives. In the meantime, you need to eat and rest and you are not to give me that look or be stubborn.  I will have Benny bring you back the instant she’s awake, do you understand?”

Damn.  I gotta learn how to do that, I think. Kelly manages to sneak in at least three minutes of objections before I manage to shut her play down if it’s something she really doesn’t want to do.

I see Benny duck his shaggy blonde head to get through the door and smile at Kelly.  I immediately feel relief: there’s something about Benny’s face that just makes me know, in some way I can’t explain, that Benny is a good guy and would sooner drop a safe on his own foot than harm Kelly or let her come to harm.  Plus, he’s a funny bastard and he’ll get Kelly talking and then she’ll eat.

I fall asleep again.  Everything’s on the other side of a pane of glass.  I have to say something to Kelly and I know it’s important but I’ll deal with it later because I’m just so tired…

I hear the click of high heels on a poured cement floor.

“I know you’re awake, you know.” Rita says.

How the fuck does she do that?

I open my eyes.

“There we go,” Rita says. “You know, everyone was looking for you. I even had pirates looking for you, after promising on their mothers’ eyes to return you to me unharmed.  You know who was looking for you?”

“Who,” I croaked.

“Mateo,” Rita says.  “Mateo who hasn’t gone more than 50 feet from that hut in fifteen years.”

Rita arches an eyebrow at me.  “I turned this entire town upside down for you.  People won’t forget this for fifty years,” she says. “Also they think you might have the sight.”

“What?” I say.

“They think you can see the other world,” Rita says.  “You were talking in the boat.  I heard you talking about Diana and your mother.”

“I dreamed about them,” I said.

“So they came to you. Your people from the next world.”

“I was hallucinating, though,” I croak. “None of it was real.”

“Ay, carina mia,” Rita says, laughing ruefully. “For most people, seeing is believing.  What’s it going to take for you, a registered letter?”

I laugh but it hurts.

“Now we have something serious to talk about,” Rita says. “I am not going to try and talk you out of doing things like trying to take on pirates on your own. On a night that you promised me would be for reconnaissance only, I might add.  I am not going to try to talk you out of it because no one can talk you out of who you are.”

It’s the threat of her disappointment, I realize with shame at breaking my promise to her. Nobody would ever want to risk it.  She must be a terrifying Owner, I think.

“I’m not going to try to talk you out of anything, in fact,” Rita says, placing her fingertips on my forearm, a few inches below where the IV goes in.

“You should know this: Mr. Stanton, after seeing your condition — and your weeping, pregnant, terrified wife,” Rita emphasized that last bit, taking her fingertip and tilting my chin up to face her, really turning the knife, “Mr. Stanton was convinced to be very generous with your fee.” Rita pauses meaningfully. “Very, very generous.”

Rita pulls three checks out of an envelope. They’re big and have the heavy embossed paper of bank checks.

“Each of these is a check for one million dollars — one million dollars for each of the lives you saved.  That’s pretty generous, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Now, I said I wasn’t going to try to talk you out of something, and that’s because I’m going to tell you something. Your wife thinks you are going home to Montreal with her to stay until the baby’s born, and I am telling you this: you are going to do that. In fact, you are going to do more than that. You are going to go home to your wife and baby and you are going to sit your ass down until that baby’s first birthday, do you understand?”

**************

Of course I agreed.  What, do you think I’m stupid?

Don’t answer that question.

Kelly’s due in a month, and I’ve finally learned to speak French.

Lily Lloyd is the author of Discipline: Adding Rules and Discipline to Your Kinky Relationship, a book about making kinky relationships work.