Birds of Prey

At last Zelda climbed stiffly to her feet and shuffled out of the cabin. As soon as she was gone Katinka, still standing in the bath, glanced over her shoulder. Again, Hal had the guilty illusion that she was looking directly into his own staring eye. It was only for a moment, then slowly and voluptuously she bent. Her buttocks changed shape at the movement. Katinka reached behind herself with both hands.

She laid those small white hands on each of her glowing pink buttocks and drew them gently apart. This time Hal could not choke back the little abandoned cry that rose to his lips as the deep crease of her bottom opened to his feverish gaze.

Zelda bustled back into the cabin bearing an armful of towels. Katinka straightened and the enchanted crevice closed firmly, its secrets hidden once more from his eyes. She stepped from the bath and Zelda draped a towel over her shoulders that hung to her ankles. Zelda loosened the coil of her mistress's hair and brushed it out, and then braided it into a thick golden rope. She stood behind Katinka and held a gown for her to slip her arms into the sleeves, but Katinka shook her head and gave a peremptory order. Zelda protested but Katinka insisted and the maid threw the gown over the stool and left the cabin in an obvious pet.

When she was gone Katinka let the towel drop to the deck and, naked once more, crossed to the door and slid the locking bolt into place. Then she turned back and passed out of Hal's sight.

He saw a fuzzy pink blur of movement in the clouded mirror but could not be sure what she was doing until, abruptly and shockingly, her lips were an inch from the opposite side of his peep-hole and she hissed viciously at him, "You filthy little Pirate!" She spoke in Latin, and he recoiled as though she had flung a kettle of boiling water into his face.

Even in his confusion, though, the taunt had stung him to the quick, and he answered her, without thinking, "I am not a pirate. My father carries Letters of Marque."

"Don't you dare to contradict me." Confusingly she was switching between Latin, Dutch and English. But her tone was sharp and stinging as a scourge.

Again he was stung into a reply. "I did not mean to offend you."

"When my noble husband finds out that you have been spying on me, he will go to your pirate father, and they will have you flogged on the tripod like those other men this morning."

"I was not spying on you, -" "Liar!" She would not let him finish. "You dirty lying pirate." For a moment she had run out of breath and insults. "I only wanted to, -" Her fury was recharged. "I know what you wanted. You wanted to look at my katjie, -" he knew that was the Dutch word for kitten " and then you wanted to take your cock in your hand and pull it, -" "NoV Hal almost shouted. How had she known his shameful secret? He felt sick and mortified.

"Quiet! Zelda will hear you," she hissed again. "If they catch you it will be the lash."

"Please!" he whispered back. "I meant no harm. Please forgive me.

I did not mean it."

"Then show me. Prove your i

"I can't. "His voice quivered with shame.

"Stand up! Put it here next to the hole so I can see if you are lying."

"No. Please don't make me do that."

"Quickly or I -will scream for my husband to come." Slowly he came to his feet. The peep-hole was at almost exactly the same level as his aching crotch.

"Now, show me. Open your breeches, her voice goaded him.

Slowly, consumed by shame and embarrassment he lifted the canvas skirt, and before it was fully raised his penis jumped out like the springy branch of a sapling. He knew she must be nauseated and speechless with disgust to see such a thing. After a minute of thick, charged silence that seemed the longest in his life, he began to lower his skirt over himself.

Instantly she stopped him in a voice that seemed to him to tremble with revulsion, so that he could hardly understand her distorted English words.

"No! Do not seek to cover your shame. This thing of yours condemns you. Do you still pretend you are guiltless?" "No,"he admitted miserably.

"Then you must be punished," she told him. "I must tell your father."

"Please don't do that," he pleaded. "He would kill me with his own hands."

"Very well. I shall have to punish you myself. Bring your cock closer."

Obediently he pushed his hips forward. "Closer, so I can reach it. Closer."

He felt the tip of his distended penis touch the rough wood that surrounded the peep-hole, and then shockingly cool soft fingers closed over the tip. He tried to pull away, but her grip tightened and her voice was sharp. "Stay still!"

Katinka knelt at the bulkhead and threaded his glans through the opening, then eased it out into the lamp-light. It was so swollen that it could barely fit through the hole.

"No, do not pull away," she told him, making her voice stern and angry, as she took a firmer grip upon him. Obediently he relaxed and gave himself over to the insistent pressure of her fingers, allowing her to draw his full length through the opening.

She gazed at it, fascinated. At his age she had not expected him to be so large. The engorged head was the glossy purple of a ripe plum. She drew the loose prepuce over it, like a monk's cowl, and then pulled back the skin again as far it would go. The head seemed to swell harder as though on the point of bursting, and she felt the shaft jump in her hands.

She repeated the movement, slowly forward and then back again, and heard him groan beyond the panel. It was strange but she had almost forgotten the boy. This ma