Fearful Symmetry
Naked Prey 6
Part 1 of 2
by George Gauthier
Author's Note: This is a tale of two young castaways on the island of Sumatra during the early eighteenth century. It is the sixth story in my 'Naked Prey' series for the Historical section of the Nifty Archive, each with different characters. The other stories in the series so far are 'Naked Prey' set in 19th century Africa, 'The Shawnee', set in colonial America, 'Terra Australis', set during the great age of exploration in the South Seas, 'Dangerous Game' set largely in the Caribbean in the mid-seventeenth century, and 'White Comanche' set in the American Southwest in the 1830s.
The title is a reference to the poem 'The Tiger' by the English poet William Blake (1757Ð1827). Here are the last four lines.
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
This story contains graphic descriptions of the male human body, of consensual and non-consensual sexual activity between adult males, and of significant non-sexual violence.
If any of this would offend a reader, read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever jurisdiction applies.
It is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead. Otherwise, it is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only minor poetic license for the sake of the story.
It is offered for entertainment. If it manages to both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its aim. Writing this story has been the most fun I have had wearing clothes in a very long time. Well, since my last story.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Daphne Boy' historical tales or my 'Jungle Boy' series of tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the archive. Also, please try my futuristic 'Track and Field' stories in College and my 'Mer-Boy' stories in Gay/Beginnings. For links to my stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.
Comments and feedback welcome.
Chapter 1. Batavia, Java 1724
"Is this the trader Schooneveld?" the blond boy asked from the foot of the gangplank.
Short and slightly built, barefoot and wearing only a sarong wrapped low around his hips, sweating in the tropical heat, he looked up uncertainly at the great sailing vessel that would be his home for the next few years.
"You must be the new cabin boy. I am Willem Luyken, first mate," answered a tall good-looking red-haired young man in his very early twenties.
"Yes, sir, I am Jan Dekker. Captain de Sitter said I should report aboard this morning."
"Indeed, so he told me. Found you in a tavern did he, waiting tables? An orphan?"
The man let his statement hang as a question. It was his business to know something of the background of all the crew on his ship.
"Yes, sir. I was actually born right here in Batavia, but my folks died when I was ten. Except for a few years in an orphanage, I have been on my own ever since."
"Done any sailing?"
"Only trips to the nearer islands in the East Indies. All on local vessels with a crew of lascars. I was the only European aboard."
"Well you certainly dress like a lascar yourself in that sarong. And your bronzed skin is nearly as dark as theirs too."
Jan admitted that he had lived like a native for virtually all of his life, bared to the waist and barefoot. He couldn't remember when he had ever worn trousers. The sarong he wore slung low on his hips was one of only two that constituted his entire wardrobe. And yes it was the lascars who had pierced his earlobes for the gold rings that graced his shell-like ears.
"Well, let's see the rest of you then." the mate indicating with a wave of his hand that he should slip off his sarong.
Flushing, Jan tugged his garment off his hips and laid it over the rail, turning to let the first mate and most of the crew get a good look at him.
A few months short of seventeen, Jan Dekker was a comely lad, short for his age and slender. Standing no higher than four inches over five feet (163 cm) and weighing only 112 pounds (51 kg) he had a fawn-like physique but with a wiry musculature, toned and taut from hard work. Jan was pretty as a girl with delicate features, a straight nose, high cheekbones, and large green eyes with a blond thatch on top. He had virtually no hair on his body, just wisps under his arms and at the fork of his legs, with hardly a dusting on his lower legs and arms.
Jan turned again to face the officer who took his time appraising the boy's physique. He wasn't just gauging his suitability for sea duty. He looked at the boy with a prurient interest. As well he should. From his tiny red nipples to a deeply indented navel, to narrow hips framing a surprisingly ample manhood for one so slight in build, Jan was real beauty. He carried so little body fat that his flat belly showed a tracery of downward pointing veins just under the skin. The beat of his heart was visible on the left side of his smooth chest. He was sleek and smooth, deeply and evenly tanned. The sheen of sweat on his skin made him shine in the bright sun, his wiry physique a vision of youthful male pulchritude.
"You'll do," the first mate affirmed, apparently satisfied. "What is in the pack, lad?"
"Sir, all I have is a Bible, my extra sarong, a nearly empty purse, and my kris, I mean my knife. That's the sum total of my worldly goods."
"I know what a kris is lad. A Bible you said. Can you read and write then?"
"Certainly, sir and I can do my sums too."
Jan did feel awkward, standing there stark naked in front of an audience, whirling around as the mate twirled his finger, to display his back and bum, but he had often gone about naked aboard ship with the lascars. Indeed they had insisted on it when out to sea and had used him for sexual relief off watch. As part of his job at the tavern, sailors who had developed a taste for 'sea pussy' took him upstairs for a modest fee, most of which went to the owner. He had long ago accepted that his looks and small size meant he was fated to serve men as a sex toy. A sexual submissive anyway, he rather liked having strong men take control of his delectable body and impale him at both ends. He got his own satisfactions as they used him to get theirs.
As for the constant nudity the lascars had insisted upon, he found that exciting, even arousing. Jan really liked the kiss of the tropic sun on his bare skin, especially on his bum, and would happily go for days or weeks without clothing, displaying himself to onlookers. The mate could see for himself that Jan's tropical tan extended evenly all the way down to his ankles, just as he had suspected it would. Here was a bum boy who might as well put his sarongs into storage. The lad wouldn't be needing clothing aboard the Schooneveld which sailed only in tropical latitudes.
The mate directed one of the hands to show the lad where he could stow his gear including both his sarongs. The man grabbed the sarong on the rail before Jan could put it on, cocked his head, and simply said. "Come with me." With nothing for it but to follow the man, though still completely nude, Jan followed him to the forecastle.
The mate's eyes followed his progress across the deck, entranced by the sight of the boy's perfectly formed buttocks, dimpling fetchingly as he stepped sure-footedly across the planking before following the crewman down into the bowels of the ship. Jan quickly reported back to the mate nude and empty handed.
"Did you really think you could climb aloft in a skirt?" Will remarked. "On this ship your skin will be your uniform. That's much more practical, for all sorts of duties."
"Yes, sir" the boy replied, not entirely surprised nor displeased.
Jan knew what fate awaited pretty boys like himself who hired out on long sea voyages. Captain de Sitter had already sampled his wares at the tavern as a sort of job interview. So enforced nudity was only the beginning. Indeed his last three years had been spent as a part time whore either at the tavern or earlier for the lascars on the ships he had served on. Jan knew he was a sexy lad, whom stronger males lusted after and vice versa. He knew he himself felt no attraction to the female of the species. The first mate in particular was his type, tall, lean, handsome, with beautiful blue eyes and a ready smile.
The first mate explained that besides his duties in the officers' cabins serving meals, fetching, doing laundry, and tidying up, Jan would also serve as a lookout in the crow's nest where his keen young eyesight would be useful in guiding the ship. He would not be required to work the sails but was expected to help with cargo and deck work too. For starters, he could help the work party that was scrubbing the deck. The bosun showed Jan the simple requirements of the job, The boy got down on his knees and started on a section of the deck.
Both the first mate and the bosun smiled as they watched little Jan work at that task, on his knees, pushing a scrub brush back and forth, a nude sailor boy, taut brown butt cheeks flexing, crinkly hole visible in between, genitals dangling between his slender thighs, back and shoulder muscles rippling as he thrust forward and back. Almost like getting down on all fours to get pronged. Well, there would be time for that later.
The trading ship Schooneveld was in the service of the Dutch-owned United East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). The charter of the VOC granted it exclusive trading rights in the Indies and gave it virtually sovereign powers to maintain armed forces, to wage war, to conclude treaties and to govern the areas it controlled, even to coin money. The Schooneveld carried supplies to Dutch garrisons around the rim of the Indian Ocean, especially the all important gunpowder manufactured in Batavia on the island of Java, the center of Dutch power in the East Indies.
The ship plied the sea lanes to the Dutch factory (trading post) at Surat in Gujarat, India and the port of Cochin in the Dutch territory of Travancore at the southwestern tip of the Indian subcontinent, to the coastal regions of Ceylon controlled by the VOC, and occasionally as far as Capetown in South Africa. It transported supplies in its own hold, carried mail and company messages, and it could act as an escort to large convoys. Its heavy armament of cannon made it ideal for suppressing piracy or bombarding coastal towns, as an exercise in gunboat diplomacy.
Captain de Sitter came aboard at mid-morning pleased to see that the new cabin boy had reported as ordered and that his mate had already stripped him naked and put him to work. The boy was just about finished with his chore of scrubbing the deck. He had done a good job of it too, no doubt trying to impress the mate with his conscientiousness and attention to duty. After Jan finished cleaning the deck he pulled a bucket of seawater up on a rope and let it splash down over him. Cleansed and cooled off, he looked over to the bosun for further orders. That worthy simply nodded toward the captain, so Jan went over to him.
"There you are lad. I see my first mate has already told you that you are to stay naked the whole time you are aboard ship. Those sarongs of yours are for when you go ashore on liberty. Meanwhile I want you to step into the cabin for a moment so I can pluck your feathers."
"Feathers?", the boy wondered for a moment, then realized what that meant.
He dutifully trooped behind the captain, the mate resting his hand reassuringly on his shoulder. He looked up at the man who toward over him by a foot (30 cm). The man's gaze was amused but in a friendly sort of way. Jan thought he could quickly get to like the man.
"Don't be worried about the razor lad. The captain has the steadiest hand aboard. He'll soon have you smooth."
Captain Adrien de Sitter was a big man, still in his early thirties albeit with a touch of grey in the dark hair at the temples. Though three or four inches shorter than the mate, at six foot even (183 cm) he still loomed over little Jan. Whereas the mate was tall and lean, his superior was massively built. He looked as strong as a bear though fortunately nowhere nearly so hirsute. Indeed, as Jan had seen for himself the evening before, the man sported only a splash of chest hairs around his nipples and a treasure trail leading to a triangle patch at his loins.
De Sitter explained why he was plucking Jan. It wasn't really to prevent an infestation of body lice, or because he liked underage boys. To the contrary, he wanted an older boy like Jan who had reached his full growth but was still quite small and slender and no bigger than a pretty lass. He had been very excited last night at how good little Jan looked kneeling before him, pouty lips locked around the captain's huge cock, looking up at the older male worshipfully. He pointed out to his new cabin boy that with his body hair gone, Jan's cock would sprout directly from his belly wall and look significantly larger.
Most of all, removing all body hair would make the cabin boy even more naked than he had been, as naked as it was possible for a boy to be. Nothing human looks quite so deliciously naked as a hairless lad: in the first blush of youth; no overlay of extra flesh; no distracting and off-putting hairiness; slender limbs with veins just under the surface of the skin. The slender thighs of a lad join at narrow hips, letting him strut his sprouting manhood. That was what the captain wanted for Jan.
Jan had misgivings about what amounted to partial emasculation. Slight as he was, he already looked a couple of years younger. A total loss of body hair would turn him back into the hairless boy he had been before his abbreviated growth spurt. For crying out loud, he was actually on the edge of seventeen, approaching manhood. But Jan put his trust in the captain he had pledged to serve. He also found himself excited at the prospect of presenting himself to everyone aboard ship even more naked than he had been.
So Jan humbly submitted to de Sitter's razor. It took but a moment to denude the lad of the sparse wisps in his arm pits and at his groin, though the boy was visibly nervous as the sharp edge of the razor glided along the bottom of his shaft and all around the root. Not that it really needed it, smooth as it already was, but de Sitter stretched out the boy's scrotum and drew the razor over that too, turning the blade so it glinted wickedly and threateningly in the sunlight streaming through the cabin window, running it over the ridges and curves of the boy's vulnerable ballsac, even bouncing the spheres lightly on the flat of the blade.
The captain smiled at the way the boy gulped as de Sitter toyed with his precious balls, then squeezed his eyes shut unable to bear the sight of the razor teasing him so intimately, only to fling them open again in alarm at what might be happening to his manhood while he was not keeping watch.
For good measure, and because it was sexy and provocative, the man shaved the boy's anal region too, making him get up on all fours on the sturdy table securely fasted to the deck. Jan really had nothing back there to shave. The captain just wanted Jan up there like a dog being groomed, trembling on all fours as the straight razor scraped along his cleavage, across his tiny pucker, and then down the back of his dangling and vulnerable ballsac. He even swatted it gently a couple of times with the flat of the blade. The boy held still for all of that though he did whimper once or twice. De Sitter rather liked the sound of Jan's soft whimpers.
De Sitter was pleased that his new cabin boy was so complaisant, presenting himself to the older males utterly naked atop the table, legs wide apart, offering the most intimate parts of his body for inspection, for exploring fingers, and so trustingly, for the edge of a blade that could emasculate him in an instant.
Afterwards Jan ran his fingers over his smooth groin and armpits. The captain let him check himself out in the half-length mirror hung on the inside of the door of his wardrobe. Jan put his hands behind his head, elbows back, legs wide apart, pelvis thrust forward as he gazed at his hairless torso. He turned left and right to see himself from all angles.
The older males smiled indulgently at the excited boy who practically shivered with lust and embarrassment both. This was so exciting, being in the presence of strong handsome men who knew how to treat a little bottom boy like Jan, taking command of his genitals like that, plucking him smooth. He grabbed himself down there, his knees going weak. He nearly swooned with the frisson of his own naughtiness.
Afterwards, as the mate escorted the boy on deck he stressed to Jan that though the captain would be friendly and familiar with him in private, on deck the captain would be all business. He wouldn't play favorites or accept any hesitation in carrying out his orders. Jan was to remember too that his delicious body was not for everyone to share. He was required to give himself to the captain and the three mates and the bosun. Anything else he did was on his own, and he had the right to refuse any other member of the crew. The cabin boy would live in officer country where Jan would share the officers' cabins just as he shared their beds. Indeed the captain preferred he not get too friendly with the sailors who lived in forecastle, and to keep what he overheard to himself. No gossip mongering.
Chapter 2. Across the Indian Ocean
Three months later, as the Schooneveld was returning from India and Ceylon to Batavia on Java, it crossed the Equator for the second time on that voyage. Jan smiled as he remembered his initiation on the earlier outward leg of the trip.
Born and raised on Java, he had spent his whole life in the Southern Hemisphere. After leaving Batavia outbound, the ship had sailed past the west end of the island then south through the Sunda Strait, which the VOC had long used as its gateway to the Spice Islands, despite the difficulties of navigation. The Shooneveld's route took it past the then dormant volcano Krakatoa, which would erupt explosively a century and a half later. Rounding the southern end of the island of Sumatra, the ship had headed out on a northwest heading 2,000 miles (3,200 km) across the broad Indian Ocean to Colombo, Ceylon, which, despite the similarity, was not named after the Italian explorer Cristoforo Colombo.
The open water route was an alternative to the more usual commercial passage through the Strait of Malacca, between Sumatra and the southern part of the Malay Peninsula. The coasts on both sides of the narrow 500 mile long strait (800 km) was dotted with ports and harbors. Commercial shipping had to run a gantlet of pirates, shallow waters, and tricky currents. The ship's open water route paralleled the great island of Sumatra, sixth largest in the world, which runs for 1,100 miles (1,800 km) southeast to northwest and is bisected by the Equator.
In the time honored traditions of the sea, sailors who had never 'Crossed the Line' had to endure a humiliating rite of passage. The seasoned sailors, the Shellbacks, lorded it over the newbie Pollywogs. The tradition was originally a test for seasoned sailors to assure themselves that their new shipmates could handle long watches and rough times at sea.
As it happened, Jan was the only pollywog aboard on that trip, so he drew all the attention (and pent-up mischief) of his shipmates. Instead of making him dress in female garb (the usual thing), the sailors simply kept the boy naked as they made him crawl on his belly across a deck strewn with rotting vegetables. He had to scuttle on hands and knees between their straddled legs as they swatted his rump with a tawse or rope-end. They dunked him in the sea and towed him behind the ship for a while, then pulled the bedraggled lad back up on deck where he had to endure all manner of poking and verbal humiliations, with much reference to his diminutive size, hairless body, pretty boy looks, and his active sex life, sucking cock and taking it up the ass all the time.
Then the lusty sailors put the hapless lad in bondage, tying his hands behind his back, roping his ankles separately then hanging him by his feet upside down from a spar, legs spread wide apart, his head just about waist height. The sense of helplessness and vulnerability as he dangled there, balls and ass so totally exposed and handy for the sailors to reach for and grab fed his teenage libido. He could feel the bare chests of the men pressing all around him, the touch of their crinkly chest hair on his skin sent shivers through his trussed up body. The men ran their hands along his thighs, delving into his exposed cleavage, toying with his genitals and his hole. The lusty sailors took turns spanking or caressing or even kissing the sublime bums so conveniently to hand. Most were envious of their officers who could play with the luscious youth every day.
To make things interesting, 'King Neptune', with the captain's permission, mixed brandy and red wine from ship's stores and poured it through a funnel stuck in the boy's anus to fill up the rectum within. The youth could only squirm deliciously as the warmth of the liquid heated his insides. The men chuckled at this new way they had found to get the boy's ass hot and to get a fire going in his belly.
Poor Jan! The lad was not used to spirits anyway and taking so much fortified wine that way got the alcohol into his bloodstream far faster than through the stomach. That particular body cavity is lined with blood vessels just under the surface. It wasn't long before the youth was tipsy, then giddy, and finally hopelessly inebriated. He abandoned himself to the sexual excitement of the moment as the men made him suck them all off, many of them twice.
Hands were on him everywhere, touching him, stimulating him, squeezing and fondling and stroking. Those who couldn't wait simply jerked off and splooged his chest and belly and face. Despite his feeble protests the sailors worked Jan's own cock, bringing him off again and again till he was utterly drained. One man got the idea to use a belaying pin to churn the mixture in his rectum, so he got fucked by a hard wooden cock as well. They used the round head of the belaying pin to probe him, leaving the cylindrical shank poking obscenely up out of his hole.
As Jan struggled and squirmed, some of the fortified wine got forced out of his anus, spurting over his ass and draining down his back and belly and chest.
"Poor lad!" someone intoned with transparent insincerity. "See how he sheds his virgin's blood."
That provoked a general chuckle among the participating shellbacks. One sailor used some of the red fluid to paint Jan's nipples, making them even redder. Next came the head of his cock, his scrotum, and even his lips even though they were already locked around the huge cock a sailor. This was a crossing the line ceremony, no one would soon forget.
Afterwards the bosun had a couple of the sailors clean Jan up and carried the boy's limp and virtually comatose body to the first mate's cabin. Willem laid the boy gently in his bunk. Even when he climbed in with the youth later that evening, the mate merely caressed Jan's shapely form as he made room for himself, spooning their bodies together. The boy looked so peaceful in sleep, small and lovely, like an angel come to Earth. Will left him alone to sleep off the effects of the alcohol.
The next day, Jan was sore all over and had such a horrendous hang-over he swore off spiritous liquors for the rest of his life. Willem laughed at that, arguing that his lover could hardly blame strong drink for his current misery, teasing him about his decision.
"How can you swear off strong drink, little one, when not a drop of liquor passed your lips yesterday?"
"Very funny, sir. Maybe I didn't drink anything, but a lot of King Neptune's potent brew did indeed pass my lips, the ones in my bottom guarding the hole you so very much love to penetrate."
The mate could only laugh at the brazenness and shamelessness of the uninhibited youth who could speak so easily of a physical relationship that many would disapprove of and even think sinful. Willem was glad that the boy felt no guilt about what the captain and he and the other officers did with the lad every day, or at the way they kept him on display constantly naked and hairless. If anything were a sin, it would be covering the youth with concealing cloth.
Admittedly the boy did have a point about overindulgence in spirits. Still, with the resilience of youth, within a couple of days Jan he was his usual cheerful self. Truth is he had enjoyed himself hugely at the initiation. It had been so very sexy, being the center of attention, having so many strong men play with him for what seemed like an endless procession of hard cocks.
For their part, the sailors had been impressed with how well Jan had taken his punishment, being a good sport and all. They already knew that he was a good worker, always ready to lend a hand pulling on a line, shifting cargo, or scrubbing the deck. He had proved himself a good comrade, so he became accepted by the rest of the crew, almost as a mascot. Of course mascots often get petted, so the boy often found friendly hands on his shoulders, patting his back, giving his rump a friendly swat, or rubbing his belly.
Aside from the ceremony at the Equator, the outbound voyage had been largely uneventful. Jan was delighted when they made port at Colombo and later in Travancore and Surat. It gave him a chance to see something of fabled India and its multitude of races, languages, cultures, cuisines and music. India was not merely a country but an entire subcontinent.
Jan and Willem took liberty together when in port. Jan got to wear clothing for these excursions, one of his sarongs. Jan had always liked sarongs, glad that first his parents and then the orphanage had not insisted on trousers in the tropical heat of Java. As he looked at himself in the captain's mirror, he could see how the thin cloth wrapped low and tight around his hips flattered his trim rump. Well, he couldn't very well go around town stark naked, so the next best thing was a sarong. Still if he had his druthers, Jan preferred total nudity. As far as he was concerned, that should be the case when you were young and pretty, putting yourself on display just as God made you.
After weeks spent totally nude, the touch of cloth rubbing against his skin, especially down there, was arousing. Jan sometimes found himself plumping up and poking out, much to Willem's amusement. The man challenged the youth to wear his sarong even lower on his hips than before, low enough to flash the top of his cleavage in back.
They made a striking couple walking about the port towns they stopped at: one standing a foot taller than the other, the older male dressed in Western clothing, the younger one, dressed, if that was the word for it, in a low slung wrap, the taller one virile, powerfully built, and handsome, the shorter one delicate and pretty with a trim wiry physique. Some suspected, correctly, they were a couple with Willem playing the handsome swain to Jan's pretty young thing.
Willem took Jan on an overnight trip into the Western Ghats, the high hills that lie inland from the coast. They swam in a cool pool at the foot of a dramatic waterfall, ate the spicy food of the region, visited ancient temples and fortifications, and marveled at the strange creatures they encountered, including elephants and a tiger.
The two would talk together for hours of seamanship, the different countries Willem had visited, the peoples and creatures he had encountered. The older man widened the boy's horizons, showing him something of the wonder and variety of the wider world. For a man who was largely self-educated, Willem was knowledgeable about so many things. He let Jan borrow books of poetry and travel narratives from the small chest of volumes he kept in his cabin. Willem could see that though half-educated as he was, Jan was a clever boy. He already spoke two native languages plus his native Dutch.
Now Jan liked the captain well enough, and their sex together was great, but he had fallen in love with Willem Luyken and the first mate with him. Willem didn't just use him for pleasure and treat him courteously, as captain de Sitter did. He clearly enjoyed Jan's company and not just when they were in bed. The time they had spent together on that voyage was the happiest of his young life so far.
So all was well the second time Jan crossed the line, which was coincidentally his seventeenth birthday. The cook prepared a special supper for the boy with just the captain and mate. The captain even let him have a small glass of sherry and led them in a toast.
"To our lovely cabin boy Jan on his seventeenth birthday. Many happy returns, but please Lord, not too soon."
"What he means, Jan" the first mate explained with a fond smile at the captain, "is that cabin boys grow up much too fast. Sooner than you would think, they become first mates."
That provoked a rueful smile from de Sitter.
Jan made a face at his first taste of the fortified wine, but gamely drank it all in small sips. Jan vowed to stick with beer if he drank at all. At least beer had food value, and the bitter taste cleared the palate. Too bad they hadn't been served beer with that spicy Indian food he and Willem had both liked so much.
After the festivities, the captain and first mate played together with Jan, giving him a double birthday fuck. Laying him on his back crosswise on the table, the two of them took off their clothing and addressed the boy's orifices with their rampant cocks. De Sitter took Jan's talented mouth and Willem his ass. Magnanimously the captain let his first mate go first and get himself fully seated in the boy's fundament.
In part he was just being careful. Jan was a good boy and a compliant lover, but he really was tiny and tight back there and the mate's formidable cock could be painful as it pressed its way inside. Jan's face always contorted wryly when that happened and he moaned softly as he struggled to accept the invader and deal with the pain. The man's shaft always forced his anal sphincters wider apart than perhaps nature had intended. Jan had come to crave that initial pain as a foretaste of so much pleasure, but he could not always control his writhing at the penetration. Hence the captain's forbearance during the preliminaries.
It was easier then for the captain to wait for the mate to get his cock in the boy's ass fully set then slide the rest of his shaft down Jan's welcoming throat. The wait had not been wasted. Jan's lips and tongue had been working on the head of de Sitter's cock, smooching the knob, licking around the rim of the glans, kissing the top of the shaft, letting the heavy acorn shape rest on his tongue while giving it a good soak. As the captain slid his cock in deep, Jan's pouty lips closed tight over the shaft forming a seal. The boy had been taking cock for several years and had long since mastered his gag reflex. For his part, the captain knew to set a predictable rhythm in and out so the boy could breathe when de Sitter withdrew for a moment then plunged back in. Jan was one of the few boys who could swallow him fully, burying his nose deep in the captain's pubic hair and pressing his lips his belly. That was really remarkable given the girth and length of the captain's truncheon of manhood. It would take three hands the size of Jan's small ones to cover that monster.
De Sitter liked to watch the play of a boy's abdominal muscles as he lay impaled at both ends, struggling to breathe at one end and to squeeze and milk the cock in him at the other end. Jan was talented, his small body taut and tight and exciting to fuck. He loved to have cocks in both orifices while the men who took him played with his delectable body, twisting his nipples, tugging on the small gold rings that now pierced their nubbins, running their fingers over the chevron of his ribs, tracing the channel between his pectorals and the corrugations of his belly. This was what he was born for, to pleasure strong men while they aroused him, making him giddy and lightheaded with lust, shivering and shuddering as he abandoned himself to the good feelings coursing through his body.
Willem came first, shooting his seed deep into the boy's bowels. The feel of the wet warmth spurting into him set Jan off in turn. His ass muscles squeezed Willem's cock even as it pumped his gism into the boy, while Jan's own ejaculation arced out of his cock to splash on his face and chest. The sight of the white cream on the boy's tanned chest and belly pushed de Sitter over the edge. His cock throbbed as it spurted into the boy's throat. In his excitement, the captain kept his shaft buried deep, forgetting to withdraw to let the boy breathe. Both males were too absorbed to realize the import of the boy's struggles as he grew dizzy and weaker, deprived of air. His sight faded as he started to black out.
Suddenly de Sitter saw what was happening and pulled back so that just the head of his cock was in the boy's mouth. Jan sucked air into his lungs and looked up at the captain and smiled gratefully. He resumed his tonguing of the cock head, squeezing and tugging on the captain's extra sensitive cock. De Sitter's bent forward and put some of his weight on his elbows as he shuddered in the mix of pleasure and pain that shot through his belly as his boy teased him.
No doubt about it. Jan gave better head than he had ever known before. He was a treasure, so uninhibited and complaisant, always eager to please, and so very pretty of face and body. He positively reveled in his perpetual nudity and hairlessness. Taking Jan on as cabin boy was his best hire since he had given the same job to Willem Luyken nearly eight years before on their old ship the Utrecht.
Chapter 3. Into Danger
The disadvantage of the open water route usually taken by the Schooneveld was that it lay far out at sea, too far from safe harbor in the case of a big blow. The Indian Ocean is beset by cyclones, the same kind of tropical storms that were called hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the Pacific. A master mariner like de Sitter could read the weather signs and had prepared his ship as best he could, but the old trader still took a battering.
Some cargo got loose in her hold and hit the planking of her hull hard enough to spring the seam. Men had to work the pumps to keep the ship from taking on too much water. Else she might bury her nose into the troughs of the great waves that were tossing her about. Several of the old salts told tales of monster waves in past storms that were as high as the mast. The thirty foot waves that beset the Schooneveld were problem enough. Besides the damage to the hull, the ship lost most of its mizzen mast, which cracked in two just above the spar for the mizzensail. The wreckage fell over the rail of the ship, jammed in the bulwark, dragging in the water but still connected by standing rigging and lines. Its drag could cause the ship to broach, turn it sideways to the sea where the waves would roll it over.
The first mate led a party with axes and knives to cut loose the downed mast. Jan's small size made him ideal for wriggling through tight spots to get to the crucial connections, taking care not to get entangled and then swept into the sea when the rigging was finally freed. Under the keen edges of the sailors' blades, lines parted and wood chips flew, till the whole mess of tangled rigging went over the side in a rush. Willem flashed a smile of satisfaction to Jan that their timely action had kept the ship from going to the bottom. Jan grinned back, ignoring the wind that whipped his hair about or the rain and the spray that pelted his naked body. A wave did wash over the deck, but the boy simply held on to the rigging and, and as the ship shook off the heavy sea, emerged from the frothing waters like a mer-boy rising from the sea. Willem pressed the small water slicked body to his breast and kissed the top of his head, immensely proud with his lover's courage and cool-headedness at the critical moment.
Abruptly the ship broke into calm water and blue sky. Everyone looked about in wonder. The Schooneveld was at the edge of a circle of still water and fair skies. Sunlight slanted down onto the deck. Jan closed his eyes and turned his face up to the sun, basking in the warmth after his dunking. Even as he turned to clear the deck of the remaining wreckage, he could feel the sun's heat on his shoulders, his back, and his rump. What a sudden change from what they had just gone through. The calm sea gave the crew a chance to tamp canvas into the sprung seams and nail it in place. The intake of water slowed to a trickle easy enough for the pumps to handle.
"Just in time, too" de Sitter warned. "The wind at the far wall of the eye of the storm will be stronger."
And so it proved to be. The waves were mountainous, green hills rolling across the surface of the ocean. The wind blew so hard, it was impossible to distinguish sea spray from rain. Still, thanks to the courage and seamanship of the crew the old trader survived the storm and resumed its course, limping southeast toward Java.
Now ships in those days did not have any reliable way to determine their longitude, their distance east or west. So the Schooneveld found itself sailing closer than planned to the chain of islands that guarded the west coast of Sumatra. De Sitter dropped anchor in a sheltered cove just around a headland from a native village to effect repairs and to take on fresh water.
Called the Mentawai islands, they are volcanic in origin, the result of an upwelling of magma from the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate into the Sumatra Trench to the west. Their inhabitants spoke Austronesian languages and were culturally distinct from the peoples of Sumatra, but like them they were not above a little opportunistic piracy. A crippled ship with an exhausted crew looked liked easy pickings.
The villagers waited till the ship had anchored and sent a work party ashore to refill the water casks. Sailing ships seldom passed up a chance to exchange water that had been sitting in casks for weeks developing a bad taste for water right out of spring or stream. That was when the islanders fell upon the work party and killed all but one of them who swam inexpertly out toward the ship. They took the ship's boat and added it to the small flotilla of canoes that swarmed out to the Dutch ship, finishing off the last member of the work party who was struggling in the water.
Aware of the possibility of marauders, de Sitter had had the guns loaded with canister shot, a tin cylinder filled with dozens of lead balls that turned cannon into giant shotguns. The ship's gunfire made bloody work of the marauders, driving them off with heavy losses. Only a few canoes made it to the side of the ship where the crew used short swords and axes to repel the boarders. A few of them tried to swarm the quarterdeck, to take the captain hostage, pointing at, laughing at, and contemptuously dismissing the naked cabin boy as no real threat, armed as he was with only his knife, a Javanese kris, but Jan had been taking knife fighting lessons from Willem. The kris was as long as Jan's forearm making it practically a short sword. The kris and de Sitter's sword blade held the pirates off long enough for the mate and others in the crew to cut them down from behind.
"Didn't I tell you, Willem, that this boy was a treasure? I take full credit for deciding to hire him on as cabin boy back in Batavia," de Sitter said with a smile, looking proudly at the stout lad who had proved his pluck in storm and savage fighting.
Jan bowed to show his appreciation, though his utter nudity made the gesture less courtly than it might otherwise have been. The captain pointed up to the crow's nest telling Jan to keep an eye peeled for further trouble. Both officers watched the boy scramble up the rigging, admiring the flexing of his glutes and thighs as they propelled him upward.
They were pleased with how well the boy had taken to life at sea. He had never been seasick and was always cheerful and hardworking, and he had shown real courage there in both the storm and the skirmish with the villagers. The two men were pleased too with how well the boy had adapted to perpetual nudity aboard ship and his role as sex toy for the officers. He was always complaisant and enthusiastic with the men who took him to their beds. He did not need to be cajoled or ordered, and he certainly wasn't coquettish or teasing. He knew what he was there for and he did it, evidently getting as much pleasure out of it as he gave.
He was unconcerned about his reputation with the crew as the officers' catamite. He shrugged it off if any of the crew teased him or smirked at him, glancing at his bare ass or hairless crotch. He welcomed the physical attentions, the caresses and pats the officers favored him with, as compliments to his beauty. What could be more natural for men who lust after pretty boys than to recognize his sexiness and vitality. He knew he was exquisitely pretty. Everyone told him as much. Was it vanity then on his part to accept that as the truth? He thought not.
With the wind blowing strong from the west, de Sitter decided to sail down the Mentawai Strait in the somewhat sheltered waters between the chain of islands and Sumatra proper. The captain did manage to stop at another island and effect some repairs, jury rigging a short mizzen mast with a long spar. The repair crew patched the hull well enough that the ship was no longer taking on water, so they did not have to rely on the pumps to keep her afloat.
Seaworthy once again, though still crippled, the ship sailed southward, proceeding cautiously for they had no reliable charts for those waters. The weather bid fair, blue skies and wind from the north. At the southern end of the strait they found their way blocked by a pair of pirate junks. Unlike the opportunistic villagers they had encountered before, these were professionals. Their ship could not turn north to sail away from the threat for the junks could sail closer to the wind and would overtake her. They would have to fight their way into the clear despite being outnumbered and outgunned.
This would be no skirmish with small boats close to shore but a real sea battle under sail to be decided by cannon. If the pirates could immobilize their vessel with chain shot through the rigging, they could swarm aboard and settle the issue with cold steel. Merchant vessels carried just enough crew to work the ship and the guns. Pirates had large crews, including swarms of fighters who could sail, shoot or board at will.
Despite the strange sounding name (which is simply the Javanese word for 'ship') there was nothing unworthy about junks compared to square-rigged ships like the Schooneveld. Junks were efficient and sturdy ships. Their sails can be aligned with the long axis of the ship making them better at sailing into the wind. The horizontal poles or battens in the sails strengthen them against tearing. A cannonball through one batten cannot ruin a whole sail. Junks pioneered the use of stern mounted rudders centuries before their adoption in the West. So captain de Sitter did not despise his native opponents. He knew they might well sink or capture his vessel and enslave any of the crew left alive.
"At least we have the weather gage, sir." Willem told his captain.
"And we had better make the most of it." the older man said grimly.
The first mate meant that their position to the north of and upwind from the two enemy vessels gave them an advantage. With the wind at his back, their ship could sail faster and maneuver at will toward any point downwind. The enemy had to attack upwind, tacking back and forth, going slower and liable to be headed off by the faster vessel. Equally important, a vessel heading (diagonally) into the wind cannot use its guns very easily. The sideways force of the wind makes the vessel heel over, leaving the windward side elevated, its guns pointed to the sky while the gun ports on the leeward side of the point toward the sea or even actually awash.
Even with the weather gage their ship wasn't really faster than the enemy junks. The loss of the mizzenmast had significantly reduced the trader's speed and maneuverability. It would take guile and grit as well as the weather gage for the good ship Schooneveld to get through the enemy gantlet. De Sitter maneuvered so he could attack one enemy at at time, when they were on different tacks, aiming for the one on his right, to the west of the other junk. He stationed his three best shots in the bow crouched down so they could not be seen. At the designated signal they were to fire at the pirates manning the ship's wheel. Each man had three loaded muskets and another sailor to reload for each of them.
As the Dutch ship came abreast of the enemy, sailing on opposite courses, she gave the enemy junk a broadside. Immense clouds of smoke filled the space between the vessels as the pirate ship returned fire. Meanwhile the shooters in the bow went to work. The sharpshooters fired at the two pirates manning the wheel, killing or wounding them and the next two men who tried to reach the wheel to take over. The enemy junk fell off into the wind, temporarily out of control. That was the chance de Sitter was aiming for. He turned on the opposite tack, slowing his own vessel down and leaving the sails luffing in the wind for a brief time, but he got his ship turned around to present her starboard broadside to the enemy's stern. The great cannon roared, some double-shotted, and fired their iron balls the length of the enemy vessels. Then de Sitter wore ship, turning it around again and gave it a second broadside into the stern with his port guns which had been reloaded in the meantime.
Round shot does its damage to a ship by smashing a ship's structure: breaking timbers and bulkheads or masts and rigging. Additionally, as the shot smashes into the wood of the ship it breaks off huge splinters a foot or more long and propels them with frightful force into or through anything inside the hull. A broadside into the belly of a ship can turn the below decks into an abbatoir as the slinters impale themselves in mens' bodies or simply tear them apart.
The first enemy junk lost way, turned and crashed into the second, fouling her. That gave de Sitter his chance to get away. The sailors fired two broadsides into the second junk as the pulled away from the tangled ships. Damage to her own rigging made their own progress painfully slow, but the second junk was in no condition to pursue, battling a fire that had started on the wrecked first ship.
Still their guns could reach out to batter the Schooneveld as it retreated south, carrying away the jury rigged mizzenmast entirely. As the wreckage fell to deck. it caught the first mate a glancing blow. Stunned, only half conscious, he could not get clear as the tangled spars and lines slipped over the side. Jan did not hesitate. Seeing Willem in mortal peril, he put the blade of his knife to his mouth and, gripping it with his teeth, he dove over the side, swimming to where Willem struggled feebly to free himself. Jan cut at the ropes desperately, finally getting his lover free. They clutched each other while treading water, trying to think of what to do next.
It was no good to swim for the ship. It was moving too fast and Captain de Sitter dared not slow down or stop. His duty was to his ship, its crew, and its cargo. He could not risk everything for just two men, however much he cared for them. Suppressing tears that he would allow himself only in private, he gave orders to continue south, away from the pair left behind in the water. Jan called out to the ship, but it was no use.
There was nothing for it but to swim to the eastern shore, no more than half a mile away, and try their luck on Sumatra. Fortunately, the current pushed them south away from the junks. Not that they two young men had escaped the attention of the pirates. Too far away for their muskets, the pirates fired cannon several times at the retreating duo, but without success. All that their round shot could do was make a big splash in the water. Together Jan and Willem staggered up onto shore and pushed into the jungle.
They marched inland, away from the coast till they came to hill. Looking back they could see the Schooneveld was much farther away now. The second junk had untangled itself and put out the fires it had caught from the first, now only a burning shell, sinking rapidly. It was time to take stock of their situation. Their ship was gone and could not return to look for them, even if de Sitter thought they were still alive. The VOC would not again risk a ship in the Mentawai Strait. Jan and Willem could not stay near shore either in hope of rescue or to try to find some means of transport south to Java. Villagers along the coast would simply turn them over to pirates. That left inland.
"Inland. We have to go inland, Jan, to get away from pursuit."
"All right, Willem, I can see that, but then what?"
Their options were to head east, over the mountains and then across the flat coastal plain to the Strait of Malacca, a journey of maybe two hundred miles (300 km). Or they could follow the Barisan mountains all the way to the south end of the island, maybe to Palembang. The sultan there had a long-standing treaty with the VOC. That was longer, maybe 300 miles (450 km).
Either would be a grueling journey given their lack of equipment and supplies. Willem wore his uniform trousers and white shirt and stout boots. His sword belt still held both sword and knife and a pocket with flint and steel to start fires. Jan had only his knife but was entirely naked and barefoot. They had no food or water nor anything to carry it in. Water would not be a problem, given the heavy rainfall and many streams and rivers. Food would be, especially since they would have to skirt any settlements. Strangers could expect to be killed or enslaved.
Jan trusted his friend's good sense so he raised no objection when Willem decided that their best chance was to make for Palembang but to travel on the other side of the mountains, away for the coast. The foothills on the other side would be easier going than the swamps and jungle of the flatlands beyond and probably less disease ridden. Without a compass, they would let the mountain range itself guide them. Once in the eastern foothills, all they had to do was keep the mountains on their right and head southeast. They would be able see the lay of the land better from a higher elevation. One section of flat jungle or swamp looked much like another.
[Concluded in Part 2]