Angel At Sea

Comfort

Chapter Eight: Comfort

~~ I paused as the gaggle of women and I walked down the stairs; I was the last one out of the room and therefor the last one to leave the stairs. I stood in the middle of the stairs and stared down at the women who waited on the floor for me; they looked at me expectantly, but, I couldn't bring myself to step down another stair. "Oy! Come on! Your Cap'n's half way through his second drink; get your lazy bee'hind down them stairs now!"

One of the ladies yelled at me; I bit my bottom lip and sighed. "M-May I speak with you, please?" I asked, pointing to the woman who applied my makeup. "In private?"  

" 'Course, darlin'." The woman said, lifting up her dress and walking up the stairs; taking my arm gently in her hand and leading me back up to the room I was taken into to get dressed. "Now, what's the matter?" She asked, closing the door behind her; without all the rest of the women there, she was sweet and a façade need not be put up. It was hard for me to admit to anyone my feelings, the only one I talked of them to was Sophie, because, for some reason or other I felt completely comfortable with her and she understood me.

I sighed and lifted my little taters of courage from the ground, knitting them into a blanket and wrapping it around me; I breathed out: "I'm...I'm scared." I paused and the woman sat beside me on a large bed; gently touching my knee. "No...I'm not scared I'm...terrified. I'm alone and I don't know what he'll do to me now...I mean, he's abstained from touching me so far but the sheer number of innuendos he's made so far is unsettling enough--" I attempted to say, but, the woman interrupted me.

"Start from the beginning of your troubles." Said she, I nodded and poured my heart out to her, the excess liquid dripping from the cotton of our dresses onto the floor and falling through the cracks in the floorboards; no doubt the steaming hot, crimson liquid fell onto a few heads of the bar-goers. I was sobbing on her shoulder to the point where I began to feel nauseous; I looked up to her and nodded.

"That's why I'm terrified; my parents and nanny are dead, I'm stuck on a pirate ship with a Captain who scares me so bad sometimes that..." I faded and sighed "but" I began again, wiping my tears away. "He's not like that all the time, sometimes he can be very sweet; I-I found a note I suspect to be written by him and though I can't quote it from memory, my god, that was the most romantic note I've ever received! A-And he gave me my own room and...well, didn't kill me." I paused "but, what frightens me the most about him is that, one day, what if he just wakes up and decides not to abstain from touching me any longer? What if he decides that he doesn't want me around the boat anymore and orders his men to kill me?

I...I won't stand a chance! I can barely roll a barrel of gun powder let alone protect myself from a man of his strength and...to be completely honest, height." I finished, the woman enveloped me in a hug and sighed.

"It's alright, I don't believe he'll do either of the things you worry of; he's too scared to do that. I've known him for years, Anna, to those he's close to, his bark is severely bigger than his bite. However, to those who oppose him and/or hurt his family and friends? His bite is the most devastating, nightmarish thing in the world. He can go, from full of life and love to cold and emotionless within seconds; but, he won't do that with you.

Something tells me he just likes to toy with you, as most men do to women they fancy." She said with a grin; I blinked for a few moments, her words entered my ears, but, I couldn't comprehend them! I had so many questions and she read them upon my face with a laugh. "Darling, I put on that accent for the other women; I was once like you, save, I lived in Victoria Falls, Africa. One day my sister and I decided to go sailing and, to say the least, it ended in disaster; she and I got picked up by the man you call 'The Captain' and brought here, where we made good of what we had.