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Anne awoke the next morning feeling completely refreshed. Taking heed of what Mary had said about James, that his motivation was to make a better life for them, Anne had pretty much concluded that her husband would not become the governor’s informant once she explained to him that doing so would cause irreparable damage to their marriage. It was a conclusion that had quieted her brain and afforded her much a needed sleep. So, after enjoying a hearty breakfast at home, she happily made her way in to work. The next few days would pass quickly and she was anxious to have that talk with her husband.
Mary’s rule that prostitutes were forbidden to solicit in the Queens Arms had resulted in it being a comfortable environment for these women to come and relax while they were not working at the brothel. Because of that Anne had come to know many of them quite well, and she enjoyed learning about where they came from and how they chose prostitution as a livelihood. Nearly every one of them said she had done so because she hadn’t seen that there any other options available, but Anne tended to dismiss this as a simplistic excuse that they gave to justify their profession. These women were earning good wages, much more than she was, and they clearly enjoyed the benefits of having a disposable income. Most were putting money aside in hopes of leaving the brothel and talked incessantly about living a different life in the future. For them, brothel work provided the vehicle to take them to their various ends, but there were a handful of the women who were unique in that they were living in the present with no thought to leave, and it was these women who most intrigued Anne. Carol, one of them, had become a favorite of Anne’s to talk to at the tavern because their discussions were thoughtful rather than the superficial chatter that most of the others engaged in.
Other than the madam, Carol was the oldest woman in the brothel, yet the girls told Anne that she made more money than any of them. She was a not unattractive woman in her mid-30s, taller than most, with long brunette hair and a welcoming disposition, but nowhere near as glamorous as any of the others. So, how was it that with so many fresh, young women to select from, some of them even younger than Anne, that Carol thrived here while the others were just passing through? Anne had delicately asked Carol that question from various angles over the past month.
“Men come in for one of two reasons,” Carol told her. “Most are looking for a quick, physical release and they’re the ones who’ll want a pretty young girl to satisfy them. The reason some other men come in, though, is to seek escape, and they’re looking for someone who will genuinely be with them. To listen to them and make them feel good emotionally as well as physically. The latter are my customers; a giddy girl who really doesn’t want to be at the brothel in the first place isn’t going to be able to meet those needs. I’m genuinely being of service to these men and I also very much enjoy their company. Some of them have been coming to see me for years.”
That sense of being where you are precisely want to be was the one that eluded Anne, and it so infuriated her that the emotion that welled inside her whenever she listened to Carol could only be called jealousy. She felt badly about having that reaction because Carol was a wonderful person and Anne really liked talking to her. It wasn’t that Anne would ever consider becoming a prostitute, but the benefits of freedom from want and control of her own life that Carol had were intoxicating. Anne wanted those benefits. This is what James had promised her back in Carolina and it was the reason she ran away and sailed with him here to Nassau. It certainly wasn’t to be a barmaid. Anne determined that, once he returned from Harbour Island, she was going to push James into doing what he had originally said he would do and provide her with the satisfaction of life as a pirate.
Yesterday’s episode with Jack in the Queens Arms had brought up another question for Anne to ask the prostitutes, so she was pleased to see Carol was amongst them when she arrived at work. Waiting until she could pull her aside, Anne asked her, “Have you ever spent any time with Jack Rackham?”
Carol’s mouth wrinkled and she closed her right eye. “Why would a girl like you be asking about Jack?” She replied. “Have you ever met him?”
“Um, yes.” Anne suddenly felt uncomfortable. “He was in here yesterday and made a point of letting everyone know he was going to the brothel so I was, um, just wondering...” Her voice trailed off because she couldn’t find any words to explain what her interest in him actually was.
“Jack has no need of someone like me.” Carol’s face slowly turned from side to side. “So I’ve never had the pleasure. Besides, he likes the younger ones anyway. When he comes in he’s a man with pure lust on his mind. When it’s been slaked, he leaves.” She smiled. “But from what I hear I doubt that I’d ever be interested in the likes of him anyway.”
Since Carol had further stoked Anne’s curiosity about Calico Jack without being able to provide any details, Anne spent much of the rest of the day inquiring amongst the younger girls who might have had experience with him. She learned very little, however, and the cryptic nature of what she was told simply compounded her frustration. It wasn’t until Mary came in later in the day and explained to her that she was Jack’s lady that things started to fall into place for Anne regarding this mysterious former pirate captain. Jack Rackham was a man who had appetites for both lovemaking and lust and had managed to create a world for himself, without deception, where both were possible. It also seemed that his lust was unique and intense, but none of the brothel employees could, or was willing to, tell her precisely what was meant by that.
When Anne also learned that Mary had been a pirate alongside Jack her admiration for her boss grew exponentially and she immediately thought of the pirate version of Mary as the role model to emulate. But why had Mary given up that life in exchange for the mundane existence she now had? “Why?” Anne pressed her. “Didn’t you and Jack love living like that?”
“Aye,” Mary conceded. “It was a great life indeed, but then a chain of events occurred which changed everything.”
“Was that when he found out you were a woman?”
“Oh no, he and everyone else on board had known about that for the past half a year or so. No, it all began when our ship, the Ranger, was getting a bit leaky and we either had to get it careened and a refit or else find a newer ship. The crew decided on the latter, so we sailed into the shipping lanes in and out of Jamaica to find one of the larger merchant ships from Europe or Africa. It was late December of 1718 when we hit it rich, both with the right ship as well as a valuable cargo, when we captured a brigantine called the Kingston. She was a good deal larger than the Ranger and Jack decided that she’d make a fine flagship and could probably carry four more guns than our current vessel. After we took it we put the captain and crew onto a small sloop that we’d captured earlier and sailed the Kingston and the Ranger right away to Jack’s hideout on Isla de Pinos.”
“What was in the cargo that made it so valuable?” Anne was enthralled.
“It was an incredible haul. There were crates of silks and calico from India, chests full of jewelry and watches from England, fine Irish lace, and barrels of French brandy. It was the biggest prize any of us had ever seen.”
“So is that when you decided to give up being a pirate, because you’d hit it rich?” Anne question belied her disappointment.
“Oh no. Our plan was to convert the Kingston to a warship class ship so we could take even richer prizes. We had great plans to strip down the Ranger and we had plenty of funds to equip our new flagship with the additional guns and equipment that we’d need. The crew voted to set aside ten percent of the take for the ship before it was split up. It really was a sound plan, but that’s when things started to fall apart.”
“Why? What happened?”
“We were only a day’s sail out of Port Royal when we took the Kingston, and while it was the right thing to do to let her captain and crew go, they were able to get to Jamaica well before we even made it to Isla de Pinos. Usually losses to pirates are written off and people just take the insurance payoffs, but the owners of the Kingston and the merchants who had lost this cargo were so outraged that they banded together and outfitted bounty hunters to come after us.
Things all started to unravel about a month after we’d taken the prize ship. We’d finished unloading her, the booty had been divvied up, and we had her anchored in the bay while the Ranger had been run up on shore to make it easier to remove her guns. That’s when the bounty hunters found us. They didn’t have the courage to come ashore to attack us, but they were easily able to take the Kingston back since all that were on board were the watch crew. Since we still had the cargo we figured we had come out of it all right and we all decided to take the time to careen and refit our old ship before heading back out.” Mary’s face lit up as she sighed. “Those next months were pure magic. Jack and I spent so much time together talking and walking the beaches, as well as spending time in more civilized surroundings in the nearby town. We took a small house together where we had tea every afternoon and ate fine meals at night. We found we had so much in common away from the world of piracy and, well, that’s when we became a couple. Jack really knows how to properly treat a lady,” She smirked. “In every way imaginable.”
“But what about his, um, other needs? Didn’t he want you for that too?”
“We had it clear right from the start that he’d go elsewhere for his proclivities, and that isn’t a subject that we even discuss any more. The town there is nothing like New Providence, but it’s still a good size between the native population and the traders and farmers who have settled there. It used to be quite a busy pirate town, but on this visit we learned about the king’s pardon and that we were probably the only crew plying the trade that was still remaining in the area. Anyhow, there are three establishments that could be described as a combination tavern and brothel, so there was plenty of opportunity for the men to get their satisfactions.” Mary laughed. “Jack used to call the women there ‘delilahs’ for want of a more delicate term. Let me tell you, they were pretty pleased when the Ranger showed up.”
“Even more so, I imagine, when they realized the riches that she brought with her.” Anne nodded.
“Indeed, they were. Four of the crew actually got married to their favorites and settled down there on that trip. Everything was going well and by summer the Ranger was about ready to sail again, but then a Spanish warship from one of the Cuban coast patrols saw us and anchored just off the harbor entrance. They had another ship with them, a small English sloop that was most likely a privateer that they’d captured. It had probably been making its way to the island when they intercepted it. We were immensely lucky that it was late in the day and the tide was low so they had to stay there, rather than attempt to close in on us. They would have to wait until high tide the next day before they could attack. We figured they had probably heard about the Kingston episode and were planning to turn their guns on the Ranger to destroy it as soon as they could get in range, then come ashore to look for the treasure. We only had that night to come up with a plan to get us out of there, and Jack came up with a brilliant one. Those who wanted to stay, primarily the four who got married, were told to take their booty and hide inland until the Spanish had left. The rest of us took our chests with us into longboats late that night, rowed over to the sloop and overpowered the Spanish guards there. The next day, when the warship opened fire and began pulverizing the Ranger, we sailed off with the sloop as our new ship. The only place we could really go was north to the English waters of The Bahamas, and now knowing there were pirate hunters out in force we all decided to take advantage of the amnesty in New Providence.” She sighed. “We had enough money for the rest of our lives and I really believed that Jack would be happy settling down here with me. I think he did too, and he really was fine at first, but when the chance to go privateering with Benjamin Hornigold came up he jumped at the call to adventure.”
“What about now?” Anne asked. “I mean, he’s been shipwrecked and it sounds like he barely made it. Do you think he’s had enough adventuring now?”
“He says he has, but I know him probably better than he knows himself and eventually he’ll be getting anxious again. Settling down just isn’t in his nature. Jack’s driven by an insatiable thirst for adventure which can never be satisfied because it is in the experiencing of the adventure that he gets what he needs. It’s just like his lust; he can be with a couple of girls which will satisfy him for the then, but there’s no carry over effect and soon he’ll be in need of more. The only piece of his life that stays constant with Jack is how he and I feel about each other, and that’s why he says he’ll stay. What he has with me makes up the biggest part of him, but he needs both lust and adventure in order to be whole. He’ll just get all morose and itchy without that, and I’m resigned to the fact that he can only be the Jack I love when he has all three parts.”
Anne sat quietly at home that night replaying what Mary had told her over and over in her mind. Mary and Jack both enjoyed the life of adventure, but Jack needed it whereas Mary was able to give it up provided she had love. That was enough to sustain her.
Jack needed Mary’s love, but without adventure and prostitutes he would be frustrated and his life with her without them would be diminished.
Anne began searching her own self, to try and succinctly figure out what was it that she needed. In contrast to Mary, Anne knew that she didn’t want any part of love. Perhaps she wasn’t even capable of it. After all, she was married and yet love had never entered into it for her.
It was for adventure that she and James had come to New Providence and, all going well, she would be experiencing that soon. She felt that she could identify with Jack Rackham in that regard. She, too, knew the insatiable gnawing that wasn’t going to be calmed by conventional living.
Were there other ways that she might be like Calico Jack? What about lust? Married sex with James was quite nice, but hearing so much recently about men having lusty sex with prostitutes was causing her to think quite often about it. She had actually seen an act of lust once; it happened one summer’s night when she was twelve. Too hot to sleep, Anne was wandering around the house and heard noises coming from her father’s bedroom and she knew that he must have had one of the slaves with him. The door had been left ajar to pull the breeze from the window through the room so, curious, Anne decided to peek. Her father and a young house slave were in there behaving like farm animals. The woman was on her hands and knees, moaning and screaming, and he had mounted her from behind with his hands clasped like talons onto her shoulders. Anne then noticed that the slave’s wrists were bound together and attached to the headboard, and the welts on her buttocks must have come from the riding crop that fell onto the floor as the pounding intensified. Wide eyed, Anne had quickly scurried back into her room, but there was something about the scene that had caused it to be imprinted on her memory. Now, years later, she knew what it was. She wanted to feel what that slave must had been feeling. Anne suddenly remembered that when he was in the Queens Arms that day, Jack said he needed to go to the brothel as a means to disconnect. She then realized that, like Jack Rackham, she also wanted to completely lose herself in lust.
