Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2008 12:07:24 -0500
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthier@verizonmail.com>
Subject: Fearful Symmetry Part 1

				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]