Sensory Deprivation

Erotic short. Gerald is being a nuisance on the ship, so the crew make efforts to occupy him.

Gerald Poole has a sprained wrist, and not being able to work, the boredom is getting to him. His lovers — Jack Wicks and Captain Thwaites, respectively — go to some efforts to keep him occupied. These characters originally appeared in this TweetFic, Gerald Poole and the Pirates.

I did a random Twitter poll thread asking people to choose between two kinks. Being sensory deprivation won over temperature play. Will be doing a short for each of the winners!

Erotic short centred on one cis man. 3.2k. Contains D/s, bondage, sex toys, overstim, subspace, sensory deprivation, teasing, possessive behaviour, spanking.

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It comes about because Gerald sprains his wrist, and while his arm is wrapped with a splint from the ship’s carpenter. He’s not meant to be in with the rigging, not meant to be swabbing or cleaning, not meant to be doing anything.

He’d gone back in with the carpenter to see if there was anything little he could work on, but there hadn’t been anything immediately to hand, and every piece of fishing line they have is untangled and neatly organised.

Wicks is happy, of course — Wicks would be happy if Gerald was mounted on a plinth like a little statuette — but Gerald has spent one or two days wandering around the deck, talking with other crew as they work, itching to join in and not being able to, and he’s read one whole novel from cover to cover, not to mention every collected advertisement up on the wall in Thwaites’ office.

It’s driving him mental.

“Stop bouncing off the fucking walls, lad,” snaps Cotton when he comes wandering below decks. “Pick something to do, and do it.”

This puts him into Thwaites’ office.

“If you really want for something to do, darling, I can start teaching you how to do the accounts and work out crew shares after we take a prize,” says Thwaites, not looking up from his paperwork.

He doesn’t turn to look properly at Gerald’s disgusted expression, but he does quietly laugh.

“I’m bored,” says Gerald, shifting his arm in its cast. “There’s nothing to do!”

“There are hundreds of books on this vessel to read, or you can play cards, sit and whittle, help the cook — ”

“I want proper work, Cedric,” moans Gerald.

“I’m sure you do, young man,” says Captain Thwaites, turning to look at him with one eyebrow raised. “And might I ask, do you also want an arm that works, or would you rather have one as stiff as Mr Farrida’s wooden one?”

Gerald sighs, shifting his arm slightly in its sling. It hurts in a dull, achy way, but he feels he would notice it less, if he only had something to do.

“Mr Cotton informs me Mr Poole is making a nuisance of himself,” says Wicks, appearing behind him, and Gerald wants to be annoyed, but Wicks slides a hand over Gerald’s lower back, moving to cup his arse, and Gerald leans back into his touch. He speaks quite seriously when he asks, “Is your arm ailing you?”

“No, but the ennui is,” says Gerald loudly. “I shall soon die of it.”

Wicks looks long-sufferingly from Gerald to Thwaites, who is smiling indulgently, his chin rested on the backs of his knuckles.

“How bad is the wind at the moment, Wicks?” asks Thwaites. It’s only two hours after dawn, and Wicks meets his gaze, looking at him seriously.

“We’ve a decent wind, Captain, though nothing extreme — we’ve the mid-sail and the — ”

“Bless you, Wicks, but that’s not why I asked,” says Thwaites mildly, and stands to his feet. “Take young Poole up to the top deck, would you? On the other side of the mast from the helm, if you would.”

“Yes, sir,” says Wicks, but before he can lead Gerald upstairs, Gerald grabs him to hold him fast.

“Why?” he asks.

Thwaites smiles sweetly at them both. “Are you resisting an order, Mr Poole?” he asks. “Wicks, I can’t reach, would you…?”

Wicks’ hand lands hard against Poole’s arse with such a powerful crack that it makes Poole cry out in pain, his knees going weak even as he presses them together, and there’s a bright flush in his cheeks as Wicks tugs him into the corridor and begins to herd him up the stairs.

“Mr Wicks!” Thwaites calls. “His clothes off, if you would!”

Gerald feels very flushed and excited as Wicks laughs behind him, and they move up the stairway onto the deck. He’s glad at least for the stairs — parts of the ship he can’t go into at the moment because they’re only accessible by ladder, and while he’s perfectly capable of using a ladder one-armed, Wicks had given him an earful once he’d seen him once.

They’re sailing to trade at the moment, are a few more days on the open seas before they make port and take shore leave.

“Aren’t you meant to be working?” Gerald asks.

“I was assisting Mr Cotton with the inventory so our docket is fully accurate once we make port,” says Wicks mildly, “but you know he can’t concentrate when he knows you’re wreaking havoc.”

“I’m bored.”

“It doesn’t sound like you will be for long,” says Wicks, and as they come to the aft deck, he unbuckles Gerald’s belt and drops it aside, then kneels and unbuckles his boots, too. The sun beats down, but his skin isn’t so pale as it was once, and Gerald doesn’t flinch from it as Wicks pulls his clothes off, neatly folding them and setting them aside, working quickly as he always does when it comes to taking his clothes off.

It used to be that Wicks got very upset indeed about doing anything ungodly — that was to say, fun — with or to Gerald in public, but in recent months he’s become far more accustomed to the idea, and while he isn’t as handsy as Thwaites is on the main decks, he does touch him freely, does smack him from time to time in a way Gerald rather likes.

He’s fully aware that it is, at least in part, done out of the spirit of competition with the captain, being as he’ll touch Gerald all over, would bugger him in front of an audience of baying thousands if given the opportunity. Performance might not be Wicks’ instinct, but touching Gerald in front of the crew becomes a matter of personal pride, or marking his territory, when he knows Thwaites was touching him ten minutes before.

He won’t fuck Gerald in public, not like Thwaites will, but he will touch him: his touches are ordinarily a little more controlled, sharper or faster. He likes to move Gerald, to control him, to shove him in place and snap at him to behave himself when he’s having a lot of fun misbehaving.

Of course, he fucks him silly in private, but he’s sort of shy about doing some things where the crew can see them, hear them, and yet he does some things in public anyway. It doesn’t matter that he might do it just to show the captain what for — Gerald loves it.

One doesn’t have to be flattered by it, but Gerald is, and more than that, he’s titillated.

Wicks is very careful about putting the sling back on his arm before pushing Gerald forward, and a few of the crew wolf whistle and laugh to see him naked, already half-hard; Creed calls down, laughing, that he’d better put some oil on his cock if he wants to keep it white instead of red, and Gerald tries to grab something to toss at him, but Wicks, stern, stops him.

It makes Gerald blush, but he’s laughing too, and they’re coming in toward the Amalfi Coast again, so while the sun is hot, it’s not so much so that he can’t stand it.

Wicks kisses the side of his neck before he shoves Gerald hard over the deck wall and slides two oiled fingers into his arse.

“Do you — aah, do you love me, Jack?” asks Gerald, gasping in the sea air and staring out over the glittering green-blue waters, the bright shine of the blue skies, not a cloud marring the perfect canvas. It’s a choppy day, not particularly windy but very wavy, and looking down he sees the constant white crests from the shifting swells as they move quickly over them.

There’s a pause, and when Wicks replies, he speaks in an undertone, voice slightly tight, embarrassed. “More than I can say,” says Wicks, twisting his wrist in a way that adds stars to the canvas in question despite the fact that it’s the middle of the day, and Gerald whines.

“Tell me anyway?” he asks breathlessly.

“I love you with a fervour I have never held for anyone or anything else,” Wicks says, truly if not loudly as he scissors three fingers inside him. It makes Gerald sigh contentedly at the heated stretch of it, feeling the sun kiss the naked skin of his back even as Wicks leans in to kiss the curve of his hip. “And I am grateful indeed to call you a husband.”

“You sound like such a molly when you say things like that,” says Gerald, and the rich, sarcastic tones of Wicks’ laugh make him beam with delight, spreading his thighs wider. His cock, hard and wet at its head, drips down onto the deck as Wicks slides his thumb up against his sac, palpating the flesh and making him clench.

“Well, I wouldn’t want that,” says Wicks, pressing down and making Gerald squeak through gritted teeth. “Imagine what we would do if someone thought me or you a molly.”

“I love you very much too,” says Gerald, and although he can’t see it, he fancies he feels Wicks’ smile as it is settled at his lower back, tracing up his spine until Wicks is bent right over him, fingers still rocking into him.

“I’m only being this indulgent because of your injury, you know,” he says.

“I would never dream otherwise,” says Gerald, turning his head, and Wicks comes to kiss him, brushing their lips against one another in a way that is infuriatingly chaste, drawing away from him immediately after. “Jack,” he says wantingly, please — ”

“Ah, good, you have him ready,” says Thwaites, and Gerald stands up to look at him properly, but before he can ask for a kiss or to be touched or anything else, Thwaites is wrapping a length of cloth around his eyes. It’s folded over several times, so that he can’t even make out light, and Gerald can see only darkness instead of the beautiful summer-sunned waters. Thwaites chuckles when Gerald lets out a noise of complaint, and stifles the sound with a kiss.

Gerald stands on his tiptoes for more, but Thwaites’ hand grips loosely around his throat and pushes him back, other hand playing over his naked chest. Gerald doesn’t have any tattoos, and he wonders if Thwaites is thinking about it again, thinking about the last time they were in port and he idly suggested it, and he and Wicks ended up in a shouting match over beer as Gerald sat quietly with Paul Cotton.

“Would you like a tattoo, lad?” had asked Cotton.

“Yes, I think so,” he’d replied. “But I don’t see why I have to argue over it.”

He wonders if Cotton is here, watching him between Wicks and Thwaites now — he doesn’t hear him, but that doesn’t mean anything. Cotton can be silent as the grave when he wants, and he likes to observe, especially when Thwaites and Wicks seem ready to go head to head, although this is an occasion where it seems they’re content to work toward a collective goal.

Thwaites’ hand wraps loosely around Gerald’s cock, the pressure wonderful, and Gerald moans quietly, fucking his hips loosely into Thwaites’ hand, feeling him squeeze and tap his thumb against the head.

“I’m going to keep you quite occupied,” says Thwaites, “and you’re going to be quiet and well-behaved. Understand?”

“How?” asks Gerald.

“I don’t believe how is an affirmative, is it, Wicks?”

“No, sir, I don’t believe it is,” says Wicks, and one of their hands claps down hard against Gerald’s arse, making his cock bob at the force of the blow and the way that it makes him jump, crying out. He’s pinned between them in the moment, Thwaites’ mouth dragging down his neck, leaving bites and sucking bruises, as Wicks smacks his arse a few more times, and Gerald is left gasping and hiccoughing, overwhelmed, skin burning, cock dribbling with want and need.

“Good boy,” murmurs Thwaites against his mouth, and lifts him up.

Gerald, helpless with only one free hand to grasp at him with, tips slightly in his arms, feeling himself lifted to straddle something, a table brought up from downstairs, he thinks. Thwaites moves his waist into place and pushes him to sit, and Gerald cries out as he’s made to lower himself down on an ivory cock that’s normally mounted on the wall in Thwaites and Cotton’s room. It’s obscenely thick, and Gerald doesn’t know who carved it, but it has a nobbled texture with ribbing around its length, and he feels this rough surface rub at his walls as he’s made to lower himself down until he’s sat back on it almost entirely.

“There,” says Thwaites, seeming pleased, and grips his uninjured arm, pulling his hand behind his back and tying it down against the edge of the table, which didn’t move even as the ship crested over waves in the water, but Gerald did.

The waters are not easy today, and every time the ship pitches as they move, it shoves him up or down on the cock he’s impaled on: with his hand tied down, he can’t retain his balance, and is dependent on the strength of his thighs and his own concentration, but mostly is at the mercy of the choppy waters.

This is, of course, why Thwaites calls out, “To full sails, gentlemen!”

“You’re so cruel,” says Gerald.

“That I am,” says Thwaites, and strokes his cheek, fingers brushing the edges of Gerald’s smile. “And look how it makes you smile. Do you like to see him smile like this, Wicks?”

“That I do, Captain,” says Wicks quietly, and Gerald lets out a reedy noise as Thwaites’ hand slides over his thigh, tickling over the tender, sensitive flesh on the inside of his thigh before touching him where he’s pierced open by the toy inside him. The ship judders as she moves fast over a swell and it makes the ship cast one way and then the other, so that he loses his balance and falls down flat.

The toy is sheathed inside him in one hard movement that makes his cock jump and his arse feel full to the brim, and he keens. He tries to raise himself up again, but a sharp movement sends him falling back again; when he sits in place, the next swell pushes him up on his knees nonetheless, and he fucks himself down again regardless.

“I’ll die,” says Gerald.

“Will you?” asks Thwaites, amused. “That will be entertaining.”

“I thought we might be well served by a figurehead, Captain, at the fore of the ship,” says Cotton mildly — so he is here. “Perhaps the lad will volunteer.”

Gerald opens his mouth to retort, but it’s not possible when the ship begins to pick up speed. Above him, he hears the billowing sound as the rest of the sails unfold, rigged in place, and he can feel the breeze rush past his hair, over his skin.

“Is your arm troubling you?” asks Wicks, and Gerald shakes his head — with his good arm tied behind him and the table somehow pinned down, he can’t tip one way or the other enough to fall on his arm. “Out loud, Ger.”

“Yeah,” says Gerald, manages to bite it out.

“Good,” says Wicks.

“Going to be patient? Going to be well-behaved?” asks Thwaites. “Given the lengths that we’re going to entertain you, hm?”

“Yeah?” asks Gerald, not able to concentrate on much.

When the wax plugs are pressed into ears, he wants to say something about the Sirens at Scylla, would if he could string two words together, but he realises he can’t hear anything at all. He can’t hear the voices of Wicks, of Thwaites, of Cotton or the rest of the crew; he can’t hear the cheerful creak and shift of the masts and the rigging; he can’t even hear the breeze or the watery crash of the Mediterranean passing beneath them.

For a little while — it could be minutes, could be seconds, could be any length of time — he tries to strain his ears to hear if Wicks and Thwaites are still there, even tries to move his head to dislodge the blindfold, just enough to get a glimpse of the deck, but he’s unsuccessful. There’s a wet patch of slick wetness from the head of his cock pooling on the blanket he’s braced on, but it’s difficult to come like this, difficult to grind himself down with any semblance of rhythm.

He doesn’t even know if Wicks or Thwaites is still beside him, he realises, doesn’t even know if he’s been left to his devices while everyone else goes back to work — would anyone even notice, if he called for help? Were he to cry out that he was going mad, that he simply couldn’t take it any longer, would anyone even hear his protests and come to let him free?

The thought makes his cock sputter, his heart beating fast in his chest, and he moans to himself.

There’s a point, somewhere after this realisation, where a part of his mind shuts itself quietly down, and the world narrows down solely to the binding at his good wrist, the sweat on his skin, the jump and twitch of his hard cock, and most of all the ribbed, rough surface of the ivory dildo he’s sitting on.

When he finally comes, he’s dizzy with it — his thighs ache, his skin is soaked with sweat and warm from the sun, and it’s so glorious he feels as though he could sail on the feeling forever.

He comes a second time too, he thinks — he isn’t entirely sure.

It must be hours later, must be days later, weeks later, when a hand finally gently unties the binding at his wrist, and two arms — Wicks’ arms, Gerald thinks, but he isn’t thinking all that well — encompass him and lift him off the cock.

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t find that he wants to, and nor does he reach up to undo the blindfold or take out the ear plugs — he feels curiously, impossibly calm, and there’s a smile on his face that’s so easy he could almost believe he was drunk.

He’s laid on his back in a bed before fingers gently pull the wax out of his ears, and he sighs at the sound of the wood below decks, listens to the ship shifting. Wicks carefully pulls the blindfold off, and Gerald braces himself for bright light, but the candle is dim and the cabin they’re in has no porthole.

“Did you leave me there?” asks Gerald, tongue feeling numb and not connected to his body.

“Not for a moment,” says Wicks.

Gerald giggles, still feeling dizzy and drunk and really quite wonderful.

“How’s your arm?” asks Wicks.

“I don’t feel it,” mumbles Gerald, and he sighs, pleased, at the sound of Wicks’ laugh.

“Well,” he mutters. “That occupied you for a few hours. Want to sleep?”

“Mm,” says Gerald, and floats for some time longer on a post-orgasmic sea of his very own.

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