Chapter 1

SB Lady Betty forged ahead through the North Sea towards the Humber Estuary, only her second visit since leaving with her current crew. With the fresh south-westerly, with all plain sail set, she was making an easy ten knots. Her skipper, Bill Sanders, sat on the raised deck next to the wheel; his Mate, Etty Hemmings, helming. He looked up at the young woman, bronzed, a little weathered from just over a year of working the old ship. He smiled to himself. He would never have believed he would be in a more-or-less permanent relationship with even one woman, let alone the two he had. Etty – Bernadette Hemmings according to her birth certificate – was Mate by default. Now twenty-one years old, legally a free woman (despite the collar she wore voluntarily) she was the epitome of a healthy young woman.

Another young woman – girl, really – emerged from the master cabin. She placed travel mugs on the deck before climbing out of the hatch. One, she handed to the helms-woman.

“Mister Mate – your latte,” with a smile.

“Thank you, TH.” TH was their joke – a third crew on board a sailing barge is called ‘third hand’. But in all honesty, there was no rank between them. Etty knew that Candy had a very special place in Bill’s heart and was just happy to have the place she did, both as crew and lover.

Candy knelt in front of Bill and proffered his mug – black coffee – in that submissive pose. She really was an Indentured Servant, with just under four years to go before reaching her majority and her automatic freedom. But Bill didn’t – never had – taken advantage of her vulnerability. Indeed, he’d rescued her from a dreadful situation and had treated her as an equal from the word go. Just for that, she’d have loved him, but there was a connection between them that went far further than gratitude.

“Thank you, AB,” he smiled, “Darling.” (AB is a traditional shorthand for ‘Able-Bodied Seaman’, indicating competence and reliability in managing a sailing vessel.)

She remained kneeling, head down. “Master.” While Etty usually addressed Bill as ‘Skipper’, Candy insisted on using ‘Master’, despite Bill’s frequently expressed wish for her to use his name.

“Get your drink and sit with me,” he said.

She did as she was told and he pulled her against himself. She, holding her mug in one hand, unsnapped the front of her overall and pulled his hand inside to cup her breast. His response, in addition to squeezing that delectable tit, was to lean over, kiss her head and breathe deeply of the scent of her hair. She sighed, and leaned in.

Bill – and Lady Betty – had had a very good year. They’d progressed from essential staples and other supplies to including delicacies; special cheeses and smoked continental sausage, for example. Most especially, coffee. The attempts to grow the plant in the foothills of the southern Alps had proven successful, and as the bushes matured the crop sold well. Lady Betty had a full half-tonne of coffee beans in her hold and that alone would bring a profit greater than all her other cargoes put together.

Perhaps of equal importance was the summons from William Hemmings, Etty’s father, inviting them to return urgently to the place of her birth. They’d do that after landing about a quarter of the cargo at Grimsby, and the rest at Goole.

Candy and Bill finished their drinks. Bill, though, continued to fondle Candy’s breast and she could see evidence that he was responding. She stretched up to murmur in his ear. “I love you, Master. But it’s my turn for a trick at the wheel, and it’s the Mate’s turn for your cock.”

The three of them often enjoyed three-way sex, but not at sea. There, the two women took turns, as both were now competent to stand a watch on their own. While Bill did, indeed, have a special place in his heart for the teenager, he’d also come to love Etty. He was very glad that the two had arrived at a ‘modus vivendi’ where they loved and respected each other and were almost as apt to pleasure each other as Bill.

They stood, and Candy stepped over next to her friend. “I relieve you, Mister Mate.”

“Thank you, TH.” Etty released the wheel for Candy to take over. “Give me a hand with something below, Skipper?”

“Sure thing, Mister Mate.” Bill followed Etty to the hatch and then down the ladder. By the time his feet touched the ceiling (that’s the floor in a Thames Barge) she was naked, her overall in a heap in the middle of the floor. “What can I help you with, Mate?”

She spread her arms. “Doesn’t this give you ideas, Skipper?”

He laughed. “Oh yes. Several. But what does my Mate require?”

“Lots of orgasms, and a large helping of Skipper’s cum.”

Candy watched the compass carefully, and left the wheel long enough to ease the mainsheet a tad. But she was smiling as she listened to the sounds of pleasure – masculine and feminine – drifting up out of the hatchway leading to the Master’s cabin. Her breasts, especially her nipples, tingled, and she could feel that her panties were wet, but her Master would pleasure her too, later.

Almost three hours into her trick, she could see the first signs of approaching Spurn Head, and was about to call Bill, but his head appeared at the hatch coaming before she could do so.

“Spurn Head is in sight, Master,” she informed him.

He placed a box and two mugs on the deck by the hatch. “Very good, AB. Do you need the toilet?”

“Yes, please, Master.”

He stepped up to her, brushed her lips in a gentle kiss. “Go on, then. Sandwiches and tea when you come back.”

She was tempted, having completed her comfort break, to go on deck naked. She loved to see Bill’s appreciation of her body and, indeed, loved the feel of the sun and wind on her. However, it was cool, and she had an hour to go on her watch. As it was, she sat on the deck, leaning against his leg, ate the sandwiches he’d brought up for her, and drank the herbal tea. Finished, she stood, took his left hand off the wheel and wrapped it around herself, then leaned in to his embrace. As always, she was warmed and comforted by his proximity.

“You should marry Etty, Master,” she murmured, quietly.

He heard her quite well, though. “She won’t marry me until you can, Candy. She loves you, too, you know.”

“I know. And I love her. Almost as much as I love you.”

Etty returned to the deck as they passed Spurn Head, and an hour later they entered Grimsby dock, where the cargo destined for there was unloaded and put away in secure storage. By that time they were, all three, ready for a meal and a rest. A nearby pub provided a solid meal and beer for Bill and Etty, shandy for Candy; suitably replete, they returned to Lady Betty.

Below in the Master’s cabin, Bill and Etty double-teamed Candy, who was barely conscious when Bill finally filled her pussy with cum. He stayed with her until she slept, then went on deck with Etty. They would each take a turn staying awake against the possibility of attempted theft of their valuable remaining cargo. The acquisition of Tasers for the deck watch reduced the possibility of one of them being injured.

“Why don’t you go and get a few hours, Mister Mate?” Bill suggested, “If I go second, Candy’ll wake up with me.”

“Aye Aye, Skipper. She’ll like that. Do you know what Dad wants?”

“No, not at all. All he said is he wanted us, all three of us, to visit. He’s expecting us sometime tomorrow night or the next day. He understands that we can’t really predict our schedule. I’ve got a few bags of coffee beans set aside to take with us.”

“What about Sherry?” Etty asked.

“I haven’t forgotten her. There’s a bag for her too.”

There was some activity visible about the dockside, despite the lack of artificial light, but no-one approached the old barge. Bill sat quietly, scanning the surroundings, sometimes gazing up at the stars, visible thanks to the minimal light pollution. A shooting star cut across the night sky. “I wish I could marry the girls now,” he thought.

The watch passed without incident, and Etty relieved him at two in the morning.

Before dawn, Bill woke and kissed Candy on the back of her head – she was spooned up in front of him and was holding his hand to her breast. “Wake up, Darling,” he murmured, “we need to be making tracks.”

She wriggled in his arms, rubbing her rear against his morning erection, and hummed in her throat.

“No, not now. Come on, wake up.”

“Aw, Master...”

He kissed the back of her head again and inhaled the scent of her, fondled her breast, and slid out of bed. Candy rolled out after him and wrapped both arms round his neck, writhing sinuously against him.

“Slave!” He almost never used that term, and certainly not as a reprimand. She released him and dropped to her knees, head down. “Candy, my love,” he went on, much more gently, “we need to be on our way, and we need to relieve Etty on watch.”

“Yes, Master. Sorry, Master.”

“Sort us out some coffee and breakfast, and I’ll start getting ready.”

Reluctantly, having relieved Etty so that she could get a couple of hours sleep, he decided that extricating Lady Betty from Grimsby dock needed the use of the diesel. The southerly wind which had sped them on their way north and which had necessitated the use of the engine in order to enter the dock, had backed northerly. He sighed and pressed the switch, hoping the noise – and smell – wouldn’t trouble Etty too much. Candy busied herself, letting go shore-lines, tossing them aboard, then jumping aboard with the last. She coiled them on the hatch cover as the vessel moved away from the quay.