Consciousness came slowly and I hated every minute of it.  How could I be this hungover?  I remembered the pub; the terrible music like a steel blade scraping on stone; the smell like old hay, the candles flickering in lanterns with pale blue glass, and the two Danish women.  The quiet one was taller than both of us, with black curly hair that framed her breasts.  They were right at eye level and Erich kept staring at them.  It was far better than looking at her face with its harelip and the bent nose.  

Her partner was a blonde with curves like a fiddle.  I remember yearning to run my bow across her.  She had smiled at me and I knew then I was lost.  "You want to dice with us?"  Her accent was like a wind in trees:  melodic and breathy.  The question was a surprise but I'd have said yes to anything.  I looked at Erich and he was already nodding for both of us.  I tilted my mug up to my face and let the last swallow fall into my mouth.

The blonde reached out and took the mug from my hand and placing her other hand in the crook of my arm.    She leaned forward to speak softly into my ear "I'm Frida.  Buy us all a round and I may warm your bed tonight."  I felt my cock twitch.

The room abruptly rocked and I heard the creak of timbers.  Ship.  I was on a ship.  I should have known.  The stench of a ship's hold is like no other smell in the world.  I tried to sit up but the room started to spin.  I put my head between my legs and vomited.  It was then I noticed I was naked.  My deflated cock was dipping itself in a half inch of bilge water.

I tried to remember what had happened next in the pub.  I could only remember the pewter dice and Frida's laughter.... I realized then that Frida must have drugged my beer.  Shit.  I wiped the muck off of my face as best I could with a dirty hand.  My god, what a fool I was to think a woman would throw herself on a foreign sailor like me.  I had assumed she would ask for coin, but clearly she had been paid more for selling me to this ship.  Who knows where I was bound now?  And what the price of my berth would be?

Abruptly, heavy footfalls sounded on the stairs.  At first I saw only an old pair of leather britches, stained with some reddish-brown liquid.  Then his unclothed torso hove into view.  He had an oarsman's physique:  thick ropes of muscles squiring under skin the color of roasted tea leaves.  He was African then? Or perhaps Moorish?  He smiled and his white teeth contrasted with this skin and shone like a beacon in the dark.

"Welcome to the Al Qahir," he said in an accent that confirmed my second guess -- I was bound for the Moors.  It wasn't so bad.  It would be a few week voyage and then, likely, the same voyage back.  "I don't mind the work," asserted.  I couldn't help but notice how slurred my voice was still.  The drug was still wearing off.  Still I persisted.  This first exchange would be crucial and I had very little leverage for a bargain.  "I've done a half dozen years service on a carrack.  I can trim a sail and I've a keen eye as a lookout."   I paused a moment and gestured at myself.  "I'd like to have my britches back if it's all the same to you."

The Moor laughed then, high pitched squeak that didn't seem to match his frame.  He took a deep breath.  "You mistake me, English.  You are not part of the crew, you are part of the cargo."  He took advantage of my momentary confusion and heaved me to my feet.  I felt the world spinning around me and urge to vomit returned.  He leaned me easily into a chair like a child.  I was relieved to feel something solid holding me up.  But then my head was pressed back felt the iron band clamp around my neck and terrifying click.

The panic set in now.  I lunged forward despite my nausea and tried to bring my hands to the band but he effortlessly took my right wrist and pressed it to a nearby post.  I was still so weak, I had no chance.  In a moment I was tied with a sisal rope that seemed soaked with bilge.  He wrapped the rope tightly around my waist, like a cold snake coiled around its prey.  I belatedly bucked my hips then but it was comically ineffective.

"What are doing?!" I croaked.  But the sailor ignored me.  He pulled my left wrist down and tied it to the chair with the rest of the rope.  I bucked my hips against and pulled my arms.  I kicked out at him but the blows didn't seem to phase him.  In no time I was gasping from the effort.  And the moor took the opportunity to bind each of my ankles to a chair leg.  

My panic was replaced by a terrible dread.  The nausea was now a knot of fear in my stomach.  I was helpless.  The sailor smiled again and repeated his squeaky laugh.  He reached down and gently drew his fingertips along the underside of my cock.  I heaved my hips again and thrashed in my bonds but it barely affected his ministrations.  

I looked up and his eyes locked onto mine.  His face was serious now and his hand continued to work my cock.  I sputtered.  "What are you..." but he placed his finger on my lips and stopped me.  In the pause I couldn't help but feel the sensations on my cock head.  I felt the blood flow as my dick rose dutifully to attention under his care.  

He looked down then and brought his focus to the task.  With his other hand he gathered bolus from his mouth and used it to lubricate the head of my cock as he pulled the foreskin back.  "Please...," I gasped but he ignored me.  I felt one of his hands stroking the ridges of my tightening scrotum.  The other become more insistent as it caressed manhood.  

I tried to think about something else which was a mistake. Immediately my thoughts returned to  Frida and the way her hand had felt on my thigh.  For the hundredth time, I imagined what it would be like to have her breasts in my hands.  I could feel her hardened nipples in my palms.  Abruptly, there was the burning tightness in my loins.  I knew the moor would have my seed soon.  He sensed it too.  He made a gentle cooing noise and slowed his pace.  He brought his focus to the ridge at the bottom of my head; then to the frenulum behind.  He teased me and I let him take control.  I let him own me and bring me ever-so-slowly to climax.  The explosion built slowly and first and then, in a moment, I was gasping and spasming as I sprayed my desperate seed onto the deck.  

He took his time then, stroking me gently through the denouement until I was clearly satisfied and relaxed.  I leaned my aching head back on the chair and closed my eyes.  I heard shuffling sounds and he began to sing softly to himself in his native tongue.  The words were soothing and I was just drifting off to sleep when I felt his fingertips on my scrotum again.

I opened my eyes and looked at him.  His was crouched before me.  His head was down and before I could take another breath I felt the sting of his cut.  "Uh?!" I yelled, a cross between a question and a scream.  In the next instant, I realized what he had done; my ballsack had been opened.  I screamed again in earnest and violently tried to rise up out of the chair.  My legs tensed and I buckled my hips against the slimy rope.  It was for naught.  I knew was going to be unmanned.  I was helpless to stop him.  My screams became deranged with blind panic.  I begged with an incomprehensible cacophony of half words and screams.  "Please, no!  No!  My god no.  NO!. PLEASE!"  

The Moor didn't look up from his work.  Despite my desperate struggles, my hips could barely move.  He placed a firm hand on my hip, the same place Frida had placed her own hand, and held me steady.  I felt the thumb and forefinger of his other hand tightly encircle the top of my scrotum and then pull sharply down.    I felt the cords stretch as my testicles dangled in the open.  I was too panicked to feel the pain.  My legs and arms were as taught as bowstrings.  

With practiced hands he worked the fragile cords that held my testicles.  I felt him loop a thread twice around each and pull it tight.  Then, without a pause, his knife pulled and I felt the weight of each one desist as it fell to the ground.  I sobbed once.  Twice.  And then fell still.  The tears were flowing freely down my cheeks.  I barely winced as he rinsed my wound with some stinging liquid and then carefully sewed the empty sack shut again.