Shores of Tripoli

Young Billy landed in Charleston, South Carolina, by ship, at his uncle's own wharf, Brown's wharf, at the Cooper River foot of Queen Street. He was surprised to find that it was a lot warmer in Charleston in late October than it was in Massachusetts. And after coming from the more staid Boston, he was also taken with the frivolity he found here; it was the beginning of the social season in the city.

His mother's brother, Charles Rawley, both a rice planter and a slave auctioneer, was one of the busiest businessmen of the city. He was a wealthy man, thanks to his two ships plying between Charleston, loaded with rice, to market in either Alexandria, Egypt, to be loaded there with slaves for the needs of the New World, or Boston to exchange rice and indigo for finished textiles and rum. It was one of these ships that had transported Billy. He had thoroughly enjoyed the sail, convincing the captain to let him apprentice as a sailor and learn the rudiments of the ship.

In return for the attention the captain had given him, Billy let the man play his channel with his cock. It wasn't just pirates who fucked other men on sea voyages, Billy learned. It was a proclivity of merchant sailors too, there not being many women on a ship during long voyages. Now Billy was more sure than ever that he wanted a life before the mast—and being taken roughly with sailors' masts.

Billy had been met on the dock by the manager of his uncle's counting house, being told that the Rawleys were at church. The manager managed to convey to Billy that Charles Rawley was very religious and nothing came before that in his family's life. Billy was immediately unsure how he was going to fit in here.

Charles Rawley's star was on the rise, and he had just this year, 1802, taken possession of his newly constructed townhouse at 24 Queen Street.

It wasn't a large house, certainly not to the standards of the house on Rawley Place plantation fifteen miles up the Ashley River, but as the family only resided in Charleston during the winter, social season months, it was quite adequate for Rawley and his wife and two teenage daughters.

Now, however, he had to make do with his troubled nephew from Boston. Billy's father had bought out his son's indenture to the printer, Henry Gawn, much to the latter's consternation, and had given it to Rawley in exchange for Rawley putting up with a recalcitrant young man of unspeakable proclivities that his own father couldn't countenance. Of course, William Senior hadn't told Charles what those circumstances were—only that the son needed discipline, close supervision, greater contact with the church, and to be somewhere else other than Boston.

In his letter to his brother-in-law, William Senior had strongly suggested that Billy be put to work on the Rawley plantation, with no burden spared. Charles Rawley had taken this suggestion with more than a grain of salt, knowing that his Boston relatives had no idea how rigorous plantation life was for a cultivator of rice. That was why they enslaved natives from Africa for the work. No, he wouldn't send Billy to the plantation. He would use him, making stock tallies, in the company counting house at the foot of Queen Street. When he saw the young man in the flesh, he was convinced that he had been right. Billy was small of stature and much too handsome to be working in the fields. He was muscular enough, having been worked hard at the printing trade, but he was more slender and boyish looking than the planters and overseers who closely supervised the working of the fields. He didn't look like someone who keep slave laborers in line. And he certainly couldn't do slaves' work. No white man could be seen doing that.

Dressed well, which was one of the first orders of business, Charles thought, Billy would be quite popular in Charleston during the social season, though. All of the eligible young ladies would be buzzing around him, putting their fathers in a position to talk business with Charles. Charles even regretted somewhat that his own daughters were Billy's cousins and therefore not eligible for the hunt.

As far as supervising Billy, he would give the lad space in the attic of his new town house to sleep and otherwise would occupy his time with work so heavy that he would have no chance to roam to engage in whatever mischief had gotten him shipped south. But he would keep a tight rein on Billy. An indenture was an indenture, and Charles Rawley, like all of the other Southern planters, knew what it meant to own the work of another human being—what the balance was between the profit they brought in and the cost of their upkeep.

If Billy had been consulted—which he hadn't been—he likely would have asked what the difference was between being enslaved and indentured—other than the color of the skin of the man being subjected to the control. Total sexual control as from the pirate Benjamin Palmer, and total control over everything a man did were two different matters to Billy. He had his majority; he was approaching the age of nineteen. And his family was not poor. Why should he be controlled by any other person as tightly as an African slave was?

Life became full for Billy that winter, just as his father had planned and his uncle was providing. He was worked hard in the counting house and walked the three blocks from there to his uncle's townhouse more often than not after dark either to be locked in for the night or, on rare occasion, to go out for the evening with his uncle at Rawley's gentlemen's club, Cooper's. Cooper's was housed in a townhouse residence tucked discretely on the short Orange Street, one block south of King Street, which served as a backbone to the oval-shaped peninsula jutting out toward sea between the mouths of the Ashley and Cooper rivers.

Here, Billy would sit behind his uncle and watch him at his major passion, gambling games, mostly poker, before the two were escorted upstairs to be treated each to a fuck with a young woman at Rawley's expense. Billy dutifully performed and, in fact, was a favorite of the young ladies of the club, but his heart was not in it. He just knew that it would not be in his interest for his uncle to become more the wiser about what Billy preferred. He knew that his uncle sometimes watched through a peephole to gauge how virile and expert his nephew was, the capability to perform and breed being as important in the pedigree of a prospective bridegroom in the Southern plantation class as it was to the value of a stud horse. Billy made sure his uncle wasn't disappointed in what he saw—nor were the young women he was with. As handsome as he was, he'd had considerable opportunities to lie with woman before he discovered his preference for men.

Nearly all of the gentlemen planters with city residences belonged to such a club. Not many belonged to one as exclusive as Cooper's, though. In the spring and fall seasons they were at their upriver plantations and had a mulatto slave woman—or young man or boy—or two to provide variety to the attentions of their wives. Here in Charleston, they had their clubs. There were plenty of prostitutes on the streets for those of lesser status, but they, of course, were not the cream of the crop that the clubs provided.

Billy got to know the men frequenting Cooper's very well, as it was a select group. Prominent among them was the Episcopalian rector of St. Michael's church, only two blocks north of the club at the corner of Meeting and Broad. Billy saw the Reverend Andrew Apsley regularly at church and midweek services, as well, because Uncle Charles was taking William Senior's plea of Billy's increased attachment with the church very seriously. William was of the same mind as many that Billy could be "cured" by turning to religion.

Reverend Apsley was an avid gambler, and he never could resist a high-stakes poker game at the club. Billy would watch the tall, gaunt man, with fascination, sitting there in his pious black cassock and clerical collar, knocking back his rum, and knitting his thick, gray-speckled eyebrows. He was constantly gazing intently at those holding the other hands under his hooded eyelids and pursing his thick lips in a knowing "my God is sitting on your shoulder and telling me what cards you hold" manner. He didn't often lose. He left the definite impression that he didn't lose well. Among his other vices were the brown Virginia tobacco cigarettes he chain smoked and the superior attitude he took with all. Decidedly not among his bad habits, though, was that he never went upstairs to fuck the young girls.

He didn't converse with Billy except for the moments of leaving on the steps of the church after Sunday and midweek services, but Billy had the impression when he visited Cooper's with his uncle that the Reverend Apsley was ever aware of where he was, what he had said, and what he had done. Billy was just grateful that his uncle wasn't a Catholic and that Episcopalians didn't have confessional requirements.

Cooper's was not Billy's only chance to have sex with women that winter. His eldest cousin, Elizabeth, was very taken by him and showed every indication that he could take liberties with her if he wished—and his aunt, Charles's wife, showed every indication that she wouldn't mind a forced marriage between the two, regardless of the inbreeding taboos. Her family was from the mountains to the west, and in their somewhat more isolated and primitive conditions, cousin marrying cousin was not unheard of—or disapproved of.

Billy didn't wish such an arrangement, however, and he politely held his cousin at arm's length without doing her the insult of revealing that he preferred the cocks of men. He was less polite with the wife of the manager of the counting house who visited with special treats for the men several times during that winter and would have ridden Billy behind bales of wool if he hadn't been nimble at staying at least one step out of her grasp.

There, of course, were no opportunities—at least for Billy's initial months in Charleston—to fuck men. There were balls nearly every Friday or Saturday night that were as exhausting as they were boring for Billy. Saturdays and Sunday afternoons were taken up with either visiting or being visited, with the entire Rawley family decked out in expensive clothes and transported around the city in an open town carriage. There were men during these visitations that Billy thought were strongly attracted to him, but he and they were never left alone. And one young woman or another was constantly being thrust at him.

It was in otherwise innocuous conversations during these visitations, though, that Billy began to see a glimmer of hope for an easing of the gilded cage he was being imprisoned in. A common thread ran through the chit-chat from men who gravitated to him during family visitations but who were as restricted in what they could say and do in this context as Billy was. He noticed that such men invariably would ask him what he was doing after the season—in the spring. Would he be staying in the city or going to Rawley Place plantation with the rest of the family?

Invariably Billy would say that that was up to his uncle, as he, Billy, was indentured to him. He noticed, however, that the men's eyes would light up and a little smile would flick across their faces when he added that, as he was gathering increasing responsibilities in the counting house, it was likely that he would be staying in the city.

It didn't take him long to see this as his opportunity for increased freedom. If the rest of the family was fifteen miles upriver and only he and the town servants were at 24 Queen Street, who was there to tell him when he could come and go—and where he could go? There were servants in the house, certainly, but they were as much enslaved as he was. He was sure he could loosen his leash by loosening theirs as well, and that no one need be the wiser.

This is exactly what transpired. During the waning weeks of winter, Billy did all he could to make himself indispensable at the counting house, thus making Charles's decision to leave him in the city a natural one that Charles could come up with himself.

There was nothing Billy wouldn't do at the counting house—except for having anything to do with the sale of the African slaves taken straight off his uncle's ships and sold on a block standing at the land side of Brown's wharf right beside the counting house.

The first time he had been asked to stand by and tally up the bids, he had been traumatized by the wretchedness of the creatures being sold. The one exception was a big, strapping warrior of a man, heavily muscled and his magnificent body and face pocked with blue tattooing. The man stood tall and straight and glowered with superiority and ferocity at any and all who came close to him. He bared his teeth and pounded his chest, making his chains rattle, at the mere audacity of the clerk standing next to Billy to suggest the opening of a bid. He looked murderously at any and all who opened their mouths to speak, and his gaze ended on Billy. Naked hatred and belligerence. The look of "I could and would tear you apart with my hands, given the chance," sent a chill down Billy's back.

What was startling, though, was that it was a shudder of sensuality. Billy knew that he melted to being dominated and abused by a powerful man—it was what made him a moth to the flame that was the pirate Benjamin Palmer. He was afraid of this giant of an ebony captive, yes. But at the same time he ached to be taken by one such as him. He'd never lain with a black man before. This one was naked and his manhood, in partial erection, was humbling to any other man on the wharf.

In the ensuing weeks, Billy often wondered in the night how it would be to be taken roughly by a black man—especially one as hugely endowed as this tattooed slave was.

There was no bid. All were instantly cowed by the ebony giant. In the end, he was sent in chains to Rawley Place to work in the rice fields if and as he could be broken down to do so. If he couldn't, he probably would have to be put down, the manager of the counting house told Billy.

The experience was more traumatic than Billy wanted to face again, though. The thought of such a magnificent creature being put down simply because he wanted to stand as tall as a man in the New World as he had done in his African kingdom was repugnant to Billy, who had not grown up in the South, and thus had not inherently learned that black men were counted as less than human. After that, Billy made sure he had duties to perform inside the counting house when the slave auctions on Brown's Wharf were in train.

What he found to do, though, was valuable enough to the Rawley fortunes that, expressing his regrets, Uncle Charles told Billy it would be best if he remained at work in the city during the spring.

Billy did what he could to show a slight pique at this imposition, making his uncle express regret that this burden was being laid on his young nephew's shoulders.

* * * *

Less than a week after the Rawley family bustled its way out of Charleston, baggage carts in train, to open up the big house at Rawley Place, Billy was starting a new, but subtly different schedule. He appeared to be working at the counting house hours longer than he had been before, often not getting back to 24 Queen Street until the early hours of the morning, only to have to rise again shortly after dawn to return to work.

He was happier now, though. And this was primarily because he wasn't coming straight back to the Queen Street townhouse from the nearby counting house. Instead, he was making a detour to the Prioleau Wharf area farther out on the city peninsula and, more precisely, to the Elliott Street waterfront. This was the rough and tumble quarter of the city that was given over to the common sailors who were in port and who were exploding with freedom and whatever cash they had accumulated that they had not been able to turn into liquor or sex for the months they'd been at sea before docking at the major port of Charleston.

It wasn't just common sailors who gladly departed ship in Charleston to carouse. Piracy was still booming in the Caribbean, and Charleston was about as far north as their ships and crew would come on the North American continent to exchange their loot for booze and services. A Charleston that was prim and proper on the surface, but hedonist just below that thin veneer, was as happy to take golden Spanish coins from pirates as from any staid merchantman. There were more than a few pirates and sailors who wanted to hump other men on land as much as they did at sea.

Billy felt free and alive just to be mingling with these rough sailors. He wasn't as large and menacing as those he tended to gravitate to, but he was nimble and smarter by far than any of them, and he was good at picking out men who wanted to give him what he wanted and would pay him for what he gave them. On the average of twice a week, Billy allowed one of them, usually the biggest bruiser of the lot, to take him into a back room or an alley and fuck him rough and hard. This was beginning, at least, to scratch an itch that had been plaguing Billy ever since he'd been shipped south. He considered it something temporary—just to take the edge off his need. It was giving him some financial independence as well. What he didn't realize was that he was picking out men with an increasing aura of danger and meanness.

He realized—but too late, the mistake he was making one drizzly night in an alley opening some twenty feet away onto Edgar's North Wharf, the roughest part of the quarter. He had sat in the lap of a grizzled pirate who was fairly well hacked up from barroom brawls and ship attacks and had felt enough of the prodigious equipment and need of the man to want him inside him. He had whispered his own immediate want in one of the man's cauliflowered ears and been unceremoniously hustled out a side door of the boisterous bar and into the alley. Billy's trousers had been ripped away, and the bruiser had produced a sharp knife in one hand and was mashing Billy's face into a dirty brick wall with the other as he clumsily poked at Billy's hole with the bulb of his cock.

Billy thought this was getting more out of hand than he wanted—especially with the appearance of the knife, which had already nicked him under the chin and was causing blood to flow. He tried to spin out of the man's grip and run off, but the pirate was too strong for him. The knife slashed across Billy's arm and he collapsed into concern for that wound, while the bruiser lifted him with hands gripping his waist and settled him down on a thick cock.

The man held Billy fast to him with one arm slanted up the smaller man's torso and a fist gripping Billy's chin. The other hand held the knife pointed up, with the tip nicking Billy just under his rib cage on the left side.

"Settle down and enjoy the fuck of your life," the pirate hissed.

Billy did that, now being on familiar ground that gave him a buzz. He raised his feet off the ground and wrapped them back around the pirate's hairy legs so that his feet could hook on the top of the man's heavily muscled thighs.

The pirate began the long, deep rhythm of the fuck. This was what Billy had come for. But he was concerned about that knife. It was pressing into him below his rib cage, and he felt like he was continually moving uphill trying to get out of its painful touch.

"Do you know what's just above the point of this knife?" The man growled in Billy's ear. And then, before Billy could respond in any fashion, the pirate continued, "It's your heart. This is how I best like to take a man. This is your last fuck, so enjoy it."

Billy moaned, fully getting the drift of what was happening here. He involuntarily flinched then as the cock drove unusually deep, and cried out as the knife point pushed in, going a bit farther in than just breaking the skin.