Treasure Hunting

Browne's shoulders ache as he steps out of the rowboat and onto the small dock. The witch's house is in the middle of the swamp, and he'd had to row upstream through thick, green water, making his way past heavy tree roots and dark logs floating still in the water. Every time he'd rowed past one, he'd wondered if it was an alligator, if he would see the dark surface of the bark shift and reveal a big, yellow eye, or the dark pink and white teeth inside its mouth.

It's going to be worth it.

He'd heard the crews of the Grace and the Mermaid's Wake talking about it, and at first they'd tried to wave him off and tell him he was too inexperienced to hear about it, say that none of them, even - hardened, strong men - would try to go as a crew, let alone on their own, but he'd managed to wear them down, had bought a few of them drinks and loosened their tongues.

The witch has access to all sorts of treasures, knows secret paths and draws arcane maps, and they'd said that he had access to a treasure that was known to almost no man at all, that would be beyond the reach of any of them on their own terms.

After tying his boat securely to the dock's end, he makes his way up to the witch's house, looking at the huge trees that shade it, the dark grey moss that runs between the tree trunks and the boards of the house that are made of the same wood. When he knocks, his knuckles rap against the wood, and he can feel the humidity, feel the slight softness of the wood.

"Come," calls a man's voice from inside.

Browne pulls open the door, taking a step inside, and he sees the witch working over a cauldron mounted over a central fire. Browne's breath catches in his throat, because the witch is shirtless, a skirt if filmy black fabric wrapped around his waist with several charms and pieces of twine also banding his middle. He must be wearing two dozen necklaces, all of them pedants on strings and braided pieces of twine, layered over one another and set at different lengths. His tits are small and fat with dark brown nipples, and several of his pendants hang down in the valley between them.

"Who are you?" asks the witch. His hair is long, is tied up in a bun with several strands loose so that they frame his face, and he has kohl all around his eyes in a messy black smear - his beard, which is black and short-cropped, is one of the most carefully sculpted pieces of facial hair Browne has ever seen, except perhaps for the witch's moustache.

"Nicholas Browne," he says. "I came in search of treasure."

"Does this look like a treasure vault to you?" asks the witch. He hasn't looked up from his big vat as he stirs it, keeps moving a huge stirring stick through the bubbling liquid in smooth, measured movements. The air is filled with a sweet, musky scent, one that inexplicably makes Browne's mouth water, although he's certain that whatever it is can't possibly be edible.

"They said you had a treasure few men could fathom of," says Browne, unfaltering, keeping his head high. "That you would share that treasure to those who made the journey here."

The witch blinks, then glances up from the cauldron, still stirring the mixture. "Ah," he says. "That." He examines Browne thoughtfully, his brow furrowing as he looks him up and down, his head tilting to one side. "I see. Very well, come here."

"You don't want something in exchange?" asks Browne, taking a few steps forward, and the witch laughs.

"We will each have our rewards," says the witch, shrugging. "I don't enjoy this particular

treasure

myself, much as many laud its wondrous nature, its place in the laws of creation. When your part in it is over, the results will pass to me."

"The results? You mean, you'll take it back?"

"The treasure is the experience, I suppose," says the witch.

Browne doesn't understand exactly what that's supposed to mean, and he's aware that his face has fallen and that his lips are frowning as he glances back toward the door, then at the witch. "What—"

"Enjoy," says the witch, and tips the cauldron over.

Browne lets out a shout, stumbling back the thick, pink liquid - it rushes over the ground in a swell, but before it can meet touch Browne's feet the liquid twists back on itself unnaturally, twisting and moving as it lifts off the ground. It's no longer acting like a liquid, and Browne stares, uncomprehending, at the way the pink mass begins to shift and swirl, becoming a bigger, heavier solid, a sort of writhing mass of tentacles.

And then the first one wraps around his leg.

Browne yelps, trying to jump back, but the tentacle slides up his trouser leg and pulls him closer at the same time, another tentacle coming to wrap around his wrist, tugging him in toward it.

"What the fuck?" hisses Browne, shuddering at the slick feeling of the tentacle as it moves against the muscle of his thigh and between his legs, tickling and playing against his cock under his trousers. His cock had given a twitch of interest at the sight of the witch's tits, and now it's growing hard as the tentacle wraps around it, tickling his balls.

"Try not to be too noisy," the witch says dispassionately as he puts the cauldron back into its proper place and walks across the room, disappearing through a doorway. "I want to take a nap."

"But what is i—

mmf, mmf!"

Browne moans around the tentacle that slides directly down his throat, not just stuffing itself past his lips and settling on his tongue but moving

deeper

, down his throat; at the same time, another tentacle forces its way up his other trouser leg and he's barely even cognizant of the sound and sensation of his trousers ripping because it's pressing itself with the same ease and confidence into his asshole.

He's heard about it, obviously, knows that men bugger each other, but this writhing mass of pink flesh, the tentacles wrapping around his arms, his thighs, banding his belly, is another thing entirely, especially as two of them shove their way into his throat and his ass at once.

And fuck, he's heard of buggery. He never knew it felt so fucking

good

.

His trousers and his shirt have both been torn away, leaving him naked except for his boots and the tentacles hiding much of his modesty, one of them still tugging and squeezing at his cock and making his hips jump. Pleasure is rippling over his skin, his body moving and twitching, shudders running up and down his spine, the sensations inexplicable, overwhelming.

The tentacle inside his ass is stretching the muscle and the sensation is utterly bizarre, a sense of overwhelming fullness and a sort of dull, throbbing-then-fireworks sensation as it pushes at a spot inside him he's never touched before, one that makes stars explode behind his eyes and his cock jump and jerk, precome dribbling from its head. The tentacles must like the taste of it, because one of them opens up a sort of mouth and sucks his cock inside it, tighter and wetter than any cunt he's ever thrust inside, and Browne yells around the tentacle shoved into his throat, but the sound is muffled.

Is the witch really

asleep

? Has he really just gone for his afternoon siesta?

The tentacle buried in his ass twists and shifts inside him and he swallows compulsively about the one buried down his throat, feeling like he should be choking as something sweet pumps out of it and coats his throat, his tongue. More of it must be pumping inside him because the tentacle in his ass feels slicker and slicker too, and he whimpers at the smooth glide, at the lessened friction. Another tentacle forces its way past the tight pucker of his asshole and he yells even though it's muffled, screams as if someone will hear him, because at the same time the tentacle wrapped around his cock sucks

hard

, and he feels himself come.

He's never come so hard in his fucking life, and for just a second, the world goes black.

* * *

There's a sour look on his face as Browne walks into the bar - the crew of the Mermaid's Wake have made land again, and they all start laughing when they see him, nudging each other and pointing his way.

"This is

not

a fucking treasure," Browne mutters as he heavily - even heavier than usual - onto a seat in front of the bar, putting a coin forward so that one of the maids will pour him an ale.

"Jack doesn't think so either," says Carmichael Blood, pushing Browne's coin back toward him and replacing it with one of his own, nodding to the girl behind the bar. He chuckles as he does it, then pats Browne on the back. "That's why he outsources this business to other men."

He reaches out and touches his fingers over Browne's belly where it bows out, a fat, rounded swell, and Browne groans at the heat of his palm and the gentleness of the touch as he rubs a circle on it through the stretched fabric of his shirt, which won't fit him for long.

"Is it nine whole months?" Browne asks miserably.

"Only three," says Francis Bear on his other side, patting his head. "You stupid little fuck - you didn't even

ask

, just went about telling us how you could do it, what a

mighty warrior

you are. Prick."

"Doesn't even hurt when you birth the thing - me, I came so hard when that little sucker crawled out of me I thought I was going fucking blind." Carmichael pushes his ale over to him.

"

Still

though," says Browne.

"Still though," retorts Bear, "you should learn to ask questions instead of rushing into everything cocksure in search of treasure."

"Cunts," says Browne, sipping at his ale and rubbing his aching back with his other hand, and a laugh goes up around the bar once again.