Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Page 4

  His tongue plunged into my mouth. He tasted like the sea, and I found myself overwhelmed by his power. His hands held my arms. The weight of his body made me his prisoner. I could do nothing but hang on as he had his way with my lips, crushing me beneath him in his desire to claim me. His unshaven jaw scraped harshly against my chin, and I gasped at the roughness of it. The sound seemed to bring him back to himself.

  “Professor,” he panted. He let go of me and pulled back enough to let me breathe.. “Did I hurt you?”

  I shook my head, unable to find my voice for a moment.

  “Tell me this is what you want.”

  My voice was nothing more than a shaky whisper. “Yes!”

  He kissed me again. This time, his touch was soft, nearly reverent. I marvelled at his ability to be both strong and gentle. Demanding, yet giving. I wrapped my arms around his neck, twining my fingers in his thick hair. I opened up, letting the hunter claim his prize.

  Never had I felt so owned. So possessed. So utterly and helplessly stirred.

  He slid his hands down my back to grip my buttocks, pulling me tighter to him as he kissed me. The hard bulge in his trousers pushed against me, causing me to moan.

  He moved his lips to my neck, where he nipped my flesh with his teeth. “You’ve been with a man before?” he whispered in my ear.

  I nodded. In the darkness, he wouldn’t see the gesture, but being so close to me, I knew he felt it.

  “You have no idea how hard it’s been, seeing you every day.” He slid his hands forward, over my hips, and began to unbutton my trousers. The anticipation of what was to come made my knees weak. “I’ve wanted you since the first day I saw you. I’ve dreamed of you each night as I lay here in my bunk.” He yanked my breeches open, pushing me hader against the wall as he did. I whimpered, hanging onto him tighter.

  “Please,” I gasped.

  “Please, what?”

  “God, Ned. Don’t make me wait.”

  “It would only be fair, Professor. You’ve made me wait.” But even as he said it, he slid his hand into my trousers and gripped my erection. He kissed me as he did in order to muffle my cry of pleasure. I thrust my hips forward, pushing into his calloused fist, whimpering shamelessly as he stroked me.

  “You’ve been a merciless tease,” he said, nipping at my ear. “You have no idea how many cabin boys have offered to accommodate me, but I wanted none of them.”

  My knees could not hold me. I clung to him while he worked his hand on my cock. I bit my lip to stifle my cries.

  “None of them compare to you. You’re so much more than a pretty face.” His breathing was growing ragged. He held me tighter, grinding his erection against my hip. “God, Professor, the way you talk. Your biology and your science and your theories. I can’t explain what they do to me. I can’t explain the way they make me want you. I could listen to you all day.” He tightened his grip as if to emphasise his point. “And then I could bring you back here and fuck you until you couldn’t remember your own name.”

  I believed it, too. At that moment, held captive in his arms as his calloused hand stroked me towards my culmination, I could think of nothing but how good it felt. I clung to him, unable even to return the pleasure he was giving me. I simply held on until he kissed me again. His unshaven chin scraped mine. His teeth bit into my lower lip. I lost myself, crying out as I spent myself in his hand. My release triggered his own, and though his trousers were still fastened, he thrust hard against me, his breath hitching roughly as he did. Finally, at the end, it was him who could not stand, and me who had the strength to hold us both.

  I stood shivering and panting in his arms. He kissed me again when he had his breath.

  His tongue lapped gently at my lower lip. “I made you bleed.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t mind.”

  He smiled, although I didn’t see it so much in the dark as I heard it in his voice. “Oh, Professor, the things I could do to you if only we had thicker walls and a bigger bunk.”

  I laughed. “We never even made it to your bunk.”

  “It’s barely big enough to hold me, let alone the both of us. I give myself a new goose egg nearly every morning.”

  He let me go, and we fumbled briefly in the dark. As I felt blindly about, I found that he was right. His cabin was little more than a low-ceilinged closet with a shelf placed against a steeply slanting wall. Even the process of me standing out of the way while he shed his soiled breeches was nearly impossible. Our elbows and knees seemed to constantly collide in the cramped space. We found ourselves stifling laughs just as we’d fought to muffle our pleasure.

  “Perhaps you could send your servant to this cabin and I could join you in yours for the remainder of the hunt.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, but his comment did remind me of our conversation earlier that day.

  “Are we now to have the discussion you promised me about the creature we seek?”

  He chuckled, and I sensed his grudging amusement. “Ever the naturalist, aren’t you?”

  “As you are ever the sceptic.”

  He sighed, thoughtful for a moment, but at last he said, “That deep in the sea, such animals would need to be just as strong as you say—if they exist.”

  “But if they don’t exist, my stubborn harpooner, how do you explain the accident that happened to the Scotia?”

  “It’s maybe…” Ned said, hesitating.

  “Go on!”

  “Because…it just couldn’t be true!” the Canadian replied, unconsciously echoing a famous catchphrase of the scientist Arago.

  But this reply proved nothing, other than how bullheaded the harpooner could be. That evening I pressed him no further. I merely granted him a parting kiss before heading back to my own cabin, thinking on the issue as I did. The Scotia’s accident was undeniable. Its hole was real enough that it had to be plugged up, and I don’t think a hole’s existence can be more emphatically proven. Now then, this hole didn’t make itself, and since it hadn’t resulted from underwater rocks or underwater machines, it must have been caused by the perforating tool of some animal.

  Now, for all the reasons put forward to this point, I believed that this animal was a member of the branch Vertebrata, class Mammalia, group Pisciforma, and finally, order Cetacea.

  As for the family in which it would be placed—baleen whale, sperm whale, or dolphin—the genus to which it belonged, and the species in which it would find its proper home, these questions had to be left for later. To answer them called for dissecting this unknown monster, to dissect it called for catching it, to catch it called for harpooning it—which was Ned Land’s business, to harpoon it called for sighting it—which was the crew’s business, and to sight it called for encountering it—which was a chancy business.

  Chapter Five

  At Random!

  For some while the voyage of the Abraham Lincoln was marked by no incident. But one circumstance arose that displayed Ned Land’s marvellous skills and showed just how much confidence we could place in him.

  Off the Falkland Islands on June 30, the frigate came in contact with a fleet of American whalers, and we learned that they hadn’t seen the narwhale. But one of them, the captain of the Monroe, knew that Ned Land had shipped aboard the Abraham Lincoln and asked his help in hunting a baleen whale that was in sight. Anxious to see Ned Land at work, Commander Farragut authorised him to make his way aboard the Monroe. And the Canadian had such good luck that with a right-and-left shot, he harpooned not one whale but two, striking the first straight to the heart and catching the other after a few minutes’ chase!

  Assuredly, if the monster ever had to deal with Ned Land’s harpoon, I wouldn’t bet on the monster. I daresay his on-board conquests continued to be just as successful. Many nights, I tiptoed to his tiny cabin only to lose myself to the pleasure of his touch. Sometimes he was rough, and sometimes gentle, but always he gave more than he took.

  Although I had at least recovered my wits a
bout him enough to offer some pleasure in return, Ned was a man who didn’t like to do a thing unless it could be done correctly. His cabin afforded little privacy and even less room, and so our sexual exploits were limited to what we could accomplish with our hands in the narrow confines of his cabin. Many times as we clung to each other, stroking in unison, sharing each other’s breath, he would whisper in my ear of the things he wanted to do.

  “Some day, Professor, I’ll lay you down on a soft bed and spread you wide,” he promised. “I’ll open you up and have my way. I’ll fuck you until you can barely stand.” His words made me shiver. But what I loved best was what he always said after that, “Someday I’ll make you mine.”

  I would be lying if I said I did not dream of that distant day as much as he.

  The frigate sailed along the east coast of South America with prodigious speed. By July 3 we were at the entrance to the Strait of Magellan, abreast of Cabo de las Virgenes. But Commander Farragut was unwilling to attempt this tortuous passageway and manoeuvre instead to double Cape Horn.

  The crew sided with him unanimously. Indeed, were we likely to encounter the narwhale in such a cramped strait? Many of our sailors swore that the monster couldn’t negotiate this passageway simply because “he’s too big for it!”

  Near three o’clock in the afternoon on July 6, fifteen miles south of shore, the Abraham Lincoln doubled that solitary islet at the tip of the South American continent, that stray rock Dutch seamen had named Cape Horn after their hometown of Hoorn. Our course was set for the northwest, and the next day our frigate’s propeller finally churned the waters of the Pacific.

  “Open your eyes! Open your eyes!” repeated the sailors of the Abraham Lincoln. And they opened amazingly wide. Eyes and spyglasses—a bit dazzled, it is true, by the vista of $2,000.00—didn’t remain at rest for an instant. Day and night we observed the surface of the ocean, and those with nyctalopic eyes, whose ability to see in the dark increased their chances by fifty percent, had an excellent shot at winning the prize.

  As for me, I was hardly drawn by the lure of money and yet was far from the least attentive on board. Snatching only a few minutes for meals and a few hours for sleep and my clandestine meetings with the harpooner, come rain or come shine, I no longer left the ship’s deck. Sometimes bending over the forecastle railings, sometimes leaning against the sternrail, I eagerly scoured that cotton-coloured wake that whitened the ocean as far as the eye could see. And how many times I shared the excitement of general staff and crew when some unpredictable whale lifted its blackish back above the waves. In an instant the frigate’s deck would become densely populated. The cowls over the companionways would vomit a torrent of sailors and officers. With panting chests and anxious eyes, we each would observe the cetacean’s movements. I stared, I stared until I nearly went blind from a worn-out retina, while Conseil, as stoic as ever, kept repeating to me in a calm tone, “If master’s eyes would kindly stop bulging, master will see farther!”

  But what a waste of energy! The Abraham Lincoln would change course and race after the animal sighted, only to find an ordinary baleen whale or a common sperm whale that soon disappeared amid a chorus of curses!

  However, the weather held good. Our voyage was proceeding under the most favourable conditions. By then it was the bad season in these southernmost regions, because July in this zone corresponds to our January in Europe, but the sea remained smooth and easily visible over a vast perimeter.

  With regard to the creature, Ned Land still kept up the most tenacious scepticism, beyond his spells on watch—he pretended that he never even looked at the surface of the waves, at least while no whales were in sight. And yet the marvellous power of his vision could have performed yeoman service. But this stubborn Canadian spent eight hours out of every twelve reading or sleeping in his cabin. A hundred times I chided him for his unconcern.

  “Bah!” he replied. “Nothing’s out there, Professor Aronnax, and if there is some animal, what chance would we have of spotting it? Can’t you see we’re just wandering around at random? People say they’ve sighted this slippery beast again in the Pacific high seas—I’m truly willing to believe it, but two months have already gone by since then, and judging by your narwhale’s personality, it hates growing mouldy from hanging out too long in the same waterways. It’s blessed with a terrific gift for getting around. Now, Professor, you know even better than I that nature doesn’t violate good sense, and she wouldn’t give some naturally slow animal the ability to move swiftly if it hadn’t a need to use that talent. So if the beast does exist, it’s already long gone!”

  I had no reply to this. Obviously we were just wandering blindly. But how else could we go about it? All the same, our chances were automatically pretty limited. Yet everyone still felt confident of success, and not a sailor on board would have bet against the narwhale appearing, and soon.

  On July 20 we cut the Tropic of Capricorn at longitude 105 degrees, and by the 27th of the same month, we had cleared the equator on the 110th meridian. These bearings determined, the frigate took a more decisive westward heading and tackled the seas of the central Pacific. Commander Farragut felt, and with good reason, that it was best to stay in deep waters and keep his distance from continents or islands, whose neighbourhoods the animal always seemed to avoid—“No doubt,” our bosun said, “because there isn’t enough water for him!” So the frigate kept well out when passing the Tuamotu, Marquesas, and Hawaiian Islands, then cut the Tropic of Cancer at longitude 132 degrees and headed for the seas of China.

  We were finally in the area of the monster’s latest antics! And in all honesty, shipboard conditions became life-threatening. Hearts were pounding hideously, gearing up for futures full of incurable aneurysms. The entire crew suffered from a nervous excitement that it’s beyond me to describe. Nobody ate, nobody slept. Twenty times a day some error in perception, or the optical illusions of some sailor perched in the crosstrees, would cause intolerable anguish, and this emotion, repeated twenty times over, kept us in a state of irritability so intense that a reaction was bound to follow.

  And this reaction wasn’t long in coming. For three months, during which each day seemed like a century, the Abraham Lincoln ploughed all the northerly seas of the Pacific, racing after whales sighted, abruptly veering off course, swerving sharply from one tack to another, stopping suddenly, putting on steam and reversing engines in quick succession, at the risk of stripping its gears, and it didn’t leave a single point unexplored from the beaches of Japan to the coasts of America. And we found nothing! Nothing except an immenseness of deserted waves! Nothing remotely resembling a gigantic narwhale, or an underwater islet, or a derelict shipwreck, or a runaway reef, or anything the least bit unearthly.

  So the reaction set in. At first, discouragement took hold of people’s minds, opening the door to disbelief. A new feeling appeared on board, made up of three-tenths shame and seven-tenths fury. The crew called themselves ‘out-and-out fools’ for being hoodwinked by a fairy tale, then grew steadily more furious. The mountains of arguments amassed over a year collapsed all at once, and each man now wanted only to catch up on his eating, fucking and sleeping, to make up for the time he had so stupidly sacrificed. Men began to wander from the bunks at night with far more frequency, meeting all over the ship to slake their pleasure.

  It became harder for me to sneak unnoticed to Ned’s cabin.

  During the day, when they were back on deck, the men jumped from one extreme to the other with typical human fickleness. Inevitably, the most enthusiastic supporters of the undertaking became its most energetic opponents. This reaction mounted upward from the bowels of the ship, from the quarters of the bunker hands to the messroom of the general staff, and for certain, if it hadn’t been for Commander Farragut’s characteristic stubbornness, the frigate would ultimately have put back to that cape in the south.

  But this futile search couldn’t drag on much longer. The Abraham Lincoln had done everything it could to succeed
and had no reason to blame itself. Never had the crew of an American naval craft shown more patience and zeal—they weren’t responsible for this failure, there was nothing to do but go home.

  A request to this effect was presented to the commander. The commander stood his ground. His sailors couldn’t hide their discontent, and their work suffered because of it. I’m unwilling to say that there was mutiny on board, but after a reasonable period of intransigence, Commander Farragut, like Christopher Columbus before him, asked for a grace period of just three days more. After this three-day delay, if the monster hadn’t appeared, our helmsman would give three turns of the wheel, and the Abraham Lincoln would chart a course towards European seas.

  This promise was given on November 2. It had the immediate effect of reviving the crew’s failing spirits. The ocean was observed with renewed care. Each man wanted one last look with which to sum up his experience. Spyglasses functioned with feverish energy. A supreme challenge had been issued to the giant narwhale, and the latter had no acceptable excuse for ignoring this Summons to Appear.

  Two days passed. The Abraham Lincoln stayed at half steam. On the offchance that the animal might be found in these waterways, a thousand methods were used to spark its interest or rouse it from its apathy. Enormous sides of bacon were trailed in our wake, to the great satisfaction, I must say, of assorted sharks. While the Abraham Lincoln heaved to, its longboats radiated in every direction around it and didn’t leave a single point of the sea unexplored. But the evening of November 4 arrived with this underwater mystery still unsolved.

  That night, I went to Ned’s cabin. It had been nearly a week since we’d had a moment alone together and despite Conseil’s whispered recriminations, my concern for my reputation was becoming less urgent each day. Indeed, the idea of returning home filled me with a certain melancholy. I longed to see Ned, not just because of the pleasure of having his hand around my cock, but because I wanted to savour every second we had left together. I had found a partner in him, unlike any I’d had before. A man who fitted me both in desire and in conversation. A man who was inspired to passion by my company as well as my body. A man who made me feel unique and alive. I wanted to feel him hold me. I wanted to hear his voice in my ear.