The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke

wouldn’t have to see him staring at the whores all draped out in the main room in their silks and jewelry, all of ’em prettier than me.
    The baths were nice as I remembered, clean and misty and smelling of aloe and basil. We stood in the entryway, steam curling up Naji’s hair, and he said in this voice like a sigh, “Civilization.”
    “Not exactly,” I said. “But close enough.” I jutted my head toward the main room. Men’s laughter boomed out with the steam. “You can go in there.” I tried not to think about the women they kept on hand to slough men’s backs and wash their hair. “I’ll be in the secondary room there.”
    Naji frowned. “They separate men and women? In a pleasure house?”
    “No,” I said.
    Naji opened his mouth, but I whirled away from before he asked me some question I didn’t want to answer. The thought of him seeing me naked next to all those perfect whores made my skin crawl.
    “It’ll be difficult for me to relax if we aren’t in the same room,” Naji called out behind me. “The headaches–”
    I stopped, one hand on the doorway. I could hear water splashing, the low hum of women’s voices, and I wondered why he was bothering to mention that to me. I knew about his damned headaches, and I also knew there wasn’t any danger here. Part of me wondered if maybe he just wanted my company – but no. I knew better.
    “Too bad,” I said.
    The secondary room is the one where the whores go when they ain’t working, and men don’t usually venture in cause there ain’t no one to wash ’em and flirt with ’em and make ’em feel wanted. I stripped over in the corner where no one would pay no attention to me, and then I slipped in the soft warm bathwater, bubbling up from some spring deep in the ground. It was my first proper bath in ages and I stayed in for longer than I normally did, dropping my head below the water and watching all the ladies’ legs kicking through the murk. Nobody said anything to me, which was exactly how I wanted it.
    I met Naji in the garden after my bath. He came out with his hair wet and shining in the sun, his dirty clothes out of place against his gleaming skin. I was sitting underneath a jacaranda tree that kept dropping purple blossoms in my hair.
    He sat beside me.
    His presence still gave me a little thrill. We sat in silence for a moment, and I enjoyed it, his closeness and the warm sun and my clean skin. Felt nice.
    “Do I look like a pirate captain now?” he asked.
    “No.” I didn’t look at him. “You need new clothes.”
    “Ah. Of course.”
    I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I didn’t quite know how to go about doing this. It wouldn’t do to have word spread around about some man going shopping, then turning up in those same clothes at the Starshot drinkhouse as the Pirate Namir yi Nadir. Cutthroats are a gossipy bunch. Gotta be; it’s how you find out the best schemes and stratagems. Nobody wants to get caught unawares.
    It was hard to think out there in the warm sun, all clean and bright, with Naji sitting beside me, but an idea came to me anyway, a big flash of an idea.
    “I know what we can do,” I said, straightening up.
    “Shopping?” Naji asked. “Or stealing?”
    “Neither.” I stood up and led him out of the garden, away from the whorehouse and the fresh steam of the baths. Paid a carriage driver a couple pieces of pressed copper to take us out of town, down to the rows of little ramshackle shacks that sprouted up along the oceanline like barnacles. Naji didn’t say a word the whole time. I figured he wanted out of those rotted clothes more than he was letting on.
    The house looked the way I remembered it, a little wooden shack with banana trees out front, the backyard sloping down to the ocean. I jumped out of the carriage. Naji stared at me.
    “What are we doing?” he asked.
    “Getting you some clothes. Come on.”
    He stepped out of the carriage like I was setting him up for some kind of con.