Morning on the Pearl is lazy and slow.

Of course, that might have been the rum speaking. Or rather, the rum lingering from the night before.

Which had been anything but lazy and slow.

Jack leaned back against the mainmast, staring upwards, and idly wondering when the ship had gotten so tall. The sky hurt his eyes and the sun was a looming headache, but all those lovely black sails blocked out the worst of it.

Someone from the crosstree called down something equally lazy to him, and he lifted a slow hand, only to realize that a bottle was still gripped in it. Rum by the look of it. And rum by the smell of it, too. He ran a finger along the rim and then popped it in his mouth... just to be sure, all the same.

Ah, yes... that brought back memories. Or rather, a puzzlement of them.

Laughing and dancing and singing and some sort of contest involving how long a man could hold his breath while his opponent made a complete fool out of him by any means possible and some that were downright rude and they had all been drinking, all but AnaMaria, who had gone about with a frown upon her sweet face, kicking wayward legs out of her way and slapping hands away as they tried to give her a fair turn at the bottle.

Never one for drinking, his Ana... not that she was really his Ana, not anymore, if ever.

Jack took a deep drink of that ever so handy bottle of rum at the thought and let his head fall back to the mast again. At least, she had not struck him for that. For taking her boat, aye, but not for forsaking her bed.

Women... not even he understood them, really. Even those who had leanings to be honest pirates, such as Ana and the fair, but steely Elizabeth. They all seemed so glad to see you, when first you arrived in port, and then just as quick to be shut of you once the gold had run out. Or you found yourself innocently gazing after some other fancy bit of skirt on the streets. Or occasionally longing after a pair of thighs in equally fine breeches.

He liked women, he really did... and better still, women liked him. At first. For a while. Until they were suddenly not liking him so much that their first thought was to see their handprint upon his cheek and his bollocks in a basket.

It surprised him every time. He should have grown to expect it, but yet he never did. For even his own Pearl had turned against him once upon a time, which had left a mark that he swore had never faded. Not in ten long years.

Jack took another drink, then stared up at the shapes the sails cut against the brilliant blue of this lazy, slow morning. Women... no, there was no accounting for them. For their tastes, for their moods, for the way their skin slid across his, buttery soft in all the right places, their lips sweet as bruised rose petals and their breasts filling his hands as he...

Oh, aye... when it came down to it, rum was a much better companion.

Even if he had to drink to make himself believe it.