by James Lear
Any mental activity was instantly canceled by the sheer overwhelming sensation of that massive column of maleness working its way, inch by inch, into my hole. I knew well enough how to deal with this most difficult phase of the act of sodomy—and I knew that, once he was all the way inside me, and I was relaxed around him, this was going to be the fuck of a lifetime. I might not walk for 24 hours, but it would be worth it. However, for all my experience, my deep, controlled breathing, my efforts at muscle relaxation, it hurt like hell. I bit my lip; Bert stopped.
“Want me to pull out?”
“Never. Just give me a moment.”
He caressed my chest, my face, my mouth. Finally, when the tide of pain receded, I opened my eyes and said, “Go ahead. I’m all yours.”
And I was: completely, utterly his. When I felt his groin pressing against my butt, and I knew that I had taken all he could give me, I felt a sense of surrender and submission unlike anything I have ever felt before. I wondered if I had come; there was certainly something running from my belly down my side. Perhaps I had shot a load; perhaps it was just an extraordinarily large volume of precum produced by the immense pressure on my prostate gland. Either way, I wanted him to stay inside me, to start moving, to increase the tempo and the force until he was pounding me like a jackhammer.
Bert could read me like a book, and matched his actions to the demands of my ass. The fuck started small and slow—back a little, forward a little, the shaft of his cock moving within its sleeve of skin. And then a little more, so he was coming out of me a few inches, then pushing back in. When he judged me ready, he fucked me harder, pulling out further, reentering with greater force. Within five minutes, he was fucking me harder and deeper than I would ever have believed possible.
I would not say that I lost consciousness, exactly—I was fully aware at all times of where I was, who I was with, and what he was doing to me. But some part of my mind cut adrift of its customary moorings, freed perhaps by the intensity of the experience, unable to process rational thought, behaving more as the brain behaves during sleep and dreaming.
I started to experience sudden, vivid flashes—images that appeared to my inner eye, as it were, even as I watched Bert’s heavy, handsome face a few inches above mine, his brow furrowed, breathing heavily though his mouth, sweat gathering on his upper lip.
Flash! The male impersonator at the music hall, handsome in her whiskers and uniform, the hair suddenly tumbling around her face, the moustache ripped away, dangling from her fingers like a little dead mouse…
Flash! The blood in Morgan’s hallway, that haunting, horrifying smudge in the shape of a leaf, there one moment, gone the next…
Flash! Cigarette ash on the bathroom floor, a letter discarded or destroyed alongside the razor and the mouthwash…
Flash! Face after face after face, like images on a magic lantern—Sean Durran—Arthur Tippett—Hugh Trent—Jack McDermott—Stan Knight—Sergeant Godley and Inspector Weston—Walter Ross—Gerald Osborne, MBE—Tabib the Turk—Morgan’s housemaid—Belinda—Morgan himself, ashen with fear…
Faster and faster they spun before my eyes, dancing and laughing and crying…
And somewhere behind this crazy parade were the two faces I had never seen—the face of the dead man, Frank Bartlett, and his wife, Vivien.
Something is wrong.
Something is wrong.
Something is wrong.
The blood.
The mouthwash.
The death certificate.
The will…
And this time, there was no doubt at all—I was coming. Bert too. He buried his face in my neck and fucked me with every ounce of that magnificent, hairy body, grunting and swearing as he emptied his balls into me—and I, carried on the wave of his pleasure, felt a boiling, burning eruption from the inside of my guts to my balls, through the length of my cock and out the end, the semen splattered and sprayed by our colliding stomachs.
He stopped finally, and we lay breathing heavily until he slipped out of me.
We did not speak.
I let him rest for a while—for an hour, maybe two, he slumbered beside me, as I lay wide awake, pressed against the wall by his huge, warm frame. And in that dark room, listening to the occasional rumble of the trains and the steady drone of Bert’s snoring, my mind worked and worked without any conscious will on my part.
And when he awoke, at that darkest part of the night that precedes the first chilly gray light of dawn, his cock hard again, pressing into my thigh, a picture had formed in my mind. A picture so simple and strong that it had to be real and true.
I could not, yet, bear to analyze it—just as you dare not analyze a dream for fear that it will evaporate in the first conscious motion of the will.
So when Bert started moving his prick against me and murmured, in a voice thick with sleep, “You want it again?” I raised myself on all fours, pointed my sore ass in the air, and buried my face in the pillow. That was all the answer he needed.
I have been accused of an oversequential approach to narrative, a kind of plodding left-foot, right-foot way of recounting my adventures from crime to solution, from fuck to fuck. So the reader will excuse and, perhaps, applaud me if I skip forward some 16 hours from when Bert shot a third and final load into my ragged ass (this time with me straddling him as he lay on the floor) to eight o’clock that Tuesday evening.
We find ourselves in the drawing room of Mr. Henry Morgan’s home in Wimbledon. A fire is burning in the grate, a tray of drinks has been prepared and left by Ivy the house-maid, and six men are sitting, with varying degrees of comfort, in a rough horseshoe of chairs that I have arranged around the room.
Belinda is doing the rounds of her guests, attending to their needs, handing out drinks, distributing cushions, making small talk like the perfect hostess she is. She has a friendly word for all of them—for Sergeant Godley and Detective Sergeant Weston, who decline whiskey and sherry but are obliged to accept coffee from a beautiful Georgian silver coffee pot. For Walter Ross, the prosperous City solicitor, and Arthur Tippett, his meek, handsome young clerk, both dressed in their suits, both, apparently, grateful for a drink. For Hugh Trent, sitting with his feet a yard apart, a look of disgust and impatience on his face, his moustache bristling with indignation; he hadn’t wanted to leave his sister’s sickbed to be called out on “a wild goose chase in the middle of the night,” he’s already told us more than once. For Jack McDermott, beautifully at ease, his legs crossed, making small talk with the men, flashing that dazzling smile at his hostess.
There is a knock at the door, and all conversation suddenly ceases, all eyes turn—but it’s only the maid, carrying little Margaret, smiling and blushing in her nightgown. “She wouldn’t settle until she’d said good night to all the gentlemen,” says the maid, curtsying. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
Belinda makes light of it, and ushers her small daughter around to the guests. “Say good night to Sergeant Weston… Say good night to Mr. Tippett…” and so on. As she stops at each chair, the little girl stands on tiptoe to deliver a good-night kiss. When she comes to Hugh Trent, she gurgles with delight, remembering what great pals they were in a different house at another time. She might not know that it was just yesterday, or that the strange atmosphere in the house was one of death and suspicion—but she remembers the friendly, handsome man with the splendid whiskers, and as she reaches up to stroke his face he grasps her by the waist and lifts her effortlessly in the air with a “Wheee! Away we go, young lady!”
Little Margaret runs back to her mother, buries her face in her skirts, and giggles, delighted with the game. She would like to play all night—but we have other business to attend to.
“Thank you, Ivy,” says Belinda. “I will put Margaret to bed. If you will excuse us, gentlemen.” The men stand or half stand as Belinda leads Margaret out of the room. The maid follows, and closes the door behind them.
The men are alone.
I clear my throat. “Gentlem
en,” I say, and silence falls. I stand with my back to the door; they face me, six men in six chairs. There is a click and a rasping hiss as Trent lights a cigarette; he’s been waiting for Belinda to leave the room before smoking.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice.”
“This had better be good, Mitchell,” says Trent, exhaling a cloud, throwing the spent match into the fire. “My sister is very ill. I should be with her.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I say, in a way he doesn’t much like, judging by the expression on his face. “The doctor should be with her by now.”
“Doctor? I didn’t send for a doctor.”
“Nevertheless, the fact remains. Does it not, Detective Sergeant Weston?”
The handsome plainclothes officer nods and sips his coffee. Sergeant Godley looks from Trent to Weston, from Weston to Trent, trying to fathom the sudden air of hostility between them.
“Now, if everyone has everything he needs, I’ll begin.”
“Fire away, Mitch,” says McDermott, his hands behind his head, the muscles of his chest stretching the fabric of his shirt. Arthur Tippett steals a glance; now, there’s a luxury that clerk’s wages can hardly afford. And yet, Tippett looks greedy.
“Please do, Mr. Mitchell,” says Walter Ross. “You have promised us the truth—or so your note said. I am sure I speak for us all when I say I am eager to hear it.”
And so I began my exposition of the case as I saw it—a performance in the grand tradition, suitably located in a handsome drawing room.
There was much murmuring, which I silenced with an uplifted hand, like a conductor before an overture.
“Three of you knew Frank Bartlett very well. Mr. Ross—you knew him for many years.”
“Twenty or more.”
“And as partners in the firm?”
“Since 1919. After the War.”
“And you would describe him, I suppose, as an honorable man?”
“Quite so. I admired him tremendously, until… Well… you know.”
“Until his death? Or before then?”
“I have always known of Frank’s…preferences. I do not judge a man by such things. He fought for his country with great distinction, he was a brilliant lawyer and a valued colleague. From what I knew of his home life, he was a good husband. Those things are far more important to me than what a man does behind closed doors.”
“I wish more people thought like you, Mr. Ross. And yet, you were aware, I think, of certain irregularities in Bartlett’s life?”
“Yes.”
“Would you care to tell us what those were?”
“No. I do not speak ill of the dead.”
“Then I will be obliged to. You knew that Bartlett was being blackmailed, that he was parting with large sums of money in order to pay off someone who threatened to make his private life public. Is that not so?”
“If you say so.”
“I do. And you were aware, were you not, that Bartlett had called on company money when his own finances would not cover the sums in question.”
Ross sighed. “So I gathered.”
“And yet you did nothing to prevent this borrowing.”
“I knew that Frank would pay it back. The idea of him stealing was unthinkable.”
“And did he pay it back?”
“Yes.”
Tippett shifted uncomfortably in his seat and coughed quietly. Ross glared at him. “Very well! If we must drag his memory through the gutter! There were some recent sums that, at the time of his death, were still outstanding. But I will not suffer any suggestion that Frank intended to rob me. From anyone,” he added, looking pointedly toward Tippett, who blushed and stared at his feet.
“And then, Mr. Ross, there was the matter of the will.”
Ross said nothing.
“The will, Mr. Ross, of which you are an executor.”
“The will has not yet been read,” said Ross. “Until it is, I can say nothing about its contents.”
“All right. Once again you oblige me to speak. A few days before his death—a week or so—Frank Bartlett revised his will in order to leave a very substantial sum to Harry Morgan. Morgan, an employee of the London Imperial Bank, had been working on the Bartlett and Ross account for around eighteen months—almost exclusively for the last six months. During that time, Morgan and Bartlett had become close. Very close, in fact.”
“That is none of your business.”
I ignored Ross’s interruption. “And, at the end, Bartlett felt so close to Morgan that, for whatever reason, he decided to leave him so much money that Morgan would be able to live comfortably without ever working again.”
“And in doing so, he ruins my sister!” barked Trent. I was wondering how long he would be able to remain silent. “The swine!”
“Thank you, Mr. Trent, for pointing that out so forcibly. By leaving that money to Morgan, Bartlett effectively disinherited his own wife. Of course, under the circumstances this has become a more pressing matter than Bartlett could ever know: presumably, he was not aware that he was about to die. Would you say, Mr. Ross, that he was of sound mind when he made the will?”
“Certainly, although I advised strongly against it, as a friend and as his lawyer.”
“But he was not insane, nor in despair, nor suicidal.”
“Not at all. If anything, he was happier than I’ve known him for many years.”
“Exactly. He changed his will in the full expectation of living another thirty, maybe forty years. Bartlett was a healthy man. He exercised regularly, he did not eat to excess, he drank and smoked in moderation. As a doctor, I would say that he had a good life expectancy. His wife, if she survived him, would have enough to live on for a few years. If she predeceased him, as she might well have—well, there were no children, no dependents, no heirs, were there? Bartlett’s will was not designed to impoverish or disinherit anyone.”
“Then why the bloody hell did he do it?” said Trent, throwing the end of his cigarette into the fire. “What witch-craft had Morgan practiced on him?”
“They were in love.”
The words fell heavily into the room, thudding onto the carpet. Breaths were held. The fire crackled.
“Yes, gentlemen. We are not children. We know that Frank Bartlett was in love with Harry Morgan. And, perhaps, Morgan was in love with him.”
“Absolute rot!” This was Trent again. “The suggestion is obscene.”
I ignored this. “But Morgan was trying to end it between them. And every time he did so, Bartlett tried to bind him with another gift, another sum of money—the money that he’d been borrowing from the firm, Mr. Ross. Finally, when it seemed that no amount of money would keep Morgan from doing what he believed was right, Bartlett made this final, extreme gesture. He made Morgan his heir. To all intents and purposes, he adopted him as a son—but more than a son. He hoped that Morgan would feel the full force of that bond between them, and would stop struggling. It was a gesture—a crazy gesture, I suppose. But lovers are often crazy.”
“Morgan forced his hand!”
“No, Trent. Morgan did nothing of the sort.”
“Do you not think, Mitchell, that Morgan may have been partly responsible?” said Ross. “I saw the way he treated Bartlett. They thought we saw nothing—but it was hard to hide. Tippett and I—well, we watched it all, didn’t we?”
“Yes, Mr. Ross.”
“And we knew that things between them were not always happy.”
“And those times tended to coincide with Mr. Bartlett’s heaviest borrowing,” said Tippett.
“Morgan was not blackmailing Bartlett. I’m sure of that now. I thought he was, but it doesn’t make sense.”
“Poppycock,” said Trent. “It’s the oldest trick in the book. Frank had been blackmailed before, and he’d paid up without a whimper. He was an easy mark.”
“Doubtless,” I said. “As you told me yourself, he’d been unfortunate enough to fall prey to an unscrupulous guardsman.�
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“Yes,” blustered Trent, “and if I ever catch the bounder I’ll horsewhip him.”
“Feel free,” said Jack McDermott, uncrossing his legs and half turning to face Hugh Trent. “You wouldn’t be the first. Several gentlemen of your…class have paid good money to take a whip to my arse. The harder they do it, the more I charge.”
“You!” Trent looked as if he was going to have a heart attack. “Good God. In this room!”
“Yes, Trent, you have fallen among thieves. I’m sorry. I hope you will recover. This is Jack McDermott of the Scots Guards. A very popular visitor to the Parthenon Club, aren’t you, Jack?”
“Before I answer that question,” said McDermott, “do I have your assurance that this is all without prejudice?”
“Officers?”
Weston and Godley nodded their assent, looking at McDermott like something they had just found on the soles of their shoes.
“Right you are,” said McDermott, stretching his legs in front of him; very shapely legs they were, too. “I don’t deny it. I make a good living out of gentlemen like Mr. Bartlett. They like what I’ve got, and I don’t mind giving it to them, if they’re generous.”
Tippett’s lips were moving silently; I wondered if he was adding up his wages and savings to see if he could afford an hour of McDermott’s company.
“But your friendship with Mr. Bartlett went beyond that, didn’t it?”
“Yes. Frank and I—”
Trent spluttered with disgust.
“Frank,” continued McDermott, emphasizing the familiarity, “was more than just a business arrangement. He led me to believe that we had a future.”