The Sun Goes Down

by James Lear

  I didn’t have to wait long. Bill didn’t even bother to take his boots off; he unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down his hairy thighs, then climbed up onto the bed, spat in his hand, smeared his cock (already wet and slippery) and pressed it between my buttocks. I was no novice, needing to be broken in gently—but even I was unprepared for the roughness of the assault. He was inside me before I knew it, and there was no holding back; he pushed right ahead, heedless of my grunts of pain.

  “Jesus, fuck, that hurts.”

  “Want me to stop?”

  “No.”

  And that was all we said. He started slowly, all the way in, all the way out, picking up speed until he was pistoning into me. I guessed that Bill hadn’t got laid since the last time he was in this room, and he needed the relief as badly as I did.

  The pain receded, and all that was left was pleasure, the overwhelming, mind-numbing pleasure that comes from being properly fucked. My conscious mind collapsed, short-circuited by lust. Bill’s thrusting got harder, and I braced myself on my forearms, tensing my thighs, pushing backward to meet him, his pelvis slamming against mine. My cock was drooling; if I touched it now, I’d come. But I didn’t want this to be over.

  I don’t know how he managed it, but Bill kept on fucking me, never slowing, for what seemed like hours. Most of us have to take a break, catch our breath and retreat for a while from the brink of orgasm, but not Bill. With superhuman self-control he just kept on fucking and fucking, his breath harsh, sweat dripping off his forehead and onto my back. All I had to do was endure.

  I heard a voice, distant at first, then getting louder and louder, shouting a stream of obscenities, and it was with the start of a man waking from a dream that I realized the voice was mine. I had a sudden moment of clarity and then, without the touch of a hand, I started coming, my insides churning around Bill’s rigid dick, jizz shooting out over the bedclothes. He picked up his pace, punishing me harder and harder until I could bear it no longer, and then he pulled out, flipped me over, straddled my chest and shot the whole lot in my face. I closed my eyes, opened my mouth and took all that he had to give me.

  It was a great deal.

  Bill collapsed on top of me, hairy stomach wet with sweat, shirt clinging to him in great dark patches, the spunk on my face smearing onto his as we kissed. We were both wet and sticky, our clothes pulled up and pulled down, creased and stained, chests heaving, hearts pounding.

  Even after such an ecstatic fuck as this, the pleasure of lying awkwardly soon turns to discomfort and pain. Bill rolled off me, gave me a kiss and said “I need to piss.”

  “Me too.”

  “Come on then. Get your kit off.”

  We hobbled into the bathroom, shedding garments as we went. Bill’s dick was still half hard, and from the look in his dark, hooded eyes, I suspected that he wasn’t finished with me yet.

  “Get in the bath.”

  I was right. He stood watching me, two fingers idly flopping his cock from side to side. I climbed into the tub and lay back.

  “Want this?”

  I didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. I lay back and waited. It didn’t take long. Bill positioned himself at the side of the bath, pointed his big dick at me and started pissing a great thick stream that hit me so hard on the stomach, chest and legs it actually hurt. It mixed with the sticky film of jizz and washed it away. I rubbed it over me, making the hair go this way and that, scooped some up in my hand and poured it over my cock and balls. I too was getting hard again.

  Bill seemed to have a bottomless bladder, and the stream stayed steady for a whole minute. But finally it ended, he shook off the drops and continued to shake until he was fully erect. He climbed into the bath and straddled me—it was awkward, there wasn’t enough room—and somehow managed to press our cocks together.

  “Your turn.”

  It’s not easy pissing through a hard dick, but with a little concentration I managed. Bill used my cock like a joystick, steering the stream up in the air, over his chest, over my chest, into my face, laughing all the time like a kid playing with a hosepipe. We were both soaked and dripping, and we smelled of piss and sweat, and once I’d finished Bill carried on mashing our slippery cocks together. He spat into his hand, rubbed it into his ass and then, with a bit of shifting that jammed my knees painfully against the sides of the tub, got my dick inside him. He rode it up and down, swearing and grunting, his balls bouncing on my wet stomach, and to my astonishment, went into a second orgasm, spewing out another big load that added to the mess on my chest and face. And suddenly, I was coming too, filling his ass with my sperm. It was the quickest, and without a doubt the dirtiest, fuck I have ever had.

  * * *

  Washed and dried and carefully dressed, our minds clear (for now), we sat in the hotel lounge and planned our course of action. Bill was delighted, to say the least, to be given this extraordinary mission; at Frank Southern’s request, he had been ordered to render “all necessary assistance” to Dr. Mitchell for as long as he needed it, pending review in seventy-two hours. That gave us two days in which to solve the case, and another day to fuck each other’s brains out, before Bill returned to normal duties. It was a pleasing prospect, combining my two greatest passions (detection and dick), and for the first time in months I felt on the whole cheerful and optimistic about the future. That this feeling arose from the deaths of two young men, and the probable existence of a malicious criminal network preying on homosexuals, says something about me that I will leave to the experts to decipher.

  Bill would be the man of action in this investigation while I would do the brain work. A soldier in uniform would pass unnoticed on the island and, more importantly, would be above suspicion, whereas a tourist like me was easy to mark. And unless I was much mistaken, Bill was not in cahoots with the army top brass. It was possible that they’d sent him over to distract me and cover up their role in the deaths, but that was stretching it even for a mystery fan like me. I’ve met liars and cheats before, some of them even more plausible than Bill, but it seemed from our acquaintance so far that he was honest and eager to help.

  And so we decided that I would impose myself on the Jessops at lunchtime, keeping them occupied and asking questions while Bill searched their rooms. If we could rule out their involvement in blackmail and robbery, my investigation would become a whole lot easier. Henry Jessop may have been one of the best fucks in the Mediterranean, but he was also the only person who had been in my room when the money disappeared from my wallet. I caught him— Claire Sutherland didn’t. It was possible that his parents knew about his thieving ways, or even controlled them. It was possible that they were using him as bait and messenger in a blackmail operation. A thorough search of their rooms would surely turn up something. True, if they were guilty it didn’t explain the attack on me in Valetta, but that might just be a red herring, the price I paid for wandering in a dangerous place.

  It was so easy to manage. Bill made himself scarce, wandering around the harbor for half an hour, while I bided my time in the lounge. And there, on the dot of one o’clock, were the Jessops, all three of them, the parents as neat and buttoned-up as ever, Henry looking fresh and beautiful, hair wet from bathing. Tilly seated them in the dining room, and I waited while the other tables filled up. And then, assuming my best brash American manner, I strode up to them.

  “Say, you folks mind if I join you? It’s getting kind of crowded in here, and I’d much rather eat with friends than strangers.” The parents looked disgusted, Henry looked terrified, but it was too late—I already had my hand on the back of the chair and was pulling it out. “Beautiful day again,” I continued, “but I guess it always is here. Not like London, or even Boston. Rain one day, sunshine the next, snow and ice storms in winter. Perpetual summer on Gozo.” By dint of not letting them get a word in edgeways, I sat down and signaled to Martin. “One of your lethal martinis please, Martin. What are you folks having? Join me in a cocktail?” />
  “We do not drink cocktails, Dr. Mitchell,” said Mrs. Jessop, dabbing her dry mouth with a napkin.

  “What? You don’t know what you’re missing. How about you, Henry? You ever tried a cocktail?” The emphasis was not lost on him. His blue eyes widened, and I half expected to see tears.

  “My son is only twenty years old, Dr. Mitchell,” said Mr. Jessop, looking like a stern headmaster. “He is far too young to drink.”

  “Really? I started when I was fifteen.” I caught Henry’s eye. “Once you get a taste for it, there’s no turning back. Sure you won’t try, Henry? No?”

  He shook his head, blushing and mumbling, and stared down at his hands, fiddling nervously with the hem of the tablecloth. His parents simply glared, aware that no amount of chilly good manners would deter me.

  “Now, I’m glad I got this opportunity to talk to you folks, because you’re kind of experts on the island, aren’t you?”

  “We have been here several times, if that’s what you mean,” said Mr. Jessop, still far from friendly but just the tiniest bit flattered.

  “What I want to know is, what’s it really like? I mean, to live here, not as a tourist. I know you’re not permanent residents, but you must have got a pretty good feel for the place over the years. Say, how long have you been coming here?”

  “This is our seventh visit,” said Mrs. Jessop, thawing slightly. “Henry was just fourteen when we first came, and we’ve returned every summer since. Of course, it’s quite a journey from England, but we think it’s worth it, don’t we Maurice?”

  “Oh yes. We are fortunate in that we live near Portsmouth, which is where we embark from.”

  “I know it well,” I lied, wondering if the garrison in Valetta had copies of English telephone directories. If I could verify their address, it might allay my suspicions that they were island-hopping criminals. Perhaps they were just what they appeared to be, and at worst Henry was an opportunistic sneak-thief. He wouldn’t be the first good boy who’s gone bad from being too strictly brought up. Mr. Jessop’s icy glare, and his wife’s embarrassment, might arise from some scandal involving Henry’s larcenous ways—maybe he’d appeared in the Portsmouth courts and newspapers, a nine-days’ wonder which they were in no hurry to share.

  “And Dr. Mitchell,” said Mr. Jessop, suddenly all charm, “have you travelled extensively in Europe? I know what you Americans are like, always going here, there and everywhere.”

  “Not at all. I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, went to Cambridge University in England, and completed my training in Edinburgh, Scotland. The rest of the time, apart from a trip to Paris, has been spent in London.’”

  “And I suppose one day,” said Mrs. Jessop, with a soft, fond look in her eye, “you will go home and marry your sweetheart.”

  “I missed my chance there,” I said, thinking of Vince.

  “Never mind, Dr. Mitchell,” said Mr. Jessop, sounding ever more like a headmaster. “There are plenty more fish in the sea.”

  “Speaking of which, I was rather hoping that Henry might show me some of the good places to swim. How about it, Henry?”

  He looked up at his parents but said nothing.

  “Not after eating,” said his mother. “You, as a doctor, must know how dangerous that can be.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’ll kill us,” I said. “And if Henry gets into trouble, I can always give him the kiss of life.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Jessop took this at face value and laughed politely. Henry blushed to the roots of his hair.

  The aged Ralph came to take our orders, so for a while we debated the relative merits of fresh fish or rabbit stew, both of which were pronounced delicious, and I enjoyed my martini. When he’d gone, I switched tack.

  “Terrible business about that young man,” I said. “Do you know if the police are any nearer to finding out what happened?”

  “Oh, suicide, undoubtedly,” said Mr. Jessop, not without satisfaction. “I’m afraid he was a very poor sort.”

  “In what way? He seemed as happy as a lark when I spoke to him.”

  “A smiling face can conceal great evil,” said Mrs. Jessop, as if reading from one of her tracts. “One is given to understand that Joseph Vella was engaged in all sorts of wrongdoing.”

  “Now now, my dear,” interjected Mr. Jessop. “Only God can judge him.”

  “But surely the police should be finding out what drove him to suicide? If this happened back home, there would be a full-scale investigation.”

  “Indeed, the police in these islands are not to be compared with those at home,” said Mr. Jessop. “Even so, I have no doubt that they know exactly what happened and will see justice done.”

  “Justice for whom? For Joseph Vella? Will they find the people who drove him to his death?”

  “Dr. Mitchell, I hardly think we are in a position to assume—”

  “And what about Edward Porter? Has he had justice?”

  Mother and son stared into mid-space, while the father rubbed his forehead, as if trying to remember. “Porter? Did we know a Mr. Porter, my dear?”

  “Lance Corporal Porter, in fact. Known to his friends as Ned. Fell to his death from the very same cliff a couple of years ago. You would’ve been here at the time, perhaps, or certainly heard about it.”

  “It rings a bell. There is a lot of gossip on the island.”

  “I hardly think talking about an unexplained death could be considered gossip, Mr. Jessop.”

  “Unexplained? Why, surely the police were satisfied that…” He realized he’d given himself away. “Where is our food? They take a devil of a time in this kitchen.”

  “What do you think would drive two young men to throw their lives away like that? You’re a mother, Mrs. Jessop. Ned and Joseph were only a few years older than Henry here. Can you imagine how desperate they must have felt? What it did to their families?”

  “Suicide is a terrible crime,” said Mrs. Jessop, but her voice was unsteady.

  “If it was suicide.”

  “Of course it was,” snapped Mr. Jessop. “What else could it have possibly been? Now please, Dr. Mitchell, can we change the subject? People are starting to look at us.”

  “I’ll tell you what else. Murder.” I kept my voice low, unwilling to alert the whole dining room.

  “Please, let us not… Oh dear.” Mrs. Jessop used her napkin in earnest this time, dabbing tears from her eyes. “This is most distressing.”

  “You have upset my wife, sir,” said Mr. Jessop, standing. “Ralph! Mrs. Jessop is unwell. You will serve lunch in our room.”

  They beat a hasty retreat. Henry dawdled, delaying his exit. I hoped that Bill had completed his search; it would do us no good at all to find him on the job, especially after the theft of Claire’s earrings.

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” I said, grabbing Henry’s arm and pushing him back down into his seat. “I had no idea she felt so deeply about the deaths.”

  “My mother is a very sensitive woman,” said Henry, but he still couldn’t look me in the eye.

  “Well, of course she knows much more about them than I do.”

  He looked up. “What makes you say that?”

  “Having been such a frequent visitor to the island, of course. She must have known Joseph, for example, quite well. And perhaps she met Ned. Come to think of it,” I said, as if this had just occurred to me, “perhaps you knew them as well. You’ve been coming here since you were fourteen, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Joseph, certainly, was a very attractive man.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “And from what I gather, so was Ned Porter. I spoke to his lover, you know.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Ned was like you and me. So was Joseph.” I waited for a reaction, a denial. “Did you know that?”

  “No.” Henry was starting to look like a sulky child, his eyebrows contracted, lower lip stuck out.

  “If you know something, you’d
better tell me.”

  He shook his head, shrugged.

  “Where were you this morning, Henry?”

  That shook him. He jumped in his seat. “Nowhere.”

  “Nowhere? That’s quite an achievement, even for you. Everyone has to be somewhere. Where were you?”

  “I was out.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I went for a walk and a swim.”

  “Which way?”

  “Across the bay.”

  “Did you happen to go anywhere near Captain Hathaway’s house?”

  “No. Towards the headland.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “I like it up there.”

  Cold horror suddenly struck me. Had Henry, too, been contemplating suicide? All my theories collapsed like a house of cards.

  “Jesus, Henry, you weren’t…”

  “What?”

  “I mean, you weren’t going to…to jump.”

  At last our eyes met properly and held, and then, after five seconds, maybe more, Henry did the very last thing I expected him to do. He threw his head back and laughed.

  “My God,” he said, “you don’t really think I went up there to… Oh, it’s too ridiculous.”

  Ralph was hovering with plates of food. We were both hungry and started tucking in.

  “Sure you won’t have a drink, Henry?”

  “What the hell. Get me a beer, Ralph. Just don’t tell my parents.”

  “Make it two.” The old man shuffled off. A festive mood had descended on us.

  “You want to know what I was really doing this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. You asked for it.” He leaned across this plate, and I did likewise. “I was with someone.”

  “Ah. A man, I presume.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Slightly. I thought I was the first.”

  “Sorry,” said Henry. “I was pretending. I know that men like to think that.” Well, I thought, he fooled me, the great expert in sexual matters, the trained observer of human nature. Yes, sweet, innocent Henry Jessop only had to flash his rose-pink hole and look over his shoulder with those baby-blue eyes, giving me that “please be gentle” line, and I was hoodwinked. How many more mistakes had I made?