by James Lear
I could not believe that Mrs. Ramage would speak to her employer in this way.
“And now, thanks to you, they’ve found their way into... Oh, my God.”
There was an almighty thud on the wall by our heads as Sir James, presumably, attacked the door from his study, outside which we had parked ourselves. Morgan was swift to act; half crouching, half crawling, he loped along the rest of the passageway without a sound. I did my best to follow, but I crashed into the wall every five feet or so, giving a perfect indication of our progress. From the other end of the passage, I heard a bell ring; someone was summoning assistance, and our escape would soon be blocked.
Morgan stopped a few yards along, and was muttering to himself. “Five, six, seven, that’s you and me, Whopper, Sir James...then we must be over the garage and into the servants’ quarters. Hello, what’s this, then?”
There was another door, quite unlike the other low openings; this one was full-sized.
“I wonder what’s...”
A click and a thud behind us; someone had come into the passage from Sir James’s room.
“Quick, Mitch,” Morgan said, with his hand on the doorknob. “This way.” It opened without a sound, and we closed it as silently as we could, finding ourselves in what appeared to be a lumber room above the garage. There was a light switch on the wall—but to use it would have been to betray our position for certain. Morgan braced himself against the door—thank God for those strong rower’s muscles! —and I cast around for a means of escape.
A faint illumination came in through a filthy, overgrown skylight in the roof—and I could see that, far from being a lumber room, this strange little attic was fitted out as a photographic darkroom with a sink, bottles of chemicals, and a rudimentary old enlarger of the bellows variety. Strips of negatives hung from pegs like washing on a line. I longed to look at them—but suddenly there was a battering on the door.
“Can’t hold them for long!” Morgan said. “Open that window!”
“We’ll break our necks.”
“Do it!”
I jumped up onto the work surface behind the sink, and nearly slipped on something small and cylindrical under my foot—a roll of film. Not knowing what to do with it, I put it into my pants pocket.
The skylight was crucial inches too high for me, and I couldn’t reach the catch.
Morgan wedged a chair against the door and leaped up beside me.
“Here, let me. Hold the door.”
I did what I could—but I was too late. The door was breaking open just as Morgan pushed the skylight open and was rewarded with a face full of debris. I was pitched onto the floor.
“Mitch!”
“Go, Boy! Go now! I’ll follow.”
He disappeared through the skylight, and I picked myself up.
There was a small metallic click, and the room was flooded with light.
“Not so fast, Mr. Mitchell.”
The doorway was blocked by the unmistakable form of Mrs. Ramage.
I jumped up onto the counter and grabbed the frame of the skylight; Morgan’s hand reached down to pull me up.
“Stop right there, or you’re dead.”
She stepped back, and there behind her was Sergeant Kennington. And he was holding a gun.
XI
I WAS FROG-MARCHED ALONG THE REST OF THE BACK passage by Sergeant Kennington, who twisted my arm and seemed to take pleasure in my yelps of pain. Pushed down the spiral stone stairs at the end, I nearly fell; it would have suited their purposes, perhaps, if I had broken my neck. In seconds I was in Mrs. Ramage’s office, a square, gloomy room with a single high window in the outer wall. Kennington pushed me into a chair and, forcing my hands back through the frame, handcuffed me in position. Whatever Simon, the hall boy, had escaped, I was about to make up for.
“Where is it, Mr. Mitchell?” Mrs. Ramage said, in a voice that could have curdled milk in the kitchen next door.
“Where’s what?” I thought it better to feign ignorance, though I had a good idea what she was talking about—the roll of film that I had picked up in the darkroom. While Kennington had pinned me against the wall upon my “arrest,” Mrs. R had been furiously casting around for something, and could not find it.
“You know what I mean. Search him, Kennington.”
The handsome, cold-eyed policeman grinned wolfishly and started feeling around in my pockets. Fortunately, I had taken the opportunity while we were tussling in the darkroom to slip the roll of film into a secret compartment, namely, my asshole. It had hurt, as it was both an awkward shape and unlubricated, but that’s never stopped me before. Now all I had to do was keep Kennington from looking up there.
Kennington lacked the gentle touch, and I well knew that he had a sadistic streak. He pushed and pulled me so that the handcuffs cut into my knuckles; when searching my shirt pocket, he pinched and twisted my tits. In order to feel around in my pants, he pushed his forearm against my windpipe and forced my head back, tilting the chair while rummaging around my nether regions. Fighting for breath, I kicked him in the shins.
“That was stupid, sir,” he said, with oozing sarcasm. “Can’t have you assaulting a police officer.” And so he grabbed a couple of hand towels that were hanging on Mrs. Ramage’s dresser and proceeded to tie my ankles to the chair legs.
“It would make life so much easier if you would just give us what we want,” Mrs. Ramage said, her face a mask of hostility.
“I haven’t got anything you want,” I said, struggling with Kennington’s brutal investigation of my pants.
“We’ll see about that,” he said, squeezing my balls unpleasantly hard. Much as this hurt, it suddenly gave me hope. I remembered from Kennington’s conversation with Piggott in the police station that he had availed himself of his subordinate’s huge, clublike prick; perhaps I could count on the sergeant’s hungry ass to keep him well away from mine. As long as he could be distracted by my prick, then my hidden treasure might remain inviolate.
“You’re being very foolish, Mr. Mitchell,” Mrs. Ramage said. “You don’t imagine, do you, that your position as a guest in this house would protect you? Not after all that’s happened.”
“Nothing would surprise me in Drekeham Hall, Mrs. Ramage.”
“Nobody knows where you are. Nobody will come looking for you.”
Right on cue, a voice from the outside world penetrated the window. It was distant, possibly on the other side of the house—but it was perfectly audible.
“Mitch! Where are you? Mitch!”
It was Morgan, of course, who I knew would be running around the grounds like an excited retriever, trying to find me.
I drew breath to reply, but was immediately cut off by Kennington’s hand over my mouth and nose.
“If you make so much as a peep, Mr. Mitchell,” Mrs. Ramage said, “Kennington here will quite happily throttle you.”
She wasn’t kidding; Kennington held his huge hand over my face, preventing me from breathing, while he continued to squeeze my nuts. This was obviously his idea of fun, and while I’m not averse to a little friendly bondage, this was out of my league.
“You’ve been nothing but trouble since you arrived,” Mrs. Ramage said, watching me turning purple. “Perhaps it would be best to just get you out of the way right now. What do you think, Kennington?”
“Let me take care of him, Mrs. R.”
“Very well. I leave you in Sergeant Kennington’s capable hands. How stupid of you to try and interfere in what doesn’t concern you.”
I was really struggling now, desperate to draw air. Just as I started feeling faint, Kennington removed his hand, laughing like a cruel boy torturing a puppy. I coughed and choked, but I could breathe again.
“You won’t get away with this,” I said. “Morgan will find me.”
“Oh, your precious bloody Morgan. He’s easily managed. Leave that to Sir James. He will have found him by now and he’ll soon send him packing. No, Mr. Mitchell, I’m afraid your friend will
be of little use to you now. You’re on your own.”
“Perhaps you’d like to join Meeks in the cells,” Kennington said, leering in my face. “You saw how well we treated him, didn’t you? Dirty little spy. We don’t like spies, do we, Mrs. R?”
“And we don’t like stupid young men who get ideas above their station and rock the boat. But with you and Meeks out of the way, Drekeham Hall can run smoothly again. Sir James has learned his lesson. Things are going to change round here again. I’ll see to that. Law and order will be restored. Thank goodness we can rely on the police.”
“You know you can do that, Mrs. R.”
“I should bloody well hope so, too, Kennington, the amount Sir James has paid you to sort this out.”
So Sir James was behind the arrest of Charlie Meeks—but I still didn’t understand why it was the footman who was being framed for the crime.
Mrs. Ramage was working herself into a fury; her face, twisted with emotion, was haggard and even uglier than usual.
“Why did you want to go sticking your nose in? We sort things out our own way in this country.”
“By murder?”
“Murder? What do you know about murder?”
“It’s a crime. You’ll hang for it.”
“Don’t worry about my neck, Mr. Mitchell,” Mrs. Ramage said, fondling her wattles. “The only one that’s going to get stretched belongs to Charlie Meeks. Good riddance to bad rubbish. He’s been nothing but trouble in this house since he arrived, breaking the rules, flouting traditions—”
The electric bell above Mrs. Ramage’s door rang, hard and sudden. We all jumped.
“Let them get their own bloody tea for once,” she muttered. “Where’s that film, Kennington? Haven’t you found it?”
“He hasn’t got it.”
“Morgan has it,” I lied.
“Don’t lie to me!” Mrs. Ramage screamed in my face. “Or you’ll—”
The bell rang again, longer this time.
“For God’s sake!” she said, showering my face in saliva.
“I told them not to disturb me.”
“It’s coming from Leonard’s room,” Kennington said, checking the panel of lights above the door.
“I’ve had enough trouble from that quarter to last me a lifetime,” Mrs. Ramage said.
“Perhaps he wants someone else killed,” I said. This was foolish: Mrs. Ramage drew herself up to her full height and put her not inconsiderable weight behind a punch that connected with my jaw and knocked the chair over, with me strapped into it. I feared that she was going to follow up with a few kicks from her large booted feet, but before she could strike, the door burst open and there stood Leonard Eagle himself, out of breath and evidently shaken. He must have raced down the back passage.
“Damn it, Ramage, didn’t you hear me ringing?”
“Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“You’d better come upstairs right now. It’s Burroughs.”
The effect on Mrs. Ramage was electric; she literally jumped backward. “What? What’s happened?”
“He’s hanged himself.”
She screamed, tottered, and nearly fell on top of me; Kennington held her arm, thank God, or I might not be here to tell the tale.
“Where is he?”
“He’s in my room. We cut him down just in time.”
“I’m coming, Wilfred!” screamed Mrs. Ramage, running out of the door like a maenad. We heard her lumbering up the stairs, alternately screaming and whimpering. Leonard followed her on catlike feet.
Before I had time to ponder this extraordinary turn of events, Kennington roughly righted the chair and grabbed me by the chin.
“Now I’ve got you all to myself,” he said. “No witnesses. No intruders.”
“Do your worst.”
“I intend to.”
He bolted the door and started unbuttoning his tunic. “No point in getting my uniform dirty. Bloodstains show, even on dark-blue cloth.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Well, you should be.”
He dropped his tunic on a chair, pulled down his braces, and started unbuttoning his shirt. His body was wiry like a lightweight boxer’s; I had already found out how strong he was.
Taking advantage of my immobility, he sat astride my thighs, grabbed the back of my head, and squashed my face against his chest. It smelled sweaty. I was pressed into the hair beneath his pectoral muscles so hard that I couldn’t even open my mouth; my nose was crushed sideways. Obviously PC Kennington was queer for asphyxiation; I would have to distract him.
“We’ve got all evening to play with,” he said. “No one’s going to disturb us. They’re busy upstairs. So what shall I do first?”
Pressing my face even harder into his chest, he started bucking his hips, rocking the chair—and I could feel that he was hard, as his groin pressed into my stomach. Power—and the abuse of power—turned him on. Whatever he had planned, I had to distract him and get the game back onto my own terms. Seldom have I started my conquest of a man from such a disadvantage.
I guessed that, if I could give the impression that I was enjoying this rough treatment, I might be able to excite Kennington’s sexual appetite, and quell his sadism. I don’t mind rough handling, but I have no desire for pain, and certainly not for death at the hands of a deranged assassin.
I managed to open my jaw just enough to slip my tongue between my teeth and started mashing it against Kennington’s chest. The effect was instant.
“Oh—” he gasped, as if it was the last thing on earth he expected to feel. “I see. Like that, do you?”
I wasn’t sure whether he sounded excited or disappointed—but at least he backed off enough to allow me to open my mouth, breathe easily through my nose, and continue licking his chest with greater freedom. I found his left tit and paid some attention to that, and the hand on the back of my head began to caress rather than push. After that nipple was so erect that I could easily have bitten it off, he guided my head over to the other. The moment my tongue touched his right tit, he twitched like a lunatic. It is often the case, I have found, that while one tit gives a man pleasure, the other is a trigger for ecstasy. Kennington was a right-tit man.
“You fucking queers,” he said, watching my tongue and lips playing with his nipple. “You’re all the same. You love it, don’t you?” I have heard this kind of crap before from “straight” men who can only enjoy gay sex if it’s spiced with abuse; I wasn’t about to argue, as it seemed to be leading Kennington exactly where I wanted him to go. I looked up at him, licked my lips, and let my mouth hang open. It couldn’t have worked better; he stood up, unbuttoned his fly, and pulled out his hard prick. It was a handsome tool, with a particularly large helmet, fully exposed and already sticky.
My instinct was to lunge, but it was important to give Kennington the impression that he was still in control—so I just sat there and allowed him to “force” me. Thankfully, I’ve had a lot of practice at cocksucking, and knew how to keep breathing when he stuck the whole length of his dick into my mouth. He started fucking my throat—and, every time he pulled back sufficiently, I grabbed a breath through my nostrils. My eyes, however, were watering—and this he liked, as he made a point of wiping away the tears and tasting them. If I could make him come, would he let me go? I didn’t know what to expect—but at least while he was fucking my mouth, he wasn’t killing me—and he was steering clear of my ass, where something was hidden that, for reasons I didn’t yet know, he wanted to get his hands on.
It suddenly occurred to me that if he continued to fuck my mouth like this, he might get the urge to fuck my ass, and this would be disastrous for me. I had no desire to have a hard-edged roll of film pushed up into my lower intestine—nor did I want him to find the evidence. How could I divert his train of thought?
I remembered his conversation with Piggott and his rueful but pleasant memory of being fucked, so I decided that, if I could just hit his anal switch, I might save myself. T
he moment he pulled out of my mouth and started jerking off in my face, I dived for his balls, then down to his perineum—and this did the trick. Thinking that he was adding to my humiliation, and to his power over me, Kennington made his big mistake. He turned around, dropped his pants around his ankles, spread his cheeks, and stuck his ass in my face.
“Go on then, if you’re so keen, lick that!”
Feigning a decent amount of distaste (but noticing with relief that he was scrupulously clean in that area), I waited for him to back into me. As soon as his parted buttocks made contact with my face, I got to work with my tongue. I licked his firm, dark-pink hole, lapping at it like a dog lapping at a bowl of water. This had the desired effect; Kennington moaned, spread his cheeks even further, and pressed into me. This enabled me, by dint of bracing my feet firmly against the floor, to penetrate him with my tongue.
And, as I expected, the mood suddenly changed. Kennington was exactly what I thought he was—essentially passive, at least in the anal area. He may have enjoyed abusing my mouth for the illusion of power it gave him, but what his body really wanted was to be penetrated. His ass opened up like a flower, and I managed to get an inch of tongue into him.
This continued for a few minutes, until my tongue, lips, and jaw were screaming in agony—but it was enough. He stood up with his trousers still around his ankles—they were too narrow to pull over his stout police boots, and he was in a hurry—and undid my fly. He yanked my pants halfway down my thighs, and my cock bounced free. Thank God I’ve always managed to respond physically to any kind of stimulus, however strange the circumstances; it was vital at this point that Kennington could get exactly what he wanted.
When he saw my hard prick bouncing around on my stomach, he drew in his breath, muttered “Oh, fuck, yes,” and spat into his hand. He slathered my prick up, turned around again and started reversing onto me. I had to raise my ass from the seat so that my hips were sticking out; this put a terrible strain on my back and thighs, but I was young and strong and desperate. Kennington grabbed my prick, steered it into himself, and then sank onto it. The ring of his sphincter was tight, and I felt sure I must be hurting him—but inside he was as soft as silk. I managed to buck my hips a few times, but there was not enough leverage to get a really good fuck going.
