The Back Passage

by James Lear

  Kennington realized this, and dragged the chair so that my back was against the wall—somehow keeping my prick inside him all the time—then braced himself against a dresser and pushed backward. In this position, I was able to fuck him as hard as he could possibly have desired, and I must confess with a certain amount of embarrassment that the restraints on my hands and wrists added considerably to my excitement. Kennington’s butt, of which I had a perfect view, was lean and muscular, deeply indented on the side of each buttock, and I could see his gluteal muscles working to extract the most pleasure from each stroke.

  This could not go on for long, and I could feel an orgasm rising within me. The sensations were considerably heightened by the fact that my ass was contracting around the hard edges of the film canister. I prayed that I wouldn’t eject it at the crucial moment.

  Kennington was oblivious to everything, his head thrown back, his cock pumping his fist, and a stream of obscenities pouring from his lips. Sweat was running down his back, and I tasted it with my tongue; this was all he needed to send him over the edge, and with a roar he started squirting spunk all over the dresser, into the teacups, over Mrs. Ramage’s household accounts.

  I wasn’t far behind him, but I knew I must act quickly. And so, with one almighty thrust, I managed to lever the still twitching Kennington further over the edge of the dresser and get myself into a semistanding position—as much as the ties at my ankles and wrists would allow. And then, as I started to come inside him, I grabbed the edge of the dresser and smashed myself rapidly backward against the wall. My cock flew out of Kennington’s ass, and he dropped to his knees as limp as a rag doll while the next three spurts of spunk flew all over his back. The chair, which was a reasonably sturdy wooden construction, creaked noisily, and then, with another terrible smash that took the skin off my knuckles, it shattered. A couple more bashes were enough to reduce it to firewood.

  My hands were still attached behind my back, and I could not break the frame of wood that held them shackled—but my legs were free, though there were still bits of wood tied to them. Just as Kennington turned to get up, I kicked him with all my might in the stomach, knocking his wind out completely. Another swift kick brought his head into contact with the edge of the dresser; he fell and knocked himself out cold on the floor.

  With Kennington out of action, I managed to smash what remained of the chair, locate his keys, and undo the handcuffs after a lot of twisting and fiddling and cursing. My cock was still dripping with come, and I took advantage of the unconscious Kennington’s upturned face to wipe the last few drops off against his parted lips. I thought he would have liked that.

  I pulled up my trousers, unbolted the door, and ran like hell.

  XII

  MY HEAD STILL SPINNING FROM THE VIOLENT EVENTS OF the last hour, I raced up the stone steps and regained the back passage. How many more times would I have to thrust my way up and down that dark, dank tunnel before my weekend at Drekeham Hall was over?

  I didn’t have to go all the way this time; my target was Leonard Eagle’s chambers. I passed by the darkroom, and saw that it had been completely wrecked; the enlarger lay smashed on the floor, the drawers were all pulled open, their contents spread on the floor, the negatives in tatters on every surface.

  The half-height door that led to Leonard’s room was open, so I made not a sound as I approached it on all fours. Fate was on my side; there was a hubbub of voices from the other side, and the last thing they were expecting was any kind of attack from the rear. Crouching in the semidarkness and peeping through the crack between door and frame, all I had to do was watch and listen as the final act of the drama was played out in front of me.

  A group of figures stood with their backs toward me: I recognized Sir James, Lady Caroline, Leonard, and Lady Diana, all of them talking at once. Above their voices I heard a strange, low mooing sound like a stricken heifer.

  “For God’s sake, Ramage, pull yourself together.” This was Sir James—all compassion, obviously.

  “Aaaahhhh...Wilfred! Wilfred!” Mrs. Ramage’s voice was low and cracked. I could hear Burroughs wheezing and then, as Sir James stepped aside, saw the old butler’s ashen face cradled in Mrs. Ramage’s arms as he fought for breath. His white hair was disordered, and he had lost his glasses; he seemed to blink sightlessly in the light. A ghastly red welt around his neck showed how close he had come to ending it all.

  Mrs. Ramage, holding him like a child, was rocking back and forth in abject grief, her cap askew, her mouth wet with slobber.

  “Let him go, Mrs. R,” Leonard said, leaning over her, his voice a sham of sympathy. “He’s been a good and faithful servant and I’m sure a good friend to you, but his time has come.”

  Leonard took one of her hands and tried to pry it off Burroughs’s body—but Mrs. Ramage glared up at him, madness in her eyes.

  “Don’t touch him! You’ve done enough! Oh, Wilfred, Wilfred. Why are you leaving me? Why? Why?”

  “Come on, Mrs. R,” Leonard said, his voice soft, coaxing. “Let me take care of him. This will make him better.”

  I saw with a shock what he was holding in his hand—a huge hypodermic syringe, filled with a clear liquid. Mrs. Ramage screamed—it was an unearthly noise.

  “Get away! Get away from him!” I didn’t have much hope for Leonard’s chances against this mad creature—but there were four of them, and only one of her.

  “Come on, dear,” Lady Caroline said. “You’ve got to let us look after him now. Everything’s going to be all right.” I saw her signaling to Leonard to attack Mrs. Ramage from the other side.

  “You’ll never take him from me.”

  “Why, you’ve worked yourself into a terrible state... Come on, just let Leonard...”

  Mrs. Ramage threw her bulk across the prone form of Burroughs, nearly finishing off what he had unsuccessfully started with the rope, and shielded him from Leonard and his lethal needle.

  “You mustn’t! You can’t! He’s...he’s...my brother!”

  Mrs. Ramage started weeping hysterically; I could see Burroughs’s white face sticking out from underneath her massive bosom. The rest of the family stood inert; even Leonard was shocked enough to lower the syringe.

  “Your brother!” thundered Sir James. “Why were we not told?”

  “There are things that even you don’t know, Sir James,” Mrs. Ramage said, fixing him with a bloodshot eye. “Life belowstairs at Drekeham Hall is more complicated than you imagine.”

  Just as I opened my ears for the confession that would make sense of the insane jumble of the last forty-eight hours, I felt a light touch on my ankle. Repressing a gasp, I turned—and, in the gloom, saw the thing I wanted to see more than anything else in the world. Morgan’s face.

  He had crawled noiselessly along the passage—obviously, he was shaping up to be a very useful detective’s sidekick indeed—and he was holding Sergeant Kennington’s gun. In my hurry to leave the room, I had completely forgotten about it.

  Of course, we could not talk, but this didn’t stop Morgan from expressing his delight and relief at finding me alive and well. He clambered on top of me—there was just about room for this in the cramped tunnel—and started kissing me on the mouth, face, and neck. I struggled to pay attention to what was going on beyond the door.

  “There’s been quite enough trouble from belowstairs,” Lady Caroline said. “It’s time to put a stop to all this nonsense. Mrs. Ramage: let him go.”

  “Never!” Mrs. Ramage screamed.

  Morgan had his hands down my trousers and was fingering my ass; he hadn’t yet fucked me, and I got the sense that this was the one and only thing on his mind.

  “Leonard, for God’s sake,” Lady Diana said, her voice cruel and commanding, “put the old bastard out of his misery. You’d do the same for any dog.”

  Mrs. Ramage wailed, and there was a terrible crunching noise.

  “Aaaaagh!” Lady Diana screamed. “The old bitch is biting me! Get her off!”
<
br />   Through the crack I could see an undignified scramble, on the outskirts of which danced Leonard, his syringe glinting in the light as he tried to find an unhindered shot at Burroughs.

  Morgan, who had been chewing on my ear while he worked his fingers up my ass, suddenly stopped dead. He had found what Sergeant Kennington had missed, and pulled it out. He was so astonished at finding an inanimate object embedded in my ass that he remained totally dumbfounded.

  Pulling his hand out of my trousers, I grabbed the gun from him and burst through the low door into Leonard’s room, just in the nick of time; he had Burroughs’s shanks in his sights and was about to administer the lethal shot.

  “Stop right there!” I shouted. “I’ve got a gun!”

  Lady Caroline screamed, Leonard froze, and Mrs. Ramage released Diana’s leg from her yellowing teeth.

  “Mitchell! Put that down! What do you think you’re doing!” Sir James said.

  “I’m trying to stop you from committing another murder.”

  “Another murder? How dare you!”

  But I had hit the mark; all the defiance went out of him. I pointed the gun at Leonard. “Drop the syringe.”

  “You’ll never fire. You wouldn’t dare...”

  I squeezed the trigger and shot a few inches above his shoulder. The bullet hit one of his Chinese vases, which exploded with satisfyingly dramatic effect.

  “I said, drop the syringe.”

  Leonard obeyed this time, and I stamped the horrible thing into the floor.

  “Oh, I say... My rug...”

  Morgan had by now emerged into the room as well, and made himself useful by kneeing Leonard in the groin—something I suspect he’d been longing to do for some time—and then disengaging the half-suffocated Burroughs from Mrs. Ramage’s embrace. The fight went out of her, and she slumped back on the couch like an overstuffed rag doll.

  Burroughs was in a bad way. The rope had damaged his windpipe, and his recent crushing had robbed him of air. It was clear that he was struggling for life. Morgan laid him gently on the floor and placed a cushion under his head. In the ensuing silence, all we could hear was Burroughs’s labored breath, and the occasional groan from a doubled-up Leonard.

  Just as it seemed that the old man was about to expire in front of our very eyes, one white, clawlike hand scrabbled toward my feet and clutched at my trousers. I crouched beside him.

  “What is it, Burroughs?”

  “Meeks...”

  “I know. Don’t worry. We’ll get him.”

  “Meeks... Rex...”

  Lady Caroline screamed, and I thought for a moment she was going to throw herself on the poor old butler and rip his throat out. I quelled her impulse with a wave of the gun.

  “What about Rex, Burroughs? Meeks and Rex?”

  “Yes.” He sighed with relief.

  “You mean...”

  Burroughs struggled to speak, and his voice was halting and hoarse. “As soon as Charlie laid his eyes on him, he knew. Rex felt the same. I tried to warn them...”

  “You filthy old man,” Diana said, the muscles in her jaw working. “You disgusting pimp. How dare you speak of Rex in that way?”

  Burroughs was past caring; he knew he was dying. He laughed weakly at Diana’s fury. “Oh, that was true love. The truest love I’ve ever seen. They didn’t care about upstairs and downstairs.”

  “Why couldn’t he just fuck him and be content with that,” Leonard said, having recovered enough to speak. “Everyone else in this wretched house does that, don’t they, James? Up and down the back passage, up and down, all the footmen and the gardeners and the stable lads and the hall boys. We’ve had them all, haven’t we? And then Rex has to go and fall in love, the dirty swine.”

  “I will not believe it,” Lady Caroline bellowed. “No son of mine...”

  “Be quiet, Caroline,” Sir James said. “It’s over.”

  Burroughs was struggling for breath. “That’s where Charlie was on the afternoon of the poor gentleman’s murder. In his room with Rex. Together, like they always were whenever they could be.”

  “That is a lie!” Diana hissed. “Rex was with me.”

  “And Meeks was serving tea in here, I believe,” Leonard said.

  “Oh, no,” Burroughs said, laughing weakly. “I’m afraid not. And there’s proof. I took photographs.”

  “Wilfred!” Mrs. Ramage said, having recovered from her hysteria. “Don’t tell them!”

  “Yes, it’s true,” Burroughs said, barely able to whisper now. “I didn’t just watch them, Mr. Mitchell, all the young men in Drekeham Hall. I took pictures as well. At first it was just for my own amusement, but then we started to sell them. All that footman’s idea, that terrible young man I told you about. He had the contacts in London. Got me to supply them. Posed for the pictures. Even entertained some of the clients here. We had quite a little business going. He introduced a few of his friends. That’s where young Hibbert came from. And there were others—some down here, some in London. Poor Mr. Walworth...”

  Sir James gasped and cursed; then there was silence.

  “I’m sorry, Sir James,” Burroughs said. “I cannot let Charlie go to the hangman. It’s not right.”

  “None of it’s right,” Sir James said, gloomily. Lady Caroline, however, was less easily persuaded.

  “You’ll never make the police believe that all of this was going on in Drekeham Hall, Mr. Burroughs. You underestimate the respect with which the police treat their betters.”

  “Especially when they’re so handsomely paid by them,” I said. “I know all about your deal with Sergeant Kennington.”

  “You know nothing,” she spat. “And nobody will believe you. Go ahead, tell the world whatever you want. See how far you get.”

  “But the photographs...” Burroughs whispered. “The photographs...”

  “They have been destroyed, along with everything else in your disgusting darkroom. How dare you use my property for such vileness?”

  “Oh, dear...” Burroughs was ebbing fast. “Charlie... I’m so sorry...”

  “You see, your nasty little scheme has backfired,” Lady Diana said.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” I said. “Morgan?”

  “Mitch?”

  “Would you be so kind as to hand me...that object that you found?”

  He rummaged in his pocket and rather gingerly produced the canister of film. It wasn’t in the best of condition, and I hoped to God that my ass juices hadn’t damaged the contents.

  “Is this what you were looking for?”

  Lady Diana made a grab for the film, but Morgan stepped in front of me.

  “You don’t want to touch that, Whopper,” he said. “You don’t know where it’s been.”

  I held all the cards, not to mention one slightly fetid roll of film, in my hands. And I had a gun. It seemed we’d won.

  And then, with a horrible rattle, Burroughs breathed his last. His head twitched convulsively to one side, and he was dead.

  Total silence reigned in the room, save for the ticking of one of Leonard’s hideous ormolu clocks.

  And then came a weird gurgling that became a rumble that became a groan, then a scream; Mrs. Ramage, insane at last, threw herself on the body of her brother.

  “Wilfred!” she screamed over and over again. “Wilfred! My Wilfred”!

  Sir James leaned down to try to comfort her, which was brave.

  “My dear Mrs. Ramage,” he said. “Your grief does you credit. But this is excessive, even in a sister.”

  Mrs. Ramage looked up, suddenly silent, and then let forth the most unearthly laugh I have ever heard.

  “Sister? Sister! I’m not his sister!”

  “But you said...”

  “No! I am Wilfred’s brother!”

  And then, with one final, ghastly shriek, she ran from the room.

  All was chaos. Lady Diana collided with the fleeing housekeeper and landed with a thud against Leonard’s inlaid sideboard, sending bibelots
showering in all directions. Leonard attempted to slip out the back passage but was sent sprawling by another well-aimed blow from Morgan’s foot. In the confusion, Sir James jumped on me, wrested the gun from my grip, and started waving it about his head.

  “Stop, all of you! Stop!”

  His voice commanded instant obedience.

  We watched with horror as he turned the gun on himself, and placed it against the roof of his mouth.

  I saw his finger tensing on the trigger.

  Everything happened at once. A figure in blue threw himself through the door, rugby-tackled Sir James to the floor, and disarmed him. Not Sergeant Kennington, as I first suspected, but PC Shipton. I knew he would come in handy.

  Leonard took advantage of the melee to dart for the door, and slipped out—only to be brought back in, seconds later, kicking and screaming, in the iron grip of a tall, broad-shouldered young blond man.

  “Rex, old chap!” Morgan said. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Hello, Boy,” Rex said, cool as a cucumber. “Sit down, Uncle Leonard.” He forced Leonard into a chair. “I say—where’s Mama?”

  I looked around. Lady Caroline had gone.

  XIII

  THE REST OF OUR STORY BELONGS, REALLY, TO REX EAGLE, as it was to him that we looked for explanations. These came after dinner that night—a more informal affair than most dinners at Drekeham Hall, given the state of chaos belowstairs. The French chef, his temperament disturbed by the events of the weekend, had a fit of the vapors and refused to cook, so Morgan and I raided the larder and prepared a cold collation. It was, if I do say so myself, delicious.

  Once again at the table, but what a different party we made from the previous night. We did not bother to dress. Sir James was indisposed and shut himself up in his room. Lady Caroline had disappeared, Lady Diana had motored to London, and Leonard was in police custody, charged with the attempted murder of Wilfred Burroughs. This left Rex, his sister Belinda, Morgan, and me—plus a couple of guests in the form of Vince West, Sir James’s secretary, and Charlie Meeks, bruised and cut free at last. “He’s never going to leave my side again,” Rex said, as he seated Meeks at the table. “I nearly lost him through my cowardice and lies. I’m not going to let that happen again. From now on, Charlie is as much part of this family as I am.” There was a moment of awkwardness, but then Morgan set the tone by saying “Three cheers for Rex and Charlie!” and we drank to their health. Belinda blushed, but she kissed her brother and his friend and said that she never could stand Whopper Hunt anyway.