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Two Pirates’ End
There are only two things to look at in the cell: the rusting iron of
the bars, and the gouges in the top of the ancient wooden table. The bars are
new. The table is old as hell. Yanez runs his thick fingers along one of the
gouges. It’s greasy and black, packed with the filth of decades’
worth of pirate and cutthroat. The table’s been here longer than the
Portuguese. Longer than the English, probably. He smears the dirt between
thumb and forefinger, grins, flicks it onto the stone floor. Sandokan sits in the
shadows by the far wall. He’s hunched, knees up, arms folded across a
slab of hairy chest. He chews absently on a sliver of wood broken off the
table’s edge, tongue darting in and out over his teeth. The darkness
makes his face meaner, the thick black beard cut with a grim smile. Every few
seconds, a shock of wind carries the stink of salt and fish guts in from the
wharf below. There is no candle. No lamp. The fort’s architect designed
the cell so the only light is whatever crawls in through the grating, and
tonight, the moon is a slit. The guards outside are English: bored, hungover, overconfident. They
talk in whispers punctuated by spitting and laughter. Now and then, boots
clatter on the stones outside the cell door—someone checking on the
condemned men, not for their safety but in case they decide to bash their own
brains out and rob the English of a proper execution. Yanez’s favorite
part is when he and Sandokan start shouting at
them. He likes the way the Brits try to ignore them, pretend they don’t
understand, but then five minutes later they’re muttering curses in
pidgin Portuguese. Sandokan spits out the
sliver of wood. “You think they’ll fuck it up?” He talks in
his own dialect, but Yanez translates the tone: contempt, edged with
excitement. Yanez leans back on the bench, hands folded behind his head.
“The hanging?” Sandokan nods. Yanez gives a little laugh. “Fuck yes. English hangings are the
best. They never get the length of the drop right. If they don’t snap
our necks, we’ll piss and shit for five whole minutes before the last
candle in our heads goes out. I’ve heard you can come while
you’re strangling.” Sandokan grins, a
wolf’s smile. “You want to race?” “Race?” Yanez lets his head roll back, staring up at the
spider-pocked ceiling. “First one to pop a boner wins. First to cum is
king of the gallows.” Outside, the guards fall silent. Maybe they’re listening. Sandokan shifts,
stretches, deliberately scraping his knuckles on the stone. He is very still
for a moment, all except the rise and fall of his barrel chest. “You
really think they’ll do it at dawn?” Yanez shrugs. “That’s the story. I heard them talking to
the priest. ‘Dawn shows the world what happens to scum like
these,’” he mimics in a sneering, snot-nosed voice. Sandokan makes a rude gesture.
“They can hang themselves. Would’ve been better to go down
fighting.” Yanez spits onto the floor. “We fucked up. Should’ve made
for the jungle, not the wharf.” “We?” Sandokan throws back his
head and laughs, a rolling, brutal sound that echoes off the stone. “I
was busy killing three soldiers. You were busy with the whores.” Yanez grins. “The whores had better cocks than the soldiers.
Anyway, I thought we agreed: die with a drink and a woman’s hand on
your balls.” Sandokan’s face softens,
almost fond. “You’re full of shit, Portuguese. They’ll hang
you and no one will remember your name. Not even the whores.” “Not even you?” Yanez winks. Sandokan shrugs, but his
lips twitch. “If your neck breaks clean, maybe I’ll weep a
little. Maybe.” A wind howls through the slot window, shivering the rusted bars. For a
moment, both men are quiet. “Ever see a hanging?” Yanez asks, his voice low. Sandokan nods. “In
Sarawak. Three Malay boys. They fought all the way. Pissed on the priest.
Kicked a guard’s teeth out even with their ankles bound. The rope
didn’t break their necks. They danced for a long time.” His smile
fades. “The smell. The fucking sounds they made. Made me hard.” Yanez laughs. “You sick fuck.” “You too,” Sandokan says,
softer, almost a growl. Yanez can’t deny it. He likes violence. He likes pain. He likes
the sound men make when they’re at the edge of death, when their
dignity falls off like wet clothes. He used to think it was a shameful thing.
Then he met Sandokan. The first night, Sandokan nearly drowned him in a whorehouse bathtub, then
spent the rest of the night licking the bruises. Now, Yanez figures he
understands himself. “I wish we could see it from outside,” he muses. “What?” “The hanging. Us. I’d like to see what we look like when
we’re dying. I want to see your face.” Sandokan bares his teeth.
“I’ll try to look pretty for you.” Outside, a bell tolls in the fortress tower. It’s not dawn yet,
not even close. The English want them to sweat. Sandokan stands, all easy
confidence, and stalks to the table. He puts his palms flat on the splintered
wood, staring Yanez down. “What do you want to do?” he says. Yanez knows what he means. They could try to escape. Overpower a
guard, break a jaw, snap a wrist. But there’s nowhere to go. The cell
is at the bottom of the keep, and the only way out is through ten feet of
stone and fifty more Englishmen. They’ll die, either way. Yanez shrugs. “You have any last wishes?” Sandokan grins. “I
want to fuck before I die.” Yanez snorts. “You always do.” This time, Sandokan’s smile is less
wolf, more man. “You, Portuguese?” Yanez thinks. He has no family to mourn him, no treasures hidden away,
no children. He has Sandokan. He has tonight.
“I want to remember this. All of it. So I can tell the Devil about the
time the English hanged two bastards from the same rope.” Sandokan leans forward.
“You think we’ll go to hell?” Yanez cocks his head, grins. “We’re already here.” From the corridor, there’s the thunk
of heavy boots. Someone’s coming. Sandokan
steps back, dragging a knuckle across Yanez’s jaw with a touch just shy
of gentle. Yanez grins up at him, letting the darkness fill up his mouth, his
eyes, his skull. He wonders how long it will take for the pain to become pleasure. The door swings open, a blocky silhouette in the torchlight: a guard,
square-jawed and pig-eyed, flanked by another with a musket. The stench of
gunpowder and sweat is strong. “Up,” barks the first, “on your feet.” Sandokan saunters
forward, his cock already half-hard under the filthy breeches. He throws a
lazy salute. Yanez follows, brushing his shoulder deliberately against Sandokan’s as they line up. The guard gestures with
the musket’s muzzle. “Table. Sit.” They sit, side by side on the rough wood. The guards stand back,
watching. One, Yanez thinks, is maybe a little afraid. The pig-eyed guard smiles. “You’re fucked, you
know,” he says, accent thick and ugly. Yanez nods. “You’re the ones that have to clean the shit
after we’re gone.” The other guard snickers. Pig-eye scowls. “I hope you twitch for
an hour,” he sneers, “I hope you both get it slow.” Sandokan turns to Yanez.
“Shall I tell him about the time I hanged an English captain with his
own guts?” Yanez grins, rolling his shoulders. “Please.” Sandokan leans forward,
voice low and casual, as if sharing a secret. “He begged me. Pleaded
like a child. I let him cry for his wife. Then I fucked him in the arse and
twisted his guts out through his belly.” He makes a twisting motion
with his hands, grinning at the guards. “Took longer than you’d
think. He was very brave, at first.” Yanez laughs. “At the end, not so much.” The guard with the musket looks sick. Pig-eye only spits, a thick glob
of phlegm that barely misses Yanez’s boot. “You’ll get
yours, both of you,” he says. Sandokan nods, all mock
solemnity. “I hope so.” The guards back out, but not before locking eyes with the condemned.
There’s a moment of tension, like a stretched rope—who will look
away first? It’s the guard with the musket. Yanez files the detail away
with satisfaction. When the door slams, Yanez looks at Sandokan.
“You could have taken one of them.” Sandokan shrugs.
“Not worth it. We die here, tonight or tomorrow. But at least we do it
on our own terms.” Yanez nods. “On our own terms.” The two men sit on the table. They talk, not about escape or hope, but
about the rope, the falling, the kick at the end. About the way death comes
for everyone. Yanez finds himself wishing for nothing at all, and that, more
than anything, is a kind of peace. He leans into Sandokan’s shoulder,
closes his eyes, and listens to the waves. He dreams, for a moment, of a better end: not English rope, but blood
and blades, and a mouth full of laughter. But he wakes, and there is only Sandokan’s
heat, and the table, and the black, black dark. There’s a rhythm to waiting for death. The cell grows smaller
with every hour. The wood of the table is more familiar than Yanez’s
own dick. He feels the grain, the damp where Sandokan
sweated through his shirt, the blood from his own split knuckles ground into
a sticky black scab. Sandokan is still awake.
Yanez knows by the way the pirate breathes—slow, easy, as if he’s
sleeping beside a lover instead of sharing a cell with English gallowsmen on the hunt for a spectacle. “You ever think about not dying?” Yanez asks, staring at
the ceiling. Sandokan grunts.
“Never seemed an option.” Yanez licks his lips, tastes salt, tastes blood. “Not that. I
mean, dying but not like this. Not like cattle.” Sandokan lifts his head.
His eyes catch what little moonlight seeps through the bars. “You want
a hero’s death?” He says it like a taunt, but his voice is soft. “No.” Yanez sits up, elbows on knees. He keeps his voice
flat. “I want to die like a man. Not like a circus animal. Not so the
fucking English can laugh while we twitch in our own shit.” “Fucking English.” Sandokan
spits, the gob landing with a wet click on the floor. “You got another
way? We break our own necks?” Yanez shakes his head. “No. I want you to do it.” Sandokan sits up, slow and
careful. “You want me to kill you.” Yanez doesn’t look away. “Yeah. I want you to kill me, Sandokan. Before they drag us out there. Before they make
a show of it.” Sandokan is silent.
It’s a silence with weight, like waiting for a blade to drop. Then he
grins. “You want it rough.” Yanez smiles. “Always did.” Sandokan laughs.
There’s real warmth in it, like a hot knife through meat. “I
fucking knew it. Since the first time. Ten years ago. You liked it when I
choked you.” “I wanted to die then,” Yanez says, almost fondly.
“You didn’t do it.” “You begged like a whore,” Sandokan
says, voice low. “I thought you were playing.” “I was. I wasn’t.” Yanez grins, bares his teeth.
“You ever want to kill me, Sandokan? For
real?” Sandokan looks him over,
slow, like a butcher measuring up a carcass. “If I wanted you dead,
you’d be dead. Portuguese are hard to keep quiet, but you’re easy
to fuck.” He leans in, their faces close, voices just for each other.
“You want to go out with my cock in you and my hands on your throat?” Yanez closes his eyes. The answer’s old as time.
“Yeah.” Sandokan’s hand comes up,
rough and sure, curling around the back of Yanez’s neck. “You get
off on that?” Yanez opens his eyes, sees the dark, the madness, the affection.
“I get off on you.” “Fucking liar.” But Sandokan’s
lips twitch, betraying pleasure. “I knew you were a whore, but not for
death.” Yanez shrugs. “Why not? We’re pirates. We take what we
want.” Sandokan’s hand tightens,
just a little. It’s enough to send a spike of lightning down
Yanez’s spine. “You want to do it now, before the morning?” Yanez glances at the door, then back to Sandokan.
“Why wait?” For a second, neither of them moves. The air is thick, the salt and
sweat and old blood all mixed up. Yanez feels his cock stiffen, more at the
thought than the touch. Sandokan runs his thumb
along Yanez’s throat, pressing the artery. Yanez’s head swims, a
little light, a little dizzy. Sandokan’s voice is a
growl. “You want me to squeeze?” Yanez nods. Sandokan grins, all teeth
and beard. “You want me to fuck you while I do it?” Yanez bites his lip, nods again. “Make it real, Sandokan. Make it hurt. Make it—” his voice
cracks, but he finishes: “Make it you.” Sandokan lets go, steps
back, eyes shining with a kind of black delight. “You’re crazier
than me, Portuguese.” Yanez spreads his arms. “You love it.” Sandokan doesn’t
argue. Instead he settles in, crouched like a tiger, close enough to smell
the rum in Yanez’s breath. “You want to talk about it? Or you
want to do it?” “Do it.” Sandokan stares at him.
“You always wanted to die in my arms, didn’t you? Since the first
night.” Yanez remembers the first night: blood, water, the press of Sandokan’s hand, the terrible electric pleasure of
passing out and waking up with his lungs screaming and Sandokan’s
cock halfway down his throat. He remembers the laughter, the way Sandokan held him until the shakes stopped. He’s
never felt safer. “Yeah. You should have done it then.” Sandokan laughs, full and
loud. “Then I’d have missed all this.” He gestures around
the cell, the misery, the table, the memory of a hundred kills. Yanez grins. “You could still do it now. Be the last thing I
feel.” Sandokan reaches out
again, this time both hands. He holds Yanez’s head like a melon, thumbs
pressed under the jaw. The pressure is light, teasing. “I want you to beg,” Sandokan
says, soft as velvet. Yanez bares his teeth. “Fuck you. I never beg.” Sandokan increases the
pressure, just a little. “You begged that first night. Remember?” Yanez does. He remembers the way Sandokan
pinned him, hand over his mouth, the sound of his own pulse roaring. The
taste of blood and salt. He shudders, more alive now than he’s ever been. “Fuck
you, you animal.” Sandokan laughs.
“I’ll fuck you, alright. But first, I want to hear you say it.
Tell me what you want.” Yanez breathes out. “I want you to kill me, Sandokan.
I want you to fuck me and squeeze the life out of me. I want to go out with
you inside me.” Sandokan closes his eyes,
savoring it. “You’re mine,” he whispers. Yanez nods. “Always.” Sandokan kisses him,
brutally, teeth clashing. He pulls away, still holding Yanez’s head.
“Tomorrow they’ll get a corpse. Tonight, I get you.” Yanez laughs, raw and real. “Do your worst.” Sandokan grins. “My
best, Portuguese. My very fucking best.” The air is heavy, the sense of time gone. Yanez knows he will die
tonight, and it is exactly how he wants. He wonders, briefly, if he’ll dream at all after. The first sound is the hammering of nails. The soldiers outside are
building the gallows, plank by plank, pounding the wood into a crucifix for
pirates. It’s too far to see, but the thunk
carries through the stone and fills the cell like a heartbeat. Yanez strips off his shirt, throws it on the floor. The cold air bites
his skin, the hair on his chest standing like tiny iron nails. He’s not
beautiful—never was, not even in his twenties—but he’s cut,
hard muscle wrapped around bone, the leaner kind of strength. Scars run
across his belly, two of them from Sandokan’s
own knife, back when they were enemies. There’s a scar on his right
shoulder from an English bayonet. None on his neck, not yet. Sandokan undresses
slower. He’s proud of his body: it’s massive, built for
brutality, thick black hair covering every inch from his pecs to his groin.
His cock is already stiff, hanging heavy above balls like two dark plums.
When he pulls off his breeches, the smell of sweat and old fuck fills the
cell, overpowering even the sea. Yanez laughs. “You’ve still got the biggest balls in all
of Borneo.” Sandokan grins, teeth
sharp as coral. “You want to touch them one last time?” Yanez walks to him, takes Sandokan’s
cock in hand, squeezes just enough to draw a grunt. “Maybe later.
First, I want to see you do it.” “Do what?” Sandokan plays dumb,
but his eyes gleam. “Kill me,” Yanez says. He means it. He wants to see Sandokan’s face, not the masked hangman’s. He
wants to die with his own blood in his mouth, Sandokan’s
hands squeezing the life from his throat. Sandokan strokes
Yanez’s face with a callused thumb. For a moment there’s
something almost tender there, but it’s gone in a blink. “You
want it to hurt.” Yanez nods. “If you can manage.” Sandokan laughs.
“I’ll do my best.” Yanez steps back, sits on the edge of the table, the wood cold and
splintered against his bare ass. He lies down on his back, head at the edge,
staring at the black ceiling. He spreads his legs, lets his own cock flop
out, half-hard already. Sandokan moves between
Yanez’s thighs, lifts them and puts them over his own broad shoulders.
His cock slaps against Yanez’s asshole, leaving a trail of slick. Yanez glances down. “You going to fuck me like you mean
it?” Sandokan spits in his
hand, smears it over the head of his cock, then pushes the tip against
Yanez’s hole. He leans in, the weight of his body pinning Yanez’s
legs back, the table creaking under them both. “You’re going to feel this, Portuguese,” Sandokan says, grinning. Yanez meets his gaze, refusing to look away. “That’s the
point.” Sandokan pushes in, slow
at first, but once the head pops through, he slams the rest of his cock in
with a single brutal thrust. Yanez gasps, the pain bright as flame, but he
doesn’t flinch. He never flinches. He loves this, the raw violence of
it, the way his body gives in to Sandokan’s
force. Sandokan fucks him, slow
and deep at first, the motion rocking the table, then faster, harder, like
he’s trying to drive Yanez straight through the wood. The slap of
flesh, the scrape of hair on hair, the sound of their breath—harsh and
animal—fills the cell. Yanez grins up at Sandokan, eyes rolling
back as the pirate’s cock hammers his guts. “You fuck like
you’re mad at me.” Sandokan bares his teeth,
sweat running in rivers down his face and beard. “I am mad at you. For
making me care.” Yanez laughs, the sound ripped from his chest. “You fucking
pussy.” Sandokan leans forward,
hands on Yanez’s chest, pinning him. His face is inches from
Yanez’s, beard scraping his cheek, their breath mingling. “You
want to watch me do it?” Sandokan asks, voice
low. Yanez nods. “I want to see your eyes.” The fucking goes on, brutal and relentless. Sandokan’s
hands move from Yanez’s chest to his neck, one thick hand wrapping
around Yanez’s throat. He squeezes, just enough to restrict the blood,
not enough to kill. Yet. Yanez’s cock, trapped between their bellies,
starts to stiffen, the pressure making him dizzy, high. The noise from outside grows louder: the soldiers are laughing, some
woman is screaming, a priest is singing in Latin. None of it matters. The
only world is the cell, the table, the man crushing the air from
Yanez’s lungs. Yanez always told himself he could outlast anything. He’s not so
sure now. The pain in his ass is white-hot, but that’s nothing compared
to Sandokan’s grip on his cock. The bastard
knows exactly how to hurt him: thumb pressing the veins, fingers curled
around the shaft, other hand fondling his balls with a violence just shy of
cruelty. Yanez moans, louder than he meant to. The noise bounces off the walls,
mixes with the sound of Sandokan’s hips
slamming into him. He wants to reach down, wants to stroke himself, but his
hands are pinned above his head in Sandokan’s
grip. All he can do is arch his back, take it, and let the table dig
splinters into his skin. “Fuck, Sandokan,” he gasps.
“Squeeze it. Harder.” Sandokan looks down,
beard dripping sweat, teeth clenched. “You want it? You want to cum for
me?” Yanez nods, the words gone. Sandokan obliges. His
hand clamps down, the pressure exquisite. It’s not just
pain—it’s a line of fire that starts in Yanez’s groin and
races up his spine, shorting out every thought except one: I want more. Sandokan leans in, voice
a savage whisper. “I could pop your balls. Right now. Like grapes. You
want that?” Yanez groans, legs quivering. “Yes. Yes, fuck, yes. Do it when I
cum.” “Good boy,” Sandokan laughs. He
jerks Yanez’s cock hard, every stroke sending a fresh jolt of agony
through him. His own cock is piston-fast, battering Yanez’s ass, the
wet slap a drumbeat for the end of the world. Yanez is close. He can’t believe it, but he’s never felt
more alive. Every nerve is a razor edge. He tries to look at Sandokan, but his vision blurs, blood roaring in his
ears. “Do it,” Yanez growls. “Fucking do it. Make me feel
it.” Sandokan spits in his
hand, strokes himself, then plunges back in. He picks up the pace, both hands
now crushing Yanez’s cock and balls. The pain is everything.
Yanez’s body fights it, muscles clenching, legs kicking, but he
doesn’t want to get away. He wants to drown in it. Sandokan’s voice is soft,
almost loving. “You ready?” Yanez can’t speak. He’s past words. His body convulses,
the orgasm ripping through him like a cannon blast. He feels the hot jet of
cum, then—Sandokan’s hands clench,
squeeze, and he hears a noise, a pop, deep and terrible. The pain explodes,
radiates everywhere. For a second he thinks he might actually die from it,
right now, before the rope or the hands around his neck. He screams, a high,
helpless sound. The world goes white, then black, then white again. Yanez feels his
soul leave his body, just for a moment, floating above the table. He sees
himself: a corpse in the making, face twisted in agony and ecstasy, Sandokan looming over him like a devil. He almost laughs. Then he comes back. His balls hurt worse than anything in his life.
His cock is still hard, but leaking blood. Sandokan
is still inside him, pounding, not stopping, not ever. Yanez blinks, sees the black stars at the edges of his vision.
“Do it,” he croaks. “Finish it. Kill me.” Sandokan grins, and this
time the love is unmistakable. “Thank you,” he says. He wraps his hands around Yanez’s throat, both hands, massive,
the fingers meeting behind the neck. He squeezes, slow, measured. Not the
quick snap of a neck—Sandokan wants him to
feel every second. Yanez tries to breathe. There’s no air. His heart hammers. The
pain in his groin is nothing compared to the pressure in his skull, his
chest, his eyes. He sees red, then blue, then everything is a storm of colors
and sound. He wants to speak, to say thank you, to say yes, but there’s
only the gurgle in his ruined throat. Sandokan fucks harder,
the final sprint. He watches Yanez’s face, never looking away, eyes
hungry. Yanez feels his heart start to stutter. His vision narrows to a
tunnel, at the end of which is Sandokan’s
face: triumphant, savage, beautiful. Sandokan’s cock explodes inside
him, hot and deep, and at the same moment the hands close tight, crushing the
last hope of breath. Yanez dies with the pain of his balls, the cock in his ass, the hands
on his neck, and the face of his killer and lover above him. The body jerks, once, twice, then is still. Sandokan holds it for a
moment, then lets go, panting, sweat and cum
dripping down his legs. He leans in, kisses Yanez’s forehead, and whispers: “I
told you I’d make it hurt.” Then he sits on the floor, back to the wall, and waits for the guards
to come. Scene 5 The cell stinks of cum and death. When the English unlock the door,
they gag at the smell. The first guard in, the pig-eyed bastard from before,
looks from Yanez’s blue, ruined face to Sandokan’s
naked, sweating body. Sandokan is still hard,
glistening with blood and shit and the slick of his own pleasure. “Jesus Christ,” the guard mutters. Sandokan stands, casual
as anything, lets his cock hang out, lets them see exactly what he’s
done. He plants his feet, arms wide, and grins. “You want a taste,
Englishman?” His voice booms. “He came twice. Bet you never made
a man do that.” The guards say nothing. One grabs Sandokan’s
shoulder, another pulls his arms behind his back and lashes them tight with
rope. They’re rough, but not as rough as Sandokan’s
hands ever were. He laughs in their faces, spitting on the stone as they drag
him out. They leave Yanez’s corpse sprawled on the table. The cock is
limp now, but the balls are a mess, crushed and leaking. His face is serene.
It’s the closest to peace Sandokan has ever
seen in a man. Outside, the dawn is gray and ugly. The courtyard is full of soldiers,
some local whores, a priest, and the English governor in his stiff blue coat.
They’ve built the gallows right in the open, a scaffold of raw wood and
thick hemp rope. The noose swings in the wind, waiting. The crowd jeers as Sandokan is hauled up the
steps. Someone throws a bottle; it misses, shattering on the boards. Sandokan smiles at them all, teeth bared, hair wild, cock
still out. The priest comes up, holding his little black book.
“Repent,” he says, his voice shaking. “Beg for God’s
mercy.” Sandokan spits at his
feet. “God’s mercy is for cowards.” The guards shove him up to the trapdoor. One tries to force his cock
back into his breeches, but gives up, cursing. They slip the noose around his
neck, rough hemp scraping his skin. Sandokan scans the crowd.
He wonders if any of them will remember him, or if they’ll just
remember the mess he made. “Any last words?” the pig-eyed guard asks, mocking. Sandokan lifts his head,
voice carrying across the whole yard. “I fucked your best man, and I
fucked your mothers too.” The crowd erupts. The governor gives a sharp nod. The guard pulls the
lever. They say you don’t know you’re dead until someone tells
you. Sandokan knows it, every inch of it, when the
trapdoor drops and gravity takes him like an angry god. He falls with a snap,
a brutal jerk, the rope digging into his neck like the bite of a jaguar.
There is no relief in the break—no sharp, merciful snap. The English
have never mastered the clean kill. These island ropes are half-rotted, thick
with old sweat and mildew, and they drag out the dying so every man, woman,
and bastard child in the crowd gets a long look. His feet kick at nothing, boots scuffing the air, toes curling as if
to dig into the very wind. He tries to curse them—wants to spit in
their goddamn faces—but the rope only lets out a guttural croak, a
dog’s death rattle. Behind his back his hands claw at the air, thick
fingers digging furrows in the ass. Pain is all there is. It’s not sharp, not a blade or spear, but
a ring of iron around his throat, crushing the blood back into his skull. His
face burns, swells, swells more. The world spasms between red and black: his
vision tunnels, stars burst and fade at the edges, every heartbeat a cannon
in his temples. He hears nothing but the rush of his own blood. Then other sounds pour in. The crowd’s laughter, sharp and
shrill; the catcalls of the English officers, calling him
“savage” and “pig” and “pop-eyed Malay
whore.” The whimper of the local girls, the gasp of a boy who’s
never seen a man hanged before. Hands clutch at each other in the crowd, mothers
shielding their children’s faces, but no one looks away. Not really. His cock gets hard, impossibly hard. He doesn’t know if
it’s the lack of air or just the sweet promise of oblivion, but it
aches, desperate, alive. The crowd howls when they see it: the monster of a
cock, already leaking. It bounces against his belly, slaps his thigh with
every spasm. He’s losing it—himself, the world, everything—but
his balls still ache with the last of his rage. There’s piss now, hot
and uncontrollable, running down his legs, soaking his boots before the crowd,
before the priest, before the governor’s prim little wife and her
wide-eyed children. He’d laugh if he could. He’d laugh until the
whole city drowned in it. The air is thick with flies and the stink of old blood. His bowels go
next, a flood of shame, and the crowd recoils but can’t look away. A
few soldiers point and jeer. Some turn green and retch behind their hands.
The priest crosses himself, muttering nonsense. The whores laugh, coarse and
shrill. Sandokan’s vision spins
out, colors smearing into each other like watercolors left in the rain. He
thinks for a moment he sees Yanez in the crowd, smiling that sad, crooked
smile, but it’s just the shape of a shadow, a trick of the brain
starved for air. The pain sharpens to a point, a spike driven through his head,
then—release. He cums, a last spurt, spectacular, painting his own
belly and the wooden boards below in a messy white streak. The crowd is
silent for a heartbeat, stunned. Then the noise rises, louder than ever
before, half of them screaming, the other half cheering, hungry for more. He feels the world pull away, a tide receding, and knows he’s
almost gone. His legs twitch, then slow, then dangle. His tongue lolls
grotesquely from his mouth, jaw unhinged and slavering. He hopes Yanez is watching. He hopes Yanez is waiting on the other
side, cock in hand, arms open, ready to fuck him again or kill him again or
maybe just hold him for a minute before the devils come. He hopes the English
choke on this sight all their lives. He doesn’t know when he dies. Maybe it’s right when the
last rope of cum splatters. Maybe it’s when the priest finally stops
praying. Maybe it’s when the governor, pale and shaking, can’t
take it anymore. The governor makes a face. “Cut him down,” he says. The guards slice the rope. Sandokan hits the
boards with a wet thud, his head lolling to one side, eyes open, tongue
swollen. They don’t bother to cover him. Two men haul Yanez’s corpse out and drop it next to Sandokan. The guards strip both bodies naked, then toss
them like sacks of garbage into a cart. They roll the cart through the fort, down to the sea wall. The tide is
high, the waves hungry. The guards heave both bodies over the edge. They land with a splash,
vanishing beneath the foam. Not two minutes later, the first shark comes, drawn by the blood and
offal. More follow. Within the hour, there’s nothing left of the two
pirates except a cloud of red, and maybe, deep in the gut of a tiger shark,
the memory of a last, savage fuck. The English clean the gallows and wash the deck, but the stink lingers
for days. The priest writes it down as a warning: what happens to men who
live by violence. But Sandokan and Yanez go down laughing,
even if no one but the sharks can hear. |
