Daphne Boy

Gupta

The Tenth Tale of the Daphne Boy

by George Gauthier

Author's Note: This is a tale of an eternally youthful young man and those he encounters on the Indian subcontinent during the mid Vth century AD, toward the end of India's Golden Age.

This is another in a series of tales about an undying youth named Alexander, called Sikandar or Alexandros in this story. The other stories in this series so far are 'Antebellum', set in the American South just before the Civil War, 'Daphne Boy', set in Roman Syria, 'El Dorado', about the conquistadors, 'The Erythraean Sea', set in Arabia just before the rise of Islam, 'Stupor Mundi', about the Sixth Crusade, 'Ferghana', a tale of the Silk Road in Central Asia, 'Zulu' set mostly in Southern Africa during the Anglo-Zulu War, 'Sol Invictus' set in the Roman Empire during the reign of the dissolute androgynous and sexually insatiable gay emperor Elagabalus and 'Reniassance' set in Italy around 1500.

It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body, of consensual and non-consenual sexual activity between adult males, and considerable non-sexual violence including combat. If any of this would offend a reader, read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever jurisdiction applies.

It is offered for entertainment. If it manages to both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its aim.

It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only minor poetic license for the sake of the story. This tale, after all, is fiction. It is not a historical monograph. None of the major characters are actual historical persons and are not intended to resemble any person living or dead. My apologies to the reader for consistently misstating Alexander's height in all previous stories. I gave inconsistent measurements in inches and centimeters. I meant to write that he was one inch short of five and a half feet. That makes his height five foot five not five six. The metric measurement is still 165 centimeters as stated in all the stories.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Jungle Boy' series of tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the archive. See also my series 'Naked Prey' in the historical section, my 'Mer Boy' series in Gay/Beginnings, and the 'Track and Field' series in Gay/College. For links to my stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Chapter 1. Northern India 453 AD

I heard the tiger cough about two hours after dusk. The tethered goat below must have heard too, because she started to pull at the cord that tethered her under the tree where I waited, an arrow strung in my composite bow. A notorious maneater had plagued the district for months, killing at least thirty times, including women and children. I had volunteered to hunt the animal. I could not abide the thought of a mere beast preying on human beings. It seemed to me against the proper order of nature. Besides, I had seen what the tiger had left of several victims. It was ghastly, leaving survivors with horrible memories of the very last time they got to see their loved ones.

Others had tried before to kill the maneater, but this was too wily a beast to allow itself to be driven by noisy beaters toward a party of hunters lying in wait. Instead he had turned on the beaters, men armed only with drums and cymbals and clappers and the occasional spear, and killed two of them to break through their line and escape.

Deadfalls and poison bait had been tried and failed. The maneater may have sniffed the scent of humans around the deadfall, a pit with spears set in the bottom point upwards with a pair of chickens tied to the middle of the flimsy covering of interwoven branches and leaves. The idea was that his weight would break through the cover and plunge him onto the spear points. Instead he ignored the bait and went on to the nearby village to kill a child. As for the poisoned pig carcass, perhaps he detected a suspicious odor. He had twice got away from expert trackers, once even turning back on his trail and ambushing the men following his spoor. The natives were starting to think of the tiger as a forest demon rather than a wild animal with a taste for human flesh.

My tethered goat was alive and untainted by poison. I hoped its frightened bleating would induce the tiger to pounce on her as he had on so many humans. What I really needed to do was to find a half consumed human corpse and lie in wait over that for the tiger to return for a second meal, but the villagers would have none of it. Their custom was to cremate their dead within a day. Actually in the hot climate of India, that was usually a good idea.

The short recurved bow in my hands was powerful enough to drive an arrow right through him close up. I had smeared cobra venom on the arrowhead, a wickedly barbed hunting point, and the first part of the shaft. Even a minor wound would finish the killer cat and end his reign of terror.

Nothing else but its actual corpse would lift the specter hanging over the district. A local boy was up in the tree was with me. His job would be to carry word to the nearest village in case of success. We would need a gang of men to carry the heavy corpse back with us to prove the monster dead. A big Bengal tiger might weigh 500 pounds (225 kg), four times my own mass. I carry only 122 pounds (56 kg) on my small frame and stand a mere five foot five and a whisker (165 cm).

My compound bow was made of horn and bone cleverly glued together. It was newly captured from a soldier of the Huna, the so-called White Huns, enemies of the Gupta Empire that ruled Northern India. The Gupta favored longbows firing cane arrows with metal heads. Bows of that design were less prone to warping than a composite bow in the damp and moist conditions prevalent to the region. I knew my bow would not last very long in the climate, but it would serve me well enough in the short term. Up in the trees, hemmed in by branches, I needed the short double recurved bow of the Huna to get off a good shot.

The wait that night was a long one. I crouched for hours on a branch thirty feet in the air, the muscles of my nude body cramping painfully. Patel was a plucky lad of some ten or twelve years. For his safety, I had asked him to climb even higher in the branches.

I am not sure what gave us away. Perhaps it was the scent of the boy's urine from when he had emptied his bladder around midnight. It was a mistake I had cautioned him against. Still I could hardly expect a child to have the discipline that I had learned in nearly six centuries of living and surviving up to that point. The tiger ignored the bait and charged across the clearing trying to get up our tree to kill us. Now tigers are not the best of climbers, but the big branches on this tree combined with its thick bark might allow it to scramble high enough. Its jump alone carried it up the first ten feet.

I fired my poison arrow but the shot was off by a little. All right I missed it clean. In my defense I offer that I was aiming at a fast moving target, one bounding the way a cat does, in the darkness before morning twilight, my own muscles cramped from the long night in the tree, and shooting downward to boot. You try it sometime. I did have another arrow, but I knew I could never get a shot off between the branches as the tiger clawed its way up to me. Instead I grabbed my sword, and pointed it straight down at the cat and slipped off the branch, timing my move for when the claws on its front paws had just reached up to dig into the bark. That meant that, for a second or so, the tiger could not use its claws against me. I kept the point of my sword aimed straight at his chest relying on the momentum from my fall to drive it in. As luck would have it, my blade cut deep into its body cavity, piercing heart and lungs.

We fell to the ground together, but the tiger was dead before he hit the ground. I was unscathed. His large body had cushioned my own much smaller one from the impact.

"Sikandar, you did it!" the boy cried joyously. He had joined me on the ground. "I must run and tell the village."

"No, Patel. Not yet. You must get back up in the tree and stay there till dawn. Tigers are not the only danger that prowls the jungle at night. I'll not send you off till full daylight."

Disappointed at having to wait, but recognizing the good sense of it, Patel manged to curb his impatience till I gave him leave to carry his message to the villagers. Meanwhile I examined the dead tiger. I soon realize that though this was a big tiger indeed, it was not our mankiller. It had all its front claws and our demon tiger only nine, having lost one in some mishap.

The joyous villagers showed up with Patel leading them proudly, strutting in fact. I smiled; the boy had a right to strut, plucky lad that he was. The villagers crowded around me and the dead tiger, most of them topping me by half a head. A tall handsome looking people, the men were dressed in loose pants or simple wraps around the hips.

My sunbronzed hide made me nearly as dark as the villagers, but I was a blond with green eyes and they were all raven haired with dark brown eyes. They were puzzled by my sober expression as I stood over the dead cat. I explained, but they did not want to accept to truth of it.

"No saddhu," the village headman insisted. "This is the demon tiger. He must be!" he added, desperation in his voice.

I could understand why he needed to believe the reign of terror was over, but in the end he had to face reality. His own trackers confirmed that this tiger could not be the one who had done the killings, or at least not all of them. Some suggested that maybe there were two mankillers operating in the area. I doubted that. We returned to the village for a subdued celebration. Even if it was the wrong cat, I had killed a big tiger that might have preyed on their livestock, after all.

Word came to the village some two weeks later that the maneater was dead. He had made the mistake of getting between a mother elephant and her calf and got trampled for his trouble. His body was identified by his nine toes, just about the only part of him that the outraged elephant had not stamped into the soft earth.

Life returned to normal in our village. For me that meant the lifestyle of an ascetic saddhu (monk) of the Digambara sect. Although Digambar monks wore no clothes, they did not consider themselves to be nude. Rather, they were clothed in the environment itself ("sky clad"), symbolic of a refusal of private property or of bodily comforts. Not that renouncing clothing had been much of a hardship for me. I am not the least bit body shy, something of an exhibitionist in fact. So I would just as soon have gone entirely naked because of the heat alone.

Just over a year earlier I had settled in this area about two days' ride from from the city of Mathura on the River Yamuna, the main tributary of the Ganges. Monks usually begged for everything, but I could not bring myself to beg, not while able bodied. I had to earn my keep. It is simply foreign to my character to sponge off others, to live as a dependent or a parasite, hence the hunting I undertook for the village, shooting antelope and other game to share with everyone.

As a saddhu I literally owned nothing, not the borrowed hut I lived in, not even my weapons. Nothing. I could follow the way of the ascetic easily enough if not that of a beggar. I lived without creature comforts in a hut with a grass roof and a dirt floor and ate the plainest of food. I had no possessions whatsoever. As a saddhu I could own nothing except maybe a water bottle made from a gourd.

This was life simplified. That did not mean that I was deliberately trying to mortify the flesh, as in the Western monastic tradition. I did not fast nor keep vigils nor flay myself with a whip. No hair shirt for me either. I regard such notions as immoral and entirely alien to my character, not to mention useless as a means to enlightenment. How can hurting oneself ever lead to self knowledge, true knowledge? Should we cultivate fever dreams next? No, it was one thing to get rid of distractions and to reject materialism, quite another to take up practices like those that consume entirely too much time, energy, and commitment, becoming very distracting in their own right.

So why had I chosen the life of an ascetic? I was on a spiritual retreat and a quest for self realization, exploring the mental disciplines that India had to offer. As a philosopher once said, the unexamined life is hardly worth living, and I had many lifetimes to examine. Also I was intensely lonely in the way that only an immortal can be lonely. The calendar kept separating me from friends and lovers and colleagues. The saddest thing about never growing older is that you must eventually lose everyone you ever loved or befriended. The gods know many of them were more worthy of my gift than I. Also I can seldom stay for even twenty years with one identity or in one place since I do not age as others do. So I have to give up neighbors, colleagues, the whole population of cities where I had forged a comfortable existence and move on. It gets to you eventually. It got to me, hence my spiritual journey via asceticism.

This was not the first time I had lived a life of privation, totally naked for years at a time, but those times were when I was enslaved because of the misfortunes of war or for bad debts. Of course, my privation in India was voluntary and intended to be temporary, five years at most. I had placed a large fortune in safe hands with friends in Persia. One day I would return there and take up my usual profession of a merchant.

As to what accounts for my near immortality, I have no real answer, except to suggest some fluke of genetics, maybe something to do with self-repairing telomeres in the chromosomes of my cells. I was born in Germany in the late second century BC. For reasons I can only speculate on, I had stopped growing and aging after reaching seventeen. Now, more than five hundred years later, I still looked like a boy in his late teens. No, there had been no encounter with a sorcerer nor a pact signed in blood with eldritch powers. It just happened that way.

I wrote "near immortality" advisedly since I know that I am not invulnerable. Someday I must die whether in war, by accident, by foul play, even by disease though my immune system is extraordinarily resistant. I have no special powers. I cannot read minds or teleport or fly. I am not a wizard, just a boy who never grew up. My advantages over other men derive from my longevity, centuries of life experience being the most valuable. Also I have had many lifetimes to hone all sorts of skills whether occupational or for survival.

Practice makes perfect, and after nearly six centuries of training, practice, and combat, there was no one on the planet who stood the slightest chance with me face to face, one to one. I am deadly with long bow, compound bow, and crossbow. (I became a dead shot too after the development of firearms), I have studied many schools of unarmed combat, integrating them into an eclectic style that suited my physique and capabilities.

Some of my neighbors thought me a strange sort of saddhu. For one thing I practiced constantly with sword and bow and knife. I sought training at schools of the martial arts, exchanging lessons in the western techniques I had mastered like the pankration of the Greeks. Sometimes I simply bartered my charms for lessons. My version of asceticism went only so far. Yes I lived in a hut, utterly naked. I owned nothing. I ate simply and did not drink or use drugs. Yet I was meticulous about my toilette, bathing daily upstream of the village, near the outlet of the spring that fed the stream for maximum cleanliness. I used a split twig twice a day to brush my teeth. I swept the dirt floor of my hut and got rid of any leftovers that might attract vermin.

Also I had not given up sex. I might be centuries old by the calendar, but physiologically I was a teenager with a sex drive to match. Chastity was out of the question, even if I were of a mind to try it. I had no trouble finding partners. Young men in the district were happy to take me to bed, and I was happy to oblige them. I was a welcome alternative to years of enforced chastity until they mustered the price of a bride. Typically men married in their mid to late twenties to women in their late teens. What to do in the meanwhile. Well in their village at least, there I was, pretty as any girl around, exotic looking with my long blond hair and green eyes, absolutely uninhibited about sex, and available to any nice looking young male, at no charge. Some of the local whores resented me for that. Well you cannot please everyone.

Still I was serious about learning Indian mental disciplines. I had rid myself of all distractions especially the cares of managing a business and a large household, not to mention worrying about how I would be clothed and housed and fed. I wanted to delve into the existential questions, to understand how we humans are motivated so much by emotion yet are capable of the most abstruse of reasoning in mathematics and philosophy. Why do we create poetry and music and tell stories?

I was looking into the phenomenon of consciousness itself. For instance, consider this question. What does it mean to say that we are fully conscious, when we don't even know what words we will use at the end of a sentence when we start to speak. It is not like we first form a sentence in our minds, parse it, visualize the words, then read them off as from a script. Unless you are quoting from memory, you literally do not know the next word that is going to come out of your mouth. Think about it. Try saying a few sentences aloud yourself.

Why not? How can the words we speak flow so easily, so unconsciously if you will, through our supposedly conscious minds. What does that say about consciousness itself? You might not see that as much of a philosophical problem, but then you haven't thought about it the way Indian sages have. Make no mistake, what I was studying was logic and reasoning and psychology, not any of that South Asian mumbo jumbo about gods and goddesses, mythology, rituals, transmigration of souls, etc. As a rationalist, I had no use for any of that. As a near immortal, I had no immediate need of the consolations of religion for my mortality.

Chapter 2. Summons

A few weeks after I slew the tiger, a troop of cavalry rode up into the village to seek me out, asking after the yellow haired saddhu who had fought the tiger.

"So you are the strange ascetic we have heard of even in Mathura. Sikandar is it not?"

At my nod he went on.

My name is Chanakya. My master, the provincial governor Bindusara Khadphises, would have you visit him at his seat at the palace in Mathura. You are to accompany us there at once."

"What does your master want with a Digambar monk, a naked saddhu?"

"That he did not say. He does not often take me into his confidence. Perhaps he wants the benefit of your wisdom. Then again, looking at you now, I would not be surprised it he wants to add you to his harem of pretty boys."

I flushed, dismayed at being summoned by a high official, taken away from my own pursuits just to suit some whim of his. Was it his wish to conscript me into his harem? I could not think of any other reason a man in his position would want to see a nobody like me. Not that it mattered. I had no choice. The invitation was come as you are, and I had nothing to pack anyway.

"Very well, do you have a horse for me? I can ride bareback if necessary."

"You would have to ride bareass of necessity too, little one, but no, it would be unseemly to deprive a saddhu of a chance to practice humility. You are to run with us on foot back to the city. Since we are starting in the afternoon, we won't get there before noon the day after tomorrow. Sorry about the leash, but we would not want to run off or to get lost on the way, now would we? Now stand still there like a good lad while my man fits you with a leash. And don't touch the knot for any reason. Understood?"

I stood there as one of the riders looped a leather thong around my neck, typing it with intricate knots that could not be easily undone. The cavalry set off to the southwest, toward the provincial capital with me in tow. At first they went at a walk but then eased into a trot. Now I am a natural long distance runner with my light frame and slow twitch musculature. The pace was one I could keep up all day, but even I was hard pressed to keep up with the riders when they broke into a slow canter.

A horse in a canter covers ground at the rate of 10 to 15 miles per hour (16 to 24 kph). 10 miles an hours is a pace of six minutes a mile. I can do that for some time but not all day. My usual time for a marathon is just about two and and a half hours, just under a six minute mile. Top marathoners run five minute miles. (So can I, very nearly, but I have to train full time to get to that level of fitness.) No man can run 15 miles an hour for any distance. That is a pace of four minutes a mile, mile after mile after mile. It is impossible. So they had to slow down when I lagged, grumbling as if it were my fault I was on foot.

The total distance to the city was something like 40 miles (65 km). Understand that in the very short run, say a fifty meter sprint, a man can outrun a horse which has so much more inertia to overcome. At very long distances of days or even weeks, men can outrun horses too. Men are omnivores so we can replenish our energy far faster than a horse which must graze for hours every day. At the middle distances, a horse excels, and his rider does not arrive exhausted either, which is why men ride horses in the first place.

Sometimes I was ordered to run in front of the rider who had the other end of my leash, sometimes I trailed him. These men liked to watch my taut body as I ran along, admiring the dimpling of my butt cheeks or the rhythmic expansion and contraction of my chest, or the metronomic action of my legs as my stride ate up the miles. They enjoyed speaking about me as if I were not there or perhaps were a horse they were judging. One man said I had good wind and a fine stance. Another admired the smoothness of my stride and the set of my shoulders. Another credited me with a good set of withers, meaning my rump.

"What a fine looking colt the lad is, captain, one man called out."

"Actually from what I have heard, he deports himself more like a filly than any colt. All the young stallions in that village where we found him are said to mount him regularly, if you take my meaning."

That led to further ribaldry at my expense, as you can imagine. Some pretended to admire the long blond mane on the filly who managed to keep pace with their own mares and geldings. Others mocked me for my small size or for my lack of body hair even at the fork of my legs. My bare ass attracted much comment. There were even those who wondered whether I could take a real horse cock up my fundament. One soldier mocked the way my genitals bounced about as I ran down the narrow road. Would he look any more dignified if he were running starkers at the end of a leash?

"So tell us, little one. How did you manage to slay that tiger?" one soldier sergeant asked.

"I heard he threw himself out of a tree, driving a sword right through it." another soldier offered, but the sergeant corrected him.

"Fell out of the tree from sheer fright is more like it. And they say the blade was poisoned. The only way he could have killed it. By the gods, just look at the puny thing. Does the lamb slay the lion? I don't think so."

No point in arguing that it was my arrows that were poisoned, and I missed with them. You don't poison a blade unless you need to cheat in a duel. Even then you take the risk of cutting yourself.

They let me stop to drink once in a while. Without water I would soon have collapsed in the heat of an Indian spring, the way the sweat poured off me making my whole body glisten with perspiration. When I asked for a time out to take a dump, the sergeant wondered out loud, why I did not simply whinny like the little filly I was. Like a dog on the end of leash I evacuated my bowels under the watchful eyes of my escort. Once again I confronted the contempt of straight men to those like me who respond to other males. In this case their attitude was overlaid with the traditional hostility of macho men toward pretty boys like me. Why is it that masculine men always think the worst of us pretty young things when we get into a jam? Is it jealousy or what?

It looked like once again my physical beauty was the cause of a serious predicament. The truth is that all my long life I have been both blessed and cursed by a lovely form and face that inspire admiration and lust in the heart of any male who appreciates a beautiful boy. I am small and pretty and uniformly bronzed from habitual nudity looking entirely too obviously like someone's catamite or pleasure boy. With my androgynous if wiry physique and fine-boned features I fell far short of normal male standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual characteristics like beard and body hair. I was smooth even at the fork of my legs. Since I had stopped aging before my beard grew in I have never had to shave. The upshot of it all was I often wasn't taken seriously as a male, often with dire consequences.

I have had much experience of rape and sexual servitude over the centuries. Enslaved at fourteen by a Roman tribune as a spoil of war, I became my captor's catamite and body slave until sold on to a merchant in Massalia, modern Marseille. My new master also kept me nude and used me as a pleasure boy but later put me to work as a scribe as well. Set free by his will when he died suddenly of a fall from a horse, I traveled to the East and made my first fortune in Alexandria, working in a boy brothel while investing in mercantile ventures on the side. That is where I took up the Roman habit of having all my body hair, little as it was, plucked with tweezers. After several decades of plucking it stopped sprouting. Now I was completely hairless and would stay that way forever.

In the early first century AD I spent a few years in ancient Antioch as a Daphne Boy, enslaved for and unjust debt as a temple prostitute. The cult of the nymph Daphne is allied to that of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Male acolytes, for that is what they called us, offered themselves to boy lovers. We were very popular because we were scrupulous about personal hygiene, trim and fit, and hand picked for our beauty of face and form. Although we could not chose our clients, the life was pleasant enough, with bright airy accommodations, good food, and decent treatment. The priests let us keep tips from our clients so we had a bit of coin to spend on our two days off per month.

I made friends among the other boys and even some of my clients, though I was glad enough when circumstances freed me before my unchanging youth could be noticed. In some ways I still have fond memories of my time as a Daphne Boy, slave though I then was. Other periods of slavery before and since were not so pleasant. I had spent a year in the Colosseum as a gladiator, forced to fight for my life before the crowd. I became quite the favorite, fighting naked and armed with two knives. They called me the killer catamite because I was regularly given to my fellow gladiators as well as to rich spectators who paid gold for the chance to fuck me fresh from my latest combat, still covered with sweat, the dust of the arena, and the blood of my foe.

My future would hold other stints of sexual slavery that were not so pleasant. In the seventh century I spent three years working at the dangerous trade of pearl diver in the Persian Gulf. I was kept perpetually nude, set to dangerous work, taken sexually by guards and fellow divers regardless of my wishes. Our masters were strict about segregation from females. It was 'common knowledge' at the time that sexual activity increased buoyancy, so we divers were prohibited any contact with women. Slave owners kept slaves in male-only quarters, with the inevitable result that same sex relations were nearly universal among slave pearl divers. Our masters punished us for fighting and would have punished me even worse if all I was fighting about was protecting my non-existent virtue.

Then there were the recurrent gang rapes by bullies, soldiers, sailors, or bandits -- at least till I mastered the arts of unarmed and armed combat. It is not that I object to male sex or to taking the passive role. I am by nature a bottom boy, a sexual submissive. That is why, even though I usually earn my living as a merchant my next most usual occupation, by choice or not, was catamite, sex slave, pleasure boy, joy boy, rent boy, call it what you will.

I was well equipped for that role certainly: a comely youth, apparently of no more than seventeen or eighteen summers and pretty as a girl with as flawless a complexion. I did not have the classic muscular physique of the Discus Thrower. I was quite slender and boyish -- almost skinny, with narrow shoulders and a flat but corrugated chest and stomach sporting well-defined abdominals, prominent ribs and sharp hip bones. The tracery of veins on my forearms, calves, and belly showed how very little body fat I carried. I like to think my manhood is more than adequate but I wouldn't be scaring the horses. It takes both my small hands to cover an erection, but only one when it was soft.

With fine-boned almost elfin features: a straight nose, high cheekbones, and large green eyes, I turned heads. Sometimes passersby would blurt out what they were thinking: "How can anyone be that good looking." I found that gratifying, of course, but knew that, like my longevity, it was nothing I had done anything to deserve. My genetic heritage was an accident of birth, or more exactly of conception, as is true of all of us.

During our first overnight stop at a rough camp I was set to drawing water and gathering wood for a fire. After I finished the sergeant brought me over to his officer.

"At least you had enough sense not to try to steal a horse and ride away," Captain Chanakya observed. "Now get down here on your knees and get your sweet mouth working on this."

One of his men used part of the leash to bind my arms behind my back and then to the loop around my neck. He pulled my balls back between my legs and tied the next section of slack around my ballsac, handing the end up to Chanakya. That let the captain used the leash to yank on my balls while I pleasured his cock. I pleasured him as commanded, probably giving him the best blow job of his life. I knew better than to stint on the effort. He was completely indifferent to my needs. With his large endowment shoved down my throat, I had to gasp for air as best I could, spit and drool leaking out of the corners of his mouth. All the while Chanakya face fucked me, he bad mouthed me with the crudest and vilest of language.

"You silly fool, a beauty like you should not be living in obscurity as a naked saddhu. What a waste when you could live well in the city, in one of the upscale boy brothels, if not in a palace, enjoying comfort not deprivation. What good has it done you living without possessions, without money and powerless. Look at you, kneeling here helpless at my feet like any slave, a small naked hairless western boy, cringing before his betters. Isn't it that, even in your own mind, you know that this is where you belong? You were made to be used by strong men as a suck toy and a fuck toy too, you little cocksucking pansy faggot. Look at you, cum leaking out of your bottom hole, a souvenir of your latest couplings in your village. Hungry at both ends for more cock. No doubt about it. A cock crazy youth like you needs to be fucked hard and often and by men who know how. I expect the governor will take care that task."

At our stopover the second night, he even passed me around to his men. They did leave my ass untouched or at least unprobed, probably under orders from the governor, but their hands were all over me, proprietarily. as it were. Some shoved fingers up my ass till a warning finger shake from the captain reminded them my hole was off limits.

Why is it that when you give some men a little power they use it so arbitrarily. Why did their own lusts carry so much more weight compared to my own desires, my rights to bodily integrity and to choose my sex partners. In the circumstances, I could not resist them, alone as I was, unarmed, small, naked, barefoot, lead about on a leash like an animal, but did their slight degree of authority and their deadly weapons give them the right to use me like a sex slave? All right, I was already naked when they found me, but was that really an invitation to one and all to stick their cocks into my mouth, treating me like any boy of the streets? Why cannot such men be satisfied with what is on offer rather than what they can take? Another existential question for me, I suppose.

It galled me that with my skills I could have killed the nasty captain with a single blow of my hand. I briefly considered taking a horse and making a break for it, but decided not to. Where would I go? A naked blond boy mounted on an imperial mount could hardly ride around unnoticed. Indeed how many blonds frequented Northern India at all. Then there was the governor. What did he want we me, beyond the obvious. Perhaps I might someday settle accounts with the captain for forcing his attentions on me. Meanwhile I had to wait and see.

Chapter 3. Rudi

Eventually we reached the provincial capital, Mathura, once the winter capital of the mighty Kushan Empire that stretched from the Aral Sea in Central Asia down the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges in India. Old inscriptions on tombs lining the approach roads were in their script, a modified version of the Greek alphabet. In their day, the Kushans had promoted urbanization and trade and had made the countryside safe for the caravans that passed through places like Mathura. The city was on the edge of the lands the Gupta Empire ruled directly. Its location was strategic, astride the saddle of land between the Indus and Ganges valleys, the very reason the Mughals and the British after them ruled from Delhi which lay about 100 miles (150 km) northwest.

I did not see the governor the day of my arrival. A palace intendant showed me to modest but comfortable quarters. After a bath and a good meal, I felt reasonably restored from my long run. As the globe of the sun touched the horizon, I decided to explore the palace and grounds having been told that I might walk anywhere not restricted by the guards. I was pleased by the wonderfully laid out garden in the Persian style, with delightful fountains and pools and trellises for shade, all surrounded by greenery and flowers. I sprawled out on the grass, eyes closed, reasonably content for the first time in three days.

Some time later I felt something lightly brushing my right hand. It was replaced by small wet nose and then a pink raspy tongue. A light grey cat was checking me out, looking me over. We locked eyes for a moment, and I blinked my eyes slowly and what I hoped was reassuringly. It worked. She stepped up on my belly and walked her way up to my face, sniffing and licking. I stroked her head a bit. Taking that as consent, she curled up on my belly, eyes closed purring softly. What a lovely sound that is. No other sound signifies contentment as much as a cat's purr. Then a voice spoke.

"I thought I would find you in the garden, Dankil."

I looked up into the eyes of a boy of about sixteen years. He was simply exquisite, his body slender but well formed and blessed with delicate androgynous features: raven haired, pert nose, large brown eyes accented with kohl, and gold rings in his ears. He wore only loose pants hung low on his narrow hips plus a shy smile on his face.

"Hi, my name is Rudrasena, Rudi to my friends, and I see you have already met Dankil. What is your name?"

"I am Sikandar ... Rudi.

"You know Dankil is rather choosy about her friends, and she is a good judge of character too. The fact that she took to you right away means you come highly recommended. As for myself, I know that I am being terribly forward on such short acquaintance, but may I kiss you, Sikandar. You look absolutely scrumptious spread out on the grass like that, naked and smelling good from the bath."

He flashed white teeth at me in a big smile. I nodded, unable to resist his beauty, good humor, and directness. As our lips met, I wondered what this seemingly guileless boy were doing in the garden of the governor's palace.

"So, Sikandar, I suppose you must be the governor's new boy. Very exotic you are too with hair the color of gold and eyes the green of growing things. Laid out naked in the garden for his delectation. I wonder why he never mentioned he had found a new lad for his harem."

"That's because I am not in his harem. Or at least I don't think so. Actually I don't know why he summoned me here."

I explained how I had arrived. Rudi was pensive as he remarked.

"No, since he hasn't seen you yet, you are not destined for the harem. He always does the choosing personally. Though once he gets a look at you, he won't be able to resist you, any more than I could. You are gorgeous Sikandar."

"You are not so bad looking yourself Rudi. How long have you been one of his boys?"

A look of surprise passed over his features then he started to laugh.

Just then, another voice spoke up. I looked into the face of a handsome man who looked like a lot like Rudi with seven or eight years on him.

"Bindu!" Rudi exclaimed bouncing up. "Look what I found in the garden. Isn't he adorable?"

As I got to my feet and gave a polite bow, the man smiled at what was I now understood was his younger brother.

"I am Bindusara Khadphises, governor of this province, and you must be the saddhu I sent for. I see you have already met my brother Rudrasena."

"And Dankil too," the boy piped up to add, bringing a fond nod from the older man who clearly indulged his younger brother.

"I am told you have sworn off clothing. I can see that the tailor's loss is everyone else's gain. I had intended to explain things tomorrow, but since we are met here in this comfortable spot, I might as well get down to business."

He signaled to servants to bring wine and sweets as he settled himself cross legged on the grass, his hand signaling me to do the same.

"We shall dispense with formalities in this private setting. I find them tiresome and time wasting in any event, all that bowing and scraping, flowery language, courtiers jostling for advantage. It is why I normally conduct official business in my office rather than the throne room. Why should a man in charge of important government departments like taxation, roads, irrigation, or religious affairs prostrate himself like a slave before me or anyone, except the emperor, of course. How can I expect my generals to lead men, if I do not respect them enough to let them stay on their own two feet when they report."

I was impressed by the no-nonsense attitude of this man, the governor of a strategic province, westernmost of those ruled directly by the emperor from Pataliputra. I wondered why he thought he should explain himself to a bare assed foreign youth like myself. What could this man need with me?

"No doubt you are wondering why you are here. The reason is simple enough to speak of, though your task will not be easy to carry out."

"My task?"

"I want you to infiltrate the circle of certain men of influence here in Mathura and report to me what you discover about their intrigues."

Of course I raised the obvious objections: what qualified me for a job as a spy. How could he trust me, a complete stranger and a foreigner to boot, with such a delicate mission. Why should I put my life at risk for him in the first place? He countered with a strange reference to my recent exploits.

"Do you know why that tiger turned maneater? It took a wound from a hunter who could not be bothered to track it down and finish it off. Not for him the dirty job of climbing down from his elephant and following a spoor in the jungle on foot. With its injury, the tiger could not hunt its normal prey and turned to preying on humans. Hence all those women and children killed, some from your own village. That man is your prime target, or at least main suspect."

Again I objected. Much as I might despise such a man, it was hardly up to me to avenge the dead. The maneater had died after all. The governor then played his trump card.

"Your choice is to act as my secret agent here in the palace and city or I shall have to officially take cognizance of your presence here. I wonder what answers an interrogator might get out of you to explain why you, a wealthy merchant in Qandahar until a year ago, suddenly gave up everything, even clothing, to dwell in my province as a saddhu. Some might believe you truly are on a spiritual journey. Others, more hard headed perhaps, might look for a mundane motivation, connected perhaps to ongoing tensions along our western borders with our great rival the Persian empire of the Sassanids."

"What! Maybe I did give up a merchant's life in Persia, but I'm not working for the Persians as a spy. What mischief could I get up to in the obscure village where I live?"

"That is precisely what a torturer, er interrogator, would like to know. You understand my meaning and your position? For my part, I might be inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you are a very strange kind of saddhu. You train constantly with sword and bow; you hunt and kill animals and eat their meat; you travel around my province ostensibly to study at schools of the martial arts. You are sexually promiscuous, though only with males. What does all that make you, saddhu or spy or a strange sort of libertine.

Glumly I concluded that the man had me. If only to protect myself, I must get involved in his intrigues. Only that would deflect unfounded suspicions. Bindusara was a wily one. I could tell he knew the suspicions were groundless but they gave him a handle on me. Nothing personal there. A ruler must use what tools come to hand, and I was drafted for this job. Oh he promised suitable rewards for loyal service, sincerely meant, I am sure, but there was still an iron fist inside the velvet glove.

My cover identity was already established. I was a minor celebrity. As the saddhu who had slain the tiger I would be able to move freely around the palace and the city. As the saddhu who spread his charms widely, I would wind up not only in the governor's bed but also those of his enemies. That would give them the chance to pump me for what he might have said in confidence as pillow talk. I would continue my ostensibly ascetic way life, naked and with a simple diet.

"You know that you can continue your spiritual development right here in the city Sikander. Here you will have access to philosophers, priests, and wise men. One word of warning. I can see that my brother is very much taken with you. Do not toy with his affections. I have no objection to an affair with a boy his own age or very nearly, as you are, though I would not let an older man take advantage of his youth and naivete. Treat him decently. He is utterly without guile, and I love him dearly. Now since he saw you first, I am going to let him have first crack at you. Does that please you Rudi?"

Rudi blushed at this frank talk but took my hand in his and led me to his rooms. We passed the guarded door of the boy harem. Rudi explained.

"The guard is not there to keep the harem boys in but to keep intruders out. My brother does not lock his boys behind gates and walls. Those are for his own protection when he visits, to forestall assassins."

Rudi's own suite was just beyond his brother's apartment. Further on was the suite of his brother's wife. Theirs was a diplomatic and dynastic marriage only. Bindu had little use for women and did not keep a female harem. Rudi's rooms were airy and comfortable without being ostentatious. Unselfconsciously the boy dropped his trousers and lay down on the bed, reaching an arm toward me. Already naked, I reclined next to him. He smelled of attar of roses and of good clean boy.

Our first kisses were tentative, even shy, but our hormones soon took over and we went at it with a will. I love sex with boys of our sort, small and slender and preciously cute. It is an absolute delight. I feel energized as we jump into bed and roll around kissing and laughing and touching. It is easy to breathe no matter what the position, since the small bodies of boyish lovers do press down so much. When I have sex with another pretty boy, we pleasure each other equally and in much the same way as we are pleasured, trading off taking the more active role or sixty-nining. Both of us liked the taste of a boy's cum or just having it splash us in the face. That made us feel very sexy and desired. You know you have connected with a boy when he splooges on your face and then you kiss, tongues probing deep, tasting him while dueling with his tongue.

(I also respond to powerful males who use their size and strength to dominate me. Sex with an older male, especially one taller and powerfully built is a need and a craving. With a man I go all weak in the knees and submissive, ready to drop to my knees and worship as a supplicant. The fact is that I am a bottom boy at heart, a natural submissive. That is what I looked forward to in a relationship with Bindusara.)

Rudi had a long member somewhat darker than his skin, smooth and not gnarly with veins, very like my own except for the shade. He was formidably equipped for a small youth. Despite his prior dalliances with other males, I dare say no one had ever played with him as I did that evening. As I licked him, his smooth cock started to plump up and straighten out, as the head emerged from the foreskin, to point toward his deep belly button. Then the cock lifted completely off the boy's belly, cantilevered out from the root, twitching with the throb and beat of his heart, as a clear fluid leaked from the tiny slit at the end.

My hands and lips caressed this exquisite boy. I stroked the length of his legs, cupped his small buttocks, slid my hands along his flanks, and delved into his cleavage, making love to his body with my hands but touching the boy's proud cock only with lips and tongue. I swallowed him to the root, noting that he had plucked his pubes, bobbing my head up and down his length. I pulled off just in time. The ball sac pulled tight against the fork of his legs, its globularity standing out below the cylinder of his virile member. The head turned purple, its tiny lips spreading open. Abruptly, with a quick intake of breath, his proud cock engorged beyond its previous impressive girth and began spurting and spitting his white seed onto his belly. After several strong spurts, the gism continued to drain from the softening shaft but slowly, creating a pool in the hollow of his hairless belly.

I used the tip of my finger to gather some of his chrism and brought it to my lips and then to his, coating his lips like a gloss, and spreading more just above his lip, so his nostrils would take in the scent of his own seed. He reached out with his tongue as I offered more of it to him. I lapped some of it up and took him back into my mouth, sucking and tugging on a cock that the moment before has spit his essence onto his belly. He whimpered bewitchingly, inarticulate sounds indicative of the combination of pleasure and pain he felt at the head of his cock, especially when I tongued his sweet spot. He put both hands to my head to still its movements, but my tongue continued to torture him deliciously. He finally begged me to stop. It felt so good, it hurt. He shuddered as I drew back from his softening member, belly twitching as I kissed it repeatedly, practically sobbing with pleasure. I was happy too. I lay my head on his belly, content myself that I had given him such joy. I had so wanted his first experience with me to be memorable.

After we caught our breath, Rudi reciprocated. He was quite talented, a natural then. Over the next few days we explored each other's bodies and got acquainted. I found out that Rudi and Bindusara had different mothers who were sisters, so they were actually closer than half-brothers in blood. Rudi had no interest in politics, but he was keen on learning about managing the family's agricultural estates. He hoped someday to take over that burden from his brother. So he spent much of his time in the gardens, creating new varieties of plants by selection of favorable varieties and by cross-breeding. I have always liked horticulture myself, especially with perennials and trees. We first worked together with cuttings and graftings of fruit trees. In a gesture of solidarity with me, Rudi worked in the nude. We could often be seen together, kneeling on the ground, brown cheeks resting on bare feet, lithe torsos bent over, ribs and spinal bumps prominent as, smudged with dirt and trowels in hand, we worked at our humble tasks while the sun warmed our bare butts. I love to feel the heat of the sun kissing my ass.

Sometimes we boys threw clods of earth at each other as in a snowball fight except we were all hot and sweaty and naked instead of cold and bundled up. A little more dirt was no bother to us naked as we were anyway -- nothing a quick bath would not take care of. We also liked to play with Dankil the cat, dragging a toy tied to a string along the ground and watching her pounce. Or we threw tidbits to her, or rolled a ball along the ground. Dankil actually had six toes on her front paws, two "thumbs" with dew claws, one on either side. That gave her almost prehensile paws, great for catching the ball and manipulating small objects. Her rear paws were normal with just four toes each.

Sometimes we engaged in sex right there in the garden. It felt so natural, like a primeval fertility rite to lie belly down, naked body fully in contact with the earth, legs spread wide, offering yourself to a male lover primed to plow your ass. Rudi liked the way I always traded off, giving him as much a chance to be in the saddle as on the bottom. With his slender form pumping away at my rump, my own rigid cock would dig into the earth, plowing it, preparing a furrow for my spurting seed. Afterwards, we would lie together, breathing heavily, pasted together with sweat and dirt. Even after he shot into me, his teenaged cock stayed hard. In the afterglow, I liked him to keep it there for a while, as we lay locked together, the entire length of our now languid bodies in contact. Dankil liked to make it a threesome, rubbing her chin to mark us, licking with her pink tongue, purring softly as she curled up with us.

As we got back our second wind he might start in again entirely or get to work preparing himself for me to mount him. His preferred position for that was to kneel and bend over to put his head in his arms, bracing his rump high off the ground. Outdoor sex in the garden brought the two of us together like nothing else. No hiding away indoors as if in shame. Whatever gods existed could watch or not as they wished. We were lovers and we were proud of it. Afterwards, we went into the bath to scrub the earth from back and rump, yet more reason for our hands to explore each other's trim bodies everywhere. Dankil sometimes watched but could never be persuaded to join us in the bath.

Chapter 4. Intrigues

After a briefing from the governor's spy master to fill me in on who the players were, I started snooping, circulating around the palace, getting to know people, giving intriguers a chance to approach me, to befriend the governor's brother's lover. I might sit in the garden and listen to the musicians who played there in the afternoons and evenings. I was always open to a challenge to play a very early version of chess. Some encounters were quite intellectual. At other times men just wanted to chat me up prior to getting me into their beds. I often accepted their invitations if I thought their pillow talk might prove enlightening. That included the tiger hunter whose cowardice or laziness had unleashed a maneater on my district. One link in the chain led to another, not hard to follow since such men like to show off their conquests and even pass them around in a show of magnanimity. I managed to learn a lot about the different factions and interests at stake.

It was fairly easy too. These men were not on their guard against a naked saddhu, a promiscuous foreign pretty boy. What loyalty could such a wanton lad feel toward the imperial Gupta? And mostly I had a good time in the social whirl thanks to my eternally hormone charged teenage sex drive. Sometimes I ventured out into the city though almost always in company, allowing suitors and acquaintances to pay for food and drink at teashops and taverns. I had no funds of my own, after all. Others took me to their homes, though often via the back door reserved for servants and entertainers and whores.

The palace was a lively and busy place with officials, courtiers, petitioners, servants, and soldiers always going about on their respective errands. They wore such colorful clothing and uniforms too, often accented with plumes and precious or semi-precious stones. I was rather conspicuous in their company totally nude as I was, my trim little body completely free of hair even at the fork of my legs. As something of an exhibitionist I admit that I enjoyed the chance to display myself nude while everyone else about me was clothed. It made me feel even more naked. I know that is naughty, even perverse, but that is what I am, for better or for worse. At least in that century my perpetual nudity was socially acceptable in my role as a saddhu.

Still, ofttimes even during the most prosaic of conversations I had the distinct impression that my interlocutors were paying less attention to what I was saying than wondering what my pouty lips would look like locked around their cocks. Just a feeling, but there it was.

And why not. To them I was a walking wet dream, a boy lodged conveniently to hand right there in the palace, shamelessly promiscuous, available free of charge, already unwrapped so to speak, and supremely practiced in the amorous arts. There were many who wanted the chance to clutch my pretty body to their chests, to feel it all slick with sweat, tugging, pulling, and squirming, orifices plugged and at work, pleasuring them better than any boy had ever done before.

Despite my active social life, I did resume my exploration of Indian psychology and philosophy. I talked with leading scholars. This was a golden age in (Northern) India. The long peace, the rule of law and order, and impressive cultural achievements of the period crystallized the elements of Hindu culture with all its variety, contradictions, and syntheses. The most significant achievements of this period were in religion, education, mathematics, the arts, and in Sanskrit literature particularly drama. The Kama Sutra dates from this period. In religion the pattern was set for Hinduism with consensus on the major sectarian deities, the worship of images, devotionalism, and the importance of the temple cults.

Indian education was suprisingly broad in focus covering subjects like grammar, composition, logic, metaphysics, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. The range compares well with the trivium and quadrivium taught in medieval universities in the west. Grammar, logic (or dialectic), and rhetoric made up the trivium. Arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy made up the quadrivium. Hindus invented the decimal system of notation we use today. By viewing lunar eclipses, Indian astronomers concluded, correctly, that the earth was round and rotated on its axis.

Maybe this was not my usual mercantile activity, but in my early centuries I spent much time and energy trying to understand my place in the world. I explored metaphysics, epistemology, linguistics, psychology, and other disciplines. I have never neglected the intellectual side of my nature, not when I had any choice in the matter. If that sort of endeavor seems strange for a naked monk, a pretty boy, a lover of others of his gender, a shameless show off, then so be it. I am as I am. I like to think I have a good head on my shoulders too. I am not just a pretty face and a sexy body.

I also spent much time with soldiers, guards, and young bravos in the training yards and salles, training and practicing with sword and bow. Nor did I neglect the various schools of unarmed combat, of which there were many in India, several domiciled in Mathura. I still use some of their techniques combined into an eclectic system that suits my physique and capabilities.

"Wasn't that you I saw on the stable roof this morning, Sikandar? Quite the nimble monkey, you were. Trying to get away from an outraged husband, were you?" one of my sparring partners asked with a twinkle in his eye, probably from his own memories of such escapades in his youth.

"More likely to be from an outraged wife or father, with pretty little Sikandar here." another rejoined. That provoked a general chuckle.

Actually I was just engaged in an acrobatic game similar to running an obstacle course. In modern times the name of the sport of parkour, derived from the French word for obstacle course. I used the palace complex as an obstacle course, a training ground for a form of applied acrobatics, really survival training in escape and evasion.

The idea was to use obstacles as a way to shake off pursuit. Far better than soldiers or guards in arms and armor, an agile lightly encumbered man can scale walls, scramble along rooftops, jump across alleys, and swarm up the facades of buildings, taking advantage of drain pipes, construction scaffolding, porticos, awnings, trellises, etc. The game also gave me a chance to test my nimbleness and strength not against others but against the limits of my own body as I overcame obstacles like walls, fences, buildings, towers, trees, and ditches. I always feel exuberant after a good scramble, it appeals to the boy in me, and what boy does not like to climb trees?

My skills came in handy too for my job as spy. Unsuspected, I could trail someone along the rooftops, then climb down a facade spider-man style to a convenient window to listen in on what was being said. The decorative elements in period architecture left many projections that were just right for handholds and footholds. Sometimes I squirmed my way into attics or haylofts or even between iron bars. It is the width of the head that is the critical measure. Once you get your head and one arm and shoulder through bars, you can wriggle the rest of you all the way, unless you have a hell of a paunch. With my flat tummy, it was no problem at all. And no, I did not get hung up on my pert rump either. Sure they jut out appealingly, firm and round, but petite, like the rest of me.

Mostly I simply kept my eyes and ears open for anything that did not look right or sound right. I have a gift for languages and knew the local Hindi plus Persian, Punjabi, and Kashmiri, and I could recognize though not speak the language of the Hephthalites, the so-called White Huns or Huna (apparently no relation to the people ruled by Attila from its center in Hungary).

Based on leads from the Gupta spymaster and my own investigations, I soon uncovered an intrigue centered around an ambassador from the Tribal Republics which lay to the west. The geopolitics of a past era is often boring to those with nothing at stake, so let me just say the the tribes were tributary to the empire though nearly autonomous in internal affairs. They wanted to regain their total independence. (So they could make war on their civilized neighbors and loot and despoil them). They were even prepared to use the Huna to tip the balance of power. The Huna had their own game afoot, to carve out an empire from the western territories of the Gupta and the eastern territories of the Persians. In the process, they would betray and subjugate the tribal republics. For their part, the Persians just wanted to divert Huna attentions away from their empire and keep the Gupta too busy to think of further expansion. In other words the worst sort of power politics, each side looking out for itself in the short term.

I gradually pieced together a plot to assassinate Bindusara as a prelude to a general tribal uprising, leading to Huna incursions, followed by Persian intervention to "restore order". Conveniently the governor's death would sever the personal ties and pledges that bound the tribes to the Gupta through their regional governor in Mathura and the wife he had taken from the tribes. Unfortunately, the plot was already in motion when I tried to get to the governor to warn him. The guard on the door of the harem told me Bindusara was with the harem boys but would not let me in to speak with him. Suspecting the guard might even be part of the plot, I went to Rudi who got me in to see his brother.

I don't know quite what I expected to find inside, some exotic den of unbridled sexuality, I suppose, but it was nothing of the sort. The decor was simple though comfortable, masculine in a boyish sort of way, sort of like a college dorm with luxury appointments. The shelves of books and student slates showed this to be a school as well a pleasure palace. There were six resident boys, only one as young as fifteen. All were fit and tanned and very healthy looking. When we entered, Bindusara was reading poetry to a very pretty lad blessed with violet eyes. Though the boy was naked, the scene was not lascivious at all, more like an uncle with a favorite nephew at his knee.

At the governor's signal, the boys barred the door from the inside, just in time too, as assassins launched their assault, trying to break the door down. I could tell from the lack of fighting outside that I had been right about the disloyalty of the guards. The nine of us were locked inside the harem, safe but only for the moment. Though the door was stout enough, in time the thugs outside would break through and succeed in decapitating the imperial government in Mathura.

Bidusara was sure that the plot was not widespread. He was a popular governor with a reputation for moderate levels of taxation and fair decisions in legal cases. If only we could get word to the army barracks. The army could be relied upon, unlike the palace guard.

"I'll go." I said. "Only someone like me can fit through the iron bars set in the windows and then scramble up to the roof. Once there I can make my way across the city to the barracks. By keeping off the streets I can avoid whatever forces might block the way."

"Good plan, and thank you, Sikandar, for your loyalty. Rudi and I and the boys will defend the door here, retreating to the inner chambers if necessary which have an iron grate to bar that entrance. That should buy us enough time for you to bring help. These boys of mine may look like palace strumpets, but they are all trained in arms. Come lads, are you with me?"

They all responded enthusiastically, cheering wildly and unhooking weapons and shields from the walls. These implements of war were not the decorations they had seemed but an armory hidden in plain sight: spears and swords and and bows. I realized that this was part of the governor's security measures, probably known only to those in these rooms. His enemies might have him trapped for the moment, but he was not defenseless nor without an army, even if it were only seven pretty lads in houri boy pants or less.

I saw the boys stand the low tables upright, sliding their bottom edges into deep grooves in the floor that had been concealed by carpets, then locking them together. In short order they had rigged a box, a defensive position just a foot or two deep in front of the narrow doorway. Anyone breaking through would find themselves in a killing ground, hemmed in by a chest high wall defended by the boys on three sides, their own comrades shoving in from behind. Unable to maneuver and pressed close, they would be cut to pieces. Once killed their dead bodies would continue to hinder their comrades' efforts. It was fiendishly simple. Another example of the governor's attention to security.

Dankil, the boy with the violet eyes, (not the cat named for him) spoke up, pointing out how close set the iron bars were.

"Let's coat these two bars and your torso with this lotion, Sikandar, that will help you get slip them. Sire, why don't you and some of the boys first try to pull the bars apart as far as you may."

With a nod, Bindusara braced a powerful leg on one bar and pulled with all his might, three of the other boys doing the same. Their efforts bent the adjoining bars far enough apart that with my body slicked up I could just slip through. Dankil coated the bars with the lotion. Next he went to work on me, explaining that I needed to keep my hands, arms, and legs dry. He worked at his task with more enthusiasm than perhaps strictly necessary to the purpose. Not that I minded. Little Dankil was very cute, small and smooth and naked. He wore a mischievous look on his face as he spread the lotion onto my skin. I could not help but respond.

"That's enough Dankil", Rudi observed dryly. "If your hands play with him any more, he will only hook himself on the bar as he exits, if you take my meaning." That brought a chuckle from all of us. As the other boys took positions at the door, Dankil and Rudi helped me slip through the window bars.

It was not as easy to reach the army barracks as I thought. Someone spotted me as I escaped the harem up to the roof and sent word ahead. Maybe armored men could not scramble along the rooftops, but even if they themselves could not reach me, their arrows could. I twice had to dodge around areas overlooked by men in towers. Circling that way made the route far longer than I expected.

Some men did come up after me. Mostly I lost them by vaulting alleys, hiding in awnings rolled up for the night, or just climbing where only someone with my slight weight could trust a trellis not to pull loose. One man armed with a knife tried to gut me, but my centuries of training and experience stood me in good stead. There are any number of ways to deal with a knife wielder, especially one whose footing was unsure. I tricked him into a grapple, then step aside to let his own momentum do the rest. He made a satisfying crunch on the paving stones below.

In the end I reached the barracks, swinging Tarzan style across the open space in front of it on a rope secured to the tower of the temple that faced the main gate. At first the soldiers on guard took me for an intruder and rushed to secure me. Some of the soldiers were men I had practiced with in the salle and who vouched for me. I got in to see their commander and gave him the code phrase Bindusara Khadphises had given me to authenticate my report. The regiment mobilized immediately.

The army had to fight its way not only through much of the suborned palace guard, but tribesmen who had infiltrated the city as traders and even a few Huna. I kept out of the close fighting. Street fighting is hard work, shoulder to shoulder, best left for men armed and armored for the job. That meant infantry with helmets and shields and breastplates for armor and longswords and javelins for weapons. I was naked. Also the narrow streets and the press of soldiers would negate my advantages in speed and agility. Sheer size and strength and stamina and numbers mattered most. Fortunately we had the numbers. I did what I could with a borrowed bow and quiver, picking off enemy archers and anyone who looked like an officer.

We reached the palace within two hours and found the governor and the embattled harem boys still holding out in the inner chamber, even though that wing of the palace had caught fire. Our cavalry had men climb up and fix ropes to the bars in the windows of the harem and rip them out, freeing the governor and his little army of pleasure boys.

All had survived though two bore wounds on shoulder or thigh. They would leave clean scars, a white line that would do little to detract from their good looks. The governor hastened to assure the two wounded boys that he would not set them aside. They were his little heroes, after all. War wounds gave a male a manly air, don't they?

I could see the harem boys were just bursting with pride over what they had accomplished, protecting the life of governor Khadphises. They had trained for more than two years, enjoying the secrecy and intrigue of it all, much as modern boys enjoy passwords, secret handshakes, and decoder rings. The enemy had left more than a dozen dead in the harem itself. Even more dead or dying men were found in the corridor outside. Harem boys they might be but they were now battle tested soldiers. From now on, they would train in the open, respected by soldiers and guards who might previously have scorned them as mere bum boys. Maybe they still were, but they had shown that they had grit too.

Once the plotters knew they had failed to kill the governor, resistance crumbled as their alliance fell apart. It was every man for himself. Over the next week, investigations and torture rooted out all the conspirators and they met the fate they deserved, including nasty captain Chanakya, my escort to Mathura months earlier. The sponsoring powers of course denied all knowledge of the affair, attributing it to misunderstandings, unruly elements, or unauthorized actions by rogue officials. Right.

Bindusara had previously kept me separate from his boys not out of any jealously but strictly for security reasons. Once their cover was blown, I was welcome to join him and Rudi with the other boys. Lovely Dankil was unmarked. I later learned that Rudi had named his cat after him, for the boys were good friends. They were a delightful bunch and not just in bed. They all seemed to share a lively curiosity. It seemed that Bindusara recruited only bright boys from the Kshatriya (warrior caste) with a thirst for knowledge. The plan was that, once they grew too old for harem duty, they would form a cadre of officials farmed out to the various departments but personally loyal to him. That was why the harem was as much a school as anything else.

I was mightily impressed by this aspect of Bindusara's character, his concern for his pleasure boys, their future. How many men of power think only of themselves and not what they can do for those who serve them. Here the governor had come up with an innovative solution as to what to do with an overage harem boy, transforming him from a problem into an asset. He would prepare them for a new life as officials seeing to the building of roads, irrigation works, or to the administration of justice. Meanwhile he ensured their trust by freeing all the boys, even those purchased in the slave market and giving them access to arms. Trust engenders trust as it did with these boys. Such fair minded and clear headed men in positions of power are alas all too rare in my experience. Quite a remarkable man in any age was Bindusara Khadphises.

Epilogue

I lived in Mathura for the next four years, returning to my studies in philosophy and psychology, though I did not neglect either weapons training or the martial arts. I stayed at the palace, strange quarters you might think for a nude ascetic, but my presence there was a convenient one. I visited the harem boys often, helping out with foreign language lessons and filling in blanks on their maps in geography. And yes I cavorted with them too, especially in threesomes with Rudi and Dankil. Bindusara was not the least bit jealous. He could be lusty enough with his boys when he took them to bed (judging from the harem boy gossip and my own assignations with him). Otherwise he behaved more like a favorite uncle, firm when he had to be but indulgent otherwise. I don't think I have ever seen harem boys more at ease around their principal.

Rudi's departure to manage the family's estates triggered my own decision to leave and to reclaim my fortune in Qandahar. It felt very strange wearing clothing again, at least at first. I had tried the ascetic life for five years, and I was a better man for it. Oh I did not have all the answers I had sought. I still don't, but I understood the questions better. Life is a journey, not a destination.

Like their western namesakes the White Huns gradually encroached on their civilized neighbors, even building a shortlived empire between Persia and the Gupta Empire. A generation later that empire began a century long decline. The peoples of India still count it as a golden age.

These days I live in New York City where I still make a game of practicing escape and evasion, recently popularized as French inspired parkour. A modern city presents even more opportunities than in the past. The structures are more varied ranging from tunnels and bridges and cranes to utility towers, parking garages, factories, subways, elevated railways, what have you. The police and security guards seldom bother me as I run about town, scrambling up towers and utility poles, running along abandoned railroad rights of way or across train yards. You would not believe how many old orphanages, hospitals, asylums, rail stations, abandoned piers, schools, industrial sites, overgrown cemeteries, and swampy areas have been abandoned or left to go to seed in the five boroughs. As my guide book to new adventures, I consult the web site forgotten-ny.com.

Of course, I cannot run around the Big Apple in the nude. Aside from problems with the law, the cityscape is almost all pavement and hard surfaces, with much broken glass underfoot and all sorts of grime and grit like the rubber particles that wear off tires. Hence I go about in soft running shoes -- no sox. In warm weather, I wear nothing more than a pair of skimpy, ultra lightweight, low rise, skin-tight, nearly sheer tan-thru shorts -- the next thing to being naked, really. It was enough to preserve my modesty or rather to preclude arrest. In cooler weather I switch to colorful tights and a form fitting top in space age fabrics that hug my trim torso and flatter my tight buns.

Even in warm weather, New York City offers fewer opportunities for public nudity than ancient India. Oh there are a couple of clothing optional beaches and some out of the way sunning spots, but these days even the Y has cleaned up its act. Males used to be able to swim there bare ass as in a Roman palestra, but then the Y went co-ed, and that was that. The US does not have the network of naturist sites and nude bathing spots found in Central Europe, certainly nothing like the nude sunbathing area in Munich's Englischer Garten. Imagine trying to walk around nude in the Sheep Meadow in Central Park.

It is true that partial nudity is more socially acceptable than say half a century ago, when Bermuda shorts were still considered daring, and the Jersey beaches banned Speedos for men (sure to be gay, or so they thought). In those day, men could get stopped by a cop for walking down the street barechested. Nowadays you can toss around a frisbee wearing short shorts, aka hot pants, or even a thong in a public park.

Then you have those low sagger kids with the waistband of their pants about the level of their groins. However much that is titillating as a courtship display, I find it totally impractical. You simply cannot run or fight when your pants are threatening to slide off your hips at any moment to pool around your ankles like hobbles. I mean, what are these kids thinking? Such is the youth of today!

Curmudgeonly grumbles aside, that is the much same reason I never wear flip flops to get about in public. They are too flimsy to kick with, to run in, or to climb with. Save them for the shower at the gym or the club.

I do what I can to indulge the exhibitionist side of my nature. I like skiing nude on sunny slopes in the winter. There is nothing like spending several hours on the slopes of a gay friendly resort wearing nothing more ski boots and a fine tan. Fellow skiers cannot help being titillated by the contrast between the white powder on the slopes and the tawny gold of an all over suntan on a sexy nude youth. My lover Jeffrey also works on his tan as he skies with me, though in his case wearing a pair of shorts made of a tan-thru fabric.

The trick to enjoying skiing with no clothes on is to stay in the sun and out of the snow. Don't wipe out on the descents and get back to the lodge for apres ski before the sun drops behind the mountains. That is when we adjourn to the hot tub or the heated outdoor pool, like the slopes themselves clothing optional. Afterwards we dress for dinner. You might not think that a sarong is appropriate attire at a ski lodge, but I certainly do, as long as no one challenges me to step out onto the deck for a snowball fight. Jeffrey is more conventional in his dress.

I did find myself the butt of a practical joke the day I tried to sleep in, tired from a late night. Jeffrey and three ski buddies would have none of it. This was no time to snuggle under the covers, not on a bright sunny morning with no wind, the best skiing weather in days. As Jeffrey threw off the bedclothes, the others dragged me by my ankles to the french windows which Jeffrey had already flung open. I could hardly use my fighting skills in such a situation, good sport that I am, so I merely protested vociferously and kicked my legs ineffectually, as all four of them picked my up bodily and stepped out onto the balcony. I really expected them to stop short of actually pitching me over the side. Alas, the mischief was upon them and they slung me into space. I wailed in surprise as I dropped into a deep snow drift below.

Onlookers later told me that I sank so far as to disappear from view. The drift was at least ten feet deep. Cameras were already rolling as I surfaced, yelling wildly, floundering in the loose powder, trying to swim through the snow to the shoveled path. As you can imagine, in the circumstances I hardly knew which way to turn. Never mind I was suddenly naked in public. That snow was cold! Onlookers were laughing so hard they could not have lent a hand even if they had been so minded. Someone later asked why I had slapped at my butt cheeks as I raced to the hot tub and jumped in. When I admitted that I was trying to dislodge the snow packed into my ass crack, I only provoked more hilarity. I am glad everyone else had a good time, and I admit the video is funny enough in a Keystone Cops kinds of way. I have gotten to the point where I can laugh at it too.

I also enjoy slumming as a go-go boy at the naughtiest of gay bars, dancing, if that is really the word for it, in the tiniest of G-strings. Some nights I wear a pouch of white silk instead. From the back, it leaves me totally exposed, my sweet cheeks bare for anyone to ogle at. The only support the pouch has is the weak elastic band at the top. I am afraid that in the course of my gyrations, the darned thing tends to slip down enough to show the base of my cock -- where it sprouts from my groin. Alas some patrons are ill bred enough to pull it right off me, though that is against the rules about touching. Well, I did say that I was a shameless exhibitionist.

How contradictory human nature is. On any given evening, I might be found gyrating my bare booty in front of a hundred sweaty gay men. The next day might find me engrossed in the latest exhibit or lecture at the New York Public Library or the American Museum of Natural History, just about my favorite indoor pubic space in the city. The next afternoon might combine both those sides of my personality as I bury my nose in a book, say a volume of history or popularized science all the while stretched out on the grass in Central Park wearing a minimal swim thong with just enough coverage in front to keep the police from taking me in. They have long since given up on expecting me to cover my butt cheeks.

My penthouse sun deck does let me avoid tan lines, but what is the fun of sunbathing alone? My lover Jeffrey's visits are all too infrequent given his heavy schedule at Pratt and the slow commute by subway from Brooklyn to my building on Central Park West. The boy just won't take money from me or even the loan of one of my leased cars. Inconvenient, yes, but I respect him for his integrity and the boundaries he has set.

Only recently could I write of these things, choosing, from caution, to cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of modern science will believe it. In this tale, all of the names are real. The events described really did happen just as I have written.