Daphne Boy
by GGDC
Author's Note: This is a tale of a strange young man and those he encounters in the opening decades the first Century AD during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, successor to Augustus (Octavian). It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body, of consensual and non-consensual sexual activity between adult males, the youngest of whom is sixteen years old.
The story features scenes with heavy bondage, and physical and sexual abuse.
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 that applies.
It is offered for entertainment. It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, except for minor poetic license. If it manages to both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its aim.
It is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead except known historical figures: the Roman Emperor Tiberius, his designated successor Germanicus, and Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, governor of Roman Syria in 17-19 AD plus the leading figures of the late Roman Republic mentioned in passing.
This is another tale in a series about an undying youth named Alexander, here called Iskandar and Alexandros, first featured in my story 'Antebellum'. I am not sure about this, but I think I named him Alexander because that is my middle name. I am working on a sequel called 'El Dorado' about Spanish conquistadors.
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. Comments and feedback welcome.
Chapter 1. The Road to Damascus
The bandits attacked us toward dawn, hoping to catch the caravan unawares. About twenty in number, they rushed into the ring of tents and banked campfires, swords slashing. From long experience I had anticipated their attack. Yesterday afternoon, I was sure our caravan was being shadowed. Also, I knew that nearly a century ago a caravan bringing goods consigned to me in Antioch had been attacked on this very spot, a wide shelf formed from an old lava flow, often used by trade caravans between the Nabatean capital of Petra in the South to Damascus, the trade hub of the North. Raised above the floor of the wadi that the trade route followed, the lava shelf protected travelers from the flash floods that occasionally swept down the otherwise dry watercourse in the rainy season.
It was not easy convincing the other merchants and their guards to stand to, fully armed, that early in the morning. They wondered what a callow youth like me, apparently of no more than seventeen or eighteen summers and pretty as a girl, could know of banditry or warfare. Shorter than most men and slightly built, I was cute rather than handsome and soft spoken not loud or assertive. Although I was actually well over a century old, my apparent age was no more than eighteen and possibly two or three years younger. Some in the caravan probably suspected I had exaggerated my age, perhaps because I was a runaway. For reasons I have never understood, I had stopped growing and aging after reaching seventeen. Now, more than a 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'd had to strip to a loincloth and crawl on my belly armed only with a knife to the hilly ground around us where I killed an enemy lookout. After hiding the body where it would not be found easily by his comrades in the dark, I brought back the man's sword and bloody head dress. One look and everyone was convinced. Quietly we got ready, and when the bandits charged us, we cut them to pieces. Surprise counts for much in armed conflict. Even our camel boys were ready with slings to add their stones to our arrows and swords.
A century of practice had made me a better than competent swordsman. My small physique made me quick and nimble. As long as I had room for maneuver, I could hold my own. That is why I wore no armor which might slow me down. I remained clad only in the brief loincloth I'd worn on my scout, plus the white head band we all wore to distinguish us from our foes. In this battle no quarter was asked or given, and we didn't take prisoners. I know that I accounted for two more bandits myself and lent a hand as our guards dispatched several others. Only two or three managed to flee. In the morning's light we found one of those dead where they had kept their horses.
"Good job, Iskandar" the caravan master Ibn Malik complimented me as his men stripped the dead bodies of our foes of weapons and valuables. I go by a name celebrated in song and story, that of Alexander the Great who conquered half the known world by the time he was thirty.
"We are all fortunate you decided to travel with our caravan, this late in the season."
After trading along the Red Sea for over seven years, I had shifted my operations north to Damascus, then still part of Roman Syria. It was about twenty years later, after the the death of Tiberius, that the Romans transferred the territory to their client state of Petra, the fabled city carved from the living rock. Damascus and all of Petra reverted to direct imperial administration during the reign of the conqueror Trajan.
It turned out that we had two prisoners after all, bandits who had been knocked unconscious by slung stones. The men of the caravan set those two to work dragging the dead away from the camp site to sandy ground where they could be buried in a shallow grave. We owed that much to other travelers on the trade route. Their corpses must not contaminate the water of the spring fed pools, which made this the ideal stopping point. Ibn Malik's men then gave the two prisoners a quick and merciful death.
I have always been fastidious about personal hygiene, so I took this chance to bathe, to clean the sweat and the blood and gore of my foes off me. I stripped then eased myself into the outlet from the lower pool, just above where the water runs out onto the thirsty sands and disappears. Scrubbing with a sponge and sand and water gets one clean all right though it is rather rough on the skin. This was long before the invention of soap made from animal fats and ash. The Greeks and the Romans merely spread olive oil on the skin then scraped dirt and sweat off with a strigil. Clean once again, I plunged into the pool for a short swim, really to refresh myself, knowing I would not now pollute the pool from which our animals drank. Men drank from the small upper pool.
"You look like a houri boy or maybe the water nymph who inhabits the pool, young Iskandar, pretty as you are. I see you are as much given to bathing as any Roman." Ibn Malik observed, eyeing my naked body.
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 the sharp hip bones my lovers sometimes complained dug into their bellies when they lay atop me. The tracery of veins on my forearms, calves, and belly showed how very little body fat I carried. My face was comely with almost elfin features, evocative of the good humor and charm for which I was known among my friends. I had a straight nose, large green eyes, and high cheekbones. An artist, either Leonardo or Caravaggio, I can't remember which, once described my come-hither look as attractively mischievous. I rather liked that.
I had just spent seven years sailing the Red Sea dealing in goods from India and beyond. The waters of the Red Sea are treacherous with many reefs, but I have always been a good sailor and navigator, so I had prospered. It was time to move on, to assume a new identity, easy enough in the ancient world where none carried identity documents or passports or such. I retained the name Iskandar that I had had as a sea captain. It was common enough in these parts.
On board my ship at sea, I was habitually nude, so my skin was tinted a uniform bronze, which drew much admiration from the others in the caravan. I had not taken a lover from among them, but more than a few were attracted to my boyish good looks. Few in these parts sported sun gold hair and green eyes.
Letting myself dry in the sun, I donned a tunic that left the arms bare and reached nearly to the knees. A light colored cloak with a hood would go over that, later in the morning, to fend off the harsh rays of the desert sun. I liked to go barefoot when I could, but I wore sandals in the desert.
Before starting off I chatted with the elders who now took me seriously enough to talk of business prospects at the end of our journey. Earning the respect of one's fellows is always satisfying. These merchants were no mere money changers. They were bold men who took risks in hope of good rewards. Not that I would let my guard down for a minute in negotiations with those shrewd fellows, though once a bargain was sealed, most could be relied upon to keep it. A man's reputation is everything in business. A cheat soon finds that few will make a bargain with him except on unfavorable terms with strong guarantees that cut deep into profits.
We didn't use stirrups in those days. Some rode bareback but I wedged myself onto a Roman style cavalry saddle making sure I had my small water bag slung over my shoulder. In the desert I always carried a water bottle on my person. You never knew when you might get separated from your horse and the large water bag that hung from the saddle. I had greater stamina than other men and I usually could shrug off disease or fatigue and, for a time, the need for sleep, but I needed water as much as anyone. My pack horse carried some water for my two mounts in case we missed the next water hole.
"You're quite the little soldier." Ibn Malik remarked as I settled my weapons about me.
On this journey I carried a spatha, the Roman cavalry sword. Longer than the gladius of the infantry, it gave a rider enough reach to slash at mounted foes or those on foot. I also carried a dagger at my belt and a sling with lead bullets. A short recurved bow with a quiver of arrows hung from the saddle. I hadn't strung it for the battle against the bandits, relying on my blades for such close-in work in the half-light before dawn.
A caravan with trade goods is a tempting target. A man must be prepared to defend his property and his life. Defeat would mean death or capture for ransom or enslavement. I had once been enslaved by the Roman tribune Quintus Caecilius Metellus who captured my uncle and me two days after the talented Roman General Marius slaughtered the invading army of the Cimbri, my own people, who had descended on Cisalpine Gaul, the land between the Alps and the Apeninnes. We lost two thirds of our force of 100,000. Only a few made it back to the German lands beyond the Alps. Our allies the Teutons were exterminated. This happened in the same year as the birth of Julius Caesar (100 BC).
Enslaved at fourteen, I became my captor's catamite and body slave until sold on to a merchant in Massalia, modern Marseille. He used me as a pleasure boy but later set me to work as a scribe. Freed by his will when he died suddenly, I traveled to the East and made my first fortune in Alexandria, working first in a boy brothel. 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 forever. I invested my earnings as a boy whore in shares in shipping ventures and left Alexandria a wealthy merchant. I can spend no more than twenty years in one place and often less before others notice my unchanging youth. This journey was merely the latest such transfer of abode and identity.
A few days later we arrived in Damascus, one of the ten cities of the Decapolis, a center of commerce. It was still an important town though the capital of Roman Syria was at Antioch closer to the Mediterranean. Damascus is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) inland from the Mediterranean Sea, sheltered by the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. It sits on a plateau nearly 700 meters (over 2,000 feet) above sea-level. Enclosed by city walls, it lies on the south bank of the river Chrysorrhoas, which means Golden Stream in the tongue of the Greeks (I forget the current name in Arabic). The river splits into seven channels forming an extensive oasis before disappearing into the sands of the desert to the east.
It offers all the amenities of urban life within a modest compass. I settled there taking a comfortable house, engaging servants, and establishing a presence among the merchants of the city. Ibn Malik proved helpful in making contacts with the business community. I frequented the public baths and gymnasium where I trained nude in sports like the javelin, the long jump, and foot races. I practiced the pankration, a form of unarmed combat, which combines wrestling and boxing, though my small size left me at a disadvantage. I concentrated on sports that might help me survive. I particularly liked foot races, the longer the better. More than once I had simply outrun my foes. Part of my gift is greater stamina than most. For my daily training run, I loped along the bank of the river out of the city and into the flat desert beyond before turning around and running back. I topped my daily routine off with a refreshing swim in the river then trotted back home. Naturally I did not neglect sword fighting and archery, practicing nearly every day.
At first the guards at the city gate took advantage of me, pretending to search me every time I came back through the gate on my long runs. I had to put up with a full cavity search and an in-depth probe of my nether orifice, though I was dressed in nothing more than a sheen of sweat.
"By the Furies, what contraband can a naked boy like me smuggle into the city, Sextus?" I asked with some asperity.
"Tut, tut, little one. We are just doing our duty," he explained unconvincingly, bending me over just inside the doorway of the guardhouse where anyone passing through the gate might see him fucking me. Sextus was a large man, almost engulfing my small physique. I braced myself against the doorframe as he covered me like a stallion does a filly, penetrating me, pinching my nipples and slapping my butt. More than once the strong grip of his big hands left bruises on my hips which all could see when I went to the gymnasium or on my runs through the city. It was obvious that I must be someone's bum boy.
His friend Lucius did not even bother with the pretense of a search. He liked a boy's mouth best, so he put me on my knees while he stood over me, clubbing my face with his massive member, making me reach for it, to kiss and smooch his purple helmet and lick around the flange. His was one of the largest cocks I had seen up to that time. I was afraid I might choke on it, be unable to breathe. He told me how exciting it was for him to have a boy with such delicate features to play with, how pretty I looked down there so small and submissive with my pouty lips around his cock, sucking and slurping. He was glad I kept my golden locks long enough for a good grab so he could control the pace of the face fuck.
A monthly bribe to the officer of the watch soon ended that nonsense, though he insisted on taking me to bed himself as part of the deal. Well, better to get bedded once a month by one soldier and in his room rather than used daily by three and in public, interrupting my exercise routine as well. Yes, I was comfortable with my sexuality, and in those days, sexual congress between males was an accepted part of social life, but I wanted the choice of partners to be mine. This has plagued me my entire existence, being both small and desirable, with an almost fawn-like physique, I often wasn't taken seriously as a male. Whether freeman or slave, I have often been forced to serve those I would not have chosen.
The afternoons were for commerce. In the hot days of summer I dressed only in the simple white cotton kilt of Egypt worn low on the hips rather than the tunics commonly worn by townsmen. It left my chest bare and flattered my slender good looks, emphasizing the curve of my rump and the flatness of my belly. It was not simply vanity, though it was that as well. I confess that I was not above using my sexual attractiveness as a distraction in business negotiations or my apparent youth to make others underestimate me. You work with what you have. Business is business.
The evenings were often devoted to symposia or drinking parties. The symposium was a forum for men to talk, debate, brag, or simply to party. Symposia might be held to celebrate victories in athletic and poetic contests. Singly or in pairs, the men would recline on couches arrayed against the three walls of the room away from the door. Symposia might be held to introduce youths into aristocratic society. A youth would attend as the companion and eromenos (lover) of an adult male with whom he was involved. Free boys could participate too but sat instead of reclined on a couch.
Food was served as well as with wine, usually well mixed with water, drawn from a large jar called a krater and served by nude servant boys from pitchers. A symposium was overseen by a symposiarch who decided how much to dilute the wine depending on whether serious discussions were intended or merely sensual indulgence. Getting drunk was not the object. In keeping with Greek notions of restraint and propriety, wine was diluted and the food helped absorb the alcohol, keeping matters from getting out of hand. Libations were always offered to propitiate the gods.
Entertainment might include games, singing, flute-girls, and acrobats, or even a prestidigitator with his mystifying illusions and tricks. Though the flute-girls were available, most attention was on the cute boys.
My status was a bit of an anomaly. I came alone in my own right rather than as an older man's lover. I was known to be eighteen (or so I claimed) though due to my small stature and slight build and lack of body hair I looked as young as any eromenos there. I attended as a free boy, sitting rather than reclining. I was nude like the other boys rather than dressed like the men, having dispensed with my cotton kilt at the door. I sometimes performed acrobatics or danced lasciviously as part of the entertainment, drawing on my old skills as a joy boy.
I accepted invitations to join men who sat on a couch alone. This allowed me to widen my circle of acquaintance. As we talked or drank or sang together, their hands touched me familiarly and even intimately. It would have seemed churlish to object to the implicit compliment they were making me. It is not vanity for me to acknowledge that I had and have a lovely form that inspires admiration and lust in the hearts of any male who appreciates a beautiful boy. Nude as I was, it was only natural for them to take what might otherwise have been viewed as considerable liberties: stroking my rump, slipping the blade of a hand into my cleavage, running their hands over my ribs, tweaking my tiny red nipples even fondling my manhood and stealing sweet kisses. After all I had twice spent years in a boy brothel. Nothing new then in such attentions.
As the evening wore on I might allow myself to be led to an alcove for a tumble with a man who had taken a fancy to me. I was popular not only for my looks and skills in bed but because I was a lively conversationalist. I could hold my own with philosophers and literary men, surprised that one so young was well read in the classics.
"I don't know which is more extraordinary, your keen mind or the beauty of the form that houses it." Old Sosthenes cooed at me, always hoping for a chance to sample my charms. I preferred him as an interlocutor rather than a lover. Casual flattery aside, his was the keenest mind among us.
Once a week the other boys and I went out of the city to swim and dive in the river upstream from the town. We dove off a high rock into a deep pool competing for the showiest dive. We swam back and forth in the cool waters or splashed and played the grab ass games typical of youth. Afterwards we picnicked nude and talked and joked and sang songs and then paired off for lovemaking. I liked the boys and they liked me. It was all quite casual and carefree, nothing serious at all. It was but a welcome diversion, an excuse to get together with friends, a chance to be naked in public, to let us show off our hard bodies, clean limbs, and youthful faces. Of course I also saw the boys often at the gymnasium. It was a wonderful age to live in, when naked young men could mingle publicly without anyone raising an eyebrow much less a hand in opposition.
All in all it was a pleasant life with agreeable companions, sufficient wealth, good food, intellectual stimulation, athletics, and plenty of sex. After a year in the city, I felt comfortable and welcome.
Chapter 2. Antioch
From time to time I had to travel to Antioch on business, crossing the mountains on horseback or by coach. The Roman governor was Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, a former consul and proconsul of Africa and reputedly close to the emperor Tiberius. He controlled the eastern army of four legions which guarded the border with the Partian Empire to the east. Parthia or Persia was at that time the only hostile state on Rome's borders. The tribes of Germany were dangerous, but the recent expeditions of Germanicus had slain many tribesmen and unraveled the alliance under Arminius that had proved disastrous to Roman arms a decade before when three entire legions under Varus were annihilated.
Especially since the time of Augustus, Rome had been expanding, absorbing client kindgoms in the Balkans and in Africa and the East, pushing the borders over the Alps to the great river Ister (Danube) and absorbing the last remnant of free Hispania. The East was a congeries of imperial provinces, client kingdoms, and allies plus Egypt, considered the personal property of the emperor Tiberias, successor to the late Augustus, dead only a few years.
I needed to appeal a unfavorable judgment to the law court at Antioch. A man I had trusted named Cletus had cheated me badly, delivering poor quality and damaged fabric including precious silks from Serica, a far off land later called China. I had rejected the consignment and refused to pay for it, hence the bothersome lawsuit.
I wasn't so wealthy I could give up lightly. The past eighty years had been tumultuous ones for the Roman Republic as it had degenerated into a thinly disguised monarchy. All across the basin of the Mediterranean civil war followed on civil war. First it was Marius versus Sulla, then Pompey versus Julius Caesar, next the cabal who murdered Caesar versus Octavian and Antony, then Octavian, later called Augustus, against Mark Antony and Kleopatra. Not to mention the depredations of the Cilician pirates. It led to proscriptions and confiscations, extraordinary levies of taxes, looting and sacking of cities and towns and loss of wealth of all kinds. I had finally left the Mediterranean basin entirely to sail the Red Sea with a rather modest fortune, all that was left of nearly a century of accumulation. I did have a couple of small caches of jewels and gold, buried where no one was likely to find them, but those were in far-off bolt holes in Gaul and Africa (modern day Tunisia).
I had a letter of introduction to the Roman governor Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, a man well connected with Tiberius. If I couldn't get satisfaction from him, I would try an appeal to his superior Germanicus, the popular general, hero in the wars in Germany and more recently conqueror of the nearby client kingdoms of Cappadocia and Commagene, now Roman provinces. It was known the two were at odds politically. I don't like getting mixed up in politics, but Cletus, the man who was trying to cheat me, was a Roman citizen, whereas I was not.
Before presenting my letter of introduction, I arranged to run into the governor socially at the public baths or thermae. Centers for public bathing and socializing, the baths were extremely important in civic life. Romans usually went daily and spent several hours there, accompanied by one or more slaves. After paying the fee they would strip naked and put on sandals to protect their feet from the heated floors. The baths included a palaestra, or outdoor gymnasium where men would engage in various ball games and exercises, such as wrestling, lifting weights or throwing the discus and especially swimming. I wouldn't mention my suit at first, just try attract his interest and his patronage. He was a man in his sixties though still vigorous. I understood he liked pretty boys.
Discreet inquiries and a bit of silver crossing the palm of his door keeper soon provided me with the information I needed. The next afternoon I found Piso and several cronies standing in the swimming pool chatting and gazing idly at comely youths. I stepped up on the diving stone and did a showy dive to attract his attention. I climbed out of the pool to let him get a good look at my rump as the water sluiced off my body. I paused as I lifted myself out of the water, my butt and cleavage almost within his reach. As I waited for another diver, I windmilled my arms then bent over as if loosening up but really to display my shapely bum. When I started another dive, I caught his eye. He knew exactly what I was up to from the wink he threw me. At his gesture I finished my dive and swam over to where he was standing in shallow water about chest high, on him. He was old but lean with scars that must date from his younger days in the army.
"What a pretty thing you are, young man. Simply delightful. I suppose you have some reason for attracting my attention. No, no. Let there be no talk of business now. Let us get acquainted first. Who are you?"
I spun him an account of my arrival a year or so ago in Damascus with an entirely fictitious back story. We were standing quite close and his hands made quite free with my nude body. He liked what he saw and touched. He stroked my cheek and gripped my chin, turning my face up to his. He put his hand to the back of my head and pulled my face forward for a sensual kiss which I returned with feigned fervor. I am sure I did not fool him in the slightest, but in the situation enthusiasm feigned or not was expected. He put my hand to his member, setting me to stroking it. His friends closed around me their hands on me everywhere, stroking my ass, running their fingers along my ribs, massaging my shoulders.
"So what do you really want with me young man" he finally asked. I explained briefly and Piso agreed to 'look into it'. Good. We had a deal then.
With that, two men grabbed my arms restraining me. Abruptly Piso took a nipple between his fingernails and pinched it hard, drawing a hiss from me. One man bent my right arm painfully behind me. I struggled but then stopped when Piso slapped my face hard and shook a finger in warning. He pinched the other nipple even harder, working the thumb back and forth like he wanted to slice through it. He leaned forward and with his face very close to mine asked me if I had ever been whipped. I nodded miserably.
I had suddenly realized that this was a man who took pleasure in hurting pretty boys. I opened my mouth to protest, to call off the deal, but he smiled and shook his head. His meaning was clear. It was too late for me to back out, now that I had his attention. He had found a new toy, and he would play with it.
"Good, young Iskandar. You understand, don't you, that there is a quid pro quo for my favors." He asked where I was staying and for how long. I mentioned the inn I had found. Good. He would send someone for me on the morrow. I knew better than to try to flee the city. He would just levy some trumped up charge against me, maybe even enslave me. I had not been thorough, had not asked around enough to get the measure of the man, and now I would pay for my lack of caution.
The next day at noon a dour slave called at my quarters as my escort. He had a guard with him as a reminder that the governor must not be disappointed. He insisted that I accompany him entirely naked. Leaving my servant in charge of my things, I walked behind him followed by the guard who kept his hand on the hilt of his sword. Everyone on the streets saw a small naked youth in the middle of an escort for a prisoner. We went to a side entrance of the palace and took the stairs down to the dungeons. It was dark and dank below and hot though a little cooler than in the sun. Although well equipped, this was not the torture chamber for state prisoners. There was no iron boot for crushing the feet, no hearth for heating irons and brands, no rack. There were all manner of whips and canes and paddles. There were eyelets in the beams and walls for attaching ropes. Chains and shackles dangled from the rafters. Also phallic shapes in leather, wood, and even ivory. There was even what the Romans called a boundary cross, known these days as a St. Andrew's cross, and a large rectangular table upon which a man (or a boy) might be spread-eagled with limbs shackled to the corners. A recreational dungeon then, and I was to be Piso's plaything.
A man in a leather hood concealing the upper part of his face except for his eyes strung me up to a whipping post. Most men could have stood there easily enough, but my arms were pulled way up so I had to stand on my toes. He then added a spreader bar to keep my legs wide apart. What had I got myself into? Piso arrived and explained what would happen to me.
"As you have no doubt gathered already, you are to be our whipping boy for the next three days. You will entertain me and my friends with your sexy writhing as the whips fall on your tender flesh. Don't be ashamed to cry out. We want to hear your screams and howls. Don't be ashamed to weep, as you shall during your time with us. Weeping is not unmanly, not in a dungeon, not for a boy like you, a youth rather than a man, especially one short and slender and girlishly pretty, indeed not very manly to begin with, despite these handsome genitals. Yes we have heard from friends in Damascus about how readily you surrender your virtue to all and sundry, wantonly displaying and disporting yourself all over town.
I kept silent, knowing he wanted to talk, to gloat. He would ignore anything I said anyway.
"The good news is that we know how to treat a shameless boy like you. What you need is to be fucked hard and often and by men who know how. That's us. Have you ever been double penetrated? I see from your face that you have. Yes, utterly shameless. The gods know why the Greeks go on so in their poetry about romantic love for a comely youth. We Romans know that for sentimental nonsense. Even a pretty boy is basically another tight warm hole to plug, to bring sexual release. True, there is no one so talented at sucking cock as a skilled boy. And you are prettier than any girl I can call readily to mind. Well, we shall put your skills to the test. After we get you warmed up."
"Oh, I should add that we have no wish to mar your lovely skin, dear boy. That is why that rather alarming cat of nine tails my associate has just picked up has no bits of lead sewn into the tips of the lashes to tear the flesh. No, we will not mar that lovely skin, nor will we break your bones, nor burn you. As you will soon see, even the iron shackles are lined with leather to prevent manacle sores. Sorry about the rope burns on your wrists, but one has to expect some discomforts in a dungeon."
This kind of thing has happened to me entirely too often. I know that my youthful beauty excites men who lust after pretty boys. Some of them don't just want to enjoy us physically. All too often they want to control us, to own us, to take us on their own terms, not ours. Some men even enjoy inflicting pain and degradation. In truth some boys like it that way, though not me. I think Piso was glad that I didn't.
With that he turned me over to his torturers who soon were working away at my back and ass and legs with their whips. Piso and several friends watched the proceedings stroking themselves languidly under their tunics. I cursed myself for a fool for having gotten myself into this. He was right about the howls. There was no point in stoicism. I was soon in great pain, helpless, and degraded. Sobbing and weeping is no disgrace in the circumstances. I really hated the single strand whip which delivered the force of a man's arm to just one narrow strip of leather that wound itself around my torso completely, sometimes cutting my genitals. This was not a whipping to punish. I had had worse and would suffer worse in the years to come, but it is utterly humiliating to be tortured simply for a man's pleasure. I can understand torturing criminals and spies to make them talk. Understand though not approve.
They kept their promise not to mark me permanently. I suffered many tortures over the next three days from whips, paddles, hot oil dripped from lamps, and huge phalluses made of wood and leather and ivory forced through my tiny orifice deep into my body, probing and stretching. They forced thorns through the nubs of my nipples, admiring the way my blood trickled over my ribs. Later they used thorns on the head of my erect cock. I wondered at the perversity of human nature. How could they do this to one who had not injured them in any way, not even verbally. I could understand they would be sexually attracted to my slender taut physique with a pert ass and a small waist they could almost put their hands around. I knew that my face aroused lust in men who liked pretty boys. Why all this pain and humiliation. How could that excite them?
Why did they have to use artificial phalluses the size of clubs a man might use to fend off angry dogs? They stretched me out on the table spread-eagled on my back and laid each phallus on my belly showing how far it would reach inside me. They chortled to watch the badly frightened boy that I was at that moment shake his head at the ones that reached well past his belly button, begging no, please spare him that, it would tear him asunder. By the gods, I was being impaled not just fucked. This preparatory work over, I was raped many times. On the boundary cross I was whipped across my whole front, the whip cutting my nipples and making them bleed. The dungeon master then unshackled my ankles and bent me in half, lifting and spreading my legs like a wishbone, shackling my ankles to hooks level with my shoulders. I was now totally vulnerable, ass and genitals available simultaneously for pleasure (theirs) or further punishment. After another ass whipping, Piso himself did the honors raping me vigorously. His companions who followed him in the saddle were younger and slammed into me with even greater enthusiasm. When they finished, cum was dripping out of my badly stretched bung hole onto the floor.
Sometimes they strung me up by my ankles, completely inverted, legs wide apart. This drew more whippings of course, especially with a very small cat designed just to abuse the genitals. Piso's cronies forced phalluses into my anus while torturing or playing with my dangling manhood. They liked the way I was stretched out, my waist flattened to a minimum, hairless belly in front, round asscheeks in back and at the perfect height for spanking. I was appalled, angry with myself and them, ashamed, humiliated, and degraded.
And so it went for three days. They took shifts, I was always on duty. Sometimes they made me drink their piss as a further sign of servility. In the end I was totally fucked out. After they finally they released me, I got paraded nude across the city back to my lodgings, taunted by small boys. Everyone on the street could see my disgrace from the welts, cuts, and bruises I bore. I spent six days at the inn and at the baths getting my strength back for the ride to Damascus. Though I deliberately avoided Piso I did run into him one afternoon at the baths and had to let him paw me some more. I will give Piso this much. He did fix my lawsuit as we had agreed. It cost him nothing after all. Indeed his friend Atticus, acting as my lawyer, got ten percent of what I saved and Piso himself another ten as a finder's fee. I resolved to avoid Roman law courts thereafter. I had been fleeced and fucked and degraded. Next time I would just write the loss off.
Chapter 3. Daphne Boy
Piso now considered me enrolled as one of his clients, a continuing obligation in Roman society between a patron and his clients. He would send for me from time to time to attend him in the capital for a day or two. Once he had me brought to the garrison during his visit to Damascus. I had little choice really, surrendering myself for his pleasure every three or four months as his whipping boy and catamite. Most people around us knew I spent considerable time with him, though not the circumstances, so I got a reputation as one of his intimates. That is what led to my downfall.
Living in Damascus, away from the capital, I usually paid little attention to high politics, but everyone knew of the struggle for power between Piso and Germanicus in Antioch. Germanicus finally drove Piso out of Syria but died soon after, poisoned, some said by Piso. Piso returned to Syria and tried to seize power. After he failed he went back to Rome and took the blame for everthing, ultimately committing suicide to protect his family and to shield his patron, the emperor Tiberius.
As part of the purge after Piso's fall, I was denounced for corruption by Cletus my opponent in the lawsuit. Documents in the offices of Piso and Atticus proved my guilt beyond any doubt. The imperial government confiscated all my worldly goods. At my hearing, I was stripped then shown out of the door of the basilica where court was held naked, barefoot, penniless, and unarmed. As soon as I stepped on the street my enemy Cletus and his thugs seized me and declared me a debtor. The outcome of lawsuit had been reversed, and I now owed him a considerable debt.
"Now you will pay, you foreign strumpet." He chortled.
"How can I pay? I have nothing left. I haven't a sesterce or even an as to my name. I am exactly as you see me, naked without even a scrap of cloth to cover my loins."
"That is as it should be, for slaves always go up on the auction block naked. Your person will be sold into slavery to settle the debt," he declared triumphantly.
Indeed under Roman law I must be sold as a slave. At least Cletus did not automatically get ownership. Fortunately for him as well, as I soon would have found a way to kill him. I know several subtle and slow acting poisons that mimic a death from natural causes. I can even prepare them myself, so I would not have to go to an apothecary.
Cletus and his thugs dragged me back into court. The Roman aedile took official ownership of my person and sent me to the slave market, the second time in my life that I was enslaved. The highest bid came from the temple in Antioch dedicated to the nymph Daphne. Pretty boys served there as sacred prostitutes, entertaining men whose fees supported the cult. New boys were needed constantly as the older boys matured, usually moving on to comfortable jobs in domestic service. Although officially nearing twenty I looked three years younger so I was quite popular among lovers of pretty boys. At the temple they called me by the Greek version of my name Alexandros.
It was not particularly hard duty though we served many clients a day. I was allowed, indeed encouraged, to exercise to keep my body pleasing. The priests tatooed a small letter delta or 'D' for Daphne on my left shoulder and right buttock. By this I was easily recognizable as a Daphne boy in the gymnasium or about town. Daphne boys were almost never allowed clothing, though it was quite inconvenient in the cool winters of the region. I think I missed the symposia most, since I could no longer attend as a free boy. I was a slave.
I had worked in boy brothels in Alexandria and even Antioch a century earlier, so sexual service was not particularly repugnant except I had no choice of clients. The cult of Daphne is allied to that of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Young 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 picked for our beauty of face and form. The head priests instructed inexperienced boys in their duties. It was obvious that I needed no pointers in sex with males.
"You are much the prettiest thing I've seen in all my years at the temple," the chief priest cooed. "Naturally hairless too and with such smooth skin! We know you like to parade around nude, even more than most boys at the gymnasium or symposia. Well, you are in the right place now. Daphne boys almost never wear clothing."
Regular whore houses were dark and crowded with only a small shelf in a windowless cubicle for the customer to lie in. Our play rooms on the second floor of the temple were large and bright and airy. Each had a window cut into the exterior wall. The boys and their clients disported themselves on comfortable couches. A drape provided privacy from the courtyard in the middle. Clients could chat and take light refreshment in the courtyard where boys who did not have a client at the moment would sing or play music to set the mood. Quite civilized and pleasant and not in the least bit tawdry. Also no rough stuff like with Piso.
Well better a Daphne boy, I supposed, than a slave in the mines or chained to an oar in the galleys. Few live there for more than three years. My good looks have sometimes gotten me into trouble and sometimes been my salvation. I have never wished to look otherwise than I do, not bigger nor taller, not stronger nor rougher. I am comfortable being what the modern age calls a twink or a pretty boy, a 'choupinou' in French (always one of my favorite languages). I am comfortable being a bottom boy too, though I can be versatile. I long ago realized that I was sexually submissive, born to be fucked. It is in my nature. I'd just like the choice of partners to be mine. That has not always been possible.
I played a waiting game rather than try for an early escape. Without funds or a plan or assistance, I might well be caught and branded with an F for fugitive on my face. Also I did not want to have to steal and kill to effect my escape. Why sacrifice innocents for my own convenience? I had not been in Damascus or Antioch long enough to set up an escape route with agents to provide me with ready funds or a false identity.
This experience in Antioch is where I learned to take those precautions routinely whenever I established residence in a new area. It did not always work. Sometimes it wasn't relevant as when I was taken prisoner by pirates or in war. I have been enslaved or captured more than a dozen times over the centuries. I am small and pretty and frequently naked, looking entirely too temptingly like someone's natural catamite or pleasure boy. Then there were the gang rapes by bullies, soldiers, sailors, or bandits -- at least till I mastered the arts of unarmed and armed combat.
Over the next three years my blond locks grew to my shoulders, the priests having forbidden me to get them cut. I thought it made me look girlish; the clients wanted boys after all. I became quite popular for my beauty and my skills in bed. Not all of it was show. Many of the clients were strong and vigorous men who knew how to play with a young male lover. I responded for real, as I always had to a big cock pressing my fundament. I loved it when an alarmingly large virile member would address my cleavage, the head tracking its length then poking at the inside of my thighs, prodding and playing with the anal ring. Fingers pushed a lubricating oil into the hole, preparing me for the fuck. I felt the monster stretch the anal ring as the head penetrated the first sphincter then the next. The shaft slid inside, pushing into me, prodding and probing.
Then came the moment I both dreaded and lusted for when the cock touched my joy spot. As the invading shaft stimulated my prostate, my whole body shuddered helplessly. My lithe torso would ripple in a wave that started at my ass and traveled up past the hips and back and shoulders to my head. No way that could be fakery for the clients, the shaking of the head was too rapid to be voluntary. It was a reflex action indicative of overwhelming lust. I felt my guts clutch in an internal orgasm. As the shaft fell into a rhythm of penetration and withdrawal, the sensation became overwhelming. I lost the ability for rational thought for the duration. My body was tempest tossed on a sea of sensation, the blood pounding at my temples, my own boy cock at maximum rigidity.
The men knew better than to stimulate my cock. That was not part of the service. Even a randy teenager could shoot only so many times a day. In contrast, these internal ass orgasms did not involve ejaculation and could go on forever. They always said my green eyes blinked and rolled sightlessly and lost focus as I surrendered himself to the good feelings coursing through me. I was one bottom boy who knew how to respond to a fuck, allowing them to take their pleasure as they shot their seed deep within me.
A regular customer was Aulus Gabinus the young commander of the local garrison. His wife and two sons had recently joined him at his posting, but not before he had sampled my charms. He still visited me from time to time. He was a conscientious and earnest young officer. What I liked about him most, aside from his hard soldierly body, was that he treated me as a person, engaging me in conversation about the classics especially the histories of Thucydides, Herodetus, and Xenophon and Caesar's accounts in Latin of the Gallic and Civil Wars. We argued who was the best commander, Alexander or Caesar. How close were the victories of Caesar over Pompey at Pharsalus or Octavian over Antony at Actium. Aulus said his great grandfather had been at Pharsalus, under Pompey, adding:
"He always told me that Pompey should have declined battle and simply starved Caesar's army into surrender. The old general put his pride before his good sense, determined to regild his military laurels and lost everything."
I also knew that it was Marcus Vispanius Agrippa who really commanded at Actium while Octavian was sick below decks, probably from physical cowardice. Naturally I said nothing against the imperial family. Tiberius was Octavian-Augustus' adopted son.
Twice a month, we boys got a day off, not all at once, but half of us at a time. As I remember, the temple usually had a dozen boys in residence at a time. I like to go out and about with my friend Kleomenes, just sixteen, a dark-haired youth who had been enslaved for debts like me, though in his case it happened when shipwrecks sank his father's business as a merchant. It was pleasant to walk through the town or along the banks of the Orontes. The city is laid out in four quarters each with its distinctive architecture. No one was so foolish as to molest a Daphne boy. Small and nude and unarmed as we were, the deltas tattooed on shoulder and rump marked us as under the protection of the temple.
We Daphne boys were allowed to keep tips from our clients, so we usually had a modest bit of coin to indulge ourselves on sweets and delicacies. I liked to read, and books were my major extravagance.
"You and your books!" Kleomenes always chided. He preferred to spend his coin on honeyed sweets.
The temple had a library but heavy on the classics, which I read avidly, but I liked light fiction too. My favorite writers are entirely forgotten today; indeed their works are lost, but they were forerunners of works like 'Daphnis and Chloe', by the Greek novelist and romancer Longus in the second century AD. These were improbable tales of love and adventure that carried me in my imagination beyond the prosaic realities of my current situation. Most of the boys were illiterate, so I read the tales aloud to them, glad to share.
Actually I often sold the books back to the scrivener at a discount. Otherwise I couldn't have afforded my pasttime. Books were expensive in the ancient world, before not only printing but also proper paper. Each book had to be laboriously hand written on a parchment scroll or several scrolls. Indeed I have sometimes earned a living as a scribe myself. This was centuries before the invention of the familiar bound book or codex.
Once though, Kleomenes spilled wine on my copy, so I had to keep it. He offered coin in recompense, but I wouldn't hear of it. We were friends, and I certainly wouldn't deprive him of the pittance we boys got as tips. He laughed when I winked and told him:
"I'll just take it out in trade, Kleo".
We made a fun couple, nothing serious, but we really liked each other, and as professionals were very good in bed together. Mostly we sixty-nined, both of us liking 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 both kiss, tongues probing deep, tasting him while dueling with his tongue. We were whore boys already, slaves, perpetually nude, hence utterly lacking in shame. Why not have fun together, even with the other boys looking on?
Although my life as a slave boy was tolerable, I knew I had to do something before it became obvious that I wasn't getting any older. Usually I make myself seem to age a few years, even without makeup, by differences in clothing, manner of speech, hair style, change of habits, even by assuming a more active role in sex, but that avenue was not open to me at the temple. It was while I was in a quandary about what to do that the situation resolved itself in my favor.
Antioch lies in an earthquake zone. About a dozen years before the great earthquake that nearly leveled the city in the year of the death of Tiberias, the city was shaken one afternoon by a sharp shock. Damage was fairly significant. The retaining wall supporting our quarters cracked and the floor sagged as all of us boys ran out naked into the square to get away from falling masonry. The worst were the conflagrations started when cooking fires spilled out of control perhaps igniting cooking oil. On the other side of the square rose the city wall with a tall tower and nearby the quarters for officers' families. The lower floors were engulfed in flames and no one could get to two small children on the roof where they had been playing before the quake and fire. I saw that my friend Aulus Gabinus was frantic for the safety of his two boys trapped by the flames.
"No one can reach them." he groaned. The lower floors are in flames."
"What about a line thrown from the tower?" I pointed.
"My soldiers tried to mount the tower, but part of the wall has collapsed taking the wooden stairway with it. No way up there now."
I like children as well as the next man. No, I don't change diapers or dandle youngsters on my knee very often, but anyone human has to feel protective and indulgent of small children. It is part of what makes us human. I did not want to stand by and see those nice little boys burn to death. So I volunteered to climb the wall of the tower and get over to the roof of the quarters by rope. I was ideally suited for this since I was small but strong and agile, and with a good head for heights. I could find footholds and handholds in the crude stonework of the tower that fully grown men could not use.
It took some doing, with a few slips that nearly dropped me to the stones, but I got to the top of the tower then threw a loop around a decorative projection atop the building. Hoping it would hold my weight, I tied the rope to the tower and scurried down its length. The rope slanted downwards with the roof about twice the height of a man lower than the tower. I went over crossing my ankles over the rope, supporting my weight by both hands and feet, getting to the other side only a little the worse for wear from rope burns. I took a coil of rope from around my waist and tied the smaller boy, a toddler of about two years, to my chest then scrambled back up the rope to the tower.
I hadn't thought about getting down from there with the boy, but Albus had anticipated my need and had one of his biggest soldiers toss me the end of another rope swinging a weight tied to the end then casting it upward. So I let the toddler down quickly, then returned for the other youngster, a boy of some five years. The fire was really raging by then, flames shooting out of a portion of the roof that had collapsed. The entire frame shook, clearly about to collapse. With no time to lose I had the boy face me and clutch my shoulders and circle my hips with his legs. I pulled the loop from its anchor and stepped into it letting us swing away from the building, just in time. Behind me, I heard a terrific crash as the building collapsed entirely throwing sparks to singe my bare ass.
The next few moments were related to me by Aulus later since I have no clear memory of it myself. Evidently a piece of wreckage got flung out and clipped my skull. Somehow I managed to hang onto the rope as we swung past the tower. Like a pendulum we swung back toward the fire, but I let go when we were at the bottom of the back swing and landed heavily on the stones, losing consciousness.
I came to my senses some while later finding I had broken a leg and was badly bruised, with a scalp wound that bled freely, but the boy was safe. I had hit the pavement first and cushioned his fall, with the boy's hip bone mashing my balls so they were pretty sore. One of the witnesses to my exploit was none other than Lucius Licinius Lucullus, descendant and namesake of the victorious general in the war against Mithradates of Pontus a century earlier. He was a Tribune of the Broad Stripe, a young officer appointed by the emperor as second in command of the local legion, behind the legate. This tribunate was often a first step in a young man's senatorial career.
He gave me the Roman salute while his soldiers banged the back of their shields with their swords in acknowledgment. They carried me on a litter to military headquarters where an army doctor set my leg and sewed my torn scalp. I was given comfortable quarters in the tribune's own household and a light tunic to wear once I could get out of bed. The legionaries virtually adopted me. They were tough men and often hard men, but they valued courage. I had not only braved the fire and the heights, I had saved the lives of the sons of their popular commander, two endearing youngsters who were the mascots of the garrison, always tramping around in a child's version of legionary tunics and sandals, the older one with a small wooden sword thrust through his belt.
When I recovered, I was a free man once again. The governor had manumitted me for my selfless act in saving the boys. He wished I could serve in the legions myself, but regrettably I was too short. Ibn Malik showed up one day from Damascus with a fine horse and my old spatha and bow which he had bought when I was enslaved. He had held them for me all this time just in case. I finally got a proper haircut too, not legionary short, but close enough an opponent could not grab me in a fight and expose my throat. I did leave it long enough for a lover to get a good grab. At the end of the summer, with a purse of silver and the salute of the garrison, "Hail Alexandros", I rode out of Antioch heading towards new lands in the East, new horizons in Persia and India. But that is a story for another time.
Epilogue
A few years ago, at the dawn of the new millennium, I took stock of my twenty-one centuries of life. How many paces had I taken, how many breaths had I drawn, how many time had my heart beat? I did simple estimates and calculations based on reasonable assumptions. The numbers were astronomical. I then wondered how many times I had been fucked over the centuries. Even a low estimate of only 500 times a year, thrice every two days added up to a million. I looked in the mirror at my pert rump. It hardly seemed possible. I could not come up with as good a number of the distinct individuals who had used me that way, but it must be in the tens of thousands. What does that make me?
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. Except for the genuine historical figures all the names have been changed though the events described really did happen just as I have written.