Mauretania
The 19th Tale of the Daphne Boy,
the Ultimate Twink
by George Gauthier
You can read these Daphne Boy stories in any order. Though the protagonist is the same throughout, each tale stands alone. Fair warning: This narrative contains explicit and graphic depictions of gay sex.
Chapter 1. North Africa, 160 AD
It was a beautiful day for a run, sunny with puffy white clouds in a blue sky, the air comfortably warm rather than hot, and with a light breeze blowing off the Atlantic ocean. Rollers breaking offshore surged up onto the sands in a green and white froth. I played tag with the spume, skirting the high water line, testing if I were fast enough and nimble enough to dodge the next incoming wave. Light as I am, my feet virtually kissed the ground as I covered ground at an easy pace.
I welcomed the kiss of the sun's heat on my limbs and bare back and rump, for I was running in the nude and barefoot. No one in the ancient world ever bothered with clothing during exercise, whether at a Roman palestra, a Greek gymnasium, at athletic games, or running long distance. As for going barefoot, thick calluses protected my feet as well as moccasins or sandals might, especially on sand.
I make it a point to run regularly, to keep up my cardiovascular endurance. More than once my speed and stamina had saved my life. Mostly though I ran for the sheer joy of it. The rhythmic breathing, the pumping of the arms, and the scissoring of the legs induces a psychological state of reverie and well-being, what moderns call a runner's high. Running also gives me quality time, alone with myself and my thoughts, away from distractions. Sometimes the solution to a problem will just pop into my mind, all unbidden, though mostly I simply daydream while I run.
My course led along a deserted shore in the extreme northwest corner of Africa, what today is the Kingdom of Morocco but was then a province of the Roman Empire. The coast of Morocco consists of fertile plains sheltered from the distant Sahara desert by multiple ranges of mountains. The province enjoyed a Mediterranean climate, one which is wet and cool during fall and winter and hot and dry in spring and summer. Even on the drier coast, annual rainfall amounts to 31 inches (800 mm) and more than twice that at higher elevations.
I had recently established myself as a merchant and melon grower in the small city of Lixus on the Atlantic coast of the Roman province of Mauretania Tingitana, so named for its capital city Tingis, modern Tangier. A sandy beach stretched forty miles northward from Lixus to Cape Spartel, the western gateway to the Strait of Gibraltar. The city lay just back from the coast on the north side of the Loukkos River, which flows year round. The upper city, with its temples, theater, baths, and smart residences was sited atop bluffs 80 meters high (250 ft). Along the river lay the lower city, a river and sea port, and the site of the garum manufactories which converted the catch of the local fisherman to liquid gold.
Garum was a staple of the Roman diet, a condiment sauce made from fermented fish guts. Unappetizing though that might sound and despite the truly awful smell of the manufactories, the product itself had a light sweet odor. Once the liquid garum was ladled off the top of the fermented mixture and bottled, the dregs, called allec, were sold to the common folk, to flavor their porridge. Only the wealthy could afford true garum, which was far more costly than caviar is today.
Although I had traveled in many lands over the centuries, I had once again chosen to settle in the Roman Empire, to benefit from the security conferred by the long Pax Romana, a time of near universal peace under the so-called Five Good Emperors. In those days the Empire was so strong that no foreign foe dared challenge it. Indeed, during his twenty years on the throne, the current Emperor, Antoninus Pius, had never marched at the head of his legions. He had never even had to leave Italy to deal with a crisis on the frontiers. It was a supremely happy period for the world. As long as the legions were strong, the rest of us could devote ourselves to the arts of peace.
My long run was nearing its end as I started up the slope of the bluffs to the north city gate. I pulled up to let a trade caravan pass by. That was only common sense. Horses and mules are easily spooked by a runner racing past. I stopped near a horseman, the captain of caravan guards by the look of him, who had pulled his mount off the road to watch the train enter the city. Wrapped as he was in a light colored cloak with a hood, all I could tell of him was that he was lean and tall in the saddle.
"Thank you lad, for holding back to spare our animals. Many boys your age would have thought nothing of sprinting right past the caravan to show off their speed and lissom bodies."
What he said was only too true. Young males can be insufferable in their pride and boisterousness. Luckily I had the wisdom of centuries of life experience to tame my more rambunctious impulses.
"Not a problem, sir. I was starting to flag there anyway at the end and didn't feel up to a burst of speed. Besides, what better way could there be to show myself off, than to stand still here and let everyone get a good look at me."
The man chuckled and threw back his hood revealing a handsome red-head, younger than I had expected -- I guessed him twenty two. Under his cloak the mercenary captain wore a leather cuirass over a military style tunic which left most of his well formed arms and legs bare. A belt and baldric carried the weight of a Roman style cavalry sword (called a spatha) and a dagger.
"Well said, little one. But why not display yourself from every angle," he replied, twirling his finger to indicate that I should spin slowly in place to show my back and my bum.
Nothing loath, for I found the mercenary captain very handsome indeed and wanted to tempt him with my sexy body, I did as he requested, holding my head up, my arms away from my body, deliberately shifting my weight from side to side as I turned, making my buttocks dimple and twitch suggestively.
My naughty display drew whistles and catcalls from guards and drovers alike.
Another guard a few years older and with a dark olive complexion trotted over and spoke to his captain.
"By Hercules's pizzle! How do you do it, Pallas? We haven't even passed the gates and here you've gone and found a boy of surpassing beauty, and he is already naked. Ah, but you can really pick them, my friend, I'll give you that much. Of course, a youth as impossibly pretty as this lad is very likely taken, no doubt the pleasure boy of some wealthy merchant."
"Not necessarily. You shouldn't be pessimistic, Bocchus. There is a good chance that this exquisite boy is available on commercial terms. Let us find out, shall we. Now there, Blondie, are you the pleasure slave of some rich merchant? Or do you belong to a brothel keeper? No offense to your owner, but I sincerely hope you are a public boy and not someone's private stock."
I get that reaction a lot from macho men. They take one look at my slight build and tight body and super cute face and mark me down as a bum boy, most likely a professional either a catamite or pleasure boy. These days such men think me a kept boy or a rent boy (and a walking wet dream). That's what I get for being 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 blessed with the face of an angel, one with an elfin quality to it by virtue of the slight points on the ears, high cheekbones, a straight nose, and a narrow chin. My eyes are the green of growing things and are set wide apart under finely arched brows, and my close-cropped hair is the color of spun gold.
Besides being much too pretty for a male, I am short and slender with a build like a fawn. My skin is glabrous -- completely devoid of body hair and is uniformly bronzed from habitual nudity. With my androgynous if wiry physique and fine-boned features I fall far short of normal male standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual characteristics like beard and body hair, of which I had none anywhere even at the fork of my legs. The upshot of it all was I often wasn't taken seriously as a male.
"Neither sir. I am a free person and no man's slave. And if I ever do make myself available to you, it won't be on commercial terms."
"I would take you on any terms I could get, pretty one."
The aged caravan master who had pulled his horse aside at the gate while his people and animals entered the city, walked his horse over to us. I recognized him a business associate of mine, a tough old bird in his early sixties, a Roman citizen named Gnaeus Cassius Longinus.
"Hello, Aleksandros, I see you have already met Pallas, my new captain of mercenaries, and his lieutenant Bocchus. Sorry to disappoint you men, but I must ask you to speak to this youth with respect. For all his exquisite beauty and casual public nudity, Aleksandros here is not some pleasure boy or street boy, as you supposed. No, he is a garum manufacturer here in Lixus and a person of means. We shall be transporting his goods on the return trip."
The disappointment on the faces of the mercenaries drew a look of amused tolerance from the merchant. He shook his head.
"You and your boys Pallas! You and half the men of the empire, if the truth were known. Consorting with comely boys is all the rage, even in this remote corner of the empire. It was Hadrian who set the fashion when he took up with that Bithynian youth, Antinous.
"Surely one of the great love stories of history" Pallas pointed out.
"Yes, I suppose so. It is true that Hadrian and Antinous were inseparable from the moment they met. And when the boy drowned in the Nile, the emperor went mad with grief. Utterly inconsolable, he named cities after the boy and had him deified like a deceased emperor. City fathers everywhere put up nude statues of the boy. Good likenesses too, both of face and of form, as I can well testify."
"You mean you actually saw Hadrian's Antinous, Gnaeus?" his captain of mercenaries asked, incredulous.
"Up close and in the flesh. It happened thirty years ago, at the time of my second voyage to Alexandria. The emperor and his consort, if I can call him that, were traveling on the imperial barge, heading into the canal which links Alexandria to the Nile. The emperor wore a robe of the finest silk. Antinous went entirely naked as his master preferred him to. A good looking enough boy, he was, but a bit soft for my tastes."
"Oh? I understood your tastes ran to women, not to boys."
"And so they do, Pallas. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to couple with the female of the species. Still I am no virgin with the other sex, Pallas. I have had occasion to poke a lad now and again, as a change of pace or when nothing else was available. So I know the difference. With a boy, what you want is the hard body of the male, not the soft rounded, voluptuous form of the female."
Turning to me, the merchant added:
"There's certainly nothing soft about that physique of yours, young Aleksandros. Slender and supple and graceful though you might be, you have the well-defined musculature of an athlete or dancer or acrobat. You might be small, but yours is one of those physiques that is more about quality than about quantity. As for your looks, you might be Endymion or Narcissus or Hyacinth come back to life. Emperors would do well to put up statues with your likeness, to immortalize that beauty for the ages."
"Why, Gnaeus. I didn't know you cared!"
"Harrumph," the old man grumbled, a feigned scowl on his face, belied by the hint of a smile on his lips. "You know perfectly well what I meant, you little scamp."
Actually Gnaeus was gracious to treat with me as a social equal despite my being a bottom boy. Though many Roman males were facultatively bisexual, fucking girl and boy alike, only the active or dominant role was deemed socially acceptable. Sexually submissive males such as myself, boys and men who allowed themselves to be penetrated, were considered unmanly, to say the least, and were often held in contempt.
Chapter 2. Lixus
A few hours later, I joined the three principals of the merchant company at their lodgings, reclining not on Roman style couches but on large pillows in a cozy and quiet alcove just off the common room. Gnaeus, Pallas, and Bocchus had bathed and changed into comfortable robes. I wore sandals and a tunic of white silk, woven as light as air. To better show off my shapely limbs, the garment left one arm and shoulder entirely bare while the hem reached only half way to the knees. A diadem on my brow completed my ensemble.
By diadem I do not mean the metal circlet worn by kings but only a white silk ribbon, tied in back leaving two fringed strips dangling from the knot over the shoulders. Such ribbons were used in antiquity to crown the victors of athletic competitions. We ate a tasty meal, nothing fancy, but served with a good Falernian I had ordered for the occasion.
"So, Aleksandros what made you settle here in Lixus?" Gnaeus asked politely.
"Commercial opportunities in the garum trade. I saw a chance to expand, reorganize, and rationalize the manufactories. My role is to provide capital and strategic direction; local partners provide technical expertise and a workforce. I also grow melons in fields east of the town."
"Right where the Garden of the Hesperides, sacred to the goddess Hera or Juno, is supposed to have been." Pallas noted.
"They say that golden apples from the garden conferred immortality on whoever ate one." Pallas ventured. "Would you not give everything you own, sweet Aleksandros, to stay forever young, to always look just as you do now?"
Here was a remark that hit uncannily close to home, for I knew perfectly well what it was like to be forever young.
For reasons I have never understood I stopped aging before reaching my eighteenth birthday. No, there had been no encounter with a sorcerer nor a pact signed in blood with eldritch powers. It just happened that way for reasons unknown. It must be something genetic, a benign mutation. At the time of this tale when I was nearly three hundred years old, I still looked like a stripling, a beardless boy, slight of build, and much prettier than any boy rightly ought to be. I don't doubt that my outward beauty was a manifestation of my innate genetic fitness.
After several refills of his goblet, Bocchus lifted his cup in salute and said:
"Master Gnaeus, can we really be sure that Aleksandros is merely a mortal boy? Isn't he the very incarnation of youthful male pulchritude? Does that not suggest he might not be an immortal in disguise, perhaps young Ganymede come down from Olympus this evening to grace us with his presence.
"Careful, my young friend." Gnaeus cautioned. "that you don't provoke the gods. It was for hubris that goddess Nemesis punished the beauteous youth Narcissus by making him fall in love with his own reflection in a still pool of water. I will agree with you this far, that, among mortals, only the fabled Daphne Boys of Antioch could match Aleksandros."
"Are you speaking from experience in this matter as well, Gnaeus?"
"Indeed I am. During both my visits to the second city of the East I made a point of visiting the the temple dedicated to the nymph Daphne, where comely boys are enslaved as sacred prostitutes. The fees paid to rent these acolytes, as they are called, support the cult. Daphne boys are youths in their teens, handpicked for their beauty of face and form, and trained in the amatory arts. The priests who run the temple of Daphne wisely replace the boys when they get older to keep their stock young and fresh looking. The boys who become too old to continue as acolytes are sold into comfortable private service."
I too could have spoken of Daphne Boys from experience, though not as a customer, for I once spent four years enslaved there as a temple acolyte. I have to say that even though I was then a slave, I still have fond memories of my time as a Daphne Boy. The priests were shrewd in keeping us acolytes reasonably contented with our lot, providing good food and light airy accommodations. We were required to exercise regularly to keep our bodies pleasing. Most important, the priests were very sparing of the rod, though admittedly as much to avoid marking the boys. The priests were not overly greedy either, letting us boys keep our tips so we would have a bit of coin to spend on our two days off a month, when we were free to circulate about the city.
"Thank you, gentlemen." I said, summing up "Like any good looking youth aware of his own worth, I am just vain enough to enjoy such compliments, but grounded enough not to take flattery too seriously. To be safe let us make a libation to the gods, thanking them for the beauty they have gifted me with."
That sentiment drew universal assent. We all spilled a bit of wine on the floor and drank the toast. For Gnaeus, the evening ended early. Not long after my libation, weary from his long ride and surfeited with food and drink, he set aside his wine goblet, announcing that it was time to lay his old bones to bed. He left on unsteady feet, drawing a curtain over the entrance of the alcove. That left me in private and alone, without a chaperone as it were, sandwiched between lusty Pallas and Bocchus, enthusiastic boy lovers the both of them.
It was no surprise that they took advantage of their physical proximity, continually touching me, stroking and petting, squeezing my biceps, or running their fingers lightly over my ribs. Bocchus liked to ruffle my hair good-naturedly while Pallas devoted himself to a tactile exploration of my chest, thumbing the aureoles and tweaking the nubbins of my nipples, tracing my ribs, rubbing my belly muscles. I did nothing to discourage these attentions. I like the feel of a man's hands on my body.
The two men also plied me with sweet talk about how pretty I was, especially Pallas.
"You have such a sexy little body, Aleksander, the incarnation of a boy in bloom, perfect as an eromenous or consort for older males who appreciate a beautiful boy. Forgive me if I cannot keep my hands to myself this evening, not with you so close and so eminently touchable. Here let me slip the tunic strap off your shoulder to better reveal that sculpted chest of yours as a complement your bared arms and legs. With your flank pressed to mine, I can feel your body heat and the firmness of your musculature. And surely that is the scent of rose water that my nostrils detect on your flawless skin."
"Aye, I agree fully with my captain." Bocchus added. "The skin of your arms and legs is at least as a smooth as this silk tunic of yours. So why bother with it at all? Here, Aleksandros, humor me and raise your arms while I slip it off you and set it aside. There, now you are properly naked as the gods intended you to be. Fah, who needs nude statutes of drowned imperial lovers like Antinous, when a flesh and blood boy is close to hand. And such an exquisite one too."
"And there is nary a feather on you anywhere, little one, not even at the fork of your legs, nor even a hint of stubble that I can feel. Small as you are, so very slender and smooth and boyish, why you don't seem more than fifteen, though I heard Gnaeus say you were actually nineteen. Is that right?"
"Yes, it is. I just look younger than I really am. That is not always an advantage. Men are sometimes reluctant to conduct serious business with a stripling."
"Especially a youth so much practiced in public nudity, one who often -- even usually goes about the streets as naked as any young slave. No wonder we took you for a public boy earlier today." Bocchus explained. "Yes, I confess I have been listening to the gossip about you, Aleksandros, that I may know you better. Men say that you are a boy proud of the tight trim body you have recently grown into. So much so that you welcome the slightest excuse to dispense altogether with clothing."
"Now some of that is only to be expected of any healthy male, at least here in civilization, such as at the public baths or during athletic training whether indoors at the palestra or running along a beach or road or footpath to improve your wind. Nor would I fault you for traipsing the streets naked down to the lower city for a swim in the river or to take a boat upstream to fish. But they say that you tend your melon fields as naked as any of the slaves who labor for you. And likewise at your garum manufactories."
"All right, I do like to show off. That is part of it, I admit. And the weather here is perfect, never really hot nor cold, so the human body requires no protection from the elements.
"Actually, sometimes nudity is the only practical choice. I never wear clothing in the manufactories because the putrid smell is almost impossible to wash from cloth. It is bad enough that, after each visit or inspection, I must scrub my skin raw with a pumice stone to rid myself of the stench. And my hair! Why do you think I keep it cut so short? And yes slaves often work naked in warm weather, but those who tend my fields are not slaves -- any more than I am. I employ only free labor. It costs more but is that much more productive. "
"And yes, I am quite shameless at drinking parties, at least those intended as orgies, where I come not as an invited guest but as the eromenos of an older male. As you know the boys brought to the wilder sort of drinking parties are soon relieved of their clothing. As the evening proceeds, they may be passed from couch to couch. No reason then I shouldn't show up at a symposium already naked, bathed, primped, voided and lubricated, ready to entertain the older males with my sweet body. Mark you, no money changes hands at such events."
"Understood. Your charms are never for sale, but you may share them without charge. The gods keep you little Aleksandros, for you are their gift to mankind!"
"Now they say that you are supremely accomplished in pleasuring a man, Aleksandros. So why don't you demonstrate your skill in the amatory arts for us?"
Recognizing my cue I got on my knees between the two mercenary soldiers, eager to give these men the best sex of their lives. Their urgent kisses and lascivious touching had me fully aroused. Soon I was in my element with my ass impaled on one cock, another member lodged down my throat, my slight body sandwiched between two strong males. The manly scent of these two soldiers made my head whirl. We were soon lost in a world of physical sensation and intense emotion.
Pallas and Bocchus were vigorous young men and their style of lovemaking reflected that fact. They took control and bent and folded and twisted my small body into all manner of positions, ramming, poking, prodding, and thumping me for hours. They laid me belly down over a big pillow, to raise my rump to a convenient level for a hard fuck. Meanwhile Bocchus moved around to the front and presented himself for oral service, waving his turgid cock under my face, batting my cheeks with it, circling my lips with the purple head until finally letting me take it into my mouth. At first he was satisfied with tongue action and sucking but then he thrust deeper, sliding his shaft down the moist tube of my throat.
Later on Pallas put me on my back and bent me over till my knees straddled my face, then drove into my upturned ass with his long thick cock. He liked to pull all the way out and watch my battered and distended hole start to close up, then drive back into it, squelching and squishing in the manly juices he and his comrade had discharged into my fundament earlier during our sex play.
The curtain across the alcove did little to prevent the sound of lusty sexual congress from reaching the common room, no surprise really in such an establishment. I was embarrassed later on when it was time to leave and Pallas withheld my tunic, saying I must pass through the common room completely naked where those who were still there could see the hickey at my neck and the finger marks on my ass and upper arms, and my buttocks reddened from spanking. No doubt they also caught catch the smell of sex on my body especially where cum had run down my legs. Well, I've never denied that I was highly sexed.
Chapter 3. Volubilis
In the following months, I sported with the two mercenaries whenever they stopped over at Lixus. The sex was fine, and we got along well, as far as that went, but our relationship never deepened into a true friendship. Yes, they liked me well enough and I them, but to men of their sort I was just a delightful boy to have sex with.
That did not make them bad men, not at all, especially in the context of their times. They were not mean or cruel or even especially crude, just thoughtless and self-centered. The worst I could say of them is that they were shallow young men, as macho males so often are, inordinately proud of their size and strength and sexual prowess and looking down on males who fell short of normal standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual characteristics like beard and body hair and voice register. They don't see boys of my sort, overly pretty and sexually submissive, as comrades.
That was was a sharp disappointment. Looking back now, I can see that I was feeling lonely and must have hoped to recreate the close friendship I had enjoyed fifty years earlier in a similar setting, at my caravanserai in Arabia, at the opposite end of the Roman empire. But Pallas and Bocchus were not men of the caliber of Tariq, Lucius, and Sixtus. I felt a pang, wondering whether any of my old friends were still alive. They would all be nearing eighty by now. That is the saddest thing about immortality. Eventually you must lose everyone you care about.
With Gnaeus I did cement a firm friendship based on mutual respect for character, business acumen, and intellect. He dealt with me as a successful merchant, manufacturer, landowner, and man of intellect, not as a boy toy. We had long discussions about the places he had seen, the interesting characters he had met, and his personal philosophy of life. Like me he had little use for creeds and cults. He held the Olympians in contempt as a meddlesome and quarrelsome bunch who offered no help to mortals in dealing with war, plague, famine, or earthquake.
That autumn I decided on an extended visit to Volubilis, the chief city of the province and Ganeus's home. I knew the overseers at my manufactories and farms could handle whatever came up in my absence or communicate with me by mail or messenger.
We took the fine Roman road that the emperor Claudius had built to consolidate Rome's hold on the region. With a population of twenty thousand, the city of Volubilis was the administrative and economic center of the province. The city sat in a triangular plain at an altitude of 1300 feet (400 m) flanked by two small rivers. It marked the southern limit of imperial rule. In modern terms is lay a little north of a line joining the current capital Rabat with the ancient city of Fez in the interior.
Most of its population were Romanized Berbers like Bocchus. Perhaps fifteen out of a hundred were settlers like Gnaeus, who was of Romanized Semitic stock, and Pallas, whose family were Greeks from the city of Emporion in Hispania.
The approaches to the city were guarded by three outlying forts plus a fossatum or defensive ditch. There was no continuous line of fortifications like Hadrian's Wall in Britannia, only a network of forts and ditches. The system funneled traffic through the town, protecting the settled populations from the nomads to the south.
Other than raids by Moorish tribesmen, there was no serious military threat to the province. The garrison for the whole province was no more than two thousand, all of them auxiliaries rather than legionnaires. The empire also had two naval bases on the Atlantic coast. It is remarkable that the Romans held all of North Africa west of Egypt with only a single legion, the Legio III Augusta which numbered no more than ten thousand men including auxiliaries. Their main base was at Lambaesis, a thousand kilometers to the east.
From atop his horse, Gnaeus gestured at the dramatic landscape.
"We can thank the high mountains for this green countryside, Aleksandros. They force the westerly winds to drop their moisture as rain on this side of the Rif and Atlas Mountain Ranges. We have nothing like it at home. My native city of Lepcis Magna lies on the coastal plain at the mouth of a wadi on the edge of the desert. Here in the far west, the land is all fertile plains, watered by year round rivers and backed by forested hills with high mountains both north and east."
"Someday I would like to cross the desert, Gnaeus, just to see what is on the other side. Perhaps I could travel with one of the caravans that bring trade goods from the far south. They say the land there is peopled by Ethiopians."
"Nay, Aleksandros. It is true that those beyond the Sahara have dark skins, but they look quite different from both Ethiops and Nubians. Their physiques are robust and their physiognomies rather different too, coarser to my way of thinking, but then my aesthetic was formed here in the Mediterranean world. They must think we look strange too."
Gnaeus's eyes twinkled as he added:
"On the positive side, I can report that their men are prodigiously endowed, if that is of any interest to you, my young friend."
"It might be." I allowed with a grin.
It turned out that I did not have to travel all that way to meet one of these well-endowed southerners. Several had taken up residence in Volubilis to facilitate the cross desert trade. In particular there was Kolo Kalou a man in his late twenties, originally from a town situated along what is today called the Senegal River. Pliny the Elder called it Bambotus, meaning behemoth, for its hippopotami. Kolo was the major domo for one of the leading merchants of the city. Not a household steward, as majordomo, Kolo was responsible for day-to-day oversight of business operations.
I ran into him by chance at the public baths in Volubilis. In Roman society, the baths or thermae were as much a social institution as they were infrastructure. Centers for public bathing, socializing, and exercise, they offered varied services including libraries, light refreshments, and libations, as well as more personal services like massage, plucking of body hair, and even the attentions of pliant boys or girls. Roman males usually went daily every afternoon, stripping naked and putting on sandals to protect their feet from the heated floors. Besides the baths per se, the facilities included a palaestra, or outdoor gymnasium where men and boys would engage in ball games and exercises such as wrestling, lifting weights, or throwing the discus and usually a big swimming pool.
I loved to swim at the baths. Not only was it good exercise, it was a excellent chance to show off my sexy body up close. I used showy dives to attract attention, twisting or turning in the air, cutting the water cleanly with hardly a splash, then gliding back to the surface. When I lifted myself out of the pool, I would deliberately pause, bracing myself on my arms for a moment, which let everyone watch the water sluice off my pert rump. Sometimes, while I waited for another diver, I stretched my arms upward, flattening my belly and tightening my glutei to accent their cleavage. Or I bent over as if stretching my hamstrings but really to display to advantage the shapely curves of my bum.
One day, while I was bent over like that and totally vulnerable, I felt a man's hands reaching for my buttocks -- big strong hands with rough calluses. I looked around and saw a huge black man standing just behind me, towering over me really. His legs were like black pillars greater around than my waist. Great slabs of muscle padded his chest and shoulders and he was covered by the blackest skin I had ever seen. I would not call his face handsome, but it had an arresting appearance, especially at that moment , with his eyes twinkling and his lips parted in a feal grin.
I tried to straighten up but he put one massive paw between my shoulder blades and pushed me down again and ordered me to stay bent over, rump high, reinforcing his command with a spank. I braced myself, hands on knees worried that I had angered a man who could break me in two. What did he want with me? Meanwhile he reached down and gripped my balls, tugging them back between my legs. He cracked my nuts just hard enough to show that he literally had me by the balls and that I must do as he told me.
"Spread those skinny legs of yours, boy. Let a real man get a good look at what you have put on offer. My oh my, aren't you the prettiest little thing ever, a perfect combination of comely face and boyish physique. Smooth and glabrous everywhere in the Roman fashion. And deliciously shameless in your exhibitionism. I would guess you for some merchant's catamite or perhaps one of the public boys who work the baths here, selling themselves for coin. My misfortune that I have not encountered you before."
All the while his hands were exploring my fundament, rubbing and squeezing my butt cheeks, fingering my hip bones, boldly inserting his thumbs into my anal ring and spreading it apart, even inserting a couple of fingers to gauge how tight I was back there. I tried to protest, but the man had already established a physical and psychological dominance over me. Besides, my body was responding to his overwhelming presence and masculinity.
"Excuse me sir, that I must correct you, but I am neither a slave nor a public boy. You have no right to feel me up or to probe my orifices."
My plea fell on deaf ears.
"Maybe not by your laws nor even by intent, but any boy as tempting as you should know better than to show-off at the public baths, notorious places of assignation that they are. About time you learned that when you put out an invitation like that you must entertain those who take you up on it. I mean to have you boy, right here and right now. That's no more than you deserve, you little tease."
"Now I don't want to hear any more back talk from you. You have no choice but to accept the inevitable. Even so, I can tell that this prospect is not entirely unpleasing to you as evidence by your fast breathing and flushed skin and the way your cock has plumped up and is jutting straight out from your body while your ball sac is pulled tight to the fork of your legs. That makes you the very picture of a pleasure boy in heat."
I sputtered a protest:
"But that's mostly your own doing ... from the way you stimulated my erogenous zones. Being the boy that I am, can I help it that my body reacts accordingly? If there was any invitation, it was only to look, not to touch."
"Tut, tut, little one. A pretty notion that, merely looking but not touching, to deliberately stir a man's blood and then leave him hanging, aroused but unconsummated. That might appeal to the ineffectual males of your own effete civilization but hardly a consideration for a warrior of the Mandinka. Now lets us repair to this comfortable alcove. Prepare yourself, my young friend, for the hardest fuck of your life."
To whistles and cat calls from our fellow patrons of the baths, the giant led me over to a secluded bench. A friend of his, a Berber by the look of him, waved the others back allowing us some space. With one huge hand clamped to my right biceps escape was impossible. Our disparity in size made resistance futile. The man was a giant with three times my mass. The top of my head didn't reach the level of his shoulders. He was a man full grown and all muscle, while I was but a slender youth. I resigned myself to my fate, chiding myself for playing the tease that day. The man was right about that, I'll admit.
As the man turned me to face him, my eyes widened at the sight of his prodigious manhood, by now fully engorged. The blood flowing into the huge dark skinned member had turned it a dark purple, I mean all of it, not just the head. The shaft was gnarly with protruding veins and rooted in a close clipped triangle of wiry pubic hair. It visibly throbbed to the beat of his heart. I could see a pearl of seminal fluid glistening at the tip. A servant boy brought Kolo a jar of lubricating cream. He scooped up a generous helping on three fingers and applied it to my boy hole, even spreading some down my by-now turgid shaft.
"Have to slick up your boy teat as well, for milking later on." he explained off-handedly.
My body trembled under the big man's ministrations. He smiled and asked whether it wasn't more from lust than from fear. Wasn't I really more eager than afraid. I shook my head, in denial rather than in refusal, for I knew how useless that was. I spoke up once again, to plead with him, trying to sound forceful but failing utterly as I let out a sob, wincing at hearing my voice come out so very young and shaky. Mine was the voice of a frightened boy beseeching a superior, rather than that of a young man standing up for himself.
"Please sir, I know that I am in your power, only don't hurt me. I realize that I have been naughty, tempting you as I did, shaking my booty here at the baths. But surely I am not the only boy excessively proud of the sweet body he has so recently grown into. You must know that I cannot take that huge cock of yours up my ass. I am just a little guy, a skinny kid with narrow hips. You saw for yourself how tiny I am back there, my hole I mean. That monster cock of yours would tear me up for sure, set me bleeding like a virgin. Ruin me forever. So spank me if you must, to punish me, or force me suck your cock, if that would satisfy you, but don't impale me on your prong."
"Nay, pretty one, you must let me be the judge of these things. I am older and more experienced with male sex than you. It is true that you are small and tight back there, and yes, you can expect some pain when I slide into you, at least at first, though less than you would suppose. Never fear. I am sure you can take my cock without serious injury, as have so many others in the past, though they too were dubious at the start. My cock has a way of insisting on entry into warm welcoming holes like yours."
"Understand me well and don't be put off by my fierce appearance. I have no wish to hurt a pretty little thing like you, just the opposite. Actually I am quite fond of sissy boys of your sort, small in stature, over-sexed, and far too proud of their girlish looks for their own good. Soon you will realize the pleasure a really big man like me can give to a slip of a lad like you, no matter the initial pain. I predict that in days to come you will seek me out for more of the same, virtually throwing yourself at me, begging me to impale you. And of course I will accommodate you. All you white boys are like that. Once you get a taste of the real thing, you can never get enough of black cock."
The man straddled the bench, turning me around and set me on all fours in front of him. He laid himself atop my back, his black skin pressed to mine, covering me like a stallion does a filly, practically engulfing my small body though keeping much of his weight on his own legs. Kolo kissed my shoulders and the back of my neck and tugged at my hair with his teeth.
I whimpered as I felt the head of his cock pressing at my anal whorl, then push in slightly, spreading me open. The pressure mounted as the intruder pushed past the guardian sphincters till the head of the cock was lodged inside me. Then Kolo paused to give me a chance to adjust to his girth. I gasped and breathed deeply, my limbs trembling under the weight on my back, sweat pouring off me, eyes squeezed shut with pain, whipping my head form side to side, the very picture of a bottom boy struggling to accept his impalement.
To his credit the man was careful with me, proceeding slowly, not forcing himself into me with one quick thrust. Slowly, a little bit of a time, he penetrated deep till he was fully lodged inside. I gave a small cry as I felt him seat himself. By this time, tears were running down my cheeks. Kolo reached with one hand to turn my head back enough for him to reach out with his hand to taste my tears.
"Salty and sweet, just as a boy ought to be. I prize each of the fluids I can draw from a boy: tears and cum, sweat and spit, seminal fluid and even blood. Yes, you were right, little Aleks, today a bit of your virgin's blood will flow to mix with the manly juices I will fill you with. Never fear. Before long the pain will stop and the bleeding soon after that."
Things turned out just as he had promised. Sharp pain in time gave way to intense pleasure. It took longer than with others who have fucked me, because the black man was so huge. Fortunately he was slow and careful, In time the familiar tingle started and I felt a rush of warmth to my belly. I found myself pushing back with my hips to meet his thrusts, moaning now as much in pleasure as in pain. I urged him to thrust harder, that I could take it. That I was his boy.
In the fullness of time we climaxed nearly together then slumped onto the bench in post-coital lassitude. I managed to brace my knees under me, the better to support his weight so I could keep breathing. Realizing my difficulty, he sat down with his back to a wall, pulling me towards him till my small body was spooned into his.
"There now, that wasn't so bad, was it little one?" he asked softly. "My fleshy spear did not tear you as much as you feared it would."
"No, Kolo, er ... sir. There was a bit of blood, true, but I am fine, really. Thank you for the care you took in fucking me. I have known many who have hurt their boys, carried away by passion."
"Such brutes miss the whole point of it. There should be pleasure for both man and boy, or you are doing it wrong."
I snuggled deeper into his arms, comforted and protected by his presence. I thought to myself, here was a man I could get to like a lot. We chatted for a while, till we got our second wind, then went at it again, only this time with me on my back so Kolo could watch my face the whole time and I his. His skin was so dark and his teeth so white that his smile lit up his whole face. When it came time to part, Kolo allowed himself a smug grin when I told him that I very much wanted to see him again, that a single tryst at the baths was not enough for me.
"Ah, it is just as I foretold, pretty one."
And that is how I became the friend of Kolo Kalou.
Chapter 4. Sahara
It turned out that Kolo and Gnaeus were acquainted. Gnaeus was spending more time at home these days, thinking about retiring. So we often took our meals together, just the three of us. Both were good conversationalists and loved to speak of their travels. Seemingly they had been everywhere. Gnaeus had traveled the length of the Mediterranean and had been to Alexandria, Antioch, Athens, and Rome. Kolo knew the country beyond the mountains and desert to the south all the way to the sea. In their time they had gone off to war and come back sobered by their experiences. Neither man saw any glory in war and neither was interested in enriching himself with loot. There had chosen honest routes to the wealth they enjoyed.
I told Kolo how much I wanted to to cross the desert myself, someday. He shook his head dubiously.
"That is not a journey to be taken lightly, my young friend. It is two months across at best. Why it takes ten days alone just to reach the edge of the desert at the oasis of Tafilet on the far side of the High Atlas mountains. The route crosses the mountains then follows the Ziz river which eventually disappears into the thirsty sands of the desert. From there you must contend with wells gone dry, sandstorms, and raiders -- not to mention venomous snakes, spiders, and scorpions."
"And bad news -- for you especially, you little scamp -- you would have to wear clothing the whole time, as protection from the burning sun and blowing sands and the cold of the desert night. That means tunics and hooded cloaks. No running around stark naked. No bathing either. No offense, little one, but I think a pretty boy like you is too soft for such a trip."
"Excuse me!" I protested, jumping to my feet, fists held high. "I'll have you know that I can do tough, if I have to. I have been around. I can do fierce too." I added with a theatrical scowl.
We all laughed at my mugging. Then Gnaeus took up the thread of conversation.
"You know that under the current emperor Rome is not expansionist, but that could easily change. It would not take much for the empire to push south across the Atlas mountains, to establish a garrison at the oasis on the edge of the desert as a defense against raiders and to control the trade."
"A century ago the great general Suetonius Paulinus (who later defeated Boudicca's revolt in Britannia) managed much more. According to the account in Pliny, he crossed mountains covered with snow even in summer; those would be the High Atlas. Then he traversed a desert of black sand and burnt rock, the Sahara, obviously, till he reached a great river called the Gerj, which he followed to the sea. Beyond lay a wooded region abounding in elephants."
"Yes, my people have the tale too." Kolo added. "The Romans marched all the way to the Bombatus river where my people dwell, where my family lives. It's been two years since I saw my wives and children." he added with regret.
"Wives and children!" I wailed, drawing chuckles from both men.
Then one day, Kolo's representative in the oasis town of Tafilet died of an illness. Kolo would have to travel there to audit the man's accounts and appoint a replacement. To my great joy, Kolo agreed to take me with him across the mountains and to the very edge of the desert. The trip would take ten days each way with a stop over of three to five days. Gnaeus asked to come along. Since it was Kolo's caravan and not his own, Ganeus' guardsmen Pallas and Bocchus stayed in Volubilis.
A seasoned traveler, I know how to equip myself for a hard journey across varied terrain. We would have to cross gorges and defiles, negotiate high mountain passes, and pick our way along the river bottom and finally cross soft sands and hard desert pavement.
As we saddled up for the start of our journey, Kolo saw me settle my weapons about me. On this journey I carried a spatha, the straight 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 bore a dagger at my belt, a brace of throwing knives over my chest, and a sling with lead bullets. For armor, I contented myself with a buckler on my left arm and a leather cuirass.
"You are quite the toy soldier, little Aleks." Kolo remarked, a condescending smile on his face.
"Listen Kolo, I like you a whole lot, and I am making allowances for the fact that you know me best in bed where I am but a boy. But when you see me go about armed like this, know that I am no boy but a man. I'll thank you to treat me like one."
He was startled by my changed demeanor. I had deliberately let my mask slip and let him see a little of the toughness and strength of character that three centuries of life experience had instilled in me. Confused and a little worried, he nodded and got on his horse without another word.
The outward bound trip was full of minor incident, hard slogging, and terrific scenery but basically uneventful. We made the trip without losing anyone to injury or illness or foul play. In Tafilet Kolo dedicated his time to business over the next four days. That gave me and Gnaeus the chance to explore the town.
To paraphrase Herodotus, Tafilet is the gift of the River Ziz, like Egypt and the Nile or Timbuktu and the Niger. Even when the river dries up, as it does seasonally, water continues to flow underground in the water table to feed shallow wells. The town lies at the foot of the High Atlas from whence the river flows. It is a welcoming patch of green at the edge of a vast barren plain, the largest desert in the world. At 3.6 million square miles (9.4 M sq km) the Sahara desert is as large as all of the United States (including Alaska), or China, or Canada.
No wonder Rome never seriously contemplated expansion beyond that vast wasteland. Expeditions did march to the Senegal River and the Inner Niger Delta, the area of lakes and flood plains just south of the desert near Timbuktu. But it was obvious that trying to hold conquests on the other side of a desert 1500 hundred miles wide was just not worth the effort.
Rome did annex the Kingdom of the Garamantes, an terrestrial archipelago of oases and towns in the Fezzan region in the southwest of modern Libya. The Garamantes grew wheat, figs, barley, and grapes with the help of elaborate underground irrigation systems fed by their oases. They traded wheat, salt, slaves, and amazonite ( a form of feldspar) quarried in the Tibesti Mountains for wine and olive oil, oil lamps, and Roman tableware. What they did not trade for, they simply seized.
They must have thought themselves safe from retaliation, with their oases so far into the desert, five hundred miles from the Mediterranean coast. But the Garamantes were vulnerable in a way nomads were not. They were farmers who had something to defend. The could not just cut and run but had to stand their ground.
Tired of endless raids on its coastal cities and traders and irked that the usual combination of diplomacy and subsidies and threats had not brought the kingdom to heel, Rome did not merely send a punitive expedition. The emperor sent an army to conquer the kingdom, disarm it and occupy it with a Roman garrisons. The empire levied taxes to make the locals to bear the expense of maintaining the occupation. It was an object lesson in deterrence. Don't mess with Rome.
That was why the empire could hold North Africa west of Egypt with only a single legion. The introduction of the camel several centuries upset the military balance in favor of pastoralists over agriculturalists.
On the return trip, just two days into the mountains we ran into trouble. Kolo had been suspicious of riders who kept our caravan under surveillance from a discreet distance. So he made us set up camp on defensible ground. The drovers picketed the horses and mules against a canyon wall, protected by our camp site which we situated to command the avenues of approach. That meant we would not have to split our forces to guard animals and goods and men.
In the last hour before dawn, Kolo had everyone wake up and stand to, on the alert and fully armed. At my suggestion, we tied bands of white cloth around their heads or helmets to mark our fighters from our foes. They came at us moments later, infiltrating on foot. They had nearly twice our numbers, and all of them well-armed fighters whereas our drovers, poor lads, were armed only with slings. Now Gnaeus was too old to mix it up close so Kolo put him in charge of the slingers. Their fire would be more effective when massed against a particular target such as a cluster of foemen threatening to take us in the flank.
In that fight I gave a good account of myself. I know that I accounted for five bandits myself and lent a hand as our guards dispatched several others. Three centuries of training, practice, and combat experience had made me a supremely competent warrior. My small physique made me quick and nimble. As long as I had room for maneuver, I could more than hold my own. I discarded my cuirass, which I mostly wore against arrows, so its weight would not slow me down. I remained clad only in my tunic and sandals plus the white head band.
As for Kolo, he was magnificent, both as a leader and as a fighter. He took charge and acted swiftly and decisively. In battle he inspired the men, shouting his war cry, rushing to any threatened point, and laying about with his huge sword to dispatch his enemies. For such a big man, he was deceptively fast. My opponents expected speed from me but not from him. With his speed and his devastating strength he was irresistible, a veritable dark skinned demon of death. I actually saw him cleave one foe in twain with a sweep of his blade.
Potential foes shied away from him, fearful to take him on. Their fixation on Kolo made them vulnerable to the rest of us who took them from behind or the side. I do not count it shameful to stab a thug in the kidneys or slash his hamstrings from behind. These men would have killed or enslaved us. They deserved to die. At least their deaths were quick.
In a desperate battle like this, no quarter is asked or given. We took no prisoners, giving a quick death to wounded enemies except a few whom we allowed to live just long enough to bury their fellows. Only two or three managed to get away. In the morning's light we found one of their dead where they had kept their horses.
Afterwards, Kolo looked over at me and caught my eye then brought his sword up smartly in a salute, acknowledging me as a fellow warrior. I very much valued the man's respect and showed my appreciation when we stopped that evening at our next camp site.
Safely back in Volubilis, Gnaeus announced his retirement. He had taken no real hurt but he was tired. Travel and adventure was a young man's game. This was the time of life for him to enjoy the fruits of his labors. I came to love that old man. Until his death years later I was always a welcome guest in his household. And no he never asked me to bed.
Kolo returned home two years later. Our parting was friendly for I wished him well, even if it was to return to the arms of his two wives. We joked about how he had sprung their existence on me that day with Gnaeus. He was a good man and a good friend. I am sorry that we never crossed paths again though I did hear later that his life along the River Senegal was long and prosperous.
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.
Epilogue
In time its citizens of Lixus abandoned the bluffs and built a whole new city on the flats on the south shore of the river, modern Larache. Volubilis is a prime tourist site for Roman ruins. There would have been even more of them, but over time the site was looted for building stone to construct palaces at nearby Meknes.
The Roman province(s) of Mauretania (spelled with and e) fronted on the Mediterranean, hundreds of miles north of the modern Islamic Republic of Mauritania (spelled with an i).
Author's Note
This is another story about the Daphne Boy, an immortal youth named Alexander. It is the nineteenth in a series of tales that chronicles his misadventures down the ages.
The other stories in this series, written out of chronological order, 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, 'Reniassance' set in Italy around 1500, 'Gupta' set during the Golden Age in India in the Vth century AD, 'Palmyra' set during the crisis of the IIIrd century that nearly destroyed the Roman Empire, 'Tobago', set in the Caribbean and South America during the middle of the XVIIth century, 'The Apostate' set during the age of the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate in the mid IVth century, 'Marlowe', set it Elizabethan London, 'Isfahan' set in XIth century Persia, 'Delos', set in the Mediterranean during the Ist century AD, 'Ship's Boy' set in around the Red Sea in the Ist century BC, and 'Caravanserai' set in Roman Arabia in the early Ist century AD.
These stories can be read in almost any order. The first story, 'Antebellum' introduces the character with extensive flashbacks of his origins. The second story explains how he came by his appellation of the Daphne Boy, the term for a comely youth enslaved as a sacred prostitute at the temple of Daphne in ancient Antioch in Syria.
This tale 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. Except off stage historical characters like the emperor Hadrian and his lover Antinous and Suetonius Paulinus the characters are not intended to resemble any actual person living or dead.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my other historical series 'Naked Prey'. Each tale features its own protagonist, all of them cute twinks on the run bareass from some peril or other. For a change of pace, there are my 'Jungle Boy' tales about gay twinks in Hollywood, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the archive. For links to these and other series of stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.
Comments and feedback welcome at georgegauthierdc@gmail.com.