Reluctant Gladiator

RELUCTANT GLADIATOR - Part Twenty Six A story by Pete Brown (petebrownuk @ yahoo.com)

Read all of Pete's stories at groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories

It was like a vacation, actually. I spent my day nursing as small a number of cups of coffee as I could decently get away with in the cafe across from the gas station, and my nights in hard, proper man-to-man sex. I don't know if I could have stood it for all that long - even the best vacations get boring - but then I saw him, or, rather, someone that could be him: an older guy getting out of a big, shiny, new-looking SUV. I threw down some money and a tip for the waitress (they were still employing waitresses and not using slaves at that particular cafe, which was a bit annoying as it costs you more with the need to tip) and sprinted out to get on my bike.

I was lucky, I guess - that day all the lights were against him, and although he drove fast I managed to keep the SUV in sight as I pedalled frantically. I thought I'd lost him, though, until I realised that he must have turned in to one of those big private estates with guards at the gate and a high wall surrounding them. It wasn't much use to me, though - I went over to ask the guard for the guy's name, but he wouldn't tell me - he looked at me standing there with my T soaked in sweat from where I'd been pedalling so frantically, and I guess I must have looked like someone up to no good. And when I went and sat across the street from the entrance, hoping the guy would come out again, he must have called the police as a cop cruised past a couple of times during the next hours, and then finally stopped, demanded to see my papers, and told me to move on as "the town's important residents valued their privacy." I protested, of course, and said I had a

right to sit there in the street if I wanted, and the cop scowled and told me that he had a right to arrest me for disobeying the orders of a police officer, and that if he saw me there again he'd pull me in for one reason or another.

It really pissed me off - I was a free man, after all. But what can you do in a small town like that? I thought about it all day, and there was no way I was going to give up when my objective was so nearly in my sights. So that evening once dark had fallen I biked over to the estate again, hid my bike in some convenient bushes, then walked around the walls looking for a place I could climb over.

It wasn't all that difficult, actually - their security wasn't up to much as I soon saw that there were no TV cameras or anything like that - I guess the walls were mostly to deter opportunistic burglars rather than anything else, and being a fit guy it was relatively easy to find a place where I could scramble over. Then I had to trudge around the place - it was a warren of interconnected short roads - and, luckily, the big SUV had been left parked on the driveway and not put into a garage.

The guy was really surprised when he came to the door in response to my insistent knocking, and was quite truculent as his opening words were "I'll get the guard fired for letting in a hawker, and for not calling me to tell me first."

"It's about Jamie...", I started.

"Fuck off! I wasn't born yesterday, you know! Are you a con artist trying to get money out of me, or an undercover member of the SP trying to entrap me into illegal contact?"

I stood there, then said as calmly as I could "Neither. Look, listen, will you? And take a closer look at me - we've met before, about five years ago.... I was the guy you gave a ride to when you collected Jamie from the municipal punishment centre.... You dropped me off at the base... I was a marine then...."

He looked me up and down, and nodded. "I'll take a chance. You'd better come in."

It got better after that. I reckon it was me showing him the tattoo across my back which they'd done to me, and then after I'd foolishly said that I had another on my dick - which he then insisted on seeing - he relaxed. As I stuffed my dick back into my jeans, he said quietly "I'm sorry, Steve, but I can't be too careful. The law forbids families to have any contact at all with the enslaved, and there are a lot of stories about those bastards in the Slave Police trying to entrap parents and siblings into making an offer to buy their loved ones... And they then get enslaved, too. But I guess even the SP wouldn't be able to get a man to have his dick tattooed as yours is. So tell me about Jamie.... Is he OK? He was always pretty wild, and when he was enslaved I knew that there would be only two things that could happen to him: he'd see sense, calm down, and become an obedient slave so that at least he'd have a long life. Or he'd carry on

rebelling, then they'd take his balls, send him down the mines.... And there's not a lot of life then. So tell me, Steve, what happened?"

"Actually, there's a third option, and I think Jamie was lucky to fall on his feet, so to speak. His aggressiveness was channelled into proper fighting - he's a gladiator, he...."

"Oh no! Not my son...."

"What's the matter with being a gladiator?"

"He'll get maimed, disfigured...."

"Possibly. But gladiators have a good life before that. If you're Jamie's good at it, it will be a long time before you're injured, and before then you'll have lived like a proper man - but you don't have to worry.... I own Jamie now, and I don't intend to make him fight any more. When I collect him in a couple of weeks we'll go away somewhere and he can start a new life.... Maybe even come here...."

Tom (he'd introduced himself earlier) stopped me. "Look, Steve, I don't know how you got to own Jamie, being a slave yourself...."

"I was an indenture, actually. And my time's up, so I'm a free man again."

"...but, in any case, it's not as simple as that. You absolutely can't come back here - we'd be bound to meet up, and then all the problems with family contact would begin. And the law forbids it anyway - a slave can't be sold into and live in the same state as the one that enslaved him."

I explained to Tom how I'd got ownership of Jamie then, and finished by saying "Well I guess we could live in the next state, and you could visit...."

"NO, Steve. I can't. If I did, and the SP found out, I'd be hauled into court, and so would you, for allowing it. I might get off with a very large fine, but as someone who was indentured and who therefore ought to know all the rules, there's only one penalty for you - any second offence and it's automatic enslavement: not indenture, Steve, enslavement - you'd never be free. So, like it or not, I'm never going to be able to see m son again, and for our own sakes, please don't try to do anything foolish...."

There was a big slamming sound at that point as the outer door opened, someone rushed through, and went to run up the stairs. "Hey, Luke... We have a visitor....", Tom called

"You have a visitor! I'm off to bed."

"Luke, get in here and meet our guest...."

"Fuck you, dad! Did you not hear, or is your brain so feeble that it didn't understand the simple phrase 'off to bed'?" The tone that the kid rapped that our was shocking - so disrespectful and careless. He ran on up the stairs, and we heard another slam as an inner door was opened and kicked shut.

Tom sat there, and he looked kind of slumped and defeated. "That's Luke, Jamie's younger brother. I worry about him, that he's so wild - he's in with a bad crowd at school, I think, and I'd hate to see him enslaved. But I don't know how to control him - I sent him off to one of those military academies a couple of years ago, but if anything that made him worse when he came home on vacation - all the pent-up anger and frustration boiled over back here. So I let him stay, but his behaviour's getting worse and worse.... And when I try to correct him, it's as if he deliberately does it again and again. It's as if he's trying to be like Jamie, rather than trying to avoid enslavement."

I nodded. "How old is he?"

"He's just turned sixteen."

"So he was protected up until now from enslavement. Does he know that Jamie was enslaved at sixteen?"

"Yes. And he's on the same track - he's had a visit to the Punishment Centre for skipping classes, and that quietened him for a bit. But it's as if he's doing it deliberately, to hurt me." Tom sat there, his head in his hands now, and he was almost sobbing as he went on "I don't know what to do, Steve. I couldn't bear to lose Luke as well as Jamie, but nothing seems to work."

"I know it sounds harsh, Tom, but I saw a lot of sixteen year olds at the gladiator school - there's a lot of kids going through a rebellious streak at that age - but most of them turn out to be really nice guys once they've been properly trained and they understand that they are living in a world of harsh discipline.... Jamie may have been wild here, but he turned out really well, and probably Luke would, too...."

"No, Steve! Jamie may well be a 'nice guy' as you call him now, but he's still a slave. And he'll always be a slave. I don't want that for Luke. But I don't know what to do."

"You could let him know that his behaviour is unacceptable. I wouldn't let one of the young gladiators get away with saying 'fuck you' to me, and it's wrong that Luke thinks he can do that to you."

"I've told him, over and over, that he needs to mend his behaviour. It doesn't make any difference. If anything it makes it worse and worse as he 'proves' he can do anything he likes..."

"Call him down, and let me explain to him what the life of a slave is really like...."

Tom got up, and without much hope, I think, went to the bottom of the stairs and called out "Luke, please come down here."

He was greeted by the sound of hard rock music being played very loudly - as if the volume had been turned up deliberately. He came back over to the couch where I was sitting, and said "I'm sorry. I guess he doesn't want to join us."

"Tom, that's where you've been going wrong. It's not a question of what he wants - you're his dad, you gave him an order, and he should do what you told him."

"But he doesn't want to obey. You can see that."

"Look, Tom, I dealt with young gladiators who were pretty much out of control when they arrived at the school initially. But it didn't take more than a day or so before they were properly respectful to us older gladiators. They soon learned that they behaved properly, or they'd be punished."

"I tried that - I cut off his allowance. But then I got worried that he'd get into debt, or steal...."

"There's only one punishment that young men of that age truly understand, Tom - something that hurts! You said yourself that after the municipal punishment centre he was better for a few days."

"But it wore off. He's worse than before...."

"...because it wasn't reinforced. He only went there once, right?"

Tom nodded. I looked at him, thought about Jamie and how he'd gone wrong, thought about how Tom had been kind to a total stranger five years ago, then said "I've got two weeks before I go to collect Jamie. Do you want me to see if I can do something about Luke?"

"Would you...? Could you...?"

"I could try. But I want no interference. You probably won't like my way, but it's worked with lots of young men like him when they came to the school as slaves. Some of them were tougher than your Luke will be, too, I reckon - from the ghettos in the big cities, that sort of place."

"Please try then, Steve."

I got up and ran up the stairs. The rock pouring out identified which door must be Luke's, and I knocked. Then I slapped the palm of my hand against the door several times - that was very loud, and I knew it could be heard even over the music. I shouted "Your father told you to come down. Now, turn off that noise, and do as he says!"

"Fuck you!", a voice replied.

I tried the door handle, and realised it was locked. "Open this door."

"Fuck off, will you?"

"Open this door NOW."

"I told you to fuck off."

I kicked the door in - not all that difficult with an internal door, if you're as powerful as I am. A single kick at it and it flew open, and I stormed in. The kid was lying sprawled across his bed, in his boxers, with his hand down the front of them and the other one holding his laptop where there was porn flickering on the screen. He looked a lot like Jamie had when I'd first seen him - same well-proportioned body, lightly muscled, slim.... And I reckoned his dick was like Jamie's too: nicely in proportion to the rest of him.

"Fuck off...", he shouted again as he struggled to get his hand out of his shorts and simultaneously to slam the lid of his laptop. "Fuck off... This is my room...."

I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him to his feet. Then still gripping him tightly I strode back across the room, half dragging him after me. "Your father told you to come down stairs... Now, as you didn't obey him, perhaps you will do as I say...."

It can't have been comfortable for him as I deliberately didn't let him get proper balance as we headed down the wide staircase - he stumbled, and although he was in no serious danger of falling and causing himself a real injury because I held onto him, I let him fall enough so that his butt banged into a couple of the steps, causing him to cry out in alarm and pain, before I hauled him to his feet again and dragged him across the huge living room.

He stood there and began to shout "Dad, get this maniac out of here...."

Tom had been watching almost in horror, and began to say "Steve, perhaps...."

"You agreed 'no interference', Tom. And you, kid: apologise for calling me a maniac."

He was brave, I'll say that for him. Brave, or foolhardy. There I was towering over his slim form, clearly angry, and obviously very powerful. "Fuck you....", he shouted at me.

Well all of us gladiators knew how to treat the new unruly punks - in fact when a new one arrived at the school we used to decide who was going to have the fun, and then engineered it so that the rest of us could watch. I grabbed Luke again, hauled him over to one of the large couches, sat down, put him across my knees, pulled down his boxers to expose his bare butt, then whilst one hand gripped his neck so that it was very painful if he tried to move, I began to spank him with the other. And I've told you before how strong my arms are, and how a slap from one of my big hands can hurt.

He didn't react to the first blow - he was probably in shock form the sheer unexpectedness of it - but as I continued to hit him, he began to scram foul obscenities: not for long, though, as they soon turned into cries of real pain and humiliation.

I only hit him twelve times, then I simply tipped him off my knees so that he was sprawled on the rug in front of his dad and me. I was amused to see that like a lot of the young gladiators he'd gone half hard because of the spanking, and now he scrabbled to try to conceal that from us as he lay there.

Tom was looking in surprise, or was it horror? "So, apologise", I said to Luke. "To me for calling me a maniac, and to your dad for your behaviour earlier."

He was a plucky kid, I'll say that for him. I could see the words "Fuck you" forming on his lips, and I raised my hand threateningly before he had a chance to say it. He thought better of it, evidently, and muttered a kind of "Sorry", hauled himself to his feet and pulled his boxers up, then headed towards the stairs.

"I didn't tell you to go!", I snapped.

He turned and said quietly "Go fuck yourself! This is my home, and I'll do what I like.."

Well that was it - a single bound took me across to him, and this time I hit him across the face, a strong back-hander to the side of his head, that sent him flying off his feet , to stagger a step or two, then crash down onto the floor. He lay there staring up at me in utter amazement, then reached up and felt his nose from which blood was streaming down on to his bare chest.

"Steve!", Tom said. "Steve.... He's a kid!"

"I told you 'no interference'. Now do you want me to help him, or not?"

Tom sat there, still half stunned in a kind of disbelief a what had happened. "Look, the kid's pretty far gone. I've seen it before. I need to be cruel to be kind, as the old saying goes. It's better for him to take a few hard knocks now than to end up as a slave."

Tom looked at me long and hard. "No, Steve. I'm sorry. I can't let you hit Luke like that."

I shrugged. "It's no skin off my nose. I don't like hitting young guys like that, it's no pleasure for me. So if you really don't want me to train him...."

"Go up to your room, Luke", Tom said quietly. Then, after we'd watched as Luke climbed the stairs very slowly (I guess he was in some pain), Tom sat there and talked to me. "At one level I think you may be right, Steve. I've been too lenient with Luke - and Jamie before him - but it was hard after their mom died. But I can't have you hit him like that... I think he's learned his lesson, though, and he'll improve."

I shrugged. "I guess I'd better say goodbye, then. I don't know what I'm going to do with Jamie, but perhaps we could meet later in the week and we could discuss how I can keep you informed of his life, even though that's at some risk, as you said."

"I'd like that, Steve. Thank you."

So we said goodnight, and he called the guard post to tell them that a visitor was leaving on foot, and I thought that that would be that. But two days later there was a knock on he door of my motel room just as I was getting dressed to go out to the bar to select a guy for an evening's fun, and there was Tom.

"How did you find me?"

"You're a visitor, you said you were staying in town, there aren't a lot of places.... Can I come in?"

Tom sat in the armchair in the room and I perched opposite him, on the bed. "I came to apologise, Steve. I think you did know what you were talking about. I hoped Luke was going to improve after your 'lesson', and the next day he was indeed calm, and quiet. But yesterday, when the men were repairing the door...."

"...sorry about that, but it was locked...."

"...no problem. Anyway, as they were repairing it, I went in to see how they were getting on. And in Luke's bureau I found drugs. Nothing serious - well, not really serious - but it was a shock: I knew he was rebellious, but didn't think he was stupid. I tackled him about them when he came home, of course. And it's worse than I thought....

"How so?"

The police picked up a dealer today. The Chief Of Police tipped me off - it's one of the advantages of being a respected citizen here, a contributor to the police benevolent fund. The dealer's been enslaved, of course - justice is swift in these cases - and once he was no longer a free man they could of course torture him for details of his contacts. He wouldn't say anything at his trial, but the Chief Of Police said that as soon as he no longer had the protection of the law and they'd got the torture instruments out, he began to spill the beans. I think they'll pick up Luke and most of his class mates tomorrow."

I nodded. "So what you worried about, him becoming a slave, will happen - that's the law, isn't it? Any buying or selling of drugs, and you're enslaved? Well, it's his own fault, messing with drugs - even if they weren't 'serious' ones, as you call them."

"So I came to ask you if you'd buy Luke, Steve. Buy him, and keep him with his brother. At least they'd be together , and I respect you, Steve - with you as their owner at least I wouldn't go to bed every night worrying about where they were, and what foul jobs they'd been given...."

"I couldn't afford him. A prime piece of man flesh like him will go for tens of thousands.... There's a huge market for nicely-proportioned sixteen year olds like Luke. Straughan - that's the person who ran the gladiator school - was always complaining about the ruinous prices that he had to pay to get one of the young gladiators. And once he's on the auction block and they see he's a virgin - I guess he is a virgin, as I didn't get a chance to see his asshole when I was spanking him?"

"Steve! Don't! A virgin? - Of course he's not a virgin.... A sixteen year old in this town - all the girls are available...."

"That's not what I meant, Tom. As I said, I didn't get a chance to see his asshole! The buyers won't be interested in knowing whether he can fuck a bitch - well, not unless he's exceptionally lucky and gets bought as a stud by some old woman or other - no: a young guy like that with a trim, fit body will be bought by a man who appreciates such things: and in the pre-auction inspection they'll finger his ass, discover it's tight and virginal, and he'll fetch an even higher price...."

"Steve, no!"

"Yes, Tom. But it's not so bad - once he's been fucked a few tines, done the rounds of his owner's friends, that sort of thing, he'll be sold again. He might even end up as a gladiator..... And that's not a bad life."

"I can't have him exposed to all that... that... groping and 'fingering'... On the auction block...."

"It happens to all slaves, Tom. It happened to me. It must have happened to Jamie You learn to get over it. In fact it helps - it's the start of the realisation that you're no longer a free man, no longer in control of our own body, but something else - a piece of property, owned property, totally under the control of your owner...."

"All that happened to you?"

"Not quite as bad as that. But then, I was an indenture, not a slave proper. That's why I'm a free man now." Then a thought hit me, and I went on "That's it! Look, if we act quickly, you can get Luke indentured - indentured to me, for five years. They can't enslave someone who's already indentured.... Well, they could come after him when he's free again, but you could probably fix that with the Chief Of Police to 'lose' the records or something in that time. I'll have to take him away, of course, as indenture's a lot the same as slavery when it comes to family contact and things like that. But he'd be with Jamie...."

It seems simple to say it, but there were actually a few problems. I went with Tom back to his house, and Luke was still in bed. I pulled the covers off him - he had a nice wake-up erection, I was pleased to see - but then he began to shout and argue so I had to slap him a couple of times which Tom didn't much like. Then on the way down to the court he kept begging Tom to change his mind, and he even tried to get out of the SUV when we were stopped at a set of lights, so I had to hit him a couple more times to make him behave. And in the court he screamed and shouted and abused Tom vilely as Tom stood there and told the judge that he wanted his son indentured to me.

There was no legal problem, of course: Tom had Luke's birth certificate and stuff like that, so once the court had established he was Tom's son, and was under eighteen, the indenture was granted automatically. I told Tom to stay out of it then, but I went down to the prisoner processing place in the basement to see Luke stripped and photographed for the records - he began to see that life had changed for him, as when he stood trying to shield his dick and balls from the camera and refused to move his hands to the side, the guard struck him with a taser - but fortunately at low power.

I paid for one of the "humane" collars - a heavy chain that was sealed in place with superglue as they explained that the more "traditional" iron ones could cause chafing and even scarring on young delicate skin. And I decided that they could shave him - although it's not essential, I thought it would signal to Luke that his life had changed irrevocably if he was taken back to looking like a really young kid - and, anyway, I was used to seeing the young guys of his age totally body shaved at the school, and as he now 'belonged' to me, why shouldn't I have what I wanted? I didn't have his skull shaved, though, but Luke's fashionably shoulder-length hair was reduced to a half-inch stubble, like a proper gladiator's.

He was lucky that after all that he'd calmed down a lot - if he hadn't, I'd have taken him out completely naked to prove a point. But as he seemed calm - probably in a state of shock - I also bought him a pair of brief slave shorts and a T, and some simple "thong" sandals for his feet. It was a very different Luke who emerged with me from the courthouse.

I allowed Tom and Luke just a few minutes to say goodbye . Tom was surprised as he hoped I'd stay with at the house, but I told him that I thought it best for Luke to have a "clean break" from his former life and that he should come back with me to my motel, and that he would not see his father again for five years - Tom looked as if he was going to protest, but I reminded him f the laws about family contact, and that was that. We also made some arrangements - a few carefully chosen "random" phrases to appear on a public bulletin board - so that I could initiate contact with Tom clandestinely if and when I'd resolved the problem of Jamie's slavery.

That should have been that. Except, of course, once we arrived at the motel, Luke began to complain. Look, as I've told you, it wasn't a fancy place. But it was reasonably clean, the plumbing all worked, and stuff like that. But Luke wanted to know where his room was, and when I told him he was in it, as we'd be sharing, he looked at he bed and asked where he was going to sleep. "With me", I told him.

"No thanks! I guess I'll have to make do in the chair...."

I hit him - not as hard as I could have - but enough to send him falling back onto the bed. "Look, Luke, I don't think you understand - you're my indenture now - my slave, for all practical purposes. And as a slave, you don't answer back, you don't criticise, you don't make decisions: you obey. You do what I tell you. And if I say you're sleeping in the bed with me, that's what you will do."

I don't think he thought I was serious, but I didn't care. It was still only lunch time, early afternoon, though, and I reckoned it would be good for us to get some exercise. So I sat on the room's chair, and told him to strip for me. He started to protest and I half got to my feet, my arm outstretched and my hand flat as if to hit him again, and he got the message. He pulled off the T, then, as some guys do, turned around away from me to lower his shorts and stepped out of them, before turning around to face me, cupping his dick and balls in his hands.

"No need to be shy!", I told him. "Remember, you're my indenture - my slave - for the next five years, and we're going to b seeing a lot of each other. Now I want to see you 'in action' - I want to make sure that everything's working properly, so come and stand next to me, and let me see that dick of yours in action...."

"Please, no...." he stammered, still clutching at his dick to conceal it from me.

"Luke, I don't want to have to punish you. But I've had a lot of experience at the gladiator school with dealing with young guys like you, and one thing I do know is that the first few times are the worst - most of the young guys hated stripping off and 'performing' when they first arrived, but it's really much better to get it over with. We all of us lived together and exercised together and showered together and stuff like that, and the sooner a new arrival learned not to be ashamed or embarrassed about his body, the easier it was for him. So get your fucking hands away from your dick, come and stand next to me, and let me see you jerk off!"

Slowly, Luke let his hands fall to his side, and then took a couple of steps towards me. "That's right", I said encouragingly, keeping my voice low. "Now, let me see you properly - slip your foreskin back, so I can get a proper look at that dick of yours."

End Of Part Twenty Six