Byzantium 11: Blue Eyes

He’d just pointed out the household slave that his wife wanted made into a eunuch for her private chambers.

It was always the same. When my master began taking a new slave-girl to his bed, the mistress demanded many things including new eunuchs. I had always thought it was ironic that when the master got a new girl, one of the household boys lost his balls. But it was not my duty to think or to judge. It was my duty to carry out my master’s request, even though it had been delivered to me grudgingly. Yet even he knew that if household peace was to be maintained he would have to bow before his wife’s demands.

At least this time the boy was young, around fifteen. Last year the mistress had demanded one of the master’s favourite servants, Alexis. He was seventeen or eighteen, a young, healthy, handsome slave who had just been put to his first girl. They had begun to live together in the slave-quarters. The master and the mistress had argued together for a whole day, but as always the mistress won. And so that afternoon Alexis had been dragged struggling to the table I use when I geld them and I had to take his balls from him after he had so recently learned their value. I can remember the tears in his pleading eyes above his gagged mouth as I placed the bronze clamp down over his prick and clipped it tight over the top of his balls.

Then two months later the mistress had him sold because, as she said, he ‘wasn’t settling down’. I had seen him standing in a row of slaves of a similar age at the markets, with him being the only eunuch there, and the dealer lifting his prick to show interested buyers more clearly his ball-less state. He had sold for a good price but for what purpose I did not know.

The boy she had chosen this time was younger. He was one of the Slavs the master had brought five or six years ago after the army’s Northern Campaign when there was a glut of such slaves on the market. The master had cheaply brought six young boys to serve in the house. Mitia was now around fifteen. He had piercingly blue eyes, fine dark brows and dark, near black hair. His eyes in their colour were arresting. His cheeks were still downy though I had noticed that lately he had begun shaving his upper lip.

To be honest, I did not regret this choice of the mistress as much as I would have if she had chosen another. Mitia was good-looking with his straight nose and well-shaped lips. Around three months before a friend of the master’s had visited. He was one of those men who prefer a boy in his bed to any number of girls and he had expressed an interest in Mitia. My master had ordered me to ready the boy for him when he retired from dinner. So I had found Mitia, ordered him to bathe and report back to me. Then I had taken him to the antechamber of the guest-room and told him to take off his clothes.

He was confused but obeyed me. He was a well-shaped boy with that clear skin possessed by so many Slavs. His body was smooth except for the dark hair in his groin above that prick where the foreskin covered the tip completely. His pale buttocks too were well-curved. I demanded he bent over and touched his knees so that I could see whether he was clean or not. His ass-hole was a tight pucker just surrounded by new hair. I told him to stand again and his face was flushed with embarrassment.

I then explained what the master had ordered. He was bewildered and his brow was creased with a frown.

‘You will do exactly as you are told,’ I had said harshly before he could object. ‘And you will do whatever the master’s friend wants you to do.’

He sat there naked on a bench and waited until the master’s friend entered his rooms and then I took him in. Mitia stood there on the woven rug, with his head bowed, one hand holding on to his prick as if in a last effort of concealment. I left him there as the master’s friend approached him and rested a hand on the nape of his neck, ready to guide him, I presumed, to the bed that waited for them.

In the morning Mitia was sullen. The master’s friend had taken him twice in the night. Already the other household slaves knew what had occurred and some looked at Mitia with pity, others with amusement at his discomfort. And for the next three nights he attended the master’s friend in his bed. Each time I had to take him there and I watched him strip down, his anger and humiliation barely suppressed. Once I stayed behind and listened. It was not long before I heard his grunts and his cries as the master’s friend fucked him in his rear.

After that he became permanently bitter with a sneer on his face. I had him caned once just because of his attitude. He’d also become desperate to prove himself with a woman and I had seen the way he made every attempt to ingratiate himself with some of the younger slave girls.

After the master had given me an order to geld a slave, I always do it quickly. There is nothing like gossip amidst slaves. News travels quickly and so I acted fast. Often owners will make much of a slave being gelded but really it is a simple easy process. No one worries much about young colts or cattle when they are lined up to be gelded, or even worries about how it is to be done. It is just the same with slaves. It is possible to regret the act having to be done, but the process itself is straightforward.

I had a table in one of the back courtyards I used and there was a convenient storeroom where the slave could lie until he was fit enough to walk and work again. It was simply a matter of fixing leather thongs to the four corners of the table, having a brazier of coals brought in to heat the cauterising iron, and fetching the gelding knives and clamps from my own quarters. I ordered two slaves from the stables to accompany me. They had done it before and they knew just what was required of them.

By the time I had finished the preparations Mitia was waiting outside the gate. I went out and ordered him to strip down there. I could tell from his face that he thought he was to be caned again and I could also tell that somehow he had done something that deserved punishing. He took his clothes off himself almost insolently.

In the sunlight his body was gold-pale. He was still smooth, his thighs completely lacking any trace of the hair that was darkening his calves. His belly hair was black and glossy, curling above his prick, which seemed to have grown since the last time I saw him. He was beginning to put on weight and muscle from the slimness of his last two years. When he was naked he stood there, his eyes narrowed, a twist to his lips, waiting, I guessed, for me to order him to the caning-block and tell him for what act he was to get six cuts of the cane.

Instead I indicated to the two stable-hands and they took him, one at each arm and walked him through to the other courtyard. I saw him look at the gelding table waiting for him there in the stark sunshine.

‘The master wants your balls cut,’ I said to him then, ‘so you can serve the mistress in her chambers.’

His face paled.

‘No,’ he called out to me in a clear strong voice. ‘No,’ but the two stable-hands were already hauling him towards the flat expanse of the table-top.

But how he kicked and fought. He was like a twisting little animal as they dragged him up. I even had to help myself, grasping his ankles while they lifted his arms above his head and lashing them to the table’s top corners. Then I let them drag his legs wide apart and tie them tightly at the ankles to the table’s bottom corners. He was still yelling and spitting, his face contorted with some combination of rage and fear, hatred and powerlessness, as I forced a wet rag into his mouth to shut him up.

By the time he was splayed out there on the table the two stable-hands were panting.

‘Fights hard, that little bastard,’ one said touching the corner of his lip were some blow had landing in the struggle.

But Mitia was now tightly stretched out. His upraised arms exposed his white underarms with their new patch of dark, wiry hair. His smooth chest was heaving with his efforts as he dragged in air through his nose. His legs were drawn apart to there fullest stretch and from where I stood I could see up between them, my gaze narrowing into their apex where his balls sagged in their sac and a small crease of dark hair led down further into shadow.

His feet tightened as he tried his bonds but it was impossible for him to move.

I went and picked up the bronze clamp. It belonged to the estate and sometimes I wondered how old it was and how many slaves it had seen cut. It was a round thick ring that fitted over the prick to keep it up and out of the way, with a hinged clamp below it. You just grasped the balls with one hand, pulled them outwards and organised the two bars of the clamp to fall on either side, then with your other hand you forced the catch to lock the two bars tightly together. It was a simple but effective mechanism.

As I approached Mitia with the clamp in one hand his eyes widened, exposing that blueness which had so caught the fancy of the mistress. The boy’s stomach was still heaving as I took his warm prick in my hand and sipped it through the ring, which then rested down on his soft black curls. Then it was a simple matter to grab his balls, stretch them out and clamp the two bits around the top. His balls were almost hot in their tender sac as I held them, feeling those two rounds inside. Then I clamped him, the two bits biting into his skin at the top of his ball sac.

In spite of his gag I could hear his guttural protest as the clamp tightened hard over his skin. I always left it for a minute or two now while I readied the knife and checked on the cauterising iron.

The two stable-hands stood back a little. All they had to do know was watch until it came time to take the slave from the tabletop and carry him into the room where he would heal. One of them, the older who was somewhere in his mid-twenties always got hard watching slaves gelded. He hitched at his groin trying to position his stiff prick comfortably in his clothing.

My knives were always kept sharp and I picked one out. It had a small wooden handle fitting neatly into the hand and a flat blade with a very deep curve. It was a good knife and it was the one I most often used. I laid it to one side.

On my way to check the cauterising iron I glanced at Mitia. He was facing upwards, not watching me, his eyes closed. His prick, I noticed was beginning to get half-hard which was good. It was always better if their pricks were stiff or half-stiff. It kept them out of the way more.

The iron was hot, probably hot enough, but another minute or two would help.

I picked up the bowl I usually used and walked over to Mitia and pushed the bowl up between his thighs, right up to the end where the pressure of his muscles kept it tight below his balls. With this new sensation and the anticipation of what was to come, his prick lolled over and stiffened more, his glans slowly coming out from his loose foreskin.

Then I slowly went over a picked up my knife again. I spat on the palm of my hand. It always helped to grip the knife. I walked back to the table. Mitia was watching me and as I approached with the knife in my hand I saw his whole body tense up. He prick was almost fully stiff now, held by the ring of the clamp so that it was almost vertical. I had never seen him stiff before. It was well sized for his age. The foreskin had slipped completely below the soft glans, exposing that tender skin to the sunlight.

The two stablehands edged closer.

‘Keep out of the light, I cautioned them as their shadows fell across the slave.

The skin of his loins was pale with only one of two small moles to accentuate its paleness. His pubic curls were dark and now moist with sweat. The clamp was nestled amid them.

I reached down between his thighs, over the bowl and curled my hand around his balls softly. With this tickle his prick twitched a little. He was looking down at me but when he met my eyes he closed his and moved his head upwards. I knew then that he was ready, that he knew what was to come, that he knew he could not prevent it and he was preparing himself for that pain.

I grasped his balls firmly. They were now hot and damp. I pulled them out from his body again and curled the knife around then, resting it on the edge of the clamp. It was now a simple matter to just yank the knife upwards along the edge of the clamp. I had done it many times before and this would not be the last.

One of the stablehands cleared his throat.

‘Ready, boy?’ I said to the splayed slave beneath me. ‘It won’t take long. I do it quick.’

Even despite my angers at him over the last month, I felt some sympathy for him, but if things went well in a few months he would forget the pain, would forget the fact that he once had desires and with a little training he would settle down to serve the mistress and her daughters with his undivided attention. It was probably better for this slave.

I adjusted my hands around his balls a little and pulled on them harder. His whole body know was absolutely taut with expectation. His head was stretched back as far as it could go, exposing his pale throat. The muscles in his arms were knotted. His thighs tried to press together.

Then I yanked the knife upwards. With the sudden movement of the cut, going upwards into his sac, his prick spurted seed. It spat it out. But I was having trouble. It sometimes happens just because of the position of the cords inside the sac. The act of cutting stalled halfway. Usually it only takes me one swift upwards cut. There was the boy’s seed splattered on his chest and stomach and my hands wet with blood and fluid. I had to reposition myself grabbing the slave’s balls in a changed and slippery grip. The slave was screaming, but the gag muffled most of it.

‘Shit,’ I said, and then, finally, at last, with another swift upwards cut, using all my strength, I completed the action and had his balls loose in my hand. I dropped them in the bowl. The boy’s body was shuddering within his bonds. His face was screwed tight.

I cauterised him quickly. It was just a matter of running the hot iron along the flesh, which could be glimpsed between the two bits of the clamp. Then I had the stablehands free him, and carry him to the storeroom where a mattress had been prepared. I always left the clamp on for a few hours. I had one of the slaves wipe him down with a cloth, taking away the traces of his seed. Then I took out the gag. He moaned and gasped and it was halfway between crying and a sound of pain.

Mitia opened his eyes then, but he wouldn’t look at me. He tried to close his legs, which we still widely spread, but the pain stopped him. His prick was sagging, still in the clamp’s hold. I had one of the stable slaves give him a beaker of wine to dull the pain a little and I left him there until midafternoon, when I came back to take off the bronze clamp.

There was no bleeding. In spite of the fact that it had not been an entirely clean cut, he looked as good as any other.

In two weeks he was healed nearly completely and I had to take him into the mistress that first time. I also had to display his gelded state to her so that she could trust him completely with her daughters.

‘Undo your pants, boy,’ I ordered.

He hadn’t expected this. His fingers were clumsy with the drawstring on his trousers but finally they slid down his thighs to the floor.

‘Now lift your shirt up.’

Reluctantly he lifted up his shirt. His prick now hung vertically in the manner of all eunuchs.

‘Now lift it up your prick, boy and show your mistress.’

She needed to see the fact that he had no balls anymore. She stood back from him. Mitia swallowed, then, slowly, he lifted up his prick to show that space where once his firm, round balls had filled, and the still red scar left behind.

‘Very good,’ my mistress said, happily to me, ‘very good, indeed.’

‘And,’ she added, ‘he does have such fine blue eyes.’