Lucky that I’m good at what I do. And I have a good following of fans too. They come every week to see me in action. There are six of us at the top of our trade. Old Solly, our owner sees to it that we don’t have to fight each other. He’d lose a valuable asset if one of us died in the arena. He always gets a good supply of new gladiators, and he does train ‘em up well enough to put up a decent fight.

He has to, I suppose. We get a very knowledgeable crowd at the circus and they’d soon know if a contestant wasn’t up to the mark.

The time I’m telling you about: old Solly had just got hold of a new crop of Huns that the army had brought back from the north east frontier. He must have paid good money for them too. They were all big, fit, strapping men and they knew how to fight. There was a mean arrogance about them that I’d never seen before in new gladiators. The usual attitude in new gladiators ranges from grim determination down to stark terror. According to Helga, my masseuse who understands their language, they hadn’t surrendered as is normally the case. They’d planned to fight to the death but General Magnus Antinus had given orders to take them alive and uninjured. They’d been overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers that had cost the army plenty of lives in the attempt.

When I got a good look at them I was satisfied that there wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, until I saw the one called Lupus and then I knew fear. It was the look in his blue eyes that scared me. I’d met a few like that before and I knew a man who kills for the sake of killing when I saw one. The great strength of such men is that they themselves know no fear. In combat Lupus would be a cool, calculating killing machine.

Part of a gladiator’s skill is to put off the opponent by a few well chosen insults, then tell him how he’s going to die. There are a few other tricks and feints too that make for success. None of them would work on Lupus. The only way to kill him would be to outfight him.

Word of the savage Huns spread around town and that Saturday the circus was full. Standing room only and Solly was well pleased. He’d paid for those Huns but they were making money for him.

The big event that Saturday was me fighting Lupus and I was taking him seriously. I had most of the day to laze around and get nervous. Getting nervous was unusual for me. I was sitting on the bench when Solly comes up to me. “Do me a favour, Ben, that one you’re gonna fight, I don’t want you to kill him.”

But that was exactly my plan, if I could pull it off. “Why not?”

“He’s too valuable. I’d like to keep him around for a few more fights. Build up his reputation a bit.”

I knew what a crook Solly was. He’d probably had a similar conversation with Lupus.

“Solly, if I don’t kill him he’ll kill me and I ain’t ready to die yet.”

“He cost me a fortune. I can’t afford to have him killed. Not in his first fight anyway.”

“You’re making enough money. Look at the gate this afternoon.”

“Yeah and how much do you think it’s cost me to stage this event?”

“Solly, my heart bleeds for you. If you don’t want him dead don’t put him up against me. I aim to kill him.”

I had Solly there. In the event he put Sextus in the arena with Lupus. Sextus was good. He’d had years of experience which let him put up a credible fight. In the end, after a good half hour of gladiatorial combat, Sextus’s experience was no match for Lupus’s speed. Lupus had him in the net, Sextus went down and, with just one hand, Lupus slammed his trident so hard into Sextus’s chest that the trident went right through him into the sand. The cognoscenti had never seen that before and there was a great gasp at such mighty strength. And accuracy: the centre prong went right through the heart..

Lupus stood up and raised his arms in triumph. That got another gasp, and screams, from the crowd. The gladiators fought nude. “Good for the gate,” Solly maintained. Lupus had an erection and he had the biggest prick that I, or anyone else for that matter, had ever seen. The lesson for me was that Lupus got an erotic thrill out of killing.

He was one sick dangerous bastard, I thought.

I had that thought confirmed the following week. Lupus was up against one of Solly’s finest and just to show the crowd how good he was Lupus sodomised his opponent and at the same time strangled him to death with his bare hands. The crowd loved it.

Over the next five weeks Lupus took out four more of what had been Solly’s top six. Not that Solly was worried, he was filling the circus and making money. He’d lost most of the Huns as well. I ‘d killed three of them myself. So it was that after six weeks I went into the arena against Lupus.

In this game it is cost effective to bet heavily on yourself to win. If you don’t win, losing your money doesn’t matter. If you do win then it’s a nest egg for retirement. Not that any gladiator I ever knew got to retire. In my case I was always odds on favourite so I didn’t win much. Against Lupus the odds were three to one against me. I put on everything I had.

Helga looked worried for me and gave me a particularly good massage before I went into the arena. Even old Solly wished me well and looked a little sad as if he would never see me again. It was just an act of course. “Bus’ness is bis’ness” was Solly’s first, last and only consideration.

We marched side by side into the arena and the over capacity crowd gave us a mighty roar. This was the fight they had come to see.

We took our places, the gong went and the fight started. I knew Lupus was faster them me but I was the more skilful fighter. My aim was to play him until he tired and slowed, then I’d kill him.

Trouble was that after forty five minutes I was knackered. Lupus was still strong. He cast the net at me. I dodged it, slipped and fell. He had me in the net which is almost always fatal. You can’t get away from the killing blow and you can’t move your arms to strike.

Lupus held the trident with one hand, ready to impale me. It had become his trademark over the last few weeks. He took a moment to savour my imminent death and I saw his giant prick in my foreground vision . Then spurts of white stuff squirted from his prick falling on my chest. Shit! The bastard was coming on me. I pride myself on being cool and calculating in the arena, but this arrogant blond cunt dropping his come on me really pissed me off. I rolled, more to escape his come than his trident. The result was that he delivered the blow, missed and the trident went into the sand. There is only a thin layer of sand and under it is hard packed earth.

In the second or two it took him to free his trident I was on my feet. My sword arm was still tangled in the net so I hit him with the shield. He went down on his knees and before he could recover I hit him hard on the top of his head, again with the shield. He was out.

I was still in a rage. Instead of just killing him as etiquette demanded, I grabbed his hideous great prick and his scrotum and cut the whole bloody lot right off. I threw them into the crowd and there was a scuffle where they landed. Lupus’s prick was now a collector’s item.

Feeling avenged, my calm returned. I bowed to the governor, collected up the weapons and walked from the arena to thunderous applause.

Helga, it seems, had been worried sick for me. She came running out as I approached the box, gave me a hug and a kiss and led me by the hand to the baths. The crowd, who’d got its money’s worth with that fight, gave another cheer as Helga kissed me.

Solly was not pleased that I’d won. His money had been on Lupus, but the bookie paid out my winnings with a smile. Solly’s loss alone more than covered my winnings. Even worse was that I’d neutered Lupus without killing him. Solly was furious when it became apparent that Lupus was going to survive: “What bloody use is a gladiator with no balls?” He fired me.

“You can’t fire me Solly. You own me. I’m your slave.”

“Okay. You’re free. Now get out of my sight.” Solly was mad with rage when he said that. I was his most valuable asset.

He stuck to his word though. I bought Helga from him and took her to my home in the Northern Islands.

Her belly was well swollen by the time we got there.

End