Byzantium 9: The Widow's Purchase

There was a constant flow of men and women in front of us. While I knew that there would be men there, I had never thought my nakedness would be exposed to women. And their eyes moved up and down my body. Sometimes one or other of them would ask the dealer to turn me around and, even with my back to them, I could feel their eyes.

Slaves were pulled off the line and taken to the arcade to be examined by prospective buyers. We could see it from where we stood, boys and men being examined and having to flex muscles, and having their pricks felt and their balls weighed. The first time I was pulled out from the line and taken there, it was for a man in his forties.

The dealer sung my praises too him.

‘He’s a good-looking lad with that coal-black hair, that white skin, nicely-muscled. He’s been trained as a house-servant.’

The man was casual in his touches of me, but there was something I did not like about it, something sensual about his moving fingers.

In the pens as we waited to be sold there had always been conversations about men who purchased youths like ourselves for their beds and what they would do to you. There were some boys who had experienced it and some of them laughed knowledgably about it but the one slave I talked to whispered to me, with hatred in his voice, about how his last master would come to him drunkenly, and force him to the bed and fuck him up his ass and how it hurt.

The man fondled my prick and pulled back my foreskin.

‘Has he been put to a girl?’ he asked the dealer.

It was the reason I was sold. My previous master had put me to one of the mistress’s handmaids. Every night I took her, learning how to do it, relishing the event with anticipation, parting her thighs and plunging myself deep into her. As soon as she fell pregnant, I was taken to the slave-dealers. I had not known that this was my last duty to my master, to get a girl with child, before I was sold.

‘Yes,’ said the dealer.’ and he has a good potent seed. The girl was pregnant within a month.’

‘What about his rear?’ asked the man as he turned me and kneaded my buttocks with his hands.

The dealer shook his head.

‘Let’s see,’ said the man, as he pulled apart my buttocks. He dipped his finger into a bowl of olive-oil, put there just for this purpose, and he pushed his finger slowly up my ass.

I stood there and I could see people looking at me as it happened and I winced with the roughness of his probing, hoping beyond hope that this man would not buy me, and that I would not be at his mercy.

He wanted me but the dealer was stubborn about my price. He would not lower it at all. And so I was returned to the line with the other boys.

I stood there for another long while. Then a woman in the clothes of a widow, attended by a bald-headed fat old eunuch wandered along the line, looking us each up and down. She paused before me and studied me and I felt awkward as her eyes looked at my prick. She was around thirty, with a stern face that was not devoid of beauty.

She went to the end of the line and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her conversing with her eunuch. He then spoke to the dealer and I was pulled out of the line with another boy and taken to the arcade.

The other boy was around fourteen, a slim Greek, dark-haired and tanned, with just a small patch of black-hair above his prick. The old eunuch examined him first, in front of the widow. I could see the boy was ashamed as the eunuch touched him before the gaze of the window and even displayed his prick to his mistress. Then the boy was turned, but the eunuch, even though he pulled apart the boy’s buttocks, did not feel up his rear.

Then it was my turn. The widow studied me coolly, then the eunuch checked me over, from my teeth to my underarms, pinching my nipples, poking my navel, feeling my pubic hair, lifting up my prick, feeling my balls, making sure that his mistress could see every detail. As I stood there with my legs slightly apart and he held my prick, I felt a surge of blood into it and it twitched and grew a little.

The eunuch made a ‘psssh’ noise of disgust and dropped my prick, then turned me around and felt my back, and buttocks, pulling apart them for a moment.

Then the dealer and the widow negotiated prices for us both while the boy and I stood there. She was firm in her offerings and the dealer responded until they settled upon a price. Then we were sold, given loincloths and the old eunuch escorted us out onto the narrow street where we walked behind our new mistress. There were two young slaves, both around my age, waiting for her and they looked us up and down, before they walked beside her.

It was not a long walk, and even though the noonday sun was hot, I was barely sweaty by the time we went in through the gates to the courtyard of the largest house I had ever seen. The widow left us then and went inside after a conversation with the eunuch. He took us to the slave baths, a large room with a pool of water and we were made to thoroughly wash ourselves under his gaze.

‘Between your legs,’ he demanded in his high-pitched voice,’ wash between your legs.’

We dried ourselves and then he took us from the baths, still naked, across a back courtyard, through another, and the slaves that we passed eyes us covertly. Then we were in a small stonewalled yard with high walls and a pen, like a animal pen set into one wall, it’s whole front covered with clumsy wooden bars lashed together.

We were put into this pen. There were three straw-fillet pallets on the floor. Then he stood at the door, silhouetted, his large frame blocking the light.

‘You’ve both been brought for the mistress’ service,’ he said. ‘She only uses eunuchs, so both of you will be gelded tomorrow. Prepare yourselves.’

Then he locked the door as his words sunk in. I ran to the bars but he was already across the courtyard and even though I called out, he simply locked the outer gate and disappeared from view.

The two of us were alone.

‘What does that mean?’ asked the boy, but I could see from the look on his face and the way one of his hands was already holding his prick and balls protectively, that he knew. I did not answer nor, with the pounding in my ears and the awful anticipation in my stomach, did I wish to. I shook at the bars futilely until even I realised that this was of no use.

I knew about eunuchs, which male slave did not? They cut off the balls of slaves so that they could work with women and not feel desire, even standing there, pouring water for baths with naked women all round them, and not feeling any need. Sometimes, too, I had heard, that boys were clipped to serve in their master’s bed as some sort of girl-boy, fucked like a girl, but with no answering throb of desire. There were other slaves who were gelded to calm their wildness and to make them civilised.

I had never seen a slave gelded although, as we waited to be sold in the slave-dealers pens, one boy my own age, a Slav not long captured, had told about his journey and how all the younger boys in his slave-train were gelded, one after the other, their arms tied behind their backs, thrown to the ground, and cut, just like a farmer would geld a calf.

I could feel my own balls hug close to my body. The boy came close to me, his eyes tearful.

‘I don’t want to,’ he said, but we were slaves and both of us knew that our lives and bodies belonged to our new mistress and her wish would be done.

The long hours of the afternoon passed through. I sat there and sometimes, with my hand between my legs, I’d feel my balls in their sac, feel the sensitivity of the skin, and imagine the cut of the knife until I’d nearly wince from this imagination. The boy was sitting beside me. He began to get an erection at one stage and when I noticed his prick standing up nearly straight, I looked at him and he met my eyes and swallowed, his hand protectively going to his stiff member.

There was only water to drink and because we became hungry each of us drunk to ally the pangs. There was a toilet hole in the corner. I watched the boy piss in it, urine jetting in an arc from his prick with the round of his balls beneath.

Then night came and we huddled together under the one blanket.

‘How do they do it?’ the boy asked.

‘Don’t know,’ I said roughly because I did not want to imagine it again.

I slept but it was a sleep filled with dreams where I was taken by dark-bearded men and they laughed as they cut off my balls, or where I looked at myself between my legs and saw the smooth skin there as if it had never been any different.

Dawn found us awake in the grey light. Even though I had slept I felt tired and gritty. Then the sunlight grew bright and warm and still noone came. The boy was sullen and did not wish to talk, and just sat there with his hand still over his balls. My heart had sunk and I knew nothing but despair, imagining the sweet sex between a women’s thighs, her breasts and eyes glazing over with desire, and knowing that this would forever be lost to me, as I became this other being, unable to do it.

It was near noon when the eunuch returned with two slaves behind him. He unlocked the door and came in with a wine-sack and poured a big cup full. He handed it to me.

‘Drink it,’ he said. ‘It will make things easier.’

I did not wish to take it, for taking it meant that I had accepted my fate.

‘Take it or not, it makes no difference to me. It is only to make it easier for you.’

My heart beating and hand shaking, I took the cup and drained it’s red resinous content to the bottom.

Then he gave one to the boy.

The two slaves behind him waited and then they were both at my shoulders.

I wanted to struggle, but they only held my arms out while the eunuch looped my wrists with a leather thong. Then they did the boy and left us.

The courtyard was bare for a minute and then they brought in two heavy wooden tables, angling them through the gate and positioning them firmly. The slaves tied thongs around two of the legs of the tables.

So this is where we would be done, I thought as I looked at the rough table-tops and the leather thongs around the legs. My noosed hands were between my pressed thighs.

Then everything stopped again. The two slaves loitered by the far wall in the sun. The eunuch disappeared and there was a silence only broken by the murmuring of the slaves as they talked. One of them wandered over and stared at us between the bars, shook his head, then went back to the wall and the conversation.

The eunuch bustled in through the gates and behind him came our mistress, still in her black, with the two boys who had accompanied her the previous day. I looked at them now, differently, at the front of their trousers, knowing that behind the cloth they were without balls.

The mistress came up to the bars. I seized upon the moment and went to the bars and knelt there.

‘Please, mistress,’ I pleaded, ‘I’ll serve you well. You do not need to cut me. I’ll be good. I promise.’

No emotion crossed her face and she turned away from the pen and went back to the eunuch.

‘Mistress…mistress,’ I called after her.

The two slaves came in the door. They were purposeful and both the boy and I knew it. He ran to the back of the pen. I ran to the other side. They made for him and he cried out as they took him and dragged him yelling and kicking out the door.

It was quick work to get him on the table, even though his legs flailed around in the air. He was positioned on his back on the tabletop. The bend of his knee was at the table-end and each of his legs was bound down to the legs of the table. His arms were pulled over his head and the thong was tied to the other end. The eunuch pushed a gag into his mouth. From where I waited, at the back of the pen, I could see right up between his spread out thighs to where his full balls waited.

Then they came for me. My heart was pounding fit to burst. They finally got me in a corner and though I kicked out at them, though I ground my heels into the ground, though I twisted and turned and swore at them, they soon had me at the other table, and I was pinned there by the weight of one slave, while my legs were wrenched apart, pulled downwards and tightly tied. Then my arms were pulled over my head and the thong knotted up there. The eunuch came at me with a gag.

‘I hate you, I hate you,’ I spat at him, but he only forced the dry dusty cloth into my mouth.

The sky and the sun overhead were dazzling and I could not look into it. I turned my head as the eunuch busied himself and saw the mistress and her two slaves approach. One of the boys licked his lips in what looked to be nervous excitement. Turning my head the other way, I met the eyes of the boy above his gag. He was straining at his bonds. I could see his prick flopped on his stomach, his dark bush and the curve of his balls. His prick twitched as I watched and I could see it swelling there, side-on, over his stomach.

The eunuch appeared by him, followed by the mistress.

He reached between the boy’s legs and though I couldn’t see what he was doing, I could see the boy trying hopelessly to escape. I felt my own prick stir on my stomach, the air moving between my splayed-out legs.

The eunuch produced a length of gut and he pulled on the boy’s balls so that his half-stiff prick rose in the air. I could watch him tie the balls. The boy turned to me again, his eyes wide with fear.

‘Do him neatly, ‘ said the mistress in a soft voice, ‘he is a pretty boy.’

The eunch produced a knife suddenly from his belt. The mistress and the watching slaves behind her were intent. The boy’s head was thrown back and I saw him close his eyes. The eunuch put the knife between the boy’s legs, the boy’s stiff prick rose once again into the air. Then I saw the boy come, seed looping out of his prick.

‘Before I even started,’ grumbled the eunuch.

Then I saw the boy’s body clench and convulse.

‘That’s one,’ said the eunuch, and a moment later, ‘there’s the other.’

The boy was now still, as if he had fainted. His prick flopped back on his stomach with a sound as the eunuch released him. I could see the eunuch’s hands were smeared with blood.

Then, they turned to me.

Even gagged I still shouted, just for the release of making noise. They all approached my own table. The mistress’ eyes were bright. The two young eunuchs behind her peered at me with interest. I tried vainly to close my legs. Then the eunuch stood close by the side of the table and reached down and took my balls in his hand and pulled at them. My nearly stiff prick rose into the air.

‘He’s heavy, this one,’ said the eunuch.

His hands felt hot and damp. Then he pulled a piece of gut from a pocket and proceeded to tie my balls, high up. I could feel the bite of the gut as it got me there and I seemed to feel also, all those eyes staring at me.

My stomach was knotted. My legs felt wider apart than they were, straining at my thigh muscles. The gag was still dry in my parched mouth. I could feel my warm erection grow stiffer. I could feel the tightness of the cord around my balls. The wine was thick in my head and throbbed.

The eunuch pulled the knife from his pocket. My prick jerked upwards by itself. I could see his focused eyes and he reached down between my legs and took me there again, pulling hard, my prick rising straight up.

I clenched every muscle. I tightened myself against what was to come. The eunuchs hands were busy around my balls, squeezing them.

I looked and saw the mistress’ eyes fixed between my legs. Then I saw the eunuch’s hand with the knife move down between my legs. I closed my eyes tight. I felt the tip of the knife placed against my balls and then the bright pain came. I jerked my body and with the hard, harsh feel of the cutting somehow inside of me, I felt myself spurt too, the seed coming up my prick and launching itself into the air, but this pleasure was mixed with the darkest jagged pain.

‘That’s one,’ I heard the eunuch say, through my pain and I felt something pull deep up inside of me before it was gone.

‘Now the other, he murmured.

And all of a sudden, it began again in a different place. I could feel the slice of the cold knife and the rough movements and again I clenched my whole body and again the white pain came and I felt the pull of things and my prick slapped back hard against my stomach as the eunuch released me.

The pain bit into me. I was barely aware as they untied me and carried me too the pen. They forced more wine between my lips and I drank it greedily. There were conversations I don’t recall.

‘That was well done,’ I heard the mistress say amidst the blurr. All I wanted to do is to widen my legs to try and ease the hurt but it did not.

A slave washed me there, but even the water hurt, renewing the bite of the cuts. I tried to close my legs but this only hurt even more.

‘Stay there with them,’ I heard the eunuch say and I heard him move off and there was laughter.

I opened my eyes. Both the boy and I were lying on our backs, and our legs were wide apart. I saw him turn his head back and forth, his eyes closed, and his brow sweaty. One of the older slaves who had bound us was sitting on a stool at the end of the pen, and I saw him stand up and check the yard.

Then he approached us and stood down at the end of our pallets, looking up between our wide legs. Then he undid his pants, letting them fall and hoisting up his shirt I saw his stiff prick and his heavy balls. He saw me looking at him and a smile crossed his face as, with his hand, he began to milk himself, slowly at first, then faster, until he closed his eyes and I saw his seed spurt out away from him towards us.

I closed my eyes again as the wine made my head thrum. My thighs ached and deep inside me the pain was dull and unending. I felt defeat loom and tears form in my eyes and there, naked on that dirty pallet, my legs sprawled wide, I cried for my loss.