The Traitor's Son 5-8

By Zelamir, adapted by Pueros

Chapter 5

Marius sat on the kitchen floor, with the flagstones cold against his bare bum and with his right foot resting in the substantial lap of the freedwoman, Selia. She was skilled in treating cuts and illnesses and the still naked boy currently possessed many grazes on his legs and knees.

Selia had dressed similar for him many times in the past because, despite being the beloved son of her late master, the normally very lively 11 year-old was as liable as any other active youngster to tumble and hurt himself in play. In the past, though, as a reflection of their former mutual status, the boy would have been sitting on the stool that the woman now occupied and she would be kneeling on the ground ministering to him.

Marius did not protest at this change. Indeed the boy hardly noticed it, as he had relapsed into the state of dull acceptance from which he had briefly been roused by the deep humiliation but strange accompanying excitement engendered by Crastus’ fingers probing inside his bottom.

So much had happened to Marius in the past few days. The boy’s comfortable privileged world had been torn apart. The 11 year-old had cried for his father when Crastus had told him of Sejanus’ death but the sheer extent of the youngster’s misery had eventually overwhelmed him and had now emptied his mind of all emotions except for fear and hopelessness.

“It’s infected,” Selia announced, whilst pressing her thumb into the angry ring of raw flesh that had been scored round Marius’ right ankle by the leg iron. Meanwhile, the boy caught his breath and involuntarily jerked his damaged limb, as the resultant pain hit him.

“Mariullus, stay still now, as I can’t do anything if you wriggle about,” Selia chided, adding ‘ullus’ to the end of the boy’s name for the first time, in line with affectionate customary Roman practice if the age, attractiveness and diminished status of the individual suited. For example, ‘puer’, or ‘small boy’, becomes ‘puerullus’, or ‘pretty little slave boy’ through the addition of the suffix.

Consequently, calling Marius ‘Mariullus’ implied that he was young and beautiful but also a slave. It seemed that even Sejanus’ most loyal servants were now happy to remind their late master’s youngest son of his new lowly station in life, despite the boy’s previous popularity amongst them.

Marius had been a cheerful, generous-spirited young lad, who was constantly indulging in all sorts of adventurous scrape. However, he was also always ready to intercede for anyone, especially the other boys about the place, whenever they faced a flogging, deserved or not, for what they had been caught perpetrating.

Most of the freed servants and slaves had been uneasy when Echion had locked Marius in the farm cellars. Most of them at least knew that Pannychis was smuggling food to the boy, with some actually helping the girl. They were even more uneasy when Crastus and his three men arrived, being already aware of the execution of Sejanus and his two other children and the fact that it seemed that sadly their former master’s youngest son was to share their fate. However, it was one thing to feel sympathy for the lad but was another entirely to take action to save someone, even an 11 year-old, who was tainted with treachery against the Emperor. The consequences of such action, if caught, would invariably be fatal and, if you were not a Roman citizen, you would be flogged and then nailed to a cross to die in long drawn-out agony.

The freed servants and slaves therefore muttered among themselves while they believed Marius’ life was in danger and there was even a chance that some brutality inflicted on the boy might have prompted an heroic attempt on their part to free him. However, that moment never came. They instead learnt that the 11 year-old was himself to be a slave and they were certainly not going to risk their own hides to try to preserve the youngster from a fate that all of them had experienced.

“The quickest way of dealing with it would be to take a red-hot iron to it,” Selia advised the man who had brought Marius her, “to burn the infection out!” However, Crastus’ colleague frowned and replied “The boss said he didn’t want the boy permanently marked, as he wants to get the very best price for him.”

Selia looked down again at Marius’ right ankle, with its broken skin and chafed flesh. “The infection’s only in one or two places,” she then remarked, “where the edges of the fetter bit into his skin. I suppose that I could cut it out instead and the wound would probably still heal cleanly, as boy’s flesh usually mends very well!”

Selia twisted round on her stool, turning her back on Marius whilst tucking the boy’s right leg firmly under her arm. She then picked up from a table beside her a small knife, the light glinting on a short wickedly sharp blade.

Selia subsequently bent her head and cut down into the boy’s healthy flesh, directly above one of the puss-leaking sores disfiguring Marius’ smooth, tanned leg. A scream was wrenched from the depths of the lad’s lungs. He collapsed backwards on the floor, rolling about in his agony, with his hands drumming a frantic tattoo of pain on the cool flagstones. The woman had to fight hard to retain hold of the 11 year-old’s captive limb, especially when the youngster’s wildly flailing left foot caught her in the small of the back, almost knocking her off her stool.

At a shout from Selia, a well-muscled, half-naked youth darted forward and caught old of Marius’ miscreant left leg. The watching man also helped by deliberately placing his foot temporarily on the boy’s chest, so pinning the 11 year-old’s slim shoulders to the floor.

Selia then waited until the boy was still again before putting the knife back down on the table and turning on her stool to face the lad. “Mariullus,” she then said quietly, staring straight into the youngster’s blue eyes, “I know that I’m hurting you. I’ll also have to hurt you a great deal more before I’ve finished, but not half as much as I will if you dare to kick me again! Do you understand?”

“Yes….yes, Miss,” Marius sobbed.

“Well, to help you remember,” Selia advised, “and give you a little taste of what you can expect….” She then did not complete her sentence but instead ground her thumb into the ring of raw flesh on Marius’ right ankle. The boy’s screams rang out again, with his mouth distorted into a rictus of pain, whilst his eyes rolled back in their sockets until the pupils were hidden. However, further bodily reaction was minimal and so the woman turned round and settled once more to her work.

For almost half an hour, Selia carefully sliced away at the infected areas, while Marius lay writhing and screaming on the floor, until at last she was finished with the knife. The woman then opened a small jar of ointment and dipped the tip of her right index finger in the unguent. Using her left hand to open the cuts that she had incised in the boy’s leg, she subsequently worked the salve into the wounds.

Marius now felt that his veins were being filled with liquid fire and his agonised howls redoubled in volume. The restraining youth, whose bare chest now glistened with sweat from his hard work, fought to control the boy’s seemingly re-energised thrashing form, while the woman, oblivious to the 11 year-old’s sufferings, concluded her task by roughly bandaging the youngster’s tortured flesh.

“It should heal well enough,” she appraised Crastus’ colleague, whilst raising her voice over Marius’ screams in order to do so, “although there may be a slight residual puckering of the skin. However, there shouldn’t be any other mark left.”

“The boss said we were to leave the sores uncovered,” the man remarked. “I suggest you wait until the cuts stop bleeding before doing that," Selia responded, “and so leave the bandages on for tonight and see how the wounds look tomorrow morning.”

Marius’ cries were now decreasing in volume to a constant low whimper. Selia looked down at the boy, his face smeared with snot and tears and his young body trembling convulsively. She then ordered the youth to release his restrictions on the 11 year-old and, bending down and holding the youngster under the arms, lifted him on to her knees.

Marius wriggled close to her, burying his face against her shoulder, whilst a thumb stole into his mouth. Selia cuddled him tightly, with one motherly hand cupping his firm boy’s rump whilst the other wrapped itself round his narrow shoulders.

“That’s the worse over, Mariullus,” Selia advised gently, “but we’ve still got to get you nice and clean for your new Master. You don’t want him to think he’s got himself a grubby little slut for his new slave boy, do you?”

Marius shook his head slightly and mumbled something. Nevertheless, Selia seemed to understand the boy because she continued “No, you couldn’t help becoming dirty, shut up in that dark horrid cell!”

Selia now moved Marius slightly on her lap, so that the boy’s naked body was turned away from her. She then reached out to draw a rag from a bowl of warm water on the table beside her.

Now obeying Crastus’ order to clean other parts of Marius’ anatomy, Selia took the boy’s small prick between her finger and thumb and peeled back his foreskin. The resultant sight caused her to wrinkle her nose, as the underlying penile surface was coated with dirt, which she then began to wash gently away, whilst the young recipient of such attention stirred uneasily.

“Is it a little sore, my pet?” Selia asked, as the surface beneath the filth was indeed red and inflamed. “I know that you couldn’t help it this time,” she continued, without waiting for Marius’ confirmation, “but you must now learn to keep yourself tidy for your new Master. Such a man is likely to want his boys clean and sweet smelling!”

Having eventually concluded this further chore, Selia informed “Well, that’s that bit of you done, and I think you’ll enjoy the next.” She then lifted Marius off her lap and stood him on the floor, before putting the flat of her hand in the small of the naked boy’s back to encourage him to bend forward.

Selia then washed the cleft of Marius’ bottom with her damp cloth, whilst commenting “You’ve got to learn to keep yourself clean here too!”. Meanwhile, the boy’s prick stiffened and he found himself pushing his bottom further out towards her.

“That’s right, my love,” Selia cooed softly, “open your bottom up for me. I can see that you’re going to make a good little whore!” She then laughed, whilst pushing the cloth between the exposed lips of the boy’s currently virgin anus. Marius gasped, as she subsequently forced her finger further into him, but his cock stood up straight and hard.

When Selia was satisfied that Marius’ bottom was finally clean, she handed the soiled cloth to the boy. “Get rid of this in the fire and then come back to me,” she ordered.

Marius trotted obediently off, speeded on his way by a good-natured slap from Selia’s open hand on his bum. This time, the nude boy did not make any attempt to hide his erection.

Selia watched Marius, and smiled indulgently as the boy made his way back to her, with his rigid pricklet wobbling in front of him. “Could he have something to eat before you take him back to his new Master,” she then considerately asked Crastus’ man, “as he must be very hungry and he’s had such a hard time?”

“I suppose the Boss wants to keep the brat in reasonable shape for the slave market,” the man shrugged in response, “so why not?” A moment or two later, Marius was squatting beside the kitchen fire, spooning a bowl of oatmeal gruel hungrily into himself, apparently oblivious of the bustle about him.

Chapter 6

Marius had emptied the bowl and was squatting, half dozing in front of the fire, his stomach comfortably full for the first time for many days. However, the boy was brought back to reality by a boot prodding his bare thigh.

“Come on brat, the Boss is back,” the man advised ominously, “and I think you’ll soon have something else, bigger than a finger, up your bum!”

Crastus’ colleague was towering over Marius, grinning hungrily. Looking up from where he was crouched on the floor, the boy could see the man’s cock bulging upwards, forcing outwards the loincloth beneath his tunic.

The man was clearly anticipating, with intense eagerness, being rewarded soon for his recent work by being allowed to enjoy the delights of Marius’ now clean body. Meanwhile, the boy himself, who was still rather traumatised by recent events and rather ignorant of the brutal ways of the world of Roman politics, had previously given little thought to his imminent destiny. In fact, if he had recognised that rape, followed by strangulation, had been the original plan for him, the 11 year-old might have been less compliant in respect of his Crastus and his colleagues.

Marius scrambled to his feet, feeling sick with fear in respect of what he believed might now come but also strangely excited. The 11 year-old was far from being a complete sexual innocent. A boy at that time, even a free one of the highest class growing up on a country estate, could hardly be anything else, and the man’s most recent comment, along with his lecherous look and hardened cock, had hinted at what the youngster might now experience.

Marius had seen boys hobbling about the yard often enough, with dark stains down the inside of their thighs. He had also heard the slave brats concerned talking among themselves.

Marius’ father, Sejanus, had possessed an eye for a pretty boy and so had many of the Prefect’s friends. It was now the turn of his 11 year-old son to wonder how he would manage to accommodate a man’s thick cock inside him. The thought of his bottom being stretched and ripped to accommodate such an implement terrified him, and he appreciated that it was likely that he would now have to satisfy more than one such object.

Besides Crastus and the man currently with him, there were another two companions to be satiated, perhaps with even bigger rods to ram into his bleeding and torn body. Nevertheless, Marius’ current trepidation was accompanied by an incongruous under-current of excitement.

Marius remembered the feel of Crastus’ finger inside him, the delicious sensation as Selia sponged his crack and the excited gigglings of the slave brats as they discussed their lovers. They had often whispered among themselves of the pain, and he had seen blood occasionally oozing from their holes, but they had at the same time boasted about the size of the cocks that had sodomised them and had speculated breathlessly as to whether there would be a repetition.

Clearly there was great pain involved in the invasion but that could apparently be exceeded by the subsequent excitement and pleasure. As Marius thought of this, his own little prick hardened once more. Selia, who was still watching him and also believed that the boy was imminently to lose his virginity, again laughed indulgently.

“Look at the little whore,” Selia exclaimed fondly, “as judging from his cock he seems really eager for his first fuck. Come here, Mariullus, and let me clean your face for your new Master!”

“You’re sometimes a grubby little boy, Mariullus,” Selia commented, with affection despite the reproach. She then wiped the oatmeal from the boy’s lips and chin, down which he had allowed some of his recent meal to dribble during his eagerness to fill his stomach, whilst commenting “And we can’t let your new Master see you like this!”

Having eventually completed her task, Selia suggested “Now go along with you, Mariullus, and see that you give your new Master and his friends a good time!” Laughing, she then pinched his boy’s bare bottom to send him on his way.

By now, Crastus had appropriated the principal rooms of the main house for his own and his men’s use. Marius saw his new Master standing just inside the door of the large chamber where his late mother used to summon him to show off her youngest son to guests when she was visiting the estate. Then, the boy would appear, hurriedly bundled into a fresh tunic, his face, hands and knees scrubbed clean by one of her maids, to stand bashfully, shifting from foot to foot, while the grown ups asked him condescending questions or, worse, discussed him as if he was not there.

The memory of his mother now caused Marius the first faint stirrings of resentment at his treatment. Up until then, the boy’s spirit had been so cowed by his sudden change of circumstances, along with hunger and fear, that he had not yet really felt all the humiliations being inflicted upon him. However, remembrance of his mother kindled a small spark of anger and rebellion in the 11 year-old’s mind. Why was he, the freeborn son of very important Roman citizens, being treated as if he was spawned by common slaves?

Marius did not consider slavery to be incorrect, as it was a part of the natural order of things. What was wrong was that he, the son of elite citizens, should be treated as a slave.

Marius hesitated at the doorway of the room and moved his hands to cover his crutch, suddenly embarrassed by his nakedness. However, the man behind him pushed the boy forward, with an open hand against the pleasant curves of the 11 year-old’s bare bottom.

Crastus turned and looked appraisingly at Marius. The boy then felt his stomach somersault in fear, guiltily mixed with excitement. His cock, which had begun to soften, sprang back to attention. The shame engendered by this penile reaction also caused the temporary flame of anger deep in his mind to flicker and die.

Marius wondered how he could he feel like he did? How could he be excited by the touch of a hand on his rump and being brought naked to stand before the man who now claimed to own him, unless he was the same as any other slave slut about the estate?

Marius was eventually brought to a position in the room where he stood immediately before Crastus. “Put your hands down by your sides,” the leader of the sinister quartet of strangers then ordered sharply. Hastily, the boy obeyed.

“Don’t try to cover yourself up in front of me again, boy,” Crastus grated coldly, eyeing Marius’ naked body again. “The little bitch is permanently on heat,” he then laughingly remarked to his grinning colleagues, whilst flicking the tip of the lad’s erect prick with his thumbnail.

Crastus then took Marius’ chin in his hand, tipping the boy’s face back so that he could stare down into it. The 11 year-old shivered, as he gazed up into the man’s slate grey eyes, cold and pitiless.

“Being a slut runs in the family I suppose,” Crastus commented to his companions, “as the brat’s brother and sister were the same, the pair of them. The girl was a virgin before I took her, although the boy wasn’t, but they both seemed to enjoy riding my cock like furies when the thing was fairly buried inside them.”

“But didn’t you say that they were dead, Sir?” Marius remarked enquiringly, although he could hardly speak for upset and fear, and whilst referring to a grievously sad aside made by Crastus earlier. “They are now, boy,” the man answered grimly, “as I can vouch for that personally. Your brother hardly struggled. He knew he had no chance when I put the cord around his neck. However, the girl screamed and kicked a bit. She was a silly little fool, as her actions just prolonged her suffering!”

“Yes,” Crastus advised, in response to Marius’ look of horror, “I personally executed the pair of them, as I had to, being a faithful subject of our Emperor Tiberius. I should also kill you, a traitor’s son, but it seems a pity to destroy a pretty little thing like you. That tight boy’s bottom of yours is too attractive and valuable to waste, as you should make a good price on the auction block for me and my friends!”

Crastus’ comment was the first inkling that Marius had gained that his destiny might have been rape and death rather than enslavement, although currently he was unsure which was the worse fate. “But remember, boy,” the man continued menacingly, “you live only because I choose to let you do so. Do anything to make me want to change my mind and I’ll kill you, and it won’t be a quick, easy end, with the cord round your neck. It’ll be a long lingering one, suited to a slave brat who fails to please his Master, and I won’t give you a quick release by having your arms and legs broken or your body speared after you’re nailed on the cross either!”

“Do you hear me boy?” Crastus asked before ordering “and call me Master when you speak to me.”

“Yes, Sir….Master,” Marius whispered through trembling lips to the man who had raped and murdered his older brother and sister and whose cold eyes still bore down into those of the appalled and terrified boy.

Marius now could not tear his own stare away from Crastus’ merciless gaze. Terror instead gripped the boy, whose legs began to quake.

Crastus then released his hold on Marius’ chin and the boy’s knees gave beneath him. The 11 year-old sank to the floor, and an amber pool began to form on the marble flagstones where he crouched. The lad had lost control of his bladder.

Crastus first stepped back with an expression of disgust. He then roared with laughter.

“You gave the little brat something to think about then boss,” the man who had charge of Marius in the kitchen yelled, “but can we give him something more now? Shall we throw dice like you previously suggested for first go at his anus?”

“Neither you, Grynium, nor I, nor any of us are going to fuck his bottom,” Crastus replied levelly, “as we’re going to sell a virgin bum when we get back to Rome to recompense us for the bother of journeying out to this awful place. Such a pretty slut should fetch a decent price as long as we keep his hole undamaged!”

“The Emperor won’t like that if he finds out,” Grynium remarked, as he aired his doubts about the proposal, with an additional air of disappointment that his cock might be deprived of suitable entertainment, “as he’s ordered the boy to be killed.”

“He won’t find out,” Crastus replied, “as I’ve got the bailiff to give me a receipt in writing for the brat’s dead carcass and an undertaking he will dispose of it. If anyone asks for evidence that we’ve done our duty faithfully, we produce that. As for the boy, nobody will listen to what a slave says and anyway he won’t disclose his origins, unless he wants to be killed like his brother and sister!”

“I was looking forward to fucking him though,” Grynium remarked regretfully. “Don’t worry,” Crastus responded, “as we’ll not be without a boy to fuck tonight. Varro, bring that bitch Pulchellus here!”

From where he currently huddled on the floor, Marius saw the bailiff’s dark-haired beauty, one year older than the youngest son of Sejanus, being dragged forward, whilst Crastus’ companions laughed and whistled. It was immediately clear to the 11 year-old that the 12 year-old had recently suffered a hard time. A thick livid weal was visible across the front of the boy’s thighs, just below the bottom of his short, tassel-fringed tunic and marring the taught, light brown skin. The covering garment was itself soiled and torn, with the wearer’s eyes red from crying and his face bruised.

Marius felt no pity for the other boy, only relief that he was for the moment at least no longer the subject of Crastus’ terrifying attention. He had always disliked Pulchellus, in so far as he had any feelings about a creature previously so much his social inferior.

Unlike the brats his father owned, Marius had no jurisdiction over the property of the freedman, Echion, who was much better fed and clothed than the generality of the slave boys on the estate and was hated and mistrusted by the others. Pulchellus was regarded him as a spy and an informer for his Master, the bailiff.

Pulchellus could personally do Marius no harm. However, the latter had heard the talk among the slaves and had seen the bloodied shoulders or rumps of lads whose misdeeds had been espied and reported to Echion by his fancy boy.

Marius accepted that slave boys should be beaten occasionally when deserved, as otherwise they might become disobedient and lazy. However, he despised Pulchellus as a sneak who betrayed his own sort.

“Give me the cane, Varro,” Crastus commanded, “as I’ve promised to instil a bit of discipline into this tart!” The implement was a vicious-looking object, about three feet long, tapered, split and bound with waxed cord at the end to give it extra bite.

The cane now leapt and quivered in Crastus’ hand, as he became reacquainted with its weight. Meanwhile, Pulchellus threw himself on his knees at the man’s feet.

“Master, please, Master,” the kneeling Pulchellus whimpered, at the same time quickly affirming Crastus’ new status in the boy’s life, “please don't beat me Master. I'll do anything you want but please don’t beat me!”

Pulchellus’ desperate pleadings were then interrupted by a high pitched scream, as Crastus slashed the boy across his chest with the cane. “Shut up, tart,” the man then ordered, “as you’ve got a few lessons to learn. One is that you don’t speak unless you are spoken to. Now stand up and take that tunic off!”

Pulchellus scrambled to his feet, pulling his tunic off over his head and revealing that the cane had raised an angry crimson welt across his chest, which was deepening to purple at the edges, as the bruising spread. The naked boy now stood facing Crastus, shivering with fright, his garment clasped uncertainly in his right hand.

Crastus leant forward and, snatching the tunic from Pulchellus, hurled it to the floor. The garment fell into Marius’ urine puddle.

“The dirtying of your tunic doesn't matter,” Crastus observed coldly to Pulchellus, “because you won’t be wearing it, or anything else, again. Now, keep your hand by your sides!”

Crastus raised the cane over his left shoulder, clearly intending to land a back handed cut across Pulchellus’ chest. The very pretty boy responded by screwing up his face in terror.

“Open your eyes, tart," Crastus growled, cruelly wanting Pulchellus to be a spectator of his own caning. When the boy had reluctantly obeyed the instruction, the man then brought the cane hissing down across the front of the lad’s bare chest.

The end of the cruel rod had landed across Pulchellus’ left nipple, just missing the tip but splitting the flesh. For a fraction of a second, the young victim of the blow stared at the wound, as blood welled from it. Then, the excruciating pain hit him.

Screaming shrilly, Pulchellus clasped both hands to his torn flesh and collapsed to his knees. The boy fell forward so that his head rested on the floor, whilst his bottom was raised into the air. A piercing wailing simultaneously rose from the 12 year-old’s shuddering body.

“Get up, tart,” Crastus snapped and brought the cane slicing down across Pulchellus’ vulnerable taught rump. The boy yelped and raised his face, tear-stained and contorted with pain. He then somehow began to climb back to his feet but he was not quick enough to satisfy his new Master. Burying his free hand in the 12 year-old’s dark curly hair, Crastus yanked him to his feet.

“I said keep your hands down by your side,” Crastus snapped, knocking Pulchellus’ hands away from his chest. The sadistic man then lent forward and took the injured nipple between his finger and thumb, simultaneously squeezing it to ring further screams from his young victim.

“Echion was too soft on you, my boy,” Crastus gritted, “because he spoilt you. You belong to me now and I don’t spoil my slaves because they might get insolent and lazy. You’ve got a lot to learn and the first lesson is to fear me!”

Crastus released his grip on Pulchellus’ nipple and licked the blood from his finger and thumb. “Now I’m going to thrash you,” he then announced, quietly hooking his foot round a nearby stool, pulling it towards him.

“Unfortunately, I won’t be able to beat you as much as I’d like and you undoubtedly deserve,” Crastus then declared, “as we’ll need you to be able to serve us tonight and be capable of bearing a load tomorrow. However, six strokes across your plump little bottom should be sufficient to show you what a disobedient, lazy slave brat can expect at my hands. Get down over that stool, head down and your bum in the air. I want your skin stretched good and tight for your beating!”

Crastus then helped the crying Pulchellus to assume the required position. The man temporarily dropped his cane before slipping his right hand between the boy’s legs and, cupping it around the lad’s balls, pushing upwards against the young crutch, while with his left hand pushed downwards on the back of the 12 year-old’s head.

Finally satisfied that he had positioned Pulchellus correctly for the job in hand, Crastus stepped back. He then picked up the cane again and rested it across the boy’s upturned rump. The 12 year-old, feeling the touch of the rod on his curvaceous buttocks, instinctively clamped his bum tight shut in terror.

“When did Echion thrash you last boy?” Crastus now asked nonchalantly. “I….don’t….remember, Master,” Pulchellus muttered fearfully through his tears.

“I thought so,” Crastus remarked, “as there’s not a mark on your bottom apart from the two cuts I’ve given you today. Echion was much too soft on you, but that’ll all change now!”

Chapter 7

Meanwhile, on Capri, Titus Caesonius Priscus, Tiberius’ official ‘Comptroller of Pleasures’, was looking at the skinny youth who had almost collided with him and Crastus when carrying some fish, freshly unloaded from a boat, to the palace kitchens. However, instead of the young slave using a knife to help prepare some food on a kitchen table, the 16 year-old was himself to be the subject of a sharp blade whilst lying on such furniture.

“You’ve been distracted from your work by a girl’s prettiness for the last time,” Titus advised the helplessly bound and spreadeagled youth before giving the appropriate nod to the man who would actually gut the young slave’s scrotum. The anguished 16 year-old would now have screamed, just as Pulchellus was presently doing many Roman miles away, if he had not been effectively gagged.

Titus and the man actually perpetrating the deed were therefore only perturbed by muffled yelps, as the latter began the incision into the youth’s smooth genital sac. However, before the cut had ventured very far, another person arrived to watch the spectacle.

“I changed my mind,” Tiberius advised his ‘Comptroller of Pleasures’, “and decided to watch the brat’s gelding after all. It’s something that I’ve not seen before, as it’s never really interested me previously. However, on this occasion, curiosity got the better of me. You never know, the sight might encourage me to decide to have all of my boys castrated!”

“You are, of course, most welcome to watch, Sire,” Titus fawningly replied, whilst hoping that Tiberius did no such thing with his expensive catamites. Having one brat, who had somehow survived the Emperor’s original sexual interest only to be sent to perform kitchen chores when he had become too old for the Princeps’ sexual tastes, emasculated to improve his efficiency was nothing of import. However, the possibility of losing some of the expensive boys, who still served the Imperial cock, through post-castration infection was worrying, given the current paucity of replacements.

“Now, tell me,” Tiberius commanded of the expert castrator, whilst closely examining the work performed so far and failing to acknowledge a young victim with whom he had had sex many times, “where are you up to?” The craftsman, brought especially from the mainland for the purpose and who had never met the Emperor before, then nervously explained what he had so far perpetrated and what he still proposed to do.

“You’ve tied the boy’s genitals tightly,” an intrigued Tiberius then observed before asking “Is that to stifle the blood supply so that the brat doesn’t bleed too much whilst you extract his balls?” The castrator confirmed the Emperor’s supposition.

After completing the initial cut, the castrator then skilfully manipulated the crying, squirming youth’s left testicle into the light, all the time appraising Tiberius of what he was doing. “Do you see the spermatic cord, Sire,” the man then enquired before continuing “Well, a little slice with my knife, like this, severs the boy’s ball from his body.” As proof, his hand then raised the little discoloured white orb into the air.

“Let me have a feel,” Tiberius commanded, holding out his own hand to receive the testicle. Meanwhile, his firmly restrained and appalled former catamite looked on, still uttering ignored muffles into his gag.

“Hmmm,” Tiberius reflected, as he received and felt the extracted testis, “it’s surprisingly smooth!” The Emperor then suggested to the castrator “Of course, you’ll now let me finish the job!” Neither the craftsman nor the person who had commissioned the work, Titus, considered the request to be wise. However, neither also believed it wise to deny the Princeps his wish.

Tiberius’ elderly large hands were soon engulfing the youth’s half-emasculated genitals, with some fingers inexpertly probing inside the 16 year-old’s scrotum to locate the remaining testicle. His poor victim writhed in agony underneath him, within the limits of his tight constraints.

More by luck than good judgement, Tiberius eventually exposed the second uncut spermatic cord. Unfortunately for the eunuch-to-be, the Emperor, in his eagerness to pick up the knife to accomplish his task, then dropped the blade.

Tiberius’ patience and temper had never been amongst his best attributes. The Emperor now again proved this to be the case when, instead of waiting for Titus to retrieve the dropped knife, he angrily grabbed the youth’s exposed remaining ball and pulled hard in order to yank and sever the orb manually from the young slave’s scrotum. Thankfully, before the Princeps achieved his aim, the resultant unparalleled agony had induced his young victim to faint.

Chapter 8

Crastus lifted the cane over his head, paused briefly for a moment, deliberately to heighten the horrified nervous tension undoubtedly being experienced by Pulchellus, and then finally brought his cruel implement down with the full strength and weight of his body. He was rewarded by the sound of the rich whistle of the rod through the air, followed by a sharp crack as it struck the boy’s tightly drawn rump.

The flexible cane curled round Pulchellus’ bottom, the split tip cutting the boy on his flank. The 12 year-old’s pretty body simultaneously jerked convulsively, as the weapon struck home.

Pulchellus threw his pleasant head back, and for a moment there was silence as he fought for breath. However, this quiet intermission was soon ended when the 12 year-old began to scream, whilst his lithe arms and legs flailed because of the acute pain now coursing though his body. In his agony, the lad rolled off the stool and tumbled to the floor, where he curled in a little ball of naked boy misery on the marble flags, sobbing wildly.

Crastus swore and kicked Pulchellus in the ribs, the force of the blow lifting the boy’s body from the flags. “Get back up, you miserable little runt,” he grated before turning to his men and instructing “One of you hold him for me!”

Varro stepped forward, grinning broadly. He twisted his right hand in Pulchellus’ dark curls and dragged him back across the stool. Then, pinning the boy in place with his left hand pressed flat against the small of the lad’s back, he nodded to Crastus, signalling that he might resume his thrashing of the 12 year-old.

Marius quietly hunkered on the floor, watching fearfully as the flogging proceeded. A beating was not an unusual event on the estate and he had seen many boys over the years having their bums tanned for various misdemeanours. Often such events would attract an audience, amused by the cries and twistings of the brat under correction. However, the enjoyment of the drama by any young male slaves watching was a trifle marred by the thought that it might fall to anyone of them to play the starring role on the next occasion the cane was brought into play.

Marius himself had, in the past, been beaten on occasion by his father or his tutor but always, as befitted the dignity of a free boy of high social standing, without the benefit of grinning spectators. However, nothing he had seen or experienced matched the cold ferocity with which Crastus now went about his work of flaying the tender bottom of the unfortunate Pulchellus, or the open, savage pleasure with which the man and his companions seemed to enjoy the frantic writhings of the helpless 12 year-old.

Methodically, Crastus laid stripe upon stripe across Pulchellus’ defenceless bum, pausing between each stroke to ensure that the writhing, screaming boy could feel each individual cut to the full. The cane scored livid lines across the sweet curves of the child’s rump, the tip curling round the firm quivering flesh to raise beads of blood.

Crastus’ companions laughed and shouted, revelling in Pulchellus’ agony and cheering their leader on. However, the flogging eventually but slowly drew to a conclusion.

Crastus then lent forward to examine his handiwork, running a fingertip along one of the welts that now marred the previously very pleasant curves of Pulchellus’ smooth, light brown skin with a line of angry red, deepening at the edges to purple. He noticed that, around the earlier cuts, the boy’s tender flesh was beginning to take a yellowish, almost green, tinge, as the deeper bruising began to show through.

Crastus smiled, pleased at a job well done. Then, standing upright and shifting his position slightly, he delivered the final cut of the punishment, laying it deliberately across the stripes he had earlier inflicted. He earned another loud, anguished yelp from his young victim, as, at each point of intersection, blood began to well from Pulchellus’ broken flesh.

Varro then released his hold on Pulchellus’ hair and the boy sank to his knees, huddled against the stool, his body wracked by sobs.

“That,” remarked Crastus, panting slightly after his exertions, “has given me a thirst!”

Meanwhile on Capri, Tiberius was thinking about food rather than drink, as he examined the testicle he had impatiently and literally just torn from his own young victim’s body.

“If the boy recovers,” the Emperor commanded of his ‘Comptroller of Pleasures’, “have him returned to the kitchens. The first recipe he can prepare can be his own testes. I suggest that he spices them nicely for consumption because I don’t want him eating any other food until he consumes his own balls!”

(To be continued)