Byzantium 10: For Three Days

The Secretary to Governor was coming to stay with my master for three days, on route to Byzantium. My master wished to impress him because of the favours the man could bestow. The Secretary was one of those men who likes a boy in his bed, and preferably a new eunuch, one not long cut. So the master had ordered Marcus, his estate-manager to pick out the best boy that he could find and have him gelded for the Secretary’s visit in a month’s time.

I have always done the gelding of slaves, just as I geld the horses. My master has no interest in eunuchs and the only times I have done it have been as punishment for sexual trespass. The last was a sixteen year old Greek slave who was caught with one of the household women. Before that there was the fourteen year old Slav house-servant who seemed to always have an erection and whom the master no longer trusted to keep himself contained, especially after he was found rubbing his prickle in a used garment belonging to the master’s wife.

But the idea of gelding a boy just to serve a man for three days was abhorrent to me. A male slave has not much in his life but the pleasures his balls can give him. To nut a boy and rob him of this pleasure, just for three days, seemed to be wrong.

Especially the boy Marcus had chosen.

He was a fathered by a Dacian slave, who was still now in his prime. The slave had sired more than ten children. His blood was good and the children he produced were not only fit and healthy but they were also good-looking.

The eldest was a boy, now fifteen. He had dark brown hair, grey-green eyes, and a creamy perfect skin. His smile was infectious. He also had the easy confidence of a slave who knows his own value. He also assumed that he would soon inherit the same position as his father, being permitted to sire children on a number of women slaves.

Now, all his presumptions were to be changed.

I had cleared a stall in the stables and tied the ropes ready at its four corners. It was where we usually gelded slaves. They’d be spread-eagled on the straw-covered floor, their legs tied to the two door posts, their hands to the end of the stall. Then I’d then kneel down and cut them. Marcus always stood over me and directed, when I gelded a slave.

I’d also got two of the other stable-hands to wait there.

Marcus was impatient with me when I reached the house.

‘You’re late,’ he said shortly. ‘I do have other things to do this afternoon.’

The boy was working in the kitchen courtyard. He was supervising some younger slaves as they moved sacks of grain to the pantries. He was laughing as he stood there because one of the smaller boys had trouble lifting a sack.

‘It’s bigger than you,’ he said, ‘take a smaller one.’

His voice was clear and crisp.

He was at his ease. He stood there, his legs placed apart and his back to us as he directed the younger boys. I could see the well-shaped rear, which had been his doom.

Marcus ordered him over to us. The boy approached confidently.

‘Follow us,’ Marcus curtly commanded, and the boy walked behind us to the stables.

This was the place where we usually stripped down slaves to check them and he’d been here two days before when Marcus had the best looking youths of the estate assembled so that he could choose which one would become the Secretary’s bedmate.

I had not been there but I could imagine the six or seven naked youths lined up while Marcus examined him with his cold attention.

So the boy was prepared when Marcus ordered him to strip again.

The two stablehands stood waiting behind me.

Both were visibly excited and their eyes gleamed narrowly. I always hated the way slaves enjoyed the humiliation of other slaves. It was always the same when I had to geld a slave. If I’d asked for volunteers to help me, there would have been a line.

When we had gelded the 14 year old Slav, Marcus had assembled some of the other houseboys of the same age to watch, so they could learn a lesson. But I noticed that they did not so much learn fear, as satisfaction that someone other than them was the focus of the gelding knife.

The boy was puzzled at Marcus’s request though.

For him, this second time made him curious, but he shed his clothes easily. His face was open and handsome. He had fine brows, a neat nose and full lips. His body was well-made. His skin was pale and only very lightly tanned. His nipples were broadening, though they were still small. He was also beginning to become muscled.

When he removed his trousers I could see the small flat patch of dark-brown hair above his prickle and his barely haired balls. His prickle itself was not big but, like his fathers, it was not its size but how it was used.

‘Check him,’ Marcus ordered.

I walked towards the boy. I really only needed to check that his balls were free and could be cut. I put one hand on his shoulder. His skin was pleasant to the touch. He looked at me, frowning slightly.

‘Now put your legs apart a little,’ I said. “I have to look at your balls.’

This was something that he knew was done as he approached manhood and his face became proud. I knew he thought he was perhaps being chosen to be put to a girl.

He put his legs apart.

His thighs were still hairless. I put my hand between his legs and felt his nuts. They were hard round stones in the softness of his sac. They would be easy to cut.

It was a quick examination.

Marcus was still annoyed.

‘Come on, come on’ he said. ‘The master will be waiting for me.’

I signalled the two stablehands over. It was simple from there on. They took the boy by his arms and walked him to the back of the stables. The boy was confused but went easily. He turned his back to us and I could see the creamy tight curves of his buttocks.

Then they paused in front of the stall. The boy could see the ropes and the gelding knife and the bowl by the door but he didn’t react for a moment. The slaves drew him almost up to the stall before he realised what was in store for him. Slaves passed to each other the stories of things and he knew that geldings were done like this, in a stall in the stables…

His just-deepening voice called out ‘No!’ Then he repeated it as the stablehands dragged him further in and flipped him down on his back. Then there was a struggle and Marcus and I could hear his gasps and half-protests. One of the stablehands sat on his stomach, while the other tied the boy’s arms to the far corners of the stall. We could see the boys legs kicking out, and between them his prick, his balls and a thin line of dark of hair beneath them.

Then once the boy’s legs had been secured to the doorposts, the two slaves left the stall.

The boy was still yelling, except now he begged for mercy.

‘Please don’t do this to me,’ he called.

But Marcus only made me gag him and I forced a rag into his mouth.

‘Let’s get him done, ‘ Marcus said flatly and impatiently.

I picked up the bowl and pushed it between the boy’s legs, right up the top, under his balls. He squirmed. Looking down on him, I could see his still-hairless armpits exposed. He kept on trying to raise his head. On his stomach, to the left side, I noticed just a small mole.

It was at that moment that Marcus chose to talk.

‘Now boy, you’re being gelded so that you can serve as a bed-servant for the Governor’s Secretary when he visits. It is important to the master that you serve well.’

It was a pompous speech. The boy struggled even more and his thighs shook. His prickle flopped loosely on the bed of his pubic hair but I could see that it was swelling slightly.

First I had to tie his balls. I took a strip of leather in which I’d already put a wide slip knot, took it over my wrist, grasped his balls firmly. They were round and full. I pulled them hard towards me and took the knot up over my hand, over his balls up to where they joined his body. My pull must have hurt him because all his muscles were taut.

‘Is that good and tight?’ asked Marcus.

I just nodded.

‘What about getting him hard?’

I knew Marcus thought that every youth, when gelded, should be stiff, and should spurt, but some did and some didn’t. The boy though now had a half-erection.

‘Tickle him up a bit,’ ordered Marcus.

I had to take his prick in my hand and caress it, while my other hand moved under his balls.

The boy’s eyes were panicked and I knew my effort was going to be useless. Even though the tie frequently does make them hard, he only got half erect.

‘Don’t worry,’ ordered Marcus, finally, with disgust in his voice. ‘Just get him done.’

The boy struggled more, lying on the straw of the floor. I was crouched between his splayed legs, his pale thighs and knees and his calves just darkening with hair. I reached for the knife and the boy lifted up his head to see it. His eyes widened even more. I could hear him trying to yell.

‘You not the first slave to lose his nuts, and you won’t be the last,’ said Marcus to him, with annoyance

I took they boy’s balls into my hand again. I could feel Marcus move closer to me, standing almost directly behind me.

‘I want a good neat job,’ he said.

I moved the slave’s nuts around a little, pushing his right one close to the wall of the sac. Then I moved my hand with the knife in downwards.

The boy arced with his hips upwards.

‘Be still,’ ordered Marcus.

I rested the knife against the boy’s sac with the nut behind it. Then, swallowing, I did what I had to do. I pushed the point of the curved knife into that tender skin and slit downwards.

The boy shook. He threw his head back and arced his hips in a rhythm into the air. Once the slit had been made, I pushed the ball through it. A pale blood-stained fluid wet my hand.

The whole round ball, pale white and pink, rested in my hand and the cord that linked to the inside was clearly visible. I cut it with the knife, but it was hard to sever and it tugged on the boy’s inside. His face was contorted with pain behind the gag. Then suddenly, he spurted seed from his half-stiff prick, a great pool of it, onto the flat of his stomach. I could smell its sudden ammonia smell amid the warm sweat of the boy’s fear.

I dropped the ball in the bowl

‘Good, good,’ commented Marcus. ‘Now get his other nut and we’re finished.’

The boy’s balls were clammy with fluid and blood. They were slippery but I managed to get the ball in position on the other side. The boy was groaning through his gag.

I did it quickly as I could, but with the first new slit of the knife, the boy shuddered again and arced. The pool of watery semen on his stomach was joined by more fluid which leaked out of his prick.

Then his other ball was in the bowl with the first.

‘Good,’ commented Marcus again. ‘ Now get him cleaned up and healed.’

He turned and walked away. I wanted to swear at him in my head. As I watched him leave, I saw one of the stablehands look at the other and grin with satisfaction.

‘One more look like that,’ I said, ‘and you’ll be down here.’

The look vanished from his face.

I had to tend the boy over the next week. He hated me and wouldn’t look directly at me. Each day, I had to get him to lift his shirt to expose his groin and thighs with that empty ball-sac there between them. And every day I cleaned him with salty water, until it had healed, with just two small vivid red scars down each side..

Then the Secretary arrived. The master laid on a banquet that first night. Towards the end the boy was presented to him. I brought him into the house. He was sullen, knowing what was about to occur. His face was hard and rebellious.

Marcus spoke to him angrily.

‘You’ll do this estate proud, boy’ he said, ‘ otherwise you’ll be out there getting strips torn off your back by the whip.’

‘Now strip him down,’ he said to me.

I looked at him. I hadn’t thought we’d send him into the banqueting hall nude.

‘The master wants his charms displayed,’ Marcus said sarcastically.

The boy stripped slowly and reluctantly. I saw his throat tighten and when he stood naked there, he kept his eyes closed for a long minute.

Then when I took him into the banqueting hall, he kept his head bowed, though every eye there was upon him. I stood him in front of the Governor’s Secretary.

‘I had him gelded for you,’ said the master, ‘to serve as your servant while you are here.

The boy stood there, his body perfect in the lamplight, the small patch of pubic hair visible beneath his flat stomach, his prickle dangling and, behind it, his empty ball sac.

The Secretary looked pleased, and the boy was seated below him, where he was given a glass of wine.

The next morning when the boy was returned to my care he was even more sullen. I could sense his anger. I made him turn around and show his rear to see if he had been split or not. He hated me for this reminder of his night, but he finally bent over. I parted his buttocks and inspected him. He was fine. Marcus later told me that the Secretary had taken him three times during the night.

And the boy was returned to the Secretary that night, then the next.

Two days after the Secretary had left Marcus ordered me to take the slave into town and sell him.

‘He’s of no use now,’ he commented.

The next day I stood in the slave market.

The slave was in a line of boys of a similar age. He was the only eunuch. Where their balls were full and round, his sac was empty. Where their futures were sometimes discussed in terms of their potency and ability to breed, his was one of servitude to masters who relished the thought of a ball-less boy in their bed, or as a body-slave to rich women.

A number of men looked at him. He had his body examined, his fine hair felt, his nipples pinched, his buttocks parted and his prick lifted up to expose his ball-less state. He stood with his head down much of the time, but when he raised it, I could see his fiery hatred for his position. That would ebb in time, I thought.

And his final buyer was the owner of a bath-house. I was asking a high price for the boy and finally I got it from someone who knew his value and knew also that that price would soon be recompensed. The boy would serve with his rear for a while in the baths, that was clear, to any man who had the money. And then, when he was a little older he’d be sold on as a house servant. It was the natural order of things. I could do nothing to change it now.