This is the thirteenth instalment of a story which will include descriptions of men physically abusing boys. If you do not enjoy such stories or are under eighteen please do not read it.
The story includes some deaths but it is not a snuff story. The deaths will not be described in a provocative way and are included only for story or character or plot development.
I write because I enjoy doing so. You are at perfectly at liberty to copy or post this story. If you do so I would be glad however if you would acknowledge my authorship.
I would be glad to receive any comments (pleasant if possible) or suggestions you care to make. Please send them to zelamir@hotmail. com. I will reply to any messages I receive other than those complaining that this story include descriptions of young boys being physically abused. That is what it is about. You have been warned.
Dictys took Marius by the hand and lead him from the dining room. Sulis stepped forward from where he was lurking in the shadows.
"You here?" Dictys said sounding not at all too pleased. "Take Mariullus to the dormitory and get a cloth soaked in cold water from the pump and lay it on his bum to take the bruising out. And don't come back here again.... If you're spotted you could get badly hurt."
He turned and hurried back into the noise and glare of the dining room. Scyrax was not a man who like to be kept waiting for his pleasures.
Marius stumbled sobbing quietly along the ever narrower and darker passageways that led to the boys' dormitory. He was conscious of little beyond the burning pain that had it's seat in the raw bleeding flesh of his bottom but seemed to fill his whole body. Sulis, shocked by the sight of the other boy's lacerated rump, for once was silent.
That night was a long one for Marius. The water soaked rag brought only momentary relief from the burning agony of his flagellated rump. He spent the night lying face down on the sleeping mat trying to suppress his whimpering so as not to disturb the other boys around him.
Sulis woke early in the morning. He gently lifted the towel from the other boy's raw bottom. Marius heard him draw his breath in sharply.
"You really caught it Mariullus," he said in awed tones. "You stay here while I find some ointment."
There was a general bustle in the long room as Scyrax's young slaves roused themselves for another day in the service of their master. A number paused to inspect Marius's bottom on their way from the room. They knelt beside him speaking in low voices their fingers lightly touching the livid welts that ribbed his flesh, sympathy for Marius equally mixed with respect for the young man who had inflicted so severe and vigorous a thrashing.
Soon the room was empty and silent. At last exhaustion brought relieve to Marius and he fell into a fitful dose.
He was roused from this by a loud wailing. It was unmistakably a cry of distress but not of a sort with which Marius was familiar. It was certainly not the blubbing of a freshly caned boy, a sound common enough in that house. Marius did not know it but it was not a cry of physical pain but of spiritual agony. It was the cry of creature bereft, a cry against the injustice and cruelty of life.
He heaved himself painfully to his knees and stared about him. At that moment Sulis appeared. He was moving in a strange stumbling run, his knuckles were pressed to his eyes and he was bawling his misery to the world with all the strength and volume that his young lungs could muster.
Marius forgetful of his own injuries in his concern for the misery of the other boy scrambled to his feet. Sulis stumbled towards him and a few seconds later Marius's arms were full of howling naked boy. He stood looking down on the top of the smaller child's head, feeling his face wet with tears pressed against his own chest. He had never seen Sulis in such a state before. The boy cried when he was beaten. What boy did not? But like boys in general he was a resilient little beast and when his bottom was not freshly striped he was cheerful and lively.
It was some time before Sulis did anything else than press his body against Marius's and howl his misery to the world. Marius, feeling utterly lost and helpless, hugged the boy to him waiting for the fit to pass. Even at this moment, though, his body shamed him. The feel of the younger boy's skin cool and silky smooth pressed against his excited him and his prick jumped to attention.
Sulis however appeared oblivious or uncaring of this and slowly the story emerged, frequently interrupted by renewed bouts of sobbing. Dictys was dead. He knew he should have gone to Felix for the ointment but the eunuch was cruel man who delighted in hurting boys. So he had gone to look for Dictys instead. Dictys was good and kind and would do anything he could to help. And now he was dead. The only person who really cared for him, the bravest kindest boy in the house, dead.
Sulis broke down again at this point but after sometime recovered and went on.
He had looked everywhere about the house for him. In the end he had gone to the dining room to see if he was helping clean the place up after the dinner. It wasn't Dictys's job to do such work but often the place was in a terrible mess a dinner and it would be like Dictys to turn up to help.
Here the narrative was interrupted again by another bout of crying as Sulis remembered the many virtues and kindnesses of his hero. With a couple of loud sniffs he continued.
The dining room had been in an awful mess, broken plates, food wine and vomit spilt on the floor. A team of boys were employed in cleaning it up but he could not see Dictys. He went into the room looking for him and then he saw him lying on the floor beside Scyrax's couch - dead.
Marius was unwise enough to ask at this point Sulis was sure he really was dead. This brought on a further fit of wailing.
He was quite sure, Sulis sobbed, remebering the horror of the thing he had seen..
Marius stood holding the younger boy close. He too was near to tears but he knew with all the maturity and responsibility that an eleven year old could feel for a child two years younger than himself that he must not give way to his own grieve. His job was to comfort Sulis and he could not do that if he too was crying.
"What is this abominable noise. Why are you two sluts idling your time away here? Why aren't you both working?" Felix demanded in his high pitched effeminate voice. The eunuch had crept up on the two boys unheard and was now working himself into a thoroughly enjoyable frenzy. Enjoyable that is for him who took pleasure in persecuting the boys of Scyrax's household.
"Sir," Marius blurted out, "I'm sorry Sir but Dictys is dead. Sulis has found his body and it's upset him."
As soon as he had spoken Marius knew he had made a mistake. Scyrax's secretary grabbed Sulis by the arm and wrenched him away from Marius. He spun the boy round and swinging the thick leather strap which the boy slaves all knew and feared began to flog the boy. "You ungrateful slut," the eunuch screamed shrilly. "You choose to ignore your duty to your Master who out of the goodness of his heart feeds and houses you to spend time weeping about a worthless slave brat. I'll give you some thing to really cry about. I'll teach you... I'll make you squeal .... I'll ...."
Leather cracked against boy's flesh. Sulis squealed as he twisted and leapt in the eunuch's grasp vainly trying to evade the cuts that Felix mercilessly rained upon his bare rump. Blow after blow slashed down across the boy's tender bottom until Felix short of breath stopped and stood panting. Sulis collapsed to his knees on the floor sobbing, his sorrow at the loss of his friend and hero temporally forgotten in his own physical agony.
"Get off with you," Felix shouted planting a kick on his raw bottom. "Do something to earn your keep. There's plenty of to do cleaning up after the dinner last night."
"And you too," he said turning on Marius, "Don't think you can spend your day lazing around just because you got hiding last night... Move or you'll have a taste of the strap too."
Clapping his hands over his bum to defend it from the secretary's strap Marius scuttled off after Sulis; reduced once more to a frightened, bare bottomed, little slave bra; his role as the protector of the younger boy forgotten.
Marius was glad to see that Dictys's body had been removed by the time he and Sulis reached the dining room. The two boys were sent to join a team of young slaves scrubbing the floor. For a time they worked side by side on their hands and knees in a silence broken only by the occasional loud sniff from Sulis. The sniffs became less frequent.
"Dictys wasn't worthless," Sulis suddenly muttered rebelliously.
"No, no he wasn't," Marius agreed in a placatory whisper keeping his head down and working away assiduously to avoid attracting the attention of the youth who was meant to be supervising them.
"He was good and kind. He was better than anyone else in this place," Sulis continued a catch in his voice. "We should tell the Gods so that they know he's not worthless."
Marius paused in his scrubbing. He hadn't thought about the Gods but now it seemed to him that Sulis was quite correct. They should be put right about the nature of Dictys.
"How can we do that?" He asked.
"We could pour a libation for him."
Marius thought back to his Grandfather's funeral, the smoking pyre, the professional mourners hushed for the moment as his father dressed in his best toga solemnly stood and raised the great silver wine cup chased with gold, his elder brother and sister standing silent beside him, his nurse holding his hand tight and whispering to him to stand still. He valued Dictys a great deal more than he did his grandfather, a cold and remote figure, but how could they possibly do anything like that for him? Yet he felt more and more that they should do something. It wasn't fare that he should leave this world without them doing something to contradict Felix's unjust description of him as worthless.
The two boys whispered urgently together as they worked. It was clear that Sulis had little idea of what was involved in a libation. He had only heard other boys talking of it. He was clear it involved pouring wine on the ground. Surely Marius and he could manage that? It would help the Gods understand that Dictys was a good person so they should do it shouldn't they?
There was no question of their getting hold of one of the silver goblets used in the banquet. They had all long ago been cleared away and locked up. Perhaps though they could find something that would serve in the kitchens. Wine too was usually hard to come by. The only time a slave boy was likely to taste it was if Scyrax or a guest of his took a fancy to the lad and let him take a sip from his cup. After the dinner however the dregs from the wine goblets would have been collected. These dregs would now be in jugs in the kitchen waiting to be poured into the swill bins for the pigs. They might well be able to steal of some of this.
Their plans completed the two boys, working away hard at scrubbing the floor, manoeuvred themselves behind one of the tables in a dark corner of the room. Abandoning their brushes and bucket they made a dart for the door. The groom supervising their work, bored with the tedium of watching eight tight naked boy rumps wriggling about in the air as their proprietors vigorously scrubbed the marble floor, had fallen asleep on one of the dining couches so they escaped unnoticed..
Half an hour later the two boys were arguing quietly but vehemently in a corner of one of the most distant cellars in the house as to which of them should say the invocation. Marius thought it should be Sulis as Dictys was primarily his friend. Sulis thought it should be Marius because the Gods would understand his patrician Latin better than is own slum argot. In the end Marius, recognising that Sulis had no idea of what to say, took the cracked earthenware cup that served them as a chalice and standing rigidly erect held it out before him saying as he poured the mixture of dregs of wine on the earthen floor as much as he remembered of the invocation. His young voice rang out sharply in the underground chamber for he had to speak loudly so that the Gods would hear him. Whether a libation given in this form by two naked slave brats both of whose bottoms bore the marks of recent beatings was as effective as one given in the full pomp of patrician ceremony and wealth cannot be known.
Three days after this, at evening assembly, after the routine business of the day had been discharged and a handful of boys thrashed for the usual minor misdemeanours, Marius was called by Scyrax from his place among the rows of kneeling slave boys. When he heard his name he knew the time for his sale had come. As he rose to his feet he touched Sulis lightly on the head. The other boy responded with a quick squeeze of his shin. These were the only farewells that were allowed them.
Marius stood in front of Scyrax his head bowed feeling the man's eyes on his body. Despite himself his prick hardened.
"You're a good boy Mariullus," the fat man chuckled softly, "I know you will sell well. Turn round now and let me see if you look as nice from behind as you do from in front."
Scyrax smacked his lips appreciatively. Indeed Marius had a delicious bottom, round and firm and deeply dimpled.
Marius shivered as he felt the man run his hand up the back of his thighs. The wheals left by the cane had largely healed. Only a light bruising remained that gave an added piquancy to the boy's beauty. Scyrax ran one podgy finger along one of the fading purple and red lines scored by the cane across the smooth curve of the boy's bum. Marius felt the man's breath warm against his back. The boy whimpered in excitement and Scyrax laughed.
"You're ready for it boy," he said softly. "And you won't have long to wait now. But we don't want any accidents in the night do we? We want you really hot in the morning so you show yourself well to the gentlemen."
"Turn round again and face me."
Scyrax picked up a narrow leather thong from the small table beside his couch. Leaning forward he slipped it behind Marius's scrotum. The boy realising what was about to be done started backwards but was caught by the shoulders by Felix who held him firm and growled at him to be still. Scyrax twisted the two ends of the leather thong together and drawing it tight and around the boy's small _c_o_c_k_ and balls knotted it firmly in place. Marius's prick deprived of blood drooped and became flaccid.
"The brat's so small it seems hardly worth bothering to do Sir," Felix, always looking for an opportunity to humiliate the boys whose _s_e_x_uality he envied, sneered.
"Better to have small balls than none at all," Scyrax answered the eunuch with careless cruelty.
Felix flushed and not daring to answer his master back, bit his lips in anger.
"Now the seal," Scyrax commanded.
Felix produced a stick of wax. A groom stepped forward with a lighted lamp. Marius felt the heat of the flame against his belly. Felix dropped molten wax onto the knot of the thong. A drop fell on the boy's bare skin and Marius cried out in pain. Felix always found ways of taking out his resentment at his emasculated condition on the boys subject to his whims.
"Don't make such a fuss child," Scyrax commanded pressing his ring into the soft wax. "Now I want to see that seal unbroken in the morning. If it is not I'll reduce you to the same state as Felix."
"Take him away" He commanded dismissing Marius with an open handed slap on his rump. One of the grooms stepped forward and taking the boy by the hand led him away. He was taken to a small cell at the back of the villa. He was chained by the ankle to a ring set in the floor. It was the first time that he had been chained since he had arrived at Scyrax's villa. Scyrax was a wise man and experienced in the handling of boys. He knew that boys were most likely to panic and try to run when facing alone the terrors of the unknown.
Later the groom returned with a steaming bowl of pork and bean stew and a chunk of black bread. The boys did not often get meat but Marius was to be well fed and rested in preparation for the next day.