This story is pure fantasy. It involves the physical and _s_e_x_ual abuse of young boys by adults. If you do not enjoy such stories do not read it. For earlier episodes please see author's archive. Any comment should be made to zelamir@hotmail. com. I will try to reply to all except those criticising the story on the basis that it contains descriptions of the abuse of minors. That is what it is about. You have been warned.
The days, indeed weeks, passed without Corax having any apparent suspicion that his orders had been countermanded by his son. Marcus however was not happy.
Gaius resolutely refused to have to have anything to do with him. He had called at his house only to be turned away at the door with the message that the boy was ill. Now he had been sent a message that he was not to call again because the lad was going to live on an estate of his uncle's in Southern Gaul.
The knowledge that he had deceived his father also made him miserable. He feared Corax, nearly everyone who had any dealings with the man did so, he also loved and respected him. He was a stern father but a caring one, a constant presence encouraging, comforting and when appropriate correcting. Marcus feared his father but he was confident of his love and he knew that he had, by deceiving him, betrayed that love. What made that knowledge more burdensome was that, since arriving at Rome he had some how seen much less of his father than in the past. It was as though they were drifting apart, perhaps it was his own feeling of guilt or perhaps it was simply that Corax had business to attend to, but he seemed to see much less of him and when they did meet they had little to say to each other.
Added to these two sources of misery, the hostility of his one time friend and the coldness of his father, was Marcus's disgust at the school he had to attend. Rhetoric he found boring and sterile. So far as he was concerned if you wanted to say something you said it. The only reason for dressing things up with high sounding phrases and complex grammatical structures was to hide the truth. If you spoke the truth then the more simply you spoke the more convincing you were. On top of this his fellow students, sons of the best famillies in Rome, were, to his mind, conceited ignorant prigs. Some might in time climb the greasy pole to power and influence but their world was a narrow one stretching little beyond the boundaries of the patrician famillies from which they came. Not one of them could understand his wonder at the immensity of the world and his fascination with it's unexplored margins.
In short Marcus was miserable because he was lonely and guilt ridden.
Finally he could bear it no longer. He could do nothing about Gauis's absence or the general, awfulness of his school and fellow pupils. He could still the nagging of his conscience with regard to his deception of his father.
The walk from his bedroom to his Father's study had never seemed longer. He knocked on the door and went in. Realising his hands were shaking he hid them behind his back. He could do nothing about the weakness of his knees and the sick feeling in his stomach. Corax and his secretary were sitting in the room.
"I have something to tell you Father," he said trying to sound confident but failing miserably to do so.
"Perhaps I had better leave?" the secretary suggested.
"No please don't. It concerns you as well or at least I involved you in it."
His father said nothing. He simply looked up at him coldly and enquiringly.
"It's...it's about Bestia." Marcus closed his eyes and blurted the whole story out. How he had discovered that the killer of the groom was Gauis not Bestia. How Bestia had kept silent to defend his friend. How he, Marcus, thought Bestia had behaved very bravely although he was only a slave. How he had arranged, in direct contradiction to Corax's orders, for Bestia to be sent to Britain to be trained as a clerk rather than to Sicily to be worked to death in the fields. It was not an easy tail to tell, especially to that audience, but he stuck stubbornly to his task.
Corax heard him to the end and then spoke.
"I was wondering when you would tell me," he said quietly.
"You knew Father?"
"A merchant from London wrote to me on business and at the end of his letter he referred to the new clerk in my office said how helpful he had been to him and remarked in the pleasantest of ways on my ability to spot talent and to attend to even the smallest of details."
"You won't send Bestia to Sicily now will you?" Marcus asked aghast.
"No. I haven't the time to be bothered with the brat any further. Anyway, by all accounts, he's proofing to be quite useful in London. That's not what concerns me."
"No Father."
"Why Marcus did you not tell me what you had found out about the killing of the groom and leave me to decide what to do about Bestia?"
Marcus forced himself to look straight into his father's face. He might be very angry with him but he would not have him think he was a coward.
"Because I thought you might still send him to Sicily."
"So you deliberately choose to deceive me."
"Yes Father."
"You know I will have to beat you," it was a statement not a question.
"Yes Father."
"Go to your room."
"It was a generous act and he owned up," the secretary ventured after Marcus had gone.
"I am not sure that generosity is a trait that should be encouraged," Corax replied dryly.
"At least do not keep him waiting too long. Waiting is often the worst part."
"We have much business to do and it must be completed. I doubt whether in this case the waiting will be worse than the beating," Corax added with a cold smile.
The secretary knew better then to interfere further in the matter and fell silent.
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For a short time after he reached his room Marcus felt if not happy at least relieved that he had made a clean breast of things to his father. It was not long however before fear replaced all other emotions. He remembered with terror Bestia's flogging, the way the lash had ripped the boy's back, the screams of pain, the crack of leather against bare flesh, the way the lad's body had leapt and twisted beneath the impact of the whip. As time passed his misery increased. Sitting hunched on the edge of his bed, shivering and sick with fear, he waited, dreading the moment he would hear his father's approaching footsteps.
He feared the lash and he dreaded disgracing himself under the lash. Time passed very slowly. The time for the mid day meal came and went but he did not dare leave his room in case, at the very moment he did so, his father appeared. At last, in the late afternoon, he heard Corax's firm tread in the corridor outside his room. He pushed himself up from the bed to meet him. The door opened slowly and his father walked in. He caught his breath as he saw the heavy whip curled in his father's right hand. Corax followed his gaze and nodded grimly.
Without waiting to be told Marcus pulled his tunic off over his head and stood naked before his father ready for the whip. Corax looked at his son's tense young body. He understood both the boy's pride and fear.
"You know I would not be doing this if I did not love you Marcus?" he said.
"Yes Father." The boys reply was a half audible whisper.
Corax took his son by one bare arm and lead him to the side of the room where a hook was set high up in the wall to secure the cord of the hanging lamp. He took a length of cord from his belt. He turned the boy to face the wall and passing the cord over the hook bound his wrists together. He desperately wanted to help the boy retain his pride. He ran his hand down his sons taught back and then letting it rest on the curve of his bottom.
"You thought Bestia was brave?" he asked.
"Yes Father."
"Well now is the chance for you to show me how brave you are."
He stepped back and measuring his distance carefully swung the whip back and then down with all his strength across his son's narrow shoulders. Marcus heard the lash's vicious hiss as it descended and braced himself for the blow. The pain, when it came, was far worse than anything he had expected. It was as though a red hot iron had been laid across his bare flesh. For a moment his breath was driven from his body.
"I must not scream," he told himself desperately. "I must not scream."
A second cut rung a low moan from him. A third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth followed but still he did not scream though his breath came in hoarse gasps and his body jerked convulsively each time the lash struck home.
Corax paused and stepped up to the boy. He could see that already the lash had broken his skin and blood was beginning to dribble down his back.
He reached round the boy and took hold of his chin turning his tear and snot stained face so that he could look down into it.
"You have shown me that you are a brave boy Marcus," Corax said gently. "You may scream now if you think it will help."
He kissed his son on the mouth, tasting the blood from where the boy had bitten through his lower lip, stifling his cries. He stepped back and resumed the flogging. Very soon Marcus was taking full advantage of his permission to scream. Marcus lost count of the strokes. Indeed he ceased eventually to feel the individual cuts of the whip. All he felt, all he was conscious of, was a searing all consuming pain. At last through the red haze that was closing about his mind he heard his father's voice.
"That's over Marcus. I hope it won't mark you permanently."
Marcus tried to say "Thank you Father," but he was not sure if he managed to speak the words.
Corax freed the boy from his bonds. He carried him across to the bed and laid him face down on the mattress.
"I'll send some one to dress your back," he said ruffling the boy's fair hair.
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Marcus woke with a start. It was still dark but there was some one in his room with a lamp. He turned to sit up and moaned as the pain from his raw shoulders and bottom tore through him.
"Marcus, Marcus." It was his father's secretary whispering urgently fear clearly written on his face. "Wake up, quick boy, quick."
"What is it?" Marcus demanded.
"I'm sorry to rouse you. I know you must be in pain," the man whispered urgently , " but you've got to get away. Some one's denounced your father to the emperor as a traitor and the Praetorian Guard are here. Your father left the house after he beat ..... that is to say earlier, so they've missed him but they'll kill the sons of traitors just as readily as the traitor himself."
"My father's no traitor," Marcus asserted loyally.
"Of course he isn't boy and I am sure we will be able to make the Emperor see that as well in time but for the moment he thinks he is and you must getaway before the soldiers find you or you are dead."
"What about my stepmother and half brother?"
"You needn't worry about them. It's their family who denounced him I think. I suppose they thought they would prefer the fortune without the man. They'll find soon enough that without Corax there is no fortune."
"But we haven't got time to talk. Get up please... You are able to walk aren't you?"
"Yes, just about," Marcus said getting painfully to his feet. "But I've got no clothes and where are we going."
"I'm sending you to a farm we have in the high Apennines. There's a cart that brought produce from there going back this morning as luck would have it. You're a slave boy in disgrace being sent up there to be a goat herd. I am sorry Marcus it's the best I can do. It's essential no one knows who you are. The overseer on the farm is a ex-veteran and loyal, so when you get there you can tell him who you are and he'll hide you until your father has sorted things out. I should have got a message to him explaining things by then."
"But..."
"There's no time for 'buts'. The state of your back will support the disgrace story. You've been caught thieving food and you'll have to wear this." The man suddenly produced a slave collar and before Marcus could protest snapped it in place about his neck. "Now come on."
The secretary hurried Marcus from the room and hustled him along a series of dark passageways towards the back of the villa. Far off they could hear screams and crashes as the Praetorian Guardsmen went about their work. Marcus's back was still raw from his beating and it was all he could do to keep up with the man as he dragged him along one hand clamped around his arm above the elbow.
They came around a corner and suddenly in front of them were two guardsmen, one with a drawn sword in his hand, the other carrying a flaming torch.
"Where are you going old man and who is that boy you've got there?" demanded the swordsman.
"He's just a slave boy Sir," the secretary said ingratiatingly. "I'm taking him down to the yard."
"A slave boy..He looks more like that traitor's whelp we're searching for, Marcus son of Corax. He's the right age and the right colouring and a bit too well fed for a slave brat." The man lifted the point of his sword so that it was level with Marcus's throat.
"No Sir, no, truly a slave boy. He's been caught stealing food Sir. Perhaps that's why he's a bit better fed than some of his sort. He's been whipped for it too. Look at his back. Is that the back of the master's son Sir?" The secretary swung Marcus round so that he was facing away from the Guardsman.
"Well he's been well flayed I'll say that. And a nice juicy little animal he is too for all the welts on his hide. That bottom's crying out for a _f_u_c_k_, bruised as it is. Come on boy brace yourself against that wall and push your bum out. Mine wont be the first _c_o_c_k_ you've had inside you, although it maybe the biggest."
Before the Secretary's horrified eyes the soldier dropped his loincloth and pulling back the front of his tunic revealing a massive prick.
"Sir don't. The lad's being sent to a mountain farm where there'll be little enough food for him to steal. The cart going there leaves at dawn. I must get him to the yard now."
"There's half an hour to dawn yet old man." The guardsman spat on his hand and rubbed saliva over his erect _c_o_c_k_. "There's time enough for me and my mate to _f_u_c_k_ the boy before then."
"You can have sole use of the whore," the second guardsman said. "I prefer them without balls and _c_o_c_k_s. Here give me your sword and get on with it. We don't want the Centurion catching you having fun."
"Well there's no accounting for tastes, though I think your fussy, this ones got so little between his legs that you can hardly tell what he is. Now get your bum out boy and brace yourself I've told you once already."
The man reinforced this order with an open handed clout across Marcus's raw rump causing the boy to squeal with pain. Marcus knew there was no escape. He had to submit if he was to survive. Obediently he bent forward resting his hands palm down against the corridor wall and pushing his bottom up, offering it to the soldier. The man licked his index finger, ran it down the cleft of the boy's bottom and then jabbed it hard into him. Marcus gasped as the pain hit him.
The finger was withdrawn and he felt the head of the man's prick pressing against his anus lips. The man dug his thumbs into the raw flesh of the boy's bum prizing the lad open. The man drove his _c_o_c_k_ into the boy forcing a passage past his sphincter. Still the man was not satisfied. He grasped the boy by his hips pulling Marcus back as he thrust forward burying his throbbing _c_o_c_k_ to it's hilt in the lad's bum. Marcus's shrill screams echoed in the corridor. He had been _f_u_c_k_ed before but gently and with love by men who actually cared for him. There was no love and no care this time, just lust and cruelty. This Marcus thought, as the pain tore through him, is how a slave is _f_u_c_k_ed. The man drove forward again. Marcus could feel the man's coarse pubic hair rubbing against his bum. Impaled on the soldiers pulsating _c_o_c_k_ it seemed to Marcus as though his whole body was being split open from his arse upwards. Again the man thrust forward with such force that he lifted Marcus 's feet from the floor ramming him head first against the corridor wall. Marcus felt the man come deep inside him. The man held him in place as he completed his orgasm and then released him. Marcus tumbled to the floor at his feet.
He was left in peace for a moment but only a moment. Kicks thudded into his ribcage.
"Get up whore," the soldier shouted. "Your jobs only half done. Come on lick your filth off me you lump of dog's _s_h_i_t_."
He seized the boy by his slave collar and hauled him up onto his knees. Marcus could see the man's prick hanging limply just inches from his face covered with _s_h_i_t_ and blood and cum. Automatically he pulled backwards. He had never had to do anything like this before.
"Oh too nice to do your duty by the men of the Praetorian Guard are you boy? Just let the little gentleman feel the point of my sword would you."
The secretary noticed that despite his rough treatment Marcus had an erection. The lad's enjoyed some of what has been done to him, he thought, trying to find at least some comfort in that reflection.
Marcus felt cold metal pressing into the back of his neck. Hurriedly he bent forward licking and sucking the filth from the man's limp member.
After a minute or two the soldier caught hold of him by the hair and pulled his head back.
"That's clean enough," he said and he drove his knee into the boy's face. Marcus tumbled backwards covering his face with his open hands. Blood squirted out between his fingers .
"What did you do that for," the secretary demanded dropping to his knees beside the whimpering boy.
"You should thank me old man for disciplining the little tyke." The soldier laughed harshly. "You seem over fond of the tart maybe I should finish the pair of you off anyway. Give me back my sword would you now."
"Come on, you've had your fun," his companion said. "Here's your sword but let's leave this. I want to find some nice young virgin cunt."
"By all I've heard of Corax you're more likely to find virgin girls here than virgin boys," his friend replied as they moved off together.
"Marcus, Marcus, I'm sorry," the secretary moaned crouching over the whimpering boy.
Marcus groaned and got slowly to his knees holding his hands over his bleeding nose.
"At least we survived," he muttered indistinctly. He put his free hand on the wall and pushed himself painfully to his feet. "We better get going before any more turn up."
They found the carter in the yard at the rear of the villa harnessing his horses in the cold grey light of early dawn.
"This is the boy you are to take back to the farm with you," the secretary said, half carrying, half dragging Marcus over to him.
"It looks as the poor little sod's been through it a bit," the carter observed staring at the boy's bruised face. Marcus's nose had stopped bleeding but blood still trickled down his chin from where the soldiers knee had split his lips.
"All right up into the cart with you."
Marcus painfully lifted one leg onto the base of the cart and tried to heave himself upwards. The carter swore as he saw the state of his back and the dark stain running down the inside of his legs. Without a word he lifted Marcus onto the cart and then vaulted up beside him. He carried him to the front and spreading some sacks on the boards, to make a bed, laid him down on them.
"Boys don't usually get sacks to lie on," he remarked, " but you've had a hard time by the look of it so I'll make an exception for you. But don't go making a mess on them. You hear me."
Marcus nodded humbly.
"Right, now, just to make sure you don't go wandering off." The man pulled a metal shackle, attached by a length of chain to the cart floor, across to Marcus and clamped it round his ankle.
The carter walked back to the rear of the cart and jumped to the ground.
"Here," the secretary said holding out to him a dozen copper coins, "that's to feed the boy and to give him any medical attention he may need."
"Thank you Sir," the man replied pocketing the coins. "The lad'll be all right don't you worry. Tough as nails boys are. The more you hit em the harder they get."
He walked round to the front of the cart and climbed up onto his seat. He cracked his whip and the two horses strained forward. The cart rolled ponderously out of the yard. The carter was grinning happily. He reckoned he could feed Marcus for less than a sixth of what he had been given. The journey would take three days. He would make a nice profit out of the boy one way or another.