This is the fifth instalment of a story which will include descriptions of men abusing boys both physically and _s_e_x_ually. If you do not enjoy such stories or are under eighteen please do not read it.
The story will include 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 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 includes descriptions of young boys being physically and _s_e_x_ually abused. That is what it is about. You have been warned.
The two boys followed Grynium from the room. Marius could hear Pulchellus snivelling beside him as they padded on bare feet along the marble floored corridor. His sympathy for the Pulchellus's suffering overcoming his dislike of the boy he silently offered him his hand.
Pulchellus brushed it to one side contemptuously. His tears were not only of pain but of anger and humiliation.. He knew he was something special. His old master had often told him so. He was the best little tart on the place, the liveliest _f_u_c_k_ with the sweetest bottom and the nimblest tongue and now he had been stripped and beaten as though he was just a common little slave brat. He did not want sympathy from Marius whom he knew had despised and disliked him when he was free. He had resented the younger boys privileges then Now that Marius had been reduced to the same servitude as himself he could safely hate him and did so. He hated him because of the slights he had suffered from him in the past. Slights not intended or noticed by Marius but felt and remembered by Pulchellus. He hated him also because Marius had witnessed his humiliation and punishment at the hands of Crastus.
Pulchellus was already, even in his misery, planning to win the favour of Crastus as he had of his old master Echios. If he could do so and at the same time get Marius in trouble it would be all the better. Not only did he hate the other boy. He saw him as a rival. Pulchellus felt no sympathy with his fellow slaves, no solidarity. He sought only to help himself and who could blame him? It was a cruel world and a slave boy's life was of small importance.
They arrived at the kitchen. For a moment the Pulchellus and Marius were unnoticed in the bustle and heat of the large room. Then one of the half naked youths engaged in washing saucepans at the great sink just inside the door saw them. He grinned and nudged his neighbour. A whisper ran round the room.
"Pulchellus sweetie," a mincingly affected voice enquired, "is your poor little bottom sore?"
"Did the nasty Master whip your bum Puchellus," giggled another.
Pulchellus blushed crimson as the other slaves taunted him. Then a grinning naked boy flicked a wet dish towel at his raw rump snapping the cloth painfully against his sore flesh. Pulchellus spun round to face his tormentor and another youth darted up behind him and slapped him across the bottom. Marius knew it was common practice to tease boys who appeared in the kitchen bearing marks of a recent beating on their bums. He had seen it often before, freedmen and slaves, young and old, joining in the process but on this occasion it had an extra edge of violence and cruelty. The bailiff was not a popular man and his favourite and spy less so. Now, with Pulchellus deprived of his protection, the workers in the kitchen took the opportunity of settling old scores. A small boy kicked him. A much larger youth clouted him on the side of the head. Soon kicks and blows rained down on him from every side. Helpless to defend himself he sank to his knees trying to cover his head with his arms.
Grynium turned back and tried to drive Pulchellus's tormentors away from him but as fast as he knocked one off the boy another darted forward to take his place.
Marius unnoticed in the excitement wriggled clear of the crowd about and ran across the kitchen to where the cook, usually a stickler for discipline in his domain, stood by the stove, a heavy ladle, in his hand watching the commotion a faint smile on his fat cheerful face.
"Daedalus" panted Marius and then seeing a frown cross the man's face and remembering his own changed status adding a hasty "Sir". "Daedalus Sir please stop them. They'll really hurt him soon of you don't."
Daedalus began to move ponderously across the room towards the centre of the disturbance. He still did not hurry himself. He remembered a dispute with Echios during which the bailiff had alleged over ordering of provisions and the part that Pulchellus had played in trying to bring to an end this, in his view traditional, perquisite of his office.
Pulchellus was down on the floor. He could hardly be seen beneath the surging mass of boys and youths struggling to get at him as the older onlookers cheered them on.. In fact the sheer number of his assailants alone probably prevented him from being seriously injured. Arrived at the fray Daedalus wasted no time. He laid about himself with his ladle cracking it down regardless on close cropped heads, bare shoulders and bottoms. The boys scattered leaving Pulchellus crouched on the floor, his hands clasped on top of his head, blood swelling from between his fingers and trickling down his face.
"What do you mean by coming in here and creating chaos in my kitchen," Daedalus demanded, satisfied that order had now been restored and following the well tried political expedient of blaming the victim for the acts of the aggressor.
Marius hesitated hoping the some one else might answer the cooks enquiry. He saw Puchellus was still down on the floor while Grynium was prodding him with his foot and cursing the boy out for allowing himself to be injured. Daedalus repeated his question with increased anger. Marius realised that he would have to reply to it although he feared that what he had to say would do nothing to decrease the cooks irritation..
"Sir .. Please Sir, he said you were to send him some wine and he said that it must be the best in the cellar."
Daedalus looked down into the nervous frightened face of the boy and his anger evaporated. He had always had a soft spot for Marius and that continued even after the boy's loss of freedom. That did not mean that he would continue to treat Marius in the same way as the past. The boy was a slave now and would be treated as such. Daedalus could clearly remember the day when the tax collectors had called at his father's farm and taken him to pay his father's debt. He did not blame his father for letting the men have him. It was either him or the family's sole oxen and without that they would have all starved. The fates had decreed that he should be a slave and they had done the same to Marius. He had had to accept that in his time and now the boy would have to as well. It was a hard fate but it was part of the natural order of things and must be accepted. Before he had treated the boy with the friendly respect due to the Master's son and provided him with the occasional the sticky sweet almond and date cakes of which the boy had been so fond. Now he regarded the boy with the amused indulgence which you would accord to a puppy or any other lively young animal.
An indulgence though that had it's limits. A young animal may be played with it must also be broken and disciplined. There was something about Marius's reply to his question that did not please him.
"Who did boy?" He asked harshly
"He did Sir. The man......"
"I know he is a man. You said so before," Daedalus was getting irritated again. He had dinner to prepare and could not spend an indefinite amount of time trying to teach this boy, pretty as he was, manners. He lifted his hand to strike Marius with the ladle.
"Who is he," he repeated. "Who is he to you. Tell me boy."
"My.. My .. Master Sir," Marius muttered overcome by shame, staring at the ground and rubbing one bare foot against the shin of his other in embarrassement.
"Yes he is your Master and don't you forget it boy. Now give me his message properly. Look me in the face and speak up."
"Please Sir my Master says he wants some wine and it must be the best in the cellar."
"That's better boy. Now I'll get the wine. It's the stewards job but he's off on business and he's left me the keys. I'll try to find something decent for your Master to put him in a good temper with you."
He hurried off leaving Marius standing alone in the kitchen. He saw that Grynium had tired of kicking Pulchellus giving Selia an opportunity to practice her healing skills on the boy. She was seated on a stool, her skirt pulled up above her knees, with the boy kneeling between her legs. He had his head bowed while the woman, the fingers of her left hand parting the boy's hair to expose the torn scalp, pored white powder on the open wound to staunch the bleeding.
"Miss please," Pulchellus was pleading urgently as she worked on him, "please just let me have a bit. Just enough to grease me. Please Miss. There's four of them Miss and they're all going to _f_u_c_k_ me and I'm sure they're bigger than Echios."
"I expect they are Pulchellus." Selia sounded amused, "From all I've heard your last Master was not much of a man. Although being a woman I wouldn't have first hand knowledge of his _c_o_c_k_."
"And no I won't let you have any grease. Not unless your Master says I should. Maybe he wants your bum to be _f_u_c_k_ed dry.. Perhaps he's looking forward to tearing you. Then where would I be if I'd spoilt his fun?"
Pulchellus shuddered. Selias speculations about the tastes and wishes of Crastus seemed to him to be all too likely to be well founded.
"Miss I won't use it unless he say's I may," he said desperately. "I promise Miss ...really... Please Miss."
Selia satisfied the flow of blood had been stopped tipped back the boy's head and picking up a damp cloth began to wipe the dried blood from his face.
"You must think I'm pretty stupid Pulchellus," she laughed, " if you think I'll believe a word that you or any other slave brat says. All of you will say anything and swear anything to escape being hurt."
"Please..."
Marius's attention was suddenly distracted by a sharp clip on the side of his head. He swung round rubbing his stinging ear to see that Daedalus had returned from the cellars.
"If you can spare me a moment of your time boy," the man said sarcastically. "I've brought two jugs of wine for your Master."
He nodded to the table beside him on which stood two large silver ewers brimming with dark red, almost purple, wine. Marius gazed at the jugs. He had only seen them fleetingly in the past, being carried into the dining room when his father was entertaining some of his special cronies to dinner, occasions deemed unsuitable for a free boy of his age. He had noticed however that although he was banished to bed there were always many slave boys of his age and even younger in attendance. The jugs he saw were finely and elaborately decorated. Satyrs with monstrous erections chased young naked boys through wooded glades or successful in their pursuit buried their monstrous _c_o_c_k_s in their prey's slim bodies.
"Pay attention boy," Daedalus snapped,. "Are you paying attention?"
"Yes Sir."
Marius screwed up his face in to what any onlooker would see as a comical grimace of apprehension. He had seen and laughed at Daedalus carrying out this little entertainment of his often enough in the past to know what was coming to him. He knew people in the kitchen were turning to watch the fun.
"Well keep your hands down by your side then."
Daedalus picked up his heavy ladle and brought it down hard on the crown of Marius's head.
"Are you listening boy?"
"Yes Sir."
"You are to tell your Master that this wine is choice Fallernian from the upper slopes. It dates from the first year of the riegn of the Divine Augustus [it would have been about twenty years old : author's note]."
"What are you to tell your Master."
Marius standing to firmly attention his hands firmly down against the side of his bare thighs, his face twisted in fear of the blow that he knew was to come, recited in his clear boy's voice, "I must tell my Master the wine is choice Fallernian from the upper slopes and it dates from the reign of the Divine Augusts."
"Don't forget boy." Daedalus banged the ladle down on the top of his head again making Marius's ears ring.
"Now," Daedalus continued turning to Grynium, "if the other boy is ready the two of them can carry a wine jug each and you could take the tray with the four silver goblets. I wouldn't trust the boy's with them. They would be certain to drop them. Perhaps they will manage not to spill the wine especially as they know that if they do so their backsides will feel the strap."
"What about our dinner?" Grynium demanded roughly.
"It will be artichokes with fish pickle sauce, followed by boiled pork stew with olives and then figs in honey to finnish. Send the boys down in half an hour to fetch the first course."
"That sounds all right," Grynium said ungraciously and stumped from the kitchen. Daedalus pulled a rude face at his back. Like nearly everybody else whose paths crossed those of Crastus and his men he was ready to do anything they wanted in the hope that if he did they would go away quickly and inflict themselves on some one else.
The men quickly emptied one of the jugs of wine. Pulchellus was sent to the kitchen to get a refill while Marius was kept busy topping up the goblets with wine. The silver jug was heavy and he had to use both hands to pour the wine leaving him defenceless against the pawing hands of the increasingly drunken men. As he poured the wine their rough hands strayed over his body, caressing the inside of his legs, stroking his bottom, fingers toying with his small _c_o_c_k_ and tiny hairless balls, poking and prying into the most intimate recesses of his body. The men frightened him especially Crastus. He could not look at his heavy strong body and a his broad hands with their hairy backs and thick stubby fingers without remembering that the man had first raped both his brother and his sister and then killed them. He hated the man but despite his revulsion at having to submit to the Crastus's hands pawing his body he found himself becoming increasingly excited and he despised himself. Surely he could not get pleasure from the caresses of the man who had treated his own brother and sister so cruelly but his stiff boy's _c_o_c_k_ betrayed the shameful fact that he did.
Pulchellus returned from the kitchen with more wine having been spared on this occasion the bullying he had had to earlier endure there. The men became drunker and wilder. Pulchellus circulated with the new refilled jug lingering by each man he served, wriggling his little bottom invitingly as he moved about the room, his lips half parted, his eyes glazed with lust. Marius tried to fade into the background but Crastus soon demanded a fresh service from him.
"Bring the empty jug here boy I want to pee," he shouted. Marius knelt at his feet holding the jug ready. A stream of tart smelling amber fluid jetted from Crastus's _c_o_c_k_, only a few inches away from the boy's face, and filled the bottom of the ewer with frothing urine. Marius, who had never seen a man's _c_o_c_k_ so close before, wondered at its size and the great blue veins that ribbed it. He also wondered how Pulchellus's bottom would accommodate so monstrous an object. Hardly had Crastus shaken the last drops of liquid from his prick and wiped his fingers dry on the boy's hair than another of the men was shouting for him. Marius went from man to man as they emptied their bladders into the increasingly heavy jug.
Varro was the last to call for him. Marius knelt at his feet holding the jug, now more than three quarters full of steaming pee a few inches from his face as the man relieved himself. When Varro was finished a single bead of fluid hung from the tip of his penis.
"Lick it off," the man ordered grinning down into Marius's shocked face.
"Don't hurry the boy," Crastus shouted from across the room. "I don't want to do anything that will cut his value on the auction block. He'll learn soon enough don't you worry."
"Marius give that jug to Pulchellus," he continued, " and come over here to me it is time we got better acquainted. After all I knew your big brother and sister very well," he added with a brutal laugh.
Pulchellus pushed Marius to one side. He seemed eager to take his place. He lent forward the tip of his tongue licking the droplet of pee from the end of Varro's _c_o_c_k_ and lingering a moment to exploring the man's slit.
"Marius," Crastus's voice had assumed an edge of impatience, "come here."
Marius rose to his feet and began to walk towards him fearing what was to come next but at the same time deeply excited.