This is the eleventh 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 include descriptions of young boys being physically and _s_e_x_ually abused. That is what it is about. You have been warned.

If anyone thinks that Scyrax was unduly lenient to sentence Sulis to a punishment of "only" six strokes and that the boy was making an unconscionable fuss about so mild a thrashing then I would suggest he has either neither experienced himself nor seen the damage that even a single stroke of the cane can cause to young boy's flesh if vigorously applied. Remember that Sulis was only nine years old, a small boy not a sturdy fifteen or sixteen year old, whose bum has been well seasoned to the rod. Remember too that Scyrax was not some school teacher or guardian of the nineteen fifties or sixties, the vigour of whose floggings were inhibited by the knowledge that the law put some bounds, limited though they might be, on the cruelties he could inflict with impunity on his charges. The law offered no protection to Sulis. It was an axiom of the law indeed that a man could do what he liked with his own property.

"Get across the bench now child. Don't delay things I've got a lot of boys to thrash this evening."

Sulis tried to get to his feet but his legs failed him and he collapsed back onto his knees.

"Come on boy before I loose my patience and double your punishment."

Dictys scuttled forward and with a fearful glance at Scyrax hauled Sulis to his feet. With the older boy supporting him Sulis made his way on shaking legs to the low wooden bench where so many young slaves had suffered. Reaching the bench the child appeared to freeze with terror. He stood trembling his eyes glazed and rolling like a calf taken to slaughter apparently unable to move.

Dictys slipped his arm about the younger boy's shoulders and whispered in his ear while easing him down across the bench.

"Dictys I am most grateful for your help although I don't remember asking for it," Scyrax remarked. Mild though his words were they made the boy pale and cringe away from his Master.

Scyrax turned his attention to Sulis now lying face down over the wooden bench.. He slipped his left hand between the boy's thighs and pushing forwards and upwards lifted the brat's bum so that it was raised ready for the cane. Satisfied that the boy was correctly positioned he stood a moment running his hand gently over the child's tight little bottom. The boys knelt silent watching in fearful anticipation. They knew that anyone of them could be called on to follow Sulis onto the bench at the whim of their Master or of his eunuch, the hated and feared, Felix. Scyrax delivered a sharp open handed slap on Sulis's bottom. The sound of his hand striking the boy's tautly drawn flesh rang out loudly in the silence.

He rested his cane across the child's rump carefully measuring his distance. Sulis tensed under it's touch, deepening the dimples on either side of his bottom. Scyrax lifted the cane high over his shoulder and paused looking down at the slim child's body stretched naked and defenceless before him. Scyrax's massive bulk towering over the boy's small body would have served as a symbol of the despotic power that nature has given the strong and brutal over the weak. All could see, as Sulis in his terrified boy's heart knew, that resistance was useless, escape impossible.

Scyrax waited a moment, savouring his power and enjoying the misery of his whimpering victim. Then he slashed the cane down with all his strength and weight behind the stroke. The rod hissed through the air with a deep terrifying whistle. It struck Sulis's naked bottom with a sharp crack which echoed round the silent courtyard. Scyrax laid the first stripe across the centre of the boy's bum. Sulis jerked convulsively but for a moment he was silent for the pain had driven the breath from his body. Then he screamed shrilly. Scyrax stood waiting until the boy was still again. He was in no hurry. He wanted the boy to have plenty of time to feel to the full every cut inflicted on him. The white streak that the cane had left across the boy's flesh reddened and darkened. At it's edges began to appear areas of deep purple and blue bruising. In time Scyrax knew the deepest bruising would add green and yellow to the colours decorating his victims body but that would not be for some time after the thrashing had been completed.

Scyrax raised the cane again. This time the blow was delivered about a quarter f an inch below the first stroke. Sulis was screaming before cane struck him, his bare feet beat a tattoo on the marble paving, his body arched and writhed as the agony coursed through him , tearing his nerve ends, destroying every sensation except that of the all consuming pain.

The cane rose and fell, the sound of wood striking naked flesh blended with Sulis's screams and the thumping of his feet as he leapt and twisted under the it's impact.

Scyrax with all the skill that came with many year of practice at flogging boys laid the strokes on methodically, each one parallel to the last, each one a quarter of an inch or so below the preceding one. The fourth he delivered exactly along the crease where the back of the boy's thighs met the curve of his bottom. That blow Scyrax knew would burn the hottest and longest. Not that Sulis, he resolved, would easily forget the last two. Slightly shifting his ground he delivered the fifth and sixth stroke diagonally across the boy's already well sliced bottom. Where each of these strokes intersected with the earlier weals dark droplets of blood began to form.

The flogging over Scyrax bent down to inspect his handiwork. A satisfied smile crossed his face. He knew the truth of the adage that a well marked bottom is a well beaten one and Sulis's was well marked indeed.

"Get up," he ordered reinforcing his commend with a slap across the sobbing boy's bruised and bleeding rump. Sulis scrambled to his feet and began on rubbery legs to make his uncertain way back to his place among the kneeling boys.

"No not there," Scyrax rapped, "go and wait by my couch. I have not finished with you yet."

"Now Felix," he continued, "what have you next for me?"

Felix consulted his tablets once more.

"Lysias Sir - gross impertinence in that he...."

Over the next two hours boy after terrified boy was summoned from among their kneeling comrades to take their places stretched over the flogging bench while the courtyard was filled with the sound of the crack of wood on tender flesh and the shrill screams of young boys under correction. After he had thrashed five boys Scyrax announced that he had cramp in his right arm and surrendered the cane to the Negro. As he was bigger and more powerful than Scyrax and flogged with energy and enthusiasm the boys did not notice any improvement resulting from his substitution.

Scyrax walked back to his couch at whose foot Sulis knelt and dropped panting on to it. He lifted his hand and a boy darted forward with a wine cup while another appeared with a bowl of cold water and a cloth with which he mopped his master's heated brow. Refreshed Scyrax reached out and lifted Sulis onto his knees and began to fondle him. Sulis whimpered as Scyrax's tunic pressed against the raw flesh of his bottom. His master took no notice but taking the boy's tiny balls between the fingers of one hand he gently played with them while with the other he stroked the boy's face. Sulis's child's _c_o_c_k_ despite his misery and pain began to harden. Scyrax hand dropped from the boy's face to his chest. He took the child's left nipple that had been nicked by the cane between his finger and thumb. He pinched it hard and blood began to well again from the reopened cut. Scyrax bent his head and licked the blood away.

Comparative silence had fallen on the courtyard. There was no sound now apart from the tinkling of the fountains and the suppressed sobbing of the boys who had had their bottoms flogged. The last boy stumbled unsteadily away from the bench holding his burning rump in his hands. Felix seemed to have reached the end of his list of young defaulters.

Scyrax noticed the silence and raised his head.

"What Felix is that all?" He asked. He sounded disappointed. "Do you not have any more boys for correction."

"I am afraid I do Sir," Felix replied though he did not sound at all upset. "Two boys I discovered in one of the store rooms Sir, having _s_e_x_ together. That is so serious an offence that I had them confined in the cellar unless they should try to runaway."

"Quite right Felix. Well done. Which are they."

"Nisus and Giton Sir."

"Have them brought here. I will make an example of them both. I will not tolerate such behaviour among my boys."

Felix gestured and two of the grooms hurried off. A moment later they returned holding by the necks two naked boys one about twelve with fair curly hair the other about sixteen a sturdy well built lad, dark haired, with the beginnings of a bush about his crutch. Both were somewhat bruised and both were very frightened.

The grooms released their grasps of the boys' necks. Nisus and Giton threw themselves to the ground at Scyrax's feet pressing their lips to the floor. Scyrax sat silent for a moment staring coldly at them. Then he spoke.

"You are thieves. You both know that your bodies and all the pleasure and service that can be rung from them belong to me and yet you deliberately choose to go off together to secretly pleasure each other. Furthermore I was preparing Giton to sell. I would have got a good price for him; a blond twelve year old virgin. I only sell top quality fresh stock. My reputation as merchant is all important to me. How can I sell such debased goods as Giton now is? Worse what would have happened to my reputation if you had succeeded in evading the watchful eyes of my good loyal Felix and I had sold him as fresh untouched flesh when he was in fact already damaged goods."

"As thieves you deserve to be crucified but as always I am merciful.... Perhaps too merciful. I will content myself with the usual punishment. Giton you will be whipped and sold for what you can fetch tomorrow as, what you are, a common little tart. Nisus you too will be whipped and then when you have recovered from that sufficiently to feel and know what is being done to you I will render you incapable of offending in a similar way again."

"Master," it was the older boy who spoke. "Please Master don't treat Giton like that. I got him into the store room by a trick Master. He didn't know what I planned and I didn't _f_u_c_k_ him Master. I just put my _c_o_c_k_ along his crack and .... You could sell him still for a good price. I didn't enter him Master. Punish me Master but not Giton."

I will most certainly punish you Nisus but I will punish Giton as well. He may not have known what you intended when you took him into the store room but he certainly new quick enough after that and he did not resist you. He did not cry out. He is as guilty as you."

"I told him I would kill him if he resisted or called out Master. It's not his..."

"And he put his miserable life above the duty he owed me his Master. He will be punished. Now be silent unless you want me to have your tongue removed as well."

"If Giton is to be sold tomorrow I may as well get as good a price for him as I can. You will be beaten boy but your shoulders and bottom will be unmarked."

"Fetch the staff."

A groom brought forward a wooden post somewhat thicker and longer than a broom handle. It was clear the men were accustomed to the procedure and knew well what to do. While two of them held the staff firmly at either end the other two ceased Giton by the arms and threw him roughly on the floor on his back.

"Tie his ankles separately to the staff and a little apart," Scyrax commanded.

Lifting Sulis from his lap he heaved himself to his feet and waddled over to where Giton lay. He checked the cord binding the boy's ankles to the shaft. Picking up a cane he lashed Giton hard between the legs bringing it slicing down across his testicles. Screaming the boy clasped his hand to his crutch. Two of the grooms grabbed him by the wrists pulling his hands above his head and pinioning them to the floor there.

"No stop Master stop," Nisus shouted jumping to his feet and running forward in a desperate and doomed attempt to help his lover.

The Negro stepped forward and slammed his fist into the boy's face. Nisus slammed to the floor blood streaming from his nose and mouth.

"Pick the brat up," Scyrax commanded. "I want to him to see his little whore punished."

Grinning Felix pulled Nisus back to his feet. The naked youth squirmed and twisted in the eunuch's grasp desperate to stop Giton's punishment but the man's grasp held firm.

"That's what you sinned with so that's what I'm going to beat," Scyrax said turning his attention back to Giton raising the cane for a second blow. Four times Scyrax cut the boy across the balls while the grooms strained to hold the beam steady and the boy's hands to the floors and Giton screamed and pleaded uselessly for mercy. Then he stepped back and signalled to the Negro.

The black man came forward to take his place. He was carrying a rod some what shorter and less pliable than a cane. The two men holding Giton's hands to the floor stood up and grinning, prepared to watch the fun. The Negro began to beat the boy across the souls of his feet with the rod. The strokes were not so very hard but they were delivered firmly and steadily, blow after blow. The first few Giton lay quiet under but very soon he was screaming and thrashing about on the floor as the pain mounted and consumed his whole body. The thump of the rod across the child's bare feet, his howls of pain, the thudding of his hands and head on the marble floor as he threw himself about in agony and the cruel laughter of the watching men as they enjoyed the spectacle, dominated the otherwise silent garden.

At last the boys screams began to weaken, his writhings to get less wild.

"That's enough Scyrax rasped, "release him."

The grooms undid the cords binding the boy's ankles to the pole. Scyrax looking down into the his tear and snot stained face kicked him hard in the ribs.

"Get to your feet slut," he ordered.

Giton obeyed and then the hilarity of the watching men knew no bounds as he hopped in agony from foot to foot. It was as though he was walking on burning coals and indeed that was exactly as it felt to the boy. Finally he dropped back to his knees on the floor unable to stand the agony any longer.

"Get out of the way," Scyrax ordered disgustedly kicking Giton in the bottom and sending him scuttling on all fours to one side.

"That's the entree out of the way. Now for the main course. String the other brat up by his wrists and flog him."

Two grooms took the struggling Nisus away from Felix and dragged him over to where Scyrax stood. A rope was thrown over a beam of the pergola. An end was tied round Nisus slim boy's wrists fastening them in front of his body. The rope was drawn tight so that Nisus stood his hands drawn above his head the tips of his toes just touching the floor.

Scyrax ran his hands over the boy's taut body. Saliva dribbled from a corner of his mouth. The front of his tunic bulged where it covered his crutch. It was clear that the man was very aroused.

He walked back to his couch. Before he seated himself he pulled off his loincloth and lifted his tunic above his waste revealing a vast belly covered in a matt of dark hair. His _c_o_c_k_ erect and demanding pressing up against his somach's bulging overhang. He collapsed on the seat and reached out for Sulis. This time he did not lift the child on to his lap but pulled the face down into his crutch. The back of Sulis's head began to move violently and there were damp sucking licking sounds as the boy got down to his work.

Scyrax glanced at the Negro and nodded. The black man picked up the whip. It's lash of plaited leather, well oiled, glistened darkly and moved in his hand like a live thing, a thick black snake, coiled and ready to strike. He carefully measured his distance and then swung the whip back over his shoulder. Bringing his right foot forward so that he could bring the whole strength of his body into play he brought it ripping down across the boy's bare shoulders. Leather impacted on bare flesh with an unmistakable crack. The lash curled round the boy's body, it's tip splitting the tightly drawn skin of his chest. The force of the blow knocked the boy off his feet and for a moment he swung suspended by his wrists as his feet scrabbled desperately for purchase. The scream when it came was shrill, loud and scarcely human.

The Negro plied the whip mercilessly. The boy leapt and twisted under it's impact in a wild dance of suffering and pain. Blood trickled down the boys back and flanks as the lash tore his skin. Each time a blow landed a light red haze would be thrown up and once or twice the watching grooms had to wipe the splattered boy's blood from their faces. For a time the boy's screams combined into a constant high wail but as the flogging progressed it's volume abated until the only sound coming from the lad was a low grunt each time the whip struck home. The Negro having well bloodied the boy's shoulders turned his attention to his buttocks. Now Nisus had ceased to struggle to keep his feet. His body simply hung limp suspended from his wrists jerking to and fro under the impact of the lash.

Scyrax cried out. A moment later Sulis hunkered back on his knees, cum trickling down his chin.

"Stop," Scyrax commanded, "the brat's not feeling the whip any more. Throw some water over him."

Two grooms hurled buckets of water over the boy's inert body. Water pouring down his body took on a pinkish tinge from his bleeding shoulders and rump. Nisus moaned and his toes scrabbled weakly at the wet sand. Scyrax walked over to him and taking his chin between his finger and thumb tipped his drooping head back. The boy in his agony had bitten through his lower lip. Blood mixed with tears and mucus trickled down his chin. Nisus eyes blinked open. He stared about himself wildly and then his eyes focused on Scyrax's face. He screamed loudly. Laughing Scyrax bent forward and kissed him hard on his lips.

"Make the boy's file pass him so that they can see what happens to slave brats who break the rules. Then cut him down and tend his back. When he can walk again bring him to me. I want him to feel the knife and know what is being done when I complete his punishment."

"Dictys take our new little friend Mariullus together with Sulis to the dormitory and see them settled there. Then come back here. I want you tonight."

Dictys bowed and collecting the two exhausted smaller boys led them further into the interior of Scyrax's great mansion. Crastus himself sat on his couch beaming indulgently as the boys filed silently out of the garden gazing with horror filled eyes as they passed Nisus's well whipped body. A gang of boy's began to sweep up the sand scattered over the marble paving.

The boys slept at the very back of the house. Their dormitory was a single long rectangular room spotlessly clean, with barred windows set high in bare white washed walls and a well scrubbed tile floor.

Dictys collected a sleeping mat from by the door and spreading it on the floor settled his two charges on it. Sulis whimpered quietly for a second or so but he and Marius were soon soundly asleep. The older boy stood looking down at them for a brief moment a half smile on his face. Dictys longed to love and be loved. In the claustrophobic atmosphere of Scyrax's house, where boys once admitted did not leave except to be sold, it was only possible for him to love his own kind. But even that he dared not do. Nisus's agony showed the fate that awaited those who sinned against Scyrax's rules in that respect. Regretfully he turned away. Scyrax wanted him and he knew he must not keep him waiting. Surprisingly his step was quite light and eager. He knew he would find no love and some pain in Scyrax's bed but _s_e_x_ at least provided a momentary escape from the terrors and frustrations of slavery.