Prologue

A summary of Book 1 and Book 2 summarizing the travels of Nico Ribeiro from the age of fourteen to the age of twenty and the development of his major beliefs. In Book 1 he travels to the Kongo, Barbary coast, Italy and Cairo where he becomes separated from his father and travels the middle East to Istanbul and east to Samarkand and then south and west to Mecca and Abyssinia before returning to Cairo and home shortly after his sixteenth birthday. On the way he learns much about boy love and his own sexual orientation. In Book 2 he travels with Christopher Columbus to the West Indies where he jumps overboard and travels across the southern United States, Mexico, Central America, Peru, and the Amazon where he broadens his experiences in boy love and learns from the tribes he encounters, including the Aztec, Maya, and Inca during their peak before European contact. 

Codes: Mt, tt, tb, consensual, interracial 

Age of main characters: Nico 14-20 yo

Spoiler Alert: The following account reveals key events in the twenty-seven chapters of Book 1 and the twenty-six chapters of Book 2. Its purpose is to aid the faithful readers' memory and provide an easy reference to past events, or to provide background information about Nico and his travels for those who have not read the first two Books of this quad-ology.

My friends and family call me Nico though I am known by many names. I was born Nicolau Bernardim Ribeiro in the Portuguese port and trading centre of Viano do Costela on April 14^th in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and seventy-six, the first and oldest son of João Nicolau Ribeiro and Maria de Resende, and the second oldest child of five. A month after my fourteenth birthday, much to my great delight, and, like any boy at that age, full of arrogant pride, I left school and travelled with my father and my mother's brother, Uncle Paolo, up the Kongo River, following the route taken by our illustrious countryman Diogo Cao who had discovered the river only eight years earlier, Father and Uncle, being renown and daring merchant sailors even in those days, in search of new trade items and the fabled kingdom of Prester John.

I quickly discovered being a sailor involves much hard work, even more so when you are the son of the captain for everyone expects that much more of you and a father's expectations are higher than they are for the sons of others, as it should be. The voyage, however, also affirmed my love of the sea and of the life of a sailor which has never changed since. I also discovered why Uncle speaks with such passion of his travels. There is nothing more exciting than travelling to new lands, and what you learn from meeting people of different customs you can never learn from books or schoolmasters, which I hope these Journals of my travels shall reveal. They will also reveal travel into unknown lands is most dangerous, good reader, and filled with surprises, both good and bad, and so, be forewarned.

Upon encountering the black heathens of the upper reaches of the river, the Bakongo, I was greatly shocked to see the women walking brazenly about bare-breasted and the young, male and female alike, going about as naked as they were born without an ounce of shame. As a fourteen-year-old innocent I found it difficult to avert my gaze with such temptation flaunted before my eyes and why the males of the black persuasion are so lustful became clearly understood. Even more shocking, on our first night with these heathens, Father, Uncle and I were provided young girls to bring us pleasures of the flesh, and when we declined as graciously as we could, finding the provision most vulgar and offensive as any Christian with proper upbringing would, much to my surprise we were offered young boys in their place, and were informed by our interpreter that to decline a second time would be insulting to our hosts, and would perhaps even result in our deaths!

Now I warn you, good reader, what follows and will be found in my Journals is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended or those of pure mind. You would likely think, as I did in my innocence, that the six-year-old boy accompanying me was sent to play the role of a servant. Much to my surprise and consternation, he instead assumed the role, most willingly, of a bed partner and introduced me to the profane and hitherto unknown pleasures of the flesh that can be engaged in between two boys, something which I engaged in most unwillingly and only because I feared for my life, but which I must shamefully confess, I eagerly participated in before the night was over so great is Satan's temptation. Although in darkness and in separate rooms, from the sounds in the night the two ten-year-old boys assigned to Father and Uncle did likewise and I could only imagine their revulsion and disgust being forced to engage in such wicked practice.

Upon our return to Portugal, Father and Uncle reported our discoveries to King João, at least those that decent men would reveal, neither Father, Uncle nor I having mentioned even to each other those hot, sweaty nights in the jungles of the dark continent succumbing to Satan's perverted temptations. Father and Uncle requested financing for further trade explorations and while the king deliberated, I was introduced to horseback riding, a most uncomfortable and terrifying experience that convinced me man was not meant to ride beasts more suited to pulling wagons, and was questioned by the king's recently married fifteen-year-old son, Prince Afonso, about the black heathens of Africa and rumours regarding their nakedness and lustfulness, which I confirmed were not rumours.

Our discussion of such lewd behaviour stirred unhealthy desires in my loins, and his, which is quite understandable considering Satan's deviousness and power but of which I was unaware of at the time. Those foul desires led to the two of us and his bastard nine-year-old brother Jorge engaging in prohibited intimacies condemned by everyone I knew, and then the Prince and his Castilian valet and I indulging in further carnal pleasures with the two prepubescent sons of a local fisherman.

I was much surprised, and I again shamefully confess, aroused by the revelation that brothers would engage in this cardinal sin with each other and in the presence of each other. I was also sorely frightened knowing that the power of Satan was such that nobles and peasants alike could fall into his perverse temptations despite their strong Christian upbringing, and I prayed fervently for forgiveness and redemption, for myself and for my Prince whom I otherwise found to be an upstanding model for all Portuguese and good Christians to follow. That I found much pleasure in these carnal exploits caused me much guilt and many sleepless nights despite my Prince's justification that sex between a man and a boy was for pleasure whereas sex between a husband and a wife was a duty and so there was nothing wrong with a man engaging in both, something which I was sure Father Francisco would strongly disagree with.

Receiving a commission to pick up spices at Cairo and to secretly check out the possibility of a trade route to the Red Sea and to discretely inquire into the fate of two envoys our gracious king had sent to the area earlier, Father and Uncle began making arrangements and I accompanied Prince Afonso and his wife of four months, Isabella, to Madrid on a show of faith and support to her parents, the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon, and so Afonso could spy out their plans for exploration. On the way I sensed a great hostility to Afonso, an unthinkable behaviour for any loyal and decent Portuguese citizen, and I witnessed first hand the horror and brutality of the Spanish and their inquisition, witnessing the torture of Marranos, Jews falsely professing to be Catholic, and the burning at the stake of Moors, profane and perverted peoples who are said to have introduced sodomy to Spain and who have been, praise the Lord, expelled from Portugal some two hundred years now. In one instance I witnessed an inquisitor force a son to have carnal knowledge with his father, a scene so vile it sickened me to my stomach and brought the taste of bile to my mouth. I was most glad to leave such hostile and savage peoples as the Spanish who have no right to claim themselves civilized. On our way back to Lisbon, I, Ahmar (a young Berber thief with whom in my mortal weakness I had engaged in carnal sin not just once but several times) and the Moor Mustafa thwarted an assassination attempt on Prince Afonso, for which we were greatly rewarded by King João.

And so we embarked on our mission. En route across the Great Sea, a storm drove our ship to the Berber coast of northern Africa where while our ship was being repaired I learned much about the life and customs of the Berber people and, I shamefully confess, the techniques of making love between males, and succumbing to these carnal pleasures, I found myself, much to my surprise and shame, falling in love with the fourteen-year-old thief, Ahmar and falling further into the diabolical clutches of Lucifer.

With the repair of our ship, we continued on to Rome to seek financial support and blessing of our mission. Feeling great guilt over engaging in carnal relations with others of my gender, I was most shocked and most confused to learn that Moors and Jews given as slaves to Pope Innocent VIII to Christianize were in turn given to select cardinals and favourites to convert, or more commonly, to sodomize! Adding further to my confusion was the discovery that a highly respected Cardinal, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, a strong candidate to become our next Pope, Pope Innocent clearly being of ill health, sought the pleasure of both women and members of his Swiss Guard! Even more bewildering was the discovery that a choirboy from our hometown had become a castrati to preserve his singing voice. The thought of one willingly having his testicles cut off just to preserve his voice caused my own to draw up into my body for protection.

Continuing on to Pisa, I intended on meeting with Cardinal Giovanni de Lorenzo de'Medici to discuss my confusion and doubts regarding my Christian faith and to confess my sexual transgressions and sins, figuring being fourteen years of age himself and a devout Christian, he would have an understanding of my troubled mental and spiritual state and would be able to help me understand how I could find such immense pleasure in such a despicable, obscene practice. To my utter surprise, the most venerable Cardinal instead gave me a very different interpretation of passages in the Bible regarding congress between males than that held by our local priest, Father Francisco, and even more surprising and confusing for a simple parishioner as I, the simple son of a merchant and sailor, we had congress with each other and then with his young scribes upon his urging and with the assurance it was perfectly acceptable in the Eyes of the Lord.

Continuing on to Florence, Father, Uncle and I attended a banquet hosted by the rich and powerful Lorenzo de'Medici where many of the artists, poets and philosophers for whom he was patron were in attendance. I sat in awe listening and conversing with such intelligent and renowned personages, and a whole new life and way of looking at the world was opened up for me. I had never before heard of many of the topics discussed, including this conception they called platonic love though it was evidently something practised hundreds of years ago and was still commonly practised by civilized men. Just as surprising to me were the open and accepting attitudes in Florence regarding intimacies between men and between men and boys, and my sexual knowledge increased in tremendous proportion as I engaged in trysts with several of the artisans, including the famous Leonardo da Vinci who was only a year younger than Father, and a young artisan, the arrogant, conceited and highly talented Michelangelo, who was only a year older than myself.

Travelling back to Rome quite bewildered and confused by these revelations by men much wiser and nobler than myself and experiences they took as common practice, I rejoined my new friends who further enlightened me on the joy of congress between those of the same gender and on the practices of members of the church elite, and who provided me another interpretation of the motives of Lorenzo the Magnificent of Florence for supporting the artisans and philosophers of his city, motives I would never have imagined in my innocence. While at the Vatican, I also met my first Ottoman, Prince Djem, had along with Father and Uncle an audience with Pope Innocent VIII, and attended a party in honour of Cesare Borja where I experienced my first drunk, and my first orgy.

As we continued on our way, I struggled greatly with my conscience and with the conflict between what I had been taught for the past fourteen years about congress between males and what I had recently been told, and what I had witnessed and experienced with both peasants and nobility, and with both commoners and the church elite. I began having erotic dreams and leaking my seed at night and waking up to morning erections on a daily basis which caused me more anxiety, and the adults I turned to for advice, the Jew shoemaker Josepe whom I had helped rescue in Castile and the ship's doctor, did little to bring me peace of mind.

Arriving at Cairo, we found King João's envoy, Pero da Covilha, and he and Father headed south to the Red Sea. While seeking information at the market, I was captured by a slave trader to replace an injured slave who had tried to escape, and taken to the Citadel where I was sold to the Sultan as a slave soldier-in-training. There I met a fellow captive who talked proudly of the honour of having sex with an adult as part of his training to be a Mameluke, adding further to my confusion regarding congress between males, something most considered a mortal sin while many others considered it quite common and acceptable and even honourable. Also while in the Citadel, I came to the defence of a young boy raped by an older soldier-in-training and I would likely have been raped myself but before the opportunity arose I was purchased by a man by the name of Usama el Hasan ibn Fuad, a twenty-eight-year-old Mameluke soldier serving as a guard to a merchant caravan, and taken on as an apprentice I ended up in a Mameluke soldier camp just outside Cairo.

Having disguised ourselves as Arabs and myself having taken the name Naqi Ah ibn-Mustafa, I began my new life, and as days passed into weeks and weeks into months, I began to think I was this new person and that the former had ceased to exist. So it was that I travelled with Usama across the Holy Land from Cairo to Aleppo, learning from him during the day the use of arms, horsemanship (which I came to understand and appreciate), the tenets of Islam, and the code of the "men of arms", and during the night how to make delightful love with a man. Learning of an advancing army from the north, we left the services of the caravan master and joined a Mameluke army heading to confront the invaders. Arriving at the Ottoman border I put my training in warfare to practice during the day and my training in man-boy love to practice with Usama at night, orally, anally and manually. I realized that I loved the man just as a man might love a woman, causing me much dismay and causing me to question why I had accepted this man-boy relationship despite all I had been taught against it.

Captured by the Ottoman Janissaries, I was taken to Istanbul where, after a meeting with Sultan Bayazid II, who was intrigued by my possession of a sword from the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, an Order he was much impressed with and an Order I had been made a knight of by Pope Innocent, I became employed as a tellak boy in the Istanbul baths in the hope of earning enough money to pay for my passage back home, the prospect of returning home far outweighing the guilt and shame of being a tellak. As a beautiful and skilled bath boy, I became extremely popular with the customers, which brought new problems: the envy of other bath boys, physical attacks to try to disfigure or kill me, and the sexual assault by a distant member of the royal family. In my dejection and despair I rejected all gods, and accepted my sinfulness and the fact I was a weak and degenerate pervert caught in the web of Satan.

As a result of my ravishment by the royal client in the hammam, I was helped by one of the kinder patrons of the bathhouse to join a troupe of performers, the Ghilman Entertainers. Thinking they were heading west my hopes were raised, but I discovered too late they were heading east instead. And so I became a koçek, a young male dancer who looked like a girl and provided the sexual services of one, a position that was ironically highly revered by these heathens. I had never heard of boys who liked to dress as women, some of whom actually thought they were women and acted and talked just as they did. Much to my horror, as we continued across the steppes and deserts of these desolate lands, I realized that not only were there boys who acted like girls but I was starting to also, and enjoying it.

Travelling with the troupe, I learned much about music and dancing and about the peoples we came into contact with, both those of the Islamic faith and those of the Orthodox Eastern Church through whose lands we travelled. I also received advice about how to be happy. Eskander, the brother of the leader of the troupe who served as a guard and looked after the wagons and horses, said to be happy be yourself and do what you have a passion for. A shoemaker at Erzurum said to be proud of your skill and knowledge and to take care in what you do for it says who you are. And so it was that I came to accept myself and the desires that constantly welled up in my loins for I was skilled in bringing pleasure to others of my gender and many envied me for what I was and sought my pleasures in the dark of night. Of course not all did, and I suffered the abuse and jealousy that came with being a koçek as imams and Christian priests alike and their followers assailed us and despised us. Finally at Tabriz one of our group, beautiful, gentle Rifki who would never hurt a soul, had his throat cut because he was more successful in attracting men than the female belly dancers in the city who were responsible for his death.

Shortly after the brutal murder of Rifki, while engaged in bringing pleasure to an eighteen-year-old Prince from Samarkand, Prince Abbas, I thwarted an attempt on his life and he negotiated with the leader of our troupe for me to join him as his personal guard and comrade at arms. The night of that same day I helped him kidnap the eleven-year-old son of the Bey under an arrangement with the boy's father. It is the strange custom of these heathens that for a boy to become a man he had to be kidnapped by a man who then taught him the skills he needed to become a warrior, and made him a man by having congress with him. As we travelled east, the boy was trained in hunting and how to satisfy a man's sexual needs and I practised swordsmanship and horse riding, which I now enjoyed immensely, while wondering about fathers who encourage their sons to be ridden by men and those who would rather see them die, and wondering what I will decide when I have sons of my own.

I learned that there are things that Allah says, things that Imams say Allah says, and things Imams say; and that Princes can do what common men and even Imams cannot. There is a saying among these heathens that women are for breeding, boys for pleasure, and melons for sheer delight, and I saw the belief put into practice often, at least the first two. Prince Abbas, my comrade at arms, visited male and female houses of prostitution with equal delight. And in my travels I learned of new and strange religions, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, the followers of the former wild-eyed zealots who would kill a man for touching another man intimately and the followers of the latter seeing such intimacy as so insignificant as to not even mention it in their religious books. I learned of catamites who willingly engage in congress with men, catamites who are forced into submission, and boys who would rather die than have congress with another of their gender.

Travelling through Mongol lands, some desolate and severe, others fertile and abundant with fruits I have never heard of, I witnessed the barbaric brutality and raw sexuality of the Mongol peoples, the rape and beheading of enemy soldiers, and sheiks who took pleasure with several wives, beautiful young female concubines, and beautiful young male concubines depending on their mood. I witnessed the rivalry between royal houses, brothers vying with brothers and uncles vying with nephews for land and followers. From the boy whore China Boy Zhang I learned the more exotic aspects of love play, the use of cock rings and anal beads, and how to raise passions higher than I ever imagined possible with tenderness and love.

Following the assassination of Prince Abbas, I travelled with a caravan of merchants as a guard and bacha (singer), gradually making my way west. Performing for the Sultan of Herat, I sensed his desire that I join his court as one of his possessions, both for my voice and for my body, which hastened me on my way before he succeeded in achieving his goal. Learning of a group of men intending on travelling west to expand their knowledge and skills, I readily accepted their offer to join them. In our travels I discovered that throughout most of Persia bache bazi, boy play, was commonly practised by nobles and commoners alike, and that the joy of the love of boys was a common theme in the poetry and philosophy of both ancient and present peoples. The praise of such practice ran contrary to everything I had been taught and yet matched my own beliefs and desires, resulting in a daily struggle with my conscience.

When my companions turned north and away from my destination, we parted company and while searching for a way home I gained employment as a harem boy to a rich sheik, sixty-four years of age with four wives, six female concubines, six boy concubines, three eunuchs, and numerous slaves, servants and guards. The presence of Christian slaves purchased from Barbary Coast slave traders and with the arrival of Christmas, the conflict between my Christian background and my lust for men and delight in pleasures of the flesh became even stronger, and as I learned more about Islam and jihad, the similarities and differences of Islam with Christianity caused me to struggle with my basic religious beliefs and I began to despair of ever returning home.

To my joy, my master announced a pilgrimage to Mecca far to the West and listed me among those who would be joining him. So I found myself celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad and engaging in an orgy with my master like a heathen, and on our way across the vast Arabian desert encountering the mysterious and feared Badawi who though more devout and ascetic than any people I have met rut with boys like any other Saracen. Unable to deny the lust of the Bedouin patriarch, I did reject the sexual advances made by the female concubine Jauharah, who was in her fertile period and eager for a child, and advances by the eunuch Sali'a with dire consequences for it caused them to be dismissed from the sheik's retinue and put my life in danger.

The sheik had agreed to release me of my duties upon our arrival in Mecca, but it soon became evident that he was not about to honour that agreement and in fact was planning on taking me back east with him. When Jauharah and Sali'a made an attempt on my life and mistakenly killed another they thought was me, I fled to Abyssinia with a young, black Christian slave by the name of Sol before a second attempt could be made. There I travelled to Sol's home, witnessing many strange and wondrous beasts and engaging with him in the gadai follee and the running of the bulls, a rite of passage for those turning sixteen. Hoping to find information about Prester John and thinking that perhaps the king of Abyssinia was the fabled Christian leader, I found instead he was a follower of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Meeting him and visiting his prison and treasury, I discovered that he imprisoned his brothers to prevent them from leading a revolt to seize his throne and was no better than the Mongol royalty I had escaped from. Eager to leave, I found passage up the Red Sea on an Arab dhow. Fighting off an attack by pirates who would surely have killed me or sold me into slavery, I arrived at al-Suways where I immediately left for Cairo with a group of traders.

Arriving in Cairo I encountered and helped a merchant from Venice, gaining me passage with him and his colleagues to Venice where much relieved to be back in Christian company I joined the young nobles of that wondrous city in their nighttime escapades despite the risks of being caught and punished by the much to be feared Lords of the Night. Much to my bewilderment, nobles gave their sons for the entertainment of powerful men for political gain, and youth and men alike lived secret lives of carefree debauchery while the city's rulers feared the destruction of their city by God for the sinfulness of its citizens as he had done with Sodom. These rulers brutally dealt with those caught engaging in congress with members of their own gender, causing a renewed struggle in my mind and in my heart between my desires and what others considered sins. Witnessing the beheading and burning at the stake of one of my new companions, reminding me of the brutality of the Spanish, and the cruel public starvation of a priest for his sin of boylove, I could take the life in Venice no longer.

Learning from a Turk that the Lance of Longinus was being brought to Italy and uncomfortable with life in Venice where I could fulfill my desires of the flesh but at the risk of my neck, I travelled to Florence where I rejoined Cardinal Giovanni and Michelangelo and where their enlightened attitude toward congress between men put my heart and mind at ease. From there I travelled to Anacona to join the Cardinals escorting the Holy Lance of Longinus back to the Vatican where Pope Innocent VIII received the Lance. I found the reverence and sacredness of the relic at odds with the plots and intrigue and the covert sexual activities that were daily events in the Holy See. Attending one of two political weddings of five-year-old boys and witnessing the loss of their virginity with their new wives, I learned of a ship leaving for Portugal and gratefully obtained passage home. Arriving at Lisbon, I informed King João of my discoveries, at least those suitable for his ears, and to my surprise I was awarded an estate for my services.

Finally on the 23^rd of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety-two, I arrived back at Viana do Castelo and was greeted with much joy as my family had feared my death or captivity among the heathens, and I learned of the birth of a second male in the family, my brother, and the marriage of my elder sister. It was of great relief to be back with family, but also I found great discomfort for I was no longer a boy and no longer the innocent I was when I had left. So after a brief stay, I travelled to my estate where by sheer coincidence I was able to continue my perverted lust with the fourteen-year-old son of the groundskeeper of my estate. Attempting to avoid Satan's temptations and reluctant to rely on my groundskeeper and his family for the welfare of my new property, I threw myself into a plan to establish a stable source of revenue to maintain my estate. Relying on the interest and expertise of my caretaker and his family, I established a fledging fishing industry, the beginning of a vineyard, and the foundation for a horse ranch. My plans were interrupted however by a messenger from Lisbon, and on the 25^th of July I appointed my caretaker Steward of Quintas de Ribeiro and returned to Viana do Castelo to consult my father as to what I should do.

There was no question in Father's mind, and even less in the mind of Uncle Paulo, who recognized my love of the sea and of travel, and so, at sixteen and four months of age, I accepted the request of my monarch King João to spy on our Castilian rivals, and with the intervention of Cardinal de Mendoza, I set sail with the Genoese Cristóvão Colombo who was most reluctant but impressed by my greatly exaggerated reputation and saw my appearance as a sign and blessing by God. He would have thought differently had he known the night before I'd paid a greasy twelve-year-old serving boy several centimos for the pleasure of his backside!

Stopping for repairs at La Gomera in the Canary Islands, I introduced a caulker's eager nine-year-old son to the pleasures of the flesh, and mutually enjoyed those pleasures with the fourteen-year-old son of a Guanche basket weaver before continuing across the Ocean Sea. After such excesses I was sorely tempted to masturbate, but a sailor caught doing so and subjected to a lashing and assigned the task of washing the head did much to discourage me. To my great horror and consternation, I found myself waking each morning sticky with my seed. Concluding my excesses had damaged my member or the Lord was punishing me for my sins, I daily admitted I was a wretch and a sinner and asked forgiveness and after much repentance my prayers were answered, but to remind me of my sins, the good Lord doubled my prurience with each passing day.

After five weeks at sea, we arrived at an island the natives called Guanahanim which the Captain figured lay in the Cipango Sea. Seven natives were captured to be taken back, which did not sit well with my mind nor my heart even though I knew for certain races such as the blacks of Africa to be made slaves is the natural order of the world, they being less civilized and of less intelligence and slavery giving them a better lot in life. We sailed to an island the natives called Cubanascnan where we were introduced to the custom of inhaling smoke from a herb called tapaco. Five young maidens joined the others but knowing of my preference I was joined by a youth in his late teens, and it being almost two months since I had last had congress, I yielded to temptation.

Concluding these meek people lack religion and were eager to become Christians, and believing there was a great quantity of gold, gems, pearls and spices to be had, Cristóvão Colombo seized a number of men, women and children to take back with him and intended on seizing their land. Being in disagreement, I freed them and threw myself overboard knowing the punishment I would receive when my deed was discovered. We made our way from island to island, on our way leaving behind escapees who returned to their homes. I learned many things and observed many customs while travelling with my new companions, but none so strange as their obsession with water. Bathing and washing of the hands were common practices by all, male and female, young and old, by all tribes I encountered, even to a greater extent than I had found among the Ottoman. I gave in to their ways and so far I have suffered no ill effects from this unsavory and unhealthy practice, and indeed, I have grown accustomed to it.

Developing a reputation of being a great healer, being able to speak with spirits, and being a lover of males, I was greeted with respect, fear, and awe by these islanders, the Taino. Their openness and honesty; values of generosity, kindness and sharing of all things; and acceptance of congress between males was a delight and it was most difficult to resist temptation. Having a strange dream, I received the name Baracutey, One Who Travels Alone, and set off on a vision quest.

Guided by the Taino, I arrived at the land of the Ais and headed with a trader and his son to the land of the Tocobaga, amazed by the heat and humidity and many wondrous trees, birds, snakes and large lizards similar to the crocodiles of Egypt and Africa. These savages were pleasant and of good humor, which I cannot say of the heathen Saracens or our neighbors, the men of Castile, and I warned them of the Spanish I also discovered some very unchristian customs. The Trader being a very important guest was visited by the best, the chief's old, fat wife who was his sister and herself very important besides experienced and very skilled in pleasing a man, and being no longer able to bear children she did it for the pleasure rather than a duty to have a child! A young maiden joined the Trader's son in the hope of having a son by him, and the chief and war chief sent the war chief's son to me in the hopes of learning from me the ways between males. I could only shake my head in wonder at the perversity and wickedness of these people.

No secrets are kept by them, not even such intimacies as such congress, and they feel no shame. The women go bare breasted, the children completely naked, and the men with only a narrow breechclout, but if a man's foreskin slipped back to reveal his knob he was greatly embarrassed and ashamed! A man skilled in hunting might have two or more wives, and if he was skilled in fighting he might capture a young girl and make her his slave and possibly his wife. I was told of one man who had married a woman whose husband had been killed in a raid and he had married her daughter also, and he had impregnated both, which was considered a worthy act! Never have I heard of such absurdity! .

Other things seem to be the same for all peoples. While with the Tocobaga four youths raided their neighbor as a part of their manhood initiation. The need for boys to prove their strength and courage appears to be universal for I have found it in every culture I have ever encountered. One of these boys preferred men to women and celebrated his success with me. Considering that most people back home questioned the masculinity of those who preferred congress with other males, I found that most ironic. He described his part in the raid with great pride and I was reminded of the savagery I had seen in my journey through the land of the Mongols, and the battle in which Prince Abbas's soldiers had decapitated their enemy and piled their skulls beside his tent. Man's cruelty and violence against his fellow man seems to be another universality across all cultures, both Christian and non-Christian.

Filled with his sense of importance and the proof of his manhood, the boy took me aggressively. Having been taken in such manner as a bathboy by those filled with their own importance and guided by their perception that congress between males should be violent as that was the nature of males, I knew how to accommodate such a partner without injury to myself and so I let him have his way with me, and I reacted with equal roughness and coarseness, knowing that was what he expected. Another commonality between otherwise very different cultures! The attitude of these simple peoples toward sex between those of opposite genders and between those of the same on the other hand was very different, and most refreshing. It was an approach, in my opinion, which more civilized nations could make note of.

With my growing reputation as a healer, storyteller and musician and the high repute of one on a vision quest and now considered a visiting spirit, I left for the Ocale, a tribe of the Thimogona Nation. The chiefs of these people are chosen according to their merit and is not an inherited position, another most strange and unstable practice in mine eyes. To deny that there exists different classes of men and that some men are superior to others and some born to rule is foolhardy, but then, these are a primitive and uncivilized peoples. The warriors seeking revenge against the Tocobaga captured and raped three girls, two destined to become their married rapists' concubines and the third to become her rapist's wife. It was not unlike the mock capture of the bride on her wedding day by rural folk back home, or the play acting I had witnessed while traveling with the Saracens, and it gave me cause to wonder if perhaps sometime in the distant past it had also been real. The boys they captured would become slaves, and in time become adopted by the tribe, which was also a surprise. Had I seen my parents or relatives or their friends killed, I would never willingly join the tribe that had murdered them. These are a most strange and unchristian peoples.

The men made sport with the two captured men, reminding me of the torture and punishment I had witnessed at the hands of the Spanish and of the good citizens of Venice against the Moors, Jews and boy lovers in their country. Again I reflected on the thought that there is no end of cruelty one group can inflict on another. I took my anger over their greed and covetousness and need for revenge out on their sixteen-year-old two-spirited healer, and he responded with wild delight, taking my roughness as a test of his masculinity. I came violently and angrily, and when I was spent, I dropped to my hands and knees and had this young, wild savage take me in the same way, and he did so, raping me as it were, demonstrating his own masculine strength and power, wild, abandoned, and proud. As we drifted off to sleep I recalled the brutality and rough sex of the Mongol tribesmen, and I wondered if this perhaps was the nature of man everywhere in this world, or if my violent behaviour was the result of the five and a half months I had spent living with these primitive heathens.

I also questioned if pleasures of the flesh should be limited to couples of the opposite sex, or enjoyed by just two people. I wondered if the lack of restraint as practised by these peoples was a sign of their primitiveness, or a sign of enlightenment? Or was having such thoughts a sign of my depravity? What was it in the human breast that made men such savage beasts, we, the creatures of God who would be angels? After the next battle I celebrated by sucking a six-year-old child's young cock, reaching a still greater depth of depravity, and sinner that I was I slept soundly in the arms of that naked six-year-old boy child. The perversity of mankind and the atrocities we commit on each other never fail to amaze and baffle me, and it seems the more I travel across this world the more bewildering it is.

Accompanied by the chief and his loyal followers, I continued on to the neighboring tribe ruled by the chief's uncle. We were met with great pomp and celebration, and a great display of arms and power. I was reminded of the journey of Prince Abbas to his relatives both as a display of his power and that of his father and to spy out the intentions of his kin and their covetousness of his and his father's lands, and I suspected immediately that this uncle was fearful of a takeover by his nephew and had come ready to defend himself and with a show of force to dissuade his nephew of attempting anything foolish. These peoples of the Indies might be simple and primitive, but they are not unlike any civilized population and know the value of developing friendships and allegiances through blood relations and marriages and through trade agreements, and also know the fragility of any alliance when it comes to an individual's greed and conceit and the power of fear, even among relatives.

A practice of these people is that a woman could become a chief through her mother's brother if the chief died without a male heir. That was a great surprise and would be considered absurd back in Portugal where a woman is not expected to lead except by her husband's side. Even in the Spains, Queen Isabella rules not alone but in conjunction with Ferdinand. A woman does not have the strength, courage nor wit required to lead as does a man as even a schoolboy knows, but then these are not a civilized peoples nor one of great intelligence or imagination. Even more disturbing, just as male chiefs and elders frequently had multiple wives, women chiefs often had multiple husbands. The sacrilegious and obtuse behavior of these peoples is utterly bewildering.

In my travels I encountered violent storms, which they call huraca'n, the likes of which I have never before experienced. Encountering several young hunters from the Abalahci in one of these storms, I participated with them in several ball games utilizing and honing the skills needed in hunting and in battle. I discovered among these people it was not uncommon for a man to share his wife with his brothers, nor for a woman to share her husband with her sisters, with the intent of becoming pregnant, and to my great shame I found the idea erotic. I could not decide if these savages were enlightened and their openness regarding sex something to be emulated, or if they were perverted heathens with the morals and lusts of the followers of Satan. I was shocked by my indecision, and by my arousal. How could a Christian man condone such corruptness and disregard for all that the Church taught? In the same light, how could one not praise such acceptance and acknowledgment of the most basic of human needs and pleasures? Who were the true savages, these red-skinned heathens or the puritans of my homeland who revered killing over copulation? I found my thoughts shocking, and most troublesome.

Furthermore, I had congress with teenage boys, virgin and experienced, in the presence of other young warrior-athletes in the single men's lodge, and the boys were very proud of the deed. Again I could not help but admire the openness and acceptance of these peoples regarding congress between those of the same gender, just like the congress of unmarried couples of opposite sexes so that young girls might gain experience and be more desired. I had to wonder why a peoples so ignorant in many other ways were so wise in this, and why a superior civilization such as existed across the ocean sea and from which I had come could not see the beauty of congress between males, and between men and boys.

Travelling on to the land of the Choctaw, I helped their Healer care for their dead and witnessed their Green corn ceremony and weddings. Among these people the maternal uncle teaches and disciplines the boys, reminding me of Uncle Paolo. I next entered the domain of the Pantch Pinankanc, an area of swamps, bayous and rivers. Saving a young fisherman from an el lagarto I received my first tattoo and engaged in still another manhood ceremony, teaching a thirteen-year-old boy how to be a man, a ceremony uniting all these tribes. These people too are a lustful people, who use every occasion they can to feast, dance, and copulate

Continuing on my way, I was captured by the Ishak who made me their slave and I witnessed the most horrifying torture I have ever witnessed, one which reflected the barbarity and vile, demonic nature of these savages and included the sucking of marrow from human bones and eating human flesh. Escaping and fleeing to the land of the Karankawa, I participated in a vulgar pantomime to entertain their children. These people lead such dangerous and hard lives, right from the moment they are born, struggling to provide food and shelter and facing death from their fierce storms, wild beasts, and savage neighbors, that they would find occasions to bring a little laughter to their children and loved ones is most commendable, a Christian act one would not expect from such heathens. I also participated in a ceremony recognizing a nine-year-old boy as a monaguia, a man who was not a man, a condition that seems much more common among these primitives, and introduced him to the pleasures of the flesh.

Continuing on to the Te'inik I joined them in a special feast and dance in honour of the sun, whom they, like many in this land, treated as a deity. That these savages were ignorant of the fact that the earth was at the centre of the universe and that the sun, and all heavenly bodies, circled it came as no surprise for they knew nothing of astronomy or the sciences as do civilized people. I arrived next at the great city of Tenochtitlán, where I discovered the Tenochca worshipped as many gods and goddesses as there were stars in the skies, these ignorant savages not only worshipping their gods but those of the peoples they had conquered, both those peoples far in the past and long forgotten and those peoples conquered recently. If ever there were a people in need of salvation and the word of Jesus Christ, it was these misguided and needful heathens, and from their ready acceptance of new deities I concluded that they would be most amiable to accepting the one and true God once informed about Him. The rites of the Holy Christian Church, the practices of the heathens in their dedication to Allah, and the unshakable faith of the Jews paled in comparison to the devotion and zeal and the ceremony and pomp of these people who ignored the blazing sun and praised their gods with a religious fervour that was both inspiring and fearsome.

Most fearsome of all was the practice of bloody sacrifice and the willingness of the victims to climb to the tops of their pyramids to have their beating hearts ripped out of their chests. I and two companions became novices in the worship of Xochipilli, the Prince of Flowers, the God of Summer and the Morning Sun, the God of Souls, the god of pleasures of the senses, the patron god of painting, drawing, sculpture, music, song, dance, and writing, the patron god of all things creative, one of several gods of agriculture. The life of a Novice was split into performing those menial duties required to support the temple and the priesthood, learning the many legends and secret rituals associated with Xochipilli, performing those rites honouring him and assisting his priests in those rituals involving his worshippers, and attending to our personal needs.

As a novice, I had congress with an innocent, drunken six-year-old toddler upon the request of his grandfather as a matter of trust and training, and I found it highly pleasing, and he found the same regarding having sex with a seventeen-year-old novice priest. Made a full priest, I had much time to think about faith. Which is the true god, my Christian God to whom my foreskin was sacrificed as a babe, Allah who demands prayers from his followers five times a day and death to all nonbelievers, or Quetzalcoatl who demands human hearts to prevent the sun's destruction? I have seen such devotion and belief of Christians and Jews that they would give their lives in defence of their beliefs and their god and in defiance of all others. I have seen a devotion and belief that are in every way the equal among Arabs who would die fighting for their god and their faith, and how can any belief or devotion possibly be greater than a Tenochcan's willingness to have his heart ripped from his living body for his god? Which is right when all three are defended with such passion and such sacrifice? How can I, untrained in such matters, determine which is the true god? How can I say what the true purpose of mankind is? How can I say even what my purpose in life is?

Initiated as Xochipilli's Impersonator, I regularly engaged in group sex, in ceremony and in private. I had congress with artists, flute players and poets, goldsmiths and silver miners, old and young, fit and fat, all seeking my blessing or my guidance. I had congress with my ten-year-old guard, his eight-year-old brother who was a temple dancer, lead prayer boys and altar boys. I had congress with toddling grandchildren and teenage boys, virgin and experienced, given as gifts to the temple or to myself, with boy prostitutes, teen slaves, boys about to become novices to Xochipilli, teenage sons of high-ranking nobles, war captives and the grateful faithful. I ate cake containing a man's seed, I discovered daisy chains and sound docking and shared mouthfuls of semen and saliva. I participated in new moon ceremonies, corn dances, and rain dances, all enhanced by herbs unknown. In my weakness for pleasures of the flesh with my own gender, I rejected the teachings of my Christian faith and joyfully and eagerly sinned. I embraced the deflowering of little boys and lusted for those of my own sex not out of the need to survive but for the pure pleasure of such congress. I fell in with Satan and wallowed in his sinfulness and debauchery.

I warned the Emperor of the dangers of the Spanish at his doorstep, and of the discontent of the people he had conquered, but the arrogant, stiff-necked man dismissed all I said. Disappointed and discouraged, I concluded it was God's plan to destroy a nation so violent and bloodthirsty. And so I escaped with my companion Ozomatli to join the Tlaxcala. As traveling merchants supplemented by my storytelling and panpipe, we continued, past crumbling ancient cities to Mitla and a loose federation of peoples, the Tzotzil, the Tzelta, the Tojolabal, and the Chol, all united in religion and language but each a competing community. I thought of the will of God and the nature of man and why nations grew in power and flourished and then declined to be replaced by another. I suggested the idea of a new god for new times, an all-knowing and merciful god, one who demanded the foreskin of his male worshippers and who was appeased by the sacrifice of lambs. I am hopeful that I planted the seed that others following me might cultivate.

From there we headed east to Ozomatli's people, the Maya Itza, where parents give their sons young boys as sex partners until marriage, where I witnessed the politically arranged marriage of a man to a bride not unlike back home except his boy-wife was about to gain a pubescent boy-wife of his own, and where I learned of ira'muxe, men who marry men. We continued on to K'iche' where we had congress with a noble's proud and arrogant head boy, to give him experience for his first boy bride, and on to the neighboring Maya Kaqchjikel Kingdom to trade surplus tribute for a noble.

Paid with the services of two seven-year-old slave boys, we took slaves to the Mam Maya, who worship phallic statues and pierce their members, sometimes scaring them horribly, where we had our members pierced and engaged in one of their perverse ceremonies. Heading for the Maya Poqoman Kingdom as spies, we ingratiated ourselves with the boys for hire, who can be found in any reasonably-sized city, a natural fellowship for artists, boys for hire and artisans seeming to have the same cravings and the same interests. Engaging in pleasures of the flesh often has a way of loosening tongues, a man who has hired a boy often trying to impress the boy with his bravado and masculinity and his position in the world. Such is the way it is whether in the Christian cities of Rome or Florence, the cities of the heathen hordes of Europe and Asia, or the cities in these heathen lands. And, like boys for hire all over, the boys in Poqoman were loose-tongued and eager to reveal the secrets they learned, and knew that men would often pay to learn such secrets.

Arriving at Chajoma we escorted a couple brides to prospective husbands west into Kaqchikel, receiving the charms of two harem boys in gratitude. Returning to K'iche' we raped the two sons of the noble who had hired us and had intended on killing us and fled to the Ch'orti', once a large and powerful nation but which had reached its peak and whose cities were in decline and now largely abandoned and crumbling. Again I pondered the way of nations and planted the seeds of Christianity that others following me might nurture and bring to fruit and in that small way I was able to atone for my many and grievous sins.

Parting ways with Ozomatli, I hiked through the territory of the Terrupan and thought of ill-made past choices and decisions, and the rise and fall of nations, and wondered if that was the way of all nations, to climb in power and influence over other nations only to decline as another ascending nation took their place. What causes one nation or one army to become more powerful than all others? Riches? Skilled leaders? Better trained soldiers? The Grace of God? And what causes their reverse in fortune?

In the steep, mist-covered mountains I provided services as a healer, including treating one noble for a toothache. These people take great care to rinse out their mouths after eating and chew green twigs. I myself have adopted this practice, at first in deference to my hosts but subsequently with the realization that unlike my countrymen these peoples have strong, white teeth, and sweet breaths, and should, our Merciful God willing, I ever return to my homeland, I intend on sharing this new knowledge with my liege and countrymen whom I am sure will be most appreciative when they realize the pain I will be saving them.

These people also had multiple wives and harems, male and female, a common practice among the wealthy heathen Saracens among whom I travelled in my wanderings of the Middle East, and, according to the Bible, among early Christians who had both multiple wives and concubines and I have yet met a king in these lands or any others I have travelled through who can rival David or Solomon in number of wives and concubines.

Leaving the Terrupan I was captured and repeatedly raped by the warlike Paya who were in turn captured by a group of Cuzcatlec hunters and I joined them in the rape of my former captors. There is a fine line between pleasure and revenge and between lust and anger, and may my God condemn me to hell for saying so and for doing so, but there are times when rape is justified. Life is harsh and unpredictable and one must be tough and adaptable to survive in this land. For good or for bad, the longer I live with these savages the more I understand their behaviour and its causes, and, the more I am becoming one of them.

After relaxing with the Lenca who fished along the coast, and succumbing to the flirtations of a fourteen-year-old son of a fisherman with large black balls, I continued on to the Chorotega and the Coclé where I dallied with boy whores and boy wives and boys who dressed and behaved as women and where a nobleman tried to seduce me to become his personal entertainer. From there I continued along the coast to the Teruna, staying at male meeting houses, and on to the Laches, staying with a family who purposely raised their youngest child as a cusmos, a boy raised as a girl. In all ways. In search of the fabled Gilded One who was coated in gold dust once a year, I saved (unknowingly) his fifteen-year-old son with whom I became a blood brother on my nineteenth birthday before continuing on through thick rain forests and into the mountains to the Cañaris, who I learned had been conquered by a tribe to the south who built a magnificent city, Tumibamba, which I would equate to the finest cities of Europe.

There in the public baths I was approached by a thirteen-year-old boy, the humours of lust flowing hotly through his veins and me just as eager to share in the enthusiasm and open delight of physical pleasure as only those at the bud of adolescence can know. It was May but as I climbed higher into the mountains it felt more like fall and the approach of winter. A month later, I entered the territory once ruled by the Chimu but which had been conquered by the Tahuantinsuyu when present elders were in their prime. These people were even more earthy and sexually open than any other peoples I have met. The girls were sexually aggressive and were just as likely to pursue men as they were pursued, and the boys and men showed no shame in engaging in congress with each other. There I joined a group of four young men and engaged in an all night orgy. Continuing on my way I had congress with one of the chasqui, the messengers or runners, who carried messages great distances across this vast empire.

Finally a day after the summer solstice, I looked down at Cuzco, the capital city of the great Tahuantinsuyu. Camped within and surrounding the city were those who had come from across the Empire to celebrate the Inti Raymi, the Festival of the Sun. There in the plaza I was invited to drink with the great ruler himself on account of my appearance and apparel. I was quickly reminded of the politics and intrigue I had encountered at the Vatican, and of the circle of sycophants surrounding King João and that I had seen at the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Summoned to the presence of Inca Wayna Qhapaq, I was granted the rank of a Hahua Inca, a secondary caste of the nobility, and accompanied him on a visit to the southern portion of his empire. I found him to be insufferably proud and arrogant, a characteristic I found of most Inca, and a bombastic lover of women. Myself, I found gratification with young, proud knights and simple rural boys herding strange beasts called llama high on the mountain slopes. At Lake Titicaca I sought the services of young men for hire.

To my horror I discovered that preteen children were made drunk and strangled in sacrifice to their gods, or were taken high into the mountain tops where they were drugged and left in caves to freeze to death. Such wanton and needless treatment of these young innocents greatly sickened me and what respect and admiration I had of these peoples for their accomplishments dissipated like the morning mists clinging to their mountain peaks. It was time for me to move on. Having spent almost three months with these peoples, I had seen and learned enough of their ways and found that they, like all the savages I have encountered throughout this strange land, are an uncivilized, bloodthirsty, superstitious lot. Like many other tribes, they had a misguided belief that killing captives of war by sacrificing them to their gods was more honourable than the killing of warriors on the battlefield. And like other tribes they saw honour in the sacrifice of their own people, even their own children, something no civilized man or woman could believe.

Their belief that the measure of a man was his bravery in battle and skill in killing, whether it be killing a creature to feed his family and friends or killing a member of the neighbouring tribe, was also common among all tribes and unshakable. I found nothing of their culture nor beliefs that I would incorporate as my own, or that would make them worthy allies of Portugal,

In the headwaters of a river called the Amassona, I arrived at the land of the Awajún, brave, fierce warriors, hunters and farmers. To my horror, I discovered these people not only collected the heads of their enemies, but committed vile atrocities on them, shrinking them to the size of a man's fist! While with them, I had a drugged vision in which Cuacualti appeared and told me my purpose in life was to spread who I am, not a Christian, but a lover of boys, which he said is the natural order of the universe, and I was visited by the spirit of Uncle Paolo. Continuing on, I arrived in the land of the Jebå-baca whose custom is that the two sexes spend the bulk of their day and of their lives segregated from each other, even having separate entries to their homes. I was greatly shocked to witness pairs of men openly laying together in a hammock, their arms wrapped about each other and masturbating each other while discussing their congress with their wives, one of which often appeared to be the sister of the other man. It was considered perfectly normal behavior expressing a close, affectionate, and supportive relationship between the two men. I marveled at the idea but I knew it would shock my countrymen and be considered most perverted.

I next encountered the Pâmiwâ. These people have great reverence for a man's seed, and the women, once it is known they are pregnant, often have sex with several other males for it is believed that semen gives the baby in her belly strength, and so the more semen that bathes the baby the stronger the baby will be. I witnessed a wedding in which the groom and the brother of his wife-to-be embraced and kissed as if they were the lovers, and before their guests, the groom mounted the boy. It gave me cause to contemplate how different the customs were in this land, and to wonder if it was because God had abandoned these peoples, and if this might be what life was like for those who worshiped Satan.

Two days later I encountered the Yanõmami. The men don't wear any clothing at all and support their members by wrapping them and supporting them with a string-like belt. The women only wear a loincloth and of course the children go naked. One strange practice of theirs is to cremate the bones of their dead and mix the ashes with a soup made from bananas. Like their neighboring tribes, it was quite common to form threesomes between a husband, wife, and the wife's brother. And it was common for young teenage boys to have sex with each other with the absence of available girls, and for boys to engage in sex with men. These practices were so common they occurred daily and I no longer noticed.

From there I traveled to the Kalinago. Like the Yanõmami, they went about naked, men and women, children and adults, and like the Yanõmami they painted their bodies and were intrigued by my tattoos. The headman, and occasionally the more powerful warriors of a village, kept one or more young men who wore strings of beads and bracelets and shells in their hair as adornments like the women. They did not hunt nor engage in warfare, but instead performed the same duties as women, looking after the household and preparing the meals, and of course they performed the other role that women normally do for their husbands.

It was a sin for a man to have congress with the wife of a married man, but these savages considered it a great gift to offer a wife to a stranger, and a great blessing should the wife be impregnated for surely she would bear a son who would be as great a warrior as his father, a son who would be as accepted as if he had been fathered by the husband unlike in my homeland where such a boy would be branded a bastard for his life and treated with contempt.

Following a war with the Kalinago, so as not to cause offense, I chose as my spoils of war a young woman named Anacaona and her six-year-old son, Jutia. My first and only experience with the opposite sex had been five years ago when I had just turned fifteen, with two harem girls, Mongols or Mongol-Turk half-breeds trained to bring sexual pleasure, Pasha who was also fifteen, and Ayisha, who was a year younger, both engaging me at the same time.

Leaving with Anacaona and Jutia, we arrived at a Kalinago village just after two Arawak warriors and several women and children had been taken. The men were tied to stakes and pierced with spears and had their ears, noses and digits cut off to instill fear in them. Finally, to my horror, the two men were roasted, alive, the Kalinago slicing off strips of their flesh and consuming it in the belief that these captives had been particularly brave and skilled warriors so by consuming their flesh they themselves would become strong and brave. As I witnessed this savagery, I recalled our first contact with the Taino and how gentle and frightened they had seemed, and how they had feared these ferocious warriors, Caniba or Caritaba, who attacked them and whom they had said ate the flesh of their captives. These Kalinago had to be these very Caritaba!

Two weeks later I was offered a particularly effeminate, plump young man of the Arawak, again as my share of the spoils of battle. He had been castrated at the age of eight and his master had shared him with other visiting headmen, the boy being one of his favored concubines. I considered this my opportunity to save a mortal life, or even a heathen soul, besides a chance to be absolved of my past sins, or at least one of them in that I had many. The boy could be the first of a ministry of saved souls if I was intended to spend the remainder of my life with these heathen savages. But I was still a sinner. At the age of fifteen, I had concluded the pleasure of bringing another male the same pleasure as he was bringing me and knowing how he was feeling was far superior to any pleasure a woman can bring a man. Now six weeks shy of my twentieth birthday I was of the same opinion so instead of saving his soul, I had congress with him. So why did one man find only pleasure with the opposite sex, another find equal pleasure with both males and females, and a third prefer congress with his own gender? Which should it be, and why should it be that way? As I lay awake at night, my loins sticky from congress with my wife, her child, and my castrati slave, I had no answer.

Finally I was reunited with my countrymen, and of all people, Cristóvão Colombo, who made light of my conversion to a healer-shaman, a highly respected position across all the lands I had traveled and allotting me the highest honor and awe. He was angry Queen Isabella had not seen the great profit to be made in making slaves of these people, but such is the folly of having a queen rule a country. Portugal has a long-standing policy of capturing the blacks of Africa and bringing them back as slaves, for they are of little use for anything else and they are better off for it, which has been proven many times over. I could not see King João being so foolish as to not do the same with these Indians for much like the blacks they are well suited for slavery and it would be an improvement in their lives.

So at long last I found myself back in Portugal and discovered King Joao had died. The new king, King Manuel, was a young man eager to continue Portugal's colonization effort and he listened with great interest as I related my experiences, particularly in my observations that contrary to the opinions of Colombo I did not think we had landed on the shores of Cathay but rather that we had discovered a totally new land. He seemed to seriously weigh my advice to colonize the vast and largely unpopulated jungles of the Amassona. He was also interested in the possibility of new medicines and spices grown locally from the seeds I had collected, and in the capturing and enslaving of the savages of Amassona and their conversion to Christianity, feeling, to my relief, the same as his cousin regarding improving their wretched lives by becoming slaves. In the end and much to my surprise, for my information and service to the throne he awarded me property adjacent to mine which had been vacant since the succession of his cousin. So endowed, I returned to the arms of my family, and to my estate to pick up my life where I had left it.

Chapter 1
Quintas de Ribeiro

Now twenty-one, married, and with an eight-month old son, Nicolau Ribeiro celebrates his first year back in Portugal and the success of his estate with his Portuguese family and with his wife Anacaona and their family, and in private more intimately with his stepson Jutia, his vassal Vasco de Azurara, his vassal's cousin Marcilio Degrazia, his equerry and personal attendant the castrati Awawak Arasibo, and the son of a neighbouring lord, Fernão Nunzio. 

Codes: Mt, Mb, tb, tt 

Age of Characters: Nico 21, Vasco 19, Arasibo 16.6, Marcilio Degrazia 10.11, Fernão Nunzio 13.2, Jutia 7.3 

I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs and delighting in the old, familiar fragrance of the gnarled, ancient olive tree in whose shade I was relaxing. There is no fragrance so delightful. Well, perhaps other than that of a young boy's genitals. Lying on my back in the thick grass at the edge of the high meadow with my knees raised and wearing only my bead and quill headband with the silver clasp of a rearing horse, given to me by Prince Afonso so very long ago, to hold back my long, thick hair now extending half way down my back, I spread my legs and allowed the gentle breeze blowing in from the ocean to flow over my sweaty balls and cool them.

Naked as I was, my nineteen-year-old vassal Vasco de Azurara who was in charge of our Lusitano herd and two years my junior arrived with the goatskin of wine we'd left cooling in one of the springs. Sitting up as he sat beside me, I accepted the skin and unstoppered it and took a long draught, and then passed it back to him and he did likewise. The sixteen-year-old Arawak castrati Arasibo, constantly at my side and eager to see to my every need, unpacked the lunch my wife Anacaona had packed for us: sharp, creamy, white serra cheese, chouriço sausage, freshly-baked bread, smoked herring, pickled eggs and little sweet red peppers from our garden. The others, my seven-year-old stepson Jutia, Vasco's cousin Marcilio Degrazia now almost eleven, and Fernão Nunzio, the thirteen-year-old son of Lord Nunzio, the wealthy owner of the estate to the east adjacent to my new acquisition, gathered around. It was a feast fit for nobility, and we ate heartily. It had been a busy week.

It had begun with the family travelling to Viano do Costela, an easy half day's ride by coach, for an evening repast prepared by my mother, fragrant Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá (a cod, potato and onion casserole garnished with stuffed eggs, black olives and parsley, one of her favourite dishes) with assorted salads and pastries made by my sisters whom I am sure were trying to outdo each other and trying to see who could impress Mother the most. The visit was to commemorate my return home a year earlier on the morrow after an absence of three years and eleven months during which they had all thought me dead.

Many times I myself had thought I would never see any of them again, and from a vision/dream, I had assumed Uncle Paolo had passed on. It was an evening filled with laughter and cheer, dancing and drinking, and of course storytelling, music and singing, me playing for them on my panpipes and uncle on his viele. The next morning we attended church where we all gave thanks for our many blessings and Father Francisco noted that it had been on that day a year ago that I had returned to them. That Sunday and the next day in the mercantile were spent visiting with friends and neighbours and becoming acquainted with the children and spouses of my childhood friends.

I then invited my family, including my sisters' spouses, to Quintas de Ribeiro where my wife, with the assistance of my steward's third oldest son's granddaughters, treated the family with a scrumptious Carne de Porco com Amêijoas à Alentejana, marinated pork from our own pens with fresh clams, tomatoes and sweet red peppers from our own garden, coriander and lemon wedges, that greatly impressed my mother, not an easy feat. Although Father and Uncle had checked on the estate when time allowed during my absence, my mother and sisters had never seen it and they marvelled at the size and luxury of my home and the size of my property. The Minho contains some of the poorest and most ragged land in Portugal, but the estate was doing well.

Early the next morning I took Father and Uncle out on the ocean on the latest acquisition of my vassal Heitor de Azurara, a two-masted schooner more suited for ocean fishing than the boat I had purchased and had modified for fishing upstream from the estate. I smiled as I thought of that first purchase and the frown on the face of Alvaro's third son who had thought it too big and was mystified by my modifications based on my experience with Arab dhows and Venetian vessels. It had been a good choice and had served its purpose well, so much so that upon my return we had the money to purchase this second vessel, one to harvest the ocean, not the river, one large and strong enough to handle the ocean's harsh waves and winds but small enough to make its way up the Minho River to our small dock and factory. That was a year ago and the additional harvest of herring and clams had resulted in us doubling the workforce of Ribeiro de Azurara Fisheries and expanding our smoking and salting facility, adding to the wealth and population of the steadily growing village of Valença do Minho. Father and Uncle thoroughly enjoyed the working excursion, as did I, the three of us having a love of the open ocean and not averse to hard, honest work.

The next day my family was proudly shown our gradually expanding vineyard and winery by Alvaro's eldest grandson, and I don't know who was the more proud, grandfather, grandson or myself. After five years our wine, a Vinho Verde which we named Alvarinho, and our enterprise, Ribeiro de Azurara Winery, were becoming well known. And to provide for the growing population of the village, Alvaro's middle grandson, Bartolommeo, had expanded our market garden and livestock and hired another two local lads to help. Anacaona and Arasibo's herb and medicine garden was doing well from the seeds I had brought back with me and they would be busy this fall with a bountiful harvest. I had worried the seeds might not catch, or that I might not recognize the plants and recall their purpose, but such was the exception. Now there was no doubt in my mind that the venture would do well and add not only to my coffers, but that of King Manuel as well.

On the fourth day Alvaro's youngest grandson, Vasco, and Vasco's cousin Marcilio proudly took Father, Uncle and I out to view our Lusitano stock, having grown from five mares and two stallions to a herd of twenty-nine, having added another nine colts this past year. Ribeiro de Azurara Show Horses now employed a trainer and a modest staff to maintain the stables and training grounds. That evening we had a large feast with the de Azurara family with much drinking and toasting to mark our mutual good fortune.

I still meet with the de Azurara family along with mine over an evening meal once a week so eating together was not unusual. I was still criticized behind my back for my outrageous ideas, including sharing the name of my ventures with my vassals, but the estate was prospering and we were all happy and those who criticized us did so carefully so not to offend. It was well known that Lord Nicolau Ribeiro had the ear of both our monarch and the church, wealth, taxes and generous donations having their benefits. My Indies family as I still referred to them was still struggling with the concept of a man owning property and still considered me a demigod, but they readily embraced the idea of sharing our bounty with the family of my Steward for the sharing of game by a successful hunter with other families was part of their culture.

We also celebrated that evening my arrival back at the estate a year ago on the morrow. Father and Uncle having left the store now for four days were anxious to return, as were Mother and my sisters and their spouses, and there was no reason to delay celebrating by a day. So my family returned home early the following morning and I made a call to Lord Nunzio. He was one of my most vocal critics, being a proud and rigid traditionalist, his estate having been in his family for many generations and one of the richest in the area, and he had the support of some of the wealthiest and most influential citizens in the area, all who feared the threat I presented to their status quo and way of life. My visit was social, to congratulate and thank him for the invitation to the wedding of his youngest daughter, which I knew he'd sent out of necessity and not choice, there being no love between us. My visit was political at the same time, not wishing to make an enemy of him and hoping that by coming to know me better he would be less frightened of me and less harsh in criticizing my ways.

And there was a third reason, his third and youngest son, Fernão Nunzio who had celebrated his thirteenth birthday two months ago. Young Master Fernão was a handsome boy who had all the signs of having recently entered puberty and needing an outlet to satisfy his new adolescent urges. That was something I knew much about. It was not my intention to provide him that outlet myself, though the thought had certainly crossed my mind and I was sorely tempted to do so given the boy's attractiveness, but my intention for my loyal sixteen-year-old attendant Arasibo to do so. Arasibo, as a captive and a slave, had not had the opportunity to observe the traditional initiation into manhood of his people in his homeland, nor to engage in the Arawak practice of receiving a boy-wife. It was my intention for young Master Fernão to perform that role now. It was for Arasibo that I was doing this for, though I must confess the thought of the son of my most severe critic and stuffy rival satisfying the carnal desires of my equerry, my personal attendant and the driver of my carriage, as his boy-wife amused me.

I offered to show the boy our Lusitano herd, which being a boy he was eager to see. Seeing this as an opportunity to insinuate a member of his family into my confidence and place him in a position where he might overhear any future Ribeiro plans, the boy's father readily agreed, as I had suspected he would. We rode out immediately, the herd being pastured along the border of our properties. We reached the herd by noon.

"Are you not hot in all those clothes?" Arasibo asked, glancing over at Fernão and interrupting my thoughts. He had been glancing over at the boy ever since we had met him, and I knew why!

"Yes, but a gentleman does not go about naked like some common . . . ," he began haughtily, quoting his father I am sure but pausing when he realized he was about to insult his host, an adult and a fellow nobleman.

"Labourer," I finished for him.

"Or . . . or . . . ," he stammered, trying desperately to find a less offensive word.

"Savage," I concluded.

"Well, yes," he said, turning red with embarrassment and staring at the ground.

"Where I was borned and lived before coming to this land my people did not cover themselves, except for the nagua," he said, referring to the skirt he had been forced to wear back then to indicate his position, serving the sexual needs of men. "Not chiefs, not braves, not slaves, nobodies. We painted our bodies to keep off the sun, and the insect that bite," said Arasibo, unaware of the arrogance of Fernão's words in his unfamiliarity with our language and in his innocence.

"Where you lived, were you really captured by cannibals like everyone says?" Fernão asked, hoping to change the topic.

"Yes."

"They really ate human flesh?" he asked incredulously.

"Oh yes. I saw them roast men over a fire many times, like my Lord Nicolau cooks a pig, and slice off their flesh and eat it."

"Gaa," Fernão said, turning green and about to lose the meal he had just consumed. "Were you not afraid?"

"Oh yes, very much afraid. I was sure I would be eaten next, and that I would not have liked, but then Baracutey saveded me."

Fernão glanced at me and quickly averted his eyes, having momentarily forgotten I was as naked as when I was born. "That is the name the Taino gave me shortly after I arrived in their land," I explained. "It means One Who Travels Alone."

"Is that true, about the cannibals and stuff?" he asked, looking at the grass beside me.

"Oh yes. Arasibo was a captive, and fifteen when we met. When he got older he would have been eaten." Fernão glanced at Arasibo with new respect and awe. "It was just as Arasibo said. The same about going naked. That was common among many of the people in the lands I travelled through. It took me a long time to get used to seeing women with bare chests without, you know happening." I glanced down at my crotch and the boys laughed. "They live very differently where Arasibo comes from. After a while I got used to seeing women's breasts and often men and boys going naked. I got so I preferred to go naked myself. The sun was so hot and it was much more comfortable. Besides, in the beginning, Adam and Eve went naked in Eden and were unashamed. These people are just living as was God's plan." Stripping upon our arrival at the meadow having been part of my plan, I had that little speech all prepared for the young, innocent, hopefully future boy-wife of my sixteen-year-old attendant.

"But didn't you . . . you know . . . didn't it still happen?" Fernão asked shyly, titillated by our vulgar discussion and my nakedness.

"Yes," I admitted, and thirteen-year-old Fernão and ten-year-old Marcilio glanced at each other and giggled. "It was impossible to hide it being naked too, but there was no shame in it. For the people in this new land it is a sign a man is healthy and virile, that he is a man. In this new land men and women openly have congress with each other when that happens, and often men with men and men with boys too, and sometimes even women with women." From the change in Marcilio's eyes, the latter caught his imagination and I am sure there was a stirring in his trousers. "There is no shame in having carnal desires in their culture."

"They . . . did it . . . openly?" Fernão's voice cracked, much to his embarrassment and causing my member to stir. I did not try to hide it. In fact I hoped the boy had noticed. There is something about a boy at that age when he is struggling with the changes in his body that I find especially appealing.

"Yes."

"And you?" he dared to ask, curiosity and prurience overriding the prohibition of a boy discussing such a thing with a twenty-one-year-old adult.

"Yes," I readily admitted.

"With women?"

"Yes."

"And with. . . ."

"Baracutey is a great and feared warrior and a great and powerful healer, and a great lover," said Arasibo with great pride before I could answer.

"His need is very great, and it is a great honour for one to receive his seed," added my seven-year-old stepson Jutia, not to be outdone and just as proudly and innocently as he beamed over at me.

"You must be sweating in those clothes in this heat," I observed. "It is all right to remove them in front of us. It is private here, and we are all males."

"Did you really go to wars and kill people, like it is said?" Fernão asked. He was hot and sweat was trickling down his forehead and cheeks and turning his shirt dark under his pits and down his back. I could see he was very tempted but he chose not to take me up on the suggestion.

"Yes. It is true."

"I would very much like to hear more of your adventures." I had heard that frequently, especially from young boys. It was not an unexpected request, and I'd seen that hero worship in his eyes in the eyes of many young boys, in Arasibo's land and here in mine.

"Very well. But later. There is something more important and much more pleasant to talk about and do right now." I paused and helped myself to more cheese and sausage and took another swallow of wine.

Vasco and Marcilio had curled up together as they ate and listened to the conversation as they often did. His lover having followed my example and already naked, and he having discarded his shirt upon our arrival, Marcilio stood and unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning the fly of his breeches, he stepped out of them and his underpants. About to turn eleven, he had not yet begun developing hair on his pubes nor in his armpits. My stepson Jutia had also followed my example and tossed aside his clothes upon arriving at the old olive orchard, having spent his first six years naked and being much more comfortable with no clothes. Besides, I have found that whatever I do the boy is quick to copy, which is usually good and makes me proud, though not always when it is one of my bad habits. Now, at seven years and three months of age, he openly and unabashedly revealed his boyish body.

Fernão wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and Arasibo glanced at him and squirmed on his backside uncomfortably. You could plainly see his desire in his eyes, and the confining bulge in his breeches. I was not the only one to notice. Jutia and Marcilio glanced at each other and then at Arasibo and with a grin they tackled him. They struggled with his buckle and ties, but it did not take them long to remove his breeches and underpants, which he had taken to wearing not out of modesty but because in his earlier life he'd not been allowed to go naked like other boys and had been forced to wear a wrap, the nagua, to indicate his subservient position as a boy now a girl, and now here because in addition clothing hid the fact he was a castrati.

Fernão's eyes widened upon the revelation, unable to hide his shock, and he listened first with horror and then sympathy as Arasibo explained that he had been captured and castrated, and that it was a condition that he now accepted for there was nothing he could do about it. He observed openly and innocently that Fernão was fortunate to still have his stones, and that he should not be ashamed of them. Fernão of course indignantly replied that he was not ashamed, and knowing boys his age I suspect he was quite proud of his possessions and of his masculinity. Marcilio and Jutia took that as a challenge and playfully tackled him. Struggling with his ties and the buckle of his belt, they finally succeeded in removing his breeches and underpants with much laughter. We were all now as naked as when we were born, as we were meant to be in God's original plan.

"You have a very nice snake, and eggs," Arasibo said openly. "You should enjoy them."

"Well, here going naked and enjoying your privates is frowned upon, especially by the church," Fernão observed, careful not to mention commoners or savages. I could see in his eyes that far from being upset, he was relieved to be naked like the rest of us, and tempted by the unknown and forbidden.

"But many do both anyway, including some very pious and holy Cardinals," I said. Seeing Fernão's surprise and disbelief and that he was about to charge me with profaning the church, I told him and the others of some of the things I'd seen while in the Italies and at the Holy See, and of some of the philosophy regarding the love of boys espoused by the learned and respected men in Florence. My stories had the effect I thought it would on the impressionable young males in my company and when I was done their members were much longer and fatter than when I had begun. And as I had thought, from there it was easy to take the next step to satisfy the urges I had ignited. As I recall old Three-Finger Duarte once telling me as an innocent lad of fourteen, there is a point when a man is aroused that he stops thinking with his brain and begins thinking with his stones.

Vasco and Marcilio began. They embraced and as they began to caress each other's naked body they kissed. Having celebrated his nineteenth birthday only the day before, Vasco had a trim, muscular torso, arms and legs, the muscles firm and pronounced as a result of being physically active, with a narrow waist and compact buttocks. He went about without a shirt and, when out tending to our horses on the far reaches of the estate and away from people, without breeches or underpants, just as he used to when as a teenage boy he headed out alone into the hills to hunt wild fowl, being one of those individuals who preferred to go about nude. So his swarthy, olive-brown skin was darkly and evenly tanned. His chest was smooth, the de Azurara's, like the Ribeiro's, not being particularly hirsute. He had long, thick auburn hair which swept across his forehead and curled over his ears. His armpit hair was long and silky and his pubic hair thick and curly, and his upper lips sported the fine, silky wisps of a moustache. He reminded me of paintings of Greek gods or of one of the marble statues of beautiful young men I had seen in the Medici garden. His cock was of a nice size and shape, as were his low-hung balls.

In that Vasco's apprentice, Marcilio, who would turn eleven tomorrow, spent much time in the hot summer sun stripped to the waist, his swarthy olive-brown skin was darker from the waist up and lighter from the waist down. Like Vasco, he preferred to go about naked but didn't have as much opportunity. His young muscles were still roundly contoured, having not yet developed the definition that would come with puberty, but leading an active, physical life, his muscles were firm and his arms and legs strong. He was Vasco's cousin, the oldest son of their grandfather's youngest daughter, the sister of Vasco's father. The two of them had been lovers now for almost four years and knew each other's body as well as their own. It was not long before they had aroused each other. Vasco's member was now just over one and a half hand-widths long and two fingers thick and Marcilio's the size of a breakfast sausage, about the length and thickness of my thumb.

Turning the boy around, Vasco generously lubricated his anus, and his own stiff member, with his spittle, and then mounted him as a stallion mounts a mare there before us at the edge of the meadow, sinking his stiff member up the boy's hot, eager ass with an ease that comes with experience. With the exception of Fernão, it was not the first time he had mounted the boy before us and by now neither gave it any thought. As he began to slowly fuck the boy, he reached down and began to stroke the boy's stiff, aching little member. Fernão watched with wide-eyed surprise and unabashed interest and I noticed his member had resumed swelling. I had discovered Vasco varnishing his cane five years ago, just after he had turned fourteen, on my way to my new estate, not knowing at the time he was the grandson of the man who had been looking after the estate prior to my receiving it, and him not knowing I was his new Lord. I smiled as I recalled that now and as I watched him pumping his stiff cock in and out of his young cousin's backside.

My seven-year-old stepson meanwhile was tracing the tattoos on my arms and legs, following the twisting vines from ankles to hips and from wrists to shoulders with his pointer finger, all the while kissing and nibbling my chest and flicking his hot, pointed tongue at my nipples, causing them to burn and become firm. Knowing the pleasure it gave me, he finally fastened his lips to my right nipple and began sucking on it, causing me to squirm with arousal. We kissed and I delighted in the velvet smoothness of the boy's lips and hint of cheese and sausage on his breath and I recalled the natural sweetness of his breath the first time our lips had met.

I was now twenty-one, my birthday having been two and a half-months ago. My rigorous life among the natives of the land Colombo still insisted was part of the Indies, running, walking, and paddling across the rugged land, had resulted in a muscular, solidly-packed body, my chest and shoulders broad, my abdomen firm and rippled, and my arms and legs muscular and firm, and unlike most Lords who left the manual labour to the vassals on their estate, I much preferred and enjoyed the physical labour and so had maintained my physique this past year. I had taken to wearing long-sleeved shirts and trousers or hose to cover my tattoos, not because I was ashamed of them or embarrassed but because they attracted attention, and questions, but whenever I could, I much preferred to go naked as I had for over three years, or only in short-legged breeches, and fortunately that was often as I spent much time working alongside my vassals or alone and we had few visitors to the estate. As a result my body was well tanned besides in good condition. As I mentioned, the Ribeiro's are not hirsute, my arms, legs, back and chest being as smooth as Vasco's, and my cheeks and upper lip as downy as young Fernão. My member, two hands and two fingers long and almost three fingers thick when aroused, was, happily, a much different matter!

Twisting around, my stepson turned his attention to my nuts and stiff member, licking my hairy, sweaty balls and licking my shaft, and then running his tongue along the rim of my cockhead and swirling it over my bulb, causing the first droplet of my sweet, clear nectar to ooze out the tip, which he quickly licked up with delight. Straddling my naked body with his ass practically in my face, he squirmed with pleasure as I grasped his hips and rimmed him and he giggled with pleasure as his little cocklet, about the size of my little finger, wagged excitedly. I slipped my tongue into his asshole and twirled it and then fastened my lips to his anus and sucked on his dank hole. Wetting my middle finger, I slipped it into his hot, moist chamber and began to finger fuck him and he sucked even more deeply on my rigid, swollen cock.

Jutia had been roughly raped by an older boy from the Kalinago tribe which had captured his mother just shortly before I had rescued his mother and him, and the first time I had mounted him was in front of his mother the same night as I had mounted his mother in front of him, both being the first acts of tenderness he had seen between rutting couples. Later, upon rescuing Arasibo, the castrati had offered me his backside before my stepson in the hut for men and I was duty bound to take it or lose face. To be honest, Arasibo was a kind, gentle boy and attractive so I did not require much convincing. The next night after performing my manly duty with my new wife, I lay on my back and the two boys pleasured me with their tongues, eventually licking up my seed from my sweaty body. Jutia was familiar with being taken and with pleasuring me in front of others and so took no notice that we were not alone now.

In fact upon my return to the estate and discovery that Vasco had taken Marcilio on as his assistant in the training of our horses, and to provide him pleasure in my absence, almost three years earlier, the five of us have enjoyed each other's company and known each other carnally ever since, for almost a year now. Poor Fernão who had been told congress between males was a sin and a perversion all his life looked about him with wide-eyed wonder and uncertainty. Given his background, Arasibo understood and empathized with Fernão's innocence and confusion, even fear, and, the gentle boy that Arasibo was, he took the younger boy in hand, so to speak, and guided him in his initial foray into the forbidden pleasures of the flesh. Slipping his dark fingers about the younger boy's still limp but swelling member, he stroked it gently and slowly, aware of how sensitive it must be.

Fernão hesitated and then tentatively caressed the older boy's chest and awkwardly kissed him, and encouraged by the new and enticing pleasure he was feeling between his legs, he reached down and self-consciously stroked the older boy's stiff cock, intrigued by the presence of a hood, not having one himself. Lacking balls did not stop Arasibo from becoming aroused, nor from shying away from fondling the younger boy's stones. Watching the others and copying them, Fernão sucked on Arasibo's breasts, which were more ample than most boys being a castrati, and then Arasibo sucked on the thirteen-year-old boy's member before getting on his hands and knees and presenting his backside to the younger boy. With lust throbbing through his swollen member and causing the knob to burn, Fernão did not hesitate accepting it.

Shuffling up to the older boy on his knees, he placed the tip of his narrow member against Arasibo's eager hole. With the older boy's experience and his spittle lubricating Fernão's stiff cock, the boys united with little difficulty and Fernão needed no further help. With a smile and a dreamy look in his eyes, he began to pump his hips, thrusting his stiff, throbbing cock in and out of the older boy's ass. Watching the two boys, Fernão thirteen years and two months old and Arasibo now sixteen years and six months, was a delight. Arasibo was the darkest of all of us, a dark reddish-brown, contrasting with Fernão whose swarthy olive-coloured skin was darkened by the summer sun from neck to waist and from knees to ankles, leaving a decided pale rump and stomach, and as I watched the two of them, I mused on how the pleasure the two of them were feeling was universal whether you are black, white or red, Arab, Christian or Taino. This had to be part of God's plan, and that had to make it right. Arasibo lived to please, and pleasing the younger boy brought him as much pleasure as young Fernão was experiencing. As for Fernão, he was thirteen and experiencing pleasures of the flesh for the first time in his life. His great delight would be matched with guilt just as great later, but he would have four others to assure him that he was not destined for hell.

We were all young and prurient and we felt no need to prolong our pleasure, knowing we would soon rise and experience it again. So Vasco fucked Marcilio furiously and grasped him tightly as he filled the boy's rectum with his hot, thick seed and the boy, about to turn eleven, bucked like an untamed stallion as his rectum was flooded with the recently turned nineteen-year-old boy's slime and he reached his own dry orgasm by Vasco's expert hand which had varnished many a cane besides his own. It was a delightful way to celebrate the young boy's upcoming birthday.

Meanwhile my stepson Jutia quivered with his own orgasm thanks to my finger up his bum, quivering with the delight causing his anus and his little prick to burn as he swallowed my thick, slimy seed as he had many times this past year. Aroused by witnessing the loss of Fernão's virginity and by Marcilio's obvious pleasure, I came violently and copiously, my seed overflowing my seven-year-old stepson's mouth and oozing from the corners of his lips and around his chin. With Jutia and me on one side and Vasco and Marcilio on the other, Arasibo quivered and gasped with his orgasm and Fernão wobbled shakily on weak knees as he shot his first load of seed, squirting it up the sixteen-year-old Arawak castrati's ass to the delight of both. Buggering a boy for the first time in his young life, I do not know who received the greater pleasure, Fernão or Arasibo.

We collapsed there in the hot Portuguese sun and enjoyed the hot blush that follows, gasping for breath, the air now scented with the musky fragrance of spilt seed and sweaty balls, our chests rising and falling from our exertion. The sun beat down on our naked, sweating bodies and a gentle breeze blowing in from the ocean cooled our flesh. We lay for the longest time relishing the gentle pulsing of our genitals. Finally sitting up, Vasco, Marcilio, Fernão and I passed around the wine skin and took long draughts of the chilled wine while Jutia and Arasibo strode over to the spring nearby and drank of the ice-cold spring water, still preferring it to wine despite being a year in their new country. With the exception of young Fernão for whom this was all new and mysterious, the rest of us have known the pleasure of male congress for a long time and have united with each other frequently throughout this past year, each of us having fucked or been fucked, sucked or been sucked, and masturbated or been masturbated with each of the other four.

As I had suspected, it was not long before our young bodies were feeling the need for gratification again and our minds yielded to our stones and we began caressing and kissing, turning to the person beside us as the person on the other side turned to us. We were young and healthy and we all had needs that required satisfaction. Vasco and Fernão lay on their sides and formed a sixty-nine, my nineteen-year-old vassal looking forward to bringing this prurient but naive countryman of his, the son of the Lord in the adjacent estate, to his first climax between another male's lips, and to savouring the thirteen-year-old boy's fresh sweet wine from his ripe young balls. Arasibo snuggled up behind Vasco and prepared to bugger the older boy, knowing the nineteen-year-old would enjoy it as much as he would, while Marcilio snuggled up behind Fernão and prepared to penetrate the boy's virgin hole. Jutia joined him and Marcilio rested his head in the seven-year-old boy's lap so he could suck on his little noodle, and I assumed the same position so Arasibo could suck on my much larger sausage.

And so we aroused each other once again. Vasco, Fernão, Marcilio and Arasibo all sucked deeply on stiff, throbbing pricks, delighting in their flavour and in bringing them pleasure. At the same time Arasibo and Marcilio thrust their hips to and fro, driving their own stiff throbbing cocks in and out of hot, moist holes which grasped their cocks tightly, bringing them as much pleasure as they were bringing the boys they were buggering. Again the hot afternoon sun beat down on us and sweat beaded on our naked flesh and began to trickle down our naked bodies.

As I felt the familiar pressure building in my groin, I concentrated on the pleasure throbbing through my stiff cock and the delight of feeling my seed racing up the core of my swollen member and I quivered as I filled Arasibo's mouth with my fresh slime. It was not his first time and he eagerly swallowed all I had to offer and continued to suck my aching cock until he had sucked my swollen balls dry. He at the same time quivered as he climaxed up Vasco's ass, delighting in his climax even though he could produce no seed and Vasco clenched his burning anus tight about the castrati's throbbing member, delighting in the pleasure Arasibo had brought him.

Vasco meanwhile trembled with equal delight as his mouth was filled with the fresh sweet wine of his young countryman, the second load to have ever been produced by his tight, sweaty balls, and thirteen-year-old Fernão trembled with his second ejaculation that day and the second in his young life, his head spinning with the delight of producing and squirting his seed. At the same time he savoured for the first time in his life the hot, thick slime of another male as Vasco squirted his load into the young boy's mouth and he gulped it down as if it were honey, his tender anus burning and grasping the stiff pecker of young Marcilio as the eleven-year-old's member throbbed with his orgasm up the teenage boy's rectum. Gasping and trembling with his orgasm, Marcilio sucked deeply on the stiff little member of my stepson, who trembled with delight with his own dry orgasm. Life was very good.

We all attended church the next morning and young Fernão smiled over at me happily with bright, sparkling eyes and his parents smiled and nodded as they sat in the pews reserved for the Nunzio family in the front of the church to the left of those reserved for the Ribeiro estate. I smiled in return, in part relieved and happy to see young Fernão's joy, in part as I recalled his loss of innocence the day before, but mostly as I thought about what his parents' reaction would be if they knew what I and their son had done the previous afternoon and I thought of the road the young boy had embarked on.

Father Antonio mentioned that it had been a year yesterday since my return and gave thanks to God that I had returned safely, to which there was a hearty "Amen", more sincerely expressed by some than by others, and my heart rejoiced to note young Fernão was among the former. As the congregation dropped to their knees, I prayed to the Lord thanking Him for the many blessings in my life, the most recent being the young son of Lord Nunzio. As I did every week, I thanked Saint Christopher for my safe journeys of the past and his guidance, and I prayed to São Teotónio, Portugal's first saint and the village patron saint, and asked for continued good fortune, which I did not think too forward considering the size of the donation I left on the collection plate each Sunday.

I was truly thankful for my home and my property, for my family here and at Viano do Castelo, and for all my other blessings, including my carnal pleasures, for I must confess, I was not that worried about the sins of the flesh I had committed as I once had been for I knew now there were many views regarding their appropriateness. Besides, I was the Lord of Quintas de Ribeiro, a man of power, and one who could do as he pleased. My mind wandered, as it frequently does in church, and I thought of King Manuel's gift a year ago extending the size of my estate and of his confidence and decision to push for further exploration of Bartolomeu Dias's route around the tip of the Dark Continent, and I wondered what it would be like to travel to Cathay and Cipango and see with my own eyes the wonders of the land of the Great Khan, and I wondered if there were those who worshipped young boys there as I do. Although I was leading a happy and productive life, I missed the adventure and excitement of learning about new cultures and meeting new races, and I especially missed the opportunities to engage in my secret pleasures and explore the varied ways a man's needs can be met.

As I sat there in the House of the Lord and gazed upon the altar boys with their white frocks and satin lips and rosy cheeks, I thought back to when I was a god in my own temple and of the young boys in their colourful cloaks and feathered headdresses who attended me and the temple, and of the feel of their satin lips about my aching member, and the feel of their hot, tight fists and hot, tight rectums grasping my staff. I shifted uncomfortably in the pew reserved for the Lord of the Quintas de Ribeiro and hoped that nobody, and especially the Lord of Heaven, noticed that the Lord of the Quintas de Ribeiro had an erection, though I suspected with the large donation I had left on the collection plate He would look the other way and forgive me. I thought again of King Manuel's plans and I prayed to the Lord that if He were agreeable He might somehow arrange that I might somehow become part of them.

At noon the next day a rider arrived at the house and from his livery I knew who had sent him, and my heart began beating faster as I surmised why he had come. The imprint on the wax seal confirmed my suspicion, and sitting in my study I took the message with trembling hand and read it. Unlike when I had received a similar message from his cousin, this time there was no hesitation or question in my mind or my heart regarding the summons. I requested the presence of my Steward immediately and announced my decision and left the same instructions as I had before except now I had a wife who could oversee the affairs of the estate and act on my behalf and who would inherit it should I not return, and who I knew would see to the continued well-being of our vassals. He was not surprised I was leaving and promised he and his family would look after the estate as they had the first time, and he wished me well. Vasco was fortunately in the stables so I was able to say my farewells to him personally, and though it was with much sorrow, I left knowing that he and Marcilio were happy and their future was secure.

I next called my family together and told them my decision. My dutiful wife, now carrying my second child and beginning to show, my adoring stepson, my faithful retainer, and my little son only eight months old, were much more difficult to say goodbye to. Nonetheless they were all understanding and accepting of my decision. I was after all, Baracutey, He Who Travels Alone, and a great Healer-Shaman and Warrior. It was only to be expected. I was saddened to leave them, particularly knowing I would not be home to see the birth of my second child, but I was comforted knowing the future of my family was secure and my affairs were in order and that I had the good fortune to have put things in motion to see that Arasibo's needs would be met and Vasco would see things were carried through. Arasibo of course insisted he should accompany me, but accepted and understood my explanation why that would be impossible, and he and Jutia proudly accepted my charge to protect my wife.

It did not take me long to pack the few belongings I wished to take with me, my cape with the insignia identifying me as a knight of the Order of Santiago, the white mantle with the white eight-pointed cross outlined in red identifying me as a Knight of the Langue of Aragon, Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, the sword and scabbard given to me by Pope Innocent, the short bow and curved sword I learned to use while riding across the Korasan, gifts from Prince Abbas, my Cross of Saint Christopher from Uncle Paolo, the first gift I had ever received on my travels and my lucky charm, the silver clasp in the form of a rearing horse given to me by Prince Afonso, my medicine bundle from the young Thimogona Shaman Muqbey, the plumed hat and fancy dress clothes I purchased in Venice, the amethyst ring I purchased in Samarkand, my ud, the pear-shaped lute I had learned to play with the Gilman Entertainers, and my old panpipe.

That very same day I and King Emanuel's messenger travelled to Viano do Castelo, arriving late that night. Father was immediately understanding and proud that I had been called upon again by our sovereign to serve him and he wished me well. Mother was heartbroken and furious with me, admonishing me for leaving behind my wife and children, but she knew she would not change my mind any more than she'd been able to change the minds of her husband and brother. I assured her it would be different this time in that I had no intention of jumping ship and would be travelling with an experienced and renown sailor the entire journey, and that though it would be long, the trip being anticipated to be about two years, which was almost half as long as I had been away the last time. Of course I did not tell her we would be sailing uncharted waters and nobody really had any idea how long we would take. It did not matter. She replied, glaring at her brother, Uncle Paolo, that she knew the ways of men and that I could not promise her I would not go wandering off on my own, and I received the same lecture and arguments I had heard her and Uncle Paolo exchange many times in the past. At last she relented and assured me she would visit Anacaona frequently and see that no harm befell her, my wife having become like a daughter to her, and telling me in no uncertain terms that if I did die this time she would never forgive me.

The next morning Uncle Paolo took me aside, eyes crinkling merrily and a ready smile, knowing what was in my heart and, I think, envious that his travelling days could no longer be as lengthy or adventurous, and behind that smile I knew was great sadness, as was behind mine. He said he knew I would miss my family, but that I could not refuse our sovereign, nor the call of unknown lands, and that a man could always find comfort and pleasure no matter where he was, and if not, he said with a twinkle in his eyes, there were always melons. I was not shocked that he would know the phrase, but I was by the implication that he knew with whom I preferred and had sought my pleasure. And with that he put his hand on my shoulder and told me he would await my return and expect to hear my tales, and that he planned on still being alive until my return despite what visions I might have. I assured him that I planned on returning alive also. And with that, we shook hands and I and King Manuel's messenger left for Lisbon.

Chapter 2
Pintuaria and Santiago

With references from King Manuel and Pope Alexander, Nico is reluctantly hired by Vasco da Gama who already has a full crew and travels to Pintuaria where Nico buys the services of an eleven-year-old Guanche pimp and boy whore.  Continuing on to Santiago where they stop for ship repairs and to take on fresh supplies, he pays for the services of a muscular 13/14 yo black slave/whore from the Limba tribe, deflowers the curious 13/14 yo son of a Jew silversmith, has congress with a 13/14 yo choir boy who has been servicing the local priest, and seduces an arrogant, virgin, early teen son of a Spanish nobleman.  Savouring the seed of each boy, he feeds the treat to each of them.  

Codes: Mt, Mb
Characters: Nico, Sompha (Limba slave) 

We sailed on the small, single-masted vessel used for quick transport of messengers and envoys along the coast, part of the Royal Fleet, a vessel that I had sailed on before. There being no other passengers, I had plenty of time to thank the Lord for His response to my prayer and to marvel at the mystery of His ways, for my summons to court had to have been writ before I had even made my request to Him. It had been on my mind often before that though, proof that the Lord watches over us and knows our every thought, probably even knows what we are going to think and ask. The royal messenger had to have been dispatched the morning of my tryst with Lord Nunzio's young son if not earlier. If God had been displeased with my actions that day, He could have easily delayed the message so it arrived too late for a response, or did not arrive at all. Not only was the Good Lord quick in His support, but He was magnanimous, providing swift currents and strong winds so that we arrived in Lisbon in two days and two nights. Word was sent immediately to King Manuel, and dressed in my finest clothes and wearing the cape revealing I was a knight of the Order of Santiago and the mantle and sword and scabbard revealing I was as well a Knight of the Langue of Aragon, Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, and wearing about my neck the medallion signifying me as Knight Commander of the Order of the Holy Lance, I was granted an audience that afternoon. Of course I was not so proud as not to know that our meeting was to the benefit of his royal Highness and that had much to do with its expediency.

To my surprise, there was a third individual present, a dour-looking man in the robes and mitre of a bishop. King Manuel was abrupt and to the point. He had commissioned a flotilla of four ships to seek an ocean route to the Far East by way of the tip of the Dark Continent as he had informed me a year ago was his intent. In that the expedition would be passing through Arab-held lands and given my intensive experience living with the heathens, he felt my knowledge could be invaluable to the expedition. He was also impressed with my powers of observation, and with my courage to speak up for what I believed, and required someone who would report back honestly to him. He did not say so, but it was evident to me that he did not fully trust whomever he had chosen to lead this expedition to do so.

The bishop, I discovered, was Bishop Fernando de Almeida, bishop of the diocese of Ceuta. Everyone in Portugal was aware that the Almeida family was a powerful faction with far reaching influence and his presence caused me great apprehension considering the Almeida opposition to King Manuel. (1) To my surprise, he carried with him a message from Pope Alexander, the former Cardinal Borja whom I had met, who stated in his letter that he was most impressed with my past service to the church, and in that the citizens of Calecut were said to be Christians, he wanted a representative of some repute to be part of the expedition and to represent the Holy See at any meetings with their Emperor. When he had arranged for my passage from Rome to Lisbon, I had suspected his intent was to put me in his debt so he could ask a favour of me later. My suspicion was evidently correct. I had also figured it was not a huge debt so it would not be a huge boon, and I was right again. Of course I graciously and humbly acceded to his request and I knelt before Bishop Almeida to receive his blessing. King Manuel, eager to be seen favourably by the Holy See and to better the Catholic Monarchs, was pleased.

Early the next morning I travelled to Restello, four miles below the Arsenal of Lisbon, where I sought out the ships commanded by one Vasco da Gama. (2) The Steward curtly informed me that they already had a full crew and were not hiring more, and even though I told him I had letters of recommendation, he haughtily replied he didn't care who my father was nor how rich, they were not hiring, and I would not be bothering the Captain-major. It was only when he saw my letters bore the seals of King Manual and of Pope Alexander did he relent. The Captain-major gruffly and abruptly informed the Steward, in my presence, that he had no time for pampered sons of the aristocracy, and when I pointed out I had spent over a year with the Arabic heathens he replied he already had two interpreters who could speak Arabic besides one who spoke Bantu, a language I confess I had never heard of, and he said again he had no need for foppish popinjays.

I angrily retorted I was no fop nor weakling and knew my way around ships as well as anyone in his crew. He looked down at me disdainfully and arrogantly, but accepted my letters of reference, and considering the authors, reluctantly took me aboard. It was hardly a welcoming or encouraging reception. Regardless, I was taken on, shown my bunk and locker beneath the gangboards, and immediately put to work loading our trade goods and rations, the Captain-major I am sure telling the man supervising to give me the heaviest crates and barrels and then watching on deck and hoping to break me. The Captain-major and his close companions spent the night in prayer in the tiny nearby Chapel of Our Lady of Beleon ordered built by Prince Henry for mariners setting out to sea while the rest of us prayed outside. Carrying lighted tapers with the litany intoned by the priests and responded to by ourselves and our onlookers, we made our way to the beach. There the Vicar celebrated mass and received general confession and absolved all of us of our sins, as according to the Bull by Pope Nicholas V published in 1492. And so, pure in spirit, we raised anchor and set sail. (3)

A week later we sighted the Canaries and the next day the Raphael paused to fish off Terra Alta. Thick fog began to set in that evening and as we were to the lee of Pintuaria the Captain-major decided to dock and replenish our water supply and pick up some fresh mutton. (4)(5)

Most of the crew was ordered to remain on board, but a small group was selected to take a yawl ashore for supplies, a punitive measure I suspect. I was one of them. There were strict orders to pick up the supplies and to return immediately of course. Those selected, recognizing the assignment for what it was, decided to refresh ourselves at the local tavern and to blame the fog for our delay. There being few customers due to the fog, our presence, and our coin, was most welcome. Only to be expected, many of the men slipped to rooms upstairs in the arms of a Guanche woman for a different refreshment. (6) The women, I was informed, used to go naked from the waist up and were frequently given to guests prior to being conquered by the Spanish, causing me to recall the same practice among many of the natives I had met in the new world. There are some practices that can be found wherever you go. Having no interest myself, I had a second tankard and stepped outside to relieve myself. A shadow behind me caused me to spin around, sword in hand.

"Whoa!" called out a young boy, a Guanche, raising his hands before him. "I have no weapon. I did not come to harm you." I had noticed him mopping up tables in the tavern, and speaking to several of the men before they left in the arms of one or another of the women. He was a slender, dark-skinned boy with sea-blue eyes and a shock of blond hair held back by a leather band, about eleven I estimated, wearing a sleeveless leather tunic, ties undone to reveal a smooth, dark brown chest, leather leggings from ankle to knee, and leather guards from elbow to wrist. A necklace of red and black earth-baked beads hung about his neck. Arms, legs, and cheeks were smudged and he stank of beer and wine, not from drinking, but from mopping it up off the tables.

"That is an impressive weapon you have," he said, referring to my member still in my right hand, not the sword in my left. "I know some women who would much enjoy a weapon that size."

"I am sure you do," I replied, thinking of him making the rounds of the tables and of those who had taken my companions upstairs.

"Perhaps someone young, someone two summers older than myself. She is very beautiful, and very appreciative."

"And how do you know this?"

"She is my sister," he said simply.

"Your sister? You're selling your sister?" He shrugged. "How would you like it if she was going table to table selling you?"

"She is," he replied, as a matter of fact. He looked up at me and leered. "I am more expensive, but I am more beautiful, and I know how to appreciate a man with a big staff."

I had to smile, and he smiled too, his even, white teeth shining in the dark. He had me. We agreed on a price and he dropped his breeches there behind the inn and I took him standing up. He was prepared. He had a small leather case of mutton which he swabbed my erect member with, and with which he greased his anus. Grasping him by his slender waist, I eased forward and he reached behind and guided my greased, erect member to his hole. I am large and he was tight despite I am sure being frequently stretched, but he was also experienced, and we were both well greased. It would not be good for his business if he was damaged.

So, grunting and snorting there in the alley like two pigs in rut, we united and I sank my member up his hot, moist rectum until my hairs were pressed against his smooth buttocks and the tip of my member was buried deep inside him. I reached around and rolled his tiny balls and stroked his soft, limp noodle. His pubes were smooth. As his little member began to swell between my fingers, I slowly drew back, drawing my member back until the bulb was stretching his anal muscle, and then I sank back up his wonderfully tight, hot chamber. He quivered with delight. It could have been an act to please me and further arouse me, but his member was hard and throbbing in my hand, and that he could not fake, leading me to believe his trembling was genuine. As I pumped my stiff, throbbing member in and out of his ass he grasped and released it with his anus and the two of us panted and gasped for breath. The fog was thick and we had moved away from the back door. I was not worried about being discovered.

Gradually I felt the pressure developing in my groin and I slowed to enjoy the pleasure of my swollen cock encased in his hot, moist chamber, and I squeezed his member tightly below the bulb to quell his lust though he was still a year or two too young to squirt. Sweat trickled down from my armpits and over my ribs and in the dark I could see sweat beading on his dark skin. We were both gasping now and I grasped his hips tightly and began to pump my member in and out of his body more rapidly, causing the tip to burn and I know causing his anus to tingle and catch fire also. We were both gasping for air when I finally felt the twinge deep in my groin and the rush of my seed up the core of my numb, swollen cock. The opening burned with delight as I spurted, squirting my hot, thick seed deep up this young boy's rectum and his rectum throbbed in time with my throbbing cock. I stopped and gasped for breath as I emptied my balls and I felt his swollen little cocklet throb and he gasped and trembled with his own orgasm. He was right. He knew how to appreciate a man with a large staff.

I rejoined the others as they were descending the stairs, flushed and smiling, and we returned to our boat with our supplies, sharing a bulb of garlic to mask our breaths. My breeches soaked up a dollop of seed squeezed out of my limp member as I climbed the ladder to the deck of the Gabriel, and I'm sure mine was not the only one.

The fog cleared with the break of day and the Captain-major ordered the anchors be raised, and we continued on our way. Becoming separated over such vast distances and such a lengthy voyage was not unusual and the captains had decided in the case of such an event each would continue on and rendezvous at the Isles of the Blessed. (7) There was no sight of any of the other vessels and as the days passed it became feared that they had become lost and wrecked in the fog, a most ominous beginning to our voyage. On the twenty-third of the month we became becalmed and as the days passed with no wind tempers became frayed. Finally, on July 26, we were surprised to hear the shout of a sailor on lookout in the crow's-nest, and we turned to see much to our surprise the missing ships five leagues behind us. That evening we were able to talk with the others and there was much rejoicing with the firing of bombards and the sounding of trumpets. The Raphael had also become separated in the fog and had rejoined the others only four days earlier and they had all feared we had been lost.

Thursday we arrived at the Island of São Thiago, the largest of the Isles of the Blessed, and dropped anchor at the shipyard in the Bay of Santa Maria where our countrymen had established a trading post, the Ribeira Grande, in 1462. It was now a growing and bustling colonial port, a destination point for vessels of all nations plying these waters. There it was the Captain-major's intention to take on meat, fresh water and wood and to see to the much needed repair of the yards. Now almost three weeks at sea and with a frightening three-month voyage across the open sea ahead of us, it was an opportunity to reward the crew for their hard work and to renew their energy and hopes. There were three ways to do that, good food, plenty to drink, and willing women, and Ribeira Grande had all three. Of course unbeknownst by any others on board, my preference was for the other sex and a younger partner, and managing to find such, I can honestly say the Isles truly were blessed.

The day after we arrived, I was assigned to the crew responsible for seeing to the repair of the yards, because of my sailing experience I was informed though I suspect it was a test to verify my claims of seamanship and because it required strength and no fear of heights, which the Captain-major hoped I lacked. Much to my amusement, Fate, or our gracious Lord God, I am not sure which was my benefactor, has a sense of humour, and instead it was the captain's orders that resulted in my first intimate encounter on the island. The master shipwright, responsible for the island's fishing boats and repairs to passing trade ships, had in his employ several negro slaves suitable for the job of repairs as they had exceptional muscles and they cambered about in the rigging like monkeys with no fear, a result I suspect of their kinship with the creatures, and if they did fall and die, it was not as big a loss as if it had been a white man. One of them was a boy, thirteen or fourteen, by the name of Sompha who was remarkably muscular for his age, and like most boys, agile and daring. He was assigned to the top of the rigging as the upper yards were not as thick and required someone lighter and more agile, someone like himself, and like me.

There had been another reason to assign me to the top of course. Due to the heat with the approaching summer and for ease in walking the upper rugging, I had stripped down to only a pair of breeches gathered just below the knees. The boy was wearing only a grungy loincloth looped between the legs and hung fore and aft like the other slaves, revealing his muscular thighs and uncharacteristically large biceps, and of course glimpses of his buttocks and exceptionally large package which I could not help admiring. He had the darkest black skin I have ever seen. The boy on the other hand could not keep his eyes off my tattoos. We ended up being paired together and we made a good team. I could not speak his language and he could not speak mine, but through gestures and common phrases we made our intentions known and whenever there was a pause in our work we worked on our language differences. By the end of the day our bodies were streaked with sweat and dirt and we were parched, and we could hold a decent if somewhat limited conversation. Separating into two groups at the end of the day, those of us from the ship in one group and those from the island in another, and the latter also separating into two groups, the white workers in one and the black slaves in another, we sat in the shade of the sail shed in the shipyard and drank heartily from the two barrels of water, one for the free men, one for the slaves, all of whom were black. The boy sat on the edge of his group closest to us, and I sat closest to the slaves on the edge of the sailor group. I caught him stealing glances at me, and he caught me stealing glances at him. Fortunately nobody else noticed.

The boson and the master shipwright met to discuss the work for the next day among other things, and when the boson returned he informed us that the master shipwright also had a number of female slaves housed at the edge of the shipyard available for a reasonable price and that if anyone wanted to avail themselves they should approach him. Many of the men took him up on the offer of course, both married and single, having been without female companionship since we had left Lisbon, and knowing that we had many months ahead of us. I joined them, knowing what I wanted but uncertain how I would make my desire known. I hung back and let the others go first, not wanting the others to hear.

"Those who hesitate will need to wait," the slave owner said with a smile when I finally approached him, assuming I had hesitated out of shyness. "I only have so many female slaves. But you are lucky. These heathen women are as lusty as any sailor and don't mind a second or even a third partner, and will screw with just as much passion the third time as the first. The younger and prettier have already a second partner, but you can have one if you can wait, or there are a couple older who have been spoken for only once."

"It is not one of your female slaves which interests me," I dared to whisper, glancing over at the group of slaves waiting to be taken back to their compound. He was a slave owner, and a man who dealt in the sale of pleasures of the flesh. He was in no position to judge me. He did not. Instead he smiled at me knowingly with the revelation of the reason for my hesitancy, and the extra coin in his pocket.

"So, you think the boy can handle your mast as well as the upper yards, do you?" he chuckled. "You will not be disappointed. These black boys are just as hot for a good fucking as the women. Some even wear the clothing of women and piss squatting," he informed me with a wink. "I've seen them. On the mainland," he said conspiratorially in a whisper. "You can take him here and now in the yards to avoid notice. I trust him to return." The price he asked was exorbitant but I knew for men such as the master shipwright even just one çeitil would be better than none, and the boy was a slave, and I was not inexperienced in such bartering. We reached an agreement at ten centavos. (8)

I joined the other men heading out with the slave owner and his slaves and when I motioned to the boy, he gave me a huge smile and dropped back and we slipped away in the approaching dusk. Slipping into the back of the sail shed, we piled several scraps of canvas on the cutting table and removing his loincloth the boy lay on his back, his ass at the edge of the table, and raised his legs. Finding a cake of linseed, I lowered my breeches and under breeches and oiled his hole, which he opened eagerly, and my member, which was erect and just as eager by then.

Stepping up to him, I placed the tip of my member against his hole and as I slowly pushed forward I felt him opening his hole. He was obviously experienced. Despite my size and his tightness I penetrated him on first attempt and he shivered with anticipation and delight in having his rectum stuffed with a thick, solid tube of man meat, just as his master had said. Sinking it in as far as I could, his balls nesting in my hairs like two black eggs, I grasped his hips and slowly withdrew and then sank my member up his hot, moist hole again. He trembled with delight and inhaled sharply, as did I. As I worked my member in and out of his hole, he tightened his anus about my shaft as I withdrew and relaxed as I reentered, further evidence of his experience, and of his pleasure. When a boy fucks along with you it doubles the pleasure knowing he is enjoying it and wanting it.

There was no doubt of either with this young teenage boy. Our bodies were soon glistening with sweat and I could feel it trickling down my sides and see it beading on the boy's black chest, which was rising and falling in time with my thrusts and withdrawals. My swollen member was throbbing with lust, the rim itching and burning with desire, and then the whole going numb, signalling that I would soon be releasing my seed. When I felt it racing up the core of my benumbed cock I thrust forward, driving the bulb deep up his chamber and I paused as I came, my hot seed squirting deep up his rectum with a delightful pleasure. His own member, which had been jerking with excitement, suddenly began to spurt also, spraying his heaving chest with his young, thick seed, lacing his black skin and his pert nipples with streamers of his pearly cream as his member jerked uncontrollably. His moist lips opened and curved into a smile, his blurred eyes half-closed. The two of us inhaled deeply, filling our lungs with the freshly scented air, the musky fragrance of fresh cum mingling with the smell of canvas and linseed. We gasped for air as if suffocating, our lungs straining and our flesh glowing with the flush of ejaculation.

I bent over and ran my tongue along his sweaty, cum-laced chest, scooping up his fresh cum and savouring the tart flavour of this black boy's fresh cream and the saltiness of his sweat and the unique texture of a boy's seed. I scooped up a puddle of his cream where it had collected in the hollow of his bellybutton with my first and second fingers and brought it to his lips and he eagerly and happily accepted the offering, slipping his black lips about my fingers and sucking off his fresh cream as if it were icing from a cake. I fastened my lips to his hot, sweaty body and sucked up a puddle of his pudding, the white slime contrasting sharply with his tar-black skin, and I scooped up another puddle and offered it to him and he sucked it up just as eagerly.

We separated and we sat there in silence on the cutting table, him naked and me with my breeches about my ankles, relishing the experience and slowly recovering. We talked and he informed me he was of the Limba tribe from the mainland, his people being rice farmers and hunters in the interior woodlands and grasslands, which I've heard others call the savannah. He said it was common for boys to play with each other's member and to take turns playing the role of the husband or the wife, especially after swimming or when away from the adults, or between brothers late at night after watching their parents in congress and after their parents had fallen asleep. He had been captured as a child by another tribe whose name I did not understand, the Mende or something like that, and raped by his captor and used as a woman repeatedly though the man had two wives.

They measure a year as the time from one wet season to the next which appears to be the same time as our winters. He said two years ago one of "my people" came and, he added proudly, he was exchanged for a steel dagger, and then taken to this island where his present owner bought him for several coins. He said he was treated well because he is valued for his work in the top rigging, and because he is popular because many of my people seek to have congress with him because they have left their wives behind and prefer to satisfy their lust with a boy as they feel guilt doing so with a woman, a foolish idea in his mind. So he said he is fed well and not whipped because his master knows the value of his beauty. It was through these relationships, he said with a smile, that he learned our language, at least the words one had to know, and discovering my interest in languages, he proceeded to teach me some basic and functional words and phrases in his language.

All this he said openly and without shame or embarrassment, and he asked about my tattoos and I explained to him the process by which they were done, which greatly impressed him, and of some of my life as a priest with the Tenocha. We were recovered by then and eager for another round and so I took him once again, and again we both consummated our act by ejaculating and sharing his seed. When I headed back to the ship, I encountered several of the others returning from the slave compound where they assumed I had been and I did not correct them. I looked forward to the next time we worked on the ship's repairs.

To my disappointment, the next day I was told I was not needed and I could spend the day in port. I had to wonder if the Captain-major knew of my tryst and had purposefully kept me away. Of course to request a day repairing the rigging rather than going into the town would be suspicious, so I left the ship and wandered the streets, wasting time and thinking of Sompha and getting aroused. I found myself in the store of a silversmith, a Jew from his skullcap and his accent. There were a great many Jews in the Blessed Isles and seeing him and his young apprentice, who also appeared to be around thirteen or fourteen, I thought back to meeting Joseph the cobbler and his son and I wondered if they were still alive and where they were considering their persecution back home. (9)

I was going to purchase something for Anacaona or perhaps Arasibo to make up for my absence, but my eye caught a pair of large earrings with an unusual and intricate design and decided to purchase them for myself, noticing a few of my shipmates wore an earring and to be honest I missed wearing my ear plugs, and the possibility they would annoy the Captain-major being extra conservative in such matters crossed my mind. The silversmith and his apprentice were intrigued by the tattooed circles under my eyes, and so I showed them also those on my arms and chest and told them of some of the religious beliefs and customs of the Tenocha which I figured the silversmith would find interesting considering the orthodox views some of his faith have, and selecting some customs that I figured would amaze both and titillate the teenage apprentice.

I was correct on all accounts, the man astonished by the foreign religious concepts and the fanatic belief of the worshippers, both man and boy horrified by my description of the bloodlust and violent sacrifices, and the boy intrigued by my hints of sybaritic practices. The timely arrival of another customer and his wife separated the two and while the silversmith was distracted, I mentioned the ceremony of young boys spilling their seed on the earth to ensure fertility and hinted at my participation in the activity, certain it would tweak the curiosity of the pubescent and curious young boy. After making my purchase, I inquired if there was a market where one could purchase something for his noonday meal and the boy offered to show me the way. I suspect in gratitude for my purchase and hope for future purchases, the silversmith gave his assent. Purchasing a loaf of bread and some cheese and sausage, I invited the boy to join me, and he willing accepted, hungry for the forbidden knowledge I had to offer, not the food, and he declined the sausage as he feared it might not have been kosher in its making, and besides, his faith forbade the consuming of both meat and dairy products at the same time. Having made the acquaintance of Joseph the Jew I knew what he meant and had forgotten.

The town being built on a plateau, it was a short walk to the cliffs overlooking the harbour and as we sat in the shade of a gnarled, stunted tree to eat I related in greater detail the ceremony I had participated in with the youth of the Tenocha in the open fields. His squirming on his buttocks and the bulge that developed in his trousers were evidence I had not lost my skill as a storyteller nor my understanding of youth. He was shocked when I asked if he masturbated and cited the scriptures saying God slew Onan for committing evil, and was even more scandalized when I asked if he ever had congress with another male and he emphatically declared himself to be a virgin.

I countered that the evil Onan had done was disobeying his father by spilling his seed to avoid impregnating his brother's widow Tamar as his father had wanted him to do, not just the act of spilling his seed. That was when I discovered the boy was not the goldsmith's apprentice, but his son. I went on to explain how Onan's deed was much different, and informed him that many masturbate for pleasure, and that in many cultures congress between males is seen as normal, and that I personally knew of many Christians who engaged in the practice, though I had to admit no Jews. He of course was not convinced, his indoctrination into his faith being strong, but he did admit the rabbis had said there had to be more to God's wrath in that Onan only needed to engage in ritual washing after spilling his seed to be forgiven, and that he would be impure only until the next day began the following evening, but they had said no more. Anyway, he was a boy and curious and I had aroused his lust and at last he acquiesced.

I quickly removed my shirt, breeches, and under breeches and lay back and watched the boy slowly and self-consciously removed his clothing. Watching a shy, young boy disrobing is as arousing as engaging in foreplay and my member slowly began to rise. He undid the ties of his shirt and drew it over his head, revealing his smooth, slender torso, the muscles still rounded and his shoulder blades and ribs still visible, and fine, silky tufts of hair growing from his armpits. He had even greater difficulty with his buckle and fumbled with the stays of his breeches and under breeches and his cheeks blushed a delightful pink as he lowered them and stepped out of them, revealing a beautiful, compact bottom, narrow waist, slender legs and a curly bush perched at the base of his member, not yet spreading up his flat belly. He was erect, as I had suspected, and his beautiful member jutted up in the air, slender and about a hand's width in length.

I had him lay down on his back in the grass and raise his buttocks and legs in the air, and I crouched behind him and rimmed his delightful, virgin hole, licking his pucker and stretching it open and sticking in my tongue, causing his member to jerk wildly and the first of his clear nectar to ooze out the tip. I eagerly licked up the droplet and savoured the sweetness of his nectar, causing a second dollop to ooze out which I flipped up with the tip my pointer finger and applied to his rosy lips. As he apprehensively licked his lips, his broad and astonished smile and the oozing out of a third dollop was evidence of his enjoyment.

By this time I was erect also and I drooled over my erect cock, coating it in my spittle, and then shuffling up to him, I position the tip of my member at his entrance and told him to push out as I slowly pushed forward. He was tight, much tighter than the young black slave I had the day before, and he strained with obvious pain and effort as I relentlessly continued to push forward, ever so slowly stretching open his tight hole until my bulb popped inside. The two of us were gasping for breath and snorting like two rutting pigs and I paused to catch my breath and to give the boy a chance to focus on having the head of a man's cock wedged in his anus.

I then slowly continued to push forward until again my member was surrounded by the hot, moist flesh of a boy hole, the tip buried deep up his rectum and his ripe young eggs nestled in my coarse hairs. I again paused and then slowly withdrew, causing him to inhale sharply with the new burning ring at the entrance to his chamber of pleasure. Again I slowly sank my cock up his ass as far as I could, and again I slowly drew it back. The boy had his eyes closed and his lips were parted as he concentrated on the pulsating delight ringing his opening and causing him to constrict and relax his anus and his thin chest to rise and fall as he tried to catch his breath. He was highly aroused, as was I, so I went slowly and paused frequently to make the pleasure last and to give us time to relish the stimulation. It was all very familiar to me but a sensation I would never grow tired of, and all totally new to the boy, which made it all the more intense. Thirteen or fourteen and a virgin, his ass having never been fucked, his swollen, throbbing cock having never squirted, it was the closest to Heaven a man can get. I looked down at his fresh, flushed face as I slowly fucked him and the fluttering of his feathery eyelashes and the slight curl of his smooth, parted lips as he relished the pulsating pleasure and burning of his asshole and the pulsation of my cock deep up his rectum and the throbbing of his own swollen little member was a joy to behold.

Inhaling deeply, I rammed my cock up his asshole until my coarse hairs were pressed against his buttocks and I trembled with delight as my seed raced up the core of my throbbing cock and squirted out the burning tip. Spurt after spurt shot out of my fleshy cannon and squirted deep up his rectum, deep up uncharted territory, and feeling my seed flood his rectum caused his own balls to constrict and squirt their contents for the first time in his life and he gasped with open-mouthed apprehension and wonder as he felt for the first time the burn of his seed as it raced up the core of his young, slender prick and spurt out the tip and arch over his body to splat against his smooth, sweaty chest. Streamer after streamer of the first cream to ever leave his body laced his heaving chest and his tender, sensitive nipples. Puddles of white, creamy sauce pooled in the hollows of his body and his little cock waved in excitement, sending streamers in every direction. Witnessing and being a part of his first ejaculation, I inhaled the musky fragrance of a boy's first ejaculate and blasted still another shot of my seed deep up his body.

Gasping for breath as if he had run a mile, all up hill, he looked up at me with slightly parted eyes and a sheepish grin and I smiled down at him, delighting in his delight, relishing his first ejaculation as if it were mine. His cum-laced chest rose and fell and he sucked in the warm summer air thick with the fragrance of his fresh seed, the most beautiful perfume to assault a man's or boy's nostrils. My stiff cock still buried up his ass to the hilt, I leaned over and scooping up the thickest puddle of his slime, I popped it in his mouth and then bent over and sucked up a delightful puddle myself. As I savoured its creamy texture and unique flavour, I smiled down at him as he savoured his first taste of cum, his own, and smiled up at me, his lips glistening with his slime. I fed him more of his thick goo and licked the streamers off his chest, the salt of his sweat accenting the flavour of his first cum.

At last I withdrew and we lay on our backs in the shade and closed our eyes and drifted in bliss as our hearts slowed and our members softened. He thanked me for introducing him to such pleasure, and I thanked him for allowing me, and I leaned over and kissed him on the mouth, his lips tasting of his cream and his breath as fresh and sweet as wine. One kiss lead to another and as I began to caress his smooth, sticky chest he began to caress my body I took him a second time, the same way, and he huffed and puffed as I fucked him, his flat belly rising and falling along with his chest as his mind spun with the delight of being fucked, knowing now what to expect.

I thrilled with the pleasure pulsating between my legs, my cock swollen and throbbing with lust, my balls drawn up tight, and I delighted in the joy that a young, pubescent boy can bring. He smiled up at me as I fucked his ass, his eyes bright with lust and forbidden pleasure, his slender cocklet once again stiff and wagging for attention. For a second time I flooded his rectum with my seed, triggering his release once again, and once again he and I fed on the delightful sweet cream fresh from his nuts.

The next day was Sunday and I along with the Captain-major and the other captains and the crew crowded into the newly built Nossa Senhora do Rosàrio Church. It was a large, magnificent church, especially for a colony, and already boasted three priests to tend to the flock. We filled it to capacity and it rang with the deep and enthusiastic though not melodious male voices, the men greatly outnumbering the women. We gave thanks for our safe journey to the Blessed Isles, for our health, and our many blessings, and we prayed for a safe journey in the weeks and months to come for we knew of the treacherous and dangerous waters awaiting us as we rounded the cape of the dark continent, and we knew not what faced us on the other side.

I prayed to our Gracious Lord God, and to Saint Christopher, and to Saint Teotónio, patron saint of Valença do Minho and I thanked them for all my past blessings, the safe journey across the desolate lands of the heathen Saracens and my safe journey across the swamps, jungles and mountains of the new land to the west and my survival among the bloodthirsty, violent savages that occupied those lands. I gave thanks for the family of my birth, and my new family and vassals on my estate and prayed for their well-being, and I prayed for my own continued safety and good health. I begged forgiveness of my past sins, those intentional and those unintentional and those transgressions committed in my moments of weakness, particularly in succumbing to Satan's temptations of pleasures of the flesh, and I confessed what a sinner and wonton wastrel I was and asked for a sign of forgiveness.

My prayer was interrupted by a choir of angels and when I opened my eyes before me was not the glorious host from heaven but the boys' choir of Our Lady of the Rosary, boys between the ages of seven and seventeen, their voices blending together in melodic harmony the likes of which I have never heard as the congregation began to line up for communion. When I reached the front of the church with the choir singing "Halleluiah" I looked upon the face of an angel, the cherubic, auburn-haired lead altar boy, thirteen or perhaps fourteen, his cheeks downy and rose-petal pink, his lips moist and ruby red, and as he handed the priest a host a beam of light shone down through the high window upon him and he smiled at me. My member leaped to attention, demanding to be noticed, and his eyes dropped for a moment and his lips curled more. The movement under his robe could not have been my imagination.

The rest of the service is a blur in my mind. As the congregation filed out of the church and the priests mingled with them outside, I approached the front of the church where the three altar boys were cleaning up and putting things away. They folded the altar cloth and I helped them as they carried the candles, chalice, tabernacle and other paraphernalia to a storage room in the back of the church. As the other two boys left the lead boy unstoppered the flask and took a long swig of the sacramental wine and with an impish grin, handed it to me. As I raised it to my lips and began to drink, he reached out and I could feel the heat of his hand as his fingers wrapped about the bulge in my breeches and I choked on the wine. His grin widened and reaching out, he took my hand and guided it under his robes to his stiff, hot staff and I wrapped my fingers about it. He was wearing nothing under his altar robes. As I glanced at the door behind me, he smiled and held up the large key to the door.

"As you can feel, I am of no small size," I whispered.

"Nor am I," he replied, "as you can feel. Nor is Father Sebastian," he added, naming one of the priests who had conducted the service. He assured me the priests would mingle with the congregation for a long time, for the sake of their souls and their heavy purses, and would then retire to the rectory and its shade for the heat of the afternoon. We would not be disturbed. We disrobed hastily, eager to begin and wishing to make the most of the time available to us. He delighted in my muscular body and my tattoos and of my tale of being a priest in a foreign land the world had not heard of and of the altar boys there, and I delighted in his young, pubescent body, smooth and rounded and beginning to develop the definition that came with puberty, his delightful, compact ass, and his raging boner and downy, ripe balls and in his tale of having been deflowered by the priest Father Sebastian a year ago. He said that though the priest enjoyed it thoroughly, the man was filled with guilt and remorse and routinely flagellated himself afterward, but he came back for more. I understood the addition and compulsion. The boy confessed he enjoyed it also, but not the priest's contrition, and he had longed to find what it might be like with another man and to find out if all men had such regret.

I assured him there were many men in the world who did not, and that I was one of them, and that there were learned men who wrote poems about the beauty of boys such as he. I lubricated my stiff cock and his anus with oil, consecrating both there in the back of God's House, and having him lay on his back on a stack of altar cloths on a table there in the storage room and spread his legs, I took him with an eagerness and a passion of a man who had abstained for a month, and I was matched with an equal passion from the boy. Despite whatever other faults the priest had, he had taught the boy the art of congress with another man well. He relaxed and opened his anal muscle wide when I entered him, and tightened it with amazing strength each time I eased my cock back. He looked up at me dreamily and with appreciation, observing that the priest usually took him from behind like two dogs in the street, and that he much preferred this position face to face. When I paused he bade me draw back and he clamped his anal muscle tight below my bulb to aide in the dampening of my lust.

And so I fucked this beautiful cherub, this eager altar boy, in the back of the church and I delighted in his tightness and in his obvious enjoyment. We paused several times until we could prolong the pleasure no longer. As the lust built up and my humours began to boil I began to fuck him more furiously and he responded by wrapping his slender legs about my waist and thrusting his body to and fro, drawing back as I withdrew and thrusting forward as I did, and we erupted together, my seed flooding his rectum and his spurting out of his swollen sausage and lacing his naked body. I grasped him tightly and groaned with delight as my swollen member throbbed and my seed spurted, and his legs tightened about my body and he groaned also in that high pitch a boy his age can still achieve as he laced his body with his copious, teenage cum. Like with the others, I scooped up a generous puddle of his fresh slime and fed it to him, and bent forward to lick a streamer from his heaving chest and to suck on his teat, causing it to become firm and to burn with the pleasure ringing his anus and the rim of my cock. We lay like that, me inside him until my cock began to go limp.

The boy dreamily told me it was the best fuck he had ever had, and that usually the priest stroked his member to make him cum, and that never did the priest ever consume his seed, and nor had he, and he admitted that he had found the consistency and taste much to his liking. He told me of his life on the island and of his family and siblings, and of his feelings for those of the same sex, particularly older men, and his lack of feelings for the opposite gender, and his anguish that there was something wrong with him. I assured him that there were others in the world who felt as he did, perhaps not in great numbers, but others nonetheless, and I told him of the learned scholars of Florence and of the wanton young lords of Venice and he vowed he would some day visit the cities himself, and I told him of the young sculptor Michelangelo who would surely have him model for a marble statue and mount him besides, and would most assuredly if he mentioned my name, and of the dangers of Venice and the Lords of the Night.

He said the priest sometimes had him suck his prick though he never did likewise, and asked if I wanted him to suck mine, to which I replied that he could if he wished, and that I would suck his, but he replied he would rather do what we had just done again, so great and so different had been the pleasure. And so we did it a second time, there in the storage room, our bodies sweating with the heat and our exertion and our sweat and the air still and stuffy in the tiny, closed room. The two of us came a second time, together as the first time, and we sucked in the air heavy with the fragrance of sex and our fresh seed. We wiped the sweat from our bodies and the sticky seed from his anus and coating our once again limp members with a communion cloth, his and my seed smeared together. He offered me the flask of communion wine but I said I would prefer not to so the flavour of his seed would linger, and he grinned and said so would he. When I left there was nobody around. As I returned to the ship, I wondered if the boy had been the Lord's response to my request for a sign of forgiveness, or if it had been a coincidence, or if Satan had intervened. It did not matter, and I was grateful whichever way.

The following day I was assigned to help take on wood, an arduous job in the heat of the day and normally assigned to those who were not sailors by occupation and normally treated as if they were slaves, conscripted criminals such as the convict and converted Jew João Nunez, but my mind was filled with memories of the three boys I had congress with so the day went by quickly and I did not notice the heat nor the labour. The day after that we took on fresh pork for the Captain-major had announced we would depart upon the first favourable wind, and of course I, along with the lowest of the crew, was assigned that task also. The carcasses were heavy, and though the job had been left to late in the day when it was cooler, they stank as fresh pork does.

As we were working a small group approached the ship, a gentleman of some means from his dress and manner, with whom I assumed was his son in his early teens, and three men-at-arms. The boy I could not help notice, swarthy, dark-haired and dark-eyed, his upper lip a shade darker with the promise of a moustache like his father's. He had the same smug, condescending look in his eyes and the arrogant strut to his walk as his father also. The man was important for he and his son were admitted on board immediately and taken to the captain who by then had to be about to commence his evening meal. I had stripped to the waist and the boy had noticed me also, and his look had lingered, whether because of my straining muscles or my tattoos I did not know, and it did not matter.

Thinking of the boy helped distract me from the sweat and stink and I threw myself into my work. We had finished and were about to be dismissed for our delayed meal when the boy reappeared, minus his father. I slipped to the end of the line and paused as we filed past the boy.

"Interesting tattoos," he observed. "I've never seen anyone with so many, or with such colours."

"They extend down my thighs and calves also," I informed him, looking him directly in the eye, something he was not used to from commoners such as myself and his eyes reflected his surprise and offense.

"They are unusual," he observed. They might have caught his eye, but from the tone of his voice they did not impress.

"All priests of Xochipilli are marked so."

"X – o – what?"

"Xochipilli. One of the gods worshipped by the Tenocha, with whom I lived for a while, in the land newly discovered in the far west."

"You have been to the new lands?" he asked, impressed but doubtful.

"Yes. With Cristóvão Colombo," I replied.

His eyes widened further. "Cristóbel Colón?" he asked, saying his name in Spanish. "The famous explorer who has found a route to Cipango by sailing west?"

"Yes," I replied. There was no value in challenging where Colombo felt we had gone.

"You are a priest?"

"Of Xochipilli. The god of flowers and games, poetry and painting, beauty and love, and of congress between males among many other things."

"Congress between males? That must have been interesting," he observed with a smirk and disparaging tone.

"It was," I replied, ignoring the belittling attitude.

"So you are a maricón … a … a … poof? A buggerer of boys?"

"Yes," I admitted, showing no shame.

He was shocked. He disapproved, and was enticed. Most of all, he was confused.

"For the Tenocha it is an honourable thing. Many boys were brought to the temple to be buggered. They came willingly, and left delighted."

"And I suspect you were delighted also," he said sarcastically, but with a smile and a hint of humour. After all, the topic was risqué, and I was a man, a strong and crude one, and he a boy on the cusp of manhood and eager to prove himself one.

"Of course," I replied as if it were a complement. "What I did, I did well, and I was richly rewarded, though seeing the joy of the boys was reward enough."

"They left with joy?"

"With great pleasure. You can find out … ," I offered.

"Good try," he said with a smile. "I do not think so."

"It is natural to be afeared--."

"I am not afeared," he snapped angrily.

"Apprehensive," I said as if correcting myself. "It is a huge step to go from being a child to being a man."

"Sounds more like going from a child to being a woman," he retorted. His mind was sharp, as was his tongue. I suspected so was his father's and the boy was a younger version. I knew his kind. They are found all over the world. The desire in my loins was matched with the desire to deflate his arrogance and rub his nose in his demeaning attitude.

"Which is why it was left to a priest of Xochipilli. A boy is introduced to the pleasure of sodomy yet keeps his masculinity."

"How can that be?" I had piqued his curiosity, and dangled temptation before him.

"As I said … you can find out," I said with a leer. "Such a thing can not be explained, only experienced. But now you must excuse me, for I have not had my evening meal, and the galley cook does not wait for stragglers."

"If I were interested, where would we do this?" he asked smugly, figuring I was bluffing and quick to challenge me, figuring himself to be my superior in mind and wit. If I could not answer then he could say he had dared to accept my offer and it was I who did not follow through.

"Behind there," I replied, nodding to a stack of crates on the dock remaining to be loaded. "We would be out of sight and would not be discovered in the shadows, and it is near the ship should you find you are not yet ready to do what men do and decide to call out."

"I will not call out," he replied indignantly and aloofly.

"Very well," I said, turning and stepping over to the crates. The rest if the crew had long disappeared. The boy glanced at the gangplank and where the crew had disappeared at the top, then back at the crates on the dock, and finally at me. His jaw dropped and his eyes darted about in consternation. He had thought he had the upper hand and was in control. He now had the choice of declining and losing face, or accepting the challenge. He accepted, as I figured he would.

We slipped into the shadows and I quickly stepped out of my breeches and under breeches before he had a chance to change his mind, my shirt already removed. He removed his clothing, his jacket, his waistcoat and shirt, his hose and knee breeches and under breeches much more slowly. He had to have been hot with all that clothing. I motioned to one of the crates and had him lay on his back with his buttocks at the edge and his legs raised in the air. I had picked up a scrap of pork which I now inserted in his anus to lubricate it, being quick before he could object, and I rubbed my member with my hands, already greasy from handling the slabs of pork. I was thorough for I did not want this tender boy to be harmed, nor did I want him walking like he was on a rolling ship and his father asking why he was walking with his legs spread so. By the time I had made sure he and I were well lubricated, I was stiff and his member was much swollen from the stimulation of his anus, adding to his arousal and his confusion.

Stepping forward and placing the tip of my member against his hole, I slowly pressed forward and he instinctively clamped his opening shut to prevent penetration. I advised him to relax and to push out and I brushed a finger over his teat to further stimulate him and to distract him from what was happening between his legs. He was eager and curious like any boy his age, but frightened also, frightened by the unknown, by the enormity of the step he was taking toward adulthood, and by the unfamiliarity and consequence of engaging in something not approved should he be caught. Besides, he was a nobleman's son unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the crudity and coarseness of the common class. He was also eager to prove himself, to prove he was a man, that he had the courage to do what common boys did and do it better than they could, and to dare to explore what was taboo and something that would likely not be available again. That something, however, was something he had been told his whole life was vulgar and filthy, something a cultured boy like himself would never do.

I of course was well aware of my actions, having deflowered boys much younger, much more apprehensive, and much tighter. I was trained in how to make this a pleasant and fulfilling experience, and I did want this to be pleasant and fulfilling for the boy, his arrogance and smug superiority a challenge rather than a deterrent. And so I proceeded slowly and made sure the boy was not just aroused but so aroused that he was aching for me to penetrate him. I brushed his tender, sensitive teats repeatedly, and ever so slowly I inched my swollen cock into his body, praising and encouraging him as I teased his nipples and penetrated him, and he lay there and strained to accept me, too concerned about achieving our goal and about the mechanics of what we were doing to enjoy the pleasure. Finally I had my swollen cock stuffed up his rectum as far as I could, and I paused and stroked his member until it too was stiff, a condition he confessed he frequently created with his hand, but which he swore he took no further. He was a nobleman's son, and noblemen's sons deflowered serving girls and village wrenches and knocked them up, they did not abuse themselves and waste their noble seed.

This of course was a much different matter, which I pointed out, and I praised his courage and his stamina, and his daring and puck to do what most noblemen's sons would never dare, boosting his faltering esteem and resolve. Slowly I began to pump my swollen cock in and out of his tight hole and the physical pleasure burning about his anus and the pleasure of his throbbing cock took precedence, and once ignited his lust overpowered all, his doubt, his reluctance, his past indoctrination, and his guilt. His swollen cock throbbed with pleasure beyond what he had ever felt by his hand, and his anus and rectum throbbed with a pleasure never before imagined. Hotter and hotter he became until he was snorting and gasping like any boy in the throes of lust, his body drenched with sweat, his chest and stomach heaving as he gasped for breath and his mind spun with the building lust between his legs until he blasted with his orgasm, quickly followed by my own. As he splattered his naked body with his seed, the first seed to ever leave his body, I flooded his rectum with mine. His cocklet wagged and his seed sprayed in all directions, lacing his body and collecting in pools as he gasped in the cum-scented air. My own member throbbed with delight in time with his rectum as it filled it with my thick cream and he arched his back and quivered with delight.

As with the other boys, I waited until we had both recovered from that sudden flush of pleasure, and then, with my swollen member still buried deep up his body, I bent over and sucked up a puddle of his slime and savoured it before swallowing, and then scooped up a thick dollop and fed it to him. Dizzy with his orgasm and not really thinking, he sucked on my finger like a babe sucking its mother's teat, savouring and delighting in his own cum.

I finally withdrew and as we sat there in the shadows I congratulated him and told him how much I had enjoyed our congress and he confessed he had enjoyed it too. He informed me that his father was a rich man who had funded a vessel to bring back gold and whatever other riches that could be had along the coast and had come along with it to ensure he was not cheated, bringing his son as a coming of age experience. He also confided that his father had been instructed by the Catholic monarchs to investigate the rumours that had reached the court that King Manuel was attempting to send another expedition around the Cape to find a route to India and the Far East. I of course did not know much but I confirmed that rumour and told the boy what I did know of our plans, details that I am sure his monarch would not know nor that the Captain-major would tell the boy's father, details of the vessels and our route so far. That, I figured, I owed him for the pleasure that he had brought me.

We did it a second time then, the boy less tense and less apprehensive and more appreciative, and the second time was good, though nothing can equal being a participant in the loss of a boy's virginity. It was rewarding though to see the boy more aggressively participate in our congress, and to see his exuberance and obvious pleasure in being buggered. Disparaged by many boys, none who have engaged in the act on the receiving end can deny the pleasure it brought them. Again I flooded his rectum with my seed, and again he laced his body with his, which the two of us once again shared, this time with the boy more conscious of the flagitious act he was participating in. We had barely dressed and boarded the ship when his father appeared on deck. If he noticed the boy's dishevelment or smelled the sex on him he did not reveal the fact, and I suspect he had no idea, being too full of himself and ignorant of the ways of boys.

As they made their way down the gangplank and across the shipyard, I wondered what the man would say and do if he found out what the boy had done. The boy, I figured, had a jaunt to his step that was not there before, a jaunt that replaced his swagger of superiority, which more than made up for missing my evening meal. I smiled as I headed for my locker and bunk below the gangboards and I imagined the boy eagerly and proudly sharing the tidbits of information I had given him and the father's surprise and pride in his son's presence of mind and courage to seek out a common sailor for the information he had not found out by talking to the captain, information that would impress their monarchs and further endear them to him. How the boy had come about the information brought the biggest smile of all as I curled up by the poop deck and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 4
Santa Helena and São Brás 

At long last sighting land again, da Gama calls the bay Santa Helena. While there one of the crew joins the local natives and there is a misunderstanding between the natives and crew, resulting in an altercation. Rounding the cape, they anchor at São Brás and have another altercation with the natives, the Khoikhoi. Invited ashore, Nico engages in mutual masturbation and sixty-nine with one of the youths. 

Code: Mt 

Characters: Nico, youth 

And so we set sail once again. The tide and the currents carried us out to sea and the winds were favourable and blew us down along the coast. Sighting the outline of the Lioness Mountains, some of the men campaigned for going ashore, arguing that we too might find ignorant natives who would trade their gold for trinkets, and if they had no gold, for the sport of blowing up their village with our bombards and killing as many as we could, which would be a good thing for these blacks bred and spread like rats. The Captain-major was in a foul mood, which was not uncommon, and was sorely tempted to do so, but I argued the chance that they had gold would be unlikely, having kept my bracelets hidden, and that if they did have gold they would know its value being that close to São Jorge la Mina. I also argued that it would be futile to try to reduce their population for they were addicted to breeding like all blacks and would quickly replace however many we killed and enjoy doing it. Most importantly, I made the case that we should make use of the favourable winds to make progress toward our goal, and to the latter the Captain-major agreed and so we continued on our way. Whether I had prevented a slaughter or not or if my vision had been of different ships or another time I do not know, but for now the Temne were safe.

And so we sailed on, the Captain-major making a wide sweep out into the ocean and away from the shore to avoid the tides and contrary winds mentioned by Captain Dias. Some two hundred leagues from Santiago our main yard broke and we had to sail for two days and a night under foresail and lower mainsail. Repairing the yard as best we could at sea, we carried on and caught a swift stern wind which blew us south and southeast and for eleven more weeks we sailed without sight of land. So swiftly did we sail the crew did not complain nor were they afeared of being without sight of land for so long. Myself, having slaked my lust at São Thiago and São Jorge da Mina, I was content, but as the days passed into weeks and weeks into months, I found myself yearning and frequently waking sticky with nocturnal emissions and without any memory of the dreams that caused them and without the joy of being conscious at the time of my release. These incidences caused me great consternation but the harder I prayed and begged forgiveness, for they were surely caused by the Wrath of God as punishment for my immoral improprieties, the more frequently they seemed to occur.

At long last we saw large birds resembling herons in the sky, and some eight hundred leagues from Santiago we saw huge whales in the distance and I recalled the vision the twins had revealed to me but we were still a long way from the cape and these were not as monstrous as they had described. In the days to follow we saw many porpoises, dolphins, seals and the occasional sea wolf, and on November 1, the Day of All Saints, we encountered gulf-weed, a sure sign we were near land, which caused much rejoicing.

Saturday, three days later, we took soundings of 110 fathoms and the Captain-major had the ships draw together that the Captains might converse, and at nine that morning we sighted land. We all donned our gala clothes and saluted the Captain-major, firing our bombards and raising our flags and standards. The winds carried us back out to sea but three days later we returned and found a low, broad bay, clean and sheltered, which the Captain-major named Santa Helena. We fell to our knees and gave thanks to God and the following day we cast anchor and set to cleaning the ships, mending sails, taking in wood and all those things that require doing on a voyage such as ours. A river entered the bay four leagues to the southeast of our anchorage and we saw many birds, cormorants, gulls, turtle doves and crested larks. We also saw the inhabitants of this land watching from the edge of the forest, tawny-coloured, brown and blackish, men dressed in skins or naked, and we thought at first, with gigantic, hairy members until we realized they were wearing sheaths made of leather with the hair left on over their virile members. They were armed with poles which appeared to be of olive wood to which a horn hardened in the fire was attached and they were accompanied by many dogs which ran about and barked as dogs in Portugal do. (1)

The following day, Thursday, November 9, the Captain-major landed with several men and captured a native gathering honey at the edge of the sandy coast, bees depositing honey at the foot of mounds around the bushes at the edge of the beach. The man was taken on board and turned over to two ship's boys, one a negro, with orders to treat him well. He ate at the captain's table, obviously unfamiliar with plates and eating with a knife. They had him well-dressed and sent ashore the following day. On that same day fourteen or so natives arrived and were shown cinnamon, cloves, seed-pearls, and gold and asked if they could be found there but they were unfamiliar with all they were shown. They were given round bells and tin rings to show our good intentions. The same occurred the day following with the same result.

Sunday, forty to fifty men arrived, many with fox-tails attached to handles which they used to fan their faces for the heat and the flies in this land are unbearable, and after we dined we landed and gave them çeitils and in return we received shells which they wear in their ears as ornaments, several pair of which I bartered for to use myself and as gifts for my family. They also seem to value copper very highly and wear small beads of it in their ears. I, and another man to my surprise, each paid one çeitil for a sheath. He said it was for a memento and a curiosity to show back home and I let him think I had the same purpose. The men we traded with were all elders, the young men hanging back at the edge of the beach in the bushes with their weapons ready. It having been three months since we had left São Jorge da Mina I was feeling most desperate and ached to approach them and to get to know them, and to do more than buy one of their sheaths for their virile members.

One of our crew, a soldier, Fernão Velloso, asked if he might go with them as they left so he might find out how they lived and what they ate. The Captain-major was hesitant but his brother Paulo interceded so the Captain-major agreed but he refused my offer to accompany Velloso and assist in translating, much to my great disappointment. Captain Coelho and some of his crew collected wood and lobsters along the shore and Captain Paulo amused himself by harpooning a nearby whale which dived and would have drowned him had it not been so shallow. The rest retired to the ships for our late afternoon meal. We were still eating when Velloso was seen running down a hill with several of the natives holding back in the woods, and approaching the shore he began to shout. The Captain-major, on deck and ever on the alert and ever cautious and suspicious, ordered Coelho back and took a sailing boat with several men to the shore. As they tried to get Velloso into the sailing boat the negroes ran along the beach and threw stones and their spears and wounded the Captain-major and several others. Having looked upon the natives as men of little spirit, quite incapable of violence, he and the men had landed without arming themselves.

A safe back on board, Velloso reported that the natives had caught a seal and had roasted it and shared it with him along with some roots, but afterward much to his disappointment he was told through gestures he could not accompany them any further, and that he suspected it was because they were very protective of their women and children. Knowing the nature of men, and how abstinence, especial from sexual relations, can cause a man to forego reason and perform the vilest of acts, I suspected it might be more than that. I had no proof, and could not ask, but I suspected it was Velloso who first raised the topic of women, perhaps even his great need being so long at sea. That, I had suspected all along, had been the reason for his request to accompany them. Having similar ulterior motives myself, I could not fault him, though I am sure I would have made much greater progress than he, and could have furthered both of our causes had I been allowed to accompany him. Now, thanks to him, and to the Captain-major, there would be little chance for either of us to satisfy our needs.

Careening our ships and cleaning them and taking in wood, being extra cautious for the return of the natives but seeing none, we set sail at daybreak Thursday, November 16, estimating we were about thirty leagues from the cape. The going was rough and slow and two days later we beheld the cape but we were swept to sea by adverse winds and were unable to return to the coast until evening. On Sunday we tried again but the wind was still too strong and once again we were swept back to sea and this time we were unable to return to the coast until Monday night. The storms were fierce, and though not as fierce as the twins had described in their vision, with each attempt I rode the waves with my heart high in my chest and expected any minute to be ordered to the top of the rigging. Finally, on Wednesday, at noon, with a strong wind astern, we succeeded in doubling the cape, without sight of any whales of any size, and began to run along the eastern coast with great cheer. Late Saturday, November 25, the Day of Saint Catherine's, we came upon a bay which we figured was the one named Bahia de los Vaqueiros by Captain Dias and which the Captain-major renamed São Braz. There we broke up the store ship which had become irreparably damaged and transferred the contents to the other vessels. (2)

On the first of December while we were about our work, some ninety men similar to those savages we had encountered at Santa Helena appeared along the beach and we took a sailing boat to shore, and indicating for them to approach singly or in pairs, we gave then bells and caps and in return received ivory bracelets and copper studs. There were droppings where we landed, indicating there must be many elephants in the area. The Captain-major assumed these men had heard from their fellows we had met earlier, which we estimated to be sixty leagues by land, and had been assured we meant no harm and we gave things away. The following day two hundred men appeared to drive a dozen oxen and four or five sheep and along with them were men playing a type of flute. Some played high notes and some low notes, making a pretty harmony for a race that is not known to be musicians, and they danced the shuffling, unimaginative round dance of the negroes. The Captain ordered trumpets be sounded and he and the crew danced aboard our vessels and he ordered me to step forward and play my panpipe. The Captain bought a black ox for three bracelets and we ate the ox Sunday, finding it very fat and the meat as toothsome as the cattle in our land.

That Sunday we had many visitors again, once more with oxen and cattle but this time bringing their women and young boys who stayed in the bush at the top of the hill and watched. The older men gathered in two groups and again played their flutes and danced and the Captain sent me forth to play my panpipes and to sing, thinking to impress them and to show our peaceful intent, and then he sent forth Martin Affonso, who had been in Manicongo and was his interpreter for these blacks, to buy an ox. I overheard them asking why we were taking their water without permission, and appearing angry, they drove their cattle and oxen into the bush. Seeing this, Affonso suspected trouble, and agreeing with him and expecting treachery, the Captain ordered a retreat. From my experiences rasing horses, I understood the discomfort of the cattle standing in the open and beside the sea and why they were being herded into the shade and where there was grass to graze, but my opinion was ignored and the Captain-major ordered a group of men to land with arms, needlessly frightening the natives and causing them to run to the bushes lining the shore. He also ordered the bombards be fired as a warning and the natives disappeared into the bush in great fear, to the satisfaction of the Captain-major and amusement of the crew. I could only shake my head at their folly and the error of their ways.

There was a small island in the bay half a mile from the mainland with many seals, some very huge and formidable with huge tusks and which roared like lions, the smaller ones crying like goats. The men fired on them with our bombards for amusement and laughed to see them roar and cry and scatter in panic and jump into the sea in fear. There were also scores of flightless birds with featherless wings, the birds I had seen in my vision! There were so many it was difficult to see the rocks upon which they sit, braying like asses, and I watched them in awe that I was seeing with my own eyes what I had seen in a dream, and in wonder at the diversity of God's creations. The men killed them without mercy, as many as they choose, for the sheer entertainment of taking their lives and watching them die. To see such waste and such display of power and lack of feeling for God's creatures who were causing them no harm sickened me to the stomach but I knew there were few others who objected to such sport so I kept quiet and walked to the other side of the ship and studied the open sea and fumed, unable to block from mine ears their cries of pain and fear.

Two days after the crew had fired on the natives, an elderly man, watched over by a half dozen younger men from the top of the hill, approached. By gestures and what little language we had in common, much to my surprise he asked for me, wanting me to accompany him and play my panpipes and sing for them. The Captain-major informed me I was free to go if I so desired, almost making it sound like a challenge and a question of my bravery and manhood, but he made it clear in no uncertain terms that if the winds were favourable on the morrow he planned on leaving and if I was not there he could spare no time nor men to come looking for me. Fernão Velloso quickly stepped forward and offered to accompany me, which came as no surprise and I knew it had nothing to do with concern for my welfare, but the elder was not interested and the Captain-major refused his request, hoping I suspect, that I would be killed by these savages, or at least be delayed long enough for him to leave. That I had been singled out and he ignored I knew did not sit well with his pride.

Deciding to take my chances, I followed the elder, who walked surprisingly quickly and upright despite his age, and we joined his escort of young men, who were as curious and interested in me as I was in them, and we headed through the brush along a narrow path toward their village. As I followed them, I was mindful of the tales we had heard from Captain Dias who had described his less than encouraging encounter with the natives at this very spot. They had run away and left on the beach the gifts he and the crew had tossed out to them, and one day while he and the crew were taking in water, the savages attacked, throwing stones at the crew, and Dais said he was forced to shoot at them with a crossbow, killing one of them. They were, he said, proud and deceitful and not to be trusted. Walking along with these men and conversing with them now, it was difficult to believe such things of them, but I was no fool, and I also knew the evil that lurks in men's hearts cannot always be seen from their outward appearance or behaviour.

Their outward appearance actually was not unpleasant to look upon, even the elderly. Their appearance was much like that of those we had met on the other side of the cape and much was revealed to the eye. Perhaps more blackish and more savage looking, their bodies were hairless and hard and their muscles well toned, showing they lead a demanding, physical life, and just the sight of their manly flesh caused my member to stir. Ivory must be very common for all wore ivory armlets, necklaces or plugs in their ears. Their village was not that far from the sea and consisted of round huts made of green branches stuck into the ground and bent over and tied together at the top and covered with reed mats. The village consisted of about a hundred people and each hut was occupied by the head of the family, his male descendants and their families, and, to my surprise, servants, who were captured members of a neighbouring tribe, which they called the San, or impoverished members of their own tribe, which they said was Khoikhoi, which meant men of men. Over the head of each family is the chief of the village, the headman, which is a hereditary position. They speak a strange language filled with clicks and it sounds like they are speaking out of their throats and amidst an attack of hiccups, but I quickly caught on to their manner of speaking.

Our arrival at their village was the cause of much excitement, and upon seeing me they pressed close and reached out to touch me. The elder I had been with disappeared in the crowd and another appeared and ordered a fire be built, causing my heart to leap to my throat and begin to race anew. Dias had described these people as brutish and savage and said he had been told they ate human flesh and raw animals without washing them, and with their intestines and guts still enclosed. When he had told us this it had reminded me of being captured and enslaved by the Atakapa whom I had witnessed with my own eyes eating human flesh, and of later joining the Caniba in an attack on their enemies and watching them burn and eat two of their captives, causing me not to doubt the words if Dias as fantastic and unbelievable as they were. Now, standing there and feeling the heat of the flames as more logs were thrown on the fire and a spit was erected above it and everyone stood there staring at me, I cursed myself for my stupidity and for having forgotten his tale and warning.

No, I corrected myself as I glanced around, I had ignored Dias's warnings and agreed to accompany these black savages not because of stupidity nor forgetfulness, but because of my flagitious craving for young boys and vile pleasures of the flesh. God had played with me and given me many opportunities to redeem myself. Now for my flagrant disregard of all that was Christian, I was about to suffer not the brimstone and fires of hell, but the flames of a cooking fire here on the Black Continent. As I glanced around desperately and in fear for an avenue of escape, I saw a file of young warriors making their way through the crowd carrying a seal spitted on a long, slender pole, which they proceeded to place on the spit. The seal was, I noted in a detached sort of way, gutted and washed. With great relief, I took out my panpipes and played them and sang with a renewed vigour while the seal roasted, and as we sliced off portions of the sizzling meat and sat and ate around the fire we talked.

I learned they were cattle herders and hunters and gatherers, and that a man's wealth was determined by the number of cattle he owned. They are normally not bought and sold as they have ritual and social significance beyond any monetary value. The cattle are most tame and are lead about by passing a stick through their nostrils to which is attached a rope, and they are ridden using a packsaddle. The eldest boy of the family is responsible for herding the cattle and protecting them from predators, a very important and prestigious job. As we talked, I learned that they were most concerned that we took fresh water from the stream without asking the chief's permission for each headman controls the supply of water in his territory. That was a fine point that the Captain-major's interpreter had missed and I resolved to clarify next time we met.

The women go about bare-breasted as most ignorant savages do no matter what part of the world they live and although by then I had grown accustomed to seeing women walking about so wantonly exposed and had come to realize the wide variety of sizes, shapes and degree of verticality the breasts of women come in, I still could not help being distracted by them, and my distraction these people, men and women, took as admiration. Wearing little or loose clothing, other parts were also often as readily visible and something I was not prepared for, women in the new world to the west at least usually covering that part of their body, and certainly women in the civilized world keeping their sex hidden. One thing I found particularly disgusting was something they considered great beauty–the women stretched their labia to extreme and revolting proportions, a woman's private parts not something I had never found attractive to begin with. Being so grotesque, I could not take my eyes away, and again, they thought I was looking in admiration and so exposed themselves even more openly.

The members of the young men, on the other hand, were a much different matter, and I had much occasion to observe them also, not just because they wore only a loose flap of animal hide between their legs, or no clothing at all, or in many cases only the hairy sheaths encasing their members which drew one's attention to them. No, what drew my attention to their most private part was because as we talked, men of all ages, old with old, young with young, and young with old, cuddled and stroked each other as I had seen other savages occasionally doing in my travels. The elder who had come to fetch me had rejoined me by that time and noticed my distraction. He observed that such couples were in a relationship they called soregus, which I came to understand was an especially close friendship between two individuals of the same sex, both among males and females, that included mutual masturbation. He inquired if I had such a friend, and if it was the man who had wanted to accompany me. That caused me much amusement, and when I imagined what Fernão Velloso's reaction would be to such a question, I could not help chuckle.

I was asked of course why I had laughed and I did my best to explain my humour and that the man was definitely not such a friend, and would be greatly disgusted with such a suggestion, which the elder could not understand for such relationships were common and considered perfectly normal among his people. Hoping I had not offended him, I hastened to observe that I did have such a close friendship back where I had come from, thinking of course of my vassal Vasco de Azurara, and that I had not seen him for many moons. Upon hearing that and looking sad and sympathetic he motioned for one of the young men nearby to approach us, a youth I had seen playing the flute of theirs and whose other flute I had imagined playing, and who, I had noticed, had been particularly attentive during my performance.

After a quick discussion, most of which I was unable to follow, he lay down beside me and stared at my clothing with a perplexed look. As he tentatively reached out and placed a hand on my thigh I realized why the elder had called him over, and what he was intending on doing. I smiled and taking his hands in mine, I placed them on my belt and showed him how to undo the buckle, and then how to untie my ties. Drawing down my breeches, he, and the others, were surprised to find I was wearing still another pair beneath them. I did not know what he said at the time, but it caused the others to smile and chuckle. I learned later that he had observed that he hoped that what he found inside was going to be worth all the trouble of finding it.

Finally exposing my member, he said something to the old man who explained to me that he was commenting on the smoothness by which my hood had been removed and that it had to have been a very sharp stone and a very skilled healer. I had noticed that the men and the older boys, starting somewhere from around thirteen, were circumcised though those at the younger age seemed to vary and some only a few years younger than myself still had their hoods. I had also noticed for those who had their hoods removed the cut was often most irregular, and their members often mutilated. When I was shown the stone knives and sharp edged corals used I grimaced and understood.

As we continued to talk, not about sex but about other things, the elder explaining the way they lived and what they did from day to day and answering my questions, and me answering his questions about our ships and our origins and destination, the youth began to fondle and play with my member and stones, and I reached over and untying his sheath and slipping it off his member I did the same, relieved to see that he had been one of the more fortunate in the rite in which he had his hood removed. His cock slowly began to swell as I stroked it and rolled his stones between my fingers. It felt very strange to be sitting there talking to the elder men while so engaged, but for them it was not considered unusual. The boy asked me about my life as a sailor and what it was like to live on a big ship for week upon week and he listed with wide-eyed wonder as I described life upon a seagoing vessel and what joy it brought me. And then I asked him what it was like to be a warrior and he described his life hunting for food and protecting the village from wild animals and what brought him joy and I listened with equal fascination

Gradually our discussion and the questions tapered off as the intensity of our play and the feelings they were causing increased to the point that they required all of our attention and talking became impossible. That did not prevent the others from talking, and they did, about the weather and their cattle and the baubles we had given them for their ivory and copper, the shortage of water to the north and news about the neighbouring tribes, and the youth and I listened as we fondled each other.

There was one thing the boy and I had in common, the pleasure that comes from having one's member stroked, and the pleasure that comes from bringing another that pleasure. My cock was stiff and throbbing pleasantly as he slid his hand up and down the shaft, sending tingles of arousal through the rim of my bulb each time his fingers brushed over it, and he squirmed with the same pleasure as I stroked his cock and delighted in feeling it throbbing in my hand. As I began to approach my climax, I squeezed my fingers tightly about his cock below the bulb, figuring he had to be approaching the same point, and he responded by doing the same to me, evidently using the same technique to delay and prolong his pleasure and that of his partner also.

We smiled at each other with that mutual understanding and then as our need subsided we began to stroke each other again. We were ignored by everyone else, the men sitting about the fire and talking, a few other young men in the shadows engaged in the same pleasure as we were, and off at the edge of the clearing where the women were sitting and talking two women engaged in pleasuring each other, something no Portuguese woman would ever do, not even, I am sure, those ladies of the night whose business it is, is to bring pleasure to men. That gave me cause to wonder why that is, why the attitude toward that pleasure is so different between men and women, and why it is so different between savages and civilized peoples. What is it about those living on the Dark Continent and those living in the word to the west that they both openly masturbated each other and thought no ill of it while those in my part of the world were so averse to it that it was taboo and done only in private, if one dared to do it at all. Was it a matter of climate, that where these savages live being so much hotter? That followed no logic. Was it because they walked about naked or half naked and so no longer found such behaviour shocking, just as I was becoming accustomed to seeing women openly exposing their breasts without shame or lustful intent? Were these savages of a more base nature, less sophisticated in controlling their lustful instincts?

Soon the pleasure between my legs became too intense and I ceased my musing and concentrated on the throbbing of my cock and the burning of my bulb and the approach of my ejaculation. I had no idea what one did when one reached that point, but fortunately my partner reached it first, and he simply spread his legs and shot his seed and so I did likewise, my seed arching out from my body and landing on the earth between my legs much, I suppose, as Onan had done. We both shuddered with the pleasure and as he slowly continued to stroke my member, milking out the remainder of my seed, I slowly milked his until it oozed out his still stiff tube. His seed was hot and sticky, no different from mine in appearance nor touch, and as it oozed over my fingers, so mine oozed over his.

We lay there naked and resumed listening to the men who had continued talking as if nothing at all had happened, and soon afterward a group of young men played on their flutes and everyone got up and danced, and then they bade me to play my panpipes and to sing, which I did though conscious of my nakedness, and they sang as a group, sort of a chant, with one of the women taking a solo part. I had no idea what she was saying, but she sang with a passion and most loudly and the others all swayed and clapped. A skin of some fermented drink was passed around and fortunately it was not until much later that I discovered it was milk fermented with ox blood or I would not have been able to swallow it. As it was, I had only very little.

As the sun began to set, I was taken, still naked, to the cliffs that overlooked the bay and the great, unknown ocean before us. There, torches were lit and I was taken into the caves high above the sea and shown ancient drawings painted on the rocks, the sun and moon and mystical symbols, drawings showing men killing a beast for food, protecting the village, riding their cattle, copulating with women, and in congress with each other, orally and anally. The elder said this was a sacred place and few were allowed to enter, and I was the first who was not a Khoikhoi to see these things, but he could tell I was one who spoke to the spirits. He then pointed to the last pictures and asked if I was koetsire, a man who was sexually receptive to other men, and when I said I was, he smiled and said he had known so but wanted me to say so. (4)

Returning to the village, the young flute player with whom I had cuddled and masturbated with joined us and he and I retreated to one of the small huts where we lay down and once again caressed and fondled each other. This time once we were erect he turned around so we were facing each other but in opposite directions and he took my stiff member and holding it at the base he ran his tongue up the shaft and swirled it around the knob. I eagerly reached out and taking his long, black member, I did likewise. It was a long time since I had engaged in oral congress and it was a delight to be able to do so. His nuts and cock had a raw, spicy odour as all blacks do, a function of their perspiration and diet and their humours I suspect, and the fragrance was pure delight to my nostrils, just as the flavour of his cock was ambrosia to my tastebuds. From the way he was licking my stiff cock, he evidently found the fragrance of my cock and balls equally stimulating.

He went down on my cock then, taking the knob in his mouth and sucking on it until I was squirming with arousal and delight, and I similarly took his bulb in my mouth and basted it with my saliva, which I swallowed. I swirled my tongue about his bulb as I sucked on it and he did likewise, deriving as much joy in sucking my cock as having his sucked. I felt his lips clamp tightly below my bulb, cutting off my desire, and I did the same to him. We then descended further, slipping our lips down each other's stiff cock, his smooth, black lips wrapped about my member and my lips wrapped about his black sausage, and we worked our lips up and down each other's shaft as we continued to suck on each other's delicious, throbbing member. Slowly our breathing became more laboured as our lust built and we cut off our lust a second time, but when we resumed, I knew I would not be able to delay a third time.

Nor could he and when the time came we blasted our seed together, our thick slime filling each other's mouth. I eagerly swallowed his tart offering, as he did mine, and as I felt his slime ooze down my throat and as I delighted in its unique flavour and mucilaginous texture it was the same for him. Squirt after squirt filled my mouth and I eagerly swallowed, and I spurted squirt after squirt of my own slime into his mouth which he likewise swallowed. Dizzy with the release of my seed and the joy of swallowing his, I lay there and sucked on his hot, throbbing tube, sucking out his hot, thick marrow until his tight balls were drained, as were mine, and we curled up in each other's arms and fell into a blissful sleep.

Chapter 5
Rio do Infante and Land of Good People 

After several attempts to sail up the coast, the expedition finally arrives at the mouth of the Rio do Infante, the furthest point Dias had reached. Nico's forthcoming had been seen in a vision and he is taken ashore by the Xhosa to participate in a coming of age ceremony with five initiates held over until his arrival. From there the crew travels to the Tsonga at the mouth of the Rio do Cobre where Nico joins a young hunter, the hunter's new boy-wife, and the boy's friend. 

Codes: MM, Mt, Mb, t/b 

Characters: Nico; 2 chiefs, Shaman, and 5 Xhosa initiates (ages 20, 15, 14, 11, 6); Tsonga Mbhazima 17, Basani 12, Jomo 13 

After an exhausting night, I slept in the next morning, there being no reason for the others to disturb me or my sleeping companion. When I awoke and found the sun high in the sky I leaped up in a panic, but to my relief, there was not the slightest breeze. Still, I knew on the coast and the sea conditions could be different even though only a short distance away so I hurriedly dressed, said my goodbyes, and raced for the beach. To my relief I found the ships still at anchor and the crew taking in water. Finding the Captain-major, who appeared disappointed to see me, I explained that the local inhabitants expected to be asked permission to take on water, to which he gruffly replied that God provided the water, not some filthy savages (to which I was tempted to respond that when it came to cleanliness their hygiene was far superior to that of himself and the crew, but I wisely bit my tongue). When I said they did not share his belief, and that each village and chief claimed ownership of the water, he said he did not care and asked if I had learned anything of real importance regarding our intended route. When I replied I had not he smirked and said he suspected I had a different course in mind, having spent the night, and I let him think so, telling him the truth not being wise.

Despite the heat, the remainder of the day was spent erecting one of the padrào we had brought with us and a cross from a mizzen-mast. We set sail the next morning having taken on board all we stood in need of and as we sailed out of the bay we spotted a dozen or so men demolishing the cross and pillar, much to the anger of the Captain-major and the crew, who would have turned and fired on them if the winds had been cooperative. As it was, the wind failed and we travelled no more than two leagues that day. The following morning, Friday the 8^th, the Day of the Immaculate Concepcion, we set sail again. Four days later, the eve of Santa Lucia, we encountered a great storm and stern-wind requiring us to lower the foresail. We lost sight of Captain Coelho in the storm but spotted him that evening and we both lit our signal lights. Three days later we saw land five leagues beyond the Ilhéo da Cruz. We had now travelled sixty leagues from the Cape to São Brás and an additional sixty from the bay, leaving us only twenty-one leagues further to the Rio do Infante, the furthest point reached by Captain Dias.

The next night we lay to and the day following we continued along the coast before a stern-wind until vespers when the wind swung around to the east and blew us out to sea. So it was for the next two days that we had to continue making tacks to the port to avoid being blown too far away from the coastline until sunset of the second day, when the wind again veered to the west and we lay to. The following morning, December 20, we headed to land and at ten that morning we discovered we were back at Ilhéo da Cruz, sixty leagues abaft of our dead reckoning! So we tried again hoping if it pleased God in His mercy to make headway. Once again we passed where the Rio do Infante emptied into the ocean, and as if the area were cursed, the winds ceased and we had to lay to. (1)

To our surprise, we had barely done so when an elderly man was rowed out to our ship by two strong warriors in a boat made by carving out the centre of a large tree. Through gestures and what little Bantu our Bantu-speaking interpreter, Martin Affonso, and I understood, the elder insisted it had been prophesied that they would be visited by a tall ship on which was one of great power and not of this world, one who spoke to the spirits and in whose body flowed the sap of plants instead of blood, and that he would be recognized in that his limbs were marked by the vines and flowers of sacred plants that his limbs were composed of in his spiritual form. He insisted they had been waiting for this individual's arrival to lead them in welcoming the new men to their village.

The Captain-major considered this as more heathen superstition, though he could not explain how they knew one marked such as I would be on the ship other than it being coincidence, or that the previous tribe had somehow sent messages ahead to this one. He saw it as an opportunity to learn what lay ahead however, and at no great risk other than to myself, whom he saw as of little value. So again he bade me depart, again with the warning if I did not return by the time he was ready to continue there would be no search nor delay, and of course when that might be he did not and could not specify. So, not really having a choice, I grabbed my panpipes and got into the dugout and was rowed to shore.

We walked a short distance to a clearing where a round hut had been erected and which stood alone and which for some reason seemed very familiar but I could not tell why. The elder motioned for me to enter, those accompanying me remaining outside. Inside the small lodge I discovered why it had looked so familiar. There I found five boys between the ages of six and twenty with short, tightly curled hair wearing the wraparound I've normally seen women wearing sitting in a half circle facing two elderly men and a third man in a grotesque mask and with an intricate design covering most of his body. Forming another outer half-circle were five other boys ranging in age from their early teens to early twenties, just as I had seen in my dream at São Jorge da Mina!

One of the elderly men, the elder of the nearby village I later discovered, was apparently leading the ceremony and he welcomed me, and from the behaviour of the others he was clearly one who was highly honoured and respected. The other man I learned was the chief of an adjacent village, and the third with the mask and paintings on his body was a spiritual leader if of one or the other tribe or both I could not tell but also highly respected but, from the behaviour of the others, also greatly feared. They too welcomed me, the spiritual leader as one would an old friend and as if we had met before, and from the looks on the faces of the others, I too was beheld with both respect and fear. Throughout the rest of the ceremony, I was able to piece together what was going on.

Six weeks ago at the break of dawn while they were still asleep, the five boys in the inner circle had been captured and brought to this initiation lodge. Three were from the nearest village and two from an adjacent village. I was immediately reminded of the young boy who had been "captured" during my travels with Prince Abbas with the knowledge of his father as part of his manhood ceremony. These boys had been shaved bald, the reason their heads were now covered with the tight curls of newly grown hair, and had been ritually washed and circumcised by their spiritual leader/healer, whom I learned could see into the future and could exorcise evil spirits, and who had foreseen my arrival, and that it had been upon his advice that the ceremony commence several weeks later than usual so that this day would coincide with my arrival. I shuddered and my skin crawled with that information. How could I have envisioned this night and how could he have foreseen it? From what he told me, he had envisioned my arrival on what would have been the day I had my vision while with the Temne twins. What mysterious motive of the gods or the spirits were at work here? And why?

Following their circumcision, the boys had been instructed in the roles of men and women, the social roles they played in the community and the sexual and household roles they played in the family. There was one thing remaining for them to learn and understand, and the five other boys, all who were recent initiates of this ceremony themselves, were present to witness this final act. The other elderly man stood and removing the sheath covering his penis, he lay down on a mat of fresh branches covered by thick blankets and spread his legs, and the eldest of the five initiates, a youth of twenty, stood and approached him. This, I learned, was one of the two boys from the other village which only had two young men of age for this ceremony, and so had to wait until there were sufficient others in one of the adjacent tribes. He removed his wraparound which signified that he was still "not a man", revealing a mangled penis, the bulb still swollen and red from his circumcision but now healed.

The other elder then removed his sheath and lay down on a mat beside the other elder and the next oldest boy, a boy of sixteen, stood, stepped up to him, and removed his wraparound also. His penis was also mangled but not as badly mutilated. The third man, the man with the mask, stood, removed a very large and elaborate sheath to reveal the largest member of the three men, and lay down on a third mat. The youngest boy, who was six, stood and approached the third man and removed his wraparound. Of all of those so far, his penis was the least damaged by his crude circumcision.

Following the instructions of the three men, the three boys lay down beside each man and began to play with the man's member until it became stiff, the member of each of the boys swelling and becoming rigid also on its own, even that of the six-year-old boy. The three boys stroked the stiff members of the three men and they gently and carefully fondled the balls of the three elders, their own cocks wagging with excitement and demanding attention, much to the surprise and awe of the three youth. While the others chanted and beat sticks on a hollow log used as a drum and shook rattles made from gourds, the three initiates, again following instructions from the three men, knelt between the outspread legs of each of the men and began to mimic copulation with them, their rigid penises held tight between the older men's skinny, but strong, legs.

Watching the six of them laying there facing each other, the younger on top of the older and the younger thrusting their naked, black butts to and fro, their rigid members clamped tightly between the thighs of the older men, simulating that act I am sure each had seen their parents engaged in hundreds of times before was highly erotic and I shifted uncomfortably as my own member began to swell, just as the five young warriors encircling the three copulating couples were squirming with their own arousal. The three younger men were panting and snorting with their exertion and their arousal, the twenty-year-old, the sixteen-year-old, and the six-year-old, and the three men under them were squirming and gasping for breath like any woman in their position would be.

The three on top thrust their stiff members in and out between the tightly clamped thighs of the three men below them until the six reached their orgasms and five ejaculated, the twenty-year-old youth spraying his body and that of the elderly man with his seed, and the old man spraying his body and that of the twenty-year-old with his seed, the sixteen-year-old boy spraying the other elder's body and the other elder sprayed the sixteen-year-old's body, and the third man in the grotesque beast mask spraying the smooth, naked body of the preteen boy and his own while the child jerked wildly with what had to be his first orgasm.

As the three got to their knees and shuffled back, the remaining two initiates took their places beside the two elders and began to fondle their still stiff and now sticky cocks, their own members jutting out from their bodies and wagging with excitement. Again the two elders instructed the two initiates on how to fondle their members and how to so instruct their wives, and if their actions were too fast or too rough, as was the case of these two boys, how to advise their wives so that their spouses could best please them. They then guided the boys between their outspread legs in the position they would normally take with their wives, and again the two initiates mimicked the motions of congress, further stimulating and pleasing both themselves and their older partners, the fourteen-year-old with the chief from the adjacent tribe and an eleven-year-old with the other chief. And so we sat and watched, the group of boys in the outer circle, the three other initiates who were recovering from their copulation, and the Shaman and myself. The hut was filled with the scent of raw male sexuality and the sounds of copulation. Soon the four were snorting and gasping with their orgasms, the two elders once again squirting their seed and the fourteen-year-old initiate squirting his while the eleven-year-old boy trembled with his dry climax.

The twenty-year-old initiate hesitantly and fearfully, but with great reverence and desire, approached me and lying down beside me he reached over and began to fondle my member and stones while the sixteen-year-old lay down beside the shaman and the six-year-old lay down beside his chief, and the two began to fondle the members and stones of the two other men. I was already stiff and the other two men and the three initiates quickly became hard again. The three practised what they had been taught and I squirmed with arousal and desire as I lay there and my member throbbed under the caresses of the dark, muscular youth and his stiff, mutilated cock jerked in anticipation of pleasures to come.

The three once again took their positions between our legs, their cocks jutting up in the air stiffly, and while the other two men clamped their legs about the stiff members of their mock husbands, I guided my partner down and raised my hips, presenting my anus to him. As he eased forward, his stiff member, coated with the slime from his body and that of his chief, began to penetrate me. He immediately stopped and looked up at me uncertainly and I smiled and nodding and gesturing, motioned for him to continue, which he did slowly and uncertainly, easing his stiff cock up my rectum until it was buried up my body to the hilt as it would be with his wife, though in a hole whose sole purpose was to receive it. As he slowly drew back and my anus burned with pleasure and my rectum and his cock throbbed with arousal, I had to muse if God had not purposefully designed man so that his opening served a dual purpose. I could think of no other reason why He would have designed a man's asshole to so perfectly fit a man's member and to be lined with pleasure sensors.

That pleasure quickly overwhelmed all other thoughts and I lay there and trembled as this young, muscular black warrior pumped his hips to and fro, driving his big, black member in and out of my anus and he trembled and gasped with the pleasure throbbing through his swollen, irritated flesh. I worked my anus and rectum in time with his thrusts and withdrawals as a woman should to please her man and his lips curled with the new pleasure, and the new knowledge he could impart to his future wife on how to better please him, whether he used the hole in front or the one behind. The twenty-year-old initiate was soon spurting his seed up my rectum and I was spurting mine, spraying his body and mine with my seed. The two of us blasted out our seed violently and copiously, his seed flooding my rectum and my seed spattering our naked, sweating bodies. Meanwhile the chief and shaman were gasping and grunting with their second orgasms and their two partners were trembling with their second orgasms, the two men once again spraying their bodies and that of their partners and the sixteen-year-old spraying that of the shaman while the six-year-old was spattered by the thick, hot seed of his chief as he trembled with his own dry orgasm.

Having spent his seed three times, the first chief lay back and watched as the eleven-year-old boy approached the Shaman and the fourteen-year-old from the other village approached me and again the two boys began to put into practice the arousal techniques they had learned this night, and again the two of us, the Shaman and myself, in the role of their wives, advised them what to do so that when they took on the role of husband they would be able to guide their wives how to please them as is the role of men. With a nervous and awed fourteen-year-old black boy fondling my member and stones, his own member quickly rising on its own in excitement, it was not long before I was erect once again and I eagerly spread my legs to allow the boy to take the position and role of a man.

Like with the older initiate from his tribe, I adjusted my position so that instead of rubbing his stiff penis between my legs, I presented my anus to him. Like his older fellow initiate he was surprised and hesitant, but needed little encouragement to use my anus as a substitute vagina. So, once again I felt my anus being penetrated by a stiff, aching black snake and as the eleven-year-old began to mimic copulation with the Shaman between his thighs, the fourteen-year-old boy began to fuck me. The concentration on his face as he fucked another male for the first time in his life and focussed on the position of his arms and legs was delightful, and as that concentration was replaced by a look of awe and pleasure, and the pride of achievement, was even more delightful. The spent seed lining my rectum served as lubricant and before long he was adding his own young seed to that of his fellow initiate and the eleven-year-old boy was trembling with his second orgasm.

Having watched the four of us, the second chief motioned for the six-year-old boy, who had also watched us, to join him and the boy began again to put into practice what he had learned this night from the Shaman and his chief. Meanwhile the twenty-year-old approached the Shaman and the next oldest initiate, the sixteen-year-old boy, approached me. It was the fourth time for the Shaman and the third for the rest of us, the chief from the neighbouring tribe and myself and the sixteen and six-year-old initiates, and so intense was our arousal that we all united and fucked as if it were our first time, and for me it was just as delightful.

The air was heavy with the fragrance of spilt seed and of sweat and the six of us sucked it in deeply as we separated and the three initiates crawled back to join the other two initiates, their bodies and ours streaked with sweat and sticky with our semen. The two initiates who had watched now crawled forward, their stiff cocks pointing the way. Having had my rectum filled now three times, I spread my legs for the eleven-year-old boy while the fourteen-year-old lay between the outspread legs of the Shaman and the four of us mimicked the roles of man and woman once again as the two elder chiefs lay back and watched. The four of us were stiff from the beginning and so required little hand-play before the two initiates took up their positions on knees and elbows for their third time. As with the previous boys, I directed my partner to my hole, and having seen the three boys before him penetrate me, he did not hesitate. The eleven-year-old boy's cock was short and slender, and my hole well lubricated with the seed of the three initiates before him so he penetrated me easily. Small and short, but i found as much pleasure in being penetrated and fucked by him as I had with three boys who had preceded him, and like those before him, I instructed him on the finer techniques of fucking ass. I came just as copiously as I had the first three times, and I noticed that the Shaman, now shooting his seed for the fifth time, came just as violently and copiously as his first time and his fourteen-year-old partner shot his seed between the man's tightly clenched thighs.

Four of the five initiates had the experience of uniting with someone from the spirit world, an experience that normally initiates would not have had and which would make this initiation as one to remember for generations to come. There remained one initiate left. So while the elders and witnesses and other initiates sat and watched, I was joined by the fifth, and youngest, initiate, the six-year-old boy. I lay back and assumed the role of wife and the boy proudly if not somewhat nervously and self-consciously assumed the role of my husband. Concentrating on all he had learned and experienced, he now manipulated my limp member and my stones, telling and showing me how, as his wife, he expected me to please him. Hearing those coarse words but endearing words from his lips and his high-pitched child's voice, my member quickly rose, much to his delight and relief, and to the delight of those watching.

I spread my legs as instructed and he nervously and self-consciously but proudly knelt between them. He had previously slipped his little penis between the tightly clamped thighs of the two chiefs and the shaman, but he had also seen how his four fellow initiates had penetrated me, and he now hesitantly glanced up at me, uncertain if he, the youngest of the five, would be awarded the same experience. I gave him the slightest nod and smile and his face lit up as he assumed his position. Being penetrated at any time is a pleasure, and I had been penetrated four times that night, but being penetrated by a six-year-old boy for the first time in his life is uncomparable. Size and experience are certainly factors, but the novelty and discovery of the pleasure awaiting him add immensely to the delight of congress with a boy, and especially when the boy is so young and innocent.

And so I lay there and sighed with as much pleasure as the boy penetrating me was feeling, genuine pleasure, something that did not go unnoticed by those watching me, and which would be proudly retold many times after this night. His little penis, about the length and thickness of my little finger, barely entered me, and he had to hump with short strokes to prevent it from being withdrawn completely. The delight on his face as he experienced the sensation of having his little boyhood surrounded by hot, moist ass flesh and of feeling the flesh surrounding it throbbing in time with the throbbing of his own swollen member far made up for his smallness and the lack of penetration for both of us. Even more delightful was watching the concentration on his face as he thrust his throbbing little penis in and out of my body as he mimicked copulation with his future wife, and the gradual change as the pure pleasure of fucking overpowered his concerns about the mechanics. As he grunted and gasped with his dry orgasm, the fifth that night, I grunted and gasped with my orgasm, also my fifth, as my hot, thick seed spurted out of my swollen cock and sprayed his hot, naked, sweating body and mine, proof of his virility and prowess as a man, and of mine, for I anointed him with the same volume and intensity as I had the other four.

Morning came soon, with much ritual, singing, and dancing. A ceremonial fire was lit and all the possessions of the five initiates were added to the burning logs. We stepped outside, our bodies sooty with smoke and ash, and continued to dance and sing as the initiation lodge caught fire and burnt to the ground, and then with the five naked initiates racing ahead of us and joyously calling out "I am a man!" we ran to the mouth of the river where it joined the ocean and bathed. The shaman and two chiefs donned their sheaths and headdresses and emblems of authority and each of the boys, and myself, were presented with new, colourful blankets, the symbol of their manhood, each with a unique pattern and symbols specific to the individual and which the initiate would wear as a proud symbol of their manhood on special occasions in the future. My blanket, much to my surprise and amazement, included an eye with a blue half circle under it, a blue swirl above two wavy lines, the cross that was remarkably like that of Saint Christopher, and a soaring hawk Picking up my panpipes and wrapped in my new blanket, I marched back to the ships waiting in the harbour under the watchful eyes of the natives on shore and those of the crew aboard the ships.

I was of course bombarded with questions about what had happened during the night and what I had learned about what lay ahead, and what they had just witnessed. Several asked in private, and I know many more were wondering, why I had appeared naked under my blanket and what their women were like, and I knew none of them believed I had not had congress that night, nor that it had been only once. What none of them knew and never would was how many times, and with which sex. (2)

So we set sail again and by December 25 we had travelled some seventy leagues up the coast beyond Captain Dias's furthest point. After dinner on that day while setting a studding-sail the crew of the Raphael discovered the mast had split a couple yards below the top. They patched it as best they could with backstays and hoped to repair it when they reached a sheltered port. We stayed together as best we could and three days later we anchored near the coast and took in fish. We sailed again at sunset but a mooring rope snapped on the Raphael and our three ships were swept out to sea in a raging storm. We were blown so far out our drinking water began to fail us and we had to cook with salt water and reduce our drinking water to a quartilho. The men began to grow afeared and began to doubt if we would find land again, which filled them with dismay and caused them to begin to talk foolishly. Angered by their weakness and lack of faith, the captain-major called the crew together and told them to take heart and to cease any thoughts of mutiny and turning around. "You there!" he shouted. "So you wish to return! On your knees! Ask pardon of the Almighty for your wicked intentions." Much ashamed and fearing the Captain-major would do more than rebuke them, the men turned back to their work. (3)

Finally, on Thursday, January 11, thanks be to God, because He figured we had been punished adequately for our wickedness, perhaps simply because it suited Him, or perhaps because He too was cowed by the Captain-major's threats and bluster, we once again sighted land, and discovering a small river, we lowered anchor near the coast. The following day we went close to the shore in a boat and saw a crowd of negroes, both men and women, a tall people with a chief among them, watching from the bushes. The Captain-major ordered Martin Affonso, who as I have said had been a long time in Manicongo, and myself to land and we were received most hospitably.

The Captain sent the chief a jacket, a pair of red pantaloons, a Moorish cap, and a bracelet. The chief said in return we could have anything of which we stood in need of. The chief put on his new clothes and we accompanied him to his village while the rest of the crew returned to their ships. The chief paraded through his village to show off the gifts he had been given and retired to his house. Martin and I were lodged in an open compound surrounded by tall, pointed stakes stuck in the ground and were fed a porridge of millet, which seems to abound in this country, and a fowl roasted over a spit which tasted like wild chicken. We greatly feared for our lives and slept little that night, out of fear and because of the constant coming and going of men, women, and children throughout the night who came to look at the pale-skinned strangers as if we were strange and dangerous beasts.

In the morning the chief asked us to return to the ships and two men accompanied us with plucked, dead fowls as presents, and the chief said he would show his gifts to a great chief whom we assume to be the king of this country. As word spread about our presence, more and more men came to see the strange-looking men with their own eyes, so that by the time we returned to our ships some two hundred men had ended up accompanying us back to the shore. From what we could determine, this land seems to be densely populated with many petty chiefs so we named the area Mfumos, meaning land of petty chiefs. In that we were so hospitably received and desiring to know more about what lay ahead, and needing to take on fresh water, the Captain-major decided to lay by another day in the chance we might be approached again and learn more.

He was rewarded by more visitors, our presence and ships arousing the curiosity of those nearby, and we had our visitors convey barrels of fresh water to our ships. One of the visitors, a lithe young man whom I figured to be in his late teens with twisted kinky hair, the stubble of an emerging beard evident on his chin, and skin dark as pitch, and naked as the day he was born except for a large, furry sheath about his virile member, was most curious about our ship and the sails and he showed no fear of heights as I stripped off my shirt and breeches and stepped out of my shoes and took him up the rigging. He was most delighted and excited by the distance he could see from the Crow's nest and I was afeared he might topple to the deck far below in his wonderment. Alone with him high in the rigging gave me opportunity to examine him closely, and I was most pleased with what I saw.

In return he offered to show me his village and the Captain-major gave his assent, eager to learn more about these friendly, naive people, and the taking on of water barrel by barrel was going to be a long process.

So I followed the youth, who called himself Mbhazima and said he was about to turn eighteen, to his village, talking on the way to learn more about this land and the relationship of the tribes for by then I had found the language from one tribe to the other most similar and I was becoming more fluent and able to ask more questions. These people call themselves the Tsonga and raise large herds of cattle, which they treat as money and use to measure a man's wealth instead of raising them for food or to trade. Arriving at the village, I noticed women carrying calabashes of sea water which they poured out in a central pool where it evaporated to leave a layer of salt which they used to season their food. These people subsist by hunting, raising chickens, and growing tubers and grains and trading salt and bracelets and other body decorations of copper and ivory for what they do not have. For weapons they use long bows and arrows and spears, the tips hardened by fire but a few with iron blades and greatly valued. The hilt of the boy's dagger, which he carried in a sheath of ivory on a leather strap about his waist, was decorated with tin and he wore copper bands about his legs and arms and bits of copper in his twisted hair.

The village, which I estimated had perhaps a hundred inhabitants, was composed of a circle of houses of straw with conical thatched roofs. Women, I learned, outnumbered the men two to one. Being a man was dangerous, many getting killed in skirmishes with other tribes, which I learned was frequent, and others killed while hunting or while protecting their cattle and the village from the ferocious cats in the area. Family is very important and men often have more than one wife, the first wife having a hut closest to her husband and having a cooking facility and she and her children being of higher status, and his other wives living farther away and being less important. To my great surprise, despite the ratio of women to men, some men also had young boys who were also their wives and who performed the same domestic and sexual duties as female wives and from whom was expected the same fidelity. These boy-wives, I learned, were accepted by the man's other wives, and by the leaders and healer of the village.

Mbhazima proudly announced that he himself had been a boy-wife until recently, his "husband" having been killed by a lion several moons ago, which he himself had killed, and he showed me the necklace he had made of the lion's claws. He also proudly informed me that since then he had begun to grow a beard, which marked the end of his life as a boy-wife, and that he had recently married his former husband's two wives and just this past month had taken his own boy-wife, a boy of twelve by the name of Basani.

I was welcomed to the village by the village chief and the village healer, both treated with reverence and respect by my host but who was also treated with respect by them, signifying his status in the village as a skilled and brave hunter. I was also welcomed by his two wives, one who had to be at least ten years his senior and had three children and the other four years his senior with two children, and both pregnant, by him. I was also welcomed by his boy-wife. The two wives wore a patch of cloth hung between their legs and nothing else, and the boy only a sheath. They were all exceptionally good looking. I was treated to a delicious, spicy stew of vegetables and tubers and a stringy meat I could not identify and flat cakes made of grain. They were most gracious but I was most uncomfortable. He visited his two wives in their huts that night. Where the boy went and lived I had no idea.

Before the break of day the next morning Mbhazima woke me and announced that we would go hunting. I was uncertain being away that long, but I knew the taking on of water would take several days, and I was curious, about this land and its people, and of course their concept of family. When he announced that Basani and a friend of his, Jomo, would join us I could not decline. I did not regret my decision. This is the peak of summer in this land and the temperature was considerably hotter than the hottest day in Portugal, and it was also their wet season, making everything about me green and lush. We climbed out of the valley and onto the plateau, a vast grassland with strange trees that looked like umbrellas. Browsing in the grassland I saw beasts that were the size of small horses but which were striped, black and white, and beasts with necks longer than their legs, which were themselves so long and spindly it was surprising they could support thei4r bodies, beasts, I realized with a shock, I had seen in my vision with the twins.

Approaching one of the waterholes, we saw a herd of the majestic elephants walking in a row away from us, and at the waterhole wallowing in the mud a ponderous, short-legged beast who stood as tall as a man at the shoulder and who had two horns, one large and curved, not on the side of its head, but in a row along its snout. Mbhazima observed that the shamans ground the horns of the animals into a powder, which when ingested made a man potent and virile, and Basani joked that Mbhazima's first wife must add it to her flat cakes as Mbhazima is always eager and up, and that his horn rivals that of the beast we were watching, much to the laugher of his friend and the laughter and pride of his "husband."

It was a perfect day and as it drew to a close Mbhazima speared a wild pig which we roasted over a spit and ate with flat cakes his boy-wife had brought with him, causing us to recall the comment by Basani, and the look of expectation between the boys. It gave me the opening to ask about the practice of boy-wives and the three described the courting in which Mbhazima had paid a bride price to Basani's parents and they were officially married with a huge wedding feast in which the entire tribe participated with dancing and singing and wedding gifts. I asked the boys how they felt about being wives and I was told that it was a great honour, and that many boys desired to be boy-wives for it brought them security and property, and, Jomo added with a twinkle in his eyes and grin, "for the fun itself." (4)

Sitting there with the three of them and looking across the savanna as the setting sun turned the sky a vivid crimson and black and purple shadows began to spread across the grassland gave me a very strange feeling, and as Mbhazima reached over and put his arm about his young boy-wife I felt as if I was intruding on their privacy. And then Jomo asked if I was married or had a boy-wife, and I told them about Anacaona and my stepson Jutia and about Arasibo and my vassal Vasco, and they found my story and experiences as strange and as winsome as I found theirs.

We stopped talking then and as Mbhazima and Basani untied and removed each other's sheath, I showed Jomo how to unbuckle my belt and undo the ties of my shirt and breeches and my heart began to race as I untied and removed the thirteen-year-old boy's sheath and revealed his delightful, slender black snake eagerly awaiting my caress. Slipping my fingers about his limp member, I slowly began to stroke it and he reached over and began to fondle my balls, rolling my nuts in their loose skin as his little member began to swell in my fingers. Meanwhile Mbhazima and Basani were fondling each other, the boy stroking the teen's cock while the teenager stroked his.

Lying down and facing Jomo but in the opposite direction, I inhaled the unique, musky fragrance of the black boy's crotch, and leaning over, I took his little black sausage in my mouth and began to suck. I was quickly rewarded with feeling the boy's cock swelling between my lips. As I felt his hot breath on my crotch, I stopped what I was doing and propped myself up on my elbow so I could watch him. His eyes half-closed, he slipped his thick lips about my knob and began to suck, continuing until I was hard and my knob was basted in saliva. Swallowing his cock-flavoured spittle, he slowly eased his lips further down my shaft and began to suck again. This was not something new to the boy.

Mbhazima and Basani had assumed the same position and I lay there getting sucked as I watched the two blacks sucking each other, the twelve-year-old going halfway down the long, thick wand of the older youth while Mbhazima took the younger boy's entire cock in his mouth. As I watched the two I wondered what Mbhazima's two wives thought about his sucking a boy's cock, and what they thought of a young boy sucking out the seed of their husband. I wondered if either of them provided their husband the same pleasure as his boy wife was. Turning my attention back to Jomo, I slipped my lips back over his stiff little black sausage and resumed slipping my lips up and down the shaft and sucking on it as he eagerly sucked on my long, thick member. As I lay there sucking and being sucked by this thirteen-year-old black boy and sighed with the pleasure I was feeling, I thought about my own wife and my young stepson, and of the castrato who had become my bed partner, and I gave thanks to God for all my blessings.

As I approached my climax Jomo clamped his lips tightly below my bulb and ceased all motion, further proof that the boy was experienced in this pleasure, and skilled besides. I did likewise until he resumed his suction and lip caress and then I too proceeded. My cock throbbed with pleasure just as his little dick throbbed between my lips and I thought back to when I had begun my teens and this pleasure was new and mysterious and again I gave thanks that I was a male and for the nameless black boy who had first introduced me to this pleasure. And then Jomo was squirting his hot seed into my mouth and as I savoured the slimy texture and sweet flavour of his seed I began to squirt my own seed into his mouth. As he eagerly swallowed my seed and I swallowed his, Mbhazima and Basani were doing the same with each other's seed.

None of us spoke as we lay back and closed our eyes and savoured the pleasure of having climaxed and of having brought another to the same blissful point. The night was warm and all around us were the night sounds of the savanna. Mbhazima shifted positions and I felt his hand slipping along my leg, up my thigh to my crotch, and then his fingers cupping my dangling, sweating balls and rolling them. I reached over and finding his long, limp cock, I slipped my fingers about it and slowly and gently stroked it. As I began to stiffen, so did he. I wondered if I should take the lead, being the oldest, or if I should leave that to him, being my host. I wondered if I should continue pleasuring him by hand or if I should do to him as I had done to Jomo, or if it was proper for us to copulate considering he was a married man and there were two young boys in our presence, and if so, which role I was expected to take.

Mbhazima solved the problem for me, twisting around so we were facing each other but in opposite directions, and as I felt his lips envelop my partially swollen cock I slipped my lips about his. It was very different having a man sucking my member and sucking on the thick, throbbing member of a man, and knowing that the two young boys, one barely into his teens and the other about to enter his, were sitting there stark naked and watching the two of us sucking on each other's virile member.

I was conscious of the two boys embracing each other and lying down in the grass beside us, and as Mbhazima stopped and propped himself up on his elbow, so did I, and the two of us watched the two young boys pleasuring each other, fondling each other's ripe, young nuts and caressing each other's smooth body, and then the two of them going down on each other and eagerly and unabashedly sucking on each other's member. My cock ached and twitched as I watched the two young black boys sucking and milking each other's stiff cocklet with their lips, like two black puppies teasing a bone. Mbhazima was feeling the same, and dropped once again to resume sucking my aching cock and I returned to his, slipping my lips about his long, black sausage and easing them down his shaft until the bulb of his cock was at my throat and then easing them back up until I was sucking on his bulb. And so the four of us brought each other off a second time, and once again I savoured and swallowed the fresh slime spurting into my mouth as I once again spurted out mine.

Again we disentangled and lay there in the dark, breathing deeply as our chests rose and fell and our heads spun with the delight of ejaculation. The moon had risen and shone brightly in the sky, a silent witness to our pleasure as the animals of the night forged for food, or perhaps were engaged in other animal activities. As Mbhazima and Basani once again embraced and began to caress, Jomo sought me out and began to caress my naked body and I cupped his smooth buttocks and squeezed them and nibbled at his ears. There in the dark Basani assumed the universal position on his knees and elbows and his husband knelt behind him and Jomo glanced up at me questioningly. I nodded and his perfect, white teeth flashed in the dark as he assumed the same position as Basani.

Listening to the grunting and laboured breathing of Mbhazima and Basani beside us as the two united, Jomo and I openly and unabashedly grunted and snorted as we also united. We were experienced, all four of us, and Mbhazima and I mounted the two young boys with little difficulty considering our size, again revealing the experience and eagerness of the two young boys, who, I learned later, had engaged in this act with each other many times while together hunting small game or while bathing. Now I had my thick, throbbing member up the thirteen-year-old black boy and was pumping it in and out of his tight, black ass while the eighteen-year-old warrior Mbhazima had his cock up the ass of his twelve-year-old boy-wife and was fucking him, as he had on their wedding night, and as he had many times since.

I thought of that as I worked my aching, throbbing cock in and out of the hot, throbbing hole of the eager black boy under me, and I wondered if the young warrior found the boy of greater pleasure than his two wives, just as I found a young boy brought me greater pleasure than my wife. I wondered about our similarities despite the great distance between us, and if that similarity in preference and in pleasure was proof of a higher order of things, or evidence of a common degeneracy. I wondered why it was that this act of buggering a young boy was viewed with such condemnation by my people, while among Mbhazima's people it was considered acceptable, and why among youth in Portugal it was something dirty and secret while here it was something openly desired and a worthy goal for any young boy. And then my cock was throbbing and so was Jomo's rectum and my stones took over from my brain and I concentrated on the pleasure of fucking a tight young boy, and of flooding his rectum with my seed, and the joy of hearing him gasping and sighing with pleasure as he sprayed the ground with his seed.

Chapter 6
Rios dos Bono Sinais  

Continuing on up the coast, they drop anchor ten days later to tend to repairs, hampered by the crew falling seriously ill. Two chiefs of the Karanga come but remain distant. Nico is sent to attempt to make inroads. He accompanies a fourteen-year-old cattle herder and learns much about the land and its people and their beliefs, and enlightens the boy on Christianity and his beliefs. They meet two other boys and engage in sex for the pure fun of doing so.

Codes: Mt, t/t 

Characters: Ngwana (newly 14), Shumba (13y10m), Tembu (14y11.5m), Nico (21y10mo)

Despite having been awake most of the night, the four of us woke with the sun. Nothing would have pleased me more than to continue where we had left off and it was evident that my companions would have liked to also, but to my dismay from the movement of the clouds I could see the wind was picking up. Explaining the significance and the urgency to Mbhazima, I hurried back to the coast and my heart leaped as I crested the cliffs and saw the ships were already in full sail. They had drawn up anchor by the time I was rowed out to them and the Berrio had already begun to sail as I scrambled on board the São Gabriel. I could not really blame the Captain-major. The winds were favourable and where we sat we were exposed by the swell of the sea so there really was no choice but to raise sail. I had known the risk when I had left. Even so, it had been worth it!

They had not taken in as much water as was needed, but taking advantage of the favourable weather had priority. There had to be more water ahead. As the coast receded the Captain-major called upon me for a report and I assured him of the friendliness of the people and told him though there were still strong winds ahead, I had been told the worst of the winds and currents were behind us, and that few of the ships which traded this far south were strong enough to go any further toward the cape, and the captains, heathens from the Arab lands, did not have the cajones to do so. That the Captain-major was most glad to hear, and the latter caused him much amusement and he puffed up like a peacock. I had done more than just see to my gonads while on shore. Of course there was more I could tell him that I had learned about these people but obviously what I had learned was not for his ears, or anyone else's for that matter. He informed me he had decided to call the river Rio do Cobre, Copper River, and the area Terra da Boa Gente, land of good people, and thinking of Mbhazima and his boy wife and of the boy Jomo, I smiled and stated it was a most appropriate name. (1)

Seven days later we found ourselves following a low coast wooded with tall trees. Two nights after that we cast anchor while the Berrio approached the coast and entered the bay there to take soundings. The Gabriel and Raphael followed the next night. The following morning the local inhabitants rowed out to us in their almadias (2) and greeted us with great delight, bringing fruit, many types of which we had not seen before, and permitting us to come ashore for water. The land, we found, was low and marshy and covered with tall trees with a great abundance of fruit of many kinds. The people are black, well-made, naked with a small piece of cotton covering their loins, the women having a slightly larger piece than the men. They pierce their lips in three places in which they insert bits of twisted tin. The presence of women was unusual in initial meetings and showed their peaceful nature, and of course roused the crew's interest, besides rousing other things considering their wanton near nudity and the deprivation the men had suffered.

The natives did not allow anyone to spend the night in the village, to the great disappointment and complaint of the men, but the Captain-major warned of the repercussions if anyone tried to leave ship, and recalling past incidents with these childishly emotional, unpredictable savages, none were brave enough to try despite their desperate state after being away from women for so many months, all being normal men in that regard. Of course fear of the Captain-major's wrath was an even greater motivation to remain on board. A couple days later we were visited by two chiefs but unlike our previous encounter with the chief from Mfumos, the land of petty chiefs, these two were very haughty and valued nothing they were given. One wore a cap with a fringe embroidered in silk and the other a cap of green satin, neither a turban nor a toque. A young man in their company claimed to have come from a distant country and said he had already seen big ships such as ours, which gladdened our hearts for it appeared we were at last approaching the bourne of our desires. The chiefs stayed in huts built on the river bank for seven days and bartered daily cloths marked with red ochre. Tiring of being there, they finally left in their almadias for the upper river. (3)

We had much to do, taking in water, careening our ships, and repairing the mast of the Raphael occupying the hands and minds of the men and taking their minds off other things. Our progress was greatly hindered however when many of the crew fell ill, their hands and feet swelling so they were useless, and their gums growing over their teeth and bleeding so that all thoughts of women fled from their minds. Much to his credit and great esteem to him, Paulo da Gama visited the sick night and day, condoled with them, and gave them medicines he had brought for his own use, he himself not being a well man.

Although the natives were friendly, they remained distant, and the Captain-major was greatly angered, and greatly insulted, by the attitude and indifference of the chiefs and their people, and greatly frustrated, resulting in frequent bouts of anger, which did not endear him to anyone. When he could learn nothing about the area nor what lay ahead, he encouraged Martin Affonso and myself to talk to those who came not to barter but out of curiosity and to do nothing but watch us go about our daily duties. Over the next week while Martin focussed on the elders who would have more authority and knowledge, I focussed on the youth whom I found to be more open and daring. Of course I had other reasons for focussing on them.

One of these youths, who appeared on the eighth day and whom I had never seen before, and whose exceptionally dark skin, striking beauty, and young age caught my eye, was sitting on the cliffs overlooking the bay playing a strange instrument, a wooden board with metal tines which he plucked with his thumb and which I learned was called a mbira. Bringing out my panpipe and climbing up to join him, I played several tunes and we became instant friends. He informed me his name was Ngwana, and that the area, which he called Mwenemutapa, was a vast empire ruled by a powerful king, Chikuyo Chisamarengu, who had only three years ago begun his rule. This was welcome news to the Captain-major who encouraged me to meet with the boy and learn more. (4)

The next morning I was delighted to see the boy again and I eagerly climbed up the cliffs to join him. He was glad to see me too, but sadly informed me he had come for one last look for he had to take his father's cattle inland and regretted now that he had not checked out the rumours about the strangers and the tall ships earlier. When I told him I had looked forward to spending more time with him also, and suggested that I could travel inland with him if that was allowed, he was delighted, and not just for the opportunity to talk I was to discover, and as I had hoped. As we turned and headed away from the sea, I knew that not just the Captain-major but many of the crew would be displeased that I had not remained to carry out my share of the work that had to be done, and I prayed that if it pleased God I might learn something that would warrant my absence for there was much hard work left to do and I felt obligated to do my share, not for the Captain-major but for my companions.

Ngwana's people, like many other Negroes I have encountered on this voyage, measure their wealth on the number and health of their cattle, and from the herd I helped the boy drive away from the village his father had to be a wealthy man. The day was hot and the cattle stopped frequently to graze or to rest in the shade of copses along the way so we had to constantly keep them moving and our progress was slow and difficult. Along the way the boy told me about his family and his village. He had just turned fourteen and now the oldest boy at home, it was his responsibility to take the cattle to greener pastures and watering holes, which were becoming further and further away with the growth of the village and the increase in the number of cattle the villagers were raising. He had two older brothers, now married and raising their own families, one older sister about to be married, and two younger sisters. His father was wealthy and a good hunter so he was able to provide for such a large family, many others limiting the number of children they could have because they could not feed them all, which he said with a twinkle in his eyes, was very difficult for the men for the making of children was a pleasant responsibility of a man.

Situated where it was near the ocean and a large river and near a mountain range to the west and north, he said the village had a long history of trade with other tribes, then with Persian and Arab traders to the north, and now more recently with pale-skinned explorers such as ourselves from lands far away. They traded not just the usual foodstuffs and jewellery that we had seen, but finely spun cotton, gold from the mountains and found in the river, pearls from the ocean, and precious gems which they mined from the earth. He himself wore finely engraved gold bands around his upper arms and thighs that would be a small fortune back home and turquoise studs in his earlobes which added to his attractiveness.

He said his people, the Karanga, were ruled by village chiefs who in turn reported to regional chiefs who reported to a very rich and powerful king who ruled over the entire area which took more days to travel from end to end than a man has fingers and toes. Bound together under one king, he said, they had the numbers to resist invasions by other tribes, a frequent occurrence as their neighbours sought grazing land and slaves, those on the borders of the empire being more troubled by these invaders than his own village. I made note of all these things and much more that the boy revealed and of which he had heard his father speak, and which I was sure the Captain-major would be most interested in hearing. It seems the greed men have for what others have exists the world over.

Ngwana of course asked about myself and my people and I told him of my family and life in Portugal and he had great difficulty envisioning castles or vineyards or of a man owning an estate, and though he could not understand horses, he could understand owning them. I told him why we were here and he was amazed that we would travel in such numbers and for so many months to seek something to flavour our food and cloth to cover our bodies. Gold as wealth he knew from contact with other traders, but it seemed foolish to him it being so abundant, and cattle being much more useful and valuable. He knew nothing about Cathay and the other places we sought nor of the Great Khan, and he marvelled at the great distances we had travelled and being away from our families for so long. Family was important to him and his people, parents and grandparents being greatly respected and highly revered, and he could not imagine being away from them for such a long time. Our conversation made me think of my mother, Father, and Uncle, and of my wife and Indies family, and my vassals to whom I was as close as family, and it greatly saddened me. I had been gone now seven months and we had not yet reached our destination. In two more days my son would be celebrating his first birthday. Anacaona would have given birth to our second child now and I had no idea even if I was father to another boy or to a girl or if the child had even lived.

Ngwana and his people also highly revered the dead whom they believed lived on earth along side us but somehow in a different plane so they could not be seen, something I had great difficulty understanding, and he had no concept of heaven nor hell and found such a concept equally strange and difficult to comprehend. Of course I took the opportunity to enlighten him of such things and to tell him about God and His Son and Christianity. These Karanga, I found, also have a priesthood, very strong and powerful and who possessed great magic, and he told me with wide-eyed wonder about the powerful and revered but also greatly feared mhondoro, individuals who could consult with the spirits and the royal ancestors and who knew all the legends and the history of their people, and of the highly regarded n'angas, the diviners and healers, with the same awe as any good Christian might speak of communion and miracles and of the wonders told in the Bible.

And then he asked me, in a subdued and fearful voice, if I was one of them, and when I asked why he asked, he said because I walked and talked and behaved as they did, and that when I looked at him, I looked at him the way they did. The first part I suspected came from my experiences as a priest with the Tenocha, though what he meant by the way I looked at him I did not understand. I told him I knew much about medicines and herbs and healing, though not as much about the plants in his land, and that I have conversed with spirits totally unknown to him. He said that he had thought so, and when I revealed my tattoos and told him their meaning and about my life as a priest of Xochipilli, omitting the gruesome details of the sacrifices of the Tenocha least he think I promoted such a practice, he was greatly impressed, though he was at that age where it did not take much to impress.

As the sun began to set, we stopped for the night and Ngwana speared a small lizard-like animal which I did not recognize and whose name I do not know which he skinned, gutted and roasted on a spit over a fire in which he roasted several tubers and he took out some of the flat bread his mother had given him when she found I was going to accompany him. While we ate, he told me he was of the Mbizi clan, which was the name they gave for the black and white striped horselike creatures I had seen. He explained that the Karanga were divided into clans named after various animals or parts of the body. Each clan was further divided into a male group and a female group and each had its own customs and its own totem which was sacred to the members of that clan. Members of the same clan had a common ancestor, who had been the first in that clan, and members were not allowed to marry others in that clan for if they did and had children it angered the gods and the children died still in the mother or were misshapen and feeble in body and mind.

He asked me about my clan, and I replied we did not have such a thing as he had described, though we had something similar which we called Orders, and that I belonged to three, the Order of Santiago, the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, and the Order of the Holy Lance. He said he was not surprised one of my position belonged to three, nor that I belonged to clans named after spirits of the dead, which was the closest explanation we could arrive at for a saint. He also inquired if I was married and was most curious how I felt being away from my wife for so long, and how I felt about not having congress with her, a topic I found difficult and embarrassing to discuss considering his age. He said that among the Karanga the men often had to be away from their wives for many moons hunting or on raids or when at war. He said even when home men and women spent most of their time apart, the women staying inside their homes and the men preferring to sit outside with other men, and the women doing woman things with other women and the men doing men things with other men, though, he said with a grin and a leer, they did find time to do a thing together.

It was obvious he was curious about our sexual customs and habits, something common to all youth his age. He said that among his people the diviner determined when a boy was to become a man and they had a ritual everyone engaged in to mark when that happened, and from what he told me it was much like the ceremony I had learned about from the Xhosa. He added proudly that he had gone through that ritual himself two summers ago, and that his clan had taught him the things he had to do to be a man, including, he said with a grin, how to please a wife, which he was too young to do yet but which, he said with a sly look, he practised whenever he could.

I explained that where I came from we did not have such a ritual, but that there came a time when a boy was no longer considered a boy and was a man and joined men in doing men things, but that it was usually one's father who explained how to be a man and from whom a boy learned his occupation, though some learned their trade from another man skilled in that trade. Having no concept of trades or guilds, he could not understand and I could not explain. I also told him that it was usually a boy's father who explained a man's conjugal duties, and that where I came from we also engaged in circumcision, though for a much different reason, and I explained the covenant Christians had with God. He understood well enough the concept of making a sacrifice to a god, but not sacrificing one's foreskin of all things, and I was at a loss to explain it further. He was most impressed by a God who would demand such a sacrifice, however, and deemed Him to be a powerful and wise god. Despite the contradictions, he readily accepted that I was both a Christian and a priest of the Tenocha, and he quickly admitted that when it came to spiritual matters he had no knowledge.

I could tell he was hinting about something else about the mhondoro and n'angas and wanted to say more but was too shy and too young to approach the topic directly, particularly with someone who practised what they did and was that much older such as myself. I also wanted to ask something, but not wanting to offend him nor scare him away, I did not know how to proceed so I said nothing, resulting in awkward moments of silence and frustration for both of us and our conversation began to lag. Being his senior by over seven years, I felt responsible for initiating anything physical between us but I was at a loss how to do so despite my experience, and I dare not offend him alone out in the wilderness and so far from my own people. If he were to suddenly abandon me, I was not even sure I would be able to find my way back to the coast.

Finally he said, shyly and with a secretive smile, that he was too young to marry yet but was a man now and had the same needs as a man, and that being out in the wilderness for long periods of time with the cattle was not unlike being on a hunt or being at war, and when men, or boys, got together during those times without women there were ways to satisfy those needs, and he hesitantly asked if that was also true where I came from, and for sailors, especially when we were away from women for such a long time.

Realizing we had been thinking similar thoughts, I had to calm my heart as it leaped with the opportunity of fulfilling my desires, and I thanked any god who might be listening for youth and their brashness and boldness and, thinking of Xochipilli, I prayed that he might guide my tongue to make my wishes come true, and apologized to the god responsible if I had mistaken my benefactor. Resisting the impulse to grasp the boy in my arms, I returned the smile and said I was familiar with those ways, but among my people those ways were discouraged and frowned upon and not practised by sailors because on a ship there was no place to do such things without being seen and among my people such things were done in private. My intention had been to express how great my need was and how much I would welcome congress with him, but the words were no sooner out of my mouth than I realized instead I had given him the impression that such congress was seen as wrong and secret, which, in truth, among my people it was.

From the look on his face, that was not what he had wanted to hear, and was certainly not what I wanted to imply. I quickly tried to clarify my statement, struggling with our language difference and adding how that made things especially difficult for a man who wanted to do such things, daring to add, men such as myself. My heart began to race with the possibility that I had missed my opportunity. As I have said, he was young and attractive of body and face, and I have admitted many times my weakness for pleasures of the flesh, and combined with my long abstinence our intimate conversation had caused the release of those humours that arouse the flesh and stimulate the mind, humours good Christian men seek to avoid. He finally asked softly and hesitantly, for clarification for he too had to struggle with our language difference, if I meant that I did ngochani, which I learned through gestures was their word for engaging physically with another man.

I replied most enthusiastically and emphatically that I did, not wanting any misinterpretation, and in that I succeeded as he said that he had thought so, because congress between men provides a magical strength and power to those who do such a thing, and he could sense such a strength and power in me. He went on to say many chiefs and often the leaders of mighty warriors and many mhondoro and n'angas did ngochani. He paused and I nodded I understood, and then looking at me directly, he stated, "you are inkonkoni." When I replied that I did not understand the word, he said that was the word that the Ndebele and Shangona use for a graceful, horned animal in their land that I had seen and that resembles a deer, and also for a man who likes to do with other men what other men like to do with women.

I found it strange and confusing they would use the same word for such different things, but I quickly admitted that I did, and I informed him besides the communing with the gods as a priest of Xochipilli, I encouraged and practised congress between males, and he observed slyly that he had suspected I did from the day we had met on the cliffs overlooking the bay. I asked what had made him think that, and he said he had noticed the way I had looked at him, a look that a man has when he looks at a woman whom he finds attractive. I replied that was because I did find him attractive. (5)

His smile broadened and I eagerly reached out and embraced him, my member already having begun to swell. I had removed my shirt and breeches to reveal my tattoos and was wearing only my under breeches. It had been a long time since I had felt so prurient, and embracing this hot, eager, fourteen-year-old boy caused my member to quickly stand, which was readily evident from the way it tented out my under garment. Having only recently turned fourteen, the boy was stiff in an instant also, and wearing only a narrow loincloth, his state was impossible not to notice. We quickly removed and chucked aside our remaining articles of clothing.

Caressing his smooth, tar-black body, I delighted in the smoothness of his skin and the firmness of his young, pubescent muscles, firmed and toned by his active physical life but still rounded and softened by youth. He in turn caressed my body, his dark black hands contrasting with my lighter skin as they slipped over my chest. At the age of twenty-one years and ten months and being at sea now for seven months, my biceps and thighs were firm with muscle, as was my chest, still smooth and devoid of hair, and the firmness of my muscles did not escape his notice and which, from the look in his eyes, he greatly admired as a boy his age, and aspiring to be a man, would.

He could not resist seeking out my stones, nor I his, and as we fondled each other's most private and vulnerable part, I glanced down to watch his slender, black fingers roll my stones in their loose skin, the blackness of his hands contrasting with my lighter skin. He watched also as I rolled his dark black, sweaty balls and ran my fingers through his thick, tightly curled hairs and seeing the pride in his eyes I recalled my pride and eagerness to reveal my first growth of pubic hair. His stiff penis was about as long as my middle finger and perhaps twice the width. I wrapped my fingers about the shaft, just barely long enough that I did not also enclose his bulb, and I squeezed my thumb and first finger tighter, knowing how aroused he had to be feeling. To my delight and relief he knew of the technique also and tightened his grasp below my bulb, though I must admit feeling his hot little hand squeezing tightly about my throbbing bone and seeing his slender black fingers wrapped about my throbbing sausage his grasp did little to cut off my desire.

Releasing each other's prick, we continued to caress each other's body, caressing backs and buttocks, thighs and chests, carefully avoiding each other's more sensitive areas knowing our partner's heightened arousal, but I was unable to resist running my fingertips over his pert, dark nipples and causing them to become firm, and nor was he able to resist brushing his fingers over my nipples, causing them to burn with arousal and become hard also.

And so as the sun set, turning the sky scarlet and then purple as shadows spread across the veldt and the sky turned black, we caressed and pleasured each other, enjoying each other's body and enjoying being caressed. Being the older, I was tempted to take the lead, but as I recalled the mystery and the excitement of my first explorations, I delighted in his wonder and the novelty this was for him, and was loath to take that joy of pubescent exploration away from him. We engaged in this pleasure for so long I had begun to think perhaps that was as far as he was going to go when he slowly and gently rolled me onto my back and slipped on top of me. His stiff member pressed against my stomach, and mine was pressed between our bodies, and I trembled and delighted feeling the force and lust pulsating through his young, swollen cock.

He slipped further down and I felt his stiff, little member slip between my thighs and I drew my legs together, pinning his throbbing cocklet between them, my own stiff member buried in his hairs and pressed between our flat, muscular stomachs. With his elbows on either side of my chest and his knees on each side of my thighs, he placed his weight on them and began to pump his body, doing so with short, quick jabs so his stiff little penis did not slip out of the vice of my thighs. At the same time, his movement caused his flat stomach to slide over my bulb and press my member against my hot, sweat-slick body. His body was beginning to perspire more profusely and his sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down his slick, black body as his hot flesh pressed against mine, and in the heat of our arousal and the warmth of the African night I felt my own sweat tricking along my ribs.

He was breathing heavily and irregularly, his eyes closed with pleasure and his thick, moist lips parted as he blew his hot breath against my naked flesh. And then he was trembling and bucking uncontrollably as his swollen member throbbed and his seed spurted between my legs, causing my stones to contract and my own seed to race up the core of my swollen cock and spurt out the tip, spraying his stomach and mine with my thick, hot seed. Spurt after spurt blasted out of my body and spurt after spurt of his seed erupted out of his little cock and sprayed the inside of my thighs, his cocklet becoming slick with his own seed. He gasped and grunted and snorted with unabashed pleasure as the night air was filled with the musky fragrance of our spilt seed. Collapsing above me, he squeezed my body tightly and I wrapped my arms about his slender, hot body and drew him close to me, our chests heaving as we gasped for breath and our minds spun with the bliss of our orgasms.

He at last slipped off me and taking his spear, he moved off into the darkness to keep watch over his cattle and I drifted off. The moon was high in the sky when I awoke, and rising in the dark, I sought him out and relieved him, standing watch as he moved off and lay down, joining me again just before the sun began to rise. We ate and moved on, neither of us saying anything, but our relationship having changed forever.

That night we sat side by side as we watched the sun go down. We had talked throughout the day, about his life and my life, his country and my country, but we said nothing about our lusts and desires, nor about the previous night, and as the sun set we said nothing as we admired the beauty around us. At last he turned to me and smiled and I returned the smile and as we continued to look into each other's eyes I felt his hand steal up my thigh and across my stomach. His eyes dropped as he struggled with my buckle and belt, and having loosened them, I raised my buttocks so he could remove my breeches and under breeches and he moved closer so I could untie and remove his breechclout. Sitting there side by side, we reached for each other's privates and began to fondle them, rolling each other's stones and gently stroking each other's member, looking out across the grassland and the darkening sky as the stars began to come out, occasionally glancing down at our crotches or at each other's.

His long, slender fingers gently and slowly stroked my swollen cock, and I gently and slowly stroked his, his slender penis feeling so much different from my own, and I am sure the length and thickness of my swollen cock feeling that much different to him. They were different, but the throbbing pleasure of our swollen flesh, the tingling and burning along the rims of our bulbs, the ache of our openings as we closed and opened them in anticipation, and the growing lust swelling in our loins was the same. We jacked each other off slowly, this fourteen-year-old boy and I, delighting in the unique pleasure pulsating through our members and the building lust in our loins, delighting in bringing that pleasure we were feeling to the other, and delighting in being brought that pleasure. There were other ways to bring that pleasure I knew, and though I wondered if the boy knew, I felt no need nor wish to enlighten him. This simple pleasure, a pleasure a man can bring himself, was the most basic pleasure a man can feel and can bring another, and that was enough.

In time we reached our climax. Who arrived first and if we came together did not matter. We sat there and gasped and swayed with the dizzy pleasure of ejaculation, our throbbing, spurting cocks held tightly by another's hand. I spurted out my seed onto the ground with delight, and I held the boy's cock as he spurted out his young seed, and then I slowly milked the slender, solid flesh, drawing out the remainder of his seed as he slowly milked my swollen cock, his hot slime oozing over my fingers, and my slime oozing over his, and we inhaled the musky fragrance of our spilt seed as if it were the sweetest perfume imaginable. He rose first once again to watch over his dozing cattle, and I sat there and looked up at the stars and at this slender, naked black boy and was content with the world.

We said nothing the next morning and continued on our way, and that night Ngwana played his mbira and I played my panpipes and then we improvised and played together. We did nothing physical, satisfied with the pleasure of each other's company. Toward the evening of the following day we spotted dust in the distance and as we drew nearer discovered a herd being driven in the same direction as we were travelling. Ngwana steered our cattle toward the other, and spotting us, the herder steered his toward us. The boy watching over the other herd was of another tribe, an adjacent village, but he and Ngwana knew each other and had met while herding their cattle many times. The other boy was introduced as Shumba, who said he would be fourteen in two more moons. The boys excitedly exchanged news about each other and their villages, evidently not having seen each other for some time, and the younger boy eyed me curiously and cautiously. Of course Ngwana was eager to tell the other boy about my arrival and the arrival of my people, and of our tall ships, and over our evening meal and well into the evening I answered the younger boy's many questions about my journey and where we were heading, and I of course asked him what he knew of the lands we were approaching.

During the course of our conversation, the younger boy glanced repeatedly at Ngwana and at me, studying the two of us in serious silence, and I could imagine his surprise seeing a white man out in the wilds, and a man of my age with a boy the age of Ngwana. Ngwana explained he was curious about me and my people, and I was curious about him and his village, and so we had agreed to accompany each other for a time. Shumba asked how long that had been, and Ngwana said this was our fourth night. Shumba replied that he had been away from his village now for seven nights, and that we were the first he had met since leaving. One did not have to be a diviner nor a sage to tell from the tone of his voice, hinting, eager and hopeful, nor the silent glances he gave Ngwana, what was on his mind.

Ngwana informed Shumba that I was a healer and a mhondoro and had me remove my shirt and breeches and show the boy my tattoos. The younger boy was most impressed, and curiously traced the twisting vines wrapping about my arms and legs, his touch of course awakening my snake and causing it to stir. Both boys were quick to notice and exchanged knowing glances and giggles. Ngwana smiled and said I was also an inkonkoni, saying so as a matter of fact as if he had just announced that I was Portuguese or that I was a sailor, showing neither disgust nor disapproval as would be common back home. Shumba quickly advised me that he had become a man the middle of the previous dry or winter season, which I estimated to be about seven months ago, or about two months after his thirteenth birthday, and which was his way of informing me he was old enough now to engage in those activities reserved for men.

No more needed to be said as far as the two boys were concerned as they moved in close to me and began to caress my body, quickly completing the transformation of my member and causing their own members to quickly swell and become firm. From my previous experience with Ngwana I was uncertain how to proceed but as circumstances would have it I was in the perfect position to take Shumba orally, and preparing to blame ignorance of their customs and curiosity because of our difference in colour, I leaned forward and took the thirteen-year-old's stiff penis in my mouth. I had not needed an excuse and I need not have worried. He immediately spread his legs and leaned back to watch with a delighted smile brightening his face. Ngwana did not hesitate for a second, and slipping about behind me, he massaged my naked buttocks and ran a finger up my crack, pausing to caress my asshole.

As I went further down on Shumba I felt Ngwana's finger enter my anus and slowly sink until it was up my ass to the last knuckle, and as I sucked on the younger boy's stiff, throbbing cock the older boy began to finger fuck me. Delighted, I continued sucking as I slowly bobbed my head, slipping my lips up and down the boy's slender pecker, and within a minute Ngwana removed his finger and shuffling up behind me, replaced it with his stiff, aching member, easily inserting it given his slenderness and experience combined with my experience and eagerness. I paused in what I was doing to concentrate on the pleasure of having this young boy's cock penetrate my body, and the eroticism of a twenty-one-year-old man being fucked by a fourteen-year-old boy.

From the action of the two boys it was evident that neither act was new to them, and I wondered how they had learned them, and if the two of them had ever engaged in these acts with each other. I did not wonder long as Ngwana grasped my hips and began to pound my naked ass, fucking me fast and furious as only a teenage boy can, and as Shumba squirmed and began to pump his hips to and fro and he sat on the heels of his feet, eager to climax and unable to be contented with just my suction and the movement of my lips.

My mouth filled with saliva and I swallowed the cock-flavoured spittle eagerly, only to have it replaced with another mouthful. His stiff penis was no longer nor thicker than my thumb and I eagerly sucked on it like a babe on his mother's teat or a calf on his mother's udder, knowing the pleasure I was bringing the boy and delighting in being able to do so. Meanwhile my anus was burning as Ngwana rapidly pumped his slightly longer and thicker member in and out of my rectum and I clamped my anus tight about it, my rectum throbbing in time with his swollen cock. My own cock was throbbing also, and the fourteen-year-old boy reached under me and began to stroke my aching cock as he fucked my ass and I quivered with delight.

Both boys were panting and gasping now, neither ashamed nor shy about the pleasure they were feeling as they approached their climaxes. This act had nothing to do with duty or responsibility or the continuation of the race. It was pure and simple physical pleasure, the type of physical pleasure that only a man can know, and that only one man, or boy, can bring another. I closed my eyes and delighted in the throbbing of the young cock in my mouth and throbbing of the young cock up my ass and the throbbing my own cock as it was stroked by the hot, young hand, feeling so different from the many times I'd grasped it with my own, larger hand.

All of us were breathing deeply and our chests rose and fell as our flesh tingled and went numb and we began to spurt. Shumba's thin, watery seed filled my mouth as his stiff, black noodle throbbed between my lips, and Ngwana's hot, thick seed spurted up my rectum, filling it as my long, thick cock began to spurt my seed. I was dizzy with the delightful gooey texture and sweet taste of the thirteen-year-old boy's slime as it filled my mouth and as it oozed down my throat, and I inhaled deeply as my rectum was flooded by the hot, thick slime of the fourteen-year-old boy fucking my ass and milking my own stiff cock, my slime now oozing out of my swollen sausage and over his tightly grasping, black fingers.

We said nothing when at last we disentangled and lay on our backs, our chests rising and falling as we sucked in the night air and delighted in the blissful pleasure flooding our numbed loins. Nor did we say anything as we regrouped, Shumba now in the middle and sucking on Ngwana's cock and me kneeling behind the thirteen-year-old boy and fucking his ass and stroking his slender little cocklet. His ass was tight and his rectum moist and hot, and my stiff cock throbbed with delight as I felt his flesh throbbing about my bone and has anus squeezing about it tightly. The boy had been surprising easy to penetrate despite my thickness, and he took my entire member up his ass despite its length, evidence of the boy's experience and eagerness. And he was eager. He took as great delight in having his ass fucked and in sucking another boy's cock as he had in getting his cock sucked by me, and in getting his little, throbbing noodle stroked. Needless to say Ngwana was just as eager to have his cock sucked as he had been shoving it up my ass, the two boys delighting in being boys and in the pleasure their little cocks could bring them, and in bringing pleasure themselves.

Once again the night was filled with the grunts and panting of our congress, and with the sighs and groans of our pleasure as my seed flooded the tight ass of the thirteen-year-old black boy as I milked his throbbing, spurting cocklet and as he swallowed the slime of the fourteen-year-old fellow herder. The three of us trembled with the release of our seed, our numb cocks throbbing with pleasure as we pleased each other.

Once more we collapsed and lay there delighting in having spent our seed and having caused another to spill his, and after a brief rest once again we reunited, this time Ngwana in the middle. Ngwana having fucked me and I having fucked Shumba, it was now the thirteen-year-old's turn to fuck, and he eagerly thrust his stiff little pecker up Ngwana's ass as Ngwana just as eagerly took my stiff member in his mouth, having been sprayed by my seed as he'd fucked my thighs and having had my seed ooze over his fingers as he'd jacked me off. Now he sucked eagerly on my thick Portuguese sausage, eager to taste and swallow a white's cream. Again the three of us came, young Shumba filling his fellow teenage herder's black ass with his youthful seed while he jacked him off and me filling the prurient black boy's mouth with my thick slime. Again the three of us trembled with the pure pleasure of ejaculation and the unique pleasure that comes from causing another of one's sex to experience that pleasure.

We remained where we were the next day, too exhausted by our night's activity to move the cattle, and the cattle content where they were. Ngwana played his mbira and I my panpipe and Shumba sang several of the songs he sang to calm his herd when they grew restless, or as Ngwana joked, to frighten away the prowling lions. That night we each took a turn watching the cattle while the other two slept, dividing the night by three, none of us making a move to engage in anything physical, as if to attempt what we had done again could never be as good, and as I stood there in the dark with my borrowed spear, my heart pounding with every strange sound in the darkness, frightened what I would do if one of the great lions we had seen decided to stop by for a midnight snack, and even more frightened I might disappoint the two boys slumbering contentedly in each other's arms nearby, I found myself growing stiff with the memory of the boyish pleasure and excitement I had felt the night before and I while I enjoyed the memory I suspected with regret it could never be repeated.

The next day the three of us herded the cattle further north, heading for a water hole that the boys knew of. How they could find their way across leagues of brush and open grassland without any distinguishing landmarks that I could see, neither streams nor hills, and with only the blazing sun crossing the heavens to indicate which direction was north, I did not know, but when night descended and the stars came out there was no doubt we had headed due north. During the day the boys had been filled with confidence and cockiness as only young teenage boys can be, and had been eager to show off their skills and knowledge to the foreign mhondoro and inkonkoni, no different from any other boy eager to demonstrate his manliness and maturity.

The boys were right about the waterhole of course, and as dusk approached the cattle began to pick up their pace, smelling fresh water and lush grass ahead. Another herder was there, having arrived that morning and prepared to move on the next day. Water was sparse this time of year, and each herder took his share and no more and moved on so that others could move in. Besides, cattle knew no such restraint and would never move on their own accord. Even the wildlife knew the sanctity of the waterhole and to my amazement I saw flesh-eaters and prey drinking from the hole, not side by side and certainly alert and wary, but none the less sharing the same space regardless if they were covered with fur, feather, or thick skin.

The new boy, Temu, was the oldest of the boys, two weeks shy of his fifteenth birthday, and from still another village, one smaller and south and west of Ngwana's. Like Shumba, he was surprised at my presence, both because of my age and colour, and again I was introduced openly and with respect as a healer and one who speaks with spirits, and unabashedly as a wildebeest, which, as if to prove I was appropriately named, appeared at the waterhole, along with many other animals, and one of the males, after having his fill, satisfied his other need by mounting another male, a common sight for the boys but a source of sidelong glances and juvenile humour besides, and a revelation to me that the name was not for two very different things after all.

In fact the appearance of the wildebeest initiated our sexual play though given the age and brazenness of the three boys I doubt that it took much to initiate such play, again a commonality I have found among all boys no matter what the race or creed. These young black bucks, living in the hot climes as they do I suppose, are notorious for their sexual proclivity and endurance. These boys were no exception and were soon engaged in a game of tag, the main purpose appearing to be who could cope the longest feel of the other's privates. I was not sure if the goal was to see who could become erect the fastest, or who could arouse the other the fastest. I of course was included in their game, and being older and having much more to grab, and equipment much different from the others, I was the more frequent target, not that I minded in the least. Soon the four of us were naked and frolicking in the tall grass away from the animals who were more intent on slacking their thirst.

Our play ended with myself and Shumba, thirteen years and ten months of age and exactly eight years younger than myself, wrestling and rolling on the ground face to face, each trying to grope and stroke the other's member while trying to fend off the eager hands of the other. The boy was eager and might as well have been an octopus and much to his delight, and the delight of the others, my member began to swell, and once it began, it swelled all the faster, as if eager for the attention and to show off. Finding myself under the boy and laying on my back in the opposite direction as he was, I raised my head and took the knob of his partially aroused member in my mouth, intending on nibbling on it and play biting to stop him from fiddling with my growing cock. Instead, finding his limp noodle in my mouth and feeling it swelling between my lips and his hot blood pulsating inside, I began to suck on it, and he, following my lead, went down on me, and I quivered with delight as this thirteen-year-old black boy's mouth enveloped my turgid cock and his thick lips tightened about it and he began to suck.

He sucked on my cock deeply, the suction of his breath pulling my cock into his mouth, and I mouthed and licked the boy's black, wrinkled nuts, delighting in the saltiness and musky fragrance of his sweat and balls and seeing his youthful cock rising up with arousal. The other two boys quickly joined in, Temu spooning behind me and Ngwana spooning behind Shumba, the two boys wrapping their arms about us and gyrating their hips and rubbing and pressing their swelling members against our buttocks and between our cheeks. Shumba and I readily spread our legs, giving the two prurient teens access to our back portals, and they wasted no time wriggling into position and rubbing their swollen knobs against our eager puckers.

One teenage boy with his stiff cock, no longer and thicker than my thumb, in my mouth and the oldest of the four boys, two weeks from his fifteenth birthday, pressing his rock-hard cock against my anus, I pushed out and opened to him, and the boy, his cock the largest of the three and about five finger-widths long, pressed against my eager hole, his bulb easily spreading it open. I strained and snorted, like a stuffed pig, as did he, and ever so slowly I felt his bulb stretching my anus open until it popped inside, and he eagerly pressed forward with a triumphant whoop, sinking his hot, black teen cock up my rectum until his coarse, wiry hairs were pressed against my smooth buttocks.

Ngwana and Shumba were similarly snorting and panting as they coupled, the younger boy continuing to suck on my stiff cock as he felt the stiff prong of the boy behind him slowly penetrating his body until it was buried deep up his hot, moist asshole. Ngwana gasped and cried out with his success, proud of his achievement, and Shumba, a little more than a year younger, gasped with equal pleasure and delight.

And so he and I resumed sucking on each other's cock, my lips completely consuming his little black sausage, he managing to take the top two-thirds of my thick cock in his mouth. I sucked deeply on his cocklet and slipped my lips up and down the shaft as I delighted in its flavour, and he sucked deeply on my cock as he similarly eased his thick lips up and down my throbbing flesh. The rim of my knob tingled and burned and I felt the lust swelling in my loins and my shaft throbbed in the boy's mouth, and I knew the pleasure my thick, stiff wand was feeling was the same pleasure as the much smaller wand of this young thirteen-year-old boy was feeling.

Meanwhile Temu, almost fifteen years of age, was grasping my hips and ramming his cock in and out of my rectum, fucking my ass with the zeal and lust that only a teenage boy can muster, and I knew that the slender, stiff wand working in and out of my ass was throbbing and the tip burning with the same delightful pleasure as mine was, and as was the smaller wand of the younger boy that I was eagerly sucking. I could hear Temu grunting and gasping as he thrust his hips to and fro, driving his throbbing, aching cock in and out of my moist hole, fucking me with the same delight as he would a woman, a delight that he had yet to experience, and one that I could tell him would never equal the delight of having his cock buried up the hot, eager ass of another male. Only another male could know and appreciate the burning of one's bulb and the throbbing of one's stiff member.

As Shumba sucked deeply on my cock, I knew that he knew the delight he was bringing me, and that it was the same delight as I was bringing him. His mind jumped from the delight of having his cock sucked to the delight of sucking on the sensitive, throbbing cock of another male, one eight years his senior, to the delight of having a third cock throbbing deep up his rectum and thrusting in and out of his body. I knew it was because my mind was doing the same. Our four cocks were throbbing and burning with the same sweet pain, a pain only men and boys can know. The lust building in each of our loins was the same and united us as one. And as one, our benumbed cocks began to spurt.

While my mouth filled with Shumba's thin, watery seed and I began to swallow the thirteen-year-old boy's slime, I filled his mouth with my seed and he began to gulp it down. Meanwhile the fourteen-year-old behind me and the fourteen-year-old behind him flooded our rectums with their hot seed. The four of us grunted and snorted with our release, the rims and openings of our swollen, numb cocks burning as if they were being skinned, our balls shrunken tight as they pumped out our seed. My anus burned with the same sensation, as did Shumba's, and the four of us shuddered with the release of our seed.

We rested a while, each lost in his own world of post climatic bliss. Ngwana and Temu were the first to stir, the two teenage boys wrapping their arms about each other and kissing and caressing, and then reversing their directions so one's head was at the other's crotch. Watching the two prurient black teenagers arousing each other sent a thrill of desire up my flaccid member. As the two boys took each other's still limp cock in their mouths and began to suck, I slid over and snuggled up behind Ngwana and Shumba snuggled up behind Temu. His ass and my ass filled with teenage cream, it was now our turn to fuck the two boys who had fucked us. So while Temu and Ngwana sucked each other's teenage cock, Shumba and I pumped our members in and out of the assholes of the two teenage boys. Once again the rim of my cock and the tip burned with arousal and my member throbbed with lust, this time up the moist, hot rectum of a black boy who had fucked me and who had sucked the cum out of my balls. Once again the rustling and calls of the night animals were supplemented by the heavy breathing and gasping of four rutting humans, and once again we spurted out our seed to be swallowed and relished or that flooded up another's ass.

We were still not done. Shumba, two months shy of his fourteenth birthday and the youngest of us, was the one who initiated our next round, shuffling over to Temu, the oldest of the teenage boys, two weeks short of his fifteenth birthday, and crawling between his legs and beginning to suck on his limp cock. Spotting the two boys, Ngwana crawled over to them and took Shumba's limp cock in his mouth. Temu's smooth, black ass being available, I slipped over to the three boys and began to caress the oldest boy's buttocks and run my middle finger up his crack and they all shuffled position to accommodate me, which left Ngwana's swelling pecker available. I quickly took it in my mouth and as I began to suck on his delightful black sausage we both began to swell. By the time he was stiff so was I and I sank my stiff member up Temu's ass. By then Shumba was sucking eagerly on his stiff erection and Ngwana was sucking eagerly on Shumba's and as I began to pump my hips to and fro, I began sucking on Ngwana's throbbing cock.

Whether they were sucking or being sucked, fucking or being fucked, the three boys were open and eager. There was no hesitation and no guilt. This was plain and simple engaging in something that was fun and stimulating, and I delighted as much in the openness of the boys and in engaging in sex for the pure fun of it as did the boys. I inhaled deeply as I rammed my cock in and out of Temu's backside and I sucked deeply on Ngwana's cock while he sucked on Shumba's and Shumba sucked on Temu's. Once again my mouth was filled with teenage slime and I savoured and swallowed it just as the boy I was sucking swallowed the slime of the youngest boy in our group, who swallowed the seed of the oldest boy as I filled the oldest boy's rectum with my seed.

Sticky with sweat and spilt seed, my own that of the three boys, I did not protest as Shumba shuffled over behind me and began to caress my ass and to run his middle finger up and down my crack. Thirteen and horny, he was still not satiated and I was not about to deny him his pleasure. Seeing us, Temu offered his limp cock to me and as I held it up and began to lick and mouth it he twisted around and raising my cock began to do the same to me. That of course left his ass available to Ngwana and the boy I had initially befriended was soon hard and mounting the older boy. Although our fourth time that night with barely a pause between bouts, we did not tire and the pleasure pulsating through our loins and driving us on was as strong and as delightful as our first coupling.

So as Temu and I swallowed each other's slime, now much thicker and not as copious, our rectums were flooded once more, mine by young Shumba's slime and Temu's by Ngwana's. I at last fell asleep, the taste of Temu's black cock and teenage slime on my lips, my rectum filled with the hot slime of the youngest member of our group. Herding cattle in the wilds of the African savanna was difficult, lonely and dangerous, but it could also be a lot of fun.

Temu wanted very much to remain another day, but he was a responsible boy and as great as the temptation was, he prepared to leave the following morning. His cattle had their share of water and he had to leave to make room for the wild animals who held a truce around the water hole, and for other herders and their cattle that would be arriving. They never knew exactly who was where on each circuit that each kept, but they knew that they all followed a circuitous route and that their paths would cross, and there would be more opportunities for the fun that had been had. I too would have enjoyed staying and enjoying the enthusiasm and zest of these young black bucks, but I had been gone now far longer than I had expected, and I had to return to the coast.

So we parted company, Ngwana and Shumba heading still further into the wilderness, each taking a different route, and Temu and I heading back south together. I had brought coral necklaces and assorted beads in anticipation of trading for information, and the boys delightedly accepted them and in return gave me gems, lip rings, and nose rings that they had collected for themselves or to gift someone at their village. Ngwana I gave a small bell which he proudly hung about his neck, and he gave me a finely carved ivory wildebeest. It was five days of travel to return, Temu leaving me at noon on the fourth day and heading west. It was lonely and frightening that night in the dark and alone and I imagined the slightest noise as being some wild beast stalking me. Perched in one of the sturdiest trees, I did not sleep well that night. The sun had almost set when I at last reached the cliffs over looking the bay, and the sight of the three ships still at anchor filled me with relief and delight.

Chapter 7
Moçambique 

Returning to the ship, Nico continues on his way, mystified by his destiny to live life as a lover of boys. Arriving at Moçambique, the crew pretends to be Mohammedans and Nico assumes an old alias, Naqui Ah ibn-Mustafa, and mingles with the people seeking information and a pilot to guide them to Calecut. He meets a street-wise eleven-year-old Arab boy and as they engage in oral and anal sex he learns their pretence to be Mohammedans was uncovered and their capture was being planned. 

Codes: Mb 

Characters: Ali 11 

I reported immediately to the Captain-major, telling him all I knew of the kingdom of Mwenemutapa and of the Karanga and of their neighbours and the relationships between them. I reported on what I had been told and on what I had seen of their weapons and defences, and what I knew of the peoples and lands that lay ahead. I informed him that I had been told that before us were large and busy ports which engaged in commerce both along the coast and inland, and large civilized regions controlled by Mohammedans which traded in gold with the kingdom of Mwendemutapa and had established caravan routes connecting them to Sophala, Inharrine, and Angochi. Most of what I had learned was through three teenage cattle herders, but all were newly initiated so now that they were considered men they listened particularly intently to the hitherto secret conversations of men and were eager to share and engage in the talk of men with myself and with each other. Of course they were just as eager to engage in the carnal pleasures of adolescents, but that was not information relevant to what I had been sent to seek or that the Captain-major needed to know. All of what I had to say was most positive and not only supported but supplemented what others had told which greatly pleased the Captain-major, though he did not say so directly for such was not his nature. (1)

As for the gems and other gifts I carried on my person, I had ensured that they were concealed as I approached the shore, and that they were safely secured and out of sight in my locker once on board the São Gabriel. I have seen with my own eyes in my past travels the wickedness and insanity that inflames men to ungodly behaviour upon the sight of such treasures and even upon the mere promise of them, both men from Castile, and, I must regretfully admit, Portugal, and I had no wish to see harm and devastation come to Ngwana and his people. Of course others had seen the riches that adorned the ears, noses and necks of nobles of this land, and the extent of those riches had resulted in rumours that within the Mwenemutapa Empire lies the legendary mines of King Solomon, if the Empire itself was not that very land referred to in the Bible as Ophir. The Captain-major of course questioned me about this, but I honestly replied that I had spent the last eleven days in the company of men who would know little of such things and to whom the number and health of their cattle was considered to be of greater wealth than all the gems and metals of the earth which they considered of little value other than for ornamentation. Although disappointed, this corresponded with other reports he had received and so confirmed, he dropped the matter, much to my relief. Of course how I had spent my past eleven days and what these teenage cattle herders did value more than cattle and gold I was not about to mention.

The next day we finished bringing in water and fresh fruit to sustain us in our voyage, and we erected one of the stone pillars we had brought with us to mark our passing and the sovereignty of King Manuel and Portugal over these lands, which, to our pleasure, was not torn down upon our departure. I put my back into the work required of all marinheiros, doing the manual labour of two able seamen to make up for my absence, which much to my relief had largely gone unmentioned by the crew who knew I had spent the past eleven days amongst the savages of this land seeking out information for the Captain-major, a most dangerous and distasteful chore considering the uncivilized company I had to keep and whom they were uniformly agreed they had no liking nor longanimity for though the temptation to seek information of a more carnal nature was on the forefront of everyone's mind, convict and freeman alike no matter to what extent the appearance and odour of these savages turned their stomachs. They envied me that opportunity but had the wisdom not to inquire about it, which greatly relieved me for I had no desire to lie to these good men but I could not confess what carnal experiences I had engaged in, nor the pleasure I had delighted in!

And so on the following day we set out for the open sea, leaving behind the river the Captain-major had named Rio dos Bons Signaes, the River of Good Tokens, which for me was again a most apt name. There were many good signs that we were on the right path to see our most desired goal realized, and I had received many good signs that the path I had chosen to follow, or that the Fates had chosen for me, for at this point in my life I did not know which, was the right one. It gave me cause to think of a dream I had so long ago when a dearly departed friend and lover had told me such would be my destiny and purpose in life, and I thought fondly of him and marvelled at the mysteries of this world.

At vesper time the following day we spotted three small islands and after pursuing our route for six days we sighted many islands and the mainland, and it being late, lay to for the night. The next day Nicolau Coelho proceeded ahead of us but mistaking the channel broke the helm of his ship two bowshots from the village he was heading toward. While we dropped anchor off a nearby island, seven or eight sailing boats including almadias with people playing anafils approached and offered to take us into the bay. (2)

On the same day the Lord of this place boarded Captain Nicolau Coelho's ship and was given a hat for which he in return gave Captain Coelho a black rosary. The Captain dared to take several men of his crew with him to this Lord's house where he was given a jar of dates made into a preserve with cloves and cumin along with several gifts for the Captain-major. He reported back that the residents of this land think we are Turks or Mohammedans of a lesser known sect and recommended that at the moment we pretend to be Muslims (3).

And so I assumed an old alias, Naqi Ah ibn-Mustafa, which I had assumed now so many years ago when I had travelled with Father and Uncle under the guise of Arabs and Muslims in search of a marine trade route from Cairo and of news of his emissaries King João had sent before us. It brought back many memories, many good and some not so, and thoughts of people I had met and had left behind over the ensuing months, some people I would just as well not think of again, and others whose memory now brought great fondness of heart and great sadness as I wondered how they faired and if they even still lived. And yes, for some, a firmness of flesh. It had been an intense time in my life when my charade had been essential to my own survival and life so I had learned the ways of the people quickly and well which, besides my youth and attractiveness, had allowed me to go undetected. So well had I learned those customs and manners that they all came back to me quickly now so that even Fernão Martins, who had been a prisoner among the Moors and so spoke their language well, was greatly impressed and stated that had he not known better he would have thought me a heathen Moor for sure.

And so it was that he and I were given much more freedom to wander about the port to seek more information about the people, and in particular what riches they had, and what defences, most of the crew being confined to the ships to maintain our pretense of being Mohammedans. I easily slipped into my former role of being a covert spy and found I quite enjoyed it, and that I had actually missed many nuances of these heathens which I had forgotten. These people are of a ruddy complexion, and my own had been darkened, reddened and calloused by my months at sea exposed to the wind and ocean spray, but instead of making me less pleasant to look upon as it does most men, it seems to have had the opposite effect, adding a masculinity to my youthful looks. They wore linens or cotton of a rich and elaborate workmanship and toucas with borders of silk embroidered with gold, and adopting their dress allowed me to cover my tattoos and bind up my long, flowing locks which I had become quite fond of.

From the merchants in the village we learned that the four ships presently in port were white Moor vessels laden with gold, silver, cloves, pepper, ginger, silver rings, pearls, jewels, and rubies. We were told that where we were going such things were so abundant they need not be purchased and could just be collected in baskets on the beach. We were also told the route ahead had numerous shoals but also numerous cities, and that a particular island ahead was very wealthy and was half Moor and half Christian with each half at war with the other, each having no love for the other.

The Moors visiting this port had with them two Christian captives who they brought with them one day, and who upon seeing the figurehead at the bow of the Saint Gabriel dropped to their knees and prayed. There were those among the Moors who claimed that these Christians had come from India, which caused great excitement and instilled still more firmly the hope that we were near our goal. There were others among the Moors who said that the captives were from Abyssinia, which caused even more excitement and the hope that through them we may possibly have a lead on finally finding the legendary Empire of Prester John believed most likely to be found in that land.

I myself found great doubt that they were from the land of Prester John for having by chance passed through the land of Abyssinia myself, had found that the Christians there, under King Eskender, whom I had personally met, did not worship images and so would never have knelt before the ship's figurehead. Of course I kept silent on the matter so great was the hope that the rumour was true, and because I had no cause to reveal that part of my past life which caused me to doubt their origins. Those who so believed claimed there was no doubt that ahead was where Prester John ruled, and that land had many coastal cities with many great merchants and great ships, his own residence being in a capital they called Shoa far into the interior reached only by camel. That was great news to celebrate, but the news of real people from the distant land of India was still greater, and enough for every member of the crew to be most joyful, and to thank God and pray for continued health so they might behold what they most desired. (4)

In this island of Moçambique is a chief who has the title of Sultan. He came aboard the Saint Raphael many times and was given good things to eat, hats, corals, and marlota, but he was proud and treated everyone and what he was offered with contempt and he asked instead for scarlet cloth of which we had none. The Captain-major asked for two pilots who might take us to India and he gave the chief thirty mitkals in gold and two marlotas on condition that once received, one of the pilots would always stay on board if one went on land. (5)

While this chief and the Captain-major were negotiating, I frequented the establishments along the waterfront, both those who engaged in legitimate business and honest trade, and those who engaged in more subversive and decadent activities. It was while in one of the latter establishments where a pair of scantily clad Arab dancing girls performed an act with each other that only the most imaginative would consider being a dance, that I met up with an Arab sailor only a year or two older than myself from one of the visiting ships. I at first had thought he was interested in a liaison with myself, but I discovered that he liked boys who were much younger and had sensed, I know not how, that I did also, and he was seeking a man of similar interest with whom he could converse and confess, a need I must profess I empathized with and which I at times had also felt being surrounded by those who are revolted by what I find most pleasing. He claimed to know where willing Arab boys could be gotten for cheap trinkets, and having a feeling that I could trust him, I agreed to join him.

Despite the port being new to me, it was laid out like all ports so I did not have to be familiar with it to know when we left the more disreputable section of the port and entered a more affluent quarter, in this instance, the Arab quarter. The shops were larger and better maintained, the streets cobbled and cleaner. Loitering outside one of the establishments was a cluster of Arab boys, pre and early teens, faces and hands begrimed as are the hands of boys but wearing cleaner robes. These were not beggars nor cutpurses, but they were boys who knew their way around the streets and how to make money in a more pleasant way. I knew. I had associated with such in Istanbul as a bath boy and in other cities in my travels across the Turkmens and Badakhstan as a kocek.

Selecting our partners, or perhaps the boys selecting us, we went our separate ways. The boy accompanying me, Ali he called himself though I had no way of knowing if that was his true name, professed to be eleven, and of that I could not be certain either, being at that indeterminable age where claims to be older was at times an advantage, and under different circumstances claims to be younger the advantage. He took me to a walled garden further away from the docks and bordering the richer quarter, the home, he claimed, being occupied by an elderly couple who never emerged from their domicile once the sun went down and so perfect for what we had in mind. There among the heavily scented flowers, closed now for the night but still heavy with their heady fragrance, and surrounded by tall, slender palms heavy with a common fruit of this area, fruit as large as a melon and containing a milky juice with a sweet, nutty taste and a soft white kernel of the same flavour under a tough, hairy shell, was his bower of palm fronds where he entertained his guests.

Scrambling up one of the stately palms like a little monkey, he returned with one of the fruit, and punching two holes in the top, we shared the juice and then cracking it open on a stone, we ate the kernel. He said he was the youngest boy and the third youngest child of a family of seven, his father a cobbler, not a rich man but not poor either. He aspired to travel himself, and having deduced that I was from one of the newest vessels to dock, he asked where we were from and where we were bound. I saw no reason to lie to him and I told him we had come from a land far away and had travelled for over half a year, and that we were seeking a pilot who could guide us further to the east to the land of spices and the cities of the great Khan.

He professed to know nothing of a great Khan though many sailors and merchants he had entertained had spoken of a great dark-skinned Christian king of great wealth who lived to the north who drank from goblets of silver and ate off plates of gold and who had rings mounted with gems of such size that he could not raise his hands and had to be fed by slaves, beautiful, huge-breasted girls and beautiful boys whose stones had been removed and the sacks sewn back up encasing large pearls and who had breasts as large as the girls. He also knew of the lands of the east and had entertained long-haired sailors, infidels whose breaths and bodies stank from a peppery sauce they drenched their food in, meat and vegetable alike.

He observed coyly that I had a fresh, pleasant odour unlike most men, an odour that he found refreshing and delightful, and he playfully opened my robes and skilfully caressed my body with a teasing, feather-light touch. I similarly opened his robes and leaned over and kissed him on the lips, relishing the sweet freshness of his breath, the breath of a boy. He asked me more about my travels and life on the huge, many-sailed ship I had arrived on, and the lands I had seen and the maidens I had deflowered on my way. I professed I found no pleasure deflowering maidens, but I had deflowered my share of young boys, and he giggled and said I had arrived much too late for that, but that he could please me as well as any virgin boy. He said so with an impish grin as he slipped his fingers about my sweaty stones and rolled them, and then raised his fingers to his nose and delighted in the fragrance clinging to them with the same delight as one would sniff the sleeping flowers surrounding his bower.

I allowed that he likely could as I removed his fine undergarment and revealed his delightful, tawny-coloured noodle and hairless pubes, and as he caressed my thighs and caused my member to begin to rise he avowed that I would not be disappointed this night. I asked him further of these foul-smelling men of the east and he asked further where I had come from, observing that he had never known a man with such light-coloured skin, and certainly not one with the markings that I had on my arms and legs. And then lost in the pleasure of each other's caresses, we stopped talking and prying for information and concentrated on the pleasure we were feeling and the pleasure we were giving.

The boy was likely eleven as he claimed, but experienced beyond his age, and he skilfully aroused my passion, caressing me with soft fingertips and brushing his velvet lips along my cheek and pressing them against my lips. I in turn caressed his soft, delightful body and his smooth, compact buttocks and kissed his downy cheeks and his sweet lips, and I fondled his little, delicate stones, as small and fragile as a songbird's eggs, and stoked his soft, tender noodle. I rolled him over and kissed his little pucker and ran my tongue up his crack, spiced with his salty sweat, and wormed my tongue against his little portal, causing him to squirm and giggle with pleasure and to claim few men he entertained did that.

He twisted around and took my growing member in his mouth and tightening his velvet lips about my shaft he sucked on my member gently, causing it to continue to swell. I scrunched down so I could take his little noodle in my mouth as he sucked on mine and I was rewarded by feeling it quickly swell between my lips. I sucked on his little noodle, consuming it down to his smooth, hairless pubes and inhaling until it was as firm as a bone, no longer nor thicker than my little finger. I was stiff also and he tried to go down on my cock and to his credit he went at least half way, and he sucked deeply on my thick sausage like a little calf desperate for his mother's milk.

My milk was churning in my balls as I delighted in this beautiful, soft boy, eager to bring him to a climax as he was eager to bring me. We paused several times to delight in the pulsating pleasure between our legs and the pulsating flesh between our lips. We closed our eyes, and our minds spun with undescribable delight as we sucked on each others cock, this young, innocent boy half my age and me. My lust rose and fell as we toyed with each other, bringing each other to the brink and then gently bringing each other down, and then unable to resist any longer, we sucked on each other's stiff, aching bone desperately, the boy anxious to suck out the delicious marrow that he knew was inside. The pressure increased in my loins until at last I felt the twang of the release of my seed and I trembled as I felt my hot, thick seed race up the core of my benumbed, swollen cock and spurt out the burning tip and into this cherub's eager mouth.

At the same time the boy trembled and I felt a tremor on the underside beneath his little plum and he jerked his hips to and fro uncontrollably as his climax hit and he tried desperately to squirt seed that had not formed. At the same time I filled his mouth with my thick, viscous cream and he savoured it and swallowed it only to have me refill his mouth, spurting and squirting as if I had not released my seed since leaving Portugal. It was heavenly feeling this young boy coming between my lips and filling his belly with my seed, and we lay there in his bower and gasped and panted for breath, filling our lungs with the warm air scented by the exotic flowers and my fresh seed as the warm bliss of our release flowed over our bodies.

We did not talk as we lay there, talk being inadequate to express how we felt. We lay there for a long time, his hot little body curled up against my body, his head on my chest, his hot little hands on my thigh. Slowly he began to caress again, gently and tenderly caressing my inner thigh and causing my semierect member to begin to swell once again. As he reached over and wrapped his hot little fingers about my swelling flesh, I reached down and caressed his smooth, compact buttocks and ran my finger along his sweat-slick crack and caressed his silky button with the tip of my finger. He immediately opened to me and I slipped the tip of my middle finger into his anal portal and he opened wider and squeezed my swelling member tighter.

His buttocks reminded me of the ripe melons for barter at the market and of the quote regarding the pleasure of boys and the delight of melons, and I knew the melon I was gently caressing was going to bring me an exquisite pleasure greater than any melon could. As if reading my mind, the boy bent over and took my swelling member in his mouth, and observed that it was as large as the cucumbers the farmers brought to the market, and much tastier, and he smiled up at me with a sincerity and openness that only an eleven-year-old boy can. I assured him that the cucumber he was grasping could bring him more pleasure than just being eaten, and he smiled and said that when there were no men around he had found such pleasure with cucumbers from the market, and I laughed at his openness and ribaldry and he giggled.

Again pleasure and desire pulsated through our loins and we stopped talking and delighted in each other's touch and in the anticipation of the pleasure to come. He assumed the universal position on his knees and elbows and I knelt behind him and advanced, my member preceding me. Inserting the tip of my member in his eager, waiting hole, I slowly pressed forward and he strained to open to me. We snorted and gasped as we strained to unite and the skittering and chittering of the night animals ceased as if the denizens of the night had paused to observe our union. I pressed on and ever so slowly I penetrated him, my cock as rigid as an iron mace, my bulb ever so slowly stretching open his young, eager hole. Despite my size and his youthfulness, lust won out and at last my knob popped into his rectum. Grasping his hips tightly, I continued to press forward, sinking my shaft deep up his hot, moist rectum until my coarse hairs were pressed against his smooth buttocks and my nuts were dangling between his legs.

I paused and relished the delight of having my stiff cock buried deep up this tender boy's hot, moist rectum, and then I slowly drew it back out until my knob was again at the opening to this love cannel, and once again I sank it back up his ass as far as it would reach. I delighted in the pleasure throbbing through my swollen cock and the throbbing of his flesh grasping my member, the rim of my knob burning with the same sweet pain rimming his anus. We inhaled and exhaled deeply as we fucked, me thrusting my cock in and out of the tight ass of this young boy, the boy constricting his anus and relaxing it in time with my thrusts and withdrawals. I reached under him and grasped his stiff little cocklet and began to milk him as I fucked him, and he inhaled sharply with the pleasure as his little cocklet throbbed and burned between my fingers. It was a warm night and sweat began to bead on my forehead and trickle down my ribs, and the boy beneath me was beginning to perspire also.

We fucked there for the longest time in his personal, secret bower, delighting in the pleasure the other was bringing, and delighting in bringing the other pleasure also. Again I marvelled at the genius of God to create the human body so that two males might enjoy such pleasure, and I marvelled at the pleasure that a young boy can bring a man, and vice versa, a pleasure far superior to any other pleasure. And then I felt the twitch deep in my loins and for the second time that night I felt my seed race up the core of my cock and spurt out the tip, this time spurting deep up the rectum of this young boy, flooding his bowels as he squirmed and jerked with delight, his body twitching with his own orgasm brought on by the stroking of my fingers and by the pleasure of having his tender ass fucked and his bowels filled with a man's hot, thick seed.

As we walked back toward the docks, the boy told me that the soldiers of the lord of this place planned on luring us into port with the promise of water, or failing that, daring us to come fetch it in the expectation we would not be able to resist rising to the challenge. He told me that they had guessed that we were not Mohammedans as we had pretended, and for that, and because these Moors could tolerate no Christians in their land, they had plotted our death. I admitted we were Christian and the boy said he had figured that when we had first met for my looks and behaviour were not like any Mohammedan he had known, and particularly my behaviour this night. He further said that he felt no such antagonism against those not of his faith nor those who sought to dupe the authorities, but that it was what we had done this night that was the major reason he was telling me all this.

Other men, he said, both Arabs like himself and the blacks and Moors with whom his people traded, and the men from the east also, treated him with smugness and contempt. He said those who sought him and his friends out were generally rich and old, and they sought pleasure not just for the pleasure of the sex but because of the power and control it gave them. He admitted that he and many of his friends tolerated such behaviour and attitudes because they did it for the money or gifts, or because becoming attached to an older, wealthy man lead to advantages and privileges. On the other hand, he, he said with a smile, did it for pure pleasure, just as I had engaged him for both my own pleasure and to bring him pleasure. That he said he could tell, and for that common purpose between us he was telling me what he had heard. I thanked him for that, and despite the lateness of the night, the information was significant enough for me to risk having the scent of boy-sex detected and I warned the Captain-major of the treachery being plotted against us.

So, Saturday, March 10, we set sail and dropped anchor one league to sea close to the Island of Sao Jorge. The following day we held mass, confession and communion under a tall tree on the island, the setting for such as strange as might be but which left one with an overwhelming sense of the omnipotence and mystery of the Lord. We set sail again with fowls, goats and pigeons received in exchange for small glass beads. One of the pilots who was to sail with us lived on the island and so the Captain-major and Nicolau Coelho went in two boats to search for him, securing first the other pilot who had joined us, the Captain-major being forever suspicious and careful. The Captains were met by five or six boats of men armed with bows and told to come to town. The Captain-major was not about to be so easily tricked, and besides had been warned by myself, and he ordered that bombards be fired at the boats and Paulo da Gama chased them in the Berrio but the conniving Moors reached land so our ships returned to anchorage and then set sail once again.

On Tuesday, March 13^th, we found ourselves becalmed twenty leagues from our starting point. The night of the following day there rose a light easterly wind and on the morning of the fifteenth we found ourselves four leagues abaft of Moçambique. We went forward again until evening and anchored once more close to Saint Jorge island where we were to remain for eight days waiting for a favourable wind. We were not the only vessels becalmed, and the Captain-major took this opportunity to lead raiding parties against the becalmed Arab vessels to relieve them of their cargo that they were taking to Moçambique and other ports along the coast. These being unarmed trade vessels they yielded readily to our bombardments. During that time the king of Moçambique sent word he wished to make peace and be friends, sending his ambassador, a white moor and a sharif, who was also a drunkard. Also at that time a Moor with a little son approached us and said he had come from Mecca to Moçambique to work as a pilot and wished to leave with us. (6)

Finally on March 22^nd we entered the port and when it grew dark we lowered the boats and at midnight with Coelho, Gama and others searched for a watering place, taking with us a Moor who was to guide us but who could not, or would not, find it and we had to withdraw. We tried again the next evening and were met by twenty men on the beach. Three bombards were fired, causing the men to flee and allowing us to take all the water we wanted. When the sun was about to set our good cheer was dampened with the discovery that a negro belonging to Joao de Coimbra had escaped. The next morning, March 24, the Eve of Lady Day, a Moor approached the ship and sneeringly told us if we wanted water to come and get it and we might find something else we were not looking for, challenging and tempting us just as I had been forewarned and as I had told the Captain-major, who glanced at me knowingly upon hearing this challenge, and endearing me closer to him than ever before.

We approached the shore at dawn and were met by men on the beach armed with swords, bows, slings, and spears. We fired our bombards and the men, spineless cowards each and every one, ran for the palisaded town. After three hours of bombarding we grew weary and retired to the ships to dine, and taking advantage of our absence, the villagers began to flee in their almadias to the village on the mainland. After dining we chased the almadia of the sharif hoping to capture a few prisoners which we could exchange for the two Indian Christians and the negro belonging to João de Coimbra. Although the sharif and his family escaped on land, we captured four other individuals, baskets of cotton, a jar of butter, glass phials of scented water, Books of the Law, baskets of millet, skeins of cotton, and a net. The Captain-major shared these things with the other captains and the crew except for the books which he intended on taking back to King Manuel.

Sunday we again took in water and bombarded the village and on Tuesday, March 27^th, we anchored close to the islands of Sao Jorge and Sao Thiago where we remained for three days in the hope God would grant us favourable wind. Finally on Thursday we left with a light wind, travelling twenty-eight leagues up to the morning of Saturday, March 31, arriving at that point once again where previously we had encountered a powerful current which had taken us off our intended route and resulted in the crew receiving the Captain-major's reprimand. That night the Moor pilot we had paid to guide us lied to the Captain-major and told him we were near the mainland, which we discovered were actually islands, and so was flogged. The next day we came to these islands and called the first Ilha do Acoutado, Island of the Flogged One. These islands are very numerous and, we discovered, uninhabited.

On Wednesday we sailed Northwest and before noon we sighted the coast of an extensive country and two large islands and our pilots discovered we had passed by three leagues a large island half inhabited by Christians which the Captain-major had wanted to visit and which we had been looking forward to after our encounters with the untrustworthy Moors. We tried to turn around but the winds were too strong to for us to fetch the island so we decided to continue to a city they called Mombaca said to be four days ahead of us and which the pilots said was also inhabited by Christians. Encountering high winds, we passed by another island said to have two towns, one Christian and one Moor, and stood out to sea so that by morning we could no longer see land. (7)

The next day, hours before the break of day, the Raphael ran aground on a shoal and the rest of us dropped anchor immediately. To our great despair the tide went out, leaving the Raphael high and dry, but when the tide came back in it lifted the Raphael free with much rejoicing and we named shoal Sao Raphael. Finally on the morning of Saturday, April 7^th, we saw a great many islands which we discovered was actually the mainland, which had so many bays so it had looked like many islands. We cast anchor but did not enter the port. We were approached by a dhow and we rejoiced in the hope of finally joining fellow Christians and saying mass with them separate from Moor quarters. Our pilots said we would be welcomed in the homes of the Moors but we were suspicious, and soon found that was not true. At midnight a dhow with a hundred armed men arrived, but only four or five were allowed to board the Captain-major's ship. They claimed to have come to welcome us, but we knew that they had really come to see if they could capture our ships.