Chapter 8
Mombaço

A select number of the crew enter the city to search for a pilot. Nico is approached by a man twice his age, and he approaches a teenage white Moor. Next day he approached another Moor, 13, who is selling his body for the money, and the pleasure, is approached again by the boy from the previous day and ends the day with a 9 yo boy of the Kikuyu tribe who warns him of a pending attack, causing Vasco da Gama to leave the next morning. 

Codes: M/M, M/t, M/b 

Characters: adult, Mohammed 15, unnamed Moor 13, Kimani 9 

The following day, April 8^th, Palm Sunday, the King of Mombaço sent the Captain-major a sheep and large quantities of oranges, lemons, and sugar cane and a ring as a pledge of safety. These were presented by two men, almost white, who claimed to be Christians. In return, the Captain-major sent the king a string of coral beads. That same day four men of distinction visited the Captain-major's vessel and he in turn sent two men he highly trusted to the King, who ordered that they be allowed to see the city. They were given cloves, pepper and corn and visited two Christian merchants whom they say showed them a sketch of the Holy Ghost. (1)

The following day while going into the bay the Captain-major's vessel would not pay off and struck the vessel astern. When it stopped, the Moors on the Raphael scrambled into their boats and the two pilots from Moçambique, the one that had been restrained and the other who had joined us on his own accord, jumped into the water and swam away. That night the Captain-major questioned two of the men that Captain Paulo da Gama had captured while chasing the sharif in Moçambique, dropping boiling oil on their skin, a torture most unpleasant to witness and their cries of pain most unbearable to hear but a task which the Captain-major deemed necessary, causing them to confess that the plan was to lure us into the port under false promises of friendship and then to capture us. They were left bound on deck but one escaped that night, and the second leaped overboard in the morning watch. Around midnight two boats approached our ships, one approaching the Berrio and cutting its cable, the second approaching the Raphael, but being discovered, they had to flee, the Lord not allowing them to succeed because they were unbelievers.

Further evidence of being in His favour, it pleased the Lord God in His infinite mercy that on arriving at this city our sick recovered from their illnesses. Despite the treachery and malice planned by these evil dogs, we were heartened by this evidence of the protection and the support of the Lord, and we remained for two more days, several of us going ashore in search of a pilot who could guide us to India, the captains being desperate and frustrated being so close to achieving our goal and being hindered by trickery and violence by these greedy, untrustworthy heathens.

Mombaço is a large and prospering city with many people and many foreigners of different colours in many different manners of dress so we were able to slip ashore and blend in unnoticed among the populace, the Captain-major having ensured that only those of us who could pass as Mohammedans, myself included, went ashore. There were, we saw, many men in irons, whom we suspected were Christians but we dare not approach them nor inquire too deeply nor show any interest whatsoever, and certainly no concern. Their presence caused us to be particularly vigilant as we went about searching for a pilot but also caused us great distress to see fellow Christians so ill-treated.

The few of us allowed on shore split up based on our particular skills and areas of expertise as planned. Some of the crew approached other sailors, both marinheiros and grumetes, able seamen and ordinary seamen, working the docks and in taverns, both those of good repute and those of questionable repute that can be found in all ports, good and bad, some of our own crew being of honourable families and others serving so they might be pardoned of their past crimes. Some of the crew approached merchants who traded across the sea and could be tempted into providing information and answers to the right questions in the hope it might increase their chance of engaging in more trade. Some of the crew even attempted to bribe minor officials for information, officials who were always disgruntled because they felt they were not being appreciated or not being treated fairly by those officials higher up, and who, in their opinion, were underpaid. Such men can be found in all cities regardless of race or creed.

I, myself, left my face, hands and arms begrimed and sweat-streaked from the day's work and donned a plain and tattered robe and wandered the more disreputable streets of the city where decent citizens are unlikely to go, and where those seeking certain information are more likely to find it. My knowledge of the ways and manners of the heathens and their language, and the ways and manners of humanity's dregs, did not make it difficult for me to deceive them and to mingle. I pretended to drink much more wine than I actually did, and as I tottered along the docks from one establishment to the next, I collected my bits of information as a mongrel collects fleas and a man going awhoring collects crotch lice.

I found myself that first night sharing the hunt with shoga, older and/or richer males seeking younger and poorer partners, men who found no attraction nor arousal in those of the opposite sex, and occasionally married men who either had an interest in boys as a perverse diversion and a distraction from their husbandly duties and daily work, or who preferred boys over women but for some reason or another found themselves in marriages they had grown unhappy in or had never wanted to begin with. Regardless of their circumstances, they all had one thing which united them, they were seeking a younger partner they could take a dominant role over. Most found more pleasure in their superiority and cruelty than they did in the act of sex. Again, from my experiences as a tellack in the baths and as a kocek in the streets and entertainment tents, I knew such men intimately and easily copied their behaviour though it made my skin crawl to do so and past memories darkened my already dark mood.

While I was standing in the shadows contemplating which of the men gathered at a particularly popular drinking establishment I should approach, I was unaware I was also being observed and before I made my selection he made his decision and stepped forward. He was a much older man, at least twice my age, and while not flamboyant nor obviously rich, he was a man of some means. Although it was unlikely he was a man who knew anything of pilots, Christian or otherwise, he likely knew men knowledgeable in the business of trade and commerce who would know or have contacts with men who had the information I needed. So, when he offered to buy me something to drink, I gratefully accepted, and when in the dark he slipped a hand under my robe and on my knee I did not protest, but pretended to shift into a more comfortable position, which gave him an opportunity to reach higher, which he quickly did so there would be no question what he really wanted.

Of course when he suggested we find a room upstairs, I shyly agreed and I followed him up the stairs uncomfortably, certain that every man in the establishment was watching us, which was most unlikely and certainly an exaggeration. Once behind closed doors he wasted no time, quickly beginning to remove my robe and to caress my body, telling me how beautiful I was and how desirable, and how unlike many men my age and in my position I was firm of muscle and flat of belly. Despite the passing of years I have maintained my youthful appearance and boyish body, and as I have mentioned, though my life on the sea had matured my face and hardened my body, that only added to my masculinity. Though I could easily pass for sixteen, it was a mature sixteen that some men prefer.

Even in the dark he was able to discern my tattoos which he found unusual and unfortunately not attractive until I told him that in the tribe which had captured me and in which I had been raised as a slave since a boy until my recent escape such tattoos were common and signified when a boy had become a man. He was delighted to learn I was poor and uneducated and had been a slave and he quickly forgot the tattoos. He informed me he owned a shop that sold saddles and other leather goods and that though not a rich man he was a man of means and had two craftsmen in his employ, and that there was an opportunity for a third person to find employment, one unskilled to do the heavy work, a job that I seemed particularly qualified for, he added, caressing and squeezing my biceps and my thighs. As I said, the man was much too old for my preference, besides flabby and weak, but there was a possibility he might have dealings with traders along the coast or know someone who did, and so I played along. Besides, if I rejected his advances too quickly he could talk and ruin any chances of me making a connection with someone else later. And there was the fact that he was not totally unattractive.

And so I tolerated his caresses, plying him with questions in the meanwhile, and he was not that unskilled as a lover. I commented on that skill, which greatly pleased him, and he revealed others he had made love to whose names I made note of for other possible contacts. He mentioned that he was not so rich, but could provide me food and a roof over my head, and, he added not so subtly as his fingers wrapped about my member, he could provide other benefits. Although not interested in men his age, pretending to be a teenage boy and innocent and inexperienced in such sport I did find arousing, and as I said, he was not that unskilled. I began to swell, much to his delight. He himself was not difficult to arouse, and having obtained all that I could from him, I focussed on what he really wanted instead, caressing his corpulent body and doing what I was skilled at, soon having his member standing and demanding attention and wagging furiously like the tail of a particularly friendly and needful dog, and he was needful.

So, I assumed the universal position and he knelt behind me after lubricating his member and my awaiting hole with a sweet-smelling unguent he had brought with him. For some reason it reminded me of my first awareness of the use of honey in matters sexual, and I had to smile as I thought of my perplexity those nights long ago and as I'd watched young maidens bedding strangers for no other reason than that they were important men, and because doing so was pleasant. As I felt his member press against my hole and slowly begin to enter me I imagined myself as one of those young, nubile maidens, for the man mounting me was important in a way, and what we were doing was not unpleasant, and my member stiffened considerably. He was adequately built, not as long nor as thick as myself, which made his penetration that much easier, and besides, we were both experienced men, though I was careful not to appear too experienced for though I know he wanted a competent lover, he did not want one better than himself.

And so I let him seek his pleasure, making no extra effort to please him, providing him a hot, moist hole, that being all that he really wanted, and, of course, a man who was obedient and grateful and appreciative, all of which I pretended to be. It was pleasant enough, but not as good as when two work toward pleasing each other, but then I did not want to waste a load of seed on this man when it might be better spent on another, and he was not interested in my pleasure other than the assurance he had pleased me. So, he eventually squirted his seed up my ass, and satisfied with my body and with my obsequiousness, we parted ways, he contented and at least having left me with other contacts, either those who had spread their legs for him, or who were of the same mind as he was. If I had pleased him sufficiently for him to come looking for me again I did not know, and never would, and as I continued to prowl the streets I thought back to the boys I had encountered in similar circumstances, boys I had congress with but knew we would not likely meet again, and I had a sense how they must have felt after our encounters. It was a most strange feeling and one that caused me to resolve that in the future I would be more cognizant of the state of mind in which I left them.

I sought out and found several of the former men, those who had spread their legs for the leather merchant, most who really were sixteen, and a few my age or older, some appearing much younger and others not. We swapped information on older men who were on the prowl for us, but none of those I talked to who had congress with the merchant could provide me the information I wanted, and the few older men who were of the same mind as the merchant that he had mentioned and I was able to locate were either not interested in me, or by their manners or their odours, I was not interested in them. Several other shoga approached me, attracted by the slimness of my body or the attractiveness of my face, but none were in a position to have any information relative to my search. So I continued and while they sought me I sought those still younger, for information, and strictly for the pleasure they might provide, my session with the merchant while pleasant leaving me unsatisfied.

It was late, well past the midnight hour, when I found a white Moor, Mohammed, a boy of fifteen. After a quick conversation, it was obvious he had no idea where I might find a pilot from across the bay, nor anybody who might know. It was also obvious that he was looking for a man he might endear himself to and who might keep him for his looks and his body and his skill in pleasing men, skills he said he had been plying for the past ten years. From my manners and appearance he had assessed me as a young noble hiding my wealth and seeking a boy who could satisfy those needs all young lords had, for the night, or possibly for a longer time if the boy was lucky, and proved to be good. As I said, it was late, and I was tired and had enough of futile searching for the night, and he was very attractive and had the promise of being very good. Thinking of my earlier encounter that night and how we had parted and how I had felt, I made it clear I was interested, but only in the congress, not in any long-term relationship. He too was tired of the search and found me equally attractive and I suppose suspected I could provide him pleasure also, and besides, was aware of his motives for engaging me. We reached an agreement.

As we walked back up the street from whence I had come he exchanged glances and smiles with a woman who had approached me first, a woman whom he informed me as we continued on our way was his mother. He also said neither he nor his mother had any idea who his father was. The idea of his mother selling her body on the street, the same street as he was selling his, and of having been approached by her first, and the idea of her knowing what her son and I were intending, and him knowing that his mother knew, caused a stir in my robes, and he smiled at me, knowing the reaction he had caused by simply sharing that information. If they really were mother and son or if this was a ploy the two of them used to attract and arouse potential benefactors I could not know, but their resemblance to each other was convincing, and believing it did make him more attractive and add to the uniqueness and intensity of our experience.

Leading me to a cobbler's shop and around the back, a place where obviously he frequently entertained, we embraced and caressed and kissed as we disrobed each other, and spreading our robes over a bed of grasses where I guessed he often spent the night, he lay on his back and reached up for me eagerly. I lay down and we continued to kiss and caress, and he did prove to be a skilled lover, knowing where to touch to arouse and when to avoid those spots so he did not do so overly. I had to wonder if these were skills he had been taught by his mother, or if he was copying them from having observed her with a lover himself as a child, or if former lovers of his own had contributed to his repertoire. It was an erotic thought, as I am sure he knew it would be, and my member rose faster. Like all boys his age he himself was quick to arouse, and though five years older I was not far behind. He had a nice-sized member, five-finger widths long and two fingers thick, and a pair of nuts of equivalent size that hung in a delightful, loose, pendant sack.

He spread his legs and as I knelt between them he raised them and his buttocks and pulled apart his ass cheeks to expose his pucker. I was hard by then and he used his mouth and spittle to lubricate my bulb, much to my pleasure, and I wedged the spit-slick bulb in his anus. He opened readily to me and I had little difficulty penetrating him, the boy being experienced and entertaining regularly. As I slowly penetrated him I thought of his mother and wondered how she felt, knowing her boy was laying on his back somewhere performing that duty that was a woman's, a duty he was performing for strangers, just as she likely was. And as I sank my member up his ass, I wondered what he was thinking, and how he felt knowing that at that very moment his mother was also likely lying on her back and giving a strange man access to her most private part, and likely thinking of him doing the same.

As the boy's hot, moist flesh enveloped my stiff member and began to squeeze it, I put such thoughts out of my mind and concentrated on the delight of his pulsating flesh and his smooth body as he nuzzled my cheeks and continued to kiss me. Sinking my cock up his rectum as far as I could, I slowly began to fuck him, easing my member in and out of his eager hole and kissing his smooth, moist lips. He was a handsome, muscular boy and it was a delight fucking him, his youthfulness, enthusiasm and virility heightening the physical pleasure of his hot, moist chamber. His own cock was stiff and pinned between our bodies, and as I pressed my body against his I could feel it throbbing with lust. I paused several times to delight in feeling his cock pressed between us and the strength in that virile member, and in our congress, and of course to delay the inevitable. Finally, with mutual relief and delight, I filled his rectum with my seed. I was still doing so when he released his seed, spraying his body and mine with his hot, thick, teenage slime, and as he sighed with delight, so did I.

When we were done we returned to the street, too weary for an encore, and as we parted, he promised to ask around for the names of anyone who might know of a pilot, assuming me to be a young noble venturing out on my own to commence my own position in the trade business. I had to assume that despite what I had told him, he was hoping to put me in his debt and to establish an ongoing relationship, and for that I could not fault him. I could see no other reason why he would make such inquiries for a stranger he had just met and I left him with a clear conscience and the hope that perhaps the pleasure we had shared had some part in his decision.

The following day I again left my face smudged and my body streaked with the evidence of my day of toil on the ship and wore the drab but revealing clothing of the poor, but took on the appearance and dress of one not quite as low as the previous day for I planned on frequenting another quarter, one where a man could find a higher quality of partner. This time I found myself in the company of mashoga, young men ranging in age from slightly older than myself to their early teens, men and boys who assume the passive role and offer their bodies for one reason only, for money, rather than offering themselves in the hopes of developing a relationship that might lift them out of the level they were living in.

This was a large city with many foreigners and it attracted many youth from the surrounding countryside, youth from large families who had no inheritance or place to go. Within the city itself there were many young labourers who could not ply their trade because of an abundance of older, established men, and young, idle men of large families with no future in the family business. Among these unattached youth were many young pretty boys, boys raised with many sisters, who copied the ways of their sisters for money and the pleasures of the flesh, and the satisfaction of other sinful desires that money bought. And there were those who simply enjoyed engaging in those behaviours considered feminine, just as many Arab dancing boys, the kocek, do. Female virginity being essential in marriage by these people despite being heathens, congress was denied the lusty city males and the virile country boys besides. As a result there were many men looking for an alternative way to satisfy their needs, making for strong competition among these young, good-looking boys, but a delight for those of us seeking such boys and pleasures. (2)

It was not long before I was approached by a young Moor barely into his teens who flashed me a smile of perfect, white teeth contrasting with his swarthy skin and immediately held out his hand, indicating he was looking for money, not a relationship. He was a good-looking boy so I gave him a ceitil and he took me behind one of the now closed textile shops and as I stood there in the alleyway with my robes hiked about my waist, he dropped to his knees and took my limp member in his mouth with no more hesitation than a beggar boy would slip his lips about a freshly cooked sausage, taking it in his mouth in its entirety right down to my pubic hairs. He sucked on it eagerly and his skilful tongue circumscribed my bulb, sending delightful thrills of sweet pain through my swelling flesh.

Despite his eagerness to please, his obvious delight in sucking and licking a man's cock, and his experience, as I began to swell he found he could not continue to stay all the way down to my pubes and balls and he slowly had to ease his lips back up my shaft. To his credit he did manage to take half my member in his mouth, and sensing when I was about to cum he clamped his lips below my bulb and cut off my desire to prolong my pleasure, and his. Looking down at this smooth-faced boy, his sunken cheeks without so much as a hint of peach fuzz but his upper lip beginning to develop a dark shadow with the promise of a moustache as dark and thick as his tousled hair, his long, feathery eyelashes fluttering as he concentrated on sucking my cock, I inhaled deeply with not only physical pleasure but the pleasure that comes from seeing the joy with which the boy sucked my member.

He kept his own robe closed but he reached down occasionally and squeezed the bulging fold at his crotch and I knew the fold was not all cloth. Slowly my balls began to well and tighten and I opened and closed my slit in anticipation as the burning irritation rimming my bulb caused my swollen member to ache. I was breathing heavily, as was he, sucking deeply on my rigid cock and snorting though his nose. I warned him I was about to cum and he sucked all the harder but he eased up on my shaft so that only my bulb was in his mouth. I quivered as I felt the twang deep in my groin and my seed burn up the core of my benumbed cock and spurt out the tip, filling his eager mouth with my hot, thick slime. He tried to collect my seed in his mouth to savour it but I came too quickly and too copiously and my slime oozed out the corners of his mouth and around his chin to form a perverted white goatee. His cheeks, once sunken were now puffed out with my seed, and he inhaled deeply as the savoured my thick, fragrant cream, his tongue coated with my slime, and finally swallowed it.

He resumed sucking, drawing out my remaining seed and allowing it to collect again in his mouth so he could delight not just in having caused my climax but also in the flavour and consistency of my fresh goo filling his mouth. He swallowed my slime again and sucked for a few more moments before finally releasing my swollen member and looking up at me with that delightful smile, my cum clinging to those perfect, white teeth and coating his young swarthy lips. He was one of those rare boys who had developed a taste for a man's cream and would have likely been satisfied with the ceitil I had paid him. He had done more than a decent job, well worth the extra pence I paid him when we were done, much to his gratitude and delight, and we went our separate ways.

Shortly thereafter a young voice hailed me, and turning I was surprised to see the young Moor I had congress with the previous night, Mohammed. I had not expected to see him again, and especially in this quarter of the city. He saw my surprise and informed me with a grin that he followed a circuit each night, beginning, in his words, with districts showing greatest profit and promise and ending with those having the least, where we had met the previous night. Studying me appraisingly, he noted my improved dress and stated that it confirmed his suspicions about me, that I was of greater means than I had let on, and confided with a larger grin that having thought so he had purposefully been watching for me. He said that he had done as he had promised and had asked around, and he gave me the names of several merchants who dealt with merchants from India, but he had found none who could provide him the name of a pilot, adding with a still greater grin, that was why he had been looking for me, but that it was not the only reason.

I again reminded him that I was not interested in forming any type of permanent relationship and he replied that was most regrettable because had lain awake what was the rest of the previous night thinking about what we had done, and asked, somewhat sadly, if that meant I would not be interested in repeating it even if it were not to become a routine thing between us. I smiled at his brazenness and audacity and assured him that was not what it meant and that I was in his debt for his information and should at least award him for his efforts. His deep brown eyes sparkled as he said somewhat apologetically that he did not have a regular place in this district to pleasure me as he had the night before, which told me, sadly, where this delight of a boy got most of his business. He was eager to please me again and sincere in his comments, and I was not about to deny him his pleasure, nor mine, so we returned to his place of entertainment, no great distance using his shortcut and passing his mother once again, whether by design or accident I do not know, but having the same result as the night before.

And so once again we stripped naked and spread out our robes. This time, being considerably earlier in the evening, I took a moment to admire him in the light of the full moon. He was a slender boy about a head shorter than myself, his mouth coming about level with my teats, his trim body hairless except for his thatch of kinky hair and a thick bush above his flaccid penis, which as I mentioned was of a nice size, the tip extending past his loose, pendant nut sack. His arms and legs were thin, as was his waist, and he had a solid, compact butt. He was darker than I but lightly toned for a Moor. We kissed and caressed gently but purposefully, each eager for the pleasure awaiting us, and we both grew firm together. Like myself he did not have a hood, circumcision, I had been told long ago, being a sign of spiritual purification among Muslims. Although a generous length at five finger-widths, his youthful age was evident as I wrapped my fingers about his stiff, slender member and stroked it as he wrapped his fingers about my own longer and thicker member, the same fingers that wrapped about his own member those nights he was unsuccessful finding a partner, which I was sure would be rare.

Grasping and squeezing each other's erection, we kissed passionately, on the lips and the cheeks, and then sitting side by side, he bent over and drooled over my stiff cock, generously lubricating it with his spittle which caused it to jerk with anticipation as his spit oozed over my bulb and down my shaft in bubbly rivulets. He once again lay on his back and I again took him facing him, a position he preferred, as did I, and I again had to wonder if his mother had been an influence in that choice. I was again reminded of his experience as he readily opened up to me and I felt my bulb easily stretch open his pucker and pop inside and as I slowly and effortless sank my long, thick member up his hot, moist rectum. As I felt his ass flesh tighten about my throbbing member and pulse in time with it, I sincerely regretted that I would not be able to stay and make him my personal bedmate. He was a skilled, passionate partner and some man would be most fortunate in the future.

I began to pump my hips to and fro, concentrating on the delight of this prurient, fifteen-year-old street boy's tight ass and lithe body and he wrapped his smooth, slender legs about my waist as I rode him, clenching and relaxing his anus as my thick member pumped in and out of his body. I inhaled deeply in delight, as did he, my cock throbbing and the knob itching, his rectum pulsating and his anus burning with the same sweet pain as my knob. His thin chest was rising and falling rhythmically with each deep breath, his thick lips parted, his feathery eyelashes fluttering as he sighed deeply with pleasure and arousal. It was no act to please me. It was genuine, as was my own pleasure. Grunting and snorting, I grasped his slim body and thrust my hips forward, driving my cock deep up his rectum as I felt my seed begin to race up the core of my member. As it spurted out the tip with that burning pleasure and began to fill his rectum, he began to spurt also, once again anointing his naked body and mine with his seed. As my seed flooded his rectum, his spattered my chest and belly and his own, hot and slimy, the delightful, fragrant seed of a fifteen-year-old boy.

Before we parted I assured him of his skill and attractiveness, and the great pleasure I had felt, and of my regret that duty called and I could not stay and be with him forever. I assured him I was sincere and would not forget our two nights together, and his eyes sparkled and I know he believed me. I informed him I had to go away for a while, if not tomorrow then soon, not wanting him to think that I had been dissatisfied with him when he did not see me on the morrow. I promised if I ever had the opportunity to return to this city I would search for him, and that I wished I could take him with me. I was sincere, but life is dangerous, and there was no certainty I would ever see him or this city again, or my dear, beloved Portugal and the family I had left there for that matter. If I never returned, he at least had the comfort of knowing it had not been by choice. When we parted, I wished him success in his search and again assured him with his skill it would only be a matter of time before he found a man to cherish and appreciate him, and encouraged him to focus on the more affluent quarters of the city. He wished me success in finding a pilot to take me where I was determined to go and we parted company again.

Returning to the better part of the city, I continued my search, being able to be selective having spent my seed twice that night, but I was unsuccessful in my mission on behalf of my captain. I did spot several shoga whom I questioned about finding a knowledgeable pilot, and to whom I enquired about the presence of the boy Mohammed, describing him and extolling his virtues, hoping to encourage them to seek him out among the many teenage boys offering themselves, certain that once they sampled his charms they would seek no further.

Before I had left with Mohammed, an attractive young black boy wearing a brilliant solid red, obviously expensive robe had caught my eye. He was selling goat and sheep skins sewn into garments and decorated with bright, variously coloured threads and an assortment of jewellery made of tin or copper. He himself was wearing circular tin earrings the size of my palm and a half dozen gold neck rings. His coarse hair was coiled into a ball above each ear and in a tail that extended down the back of his head to just past his shoulders and his forehead and cheeks were decorated with a pattern of red and white dots. When I found him again he had rolled up his carpet and items for sale along with the other street venders and was playing an oblique bark flute they call a mũtũrĩrũ to a small audience of men. As he played, he moved suggestively, having loosed the belt of his robe so he revealed one thigh and then the other as he danced. As he danced and played, his audience grew, and playing the crowd, he danced and played more suggestively so that it grew still larger.

He was not another mashoga seeking an older man to keep him, but he did not hesitate to flash a seductive smile to select men in the audience. Watching him I was reminded of my weeks as a kocek with the Gilman Entertainers, happy weeks. (3) The tune he was playing was a simple one and on impulse I took out my panpipe, which I had found in the past most useful in making initial contacts and which I always made sure I brought with me on these reconnoitres, and stepped forward and began to accompany him. He smiled up at me and putting his flute aside, he concentrated on his dance, loosening his robe more to reveal much more of one thigh or the other and teasingly glimpses of what was between. His robe, I discovered, was specially made and consisted of several layers, each more revealing than the one above, and he discarded the layers one by one until he only had a single strip of cloth left, no more than a veil, which he expertly alternately covered and revealed his compact buttocks or his boyish genitals as he danced until he at last let it fall to the ground and he danced before us gracefully, seductively, and openly stark naked. He finally stopped and bowed deeply as he turned in a circle, awarding his audience on all sides an ample view of his buttocks. In appreciation men tossed coin, jewels, and trinkets, gold, copper and silver rings, hair combs, and other jewellery, onto a carpet he had laid out before him. He glanced up at one and then the other shyly and coyly and in the eyes of the men you could see their arousal and their hope. Finally turning to me and flashing me a smile, he stepped up to me and offered his hand. From the sighs and looks of disappointment on the faces of the other men, I knew he was offering me more than his hand.

He had not dressed as a girl nor had his movements been feminine in any way when he had danced, nor now, but the intent and effect of his dance had been the same as that of the boy dancers on the steppes of Caucasia who dressed, moved, and painted themselves as women do. I told him I was from one of the tall ships in the harbour and apologized that I had no place private we could go, but he told me that was of no matter, and quickly dressing and picking up his belongings and new acquisitions, he lead me to a narrow passageway between two buildings and a tiny, long-forgotten and unused courtyard behind them where he apparently spent his nights.

He spoke his native tongue, Bantu, along with a bit of Arabic and Swahili, and I knew Arabic, though of a northern and eastern dialect, and had picked up a smattering of Swahili, southern Bantu (Xhosa and Shona particularly), greater fragments of the languages of the Berbers and Khoikhoi and of Mende (the language of the Temne), and a few vulgar words picked up in the Congo. It was enough, and accompanied by gestures, we managed quite well. He introduced himself as Kimani wa Ngengi, a member of the Kikuyu tribe. He lived on a farm just outside of the city with his family, which consisted of his father, his mother (his father's fifth wife), and his father's six other wives and their sons and daughters. (4)

He said many of his brothers, who were older and stronger, but, he added with a grin, not as beautiful, worked on the farm. He, on the other hand, came to the city to sell the produce from their labours, and when the crops were not yet ready for harvest, he sold those things made by his father's wives and daughters. He said with an even wider grin, that he had also discovered through another farm boy this more lucrative way to raise money, which he shared with his parents and extended family. He said they knew how he came by the added income, and were proud of him doing his share to add to their wealth, both by dancing, and he added with the widest grin yet, what followed.

He had spread his carpet on the ground for us to sit upon and what followed was that he snuggled up to me and reached inside my robe. Finding what he was looking for, he immediately guided it out through the folds of my robe and bent over and proceeded to suck on it. Fortunately having wiped myself clean, he was unaware of where it had been. He was skilled with his tongue and mouth and soon had me erect. I slid his robes off his slender, smooth body, and having him stand facing me, I rolled his tiny stones in his loose, black sac and slipped my thumb and first two fingers about his little black snake. Not yet having engaged in his coming of age ceremony, his little snake still had its hood and I slowly and carefully pulled it back, revealing a delightful, dark purple-black plum. Delighted to find it clean, I leaned forward and swirled my tongue about it and took his slender, soft, velvet-smooth member in my mouth and gently sucked on it. He instantly began to swell, much to my delight, and my own stiff member twitched in excitement and anticipation.

I sucked on his stiff little black member eagerly and for a long time, until he was squirming and jerking uncontrollably with pleasure, performing that erotic dance preceding a boy's climax, and my member was dripping that clear nectar that precedes a man's seed. Standing, I offered my stiff cock back to him, and grasping it at the base with his hot, little hand, he slipped his mouth over the bulb and flicked up the clear droplet of nectar and began to suck on it eagerly as if it were a choice stuffed pasta, which it was, stuffed with the clear nectar he had just lapped up and was oozing out the slit again. He swirled his tongue about the knob and licked up my offering. Slipping his lips off my swollen meat, he worked up a mouthful of spit and puckering his lips he drooled his spittle over my hot, upright cock, coating it with his slime.

Turning and facing the stone wall, he spread his legs and bent over and supporting himself with his forearms against the wall he presented his smooth, compact backside to me. He was nine and slender, and though his muscles were hardened from his life on the street and lugging his produce and his revenue between city and farm, they were still rounded and gently curved with youth. His tight black ass was compact and smooth and a delight to behold in the moonlight, a ripe, perfectly sized black melon. I squatted and sticking out my tongue I rimmed him, causing him to squirm and giggle with delight and his little pucker to open and close. He informed it that was something no man had ever performed on him before, and asked if it had a name, and I gave him the few vulgar street phrases I had heard it called. He was clean and I wormed my tongue into his anal orifice and his pucker tried to grasp it and draw it in further. My mouth filled with spittle and I blew it into his hole, slicking his anus with my spit.

Finally I stood and grasping his hips, I stepped forward, my stiff member preceding me. Finding his opening with the sensitive tip of my member I slowly pushed forward. Between my spittle up his ass and his coating my bulb and shaft and his and my experience I slowly began to penetrate him despite my size and his youth and tightness. I entered him ever so slowly and feeling my stiff

member gradually entering his tight little black ass was a true delight just as the poets said. I entered him ever so carefully and gently and when I finally had my member wedged up his hot rectum it felt like it was being held at the base by a pair of pincers and thrust into a blazing furnace. He squirmed with arousal and delight and clamped his anus down like a vice as I slowly drew back and eased my swollen member out his rectum. As I slowly sank it back up his lithe, young body he relaxed his anal muscle and my hot, stiff member entered his rectum like a knife entering a block of butter.

He was a joy to fuck, and he was enjoying it as much as I from his reaction, and I could tell it was not just an act in the hopes of a larger payment. Reaching around, I found his little black cocklet, stiff and aching and the length and thickness of my thumb, and I slowly stroked it as I fucked him, pulling back the hood of this delightful boy and exposing his tender knob, and then sliding it back up over his bulb and sending slivers of sweet pain around the rim, the same delightful, painful pleasure that was circling his pucker as I pumped my stiff member in and out of his ass. I closed my eyes and shivered with pure delight as I grasped the slender hips of this nine-year-old boy and fucked his tight black ass, and I could hear him panting and gasping with arousal and joy as I fucked his ass and stroked his stiff, throbbing little nail.

We fucked slowly but with growing speed as we approached our climax so as it approached we did not try to delay it. When I at last filled his rectum with my seed, he found as much joy in my orgasm as did I, and he trembled and shook with his own dry orgasm, the result of being fucked, of having his rectum filled with a man's thick, hot seed, and having a man stroke his little member. He gasped and whimpered with the painful pleasure as waves of sweet pain rippled up his stiff little organ and as his anus burned and my seed flooded his rectum. The tip of my member burned with the same painful pleasure as I spurted my seed deep up this little black boy's ass, and I grasped his hips tightly. I was gasping for breath and his thin chest was rising and falling also as he sucked in the night air.

For his efforts I paid him two farthing and a handful of coloured beads I had brought along to barter for information, money and goods well earned and better in his hands than that of some merchant, and which he greatly appreciated. He insisted on gifting me with several of the baubles men had tossed to him in appreciation of his entertainment and in the hopes they would buy his favour for the night, a pair of silver earrings inset with the largest rubies I have ever seen, and an intricately carved biceps bracelet. As we returned to the street I asked about pilots that might take me to India but he said he knew nothing about such things, adding with an impish grin that what he did know about sailors was that they were a prurient lot being away from women for such long periods of time, had an endless supply of seed, came quickly, and were extremely grateful. From the sparkle in his deep brown eyes, I suspected that knowledge was a large factor in his decision to choose me this night.

As we were about to part, he added that there was something else about sailors, they either said nothing or could not stop talking, even while having congress. Looking up solemnly at me, he informed me that early this evening he had heard from one of the men who worked for the governor of this city, a leader who he held in low regard along with several other high authorities in the city, of plans to attack the large sailing ships that had recently arrived in port in retaliation for the strangers having attacked and looted one of their merchant ships and having bombarded the nearby city of Moçambique with whom they were allied. And then he turned and was gone before I could reply, and as I headed for the port I surmised that was really why he had chosen me as partner this night. His voice had dripped with his hatred and alienation regarding the local authorities and I had to suspect that he had seen through my charade and had seen me as a way to foil the plans of those he clearly held in low regard. He was a clever boy far beyond his years. As I boarded the ship with this latest revelation, I had to hope that the pleasure we had shared this night had a part in his decision to disclose the secret he held with me, and, I suspected with a grin of my own, was at least part of the reason for his generosity besides appreciation of the pleasure we had shared.

Despite the lateness of the night, I informed the Captain-major what I had heard and he figured we should count our blessings from the Lord who had protected us thus far and make our leave despite my possible leads of locating a pilot. Unsuccessful in our search and fearing for our lives, we dejected left the next morning, the morning of April 13, though there was but a light wind, travelling only eight leagues that day. Yes, we had the blessing of the Lord, but clearly not that much, and that and the possible reason why caused me great consternation.

Chapter 11
Pandarani

The Calecut King sends a servant (his tabor server) to spy on the governor, guards and merchants and get info on Da Gama. The Portuguese sent to sell their goods are visited by a spice merchant, his 14 yo assistant, and a mystic (herbalist doctor) to check out their goods, Nico goes to the mystic at his hermitage and exchanges medical information and stays overnight with the spice merchant's assistant and friends where he learns about kliba (third sex) reminding him of his travels in the new world and he further suspects these are not Christians. 

Codes: M/t, M/b, t/b, t/t. incest  

Characters: servant (tabur server, Shudra caste Rahul 16) and brother Ravi 12, merchant's assistants (Hindu Vaisyas caste, workers) Shashi 14, Ishwar and Chandra, fifteen-year-old lovers, one the son of a textile merchant and the other the son of a weaver, Yadava, thirteen-year-old assistant to a potter, all kliba, third sex  

Four days later the king sent merchants, Moor and Christian, to view our merchandise and make purchases. Much to our dismay and sadness, they looked at our merchandise with disdain and depreciated it. We were all growing weary of this rude treatment after such hardships and having had such high expectations, and we were eager to be quit of these arrogant, unappreciative people and on our way back home. So it was with heavy heart that on the second day after the arrival of the king's merchants that I looked out upon them sitting in the shade eating fresh fruit and laughing and talking in the tongue of their land while our vendors sat dejected and alone by their wares and I was filled with anger and bitterness.

And then I spotted among the merchants a tall youth in his mid-teens, a youth whose skin was the colour of xocolatl, the dark brown, bitter drink I had discovered that was commonly drunk by the Tenochca and the Tahuantinsuyu, noble and peasant, across the great ocean sea and whose seeds I had brought back to grow on my estate, a handsome bare-chested youth in his late teens with thick lips and heavy-lidded eyes and wearing a purple turban. Immediately the humours that cause lust to rise in one's loins began to flow through my veins, and once again I felt the ache I had felt in my groin the first time I had seen him. The king's atambor server. He was chatting amiably with the merchants, and close at his side was a shorter and younger but identical copy of himself wearing a pale orange turban. Checking my reflection in a large bronze serving plate, I stepped into the compound and headed in their direction. The merchants immediately glanced at me and put on dark faces and ceased talking, causing me to hesitate, but then this youth saw me and smiled and my ill mood dissipated like the rain in the street with the emergence of the sun.

He greeted me warmly, in his language of course, and I replied in like. He inquired as to my health, and I replied it was not good, and when he expressed his sorrow at such news and inquired what was the problem, I glanced at the men behind him and pondered what to say. He noticed immediately of course and moved away from the group and asked if there was a problem with the men his king had selected to view our merchandise. I hesitated in responding. He referred to the monarch of this land as "his king" and I was not so foolish as to say negative things about any man in power, and certainly not a king, and most certainly not to one of his obviously loyal and trusted servants, the youth having been one of three along with the King's bishop and factor to be admitted to our private audience. Besides, the youth accompanying him had come along with us, and he I knew nothing about.

"If any of them have treated you ill, tell me, for the king was most distressed with your past treatment and will surely punish any of them if they have not followed his orders exactly as he has given them. That is why he has sent me, to ensure they have obeyed him, for some are Moors and their kind is not known for their loyalty and dedication, and their hearts are not always the same as the king's," he said in a low voice.

That he had been sent to check on them was not a surprise. As he said, their kind was not known for honesty and loyalty. And he, though a mere servant, clearly had the ears and trust of the king. Of course being a mere servant, he was able to pass unobserved and unsuspected among these heathens who would not think of disguising their behaviour in front of one so insignificant. I glanced over at them and they appeared not to be paying us any notice, and I glanced at the boy beside me.

"I am Rahul, royal tambur server to the King, entrusted to see that it has been properly prepared and not contaminated." Not poisoned he meant. I admired his discretion–this king was evidently not liked by all in his kingdom, and the Nair guard I had befriended had hinted that the relationship between the king and these northern Arabs was not one of friendship. "And this is my little brother Ravi," he said, indicating the boy who looked up admiringly at his older brother, but also twisting his mouth with annoyance at being called "little".

"I am Naqui Ah…" I began, using my alias out of habit, and sensing that I had been told the truth that the Christians in this land were not exactly enamoured with the Arabs among them, deciding to use my real name. I coughed to cover my change of mind and began again. "I am Nicolau Ribeiro. Scribe and interpreter for the Captain-major, the ambassador of his Majesty King Manuel, who is in charge of our expedition." That sounding too formal and stuffy, I concluded in an afterthought, "My friends call me Nico."

"A kayastha," he said, lowering his eyes and bowing reverently, his tone suddenly becoming obsequious. "A Kyshatriya. Forgive me, I should have realized. I beg you forgive me for my forwardness and unforgivable familiarity."

"I… ah, am only a scribe. A servant like you," I said, struggling with the language.

"No. No Shudra. No servant."

"Well, where I come from, a scribe is not so much different." He looked at me in disbelief, not sure he was understanding me correctly. I was not sure I was understanding him correctly either and I cursed the difficulty I was having with their language. "I am pleased to know you," I said formally, extending my hand.

"Likewise," he said, extending his most hesitantly but not taking mine. "Things… are very different in your country."

"They are," I agreed, deciding perhaps it best not to shake his hand until I found what was acceptable here.

"So, I beg, please be honest with me," he said softly, "is there a problem? The king has sent me to find the truth, and though I am only Shudra, he trusts me, as I said, with his life, and trusts my loyalty, and you can trust also." He looked at me most sincerely and desperately and I knew he was being truthful.

We had moved away from the merchants and our vendors, and from our place of lodging, as far as I could. I already had the attention of the guards, and unfortunately the one I had befriended and felt I could trust was not among them.

"Well, not exactly a problem," I replied as best I could considering our language difference and my need to be cautious. "It appears that our merchandise is not of a high enough quality for their liking, which is a great disappointment and surprise to all of us."

He looked at the ground solemnly and thought about what he was about to say. "It is not," he said finally, honestly and politely as he slowly shook his head. "The merchants the king sent are accustomed to… much finer things to trade. Precious stones, finer cloth, spices that are different or not so easy to obtain."

"We do have such things," I said, "but we did not bring them. We are on a voyage of exploration, not merchants, and we have come a long way searching for others like ourselves, Christians, with whom we may become friends and establish trade." It is what the Captain-major had said, and I knew he knew that. I wondered if the Captain had felt as guilty as I saying such things, though it was not a total lie. We did have finer things, and what we had brought were obviously more suitable for the blacks of the Dark Continent than this Christian king.

"How far away is this land of yours?"

"It has now been eleven months by sail since we left our homeland."

He whistled and his and his brother's eyes widened with appreciation. Several of our vendors and the merchants looked our way. The guards had never taken their eyes off us. "So, you have not been threatened with harm or treated with ill will, or offered unreasonable payment for your merchandise, or have received commands by the bale contrary to the wishes of the king?"

"No," I admitted, "nothing like that."

"Then the king will be pleased." He looked at me and there was something about the look in his eyes that was not right. There was something he was not telling me. I have associated with men of all kinds too often, nobles and servants, leaders and followers, rich and poor, not to recognize that look. "In your country," he began hesitantly, "in your country a scribe and a servant are not that different, you said?"

"They are not."

"In karma that is?"

Karma, I believed from my conversation with the boy priest, was something like one's position, one's deeds and work or something. "That is right."

"And a scribe and a sailor are the same?"

"Well, not exactly. One has different skills from the other is all. Same I guess is true about a scribe and a servant. The training of one is different from the training of the other. To be a scribe, you must know how to write and read. To be a sailor you must know how to trim a sail or coil a rope so it does not become entangled, and to be a tambur server how to prepare tambur, and know if it has been… contaminated. Their work is different, but one is not more worthy than another."

"I see," he said with a smile. "I think." I returned the smile. Such things were difficult to explain when you did not know the language. "It is not so here. They are much different. Much different worthiness. So in your land, they mix, together, a slave and a scribe and a sailor," he said, interlacing his fingers.

"Well, like everything else, like stays with like, with their own kind, scribes with other scribes, sailors with other sailors, merchants with merchants. Some are… some think much of themselves and would not mix, others, like myself, mix freely," I replied with much gesturing

"A scribe and a server of tambur?" he asked, pointing to himself and me.

"Yes."

"Just for talking. Not for another thing."

"No," I said, looking in his eyes. The way he had asked, I suspected what another thing was. I had been with many other men, nobles and peasants, servants and slaves, to know what they were saying without speaking the words. "For me, not just words."

"When I first saw you, when you arrived with your ambassador and the others, I saw you looking at me, and I did not know you were of such high rank, and I thought, and, well… I wondered."

"I saw you looking me, and I saw the look in your eyes," I said, gesturing. "And I wondered too, and I hoped," I dared to say, wishing his brother was not standing there listening to this. It was difficult enough not knowing the language. "When we came a second time, I was disappointed not to find you present."

We were looking into each other's eyes now, understanding and saying much more than words could say. "You hoped?"

"Yes."

"You are kliba?"

There was that word again. "I am not sure of that word, but yes, I believe so," I said, motioning with my hands and shaking my head and looking perplexed. "I… enjoy the company of other men, young men," I said, trying to communicate with my eyes and reaching out and touching his arm, deciding what I wanted and what I was feeling was more important than the presence of his brother or what his brother might think. He glanced quickly at the guards, not attempting to hide the worry in his eyes.

"Then we should find a place where we can enjoy each other's… company?" he asked.

I glanced at his brother.

"Riva also enjoys such a thing. This company. We can enjoy our company together, the three of us, or, he can wait for us here," he said, looking down at his brother. From the look in his brother's eyes it was evident he would do whatever his brother asked, but preferred not to be excluded.

"Have you and he ever… ?"

"Of course, we are like the sons of Aditi, Mitra and Varuna."

"Then I would like the company of both of you," I replied, having no idea who Aditi was, or his sons, and wondering if these were local names for Abel and Cain, and if again what they knew was not what I knew. "Very much." The younger boy's face lighted up. "But there is a problem."

"Another?"

"The guards, the Kshatriyas," I said, nodding to the guards watching us, uncertain if I had the right term. "They do not want me out of their sight." I gestured at them, and then at my eyes and myself.

"I do not blame them," he said with a smile, reaching out and taking my hand. "But that is a nice problem to have."

As he lead me out of the compound and his brother followed, I expected one of the guards to shout his objection and come running, naked sword waving, and was most surprised when none did. It had to be more than because we were with the king's servant. He was just a servant, far below their rank. It could not be because they knew why we were slipping away and knew I had no plans of trying to escape and go to our ships. It had to be blatantly evident why we were slipping away, and for them, that purpose was apparently acceptable, but so acceptable they were willing to risk allowing me to be out of their sight?

These were very strange Christians. In my country such a reason would be even more cause for my guards to prevent me from leaving. Rahul's brother had moved in behind us as we turned so that his older brother had taken my hand had not been seen by the vendors from the ship. They would not have raised an objection, but they certainly would not have found my action acceptable no matter what motive I provided for my action, not even if it was part of a plan for our escape. As we disappeared into the jungle, I had to wonder if that positioning of his body was by good fortune or intentional on his part.

Whatever the reason, I was prurient, as were the two brothers, and we were barely out of sight when they wrestled me to the ground and began to strip me. I was just as eager to disrobe them. The three of us were soon naked and exploring each other's body, the two boys caressing and fondling me and each other, and me doing the same with them. Of course they were curious about my tattoos, but accepted them as just another difference between the ways of our lands. Their bodies were smooth, as was my own, and their hair, I discovered, was long, Rahul's even longer than my own. We kissed each other, on the cheeks, nipples, stomachs, stones, and lips. Rahul, I learned later, was sixteen and his brother Ravi twelve. Kissing each on the lips sent pulses of desire through my swelling member, and laying there and seeing the two brothers kissing each other on the lips caused my member to throb with lust. It was not long before the three of us were erect. Both brothers still had their hoods. Ravi was about a palm-width long and his brother about two finger-widths longer.

Finding myself kneeling behind Rahul, I kissed the nape of his neck as I caressed his smooth, firm buttocks and ran my middle finger up along his crack and massaged his back portal with the tip of my finger. His anus quickly and eagerly opened to my probing finger. Noting my action, his brother Ravi rummaged through their discarded robes and found a jar of an unguent.

"We hoped also," Rahul said with a grin and the three of us laughed.

His brother opened up the jar and scooping out some of the pale yellow-green paste he smeared it over the bulb of my swollen cock and then stuck his fingers, one by one, up his brother's asshole, lubing it and wiping off his fingers at the same time. Then, as I shuffled up behind Rahul, his brother reached out for my cock and holding it by the base guided it to his brother's greased hole. I slowly pressed forward, wedging my bulb in his hole, and ever so slowly my bulb stretched open his hole until it popped inside. Grasping Rahul by the hips, I slowly continued to sink my swollen cock up his ass until my hairs were pressed against his ass. His younger brother stood and stepping in front of him he presented his own stiff cock. His older brother did not hesitate to take it in his mouth.

And so as I slowly eased my cock in and out of his ass he knelt there and sucked his younger brother's member. I fucked him slowly, my fantasy and desire realized, and it was as pleasing and satisfying as I had imagined it to be. I kissed the back of his neck as my swollen cock throbbed deep up his tight, hot rectum and supporting myself with my left hand, I reached around with the right and wrapped my fingers about his stiff cock. Slowly pulling his hood back off his knob, I slowly pushed it back up, as I am sure his own hand had done hundreds of times, and I squeezed the stiff bone tightly as it throbbed in my hand and my own throbbed up his rectum. He sucked on his younger brother's member and slid his lips up and down his shaft and his younger brother threw back his head and closed his eyes, his thick lips parted in ecstasy, his smooth chest slowly rising and falling.

Seeing the younger brother being pleasured by the older and seeing his face flush with that pleasure doubled my own, and as the older boy gasped and panted in ecstasy and quivered as I stroked his throbbing, aching cock, his pleasure doubled mine again. I quickened the pumping of my fist and the pumping of my hips, and my cock throbbed all the harder as I pumped it in and out of his hot, moist ass. The pressure in my groin increased and the rim of my bulb burned with the same painful pleasure as his anus, and the rim of his young brother's cockhead. All three of us were gasping for breath and sweat was trickling down our naked bodies and beading on our foreheads. And then I was squirting, filling the rectum of this young atambor server with my seed as his own member throbbed in my fist and his seed squirted out the tip to arch between his brother's outspread legs and strike the ground. His kid brother gasped and quivered with his own orgasm, and though only twelve, he squirted his own young, watery seed, which his brother collected in his mouth and swallowed. He drained his brother, and I milked him dry and I had long stopped squirting when I slowly withdrew my member and the three of us sat on the floor of the jungle and caught our breath.

I observed that it had been all I had hoped it would be, even more so with the two of them, and Rahul replied that it had been even better than he had imagined also. I asked how long they had been having congress together and Ravi said since his brother was ten and he was six, and I asked if there were any objections to such a thing and they looked at me curiously and asked why there would be, and they explained who Mitra and Varuna were, giving me cause to wonder again what sort of Christians these were, and for them to wonder how it was I had not heard of the two brothers if I was truly a Christian as I claimed. It also gave me cause to wonder if the positioning of Ravi's body had not been coincidental nor intentional, but had been by divine intervention, Mitra or Vauna or their father, whoever he was. (1)

And then we had congress again. I had stood and Rahul knelt before me and holding up my member by the base he plucked some broad leaves and wiped it clean of lubricant and his ass slime and the remnants of my seed. Of course as he did so it began to swell and he observed that it was eager for more, and Ravi joked that his brother was a snake charmer, one of those who played a flute and caused a snake to rise up and sway with the music. His brother smiled, and said that he could make my snake spit also, and leaned forward and holding my still limp member by the base he began to lick it, and of course it began to swell faster. His brother moved behind me and began to massage and caress my buttocks, and to rub my anus with the tip of his finger, as I had done to his brother. He bent forward, and pulling apart the cheeks of my buttocks, he licked my anus and kissed it and sucked on it, and as he rimmed me his older brother ran his tongue around the rim of my bulb, causing it to burn and my cock to twitch and ache.

Retrieving the lubricant, Ravi smeared it over his now stiff member and lubricated my anus, and then wiping his fingers off on one of many broad leaves, he stepped up behind me, his lubricated, stiff penis jutting up in the air eagerly as only a twelve-year-old's can, and I relaxed and pushed out, opening up to him just as eagerly. Being a hand long and two fingers thick, he had little difficulty penetrating me, and, the brothers observed, he had plenty of experience doing his brother, the thought of which caused my now stiff cock to jerk. They laughed that my own member was eager to penetrate my ass also and I recited to them an old, vulgar sailor's ditty about a sailor whose member was so long and who had been stranded on an isolated island for such a long time that he did himself, causing them to laugh.

And then we ceased talking and once again concentrated on that unique pleasure between our legs and generating the same for our partner. Rahul, having been fucked and jerked off by myself, now returned the pleasure by sucking on my swollen cock. He was skilled and experienced and despite my length and thickness he was able to accommodate most of my stiff cock in his mouth and he sucked on it hungrily. The suction he caused reminded me of the great gales we had experienced rounding the Cape of Storms and the way they had sucked on our sails. Meanwhile his younger brother, having sucked my cock and drunk my seed, now plunged his stiff little member in and out of my anus. Despite its small size, I quivered with the same pleasure as I would have with a cock twice the length and thickness. The thought of being fucked by this prurient twelve-year-old boy after I had fucked his older brother who was now sucking on my cock gave me a thrill and a rush of lust that ached deep in my groin.

Grasping my hips tightly, the boy thrust his cock in and out of my body, causing my anus to burn delightfully, while his sixteen-year-old brother sucked on my swollen, throbbing bone, the same bone that had been up his ass, causing the rim of my bulb to burn with the same pleasure as my anus, and causing my cock to throb as my stones drew up tight beneath it. As he sucked on my cock he reached down and grasping his own stiff member in his fist, he began to stroke it just as I had stroked it earlier, and as his ache to squirt his seed increased he pumped faster and sucked on my swollen cock deeper.

We were too aroused to pause and we continued eagerly and desperately, aching for that peak of pleasure, and aching to bring our partner to the same peak. We did, simultaneously. I inhaled deeply as I felt the twang deep in my groin and my seed to burn up the core of my cock and spurt into his mouth, just as my seed had spurted into his brother's mouth earlier, and he swallowed it with the same delight and eagerness as his younger brother had. As he was drinking my seed, his own spurted out the tip of his swollen cock and spattered the ground before him, just as it had earlier by my hand, and while the two of us climaxed so did his younger brother, ramming his little cocklet up my ass and filling it with his hot, thin seed just as I had filled his older brother's rectum with my own. The three of us gasped and quivered with our orgasms, our naked bodies again streaked with sweat and flushed with our pleasure, our numb, swollen members pulsating and wet.

Again we disentangled and sat on the ground and closed our eyes as we treasured the pleasure of having climaxed, and having brought another to that delightful point. Our breathing was heavy and laboured and it was a wonder those back at our lodging did not hear us or seek shelter thinking a storm was approaching. Slowly our breathing returned to normal, and again we each expressed how delightful it had been. Again Rahul observed how when our eyes had first met he sensed that we were thinking the same thing and how at the time he had thought I was a sailor and wondered how he, only a servant, could join with me, but he had faith that we would, and he added that our congress was even better than he had imagined it would be. I observed that I too sensed we had the same interest and was glad that he had followed up on his hunch, and had the courage to seek me out despite his perception I was a sailor. He smiled and a strange look came into his eyes, a look that was not of guilt nor regret, but one that gave me the impression he was not, or had not, been totally truthful.

"The attraction I felt was so powerful I figured it could only be caused by Krishna, He of compassion and love, and He would see that we met."

That I doubted very much. Christ might be the god of love and compassion, but He would never be party to the congress of two men, but I was not going to question his belief. "And He did."

"No," he said with a shake of his head. "It was the king."

"The king?"

"Yes. He saw the look on your face too, and on mine, so it was he who sent me here, not the gods."

So that had been the reason for the look on his face! "The king sent you here? To me?"

"Yes. His majesty is a wise man. He wished to know the truth about your ambassador and what he had told him, and when your ambassador bade you accompany him he knew you had the trust of the ambassador, and he knew those who shared a pillow would not lie to each other, so he sent me to talk of these things with you."

"So he did not send you to check on the merchants."

"Oh no. He did that also. It was, he said, truly a gift from the gods, for the merchants would think I came for… what you say… congress… with you, and would not suspect me of checking on them, and because of your feelings for me, you would not suspect I was checking on you and your people. So, I would be able to do both, and have this thing you call congress with you besides."

"And your brother?"

"He came along to see if you were truly as beautiful as I told him," he said with a smile.

"And you came because your king sent you."

"I came because I have great faith in Krishna and knew He would find a way for us to be together. To let His Majesty think it was his idea, and that he is so cunning is not a bad thing. I am merely one of the faithful, and only a slave."

So the King sent his bale to watch us and our guards, and his servant to spy on his merchants and on us and the bale too, and the Captain-major asked me to find out all I could about our guards, the king and his people, and these merchants. With everyone watching everyone else, God need not bother. Such is the way of the world and of leaders everywhere it seems. Everywhere I have been in my travels it is the same. That is not a good thing, but when the result is to bring us together to do what we just did, it is not a bad thing either.

Having done talking, we turned once again to more pleasant things. Ravi and I were sitting side by side and as he reached over and began to fiddle with my member, I reached over and began to fiddle with his cocklet and to roll his delicate little eggs in their sack. Getting to his knees, Rahul shuffled over in front of us and the two of us began to lick and nibble on his member and on his balls. The three of us began to swell once again and Ravi and I lay down facing each other but in opposite directions and as Ravi took my now stiff member in his mouth, I slipped my lips about his while Ravi's brother snuggled up behind him and began to kiss the nape of his neck, his rigid member pressed along the crack of his ass.

And so we had congress for a third time, Ravi and I sucking each other's cock and Rahul burying his up his twelve-year-old brother's ass. Having fucked and jerked off Rahul and having been sucked by the sixteen-year-old and fucked by his younger brother, I now sucked on Ravi's slender member as he sucked on mine while his brother fucked his ass. My cock throbbed and the rim of my bulb burned as Ravi sucked deeply on my member and worked his lips up and down the shaft, and the twelve-year-old's slender cock throbbed hotly between my lips as I sucked on it. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pleasure throbbing between my legs, the same pleasure throbbing between Ravi's legs for the same reason as his older brother's stiff cock throbbed hotly up the young boy's ass.

Having been fucked by myself, he was now getting his ass fucked a second time, this time by his older brother, and I wondered how the two felt about that. And having had his cock sucked by his older brother, he was now having it sucked by me as he did the same to me. The three of us had already emptied our balls twice so it took longer this time, but it was no less pleasant. I closed my eyes and sighed as I felt my numb cock throbbing between the twelve-year-old boy's lips, and as I felt his slender little cocklet throbbing between mine. At the age of twelve being able to shoot his seed was still novel and being part of this mysterious miracle for him was a delight for me. Being sucked off and anticipating filling this young boy's mouth with my seed as I had earlier filled his older brother's ass was a delight, and anticipating having my own mouth filled with the youngster's seed as I filled his doubled my pleasure.

I was not disappointed in any way. His seed was thin and hot and sweet and I closed my eyes and savoured the slimy texture and the delightful flavour of his seed as I began to spurt, filling his mouth with my own thick goo. The boy sucked eagerly on my cock as his ass was flooded with his brother's seed, and his brother gasped and snorted as he flooded his brother's rectum. Once again the night air was scented with fresh seed and the three of us inhaled it deeply, our chests rising and falling as we gasped for air, our stiff members jutting up between our legs, the last of our seed oozing out the burning tips and down over our bulbs and down our shafts, our stones pulled up tight once again beneath our swollen members.

Rahul and his brother left for Calecut the next morning bearing a favourable report on the Captain-major although each time one of our crew left one of the ships and stepped on land the guards and the merchants spat on the ground before them, muttering "Portugal." That upset all of us greatly to be so treated, but I, at least, knew that this was not the attitude of the king and his advisors, and that such rude behaviour was being reported back to him and would be dealt with accordingly. This encouraging news and reaffirmation of the King's desire to strike a friendly relationship with us and the difficult position he found himself in being surrounded by and at the mercy of these vile and envious Moors I sent back with the men returning to the ship

I visited the local church at Pandarani but found nobody of importance nor of mutual attraction and so I was unable to obtain any further information nor any confirmation on what I already knew, and I was unable to satisfy my prurient interests, which was not a hardship after the previous night. The following day a rich spice merchant from Pandarani arrived out of curiosity and was sorely disappointed for we had no spices other than sugar, which they had plenty of. There being nothing else of interest, he fell to talking to his fellow merchants, leaving his assistant idle. He was a plain-looking boy of fourteen with a narrow hawklike nose and oversized ears. Both of us having time on our hands, we struck up a conversation and in that I was the first foreigner he had ever seen and had a chance to talk to, he asked many things about where we were from and life as a sailor, and I asked him many things about his people and life as a merchant.

The spice merchant was also accompanied by a herbalist and doctor, a dour individual and a hermit who mingled with no one, a man with a dark scowl and bristly eyebrows and beard. He was equally disappointed, but, despite his fearsome looks, I approached him with my small sack of seeds that I had collected on the Dark Continent and which I had brought along to add to my garden and to show those in India in the hopes of finding more in their land. With each seed I described the plant from which it had come and explained what the plant or its seed did. Some the man was familiar with, others he was not, and, despite our language difficulty, he was impressed with my knowledge and interest and he agreed to trade me some of his seeds for my own if I came to see him.

So, three days later, I left the others and headed for the marketplace of Pandarani. The others were still under strict confinement but the King, as a result I suspect of the favourable report from his servant, sent word that I was to be allowed to leave provided my intention and destination was approved by the bale and I was accompanied by a guard, for my protection of course, and the Captain-major, as a result of my report to him, sent word that I also had his leave to go where I felt necessary, knowing it was the only way I would find the information he sought. If I were to need rescue, he would come to my aide, or disavow any knowledge of my activities, whichever was to his interest. That we both understood without anything being said.

I spent much of the day with the herbalist who lived in seclusion in a dense portion of the forest outside of the city. In a land so populous, I was surprised there was anywhere that a man could live a life of seclusion, but this man lived alone in a crude shelter of intertwining branches against a couple large trees with no paths or roads leading to his abode. He was apparently some type of mystic or seer besides a doctor and herbalist and was held in great reverence and awe, having great medicinal and spiritual powers. Some claimed he was two hundred years old, reminding me of the great patriarchs in the Bible who lived for hundreds of years and providing one more similarity between these Christians and those of the West. That gave me cause to wonder if these Christians were not more like the Christians of old who walked the earth at the time of Moses and Noah and Methuselah which would account for their strangeness and difference. Exactly what caste the man was I could not understand and he was not one for much talking. In most of the cultures I have encountered anyone with medical knowledge is highly regarded, many with awe and fear besides, and is often also a religious leader or one who dealt with the dead and death. (2)

I discovered that these people have a most strange concept about death. Although Christians and believing in demons and believing what one does on this earth determines what happens to one's soul as we do, they seem to believe what one does in this life results in the soul moving to a higher, purer state, like a higher caste, which is the wish and goal of almost everyone I met, or if he had been bad, to a lower state, even returning in his next life as an animal or even a plant. This herbalist, on the other hand, unlike everyone else I met until now, appeared to renounce that way of life and sought to escape this cycle of reincarnation and to enter Heaven directly where his soul merged and became one with all other souls. It reminded me of a conversation I had many years ago with the son of a trader from China, and with a boy prostitute, about a prophet called Buddha, and castes such as these Christians have, and the belief in reincarnation, and of priests who strive for their soul to merge with other souls. It had been all very confusing to hear it then, and even more confusing now to hear Christians speak of these strange things. When I return home, I will have to read again what I have written about this matter and speak to Father Antonio or even the Holy Father.

One thing that did cause me much excitement was his comment that he traded information about medicine from others further to the east and the north, men with yellow skin and slanted eyes! I immediately thought back to the boy who worked in a house of prostitution and of the son of a trader who had such looks. I asked how far it was to where this trader lived and he said he did not know, but it was not that far, perhaps a week, perhaps a month, and that at one time there were many traders from the east, but now they did not have to travel because they traded with the Moors who traded in Pandarani and Calecut and went to them and so did the travelling instead. Considering our relationship with the Moors, I was uncertain how I could confirm that, but I knew I had to risk trying.

I asked my Nair guard and he confirmed there were traders such as I described from the east, but they were foreigners and of no interest nor importance and he knew nothing about them, nor anyone who traded with them. Leaving me with the spice merchant, he went his own way, using the special position he found himself in to pursue his own interests. He had no interest in my pursuits, nor I in his, but we both knew enough that we knew the less we knew of what each other was doing the better. One reason I had chosen to visit the spice merchant was to check out his spice supply and I was not disappointed. Sampling some cinnamon that I found to be of exceptional taste, I was told it came from Cillan, an island several days travel to the south and I purchased two kegs to take home, one for my use and one as a gift to King Manual. (3)

While there, I talked to the merchant's assistant, my other reason for stopping at his shop, and I was not disappointed there either. Like many assistants, he had time on his hands while the owner conducted business, and was in a position to overhear trusted conversation. He confirmed the relationship with the Moors in the area, whom he held in as little regard as the Moors held us, and trading with yellow-skinned merchants to the east, besides trade with those kingdoms to the north, Christian like themselves, who were considered rivals, and trade with those to the south who were neither Christian nor Arab, but of still another faith, like those with yellow skins and slanted eyes.

Obtaining information for the Captain-major, King Manuel, and Pope Alexander was my major purpose, but as we talked I could tell from his facial expressions and furtive glances when he thought my mind was occupied elsewhere, that the boy had something other than trade on his mind, and suspecting what that was and the boy not being unattractive, I decided to let him know that I was receptive to pursuing those interests. Meeting with my Nadir escort as we had prearranged, I told him I would like to stay longer, perhaps overnight, and having initiated a lucrative relationship himself with the daughter of one of the mercenary guards working for the local salt merchant, a very profitable and noble profession here as back home, he was overjoyed with our prolonged stay.

So it was that I found myself after our evening meal with the young assistant and several of his friends, fellow assistants in the community of merchants or sons of craftsmen, all of the same class, the third class, the Vaisyas. I had revealed that my father was also a merchant, as was my mother's brother, and so one of them so to speak, and we had much to talk about and share concerning trade in Pandarani and Portugal, which had many similarities and bound us together. As we talked, I noticed several of the boys were particularly familiar with each other. I was, of course, especially alert to such behaviour, but these two were making no effort to hide their mutual attraction.

"So, I am not familiar with your language, or your customs, but the two of you are… special friends?" I finally asked of the two boys, both fifteen and sitting beside each other, one nestled against the other.

"Yes," said the more vocal and confident of the two. He glanced at the assistant I had befriended, Shashi, and at the others, as if giving permission.

"They are… kliba," Shashi said. "We all are."

I quickly tried to recall what the ten-year-old Brahmin priest and the King's tambur servant had said. "Two-spirited. The third sex, neither male nor female."

"I have never heard of two-spirited, and do not know what that means," Shashi said, "But yes, neither male nor female. We are a third sex the physicians say, not male and no female, as you said."

"All of you?"

"Yes, though we do not all have a preferred partner, nor are we all of the same type."

That lead to a discussion of the three sexes, male, female, and kliba, and of those who are hijra and are either no sex and reject sexual relations altogether, eunuchs, or are both male and female, hermaphrodites, and of those who are kothi, men and boys who play the woman's role and often dress and act as women, and of the types of kliba. These Christians have levels and classes for everything imaginable. Never have I met a people who label and classify things in such detail as these do. As I thought about that, it only made sense even though it was confusing, and I had to wonder if they were not the wiser, for everywhere I have been men have been divided into master and servant, or noble, freeman, serf and slave, for such is the way of life and how things should be, each in his place according to his abilities and knowing his place, even those who are male and act as males do and those who are female and act as females do. Is not even the heavenly host divided into nine orders of angels and archangels, of which the seraphim and cherubim are the highest and each knows his place? We talked about what made a male a male, a female a female, and why some men love women and other men love men and why some men love boys. There is probably a name for the latter among these Christians, but if there is I do not recall it. (4)

There were five of us, Shashi, the fourteen-year-old assistant to the spice merchant, Ishwar and Chandra, the fifteen-year-old lovers, one the son of a textile merchant and the other the son of a weaver, Yadava, the thirteen-year-old assistant to a potter, and myself. They were friends primarily because they were close in age, of the same caste, and had common beliefs and home lives, both parents Christian, all having older and younger brothers and sisters, and being the sons of merchants and craftsmen of similar wealth. They stuck together as a group of four because they were different from other boys, not so rough and rowdy, more sensitive and imaginative, and because they were kliba. To my surprise they were not bullied, despised nor ridiculed by the other boys for they professed there is no shame or lack of karma being kliba, who can be found in all classes, nor did they hide what they were from anyone, other youths or adults. They simply had little in common with the other boys, and in particular, they had no interest in girls.

.

As to be expected from the nature of our conversation, talk caused the humours that arouse to flow and with the increase in arousal talk turned to action. The two fifteen-year-old lovers, Ishwar and Chandra, had been boyhood friends and like many boys had investigated the mysterious world of sex together and had experimented with each other, but unlike their companions and playmates who moved on to interest in the opposite sex, they found they enjoyed each other's company and seeking sexual gratification with each other and had no desire to find gratification with girls, nor with other boys. Like many other cultures I have encountered, but sadly not including my own, such sexual exploration and gratification between close friends was not seen as unusual and nor was it forbidden. Their love for each other was openly expressed and accepted as any other loving and caring relationship between two people, which was beautiful to observe.

Not surprisingly, they had paired up and as we talked they innocently and unconsciously began to fondle and arouse each other until the result was too evident for any of us not to notice. Being the youngest and Shashi and I having established a friendship before I had met Yadava, he hung back and left the initiative to Shashi if anything at all was going to happen among the three of us. Shashi had expressed a preference for boys over girls but not to being any particular type of kliba, and to me, he was just a typical fourteen-year-old boy, curious, inexperienced, and more comfortable with those of his own gender due to familiarity and common interests, and he could likely end up being married and devoted to his wife, or one of those married men for whom women were a duty and boys a pleasure, or at least an occasional pastime. Having never had the opportunity to engage in any type of intimacy with anyone other than boys of his country and close to his age, I suspected, from his glances and actions, that he was interested in trying something with me for the simple reason that I was different, available and obviously willing.

I asked if he was prurient, which I had to explain through gestures, but fortunately there are many gestures that implied what I was asking so it was not that difficult. He understood quickly and admitted that he was, and he asked, shyly but hopefully, if I was, and he smiled happily when I said I was. When I asked, Yadava admitted to feeling aroused, but he hesitantly and honestly professed to feeling no particular attraction to me, particularly considering my age him only being thirteen, but being curious also. Of the four boys, he was, in my eyes, the most likely in the future to lead a life in a recessive role on a long-term basis with either another male preferring congress with other males, or in a permanent position with a married man who liked boys on the side. He did not say so, but I could tell that though he was curious, he was willing to defer to Shashi as he was the older and had the first claim. Neither boy knew how to go forward with the next step.

Stating that I had experience with fellow Christians from the west, and with Moors, Arabs, and blacks through my travels, the latter being few in this kingdom and being mainly slaves as was their proper station, but that I had limited experience with local Christians, I hinted that I would be willing to let both of them satisfy their curiosity, and their need, and that I was willing to answer whatever questions they had and do whatever the two wanted me to do as an older and responsible teacher should. I smiled as I thought of a conversation years ago in the de'Medici garden in Florence where learned men much older and wiser than myself had discussed that very topic, and had stated that they gave full support to the opinion of early Greek philosophers that the education of young boys in all things including matters of sex was the responsible duty of older male citizens. We were far from the forum of Athens and nineteen hundred years had passed since the glory of that ancient city, but the nature of men, boys and the way of the world had not much changed. Boys were still curious and in need of instruction, and an older male was still the best qualified. The two boys smiled with my offer for it meant Shashi did not have to be denied because of the presence of Yadava, which of course he did not wish to do, and the younger boy did not have to step aside because of the older, which he also did not wish to do.

We began by stripping and the boys were much interested in my tattoos and in my lack of a hood, and cringed at my telling how I had received the first and of the removal of the latter. Like the other Christians in this land that I have had occasion to speak to about this covenant, they had never heard of such a thing. That amazed me and was one of many things I would have to discuss with the Holy Father or perhaps better with Cardinal de'Medici who was closer to my age and would be easier to talk to when I returned to the Vatican. How could so basic a tenant be known by even the simplest peasant and strictly followed by one group of Christians, but totally unknown by even the wisest and most learned of the other group? Yes, I found there were differences between the Christians of Europe and the Orthodox Christians of Yerevan to the north or the Coptic Christians of Abyssinia to the south, but these differences were due to the beliefs of different church founders and were of minor differences in practice, not basic principles and doctrines of faith such as the covenant of circumcision. (5)

Having thoroughly examined my tattoos and lack of a hood, the two boys gently stroked my member and I stroked theirs, transforming our limp, soft members to stiff, throbbing staffs, finding little difference in how one felt compared to the others, both when soft and when erect. Wrapping my fists about the erect members of both boys, I found the same three slender rods running the length of their shaft as were in mine, and their stones were just as sensitive to touch. As for smell, I admit I am aroused by the fragrance of another man's genitals and can identify with those for whom this is a major delight, these Saugandhika. I also confess that the fragrance of a young boy's genitals are an even greater delight.

These Christians, as I have mentioned before, flavour much of their food, and especially their stews, with a peppery sauce, the fragrance of which clings to their clothes and bodies and gives their sweat a different odour, including that of their testicles. And in that odour and taste are closely related to each other, so I found even the taste of their testicles and members have a hint of this spice called curry, and Shashi and Yadava claimed my own had a unique flavour unlike the members and stones of their countrymen. Kneeling there and having the two boys sitting before me and eagerly licking my shaft and swirling their tongues about my bulb drew out my clear nectar which both boys eagerly lapped up, causing more to ooze out of my stiff member. They continued doing so, coaxing out my nectar drop by drop and smiling with delight at its flavour and texture.

That of course caused my cock to twitch with arousal and I opened and closed the slit of my knob in desperation, aching to shoot off a load. That of course increased my arousal and my cock went numb in preparation for the release of my seed. I inhaled and exhaled deeply in anticipation, and finally my seed raced up the core of my cock and spurted out the tip, a miniature fountain at which the two boys eagerly drank, slaking their thirst and causing their own stiff cocks to wag with arousal. They eagerly bent over my fountain and drank, and they hungrily lapped up my seed as it flowed over my bulb and down my shaft in thick, white rivulets. Once I stopped spurting they took turns sucking on my throbbing member and draining me of the rest of my seed.

I turned to Shashi and he sat and watched Yadava and myself lick his swollen member, a palm-width in length and the thickness of my thumb. His young cock jerked with arousal and it did not take long to coax out his sweet nectar which Yadava and I took turns lapping up. It was not long after producing that nectar that we drank from his own perverse fountain as his seed shot into the air and fell back to ooze over his knob and down his shaft. Anyone drinking this fourteen-year-old boy's sweet-tasting slime would readily become an Asekya. Like all boys his age, his balls were ripe and he came copiously.

Shashi and I then turned to Yadava and licked his slender member, and after having licked my cock and Shashi's, it was no surprise that we had barely begun when he began to produce that special, clear nectar, enticing us and encouraging us to continue licking. Although only thirteen and the youngest of the three of us, he too shot his thin, delicious seed into the air and we drank from his fountain, slightly smaller than Shashi's, and then sucked on his throbbing, tingling cocklet until he was dry.

By then Shashi was eager to be fucked, and I was just as eager to fuck him. So he turned and knelt there with his back to me, and I shuffled over behind him and caressed his smooth buttocks and ran my finger up the crack of his ass. Yadava produced a jar of lubricant from somewhere and handed it to me and I greased my stiff cock and Shashi's eager hole, and as I grasped him by the hips and shuffled forward, Yadava grasped my stiff cock by the base and guided my member to Shashi's hole. This was not the boy's first experience and he relaxed and opened his hole, and between our experience and the lubricant I entered him with a minimum of effort.

At fourteen the act was still novel for him, and he admitted his previous partners had been boys near his age exploring the mystery of sex. Eight years his senior and almost twice the length and thickness of his previous partners, being penetrated by a twenty-two-year-old man was a much different experience, and, he said, between gasps, a most pleasant one. It was certainly pleasant for me. He was no virgin, but he was tight, and my cock reached depths of his young body never before explored.

I fucked him slowly and gently to allow us time to focus on the throbbing pleasure, the pleasure of having a thick, stiff, throbbing cock of a man stuffed up his ass, and the pleasure of having a young boy's tight, throbbing anus grasping your cock and his hot, moist hole enveloping your aching member. As I felt myself approaching my peak, I reached up and grasped his slender waist, and as my seed raced up the core of my cock and spurted up his rectum, he quivered and gasped with the delight of having his rectum flooded with seed and he began to spurt himself, his young seed shooting through the air and landing in puddles on the ground, much to his delight and that of Yadava as he watched.

Gasping and panting for breath, Shashi collapsed on the ground, cheeks flushed with a sexual blush, his lips parted as his thin chest rose and fell. Yadava asked if it had been as pleasurable as it had looked, and Shashi could only nod and grin, and I could see the envy and the desire in the younger boy's eyes. I observed that if he waited a bit, he could find out himself, and he grinned with delight. The fifteen-year-old lovers, Ishwar and Chandra, had been sitting and watching and eating the strange fruit we had been served in our audience with the king, the yellow fig and fruit with the bumpy rind. They passed some over to me and Yadava fetched me a sweet fruit juice. So we sat and relaxed, but not for long. The four boys were young and prurient and eager for more, and their lust and enjoyment was contagious.

This time Shashi assisted, lubricating my once again stiff member and guiding it to Yadava's hole. The thirteen-year-old was less experienced and tighter but just as eager, and though I knew it had to be causing some pain, I slowly and carefully penetrated him, knowing that the pleasure to follow would be worth the momentary pain. He was much tighter than Shashi even though only a year separated the two boys, but the resulting pleasure was just as great, both for him and for myself.

Nine years his senior, I delighted in being the oldest to penetrate him and bring him this pleasure, and I was determined to make this the most memorable and pleasurable fuck he had ever had. That was not difficult. Considering the number of times I had already shot my seed that night, it took a long time, much to Yadava's delight and mine, and to the delight of our audience. I grasped the slight, young boy's hips and pumped my stiff member in and out of his tight hole as the other three boys sat and watched. He gasped and groaned openly and unabashedly with pure pleasure, delighting in having his rectum stuffed with a man's thick, stiff bone.

I was gasping and snorting with pleasure also, the openness and honesty of these four boys refreshing and contagious. My stiff cock went numb and the rim of my knob burned and I closed my eyes and threw back my head and concentrated on that delightful pleasure. The boy quivered and his stiff little cocklet began spurting with the pleasure of being fucked. As I felt the twang deep in my groin, I threw my head back and thrust my hips forward, driving my thick cock up the tight ass of this thirteen-year-old boy, and as I began to squirt my seed up his ass and flood his rectum, the three boys watching us glanced at each other and grinned knowingly as they shared our orgasms.

Chapter 12
Return to Calecut 

An agreement is reached for sailors to leave the ship by turns and for the residents to approach the ship to barter. Nico is summoned back to the ship to report and taking pity on the poor coming to barter gives food to the son of a street sweeper (Adivasi caste, Untouchables) who insists on repaying his kindness with sex. Hearing the Chaplain of the Fleet has died on shore and hearing nothing from the men left with their goods, Nico is sent to investigate. Checking at the temple he receives further instruction in their faith including reincarnation and sex shifting from an acolyte Brahman (Nambudiri), further confusing him. Helping the young, fat son of a perfumer, a Moplah (Arab and Hindu mixed marriage, one of the Uncaste), deal with bullies, the virgin boy repays his kindness. 

Codes: M/b, M/t 

Characters: Sweeper's son 7, acolyte Priest 15, son of perfumer Ahammad 11

Several days following my overnight stay with the community of merchants and the kliba, I was summoned by the Captain-major for a report and though I had not much it was more than he was able to get from others and he was pleased with what I had found. There were others aboard the ship who were anxious to go to the mainland and try their hand at bartering with the local population, or simply for a break from the day to day duties aboard the ship, and, I am sure, for other more intimate reasons, and given their long-imposed celibacy, I understood, and so did the Captain. Although the number of men leaving was still strictly controlled, the number was relaxed as long as the number leaving was not greater than the number returning for the obvious reason of needing to ensure our security.

And so I remained on board while my shipmates took their turns in Pandarani. Finding there was little interest in our merchandise, the captain asked of the king that our merchandise be taken to Calecut where he thought it might be better received. At last, on June 24, the Day of John the Baptist, the king sent men to carry our merchandise to Calecut, allowing our factor and clerk and several of our men in Pandarani to accompany our goods and set up trade at Calecut. The king also said those who had shown us disrespect were bad Christians and would be punished and he sent his own men with orders to kill any Moors who approached us.

With this evidence of good will by the king and the Christians of the land, the king and the Captain-major reached an agreement whereby one man from each of our three ships was allowed to travel to Calecut to trade, and upon their return another three were allowed to disembark. As the days passed, that number too was relaxed, again as long as those leaving the ship always equalled or were less than those returning. Trade was disheartening. A good shirt costing three hundred reis in Portugal sold for two fanão here. Most of the men went for other reasons, and for that everyone looked the other way for we were all men. (1)

At the same time the local population of Christians was allowed to approach our ships to barter, and once begun, we were swamped by masses of good Christian people come to trade fish and fruit for whatever we had, but especially for bread, biscuits and other foodstuffs, except for meat and especially beef, which they seemed to have a taboo about eating. Familiar with the restrictions the Jews have regarding pork and the admonishment to good Christians to refrain from eating meat and to instead eat fish on Fridays in remembrance of the death of Christ, that taboo did not come as a big surprise to any of us. Many of these Christians eat no flesh whatsoever and eat only grains, vegetables and fruit and seem not to suffer for it. What was a surprise was that there was such a vast population in this land, and especially of the very poor, and that there was such a shortage of food that we were approached at the break of day and there was a constant flow of people to and fro from the ships continually until we had to chase them away at nightfall or they would have continued far into the night.

These are a poor people and needy and the Captain saw it in our favour to treat these poor Christian souls kindly and so strike up a good and trusting relationship, and so he ordered all who came to be fed, and once word spread, we were swarmed by twice as many people. These poor creatures were so desperate that they approached even the men who had brought a dry biscuit to eat while mending sails or doing whatever other work was required and snatched the biscuits from their hands. Others brought their young children with them, knowing that an elderly man might be ignored or treated niggardly, but seeing these starving children with their large, sad eyes, no Christian could deny them anything they had. They also knew that a good-looking young boy had other wiles by which he could receive food or other items from certain men which he could then share with his family, and there were fathers so desperate and so hungry that they knew no shame and they used their sons in such a dastardly manner.

There were of course those crew members who took advantage of these covert offers, particularly in that the women of this land tend to be squat and ugly, and paint themselves with facial markings to make them even more so. These men did so discretely of course, such relationships being deeply detested and such men being viewed with contempt and scorn, but being so long away from women, and local women, even the unbecoming, being closely watched and not given freely to visitors as had been the case in my travels with Cristóvão Colombo, the ship's officers looked the other way regarding those who succumbed to this temptation unless the men were blatant, though they were still held in contempt and their shame was even greater than that of the fathers who used their children so. And of course the zeal with which the two priests who had sailed with us, Father Confessor Pedro de Covilhã and Father João Figueiro, carried out their missionary work among these strange Christians and among the crews of the three ships and opposed such evil practice did them both great credit which I would be sure to mention to the Holy Father.

One of those fathers who brought their children was a young man not much older than myself, a man so thin you could see his ribs clearly, and his arms and legs were not much more than skin and bones. His son was perhaps seven years of age, a timid, fearful boy with large expressive eyes filled with apprehension and with hope, a boy with a face that filled any good Christian's heart with sympathy. Although poor and dressed in nothing more than a loincloth, he and his hair were clean. I was repairing the lower rigging and saw the father urge the boy to approach several men sitting apart from others mending sails or repairing belaying pins, men whose absence would not be noticed if seduced, which was obviously the intention of the father from his gestures. The boy had a beautiful, innocent face and a tender body that would tempt a saint, but most of the crew were saintly men who would more likely be angered and disgusted by such an offer than tempted, and as I watched, the boy was roughly rebuffed, and hurt and intimidated, he quickly retreated.

There were others, I know, who would not be so outraged, men who would hungrily take the boy up on his offer, not out of physical desperation or for sexual pleasure, but because that was the type of men they were, men who took advantage of others' misfortune and found doing so arousing, men whose own satisfaction came first and before even those of a starving child and his family, cruel men, many of them criminals working off their prison punishment by having been hired on this long, hazardous exploration, and others hardened soldiers immune from the feelings and desperation of others and for whom causing pain brought them equal pleasure. As the father looked around for others his son could approach, I dropped from the rigging, unable to take any more.

Having had many opportunities to satisfy my carnal desires, it was not for that reason that I had made my decision. I knew the father would eventually find a crewman who would not reject his son for his own selfish satisfaction, men as I have just described, and wishing to spare the child the humiliation of further rejections and eventually the demoralizing and likely even painful experience of being used, I intervened. So I called the boy over and offered him a biscuit I had brought for my lunch and the boy smiled gratefully and began to remove his loincloth. I quickly motioned for him to stop and shaking my head, I indicated that was not necessary. To my surprise, the boy retorted with wrath and pride that he was not a beggar and that he earned what he received, and when he angrily asked if he was not "pretty" enough, I assured him that he was, which just made the situation worse.

Not wishing to draw attention to us, I motioned for the boy to join me where we had raised and secured the long boat in fear it might be stolen or capsized by the throngs swarming the ship like ants on a stomped anthill. There we would be reasonably hidden from view and the passage was narrow and so avoided. Even on a ship there are places where two individuals can be intimate if they do not dally and are willing to take the risk. The boy asked along with gestures if I would rather he satisfy me orally to which I nodded, it being something more easily hidden and more easily covered up if interrupted. The boy quickly reached for my breeches which I, like most of the crew, preferred and wore while aboard, and began to undo the ties, revealing his experience in such matters though such is not the typical dress of these Christians. So, I did, much to my shame, take advantage of these two poor souls and satisfied my own perverse needs, but I swear as God is my witness that was not my motivation. The boy's father, fully aware of what was happening, turned his back to us, not out of shame, poor soul, but to stand guard and distract anyone who came our way.

Untying the front of my breeches and under breeches, the boy reached inside and extracted my member, and kneeling before me behind the long boat, he wrapped his slender, brown fingers about my shaft and bent over and took my knob in his mouth. Despite the risk and the danger, I quickly began to stiffen. The boy was cute and pure and innocent, despite the vulgar act he was performing, and standing there and looking down at that cherubic face as he stared straight ahead at my crotch and concentrated, sucking deeply on my cock and easing his lips up and down my shaft, I was quickly aroused. The consequence of being caught, especially with a boy so young, quickened my arousal and I purposefully concentrated on the pleasure and the obscenity of what we were doing to hasten my orgasm, the opposite of my normal practice.

Of course we were soon both rewarded and I cautioned the boy and began to draw away but he reached up and stopped me and seconds later I was spurting and he was drinking my seed, almost as if he were deriving nourishment from my emission such was his hunger. Knowing that hunger came from the loins and not the pit of his stomach, lessened my feelings of guilt. What the boy had just done had, at least in part, been out of his own free will. Reaching in my pocket, I found a couple coins worth perhaps a ha'penny and gave them to him, and these people are so poor, you would think I had given him a couple crowns for what he had done.

I knew it was a mistake and that I was only encouraging the boy to engage in this perversion, but I could not help feeling sorry for the boy and I could not help but hope that with such a reward he would not have to return, or at least not so often. Of course I kept an eye out for him each day, to intercept him of course, not because I wished a repeat performance with him, though it had been pleasant in its own way and I would not mind having him blow me or offer me his backside. When he did not return, I did not know whether to be happy for him and glad I had paid him so highly, or to feel sorry for myself having denied myself the pleasure I might have had.

When he did come, several days later, I was again both saddened to see him return and delighted that he had. He came directly to me the moment he spotted me, and for that I was glad, not just for the anticipated pleasure, but because it meant I would be delaying any mistreatment he might suffer for that much longer. Motioning for him to wait for me, I quickly slipped down to the galley and while the crew was busy keeping the horde at bay, I wrapped half a roasted jungle fowl in oil cloth and slipped it and a freshly baked loaf inside my shirt. I showed it to him and indicated it was his and he broke into a huge smile and immediately asked if I wanted him to accompany me to where we'd met before. With great difficulty I indicated it was his and all I wanted to do was talk. From the look on his face that was a great surprise and a great mystery, and as he followed me, I could tell he was certain he had misunderstood.

Sitting on the forecastle deck in plain view so we could be seen by the crew and my intentions perceived as being pure, I motioned for him to sit and we talked. His father I was told was a street-sweeper and when I asked, he told me it was of a caste even lower than the lowest, one so low it had no name, a group of individuals of the fifth Varna he said, whatever that meant, a group so low it was forbidden for them to approach other Christians, so low they were not even to be touched by others! He said he was a member of the Adivasi, who had been pushed out of their land and so had come here to live. (2)

He of course knew nothing of the king or the Nair, nor of the Moor merchants, and little of his faith, not surprising at his young age, but I asked, if for no other reason than to justify my contact with him. I thanked him and bade him be on his way, but he insisted on earning my gift and my assurances that he had done so by talking to me he would not accept. He offered to blow me again as he had before, or, he indicated, his backside, which was most tempting and my member stirred with the thought of penetrating his compact, tight little butt, but either offer was risky and given his frailness I was hesitant to do the latter knowing how overcome with passion I would be. He would not take no for an answer and I was beginning to worry how I was going to part company with him, when a thought came to me, whether a product of my vile, perverted mind, the result of my vast experience, or purely by circumstance or by some other cause I do not know, but it was a solution, and one which would be just as enjoyable as what he had proposed we do for both of us.

Taking him back to where the longboat was secured, which was unoccupied as I had hoped, I had him sit on the edge of the longboat with his back to the gangway and facing the ocean and I crouched down in front of him and loosened his loincloth to reveal his smooth, naked pubes, limp, little brown sausage, and tiny eggs barely larger than mature grapes. Much to the boy's surprise, I leaned forward and licked his privates and then took his eggs in my mouth and sucked. He was only seven but he responded as any boy would, and as his member slowly began to swell I took it in my mouth and felt it stiffen as I gently sucked on it. Needless to say, so did my own member and it strained inside my breeches. The boy thought this a strange way to pay for the bread and fowl I had given him, but he saw the joy I was experiencing and the bulge that had developed in my breeches, and with a boyish shrug that all boys his age give when they do not understand the mad actions of an adult, he allowed this strange sailor from the tall ships to suck his little dink.

Although he had done to others what I was doing to him many times to bring his family food, trinkets, or small coins, this was the first time anyone had done the same to him, and he discovered that day just why it was that men were eager for him to do what he had been doing to them. He stared down at his groin with obvious interest and wonder and I suspect this was the first time the boy had even ever had an erection, and was certainly the first time he had ever experienced the secret pleasure that sucking his little brown sausage could bring. Knowing that caused my own now stiff member to throb with pleasure and I sucked on his little sausage hungrily, knowing the pleasure he must be feeling as his swollen member throbbed between my lips and the rim of his encased little plum burned.

He was breathing heavily and squirming with arousal, and then with a sharp intake of breath, he tensed and quivered and began bouncing on the gunwale of the boat uncontrollably and so violently it was a surprise he did not bounce off. It was the boy's first orgasm, and unbeknownst to him, being part of that first experience was the greatest pleasure he could have possibly brought me. Sharing in the ecstasy and mystery, in the beauty, of his very first orgasm, I barely had time to whip my stiff cock out of my breeches before I began to spurt, spraying the side of the boat with rivulets of my cream, spurting like a bombard and so violently I was surprised I did not blast a hole through the side of the boat.

The next day I wanted to go ashore but so did many others so I was unable to do so, and after what I had done, it was no great disappointment. I kept watch for the sweeper's son that day and the days following, but either we missed connecting with each other, or, more likely, with such a press of Christians wanting to board our ship, and he and his father being of such a low status, they were likely being blocked from returning just as I had been prevented from leaving. At least I hoped that was the reason, and not because of what I had done, for I would be most remorse if he felt guilt or shame over what we had done, or his father had found out and ceased coming because of it, though when the boy had left he had seemed most grateful and overjoyed by the experience, and what I had done was far better than what the father was making his son do. I hoped that instead in the days following his introduction to the joys of having his cocklet sucked he was finding other opportunities to experience the pleasure I had introduced to him, especially other boys his age, or with other men who took the same delight in sharing this new and mysterious pleasure with him as I had.

Finally, almost a week later, having heard nothing from Diogo Dias, we received word that the Chaplain of the Fleet and Father Confessor, Pedro de Covilhã, had died while preaching among the poor of the city in Calecut. That came as a great surprise and the circumstances of his death were vague. The Captain summoned me and bade me go to Calecut to find out what had happened to the Chaplain, and what was happening with Diogo Dias and the rest of our men. We had received the word at dusk and I made ready to depart immediately. The Captain-major was much impressed by my eagerness to leave and praised my devotion to King and God, and though I did want to find out what had happened to the Father Confessor, that was not the main reason for my eagerness to return to the mainland and the Captain's praise caused me much discomfort and guilt. (3)

Prevented from leaving until dawn the next day I disembarked the earliest I could and shortly before dusk of that day I arrived once again at the gates of the great city and the great church. I knew that I should continue on through the gates of the city and locate Diogo Dias, but I could not stop from pausing and entering the church, yes, to see if the priests there had any information about Father de Covilhã, and to seek further enlightenment about these Christians and their practice of our faith, for my own sake and for the Holy Father, but, admittedly, mainly to seek out the young boy priest I had discussed our common faith with, and had congress with earlier, and not primarily for further edification. There were several priests gathered before the altar, including the one whom I had talked to earlier and who had referred me to the young boy. He came over the moment he saw me and placing his hands together and nodding, he asked if I had come for more enlightenment.

I told him I had come to inquire about the death of one of our own, a priest from our ships, and he admitted the Father Confessor had paid them several visits, but he professed none there had heard the news of his death. That surprised me, but these priests did not strike me as being the type of people who would lie about such a thing. I quickly added that I had also come for further enlightenment as he had guessed and I praised the boy to whom I had spoken earlier and asked if he might be available to further assist me. He replied, much to my disappointment, that he was not. However, he added that he would find someone else who could help me find my path. Taking me further into the church, he approached another boy, whom I discovered was fifteen, another deacon dressed like the rest of them with a sash over his left shoulder and under his right arm, but who was, to my disappointment, apparently of low class as he was sweeping the floor. They yabbered quickly in their own strange language, and with a bow, the man left us. The boy smiled over at me.

"So, you wish to learn more about our belief, and our way," he said, speaking slowly as if speaking to one who is slow of mind, or as if he himself was.

"Yes," I replied, "but I was hoping to speak to a… deacon, a Samantan perhaps, not… a sweeper… an Adivasi."

He looked at me imperiously and replied coldly, "I am a Brahmin, Nambudiri, not an Adivasi." The latter word he spat out as if it left a foul taste in his mouth.

"I am sorry," I responded, "I… I just thought… " I indicated the broom in his hand. I had no idea what a Nambudiri was. When I thought about it, I do not know who had paid obeisance to whom, the boy to the priest, or the priest to this boy.

"An Adivasi inside a holy place? Would you find a chamber pot in the sanctuary to Maria?"

"Ah, no," I replied, surprised by the repugnance in his voice and by his question. "I am sorry. I do not know your ways, and I speak your language poorly. I meant no insult. I beg of you, I am very desirous to learn how you worship Christ and the virgin Mary in these lands so I can tell the Holy Father upon my return to my land."

"You speak to the Holy Father?"

"Ah, yes. Pope Alexander. He has sent me specifically on this expedition to report back to him."

"I do not know that incarnation," he observed, looking impressed but confused.

I returned the look, just as confused.

"You wish to know about the worship of Krishna, and of Maria?"

"Yes. I come from a land very far away, ten months and three weeks by sail, where we also worship Christ, and the… Trimurti," I responded, struggling to recall what I had been told. "But I do not speak your language very well."

When I mentioned the distance I had travelled, the expression on his face was definitely the look of one who was impressed. "I speak poorly a little of the language of the traders from the north," he said in their language.

"I speak a little also. My native tongue is Portuguese."

He repeated the word, but shook his head. And so began my lesson in their language, and in this Christian faith of the East. The boy was another level of Brahmin, the top of the top caste as I understood it, higher than a king, which came as a great surprise there would be something higher than their emperor, and that he would be a member given his age, but he spoke with an authority and aloofness that reflected one of a very high position, one who was superior to others and knew he was superior, He also spoke with the smugness and confidence of any teenage boy regardless of country or position, for another commonality I found in my travels is that boys of that age thought he knew all that there was to know about everything.

We talked about the Trinity, about souls, and of gods and angels taking mortal forms, all which our two faiths had in common, but the more we talked the more confused I became. He spoke of having lived many virtuous past lives resulting in his present good fortune, and with confidence that he was heading for an even better life in his next life. We talked of the resurrection of Christ and his many incarnations and I did not know if his version of the Son of God was terribly corrupted and twisted, or if it was incomprehensibly superior, nor did I know which was the true version, the one I had been told by Father Francisco and had known all my life, or the one he was telling me now.

He was eager to share, and to convert, as had been the Father Confessor, and he spoke with the same assuredness and conviction so I did not doubt his word nor his knowledge, deferring to him on matters of faith as I did with Father Francisco and others of the Church, for this was something I knew little of. I dared to ask him directly where the church and his religious leaders stood regarding men who preferred other men to women, and what the Holy Book said about such relationships, and he looked at me blankly, saying the scriptures had nothing to say about such relationships among mortals for it was of no importance, and that he did not understand my question for among the heavenly host many changed their gender at their pleasure. That I did not understand for Father Francisco and others stated most emphatically that for a man to have congress with another man was an abomination before the eyes of the Lord, and as far as I knew a man was always a man and a woman always a woman, whether they be angels or mortals.

Never before had I heard of a man changing into a woman or a woman into a man. Such an idea was inconceivable to me, and again I became confused with our inaccurate language and did not know if he was referring to God or many gods, to angels or to devils, or to the saints, or to mortals. Relationships between males, for love or purely for physical pleasure, appeared to be common in this Christian religion and in their folktales, causing me again to wonder if these were indeed Christians, and if they were, if their faith had become perverted by Satan, or if theirs was the truth faith and if it was ours that had been twisted by the Horned One. How else could two congregations of Christians have such different concepts unless it was by Satan's interference, or by design of the Lord Himself, angered by the presumption of man to understand His ways and so casting confusion among them as he had with the interruption of the building of the Tower of Babel by confusing the tongues of men?

Christ he agreed was male, but in his version, Christ assumed a female form and took the name Mohini and married some hero by the name of Anavan. Another being, mortal or immortal I am not sure, by the name of Shikhandi, was a female raised by her father as a male and married a princess, who complained when she found her husband was really a female, so she, Shikhandi, ran into the forest where she exchanged genders with the male Yaksha and lived the rest of her life as a male warrior. What became of Yaksha and how he felt about spending the rest of his life as a woman I do not know. Aditi, whom I had heard of from Rahul, royal tambur server to the King and his brother, was, I discovered, not the father of the brothers Mitra and Varuna, but the mother, and was in fact God, called Brahma in this land, in female form, and the mother of all gods.

She was also mother of the twelve spirits represented by the grouping of the stars in the sky, which corresponded to what we knew from legends as the Zodiac, first identified by the early Greeks, and which to my amazement I had discovered were also known by the mighty Tenochca in the world across the ocean sea, but of course again by different names and of different stories. Then and now once again, this knowledge caused me to wonder if these pinpoints of light were just stars in the heavens, or something more, and if the latter, what their true name, and true nature, was.

It had grown late and he bade me stay for the evening meal, which consisted of various vegetables and fruit, some which I knew and others I did not, and then for the night. These priests live together, much as our monks do back home in a monastery, each with his own little room, and I shared his room, which contained only a reed mat to sleep upon, a wooden chest holding a few meagre belongings including a begging bowl, and an oil lamp. Alone, he asked if my questions had been because I wanted to learn the beliefs and ways of the people in this land, or because I had feelings for other men, and when I said it was both, he said nothing more, but he leaned over and kissed me and began to caress me and open my robes.

He was skilled at what he was doing, and evidently experienced for you did not learn from reading a book or from being told how to do what he did. As I lay there on my back, my robes beside me, he removed his and lay on top of me, his naked flesh pressed against my naked flesh as he kissed me, my forehead, my ears, my cheeks, my lips. His fingers caressed my chest and he circled my nipples with his fingertips and tweaked them between his thumb and first finger. He ran his fingertips down over my chest and stomach and twirled my coarse, curly hairs, and he cupped my stones and rolled them. He gently stroked my swelling member with one hand and the inside of my thighs with the other. As I slowly began to swell, so did he.

Slipping several pillows under my hips to raise them, he first caressed my buttocks and ran a finger up along my crack, and then massaged my anus with the tip of his finger. He spit on his finger and smeared his spittle around my opening, and he spit on his fingers again and smeared his spittle over his skin-encased bulb and his shaft. He slowly inserted his middle finger up my backside and he slowly finger fucked me, and he collected his spittle in his mouth and pursing his lips he bent over and I felt his drool ooze down my crack to my plugged anus. And then he spread my legs further and shuffling closer, he bent over me and balanced himself on his elbows on either side of me. He pushed forward and I felt his spit-slick knob press against my hole and I pushed out as he pushed forward and he wedged his knob in my hole. I pushed harder, as did he, and ever so slowly his knob stretched open my hole and finally popped inside. Inhaling deeply, he slowly continued to push forward and I felt his swollen cock enter me.

Inhaling and exhaling deeply with the effort, the two of us paused and gasped for breath and then he began to fuck, easing his stiff cock back out my hole and shoving it back up my rectum. He was slow and gentle, but persistent and demanding also. And so I was fucked by this fifteen-year-old priest, and it brought him as much pleasure as it brought me. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the pleasure of having a stiff, swollen cock and having it enclosed and tightly gripped by the hot, moist flesh of another male. I knew how he was feeling physically for my own cock had felt the same in the same conditions many times in the past. As the recipient I was feeling as much pleasure, my anus burning as if the skin had been burned away and my rectum feeling full and plugged as his pulsating cock plunged up it as far as it could and my swollen eggs were nestled in his coarse, thick bush.

And so I played the role of the woman and this fifteen-year-old boy played the role of the man, he on top of me, his cock inside my body, and I wrapped my arms about his naked body tightly as our chests rose and fell, as I felt the desire growing deep in the pit of my groin. My cock was swollen and pressed between our naked bodies as he pressed forward, burning and throbbing with the same pleasure as the smaller, younger cock buried deep up my rectum. Gradually I felt that desire growing and I opened and closed the slit of my cock in desperation for the release of my seed.

He was fucking faster now, and more irregularly, and then he grasped my shoulders and shuddered as he shoved forward, and I felt a gush of warmth deep up inside me as he released his seed. I trembled and delighted in his release, and then I too felt my seed gush up the core of my swollen cock and spurt out the burning tip, spattering our naked bodies with streamers of thick, white seed. When we were done, he smiled and kissed me before he withdrew, and we wrapped our arms about each other, our naked bodies flushed and sticky with my seed. He fell asleep that way, and soon so did I. When I awoke he was gone and there was a plate of fresh fruit and a cup of milk beside me.

I headed into the city and found Diogo Dias but he knew nothing more than I did about the Father Confessor other than the man had been making a nuisance of himself in the city, as priests do, calling the citizens to him in the market place, plazas, and churchyards throughout the city to hear the word of Christ, or Kristna as they pronounced his name, and calling upon them to renounce the devil and repent for their sins, admonishing them for their evil thoughts and deeds, for being mortal, they surely had them.

The priests, I was told as I asked about, were not pleased to have this foreign Christian preaching at the doors of their temples, just as the priests of Judea were not pleased with Jesus preaching before their temples. Nor were the Christians of this place pleased for the good father did not discriminate one from the other and ignored their strict observances of caste, and nor did he recognize those of purer karma over the others, and he interfered and interrupted their daily commerce and troubled their minds.

The Arab and Moor heathens were just as displeased and they despised him just as he despised them, he calling them heathens and they calling him an infidel and unbeliever, each placing the sins of the world at each other's feet. He disliking all and all disliking him, who is to say was the one to cast that fatal thrust of spear? Search as I did, I could not even find the place where he supposedly had fallen, nor any proof that he actually had, other than he could not be found anywhere. Even those from the ship were of no help for they were just as uncomfortable in his presence and with his holiness as these Christians and heathens were. Having gotten nowhere with the Christians, I took my Arab name, Naqi Ah ibn-Mustafa, and I talked with the traders and merchants in their tongue, with the same responses.

I wandered from one end of the city to the other, following one lead and then another. The city was laid out like all cities, radiating out from the marketplace along established trade routes bringing people in and out of the city, the rich, the poor, the common folk, and the criminal each congregated with their own kind in different parts of the city. I eventually followed my trail to the north-eastern corner of the city where I encountered a group of boys, late preadolescent and early adolescent, amusing themselves in some sort of boisterous tag game to the annoyance of those trying to go about their business. One, younger than most and heavier and slower, was being pushed around by the others. Taking him aside, I showed him a few moves that took advantage of his size and weight to block the other boys and that he could use when they tried to push him aside, much to his gratitude.

When I told him my purpose, the boy, who introduced himself as Ahammad Vijayaditya, suggested I talk to his father, who he said knew everyone and everything that happened in the city, and I found myself accompanying him and talking to a perfumer, a jolly, gregarious, fat man with a bulbous nose eager to talk about his occupation and his travels to find unique and profitable fragrances. The priest I was looking for had been there he said, but a good week before his supposed death, and finding few who had the time to listen to him, had not stayed long. He had heard the man had died of some illness, not of injury from a spear.

The boy told his father of the advice and help I had given him, making the man even more amiable, giving me cause to wonder how I was going to extricate myself from the situation and continue on my way. He was most interested in myself and where I had come from, and learning my father and uncle were merchants, he inquired what perfumes were sold in my country and tried to interest me in his products, which I had to admit were different and very pleasant, but that only made him all the more talkative.

He then talked about trading with men with yellow skin and slanted eyes to the north and east, the land of silk, and another land I had never heard of, a land known as the land of the never setting sun, and of collecting flowers on the islands to the south where flowers were as big as a man's head, and there lived savages who ate human flesh, giving me wonder if these were the same savages as I had met in the far west, and if I had come full circle to the lands I had discovered after leaving Cristóvão Colombo. When he spoke of talking to perfumers from the land of the Great Khan, I rejoiced, and I pressed him for more information. He spoke the language of the Arabs very well, and I discovered much to my surprise that he was an Arab and that he had come from the north east, not far from Herat, which I had passed through many years ago. (4)

Before I knew dusk had fallen and he invited me to stay and sup with him, and to spend the night. It had begun to rain once more, heavily, not unusual in this land, and I agreed. So we had a sumptuous meal of roasted hen, rice, and a pepper and corn dish and a pastry I had not tasted since my travels in the north. He was, I learned, an Arab trader who had met and married one of the local Christian women and had taken her last name, because, he said with a twinkle in his eye, in certain places it made him more welcome and his wares sold better. They had five children, the second oldest being the oldest son whom I had advised on how to deal with his tormentors and eleven years of age. Combining the ways of himself and his wife, not just in food but in beliefs and customs, they were both Christian and Muslim, and yet neither. They were deeply in love and happy with their life for, as he put it, they had the best of both worlds, and he was able to interact with both and away from home play the role of one or the other, whichever was to his advantage, though they did worry about their children and their place in this world for as Mappila they fit in neither. (5)

The room I was shown was small but clean and comfortable, with a thick mattress, plenty of pillows, and a picture on the wall of some saint with an elephant's head whom I decided not to ask about. I had lain down for only a short time when there was a shuffle at my door and the curtain was silently pushed aside and a figure, crouching low, entered. Feigning sleep, I opened my eyes a slit and slowly reached down for my knife strapped to my leg, having learned to be cautious and having decided not to disrobe for the night. My host was not so genial after all. As he dropped down beside me, I turned and leaped upon the intruder, knife drawn, and discovered it was not my host creeping low so as not to be seen, but his eleven-year-old son, the boy Ahammad. The boy's eyes were wide with fear and surprise.

"What hospitality is this, you sneak into my bed to kill me?" I asked.

"N-n-no," he stammered, looking like a frightened rabbit, a fat frightened rabbit. "Not to kill."

"Then why? To rob?"

"No! To please!"

"Please?"

"Y-y-yes. A-a-as a boy can a man."

"What do you know of pleasing a man?"

"Nothing," he replied, still frightened and trembling. "But I know a boy can do so. I have a friend who has said so. Please, I am sorry, do not kill me."

"I have no intention of killing you," I replied. Realizing I was still holding my knife at his throat, I put it away.

"I am sorry. If you are not a man who likes the pleasure of boys, I will leave."

"Why did you come here?"

"I told you, I ca–."

"No, I mean why did you come here to do what you intended to do? What caused you to decide to come to my room?" I was speaking the language of his father, which we both knew well.

"You have been kind to me, and helped me. Most men would not bother to help a child, especially one as low as I, and one… who is not… so pleasant to look at. I thought perhaps you liked boys, you know," he said, gesturing to his crotch. "I wanted to thank you, to be kind to you too."

"Well, I helped you because I saw how the other boys were treating you, and I did not think that right. I do not think any boy should be pushed around just because he is not like those around him."

"It is because I am a Mappila, and fat."

"And they are envious because you are handsomer than they are, and there is more of you to please a man," I said with a smile, causing him to smile and giggle. "And you are not that unpleasant to look at."

"I will leave now. Forgive me for my intrusion."

"Have you ever pleased a man before? In the way you intended?" He shook his head. "But you intended on doing so tonight, to repay my kindness."

He hesitated and then nodded. "And… because I would like to try it."

I smiled again, to reassure him and because of his childish honesty, and I reached out and stroked his hair. "Then that is another thing I can teach you, but if you discover it is not like you thought it would be or your friend said and no longer wish to try it, you must tell me, and we will stop, for that would please me more than if you did it but found no pleasure in it. You understand?"

He nodded. It had stopped raining and the clouds had separated and the moon had come out, as if Mitra and Viruna had come to witness this child's introduction to the affection between a man and a boy. And so, with the light of the moon shining in through the window, the night air fresh as it is after a rain and scented with the many sleeping flowers in the garden of the perfumer, I taught this boy child how a boy can please a man. There are some who find a boy pleasing only if he is slender and lithe like the youth captured by the ancient Greek sculptors, but there is much beauty in a boy who has folds of flesh to knead. Did not the ancients portray the cherubim as plumb and rotund? Besides, beauty lies in more than just the surface, but in the soul and the heart, and the beauty of this sweet, innocent, delicate boy shone so brightly it was a wonder the night did not turn into day and the moon hide in envy.

And so I disrobed this boy, and let the naked, eleven-year-old cherub disrobe me, and I had him stand in the moonlight and I admired his fine face and smooth, plump, tender body, and I caressed his breasts and squeezed them, and his smooth, plump thighs, and his delightful, full buttocks that put the moon to shame. I reached out and gently caressed his soft, silky smooth member, and gently pulled back its hood to reveal the delightful plum it protected. I traced the blue vein underneath and cupped his fragile, hummingbird eggs, damp with night sweat. I brought my fingers to my nostrils and inhaled that delightful fragrance of his young balls that lingered there, a fragrance more delicate and more pleasing than the sweetest fragrance his father could produce. I leaned closer and filled my lungs with the meaty aroma of his tender member, and I slipped my lips about the fat little sausage and gently sucked on it, my head spinning with delight. I sucked and tongued his delicate little tube and delighted as I felt it swelling and becoming firm between my lips, as long and fat as my thumb. He squirmed and giggled and thrust his hips out for more as my tongue encircled his plum and caused it to burn with the new and mysterious pleasure revealed that night.

And then I allowed him to do me, to feel and stroke my member, to roll my stones, and to discover their enticing, spicy fragrance. Seeing his chubby, brown fingers wrap about my member and stroke it caused it to pulse with delight. Seeing him smell my sweat-damp nuts reminded me to tell him of the Savqandhika, and I had him slip his lips about my sausage while it was still limp and he could take the knob in his mouth, and I had him suck on it and experience it swelling and becoming firm between his lips. I watched as this plump cherub sucked on my member and discovered the joy of being a cock sucker, eyes partially closed in delight and awe and wonder, and my member throbbed with arousal at the sight. I had him swirl his tongue about my exposed bulb, and as the first droplet of my clear nectar oozed out the tip I had him flip it up with the tip of his tongue and savour it, as a hummingbird does the first drop of nectar from an orchid, and I produced more for him.

I took out a jar of sweet oil which I carried always with me and I lubricated his small, tight little hole, and my knob and shaft, and I had him stand and spread his legs and I squatted between them and had him lower himself on my stiff prod. I had him push out and bend his legs and impale himself on my prong, using his weight alone to sink down on my flesh, encouraging him to slowly descend and to stop if the pain became too great. Mitra and Viruna shone down upon him and extended their blessing so he endured the pain and delighted in the pleasure. Slowly my stiff member stretched open his tight hole, the knob eventually popping inside his anus, and the boy slowly sank down on my rigid shaft until he was sitting in my nest of coarse, curly hairs. I had him flex his legs and slowly rise, and then cupping his soft, smooth mounds of ass flesh I held him there and began to thrust up and then drop, fucking the sweet, tender ass of this cherub half my age.

My cock throbbed and the rim of my bulb burned and I had to force myself to go slow and to pause frequently to enjoy the pleasure. His ass was tight, virgin tight, and it grasped my solid bone as it withdrew, and relaxed as best it could as I raised my hips and drove my spear deep up his rectum. His rectum pulsed hot and wet about my member and more of my sweet nectar oozed out of my cock to lubricate his hole. He gasped and inhaled and exhaled deeply, his flabby chest rising and falling as I fucked his sweet, young ass, and he quivered with the pleasure of his burning anus, his little member twitching and wagging with arousal as the pleasure encircling his anal portal rippled up his stiff, fat little dink.

I closed my eyes with pleasure as my cock went numb and I slowly and gently thrust it in and out of the ass of this virgin boy, cupping his smooth, round buttocks as I felt the pressure building in my groin until with a twang I felt the release of my seed. It raced up the core of my numb cock and spurted out the burning tip and deep up this sweet cherub's ass, flooding his rectum, penetrating his bowels as spurt after spurt shot into his body, my balls drawn up tight as they shot my precious seed up his ass. We were both gasping for breath and trembling with pleasure, and as I filled his rectum he trembled with the first orgasm of his life, an orgasm caused by the pleasure of having a man's cock spurting up his ass. I at last lowered his buttocks so he again sat on my coarse nest, my swollen cock buried up his ass now filled with my slime, the two of us quivering and gasping with our orgasms. Finally I raised him up and withdrew my member, drawing it out his hot, moist chamber, and I kissed the nape of his neck.

Chapter 13
Calecut Vicinage 

Travelling as Nikaar Krishnan, illiterate son of a rice farmer, Nico seeks information and sexual gratification from the second oldest son of a blacksmith, a kothi (one who dresses and acts as a woman) of the Vaisyas caste, the Hindu son of a whore, an untouchable and hijra (third sex), and Dinesh a Hindu Jogappa, a highly revered transgender performer and follower of the goddess Renuka performing at a child marriage, and once again as Nico, with Quaram, the king's scribe and translator of the Kayastha caste. 

Codes: M/t 

Characters: kothi 16, hijra 16, Dinesh 16, Quaram 14 

In the morning as I prepared to leave, the boy's father thanked me again for having helped his son, and presented me with four vials of perfume. I thanked him of course, and told him it was not necessary and I was glad I was able to help, but he insisted I take the vials, "for all you have done for my son." From the way he said "all" and the look in his eyes I got the impression he knew about my night-time help also, something most fathers would see me hung by my stones for, not something they would find cause to gift me.

So I headed back south as Naqi Ah ibn-Mustafa, the son of an Arab peddler from the north dutifully seeking out potential trade opportunities for his father, or a young, carefree Arab minstrel and entertainer exploring the world before marrying and settling down. Other times I was Nikaar Krishnan, the innocent, curious, illiterate son of a rice farmer from the interior visiting the big city and earning his way as a singer and player of the nay; or I was Nicolau Ribeiro, the Christian from the tall ships from the far west, seeking the whereabouts of his priest, depending on whom I was talking to and what information I was seeking.

About a week after leaving the perfumer, I was Nikaar Krishnan stopping at a Christian blacksmith shop and helping the blacksmith repair the wheel of a wagon and asking about these Christian strangers I had heard about from a far far land. Actually, I held up the wagon while he attached the mended wheel, his eldest son who normally acted as the human hoist being away on another errand. The blacksmith confessed to having never met them, but had heard from others passing through that they were murderers and thieves only pretending to worship Krishna for those who had encountered them and talked to them claimed they knew nothing about Krishna or the true gods, and that they had come to plunder the Arab ships visiting Calecut on legitimate trade. In that, he wished them well for he had a low regard for the northern heathens who in his opinion were equally untrustworthy but who, because of their numbers and influence with others of distinction, like the Kolathiri Raja, ruler of the rival Kingdom of Kannur to the north, the king was powerless to act against and had to tolerate their presence.

Having no need for coin, I had offered my help for an evening meal and a roof over my head. Besides, I had noticed that the blacksmith was trusted and respected among the other Viasyas and had a thriving business, and while his customers waited, they liked to talk, and he was a good listener. So, I learned much about the relationship between the king and his Arab neighbours and the neighbouring kingdoms, some which I already knew and much I had not, and all of which I stored away to relate to the Captain-major or for the ears of my king and the Holy Father only. There was great opportunity and potential to interrupt the trade relationships here to our advantage.

The sun sets early and abruptly in this land, and as we prepared to wash up before the evening meal we were joined by the blacksmith's oldest son pushing a wheel barrel of scrap metal that I had difficulty merely lifting, and by his oldest daughter, who I estimated to be in her mid or early teens, a year or two younger than her brother, her breasts only beginning to develop. I joined the family as they sat down to eat and with a scowl and obvious dislike, the blacksmith observed that for my services that day I could also avail myself of hers, with no charge, if I was of such a mind. The word he used I was unfamiliar with but it was obviously derogatory. His wife frowned with disapproval but being a dutiful wife, she said nothing, and his younger children stared down at their plates with embarrassment and discomfort. I thanked him and replied I was grateful for the meal we were about to eat and a roof to keep off the rain and I was in need of nothing more, neither rejecting his offer outright nor accepting it, uncertain which would offend him and which would please, and having no desire for female company.

There was something different about the girl, and by the end of the meal I realized what. The individual at the end of the table was not his daughter, but his second oldest son, sixteen years of age, and a kothi. He was feminine in his looks with a pretty face and gorgeous hair, and in the way he acted, and in body, lacking the muscles and strength of his older brother, and he was dressed as a woman. All in the family held him in low regard, except I suspect his mother, for what mother does not hold any of her children in anything but the highest of regard, but he did bring in coin which he shared with his family and so was tolerated. By then I had learned about the kothi from others so he was not a surprise, and I knew many like him from my past travels and I suspect it would only be a matter of time before he left and eked out his own living servicing the needs of other men. He reminded me in many ways of another youth I had met on the norther steppes, an effeminate dancer who looked prettier than many girls his age, and did a better business than they.

It was out of sympathy for him, and because I wished to talk to him and find out more about him and those like him, and because he was sixteen and attractive and I was a man, that I joined him that night. I knew it would make his father despise him all the more, but I also knew the boy needed comforting and reassuring, and I could do that. Besides, I knew that while some engaged his services for one reason only and left as soon as that was done, others tarry and like to talk, and boys such as he could be a rich source of information that would never be known by others.

He did not seem surprised when I came to him that night. We disrobed silently and kissed and massaged each other, and we slowly became aroused, not through any special skill nor out of mutual desire, but simply because our flesh was willing. The boy saw me as a duty, part of the payment for the services I had rendered his father, whom he resented as much as his father resented him, so while what we did brought physical pleasure, it did not bring pleasure to the mind nor the heart. I knew how he felt, and the discomfort he felt doing his "duty" under his father's roof, so I too was uncomfortable and found little enjoyment in our foreplay. I told him how beautiful I found him, which was true, and which helped to please him, and I decided, for his sake, to play the role I had played with his father, that of a simple, inexperienced farm boy from the country, twenty-two years of age and journeying into the city on his own for the first time.

That role put him more at ease and more comfortable and he put more heart into his foreplay, and I understood that thinking for there is something about introducing the innocent to the joys of congress between males that makes it all the more pleasant, and it did not matter if the innocent was eleven, sixteen or twenty-two. As one who has introduced many virgins to this pillow sport, I knew how to play the role, and for the sake of this poor boy, I played it, and as I did so I found myself caught up in my role playing, increasing my own pleasure, and the greater his pleasure the more mine grew. He was skilled and experienced, and I let him lead and expressed my delight and my awe at his skills and how he was making me feel, which was not totally an act. I copied his fondling as he stroked my swelling member and rolled my stones, hesitantly and more awkwardly than he of course, and the pleasure I expressed as he went down on me and sucked my member and my stones was sincere. I copied him, and as I slipped my lips up and down his stiff shaft and sucked on his throbbing member, I knew the pleasure he was feeling was genuine.

I feigned ignorance and innocence when he explained how two men can join each other, and after lubricating my stiff cock and his hole, he lay on his back and spread his legs and had me mount him face to face as a man would a woman, which he had explained was his preference as I suspect a young bride would explain to a virgin husband. And so I penetrated this teenage boy there in his bedroom under his father's roof, his parents down the hall and doing their best to ignore the fact their son was entertaining, and his older brother and his sisters in their rooms ignoring what was happening in their brother's room, just as they had come to ignore his presence during the day. I felt sorry for him and I exaggerated my innocence and my pleasure, but as he continued I gradually forgot the role playing and began to fuck him for the pleasure of doing so. His body was slender and smooth, a boy's thighs and hips, and his breasts were the breasts of a young girl or those of a preadolescent boy whose fatty contours had not yet developed the definition that comes with puberty.

As I pumped my cock in and out of his asshole, he began to breathe deeper and more irregularly, the physical pleasure overcoming any guilt or shame he might have felt for doing what he was doing, and knowing I was as desirous as I would have been had he been a female, and knowing I was delighting in the pulsating pleasure between my legs just as much as I would have with a woman, he closed his eyes and sighed with his own pleasure, and I knew it was no act. And so we fucked there in the moonlight, each enjoying his own arousal and pleasure and enjoying the pleasure he knew he was bringing the other, until at last I erupted and filled this beautiful, sensitive boy with my seed, and he trembled and spurted out his seed as well, cementing our naked bodies together with his sticky blobs.

We nestled in each other's' arms later and talked, about the pleasure we had felt, the pleasure of being a male, the joy of ejaculation, and the pleasure that can be had between two males. I recalled many similar conversations long ago with the Gilman Entertainers and I repeated much of what had been said then, about the special blessing of being male and being able to bring pleasure to those of our gender, about the pleasure of dressing like a woman and arousing a man, and many things I had long forgotten in my trek through the land of the heathens. And we talked about other things, about how it felt having such feelings for other men in a land where men were expected to lay with women, though I found even though the same aversion was held here, the aversion was far less and the coupling of males with each other far more accepted.

Still, it was frowned upon, and with that I could relate, personally and from my travels. We talked of other things, of men who sought such pleasure, men who enjoyed men, men who enjoyed both men and women, and men who preferred women but joined with another male for his own pleasure. He shared his past experiences, speaking with a fond smile and a sparkle in his eye when he spoke of pleasant memories and pleasures he had felt, and with sorrow when speaking of those not so pleasant memories. There was little difference between what he was doing as a kothi and what a tellak boy did in the baths in Istanbul, or what the Kocek boys did as they danced across the Ottoman Empire for the heathens in their feminine robes, and though I could not reveal those experiences, I repeated the praises I had heard other express for their service, and assured him that he was not alone, bringing him the comfort I knew I could.

We talked of other things also, about life in his country, about the disparity between the rich and the poor, about karma and fate and the good and evil men do. He knew much of what was happening in Calecut as I thought he would and shared with me what others had told him. I learned little that would be of use to the Captain-major or to my king or the Holy Father, but I learned much about the nature of men and the commonalties of all peoples in the world. When I left in the morning, I left on his pillow a necklace I had purchased earlier and had decided he would appreciate more than the one I had intended it for.

As I continued my search, I found myself once again in the more disreputable quarter of the city, which was no surprise for if your intent was to make converts and bring comfort and hope to hardened sinners, the sick and the infirm, and those who have lost their way, where better than among those who are the most discontented and desolate? Did not Jesus himself associate with outcasts and the oppressed of his time, with sinners, lepers, prostitutes, beggars and criminals who were shunned and despised? And so I found myself in a squalid portion of the city, an area inhabited by cutthroats and cutpurses, whores of both sexes and all ages, and those who eked out a living performing those jobs nobody else would, or through the generosity of others, or by illicit means one was wise not to ask about. Of course, in entering their domain, I had to become one of them, or I would find myself among their prey.

So, revealing my intent to Diogo Dias and leaving my few belongings with him and dressing in tatters, I again became Nikaar Krishnan from the interior, destitute, unskilled and homeless, seeking a better life in the city as his peasant family was unable and unwilling to support him. I recalled the Berber cutpurse and his family I had met so long ago along the Mediterranean coast, the coarse and ragged boys too unattractive to work as tellack boys in Istanbul who hung around outside the baths hoping for a handout from the wealthy and more fortunate, the poor and illiterate in all of the larger cities who, desperate for survival, begged or stole or sold their sisters or themselves, many so numbed by life they felt no shame nor guilt doing what they did. I recalled them and I mimicked them.

Several days later, exhausted, discouraged, and filthy, I dropped down in the street before a shabby drinking establishment to wait for the patrons to leave in the hopes that in their intoxicated state they might reveal something about the disappearance of Father de Covilhã. By then I was convinced he had fallen into misfortune and those who knew were covering it up because they were involved in the crime, or were afraid of those who were. I had no sooner slumped down in the filthy street when I was accosted by a whore waiting for the same men, though for a much different reason. From the gaudily painted nails and eyes lined in black with kohl, and the torn, revealing sari, I thought at first it was a teenage girl, but I quickly discovered it was a boy, also sixteen years of age. He angrily informed me this was his spot, and told me to move out. I hastened to assure him that was not my purpose, to which he replied, upon closer examination, that was just as well as I was much too old and unattractive. He added if it was my attempt to rob, then to move further down the street so I would not interfere with his business.

I began to explain that I was looking for information about a missing person when a group left the establishment and headed our way. Most pushed past us with sneers and contempt, but one man, incensed by the boy whore, called him several names which I did not know but which clearly were not complements, and pulling out a knife, drunkenly said if he wanted to be a woman, he would help him become one. The boy was armed and accustomed to defending himself, even though hampered by the sari, but the man was huge and eager for a fight and emboldened by alcohol. I was armed with a blade also, and trained in its use, and my mind neither clouded by anger nor fear. The man quickly realized that and fled, realizing he was fortunate having only a slash to his arm, but not before accusing me of being a Hijra lover.

"Well," my sixteen-year-old companion said with a weak smile, "I am fortunate you did not leave after all."

He asked if I had a place to spend the night and when I confessed that I did not, he observed he owed me a debt and offered to share his hovel. It was not much more than a patched, thatched canopy, but it kept the rain off, and did provide some privacy, He asked who the person was that I was seeking and why I was doing so, and I asked about his life. He replied that his mother had been a whore and was probably dead now, and she did not know which of the many men she had known was his father. He had been on his own for the past seven years, since he was nine.

He was known as a Hijra, one of those of the third gender, neither male nor female, and lived in this poverty-stricken community of other Hijra, all despised and looked down upon by the others, a community of prostitutes, all of the third gender, all members of the bottom caste. Many had fled their families, some had rejected sexuality altogether, others had submitted to the knife and become eunuchs in the hopes it would improve their chances of employment, and others in revulsion of their own bodies had engaged in self-castration. Most, like himself, engaged in sex with other men, dressed and acted as women, and worshipped the goddess Bahuchara Mata. He stated as a matter of fact and with a self-deprecating smile, that like Bipya, he was unable to achieve an erection and orgasm unless he dressed and acted like a woman. (1)

We had congress then, he removing his sari and talking the role of the woman, presenting his backside to me and preferring to be taken from behind. He was a sad, depressed individual, having no sense of self-worth and accepting his low status as the result of past lives, and accepting his next life would be just as low and likely lower. In my twenty-two years I have met many with a negative attitude and low self-worth, but none as pessimistic and as accepting of his fate as this young teenage boy. There was no love nor joy in our coupling, or perhaps I should say rutting. That is what it was, strictly a physical act, an act engaged in like animals did. Worse. The act for animals was between male and female, and for the purpose of creating life and continuing their kind. For him it was not so noble. It was simply a physical act, no different from urinating and providing even less pleasure than emptying one's bladder. He did it for the coin primarily, and in our case, because he owed me a debt and this was the only way he had to repay me. Besides, it was one of the few things he could share with another in the same circumstances as himself. He did achieve an erection and an orgasm, as did I, but the feelings that accompanied it were unlike anything I have ever felt before, or would want to experience again. It was a strange feeling, and left me unsatisfied and greatly disturbed.

I left first thing in the morning and discarding my rags and purchasing a turban and a simple robe, I headed out of the city, knowing I would find nothing where I was. It was refreshing, in more ways than one. The stench of the Hijra community, and of the city itself, with its thousands of unwashed bodies, sewage and rotting trash, heat, and humidity, was staggering, and no amount of perfume or powders could mask it. In the country it was still unbearably hot and humid, more so than anywhere I have ever been, and there were still thousands of people, but they were not so crowded together, and their waste and trash not as abundant. The air was fresher, and the soil cleaner. There were large expanses of rice farms and of coconut palms and other fruit-bearing trees and those individuals I met were clean and content, most of them vaisyas, mainly farmers and other occupations supporting the farming life. They were all Christian, the northern Arab and Moor traders not travelling so far inland and the others having no reason to be here. It was peaceful and uneventful, and provided me no answers. I soon turned back toward Calecut, making a circuitous route through even more remote land.

It was while making my return to the city that one afternoon I happened upon a larger community of several hundred engaged in some form of celebration, and upon inquiring, I was told that a wedding was about to commence, a wedding involving one of their prominent families. I spotted a group of women nearby, an older woman whom I estimated to be about my father's age, in her later forties, and three others who appeared to be in their late teens, all in bright and colourful saris and painted faces, necklaces about their necks, large earrings dangling from their ears, and rings on their fingers and toes. From the fuss about them, I assumed the group to be the bride, her mother, and her sisters or friends. When I nodded toward them, the individual I was speaking to smiled and informing me the wedding was blessed with not one but with four Jogappa, indicating the four women. He turned and motioned in the other direction where a man who appeared to be perhaps thirty, and a child around twelve, were surrounded by another group of people. These were apparently the happy groom and blushing bride and their families.

This was, I learned, the union of two prominent families, an alliance of wealth and power, not a marriage of the heart, and a marriage of necessity, this being the man's second wife, the first being barren. The arranged marriages between families where parents chose the intended mate for political or financial reasons was not uncommon where I came from, especially among the wealthy and powerful, though they normally married one partner at a time and not one so young. As I watched the young, wide-eyed child, I recalled Father de Covilhã being aghast upon learning that child marriages were quite common among these Christians, and I being amused by the good Father's sense of impropriety considering the marriage of two children I had witnessed at the Vatican itself and blessed by our eminent church leaders. (2)

Thanking the stranger, I headed over to the Jogappa out of curiosity. There appeared to be some type of argument going on, and as I listened I gathered that the angry man doing the shouting was an uncle of the groom, and was angry that he had expected and had paid for four performers, the four women. The older woman, who quite frankly looked rather ugly and rough for a woman and whom I thought was the one he was objecting to, was explaining that one of the younger women, a dark-eyed, sultry beauty, had twisted her ankle, and while she was in great pain, she could still sing and play and was willing to do so, but she simply could not dance.

That was not satisfactory for the uncle, who said he had paid for four dancers and this was an insult and an evil omen and the wedding would be cursed and it would be their fault, and, clearly having been imbibing too much already, he began to push the older woman back. She was immediately defended by the other three, and several of the crowd who seemed quite alarmed by the uncle's behaviour. It was during the scuffle and seeing the behaviour of the older woman, and upon looking more closely at the four, that I discovered the women were actually men, dressed, adorned, and acting as women. As the crowd tried to calm down the uncle, I slipped over to the older woman. I introduced myself as Nikaar Krishnan, and informed him that I could sing, dance, and play, showing him my panpipes, if they were in need of a fourth performer.

He looked at me critically, almost scornfully. "We are not street performers. And you are no Jogappa."

"No. I am a Christian, from a land far away, ten months by sail across the ocean to the west. I do not know your songs, or your language, or your music, but I know how to dance, and I am said to have a fine voice."

He studied me coldly and shook his head. "You are not properly dressed. No."

"Bashkar cannot dance. This one is of the same build. He could wear her spare sari. And he is pleasant of face, in a most sensuous way," said the younger of the other three. "A little powder, we could make him presentable, and, Vinayak, if he is a dancer… ."

The older man, Vinayak, whom I figured to be close to Father's age, forty-seven, considered, reluctantly. "No mangal sutra."

"We can say she is a disciple candidate, from the interior, not yet having undergone marriage to Renuka."

"A virgin," said the second young man with an impish smile.

"Everyone loves a virgin, at a wedding," added the third, evidently Bashkar.

"No singing. You speak with the accent of a mountain dweller. And I would see you dance," said the older. "We need to be alone, to prepare, and tend to our injured," he announced to the crowd, and we were escorted to a tent set up in case of rain which was quickly vacated.

"Dance," the older man ordered. Gesturing to the others to demonstrate, Bashkar began to play an instrument consisting of a wooden frame and stick and the three began to sing and the two youngest to dance. I studied their movements and began to copy them. I was unfamiliar with their movements but it was not difficult to copy.

"You can play an instrument?" I began to play the panpipe, and the four glanced at each other and nodded. The older man signalled for me to stop. "Sing." I was beginning to feel like a trained dog sometimes displayed at festivals. Recalling one of the many songs sung at weddings, I began to sing. They again glanced at each other, the younger more appreciatively than the older, who quickly motioned for me to cease. Glancing at the others and nodding his approval, he supervised as I quickly stripped and donned the spare sari of the injured Jogappa, the four apparently bringing a spare, and having brought a supply of powders they painted my face and nails and redistributed their jewellery. We exited the tent and made our way to the centre of the plaza, the four chanting and playing their instruments and shuffling in time with the music, I moving my lips silently and shuffling along in the middle, the crowd immediately parting respectfully and falling silent.

The wedding ceremony soon got underway, led by one of their priests, recognized by his cowl and robes. Much of it I did not understand, but the intent was clear, and I did hear him make reference to Christ and to Mary. The bride and groom kissed, the crowd cheered, and everyone began to eat and drink, and I and my fellow Jogappa began to perform. (3)

As the wedding progressed and the guests became more intoxicated, I became braver and Vinayak bolder. Copying their dance moves was not difficult, and I introduced a few of my own which they also copied. They were familiar with the flute, though not the panpipe, and I was called upon frequently to perform a solo, which I of course did, and occasionally accompanied my playing with a dance of my own learned while a kocek, seductive and wildly applauded. Most of the songs I remained silent or mouthed the words, but I did offer a few in my own language, and though not understanding a word, they appreciated the quality of my voice, and again I was warmly applauded and received more requests. There was no rain, but there was another reason they each had brought a second sari. By mid-evening the first were soaked with sweat. We performed long into the night, and then stood before the wedding tent and sang our blessings as the groom and his twelve-year-old bride consummated their marriage.

We left far richer than had been agreed upon, the groom's uncle ending up being a huge benefactor and declaring that the gods themselves had tripped Bashkar and arranged for me to appear to take her place. We retired to the compound where they lived, and their teacher's home, a modest and simple thatched hut. Elated by the evening and none of us ready for sleep, he brought out a jug of rice wine and bade us stay, which we did. I learned much more of their life and their worship of Renuka, and I concluded my earlier suspicion was right. These were no Christians. I have no idea what their faith is, but the only thing we appeared to have in common were a few names, and given my difficulty with the language, even that was suspect.

Seizing the opportunity, I spread the word of my own faith and of the teachings of Christ, carrying on the work of Father de Covilhã. Most of what I said I know they took as stories of Krishna that they had not yet heard, and who am I to say, that perhaps the two are the same and as mere mortals it is beyond our understanding. Indeed, who is there to say that the disappearance of the Father Confessor and my attempts to find what had happened, Bashkar's twisted ankle and my appearance at the same instance were not the design of the higher powers, whether that be God or Renuka or any other being?

Our conversation did not remain on such an intellectual plane, and I learned much about their daily lives, and I shared mine. All four truly believed they were really women, and professed to have the same thoughts and desires as a woman, with the added advantage of having a male body and so understanding how it functioned. That was not dissimilar to my long-held perception that congress between men was enhanced by both partners knowing how the other thought and felt. Vinayak had many lovers in the past, and many presently, but restricted himself now to fellow teachers and a few special disciples, feeling that in congress it was the union of two male bodies, but in reality inside, the union of two women. I knew of course of the union of women in my travels, and of the island of Lesbos, inhabited by women who loved women, and the idea of two women inside the bodies of men, having congress as two men but with the soft and gentle feelings of women was highly erotic and enticing.

The other three were disciples of Vinayak. Dinesh, the one who had come to my defence initially, was at sixteen the youngest, and the best friend of Sudhir who was two years older. He was full of energy and daring and passionate about life, a combination of my vassal and the young Berber I had met when I was still discovering the joys of sex. Bashkar was Sudhir's boyfriend and a year older than he was, and though Sudhir's lover, his parents had forced him to marry so that they might have a grandchild and so he had a wife and a daughter, and with his parent's insistence, was trying to produce a son for them. Seeing the two cuddled in each other's arms and talking so openly gave me a strange feeling. They both accepted their situation and were content to share their love for each other with Bashkar's wife. I could empathize with them, loving boys but having a wife and children of my own whom I also loved, but until then I felt much different between the two situations, as if I were living in two worlds and were two different people. Meeting Bashkar, I reassessed my life and saw it much more clearly. Uncle had often said travel enlightened one's mind, and as usual, it was a wise observation, which I would be sure to tell him when we met again though I would never be able to give this example.

Seeing them kiss and laugh, I was reminded of the men who were intimate with the brothers of their wives in the strange world across the ocean sea, and of married men who sought the company of bath boys in Istanbul and of tellack dancers of Caucasia, and I came to a new realization about love and relationships. Bashkar and his wife was a union of man and woman united by duty and out of which had grown love. Bashkar and Sudhir was a union of two male bodies inhabited by two women, based on love at the core and strengthened by a mutual appreciation of the physical enjoyment they brought each other. Having shared their relationship with each other and with others, I told them of my family, and of my preference for other males, and especially boys, none of which they found strange nor questioned. That made my excursion into the countryside worth the time and effort.

Complaining of increased pain in his ankle, Bashkar excused himself, but not before encouraging his boyfriend Sudhir to stay and enjoy the rest of the night. Sudhir would not hear of it and rose to lend a shoulder to Bashkar, and Vinayak fetched some herbs to ease his pain and accompanied them. Dinesh and I glanced at each other and smiled and I eagerly accepted his offer and followed him to his home, only a few huts away. It was a simple hut, much like that of his teacher but simpler and with fewer possessions, the home of a young, single man. We removed our jewellery and he said he would return what I had borrowed to the others, and would return the sari to Bashkar.

He observed how good I had looked, and he encouraged me to paint my nails and face on a regular basis and I laughed and said that would be difficult on a ship of sailors and would not be looked upon favourably where I came from and he said that was too bad, and I had to agree. And then we made love. It was not physical congress between two male bodies. It was an act of love, between two individuals, a union of hearts, perhaps of souls. It was different from anything I had yet experienced.

It was more than the fact we were both experienced, and more than the fact we had come to know each other and care for each other. It was more than his skill in being able to arouse another, and more than his physical attractiveness. It was the way he touched me, and the way I felt about the pleasure we were exchanging. His caresses were soft and gentle and caring, his kisses tender. His lips were soft and smooth and his breath fresh and clean, like a cool breeze after a summer rain. His lips parted and I inhaled his breath, and I felt his tongue slip between my lips and into my mouth and over my tongue. Our tongues duelled, two slippery snakes entwining, exploring each other's mouth, and our spittle mingled and we swallowed our combined saliva.

His fingertips gently stroked the inside of my thighs, sending tingles of arousal along the surface, and my member tingled and began to swell. I cupped his stones and rolled them in his sweat-damp sack, and then twisted around and took his soft, smooth member in my mouth and delighted as I felt it swelling between my lips. I inhaled deeply, drawing the midnight air scented with the dank fragrance of his balls deep into my lungs and he mouthed my stones and sucked them into his mouth, his hands caressing my backside and my hands caressing his. We turned around again and kissed as we embraced, tasting each other's gonads on each other's lips. He kissed my cheeks and I kissed his, and he twirled my thick, curly hairs as I ran my fingers through his. My heart began beating faster and I kissed his neck and he slipped his slender legs about mine and pressed his hot, naked body against mine, hot flesh against hot flesh.

He was sixteen but he was as skilled as I and I benefited from his expertise. I was experienced in the ways of congress, and this young boy benefited from my experience. He lay on his back and raised his hips as he spread his legs, and I lay above him, my weight on my forearms and knees, my legs between his. We kissed each other with growing passion, our members now stiff and throbbing. Somewhere, somehow, he produced a vial of lubricant and coated his pucker with the gel with his pointer finger, and smeared it over my spongy knob and about the rim, causing me to inhale sharply and my cock to jerk with the pleasure and with arousal. As he continued to lube the two of us, I kissed his smooth chest and ran my tongue around one nipple and then the other, and then sucked on each, causing them to swell and become firm. I slowly eased myself back up so we were face to face, and looking into each other's hooded eyes I pushed forward and I felt his fingers guiding my stiff member for his greased hole.

I entered him slowly and despite my size I had no difficulty and he smiled up at me as I sank my stiff cock up his ass until my hairs were pressed against his smooth butt. I paused to enjoy the sensation of having my swollen cock surrounded by his hot, pulsating flesh, and for him to enjoy the sensation of having his rectum stuffed with a man's hard, throbbing cock. He half closed his eyes dreamily as I slowly pulled back out and then slowly penetrated him again, and I looked down at his beautiful face as I fucked him. My swollen cock throbbed with delight in time with his pulsating flesh, the two of us united in that common pleasure causing our flesh to pulse as one, the ring of his anus and the rim of my bulb burning with sweet pain.

My physical pleasure was the same as it had been with the previous two boys I had fucked, but mentally I had never experienced anything like this even though he was sixteen like they had been. Two men, or a man and a boy, are as one in this act, but never have I felt that oneness as strongly as I did that night. There was nothing that he or I did differently physically, but it was like a different act. He was intent on pleasing me and saw it as his duty to do so, just as I was conscious of wanting to please him more than I did any others. Women out of duty, boys for fun, but with this boy, it was his duty and greatest desire to please me, and that made it all the more pleasurable for both of us. We were united not just in flesh but in mind and in soul. We fucked for the longest time, our pleasure building with each thrust and withdrawal, not in a rush of passion but gradually building, growing stronger and stronger and drawing us closer and closer.

We came together, me spurting my seed deep up his rectum and filling it, him spurting out his seed with such force it struck the cleavage at the beginning of his heaving chest. We gasped and groaned with the ecstasy of our orgasm, and of each other's, and we gasped and snorted with unabashed delight, our bodies flushed and perspiring. The bulb of my member burned with that sweet pain only a man can know, and his anus burned with the same sweet pain, as did the rim of his throbbing member. He anointed his body with his seed from the outside as I anointed it from the inside, his hot flesh and mine throbbing together, and the two of us sucked in the night air scented with spilt seed. Still united, we kissed in a long, lingering kiss, a tender, loving kiss, and embraced with mutual delight.

When I left in the morning they tried to split the earnings of the night before, which was much higher than they had bartered for, but I insisted they take my share, keeping for myself only a few items that had been bestowed directly upon me, a necklace of a black stone I had never seen before and another of a turquoise gem, several dangling earrings, and several rings. As I re-entered the city, I thought of my past experiences and marvelled at the similarities, and the marked differences, among the three boys, and I had cause to wonder why that was so. Why was this for one boy a despised and forbidden but delightful pleasure, for another no more than a physical act that even he took little pleasure in, and for a third a delightful, religious act that brought esteem and adoration? Why was one boy confused, another disgusted, and a third delighted with the same act? Why was one cursed for what he enjoyed most, another held in contempt, and the third revered for the same thing? And why did I leave each with such different feelings? It is a strange, confusing world that we live in.

I returned to my shipmates in Calecut with no answers, but many more questions. Upon my arrival I discovered that Diogo Dias had been sent to the King with gifts and a message from the Captain-major two days earlier but still had not had an audience. I accompanied him the next day and we suffered the humiliation and the indignity of waiting all day while others came and went, and left at the end of the day discouraged and incensed. The arrogance of this king and his unfounded, ignorant, ill-treatment of guests in his country infuriated both of us and was an insult to all decent Christians, giving me further cause to doubt the Christianity of this king and his people. Diogo Dias I know felt the same, but to his credit and my shame he accepted it without complaint or an ill word, asking who was he to question the way of kings of any land? He was right of course, but even the occasional glimpse of the king's interpreter and translator who had joined us to interpret the second letter the Captain-major had presented and who was seen entering and leaving the king's audience chamber did little to lighten my black mood.

After making Diogo wait for four days, we received our audience at last, and to my disappointment the king's betel server was not present. As he greeted us, the king had a bad face. The Captain-major had sent amber and corals as a personal gift but the king refused to even look at them. He demanded instead one hundred xerafins docking fee for landing our goods, and he proclaimed that from henceforth ships would be prohibited from approaching ours. Any attempts by Diogo to reason with him or to ascertain what caused him such anger toward us were rebuffed, and his young translator, who attended the meeting but for whom there was no need, looked embarrassed for us. As we left, heavy hearted and greatly discouraged, I noticed the boy lingering in a nearby hallway, and sensing he wished to talk with us, I excused myself and told Diogo I would meet him back where our goods were being stored and displayed for sale.

I was correct and the boy lead me to another part of the palace, a small but lavish room which he said was his quarters, and I thought of the lodging of the blacksmith's son, the whoreson, and the Jogappa, and how they were as different in furnishings as were the four boys. Closing the door, he said that his monarch was in a bad mood, and had been for many days. Suspicious and angry, I replied that his monarch's ill mood and bad character was evident and that I did not need him to tell me, and I asked pointedly why he had called me aside. He was taken aback by my abrupt and angry manner and for a moment looked frightened and alarmed, but to his credit for a boy so young, for he was, I learned, only fourteen, and to my shame, he composed himself

"Please, I am not the one you should be angry with."

"No? Then with whom should I be angry?"

"Those dogs who mate with camels," he said angrily, and then several other words which I did not understand. "The Arab traders and merchants, and the Moors."

"Why?"

"They are the ones filling the king's head with evil news, news about you."

"What news?"

"They tell the king you are evil. They say you are thieves come to steal his gold, and that you captured and burned their ships across the sea, along the coast of the land of the black savages, and murdered many of their people, and fired your canons on the cities of the blacks who had caused you no harm. They said to keep our women and children away from you Christians from the tall ships for you would rape them, and steal them and take them away with you."

That was, of course lies. Well, most of it. Some of it.

"They told the king if he traded with you, their ships would stop coming to Calecut. They would no longer trade with him and would take their trade to Kolathiri Raja and the Kannur whom they now pass to come here. They have been here every day for the last four days telling him these things, and more."

"And how do you know all this?"

"The King has had me hide and listen to their words when they speak their language to each other while waiting to see him. It is easy. I am small, and who notices a boy, or a kayastha. They laugh and call the king a fool, or perhaps say that he is easily fooled, their language is difficult and I am not sure, but I do not tell him that. They also say to each other it is so about ceasing their trade with us if he treats you well, and that they do not want. What they do want is for the king to capture you and burn your ships and behead all of you, and he has been so filled with their stories and so afeared they will cease trading with us, or even declare war on us, I fear he is about to do so. You should flee, as soon as you can."

"And why are you telling me these things?" I asked, realizing that the delay in granting us an audience was probably also to give him time to spy on us, just as this boy spied on the Arabs.

"Because I do not like men who lie to my king and laugh at him, and I do not like these traders and nonbelievers and their ways," he said, calling them several other names, evidently derogatory and which I did not know. "They think they are better than us, and act so."

I studied the boy and he looked down at the floor and fidgeted. He probably realized I had realized he had also spied on Diogo and myself. And there was more. "And?"

He hesitated. "And because Ravi says you are a good person. He does not think you really worship Krishna, and nor does Rahul, but you are not a worshipper of Allah either, that they are sure. And you are a kayastha like me… and… you know boy pleasure." (4)

Ravi, the twelve-year-old brother of Rahul, the royal tambur server. Of course Ravi and this fourteen-year-old boy, Quaram, would talk, about palace intrigues, and about boy pleasure. They are only boys, and for them such things are still a mystery and new. I also recalled Rahul calling me a kayastha when I said I was a scribe to the Captain-major, and the reverence he had paid me. It all became clear.

"Ravi was correct, about all of everything," I said with a smile, hoping my voice and manner assured him I was not angry nor a threat. There was so much to ask. I wanted to know more about the lies that were being told about us, and the threats these heathens were making about stopping trade or going to war. Just as I had suspected, these people were not Christians, at least not the Christians I was familiar with, so this boy and Ravi had concluded I was not a Christian like them either. I wanted to know more about their beliefs, and this Krishna who was not Christ. I wanted to know more about the mood of this king and his demand of a fee for landing our goods. So many things I wanted to know, but where to begin? What to ask first? "And what do you think of boy pleasure?" I asked with a wider smile.

The boy was a scholar, higher educated than most of those I have dealt with except perhaps the Brahmin priests. Although only fourteen, he was one of several who kept records of the king's meetings, of which there were many and which softened my anger when I realized part of the reason for the delay in our audience was because the king really did have many meetings, his kingdom being the major centre for trade in this country. He also helped translate the letters and documents the king received from other countries, and confessed he had a better grasp of the Arabic written word than he had let on when he had been brought in to translate the letter from the Captain-major, he and the king not wanting to reveal his knowledge to the Arabs present. So, their translation to the king had been honest.

He also was translating many of the ancient scrolls written in an early form of their language which he called Sanskrit and which I have never heard of before, political records, medical texts, hymn books, epic poems about the gods, saints and heroes, and some scrolls written in very strange symbols that he said the yellow men of the east used and was read left to right and top to bottom, being less literate than we are. Shelves filled with scrolls and books lined two walls of his little room from floor to ceiling. His tiny bed and a large desk took up the third wall. His father was a highly placed advisor to the king, one of the older greybeards who had attended our first meeting, and he himself was in training to become an advisor also.

"This," he said, holding up a very thick tome, "is the Kama Sutra, a book for doctors, which has much to say about congress between men and women, including sketches, and a whole chapter on how a woman can please a man with her mouth, which I am told is possible between males also. But," he said with a frown, "I have not yet found if it also says about boy pleasure."

"Well, perhaps I can show you, and you can write your own book," I suggested with a grin.

"I would like that, very much," he said with a wider grin.

What I had to say on that one topic would take many days, but it was a very important one, and for daring to tell me what he had and for warning me our lives were in danger, deserved special rewarding, and I would be remiss if I did not do so. I do not recall if I mentioned he was an attractive boy, slight for his age with a delightful brown skin, large, serious dark brown eyes with long, fluttering eyelashes, and sensuous, thick lips. When I asked what experience he had, he confessed that he and Ravi had talked much about such things, and had pleasured each other with their hands, but he knew only what he had overheard Rahul and older boys talk about, and had no other experiences. Having learned that, it would be irresponsible for me not to enlighten him with first-hand experience.

So, although it was still an hour before sunset, I taught this young fourteen-year-old scholar about foreplay, how to disrobe to arouse the passions of another, and how to disrobe another for the same purpose. I demonstrated and then guided him as he did what I had told him, and his seriousness and effort to do what I said made his actions all the more arousing. Naked, I had him show me what he and Ravi did together, and he eagerly reached over and wrapped his long, slender fingers about my partially aroused member and showed me, and demonstrated on himself as he had a hood and I did not. As I watched his slender fingers wrap about my cock, I imagined those same fingers wrapped about a quill as he wrote the king's letters. I showed him a few techniques that I had learned, where to touch and where not to touch so one did not become aroused too quickly, and how to delay the arousal of one's partner. I also showed him how to combine foreplay with stroking to heighten one's arousal.

Knowing my member was only the third he had ever touched, his own and Ravi's being the other two, heightened my arousal, and knowing that my fingers were the only other fingers to rouse his member and fiddle with his stones heightened my arousal still further. His member was about the length of my middle finger, and two fingers in width, and I recalled when mine had been that small, back when I had first been introduced to the pleasure one's fingers can provide. It was a delight to arouse his snake and make it stand, and it was a delight to have this boy fiddle with my stones and stroke my member to make my own snake rise, and to feel his slender fingers wrap about my stiff member and stroke it. I showed him how to bring one's partner to his peak, how to tell he had reached it, and how to end it before it was too late, and then he practised what I told him on me.

And so we pleasured each other until we could wait no longer and he brought out a cloth to catch our seed, a cloth that he said with a grin was the same as he and Ravi often used, and stroking each other and aiming each other's cock at the cloth, we climaxed, shooting our creamy load into the cloth together. He was young and healthy, and I was highly aroused. We both squirted out our seed violently and copiously, our seed spurting and combining in a thick pool of slime, his oozing down over my clenched fingers, and mine oozing over his.

The sun had set and he prepared us an evening meal consisting of fowl and rice flavoured with this spice they call curry, and I discovered these people also chew soft stems to clean their teeth and rinse out their mouths with water similar to the savages across the ocean sea and a practice which I had introduced to my family. I then had him tell me what this book he had read said about how a woman can please a man, and he told me how one book on medicine and the human body also listed the types of kliba, and the type that are aroused by swallowing semen. We had not bothered dressing, and I spread my legs and had the boy sit on the floor between my legs and put into practice what he had read, and I instructed him on the finer details that only come from experience, especially how to breathe and how to go down on a cock as long and thick as mine.

Sitting there growing stiff between his lips, I produced my early, clear nectar quickly and as he sat there and tentatively and then with a wide grin lapped it up, I rewarded him with more. I let him do me to my climax so he could concentrate on the joy of arousing a man with his mouth, and then I did him, and it was with great effort that I fought back the urge to do him without pause. Feeling his little brown sausage swell between my lips, and seeing the delight lighting up his eyes as I sucked his cock, and then as he filled my mouth, was an incomparable delight, knowing mine was the first cock he had ever sucked, and that I was the first to suck his. We rested once again and then did each other at the same time.

We rested once more and we talked about his country and I talked about mine, and he talked with great pride about being a kayastha and about his father and how some day he hoped to be advisor to their king, this one when his father died, and hopefully for this king's son. He asked me about me being a kayastha also, and I told him of my love of languages and advising the Captain-major about the tribes we had met on our journey because of that skill, and that although the Captain-major was the ambassador for our king, our king had also entrusted me to gather information and report back to him, as had the Holy Father, all of which was true though my position was nowhere as revered as was his. He had no concept of what I meant by the Holy Father, there apparently being no single high priest who spoke for God. We again discussed God and the Trinity, one member of which was Shiva, who took the male form on the right and the female (his wife Parvati) on the left, and the worship of his erect penis, a concept which would have scandalized Father Francisco but I am sure would have amused certain individuals at the Holy See.

That of course brought us back to a much more pertinent conversation and Quaram described to me some of the positions men and women take in congress, and showed me some of the illustrations, which I found shocking for a Holy Book, and arousing. I committed those to memory for when I returned home. Of course I described some of the positions men can assume, and I then took him from behind, he on his elbows and knees and me kneeling behind him. He had no lubricant, but he did have butter, which worked marvellously well. Penetrating this young boy eight years my junior for his first time was a delight and I do not know who enjoyed our congress more, me penetrating him, or him being penetrated by me. I wanted to show him the extreme pleasure the act can bring both the one being fucked and the one doing the fucking, and I pumped my cock in and out of his backside slowly and gently, bringing both of us to orgasm, me squirting my seed up his rectum and filling it, he squirting his seed into the cloth and adding to the two loads already there.

And then we reversed our positions, showing him that the act brought the one being penetrated just as much delight as it brought the one doing the penetrating. It certainly did me, for finding myself being fucked by this eager, inexperienced, prurient fourteen-year-old boy and being his first partner and feeling his young seed squirting up my rectum brought me at the age of twenty-two as much pleasure as it brought him. As his young cock throbbed hotly up my backside, I added my seed to the sodden cloth saturated with our seed.

It was very late when I left and he had one of the guards at the palace escort me back to the dwelling set aside for us. The guard did not question why I was leaving the palace so late or what business had kept me there and when I arrived at our habitation I found it being closely watched. Diogo Dias was waiting anxiously for my return and had feared I had met with ill fortune. I told him what I had learned about the reasons for the King's behaviour. He did not press me for details on why the scribe had told me, much to my relief for I had spent the journey back concocting tales to explain why the boy would reveal such secrets to me. Much grieved that these Moors could ill-digest us so, he composed a message for the Captain-major detailing what I had found out and informing him we were prisoners. In the dark of night one of the negro members of our crew guarding our merchandise whom the Captain-major had deemed expendable, slipped out with the pretence of having to relieve himself and managed to slip away with the message. I retired, and as I drifted off to sleep, I pondered the many different relationships and attitudes that I had encountered in this strange and complex land. (5)

Chapter 14
Honnavar 

Nico is smuggled aboard ship with visiting Hindu dignitaries to report to da Gama and store his belongings in case of a quick exit. Shortly after he returns to shore the captain lifts anchor and a few days later the remaining sailors are allowed to return to the ship. Deciding to stay behind, Nico travels north through Kannur to the port of Honnavar in the Jain Principality of Gersoppa. Discovering the presence of Mameluke soldiers, he visits their garrison and has congress with an apprentice/slave by his request and encouragement of his master. Seeking out a Jain holy man he has congress with a young Jain, Akbar, from whom he learns about Jains and the Hindu faith. 

Codes: M/b, M/t 

Characters: Mameluke apprentice 14, Akbar 16 

We received word the next day that all ships had been stopped from contacting our ships which were anchored off the coast and we feared that our messenger had been unable to deliver his message. It was even very possible he had been found and murdered to prevent our message from being taken to the Captain-major so great was the animosity toward us. At least the message having been written in Portuguese, we were confident its content could not be discovered. We learned that the following day an almadia carrying four young men had approached the ships, supposedly to trade precious stones despite the order not to approach our ships, and we suspected the real intent was to spy on our ships on behalf of the king and to see what the Captain would do if they approached.

For four days we heard nothing further and were kept confined with our merchandise in Calecut and we were much afeared what was going to happen to us, and greatly worried what actions were being taken regarding our shipmates on our ships. Those guards watching us did so with dark, angry looks and I could only imagine what lies were being circulated among them. Sunday, the nineteenth of August, we learned two boats carrying twenty-five Christian men of great importance were about to approach our ships, whether in defiance of their king, or secretly on his behalf for he did not totally trust the heathens who were spreading lies about us, I do not know. With the help of the Nair warrior I had befriended and first had congress with shortly after our arrival two and a half months ago and with whom I had congress with periodically since for his sexual gratification and my self-protection, I managed to have myself smuggled on board with these men.

Upon boarding, I discovered that our Negro messenger had been taken to the ship for a fee of three fanôes, and that Diogo Dias's message and the information I had sent had been delivered, and further, that my information had been confirmed by the Moor Monçaide and two Christians accompanying him. In the confusion of twenty-five arrivals all talking at once and in their strange language, I slipped away and stored the personal belongings which I had brought with me in my locker for safe keeping. Having made no progress, the twenty-five Christians from shore prepared to leave but the Captain-major detained eighteen of them and sent with the other seven a message to the King's factor ordering him to release our men with the promise he would then release those men he had kept behind on the ship, sending me back with them, not trusting they would deliver the message, and with a separate message sealed with wax to Diogo Dias, whose content he did not disclose.

I witnessed the delivery of the first message and delivered the second to Diogo and three days later we learned that our ships had raised anchor and had made sail. That the Captain-major would abandon the remainder of us did not surprise me though Diogo put on a brave face and refused to believe that he would. Whether he had been forewarned in the message from the Captain or had been told of other plans he did not say and I did not ask, though I suspected he had been told the former and was keeping a brave face for our sake. Some of the crew were angry with the Captain-major and others were angry with our captors and all were heavy-hearted. Much to my surprise, Diogo proved to be correct, and on the twenty-seventh of August, he and the crew were escorted to Pandarani and taken back to the ship, and in return six Christians were released, with the promise the rest would be released upon return of our merchandise, though the Captain claimed he held no value for the goods, and one of the padrào we had brought from Portugal was sent ashore and a pillar erected. From the time I had left the Jogappa to when I had returned to the ship with the twenty-five Christians, I had given much thought to what to do in the advent that the Captain-major decided to return to Portugal. I tried to recall all I had been shown in the vision that I had with the twins at Sao Jorge, and which of those things had come true, and which were still to happen for I had great faith in the vision and the mysterious powers of magic, especially when it involved these black heathens who by their base nature are especially attuned to the dark arts.

I thought of my promise and my duty to my King and to the Holy Father, and my duty as a son and as a husband and father. It had been a long seven days of confinement, and I had thought of nothing else except for the two occasions I had been sought out by the Nair guard for his sexual satisfaction. It was a heavy and most difficult decision, but when we were escorted back to Pandarani, I gave Diogo Dias a gold bracelet for himself, four sealed letters I had written, one to Father, one to my wife, one to my King, and one to the Holy Father, and the key to my locker on the ship, asking he ensure my belongings be sent to my family. I had chosen to remain behind.

As much as I was tempted to seek out my Nair lover or the King's server or scribe, not just for the physical pleasures I would find with any one of them, but so I would remain in touch with what was happening with my shipmates, I dared not remain in Pandarani nor return to Calecut in fear I would be discovered. I heard the following day an attempt was made to return the lambel but it was refused, and the Captain-major left with his remaining captives. The King, already poisoned against us by our Arab and Moor competitors, became even more ill-disposed against us. Chase was given of course but a storm fortunately, for our people, drove the Captain's ships west and the chase was given up, at least for that day. As news of the capture of their own people spread, the anger against our crew grew, and was inflamed by rumours of torture and murder, spread by those who profited by our misfortune. Remaining in the area where I could be recognized and associated with those on the fleeing ships — and there were several who could do so, some of distinction like the Nair guard and the priests I had approached and the men who had been released from our ship — was not a choice, but where to go? (1)

My first thought was to strike south in search of the spice islands I had heard of or east in search of the empire of the Great Khan, but I had no idea how far I might have to travel, nor the nature of the land I would have to traverse, and I had no boat. My second thought was to travel north where I had been told by several there was a kingdom which was a rival and an enemy of this king. There I would more likely find protection and support which I had no guarantee of with my first choices. Besides, I was of the impression it was the closer of my choices. Going north would also be in the direction of home, and though it meant abandoning my initial plan of continuing my exploration of these lands for my king and my god, two of my reasons for deciding to part ways with the Captain-major, it was the preferred choice of my mind if not of my heart.

As chance would have it, before I could make up my mind I spotted the perfumer I had met in northeast Calecut seven weeks earlier passing through the marketplace. Glad to see a familiar and friendly face, I greeted him warmly and he greeted me likewise, surprised to find me in Pandarani. He had a large pack on his back and informed me he was heading north to a town called Tormapatai where there was a large population of Moplah with whom he was planning on trading his wares. Having no better alternative, I offered to accompany him. To my disappointment, I discovered it was only one day's travel and still under the jurisdiction of the King of Calecut. Having made the decision to travel north, I sadly parted company with him and continued on my way.

It was not as stifling hot as it had been our first month in Calecut, nor were the rains as heavy as they had been these past two months, but it was a rare day when there was no rain, making the road I was following muddy and the walking most difficult. To my surprise, I arrived at the outskirts of Kannur in surprisingly short time, only two days later. Although I had intended on seeking refuge there, I passed through the kingdom quickly and put it behind me. As I understood it, when the Arab heathens had invaded this kingdom six hundred years ago their king had become enamoured with their religion and, converting to it, he had divided his land among his lords and nobles and gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca, never to return. The land remained divided ever since as the lords plotted against each other and now while paying tribute to the king of Calecut they were also plotting and making war against him.

Not a safe place to be. Continuing north for another ten days, I found myself in the Principality of Gersoppa, one of five principalities formed by the mighty emperors of Vijayanagara to rule under their authority. The port of Honnavar was a bustling port visited by many nations and situated at the mouth of a mighty river up which ships of some size could navigate for five leagues. The city and surrounding countryside were heavily populated and the king of this Principality was said to have three thousand mounted men, including, much to my surprise, several companies of Mameluke soldiers. Familiar with the Mamelukes of Egypt, I was surprised to find them here in India and I set off to find them, curious if these were of the same nature for I had fond memories of my time with them despite being a slave at the time, and my skills in battle were the result of my training with them. If these soldiers were of the same temperament and training, I knew whatever information they might have would be reliable and so the following morning I sought them out. (2)

On my way, I came across a most curious sight, an elderly, bald-headed man, close to Grandfather Ribeiro's age from his wrinkles, which were easy to see for the man was totally naked! Many of the men in this country, particularly the common man, went about naked from the waist up, but this man wore nothing and was as naked as the day he was born. He was slowly walking across a crowded plaza and nobody paid him any heed, other than the customary bowing of respect and stepping aside so as not to hinder his progress. The practices and actions of these Christians of the East are at times incomprehensible and I can only blame the exceedingly hot and wet climate of their country for their deranged behaviour, the oppressive heat and humidity surely rotting their brains. Nowhere in the civilized world would you find an elderly man wandering about in public stark naked, and totally ignored!

Arriving at the garrison of the army, the mounted cavalry was easy to find, and the Mameluke soldiers among them easy to identify from their uniforms, the proud way they carried themselves, and their smart, tight formation as they practised. As I stood and watched the older men training the young recruits, first mounted and then on foot, a warm feeling came over me as I recalled my own training and the friendships I had formed. It was through my own Mameluke training that I learned my respect and admiration for the horse, and how to care for him, attitudes which would remain with me for the remainder of my life.

It was not long before the captain in charge spotted me and approached me to find out what I was doing there, appraising my sword and shield which I had left under Diogo Dias's care while seeking information on the death of Father Covilhã, and were two of the few personal possessions I had retained when he had re-joined the Captain-major and I had chosen to remain behind. His manner was abrupt and confrontational, but quickly changed when I explained that I had once been a Mameluke soldier myself, one of the Ahl-as-saif, Men of the Sword, and had received my training under a man who was hired as a caravan guard in the Holy Land, and had fought along with him on the border against the army of the Ottoman ruler, Sultan Bayazid II. He asked if I fought on foot or on horseback, and I replied the latter. Looking out upon the troops being trained, he signalled one of his men and the man's apprentice to approach and told the apprentice to lend me his horse, obviously intending on testing my skills to see if I was telling the truth about having been a soldier in such an esteemed army.

I hesitantly mounted, not having engaged in battle nor ridden a horse for a long time. The man chosen to be my opponent was young and close to my size and build, and in good shape and in practice. He easily bested me in our first skirmish and almost dismounted me. My life as a sailor had strengthened and hardened my muscles however so I was not lacking in strength, and I had been trained for battle on horseback by one of the best and there are skills a man does not forget, especially skills essential for ensuring his life. I did not best him in our subsequent engagements, but nor did he best me again, and we battled until we were both sweating profusely and breathing heavily. Calling a halt at last, the captain nodded his approval and the soldier and I dismounted. Petting the animal and praising him, I loosened his straps while he and I strained for breath.

"You fight like an Ahl-as-saif, and you know the value of a horse," the captain observed as the apprentice, a young, dark boy of fourteen, hurried up to retrieve his horse.

"He is a fine animal. If I may, I would rub him down for carrying one so out of practice so well."

My comments met with the approval of both captain and my opponent and I was granted my request. I followed the apprentice to the stables.

"You rode escort to a caravan in the Holy Land, and fought the soldiers of the Ottoman Empire?" the boy asked, his eyes wide with admiration.

"Yes, the kapikullan, the Sultan's personal house guard."

"Did you kill any of them?" he asked, his eyes growing wider.

"Yes."

"How many?"

"I do not know. Dozens." I was stating a cold fact, hoping to dispel any notions of glory, not bragging. "In the fury of battle, one does not have time to count how many have fallen at the point of one's sword."

"It is a very fine sword," he said, almost worshipful.

It was. And expensive besides. It was the curved sword I had received from Prince Abbas, wrought by a master swordsmith with a sharp, strong blade and a finely carved handle inlaid with precious stones.

"How old were you then?"

"The same as you, I suspect," I replied.

His eyes grew even more worshipful and I was about to tell him that war and battle were not as glorious as it might sound, and killing men certainly was not, but he changed the topic. "And you were an apprentice?"

"Yes, to a very skilled and kind man who purchased me as a slave."

"A slave? Like me!"

"Yes. You were also purchased as a slave?"

"Yes. A year ago. When the Mussulmen demanded tribute from my village and there had been a poor harvest and no money so the elders had nothing to pay them, so they gave them me." (3)

"Your father?"

"Dead. In the wars. When I was still a baby."

We finished currying the horse in silence.

"Your master. When you were young," he began hesitantly. "Did you … did he… .? Were you lovers?" he whispered.

"Yes. And he was as skilled in the pillows as he was on the battlefield," I replied with fond memories. "Your master?"

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "I have a friend, a good friend. He is a slave, like me, from another village near mine. He and his master are lovers, and he has told me how it is, and how he enjoys it. My master says that many do so, but he was taught that it is only done between a man and a woman, and he has no interest, though he holds no ill-will against those who do it. It is the one thing missing from my training."

"And you wish that were not so?"

"Bukka, my friend, says it is the best feeling he has ever experienced, and he and his master are closer for it. I would experience it."

"But your master?"

"He does not forbid. He says I will find someone and when I do I will know if he is the one to teach me. It is just not him. And he bears me no ill-will for wanting to try what many do."

We finished up in silence. I could not help glancing at the boy. He was attractive, dark brown complexion and darker brown eyes, shaggy black hair with silky wisps of a moustache at the corners of his lips, his muscles firm and developing the definition that comes with adolescence and hard work. I noticed he was stealing just as many glances at me. I was tempted, very tempted, but I knew the bond that formed between a boy and his master, and I did not wish to endanger that, not just because it was part of a boy's training and important for his survival in battle, but because it was something precious. Having rubbed down his mount, he returned it to his stall and I prepared to leave when the boy's master appeared and called me aside.

"It was an honour to practice with you today," he observed.

"And for me to practice with you."

"The boy thinks highly of you."

"And of you. You are training him well."

"You find him attractive." It was not a question, nor an accusation but a statement.

"Yes." I could not deny it.

"When you were an apprentice, was there a bond between you and your master?"

"Yes. A strong one."

"Was it physical?"

"That too."

"It is less common now. Especially with converts to Islam."

I thought of the stories I had heard, of Christian boys who had chosen death rather than lay with a man, and those who had not been so stiff-necked.

"The boy desires it, but it is not my way," he continued.

I did not know what to say. I nodded that I understood.

"I would that he could decide if such is a thing for him based on experience with someone who will not prejudice him," he said, looking directly into my eyes.

"The experience could break the bond between you, or weaken it."

"I would chance that. It could also teach him what I cannot, and enhance the bond with his apprentice when he becomes a master."

"And that you would facilitate such a thing can only enrich your own bond."

We broke the look between us and he left. There was nothing more to be said. I was debating what to do, and how I would go about it, when the boy returned. "My master says a tent has been set up for you for tonight," he said. "I am to show you where it is." The how had been decided for me.

I have commented many times before on the beauty and the wonder of a boy's first time, and the immeasurable pleasure and privilege of being part of his first time, and I can never praise it enough nor say it enough times. The boy knew his master had approached me and that in itself strengthened their relationship and put me at ease. I knew that I need not worry about endangering the bond between them. We had our evening meal together and we talked, or mostly the boy talked and I listened. He spoke of the invasion of the Mohammedans and subjugation of his people, the kingdom of Ioghe which I have never heard of and which he said was many days march to the north, and he flashed his fingers of both hands several times. He spoke of his capture and enslavement. He talked of his master and his skills in battle and his kindness and understanding, reflecting a great respect for the man, and having been a slave and purchased by a Mameluke soldier myself, I understood how a captive could come to honour and respect a man who had killed his people and enslaved them. He hesitated, and then confessed in a whisper that though he did everything he was told, one thing he did not do, was believe in the Mohammedan god and he stuck to his belief in his own gods, and especially Skanda, the god of war, born of Agni, the god of fire, the result of Agni taking the semen of the god Shiva in his mouth. Shiva I remembered was the god that was half male and half female, the result of his wife wanting to join him permanently.

I wanted to ask more about his religion and this most unchristian concept of gods changing from male to female and males giving birth, but it lead to a discussion instead of congress between males. Agni, I recalled, had taken the semen of another god in his mouth besides so it was a convenient point to begin a discussion on how to bring pleasure to another man using one's lips and tongue. The boy, Basava, was most eager to learn. And so we disrobed and I demonstrated on him first where and how to touch a man to arouse him without overstimulating him, something most difficult with a healthy, prurient fourteen-year old boy, or a prurient, twenty-two year old man sitting naked with a fourteen-year-old virgin boy who was then encouraged to practice how he had been touched by touching the man. Obviously we had to go slowly and wait for one or the other or both to grow soft, and as a distraction, I turned again to a discussion of his beliefs and his gods, which further caused me to question how two groups claiming to be Christians could have such different beliefs and legends.

"That Agni gave birth by swallowing the semen of Shiva is, well, difficult to accept," I observed, treading carefully, "in that a man has no womb."

"More so than that a man's mortal wife can give birth to a child without having congress with a male, mortal or otherwise?" he asked innocently.

"That is difficult to understand also," I had to agree.

"The way of the gods is not for us mortals to understand. Only to believe."

"True." A fourteen-year-old boy lecturing me on faith?

"To have one's member taken in the mouth of another man brings pleasure?"

"Now that you can determine yourself," I replied with a smile.

We were lying on our backs and I raised myself and shuffling down, I leaned over and took his once again soft member in my mouth. I eased my lips down so I had engulfed it entirely and I gently began to suck, and I felt his flesh quickly beginning to well. It was only slightly longer than my thumb so I was able to continue until he was stiff. By then, feeling him growing in my mouth, so was I.

"So, was that pleasurable?" I asked, easing my lips off it and looking down at the spit-slick little member jutting up in the air at full attention.

"Yes," he sighed softly, "as it appears to have been pleasant for you too." He looked down at my projecting erection and smiled.

"You will have an opportunity to discover that for yourself also," I replied. "But first, let us explore the pleasure of having your seed drawn out by a man this way and you can tell me if it is as pleasurable as when you milk it out with your hand."

"I have never had my seed drawn out in any manner," he advised innocently.

Never? I was once so innocent. I bent over him again, and slipping my mouth over his erection I began to suck once more as I slowly began to slip my lips up and down his cock from the sensitive bulb to the base, burying my nose in his soft, curly hairs and inhaling its fragrance as delightful as a rose. I slipped my lips up and down his shaft slowly, brushing the rim of his bulb every third or fourth time, sending thrills of arousal through his swollen knob. I was stiff and aching with arousal and the boy was doubly so.

I felt his member throb and the first droplet of clear nectar oozed out of the slit of his penis and I savoured the clear, sweet offering with relish. I slipped my lips off his throbbing cock and licked the rim, causing a second droplet to ooze out, the second ever produced, and as he lay there and watched, I flicked up the sweet jewel with the tip of my tongue, causing another to follow. He watched with prurient curiosity, and the third drop I flipped up with the tip of my finger and pained his ruby-red lips with his nectar and his tongue snaked and licked it off, causing him to smile with delight. I went down on him again and resumed sucking and working my lips up and down his shaft, this time brushing against the sensitive rim of his bulb, causing him to tense and his stiff member to ooze more of that delicious boy nectar. I paused and eager for the pleasure to continue, he began to raise and lower his hips, fucking my mouth. I resumed and seconds later his swollen flesh throbbed rapidly and repeatedly and the young boy shot his first seed. It was thin and watery and sweetish, and copious. Squirt after squirt shot from his little cannon and I allowed it to collect in my mouth. I swished it about, savouring its consistency and flavour before swallowing it and he continued to quiver and gasp with the release of his first seed.

As he lay back and recovered, I glanced at this dark-eyed, tawny cherub and recalled my own first release. There is nothing that can compare to that first time, nor to being part of a boy's first orgasm. Allowing him, and myself, time to recover, I finally lay back and let him do to me as I had done to him. He had been observant and was a quick learner, and he copied my actions exactly, slipping his lips bout my member and allowing it to grow firm in his mouth, and then sucking on it gently as he eased his lips up and down the shaft. Of course given my length and his inexperience he could not go down as far as the base of my stem, and it was impossible not to touch the rim of my bulb given its size when swollen, but he did an adequate job.

When I produced my clear nectar, he copied me again, flicking up drop by drop and savouring it, and then painting my lips with it. It was sweet, but not so sweet and clear as his. And then he resumed sucking me, pausing occasionally to give me time to enjoy and recover, and himself I suspect. After several times I too began to fuck his mouth, not as much in desperation as he had, but to affirm the pleasure he was bringing me. I then warned him I was about to come, and advised him that he could collect it and spit it out, or swallow it as I came, or when I was done. He chose to do as I had, to swallow my thick slime as I offered it, fortunately, for having my cock sucked by this innocent fourteen-year-old boy was highly arousing and I squirted more than I usually do and would have overflowed his mouth.

As we lay back and recovered, I admired the boy and thought of the discussions in the Medici gardens and of the sculptures of naked youth and the praise men had of the male body, all seeming so many years ago now. How right those philosophers and sculptors had been. His skin was as smooth as the marble they chiselled, especially his buttocks, and I longed to caress those smooth cheeks and to feel the warmth that could be found beyond his anal gate. Smooth chested and narrow-wasted with firm, sturdy legs, he was every bit as beautiful as those young Greek boys and would have aroused the passions of those sculptors so their members were as hard and the stone they carved.

"What are you thinking?"

"There are men, in a country far from here, beyond the land of the Arabs and Moors, who carve statues out of marble in the form of naked boys and young men, and who write poems about the beauty of the male body."

"Well," he said with a smile, "there are some male bodies which I have seen that nobody could describe as beautiful. And some that would take much marble."

I smiled. "That reminds me of a strange thing I saw on my way here, something I have never seen before. An elderly man, with flabby breasts like an old woman, and equally flabby buttocks, walking naked as the day he was born in the street and through the market, straight and proud though gingerly with his great age, and nobody paying him any attention despite his nakedness, other than to lower their eyes in respect, and move out of his way."

"A Jain, a Digambara yati, a monk of the skyclad, one who is striving to become perfect," he explained as I looked at him blankly with each explanation. "There are many Jain in this city, and where I came from. The ruling family of Gersoppa are Jains." I continued to look at him blankly. "There are no Jains where you come from?" I shook my head. "Perhaps they are Svetambara, the white-clad?" I waited for more. "They wear all white robes, and they too can be monks." Priests wore black, monks usually brown, and cardinals red. The thought of Father Francisco walking among us as naked as the day he was born was so ludicrous and contrary, I had to smile at the image that formed in my mind.

"So, these sky-clad, they go about naked, and live together, in a monastery?"

"Most. Some live alone, in caves, or deep in the jungle where they spend the day in meditation and avoid any contact with the material world."

"So … if they go about naked, and live together, do they also engage in pleasures of the flesh as we–?"

"Oh no!" he exclaimed in alarm. "They believe one should be detached from all things, even emotions, emotions of any kind. They engage in no pleasure at all! You have never heard of them?"

I shook my head. "You called them monks? They worship your gods?"

He shook his head. "Mostly they believe in no gods. A few maybe in the lesser gods. They do not believe the Vedas are divine."

They believe in no gods? And detach themselves from all things, even emotions and clothes? What sort of men were these? They were most mysterious, and there was much I wanted to know about them, but there was also much more to teach the boy, and that was a much more interesting, and much more pleasant, way to spend my time. I turned my mind back to his body, which was no difficult thing to do. We caressed each other once again, and again we became aroused quickly. These Digambara yati might seek perfection, but perfection was sitting before me. And to deny yourself the pleasure I was feeling, and the greater pleasure I was about to feel in order to be perfect, they could not be on the right path.

As I caressed the boy, his stiff little member wagged with excitement and desire, and as he copied my actions my own member jerked and ached with desire. In providing us this tent for the night, the boy's master saw that we were provided with other necessities besides shelter and privacy. On a table in the corner was a jug of wine, a platter of fruit, towels, scented soaps and perfumes, and lubricant. Having the boy lie on his stomach, spread his legs, and pull apart the cheeks of his ass, I dipped my middle finger in the lubricant and generously greased his anus and carefully inserted my finger up his hole and lubricated his rectum. Adding a dollop of lubricant to my bulb, I spread it out and wiped my finger off on a towel.

Having the boy kneel among the cushions on his knees and elbows, I knelt behind him and grasping his slender hips, I shuffled forward and crouched so the tip of my protruding erection was wedged in his hole. I pushed forward slowly as the boy pushed out, following my instructions, and slowly I penetrated him, and despite my size and that he had never been penetrated before, I did so with little problem, thanks to the lubricant and my experience. Ever so slowly I sank my stiff member up his ass until my coarse hairs were pressed against his smooth bottom and my bulb was buried deep up his bowels. His rectum squeezed tightly about my cock and I paused to enjoy the delight of having my member surrounded by hot, moist pulsating boy flesh. A boy's first orgasm is a joy, and penetrating a young boy's bottom for the first time in his life is a privilege and a delight.

Continuing to grasp the young boy's hips, I slowly began fucking him, easing my member back out of his hole and then sinking it back up his ass until my curly hairs were pressed against his smooth, tender flesh. As I eased my cock in and out of his young, delightful body he quivered with the sensation of having his ass stuffed with a man's cock, and his breathing was deep and laboured as he was fucked for the first time in his life. As my lust grew my breathing became deeper and faster also and my member throbbed and grew numb deep up his hot, moist ass. I remembered the awe and trepidation the first time I was fucked. The mystery and wonder I had felt then I felt once again through this lithe, teenage boy. Knowing how a boy felt the first time he was fucked made fucking him all the more enjoyable. It is impossible to describe the wonder, the apprehension, and the anticipation of that first time, realizing that with that loss of virginity one became a man. The delight of being the one to take a young boy's virginity and to join him in that momentous moment in his life is equal to the pleasure he was feeling for his first time.

I fucked him slowly to prolong the act and so he, and I, could enjoy the experience to the fullest. As I felt myself reaching that ultimate peak I stopped and allowed my lust to subside so we could continue a while longer. Twice I paused but I could not delay the object of our congress any longer. And so I closed my eyes and concentrated on the throbbing pleasure between my legs and the hot, pulsating flesh surrounding my stiff cock, and on the pleasure I knew the boy was feeling having his tender ass fucked from having been in the same position as he many times at his age. Today he truly became a man, and learned the ultimate pleasure a boy can bring a man, one that was all the more pleasant when that man was his master and mentor.

And then I filled his rectum with my hot, thick seed, spurting it deeper up his rectum, and in receiving my seed, he acknowledged me as his master and his lover. He trembled as he felt my seed spurting deep up his rectum, penetrating his body even deeper than my long cock could penetrate. He gasped with the pleasure of receiving a man's seed and as he panted for breath, his mind spinning with ecstasy, he too ejaculated, his young seed gushing up the core of his swollen cock and spurting out the tip as he was filled with another's seed. Hot and sweating, the two of us gasped and grunted like two wild animals in rut and we experienced the sticky, wet reality of sex.

We said nothing as I withdrew my still stiff cock and we lay down on the pillows, sucking in the cum-laden air, our flesh hot and sweaty, pendants of cum hanging from our aching members. I considered providing him the experience of being the one doing the fucking but decided that he had enough new experiences to occupy his mind and that anything further would only distract from the pleasure he had already experienced. I would leave the experience of fucking another for the boy to explore with another, perhaps his master, for even though the man had disavowed any interest or desire in such matters, I know that in the heart of a man such as he, he would not deny a boy whom he loved from such an experience if the boy desired it. I hoped the two would, for nothing can bring a boy and his master closer.

The next morning I thanked the boy, and his master, and went in search of the naked holy man. I found him, surrounded by others, two of them as naked as he, and I hung back and listened to him. The others sat and listened in awe and deep respect as he spoke of the evil of attachment. Having possessions was a common affliction, he said, and he explained how only by having no possessions, not even clothing, could one achieve perfection. Though I was not of his faith, he was most convincing and I was tempted to rip off my clothing and go about naked, and not for the arousal of being naked. So deep was his devotion and faith I could sense it and I suddenly felt too unworthy to approach this man of faith. When they dispersed, I continued to stand there not knowing what I should do so great had been the holy man's persuasion, and as I tried to decide one of those who had been sitting and listening approached me, a boy in his mid-teens, I figured two years older than the apprentice I had congress with the previous night. He approached me cautiously, his eyes on my sword until he was standing directly in front of me.

"You are a soldier?" he asked, looking up at me.

"No. Not at the moment, but I was once."

"But you carry a sword."

"For protection." It was the curved sword I had learned to use while riding across the Korasan, a gift from Prince Abbas, one of the few possessions I had kept out of what little I had brought with me for this voyage, choosing it over the long sword I had received when I had been knighted because it was less conspicuous and similar to the swords of the Moors and Christians of this land. Only moments ago I had been tempted to toss it aside. It was only the argument that this was a dangerous place to be and that I needed it for protection that I had not done so. 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, and my old panpipe were my only other possessions, everything else having been sent back to Portugal in the care of Diogo Dias, and these too I had been tempted to toss away listening to the old man.

"So why were you listening to the yati?"

"I come from far away. I have never met a yati, or even heard of them until yesterday. I was curious to hear what they say."

"You are not a Jain." He stated that as a matter of fact.

"No."

"Nor are you one who is a believer in the Vedas."

"No," I said hesitantly. This was dangerous ground and I had no idea what was acceptable and what was not, nor which I should be pretending to be, or which this boy valued.

"Nor a follower of Allah."

"I come from a land very far away, with beliefs very different," I replied evasively. "I am eager to learn more of the beliefs of your land."

"Do you have any coin?"

"Some."

"Then buy me something to eat and I will tell you everything you need to know," he said with a grin. "I know a place."

Locating a food vendor, I purchased a large platter of deep-fried potato samosa heavily seasoned with curry and hot red pepper which brought tears to my eyes but which he gobbled up with gusto, and a dozen fried milk balls drenched in cardamom syrup. Having done as he had requested, we sat in the shade and as he ate he began to fulfil his promise. What he said was very confusing but I wrote down what he said as best I could so I could best explain when reported back to King Manuel and the Holy Father. These Christians call themselves those who believe in the Vedas or those who follow the dharma (a concept I could not understand and which he could only explain as being the way) of the four classes (varnas) and stages of life (ashramas). I found that they believe what people do is more important than what they think so there is a great range of different beliefs, including the gods they worship, but all revere the Brahmans, and cows, abstain from eating meat, and marry within their caste. One of these gods they worship is Vishnu, who in one of his forms is known as Krishna, whom they had assumed we were referring to when we mentioned Christ and asked if they were Christians. That discovery explained much, and was something I knew both King Manuel and Pope Alexander would be most interested in learning and something none of the others I had travelled with would know.

The Jains, I learned, are a small group, mostly traders, but very wealthy and powerful. I had already been told the ruling family were Jains. They apparently do not recognize the authority of the Vedas though they do believe in the varnas, and they perform sixteen essential rites (the samskaras). They believe there is a living soul (jiva). What does not have a soul, such as a rock, is non-living (ajiva). The soul is freed from the endless cycle of death and rebirth by the practice of what they call the three jewels (right faith, right knowledge, and right conduct). The monks, the yatis, follow an even more rigid and stricter life. They strive to be perfect and to escape this endless cycle whereas the average man is content to live a better life than his previous one.

The monks, he said, follow five great vows: the vow of nonviolence or the refusal to inflict injury, the vow of truthfulness, the vow not to steal, the vow of celibacy (which is replaced by the vow of sexual restraint by the others not striving to be monks), and the vow of nonattachment or abstaining from possession including the refusal to accept unnecessary gifts and for the monks of the Digambara and most advanced monks of the Svetambara even the rejection of clothing. A faithful Jain abstains from any action which has no purpose, recites the sayings of the prophets, fasts on the eighth and eleventh day and during a full moon, and gives alms. The yati of the Svetambara even wear a cloth over their mouths so insects might not fly into them, and carry a brush to sweep where they walk and sit so they don't accidentally step on or sit upon and so harm a living thing. I listened to all this with astonishment and wondered how my report would be received back home.

Having finished eating, the boy got up and I followed him toward the western edge of the city. There I found a compound of several animals, all of whom were ill or injured. The compound was run, he said, by Jains, who took in the animals and tended them until they were better. An animal hospital, not just animals of value such as horses and cattle, but any animal, even dogs and pigs and injured birds and reptiles! These have to be the most strange of all peoples on this earth! We continued on and there at the edge of the city where the farms start he showed me dirt mounds with openings at the top where men and boys were depositing insects. They were collecting weevils and other insects which were consuming their grain and instead of killing them, were bringing them to these mounds where they could feed to their heart's content, leaving the farmer's crops alone! No form of life was to be harmed. I shook my head in disbelief. Nobody was going to believe this! The monks and others of their religion adhered to their tenets faithfully and strictly, but even the laity practised what the others preached. As misguided as their beliefs were, I had to admire their devotion to their faith.

"Do you have more coin? I know a place where one can get delicious bhelpuris."

"You're still hungry?"

"It is delicious."

It was. Thin dough fried until golden brown sprinkled with chiura, a mixture of noodles, rice, peanuts and hot red pepper, and topped with a dab of mango relish.

"You will be able to fast for a week, never mind twenty-four hours," I joked. "Or do you not fast?"

"Oh no, a Jain must fast. I am a good Jain. I practice the three jewels, every day."

"But you do not abstain from the pleasure of eating," I observed.

"I am a growing boy. One must eat to survive. Besides," he said with a grin, "I am no monk. I do not strive to be perfect, just good enough to live the same life as this one when I am reborn. It is a good life." He wiped the chutney from his lips with the back of his hand.

"And so you do not abstain from other emotions, or pleasures," I observed with a smile.

"No," he said sadly, "I do not have the faith or strength of karma to become so perfect. But, we are told to become perfect one must practice, and I would be as perfect as I can be in bringing that pleasure to those who have been kind to me," he concluded solemnly.

"And you know a place," I said.

"Oh yes," he said with a grin as he got to his feet.

He lead me to an older and poorer part of the port near the docks where those new to the city and those passing through stayed for a night or two at inexpensive inns before moving on and where boys such as himself spent their nights in stables, warehouses or abandoned buildings. He was evidently well known and well liked from the greetings we received, and apparently he frequently did not spend the nights alone. That he was experienced became quickly obvious, and if he was not already perfect, he was well on his way to perfection. If there was any truth to their belief in the cycle of rebirth, he was definitely destined for a better new life.

He disrobed seductively while at the same time removing my clothing, and he needed no guidance in the art of foreplay, teasingly arousing me until I was on the verge of raping him I was so desperate for satisfaction. I need not resort to rape, for the boy took as much delight in consummation as he did in the art of arousal. He began not in taking the passive role in our congress, but by lubricating my anus and his gorgeous phallus and mounting me instead. I was taken by surprise, but taken willingly by this seductive sixteen-year-old boy. He was gorgeous in face and in body, and unlike many who must live from day to day on the generosity of others, he was healthy and clean and his muscles defined and firm.

He took me in the traditional position, me on my knees and elbows and he kneeling behind me and penetrating me as a dog does a bitch. He was well-endowed and he knew it and was proud of it. Despite the size of his teenage cock, he penetrated me with ease, testament to his skill and experience, and once his stiff cock was fully encased by my hot flesh, he paused to relish the delight of penetrating the ass of another man, and to give me time to relish being mounted by one of such enviable equipment. It was highly arousing being penetrated by this boy six years my junior, and even more so given his dark, good looks, and I was so taken by him that he quickly had me on the verge of coming. I did hold back, but when at last he grasped me tightly and thrust forward and began to flood my rectum with his teenage slime I could no longer refrain and as he shot his seed up my ass I shot mine.

We curled up in each other's arms afterward and lay there silently enjoying the warmth and bliss that follows congress, eventually kissing and nibbling and then caressing and fondling until once again our passions were aroused. Neither of us would make monks. This time I lubricated his anus and my stiff, aching cock, and this time he took the position of the bitch and I mounted him. He took as much delight in being penetrated as being the one fucking, and I found as much pleasure in penetrating this prurient sixteen-year-old boy as I had found in being mounted by him. As he had done, I fucked him slowly and paused frequently so we could both enjoy our union until finally, my rectum filled with his slime, I flooded his rectum with mine, and he sighed and groaned and arched his back as I filled him with my seed and he shot his as I had earlier shot mine as he had filled my ass.

In the morning we ate at one of the inns along the dock and he ate as heartily as any dockworker and I wondered if he did not engage in these night time trysts to burn off the fat he had to accumulate during the day. As we parted, he introduced himself as Akbar and hoped that I would remember him and speak well of him, and I replied that after the night we had spent together I would not be able to forget him, and that when I met him in the next life I would expect him to be even closer to perfection, to which he replied with a large grin and a sincere laugh.

Chapter 15
Vijayanagara 

The area in political turmoil, Nico hears of the powerful empire of Vijayanagara and so travels up river to see it. On the way he marvels at the work of elephants and at the capital he has congress with one of the trainers, Nahamana. Sickened by a ram fight, he meets a gem merchant by the name of Ferdazi from Shiraz, Persia, who takes him along to meet the king who became emperor as a teenager eight years earlier. 

Codes: M/t 

Characters: Nahamana 13

To the south of the Principality of Gersoppa was Kannur, the kingdom through which I had just travelled and which was at war with other petty kingdoms, and with the King of Calicut seen as a rival still further to their south. To the north of this Jain monarchy at Honnavar were the kingdoms of the former Bahmani Sultanate, an ancient empire which I was told had been ruled by powerful kings for close to two hundred years and who had extended their rule from the west coast to the east coast of this land and to the southern tip where the west and east seas join until about twenty years ago when a weak and cruel king more interested in whoring and drinking than ruling came into power. The Mohammedan heathens from the north had arrived in the area at the same time as his ascendency to the throne and their armies began seizing large portions of the kingdom. Incensed and roused by indignation to rebellion, the people rose up and the man's oldest son murdered him and assumed power, only to be murdered a short time later by his younger brother who only continued the ways of their father. So again the nobles rose up and disposed of the unworthy son and placed in power one of their own ten years ago. (1)

These newly formed kingdoms were constantly at war with each other, with the Jain Monarch of Gersoppa, and with the King of Vijayanagara to the east, when not putting down rebellions in their own kingdoms. I have found by nature these Christians of the East and their Mussulman enemies and allies are all a highly excitable people and governed by emotions of the heart rather than by the logic of the mind, and being highly explosive in nature, are not to be trusted. Their history is certainly proof of my opinion. I knew for my own safety I should flee the area though I was sorely tempted to go into hiding and remain there in disguise with Akbar. Stories about the wealth and grandeur of this king to the east provided an even greater temptation than the need to satisfy the desire of my loins however, and was a temptation which I could not ignore, and so in the end I headed inland, purely to satisfy my own curiosity.

Obtaining passage on a merchant's boat in return for the strength of my back, we headed upriver, and at the end of the day I encountered a sight that one has to see to believe. Rounding a bend in the river, which was rapidly becoming narrower and shallower, I came across three elephants who were pushing an ocean vessel up on the shore for cleansing before its return trip. As I watched, the three beasts put their heads up against the vessel and under the guidance of their trainer, they began to push the craft ashore. To my amazement, such was their strength that they easily pushed this ocean-going ship up onto land, and then each grabbing block and tackle raised it up onto rollers. Although smaller than their African cousins and taller at the arch of their back instead of their shoulders, they stand fourteen palms high and are the size of three oxen, the females being slightly smaller than the males. Their strength was unbelievable and I cannot adequately describe it.

A week later we left the river and followed a trail through the jungle where I again encountered these wondrous beasts at work. A recent storm had toppled several of the large trees along the trail and we paused and watched as the trainers of these magnificent animals had them drag the fallen trees off the trail. The trail being a major corridor, it was being widened at the same time to allow easier passage, requiring the uprooting of live and healthy trees of the same massive size as those which had fallen. As we watched in amazement, a rope was attached to one of the broken overhanging branches of a towering tree and one of the elephants grasped it with its trunk and, in what would have taken the combined strength of two dozen men, pulled the branch and tree to the ground. From the amount of work these beasts are capable of, they have to be invaluable.

I had been told that this king reigning over the Kingdom of Vijayanagara owned besides a vast number of horses a large number of these elephants. As I approached his capital city a week later I discovered that the rumour was true. There at the entrance to his city stretched as far as the eye could see barracks for his mighty army and stables and training grounds for his animals. There I paused to watch his horsemen at practice, and his war elephants in training. The use of elephants in warfare in the past is well-known by any schoolboy, the beasts having been used to combat Alexander the Great, and having been taken across the Alps and used by the famous Carthaginian general Hannibal against the Roman empire, but no schoolboy can appreciate the use of these animals in war from a schoolmaster's lessons as he can seeing them in action.

Spotting a boy practising with his beast nearby and apart from the others, I moved in closer to observe. The animal was carrying in its trunk a sword two braccia long and as thick and wide as the hand of a man. As I watched I discovered an elephant has more intelligence than any other animal in the world. The boy spoke to the elephant, telling it to go forward, turn back, strike this one, strike that one, and do not strike any more, and the elephant immediately obeyed each of his commands. Seeing me watching, the boy slipped off the back of his mount and approached me, and I expressed my admiration of his animal and my admiration of his skill in handling the beast. That greatly pleased him, and proud of the animal under his care, a female he called Shikata, and proud of his responsibilities, he was eager to talk about both, and I was eager to engage him in such conversation, not just because my interest and praise was genuine, but because he was an attractive, unpretentious young boy who spoke with the honesty and enthusiasm of youth.

So I was able to approach and examine this magnificent beast at close range and even to touch its wrinkled, leathery hide. It has massive ears but little eyes like those of a pig. Its height, at the arch of its back, was thirteen palms, and some animals I saw in training even reached fifteen. Its legs are as large in circumference at their lower extremity as the higher and its foot is round, like a large trencher for cutting meat, with five nails each the size of an oyster shell. Its most unusual feature is its trunk, which extends almost to the ground and is as versatile as a man's hand. I have already commented on its use to pull down large branches. It also uses it to pick up food and put it in its mouth, which is beneath its throat, and to suck up huge quantities of water to squirt in its mouth or over itself. Despite the size and strength, I discovered its trunk is also very sensitive and capable of the most delicate movements, even able to pick up a single peanut in the palm of its trainer.

The beast is mounted by teaching it to lower its hind leg so one can scramble up it and on to its back. Its driver or trainer straddles the beast, which when going to war, wears mail over its head and trunk and carries a large basket on each side of the rider capable of holding three armed men in each basket. While the soldiers attack with bows and lances, the beast is capable of swinging a mighty sword two braccio long and as wide and thick as the hand of a man. (2)

The female, I discovered, is stronger and prouder than the male. I also discovered that the greatest weakness of these mighty beasts in battle is that they have a dread of fire and fireworks and turn and flee when confronted by either. The boy proudly extolled the beasts' intelligence and nature, and I have to say that they have more understanding, discretion and intelligence than many people I have met with, especially in this country. While I was admiring the boy's mount, another elephant nearby, a male, paused to make water, and I watched in amazement as its mighty member, as grey as the rest of its body and as long as a man is tall and greater in circumference than a man's thigh, emerged from its pouch until it also almost touched the ground and then flooded the soil beneath it with such a force of water it ran like a river. The boy noticed my distraction and smiled.

"It grows even larger when aroused, just like that of a man," he advised, his grin growing wider. "When the female is in her time, they go to a special pond to mate."

"They mate in a pond?"

"Yes, the water helps to buoy up the male when he mounts the female. Her back could not otherwise support such weight."

I imagine that it could not. A horse is well hung and a man well-endowed is often said to have a horse cock. The first time I had seen a stallion aroused I marvelled how a mare could handle something of such size. Now I tried to imagine how a female elephant could accommodate a member of such tremendous size as I had just seen, and that not even in an erect state! So depraved I had become I tried to imagine what something that size stuffed up my rectum would feel like, and in my depravity I became instantly erect.

"It would be something to have one that size, would it not?" the boy asked in youthful innocence and honesty, noticing my arousal but still looking at the elephant's member which was now slowly retracting.

"It certainly would," I agreed.

It was the end of the day and the boy put away the training equipment and rewarded Shikata with a large melon and a handful of nuts and a reassuring rub before allowing her to join the others. I noticed that some of the trainers carried a goad and others a whip whereas the boy did not and I commented on my observation.

"It is a cruel way to train an animal," he said, his eyes narrowing and his voice reflecting his disapproval. "A good trainer would never use such things and can achieve better results."

"With peanuts and sweets."

"Yes," he said with a smile. "You have a great understanding of the way of animals," he observed, "and an appreciation."

I nodded. "I was once in the calvary. A Mameluke. I learned much about horses, and the bond that can be formed between man and animal. Like you and Shikata. There is much similarity."

"I could tell you had an appreciation." His fellow trainers headed for the barracks. "You will join me in my evening meal?"

"I would be delighted. There is much I would like to know about these magnificent beasts."

We washed up and joined the line of trainers and handlers waiting to eat. The evening meal consisted of a bowl of rice in a hot curry and pepper sauce and slices of flatbread. As we ate we talked, about his life as a trainer, about my life as a Mameluke, and especially about elephants and horses, and about the boy's favourite god, Ganesa, an elephant-headed deity, the god of good luck and the remover of obstacles, the god of scribes and merchants. He was said to be gentle, calm, and friendly and to have good sense. I learned much about elephants, including the fact that an elephant lives seventy years on an average and that once a trainer and elephant are matched, they are often paired for life so the matching often occurs when both are very young, in their early teens or even younger.

"I think also there is another fondness that you have," the boy, who had introduced himself as Nahamana, observed.

"And that is?"

The boy took my hand and guided it to his backside and looked up at me with a knowing smile.

"You are observant."

"You have been admiring it most of the evening."

"It is something difficult not to admire," I said lamely, caught off guard.

"You will join me tonight?" he asked, looking up at me with wide-eyed innocence.

"I would be honoured," I replied in surprise.

He took my hand and led the way and I wondered if my desires were that obvious to everyone, and what knowledge and experience this young boy could possibly have at his age and lowly position.

"Nahamana has found another bull for the night," observed one of the trainers, a boy about his age, making no attempt to lower his voice.

"He attracts them as a torch attracts moths," observed a companion just as loudly and several others chuckled.

"Perhaps after riding a female all day, they are attracted to the scent of female between his legs."

"Perhaps after spreading his legs on a female all day he cannot sleep until he spreads his legs for a male all night," joked one of the older boys.

"That one looks as well hung as your Jaydeva," another said, referring to the other boy's elephant.

"Larger," said Nahamana with a leer as he reached up and squeezed my crotch, much to the laughter of the others.

It was all in good fun, and even the older men smiled at the ribaldry of the youth. The trainers all lived in a clearing in the jungle under lean-tos made from broad-leaved branches, some occupied by a single person, many shared by two to eight individuals, the grouping appearing to be by age and friendships. Nahamana had his own lean-to, though it was attached to others on each side, and he apparently seldom slept alone. In the corner was an altar to his elephant-headed boy god.

"Ganesa provides. Ganesa loves men, and men love Ganesa," he observed as a matter-of-fact, and I was of the impression that love included physical.

"You have a softness for older men?"

"Not a softness," he said, reaching over and placing my hand on his crotch. He was not soft.

I quickly discovered the boy was both knowledgeable and experienced despite his young age. He did indeed love men, and men did love him. He was one of those boys impossible not to love. Handsome, seductive looks, hours spent training resulting in a smooth young body with the strength and definition of an adolescent, he had a confidence and brashness of youth but the practicality and common sense of one twice his age, much like his god with the head of an elephant. He disrobed me first, and then slowly and seductively removed his own clothing so that by the time he was done I was erect. We embraced and kissed and I caressed his smooth, firm body, kneading his buttocks and fondling his stones and stroking his member, which had been firm before he had begun. It was slender but of an impressive length for a boy his age and he had a thick bush of curly black hairs.

We ended up lying on our sides facing each other but in opposite directions. I felt his hot breath on my loins and then the heat and moistness of his mouth as he slipped it over my member, and then moments later the suction of his breath. Raising myself on an elbow, I glanced down at him and the sight of this tousle-haired, smooth-cheeked thirteen-year-old child eagerly sucking on my swollen cock with as much delight as I was feeling caused my member to throb with even greater desire. I lay like that for a while, taking great pleasure in what he was doing and even greater pleasure watching him. He was not doing this for coin or for some advantage, and he was not doing it out of duty or because he was being forced. He was sucking my cock for the sheer pleasure it gave him, and the pleasure it was giving me, and because he was doing it freely and enjoying it the pleasure was doubled for each of us.

I could have watched him to the very conclusion but I could not resist turning my attention to his stiff, swollen member, as tawny as he. I lay back down and leaned forward and took his member in my mouth and I delighted in feeling his flesh throb with desire. I tightened my lips about his shaft and sucked gently as I inhaled the musky fragrance of his crotch. He stopped sucking on my cock and I slowly realized he was doing what I had done. He had raised himself on one elbow and was watching me sucking on his cock just as I had watched him. Being watched caused my cock to throb more hotly and I closed my eyes and sucked on his swollen dink slowly and gently as it pulsated between my lips.

He finally resumed sucking me and the two of us lay there that hot, humid night sucking each other, me bringing him the same pleasure as he was bringing me. Bringing me close to coming, he slipped his lips off my swollen, throbbing cock and sucked on my balls which by then had swollen and drawn up tight beneath my cock. Waiting until my lust subsided, he once again slipped his lips about my cock and began to suck and I did as he had done, slipping my lips off his throbbing little cock and sucking instead on his little eggs until he too had calmed down. As I felt myself approaching my peak a second time, I once again raised myself on my elbow and looked down at this young elephant boy as he sucked deeply on my knob, and I continued to watch as I felt my seed race up the core of my swollen cock and spurt out the tip, filling his mouth with my hot, thick slime. The boy did not waver as he took my milk in his mouth and savoured it before swallowing it, and the sight of this thirteen-year-old stiff-cocked boy swallowing my slime made me squirt out all the more.

Laying back down, I took his little cock back in my mouth and resumed sucking and slipping my lips up and down the shaft, and I soon had his need back up to the breaking point. I had ceased spurting and the boy was sucking out my residual seed when he came, his thin, watery cum racing up the core of his little swollen cock and spurting into my mouth. I delighted in the sweetness and texture of his youthful offering as he filled my mouth with his slime, and I then swallowed it with as much delight as he was feeling having it spurt out of his body. And so the two of us lay there draining each other's swollen balls and eagerly sucking out and swallowing each other's remaining slime.

He twisted around when he was done and the two of us lay there in each other's arms, naked and flushed with the warmth and pleasure that follows the release of one's seed. We kissed and I tasted my seed on his lips and smelled it on his breath, just as he tasted his on my lips and smelled his on my breath. We said nothing and lay like that for the longest time. As I felt his fingers begin to explore my body, caressing my buttocks and caressing my thighs, I did the same. His thighs were smooth but muscular from his work, and his buttocks firm and compact. Again the boy knew what he was doing, and I inhaled deeply as I felt his middle finger slip up the crack of my ass and the tip massage my anus.

He removed his finger but a second later it returned, this time wet and slick. Where he had placed the lubricant I do not know, but it had been within his reach and now he was lubricating my anus and my rectum, and his stiff cock. That meant only one thing, and the intent and the fact he had taken the initiative surprised and excited me. This thirteen-year-old boy was intending on mounting me! There were men who would protest and resist such a move, but for me his actions increased my arousal and I looked forward eagerly to being mounted by this thirteen-year-old child. His member, as I have said, was long but slender, and he had no difficulty inserting it up my rectum, also testament to this young boy's experience and knowledge. Having sunk it up my backside until his curly hairs were pressed against my buttocks, he paused to enjoy the delight of having his stiff cock buried deep up my ass, and I marvelled at the delight of having his young boy's little member up my rectum.

As he began to pump his hips, working his stiff cock in and out of my rectum, I concentrated on the burning sensation circling my anus and the throbbing pleasure of having his hard boy cock pumping in and out of my asshole. He paused occasionally to enjoy the delight of fucking me and to make our congress last longer, and I closed my eyes in ecstasy as he lay there, his stiff cocklet up my ass. In time he resumed fucking me and I derived as much delight in being fucked by this boy almost half my age as I knew he was enjoying fucking me. After several pauses, he fucked me with a final rush and I soon felt this young boy spurting his seed up my ass. He gasped and grunted openly and unabashedly as his seed gushed up the core of his cock and spurted up my rectum and he collapsed against my body with heaving breast.

He lay like that for the longest time recovering, and then he at last pulled his still stiff cocklet out of my body. I rolled over and looked up at him. With a smile, he handed me the jar of lubricant and he dropped to his knees and elbows and spread his legs, presenting his delightful backside to me. I wasted no time dipping my middle finger into the unknown paste and greasing the boy's rectum and my stiff cock as he had greased my rectum and his own member. Positioning the tip of my member against his anus, I grasped his hips and pushed forward and at the same time the boy pushed out. I am well hung but both the boy and I were experienced and eager to unite. Snorting and grunting, we persisted and after several tries I got my knob wedged in his anus and we managed to unite.

I slowly sank my cock up his rectum until my coarse hairs were pressing against his smooth backside, and I paused to enjoy the sensation of having my cock surrounded by his hot, moist, pulsating flesh, and to allow him time to enjoy being stuffed with my sausage. I then began to slowly fuck him, taking my time and enjoying the pleasure encircling my knob and rippling up my shaft. Despite having done this now for years, fucking a young, eager boy never ceased to delight me and the novelty and mystery for my youthful partner never failed to heighten my lust. The boy was obviously experienced so this was nothing new or unknown, but at his age it still had to be a wonder. He constricted his anus as I withdrew and relaxed as I thrust my cock back up his backside, coordinating his actions with mine and obviously enjoying taking the passive role as much as he had enjoyed taking the active role in fucking me moments ago.

So, with my rectum filled with his young slime, I fucked his ass until I too reached my climax, and he sighed and groaned with pleasure as he felt my hot, thick seed spurting deep up his rectum and my stiff cock throbbing inside him. I flooded his rectum with my seed as he had flooded mine, and I gasped with delight and grasped his young, sweating body tightly as my member throbbed out my juice and his anus grasped my stiff bone tightly. He quivered with my release, enjoying it as much as I, and I knelt there with my cock up his ass and nibbled on the nape of his neck. The boy was not as skilled as Akbar, but that only heightened my delight.

The next day I strolled about the streets of this splendid capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, wandering aimlessly and enjoying the sights. It was much like Calecut or any other major city, with the same splendours and temptations as any major trade centre anywhere in the world, at least in those parts of the world I have seen. And like any large city it was divided into quarters by two major streets running through the city, those streets dividing the rich from the poor, the noble from the commoner, and the local citizens from the foreigner. It was a Vedic city, by which I mean the people believed and followed the Vedas, ruled by a Vedic king with Brahmin advisors with its people divided into castes as in Calecut and believing in Vedic gods, but the people following Islamic ceremonies also and copying the dress of the Arabs, and it had a large Muslim population living in its own quarter. I have chosen the word Vedic to describe them instead of Christian, for I have concluded that these people are not Christians as we know the word in the West. Vijayanagara's markets had the same shops and it had the same slums as any other city regardless of the religious beliefs of the people. It also had magnificent temples and large, impressive old buildings, this being an ancient kingdom. (3)

In the cool of the evening I found a crowd gathering and I approached it out of curiosity. A pen had been set up and staked at one end was a female goat. A ram was brought in and allowed to approach and smell the female, who was obviously in heat from the male's reaction, and the male was staked at the far corner. A second ram was brought in and the same procedure followed with the male staked in the corner opposite the other male. I was perplexed at first what the purpose of the ritual was, but what was about to happen quickly became clear. Bets were made on the two males, which looked quite the same to me though from the conversation around me there were two camps of opinion in that regard.

The rams were then released, and true to their nature, they attacked each other, ramming their heads together and attempting to gore each other with their massive horns. As their lust for the female increased so did the intensity of their attack on each other and the intensity of the crowd which was divided in half, one group cheering on their champion and the other cheering on theirs. Blood flowed freely from the animals and through the veins of the audience and tempers increased as first one and then the other animal reigned. The poor animals were allowed to continue to fight even though both were bleeding profusely from their injuries and blood was spurting from their nostrils and ears. I was sickened by the sight and the stench of blood, and by the frenzy of the men watching, and I had to turn away though with the press of the crowd it was impossible to leave. Finally one beast defeated the other, and as the loser lay in the dust dying, money exchanged hands, and disputes in some cases turned to fisticuffs and human blood began to flow. With disgust, I half expected the crowd to turn and begin placing bets on the combatants.

"A disgusting spectacle," observed a man beside me. "Not one for the eyes of a civilized man."

I turned and was about to agree with him, assuming he had meant the ram fight, when I saw he was looking at the two brutish, bearded men swinging at each other and the sparkle in his eyes. "It certainly is not," I agreed and he turned and as our eyes met the corners of his mouth curled.

He was slightly shorter than I, perhaps twice my age, tawny complexioned with thin, black, waxed moustaches that extended a palm on either side of his nose and curled upward. Perhaps as a younger man he had been fit, but he was now on the plump side, with jowls and the beginning of a double chin, age and indulgence resulting in a sizable belly and rounding out his arms and legs with an insulating layer of fat. He was a man who was evidently living and eating well. He was wearing a purple silk turban with a large, single black pearl of astounding quality, billowing robes of purple, blue and pink which made him seem larger than he really was, and a sash about his ample waist with a short, curved sword tucked on one side and a bejewelled dagger on the other.

"Ferdazi al-e-Ahmad-ibn-Zadeh," he said, placing his palms together and bowing as he introduced himself. He had a very thick accent which I could not place but which was not of this land nor that of a Moor.

"Nikaar Krishnan," I said as I bowed and placed my hands together as he had. This was a strongly Christian (Vedic) empire at war with the Mussulmen. I thought it unwise to assume my Arab name under those circumstances, and given the current reputation of my countrymen, even more unwise to give my true Christian name. Baracutey, my Tocobaga and only other name, would likely only confuse everyone and require an explanation I would rather not get into.

"If your constitution has not been duly upset by this barbarian entertainment, will you join me in something to eat and drink?"

"It would be my pleasure," I said with a courteous nod.

I followed him to a modest inn and allowed him to order for the two of us, or perhaps I should say the three of us for he consumed the share of two men. His constitution certainly had not been upset by the ram fight, or the brawl that had followed. As we ate we talked, or more accurately he talked, and I listened. He was a man who liked to talk as much as he liked to eat, and yet, when we were done, I had difficulty saying he had told me anything.

"That is a fine scimitar," I observed as he paused for breath. It was a sincere complement. Besides, he was a proud man and I knew it would please him, and given his cordial invitation to join him and pay for the meal, the least I could do was pander to his pride.

"Ah, you noticed. Yes, it is a superb piece of steel. It has been the instrument for the separation of many bodies from their heads among the Shirvan and Ak Koyulu. Had I been serving with Sheikh Haydar, he would not have been killed in his third and sadly last campaign, as Zoroaster is my witness believe me." (4)

"So, you are a soldier?"

"Was. Like all patriotic young men, I stepped forward to defend Shiraz from its enemies, but I was a younger and less wise man then. I know now nothing can last forever, especially emperors. I also know there are other and more pleasurable ways to spend one's days than to fight time and the enemies of one's people," he added with a grin. Shiraz. I knew now where I had heard his accent.

"True, but Shiraz is certainly worth defending with one's life. It is a beautiful and magnificent old city." That was true. It would also appeal to the man's pride, and I had little else to offer to compensate the man for his kindness.

"You have been to Shiraz?" he asked in surprise.

"Only once. Passing through."

"And what brought you to Shiraz?"

I thought for a moment before replying. I was supposedly a follower of the Vedas and a long way from Shiraz. "When I was a boy, I was captured and made a slave. A Mameluke soldier bought me and we went north to fight the yenicen, the kapikullan, the door servants of the Ottoman Emperor Sultan Bayazid II."

"This Sultan I have never heard of. But the kapikullan. They I have. Are they truly as skilled and brave as it is rumoured? (5)

"They are. The man who owned me was killed and the army slaughtered or captured, and the rest of the soldiers fled. I was one of those captured but later released for a soldier is highly respected, even a soldier of the enemy, and having fulfilled my bond to the man who had bought me, I headed home, and on the way, I passed through Shiraz."

"And now you are home."

"No. I am not of Vijayanagara," I replied, not wishing to be identified with the empire and so judged by its allies and enemies and hindered in my movement.

"Then where?"

"Anjediva Island," I replied, seizing the first local name that came to mind. I had heard mention of it. The Captain-major had talked most emphatically about visiting it and joining its ruler against the King of Calecut, and I had heard it mentioned by others in Calecut as being the home of enemies. I knew nothing more and hoped being an island it was remote and small enough that he knew nothing of it. "My family are sailors," I offered, hoping that would make my origins of even less interest to him.

"Then why are you here?"

"I heard of the greatness of this empire and its emperor, and came to see for myself," I replied, which was the truth. "And you?" I asked, hoping to divert his questions, which were becoming uncomfortable.

"I too came out of curiosity. And also to see this Emperor on business. My family is in the gem business." He emitted a loud and satisfied burp. "Tomorrow I will seek an audience with him. You will join me?"

"An audience? With the Emperor? Certainly. I would be most honoured, and in your debt."

"Then we had best turn in so that we show our best face tomorrow."

He rented us a room. It was a small, inexpensive and sparsely-furnished room but clean and in a reputable quarter occupied mostly by foreigners. I was dismayed to see it had but a single bed, and that one small. I had suspected from the moment he had spoken to me at the ram fight his interest was not in having my company but in having my body. He was fat but not unpleasant to look upon, and he cloaked his natural odours with an abundant, almost overpowering spraying of musk, but he was twice my age, and though I am not adverse to congress with older men, even those close to my father's age as he was, I felt no attraction to him and expected no enjoyment. I suppose a boy half my age feels much the same about me, but for a boy congress with another of his gender is novel and a mystery. That was far from the case of myself and my new companion. Still, I was in the man's debt, and tomorrow would be even more so.

I need not have worried. By the time I had stripped down to my underpants he had collapsed on the bed and was sprawled out on his back in a drunken slumber. It was a most uncomfortable night, lying on my side on the edge of the bed and afraid I would fall off if I fell asleep, but I need not have worried about that either. It was impossible to fall asleep. The man snored and snorted like a bull ox in rut. I had no sooner fallen asleep than the sun was rising.

Upon arising we bathed, a practise which I had forgotten was common among the Persians and for which I was thankful for the man had a proclivity for perspiration, and putting on our finest robes, we headed to the palace. Ferdazi spoke to the King's Secretary or Chancellor or whoever handles his appointments and presented him several papers, and to my surprise we were granted an audience the following afternoon. The rest of the day and the next morning we wandered about the city and admired its many sights. I was most impressed by the number of people of different nations, at least so I assumed according to their appearance and their dress. I again graciously declined offers to purchase us meals and a room for the night, confessing to be a man of little means, but my newfound companion insisted, and from the way he spent his money that day, including a new robe and a turban for me, he evidently could afford it. We rented the same room and he retired sober that night and made no advances. I slept much better knowing I need not fear unwanted advances in my sleep, and his snoring was not quite so voluminous though I still had to teeter on the edge of the bed.

So, the following afternoon we returned to the palace and were shown to the waiting room where there sat several other dignitaries, including several ambassadors and men of significance, individuals whose company I was not accustomed to having. When our turn came, I was surprised to be presented to a young man close to my age. From what I had heard about this Emperor and his conquests and wealth, I was expecting a man much older. He was wearing a cap of gold brocade two spans long, voluminous robes of the finest silk I have ever seen, and so much gold and so many necklaces and gems he had to have difficulty standing and walking.

Ferdazi was not intimidated and introduced himself with great flamboyance, naming me as his business partner, and explaining that his family came from a long line of dealers in gems who had a long-established trade route along the coast and extending to the islands to the south. He said he was about to take over running the family business for his aging father, but before doing so he wanted to see the family's trade route and the men operating it, and to seek out new trading agreements such as one with Vijayanagara. With that he nodded to myself and I stepped forward and presented an ornate box that he had me carry. My hands trembled as I knelt before this monarch and opened it, for whatever was inside could not possibly impress considering the man was wearing more jewels than one could imagine a man capable of carrying and sitting upright. The emperor leaned forward, accustomed to the great weight about his neck, and removed a necklace made of fine braided silver wire from which hung a pendant of the most intricately carved and unusual design.

"The Bridge of Discrimination, and the sacred names of the Ahuranis," said my companion reverently. That meant nothing to me, but fortunately my companion continued. "Symbols of the ancient and true religion of my country as revealed by the Prophet Zoroaster, and as revealed in the Rig-Veda of your faith."

Smiling, the King hung the pendant about his neck to join the other ornaments, clearly impressed by the gift. I certainly was. "I look forward to a long and profitable relationship," he said. He beckoned for one of the men sitting behind him to come forward and after whispering to him, the man nodded and rose and clapped his hands and those in the room stood and began to leave. "You will join me for refreshment?" the king asked.

I could not identify half the plates of food which were brought in. There were roasted birds whose tiny bodies were a quarter of the size of a man's fist, strips of highly seasoned lamb, boiled eggs stuffed with a creamy paste of exquisite taste, wild, toasted mushrooms fragrant in their own right without seasoning, cubes of a sharp-tasting cheese, paratha, which is a fried whole-wheat bread about the length of one's hand, and a dozen different rayta which are delicacies made from thickened, fermented milk mixed with cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables I could not identify, followed by rayta with fruits, coconuts, or burnt sugar.

While we dined the king and Ferdazi engaged each other in conversation like long-lost friends and a group of musicians dressed identically in white robes and turbans with a red and yellow sash, apparently some emblem identifying them as court musicians, entered. Being left to my own, I sat and admired the music, and the performers. There was much to admire about both. By this time I was familiar with the musical instruments of this country, the vina (a plucked lute) and the tambura (a long-necked lute similar to the Arabic ud which has a short neck and a very different sound), the bañsri (a flute with openings along the side instead of being blown at the end like the Arabic nay), the shahnai and nagasvaram (two reed instruments), and the mridangam (a double ended drum which the musician struck with his hands.) The musicians were young, in their mid to late teens or very early twenties, and all handsome. Two of the players had not yet reached puberty and were, I figured, no more than ten. They played the cymbals and were also singers and their voices blended beautifully, and even the king and Ferdazi paused to listen when they sang.

When we were done eating the musicians left and while the plates and food were cleared away we made our leave and the king retired to rest before meeting with the others who had an audience that day. We again toured the city and Ferdazi bought still more clothes, saying that we were invited to a reception the next night and that it would never do to meet the king again in clothing he had already seen. During our conversation I found that Ferdazi's family consisted of both those who made jewellery and those who collected and traded rare stones, many of which were obtained from islands far to the south where traders, distant family members usually, traded for them and brought them to the mainland.

There they exchanged them for trade goods and returned to the islands while other members of the family travelled up the west and east coasts of this land adding to the collection of gems. Midway up the coast they traded them off to still other members of the family who continued up the coast and across the lands ruled by the Arabs until they reached Shiraz to add their collection to other rare gems collected to the east and from the north and then returned loaded down with trade goods to be distributed to the south. Ferdazi wished to see this family trade route with his own eyes before taking over the business, and, he added, with the hopes of doing some trading himself and adding others to their expanding circle, just as he had told the king.

This king, I learned, had been ruling now for seven years, having come to the throne as a teenager. Deputies loyal to him governed his vast empire as they had before he had become king. His father had overthrown the last king, ending his dynasty, and had ruled for five years before he himself was killed, and the present king's older brother had been killed a few days after their father's death. I was told the real power was still in the hands of his guardian, a man by the name of Tuluva Narasa Nayaka, so there was a conflict between the two and much tension although legally the king had ultimate authority. He was by far the richest man I have ever met. I was told he received 12,000 pandai a day from subject kingdoms and had a personal army of 40,000 horsemen, 400 elephants, and I do not know how many dromedaries. A horse is worth between 300 and 500 pardai, the best up to 800 pardai; and elephants 50, 1000, and 2000 ducats depending on their age and skill. Along with such great wealth came great danger however. He was constantly at war with both Moorish and pagan kings and constantly the object of plots to remove him from the throne. (6, 7)

Chapter 16
Vijayanagara continued 

Nico entertains one of the court musicians and introduces him to the panpipe, and introduces two curious preteen court singers to the joys of man-boy sex in an all-night three-way tryst. He goes riding with the king and guests and is mounted by the imperious and impressionable teenage son of a cousin of a tributary Hindu king. 

Codes: M/b, M/t 

Characters: Shivaji 9, Mahat 10, Prince Vasu Raya 13 

We returned to the palace the next night in our new finery, Ferdazi selecting some of his finest jewellery from his personal belongings, and lending me some of the finest of his trade goods, narrow crystal earrings a palm long, and a large, dark emerald pinned now in the centre of a sea-green turban bound with a string of small pearls. The King was again dressed in robes of the finest silk of a deep mauve colour and even more jewellery than the day before, his fingers and toes sporting glittering precious gems and his neck festooned with necklaces and pendants, including the gift from Ferdazi from the day before.

As we mingled with the nobility and others of great distinction, Ferdazi was approached by numerous merchants eager to do business with this obviously affluent and influential tradesman, and by various lesser nobles wishing to ingratiate themselves with this personage who had the attention of their monarch. He was also approached by numerous members of the opposite sex of all ages, young girls charmed by his appearance and behaviour, for he was a handsome, brash individual despite his age and obvious paunch, by women of marriageable age attracted also by his wealth besides his physical attraction, and by matrons his age and older, both married and single, eager to establish a connection with a man from an obviously influential and powerful family, a connection that did not exclude a tryst in the pillows. In that regard, he was approached by his share of men of assorted ages for the same reasons, and I suspect, that also did not exclude the bedchamber.

As I watched these individuals and their obsequious behaviour as they approached Ferdazi and talked to their monarch, I found their behaviour repugnant and I was surprised to see neither my new companion nor the king offended by their mendacity and obvious insincerity. Instead, they seemed to encourage their sycophantic behaviour and to swell with their flattery. I had seen such behaviour by courtiers and aspiring nobles many times before of course, in the courts of King Joao and King Emanuel, the court of the Catholic Monarchs, and the courts of Sultan Bayazid II, Prince Abbas, and even Pope Innocent, and it never failed to amaze me how alike courts are around the world, and how alike men of ambition are, including their total lack of moral substance. Just as obvious as the pandering was the rivalry among these men and women. It is no wonder that being a leader of such men was so precarious and that in every kingdom I have visited scheming, intrigue and murder are everyday occurrences and accepted as a way of life.

I found I was not without my own toadeaters and flunkies. I was thought to be either Ferdazi's compatriot and a son from another influential family, his own son or a nephew, his business associate equally as rich and influential, or his bed mate by one or another of them and at one time or another, and I was similarly approached by members of both sexes for the same reasons as Ferdazi was, because of my looks and/or assumed position or wealth in the hopes of ingratiating themselves with me and therefore also with Ferdazi and/or their Emperor. When it became obvious that Ferdazi had no interest in a bed mate of the same sex, the men backed off and the number of female sycophants increased with the objective of seduction, marriage, or anything between. When it also became evident I was not sharing Ferdazi's bed in the intimate sense, my male sycophants also dropped off, and when it also became evident I was not interested in either male or female companionship, in their confusion I was left alone, which suited me fine for I had no desires for any of them.

By then I discovered Ferdazi had disappeared. Feeling uncomfortable among these individuals of distinction, having nothing in common to discuss and finding their plotting and fawning odious, and having nothing to say that would be of interest to their monarch that I dare approach him on my own, I edged my way to the exit.

"You are leaving?" It was one of the musicians. The one who played the flute they call a bañsri. The two young singers were with him.

"Yes," I replied with a smile. He was, as I said, young, and on the thin side, with a long narrow nose, but not bad-looking. Not that bad that I would be averse to joining him for the night, which gave me cause to pause.

"We noticed you yesterday, and tonight. You are more attentive than most others."

"We?"

"My fellow musicians and I. We all noticed your attention." The two boys with him nodded.

"I confess, I am guilty. The chatter of the others is not of much interest to me. I am a musician of sorts myself and enjoy your playing and singing."

"Thank you. You are a musician of sorts?"

"I have performed professionally, though I do not at the moment. I can play the ut, and the nay. And I am told I have a good voice. My favourite instrument is the panpipe."

"Panpipe? I am unfamiliar with an instrument by that name."

"It is several pipes bound together. The sound is not unlike your bañsri." I considered for a brief moment. "It is back in my room, if you would like to hear it. Unless your presence is required here."

"No," he said. "We were about to leave ourselves. Our audience has moved on to other, more intimate interests. Like your countryman."

"My countryman? Oh, Ferdazi. You saw him leave?"

"Yes," he said with a smile. "In the arms of a young maiden interested in playing his pipe, with the blessings of her mother and father in the hope they will make fine music." The two boys giggled.

"I am not surprised. That he has been courted, and that he has left. But we are not countrymen. Only newly-met companions with a common interest."

"One of which is not beddable young maidens."

"Definitely not."

"Nor pleasuring each other."

"Even more definitely not." How did he know? The guests would not share such a discovery with hired help, especially in a society with such marked class distinctions. But then when you are hired help you are invisible to those above you and can hear and observe much. Having been in such a position, I knew. "Ferdazi has no desires in that direction, and though I am not averse to such relationships, I prefer my companion to be much younger than he."

"I have no interest in such congress," the fellow said quickly, not in a disapproving tone but firm so as to be clear on the matter.

"That was not my objective in my invitation to my room. It was only to hear the panpipe and share what I thought might be of a musical interest."

The fellow glanced at the two boys and then back at me. "You say you sing also?" I nodded. "Then we would certainly be interested. I am Vidyapati," he said, introducing himself. "And this is Mahat and Shivaji." The boys nodded. Now them I was most interested in but from their older companion's abrupt notification of his disinterest in such matters I decided it best not to reveal my predilection. Besides, that really was not the reason I had invited them to join me.

And so I took them to the room Ferdazi and I shared and played my panpipe for them, and upon their encouragement sang for them, and then Vidyapati and I did a duet on our instruments, and I and the boys sang as a trio, and we talked about music, that of their land and that of mine and that despite our other differences appreciation of music was something we had in common. It was a joy to talk about music, something I had not done for a long time, and something, I realized, I missed.

"Well," Vidyapati said at last, "this has been most enjoyable, but it is late. Will you be in our city long?"

"I am not sure. I have no definite plans at the moment."

"Then Krishna permitting, perhaps we can meet again. I would hear more about the music of your land and of your travels."

"I would enjoy that."

"Then if you do find yourself sojourning in our city, contact me. Anyone at the palace can direct you to our lodging." He stepped to the door and then turned. "I would not expect your companion to return tonight."

"No, I don't suspect he will."

"Then I take my leave," he said, and with a nod to myself and the two boys, he turned and left.

"How young do you prefer your companions?" one of the boys, Mahat, asked as I turned to the two of them. Looking at Shivaji, he continued before I could speak, "We do not share Vidyapati's disinterest in such things."

"You have experience in such matters?"

"With each other. There are men who have approached us, but Vidyapati said as court musicians we must show discretion and not act like common street whores and crawl into bed with anyone for there are many men who are opposed to such relationships, including many men of power. He also said we must be careful and that it would not be wise to encourage anyone without knowing their connections and intentions regarding the throne."

"Very wise advice," I observed, knowing from experience the intrigues of court.

"But it is tempting," said Shivaji. "We have friends who have said it can be of great pleasure with someone older and wiser in such ways, and we find much pleasure in each other."

"And would learn more so we could better pleasure each other," added Mahat.

I smiled at my good fortune, and at Vidyapati's perception and graciousness in leaving when he did, especially considering his views on such relationships. "It would be my pleasure to share with you what knowledge I have," I said, "and I am a stranger in your land so have no intentions regarding the throne, supportive or aversive."

The two boys stepped up to me instantly, one on each side, and reached for my crotch. "We are glad to hear that. And we are glad to see your happiness," said Mahat, wrapping his fingers about the growing bulge in my robes.

"Or have you concealed a garden snake in your robes?" asked Shivaji, reaching inside my robe and running his hand up my thigh and causing my member to twitch.

"Feels more like a python, and it is trying to escape," observed Mahat slipping his fingers about my stirring member and the two boys giggled.

"I suspect it may be the two of you who will be instructing me," I observed and the boys giggled harder.

The boys claimed experience only with each other and I believed them. They were too guileless to lie about such a thing. Their enthusiasm and unabashed curiosity more than made up for any lack of skill. I have extolled many times the pleasure to be had with young, prepubescent boys, and their open curiosity and unfettered desire are two of the many reasons why I have such a preference. To have a young boy willingly and eagerly exploring your body out of sheer delight and curiosity, and to openly allow one to explore his body and most private parts without shame or guilt is to experience the most delightful pleasure that can be imagined, and to experience such pleasure with two such boys is a rare treat indeed. The two eagerly removed my robes and as they fell to the floor the two examined my growing member and my stones as if they had not seen such wonders before, and in the case of these two boys, heeding Vidyapati's warnings against encouraging older men, they had not.

How does one describe having one's swelling member held by such an innocent, or having one's stone's fondled with gentle care and worshipfulness by another innocent curious to discover if a man's stones are as tender as his own? As the two boys caressed and fondled me, I unwrapped their robes and they fell to their feet to reveal their smooth, delightful, naked bodies. Mahat, having recently turned ten and being the bolder of the two, took the lead and Shivaji, approaching his tenth birthday in another two months, willingly followed. They were of the same height, coming only up to my waist, and less than half my weight, perhaps sixty-five pounds at the most, their long, black hair extending halfway down their back when unbound and their smooth, lithe bodies completely hairless and softly contoured, not yet having developed the definition of puberty. Their little, limp members were about the length and thickness of my smallest finger, and their stones the size of marbles and hung in pendant, hairless sacks. Both were tawny in colour, Mahat slightly darker than Shivaji.

Upon questioning them, they revealed that they had first masturbated each other to orgasm about a year ago and did so several times a week, and occasionally engaged in oral sex but in their impatience reverted to using their hands or engaging in interfemoral congress to achieve orgasm quicker. Laying down on the bed with one boy on either side of me, I caressed both as they caressed me, the boys running their hands over my stomach and chest and along my thighs but unable to resist fondling my swelling cock and tender balls. I caressed their smooth, compact backsides, their slender thighs, and of course their swelling little members and their dangling balls, as unable to resist fondling them as they were unable to resist playing with mine.

Then sitting on the edge of the bed while Mahat stood before me and Shivaji sat on the floor, I bent over and taking Mahat's still swelling noodle in my mouth, I began to suck on it and to slip my lips up and down the young boy's shaft. Having explained and demonstrated what to do, I spread my legs and to my delight I felt Shivaji's hot breath between my legs and then the hot moistness of his mouth as he slipped his lips over the knob of my now erect cock and began to suck. Controlling his breathing, he slowly descended a few finger widths, as far as the young boy could manage, and then slid his lips back up. I encouraged him to go further down on my cock by taking a deep breath first and then refilling his lungs as he eased his lips back to my bulb, and with practice he managed to go several finger widths further. Sucking the slender, little cock of one young boy while being sucked by the other was a delight and it was not long before I felt my lust churning in my loins.

I had them pause and I explained the need to pause for one who is capable of producing seed, besides the benefit of prolonged and increased pleasure for those who are younger, and then we resumed. The boys were eager participants and knowledgeable little playmates and it was not long before the three of us were squirming with pleasure and anticipation. The boys were particularly eager to witness the culmination of our congress, and perverted as I had become, I was eager for them to experience orgasm with a man. Mahat's stiff little member was throbbing between my lips with a pleasure unknown and denied most boys his tender age, and that it was considered taboo by many made it all the more erotic for me and I delighted in his pleasure and awe as much as he did. My own cock, gigantic compared to those of my two young companions, was throbbing just as hotly between the smooth, hot lips of the younger Shivaji who sucked on my aching cock as eagerly as he would on a savoury sausage, and for him, my thick man dick was just as tasty. If anyone were to disbelieve that, further proof of his pleasure jutted up from between his legs and he eagerly stroked his stiff little member as he sucked on mine.

And then the two boys were trembling and jerking uncontrollably as if in a fit, their convulsions causing their bodies to twist in a most frightening manner as spasms of physical pleasure rippled through their swollen flesh. Their dry orgasms were a joy to behold and to be a part of, and I inhaled deeply as I felt the twang deep in my groin and my seed begin its journey. It burned up the core of my swollen cock and spurted out the tip, causing it to burn with that sweet combination of pain and pleasure. I came violently and copiously, filling the mouth of the nine-year-old sucking my cock so that it overflowed and oozed out the corners of his mouth and around his chin. His eyes wide with surprise and pleasure, he swallowed my slime as my balls emptied and the slime he had swallowed was replaced by more. As he sat back, his recently turned ten-year-old companion dropped to his knees and bending over, lapped up the creamy streamers of cum that had oozed down over my bulb and down my thick shaft, licking up the tart cream and delighting in its unique flavour and texture. The two boys glanced at each other and smiled, their lips coated and glistening with my seed in the candlelight.

The two boys were soon eager for more, and so was I, so I reversed the positions of the two boys, having Shivaji stand before me so I could suck on his slender little member, and having Mahat kneel between my legs and take my member in his mouth. Knowing the pleasure he had brought me and what it was like to suck another's cock, Shivaji looked down in anticipation as he watched me slip my lips about his little noodle and begin to suck it. Mahat, on the other hand, knowing the pleasure of being sucked, unabashedly slipped his lips about my swelling member, eager to bring me the pleasure I had brought him, and to experience having his mouth flooded with my seed as Shivaji had. Again it did not take long for the three of us to grow firm and for my thick cock to begin throbbing between the lips of the recently-turned ten-year-old boy and for his young companion to begin squirming and pumping his hips as his own little cocklet began to throb between my lips with a still strange urgent need. Again the two boys began to convulse with their dry orgasms, and again I released my seed and filled the mouth of young Mahat.

Once more we rested, but soon once again the two boys were eager to continue. Telling them I had to have more time, I had them practice what they had just done by having the two youngsters lay facing each other in opposite directions and sucking each other. They had masturbated each other frequently so were familiar with each other's dick, but it was the first time they had ever taken each other's cock in their mouth, and their delight and eagerness was a pleasure to witness. Invariably I have found that young boys are averse to such an act only because of the negative attitude pre-set by adults, and when not under their influence, take to it eagerly. I found the sight highly erotic so that by the time the two of them were convulsing with their third orgasm of the night, I was ready for mine, and once they had sufficiently recovered I had the two of them pleasure me with their tongues and mouths, and as I watched their tongues swirling about my bulb and my thick shaft and felt the wetness of their saliva along the rim of my bulb, it was not long before they were rewarded by a fountain of my thick, white slime, which the two of them eagerly drank, their lips and beardless cheeks smeared with my cream.

You would think that by then we would be satiated, but they were young, and I was inflamed by their youthful exuberance. Lying there with these two naked cherubs, or perhaps more likely devils for like their parents they worshipped such, snuggled up to me on either side and gently caressing my chest and thighs or running their fingers through my coarse hairs and cupping my recovering balls, I soon felt my lust churning in my groin and my member once again began to rise, which was quickly noticed by my two eager sinners, much to their delight. Their little dicks were already at attention and I delighted to see their perversity.

The two boys had heard from older boys that there was another way two males can bring each other pleasure, but they were sceptic considering the other function of that portal, and even when I confirmed it was so, they wrinkled up their noses at the thought. So, I picked up the challenge by first caressing the smooth, compact buttocks of the two boys and caressing their assholes with the tip of my finger and they were surprised by the pleasure that caused their holes to wink back at me. Taking out my lubricant, I scooped up a dab with my middle finger and having Mahat spread his legs and bend over, I inserted my finger slowly and gently and lubricated his rectum, much to the amusement of both. I then smeared the remainder of the lubricant off on my knob, and given my size, Mahat was most hesitant to proceed, but like all boys his age, he was curious and undaunted, especially by something taboo and the domain of adults. And so he stood his ground and bent over, and assuring him the pain would be brief and not as bad as he thought it might, a young boy's asshole being particularly expandable, I stepped up beside him and placed the tip of my knob against his opening.

I was correct of course, a young boy's asshole being so easily and readily stretched it gives one wonder if the good Lord had not had this other purpose in mind when he had created Adam, and indeed, had intended it to have that as its primary use from the beginning. Why else would he have one's anus and rectum lined with receptors for pleasure? The boy relaxed and pushed out as I instructed, and I entered him slowly and carefully, and between his boyish desire and my experience, I penetrated this young virgin with no difficulty, just as a man of experience pierces his virgin bride and draws only a prick of blood and a gasp that is as much of pleasure and surprise as it is of pain.

Mahat did gasp and tense, but as my swollen prick penetrated him and sank deep up his rectum to probe his hot, moist bowels, a wave of pleasure swept over him, just as it does over a new bride penetrated for the first time. I sank my member up to the base so that my coarse hairs were pressed against his buttocks, and then grasping his hips more tightly, I slowly withdrew, easing my stiff cock out of his hole and he quivered with the familiar but exaggerated pleasure not unlike evacuating a thick turd. I paused and then re-entered, sending ripples of pleasure and arousal about his little pucker and he gasped with the delightful, new sensation. And so I slowly fucked this young, virgin boy who had only recently turned ten, concentrating on the pleasure of having my aching, stiff cock surrounded by his hot, moist flesh and on the pleasure of bringing this new delight to the young, eager sinner. He was panting rapidly with excitement and lust, and I instructed him how to regulate his breathing with my thrusts and withdrawals, and how to tighten his anal muscle about my shaft during the latter, and to relax and push out during the former.

I then had Shivaji step forward and as I fucked his companion I took the young boy's limp pricklet in my mouth and began to suck on it once again, and again I was rewarded with feeling the boy's stiff finger-thick dicklet throb hotly in my mouth. Not yet ten, he was quick to rise and was soon stiff and eager to experience another orgasm. And so I greedily sucked on the stiff cock of this young boy as I fucked the tight ass of his companion, and the two young boys trembled and gasped and closed their eyes with the unique pleasure I was bringing them. Knowing the pleasure they were feeling, both physical and mental, doubled mine and I fucked the older boy eagerly as I sucked on the stiff little bone of the other, and once again the three of us reached our peak, the two boys trembling and gasping loudly and without shame as their hot, sweaty bodies were racked with the beautiful pain of orgasm, as powerful and delightful dry as a man's was wet, and their little stones drew up tight below their throbbing cocks, and I, gasping with sheer delight as I felt my seed once again racing up the core of my benumbed member and spurting out the tip with that delightful, sweet pain, this time filling the asshole of the older of the two boys.

We again relaxed, but Shivaji was eager to experience what Mahat had, and in my depraved lust and driven by demonic desire, I was just as eager to introduce this young boy to the delight of buggery. And so I caressed the tender pucker of this nine-year-old boy and lubricated his love hole, and I lubricated my already swollen and aching member once again, and as the boy nervously bent over with apprehension but anticipation, I deflowered him, and so great was the knowledge that I was deflowering this young, innocent boy that I was ready to flood his rectum with my seed the moment I had buried my member up his tight hole. It was only the desire to make this the most pleasurable experience of this young boy's life that I was able to calm myself and not do so.

And, like with his companion, once I had instructed my young partner how to play his role and to get the most pleasure possible out of being fucked, I turned my attention to the older boy and he eagerly stepped forward, little pecker already stiff and wagging with anticipation, and presented it to me for sucking. Oh such sweet delight! The tender, delightful, satiny morsel throbbing in between my lips as my mouth filled with drool, the delicate flavour and fragrance of boyhood more delectable than the finest flower, and the grasping and relaxing anal muscle of a tender nine-year-old boy being fucked for his first time, his gasping for breath and shuddering of indescribable and never-before-experienced pleasure caused my hot blood to throb through my aching bone and my heart to pound in my chest as I swayed dizzily with the greatest pleasure a man can know.

I approached my fifth orgasm that night with as much pleasure and anticipation as I had approached the first, and I quivered with delight as I felt my seed gush up the core of my swollen, numb cock, and as I flooded the rectum of this young boy with my seed and he felt the delight of being filled with a man's hot, thick slime for the first time, he and his companion reached their fifth orgasms of the night, the one quivering with the delight of having his stiff little cocklet sucked once again, and the other quivering with the new delight of having had his tight little ass fucked and his rectum flooded with a man's seed. We dropped off to sleep, exhausted and drained, the boy's assholes filled with my seed, their lips coated with a film of my slime, and their sweet breaths smelling of cock. They smiled as they dreamed of the pleasures of sucking cock and being sucked, and of being fucked, and I left them to experience the pleasure of being the bugger with each other.

They did not awake and leave until late the following morning, with much cheer and gratitude, and it was later still, almost noon, before my companion Ferdazi returned, also with much cheer. He had been matched up with a young woman half his age, one whose family, eager for Ferdazi's wealth, had encouraged her to take him to bed in the hopes she would become his wife, because of her beauty and the pleasure she could provide him in the pillows, or, if she could not, in the hopes she would become pregnant and he would be forced to marry her. It was not an uncommon practice in families with an excess of females and eager for upward mobility, and it was not an uncommon occurrence for my companion, being a man of wealth, of position, and for most women, a man who was not physically unattractive. Being single and not averse to being used when it was to his advantage, or when he could twist the situation around and be the one who was the manipulator as is the wont of the Persian race, he had willingly entered their trap, and, he said, she had provided him most delightful pillow pleasure, several times. When I asked if he was not worried about being entrapped, or getting her pregnant, he laughed and said he had a trail of little bastards, and likely just as many he did not know about.

"But now, for more important things. Today we must buy you some riding clothes," he announced.

"Riding clothes?"

"His highness invited me to go riding with him and a few others tomorrow, but I would not put a poor dumb animal through such torture," he chucked, patting his expansive stomach. "So I volunteered you." I looked at him incredulously. "You are a Mameluke. You know horses. You do, do you not?"

"Yes."

"Good."

For Ferdazi, his solution was so evident, and so brilliant, it did not need further discussion. So the next day I found myself riding with the emperor Narasimha Raya II and three Vedic kings, their male relatives, and assorted nobles, their followers and sycophants. One of those accompanying us was a handsome, dark-eyed, swarthy-skinned, young Prince, the son of a cousin of one of the Vedic kings, a boy of thirteen. The Emperor proved to be an excellent horseman, and my own expertise and comfort on a horse quickly endeared me to him, the others riding only to please the Emperor because it was a pastime he enjoyed. The Emperor's horse was a fine specimen, strong and proud with a fine spirit, much like the Emperor himself. It bore so many ornaments that the worth of its bangles was greater than the wealth of a small city in Europe or Persia. As we rode through the city, the people lined the streets a dozen deep and they bowed reverently and cheered as their Emperor passed by, a man clearly highly respected and esteemed by his people. He was also a man who revelled in such pomp and splendour, and when I mentioned the adoration of his people, he was much pleased that I had noticed.

Arriving at the edge of the city, he had the finery of his mount removed and we engaged in some serious riding across the open fields, racing each other and enjoying the thrill of riding, something I would have never thought I would enjoy ten years ago when I was more comfortable on the deck of a ship than the back of a four-legged beast. None of the other lords or nobles could match the two of us, and even if they had been able to, they would never have dared be equal to their host, something I had not thought of and which I am sure also endeared me to our host. We returned to the palace late that afternoon, hot and sweaty as were our horses. As we dismounted, I patted my horse affectionately and thanked him for the fine ride, and when one of the servants took his reins I ensured the animal would be rubbed down and rewarded before I would release him. I was assured that all of the mounts would be seen to, and my concern for my mount further endeared me to the King, most of the others eager to be quit of their mounts and more concerned about a bath and being rubbed down themselves.

Another who had a genuine care for our mounts was the young Prince, Vasu Raya, though his interest lay more in their value in war and his realization that a man who took good care of his mount and cared about his well-being had an advantage over a soldier who did not.

"You were a Mameluke at one time?" he asked, his respect and admiration evident in the tone of his voice and his manner, as his confidence and noble pride were evident in his bearing.

"Yes, that was where I honed my skills of horsemanship and use of the scimitar and broadsword in battle."

I half-expected him to ask how many men I had killed, but to his credit he did not. He was clearly a boy who had no delusions about the seriousness and vileness of war. He was also clearly a boy who had no delusions that his destiny would include participating in such battles, perhaps even leading them. That was not unusual, the history of all lands being populated by many young princes his age or even younger who headed battles, and won them.

"The Mamelukes are known for their skill in using the scimitar and the broadsword … besides other similar weapons."

His pause, the tone of his voice, and the narrowing of his eyes left little doubt in my mind just what similar weapon he was thinking of. Although only thirteen, he was very much a man physically and otherwise.

"For their skill, and for the size of their weapon also," I replied.

He smiled. "And I suspect you are one such man."

I replied with a slight smile of my own and a nod.

"Our ride has given me an appetite. Would you join me?"

"It would be my pleasure."

It would be his too, I soon discovered. We retired not to the kitchens nor the dining hall, but to one of the royal chambers on the third floor of the palace. It was a guest room, but one fitting for the prince of a neighbouring, allied kingdom. The cabinets, dressers and table were of a highly varnished, yellow-brown, expensive wood, teak, and the knobs and handles were of highly-polished black iron. Ornate framed mirrors and paintings of hunting scenes and battles decorated the walls, and iron sconces with thick candles provided abundant light. There was an alcove with a chamber pot, basin and tub, and a thick velvet curtain framed a large northern window. There was a large bed that could easily accommodate three, and two large, padded chairs covered in plush velvet. Assorted expensive rings, earrings and fasteners were tossed carelessly on one of the dressers. He pulled on a serving cord and a servant, about my age, promptly appeared and was ordered to fetch us chilled wine and fruit.

"So, I understand you are here on a trade mission with a … partner. A gem merchant, a Zoroastrian."

"Yes, though I am not exactly a partner, and I am not a Zoroastrian myself. This is my first visit to this land. Am I correct your own kingdom is to the east and south?"

"You are," he replied, and was quick to extol the virtues of his kingdom and its power and riches, stressing that his father was an ally of the Vijayanagara Emperor and an equal, not one who paid tribute like most of the other kingdoms. He was clearly proud and ambitious and, as I had suspected, eager to talk about himself and his family. As I had hoped, I had distracted him from further inquiries about myself and my relationship to Ferdazi and he talked without interruption until the servant returned with our refreshments. I gleaned many things about the political environment and the nature of the land to the east and south from his comments, and suspected that he was here as a guest of the Emperor because he was seen as a potential and future rival and the king intended on determining his plans and assessing his strength.

"So, you said you were not exactly a partner of the Persian," he said casually as we sipped our second glass of wine, a sharp, deep red grape.

"That is correct," I replied noncommittedly.

"Nor a compatriot."

"Correct."

"More of a companion then," he said. The narrowing of his eyes, his tone, and the curl of his lips made it clear what sort of companion he suspected I was and the role I played.

"More of a fellow adventurer," I corrected. "We share the same inquisitiveness about the customs of other peoples and places and we share the same thrill of discovery and exploration, not … the same bed."

"I have heard rumours of your … friend's inquisitiveness about the customs of the opposite sex," he observed, "but I have not heard similar of you."

His meaning and intent were obvious and the strong wine and his attractiveness made it impossible to ignore. "That is another way in which we diverge," I replied admittedly, uncertain where this was heading but keeping my options open.

"Your friend's weakness is a weakness many men have," he observed. "One we apparently do not share," he added. He picked up a fruit common in this area but unfamiliar to me, peeled back its yellow skin, and looked at me seductively as he slipped his lips over it, paused, and then bit into it. I was clearly being seduced.

I smiled, and as my member began to swell, I made no effort to hide the fact. If he thought he might gain information by seducing me, two could play that game. I would willingly suck his cock, and I would even more willingly let him suck mine. He got up from where he was sitting and sat on the edge of the bed. He motioned for me to sit beside him, which I readily did. His hands immediately slipped inside my robes and he began to caress my chest and tweak my nipples, direct and aggressive in his attack. He soon had my robe on the floor and my nipples burning and erect. Getting up, he stepped out of his own robes, revealing an erect and impressive cock for one so young, his member a good two finger-widths longer than most boys his age.

Retrieving a jar of lubricant from one of the dressers, he returned to the bed and then did something totally unexpected. He smeared the lubricant on his own cock and then motioned for me to roll over on my stomach. This thirteen-year-old boy, nine years my junior, was intending on fucking me! Though I had expected it to be the other way around, I was not adverse. The boy had a muscular chest, already sharply defined, and muscular thighs and firm biceps, the result of many hours in training for battle, riding, and wielding a sword. His body was smooth as one would expect of one of his age, only the thick triangular patch of crotch hair indicating he had reached puberty. I have to admit the thought of being mounted by this young warrior-Prince was erotic and I willingly rolled over and spread my legs.

The boy wasted no time and quickly lubricated my anus and slipped a greased finger up my ass, clearly experienced in taking the dominant role. He knelt between my legs and leaned over me, balancing on his elbows along either side of me, and he wiggled into position so the tip of his cock was wedged between my ass cheeks. Reaching down with his right hand, he held his stiff cock in position and slowly pressed forward and I felt his turgid knob stretching open my anal muscle. I pushed out in response and relaxed and I felt his stiff, slender member slowly penetrate me, his knob stretching open my anus and popping inside and then slowly penetrating up my rectum until his coarse hairs were pressed against my buttocks.

And so I was fucked by this thirteen-year-old prince, taken as effortlessly as any wanton whore. His self-assurance and presumption that he would take the dominant role added to the eroticism of being mounted by a boy nine years my junior and I found myself gasping and grunting with as much pleasure as if I had been the one doing the penetrating. The boy made no effort to hide his own pleasure and as he thrust his stiff cock in and out of my lubed anus he snorted and grunted with the pleasure pulsating through his swollen member and with his exertion, both obviously not new to him. The night was hot and humid. We were both soon sweating profusely, our sweat trickling down our ribs as he thrust his cock in and out of my body. We had not stopped to bathe and still smelled of horse, which added to the eroticism of the moment.

His intention was singular: his own pleasure and satisfaction. Whether I enjoyed being fucked did not matter to him as long as I was sufficiently aroused to accommodate him. His focus was on the throbbing of his own cock and the pleasure he was experiencing, not on providing me pleasure, though the mere act of being almost ravaged by this young boy provided me all the pleasure I required. As his breathing became more laboured and his pumping more erratic, I knew he was approaching his orgasm and I knew he would make no effort to delay and prolong the pleasure we were both feeling. That was fine with me for I was just as eager to climax as he was and the thought of having my rectum filled with the seed of this young warrior-prince hastened my own orgasm. As I felt his slender, hot cock throbbing deep up my rectum and his young seed spurting even deeper up my bowels, I felt my own race up the core of my swollen cock and spurt out the burning tip to spray the silk sheets and my naked, sweating body. He grasped me tightly and snorted with his pleasure like any commoner in rut as he flooded my rectum with his seed, and I inhaled the heavy fragrance of his teenage musk combined with the raw fragrance of horse and the unique fragrance of freshly split seed, his and mine.

We bathed afterward, in hot, perfumed water and with a sweet-smelling soap and two bath boys lathered up our long hair and rinsed it and dried it. We were dried with thick, soft towels and brought clean robes of fine silk and our long hair was combed and bound up in silk turbans. Necklaces of multi-coloured gems were hung about our necks and gold rings with large emeralds were slipped over our fingers and toes. Diamond studs were inserted in the Prince's ears and long crystal earrings were fitted in mine. We joined the Emperor and the kings we had ridden with for a lavish feast of quail in a savoury sauce and roasted tubers and carrots, wild rice and several dishes garnished with red and green peppers which were new to me. We talked of the ride that day and of horses and many things of no consequence and were entertained by the court musicians, including the two young singers I had known intimately and who exchanged knowing glances with me.

Nobody commented on the fact the young Prince and myself had disappeared after the ride nor on the fact we had arrived for the evening meal together, but I knew from the looks the Emperor gave us that he knew what we had done. And, in a private moment, he queried me about the young prince, asking for my impressions and inquiring if there had been any mention of the position of his family on certain matters, asking incidentally while appearing to be talking about totally different matters. My suspicions were correct and I replied that he and his family were loyal supporters and grateful for their position, which I was confident was true and which is why I said it, besides feeling obligated to present the boy in a good light, though that was not why he had sought me out as a bed partner.

We retired to the Prince's room and once again he took the lead, and once again he fucked me. This time we smelled of sweet flowers and scented powders but our congress was the same, the Prince seeking his pleasure and providing me mine incidentally, but again being ravished by this daring young noble destined to be a great leader provided me an unexpected pleasure, and when he once again flooded my rectum with his royal seed, I again anointed the clean sheets with my own seed before the watchful eyes of the elephant-headed god, and to me it mattered not that I had found pleasure with this young devil-worshipper.

Two days later Ferdazi was summoned to another audience with the king, and he returned in even greater cheer than after his previous audience if one could imagine such a thing. Reports from the emperor's cousin's niece who had been foisted on Ferdazi were most favourable, and the king had been most impressed with my horsemanship and my confirmation of the supportive alliance with Prince Vasu's family, so being in a benevolent mood, he had signed an agreement giving Ferdazi exclusive first rights to certain precious stones in his kingdom and had given us a document with his seal giving us passage across his empire.

Things were becoming complicated regarding Ferdazi's intended betrothed however and before he became more entangled in the web, Ferdazi had expressed his regrets and great sorrow that he could not stay longer but had to leave on pressing business to the south. There was a modicum of truth to that but I had to question the man's ethics in leading them on even though the Emperor had his own motives and was manipulating Ferdazi at the same time. Admittedly, even more depressing for me, was parting with the man. He was pompous, impetuous and controlling, and his beliefs in certain things dear to me were contrary to mine, but I had benefited greatly from his generosity and friendship and was going to miss him. I expressed my good wishes and hopes we would meet again.

"But you are coming with me!"

"Me?"

"Of course. You have become like a brother to me. Truly. I insist you accompany me."

"I would like to, very much, believe me, but I have told you, I am not a man of means. Already I am more in your debt than I can ever repay you–."

"Debt! You owe me no debt! What little I have done you have repaid me twice over with your companionship and friendship. But, if it will make you feel better, I will employ you as my assistant."

"I know nothing of gems and precious stones, other than to know skilled work when I see it and to appreciate it," I replied with a shrug.

"But you know how to trade. I have seen you." He thought for a moment. "You come from a family of sailors."

"Yes."

"Then you know how to sail."

"Of course."

"Then I will buy a boat and I will hire you to sail it."

"Well… ."

"Besides, I will need someone to help carry our trade goods. Somebody with a strong back and strong arms. You have those."

"I-." It was what I wanted, but the man had the arrogance and audacity to assume I would travel with him and did not even consider to ask me, as if I was no more than a slave.

"I will be honest," he said with a sad and imploring face. "None of those are the true reason I desire your company. I want you to accompany me for the delight you bring me. We are two peas in a pod, two pearls in an oyster, brothers who have shared a womb, twins, yes, that is it, twins. Our minds are as one, as are our hearts, we think the same thoughts, our breasts beat with the same passion, the same desires. The adventure of discovering new places, meeting new people, learning new cultures, these are passions that are the same for you as they are for me."

All of that was true, very true I realized, but there were differences. Serious differences. He was a devout Zoroastrian first and foremost. I remembered Yazd and the Temples of Silence where they left their dead for vultures to feed upon them, and the Friday Mosque and its divine and purifying flame. Those of his faith believe that men who lay with men are demons and worship Daevas, the devil, and they stone to death those who commit such acts. I saw them clubbing to death a man accused of being a sodomite in the marketplace in Balkh with mine own eyes. I also remembered the tales I had heard of the pleasure that can be found with a Zoroastrian wine boy, a mo-baca, and I remember one eleven-year-old virgin wine server named Ajib al-Nashar in particular. What would my brother say if he knew what the boy and I had done! I remembered with a shudder the active fire temple in the bazaar of Yazd with its large brass urn with a smouldering eternal fire perfumed with sandal wood and aromatic herbs attended by a handful of old men in black robes and cowls who looked over at me and whose eyes brightened with the prospect of their next sacrifice of a lover of males. I remembered much, good and bad.

Ferdazi had exhibited no such animosity of course, but he was Zoroastrian and his belief ran deep, and where faith ran deep there was danger. He was also Persian, and though Persians are the most cunning men in intellect and at falsifying things, dangerous traits for a companion in a strange land to have, they are also the best companions and the most liberal of men who inhabit the earth, which he had already demonstrated, and most endearing of all, he was the only one, other than Uncle Paolo, who understood my need to explore and to discover new people and new ways of thinking and the delight that brought me. Charming, slick, boastful, arrogant and controlling, and not above using flattery to get what he wanted, he was a man seeking fame, already having fortune, an optimist who wanted to see and experience the world. And as for that, so did I.

We agreed. We left that very day, right after buying a new wardrobe for travelling.