J.O. Dickingson

Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro

Chapters 23-24

Nicolau Ribeiro (15yo)
Supporting characters: boys 7 and 16.
tb tt interr

The sheik being of good humour the next morning, I reminded him of our covenant that I would be released from my obligations in three days hence and he again attempted to change my mind with praise and with bribery of gems and coin, both to no avail. Nothing could dissuade me from my decision to leave. Two days later, my last day as a concubine, I visited the market and purchased vials of frankincense and myrrh and several other incenses from the land of Sheba unheard of back home, expensive but a fraction of the cost back in Portugal and which would bring me great profit. That evening I was summoned to the chambers of the sheik for what I assumed would be our last night of sex and his last attempt to convince me to accompany him back to Shiraz.

I was partially correct. Observing that his business here had been most profitable, he informed me that he must remain a few days longer as a result and asked if I would not remain a few days longer with him also, promising that he would talk to Bek Rashid about passage on one of his ships to as-Suways. As a further bribe, he presented me with the gift of an expensive, deep blue cloak to ward off the chill breezes now blowing in from the ocean. A few days, and passage to as-Suways. How could I not agree? We had sex, comfortable and routine, but the passion that he once had was gone. That was not a bad thing and I hoped it was a sign that he had come to accept that I would soon be gone.

The days passed by, boring and monotonous. I had visited all the merchants who had anything of value, both in goods and in information, and had no further need to go to the market. I tried to occupy myself but there are only so many hours one can spend practising his music or drilling with the sword, and the conversation with my fellow concubines was uninspiring and the sheik, my only other source of distraction, was away most of the day and evening concluding business. What he considered a few days and what I considered them to be were very different.

Six days later I ventured into a more disreputable district of the city mostly out of boredom but also because I had been told merchants there traded in flesh and would know about ships sailing the Red Sea that other merchants would not. The day began cold and grey and slowly turned worse, dark black storm clouds rolling in from the sea and the wind turning chill and growing stronger. Rain began to fall and I finally sought refuge from the cutting wind in a cheap, rundown inn, the only one available. Halfway through a mug of mulled wine, I noticed out of the corner of my eye someone removing my cloak from the peg near the hearth where I had hung it to dry and heading for the door. Immediately on my feet and calling out, I chased after the daring thief who darted through the door and into the rain. He was young and fast on his feet, but so was I and I chased after him up the cobbled street, shouting for someone to apprehend him. Turning into one of the intersecting, more poorly lighted streets, he disappeared momentarily and I feared I had lost him, but at the next intersection I spotted him keeping to the shadows of the buildings crowding the narrow street and now almost a block ahead of me.

As I turned up the street in pursuit, two figures suddenly leaped out at the next intersection, a tall, burly figure and a shorter, slender one. Grabbing my thief, they dragged him back into the street they had emerged from. Racing up to the corner and cautiously peering round it, I spotted him part way down, laying on his back in the garbage, the two figures now fleeing further up the street. Stepping up to the still figure, I stared down at my young thief laying on his back in a dark puddle of blood and staring back up at me, his eyes wide open and sightless, blood gushing out of a slice across his throat and soaking into my new cloak and mingling with the foul water. I have seen plenty of dead men, some of them having been killed by myself, but the sight of the beardless youth caused my stomach to lurch and I grasped the side of the building dizzily. As I glanced back up at the fleeing murderers, a flash of lightning lighted up the sky momentarily and I recognized the two individuals – Jauharah and Sili'a.

Leaving the thief and my cloak there in the alley, I hurriedly headed back to the sheik's apartments, slowing at every intersection and watching for the two but they were nowhere to be seen. Arriving back at the apartments, I sat in my room shivering with the cold and the murder I had witnessed and slowly pieced together what must have happened. When I had time to calmly and safely think about it, it was simple. In my innocence and inexperience and my natural trust in others, I had not considered that Jauharah and Sili'a would seek revenge for my part in their dismissal. They knew of my intent to find passage to al-Suways. They had to have been keeping watch for me, waiting for the appropriate time and opportunity to take their revenge, but I had ventured seldom out of the apartments since their dismissal, and when I had it had been in broad daylight and I had always been within sight of others. If they had been watching for me this day as I suspected, then they had to have seen me wearing the cloak when I left. In the dark and the rain when the thief had emerged from the inn they had to have figured it was me, and were likely overjoyed at finally seeing an opportunity to catch me alone. Discovering their mistake, they quickly fled with their bloody knives before anyone came upon them. I shivered even more, and not because of the cold. I had been lucky. It could have been me laying there staring up into the rain.

The following day the weather was just as foul, not that it mattered. I was afraid to venture out after what had happened the day before. The sheik also stayed in and assured me he had talked to Bek Rashid, but observed that such arrangements take time and that a man like the Bek could not be rushed. He tried too hard to convince me, and I had spent by then too many months with liars not to know he was lying to me. I also knew that his business was coming to an end. Sol had informed me that afternoon that the cook had been told to stock up supplies for the return to Shiraz, and that the man who had been assigned care of our camels had been told to see to their outfitting for the return journey. He figured they would be leaving in three days hence. I knew with certainty by then that the sheik had no intention of releasing me and would likely force my return to Shiraz. That I was not about to let happen.

So, the next morning as the cook and her assistant and slaves went to the market to pick up supplies, I accompanied them, seeking their company as protection, and once at the bazaar slipped away to arrange to accompany a trader whom I knew was heading to Jiddah the next morning, and to purchase a camel for myself. Returning to the apartments with the cook and others, I packed up my belongings and waited and fretted. The sheik had to know I would resist returning with him, and it was only his arrogance in thinking he could keep the date he planned on leaving a secret from me that I had to my advantage.

I could not sleep that night and shortly after midnight I rose and picked up my top choice of my belongings, there much to my sadness being too much for me to carry. As I slipped out into the courtyard, I drew up short seeing a dark figure in the shadows. I inhaled deeply, not knowing what to do. I was too encumbered to try to outrun whoever it was, and after all I had been through I was not about to abandon what belongings I had chosen to take. Nor did I wish to harm anyone, but I could not let whoever it was sound the alarm either. The figure stepped out of the shadows and to my relief I saw it was Sol.

He knew I had packed my belongings though how I did not know as I had not seen him all evening and I had tried to do so discretely. He also knew I was not packing for a return to Shiraz. He had packed up his meagre belongings, tied up in a cloth, and he blurted out his wish to accompany me, telling me he did not want to return to Shiraz as a slave boy, and that he knew it would only be a matter of time before the sheik decided there were other services he could provide, services he was loathe to perform. Besides, he pointed out, most seriously, I had too many belongings to carry by myself and could use the services of a slave to help. There was truth to that and I knew what he had predicted about his future was quite likely. Having seen the delight on the sheik's face while engaging in sex with the bek's Christian slave boys, I wished Sol no such future. Slipping away without permission even though I had been promised I could leave was dangerous enough. Taking a runaway slave with me was certain to bring me a lashing, perhaps even a beheading, but the consequence for me taking Sol along was far outweighed by the consequence for him if I leaved him behind. So, I nodded my agreement and was rewarded by a huge grin which I told him to save for later as the house guard would surely see us with his teeth shining in the moonlight like that, which caused him to grin even broader. We quickly slipped back to my room to bring down my second chest and my third and fourth saddlebag stuffed with the rest of my belongings.

Evading the guards, who had no troubles all the while we were at Mecca and who were expecting none, was not difficult. We quickly made our way to the stables where I was to meet the trader. He arrived at the break of dawn and asked no questions about Sol, and the three of us left through the city gates without any problems other than my camel objecting to being ridden double and having to pack four saddlebags and two heavy chests. The journey to Jiddah was stressful, Sol and I keeping a constant lookout over our shoulders for followers, expecting Sheik Rahmah's guards or Jauharah or Sali'a to appear on the horizon any moment. I had told Sol about the two while waiting for morning, feeling he should be aware of the additional danger if he was going to accompany me. The trader had to have noticed our apprehension and unease but he had wisely chosen not to ask. That night we took refuge in a cheap but reputable inn near the docks, myself posing as the son of a merchant on a mission for his father and Sol as my slave boy. From the look on the innkeeper's face he clearly suspected that besides carrying my goods my slave kept my bed warm at night but my coin held more value than any morals he had and it saved me the cost of paying for an additional mat at the foot of my bed for him.

Making inquiries of the harbour master and of traders at the dock and the bazaar the next day, I found much to my disappointment that there were no ships heading north, and the only one that anyone knew of that would be, would not be arriving for at least another week and a half. Sheik Rahmah knew of my intent to travel by ship to as-Suways, and Jiddah being the nearest port, it would not take any great wisdom to guess that was where I would have headed. Upon discovering my absence and that of Solomon in the morning, he could very likely have ordered one or more of his guards to seek us out and return us to him. Riding hard, they could easily be in Jiddah by the evening repast. And if Jauharah and Sili'a were keeping watch for me as I suspected they were, they would soon know I had left, and they too, knowing my intentions, would head immediately for Jiddah. Both Sol and I knew that the longer we stayed in Jiddah the more dangerous it would be for both of us.

So, upon learning there was a dhow catching the tide that evening to Mits'iwa in Abyssinia and that the captain was shorthanded and desperate, two of his crew having been involved in a tavern brawl and currently in prison, Sol and I hired on, myself by proving I knew a bit about sailing, and Sol because he was with me and assured the captain he knew something about cooking. Sol was elated for not only would it mean he would be out of Sheik Rahmah's clutches, but he would be returning to the land of his birth. For me, it was enough to know that neither the Sheik nor Jauharah nor Sali'a would expect me to be heading south instead of north and to Abyssinia instead of as-Suways. It was a setback, but at the same time I figured that it would be just as easy to find a ship heading north to as-Suways from Mits'iwa as it would be from Jiddah, and a hell of a lot safer. Besides, if I could not find a ship, I could always make my way north by land. I was uncertain what the distance was exactly, and had little idea what sort of terrain I would have to traverse, but after what I had been through, I felt confident that whatever the obstacles, I would be able to overcome them. The two of us fretted the rest of the day and were on board long before we were required to be so.

As the sails billowed out with the wind and we drifted off with the tide, both Sol and I leaned against the rail and sighed with relief as the shoreline disappeared. Feeling again a ship beneath my feet and inhaling the sharp, delightful sea air, I was especially happy. I learned from the other sailors that we would be sailing a distance of about four hundred miles and with favourable winds, we would make the journey in five days. With my knowledge about sailing and my experience on the Theresa del Morau, and my skill in playing the nay, I quickly became good friends with the crew and the captain, working along side them by day and helping pass the evenings with my music and song. Sol also endeared himself with the crew, turning out to be an even better cook than the man who had been hired for the job and having learned more than a few tricks from Sheik Rahmah's cook on how to make even the simplest meal more flavourful.

During our journey, I got to know Sol, which was sad in one way in that we had travelled and lived together for two months and had seen each other frequently, Sol's two main jobs being to assist the cook and her assistant and to see to the needs of the sheik's three male concubines, and yet I really until that sea voyage knew little about him and had rarely even talked to him. I, being the sheik's concubine, was isolated from everyone, and anyway, Sol was a slave, far beneath my station even as a concubine. Realizing how aloof and uncaring I had become disturbed me, for that was not the type of person I was. I had always treated all men equally regardless of their social status, and prided myself on my compassion for those less fortunate than myself, attitudes and behaviours which had been modelled by both Father and Uncle. I could say it was because I was playing a role, but it was not. Living with selfish and uncaring men, I had become one myself.

What made me feel even more badly, was that Sol, on the other hand, knew a lot about me and about my life these past two months. During our discussions in the evenings, I discovered that Sol had seen Sili'a bring me to Jauharah and had known her intentions, her slave having told Sol that she was in her fertile time and hoped to be impregnated by me before by the sheik. He had told Nur al-Nagar's servant the concubine's plan, and as he expected the servant had immediately told her mistress, who, fortunately for me, had immediately intervened. His action had not only been because he felt Jauharah's intention to have me unwittingly father her child to be wrong, but was in payment for my diversion of the Bedouin sheikh's attention from Sol that night in the desert.

Although he did not say so directly, I could tell that Solomon found the idea of engaging in sex with another male repugnant, and even more so between a boy and a man, and especially with a man supposedly as devout, and as old, as the Badawi patriarch. That had to mean that he could not think very highly of me who not only engaged in sex with Sheik Rahmah on a regular basis but had also had congress with the Bedouin and with Bek Rashid and his slave boys. Although he was grateful for me having diverted the Bedouin, he could not have considered it that major a sacrifice on my part given my role as a concubine. He was certainly not the first to look down upon what I did, but he was the first whose low opinion of me troubled me.

I also discovered that contrary to what Sheik Rahmah and I had thought, he was not a Christian. He told me he was actually from a nomadic tribe called the Oromo whom he said lived in Abyssinia before the present occupiers, the Habesah. Berber slavers had invaded their land from the west and had captured him shortly after having turned eight and taken him to Cairo where he had been traded to a captain of one of the ships belonging to Sheik Rahmah's father. That had been almost eight years ago. During the ensuing evenings, I learned much about his people and their ways and religion, Sol being eager to talk about his home and his people, and he taught me many basic words and phrases of both his people and the Habesah, amazed at how quickly I picked up the languages. Actually, I found great similarities between Arabic, Hebrew and Amharic, the language of the Habesah.

We made good time and arrived at Mits'iwa on the evening of our fifth day at sea. We obtained a room at a moderately priced inn recommended by the sailors where we shared several pitchers of the local beer with them. The following morning Sol was eager to make contact with members of his tribe and to be on his way west and south to join his people and his family. I was just as eager to visit the dockyards and be on my way north to join my people and my family. Not about to abandon me and leave me on my own despite his eagerness, Sol offered to accompany me until I found passage north. I, at the same time, was not about to abandon him, feeling some responsibility for him being here and more than a little guilt at the way I had ignored him on our journey across the desert and while in Mecca. I did not know what dangers or obstacles he faced reuniting with his family, but I was not about to let him face them alone. There was also the opportunity to explore this new land and perhaps discover new products to trade which made the decision to accompany him until he found his family easy. The port would always be there.

I did have a third choice. Back home Abyssinia was rumoured to be the most likely location of the kingdom of Prester John. I had raised the possibility with Sol while crossing the Red Sea but he had no knowledge of such a person nor of such a kingdom. The closest he could suggest was the Solomid dynasty under the leadership of a king by the name of Eskender. He said the man had a very large and powerful kingdom, though it was not, to his knowledge, particularly rich. I also got the impression that his people and this kingdom were not on particularly friendly terms. Anyway, I could not leave Abyssinia without making at least a cursory inquiry about Prester John, particularly given the high interest in him having been expressed by both King João and by Pope Innocent.

Deciding the most pressing and most logical goal was to determine the availability of ships heading north, we decided that we would check out the docks and merchants first. Then, depending on what we found out, I could join Sol in his search for his homeland. We found, much to my disappointment, much the same situation as we had discovered in Jiddah. We also found in our discussions with the sailors and merchants that I had a fourth choice. There were many more ships heading south, some claiming to sail around the tip of the African continent and up the west coast. As impossible as that seemed, it being too great a distance for any crew, and the tip of the African land rumoured to be particularly stormy and hazardous, it was certainly something to check out and something that King João, and Father and Uncle, would be most interested in learning more about.

So, finding there were no ships travelling north and none expected for some time, we decided next in importance was reuniting Sol and his family, his village being near the town of Dessie, a distance of about three hundred and sixty miles to the south. We returned to the inn where I had left my belongings and arranged for their storage and then we ran practically all the way to Dessie, mostly along well-travelled paths winding through forests or cutting across large grass-covered plains. Horses were, I think, unheard of in this country, and camels were used for travel only to the far north. Most people apparently walked wherever they wanted to go, and few travelled more than a day or two from their homes. Sol set the pace, a slow but steady trot that we could keep up for hours. Our first night was spent just outside the town of Asmara. It was the last large town we would see, the population becoming more and more sparse and the villages farther and farther between the farther south and west we went.

When I awoke the next morning, I discovered my member to be fully distended, a condition I occasionally found myself in and which I assumed was due to a full bladder, I usually having difficulty urinating initially but then having a voluminous flow. I paid it little attention as a result but the next morning I found myself not only erect but my crotch cold, wet and sticky and discovered much to my dismay that I had spent my seed during the night. Fortunately Sol had a sense of privacy and I was able to clean myself up as I saw to my toilette, but my damp thong made running most uncomfortable and I am surprised he did not notice. Much to my alarm, I found myself in the same state the next morning. I could only conclude that after having lead an active sexual life, my body was responding to my lengthy abstinence on its own.

I could think of only one solution if I was going to stop soiling myself and risking the chance of being discovered. That evening as I went about my toilette, I discretely reached down and slipped my fingers about my member. It reacted immediately, proof of my earlier suspicion. It was dark and we performed our bodily function some distance from where we ate and slept, but even so I stroked myself with apprehension and tried to move my arm ever so slightly as I kept a watch on Sol even though he never once approached me while I was seeing to my toilette. Despite my apprehension and discomfort, my body responded and the pleasure pulsating through my swollen member could not be ignored, nor the sharp tingling irritation ringing my bulb, an itch that I had to scratch and that became even more irresistible the more I rubbed. All too soon I found myself spilling my seed in the shallow pit we had dug.

To my relief, the next morning I did not find myself in the embarrassing and uncomfortable position I had been finding myself the previous two days. That evening I debated what I should do and finally decided to once again wring the chicken's neck as many of the Saracen guards and soldiers had described the act. Some I know will say that doing so is proof of my weakness of mind and soul, which I confess is true, but which I could also say was the result of my months of living with the heathen and profane Saracens. I did feel guilty about my weakness and ready submission to temptation, but on my behalf, it was far better doing that than to wake in the morning wet and sticky and face discovery by Sol. Besides, if my body was going to submit to pleasure during the night, it was, as far as I was concerned, only right that my mind be awake to enjoy it also.

Often finding ourselves nowhere near a village at nightfall, we sought refuge in the treetops. At first I found it most difficult to fall asleep, constantly afraid I would fall out of the tree, but I gradually became accustomed to the practice. I really had no choice. It was the only place to sleep considering the ferocious animals that roamed these strange lands at night. Particularly fearsome to me was an animal called a jackal, an animal with the head and muzzle of a fox but the body of a wolf that hunted its prey at night, alone, in pairs, or in small groups. Its cry sent shivers down my spine. Another strange-looking night hunter was a grey-brown creature with brown or black spots and long forelegs allowing it to run at an amazing speed on the open plains. It was as long as a tall man and stood nine hands tall at the shoulder and had a cry that sounded like laughter you hear the insane make, and an eerie howl that rose in pitch as it ended. Sol called it a hyena, and I saw first hand its ferocity, the creature chasing down and killing a zebra one night and a pack killing a wildebeest another night. The former is like a horse but, and I know the reader will think me insane, with white and black stripes. The latter I can best describe as being like an ox but larger and shaggier and more rugged in appearance.

We shared the trees with various brightly coloured birds and the creature called a monkey which I had encountered travelling with the animal trainer between Kabul and Herat and have described earlier. They were curious creatures and disturbingly human like. Unlike most animals, they did not appear to be afraid of us though I must admit I was afraid of them, the creatures having sharp, pointed teeth and being all too human-like in appearance and in behaviour. One habit I found particularly disturbing was the practice of young males of arousing themselves with their hand until they spent their seed, and occasionally I found two males doing it to each other. Watching these creatures performing what I had assumed was strictly a human addiction was, I must confess, arousing and caused me to become stiff, which the animals seemed to sense and, I swear this on the Holy Bible, occasionally made motions as if wanting me to join them in their obscene behaviour. Surely these creatures had to be creations of Satan, designed to tempt humans and bring about their damnation. So debased I had become, I must confess that the idea of sitting in a tree beside them and stroking myself as they stroked themselves caused me to become erect, and I even on occasion imagined what it might be like to stroke their little red cocks and have their small, hairy hands pumping mine, which aroused me to such an extent I not only became stiff but leaked the sweet nectar that sometimes precedes a man's seed. The next day I imagined how shocked my mother would be to learn her son had such thoughts, and I chastised myself severely, but the wicked thoughts returned.

There was an advantage sleeping in the trees with these beasts of Satan's. When danger arose, they made such a clatter it woke one instantly, and they bombarded any predator attempting to climb up after us with whatever they could lay their hands on. There were, I discovered, several beasts who took to the trees in search of food, that food being primarily monkeys. One was a pale tan catlike animal with black spots which Sol called a leopard. Another was the lynx, which also lives in Portugal and looks identical.

On our fourth day we came across a lion family, a male and several females and a half dozen young laying upon some rocks and soaking up the afternoon sun. We gave them a wide birth, not wishing to interrupt their nap. Later that evening while resting up in a tree, I watched them leisurely and stately strolling across the plane. Sol told me that it was the females who hunted, and that when they brought down an animal the male would join them and take the choice parts before they and the young were allowed to feed. It appears that even among some wild animals the place of the female is known, though that she was the provider was disturbing. One of the creatures they fed upon Sol called an antelope, a creature not unlike the deer of Portugal except they had two long, straight horns instead of branched horns like deer.

Over the course of the eleven days it took us to reach Sol's people, I saw many other strange animals that I would have claimed were the imaginations of the insane or tales of tricksters had I not seen them with my own two eyes. One beast had long, spindly legs longer than the height of a tall man and that were so thin they made me wonder how they were capable of supporting their bodies. Even more curious was that they had necks that were twice the height of a man, allowing them to feed on the upper leaves of trees. Another strange creature was pure white and stood as tall as a tall man at the shoulder and as long as the height of two men. It had two large, curved horns on its snout. Sol said it had poor eyesight, which I could believe the animals having tiny, pinched eyes, but had supreme senses of smell and hearing. The solitary animal we had found wallowing in a mud patch had seen us the moment we exited the forest and watched us warily as we circled around it. The animal with the long legs and neck Sol called a giraffe and the white, horned animal a rhinoceros. The horn of the latter he said was much prized and ground up for a powerful medicine and was used as an aphrodisiac. I would have been overjoyed to have been able to take such a prized item back home with me, but I had no way of obtaining one, and no way of transporting such a large object back to Portugal.

My greatest surprise and disbelief was coming across the beast I had heard about so long ago in the Kongo and had thought a myth, the animal with a tail at each end and whose image had been carved from one of its teeth, the beast Sol called an elephant. We came across a small herd of fifteen heading to a waterhole out in one of the many stretches of grassland. I watched them in total amazement. The largest, a male, was twice the height of a man. The tail in front I learned was actually its snout and it used it to rip up grasses and stuff them in its mouth and to suck up and squirt water in its mouth or over its grey, wrinkled skin. Its ears were almost as long as I was tall. I could not imagine the weight of the huge beasts. They were lead, Sol said, by a matriarch, the oldest female, and he said that they fed in the morning, evening and night and slept in midday. I watched them in awe as they walked across the grassland majestically and with amazing gracefulness for beasts of their bulk. Even more amazing was watching one of the males urinating. Its member was contained in a wrinkled, leathery sack along the underside of the belly and somehow extended when the animal had to void its bladder. The first time I saw it happen I stood there in awe as this long, thick, black hose began to glide out of its body, its shape distinctly that of a penis. It extended until it almost touched the ground and then a gusher of urine flowed out of it. It was almost as long as I was tall, and as wide as my thigh. Considering the pleasure my own brought me, I could not begin to imagine the pleasure that one that big could bring!

Sol's people were nomadic, following an established, circular route with their sheep and cattle according to the seasons. The closer we got to where Sol figured his village would be the more excited he became and the longer and harder we ran. Having many times envisioned my own return home, I knew how he was feeling and I felt just as excited and anxious as he. Finally early in the evening of our eleventh day, we approached a cluster of perhaps three dozen mud and thatch huts. Sol immediately recognized some of the older men guarding their cattle but they on the other hand viewed him and I suspiciously, Sol having been barely eight when he had been kidnapped and almost eight years having passed since then.

Despite the number of years he had been away and his physical change, the moment his mother and father spotted him they knew him immediately. They were most astonished to see him after all this time, having become resolved that he was either dead or that they would never see him again, and they wept with joy at his return. I of course was immediately introduced and when Sol credited me with being responsible for his escape from slavery, and for having circumvented his ravishment on our trek to Mecca by a Bedouin patriarch, whose ugliness, ferocity and barbarity were greatly exaggerated, I was hailed as a hero and welcomed with just as much joy as Sol had been welcomed by his parents despite my protestation that my role in the events had not been as courageous as Sol had made it sound. Fortunately nobody pressed for details on how I had circumvented his ravishment. There was much rejoicing with songs, music and dancing by his family and by the entire village far into the night, and when Sol insisted I sing and play my nay for them the esteem with which I was being held rose even higher. Their main musical instrument was called a krar, made from a tortoise shell with five strings stretched across it and a shoulder-high crosspiece, similar to the lyre with which I was acquainted as Uncle had one which he had obtained in trading with the north.

The next day Sol spent almost entirely with his father, relating his ordeal over the past eight years I suspect and learning what had happened to the family and the village since his capture. He had had one older and two younger siblings when he had left, and now had another younger sister and two more younger brothers. During our repast that evening, his mother observed that his return was an omen of good fortune for the future, both his and the family's, and she was emphatic that his return had been the result of the intervention of the gods in that he had returned just in time for the celebration of his sixteenth season, which she said would be the next day when the moon would be at its fullest.

The Oromo, I learned, believed there was one god, whom they called Waaq or Waaqa Tokkicha, which meant "The One God", or Waaqa Guuracha (The Black God). This I took to be the same god that we Christians referred to simply as God and the Jews called Yahweh and that the Moslems referred to as Allah. That the same god was seen by Christians and Jews as white and was seen by the Moslems as an Arab I had come to accept as the arrogance of the heathens assuming He appeared as they. The idea of God being black I had greater difficulty with but I attributed that nonsensical concept to the same reason as I had to the heathen Moslems. I found these people also believed in spirits, but unlike Christians, they treated these spirits on the same level as gods, and they believed they existed not just in the human breast but in animals and trees and even in nonliving things like rocks and streams, evidence of the primitive nature and thinking that I found of all blacks.

Another strange practice they had was the gathering of all the tribes once every eight years to settle disputes and establish laws for the next eight years, and at which time they also selected a leader, whom they called the Abba Gada, who would rule for the next eight years. That the common people would decide who their leader would be and that this man would be whoever had the greater number of supporters instead of their leader being decided by royal birth with established lines of ascendency should the present ruler have no sons as is the case in all civilized countries seemed most strange and backward to me and still another example of the primitiveness of the black race. I could only imagine what sort of leaders they had when the individual was chosen because he was the most popular!

Still another strange custom I discovered was that they celebrated a person's life in eight year intervals, with each interval having a specific set of rules and roles. Sol had just passed from being what they called a gadai dabalee, those below the age of eight and considered children, to a gadai rogge, those between the ages of eight and fifteen who were assigned certain duties so to become productive members of the village. The next level, which his mother had said he would enter on the morrow, the gadai follee, began when one turned sixteen and lasted for another eight years. Becoming gadai follee was when a boy became a man. As a gadai follee, he took on the responsibility of hard work, learned tactics of war, politics and law, was taught the culture and history of his tribe, joined the older men on hunts for big animals, and could marry. Those at the next level, beginning at age twenty-four, became soldiers, and those in the level after that, between the ages of thirty-two and forty were teachers and leaders.

There was great excitement in the village the next morning as everyone prepared for the gadai follee ceremony. There were two other males also turning sixteen besides Sol who would be joining him in the ceremony.

"Your people do not celebrate gadai?" Sol asked after breaking our fast.

"No. They have no such thing in Cairo," I replied, fairly certain that there was not or I would have heard about it.

"I do not mean in Cairo. I mean where you come from." I looked up at him uncertainly as my heart rose in my chest. "I mean in Italy."

"Italy?" I snorted in surprise. "Whatever would give you the idea I am from Italy?"

"I know you are not an Arab as you have pretended, but that is all right. I will not tell anyone."

I did not trust him enough to admit he was right about not being an Arab, but I was also curious what I had said or done that had given me away. I was not certain how to respond. "What makes you think this?" I asked cautiously.

"One day I heard Sali'a asking the guards if they had ever heard a certain word or if they had any idea what language it might be. He said that you had said it and that he suspected you were not what you claimed to be. The word was vérga. I did not know it at the time, but I guessed later when Sali'a was dismissed that you used it the time Sali'a attempted to have pleasure with you. Am I correct?"

"Yes," I responded with sinking heart.

"I told him it was a word I had heard used by the Berber slavers in Cairo, and that it meant the same as zubr. He knew I had been captured by the Berbers and had been taken to Cairo and I took a chance that he did not know their dialect. I was right and though he was doubtful, he believed me, because the meaning I had given him was correct, and besides, for what reason would I have to lie? I knew if he found out you were not an Arab he would tell the Sheik and though he might find you even more desirable being an Italian, he might just as likely be angered that he had been lied to and deceived and have you beheaded."

"Why did you lie to protect me?"

"You protected me from the old Badawi pig, even took my place. I owed you. Besides, you have always treated me fairly, as an equal, not as a slave, unlike all the others who are free men. I had no wish for you to be beheaded."

"I would not have liked that myself," I observed, and he laughed. "But why would you think vérga is Italian?"

"My father once took me to Dessie, where the emperor Eskender holds court. There lives in his court several men whose skin is like yours and whom I heard use the word. My father said they were Italian."

"I am in your debt," I said, dropping to my knees before him and bowing my head, overwhelmed that he would do such a thing. "I owe you my life."

"We do not know that," he replied, flustered and embarrassed by my action and motioning for me to stand. "And you cannot be in my debt because of me paying my debt to you."

"I disagree. But you are correct that I am not an Arab," I whispered. "Nor a Moslem, but I am not an Italian either. I am Portuguese, from Portugal."

"I have never heard of such a land."

"It is far away. Twice that of Italy."

"That is very far." We exchanged smiles. "You have seen your sixteenth summer?"

"Not yet. In another two months."

"Then you must run the bulls with me! It would be a great honour to do so with one so brave and so wise. It would bond us even closer as friends. We… we are friends?"

"Of course we are. What is this run the bulls?"

"Come, we must tell my father."

Without waiting for my agreement, he leapt to his feet and grabbing my hand, dragged me behind him. He excitedly told his father I would be turning sixteen in two more cycles of the moon, and that in that I would be heading to my own home before then, we wished to run the bulls together today. Already holding me in esteem, his father was even more impressed that I would want to run the bulls with his son and readily agreeing, he hurried off to tell the chief of their tribe and the elder in charge of the ceremonies. When I found out what running the bulls was, I was the only one who was not delighted by the news.

Late that afternoon I, Sol, and the other two boys were taken to what was a sacred place a short distance from the village where the elder in charge of the upcoming ceremony lectured us on the importance of becoming gadai follee and on the history of how the age groups originated. We then stripped naked and were bathed in water he had blessed. I stood out markedly standing there naked with the other three boys who were as black as pine tar, and though my body had darkened from days in the sun, I was still the lightest coloured Arab they had ever seen, and my buttocks and belly, which had the least exposure to the sun, were even lighter in colour which was impossible not to notice. The other boys and even the elder did not hide their surprise and curiosity regarding my colouring and I felt even more conspicuous. That my vérga was considerably smaller than that of the other boys added further to my embarrassment.

Although curious, and I suspect suspicious, the elder said nothing and prayed to Waaqa Tokkicha and several other gods whose names now escape me. I also prayed, to whichever god was listening and would help. We were given leaves they called chat to chew. I do not know the purpose but I soon grew very hot and my mind and body felt like they were about to explode. Our faces, chests, arms and legs were then painted with symbols to bless us and mark our elevation in status, and our vérga and colhoes were painted white which made them stand out even more, especially those of my fellow participants. (1)

We were then lead back to the village, still naked, where all the villagers had gathered in a circle, in the centre of which were six large, ferocious, unhappy bulls. The elder and the chieftain made short speeches about our passage as we stood there before the village, every male and female, child and adult, my companions standing proudly, and with anxiety, and me with more than a little fear and with embarrassment and wishing I could at least dangle my hands in front of me to cover my inferior cock and balls. The crowd parted for us and we were lead to the centre where the bulls awaited us.

Inhaling deeply, the first of our companions turned and suddenly stepped forward and leapt on the back of the first bull. Standing up, he quickly stepped over onto the back of the next, and then the one after that, running along the backs of the six bulls before leaping off the last to the cheers of the crowd. The next, his eyes wide and white with evident fear, pressed his lips together and placing his hands on the back of the nearest bull, hoisted himself to its back. He was far more wobbly and uncertain than his companion, and several times almost fell off the bull's back but each time managed to catch himself and stand back up. To have fallen amongst the now irritated bulls would certainly have resulted in him being kicked by the bulls or even gored, maiming him for life, perhaps even resulting in him being killed.

Sol went next and though the bulls were by then agitated and had enough, he was light and agile and easily skipped from one bull to the next, much to the delight of the crowd and especially his parents. That left me, and if I had a choice, I would have readily declined participating. I of course had no such choice. Taking my lead from Sol, I tried to make myself as light as possible and moved quickly, dancing more than running, and there, my practice at dance gave me an advantage as I leapt from bull to bull, my arms outspread to help me balance and my painted vérga and colhoes bouncing in time to the silent music as I spun from one bull to the next. With my heart and mind racing from the chat and with anxiety, I felt like one of the dervishes I had seen dancing in Shira. When I leaped to the ground and spun away from the bulls the crowd cheered, but I was more overjoyed having survived than I was with their applause.

Coffee beans were roasted until they began to smoke, and the smoke was wafted over us and then the rest of the diners as a blessing. The beans were ground and brewed and the coffee, served thick and rich in tiny clay cups, we sipped as we munched on a thick, spongy flatbread which we dipped into a spicy meat sauce. There followed a large feast with a wild boar roasted on a spit, a spicy chicken dish they called itoo that had hot peppers that burnt my tongue and lips, and many mugs of dhadhi, a delicious honey wine, and of faarso, a strong, bitter beer. The rest of the evening is a blur but I do remember much laughing, embracing, friendship and rejoicing. The next morning I awoke with a throbbing pain in my head and a swollen, numb tongue and my mouth tasted like it had been stuffed with my socks. My three companions and many others looked in just as bad shape. (2)

That in itself seemed to be part of our initiation as regardless how we felt we were aroused early in the morning and after breaking our fast we four headed off into the bush with the hunters of the tribe on our first hunt as gadai follee. Their hunting weapons were a spear and a long knife. Our two companions of course had eight years of practice using them and going on hunts for smaller animals, particularly birds. I had limited practice in the use of both and poor Sol had none. Our intended prey on this hunt was antelope, a small herd of them having been spotted on the savanna a day's run from the village. Although not a dangerous animal, it was swift and agile and if one was impaled on their long, straight horns it could be fatal. That was highly possible as hunting with spears and knives required the hunter to be almost an arm's length away from the dying animal. Hunting them also required stealth and speed and I was amazed at how the hunters could move without making the slightest sound, even on dry grass or through the thick shrubs. They could also run at an amazing speed, which was no surprise as it was their usual mode of travel.

We came upon the animals our second day, but having keen eyesight and hearing they sensed us and easily outran us. Our party persisted in following them, and on our fourth day out we managed to cut off and encircle one of them, an older, weaker animal. Though the hunters could have finished it off, they left the kill to the four of us. Actually the two of us as Sol and I were next to useless. Although it was only an animal, and old and weak, and its body would be appreciated and used fully by the people, I took no joy in its killing, and though I have killed humans, they were heathens and deserving death and my stomach did not churn as it did with the killing of this beast.

As we headed back victorious, we encountered a group of hunters of a different tribe who were on a much more dangerous mission. A lioness had been stalking and killing their cattle, a common occurrence I was told when a lioness became too old to hunt wild animals and was abandoned by her group, which they called a pride, and had to hunt on her own. Such an animal was a threat to all of course and our group readily joined the others in their mission, including myself for I wished to see no harm to come to Sol or his people. The animal knew she was being hunted and she evaded us for two days before we found and encircled her. It took much skill and bravery on behalf of the hunters and again I was amazed at their expertise with the spear and their courage. She fought well but was outnumbered and her many wounds from our spears finally weakened her enough that one of the older and more experienced hunters was able to thrust his spear through her heart.

That was when one of initiates, the first boy who had run the bulls, learned a valuable and almost fatal lesson. Exuberant with the success of our hunt, he danced and whooped about the animal with a show of bravado and before the more experienced of the hunters could stop him he danced too close to the animal who in a last dying effort lashed out and slashed the boy's leg and he fell along side her. As her other paw reached out to draw him to her snarling mouth I reacted automatically. Pulling out my sword I leapt forward and with a desperate swing cut off the descending paw and the others pulled our injured companion out of her reach. Another stab to her chest with my sword ensured she would not lash out again.

The boy was treated for his wounds, the slash having cut to the bone of his leg. Although in time he would walk again, it would be many months, and he would forever have a scar and favour that leg, a disability for a hunter. Much was made of my bravery and use of my sword with claims that I had saved the boy a loss of his leg and perhaps even of his life. Sol added praise regarding my prowess with the sword as a soldier, adding to my extreme embarrassment. So, our return to our village was met with a mixed reception, the antelope meat a welcome treat and the death of the lioness a cause for celebration, but the injury of the boy dampening our success. His mother and father of course were thankful that his injuries were not worse, and heaped praise on me, as did the chief of the tribe, making me embarrassed all over again. I politely told them their gift of a fine leopard skin cloak was too much, but of course I accepted it for to do otherwise would have been an insult and arrogant. That was one thing in common with all peoples I have met on this journey. I was also presented the claws from the lioness's front paw that I had chopped off threaded with a leather necklace by the hunters.

In all, our hunt had taken us ten days. Knowing I was eager to be on my way, Sol explained my quest to seek out the Kingdom of Prester John and after a day of rest and many wishes for success I set off for Dessie where the emperor Eskender held court, a day's travel from Sol's village. Sol insisted on accompanying me, and thankful for his company, I did not protest too strongly. On our second morning in the town I attended services in the local church, not out of any sense of religious duty but out of curiosity, knowing little about the Coptic Orthodox Church, and for practical reasons, for if anyone knew the habits and haunts of their emperor, it would be the head of his local church and the faithful of his kingdom.

Two things struck me immediately upon entering the church. First, the Coptic Church is every much as rich as any Christian church in Europe and any heathen mosque I have seen. The ornamental columns and arches, the tapestries and paintings, and the statues were just as elaborate and expensive, even rivalling that found in the Vatican or in Mecca. The second thing was a large, wooden replica of the ark. I later learned that the Ark of the Covenant plays a large role in the faith of these people and every church has a replica. The church, I discovered, was lead by its own pope, Pope John XIII of Alexandria who was chosen nine years ago and who lived in Cairo. I also learned that unlike the Roman Church there is a heavy emphasis on the old testament and, like the Jews, they have rules on how an animal is to be slaughtered before it can be eaten and they prohibit the eating of pork. I also discovered that in church men sit on the left and women on the right and they follow the Moslem custom of removing their shoes. Monastic practices were highly valued and hymns played a very large part in the church service, and, I was told, in the lives of followers.

This church certainly had a large choir. Two boys in the front row I could not help noticing, both because of their exceptional attractiveness and because of their antics. They were, I figured, close to seven years of age and like most boys their age, full of energy and mischief. They also had evidently just learned a new forbidden word, gotler, which I had first heard used by the tellak in the bathhouses of Istanbul and which means balls. These two boys used it in every second sentence, as in interjection to express everything from dismay to displeasure and from anger to frustration. They were playing a game of catch as catch can to amuse themselves while waiting for services to begin and used the exclamation whenever one was tagged, or when one missed. They also used it as an expression of courage, as in "he has balls," or the lack of it, as in "you don't have the balls to do it." Their game of catch as catch can included, when they thought no adult was looking, playing a game of grabbing each other's crotch. As I watched them, I mused that perhaps it was not the word that they had recently discovered, but rather their discovery was what they were trying to grab.

The first time they discovered me watching they froze with apprehension and the blood drained from their cheeks, but when they discovered I had no objection to their behaviour or vocabulary, and had no intention of reporting them to their supervisors, their use of the word and their fixation on those two sensitive orbs dangling between their legs increased, as if to demonstrate to me their daring, or perhaps their worldliness, and, I am sure, in part in competition with each other to see who was the cheekiest. As I watched them in their innocent play my member began to stir and I began to imagine instructing them on the purpose of those two orbs dangling between their legs, and satisfying my lust with them in the process. One boy was a deep black, like most of the blacks in this country, making his teeth and the whites of his eyes seem even whiter. The other boy was between the first boy and myself in colour, evidently a mixed breed. The first I later learned was called Abiyi and was the son of one of the local priests. The other was called Seleshe and was the son of a deacon. When the service began and they began to sing, I could not help thinking of the naked cherubs artists depict in religious paintings and my fantasies grew even more erotic, and my member rose in my trousers in response, much to my embarrassment, and would not go back down.

After the service I had to seek them out. The preacher's son looked up at me with all the confidence and innocence of a seven-year-old as if he had been doing nothing wrong and was unaware of me having watched him and his buddy.

"The two of you have beautiful voices. It was a joy to listen to you sing today."

"Thank you," they replied, somewhat taken by surprise. I do not suppose they received many complements, especially not from an older boy.

"You enjoy singing." The two glanced at each other and then nodded. "I know of some places where a boy's gotler are removed so that when he gets older his voice will not deepen."

"Removed?" the preacher's boy asked, his eyes widening. He glanced at his companion.

"Yes," I replied, making a snipping motion with my two fingers. The two boys flinched and glanced at each other again. "I also noticed you two boys were enjoying grabbing each other."

"We were just having fun. You know, a game," responded the priest's boy in defence. He evidently was the leader and spokesperson of the two boys.

"Have you actually ever held each other's gotler in your hand?" They vigorously shook their heads in the negative with a look of shock at such an idea. "Perhaps sucked each other's gotler?"

"Sucked?" they asked together in surprise, whether because they had never heard of such a thing or because they had not expected to be asked such a thing I did not know and I suspected both.

"That is right."

"Never," they declared as they wrinkled up their noses.

"It is not as distasteful as you think, sucking, or being sucked."

"Have you done it?" the priest's boy asked.

"Both. Sucked and been sucked. I would show you it is not as bad as you think, but I think you are too young."

"We're not too young," the preacher's boy quickly responded, as I thought he would.

"Well, perhaps not, but I don't think you have the gotler to try it."

"We got the gotler," Abiyi said, glancing at his pal impishly, and I know he was not using the word as meaning courage.

"Too bad there is not a place nearby where we could be alone so I could show you."

"There is a place."

"Really?"

Abiyi and Seleshe exchanged glances again. "Follow us," Abiyi said.

"You think we should show him?" Seleshe asked cautiously.

"You got to promise not to tell anyone about the place."

"I promise."

"Swear… on the Arc, and hope to die if you tell."

"I swear on the Arc I will tell nobody of the place and hope to die if I do."

I followed the boys to the back of the church. Making sure nobody was around, Abiyi climbed up on a chair and stretching up, opened a trapdoor and pulled down a rope ladder. He scampered up it, followed by Seleshe, and I followed, barely being able to squeeze through the trapdoor. A wooden ladder extended up and I followed the two boys, ending up in the belfry where there was a landing most likely for cleaning the bell and maintaining the rope used to ring it. There was just barely enough room for the three of us. Glancing about, I guessed that this was a secret hiding place for the two boys, a place where mischievous boys could be boys without fear of being caught.

"Okay, show me," the Abiyi said, raising his choirboy frock.

He was wearing no underpants. His stones were tiny, no larger than a walnut, and hung in a loose, hairless sack. His little cocklet was the size of my little finger. Both were black as pitch.

Dropping to my knees before him and trying not to appear too eager, I reached up and cupped his smooth, compact black buttocks. Drawing him closer to me, I stuck out my tongue and licked his stones, first one and then the other. I slipped my lips over the lower and sucked on it, and then sucked both into my mouth and basted them with my saliva. A quiver ran up my spine as I swallowed my spittle. Allowing his stones to slip out of my mouth, I slipped my lips about the preacher boy's small, limp cocklet and gently sucked on it. It, of course, quickly responded as I knew it would. I sucked on it until it was hard and then I ran my tongue over his knob, causing him to quiver with the stimulation. I repeated it several times and his little stiff cocklet throbbed between my lips.

"Gotler!" he exclaimed in a half whisper and half gasp as I drew back and he glanced down at his now stiff little cocklet pointing up in the air. "You gotta try it," he said, still holding up his frock and looking over at Seleshe in delight.

The boy hesitated as he looked down at his pal's stiff little member. Apprehensive but not to be outdone, he quickly dropped his frock and presented his privates to me. They, like the rest of his body, were lighter than Abiyi's but darker than my own. I readily licked and sucked his tiny, hairless balls, and then his little cock, which also quickly stiffened. Delighting in introducing these two innocent cherubs to the perverted pleasure I had just given them and delighting in the knowledge that they were surprised and intrigued by the new sensation I was causing between their legs, I inhaled deeply, my heart beating quickly with excitement and my member half erect.

"I can make you feel even better down there, a lot better," I promised, "but first the two of you have to do mine." The boys glanced at each other and I could see in their eyes that they were curious and tempted, but not that curious that they were willing to try something they had surely been told was sinful, and that instinctively they figured had to be distasteful given the other function of their now stiff members. "Of course if you do not really have the gotler, we can go back down."

"You can make our – make us feel even better down there?" Abiyi asked, stressing "better" and evidently dubious, and curious.

"Ten times better."

The two boys glanced at each other and then at me, or rather at my crotch, and then at each other again. "All right," Abiyi slowly whispered and Seleshe nodded agreement. I quickly dropped my pantaloons and untied my thong before the boys changed their minds and the two of them stared at my member, which was partially aroused as I said and probably the biggest cock either of them had ever seen. They glanced again at each other, uncertain now if they had made a wise decision. Then Abiyi lowered his frock and squatted down and sticking out his tongue, tentatively licked my balls, which were larger than theirs but like theirs still hairless, and then my member. "They do not really have any taste," he pronounced and encouraged Seleshe to take his turn.

Encouraged by Abiyi's lead and not to be outdone, the boy knelt before me and sticking out his tongue, ran it over my balls, and then sucked first one and then the other into his mouth and gently sucked on each.

"And now my cock." The two boys glanced at each other but neither was daring enough to go first. "You can do it together," I prompted and the two boys glanced at each other for confirmation of the other's willingness. With looks of apprehension, they stuck out their tongues and both began to lick my balls and cock, one on each side. They soon had my member erect, which was no great feat considering how prurient I was feeling. They were most impressed by its new size.

As much as I wanted them to continue, I finally had them stop. I then had Abiyi stand and I knelt before him and raising his white frock I took his member in my mouth again, this time sucking on it and slipping my lips up and down the shaft and over the bulb. Despite being of a different and inferior race, his privates worked the same as mine and any other male I have met, as I suspected they would. He was soon squirming with newly discovered pleasure, dancing from one foot to the next as his bulb burned with that sweet pain that you wished would stop but which you wanted to continue forever. It was a delight to see him quivering and gasping with pleasure, and even more of a delight knowing I was the cause of his arousal and that he was experiencing it for the first time.

I continued sucking on his hot, stiff rod and working my lips up and down its length from his little black balls to the irritated bulb. The preacher's boy suddenly began to jerk his hips and whimper with his orgasm, the first of his young life. He squirmed and jerked so violently I feared he would fall off the small platform the three of us were standing on and as he threw back his head and cried out his buddy had to have imagined he was in pain, and in a strange sense, he was, in the most beautiful pain a boy can imagine. I stopped my sucking and working my lips up and down his stiff little cocklet and waited for his orgasm to pass before allowing his irritated little cock to slip out of my mouth.

Gasping for breath, all he could do is beam over at his buddy with immense joy and gesture for him to try it. Even more uncertain after witnessing Abiyi's reaction, and even more intrigued and tempted, the boy turned to face me and watched with apprehension as I raised his frock and slipped my mouth over his little sausage. It had remained hard watching his buddy getting sucked, and it was not long before he too was squirming with the newfound pleasure, his thin chest heaving as he gasped for breath and his big eyes staring down at his cocklet glistening with my spittle with a mixture of wonder and apprehension. Soon afterward I had Seleshe dancing with his own orgasm.

Eager to thank me by giving me the same pleasure, and mischievous enough to want to try, the two boys knelt before me and upon my suggestion began taking turns slipping their lips over my cock and sucking on it. I suspect a greater part of the reason they were so eager was because they wanted to prove to each other they had the gotler to do it, and that they were just as bold and grown up as the older boy who had just done them, no longer little children. In a sense they no longer were, and I quivered with the pleasure of the thought that I was the cause. I suspect another reason for their eagerness was that they were still flushed with the pleasure I had given them and wanted me to feel the same. Having not engaged in sex with another male since leaving Mecca, and finding engaging in sex with these two seven-year-old innocents particularly arousing because of their innocence and because they were pure, Christian boys with devout fathers, I found myself approaching my orgasm all too soon.

Telling the two of them to squat on either side of me and to lick my shaft and bulb, I warned them I was about to shoot my seed. From the look on their faces it was clear they did not have any idea what I meant and I had little time to explain it to them. I simply told them I was about to begin squirting out my cream, something boys did when they were older, and not to worry about it when it happened. I was so highly aroused my seed squirted several hands into the air and had more volume than it had ever had. I splattered the cherubic faces of the two young boys and I quivered and arched my head back and gasped with the pleasure, a pleasure greatly surpassing the pleasure I had been bringing myself by hand. Spurt after spurt erupted out of the tip of my cock, like a volcano I imagined though I had never seen one, splattering the faces of the two boys. Gasping for them to drink my seed and finding the taste was not offensive and caught up in the excitement and novelty of what was happening, they did. Abiyi slipped his black lips over my spurting cock, and once his mouth was full he sat back and as he swallowed my slime Seleshe slipped his lips over the tip of my cock and took my seed directly into his mouth.

Swallowing my seed and again upon my suggestion, they remained squatting there on either side of me and began to lick up the creamy flow that had oozed out of the tip of my throbbing cock and down over the knob and down the shaft, and to take turns licking the bubble of fresh slime as it formed on the tip of my cock. Finally, and again upon my suggestion, the two boys began to lick the globules of seed from each other's face. It was as if they were licking up some sweet honey, and I suppose in a sense their first taste of a boy's seed was very much like sweet honey. When the three of us finally descended the ladder we were delighted and pleased with the experience, and there was no doubt in my mind that the two innocent boys would be engaging in this pleasure with each other many times in the future, and perhaps even seeking out an older boy to lap up his seed.

That night as I lay down to sleep and thought about what I had done, I confess a wave of guilt swept over me as I realized the magnitude and ramifications of my sin. I had introduced two young, innocent boys, choirboys, to a most addictive and sinful practice that would take the patience of Lot and the strength of Jesus himself to resist. I had taken these two young innocents and engaged in a shameful and perverted act with them, tempting them to engage in a mortal sin that would now condemn their souls to hell. Having lived all these months with the heathen Saracens I had become one of them, willfully and eagerly engaging in the most perverted of acts, with children. I may not worship Satan, but I was performing his filthy deeds all the same. I was filled with remorse, and even greater was my guilt with the realization that what I had done had filled me with an immense pleasure, and to my shame my member stiffened with arousal at the thought of my sin.

The next day, our third day in the town, which I estimated to be the first of March, I met Eskender, the emperor, or the nagusa nagast in their language. Besides Emperor, he was also known as King of Kings, Elect of God, and Conquering Lion of Judah, and upon inheriting the throne he had taken the name Kuestantinos II or Constantine II. Sol told me that it has been said that Abyssinia has been ruled in an unbroken line from before the time of the Flood, its emperors being descended from the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The present emperor's line, the Habesah, have been ruling over two hundred years, which I found an amazing feat considering how often one group of peoples overran another in this uncivilized land.

I had orchestrated my meeting, using a simple ploy that was common in many ballads and that several of my travelling companions from Herat to Shiraz claimed to have used themselves to meet potential patrons or other men of influence. My primary goal over the first two days had been to learn what the emperor's routine was, and on the third day I positioned myself along his route. The moment he appeared I began to play and sing, in this case a ballad I had composed, or rather had modified from a ballad I had first heard while travelling with the Gilman troupe, substituting the Emperor's name for the hero in the original ballad and adding a half dozen stanzas describing an exploit that I had heard about, the sacking of the city of Dakkar after succeeding to the throne at the age of seven. According the stories I had heard, he had lead his army to Dakkar, the capital of the Adal Sultanate, and had sacked the city, but as he headed home triumphant his army was attacked by a much larger Adal army which killed many men, but Eskender escaped with the assistance of angels.

I of course caught his attention. Whether it was my voice, my skill on the krar, or the content of my song it does not matter – I achieved my goal. Impressed, he sent a messenger with the command I sing for his court that very night. It was not a particularly special night, a small banquet consisting of family and a few close and powerful friends. That night I received an additional and unexpected honour – I was presented to and complemented by the emperor's step grandmother, the Queen Mother Eleni, whom I had been told was the real power behind the throne. Upon becoming emperor, the seven-year-old king had been advised by a council of three, Tasta Giyorgis who was the Abbot of a monastery at Lake Hayq, Betwoded (Earl) Amda Milkael, and the young king's mother Queen Romna, who shortly thereafter stepped aside and become a nun. A short time later the Queen Mother arranged a coup, defeating the Abbot and some say, having the Earl assassinated. Although her step grandson was now twenty, she was still the real ruler of the empire. In my short audience with her and from the way she carried herself and watched me with her eyes, I could tell she was a shrewd woman and one you did not want to cross.

The following day I talked to two of the Italians that Sol had mentioned were staying at Eskender's court. I learned that they and their countrymen had come over several years, singularly or in pairs, to Abyssinia hoping to find fame and fortune, and were now advisors to the king, treated well but actually being held captive since the emperor, his step grandmother, and his senior Habesah advisors were worried about other nations finding out about their land and their strength, or rather the lack thereof, and invading. That I found funny in a way because I learned that at the same time Eskender was eager for the help of other nations to fight off the advancing Arabs from across the Red Sea and feared the advance of the Ottoman should they ever succeed in their battle against the Mameluke in the north. I inquired discretely if there had been any other adventurers from other countries, and when told not to their knowledge, I inquired if they had heard the name Pero da Covilhã, to which they replied in the negative. In that he had gone in search of the Kingdom of Prester John around the same time as I had been captured, I was most surprised that he had not yet found his way here. Of course it was highly possible that he, like myself, had learned of the fate of the Italians and had wisely chosen not to reveal his nationality as he, also like myself, was travelling as an Arab. (3)

I performed for Eskender again that night, and the next morning I was approached by one of his officials who expressed the emperor's delight again in my performance and wish for me to accompany him that very day on his journey to Amba Geshen, a mountain two days journey from Dessie, a natural fortress of steep cliffs where the royal treasury was located. Though suspecting the Emperor was interested in more than my voice, I did so eagerly, not daring to hope I would actually see the royal treasury itself. As it turned out, the two-day trip was uneventful and Eskender had no interest in my body, wanting my company to help pass the evenings away and wanting me to compose a song about his reign, and his wealth.

Already having in mind the tales of Prester John and of the wealth of Solomon, the emperor's supposed ancestor, and upon seeing his collection of gems, coins, tapestries, and weapons, the spoils of war and payment of taxes on his peoples, it was not a difficult chore. Although not as impressive as the treasures of legend nor of the wealth of some I have seen, it was still sizeable. I composed and performed the song for him the very next night, and the following night as we travelled further north to visit some minor official. He was pleased with my efforts and I was presented with a diamond pin for my turban, which he claimed came from the far south of the dark continent. I pressed him for more information, for as far as I knew, the only diamonds in the world were from the mines of Golconda in India, and if there was indeed another source, Father and Uncle would be most interested.

The next night we reached the northern limit of his tour, and my last night in his service. The next morning he turned south, accompanied by a minstrel from our last town to whom I had taught the music and lyrics commemorating the Nagusa nagast and Sol and I continued our way north. Again I protested that he need not accompany me back to Mits'iwa, and again he insisted he do so, and again I was glad for his company. And, again, we ran most of the way, I being in as much a hurry to continue on my way home as Solomon had been to reach his home five weeks earlier.

Our return to Mits'iwa was uneventful and the strange sights of this country and the customs of its people filled my mind with wonder and I tried to commit as much as I could to memory. The worries about finding a ship heading north and the excitement about it being a real possibility also filled my mind, along with one disturbing discovery I had made while at Amba Geshen. Not only was it the location of the nation's treasury, but it was also the location of the imperial prison. What was disturbing was discovering that the Emperor's younger brother was being held captive there, not for anything he had done, but for something that he might do, lead a coup against his brother and take over the kingdom. Much to my amazement and at first disbelief, I learned that it was the custom of their rulers once they ascended to the throne to imprison their brothers and other close male relatives to prevent them from taking over the kingdom, and some even imprisoned their own sons! I could not imagine anyone doing that to their own kin, and that these people were Christians and engaging in such a practise I could not believe. I had been feeling guilty about having seduced the two young Christian boys, particularly in that they were the sons of a priest and a deacon, but when I found out what these Christians considered to be a perfectly acceptable and Christian behaviour I felt far less guilty. (4)

It took nine days for us to reach Mits'iwa, arriving mid afternoon on the ninth day. To my delight, upon my arrival I discovered a ship had arrived in port and was heading north to as-Suways with the tide the very next morning, and even more to my delight was the discovery the crew was short-handed as a result of some battle the crew had engaged in to the south. Although doubtful of my claims, the first mate was eager to sign me on, figuring he would be satisfied if I met half my claims.

As Sol and I dined together for the last time that evening, we were in a sombre mood. I had travelled with many different companions on this strange and treacherous journey. Some I had become close friends with after being together for only a few days and others were travelling companions with whom I felt no bond despite travelling together for weeks, and some, due to our different values and habits, I even came to dislike. Solomon was one of the rare few whose company I had come to enjoy and whom I had come to like, and I would miss him when we parted.

"I am," we both began upon returning to the room I had rented for us for the night. "You know," we began again together. We laughed and motioned for the other to go first, each of us deferring to the other. I finally held up my hand as a signal not to speak.

"We could be here all night," I said with a grin. He smiled, but his smile was shadowed by a serious look in his eyes, and I suspected he was feeling the same sorrow at our parting as I was. Opening one of my chests, I took out one of the many bangles I had worn in my hair while a koçek, one that was particularly flashy with multicoloured woolen threads and copper discs and similar to what I noticed some of the men and older boys in his tribe wore and valued. "Please accept this small gift as a token of my appreciation for your friendship and all the help you have been to me," I said, presenting the gift to him. He accepted it with many words of pleasure and thanks, and then opening the bundle he had carried with him on our journey to Mits'iwa, he presented to me a beautiful dagger, the handle made from the tusk of the animal they called an elephant, giving it to me for the same reasons as I had presented my gift to him. We again fell silent and stared at the floor glumly, my joy that I was about to sail closer to home dampened by the realization I would most likely never see Sol again, and his mood dampened by the same thought.

"When I return to my people, I will be expected to marry and have children," he finally said quietly, staring down at the floor.

"I wish you the best of luck in finding a wife. I am sure you will make a fine husband and father, and will produce many fine sons," I replied, knowing that his people particularly valued having sons, and like all of the black race, valued fertility.

"I know nothing about the process of making babies."

"It will come naturally," I assured him.

"I do not wish to look a fool before my new wife, or have my ignorance become known among the men of my tribe."

"I am sure you will not."

He again fell silent for the longest time. "You know of such things, how it is between a male and female."

"A little. My experience is very small, but I can tell you what I know."

"If… you would not mind… I would that you would show me," he said, staring at the floor in embarrassment.

"Show you?" I asked in surprise as I pictured finding an houri in this strange port, which I was sure would not be difficult as I had discovered they frequented all port cities no matter how small, and then imagined me performing the act with her in his presence. It was not, I must confess, an act I was particularly fond of, and would find even less pleasant in the presence of another male.

"It is not that different between two males as between a male and female is it, other than the, well, where the two join?" he stammered.

"You want me to show you, with you?" I asked dumbly, slowing realizing what he was proposing.

"I could take the role of the man, and you the woman, if that has been your way with the sheik and the Badawi, and you can tell me how to do it to you, or the other way around and you can do it to me if that is how it is with you," he stammered, even more flustered and embarrassed.

"You are sure about this?"

"Yes. I have thought much about it, all the way we travelled to Mits'iwa. If I have offended you, I apologize. I know you like it with males, but I know too you are not free and easy like some who will do it with anyone who has a cock." He turned red. "I am sorry. I did not mean it to sound that way, so vulgar. I am making a mess of this!"

"It would be my honour to help you," I said, stepping forward and placing my hands on his shoulders. "That is what friends do. But I know too that you do not feel the same way as I do about congress between two males. So, if at any time you find this too uncomfortable or unpleasant, you must say so, and we will stop, and I will understand. I meant it when I said I valued you as a close and good friend, and I would not do anything that would offend you and might ruin our friendship."

"And I too meant what I said about your friendship. It is because I consider you a trustworthy friend, that I dare to suggest such an intimate thing that we do."

I smiled. "Then, the first step in having congress with another, whether it be two men or a man and a woman, is to kiss."

Taking him in my arms, I kissed him. It was awkward and one-sided, but it was our first. We kissed again, and again, and I explained to him what to do, and how it was better if both participated. After a dozen kisses, it was much better and I felt my member begin to stir. I began to caress him, running my hands up and down his back, massaging his muscles, which I found had tensed, outside his clothes. I slipped my hand around to the front and massaged his chest, again outside his clothes, and then dropped my right hand and cupped his gonads, causing him to automatically flinch. This was going to take some time, and I found the thought of breaking down his prejudice and introducing him to pleasures unknown to him arousing.

"Sometimes a man expects a woman to disrobe before him for he finds watching her arousing, and sometimes a man disrobes the woman for he finds revealing her charms arousing. A wanton woman exposes a man, though sometimes a wife or concubine will also, and other times a man prefers his woman to be docile and he disrobes himself, and sometimes the two disrobe each other together. All these differences are true also between two men, the way usually determined by the more dominant man, or the man if between a man and a woman. For this time, I will disrobe you, and you copy what I do to you."

Undoing the sash of his robe, I opened up his tunic and ran my fingers under it and along his chest. It was warm and smooth and hard and muscular. Slipping his tunic off, I opened up his robe and continued to caress his hairless, black chest, my fingers contrasting sharply with his dark skin. And then he did the same to me, awkward and hesitant, which added to my excitement. I gently caressed his nipples, causing them to grow hard and to protrude and causing him to quiver with the new arousal, and then he caressed mine, again clumsily and roughly and I had to show him how to be more gentle. As we caressed, we continued to kiss, and I gradually went from his lips to his cheek and down his neck and over his chest to his nipple, which I kissed and nibbled with my lips and then sucked, causing him to inhale sharply, and as I pressed my body against his I could feel the firmness of his cock pressing against me. I then let him do the same, and my member quivered with excitement as he kissed me and then continued down to suck on first one nipple and then the other.

Untying the ties of his breeches, I let them fall to his ankles, and stepping out of them, he then untied mine. The two of us were wearing thongs, and we untied each other's cords and let them drop. For the first time since I had met him, I saw his cock, and it stood up proud in all its glory, a long, thick tube, at least a hand and a half long and the knob so thick that a man could barely touch fingertips and the tip of his thumb encircling it. It was pitch black, just like the rest of his body, the bulb encased still in skin but peaking out. His balls were huge also, larger than two walnuts, and hanging loose in a wrinkled sack. His hairs were thick and wiry, like the coarse hair on his head, which he wore in long, thick ringlets on either side of his head bound with ribbons, the only thing he still wore.

"A decent, Chris – obedient wife," I said, almost saying Christian, "would not be so vulgar as to touch a man's privates." I reached out and slipped my fingers about his swollen cock and squeezed it gently, knowing that doing so would ease the ache he was feeling. "A concubine, or a whore, might. With two men, each is eager to caress the cock of the other. That is one difference between congress between men and congress between a man and a woman. A man, on the other hand, might touch, and caress a woman's privates, because he finds it arousing, or because he wants to increase her desire, though for a woman, the whole purpose of the act is procreation so for her desire and pleasure are not relevant. If you choose to caress a woman's privates, do so gently, for a woman's privates are as tender and sensitive as a man's testicles." For emphasis and illustration, I released his throbbing member and gently caressed his balls with my fingertips.

"Now, once a man is ready, the next step is to penetrate his wife. He can do so in many different positions, standing, sitting, lying on their sides, from behind with the woman on her hands and knees like you see animals do, or with the woman lying on her back, and the man facing her."

As I talked, I eased him back onto my pallet so he was lying on his back and I crawled onto the pallet and knelt between his legs. "Men can similarly unite in many different positions, depending on one's preference. Face to face is popular for they can look into each other's eyes, and can kiss while in congress."

Raising his buttocks and placing a cushion under his hips for support, I shuffled into position. "A woman's kus, if she is aroused, is moist and slippery, which will make penetration easier. For a man, there are ointments which can be used, or he can use spit." So saying, I worked up a mouth of spittle and drooled over my now stiff cock and then placed the tip against his anus. "Open your ass by pushing out, like you are going to shit." He did so and I wedged the tip of my cock into his opening. Pushing forward ever so gently, I slowly penetrated him. The two of us grunted and snorted and inhaled deeply as we strained to unite and between his persistence and my experience and spittle I managed to insert the bulb of my swollen cock in his rectum. I paused for a moment so he would realize what had happened and note the position of his body and mine, and then I slowly sank my cock up his ass until my balls were pressing against his body.

I paused so he could catch his breath and get comfortable having a man's member inside him, and then I slowly began to fuck, slowly easing my cock back out of his ass and then slowly sliding it back up as far as I could. I wanted very much for it to be pleasant for him, and I wanted it to last as long as I could so he and I could enjoy the pleasure. I asked several times if he was comfortable and willing to continue, and he assured me he was. I cannot say if it was all a ploy to get me to fuck him because it is the nature of blacks to engage in the perversity, if it really was because he wanted to know the process so he would appear knowledgeable when he did his wife, or if he knew I desired congress with him and it was his way to let me do it as a friend despite his aversion to the act.

It did not matter which for I found it most enjoyable and I was determined to make it so for him also. And so we lay there on the pallet, him on his back and legs outspread, me on my knees between his legs and my cock up his tight ass. I slowly pumped my hips to and fro, easing my swollen, throbbing cock in and out of his black ass. Unfortunately I was greatly aroused knowing it was a his first time and that I had taken his virginity, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was in awe and in the throes of pleasure. So, it was not the longest I have ever done it, but it was still enjoyable, and from the look on his face, I can only assume it was for him also. All too soon I was filling his ass with my seed. It shot out forcefully and copiously, penetrating deep up his bowels and fully filling his hole.

"Now, it is your turn to try what I have told you," I said after withdrawing my cock and lying back and catching my breath. "Just imagine that you are about to mount your wife."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

He crawled between my legs awkwardly and self-consciously and spit on his cock several times. It took him several attempts to unite with me, either being too high or too far back, and the longer it took the more frustrated he became and the less successful his attempts were. I finally had him pause and relax. I could have helped him, but I knew his wife would not, and if I helped him he would not learn anything. When he finally managed to wedge the knob of his cock in my hole, I had him pause and note our positions before continuing. Finally sinking his cock up my rectum, he began to rapidly pump his hips and I reached up and stopped him again.

"I know the purpose with your wife is to plant your seed inside her, and if you continue as you are you will surely do it in a dozen heartbeats, but even if your only purpose is procreation, you can still obtain pleasure from the act. Slow down and enjoy the sensation of having your cock totally surrounded by hot, moist flesh, and the sensations assaulting the bulb of your cock as you pump it in and out of me."

He did slow down, though I am not so sure he enjoyed it, focussing as he did on the mechanics of what he was doing. When I figured he was approaching his orgasm, I again had him stop so he could prolong the sensations, and again told him to continue slowly once I was sure his urge had subsided. Accustomed now to the thrust and withdrawal cycle, he was able to pay more attention to the feelings, and I reminded him that even though the female's part was to conceive, she also had a duty to bring pleasure to her husband, even if it meant nothing more than lying there and providing a hole for him to stick his member in, and if she had to lie there for a bit while he enjoyed the pleasure, it was her duty.

It was, of course, not a duty for me, and his actions, even as mechanical and awkward as they were, were bringing me pleasure. In fact, knowing that this was the first time he had ever fucked anyone heightened my pleasure and I massaged his muscular, sweating body, running my hands over his tar-black back and hips, and I worked my anus in time with his thrusts and withdrawals to increase his pleasure, not just because we were friends, but hoping that by making it a pleasure for both of us he might change his mind about congress between two males, and might even try this with another male at some time. When at last he shot his seed up my rectum, from the look in his eyes and the curl of his lips and the way he gasped for breath, I was sure I had succeeded. We said nothing as he withdrew his still stiff cock and collapsed on his back, his thin, black chest heaving and streaked with sweat for there was nothing for us to say.

He helped me with my belongings the next day and the two of us embraced and extended best wishes toward each other. He then turned and departed quickly and I turned to my duties, my eyes moist. I was relieved he did not stay to watch the ship leave for I was sure I would not have been able to keep my composure.

Nicolau Ribeiro (15-16yo)
Supporting characters: boys 9 and 10.
tb Mt Mb incest slavery

As we slowly made our way up the Red Sea, I noticed several strange things. The first thing was that the dhow rode very low in the water. Deducing it was not because of her design, I could only conclude it was because it was overloaded, or the cargo it was carrying was extremely heavy. As a result our progress was slow, which meant that our journey to As-Suways was going to take much longer than I had anticipated. That was a great disappointment, but at least with each passing day I was that much closer to home. The second thing I noticed was that the first mate had hired far more crew than was required for a ship of its size. That was a mystery and I could think of no reason for it, especially in that I had been told it was a merchant vessel which meant each extra crew member was costing the trader money. The last thing I noticed was that the crew appeared to be uneasy, and that was another mystery, especially since they were experienced men.

As the sun began to rise on the morning of our seventeenth day at sea, a day and a half after the date I had thought we would arrive at our destination, the man on watch in the rigging spotted a ship on the horizon angling toward us. Approaching from the east, it had gone unnoticed in the glare of the rising sun and was well on its way to intercepting us. From the speed at which it was travelling and the angle it had taken, that was clearly its intent.

"Well," observed the first mate, who was standing beside me, "it looks like we are going to find out whether or not you can use that fancy sword of yours." He had commented on my sword and questioned my ability the day I had been hired, but I had been too worried about not being taken on and then too elated when I had been hired to have paid much heed to his comment, and had taken it as the natural scepticism of an older and experienced man of the abilities of a younger one. It was not the first time I had met such scepticism.

"Pirates?"

"Most certainly. That ship intends on intercepting our path, and there can be only one reason for a ship to be doing that."

I, the first mate and much of the crew, stared at the approaching vessel, there not being much else we could do. We were at full sail with a strong southerly wind and there was nothing that would speed our progress. To our dismay, the other vessel was rapidly gaining on us. Travelling in the glare of the rising sun, its sails caught the morning rays, making them appear as if they were on fire and I wished that they were. As I stood there watching the rapidly approaching ship with a sinking heart at the strong possibility I would not be returning home and could be losing my prized possessions and possibly even my life, the idea suddenly struck me. Turning, I raced for the hold where my belongings had been stored along with the ship's cargo. Someone commented on my cowardice and sneered about my hiding in the hold as I threw open the hatch and disappeared inside. Grabbing my short bow, one of the many gifts from Prince Abbas, a practical gift to aid me in my service to him in the early days when I was still in his favour, I glanced around for what else I needed and dashed back on deck. Wrapping the cleaning rag I had picked up around the end of one of my arrows, I dipped it in the oil of a lantern and called out for someone with a flint.

Someone commented that the ship was too far away, especially for such a short bow, and even if it was not, the crew would easily put out a single brand, or even a dozen. Ignoring the skepticism, I raised the flaming brand and drew back on the bow and thought back to my training as a kuttabiyya, a young slave soldier back in the citadel in Cairo. The short bow was quite different from the one we had used in our training, the short bow being designed for use on horseback and our long bows for the foot soldier, and my opportunities to practice using it while in the service of Prince Abbas had been limited, but I was desperate and there was some similarity between firing an arrow on horseback and onboard a ship. Taking careful aim, I released the flaming arrow and reached for a second while the first was still in flight. Someone scoffed at my attempt, commenting that I had aimed so high the arrow would likely pass over the ship and land in the sea on the other side. Another observed that from the path the arrow would pass far in front of the ship.

I had aimed exceptionally high on purpose, and I had taken into account the southerly wind and the path of the approaching ship. As I watched as I nocked a second arrow, the first arched up and then curved and began its downward flight, gathering speed in its descent as I knew it would. It struck one of the sails and I heard someone comment it had been a lucky shot, and another that it was a wasted shot. I chose to ignore the comments and having my second brand ignited, I drew back the arrow and aimed it high and to the north also. Having struck the upper sail and pierced through it, my first arrow had continued to strike the aft sail. At our distance, it took a few moments before it became evident that the first sail had caught fire, and that the fire was quickly spreading. Knowing that often sails were soaked in oil to make them waterproof, I had gambled that was the case and my gamble paid off. My second arrow hit the foresail, catching it on fire also. The wind and the oil-soaked sails did the rest. Soon the rigging was aflame and the ship immediately began to lose speed. We all held our breath as ever so slowly our ship began to pull away from the enemy ship. While the enemy turned their attention to dowsing the flames, we gradually began to distance ourselves from their burning ship.

Then someone let out a whoop of joy, followed by another, and I realized I had been holding my breath. As I exhaled, someone congratulated me on my brilliance, and then they were all cheering me. The captain warned it was too early to be celebrating yet, and we all turned our attention to the enemy ship, which by then had stopped, its sails now tattered, blackened rags. It was evident to all that we had made our getaway and there was no way the pirate ship would catch up to us.

"That was most curious," the captain said to the first mate, looking at him and raising an eyebrow meaningfully.

"It most certainly was," he agreed, continuing to look in the direction of the now motionless ship.

"Are pirates not common in these parts?" I asked.

"Most certainly," replied the captain. "Far too common. But they more often dart in from the west shore, a shorter distance, and where they can return and hide in the many alcoves and bays. And they are smaller, more agile craft, never as large as that ship."

"And there is the angle it was taking," added the first mate.

"As if it had been waiting out there expecting us," agreed the captain.

"Perhaps it was. They could have had someone watching at Mits'iwa. This dhow and the way it rides low would have stuck out from the others, and it would be no difficult matter to follow us out of sight and circle around in front of us given our speed," I offered.

"And tag along for seventeen days? Pirates do not have such patience," observed the captain. "No, someone had to have alerted them to our plans and informed them of our progress. One does not need to be a navigator to calculate our position on any given day given knowledge of our route and our speed. And a pirate does not command a ship of that size unless he is expecting to take on a cargo such as ours."

"What do you think of that, Akrashah?" I asked, addressing the sailor standing near us adjusting the belaying pins, an older man with a leathery, creased face.

"Did you address me?" he asked, glancing over at me and feigning surprise.

"I asked what you thought of the Captain's observation."

"I was tending to my work. I was paying no attention to your conversation."

"You are full of camel dung," I responded. "I have been studying your face, and you heard every word we have spoken."

"I did not say I did not hear," he retorted quickly, too quickly for my liking. "I said I paid it no attention. It is not the place of a common sailor to take part in a discussion by the ship's officers." "What are you suggesting?" the captain asked, looking at me.

"That Akrashah has been standing there the full time of our conversation, far longer than it takes to do what he is doing, and from the look on his face concentrating intently."

"I have been concentrating on my work, nothing more. And who are you, a young sprat, to question the work of one three times your experience at sailing?"

"And what have you been doing?" asked the first mate, one qualified to question the work.

"Checking the belaying pins," came the quick reply. "With the strong wind we have we would not want one of them to come loose."

"And it has taken one with your experience all this time to check a few pins?"

Akrasha had no rejoinder to that.

"I also noticed that while all the others were on the alert for a possible attack, you were the only one who was looking constantly to the bow and to the east," I added.

"I was watching like any other sailor. As one approaches one's destination the likelihood of a pirate attack increases."

"But you were watching in only one direction, the exact position where the pirate ship appeared."

"Coincidence."

"And when the ship was disabled, your face did not have a look of happiness like all the others. It had a look of disappointment."

"My old face is creased with the weather, like that of any sailor. I cannot help how it appears to others."

"What do you know of this matter that you are not telling us?" asked the captain, his voice cold and cutting, his eyes narrow and challenging.

"Nothing," Akrasha replied. "Are you going to give credence to the words of this youngster?"

"This youngster raises good questions, ones which you have not been able to answer to my satisfaction. It is unfortunate we did not engage the pirates in battle and capture one of them. Then perhaps we would know who informed them of our manifest and our destination." Akrasha glanced at me and back at the captain nervously.

"There are other ways to find the truth of the matter," said the first mate. "Nashyd, fetch me the cat-o-nine tails," he said, addressing one of the sailors who had become aware of our confrontation and stopped to see the outcome.

I would rather have had not watched what followed, and I will not write of it here. Suffice to say that Akrasha was stripped to the waist and tied to the main mast of the centre sail, and after a dozen lashes confessed that he had indeed informed the pirate captain of the contract our captain had made with merchants from Al Qà&hira, and at the layover at Mits'iwa had sent him a message regarding the success of the endeavour and the progress of the ship. Unlike those of the Christian faith, these Saracens can be especially vicious and cruel, and have a zeal for causing pain and torturing others equal to their zeal for sodomy and other sexual perversions. Any man would have confessed to anything given enough lashes. The captain ordered the man untied and thrown overboard, and given that his actions could have resulted in the death of every man onboard, or at least their capture and sale into slavery, there was not a man sorry to see him so punished. No man, that is, except for myself. I will for the rest of my life remember his cries for mercy and forgiveness and his sobbing admission of his guilt and greed for a greater share of the wealth our cargo would bring. I will always wonder if his admission of guilt had been the truth or the result of the whip, and it is only the sincerity of his explanation for doing what he was accused of doing that assures me that I had been correct in my suspicions and in my accusation against him.

We docked at al-Suways, a small but bustling port at the end of the Red Sea, two days later, in the early evening. After picking up their pay, most of the sailors headed straight for the port's taverns or the brothels, which appeared to be the two main industries of the town. Those who had been hired on as guards remained on the dhow, and I remained with them. I had no need for what the taverns nor the brothels offered, and though no doubt there were places where I could find what I needed, I was in no mood for such pleasure.

That night the captain invited me to his cabin and we dined together, and shared a cup of coffee over a long talk afterward. He asked how I had come upon the idea of setting fire to the pirate ship's sails, and I confessed that it was a trick mentioned in an ancient ballad I had learned while travelling across Caucasia as a koçek. He observed that I was obviously well-travelled and far more experienced than my age would lead one to believe, but he courteously asked no questions about my past. He asked what my future plans were though, and I told him the truth, that I was making my way to Al Qàhira, as they called Cairo, where I hoped to catch a ship to take me west. Where west I did not say, and he did not ask. He gave no indication that he suspected I was not what I pretended to be and I suspect it really did not matter to him, and that he chose to assume I meant to travel to some Arab port along the Mediterranean coast of Africa.

He thanked me once again for disabling the pirate ship, and for exposing Akrasha, and then presented me with a moderately-sized sack that I estimated to weigh four stone, saying that he did not know what valuables I possessed in the chests and saddlebags I was carrying, but that if I had to choose between them and the contents of the sack, he would advise I choose the sack. Taking a small pouch out of a drawer in his desk, he sprinkled a few grains in my palm and bade me taste them. They were crystalline and white, the likes of which I had not seen before. I am not one for drugs and would have preferred to decline, but I knew to do so would be an insult. I cautiously stuck out my tongue, hoping the crystals were too few to have any effect. The taste was sharp, like nothing I have ever tasted, and immediately caused my saliva to begin to flow.

"Salt," he said with a huge smile, glancing at his pouch and then at the sack he had presented me. "There is a hot spring near a river far to the south in the Dark Continent, Soutini the locals call the place, where the salt forms a crust along the edges of the swamp. The women break it off and place it in a cone filter made of branches and the clay from an ant hill. They pour water from the river over it leaving behind the dirt and debris, and then they boil the water they collected under the cone. As the water is boiled away, it leaves behind the purified salt, which they spread out and dry, and then bag and sell." (1)

It was a fanciful tale. That there was so much salt it formed a crust on the top of a swamp and native women filtered it through cones of anthill clay I found difficult to believe, but of course I did not question the captain's information for to do so would be an insult. I had, of course, heard of salt, but it was something for the use of the rich and noble families, and I had never before tasted it. I protested the need for such a gift of course, but he insisted, saying it was but one bag of many that he was carrying and that all would have been lost had it not been for my action so it was a small token of his appreciation, and so I accepted it, my protest having been one of courtesy anyway, not sincerity.

Early the next morning the two merchants who had hired the captain to make this run, and with whom he had met the night before upon our arrival, arrived and the crew began to unload the cargo. There were many sacks such as I had been given, and many larger, enough to pay the ransom of a small kingdom and so many that indeed my gift would not be missed. The one merchant carefully inspected and counted each bag, and half the men who had been hired on as guards accompanied him. In addition to the bags of salt, the crew unloaded several dozen cylindrical objects wrapped in cloth, some a couple feet in length and some as long as a man is tall and half again, which evidently had been the objects weighing down the dhow.

I was informed that these objects were the tusks of elephants. That these large, ivory cylinders were actually the incisors of beasts I would never have believed had I not seen the beasts myself. According to the captain, when ill or about to die of old age, these beasts travelled to where others of their kind had died, an elephant graveyard, he called it, where they laid down and died. That was where these great tusks had been collected. It was another fanciful story, and I could give it no credence. All beasts I know wander off to die alone when ill or aged, and more likely than not, some other flesh-eating beast finishes them off and scatters their remains about as they feed or rips them apart and carts off the pieces and buries them for later. Still, I had to remind myself of how I had scoffed at the description of these beasts when in the Kongo, and at Pero da Covilha's description of spotted, long-necked horses in his meeting with us in Cairo, only to see such beasts with my own eyes a year later.

The other half the crew that had been hired as guards accompanied the second merchant, a man of considerable weight with a triple chin and large ears and whom, I thought with some humour, resembled the beasts whose teeth he had purchased. It was this merchant that the Captain had suggested I accompany to Al Qàhira. Why he had selected him over the salt merchant, who was travelling to the same place, and most likely at a much greater speed, I did not know, but I knew he had to have a reason and I knew better than to question his wisdom. When I was introduced and the captain made his suggestion, I knew immediately his reason. The man studied me as a gem merchant studies a gem in the market. I had seen that look many times, and I knew what was on his mind. Having had congress with worse, it mattered little to me as long as it was taking me closer to home. He agreed and I accepted.

There were, in addition to these two merchants, several others with whom the captain bartered for the other goods he had obtained from the blacks living along the coast and inland to the south, necklaces of polished stones and of colourful clay beads with equally colourful feathers, clay pots of strange shapes and designs, wooden carvings, and a collection of hides. Among them was a skirt made from the skin of one of the black and white striped beasts I have mentioned and which was worn by the wealthier and more powerful men of these southern blacks I was told. I purchased one directly from the captain so when I told of these strange beasts I would have its skin as proof, and added it to the leopard skin I had purchased in Dessie.

Hiring two of the guards to help carry my belongings and hefting my share, I headed out with the tusk merchant, Husein ibn Ali, that afternoon. I recalled Pero da Covilha telling us the distance between Cairo and the Red Sea was eight hundred furlongs, which I estimated would take us three days at the pace Solomon and I had travelled in Abyssinia. I had not considered that we had to traverse salt marshes and skirt around three large salt lakes, and that we would be carrying several dozen tusks, some weighing as much as fifteen stone.

On the evening of our third day out, we came across the largest marsh yet, which one of the men said connected to the mighty Nile itself. After our evening repast, a bland corn gruel, mashed chickpeas, a muddy-tasting fish, and an undercooked flat bread, we settled down for the night. I thought back to the first time I was in Cairo, and of Father's plans to accompany da Covilha to the Red Sea by way of the Nile, and I wondered if he had travelled the same route as I, and perhaps had even camped at this very spot. I wondered how he was fairing now and what he was doing. It was nearing mid-April, the rainy season, and I suspected he and Uncle were sitting by the fireplace and recounting the sales they had made that day and making plans to venture out on their usual trading expedition to the north that time of year, perhaps to buy wines at the ancient city of Brest, perhaps even further north to Burgundy to bring back some of their paintings that were becoming cherished in our country. As I thought of lying there at the hearth and listening to those conversations of strange and exotic lands and peoples and dreaming of visiting them myself some day, I felt an ache in my heart for a time and place that seemed so long ago. Lost in my dreams, I paid little heed to Husein as he ambled off to relieve himself until a short time later I heard him scream in terror.

Grabbing my sword, I leaped to my feet and raced in the direction of his cries. In the dark he had headed the wrong direction, and instead of the pit we had dug for performing our bodily functions, he had headed deeper into the swamp where the land became less firm. The reason for his cries was immediately evident. He had sunk into the muck to his waist, and hearing his thrashing, a crocodile was rapidly heading in his direction. Being much lighter than he, I managed to skip past him on thicker hummocks of grass to position myself between him and the crocodile. I splashed the water to attract it, and I being closer, he headed in my direction. Very much aware of the ability of the large creatures to leap out of the water, and of the danger of being swept into the water by their tail, I waited until he was about to attack and pricked him with my spear. In the meantime, others had arrived and helped drag Husein to safety while I distracted the predator, and then carefully retreated. Fat Husein cried with relief and gratitude and profusely promised I would be rewarded once we arrived at Al Qàhira, and several of the men urged me to compose a ballad about my heroics.

There was nothing else of note on our journey to Cairo. We left the marsh the next day and followed a trail across a low desert of sand and stone, arriving at Cairo in the evening, five and a half days after having left Al-Suways. In his gratitude for having rescued him in the swamp, Husein paid my porters for their service, and insisted I stay with him in his home, claiming that had it not been for me he would have been the crocodile's evening repast. I rejoined that perhaps rather than having food on its mind, when the croc had seen what he had pulled out from his robes he thought it perhaps a convenient log upon which to rest for the night and catch the morning sun. That of course Husein found greatly amusing, and greatly complementary, and I suspect his invite to lodge with him had more to do with his hopes of getting into my pantaloons than it had to do with his gratitude.

Husein ibn Ali was a successful merchant and his shop and home was in the wealthier section of Al Qàhira. In addition to several guards and servants, he had several slaves to see to the needs of himself, his two wives, and his five children, four girls and a son, and had an assistant who ran the day-to-day operation of his shop. Our first day was spent relaxing and recuperating from our trek to Cairo, and I must admit I needed the rest as much as did my host. I also needed a bath, and I spent an hour luxuriating in a large marble tub and being waited on by a young Christian slave boy who had been introduced as Peter the Armenian. Nine years of age, fair-skinned and blue-eyed with long, curly auburn hair and an innocence of a cherub and docility of a lamb, he was what dreams were made of and it was only because he was the slave of my host that prevented me from acting on those dreams. As it was, I sported an erection through most of my bath, something I took no pains to hide, and which the boy took every opportunity to shyly and covertly examine, his eyes filled with curiosity and abashment. I had heard mention of the Armenians, back home in Viano do Castello and while I had been at the Vatican and while travelling with the Mameluke Usama, and I had actually travelled through part of their land while travelling with the Gilman Troupe. They were, I had been told, one of the first and one of the most devout Christians, and I could not help but wonder what the boy thought of the heathens who were now his masters. (2)

Our evening repast consisted of so many dishes and courses that I lost count and was so flavourful, especially after my meals aboard the dhow and on our trek through the marshes, that no words can adequately describe the tastes. Suffice to say that if I had a regular diet of such food I would be as fat as my host, who was at least twenty stone and as I said resembled those beasts known as elephants. There was no question his son, who ate with us, was of his seed for the boy was in all respects a younger replica of the father.

"That was a most delicious meal," I observed graciously over the customary demitasse of coffee following our meal. The servants had been dismissed and Husein's son had been excused.

"One of the benefits of being a civilized man," my host observed. "Good food, a warm bath, and strong coffee."

"What more could one want?"

"An attractive, young boy."

I knew that was on his list, but his abrupt and frank comment took me by surprise and I did not know how to respond. Was that an opening which he hoped would eventually get me into his bed? Every time I had noticed him looking at me, which seemed to be constantly over the past six days, I had seen the lust in his eyes.

"Peter the Armenian tended to you in your bath today."

"Yes, he did," I replied, not sure where this conversation was heading.

"A most attractive child," he observed. "As, he tells me, you noticed."

It took me a moment to realize what he was implying, and upon realizing it, I turned a bright red, much to his delight.

"There is no shame in lust for a beautiful boy. Has not Mohammad, a thousand blessings on His Name, told us that Allah promises the faithful all the beautiful young boys a man could want to meet his needs when he ascends to Paradise?"

"It is so."

"And so why should a man wait until he is in Paradise when there are boys willing to meet his needs on Earth? Boys like Peter the Armenian."

"There is no reason," I observed.

"I shall send him to your chambers tonight," Husein said with a smile. I glanced over at my host uncertainly. "He is a most willing pillow-mate. You will not be disappointed I think."

"You are most generous."

"For one who has saved my life, it is nothing," he said with a nod.

Was that why, out of gratitude for having saved him from the crocodile? Or was it the next step in this game, this game of getting me into his bed? First Peter, and then Husein. I did not care. It had been over three weeks since I had last had congress with another, and the thought of an evening with Peter had my member leaking sweet nectar.

Just as no words can adequately describe the evening's repast, no words can adequately describe the delight of that night. Peter arrived freshly bathed and unperfumed, the natural fragrance of boy unparalleled by any other fragrance, wearing a shirt and pantaloons of the finest and sheerest material that hid his choicest parts but revealed slender curves and hidden recesses that promised heaven on earth. I drew him to me and buried my nose in his auburn curls and inhaled the intoxicating fragrance of his fine, clean hair and his near naked body. I caressed him and kissed him, and the sweetness of his tender lips caused my member to stiffen quickly. I looked into his innocent, blue eyes, and the promise of an evening of delights that I found there caused my member to throb and my groin to ache.

He was not inexperienced, as had been promised, and he reached out and began to disrobe me, and I sat back and let this sweet, innocent boy open my robe and slide it off my shoulders, deftly untie the ties of my shirt and draw it over my head, and eagerly untie the sash of my pantaloons and let them drop to my feet, leaving me only in my thong, now stretched out with my swollen member. He undid the ties and my member sprang out eagerly, the knob dripping with my essence. He immediately dropped to his knees and availed himself of that sweet nectar, determined not to waste a drop, and the moment his sweet lips that moments before I had kissed pressed against my knob, I produced for him another droplet of that sweet, clear nectar. He sucked it up and then sat back, his satin lips glistening now with a film of my cock juice. I drew him up and kissed him again, drawing his hot, young body to me as I tasted my cock on his lips.

I undid the ties of his flimsy garments and caressed his smooth skin, my fingers following the curves of his slender body down to his slim waist and over his smooth, compact buttocks. I cupped his little eggs in my right hand and rolled them in their loose sack and I slipped my fingers about his limp cocklet and gently stroked it. It of course responded and he inhaled deeply as it began to swell and ripples of pleasure circled his tender bulb. Soon the boy was erect and his little cocklet wagged with excitement and eagerness to continue.

He had brought lubricant and he turned now and spread apart his legs and I scooped up some of the clear gel with my pointer finger and applied it to his anus, lubricating the outer pucker and as he eagerly opened it slipping the tip of my finger in to the first knuckle to lubricate the inside. Scooping up more with my first two fingers, I generously applied it to my knob and the shaft of my cock. I took him standing there, his arms bracing himself against the wall as I stepped up behind him and placed the tip of my lubricated cock against his greased hole. He was eager and experienced, as was I, and we united effortlessly. I paused to enjoy the pleasure of having my aching, swollen cock surrounded by hot, moist ass flesh pulsating in time with my own solid flesh, and to allow him time to enjoy the pleasure of having his young ass stuffed with a swollen, pulsating cock.

I fucked him then, slowly and tenderly, fighting back the urge to ram my cock in and out of his delicate body and to experience the joy of ejaculation. I had to stop many times so prurient was I and the boy knew my struggle and remained still, enjoying the prolonged fuck as much as I. I pressed my groin against his naked backside and bent my head and nibbled at his neck. I reached around and stroked his swollen cocklet as I stood there with my own cock buried deep up his rectum. I knew the thrills of pleasure circulating his bulb were the same thrills of pleasure circling my own. I wrapped my other arm tight about this slender, delightful child and kissed the back of his neck and then slowly worked my swollen cock in and out of his tight, pulsating ass, and he worked the muscles of his anus in time with my withdrawal and reentry.

I waited until he began to jerk uncontrollably and to whimper with his dry orgasm before I allowed myself to ejaculate, and as he trembled with the pleasure of his climax I filled his little ass with my seed and he trembled with the pleasure of my climax and the pleasure of being filled with a man's juice. It had been over three weeks since I had last spent my seed and I spurted forcefully and repeatedly, emptying three weeks of built up seed up his rectum. The opening of my member and the rim of my bulb burned with that sweet pain as my seed spurted out of my swollen cock and I gasped for air as I filled his ass, inhaling the wild, natural fragrance of a young boy, the tang of our sweat, and the earthiness of my spilt seed. It was beautiful beyond words, and as I filled his rectum with seed I wondered what the boy was thinking. That he was enjoying the experience there was no question, but I wondered if he was thinking of the admonishments of his priests about sodomy and wondering why they were so adamantly opposed to something that felt so good, or if his heart sank with the sin of his enjoyment and the flush of shame coloured his cheeks along with the flush of lust. He was, after all, a Christian boy.

And what of myself? Was my delight because of my long period of abstinence, or was it because I was engaging in this perverted act with a boy whose faith forbade such pleasure, with a boy whose church is among the oldest in the world? Was my pleasure from the physical ejaculation of my seed, or from the knowledge that I had seduced this innocent and engaged him in the filthiest and most perverted of acts and brought him pleasure in doing so?

I engaged in that act with him two more times that night, once with him on his back and me on my hands and knees and facing him, my cock buried up his sweet ass as he masturbated himself until he climaxed, the wonder and delight in those blue eyes as he climaxed causing me to erupt with the same force and volume as our first time. The last time I took him in what I have heard the vulgar call dog style, him on his hands and knees and me kneeling behind him and fucking his rump. As I lay there afterwards, satiated and satisfied, I thought of the debates we had back in Florence, and among my musician companions as we crossed Persia. Which was better, a child of a free man or a slave boy? Black slave, arab slave, white Christian slave, or Zoroastrian slave? Which brought the greater pleasure? Was it the black boy who rutted with the natural, animalistic lust of his race, the Saracen who brought the pleasure of the Ghilman promised in heaven to mortals on earth, the Zoroastrian boy whose faith taught him sodomites were worshippers of Satan, or the Gregorian Christian boy whose faith taught him that congress between those of the same sex was a sin? I have tried all, and I confess I enjoyed sex with every one of them. What did that make me?

The next day I ventured into the market in search of information about ships heading across the Mediterranean. I could still recall the conversations Father and Uncle had and the advice they had received upon our arrival in Cairo, and I wasted no time seeking out those places they had been told were the best sources of information. By midafternoon I had talked to several dozen merchants and sailors and walked at least a dozen leagues, all to no avail. I finally stopped to rest, finding the heat exhausting. Treating myself to a couple balls of couscous sprinkled with almonds, cinnamon and sugar from a vendor in the bazaar and purchasing a sherbet from a sherbet boy, I sought some shade where I could enjoy my treats. Spotting an individual who was clearly a foreigner from his dress and the colour of his skin inspecting some jewellery at one of the venders, I was about to approach him and inquire if he knew of any ships sailing west, when I spotted one of the many urchins that inhabit bazaars sidle up behind him and I knew immediately the boy's intent.

As he cut the foreigner's purse strings and turned to run, I called out a warning and leaped up and ran to intercept him. The foreigner cried out for him to stop and for someone to stop him in a mixture of Arabic and Italian. The boy was fast but so was I, and from my past experience with the Berber cutpurse Ahmar, I anticipated the path he would choose in making his escape and headed directly to where I figured our paths would intersect. I was correct, and the sight of my drawn sword was enough for the boy to drop his purloined prize and beat a hasty exit. Scooping up the purse, I turned to find the flushed and perspiring owner racing toward me. He was much appreciative of my retrieval of his purse, and between gasps of breath he thanked me profusely, again in a combination of poor Arabic and a strange Italian dialect. He attempted to pay me a reward but I of course refused.

Observing that I had noticed the merchandise he had appeared interested in when the cutpurse had attempted to relieve him of his purse, and that I had some knowledge of Egyptian artifacts, I offered him my assistance. He was at first suspicious, especially when I suggested taking him to a shop several blocks away from the main market that sold higher quality merchandise including some artifacts of antiquity, suspecting I intended on robbing him myself, or had some other improprieties in mind. The first of course did not make sense as I could have just taken off with the purse I had apprehended from the cutpurse, and the second he made perfectly clear he considered an abomination and had no interest in. I assured him of the purity of my intentions and after some persuasion, he agreed to accompany me. From inquiries which I had made upon my arrival in the city almost a year and a half ago, I had been directed to such a shop, and though it had not proven fruitful for my purposes back then, I figured it might now, and I hoped that it was still there. To my relief it was, and as I suspected, the foreigner found the merchandise superior to what he had been looking at, and he arranged to buy a considerable amount of the man's stock, which I offered to help carry for him.

"This shop keeper. He is a relative?"

"No."

"A friend?"

"No. It is just a shop I am acquainted with."

"You are paid a commission for bringing buyers to him?"

"No. I do not know the man."

"Then why take me to him?" "You appeared to be a connoisseur of sorts, and new to the city. I am a traveller myself, and know what it is like to be a stranger in a strange land."

"Ah," he said, not totally satisfied.

"In fact I am seeking passage to the west and thought you, being a foreigner, might know of ships that will be sailing the Mediterranean in the near future."

"Ah," he said, finding that a more plausible reason for my behaviour than friendship and empathy. "You are correct there. The ship I have arrived on will be returning to my homeland in three more days."

"Italy?"

"Venice."

"I would be most desirous to sail with you."

"Well, I do not know. We have no need for more crew, and we would really not have room for another person," he replied, examining me carefully. "There are few of your… ah… faith in Venice. Besides, I am with a company of merchants. It would have to be discussed with them."

I understood his hesitancy. I was a stranger, and an Arab, and my request was unusual. Though Venice, unlike most of the Christian world, had established a policy of trading with the Arab population rather than fighting them, there was no trust between the two and a tolerance of each other's faith only as long as there was a financial benefit in the relationship. Still, I had done him a good turn, and from my dress it would be assumed I was the son of a family of some means and could be influential in future trade expeditions. In the end, much to my delight, he and his fellow merchant companions agreed to allow me passage with them. (3)

I returned to Husein's home in high spirits and informed him I had been successful in finding a ship and would be sailing in the morning two days hence. I of course did not tell him it was with Venetians and we would be heading to Venice. I again dined that evening with my host and his son, the males of the family eating first and separately as was the custom in this land. We spent the meal in small talk and pleasantries.

"You enjoyed your evening last night?" he asked over the customary coffee following our meal.

"Yes, immensely. Thank you."

"Peter informs me that he enjoyed the evening very much also," my host continued. I could not help glancing over at his son, who had remained with us this time, and wondering if the boy knew just what evening service the slave boy Peter the Armenian provided. "He informs me you are most experienced and most talented in pillow sport." Well, he knew now.

Caught off guard, I was not sure how to respond, particularly with a ten-year-old boy present. "The slave boy Peter was an enthusiastic and willing participant," I managed.

"He is a boy, like all boys, unable to keep his finger out of his pleasure hole, and delighting in fiddling with his tiddler."

Husein's son Khasim could not prevent the flush colouring his cheeks and did a poor job of suppressing a knowing smile.

"Such seems to be the nature of boys," I agreed cautiously. At least it so seemed for boys of these Saracens, and any boys who remained in their company for long.

"True, Allah, a thousand blessings be on His Name, in His infinite wisdom designed boys so they would be eager to delight in pleasures of the flesh, men so they could delight in what boys have to offer, and boys who see it as their duty to bring pleasure to their elders."

"Women for breeding, boys for pleasure," I said, referring to an oft used quote in these heathen lands. I wondered what Khasim was thinking hearing his father speak so about boys.

"Of course some boys bring more pleasure than others," Husein observed. "Just as in any sport, one becomes skilled with proper training." He looked meaningfully at his son and then at me. Was he sending his son a message of some sort, or me?

"Some men are more skilled than others also, and some know better how to instruct a boy than others," observed Khasim, looking directly at me with a look that implied I was such a man. Had Peter the Armenian talked to him also, and was he making an advance?

"And with anything anyone does, skill comes with practice," observed Husein, again looking meaningfully at me, and then at his son. It was as if he and his son had rehearsed this conversation, but surely that could not be.

"Some men, and boys, have more opportunity to practice than others, and to choose with whom they practice," I observed, speaking in generalities but the three of us knowing exactly what we were referring to. "A slave, for example, has fewer opportunities than a free man for the most part, for he has no control over his destiny and must do what his master bids, and with whom his master chooses. It is the same for one who is for hire. He has little choice in who buys his service. It is a much different matter for a boy of a free man who can choose, and who can find skilled instructors."

"Indeed. If it is instruction one desires, such a boy could seek instructors out on his own," responded Husein, looking at his son, and then looking meaningfully at me, adding, "or wishful instructors could seek permission from the boy's father."

Was the man offering me his own son? I could not help but think back to the Bey of Tabriz arranging to have his eleven-year-old son kidnapped by Prince Abbas for the purpose of inducting him into manhood, that induction including having carnal knowledge of the boy.

"In that case I am sure Khasim would have much to offer one who made such a request."

"You can tell me on the morrow," my host said, "but now I have business to attend to."

As he rose, I and his son did too and I realized what had just happened. Without another word, the father whisked out of the room. "I shall see you then, in a candle mark?" I asked, and the boy nodded and also took his leave.

As I waited, I wondered if I had been manipulated by Husein, and if so why. I once again thought of the Grand Duke of Constantinople who chose death for himself and for his fourteen-year-old son rather than allow his son to become a concubine, and how one father would choose death for his son and another thought nothing of offering his son, or daughter, to his guests. (4) I also wondered once again what I would do if given the choices for my own son. I had come to no conclusions when Khasim announced himself outside my door.

Khasim had clearly refreshed himself, though he had not overindulged in perfumes or makeup, for which I was glad for I found them far less appealing than the natural fragrance and appearance of a boy. He had changed into clean clothing and clothing more suited for an evening soiree and I admonished myself for not doing likewise. I was also pleased that the clothing he had chosen, while of a finer material than he had worn at our evening repast, as not as sheer as Peter the Armenian had chosen, which would have exaggerated his weight rather than made him more seductive. Leading him into my bedchamber, I knelt down amongst the pillows and motioning for him to stand before me, I slowly disrobed him. As I have said, the boy was a replica of his father right down to the large, elephantine ears, though the boy only had two chins and not three like his father. When I worked as a bath boy there a boy employed there much like him, a boy who was chosen by those who, I was told, "liked meat on a boy's bones", but otherwise the last to be selected by the regular clientele. He had been teased and shunned by the other bath boys, but I had found him a decent enough sort for an Arab, and since neither of us had been popular among the other boys we had formed a loose friendship of sorts. He was not one I would have considered as a sex partner, and nor was Khasim.

I had, however, made a commitment to his father, and he was not a bad sort himself, and I have in the past had far more unpleasant partners. Once he was naked, I had him disrobe me, and I instructed him on some of the finer points of disrobing another, such as going slow, and taking the time to appreciate the flesh one was exposing, including caressing it and perhaps even kissing it. The boy was a willing and fast learner.

"So, are you one of those boys your father described as being unable to keep your fingers out of your pleasure hole?" He nodded, his eyes downcast in shame. "And plays with his tiddler?" He again nodded, unable to look up at me. "Well, there is nothing wrong with that. Knowing how to bring pleasure to yourself gives you a better understanding on how to bring pleasure to others, and that is a good thing." The boy smiled with the indirect praise.

I brought out a jar of lubricant and told him to show me his technique. As he oiled his middle finger and then reached behind himself and slowly inserted his finger up his ass, I was reminded of my first experience at finger fucking, doing one of a pair of cousins while the second was finger fucked by the Berber Ahmar, the two cousins worshipping the young cutpurse and eager to have the honour of having sex with him. As for choking the chicken, the boy used the basic cyclic stroking from base to bulb rim using his thumb and first two fingers. I again told the boy he was in no race with anyone and to slow down and focus on the pleasures he was feeling. Of course he did and soon smiled as he saw the difference. Watching this chubby cherub standing there slipping his middle finger in and out of his ass and slowly pumping his now stiff little cocklet, his eyes bright with the pleasure he was feeling and his lips a straight line as he concentrated on what he was doing and that pleasure he was creating I found arousing and my cock slowly began to swell. He may be the son of a rich merchant and know a pampered life unlike many of the boys I have had sex with, but he was still a boy with a boy's needs and filled with awe over a world still to be discovered.

I then asked if he had ever sucked cock, and again he said he had, so I had him kneel before me and show me his technique. It again was hurried and most basic, and I again advised him to slow down and instructed him on some simple variations designed to arouse one's partner and prolong his pleasure before commencing the act itself. The boy again showed himself to be an eager and quick learner. He ran his tongue up and down my shaft and encircled the rim of my bulb like it was coated with honey and from the look on his face his enjoyment was sincere. He soon had me erect and I showed him a few other tricks, like flicking the tip of his tongue against the sensitive spot on the underside of one's cock just below the split of my bulb, and striking the opening to a man's member, both guaranteed to make his partner squirm with desire.

He soon drew out the first of my droplets of sweet nectar that precedes a man's seed, and I instructed him on how to lap it up and cause a man to produce more. Again he was a quick learner and he knelt there before me and lapped up the clear nectar oozing out of the tip of my cock as if it were honey. The sight of this naked, plump cherub licking up my issue cause a shiver up my spine and I produced even more of the special fluid for him. Despite the care he took, he got streaks of slime on his cheeks and the sight of my slime glistening on his plump face and his lips cause even more to ooze out of the tip of my cock.

I finally had him slip his lips over my bulb and suck on my now aching cock, and then slowly slip his lips up and down the shaft, telling him to pause to swallow his saliva flavoured with my cock and nectar and to allow the man he was sucking to enjoy the pleasure. He took his time, and slowly the pressure in my balls increased. I instructed him on the signs to watch for indicating a man was about to shoot his seed, and how to curb that desire by cutting off his lust with his lips. I allowed him to bring me to that peak a second time, and then on the third I prepared him for the eruption of my seed.

I spurted out a thick and copious load, as if I had not ejaculated for over a week. He swallowed my warm, thick slime with the same desire and joy as he had swallowed my clear nectar, but he could not keep up and my thick, white slime oozed out of the corners of his lips and down and around his two chins. It reminded me of a popular dish in these lands, cacik, a thick yoghurt with cucumber and garlic with a unique texture and taste, just as a man's seed has a texture and taste unlike anything else on this earth.

We relaxed for a bit, and then I took him from behind, the better position as his protruding belly would make penetration more difficult. He had evidently more experience at being fucked, and opened up to me and accommodated me without undue effort, and he knew how to work his anal muscles in time with my thrusts and withdrawals. I reached around and slipped my fingers about his little cocklet, short but fat, and I stroked it, rubbing my fingers over the sensitive rim of his bulb at the same time as the head of my cock brushed against that tender spot deep up a male's rectum, sending a double bolt of arousal through his body, one circling the rim of his bulb and shooting up the shaft of his fat cocklet and the other sparking out from that tender spot and shooting up his rectum and through his testicles.

I worked my fist and my hips slowly so we would both enjoy the shocks of pleasure shooting through our bodies as long as possible. I also paced us so that he reached his orgasm at the same time as I did, quivering with the sheer delight and jerking his body as the spasms hit him at the same time as I thrust forward and squirted my seed deep up his rectum and the same spasms of delight caused me to quiver and the opening of my cock to burn. It was as if the two of us were having one orgasm, and our mutual delight enhanced our pleasure twofold.

The next day I had no longer any need to visit the markets to search for a voyage home, and instead spent my time looking for anything noteworthy to bring home with me, or, remembering my charge by Pope Innocent, any artifacts of Egypt or of the Holy Land, but I found nothing. While searching, I did see a slaver marching his captives toward the Citadel. Remembering my encounter with slavers shortly after arriving in Cairo, I gave the man a wide berth, and I was careful to never be alone in the streets. I did wonder about the fate of the Mameluke who had purchased me at the Citadel, Usama el Hasan ibn Fuad, but I dared not ask any of the Mameluke soldiers I saw in the market if they knew of him or what had happened in the battle with the Janissaries in which we had been separated, nor did I attempt to seek him out in fear he would think my bond had not been fulfilled and would reclaim me.

This close to departing from this heathen land with its strange and decadent customs, I was not about to do anything that might jeopardize my opportunity to leave. It was, by my calculations, the fourteenth of April, my sixteenth birthday. I found myself in a melancholy mood as I strolled through the bazaar and recalled past birthdays celebrated with family, of Mother making my favourite dishes, the simple and self-made but heartfelt gifts I received from my sisters, the dancing and singing as Uncle entertained us long into the evening with humorous and sometimes ribald songs, and the look of pride in my father's eyes. How I missed my family and yearned to be back home! The more I tried not to think about it the more I did, and the more I did the lower my spirits fell. So bad it was, I considered seeking out a barber and having him bleed me of the black bile that had filled me and caused my low spirits, but I did not trust these heathens to perform such an operation and instead I headed back to Husein's shop and home.

At our evening repast that evening only my host and I dined and no mention was made of my night before. We did not conclude with the customary coffee either and I worried that somehow I had displeased the man, which certainly was not my intent. The only thing I could think of was that he was disappointed in my performance with his son the previous night, though I had thought the night had gone well, and that Khasim had found it enjoyable as well. Husein did, however, request, or more accurately, order, my presence in his bedchamber later. I showered, changed into more appropriate clothes, and headed for his bedchambers at the appointed hour. I knew the first night we returned, the night I had spent with the slave boy Peter the Armenian, he had spent with his first wife out of obligation, and that last night while I had his son, he had his second wife, again out of obligation. I was sure just as he had a report on me from Peter after my night with him, he similarly had a report on me from his son today. I fervently prayed that his silence had not been due to displeasure, but instead due to being deep in thought, and perhaps anticipation. Now it was time for him to find out first hand if what he had been told was true.

Upon joining him in his bedchambers, we were attended to by one of his female servants who served us platters of pastries and poured us a sweet plum wine and we again engaged in small talk. To my surprise, we were joined by his son who sat with us and partook of the sweets and wine, and then by the slave boy Peter the Armenian, who respectfully sat apart, but who was offered and eagerly accepted both pastries and wine.

Husein then motioned to the slave and the boy stood and danced, and as he danced he approached me and performed a provocative dance strictly for me. At the same time Khasim moved over to sit closer to his father and I noticed out of the corner of my eye his father slip his hand under his son's robes! Never would my father touch me there, and I have never heard of a father doing so to his son, and much to my shame, I must confess I found it arousing. Peter's dance ended with the boy sitting in my lap and wrapping his arms about me and gently kissing me on the lips. That of course led to both of us kissing and caressing, and slowly disrobing each other there in the presence of my host and his master and Husein's young son. We were both acutely aware of being watched by father and son, which to my surprise added to my arousal, and I felt my cock slowly begin to expand.

We were down to our thongs when Husein and his son began to kiss and caress also, and I could not keep my eyes away as father and son began to disrobe each other and arouse each other. I had of course witnessed brothers having sex with each other on several occasions, had watched a son being forced to engage in carnal relations with his father in the torture chambers in Castile, and had heard rumours of incestuous relations while at the Vatican, but never had I witnessed a father and son willingly engage in a sexual act. That the two would do so was shocking even considering they were Saracens, but to do so in the presence of their slave boy, and in my presence, was unbelievable. And again to my dismay and shame, I found the sight arousing, a testament to the depravity to which I had sunk. Ever so slowly they exposed each other's body, the father disrobing the son and the son disrobing the father, and, I noticed, Khasim did so slowly and followed some of the techniques I had shown him. Soon father and son were naked and their resemblance to each other was even greater. Neither made any effort to hide his most private parts from our eyes, nor from the eyes of each other.

Peter at last removed my thong and I removed his, exposing our erect members. The slave boy produced a jar of lubricant and proceeded to grease his anus and his rectum, and Khasim did likewise, inserting his pointer finger into a second jar of lubricant and then inserting his greased finger up his ass there in the presence of his father. Peter then scooped up more lubricant with his pointer and middle fingers and greased my erect cock until it was glistening from the base at my balls to the tip in the candlelight. Khasim at the same time generously coated his father's fat, erect cock and I could not but wonder what Husein was thinking as his son lubricated his member, and what his son was thinking as he spread the lubricant over the bulb and shaft of his father's cock.

Peter than assumed his subservient position on his knees and elbows and kneeling behind him, I placed the tip of my cock against his hole and penetrated him. Dropping to the same position before and facing Peter, Khasim spread his chubby legs and his father knelt behind him and sank his cock up his fat ass. I then began to pump my hips to and fro, fucking the nine-year-old slave boy while Husein fucked his ten-year-old son. My swollen member throbbed with pleasure up Peter's hot, moist ass, the same pleasure Husein had to be feeling with his cock up his son's ass, and from the smile on his lips and the glaze in his eyes, Khasim had to enjoying getting fucked by his father as much as Peter was enjoying getting fucked by me. As my pleasure increased I began to inhale and exhale faster and deeper, as did Peter, and I noticed so had Husein and Khasim. Sweat began to bead on my forehead and trickle down my sides, and I noticed both Husein and Khasim had begun to perspire also, the two being much fatter than Peter and I and perspiring much more profusely, especially as Husein began to pump his hips to and fro faster.

I must confess again to my great shame that watching the father fucking his son heightened my own pleasure. As I watched Husein slip his hand under his son's fat belly and begin to stroke his stiff little cocklet, I reached under Peter's stomach and began to stoke his member. No longer and thicker than my thumb and just as hard, it throbbed between my thumb and fingers with the same pleasure as I was feeling with my cock buried deep up his rectum. All too soon the four of us were panting and gasping as Husein and I shot our seed up the assholes of the two boys, and the two, the free man's son and the slave boy, grunted and shivered with their own climaxes and delight, the pleasure felt by the merchant's son the same as the pleasure felt by the slave boy.

We ate more sweets and drank more wine in silence and I noticed the boys' eyes beginning to glaze from the effects of the wine. After recovering, we switched, and while I fucked Husein's son in his presence, he fucked the slave boy. Even though he was fully aware that I had fucked his son the night before and I was fully aware that he knew, kneeling there in his bedchamber with my hard, throbbing cock up the ass of his son while he knelt there with his cock up the asshole of the slave boy watching me gave me a strange pleasure, and again as a sign of my depravity, I found it to be arousing to be fucking the boy in the presence of his father, and of having the boy witness his father fucking another boy. And as Husein added his seed to mine up the rectum of the slave boy and as I added my seed to that of Husein up his son's asshole, the idea of our seed mingling up the fertile assholes of the two boys sent a shiver of arousal up my spine.

Again we relaxed over sweets and wine, the earlier effects of the wine having worn off with our exertion. Husein then had the two boys pleasure each other orally while we watched, the two lying side by side and sucking on each other's little cocklet, the slave boy doing his master's son and the free boy sucking the cocklet of the Christian slave. Despite their great differences in station and their very different futures, the two boys reacted identically, the free man's son and the slave boy trembling and jerking their hips with their dry ejaculation, the two feeling the same burning pleasure as they tried to ejaculate, and the two dewy-eyed with wine and the intoxication of sex as they eagerly and desperately sucked on each other's private part, driven by the mad itching of their own swollen member.

Husein and I both had erections by the time the two boys were done. He then turned to me and I knew what he was expecting without him needing to say a word. Dipping my fingers into the jar of lubricant, I greased up my hole and then my host's fat, erect cock, growing more aroused as I prepared the two of us there under the watchful eyes of the two young boys. I could not help but wonder what his young son was thinking as I lubricated his father's member. I wondered if this was part of his young son's education, or if my host was engaging in this orgy with his own son for his own pure pleasure.

I dropped to my knees and elbows, assuming the same position as the two boys had earlier and presenting my backside to him. The two boys watched with bright interest as we united and as Husein began to fuck me, and then Peter the Armenian dropped to his elbows and knees once more and presented his ass to his master's young son. So it was that father and son matched each other in motion as they slowly fucked the two of us, ramming their fat cocks in and out of our lubricated assholes and their fingers wrapped about our cocks as they masturbated us. The two boys soon began to approach their climax once again, their fourth that night. For Husein and myself it was our third and so took us longer but when we came, it was as copious and as forceful as our first two.

When at last I dragged myself to my bed, I could only wonder at what we had done and what a strange world we lived in. How was it that Christian fathers would rather die and see their sons die than become concubines of these Saracens and be mounted by them, while these followers of Allah believed that men mounting boys on earth was a reflection of what their god promised the faithful in heaven? How could one father engage in sex in front of his son with a boy younger than his son, and engage in sex with his son in the presence of others, while other fathers would be abhorred by such an idea? And what sort of person would find witnessing and participating in such perverted behaviour arousing? It was a birthday such as I have never experienced, and will never forget.

The next day I returned to the bazaar one last time. It was noon and I stepped up to a vendor's to purchase a meat pie when the customer ahead of me turned. Though he was older and now sported a thick, black beard, I recognized him immediately. It was the Moor Mustafa! Having never much liked nor trusted him despite what Father and Uncle had said about his loyalty, he was not one I particularly wanted to meet, particularly in that he was likely the only one in this heathen land who knew my real identity and that I had disguised myself as an Arab. I was, however, curious about what had happened when Rabbi Abraham had returned to Cairo with news of my whereabouts. It took him a few moments longer to recognize me, and from the look on his face, it was not only a surprise, but he clearly had no more pleasure in seeing me than I had in seeing him. He ushered me away from the crowd and then stood there studying me for a moment, evidently wondering what to say. "You are still alive," he finally said, and in a tone that did not indicate any joy in the discovery.

"Yes," was all I could think of saying.

"Last we heard of you was from the Jew, and he said you had headed north with your Mameluke lover."

Good God! Is that the news that Rabbi Abraham de Beja had relayed to Father-that I had headed north with my Mameluke lover? I had not thought of that at the time, but I could very well see the old priest saying exactly that. The priest would certainly not be in support of such a relationship, and from the disgust in Mustafa's voice, it was clear he did not either.

"Is that what Rabbi Abraham told Father?" I asked aghast.

"He told your father nothing. A winter storm delayed the caravan the Jew was travelling with by two days. He missed your father and uncle by twelve candle marks. Twenty-one days had passed since your disappearance and your father could wait no longer. He left brokenhearted back to your country."

That Father had left without being told I was alive and planning an escape from my enslavement as I had hoped he had been saddened me greatly, but, I reasoned, better that than being told I was with my Mameluke lover.

"When I heard later of the army fighting the Ottoman on the border, I did not think you would have the fighting skills to survive," Mustafa continued, "but you evidently were not killed. But you do not wear the dress of a Mameluke soldier."

"No, I was not killed," I replied, deciding to ignore his slur on my fighting skills. "I was captured by the Janissaries, but later ordered released by the Ottoman Sultan."

"You met with Sultan Bayazid II?" he asked in surprise. I nodded. "Kings, Princes, Sultans, you enjoy the company of powerful men." Was that a hint of envy I heard in his voice? I could not deny what he had said. "Or perhaps it is more correct to say they enjoy your company," he said, examining me from head to toe with a look in his eyes and a twist to his lips as if I were of no more worth than a turd. The envy in his voice was tinged with distaste and his implication was unmistakable. I recalled well his ranting about morality the night before we headed for Pisa. "When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes," he had thundered. He had made it abundantly clear that he for one condemned what he called liwat, sexual activity between males, and istimna, touching yourself. His implication that I had survived because of my willingness to have congress with men was not totally correct, but nor was it far from wrong and there was no point in denying it.

"It will not be long before the high and mighty Mamelukes will be crushed, though I understand the Ottoman practice even greater sexual depravities than they, but they too will in turn be crushed until some day the Egyptian people will rule themselves. And in the not so distant future those who follow the one and only true path will unite and rise to power and those who do not follow the true doctrines of the Qu'ran will be stoned to death and all memory of them erased from the earth. Such is the plan of Allah, a thousand blessing be upon Him, for those who profane His Word! You had best be far from this land when that happens, infidel, because once your deception as being one of the faithful and your profane behaviour is exposed you will wish you had died quickly on the battlefield with your lover."

With that he turned and stomped off before I could tell him I was planning on leaving the very next day. Furious with him and his comments and angry with myself for not taking him to task for slandering my name and reputation, I returned to Husein's home and shut myself up in my room, my day spoiled.

I joined Husein and his son for the evening repast. My early return and surly mood had not gone unnoticed, and my host immediately sensed my depression. He mistakenly assumed my behaviour and mood was the result of my sadness that we would soon be parting. He again told me I was welcome to stay and tried to persuade me to postpone leaving, and again I thanked him for his hospitality but held firm that I had to continue on my journey. I assured him that had the reason for my travel west not been of such great personal urgency, I would have gladly stayed with him, for I had found his generosity and hospitality exceeding all I have met in my travels. That, I knew, was a high complement, for despite all their barbarous behaviour and perversity, they valued and practised being generous hosts in the highest.

"Even your servants and slaves are treated with respect and decency rarely seen," I observed.

"There is a tradition of the Prophet-peace be upon Him!-that on the day of the resurrection the greatest grief will be when the pious slave is carried to Paradise, and his worthless master is borne away to Hell," Husein observed.

Recognizing the source of his quote, I responded, "And as the great poet Sa'di also wrote:

Be not over much angry with thy slave;
Treat him not unjustly, and pain not his feelings,
True, thou mayst have bought him for ten direms;
But 'twas not by thy power that he was created." (5)

Husein smiled, pleased that I had acknowledged his knowledge of the esteemed poet, and his own view regarding slavery. When he "invited" me to his bedchambers for one last time and asked me to bring my nay, I was tempted to graciously decline, but I knew to do so would be a grave insult. Though I would not be able to enjoy the pleasures of his bed, I hoped that it would distract my mind from the worries and anxiety that had preoccupied me since meeting Mustafa.

And so I showed up in his bedchamber, where he and his son awaited me. He again expressed his awareness of my sadness and urged me to reconsider my decision, and he once again extended his hospitality for as long as I wished to stay, and again I had to decline, stating only that my decision involved a matter of family, knowing that he held family very highly himself.

Having heard me sing and play the nay in the evenings as we had crossed the salt swamps north of Al-Suways, he had me perform for the two of them, and I did so, singing a song about friendship and sad parting which I could see saddened them also. Not wanting our friendship to end on a sad note, I played a livelier tune and sang a more cheerful song as my second selection, and I ended with one of the most seductive songs and dances I had learned as I played the nay and slowly and seductively began to remove my robes. I concentrated totally on the dance and the music as I once had, knowing that once I became wrapped up in the song and music I would forget all else and become one with the dance, which I knew also would also be the situation with Husein and his son. I was not wrong, and I could see their lust in their eyes when I at last finished.

Naked, I approached them and began a second dance, one that was as seductive, and which involved me undressing them. Father and son were aroused and their breasts fell and rose with desire as I exposed their fat bodies. Both son and father were erect, their cocks jutting out from below their fat bellies in anticipation. I then bent over and braced myself as Husein mounted me, and motioning Khasim to me, I took the boy's fat sausage in my mouth. And so the father worked his fat cock in and out of my rectum and panted and grunted with the pleasure I brought him, and the son clasped my head and entangled his fingers in my long hair as he squirmed and squealed with the pleasure I was bringing him. I felt Husein's fingers wrap about my stiff member and begin to stroke it and I worked my anal muscles about his throbbing cock and sucked harder on his son's cock. So it was that I brought them off together, father and son, the one trembling with delight as he filled my rectum with his seed, and the other trembling with delight as his little cocklet throbbed in my mouth. To their pleasure was added mine, the pleasure of having brought pleasure to both father and son, and the pleasure of my own ejaculation, my seed squirting out with burning spurts and landing on the carpet in thick puddles and my body trembling with delight. I could not help but wonder what my host's wife and the boy's mother was doing that night and what she was thinking at that moment as her husband and her son gasped and trembled with pleasure, a pleasure that she as a woman could never provide them. I also had to wonder what Khasim was thinking as he saw my seed dripping from his father's hand and if he was looking forward to the time when his own would be doing the same thing.

It was late when I at last returned to my room, exhausted and smelling of cock and spent seed and sweat, but I could not fall asleep with the excitement of sailing away from this land when the sun rose, and with worry I might be assassinated during the night, or abducted and killed on my way to the docks that morning. It was a good thing that I had not told Mustafa of my intended departure. As I lay there on the soft pillows in the security of Husein's house, I could not stop from thinking back to his ranting about men who lay with men, and with boys, and his fanatical acceptance of the beliefs expressed by the more radical of his faith, those who advocated the jihad should be vigorously implemented until the entire world was dominated by Arabs and all who did not convert to their faith were massacred. The Moor had not even extended protection to those they referred to as the People of the Book as some of the elders had in the meeting I had witnessed between a group of elders and Sheik Rahmah in Mecca.

The more I thought about it the more worried I became. Knowing Mustafa's suspicions about my sexual life and knowing how he felt about such things, why had I not been more cautious when I had left him? Suppose he had followed me? Seeing with whom I was living would only confirm his suspicions. The image of his black, bearded face, twisted with anger and disgust as he had turned and stormed off at the bazaar popped into my mind. Suppose he decided he could not wait until Allah delivered His punishment? Even with Husein's guards, he could easily slip into his home and into my room and cut my throat in the middle of the night. Or, he need simply wait in the shadows until the next time I ventured away from Husein's home, which would be less than six candle marks from now, and drag me into one of the many dark alleys and slit my throat. The image of the young thief who had stolen my cloak back in Mecca and ended up in such an alley staring sightlessly up into the rain came to my mind.

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