Zelamir

adapted by Pueros

The Traitor's Son

Chapters 11-22

Chapter XI

The first grey light of dawn was filtering into the room. Marius could hear snoring and somewhere a man muttering in his sleep.

Memory then came flooding back to Marius. He could somehow still hear in his mind Pulchellus' screams as he was serially raped, and could also sense on his tongue the foul taste of the filth he had subsequently demeaningly licked from the other boy's anus.

"Marius, wake up," Pulchellus whispered urgently, "because Pannychis is in the courtyard. She wants you. She's in trouble. She needs your help!"

Guilt immediately flooded Marius' young mind. Pannychis was the slave girl who had smuggled him food when he had been locked in the cellar and left to starve. No one else had been prepared to help him.

Amidst his misery, fear and, Marius had shamefully to confess, occasional excitement of yesterday, he had not thought of poor brave Pannychis once. The boy also now did not stop to wonder why Pulchellus should take the risk of carrying a message for her, or indeed how the girl could actually send her plea.

Now infused by urgency that matched the apparent message, Marius was on his feet in a single lithe movement. Leaving Pulchellus behind, the still naked boy then cautiously picked his way across the room to the door, with the early morning air cool against his nude body.

Lucillus, who was meant to be on guard, was stretched out asleep across the closed entrance, wrapped in his cloak. There was just room for Marius to step over his slumbering form and ease the door open sufficiently to create the size of crack required for him to wriggle his slim boy's body through without disturbing the man.

Suddenly and shockingly, Pulchellus then screamed shrilly from the room behind him. "Master, Master," the older boy shouted, "Marius is trying to run away!"

Marius, stunned by the noise and Pulchellus' sudden betrayal, temporarily stood frozen in his tracks. However, on quickly realising that the older boy's perfidy had landed him in serious trouble, he subsequently turned to flee but his attempt was too late.

Marius exited the door, which then burst open. Pulchellus, still screaming loudly, next hurled himself upon the more diminutive younger boy, bowling him over onto the floor.

Pulchellus was the bigger but Marius was lithe and quick, his bare skin slippery. A little longer would surely have seen the younger boy escaping the clutches of the older but then Lucillus, followed by Crastus and the other men, reached the grappling pair.

Marius felt his arms being grasped by Lucillus and he was immediately hauled roughly to his feet and held tightly. "What's this," Crastus then asked furiously, "what's going on here?"

"Master, Master," gasped Pulchellus from where he was crouched panting on the ground, "I just woke up and I saw Marius creeping out of the door. I was sure he was trying to run away, so I called you and then I ran after him to try and stop him!"

"He didn't!" yelled Marius angrily. "He's lying!" the boy added desperately and unthinkingly, "because he told me that Pannychis needed me and was waiting for me…."

Marius then fell silent. The boy had suddenly seen the sheer improbability of his story. How could Pulchellus have received a message from Pannychis? Why, if he had, should he bother to pass it on and having done so why should he raise the alarm about his running away? The younger boy now realised that he had been tricked and he shot a look of impotent hatred at his betrayer.

"He's the one who's lying, Master," Pulchellus shouted back, whilst pushing his black curls clear of his pretty face and looking up at Crastus with wide innocent brown eyes. "Why should I…."

Crastus then impatiently interrupted Pulchellus. "Yes, of course, I can see that the brat must be lying," the man commented, ominously for Marius.

Continuing to address Pulchellus, Crastus declared "You have done well, boy, and now we must teach Marius a lesson that he'll not forget but without damaging his looks. I still want to sell him for as good a price as possible once we're back in Rome!"

Chapter XII

"Yes, Master," Pulchellus replied proudly, "I spotted her at it. I was sure something was going on, so I hid in the yard opposite the cellar door and saw her take food down there. I told Echion straight away!"

Marius immediately wriggled in Lucillus' grasp, desperate to attack Pulchellus' throat and choke the life out of him for betraying not only him now but also Pannychis previously. However, the man held the boy firmly, with his thumbs digging into the 11 year-old's thin arms just above his elbows.

"Do you know what's happened to her?" Crastus next enquired. "Yes, Master," Pulchellus again answered, "Echion had her whipped and then sent her to work in the fields."

"It's now just dawn," Crastus next commented, "so the field gangs will currently be being marched out for their day's labour." The faint sounds of shouting and the occasional crack of a whip from the direction of the slave barracks, as the human oxen who worked the estate were roused for further long and hard toil, could indeed be heard through the room's open windows.

"Varro, you go with Pulchellus and find the bitch and bring her back to me," Crastus therefore sinisterly commanded, "and also fetch the heaviest whip you can find in the bailiff's office. I'm sure Echion's former bumboy will know where it is kept."

"You'll then find me down in the courtyard," Crastus remarked, "by the whipping post with our young runaway!"

Chapter XIII

The first stroke of the harsh whip had drawn blood. The man had subsequently screamed a lot but by the end he was almost silent, with his low moans drowned by the crack of the lash, as it ripped the skin from the rear of his body.

Marius had watched the flogging to its end but then he had crept off by himself to be sick and after that he had avoided the yard when a whipping was in progress. However, on this occasion such an option was not available to him.

Lucillus had transferred his grip to Marius ear, twisting it painfully between his finger and thumb as the naked boy waited sick with fear by the post. The 11 year-old then soon saw Varro walking towards them, dragging by her arm a slave girl dressed in a brief ragged smock that reached only half way down her thighs.

For a moment, Marius did not recognise in the filthy garb the now sluggish shaven-haired female slave as being the same as the neat brisk serving girl, Pannychis, with her normally long dark hair and spotless gown, whom he had once known. Her recent punishments and hard labour in the fields had not taken long to reduce her to utter wretchedness. The knowledge that he was the cause of her misery filled the boy with immense guilt.

"Master," Marius desperately pleaded of Crastus, whilst fighting back his tears, "I really didn't try to run away. Master, I also promise that I won't ever try. I'll instead do whatever you want, Master, but please don't do anything to Pannychis!"

"I'm not a fool," Crastus grated in response. "You did try to run away, boy," the man added forcefully, "and there's no point in lying about the matter. I should flog you till your back is in shreds for your mischief but you're too valuable for that. Your Pannychis will therefore pay the price for your folly and you can watch her suffer!"

"Come on," Crastus then impatiently ordered Varro, "bring the bitch quickly over here and tether her to the post. We haven't all day!"

"Master…." Marius began to wail. However, Crastus terminated his continued pleading by advising "Shut up, brat, for the more you argue the worse it'll be for the bitch!"

As a result of this threat, Marius did cease his entreaties. The boy instead began to sob.

The obviously bewildered and petrified Pannychis was hauled over to the whipping post, with the iron fetters worn by field slaves about their ankles clanking as she moved. She was soon secured to the stake, with her arms drawn high above her head, her toes barely touching the ground and her body taught and ready for the lash.

Crastus stepped forward and with one savage jerk tore the ragged shift that was Pannychis' only clothing from her body. Marius now saw that the whole of the girl's bare back was ribbed and scarred with the marks of her earlier whipping.

Crastus held out his hand and Pulchellus ran forward eagerly to hand him the scourge that he had fetched. The whip comprised a long heavy length of plaited leather, most of which now fell and curled darkly on the ground and writhed there with the vicious deadliness of a monstrous snake whilst the man tested his hold.

"What's this?" Crastus subsequently asked, as his attention eventually passed from whip to girl. The man simultaneously ran his free left hand down the relevant part of Pannychis' naked back.

"This mark here, below the bitch's arm," Crastus added in elaboration, "as that's not been caused by her earlier whipping." "No, Master," Pulchellus answered with sadistic relish, "as that's where Echion used the hot iron on her. He suspected that she'd received help in feeding Marius and wanted her to confess who her accomplices had been."

"You should have heard her scream, Master," Pulchellus added wickedly, "when Echion applied the iron. She frothed at the mouth and bit through her lip but she still wouldn't talk. I suggested to him that he continued to make her howl some more until she did confess but he said there was no point. He had written to the Emperor saying Marius was here and someone would come to rid us of the trouble-making nuisance soon enough. So he just whipped her as a warning to all the others and sent her to work in the fields."

Through his tears Marius shot another glance of pure hatred at Pulchellus, having now appreciated the full extent of the older boy's cruelty towards others. The 12 year-old noticed the malevolent stare and, smiling sweetly, he surreptitiously gestured his own contempt with a quick movement of his index finger.

Marius somehow choked back his rage, knowing from Crastus' threat that anything he said or did would only increase the imminent sufferings of Pannychis. In his heart, though, he was laying up a heavy vengeful count against Pulchellus and swore retribution.

Meanwhile, Pannychis, amidst much shocked trepidation, was rather naturally beginning to query why she was apparently again to be whipped. "You should choose your friends better, bitch," was Crastus' only comment before advising the terrified girl "Now shut up or I'll add a few more strokes for having the cheek to question my motives!"

Pannychis, not wanting to suffer any more than she must, of course complied with Crastus' advice as best she could, although she could not now prevent a display of loud lachrymose sobbing even before the first lash landed. She was also astute enough, despite her distress, to realise from the man's initial answer that somehow Marius had landed her in this terrible predicament.

Pannychis again wished, as she had often done during her first flogging and subsequent hard toil in the fields, that she had never attempted to help Marius in the first place. The girl's desire would have been strongly reinforced if she had known that she would soon be forced to endure even more awful sufferings because of her earlier association with the boy.

Crastus, oblivious of the by-play between Marius and Pannychis, now stepped back from the whipping post. Carefully measuring the distance between himself and the tethered naked body of Pannychis, he then brought the whip back over his right shoulder.

With all the expertise gained from many years' sadistic practice of this cruel pastime, Crastus next brought the lash whistling through the air to cut across Pannychis' bare shoulders with all the strength and weight of his powerful body. The girl's form immediately convulsed in agony, as plaited leather cracked against her unprotected flesh.

There was subsequently a split second's silence before Pannychis screamed loudly. For a moment, a white line then appeared across the girl's back, where the lash had landed, before the stripe deepened in colour to an angry red and blood began to well from the spot where the tip of the whip had ripped her skin.

"Stand the brat close up to her," Crastus next commanded of Lucillus, who was still firmly restraining Marius by the boy's ear, "as I want him to see closely the whip shred the bitch's back. After all, it's his misbehaviour that has made me do this to her!"

Lucillus immediately forced Marius, who was now sobbing almost as much as Pannychis, albeit in mental rather than physical torment, closer to the whipping post. The man positioned the still naked boy so that his tearstained face was only a couple of feet away from the girl's own nude body, which was writhing in excruciation amidst much vociferous screaming as Crastus continued to rip into her with the whip.

Marius felt the warm dampness on his own face and chest from his dripping tears, as the lash raised a fine red mist each time the tip struck Pannychis. The force of the blows even eventually made the girl lose her footing and her body began to swing and twist freely under the impact of the whip.

The lash curled round Pannychis, raising angry red wheals on her flanks and breasts and sending fresh rivulets of blood trickling down her body. However, the volume of the girl's associated screams diminished until the only noise she made was a low grunt as each stroke thudded into her. Otherwise, the only sounds were the rich hisses of the lash as it sung through the air, the sharp crack of leather on bare flesh, the panting of Crastus as he laboured at his task and Marius' own near hysterical whimpering. At last Crastus stopped. Lucillus then released his firm grip on Marius' ear and the boy flung himself forward landing on his knees at Pannychis' feet, wrapping his arms sympathetically about the girl's legs and resting his head against one of her bare thighs. However, he was not allowed to remain in this rather touching position for long.

"You'll quickly move away from there, brat, and return to work if you don't want the bitch to suffer another cut or two of the whip," Crastus snapped in response to the sight. "We want our breakfasts now," the man added, in respect of the next chore in had in mind for the boy, "so go to the kitchen and fetch our morning repasts up to our room with due speed. Also, make no more attempts to run away or I'll next flog the girl to death!"

Marius, trying to end his sobbing, instantly scrambled rapidly to his feet and set off at a run to the kitchen. "The brat seems to have finally absorbed the notion of dutiful obedience," Crastus remarked to the other men, as they observed the naked boy sprint off, and they all laughed.

Nevertheless, Crastus, although he no longer believed that Marius would now attempt to escape, given his obvious feelings for Pannychis, retained some concerns about the boy's ability to ensure the provision of a decent breakfast. He therefore instructed "Lucillus, you go with the brat and see the cooks send us up a good meal, including white not black wheaten bread. Also tell them to clean this bitch so that she's fit to travel."

"We'll take the bitch with us," Crastus added, "to help us to keep Marius' loyalty and also to provide us with alternative entertainment to Pulchellus' orifices. We'll tie her on a mule so that she shouldn't be any trouble!"

As Lucillus subsequently obediently followed Marius to the kitchen, being equally eager to enjoy a good breakfast, Crastus turned towards the also still naked Pulchellus. "Come with me, boy," the man then ordered, "as I need you because using the whip always makes me hard!"

Crastus' hand subsequently reached out to rest on Pulchellus' nicely rotund rump. The devious boy's trepidation at what he now had to suffer in order to entertain the man's apparently reinvigorated cock was then somewhat assuaged when his new master called over his shoulder.

"Lucillus," Crastus shouted, "tell the kitchen slaves to sort out a decent tunic for the boy here. He's been a good lad and he deserves a reward!"

Chapter XIV

These slaves knew that, if Pannychis had confessed all when Echion had used the hot iron on her, they would have been flogged and sent to labour in the fields too. They also guiltily realised that they perhaps had a moral obligation to aid her both at the time of her first whipping and now, and additionally recognised that they certainly could have succeeded in practice.

After all, Echion could easily have been overcome and there were only three men with Crastus. If the numerous slaves had all armed themselves with pitchforks and stones, they could readily have overwhelmed them as well. However, they also appreciated that afterwards there might be an awful price to pay if they could not somehow disguise the inevitable resultant deaths from the authorities.

Rebellious slaves were invariably relentlessly hunted down like animals. The lucky ones amongst the captured would be flogged and sold to work in the silver mines, never to see daylight again. The unlucky ones would be fed to the wild animals in the circus or crucified.

Knowing these potential repercussions, the slaves had feared to act and they were ashamed. Being contrite, they also searched for someone else to blame and the person they found was Marius.

The slaves consequently salved their guilty consciences with the thought that Pannychis had been severely punished twice mainly because she had attempted to help Marius. The boy was the principal cause of her two floggings and interim hard labour in the fields and therefore he was to blame.

Lucillus followed Marius into the kitchen and, successfully seeking out Daedalus, he issued his orders, namely breakfast for himself and the other men, a tunic for Pulchellus and Pannychis to be taken down from the whipping post and her back dressed. He then left to rejoin his colleagues.

As Marius subsequently stood in the corner of the kitchen waiting for the food to be prepared, Pannychis was carried in and lain on her face on a blanket on the floor, near the fire. Selia immediately hurried over, carrying a bowl of steaming water and some rags.

Kneeling beside the semi-conscious Pannychis, Selia then began to wash the blood from the naked girl's ripped back. Marius' curiosity immediately overcame his guilt and anguish and so he quietly sidled over to look down in horror at the mess that the whip had made of the young female's rear.

Selia glanced up and caught the look on Marius' face. "You may express horror, brat," she muttered in bad temper, "as it's you that's again caused the poor girl to be whipped. Don't we slaves have a hard enough life without the likes of your father and you involving us in your quarrels?"

A murmur of agreement amongst the other slaves ran round the kitchen and in response the mortified Marius slunk away back to his corner. The boy was beginning shamefully to consider himself to be not only a whore, as appeared evident by the way his body thrilled to the touch of even the murderer of his siblings, Crastus, but also the apparently cursed cause of poor Pannychis' sufferings.

Standing again in the corner of the busy and crowded room, still humiliatingly naked in front of the family's slaves, now clearly unloved and unwanted by them and destined for similar servile status himself, Marius felt completely deserted and therefore utterly dejected. The boy therefore again began to cry despairingly until the breakfasts had been readied.

Daedalus eventually instructed a couple of slaveboys to help Marius carry the breakfasts to the waiting Crastus and his three colleagues. As the comprehensive repast consisted of jugs of steaming cows' milk, bowls of the sweetest figs and honey, loaves of wheaten bread, plates piled high with slices of ham, a large goats' cheese and jars of various pickles, there was too much for a single person to transport.

When the threesome arrived in the room allocated to Crastus and his colleagues, Marius, now refraining from crying, noticed that Pulchellus was nestling half-asleep on his new master's lap. The boy's pretty head was resting against the man's left shoulder.

Pulchellus stirred slightly when the food was brought into the room. The boy, still doing his best to please, therefore attempted to slip from Crastus' knees to allow the man to eat unencumbered but his new master significantly caught him by his slim waist and drew him back.

Crastus then dismissed the two young kitchen slaves, after they had placed what they were carrying on a table, and Marius subsequently found that he was to replace Pulchellus in serving the men. As occurred previously with the older boy, adult hands now roamed over his naked body, as he moved between them.

Whilst Marius went about his chores, he tried his best to ignore the men's fingers, as they probed and teased him most intimately, but his efforts were in vain for, in response, his small cock became shamelessly unruly. Even as the boy desperately suggested to himself that he hated the humiliating feel of the hands fondling his body, his penis contradicted him by standing horizontally to attention, wobbling as he moved. The 11 year-old's arousal was clearly blatant and unmistakable acknowledgement of the thrill he was feeling, and this caused a good deal of comment and laughter amongst the amused adults.

"I don't know what the chances are of us delivering the slut to the slave market still a virgin," Varro eventually remarked with a laugh, as he gently patted the delicious curves of Marius' sweet bottom whilst the fulsomely erect boy refilled his mug with warm milk. "He's such a pretty slut," the grinning adult added, whilst his own hard penis, hidden amidst his rather dirty garments, quivered in keen interest, "and you can see that he's enthusiastically ready to enjoy a man's cock inside him. I wouldn't trust him not to try to satisfy his obvious filthy lusts with someone, and we've a two day journey ahead of us in order to reach Rome!"

"I don't trust myself with the slut," Crastus honestly replied, whilst also sporting a broad grin, "as, sure enough, he's definitely a very tasty piece of boy flesh. We'll just have to keep a close watch on the whore to ensure that we deliver a highly lucrative virgin to market!"

Marius, of course, was deeply ashamed at being referred to in such a degrading manner. However, the boy also could not deny the sensations he felt whenever he was fondled and when he had watched Pulchellus being raped.

Evidence of Marius' debasing interest in such activities was obvious in his quick simultaneous arousal to full erection. The boy was therefore reluctantly secretly beginning to accept that he was perhaps really a whore who might indeed seek, if only in experiment, to seduce someone in order to try to assuage his increasingly obvious needs.

The last vestiges of Marius pride might, of course, have rescued him from such temptation. However, the boy was never to discover whether this might have happened because the wicked Pulchellus now suggested a different and rather uncomfortable solution to the perceived problem.

"Master," Pulchellus suggested to Crastus, on whose lap he was still sitting, "if you want to fix it so that Marius' bottom is safe from a man's cock, I have an idea. Echion used a device on new boys whom he wanted to keep for the Lord Sejanus or any of his friends to enjoy. I know where it is and could fetch it for you if you want."

Pulchellus had previously disliked the attention being paid to Marius and had also not been too pleased about the comments referring to the younger boy's good looks. He was sure that he was far prettier.

Pulchellus already resented Marius from his former status and attitude towards him. The older boy's jealousy was only reinforced by the recent praise afforded to the 11 year-old and this had stimulated his suggestion.

The intrigued Crastus agreed that Pulchellus could fetch Echion's device and so the boy slipped off the man's knees and ran from the room. He returned within a few minutes carrying in one hand a jar and in the other a short length of light chain fastened at one end to a well-polished wooden peg about the length and thickness of a man's index finger.

The other end of the chain formed the hinge joining together two small flanged semicircular pieces of thin but strong rounded metal, through a tiny bored hole in one of which hung an unlocked minuscule padlock, which represented expensive state-of-the-art workmanship for the era. Marius' heart sank within him at the sight, as he had previously occasionally noticed young naked slaveboys wearing the demeaning contraption about the farm estate, although, until Pulchellus' recent comments, he had not known why they had done so.

Marius also now realised, from Pulchellus' remarks, that his own father had enjoyed sex with slaveboys, whose favours he additionally shared with friends. Sejanus' younger son was disgusted that his late parent could possess such tastes, whilst somehow momentarily forgetting his own recent shameful feelings.

The boys that Marius had seen wearing the device were invariably pretty but also frightened and humiliated youngsters, usually straight from the slave market. They always appeared terrified and ashamed of what awaited them, whilst presumably knowing that for them there was no choice or chance of escape.

Sometimes, Marius would see the boys a few days' later, now with the metal ring clamped round their hairless genitals and the linked wooden peg inserted into their anuses removed. They now generally walked in clear discomfort and were the butt for all sorts of lewd comments and jokes from the other slaves.

Marius had never previously realised what had been happening, as any queries he made about the matter were invariably discretely dismissed without a proper reply. However, the astute boy now realised the answer.

The slaveboys in question were obviously virgins and the degrading contraption affixed to their private parts was meant to keep them so until Sejanus and his friends decided to deprive them of their purity. Now the younger son of the former lord of the estate was himself to wear the demeaning device for a similar reason.

"You put the wooden peg into his bum," Pulchellus advised, whilst handing the device over to Crastus, "and then you snap the two linked small semicircular bits of metal round his genitals, using the tiny padlock to keep them immovably together. You see that there are a number of holes bored through the free ends for the purpose. These enable you to adjust the resultant ring to ensure that the fitting's really tight. You can similarly proportion the chain."

"The peg isn't big enough to tear or loosen his anus," Pulchellus informatively added, "but the only way he or anybody else can remove the plug out of his bum without unlocking the ring would be by ripping his genitals off. I doubt that Marius'll regard that as a good idea!"

"Thank you," Crastus replied, accepting the cruel contraption from Pulchellus, whilst his estimation of the older boy rose again in his mind. "And the jar contains some grease for the brat's hole," the 12 year-old then continued enthusiastically, having perceptively appreciated that his efforts to ingratiate himself with the man were bearing fruit.

"You think of everything," a grateful Crastus commented in response. "Marius, come over here and lie down over my knee with your bum in the air," the wickedly grinning man subsequently commanded.

Marius reluctantly but immediately stepped forward compliantly and lay face down across Crastus' knees. The man then rested the palm of one hand on the delectable curves of the boy's bare bottom.

Marius' throat had tightened in fear and shame but he also now felt peculiarly at peace. The boy's sense of incongruous reconciliation was of the type that came with total surrender.

Deep inside himself, Marius was experiencing a strange feeling of release and rightness. The boy somehow instinctively understood that, by lying there obediently with his bottom raised, he was finally signalling his utter submission to his new master, as surely and as clearly as a defeated dog does when he exposes his throat to a rival.

Crastus patted Marius lightly on his upturned rump, before less gently commanding "Spread your legs slut!" After the boy had again complied with one of his instructions, the man subsequently ran his hand up the inside of the youngster's thigh, noting the goose-pimples that simultaneously formed on the child's otherwise smooth skin.

Excited again by the feel of Crastus' hand, Marius instinctively and shamelessly wriggled and pushed his bottom further upwards, seemingly seeking greater attention. The smiling man obliged, extending his fingers towards the junction of the boy' legs and ceasing for a moment their upward journey whilst he instead teased the 11 year-old's perineum with his thumbnail. He knew from long experience how to entertain such young sluts with expertise.

Marius' breath quickened as his excitement mounted, whilst Crastus next dipped the tip of his index finger in the jar of grease proffered by Pulchellus. The older boy was very happy to witness Marius acting like the whore he considered the younger child to be at heart.

Marius subsequently gasped loudly in sudden shock, as he felt the cold lubricant being applied gently to the lips of his anus. There was then a brief pause when Crastus' finger was temporarily withdrawn before returning with a further dollop of the cool grease, which this time he attempted to press carefully but firmly into the boy.

Surprised by the sudden attempted intrusion, Marius' sphincter tightened defensively but such resistance was quickly overcome by the remorseless pressure of Crastus' finger, which was soon probing ever deeper inside the opened orifice. Waves of early anguish then rapidly gave way to increasing enjoyment, which eventually consumed the boy's senses.

The muscles of Marius' bottom began to contract, as he instinctively tried to draw Crastus' finger deeper into him. For a few seconds, the only emotion of which the boy was aware was the single source of pulsating pleasure within his body.

Such unprecedented ecstasy was then sadly suddenly terminated when Crastus sharply jerked his finger out of Marius. The boy immediately moaned and whimpered in degrading disappointment.

Crastus laughed as he looked down at Marius' bare bottom, quivering in frustrated need, and heard the frustrated groans emerging from the boy's rosy lips. The man paused for a few moments to enjoy the scene before taking the wooden peg, attached to the chain, and pushed the full length of the plug in one single thrust into the youngster.

Crastus subsequently quickly tipped Marius back onto his feet. To the man, and the other amused observers of the spectacle, namely his three colleagues and Pulchellus, the younger boy now seemed, amidst clear sexual reverie, hardly conscious of what was being done to him.

Marius' eyes were glazed. The boy's breath came with rasping pants and his little rock-hard cock shuddered as the blood within boiled.

Crastus next speedily reached between Marius' legs. The man took hold of the short length of chain attached to the plug now buried in the boy's bottom, pulled forward and clamped the two hinged and flanged half circles of iron to form a tight ring around the base of the boy's erect cock and smooth scrotum.

Crastus then squeezed the metallic semicircles together even more tightly so that they restricted but did not cut off the flow of blood to Marius' genitals. The latter action would have eventually killed the boy's sexual organs and the man did not want him castrated unless and until, of course, such gelding was desired by whoever eventually bought him at the slave-market.

Crastus finally applied the minuscule padlock, using the tiny key also kindly provided by Pulchellus. The man then stood back to admire his latest handiwork.

Crastus saw with satisfaction the naked Marius standing before him, with the boy's smooth genitals tightly ringed and the taught linking chain resolutely retaining the anal plug immovably in place. "Anyone, who now wants to fuck the brat," the contented man subsequently commented to his equally happy colleagues and Pulchellus, after carefully perusing the pleasant scene, "will first have to rip the slut's goolies off!"

The young subject of this comment, whose previous sexual high was rapidly declining in line with his increasing penile flaccidity, as the restriction of the blood supply feeding his erection began to take effect, was naturally not as content. The feel of the immovable contraption seriously constricting his sexual organs and invading his rectum instead only made Marius' sense of degradation complete, especially after Pulchellus was awarded a tunic.

The lack of a similar award to Marius was the first indication to the appalled younger boy that he would not only be travelling all the way to Rome for sale in the local slave-market whilst remaining humiliatingly naked but also whilst shamefully displaying his crude chastity device.

Chapter XV

All Marius had been aware of was the pounding of his own blood and the feeling of imminent release, as though his whole body was going to explode in an enormous burst of energy. Every sensation, every nerve, was concentrated on this single moment of impending ecstasy. A brilliant white light had filled his head, blood had roared in his ears. All else had been obscure.

Then suddenly Marius had felt some pain, as the iron ring was clamped tight about the base of his penis and scrotum, seriously reducing the flow of blood to his genitals and sadly aborting in that instant his imminent orgasm. He had reacted by shamefully groaning in anguish and frustration, whilst his little boyish cock, a second or two before rigid and vibrant with lust, was reduced to sorrowful limpness.

Meanwhile, Crastus was very happy to teach Marius that a master not only owned a slaveboy's body but also could control the personal pleasures to be derived from it. Such enjoyment could be granted or withheld at his owner's whim.

Marius squealed when Crastus finally physically double- checked the efficacy of the crude chastity device now encasing the boy's genitals and invading his rectum. The man had affirmed that the anal plug was firmly anchored by tugging sharply on the thin chain that ran along the 11 year-old's perineum, connecting it to the iron cockring.

Crastus' action hurt both Marius' genitals and anus. However, such pain only confirmed to the cruel man that the crude chastity device was immovable without unlocking the integral tiny padlock unless the wearer wanted to be castrated.

Crastus next instructed that his horse and those of his men were to be saddled and provisioned and brought to the courtyard ready for their departure. He subsequently ordered Pannychis to be led out to where he stood, ready to mount.

Pannychis, her only clothing a rag wound round her waist, walked unsteadily and was hardly able to keep on her feet as she reluctantly obeyed the summons. However, she eventually managed to stand before Crastus, with her head bowed and submissive waiting for him to decide her fate.

The still humiliatingly naked Marius temporarily forgot his own shame, as he observed Pannychis with pity and guilt. The boy knew that he was the reason for much of her suffering, having been responsible for her rear and the sides of her breasts being ribbed with wheals from the whip.

"The bitch can't walk any distance in this state," Crastus commented, "so we'll have to take a mule from the stables here for her to ride on. Pulchellus will have to lead it for her, as she won't have the strength to do more than sit on it." He then added laughingly, to his similarly amused men, "However, at least there's one compensation. We won't have to watch that she doesn't run away!"

"What about Marius?" Varro eventually asked after the laughter had subsided. "He can do some work," Crastus answered, "as I've some stuff for him to carry!"

Crastus picked up a small sack that clinked when he lifted it. "These are the goblets that we drank out of last night," he confirmed, "which the brat can carry." Turning to Marius, he then commanded "Come here boy!"

Marius moved forward and took the sack, which proved a surprisingly heavy burden for a mere 11 year-old boy to carry. However, he appreciated that he would receive no sympathy from Crastus and his men.

"Hadn't we better tether the brat to one of our horses," Varro next enquired, "as he might become lost if he falls behind or even try to run away? We'd not then just lose his value in the slave market. Those goblets are silver and are worth quite a bit!" However, Crastus confidently replied "He'll keep up with us and also won't attempt to escape because, if he's not with us when we halt, I'll whip that bitch he cares about so much till he turns up!"

Looking again at the forewarned and appalled Marius, Crastus asked "Do you understand me boy? If we lose sight of you, you'll soon be able to tell where we are from the screams of the slut as I whip her!"

"I'll keep up Master," Marius unhesitatingly promised, not wanting any further harm to befall poor Pannychis and whilst bending under the weight of the sack as he began to shoulder the burden. "You better had," Crastus retorted, "if you want the slut to survive our journey to Rome!"

A few minutes later, a small caravan clattered out of the farmyard. The four men rode in front, followed by Pulchellus leading the mule with Pannychis on board. The 12 year-old was wearing the short white tunic, flapping against his bare thighs, that had been his reward for his recent treachery in respect of Marius.

At the rear, in the dust thrown up by the riders, trudged Marius, his shoulders already aching under the weight of his load and his eyes miserably fixed on the road a few paces ahead of him. The boy's only thought was to keep up with those in front, as he did not want again to be the cause of Pannychis feeling the whip.

The large farmhouse in which Marius had grown up as a privileged free boy, the exalted master's son, then gradually receded behind him, as he began the long distressing journey into abject servitude.

Chapter XVI

By now, not only were the naked Marius' pride and shoulders aching. His legs, his lungs, in fact his whole body did.

Marius had at first made some effort to drive the flies that tormented him away. However, they now crawled unheeded over his naked body, feasting on the sweat that tricked down his face and bare chest and limbs.

As Marius marched, he also tried his best to ignore the common laughter and ribaldry his appearance induced in some of the country peasants and fellow travellers on the road whom he passed. Seeing naked slaves was not rare but observing a very pretty unclothed boy sporting a crude chastity device drew regular amusement and crude commentary, even if the young nude was very dishevelled.

Marius especially hated being bated by the children whom he passed, with the girls often proving worse than the boys for their cruel insults. Having little stones thrown at his naked boy by such youngsters also compounded his misery. The tiny missiles rarely hurt physically but his pride was further injured by each successful strike.

Marius' soles had been hardened because, when still a free boy and the master's son, he had often run shoeless around his father's farm in play. However, his feet nevertheless now became sore because of both the general effect of the weight he was carrying as he trod on the uneven road and the more specific cuts created by the sharp stones on which he was unable to avoid stepping. Eventually each pace he took he left a few red spots of his own blood behind.

In these troublesome circumstances, Marius rather inevitably began to lag behind Crastus' little caravan and, in his desperation to keep up, he had stumbled a few times and cut his knees. Some blood oozed from the cuts and here too flies buzzed and crawled.

Glancing up, Marius eventually noticed that the horsemen were now far away, approaching a small pinewood. The boy then saw Crastus rein in his horse and dismount at the side of the road.

Marius immediately broke into a stumbling run, as he was desperate to catch up before Crastus began again to use his whip on Pannychis. As the extremely weary boy advanced, he felt as though his lungs were going to burst.

Marius eventually arrived at the edge of the wood and dropped to his knees, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. After finally recovering, the boy began to take in his new surrounds.

The shade of the pine trees in which Marius now found himself seemed very dark after the glare of the sun on the open road. The warm air was also heavy with the scent of pine needles. The only sounds were the murmur of crickets and the trickle of running water, coming from a small stream, welling from a tumble of rocks, which had been diverted to fill a stone trough before running away under the adjacent road by way of a culvert.

Crastus and his men had dismounted from their horses and given the reins to Pulchellus to hold whilst they splashed the cool water of the trough over their faces and drank deeply. Marius' own mouth and throat were also very parched but he now knew without being told that he should wait until the adults had finished before attempting to slake his thirst.

Meanwhile, Pulchellus had led the horses to where the overflow from the trough formed a narrow brook. The boy let the animals drink and also satisfied his own copious thirst there.

Crastus and his men subsequently moved away from the trough and Marius sidled nervously forward, believing that surely he could now drink. The boy was then just about to dip his face into the water when there was an enraged roar from behind him.

"Move away from there, filth," Crastus was shouting to Marius, "as we don't want our drinking water polluted by dirt like you. Drink with the other animals!"

Marius dutifully backed quickly away and turned towards the place where the happily watching Pulchellus was watering the horses. "Don't come here yet," the other slightly older boy loudly sneered in response, "as there's no room. Wait your turn!"

Marius compliantly squatted down on the bare earth to wait, ashamed that he had fallen so far in status that he felt obliged to obey the command of a slaveboy, who had once been so inferior to him on his father's farm. Now, Pulchellus not only apparently possessed Crastus' approval to laud over Sejanus' son but also was the only one of the young pair to be clothed.

After a considerable wait, which Marius believed had been deliberately cruelly prolonged by the other boy, Pulchellus led the horses away from the brook. The 11 year-old therefore finally felt free to scuttle forward to kneel in the mud turned up by the animal's hooves and at last to plunge his face into the cool water.

Marius then suddenly became aware that Pannychis was come to kneel beside him. However, the ravenously thirsty boy initially took little notice.

The two of them, the naked young boy and the scantily clad teenage girl, instead simply knelt side by side, with their heads bent towards the brook and their exposed bottoms consequently raised. Thirst and fatigue had momentarily robbed both Marius and Pannychis of all sense of decorum, modesty and pride.

"Look at them, boss," Varro jeered to Crastus after noticing the sight. He then lecherously asked "Which rump would you prefer, the brat's or the slut's?"

Meanwhile, Marius, having slated his initial thirst, was glancing over his shoulder. He noticed that Crastus and his men were currently sitting on grass some distance way away, eating bread and cheese. Pulchellus was now obsequiously moving among them pouring wine from a goatskin flask.

Marius had realised that, when he was drinking, he exposed his bare bottom to the watching men. However, the boy was simply still too thirsty to care and so he bent his head back towards the brook.

Pannychis was more modest. She made a sadly rather pathetic effort to pull the single sparse fragment of cloth about her waist down over her exposed bottom.

"Leave that be slut," Crastus shouted angrily in response, "as how can we make a sensible choice as to which of you have better rumps unless we can see what's available?" Fearful of the whip, Pannychis hastily withdrew her hands from the cloth to allow her bottom to remain degradingly uncovered whilst she continued to drink.

"I prefer boys' bums every time," Crastus eventually replied in answer to Varro's question, after taking in the relevant scenery. "There's something about a young brat's slim hips and tight little bottom that makes my cock jump to attention. A girl has too much fat on her, all in the wrong places!"

"I dunno," Grynium interrupted to join the conversation, "as the bitch is not a bad looker. I reckon I could fuck her bum and enjoy it." He then ordered Pannychis "Come over here slut and let me have a better look at you."

Pannychis scrambled hastily to her feet and stumbled over to the group of leering men. She had not hesitated to obey the order but Marius could tell, by the way she carried herself, that she was terrified.

When Pannychis arrived amongst the libidinous men, the grinning Grynium reached up and jerked her covering cloth away onto the grassy ground. The girl immediately made an automatic gesture to try to hide her nakedness but she quickly checked herself, letting her open hands fall back to her sides. She then stood facing her tormentors, knowing that she had no choice but to submit to their inspection and to anything else they chose to do to her.

Marius watched Pannychis' humiliation with rage in his heart but he appreciated that he could not intervene. The boy knew that the girl had saved his life but he could do nothing to help her now because any attempt to do so would surely only make matters worse for both of them.

The four men were much bigger and stronger than Marius and Pannychis and were also armed. The clever boy additionally realised that even the law was against the young pair.

Crastus and his colleagues were freeborn citizens on a mission for the Emperor. Meanwhile, Pannychis was already a slave without any rights and Marius had to accept the same effective current status even before being sold at market unless he preferred execution for being the traitor's son. The men therefore basically possessed the legal right to do what they liked to the boy and girl.

Marius was now rather bravely less concerned about his own welfare compared to his fears for Pannychis. He was sure that, if he now attempted to intervene to stop the girl's current torment, the men would shame and hurt her even more, just to punish him. The boy therefore meekly blinked back tears of frustration and forced himself to be still.

"Not bad!" Grynium commented on looking over Pannychis' naked front, which possessed pleasantly rotund breasts and a nice little patch of pubic hair guarding her vagina. He then commanded "Now turn round and kneel on all fours, bitch, with your face to the ground to give me a closer view of your bum!"

Pannychis reluctantly complied, only to find Grynium quickly positioning himself on his own knees immediately behind her, whilst pulling up his tunic above his waist and eagerly casting aside his loincloth underwear. The man's large cock then stood out rigid in front of him, cruelly demanding satisfaction and apparently not put off by the marks of the whip despoiling the girl's rear.

Gripping Pannychis by her hips, Grynium next pulled her back onto his erection, which proceeded to enter her rectum from behind. The girl moaned as the man subsequently rode her body, driving deep into her with increasing force.

Grynium eventually caught hold of Pannychis' shoulders and pulled her backwards until she was kneeling upright. Whilst still thrusting energetically in and out of the girl, the man then gripped her breasts in both hands, squeezing cruelly hard and digging his fingertips into the bare flesh.

Marius could now see the tears flowing down Pannychis' cheeks, as Grynium's thrusts became even harder and faster. However, the girl soon threw her head back, whilst she began to breathe in shorter and more rapid pants. Her whole body subsequently shuddered, after which her rapist pushed her roughly forward and away.

"Any one else want the bitch?" Grynium eventually asked, after he had re-established mental equilibrium after enjoying his orgasmic high and whilst reattaching his loincloth to his sated groin. There was no reply.

"Move your filthy carcass out of here," Grynium therefore shouted at Pannychis, whilst planting a hefty kick on her bottom, "as I've finished with you!" The girl obediently began to scurry back towards Marius but not quickly enough to prevent the man booting her once more.

"I can't think her bum was as good to fuck as Pulchellus' was last night," Varro now suggested, as he watched Pannychis pick up her discarded cloth cover and scuttle towards Marius, whilst spilt cum dripped from her bottom. "A girl is different to a boy," Grynium replied, "and in my opinion both are worth sampling!"

"Well that's probably true," Crastus commented whilst laughing, "but which is the better to fuck?" The men then began to debate the issue among themselves, whilst remembering and comparing slaves of both genders whose bodies they had enjoyed. However, they eventually grew quieter and one by one, wearied by the heat of the day and their recent repast, they all dropped off to sleep.

Marius, who was again close to tears, now moved closer to Pannychis. She was now lying on her face on the ground and he could see her shoulders heaving as she sobbed silently.

"Pannychis, I'm sorry," Marius announced quietly, with deep sorrow evident in his quaking voice and whilst touching her hair softly, "as I'm the cause of all this!" In response, the girl turned her tearstained face towards the boy.

"It's not the abuse and whipping that the men have subjected me to that has caused me to cry now," Pannychis then honestly confessed, "but the fact that I enjoyed having that man in me. I didn't want to but I did. A slave whore is therefore definitely what I am and that's all I obviously deserve to be!"

Marius said nothing in reply. The clever boy knew that was too young to know what was proper to say in such circumstances and he did not want to upset the girl further through an immaturely clumsy verbal response. He therefore just sat with his hand resting on Pannychis' head in an attempt to pacify her tears and eventually her sobbing stilled and she slept.

"I'm a pretty boy," Marius subsequently whispered to himself, "because everyone says that I am. I'll therefore be bought by a rich man and I'll work so hard to please him that he'll eventually set me free and give me a lot of money."

"I'll then find Pannychis," Marius added in whisper, "and buy her and set her free too, and she won't be a slave any longer. It may take a long time but I swear by the gods that I'll do it!"

Shortly afterwards, Marius was also asleep, as the gods looked down on him, having decided that there could be no easy way for the traitor's son to accomplish his oath.

Chapter XVII

Marius staggered into the inn courtyard and collapsed to his knees, placing his heavy sack of silver goblets on the cobbled ground next to him. Crastus looked to his rear to check that the boy was not too far behind and then swung off his horse and strode back to where the exhausted 11 year-old now lay huddled.

Crastus picked up the sack and handed it to Varro, with the instruction "Look after this". He then prodded Marius' bare bottom with his own foot and ordered "And you, brat, get up!"

Despite his acute exhaustion, sweaty bedraggled body and sore and bloody feet, Marius wearily dragged himself upright. Crastus subsequently stooped to unlock the iron ring locked round the base of the boy's genitals.

Crastus next turned Marius round. The boy then squealed, as the man jerked the anal plug out of his bottom.

"Get over there and empty yourself brat," Crastus subsequently commanded, whilst pushing Marius towards the open drain that ran down the centre of the inn's courtyard. "Make the brat hurry up boss," Varro called out impatiently in immediate response, as he watched the shamed boy comply, "as we're all thirsty and hungry."

Marius soon found himself squatting over the open drain, straining as Crastus, who had followed him, stood towering above him, urging him on with sharp kicks to his thigh. Exhausted though he was, the boy felt his current degradation deeply.

After Marius had concluded his humiliating public business, Crastus produced an old rag for the boy to wipe his bottom. However, the man did not bother to apply further grease to the 11 year-old's anus after subsequently pulling him back to his feet and before harshly jamming and locking the plug back in place.

Crastus and his men then disappeared into the inn, leaving Marius and Pulchellus to look after the horses and mule. Grynium had taken Pannychis with him, having grabbed the girl by the arm and suggested "Come on, whore, perhaps you can earn some money for us tonight!"

After securing the horses and mule in the stables, the extremely tired Marius barely had enough strength left to swallow the bowl of watery porridge later reluctantly brought to him by Pulchellus on the orders of Crastus. The man did not want the boy to starve to death, at least before he sold him at the slave market in Rome.

The porridge represented Marius' only food before he fell asleep amidst filthy straw in the stables. Pulchellus had already left him, as he was instead compelled to spend the night with Crastus and his needy cock.

After being kicked awake in the morning by Pulchellus, Marius soon found himself back in the inn courtyard with the horses and mule, just as Crastus and his men were emerging from the tavern. They were obviously in good humour because they were laughing and talking loudly.

Grynium was again dragging Pannychis. However, on this occasion he did not lead her to a night of profitable prostitution but to the mule on which she had been riding on the previous day.

"I don't see why she shouldn't walk," Pulchellus, who had been charged with leading the mule, suggested to Grynium slyly, "whilst I rode." "If you made as much for us as the bitch did last night you'd have a point," the man replied, whilst clinking some coins in his hand, "but you didn't. You just spent your time with Crastus' cock up your bum!"

Marius could not help but giggle on overhearing Grynium's rebuff. Consequently, Pulchellus gave the boy a stare that clearly denoted intense hatred and vindictiveness.

The moment confirmed for Marius that the other boy still meant to cause him further harm if he could. The occasion also encouraged Pulchellus even more to want to ensure that he achieved such an evil aspiration.

Chapter XVIII

By now, there was nothing about Marius that might have alerted anyone to the fact that Crastus had not been true to his Imperial commission and had failed to kill the last surviving child of Sejanus. There was nothing to distinguish him from the many hundreds of young slaveboys that swarmed the streets of Rome, apart perhaps from his exhaustion, filthy nakedness and sporting of an embarrassing chastity device.

Most young slaveboys, especially those in domestic service, were considered to be expensive property by their owners and so were generally looked after much better. Such consideration extended to encouraging them to maintain at least a modicum of cleanliness and allowing them some clothing.

Marius' filthy nakedness was therefore not only highly distressing and humiliating for the boy but also unusual, as was his linked cockring and anal plug. However, few people took much attention of the dirty 11 year-old nude, as he now carried his heavy sack through the dark crowded narrow unsanitary streets of the poor plebeian quarters of Rome.

Such nonchalance did not just result from the fact that Marius' inherent immense beauty was currently camouflaged by copious surface grime. Another factor was that the boy's present foul appearance was actually off-putting and so the eyes of few people wanted to linger for long on such a disgusting sight.

People were also dissuaded from taking any interest in Marius by Varro, who was now protectively at the 11 year- old's side as they traversed the dark streets, where the sun rarely ventured because of the height of the tall ramshackle tenements on each side. The man, of course, had no consideration for the welfare of the traitor's son. He was instead just guarding precious property, in the form of a boy with good slave market value and the expensive silver goblets he was carrying.

Given the general disinterest in the completely naked Marius, the journey through Rome was actually more embarrassing for the cleaner and only partly nude Pannychis. The girl's loins were still afforded some cover by the cloth wrapped round her waist. However, she remained topless, which was an unusual sight even for female slaves in Rome. Consequently, as she now walked along the streets in the close company of the guarding Grynium, she was subjected to many lewd looks and ribald commentary.

Skirting the Capitol Hill, Crastus' party passed through the meat and livestock market, which was on the point of closing, with the many stalls being dismantled or locked up. The pervading stink of near rotting meat was nauseating.

The streets subsequently became progressively even narrower and dirtier, as Crastus' party penetrated deeper into the slums of the Aventine. Many of the dilapidated tenements that now towered upwards on each side of them looked as if they were ready to collapse, which some actually did from time to time. Meanwhile, the air was still and fetid, whilst the noise of a busy city, with people quarrelling, tradesmen shouting their wares and busy smiths hammering, echoed about them.

Crastus stopped outside a decrepit tenement, which was indistinguishable from those that crowded around on either side except that the building was, if anything, even dirtier and more run down than its neighbours.

Chapter XIX

The room also proved to be a very gloomy place, with bare floorboards, furnished only with a truckle bed and a couple of stools. The single unglazed window looked out directly across the narrow street outside to the even taller building opposite.

Crastus settled himself on the edge of the bed and his men seated themselves either on one of the stools or on the floor. Pulchellus was given a coin and despatched to fetch some wine from the nearest street tavern, or 'caupona'.

Marius had briefly hesitated outside on the landing but was told roughly by Varro to go inside the room and hand his sack of silver goblets to Crastus. The boy obeyed and then sidled off to huddle up against Pannychis, who was trying to make herself inconspicuous in a dark corner.

"Well, lads," Crastus eventually commented cheerfully, "that's another mission completed for our Emperor!" By now, Pulchellus had dutifully returned from his errand and was filling some of the silver goblets from Marius' sack with the cheap wine.

Thought of attempting escape had not even crossed Pulchellus' mind when he had been outside. The boy appreciated that the common punishment if caught trying to do so was gruesome execution by crucifixion or being flogged to death or fed to lions and the like in the amphitheatre. He anyway had no person or place to run to safely. He therefore believed that his best option was to take his chances with Crastus, who was clearly already beginning to react positively to his seductive charms by treating him better.

"Let's hope the mission pays more than some have done in the past," Varro remarked less enthusiastically in response to Crastus' cheerful comment. "I don't see why it shouldn't," the other man replied, "as, apart from our fee from the Emperor, we've got the boy and the girl to sell, plus the silver goblets!"

"There's two boys and the girl," Grynium corrected, with a hint of belligerence in his voice. He clearly did not want to lose profit just because Crastus fancied Pulchellus.

"One boy," Crastus nevertheless answered firmly, "as I'm keeping Pulchellus. Apart from being a good fuck, he's a handy sort of brat and I reckon he'll be of use to me in my business!"

Pulchellus smiled on hearing this announcement. As well as confirming that his seductive charms were indeed working as far as Crastus was concerned, the declaration of intent also conveyed the news that the man wanted him to help in his business.

As this business often involved torturing and executing traitors to the Emperor, and raping and killing their usually virginal children, the sadistic Pulchellus was rather attracted to his new owner's profession. However, a hostile silence greeted Crastus' statement amongst the other men in the room.

Consequently, Crastus eventually conceded "All right then, so that there's no ill feeling between us, in compensation for acquiring Pulchellus, I'll only take half of my usual share of the mission's profits. Is that acceptable to you all?"

Given that, as leader, Crastus took the biggest share of the profits, his men readily agreed to the arrangement. Pulchellus then immediately turned and grinned triumphantly at Marius, whose future was far less certain and could also be far worse.

"How, though, do we best turn the boy, girl and goblets into cash?" Varro now asked. "For example, is it safe to sell the traitor's son in the public slave market," he added, whilst airing the sudden worry that had entered his mind, "as someone might recognise the offspring of such a famous father? The slut and the cups might also be dangerous to dispose of at auction because they're effectively stolen goods, which should now be the Emperor's property!"

"I don't believe," Crastus answered, "that anyone will recognise the brat. Unlike his older brother and sister, his father never brought him to Rome but kept him at his country estate, away from the city's temptations and dangers."

"I also don't believe," Crastus continued, whilst deliberately raising his voice so that Pannychis could hear his threat, "that the slut will blabber about being a slave stolen by us from Sejanus' country estate. I obtained a signature for a receipt for her transfer to me from the farm bailiff in return for a promise to let him out of the cellar in which I'd locked him. Naturally, I didn't keep my end of the bargain and the steward might still be incarcerated for all I now. Nevertheless, the document is valid and will not only nullify any complaints made by the whore but it'll undoubtedly earn her another whipping for untruthfulness from her new owners!"

"The goblets are additionally unmarked," Crastus added, "and therefore shouldn't be traceable." However, having apparently been on the brink of dismissing Varro's worries, the leader of the men now seemed to have second thoughts about the situation.

Crastus stopped speaking for a few moments whilst he reviewed matters. He then announced "But there's no need to take any chances by us selling the boy, girl and goblets at market."

"I'll take the boy and goblets," Crastus next declared, "instead to the general merchandiser, Balbinus, in the Emporium in the morning. I'm sure he'll give us a good price for them!"

"Balbinus will particularly like the brat," Crastus advised, "as he specialises in slaveboys. The traitor's son is a classy bit of goods and, if anyone can, he'll be able to turn him into good cash!"

"The brat doesn't look all that classy to me," Grynium interjected with a laugh, "in his current state. Just look at him. He's filthy. His knees are also grazed from when he's stumbled on the march, and the tender soles of his feet are bloody because we've not pampered him with sandals!"

"I'm sure that, despite the surface grime, Balbinus will recognise the underlying quality," Crastus retorted confidently, "that'll allow the brat to sell very well once he's been cleaned up and rested. Take my word for it, Grynium, there's real distinction there, not least because he's virginal!"

Marius, who was still cowering in the corner next to Pannychis, was overhearing these discussions about his imminent fate. The boy was unsure whether he should be pleased or not about Crastus' testament about his quality, not knowing what such an attribute might bode for his future destiny.

"As for the girl," Crastus next suggested in respect of the one item of goods that he did not intend to sell to Balbinus, "she's pretty but nothing special. We'll therefore sell her for what we can get from some pimp!"

Marius immediately felt Pannychis stiffen in horror at news of her own likely imminent fate. The boy instantly put an arm round one of her shoulders in an attempted gesture of comfort. However, he was soon forced to withdraw his compassionate limb when he realised that the ingrained filth was not only dirtying girl but also hurting some unhealed wheals created by her recent whipping.

"I'll look after that business," Grynium immediately announced in respect of Crastus' suggestion about Pannychis. He subsequently drank the remainder of his wine in one gulp and scrambled eagerly to his feet. "I know a brothel owner near the forum," he then added in explanation, "who'll pay well for the whore. I'll take her now so that we don't have to suffer further expense by feeding her!"

Grynium next began to walk across the floor to where Pannychis and Marius were still cowering. The girl shrank away from him and the boy again instinctively put his arm around her, this time in a pathetic attempt to protect her, although she was older and bigger than him.

Grynium ignored such reaction and, instead reaching out and grabbing Pannychis roughly by her arm, commanded "Come on whore!" The girl meekly allowed herself to be hauled to her feet. However, Marius, desperate at the thought of being parted from the one remaining person in the world who had shown some care for him, knelt and threw his arms about her waist.

"Let go, brat!" Grynium growled in annoyance, whilst cuffing Marius painfully on the side of the head. However, the man's action did not at first attain the desired result.

Marius continued to cling to Pannychis. The boy also repetitively begged, despite the anguishing ringing in his ear from the recent blow, "Please don't take her!"

"Let go I said," Grynium was therefore forced to command, whilst reinforcing his order this time with a heavy blow of his fist on the side of Marius' head, which knocked the boy to the floor. The man subsequently sighed and commented to the room in general "What a fuss about a slave whore!"

Pannychis next made a movement to go to Marius' aid but she was halted by a sharp pull and a simultaneous threatening command from Grynium of "Leave the brat or I'll clobber you too!" With a final glance over her shoulder at the small naked boy sprawled on the bare floorboards, whose thin shoulders were now heaving in uncontrolled sobbing, the girl instead then allowed herself to be dragged from the room. She was after all only a slave and had no choice but to obey her betters.

After Pannychis and Grynium had left, Crastus produced two lengths of cords and threw them at Pulchellus. "Tie the brat up," the man subsequently ordered, "because, now that we've got rid of the girl, there's nothing to hold him here."

Pulchellus was, of course, delighted to obey the order. He soon found himself harshly wrenching the lithe arms of the still crying Marius behind his back and enthusiastically tying the naked younger boy's wrists together.

"You must learn to be obedient like me, traitor's son!" Pulchellus unctuously suggested, as he later tied Marius' ankles together. "I've been a good boy," he added, as he made sure that the cord bit painfully into the 11 year-old's flesh, "and so I'm treated well!"

This advice did nothing to stem Marius' weeping, especially after Crastus subsequently carried his dirty naked form out of the room to spend the night in the chilly darkness of the landing, where he lay appreciating that he was utterly alone and friendless in a cruel uncaring world. Knowing that Pulchellus on the other hand was enjoying the warmth of his new owner's bed, thus illustrating the wisdom of his advice, did nothing to assuage the younger boy's distress.

Nor was Marius' distress assuaged by now suffering nightmares depicting an awful future for himself.

Chapter XX

Through the nearby door of Crastus' room, Marius could hear the bed creaking, as well as low moans and whimpers. The boy correctly assumed that the man was currently again enjoying Pulchellus' young body, which had obviously not yet become fully acclimatised to the size of his new master's cock.

Marius could not help but briefly welcome the fact that Pulchellus' new life, although remaining much better to his own at that moment, nevertheless still presented painful difficulties. However, the boy's mind subsequently quickly returned to his own distressing predicament.

Pain racked Marius as a result of his tight bondage and the increasing pressure on his bladder, which he could no longer finally contain. A lukewarm pool of pungent amber fluid formed on the floorboards where he lay.

Already alone, cold, dirty and with an unknown ominous future ahead, Marius immediately thought that this disgrace completed his utter misery. However, much worse was yet to come and what the boy experienced next was only the beginning of many more gross humiliations to be suffered.

Pulchellus eventually appeared at the doorway of Crastus' room and saw Marius lying in his own pool of urine. "Mariullus has peed himself, Master, all over the floor!" the slightly older boy therefore gleefully shouted over his shoulder.

"There's no need to bother about the brat too much," Crastus replied, "as we'll be rid of him today. Instead, leave the dirty little animal to lie in his own filth and fetch my breakfast as I told you to!"

Pulchellus obediently closed the door and approached Marius. Grinning broadly, he then kicked the bound and prone boy in his ribs as hard as he could as he passed him on the landing to go to a street vendor outside to buy Crastus' breakfast.

Pulchellus had always in the past envied and resented Marius, the free boy, the son of his former master's employer, and now he felt no pity whatsoever for him. In fact, on the contrary, he thoroughly enjoyed his utter humiliation and took immense pleasure in adding to his sufferings.

Crastus later took his time over his breakfast. There was no hurry, as he knew that Balbinus would not be at his premises in the vast complex of stalls and passageways that formed the Emporium until the morning was well advanced.

Crastus therefore ate slowly and methodically and, when his own hunger had been satisfied, he passed his plate to Pulchellus so that he could finish off the scraps. As the famished boy consumed the spare food ravenously, the man finally wandered out onto the landing to see how Marius was faring.

As Crastus looked down at the still naked but now even filthier Marius, his nose wrinkled in distaste. "You're a disgustingly filthy and smelly little brat, aren't you?" the man then rhetorically suggested, whilst kneeling to undo the cords that bound the boy's ankles.

Crastus subsequently pulled the Marius to his feet. The boy's legs were numb after his night pinioned on the cold floor and consequently he stumbled to force the man to grab him by the arm to stop him falling.

"Stay on your feet, you stupid brat," Crastus growled after saving Marius from tumbling back onto the floorboards. The man immediately reinforced his instruction by cuffing the boy on the side of his head with his free hand.

Marius, with his wrists still tied behind his back, cowered away in pain from Crastus' grip. However, the man soon grabbed the boy again and, calling for Pulchellus to follow with the sack of silver goblets, hustled him down the rickety staircase of the tenement and out onto the street. They then set off back down the Aventine Hill.

As the threesome advanced towards the Emporium, once more few people cared to pay the filthy Marius much attention despite his unusual nakedness. They preferred pleasanter sights.

Pulchellus was an exception. He amused himself by taking occasional kicks at Marius' ankles, which were still marked and sore from their recent bondage.

After the Emporium was reached, Balbinus proved to be a small, wizened man, who sat in his stall observing the world through beady eyes that were never still. His shop was not large and the shelves were notable only for being almost totally bare, apart from some old rusty cooking pots and a broken statue of a water nymph, which appeared to be his total stock. Marius initially found difficulty in perceiving how trading in such meagre goods could yield sufficient profit to maintain even so desiccated and meagre a body as that of this so-called general merchant. However, the boy soon astutely realised that the whole place was a front for much bigger and lucrative transactions, either illegal or dealing in humans.

Crastus produced his silver tankards, which were duly examined by Balbinus. The merchant subsequently mentioned a sum equal to what both men knew was a quarter of the open market value of the precious cups, thereby apparently belying the seller's earlier expressed confidence that the trader would offer a good price.

Crastus protested loudly. However, Balbinus responded by commenting "I hear that you've been on a secret mission for the Emperor, which had something to do with the late unlamented Sejanus' country estate!"

"How did you hear that?" Crastus asked in consternation, as he liked to keep his business secret. Not everyone liked what he did, especially the surviving relatives and friends of the casualties of his work, who might seek revenge. Furtiveness also enabled him to boost his income through helping him quietly to steal some of his victims' property, which generally, by right of requisition, now belonged to the Emperor. Diverting such goods for his own enrichment was technically treachery against Tiberius, the punishment for which would not only be fatal but also terrible.

"Never mind how I heard," Balbinus replied, "but if you want me to buy goods from you that are rightfully the Emperor's, you'll have to accept a low price because of the risks I'll be taking!" In the end, after another quarter of an hour of haggling, the two men arrived at a valuation that was about half what the goblets were worth but double what the merchant had originally offered.

"Would you be interested in making me an offer for that brat?" Crastus subsequently asked of Balbinus, whilst sweeping up the small pile of silver coins that the merchant had reluctantly counted out. He simultaneously nodded at Marius, who, carefully watched by Pulchellus, was squatting naked on the floor, just inside the door, and announced "He's that rare and expensive commodity, a virgin!"

"A boy!" Balbinus responded in a tone indicating disgust. "I don't deal in such goods," the merchant subsequently dishonestly added.

As Crastus had earlier accurately told his men, Balbinus actually specialised in the sale of pretty boys, who were often worth far more at market than girls because, in reaction to subsequent sexual molestation, they never suffered the inconvenience of pregnancy. "Such brat's are nasty, dirty, smelly things," the merchant nevertheless continued to lie, "and so there's no profit in them!"

"I wouldn't be surprised if this particular filthy brat's got fleas, lice or worms or all three," Balbinus continued, whilst he looked more closely at Marius. The merchant then lowered his voice to a whisper so that the boy could not overhear and commented "However, what's worse is that he has a tongue, which can tell deadly tales. Take my advice, Crastus, slit his throat now before he gets you into deep trouble!"

"Yes that's my advice to you," Balbinus reiterated quietly, "as you're a man I think highly of and whose custom I value, slit the brat's throat. Fuck him first if that's what you like but be sure to kill him afterwards!"

"By the way," Balbinus next asked in continuing whisper, whilst he continued to look at Marius and as if the question were an afterthought, "did you execute Sejanus' younger son, who lived on his father's estate where you've just been, after, as is custom, depriving the brat of his virginity first?" As the obviously well-informed merchant had already demonstrated with the goblets, he had accurately guessed the boy's highly dangerous provenance.

Crastus had also been right in advising his men earlier that the perceptive Balbinus, who was skilled in his trade, would be able to judge Marius' superior quality despite the surface grime. However, the merchant's assessment had also enabled him to decide that these particular potentially highly lucrative gorgeous goods were too hot to handle.

"This brat won't be telling any tales," Crastus protested, also in whisper and having realised that Balbinus had recognised Marius' true identity, "as he's got too much to lose!"

"Lose! Lose!" Balbinus retorted before asking "What's a thing like that got to lose?" "His life," Crastus answered, "and so he won't talk."

"His life!" Balbinus next said before quietly asking "What's that worth to him?" The merchant went on to suggest "A brat like him probably doesn't care about losing his life, because his privileged past has gone for ever and his future prospects are not good. He therefore might tell tales, just to put an end to his misery and get some revenge on you, and me if I bought him from you. Even if my concerns are unfounded, I for one don't want to take the risk!"

"Take my advice," Balbinus subsequently whispered, "and stick instead to gold and silver and the like, which is good valuable stuff that can't talk and get you into trouble, especially after its melted down. Fuck the traitor's son now and then slit his throat and dump his body in the River Tiber!"

In response, a suddenly worried Crastus immediately began seriously to ponder Balbinus' recommendation.

Chapter XXI

"Fair price?" Crastus queried before complaining "Just like the one you gave me for the silver goblets!" "Fair for something you apparently don't want to sell on the open market," Balbinus coldly retorted. "Anyway," the merchant continued, "I'm providing added value because my advice about Scyrax is free, and so is my willingness to keep my mouth shut about the brat's background!"

"Fair enough!" Crastus quipped in response before, shortly afterwards, leaving the Emporium with Marius, who was still closely watched and frequently kicked by Pulchellus and was too tired and dispirited to respond to such mischief. The threesome headed for Rome's eleventh district.

A tall blank wall, broken only by a massive metal studded wooden door, fronted Scyrax's immense house. Crastus marched up to the entrance but discovered that there was no latch to open it.

Crastus pushed at the door but found it unyielding. He therefore hammered the heavy knocker, the shape of which he thought amusing because it was in the form of a large phallus.

Crastus was about to use the knocker again when a small panel set high up in the centre of the door swung open. "Who is it and what do you want?" a deep voice subsequently enquired from the other side.

"My name is Crastus," the eponymous man announced, "and I wish to see Scyrax. I have a boy whom he might like to buy!"

Crastus simultaneously squinted upwards, trying to sight the person who had addressed him. However, the spy hole was so small and so high that he could only see an eye and a small area of almost coal black skin.

"My Lord Scyrax does not deal with casual peddlers of boy flesh," the voice then declared contemptuously, whilst the panel began to close. "But Balbinus sent me," Crastus retorted desperately.

Crastus was rewarded when, after a brief hesitation, the voice next instructed "Wait!" The panel then slammed shut.

Crastus complied and subsequently waited patiently, as the busy life of the street outside Scyrax's walled domain flowed past him and the two boys in his company, until the door eventually swung open. A huge black African stood just inside the entrance, whose oiled and hairless bare chest and massive muscled arms glistening darkly like polished ebony.

"Which is the brat for sale?" the black man now asked, as he viewed two very pretty boys, one clean and dressed decently in a short tunic and another dirty and naked. "This one!" Crastus answered, whilst grabbing hold of the filthy nude Marius.

"Then enter," the black man next ordered. Crastus compliantly stepped through the doorway with Marius in his firm grip. Pulchellus moved to follow them but the African put one large hand on the boy's chest and pushed him away, causing him to stagger backwards and lose his balance.

Pulchellus fell over in the street. From this perspective, the boy subsequently watched helplessly as, without another word, the fierce black man slammed the door shut.

Crastus and Marius were led through a narrow garden before coming to stand in a long and wide pillared hallway. An intricate and rich mosaic, decorated with scenes from the gladiatorial arena, now stretched along the floor in front of them.

Immediately ahead, two naked boy gladiators fought to the death. One was a retiarius, who had entangled his swordsman opponent with his net and was on the point of plunging his barbed trident into the loser's young form. Further on, more youngsters combated each other or wild animals in a confusion of bare limbs and bleeding bodies.

The walls were also covered by expertly executed frescoes. On one side of the hallway, a forest was depicted in which naked pretty boys played amongst the trees. On the other, the goddess Diana, bare breasted and wild haired, was pictured with her hounds in full cry, with the great black beasts exhibiting glowing eyes and sharp white teeth.

These themes were replicated on the surface of the pillars, which formed a double row down the centre of the hallway. However, whilst Crastus' intrigued eyes and brain were still struggling to take in the plethora of decoration presented to their view, a real boy, about the same age as Marius and as beautiful and almost as naked as any portrayed in the murals, materialised out of the shadows at his side.

The boy, whose only attire was a tiny white thong, said nothing but, bowing deeply, instead turned and accepted from the black man the duty of leading Crastus and Marius further along the hall. As he did so, tiny bells on a thin silver chain about one slim ankle tinkled as he walked.

As Crastus and Marius followed, they noticed that three angry red welts marred the smooth curves of the boy's bottom. The child had been obviously recently been hit and marked by a rod.

As they passed down the hallway, Crastus noticed that the theme of the wall paintings was subtly changing. Men then satyrs, who were half human and half beast, now appeared in the forest, joining the boys in their games.

At first, such games appeared innocent. However, the activities gradually became more gross until, at the far end of the hallway, men and satyrs, both with monstrous phalluses, were depicted penetrating the tender bottoms of the boys. Mingled in this scene of cruel debauchery were the hounds of Diana, who had caught and pulled down their young prey, the beautiful Acteon.

The boy eventually ushered Crastus and Marius into a central courtyard, where a wide marble colonnade surrounded a spacious garden. Fountains played here, and the sun glinted on ponds in whose depths exotic fish cruised lazily.

Lounging on a couch in a shady vine-covered pergola was an enormously fat man. Beside him knelt a dark curly haired boy, about 10 years old and also only wearing a tiny white thong, who was holding ready for his master a heavily chased silver bowl.

Crastus watched as the fat man reach out and took from the bowl a fig dipped in honey. He then lifted the fruit to his mouth and chewed.

Viewing the scene and his surrounds, Crastus thought to himself that being a merchant, whose expertise was, using Balbinus' own words, 'in lucratively preparing special boys for market', certainly paid for Scyrax. He also wondered if he himself was in the wrong business.

The fat man, honey dribbling down his chin, now caught sight of Crastus. He immediately licked his fingers and wiped them clean on the little boy's black curls.

"Crastus, sent by my friend Balbinus, I believe," the fat man now announced without moving from his couch. He next asked, in a voice that was soft and full of breath like a breeze gently ruffling dead leaves in a winter wood, "In what way can the humble Scyrax assist you?"

Crastus, however, did not answer this question immediately. He could not help instead making a complimentary comment about the opulence of the residence in which Scyrax lived.

"Well," Scyrax began to reply in untruthful explanation to Crastus' kind remark, "I am actually a rather humble man who would love to live in much plainer and simpler circumstances. However, my trade concentrates on preparing slaveboys with clear potential, but who are sadly also mainly from deprived backgrounds, for the most esteemed homes. I consequently need to train them in how to respect, act in and treat such opulent surrounds and the exalted people present in them. Doing so in less splendid premises than I have here would undermine the accuracy of their education and therefore threaten my reputation and the value of my products, so I must sacrifice my natural reserve and frugality in the interests of good commerce!"

Crastus did not, of course, believe a word of Crastus' explanation. To him, the fat man, whom he had caught lounging on the couch in opulent surrounds, which were made even more exotic by the beautiful scantily-clad boys attending him, clearly revelled in his lifestyle. However, as he hoped imminently to complete a lucrative transaction with the trader in young male flesh, he chose not to contest the issue.

The intrigued Crastus instead asked "How many brats do you train at one time, what age are they and how long do they take to be readied for market?" "The answer to all three parts of your question," Scyrax replied, "is that the situation varies."

"I only buy brats who are very beautiful and intelligent," Scyrax continued, "both of which attributes are considered essential by my normal clientele. The boys also need to be easily mouldable into the types of compliant efficient menial and catamite demanded by my customers. Such creatures aren't common, as many young male sluts who come onto the market are often unattractive in terms of at least one of looks, brains or behaviour. My stock can therefore vary considerably. I currently have about forty, which is rather low."

"I also retain a few of the best boys," Scyrax added, "at least until I tire of them, to supplement my adult servants. I do so for two reasons. First, their example, when performing their duties for me, assists the instruction of the trainees. As for the second motive, I'm sure that you can guess what that is, Crastus!"

Crastus certainly could guess Scyrax's second motive. The fat man was clearly as much a pederast as were obviously many of his clientele.

"The brats vary considerably in age," Scyrax next advised, "as the tastes of my clientele differ from infants to youths. I don't mind such diversity, as I have broad personal preferences. The youngest of my present stock is 5 and the oldest 16 years old."

"As for the length of training required to ready the brats for market," Scyrax proceeded to inform, "this also varies and is related to two factors. First is their ability to absorb instruction and thereby become efficient at whatever skill they're being taught, for use in or out of their future master's or mistress' bed, and second is their behaviour." The fat man then produced a long black rod, or 'ferula', from under his couch and announced "Naturally, I have ways in which to enforce discipline, and this implement only represents one of them, as there are far worse methods to encourage obedience available to me!"

Crastus immediately remembered the boy who had led him and Marius to the courtyard and was still nearby. He supposed that the young slave provided an example of the disciplinary regime of Scyrax, who was clearly as much a sadist as a pederast. The youngster must just have earned the stripes that besmirched his bare bottom from the fat man's rod for some recent minor misdemeanour.

Marius, who was listening to the conversation, also made the same link. He instantly decided that, if Scyrax bought him, he would try his best to be a very good boy in his future relationship with his new master.

"I would guess," Scyrax went on to inform, "that the average brat of humble background needs a couple of months here before he's ready to sell at the weekly boy auction in the slave market of the Emporium. I always circulate news in advance of the impending sale because there's inevitably great interest in my products!"

Crastus had also become further intrigued by Scyrax's reference to a potential 'mistress' for the slaveboys. He therefore enquired "Do you sell many of the brats to women!" "Oh yes," the fat man responded, "as many patrician females like pretty boys to serve them and sometimes, for those who can somehow maintain relevant secrecy or don't mind being the centre of scandalous gossip, service them sexually."

"However, if the latter sexual service is not a requirement," Scyrax advised ominously, much to Marius' horror, "the brats are often castrated for both safety and decorum. Such gelding removes the possibility of the boys becoming too sexually excited about the females in the household and prevents the potential scandalous gossip that might arise for the mistress if their balls are not taken away!"

"Anyway, enough of idle chatter," Scyrax next suggested, now being impatient to conclude matters after spying the naked but filthy Marius, "I am told that you have a brat whom you want to sell." The fat man subsequently mischievously added "Where is he?"

Crastus, initially perplexed by Scyrax's inability to identify Marius as the object for sale, pushed the naked 11 year-old forward, whilst declaring "This is the boy!" However, the fat man did not appear or sound impressed.

"This is a boy?" Scyrax sighed in apparent disbelief, as his little pig-like eyes focused on Marius. The fat man saw a dirty, exhausted, dispirited, half -starved, naked 11 year- old, whose knees and shins were grazed and cut. He therefore added "The brat looks more like an animal to me!" However, his insult was only commercial, being the first step in negotiating the price that he would eventually pay for the youngster, whom he knew he must buy.

Scyrax had astutely seen beyond the surface dirt. He recognised that, under the filth, was a nicely proportioned boy, with firm well-rounded limbs, a delicately neat ribcage, cute nipples and navel, pert dimpled bottom, golden hair and a face that, if the encrusting grime was washed away, could make a pederast's heart melt.

Scyrax had noticed these attributes and had also correctly judged that the few current imperfections were only superficial and could easily be rectified. However, he was a businessman, a trader in high-class boy-flesh, who made his fortune by buying cheap and selling dear.

"Why should I be bothered with a low-quality brat like this?" Scyrax consequently sneered, as he pursued his usual negotiating technique. "Clean him up and feed him a bit, get some of the bloom back on him," Crastus countered, "and he'll make a first class whore. He's currently a virgin but I can also confirm that he's a hot little bitch, who's desperate to have a man's cock inside him!"

"Of course he's a virgin," Scyrax scoffed in return, "as who'd want to fuck him?" Crastus, who was now regretting not having cleaned Marius up a bit to curtail such haggling, immediately began to continue his counter-argument. However, the fat man interrupted him.

"All right," Scyrax sighed, whilst feigning weariness with the argument, "since I let you bring the brat into the house, I might as well take a closer look at him. However, I only hope that I don't catch a disease of some sort through handling him!"

Turning to Marius, who was feeling rather numb in reaction to the words said about him, Scyrax subsequently commanded, whilst awkwardly clambering to his feet from the couch, where he left his rod, "Come here brat!" In response, Crastus untied the cord that still tied the boy's wrists together behind his back and unlocked and removed his demeaning chastity device. He then pushed the naked 11 year- old further towards the fat man.

Marius compliantly walked the rest of the distance without any more prompting and was soon standing before the leering Scyrax. On the way, the boy had rubbed his wrists, which were almost red-raw and very sore because of their recent bondage, but now his hands protectively covered his genitals.

Such manual protection proved brief because Scyrax quickly knocked Marius' hands to his sides. "If you know what's good for you, never hide anything from me, brat," the fat man simultaneously advised, "especially your delightful private parts whenever you're naked!"

Scyrax then took Marius' chin in his chubby left hand and tipped the boy's head back, forcing him to stare up into the fat man's face. The 11 year-old immediately detected the adult's musty breath, whose staleness was not quite masked by the sweet smell of the honey he had been eating, and his rather obnoxious natural sweaty odour, which was not disguised by the copious perfumes that he applied to his obese form.

The fingers of Scyrax's right hand next began to stray over Marius' head. The fat man's careful examination caused him to feel and part the boy's normally silky but currently dusty straight golden hair, pull up his eyelids and twist back his ears.

Scyrax simultaneously quizzed Crastus about Marius' origins. The boy's seller had, of course anticipated such questioning and so had already prepared a cover story.

Crastus also believed that Balbinus' fears that Marius might dispute such a story and instead confess his real identity were wrong, otherwise he would not be risking trying to sell him to Scyrax. He would simply have raped the boy and then cut his throat.

Crastus believed that Marius, although probably not a coward, wanted to live too much to announce, undoubtedly fatally, that he was the traitor's son. The man's assumption was to prove correct.

"I picked the brat up legitimately whilst performing a commission on a rural estate," Crastus lied, at least as far of the legitimacy of his action was concerned. Failing to rape and then strangle Marius was also failing to obey the Emperor's orders and therefore represented treachery.

"I understand that the brat, whose name is Marius, is of Roman stock," Crastus suggested, "the offspring of citizens fallen on hard times, who sold him into slavery in order to be able to repay some of their debts. I thought that his rather pretty virginal body was wasted in the countryside but would instead be welcomed in Rome by owners with discerning tastes. He's also intelligent and well behaved and so should meet your buying criteria."

Scyrax did not immediately respond verbally to Crastus' attempt to promote Marius' sale by lauding his attributes. He instead extended his right hand behind his obese form and dipped a digit in the bowl of honey and figs. He then pressed the coated fingertip against the boy's normally sweet and rosy but currently chapped and sore lips. The 11 year-old compliantly opened his mouth, revealing his pristinely white perfect teeth in the process, to accept the digit before eagerly sucking at the sweetness.

As Scyrax felt the tip of Marius' tongue sucking his finger, he moved his left hand from the boy's chin, sliding it down the child's naked body. The 11 year-old's form again tingled in excitement, as the chubby digits slowly advanced towards his groin, whilst pinching his hard little nipples and squeezing and prodding his ribcage and navel on the way.

A smile fleetingly lifted Scyrax's heavy jowls when his fingers finally closed round Marius' small penis, which, having being released from the bloodflow-restricting regime imposed by the iron cockring, he found had quickly grown stiff and had begun to throb. Also noticing this development was Crastus, who consequently happily commented "I told you that he was a hot little bitch!"

Scyrax again did not respond to Crastus' comment but instead continued to play with Marius' little erection for a while to test the boy's reaction. The fat man ran his fingers gently along all sides of the now resolutely hard cock. He also occasionally rubbed and flicked the rigid shaft, as well as once pulling back the foreskin to examine the head.

The desired response that Scyrax happily observed and heard involved Marius' sensuous blue eyes becoming glazed, pleasurable moans being emitted from his lips and his whole body beginning to shake with increasing vibration, as the boy was inexorably brought towards orgasm. However, such sexual ecstasy was to be denied him.

Shortly before Marius would have climaxed, Scyrax, who had recognised the imminence of orgasm from experience, withdrew his fingers from the boy's cock and instead began to fondle the underlying hairless scrotum. The fat man's exploring digits subsequently gently rolled the 11 year-old's balls, which were not much larger than olives.

Scyrax simultaneously pushed the finger of his other hand, which Marius was still obediently sucking despite having by now absorbed most of the honey coating, deeper into his mouth, reaching right back into his throat. The boy instantly began to gag and seemed for a moment in danger of choking. However, he somehow managed quickly to control his reaction to avoid such calamity.

Marius instead now continued to suck, whilst still gazing up into Scyrax's ugly face, with his cheeks sunken, as he drew on the finger of the fat man. The latter was, of course, very pleased to note that the boy had passed the test to see whether he should to able to perform fellatio with competence.

Scyrax next withdrew his fingers from Marius' mouth and balls and lowered his obese form, not without difficulty, so than he was kneeling. The fat man then began to knead the boy's front thighs before causing him to whimper when he prodded the broken flesh on his knees and shins.

"Turn round, brat!" Scyrax subsequently commanded of Marius. The boy again complied, albeit reluctantly because he had guessed correctly what would now eventually happen.

Scyrax next pulled at Marius' ankles, which still displayed the marks of their recent bondage, forcing the boy to raise each small and fragile foot in turn. As the 11 year-old subsequently wobbled precariously on one leg, the fat man examined his soles, which were bruised and torn as a result of his recent long march.

After Marius was later restored to biped stability, Scyrax ran his hands up the back of the boy's legs towards his pert bottom. On reaching this curvaceous target, the fat man then ordered, in his soft breathless voice, "Part your legs and bend over, brat!"

After Marius had obeyed, Scyrax gently prised apart the lips of the boy's anus, which were red and sore because of the plug that had so recently been inserted inside. The fat man subsequently confirmed "Well, although your ridiculous chastity device has hurt the brat's sphincter, I can at least corroborate that he's definitely still a virgin!"

Scyrax now scrambled laboriously back to his feet, grunting as he heaved his bulk upright. The fat man next moved his hands upwards straying over Marius' back and narrow shoulders, and kneading the back of the boy's neck.

"Well," Scyrax then exclaimed to Crastus, having completed his intimate examination of Marius' young body, on which a little erection was still visible, and whilst returning to his couch and again picking up his rod, "I still don't know why you brought the brat here. You would need to pay me to take him on. I only deal in the choicest boys who are capable of serving very high-class clientele. My reputation and therefore business could be ruined if I took on any slut from the streets, like this one!"

In response, Crastus initially sighed. He had seen in Scyrax's eyes that, despite his words of disparagement, the fat man wanted Marius. He was also himself an experienced negotiator and he could therefore recognise the commencement of haggling over price. However, he also realised that he had no choice but to play the game.

"Pay to keep him," Crastus consequently protested loudly, "but look again at the brat. All right, he's been worked hard over the last couple of days but clean him, rest him for a week or two, feed him up a bit and train him appropriately and he'll fetch a good price at market. There's real quality in him. Look at the way he's put together, with good slim lines, and at eleven he's still a virgin! Of how many boys of similar age at auction can you say that?"

"He's dirty and broken," Scyrax retorted, "and, if you think that he'll make a good price, why don't you sell him direct in the market instead of bringing him to me? I'd be ashamed to put the miserable little brat up for sale in his present condition and, as for cleaning, feeding, resting and training him first, he'd never fetch enough at auction, even in peak condition, to cover the resultant cost to me!"

Meanwhile, Marius, whose cock had gradually returned to flaccidity after the cessation of Scyrax's intimate manhandling, stood quietly between the two men as they argued over him. The boy knew that he had, no more than any other item of livestock being bought and sold, no part to play in the negotiations, which would decide his whole future.

Crastus and Scyrax bickered over Marius' price for about a quarter of an hour. During this time, each of the men gradually moved by almost imperceptible steps nearer to the compromise sum that would achieve the boy's sale.

"I'm a soft hearted man," Scyrax eventually suggested to Crastus in order to clinch his purchase. "To save the brat from being dragged round Rome until you finally find a buyer," the fat man added, "I'll therefore agree to pay the amount you now say you want, even though I'm sure to lose on the deal. I know that my kindness will one day be the ruin of me but I can't help being generous!"

Crastus knew that Scyrax was not being generous and would not lose out on the deal but would instead certainly earn a large profit. However, he also appreciated that he was himself incapable of preparing Marius for the lucrative high-class market and the price was reasonably fair and so not too disappointing. After all, the boy had cost him and his men nothing and they also would not have to take the potential risk of selling him at public auction, where, untrained, his valuation might not be much greater.

"If by any chance you have any similar merchandise you wish to dispose of in the future, you will remember me," Scyrax subsequently suggested to Crastus, as he counted out the agreed amount of silver coins from a purse into the eager open hand of Marius' seller. "I'll remember you more as being a man who drives a hard bargain," the latter growled, whilst pocketing the money, "and I'll hope for a better price next time!"

"A man can always hope!" Scyrax commented in response, and both men grinned. Crastus was then escorted from the house by the boy who had led him and Marius along the lengthy and interestingly decorated entrance hallway.

As Marius watched Crastus depart, he hoped that he would never again encounter the man. He had, after all, not only treated and talked about him so badly but also raped and murdered his siblings.

Marius was, of course, aware that he was only alive because Crastus had refrained from molesting and strangling him too. However, the man's motivation had been greed not compassion and the boy's future could still be such that he might prefer to be dead.

Marius, however, was unsure whether he should be grateful to Crastus or hate him even more for one other recent development in his young life. The man had avidly demonstrated the sexually burgeoning nature of the boy's body, which was on the verge of pubescence.

Marius did not know whether he should be in awe or ashamed of the revelation, as he was unable to determine what he was consequently turning into. He could not tell if he was a normal growing boy or, as Crastus had suggested, was becoming a true cock-loving young whore.

Marius was finally left alone in the courtyard with his fresh owner, Scyrax, and the dark curly haired boy, who was only wearing a tiny white thong. "Now," the fat man subsequently queried of himself, "what shall I do first with my new toy?"

Marius, who was the new toy in question, waited in trepidation for Scyrax to answer his own query.

Chapter XXII

As a consequence, Marius was soon squatting on the ground hungrily wolfing down a bowl of bean stew. The boy was subsequently scooping the last fragments of this first meal for days into his mouth with his fingers when four rather effeminate adult male slaves appeared carrying a heavy bronze tank. They were followed by several very pretty youths, wearing just the briefest of white tunics and bearing buckets of steaming scented water.

"Dictys," Scyrax next commanded of one of his once favourite slaveboy, who had been in his service for half a decade, and whilst pointing his rod at Marius, "clean up my new toy!" The 16 year-old in question obediently took the still squatting youngster by the arm and guided him over to and stood him in the bath, now filled with the steaming scented water.

The bath had been placed immediately in front of Scyrax's couch in accordance with his commands. The fat man wanted a close look, as the full, cleansed glory of his new toy, who was facing him, was revealed to his lecherous eyes by the removal of the surface bodily grime.

Marius subsequently stood relatively quietly as Dictys gently sponged the accumulated filth from his naked body. In fact, the only noise the nude boy uttered was when he caught his breath as the warm water stung the open cuts on his legs, created by stumbling and falling during his recent march.

The sponge gradually moved higher up Marius' lithe legs and he again began to feel resultant excitement mount inside him. However, conscious of Scyrax's amused gaze resting on him whilst the fat man once more lounged at ease on his nearby couch, the embarrassed boy instinctively moved his hands to cover his stiffening cock.

"No, no, brat," Scyrax shouted angrily in response. Without warning, the fat man then lashed out with his rod, hitting Marius painfully across the knuckles. The boy cried out and moved his hands quickly away from his crotch in order to try to avoid a repetition of the anguishing blow and whilst revealing his little embarrassing erection to full view in the process.

"That's better, brat," Scyrax now advised, in a voice that was apparently as soft and sweet as the honey with which he coated his figs, "as I told you before, if you know what's good for you, never hide anything from me, especially your delightful private parts whenever you're naked. I paid good money for you and so everything on your body now belongs to me, including your genitalia. You haven't got much there at present but I still to see what you do have unless I permit you the luxury of some clothing. Little slave sluts like you must never be shy with me!"

Marius heard these words and hung his blushing head in shame, which was a reaction caused not only by Scyrax's declaration about what one of the privileges of his ownership of the boy allowed him. The 11 year-old also humiliatingly appreciated that he was now just a young slave, without any rights or protection and who existed only to serve and please his master.

Marius' abashment additionally emanated from the fact that his highly attractive body, which was clearly on the verge of pubescence, had again betrayed him by allowing his cock to harden publicly when attention was being afforded to his naked form by the hands of another. The boy once more believed that some of the comments that had been so degradingly made about him by Crastus, for example that he would 'make a first class whore' because he was 'a hot little bitch, who's desperate to have a man's cock inside him', might be true.

Dictys' sponge eventually reached Marius' excited genitals, which the youth initially washed with apparent nonchalance, as if cleaning an erection was nothing special in his experience. However, the youth did noticeably linger over this chore for longer than was necessary, bringing the boy again to the verge of orgasm in the process.

Dictys was rewarded for his playfulness by receiving a blow from Scyrax's rod across his bottom, which was just covered by the lower part of his tight-fitting brief tunic, which nicely highlighted his body's contours. "Playing with my new toy's delightful parts," the fat man simultaneously advised, "is my prerogative, brat!"

"Strip and bend over," Scyrax subsequently demanded of Dictys, "to receive your due chastisement!" The youth immediately obeyed the fat man's command with remarkable speed, given what he was now to suffer.

Dictys' tunic was soon on the paved floor of the courtyard, whilst he bent over immediately in front of Scyrax to hold his shins and present his bare bottom for the attentions of the fat man's rod. This process enabled Marius to realise that the garment had represented the youth's only attire.

Marius was also now able to see that Dictys' genitals were completely smooth, having no pubic hair anywhere. In fact, apart from the pleasant straight brown covering on top of the youth's head, which was neatly trimmed in the Roman bowl style, his body exhibited no hirsute patches at all, even on his legs.

Marius was later to discover that Scyrax liked the bodies of all of his slaveboys, even the older ones, to be completely smooth. The fat man therefore insisted that, as part of their comprehensive morning ablutions, they removed any hairs that might have appeared on their forms since the previous day. He even occasionally performed the relevant plucking himself.

Marius was additionally now able to see that Dictys' genitals were partially excited. The youth's semi-erect cock, which was, of course, much bigger than the boy's, was apparent evidence that he had been enjoying sponging the young newcomer to Scyrax's establishment.

Dictys' erection even somehow became more fulsome when Scyrax, despite still lounging on his couch, delivered three accurate and hard blows of his rod onto the youth's currently bare curvaceous bottom. However, the watching Marius was more intrigued to observe that the 16 year-old accepted his punishment quietly without any noticeable signs of distress.

Having completed his act of chastisement, Scyrax subsequently instructed, whilst reaching out briefly to feel the stripes that he had created on the youth's bottom, "Now proceed properly with your task, Dictys. Your example has been for my new toy disgraceful and, if you err again, I'll use the whip on you!"

Dictys immediately stood up to obey this order. Marius was therefore now able to notice that the youth's reaction to his caning had, after all, not been completely free of outward distress. The 16 year-old's sensuous brown eyes were damp.

Whilst maintaining his embarrassing erection, which Scyrax appeared quietly happy to observe, Dictys returned to his current chore and moved his careful and skilful attentions upwards from Marius' genitals to the boy's belly and chest, giving particular consideration to the cute navel and nipples present. He later cleansed the 11 year-old's neck and face, on which the eyes were compliantly screwed tight shut, before moving to his rear.

Scyrax was now able to see the cleaned front of Marius' body and he very much liked what he saw. His earlier assessment of the immense beauty that existed beneath the surface grime and repairable damage had happily proved accurate. The fat man also particularly enjoyed the fact that, like Dictys, the boy was retaining his erection whilst the youth continued to pursue his careful manual ministrations.

Dictys sponged Marius' rear in the opposite direction from how he had performed the same chore on the boy's front, this time moving from the neck downwards. The youth eventually pressed his free hand against the small of the 11 year-old back, which he had just washed, encouraging the youngster to bend forward.

Dictys' sponge subsequently gently touched the red soreness that was currently Marius' virginal sphincter, hurt by the recent insertion of Crastus' anal plug. The boy briefly whimpered in response but, fearful of another hit from Scyrax's rod, he nevertheless remained relatively still as the youth washed his bumcrack and bottom.

After the rears of his legs were next sponged, Marius felt hands press on his shoulders to force him downwards to kneel in the bath. Looking upwards, the boy noticed that the big cock of the now similarly naked Dictys was still stiff.

Dictys, seeing that Marius had looked as his erection with apparent interest, subsequently caught the boy's eye and winked. Filling a bowl with warm scented water, the youth then tipped the contents over the golden crown of the 11 year-old's sublime head.

Water spilled into Marius' eyes. The boy consequently blinked and rubbed them with his knuckles, as more and more liquid was tipped over his head and shoulders and ran down his chest and back.

Marius, now with his eyes tightly shut, subsequently felt a soft towel being wrapped about his shoulders. He was then lifted gently from the bath and set on his feet on the paved floor.

Marius opened his eyes to discover that his new owner was himself now kneeling beside him, towelling him. "There you are my pretty," the fat man crooned softly, as he dried the boy off, "you're now nice and clean for your kind Uncle Scyrax!"

"What's this then," Scyrax subsequently asked rhetorically, as he towelled Marius' genitals, "as your tiny cock's rigid again? You must like what I'm doing, so Crastus was right and you really are a hot little bitch!"

Scyrax then moved his towel to other parts of Marius' delectable and now nicely clean body. As the fat man rubbed, he spoke softly to the boy, commenting on his young nude form and describing and speculating on his undoubted ability to please some future master.

Marius stood compliantly still whilst the happy Scyrax proceeded. The main signs of the intense effect that the fat man's tactile and verbal attentions were having on the boy were the increasingly glazed look in his eyes and his little rigid cock, wobbling proudly erect in front of him.

Having finally dried Marius, Scyrax guided him, with one hand on the clean naked boy's slim shoulder, across to his couch. Seating himself, the fat man subsequently spread the towel over his knees and drew the 11 year-old to lie facedown across his lap.

Scyrax rested his hand for a moment on the exceedingly pleasant curves of Marius' bottom. The boy simultaneously felt under his prone body the fat man's plump soft thighs, with something big and hard pressing upwards between them.

"Now spread your legs and push that pretty little rump of yours up in the air for me," Scyrax next murmured." Still aware that the fat man's rod remained nearby, Marius obeyed.

"Good boy," Marius' new owner complimented in respect of his toy's obedience, whilst he dipped a finger into a jar of herbal salve now held by his dark curly-haired young slave. He then warned "This is going to hurt a bit but it'll make your poor sore bottom better, so be a brave boy now for your kind Uncle Scyrax!"

Despite wanting to obey again and display bravery, Marius could not help but yelp when he next felt Scyrax's finger pressing against the rawness in the centre of his bottom. The pain also instantly drove the blood from the boy's erection, reducing his cock to a shrivelled piece of limp flesh.

Despite Marius' pained reaction, Scyrax persisted and increased the pressure of his finger against the boy's tight and very sore virginal sphincter, which finally gave way to allow the podgy intruder entrance. The ointment present initially felt cool to the 11 year-old but then the salve began bitterly to sting his insides.

Consequently, Marius whimpered and twisted on Scyrax's knees and attempted to close his legs, as the finger resolutely pressed further into him. The fat man was therefore compelled to clamp the boy more steadily in his lap, with his free hand pressing hard down on the small of his writhing back.

Dictys, who had remained close, also obeyed an order to catch hold of Marius' flailing ankles. The youth then forced the boy's legs once more apart.

"Now there, Mariullus," Scyrax subsequently said in an attempt to soothe, "I'm not going to take too much longer." However, the fat man still gently pushed his finger deeper into the now crying boy.

Marius' whimpers eventually rose to a shrill scream. The deeply anguished boy was currently believing that Scyrax's finger was like a rod of fire plunged deep into his body.

Then suddenly, the finger was withdrawn and Marius' screaming and struggling gradually abated. Finally, Dictys, on a signal from his Master, released the pained boy's ankles.

Marius' hurting naked body subsequently lay still across Scyrax's lap, except for an occasional convulsive shudder. The fat man allowed the boy to rest in this position for a while before easing him round so that he was sitting on his knees with the 11 year-old's tearful head resting against his chest.

Dictys next applied salve to the cuts and abrasions on Marius' feet, legs and lips. Fortunately, the consequent temporary stinging endured by the boy, and his resultant renewed whimpering, were less in comparison to when his very sore anus had been similarly treated.

Dictys finally carefully combed Marius' silky straight golden locks, which had been neatly cut in the customary bowl style shortly before disaster had overtaken him and so currently needed no fresh trimming. However, the boy issued a few muted moans when the youth was forced to tug at a few knots that had formed in the hair because of recent neglect.

After Dictys had finished, Scyrax slipped his hand round Marius' waist, pulling him tight down into his lap whilst his fingers began to toy with the boy's shrunken cock. The fat man was happy to notice that, despite his new acquisition's recent hurt, the young immature penis immediately began to react by becoming hard once more.

"The ordeal is over now, Mariullus," Scyrax simultaneously murmured softly, "and the pain will soon disappear altogether and your bottom will completely heal. Wasn't Crastus silly in putting that hard nasty wooden plug into my little new pet. There are much better things to do with you than that, my sweet!"

Marius now instinctively wriggled closer to Scyrax, whilst a thumb rose up into his mouth. The boy was grateful to be shown some kindness after so many days of suffering, even though he was clever enough to realise that such consideration was probably being given contemptuously.

Marius recognised that Scyrax undoubtedly had no interest in his welfare apart from protecting him as a source of hopefully significant future profit. Nevertheless, the boy believed that being cared for even on such a selfish basis was better than not receiving any consideration. After all, he knew that such regard was the most a slave could expect.

Marius' bright mind did not, however, reflect on these realities for long. The boy, whilst nestling in Scyrax's lap, began to doze as soon as the fat man decided to stop playing with his little cock and consequently the excitement in his groin had subsided.

Scyrax allowed his new toy to doze in his lap for a while, despite the fact that he knew that he could not linger for much longer on the couch in the courtyard, as he had work to do. For a man in his line of business there was a lot to which he had to attend, as there was a great deal more to trading at the lucrative top end of the slaveboy market to simply buying cheap and selling dear.

Existing and new suppliers and clients had to be nurtured. Intelligence had to be gathered on events in the provinces and on the borders of the empire. For example, a revolt in Gaul, a punitive expedition against unruly Africans, a famine in Asia and the like could all present buying opportunities to the person with the expertise to exploit them.

The vagaries of fashion and taste also had to be considered and, if possible, anticipated. One year, black boys from Nubia were all the rage, whilst the next everyone was crying out for blondes from beyond the Rhine. Once acquired, the stock then had to be fed, often repaired like Marius, and be prepared for resale.

As Scyrax contemplated his workload, he looked towards Dictys, who was still standing dutifully nearby. The fat man noticed that the now naked youth was still shamelessly erect.

"When did I last allow you to cum?" Scyrax asked of Dictys, whilst referring to his proscription against boys masturbating or having sex with each other without his permission, failure to obey earning severe punishment. "Exactly one week ago, Master," the youth answered, "when you sucked me off before I did the same for you."

"Ah, yes," Scyrax commented, "I recall the event." Also remembering how important gaining frequent sexual gratification was in the lives of normal 16 year-old youths, the fat man suggested "You must therefore be very keen to be allowed to cum again, which will be why your cock is currently so prone to quick erection."

"Yes, Master, I am very keen to be allowed to cum again," Dictys confessed, having long lost his inhibitions about discussing such matters with the fat man and whilst displaying a smile in hope that his owner would now end his tormenting sexual frustration. "Well, if you're good," Scyrax subsequently responded, "I might suck you off again in a few weeks' time!"

The immediate disappearance of Dictys' hopeful smile clearly indicated to the happy Scyrax that, as he had cruelly intended, the youth was not pleased with his master's response. Nevertheless, the 16 year-old's cock did not droop in frustration but instead quivered in apparent anger.

Meanwhile, Marius slumbered fitfully on in Scyrax's lap, oblivious to the fat man's cruelty in respect of Dictys but during which he endured a nightmare in which he saw Crastus raping and strangling his siblings.

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