Chapter 212 - Rome

In the summer months, his dominus, Albanus Laevinus, often vacationed at his country villa to escape the heat and stress of the city. Laevinus was by trade a slaver, but he also owned a large country estate, worked by nearly one hundred slaves.

Laevinus was rich, one of the richest citizens of the eternal city, but he was most famous for two things: his generosity to his friends and his cruelty to his slaves. If not for the lavish gifts he showered on his associates, the elite of Rome, he might have been censured for his brutality long ago. It was well known that he had his slaves beaten, killed them when they displeased him, raped them, tortured them, and dispatched them without mercy when they were too old or worn out to work anymore. Such practices were illegal, of course, but as Laevinus liked to say, "Nothing is illegal when you own a couple magistrates!"

The boy, Apollonius, was accustomed to Laevinus's mercurial temperament. He had been Laevinus's body servant for seven years.

He was not born a slave. His father, Crispis Paullus, was a wealthy merchant when Apollonius was a boy. His father owned and operated a large shipping company, but the man had been an inveterate satyr, and he had made the mistake of cuckolding a senator. Actually, Apollonius once heard that his father had seduced the man's wife and his only daughter-- both in the same night! In retaliation, Domitianus Sacerdos, the aforementioned cuckold, had had his father assassinated, raped and killed his mother, and sold Apollonius and his two sisters into slavery.

Laevinus, who was an accomplice in the massacre, had kept Apollonius for himself. Apollonius was a beautiful young boy, slim and fair, with brilliant sapphire blue eyes, and Laevinus had a great affection for beautiful young boys, especially blonds. Domitianus had wanted the boy castrated and sent to service the legionaries in Judea, but knowing how cruel Laevinus was, knowing the fate that awaited the child in Laevinus's employ, he was perfectly content letting his friend keep the lad.

When he came for Laevinus's dinner feasts, of which there were many, Domitianus always made sure to torment the boy, the son of the man who had humiliated him so thoroughly. Curse him. Beat him. Taunt him with his family. Domitianus had raped Apollonius, too, on several occasions. The rapes had increased in frequency in last couple years, as Apollonius matured into a young man.

Apollonius was not sure who he hated the most-- his dominus, or the man who had engineered the downfall of his family. He knew only one thing: tonight, when Domitianus tried to rape him, as he most certainly would try, Apollonius was going to kill him.

He even knew what he was going to say to the man as he died.

"I, Apollonius Paullus, take your life with my blade, Domitianus, just as my father took your manhood with his cock!"

The words were as practiced as his fantasy of killing the man, only now, tonight, he had the method to see them both made real.

He knew that he would die after he struck his enemy down. He would be tortured, crucified—the standard punishment for a murderous slave-- but no torment was too high a price to see Domitianus's face contorted with shock and horror, to watch the lifeblood spurt from his wounds, to watch the light fade from his eyes. His own life was not something he would mourn too much in losing, and watching Domitianus die by his blade would be the perfect denouement to a brief and miserable existence.

Two days ago, shortly after arriving at the Villa Claudianis (the house was named after the slave trader's mother), Laevinus had dispatched Apollonius down the road to purchase some wine from a local wine seller. Laevinus's cousin, who had visited that day, had raved about how good the seller's wine was this year, and Laevinus wanted to taste it for himself.

Apollonius had trotted down the road, coins in hand, running the old fantasy of murdering Domitianus through his thoughts again and again. He had overhead his dominus talking of the dinner party he planned to throw in two days time. Laevinus was excited about some new entertainer he had hired for the occasion, a sword swallower from Athens, and had let slip that Domitianus would be among the revelers, along with a very special visitor, a physician from Thessaly named Gaius Vestallis, who was reputed to be a magician.

If the boy's murderous fantasy had been a real object, it would be polished to a high sheen with all his handling of it, but it was all that gave his life meaning anymore. If not for his desire to kill Domitianus, Apollonius would have died in despair long ago.

Apollonius had purchased two pots of wine, as he had been instructed to do. While he waited for the old man to fetch the pots, he had spied a knife sitting on a nearby shelf. He wouldn't dare steal a knife from his own household. Theft in the Villa Claudianis was always quickly discovered, and Laevinus would beat him for it, possibly even kill him, thinking Apollonius meant to betray him. He had paid the old man the two coins, and while the wine seller was turned away making change, Apollonius had snatched the unguarded weapon and secreted it in his tunic. He took the two pots of wine and returned to the villa, so excited his body wouldn't stop trembling all day.

He had hidden the weapon beneath a loose stone in his quarters, and that night, after a couple of the older house slaves had taken their pleasure of him, he took the knife out and ran his fingers over the blade.

"I, Apollonius Paullus, take your life with my blade, Domitianus, just as my father took your manhood with his cock!"

He pictured Domitianus's crude, ugly face moving from cruel lust to horror before sagging, finally, into despair. He pictured the man's throat opening in a ghastly red grin, the blood coursing down his chest in great spurting freshets. Apollonius meant to cut the man's throat, just as Domitianus had cut his mother's throat.

The senator had made them all watch-- husband, son, daughters—as he raped her, then drew his dagger across her neck. His mother's blood had fanned across the floor, leaping four, five feet from the severed arteries. He imagined Domitianus's blood jumping out of him the same way, flying up into his face, hot and wet. The thought of his enemy's blood squirting into his face was disturbingly sexual.

But where could he hide the weapon? The tunic the boy wore was too scanty to conceal the knife. And then he had realized where he was going to have to hide it, and the realization had a certain poetic symmetry. Justice, when it came for Domitianus, would issue from another Paullus cock!

The morning of the dinner feast, he arose early and used strips of cloth, which he had cut from the edge of his sheet, to secure the blade to the underside of his penis. Fortunately, he was very well endowed, and the blade of the knife extended only a couple inches past the tip of his foreskin. He practiced walking around his cell to make certain the blade wouldn't fall free, and found himself growing aroused by the gentle tug of its weight. Later, as he attended to his duties, he felt it swinging there between his thighs, and it was all he could do to remain in a flaccid state. Imagine Laevinus's shock if it should suddenly spring erect!

"What's so funny?" Laevinus demanded, seeing the boy smile.

The boy rarely smiled. It made him suspicious.

Laevinus was a great fat man with porcine features and short cropped rusty red hair. He was reclining on the terrace, watching the slaves labor in the olive orchard below. They were all bald today, even the women, their skulls blistered by the late summer sun. Laevinus had ordered them shorn a few days ago, shortly after arriving at the villa. The hair would be sold to a wigmaker in Rome. It was a common practice at the Villa Claudianis.

"Apologies, dominus," Apollonius said quickly. "It is a beautiful day."

"It is hot and sticky and I hate it," Laevinus snarled, dismissing the boy with a wave. After Apollonius scurried away, Laevinus lifted his cup and sniffed the wine the lad had poured for him, afraid the boy had poisoned it.

The guests began to arrive at midday, all the familiar and hated faces. Laevinus's cousin, Faustus, a drunkard and fool. The publicanus Decimus Structus, who was a loud and demanding man. General Celsus Unimanus, his vain wife Drusa and her prancing hairdresser Remus. The patrician Caius Tudtanis. The disgraced philosopher Soranus, whose appetite for young boys had brought shame to his influential family.

Soranus's arrival was a particularly unwelcome sight. The man was a pariah in Roman society, due to his proclivity for buggery, but he was always invited to Laevinus's dinner parties, mainly because he was stupendously hilarious. Even Apollonius had to admit the man's wit was without equal. He just had to stay out of the old toad's reach. Soranus was a grabby bastard.

They all showed up several hours before the party was scheduled to commence, all but Domitianus, and the magician his dominus was so eager to meet.

The boy was afraid his enemy had canceled. It would not be without precedent. The senator was a very important man. But he overhead General Unimanus tell Laevinus that Domitianus would join them later that evening, along with the physician from Thessaly. Domitianus had been delayed but still planned to attend Laevinus's party.

"That's a relief, Celsus," his dominus said. "I've heard wild tales about this physician. I want to see if they're true." He leaned toward the soldier and said in a conspiratorial tone, "They say he is a magician, and that he is able to divine the future!"

The general scoffed at that, but the thought worried Apollonius the rest of the afternoon. What if the Thessalonian was truly a magician? What if he should discern the boy's intents?

Shortly after sundown, Domitianus arrived with his mysterious new companion, the physician from Thessaly. Apollonius, standing in the kitchen doorway, watched the two as they strode inside. Domitianus was a tall, rugged, stocky man, his once powerful physique gone slightly to fat, but the boy was especially struck by his hated enemy's cohort.

The physician, Gaius Vestallis—at least, that's who he assumed the man was—was obviously a foreigner. He was dressed in the Greek manner, in an unusual sort of heavily embroidered chiton and cloak. He had long, flowing brown hair, like a woman, and an unshaven face. He also had very smooth, pale flesh, as if he powdered his skin, and his eyes seemed to catch the light and glimmer when he chanced to look in Apollonius's direction, like they were not eyes at all but glinting glass baubles.

He is most certainly a magician, Apollonius thought, and a little shiver passed through his body. When the physician from Thessaly glanced in his direction, he had the distinct impression that the man was peering into his soul.

What if he is? Apollonius suddenly thought, his stomach twisting into a knot. What if he sees your plan in your thoughts, exposes you before you can kill Domitianus?

He almost lost his nerve, almost retreated to his chamber and removed the dagger from his cock.

No! Be brave, Apollonius! he said to himself. Remember what he did to your father! Remember how he killed your mother!

He stood rooted to the spot as the latecomers passed, accompanied by one of the older house servants. Both men glanced at the boy as they passed. Domitianus sneered and squeezed his groin. The magician nodded his head very faintly and grinned, exposing a pair of especially long and sharp-looking eyeteeth.

Apollonius gaped at the physician, and the foreigner, unseen by his companion, raised a finger to his lips.

His master's dinner party proceeded along the usual trajectory. The men gathered in the triclinium, lying recumbent on three wide couches placed in a U-shape around the table. Servants brought in course after course while Apollonius kept their cups full and a second slave boy named Blandus entertained them with the lute. The men got louder and more raucous as the evening wore on. They ate and drank until their stomachs could hold no more, then vomited into bowls so they could continue with their feast. Some of the men didn't even bother to vomit into the bowls. They simply craned their heads forward and puked onto the floor.

Januarius, the eldest of the house servants, had the repugnant duty of mopping up the stinking vomitus. Just for laughs, Soranus vomited onto Januarius, too. He called for another slave to come clean the vomit off the vomit collector, and the men roared with laughter.

All but the magician.

The foreigner had feasted like the others, though he seemed to make use of the vomit bowls a little more often than the rest. He also seemed quite unaffected by the wine that he had drunk. He spoke little, and he watched the other revelers intensely, as if he were sizing them up. When Apollonius's dominus questioned the man about the rumors he had heard, Gaius Vestallis claimed the gossip was untrue.

"Alas, I am but a simple physician from Thessaly," he said. "Those rumors, I would hazard to guess, originated with my colleagues. There is no better way to promote your own interests than to slander the reputation of your rivals."

"Too true!" Laevinus laughed, but he seemed disappointed.

Laevinus called for the sword swallower, who entertained the diners with his uncommon skill, tipping back his head and gliding one long blade after another down his gullet. He was a handsome young man and practiced his talent in the nude. "So there is no suspicion of trickery," he explained-- a disingenuous claim, Apollonius suspected. Decimus, the tax collector, asked the lad how much it would cost to have the performer swallow his cock in like manner. The men roared with laughter again, but the sword swallower quoted a price, and Decimus escorted the lad from the chamber, to much laughter and good natured catcalls.

General Unimanus entertained the group with stories about Nero's excesses. The old soldier had attended a great many of the emperor's infamous feasts. He told how Nero had burned Christians at the stake to illuminate his gardens. He told them of the emperor's orgies, and of his fabled revolving dining room.

"The dining rooms had ceilings of fretted ivory," he said, "and these panels would slide back and let fall a magnificent rain of flower petals onto his guests! At other times, the Emperor dressed himself in the skin of an animal. He would lock himself in a cage in which the most beautiful men and women were tethered to posts, and then he would ravage them in turn, roaring like a beast. It was all quite entertaining, though his poetry recitals could sometimes feel interminable."

Talk of Nero's debauchery aroused Laevinus's guests further. It wasn't long before the men were grabbing at the serving girls. The slave girls struggled a little for show—just enough to excite their assailants—but they knew better than to frustrate the drunken men, and submitted with practiced distress to their lust.

Unimanus's wife retired in disgust.

"Brutes!" she sniffed, swishing from the chamber.

Laevinus called for more wine, waving his cup in the air. Domitianus, reclining beside Laevinus, raised his cup too, leering at the boy.

"Yes, more wine!" Domitianus bawled.

Now comes the moment to claim your just revenge, Apollonius thought.

Several times throughout the evening Domitianus had exposed himself to the lad, lifting up the hem of his tunic to flash his cock and balls. His intent was not to entice the boy. He meant to frighten him with the prospect of rape, but Apollonius wanted Domitianus to try it. He wanted his enemy to seize him, wanted the senator to pull him close. As the night wore on and he did not make his play, Apollonius had grown more and more impatient. He had decided he would slosh some wine upon the man, and when he yanked the slave boy near, meaning to punish him for his clumsiness, Apollonius would draw his dagger from beneath his tunic and give the man a bloody cunt right beneath his chin.

He moved forward, raising the wine pitcher. In his mind, he brought the words, long practiced, to his lips: "I, Apollonius Paullus, take your life with my blade, Domitianus, just as my father took your manhood with his cock!"

Before he could carry out his plan, a pair of cold and powerful hands seized him from behind. He yelped as the strange man from Thessaly bore him onto his lap. He struggled for a moment, trying to wriggle from the foreigner's embrace, then froze as one of those icy hands slipped beneath his tunic.

"Abandon your plot," the magician whispered in his ear, fumbling with the boy's cock. He disarmed Apollonius. An instant later, the weapon was concealed in his clothing. "Abide with me, and I will help you to have your revenge," he hissed.

Apollonius nodded, and the tall foreigner rose with a triumphant shout, bearing the boy aloft. "Oho! Look what tender peach just fell into my lap! I might be wrong, but I think the boy likes me, Laevinus. With your leave, I would make use of your houseboy. It will only take a moment."

Apollonius's dominus nodded his assent, but he did not look happy about it. After the physician had dismissed the rumors about him, Laevinus had lost interest in the man, seemed more annoyed by him than anything else.

The foreigner strode from the triclinium with the boy.

The strange man was immensely strong, and his flesh was as cold as ice. He carried the lad into the passageway, found his way into an unused bedroom.

Putting the boy down on the bed, Gaius Vestallis retrieved the dagger from his cloak. "Who were you planning to murder with this blade?" he asked. "Your dominus? Or my friend Domitianus?" His pale flesh was strangely luminous in the dark, his eyes too bright in the gloom.

"Domitianus," Apollonius whispered. His throat tried to squeeze shut when he spoke, he was so frightened.

"I would ask you why, but I am sure you have your reasons. I plan to kill the man myself. Tonight. Him and all of his associates."

He seemed amused.

Apollonius gaped. "All of them? Even Laevinus?"

"Even your master."

Apollonius frowned. Leaning toward the stranger, he asked, "Who are you, truly?"

"I am the enemy of all who mistreat their slaves," the foreigner answered, his eyes darkening. "Bad enough that one man should own another, but to abuse them, rape them, murder them with impunity! That I cannot abide! These Roman scum are repellent to me, and I intend to send them to hell."

"How did you know what I was planning to do?" Apollonius asked.

"I will let you in on a little secret, if you promise to keep it to yourself."

The boy nodded.

"You can never tell a soul!"

Again, the boy nodded.

"I am a magician," the foreigner said, and then he grinned broadly, showing his fangs in full. They were long and curved and wolf-like. Apollonius nearly wet himself at the sight of them, had to squeeze his thighs together to keep his bladder from spilling.

"Would you like to come with me tonight, after I have sent your master and his associates to their right reward?"

"Where?"

"I own a lovely villa in Pompeii. I haven't lived there in several years, but it is a beautiful house, and Pompeii is a very exciting city to live in. I will not be able to stay in Rome, not after tonight. Too many people have seen me in the company of Domitianus."

"Why do you want me to go with you?" Apollonius asked, thinking the magician wanted him for sex. It was always about sex with the grown ups of his world. Money, sex, or domination. Even the older slave men preyed upon the younger.

The magician's face softened for an instant. "You remind me of my son," he said. The expression of kindness faded quickly away, like water spilt onto the sunbaked earth. What remained was almost too frightening to look at. "I will allow you to have your revenge on Domitianus. Only wait here until I come to fetch you. Will you do that?"

Apollonius nodded, and the magician turned and stalked away. His cloak snapped as he vanished into the corridor.

Apollonius slid down from the bed and crouched beside the doorway. He listened in the dark as the magician returned to the triclinium. He heard the magician say something about the boy needing to rest after the fucking he had given him, and the others laughed. And then the strange man, the magician, yelled, "More wine!"

He waited for what felt like hours. The debauch in the dining room finally began to wind down. At last, in the still hours of the morning, as the twittering of birds began to drift in through the shutters, he heard a sharp cry. A dish broke with a crash, and then there came another despairing howl. A squawk. A curse. Someone ran, bare fleet slapping on the tiled floor of the corridor, and then a resounding thud, and a terrible slurping sound, just a short distance away.

The slurping sound faded.

"What is your name, boy?" the magician asked, on the other side of the wall.

"Apollonius," the boy answered. "Apollonius Paullus."

"Come, Apollonius. Your vengeance awaits."

The boy rose and stepped into the corridor. Soranus lay in the passage, his corpulent flesh bled white as bleached bone. His eyes, bulging in terror, stared lifelessly at the ceiling.

"He was a rapist and murderer of children," the magician said, putting a hand on Apollonius's shoulder. The magician's lower face was smeared with some dark fluid. Apollonius couldn't tell what it was in the shadows, but the smell of blood was overpowering.

He led the boy down the corridor to the triclinium. The dining room looked as if a titan had lifted the room and rattled it. The table was overturned, the couches knocked askew. Blood and wine and vomit were strewn across the walls and puddled on the floor. Broken dishes. Sprawling bodies. Laevinus leaned against the wall, throat torn out, hands lying limp in his lap. General Unimanus was prone on one of the couches, arms thrown out to his sides, neck broken. Remus, the hairdresser, who liked to pinch, lay face down in a pool of his own blood. They were all dead, all but Domitianus, who was huddled in the corner of the room.

The magician placed the knife in his hand.

"I will do it if you cannot," he said gently.

Apollonius thought of his mother. Saw her crying as Domitianus raped her. Saw her blood jet across the floor.

"I can do it," he said.

Domitianus rolled over as Apollonius approached, eyes wide, arms strangely limp. His legs were twisted unnaturally. The magician had broken the man's limbs, had rendered his enemy helpless.

"No, don't do it, boy!" the senator pleaded, tears welling up in his eyes. Domitianus tried to scramble away but his arms and legs just flopped. A foul smell rose from his thighs. He had shit himself, Apollonius realized.

The boy smiled. "I, Apollonius Paullus, take your life with my blade, Domitianus," he said, "just as my father took your manhood with his cock!" Then he gripped the man's curly gray hair and bent his head back. Domitianus screamed until the boy sawed through his larynx.

Apollonius released his head and Domitianus slumped back, twitching at his feet. He looked down at the man, watched the life fade from his eyes.

It wasn't enough.

He hiked up the front of his tunic. "Drink Paullus piss, cuckold," Apollonius snarled. He pissed into the senator's gaping mouth until the frothy fluid overflowed and coursed across his face.

He turned to see the house slaves cowering in the doorway. The magician saw them to. "I have killed your dominus," he addressed them, one hand on Apollonius's shoulder. "Run, if you yearn to be free. I wish I could take you all with me, but I cannot. If you are too afraid to run, then stay, and tell the magistrates that it was I, the magician Gaius Vestallis of Thessaly, who sent these Roman pigs to Hades!"

And then he lifted the boy into his arms and flew from the Villa Claudianis.