Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:03:45 -0500 From: George Gauthier Subject: Antebellum Antebellum by GGDC Author's Note: This is a tale of a strange young man and those he encounters in the antebellum South, just before the American Civil War. It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body, of consensual and non-consensual sexual activity between adult males, the youngest of whom is eighteen years old, though reference is made to his enslavement by the Roman Republic and his service as a catamite at age fourteen during his true youth, in the first century B.C. The climax features scenes with heavy bondage, and physical and sexual abuse. If any of this would offend a reader, read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever jurisdiction that applies. It is offered for entertainment. It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it. If it manages to both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its aim. It is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead. This is one of my few stories told in the first person. It just seemed natural to tell it that way. I actually tried writing in the third person, in the 'omniscient observer' style, and it just didn't work. I am not sure why. This is a self contained tale, though with an immortal protagonist and two thousand years of history to play with, I could do others. Chapter 1. New Orleans Their lookout never saw me coming before I jabbed my sturdy ash walking stick into his throat silencing him and crushing his windpipe. I eased the thug to the ground so his fall would not alert the rest of the gang as he jerked in his death throes. They were intent on their mark anyway, a young man clearly a bit drunk, stumbling, and lost in the alleyways of New Orleans. You could hear the clop of horses on the main road along the river but muffled by the mist and fog of a spring night. I had last been in this city more than forty years ago, before Andrew Jackson's successful defense of the town against the British in 1815. I had followed the young man from the gambling den where he had lost all the money in his pockets to a couple of cardsharps. None of my business, so I had not called them on it. They were actually pretty good, but I could spot their technique easily enough. I usually did not interfere in the affairs of mortals, but I was lonely and the youth was comely. Like me he was slender and slightly built but a little taller and with red hair to my spun gold. He was fair with a very light sprinkling of freckles while I was bronzed from five years at sea in the South American trade. He was very young, not over twenty, while I was equally youthful but not young. I certainly looked his age, but the centuries lay heavily on my soul. Truth is I wanted a friend, wanted one badly. The saddest thing about never growing older is that you must eventually lose everyone you ever loved or befriended. Gods know many of them were more worthy of my gift than I. Not that I am a bad person, as I see it, but after twenty centuries I have much blood on my hands. I have killed in self-defense or in war many times, but I have also taken life pre-emptively when my path crossed that of insufferable villains who preyed on others but were no threat to me personally. I did this as much from distaste as from philanthropy. Also, maybe as payment to the universe or whatever gods may exist for my unexplained immortality. There was the rest of the gang, five in all. Knives drawn, they had cornered young Eduard DeLisle who had finally realized his danger and put his back to the wall, holding his fists up in a boxing stance. He was game enough but fists would not be effective against blades. Time to put aside the walking stick. I drew the short swords I preferred for dispatching enemies quietly. I left my revolver in its shoulder holster and a hold-out derringer in my vest. Nor did I fling the throwing knife at the back of my neck. I waded into the fight without calling out a challenge. In a fight like this surprise counts for much. I was upon them before they realized they were the prey, not young DeLisle. Two died with my blades in their backs and a third from a slash to his throat. The last two spun to face me and tried to pull their guns, the need for silence gone, but their intended victim chimed in with punches to their kidneys that left them stunned long enough for me to drive my blades under their ribs into their hearts. I went over and stabbed each of the gang of cutthroats to make sure he was dead. I don't like to leave witnesses. Too bad cold steel is such a messy way to kill. My fine evening coat was ruined with blood stains that would never wash out. I had to get the tipsy aristocrat and myself to my townhouse. It was not far away, but there were still several streets to cross. Suddenly I realized I had witnesses after all. More riff-raff, but this trio hung back, not interested in a confrontation. I realized I could use them for my purposes. "Twenty dollars a man if you get rid of these bodies in the river and don't ask questions." I prefer to avoid entanglements with the authorities, even though I had acted within the law. A nod from the leader sealed the deal. "I am Jean Dupuy", he said, as I dropped three gold pieces into his hand. "We are at your service, sir, should you ever need us again. I never had any use for those backstabbers anyway." I wondered if he had ever done any backstabbing himself, but merely asked for a way to contact them if the need arose. He mentioned a wharf-side tavern. It is always a good idea in a new city to make contact early with the criminal underworld. Sometimes you need discreet agents, people with few scruples, as in this current business. I threw them my bloody coat and told them to burn it. DeLisle had sobered up fast. I told him what our strategy would be then gave him my revolver to carry under this coat. "If anyone sees us, I'm the drunk and you are helping me home." Simple but effective. We got to my townhouse in the French Quarter without incident. The one police patrol we encountered readily accepted our pretense. We did not talk on the way other than for directions. My major domo Diego let us in. I kept a small establishment: only Diego, the Spanish cook and his two nephews lived in the house. The maids lived elsewhere. We went upstairs to my changing room, and I threw off my shirt and washed the blood off my hands and arms. The way young Eduard watched me, I knew he felt some attraction too, but was he consciously aware of his own inclinations? Even though I am shorter than many men of this age and slight of build, I do present a pleasing appearance, though admittedly I am pretty rather than handsome. I had stopped growing at seventeen so had never attained my adult musculature. Only five and one half feet tall (165 cm), my frame carried only 122 pounds (56 kg), though I had a strong upper storey with a wiry musculature. Perhaps my young friend noticed the unusual lack of hair on my fore arms and in my pits or how the bronze tint of my skin promised to continue below the low waistband of my trousers, as indeed it did. Aboard my own ship at sea in the tropics I was habitually naked. Yes, I saw him gulp there. One of us then. Good. It's not just that I was horny. I could rent a boy in a city like this, where any vice may be accommodated. Yes, my inclinations were just as strong as in my true youth, but time and experience bring perspective and calculation. I had no need to rush things. Even if we never fully consummated our relationship, I wanted this young man's friendship. I had been impressed at the gambling den that he would not sign a promissory note so he could throw good money after bad when he lost his ready funds in the fixed game. Nor did he protest uselessly, though he must have suspected he had been cheated. He had turned down more wine twice, trying to keep his wits about him. That spoke well of his character as did the feisty way he confronted his stalkers and then aided me in defeating them. I don't like weaklings, and I don't mean physically weak either. "I don't even know your name, Monsieur," he began. "I'm Alexandre Moreau. Please call me Alex. And I already know you are Eduard DeLisle." "Just Eduard then," he smiled. His father owned a large cotton plantation near Natchez up the river. Eduard had come to town on business. His father did not like idlers and expected his son to take an active part in their business affairs including minding their investments in the new railroads. Good. I don't like idlers either, especially spoiled aristocrats. I owned and ran a shipping business on the river with steamboats based here in New Orleans, at St. Louis, and up the Ohio at Pittsburgh. We chatted a bit and got each other's measure. We both liked what we saw and not just physically. This boded well for a lasting friendship. However, it was late and we really needed our rest. Unfortunately, the house was not yet fully furnished. I seldom entertained and the guest rooms were just bare walls. Still the bed was large and both of us were small. Why not just share, as likely Eduard had with siblings when he was a youngster. The red head agreed taking off his outer garments, stripping down to linen drawers that reached almost to the knee then took one side of the bed. I deliberately took my time getting ready, so that he could see me in the light of the oil lamp as I stripped naked. Yes, the bronze tint did continue all the way to my ankles, and no there wasn't any body hair on my lower limbs either or even at the fork of my legs. After years of plucking during Roman times, my body hair had finally stopped sprouting. I almost laughed as I saw his eyes grow wide at my audacious nudity. I blew out the lamp but went to open the blinds. I knew the moonlight would cast interesting highlights on my slender form. Let him carry that sight into his dreams this night. I lay next to him, a hand's breadth apart with only a light sheet covering me from the waist down. The sheet could not conceal his arousal, but I was far too polite to notice. We talked briefly a bit more. I did want him to relax. I certainly was not going to force myself on him or to force the situation. We drifted off into slumber. The next morning his face was on the pillow next to mine with a slender leg thrown over my own. His knee was actually touching my manhood. At this time of the morning, we were both aroused and his erection had poked through the slot in the front of his drawers. I ran my finger along his shaft. The head had emerged from its foreskin and a clear drop of fluid glistened on the tip. I took a taste then breathed in deep to absorb the smell of this lovely boy next to me. Suddenly his eyes flew open, and he looked about wildly. Memory of last night's events provided the explanation for waking up in a strange bed next to a naked young man his own age. Suddenly he look frightened. "We didn't... I mean you and I, uh...We're both..." "Erect? Yes, doesn't that happen most mornings?" I let him off easy, not having to fully articulate his real question. Had we had sex last night, two males together? No we had not, but I was sure now that he wanted it, and at some point, he would get his wish, ours really. Let him come around to it in time, as he got to know me better. I suggested we freshen up before breakfast. He had only a little fuzz on his face, soon dealt with, and I was beardless. Afterwards I took him downstairs to my outdoor shower in the garden. Quite ingenious, I thought. It was my own invention. (I am forever tinkering away.). A windmill shaped liked an egg beater drove a pump that lifted water to a dark flat tank on the roof for the sun to warm it. The volume was enough to keep it warm overnight. Just pull on a chain to release the water. There was a second shaded tank for cool water. Why not shower together this first time. I smiled to see his reluctance to take off his drawers; he even wanted to bathe with them on, but I would not be denied. I slid them off his narrow hips and let them fall to the wet stones. I stepped on the cloth and shoved him just hard enough to make him step back out of the leg holes. Finally I hooked the drawers with a toe and kicked them aside. No point wearing yesterday's linen. I would provide a replacement pair. Now I had a chance to see him fully nude. He did have small tufts of hair in his arm pits and a small bush around his manhood, but that was almost all. Like many red heads, his peaches and cream skin had only the lightest of dustings on his calves and forearms. I was pleased to see that his manhood, though not erect had plumped up a bit and lifted off his ball sac. Not wanting to press him too far, I intended to scrub just his back, but I went further and put my hand on his belly as I sponged his rump. He trembled deliciously as I stroked his cleavage with a finger then shifted downwards to the safer region of his legs. Afterwards, I asked him to do the same for me. Yes, please scrub all my back, down to the cleavage please and below just like I had done for him. The boy was nervous and twice dropped the sponge. I could not resist the temptation and turned so that, as he knelt down to retrieve it, he had a close look at the fork of my legs. His gulp and quick embarrassed glance told of his excitement. I was in no hurry. A long seduction is just what both of us needed. A quick consummation would spoil my plans for this delightfully innocent young man. Also, I wanted it to be his idea too. I never forced things on my partners. Having been enslaved as a youth myself, and on several occasions since, I valued personal autonomy. Chapter 2. The Five Parts of Gaul Despite what Julius Caesar later wrote, Gaul was really divided into five parts: the three he conquered and the two already under Roman control, the base areas for conquest where he was the Roman proconsul or governor. He really should have written that the 'rest of Gaul is divided into three parts.' Just a year or so before Caesar's birth around 100 BC Germanic tribes erupted into Roman Gaul. The talented general Marius defeated our allies the Teutons in Trans-Alpine Gaul, modern day Provence in France. My own people, the Cimbri, met defeat in what today is northern Italy but was then called Cis-Alpine Gaul, meaning Gaul on this side of the Alps, the Italian side. Cisalpine Gaul, between the Alps and the Apennines was where my people were cut to pieces. We lost two thirds of our entire force of some 100,000. The rest were enslaved. The Teutons were annihilated entirely. I was captured with my uncle two days after the big battle. We were trying to get back through the Brenner Pass to German lands, but it was no good. My uncle's leg wound, though not too bad, slowed us down. I helped him as best I could, letting him lean on me, but, at fourteen, I was fairly small. Soldiers cornered us in some boulders. We prepared to sell out lives dearly. The tribune in charge of the soldiers had a different idea. He called on my uncle to surrender. My uncle had enough of the Roman speech to comprehend him. Yes we would be enslaved but not abused. He wanted to spare the lives of his own soldiers and gain two valuable slaves. So many potential slaves had been killed already. Also, after two days his men had lost the edge of their blood lust. We would not be killed outright. We talked it over. My uncle was a blacksmith. Indeed he had forged both our swords. He had a valuable skill. That meant he could probably not be sent to the galleys or the mines. I too would also avoid such service. With my physical beauty, I probably would become some Roman's catamite. Could I accept such a fate and hope for better days in the future. Aside from sexual servitude, the life might even be pleasant. Better than death in this forsaken place in the foothills of the Alps. So we surrendered. The Roman tribune Quintus Caecilius Metellus watched as we threw down weapons, armor, and clothing. Those taken prisoners were always stripped naked. Everything they owned now belonged to their captors, especially their own persons. The Romans were satisfied. None of them had to brave the sword of a man who had nothing to lose. I excited much comment with my sun gold hair and green eyes and my slender boyish frame. They especially liked my pert ass. True to his word, the tribune did not abuse us. He took us back to camp and gave my uncle and me a chance to say our farewells. My uncle went to the slave pens. I never saw him again. I stayed with the tribune. As an initiation into sexual relations between males, my time with the tribune could certainly have been worse. Still, at fourteen, boys are fumbling with their sexuality and look only to others their own age as potential partners. If the notion of sex with an adult was most unwelcome, the practice of anal sex was something even harder for me to accept, but I had no choice. My pain, my feelings of humiliation and degradation were completely beside the point. Fundamentally he was the free man, a Roman officer, and my owner, and I was a slave boy, a chattel, a thing rather than a person. A Roman could do just about anything with his slave except maybe butcher him for the table. I had to overcome my reluctance and pretend I was a willing participant, so my master could take his pleasure fully of me. He was a demanding but not a cruel lover, not one of those who enjoyed inflicting pain or humiliation for its own sake, though he was a strict disciplinarian of both slaves and soldiers. I often felt the strap or the cane on my rump for any infraction or lack of attention to my duties as his body slave. It pleased him to keep me naked as much as the weather would allow and sometimes more. I remember once being sent to fetch a bucket of water out of a stream when I had to march through snow halfway to my knees and then break the ice in the stream. Fortunately the wind was still and the sun bright, though the snowballs thrown by his soldiers were cold. In the summer I could be seen marching in his train, a small lad: slender and naked, bare hide streaked with the dust of the march, yoked to a handcart, while soldiers made rough jests at my expense. At least he never gave me to them. In time I was sold on to an owner in Transalpine Gaul in what would later be the French Riviera. He used me for his pleasure and shared me with his friends, but otherwise my existence was quite tolerable except for the infibulation of my foreskin that trapped the head of my cock in its fleshy sheath. Any pleasure I derived from sexual acts would have to be through my two boy holes. It was only when I neared sixteen that anal sex became pleasurable for me. As it still is. Even kind masters cannot make slavery anything less than compulsion. Despite my wealth over many centuries, I have never owned a slave, and I never will. How I eventually freed myself and came to wealth and privilege, I will leave for another time. Chapter 3. Growing Closer Eduard and I had really hit it off even if the shower scene had embarrassed him a little. It was the first time we had really put hands to each other's naked bodies. We sat down to a small table in the yard for breakfast. He had wrapped a towel around his hips, while I stayed nude. The morning sun felt good and quickly dried us off. We had quite a nice chat as one of the cook's nephews served us. I saw Eduard's unspoken question at the sight of my serving boy of some fifteen years. I shook my head. No. He just worked here. Nothing untoward at all, other than his host's nudity. We chatted a bit more about his family and books he had read recently. Good, he like books too. I just knew this would be a marvelous seduction, something my Eduard would remember for the rest of his life. We agreed to meet for lunch near my offices along the levee. One of my boats was unloading today. Again we had a pleasant time, and let's meet for dinner and take in a musical recital at a theater. So it went over the next three weeks. We met often. We learned about each other. He stayed over a few nights. Each time we became more intimate physically. He did not demur when I lay beside him and spooned myself to his back and backside. He still wore those linen drawers but he could certainly feel my excitement poking his cleavage through the thin cloth, which clung to every curve of his rump pasted by his sweat and mine. At least he let me reach around in front and free his own erection and stroke it languidly till we fell asleep, hoping for, but not daring to ask me to bring him to an orgasm. The next morning I woke him with a kiss on his lips. His eyes opened wide with delight. I kept kissing him: his face, his chin, his nipples and down his chest. I swirled my tongue in his navel and tugged on his shorts. Obediently, he lifted his ass long enough for me to sweep his only garment down to and off his ankles. He sighed in acceptance. Now he was stripped, defenseless, and ready. He could deny me nothing. He reached up and grabbed the headboard, as if stretched in bondage on the rack. He was excited by what he hoped would happen but admitted that, though he had heard about it, no one had ever taken his manhood into his mouth. I licked his glans, tugging on the flange and poking my tongue at his piss slit, making him shudder as he closed his eyes and he gasped a plea. "Oh yes, please." "Pay attention," I admonished. "You will be tested on this later." Surprise and delight danced in his beautiful blue eyes. "Promise?" "Definitely, but for now lean back and learn from a master." He had a long ivory member, smooth not gnarly with veins, very like my own and truthfully a little longer. It took both my small hands to cover him and even then not all of him. No one had ever played with him as I did that morning. No one gives better head than another male and I had two millennia of practice. As I licked him, his smooth cock started to plump up, losing its curvature, straightening and lengthening as the head, the only part of him hidden from view, emerged from the foreskin, to point toward the belly button. Then the cock lifted completely off the boy's belly, cantilevered out from the root, rigid but dipping rhythmically with the throb and beat of his heart, all the time leaking a clear fluid which spread in a limpid pool on his belly. My hands and lips now caressed this exquisite boy, stroking the length of his legs, sliding along his flanks, delving between his thighs into his crack making love with my hands but touching the boy's proud cock only with my lips and tongue. I swallowed him to the root, snuffling in his wiry bush, sucking, bobbing my head up and down its length then pulled off just in time. The ball sac pulled tight against the fork of the boy's legs, its globularity in contrast to the cylindrical column of the engorged member. The head purpled, its tiny lips spreading open. Abruptly, with only a quick intake of breath and a tightening around the boy's half-closed eyes, his proud cock engorged beyond its previous impressive girth and began spurting and spitting his white seed onto his chest. Even after six strong spurts, the gism continued to drain from the still tumescent shaft but now in a slow flow, like a lazy river, emptying into and collecting as a pool in the hollow of the belly. I used the tip of my finger to gather some of his chrism and brought it to my lips and then to his. I lapped some of it up and took him back into my mouth, sucking and tugging on a cock that the moment before has spit his essence onto his belly. He whimpered begging me to stop. It felt so good, it hurt. He shuddered as I teased his softening member, belly twitching as he practically sobbed with pleasure. I was happy too. I had so wanted his first experience to be memorable. Later I did indeed test him on his lesson for the day. He proved to be an apt pupil, enthusiasm making up for lack of technique. All in good time. The next day before he slipped into bed with me, he went to the window, pulled off the linen drawers and tossed them out. He wanted to spend his time with me just as I was, entirely naked. On impulse he threw the rest of his clothes out the window. There. What a delight he was. Of course, his own lessons took some time. His gag reflex had to be trained to allow passage of a firm column where only softness had ever passed. Still he learned fast to use his tongue and lips on cock and balls. I had to laugh as he took both my spheres in his mouth looking like a deranged chipmunk. Yes, we would train his throat first saving his ass for later. It was just a matter of time, and I was patient with my delightful new friend. One time between bouts, he asked about my past. I spun him a plausible tale of a second son of a good family fallen on hard times who nevertheless made good in the New World. In a sense it was even true. He told me more of his situation. That he too was a second son. Robert would inherit the plantation. Eduard would be provided for out of the his father's holdings in railroads and sawmills, and that iron mill starting up in Birmingham. In two months he had to return to Natchez for a long stay. Could I come with him as his guest. A long separation would be intolerable. I agreed. I wanted him close. So far we had not yet gone to the final stage. I wanted to let his desire build up, so that the initial pain would seem like an initiation rite, more a welcome rite of passage than the embarrassing and painful first time experience many boys suffer through. I started stretching him with my thumbs and inserting my fingers, getting him used to the idea that his anus was a sexual organ to pleasure another male. I encouraged him to do the same with me. Just because I was so much more experienced didn't mean that I did not enjoy being penetrated myself. I liked my sex partners to reciprocate and to be physically like me, a youth just turning into a man rather than the large domineering masculine type with bulging muscles. I preferred a pretty boy for a lover, an equal, not a domineering master. I let him take me first so he would know how good a cock can feel in there. He learned that, with practice, the inner muscles can squeeze, grip, and tease, milking a cock before and even after ejaculation, bringing his lover to the very peak of ecstasy. Then it was my turn. I had him sit astride my hips face to face. That left him in control of the penetration. He could go as fast or slow as he wished, get used to the idea that another male was penetrating his most intimate orifice. The posture let me watch the embarrassed but hungry look on his innocent face and the flexing of his thighs as he lifted his hips and let them fall as he impaled himself in the age old dance of love and lust between two males. His abdominal and chest muscles flexed with his movements and heavy breathing, as sweat ran down his belly. He was a delight to behold. He came first, the sudden clutching of my own cock setting me off too. I loved the look he got on his face, half smile and half grimace as his passion erupted between us, coating us both with his masculine essence. Then he leaned forward gasping while we kissed as I licked the salty sweat from his cheeks and chin. I was pleased not only for myself but because I had brought so much pleasure to a boy who had till now denied his own longings. I could never get enough of his boyish good looks. At nineteen, he was just the match for the twenty years that I claimed for myself. A young looking twenty, true, but I needed to be taken seriously in business too, and teenagers are not. In time we explored each other in all the ways that two healthy and athletic males can. Not that we spent all our time in bed or at the theatre or around town. I liked the outdoors. We often took the air as we walked around the town seeing the public buildings, the gardens, the carved monuments in the marble monuments in cemeteries where no one could be buried in the earth because of the high water table. We went riding frequently. Eduard sat a horse very well. We liked to ride out into the country to a little place I owned where we could disport ourselves casually. The unpretentious house had a small pond behind a low earthen dam where we swam and sunned ourselves, maybe reading a book or simply chatting idly. Needless to say this was long before the invention of swimsuits in the twentieth century. Bathing necessarily meant nude bathing. In time Eduard felt more comfortable with casual nudity, spending an entire weekend naked, not minding the presence of a middle aged caretaker who watched the property for me. Just a rustic retreat, though I did rent out the small acreage to a local farmer who grew vegetables for restaurants and markets in the city. Sometimes we explored the bayous, poling and paddling a shallow draft boat through the slow moving waters. I liked to strip down to a skimpy loincloth and encouraged my lover to do the same. The bugs didn't bother us thanks to a concoction of mine that deterred them from even landing on our skin, much less biting, though they did buzz annoyingly. If we found a nice pool, I checked around for alligators, then we stipped entirely and plunged in. Under my tutelage Eduard's swimming technique improved at least as much as his love making. We got back into the boat but stayed naked until we approached civilization. He had asked about all the weaponry I habitually carried and why I was always practicing. It was constant practice over centuries that had given me a skill with weapons that few could match. I was a dead shot with pistol or rifle. I usually carried two short swords, a walking stick, a throwing knife, and often a sling with lead bullets for silent work. Each had its purpose. The walking stick was usually for non-lethal confrontations. The sling, frankly, was for murder or for taking out sentries from a distance. I no longer practiced archery, a skill increasingly obsolete, though I still had the recurved Hunnish bow I had taken off a dead foe plus both English and Japanese longbows. I hadn't been to Japan since the late 16th century, just before the Tokugawa Shogun closed the country to foreigners. Now that America had forced the country open to commerce, I looked forward to a second visit. Eduard wondered why I still carried swords. Force of habit really. I liked the dance of the sword, and my rustic retreat gave me room to perform the dance in the nude, even more happily so now that I had an audience. I showed Eduard a few basics, but this was past the days when gentlemen routinely wore blades. Only those in uniform carried them at their hips every day. Sabers still had some utility for cavalry work, some claimed, but I thought firearms were making them obsolete especially with the new metallic or integral cartridges like with my Smith and Wesson revolver. The Navy Colt used old fashioned cap and ball. You filled each chamber with powder and ball then fitted a primer cap to each nipple. The metallic cartridge was much faster loading ball, powder, and primer in a single unit. A cavalry man could carry four pistols, two at the hips and two in shoulder holsters, with two more pistols holstered on the saddle. Three dozen shots per rider without a reload made for a powerful charge against other cavalry or infantry in the open, especially on the march or even better running for their lives in a rout. Also available now were repeating rifles like the Sharps that gave added range to the effect of firearms. What point then a saber or the lance which some armies still favored. True the lance is a terrifying weapon when the rider lowers it at you, but just shoot the horse. Even a minor wound is enough to make him throw the rider and shy off from the charge. Most militaries though stuck by their muzzle loading rifled muskets. Totally obsolete in my opinion, and by now I knew something of warfare. Why fight the way Napoleon did with lines of soldiers shoulder to shoulder trying to load? Why shoot standing up when you could take cover? Why settle for two or three shots a minute? With repeating firearms you could get off dozens of shots, from cover, with your men dispersed, not lined up shoulder to shoulder like so many targets. I suppose no army wanted to increase the basic combat load of ammunition by a factor of ten or twenty. Too expensive. To my way of thinking, getting brave men killed or maimed to no purpose was too expensive. Also losing a war is too expensive. Most wars are pointless from the point of view of those lead and ruled anyway. Sectional tensions might flare up in America between slave and free states. I hoped not. I had recently moved my base of operations to this country. My flotillas of riverboats would likely be seized by the military or blown out of the water. I had other assets in London, New York, and elsewhere, several fortunes in fact. Easier to manage from afar these days thanks to the telegraph. Too bad the Atlantic cable had failed. There was talk of relaying it, though. I stressed to Eduard that if we spent time together in Natchez, he would have to be discreet and not walk around like a smitten swain. I valued our relationship, and such things were tolerated in sophisticated New Orleans, but his father and rural society would horsewhip us out of town at the very least and his reputation would be ruined. I would have to start over elsewhere, perhaps with a new identity. Indiscretion was always the problem with a young lover. My centuries had made me an excellent actor, able to school my face and body language. Eduard was a young man in love for the first time. I gave him acting lessons and we practiced around town at gambling dens, the theater, and restaurants. Only when I was confident did I make arrangements to leave my household in Diego's hands. I knew I could trust him. I had saved his life twice as he had saved mine once. Chapter 4. Massalia and Alexandria In the first half of the first millennium BC, Greeks had settled along the shores of the Mediterranean. Seaports like Massalia, modern Marseille, and Emporion in Spain were some of those foundations. Typically the city states lived in peace with their hinterlands. Both sides recognized the advantage of peaceful coexistence and trade. The man my Roman captor sold me to had my cock infibulated with a gold ring through the end of the foreskin. The tip of the cock and the piss slit could just peek out but no more than that. I certainly couldn't get an erection, just a trapped manhood whose swelling combined pain and pleasure in unequal measure. Kallikrates, for that was his name, was a man approaching fifty but hale and hearty with a lean build. From him I eventually learned to find pleasure in anal intercourse. Fortunately he also like inter-crural sex, with the cock pressed between the boy's upper thighs and cleavage and his greatest preference was for oral sex. In time he used me as a messenger carrying letters or oral messages into the city to his factors near the docks or from his country house by road to several nearby seaports along the Riviera. Even sheltered as those regions were, the winters were uncomfortable for a nude messenger boy. At least the running kept me warm. In spring and summer, the sun turned my skin bronze, not just my arms and legs as back in Germany. Ever since then I have enjoyed the kiss of the sun on my bare flanks. The city guards recognized me but they still searched me every time, both coming and going. What contraband a nude boy could carry they never explained convincingly, but each time I went through the gate I had to put up with a full cavity search and an in-depth probe of my nether orifice. Sometimes I got canned by my master for dawdling, though this stopped after his nephew Alkibiades reported the reason for these delays. The sons of the upper crust like to hunt and pressed me into service as their mock prey. Released in the forest, I had to run and hide as the fierce hunters sought me with trackers and dogs. I was rewarded with silver coin if I could outwit the hunters for three days. They allowed me to approach their camp once every evening to take sustenance, otherwise I was their hapless prey, naked and unarmed as any buck or hind. Any slacking or early capture was punished with a good whipping, my fault or not. Once I was even thrown to the dogs as their boy bitch, a painful and degrading experience I will not dwell on in this narrative. Over the next three years I achieved my full growth and then stopped growing or aging. I have never known why. Certainly there were no encounters with sorcerers or pacts with eldritch powers. For several years no one noticed. My master and his son were delighted that I retained my youthful physique though they had already put me to work in their offices as a scribe. I helped with their correspondence and accounts. I had already learned to speak my master's Greek and now I learned the Roman tongue and and how to read and write in both languages. I previously had had only the rudiments of letters in the crude runes used in the Germanies. By the time I was in my early twenties, others remarked on my continuing youthfulness. Then my master died in a fall from a horse, and I got lucky. Though he had expected to live many years yet, he had freed me in his will, even settling a small sum upon me, enough to travel or start a small shop. Instead, I continued to work for the firm, now on salary. In the winter I could now wear a proper woolen tunic against the chill. The young master Alkibiades continued to take me to his bed. Freedmen still had obligations to their old masters or his heirs, and I was not averse anyway. He was a fine looking man and had always been decent to me. At least I was rid of the infibulation. I too could now fully enjoy sexual congress. As a freedman, I could now disport myself in the gymnasium, exercising naked like the other youths of the city, and, like them, accepting or fending off persistent advances by older males. Still, I knew I could not stay very much longer. Before too may years, I would be suspected of witch craft. Or worse, aging men of power would demand my secret from me and torture me to get it though I had no secret to reveal. So by twenty-five, still looking only seventeen summers, I left Massalia for Alexandria-by-Egypt, called such since it is next to the Delta but not part of Egypt proper. I started working in a boy brothel in fabled Alexandria. Although the most cosmopolitan city of the age, my northern good looks were unusual there so I was popular with the clientele. I liked the warm climate, I took to wearing the Egyptian kilt of white cotton, worn low on the hips when I wasn't entirely naked. Indeed I liked to swim in the sea or run nude along the strand letting the sun kiss my skin in all seasons. Nude youths were hardly unusual in that culture. Many of the youths I saw fishing in small boats on the river were entirely naked as were serving boys and young slaves. I found I much preferred nudity myself. I had and still have a trim body which I delight in showing off. Just as in Massalia, the soldiers liked to play with me as I passed through the gates. Some even visited me in the brothel. By now I accepted that my slender blond looks aroused passions in men to which I would often have to submit. My clients liked the way my deep all over tan complemented my blond locks when I danced lasciviously. They also liked to see me out and about at the market or on the streets entirely naked as if I too were a humble slave boy like many of the staff at the brothel. So at work, or sleeping at night, or exercising, I was habitually nude. In the gymnasium, I made friends among the students and scholars at the Great Museum and Library and attended symposia (drinking parties) always on the condition that I arrive nude. It was the Greeks after all who had first exalted the love of a beautiful boy and I was certainly that. Even when I dressed, the thin cotton kilt flattered my slender good looks, emphasizing the curve of my rump and the flatness of my belly, so I got no complaints and it was simple enough to toss off that single garment when I wanted to be comfortable. Egypt was an African country ruled by Greeks and within the sphere of influence of the Roman Republic. It was the granary of Rome and there was much commerce between them. Egyptians often shaved their heads and even those of boys. I preferred to keep my blond locks, but I did take up the Roman practice of epilation of body hair at armpits and groin by plucking with tweezers. I had never had more than a bit of peach fuzz on my cheeks so I did not shave. My true beard just never came in. My forearms and lower legs had only the very lightest of dustings, very much like the modern Japanese. This too I had plucked. It wasn't just for hygiene, though that was supremely important in my line of work. It made my physique look better and made me feel even more naked. They didn't have the word or the concept of exhibitionist in those days, but that is certainly what I was and am. With my earnings as a pleasure boy, I invested in shares in shipping ventures, always spreading the risk by taking only a small share in any one ship or voyage and reinvesting all proceeds. I could easily support myself by my work at the brothel and could allow my capital to accumulate despite occasional losses from shipwrecks or piracy. In time I befriended officials of the government of the Ptolomies as protection for my growing wealth. After nearly two prosperous decades in Alexandria, first as a pleasure boy then as a merchant, I changed my identity, leaving town on business. I had beforehand transferred much of my first fortune to a young 'nephew' living in Antioch, myself of course by another name. This was the first of many identities I assumed over the centuries. In Antioch, I bought a half interest in a boy brothel under condition that my ownership be hidden from the other boys and the patrons. I liked to indulge myself there, renting myself out to favored clients. Some others who were more favored by their purse than by their looks never understood why I could not be rented for any sum they offered. What right did a slave boy like me have to turn them down. Not a slave boy, then? So what, a naked hairless youth and one so small and slight of build, and entirely too pretty for a male, surely could not deny them his luscious body. But I could, and I did. I had that much pride. Maybe I was only a whore boy, but I was now my own master. That was not always true. Over the centuries I was enslaved a number of times. A century later, I returned to Antioch sold into slavery as a Daphne boy, a temple prostitute. For four years I served an enthusiastic male clientele while being kept perpetually nude, primped, and smelling sweet. In Islamic lands I was much in demand as a houri boy. During the middle ages, I sometimes served as a page to a knight with an eye for a lively lad, though I never cared for the hostility in Christendom toward nudity. Their attitude was so different from that of the classical world. I never understood it. After all, their crucifixes in churches, monasteries, and roadside shrines depicted their slain demi god (or so I thought of him) as a nude or nearly nude man nailed to a cross. If humility is a virtue, why look askance at a lovely youth bare of all raiment? I suppose it was partly pride. I liked being looked at and admired and missed the gymnasia of the Greek, the palestra and baths of the Romans, or the boy brothels of the Muslim lands. Besides, standards of personal hygiene in medieval and early modern Europe were deplorable. Imagine people who think a bath once a year is plenty. They can keep their 'odor of sanctity' as they called the stench of the unwashed. So pointless really since the Muslims had invented soap made from animal fats by the eighth century. Europe borrowed Arabic numerals so why not soap? Indeed Europeans started making soap of vegetable oils like Castile soap or the soap of Marseille. All these were so much better than olive oil and a strigil that merely scraped sweat and dust and oil from the skin, which is all the Romans and Greeks had. In those ancient days, I often washed with sand which made me feel cleaner, and my roughened skin healed easily in any case. Whoever thought up the saying about cleanliness being next to godliness did the Western world a big favor. Too bad the Muslims have their own prejudices against baring the body. Those ankle length robes they wear are very unflattering. I travelled in many lands meeting many people over the centuries. Only once, in Elizabethan England, did I find another immortal who would admit to it. He too was mystified by our agelessness. From him I learned that our offspring did not share our gift but would age like anyone else. He thought we might breed true with another of our kind, but the only female he had encountered in eight hundred years refused to have his child. There cannot be very many of us around or we might out-breed humanity eventually. We few who are gifted with immortality not only do not age, we also heal quickly and are resistant to disease. Even the periodic plagues that afflict the world do not kill us easily. I did get quite ill from the Black Death in Italy, but I recovered. It left me with a few scars which eventually disappeared. Naturally I have always been fastidious and conscientious about hygiene when I could be, insisting that those who served me do the same. The Inquisition once took after me because I insisted my servants bathe regularly. This was seen as subtlety Satanic in their twisted logic. A bribe and a murder let me get away to another land. Chapter 5. Natchez Initially my visit to the DeLisle plantation went well. Both the father and the brother Robert were pleased that Eduard had made friends with a young man his own age who was not a wastrel or pampered aristocrat. My steamboats had even carried some of their cotton to market. I was obviously well educated, spoke French, Spanish, and English fluently, and was a good conversationalist. I impressed them with temperate habits, not overindulging in drink, gambling recklessly, or staying up to all hours. I listened politely to their descriptions of life on the estate, asked intelligent questions, and never gave offense to anyone, free man or slave. Some of their neighbors were cut from a different cloth. I encountered a gang of them one afternoon in Natchez where I had gone alone to meet one of my boats on the dock. Afterwards, I sat contentedly sipping a cool drink on the veranda of an upscale tavern. A big man came up to me with a churlish look on his face. "You're Moreau, ain't ya? The Captain wants to see ya. Come on, kid." He took me by the arm, but I shook him off. "I am Alexandre Moreau, yes. Now that you know where I am, you can tell this captain of yours where to find me. If he hurries, he might catch me before I depart, but I won't wait for him or on him." My stern tone was deliberate. I don't like bullies, and I don't like being summoned by complete strangers arrogant in their right to command others to attend them. You cannot give a bully an inch. The man grabbed me again, but I used a hold on his wrist to free myself and put him on his knees, gasping in pain. "Let go of me," he bellowed. "or I'll break your neck." Bullies are so unimaginative. "So," I intoned slowly, "If I don't let you go, you will break my neck. How? And if I do let you go, why should I expect you won't try to do just that? Maybe I should break you arm first and then let you go. Is that a satisfactory compromise, my large friend?" Just then a tall dark-haired man in his late twenties approached flanked by three followers. "I would be obliged if you'd let Murphy get up. I assure you he will not try to retaliate. I am Captain Tagliaferro." He pronounced it "Toliver.", but I know Italian and I had heard something of this man. "Very well, as you have asked politely." I let his man go. Not wanting to cross both of us, the big man contented himself with a glare in my direction. With sudden insight from centuries of experience, I knew I would have to kill Murphy one day, perhaps soon, and maybe Tagliaferro too. Some people will never leave you alone. You have to make them. Bastards. "That's quite a trick you pulled on my man Murphy. Care to show me how you did it." "If it's all the same to you I'll keep that trick and some others up my sleeve. A small man sometimes needs an equalizer." I was very good at unarmed combat using a combination of techniques learned in my travels starting with the pankration of the ancient Greeks plus French savatte, the Capoeira of Brazilian slaves, and others. Mine was a flexible system of attack or defense, lethal or non-lethal suited to my physique and capabilities. For one thing I had excellent stamina, part of my gift I suppose, so I could often wear an opponent out. This also had helped in sword fighting which is extraordinarily exhausting. In a single combat that goes on for any little while, both opponents are soon staggering from fatigue, so they often back off in a short truce to get their breath back. I could keep pressing the attack and win. In battle, no single confrontation lasts long because there are always others around to cut your opponent down with a thrust to his belly or a cut to his head. The problem in battle is the sheer number of opponents. The old Roman army had learned better than most to rotate ranks of soldiers into the battle line, letting the front lines of their exhausted foes fall to the fresh professional soldiers of Rome. The Captain had heard of my successful business venture in steamboats and thought he might invest in the industry himself, or so he said. He prevailed upon one of his hangers-on, a young wastrel by the look of him, to invite me to a dinner the next evening at one of the grand mansions on the hill. It was one of those social events that filled the calendars of people with too much money, not enough common sense, and little real purpose in life beyond a pointless desire to cut a figure in society. Still I went if only to widen my contacts for my shipping business. After a long dinner where I found myself the center of attention of the belles of the city and their match making mothers, we gentlemen withdrew for brandy and cigars. I had never taken up smoking and especially disliked cigars, but the French doors were open and the breeze kept the air tolerably clear. The brandy was fair. I soon found myself in a group talking of the prospects that sectional tensions would lead to political changes like secession or even war that would interrupt commerce in cotton, much the main item of freight on my steam boats on the lower Mississippi, though not those out of Pittsburgh which carried grain and mixed freight as well as passengers. Captain Tagliaferro was, not surprisingly, loud and certain of his facts even when they were merely opinions. "The damn Yankees knew full well that Cotton is King! The British and the French too. Egyptian cotton production is too small yet to change the basic facts. European mills and the wealth they generate depend on cotton from the American South." "Maybe so, but can we trust those damn Black Republicans to leave our peculiar institution alone. Remember that Lincoln fellow in his debates last year with Douglass. A house divided against itself cannot long stand. It will eventually become all one thing or all the other. Our property is threatened, I tell you sir. Yours and mine and everyone's here in Natchez." This was spoken by a drunken and belligerent Murphy. He then turned on me. "They tell me all the black men who work on your boats are freedmen. Are you against slavery?" "Actually yes. I find that free labor is more productive and less dangerous." "You're a damn abolitionist! You would take away our slaves!" "Not at all, though I would see slavery replaced by peaceful means if I could." "How?" he challenged even more belligerent than before. "By compulsory purchase. Of course, you would then have to pay free labor instead of simply appropriating the wealth your slaves produce. Buying all the slaves and setting them free would be much cheaper, in blood and treasure, than a sectional war. But that is too sensible an idea to prevail, if human history is any guide. " "You really think so?" asked Tagliaferro. "I read my Gibbon. He wrote that history is largely the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. I think he was right." I didn't add that I had personally seen more history than the lot of them put together. I also thought the new Republican party was essentially opposed to the spread of slavery not its abolition. The House Divided speech was a principled stance against the aggressive attempt by the Southron controlled Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case to render the North powerless to resist the extension of slavery everywhere in the country. The merchants, industrialists, and white working men of the North had no desire to compete with employers who could whip slaves instead of pay them a free man's wages. The conversation then took a turn as to the prospects of secession if the North pressed the South too far. Would it come to that. Would the North go to war to keep the South in the Union? Tagliaferro opined that the South could whip the North in weeks if it came to it. He noticed my reticence in supporting his position. "I take it you disagree with my assessment, there young Moreau." I did, and I also took exception to his patronizing tone. "The only thing certain in war is uncertainty. Don't be too ready to start a war you may regret." I reminded them of other wars that had turned out badly for those started them so confidently. I also pointed out that a war could prove costly in blood and treasure no matter who won. These arguments did not dissuade the hot heads, especially Murphy. "Pah, what do you know of war, a pretty boy still wet behind the ears? I am certain the Yankees will let us go in peace. And if it came to war, we could beat them easily: a bunch of merchants." I pointed out that logically he could not be certain that the North would let the South secede and that the South would win the war. His points contradicted each other. I also noted that secession and victory in a sectional war were hypotheticals, hence no one could be certain about them regardless. "Are you calling me a liar?" Murphy was really pressing me. Was he looking for an excuse? "Hardly. You didn't listen very well sir. A mere opinion is neither true nor false until put to the test. I have merely disagreed with your opinion. One cannot be a liar about a hypothetical. So I did not question your veracity, sir, merely your judgment." I almost said good sense. I was more than a little annoyed myself by now. This led to more heated words, he even called me a coward. I refused to be baited even when my courage was questioned. I can be brave enough when I have to be, but I see no reason to prove it to doubters. Also at my age, although I look young, I have long since acquired an older man's caution. In the end, though I could not avoid a duel, except by fleeing the county entirely, abandoning Eduard. These idlers and pampered aristocrats are entirely too touchy about their honor, by which they meant their silly pride. "My seconds will call on you, sir" Murphy said with a smirk. I hope you are a good shot." "I am indeed, but I choose swords." "What... but we always use pistols in these parts." "Nevertheless, as the challenged party, the choice of weapons is mine. It's swords or back down." I preferred swords if I had to fight. You can defend with a sword. A pistol is all offense. Murphy might get lucky. We might both get lucky and shoot each other. With a sword in my hand, luck would not count. He did not have the slightest chance against me, despite his height and reach. And so it proved to be. Eduard served as my second. The next morning, after letting Murphy cut at me fruitlessly just long enough to show that I really was competent with the blade and that the outcome was not just luck, I sliced his jugular vein and stepped back to let him die. He lost consciousness quickly but I did have the satisfaction of seeing the realization of death in his eyes as I added. "Thus I refute error." I have never suffered fools gladly. The sword fell from his hand and he sank to the earth. Nothing the doctor could do for him. Needless to say this did not endear me to Tagliaferro and his fellows. A few days later Eduard and I went riding and came to where a creek fell over a low waterfall into a delightful pool of water. We dismounted, stripped and dove in. The water was cool compared to the heat of the day. After some splashing and horsing around, we started stroking back and forth the length of the pool. Swimming and running were ways I tried to keep fit. I enjoyed the physical sensations of exercise, the rhythmic breathing, the mastery of another element, the confidence it gave me in my speed and strength and stamina. Eduard finished his swim before me then sat patiently under a tree until I joined him. We made a fine looking couple sitting there nude in the shade of a tree on a bright sunny day, picnicking on a packed lunch, surrounded by greenery under a blue sky. It was idyllic. Although it was a secluded location, I knew it would be unwise to be overly affectionate out in the open. Who knows who else might come riding up just as we had. That was my rationality talking, but despite my centuries I had a young man's body, a young man's hormones and desires. The third time we swam at the pool, I yielded to my carnal impulses. Eduard after all was so desirable, and we had been discreet in his father's house at the plantation. Young men in love, and in this I was again a young man, sometimes act against their better judgement. So after a swim, while we were lying side by side, with Eduard's leg thrown over my thigh and his hand playing with my nipples, I could contain my feelings no longer. Slowly, but with increasing urgency we made love. Over the course of two hours, I took and gave every pleasure two youthful males can enjoy. We kissed and fondled and licked and sucked. Sometimes we spanked each other playfully or dueled with our erections. It was wonderful; he was wonderful. I was like a young man again with his cock in my mouth, tasting and swallowing his seed and again with his manhood in my ass, plowing and plunging and thrusting, carrying me to heights of delerium I had not felt in years. Yes, I had had many sexual partners, but this was a real romantic love, a meeting of both bodies and minds. He was everything I could hope for in a partner. Suddenly we heard the clop of hoofbeats and as one plunged into the water, hiding our tumescent members and washing the dried gism off our faces and chests, swimming in earnest to cover our indiscretion. Chapter 6. Misfortunes Five horses stopped at the brink of the pool. One of them bore Captain Tagliaferro. He waved cheerily and he and his men dismounted. My suspicions disarmed, Eduard and I swam to the bank and pulled ourselves out of the water. Their eyes ran over our nude forms, particularly mine, noting our slight builds and that both of us were quite hairless. Eduard had decided to shave all his body hair to look like me. It made his skin feel wonderful, but it was unusual enough to cause comment. We had been careful till now, but here we were revealed as two smooth boys, small in stature, naked, unarmed, on foot, and outnumbered. I wished these men were not standing between ourselves and our clothing and weapons. I tried to pretend a slight embarrassment at being caught like any two boys bathing at the local swimming hole. "Captain Tagliaferro," I began with false bohommie. He just looked at me coldly and said. "We saw you. We've been watching for some time. We know what you are." He spat. Then two of them leveled pistols at us. Another man took shackles from his saddlebags. These men were part of the civil slave patrol. They threw them at my feet. "Lie down on your belly, hands and arms spread." I complied. I had no chance, not without weapons, caught by surprise. These men were experienced in capturing desperate runaway slaves and were careful not to mask the lines of fire of the two who had us covered. Besides, they might shoot Eduard. First I was shackled with manacles connected by a chain and then leg irons were put on my ankles. Then Eduard. We were led over to a tree and roped to it together facing the bark. This was Tagliaferro's chance to get even for the death of his man Murphy. They meant to teach us a lesson then drive me out of the county. They laid the first lashes on Eduard, knowing that his pain would hurt me more. Then they switched to my back and ass, then the legs. I have been whipped before and much worse, but poor Eduard had not. He tried manfully to hold back his tears, but finally could not. No disgrace there. The disgrace was what they were doing to this beautiful and decent young man. For men who professed to be disgusted at our physical expression of love, they stared rather too intently at our whipped asses and lingered too long as they ran their hands over our welts. They turned us around and whipped our fronts, laying lashes at our nipples causing them to bleed and into our bare groins to punish our sinful manhoods. Tagliaferro grabbed my scrotum and squeezed hard, almost crushing my testicles flat. Whatever fight I had left in me was gone after that. They cut the rope but I was still shackled. His men held me as he beat me with his fists, using my torso as a punching bag, concentrating on body blows after he hurt his hand when my head lolled forward and he hit the hard top of my skull instead of my face. At least Eduard was spared that. They laid us on the ground or over a tree trunk and raped our asses and mouths, not in pleasure, but brutally as a punishment to fit our crime. It went on for half the afternoon. By the time they were finished, we were bleeding out of our anuses. They made us clean them off with our mouths, slurping our blood, our ass juices, their cum, and even some of our shit from their members. Then they thew us over our horses, belly down still shackled and naked and brought us to the DeLisle Plantation. The DeLisles were outraged at what their son had done and particularly what I had done to him. I was clearly the instigator, the big city sophisticate who had debauched their innocent boy. His family took custody of their wayward son, locking him in the woodshed still shackled and naked from where he could witness my punishment through chinks in the rough walls. I was punched in the face and belly, kneed in the groin, helpless in my shackles to defend myself especially after the prolonged whipping, beating, and rape at the hands of Tagliaferro and his men. I fell to the ground and got kicked front and back. I protected my head as best I could but that left the rest of me vulnerable. I feared the impacts had broken my ribs as I rolled around in agony and struggled to breathe. I knew I would not survive if a broken rib punctured a lung. By this time Eduard was shouting, pleading with his family to stop, not destroy the man he loved. He told them they should beat him not me, if they had to punish someone. Then the older brother dragged me over to fence and tied me to a post. I was in agony, only half conscious, but I focussed on the voice of my lover even while both father and brother horsewhipped me, denouncing me illogically as a seducer and a rapist both. At least they did not otherwise violate my bodily integrity. Finally Eduard warned his father that if they killed me, they'd better not stop until they killed him too. If they killed me, he would kill both of them if he were the last thing he ever did though he hanged for it. That finally got through to the father. He could never kill his own son. So he called a halt to the brutal whipping. I was unshackled and fell to the ground, blood and sweat mixing with dirt and manure on my welted hide. They tossed my clothes to me and told to clear out or else. I struggled into my clothing and left, escorted by Tagliaferro till I was off the family property, with Eduard shouting assurances of his love for me. That only got him dragged to the fence for a less severe whipping of his own. His cries of pain were the last sounds I ever heard from him. The four miles to town were in some ways the longest journey I ever made. I knew that if I fell down I would likely lie there till I died. I had to live not only for myself but for Eduard, for I fully expected to return for him, if I survived. I made my way painfully on foot to Natchez just ahead of my reputation and commandeered one of my own steamboats to take me to New Orleans. I swore the doctor I took on board to secrecy as he cleaned and bandaged my wounds and taped my ribs on the journey south, then ordered me to bed for three weeks. He later told me that mine was the worst beating he had ever seen a man survive. It was a credit to my vitality and will to live. A week later, I got a package from the DeLisles with my effects and a letter warning that I was to have no further contact with Eduard. For his sake and the family's, they would not publicly denounce me nor press charges, but I would be shot on sight if I turned up in Natchez again. I returned to my country hideaway, swimming and eating simply as I regained my health and strength. I planned an expedition to Natchez. I would enlist Jean Dupuy the skulker I had met the night I rescued Eduard from the gang of thugs. Then came word that Eduard had drowned 'accidentally', so it was said, in the pool we had disported ourselves in. I was sick of heart and contemplated revenge, but events soon overtook my intentions. With the secession of Louisiana and the outbreak of the Civil War, I left New Orleans for New York. Even after the Union captured the town in 1862, I did not go back. Faithful Diego had liquidated my investments in New Orleans and transferred the proceeds to my London bank. I supported the Union financially, investing in more steam boats and then in ocean steamers powered by the new screw propeller that Ericcson used so brilliantly in his ironclad the Monitor. My steam boats carried supplies for Union forces and brought their wounded soldiers or those on leave back to their communities. I did not join the Union Army myself, avoiding the draft by paying a substitute to serve for me. When he was killed at Chickamauga, I traced his family and paid off their debts. Four years after the war I returned to New Orleans in disguise to settle accounts. I found the DeLisle plantation in ruins, burned down in the Vickburg campaign. The elder DeLisle was a wreck of a man after the disgrace and loss of his younger son to suicide and his older son to the war. I deemed that sufficient punishment, but I did confront him and told him just what I thought of his damnable morality and that they had as good as murdered the best of their blood. The man died of a heart attack the next day. It was not hard to find Tagliaferro. He still cut a swathe in what was left of polite society. He had survived the war with a reputation for great courage bought at the expense of his men's lives thrown away on recklessly stupid frontal assaults, much like the Union's General Custer. I got him alone and confronted him, my disguise concealing the fact that I had not aged a day in ten years. Tagliaferro was scornful not only of me but of Eduard and his mean death. He bragged how they had tricked my young lover when he had tried to smuggle a letter to me. "You should have seen that letter. He wrote liked a girl with a crush on a young swain. So very sweet." he said in a voice dripping with scorn. "He assured you of his 'constancy' and his 'undying devotion' and said that he planned to run off and join you in New Orleans." In a bragging tone, Tagliaferro told me how he and Eduard's brother had forged a reply from my majordomo Diego saying simply that I had left the city forever, that it was for the best if Eduard did not to try to contact me again. That is why he killed himself, in despair of our love. I have never hated anyone so much as I did that man at that moment. In a fury, I attacked the man with hands and fists. A blade or bullet would have been too quick. I wanted to beat him to death. He fought hard for his life, but I soon got the better of him. After that, the fight turned into punishment, an execution. He was still alive and conscious when I castrated him, and left him to bleed out. I tracked down the others and killed them more quickly than they deserved. Then I left Natchez with a new disguise and temporary identity. I have never been back to Natchez, not even to Eduard's grave. That was the closest I ever came to torturing a man. I have never had a stomach for torture. I despise those who do, though now America, always a model for the world, to its shame has recently stooped to such practices. It may be politically incorrect, but their enthusiasm for torture is why I never had much use for those who romanticized the cultures of the natives of North America. The Plains Indians and the Apaches of the Old West to me were just so many illiterate horse barbarians who looked on torture as a form of sport. I will take this opportunity to mention that I despise apologists for the Confederacy who even today claim it was fighting for states rights not for slavery. Wrong. Slavery always trumped states' rights. The Confederate Constitution itself prohibited the member states from abolishing slavery within their borders. So much for states' rights. Even today in the twenty-first century when I can live publicly as a man who prefers his own gender, I look back to those green days of our love, Eduard and I, when I found real love for just a season or two. Love is precious, and even when it fades or is lost, it can still warm the heart in recollection. Eduard DeLisle never lived to have a career or to become an old man. He is and will always be alive in my memory as the young man whom I had loved all those years ago. I still have the photograph we had taken together at a studio in New Orleans. We both of us looked a bit stiff. The long exposure times of cameras in those days required persons to sit or stand with a brace behind the heads to keep still. Unusual for those times we were both nude. The full length likeness is a good one showing not only his beautiful face and trim body, but also hinting at his good cheer and beauty of mind and of soul. I had a color portrait of Eduard painted from that photograph. It hangs in my den today. I have loved several times in my long life and I hoped I would again. One love does not detract from the memory of others. I do not love my Jeffrey any less today for having loved and lost Eduard a century and a half ago. But that is another story. Only recently could I write of these things choosing, from caution, to cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of modern science will believe it. Naturally all the names have been changed though the places and events really did happen just as I have written.