Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:29:31 +0000 From: Gary Rawnsley Subject: Roman Romance [From the author of Another Ephesian Tale (Bisexual novel set in Ancient Greece) and Alexandrian Knights (Gay novel set in Roman Egypt during the reign of Trajan), both available online at Barnes & Noble under the pen name Pseudo Xenophon of Ephesus.] In AD 62 Galba, the future Roman emperor, served as the appointed governor of Tarraconensis, the largest of Rome's Iberian provinces. Set in Tarraco, the capital, this narrative tells of the homoerotic adventures of two nineteen-year-old male lovers—dark-haired Marullinus and Lucius with a curly blond mop—both sexually desirable. PART ONE Tarraco, Spain Summer AD 62 In the predawn hours, two young men guarding the Roman governor's sleeping quarters, heard a loud grunt. Presently a man in the prime of life, muscular and handsome, emerged naked from Galba's gubernatorial bedchamber. In the torchlight the pair's eyes went straight to his loins. They checked out his rigid rod—larger than most men, but not the biggest they'd ever seen—and when he turned around to close the door, observed the razor bumps on his shaved ass. Obviously, from the streak of wet semen on the right cheek, the man had been freshly fucked. The man closed the door behind him and accosted the postadolescent with brilliant blue eyes and full rosy lips standing on the left. Taken by the beauty of the dark-haired sentinel—Nisus besotted by Euryalus—he ordered him to strip. Unflustered, the greenhorn dropped his spear, unbuckled the belt to which his sword was attached, let it fall and, bending over, unlaced his sandal-boots. He straightened and kicked them off, then swiftly pulled his red tunic off over his head. The man gaped at the vision of loveliness confronting him—a pulchritudinous young rookie sporting an upcurved cock, blood-red with a turgid mushroom cap. The cock, bigger than his own, was atached to a lean body with an imposing chest and shoulders, the kind he found sexually attractive. He turned him around and eye-fucked his smooth compact rear. He badly wanted to cornhole him right there and then, but although the rookie's full erection told him that he was turned on by the sight of an aroused naked man, the gold ring on his finger—the sign of equestrian rank—despite his tender age, warned him that this hottie was an eques by birth. The man turned him back again. "Are you Uranian?" he asked. "Uranian?" "Engage in sex with other males." The sentinel's face reddened. "Thought so." "Why?" "Never mind. When does your shift end?" "Here's my replacement marching towards us." "In that case, keep your hard-on and follow me." The young guard crouched to pick up his tunic. "A law has just been promulgated. An off-duty, good looking recruit with a V-shaped body and lust-inciting buttocks, must stay nude until his next stint." "You're not serious." The man sent him a toothy grin. "I want you clothes free." * The man led the tenderfoot down the hall and into his suite of rooms. He shut the door, then ushered him into his lamp-lit bedchamber. He marveled: his own erection had subsided, but the young eques' showed no signs of softening. He gave him a butt pat. "Ready? he asked. "For what?" "For me to lie against your hindquarters." The man walked over to the bed. "Here," he said. His intended bedmate hesitated. "How about I suck you off then?" "But..." "If you're having second thoughts, your prodigious pecker isn't. It's even stiffer than when you stripped." The nineteen-year-old sat on the edge of the bed, leaning back on his elbows to expose his eager cock to the man's moist mouth. The latter crouched and, gripping the rigid shaft, formed a tight seal with his lips under the flared rim and worked the head, his tongue licking and swirling. Overwhelmed by pleasure, the postpubescent cried out."You're a lecher of rare ability!" Flattered, the man removed his mouth and tongued the sensitive slit to show off his skill. The young man tossed his head back in rapturous delight and tensed the muscles of his washboard stomach. "Finish me," he implored. "You need to come?" "Surprised?" The man deep-throated the postadolescent's throbbing cock and, clutching his young burly balls, dragged his lips up to the head and while running his fist up and down the blood-swollen shaft, suctioned the crown. The intense stimulation pushed the febrile adonis over the edge. White semen spilled out of the man's mouth and pooled on his fist. The man released his grip on the young sentry's sack, and raising his hand, licked it clean."Want to go again?" he asked. His proposal elicited an uncomfortable smile. "No? You're cock is still arching upwards," the man said, getting to his feet. Silence. "Do you have a name sexy boy?" "'Marullinus', after the first Roman senator in my lineage." "And your father? I gather from your gold ring that he's an eques." "He qualified moneywise due to land investments." "He must have considerable wealth." "He's loaded." The prefect chuckled. "I see. Are you a Galba type?" "A Galba type?" "Into beefy fully-grown men." "Dishy males my age." "Dishy males your age. What do you consider dishy?" "Easy on the eyes, jacked physique, tight half moon bum, and well hung." "Really. Do you have a lover who matches those desiderata?" "He fits them perfectly." "An apollo. Your sex must be hot." "Kinky." "Ropes, blindfolds, whips?" "Aggressive..." "Don't be a mute. Tell me about the last time you copulated with your lover." "We ripped off our clothes and wrestled on the bed naked until our cocks were hard. Then he pushed me onto my back and pinned my knees to my chest..." "Go on." "I began to breathe heavily. Anything the matter, Marullinus? he asked. Before I could reply, he shoved his full-size cock up my ass." The man bit his lip to suppress a smile, amused by the young buck's frankness. "Did he have staying power?" "He fucked me until he came, kept right on going, and pumped his spunk into me again." "Mmm. That arouses me." Marullinus looked at the man's cock. It was hard again, ramrod hard, a tad shorter than his lover's but thick as a milestone. Seized with lust, Marullinus collapsed onto his back, opened his legs and lifted them toward his chest. "Stick your tool inside me," he said. "Are you sure?" the man asked, standing in front of Marullinus with his gaze fixed on his exposed burnt plum. "I don't want to be accused of rape." "Rape me." The man grabbed Marullinus' hips and pulled his buttocks to his cock. He halted. "Last chance," he said. "Occupy my dwelling." Marullinus rested his feet on the man's shoulders and the man's cock opened up his back passage. He felt it inch in, stop, inch forward again, slowly and hesitantly, pause, and then thrust forward until it was all the way in. Marullinus grimaced but the cock persisted. He felt it slide back until it was almost out and slide forward again. His muscular ring relaxed, and he felt pleasure. Another pause. Then the cock raced backward and speedily returned, giving him intense pleasure. Marullinus wrapped his fingers around his turgescent shaft. The man brushed them away and took control of his cock. "Let's see if I can make this as stiff as possible," he remarked. With the man's hand rubbing his shaft and cock stroking in his rear, Marullinus experienced unimaginable pleasure. 'The man wanted to fuck me when we'd entered his bedroom,' he thought. 'Why had I hesitated? Naivety, perhaps, or was it fear?' The stroking ceased, and the man's cock softened and dropped out. "You have a tight ass," the man said, unburdening his shoulders. "Am I inseminated?" Marullinus asked. The man grinned. "Very much so." Marullinus vacated the bed. "What's your lover's name?" the man continued. "Lucius." "Have you done him?" "When we were both dying to have sex. He did me and came five times. I did him and came four times." "By Pollux! How long did it take for you to recover each time you came?" "Recover?" "Before you could have another erection. Say ten minutes." "Ten seconds." 'Youth delights youth,' the man thought. "I have to go," Marullinus said. "Lucius will be waiting." "Is there some kind of emergency?" "We didn't have sex last night. He'll be horny." The man smirked. "That is dire. Better go then." As the man escorted the sexpot out, the man noticed that his young cock was still jutting. 'I wonder how long it'll take before it hangs over his scrotum,' he thought, filled with envy. PART TWO Marullinus picked up his tunic in front of his twenty-year-old replacement, who had officially taken possession of his weapons. The eques made sheep eyes at him. "What are you staring at?" Marullinus asked. "You're hung like a bison and have balls bigger than pomegranates." "Eat your heart out." Marullinus put on his tunic and boots and as he left, the tent at the front of his costume collapsed. * The opulent city of Tarraco served as the capital of Tarraconensis, the largest of Rome's Iberian provinces. Topographically, the city consisted of two parts. The upper part—located on a hilltop—was occupied by a gigantic Julio-Claudian temple. The lower part—built on an alluvial plain that stretched to the coast—boasted a square and basilica built during the reign of Augustus next to the forum of the Republican period that had a monumental temple with six portico columns in front and columns lining the sides and the rear. Close to the forum a theater had replaced warehouses. The sun beat down as Marullinus made his way through the lower part to a fired brick tenement north of the forum: one of adjacent five story blocks built around a central courtyard. He passed the shared cistern to the communal latrine and relieved his bladder, then climbed the stairs to the first floor. Lucius, a beautiful curly blond haired nineteen-year-old—the same age as Marullinus—lived in a two room apartment lit by sizable windows of glass panes, the rent for which was paid by his parents to Marullinus' father, who owned the block. Marullinus rapped on the door dressed in his red tunic that stopped at the fork of his legs. "It's not locked," a voice sounded. Marullinus let himself in and closed the door behind him. His eyes darted from the fresco of an ithyphallic Priapus with a phallus larger than his body, to the statue of Faunus copulating with a goat. There was no sign of Lucius except a bulging coin purse on top of a circular bronze table with three metallic legs cast in the shape of fauns, and a pair of walking shoes underneath. "I'm in the bedroom," Lucius let on. Marullinus barged in to find Lucius lying on his bed propped up by pillows stuffed with straw. "You're late," he said. "Better late than never," Marullinus hedged. "Do you love me?" "I love your dick. The rest I'm not excited about." "What's endearing about my dick?" "When it's hard it looks like an enormous pink pickled cucumber." "Well it hasn't spurted since the night before last," he said. "It's been waiting impatiently to slip between your buns and pierce your puckered entrance." Marullinus' cock arced up and pointed to the abode of Caelus. To Lucius' astonishment, he whipped off his tunic and, with nothing on above his boots, placed his palms on the wall facing the end-of-bed bench and spread his legs apart. Utterly aroused by the sight of a young male who matched Astur in beauty, nude and waiting to have sex with him, Lucius sprang from the bed. He pulled the bottom of his yellow tunic up through his belt—what little material there was below—to expose his raging cock, and penetrated Marullinus from behind. Marullinus pushed back. Provoked, Lucius reached around and gripped his rigid shaft. Marullinus tilted his hips back further and then forward, driving his cock through Lucius' stationary fist. "I'm a fire-breathing bull," he blurted. "Tame me!" "I'll hunt you down." "With your long, thick spear." Lucius took him like a victorious Roman legionary raping an enemy soldier, his cock so hard that Marullinus wondered if Lucius was using a wood dildo. Marullinus expected him to flag, but Lucius' savage thrusts with his smooth sack tight against his body, were relentless. They quickly brought them both to sexual climax. As Marullinus' whitish semen splattered on the wall, Lucius' spurted deep inside Marullinus' rectal cavity. Lucius kept his cock inside his comely friend until it softened, then pulled out. Marullinus straightened and turned around. "Thank goodness," he said. "What's that supposed to mean?" "After you come your cock stays hard for an eternity." Lucius' eyes fell on Marullinus' groin. His cock was swollen and blood-red, still at full mast . 'He's one to talk,' Lucius thought. "Screwing works up an appetite," he said out loud. "Let's hoof it to the fast food joint I take you to." "The cook-shop just round the corner," Marullinus surmised. "What's with all that money in your purse?" "Clean my wall," Lucius said, tossing him a rag. "It's the mega millions pater sends each month." As Marullinus mopped up, Lucius tugged his tunic back down. He pointed to the wickerwork laundry basket. "Drop it in there," he said. Marullinus dropped the soiled rag into the hamper and paused, captivated by the floor-to-ceiling mural depicting Democrates sodomizing Alcibiades, his young live-in tutee. He reentered the front room in time to catch Lucius, shod in his boots, heading to the door in his brief tight-fitting lemon yellow tunic with his purse tied to his belt . "Leaving without me?" "You're nude and still hard. I thought ..." Marullinus raced into Lucius' bedroom and returned with his tunic in hand. In his anxiety his cock had gone limp. Lucius laughed. "Well, that's one problem solved," he said. Marullinus pulled on his close-fitting tunic. "That's the other problem solved," he razzed. Lucius pushed him outside and stepped out, shutting the door behind him. * Marullinus accompanied Lucius around the corner of the city block to the cook-shop. Before him frescoes painted on the side of the counter—a nymph riding a seahorse, wild ducks, a chicken, and a dog—garnered his attention. Earthenware jars embedded in the top of the counter stored food ingredients as well as one containing snail shells and animal bones used to make broth. Marullinus ordered fish simmered in broth while Lucius went for the braised duck. Lucius tossed two coins on the countertop taken from his purse, then schlepped a jug of local wine while Marullinus carried two plain clay cups over to a vacant table in the dining area. They plonked their drinkware on the tabletop and sat on stools opposite one another with spines straight and their feet flat on the floor. A waiter in his early twenties whose beauty rivaled Paris, brought over their food baring all except his genitals, covered by the pouch of a G-string held in place by a thin waistband and a rear cord passing between his buttocks. He dumped Marullinus' bowl of fish stew on the table and, attracted to Lucius, placed his bowl of braised duck before him. "Want a piece of me?" he asked. "I don't want to fight," Lucius replied. "He means do you want to have sex," Marullinus said. The waiter pushed his loincloth down his thighs. Lucius gasped. His flaccid cock, surrounded by a patch of dark brown hair, was so thick it would be a challenge to find a cock ring that would fit and the head hung below his balls. "You're well-hung," Lucius admitted. "To put it mildly," Marullinus gibed. Lucius pictured the phenomenal cock pleasuring his rear passage. "Right now would be awkward," he said. "But maybe some other time." The waiter pulled up his string and walked off. "Marullinus," a man uttered, seated at a table close by. Marullinus recalled the torrid sex he'd had with the man in his bedroom. "I never told you my name," the man said, topping up his cup from the jug of wine on his table. "I'm Septimus. He must be your lover." "Lucius," Marullinus affirmed. "Who's that man sitting at your table?" "Vinius, the illegitimate offspring of the Roman general, Titus Vinius. While serving his first campaign, his father smuggled his mother—his commander's wife—into camp disguised as a soldier and had sex with her." "That's a bold face lie," Vinius said, his face crimson. "I'm Publius Vinius the younger. My equestrian rank is inherited as is my wealth—at thirty I'm filthy stinking rich. I'm also worldly-wise. I pride myself on keeping up to date with the latest ideas on nonprocreative sex." "Does he think MOMS is an abomination?" Marullinus asked Septimus. "You've got me. What's MOMS?" "Male-on-male sex." "Do you Vinius?" Septimus asked. "I believe physical pleasure is the highest good," Vinius replied. "I use boys sexually without restraint." "Any boys?" "Boys old enough to think for themselves." "Specifically." "Eighteen or nineteen." "What about girls?" "You won't see me joined with females." "There's your answer Marullinus." "I'm old enough to think for myself," Lucius volunteered. "And beautiful," Vinius said. "Cock-stiffeningly beautiful." "And Marullinus?" Septimus asked. "If I saw either of them in the nude my cock would be so hard I wouldn't be able to piss for a week." "That's a one-liner worthy of Catullus," Septimus said. "Anyone up for a fourgie?" "I am," Vinius said. "What's a fourgie?" Marullinus asked. "You two babes fucked side by side by a couple of hot hunks," Septimus elucidated. "Where?" Lucius asked. "On a small beach a little way from here," Septimus replied. Marullinus and Lucius beamed. "In that case finish your food," Septimus said. A small boy brought bread to the young men's table. As they ate, Vinius asked Septimus how he hooked up with Galba. "He saw me running naked across the forum last year during the local festival akin to the Lupercalia in Rome, and seduced me." "Why?" "I fit the bill." "Fit the bill?" "Galba told me that what he saw flit by was a nude man in his mid-twenties, comely with extremely well-developed muscles. He said e said his eyes nearly popped out. "What happened next?" "He approached me after the festival and told me that my ass was my best feature, and that if I would allow him to put his cock inside, he could express his appreciation more deeply. That was an offer I couldn't refuse. Where can we go? I asked. He had me in his bed faster than Leonidas of Rhodes sprinted the stadium." "And now you're a kept man. I hope that doesn't cramp your style." "Are you proposing a friendship with benefits?" "Not at all." "He's set me up in a suite of rooms just down the hall from his sleeping quarters. He showers me with gifts and pays me a handsome allowance." "How often does Galba impose on you for sex?" "Three times a month as a rule. Often he has a fling with another beefcake he finds attractive." "How often do you copulate?" "Apart from the sexual encounters with Galba, fourteen times a month." "All with males?" "I couldn't service a woman if I tried. My cock would be limp." "You won't be impotent on the beach as far as Marullinus is concerned." "My cock will be in erection. No doubt about that." "And when you say fourteen times, all with one individual with a penis?" "Twelve —I'm highly promiscuous—and that doesn't include those outrageously expensive studs you and I screw at the brothel that rents out male sex workers to masculine clients. We first met in the same cubicle, remember, where we each fucked that handsome horse-hung hunk who preferred to take on two men at the same time." "Galba doesn't mind you sleeping around?" "He's over sixty years old. He knows men in their twenties have a high sex drive. He's even asked me why I don't have a live-in male sex partner." "Is Galba potent in bed?" "I always walk out of his bedchamber in the morning with a gubernatorial load in my ass." Presently the young bucks came over and stood beside them—Marullinus next to Septimus, Lucius next to Vinius. The men winked at each other, titillated by the striplings'flimsy barely-covering-the-bits tunics. The young men smiled at each other, each with a hand under the back hem of his costume polishing his rear checks. "Smooth as a baby's bottom, " Septimus divulged. "So is this one's," Vinius said, referring to Lucius. "When did you have your first shave?" Septimus asked Marullinus. "Three months ago. Lucius celebrated his the next day." "And then you both had your bodies depilated?" "By the hair-plucker at the bathhouse." "He uses tweezers in the style of Julius Caesar." Vinius' fingers rippled as he ran them across the double curve formed by Lucius' buttocks. "How big are your cock and balls?" he asked. "So huge I could sire way more progeny than Claudius' five brats," Lucius bragged. "And Marullinus'?" "So-so," Lucius answered. "Thanks," Marullinus chipped in. "Though that's an understatement," Lucius hastily added. "Anything else you want to tell him?" Marullinus asked, annoyed. "Marullinus has a freckle on his right bum cheek." Septimus moved his hand to Marullinus' anal cleft and ran his open hand down the deep groove. He found what he was looking for and inserted a finger. "Just a sample of what is to come," he told him. PART THREE Marullinus accompanied Lucius back to his apartment. Leaving his apparel strewn on the floor, he collapsed face up on Lucius' bed and fell into a deep sleep. Lucius' gaze fell on his loins. 'That dick won't be limp for long if I can help it,' he thought, unable to resist. He lay on his bed and while Marullinus was dead to the world, rubbed the shaft between his thumb and forefinger until fully erect. Satisfied, he left off. But too late. Marullinus' cock jerked in his sleep and pulsed out semen. When Marullinus woke in the late evening, he had sperm stains on his stomach. Convinced he'd had a wet dream, he hastily dressed, and while seated at the bronze table enjoying a snack of olives and nuts prepared by Lucius, told him about the blotches. Lucius acted disingenuous, so Marcellinus let the matter drop and in the lamplight polished off his bite. He then went downstairs to the latrina, and then left for the armory to weaponize himself before taking up his post outside Galba's sleeping quarters. * In the morning, after Marullinus' shift ended, he rendezvoused at the cook-shop with Lucius and their prospective older sex partners for a light meal of fruit and boiled eggs washed down with honey wine. Led by Septimus, the four then embarked on a brisk walk to a small secluded beach protected by rocks. They stripped under a grove of pine trees, and leaving their clothes behind, warmed by the hot sun, walked naked down to the shore. As they progressed their cocks began to grow in anticipation. By the time they reached the sand, the men's were hard, though not as hard as their younger companions'. "What do I do?" Marullinus asked."I've never had a foursome." "Me neither," Lucius added. "Stretch your hamstrings," Septimus said, addressing Marullinus. "Stretch yours," Vinius told Lucius. On the golden sand by the lapping waves, the nineteen-year-olds faced one another and keeping their legs straight, bent over and gripped their ankles, their heads almost colliding on the way down. "I'd been in a fever all the way to the pines thinking of your buttocks," Septimus said, stepping behind Marullinus. He glance slapped one cheek then the other, and aiming his upward jutting cock, pushed it through the puce crimped circlet laid bare before him. Across from him, at the back of Lucius, Vinius followed Septimus' example and filled Lucius' rectal hollow. Each man took his passive partner in earnest, his hands clutching his sub's hips, his deep grunts permeating the air accompanied by the murmur of the waves and squawks of gulls. Then, as their older cocks achieved final stiffness, Lucius blurted out, "I'm jealous." "Why?" Vinius asked, pumping at a blistering pace. "Marullinus is getting fucked harder than I am." Incensed by Lucius' flippant remark, Vinius pounded his derriere using brutal, violent strokes. But he couldn't last the pace, and in a paroxysm of pleasure, male seed spurted from his cock deep inside Lucius' puckered bud. A few moments later Septimus ejaculated inside Marullinus'. Septimus pulled out of Marullinus right away; Vinius waited until his cock softened before he pulled out of Lucius. Having attained sexual release, Septimus addressed the youths. "Play with yourselves," he said, in an authoritative voice. The two stood upright and followed through until two white pools sullied the sand. The youths, still hard, followed the men, whose cocks were flaccid, to retrieve their clothes. Back under the pines, Vinius made a sexual advance to Lucius. "Come with me to the second floor of the cook-shop and jerk your gherkin while you ride my callous phallus." "Stand opposite the window of my bedchamber," Septimus told Marullinus,"and I'll give you a hand job while my cock is thrusting in your ass." "To explosion?" "Till your pearly white load splatters my floor mosaic." "Of boxers fighting in the nude?" "One and the same." The men dressed. Their playmates picked up their clothes and boots and left with their lovers, bare-ass in readiness for further sex. PART FOUR Leaving Lucius talking to the waiter, Vinius climbed the stairs leading to the upper floor of the cook-shop. Shortly thereafter the server took custody of Lucius' attire, and he ascended the flight of stairs in search of his lover . At the top Lucius saw Vinius' belt and white tunic that featured the vertical thin purple side stripes worn by equestrians. Vinius had flung them over a chest with a flat lid outside a cubicle lit inside by a flickering penis-shaped lamp. Vinius himself was slumped in a chair within, with nothing on above his boots save a cloth draped over his lap. Lucius entered and closed the curtain. As he approached, Vinius' cloth tented. Vinius whipped it off. "Sit on my cock, like Caligula mounting Incitatus," he said. Lucius eyed Vinius' plump cock sticking up from his shaved groin and gave a sigh of satisfaction. "What's that for?" Vinius asked. "I love the veins on your dick. They make it stand out from the crowd." "My cock should be tediously familiar to you by now." Straddling Vinius' thighs, Lucius skewered himself on the prominently veined shaft all the way down to the balls. He rested a palm on Vinius' chest and while stroking his own cock so fast that his hand appeared blurred, bounced his hips up and down, making the equestrian's prick lurch inside him. Overwhelmed by pleasure, Vinius urge to ejaculate waxed irresistible. He clasped Lucius' bottom cheeks and, forcing him to briskly rise and fall on his ribbed rod, reached climax. He let out an obscenity and filled the youth's anal interior with a scalding seminal emission. While Vinius was still in the throes of orgasm, white jets flew out of Lucius' cock and splattered Vinius' chest. "You had a heavy load," Vinius said post-orgasm. "My chest is drenched," he hyperbolized. "I can't even see my nipples." "You can eat my cum instead of garum," Lucius sassed. He lifted up off Vinius' lap with a slippery feeling between his buttocks. Vinius dressed and followed Lucius downstairs to retrieve his clothes. The waiter glanced at Lucius' cock still pointing due north and gave Vinius a knowing look. "Lets spit roast him," he said. "Penetrate him at both ends upstairs, or cook him on a skewer over hot coals downstairs?" Vinius wisecracked. "Upstairs," the waiter replied, pulling his cock out of his G-string. Lucius, Vinius and the waiter, raced up the stairs leaving behind belts, tunics, two pairs of boots, and a G-string. On the landing the waiter had a powerful erection. Vinius gasped at the size. 'That's going to be cramped inside his nineteen-year-old ass,' he thought. With cocks fully hard and leaking, the server and Lucius entered the cubicle. Vinius followed, his semi-stiff. * Septimus stripped. Filled with lust at the sight of Marullinus standing naked facing his bedroom window, he walked up behind him fully hard, and casting an arm across his submissive's chest, leveled his upward arching cock with his free hand and shoved it through Marcellinus' pink disklet. Marullinus grunted. "You don't use half measures," he said. "King Nicomedes penetrated young Julius Caesar up to his balls." "He also gave him a reach around," Marullinus hinted. Septimus reamed Marullinus' rear orifice, and gave him his pledged hand job. "Your cock is the hardest I've ever felt," he divulged. "Keep rubbing," Marcellinus enjoined. Septimus synchronized his strokes with his thrusts: his fist twizzling Marullinus' engorged penile head when he'd pulled out of Marullinus' posterior to his own, his hand at the root of Marullinus' inflamed shaft when his prick was fully inside Marullinus'seductive rear. Septimus' cupidity for mutual orgasm led him to plow Marullinus'rounded rump and to stimulate his young unyielding cock at frantic rates, his desire uncontrollable. With both their cocks maximally hard, Marullinus' splashed pearly white semen on the mosaic bull behind the tiled boxers as Septimus' unleashed jets of male cream inside Marullinus' hindmost end. Septimus pulled out and turned Marullinus around. He palmed Marullinus' scrotum. "You have balls the size of quinces," he said. "It'd be a shame to lose them." "What are you implying?" "Last month I saw a play in the theater called The Rise and Fall of Caelus," he replied, keeping a straight face. "In the last act the man portraying Caelus was actually castrated on stage." "How?" "Using a scalpel. With Caelus stripped and held spread-eagle on the stage bed, the actor playing Saturn pulled the sky god's balls to the bottom of his sack and made two vertical incisions, one at each of them. They popped out from the incisions and Saturn surgically removed them in front of the entire audience." "Are you kidding me?" Marullinus asked, incredulous. "His balls were then fried in oil and served to Galba. He's a heavy eater." Marullinus burst out laughing. "Well, at least he had your godlike beauty," Septimus said with a broad grin. PART FIVE Lucius moved into Vinius' two-storey villa. Marullinus moved into Septimus' suite of rooms at the governor's residence. Marullinus and Lucius met regularly for sex at the beach. Lucius claimed that now he was in an intimate relationship with Vinius, he was indifferent to having sex with Marullinus. Marullinus claimed that now he was in an intimate relationship with Septimus, he was indifferent to having sex with Lucius. In reality they both invariably arrived at the beach with their cocks harder than the rocks. * Lucius had anal intercourse with Vinius in every conceivable position. Marullinus had sex with Septimus on-duty as well as off-duty. "This is the first night you'll be away since you moved in," Septimus had said, disappointed. "We can still have sex," Marullinus had replied. "When? Where? How?" Septimus had asked. "In the still of the night, standing behind one of the pillars flanking Galba's bedroom portal. I'll hug the column while you lift up the back of my tunic and take me from behind." "What will I wear?" "A waist length vest that leaves you naked below the waist." "Won't that be obvious?" "It will turn my guardmate on." "What's his name?" "Marcus Gratus." When Septimus had shown up in the early hours in a red vest baring all from his hips on down, he'd achieved a powerful erection in full view of the two young men. Aroused by the sight of a man's cock swell, swing up and point to his navel, the fronts of their tunics tented out. Septimus smirked and led Marullinus behind the nearest pillar, his thick upright cock bouncing on each step. Gratus saw Marullinus' weapons tossed out from the back side of the pillar followed by his boots and tunic. Curious, he lay down his spear and, tiptoeing over, peeked behind the column. In the shadows he found Marullinus standing nude, his cock outlandishly stiff. Standing behind him, Septimus had his arms hooked under Marullinus' shoulders and his bare cock parked inside his well-curved buttocks. Gratus bared all, fell to his knees, and bobbed his mouth up and down Marullinus' rigid shaft while industriously rubbing his own. As the two young equites resumed their posts fully dressed, Gratus' breath reeked of semen while Marullinus carried a load inside his compact ass. Septimus initiated an after-sex analysis. "Your male milk tasted salty," he told Gratus, having sampled the pool of his fresh discharge on the floor behind the pillar. "Marullinus' tasted sweet," Gratus replied. "I'm envious." "Ingest more honey," Marullinus suggested. "I mean your butt is filled with spunk." "You have a lover. When was the last time he blew his wad inside yours?" "Just before I started this shift. Twice." "Then so is yours, hypocrite." "Lets drop it. Your shift ends soon doesn't it?" "I'll be off duty in a couple of hours." "What you have between your buttocks won't be," Septimus assured Marullinus. Septimus had left so flushed with lust that on his later return to escort Marullinus back to his rooms, he'd intended to strip Marullinus naked again and bed him as quickly as possible. * On the sweltering night Marullinus was currently to be on duty, he handed Septimus his vest. "Gratus loves to see you in this," he said. "He says you have a superb ass and a formidable pair of cock and balls." When in the early hours, Septimus walked swiftly down the hall in his vest to Galba's sleeping quarters, he found both young sentinels naked except for their spears and belted swords. "Are you guarding Galba's sleeping quarters in the nude now?" he asked, surprised. "Waiting for you to show up. We're both hot for sex," Marullinus replied. Septimus' uncovered cock turned into a phallic amulet against the evil eye; Marullinus' and Gratus' followed. "Both of you leave your weapons behind and follow me behind the pillar," he said. At the back of the column, Septimus ordered the young bucks on their hands and knees. The two got on all fours side by side with their cock's supremely hard. "Eager to have a cock back in there?" Septimus asked, with his left forefinger stroking Marullinus ' hind aperture and his right forefinger stroking Gratus'. "Who's first?" "I am," the pair said in unison. Septimus knelt behind Marullinus. Marullinus felt the head of Septimus' cock penetrate his rear russet ring followed by the shaft, then friction as the cock moved vigorously, giving him hot-blooded intercourse. From Gratus' perspective, he saw the man's hands clamped on his guardmate's waist, driving his hips forward to ram his cock inwards, and rocking back to pull it outwards, and heard Marullinus start to grunt out his pleasure as Septimus stroked faster and harder. Gratus' cock stiffened even further—he was fully aroused and desperate to have the man's cock inside his own posterior passage. A few token minutes more of ferocious thrusting brought Marullinus to orgasm. Marullinus cried out and Gratus knew that Marullinus was ejaculating. 'Thank god,' Gratus thought. 'Get over here and fuck the living daylights out of me.' Septimus pulled out and sidling over to Gratus, shoved his hard cock straight up the sentinel's eager ass. Marcellinus stared. Gratus met his gaze, and sent him a mocking smile that said I'm getting fucked and you're not. Septimus felt his cock achieve final stiffness and his urge to climax overpowered him. He slam fucked Gratus and reaching the point of no return, emptied his balls inside his rectal entrance. He withdrew. The pair emerged from behind the pillar. "Why are you grinning?" Gratus asked. "For the same reason you are," Marullinus replied. Septimus had employed such barbarous thrusts inside Gratus that Gratus had climaxed as well. * On sultry nights Marullinus had off, he and Septimus stripped and fell asleep naked on Septimus' bed. Given that Septimus regularly woke during the night aroused and wanting sex, Marullinus slept on his side with his buttocks facing Septimus' groin for quick and easy penetration. Septimus had misgivings at first, but Marullinus assured him that the prospect of being woken up by a hard cock in his ass, grabbed him. On many occasions Chrestos, the household servant, entered the airy bedroom in the morning with water and towels, and found his master and the beautiful young eques who lived in his rooms spooned together with the housemate, who he was told to address as Marullinus, in front with his master pumping his full cock inside his tight anal ring. Instead of retreating Chrestos watched until, after an ecstatic look swept over his master's face, his master pulled out and, rolling Marullinus over, sucked out his equestrian semen. With his cock tenting out his close-fittimg brown tunic, Chrestos attended to their ablutions. PART SIX Two summers later, the pair's sex life was hotter than ever. On the morning of Marullinus' twenty-first birthday he, Septimus and Chrestos were unclad in bed, the repeated rise and fall of Marullinus' hips moving his cock inwards and outwards inside Chrestos' rear end and his own posterior up and down Septimus' immobile shaft. The concurrent pleasure in his cock and ass brought on a prompt orgasm. He made one final thrust and emptied his balls inside the slave's rear tract. Septimus, positioned over Marullinus on his arms and toes, dismounted. Marullinus, on all fours over prone Chrestos, followed. "Do you think we're having too much sex?" Marullinus asked. "We're not having enough," Septimus answered. "Nero and Otho fucked every day—on waking, at night, and in the afternoon." "Otho, the governor of neighboring Lusitania?" "While Otho was Nero's leading favorite at court." "You're making me hot again," Marullinus said. "Better visit the baths," Septimus suggested. "The baths?" "To cool off. But hurry back. I want to give you your birthday prezzie." Marullinus put on a scrimpy string to show off his perfect body and nude, except for his genitals covered by the pouch—a meager scrap of fabric held in place by ultra-thin cords—headed to the bathhouse, practically next door to the gubernatorium. As Marullinus made his way in the midsummer heat, the head and shoulders of a young man, one of the dozen males Marullinus had slept with in the year before he met Lucius, appeared in a window. "Marullinus!" he called out. "I have a cock thrusting in my ass. I wish it was yours." He was pulled back out of sight. On entry, the pudgy keeper's eyes flashed lechery as they fell on the bulge of Marullinus' package that stretched his string's pouch well beyond the intended limit. 'It's a wonder it doesn't rip,' he thought. Marullinus strolled over to the toilet block, where he relieved his bladder, and then crossed the sky-lit court to the changing room, where he peeled off his string. He forewent the warm room and the hot room and invading the cold room, jumped into the pool with a noisy splash that would have made Seneca loathe his power of hearing. "Hoodlum!" a bather along in years shouted. He swam copious laps, then walked back to the changing room to towel and don his string. On his way he heard a voice behind him say, "How beautiful are your buttocks." The voice belonged to Galba. * Back at Septimus' suite, Marullinus opened the door unannounced and saw Septimus' buttocks spasm with his cock fully embedded in Chrestos' abused ass. Chrestos took his palms off the wall as Septimus pulled out and retreated. "I was so ruttish I could have fucked the hole in my high-backed chair," Septimus said unapologetically. "Chrestos is a good screw, don't you think?" Marullinus watched Septimus' cock soften and hang against his balls. "Decidedly," he replied. "How did it go at the baths?" "I ran into Galba." "Galba. What did he say?" "That I had a nice ass." "The governor has good taste. Since it's your birthday, I'm in my birthday suit. Since you're the birthday boy, you should be in yours." "I'm practically naked in this string." "Take it off." Marullinus slipped his thumbs under his stretchy sinew waist cord and pushed his scanty G-string down to his ankles. He stood up and stepped out without a stitch on. "Satisfied?" he asked. "Now you're ready for your present," Septimus said, chucking Marullinus' chin with one hand and gripping his young scrotum with the other. He towed Marcellinus by his balls into the bedroom. From his master's deep grunts, Chrestos deduced that Marullinus was availing himself of his master's body. The grunts persisted. Then Marullinus emitted an ecstatic cry, and the grunting ceased. Chrestos peeked through the open doorway into the bedchamber and saw Marullinus pull his cock out of Septimus' hot-pink fundament. AFTERWORD That night, briefed by Septimus as to what to expect, Marcellinus was standing on guard when Galba appeared out of his bedroom. Galba begged him to strip and led him back inside. In the morning Marullinus emerged nude from Galba's bedchamber. The eyes of the young guard still on duty went straight to his loins. He checked out Marullinus' upcurved cock, blood-red, spellbound by the groove on the underside of the swollen mushroom head, and when Marullinus turned to shut the bedroom door, perved on his rear end—the twin convex moldings of depilated flesh, the deep line between them. Clearly, from the streak of wet semen on the left cheek, Marullinus had been freshly fucked. NOTES Average July temperature in modern Tarragona is 85o /66 o High / Low (°F). During the Roman warm period (250 BC to AD 400) temperature was 2 o Celsius or 35.6 o Fahrenheit higher in Europe than today. PART ONE Roman governor Suetonius. [Galba 9] equestrian rank Ibid. [Galba 10] eques Levick, B. [329 (Member of the non-senatorial upper class possessing property worth 400,000 sesterces)] van den Hoven, B. [44 (eques by birth)] Galba type Suetonius. [Galba 22] PART TWO Tarraco two parts: Garcia-Moreno, A. G. [269-270] upper part ... gigantic Julio-Claudian temple: Ibid. [269, 274] lower part ... alluvial plain that stretched to the coast: Ibid. [269] square and basilica built during the reign of Augustus: Ibid. [272-3] forum of the Republican period: Ibid. [271-3] monumental temple: Ibid. [272] theater: Ibid. [271 and n. 663] brick tenement adjacent five story blocks built around a central courtyard: DeLaine, J. [317-19] shared cistern to the communal latrine: Ibid. [321] lived in a two room apartment ...who owned the block: Ibid. [318, 321] curly blond haired Suetonius. [Augustus 79] Democrates ... his young live-in tutee Hubbard, T. K. [2.5: Plutarch. Alcibiades 3.1] frescoes painted on the side of the counter ... a dog Monaco, F. [para. 3] Earthenware jars ... make broth Ibid. [Fig. 1 (The thermopolium's counter with animal frescoes and embedded dolia. Luigi Spina), paras. 6 and 7] fish simmered in broth ... local wine Ibid. [para. 3 and 6] dining area Ibid. [para. 8] G-string Cf. Crowther, N. R. [111 (gladiator wearing only a G-string)] Titus Vinius Plutarch [Lives, Galba (12) (vol. 11)] Lupercalia Ibid. [Lives, Caesar (61) (vol. 7)] first shave (at nineteen) Suetonius. [Caligula 10] hair-plucker at the bathhouse Seneca. [Epistle 56 parts 1 and 2] Julius Caesar Suetonius. [Divus Julius 45] PART FOUR King Nicomedes penetrated young Julius Caesar Suetonius. [Divus Julius 49] the actor playing Saturn ... surgically removed them Junne, G. [24 (Paul of Aegina)] He's a heavy eater Suetonius. [Galba 22] PART FIVE governor's residence Strabo. [3.4.7] PART SIX Nero and Otho Suetonius. [Otho 2, 3] made Seneca loath his power of hearing Seneca. [Epistle 56 parts1and 2] REFERENCES Crowther, N. R. (2007) Sport in ancient times. Westport, CT. DeLaine, J. (2018) Insulae. In C. Holleran and A. Claridge (Eds.), A Companion to the city of Rome (pp. 317-24). Hoboken, NJ. Garcia-Moreno, A. G Large-scale building in early imperial Tarraco (Tarragona, Spain) and the dynamics behind the creation of a Roman provincial capital landscape. In A. Brysbaert et al. (Eds.), Constructing monuments, perceiving monumentality and the economics of building (pp. 271-94). Leiden. Hubbard, T. K. (2003) Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A sourcebook of basic documents. Berkeley. Junne, G. (2016) The black eunuchs of the Ottoman Empire: networks of power in the court of the sultan. London. Levick, B. (2013) Augustus: Image and Substance. NY. Monaco, F. (2021) Reconstructing the Menu of a Pub in Ancient Pompeii. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/recreate-the-menu-of-pompeii-ancient-pub Plutarch Perrin, B. (Trans.) (1919, 1926) Plutarch's Lives (Vols.1-11, vols. VII and 11). Cambridge, MA. Seneca Grummere, R. M. (Trans.) (1996) Seneca Epistles (Vols. 1-3, vol. 1). Cambridge, Mass. Strabo Jones, H. L. (Trans.) (1923) The geography of Strabo (Vols. 1-8, vol. 2). Cambridge, Mass. Suetonius Graves, R. (Trans.) (2007) Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: The Twelve Caesars. London. van den Hoven, B. (1996) Work in ancient and medieval thought: ancient philosophers, medieval monks and theologians and their concept of work, occupations and technology. Amsterdam.