by Syra Bond
'She is yours now, my friend. You must do with her as you will,' said Rufo, already going over in his mind the new plans he had for Caristia.
Innocenti had a rope pulled around her neck and she was led out by Fronto's manservant. She looked back emptily at Caristia. Her raised eyebrows and the sad look from her dark eyes was an appeal for help, but it was an appeal void of meaning, a plea in which was written only hopelessness.
Each day after Fronto's visit Caristia was taken to Rufo's house. Sometimes she was stripped naked and made to stand in front of erotic mosaics in a small private room where daily he met his customers. The pictures were made from the smallest of coloured tiles and depicted men with massive cocks, some tied up with leather straps with women sucking them, holding them and riding them as if possessed by a frenzy. It was as though these women had been possessed by the gods and were struggling to accomplish a god's passions while confined in a human body. It was as if they could not contain the heavenly fire within them, taking them over, forcing them to do more than they could, in the end, ever stand.
If Caristia moved while she was standing there Rufo's guests would beat her, spanking her over their knees or bending her over a chair and caning her. Often she was brought to dinner on all fours and kept like that all evening. Sometimes she had a small purse hung around her neck and Rufo's guests put their sexual requests into it then drew them out and discussed which ones to demand. Once she was held under the water in the pool in the atrium then spanked by all the guests before they tied her to a column and forced their cocks first into her cunt then into her mouth, one by one. Some of them sprayed their semen into a bowl and she was made to drink it. Once she was sent to crawl through the streets with a sign hanging from her neck saying that for the payment of one sesterce anyone who wished could spank her. Late that night, unable to find her way back, she was found by a group of young men who tied her to the wheel of a cart and beat her with canes. Magnus drove the men away and took her almost unconscious body back to the slaves' quarters in his arms.
One day, after she had been held down and beaten across the breasts and cunt, by some rich friends of Rufo's, Caristia saw Bec being taken from the house by Magnus. Her wrists were bound and she was tightly gagged with a leather strap, but it was not enough to stem her fury and she fought against Magnus like a wild beast. She braced herself against the doorway and kicked out at him, and he had to beat her with a fasces in order to get her outside. As Bec spit and snarled at Magnus, even when he was thrashing her as hard as he could across her naked buttocks, Caristia - unable to take her eyes from the uncontrollable dark-haired beauty - was overwhelmed by a sudden and unheralded orgasm.
Chapter 3
The Happy Phoenix
It was evening and the sun had just dipped behind the southern slopes of Vesuvius. Magnus led Caristia on a leash tied to a collar around her neck as they made their way to the Happy Phoenix, a rowdy bar at the junction of three roads which led only to the Amphitheatre. Its front was a typical L-shaped bar with large pots set into it to keep food hot. Behind this, a wooden rack for storing amphoras of wine and at the back of this three other rooms for guests - who could stay with female company if they required - a storeroom and a lavatory. Alongside the guest rooms was a large open courtyard with a fountain at its centre used to keep a small vineyard and for open-air drinking, eating and entertainment. Across the full width of the courtyard two heavy wires were suspended and on these were ranged recently lit candles set in flimsy brass holders. The outside wall, abutting the street, was covered in graffiti penned by the partisan supporters of various gladiators, all of whom passed this way on their journey to the arena, although only the victors returned. The innkeeper, Euxinus, often bought women from Rufo and used them for entertaining his guests then, when they were worn out, he sold them on as house servants or attendants at the arena. Euxinus's entertainments were well known in Pompeii and many of Rufo's customers were to be found at his hostelry.
Magnus pulled Caristia behind him as he ducked to enter the bar. Rufo strutted ahead looking from side to side to see if there was any chance of doing business as he had not sold a single slave since Fronto's last visit.
'Euxinus!' he shouted eagerly. 'Euxinus!' A stocky man with cropped grey hair and a grey robe tied at the waist with a sash, pushed his way through the noisy crowd of drinkers. 'Ale Euxinus. And something to entertain me.'
Euxinus looked straight at Caristia and was transfixed by her blonde beauty and pale, fragile demeanour.
'Olconio Rufo. You have brought me a special prize I see.'
Rufo laughed good-heartedly.
'She is not for you my dear Euxinus. I am training her for something very special.'
'You disappoint me Rufo,' Euxinus said, stretching out his chubby hand and fondling Caristia's pert breasts. 'I am sure she would have done well on my little entertainment evenings.' Magnus grabbed his wrist and pushed him back sharply. Euxinus turned to Rufo, shocked. 'Your freed slave asserts his new rights strongly Rufo.'
'Yes,' said Rufo. 'He still knows my wishes, and my wish for this young beauty is that you do not touch! Now! Entertainment. It is hot and I am dry. I have done no business yet today and am in need of something to lift my spirits.'
'I will not disappoint you Olconio Rufo. Look, arrived only yesterday a troop of Egyptian acrobats. The girls are fresh from Nubia, guaranteed virgins, and the boys are just, well my dear Rufo, they are just so beautiful.'
Three nubile young women with short cropped hair and two muscular young men sprang through the crowded bar and ran, all the time energetically leaping and tumbling, into the courtyard at the rear. Rufo pushed forward and Magnus snatched Caristia's lead. She winced as the leather collar pinched her neck then, enjoying the tension, allowed herself to be pulled forward until, dragged to the front of the crowd that now gathered around the courtyard, Magnus slackened the leash and it drooped limply across her breasts. As the soft leather glanced against her nipples, they hardened and pushed out the front of her thin tunic in two delightful peaks. She flushed slightly as two men turned and stared at them.
Everyone was enthralled by the acrobatic display and men in the crowd leered between the splayed legs of the young women, gawping at the tight-stretched panties of pure silk, as they extended their agile bodies to the limits in order to perform their feats. The male acrobats lifted the girls high above their heads, holding their legs apart wide then, to the gasps of the crowd, dropped them as if they would hit the floor, only to save them at the last minute and swirl them around by the ankles as their faces skimmed the delicately mosaicked floor.
Rufo cheered energetically as he drank glass after glass of lemon-scented wine and Caristia, sensing the rare feeling of freedom on her slack lead, edged to the front of the crowd. The two young men swished canes around the young women's ankles and they leapt to avoid them, then the girls stood on their hands, allowing their short tunics to fall around their faces and expose their tight panties and bare breasts. The crowd roared and Caristia edged even further forward.
Suddenly a sixth member of the troop leapt into the courtyard: He was dressed like the other two men; in only close-fitting tights, but instead of their lissom athleticism and beauty he was dwarfish, thickset and ugly. The crowd shouted with joy as, acting out a play, the dwarf chased the women, first somersaulting to show his skill then dropping onto all fours as he imitated a wolf chasing its prey. The three young women cowered in mock fear then, when the other two men came to their rescue the three women climbed onto their shoulders and formed a pyramid. They clutched each other, pulling their white tunics up to their faces and exposing their silky panties and one of them, her bare breasts. The dwarf stalked around them then swung round to the crowd as if turning his animal intentions elsewhere. Everyone gasped and backed off, then laughed loudly at their own stupidity. The dwarf lurched forward and grabbed Caristia's tunic. She shrieked in fright but, before the dwarf had time to do anything else, Magnus grabbed him around the wa
ist and lifted him bodily into the air.
'Look how your freed man Magnus lifts the dwarf, Rufo!' exclaimed Euxinus excitedly. 'He is like Zeus with one of his children. The little man is like a toy to him. We should call the midget Minimus. Yes, Minimus!'
The crowd started chanting his new name as the dwarf struggled frantically to escape the clutches of his captor.
'Let him go Magnus. Let our little Minimus go free so we can see his performance,' urged Rufo.
Reluctantly Magnus lowered the dwarf in his massive hands and, as he set him down, he held him there and scowled at him. Minimus shook himself and squirmed then Magnus suddenly released him. Minimus carried on with his performance as if nothing had happened. He stalked around the women as, still clutching each other on the shoulders of the two men, they feigned fear. Suddenly Minimus sprang forward and snatched one from her perch. He dragged her to the floor and she twisted and turned, as if in a dance, as he reached and strained to keep hold of her. She dropped to the floor, sitting with one leg crooked up under her thigh and the other stretched out fully. Her cream panties pulled tightly across her splayed cunt and the slight hollows on the insides of the tops of her thighs opened the material slightly at the sides. As she sat there motionless with her head cocked back, it was just possible to see that she was completely shaved. Minimus prowled around her, still playing his part, sniffing at her, pawing at her, and each time he got close she drew back with an acted expression of fear and revulsion. Suddenly, as if angered, he made a grab for her and took hold of one of her ankles, but she pulled away and cowered on all fours behind the small fountain in the centre of the courtyard. Minimus ran around throwing his hands into the air with dramatised frustration before dashing into the bar and returning with a coil of rope. He stood on the fountain and spun the rope like a lasso, then flicked its frayed end at the woman catching her on the hip with its burning, snapping tip. She looked surprised, as if she had not expected it, as if it was not part of their act, then he flicked it again and she shouted out in obvious pain.
The crowd yelled for more and Minimus, egged on by their encouragement, leapt at the woman excitedly. He wrapped the rope around her ankle and, before she had time to pull it away, he yanked it tight and started pulling her across the floor. She screamed loudly as he dragged her around then, when her hands slipped and she fell onto her side, he handed the rope end to someone in the audience and dashed back into the bar to fetch another. The woman wriggled against the rope around her ankle, almost reaching down to it but, just as her straining fingers reached it, Minimus wrapped the second rope around her other ankle and pulled back on it until she fell over on her back and was splayed wide.
She threw her head from side to side and shouted out in a language no one could understand. 'Men fadlak saadni! Men fadlak saadni!' she cried. 'Please help me! Please help me!'
Minimus knelt between her legs and leered at the crowd. They urged him on and, grinning and gyrating his hips, he wriggled his silky tights down over his stumpy legs. Minimus had a massive cock, both in itself and relevant to his otherwise diminutive size. It stuck out like a forearm from his groin, held out stiffly at right angles with heavy, pounding pulses, tensed and veiny and with a fist-like glans throbbing at its end. He held it in his hand and waved its incongruous bulk as though it was a staff. The crowd cheered and shouted loudly and the men holding the ends of the ropes pulled them even tighter and the young Egyptian woman, overcome by fear, shrieked continuously. Minimus pulled his hands up and down the length of his massive cock, causing the veins to expand and the pulsating tip to engorge even more. The crowd was in an uproar. He wriggled forward on his stumpy legs and knelt across her chest, first pressing the end of his cock against the sides of her face then forcing it tightly into her gaping mouth.
She tried to push him away but two men from the crowd ran forward with more rope, bound each wrist and pulled them wide until she was spread-eagled, as if on a cross, beneath the chuckling, red-faced Minimus. He lifted her head forward and drove his cock deeply into her mouth. She gagged and choked as it touched the back of her throat but he did not release her and held her there, his face reddening more all the time, as he pressed the massive shaft in between her tight-stretched lips. She closed her eyes tight and snorted through her nose until her cheeks bulged with the hugely expanding glans as he reared back and finished. He held her there, clamping her lips around his veiny cock, keeping it crammed in, forcing her to suck it and, not until she had swallowed it all, did he release his grasp on her and let her head fall back to the floor. She choked and moaned and his semen ran from the sides of her stretched mouth. Minimus looked at the crowd and grinned then, his cock still as stiff as before, he sprang up and leapt from her.
The men holding the ropes slackened them and, for a moment, thinking she would be freed, she sat up and started to wipe her face with the back of her hand. But, as she sat, looking hopeless and used, the two men ran across the courtyard holding the ropes, twisting her over as they took up the tension again and pulled her over violently, stretching her arms out again but, this time, face down. Her tunic was pulled up around her waist and her cream panties, although smoothed across her splayed cunt, were pulled deeply into the crease of her buttocks.
Minimus leapt across to the other members of the troop - the two men and two women - who were by now holding each other in fear. Minimus brushed the two men aside and caught hold of one of the women. She was slim and elegant, taller than the other one, with high cheekbones and wide, dark eyes and her pale skin hardly contrasting with her ebony tunic and silky panties. Her breasts were small and her dark nipples stood out erect beneath the material that covered them. Minimus twisted her around then, taking a rope offered to him from the crowd, he bent down to her ankles, coiled the rope around them several times and bound them together tightly. She tried to turn around, as if to ask the other acrobats for help, but Minimus tugged the rope and brought her to the floor heavily like a lassoed steer. She shouted at him and spat, pleading for mercy and showing her contempt for his apparent betrayal, but he took no notice.
Looping the rope that led from her ankles he tied her wrists behind her then, being careful to stop it tangling up in her tunic, he led it down the small of her back and between her taut buttocks. He pulled it between them until it could not be seen then wrapped it around her waist before once again bringing it between her athletic buttocks. She looked at him fearfully, biting her lips and shaking. He took a fasces and wedged it behind her knees then led the rope around several times until her legs were secured, splayed wide at the knees, to the fasces. Finally, he wrapped the rope around the centre of the fasces and knotted it tightly. She lay there, unable to move, completely at his mercy. He bent down and laid his head between her legs, licking the gusset of her panties with his fleshy tongue and darkening the silky material where it pulled wetly against the crack of her cunt. Suddenly, he jumped back and threw the spare end of the rope up over the two heavy wires that ran the full width of the courtyard. It draped over them and fell back, knocking the wires from side to side and causing a spray of hot wax to fall like a shower onto the courtyard.
Minimus dodged back to avoid the falling wax and his captive screamed as some of it splattered on her shoulder and cheek. She twisted sideways to avoid more and, as she did, Minimus tensioned the rope over the wires and yanked it hard. The fasces lifted and her body was twisted off the floor. Two men rushed forward and helped the dwarf pull, and to the excited screams of the crowd, they dragged the girl clear of the floor.
They hauled her higher and each time they pulled, the wires shook and wax sprayed down onto her. It fell first onto her shins and on the tops of her downturned feet, then as she got higher and it had less time to congeal, it ran from her knees and down the fronts of her thighs. She screeched to be released but her tormented screams only increased. Hot wax rained down on her, running along the insides of her thighs until it reached the tight gusset of her panties. It splattered against the materia
l, each drop causing her to yell and twist, and each time she twisted the candles rocked more on the wires and released more of their wax. Finally, as she spun beneath the storm of wax, the two men tied off the rope. She whirled above them, twisting and turning and screeching with terror. Her tunic fell down over her face, baring her breasts and muffling her screams and, in a desperate act to try and stay the pain, she took the material into her mouth and bit it.
Caristia watched as Minimus climbed on someone's shoulders and began beating the woman with a bamboo cane. First he caught her across the buttocks, reddening them with thin bright stripes, then as she twisted on the rope he thrashed the sides and fronts of her hips, her back and finally, her breasts. Red stripes appeared everywhere he made contact and, as he thrashed her harder, Caristia saw the woman's dark nipples harden until they were themselves a sufficient target for Minimus's flailing cane. As she spun he brought it down across the hard nipples, aiming carefully, timing his blows and measuring them precisely so that as she revolved, bound and upside down on the rope, each received the same number of strikes.
The wax continued to spray onto her, running around the gusset of the panties that were stretched across her splayed cunt, flowing onto it, and running between the cheeks of her bottom before swirling out onto them and solidifying. Minimus beat her remorselessly, bringing the cane down harder with each stroke, cutting into the wax that had hardened, splashing the wax that was still hot. She twisted and turned then, with her tunic gripped tightly in her mouth and covered in the wax that continued to rain down on her, Caristia watched in amazement as the woman tightened and screeched with a sudden, fitful paroxysm of delight. The young acrobat's muscles tightened across her stomach and she lifted her hips to meet the cane as it came down hard against the wax-splattered gusset of her panties. She tightened her legs, straining to open herself to the source of the pain then, unable to stay the force of her flooding pleasure, she pulled herself up on the rope, curled forward and, with Minimus still flaying her, let out a massive screech of delight.