by Syra Bond
The women were untied and turned upside down on the crosses. They were spanked again but the men could not resist and most of them plunged fingers between the slaves' legs or thrust their faces against them. One of the women huddling by the entrance tunnel was spread-eagled and tied to a cart wheel with heavy rope. Her naked body was doused in oil and then the wheel was bowled from one side of the arena to the other. The crowd threw down food at her as she spun across the arena and, when the wheel toppled, several men leapt down and plunged their cocks one after the other into her sex and mouth. As the crowd roared the woman was released, tied to ropes by the heels, then dragged through the dusty arena by two Nubian slaves. She was hauled up by her ankles on the end of a long pole and the two Nubians stretched the pole out over the crowd and passed the woman over their heads. They struggled to keep the pole in the air as men in the crowd lurched at the woman, grabbing her hair and trying to reach her breasts. Two women climbed down into the arena and tore at their own clothes until only tattered rags hung about their waists. They started wrestling each other, rolling in the dust as they clawed at the final remnants of clothing and pulled at each other's hair. Nubian slaves were sent to separate and drag them away, but even as they were pulled out through the exit tunnel they continued to fight and claw at each other in an uncontrollable frenzy. As they were driven into a large cage at the rear of the tunnel they clasped their legs around the Nubians' hips and forced themselves down onto their hard cocks.
Slaves attached a collar first to Caristia's neck, then to Bec's. Two lines of girls, naked except for coronets of white flowers in their hair, lined up in front of them. Other slaves clipped a rope into each of the collars and then the ropes were pulled out and draped over the shoulders of the two lines of waiting girls. The girls pulled and both women fell forward, Caristia because she was struggling to carry the weight of the heavy yoke, and Bec because she could not see. Another fanfare was sounded, the grill that separated Caristia and Bec from the arena was lifted, and the two were hauled in.
Slaves with whips drove them from behind, and slowly they were positioned in front of the boards which led across the separate enclosures from which the metal nets had now been peeled back. The yoke was removed from Caristia and she was lifted up onto the board by the Nubians. Other slaves pushed her forward, and unable to resist them she walked along the board nervously, then just as she reached the centre they tipped it and she fell into the enclosure. They swept the netting across quickly, trapping her inside, and she clawed up at it like a captured animal. They then used poles with rings to hold Bec by the neck and guide her up onto the boards, then keeping her balanced in the centre, one of them climbed up and released her chains. As soon as she was free of her bonds they let go of the poles and tipped her into the enclosure too. She fell on her back, and still with the poles extending from her neck she ripped the blindfold from her eyes. She looked around savagely as the netting was drawn quickly over the top of the enclosure, and frustrated by her captivity she began running against the boards that surrounded her, charging and crashing into them noisily with her shoulders.
Arria Sulla signalled to the Nubians at the entrance tunnel and they opened the gates to two large cages drawn by six horses. Each cage was filled with men. Some were covered in animal skins and roared and clawed as if they were themselves animals. Some were dressed as warriors and carried spears or swords, some wore masks and black leather tunics and wielded whips, and others were black naked savages with huge headdresses and rings in their noses. The crowd howled its approval as the cages were paraded around the arena, until finally they were drawn up alongside the enclosures that imprisoned Caristia and Bec. Nubians clambered on top of the cages and stood ready to lift the doors and temporarily remove some of the boards that would release the men into the two enclosures - the masked men in leather tunics and those in animal skins into Caristia's, and the warriors and naked savages into Bec's.
Fronto stood up and held his arms high. The crowd roared, then knowing their pleasure awaited a signal from one of the patrician class, they quietened until there was not a sound.
'Now,' said Fronto triumphantly, 'on this twenty-fourth day of the month of Augustus, let this special contest begin!'
Chapter 12
The contest
The Nubians on top of the cages pulled up the doors and the boards of the enclosures then quickly jumped down and ran to the sides of the arena. There was a moment when nothing happened, even Bec stood still and stared at the opening into the cage, then as if the doors to hell itself had been opened, there was pandemonium.
The first ones to rush towards their quarry were the men in animal skins. But they had hardly moved, holding their hands up like claws and snarling loudly before the others followed. The men in skins chased Caristia around the enclosure while the masked men stood around the edges and whipped her whenever she came close enough to them. She heard the crashes of swords and yelling in the other corral, but she could not see over the boards that penned her in. One of the men, an African wearing a lion skin with the open-jawed head as his headdress, grabbed her by the waist and brought her to the ground. She managed to wriggle away but he grabbed her ankles, pinned her fast and would not let go. Another held her by the shoulders and a third grasped her hair.
They pulled her over onto her back, pawing at her with their hands as though they were animals taunting their prey. Suddenly one of them lunged at her, gripping one of her nipples between his teeth and grasping her sex in his hand. She gasped as he pinched her labia, squeezing them between his fingers and digging his nails into their exposed softness. Another man, a buffalo skin secured at his neck by its heavy front legs and its horned, wide-eyed head fixed low over his eyes, knelt across her shoulders, facing her feet, and lowered his balls over her face. They swung heavily against her mouth as he squeezed her cheeks and forced her lips open. She let out a squeal and with her labia pinched and her nipple being bitten, she was seized with a flood of pain and fear.
The next she knew they threw her onto her front, holding her shoulders to the ground and lifting her bottom. They parted her legs wide and she felt the lion's mane tickling the insides of her thighs as the man wearing it licked up the length of her slit, then drove his tongue into her anus. She felt it inside her rectum as the tip probed and explored. She clawed at the ground, gripping the sand and forcing it between her fingers as he pulled away and placed the bulbous tip of his rigid cock against the opening. He pushed it in without stopping, all the way to the root, filling her rear passage, making her scream out and at the same time, starting the flow of her own unstoppable orgasm.
As he finished inside her rear, saturating her with his copious flow of semen, the men in the leather tunics and masks moved in and hauled her to the boards at the side of the enclosure. She did not want to release the cock from her anus, she wanted to squeeze it until all his semen was inside her, and when they pulled her away she felt suddenly empty and in need of filling again. She escaped from the masked men and ran to the centre of the enclosure and bent on all fours, lifting her bottom, inviting the men in animal skins to fill it, to drive their cocks into it, to drench her with their heat. One of the masked men snapped his whip and its tattered end flicked across her buttocks. It was only a glance but it burned her sharply, but although she flinched she did not pull away nor hold back from what she wanted, and she dropped her shoulders lower, opened her thighs slightly and lifted her bottom even higher. The whip cracked again, a sudden burning snap, and she felt its sting but again she pushed her shoulders down and lifted her buttocks. Another crack and another stinging pain but she opened her legs wider, revealing her sex, and the next one that struck caught her exposed labia.
She yelled out with each fiery crack of the whip, but the pain only encouraged her to want more so she rolled over on her back, lifted her legs and let them whip between her legs. Even as the whips laced her flesh, as the sound of pain filled her ears, she heard the crowd roaring and, as each whipping
snap landed against her flesh she heard their baying rise to a fresh crescendo. The roaring crowd, the exposure and the delectable pain drew an orgasm from her that reached every nerve, every sense and every corner of her ecstatic body. Each movement was a signal for it to flow more, each flinch a flare that relit the flames that scorched her. When one of the animal men knelt between her legs and drove his cock again into her anus, the surge of her orgasm was like the flow of a drowning tide and she howled as if once beneath this sea of pleasure she might never breathe again.
They lifted her up onto the boards so she could see over the side. Bec was fighting with the savages. They surrounded her in a circle, wary of her yet at the same time aware that they outnumbered her. Caristia watched them pinning her to the ground, stripping her leather costume away, exposing her black pubic hair and revealing her rounded breasts. Then she watched them bending her over one of their backs and beating her with a leather belt. The warriors joined in, tying her with leather thongs and holding her against the enclosure wall to be spanked. Caristia watched Bec's buttocks reddening and she saw that no matter what they did to her she would never show that she was suffering.
Caristia wanted spanking like Bec. She wanted the feel of a hand across her bottom, but unlike Bec she wanted to scream. She wanted to yell each time the hand came down on her skin; she wanted to expel her pain and let it mix with the thrill. The hands holding her slackened for a moment and she wriggled free. The man in the lion skin fell back onto the ground, the lion's head falling low on his face and the skin folding around his hips. His cock, hard and throbbing, stuck up between the folds of the skin and, when Caristia saw it she straddled him and dropped down onto it. She threw herself forward, lifting her buttocks and exposing them for punishment. One of the masked men dropped his whip and bent down to her. He held his hand across the taut skin of her bottom, then when she tensed and squeezed down onto the cock inside her, he lifted his hand away and brought it down with all his force.
The smack was so hard that the breath was knocked from her in a sudden explosion of air. She reared back but as soon as she moved she felt the hardness of the cock inside her, and still arching her back she drove herself further down onto it. She lifted her bottom again and the next smack fell immediately. It stung so deeply, penetrated her body with tongues of fire, but the pain only incensed her. It only fed her passion and she pulled herself up and down the stiff cock, wriggling from side to side, tightening herself on it until, squeezing her eyes tightly together in frustrated anticipation, the next smack struck. Again and again the hand spanked her bottom, reddening it, setting it on fire and again and again she rose to meet it, squeezing the cock inside her cunt and yelling with desire and suffering. She took it all, and when at last she felt the surge of hot semen inside her she climbed off the man and another took his place. The spanking continued, each strike filling her with pain but the pain only driving her to want more.
As she climbed from the third man she was lifted and draped again against the boards of the enclosure. She hung her head over the edge, watching her enemy as the spanking continued, as the fire of passion kept burning. Bec had not given in and her resistance only angered her antagonists. They stalked her in a circle, spitting their resentment and kicking dust into her face, jabbing at her with their spears or lurching at her savagely. Suddenly, acting together out of some intuition, they flung themselves at her and wrestled her to the ground. Two of them stood over her and pulled at their stiff cocks until their seed erupted. It dribbled into her mouth and she spat it out, but even though she shook her head vigorously she could not stop it running into her nostrils and her eyes. One of the warriors lifted his sword and sliced at the wire netting that covered the enclosure. It tore into jagged strips and he clambered up through it and onto the board that stretched across the width of the pen. Caristia saw what he was going to do and watched him, balancing on the board and reaching up high towards the hanging bell. She reared back against the heavy spanking, lifting her face up into the night sky, and like a victorious animal she yelled at the top of her voice as the man grabbed hold of the rope that hung from the clanger and rang it as a frantic signal of Bec's defeat.
Caristia fell back to the ground, stretching her arms out wide and spreading her hands flat in the dirt. The Amphitheatre filled with the clamorous roar of the crowd. It was like a storm, a heavy roll of thunder. Caristia felt it under her back, reverberating like an explosion or the beating of a heavy drum. Then she felt something different. There was a heavy rumble beneath her, shuddering against her shoulder blades, coming from somewhere deep. She felt it against the palms of her hands, then she felt her whole body moving as it shook the very fabric of the earth. It was as if the world was breaking in half.
Everything stopped, the crowd went silent, no one knew what was happening, what to expect next. Some even thought their senses were deceiving them. But as they turned to each other with worried faces, they realised they had not been mistaken. It happened again, another heavy rumble, this time stronger, more intense, as if the planet's core was preparing to explode. It was like the low growl of a suffering dragon, woken by a terrifying pain, then as if its suffering had become unbearable the tortured beast was letting out a snarling, deafening roar. The ground shook in long, resounding booms. It felt as though they would never stop, and the dark sky was lit up by a billow of rolling flames erupting from the crater of the bursting Vesuvius. A column of flame rose into the sky, lighting it from beneath, picking out the dark clouds which hung above the waking monster. Then, as if this was not enough, the whole broad base of the crater lifted into the sky as though plucked from the earth by a god. The mountain opened down its flank as it was ripped apart and the crater which had been torn from its root was atomized into a storm of airborne ash and fire.
Caristia ran to the edge of the enclosure and clambered up the sides of the boards. She pressed against the metal meshing and watched as Bec was confronted by a crowd running in through the broken down entrance. Bec struggled against the flood of men in the enclosure as they poured in through the opened gate. They had seen her overcome by the caged gladiators and now, terrified and confused by the fire-filled sky and deafened by the roaring volcano, could think of nothing else other than taking pleasure for themselves. Bec could not stand against them, it was impossible, there were too many and she buckled under their weight and fell to the ground.
Caristia could not bear to see her subjected to the savagery of the desperate men. Even though she was her enemy, she admired her prowess and strength, and without thinking about the consequences she squeezed between the tops of the boards and the netting and dropped into the other enclosure. She tried to fight her way through the seething mob, guided by Bec's fading cries, but it was hopeless, she could not get to her... and then she saw Bec's hand stretching out of the churning crowd and managed to get close enough to grab it.
'Remember me,' Bec said, struggling to speak under the pressure of the bodies engulfing her. 'Remember Bec, the daughter of Thorkell the Dane...'
Caristia let go of the weakening hand and it disappeared beneath the panicking throng. Caristia turned to push her way back but straightaway she saw she could not escape either; the crowd were going wild and they did not care who they attacked. She struck out at them, desperate to get away from their grabbing hands, but she fell to the ground coughing and choking in the whipped up dust storm of fear. The crowd's feet were all around her and she feared being trampled, then just as she was giving up all hope a powerful black arm swept down and lifted her by the waist.
Magnus held her high, pushing the crowd aside, kicking them, punching them, fighting for his prize. He was too powerful for any of them and they fell aside like dolls as he ran, carrying Caristia, out of the exit tunnel and into the cobbled street.
'Magnus,' she said breathlessly, as she lay in his arms, 'I must find Drusus, Fronto's slave. Magnus, I must find him.'
'I know where he is,' said Magnus, looking around at the panicking
crowds running amok in the streets. 'I will take you to him.'
Magnus ran through the streets with Caristia in his arms. She felt the strength of his muscular arms around her and, even surrounded by the fiery sky and the roaring waves of noise that spewed from the volcano, she felt a sense of safety in his powerful grip. As they reached the Gymnasium a dust of hot ash began falling from the sky. People in the street held out their hands to catch it, sniffed at it and pawed at it with their fingers, as if it was a source of amusement, as if it was no threat.
In the centre of the open colonnaded training square of the Gymnasium Drusus hung tethered against a stake. Caristia wriggled from Magnus's arms and ran towards him, but the young men who trained there, pretending that the ash-spewing mountain which overshadowed them was somehow subordinate to their youthful powers, intercepted her and surrounded her in a jeering ring. She looked into their eyes and although she saw some fear reflected in the red shimmering light cast by the volcano, she also saw a stubborn, juvenile refusal to accept their obvious fate. Like the crowd who had attacked and overcome Bec, they too seemed to think that worldly pleasures would somehow rid them of the terrors which threatened to extinguish their lives altogether.
Caristia dodged from side to side, hoping to break their ranks and run between them, but it only amused them. Magnus stepped in front of her, but he was no match for them either. They were fit, trained for combat and outnumbered him, and quickly they brought him down and bound him by the wrists and ankles. Caristia's eyes filled with tears when she saw him lying helpless on the ground. She wanted to do something to help him, but she did not know what and all she could think of as a shimmering covering of ash slowly coated the Nubian's bound body, was Drusus, and how to get him free.