The Lurid Sea

by Tom Cardamone

  Roman women and some of the more effeminate men wore perfume, so we were acquainted with the finer scents civilization afforded. Mother would take us on the occasional shopping excursion to the Graecostadium near the Forum. There was a discreet alley stocked with merchants who peddled expensive perfumes and rare cosmetics from every corner of the empire. Typically, Mother assigned household shopping to one of the kitchen slaves, but she preferred to pick out her own cosmetics. Her morning and evening routines were elaborate rituals that required more ointments and unguents than one would have thought possible, all with the help of a diminutive cosmetae, a silent acne-scarred Persian slave whose sole duty was to assist in the application and removal of layer after layer of preservation.

  Like all upper-class women, Mother valued fair skin above all else. I believe she managed these excursions on her own because she did not want the slaves to know how much chalk and other skin whitening makeup she purchased, nor the amount she was willing to spend on such items. I recall her paying one specific merchant within a regal tent clouded with frankincense an exorbitant sum for the desiccated dung of an albino crocodile. I occasionally accompanied her and was allotted some coin to spend at the booksellers if I behaved. Her definition of behaving was to be completely quiet as she absorbed every word of the intricate instructions on the application of whatever powder had just been unpacked that morning off the latest ship from Alexandria.

  Perseus was charged with keeping me out of the way while Mother shopped. He feigned indifference, but I knew he coveted her creams. During the holiday of Saturnalia, when slaves were permitted to disrespect their masters, he put on an annual show at dinner by donning her stola and painting his face as hers in a mockery that she coolly enjoyed. She, in turn, was far more familiar with the slaves during that one day, pouring Perseus the best wine, dutifully applying makeup to her little cosmetae until she shone like a freshly chiseled statue of the most ethereal marble. The slave-child was beautiful, but the alabaster application would fissure if she smiled, making her into a crone. Mother always asked the younger slaves what presents they would each like during Sigillaria, the day of gift-giving that soon followed. When I was old enough to hoist a pitcher, I participated as well, serving the kitchen slaves and pretending to whimper and cry as they lobbed tender criticisms at my performance and delivered mock beatings.

  I tugged at the end of Perseus’s tunic to indicate I wanted to explore more of the market. He was hesitant but obeyed. Both of us knew my mother could spend hours hanging on every word these tradesmen uttered, deliberating between noxious creams that promised youthful pallor and nocturnal elixirs that erased wrinkles. The bustle and excitement of the alleys and myriad shops were all precursors to the dominant business at hand: the slave market.

  The Graecostadium was Rome’s largest, oldest slave market, erected to move the massive amount of human capital from the long-ago conquering of Greece. This was a gloomy place of the rawest commerce, where men, women, and children stood for sale, naked and silent on rotating platforms. The defeated, the kidnapped, the multitude born into slavery, the sold and resold—all weary links in the human chain that pulled the Roman economy ever forward. That this gleaming empire raked the world over, capturing entire cities, upending families, pulling babes from the arms of their mothers, and never felt itself tarnished by such acts is the darkest marvel.

  Children fetched a low amount, being a burden on the owner until they were trained and of age to add value to the purchasing household. Pity those who went to the mines or the galley ships. Their short lives of pure drudgery stood in absolute contrast to those bought up by wealthy households. Some of the rich in Rome put even our family to shame. Their wealth was so abundant, with vast estates across the provinces manned by hundreds of slaves. These servants had living quarters and lifestyles that far exceeded anything the typical laboring freedman in Rome could ever expect. After decades of service, they were often rewarded with their freedom and quaint farms on which to retire, complete with slaves of their own. Their fate hinged entirely on who bought them, whether the wealthiest thought to send an agent to the market, whether the mines of the damned had a specific order to fill and needed more hands. I observed them all. A placard hung from their neck listing skills, attributes, languages spoken, country of origin, and, most importantly, price.

  Our family was wealthy enough that slavers brought their chattel directly to our house for private viewing, so any bartering could be done indoors and the sales tax quietly overlooked. I took every chance to steal away to this section of the market so I could satisfy my burgeoning curiosity for cock. Here I could stare far more openly, wantonly, than at the baths or by examining the small numbers paraded through our portico before my watchful mother at home. I rushed through the crowd toward the area where the gladiatorial slaves were displayed. These naked beasts stood proud or defeated, dim-witted or conniving. Regardless their disposition, they were exposed, and I stood still, studying their cocks as if every sinew and vein was a line of powerful verse I needed to commit to memory to please a demanding but righteous tutor.

  Perseus chatted with a neighbor’s slave while I took census of the flaccid cocks that rotated before the crowd. Young, old, some shriveled and withdrawn, tucked within an agitated pubic tangle, others protruded like plump purple gourds, minor miracles of human anatomy ripe for closer inspection. I was relieved all eyes were on the slaves so I could just gape, each penis a unique marvel I measured and caressed with my eyes. I was only just beginning to imagine what I would do with such fleshy treasures if given the appropriate latitude. Within my room at night, I curled up caressing myself with forbidden dreams of serving the servants, only to wake with my thighs slick with nascent semen.

  “Nerites. Funny to find you here, funnier still how we look at the same thing and yet see such differences.”

  The cold hand that rested on my shoulder was matched by the chilly timbre of my brother’s voice.

  Nerites. He spoke my name so casually you would think we chatted like this in the marketplace all the time. Often, we went weeks without speaking. He could go a year without uttering my name. Sure, he spoke to me all the time with his condemnatory eyes, with a dismissive brush of his hand. Nothing but disdain had passed between us for years, not that it bothered me. I certainly didn’t feel special for it; he appeared to hate everyone. Everyone but Mother, who, though she certainly did not dote on him, gave him everything he wanted within reason. They held each other in a kind of mutual respect. Predators of a difference species who nonetheless admired one another’s methodology. So to hear him speak my name, nonchalantly, in public even…a reflexive shiver ran up my spine. Obsidio tightened his grip on my shoulder.

  “Nerites, it’s not cold out, yet you are practically quaking. Lean back into me for warmth,” he cooed.

  I obeyed and felt the coarseness of his new toga envelop my gooseflesh-pricked skin. His erection pressed against the small of my back, and I gasped. This was the first penis I had ever touched other than my own, and I had been wrestling with my small member every evening and some afternoons of late, always wishing it belonged to another, squeezing my eyes shut to better imagine the glorious cocks swinging between the legs of renowned gladiators, the cuter tutors, and some of the sturdier slaves that carried my mother’s palanquin. When my eyes were closed their tightest, the deepest, darkest part of my mind’s hidden ocean offered up furtive glimpses of Neptune from when I was a mere babe in my wet nurse’s arms. He sat before us naked, legs parted while my mother knelt before him, his prodigious member flaccid yet powerful, practically breathing in her hands. Even then, I wanted to trade her balmy milk for his…

  Obsidio’s warmth spread through the toga and pulsed against my back. Now both of his hands were on my shoulders to steady me as he slowly, imperceptibly, ground his penis into my back. Before us, a gladiator-slave raised his shackled hands and let out a roar. A gaggle of prospective buyers clucked their approval. Emboldened, the slave leapt into the
throng of people and head-butted an off-duty centurion who happened to be making his way through the crowd. The soldier looked as if he had just woken up in a brothel, hungover and robbed of his money, so this final indignity was the last straw.

  As he stumbled back up, he unsheathed his sword, likely the gladiator’s intended goal. The slave leapt to action and deftly relieved the surprised warrior of his weapon. Wild-eyed, laughing that his plan had come to fruition, the slave swung the sword wide to part the crowd, which whooped in excitement, knowing that the Praetorian Guard would soon descend from their respective posts and give them a free show. However, several large, glum slavers encircled the escapee, cracking their furious black whips. The gladiator turned his head to and fro, unsure which attacker was the weak link, all while whips slashed his face and arms.

  As each line of blood opened across his cheek, Obsidio thrust into my back. His stiffness was incomparable, like flesh turned bludgeon. I shuddered with each lethal snap of the whip. There we stood as the man faltered and dropped his sword and the slavers closed in. Obsidio’s grip tightened as his heated cock fused into my backside, my toga now drenched in our commingled sweat. The crowd that had gathered dispersed at the bark of the arriving Praetorian Guard. Their helmets masked their anger at having their afternoon duties interrupted. The slavers parted as the first soldier drew his sword and with one practiced move decapitated the now exhausted, confused, and battered would-be fugitive.

  As his severed head tumbled to the ground, awash in a spurting eruption of blood, Obsidio bucked and stabbed at my back. His hot orgasm raced up my spine and pricked the hollow between my shoulder blades. He eased his grip. My knees practically buckled as I wetted my own lap with an intense orgasm, my first initiated by the touch of another. Perseus, who had been cowering behind a column, rushed to my side, grabbed my hand, and tried to pull me away. But I remained wedded to my brother, desperate for our bond to remain, for us to grow into Romulus and Remus feeding on one another. But as I looked up longingly into his eyes, he did not return my hungry stare. He looked elsewhere, down into the ground. I followed his gaze and saw that he was lost in the dark, widening pool of blood spilling forth from the collapsed pucker of the dead slave’s oozing neck.

  I again looked up at him, trying to decipher his terrible concentration.

  “What do you see, brother?” I managed to whisper, Perseus clawing at my slender wrists.

  “My own reflection.”

  Our slave finally managed to pull me away. As we pushed through the crowd, I looked back over my shoulder. Obsidio did not even notice my absence. He could not tear himself away from the black shimmer of blood emanating from the emptied body. The arc of Obsidio’s erection was clearly visible through his semen-slicked toga. The slaves on the rotating slabs ignored the corpse at their feet and instead trained their unfocused gaze up into the cloudy distance.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Useless Lucre

  The sauna was small, dank, subterranean, and familiar. I was back in Japan, thankful to have surfaced at one of the few bathhouses where I maintain a locker, affording me the convenience of discreetly relieving myself. As an immortal, I do not require normal sustenance to survive, though I will enjoy the occasional beer when in a European sauna, if the mood strikes. However, my predilection for penis often requires that I swallow. During multiple encounters, it is practically required. There is a certain etiquette to orgies. The symphony cannot come to a halt simply because the conductor needs to cough, so to speak. Too many instruments are in play. Plus, I love how the webbing of intermingled semen coalesces on my tongue, lubricating the roof of my mouth. This wet, interlaced tunnel transforms me into an even finer instrument. Surely the ichor coursing in my veins is now wholly white—the milk of all the men I have sucked makes me a well in reverse.

  And a deep one at that.

  * * *

  Some elderly men reposition themselves within a fog of whispers and rustling newspaper as I exit. The bathroom has a convenient douching station and, after securing the door, I squat over my cupped hand and, with a stifled grunt, squeeze out a clutch of greasy pearls.

  Washing them beneath the hose suspended against the wall, I cannot help but examine this futile treasure. The largest pearl glistens mischievously, drawing in all of what dim light illuminates the stall. I pop it in my mouth and roll it around on my tongue like a portentous grape, and sure enough, I soon recognize the taste of an amazing Swede who had populated my throat several months ago. The blond fuzz of his thighs was a forest of delight. I teethed on pleasant memories while I headed back to the locker room.

  A yakuza straddling a bench watched me while smoking a cigarette. A Japanese gangster, easily identified by the tattoos marching up his back and rushing down his thick arms, a taboo in Japanese polite society. I only see this exquisite art when I emerge in saunas reserved for this “criminal class.” Though in temperance and physicality, I do not see much difference between them and the samurai I had sucked off in earlier eras. He was brutish, short, his towel parted so the terrapin head of his rigid penis poked through a pubic torrent as black and luxuriant as freshly dyed raw silk. I nodded ever so slightly, eager to return and serve him, but first I needed to attend to business.

  Next, I smiled and offered a deferential bow to the mama-san folding towels. She covered her mouth and giggled. We recognized each other, having passed in the halls over the eons. She had been handing me towels for centuries, and I knew her to be a fox in human form. At first, I had wondered if she, too, was cursed to live life among humans locked within this particular sauna. Judging from the boots and coats some of the men shrugged off, they were in a cold part of Japan, but she toiled so effortlessly, whispering so genially with the regulars, that had I come to regard her as a simple steam-spirit happy to be indoors and content with her work. I was always pleased whenever I surfaced at this bathhouse. The proximity to this kindred being was as soothing as the massive, steeping soaking tubs that consumed the bathing area. Fortunately, this was a frequent, welcome stop on the tides of my journey, and thus a perfect repository for my pearls.

  I spun the knob on the locker to and fro, the date of Obsidio’s birthday dancing from my fingertips. I opened the door cautiously, fearful I would unleash a rolling flood of pearls, a bouncing cascade of various shapes and sizes, all a milky hue of silver and white. The gangster had followed me. I gave him a hard, long stare, and the blush of his turtle-cock hardened into a shiny, purplish bruise. He jerked his head toward the cavernous steam room. I had spent uncountable hours on my knees in there, lost in a shimmering fog of heat and occasional body contact. I nodded my agreement and spat the pearl that had been wallowing in my mouth out into my palm. This movement always recalled the childhood game of knucklebones. Then we played for favorite toys or our pocket money. Now I am slowly amassing a horde of useless lucre I could never spend. But so what? I am charity, I am a funnel of thirst, I am another whorl in the twisting steam within a dark room where, in my best, most lucid moments, I cannot find the walls or even the floor. I am so lost in revelry.

  I followed the yakuza in, to greedily rob him of his teeming sperm. He hung his towel on a peg by the door and stood still, allowing me to admire the inked forms exploding out of his muscled back and racing up and down his arms and legs. His buttocks were well developed, so I knelt and began kissing each tough cheek. He grunted assent and parted his legs just so, and my tongue found the hard knot of his ass as a fresh blast of steam enveloped us both. I licked his crack and wormed my way between his legs until my tongue was as far up his hole as it could go, his firm testicles riding my sweaty forehead. He grunted again, and I intuited this as the command to serve his cock, so I quickly pivoted and began sucking the salty tip. He pushed his way in between my lips as I lapped at his tumescence. My own erection swatted his ankles, keeping rhythm with my mouth. Rivers of steam unwound throughout the room, revealing a small audience. Some watched intently, admiring my technique. Others opened their towels
to display ready erections, signaling that they, too, would appreciate my service. His thigh muscles tensed. I tongued the veiny ridge that ran along the base of his penis. A final grunt. I swallowed.

  I eased back onto my bare buttocks as he stepped away. The only sound was of breathing men and hissing steam. Ingesting his hot ejaculate, I willed it downward to better plant these slick globules within the folds of my bowels. There both time and my distinctive chemistry will massage some remaining kernel into a bright pearl, one that will hopefully reflect the sharp crescent of the malice in his eyes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  These Beasts Live to Conquer

  How I love the animals among us. These beast-men who lumbered past whatever domestication process exists in their society to fuck with complete abandon. And they are just completely beasts, all unfettered appetite, with dog dicks and a gnarl of coarse pubic hair, legs of scarred and twisted muscle, foul buttocks, clawlike feet, and rough hands that hold my skull as if it were a stolen chalice meant to piss in. You cannot call them selfish, for they possess no recognition of the other—all of the world is a but a plaything, a bevy of receptacles bent to receive their pleasure. These beasts live to conquer, to fuck, to eat and drink, to take full, hearty clockwork-like shits and then back to work, work being pummeling any available ass or mouth.