Chapter Text
I hate and I love
Why do I, you ask?
I don't know, but it's happening
and it hurts
― Gaius Valerius Catullus
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January 1, Kalendae Ianuariae, 71 AD | Rome
Beyond the heavy, thick curtains and the press of other captives, cheers and fanfare filled the streets of Rome.
Aharon could feel blood trickle down his thigh under his dirty loincloth. The sting of a jagged rock cutting his flesh had hurt, but Aharon knew it was worth it. This pain would be much more bearable than what was in store for him had he not improvised.
He had known the real particulars of rape since his abduction several months ago. Perhaps it had only been one month; he couldn’t keep track of time, always transported in the dark with the rest of the captives for sale. All he could remember before the smells and dampness made his head ache was running in terror from the soldiers with his sister…and then a ship…and then grease-covered hands, nothing more. He wasn’t sure if he could consider himself lucky or not—not yet. He knew what he had faced on that ship wasn’t the screaming and tearing kind of brutality, but the careful rape by men smart enough to know how not to bruise the fruit or let it spoil before its sale. Not even their master who had sold him to the man who would be selling him today knew that he’d been touched.
He wondered if it would have even mattered had the seller known. Certainly the men who would barter for him on the block today wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, so blinded by their lust. With Rome in the midst of suppressing the great rebellion in the east and a taste for exotic slaves sweet on the tongue, the price for this Judean boy would be high, and these men were ready to pay.
Aharon swayed on his feet. The cut was probably infected now or bleeding too heavy. He didn’t know. He and the others hadn’t been taken out into the sunlit block yet, and he wouldn’t check himself now or risk hindering his plot.
His face still had yet to lose its softness in favor of a beard, but he wasn’t naïve. He'd heard enough of Roman ways to know that the younger men from the richest families had money enough from the war to buy virgins, and with that kind of money and youth came tempers that flared at the slightest shift in the wind. If there was no way for Aharon to free himself, he needed to be sold to an older man, someone too tired and relaxed for the type of cruel imagination the young ones were certain to have.
So, he’d taken a sharp rock to the soft junction of groin and thigh and let the wound bleed. They would see the blood and think him freshly spoiled. Then he would fake a swooning spell and fall off the stage. In the chaos that followed, he’d run. None of the slaves were bound. All of them simply had a board hung about their shoulders with their number on it. When the men would look for him, that board would be all they found. And if he was caught, well…his father and his ancestors at least would be proud that he tried.
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The light was blinding when the seller’s guards pulled back the curtain and brought them all out on the platform. The Forum was already filled with people buzzing in their excitement from the festival and parade from the Temple of Jupiter on Capitoline Hill. They were eager to bid over the new war souvenirs.
Shivering in his thin covering, Aharon could see what the others looked like now. Two women weeped at the corner of the auction block, who he’d sworn he’d seen before as a boy, and four other naked women stood, trying to cover themselves from the winter's chill, beside him. They would most likely all be sold to brothels. Six coal toned men and one Egyptian were bartered over for the governor's house, perhaps to serve as guards or chariot drivers. Then there was Aharon himself, the youngest of the bunch and the one they all glanced at with pity. He was truly starting to grow dizzy. The severity of all that had happened, of all that would happen beyond this moment, hit him at once.
There were no old men. Not even a man with grey in his beard was there to barter for a bed slave. Aharon closed his eyes and fought to keep his resolve from crumbling. He needed to map out a quick exit strategy.
But the plan was already failing. Rome was a city too big for Aharon's mind to fathom. The city where he and his father had taken their farm's produce was only mud, clay, and straw in comparison to the might of Rome's infrastructure. It was any wonder how tribes and even whole countries thought to beat back the conquering armies that came from a place with such heavy, polished stones and the great, massive columns supporting every building. It could be beautiful, with its painted walls and decorations, with the shower of festival pedals and ropes of garland, but the smells and the throngs of people shouting, butchering animals, whipping others in rags, and selling their sex right out in the street, made Aharon's stomach cramp. How could he possibly escape this place?
And here was another problem. Aharon couldn't keep up with the Latin the seller and bidders spoke so rapidly, but from the way the men were shouting back and forth with the seller and pointing to Aharon’s legs, he guessed enough of what they were saying: The fool seller had tried to pitch Aharon as a virgin eunuch, having never taken the time to actually look at Aharon before buying him, and now all the men were accusing the seller of having just cut him moments before! The smarter men in the crowd accused him of far worse.
He had Aharon by the shoulders, shaking him and demanding to know who had defiled him, but Aharon couldn’t speak. Now they all thought he was mute and dumb as well as torn.
He was startled when an arm came down between him and the seller. One of the bulkiest men, dressed in a thick, white toga lined with a purple stripe over a white tunica, had climbed onto the platform to prevent further chaos.
“Eames, you’re a good man!” Aharon heard the seller whisper. “Help me! I had no idea this had happened!”
The man’s brow furrowed. “I don’t doubt that, nor do I care, Deemethresi. I was passing through to get home when I saw your hand raised. If you intend to sell him, a bruise on his cheek won't help you.”
“Eames, please, they’ll be dressing me up like a bull and sacrificing me to Jupiter for the new consuls—"
"You are certainly fat enough to pass for one," the man teased.
"—if this madness doesn't end. I’m innocent,” the man begged. “Buy the boy! Take him from my hands so my reputation cannot be further soiled.”
He frowned. “I’m not in the market to buy one of your overly priced exotic toys, Deemethresi, especially not one that’s bleeding. Learn how to control your guards' cocks first, and then perhaps, I’ll consider.”
“But, Eames, you’re a soldier—”
“Was a soldier.”
“Well… As a senator, I’m sure a bit of company would still be most enjoyable for a noble Dominus such as yourself on your time off?”
“I have no time off. We're in the middle of war, if you've forgotten.”
“Just…will you stand guard for me until I regain control of this crowd?”
“No. Your guards—”
“Are most likely responsible for this! One favor. Please?”
The man eyed Aharon up and down before he sighed. “Fine. You owe me for this.” When the seller hurried off, he eyed Aharon again. “Are you much hurt, boy?”
Aharon shook his head quickly, feeling dazed. This man with wine on his breath…was neither young nor old, and he'd said that he had no time for boys, and he’d been called a good man, although, coming from a filthy slave trader, that might not work in Aharon’s favor, but in his time of desperation, it was worth a shot. “Sir?”
"Silence."
He stood closer. "Sir?"
“What?”
“I am…I am not…much hurt.” He swallowed when the senator eyed him again. He took care to enunciate every word to be certain the man understood. “Please…Please help me,” he whispered. “I do not want to go to any of those men. I beg you.”
“You won’t be going to them now,” he answered, distracted by the seller’s arguing with a young soldier. “Mostly likely a brothel, since you’ve been…” His attention snapped back to Aharon the second he seemed to process what he was being told. He hissed. “You little cheat!”
“No, I offer you to please take me for yourself!” he whispered, daring to reach across the small gap between them and touch one of the many folds of his toga. “Do not let them have me. I have never been touched, I swear. I will do what you say. I will be obedient. Please.”
The man’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Aharon gasped, frozen when the Roman's hand went under his loincloth and felt about between his legs, making sure that Aharon told him the truth, or at least enough truth. Aharon would curse the men who’d captured him until the day he died, but at least, as the senator called the seller back over to talk with blood still on his hand, Aharon was grateful that their handling wasn’t about to cost him more than it already had.
“A quarter of the starting price to take him off your hands,” the man said.
“No! Eames, there were men willing to bid over sixty thousand danarii! You would put me in the hole for nearly fourty-five tho—”
“A quarter of the starting price," he repeated sternly, "and I’ll drive these dogs off for you. That’s my final offer.”
“But it's just a little blood. You will use him for the same purpose, after all. It's nothing that won't heal, surely? Eames?" He cursed in another language. "Damn it…fine. Fine. Damn you, Eames.”
“No, damn your guards, instead,” the man cut his eye at Aharon, “for not keeping a better watch over your property.” He turned to address the crowds. “Good men, I beseech you, lend me your ears,” he shouted, his voice carrying, “as I make clear this grave sitatuation.” When the noise died down, he explained, “Good men, I have seen the boy myself, and I felt of a face that was smooth only from being shaven to appear as such, as you and I might do to our own fully grown faces.”
Aharon thought quick to keep the confused frown from his face, catching on to the man’s plot.
“Not only is this boy still in tact, but I lament in telling you that his tree has been shaken bare as well.” The crowd of soldiers and wealthy merchants’ sons erupted in a chorus of anger when Eames showed them his hand as proof, but the senator quieted them again. “His damage is severe, but it is also no fault of this noble Babylonian, who has never been false before, and who was tricked into buying used goods. But if anyone here wishes to buy the boy still, perhaps as a stable boy or cupbearer—”
“Look at him, Eames!” one man shouted. “Surely an old soldier knows when a boy’s got strength and that one couldn’t carry a pebble in those little lily hands!” Most of the others agreed.
The senator exchanged banter with a few others as most of the crowd dispersed to make way for the brothel and house slave buyers.
Aharon’s spirit dropped lower than he thought it could go as documents were hurriedly signed, payment arranged, and the two men shook hands. It was over now. He’d been sold.
He swallowed again when the man led him from the block and turned to him with a smug grin. He felt like an ant under a bull’s foot when the senator grabbed his jaw to look at his face.
“Well, well,” the man muttered to himself. “Look at what the goddess Fortuna has brought me this fine morning—Good work, Eamesie.”
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Aharon's hands gripped the wooden table. He bit the inside of his mouth and whimpered when Eames drove the needle through the wound, stitching him up.
“You’re a strong one,” Eames commented. “That’s good. Just let this be a lesson to you never to trick me the way that you fooled your seller.”
Everywhere Aharon looked, slaves moved about or stood in the corners, dressed plainly in clothes that looked expensive. One hurried from the room at Eames' command to bring water. Aharon blinked tears out of his eyes and groaned pitifully at what he now saw on the floor. Aharon didn’t know what room this was, with its bloodstained table and blood spotted floors, but he was sure this wasn’t where the cooks chop up the meat for the Roman's meals.
“My former bed slave,” Eames explained, seeing Aharon rub his hand over a stain as if the red spot wasn’t old and dried.
Aharon trembled, looking up at the man who seemed to dwarf Aharon with his bulk. The Roman looked much larger than he had on the street. Aharon was doomed.
“There used to be an old shutter hanging outside my bedroom window," Eames continued. "He always complained of the chill it let into the room during the winter. I forbid him from trying to tinker with it, but one day, when it was especially cold, he waited until I’d ventured out of the villa, and went against my warning. The other slaves claimed it gave way almost immediately, sending him to the stone below. I tried to save him in here, but…” Eames sighed. “I’ll just have to be strict with you. He was very doted upon, that boy.” He knotted the last stitch. “There, good as new.”
Aharon winced as he sat up. He tried to cover his nakedness, but Eames moved his hand aside.
The man squeezed and caressed under Aharon’s knee, eating him up with his hungry gaze. “Yours is just the perfect form. Wherever you came from, you must have been fed well. I almost want to keep you bare." He trailed his fingers along the soft dip in Aharon's abdomen. "Simply gorgeous. However, only one of my slaves is castrated, and though they all fear me, there’s never been a naked boy in my house to tempt them towards disobedience before. A simple drape of cloth for a tunica might do, I think. At least while you’re in the common rooms.” He smiled and ran a gentle hand through Aharon’s hair. “Do you have any idea what I’m saying, or are you just nodding your head at me?”
“I understand basic Latin."
"Basic Latin…” he trailed off, expecting Aharon to say something more, but Aharon had no idea what.
“I am your Dominus now, your master. You must always address me as such when you speak,” Eames finally explained, handing him a cup of honey water when the slave returned with the tray. “Or some variation of that title.” He narrowed his eyes as if leafing through Aharon’s brain. “What’s your name boy?”
He told him, remembering to address him correctly this time, before he gulped down the cup of water and accepted a second.
“I shall name you Arthur, then. It should be easy for you to remember.” Eames crossed his arms, still studying him. “I’m surprised, Arthur. You know Latin, but you don’t know how to address your master. Why is that?”
“I've never…” he felt his dizziness return.
Eames eyed the dusting of dark curls around his cock and under his arms. “How old are you, boy?”
Arthur had to shrug. He didn’t know, suddenly, as if a part of his mind locked itself from him now. He didn’t know where he’d come from, or what language he’d spoken so fluently before. He only remembered his father’s panic right before the soldier held him down to cut off his head. He knew his sisters’ screams when the soldiers caught hold of their lovely hair and fine clothes, and his mother, stabbing one man but overtaken by the rest.
It hadn’t occurred to him until now that perhaps the soldiers saw him running with his sister and had originally mistaken him for a girl as well. Maybe that was why his mind shielded itself against the memory of what had happened to him and his sister, in that field and to him again, before that first ship took him across the Great Sea, where he'd been delivered into the hands of the men who’d fooled the sellers.
“Arthur, for fuck’s sake!”
He snapped out of the thick fog and groaned, covering his head. The front of Eames' leisure clothes were soiled in Arthur’s sick. He hadn’t even felt his stomach turn.
Eames grabbed him by the arm to toss him on the floor. Arthur grimaced and clutched at his scraped shoulder. He stayed where he’d landed, cowering when Eames called in a few more of his slaves to clean the mess.
Arthur waited for punishment, but none came. Eames stood there glaring at him as the others fussed over his ruined sandals. Arthur knew that look. His father gave him that look all the time when he’d misbehaved, before his head was… Arthur felt dizzy again, but kept it under control. He had to fix this. He hadn’t even been in the Roman’s house for an hour and already that look had him speared.
“Dominus? I—”
“Hush. I haven’t given you permission to sp—”
“But I am sorry! I'm sorry! I don’t know what happened!”
All the slaves gasped, frozen in place, their eyes wide and focused on their Dominus. They flinched when he spoke, as if prepared to feel his wrath even for an infraction they hadn’t personally committed.
“Atta,” Eames called the Egyptian eunuch forward. “Three lashes and a bath. Now.”
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Arthur held his tongue and glared at the slave through his stream of tears.
“Hate me all you want, boy, but you ought to know better than to treat your master as you did. Or at least,” Atta smirked, “now you do.”
He’d only been given three quick lashes on his bottom and thighs and it was over. He’d been whipped with a switch before by his mother, after she’d caught him fighting a boy in the field. The eunuch’s wielding of the switch had been nothing compared to hers.
But, the bath, now, this was the true punishment! The salted water was hot and made even the scrape on his shoulder burn. When the eunuch made him sit forward to wash his back, he could feel the dissolving salt rocks under his sore bottom and thighs. It was pure torture. He was more than ready to stand when the eunuch ordered him to, but now his welts were burning as his legs and groin were scrubbed. Oh, how he’d been mistaken by the senator, by his appealing face and gentle hand in the street.
He was forced to sit again. He tried to pull his knees up to his chest, but the eunuch yanked on his ear. Arthur was certain his torment was only just beginning, he realized. He glanced at the bald, plump man. He couldn’t help but let his eyes travel downward, envisioning the mystery under the man’s colorful clothes. “May I—”
“Hush, boy.” He scrubbed Arthur’s chest harder.
Arthur had never seen a eunuch before. He wondered how the man had been cut—what had been cut—and when. He’d heard rumors before that eunuchs were cut as children to preserve their youthful beauty, but…this one was bald and round with a pointy nose and a permanent scowl on his face. Were some eunuchs cut as grown men? Arthur was neither man nor child. He rubbed his cheeks, wishing he truly did have a beard to shave, because without one, he was sure he too would be cut, and then there would be nothing left of whoever he was before he’d been made a slave. His journey to manhood would stop right here.
The Dominus had said he was gorgeous and wanted him to be naked always. His stomach rebelled again.
Atta screamed and dragged Arthur from the water by his hair. “I swear to all the gods that if you do that again, I will drown you, you filthy little dog! Look at this mess!”
Arthur was given three, much harder lashes and an even hotter bath.
He couldn’t fight his tears this time, and cursed whichever one of those gods had blessed him with such wonderful luck as this.
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He was lashed a third time for trying to run after the bath. At this point, Arthur’s butt and thighs were on fire.
“You’re lucky, boy,” Atta muttered through Arthur’s sniffling. “Your punishments are like sweet honey compared to what the rest of the slaves get for only minor offenses.”
Arthur trembled under the strong grip of two bulky, dark men as they held him down on the same table where his thigh cut had been stitched. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I wasn’t trying to escape, I swear. I just don’t want…” His hand slipped free and he covered his groin.
Atta snickered. “Oh hush, boy. You get to keep your precious little balls. Now stop squirming.” The eunuch’s brow furrowed in concentration as he pierced Arthur’s nipples.
Arthur was able to bite his tongue through the burn when his navel was pierced and adorned with a little ornament, but he couldn’t help but scream when Atta pierced his perineum.
“There, now.” The eunuch beamed, playing with the tiny silver loop and pearl on Arthur’s navel. “You look dazzling! The master will be quite pleased to see your decorations.” Atta watched him cry.
Arthur looked down at himself, speechless now. It hurt. This hurt worse than the rock had. What had he done to deserve this?
The eunuch sent the other slaves away and set about cleaning his tools. “I didn’t cry nearly as much when I was actually cut, and I was much younger than you then. You make it seem as if…” He sighed when his eyes met Arthur's teary glance. “There, there, little Ganymedes,” he soothed, sincere, patting Arthur's knee. “You’re a long way up from Troy, but the view from the clouds and the protection of the eagle’s wings will all be worth this little pain soon enough. You’ll see. Other men would only have you be their whore, but our master, if you are good and kind to him, may very well rise you up so high that you will think yourself a prince. So take comfort, boy.”
Arthur looked up at him and saw his gentle smile. He nodded, hoping the Egyptian told him no lies.
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graphic by tamat9