Date: Sun, 3 May 2009 17:49:55 -0500
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthier@verizonmail.com>
Subject: Palmyra

				Palmyra
			 	The Eleventh Tale of the Daphne Boy
				by George Gauthier

Author's Note: This is a tale of an eternally youthful young man and those
he encounters around the Mediterranean world during the crisis of the IIIrd
century that nearly destroyed the Roman Empire.

This is the eleventh in a series of tales about an undying youth named
Alexander or Alexandros in this story. The other stories in this series so
far are 'Antebellum', set in the American South just before the Civil War,
'Daphne Boy', set in Roman Syria, 'El Dorado', about the conquistadors,
'The Erythraean Sea', set in Arabia just before the rise of Islam, 'Stupor
Mundi', about the Sixth Crusade, 'Ferghana', a tale of the Silk Road in
Central Asia, 'Zulu' set mostly in Southern Africa during the Anglo-Zulu
War, 'Sol Invictus' set in the Roman Empire during the reign of the
dissolute androgynous and sexually insatiable gay emperor Elagabalus
'Reniassance' set in Italy around 1500, and 'Gupta' set during the Golden
Age in India in the Vth century AD.

It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body, of consensual and
non-consenual sexual activity between adult males, and considerable
non-sexual violence including combat. If any of this would offend a reader,
read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where
they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever
jurisdiction applies. It is offered for entertainment. If it manages to
both intrigue and to provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in
its aim.

It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only
minor poetic license for the sake of the story. This tale, after all, is
fiction. It is not a historical monograph. Only Aurelian and Zenobia were
actual historical persons. The rest of the characters are not intended to
resemble any person living or dead. My apologies to the reader for
consistently misstating Alexander's height in all but the last previous
story. In the first nine tales, I gave inconsistent measurements in inches
and centimeters. I meant to write that he was one inch short of five and a
half feet. That makes his height five foot five not five six. The metric
measurement is still 165 centimeters as stated in all the stories.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Jungle Boy' series of
tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the
archive. See also my series 'Naked Prey' in the historical section, my 'Mer
Boy' series in Gay/Beginnings, and the 'Track and Field' series in
Gay/College. For links to my stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors
on the Archive.

Comments and feedback welcome.

			Chapter 1. Ostia Antica 272 AD

It was my fault, a momentary lapse in situational awareness. Lost in
thought, I didn't sense the trap closing in on me. Suddenly a voice spoke
out from down the alley.

"Hold it right there, pretty boy. We'd like a few words with ye. And don't
be put off by appearances. We just want to talk."

"Yeah, that's right. We're friendly sorts of fellows." another gruff voiced
added.

Five men stepped out from the shadows, three in front and two behind me,
blocking the narrow street. Despite their glib assurances, I was much too
experienced to be taken in by their patently false assurances. This was a
gang of footpads. They held their hands down to their sides, but that did
little to conceal the clubs or knives in their grip. Through simple
inattention while daydreaming I had forfeited the single best strategy
there is for dealing with trouble: don't be there when it happens.

I was in Ostia, the port of Rome situated at the mouth of the Tiber. (Ostia
simply means "mouth".) The port had a bad reputation. Once you moved away
from the docks proper and the businesses and warehouses that lined the
quayside you could run into all sorts of unsavory characters. I was alone
at that moment, having left my assistant at the quayside, He was traveling
upstream by barge with my latest cargo of silks from the East, maintaining
custody of the cargo for me.

"Why don't you just hand over your purse, youngster?  Then you can be on
your way." a big man offered, not unkindly. We won't kill you if you don't
resist. We are professional thieves after all, not assassins; it's not
personal. Make it easy on yourself and hand over your money. There's a good
lad."

Another robber interjected:

"There you go again, Sixtus, you and your boys. Letting a pretty face turn
your head. You know what a bad idea it is for professional thieves to leave
witnesses. Oh, I will grant you, the mark is just your type, young and
small and slender and much prettier than a boy has any right to be, but we
don't want him carrying tales to the watch."

"As long as I am boss and you are Number Two, you will do as I say. You're
not so smart you know, using my name like that in front of a mark. You see
lad. I am your only chance. Don't fight us. Just hand over your money."

I considered fighting them, but I was unarmed and boxed in. It is true that
I can be quite formidable using just my natural weapons of hands and feet
and the techniques of unarmed combat I have mastered over the years. At
that point I had over four centuries of experience and had developed an
eclectic technique suited to my build and capabilities. Still I confronted
five footpads. One thing I have learned over many lifetimes is that even
the best of fighters can be overcome by numbers, weapons, position, and
sheer luck. So I tried negotiation, the second best strategy for dealing
with trouble. I threw them my purse. It was just money, after all.

"Six silvers and a gold. That's all!" growled Lucius after emptying the
contents into the palm of his hand. "Hardly worth our while shared out
among five. Or are you holding out on us?  Strip off that tunic and hand it
over."

I pulled the garment over my head and tossed it to Lucius leaving me
wearing only my sandals. He checked it for hidden pockets.

"Hmmn, this tunic is of high quality cloth. Might as well keep it for what
we can get for it. Let's have those sturdy sandals too, while we are at
it."

I kicked off my sandals, standing there entirely exposed, naked, stripped
of my valuables and clothing, sweating both from the heat of early summer
and nervous anticipation. At the man's signal I turned around displaying my
bum and showing I had nowhere to hide anything, whether coin or weapon.

Two of the robbers whistled and Sixtus looked at me hungrily. As well they
might. My physique has always sparked interest in men who lust after pretty
boys.

"Hey Sixtus, on second thought. Let's not kill him. Maybe we can sell him
into slavery at a boy brothel. A stunning lad like him would fetch top
price from old Kleisthenes say. Just look at him!"

"We are not slavers, Number Two," Sixtus reminded him. That did not keep
them for staring at me, evaluating my potential worth.

What they saw trapped in the alley with them was a comely youth, apparently
of no more than seventeen or eighteen summers, small and slender and
unlikely to offer serious resistance. I carry only 122 pounds (56 kg) on my
small frame and stand a mere five foot five and a whisker (165 cm). With my
androgynous if wiry physique and fine-boned features I fell far short of
normal male standards in height, muscular development, and secondary sexual
characteristics like beard and body hair. I am small and pretty and
uniformly bronzed from habitual public nudity looking entirely too
obviously like someone's catamite or pleasure boy. Hence I often wasn't
taken seriously as a male, often with dire consequences.

With fine-boned almost elfin features: a straight nose, high cheekbones,
and large green eyes, topped by a blond thatch, I often turned heads. My
trim hairless physique was just what Roman boy lovers liked. I did not have
the classic muscular physique of the Olympic athlete. Instead I was
boyishly slender -- almost skinny, with narrow shoulders atop a well toned
but otherwise unimpressive musculature. I sported a well corrugated chest
and stomach with defined abdominals, prominent ribs and sharp hip
bones. The tracery of veins on my forearms, calves, and belly showed I
carried very little body fat. I like to think my manhood is more than
adequate but I wouldn't be scaring the horses. It takes both my small hands
to cover an erection, but only one when it was soft.

Despite my seeming youth and pretty boy looks, at that time I was already
over four centuries old.  I cannot explain the reasons for my eternal
youthfulness, why I still looked (and look) like a boy in his late teens. I
have never understood why I had stopped growing and aging before reaching
my eighteenth birthday. No, I never sold my soul to a devil. It just
happened that way. It must be something genetic. Recent science suggests it
has something to do with self-repairing telomeres in the nuclei of the
cells that maintains the body in homeostasis.

In Ostia, it looked like once again my physical beauty had put me in
danger. All my long life I have been both blessed and cursed by a lovely
form and face that inspire admiration and lust in the heart of any male who
appreciates a beautiful boy. My past held all manner of physical and sexual
abuse including gang rapes by bullies, soldiers, sailors, or bandits --
those less often as I mastered the arts of unarmed and armed combat and
acquired wealth to buy protection.

I have had much experience of rape and sexual servitude over the
centuries. Any number of times I fell into the clutches of men of wealth
and power, kept naked for years at a time, put on display like a trophy,
their captive or sex slave. Some enjoyed publicly fucking me and passing me
around like a party favor to friends, confederates, or clients. Others were
brutes who used me in appalling ways to gratify their bestial and perverted
lusts. There were those who liked to inflict pain with whips and switches
and canes. Other preferred verbal and physical humiliation and
degradation. Even the gentler ones treated me as a mere boy toy, existing
only for their pleasure.

Enslaved at fourteen by a Roman tribune as a spoil of war, I became my
captor's catamite and body slave until sold on to a merchant in Massalia,
modern Marseille. After a few years as a nude messenger and pleasure boy,
he put me to work as a scribe till I was set free by his will after he died
from a fall off a horse, I traveled to the East and made my first fortune
in Alexandria, working as a free boy in a male brothel while investing in
mercantile ventures on the side. That is where I took up the Roman habit of
having all my body hair, little as it was, plucked with tweezers. After
several decades of plucking it stopped sprouting. Now I was completely
hairless and would stay that way forever, my skin nearly as smooth and soft
as a baby's. As I had stopped aging before my beard came in, my cheeks and
chin have remained smooth without the attention of a razor.

In the early first century AD I spent a few years in ancient Antioch as a
Daphne Boy, enslaved as a temple prostitute for an unjust debt. As male
acolytes of the nymph Daphne, we boys were kept perpetually nude and
offered to boy lovers for coin. We were very popular because we were
scrupulous about personal hygiene, trim and fit, and hand picked for our
beauty of face and form. Although we could not chose our clients, the life
was pleasant enough, with bright airy accommodations, tasty wholesome food,
and fair treatment. The priests were shrewd enough to keep us boys
genuinely cheerful and reasonably content with our lot. Oh, occasionally
they had to punish a boy for the kind of mischief that exuberant teenage
lads will get up to, but the penalties were always mild, certainly nothing
to really injure the lad. Most boys knew they could look forward to
domestic service in the household of a rich man after they were too old to
be pleasing to the clientele.

The priests of Daphne even let us keep the tips we got from clients. During
our two days off a month, we could go shopping for minor luxuries. Even
then we were effectively promoting the temple, circulating in the streets
and markets entirely nude, the small blue deltas tattooed on our left
shoulders and right haunches proclaiming both our affiliation and our
availability to anyone with a bit of coin and an eye for a pretty youth. I
made friends among the other Daphne boys and even some of my clients,
though I was glad enough when circumstances freed me before my unchanging
youthfulness could be noticed. In some ways I still have fond memories of
my time as a Daphne Boy, slave though I then was.

Other periods of slavery before and since were not so pleasant. I had spent
a year in the Colosseum as a gladiator, forced to fight for my life before
the crowd. I became quite the favorite, fighting naked and armed with two
knives. They called me the Killer Catamite because I was regularly given to
my fellow gladiators as well as to rich spectators who paid gold for the
chance to fuck me fresh from my latest combat, chained for their safety,
still covered with my sweat, the dust of the arena, and the blood of my
foe. Another time, centuries later, I was enslaved as a pearl diver in the
Persian Gulf, forced to pleasure both the guards and my fellow divers.

It is not that I object to male sex or to taking the passive role. I am by
nature a bottom boy, a sexual submissive. I just like it be be my idea. In
confronting the footpads, I was afraid that whatever the leader Sixtus
wanted or got from me, even a free shag, Number Two would likely cut my
throat afterwards rather than risk dragging me back to the slave markets in
Rome. I cringed, pretending more fear than I felt, playing to their
preconceptions of how a trapped pleasure boy, outnumbered and physically
outmatched by any one of them, might behave.

"Please don't hurt me, sirs. I can't fight you all nor really any of you,
big men that you are and me as small as I am, unarmed and naked." I said,
putting a tremulous quaver in my voice to throw them off. "I know my
place. I am just a kept boy anyway, a rich man's catamite, a sex toy he
passes around to his friends. Life in a brothel wouldn't be so very
different, even as a sex slave. Here, let me show you how good I can make
you feel with my mouth and my bum."

I bent forward slightly as if to kneel before their leader but grabbed his
left thumb in a painful lock and twisted hard, forcing him to step forward
with his weight on his near knee. I gave it a vicious side kick that bent
the knee backward the way nature never intended and broke the joint. I left
him howling, writhing on the ground, partially blocking the alley. That
gave me enough of a head start. I took off running.

I did not expect to outdistance the remaining robbers on the ground where
their long strides would quickly overtake a short fellow like me. Instead I
ran straight at a wall, leaped and pushed my lead foot against the rough
surface getting enough of a push off to reach the edge of the roof. I swung
myself up and out of reach of my enemies. I did feel the touch of one hand
grabbing for me, but naked and sweaty as I was, he had no way to hold
on. Afterwards I ran along the roofs, jumping alleyways, clambering over
trellises and arcades, dropping onto awnings, my agility and light weight
making it easy to leave them behind in the maze of alleys. Unable to keep
up, they had to let me go. I continued along my aerial highway till I got
to the river again and dropped down to the streets till I reached the
outskirts of the town.

My escape across the rooftops was an implementation of the third best
strategy for dealing with trouble. If you cannot avoid it in the first
place, or talk or buy your way out of it in the second place, then next
best way to deal with trouble is to run away from it, to get the hell out
of there. The fourth strategy is to fight, but for me that is a last
resort. Others might rank these strategies differently, but I am
constitutionally slow to anger and non-belligerent. Oh I can fight if I
have to. I dare say that in Ostia in those days, with four centuries of
weapons training, daily practice, and varied combat experience I was one of
the single deadliest humans on the planet. However, given my true age and
life experience, I had long since outgrown the adolescent need to prove my
courage to anyone, especially myself. So I took off.

As to how I managed that escape, I should explain that one of my favorite
pastimes in those days (and to this day) was an acrobatic game similar to
the modern sport of parkour, a game based on techniques of escape and
evasion. (The name is a variant spelling of the French word 'parcours' for
obstacle course.) In effect I treated a whole city as an obstacle course
and a training ground as part of my survival training. The idea was to move
from point to point as quickly and efficiently as one could, using the
abilities of the human body to run, climb, jump, fall, swing, slide, and
tumble. All without ropes, hooks, or grapnels.

That spring in Rome I had spent much time criss-crossing the city, scaling
walls, running across rooftops, jumping across alleys, scrambling up the
facades of buildings, mostly for the pure fun of it. I reveled in the
chance to test my nimbleness and strength not against others but against
the limits of my own body as I overcame obstacles like walls, fences,
buildings, towers, trees, and ditches. I also walked the streets, becoming
reasonably familiar with the changes since my earlier residence in Rome a
half-century earlier.

After my escape from the would-be robbers, Rome still lay about twenty
miles (30 km) upstream from the outskirts of Ostia. I no longer had coin to
hire a cart, but I was up for a long run. With my slow-twitch musculature I
am a natural long distance runner and always enjoyed the chance for a good
long run to maintain my stamina. Since I was already naked, I made the best
of necessity. Soon I was loping along the road that followed the Tiber
upstream to Rome. After a while I drew parallel with the barge with my
goods but waved off the chance for a ride. The barge's pace was one knot or
so against the current. It would take all day and half the night to get
there. I can run twenty miles in less than two hours. Besides, I like
displaying my trim athletic physique in public in the nude. I am a bit of
an exhibitionist, if the truth were known.

No one looked askance at a naked lad who was obviously not running from
pursuit but for the sheer enjoyment of it. We now know that such exuberance
comes from natural opiates in the brain that produces a runner's high. To
passersby, I was no different from any other naked athlete in training or
perhaps a slave boy on an errand carrying an urgent message. I drew the
usual looks of admiration and lust from those of both genders, sometimes
returning their interest with a smile or a wave, shameless show off that I
am.

I did run into difficulty passing the city gates. Two of the guards took a
fancy to me and insisted on searching me for contraband, or so they
claimed. They forced me into the guardhouse.

"By the gods, Martellus, what contraband can a naked boy like me smuggle
into the city" I asked with some asperity.

"Tut, tut, little one. We are just doing our duty. I shall have to probe
you, I am afraid." he explained unconvincingly. "Just bend over and grab
the door frame. There's a good lad."

He told me to brace myself in the doorway of the guardhouse where anyone
passing through the gate might see him fucking me. Several passersby
stopped to watch. Martellus was a large man, who nearly engulfed my small
physique, covering me like a stallion does a filly, grappling my sweaty
torso to him, pinching my nipples and slapping my butt. His erection soon
found the small hole between my legs as he probed my depths. He thrust
deep, pulling my hips back to his. The strong grip of his big hands left
finger shaped bruises on my hips. For days afterwards, when I went to the
gymnasium or on my runs through the city everyone could see the bruises
that marked me as his bum boy.

His friend Janus did not even bother with the pretense of a search for
contraband. He liked to put a a boy's mouth to use, so he made me fall to
my knees while he stood before me, lording it over me, taking advantage of
his size and authority. He clubbed my face with his massive member, showing
me which counted for more, the cock of a real man or the delicate features
of a boy too pretty for his own good. He made me reach for it, to kiss it
and to smooch the purple helmet licking around the flange. His was one of
the largest cocks I had seen up to that time. I managed to deep throat him
anyway thanks to centuries of experience as a cock sucker.

He told me how exciting it was for him to dominate a boy, to humiliate him,
to violate his delicate features with his man cock shoved between the boy's
sweet lips. He told me how natural I looked down there between his legs, so
small and submissive, my face barely able to reach his groin, my pouty lips
tight around his cock, my head bobbing up and down, tongue and mouth
sucking and slurping and licking. He was glad my golden locks were just
long enough for a good grab so he could control the pace of the face
fuck. After he shot his spunk down my throat, his friend Martellus loosed
another load, this time letting his splooge hit my face and chest, marking
me like a dog marks his territory.

They both mocked me for complaining about the rape, pointing out that I
myself had eventually become aroused to the point of ejaculation. As far as
they were concerned I must have been asking for it. The very way I showed
up at the gate all naked and sweaty, flushed from the long run, stopping at
their guard post, bending over to rest, my hands on my knees, with my round
rump thrust to the rear, an invitation if there ever was one. As they saw
me, I was clearly too young and short and slightly built -- not to mention
too tuckered out -- to put up any real resistance as they laid hands on me
and pulled me aside. Actually I could have outfought them, even then. There
were only two of them, they hadn't drawn their weapons, and I could
surprise them, but the authorities take a dim view of anyone who attacks
city guards. So I did not resist as they wrestled me about, spanked me to
the delight of passers-by to whom they showed my reddened rump, and had
their way with me. As far as they were concerned I was just another street
boy or maybe a slave boy on an errand for a master who obviously kept me
around so that he might enjoy my charms. What harm could there be if they
got in on the fun?

When they finally finished with me, I carried the smell of their semen on
my body, an odor that did not go unnoticed in the crowded city
streets. There I was a small slender nude youth, reeking of male sex with
bruises in the outline of a man's hands printed on my ass, a bit of cum
running out of my hole and drying down my thighs. I tried acting
nonchalantly, ignoring the smiles, whistles, and catcalls that I drew, but
was not entirely successful in maintaining my aplomb, especially when men
reached their hands out to stroke my ass or to cup my genitals. I was an
object of amusement. No one had sympathy for me as a victim of rape. The
more muscular and masculine males especially seemed to delight in my public
shame as I navigated the gantlet of the streets.

Why is it that macho men are so gratified when a pretty boy gets into a
jam. Why do they assume it is always our fault, like we deserved whatever
misfortune came our way. They seem to think we deserved to be dumped on to
preserve the cosmic balance, upset as it was by our unearned good
looks. More than once I have been gang raped by big men eager to prove
their masculinity by holding a boy down while their fellows fucked both his
orifices. Teaching me a lesson, they called it. A lesson in what -- being a
real man? Could I change my size and pretty face? Could I be anything other
than what nature made me, a sexual submissive, a bottom boy, a pretty youth
with two hungry holes. How did that give them the right to take me for
their pleasure. Did I not have a right to choose? In the ancient world in
general and especially in Rome the answer to that question was no. The
young, the small and the powerless did not get to choose. They were chosen
and taken.

Of course, as I have mentioned before in these narratives, despite my
looks, I was not really young, just youthful. Since no one knew otherwise,
I looked like and was treated as a callow youth, a mere stripling, a lad
who might be claimed and tamed by stronger males.

After a very trying day, I finally passed through the gates and reached my
comfortable lodgings in rented house on the Caelian Hill, one of the fabled
Seven Hills and the one which lay east of the Palatine Hill with its
imperial residences. I did not bother climbing the outer wall and dropping
down from the roof into the peristyle garden behind the atrium. Instead I
simply knocked on my door for admission and called for hot water to scrub
the sweat and cum off me instead of repairing to the public bath house. I
was in no mood to socialize.

			Chapter 2. Urban Life

After my arrival in Rome, I had taken a comfortable town house on the
Caelian Hill. It had the usual arrangement of an atrium in front and a
peristyle garden behind (a garden surrounded by an arcade with columns) but
also a large open garden in back where I could practice sword fighting and
archery. I daresay that after centuries of practice, training in the
techniques of many lands, and combat experience against soldiers, pirates,
bandits, and footpads, there were few fighters who could hold their own
with me, one on one.

I had set myself up in the trade for luxury goods trade with the East,
though that was currently disrupted by the recent seizure of much of the
East by the Palmyrene Queen Zenobia. From her capital in the caravan city
of Palmyra she controlled Syria and the rest of the Levant, Egypt, and half
of Asia Minor. The Roman emperor Aurelian was fighting in the West against
the breakaway Gallic Empire which stretched from Britain, through Gaul to
the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Three empires contested for
supremacy where earlier there had been only one. Germanic Barbarians like
the Heruli and the Vandals took advantage of the disorder and rampaged
through northern Italy, the Aegean and western Anatolia. The breakup had
started after the defeat and capture of Emperor Valerian in 260 by the
Persian Sassanian Empire. Soldier emperors like Aurelian were moving heaven
and earth to make it whole again. The new wall around Rome which would
stretch for twelve and a half miles (19 km) when it was finished was one
result of his efforts.

Despite the difficulties with trade and disorder, money was not a
problem. I lived pleasantly though unostentatiously making new friends,
keeping fit, attending the theater, and reading omnivorously. I tried to
avoid the gladitorial games in which I had participated myself fifty years
earlier earning a reputation as the Killer Catamite, but I could not always
decline invitations from those I was in business with. For all their
excitement and displays of skill, the games were and are a permanent blot
on Roman civilization. Even the criminals sacrificed to beasts should have
been quickly dispatched with merciful knife to the heart.

On the plus side of Roman civilization surely must be placed its management
of urban infrastructure. Their system of paved roads, raised sidewalks,
aqueducts, fountains, public baths, latrines, and sewers allowed a million
people to live crowded together and largely escape the water borne diseases
that plagued the cities of earlier civilizations (and later ones too, until
the industrial age).

The baths or thermae were as much a social institution as
infrastructure. They were often housed in magnificent structures erected by
the emperors. I favored the Baths of Caracalla myself, going there almost
every day. You must understand that the public baths were important
institutions in the civic life of Roman towns. They were centers for public
bathing, socializing, and exercise. They offered varied services included
libraries, light refreshments, and libations, as well as more personal
services like massage, plucking of body hair, and even the attentions of
pliant boys or whores. Roman males usually went daily and spent several
hours there, accompanied by one or more slaves.

After paying the fee they would strip naked and put on sandals to protect
their feet from the heated floors. The baths included a palaestra, or
outdoor gymnasium where men and boys would engage in ball games and
exercises such as wrestling, lifting weights, or throwing the discus and
especially a big pool for swimming. I loved to swim. It was a great excuse
to show off my trim body. I often encountered my friend Max or Maxentius
there. We competed to attract the attentions of the handsome young males
who frequented the baths.

"Don't be such a showoff, Alexandros." Maxentius said scolding me gently
for my fancy dive into the swimming pool at the baths.

He was right that my diving was intended to attract the attention of men
who like pretty youths. I was at loose ends at the moment, not really
looking for a lover, but in the mood for a casual relationship. That was
the reason that I was shamelessly calling attention to my trim body. I
hoped to catch the eye of men who preferred youths of my sort: short and
slender, smooth and hairless, pretty as a girl with delicate almost elfin
features.

Climbing out of the pool, I deliberately paused as I lifted myself out of
the water, my butt and cleavage on display, letting older males get a good
look at my pert rump as the water sluiced off it. My slow walk toward the
diving stone gave patrons behind me a chance to ogle my perfectly formed
buttocks as they dimpled fetchingly with my deliberate stride across the
floor. Those in front had a good look at my well corrugated chest and belly
and the nicely formed package at the smooth and bare fork of my legs. A
moment later, as I waited for another diver, I stretched my arms upward in
the shape of a diamond, just touching the tips of my fingers, flattening my
belly, and tightening my glutei to accent their cleavage. Afterwards, I
relaxed a moment then wind-milled my arms before bending over as if
loosening up but really to display the curves of my shapely bum to best
advantage. That earned me a sharp slap on my butt from Maxentius.

"Give the rest of us boys a chance to catch a patron's eye, will you Alex."
he added, rolling his eyes at my blatant tactics. "With everyone oggling
your ass, what chance do I have?"

"Don't worry, Max, a boy as pretty as you does not go unnoticed at the
baths. You are rather scrumptious yourself." I added looking him up and
down appreciatively.

Indeed Maxentius was a classic Mediterranean beauty with a slight build
much like my own: taut, tanned, and toned, but he was olive skinned with
dark curly hair and large brown eyes while I am blond and green-eyed. At
fifteen he was quite a catch for anyone who fancied a pretty lad, though
still too young for me. Not that I did not find him attractive, but I do
not take advantage of impressionable or needy youths at such a tender
age. Give him a year or two and I would welcome him to my bed. In any
event, standing together we made a striking pair, one blond, the other
dark, both young and pretty and ever so sexy, both of us smooth and
hairless. Everything about us said that we were available.

"You are lucky Alex that with your wealth you can afford to choose only
lovers who please you. The best that poor lads like me can hope for is to
attract the interest of a rich patron."

For all his grumbling, Maxentius was not really all that poor. As a free
boy and an apprentice jeweler he had a decent situation working for an
indulgent master jeweler who only occasionally sought his charms. On his
time off, Maxentius frequented the baths, not only for hygiene or exercise
in the palestra, but also to bartar his sexual favors for extra
cash. Romans baths were well known as a place of assignation with good
looking youths. Later on I did spot Max and a young man in his mid twenties
retreating into a alcove where they might get better acquainted.

The baths and the adjoining palestra was where I trained in the nude in
sports like the javelin, the long jump, and the pankration, a form of
unarmed combat, which combines wrestling and boxing. Though my small size
was a disadvantage, I had developed an eclectic style based on techniques
learned in several lands. Much as I enjoyed exercise, I did tend to
concentrate on sports that might aid my survival. In particular I liked
foot races, the longer the better. More than once I had simply taken to my
heels and outrun my enemies. Part of my genetic gift is greater stamina
than most.

For my daily training run, I left my house and loped along the road that
led east out of the city gate till I reached country lanes which were
easier on bare feet than paving stones. I soon learned to avoid houses
which kept vicious dogs. A small nude youth is really no match for a large
angry dog much less a pair of them. There are ways to cope but they are
risky. You really need a club to handle a dog. More than once I had to take
refuge in a tree and suffer the mockery of the locals. On one occasion, I
had to give myself over to the landowner and his two sons before they would
let me continue on my way.

The father was a well built man of about forty; his sons were good looking
lads in their late teens. All three were red-heads in robust good health
and had the strength and calluses that hard labor on a farm builds in a
man. I could have fought them to a standstill had not their dogs been
circling and growling, ready to tear into me. So I had to submit.

"You might as well climb down from that tree, boy. You're just getting that
tender skin of yours all scratched up. Don't make us come up there after
you, boy." The last part came with a tone of menace.

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked, the nervousness in my voice
unfeigned.

"Why, what else would we do with unbred stock on a farm, but breed you. If
you are going to run around starkers, a pretty filly like you, shaking your
booty, getting everyone worked up at the sight of you, well you take the
consequences. In your case that means getting mounted like a filly."

"But I am a male."

"All right, a handsome young colt, but we will still cover you, colt or
filly. So get down from there."

I started down from the tree, apprehensive of their intentions. Grinning
widely, the father grabbed me by the hair and threw me belly down over a
low branch of an olive tree. He slapped my ass hard and told me to stay in
place. Before I quite realized it, he had seized my wrists and tied them
together behind my back. I heard him shuck off his tunic and felt him lay
his hairy body over me, rubbing against my back and ass, covering me like a
stallion. He straightened up and used his knees to spread my legs. Then his
big hands seized my buns and squeezed and kneaded the taut flesh while his
thumbs pulled my anal ring open for his inspection. I could not help but
whimper at what I knew came next.

"Ah, the soft whimper of defeat. That means he won't be giving us any
trouble. Isn't that right, little one?" he asked, patting my head in
approval. "Pretty little thing, isn't he, son? All bent over and
submissive, rump in the air. Look at that long blond hair and green eyes,
and those delicate features. Not to mention a nice trim figure, good chest,
round rump, and taut buns. Good horseflesh, the best I've ever seen on a
boy."

"Oh, he is a pretty one, all right, Pa. Prettier than any of the girls
around here and not afraid to bare everything, running around buck nekkid,
with no more thought to clothing than the livestock in the fields. He is
just begging to be treated like the frisky little filly that he is. Not
that we could get any work out of him, say hitching him up, small as he is
and with such soft hands. He is a pampered city boy, an idler who likely
never did an honest day's work in his life."

"I am sure you are right, son. His has no doubt been a life of ease and
leisure. Nothing to do but look pretty for his master. He must be some rich
man's catamite. That's true, isn't it, Blondie? You were out on a run for
the exercise -- to keep your body taut and trim for your master and his
friends. I'll bet you get passed around a lot. Well today it is our turn to
have our fun with you."

"Yes, Pa. He is our pleasure boy for today!"

The older male pushed his truncheon of a cock into my hole, spreading it
even wider than the city guard. I moaned and tried to loosen the ring of
muscle down there. That eased the pain only slightly but did let the man
slip farther into me. He grabbed my shoulders and pulled my whole body back
onto his cock, sinking all the way into me. That brought a heartfelt sigh
of satisfaction from him. After that he started a rhythmic pumping action.

"Tighter than a virgin." said the older male. "Our lucky day. You never
just know what Fido might flush out of the fields. Why don't you try his
mouth, Marcus, and I will work this end. Get those pouty lips of his around
your cock."

I soon had his son's cock down my throat as he face fucked me. The young
male used me ears to control the pace. His father punctuated his thrusts
with a series of slaps to my ass. He felt under me and found my rigid cock
and frigged it for a while.

"Har! Just as I thought. The little slut is hard. He is begging for it. Oh,
I know, Blondie, a boy like you can't rightly help himself. He needs cock
bad, lots of cock, every single day. Your day isn't complete unless you are
impaled on the cock of a real man. That is why your little cock is hard
now."

I wanted to protest that my erection was just an involuntary
reaction. Certainly not an indication of consent to rape, but I knew my
words would fall on deaf ears, even if my mouth were not already full of
boy cock.

"Look at him, tanned evenly all over, smooth and hairless, even at the fork
of his legs. He is somebody's pleasure boy for sure. Smooth and hairless
because it makes him feel even more naked, with everything hanging out. How
exciting to hold his small body as he squirms and twists beneath
me. Nothing like a clean youth for giving manly pleasure. That is something
I learned in the army, boys."

"Yes, Pa, as you have told us oftentimes before." he said rolling his eyes.

"Me next!" the younger son called out. The dogs barked to show their
support.

They let me go after two hours of nonstop action. At least they didn't have
the dogs mount me. That has happened to me more than once, and it was
always incredibly painful and degrading. Nothing is more humiliating than
being fucked by an animal. I don't know which is worse, dogs because they
knot you and stay inside you for so long or ponies because they are so
impossibly large they threaten to tear you up. Relieved that it was just
humans this day, I trotted off slowly after they released me, their semen
dripping out of my abused boy hole. I took the shortest route home and
scrubbed their odors from my body. Once again my physical beauty had roused
the lusts of men to rape and degrade me.

I took it philosophically. This had happened before and would happen
again. It is not something I would seek revenge for. I was basically
unharmed, and in a sense I had been asking for it, deliberately exhibiting
myself as I habitually did, purposely running around starkers to invite
admiration and lust. I wasn't entirely innocent by any means, never no mind
that it was usual for athletes to train and compete in the nude. While
public nudity was quite common in Rome, I was happy for any excuse to
parade around without clothing, whether all morning at the baths, running
in the countryside, at symposia, or simply walking over to the public
latrine nearby.

Mind you I don't take rape lightly when it happens to other people,
especially helpless females. I could also understand if a straight boy
wanted revenge for such a rape, but I was anything but straight or a
virgin. Though these three males had violated me, I foreswore revenge. I
would not hire a gang of bully boys to work them over while holding off
their dogs with clubs. Nor would I ruin them financially, not three
hardworking farmers whose dull lives I had enlivened there for a brief
period, however unwillingly.

In life, you have to take the good with the bad. So it is with the blessing
of my good looks. If I had to choose I would not be otherwise than I am. I
am content with my slight build and my delicate --even elfin looks. I know
all that makes me overly pretty and unmanly, but it suits me. I am, after
all, a bottom boy, a sexual submissive. Strutting my stuff to assert my
masculinity would be rather beside the point. I mean, if ever a boy was
born to be fucked, it is me. It is just that I prefer to have a choice in
who who gets to play with my body.

One evening a few days after my conversation with Maxentius I saw him with
his new patron at a symposium held at the home of Lucian Gygax a rich
builder of my acquaintance. Originally from Burdigalium in Gaul, Lucian and
I shared an interest in the works of the architect and engineer
Vitruvius. I waved to Max and to the red-haired young man who was squiring
the boy around. Gaius Karandes, his name was. Max flashed me one of his
winning smiles. We did get together a little later in the evening to chat.

The evenings of the well-off classes in Greco-Roman civilization were often
devoted to symposia or drinking parties. The symposium was a forum for
males to talk, to debate, to brag, to introduce youths into aristocratic
society, or simply to party. Symposia might be held to celebrate victories
in athletic and poetic contests. Alone or in pairs, the men would recline
on couches arrayed against the three walls of the room facing the door. A
youth like Max would attend as the companion and eromenos (lover) of an
adult male with whom he was involved. Unaccompanied boys could participate
too but sat instead of reclined on a couch.

My status was a bit of an anomaly. Although a personal friend of the host,
I was not his eromenos, attending in my own right rather than as an older
man's lover. I was known to be nineteen (or so I claimed) though due to my
small stature and slight build and lack of body hair I looked as young as
any eromenos there. I attended as a free boy, sitting rather than
reclining. I was nude like the other boys rather than dressed like the
men. My nudity itself was unremarkable among an elite who frequented the
baths. Almost all of the guests had seen me and each other there naked.

The wine, which was served with food, was usually well mixed with water,
drawn from a large jar called a krater into pitchers and served by nude
servant boys, their skins plucked hairless and lightly oiled to make them
shine. A symposiarch presided over the occasion and decided how far to
dilute the wine. Sometimes we gathered for serious discussions but at other
times merely for sensual indulgence. We did not drink simply to get drunk,
drinking in moderation in keeping with Greek ideals of restraint and
propriety. Indeed the food helped absorb the alcohol too, so matters seldom
got out of hand. Of course some of the wine was spilled on the floor as
libations to the gods.

"You know Alexandros," Lucian once ventured to say, "as a student of
Vitruvius I cannot overlook the unusual proportions of your physique. With
most slightly built youths, the legs are disproportionately short,
accounting for the deficit in height. Your body is smaller in proportion,
retaining the classic ratios which artists have discovered please the eye
and excite concupiscence. The effect is quite stunning."

"Well then, shall I hold a pose like the discuss thrower?" I asked, hopping
off the couch and taking up the same posture as the classic statue. One of
the other guests offered his assessment.

"Pretty as your rump looks in that pose, you are really too slender for a
discus thrower, young Alex. You look more like one of the sons of Laocoon
struggling in the grip of the serpent."

"Pay no attention to Sosthenes there." Gygax said dismissively." The man
would like nothing better than to put you into bondage for his perverse
games."

I shuddered theatrically. Actually I don't mind light bondage and
humiliation in sex play, but for all that I am a bottom boy I am no
masochist. I do not like pain. It does not turn me on. Even less do I like
to inflict pain on another or simply to watch it happen.

I accepted invitations to join men who sat on a couch by themeselves. This
allowed me to widen my circle of acquaintance, though that cut both
ways. Yes, I could show that I was convivial, intelligent, articulate, and
had a good sense of humor. My role as a bottom boy did make it harder to
convince older merchants that the nude youth they had seen disporting
himself at a symposium would make a reliable business partner.

I was popular at symposia not only for my looks and willingness to please
but because I was a lively conversationalist. I could hold my own with
philosophers and literary men, surprised that one so young was so well read
in the Greek and Latin classics. I could also speak knowledgeably of
far-off lands and peoples, of military matters and of the strategic perils
of the empire.

As I talked or drank or sang with first Lucian and then his other guests,
their hands would explore my small body, touching me familiarly and even
intimately. In that context, it would have seemed churlish to object to the
implicit compliment they were making me. It is not vanity for me to
acknowledge that I had and have a lovely form that inspires admiration and
lust in the hearts of any male who appreciates a beautiful youth.

Nude as I was and pressed together on a narrow couch, it was only natural
for them to take what might otherwise have been viewed as considerable
liberties: stroking my rump, slipping the blade of a hand into my cleavage,
running their hands over my ribs, tweaking my tiny red nipples even
fondling my manhood and stealing sweet kisses. All this was foreplay before
pulling me up onto all fours or throwing my legs over their shoulders and
fucking me. On some particularly wild evenings, I found myself in the
center of a constantly changing constellation of randy males, pressing and
probing my own delectable little body. Sometimes I was so exhausted, my
host let me sleep on the couch till morning.

Yes, I was promiscuous, especially in those days in ancient Rome. I rather
enjoyed the occasional orgy. What of it? After all, I had served for years
in a boy brothel more than once. Nothing new then in such attentions and
sexual activity. For someone with my looks and sex drive, it was only a
natural extension of my sex life, at least when I was living without a
lover.

			Chapter 3. Rome and Palymyra

I somehow came under suspicion from the imperial espionage service for my
continuing commercial ties to the East. That was strictly for business
reasons. Zenobia's Palmyrene Empire sat astride the Mediterranean terminus
of the Great Silk Road across Asia. Aurelian's spymaster Philo had me
hauled in for questioning. He suspected my ships might be a channel for
Zenobia's spies in Rome to keep her apprised of the emperor's plans, as if
I would know what they were.

I was at the baths when a man I knew casually offered me wine. I drank it
not realizing it was drugged. When I came to, I found I had been arrested
and strung up naked in the imperial dungeons, my wrists locked into
shackles overhead, my ankles spread wide and shackled to rings set into the
floor, my toes barely touching the stones because of my slight
stature. Perhaps they hadn't meant it, but with so much of my weight
supported by my wrists it was hard to breathe normally.

Philo introduced himself and occupied himself in exploring my helpless
body. He reached up to stroke my slender arms from bound wrists down to my
hairless armpits, then slid his hands into my midline to my pectorals
pinching and tugging my tiny red nipples in their small aureoles. He slid
his hands down my flanks to my hips, weighing my manhood, poking the blade
of his hand into my cleavage, his actions designed to emphasize my nudity
and vulnerability. The man then took my ball sac in his fist and squeezed,
elicting a hiss from me as my body shook in reaction. Turning his attention
to my cock, he pulled back the foreskin and ran his thumb around the glans
and squeezed the slit open with his fingers, nodding appreciatively and
possessively, letting me know that in this dungeon he owned and controlled
every part of me -- including my manhood. He looked me in the eye and spoke
in an cold even tone.

"No doubt you have many questions, young one. Do not bother to ask. You are
here only to answer questions, our questions. Be assured you will answer
us, one way or another. Oh, and you should feel complimented on the
stratagem we used to capture you, pretty one. Your extraordinary skill with
a sword or in unarmed combat is well known, and I wished to spare the
emperor any loss of his soldiers. Quite surprising too, such martial skills
in a young merchant, a small hairless lad who looks more like a joy boy
than a threat to the empire."

"We know that you are a spy for the separatists and the usurper in the
East. Admit that, and we can proceed in a civilized manner. Tell us what
you know freely, agree to work for us as a double agent, and we will grant
you a full pardon. Otherwise, I am afraid I shall have to ask Nofax here to
assist us in our inquiries." He indicated the torturer, a huge man behind
him whose face was covered by a leather mask.

Philo was tall and deliberately loomed over my short lithe form, all the
better to intimidate me. It was working too. Taking me by the chin and
turning my face up to his he kissed me, in a parody of male love, thrusting
his tongue into my mouth and probing before continuing in a tone of
patently insincere regret, trying to soften me up for the interrogation.

"Nofax is quite skilled with hot irons and steel skewers. Can you see
yourself remaining silent as your flesh is pierced by sharp metal rods. He
is especially likely to target the two soft orbs contained within the
smooth hairless sac lying in the palm of my hand. Alas, that would quite
ruin them for their procreative purpose. In some cases, even if the subject
survives, we have to castrate him to prevent the spread of gangrene. What
technique do you recommend with this lad, Nofax?"

"Well, sir, I'd pierce both balls front to back with skewers then twirl
them. The pain is almost unbearable. It makes the subject pass out time and
again. If he still needs persuasion, I would force a third skewer crossways
through both orbs, nailing both together. Bad as that is by itself, it is
even worse if I hold a hot iron to the skewers. I can cook a boy's balls
from the inside out while they are hanging in his sac. Now for something
milder to start with. I suggest fire-hardened splinters forced through his
nipples. You should see how artistically the blood trickles down a boy's
ribs."

Prolonged torture was always my greatest fear. Torture by those who would
not accept the truth until my body was wrecked. True, I have considerable
recuperative powers thanks to my remarkable vitality. Scars always
disappear with time, but I could hardly expect to recover from such all out
torture.

I shuddered though I hoped that their talk was an attempt to intimidate me
at this point with the prospect rather than the actuality of torture. I
suspected they had no real evidence and were proceeding on mere suspicion
that I might be a spy. After all I was innocent, but sometimes unscrupulous
operatives in spy establishments make false accusations to demonstrate
their worth to their masters. I wondered if that is what had happened in my
case.

"Not just yet, thank you, Nofax. Nothing irreversible just yet." Philo
continued. "You see, my young friend? Nofax would enjoy applying his skills
to your delicious body, but it would be a shame to damage such a lovely
youth as yourself, to see those angelic features screwed up in pain, to
make your soft voice hoarse from screams and howls. You are really the most
beautiful boy I have ever laid eyes upon. So small, and slight of build,
yet with a wiry musculature. Completely hairless too, not just plucked."

"You look to be in splendid health. Your skin is smooth, and deeply tanned,
especially for a young man of Germanic or perhaps Slavic extraction. You
must spend much time out of doors in the sun entirely naked to be so
bronzed. We don't see too many pretty boys around here with sun gold hair
and eyes the green of growing things. Those high cheekbones give you an
elven appearance too."

Philo took me in his strong arms pressing me to him and kissed me roughly,
stroking my bound limbs, grabbing my taut buttocks, squeezing them and
fingering my hole. He sniffed my body, still perfumed from my bath with
rose petals. He complimented me again on my utterly smooth and hairless
body. I could feel his rigid member through his robes.

"I suppose I shall have to give into temptation at some point and rape you
myself before Nofax absolutely ruins you. That is one duty I shall carry
out most willingly. Remember all you have to do is to talk. Give us the
names of your confederates. Agree to work for us and you will be spared."

"Rape me if you must, but know that I am innocent. I am no one's spy. I am
just a young merchant trying to make an honest living. I have nothing to
confess though I am sure you can wring a false confession out of me along
with the names of innocent men with whom I do legitimate business. Damn you
for your suspicions."

At that point, Philo waved Nofax forward with his wooden splinters which he
forced through my nipples. Trickles of blood started to run down my
ribs. The man started punching my torso front and back, setting a slow
pace, pausing only to let Philo ask his questions which were punctuated by
slaps to my face. Over the next hour Nofax gave me a beating though he
avoided the kidneys. I hung there limp, exhausted, battered, bruised, and
very frightened. That is when the torturer fixed a ball crusher to my right
testicle. As he squeezed down I called out in despair.

"No, this is wrong! I am not a spy. Don't destroy me. I want to live!"

The pain suddenly broke off as Philo waved his man away. "Yes, just as I
hoped. This boy is no one's spy, sire. No youth would give up his manhood
when he can hope for a full pardon upon confession."

Out of the gloom stepped the emperor. I had seen Aurelian after his triumph
over the Germans but never so close up. The man was impressive in every
way. His gaze was piercing, his keen intelligence obvious. He was in his
late fifties with the lean build of a soldier. Handsome in a manly way, he
wore his hair short and his beard cropped close to his chin. A reformer,
Aurelian reorganized the imperial government, the currency, the management
of the food reserves, restored many public buildings, set fixed prices for
the most important goods, and prosecuted misconduct by the public
officers. He had put down a rebellion in Rome by the master of the imperial
mint who who had for years misappropriated silver and debased the currency,
issuing coins with an inferior metallic content.

"Sorry about all this unpleasantness, young merchant, but we had to test
you. The fate of the Empire is in the balance. I am satisfied that you are
not working for Palmyra. Instead I want you to work for me. Indeed, I must
insist on it."

At his gesture, the torturer freed me from my bonds and poured a bucket of
water over me to cleanse my body and to cool me off. I sat down shakily on
a stone bench to hear the emperor out. I was still trembling from my close
call, one that caused nightmares for quite some time after that. Nothing
can crush the spirit of a young male more than emasculation, a fate I had
very narrowly escaped. All my centuries of life experience and all my study
of philosophies and creeds would have offered little comfort to me then. I
was and am a very sexual being. I hate to think what kind of person I would
have become if, somehow I had survived, to live as eunuch. It would
certainly have soured my outlook on the human race, maybe even turned me
into the uncaring and amoral monster I have always feared I might
become. If anything, my life as been one long spiritual struggle to resist
the temptation to rank myself above mayfly humanity because of the accident
of my immortality.

Philo gave me first water then a goblet of fortified wine to drink. I
swallowed it gratefully. Once the emperor saw that I had collected myself
and was able to focus on what he had to say, Aurelian explained that he was
going to invade the East but needed up to date information on the political
support Zenobia had in Asia Minor and Syria. As a silk merchant I could
travel to the East without arousing suspicion and send reports back with my
corrrespondence. Philo added that he could not vouch for the imperial
agents put in place by Aurelian's predecessors. Zenobia had had years to
discover or suborn them.

"A good point, Philo. What is to keep me from turning my coat once I reach
the East... er, sire."

"I appreciate your candor, young Alexandros, especially in the
circumstances. I will try to explain."

Aurelian pointed out that his struggle to reunite the empire was not just
the fulfillment of the ambitions of one man. In a very real sense, his
mission was the restoration of peace to an empire that sprawled over three
continents with 50 or 60 million inhabitants. Maybe the empire was
originally built out of the usual greed, aggression, and the lust for power
that affect all powerful states, but the empire had changed into a world
state that had promised, and for more than a century had delivered, a Pax
Romana. Rome's world peace was no longer a tyranny over oppressed
peoples. Rome had turned foreign peoples into Roman citizens, spreading its
customs and technology around the Mediterranean and beyond. Rome carried
the banner of civilization itself.

Aurelian maintained that the world was better off with Rome as a single
state with an army whose mission was strategic defense of its territory
rather than expansion. On most of its borders it faced barbarians, not
civilized states. The Roman Empire guarded a civilization worth
protecting. If that world state fell apart, it would be replaced by perhaps
dozens of warring states with their own armies and ambitious rulers,
engaging in endless rounds of warfare, devastation, maybe bringing on the
fall of civilization to the barbarians. That was what Aurelian was fighting
for, civilization itself.

"Isn't that something worth taking a risk for, Alexandros."

How could I disagree with that. Indeed I have always hated the depredations
of barbarians, pirates, brigands, and especially the greatest of butchers,
military conquerors most of whom brought nothing but misery and death in
their wake. So I was moved to ally myself with this ruler, though himself a
general who had risen to the purple on the strength of the support of his
legions.

"And what is to keep Zenobia's spymaster from thinking I am a Roman spy and
putting me to the question?"

"Nothing really," the emperor replied candidly with a wry smile. "That is
just a chance you will have to take."

So, willy nilly, I became a spy for Aurelian. This was one of the few times
in all my centuries that I became a (minor) participant in world shaping
events. In this case the restoration and reunification of the Roman
Empire. Aurelian would earn his title Resitutor Orbis, Restorer of the
World, for defeating the breakaway empires and crushing the barbarian
invaders. His efforts and those of his successors like Diocletian and
Constatine would give the Empire two more centuries of life in the West and
a millenium more in the East.

After recovering from my interrogation I journeyed to the East. I went by
land, taking the Appian Way to Brundisium on the heel of the Italian
boot. After crossing over to Greece I took the Via Egnatia from Dyrrachium
on the Adriatic eastward through Thessalonika. The road from there skirts
the northern shores of the Aegean and the Propontis (the modern Sea of
Marmara, named for the marble quarried from its islands). It was on that
stretch that I helped fight off bandits, mostly deserters, emboldened by
the power vacuum in those parts. My bow accounted for at least four of
them. The road finally lead me to Byzantium which was in the control of
forces sympathetic to Zenobia. Afterwards I crossed through the part of
Asia Minor still under imperial control to the city of Tyana in south
central Asia Minor.

Everywhere I sounded out public opinion, both that of the wealthy classes I
did business with and the artisans, street vendors and peasants in the
village markets. Everywhere the feeling was the same. After the disaster
that befell Roman arms when Valerian was captured, someone had to fill the
power vacuum. Rome's legions were too busy fighting for the various
claimants and usurpers who had contended for power since the end of the
Severid line of emperors in 235. Gangs of bandits and deserters were
everywhere. In desperation the peoples of the East or at least the notables
who ruled them turned to Zenobia who had managed to push back the Persians
with no help from the imperial establishment. Thereafter, when she set up
her own empire, the populace acceded to her sovereignty. At least she
brought peace and the resumption of trade.

Eventually I arrived in Palmyra, the city then known to its inhabitants as
Tadmur or the Bride of the Desert. Today it is just a ruin in eastern
Syria, but then it was a prosperous trading city situated in a green oasis
about 120 kilometers southwest of the Euphrates River, about halfway across
the Syrian Desert. I called on my fellow silk merchants, men I had been
doing business with over the last two years. I bought fabrics and arranged
for their shipment.

I threw myself into the social life of the town, a terminus of the Great
Silk Road, full of interesting people hailing from the great oasis towns of
Central Asia like Balkh and Samarqand, Kokand, and Kashgar. I met men from
India and Taprobane and even two from far off Serica (China) though that
latter duo were completely closed mouth about the actual origins of the
precious silk they sold. (It would be five centuries before silkworm eggs
were smuggled to Byzantium.) In those climes, my own looks were rather
unusual so I had no problem indulging myself with good looking young
men. Everything seemed to be going fine.

I actually thought I was getting quite good at this spy business, going
about unsuspected and undetected, careful never to pump my sources too
obviously or for too much information from any one unwitting
informant. Unfortunately one of the couriers in Philo's employ turned me in
to save himself from unrelated charges of smuggling. That is why one
evening while I was enjoying myself at a boy brothel, soldiers invaded my
room and dragged me off to a dungeon. I found myself, once again, strung up
naked, facing a torturer, or rather two rather frightening looking
ones. The taller one felt me up proprietarily, smelling the attar of roses
on my skin from my bathwater. He also poked a finger into my hole,
provoking a discharge of the cum that my bed partner had deposited there
just before my arrest. Holding his finger under my nose, he bade my to lick
it clean. Just a minor humiliation to show who was boss.

I steeled myself for another awful time under the control of men with few
scruples and little sympathy for human frailties. My beauty would only spur
such men to destroy it. Men who take up such work are invariably
sadists. One man made a show of heating up irons and pincers. Another
stropped a set of knives laid out on a table before him, chuckling as he
held the finely honed blades up to the light. He carried one over to me and
bounced my balls on the flat of the blade, smiling as he drew a soft
whimper of fear from me. Then he batted my shriveled cock back and
forth. Finally he brought the blade up to my nipples and pricked them with
the point, starting twin trails of blood trickling down my chest and
belly. I do not know why such men find that sight attractive.

"You will tell us everything we wish to know, little one. Speak candidly
and spare yourself much pain." the taller man said.

"Yes, I will talk." I agreed promptly. "You don't have to torture me. I
realize that no man can hold out indefinitely. I might as well tell the
truth right off. Little as that is worth."

"Oh, why so little? Do you think so little of your efforts as a spy?"

"Not at all, I reported what I saw and heard, the talk in the streets and
the sentiments of leading citizens. My job was political espionage, not
military or strategic. I engaged in no conspiracies, nor did I ferret out
military secrets."

"Surely you listened to the pillow talk of the soldiers and leading
citizens who took you to their beds. I understand you are quite talented at
pleasuring men."

"All I got from them was political generalities, nothing like troop
strength and dispositions or plans for campaigns. I am not a military
spy. By the gods, I am just a young silk merchant caught up in intrigues
not of my making. They forced me to work for Imperial Intelligence."

"What do you think mistress," suddenly asked the older man, turning to one
side.

A tall woman stepped out the shadows, or should I say a lady. Queen Zenobia
was not a great beauty but she was a handsome woman in her early thirties
and one with great dignity and presence. For once I was embarrassed to be
naked, not for my sake but for hers.

"I hear the ring of truth in his voice. Leave off harsh measures for now
Mansur. I would talk with this young spy. Your name is Alexandros, I
understand, and you are a merchant in silks. Why are you here in Palmyra?"

"Aurelian sent me to gauge the amount of support you have in the cities
across the East. He believes that your support is broad but shallow."

"Is that true?"

"Yes, Majesty. I am afraid that it is. Your regime was welcomed in the
power vacuum after Valerian, but the peoples of the East would submit to
Aurelian if that meant peace without reprisals. I have told him so in my
reports these last months."

"Yes, I think you are correct, my young friend. That is why Byzantium and
Tyana and other cities recently submitted without a fight."

"Majesty, understand, I have not suborned your subjects, merely reported
what they already thought and believed."

"Are you telling me you are not really a spy?"

"Not at all, Majesty. It is just that I had little choice in the
matter. Just months ago I was strung up like this, naked in Aurelian's
dungeon, undergoing torture. They thought I might be one of your agents and
worked me over pretty well. They finally believed me when I stuck to my
story though threatened with the loss of my manhood. Instead, the emperor
made me his agent. I have carried out my mission as I have told you."

"Why did you not then come over to my side. I would have welcomed you as a
double agent."

"True Majesty, but I could not for several reasons. First, I have little
guile and less stomach for lies and betrayal. I had pledged my loyalty to
one side, so I was committed. Second. I was sure Aurelian would win. You
have accomplished much here in the East, but your empire is a temporary
state of affairs. Aurelian is not just a man, he is Rome. Already he has
crippled the Gallic Empire and crushed the Germanic invaders. You are
next. You would do well to make the best deal you can with the emperor
while he is feeling generous. You do have something to bargain with. A
quick surrender would free up his legions to finish off the breakaway
empire in the West."

"I am glad for your honesty. There is much wisdom in your words, young
one. How unlooked for in a pretty boy who seems more like one who might
work in that boy brothel my soldiers dragged you from than a customer. You
truly are an extraordinarily beautiful youth for a male. It would be such a
shame to destroy such loveliness. Time will do that soon enough."

To the torturers she said "Release the boy. Let him be treated as my
guest."

		Chapter 5. Aurelian and Zenobia

I spent the next few weeks in Zenobia's palace, as a guest and
advisor. Arelian was on the march east. Zenobia intended to include me in a
diplomatic party she might send to sue for peace, if her army could not
stop the Roman advance first.

I had comfortable though modest lodgings in the palace and access to and
its fine library and the gardens. I spent a good deal of time at the local
gymnasium and baths. Around the palace I wore only a linen kilt in the
Egyptian style, slung low on my hips, which bared my torso almost to the
fork of my legs. Zenobia indulged me in my exhibitionism, encouraging me to
read and sun myself in the garden lying nude on the grass, occasionally to
the annoyance of the tame peacocks who strutted around the grounds.

"What would people say if they knew you were talking in the garden with a
nude youth, a shameless bum boy, my Queen?"

"Everyone knows that a queen is never alone with you or anyone. I always
have at least my ladies and guards about me, as you can see, when I am not
surrounded by officials and messengers and servants when holding court. I
dare say you rather enjoy displaying yourself, stretched out languidly like
that, rather like a cat. I could hardly fault you for it. You must be the
most beautiful male I have ever laid eyes on. Trust me, I have seen many
lads in your current state of undress. It is my duty to present laurel
crowns to victors in our local athletic games, one of the few women allowed
to attend them, since the athletes compete naked. But then I am the
monarch. I have seen many a nude youth reveling in the beauty of his young
manhood, but never one so physically perfect as you, my friend."

I blushed at her candor, but also mentioned something of the downside of
being a small and pretty young male -- the jealousy it inspired not to
mention gang rapes.

"Well your virtue is safe here as, how shall I say it, my latest palace
pet? Like my peacocks?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and mischievous
smile on her face.

"Nay, majesty," I said springing to my feet. "As decorative as you
acknowledge me, I prefer to think of myself as a kinetic sculpture to grace
your garden." I added with a graceful bow and wave of my arms as I struck
first one pose then another.

She smiled at my wit.

"Indeed a sculpture very much in the classical Greek style of a nude youth
in an athletic pose that highlights his musculature and sex appeal. You
might be Ganymede on a visit from Olympus. He was a blond boy too, slight
of build, pretty enough to turn Zeus's head. I know you are nearly twenty,
but, short and slender as you are and hairless even at the fork of your
legs, you might pass for a lad of fourteen or fifteen, just the age the
Trojan prince was when he caught Zeus' eye. I know you have caught the eye
of my general Tigranes. You are responsible for the smile on his face these
days. I trust he has not been indiscreet with his pillow talk."

I blushed though my physical relationship with her general was no secret. I
went to him openly, for dinner or for an assignation. My spying days were
definitely over. I appreciated the way Zenobia trusted me not to betray
confidences, and I did not. Especially for a ruler of an empire, she really
was a very nice person. I came to like her as much as was possible for one
with my exclusively male orientation.

Not that she did not appreciate my boyish looks, totally on display, but
there never was nor could be anything romantic between us. Even her enemies
did not claim that the Queen of the East was anything but a chaste widow.
Centuries earlier Roman propaganda had painted Kleopatra of Egypt as a
wanton, a sexual predator who had corrupted Mark Antony with her
wiles. Zenobia was every inch the queen and the lady.

Eventually when Aurelian's army reached Antioch, Zenobia lead her army out
to meet it. Though Zenobia had considerable gifts as a military leader, she
was no match for a professional soldier like Aurelian in the two pitched
battles they fought. First at Immae he drove her army back, tricking her
heavy cavalry into exhausting and dispersing itself. At Emessa he crushed
her army with his infantry. The Romans invested the town and seized the
city center. I was found in the palace by a centurion named Titus Vorenus,
a giant of man who commanded a troop of auxiliary cavalry sent into the
city.

Aurelian received the city fathers in Zenobia's throne room. I had caught
the eye of his spy master Philo, but we had little time to speak before we
were ushered into the imperial presence. The Palmyrenes made their plea for
peace. They begged the emperor to spare their city the sack and leave its
citizens in peace without condemning them to the slave markets. Aurelian's
advisers asked pointed questions about the location of the Palmyrene
treasury and the disposition of their remaining military forces, getting
satisfactory answers.

Titus Vorenus was visibly dissatisfied with a negotiated surrender. He had
wanted to put Palmyra to the sack. He said so in heated terms. I spoke up
in opposition, pointing out that a quick political settlement in East would
free the emperor to settle accounts in the West. Also, Palmyra was worth
more in the long run to the empire as a prosperous trade hub and a source
of taxes than as a one-time source of loot, much of which would wind up in
the hands of soldiers like Titus rather than in the imperial fisc. Let the
Romans secure this rich trading city with a garrison that would help
protect the trade with the East.

"What of it, centurion," Aurelian asked deadpan. "Isn't the boy right?
Sacking the city. Isn't that putting what is best for your own purse ahead
of what is best for your emperor and the empire as a whole?"

"After all my years of service, how can anyone suppose that my loyalty is
less than that of some bum boy of dubious antecedents, a turncoat,
doubtless in the pay of Zenobia."

"Actually this bum boy, as you call him is a young merchant working for
Philo and the imperial spy service. His reports were excellent, in
particular for suggesting the policy of forebearance toward cities in
revolt. They opened their gates to us peacefully which is why our march
across four provinces was an uncontested triumph. We did not have to fight
a battle or take losses till we reached Antioch, in Syria itself, the
heartland of Zenobia's power.  I think I am a good judge of men, centurion,
and I trust this young man's honesty."

"Then why was he here ensconced as a guest in the palace rather than in the
dungeon. Clearly he has thrown in with Zenobia."

"I deny that in the strongest terms." I said hotly.

I went on to explain that I had in fact been found out by Zenobia's
counterspies and dragged to the dungeon for interrogation but had managed
to win Zenobia's confidence. My own counsel had been for a negotiated peace
to restore the empire and put an end to the war. Members of the Palmyrene,
delegation, including the wounded General Tigranes, confirmed my
story. Titus denounced me as a traitor and offered to lop my head off for
the good of the state.  I answered sharply until Aurelian raised his hand
to bring us to a halt.

"Enough, you two. I will consider the city's fate overnight. In the
meantime, Titus and Alexandros, I grant you leave to settle your
differences on the field of honor out there in the gardens. Let it be to
the death."

Titus was sure that he would have little trouble killing me in single
combat. A huge man anyway, he wielded a cavalry spatha, a sword longer than
the gladius carried by Roman infantry. He was rather taken aback when I
chose twin daggers as my weapons of choice. Fifty years earlier I had been
undefeated in the Colosseum fighting as a dimachaerus, a gladiator who
fights armed only with two long knives but without armor, helmet, or other
gear. Indeed I fought totally nude. I was celebrated in those days as the
Killer Catamite. I kicked off my sandals and shed my kilt till I was
totally naked. I know that would make my opponent overconfident. What did
he, an experienced soldier have to fear from a naked bum boy?

Suddenly recognition dawned in Aurelian's face. "The Killer Catamite!" he
blurted out. He explained that, as a boy of six or seven, he had seen the
then famous gladiator in the arena. "You are his very image, young
Alexandros!"

That bothered my opponent for only a moment. He was not worried about a
chance resemblance to some gladiator who had fought in the Colosseum long
before he himself was born.

"Killer Catamite, eh? Well, I am the Catamite Killer, bum boy. I am going
to shove my sword so far up your hole you will be able to taste my steel!"

"Don't be so sure, big man" I murmured under my breath.

That drew a nod from Aurelian. He knew from Philo how deadly I can be with
any kind of blade. I think he wanted to send a message to the other
soldiers in his army who ached for the chance to sack the city. Better that
a non-Roman like me did the deed and taught the lesson. I did not mind
being so used, not in a good cause. In this way I could keep faith both
with the emperor and the queen.

We faced off and went at it. Titus' greater strength and reach were his
main advantages. If he could batter aside my lighter blades or break them,
he just might win. However, the man had not counted on an opponent as agile
as I, quick and nimble as a squirrel, and with centuries of training,
practice, and combat experience, including my time in the arena. By
contrast, Titus was slowed by the weight of his armor. I also used the
terrain of the garden itself to good advantage, jumping over pools, back
flipping to put low walls between us, swinging around columns, and darting
around statuary. In short order he was confused and short of breath.

I fought defensively at first, letting him wear himself out as I repeatedly
blocked his cuts with knives doubled in an X or spun aside to let his blade
slip past me. I did not actually toy with him. That is always a mistake, a
sign of overconfidence if not downright arrogance, but I made the fight
last long enough to show that my victory was no accident, not the result of
some slip up on his part. That would have defeated the purpose of
Aurelian's object lesson.  I made it clear to everyone watching that I was
in command of the situation, thanks to my agility and speed and blade work.

As in my days in the arena I won the crowd over by a display of athleticism
and raw animal appeal.  Onlookers were enthralled by the way the muscle
bundles stood out under my skin, by the twitching of the long muscles of my
legs as I stepped forward or retreated, the dimpling of my buttocks as I
lunged or skipped back from his cuts, and the curve of my torso as I
twisted and ducked. My sweaty body glistened in the afternoon sunlight,
suggesting how I must look during vigorous sex play. Everyone got a good
look at the rump that Titus wanted to impale with his spatha. I am sure
some of them were on my side because that outcome struck them as being just
a terrible waste of boy flesh. They would much rather impale that sexy boy
themselves on their own fleshy swords.

Our fighting techniques were as different as our physiques. I was all in
and out, cut and run, spin and slash. He was all for stamping about,
planting his feet, swinging mightily, laying about with powerful strokes
that would have cleaved me in two had they connected. Titus was a big bluff
man, rather plain looking, in his thirties, protected by his lorica hamata
(chain mail shirt) and helmet. I was everything he was not: a short
slightly built lad, much too pretty for a boy, totally nude, hairless even
at the fork of my legs, seemingly overmatched by a man with more than twice
my body mass. A boy facing a man.

Our fight went on for some minutes, which is actually a very long time in
single combat (except in the movies). After some sparring back and forth, I
saw my chance, slipped past his guard, got in close and stabbed the blade
in my right hand up into his heart, punching through the chain mail
covering his chest. (Chain mail is better protection against slashing
blades than thrusting points.) I followed that up with a slash from the
blade in my left hand across his throat. He fell dead at my feet. I stepped
back covered in sweat and dust and his blood. It brought back unpleasant
memories of the arena. At least this man's death was honest self-defense,
not sanctioned murder to titillate a bloodthirsty crowd. Nor would rich men
pay this day to fuck me while I was chained up in a cell.

In the end, though many Palmyrenes surrendered, the Romans were forced to
kill the die hards in the city who refused to yield. Aurelian commended me
for my efforts both as a spy and for counseling conciliatory tactics to him
and peace to Zenobia. I stayed on in Palmyra and the East for the next year
or so exploring business opportunities that the reunification of the Empire
opened up. I don't mind admitting that I made quite a financial killing,
enjoying imperial favor and getting in on the ground floor, if I may mix my
metaphors.

Aurelian captured Zenobia before she could flee across the Euphrates to the
Sassanians. He interviewed her several times. In the end, he was as much
impressed as I had been by the woman's character. He treated her well
considering what had been at stake. Yes, he did make her walk in golden
chains in the parade for his military triumph in Rome, but that was
mandatory for public consumption. Instead of keeping her a prisoner, he
freed her, settled an income on her and gave her an elegant villa not far
from Hadrian's villa in Tibur (modern Tivoli). In time she married a Roman
senator and became a prominent socialite, Roman matron, and
philosopher. For some years afterwards I was in her circle of
acquaintance. She never involved herself in politics or intrigues, happy
that fate and Aurelian had given her a second chance at a good
life. Zenobia will ever remain in my memory as one of the most
extraordinary women I ever met.

I never saw Aurelian again. He was busy in the West putting an end to the
Gallic Empire the following year. I did not return to Rome till after
Aurelian died 275, even before his wall around Rome was finished. He was
murdered by his own high officials who had been tricked by a corrupt
officer into thinking the emperor was planning to purge them. Rome thus
lost one of its greatest emperors, the man without whom the empire would
have fallen to pieces well before its time. Indeed his efforts and those of
his successors allowed Christianity to spread widely through the civilized
world, to become the state religion of the empire, and to create the milieu
in which Islam later arose. Our modern world would look very different
today if Aurelian and his fellow soldier emperors had not preserved the
unified empire for another two centuries.

By the time I returned to Rome, Gaius Karandes, the patron of my young
friend from the baths, Maxentius, was long gone from the scene. I
understand he had been posted to far off Britannia. I saw my chance and
took up with the delightful young apprentice jeweler. Curly headed Max
became my lover for the next eight years. We spent many happy days and
nights together. Though he often stayed over at my home he continued to
report for work at the master jeweler's. He would be no one's kept boy, not
Max. I always respect young men like Max determined to make their way in
the world without relying just on their good looks. In time, I sponsored
him for his own establishment in which business he was very successful
thanks to his talent and hard work. I was sorry, years later, when I
finally had to leave Rome and Max before my unchanging youth could be
remarked upon. Though Max was not one of the great loves of my life, he was
as fine person as you would ever want to meet. I felt privileged that he
had shared my home and my life, bringing into them his sense of humor, his
intelligence, and his joie de vivre. Did I mention that he was also
terribly cute and terrific in bed?  He lives on in happy memory.

			Epilogue

Aurelian's wall around Rome is remarkably well preserved in long stretches,
especially some of the massive gates. It a tourist attraction well worth
seeing if you are in Rome. Don't miss the Museum of the Wall, the Museo
delle Mura, installed in the San Sebastiano Gates, one of the largest and
best conserved gates in the Aurelian wall. Still, as I have already
indicated, Aurelian's influence on history is his most lasting monument,
relatively little appreciated as it is.

Palymra itself is a tourist attraction next to a modern town called
Tadmor. As much as I admire the stark ruins on the high ground, what I like
best there is the beauty of the green oasis that abuts it in the midst of a
vast desert. To travelers in caravans, such oases must have seemed to be
literally gifts of the gods. Which reminds me of the great line from the
movie 'Lawrence of Arabia' when Prince Faisal reproves Lawrence for his
romantic love of the desert. "No Arab loves the desert. We love water and
green things." Indeed.

The sport of parkour occupies much of my time during warm weather. My lover
Jeffrey and I go out a couple of days a week to run and jump and scramble
over obstacles and climb structures. I am almost sorry that the old
elevated freight railroad on the West Side, the High Line, is opening as a
public park and tourist attraction. It used to be one of our private
playgrounds, one only we and a few others could access by swarming up the
supporting pillars or jumping from a window ledge. Now they have gone ahead
and put in stairways and elevators. At least that will increase the
audience for our displays of agility, strength, athleticism, and raw animal
appeal, as we scamper about in summer dressed only in skimpy form fitting
tan-thru shorts which cover just about enough to keep us from getting
arrested.

The last time I was in Paris, I was (and not for the first time) sorely
tempted to climb the Eiffel Tower -- and I don't mean via the stairs which
take you up to the second platform. From the Champ de Mars, I looked up
longingly at the striking lattice structure. An architecture student,
Jeffery told me that the tower is an outstanding for its economy of
design. The iron of the tower actually has less mass than a cylinder of air
of the same dimensions (height 324 meters, radius 88 meters). Jeffrey saw
the longing in my face and warned me.

"Don't even think about it, Alex!"

What dissuaded me was not the danger nor the difficulty of the climb but
the spotlight of publicity it would shine on me. I have to be able the
change identities every twenty years or so, so I cannot afford world wide
notoriety. Also, it would be selfish act. The authorities would have to
shut the tower down during my daredevil climb, denying ordinary tourists
perhaps their one chance in a lifetime to take the elevator to the
top. Finally, I might get stuck with a bill for the costs of mobilizing the
"forces of order", as the French say, for crowd control, operating costs
for helicopters, etc. I knew I would be arrested and fingerprinted, and I
cannot afford to leave such official records.

As you might expect, my own experiences under interrogation in various
dungeons have left me with definite views of recent American failures to
live up to this country's own ideals. I was keenly disappointed because
America is not just another country. In the last analysis, it is still the
best hope for peace, democracy, and human rights in our troubled
world. Yes, there are other fine countries on this globe, especially in
Europe, but their security ultimately depends on American power and
justice.

I have lived in New York for a decade and was a witness to the events of
9/11. I saw first hand what happens when a religious ideology makes men
blind to their own humanity and that of others. Such crimes have to be
countered and investigated, but not by abandoning what makes America worth
preserving in the first place.

I do not oppose torture because I am squeamish, far from it. As these
narratives have shown I can be ruthless when I have to be, and not only in
self-defense. I have taken life pre-emptively when my path happened to
cross that of an insufferable villain who preyed on others but was
protected by title, wealth, or connections. These things mean nothing to
me, except tactically as obstacles to be overcome. Over the centuries I
have disposed of any number of villains including three serial killers,
though they were never called by that modern term. Witches and fiends were
the labels during the middle ages.

In all three cases, I used poison to mimic a natural death. I am very good
at giving heart attacks. I use a poison ring with a retractable point that
delivers a deadly venom into the blood stream from a simple scratch. In a
bustling city street, it is easy enough to get close enough to your target
to inflict that scratch and get away fading into the crowd. . No I never
had the satisfaction of standing over them and gloating. I leave gloating
to movie villains. I just wanted to get the job done.

In 1888, with the help of my son David and his mother Lydia, I actually
went hunting for Jack the Ripper. Lydia was the bait, protected by a mail
hauberk under her dress. David guarded her close by, following on foot in
the shadows -- not that Lydia wasn't deadly in her own right. I took to the
rooftops of Whitechapel the better to observe those in the streets and
alleys below. I could block any effort by our quarry to escape by
clambering down a building facade or sliding down a rope wrapped about my
waist. Unfortunately, by the time we took up the hunt, the Ripper had ended
his killing spree. Had some other hunters found him out and quietly
disposed of him? Had he died of natural causes or committed suicide? We
will never know.

I consider such episodes a partial payment to the universe or whatever gods
may exist for my unexplained immortality. Sometimes I act of out simple
self-defense. Just in the last few years, when confronted by muggers or gay
bashers I have taken matters in my own hands and left these miscreants
dead, crippled, or merely humbled in the streets, according on their
deserts, without seeking the help of the authorities.

Understand, I live in a good neighborhood on the Upper West Side. I am not
a vigilante. I do not patrol the streets or the subway looking for trouble
as Charles Bronson did in "Death Wish" or as costumed crime fighters do in
the comic books. That said, my small size, slight build, and pretty boy
good looks are all too often taken as signs of an easy mark by the bad
guys. Their mistake.

Only recently could I write of these things, choosing, from caution, to
cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth
written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of
modern science will believe it. In this tale, all of the names are real.
The events described really did happen just as I have written.