The Perfect's Purse (IV): The Prefect

I walked into the Prefect’s administrative headquarters, a fine building, having all the elegance and grandeur of the Greek world but hemmed in by a nodding acquaintance with Jewish sensitivities. It had been built as a small treasury for the old goat Herod, now it served its purpose, but for Rome.

Outside in the gathering warmth small courtyard palm trees eased apart, trying to catch what little breeze there was blowing in from the sea. Here, in what passed for the early morning cool, I gazed at my reflection caught by the dark water of a reception area font. 

I had been ordered to attend the Prefect at his city centre HQ, before his morning session at the newly refurbished forum basilica. This place, like the forum, spoke of money, and lots of it.
Around me the reception buzzed with the usual mix of bodies that such riches will attract. Clients and debtors, the forlorn, the hopeful, and the panoply of government mixed the Prefect’s private with his public business. A couple of overly well-dressed slaves circulated the room, taking names and giving only the merest hint of when, or if, one might be admitted. 

‘Lancianus, Centurion of the august ..’ my formal address was cut off as a slave raised his hand. He smiled a delicious smile at Rudio, almost a knowing oriental smile. Before I could form another word let alone utter it, two of the Prefect’s shiny guards rattled toward us and whisked us away.

We headed not toward the ornate main entrance, but to a set of plain side doors. Neither of the jokers spoke to me, they hardly even looked around them, they simply sliced through the crowd as a sickle through ripe wheat, with Rudio and me in the middle.

Truly, I was glad that Rudio had forced me into my best uniform, set against the glitter of gold and fine plumage anything less than best would have looked beggarly. With the deference due to my rank the giants beside me guided me past door slaves, corridor slaves and, most impressively, past even the senior steward in charge of this little beehive. We came to a smart halt at one corner of the steward’s antechamber, all eyes, even that of the steward from his raised podium, were fixed on us. A door opened and a voice boomed, ‘Enter!’

Despite my own polished finery I felt stripped naked as I stood in the gorgeous surroundings that went by the name of Squadron Office. A surprisingly bright room, full of desks, shelves, and wax tablets; even the military-style administrators seemed lost in its vastness. The giants were dismissed by a baby-faced non-commissioned officer who lead me to another room. Here, amid even greater splendour, sat the guards senior officer. 

‘Primus,’ the NCO tried to attract the attention of the officer, ‘Centurion Lancianus.’

The Primus did not look up, he merely fingered for a folding chair to be brought closer to his desk and for me to settle on it. Intent on finishing his reports he snapped at the NCO, ‘Out!’ The NCO jumped and started withdraw, the Primus snapped again, ‘The slaveboy too. Go!’

This, I noted staring around the room, was not the average Primus Pilus office, it was a Praetorian Prefect’s office, an office fit for an emperor’s guardians.
‘You are a friend of Alcibiades,’ the Primus finally looked up. 
‘I was.’
These words seemed to sear through the officer’s living breath. He turned his face from me and rose from his seat with a snap of his last wax tablet. ‘You were a friend.’ He weighed the words and turned to look at me once more.
‘I was an acquaintance, sir. I scarcely knew him.’

‘Oh, I think you knew him well enough.’ The officer pushed some reports toward me.
I had no need to read them, the spy network in Judaea was second only to that in Rome. ‘I have nothing to hide, sir.’
‘No,’ the Primus leaned in toward me, ‘from all I hear you have a good deal to show off.’

I held him in an eyeball stare until he smiled and sat back down. He was an unusual man. To say Primus Gennadus was good looking could not do him justice. There was nothing pretty about his low German face, or his thinning reddish blonde hair, yet Gennadus had an intensity that made him attractive. He was also unusual because non-Romans rarely held such high office, even in semi-private forces like the governing prefect’s guards. ‘Do you want to hear my report for the Prefect?’ I asked.
‘Do you think I need to hear it?’ He replied.
Looking at the pile of reports on his desk, I said, ‘I doubt it.’ I tapped the tablets and added, ‘You, however, were more than a friend.’
He glared at me, then laughed.

Perhaps I had gone further with Alcibiades in a few hours than he had in many months. ‘Am I here for any particular purpose?’ 
‘You are.’ The Primus drew closer to me, so close I could smell his breakfast. ‘You will come to dine with my wife and me tonight.’ And in a whisper, as if in after-thought, he mouthed, ‘Stephanus will be there.’
‘Formal?’ I quizzed, trying to appear unfazed.
‘Of course. We dine early, at the first evening hour.’ The Primus clicked his fingers and a slave appeared through a door on the opposite side of the room. Gennadus grabbed my arm as I got up to go, ‘Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut, Lancianus,’ he warned me.

I was ushered by the slave across a corridor to meet up again with Rudio, and then into another bright but, this time, almost empty room. ‘Wait here, sir, please. The Prefect will be along shortly.’
Perhaps because the room had very little furniture, or more likely because it was lined with empty ceiling high bookcases with vents into the adjacent rooms, but sounds echoed into it eerily. Shouts and roars of laughter came through from one side, but the other wall was the more interesting. The voices there were conspiratorially low. I asked Rudio to cover the doorway as I opened one of the bookcase panels to hear the conversation better.

‘He is in his fifteenth year, sixteen in a few months. His mother’s agents are here from Cyprus .’ One hushed male voice said.
‘And Salampsio herself?’ Asked another.
A less distinct female voice answered, but the words were drowned by the hubbub coming in from the other the room. In a lull her voice carried through the partition. ‘And she is in Cyprus already, all set to move.’

The voices drifted further from the panel so I was unable to hear what was said. Salampsio, I thought over the name and its connection to these parts. ‘Why would Herod Agrippa’s old mum want to leave Rome for this shitehole?’ I asked no one. Rudio shrugged, but nodded toward the other wall and the rising excitement of the men behind it.
The vents here were larger. If I stood on the lowest shelf, protruding out from the others as a work surface, I could peer in discreetly through the fine lattice mesh.
‘Keep cavey,’ I whispered to Rudio, lifting the library steps close to a case that could not be seen from the hallway. The reason for all the excitement was obvious straightaway. A lot of gambling was going on during an impromptu wresting match. Two men fought in an odd strip-loss game. They were both down to loin cloths as the last throw demanded one man cast of his solitary scandal. ‘20 on the blond god!’ One punter yelled. ‘50 for the darkie!’ Called two.

‘And the winner will get a special treat.’ A disembodied voice spoke with a commanding tone just below my spot.
The wrestlers joined combat again and the cheers rang high. I recognised the whiteman, chiefly by the scars on his back. One of the Prefect’s Germans. He had been disgraced in the camp for leaving his post to chat up some tart, and had been caught, in flagrante delicto, with the young girl pinned to him. He had disappeared from camp and town after receiving a monumental number of lashes in punishment. Yet here he was alive and still in the Prefect’s employ.

The Negro was a different case. I sort of half-recognised him as the slave of one of the Prefect’s staff, having seen him follow the Prefect’s entourage through the town. What punishment he was suffering to be thus degraded in a semi-public show, or why, I didn’t know.

The Negro got a good hold on the German, but not good enough to throw him. The two writhed in ever closer intimate attacks, and circled avoid them. A fairly ordinary sight in any Greek gymnasium. However the men watching the two of them were caught up in the contest with an almost sexual intensity; an intensity increased by the innuendoes flowing from the voice below me and echoed by the mass of lascivious faces around the wrestlers.

Suddenly the German let out a cry, lunged forward and took the Negro with a grip between the legs. Though both were evenly matched by body weight and height, the move and balance-shift allowed the German to raise and then to throw the Negro to the floor. Following him with a grunt of exertion, the German pined his man down. The hoots and screams of the audience shook the fine cloth mesh covering the bookcase’s trellis.

Applause greeted the man’s voice below me as he congratulated the winner and tossed him a bag of coins. Then hush fell across the room, I could just make out the orator’s trick of hands rising to gain attention. ‘And now for the special treat,’ the disembodied voice boomed. Again his hands moved but this time as sign for movement. Guards descended on the wrestlers. ‘You both like fucking around, don’t you?’ The voice asked both stunned contestants. ‘Now is your chance to show all just how good you are, and win a pot apiece if you put on a good entertainment.’ 
The two men looked toward each other, framed by a mix of horror, surprise and greed. ‘Who is to be the man?’ asked the German, shaking off the loose hold of the guards.
The voice roared with laughter at the question. ‘Gentlemen, which of these two is to play the lady and which the gent?’ Shouts of nigger and whitey ripped the room apart. ‘Lay your bets!’ 
I moved across the book case and stood up as high as I dared to try and catch a glimpse of the voice, but his arms were all that were visible.

‘Here is how we shall judge who is to be the man,’ the voice called over the hubbub, ‘and I know the connoisseurs of the fine art of sex among us will really appreciate it.’ Again laughter then cheers erupted. ‘Yes, you guessed, it’s going to be that that simple. Both of you strip.’ More cries of nigger, nigger, nigger greeted the reluctant striptease, and the protests from the German and his backers only brought more shouts for the Blackman. ‘Well, there you are men, plain for all to see who is the man of these two.’ 

I gazed down at the victims below me. The German was shaking his head, but he knew he had no choice in the matter, the Blackman had a massive already engorging cock that made his dick seem ever smaller in comparison.

‘Don’t worry,’ the voice reassured the German, ‘this man will take good care of you. Won’t you Encummus? Get down and pleasure your girl’s little fanny dick,’ the voice commanded. 
Encummus responded to the command when he felt a guard’s hand on his shoulder. 

‘See,’ the voice cooed, ‘he’s a good dick sucker, isn’t he? Are you enjoying it, Vilmes? Well, tell me, are you enjoying it.’ The German cast a nervous glance at the man. ‘Ha! Look, his tiny stiffy is loving the attention of a good man. Turn him round Encummus, like us all see how he loves playing the girl. Now bend him and lick the sweet cunt that’s waiting for you.’ 
At a signal from the man below me a small bowl of cooking grease was brought to him. ‘So Vilmes, are you ready to feel what it’s like to know a real man?’ The German mumbled something in his own language, but to the voice he answered only with a no. ‘Turn him back toward me,’ the man said, ‘I want to see it all.’ The man leaned forward slightly, so I could see the top of his bald head. ‘Get up, Encummus!’ he ordered. ‘Get Vilmes down on his knees and make him prepare your cock for its new home in his tight sissy ass.’ 
The unseen man moved, perhaps to get a better view. Still he remained tantalisingly out of sight though within hearing range.

‘Good! Make him take it deeper. Go down his throat,’ the voice jeered. ‘Yes! Make him gag on that monster, let him know what’s coming his way,’ he said, though judging by the cheers from the audience it was said to them more than to Encummus, who was concentrating Vilmes. ‘Get up Vilmes, turn round and open your gash for the man who’ll make you!’ The voice seemed to move closer to Encummus and Vilmes. ‘Well? Do it!’ The voice insisted. ‘You, take this to our lady-boy Vilmes,’ a hand appeared, and gave the bowl of grease to a slave. ‘Grease up your man, girly. And save some for your little hole, you’ll need it.’

Obediently Vilmes took the bowl from the slave and fumbled as he tried to smear it over the vast pole in front of him. Then, after looking for more instructions, he bent and eased grease on his butt. His body was qivering so much that his movements had become shaky. Encummus took the bowl from him, and said something low to him, then he fingered grease into Vilmes’ hole.
‘Enough! Ram that baby’s arm up his shitter. Tight is it?’ the voice asked as Vilmes cried out with the pressure of Encummus’ cockhead at his sphincter. Encummus nodded. 

‘Ease it in, good. I like to see that bitch feel her man. Right boys?’ The audience agreed in rapture. ‘Now home! Don’t mind the bitch’s cries, do it! Do it hard. Yes! see she likes it. Her lady-dickette is hard and drooling. Don’t let her run away, pin her down!’ The voice moved again as Vilmes tried to pull away from Encummus and his thrusts. But Encummus had a hold on Vilmes and push on at him. ‘Great! fuck him up against my chair.’ 
For a while all I could see was Encummus’ face, which was a mixture of bliss and fear, and the pressing lust of the men entertained by the suppressed groans from Vilmes. 
‘I want to see it. Move him round more. I want you to tell me how it feels.’
‘It fucking hurts,’ Vilmes yelped through gritted teeth.
‘Tell the blackie. Say is that all you got to give me!’

‘No way!’ Vilmes moaned between biting his hand and trying to escape the power of Encummus’ slow drive. His face, once more visible to me, contorted with the deeper thrusts. His eyes pleaded for an end, but the master of the entertainment wanted more. ‘Please! Cum,’ Vilmes cried, ‘damn you, it’s ripping me up!’
This brought the loudest cheers, and harder, harder, harder. ‘See, how well you please my friends. Wank yourself, Vilmes, I want your lady-spew while our man is taking you. Wank it! Wank it harder, faster.’

Vilmes threw back his head with a scream of unsuppressed agony and the ecstasy of orgasm. His pushed himself upright and his seed flew across the room. Encummus didn’t stop, he carried on pumping on Vilmes’ backside, now in time with the crowd’s clapping and crazed calls.
‘Inside your woman, Encummus, off load it all inside her. Breed that bitch. We want to see the spooge dribble out of her ruined virgin-tight hole.’ 

The crowd was on the move again to see as much as it could. ‘Do it, do it, do it!’ 
‘Good boy! Now let me see it run out!’ The voice finally came into view. 
I saw and recognized immediately who it was, Valerianus Gratus, the Prefect of Judaea.

To be continued...