by Todd Gregory
The mention of murder evokes in Francesco a fresh bout of sobs, a few weak words his gag makes unintelligible. His white teeth grit the chain. He thrashes in his bonds. The steel links rattle and clink.
“Aiuto. Per favore. He’s crying for help. So delicious.” Marcus stands beside me now, fingering the spit-shiny chain between our prisoner’s plump lips. “The boy’s half starved. But he gave us a fierce fight, like a wild animal. Rather than damage him badly, we drugged him. He’s been kept bound down here for hours, watched over by some helpful minions of mine. He has little strength left. So he will do?”
“Ohhhh, yes,” I hiss. “He’s fucking fine. Thank you, Marcus!”
Francesco’s face is thin, with prominent cheekbones and an aquiline nose. His shoulder-length hair is ink-black, as is his neatly trimmed goatee. He’s very lean, rib-staves and hipbones ridging dirty skin. He’s shiny with sweat; he smells of the street, of urine and long hot days without a bath. Other than the whiteness of his buttocks, his skin’s an olive hue. Here and there are bruises, the result, I’m guessing, of the struggles he put up during his capture. I circle him now, stroking his long, thickly hairy legs, the muscles’ straining definition. I caress the wet hair-nests of his armpits, the hair dusting his belly and chest. When I touch his buttocks, hard curves covered with fine black fur, he starts and shudders, shakes his head violently, cries out more chain-hampered words I can’t make out. His fear’s a liqueur, black and sweet. I laugh low, running a fingertip along his ass crack. So moist, so warm, so aromatic.
“Oh, yes, he can guess what’s coming next. Do what you please, barbarian. Use him as I used you.” Marcus fetches two glasses and a bottle from the floor. Black Sambuca again. He pours out the liqueur, hands me a glass, clicks his glass against mine. I take a sip, lick the sugary anise off my lips, rest the glass on the corner of the altar, and strip.
I am naked now. Marcus brushes his fingers across my chest, along my arm. “White scars amid such black, black fur. Black tattoos against such white, white skin. Snow and coal. Comets streaking the darkness. The white wake of waves across the Mediterranean at midnight…” He sounds almost reverent, his eyes gone vague. “Ah, I am a bad poet. My apologies. But I am very glad you came to Rome, Derek Maclaine.” He steps back, face again an ivory mask. “I may watch, may I not?”
“Yes, sir. I’d relish that.” I leap up beside Francesco and stretch out. His face is pressed against the altar. I cup his bearded chin in my hand, turning his face toward me.
“Oh, you are so fucking beautiful,” I sigh. “I am going to take you now, little Jesus. I am going to fuck you up the ass. Do you understand?” I smile, showing my fangs.
Francesco gives a sharp gasp. Francesco stares. Francesco pants with panic around his mouthful of chain. Drool wells through the links, dribbling onto my hand.
“I’m guessing you’ve been ass-fucked before? What with those eager clients on the Spanish Steps all salivating for your sweet favors?”
My prisoner continues to stare and pant, speechless. Customary behavior at the first sight of fangs.
“You’ll answer me if you know what’s good for you. I like my slaves mannerly.”
“Uh-huh,” Francesco grunts, nodding.
“If you obey, you’ll survive. If you struggle, you’ll die. And if you give me enough pleasure, I might decide to own you, to keep you around. You understand? I need a slave here in Rome, to watch over me and my new home. If I own you, I will care for you. And your worries will be over. You will live long and prosper.”
Francesco nods. More warm drool, clear as water, drips onto my hand.
Fetching my glass, I slip down to kneel between my captive’s widespread thighs. Across the pale curves and fuzzy crevice of his ass, I drip Sambuca. I can hear Marcus’s chuckle as I spread Francesco’s cheeks and begin a deep nuzzling.
IV.
Francesco limps beside me through the old neighborhood of Vecchia Roma, over bumpy cobblestones, past pink and cream stucco walls. His stride’s stiff, a little less than graceful. With good reason. Last night, after entering him as gently as Marcus entered me, I rode Francesco long and hard, on and off, for hours, wanting our first time to last. As I pounded him, I drank his delicious blood till he fainted. I sipped Sambuca with Marcus till my captive came to. I beat his brown back and white buttocks with my belt, leaving bruises and welts, before climbing upon him, embracing him, entering him, drinking from him again. Francesco pleasured me with his ass, with his street-taught skills, coaxing cum from me time after time. He obeyed me in everything, didn’t struggle or shout, was entirely acquiescent, limp with blood loss as dawn approached. We unchained him then, carried him to a secret crypt near the Mythraeum. We bound his hands and feet with rope. We tenderly gagged him with Marcus’s silk tie. Marcus stripped, and the three of us lay together. Francesco spent the day between us, paralyzed and entranced, curled against the naked dead.
Tonight he is clearly hurting. But a slave is the last to complain. By now he bears a chain I have locked around his neck. By now he bears the marks of my teeth, on his buttocks, on his shoulders and neck. By now he is entirely my thrall.
This is the address. As Marcus promised, the medieval tower is in fine shape. I unlock the door, tugging Francesco after me by his collar. Together we ascend the winding stairs. At the top is a thick wooden door, and, behind that, the snug apartment. It is furnished beautifully, a mix of both antique and modern furnishings. And its little kitchen table is heaped with steaming food.
“Oh, Signore!” Francesco’s belly growls. “May I?”
“Wine first.” I nod to the sideboard. Beside a bowl of red roses, Marcus has left a bottle of red wine, another of black Sambuca, and several glasses. Francesco jumps to it, opening the wine and pouring out a glass. He looks up expectantly.
“Take off your clothes.”
Francesco hurriedly shucks off his dirty garments. Again the arch of an expectant black eyebrow.
“Yes,” I say, running a finger down the line of hair bisecting his flat belly. “You may eat. From a plate on the floor.”
Not a second’s hesitation. In a flash my handsome little Jesus has fetched a plate from the cupboard and is holding it out. He’s positively salivating, staring first at me, then at the heaped table. I study his nakedness for a moment, his olive skin, his midnight-black pubic bush, his limp, uncut cock. This one will prove precious, I can already tell. And sweet Matt, back home, is going to love him. Matt’s going to have the boy’s legs in the air so damn fast. I can’t wait to show Matt around Rome.
“How long since you last ate?” I sip the wine. It’s very fine: cobwebs and blackberries. Of course. Aristocrats like Marcus always have superb taste.
“Three days, Signore.” His mouth quivers.
“Poor boy. Let me.” With utensils on the sideboard, I dole it out: bucatini all’Amatriciana, eggplant Parmagiana, roast pork with potatoes, spaghetti carbonara, Caprese salad, focaccia. I place the full plate on the floor and pull out a chair. Francesco drops onto his elbows and knees, crawls over, and begins gobbling. I prop a booted foot upon his back and sip the last of my wine, taking joy in his joy. When he’s finished his first plate, I pile him up another. He hunches over it, shaggy black hair falling over his face, slurping and chewing with abandon.
Patting his prettily propped black-fuzzed ass, I leave him there to fill his belly while I indulge in a little exploration. Here are the big bedroom, the guest room, the study, and the secret panel where Marcus said it would be, behind which I will spend the days. And here, in the entrance hall, is an envelope I’d missed before, one addressed to me. I tear it open and read the note.
Enkidu, my handsome one, my wild forest trash, my musky butch bottom. Here is your new home. I hope it meets your needs. The rent is steep: your blood, your body, and your submission, whenever you are in Rome. I do not think you will mind paying such a fee. I hope your little Jesus enjoys his feast. Savor your Sambuca. You said it would cause you to think of
me. I hope that is so. I am leaving Roma for a week, for business meetings in Berlin. Meet me at the Pantheon two weeks from tonight. There is a vampire bar near there that serves an excellent blood orange gelato. Mithras bless you. Marcus.
“Signore? I am done.” It’s Francesco, crawling down the hall on his hands and knees. His goatee and red lips gleam with grease. I lift him to his feet, kiss him, lick the oil from his mouth, and lead him into the kitchen. “Fetch me a glass of Sambuca,” I say, and he does. “Follow me,” I say, hooking a finger under his chain collar and leading him out onto the balcony. I sit back in a lounge chair; my thrall sits cross-legged at my feet.
“Tomorrow we will move your mother into better housing. You’d like that?”
“Oh, Signore…” Francesco’s eyes glitter wetly. He puts his face in his hands, then scoots over, wraps his arms around my legs, and rests his head in my lap. “Grazie, grazie.”
I take a sip of Sambuca, looking out over the lights of Rome, the far, lit façade of Castel Sant’Angelo, the dome of Sant’Andrea della Valle. I stroke my slave’s black hair. “Ain’t you something fine? Hungry little savior. Furry little street whore.” I pull him up onto my lap, then push my thumb between his teeth. He licks it, then closes his mouth around it and gently begins to suck. I rock him as Marcus rocked me on the Palatine.
“Tomorrow, while I sleep, you’ll take money and stock the shelves with all your favorite foods and wines. Buy yourself some handsome clothes as well. And some limoncello for when Marcus visits. He’s fond of it, I think.”
“Sì, Signore,” Francesco murmurs around my thumb. His mouth is tight, wet, and hot.
“This is the reward of submission,” I say, taking another sip of liqueur. “For both you and I.” The moon’s glow edges the eastern horizon. It will be full tonight, soon to shower the old quarter with pearl-white light. “When I’m done with this glass, I’m taking you inside. I’m going to tape your pretty mouth shut and tie you belly-down to that big bed and prop your hairy ass on pillows and fuck you till you bleed and come inside you and lap the blood from your luscious, hair-fringed hole and drink from your neck till you pass out. I’m going to keep you bound and tape-gagged till dawn. I’m going to hold you close all night. Would you like that, my sweet little Jesus?”
Francesco nods, sucking harder, with all the intensity of the newborn. He suckles me and I rock him. Soon, just as it did in the time of the Caesars, in the time of the half-mad mercenary Renaissance popes and the fully mad Mussolini, the moon will rise, over the Colosseum, the Palatine, the Forum, over this renovated tower, older even than I. Bathed in summer moonlight, I will think of the few men I’ve loved. Once a century, that’s all I can endure. Angus McCormick, my first and thoroughly inescapable passion, who was stabbed to death, murdered by hateful Christians, on the Isle of Mull in 1730, the night I was turned. Mark Carden, my bushy-bearded Rebel soldier, who was shot through the head in the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863. Gerard McGraw, who bled to death in the trenches of Belgium in 1945. Matt Taylor, this century’s spouse, who has many blessed years left, who waits for me in the mountains of home.
And now, I think, Marcus Colonna, who flies tonight to Berlin. I have never loved a Top before. Perhaps he will comfort me in a few decades, when my sweet Matthew dies, when I find myself alone on Mount Storm, my West Virginia retreat, face streaked with tears, sorrow the color of Zinfandel, while snow drifts outside, sculpted by the mountain winds. Perhaps Marcus and I will preside while hillfolk neighbors bring in comfort food: potato salad, fried chicken, deviled eggs, macaroni and cheese, cherry pie, banana pudding. We’ll lift glasses of black Sambuca to all the brief beauties we have reluctantly and irresistibly loved. Perhaps together we will tend Matt’s grave. Stubborn, cussed, and handsome as Matt is, I will probably plant purple thistles atop his ashes.
Well, that will be years yet. There it is now, the full moon, the disk of bruised bone. It rises over the eastern hills, the silhouettes of buildings. Ah, shit. I wipe tears off my unshaven cheeks. Pulling my thumb from my thrall’s fervent mouth, I rise, lifting him into my arms. “Time you were crucified,” I snarl. Turning my back on all of history, I carry him inside.
Kells
Jay Lygon
Used to be, I lived for glimpses of Kells in the hallway at school. He was the guy who swapped dirty jokes with the coach at soccer practice while the rest of us ran drills. Even if he sat out most of the game, he always took credit for our wins. No one ever called him on it. Somehow, he had us convinced that he was the star of the team.
After practice, Kells sauntered naked through the locker room, dick bouncing, smooth white ass flexing with each step. Confident fucker. I admired that. I lusted after his big pink nipples; jerked off to fantasies of his muscled thighs.
I was the opposite of him. I had to work my ass off to stay on the varsity team. Being part Japanese, I was so short that I was easily overlooked, so I was surprised when I heard Kells tell the coach to substitute me into an important game.
“Kobi knows how to take out their striker without getting caught,” I heard him whisper as he trotted near the coach on the sideline. “We won’t get to state finals if we lose today. Put Kobi in.”
Sure, he wouldn’t risk being thrown out of the game, but I was expendable, and I was okay with that. I was small, quick, and vicious, but looked innocent enough to pull it off. Even the referee didn’t want to believe I’d tackled cleats up on purpose.
Kells didn’t thank me, but he knew I was the reason we made it to the state finals. I hoped that meant he’d choose me to be his roommate at the hotel. The whole bus ride to the game, I thought about us sharing a double bed, and how our arms might touch or our legs might get tangled together during the night. It wasn’t even about sex. I just wanted to be with him. Of course he roomed with his friends instead.
The night before the game, leg cramps kept me awake. So I eased past our snoring chaperone to walk them off. Gasping at the pangs shooting up my calves, I limped down the hallway. When I reached the far end of the hall near the ice machine, a door jerked open. Flinching, I expected someone to shout at me for waking them. Instead, it was Kells, with a towel wrapped low around his waist. A creepy, pale lady stood behind him.
“Gimme change for the machine,” he said to her.
I froze. I’d seen him naked a million times in the locker room, but somehow it was different with the white towel riding low on his hips. The smell of sex clung to him. There were big, red bruises on his neck. That wasn’t his room. He wasn’t supposed to be awake, or in that room with that woman. For some reason, I felt betrayed, but damn, I was so fucking turned on that it must have showed on my face.
When Kells turned and saw me, he looked in my eyes. Suddenly, he knew my biggest secret. He laughed that stupid, dopey laugh of his, even dopier because he was wasted. “Oh man.” His giggles shredded me.
The lady wrapped a white hand around his throat and yanked him back. As she reached around Kells to shut the door, she looked at me with dead eyes.
My life was over. I knew it. Kells would tell the world that I had it bad for him. I slammed my fist into the wall beside the ice machine, and then again, and again, and again until the pain cleared my head. I realized I had to save my punches for the fights that were going to come. The last month of school was going to be hell.
Imagine my relief the next day when Kells missed the team bus. He didn’t make it to the game either. He had us so convinced that we couldn’t survive without him that we were barely in the first half of the game. Somehow we came back to life, though, and won.
Later, when the cops asked us who had seen Kells last, I let someone else pretend they had. I never mentioned the woman. Believe me when I say that it never occurred to me that he could be in real trouble. He was Kells, the chosen one, the golden child. He’d turn up eventually with some wild tale that left us crazy with envy.
So a week after that, days before graduation, it seemed fated when I ran into him. It was
late. I took the shortcut through the deserted business park, the kind of place where body shops and printers worked. It gave me the creeps when I sensed someone lurking nearby, so I walked faster. When Kells slithered out of a shadow, I was surprised but relieved.
His jeans and T-shirt were smeared with dried dirt. “Hey! Want-ta-knob-me,” he called out.
Shit. The fag jokes were starting already. “People are looking for you,” I mumbled.
“Fuck ’em.”
I almost asked, “Where’d you go?” but I didn’t want him to think that it mattered to me. By sunrise, everyone in school would know without a doubt that I was queer, so I kept walking. Knowing that he’d betray me, my cock still wanted him; my brain was a little more wary.
“Wanna suck it?”
That stopped me. Rather than look at him, I stared down at the metallic rainbow of an oil slick floating on top of a shit-brown puddle. Chunks of the asphalt road crumbled at my feet. Blocks away, cars rushed across the bridges, fleeing because the sun was down and somehow that made the city more dangerous.
“You know you want it.” He moved faster than I expected and suddenly he was wagging his limp dick at me. His giggle was high-pitched and his eyes were glazed as if he were on something. “I’ll let you have my cock if you let me have some of your blood.”
As strange as it sounds, even though I realized right away what he’d become, I wasn’t scared of him. I should have been scared of me, because I wanted him so bad that I didn’t even think about running away. Instead, I got on my knees. Kells smelled funky, like stale sex and earth. It almost made me gag. I’d never given a blow job before I gulped Kells’s limp dick into my mouth. When I fantasized about him in my sweat-drenched bed, he always had a hard-on for me, but in reality, his dick only moved when I pushed it around my mouth with my tongue. Still, as the blond curls of his pubes mashed against my nose and I smelled that boy funk on him, it nearly made me shoot in my jeans.
