One With the Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

him for your brothel, Graccus,” one laughed. “He’s incorrigible. Your patrons want slaves to spread their cheeks willingly.”
    There was much tittering. “Enough fruit of the poppy and he’ll take direction.” The one called Graccus was an oily-looking creature. His pomaded locks lay in curls around a face that was lined with a heavy sensuality. “And if he does not, some like the pleasure of forcing a big man. I’ll just chain him.”
    The slave’s muscles bulged as he strained against his bonds. He had broken out in a sweat in spite of the fact that he was nearly naked in the cool winter night of Rome.
    “Well, he isn’t much good for anything except a brothel,” another said. “You could never trust the brute, and who wants a slave like that?”
    Graccus mustered his courage and approached the barbarian. “His body wants shaving, except for a patch around his organ.” He poked the man’s biceps with his ivory walking stick. The barbarian gritted his teeth. She could see his jaw clench. Emboldened, the others surrounded him, touching shoulders, tweaking nipples.
    “Be careful, Roman dogs,” he growled in accented Latin. They leaped back as though they had been struck.
    Where did a barbarian learn to speak the language that ruled the world?
    Graccus drew himself up to retrieve his dignity and managed a chuckle. He turned to his friends. “Yes, fruit of the poppy and daily beating. I’ll enjoy seeing him on hisknees. Perhaps I’ll use him myself.” He looked around. “Seller! You there!”
    A small man in a surprisingly rich tunic and toga looked up. He was waiting on two women. “Yes, citizen? Ahhhh, you have good taste. He is magnificent, is he not? I shall be with you in only a moment.” He turned back and continued extolling the skills in hair dressing of the female slave the two women were considering.
    Graccus looked sour. “Well, let’s see more of him. I would know whether my patrons will find his genitalia sufficient.” He stepped near enough to the barbarian to tear the cloth from his hips and toss the pieces away. The barbarian lunged against his bonds with another growl. But now Graccus was surer of himself. He only grinned.
    “He’s well enough,” one of the others said. That was an understatement. The barbarian was impressively endowed.
    “I’d like to see him eager.” Graccus walked behind the slave and slapped his buttocks.
    One of the others moved in. They were going to tease the slave into an erection. That would keep them occupied. Livia glanced to the slave trader. He had finished with the women. One of his slave assistants was escorting them to the front. Graccus and his friends were now focused on the barbarian. He roared his protest as they touched his genitals.
    Livia knew what she would do. And it felt right and true.
    She slid over to the slave trader, Titus’s bodyguards in tow, before he could approach the men. “Kind sir, how much for the barbarian?”
    The trader looked startled. “That one, my lady? He is no woman’s slave.”
    “I shall be the judge of that. How much?”
    A calculating look came over the trader’s face. She could see the price rising in the face of her open interest.
    “Two thousand dinars.”
    Steep. But what did she care? “Done.” She did not even glance toward the barbarian and his tormentors, though she could not help but register his roars of protest. The trader led her to the front of the stall and wrote out a receipt. She paid him from the purse she had concealed in the folds of her palla and took the scroll that said she owned a new slave.
    “Let me get your property, my lady,” the trader said. They turned to the back of the stall. The three men clustered round the straining barbarian, laughing as he tried to twist away. Blood dripped from his wrists where he had pulled against his shackles. They had him fully erect and one was still jerking on his rod. He spat at them. It was his only means of defiance.
    Graccus wiped