Encounters

by George Gauthier

Chapter 10

Olive Trees

The previous chapters in this volume emphasized action-adventure or light comedy with a lot of dialogue. This tale is firmly in the mainstream of gay erotica with an emphasis on romance, if I may call it that.

Briefly mentioned in an earlier installment, the events related at length in this chapter happened on the Mediterranean island of Crete in 54 AD.

There is something appealing about olive trees. They are not tall and majestic like Sequoias or Redwoods. Their trunks are not straight nor their crowns of foliage symmetrical. I like them despite, or maybe because of their broad gnarly trunks, deeply indented bark, twisted limbs, and untidy tangle of branches. That makes for a perverse aesthetic, I know, but I am not alone in my appreciation of ancient olive trees. In recent times a lucrative illicit trade developed in southern Italy where smugglers dig up centuries-old trees to decorate the gardens of rich clients internationally.

For an immortal like me, part of the appeal of olive trees must be their longevity. Like Sequoias and bristle cone pines, olive trees are one of the few living things that might outlive me. Yes, my life span is potentially indefinite, though I am not truly immortal. I do not age, but, like any human, I can die by accident, misadventure, or foul play. The odds will catch up with me sooner or later.

One summer morning, twenty centuries ago, after my daily run along the beach, I went strolling through some mature olive groves which I owned on the island of Crete, where I had settled into a sedentary life after two decades of adventure in Persia and the East. The trees were spaced evenly, quite unlike in a forest, lending a tamed and domesticated air to the landscape. Olives were domesticated on Crete and have been grown commercially on that island as far back as 3000 BC. The location of my grove was perfect for the cultivation of olives for the table and for the press. It lay just up a gentle slope close to the southern shore of the island.

One giant of a tree caught my fancy with its broad trunk and its gnarly limbs twisting up and out in the rough shape of a man. On impulse, I leaned into it, pressing my face and nude body to its indented bark. In an act of communion with the ancient tree, I drew its scent into my nostrils and even tongued, chewed, tasted, and swallowed a small bit of its bark. My arms encircled the trunk, embracing the tree, rubbing my chest and belly and hips over its bark, heedless of its abrasion of my tender skin and manly parts.

I turned around to present my bare back and bum to the trunk, spreading my legs to partly encircle it. The rough bark pressed my shoulder blades and rump and limbs. I raised my arms to two main branches, deliberately scraping my skin across the bark, wrapping supple shoots around my wrists, using them like green manacles to bind and shackle myself to the tree, digging my toes into the ground the better to grip the soil, to root myself into it, as it were.

With my face turned my head upwards, partly shaded by the silvery green foliage of the ancient tree, I watched the play of light and shadow as the sea breeze blew its branches back and forth. Closing my eyes, I felt as one with the tree, in communion with it. For that brief moment I was like the tree itself: rooted, planted, permanent, at peace with the natural world. In my euphoria it seemed I might merge with the tree, sinking into its heart wood like some latter day male dryad.

And why not? I was as lovely as any tree nymph of lore. My features were delicate with an elfin quality thanks to slightly pointed ears, a chiseled jaw line, and large green eyes set wide apart under finely arched brows, their lashes too long to have ever have been meant for a boy, all of that framed by a head of straight blond hair which almost reached my shoulders.

At that moment, my stomach grumbled.

Recalled to reality, I untangled myself from the tree, chuckling at my momentary lapse. A perpetual wanderer like me could never really root himself in any one spot. In no more than two decades it would become impossible to conceal the fact that I did not age like other people. For that reason, I usually moved from place to place, taking on new identities, earning my living as a merchant rather than a landowner, my wealth portable rather than invested in real estate.

Taken Captive

Shaking my head in bemusement, I turned to my left and found a man sitting on the stump of an olive tree, delight dancing in his sky blue eyes, a sly smile on his lightly freckled face. Boyishly handsome and only in his mid twenties, he stood much taller than I, towering nearly six and a half feet. He was lean but well muscled, with a close cropped head of black hair, and dressed in what I recognized as a legionary woollen tunic and hob-nailed sandals, with a cavalry spatha hanging in a scabbard at his waist. Behind him stood two more men, also armed and in legionary tunics. His men then.

"Well boy. Finished making love to yon olive tree, are we?"

I flushed, totally embarrassed both by the situation and by the stark contrast between us. There I stood, a short slender small-boned youth, bare feet planted on the earth and bare ass naked, alone, and unarmed. Compared to my slight build, this was a veritable giant of a man, a professional soldier, fully clothed and armed and with backup. Before I could reply, the man continued.

"Do you think your master would approve of such idleness and frivolity, little one? Shouldn't you be about his business, perhaps pruning these olive trees, or pulling weeds from the bare ground between them? To my way of thinking your master would only be within his rights to take a switch to your bare rump, delightfully shaped though it may be."

Drawing myself up as straight as much as my diminutive stature allowed, and trying my utmost to regain my dignity, I countered with:

"What makes you think I am the servant and not the master around here, tribune? And the name is Alexandros."

I had recognized his rank of military tribune by the helmet hung from his belt.

"And I am Gaius Metellus Crassus. Come, come, Alexandros. Everything about you says you are no master. Why you cannot be more than fifteen years old, standing, if I am any judge of things, hardly more than five foot three (160 cm) and weighing no more than 110 pounds (50 kg)."

"I am nineteen, tribune, not fifteen, a man grown, not a boy!" I said emphatically.

"So you claim, pretty one."

The man had a good eye. He had called my numbers almost exactly even my apparent age. My slight stature and my small-boned frame gives the impression of a boy rather than a young man. I could pass for fifteen back then. The taut and well-defined musculature of my wiry physique was the only clue that I had passed my growth spurt. It does not help that my body is utterly hairless, even at the fork of my legs. No wonder the soldier thought me that young.

"Oh it is not just your stature, boy," the man continued, "First, you are not only naked but uniformly bronzed from habitual nudity, the mark of a lad who works out of doors in the bright sun, a farm laborer then rather than a landowner or master. Second, your wiry physique and fine-boned features, make your appearance androgynous rather than masculine. You fall far short of normal male standards in height, muscular development, and manly characteristics like beard, body hair, and voice register. As short as you are, fine-boned, and impossibly comely, no one could take you seriously as a male. You must be some master's catamite or pleasure boy."

"I am no such thing!" I declared, indignant, though I thought he had got rather too close to the mark. The man continued, unfazed.

"Well, Alexandros, if you are not already some lucky man's bum boy, then you certainly ought to be. A youth as lovely as you was surely marked out by the gods for that role in life. Fortunately I am in a position to ensure that happens. The way you are running around on the loose and stark naked makes you fair game for capture and taming. As a representative of the imperial government, it falls to me to take you into custody pending verification of your bona fides. I am sure your ludicrous claims to free status will soon prove false. And don't try running away lad. With my long legs, I could easily overtake you. Or Marcus or Lucius could bring you down with a bolo, though your skin would likely get bruised or scraped in the process. That would be a shame."

"Now to start out with, I want to sample your charms, to enjoy your delectable body and gauge how well trained you already are in serving men. Surrender yourself lad, and I will take it easy with you. After all, a lovely blossom like you should never be crushed nor trodden underfoot."

"No, that's not right! This cannot be happening." I wailed.

I looked around for some means of escape, but the open landscape of an olive grove provides no place to hide. The tribune's men had unslung their bolos, ready to bring me down should I take to my heels.

"Now there," the man said soothingly as he closed with me.

"A boy as preternaturally beautiful as you, Alexandros, cannot have remained a virgin so long. You are blessed with a lovely form and a face that cannot but inspire admiration and lust in the heart of any male who appreciates a beautiful lad. So you must have been deflowered quite some time ago. You need have no fears that I will tear you up back there. Here let me examine you."

I stood there trembling from anger, fear, and yes, sexual excitement as the man stepped close to me, towering over my slight frame. His hands roamed all over my nude body, exploring and assessing and caressing. Nervous sweat made my skin wet and slick, and I shifted my feet uneasily. The man's calloused hand cradled my chin, turning my face upward as he loomed over me then suddenly kissed me, his tongue thrusting into my mouth. Automatically I returned his kiss, pressing my lips to his, my tongue parrying and playing with his. His arms embraced me, pressing my nude body into his. He reached a hand between my legs, finding I was already halfway tumescent.

"Just as I thought. You cannot help but respond to a virile man. It is what you were born for. I can't wait to take you."

"I know what I am, tribune. Maybe I did responded just now to your overwhelming virility, but that does not mean I was offering myself to you. And you have no right to just take me. I am a free person!"

"Not at the moment," he said simply.

One of his men had stepped up behind me. With practiced efficiency, he pulled my wrists behind my back and tied them so tight with a leather thong that I started to lose sensation in my fingers, leaving me with no hope of undoing the knots. For better access to my ass, he hooked my bound wrists high up, between my shoulder blades, anchoring them to a longer thong run around my neck and shoulders then reported:

"The boy's hands are callused sir," the soldier reported, "About what you would expect of a field slave."

Nodding, Gaius tied another thong around the base of my scrotum, forcing the balls to the bottom of the hairless sac, leaving it red and shaped like a plum. The rest of the thong served as a leash to lead me around and to control me. I was now well and truly caught.

There was little I could have done to stop him. I had lost my chance to bring my tripled strength into play. Nor could I just attack a Roman tribune who was only doing his duty as he saw it. Outnumbered, outweighed, unarmed, bound, and naked, I had to submit.

Gaius' hands pawed my lithe physique, squeezing, poking, and prodding. He reached for my deltoids then slid his palms over the flaring pectorals, ran his hands down my corrugated chest and belly to circle the navel with his thumb. His finger tips ran lightly over my prominent hip bones, brushing my flat belly. Next he cupped and weighed my manhood, his wry face showing he was not very impressed. I thought that rather unfair given the circumstances. Fear will shrink any man's tackle. I have always felt that I was reasonably well endowed. Maybe I wouldn't be scaring the horses, but it took both my hands to cover my erection when I was aroused.

Turning me around, Gaius squeezed my trapezius muscles then ran his hands between my shoulder blades and along the bumps of my spine. His hands reached the flare of my hips and slid down to the curve of my buttocks, giving them a squeeze that left red marks. He slid the blade of his hand into my cleavage, flashing a quick smile to his men at the sharp intake of breathe I took as Gaius' finger tapped the small hole between the firm globes and slipped very briefly inside. He squatted down to test the firmness of the muscles my slender thighs and calves.

"Hmmm. You are impressively muscled for such a slim lad, Alexandros. You have one of those physiques that are more about quality than about quantity. Such a firm rump too. It is perhaps your best feature."

I suppose I should have been flattered to hear him say that I was a rare treasure for any male who appreciated a lovely lad. To hear him tell it, I was well muscled and healthy, in the very bloom of youth at fifteen, and looking all the more delectable for the way my slender body trembled in its bondage.

It was clear this man meant to fuck me, regardless of my stated wishes. How often that has happened in my long life, starting with my father King Troas of Troy who made my charms available to those whom he wanted to reward or to please. Next came centuries of service, off and on, as Zeus's cupbearer, really a naked wine boy, whom he kept around for whenever he got the itch and wanted a change of pace from females.

I have been both blessed and cursed by an androgynous comeliness which inspires dominant males to take me captive and turn me into their sex toy.

In all candor, I admit that the man had turned me on with his passionate kiss. Part of me did not want to get away from him. The man's intimate visual and physical scrutiny had stimulated my libido, plumping my cock up, leaving a drop of clear fluid glistening at the tip of the foreskin. The man was perfectly right, I was no virgin, far from it, and I could not help but respond to his virility. I took his manly scent into my nostrils, finding it a heady aroma indeed composed of sweat and leather and the olive oil which men then used instead of soap for bathing.

My traitorous nether hole twitched in anticipation of penetration while my virile member started to plump up and lift off, the undeniable sign of a boy's arousal. I am, after all, a sexual submissive, indeed an abject bottom boy, if the truth were known. If ever a boy was born to be fucked, I am that lad. Here once again I was to be taken and tamed by a strong male who would have his pleasure of me, regardless of the rights and wrongs of it.

With a big smile on his broad face, the tribune grabbed me and laid me belly down over the low branch of an olive tree. One of his men stepped to the other side and pressed his hands to my shoulders, locking me in place.

I could not help but whimper at what I knew came next.

"Ah, the soft whimper of defeat and submission." Gaius intoned. "That means this lad won't be giving us any trouble. Isn't that right, little one?" he asked, patting my rump in approval.

"Pretty little thing, isn't he, Marcus? All bent over and submissive, ass in the air. Such a nice trim figure too: good chest, round rump, and taut buns. The best boy flesh I have ever encountered."

Gaius slapped my ass hard, reminding me to stay in place as he prepared himself. He shucked his tunic and used his sword belt to strap my back and ass and legs. The beating was not severe. The man was not trying to hurt me so much as to redden my butt cheeks and to establish his dominance -- to show me who was boss. Satisfied on that score, he put his big hands to my rump, squeezing my cheeks, digging in rather hard actually, then used his thumbs to stretch my bung hole, lubricating it with the oil squeezed from a couple of unripe olives. I felt his hairy chest scrape my back as he laid his body over me, practically engulfing me, covering me much like a stallion does a filly, using his knees to prod my legs wider apart to give him better access to my hole.

His erection poked at the nether whorl, spearing the anal ring, spreading the sphincter, though he did stop a moment with just an inch or so inside me. That gave me time to adjust, to relax my anal ring to facilitate his intrusion. I did not want his huge girth tearing me up back there. Slowly he worked his cock into me an inch or two at a time. When he was all the way in, deeply seated, he sighed.

"Ah, you have no idea how wonderful it feels to be clutched by the velvet warmth of your depths, little Alexandros. Small and tight as you are, yet you can accommodate even a man of my dimensions. Now I am going to pump you steadily. I suspect you will get off on that, but even if you do not, I certainly will."

"Right on sir," Marcus said enthusiastically. "Lay it into him. He is a pretty one, all right. You had the right of it. Running around buck nekkid like that, prettier than any girl, the youngster was fairly begging to be treated like the frisky little filly that he is. He was lucky he run into three lusty cavalrymen who know how to mount a horse or a boy."

"From the way the boy is moaning and shuddering in arousal, he must be some rich man's catamite or boy toy. That's true, isn't it, Blondie? You are a kept boy, aren't you? I'll bet you get passed around a lot at orgies. Well today it is our turn to have fun with you."

The tribune grabbed my shoulders and pulled my whole body back onto his cock, sinking all the way into me. He held it there a moment then withdrew till only the head of his cock was within my anal ring. Then he reversed direction and shoved all the way in again, rhythmically pumping away. My body quivered as the man's cock stroked my prostate setting off waves of arousal. I grew light-heated, carried away by a tide of emotion compounded of sexual arousal, humiliation, my own helplessness, and a deep seated sense of abject subservience to dominant males.

"Tighter than a virgin." grunted the tribune. "Our lucky day. You never just know what you might flush out in the country. Why don't you try his mouth, Marcus, and I will continue pronging this end. Alexandros, get those pouty lips of yours working on my man's cock."

I soon had Marcus' cock slide past my lips and down my throat as he face-fucked me. The young soldier used my ears to control the pace. He must have been very horny, for he reached his climax much sooner than his officer, pulling out at the last minute and shooting his splooge all over my face. Marcus used his still tumescent cock like an obscene paint brush to spread his gism over my forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin. Meanwhile his officer pumped away at my ass, punctuating his thrusts with a series of slaps to my ass and enthusiastic grunts.

Gaius felt under me and found my rigid cock and pulled it painfully back between my legs, frigging it up and down as a farmer does a cow's teat, literally trying to milk me. His finger rubbed the sweet spot under the cock head time and again, inducing the most exquisite sensation. Soon I was moving my hips not just to raise my ass meet his own lusty thrusts but also to rub my manhood against his fingers, trying to bring myself off.

"Har! Just as I thought. The little slut is hard. He is just begging for it. Oh, I know, Alexandros, a boy like you can't rightly help himself. Your kind needs cock bad, lots of cock. Your day isn't complete unless you get impaled on the horn of a real man. That is why your little thing is hard now, because I am working away at you."

I wanted to protest that my erection was just the natural reaction of any bottom boy getting pronged and having his cock manipulated. 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 soldier cock. The tribune smiled down at me, saying:

"You just don't realize how exciting it is for us to wrestle you, pretty one, to grab and hold on to your sexy body as you struggle, all slick with sweat, tugging, pulling at your bonds, squirming in our arms, twisting and straining that tight little body of yours. The play of your muscles is intensely erotic."

"Aye, sir," Marcus agreed, "though it's his cute face that really makes me hard. A natural beauty with those pouty lips locked around a man's cock, sucking away."

The tribune's questing fingers found the nubbins of my tiny nipples and tweaked them, pulling them out from my chest, digging in with his finger nails. As I hissed from the pain, he whispered:

"I won't damage you, little one, but I never promised this would be a painless encounter. I like to see my boys squirm a bit, to struggle to accept whatever I want to inflict on their luscious bodies. That was why I strapped your ass to start with. Nothing shows a boy is readier to be penetrated than an ass striped and reddened from a whipping. So pain or not, you'd better not use your teeth on Marcus' cock."

The three men worked me over for a couple of hours, switching places in a round robin, with one of the three catching his breath between bouts. Marcus was the easiest to please. His cock was not so big and he came very quickly. Lucius was a plodder, his sexual repertoire utterly unimaginative. Gaius was insatiable, and he had the knack of controlling himself, holding his ejaculation back while he long dicked a boy. When they finally finished I was tired and sore.

Enslaved

I hoped that they would let me go afterwards, but that was not to be. The tribune really thought I was some errant slave boy belonging to the local landowner.

Even after they left off using me, the Romans kept me in bondage, the tribune saying he intended to investigate my status, inquiring of my master. He dismissed my protests that I was my own master. I had no choice but to give him directions to my villa. The three cavalrymen mounted the horses they had left tethered nearby and we set off, with me on foot, walking in their dust, lead by the thong tied around my nuts, my wrists still bound behind my back.

My villa was a little over a quarter mile away. It was built on high ground which afforded a view of both my extensive groves on the Mesara Plain and, beyond them, the Libyan sea to the south. The Minoan ruins at Phaistos and Gortys, familiar to modern tourists and which were ruins even in that century, stood not far away. Spacious and airy, the villa was an old building dating back a century or more which I had recently renovated, repairing the ravages of time and neglect.

At the villa the soldiers simply assumed that my major domo Marcellus was the owner of my estate.

"Greetings Master Marcellus. This runaway slave boy whom we have captured has the effrontery to claim to be the master of this fine estate. Surely that cannot be the true.

Quick on the uptake and revealing himself to be far more unscrupulous than I had ever imagined, Marcellus seized his chance to displace me and to steal my property, disposing of me and my claims by selling me into slavery.

With a bitter laugh my treacherous major domo dismissed my claims to be a free man and the landowner thereabouts and reinforced the tribune's mistaken notions about me.

"Ah yes, around here we are often plagued by this lazy boy's fantasizing, always shirking his duties and running off to a fantasy land in his head. And is it any wonder. What else can a slave boy do but dream of being the master? Though Alexandros does carry if farther than most, and for the offense of telling such lies to an imperial tribune I will take a switch to him and teach him a lesson. Meanwhile, you had better gag him and stop his silly falsehoods."

In ancient times, with the exception of retired soldiers or manumitted freemen no one had identity documents. So I had nothing in writing to prove to the tribune that I was a landowner aged nineteen and not a silly slave boy.

Marcellus suggested that since the tribune was headed into town, would he do the estate a favor and turn this recalcitrant slave boy over the local slave dealer for resale. Having already sampled my charms, the tribune and his men might endorse my sale as a pleasure slave. This slave dealer named Lucius was a cousin of Marcellus' and fell in with the scheme explained in a sealed note which Marcellus sent with the tribune. As a slave the best I could hope for was employment in a boy brothel or in domestic service. I was too small and slightly built for work in the mines or field work.

Luckily the Roman governor of Crete was an acquaintance with whom I played chess when in town. He spotted me up on the slave block, made inquiries, and ordered me released. In short order it was Marcellus who stood on the block, enslaved for his crimes. Nothing could be proved against his cousin Lucius. The slave dealer simply explained away the note which Marcellus had sent him as a normal communication regarding a business transaction from the major domo of an estate to an honest merchant regarding the sale of one of their slave boys.

Though nothing could be proved against Lucius he was barred from purchasing Marcellus whom he might set free. Instead Marcellus went to a landowner with a plantation much greater than mine. He had a vacancy to fill and needed an assistant major domo. In a sense Marcellus was getting off easy. Still he was now a slave and would have to work toward manumission after years of good service to his new owner.

The tribune was held blameless, as a soldier merely doing his duty. That was basically the truth, which was why I spoke up for him. To show that there were no hard feelings I invited the trio of soldiers to my villa, though only for a celebratory dinner.

Immensely relieved and grateful to the governor, I resumed my comfortable life as an olive grower for some years till it was time to move on and assume a new identity.

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