RELUCTANT GLADIATOR - Part Forty Four A story by Pete Brown (petebrownuk @ yahoo.com)
Read all of Pete's stories at groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories
That night there was hell to pay! When they were released from the slave compartment the five of them were all totally pissed off because there hadn't been time to get them food at lunch time, and even the promise of a big steak dinner didn't calm them down much. I did go in to a mini-market as we made our way through the streets and bought them a lot of candy bars as I thought that those would not only tide them over until dinner but would be a bit of a treat, but it didn't help much.
We found a cheap motel as usual near the bus station, and the moment we were in the room Jamie almost shouted "What the fuck was all that about, Steve? Humiliating us...."
"Keep your voice down! I had no choice...."
"No choice to subject us all to that....?"
"Yes, that's right. No choice. The guy was getting suspicious. And what owner would turn down a stud fee - a very big stud fee, I might add?"
Jamie threw himself at me and I was so surprised I fell backwards on to the bed. Before I could recover Darren and Luke were on to me too, and once again I found myself totally unable to overcome the three of them. "Mike....", I shouted.
He stood there looking at me, a big grin on his face. "I reckon you're the only one who hasn't had sex today, Steve. You must be getting horny... In fact I know you were pretty turned on earlier, as I saw your pants tenting..."
"Let me go... It's time we went out to dinner... And you're right, I am horny. But later on, you and me..."
Mike grinned again. "Great! I reckon I need to fuck a real man tonight to take away the thought of that bitch. So thanks for the offer. But first we need to attend to you - we don't want you sitting there at dinner helplessly erect, do we guys?"
The four of them shook their heads. "And, Steve, you've all watched us have sex, so I reckon it's out turn to watch you."
I began to feel better. After all, it could hardly be very humiliating for me to have sex with one of them with the others watching, could it? I'd done it before.
"I reckon we could find one of the slaves who does maid service here who'd like sex with a real buff guy like you, Steve", Mike continued. "I guess they have to do it quite often with fat old clients, so to have a fit young guy like you would be a treat for them."
"You can't be serious! Come on, guys...."
"Oh I think we are, Steve. I think you've got a bit above yourself, riding in the passenger compartment - if you hadn't done that you'd never have been speaking to the owner of those bitches. And we don't think you tried hard enough to refuse his offer to pay for us to stud."
"You can't know that! He was getting suspicious that I wasn't a proper slave owner..."
Mike looked at me and I was surprised as he said calmly "You could have said that us slaves were reserved for your bed, and that you didn't allow us any other outlet. Or some story like that. I think an owner would understand that. And you're not usually slow in concocting some story to turn things your way. So I reckon the thought of the money did it - you couldn't resist whoring us out for a few bucks." My surprise stemmed from the fact that Mike usually acted, and didn't think a lot. And I wondered if Jamie or Darren had been fermenting all these troubled thoughts in him during the bus drive.
"It wasn't a few bucks. It was a lot, and...." As I said it I knew it was the wrong thing to say! It's true, the money had been a welcome addition to our resources, but I never got to say finish my sentence and remind them that we needed funds for our journey, and that I was only doing this for them - I was a free man, after all, and I could simply walk away from the whole thing.
Jamie cut in now. "Yes, Steve. You're in your fancy clothes and we're in slave uniform. You're on top of the bus, we're underneath. You got lunch, we didn't. We were totally humiliated, being forced to stud, and being made to act like whores...". Come on, guys - you know what we said we'd do....
So it was Jamie who'd been plotting. It was no consolation though, as acting as the concerted team they were they held me immobile as they pulled down my pants and underwear, then flipped me onto my belly so they could pull off my shirt and T. Mike was sitting astride my back and I was totally unable to throw him off, and now Jamie pulled the leather strap off my bag - that expensive bag that had been Ryan's. He snapped it in the air a couple of times and them I almost screamed as he hit me across my bare ass with it a couple of times.
In a way it would have been better if he'd continued to beat me with the strap, and I'd have taken the punishment and that would have been that. But they had other ideas for me: the strap went around my neck and buckled tight, then my hands were attached to it with strips from a bandage from the miniature first aid kit in the room.
I had to sit there on the edge of the bed then as they all showered and changed into fresh shorts and Ts - all except Ryan, who picked up the clothes I'd been wearing, which had mostly been his, sniffed at them sort of suspiciously as if he as concerned about my sweat on them, and pulled them on. He fastened the shirt collar up tight and it hid the chain collar on him, and them Mike looked at us all. "So... What do we have: an owner, Ryan here, as he acts most like a free man still; four of his well-behaved slaves; and one slave who's naked and restrained as he's being punished." Mike tousled my hair as owners do to 'pet' slaves, sort of affectionately, but with a mischievous air, and continued " you know, once those fancy clothes are off you, Steve, you still look like a slave with your name tattooed on your back - and on your dick - especially as you're now collared, too. Most folk would never guess you're actually a free man. So let's go out to
dinner."
"You can't be serious.... Please, Mike..."
"Why not? I don't suppose there's any prohibition on naked slaves in a town like this. And we'll find a restaurant where an owner like Ryan can eat with his slaves. All except the one who's being punished, of course - I think you're going to be left in the lobby, Steve - it won't hurt you to miss a meal as you're belly's not as flat as it might be!"
I don't know why it was so totally humiliating. I had appeared in the arena naked, after all. It was probably because in that small town I was the only naked guy on the streets and in the restaurant - and judging from the fact that it looked a relatively conservative kind of place, perhaps I was the only naked guy they ever saw in spite of there being no absolute prohibition on slave nudity. Ryan asked the hostess for a restraint chain as soon as we arrived and then used it to tether me just by the doors - the chain went around my waist, was locked on, and the other end went to a ring on the wall that was there for that purpose. I could move around slightly, but there was not enough play in it to be able to sit down. So I had to stand there all evening, watching the other guys inside all enjoying their meal, and it was cold: every time the door opened a blast of the cold night air cut across me, and there was no way that I could even try to warm
myself with my hands restrained.
It was so fucking humiliating having to stand there not even able to conceal my dick from public view. It wasn't the folks coming in who were particularly the problem - after their initial shock at seeing me they mostly ignored me, or perhaps made vaguely complimentary remarks about my general appearance. No, it was people leaving - with a few beers or glasses of wine inside them! They seemed to think it was funny to poke fun at my name on my dick, and some of the drunker ones even stroked at it to show their girlfriends how the tattoo changed when I was erect! Ryan even came out during the evening and went through a whole conversation with a lot of drunk women when he discussed a price for them to be allowed to jerk me off - but they were not serious, and so I was spared that at least.
I was really glad when I saw them paying the bill, and when Ryan came out, tipped the hostess a new buck and unchained me, and we made out way back to the motel.
"OK, guys. You've had your fun...", I began as soon as we were in the room.
"Not quite, Steve!" Fucking Jamie again. "We had no lunch and you've had no dinner. We were made to strip and were humiliated, and so have you been. But then we were forced to have sex. So now it's your turn."
"Well at least that won't be a problem..." I tried to sound jovial. "...It will be good with any of you guys."
"No, Steve! None of us enjoyed fucking those bitches - not even Mike, I reckon! And so you're not going to enjoy sex tonight either - we're going to humiliate you with it, just as you did to us earlier."
"So I suppose you're going to make me jerk off in front of you all! OK, so no big deal - you've all seen me shoot a load before, so if you want me to kneel here and do it, untie my hands and let's get on with it and then we can all get some sleep...."
Jamie was smiling as he undid the bandages holding my wrists to the improvised collar, and it felt really good to be free and able to flex my arms again. I looked at the five of them then and said "So what am I supposed to do? Jerk off standing up, or kneeling...."
"No, Steve! That's no big deal, to see a guy jerk off in front of his buddies. We think it would be kind of funny to watch you fuck." Jamie was no longer smiling now.
"Well OK, so which of you....?"
"No, Steve! That would be kind of normal, wouldn't it? We want to see you do a solo...." Jamie turned to the others and said "So let's toss for it...."
As I watched they went through some complicated ritual with a few coins, and it seemed that Jamie and Ryan were the winners. Then they pulled off their trainers and sat on the floor facing each other, and each pressed one foot against the other. Luke came out of the bathroom with some shampoo, and rubbed it into the pair of feet. Jamie looked up at me as I was still sitting there on the edge of one of the beds and said quietly "So OK, Steve - now you get to fuck. We thought about hiring a bitch to see you do it as you made us do, but the waitress at the restaurant wanted too much to be fucked with five guys watching. So then we thought we'd save the money and do something else. So Luke's made our feet nice and slippery...." As he said this Ryan and he wiggled their toes together and arched their soles so that there was a hole between them. "So let's see you fuck our artificial vagina, Steve! Get down here and pretend there's a bitch under you,
and let's see some real fucking: a lot of power, a lot of enthusiasm.... And a lot of cum!"
"Oh come on guys! This is stupid! You don't want to see me do this...." But even as I said it, I knew it was hopeless as I saw Mike grinning, Luke almost laughing, and Darren looking unconcerned, whilst Jamie and Ryan continued to flex their feet, opening and closing the gap between their soles. "See, Steve.... It will grip you nice and tight, just like a proper hole...", Jamie told me.
I still sat there, and Mike now looked at me directly. "Steve, get down there, and get fucking! You owe it to us after today..." He saw me hesitating and added "I'm sorry to have to say this, buddy, but if you don't, we're going to send Luke out to the all-night market to buy the longest, fattest cucumber he can find, and then we'll fuck you with it..." He turned to the others and added "In fact that might be a nice little encore anyway, don't you think?"
I could see I had no choice. There's was no way I could fight my way out from all five of them, even allowing for the fact that Ryan was untrained. So I got up from the bed, flexed the muscles in my arms a bit, stroked my dick to get it hard, then went to the floor as if I was about to do press-ups - which I suppose I was, really!
Look it's one thing to fuck a guy when there's a lot of others in the room - as gladiators we were used to it as there wasn't a whole lot of privacy in the barracks, as I've told you. And on our journey across country we'd all shared the same room and knew what was going on in the other bed. But this was quite different - they'd contrived this to make it humiliating for me, and the more I pumped away the more I felt embarrassed and ashamed. And to make it worse I knew it was going to be difficult to cum - it didn't seem to matter how hard I thrust up and down, somehow there simply wasn't that stirring in my dick that said I was getting more and more excited. The hole between the guys' feet was slippery from the shampoo and it was a curious mixture of softness from the inner arch of the sole and hardness from the layers of toughened skin as they often walked and worked in bare feet, and in a way that was quite sensual. But knowing they were all
watching me, knowing they were all waiting for me to shoot my load, simply made it impossible to do so. I pumped away, now sweating from the exertion and conscious of my butt pounding up and down, and even though I'm very, very fit, as you know, my arms and body began to tire - well, you try doing press-ups for over fifteen minutes! And to make it even worse, if I showed any signs at all of slowing down, Mike or Darren or Luke would lean forward and slap me on the butt!
Finally I could take it no more, and let myself go and lay there on the floor with my body kind of hunched over the legs of Jamie and Ryan. "What's the matter, Steve? You're usually such a stud!", Jamie 's tone was so mocking. "Does it matter to you what kind of hole your dick goes in? That's how it is for all of us, Steve! We all like guys, you know that, and you made us go with bitches!"
"OK, Jamie, we've all had our fun. I reckon Steve's learned his lesson...", Mike told him quietly. Then to me he said "He's right, though, Steve. So never again, understand? And I reckon you need to work with us, not have us work for you in future.... We're all gladiators together."
I started to pull myself to my feet, and was kneeling there, panting. "Someone's got to be the 'owner', find the work..."
"That can be Ryan!", Luke said. "He was really good in the restaurant tonight. Just like a free man..."
"I am a free man", Ryan added. "As is Steve, of course. But I haven't been a gladiator, or a slave... Perhaps it shows."
"Yes, Ryan. You go and find the work tomorrow, then the five of us will labour away, and it will be just like being aback at the gladiator school", Luke said, putting his arms around Ryan's shoulders kind of possessively. "I hadn't thought of it before, but it will be fun to have a free man fuck me, I reckon...."
I could see there was no point in arguing, and as I was about to stand up, thinking the whole thing was over, Jamie started up again. "But Steve still hasn't shot a load. So let's see you, Steve: you were no good at fucking, but we know you can jerk yourself off... So let's see it."
The nods from all of them told me I had no choice, so I closed my eyes to shut out as much contact as possible, and began to stroke my dick. Surprisingly it was quite quick - all that stimulation must have been working after all - and I even knew what I had to do without them demanding it as it seemed better to be in control rather than be obeying them - so as I shot I reached down with my other hand and caught my cum, stroked my dick to clear out all the 'after shocks' so my palm was full of my cum, then brought it up to my face and licked my hand clean.
The guys all clapped and cheered as I did this, and I reckon Jamie wasn't so bad after all as he tossed me a packed of slave chow which he said he'd bought from the restaurant for me as he didn't like to think of me going to bed hungry.
The following day things did not look good, though. There didn't seem to be any work in the town. I spent all morning searching, and I got back to the motel at lunchtime as I normally did to collect the guys and take them to the work I'd found and had to tell them there was none. We therefore loafed around a bit but I noticed Ryan was missing, but he reappeared a couple of hours later saying there was loads to do! "You see, Steve", he told me, "You've always gone out and found work for a gang of five of us all working together. I went and canvassed the suburbs, calling on individual houses, and I found a mass of stuff - yard work, cutting logs, clearing the guttering, stuff like that, where the householder was happy to pay for a slave for a day to do it."
When we set out the following morning therefore Ryan was standing there looking quite smart, and I went to join him in taking the guys off to their assignments. "No way, Steve!", Jamie said. "Two of you acting as owners relying on the work of four of us slaves! Ryan found the jobs so he has to go and be the owner, but you could work with the rest of us."
"He's right!", Mike added. "It would do you good to get your hands dirty. And we'd better make sure that Ryan assigns you to the stuff that will really work your muscles - chopping logs, stuff like that - as you're getting a bit soft."
It was strange to be wearing a collar again - one of the heavy chain ones, admittedly, with the lock 'doctored' so that it could be taken on and off whilst still looking secure. The weight of it as it lay there resting at the base of my neck once again brought home to me of how the symbols of slavery changed your view of yourself: wearing that collar and slave shorts I found myself reacting differently to other men we met in the street, for example. It really wasn't right that men could collar others like this to degrade them, then make them toil away at 'grunt' work.
I really toiled that day - and there was a real problem as my hands had gone 'soft' to some extent, so after a couple of hours I had a mass of blisters from the handle of the axe which I was using. The home owner stood there watching me so I really couldn't stop working as he'd told me that he'd paid for a day's labour and was determined to get it, and that he'd get my owner to whip me when I was collected that night if I hadn't done enough! Well I could hardly risk causing trouble, could I? So in addition to the ache in my muscles generally from the tough work I also had the stinging pain from my hands.
That night I was utterly exhausted, and the others simply laughed and told me that it had done me good to see how they'd been working. But when we were in bed Mike wanted me to jerk him off I refused as it was simply too painful. He seemed pissed off at first and muttered "Well get your fucking lips down on to me, then", but when he took a closer look and saw the state of my hands he did one of those things which he is sometimes capable of: You don't really think of a big, tough guy like Mike - physically tough as well as having a hard attitude to life - to be capable of acts of enormous tenderness. But now he took my hands and slowly and gently in turn licked at all the broken blisters with his tongue, and it was really soothing. Then he pulled me towards him and began to jerk himself off, and as he shot he moved my hands so that his cum went all over my palms, and then lay there gently massaging it into my wounds. I felt so close to him having
him do this caring thing for me, and the smell of his cum and the sweat from his body was so sensual that my dick went so hard it was almost painful. He went on to jerk me off so that there could be more 'lotion' to use when his had all been massaged in, and again it was so thrilling as he normally had to be cajoled into playing with my dick and having him willingly doing it made me feel so needed.
We went on for over a week like this and I have to say it did me good - my hands toughened up again, and my body lost its aches and pains as my muscles once more remembered what hard work was really like. At the end of the week though we'd exhausted the supply of jobs in the town and it was time to move on. I looked at the stash of cash we had accumulated and as we all sat around after breakfast, 'packed' ready to move on (not that this was difficult: when all most of you have is a couple of pairs of shorts and jeans and a Ts) I said to the guys "We need to make a decision - are we going to keep on like this, hoping for some sort of opportunity to get across the border, or are we going to do something very, very positive to try to get free?"
They looked at me and I continued "Look, it's risky, but it seems to me that we've got enough cash now to move on for a few days, get into Glacier National Park as it's closed for the season, then trek through the snow until we're across the border."
"That's tough, isn't it, Steve? Don't they close the park because of the snow?" Ryan asked.
"Yes. It will be tough. Mike and I did cold weather manoeuvres when we were in the marines, and it was the hardest stuff we ever did. We'll need proper equipment - cold weather gear for all of us - and a couple of bivouac tents..."
"It still sounds risky...."
"Yes, Ryan, I'm not denying that. There's a chance we'll die if we mess up on the route, but I don't think there's a lot of other choices for us - well not for Jamie, Darren and Mike, anyway as they're technically runaway slaves I suppose. You're a free man and so am I, and Luke is indentured to me, so we have choices. So I guess what I'm saying is that we all need to risk this together, or we split up and go our own ways." I looked around and then said quietly "But I'm going to give Mike, Jamie and Darren this chance. I'm going with them to try to get them out. If you don't want in, Ryan, then we'll transfer Luke's indenture to you and you can go home, back to your dad."
"No!" Luke shouted. "Stop treating me like a kid, Steve! I'm going with you..."
"I can't expose you to the danger, Luke, unless there's no other choice. You can go back to your dad eventually, and whilst there's a chance of that if you become Ryan's indentured slave, it's only right that this is the best course of action for you."
"No it isn't! I want to be with you and Mike and..."
"Don't worry!", Ryan said quietly, putting his arm around Luke. "Steve, there's no way I'm leaving the group! I'm coming with you, of course. You guys have been more than buddies to me these past few months - you've got to be my family. I've never known that it's like to have really close brothers as I think you all are to me... And I'd rather risk dying with you all than go back to my old life."
Luke threw himself around Ryan and kissed him, and the rest of us all sat there faintly embarrassed as although there was a lot of that sort of stuff went on when we were in bed, we didn't usually do it 'in the open' as I guess we were still hung up on what 'real men' did!
Even now the memories of that journey are still too awful for me to want to write much about it. We started off OK - driving around to different outdoor clothing suppliers to get kitted out was sort of fun (we couldn't do it all at one place to avoid arousing suspicions), especially as we benefited from the end of season clear-outs. And the first few days as we hiked into the park it was like being back on patrol again for me and Mike as we led the others up into the mountains. We really were well prepared, and for the first few days all went well - the scenery was amazing, we were utterly alone, and at night huddled together in our tents we all felt closer together than we'd ever been: the physical isolation from the rest of the world and the thought that we were all making positive progress to 'freedom' bound us into a tight-knit band.
It was our bad luck that the severe weather came unusually early that year. We were totally unable to move for three days as the first blizzard hit and we were fortunate to have been able to pitch our tents under some sort of rock outcrop or we'd have been smothered. The journey after that was tough - really tough - and this is where Mike saved us, I reckoned. He simply never gives up, never even doubts that he can make it, and he drove us on - cursing and shouting at us when we were on the edge of exhaustion, comforting Luke and Ryan when they seemed to be totally out of it when we eventually did stop, and then physically helping all four young guys when we had to make some exceptional effort to get over a ridge and stuff like that.
After two weeks of this we were almost out of food, and as I lay close to Mike that night I whispered to him "We aren't going to make it, are we, Mike? There's too far still to go, and without food we won't last - we're burning the calories in this cold and with all the effort..."
"Sure we are, Steve."
"Don't bullshit, Mike. I was in the service too, remember?"
Mike looked at me, pulled our bodies close (I wish it was his bare skin against mine, not his tough winter clothing) and said calmly "Life's a risk, Steve. We all know that. When we were fighting in the marines we always knew we might not come back from a patrol. We're all going to die one day. And I reckon that for me it doesn't matter any more - I've done all the stuff I wanted, been a fighter, a gladiator... It doesn't come better than that, I reckon." He paused, and I saw his eyes going kind of blurry. "And then there's been you, Steve. I reckon a guy only meets another guy that really matters to him once in his life, and for me, that's you. So as long as we're together, nothing else matters now."
I couldn't help it. My eyes filled with tears and I lay there with them streaming down my face. "Me too, Mike. I love you..."
"Love's for wimps, Steve", he whispered back. "We're men. We're bound together as real fighting buddies. They can kill us, but they'll never defeat us, and what we are."
I knew that was the closest I was ever going to get to hearing Mike's true feelings, and I fell asleep in spite of all my worries.
The following morning we ate our last food, and I could tell from the mood of the others that we all knew that this was our last day and that we were all sort of expecting not to see another dawn. But Mike chivied us along, acting just as if it was simply another day, and we set out.
I don't know how we did it - but without food the sheer force of Mike's will drove us on for another two days. We were like zombies, trudging slowly, one foot in front of another, but he wouldn't let us give up. And that night he wouldn't even let us make camp ("Once in those tents we'll never come out of them" he whispered to me) and we trudged on under the moon.
They found us all huddled together in one group. We'd simply collapsed as we had gone beyond any reasonable endurance of the cold and lack of food. But we were still all together, still one band.
It was like a dream as we were winched into a helicopter and flown out, and at the hospital all I can remember was the frantic rush as I lay on a stretcher and watched the ceiling lights race by overhead as we were pushed along corridors. I learned afterwards that they gave us all deep anaesthetics to knock us out for two day whilst they pumped nutrients and stuff into us.
When I did come to I clutched at the nurse who was bending over me. "My buddies....", I croaked.
"Don't worry, sir. You need rest...."
Panic gripped me. Surely if they were all OK she'd tell me. The tears simply rolled down my face again at the thought of what I'd lost.
"Sir, don't distress yourself... You're safe...." She told me. "You need to calm down, your heart's racing and it's not good for you..." I watched helplessly as she turned a knob on the drip going into my arm and I fell once more into unconsciousness.
The next time I woke there was Mike! I could hardly believe it. He was sitting there in a chair by my bed. He smiled at me and stroked damp hair off my forehead. "Welcome back, Steve...."
"I thought you were dead..."
"I thought you were, too. They wouldn't tell me anything until I dragged myself out of bed and came looking...."
"And Jamie, Luke, Darren, Ryan..."
"We all made it, Steve. It was a close-run thing. We've got to stay here for a few weeks to recover, but then I guess we're free...."
End Of Part Forty Four