PZA: Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro 4-6

Nico returns to Lisbon and after being greatly honoured for his deeds in Castile rejoins his father and uncle and they continue on their voyage to Cairo, but a severe storm damages their ship and blows them to Dzayer on the Barbary Coast. The Berber Ahmar, who stole away on their ship, educates Nico on the life of a cutpurse and introduces Nico to the customs of the Berber people. Nico's sexual enlightenment continues as he witnesses young boys enamoured with the cutpurse willing engaging in sex with him as a result, and discovers the delight of same-sex love as he loses his virginity to the young Berber.

We arrived back at Lisbon after the sun had set, not wishing to be outside the protection of the city's walls with our number so greatly reduced even though we were back in Portugal. King João was much delighted and relieved by the safe return of his son and daughter-on-law, but much dismayed and greatly angered by the death of half of the Household Guard that had left Lisbon twelve days past. Washing the dust and smell of horse off my body once again, I looked forward to the arrival of Father and being at sea once again. If it were a year before I saw land or rode a horse again it would be too soon as far as I was concerned as I sank down in the soft bed in the room assigned to me, one in the servant's quarters but in recognition of my position as personal page to Prince Afonso in the block that was adjacent to the royal apartments and in the room next to Prince Afonso's valet, Menendo. I fell asleep in the flicker of a candle after my head hit the pillow, and did not awake until Menendo pounded on the door and told me the sun was already up. As I leaped out of bed, I discovered my clothes had been washed and ironed while I had slept.

As I ate with Menendo and the other servants, I was surprised that I had not had a visit during the night from Ahmar, who, to his great indignance, had been assigned quarters with the livery staff outside the palace. Knowing castle walls and patrolling Household Guards would not have been a deterrent, I concluded our journey from Madrid and the assassination attempt on the prince the night before had been more wearing on him that he had let on, though knowing his delight in partaking of the pleasures of the flesh that conclusion I greatly doubted.

I had expected I would be asked to report on my mission right after breaking my fast, but it was not until late afternoon before I was summoned to appear before King João, who met with me with his three chief advisors in the same room as I along with Father and Uncle had met with him almost three weeks past to report on our voyage to the Kingdom of Kongo and search for the Kingdom of Prester John. I told him all that had transpired on our journey to Madrid, our stay there, and our return trip. His advisors had much to ask about the count whom I had followed who had orchestrated the assassination attempt, and about the Berber Ahmar. I could not lie, especially to my sovereign, and told them about how we had met that night with me in the alley spying on the count and Ahmar happening to have targeted him to relieve him of his purse. They also asked about the Moor I had released in Marvao on the night of the assassination attempt on Prince Afonso, but to my surprise had no questions about the Jew from Lamego whom we had encountered on the road.

After my report, King João dismissed his advisers, and asked me several other questions about the Catholic Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella and their attitude toward their son-in-law, and any information I had obtained about their expansion plans. I told him about the foreigner who had approached them about sailing west in search of a route to India and China, and to my surprise he smiled and said the same man had also approached him, not once but twice, five years past and two years past, and he too had dismissed him upon the recommendation of two of his advisors.

Father and Uncle arrived in the late afternoon of the next day and I was most overjoyed to see them, as they were me, and though I would have vacated my room and joined them onboard the Theresa del Morau, Father advised me I might as well remain at the palace one more night as they had an audience with King João in the morning. He and Uncle exchanged strange glances upon having said that, as if they knew a secret, but Father said nothing further and I did not press him, knowing that if it was something I was to know he would tell me when he felt appropriate. Besides, I had had enough of secrets and court intrigue to last me a lifetime.

Again I saw nothing of Ahmar that day or evening and had to conclude this time that having arrived in Lisbon, as had been his objective, he had gone on his way. It was just as well, I reasoned, considering the disreputable way of life he had chosen, and even more so considering the irresistible temptations of the flesh he aroused in me whenever he was present. Even so, I was disappointed that we had not had a chance for a formal farewell, and saddened that I would not see him again. Of course a large part of that sadness, I told myself, was due to my inability to resist his temptations and my shameful enjoyment of the pleasures of the flesh we had engaged in together, and I admonished myself for my weakness of character and selfishness, but part of me also knew that my sadness was more than that. Despite the short time we had known each other and the circumstances of our relationship, he had been a good friend and a reliable companion. Considering he was a cutpurse and I a merchant's son, he a Berber and I a loyal and faithful citizen of the Kingdom of Portugal, that friendship, I must confess, caused me much bewilderment.

When I awoke the next morning, I was surprised to find laid out for me an expensive tan-coloured doublet of fine weave and with a dark brown trim, a hat of the same colour and trim with a large dark brown plume, striped breeches cut in the latest fashion, a cream-coloured hose made of fine linen, and a new pair of shoes. Menendo arrived shortly after I had dressed and commented on how handsome I looked, causing me to blush with embarrassment, but would say no more about the clothes that had been laid out for me even though it was clear he knew something. We ate apart from the other servants, all of whom glanced at me and nodded with respect, also surprising as I had not been treated any different from any of them up until then.

After eating, Menendo lead me to a small room adjacent to the royal audience hall where to my surprise I found Mustafa, the Moor I had freed the night of the assassination attempt on Prince Afonso, and Ahmar, now dressed in a fine, pale blue kaftan with intricate embroidery in multicoloured threads along the hem and the cuffs of the wide sleeves, a dark blue vest with fine gold trim, a tunic and turban of the same colour, and new leather sandals, all of which he clearly was very proud of. Stepping up to me with a twinkle in his brown-black eyes and a curl to his lips, Ahmar whispered that now I looked much more the part of a prince's courtesan. Before I could respond, a page appeared and announced that we were summoned.

Entering the royal audience hall, I was surprised to find besides King João, Prince Afonso and his wife Isabella, and King João's bastard son Jorge, many of Portugal's leading noblemen and church leaders including Bishop Diogo and Doctor Rodrigo and seated among them, Father and Uncle Paolo. We were each in turn announced and amidst the applause approached the throne. First was Mustafa, awarded ten ducats for having killed two of the Castilian assassins in defence of Prince Afonso, followed by Ahmar, awarded the same for having warned the Prince of the assassination attempt in addition to a ruby ring and a similar jewel for his turban, and then Menendo who was commended for services to the Monarchy and Prince Afonso while in Castile, which I assumed had been similar to mine as those services were not named, and who would receive an increase in his wages as the prince's personal valet of some undisclosed sum.

And then I was called, and I confess I was so stunned by the applause I received, which not intending to brag and much to my embarrassment was much louder and longer than for those preceding me, and so filled with joy seeing the look of pride in the eyes of Father and Uncle Paolo, that much of what was said and done will forever be a blur in my mind and I know only now because of the repeated telling by Father and Uncle. For my assistance to King João and Prince Afonso, which I knew was my role as spy and not as Prince Afonso's personal page and scribe, I was named Special Envoy of his Majesty King João to Cairo and Jerusalem and a knight of the Order of Santiago and given a cape with insignia to identify me as such. In addition I was given ten gold coins and by Prince Afonso a silver clasp for my cape in the shape of a horse rearing on his hind legs.

Saying goodby to Prince Afonso and his half-brother Jorge and to Menendo, I changed out of my good clothes and packed up my few belongings. Joining Father, I found him in argument with Ahmar, who was trying desperately to convince Father to allow him to sail with us to Cairo, saying he was an experienced sailor and would make "the best cabin boy" Father would ever have, telling him what great assistance he could be in Cairo, and much more that I had missed before joining them. Father was just as insistent that he had a full crew and had no room for him. I think much to his surprise, for the first time in his life Ahmar had met his match. I must admit it was with great sadness in my heart when he turned to me and beseeched me to intervene on his behalf and tell Father of his great worth that I advised him that I had even less chance of changing Father's mind than he did. I confess I felt even greater sadness when at last he took my hands in his and bade me farewell then, and then turned and left, but not before giving my crotch a grope as he pressed close to me and for a moment my sadness was replaced by the fear he was going to kiss me.

Heading down to the docks, I was surprised to find the Jew shoemaker Josepe from Lamego and his son Adao whom we had encountered on our journey back from Madrid along with an older man with a long white beard who was introduced as Rabbi Abraham of Beja about to board the Theresa del Morau. I was advised that they were to sail with us to Cairo, and was surprised, they being Jews, that they had letters from King João for his envoys Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva should we succeed in finding them. Also accompanying us was Mustafa, who, despite having helped thwart the assassination attempt on Prince Afonso and having been rewarded publically by King João, was a Moor and unwelcome in Portugal. It was only because of his help in saving Prince Afonso's life that he was being given safe passage to Cairo, and then only under the proviso that he work his way just as any member of the crew but without expecting pay.

So with the sun still high in the cloudless sky and a brisk wind coming down from the northwest, I leaned against the aft railing and watched Lisbon slowly disappear. Much had happened since I had set foot in that city for the first time three weeks ago and I left with many fond memories and some not so fond, particularly concerning the mission to Madrid. I would miss the friendship of Afonso, Jorge and Menendo all of whom it was quite likely I would never see again given our different stations in life, and yes, I would miss Ahmar too, wherever he might be, but I would not miss the grave and perverted temptations I struggled with whenever in their company. That relief, and having my feet firmly on a wooden deck and not hanging from the sides of an obstinate horse, and being with Father and Uncle Paolo once again, filled me with much joy, even more joy than I had felt receiving the unexpected praise and awards that morning.

Father and Uncle made much about my new wealth and titles, and teasingly asked if my evening meal was acceptable for one of my position, and apologized that I had to share a table with them but there was nobody else of my high standing aboard. I crawled into my bunk that night tired but content and excited about the days to come. I do not know how long it was that I slept but it was still pitch dark outside when I awoke, and slowly became aware of a great weight pressing down upon me. I groggily tried to sit up and upon finding I could not, I was suddenly wide awake and much afeared.

"Cosy," whispered a familiar voice, "but one would think that the Special Envoy of King João to Cairo and Jerusalem and a knight of the Order of Santiago would be afforded somewhat more spacious accommodations."

"Trying to get comfortable. Perhaps it would help if you were to remove your knee from my groin."

"Ah, but he will not. I am very good at not being seen, and there are many places someone of my skills can hide in this boat."

His lips pressed against mine tightly and his fingers began to slip under my nightshirt. "Someone might hear," I protested.

"Everyone is sound asleep in their quarters except for the second mate who is in the front of the boat doing whatever it is the second mate does in the front of the boat at the middle of the night, and for the helmsman who is much too busy steering the boat. Besides, he is unlikely to hear anything above the creaking of the timbers and flapping of the sails, even the pig squeals you make when you squirt your milk."

"I do not squeal like a pig when I, when I squirt," I protested. His right hand was caressing my member, which was quickly becoming erect.

"Even if the helmsman does, he will just think that the cabin boy is doing what cabin boys do, bringing pleasure to themselves while recalling having brought pleasure to the captain." He guided my hand to his crotch, and from the bulge I found in his breeches he was clearly already fully erect.

"That is not what a cabin boy does," I protested, "and besides, the captain is my father!"

"That makes a difference?" he asked with such seriousness I could not tell if he was teasing or if he was sincere. I quivered with pleasure as the fingers of his right hand skilfully teased the rim of my now erect cock while the fingers of his left hand brushed against my nipples, causing them to quickly harden also.

My quarters were a converted storage room midship, Father figuring it would not be proper for me to sleep with the rest of the crew considering my age and me being his son. It was directly below the pilothouse, but he was quite right. It was unlikely the helmsman standing directly above us would hear anything over the natural noises of a ship. There was nobody else near, the captain's quarters, the room shared by the first and second mate, the room shared by Uncle and the bosun, the quarters for the rest of the crew, and the storage room converted into a room for our two Jew passengers all being below deck.

My bunk was actually a shelf which barely had enough height for the two of us laying flat against each other. Slipping off me, Ahmar pulled me and my blankets to the floor and lay down beside me head to crotch. Somehow in the process he had managed to remove his shirt and open his breeches. Feeling his hot breath against my cock and balls and moments later his hot, moist mouth envelop my knob, I yielded to temptation and holding his slender, dark brown sausage by the base, I leaned forward and took it in my mouth. So completely did Satan take over my mind after only three days of abstinence, I lusted as if I had abstained for a year.

I cannot honestly say which I found to be the greater pleasure, having his mouth sucking on my stiff member and his lips slipping up and down the shaft and over my overly sensitive knob, or doing the same to his hot, throbbing prick. I knew the pleasure he was giving me was the same pleasure as I was giving him, and somehow, knowing that we were sharing the same pleasure and knowing I was giving another boy that ultimate of physical pleasures made me feel good, not just in a physical sense, but mentally, and yes, spiritually also. That is the way of Satan. Once having tasted the forbidden fruit one cannot resist tasting it again, and while one's mouth is filled with the sweet taste of that fruit one can only think of the pleasure throbbing between his legs and the pleasure of bringing that same pleasure to one's partner. It is only after the heat of the moment and after that ultimate pleasure of ejaculation subsides that one feels guilt for engaging in the sinful, perverted act.

As we snuggled together in that pleasant numb warmth that follows having sex, after the excitement and heat leading up to climax and before the mind resumes control and guilt begins to set in, when one is content with himself and all seems right with the world, we talked about his predicament, which he did not see as a predicament at all. Ahmar was quite confident he could remain hidden on board until we docked at Cairo, even after I pointed out that we were stopping first at Rome, and that it would take us close to two weeks to get there, and another two weeks to reach Cairo, even after I pointed out the size of the Theresa del Morau and the limited number of hiding places, and the unlikelihood that a month's supply of food rations for one man would go unnoticed. When I insisted it would be best if he reported his presence to Father before Father inevitably found him, he feared he would be "thrown in the brig", "flogged with a cat-o-nine tails", and "made to walk the plank and swim back to Portugal" in that order as I assured him each of his fears were unfounded and that Father would never do any of those things.

I also pointed out it was foolhardy to think he could share my tiny berth each night and engage in sex like we just had for an entire month without being discovered. He considered that for a moment, no more than ten heartbeats, and replied that I was right and that it was only with the greatest reluctance that he would turn himself in as a stowaway in the morning, but only if I consented to having sex with him one more time. My mind wanted to refuse, but my flesh betrayed us and stirred with just the thought, and ever observant, Ahmar was quick to notice. Unable to deny the betrayal of my flesh and feeling his own begin to swell and press against my naked body, I succumbed once again to temptation. To my shame, so great was my lust that I came just as copiously as the first time, and so great was my lust that I drank his seed with an eagerness and desire as a drunkard swallows sweet wine.

To be honest, I did not believe for a moment that he would do as he had said, but I had fallen into temptation so totally I could not resist feeling his swollen member throbbing in my mouth or the pleasure of his hot mouth enveloping mine. As we snuggled together once more, hot and sticky with sweat and our spent seed, I was determined to stay awake for the rest of the night to prevent him from leaving, but drained from having sex twice in one night, that, I found, was impossible. When I awoke from one of the deepest sleeps I have ever had, I was truly surprised to find him still sleeping on the floor beside my bunk.

As I suspected, Father was not at all pleased. He insisted Ahmar pay for his share of the rations, telling him we did not have any to spare, and he insisted Ahmar do his share of the work, angrily pointing out to him that this was a sailing ship, not a pleasure boat. Ahmar at least had the good sense to keep his mouth closed and to appear contrite though knowing him as I did I doubted his sincerity. His presence on the ship was to my benefit in one immediate and perceptible way. Ahmar was assigned those more loathsome duties I would have otherwise had to perform, washing the cook's large cooking pots and the crew's dishes, pealing the three dozen potatoes we consumed each day, and emptying the officer's chamber pots and keeping that railing and side of the ship used for the crews' privy clean. He argued that those were the duties that should be assigned to Mustafa, being a Moor and all, until he was told if Father did so then he would have to assume Mustafa's duties, which included daily scrubbing of the deck, polishing the brass on the railings, and hauling the cook's supplies from the hold to the galley each day, jobs that were perhaps not so distasteful, but which were much more work.

In another way, Ahmar's presence was my bane. Although a hammock had been strung up for him in the hold, he felt compelled to visit me in my quarters every night, and not to sleep. When I told him it was too risky he said that was what made it all the better, which made no sense to me whatsoever, and when I finally told him if he continued I would be forced to bar my door at night, he relented but only if I promised to "visit" him in the hold, if not in the middle of the night, then during the day, and when I told him that would be even riskier and I would not, he pouted and moped so that one would have to be blind and deaf not to notice his upset. So it was that we worked out a compromise, him joining me in my quarters in the darkness of the night on one day as he had the ability to slip about the ship totally unseen, me joining him in the middle of the afternoon the next day under the pretense of helping him on some duty in the hold, and, after much arguing on his side, abstaining the third day.

Each time we were together I knew we were courting danger and I was filled with dread we would be discovered, either by Mustafa during the day as he was most likely to be down in the hold, or by old Three-finger Duarte who seemed to never miss a thing that went on aboard the ship. Each time afterward I was filled with guilt and shame over what we had done, but while we were together, at times for half a candle mark and other times for two or three, I was filled with pleasure, physical and mental if not spiritual. Indeed, the great pleasure I felt only reminded me all the more that for a man to spill his seed instead of using it for procreation was an abomination in the eyes of the Lord and the guilt I felt and my fear of the Lord caused me great grief. I must confess imagining the wrath of Father and the shame I would bring to Uncle and our family name caused me even greater grief. Ahmar sympathetically said my fears and guilt were unfounded and the result of my misguided Christian faith and encouraged me to think only of the great pleasure we enjoyed together. To my great frustration, our indulgence every two out of three days did not seem to trouble him in the slightest.

At first we made good time with strong north and west winds and clear skies, and I counted the days and ticked them off eagerly, anxious to reach Rome and then Cairo, not just out of the fear of being discovered, but because with each passing day I found myself looking forward to our secret rendezvous and missing those days we abstained more and more so great was my weakness and so great was the hold of Satan on me. I greatly feared my soul would be irreparably corrupted before the voyage was over, if it was not already. Then, having sailed through the narrow straits between Castile and Africa and past the ancient Pillars of Hercules, the southern headland now under the authority of Portugal and the northern claimed by Castile, we were beset by calms and the ship lay idle for three days. The crew having nothing to do increased our chances of being caught greatly but that was no deterrent to Ahmar, and indeed, seemed to cause him to be even bolder.

I was much relieved therefor when the winds finally picked up and we began to make our way across the Mediterranean, but two days later storm clouds appeared to the north and we were hit by a severe fall storm, the lightening flashing about the mid mast and threatening to strike it and the winds becoming so fierce we were forced to lower all the sails and tie them down. The clouds were tar black and so was the sea and the waves we rode were at times taller than our tallest mast. The only good thing was that the storm was so severe one risked one's life being up on deck so I moved in with Father, which kept Ahmar and myself separated. Besides, Ahmar turned so sick that, he later confessed to me, he had no interest in sex for the first time in his life. Myself, I could not help but conclude that this was God's punishment for the perversion the two of us had been engaging in, and I was filled with remorse that by my sinful actions I had put the lives of Father, Uncle and the crew at risk. As the ship crested each wave and sank down in the troughs and I was sure we would be crushed I prayed for forgiveness of my sins and weakness of my flesh, and swore that if I outlived this storm I would never touch myself indecently again, nor any other boy, and I would not allow Ahmar or any other boy to have carnal knowledge of me. For five days the storm raged, and when it finally let up we were blown far off course and the Theresa del Morau was badly damaged, the forward lateen sail being torn beyond repair and two of the topmost spars having splintered and needing to be replaced.

Ahmar of course wanted to make up for lost days, and was most perplexed and then most angered by my insistence that it was over between us, but so thankful I was for being alive, I weathered his anger and held fast to my convictions. Deciding that my refusal to engage in sex with him was because he had somehow offended me, he persisted incessantly, trying to find out what he had done wrong and to make amends. I finally told him of my prayer for forgiveness and my vow to God if He were to save me. Ahmar looked at me for a long time before finally speaking.

"You must lead a virtuous and worthy life to be so greatly esteemed by your God."

"If that is so, why would your God want to save you?" There was no reason. I looked shamefully away from him. "You know what I think?" I looked up at him but he did not respond.

"I think, my very nice friend, that it was not your God who saved you. It was my departed Uncle Farook, blessed be his name."

"Yes. While you were on your knees praying to your God to save you, I was on my knees praying to my uncle, when I was not on my knees puking up my guts. I told him I was much too young to die, and had much to do and much to learn yet, like among many other things what it would be like to sink my prick up the same asshole as a prince, and to discover what it would feel like to have the milk of a prince's concubine up my ass, and I asked for his protection so I might experience such things among the many other things I had not yet experienced."

"That is most unfortunate, but now I understand why your Christian God does not always answer prayers made to Him. If He is the only one who can grant answers to prayers, He must be awfully busy."

"Your uncle can stop storms," I observed, ignoring his blasphemy because I knew it would do no good to argue with him.

"Of course not. He is not that sort of god. But he can intervene with the God of the Sea, Yamm or Neptune or Poseidon or whatever name he goes by today. When you prayed to your God, what did He tell you?"

"He did not appear to you, as a burning bush, or as an angel, or a great bull, or a pillar of salt or something?"

"No," I replied irritably, the idea being so preposterous I did not even ask where he got such ridiculous and misinformed notions how God appeared before His people. "Did your uncle appear to you?"

"Of course. Which was quite amazing as I was not able to lay hands on his burial mound, but then he and I were especially close when he was alive. He taught me everything I know."

"As himself of course," he replied as if my question had been silly. "Except in my vision he was selling honey cakes in the bazaar instead of relieving men of their purses as he did when he was alive. He sold us two cakes, spread thick with fig jam, which we ate from the top of a tall building as we watched the sun set. When I awoke, I knew it meant I would see land again and you would feel my milk up your ass."

"That is not going to happen," I told him firmly, "that I am going to 3; that I am going to do such a thing. And how did you arrive at such conclusions from that 3; dream anyway?"

"Why, the two honey cakes were you and I, and the figs, well, among my people we have a saying, when someone fucks another's ass for the first time, we say he has taken the other's fig. And obviously I knew we would be saved, because to watch the sunset from the roof of a building one must be on land, not on a boat. And it was not a dream. It was a vision."

"Land! Land to the starboard!" called the watch. We, along with everyone else on deck, turned and looked. Sure enough, there on the horizon was land.

I could not reply. The following morning we sailed past four small islands and into a bay upon which sat a large town. Uncle went ashore with Three-finger Duarte and another sailor. He returned shortly with the confirmation that as we had suspected we had ended up at Algiers, or Dzayer as it was called by the Berbers, who called themselves Imazighen, which meant in their language free and noble men. Uncle Paolo also brought the good news that he had negotiated for repairs to our ship, which the master shipbuilder estimated would be completed in only three days. That evening there gathered alongside our ship a number of scantily clad young women and young, bare-chested men, the reason for which I could not understand until Ahmar enlightened me that they were putas, whores, knowing that after days at sea without women the men would be desirous of companionship. I told him the citizens of Viano do Castelo did not behave so crudely, to which he only smiled and asked if I hung around the docks much at night back home.

While Father did not forbid any man from disembarking, he did warn them of the dangers of partaking of such pleasures with the likes of those who sold their flesh, and especially with non-Christians whose concept of cleanliness was much different from ours. He also reminded the crew that those living along the Barbary Coast did not look kindly upon those from Portugal nor Castile. They would just as likely be relieved of their purses as they would of their sexual needs, and they not only ran the risk of coming down with a "lover's illness" but could even be risking their lives. The crew was composed of experienced sailors and did not need Father's warning and none were tempted to leave the ship given such risks.

One exception was Rabbi Abraham, but not to avail himself of the pleasures being offered. There were a considerable number of Jews in Algiers, mainly those who had fled Castile or who had decided to leave Portugal, knowing it would only be a matter of time before they were forced out of our country also. The Rabbi disembarked to offer his services, and to make discrete inquiries about the situation in Cairo and the Holy Land. Another exception was Mustafa. Father told him that we were honour bound to take him to Cairo as requested by King João, but in that we had made this unscheduled stop, he was welcome to join his fellows here instead, and he took Father up on that offer, there being a large number of Moors in Algiers, particularly from Castile besides women and the elderly from the Kingdom of Granada.

The third, not unexpectedly, was Ahmar. In that he had boarded our ship uninvited, Father was quite amenable to him disembarking to join his countrymen. Father was not as agreeable to me joining him, even when Ahmar pointed out that his people ranged in colouration from almost white to the darkest black and every shade of brown in between so I could easily pass as one of them. It was only when he pointed out that he and I could go about unnoticed given our youth, which would allow us to do some discrete inquiries of our own, particularly about the trustworthiness of the local amir, and the attitude of the inhabitants of the city to our presence and any plans that might be to our disadvantage. Even Father had to admit that was a very good argument, especially given Ahmar's knowledge and familiarity with the haunts and ways of the more questionable citizens who would inhabit the city and have the information we sought.

So the following afternoon Ahmar and I left the ship, and true to his word, he lost no time in connecting with the cutpurses, vagabonds and idlers dealing in illicit affairs. As Father suspected, the local amir could be trusted as far as the next highest bidder, and the local populace, many having been forced out of Castile and Portugal, bore us no goodwill. They foolishly and erroneously considered Iberia theirs and were of the wrong-minded notion that we Christians had driven them out of their land. Some of the Moors who had fled Castile had banded together and were now raiding the coastal towns of Castile and France and waylaying ships from those countries and Portugal. With the escalation of the war between Castile and the Emirate of Granada the number of pirate ships was rapidly increasing making the travel of merchant ships such as ours more hazardous. We did not return until well after the sun had set, which had greatly worried Father and Uncle and for which they were most unhappy, but as Ahmar pointed out, those he had to deal with were those who did not roam about the city while the sun was shining.

We spent the entire next day exploring the city and Ahmar showing me how to see it with a thief's eyes, pointing out signs that told if the house likely contained valuables and if so, of which kind, and if they had guards posted and if so how many. We spent a long time in the souq, the commercial quarter in the city where there were rows of stalls of merchants selling textiles, jewellery, and wooden sculptures, of vendors selling foodstuffs, spices and animals, and of many moneychangers. He pointed out those from whom it would be easy to steal and those whom a wise man would leave alone, and he showed me how to relieve a man of his purse without him noticing and explained the need to plan several different approaches and escape routes in order to be prepared for the unexpected.

We met and talked to many of the everyday common citizens of the city, Ahmar having a charm and the gift of the tongue that made people like him instantly. He taught me important phrases in the Berber language, salam (hello), layhannike (bye) and amattukale ousbihe (very nice friend), the latter frequently used when introducing me, and not so important words, like those used to refer to body parts and certain bodily functions all performed but not mentioned by name by decent men, asking me at the same time to translate the same in Portuguese.

I found wandering about the city with Ahmar most informative and revealing. The word Berber I learned came from an Arabic word meaning land of the barbarians, a name also applied to them by the Romans. Their land had been occupied many times, by the Phoenicians many centuries ago, and then the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and finally the Arabs. Much to my surprise he undertook his quest for information to help Father most seriously, and I observed just how skilfully he did it. In the middle of a conversation of the most innocent nature Ahmar would ask a casual question, or make a simple comment that was sure to elicit some local gossip or information relating to the questions Father had. I was much dismayed to learn that a lucrative trade engaged in by the coastal Berber merchants was the capture and selling of men, women and children as slaves for foodstuffs and merchandise, selling the moro nero, black men from the Dark Continent, to the rich nobles and lords of Europe, sheiks of Arab lands, and sultans of the Ottoman Empire, and capturing and selling Christians to be sold to non-Christians. The practice was, to me, as odious as the practices I had seen in Castile, though Ahmar disagreed and saw no harm in it.

That evening we sat down with a large and obviously affluent family to a most flavourful and aromatic meal called tahricht, which consisted of highly spiced meats which I did not recognize, and which fortunately I only much later learned consisted of the offal of a lamb, the brain, tripe, lungs and heart rolled up with the intestines and cooked over embers on a stick. Had I known at the time I most surely would not have been able to have eaten it. The head of the household was an immensely fat man of middle age who sold herbs for the kitchen, though I suspected he sold herbs of another nature on the side, herbs to bring pleasure and herbs to bring death to one's enemies. What deals he had arranged with Ahmar I had no idea and was certain I was best off not knowing but whatever it was the two had become close friends. After a dessert of couscous, balls of millet sprinkled with ground up almonds and sugar, we retired with two of his nephews, one eight and the other nine years of age, two cousins who ran errands for their uncle and were enthralled with Ahmar. We had barely entered the backroom when the two boys dropped their trousers and offered their backsides to us.

The boys, I was informed by Ahmar, had been sent by their uncle to "entertain" us and they were most eager to do so. I was immediately reminded of my experience in the Kingdom of Kongo where our hosts had offered up first young girls and then young boys for our sexual pleasure and who would have considered our rejection of them an insult. From what I had learned and from my observation of Berber culture, I did not think that was part of their usual practice, and I did not suspect my life would be in danger if I refused. Instead I suspected it was the hope of the herb dealer of gaining an advantage in the bargaining position for something he wanted from Ahmar, or it was in payment for something already done. Whichever it was, I figured it would be wise not to ask. The other difference of course was that the boy who had introduced me to the pleasures of the flesh in the Kongo had been a perfect stranger and was with me only because he had been told he had to, though he had appeared to be most agreeable to the arrangement. These two boys had also been told to engage in sex with us and were also most agreeable, but were also willing because they were enamoured with Ahmar and his life as a cutpurse and saw it as an honour to engage in such intimacy with him and his "fine friend." I of course reminded Ahmar of my oath to God and at first held firm to my vow not to ever again partake of the pleasures the boys were offering, but the boys were exceedingly cute and skilled in seduction, which I suspected was one of the errands they regularly performed for their uncle, and soon it was more than my vow that was firm even though all they had done was expose themselves and look at me seductively. At last I succumbed once again to temptation, following Ahmar's advice to "live for today, for tomorrow you may be dead or another man's slave."

Lying on the sleeping mats, the nine-year-old turned his attention to Ahmar and the eight-year-old to me. Having already disrobed by then, they quickly had us stripped naked also and giggled at the sight of our erect members and our eagerness to engage in sex with them. I cursed my flesh soundly for betraying me and tried to deny the pangs of pleasure that shot though my swollen bulb as the young boy brushed his soft fingertips along the edge and caused my member to jerk with excitement. A man dying of thirst had as much chance of ignoring a pitcher of cold water. The boys were as skilled at sex play as they were at seduction, running their fingers teasingly over our members and our stones and along the inside of our thighs and rubbing their naked bodies against ours.

Both boys were circumcised, which I was told was the custom of their people as it was mine. I could not resist reaching out and gently stroking those soft, warm worms, their skin so smooth and pleasant to the touch. I cupped their tiny balls and rolled them. They were delighted with mine and Ahmar's, our stones having darkened with the coming of age and signalling that they were capable of producing seed. Soon the two boys were erect, their innocent little worms jutting up in the air with lust. My own member was aching with desire by then, the flesh throbbing as firmly as my racing heart, the knob itching for caress whether it be by hand, lips or asshole. So great was my arousal that all thoughts of resistance had long fled.

The older cousin whispered something in Ahmar's ear and upon his reply, he got upon his hands and knees and Ahmar knelt behind him. The younger boy looked at me and I nodded and he assumed the same position beside his cousin and I assumed the same position as Ahmar behind him. Ahmar grinned over at me with a wide smile, and I could not help returning it. I knew what he was feeling and what he was thinking for it was the same as I was, and that gave me a rush of arousal that caused my member to jerk impatiently. The two of us worked up several mouthfuls of spittle and drooled it over our rigid members. Ahmar worked up another mouthful and bending over and spreading the cheeks of the young boy kneeling in front of him, he drooled his spittle over his hole and the boy eagerly open and closed his opening as if it were trying to swallow the slime. Ahmar scooped up the gobs that had oozed down the boy's crack and collected under his balls with his middle finger and he wormed the tip of his finger into the boy's hole. I followed suit, spreading apart the smooth, compact buttocks of the eight-year-old boy awaiting me, drooling my hot, slimy spit down his crack, and working the slime into his hole, sliming it up so I could more easily penetrate him, and working my finger in and out of his ass, at first just the tip, and then up to the middle knuckle, and finally up to the third to loosen it up, again following Ahmar's lead.

The two of us then lowered our throbbing, spit-streaked members, and placing the tips against the slimy openings of the two boys, we slowly pushed forward as the two boys pushed out with their anal muscles to open them. None of us were inexperienced, and we joined as one with little difficulty. Inhaling deeply, I drew back, delighting in the feel of the boy's anus tightening about my cock, and then I pushed forward, plunging my swollen, aching cock up his ass and delighting in the moisture and warmth of his bowels and the feeling of him tightening his grip about my member. Standing there side by side fucking these two beautiful and willing boys, we were soon swept up with the pleasure of their flesh and with the strange pleasure of sharing this physical pleasure with each other. As I glanced over at Ahmar, he noticed and glanced over at me and we exchanged knowing smiles. Once again I knew what he was feeling and thinking and that it was the same as I was, and that he knew that also, and once again a wave of lust passed up my cock.

Drawing back his hips, Ahmar whispered for the boy to clamp his anus tightly about his cock, and realizing immediately what his intention was, I drew my hips back until the knob was about to exit and instructed the boy to do likewise. His muscle clamped down about my throbbing, aching cock even tighter than a person's lips can, and I was rewarded with an almost immediate cessation in my need to spurt my seed. It was the same technique as I had learned to cut off one's desire by using one's lips. As Ahmar resumed pumping his hips to and fro, I did likewise and my mind returned to the throbbing of my swollen cock and the painful yet pleasant itching that circled the rim of my knob. I had to marvel at the wonder of God designing such an intense and wonderful sensation, and at the same time wonder why He would design such a pleasure for man and then restrict his experiencing of such pleasure so severely. That, as was sex itself, a great mystery to me.

My stones were soon swollen and firm, and the ache deep in my loins to release my seed grew and grew until I reached the point where I could no longer hold back my seed. Grasping the young boy's smooth, slender hips tightly, I thrust my throbbing member up his rectum and filled it with my seed. He trembled and whimpered and at the same time I felt his little, stiff noodle throb violently between my fingers and I knew he was experiencing his own climax, his little nuts empty of seed but drawn up tight beneath his stiff little cock like two hard little peas. Ahmar and the boy he was fucking were making similar sounds and again the thought of them feeling the same pleasures and having the same experience as I and the boy whose hips I was grasping intensified my pleasure.

The following day, our last, was spent much the same as the previous and again I marvelled how Ahmar's charm and ways ingratiated him with others and how he was able to draw information out of them without them even being aware that he was doing so. As evening approached, we stopped at a market vender and bought a pastilla, a meat pie made of squab. As we began to leave quite full and content, Ahmar suddenly became very excited, and dragging me over to a fat, pig-eyed vendor, he purchased two honey cakes spread with fig jam, and glancing about, dragged me to a white-stuccoed two-story building, and there on the roof, we ate our treat as the sun set. As we ate, I knew full well what was coming and my heart began to beat harder and faster and I began to tense with apprehension and anticipation. It was a feeling of fear and uncertainty, and of eagerness and curiosity, not unlike the feeling I had upon first laying eyes on the black savages of the Kongo.

Looking over at me and seeing the look in my eyes, Ahmar leaned over and said with a gentle smile, "do not worry my am attukale ousbihe, my very nice friend, I shall be most gentle on your virgin night." He leaned over further and we kissed, his breath sweet and spicy and his lips tasting of fig and honey and my member stirred with eagerness in my trousers. I could not resist. Perhaps it truly was the fulfilment of the vision Ahmar had received from his Uncle Farook, perhaps it was the wiles of Satan, or perhaps it was the charm of Ahmar Sayyd Ma'tollah bin Ashrat Muhammad el-Qu'itar and my own infatuation with him. Whatever it was, I succumbed to his kisses and caresses as he stripped me and aroused my member with his fingers and lips and tongue until we were both hard. It was as if I were in a daze, a drugged stupor from some ingredient in the squab pie or the honey wafer treat, but I knew Ahmar had not drugged me. It was Ahmar himself who was the drug. I felt a love for him more intense than I had ever felt for any man or woman, boy or girl, not even Mother, Father, Uncle or my sisters. I felt a desire to fuck him and to be fucked by him like I had never felt with any of the boys with whom I had sex since my first time in the Kongo now three months past.

Tossing off his own clothes, Ahmar and I lay on a kilim, a carpet, of a most intricate and unusual design which I later concluded had to be a prayer rug used by the Berber family who owned the building. We kissed and caressed each other like two possessed, kissing and nibbling each other's lips, cheeks, ears, nipples, toes, stones and throbbing, erect members and caressing each other until my nipples were burning and hard and my cock aching for sex and my entire body as tight as the drawn string on a bow.

Retrieving a clay jar from his pile of clothing, Ahmar removed the stopper and scooped out a thick, greasy-looking substance and smeared it generously over his knob and shaft, totally coating his thick, brown member until it glistened like a freshly cooked sausage. He then had me get on my hands and knees and he applied the substance to my anus. It was surprisingly cold. As the tip of his finger pressed against my anus I tensed in apprehension and Ahmar kissed the nape of my neck and whispered for me to relax and push out. I felt his finger ever so slowly penetrate me, first knuckle, second, and finally third, like a long, thin nail cooled in the blacksmith's water bucket. Even after he removed it I could still feel its icy chill up the core of my bowels.

Feeling him grasp my hips and the tip of his greased, cold cock pressing against my anus, I once again tensed, certain that being penetrated by a cock so thick would be painful if not impossible, and again he kissed the nape of my neck and whispered for me to push out and to enjoy. Ever so slowly I felt the wedge of his knob stretch open my hole and I strained to accommodate it. To my surprise he entered me without that much difficulty, and once the knob was securely imbedded in my flesh, he pushed forward and the narrower shaft easily followed. Even though I knew it was shorter and more slender than mine, it felt enormous as I felt it sink up my anus until finally I felt his coarse pubic hairs brushing against my buttocks. He had penetrated me the full length of his cock! He paused for a moment, and then slowly drew it out and the ring about my anal opening burned with sensation not unlike the way the rim of one's knob burns when touched, painful and yet pleasant and desirable in a strange way. Sinking his cock back up my bowels, he whispered for me to clench my asshole closed each time he withdrew, and as I did so the burning sensation doubled. And so the two of us knelt there on the family's prayer rug and I was fucked for the first time as the sun began to sink and the whitewashed buildings of Dzayer turned a yellowish orange

It felt strange and delightfully pleasant as Ahmar slowly worked his cock in and out of my body, and though at first apprehensive and shamed for having succumbed to such depravity, as I heard Ahmar's laboured breathing behind me and felt his hot breath blowing against the nape of my neck and felt the pleasure radiating out from our union and recalled the pleasure I had felt as the one doing the penetrating, I inhaled deeply and concentrated on this new pleasure I was feeling. As I relaxed and clenched my anus in time with his thrusts and withdrawals, he reached under me with his left hand and began to tug on my erect member, bringing it pleasure also. I slowly became aware of the fact that his cock no longer felt cold, but was instead hot and the faster and harder he thrust it in and withdrew it the hotter it was getting. I also slowly became aware that I was breathing just as hard as he was.

Just as I was about to explode, he drew his cock back so that the knob was stretching open my entrance and he paused, and I knew what he was expecting. I clamped my anus tight about his throbbing cock, and felt his thumb and first finger similarly form a ring below my knob and squeeze my cock firmly. The sun had now turned the buildings and surrounding countryside a fiery orange-red and the shadows extended like long fingers through the hills and bushes and through the streets of the city. Our lust was an orange-red flame also and as we continued to fuck that flame leaped and burned with an intensity that was beyond any experience I have ever had. His cock was afire now, an iron nail straight out of the smith's forge, and my bowels were that forge, hot as a man's blood, throbbing in time with his swollen cock, throbbing in time with my own aching cock, my anal ring burning with the same sweet pain that was causing the rim of my cock to burn. We fucked as one, him thrusting and withdrawing, me clenching and relaxing, our breathing coming faster and faster, the tension building up in our loins tighter and tighter. From a mosque tower somewhere in the city a muezzin was calling the faithful to prayer and as he began to sing Ahmar and I erupted. My seed charged up the core of my numb, swollen cock and spurted out the tip with a force and pleasure like I have never before experienced and as Ahmar gasped and lunged forward and grasped me tightly I felt his hot, thick milk spurt out of his cock and flood my rectum. We both seemed to spurt forever and I could feel my insides swelling with his seed, and the thought that he had planted his seed deep up my body caused my body to clench in an ecstasy that I can only describe as divine as more of my slimy thick seed oozed out of my cock and down the shaft and over my tight balls.

Ahmar finally withdrew his cock and we collapsed there on the kilim in exhaustion and in total bliss. The sun having set, we lay there in the dark in each other's arms as the muzzin finished his prayers and the city grew silent. We kissed gently and rested, our breathing returning to normal and our racing hearts beating regularly once more. Ahmar kissed me on the lips, his breath still scented with spice and his lips still tasting of honey and fig, but in addition there also enveloped the two of us the dank, fertile fragrance of freshly spilt seed. As our lips parted and Ahmar looked into my eyes, I knew what he was asking and I smiled and nodded as I ran my fingers down his warm, sweat-dampened body. Having that morning imparted to Father and Uncle the names of several Berber gem merchants who were eager to trade their goods with those of non-Arab persuasion, along with other information regarding the movements of Berber pirates, I knew they would not be angry if we spent a bit longer in the city on this final night.

So we began to kiss and caress each other once again as we had begun this evening, gently and lovingly, but knowing in the back of my mind that this time I would be fucking him made our sex play totally different. Though we had sucked each other's cock and masturbated each other numerous times, and though we had both fucked other boys, I had not fucked him and though he was a boy like any other boy and his ass like any other ass, the thought of penetrating him with my most private and valued part, of engaging in that most intimate of sexual acts with him, and of depositing my seed deep up his body as he had flooded my rectum with his made all the difference in the world.

Being young and healthy and virile, we were soon both erect once again. Retrieving the jar of ointment, Ahmar applied the grease to my stiff cock, and as it had done to my anus, it caused my member to suddenly feel cool, almost cold, yet it maintained its full erection. Ahmar said he did not know the name of the ointment, only that it cooled the passion and numbed the senses so that one could enjoy the pleasure of a stiff cock longer, and that it greased tight openings like virgin assholes so they could be penetrated painlessly. Having finished with my cock, he wiped the fingers of his left hand off along the crack of his ass, and then turned and rising on his hands and knees told me to line the inside of his quiver.

As I ever so slowly eased my finger up his ass I recalled how it had felt when Ahmar had done the same to me, and as I eased my finger in and out I slowly realized what he had said and wondered if he was telling me he was a virgin just as I had been. Given his experience and daring, I found that unlikely and yet, the way he had said it, and given his dominant, aggressive personality, it was a strong possibility. I was already aching with lust, and the thought that I might be the first to sink his cock up Ahmar's ass caused me to ache all the more. What greater gift can one friend give another than to take his virginity? It was with that thought that I slowly sank my stiff, cold cock up his ass and began to pump my hips to and fro. So excited was I that he had to whisper for me to slow down so we might enjoy the pleasure longer, and I readily did so. I would that this pleasure last forever. As I sank my member up his ass he relaxed and as I withdrew he clenched his asshole just as he had told me to do, increasing my pleasure, and I know his own. Again we worked as one and as I concentrated on the pleasure of my throbbing cock and the burning irritation about the rim of my knob, I recalled the burning sensation around the rim of my asshole. Ahmar was right. Having been fucked, I had a new understanding and greater appreciation as the one doing the fucking.

As our lust grew and the heat of our union increased, we finally paused to allow our passions to subside. Despite the number of times I had fucked other boys by then, this felt totally new, in part because I now knew what it felt like to be penetrated, and in part because unlike any of the other boys I had penetrated, this boy I loved with all my heart and soul. Again our breathing grew heavier and again I felt the pressure building up in my loins, and I closed my eyes and savoured the delight as I felt my stones tighten and my milk suddenly race up the core of my numb, throbbing cock and spurt out the burning tip. At the same time Ahmar's stiff member throbbed in my fist and he spurted out his seed. As my head spun dizzily and my loins felt numb and weak, I was certain I would never again feel pleasure as intense and as encompassing as I was feeling at that moment, a pleasure of flesh, mind and soul. It was as if his body and my body, his mind and my mind, and his soul and my soul had blended into one. There can be no greater pleasure than ejaculation, and no greater pleasure than two friends bringing each other that pleasure. As we collapsed on our backs, sweaty and sticky with our spilt seed, I struggled with how something so blissful and filled with pleasure could possibly be a sin.

Returning to the dock, I was much surprised that a strong wind had begun, and much surprised to see a great activity aboard the Theresa del Morau and that the main sail had been raised. Ahmar suddenly pulled me into the shadows and we kissed, a long and tender kiss, one of love, not lust, and as our lips parted he looked into my eyes and informed me he would not be boarding the ship with me. This was the land of his people, he explained, and there was much opportunity for a young cutpurse like himself in Dzayer. I was speechless with surprise and much saddened by his news, having never considered that he might not continue with me on this journey. He smiled that infectious smile of his and told me not to be sad, and that we had a very special time that night that we would both remember for the rest of our lives. With a twinkle in his brown-black eyes he said that should I ever be sad, I should think about the joy and the pleasure we had felt this evening for it would surely stiffen my cock, and one could never be sad for long with a stiff cock. Besides, he said with a curl to his lips, in the vision from his Uncle Farook we had done it more than once so we were clearly destined to meet again. With that, he turned and disappeared into the night.

5. Rome

Their ship repaired, Nico, filled with sadness leaving the cutpurse Ahmed behind and with guilt having succumbed once again to the pleasures of the flesh with others of his gender, continues on his journey to Rome to seek financial and spiritual support for their voyage. Instead, Nico discovers the Holy See is a hotbed of sex and perversion as he witnesses sex between a teenage black slave and a nobleman from Naples and between a Cardinal and a Helvetian Guard, and he finds himself in the middle of a fivesome with four choirboys.

"We are leaving. Your father wants to take advantage of this most fortunate wind that has come up. He has been frantic with worry where you were."

"I am sorry. It was my understanding we were leaving on the morning tide. I did not think he would mind if I spent this last night on shore for a little longer," I apologized as Uncle rushed me up the gangplank.

"And so he did not, but when you left this morning he did not know God would send us this benevolent wind. It is much to our good fortune. But where is the Berber stowaway?"

"Hmm. It is just as well. Now hurry, report to your father. He has left orders to cast off the moment you are on board."

To my relief Father was not angry with me. Like Uncle, he seemed to be pleased that Ahmar was not continuing on with us which to me was wrong, but I knew there was a time to disagree and a time not to, and this was one of those times not to. He told me to retire to my quarters and to remain there as there was nothing I could do to help and our departure was going to be rough given the ferocity of the wind.

Retiring to my little converted cabin under the pilothouse, I lay down on my bunk much disconcerted by the sudden and unexpected turn of events. The timbers creaked and the canvas snapped loudly as the ship rose and fell in the turbulent sea and the wind blew furiously about us. It had come up as suddenly and unexpectedly as Ahmar's announcement that he would not be sailing with us. I was angry with Uncle and Father for their response to that news. They did not know him as I knew him and had allowed their prejudice against the Berbers to cloud their judgement. The Berber people were not a bad people, and Ahmar was not a bad person. Yes, he was a cutpurse, and yes, he was a stowaway, but he was a decent person. I was angry with him also though, angry that he had sprung his announcement on me at the last moment and then had left before I could talk him out of his decision, not that it was likely I would be able to talk him out of anything he had decided to do. As I lay there and fumed over the three people I loved the most, I also had to admit that I was feeling sorry for myself. I was not so much angry with Ahmar as I was selfishly upset that I would no longer have his company, and yes, that I would no longer have a companion to engage in the pleasures of the flesh with.

That, I told myself, was a good thing, and I should be happy he had decided to remain behind, and Uncle and Father were right that it was just as well that he had decided to do so. I was being most self-centred. I had much time to weigh both sides of the situation. So steeply did the Theresa del Morau rise and so sharply did it fall and so loudly did the masts creak, even more loudly than during the storm that had cracked the uppermost spars of the main and foremost masts and driven us to the Barbary Coast, I had great difficulty falling asleep. To be honest, the attitude of Father and Uncle and the fact I had left Ahmar behind and would most likely never see him again filled me with anger and much sadness and had just as much to do with my sleepless night as the battering wind and rough sea.

Three-finger Duarte came for me in the morning and had me tie onto a safety line that had been rigged up to get about on the deck. The wind was still blowing just as strongly and seemed to have gotten even hotter, and it was peppered with a fine sand that made it impossible to see more than an arm's length away and that stung even through my clothing. I joined the cook in the galley and helped prepare and serve the morning meal for the crew. There was much talk about the wind driving us across the Mediterranean Sea.

"It is called a sirocco," old Duarte said. Although I knew him to be a source of much wisdom from our previous voyage to the Kongo, I was still amazed at how much he knew about sailing and foreign lands. "It originates in the deserts and hot highlands of the Dark Continent and blows north, hot and dry as if a wind out of hell itself."

A wind out of hell. The nape of my neck prickled, as if Satan himself was breathing down my neck, his breath as hot and dry as the wind driving us north, his breath smelling of sulfur and brimstone, reminding me of the punishment awaiting me for my sins begun on the Dark Continent and continued in Lisbon and onboard the Theresa del Morau and most recently in Dzayer.

"It is a curse for those who wish to ply the sea from West to East, constantly blowing ships toward the north coast and forcing the helmsman to constantly tack to the south against the wind and causing great stress on a ship's rudder and rigging," Duarte continued, breaking into my guilty thoughts.

A curse. It was indeed. A curse for my wickedness, for my weakness of character and for having succumbed to the temptation of the devil. If we were to be blown off course again, or the ship damaged by the fierce winds and blasting sand, it would be all my fault, bringing hardship, perhaps even ruin and destruction, on Father and Uncle and the crew of the Theresa del Morau, all because of my fondness for pleasures of the flesh with those of my sex. I sank down in my seat filled with remorse.

"For us it is a blessing," Duarte observed, cutting into my thoughts again, "for we wish to sail to the north, and with a wind such as this we make exceptionally good time. It is a strange thing how something can be one man's curse and another man's blessing, but such things are not uncommon in this world."

Strange indeed. My greatest weakness was a most grievous curse, yet to Ahmar, the very same thing was a blessing. I had not thought of it the previous night, but perhaps this sirocco was a blessing, not as old Duarte saw it, but as God's answer to my prayers, swiftly carrying me away from Ahmar and away from temptation.

After washing up the pots and pans and peeling potatoes for the evening meal, I made my way though the wind back to my quarters, there not being anything I could do above deck. The wind blew without abate all that day and all night, and all the next day and night also. Having nothing to occupy my mind, I could not stop from thinking about Ahmar, about all that he had taught me about the Berber people and their ways, about the skills a cutpurse needed, some of which would benefit any man, and of course the sex we had engaged in, there in my little compartment, in the hold of the ship, and on land during our brief stay at Dzayer. Of course most vivid of all was our last time, the taking of my fig as he had called it, and perhaps, my taking of his. Though it filled now with regret and guilt, at the time it had been the most exciting and most pleasant event of my young life.

Each time I defecated I could not help thinking of how it had felt to have his hard, throbbing member up my asshole. Though I had felt him flood my rectum with his milk, I found no trace of it in my faeces, which I had to conclude meant that his seed had penetrated my bowels just as a man's seed penetrates a woman's womb and that it was still deep inside my body, waiting futilely to germinate and begin forming a baby. I could not put that image out of my mind, just as I could not put out of my mind the image of him fucking my ass there on the prayer rug on the roof of the building as the sun set, and of me fucking him, the two of us exploding with pleasure as the muezzin called the faithful to prayer. I had spurted my milk deep up his asshole, and I could not stop thinking that wherever he was at that moment, he still had my seed in him, just as I had his seed in me.

Being separated from Ahmar had hit me hard and for the first few days at sea I moped about as if I had lost my best friend-even worse: as if he had died. He was, I realized, the closest friend I had ever had. Oh, certainly I had close friends back in Viano do Castelo, and a couple very special and dear friends I had known all my life and with whom I had done everything, including sharing my dreams. Everything, that is, except what I had done with Ahmar, and with Prince Afonso and his bastard brother, and with several other boys over the past three months. But what I had done with Ahmar went beyond that. It was special, different from what I had engaged in with the other boys, some of whom were good friends but none for whom I had the same feelings as I had for Ahmar. He was my am attukale ousbihe, my very nice friend. With no one else had I shared such intimacies. For no one else had I felt such fondness, such delight in his presence. Such were the wiles of Satan, turning lust into a fondness of heart, the pleasure of the flesh into the pleasure of companionship. I lay in my bunk filled with confusion.

The wind from hell continued to blow another three days and constantly was Ahmar on my mind. Each waking moment I fought my memories of him, our conversations, our explorations, our lust, our sexual pleasure in each other, and each night I fought the temptation to bring myself pleasure with my hand. My member rose most frequently, often at the most inconvenient and embarrassing times, while in the presence of Uncle or Father, while serving the men their meals or collecting their plates, or worse of all, while reaching up to retrieve something from a top shelf, leaving the bulge in my trousers there for all to see and unable to reach down and cover my shame. To my dismay and horror, it even sometimes happened during our prayers before our morning and evening meals.

So great was the temptation to abuse myself I had to wrap my loins tight in my bed sheet so I could not reach under my night clothes. Even then, so great was Satan's hold on my mind when I relinquished control at night he quickly took over, torturing my mind with lurid memories and erotic dreams, and I would awake, my member stiff and my night clothes and loins wet and sticky with my spilt milk. Each night I prayed for forgiveness of my past transgressions and for my weakness. I prayed for the perverted desires that racked my body and my mind to stop. They did not.

There was one straw of hope that I did grasp. The sirocco. It drove us north at speed that even surprised old Duarte. For me it was driving me away from the Barbary Coast, the site of my most grievous sin, and greatest pleasure of all, having been penetrated like a woman, and driving me into the hands of the most dedicated and faithful of the Lord's flock, the most holy of all men, the priests and cardinals of the Holy See and into the hands of the Holy Father, Pope Innocent VIII, himself. Surly in the holy sanctuary of Rome and in the most sacred of sacred places, Saint Peter's Basilica and the Apostolic Palace, I would be able to take refuge from Satan. The sirocco was God's answer to my prayers for forgiveness, His way to lead me away from temptation. And so I silently thanked Him for my deliverance each morning before breaking my fast, while giving thanks for my evening meal with the rest of the crew, and with whispered sincerity each night kneeling before my bunk. I renewed my oath to never again seek the pleasures of the flesh with one of my own sex, admitting how meaningless an oath from a sinner and wretch such as I was, particularly considering how easily I had broken that very oath in the past. As a sign of my repentance and my good intent, I swore I would confess my deepest and most grievous sins the first opportunity I had upon reaching Rome.

We arrived at the port of Rome early in the evening of the fifth day, much to Father's delight after the delay that had been caused first by the calms that had befallen us after passing the ancient Pillars of Hercules and then by the storm and our sojourn at Algiers to make repairs to the Theresa del Morau. Unlike our arrival at Algiers, Father gave the crew permission to disembark, and they all did except for those who had drawn duty to keep watch aboard the ship this first night in port and for the Moor Mustafa, who to my surprise had rejoined us on our voyage instead of staying at Algiers, saying that he felt he had not fit in with his kind in Algiers and figured he would be better off continuing on to Cairo as had been originally planned. He explained that he preferred to remain onboard in that he did not feel safe as a moro wandering the streets of Rome alone. I found that amusing because several sailors had said the same thing about wandering the streets of Algiers as Christians. It also gave me pause to ponder how different and yet how much the same we all are.

Father, Uncle, Rabbi Abraham of Beja and I headed for the Papal Palace the following morning immediately after breaking our fast. Many of the Vatican buildings had fallen into disrepair while the Papacy had been forced to vacate Rome and we had been told the palace itself was mediocre despite the efforts of popes Paul and Sixtus to make repairs, but even so, I was still greatly impressed by the size of the hallways and meeting rooms and the basilica, having never before seen buildings with such high ceilings and immense chambers and of so many floors, nor such decorative and intricate architecture. Nor had I ever seen so many people bustling about, mostly clergy, nor soldiers so finely and colourfully uniformed. Rabbi Abraham said that they were Helvetian soldiers from a confederacy of canons somewhere in the Alps, first brought in by Pope Sixtus IV and most recently used by Pope Innocent VIII in his battle against the Duke of Milan. He said they were referred to as the Pontifical Guard and lived in barracks recently built in the Vatican.

Unfortunately the day of our expected arrival had long past and new arrangements had to be made and Pope Innocent VIII was a very busy man, though the Ceremoniere told us that His Excellence would make every effort possible to see us as soon as he could. I was much impressed that he would do so, and I must confess, felt a flush of pride that we and our mission were that important. Uncle later broke my bubble of self-importance and advised me that neither was the case and that there actually was a very good political reason for the Pope to see us. The Holy Father much favoured the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and did not wish to anger them by entertaining envoys from the Kingdom of Portugal with whom they were competing, but he also valued the Catholic stronghold he had in Portugal and the successful efforts of our past monarchs to rid our land of the Moor heathens. And of course there was the matter of wealth from Portugal's explorations along the coast of the Dark Continent that we were sharing with the Holy See, including the jewels and strange things we ourselves had brought back from the Kingdom of Kongo. For those reasons Pope Innocent did not wish to anger our King João either. It was a dilemma, Uncle said, worthy of King Solomon, except there was no baby to cut in half.

Rabbi Abraham sought out Cardinal Rodrigo Borja, whom he said had a sympathetic ear for the Jews and their persecution in Castile. Father and Uncle discretely inquired into a means of contacting Lorenzo de'Medici to deliver letters to him from King João concerning the status of his envoys Pero da Covilha and Alfonso de Paiva given his gracious funding of their expedition, and letters concerning our own mission to contact them and further their objectives, and I suspected, also seeking additional funding from Lorenzo de'Medici for ourselves. Uncle had explained that they had to be discrete in that an assassination attempt on Lorenzo de'Medici's life some years ago had implicated supporters of Pope Sixtus IV, and although the Papacy and Florence were at the moment at peace, it was a fragile peace.

They left me at the Papal Palace to mix with the young pages and the sons and daughters of visiting and local nobility, of which there seemed to be an extraordinary number, to learn what I could from their perspective of the financial status and political leanings of the Holy See, and the true hierarchy and authority at the Vatican, often those having the real power and influence not being the same as those who officially should hold such a position. Adults often talk of such private and secret matters in front of their children, thinking them lacking in understanding and interest in such affairs, and besides, those who have no vested interest or fear for their reputation in such matters often have the most accurate perspective.

I began by seeking out Fabiao da Pavalha who had travelled to the Vatican seven years ago to join the Sistine Choir which had been founded by Pope Sixtus just shortly before that. Although he was from my hometown, he was four years my senior and so had not associated with me nor my friends. I only knew him because we attended school together and because of his reputation, everyone in Viano do Castelo knowing him to have the voice of a nightingale. I was directed by one of the pages to the dormitories where the choir stayed. I found him there and recognized him immediately, he still having the same boyish features as when I had last seen him at the age of eleven, even the same thick, curly brown hair hiding his ears and covering his forehead, though he was considerably plumper. I was surprised to hear the same high soprano voice that had made him famous back home despite him now being eighteen years of age. He greeted me with surprise, and somewhat distantly, which I did not find unusual as we were never close friends, but also, I noticed, with embarrassment. That I did not understand. Was the position of Sistine Choirboy so high he was embarrassed to be seen with the son of a mere merchant? Was he ashamed of my Portuguese accent, or was he ashamed of his own ancestry?

It being noon, we joined the other choirboys in the common room for a simple lunch of rye bread, cheese and a thin barley soup. The boys, from ages five to nineteen, sat according to age and seniority and were, I found, typical boys, some loud and boisterous, others quiet and reserved, some serious and others waggish, but all filled with the enthusiasm and openness of youth. I quickly noticed two other things they had in common, they were all pleasant to look at, and many of the older boys seemed effeminate in appearance and mannerisms. The boys joked and laughed and talked about their teachers and their lessons and about their own particular interests just like my former schoolmates and I did, but, to my surprise considering the sacredness of our surroundings, their topics and their language were much more vulgar than I ever heard from any of my schoolmates. Recalling my promise to the Lord, I asked Fabiao how, with so many priests present, one went about confessing.

"The clergy, priests and Cardinals both, have a schedule for the hearing of confessions."

"They have a schedule for everything they do, from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep," observed a boy sitting across from Fabiao, having overheard our conversation.

"Even for taking a piss," observed a boy at the next table, a boy perhaps a year younger than myself and whom I had noticed had a particularly vulgar mouth.

"Right. They all take a turn attending to the confessional, from after morning prayers to before evening prayers," replied Fabiao

"It is not an onerous task," the boy across from him said with a smile. "There are not that many confessions made in this place."

That made sense. Living surrounded by clergy in the seat of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, one would hardly sin or transgress.

"If you are seeking a particular priest or wish to confess a particular sin we can tell you who to see and when to go," the boy beside him offered.

"You can also request a particular priest if you wish, depending on what severity of penance you want."

"What severity I want? What do you mean? Do they not all require the same penance from the sinner?"

That naive statement caused the cluster of boys at our table and the one beside me to laugh.

"You truly do not know how things work here," one of the boys at the table beside me observed with a wide smile.

"Suppose for example you have stolen a pendant from one of the courtesans who is a frequent visitor here and are feeling guilty about it," offered another. "You do not want to confess to Father Ignatius. He has a particular hatred for thieves, and a softness for courtesans."

"More appropriately, a hardness for courtesans," observed another, much to the laugher of the others. It took me several moments to catch the implication.

"Your penance would be most severe, likely a half dozen lashes with the threat of more if you do not turn over the pendant so he can return it, and reap the reward," said the first, jerking his hips just in case this bumpkin from Portugal did not understand.

"He is a priest," I objected. "You do not suggest he would avail himself of a prostitute."

"So, unless you enjoy receiving the lash, you will want to confess to Cardinal Benedict Goring. He finds the presence of harlots in the Vatican an abomination. He would most likely encourage you to steal even more to discourage them from coming to the palace."

"Of course if you enjoy receiving the lash, you will want to confess to Father Anthony. Father Anthony loves to administer the lash, especially to tender young boys," observed the boy at the table beside me who had made the comment about taking a piss.

"Unless you enjoy getting your lashed ass fucked," observed the more vulgar of the boys whose name I learned was Salmino and who was from the Republic of Florence.

"Now, if you are confessing to succumbing to the pleasures of the flesh with another boy, you do not want to confess to Cardinal Stephan Rossi. He is especially hard on any sexual vices. He will have you on your knees scrubbing the entire floor of the Sistine Chapel and saying a hundred Hail Mary's."

"Right. For pleasures of the flesh, you want to ask for Father Romaro. He is especially hard on boys who like other boys," observed one of the older boys, a boy a year or two younger than Fabiao, causing the younger boys to giggle.

"They are all men first, priests, bishops, cardinals, the entire whoremongering lot of them," one of the older boys at our table observed, somewhat bitterly it seemed to me.

"But if having sex with a man of the cloth bothers you," said one, obviously reading the shock and disgust in my face, "there are plenty of nobles or their worthless scions who would willingly pay handsomely for a tryst with a good-looking boy like you."

"Or if your family is a favourite of the Holy Father, or if the Holy Father seeks a boon of your family, he could gift you with your own personal moro or moro nero depending on how dark you prefer your meat, and either male or female to satisfy whichever sexual needs you have," observed the boy who had made the reference to Father Romero and a hard-on.

"Certainly, though I do not know of him using a slave for that purpose himself."

"He has no need too. The old man does not seem to have a problem finding a willing cunt in which to dip his quill."

My question resulted in snorts of amusement. "He had at least two illegitimate children before becoming pope, and now he has, how many little bastards running around?"

"Now that he is a man of power and influence, there is no shortage of women willing to part their legs for him in the hope of gaining some boon, or even to just have a child by him."

"He himself has no interest in boys or men, but he is not above selecting out the most handsome boys and men from the hundreds of slaves gifted him to Christianize to gift his favourite Cardinals to be sodomized for their support of him, or to a powerful and rich noble in return for some political or financial support."

"It costs a lot to keep this palace from falling apart, and to furnish the many apartments and chapels."

"The Catholic Monarchs have been particularly helpful in that regard," observed one of the older boys, evidently one of the senior boys and a leader amongst them. "They have gifted the Holy Father hundreds of Moor slaves for him to convert to Christianity, which he does so with great zeal, and whom he gifts other Cardinals with the same fervour to spread the faith, and as Julius has said, of whom he selects out the better-looking ones better suited for sex than for serving Christ to gift those Cardinals and nobles with a fondness of male flesh, especially young male flesh, in return for some favour."

I looked at them all in disbelief. "You may think me an ignorant bumpkin far from Rome," I said indignantly, "but I have seen something of the world. I am not so easily fooled as you may think."

"If you have truly seen something of the world as you claim, and are not weak of spine, then perhaps you would like to see something of the Papal Palace and become educated in the ways of the College of Cardinals and the perverts of the Vatican," said Salmino, his comment sounding more like a challenge than an offer.

"You may be in luck. The Holy Father is at this very moment in audience with Marquis Amedeo, one of the bastard sons of King Ferdinand of Naples. He is a very rich and very influential man whom Pope Innocent wishes to remain on friendly terms with, and one who has a particular fondness for young, dark meat," observed Julius, who seemed, to me, to have an extraordinary interest in the matter of congress between men and boys. (1)

"And the Holy Father has recently received a shipment of moro nero from the Barbary Coast that have not yet been distributed."

"So, do you wish proof?" asked Salmino, a smile of confidence curling his lips and a look of challenge in his eyes.

Salmino, Julius, myself, and two of Salmino's friends, whom I suspected were more followers than companions, took up positions near the audience chamber where supposedly the Holy Father was meeting with this Marquis Amedeo. There was much going and coming of priests and clerics but nobody paid us any regard, not even the Guard standing at the door of the audience chamber. We were rewarded with a brief wait. The massive doors opened and out stepped three men, one clearly his Holy Father himself dressed in his official robes of office, the second a man of about forty, corpulent with small piggish eyes and richly dressed, and following them, a dark-skinned man of about the same age as Fabiao with a smooth complexion and good looks for a black, his clothing plain but clean. They made no notice of us, and as they parted, we followed the Marquis and the black at a discrete distance.

"From the shine in Marquis Amedeo's eyes, he will not be able to wait to return to his estate in Naples to sample his newest sex toy," whispered Julius. "Which comes as no surprise. I wager he will head directly for the deflowering garden."

"It is a garden on the grounds of the Vatican, adjacent to the rooms allocated to the senior clergy who see to the daily operation of the Vatican," explained Salmino. "Private but available to select guests, and often used by the clergy to take the virginity of new choirboys and pages or to avail themselves of services of a courtesan. Those who use it hang a rosary on the gate to indicate it is in use so one is not interrupted. Come."

We left the Vatican proper and circled along the outer wall to where an old, gnarled olive tree stood. Though the lowest branches were higher than a man's reach, the lower ones having been cut off obviously to discourage anyone from using the tree to gain access over the wall, a group of young, agile boys such as we had no trouble scaling it and dropping over the wall into a small, well-maintained flower garden. Creeping up to a particularly thick hedge with evidence of a well-worn path leading behind it, something I noticed immediately thanks to the lessons I had received from Ahmar, we crawled behind it to where, again clear to the trained eye, the lower branches had been skilfully bent and trimmed to allow the person or persons behind the hedge to see out without the persons on the other side being able to see in unless they were to lie down on their stomachs. The Marquis and the black were already there, the Marquis sitting on a marble bench and the black kneeling before him.

"Such a beautiful face," the Marquis was saying, running his short, stubby fingers along the black man's cheek, "those eyes, and those lips, so rich, so full. You understand I have boughten you?"

The young man flushed and stared at the ground. "To please you," he said softly in a strange accent, adding as an afterthought, "master."

"And have you brought pleasure to another man before?" the Marquis asked, reaching out and untying the ties of the man's shirt and then drawing his shirt over his head. His chest, a tar black with teats just as dark, was muscular and smooth, and from the gleam in the Marquis's eyes, clearly to his delight.

"Excellent," the Marquis said huskily. "But I warn you. If you lie, ever, I will have you whipped, and that pretty face cut so horribly children will run from you in fear and women will avert their eyes in revulsion."

I had no doubt that he would. The Marquis's eyes had suddenly taken on a cold, cruel look, replacing the gleam of lust. Untying the ties of his breeches and undergarment, he spread open the tops, revealing his genitals. It was the first time I had ever seen the private parts of an adult, and I felt a tremor of discomfort pass up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stand. I knew I should not be looking and felt guilty and ashamed doing so, but I was also curious, and, yes, excited seeing an adult male's member and stones openly exposed. He had a thick triangle of curly hairs and his member was long, and like the rest of him, fat, and his stones hung low and were dark in colour and hairy also.

The slave looked down at the man's member, clearly abhorred by the idea, and slowly and hesitantly sat back on his buttocks. Swallowing hard, he slowly reached out and slipping his fingers about the man's limp member, raised it gingerly, as if afraid he might break it. He slowly lowered his head and parting his lips he slipped them over the man's knob, immediately gagging and drawing back.

The Marquis slapped him across the face with a loud, solid whack, hard enough to cause the man's head to jerk to the side. "Ingrate!" he shouted angrily. "I am offering you an honour, a privilege. Not every man can touch my person, certainly not there. Now put it in your mouth and suck it and enjoy the privilege I am giving you, or as God is my witness, I will have your own member cut off!"

The slave immediately took hold of the Marquis's member and lowered his head and slipped his lips over it once again. You could tell from the tenseness of his back and the bulging of the muscles of his neck that he was straining not to choke again as he stared straight ahead. His cheeks sunk in as he began to suck.

The slave obeyed. As he continued to suck, the Marquis's cock was evidently swelling as the man was having greater difficulty breathing and not gagging. He did not, the fear of losing his own member greater than his disgust at what he was being forced to do.

"You are truly new at this," the Marquis observed. "No man could fake such incompetence and naivety." That clearly pleased the nobleman. He reached down and slowly pushed the man's head back and up. His cock, now fully erect, glistened with the other man's spittle as it stood up between the Marquis's thighs. It seemed large to me, though Salmino later advised me that it was short compared to most men, though one of the fattest sausages he had ever seen.

The Marquis next instructed the black to lick his cock, which the man obediently did, sticking out his tongue and running it up and down the shaft and in circles around the knob. The Marquis sighed deeply and his stiff cock jerked excitedly as the dark-skinned slave encircled it with his tongue. My own member began to stir in my breeches much to my horror, and the more I tried to ignore it and to will it to stop, the faster it grew until it was tenting out my breeches most awkwardly and painfully. I prayed my companions would not notice, but to my embarrassment and shame, as I glanced at Salmino he winked and glancing down at the bulge in my breeches, he grinned over at me. Shifting so slightly our other companions did not notice, their attention being on the scene in front of us, he revealed he had a similar bulge in his breeches. Knowing he too had become aroused lessened my embarrassment and shame, but the fact also aroused me much to my consternation. Afraid what he might think or that he might discern from my look or my condition the sins of my past, I turned my attention back to Marquis Amedeo and the black.

He instructed the teenage slave on how to suck his cock, how to slip his lips up and down his member and suck and breathe at the same time, something which I realized I was well acquainted with and did now naturally without thought. That realization renewed my guilt and shame, and further aroused me, much to my embarrassment. Marquis Amedeo was clearly enjoying the administrations of his dark-skinned slave, and well I understood having experienced the pleasure of having my cock sucked many times, and the very first time a young black savage just as dark as the Marquis's slave. The black, on the other hand, was not finding pleasure in the act in the slightest, not from the look in his eyes, and from the lack of any erection evident in his trousers, though his trousers being baggy that I could not tell with certainty.

Sex without mutual pleasure. I had not thought of such a thing before. In all the times I had engaged in pleasures of the flesh with others, it was something that we had both found pleasure in. That two males could engage in sex with just one deriving pleasure was not something I had ever considered, and now was something I could not understand. How could one man derive pleasure when he knew that act was not bringing pleasure to the other, indeed, when it was causing the other disgust and shame? Of course the black's revulsion and guilt I could understand, having felt the same about what I had done after passions had cooled and my mind resumed control. I had not felt them during the act itself however. That was most confusing, and even more distressing. Why had I not? Was this heathen black savage more true to his faith and his god than I? He was a non-Christian and uncivilized; I was a God-fearing boy from a decent family. He could not be more faithful.

Besides disgust and shame, I could tell from the look in his eyes he was also feeling humiliation, being forced to perform this filthy, degrading act on another man. If he had known he was being watched by five boys he would have been even more humiliated. Still, he was a slave. Marquis Amedeo owned him, and it was his lot to do whatever his master demanded of him, even pleasuring him by sucking his cock. So why should a slave feel humiliation? I myself knew little about slaves and was not sure I was in favour of slavery, but this was not a human being like the Portuguese and other Christians. He was a heathen, and an ignorant savage, and it was natural he should be expected to pleasure his betters, and be thankful for the opportunity, regardless of what that pleasure might be.

Marquis Amedeo was certainly experiencing pleasure. From his laboured breathing and squirming and the sweat beading on his forehead, there was no doubt of his pleasure. His beady eyes were squinted closed and his head was thrown back. His balls had swollen to double their size and instead of hanging loosely between his thighs were now drawn up tight like a hairy kumquat beneath his fat cock. It was evident he was close to climaxing. I had never thought of a man ejaculating, or of a man engaging in the pleasures of the flesh with another man. True, the slave was a young man, eighteen at the most, but he was a man, not a boy. Of course I knew from the Bible and admonishments by the priests that men had sexual congress with other men. I had just never thought of men doing it with men. Boys did it with boys because they did not have wives to satisfy their sexual urges, and because, well, because boys were boys. Boys were adventurous and daring and challenged to do adult things that adults prohibited them from doing. But two men? What would entice a man to have sex with another man instead of a woman? The moment the thought came into my head I admonished myself. Why else than the pleasure one man can bring another. Had I not only a week ago engaged in the most intimate of sexual acts with a member of my own sex, to the immense pleasure of us both?

And then the Marquis was ejaculating, shooting his milk deep down the throat of his eighteen-year-old black slave. He shuddered and gasped and thrust his hips forward, clearly squirting his seed even though we could not see it. For the first time in my life I was watching a grown man, an adult, shooting his seed. As I watched I slowly realized I was breathing just as hard as the Marquis, and I was close to shooting my own seed. I risked a glance at my companions and found the same glow on their faces and the same gleam in their eyes as they watched the two men in the garden. I knew Salmino and Julius were both erect, and I suspected the other two boys were also. That I was not alone in becoming aroused by watching a man sucking another man to climax brought me some comfort. The Marquis finally had the black stop, and as the dark-skinned slave slipped his lips off the older man's cock, a film of milk oozed from his lips and over his chin, the whitish slime all the more visible in contrast to his dark skin. The Marquis squeezed his still erect cock and a droplet of his milk oozed from the tip and hung in a long pendant from his fat sausage. He instructed the black to stick out his tongue and lap it up, and to squeeze his cock and suck out the remainder of his slime, and as I watched the eighteen-year-old savage draining the swollen balls of the fat Marquis from Naples I felt a moistness at the tip of my own member and I knew I was moments away from spurting my own seed. Fortunately the fear and embarrassment of doing so prevented it from happening.

We waited for the Marquis to do up his breeches and for him and his slave to leave the garden before we slipped out of our hiding places. There was no tree on our side of the wall, but the boys had evidently done this before, and knew of cracks and uneven bricks that gave a light and agile boy enough of a finger and toe hold to scale the wall. We made our retreat over the top and down the old olive tree and back into the Vatican in silence. Myself I was recalling the sight for the first time in my life of two adult males in congress, and one of them ejaculating his seed, and struggling with the incomprehensibleness of what I had seen. Two adult men engaging in sex, one rich and powerful and with whom I am sure many, male and female, would engage in sex for his favour or for his money, the other a heathen and a slave, one a Christian man of nobility, the other a black savage. Two men engaging in sex, but only one deriving pleasure from the act. In the sanctuary of the Vatican, with the knowledge, even the facilitation, of the Holy Father himself. I had so many questions but nobody I could seek answers from.

"So, convinced?" asked Salmino with a grin, one of shared secrets, shared lust, and of being right.

"There is no proof the Holy Father knew what the intention of the Marquis was when he gifted him of the black," I replied, trying to justify what I had seen with what I could not morally accept. "Besides, the man is a member of the royal family of Naples, one of the idle rich, whom everyone knows is corrupt no matter what town or country they come from, and the other is a heathen savage, no better than an animal that ruts in the street. Your claim was of congress involving the clergy," I challenged.

"Perhaps you will have another chance to prove you are right," observed one of Salmino's followers before Salmino had a chance to respond.

We turned to follow his gaze. A stern looking man in his late fifties and in the black robes of a priest was coming down the hall. His face was flushed and he walked and scowled like a man in anger.

"Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere," observed Salmino, "and from the look of it in a foul mood."

"Probably another argument with Cardinal Rodrigo Borja," commented Julius. "Those two hate each other with a passion."

The man stopped, appeared to think for a moment, and then turned and approached one of the guards.

"Perhaps you are in luck. It looks like Cardinal Giuliano is in need of someone to help him forget his anger."

"And what better way to work off your anger than having a hot, rough fuck?" asked Salmino with a vulgar grin.

We watched discretely from the shadows. The two men had a brief conversation and then headed off together, to the delight of my companions.

"Off to the cardinal's private piazza," called Salmino and my companions took off on a run.

We headed toward the Vatican library and a portion of the palace that was better maintained than the rest, and then up a flight of stairs and down one hallway, turning left at the first intersecting hallway and headed down it, turning left again at the next hallway. The palace was, I was discovering, a maze of hallways behind the grand halls, private apartments and reception rooms. Stopping at a small, narrow window, Julius just barely managed to crawl through it and we followed, inching along a narrow ledge back in the direction we had come and then around a buttress thankfully overgrown with climbing vines to offer a grip for our hands and feet to end up on a flat, narrow roof of a portico, child size marble statues of dancing cupids and cherubs forming a balustrade atop the marble columns around three sides of the roof. From our vantage point on the roof of the portico we looked out over a rectangular piazza containing a number of statues, a fountain in the centre of which was a marble statue of a young, naked discus thrower, and assorted shrubs. A balcony on the second floor off the wall to our left looked out over the piazza also. Below it was a doorway leading into the courtyard.

This was, Julius explained, the private courtyard of Cardinal Giuliano, whose apartment consisted of the two floors to our left, the ones containing the balcony and the door. The roof of the portico upon which we were crouched had actually once been the floor of a similar balcony off another apartment behind us, the entryway now having been blocked off and its roof removed. The wall directly across from us had also contained a balcony off still another apartment overlooking the courtyard but it had been entirely removed and sealed shut. The remaining wall, the one to our right, was newly constructed and divided what had been a much longer piazza into two. The statues, Salmino informed me, were original ancient Greek and Roman statues of naked young men or replica's of them imported by Cardinal Giuliano, who had also ordered the other changes I have just mentioned. Cardinal Giuliano was, Julius said, one of the highest ranking Cardinals in the Holy See and one of three most likely to succeed Pope Innocent upon his death, which everyone expected would not be that many years away, the Pope having been in poor health and being of advanced age. (2)

The door opening onto the piazza opened and we crouched down behind the marble cupids and the tangle of vines that had grown up around them, Salmino assuring me that it was next to impossible to see us, particularly with the shadows being cast by the afternoon sun. Cardinal Giuliano and the Helvetian Guard stopped beside the fountain and the Guard laid down his halberd. Turning to face each other, to my total surprise and amazement, they embraced and kissed. The Cardinal caressed the back of the guard as they continued to kiss, and as his hands dropped to caress the man's buttocks the guard caressed the Cardinal's back. They continued for a considerable time, caressing each other and kissing, on the lips, on the cheeks, and the neck.

They then began to disrobe each other, the Cardinal removing the Guard's helmet and undoing his belt, allowing it and his broadsword to fall to the bricks of the courtyard. He quickly undid the ties of the man's tunic and removed it, and then the ties of his shirt and removed it also. The man was, I figured, about twenty-five, and in fine shape, his chest broad and muscular and his biceps firm and bulging. He was smoothly shaven and his chest and forearms sparsely covered with black hairs. The guard removed the Cardinal's hat and cowl, placing them on the marble bench beside them, and then untied and removed his frock.

"First the frock, and then the fuck," whispered Salmino, to the amusement of his two followers.

The guard removed his boots and the Cardinal his slippers, and the two men paused in their disrobing of each other to resume kissing and caressing each other, the Cardinal drawing the guard close and massaging the man's muscular back and kissing him feverishly, the guard slipping his hands under the Cardinal's white, linen undergarment to caress his flesh. Undoing the ties of the guard's trousers, the Cardinal massaged his naked buttocks as his breeches fell to his feet, and the Guard stepped out of them and then removed the Cardinal's body clothing. The Cardinal, whom I was told would be fifty-seven in December, had the body of a much younger man, his chest, arms and legs being trim and muscular, only his greying hairs belying his age. To my surprise, the Cardinal began to crouch down, kissing the Guard's chest and nipples, continuing down to kiss his flat stomach, and then his right thigh. He continued to crouch, pulling down the guard's hose and kissing his leg.

The two men, now naked, continued to caress and kiss each other, the Guard now taking the lead and kissing the Cardinal's chest and teats and sucking on his nipples. He continued on down, kissing the Cardinal's stomach which despite his age was flat and firm. I was told later that Cardinal Giuliano worked out daily to keep his body trim, often joining the Helvetian Guards in their daily exercises and even practising swordplay with them.

"And then taking the handsomer and more athletic of them, to his private courtyard for sexual exercises and practising with their short swords," Salmino had added.

Their short swords were presently growing in size as a result of the sex play. Already of a generous size, they grew even thicker and longer and when fully erect I swear that they were two hands length long at least, and they both had stones to match. The guard dropped to his knees and taking the Cardinal's cock in his mouth, he sucked on it gently, and then slipping his lips off, he licked it from the base of the man's stones to the tip of his wagging member, thoroughly coating it with his saliva. Unlike the black slave we had just watched, he needed no instructions. "Ah fuck, you make me feel so damn good, Anton," the Cardinal said. "I swear in the name of Christ our Saviour I do not know another man who can tease a man's cock and bring it such fucking lustful pleasure as you do."

I could not believe my ears. A Cardinal, a man of God, using such vulgar language, and with such passion. The Cardinal was, I was later told, particularly vulgar, especially when he was angry, and being an impatient man with a short temper that was often, and when he was aroused, and being a healthy, virile man, that too was often. I was told that he actually enjoyed women as well as men, the women young and beautiful, and the men young and athletic.

"Now come, I can wait no longer. I must sheath my aching dagger up your hot, moist arse lest I spray the fucking courtyard bricks with my seed."

The guard turned and bent over, and the Cardinal stepped up behind him and thrust his spit-slicked cock up the man's ass with one solid thrust. The Cardinal was, I was told, skilled in the sport of sodomy, and while he took his women gently, he preferred his trysts with young men to be rough. Grasping the young man's hips, he began to thrust to and fro violently, practically knocking the young man over. Grasping the back of the stone bench for support and spreading his legs to brace for the attack, the Guard threw back his head and clenched his eyes closed as the Cardinal roughly took him from behind.

We were in excellent position to see it all, crouched there behind the cherubs and cupids, the irony of them and us five youngsters being witness to the intimate congress below us not lost on me, nor I suspect, on my four companions who clearly had witnessed many such scenes in the past. So close were we that I could see the Cardinal's long, thick member thrusting in and out of the Helvetian Guard's asshole and I could hear the laboured breathing of the two men as their passions rose and the Cardinal thrust harder and faster. He suddenly paused and I figured he had stopped so that he would not spill his seed, which I had been told was a mortal sin and an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, or that he had spent himself. He paused for a long while and when he resumed some five hundred heartbeats later, I realized that he had paused to allow his lust to subside so he could enjoy this pleasure all the longer.

This pleasure he praised, the pleasure of the flesh with another of his own gender, I would never have imagined. Even though I was witnessing it with my own eyes, I could not believe it. A Cardinal nonetheless, and one of the highest ranking Cardinals in the Holy See if I was to believe my companions, and I had no reason to doubt their honesty after having revealed the dark secrets they had revealed to me this day. I did not understand. I had been told from the day of my birth that congress between those of the same sex was a sin, something despicable and foul, something shameful, an abomination in the Eyes of the Lord. Yet there before my very eyes was a man of the cloth ramming his member in and out of another man's buttocks, gasping and groaning with obvious pleasure. Just as unbelievable, I watched as he slowly reached around under the man and grasping the man's stiff member, began to stroke it, causing the man to tense and to sigh with obvious pleasure. To touch oneself was a sin, and to touch another man's privates was filthy and sure to condemn one to hell. So I had been told. If that was true, then why would a Cardinal be engaged in such an act? If it was not true, then why had I been told so by our village priest, and by Father himself?

I stared in disbelief as the Cardinal, totally naked save for the large topaz ring on his finger, pumped his fist up and down the twenty-five-year-old guard's thick cock, stroking it from base to tip and causing the man to squirm with pleasure, a pleasure I knew all too well, a pleasure I had denied myself and agonized over. I stared in disbelief as the Cardinal, a man of the cloth, sodomized a handsome, muscular man half his age, a man who surely had no difficulty attracting women for sex with his appearance, as his erect member plunged deep up the man's ass and then withdrew almost to the point of exiting. I stared in disbelief as the two men panted and grunted with exertion, the two of them fucking with wild abandon like two curs rutting in the street. This was not sex between lovers, nor sex out of desperation because there was no other way to release the pressure that builds up in a healthy man's loins. This was sex purely for lust, for the enjoyment one had in having a stiff, throbbing cock, a cock massaged by another's hand in one case, and a cock buried up another man's hot, moist rectum. This was sex purely for the pleasure that made one's cockhead feel that it was aflame, for the pleasure that came from giving another man the same pleasure as one was feeling.

I could not believe my ears nor my eyes as Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere shot his milk deep up the young guard's rectum, and as a heartbeat later the guard's milk spurted out of his swollen cock and sprayed the flower garden surrounding the marble fountain. We, the cupids, the cherubs, and the marble discus thrower stared wordlessly as the perspiring, gasping couple as they spent their seed.

We waited until they had washed off in the waters of the fountain and then dressed and left the courtyard before we made our way back to the window and inside the palace, and down to the main floor and back to the dormitory.

"Now do you believe?" asked Salmino, not smugly though he had every right to be so, but with a smile like a child sharing some big secret with a close buddy.

"I have to admit, Cardinal Giuliano did put on a particularly impressive performance today," he confided. "I could not help notice he certainly impressed you," he added with a mischievous grin as he looked pointedly at my crotch.

"I noticed he impressed you too," I responded, "all of you." They all laughed good-naturedly.

"If you want to see something really impressive, you should be present during one of Cardinal Rodrigo's orgies."

"Oh yes. Cardinal Rodrigo Borja is another of the most powerful Cardinals in the College, and one of the three contenders for the Throne of Saint Peter."

"And the most likely one to succeed old Pope Innocent," observed Salmino. "He is the richest and the parties he throws are most elaborate, and most entertaining, if you know what I mean." He leered and jerked his hips in emphasis.

"I think Cardinal Ascanio Sforza from Milan is wealthier. His father is the Duke for Chrissake, and the Sforza dynasty is definitely filthy rich. And a lot of the Cardinals owe him a favour. Of the three who would be the next pope, my bet is on him," Julius argued. (3)

"Perhaps," Salmino said with a shrug. "But you have to admit, one cannot witness one of Rodrigo's parties without getting a hardon."

"True. And speaking of which, I think it only fair having aroused our guest that we offer him an opportunity to satisfy his need."

I glanced at Julius and the others, all of whom were in evident agreement. "That is not necessary," I replied, inclined to accept the offer but uncertain what they had in mind, and mindful of my oath to God on the voyage to Rome. "As you can see, the need has gone down."

"But I am sure easily resurrected," Julius observed, and the play on the word given our surroundings did not go unnoticed as my companions stifled a snicker. "And I am thinking meeting that need with another male would not be a new experience."

I glanced at him apprehensively and, I admit, guiltily. How did he know? Was my embracement of Satan's perversion that evident?

"I saw the way you watched Amedeo and the moro nero, and Giuliano and Anton," Julius said. "The look on your face was not the look of one who was disgusted or repulsed with what he was seeing, nor was it the look of one who had never heard of men doing such things together. And the look in your eyes just now confirms my suspicion that you are not inexperienced in enjoying the pleasures of the flesh with another male yourself."

"So what is your preference? Fucking, sucking, or polishing the cane?" asked Salmino, curling his fingers and pumping his fist with a leer.

"Fucking," I replied. There was no point in denying my experience, and of them all, my latest experience with Ahmar was foremost in my mind.

"The fucker," I replied quickly. I had enjoyed being on the receiving end with Ahmar, but I was not sure I wanted to experience it again, and I was not ready to cheapen my memory of my first time with the one boy I truly loved by doing it with another boy so soon. "And how to you feel about sucking cock?"

"I am not averse to it." That I actually found it arousing and enjoyable I was not ready to admit. I was not sure I was ready to admit it even to myself.

"So let us go so you can bend over and be rewarded for your intuition," said Salmino with a grin.

Taking me to a room there in the dormitories, its purpose was evident upon entering. It was a small room, well-lit with a ledge for candles along three of the walls, and vented near the ceiling to the outside. Along the walls were pegs for hanging one's clothing. There was no furniture in the room which contained only pillows and one large straw-filled mattress covered by a linen sheet. We quickly disrobed and hung up our clothes.

"He has curlies," observed the youngest of the boys, a blue-eyed, blond haired boy of ten by the name of Hans. The tone of his voice and the look in his eyes was one of admiration and deference.

That Hans, and the other boy, Roberto, who was eleven, did not yet have pubic hairs and that Salmino, who was thirteen, had only recently begun growing them I was not surprised, but that Julius, who was sixteen and a half years of age, had pubes as smooth as a baby's I had not expected. I could not help glancing over at him several times to be sure.

"I have only begun, a month ago. Neither Roberto nor Hans can, nor Julius," he said proudly.

"My contralto is perfectly natural, not, as you can see, because I have become a castrati like your countryman Fabiao," he said with a grin.

"You know, one who has had his balls cut off. So he can keep his high boyish voice," he added, seeing my look of incomprehension.

"When he first arrived here, the priests were ecstatic over his voice and it was not long before he was singing solos in the choir. So enamoured they were of his voice that they had his stones removed before he turned twelve so his voice would not change, which it has not as I am sure you have noticed."

"You also probably noticed how much like a girl he looks, and that he is getting fat. That is also the result of losing his stones," Julius continued. "Thankfully they were not as worried about my voice changing, and it appears that when I do come of age it will not change anyway. I could never agree to have my balls cut off."

"Guess he felt his voice was more important than having children, or being able to spurt."

Castrati. Willingly. Sixteen-year-old boys unable to squirt. Cardinals fucking Papal Guards and forty-year-old noblemen sucked off by teenage moro nero slaves. I had much yet to see and learn of the world.

As I held his little, soft noodle between my thumb and first two fingers, I was reminded of the black heathen six-year-old who had first introduced me to sex, and of the fishermen's sons just outside Lisbon, and the two cousins in Algiers. I realized how widespread boyish curiosity and the innocent pleasure of fiddling with yourself and with other boys was, cutting across nations and cultures. I could not help wondering if that was true in all countries and all cultures in this world. As I stroked his little prick, I thought of how exciting it was to do it with someone new. It was as if I was doing it all over again for the first time. I also thought about how different it was having another boy's fingers stroking my most private part, and how different it was holding another boy's limp noodle instead of my own. I noticed my other companions had formed a circle, Roberto stroking Salmino, Salmino stroking Julius, and Julius doing Roberto. As we stroked each other we talked about what we had seen that afternoon, about seeing the teenage moro nero sucking cock and tasting a man's seed for the first time, about the guard Anton sucking Cardinal Giuliano's teats until they were hard, something until then I had thought men only did to women, and about how one's teats itched like the rim of one's knob when they were caressed.

Knowing that pleasure, I reached over and caressed Hans's teats and he responded by brushing his fingers against mine. Copying what we had seen earlier, he leaned over and sucked on one of mine and teased it with his tongue and I did the same to him. I squirmed with the pleasure of my nipples growing hard and itching with that sweet pain, and with the exciting and erotic new experience of sucking another boy's teat and feeling it grow hard in my mouth as his little cock grew stiff in my hand, and, of course, the experience of my cock growing stiff in his hand. His was small and thin, the size of my little finger, and I was reminded just how hard and how much pleasure a boy's cock can bring him even at that young age. He wrapped his fingers about mine, and though not that large compared to the cocks we had seen that day, I could see in his eyes his delight in holding the longer, thicker cock of an older boy. While we aroused and pleased each other, I could not help glancing around at the others. Though he had no hairs yet and could not squirt, Julius had an impressive cock, not as large as the members we had seen that afternoon, but larger than any other boy I had ever been with, and just as Hans had been eager to try mine, I was eager to see what it would be like to hold a staff as large as Julius's in my hand.

What with the fiddling of each other, the erotic conversation, and the recollection of the sex we had witnessed by the adults, the five of us were soon stiff and itching with arousal. Julius crawled over to me and taking my stiff member in his mouth, slicked it up with his spittle just as we had witnessed the guard doing to Cardinal Giuliano. He then turned and kneeling there on the mattress on his elbows and knees, he presented his ass to me. It would be the first time I had ever fucked a boy older than myself, and the idea of fucking someone two years my senior made my cock wag with eagerness, much to the amusement of everyone. Grasping his hips and spreading apart his cheeks, I placed the tip of my spit-slickened member against his hole and pushed forward. Being experienced, Julius of course pushed out at the same time and I easily slipped my cock up his asshole until my hairs were pressed against his buttocks.

Shuffling over to me on his knees and pilling up several pillows, Salmino knelt on them and offered his stiff cock to me. It was almost the same length as my own, and only slightly thinner, but unlike mine, it had a curve to it causing it to point upward. His balls, I noticed, were smaller than mine but hung lower in a much looser sack. They had not yet begun to darken as mine had. I eagerly leaned forward and inhaled, delighting in the unique fragrance of cock, and then I slipped my lips over it and was rewarded with its delightful, meaty taste. Hans joined us, standing beside me and placing one hand on my shoulder and the other on Salmino's buttocks as Salmino bent over and took the youngster's slender cock in his mouth. Roberto meanwhile knelt before Julius and as Julius slipped his lips over the eleven-year-old's cock, I slipped my right hand under Julius and wrapped my fingers about his long, thick staff.

It was not the first time I had engaged in sex with four others of my sex of course, having joined Prince Afonso and his valet Menendo with the two fisherman's sons, but this was my first experience in which we were all joined together in one way or another, which made for a very different experience. Not only was I pleasing two others, but each of them while being pleasured by me were giving pleasure to another. While Hans was squirming with the pleasure of having his cock sucked by Salmino, Salmino was squirming with exactly the same pleasure as I sucked his cock, and while my cock was throbbing and itching up Julius's ass with that same sweet pain Salmino and Hans were feeling, Julius's cock was throbbing with the same pleasure in my fist, and Roberto's little member was throbbing in Julius's mouth as Julius sucked on it and slipped his lips up and down the slender shaft.

Five boys each with a stiff, aching cock and swelling balls, three of them with a throbbing cock either in his mouth or up his ass, and in my case, one in my mouth and another in my hand. Julius's member was almost twice the length and thickness of Salmino's and with Julius's throbbing cock in my hand and Salmino's between my lips, I could not help noticing the difference. Still, despite the difference, both were throbbing and hot and both were itching with that sweet pain, as was mine. I wondered if the larger the cock the more intense that pleasure, and if it was so, I hoped I would have a monster cock when I was an adult. We all began to grow hot with our exertion and our arousal in the small, enclosed room and we were soon sweating. It beaded our foreheads and dampened our armpits and our swinging nuts. The room smelled of cock and perspiring balls and we gasped in the erotically scented air as the pressure increased in our swollen stones. Five boys, all aching for that ultimate pleasure, five boys arching and tensing with the same forbidden pleasure.

Roberto was the first, grasping Julius's head in both hands as he threw his own head back and quivered and whimpered with his orgasm. Whether it was because of the eleven-year-old's orgasm or the thought that he was the one who had caused it, or because of my fucking his ass and stroking his cock, but Julius was next, trembling and jerking his hips forward and drawing them back, thrusting his aching cock in and out of my tightly clenched fist, fucking it as if gone mad as his own orgasm hit. As he jerked his hips to and fro desperately, I was reminded that the sixteen-year-old could not yet produce his seed, which seemed strange to me, and because of that thought, or perhaps because I was aware that he and Roberto had both reached that peak of ultimate ecstasy, or perhaps it was the result of his hot, moist rectum clasping my own engorged member and his anus constricting tightly with his orgasm, I felt the twang deep in my crotch and my loins went weak as my milk surged up the core of my swollen cock and spurted deep up his rectum.

I was still squirting my milk up Julius's ass when Salmino came, his slender cock throbbing hotly between my lips and his seed suddenly spurting into my mouth. It was thin and watery and hot and I gulped it down, shuddering with the thought of drinking his milk while squirting out my own at the same time, the thought of his squirting down my throat to my stomach and mine squirting up Julius's rectum. While we were both squirting, I noticed Hans suddenly go bugeyed as he grasped Salmino's head and a moan escaped from his lips as the ten-year-old choirboy quivered with the same pleasure as Roberto and Julius were feeling.

Gasping and snorting openly with our pleasure, we remained united as our members throbbed and the sweet pain gradually subsided and a warm flush flooded our loins and spread through our bodies. Still breathing heavily, we finally separated and collapsed on the pillows and mattress. As Salmino drew his still stiff cock out of my mouth, a long, silvery thread of slime connected the tip of his cock and my lips for a moment and then broke, part of it swinging toward me and hanging from my chin, the other swinging toward his upturned cock and clinging to the underside. Another droplet of the thin, almost clear fluid oozed out of the tip and followed the thread of slime along the underside of his cock. Hans and Roberto glanced at each other and then at Salmino, and with a knowing smile and a nod from the thirteen-year-old, his two followers swooped down, tongues eagerly extended, and lapped up his sweet milk.

As I withdrew my own member, sticky and glistening with my seed and Julius's ass slime, a droplet similarly oozed out of my tip, but unlike Salmino's, it was thick and milk-white and hung in a pendant from the tip of my swollen cock.

"Can I taste yours?" Salmino asked hopefully, and I nodded agreement. He quickly lay down and flicked the droplet off the tip of my cock with his tongue. Another immediately appeared and was sampled by Julius, and seeing the wistful looks on the faces of Roberto and Hans, I grasped my cock tightly and milked out another two drops, one for each of them while Salmino managed to milk out a droplet for Julius. Why his was clear and mine milky and why his was thin and watery and mine was thick none of us knew, but we figured the difference was the reason his had almost no taste with just a hint of sweetness whereas mine had a very strong taste, not unlike goat's milk according to Hans.

We sat there for a while recovering, each of us lost in his own thoughts. I had no idea what the others were thinking, but I had a lot on my mind, and my mind jumped from one to the other, from the black slave being forced to suck the fat Marquis Amedeo with no pleasure himself, to Cardinal Giuliano fucking and masturbating the Helvetian guard Anton, both men appearing to find their congress most pleasurable, and of course to the five of us and our differences and our commonalities. Above all else, I could not help marvel in awe and surprise that it all had happened here in the seat of our Catholic faith, and by those far more knowledgeable and faithful and whom I least expected to succumb to Satan's vile temptation.

"How long does it take yours to refill?" Salmino asked, glancing down at my stones and back up at me.

"I do not know for sure," I replied. The thought of doing it a second time caused my member to stir, which everyone noticed. "I think it is telling me it is ready," I observed with a self-conscious grin as it tried to rise. My four companions were in agreement and quite willing to help it out.

Nico's father and uncle travel to Pisa to meet Lorenzo de'Medici to deliver a letter and seek additional funding for their exploration. Nico discusses his confusion and the doubts about his faith with Lorenzo's son, Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici, who hears his confession and gives Nico a very different interpretation of the Bible regarding the admonishment for man not to lay with man and regarding Onan. He then practices what he preaches by engaging in sex with Nico and two 7 yo boy scribes, Vino and Franz.

"So, Nicolau, have you learned anything?" Father asked as we headed back to the Theresa del Morau.

Although I knew Father was asking about any information I had gleaned from the pages and choirboys about the financial status and political leanings of the Holy See, and who were the real persons of power and influence, which was by far the more important things I had learned, my immediate thoughts were of information of more intimate affairs. Flushing with those thoughts, I found myself suddenly tongue-tied.

"I am told that Pope Innocent is financially secure, though there is much cost to running the Holy See," I began, stating the first thing to come to my befuddled mind. "That one of his passions is to wipe out witchcraft, not just in Castile, but he also had inquisitors travel to Germany to deal with witches and magicians who were causing freezing temperatures and failing crops. That-." I quickly cut myself off. I was going to say 'that he likes women and has more than a dozen bastard children' but I still could not believe that and to say so sounded blasphemous. "That he wishes close ties with the King of Naples," I said instead. "That another passion is to Christianize the heathen, to which end the Catholic Monarchs have sent him many Moorish slaves, bringing them much favour. And that he gifts the Cardinals and rich and influential noblemen with slaves, moro and moro nero, in thanks for favours given, or in hopes of favours to come." The last I mentioned hesitantly to see what Father or Uncle would say regarding such unchristian behaviour.

"So Mustafa has informed us," Father said, referring to the Moor we were taking to Cairo on behalf of King João. "I did not believe him, being a Moor and a heathen, but you have confirmed his words. That the Holy Father would condone the exchange of human beings for foodstuff, and use humans to reward and bribe others brings me great surprise, and great sadness."

"Were you told why the Cardinals and noblemen accept these slaves?" asked Uncle.

"And to sodomize them," I added, figuring Mustafa likely told of that also. I flushed with embarrassment speaking of such things with Father and Uncle.

My heart sank. He knew. He knew of my sins and my secret pleasures, of the new ways of enjoying the pleasures of the flesh with others of my gender I had learned this day. It had to be written on my face. Perhaps he could smell the sex on my body. A man's seed has a very distinctive odour, as it does taste. My heart shrivelled like a prune with the fear he could smell it on my breath. I struggled with what to say, not wishing to lie to Uncle and unable to do so anyway, but also unable to reveal my most vulgar and grievous sins to him.

"It does not matter how small or how unimportant it might seem. You can never tell when the most insignificant bit of information shared as gossip between boys might be of use in seeking the Holy Father's blessing, or seeking financial support. And what you might think unimportant, another might find great value in," Uncle pressed.

So, the look he had given me was one of encouragement, not accusation! Much relieved, I tried to think of something to reward his inquiry and encouragement and to ease my guilty conscience. "The Holy Father also seeks favourable relations with the Sforza's of Milan for they are very powerful and filthy rich," I observed, my use of the word 'filthy' coming from Salmino and causing Father to raise an eyebrow at the crude expression. "So said a choirboy I met from Florence," I quickly added. "He said the Sforza's are very close friends with Lorenzo de'Medici of Florence."

"Now, that I did not know, though it certainly makes sense. Men of wealth and power often become good friends, or bitter enemies. That it is the former is good to know," Father said. "Well done, Nicolau." He patted me on the shoulder and I felt very proud to have been of help. I also felt wretched for the things I had done that afternoon and could never tell him. If he ever found out surely I would be joining the ranks of the castrati by his own hand.

No doubt I was also going to be joining those sinners in hell. As I bowed my head and gave thanks for our evening repast, I felt like a hypocrite giving thanks after the transgressions I had committed that afternoon. To lay with another man as a man lays with woman is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. That everyone knows. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for their wicked ways, which included wanting to lay with the angels who had come down to earth disguised as ordinary men to see Lot. To spill one's seed is also a sin and an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Did He not punish Onan for spilling his seed on the ground instead of planting his seed in the belly of his brother's widowed wife as was his duty? The Bible tells us so.

At least Father Francisco tells us so, and says that it says so in the Bible. I would not know. The only Bible in our town is the one on the pulpit that Father Francisco reads from, and even if I were allowed to look at its pages, I would not be able to read it as it is written in Latin. I have no reason to doubt his word, and besides Father agrees with him and has said so himself, and I would never question Father. Yet this afternoon I saw a cardinal, not just any cardinal but one whom I am told could be our next pope, bugger another man, and cause him to spill his seed on the ground by his own hand. And I saw the son of a king squirt his seed down the throat of a heathen, black slave, a man, instead of inside a woman's belly. Men such as these are wise and certainly more aware of God's Will than I. So why then did they engage in acts the Lord has forbidden? And why did the Holy Father himself engage in such unchristian behaviour as the begetting of children out of wedlock and the gifting of slaves for men to sodomize, if what I had been told this afternoon was true? Such ponderous thoughts were too much for the likes of myself, and wondering about them was to no avail.

Shaking the thoughts from my head, I realized I had been staring straight ahead without actually seeing, and I now found myself eye to eye with the Moor Mustafa. As in our journey from Lisbon to Algiers, and from Algiers to Rome, he sat apart from the rest of the crew, just as he worked alone and slept apart from them. I quickly dropped my eyes, but as I glanced back up out of curiosity I found him still staring at me, his face expressionless. Perhaps he too was deep in thought and unaware he was staring though I doubted it.

Following our repast, I retired to my tiny cabin, in no mood for conversation with Father or Uncle or playing a game of chance with the crew who had remained onboard. That was a mistake as with nothing else to do, my mind returned to the thoughts and questions I had during the evening repast. Try as best I could, I could not get them out of my head. Hoping to clear my mind of such troublesome thoughts, I left my cabin and walked to the stern of the ship. There I found Mustafa sitting alone, as usual, and staring up at the sky. It was a clear night and the stars seemed particularly bright. Feeling that I should explain that I had not been staring at him during our meal, I approached him, but as I stepped up to him I did not know how to raise the topic.

"We have names for the patterns that the stars make, and names for some of the brighter stars," I observed. "That one up there is the North Star," I said as I pointed to it. "No matter where you go it is always in the same position so you always know where north is. The helmsman uses the stars to navigate at night." He made no comment. "It is very beautiful, the sky at night."

"If it is your wish," he replied, as if I had given him an order. It is little wonder the men avoid him.

As he talked about Allah, and the prophet Mohammed, and their holy book, the Qu'ran, the strength of his belief was evident and the more he talked the more passionate he became. He had begun somewhat reluctantly, as if I had no right to know and certainly no right to ask, but as he got caught up in his tale and, if I might not sound too proud, saw my genuine interest, he became almost eager to tell me about his faith.

"There are many commonalities between your Islam faith and the Christian faith, and the expectations of Allah and Mohammed regarding the behaviour of Moslems is not that different from the expectations God and Jesus have for Christians." "There are no commonalities," he retorted sharply, "only many differences. Yours is a false religion, and our imams call for the death of all nonbelievers."

I could have retorted that God said the same thing about non-Christians, which was a similarity, but I knew such an argument would be pointless, and I had no desire to antagonize him more than I had already inadvertently done. I also saw an opportunity to explore one of the many questions that had been bothering me, and I would not be able to do so if I got him angry.

"Yes, there must be many differences or our peoples would not be in such strong disagreement," I said, more to appease him than anything else though what I said was no lie. "Tell me, does the Qu'ran say anything about men laying with men," I asked, "like if it is a good thing or a bad thing for example?"

"What? No! Not at all. Where 3; why would you think 3; ?" I sputtered in confusion and surprise.

"Oh, that. No, I was not staring at you. I was not even seeing you. I was deep in thought and did not realize I was staring." He made no comment and only looked at me, skeptically I thought. "Anyway, thanks for telling me about your religion," I said as I got up. "It is late and I have a busy day tomorrow so I had better be going to bed." I turned and quickly began walking away.

"Why did you release me?" I turned and looked at him, having no idea what he meant. "That night, in Marvao, when the Castilians were going to assassinate your prince. Why did you cut my bonds?"

"I knew what they were planning, to make it look like your people had killed Prince Afonso, and to kill you and leave you behind as proof. That I felt was not right, even if you-." I stopped, suddenly embarrassed to say what I was about to say, though I was not sure why then, and still do not.

"Well, yes." He said nothing more, and I had nothing to add. I turned and began to leave again.

"There is one commonality between our faiths. The Qu'ran condemns congress between men just as strongly as your Bible does. It is a sin in the Eyes of Allah, and a filthy, degenerate practice. And there is the difference between our faiths. Moslems follow the teachings of the Qu'ran devoutly. You Christians openly practice what your Bible condemns."

From what I had seen that afternoon, I could not deny the accusation, and I knew too little about Moslems to argue their faithfulness. Mustafa did not hide his hatred for us, yet there was a contradiction in that also. "Father said you warned him that there were Barbary pirates waiting for us off the coast of Tunis."

"Because I knew they intended on capturing the ship and seizing the goods it carries, and on selling the crew as slaves to the Mamelukes and others who like white slaves. I do not like the idea of men being sold to other men as slaves, even if they are Christians." He said it flatly, and I could not tell if he was sincere or if he was mocking my earlier comment about even though he was a Moor.

My conversation with Mustafa had done nothing to resolve the questions I had. Indeed, it had only created more, and raised my anger besides. As I lie down on my bunk once more, I recalled what he had said, committing what I had learned about Islam to memory, not knowing when I would need or use the information but knowing that sometime in the future I could. I also repeated our final conversation word for word in the hope of making some sense out of it, but I could not. Why tell the pirates we were going to Cairo? I know he hated all non-Moslems, but Father and the crew of the Teresa del Morau had not mistreated him, and I myself had saved his life. Did that not account for anything? And why tell the pirates and then warn Father that they were waiting for us? That made no sense. But then, he was a Moor. They are an emotional and irrational people, and he himself a liar. Everyone knows the Moors were the ones who introduced sodomy to Castile and Portugal.

Despite Mustafa's denial, there were many similarities between our faiths and many of the rules and expectations he said were laid out in the Qu'ran were the same as or very similar to the ten commandments and other expectations found in the Bible. Many of the events that he said were described in the Qu'ran were the same events Father Francisco read from the Bible, and even many of the names were the same. Could Allah and God be one and the same? Given the centuries of fighting between our people that was absurd. Could he be right about Moslems following their beliefs devoutly but Christians not? I could not believe that Christians were not every bit as faithful and as strong-willed as Moslems. Of course everyone knew when it came to their faith they were fanatics. It just could be so. Yet, if the power of Satan was so great that he could tempt men the likes of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere and Marquess Amedeo of Naples, surely he could tempt the common, everyday Moslem. Mustafa had to be wrong, or lying. Of course Father Francisco could be wrong also. Perhaps his knowledge of the Bible and of Latin was imperfect. He was just a man. Perhaps laying with another man and spilling one's seed were not abominations in the Eyes of the Lord and Cardinal Rovere and Marquess Amedeo were not committing sins after all.

Of course there is another possibility, the possibility there is no God nor Allah and we are all wrong and Ahmar is right. While we had walked the streets of Dzayer and he had shown me the ways of a cutpurse, he had told me that the story he had told Father and me about being sought by the Brotherhood was true. He had stolen an expensive dagger from a wealthy and powerful citizen of Madrid, who had put out a reward for its return and the capture of the thief who had taken it. Of course Ahmar had bragged about stealing the dagger and had shown it off to his friends-why else would he bother stealing it he had asked. Word got around and reached the ears of the Brotherhood and he had already narrowly escaped their grasp several times, including the very afternoon of the day we had met. He claimed that so close had been his near-capture that he had prayed to his Uncle Farook, who had taught him everything he knew about being a cutpurse, and about pleasures of the flesh between males he had added, to help him find a way out of his problem. That very same evening he and I had met, and Ahmar was adamant that his uncle had arranged for him and me to be at the same place at the same time, the end result being of course him being escorted out of Castile by Father, solving his problem. He certainly had convincing arguments for the existence and the power of his Uncle Farook, as absurd as the idea is that a fat Berber thief and sodomite can be a god. I had a most troubled sleep that night.

The next day I found myself on the back of a horse once again as Father, Uncle and I began our journey to Pisa where Father had been told Lorenzo de'Medici, the head of the Florentine Republic, was visiting with his son Cardinal Giovanni di Lorenzo de'Medici who was studying theology and canon law at the Studium there. The road was wide and well travelled but the distance between the two was great, eight hundred furlongs, requiring a full day's ride at a hard pace from morn to dusk. Fortunately I had much on my mind to distract me from having my legs stretched an unreasonable width for any man or boy and being bounced around like a ship in a storm. All the thoughts that had kept me awake the previous night returned to haunt me, the conflicting information, the confusion, the doubts regarding my faith, the guilt, the shame, all of it.

"It truly bewilders the mind, does it not, the Papal Palace, Rome itself?" observed Uncle Paolo. "The immensity, the power, the sacredness, and yet immense temptations and corruption too."

"Yes. You are very right," I replied. If Uncle only knew the truth of it. As we continued on in silence, I vowed I would confess my sins and sexual trespasses to Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici and confess my weakness of faith, the questions, confusion and doubts that were plaguing me regarding my beliefs. Knowing full well my lack of success in keeping my vows, this one I swore on the name and health of my mother, there being no person more faithful than her and no person I wished least harm to.

The next morning Father sought a meeting with Lorenzo de'Medici and to our good fortune they were able to secure an appointment for that afternoon. We spent the morning walking the streets of Florence, and though I had felt no place could equal the grandeur of Rome, I quickly discovered I truly did have much to learn about this world. Rome was large and impressive and had an air of antiquity about it, but being large and old, many of the buildings were rundown and showing the wear of having thousands of people going about their daily business. Pisa was old too, but, to me, more beautiful, the buildings in much better upkeep, the piazzas clean and having many more sculptures and fountains, and the city having much more greenery. We of course visited the famous Piazza del Duomo containing the large cathedral with its elaborate facade, the baptistry with the most lavish ornamentation of any building I have ever seen, and of course the bell tower. How the eight-story tower remained standing with such a tilt has to be a miracle.

Arriving at the Palazzo della Sapienza in the Piazza del Grano, Father and Uncle went in search of Lorenzo de'Medici and I went in search of Cardinal Giovanni, Father and Uncle thinking I was doing so to find out more information about the Medici's and figuring that was a good idea, not knowing my real reason for wanting to seek him out. Again good fortune smiled down upon me and the first individual I stopped to seek advice on how I might find him informed me that he had just seen him on the third floor of the Studium library directly behind him. To my disappointment, I must have just missed him as the only one on the third floor of the library was a young boy whom I figured was close to my age.

"Excuse me," said softly. "I am very sorry to have interrupted your studies, but did you happen to see in which direction Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici went?"

"I did not go any direction," he replied with a grin as he looked up at me. "I am sitting right here in front of you."

"He asks with great disbelief and shock that the person sitting before him can be that said person."

"No! Well, yes. That is 3; I am sorry Your Excellence. That is Your Eminence, I mean. 3;"

I turned redder and redder with each mistake until I am sure I looked like a beet. He chuckled, which did not help. "I suspect you were looking for an old greybeard with a face wrinkled up like a prune and a disposition to match."

"No! Well, yes," I replied, totally tongue-tied and getting more and more embarrassed with each foolish utterance from my befuddled mind.

"Well, now that you have found me, what can I do for you? I cannot perform miracles, but perhaps you would like me to pray for a cure for this affliction you seem to have that prevents you from being able to discern if an answer to a simple question is yes or no."

"No, I can tell the difference-well, perhaps I cannot," I replied, so confused and embarrassed I did not know what I thought and wished God would strike me dead that very second.

He laughed, not a mean laugh at my expense, but one of genuine amusement, and seeing the absurdity of my situation and my answer, I found myself laughing also which caused him to laugh all the harder and me to laugh insanely violently in my nervousness.

"Now," he said, stifling his chuckling and reaching up and placing a firm hand on my hip, "take several long, deep breaths, and tell me why you have sought me out."

I did as I had been told, the sincerity of his manner bringing me back to sobriety again. "I came seeking to confess, and seeking answers to questions that have been plaguing me, questions regarding the faith."

"Well, I am qualified to provide both. I received my tonsure at the age of seven, and was named Cardinal deacon of Santa Maria in Dominica over a year ago, March 8 of last year to be exact, though those old pricks in the College of Cardinals in Rome will not yet let me wear the insignia of my office nor let me share in their deliberations despite the fact I know more about theology and cannon law than half of them put together." I noticed the flare of anger and the determination of revenge flash in his eyes for a moment. "But you did not come here to hear of their transgressions against me, but to tell me of yours against God. We can go to the Cathedral if you wish, it is not far, or," he said, looking around, "I can hear your confession right here. There is nobody around and I have already seen you so we do not need the bother of a confessional."

"Here is fine, Holy Fa-, I mean, ah, your holy, um," I stammered, my mind having turned to mush and fearing if we took the time to go elsewhere I would lose my nerve and not go through with it.

"Thank you Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici. Forgive me for I have sinned, Cardinal Giovanni de'-."

"Forgive me Cardinal, for I have sinned," I began again with the ritual opening. It seemed so long ago since I had gone to confession, and I realized it actually had been four and a half months, not since just before setting sail with Father on our first journey.

It sounded strange being addressed so by someone my own age or close to it, but then it was strange confessing to someone so young. "I have not confessed for many months," I began, and then decided I had better leap right into it or I would surely lose my courage. "I have engaged in the carnal pleasures of the flesh with another."

I suddenly wished I had opted to go to the Cathedral and used a confessional so there was at least a wall and lattice between us. I dared not look directly at him, but I could not help but see out of the corner of my eye the change in his expression when he discovered my sin was not with a female. It was not a look of anger or revulsion as I would have expected. It was a look of sudden interest, because, I concluded, because the confessions he would have heard and would have expected would have been between a male and female.

"Perhaps tell me of your first time, and then each experience up to this day, so I may better understand."

That made sense. What would he, a cardinal, a man of God, know of such things? And so I did, from the beginning. It felt good telling him, and to my surprise it came easily, perhaps because he was close to my age and not an adult. He listened intently, saying nothing, and, much to my relief, from the look on his face, which I could not help checking from time to time, he was neither angry nor repulsed by my transgressions. I told him of my introduction to pleasures of the flesh by the six-year-old black savage in the Kongo; my transgressions with Prince Afonso, his bastard brother Jorge, his valet Manendo and the two fisherman's sons in Lisbon; my inability to resist pleasuring myself with my hand; succumbing once again to temptation despite my oath with the Berber cutpurse Ahmar and the two young cousins in Algiers; and again despite my oath to God falling into temptation with the five choir boys after what we had witnessed in Rome. I confessed my confusion over what I had been told was a sin and what I had been told by Ahmar and what I had seen and been told in Rome, and of doubting my faith, and even the existence of God Himself. When I finished, he looked at me for a long time and I wondered if there was something more he was expecting me to say or do, or if he was considering how severe my punishment would be or if redemption was even possible given the gravity of my transgressions.

My heart sank. I knew they were most serious transgressions, and I had not expected my punishment to be light, but that my sins could not be absolved had not crossed my mind until only a moment ago.

It took me a moment to realize what he had said. "I do not understand. Does it not say in the Bible that thou shalt not lay with man as with woman?"

"No. What the Bible is telling us is that congress between a man and woman is very different from congress between two men, and we must not do the one as we do the other."

"Forgive my ignorance, Father-Cardinal, but I do not understand. Father Francisco said most adamantly and clearly and many times that a man may not have carnal knowledge with another man."

"A common interpretation, and one based on the old way the Church Fathers once thought. It is not surprising priests in outlying villages and towns and those who have not kept up with current dialogues on theology have not heard of new interpretations, or do not wish to accept them."

"No. Sex is for the bearing of children, not for pleasure," I replied, having had that pounded into my head by Father Francisco long before I had an inkling what he was talking about.

"Especially for the woman. A woman finds congress with a man painful and repulsive. She engages in sex because it is her duty, and her husband obliges because it is his duty. A woman who does it for pleasure or for money is a harlot. Have you had congress with one of the opposite sex?"

"And so it should be until you are married and ready to bring children into this world. Myself, I find the idea of congress with a woman repugnant, and I cannot think of anything more disgusting than inserting my member in a woman's slime-filled cunt. The mere thought fills me with nausea." He shuddered with the idea and sounded like he was about to vomit. "Now, congress with a member of one's own sex is a much different matter. You have had such congress. Did you find it pleasurable?"

"As it should be. Congress between men is not a duty, it is a pleasure. That is what the Bible is telling us, that man cannot have sex with another man out of duty for there is no issue from such a union, but he can have sex for pleasure, pleasure for him, and for the other man, unlike sex with a woman. And so it is as the Bible states, man cannot have sex with another man as with a woman. The ancient Greeks had it right. A man is to have a wife to create progeny, and a boy to bring him pleasure. Indeed, the ancient practice of a man instructing a pubescent boy in the ways of men and pleasures of the sex with other men as a man's responsibility is something that many modern theologians and philosophers feel should be the practice today."

"For their sinfulness and greed and self-centeredness. They were not destroyed for seeking to have sodomy with the visiting angels, but because they would force themselves on the angels. A man can force a wife to engage in sex with him because that is her duty as a wife, but a man cannot force another man for then it is not done for mutual pleasure as it should be. That is a sin."

I recalled the forced sex in the prisons of Castile and my revulsion and that of my Prince and I understood what he was saying. "But what about Onan, who was punished for spilling his seed?"

"Another old interpretation, based on the obsession of early Church Fathers with increasing the Christian population and spreading the faith and seeing anything other than planting one's seed in a woman as a waste. In actuality, Onan was punished for not planting his seed in the belly of his dead brothers' widow as was his duty and the Lord's expectation. And there I must say I do not blame him. Women are weak and find sex repulsive and only to be engaged in for procreation, unless they are harlots. I can think of nothing more distasteful than having congress with someone who does not wish to and does not enjoy it, or who will do it with any man and several men in a row for money, and as I said, I find the idea of dipping my quill in a woman's slime-filled hole repulsive. I much prefer congress with those of my own gender who engage in sex willingly and for the pleasure it brings them and their partner."

So that was why he was so receptive to my confession! He was a sinner as was I. He found enjoyment in pleasures of the flesh with members of his own sex just as I did. I had never considered that possibility, but in hindsight it was reasonable. If Satan could tempt grown adults, why not a fourteen-year-old boy? And if one of the most powerful cardinals in the Holy See and potentially our next Pope succumbed to the pleasures of the flesh with another male, why not a newly appointed cardinal still in training. I had come for guidance and redemption from one who wallowed in the slime pit I was trying to escape from. That was like a lamb seeking help from the wolf.

"You are still not convinced," Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici observed. I had made no attempt to hide my disappointment. "I can prove that it is God's design for man to have congress with man."

"You can?" I asked with surprise and a glimmer of hope. Proof? If he could prove it-.

That was his proof? That was no proof at all. I already knew the pleasure that brought. Besides, I was most reluctant to do as he suggested. Only one other had been granted that access, one that I had loved, and still did, and I did not want another to sully my memory of that precious time together so soon. I had no sooner thought the absurd thought then I realized how ridiculous I was being. A boy cannot love another boy as a man loves a woman, and one cannot sully something that is already filthy and debased. I glanced around.

Only a moment. It had taken Ahmar and me a full candle mark each. Something so special, so pleasurable, should not take just a moment. I sighed. Well, why not? As I undid my belt and untied the ties of my breeches, Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici stuck the first finger of his right hand in his mouth. Bending over and exposing my ass to him, I might just as well have been one of the male whores that had lined the docks in Dzayer. I certainly felt like one. Squatting down behind me, he placed the tip of his first finger, now glistening with spittle, against my opening and as I felt him push in I pushed out, as I had learned. I was no better than the boy whores of Dzayer that Father had so despised. His finger slipped up my hole, past the first and second knuckles and up to the third. Instead of sliding it in and out as I had learned to do, he instead wiggled the tip and slowly twisted his finger. Suddenly I felt a sharp stab slice from his fingertip up the core of my cock to its tip and I could not help but jerk. He repeated the motion, causing me to jerk once again, and as my member began to rise I felt the strongest urge I have ever felt to squirt my seed. He repeated the motion a couple more times with the same results and then removed his finger.

"I am told a woman has the same spot at the entrance to her cunt, at the top, but not a corresponding one up her ass. Now I ask you, what other reason would a man have the same pleasure spot up his ass, at a depth equal to the length of an average man's prick, if not because it is God's design for man to lay with man?"

I could think of no other reason. Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici smiled, seeing that he had made his point. "Come, now that the cock has been aroused, it must be satisfied, and I know just the pair of boys to do it. And on the way you can tell me the names of those cardinals and priests that the choirboys said enjoy pleasures of the flesh with boys and with other men "

I was reluctant to engage in gossip and to reveal the secrets of others but I could not lie to a cardinal, even if he was the same age as I and not yet allowed to wear the red robes of his office. Besides, I could see no point in not revealing information he could easily find on his own, and so I did. Following him to another part of the Studium, we entered a large room where a half dozen scribes were bent over their desks next to a row of large windows labouriously copying the pages of the Bible. After speaking to the man in charge, an old man with a hunched back from years bent over a desk, he approached two curly-headed youngsters of about seven and motioned for them to accompany us. I noticed the old man was not particularly pleased, but regardless of his age, Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici was a cardinal and the old man, from his robes, a mere deacon.

The room we went to was richly furnished with walnut bookcases and desk, thick velvet curtains, four large leather chairs in addition to a larger, more ornate one behind the desk, a divan with many cushions, an exceptional wood carving of Jesus on the cross on one wall and several exceptional religious paintings on another, and expensive Flemish tapestries on the other two. Having spent much time with Father and Uncle in the business, I was able to recognize authentic work by the great masters, and these were all authentic.

"This is my office," Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici said, gesturing around the room. "Go ahead and look around," he said, noticing my interest, "I will only be a moment. Oh, and this is Vino and Franz," he added as he disappeared behind a screen.

His office! The opulence before me easily equalled that of Prince Afonso. If my host was the one responsible for selecting the furnishings, he had excellent and expensive tastes and an appreciation for the fine arts. That I was certain of from the knowledge I had gained from Father and Uncle.

"Your accent, by the way," my host said from behind the screen, "I do not recognize it. You are not from Tuscany."

"A long way away," he said, impressed. "Surely you have not travelled all this way to confess to me."

"No. I am here with my father and uncle, who have come to see your father with messages from King João regarding the envoys he helped finance to explore a possible alternative route to the Far East, and to search for the Kingdom of Prester John, and, I suspect, to seek support for our own voyage to Cairo."

"I see," he said, emerging from behind the screen. He had changed clothes, and was now dressed in the red hat and cape of a cardinal. "I am not allowed to wear the insignia of my office in public," he explained, "but what I wear in private is my business."

"You look very regal, Excellency-I mean your Eminence. And very handsome." I said so sincerely, not being the type to flatter or act the sycophant. He smiled at the complement, obviously pleased. Pulling his chair out from behind his desk, he motioned for me to sit beside him.

"Please, no more titles. Just call me Giovanni. Vino, Franz, this is Nicolau Ribeiro, a most important guest. He has travelled far to see us. If you succeed in entertaining him, perhaps he will reward you."

He gestured for them to begin, and the two boys did so eagerly. Turning to each other they wrapped their arms about each other and began to kiss and caress each other. They did so lovingly and gently, gazing into each other's eyes with a fondness reserved for the best of friends, or for lovers. As they kissed and caressed, they began to disrobe each other, and to kiss and caress the flesh they exposed until the two of them stood before us completely naked. Vino, who had dark hair and a darker complexion, slipped his fingers about Franz's soft, slender member and began to stroke it as he kissed him, and Franz quickly copied his action. Franz's complexion was extremely light, almost pink, and lighter than any person I have ever seen. His eyes were a deep blue and his hair the colour of straw. As the two naked boys kissed, embraced and caressed, I was reminded of the dancing cupids and cherubs forming the balustrade in the piazza of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere. Unlike the Cardinal and the Helvetian Guardsman, the two boys were hairless except for the hair on their heads, and exhibited the sweetness and innocence of childhood. Their sex play just that, play, and they engaged in it with all the excitement and happiness of any two children at play. It was not long before the two boys were sporting little stiff pricklets. They were not the only ones who had gotten hard and I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair, wishing I could reach down and straighten out my cramped erection without notice.

"Well done," Giovanni observed, clapping his hands, "and you have, if my eyes do not deceive me, entertained Master Ribeiro quite successfully." He gave me a suggestive leer and I began to blush with embarrassment. "Your face is the same colour as my robes," he said with a laugh, causing me to turn even redder. "Now, Nicolau, which of these two entertainers will you reward with what he has aroused?"

"Surely, you should choose first, Cardinal-Giovanni," I corrected, deferring to him, the two boys being of equal delight to my eyes. At first it had seemed strange to refer to him as Cardinal, now it seemed just as strange to refer to him by his first name.

"Franz is the third son of one of the noblemen in the German Empire sent to the Studium of Pisa to serve as a scribe. Many of his countrymen are of such pale skin and flaxen hair."

"And are all noblemen's sons in the German Empire as well educated as him at such a young age?"

"Yes. But one does not need to know how to read to copy script. Indeed, the teachers here have found those who cannot read copy better. They are not distracted by words, and concentrate all the harder on reproducing the exact letters, not knowing what they mean. Franz and Vino are particularly skilled in scribing. It is their fine, delicate fingers I suspect, and a certain dullness of mind that allows them to sit all day at such a tedious task. Fortunately they and those fine, delicate fingers are much skilled in another thing much more interesting and exciting," he added with a smile. I was much amazed that boys of such a tender age were charged with something as important as copying the Bible. "But come, I find talk difficult for my mind when the flesh demands attention."

The flesh was demanding attention, and he was correct about the mind not being able to focus clearly when one's stones are calling. The two boys eagerly joined us and engaged us in the same play as they had been engaged in with each other with the same enthusiasm and carefree attitude, kissing and caressing us and slowly removing our clothing and kissing and caressing the flesh they exposed. For them it was a game and new and fun. I had, of course, worn my finest clothing, the doublet, breeches, and hose I had been gifted with the day I had been honoured by King João at his court in Lisbon, having wanted to make a good impression. I noticed as he removed each article of clothing, Franz carefully folded it and placed it on one of the leather chairs. Vino similarly carefully draped Giovanni's robes on one of the other chairs. The boys were clearly experienced in the handling of fine clothes.

Vino soon had Giovanni totally disrobed, as Franz had me. As I watched his slender fingers wrap about my erect member it throbbed fiercely in his hot little hand and I wondered how he found holding another boy's most private part, and one that was four times the size of his own. From the sparkle in his eyes and the curl of joy on his lips, I had my answer and it caused my cock to throb all the more fiercely. Knowing how horny I was feeling, the youngster wasted no time kneeling before me and as he took my stiff member in his mouth I felt a quiver pass up the core of my cock in response to being in his hot, wet mouth. He was truly skilled and experienced, for feeling the tremor of my cock he immediately clamped his lips down hard below the knob, effectively quelling my passion and cutting off my desire. It soon returned of course as he swirled his tongue about my knob and as his mouth filled with spittle and drenched my cock. Vino at the moment was also drenching Giovanni's member with spittle. I noticed the Cardinal had a patch of fine, curly hairs above his member and his stones hung low in a loose, pendant sack several shades darker than the rest of his skin. His member was erect and about the same length as my own but considerably fatter, but then Giovanni was a good two stones heavier than I, having the full, round face of a cherub, soft, plump breasts, a round stomach, and thighs that would take three hands to encircle.

Having fully coated our members with their spittle, the two boys turned and dropping to their knees and elbows side by side, presented their buttocks to us. "You will recall my earlier proof regarding God's design?" asked Giovanni as we knelt behind the two boys. I nodded. "Well, for those who say men should not have congress with young boys, ask them why it is that even boys as young as this have the same pleasure spot in the same place if they were not meant to be fucked?" With a smile, he sank his cock up the rectum of young Vino, and I did the same with the same eagerness to Franz. Feeling the pleasure of having one's erection surrounded by hot, moist boy flesh, I had to ask the same question. If this was a sin, then why did God design it to bring such immense pleasure, not just to the one fucking, but to the one being fucked?

It was a good theological question, but one quickly forgotten as the pleasures of the flesh once again gained control of the mind, and for the next while I concentrated on those pleasures pulsating out from our union, throbbing through my loins in time with the throbbing of my cock and of his hot ass, and I knew from experience, throbbing out from our union through his body like the ripples in a pond. As I drew my hips back and eased my cock out of his hole he constricted his muscle and clamped down on my member and as I sank it back up his rectum he relaxed. Together we worked toward that ultimate of pleasures and as we did so I reached around under him and stroked his little pricklet and was delighted to feel it throbbing with pleasure also. Our breathing grew heavy and I finally paused in order to prolong the pleasure and my young partner clamped his ring about my cock below the knob to help quell my desire.

Giovanni and Vino did the same, and when they once resumed, so did I and Franz. It was strange doing it side by side with Giovanni, and not for a moment did I forget that he was a cardinal even if he was unable to attend the concave in Rome, and though, I learned later, only four months older than myself, having been born in December in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and seventy-five, he was far more schooled and knowledgeable about matters of religion and sex. He was also a boy, like myself, filled with the desires and needs of a boy, and he rammed his stiff, aching cock in and out of the arse of the young seven-year-old boy scribe with as much desire and as much pleasure as I, and, I noticed, he too took delight in stroking the young boy's little prick.

Giovanni's breathing became laboured once again and from the contortions of his face I could tell he was feeling the same sweet pain as I was as the four of us approached our climaxes. The thought of coming in the presence of and along with one of his lofty and hallowed position brought me over the brink and I could not hold back as I felt the burning gush up the core of my cock and the burning of the tip of my member as my seed spurted out of my body and up the rectum of the young German nobleman's son. I grasped his smooth, white buttocks, contrasting sharply with my darker fingers and absurdly reminding me of my mother's hands kneading dough, and I grunted and snorted openly with my pleasure like a common cur in rut. The boy was gasping and squirming and quivering with what had to be his own orgasm, and beside us, Giovanni and the boy Vino were similarly locked in that sweet moment of mutual climax.

We finally withdrew and collapsed there on the floor, our chests heaving with our exertion and our pleasure, our glory poles sticking straight up in the air, anointed with the slime from the asses of our young partners and glistening with our spent seed. The two boys similarly lay there gasping for breath, their faces flushed with the pleasure of having been fucked and of having had their little pricklets stroked. We lay there for a long time, the four of us lost in our own thoughts.

"The boys did a good job of entertaining us," Giovanni finally observed. "What do you say we do the same for them?"

Whether the pleasure of the flesh with another male was Satan's temptation or God's design did not matter at the moment. I was flushed and numbed with pleasure and the thought of experiencing that pleasure again caused the flame of desire in my loins to flare once more. The two of us embraced and kissed and as I felt Giovanni's fingers massaging my back I similarly massaged his, aware for the first time of the sheen of sweat coating our bodies. He kissed me gently and lightly and his touch was delicate and feather-light. I was reminded of my lovemaking with Ahmar that last night in Algiers, but this was different. Giovanni was probably close to three stones heavier, his breasts softer and plumper and more like a girl's than a boy's, and though his caresses and kisses were gentle and pleasing, I did not feel the same urgency nor the same caring as when Ahmar and I had kissed and caressed.

That is not to say that I did not find our kisses and caresses pleasureful and arousing for I did. It was just different, not just because of the physical differences between Ahmar and Giovanni and not just because I knew Ahmar much better due to the common experiences the two of us had shared before that sharing of the most intimate and pleasurable experience of all, but because while I liked Giovanni and felt the two of us could become good friends, I did not love him like I had Ahmar. Besides, Giovanni was a cardinal and I a merchant's son, he was highly educated and knowledgeable in theology and cannon law whereas I had dropped out of school to journey with my father and uncle. We were of two very different stations. Still, we were united in many ways also. We were both males, we both felt the same desires and the same pleasures from the pulsating tube between our legs, and we both found the same delight in the pleasures of the flesh with another of our own gender.

Of course being watched by the two seven-year-old boys made our sex play different also. I was acutely aware of the wide-eyed wonder and delight of the two boys as they watched our every move, and of the fact that we were causing them to become aroused themselves. As Giovanni and I fondled each other's members and stones the two boys began to fondle each other, and as my member began to grow stiff in Giovanni's hand so his member began to swell in mine. I realized as we became erect that there was a very strong possibility that he would want to fuck me, and I was all right with that. Nobody could take away what Ahmar and I had experienced, and being fucked by someone else in no way lessened what the two of us had done. Getting a jar from a drawer in his desk and leading me over to the divan, he piled several pillows in the centre and then lay on his back with his hips elevated on the pillows. Spreading apart his legs, he motioned between them and I realized that he wanted me to mount him like that. Surprised that he wished to be fucked first, and in that position, I was nonetheless agreeable and I readily knelt between his outspread legs. Taking the jar, I smeared the ointment over my stiff cock and greasing up my first finger, I inserted it up his ass and greased it, taking the time to find and stimulate that spot that he had made me aware of. The ointment was fragrant but unlike that Ahmar had used, it had no numbing effect.

Spreading his legs further apart and grasping his buttocks and pulling his cheeks apart, he lay there with eager anticipation in his eyes as I shuffled closer to him and placed the tip of my now greased cock against his lubricated hole. To my surprise and relief I penetrated him easily and slid my cock up his ass with one swift motion. I paused to adjust the position of my knees and then bent over him and placed an arm on either side of his body. It felt strange doing it in this position, and I had the sense of how a man must feel fucking a woman. That was a weird thought, to think of myself as the man and him as the woman but it was not a totally incorrect thought as he told me later that he much preferred to be fucked than to do the fucking.

He did enjoy it, more than anyone I have ever fucked before. As I penetrated him, he inhaled deeply and pushed out to aid me, and I could see the delight in his eyes as I sank my stiff cock all the way up his rectum until my balls were pressed against his body. As I began to pump my hips to and fro, working my cock in and out of his body, I could see him concentrating on the sensations I knew were rippling up his rectum. I found it awkward at first, but as we continued I set up a rhythm and we worked together, him constricting his anus as I withdrew and then pushing out as I sank my cock back up his asshole. He smiled up at me and I smiled back and he reached down and began to stroke his cock as I fucked his ass. Soon his eyes became glassy and he stared up at me dreamlike as he concentrated on the pleasures of being fucked and of stroking his cock and I concentrated on the pleasure of having his hot, moist ass surrounding and gripping my pulsating member.

Having spurted my seed once already, it took me longer to reach that point the second time. As my breathing quickened, so did his, and as the pressure increased between my legs I stared down into his eyes. He stared back up into mine and I could tell he knew I was about to squirt, and that he was eager for it to happen. I inhaled deeply as I felt the twang deep up my groin and I tensed as I felt my seed race up the core of my numb cock and spurt out the tip with a burning ferocity. I felt faint as my seed spurted out in time with the throbbing of my cock. And then he began squirting too, his seed spurting out of his cock and shooting up into the air to arch and fall back down on his chest, lacing it with long, sticky, milky streamers as I flooded his rectum with my seed. His chest rose and fell as he inhaled and exhaled deeply, his eyes taking on a glaze as the two of us came. I filled his rectum with my milk and my swollen cock slicked in and out of it as I continued to fuck him, and he groaned with delight as he lacing his chest and nipples with streamer after streamer of his fresh seed. As I had thought what I would say and do as I travelled to Pisa, I had never expected my confession to end like this!

Returning to the inn, I found Father and Uncle in a state of dejection, disappointment, and anger like I had never seen before. Father was particularly in ill spirits and hardly touched his evening repast, which was most uncharacteristic of him. While gladdened to hear King João was sending us to seek out information about the king's enjoys, Pero de Covilha and Afonso de Paiva, whom he had helped fund along with a fellow Florentine banker, Lorenzo de'Medici was most disappointed in the lack of financial return for his effort and declined the request to give Father a letter of credit to continue and extend his search for the Kingdom of Prester John and an alternative route to the spice lands of the Far East.

"A full days ride here, and a hard and miserable one," Father complained bitterly, being as comfortable on the back of a horse as I was, "another day back, and a day wasted here, all for what? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! We could be three days on the sea and well on our way to Cairo by now!"

"We had to wait for an audience with the Holy Father and his blessing of our journey to Cairo anyway," Uncle pointed out.

"Bah! We should have waited and gotten his blessing for this blasted, wasted journey to Pisa," Father snorted. "As for Cairo, what is going to be the point now? Without Medici's extra financial backing and with the cost of our extra days of delay and of repairs we had to make to the Theresa del Morau, we will barely arrive there than we would have to turn around and head back! The few weeks we can afford to stay there will not be enough to do any serious exploration!"

Uncle Paolo glanced at me and shrugged. We both knew there was little chance of reasoning with his brother when he was in this type of mood. The only good thing about it was that in his anger and frustration Father had forgotten about my own mission and did not ask about it. If he had asked, I do not know how I could have answered without raising suspicions. We finished our meal in silence and retired to our room after making arrangements to have our horses ready at sunrise for the trip back to Rome, an experience none of us were looking forward to. We turned in early, being in no mood for talk and wanted to be rested up for the arduous journey on the morrow. I had much to think about and was not ready for sleep, and I lay there trying to recall everything that had transpired that afternoon with Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici. Father twisted and turned, too angry to sleep either. When Uncle began to snore, it did not help either of our moods. Suddenly there was a pounding on the door and a voice in the hallway called for Father.

Grumbling about what was wrong now, Father drew on his trousers and threw open the door with a scowl. There stood a young man who stared at Father wide-eyed with surprise and fear at his countenance, and he handed Father a parchment with trembling hand and advised him he was to wait for a reply. Father lit a candle and in its dim light I could make out from his colours the man was wearing the livery of the house of the Medici. "By God," Father muttered, or so it sounded to me, and a few other mumbles which I could not make out as he searched in his travel bag for parchment and his quill and bottle of ink. Hastily writing down something, he folded it and sealed it with a bit of melted wax from our candle, stamped it with the seal of the Ribeiro family, and handed it to the messenger, apologizing for his initial reception and thanking him for his patience. "What is it?" asked Uncle, having been woken by the pounding on the door and sitting now on the edge of his bed in his nightclothes. "What is wrong?"

"What did you say to Cardinal Giovanni de'Medici?" Father asked, ignoring his brother's question and turning on me.

My heart sank. So that was what the message was about! I was too surprised to answer. A confession was a sacred sacrament between the confessor and the priest hearing his confession, but then how can one trust the vows of a fourteen-year-old not yet allowed to wear the insignia of a cardinal, or expect a supposedly faithful man of the cloth who blatantly ignores the holy word in the Bible and has congress with others of his gender to honour the secrecy of the confessional? Evidently he had second thoughts after our encounter, and had seen fit to tell Father of the sins of his son. Stricken with fear and my heart heavy with shame, I opened my mouth, not knowing how to begin.

"Whatever it was, he has convinced his father to reconsider his decision," Father said with a wide grin.

"He, Lorenzo de'Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, says that after our meeting he talked to his son, who had much praise for Nicolau, and who has spoken of our enterprise most favourably. He has invited us to a banquet he is giving at his palace in Florence tomorrow night, and has specifically asked that he might have a word with our Nicolau. That can only mean one thing!" Father shouted. "That he is reconsidering his decision not to extend us a letter of credit!"

Father grabbed me by the shoulders and danced me in circles, much excited, and clapped me on the back with glee.

"Well," said Uncle Paolo, joining us in the dance and slapping me on the back so soundly he almost knocked me over, "who needs the blessing of a Pope when we have our Nicolau!"

Giovanni di Lorenzo de'Medici, the second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Head of the Florentine Republic, was born December 11, 1475. He received many rich benefices and preferments when he received his tonsure at the age of seven. He was formally admitted into the College of Cardinals and took up residence in Rome in 1492, three years after having been named a cardinal and four months before the death of Pope Innocent VIII. He himself became Pope Leo X in 1513 and was reported to have had discerning taste in the fine arts and to be highly intelligent, extravagant, and pleasure-loving. He is also rumoured to have been homosexual, Count Ludovico Rangone and Galeotto Malatesta being two of his lovers, and said to have been infatuated while Pope with the Venetian noble Marcantonio Flaminio who was introduced to him shortly after the boy's sixteenth birthday in 1514. Though there is no account of Giovanni's sexuality as a boy and teenager, given what is known about his later life and that most gay men know their sexual orientation by their early teens or earlier, the fictional encounter described in this story is felt to be not unreasonable.

J.O. Dickingson

Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro

Stories 4-6

4. The Barbary Coast

5. Rome

6. Pisa