PZA: Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro 13-15

As Nico travels across the Ottoman Empire and into Caucasia with the Ghilman Entertainment Troupe as a köçek, an androgynous male dancer and boy for hire, he struggles with his discomfort dressing like a girl and living and working with boys who act like girls and his fears regarding his own sexual identity, coming to terms with his desires from two unlikely sources.

Nicolau Ribeiro (14yo)
Supporting characters ages 19 to 50 plus
Mt – cons/slave oral anal mast – prost cross-dressing transgender

"Are you not well?" Lutufkar asked, his tone more one of anger than one of concern.

"I thought as much. A few pretty baubles and a man between your legs and you think you no longer have to work. Well you can get your high and mighty head out of your ass and put some effort into why you are a part of this troupe if you want to remain part of it. I will not tolerate any slackers in this company, nor will I tolerate shoddy performances that will lower the high reputation the Gilman Entertainers have. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," I replied, too shocked by his anger and unaccustomed to such sharp criticism after all the praise I had received to apologize or to explain my behaviour.

"You had better. I picked you up off the street and I can drop you back off just as easily. Do not forget that!"

We had arrived at the ancient eastern Roman city of Trabzon, which lay on the old trade route along a narrow high plain between two steep parallel valleys, on the fifth night after leaving Samsun and three nights after my revelation concerning my fellow köçekler, and what was happening to me. It appeared to be a prosperous city and was surrounded by rich farmland. The citrus trees were in bud and farmers were already tilling the soil and would soon be planting their corn and potato crops. Lutufkar said that the city had been Byzantium until conquered by the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II, known as The Conqueror, the father of Bayazid II, the present Sultan, only thirty years ago.

Disturbed by my realization just how girl-like my fellow dancers were, and how much I was becoming like them, I had no heart in our practices the last two nights on the road, and my performance at the local inn in Trabzon upon our arrival and my performance the following afternoon were, I must admit, lacklustre. The joy had gone out of my dancing and I no longer looked forward to performing. I was not all right, but my illness was not of the physical kind that Lutufkar had asked about, and it was not an illness I could explain to him. Lutufkar was right though. My performances stank.

"I know what it is like, to like fine things," Vedat confided, having witnessed my reprimand and warning by Lutufkar. "When I first began receiving extra coin and gifts for my pillow services, I found it difficult to think of such mundane things as practices and performances too. But you must put aside all thoughts of the wonder and pleasure of such gifts and concentrate on your dancing if you want to continue to receive such things. Lutufkar is a tough taskmaster, but he is right about your performance, and he will not tolerate anything that lessens his reputation, or even more important, reduces his profits. You must not let thoughts of the beauty and joy of your gifts distract you from your practices or your performances, for your sake, and for the sake of the Troupe."

What Vedat had concluded was not the cause of my distraction of course. Yes, I was delighted with the wealth I was accumulating, and yes, as the son of a master merchant, I did admire fine things and appreciate the craftsmanship that went into making them, but my main objective of collecting such wealth to buy my passage home had not changed, and I would not let anything distract me from that objective. I reminded myself of that as Shayazad applied my makeup that evening and I resolved to do better.

Although I said it and meant it, I am ashamed to say my evening performance was no better despite my efforts to put aside what was troubling me, and my private sexual performance that evening was just as unremarkable. As Domi had observed that night we had sex, a köçek is expected to be pasit, and I was, very much so. I put in no effort to please the man, and I found no pleasure in our congress. Fortunately for me, all he really wanted was a pretty boy with a willing hole, and that I could provide and so he had no complaint.

The next day was the vernal equinox, which marked the beginning of spring and the New Year, and also the birthday of Ali. (1) Everyone was in a festive mood, the taverns were full, and there was much merrymaking in the streets. The crowd for our afternoon performance was the largest I had seen yet. Unfortunately, try as I could, I could not get into a festive mood despite the new clothes Lutufkar's wife and cousin had sewn for me for the occasion and my afternoon performance brought frowns from Lutufkar and a much subdued response from the audience.

"I like your new clothes," Badr observed as we applied our rouge and eyeshadow for the evening performance. "They are very fashionable, and they complement your looks. But I think a necklace and bracelet in shades of brown and orange would go better." Getting up and climbing into Shayazad's wagon where he travelled and slept, he returned with two of his own. "I will lend you mine," he said, fastening the necklace about my neck, "and you should wear that large conch shell comb of yours, the one with a bit of pink in it. It would be perfect."

"Thank you, I will. And thanks for the loan of your jewellery. You are very kind."

He stepped back and examined me. "A smile would help also," he observed. "You look like you are about to be mounted by a camel." I chuckled and he grinned. "I know you are worried about your new clothes, if the men will like them, if they will still find you beautiful. The men will. Trust me. I know your shalvars cover those shapely thighs of yours, but men are much more aroused by what they cannot see. These pantaloons are much better than those silk strips you have been wearing. To be honest, they made you look like a harem dancing girl. These are much more suitable for a boy. While you are dancing in your new clothes, think how sexy you look in them. And if that makes you horny, so much the better. Channel the excitement and energy of your arousal into your dance. I always do."

Like Vedat, Badr had interpreted my low spirits incorrectly, and as it had been with Vedat, I could not explain to him what my problem was without offending him, especially since he had confided in me that he found dressing up as a girl arousing. I did concentrate on the looks on the faces of the men in the audience that evening, and Badr was right. There was no doubt they were aroused by my dancing, and I could see their eyes undressing me and imagining what my thighs looked like under those baggy pantaloons. I was still not happy, but I forced myself to pretend that I was

I continued to pretend as several men approached me after my last performance and after ascertaining that I was available began to bid among themselves on my services. In the past there was usually one man desirous of my presence who stood out from the others and those of lower status or less wealth deferred to him, or, occasionally, there were a small number who wagered with each other who would have the honour of approaching me. I had been advised by the other köçekler that having the men bid in your presence was the best in that the wagers usually were higher as the men tried to impress you, and the others, by the amount of money they were willing to pay. Besides, they advised with sly grins, you could encourage a particular man you preferred by flirting with him, enticing him to continue raising the bid.

Myself, I was finding it better to be absent than standing there listening to them bidding as if I was some prize cow at market. Instead of finding it flattering or arousing, it emphasized to me what I was, an orospu, a whore, just as I had been as a tellak boy. They were right about one thing. There was the advantage of being able to encourage a man who was more attractive than the others, or who looked like he might be a better lover. Unfortunately, in this care, they all looked much the same, affluent, middle-aged men with wiry beards, flushed faces due in equal parts from too much wine and from arousal, and half-lidded, lustful eyes. I tried to look seductive though I was in no mood to bring pleasure to some strange man who was attracted to me because of my looks or my performance, or simply because I was a köçek. Fortunately for me, the man who won the bidding was too drunk and too eager to mount me to notice.

The next morning Vedat, Yusuf, Domi, Rifki and I went to the market to partake in some of the festivities that were still going on. Wherever we went, people bowed and stepped back in reverence and youngsters stared at us in awe as if we had two heads. While I found the respect and admiration refreshing and it lightened my spirits, I also found it uncomfortable. At noon we bought some meat pies and found a shady spot to eat them and then Vedat headed off with the two youngsters to purchase honey cakes and something sweet to drink. Rifki got up and sitting beside me, he placed a hand on mine. As I looked down at his long, purple-painted nails and the large amethyst rings on his two middle fingers and the small diamond rings on the fingers on either side, I could not help but notice how thin and delicate his fingers were, and how soft and effeminate his touch was.

"It is not coming into sudden riches nor the adulation and attention as Vedat has concluded, nor is it worries about your performing skills, in public or in the bedourie, nor finding the wearing of girls' clothes arousing, as Badr has assumed."

"It is not," I admitted. He had not asked it as a question but had stated it as a fact and there was no point in denying it.

"I know," Rifki said consolingly as he patted my hand. "And I know what is disturbing you. I was once confused too, and loathed myself as you are loathing yourself."

"Yes. I saw the look on your face that night on the road as we talked about the campfire, that night you first wore your shell and bead necklace with your new skirt, and I have seen how your thoughts have eaten you up ever since. I know those thoughts. I was not always as you see me today. At one time I hated what was happening so much I considered killing myself, and I think you are close to that point yourself."

"You did?" I asked, surprised. Of the three of them, Rifki always seemed the most content with what he was doing, and so sure of himself. He was right concluding I was depressed, though not to the point of considering suicide! At least, not yet.

"Have you ever met a man so ugly you could not help but cringe just looking at him, but once you got to know him, you found out he is more beautiful inside than most people are outside? Or have you ever met a man who looks mean and tough but inside is kind and gentle? Or someone who is beautiful to look at, but inside is mean and cruel?"

"It is not what is on the outside that is important, but what is on the inside, in the heart," he continued, tapping his chest. "So it is with us. Our spirits are female, but when it came time for them to inhabit a mortal body, I used to think some djinn or trickster spirit trapped them inside these male bodies. I know it is confusing and disgusting to walk about with these male dangles," he said with disgust as he gestured at his crotch, "and depressing, but what is important, is what is inside." He tapped his chest again. "I now think maybe it is no prank at all. I think it is Allah's will. He has placed our gentle spirits in these bodies so we may by our dual nature, male and female, arouse and please men who would otherwise not find women nor boys attractive. We are like the ghilman, but here on earth, not in Paradise. Once you accept that, and what you are, a girl in a boy's body, you will find peace of mind."

"I, ah, thank you, for your advice, and, ah, for sharing such personal thoughts with me." I meant that. His concern was sincere and I appreciated that, and to confess such intimate feelings could not have been easy. He had come closer to identifying my problem than Vedat or Badr, but a girl in a boy's body? Never! My performance that afternoon was the worst ever, so bad that Lutufkar's wife took me aside afterward.

"Lutufkar is most displeased," she warned me needlessly. "You began with such promise, but these past six days you are a different person. What has happened?" I shrugged, no better able to explain to her than I had been able to explain to my fellow dancers. "Has a man mistreated you, as you were mistreated in Istanbul?"

"No," I replied, surprised that she knew about that, but again realizing I should not be. Hakeem had to have told Lutufkar, and he had to have told her.

She studied me for a moment. "Then if it is not because you are mistreated, it is because you are desired." It was a statement, not a question.

"Well, boy, that is your role, just as it is for a woman, to provide for the sexual needs of men. Just as a wife must do whatever is asked of her to bring pleasure to her husband, so must you do whatever a man demands of you to bring him pleasure. It is our lot in life. It is the will of Allah, the Merciful and the Compassionate, a thousand blessings on His name. Accept it. It is your destiny or Allah would not have made you so pretty."

My destiny. I wondered if she had told the same thing to her nephew, Vedat, or to his parents, that it was his destiny to bring pleasure to men just as it was a woman's destiny? Her advice was of even less help than that I had been given by my fellow dancers. I forced myself to perform that night, publicly and privately, as I did the next day, our last day in Trabzon, not because it was my destiny, but because I feared Lutufkar would leave me there. The festivities were winding down, and it was time for us to move on, leaving the coast of the Black Sea and heading south and east. I practised playing the nay and the ud extra hard the next day, in part because I enjoyed it and it kept my mind off my problem, and in part because I guess I hoped that if Lutufkar decided I was no longer earning my keep dancing, he might keep me on as a musician. That night he supervised Vedat's instruction, and he was particularly hard on me. The following evening, our second night on the road, instead of my dancing practice, he told me to go help his brother Eskander take care of the horses. I suspected it was his hope that the experience would be incentive to do better in our next stop.

"Lutufkar is unhappy," he observed as we brushed down the horses. I made no comment. "So are you." I still made no comment. "It is not good for the Troupe when there is much unhappiness." We brushed in silence. "You are not like the others," he observed as we returned the two horses to the tether and took the next pair aside to be brushed and cleaned. "That is the problem."

That I was not like the others was true, or so I hoped. That it was not true was what I feared. "What do you mean?" I finally asked. "That I am not like the others?"

"You are not. Oh, you are pretty, and you sing like a bird and dance provocatively, and you do not fear performing before others, dancing or playing the nay, but, where it counts, in your heart," he said, tapping his chest, "you are not like the others. You have no passion for performing, and, I think, you are finding no satisfaction in the pillows either." He continued currying his horse as he waited for an answer. I concentrated on brushing my horse's coat, not knowing how to respond to his observation any more than I had not known how to respond to his earlier statements of the obvious. "Eskander knows. They think because I seldom talk, and am not a performer, that I am a fool, but I am smarter than any of them. I see what is as plain as the nose on their faces, but because they cannot see their noses, they cannot see the problem." He paused, thinking what to say next.

"I am not like the others either. In that way, you and I are the same. But only in that way. Unlike you, I am happy. Unlike you, I am doing what I have a passion for. Unlike you, I can be myself. I am a private man. I do not like crowds, or even the company of a few. I much prefer to be by myself, or with my horses, and I can. That is why we are different you and I. I can be myself, and I am happy with myself. The others, they all expect you to be something different from what you are, and you try to be different from your nature, and so you are unhappy. My advice to you, Naqi, is be yourself. Do what you have a passion for, what brings you joy. To hell with the others and what they want you to be, be what you are and you will be happy."

Be myself. Do what brings me joy. Sound counsel. Sounder than what I had been given so far. I thanked him for his advice and his concern as I had the others, but unlike the advice from the others, I considered his. But who am I really? I was a merchant sailor's son, but I have not been that for many months. A guard and soldier? A tellak boy? A köçek? Man lover? Sex plaything? A girl in a boy's body? I do not know. What is it that I have a passion for? What brings me joy? Being a merchant's son had. Exploration, discovering new cultures, learning new languages. Sex. Yes, sex, with those of the same gender, men and boys. I pondered Eskander's comments as I continued helping him, and as I lay down to sleep that night.

The next day we left the lands under the control of the Ottoman Empire and arrived at the next town, Erzurum. Erzurum was situated on the Korasuyu River at the eastern end of a wide plateau surrounded by steep mountains. It was an old city with narrow streets and squat huts built of grey volcanic rock and was surrounded by rich, black fertile soil. It had been captured by the Seljuk Turks four hundred years ago and then by the Mongols two hundred and fifty years ago. It was now part of what was called Circassia and suffered raids by the Ottoman to their west and the Mamelukes to their south besides brigands and slave traders. The night of our arrival I did not accompany Lutufkar to the local inn to perform, another subtle hint as to my status and a warning. I helped Eskander instead though I had not been told to. We talked little.

The next morning Badr and I went to the market to pick up supplies, and of course to advertise the presence of the Gilman Entertainers. At least I was still good for that. As in Trabzon, we were met with great reverence and admiration wherever we went. When we paused midmorning for tea the proprietor fawned on us with such obsequiousness that you would think we were the sons of the sultan himself. While Badr stopped to admire some embroidered silk blouses, I went in search of a shoemaker. The shoes that Shayazad had given me for performing, a pair formerly worn by Badr until his feet had outgrown them, had become tight and were beginning to pinch my toes, and I had outgrown the boots that had been issued to me as a Mameluke apprentice.

I finally found one, and like the rest of the merchants, he bowed deeply as I approached his stall and blessed me for having stopped at his shop. I had come to realize that a large part of their behaviour was due to the extreme reverence in their culture for köçekler. I had also come to realize that just as important was the prestige of having one of us purchase their merchandise, and as a result the likely prospect of more customers seeking their wares simply because a köçek had shopped there. He began to show me his best and most decorative footwear, all of it of course suited for girls. They were all too feminine for my taste.

"Thank you," he replied, honoured by my praise and clearly pleased. "I take great care in my work. You will find no footwear so fine in all of Erzurum, nor for a hundred furlongs in every direction. Unlike many workers these days, I take great pride in what I do, for what one does and what one produces is who one is. You ask anyone who is the best shoemaker in these parts, and they will tell you Hammoud el Fasel ibn Bahhur of Erzurum. I buy only the finest leather and strongest sinew, and every design is of my own creation," he said, gesturing around his stall proudly. Spotting a pair of boots tooled with an intricate geometric design, I asked to see them and he quickly brought them to me. "You have a good eye for quality," he said. "These are of the finest leather, soft but durable. It takes many days to tool the leather just so," he observed, running his calloused fingers over the design reverently. He looked up at me. "Forgive me, Taxir, for having wasted your time with the other shoes. You are most wise. These are much better suited to you," he admitted. "Not too delicate, not too masculine. A little of both. They are you." He was not just trying to make a sale. He was right. These were boots I would be comfortable wearing. Be yourself Eskander had said.

"The leather is smooth and soft as lambskin, and yet firm and sturdy." I turned the boots over. "These soles are thick and the stitching close. They will withstand a lot of walking, or dancing."

The man's cheeks flushed. "I am not a rich man, nor a famous man, but I take pride in my knowledge and skill in tooling leather, and in the products I produce. If a man can be proud in what he does, he needs nothing more to be happy."

Your majesty. It felt strange being addressed so, and especially by one old enough to be my father. Lutufkar was not impressed with my choice of shoes and told his wife to find me a different pair for dancing, but I insisted on wearing the boots I had purchased. I danced well that afternoon, and that evening. I was a good dancer, not as good as my fellow köçekler given their years of training but good nonetheless, and it gave me a sense of power and a certain pleasure seeing how my dancing aroused the men in the audience.

The owner of a demesne just outside of town, a wealthy landowner with serfs to work his fields and concubines to warm his bed, was the lucky recipient of my renewed dedication as a köçek that night. I actually remember little about him, but I remember that night and how I had made him groan with desire and cry out with pleasure, not once, not twice, but four times. If a man can be proud in what he does, he needs nothing more to be happy. The same is true for a boy. I know how to please men, how to raise their lust, how to make their members ache with the need to shoot their seed, how to prolong their pleasure until they feel like they are about to explode, and then they do.

I remember he had a nice sized cock, not too large nor too small, and that he had a long, pendant sack. I danced for him in his bedchamber, and then he disrobed me. I remember him remarking on the softness and luster of my hair, on the beauty of my face, and on my smooth chest and the fine, soft hairs beginning to sprout under my arms. Most do not realize it, but dancing requires great strength, and my chest was beginning to develop the musculature of a teenage boy, still softly curved but firm and the chest becoming more defined. Of course there is even more demand placed on a dancer's legs, and mine were developing the muscles needed for the spins and sweeping arcs that are required, the firmness adding to the curvature of my thighs. I remember him running his fingertips over my buttocks and remarking how smooth they were, and how firm and compact, not wide and soft like a woman's.

Admiring and caressing my teenage body had gotten him erect, and I coyly reached for his member and stroked it as if seeing and touching a man's member was a new and awesome experience for me. As I glanced down at it standing up between his legs, my fingers wrapped about the base just above his balls, a blush came to my cheeks as I thought of the intimacy of what we were doing and the fact that I, a boy of fourteen, was holding the erect, throbbing member of a man four times my age, something that I knew most wives were not brazen enough to do, and even the most wanton of concubines did so sparingly. There was something right about a boy holding a man's cock, the boy and man being of the same gender, both knowing what it feels like to have a stiff cock, and what it feels like to have a stiff cock in one's hand. That no woman can ever know, which makes sex between those of the same sex more knowing. I know the difference in our ages he found arousing, and having a boy holding his member more erotic than if it had been another man, just as I found it more erotic to be holding an adult's member than to hold the cocklet of one of my age.

This was, of course, nothing new to me, and though I stroked his stiff member shyly, still awed that I was allowed to touch an adult's most private part, I did so with great anticipation and delight. I fondled him and he reached down and fondled my private parts, gently stroking my little, limp noodle with his big fingers and gently rolling my little balls in their sac, causing my member to swell until it was throbbing with desire and jutting up from between my legs rigid and aching for his touch. Reaching over for the jar of scented oil, he opened it up and dipping in his finger, he scooped up a glob and transferred it to my anus. Lubricating it well, he carefully pushed it into my rectum with the tip of his finger and then slowly inserted his digit to the knuckle and twisted it. I squirmed with pleasure and anticipation of something much longer and thicker penetrating me.

And then he mounted me. Despite his desire, he fucked my ass slowly and paused frequently to allow his lust to subside so he could enjoy the heat and moistness of my rectum longer, which of course allowed me time to become aroused myself and to enjoy the sensation of being fucked. As I said, he shot his seed four times in all, and each time it took him longer which allowed me longer to enjoy having my rectum stuffed with a man's hard, hot cock. Four times he filled my rectum with his seed, and the last time I quivered and arched my back with the release of my own seed, spraying the silk cushions beneath me with my milk as he filled my asshole with his, both of our cocks throbbing out our precious seed, the knobs burning with that sweet pain that only a man, and a boy, can know.

Leaving Erzurum the next morning, we took a well travelled road heading east in order to include the city of Yerevan in our circuit, arriving at our destination after five days of travel. I practised my dancing dutifully each day, much to the delight of my fellow dancers, Lutufkar's wife, and especially Lutufkar. Of course each credited himself or herself with my renewed dedication, especially Lutufkar. I was no longer required to help Eskander with the horses, but I did anyway, finding his company a pleasant change from the others, and finding helping with the horses a pleasant break from dance and music lessons. Although he was a private man, I know that he enjoyed my company, and that he was pleasantly surprised at my knowledge regarding horsemanship and at the interest and care I took in working with the animals, the result of my days in the Mameluke calvary and my training under my master Usama.

Eskander of course, along with the shoemaker Hammoud el Fasel ibn Bahhur of Erzurum, was the real reason for my revival and my renewed interest in being a köçek. My fear of being thrown out of the Troupe and being stranded in this godforsaken heathen land was very real, but even that had not been enough to bring me out of my doldrums and the downward spiral of my self worth. It had been Eskander's advise to be myself and to do what I had a passion for, and Hammoud's comments about having pride in one's knowledge and skill and taking care in what one does for what one does is who he is. Eskander's observation "be who you are and you will be happy" and Hammoud's comment "if you can be proud of what you do you need nothing more to be happy" were right. On the night before arriving at Yerevan I presented Eskander with my gift of appreciation. He was extremely surprised and insistent he had done nothing to deserve such a gift, but I assured him his support and advice and his friendship were far more valuable than the belt. He finally accepted it, and I know from the look in his eyes he appreciated my comments and thanks just as much as he admired the belt.

Yerevan, built on the Hrazdan River, was surrounded by orchards and vineyards, now in full bloom, at the base of what they called Mount Buyuk in the Ottoman language or Agri Dagi in the Arab language, but which I had learned was Mount Ararat, a towering, snow-capped, double peaked mountain which stood out by itself surrounded by plains except for a ridge on the northwest side 120 furlong away, the peak where Noah's Arc landed after the Flood. Like all the other peoples we visited, those of Yerevan had been conquered many times, by the Romans, Parthians, Arabs, the Mongol Empire a hundred years ago under the great warrior Tamerlane, and finally the Turkmen, which, I learned, were a loosely knit group of Caucasia tribes usually at war with each other and so never having formed a great nation. At that moment the Persians to the south and east, the Mamelukes of the Egyptian Sultanate to the south, and the Ottoman Empire to the west all sought possession of this land.

This was of course the city where my former master, the Mameluke soldier Usama el Hasan ibn Fuad, the third son of a tribal chieftain and a Christian, had once lived before being captured at the age of fourteen by slave traders from the south. I was tempted to try to find his family to tell them what a great man he had become and how much I had admired him, but I had no idea where to begin or if his father even cared. I recalled Usama had said being captured had resulted in a better life for him. Besides, if I did find his father, and he asked about his son's whereabouts, I would have to tell them I feared he had been killed. That is not news a father would wish to hear, and not news I would wish to bear. I could not help but think of my own father and family and their fears that I might be dead and I was filled with sadness.

We arrived on the day we in my homeland called Good Friday, the day of Christ's crucifixion, which felt most strange with Yerevan being the most Christian of all the towns we had stopped at. It was a sacred and solemn day with much of the population in prayer, but even so, there was a large Moslem population also, and our arrival was the cause of great excitement among them. The meyhane we performed in that evening was full, and afterward I retired to one of the rooms with the highest bidder for my company, one of the young nobles whose family held much power in this region, a man whom it was important I impressed.

"It is." Lutufkar had made much of that fact in the tavern, figuring that it would increase the interest and desire of the men seeking a partner for the night, and he had been right. The bidding for my company had been particularly competitive, and the stakes especially high. Of course none of that money would go to him, but the fame would further the reputation of the Ghilman Entertainers and draw in an even larger crowd for future performances.

"Does it not seem strange to you, to be having sex on the night your prophet, whom you Christians claim to be the Son of God, was crucified? I am told your priests say that this Jesus was sacrificed by his father for the sins of mankind."

The man laughed. "A good answer. So let us see if you are as good as rumour says you are." I was.

As Sulayman had suspected, the following day and the day after that the crowds at our afternoon and evening performances and at the inns where I and Vedat performed were even larger.

On that third day, Easter Sunday, I was asked if I did not find it strange to be having sex on the afternoon that my Saviour rose from the dead. I replied that it was an occasion of great celebration and joy, as was the opportunity to have sex with me, so it was quite fitting and proper. Zeyd, the son of the chieftain of one of the local tribes laughed at my response. "Well, my brash little peacock, let us see if you are right," he said as he reached out and untied the cord of my pantaloons. As they fell to my ankles, he smiled in admiration at the sight of my slender member and my balls in their hairless sack.

He had me kneel before him and take his member in my mouth and suck on it, advising me to take in no more than his bulb and to do nothing more than suck. "There is nothing more arousing than the sight of a boy with the blush of youth on his downy cheeks and with long, fluttering eyelashes and a cock between his rose petal lips," he observed, and his cock throbbed hotly between my lips in support of his comment. He was right in that. There is nothing more erotic than the sight of a boy on his knees, his pantaloons about his ankles and his boyhood exposed, with that most private part of a man in his mouth, that tube of flesh whose purpose is to void one's liquid waste and spurt one's seed. A woman or girl could do the same, but only a boy can know what it is like to have a cock sucked, and that made the doing of it all the more erotic.

He grew stiff quickly but he still had me suck on his member until he became so aroused the first droplet of that special, sweet nectar oozed from his cock. He withdrew his member then, and painted my lips with the tip, smearing his sticky nectar over my lips, and telling me he wanted me to taste the cock while it was fucking my ass. He had me turn around then, and parting the cheeks of my ass, he placed the tip of his cock against my opening and pushed forward. His cock was slender so my spittle was enough to make his penetration effortless and with little pain. He sank his member all the way up my rectum until his hairs were tickling my backside, and then he slowly withdrew until his knob was about to pop back out before pausing and slowly penetrating me again. He set up a slow and steady rhythm, and I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pleasure pulsating out from my rectum. He fucked me slowly, taking time to delight in the pleasure pulsating between his legs, and I worked with him, constricting my anus as he withdrew and relaxing as he thrust his member up my backside. All too soon he was spurting his seed up my rectum.

"You were right. Fucking you is an occasion for celebration and joy," he observed. "Now, tell me the truth. You really are a Christian?"

"Yes. From the west. His Holy Father, Pope Innocent VIII of the Holy Roman Catholic Church is the head of my church."

"I do." Be who you are and be proud of what you do. A week ago I could not have answered as I did now.

"Well, you are much more sensible than the son of the Grand Duke of Constantinople and his father."

"After the great General Mehmed had conquered Constantinople, he heard that the fourteen-year-old son of Lucas Notaras, the Grand Duke and man in charge of the defences of the city, was very pretty, and he ordered that the son be brought before him for his pleasure. When the boy's father refused, he had the father and his son and the father's young son-in-law brought before him. He again demanded the boy be turned over to him with the threat of beheading all three of them if he was not. The father once again refused and asked that his son and son-in-law be beheaded first lest they waver once he himself was beheaded. The Sultan had all three decapitated on the spot." He snorted in derision. "These foolish Christians are a stiff-necked people. If he had complied and the boy as handsome as they claim, their lives would have been spared and the boy treated royally for as long as he remained youthful. Because of some misguided sense of morality, being stiff-necked only served to have their heads cut off." (2)

As I reapplied my makeup for my evening performance, I thought about the story of the Grand Duke and tried to imagine what it must have felt like for a father to be forced to choose between the death of his fourteen-year-old son or have him engage in sexual congress with a man. Most Christians I know would have done the same as Lucas Notaras. Most boys, those from my hometown, would have chosen death also. How would his father have felt if the man had chosen to comply, knowing that his son was being used as a woman for another man's pleasure? Zeyd's father surely knew that his son enjoyed fucking young boys. His father likely enjoyed the same pleasure. How different this culture I found myself in compared to the one I had grown up in! And what of God? What would he think of me engaging in this perverted sin on the very day that His Son was resurrected after having died for man's sin? And what of my own father? What would he think of his son sitting there dressed in a girl's clothes applying rouge to his cheeks and lips and henna to his eyelids, his nails painted a vivid green and his fingers and hair bedecked in jewels, preparing to arouse an audience of men and to later spread his legs for one of them? Be yourself. Take pride in what you do, for what you do is who you are. I pushed the thoughts from my head. I think too much.

Lent concluded with Easter Sunday, and after forty days of fasting and abstinence and repenting for one's sins, the Christians in the city were ready to celebrate, and, as I already knew, there were many Christians, including those of the clergy, who had no reservations about engaging in sex with young boys. I spent Sunday evening with one of those persons, a canon in the eastern church.

Not everyone was happy to see us. The following day we were accosted at the market by a group of Christians and lectured on the evils of dancing in public and the sin of fornication with those of our own sex. It was not just the Christians either. On the same day we were lectured on our sinful ways by a local imam who worked up the crowd into such a frenzy for a while I feared that they were going to stone us to death. There were many Arabs who were also against congress between men and boys.

The following evening as we approached a local meyhane who had contracted with Lutufkar for us to perform, we were intercepted by an angry group of men, the mangers of several establishments who employed belly dancers whose business had drastically dropped off upon our arrival. Lutufkar of course took great delight in the confrontation, seeing it as proof of our superior entertainment and as advertisement of our services. Those accosting us did not see it that way of course and as arguments progressed tempers rose and threats were made and it was only the forbidding presence of Eskander and his sword that prevented a fight. Late that night, he and Shayazad's Greek husband chased off three men who had slipped into our camp, not as thieves, but with firebrands, intending on setting fire to our wagons. One of them Eskander recognized as having been with the group of managers who had confronted us on our way to the tavern. From the crowds that were attending our performances, and from the riches that I and my fellow köçekler were accumulating, I could see why the establishments employing belly dancers and the belly dancers themselves were upset with our presence. Rifki informed me, much to my shock, that köçekler had even been killed such was the envy of some çengi, the Arabic word for belly dancers. I understood then why Lutufkar always camped in the open where it was easier to see such skulkers instead of in the shade of the trees where most travellers camped. It also explained why we travelled with two guards and why Lutufkar and his brother were heavily armed at all times.

The following day, the twenty-sixth day of the Arabic month of Jamaada'al Ula, the eastern Christian churches celebrated the Feast of the Annunciation, the day that the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to bear the son of God. It was another great cause for celebration. I, the teenage singer and musician Iskender, Lutufkar's two nephews, and Timur's son performed all afternoon and evening at one of the meyhanes. The table we sat at was constantly filled with fine food, small dishes of a white cheese they called beyaz peynir, cold aubergine salad, acılı ezme (a hot pepper paste with walnuts) in which we dipped flat bread, kalamar (calamari), pilaki (chicken in a special hot sauce), sarma (rice stuffed peppers), and köfte (meat balls), along with cold diluted yoghurt and a sweet, watered-down wine, all complements of the patrons of the inn. There were those who despised and hated us, but there were many who revered and loved us. Many chieftains admired my boots, and Lutufkar reluctantly admitted I was smart buying them and dancing in them.

That night as the others returned to camp under heavy guard provided by the tavern owner, I headed to the palace of the son of the bey of the city under the protection of his personal guard. As I followed him, I could not help but wonder at the differences in attitudes and wonder why it was so. Here I was openly going to a man's home to engage in sex with him. Those at the inn knew and approved. His guards knew, and I had to assume his father knew and also approved, for a man in his son's position surely did not do anything that was not scrutinized by others if not for gossip then to emulate, and surely the bey of the city knew what his citizens were saying and doing. The former political leader in Istanbul and his son on the other hand had chosen death. Father Francisco would have been abhorred to hear of a man having sex with a boy. Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere regularly fucked young, athletic men and everyone knew, from his fellow cardinals to the lowest choirboy. Some of the greatest intellectuals in Venice approved and promoted it while other scholars claim the Bible and the Qu'ran both condemn it. It was not a matter of King and Country, nor of Faith, for there were those who approved and those who did not in all faiths and, it appeared, all lands. How can such a simple thing as congress between a man and boy be met with such diverging, and strongly held, views? It was more than I, a simple merchant's son, could fathom.

The man who had outbid the others that night was an anomaly also. Most politicians and their kin, I had found, were of the same ilk, arrogant, proud, domineering, and self-serving. Whether their positions made them such, or that it was those of such nature who sought political positions, I did not know. This man exhibited none of those loathsome traits. Oh, he was confident and self-assured as would be any man of power and wealth, but he did not flaunt it, and he was not obnoxious about it. He was, on the contrary, quiet and reserved, and considerate as a lover. He was neither handsome nor ugly, but rather plain and average looking, and he was neither fat, skinny nor athletic in build. That was perhaps why he was appreciative of my performance that night, at the camp and in his bedroom. He was not the type of man that women, or men, threw themselves at, nor the type of man that would demand servitude, sexual or otherwise. He commented repeatedly on my beauty, my face, my hair, my limbs, as would a man who admires and realizes the worth of a rare gem or an article of skilled craftsmanship, not as a man gloating over his possession of such a treasure. He commented on the joy I brought him as would a man who is not accustomed of having much joy in his life.

I enjoyed myself that night, for this was a man who appreciated my skills and admired me for whom I was, not as a revered köçek, not as a prize to be added to his list of achievements, but as a boy who knew how to please a man sexually and who took joy and pride in doing so. Again, I suppose it was because of his nature that I did not feel like a whore or that I was being used, though what we did that night was no different from what I did with other men. There was a gentleness and an excitement in what we did, whether it was a caress or a kiss or the union of our bodies. When he penetrated me, it was a mutual act, the pleasure he was feeling penetrating me no more and no less than the pleasure I was feeling being penetrated. Oh, we were not lovers as I had described to me in Florence, but nor were we master and servant as it had been with the Mameluke soldier Usama and me, nor as customer and provider as it had been in the baths, nor as connoisseur and artist as was the case with many of the men lately.

The following day we replenished our supplies, it being our last day in the city, and wherever we went we were well received and warmly treated but after our encounter with the employers of çengi I kept my eyes alert just the same. Spotting a handsome young man only four or five years older than myself who was covertly admiring me, I motioned for him to come over and invited him to join me for tea, Shayazad and Badr with Shayazad's husband having gone off in search of grain for the horses for our journey to the next city. He was greatly honoured and humbled and thanked me every other sentence as the other men glanced at him enviously.

"Most surely. But," he added with a frown, "I will not be bidding for your entertainment afterward."

"Oh, I most surely do. I ... I could not afford what I hear it would cost," he said with embarrassment. "Your group has become much talked about since your arrival."

I thought for a moment, and then taking off one of the emerald rings I was wearing, I placed my hand on his and slipped him the ring. "Offer to give me this," I whispered. "I am told it is worth over a thousand dinars. I doubt if anyone will match it." His eyes widened with surprise as he glanced at the ring and then up at me and his jaw dropped. "I will look forward to seeing you tonight," I said with a smile as I got up. He leaped to his feet and stammered a response that I would, see him that night that is, his face flushing with embarrassment. I still had much to learn about the ways of the köçekler and the protocols of this heathen culture, but I am sure that it was not the practice of dancers, male or female, to enable men to bid for their services.

I saw him in the audience that night, in the very front row, and as I danced I danced only for him, giving him the most sultry of looks and looking directly as him as I gyrated and thrust my hips, though I am sure those around him thought I was looking at them. As I had suspected, when he produced the ring, the bidding ceased. We retired to a modest tent in the encampment of one of the many tribes that had come to Yerevan. He returned the ring to me. "I could have returned to my camp with the ring and never seen you again, you know," he observed.

"And miss the opportunity to have congress with the best köçek between Istanbul and Tabriz?" I asked with a seductive smile and he returned the grin. I had brought my nay and I played as I danced for him, swaying with the music and tempting him like the serpent in the garden of Eden. The snake in his trousers rose in response and tented out his pantaloons, and given how loose and baggy the material was, I was most eager to see the length of the tent pole that could make them stick out so. His eyes were filled with lust and his breathing laboured, and we had not even touched yet.

Putting down the nay, I stepped toward him and he rose from the pillows where he had been reclining and he embraced me tightly and our lips met in a long and passionate kiss. He pressed his body against mine and I could feel his hardness and heat through our clothing. We continued kissing and caressing as we disrobed each other. His body was firm and muscular unlike many of the bodies of the men I had grown accustomed to having sex with, bodies which had either grown soft with leisure or were hard and coarse with age. He had, as I found most Arabs did, thick, dark hair, long and luxuriant on his head with just the beginning of fine wisps of lip hair and the narrowest fringe of hair along his jaw and chin. His chest, firm and muscular, had a frame of silky hair across the top and a fine trail between his breasts and down to his belly button which then flared out in a triangle of curly hairs above his erect cock. His member was at least as long as the width of a hand and a half and two fingers thick, and from the base hung two testicles each the size of a hen's egg in a long, pendant, finely-haired sac.

He reached down and fondled my own still hairless testicles as we kissed and I wrapped my fingers about his stiff member and gently stroked it, causing him to quiver with the pleasure my touch brought. Dropping to the pillows, we continued to kiss and caress and fondle each other's genitals, him bringing me quickly to an erection and me being careful not to over arouse him. It was a delight making love to someone only four years older than I, he having only recently turned nineteen and me only a week away from my fifteenth. It was, for us, not as much as me bringing him pleasure, but the two of us bringing each other pleasure.

And that we did. He was eager to mount me and I was eager to be mounted. He brought out a jar of perfumed ointment and I lubricated his cock as he lubricated my anus, applying the ointment to the opening and gently working it into my rectum. He obviously had experience, and he admitted to having had congress with several tellak boys, and the occasional boy from another tribe when their paths crossed on the eastern steppes, but never before with a köçek he admitted. Whether or not he also had knowledge of girls, çengi or otherwise, he did not say and I did not ask though I suspected that he probably had. Rolling over and laying on my stomach, I spread my legs and he knelt between them and placed the tip of his greased cock against my lubricated hole.

Again his experience showed as he adjusted his position and penetrated me on the first attempt. We both inhaled deeply and remained perfectly still as we delighted in our union, he with the pleasure of having a hot, moist asshole surrounding his aching, throbbing cock, and me with the pleasure of having been penetrated and my rectum stuffed with a man's stiff member. And then he began to slowly pump his hips, pulling his cock back out of my body and then driving it back up my rectum, slowly and deliberately, working slowly despite his desire, and mine, to eject our seed, and taking the time to delight in the unique pleasure of fucking. What it might be like for a boy and girl or man and woman I had no idea but I could not imagine it being as close as it can be between two males, particularly two males close in age. A girl can have no idea what it is like to have a stiff, throbbing member being squeezed tightly by hot, moist flesh, and a boy cannot really appreciate what it must feel like for a girl to have her reproductive organ stuffed with a cock. A boy being fucked, on the other hand, knew very well both what it is like to have a stiff member aching with that sweet pain before ejaculation and the pleasure of being penetrated, and a boy who has fucked another knows the pleasure of having one's cock deep up the rectum of another.

And, of course, only a boy can know the extreme pleasure of ejaculation. I do not know how a girl feels having her cunt filled with a boy's seed, but I know for me having another boy's seed spurted deep up my rectum is a pleasure that is equal to the pleasure of ejaculation itself. And so, when he filled me with his seed, I arched my back and quivered with the delight of feeling his hot slime spurting even further up my rectum. He grasped my shoulders tightly as he came, and he quivered and gasped with delight as his seed spurted from his cock, and I thrilled with his delight as if I were squirting my seed myself. He lay on top of me with his cock embedded in my body for a long time before finally withdrawing it.

We rested and talked, about my life as a köçek and about his life as a desert nomad, the third of four sons of the brother of the chieftain of their tribe I learned. They caught and trained wild horses, travelling the steppes according to the seasons and the movement of the wild horses, owing allegiance to no king or sultan but only to the chief of their tribe. It sounded like an exciting and wonderfully free life to me, just as he thought my life was full of glamour and riches he would never know. He took great delight in telling me about capturing and training horses, and I told him what I knew about horses from my life as a Mameluke apprentice soldier and from travelling with Eskander.

It was a hot night and the tent even hotter from our lovemaking and he opened the flap and we made love a second time there at the foot of Mount Ararat. Afterward, as I nestled in his arms and we looked up at the snow-capped peaks, I wondered what it must have been like for Noah and his family to be the last surviving member of the human race and what it must have been like being one of the sons of his three sons and having only the female cousins, the daughter of his two uncles, to copulate with. It was strange laying there and imagining that the entire population of the world came from those four surviving men and their wives, and I could not but a marvel at the diversity of colours of men and diversity of beliefs and cultures that has resulted from those eight people.

We made love one last time, me on my back with my buttocks raised on a pile of pillows, Kasim between my legs and facing me. It was, he said, his favourite position, and I confessed that it was mine also. There is something about looking into each other's eyes when you are fucking, and seeing the lust and delight there that makes the act even more intense. In that position it is also possible for a couple to kiss while they are fucking and for the one on the bottom to caress the one fucking him, which added to my delight, and to his. It being our third time, it took longer for our bodies to reach that magic point of spilling our seed, which made the act all the more enjoyable. It brought me great satisfaction to see the pleasure in his face as he spurted his seed up my rectum, and for the first time that night I spilt my seed also, spattering his chest and mine with my young, milky discharge. We sat there afterward nestled in each other's arms and looking up at the towering peaks and the full moon, the pheal of a group of jackals chasing down their prey in the distant hills penetrating the otherwise still night.

We rode back to the camp at the break of dawn, the Ghilman Entertainment Troupe planning on heading for the next town in their circuit that morning and Kasim's tribe planning on packing up and heading out also. Kasim told me for at least the tenth time how grateful he was for the evening and how that every wonderful thing he had heard about sex with a köçek I had proven to be an understatement, and how he would remember and cherish our night together for the rest of his days. With embarrassment and apologies for their inadequacy, he gave me a fine black velvet vest and matching fez with a long strip of silk that hung almost to my waist which he said was both decorative and to cover the face in a sandstorm, and a plain but finely crafted dagger, a gift from his father whom he said would be honoured and pleased to learn he had given it to me and would replace it with another. It being considered an insult to refuse, I thanked him and assured him to me they were equal in value to any gifts bestowed upon me, and that I would treasure them as a remembrance of our evening, both of which were true.

I watched with contentment as he rode off until he was no longer in sight, and then turned for Timur's wagon, at peace with myself. It was strange but fitting to feel so good in this sacred spot at the base of Mount Ararat, the homeland of my former lover, the Mameluke soldier Usama. I held my head up high as I approached the wagon and heard its occupants beginning to stir. Be yourself. Take pride in what you do. I was, and I did.

Arriving at Tabriz, a tragedy strikes the Troupe. Nico turns fifteen and leaves the troupe as the personal guard and comrade at arms of eighteen year old Prince Abbas Mirza, continuing to travel east and discovering the practice of initiatory pederasty.

Nicolau Ribeiro (15yo)
Supporting characters ages 11 and 18 y
tt tb – cons oral anal mast – initiatory pederasty

We travelled to Tabriz blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was about to occur. There travelled from time to time a band of Gypsies who passed through Viano do Castelo, and invariably among them was a strange, frightening woman, who claimed to be able to tell one's future. Father said it was a bunch of nonsense and trickery, but Uncle chided him, teasingly I think though at times I thought him serious, that there were mysteries beyond the ken of the common man. Whoever was right, I was glad I did not know our future in this case.

It was an easy trip of five days along a well established road heading south and east, following the range of mountains to our north and along the fringe of the southern desert and drylands, passing out of the land of the Cherkess and into the land known by the locals as Eran and which those in the west called Persia. Tabriz was an old city located on the Aji Cha'i River, near Lake Ermia, which I was told was a shallow lake some seven hundred furlongs long and two hundred and forty furlongs wide into which large streams fed but none left so that it was so highly salty nothing could live in it except for a tiny crayfish.

The night we arrived, Badr and I each with a singer and a juggler from our company went to two of the local meyhanes to advertise the arrival of the Ghilman Entertainment Troupe where we had been anticipated and warmly welcomed. The following morning Rifki, Shayazad and her Greek husband went to the market to buy fresh vegetables and of course to further advertise our presence while the rest of us remained in camp and practised our routines. Following our midday meal, we changed into our costumes and were beginning to put on our makeup when I heard a great wailing and high pitched uluation. Quickly rising with the others I was surprised to see Shayazad enter the camp tearing at her hair, closely followed by her husband carrying the limp form of Rifki. We all ran toward them, but as I approached them I stopped in horror. Rifki's head was resting in an abnormal manner on Shayazad's husband's chest, which was soaked with blood still flowing from a large gash across Rifki's throat. His eyes were open but sightless.

We quickly learned that while he was admiring some fine silk at one of the stalls at the market and discussing purchasing it and making it into a dress with Shayazad, a crowd of women pressed in around them, which was not out of the ordinary when there is fine merchandise to be purchased. Suddenly one of the women drew a dagger out of her robes and with a single motion slit poor Rifki's throat so deeply it almost cut off his head. Mercifully he died instantly Shayazad said, and so did not hear the spiteful words of his attacker, who called him an orospu and a kaltak (a whore and a slut) besides a degenerate, a freak, and several other names which I had never heard before and could not translate.

Everyone was devastated and of course the performances for that afternoon and evening were cancelled. While Lutufkar went into town to purchase a coffin, his wife and Shayazad cleaned up Rifki's body and dressed him in his finest and most treasured clothes, draping his favourite necklaces about his neck and inserting his favourite combs in his hair. Lutufkar returned with a fine coffin befitting royalty and with an Imam. Prayers were said and his beauty and skill as a köçek were praised. We each stepped forward and spoke of his many fine attributes, his gentleness, his generosity, his kindness. I spoke of his compassion toward others and in particular toward me, and of the wisdom and advice that he had shared, and I placed in his coffin the shell comb of mine that I knew he admired and one of my necklaces. I could not hold back my tears, and nor could the others as they too added some small gift. Many men from the town, who had come expecting a performance, left coins, purses or some personal article, many of them having known Rifki from past visits to their city, all overcome by his cruel and savage death. We walked slowly to Tabriz's graveyard, Lutufkar, his brother Eskander, his cousin Timur and Shayazad's husband carrying the coffin, preceded by the Imam and Lutufkar's son and Timur's son and nephew playing a slow death march on their drums and followed by Vedat, Badr, myself, Domi and Yusuf all dressed in our finest, brazenly flaunting our femininity. Lutufkar's wife and Shayazad walked behind, wailing and ululating, followed by the rest of the company and many of the men from the town. Iskender and Timur's two sons sang as Rifki's body was lowered into the ground, a solemn, sorrowful song unlike their usual songs, and final prayers were said.

The men in our company drank heavily on our return to our camp and slipped away in the middle of the night. I could not sleep and twisted and turned in my grief and shock. I was still awake when Timur returned, and as I watched from beneath his wagon where I slept with Domi and Yusuf, who were even more devastated than I, I at least having witnessed death many times and having been the cause of many leaving this earth, he sat before the smoldering campfire and cleaned his sword, and the three of us knew whose blood was on his weapon.

I learned from Badr the next day that the woman who had slit Rifki's throat had not died as quickly and painlessly as he, each of the men from our company and several other men who had accompanied them, having thrust their daggers into that part of her body where men normally thrust something else, and then sliced off her nipples, lips and nose and left her laying there in her blood to watch them kill those who had accompanied her. There had been two houses of cengi involved, and they did not spare a single one of the women though they begged for mercy and forgiveness and many claimed not to have been present at the market, for even if they had not been present, they had to have known of the plan to kill whichever köçek, had the misfortune to be at the market that day.

The owners of the two establishments were left unmolested. Without the women they had no livelihood, and they would have to leave the city anyway for as word spread of the malicious deed committed by their belly dancers, their lives would be in danger. There were many who despised the köçekler, but there were many more who revered them to the point of treating them like living gods, and they would have their revenge on the men even if they had to track them to whatever town they fled. The remaining cengi in the city would think twice thereafter about attacking a köçek,. (1)

The next day was spent in mourning, the atmosphere in the camp subdued as we each thought about Rifki and how it could just as easily have been one of us. I realized halfway through the day that it was my fifteenth birthday, but I said nothing to anyone. I was certainly in no mood for celebrating, and nor was anyone else. "Shayazad says it happened so fast poor Rifki did not even know what happened," observed Badr. "Even if he were a skilled swordsman such as you, it all happened too fast for him to defend himself," he continued, looking at me.

"At least he died happy, doing what he loved to do, shop for new clothes," observed Vedat.

"Rifki would have been nineteen next month. It was only a matter of time before he began to lose his youthful beauty."

"He was a good dancer. He could have opened up his own company. Many do when they begin to grow a beard and lose their attractiveness."

"He once confided in me that he was a girl's spirit in a boy's body," I said softly.

"Yes, of all of us, he most enjoyed his femininity," agreed Badr. "He dreaded the time when his beard would come in and fretted how he was going to continue doing what he loved most."

The following day we began performing again. We had to make a living, and we had each come to terms with Rifki's death and knew that he would have wanted us to continue. Word quickly spread and the attendance at our afternoon and evening performances was larger than any of our performances yet. Tabriz was, of course, the largest city we had performed in yet since leaving Istanbul, but we knew that the size of the crowd had just as much to do with the unfortunate incident in the market which did more to advertise our presence than anything else. Many had assured Lutufkar that the swift action that had been taken had served as warning to any other cengi in the city and we were unlikely to have any trouble in the future.

That night, wearing my sword as a warning to any would-be attackers and slipping a dagger inside my vest for extra protection, I accompanied an eighteen-year-old man with gorgeous, shiny black hair and full sensuous lips to the palace of the governor of the city, causing me to think he was the son of the Bey, or some other close relative. He had the darkest eyes of anyone I have ever seen, almond-shaped with half-closed upper lids that gave one the impression sex was never far from his mind, an unusually flat face with broad cheeks and thick lips, and a gilded colouration to his skin. Despite his strange appearance, I found him exceedingly handsome, and he appeared to be much younger than the eighteen years that he claimed. His name was Abbas, which meant lion in the Persian tongue.

The walls of the bedroom we retired to were covered with thick tapestries depicting mountain passes and waterfalls and the room was dominated by a huge, canopied bed. The furnishings, low tables, vases, oil lamps and thick carpets reflected the opulence one would expect from the governor of a large city.

Dropping his robe and stepping out of his pantaloons, he revealed a smooth, muscular body with an impressive member, as long and thick soft as many men are hard, and a pair of eggs of comparable size. Reclining on the bed, he had me set aside my weapons and dance and slowly disrobe before him, and as I did so his member began to rise and his eyes began to fill with lust. Taking me in his arms, we kissed and caressed each other. His firm, muscular body was a delight. I have had sex with a good number of athletic, active men, but never have I caressed a body as hard as his. It was like caressing a marble statue it was so firm and smooth. Scars cut across his biceps and along his right forearm, and another angled across his right chest from the upper corner down under his nipple to the trough between his right and left breast. It was clear he had gotten his muscles from battle. There was not a hair on his chest and only the finest, silkiest strands under his arms, and his stomach, solid and rippling with muscles, had only the narrowest of triangles of pubic hair.

He was a skilful lover, and considerate, bringing me to a state of arousal slowly and in time with his own growing arousal. I had found, both as a tellak and as a köçek,, that most men are interested in their own arousal and pleasure, so it was a pleasure to engage in foreplay with one who took just as great delight in bringing me to a state of arousal as he found with his own arousal. And, unlike most men who are in a rush to experience the ultimate pleasure of shooting one's seed, he prolonged our play tenfold, giving both of us ample time to revel in the pleasure of arousal.

He finally produced a container of ointment and lubricated both his member and my anus with the heavily scented oil. He then had me assume the popular position on my elbows and knees and he mounted me, effortlessly and smoothly. It was a delight to feel his long, thick member enter my body and slowly fill my rectum as the shaft stretched open my anus wider than it had ever before been stretched and his member probed up my rectum farther than it had ever been penetrated. He paused to delight in having his entire member surrounded by my flesh, and then he slowly began to fuck me, easing his member back out of my rectum until his bulb began to stretch open my anus and then slowly sinking his member back up my rectum until his pubic hairs were pressing against my buttocks.

Leaning over me, he nibbled on my ears as he reached under me with his right hand and grasped my erect member. As he slowly fucked my ass he stroked my swollen, aching member. As ripples of delight flowed out from my anus and up my rectum, similar ripples of pleasure ebbed out from the edge of my bulb. And, as he eased his cock up my asshole, it brushed against that pebble deep up my bowels, sending another ripple of pleasure out from it. We fucked slowly, giving me plenty of time to relish the pleasure of a long, thick cock stuffed up my rectum and a firm hand grasping my cock and bringing it pleasure besides.

Ever so slowly I approached that peak and as I was wondering if I should warn him I was about to shoot my seed, he thrust his cock forward and threw his head back with a grunt of relief and I felt his hot seed spurt up my rectum. Unable to hold back, I began to spurt also, my numb cock throbbing out my seed as he held it firmly in his fist. Most men care only about their own ejaculation and it was a delight to reach that peak along with him, and it was even more pleasurable sharing that moment of delight at the same time, the two of us knowing exactly how the other was feeling at that precise moment. It was heavenly, and we did it two more times just as wonderful that night before falling asleep in each other's arms.

It was still dark when I awoke, several candle marks before sunrise. I was instantly awake, and aware that something was wrong. I slowly opened my eyes a crack and studied the shadows cast in the room from the full moon shining in through the open window. I heard the floor boards creak, the sound that had probably woken me in the first place. I was always a light sleeper, and spending months on board the Theresa del Morau I had become accustomed to distinguishing between the normal creaking of the timbers and pullies and the sounds the ship made with an approaching storm. My time with Usama as guard and as soldier had kept my senses fine tuned for unusual noises in the night besides. Several shadows moved slowly toward the bed. Four. I would not be able to fend them all off, but I would take a few attackers to the grave with me.

I suddenly rolled off the bed and onto the floor and grabbing the dagger from my pile of discarded clothes, I was on my feet and charging the nearest body. Thrusting the dagger into his stomach, I twisted and shoved him against the shadow beside him, withdrawing my dagger and spinning around and leaping for my sword I had hung on the sword rack near the bed. Abbas had responded to the commotion by swinging out of the bed also, just in time as the third shadow swung and his sword sliced into the pillows where Abbas had been a heartbeat ago. Tossing him his sword which he had hung beside mine, the two of us fended off the three assassins, the man I had stabbed having fallen to the floor and stayed there. The men were skilled, but so were we. We each dispatched one of them, and the third, to my surprise, rather than turning and running, charged Abbas with his sword upraised, only to have Abbas plunge his into the man's chest. The commotion of course alerted the palace guards who came running, but by the time they burst into the bedroom it was all over.

Lighting the oil lamp, Abbas checked each of the men. "Ak Koyunlu," he muttered with disdain. He examined the man I had stabbed in the gut. The man was still alive and trying unsuccessfully to hold in his slimy, coiling intestines. "I have seen your ugly face before," Abbas said. He thought for several moments. "You are one of Amir Kushchenq's men. He is behind this, is he?" "What will you do, kill me if I do not say?" the man sneered. "You will learn nothing from me."

"I can hang your worthless corpse at the city gates to rot and see you never get a proper burial," Abbas countered

"Sen yaglarsin," the man spat defiantly, which I knew from discussions with Vedat regarding some of his experiences meant "you kiss ass." With those final words, his body went limp and his eyes rolled back.

We were at that point joined by an older, ununiformed man, one who had about him an air of authority, and several more guards, and a young boy whom I guessed was about eleven. "Taxir, are you all right?" Your Majesty? Abbas was evidently not the son of the bey of this city, and this man was evidently not his father.

"I am, no thanks to my personal guard," Abbas responded. He glanced at the other men in the room. "Which of you were assigned to keep watch outside my door?"

"None of these, my Prince," replied the man who appeared to be of higher rank than the rest. "The two assigned that duty were found dead outside your door"

"Good. It will save me the trouble of killing them myself for their poor performance."

"You killed these four yourself?" asked the older ununiformed man with a hint of awe and surprise.

"This butterfly has the stinger of a hornet," Abbas said with a smile. "If it were not for his alertness and quick action, I would be dead."

"Allah the Merciful and Compassionate be praised you were not," the man responded.

My initial thought had been that the four men had come to kill me, retribution for the Company having killed the cengi the day before, or perhaps as further warning to Lutufkar. Evidently their target had not been I, but Abbas.

The bodies were dragged away and servants summoned to clean up the blood. Abbas and I were given another bedroom and double guards were posted, which seemed a needless gesture at this point. "Butterfly, I owe you my life," Abbas said as we settled back in bed. "I would like you return home with me. Not as köçek,, nor as my concubine. As a member of my personal guard, and as my comrade-in-arms, though I would hope you would still share my bed from time to time."

Return home with him? I had no idea where his home was. I had joined Lutufkar in a misunderstanding as to where he was travelling and I was not about to make that mistake a second time. I was not an entertainer like the others in Lutufkar's troupe, but at least I knew now the risks and the benefits of remaining with him, and I knew I would eventually return to Istanbul and a chance of returning to my homeland. "I 3; well 3; I am a member of the Ghilman Entertainment Troupe. I could not just leave them. Especially now that they are performing with one less member. You have heard of the murder of one of our dancers?"

"You will be paid well. Better than you are now. And as a member of my personal guard and as a comrade-in-arms you will have great respect and prestige, more than you have at the present."

"What is it then? I do not know of a boy who would not leap at the honour I have offered you."

"Samarkand," he said with a smile, looking at me expectantly. "You have not heard of it?" he asked in surprise.

"It has been described as the most fruitful of all the cities in all the lands of Allah. It is one of the oldest and most important cities in the east. All travellers from China and India travel through Samarkand on their way to the west, and all travellers from the west pass through it on their way to the east."

"This would need to be discussed with Lutufkar, the leader of the Company I am in."

"Not a problem, butterfly. It is settled." With that he lay back and closed his eyes.

Travelling with Lutufkar meant I would eventually return to Istanbul, but it also meant another four months or more of travelling, of sleeping on the ground under Timur's wagon, of dressing in girl's clothing and performing before crowds of men, and of months of lying on my stomach for the pleasure of strangers. One of Father's goals, and a charge laid upon us by King João, was to seek information of the spice trade route. I could do that travelling with Abbas. When Lutufkar had met me at the tavern in Istanbul he had said I could travel with him as long as I wished. I would remind him of that when we talked.

When the sun rose, the thought of telling Lutufkar that I wished to leave him did not seem as easy as it had in the middle of the night. After breaking our fast, Abbas accompanied me back to the Ghilman Entertainers camp along with a contingent of guards. I had rehearsed how I would approach the matter and what I would say throughout breakfast and our ride to the camp, but Abbas did not give me a chance to voice my speech. Upon arriving at the camp he immediately announced to Lutufkar that he planned on taking me with him. Lutufkar looked at me in surprise, and then at Abbas.

"My entertainers are free men. They can go where they choose," he replied magnanimously. "But this boy is indebted to us. We have taken much time and effort to train him-."

"Well, in Naqi's case, eight weeks, but because he has begun his career so late he has required many hours of training, every day. And there is the matter of clothes my wife and my cousin have sewn for him. Besides, you may not have heard, but we only two days ago lost one of our köçek,ler. The demand on those who remain has been great. To lose another, well, you know the köçek,ler are the main attraction of a group such as ours. For Naqi to leave now would result in great economic hardship not just for myself, but for the other members of the Company."

"I have heard of your loss. But the Ghilman Entertainment Troupe is well known for the calibre of its performers. I do not think there will be a shortage of customers for your performances even with the loss of another of your dancers." As a merchant's son I had witnessed many bartering sessions, and Abbas was among the most skilled barterers I have heard.

"I thank you for your praise for the Company, but Naqi is much loved by all of us," countered Lutufkar, who was also one highly skilled in the art of bartering. "A member of our family. Just who do you think you are that you can come in here and announce that you intend on taking him away?"

"I think I am Abbas Mirza, son of Sultan Ahmad Mirza, ruler of Samarkand, Bukhara and Hissar, son of Abu Sa'id Mirza, great-grandson of the great Amir Timur, the founder of the Timurid Dynasty. My mother is my father's most cherished concubine, Ayisha Begi Khan, descended from the great conqueror Chingas Khan. That is who I think I am," he said imperiously. (3)

"Prince Abbas," Lutufkar said, bowing deeply, his voice and attitude changing immediately, "forgive me for not realizing to whom I was speaking. I come from Istanbul, eight weeks journey to the west, and am unacquainted with all of the living members of the royal families to the east, but the fame and honourable name of the great Amir Timur and of Chingas Khan is known throughout all of Asia and Europe." I had known Lutufkar long enough by then to know that he was genuinely sincere in his apology, but also that there was more than a little showmanship and bargaining posturing in his response.

I suspect Prince Abbas knew so also. He gestured to one of the burly guards who had accompanied us and the man stepped forward and placing a chest on the ground, opened it. To my surprise, and that of everyone else from the gasps of breath and hushed murmurs, it was filled with gold coins and precious gems. "I am sure that this will adequately compensate you for your loss." Compensate him? In my eyes it was a king's ransom!

"I am overwhelmed by your generosity, and your Highness's patience with me. Had I known to whom I was speaking I would not have wasted your time with my rambling of my poor fortune-."

"Then we are done. I have other business to attend to, butterfly," he said, addressing me. "I will return for you in three candle marks. That should be sufficient time for you to gather your belongings, and say goodbye to your loving family." Hic choice of words was not lost on me, nor on Lutufkar.

Despite Lutufkar's exaggeration of my relationship and despite my discomfort with the preference of Vedat and Badr for feminine clothing and adoption of many feminine gestures and interests, I did feel affection for the members of the troupe and especially my fellow köçek,ler and for Lutufkar's brother Eskander. Taking Abbas at his word that he was not expecting me to travel with him as a köçek,, I let Vedat take his pick of my clothes and gave the rest to Shayazad and Lutufkar's wife, knowing that they could remake them for the others. I also presented Vedat, Badr, Domi and Yusuf with hair combs and jars of perfume as tokens for their assistance and friendship over the past two months, and Lutufkar with one of my rings. He made much ado about my generosity though most of what I gave away I would have no future use for and I would not be able to sell.

Of them all, I would miss Eskander the most and for him I went into town and purchased a fine pair of gloves. He of course tried to refuse the gift, and finally relented, and in return gave me a pair of the beautiful horses he whittled and sold at our performances. The others returned my gifts with those of their own which greatly touched me, even Lutufkar who presented me with a conical fur-trimmed cap that he said was common where I was going.

When Abbas arrived the entire Troupe turned out to wish me well and as I rode off with him, I had a moment of regret and wondered if I had made the right choice. I had expected that we would leave the next morning, but to my surprise his men were already packed and ready to leave. To my even greater surprise, we travelled only a short distance from the city before we set up camp though we had several candle marks of sunlight left. During the night there was even a greater surprise in store for me.

The horizon had not yet begun to lighten when Abbas woke me and told me to dress and to bring my arms. When I emerged from the tent, he and three of his men were mounted and waiting, with a horse for me. We rode back into the city and to the palace of the Bey. Leaving our horses tied a short distance away, we approached the palace, but instead of coming in through the gate, we circled around to the side and climbed over the high fence. Slipping through the shadows to the building, his three men preceded us, and as two of the palace guards made their rounds, the three men approached them from behind, catching them in surprise and dispatching them in the shadows. I had thought perhaps Abbas's intent was to rob the Bey, but upon entering the palace, instead of heading to the strong room where he would keep his money and jewels, we headed directly to the second floor which I knew contained the bedrooms including the one where I had spent the previous night with Abbas. Again his men preceded us and dispatched the men standing guard outside what I presumed was the Bey's bed chamber. Totally confused, I followed behind, my sword drawn, my heart high in my chest. If not theft, then the intent had to be murder!

Abbas himself approached the bed, and as the occupant awoke, Abbas quickly rolled him over on his stomach and leaping on him and pushing his head into the pillows he quickly tied his hands and feet and ordered me to gag him. Spotting the turban laying on a knapsack beside the bed, I grabbed it and stepped up to the bed as Abbas turned his captive over. It was then that I discovered our victim was not the Bey, but the young boy who had accompanied him the previous night. As the boy opened his mouth to call out, I gagged him with the turban. Abbas threw the boy over his shoulder and one of the men who had accompanied us grabbed the knapsack sitting beside the bed and we made our way back to the horses the same way we had come, our three companions preceding us. By the time we made it back to the others they had broken camp and were ready and waiting for us. We rode madly away from the city like the brigands we were.

That night there was much celebration and drinking, with much teasing and many ribald comments about our young prisoner, who, much to my surprise, though clearly apprehensive, did not seem as frightened nor as disconcerted as I would have been. The comments by the retinue of guards, attendants and advisors who were travelling with us, comparing our young captive to a virgin bride on her wedding night and observing that having had his legs spread riding a horse all day was good preparation for the ride he would be providing all night, and the lewd hints as to the outrageously exaggerated endowment of his abductor made it clear for what purpose the boy had been taken captive though the reason for it escaped me. Prince Abbas was a powerful man and not an unattractive one who any number of women, or boys for that matter, would willingly provide him pleasure, and he had the wealth to buy a hundred young boys if such were his preference. He did not have to abduct a boy to satisfy his sexual cravings. And, although the boy was pretty enough, there were many who were prettier, and who fathers were not in a position to pursue us, unlike a prominent and powerful man like the Bey of Tabriz who was obviously the father or close relative of the boy.

"Well," observed Abbas, looking up at the moon now high in the sky, "I think we have teased our young guest long enough. It is time for him to become a man." His announcement resulted in a murmur of comments, all apparently in agreement. "Butterfly, Syed, take our young guest and prepare him. I will join you momentarily." (4)

I glanced at Syed, Abbas's top advisor and most trusted man, a sombre, grey-beared man who seemed to have almost as much authority and power as the Prince. Standing, he motioned for the boy, Jama'ah, and for me to follow him. Picking up soap and towels at Abbas's tent, we headed to the stream by which we had set up camp and went downstream a bit. Being told to strip, the boy did so self-consciously. He was a fine-looking boy, his muscles still having the rounded contours of childhood but clearly firm and beginning to develop the definition that comes with approaching puberty and with strenuous physical activity. His body was devoid of hair, both under his arms and over his pubes, and his member was no bigger than a man's thumb, and his stones no bigger than a thrush's eggs, confirming my guess that he was about eleven.

Having the boy dunk his head in the stream, Syed handed me the bar of coarse soap and as I scrubbed the boy's scalp, Syed explained to the boy the ritual he was about to engage in. He said despite the comments the men had made that night and what he might have heard, the act he was about to engage in was not a sexual act, but a religious one, a sacred ceremony that had been practised by the boy's father and his father's father and their ancestors before that, and his own ancestors, for as long ago as anyone could remember. He recited verses from the Koran, speaking too fast for me to catch most of the words, and blessed the boy, using gestures that were foreign to me. Having lathered the boy's hair and worked it into his scalp, I proceeded to wash the rest of his body, beginning at his shoulders and working down. Although it was well past the spring equinox and the crops were sprouting, the evenings were still cool and the water icy. Despite the coldness of the water, the boy did not flinch, and between the coldness and my scrubbing with the coarse soap and rough cloth that Syed had given me, his skin, a coppery brown, began to turn a pale, bluish hue.

Syed explained to the boy that in order to grow strong and brave, Abbas would impregnate him with his seed. By this holy act, he explained, he would be transformed from a boy to a man. By this time I had reached his groin and hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. With a hint of impatience, Syed told me to continue, and whether by coincidence or timing, he began to sing the praises of being a man and the glory of having a member and seed-bearing sacs as I soaped up the boy's limp sausage and stones and gently stroked them with my thumb and first two fingers. They felt velvet-smooth and sacred act or not, I began to become aroused, and so did the boy.

Syed went on to explain that a man's seed not only resulted in new life when planted in a woman, but was a means of passing on his virility and competency as a man when planted in a boy, transforming the boy into a man ready for marriage. This rite, he said, could only be performed when a boy was considered physically strong enough to become a warrior, and brave enough to strive to become one. Not every boy, he reminded Jama'ah, was lucky enough to be chosen to engage in this rite, and only the most worthy were selected to be initiated into manhood by a man of Abbas's station and renown. Jama'ah straightened up proudly upon hearing those words. Having finished soaping him, I told him to rinse himself off in the stream, and then dried him with the coarse towel Syed had brought. With him wrapped up in the towel, we returned to the camp and slipping though the shadows out of sight of the men, we entered Abbas's tent. An oil lamp had been lit to ward off the chill of the evening.

Jama'ah nodded and going over to the knapsack that had been brought with us when we had kidnapped the boy, he took out a small bottle and handed it to Syed. Removing the stopper, he took a sniff of the contents and nodded his approval. "My father told me it arouses a man's lust," Jama'ah observed. I glanced at Syed and back at Jama'ah in confusion. What was he doing with a perfume to arouse a man's lust, and what was it doing in a knapsack beside his bed, and why would his father tell him such a thing?

"Musk," Syed said in explanation. "From a deer that lives in the high mountains to the north and east. Your father is correct. It is an aphrodisiac. But it must be used in the smallest of amounts." He handed the jar to me. "A small dab behind each ear, in the hollow where the jaw joins the skull, and a small dab in each armpit. As the body warms with sexual excitement, the oil will warm and the odour increase." I applied the oil as instructed. "And clothing?"

Jama'ah nodded again, and going to the knapsack once more, took out a pale orange silk blouse, a dark brown vest, and a lighter brown pair of shalvars. Why did he have these things packed beside his bed? Something was definitely very strange here. The turban I had gagged him with completed his outfit, and he looked very smart in it. Again Syed nodded his approval. "A necklace, or a clasp for the vest perhaps, something silver to contrast?"

Jama'ah's face fell as he shook his head. "I usually only wear such finery at formal occasions. I did not think to bring anything. Will the Prince be disappointed?" he asked fearfully. The Prince had kidnapped him-why would he be worried if he was disappointed?

"I have just the thing," I said, still trying to sort things out. Stepping over to my chest of belongings, I took out a thin silver necklace, and two silver clasps shaped like leaves to hold one's hair back from one's ears.

"They are beautiful," he said, looking at them in admiration. "And very expensive."

"My gift to you on this special night," I said, slipping the necklace over his head and attaching the two clasps to his turban to help hold it in place.

"I will treasure them forever, and when I look at them, I will remember this night, and your great kindness."

Syed lit several large candles and extinguished the oil lamp. "I will inform his Highness all is ready," he said. "If you have any advice to give a boy about to become a man, or if you have any questions to ask one who is skilled in the art of pleasing men," he said, glancing at me and then at Jama'ah, "the two of you will have a moment to do so."

The two of us stood there awkwardly, glancing at each other and then at the carpet covering the floor of the tent as Syed left. We both began to speak at once, and then paused, and again spoke togther. "You first," I said.

I quickly retrieved a jar of lubricant from my belongings. "Apply this to the bulb of his member, or to your anus, and stick your greased fingers up your hole. His member will go in easier, and with less pain."

"And remember to relax. Take several deep breaths and let your entire body go limp when he is about to penetrate you." He took several quick breaths, looking terrified and reluctant. "Do not worry. Abbas is a very gentle lover, and very skilled. Everything will be all right."

Before he could respond, Abbas entered. Jama'ah bowed in respect, and I followed suit. I discretely headed for the tent flap.

I turned and stood there, feeling most awkward. Abbas surveyed Jama'ah and then slowly circled him, looking at him appraisingly. "Beautiful. Perfectly beautiful." Jama'ah blushed. Walking over to the blankets and pillows I had helped one of his servants lay out for him in the far corner of the tent, he sank down and motioned for Jama'ah to join him. Not knowing what else to do, I stepped back to the small pile of pillows in the opposite corner near the tent flap that Abbas's servant had laid out for me and sat down.

Drawing the boy down to him, Abbas removed his vest and untying the laces at his neck he drew his loose blouse over his head. He smiled appreciatively at the sight of the boy's naked chest and he reached over and caressed it gently, circling his nipples and following the curve of each young breast, and then gently caressing the boy's nipples, causing him to squirm with arousal. He then drew the boy to him and kissed him on the lips. I tried to be inconspicuous and not watch, but that was impossible given our proximity.

Continuing to caress the boy, Abbas worked down from his chest and over his ribs and untying the cord to his pantaloons, he slipped his fingers inside and slowly eased them down over his hips, revealing his slender member and his hairless sack. He again paused to admire them and he reached over and fondled them, letting the boy's shalvars drop to his feet. Telling Jama'ah to turn around, he admired the boy's smooth backside as he bent over and stepped out of his pantaloons. Stepping up from behind and cupping the boy's ass cheeks, he caressed them as he lowered his head and nibbled on the boy's neck.

"Tell me, have you engaged in any form of sex play with a man?" he asked huskily.

"No," Jama'ah replied, his voice quavering with nervousness as Abbas removed the two silver clasps and began to unwrap his turban.

"No!" he said emphatically, his voice and the look on his face indicating shock that the Prince would think such a thing.

"A virgin boy," Abbas said appreciatively as he turned the boy around and stepped back. He began to remove his vest and Jama'ah quickly looked down. "No, watch," Abbas demanded, and Jama'ah quickly raised his head. Unlacing his shirt, he drew it over his head, revealing his muscular chest. The sight of his firm, muscular body and the scars cutting across his biceps and along his right forearm, and another angling across his smooth chest from the upper right corner down under his nipple to end between his right and left breast reminded me of our first and only night together and my member began to rise. I was glad I was sitting in the shadows and wearing my baggy shalvars. Untying the cord of his pantaloons, he let them drop to his feet, revealing his solid, rippled stomach and his privates. I knew from the previous night's experience his member was partially erect and I could only imagine what was going through our eleven-year-old virgin's mind as he tried not to stare at it.

Drawing the boy to him, he sank down to the pillows with him and began to arouse him. I had told the truth about Abbas being a skilled and tender lover, and he brought Jama'ah to arousal slowly and in time with his own growing desire. By the time he had gotten the boy erect, so was he, and so was I. Erect, the boy's member was not much bigger nor thicker than it had been soft. Abbas's of course was impressive and I knew the boy was wondering how he was going to be able to accommodate him. I know I certainly had wondered, and I had experience.

"Reach over and hold it." The boy did so, loosely holding it between his thumb and his four fingers. "Wrap your fingers about it and squeeze." The boy did so. "Squeeze as hard as you can." The boy inhaled nervously as he squeezed harder. "Feel its strength, its power. You are holding the zubr of a man. And tonight, we begin your journey from a boy to a man." Jama'ah swallowed hard as he sat there tightly squeezing the stiff member of the eighteen-year-old Prince. "Did they tell you what you must do in order to receive it?"

The boy looked at him uncertainly and paled as he tried to remember. "The jar," he said suddenly. "The lubricant. And to relax."

Jama'ah glanced around frantically, wondering where he had put the jar. Finally spotting it, he scrambled over to it with such haste you would think he had expected it to flee from him. Returning, he removed the stopper and dipped his finger into the grease. Slowly and awkwardly he smeared it over Abbas's bulb and shaft.

"You will learn," Abbas said with a smile. Indeed he would. As I watched the boy applying the grease to the member that would soon be plunged up his ass, I recalled my initial awkwardness under the tutelage of Usama, and as a novice bath boy, and my growing expertise as I became an experienced tellak and then a köçek, in training. "And how do you wipe off your fingers?"

Again there was a look of desperation on the face of the eleven-year-old, and unable to recall any instructions, he glanced over at the corner where I was sitting. At first I was going to pretend not to have heard and not to have been watching, but I realized not to have heard and not to have been watching was impossible and would have been seen as false. Abbas had said I might be needed, and this was a case in which I was. I slowly extended two fingers and reaching behind me made an exaggerated swipe. Jama'ah grinned in understanding and in appreciation of my help. "I-."

"Just do it," Abbas said with a smile. The boy dutifully reached behind him and after some difficulty, inserted his fingers one at a time up his asshole. As I watched and saw the expression on his face turn from aversion to concentration, and then to curiosity and then surprise, I could not help thinking how simple and routine that act had become for me.

Having the boy drop to his elbows and knees, Abbas knelt behind him, and pulling apart the boy's smooth ass cheeks, he placed the tip of his thick, projecting member against the boy's hole and slowly pushed forward. The boy stared straight ahead, his eyes wide and his mouth open in apprehension and anticipation. His face slowly began to contort with strain as he tried to accommodate the horse-sized cock and then grimaced with pain as the eighteen-year-old's knob stretched open the boy's virgin asshole. He clenched his eyes shut and pressed his lips together to prevent from crying out and then slowly the creases of pain began to fade as Abbas paused, his knob firmly embedded in the boy's rectum. As I have said, he was a tender and compassionate lover, and he had paused just as much to allow the boy to recover from his initial penetration as he did to allow himself the delight of knowing he had penetrated a virgin boy. The boy's grimace slowly turned to a look of wonder and amazement as Abbas slowly sank his member up the boy's rectum until his curly hairs were pressed against the boy's smooth, naked backside. Again he paused, to enjoy the sheer delight of having his cock embedded up the boy's velvety asshole, and to allow the boy time to appreciate having his ass stuffed with a firm man cock for the first time in his life. I found myself holding my breath as I sat there watching, as if it were I that was being penetrated for the first time.

He then began to slowly pump his hips to and fro, withdrawing his cock until the knob was about to pop back out of the young boy's hole, and then easing his cock back up his rectum until his groin was pressed against the boy's buttocks. In and out he worked his stiff cock in a slow, steady rhythm, and I could see on his face the sheer delight he was experiencing fucking this tight, virgin boy. The look of wonder on Jama'ah's face slowly turned to a look of delight also as the burning stimulation about his anus grew stronger and as the throbbing of the cock embedded up his ass caused his rectum to throb in time with it, and his fear and apprehension slowly turned to surprise and then delight. As Abbas's cock brushed against that special spot deep up a boy's rectum that sent ripples of pleasure as strong as the ripples of pleasure that caused the rim of his cock to burn, he jerked, as did his little, erect cock, and his eyes opened wide. At first he was uncertain what was happening, and then began to expect and relish it.

Initially it felt strange sitting there watching him have his first sexual experience and I felt embarrassed, for myself, and for him. As his breathing grew heavier however, and he began to arch his back with pleasure with each forward thrust of Abbas's hips, his wonder and his delight were evident and I found the excitement of his first fucking arousing. I remembered my first experience in the Kongo with the black child and how mysterious and how delightful my first experience had been, and I knew Jama'ah was feeling exactly the same at that moment. As I sat there watching and listening, I felt my marrow leak out of my swollen bone. I recalled the first time I had been fucked, by the Berber cutpurse Ahmar on the Barbary Coast. It seemed so long ago and I clenched my anus in fond memory.

Abbas paused frequently and I imagined the delight of fucking a young, virgin boy was even more arousing for him than watching it happen was for me. I gradually became aware of the thick fragrance filling the tent, a ripe, earthy fragrance that made my head spin and my heart race and my member ache with the need to spurt my seed. The perfume Syed had called musk, an aphrodisiac. I had never heard either word before, but Jama'ah's father war right about it arousing one's lust. I had been about to shoot my seed before the odour reached me, and now my entire body ached for its release and I had not touched myself. I could only imagine the struggle Abbas was having stopping from erupting.

He of course had to also be stopping to enjoy the delight of having his thick, aching sausage buried up the hot, moist ass of the young virgin boy, and to give Jama'ah the opportunity to enjoy his first fucking for as long as he could. He did not fuck as long as he had with me, either because he could not hold back, or, more likely I think, because he did not want to strain Jama'ah. Heartbeats after the scent of Jama'ah's perfume had reached me, Abbas began to spurt. I had enough experience that there was no mistaking that he had reached that point and was beginning to fill the boy's rectum with his seed. His breathing was so loud and irregular the men sitting around the campfire just outside his tent had to have heard. He finally stopped thrusting his hips and he held the boy tight for the longest time before drawing his cock out of his asshole and rolling over on his back. Jama'ah continued to kneel there on his knees and elbows, breathing just as deeply until Abbas placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and drew him to him.

"As my seed mingles with your blood and flows through your body, may you grow strong and skilled in the ways of the warrior. As my seed floods your heart may it be filled with bravery, as it floods through your groin may you grow virile."

I did not know if these were ritual words, or words of Abbas himself. As I settled back among my pillows, I wondered if it was true, if a man's seed imparted his strengths. From Prince Afonso I had learned of nobility and friendship and loyalty, from Ahmar I had learned stealth and the ways of one who lives in the streets and of love, from Michelangelo I learned pride and self-confidence and appreciation of being male, from Usama I had learned bravery and the skills of a warrior. I had thought I had learned these things from their example and by their teaching but now I was not sure. Suppose those qualities that I had learned and adopted as mine were in fact somehow the transmission of their essence from them to me by way of their seed? And what of the dozens of men who have injected their seed into me at the baths and following my performances? What had they passed on to me by way of their seed? Some I knew so little about I had no idea what their virtues were. And what of those who had no virtues, like the bastard relative of Sultan Bayazid who had ravaged me in the baths?

Fortunately the stirring across the tent interrupted those disturbing thoughts for which I had no answers. Abbas was about to penetrate Jama'ah's rectum again and my attention returned to them. In all they did it three times that night, the same number as Abbas and I had done the night before, showing the virility and stamina of the man, but I noted that none of the times were as prolonged as ours had been, showing something of my skill and stamina also. As the two fucked passionately there in flickering light of the candles, I shared in their pleasure, in the delight of the eighteen-year-old prince spurting his seed up the ass of a tender, virgin boy, and in the delight of the eleven-year-old son of the Governor of Tabriz having his ass fucked for the first time, and as Abbas spurted his seed up the rectum of the young man child and as the boy trembled with his first dry orgasms, I trembled with delight with the release of my own seed.

We travelled for another three days, arising with the sun and going to bed as it set, and each night Abbas spurted his seed up the rectum of young Jama'ah as I lay on my bed on the opposite side of the tent. On the fourth night since leaving Tabriz we arrived at the town of Tehran, which Syed told me was once part of the ancient city of Rayy but had somehow survived the Mongol destruction of that city two hundred and seventy years ago and had steadily grown ever since. A number of men went into the town that night to drink at the taverns and, I was told, to avail themselves of the services of prostitutes, both female and male, none of them having the luxury of having someone travelling with them to satisfy those urges that a man has as their Prince did. Abbas was not one of them, and that night had anal congress with Jama'ah four times.

When we headed out the next morning, many of the men were listless and complaining of headaches and queasy stomachs, the result of too much drinking and carousing the previous night, but Abbas took no sympathy on them. Indeed, we rode all the harder that day, which he said was the best cure for what ailed them. It may have cured them, but it did not make them nor their companions any wiser. Four nights later we arrived at the town of Shahrud and the experience in Tehran was repeated except this time it was those who had remained on guard at our camp back in Tehran. The next morning we headed out again, this time branching off from the main trail and heading east and further south, leaving the plateau and cutting across rugged terrain that at times had no trail to follow, continuing to descend until we began to cross a barren desert. Despite the heat of the day we still rode hard from sunup to sunset.

In the evenings as it began to cool off, Abbas took Jama'ah aside and trained him in using the bow and the spear and I was reminded of my evenings of practice with Usama, except we trained for war and Jama'ah was training to be a hunter, though there was, in my mind, little difference. While they were so occupied, I had no difficulty finding one of his guards willing to practice swordsmanship with me and teach me the finer skills of combat, which I found quite different from my Ottoman training, and all of them were great horse lovers and delighted in expanding my knowledge about horses and riding. It was humorous in a way, my initial abhorrence of horses now turning to a great appreciation of the beasts, which put me in good stead with my present companions who learned to admire me for myself and not because I was Prince Abbas's favourite.

In that I was the only one close to his age, Jama'ah also befriended me, and when Abbas was busy with other business, I trained him in the use of the sword and he helped me practice Farsi, which he spoke, and the dialect that Abbas spoke, which he called Mongol. . "Syed says you killed two men and saved Prince Abbas's life. Is that true?"

"No. I do not think he would lie about anything. Prince Abbas trusts him more than anyone, except, I think, perhaps you."

"I do not know if I saved the Prince's life, but it is true about killing two of his would-be assassins."

"Oh. No." I had, I realized, not been angry, though, I had to admit, reluctantly, that I was a bit envious. "And it is different with you anyway. You are being initiated into manhood. I was at the time a köçek,."

"I have heard my father and other men speak of the Mamelukes. They are great fighters."

"More than I can remember." The boy's eyes widened. "You are indeed a great warrior." I had no reply to that. "When I have sons, I would be honoured to arrange for you to be the one to initiate them into manhood as my father arranged with Prince Abbas for me."

"Of course. Prince Abbas is a very powerful man and a great warrior. It is a great honour to be initiated by him, and I can only hope I am considered worthy and am strong enough for his seed to make me as brave and skilled as he is, and," he added with a sheepish grin, "as virile as he is." He paused for a moment. "As a köçek,, you have known many men."

Jama'ah beamed with pride. It was a strange conversation, and left me with much thought. As I had suspected, his kidnapping had been expected. That was why the guards were so few and so easily taken care of, and, I suspect, merely knocked unconscious or otherwise restrained, not killed, and why Jama'ah had a knapsack with perfume to arouse a man's lust, his most attractive clothes, and all his most prized possessions beside his bed. His father had actually arranged the abduction, knowing that his son would be mounted and his rectum filled with a man's seed. How different from the nobleman of Constantinople and his son who chose to be beheaded instead of having the son pleasuring the new ruler of the city. How different from my homeland where such a thing would be considered a sin and a crime. Why would one father be in favour and assist in having his son fucked by man, as Jama'ah's father, and as the fathers in ancient Greece according to the scholars back in Florence, and another father rather have his son beheaded it being considered such a immoral act?

And what of myself? I had never really thought much about becoming married and having children. It had seemed like a long way off. But I was fifteen now. Cardinal Borja's daughter was five years younger and betrothed. I knew there were boys my age back in Portugal who were married and already had children. Women just had not crossed my mind. I was still going to school and had just been too busy with other things back home, and since I had begun my travels, I was too busy just trying to survive. I suppose some day, God willing, I would marry and have sons just like Father. If I did, and if I had to choose, what would I choose for them, to engage in sex with men, or to die?

Continuing to travel east with Prince Abbas to the Timurid Empire, Nico assists in the initiation and training, in swordplay and in bed play, of eleven-year-old Jama'ah while witnessing the warmth and compassion and the barbaric behaviour of his Tamurid leader as he trains his young charge while he engages in a fierce and bloody war. With apprehension and uncertainty, Nico has his first heterosexual experience with two female servants, one fifteen and one fourteen. All leave him bewildered and confused.

Nicolau Ribeiro (15yo)
Supporting characters 11 and 18 yo males, 14 and 15 yo girls
Mt – cons/slave oral anal mast – prost cross-dressing transgender

When we retired the fourth evening after leaving Shahrud, Prince Abbas motioned for me to join him and Jama'ah on their side of the tent and when I did so he motioned for me to sit beside him.

"So, Kapalak, Jama'ah has confessed to me he is feeling guilty. He feels he has taken your place," he announced bluntly, as was his way. (1)

"Oh. But you have not," I said quickly, looking over at Jama'ah. "Your reason for being in Prince Abbas's bed is very different from what was mine."

"Well, perhaps, a bit." I could not lie. It was not my nature, and besides, Abbas was no fool. He would be able to tell. Abbas smiled.

"And seeing and hearing us engaged in sex raises my Butterfly's stinger, perhaps, a bit?" he asked. I blushed a bright red and his smile widened. "Well, I have a solution that will solve both problems, Jama'ah's unwarranted guilt and your unfulfilled prurience. Have you ever engaged in the pleasures of the flesh with more than one person at the same time?"

I nodded. I had done so on several occasions actually. The first had involved Prince Afonso fucking his bastard brother Jorge while Jorge had sucked my member, and then me fucking Jorge and masturbating him while he sucked his half-brother. Then I had fucked a young fisherman's son while he was sucked by Jorge while Prince Afonso and his valet had similarly engaged the boy's brother. In Rome there had been five of us, me and four choir boys, fucking, being sucked or being masturbated all at the same time. In Florence, the great artist Leonardo da Vinci and his close friend, the rich aristocrat Leo Tornabuoni, and I had masturbated each other with me in the middle, and then I had sucked the twenty-one-year-old artist Francesco Granacci while his friend, the fifteen-year-old painter and sculpturer Michelangelo, fucked and masturbated me. And of course most recently I had congress with the two preteen köçekler, in training, Yusef and Domi, in each other's presence. To my shame, I had much experience engaging in the pleasures of the flesh with more than one person.

"I suspected as much with your background," Abbas said with a smile. "And were you ever the fucker and the one getting fucked at the same time?" I shook my head in the negative. I tried to visualize how that could be but it seemed impossible. "Ah, then there is something I can teach the famous köçek, Naqi," he said with a grin. "Let me see what you have learned from me about how to arouse a man," he said, turning to look at Jama'ah and nodding toward me.

The three of us were wearing the typical clothing of travellers, a plain cloth cap held in place by a braided cord and with flaps along the sides and the back to protect from the unrelenting sun in this harsh land, a long, loose blouse, loose and baggy trousers to reduce our sweating, sandals, a thin loincloth, and a long-sleeved outer robe to protect from the blowing sand that could sting worse than hornets. Jama'ah hesitated, and then crawling over to me, he opened my robe and blouse and slipping his hands inside, began to caress my chest. His small, hot hands caused my nipples to ache and my member to stir. Gradually pushing my robe off over my shoulders and pulling my blouse off over my head, he massaged my shoulders and back, and slowly proceeded down, caressing my waist and my stomach and untying my trousers and loin cloth, allowing them to drop, and then caressing my buttocks and then my thighs, at the same time gently skipping his lips over my chest, stomach and thighs and kissing my salty skin. Of course my member responded to his kisses and caresses. It was strange sitting there being aroused by an eleven-year-old boy, the son of the Bey of Tabriz, in front of a handsome eighteen year old, a Prince of the land, the boy four years younger than myself and the Prince three years older.

The boy paused to remove his own clothing, which he did so quickly, and then resumed caressing and kissing me and rubbing his hot, naked body against mine. Abbas had trained him well in the art of arousal and I was soon rigid, as was he. The sight of the naked youngster with his hairless pubes and stiff little sausage no bigger than my thumb and tiny, hairless balls caused my member to twitch with arousal. It had not been that long ago that I would have thought a boy his age too young to become sexually aroused. While the boy had engaged in foreplay with me, Abbas had stripped off his clothes also, and he now removed his final article of clothing, his thin linen loincloth, revealing that he too had become fully aroused, his impressive member jutting up in the air above his large, hairy, pendant balls.

Taking out a jar of lubricant, Abbas had me grease his long, thick member and then my asshole, and as I slipped one finger and then another up my ass to lubricate my channel and cleanse my fingers, my member jerked in anticipation of having the lustful eighteen-year-old's stiff member up my hole. Having me kneel in the middle of the pillows, the Prince got behind me and shuffling between my legs on his knees, he placed the hot tip of his greased member against my greased hole and as he began to push forward I inhaled deeply and opened my anus. The slope of his bulb slowly stretched open my hole until his bulb popped inside, and he then slowly continued to push forward, easing his cock up my asshole until he was fully embedded up my rectum with his coarse hairs pressing against my buttocks.

He then had Jama'ah grease my cock and his own asshole, and I noticed the boy followed precisely the procedure I had taught him and that I had just followed myself. Abbas then had the boy drop to his hands and knees and back up until the tip of my stiff member was pressing against his opening. Grasping his hips, I slowly pressed my hips forward as Abbas instructed, causing my cock to wedge in Jama'ah's anus and slowly stretch it open until it popped inside. I continued to press forward, easing my cock up his rectum while at the same time I slowly eased up on Abbas's cock. By the time I had sunk my cock up Jama'ah's ass and my hairs were pressing against the eleven-year-old's smooth buttocks, I had ridden half way up Abbas's member, it being twice the length of mine.

As I drew my cock out of Jama'ah's ass, I slid back on Abbas's cock so that as my knob was stretching open the boy's anus my butt was pressing against Abbas's coarse hairs. Grasping Jama'ah's hips for balance, I once again drove my cock up his ass and slid up on Abbas's cock. It was a strange sensation, feeling the boy's hot, moist ass surrounding my cock from tip to base while my rectum was stuffed with a hard, thick cock itself. My anus burned with a painful pleasure, the same painful pleasure with which the rim of my bulb burned, and my rectum throbbed hotly in time with the member stuffed up it, as did my member and the ass surrounding it. It was impossible to say which pleasure was greater, and my mind jumped from one to the other unable to concentrate on any one. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. As I started up a rhythm, the throbbing blended together, that of my member and that of Abbas's and that of my rectum and that of Jama'ah's until they were all throbbing as one.

Abbas's breath blew hotly against the back of my neck and he grunted and gasped with pleasure as I rode his cock. I grasped it tightly with my anal muscle as I rode up on it, squeezing the firm, throbbing bone as hard as I could. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, delighting in the sharp pangs of pleasure that I knew were piercing his bulb, the same pangs of pleasure that were piercing mine as I thrust my hips to and fro, driving my own cock in and out of Jama'ah's ass. Jama'ah was panting heavily also with the combined pleasure of having his asshole stuffed with my stiff, throbbing cock and with the pangs of pleasure ripping through his slender little cock as I tugged on it as I fucked his ass. Knowing that his little cocklet and Abbas's long thick member were both throbbing and burning with the same pleasure as mine, and that his anus was burning with the same pleasure as his cock and as my anus heightened my own arousal and all too soon I was ready to erupt. I suspected so were Jama'ah and Abbas and when I paused to allow my passion to subside, they also remained perfectly still, concentrating on their own pleasure and fighting back the devilish urge to continue.

I waited for a long time before I resumed, and as I eased my cock back out of Jama'ah's ass and slid back down on Abbas's thick cock and pulled back on Jama'ah's slender sausage, I closed my eyes and concentrated on the pleasure pulsating about the knob of my member and through my rectum and on the pleasure of knowing the pleasure I was bringing the eleven-year-old boy kneeling in front of me, the pleasure of getting his ass fucked, and the pleasure of having his little, stiff member stroked. I paused to delight in the sensation of having Abbas's stiff, throbbing cock in my body, his coarse hairs pressed against my smooth butt. The eighteen-year-old prince had a horse-sized cock, and as I pushed forward and began to ride back up it I knew I would only ride it half way before my own cock was fully embedded in Jama'ah.

As I approached that peak once again, I could not delay what we all wanted to happen. The three of us were panting and gasping with exertion and pleasure and the heat from our flushed, naked bodies filled the tent. Sweat was trickling down my ribs, and my armpits were damp, and as I inhaled deeply I could smell the sweat from my body and that of the eleven-year-old boy I was fucking and that of the eighteen-year-old whose cock I was riding. I could smell their sex also, the dank, musky fragrance of their balls and of mine, now swollen and damp with sweat, and the sharp earthy smell of cock. I inhaled the intoxicating fragrance deeply and my head spun with delight. I closed my eyes and savoured the pungent odour of three males in heat, one eighteen, one fifteen, and one eleven.

As my seed began to race up the core of my cock, I thrust my cock deep up Jama'ah's ass and grasped his hips tightly. My seed erupted from my body and spurted up Jama'ah's rectum, causing the tip of my cock to burn with that unique sweet pain as my numbed cock throbbed deep up the eleven-year-old boy's ass. Abbas grasped my hips and thrust his cock up my ass also, and I felt the eighteen-year-old prince tremble as he too erupted, and I quivered with delight as I felt his hot, thick seed flood up my rectum. As he filled me with his seed and I filled Jama'ah with mine, the boy trembled and I felt his little dicklet throb hotly between my thumb and forefinger as he reached his own orgasm, just as powerful and delightful as mine and Abbas's even though he was too young yet to produce seed. The air, hot and humid from our flushed, perspiring bodies and already rank with the masculine fragrance of cock and balls and sweat, was newly scented with the musky fragrance of fresh seed. I inhaled the perfumed air deeply, filling my lungs with the manly-scented air as my rectum was filled with Princely seed and I filled the rectum of the boy-becoming-a-man.

Spent, I finally drew my still stiff cock out of Jama'ah's ass and slid off Abbas's still stiff cock. With a contented sigh, Abbas lay back on the pillows, and as I collapsed beside him Jama'ah sprawled out beside me. Our breathing was still deep and laboured and we lay there for a long time before it finally returned to normal. It was at least half a candle mark before I felt Abbas's hand reach out and slowly and gently caress my hip and then slowly side around in front of me and down my pubes to cup my balls and now limp cock. As he began to fondle me, I reached over and slipping my hand along Jama'ah's slender, smooth body, I picked up his limp tube between thumb and forefinger and began to stroke it. Reaching down with my other hand, I wrapped my fingers about the thick, limp sausage that had only a short time ago been up my ass. Slowly my cock began to swell, as did the two in my hands, one the size of a horse cock, the other the size of my thumb.

We did it three times in all that night before we finally collapsed into a deep and contented sleep, and we had to be awoken by the guard the next morning. The next night found the three of us again on the same side of the room though that night we only did it once. In all it took us nine days to travel from Shahrud to Mashhad, a long, hard ride through a desolate, arid country of sand and stone almost devoid of any vegetation, the sun relentlessly shining down upon us and the night air biting cold, but no matter how hard the ride and how sore our bodies, each night we delighted in each other, sometimes double fucking as our first night, and other times Abbas first fucking Jama'ah as I watched and then fucking me as Jama'ah watched.

Mashhad was a large centre surrounded by fruit trees and situated on a tributary of the Han Rujd River facing Turkomans territory and commanding a four hundred furlong wide gap between two narrow ranges of mountains that divided the arid plateau to the south from lush land along the Caspian shore to the north. According to Syed, the towering Hindu Kush to the north with its deep blue glacial lakes walls off the southern deserts from the steppes of the Turkomans. The narrow gap between them and the northern slopes of the Kopet Dagh Mountains, he said, forms a natural passage between the Eran plateau and the Central Asia basin that has served both merchants and invaders for thousands of years. (2)

The day after our arrival in Mashhad, Abbas, Jama'ah and I visited the shrine to Imam Ali ar-Riza whom I was told lived between 765 and 818 and was the seventh descendant of Muhammad. The Shrine, Abbas explained, is a holy place of pilgrimage. I found it most impressive with its golden dome and fourteen slender minarets, the Imam's mausoleum with its pattern of coloured tiles, the seven courtyards, and three fountains. Gowhar Shad, Timur's son's wife and his successor, erected a splendid mosque beside the shrine in 1418 and we visited it also and spent an hour in prayer. That evening, we triple fucked with a renewed vigour.

The next day we were on the trail again. That evening, as I was currying my horse, Syed came to groom his and we talked, mostly about horses and their care, everyone having great respect and love for the animals and everyone impressed by my knowledge about horses and similar respect for the animals as they had, things I had learned from the Mameluke Usama el Hasan ibn Fuad and from the Turk Eskander. From there our conversation drifted to the land we were travelling through, a beautiful land but rugged and sparsely populated, and to its rulers, mostly independent tribes who frequently were at war with each other as one tribal chieftain tried to take over the land of the next one. Syed asked how I found Abbas, and I answered honestly, having no fear of repercussions for doing so. I learned from Syed that the prince had been on a religious pilgrimage to Tabriz where we had met, having gone there to see and pray at the Blue Mosque, whose interior he said was made from blue and green tiles and was most beautiful to behold. Abbas had also gone to Tabriz on a trade mission, his father being desirous of establishing trade with the Bey of that city and establishing a common defence against the Turkomans with whom he was waring. In addition, Syed had added with a wink, he had come to spy on the Bey's own defences and the possibility of invading the city and adding it to his father's domain some time.

I hesitated to ask the next question but I was curious. I considered my words carefully before speaking them. "If he is so religious, how can he, well, have congress with those of his own gender? I have heard it said such is considered a sin in the eyes of Allah."

Syed smiled. "You should know, Kapalak, that there are things that Allah has said, things that the Imams say Allah has said, and things that the Imams say. It is the task of the common man to determine which is which, and what things are mandatory and which are merely suggestions. As for sex, the Qur'an speaks only of congress between men, not between men and boys, which is something much different, and it speaks of boys who serve righteous men in heaven, the Ghilman, and many believe that service to include offering up their backsides, and so if it is so in heaven, why should it not also be so on earth? And, Kapalak, as for Abbas, he is a prince, and princes can do things that the common man and that even Imams cannot."

Having become acquainted with the habits of several princes, princes of the land and princes of the church, I knew there was much truth in what Syed had said. For the next two days we climbed the pass cutting across the Kopet Dagh Mountains on a well-travelled road and on the third night after leaving Mashhad we arrived at Ashkhabad, a small trading centre known primarily for its carpets and raising horse and situated in an oasis near the Qarakum Desert, also called the Garagum Desert which in the Turkic language means Black Sands, a vast, desolate area of hard packed clay, rolling sand dunes, and salt swamps extending for over two thousands furlong to the north and east. To me, it was as if we were riding into Hell itself. The next day we headed south and east, skirting the Peski Karakumy Desert to our north along a rough trail.

On the third day we stopped early and when I inquired why, Syed rebuked me for my lapse in faith and informed me that we were stopping because it was Laylat al-Miraj. Following prayers, which fortunately for me were lead by Syed and required me to only repeat the words along with the others after him, he reminded Jama'ah, and I suspect did so as a reminder to me also, that this was the day we commemorate the journey Muhammad made in one day to the mosque in Jerusalem where the Archangel Gabriel purified his heart and filled him with the knowledge and faith he needed to enter the seven levels of Heaven, which he did on the same day. There he talked to God who gave him instructions to take back to the faithful regarding the details of prayer. Syed looked directly at me when he spoke of the last. Following our evening meal, we had a special treat, sweet pastries of honey, figs and almonds Prince Abbas had purchased in Ashkhabad for this day. That night I gave thanks to God, and to Allah just in case, and for good measure to the Archangel Gabriel, for the blessings of the day and for my deception not being discovered, and asked that they all continue to protect me as I continue to masquerade as an Arab heathen.

Four nights later we arrived at Merv. From there we swung back north and east, arriving at the small trading centre of Cardzou five days later. The next day as we approached Bukhara on the western edge of his father's Sultanate, the city and surrounding countryside governed in his father's name by a distant relative of his father's, Abbas was alarmed at the evidence of destruction the closer we got to the city, burnt fields, trampled crops, smoldering homes, and dead livestock. We arrived early that evening, having travelled a distance of five hundred and sixty furlongs that day. Dusty and weary, we were greeted at the palace of the Bey, a huge thick-walled fortress that also contained apartments for the emirs, chief viziers, and military leaders, by a senior advisor, a stooped, elderly man, who informed us that the city had been attacked by the Kara Koyunlu, the Black Sheep Turkomans, several days earlier and the Bey and his army were to the north in pursuit. While we had been travelling constantly on guard against an attack, the Turkomans had been attacking his father's domain! Angrily declaring that he would join the Bey, we struck north immediately, not even stopping to eat or rest despite our weariness. To the credit of the men travelling with the Prince, I heard not a single complaint. Abbas had wanted his young charge to remain at the palace, but Jama'ah would hear nothing of it, and, I suspect, Abbas was secretly pleased by the boy's courage. Having barely left the city, we spotted a large cloud of dust to the east which could only mean one thing. Fearing the worst, Prince Abbas positioned our small company square in the middle of the road, prepared to fight to the death. As we did so, I could see the apprehension yet determination in Jama'ah's eyes and I had to admire him for it.

To our relief, we discovered the advancing army was a battalion of infantry sent by Abbas's father. Taking over command of the troops, Abbas continued north despite the troops having been on a forced march for the past three days. We reached the battlefield midafternoon of the next day and despite having marched over a thousand furlongs, the troops immediately joined their comrades from Bukhara and engaged the enemy, Abbas and his mounted guard leading the charge after leaving me strict orders to stay by Jama'ah's side and protect him with my life.

I had thought I had seen skilled commanders and soldiers in the battles I had engaged in between the Mamelukes and the Janissaries, and I thought I knew the terror and horror of war from those battles. I knew nothing compared to what I witnessed and experienced over the next five days. Never have I seen such savagery and blood-lust, on both sides. I have heard tales of berserkers, men so driven by the heat of battle that they charged into the enemy with total disregard of their own life and slaughtered all around them in a mindless rage. I found myself surrounded by berserkers. So angry were they that they charged into the enemy ranks and cut them down as a farmer cuts through a field of grain with his scythe.

Not content to just maim the enemy so he could no longer fight, they brought the captives to the tent of their commander, Prince Abbas, and decapitated them, both those who would have died of their injuries anyway, and those still hale enough to fight. The bodies they left lay where they fell. The heads they stacked into piles. They began with the common soldiers, killing them before their immediate commanding officers, and then killing their officers before their commanders, and so on up the ranks to the highest ranking officer so each had to witness the slaughter of his men, some dying defiantly and others darting glances of anger at their leaders whom they blamed for their failure and subsequent death. So great was the number of decapitated and so foul the stench of death and decaying corpses that the tent of Abbas had to be moved three times before the battle was over. Accustomed to treating the dead with respect and reverence, even the dead of the enemy, I found the practice repulsive and the joy of the troops in witnessing this barbarism even more repugnant Sickened to my stomach, I used the need to see to the care of my horse as an excuse so I did not have to watch. Jama'ah, on the other hand, took great delight in the gruesome spectacle (3).

Although Jama'ah and I were purposefully kept at the rear of the cavalry, so great were the numbers of the enemy and so fierce was the battle that we were not spared the exhilaration of successfully defending ourselves against the onslaught, nor the horror of killing our fellow man and seeing our comrades breathe their last. I was well trained in the use of the sword and though most of my attackers were twice my age or older and experienced well beyond my years, I was able to defend myself and my young charge with minimal injury to myself, and despite his age and lack of experience, Jama'ah did a decent job of defending himself also and even managed to kill two of his attackers, after the first of which he fell to his knees and to his embarrassment, emptied the contents of his stomach on the battlefield. It was an experience and feeling I knew well, having done the same after killing my first man and I gave him a sympathetic nod.

Having killed any who would fight and sent the remaining few running for their lives, we joined our comrades in the grisly task of searching among the fallen to retrieve our dead and wounded and, where there was no hope, putting an end to the suffering of the latter. As for the enemy, we scavenged their weapons and armour, and even their boots and belts. Approaching one corpse not much larger than himself, Jama'ah turned him over and stared down in horror at the blank eyes of a boy who could not be more than a year older than himself, obviously a boy of wealth and position from his armour. Although his helm and the sword still clutched in his hand were of superior quality, Jama'ah turned and walked away, a stark look on his face. As another man approached, I waved him away. The dead boy deserved to be buried with honour with his weapon and in his armour. Turning, I watched the retreating, slumped figure of Jama'ah winding its way around the corpses littering the churned, bloodied field. He had learned in these past five days far more about becoming a man than Abbas or I could ever teach him. (4)

We returned to Bukhara in triumph, Prince Abbas and his distant relative the Bey in the lead, followed by Jama'ah and me and then the lieutenant commander of the combined armies and then his officers, each leading his detachment, to the cheers and accolades of the populace. Arriving at the palace, while the Bey headed off to his private apartments, the prince, Jama'ah and I were ushered by the palace steward into the wash room beside the kitchen where three large wooden tubs filled with scalding water had been set up. Left there with six young girls, the oldest perhaps two years older than myself and the youngest two years younger, all them remarkably attractive and scantily dressed, revealing an indecent amount of breast and thigh, we were stripped and helped into the tubs, the temperature of the water just barely tolerable. Although mindful of what the effect of the water was going to be on the more vulnerable parts of my body, I quickly sank down to hide my privates out of embarrassment and modesty, as did Jama'ah, and I did my best to try not to wince with the pain piercing my balls and the bulb of my member. Abbas, I noticed, was not so quick nor so bashful. Pairing up, the girls knelt beside the tubs and began to scrub our bodies with strong, scented soap and soft wash cloths.

Soaping up our backs, they scrubbed them vigorously, and lathering up our hair, they worked the soap into our scalps. Two other girls, older and not as comely, brought fresh buckets of water which were dumped over our heads. The dust from our travel across the desert and up and over the pass from Merv to Bukhara and the dirt and gore from our five days of battle into the desert and steppes of the Turkomans had caked on our bodies and had been streaked with sweat. With the removal of each layer of filth I felt more refreshed and relaxed and as the two girls, one fourteen and one fifteen, began to soap up my chest and run their fingers over my nipples I did not protest. After my time as a tellack, I was able to judge their skills, and it was evident to me that this was not a chore they were new at, nor one they found distasteful. Although not as skilled as a tellack, being female, and certainly not as skilled as myself, they did an admirable job and I lay back and closed my eyes and allowed their caresses and the warm water to relax my muscles.

I had almost drifted off to sleep when one of them reached farther down my stomach than I had expected and ran her fingers over my member and stones and I immediately became fully alert once again. No female had ever touched me there, and no respectable woman or girl would ever do so. I opened my mouth to protest and to tell them I could take it from there but caught myself at the last moment. Surely the others were doing the same to Abbas and Jama'ah and they had not protested. Trying to be discrete, I glanced over at Abbas on my right. He had thrown his head back and was smiling contentedly, and catching my overt glance, he winked and his grin broadened. He was clearly being washed down below, and clearly enjoying it. I quickly glanced at Jama'ah on my left and from the look of surprise and apprehension on his face and the tenseness of his body as he appeared to be about to leap out of the tub like a scalded frog, he was clearly experiencing the same thing, and clearly not sure if he should be enjoying it or not.

The girl soaping up my privates did so tenderly, clearly aware of the sensitivity of those objects in her hands. Again, she did not handle them with the same skill as I had for the many customers who had paid for my services as a bath boy, but then being female, she had no way of knowing how to handle such things, lacking them herself. I had soaped up hundreds of members and stones, to cleanse them, and to arouse their owners, and I knew from her ministrations that she was attempting both. Although she gave me no reason, I could not help feeling apprehensive, and though pleasant enough, I did not find the experience arousing. That surprised me, and caused me consternation, but I took it as a blessing. It was embarrassing enough for her to be touching me there. It would have been devastating if I had become aroused and my member had become stiff.

While relieved that it seemed to have no inclination to do so, I was also puzzled and troubled. Shortly before leaving Castelo do Moreau on my first voyage with Father, I had fantasized about some of the girls in my village, particularly those most attractive and those classmates whose breasts had begun to grow, and every time I had become erect, which was not unexpected from conversations with my fellows. Now a beautiful young girl was doing one of those things I had fantasized about, and I was feeling not the slightest urge. Had my experiences this past year caused me to lose all interest in the opposite sex? I had never heard of such a thing, but then I knew little of such matters. That I was not responding as a man should was most worrisome, and it seemed the more I worried the more my member shrank, causing me even more consternation.

Fresh pails of hot water were brought from the kitchen and Abbas stood and one of the girls rinsed the soap from his body and the other held out a huge, soft towel in which he wrapped himself. I could not avoid glancing at him, and I knew from experience that while not erect, his member had swollen. Jama'ah was the next to stand, and though he self-consciously held his hand in front of him, the quick glimpse I had of him was enough to know he was fully erect. As I rose, I turned my back to the two of them with embarrassment and shame, and not because of my nudity.

"Cook says it will be two candle marks before the evening meal," the oldest of the bath girls announced. "If you would like, we can accompany you to your bedroom and assist you in dressing, or attend to whatever other needs you might have."

Abbas smiled down at the two girls who had tended to him. "I would like. I would like that very much."

"So can we, young master," said the eldest girl of the pair who had washed me. "Accompany me to my bedroom," I said uncertainly, an affirmation of her offer, not an order.

"Unless you and Jama'ah would like to entertain together in the same room," Abbas said with a smile. Jama'ah, eyes wide and jaw dropped, darted a glance at me and vigorously shook his head.

We had been assigned rooms in the royal wing of the vast fortress of course, Abbas occupying the middle and largest two of the rooms with Jama'ah and me being given smaller adjoining rooms on either side of the salon with a connecting doorway between our rooms and Abbas's, the four rooms obviously having been meant to be a suite where Abbas could have housed his favourites or his special guests and communicated with them without having to enter the hallway and thus going about his business unnoticed. The room assigned to me was a lavish room, taking up as much space as my parents' bedroom and the bedrooms of myself and my three sisters besides. There was a prominent dark oak weapons rack where my weapons, already cleaned, had been hung, a huge wardrobe presently empty, my personal clothing most likely being cleaned at that very moment, two large dressers with ornate mirrors, a closet containing my saddlebags, and a canopied bed large enough to accommodate at least four full-sized men. Thick tapestries depicting what appeared to be a hunt were hung on the walls to keep out the night cold along with several paintings of wilderness scenes. I could tell from my experiences with Father that the tapestries and paintings were of the highest quality. Thick carpets covered the floor, some having a similar design as those I had seen at Ashkhabad, and others from their designs and style could only have come from Persia.

"It would seem your clothes have not yet arrived, my lord," observed the older of the two girls, whom I estimated to be fifteen, the same age as myself. "We would be honoured to help you pass the time until they do," she continued suggestively.

"You need not worry about lovers afflictions. We see a doctor regularly to ensure we carry no diseases. We entertain only the Bey's most honoured guests after all."

"And in anticipation of your arrival we drank tea made from the gum of the myrrh bush and had an infusion of ox dung and cabbage prior to drawing your bath so you need not concern yourself about producing an unwanted heir," added the younger, whom I estimated to be a year younger than myself. (5)

"I am Pasha," said the eldest, "and this is Ayisha. You are very handsome. We have been told you are a great warrior." Having backed me up to the bed, she guided me down onto it. "A great swordsman," she said, sitting beside me and opening up the large bath towel I had wrapped myself in. "That you have killed many men," added Ayisha, sitting on the other side of me and reaching out and caressing my chest. "You have firm muscles. Much strength." Her fingers brushed my nipples with a feather-light caress, causing them to tingle and itch. She caressed my chest around my nipples and the dark sensitive ring about them, and then brushed my nipples lightly with her fingertips again. As my nipples began to harden, my member stirred.

"We have also been told you are skilled in the ways of the bedchamber," continued Pasha, running her fingertips ever so lightly along the inside of my thigh. "And are skilled with a sword of another type." Her fingers slipped under my member and she tugged on it gently.

As I opened my mouth to reply, Ayisha kissed me. Her breath was sweet, like honey, and I wondered if she took honey in her tea. Both were caressing me now, four hands running over my body, gently brushing against those sensitive parts, my nipples, my thighs, the bulb of my member. Hands cupped my stones and rolled them expertly, female hands. No female had ever touched me there before. Proper females would not. But these were not proper females. They were trained in the ways of the bedchamber, and how to please men. They kissed and caressed me in a way that I had been taught to arouse men, and they did it very well. My member began to rise and Pasha observed the stories about my expertise with the short sword had to have been true, and Ayisha giggled.

Continuing to fondle my member, Pasha kissed my nipples and brushed her lips over them, and then ran her tongue over one while Ayisha sucked on the other. Both were hard and I squirmed with the sharp, painful pleasure piercing my nipples, a painful pleasure that caused my member to rise and the bulb to burn with the same painful pleasure though it had not been touched. I had never engaged in any sort of play with girls before, but I figured it could not be much different from with men. I reached out and cupped Pasha's right breast with my right hand, her flimsy gown having become untied in her lovemaking with me, as had Ayisha's. It was, to my surprise, unexpectedly firm. She had nice breasts, pert and narrow. They were both Mongols, or so I assumed from the yellowish tint of their skin and their dark, almond-shaped eyes, though with the interbreeding, they could have been a Mongol-Turk mix.

I squeezed her breast gently and caressed it, causing my member to begin to swell faster. I snuggled down and kissed her breast, and then slipped my lips about her nipple and sucked on it gently. The little bud grew firm in my mouth. I had done the same to men many times, and found the lack of hair much more pleasant. I imagined a baby snuggled in her arms and sucking on her breast and I wondered at what age women began to produce milk, and how they controlled it, and what it might taste like. My member was throbbing hotly in Pasha's hand. Or perhaps it was Ayisha's. I was not sure and I was too self-conscious to look down to find out.

Ayisha brushed her hot body against me, and as I sucked on Pasha's breast I reached over and caressed Ayisha's thigh, which I found to be much softer and fatter than a boy's. My member was rapidly growing now and both girls turned their attention to it and to my stones, gently caressing both. Pasha snuggled down and skipped her lips up the shaft of my member and then kissed the tip, and then parting her lips, slipped them over the bulb. Looking down at the fifteen-year-old girl with her lips about my bulb, I felt a tremor of arousal pass up my chest and my heart fluttered. It was strange making love to two girls and having them caressing my body together, and, to my relief, not unpleasant. As Ayisha spread apart her legs, curiosity overcame me and I risked a glance down. She was sparsely haired between the legs and the hair, like that on her head, was of a light brown. Her cunt formed a small, split mound between her legs, not unlike a narrow bun to which I had heard a woman's cunt compared by the more vulgar choirboys back at the Vatican. It was a most curious sight, and I wondered what it had to be like, to have nothing hanging between your legs and a hole instead. I imagined it had to be quite uncomfortable, especially having to constantly keep it closed lest something enter it, and I was glad I had been born a male.

I dared to reach out and touch it, and found it to be surprisingly warm and quite firm. I ran my fingers over it, and finding the slit, I gently pressed my middle finger down, causing the lips of her cunt to part, and my finger encountered the hot, moist inner lips of a woman. She quivered and inhaled deeply as I ran my finger along that slit, and as I drew it up to the top I felt a narrow, hard sliver that caused her to jerk and inhale sharply. I soon discovered that was the most sensitive part of the female genitalia, not unlike the rim of man's bulb or that button deep up his ass. As I continued to stroke her now swollen cunt, Pasha ceased sucking on my member, and wrapping her arms about me, pulled me on top of her as she lay down. I needed no instructions on what was expected of me, and I squirmed up higher and balancing my weight on my elbows and knees, I probed between her legs with my stiff member. She was experienced at this, and just as I squirmed lower or higher to accommodate a man about to mount me in that position, so did she, and with little effort on my part I found my knob wedged between the moist, hot lips of her cunt.

I slowly eased my hips forward, and as I did so she reached down and wrapping her fingers about my stiff cock, she guided it into her hot, hairy crevice. Her cunt was exceptionally hot and sticky, and between the juices of her cunt and her saliva from sucking my cock, I inserted my member into her body with amazing ease and without need for a lubricant, an advantage the female has over the male. I pushed forward until my body was pressed up tight against her groin, my coarse hairs pressed against hers, and my member buried up her cunt. Then I slowly drew my hips back, easing my cock back out until it was spreading apart her cunt lips. It was not unlike fucking a boy's ass except her cunt seemed much wetter and looser, but just as I could tell when my member was about to exit a boy's anus, so I could sense I was about to slip out of her cunt and I paused and then sank my member up her cunt again. I slowly became aware that Ayisha had slipped away and was laying on the bed beside us and watching, which I found both disconcerting and arousing at the same time.

I began a rhythm of flexing my knees and driving my cock up her cunt, and then drawing back my hips and easing my cock back out. My cock throbbed numbly up her hot, wet cunt and the knob burned pleasantly not unlike when I fucked a boy's ass. She began to breathe deeper and more irregular, and to twist and jerk her body almost as if in pain, but from the sounds escaping from her throat, they were clearly sounds of pleasure, and from that sound and the twisting of her body I assumed it to be the similar painful pleasure that a male feels. I remembered once Vedat had told me that Rifki squirmed and squealed like a girl when he was fucked, and as Pasha squirmed and squealed beneath me I could imagine Rifki doing just that. Suddenly Pasha snorted and gasped and threw her head back as her fingers dug into my shoulders with a surprisingly firm grip, and she began to jerk like one insane and she thrust her hips to and fro to the point that I stopped my motions and let her bang her body against mine and then draw back, riding my throbbing cock until at last she shuddered and shrieked and threw her head back as far as she could and grasped my body tightly with her legs, and then I was squirting my seed into her. We were both gasping and panting for air and our bodies were flushed and hot as I filled her. I knelt there between her legs for the longest time, my chest heaving and my heart racing, and then at last I withdrew and collapsed on my back beside her as she lay there and continued to gasp for air.

"The tale of your expertise was not exaggerated," she finally observed with a sigh as she glanced over at me. Knowing not how to respond, I said nothing.

Closing my eyes, I lay there thinking how similar and yet how different it had been compared to having sex with a man. It had been good, physically, and satisfying, but somehow lacking also, though in which way I could not ascertain. And, though her bodily fluids had been an advantage in the beginning, I found them excessive at the end, and the odour mildly offensive. A short time later I felt a hand gently slip along my stomach and begin to toy with my now limp member. It immediately began to swell. Slowly opening my eyes a slit, I found it was Ayisha. She smiled demurely up at me and then turned her attention back to my member. From the gentleness with which she handled it, and the confidence, she had to have done this many times before though she had to have barely turned fourteen and was only slightly older than my second oldest sister. It slowly dawned on me that I myself had been just two months past my fourteenth birthday when I had my first sexual experience.

While one hand caressed my member, the other stroked my inner thigh and cupped and rolled my balls, all under the intent gaze of Ayisha, and, I realized, that of her older partner Pasha. That I was becoming erect in front of not one but two members of the opposite sex was embarrassing, but also relieving in a sense as I had not been certain of my ability to do so. Of that I now had no concern as my member quickly stiffened in her hand. As she caressed and fondled me, Pasha slid forward and slipping her hand between the younger girl's legs, she began to caress her, rubbing the folds of her cunt and slipping her fingers along the crack, causing the younger girl to squirm with what I assumed was pleasure and arousal. We continued in such a manner for a time, and finally as Ayisha rose, I could see sparkles of moisture glistening in her fine hairs along her crack in the candlelight.

Straddling me as I lay there on my back, she slowly eased back as Pasha guided my stiff cock to its target. Slowly I felt her hot, firm lips open and engulf my knob, and then my shaft as she sank down, impaling herself on my stiff rod. She then began to rock forward and backward, riding my cock. As it slid in and out of her hot, wet cunt, the rim of my knob burned with pleasure and my swollen member throbbed pleasantly. It was wanton, her riding me like some harlot, hot for my cock, and the idea caused a thrill up my swollen member as I thought how badly she must desire it to have taken the active role. She was a harlot, a slut, and that she got such pleasure out of riding a man's cock caused me pleasure such that I found myself approaching my orgasm a second time in less than a candle mark from the first and only a couple hundred heartbeats from having begun with the fourteen-year-old girl. I considered having her pause but in that it was my pleasure and mine alone that mattered, I let matters take their course and soon I was filling her cunt with my hot seed, my cock throbbing hotly and spurting my seed deep up her young body.

Pasha disappeared momentarily, and when she returned she brought a wash basin of hot water and warm towels, and was followed by two female servants with my clothing. Pasha and Ayisha sponge washed my body, paying particular attention to cleaning my cock, balls and thighs of their cunt juices. They then helped me dress, not in the clothes I had brought with me, but in fine new clothes, a blouse and pantaloons of fine, pale blue silk with a multicoloured sash. They tied up my long hair and wrapped a turban of dark blue silk about it and wove a gold thread through the folds of silk. When they were done, another servant, a young boy of six or seven, lead me to the dining room where Abbas and Jama'ah were already seated along with our host.

"Well, Kapalak, you look refreshed," Abbas said with a smile. "Though from the noises coming from your room, it did not sound like you had any rest," he added with an even wider smile. The blood rushed to my cheeks and he laughed. "Between you and Jama'ah, I was unable to sleep with all the grunting and crying out," he continued, smiling over at Jama'ah and causing him to blush just as brightly as myself and to stare down at his plate with embarrassment, and, with a certain pride.

"Mighty warriors on the battlefield and in the pillows," observed our host, to which he and Abbas laughed and Jama'ah and I had to smile. I do not know if I will ever understand or become accustomed to the bluntness and coarse manners of these people, these most elevated of persons behaving with the crude manners of common peasants rutting in a hayloft and using language befitting a sailor or a common soldier.

It was a lavish meal with roasted chicken encrusted with crushed almonds, a spicy lamb stew with garden vegetables and green and red peppers, and fresh bread, all washed down with a drink they called kumis, which I learned later was fermented mare's milk, and followed by an assortment of honied pastries and a sweet cherry wine. The Prince and the Bey talked about the battle and about the threat of the Turkomans, and as the conversation turned to political matters involving Bukhara and Samarkand, Jama'ah and I were excused, with Abbas observing that he would we join him in his room later. By that I assumed he intended only one thing.

I was correct and when he returned to his room several candle marks later, and after several skins of kumis, he called for us lustily. Another thing that never ceased to amaze me about these people was their insatiable thirst for alcohol and for sex and their gargantuan capacity to handle both. The three of us disrobed and Jama'ah and I kissed and caressed Abbas until he was erect. I then sat back and watched as he mounted Jama'ah from behind and rode his ass furiously, thrusting his horse-sized cock in and out of the eleven-year-old's ass and causing him to squirm and gasp with pleasure until the prince filled his young rectum with his seed.

He then withdrew and I immediately took his place, my member rigid and aching for the pleasure of being embedded in a hot, tight ass. His channel was slick with the Prince's slimy seed, and the thought of my member becoming coated with the Prince's seed as I sank it up Jama'ah's rectum sent a shiver of arousal up my spine and caused my member to ache with desire. As I began to pump my hips to and fro, sliding my cock in and out of Jama'ah's seed-filled hole, my cock burned and tingled with arousal and it was not long before I was spurting my seed also and I closed my eyes and imagined it mixing and churning with the Prince's. We ended the night with me fucking the eleven-year-old a second time while riding Prince Abbas's cock, my ass being filled with his seed as I filled Jama'ah's.

As I collapsed on the bed afterward, having emitted my seed four times that night, I realized I had no room to criticize the sexual appetite of these barbarians. It had been a most eventful day, and as I drifted off there in Abbas's bed, I sleepily decided that of the two, I preferred to fuck those of my own sex. While it had been stimulating enough and physically pleasant, I much preferred a tight ass to a sloppy, wet cunt, and the pleasure of bringing another man the same pleasure as he was bringing me and knowing how he was feeling.

The following morning, we were still in bed when three of the servants, Pasha being one of them, entered to see to our morning needs. Finding me naked in bed with Abbas and Jama'ah did not seem to surprise nor disturb her. After breaking our fast, I headed to the stables to check on my horse. I found Syed there, who was much pleased to see my concern regarding the care of my mount.

"Yes," I said, unable to stop from blushing. Syed knew everything that happened when it came to Abbas and those close to him.

"Prince Abbas says that you fought hard, and well, on the battlefield," he observed, causing me to blush again. "The Prince thinks highly of you."

"And I of him. He is very courageous, and a skilled warrior himself. But – ," I quickly caught myself.

"As I said, he is courageous and skilled. But he is also very vicious, and very cruel."

"At the end of each day he forced the officers of our enemy to stand and watch their men beheaded, and then beheaded them in front of their commanders. There were hundreds, some still boys, and not once did he flinch or show any sorrow or regret."

"He is a Prince. He must not only be courageous and skilled, but vicious and cruel besides, and much more, if he is to survive. The weak of flesh and weak of soul cannot lead. Nobody will follow. It was also a lesson for his officers, a reminder that their failure would result in the death of their men."

"When he is alone mostly, alone with Jama'ah, and me that is. And with those who are close to him, like you."

"That too is necessary for a Prince. To be a leader one must instill loyalty in his subjects. That can be done by fear and punishment, but kindness and compassion are much more reliable and much longer lasting."

"But how can he be both? And change from one to the other so quickly and completely?"

"As you have said, he is courageous and skilled as a warrior," Syed observed, "and young and handsome. There are many women, of royal blood and commoners, who would happily share his bed."

"Then why not?" Indeed, why not? There was much for me to think about. That a man could enjoy sex with both females and males I had discovered months ago but I still did not understand how that could be. Were they like me, enjoying both but preferring one over the other? Did I really prefer congress with males over females, or was that the consequence of my single experience with Pasha and Ayisha? Would more experiences bring a balance to my preferences? I did not know. And, if it was possible for a man to enjoy both equally, why should that not be?

J.O. Dickingson

Travels with Nicolau Ribeiro

Chapters 13-15

13. Caucasia

14. Eran

15. The Turkmens Federation