admin

****************************************** A Voice from the Past 2
*
This second part of the disputed writings contains, as do all the recovered parts, many references to the sexual use made of boys, a use, that should we take these words at their face value, appears to have been the norm in the writer"s city.
Again, I must caution potential readers that these are not now the norm, and that every effort should be made to prevent them from falling into the hands of boys, who may, simply by reading of them, be tempted to discover the differences between then and now.
*
Ephebophilos was my owner and I his property and if he wished me uncovered then I must uncover, so I removed my kirtle and presented myself for his inspection.
All this I remember most clearly, though it is the events that I recall with certainty, my feelings, thoughts and emotions my mind may have changed or added later as I sought to justify my actions as a man in the happenings of my time as boy slave to the philosopher.
Doubtless Sympo will question me most deeply and engage the help of Mato also, for though Mato has not the mind of Sympo yet he is of the age that I once was and has yet had no need to adapt his memories to suit his present.
"That"s what you do to me isn"t it?" Sympo asks, "Teach me how to think."
"I do not teach you," I say, slipping a hand briefly beneath his kirtle, "I only provide you with the chance to learn."
Confusion covers Sympo"s face; a boy of eleven may be skilled in covering his thoughts with words, but he has not yet developed the artifice of hiding them from his expressions. Now his young mind is presented with a minor conflict; should he concentrate on the attempt to resolve the seeming paradox between teaching and learning that I have presented to him, or should he forget that, at least for the moment, and allow his thoughts to slip downwards to the enjoyment* of my hand beneath his kirtle?
"I don"t understand," Sympo says as he hardens in my hand, not because he has forgotten the paradox, but because he is eleven and has no choice but to harden when he is felt.
"You will if you think," I say and release him from my hand, leaving him with the desire to be felt further, but as he is eleven, he is familiar with that desire and understands it well.
He frowns in concentration, his hardness forgotten, and a light appears in his eyes.
"I"ve just learned something haven"t I?" he beams in delight, "And you didn"t teach me it. I worked it out for myself."
"And may I now then return to my tale?" I ask.
"Yes," Sympo chirps, "It looks as though it is about to get interesting."
As I say, I presented the philosopher with my uncovered form, and I like to believe that I basked in his admiring gaze, but I cannot say that I did or even if his gaze was admiring, but I do know with certainty that I was both shocked and astonished when he took those parts of me that made me boy in his hand and the words he spoke then are as clear to me now as then they were.
"There is nothing a hand may hold that is as wonderful as the cock and balls of a young ephebe," were the words he spoke, and I wondered why he said them.
I had been a boy slave for seven years by then and none of my owners had taken any interest in my front. I had become skilled with my mouth and come to like the use Helio made of my other entrance, the shock and pain of his first attempts hardly even a memory by then, but I had no knowledge that there were men who took their pleasures in the front of a boy and thought those parts wonderful to hold.
That it was wonderful to have them held I was in no doubt of then, and in the years that followed when Ephebophilos owned me, I came to know the myriad ways in which pleasure can be given to a boy by a man who takes his pleasure in pleasing boys.
"You are my slave," Ephebophilos told me once, though whether I had been his boy slave for a week, a month, a year, or even more when he told me this I cannot say, "And because you are my slave I may take my pleasures in you in whatever manner I wish, but what manner of man would I be should I have no care also for your pleasures? Pleasing the boy you take pleasure from greatly increases the pleasure you take from him. Remember that when you come to own boys."
I was a slave, and when I reached an age where I was no longer pleasing to Ephebophilos he would sell me and I become a different sort of slave. I had no more chance of owning boys than I did of discovering I would be the next Emperor.
Although Ephebophilos had invented the tap, or rather the idea of the tap as it was left to others to turn his idea into a reality, his speciality was the nature of pleasure, and in particular the nature of the pleasures to be found in the bodies of boys.
I had been a boy slave for seven years when Ephebophilos obtained ownership of me and was perfectly content with my function, which, I believed, was for my mouth and other place to be used by an owner to fill with his seed, much as he fills a cup with his wine.
Some men liked boy slaves to be young and tender, some, as Ephebophilos did, prefer them as they turn from boys to youths, but I saw no difference in that than in the preference some men have for cups of silver while others swear wine tastes best from cups made of fine glass.
This I debated with Ephebophilos, for he kept his bargain with me and taught me how to think in return for using my body to assist with his understanding of true pleasure.
"Have you asked the cups?" he questioned me, "If they have an opinion if fine glass or silver most enhances the flavour of wine?"
"How could that be done?" I reply, "Cups cannot think or speak."
"And what of the wine?" he asks, "May that not also have an opinion if silver or glass suits it best?"
Again I said that could not be done.
"Let us then consider the natures of the wine and the cups," he said, for this was how he taught me to think though soon enough I knew he was not teaching me but providing me with the opportunity to learn, "And let us concentrate on a fine and delicate white and a rich and robust but still young red. Would the white not feel happier if served in crystal glass than it would if poured carelessly into silver where its delicate sparkles may not be seen?"
"And the red," I said, thinking to be smart and clever, "Being as it is young and robust, by that token would care not if it is served in silver or in pottery, its function is to be drunk and another flagon fetched."
"And what," Ephebophilos asked in that irritating way of his of making difficult things even more difficult, "Do the wines, the cup and boy slaves have in common?"
I stared at my owner, not knowing how to answer, what comparison was there to be made between a liquid, an object and a boy?
Sympo snorts and looks at me as though I am an idiot. "You didn"t really find that difficult to answer did you?" he questions.
"And you I suppose know the answer?" I say, annoyed that my boy slave has interrupted konyaaltı sınırsız escort my writing.
"Of course," Sympo shrugs, "It"s obvious. You may have been good at learning languages and at being a boy slave, but you must have been really thick to not have known the answer straight away."
"So clever clogs, what is the answer?" Sympo is clever and I derive as much pleasure from his mind as I do from his splendid young body, but he is still eleven, and though the answer is obvious it is hidden by being so obvious, and I did not expect even Sympo to spot that particular tree amongst the woods.
"They are all possessions," Sympo states the obvious, "All used by their owner for the particular pleasures to be found in them."
The quickness of Sympo"s mind delights me and any irritation I had at his interruption dissipates on the instant, yet I find the need to tease him a little.
"I have three fine wines, one white and one red, the other between white and red, and beautiful vessels to savour them from. Explain," I instruct.
Sympo grins at me knowing we play a game, but a game intended to stretch his mind a little.
"Easy," he smirks, interpreting instantly the metaphor and extending it, "Doro is the white, he is young and sparkling and his body is the delicate cup that contains his sparkle. Mato is the youthful and robust red that requires to be drunk deep and often. His body is not delicate glass but strong and solid fired clay, and I am between the red and the white contained in a cup of silver."
This from a boy of eleven?
"For that," I smile at him, "You may choose the manner in which you will be tasted later when I have written some more."
Sympo grins at me his black eyes twinkling. I believe I know how he will ask me to drink him; though I am too old to enter him, still can I use my tongue to drive him to exquisite agony of need that Mato"s cock will satisfy when my jaw begins to ache.
I am correct.
"Will you instruct Mato to train Doro"s mouth before he mounts me?" Sympo asks, pleading with his dark and irresistible eyes, "He never lasts for long if his balls are full. And I know how much you like watching him ride," he adds, appealing to my weakness.
"Ten Matos would leave you still desiring more," I tap his nose.
"I know," Sympo says, "It is why you keep me."
He leans close and breathes soft boy breath on my face, presenting his mouth to mine.
I yield and accept the offer of his mouth, which opens to receive my tongue, his flickering around it, demonstrating his boy slave skill.
I learned much from Ephebophilos, for he was a genuine philosopher and sought for truths with his mind. True it was that he played the part of philosopher as well as any, and lived off the gifts he obtained from others, explaining that as he was not obliged to earn his living he had more time to think.
His lifelong study was to explore and discover the nature of pleasure, but as pleasures are many and varied, he had made the decision to concentrate on those pleasures to be found in boys, and as even that subject was too wide for one man to master, he had refined his work and concentrated on boys of thirteen and fourteen, on those he described as being `newly become epheboi" in whom the pleasures he sought to define were freshly emerging, and thus he may discern if those pleasures were innate or instilled by others.
Needless to say, he required a considerable body of empirical evidence, and being as he was perhaps then half the age I now am, he had already amassed some twenty years of such evidence on which to work, though this, he declared, was by no means sufficient, as a universal truth cannot be concluded from isolated incidents.
Boy slaves were the ideal material for him to work on as he could conduct his research without hinder, and indeed he gathered much evidence from me as he was, without doubt, dedicated to his work.
Ephebophilos, being a philosopher, could not afford to purchase boy slaves and was obliged to rely on gifts, of which I was his latest, and as such gifts were not over-frequent, he found himself obliged to extend the time in which a boy slave may be useful to him. This he did by removal of all hair from the bodies of his boy slaves, thus making them appear younger than their years, and also enabling him to explore a second theory, that a boy"s thinking and behaviour in matters of pleasure are dependant on his appearance.
Thus, if a boy slave is kept free of hairs, remaining visually no more than just thirteen, will he continue to think and perform as he did when he was indeed such an age? So I was obliged to learn the use of sharp razor to remove all growth, and of pumice to keep skin smooth, though this did not prevent my mind from knowing that I grew older and did not remain thirteen.
"It matters not that you know you are fifteen," Ephebophilos told me as he sought yet more empirical evidence from my body, "It matters only that the pleasures you experience now reflect those you had at a younger age."
"How can I know this?" I asked, "I have no knowledge of hair on my cock and balls or on my legs, so how can I know if this enhances or detracts from my pleasure now? I would have need to permit hairs to grow before I could discover that."
Clearly I had uttered words of some importance for Ephebophilos became most excited, for though he continued his search for empirical evidence from my body, he commenced discourse with me while he did so.
"Do you find pleasure in this?" he asked, an unnecessary question as he took me in his hand, and what boy, slave or other, is there who does not feel pleasure when he is handled so?
"Replace now my hand with yours," he instructed me, and so I did.
"Is that also a pleasure?" he enquired.
I confessed that it was, though a lesser pleasure than when he held me.
"And is that because it is the hand of another that gives you pleasure, or because you know that you are giving pleasure to the owner of the hand that holds you?"
"I believe that if I was not being used for pleasure then I would feel no pleasure," I replied.
"But what if you were being used for pleasure against your will?" he pressured me.
"I am a boy slave. I have no will. I am the property of my owner to use as he wishes," I reply, "And that is as it should be."
"But can your owner oblige you to feel pleasure when he uses you?"
"An owner takes his pleasure from his boy slave as is his right. Surely it is by accident and not design if the boy slave finds pleasure or not in being used."
"Is a cup with a hole in it of any use as a cup?" Ephebophilos asks.
"A cup with a hole in it is no longer a cup," I reply.
"It is shaped like a cup, is it not?"
"But with a flaw, so it cannot be used as a cup. It does not fulfil its purpose."
"And the purpose of a boy slave?"
"Is to give pleasure."
"And if he does not do so?"
"Then he does not fulfil his purpose as konyaaltı türbanlı escort a boy slave."
"Is a boy asked, when he is put up for sale, if he has a wish to be a boy slave?"
"Of course not!" I snort derisively, "He is an object to be sold. The seller has no care if what he sells is bought to turn a spit in a kitchen or suck his owner"s cock."
"And for which task do you think the object to be sold, would desire to be bought to perform?"
"I know which I"d choose," Sympo sniggers, again interrupting my flow of thought, "I"d hate to work in a kitchen!"
That, of course, was the answer I gave Ephebophilos, and told him also of the relief I had felt when my duties were first explained to me, for that I still remember clearly. All I had to do was take my owner in my mouth* and bring him to seed there, that was exciting for a boy and no hardship.
I know not if Ephebophilos ever came to a determination if the giving of pleasure by a boy is innate or learned for I grew beyond an age in which he had any wish to use me to obtain more evidence and he sought to dispose of me.
I came to believe that it is in fact both, that the need to give pleasure to a man or to another boy, is innate, but only by learning may a boy discover the many and varied pleasures that he may give and receive.
I could not come to that conclusion until I owned boy slaves, and that time was still a future one.
I was fortunate that Ephebophilos had taken a liking to me for more than the pleasures he found in my body, and truly they were myriad and many, pleasures I had not known a boy could experience and give, and instead of putting me up for sale and perhaps making enough coin to purchase a replacement, though that is doubtful as boy slaves of sixteen do not fetch high prices being in limited demand, most owners preferring boy slaves of no more than ten, he found for me a military man in need of a boywife, though I was yet not of the legal age to marry.
I believe it may be necessary for me to explain some the custom of a boywife as it maybe that it is a custom that has not survived the ages.
All men, naturally, prefer the body of a boy to that of a woman for pleasure in their beds, which is why boy slaves are in such great demand, and some men like Ephebophilos have a preference for youths over boys. Still others, though few in number, find older youths are to their taste, finding pleasure in embracing bodies that grow from youth to man.
For such a one to own slaves of such an age for pleasure is considered to be unusual, and indeed would doubtless be the cause of much strife from any wife if it became known her husband kept such slaves for his comfort.
No opprobrium, however, is directed towards any who takes a youth as a boywife, it being understood that many men enjoy the company of others, even more so if the other is some years younger and can remind a man of his own youthful days.
The city laws however, do not permit a man to take a slave as his boywife, nor can he marry one of less than eighteen years, and so the term `boywife" is a misnomer as the wife is not a boy or youth, but at eighteen is now a man.
Ephebophilos found for me a soldier of noble birth, of the young age of but twenty four and recently married to a woman, with whom he would doubtless do his duty, but with a strong preference for male company and in need of one he could take with him on campaign.
I was but sixteen, too young to marry, but just still not too old to be a boy slave, though in a year more it would cause eyebrows to be raised if I was kept as such. Thus the arrangement Ephebophilos made with Herditus my husband to be, was that he should take me as boy slave for a year, in which time he could decide if the pleasures I had to offer were those he desired, and if they were, then at seventeen, he could declare me free, announce his intention to take me as his boywife, freely enjoy my company until I became eighteen and then marry me.
Naturally as this arrangement meant that I would cease to be a slave and not be sold to work in fields or mines as would have been the case when I became too old for any to use for pleasure, I determined to give Herdicus the best year of pleasure he had ever had so he would have no doubts that he wished to marry me, and so I did, giving myself eagerly to his needs and indeed, showing him some needs he did not know he had.
The hairless body Ephebophilos had so insisted on proved to be invaluable, providing Herdicus with the combination of young youth that he at times found pleasure in at the baths, with the more mature body of the older youth that so roused lust in him.
My delight in giving pleasure and my knowledge of military history, a subject I had studied much while boy slave to Ephebophilos, who had many scrolls and books in the Old Greek language of strategy and tactics, made me an ideal wife for him, and he for me a husband I thought I could serve with my mind as well as with my body.

The six years that I was boywife to Herdicus were in truth, not very different from the year he owned me as his boy slave; a wife, female or male, has a status in the city* not greatly above that of a slave. A wife is as much property of a husband as a slave is the property of its owner, save that a wife cannot be sold.
Herdicus was ever the soldier, filled with dreams of battle glory, and I swear that when he rode me his thoughts were of leading a charge at enemy lines, and much I missed Ephebophilos" subtle searches for new and hidden pleasures.
Being as I was, boywife to Herdicus, my fortunes depended on his, and Fate once more came to my aid. As he was of some noble birth, though young and inexperienced, military tradition required that he be given a command, knowledge and understanding of warfare being of no importance when placed against social status, and so Herdicus had some two hundred unfortunates placed under him, a quarter of a legion.
That was the way it worked in the Army; a new would-be general was given a bunch of misfits and if he wanted a proper full legion he had to go and find the men for himself. And pay for them himself as well.
His first mission came shortly after we became engaged and was one that involved little danger but was of considerable economic importance; Herdicus was ordered to go and get some slaves.
Slaves were and are, the economic life blood of the city. Fields have to be ploughed, tilled, planted and harvested, stone has to be dug out of quarries, cut and shaped for building and the buildings have to be built. Grain has to be ground into flour and flour baked into bread, and how can any of this be done without slaves? Slaves are the machinery that makes the city work, without slaves all would grind to a halt.
And of course, and vitally important to the well-being of citizens, are the boy slaves men need for pleasure. Boy slaves are what keeps the city content; men have no interest in changing their rulers as long as they have boys for their beds.
Fortunately, konyaaltı ucuz escort slaves were not difficult to obtain; it"s a simple matter to send soldiers to villages outside the city and roundup a hundred or so for market, or it should be. The problem comes because the city has been going for two or three hundred years and there are no villages left with people in them anywhere close by, so slave gathering is now an expedition of a month or more into increasingly uncivilised territory as other cities have naturally emptied any villages near them as well.
It"s easy to see the logistical problem; the slave collectors have to be supplied for at least a two week march, and two or three times their number kept supplied on the return, as slaves need to be fed if they are to be still alive when they reach the market.
Herdicus did not see the logistical problem.
Fortunately, slave collecting is essentially a simple business; take a few soldiers on a route march for a couple of weeks, find some uncivilised village, round up the inhabitants and march them back to market, sell them and pocket the profits, but Herdicus even managed to make a mess of that on his first attempt.
His little army set off with insufficient supplies ? Herdicus, of course, had to purchase those and being of noble birth, spent as little as he could ? and when at last he found a camp of potential slaves waiting to be collected, his soldiers were tired and hungry and not at all in a good mood.*
To make matters worse, the people we found did not appear to have any wish to become slaves and indicated this by throwing stones and yelling, which Herdicus instantly interpreted as a declaration of war and gave the order to charge.
A couple of hours of pillage, rape and massacre later there was no-one left alive to enslave, rendering the entire exercise pointless.
Naturally, being a dutiful wife, I enthusiastically congratulated Herdicus on his military triumph, and after he had ridden me twice, tactfully suggested he may wish to do something different next time and actually collect some slaves.
I drew him a little plan of what he should do ? pictures were easier for Herditus to understand than words were ? suggested that the next camp we encountered he should quietly surround so no-one could escape, and then he could politely ask people if they would rather live an easy life as slaves or be massacred after a little torture and rape.
It worked a treat, surrounded by heavily armed soldiers, ignorant uncivilised tribesmen opted for slavery every time, and, because I told him to, Herdicus ordered that all the provisions in every camp should be loaded on the backs of our new slaves so we had something to eat on the way home.
It took nearer two months than one, but Herdicus returned to the city with some six hundred slaves, a hundred of which were boys and highly marketable.
Needless to say, Herdicus gained both fame and wealth, increased his force to legion size and conducted many such profitable expeditions under my guidance.
I had been his wife for six years and now was twenty-four when Herdicus declared his intention to divorce me. He, by then, had become quite famous and very wealthy and a queue of youths of noble birth, and many more that were not, had desires to become his wife in my place.
Fate once more came to my aid and Herdicus was sent to fight an actual battle. He foolishly decided to leave me behind and take a youth of noble birth in my place, I* suppose an understandable decision as at twenty-four, I was no longer youthful enough to please him, and he thought to find a suitable new wife by testing the applicants.
Naturally, Herdicus having no idea of how to fight an actual battle, got himself, his youth, and a large number of his legion, killed, and instead of being divorced I became a widow.
Twenty-four, a widow and free, I needed to maintain myself for the first time in my life. I gave consideration to becoming a philosopher ? I had some store of knowledge and enough of the Old Greek to make it seem that I knew more than I did, but at twenty-four, I was not old enough to pass myself off and be accepted by society as a philosopher.
The many skills I had learned as a boy slave were now of no use to me, which left my ability with languages and my understanding of military tactics as the only things I had to market.
The only market for military tactics is the military, but soldiers are not interested in tactics, they have skills enough to lose battles without any help, so all I had was language and my mind.
I had learned some of the varied languages of the uncivilised people the city was now harvesting for slaves, and I concocted a plan that I presented to a city magistrate, a magistrate who as it happened, owned a stable of some twenty boy slaves. Sending legions long distances to collect slaves was at the best, a random exercise, I told him, sometimes successful, other times not, and all the profit went to pay the legion and line the pockets of a general.
Would it not be better for the city, I wondered to the magistrate, if instead of sending a legion and obtaining slaves by force, we sent an envoy to the chief of some largish tribe, and made an offer not to raid his tribe for slaves if in return, he did the slave gathering for us from other tribes, and all we had to do was go and collect them, say twice a year? Of course, the envoy would need to speak the appropriate language and be willing to undertake the task for an acceptable fee, but the profits would belong to the city, not some general, and the magistrates could distribute and use them as they saw fit.
"And," I said, "The City Council, would surely reward the proposer of a scheme that brought wealth to the city coffers by permitting him to select a boy or two from the slaves sent to us."
Magistrates as all know, are immune to bribery, and it was not the thought of adding to his stable without cost to him, but because I was the widow of the heroic Herdicus, that I was listened to and given the task of envoy, and also given the remnants of Herdicus" legion to add weight to my words.
It was as simple as that; I found a decent sized tribe, put my proposition to the chief ? find slaves for us or be slaves yourselves ? and his tribe, confronted by three hundred well-armed men, thought it to be a brilliant idea, indeed, an idea they claimed to have had already made consideration of.
My fee was sufficient for me to have the choice; should, instead of renting as I then was, I buy a house or treat myself to my first boy slave?
"You bought a boy didn"t you?" Sympo grins at me, "I want to know all about him, every single detail. But can we leave that till tomorrow? You"ve written a lot and I don"t want you getting too tired and falling asleep before you can get me ready for Mato."
*
The reader will doubtless as some commentators have, noted some similarities between the discourse of the philosopher Ephebophilos and what is known as the Socratic Method and take this apparent anachronism to be evidence of fake and forgery. It is not my place as Editor to assert or deny this assertion, but I find myself obliged to note that should the language referred to as `Old Greek" have actual reference to a language spoken in pre-Mycenean times and now lost forever, may there not have existed a civilisation that we know nothing of?
[email protected]