If he spoke, Philodorus would not be able to continue. If their eyes met, the moment would be over. Philodorus squared his shoulders, tucked his chin, and moved forward with slow steady strides.
He stepped up the two steps, and slid first his right, then his left foot into the places for them on either side of the pillar. He stretched his spine and slid his wrists into the leather loops, grasping the short pieces of chain that held them to the marble. He might have been trying out the positioning, just feeling out the pillar as it was used. If that were the case, he would soon let go of the leather and step down.
He did not move.
Tully stood transfixed. If he spoke, he would not be able to continue. If Philodorus turned his head, the moment would be over. Tully approached the pillar and took Thrysis from the hook. He stood to the left of the voluntarily pinioned man. The combination of restraint and willingness intoxicated them both.
Tully took a step back and swung the whip to feel its weight and flexibility.
Philodorus leaned slightly forward, his chest against the marble and waited.
Tully swung the whip in a loop, downward first, then arching back behind him, and up, up in a gentle curve and brought the whip down with anything but gentle force, brought Thrysis down against the right globe of waiting flesh.
Philodorus drew in his breath as Thrysis bit into him. A gasp? A sigh? Neither man could say. Nor did they have time to consider the matter, as the second lash fell.
Philodorus’s flesh began to bear the marks of the beating. Thin red wheals appeared. Blow after blow fell, in a cadence as regular as the beat of a military drum. His breath became deep and hoarse. His eyes closed and he pushed his groin against the marble pillar, mashing his fully erect throbbing manhood against it. He lifted his hips slightly in anticipation of each strike, and descended into the pleasure-pain of the flogging.
Tully was a machine. Each blow, each stroke tested his strength. First just his arm, then his shoulder, and finally his entire torso was behind each hit. He watch as the buttocks first bore the thin red wheals of the beating, and then turned an even angry vermillion as the crossed, mounted and blended into one another. His breath became deep and hoarse. His fully erect throbbing manhood swung in counterbalance to his arm. His eyes never left the site of the beating, until the patio, the horizon, all the world was concentrated in the beaten flesh.
Far more that the legionnaire 40-less-1 blows bit into the flesh before Tully threw Thrysis to the floor. And when he did, he leapt onto the dais, grabbed his friend victim by the hips, and penetrated him with a furry and insistence that would have been violent, had he not love the man so deeply.
The rhythm that had powered his arm now powered his pelvis and he slammed again and again against the savaged flesh. He began to grunt with each thrust, trying to impale the man deeper and deeper. The man beneath him lifted his buttocks to the assault, trying to be impaled deeper and deeper. He began to make a guttural moan that grew and intensified.
Suddenly Tully stopped thrusting, but just pushed harder against the hot flesh pressed against his loins. He yelled and deposited his seed in his friend’s bowels.
At the same moment, for the first time since his wounding, Philodorus exploded, bathing the marble with his white creamy ejaculate. His eyes flew open, and he gasped, in pleasure, in surprise, in release, and in orgasm.
Tully pulled out. Stood and looked at what he had done. Turned, and left the portico without his tunic, without saying a word.
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