The breeze from the sea lifted the edges of the curtains around the court yard and made them dance a sensuous, seductive dance before and above the heads of the three men at the table. One, a tall, broad-shouldered sturdy man approaching two meters tall, tilted his head back and laughed into the clouds. His long blond hair danced with the curtains. The dark-haired sinewy man swept the dice into his cup and shook loudly to get a good throw. All three of them leaned forward to see the result, and the sandy haired man, the oldest of the three, spat and cursed. He stood at once, turned his back to the others, and put his hands on the seat of the stool where he had just been sitting. Laughing, the blond picked up the three-goad whip that lay on the table and delivered five hefty blows to the bent man’s buttocks, laughing gutturally as he did so. The bent man gasped, also laughed, and rubbed his buttocks in mock boyishness.
The dark haired man passed the cup to his sore-rumped companion who cast the dice, read them, and passed them to the blond, who in turn tossed the dice, and passed them to the dark haired companion. After his roll, both he and the blond howled again with laughter, and same as before, the older man presented his backside for its chastisement. This time, it was the dark haired man who wielded Thrysus.
Good naturedly, at turns, they played on. Twice, the blond lost and took his licks. Four times the sandy man, who had completely dispensed with the tunic, it being raised more than lowered, and only once did the dark haired man have to bend to punishment.
“I think Phil enjoys this game,” said the blond, in a heavy German accent. “See how his truncheon betrays him?”
“Tully also seems to be getting what he wants,” Philodorus said, snatching at Tully’s tunic. Tully surrendered his tunic and whirled around shaking his manhood in a lewd gesture that in another would have been arrogance.
The German was on his feet. “Why, Tully, do you think Alabanas should be the only one dressed?”
“Certainly not, Excellency. Let’s see if we can remedy that.”
The two pursued the taller man cat-and-mouse, around the table, he pretending to allude them, they pretending to be alluded. Finally, he stopped at its end and fell forward onto it, in false exhaustion, his legs spread wide apart and his hands grasping its edges.
In a moment, Philodorus was on him, between his legs, between the globes of his ass, and into his posterior, exposing his own bare buttocks to the sun, buttocks that bore the thin red welts left by Thrysus to the sun.
“Oh, no my Lord! What are you doing to me!” came the Germanic mocking cry.
“Nothing you don’t want done, you Germanic giant.”
“No.” Tully picked up Thrysus. “Nor will I do anything you don’t want done, Phil (stroke) oh (stroke) door (stroke) us!” (stroke stroke stroke stroke).
The beating and the pounding continued, until amid laughter and groans, with a look to the heavens and a cry that would wake anything sleeping there, Mailor Servius Philodorus Pompey Draconis, retired Primus Pilus of the first and grandest cohort, the Aguilar, deposited his seed deep inside the upturned hills of Germany.
In the distance, unnoticed by the men on the patio, a donkey cart climbed between olive trees. It bore a Greek Physician, who whistled softly between his teeth. Behind him, in the cart, two heavy-looking metal-bound chests sat companionably side by side.