‘Ha, I’ll do no such thing! Suck on my cock, you whore’s cunt.’
The other guard, Nonus, grinned savagely and pointed at the gladiators.
‘All right then, how about if one of them sucks on your cock? Then I’ll tell the whole damn tavern, and I’ll pay for every drink you can knock back before passing out!’
Titus roared with brash and obnoxious laughter.
‘Hahaha! Then we’ll both have a story to tell the boys, eh? You’re an evil bastard, Nonus! But I like how you think, I do! Fine. All right you scum, tell me, how thirsty are you? Thirsty enough for one of you to put what’s between my legs into your mouth?’
‘We will do anything, master,’ Spartacus said, almost choking on the words as wrath sizzled, hot and dangerous, in his eyes.
‘Time to put your money where your mouth is then, Thracian. Come on over here.’
Crixus watched the situation unfolding from his lonesome corner, his face as blank as ever, but his eyes narrowing as they flitted back and forth between the guards and the three gladiators.
‘You must do this, brother,’ the General whispered to Spartacus. ‘I’m sorry, but we cannot let this opportunity escape.’
‘I know,’ Spartacus replied through gritted teeth. ‘I know…’
‘What are you waiting for, dog?’ Titus bellowed. ‘Come here and show the master how obedient a mutt you are!’
Spartacus stood up and walked slowly over to the guards, bottling the rage that was bursting volcanically through every cell of his being, and shoving it deep down into his core. Every gladiator in the room was now watching closely, as well as the eight other guards in the room, and the whole dining hall had fallen into a tension-thick silence.
‘That’s right, Thracian,’ Titus grunted, wearing a smirk that reeked of raw, unabashed smugness and obnoxious cruelty. ‘Look at you, so surly and defiant before … and now just a meek little fucking puppy dog.’
‘He’s actually going to do it!’ cackled Nonus, who was almost in hysterics, his jaw hanging open with both malicious mirth and sheer disbelief. ‘He’s actually going to suck on your fucking cock!’
‘On your knees, gladiator,’ Titus rasped, maliciousness adding an ugly gleam to his eyes. ‘Get on your knees.’
Spartacus did as he was told, but his muscles were taut as coiled springs, and his veins bulged through his skin, throbbing with suppressed fury, disgust and indignation.
‘That’s it,’ Titus murmured, his eyes locked on the gladiator’s fury-crimson face as he lifted up the front of the tunic he wore under his armour. ‘Now here’s a little sausage for you. Don’t bite now, just suck.’
‘“Little” is the key word there Titus, “little”,’ Nonus mocked.
‘Fuck off,’ Titus spat. ‘As if the acorn you’ve got down there is any more impressive. Well there it is, Thracian. I didn’t take it out for you to look at, so open wide!’
‘He barely has to part his lips for that thing,’ Nonus chortled.
‘Your mother’s stinking arsehole,’ Titus growled, before turning his eyes back to the gladiator who was kneeling before him – eyes full of hate and cruelty, bright with malice and viciousness. ‘Now hurry up slave, be a good dog! In your mouth now, in your fucking mouth…’
Spartacus closed his eyes, swallowed down rage like a caustic tonic, and opened his lips. He moved his head forward and took the guard’s penis into his mouth, recoiling instantly at the smell and taste of it. Nausea twisted in his guts like a jagged blade.
‘The whole thing, cur, the whole thing!’
Spartacus moved his head even further up, so that his nose was pressed deeply into the wiry, musky-smelling mound of pubic hair beneath the guard’s flabby paunch. He started choking from the poisonous concoction of shame, disgust and wrath that was rising inexorably up the back of his throat with stomach-wrenching urgency.
‘Look at that! Fucking look at that!’ Nonus howled, roaring with obnoxious laughter.
The other guards started hooting and jeering too, but every single gladiator in the room was dead silent; this indignity had been visited on all of them, not only Spartacus, and this understanding spread rapidly, shooting through the air like unseen lightning bouncing between conductive rods. Crixus in particular was observing the revolting spectacle keenly – and for the first time in a very, very long time the muscles of his scarred face began to move, and the corners of his mouth began to inch downward into a dark frown.
‘All right, that’s enough, get your mouth off of my cock,’ Titus grumbled, slapping Spartacus’s face with a sharp, open palm. ‘Fuck off back to your friends there.’ He then turned to Arishat, leering at her as he spoke. ‘Bitch, go get these dogs more water. They’ve earned it, that’s for sure. And be quick about it! I’ve got half a mind to take you back into the antechamber and make you do a bit of sucking as well … but you won’t get off as lightly as that gladiator just did. In fact, you won’t get off until I’ve gotten off, understand?’
‘Aye my little pretty,’ Nonus added. ‘I’ve also had many a good feel of those titties of yours, and I like their tenderness, I must say. And that tight little hole between your thighs … Mm … I’ll come and finish off whatever job Titus starts on you. And you’ll love it you will, you little slut. Now get a fucking move on!’
‘Yes master,’ Arishat tittered as she scurried out of the hall.
The gladiators resumed eating in tense silence, while the guards joked and laughed about what had just happened, oblivious to the tension crystallising into barbed spikes that hovered like a swarm of angry wasps in the humid air.
Spartacus spat repeatedly on the floor, flooding his mouth with saliva over and over again as he tried to displace the foul taste on his tongue. The General, meanwhile, placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry that you had to suffer such humiliation, my friend,’ he said, his tone laden with both grave severity and
