The Two Hundredth and Seventy Ninth of One Thousand and One Nights – by Amalaric

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One would have thought that Don Rodrigo, second of two sons of the late King, would have been content with his sprawling duchy and the rich revenues it produced. And, in a way, he was. It wasn’t the money; he had always had plenty of that and the things money could buy. High social status was, of course, taken for granted. Nor was it lack of sexual thrills. He had married young to a sweet, if eager, princess and, himself possessed of dazzling dusky good looks, had produced the requisite heir and spare to his sprawling estates. But that was as far as it went and, perhaps, went more than a little way toward explaining subsequent events.

At first Rodrigo contented himself with identifying and ‘hunting’ strapping peasant lads, young fathers, the occasional half-naked convict; employing a variety of means- usually some form of black mail made easy by the naked power his position afforded- but sometimes threats to a loved one, threats of foreclosure, or, if he was feeling generous and more than a bit lucky, even bribery. Once the handsome young victim was obtained, the Duke would toy with him for a while (sometimes a VERY long while) much as a cruel cat would with a mouse. Forced to slowly strip until completely naked, the trembling young male, whether in a public place, before weeping and scandalized family and friends, or simply for the Duke’s solitary pleasure, would be made to suffer odd and diverse tests of endurance and humiliations of ascending intensity until, finally- the helpless object of the Duke’s keen interest, drenched with hot sweat and, as often as not, manly tears streaming from eyes with the light of hope long extinguished, waited, with mounting horror for the end-game to commence. It was then that the ravenous (and very creative) Lord would gratify himself sexually, stealing his victim’s groaning manhood as casually as a child pocketing a surreptitious sweet from the market.

The unfortunate congruence of the mighty storm with the new king’s ship was no fiction. Don Rodrigo’s older brother Matteo had, naturally, inherited their father’s throne. A just ruler, and uncommonly handsome, King Matteo also possessed an easy, muscular masculinity that boded equally well at the royal court or on a battlefield. Apparently, swept overboard by a massive swell of frenzied water; the young king’s body was never found or recovered, and his stricken kingdom endured a period of deepest mourning.

King Rodrigo sat a lavishly carved throne in an unusual place; secure in a private dungeon accessed by a warren of secret, semi-secret, and public passageways deep beneath the royal palace. At the king’s crisp command, trusted minions escorted a muscular young prisoner, despondent and humiliated both by enforced passivity and complete nudity, to stand before his Lord. ‘Oh, my brother! By now I imagine that you would have preferred to have been washed overboard and drowned…but that was never part of the plan.’ He paused, as if in profound thought. ‘You know, I began to lust for you as early as our teen years, but you never noticed, did you?’ The naked prisoner merely bowed his head and sighed. ‘So,’ Rodrigo continued, ‘what sort of games shall we play today?’

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