Floin's Adventures of the Flesh

"By Roman custom, it is your privilege to ask me to undress and reveal myself to you in my natural state for your intimate thorough inspection."

"That is not necessary, pretty one. As best I know among Britons we only have that right if we consider purchasing you. But you are to be a gift to us by the Celtic soldiering auxiliaries. All the same, we can see you have a pleasing form."

The olive colored candidate for servile companion to Floin and Cael dutifully kept her hazel almond eyes trained to the ground as she spoke through the interview in slow Greek interspersed with words which demonstrated she had some knowledge of spoken Celtic languages. It was for this reason that it was Floin who interviewed her among the 2 rough neck soldiers who regarded her a very fine and strange creature. She was not a young maiden, but far from aged either. Floin learned she was from the mysterious east in what I now believe was in lands near Damascus where the Apostle to our Lord and a founder of the Church, Paul of Tarsus started his itinerant ministry. They were impressed with tales of her widespread travels from which she had trained herself a serene and modest wisdom beyond her years.

"You ought to know that we 2 are mated soldiers, that is to say we are bonded in matters of the flesh . Do such couplings among men offend people of your culture?"

Sarai did not directly answer the question. "For me people who couple for love are granted blessings by my gods. Roman men often couple for brutality and not for love, which all people of reason regard as abomination."

"You are as thoughtful as a priestess in practice for many moons." For a moment Floin considered what powers of magic and healing she may have garnered just through life's experience. He found her inscrutability charming and even seductive. This led him to his most important and leading inquiry. "Cael and I are desirous of siring a son for whom we can pass on skills that would be useful to our tribes' people in future years. Would you be willing on occasion to open your legs to us and accept our man horns into your womanly embrace, that you may become with our child?" He nodded down to look into her eyes as he spoke, giving her permission to look them directly in the eyes by response.

Just by her reply with a hint of a grin on her lips and eyes that smiled, Floin could see she would respond in the affirmative. "As your servant. it is my duty to open my legs to receive your manly advances whenever you desire, but you should know that I have only borne a son one year shy of a ½ score years ago and he died a few years hence. I cannot be sure I have grown barren since."

Cael and Floin decided that they would take their chances and were not disappointed. While they were away during the day in training, she kept the hut tidy and prepared tasty meals as best she could for the dearth of ready spices. Floin assisted her in the early evenings for the planting of a nearby herb garden. At night she was very touched by the gruff but extremely pleasurable groans and grunts of the two men in their lovemaking, Her ample breasts swelled with pointed nipples and her yoni flared and flowed with womanly juices. She was moved to leave her satchel on occasion and join the other two, the three of them in their nightly nudity would frolic in revelry to combinations of heated flesh. It was her great delight to receive one and then the other between her wide open legs and listen carefully as the mounted one into her would groan his moment of ecstasy to thrust his portion of seed deep where hopefully the planted womb would spring new life.

The boisterous good humored affections that the two men shared, hands and arms outstretched with hugs and firmly planted kisses were soon extended to her. For the first time since she was separated from her parents, Sarai felt truly safe. She dreaded the thought of ever being separated from her loving protectors.

All the soldiers who had woman servants would have them to assist in the brief bathing at river's edge, and like the men, they would be bereft of all clothing. It would be the obligation of masters, through menacing looks and gestures that their bare women were unavailable to any but their masters. Sarai was a sensitive soul and she came to realize that the looks toward her from other naked men were not disrespectful but because they missed the women of their villages. While Cael was more reluctant, she convinced Floin into the arrangement of an innocent but enthralling entertainment.

She would borrow jewelry from other soldiers, gold and silver bracelets, necklaces, chains broad enough to encircle a woman's enticing torso, and rings fashioned for both fingers and toes. These would be all that she would don in a performance at night lighted only by strategically placed campfires. It was not a dance she would perform, but a series of posed postures that complimented the beauty of her feminine litheness ~ toes and fingers often pointed, arms and legs stretched, and back arched in artful display. She professed this was a discipline of worship from far off India that she learned from other well-traveled servants. All her feminine charms in unrestricted display, the audience of soldiers from all the training camp would cheer and stomp their feet in enthusiastic approval and appreciation. Many would heartily thank her for her performance personally and entreat her that on some occasion she must journey to their villages and teach the women there these appealing arts. She came to be always accorded all the most mannered courtesies by the soldiers hence forth.

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As it came closer to Beltane Festival, the waters of the river would not be quite so frigid, and so the men in their bathing time would linger just minutes longer at it's edge. There was one soldier thereabouts with white hair and beard, but the form of a somewhat younger man who would ogle Cael and wink at him on occasion. Once when the other soldiers had left the riverside to warm themselves by the adjacent open fires and clothe themselves back into light practice armor, the older man approached Cael to proposition for Floin. "Your new partner has a fine form and the loaves of his behind are very enticing, Would you both be agreeable to my thrusting into him? Of course everything that is mine would be shared with you, including any future loot in battle."

Cael knew the lecherous but jovial old soldier well and all about his attractions to younger men. He had passed on the proposition to his earlier partner, but his deceased wife had balked and only wanted to remain true to Cael. "If it would entertain you and Sarai so to see me plied and ploughed into by the lusting old battle boar, aye, I'll lose my garb and spread my ass to be pricked there." Floin responded sheepishly, but sincerely.

But Floin was ever blissful and joyous to be coupled with into his "yearning cunt" by another man's heated and pulsing fleshy hard horn of good stature. Cael and Sarai hugged, tittered, and laughed with the hearty amusement of watching their beloved Floin in naked raptures squealing with pleasure as he was tossed about in all different positions, to be ravished up his availing back yoni with unrestrained vigor by a known lecher of many scores of years.

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In the old ways of the Celtic peoples when most of the plantings had been completed, the Festival of Beltane marked the beginning of the summer on their calendar at the first of May and the night before. It was less than a handful of days later that year, that the camp learned that the truce with the Romans had completely ended. All agreements were broken and it was surmised that a full force of legions would be landing from Gaul to the southern shores of Britain and at the mouth of the Thames. But trusted spies had alerted the Druid Councils and camp commanders that the first engagement would be a march to the hated Druids' spiritual center, to the isle of Anglesey just north of the Welch peninsula. The Councils asked for the support of only small contingents , that they would invoke the gods magical powers and craft stealthy battle strategy to defeat the full force of numbered Roman legions before they could plunder the remainder of southern British countryside.

True to the prophecies that Floin knew, it was a tribal princess warrior, from just north and far east from where Floin and Cael trained., Boudicca, who emerged as the leader of British tribes in their hour of need and defense. She and her family were well known by Gwyneth's family. Later, it was learned that the old Emperor had been killed and as rumored by his own family as was also prophesied by the old man himself. He had been succeeded by his young great-nephew, Nero, whom it was thought in his idle incompetence would hastily plan an ill-prepared new assault on the isles.

After much counsel, Queen Boudicca decided to take advantage of the absence of legions at their strongholds in the south and east, while concentration of legions marched to Anglesey in the west . Tribal troops would assault and maraud Colchester, London, and other Roman settlements thereabouts. She waa greatly heartened by the news that almost all the tribes' people aligned with the Romans in the initial invasion had abandoned them and would now unite with all other Celts. Boudicca was instructed carefully in the tactic and technique of Roman formations, how they were disciplined in heavy armor to stand together in tight regiment, as if to fight as a handful of thick skinned beasts. For this reason, she decided soldiers would engage in the familiar Pict style - burdened only with short sharp weapon and hard lacquered wicker shields, they would be swift in naked assault to force breeches in Roman formation quicker than the enemy had the ability to regroup.

Wearing only mostly blue garish war paint and hair cut short and greased into color painted spikes, the mass of howling naked men in the seeming disarray would seem like so many wild animals to fright the Romans from the discipline of their ranks. If the perception was that the opponents of Rome in combat are so many savage barbarians, then why not exceed the expectation in horrid terrors? They would practice their nude battle maneuvers for only 10 days before group migration, not in marching formations but columns of swift hiking in song and battle chants. Their beards were cut short and their hair shortened and slicked into random spikes. Cael and Floin were painted blue by Sarai with intricate designs of wild beasts and birds of prey. She was able to bargain for a rare small fine bristled brush which she could use to paint small detail on the lingums of both men she loved with such fervor.

Sarai assisted the other women servants and other women from nearby villages in gathering provisions including donations. She would be joining other women at the end of the parade of advancing men. The gods were invoked in prayer to bring good fortune to the soldiers every evening. The day arrived for the start of the advance to the south and the east, and the soldiers were in high spirits singing and yelping their battle cries. The assembly of phalanxes made good progress each day. When passing each village, the enthusiasm of the devilishly painted naked men was infectious. Young men in the village would grab a sharp weapon or farming tool, toss aside all their garments and join them. Young maidens would hoot and laugh at the cheeky painted designs on the bare buttocks of so many men, they would volunteer more food, animal skins or blanketed weave to join the other women at the end of the parade to assist the provisioning and nursing of their tribes' brothers in battle.

In less than a week, the phalanxes joined up and it was only another day before they arrived for their assault on Colchester. Boudicca was astonished at how poorly defended it was. The whole garrison town was routed and set aflame. Almost the entire mass of Roman settlers thereabouts were killed. Just as her soldiers in command were grouping in preparation for assaults elsewhere, she learned from scouts that a legion of foot soldiers was advancing in the west to retake the settlement. Many of the phalanx marched out from the town to meet them and they were dashed and dispersed at the warrior woman's command. It was then that the Roman prelate to govern all the isles was killed by severing his head to be displayed as trophy. The phalanxes next marched further south and west to London. The great trade center was equally undefended , routed, and set ablaze. It was later learned that the leader of the legions, Paulinus realized that he could not assemble sufficient defenses in time and had urged the merchants and other settlers to flee to the west.

The next target of the phalanxes was to be the nearby settlement of Veralamium to the north and west of devastated London. Cael and Floin were ordered to join a scouting party on horseback to survey in advance for the presence of legion soldiers who may engage the mass of tribes' men. It was then that a small party of Roman scouts surprised them and wounded Cael with a "gladius" on one side near his waist. It was thought that the wound was not so deep that Cael could survive the injury in travel. A gurney was hastily crafted and Floin and a provision boy hastened to move Cael across the landscape to home encampment and be nursed back to good health.

In the ensuing days, they would spend nights at villages who hosted many of the wounded warriors attended by many of its women. Sarai was alerted to Cael's predicament and was able to ascertain after 2 days which village Cael and Floin were bivouacked for the night. The women were all affectionately devoted to their nursing charge, so much so that they were eager to administer the suckle to the man horns of the wounded, to affect the healing powers inherent when a man is prompted to discharge his seed. Cael's wound was considered not sufficiently healed for him to be privileged to submit to this technique. The next day they heard that Veralamium too had been routed, looted and burned. But bad news also came in learning that the great measure of the Druids had been killed at Anglesey, their treasures of magical icons, stone carvings, scrolled books of parchment and papyrus all ransacked and destroyed. The great mass of legions would soon be on the march to the south and prepared to engage the defending warriors in their naked rage of hostility, but a little weary from their previous assaults.

After 10 days, Floin and Sarai finally arrived at their small hut in the mostly abandoned encampment. They managed to improve a sleeping satchel with more straw and coverlets for more comfortable convalescence. They were alarmed that while his condition had not worsened, their much beloved companion was little improved. Both Floin and Sarai prepared a salve made from the herbs of their garden to gently anoint his wound. Then Cael seemed to improve and even spoke in humor. Floin became bold enough to suckle the horn of his lover and was encouraged by the depth of the flavor and healthy quantity in the output of seed that burst from the quivering opening of a responsive organ.

It was the next day however that Cael turned a chalky color and his breathing labored, The next day yet his color restored, he ate better, and he rested comfortably. As darkness flooded the encampment and the nightly fires were lit, the injured man became weak and complained of poor vision. Long before sunrise the next day, he breathed his last.

Before the next dusk, other soldiers and nearby towns people assisted to cremate Cael's remains in a dignified funeral while Floin and Sarai grieved bitterly for a soldier they knew of tremendous warrior reputation, but personally to them was all love and sweetness that the gods could conjure in the human heart.

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In only another day or so, word arrived at the camp that clash of forces between the opposing parties in south central Britain so much anticipated did transpire, but that the Celtic phalanxes were defeated and great quantities captured. The great clash occurred near the village at the base of the hill of High Cross. This would be near the junction of the future great roads of Wattling Street and Posse Way. Reports differed that commanding Boudicca was either slightly wounded but succumbed to her injuries later all the same, or that she killed herself when realizing all was lost. There would be no defending large tracts of the isles, now.

The best considered opinion was to surrender all weapons and facilities when legion forces would arrive to secure the encampment. In almost a physical desperation, Sarai clung to Floin for fear that the occupying victors would separate them. But for all his grief and sorrow, Floin endeavored to make himself useful to the Romans in ways that might offer him and Sarai a better future than would be the lot for the usual captured warrior. They at least had garb to cover themselves. It was reported that the Romans would make their captured prisoners labor at their behest completely naked, never allowing them any way to clothe themselves since battle, even to shiver uncovered at night.

The Romans did provide them better privileges and food when Floin volunteered his services for being able to speak reasonably well in both Greek and Latin. For tribunes from the east who were Greek speakers, he translated for the interrogations of tribes' people who were accused of actively collaborating in the rebellion. Floin was shocked and ashamed to witness the abuses inflicted on the accused as such. But they let him keep Sarai and she tried to console her mourning and dispirited master. She would open her legs at night and encourage him to couple with her, but he seldom responded to her urgent entreaties. Others including friendly Romans would warn them that when Floin ceased to be so useful, Sarai would be stricken from him. He could be shipped off across the channel to Gaul in shackles where other surviving soldiers of good form were being pressed into the "ludus", to be trained to fight as gladiators for the sporting amusement of those resided almost anywhere in the vast Empire. Because of skills with languages, reading and writing, numbers and mathematics, he could be sold to a wealthy family to tutor young children, or consigned to work in the hellish fires of multiple forges for the remainder of his days. If it was learned of his student activity in the Druid academy, his days would be certainly numbered despite his utility.

One night, with the assistance of other laboring servants, they escaped the supervision of Roman authority and snuck off to the Welch peninsula, their way lit only by moonlight. They had a forged parchment of passage rights and this allowed them to escape to a small seaside port where they arranged for passage on a boat to cross the western sea to the Emerald Isle. They paid for that passage with services of couplings of the flesh and their own wits. Nothing more is known of the fate of the legendary Floin and his exotic Sarai from then on.

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I cannot know how distant a time this account will be encountered by curious readers and so I write just a few words of how things changed for Britons under Roman rule. The Romans demanded great tribute from us, and extended hated bondage, especially from the women. They extracted annually great quantities of Cornwall tin, fresh sheered wool, dried mutton, salted fish, harvested wheat and barley, apples. But the central isle was rewarded with great feats of engineering ~ a network of cleared and paved roads and some aqueducts to improve irrigation and supply of fresh water. The winters turned of a much milder disposition and Romans brought green vines, the fruit of which provides welcome refreshment. The increase of prosperous commerce was advanced beyond the imagination of Celtic peoples ever before. The conquerors have protected us from tribes in the north hostile to both native Britons and Romans alike.