CHAPTER ONE

It happened two weeks after Octavia’s 18^th birthday, early in the morning, before the town was awake. Soldiers, hardened centurions of the imperial guard, broke down doors and invaded the homes of the townsfolk. Before anyone could react they were being herded out into the square at sword point. One or two men tried to protest but they were instantly slain – a sword in the belly or across the neck. Their women cowered and scurried to obey, wending their way through familiar narrow streets to gather in the square – all five hundred plus inhabitants.

Octavia and her family blundered along with their neighbours, bleary eyed and still fuddled with sleep. Some tried to protest as the men women and children were separated but the protests were half-hearted and died away as one or two soldiers smacked the protestors with a sword flat and threatened them with the sharp edge of the blade.

Elissa and Octavia clung to each other in terror but the Romans ordered them into lines - the men to the left, the children, whimpering and crying in the middle in the care of old folk and the women to the right. At the head of the square, where the mayor had once been used to standing when he addressed the townsfolk, the centurion stood, flanked by his cohorts. His chin was raised and his mouth was drawn into a sneer of disdain. What had they done? What terrible crime had brought the wrath of the Roman Empire in the guise of these ruthless battle-hardened soldiers?

Octavia shivered as she stood waiting. Her body was still warm from her bed and she could still feel the pulsing in the moist cleft between her thighs. The residue of her dream was still playing through her head. The dream which matched her daydream fantasies and had been her path to the discovery of her sexuality. She had discovered the sensitivity of her nipples through the fantasy. She had discovered the existence of her clit through the fantasy. She had discovered orgasms through the fantasy. And now here she stood, unbelievably aroused by the reality which was so close to the fantasy.

The dream was still playing in her head – big strong soldiers had come and taken her away. She was humiliated – stripped – led through crowded streets naked with many people looking on – her breasts bouncing, her bottom wobbling and a thin silver stream dribbling to the ground between her thighs as she stumbled along. Octavia could not understand where the dream had come from, but she knew the effect on her. She always woke up wet between her legs and always had to carry the dream forward as a fantasy to some conclusion. And as she did this, she would pinch her nipples and pull at them. Her other hand would be at the turgid lips of her sex, parting them and delving into the tight opening to press against the drum-skin of her hymen.

The fantasies she ran through her mind varied greatly but throughout them all her busy fingers stroked the prominent nub of flesh till she had to bite her bottom lip as the spasms gripped her belly and her head arched back.

Some were mild – the centurion took her into his tent and laid her on his bed. He stroked her body till she was panting with desire and was begging him to take her. Then as his thick member entered her tight hole she would come.

Another had her handed over to the soldiers. Tied belly down and behind up she was thrashed and then the soldiers took turns to drive their members into the tight hole till it was sore and full of male fluids.

Yet another found her dragged to the Coliseum where a post waited. Bound, naked, face to the post, a bull whip plied its trade over the tender flesh of her back and her bottom. As the agony lanced through the tender flesh the orgasm shook her frame.

Some were extreme – She was fastened to a wooden horse, belly down with her behind pushed out, the cheeks splayed. She was forced to use her mouth to arouse the centurions one at a time. Once each was hard he used her from behind and to her shame the image was of the hard member entering not her sex but the small wrinkled hole of her anus. As the tight hole was ridden the next centurion was in her mouth being sucked to erection. As each one finished in her bottom he would take up a cane and deliver two blows to her taut arse-cheeks. The orgasm which accompanied this fantasy rose and fell as her mind had her repeat the ordeal time after time. – long and short, thick and thin,  all strongly scented and all prolific in their output. The image in her mind’s eye of the sore hole and flesh of her behind tortured into thick ropes of painfully contused welts had her shuddering in prolonged spasms as her fingers thrashed at the hard clitoris poking out between her lips.

The most extreme of all often came the night after she had gone through the anal rape. Here she was turned to face the crowd and a thick ring forced through the flesh of her pubic mound, the indescribable pain causing her to howl in pain. Taken down she was forced to her knees and a baulk of timber fixed to the ring. Crying in agony and misery, the whip plying across her raised buttocks, she was made to crawl through the streets to the row of posts outside the city – the crucifixion grounds. The baulk of timber became the cross piece along which her arms were stretched. The agony of the nails driving through her wrists followed by the raising of her body till she hung suspended, her back feeling the horn. Then being raised till the thick pointed eighteen inch long horn was poised at the entrance to her arse. Falling onto it, feeling the sharp end pierce deep into her entrails. The orgasms were so strong with this that she went into a kind of trance that had her almost unconscious.

Coming back to the present Octavia became aware of the centurions shackling the men together and leading them away. The elders and children were next and then the women were left standing in sixteen trembling lines, ten women to each. Octavia was at the front of the third line. The centurion stepped forward and spoke.

“You sluts are the last of your town. We received information that someone was plotting rebellion and Caesar has decreed that the town be razed to the ground and its citizens sold into slavery – all except one in ten of the women. These twenty will be taken to Rome where they will be held up as an example of Caesar’s power and vengeance. They will be tortured and executed in front of the people of Rome. Take them away but leave the one at the front of each line.”

Octavia felt a flush of heat rush over her. She grew faint as she realised that she was one of the chosen. Terror vied with arousal – her worst fantasy was about to be realised… Oh god no! Beside her, several things were happening. The women behind her were being fastened together and dragged away by the centurions – some wailing for themselves; some for their daughters or sisters being left behind; some with vacant stares already lost to the real world.  She sank to her knees, feeling her belly going loose as the reality sank home – she was about to embark on a journey of shame and degradation, of pain and agony, of forced sex and torture, of finality from which she would not escape. Her bladder let go and her night urine flooded her loose clothing, running down to pool at her knees.

Beside her one of the other women ran – she made it all of twenty feet before a centurion’s foot flicked out and she sprawled full length in the loose sand of the town square. She screamed as strong warrior’s hands dragged her upright. Octavia felt a rope being passed around her wrists which were then fastened behind her back. She knelt passively in the sand as she was tied. Beside her other women were struggling as they were tied. One or two others were like her immobile as they were fastened. The girl who had tried to run was lying in the dirt held down by two soldiers at the feet of the Centurion.

Octavia was dragged upright and two soldiers held her – gripped tightly at her upper arms. She whimpered in fear as the women were all stood in a row facing the Centurion, except the one pinned at his feet.

“Strip them!” A third centurion stepped up to each woman and drew his sword. Octavia screamed as the hard faced man in front of her slipped the tip of the sharp blade under the hem at the front of her shift and slid it straight up the front. Her tunic tented and then rent as the blade slit it from the bottom. She flinched as the cold steel caressed her mound, slid up over her belly and between her breasts till it split the neckline of the shift. The centurion flipped the blade sideways and deftly slit the sleeves of the shift. It fell to the ground and Octavia was naked. All around her, amid sounds of distress, the other women were being stripped.

The girl on the ground had had the clothes cut from her prone body and was wrenched up to her knees facing the Centurion. Her head was dragged backward until her face was pointing at the sky, her mouth open as she wailed in terror. At a sign from the Centurion one of her guards stuffed a length of the wet shift into her mouth and tied it around the back of her head. Her wails turned to barely audible mewls as her eyes bulged and she struggled weakly.

“You will not escape. Do not think of defying me. This slut will now be punished to show what happens when you think to disobey or rebel in any way. She is lucky that she is not dead – or maybe she is unlucky. When her punishment is over you will be taken to our camp. Tonight we rest and you will entertain my men. Tomorrow we begin our trek to Rome. One of you can earn the right to be spared but you must perform – you must stand out from the others. You will be tested and you will compete against each other to earn that right.

“String this slut up face to the whipping pole. Twenty strokes. Then you can turn her around and give her front twenty strokes. “

The girl howled and fought as the soldiers dragged her to the pole in the centre of the square, but she was no match for their strength and her wrists were soon fastened high on the pole. Her ankles were dragged around it till they met on the other side where they were fastened together immobilising her. She whimpered as she waited for them to begin. Octavia found herself strangely intrigued and aroused by what she was watching. ‘What would it be like to be stretched painfully out, naked, about to be whipped? Between her legs her lips were feeling swollen and she felt her nipples grow hard. Her breasts seemed to be swelling and they felt heavy with lust.