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Ven felt uncomfortable in the heavy robes he was wearing. He kept fidgeting in his boots and unsure of where to place his hands he sort of folded them. Two minutes later, the train stopped and arrived at the station Ven was to get off at. As the train shuddered to a stop, Ven gulped nervously and picked up his small luggage bag. The doors silently slid open. Ven reluctantly and with great trepidation stepped out onto the platform.Ven hadn’t been in Rome for a year. But Rome looked and sounded the same. He stood rooted to the spot at which he’d come out. He didn’t hear the train gather speed and fly out of the station. He didn’t see the bustling citizens trying to get to their respective places. He only felt Rome. The place that he’d known as home for thirty years. ‘Sir?’ someone was speaking to him. And he started a bit when a slave stood directly opposite him. Ven stared and the slave kept standing.
‘Yes?’ he eventually croaked out.
‘May I assist you with the bag?’ The slave wasn’t looking at Ven but instead at the ground.
A few seconds passed but eventually Ven declined the help. The slave moved away dejectedly and Ven stared after him for a bit. It was too soon. His heart was trying to jump out of his skin. Maybe it was the hot Roman sun but he was starting to sweat too. After spending a whole year in the nation of the ‘people of the plains’ where slavery was illegal and people like Ven treated as exotic foreigners, Ven hadn’t quite expected the strange feeling of utter nostalgia to creep up.
Nostalgia for what ? A sudden troubled voice asked in his head. Nostalgia for being a slave? He was a freed-man now. He shouldn’t be nostalgic. But Ven was back. One phone call from his ex-master. One job opportunity and Ven found himself unable to disobey the man he had warmed the bed for and called master for the better part of his youth. He had spent one glorious year traversing the lands outside of the empire. Seen how free people lived. Enjoyed the pleasure of sex without the use of ropes and cameras. But now he was back. To fulfil his side of the contract that entailed his job employment at Phallusy. He was a freed man, but only on paper. He had no money to his name, no home and certainly no one who cared to help him now. But. He was a freed man. Today, after he met his old master, he could go away and be on his own. He had earned that privilege. He smiled to himself and as the crowd started to thin he saw an old friend standing and waiting for him. Willow hadn’t seen him yet but Ven was grateful that it was someone he knew and liked. He of course hadn’t expected his old master to pick him up but he had been somewhat apprehensive of the pick-up. After his time as master’s sex slave, he wasn’t exactly the most respected. Now that he had been freed, he knew that some slaves wouldn’t be thrilled about his return. But it was Willow. Thank the Gods that it was him. And finally Willow saw him and smiled his gorgeous, beaming smile. The one that would make any day nicer even if it had been the day after one of master’s sex parties. Ven smiled back and suddenly being back in Rome wasn’t so bad.