Warnings: BarbarianSpy Xtreme: contains erotic gay content, BDSM elements, rough sex, punishment, gay anal, gay love, fetish, and explicit language.
Coming into his majority in the Boston merchant world of 1801 and having been brutally initiated into man sex during a roadside encounter, the merchant’s son and printer’s apprentice, Billy, begins a life of discovery of what he wants from another man. He thinks he wants—and deserves—rough taking and punishment, but not all of his lovers agree. The call of the sea and early linking up with a pirate chieftain lead him into a life where, though he is deemed too small and fair of looks to be trusted among common seaman, the men of the sea win through on finding their own purposes for him.
Billy’s story leads him from nominally prim Boston to hedonist Charleston and the slaves of a South Carolina rice plantation and then on across the Atlantic to the Azores and the Mediterranean.
The saga of Billy’s sexual adventures and seekings are backdropped in Shores of Tripoli by piracy on the East Coast of the young United States, piracy on the Atlantic at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and American’s engagement in the Barbary Coast antipiracy wars in the Mediterranean. The Barbary Coast wars, storming up on the shores of Tripoli, provided the first foreign land battles that the young United States engaged in as well as the first use of U.S. Marines—and our young Billy was there to see and experience it all.
Billy’s story is one of possession by a succession of naval chieftains—pirate and U.S. Navy alike, as well as randy and fit Marines and Arab potentates—and also of men who try to convince him that sex can be more equal and romance based. The question remains of what maturity and time leads him to believe and accept as the sexual experience he most wants.
Reviewed By BlackTulip for Confessions from Romaholics
"I swear I don't remember having read a novella with so many twists and turns! There was already a lot going on in Dirk Hessian's last book "Constantinople", but I think this one sets a new record ... and in my opinion, the pacing is a tour de force! The author definitely has the knack of grabbing you and drawing you into his story and not letting you go until it ends. . . . . .
It was raw, rough, full of testosterone, terribly realistic, vastly entertaining but also exciting, addictive and above all it was "unputdownable"! The rating system doesn’t allow half points so I give 4 STARS but it’s more like 4.5."
Two ships were standing off the coves at the base of cliff, near enough for Billy to see their white sails and to count their masts to assure himself that these must be the two ships he expected, but far enough out to sea not to run aground in this treacherous area of the coast. The ships weren’t near each other. The larger of the two was between where he stood and the inlet leading past the lighthouse and into the Shernhaven harbor. The other one was standing further south.
Billy could see that the one farther away already had longboats in the water, starting their journey to land. They were carrying no running lights, but were merely dark splotches on the water, discerned in the moonlight only with great care. They were riding low in the water, and Billy could see a mass of figures overloading each one.
The nearer, larger ship, was just starting to lower boats. The sound of men calling out guidance and curses at the difficulty of the work slid in underneath the keening of the seagulls overhead and the pounding of the surf.
By the time Billy had made his way down to the cove and positioned himself behind a large boulder of water-pocked rock and jagged edges, boats from the two ships were nearing the beach. Their journey was intersecting on the beach nearly parallel to where Billy was hiding himself.
The longboats from the smaller, more distant ship, Billy could now see were packed with silent, dark figures. The boats from the larger ship were seemingly empty other than the men rowing, driven by a man growling curses and threatening slackers with bodily harm.
One of the overloaded boats foundered in the surf, and there was a scramble to pull its occupants, who didn’t seem to be making much of an effort to save themselves, to safety. Billy could hear the ominous rattling of chains. The crews from the larger boats leaped out of their now-beached longboats and went to the aid of the other craft, a second of which was also foundering in the merciless surf. From the sounds of wailing from the floundering figures in the surf and the curses of the crew members, Billy could tell that not all of the passengers were being saved.
The coxswain of the larger ship’s longboats seemed to have taken charge of the situation. He cut quite a figure in the late of the longboat lantern. He was dark—either heavily tanned or an Arab—and wore a bright green vest over short brown breeches. A scarlet sash circled his waist into which two pistols had been shoved. He was bearded and there was a black patch over one eye.
Billy knew how important it was to lose as few of the floundering passengers as possible. The figures were dark sinned and nearly naked. He knew that these would be slaves being brought in from Africa via the Caribbean. He was witnessing their transfer from one ship to the other and knew that by the morrow or the next day, the survivors of this landing would be displayed on the auction block on Woodman’s wharf, near Boston’s town market and docks. Those bidding on these slaves would be turning a blind eye to their primitive conditions and weakened, dazed states. In one of life’s incongruities, whereas the trade of shipped slaves was now outlawed in Massachusetts, the resale of slaves in the state previous to the law’s enactment was permitted. Those trading with these lives in the new day would be conveniently assuming the slaves hadn’t arrived surreptitiously in the night.
So engrossed was Billy in watching the exchange of the goods, cases of rum and bolts of textiles and baskets of gleaming doubloons, from one ship for the slaves from another that he cried out in fear and surprise as a strong hand gripped his shoulder from behind.
“I believe you will be coming with us,” a growly voice rang out.
