From Different Worlds

Chapter 1Adam Baxter Fuck yeah! This is gonna be so much fun! Man, I’ve been waiting a whole, entire year for this! Ever since I came to QuestCon last summer, I just knew I had to be in the costume contest the next time around. And now it’s finally getting started! The ladies behind the registration table were really nice. I’m pretty sure one of ‘em was tryin’ to flirt with me, but I just didn’t have the heart to tell her I played for the other team! They’d just given me a little slip of paper with my registration number on it and told me I should go find my seat until it was time for the show to start. So from the numbers that were taped to the backs of the chairs, it looked like I was probably gonna be sitting somewhere on the other side of— Oh, f**k, get a load of that sexy, little guy over there in the corner all by himself! God, that curly black hair, smooth olive skin, and f**k—that skimpy, little, silver toga! He kept glancing down at the floor, like he was really shy and hoping nobody would notice him. But, s**t, that wasn’t gonna work on me. I didn’t wanna look at anybody else! * * * * Steve Morgan Oh, my God! I couldn’t believe my eyes. The most gorgeous man I’d ever seen in my entire life was actually…walking right toward me! Of course, I’d been to QuestCon plenty of times over the years, but I’d never seen this guy before. I’m sure I would have remembered someone like that. He honestly looked like some virile Greek god who’d just stepped down from Mount Olympus to toy with all of us on the mortal coil for his own amusement. I started fidgeting in my seat and tried to pretend I hadn’t noticed him. Other people kept stopping him to compliment him on his costume while he was walking around the room. He always stopped and smiled, thanking them, but… God, why does he keep staring at me? He was definitely the biggest man I’d ever seen in my entire life. He must’ve been well over six feet tall, judging by how he’d had to duck down to come through the green room’s open doorway. I’d also never seen anyone with that kind of muscular body except on professional bodybuilding contests on TV. His incredible physique was blatantly obvious from the skimpy costume he was wearing. It seemed a bit familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Definitely an ancient, medieval warrior from some kind of sword and sorcery film. His huge, V-shaped torso was completely bare except for two narrow straps of dark brown leather that crisscrossed his smooth, massive chest. From the waist down, there were wide straps of the same dark brown leather hanging almost to his knees. From the way they moved and swished around his massive, muscular legs as he walked, it seemed a bit reminiscent of a Hawaiian hula skirt—except on a huge, sexy guy! When he turned sideways to talk to someone, I gasped under my breath when I saw how the sides of his “skirt” were completely open all the way up to the waistband. It revealed a tantalizing glimpse of his bulging, muscular thighs, which were only partially hidden underneath. From the knees down, he was wearing tall, brown leather boots, which seemed lightly scuffed with dirt. There was also a large, brown leather bag hanging under one arm, suspended from a strap over his head and around his thick, muscular neck. There were brown leather gauntlets on each forearm just above his wrists, and the silver, metal handle of a sword was sticking up behind one of his massive, bare shoulders. It was protruding from the long, brown scabbard I’d seen on his back while he’d been checking in at the registration table. I gulped nervously as his long-legged strides kept bringing him closer and closer. My hands started trembling from PTSD flashbacks to all the big, muscle-bound, football jocks who had beaten me up so often all through high school. This guy was even bigger and scarier than any of those jerks, especially since he had such a huge, crazy grin plastered all over his otherwise handsome face. I’d been waiting for someone to point and laugh at my skimpy, little costume, but fortunately, no one had…yet. So, of course, if anyone did, it was bound to be this huge guy who put me to shame so easily. When he rounded one of the rows of chairs set up in the room, he pointed directly at me and bellowed in a loud, deep voice, “Wow! Great costume, dude!” I glanced all around. The only other person seated anywhere near me was an older lady a few chairs down the wall. She was apparently dressed as Mother Nature, judging by her long, white, silky robe and her curly wig with artificial birds perched in her mane of thick, black hair. And she was definitely not a “dude.” He kept coming closer and closer, and the only thing that kept me from jumping up and running out was the kind look in his eyes. They were as blue as a midday sky and somehow actually sparkled like sapphires. His longish, slightly wavy, blond hair tumbled down to his shoulders on either side of his strong, masculine jawline, just like a male fashion model. Whenever he grinned, his blinding Colgate smile looked like he’d just stepped out of a toothpaste commercial. “Oh, hey!” he said, pointing directly at the chair in the very corner of the room, right beside me. “Thirty-one! That’s me!” At least now I knew why he’d kept looking in my direction. He was just trying to locate the chair with his number on it. He was standing almost directly in front of me now, and I gulped as I stared up over his huge, muscular frame towering so far above me. I was utterly transfixed as he reached up behind himself to remove the scabbard containing the sword from his back. His huge chest and arms were flexing just like a pro bodybuilder on TV. A big, nervous lump had formed in my throat, which I knew from experience would make any kind of speech impossible. I always tended to stammer and stutter whenever I got nervous, and people also laughed about how easy it was to make me blush. I gulped again as the huge warrior turned around directly in front of me, revealing the wide-open gap at the side of his skirt again while he was bending over to lean his scabbard into the corner behind the other chair. God, he looked almost entirely naked! It made me recall a porn video I’d seen online where a male stripper had been dancing right in front of some guys in a bar. He had squatted down to give each of them a lap dance before shoving his huge, hard c**k right between their eager, smiling lips. I immediately had to whip both of my hands up over my lap to hide the effect it was having on me. While the big guy was settling down onto his chair, the straps of leather at his waist swiftly parted and dropped down on either side of his massive thighs, leaving them almost completely bare. God, he was just so huge! As he settled into place, my breath caught in my throat when his muscular arm brushed against my own bare arm. It felt like a jolt of electricity went shooting right up into my already addled brain. I instinctively jumped over into the next empty chair beside me. I didn’t care if it was numbered for someone else or not. “Oops!” The big guy chuckled. “Sorry, these guns take up a lotta room!” He turned a bit sideways in his chair and lifted both arms in a classic double bicep pose, flexing both of them into huge, hard, mountainous peaks. I gulped as I felt all the blood draining from my face. That was exactly how all the football jocks had always grinned and shown off, just before they’d beaten me up. This big, scary guy was literally the exact opposite of me in pretty much every way imaginable. I’d always been the skinny, little geek who’d always been the easiest target for all the bullies. And, yes, I was still wearing the dark-framed glasses that proved what a total nerd I was. The most ridiculous part of all was the stupid costume I was wearing. I had always enjoyed doing costume tributes to the TV stars who were appearing at these conventions. So here I was, only about halfway dressed, in a skimpy little Greek chiton. The actor Martin Wood had played the Greek god Hermes in an old episode of Star Quest while I’d been growing up. I’d always been glued to the TV set every single day after school, watching reruns until I could recite all the dialog in every episode along with every single character. Mr. Wood’s Greek god character had always been one of my favorites. No doubt because I’d been growing up so deeply closeted, and he was so devastatingly handsome and masculine in the skimpy, little, silver costume he’d worn. It was basically just a mini-skirt and a one-sided tunic, which left more than half of his tanned, muscular chest fully exposed. I had tried to duplicate his costume the best I could with a slick fabric that resembled liquid mercury. But now, sitting right next to someone who really did look like an actual Greek god, I realized how badly I was breaking the cardinal rule of costuming—that you should “always costume for your body type.” Unfortunately, it had always been next to impossible for me to build much muscle, but I’d been lifting weights at home every day for months, trying to get in better shape to wear this ridiculous costume out in public. And trust me, that was no small feat for someone who didn’t even like to take his shirt off to go swimming! I knew the only thing I could really do to look better was get a dark tan, which was actually pretty easy, thanks to some Native American ancestry on my mom’s side of the family. So I had spent as much time out in the sun as I could, since Hermes was the winged messenger of the gods who spent so much time flying so close to the sun, as evidenced by Mr. Wood’s darkly tanned character. “So, you’re Hermes, right?” a deep voice asked from right beside me. “From classic Quest?” I tried to reply, but the huge knot in my throat made it impossible, so I just nodded. “Well, you look just like him!” the big guy said. Oh, God. I actually snorted as I laughed. Out loud. And I do mean just like a pig. Oh, crap! I groaned inside my head. Just kill me now and get it over with! I finally managed to stammer, “Yeah, r-r-right!” “No, you look really great!” I finally had to turn to glance over at the big guy. I knew he was just picking on me. Thanks to my innate social anxiety, I’d never been very good at talking with strangers or gauging whether they were being serious or not. He was still grinning at me like some kind of crazy person, and then he quickly glanced up and down over me and my stupid costume, like he was giving me the once-over. Good grief, is he actually checking me out? That was impossible! I suddenly felt like an android on Star Quest who was short-circuiting from too much conflicting information. How could some huge, handsome guy like this actually be gay? And even if he was, why would he be flirting with a skinny, little geek like me? No, he had to be making fun of me. My nerves were so totally frayed, I started leaning over to grab my tote bag from underneath my previous chair. If I ran fast enough, I could dash out the nearest door and back up to the safety of my own hotel room before things got any worse.