“Ain’t begged fer anythin’ my whole life,” said the young man, “an’ I ain’t about to start.” The boy was barely eighteen, but his accent (southern, rural; Stringer couldn’t place it any better) bore the weight of things far bigger than himself, geography and poverty and history... He found it charming, even cute; it sounded like the soul of a wise old gentleman-farmer had landed, somehow, in the sturdy, sunburnt body of a high school athlete.
“So tell me,” Tim said, leaning forward, fingers tented on the desk, “what makes you want to take my course?”
“The title, first of all,” he said, grinning a little.
The Lives of Gladiators. He’d considered calling it The Deaths of Gladiators, which was closer to the truth of what he taught—defeat, after all, brought the crowds, put their names in the books—but that sounded grim; besides, he didn’t want to drive away potential students, much less at a time like this, when his worth as a teacher derived from, of all things, a headcount! He could hardly turn Tucker away, especially not if the kid’s interest in classical fighting men were as ardent as his own. “You... like gladiators?”
“Hell, I’d be one, if I could!”
Tim’s heart thumped. “Is that so?”
“Yessir.” In his blue eyes, the professor caught a certain confidence; he didn’t doubt the boy’s convictions, gazing into them—indeed, the thought of Tucker clad in scanty Roman garb, sword gripped in hand, delighted him.
“It’s—I mean, it was—a brutal life. A brutal death, too.”
“Ain’t afraid to die,” he countered. “Some things matter more ’an livin’.”
“Like a man’s name,” Tim said.
Tucker nodded, with the surety of one much older.
Yes, thought Tim, he may yet have a fighting chance... “Well, far be it from me to keep an interested young man like yourself from indulging his passions. You’ll have to work hard, very hard... but if you’re truly willing, Tucker, let me welcome you into the Lives—and Deaths—of Gladiators!”
Tucker leapt up, stuck his hand out. The professor took it; it was soft, but strong. They shook. “You won’t regret this, sir,” the kid said, smiling.
No, I don’t believe I will, he thought.
* * *
Stringer woke with a start, his naked, sweat-slicked body sprawled across a dirt floor. There were strange yet somehow unmistakably familiar sounds: a crackling flame, flies buzzing; further off, the thrum of people gathered, crowds enormous and impatient. It was hot, much hotter than it ought to be; the air stank—but of what? He’d recognize it shortly: perspiration, semen, blood, and something far worse...
“Morning,” spoke the burly, bearded man who loomed above him, prodding at him with a toe, “though not for too much longer!”
“You—y-you’re not speaking English,” sputtered the professor, sitting up, and realizing as he said it that his own words, too, as perfectly as they’d been uttered, weren’t familiar to him. What an odd tongue: beautiful, complex, yet not dissimilar in some ways to the ancient Greek and Latin he was fluent in.
“Ha,” laughed the brute, and crossed his big arms over his enormous, hairy chest. “I’ve heard of it, this... In-glush. And of your Emer-eka. Do you, too, hail from Tek-sus?”
Dwarfed by such a massive fellow, Stringer felt acutely cognizant of his inferior physique. Now forty-six years old, his slender body, which was once quite lean thanks to a regimen of bicycling and jogging, sagged a little; he’d grown pale, flabby, and his height was tempered by the hunchbacked posture of a chronic academic. He had lost his hair—or rather, what had grown there once now sprouted from his chest and shoulders mostly, streaked with silver, as it often did when men met middle age. His nipples jutted, and his gut, too... but it hardly mattered here, now, wherever—whenever?—he had ended up.
“There’s others like me?”
“Many others,” said the big man, gripping Stringer’s shoulder as he stood. “You’re travelers, no doubt—those fighters from the Farworld, come to make your mark in foreign sands.”
“You mean...” The facts, somehow, had dawned on him already.
“Aye—you’ve found yourself in Ghorm, friend, where we gladiators splay our innards for an eager audience! Look,” spoke the man, and pointed at an iron gate through which the sunlight poured and steel’s clatter sounded, “even now your young companion battles for the pleasure of the crowd...”
When the professor pressed his face against the bars, he found a scene he’d dreamt of countless times before: a packed arena, two men locked in combat at the center of it. What a handsome fellow, Tim thought, staring at the more successful of the swordsman, so far—young, yet rugged, muscular and smooth save where a golden thicket had begun to sprout, his newfound manliness apparent in the valley of his chest and round his belly button. As he fought, he grunted—out of effort, yes, but Stringer got the sense this gladiator liked his work, took pride and pleasure in his every wide, brave swing, each pointed, plunging thrust. His body glistened with a sheen of perspiration; watching him gave the professor an erection, powerful and sudden—out of nowhere, he was masturbating openly, his palm sweat, copious in rapt anticipation of the kill, slicking the way for an unavoidable eruption. But it was only as the handsome young man bore a grave and wholly unexpected wound—“Aw shit, my got-dang guts popped out!” he hollered, back arched, clutching at the slick, pink mass which bulged now where the blade had plunged—that Stringer recognized the fighter for his would-be pupil, Tucker Tomlinson! Blood soaked his loincloth, dribbled sandward; somehow, he was even handsomer like this, and horrified, Tim realized he would enjoy the kid’s death, that the sight of it alone would make him shoot. Defeat was imminent, or so Tim thought; as he prepared to spurt, thighs quaking, manhood thrust between the gate’s bars, Tucker plunged his own blade home—“Hlurghk” came the victim’s last cry, strangled in the throat—and ropes of semen sprang forth into the arena, heralding Tim’s climax. Tucker gutted his opponent thoroughly, the lad’s fat, ropy entrails loosed with one good, ripping tug, and as the innards splattered he released his own prize, pouring cum upon the loser’s face and chest. Whatever pain he felt (and there was quite a bit of it, no doubt) had only fueled his pleasure, it appeared; Tim couldn’t help recall the boy’s words: Ain’t afraid to die, he’d said—and now, as his intestines dangled, hooked upon his throbbing penis, the professor saw he’d meant it!
Next: A Trial of Swords