Chapter 3.1 - Crossing Swords

 

Billy supposed he should say something before he got too carried away, but considering Serge was already literally carrying him away, the point was probably moot.

The stucco house abutting the amphitheatre may as well have been a bordello for all Billy knew. A group of gruff men flanking the entrance saw Serge and let him pass, one of them giving out a hearty-wolf whistle. They knew who he was, and, even more importantly, what he was doing with that handsome man in his arms.

“Wait, what about Bren?” Billy asked, afraid he’d just snatched his new friend’s gym crush right from under his nose. Billy’s eyes adjusted from harsh sun to the romantic, twilit ambiance of braziers and incense.  “And don’t you dare say, ‘who’?”

Serge laid Billy down on a Roman-style lounge, cushioned with pillows. With a deep-bellied sigh, Serge tossed his laurel crown to the corner of the room. The chamber ceiling was low enough that Serge, presently undressing, had to stoop low enough not to bump his head against it.

“I know well the man, and admire him dearly,” Sergius told Billy. He removed his arm bracers, shin guards, and helmet, dropping them onto a pile of rugs and bedding next to the couch. “And if gray-eyed Minerva has granted Brennus any wisdom whatsoever, he will know to lay down his weapon and cease his foolish aspirations.” Sergius plucked a small, clay pot from the ground and placed it on the adjoining table, on which sat a bowl full of plump, delicious grapes, and dates.

Billy couldn’t decide if he was hungrier or hornier. Serge decided for him. “Raaagh!” the enthusiastic gladiator roared, reminding Billy of a certain cave dweller he knew. He grabbed Billy’s jeans and began eagerly tugging on them. “Forget this talk of my would-be-apprentice. Your countenance stirs my loins, small friend! Hmmm…you dress in the finery of a distant land. How do I remove such beautiful vestments?”

Billy gladly helped him, undoing his top button and unzipping himself. Serge appeared quite fascinated by the concept of a zipper. “Yes, yes, I am totally about this. What is this place, by the way? Some kinda’ Roman love hotel?”

“This is where the nobles take us gladiators,” Serge said with a sly wink, tugging Billy’s jeans off. Billy heard his phone, safely tucked inside the rightmost pocket, fall to the ground with them. “Should enough denarii cross an editor’s hands, we gladiators sometimes give our audiences…private demonstrations.” Serge laughed, his belly and pecs jiggling with his musical baritone. “By which I mean, FUCKING!”

“Yeah, I figured that out pretty quickly. So, you mean to tell me that you’re basically pimped out?” Billy bluntly surmised.

This did not seem to bother the handsome Roman in the slightest. “Indeed. You, however, will receive me, ex gratia. My treat.”

Which, of course, was great, but Billy still felt slightly guilty about the ordeal, knowing Bren’s affections for the literal, Roman god looming over Billy at present. “Sure, sure. Thing is, Serge, I’m a tad worried about you and your fr—”

Whatever Billy meant to say no longer mattered. Maintaining his cheery smile, Sergius tore away his breechcloth. His thick, uncut, Roman cock unfurled itself like an Olympian descending from the heavens in a cloud of soft, black bush. Billy clamped his hand over his mouth, in awe of Serge’s…sword, joining him in his nudity by taking off his jockstrap.

The Roman eye-balled the curious undergarment for a moment, considered it with a thoughtful sniff, and then tossed it over his shoulder. “Enough talk, small friend,” he said, pinning Billy’s hands to the couch and began by rubbing his beard across his newly won ‘prize’s’ neck, stoking the fire. He glanced down briefly, with immense satisfaction. “Though it appears you are not so small.”

Billy blushed. It had been a long damn time since a man had made him turn red. Sergius removed his hands from Billy’s wrists. With a mischievous glint in his eyes, the hairy bunk motioned for his guest to sit up. “I spied your grappling ability with The Gorgon. That curvaceous body of yours, those hindquarters, and that vacuous expression in your eyes—the hallmarks of a wrestler! I myself was once enamored with the sport, ‘til I became a gladiator. Now, you must honor me by showing me your strength!”

Does he end every sentence with an exclamation point? “Haha…oh geez.” Oh, geez? Come on, playboy! Serge’s ‘Roman rizz’ had reverted Billy back into a virginal freshman, or rather, a vestal virgin. “I only did it for a little while, and I wasn’t even that good! I enjoyed getting pinned more than doing the pinning, for one.”

“Handsome, and modest!” Serge held out his massive arms in a grappling stance, eagerly waiting for Billy to take him on his challenge. “Give me all you got! Don’t hold back!”

Billy sensed how this might pan out and bit his lip, half out of frustration, and half out of sexual frustration. Regardless, he clasped his hands over Serge’s. Serge’s fingers clamped down on his fingers like manacles.

With a grunt, Billy pushed, indeed giving it all he got. It was no use. Serge easily overpowered him, laughing as he pinned Billy to the bed with his bulk, nearly smothering and crushing him the process. “I will have to give you some more lessons,” Serge growled, rubbing his beard against Billy’s neck, making his body tingle. “Now, I shall make you submit to my power—not by brawn alone, nor pain, but with relentless, agonizing pleasure.”

Serge’s tactile tactics with his beard soon transitioned into kissing and mouthing the space between Billy’s ear and shoulders, causing the outsider to roll his eyes back into his head with—well—agonizing pleasure. That, coupled with Serge’s fur, muscle, and heat, all pressing against him at once, was enough to rob Billy of speech.

“This…feels…so good. Fuck.” Billy grew instantly hard, his ‘spear’ meeting Serge’s, only to find his own weapon pinned, dominated, and defeated by Serge’s pulsating shaft. The gladiator cemented his victory with a spurt of precum, dripping from his wide head to anoint the tip of Billy’s cock. An involuntary twitch later, Billy matched Serge with his own secretion. Billy watched the thick, white thread between their glands bridge their masculinities together, before tragically parting. Drunk with this imagery, Billy wanted only more.

Sergius raised his thick eyebrows. “Did you honestly think your pretty cock stood a chance against mine?” Seemed that Serge’s aura of dominance extended from the arena to the bedchamber. Yet, unlike the ferocity he showed in the sands, the romantic side of Serge was more methodical, slow, and tender. He let his lover stew in his moans, before gliding his palms down Billy’s chest, stomach, and legs, in sensual admiration of him.

“From what country has produced such a fine stallion as yourself?” Serge whispered softly, punctuating the statement with a kiss on Billy’s inner thigh, and then another onto his lips. Billy wanted nothing more than only to fasten his mouth to Serge’s (kissing men with beards was always a fun time) but Serge wasn’t going to let him gain the upper hand. Not yet.

Sergius caressed Billy’s most sensitive areas with the back of his hand. “Jove fashioned you with such splendid details. These strong legs. This beautiful belly and chest.” Serge imparted a kiss for each observation. “Why did he do such things? All to drive me mad with lust? If this is punishment, then from this day forward I shall do nothing but profane.” Serge, not one for cheap talk, acted on his ambitions by lifting Billy’s legs up and burying his bearded face into Billy’s ass, where the sublime texture of his beard forced Billy’s hole to contract and expand.

Billy had to clamp his own hand around his mouth to prevent himself from screaming. Thankfully, he regained enough control of his senses to finally form speech. “Serge, I swear if you eat me out, I will cum.” He would have gladly allowed the gladiator to gladi-ate, otherwise.

The man with the aquiline nose and hazel eyes glanced up from his prey, with curiosity painted across his handsome face. “Eat…you out? I am not familiar with the bedchamber customs of which you speak.” He crawled towards and on to top of Billy, like a stalking lion.

No longer in danger of prematurely climaxing, Billy leaned forward and kissed Serge briefly, but the playful gladiator took Billy by the forearms and pinned him back to the bed again, where he stayed in a state of blissful helplessness.

“Still,” Serge said, “the implications suggest a feast, and there is much to devour here in front of me.” Sergius only removed his hands from Billy wrists so he could continue rubbing him wherever it was most stimulating. He gave Billy a warning glance when he dared tried to move, even when the touch of his beard on hip sent Billy spasming.

“Behave,” was all Serge needed to utter.

Billy did.

Serge regarded Billy’s body as an unexplored land to be traversed, all its hills, mountains, and crevasses. Instead of flags of conquest wherever Serge found a territory he most desired, he planted a kiss.

“Do you hail from the Isles of Tin to the far North?” Serge asked, teasing Billy by tracing circles around Billy’s hole with his thumb. “The lands that Radiant Apollo favors most?”

“Worse,” Billy answered. “America.”

The firelight turned Serge’s olive skin into polished bronze, and made his soft eyes shine brighter. “Hmm. I have not heard of this colony. Are all the men there as handsome as the stallion that lays wanting and ready before me?”

Billy swallowed. “I’m…about average.” He looked down and was almost embarrassed at how much he was leaking.

Serge noticed this, and deliberately dragged his massive cock across Billy’s, drawing forth another moan and coating him another layer of precum (seriously, this guy was like a broken faucet). “It is as if wily Cupid himself has delivered you unto my loins.”

“Bro, you don’t know how right you are,” Billy said. With Sergius arching over him, Billy couldn’t help but focus on his enormous chest, and his soft, pink nipples—which poked tantalizingly out of a forest of fur. “Um…may I suck on—”

Serge answered him abruptly by shoving Billy’s entire head into the valley of his chest. He smelled like musk and an unidentifiable, earthy incense—an essential oil, perhaps. Billy buried his face in a wilderness of supple, hard, furry muscle, and was suddenly very content with the idea of suffocation. By no means a selfish lover, Billy returned Serge’s stimulations in his own fashion, licking ‘figure-eights’ across Serge’s nipples. He was pleased, knowing he could make a gladiator moan.

“Yes,” Serge sighed. He kept Billy’s head where he wanted it, and Billy responded in turn by suckling on Serge’s teats like a calf with an unquenchable thirst. He worked on one chest, then the other, making sure both were properly worshipped until Serge’s nips were thoroughly pumped and perky. Billy nibbled, licked, lapped, and groped.

Satisfied that Billy was trapped and contained between the iron pillars of his thighs, the gladiator reached over and scooped up a palm-full of olive oil from the jar. He guided his fingers, slowly, towards Billy’s lower extremities.

Billy winced as he felt Serge try to enter him. “Esh. I’m still a bit sore.” And there’s no way I am taking a gladius like that without more foreplay.

Serge ceased his intent at once and withdrew his fingers from the battlefield. Far from disappointed, he smiled down at Billy with gentle affection. “Then, allow me to show you how we gladiators and athletes have fun after our contests.”

Sergius wrapped his smooth, oiled hand over Billy’s shaft, causing him to gasp as a result of the intense, velvety stimulation.

“During long nights in the barracks,” Serge continued, “the more seasoned of us—matched with our apprentices—would do this to each after a long day of training. All that time spent locked in each other’s limbs left us with a great yearning, you see.

“You will find this a fairer arrangement. A taste of the champion, for now, until my stallion has healed his hind.” Sergius coated his own impressive member with oil, from tip to base, Then, most curious, he spread the oil across his inner thighs.

His application of oil onto Billy’s cock felt like a brief, pleasurable detour into milking, but he wasn’t sure where Serge was going with this other secret technique of his. “What is—”

Instead of his hands, or mouth, Serge wrapped his upper thighs around Billy’s cock—a move that the twenty-first century stud found both unorthodox and esoteric. That was, until Serge’s formidable spear slid across Billy’s root and shaft, triggering every nerve in his body while he moved his cock into the warm, honey-deep nest of his quads.

It was a two-pronged assault—an entirely new method of penetration (for Billy, anyway). His brief, loud, “OH FUUUUUUCK” was silenced by Serge covering his mouth over Billy’s lips.

“Hush,” he commanded, before slipping his tongue inside his mouth, invading him orally.

Billy’s moans were swallowed up, and all the better for it. The feeling of being milked by Serge’s oiled, hard thighs, and the gladiator’s cock rubbing over his own with each pull and push, was enough that Billy would have otherwise cried out.

Billy knew he wouldn’t last long. Forget the battle in the arena, it was now a battle not to cum—and explosively at that. Serge wrapped his massive arms around Billy, pulling him into his furry, warm, hard body; nearly drowning him in his muscles. Trapped in the throes of ecstasy, Billy wasn’t sure if he’d cum first, or if his ribs and spine would snap in half from being simultaneously bear-hugged and frotted into oblivion.

Just when Billy thought he might hold out for a few seconds longer, Serge switched things up, plunging his cock into the space just beneath Billy’s balls, fucking him without fucking him. Billy recalled seeing pictures of this kind of ‘thigh fucking’ before on old Greek and Roman urns. He promised himself to devote a whole chapter to it, if and when he got back to his dissertation.

One thing was certain: field research sure was going swell!

Speaking of swelling, Serge finally withdrew his leaking, pulsating spear. With the same fiendish, war-like passion he’d shown in the arena, he grabbed Billy’s hands and forced them back onto the couch. Serge then mounted him, dragging and thrusting his lubricated cock over Billy’s. Billy had never felt so erotically emasculated by another man before; his own manhood dominated violently by a more superior tool.

He couldn’t last. “AhhhhHHGGGG!” Billy cried out.

Serge’s eyes sparkled, matching his smile. “My stallion brays,” he said, breathlessly. “He must be in heat. Maybe he’ll show me how much of a prized horse he is. Do you accept your defeat at the hands of Sergius Sextus, my small friend?”

“Fuck YES!” Billy practically shouted, expelling a huge blast of milky white all over Serge, spurting loads across his furry chest, fertilizing his forest with his seed.

Serge didn’t let it go to waste. One hand massaged the dripping load into the twin mounds of his pecs, and the other used it as added lubricant, stroking his sword. At the apex of Serge’s orgasm, he repositioned himself to straddle Billy’s chest, mercifully distributing his leg weight over the sides of the couch as to not crush his romantic partner’s chest. Billy was in total worship of him. The oil and sweat coating his body had turned him into a living, bronze statue of a Roman god.

Serge reached up and flexed his biceps, veins rippling across the curves of his muscles, pulsing in time with his hands-free orgasm. “I am victorious!” he growled.

Hands-free, Serge shot like a staggered firehose, pumping thick, watery loads of gladiator semen all over Billy’s prone body, completely flooding him. Billy would have considered this filthy if it hadn’t been so damn hot. Serge’s orgasmic pose was enough to give Billy’s cock one last, little aftershock spurt—the cherry on top.

Billy, shivering with endorphins, was stunned into silence.

Serge bent his head over, like he’d just fought a hard-won victory. When he’d regained stamina, he looked up, a softer expression across his face. He collected a white pearl of his own cum onto his index finger, which he pressed onto Billy’s lips, before taking it back from him in a long-held kiss.

Billy could have lived in that kiss.

TO BE CONTINUED

Chapter 2.1 - Bred and Circuses

 

82 B.C. – Calenum, Roman Republic

Like all men, Billy Travers thought about Ancient Rome several times a week.

Today—2,000 years ago, that is—Billy finally got a chance to experience it for himself. Unfortunately, he was about to experience it at the hands of the absolute unit of an armored gladiator, thrusting his spear forward to skewer Billy like a piece of chicken satay.

Sadly, this was not a euphemism. He was literally trying to kill him.

The vibrant crowed roared their blood lust. Sand, heat, and golden sunlight bled together, forming a portrait of classical, gladiatorial combat. Billy focused on keeping himself alive, but he was peripherally aware of other armored combatants clashing swords in his near vicinity. As for the crowd…well, the last time Billy had taken center stage like this was an underwear contest down at The Wet Rooster, and the less said about that occasion, the better.

By the sheer grace of the gods (one god of love in particular) Billy managed to gracelessly dodge his opponent’s attack by falling backwards onto his bum. Lucky, there was plenty of cushioning to be had there. The gladiator’s spear embedded itself into the sand between Billy’s legs like a hot knife through butter…or a spear through a human body.

I really shouldn’t have skipped cardio day this week. Billy could barely catch his breath, let alone comprehend how he had landed in Rome. Only one day in Billy’s life had passed since his bet with Eros (yes, that Eros), and though Billy had triumphed over his first challenge, successfully taming a caveman in the Stone Age, he had no inkling as to what awaited him in the next time period.

Only five minutes earlier, Billy had stood in Auru’s cave, wishing his prehistoric playmate a fond farewell. Then, in a blink, a whole limestone vomitorium had risen around the hapless grad student. Of course, Billy hadn’t realized it was a vomitorium until, following the sound of shouts and clanging metal, he was properly vomited out into the middle of an arena…

Where, it turned out, he was now ‘fair game.’

The armored goliath looming above Billy wore a helmet cast in the image of a wide-mouthed sea monster. Billy’s knowledge of history reminded him of the wide variety of gladiators, all who carried different weapons and played distinct roles. None of that mattered, of course, now that they were all trying to kill him.

The monster-man tore his weapon from the sand in the hopes of driving it into the prey he’d missed spearing the first time. In an act of desperate thinking, Billy tugged his backpack around his chest, hoping it would serve as a makeshift shield…but also hoping it wouldn’t destroy his Switch and assorted snacks in the process.

Billy resorted to the last remaining weapon in his arsenal—flirting. “Y-y-you wouldn’t happen to be into guys, would you? Because I could suck your cock so wicked hard that it’ll make Pompeii look like a fuckin’ water balloon fight.” Wait, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius hasn’t happened yet; he doesn’t know what that is. Or a water balloon fight, for that matter. Also, people died in Pompeii, Billy, show some decorum!

“HYAGHHHH!” the monster man snarled. Needless to say, he was not down for a good time.

“He’s not into men! But I AM, my cock-sucking friend!”

Billy turned his head away, mostly to avoid a face-full of sand kicked up by the intervening gladiator who’d managed to put himself between Billy and his attacker. With a loud PLINK of his shield, the large, agile man in the breechcloth and helm deflected the spear with such force that its tip snapped off. While his opponent was still stunned, the armored fighter took a page from his Greek cousins and Spartan-kicked him in the gut, knocking him to the sand.

The crowd erupted into cheers and applause. Billy shielded his eyes from the bronze sun to better look upon his savior. The warrior was armored in a pauldron, padded sleeves, shin guards, and an impressive helmet. Everything else was exposed skin. He was bare footed and bare chested. And what a chest it was—like two mountains covered in a forest of thick, black fur.

Maybe it was from the adrenaline rushing to his head, or the hypnotic way the gladiator’s pectorals jiggled with each broad stride, but Billy was starting to grow dizzy.

The big man approached Billy, who accepted his death at the hands of the meaty Roman (a fine way to go out). Instead of the edge of the sword, however, the gladiator extended his hand—large, calloused, and rough. Billy looked at it in awe, using it as a point of reference to gauge the man’s other proportions, before it yanked him by the wrist, off the ground, and onto his feet.

“The editors are getting creative with these new gladiator types,” the Roman warrior said through the echoing metal of his helmet. It took Billy a painfully long second to understand he was talking at him. “They didn’t give you a weapon at all, small friend! And yet, if you were a noxii, methinks you’d have been dispatched with the others earlier…during the lion feeding. Hmm. How EXCITING! Welcome to the arena, handsome one. Hope you survive…”

The gladiator pivoted to confront the armored opponent rising up from the sand. Yet, before he charged back into battle, he tilted his helm towards Billy. “…Because buttocks such as yours would be a terrible thing to waste.”

With the strength, grace, and roaring of a lion, the gladiator dove forward, sword in hand, leaving Billy to melt into a pile of goo and hormones.

Oh man, I hope he’s not ugly under that thing. It’s okay, he can just keep the mask on when we…

Billy interrupted his own horny, deciding it was wiser to assess the situation—not assess the asses of the gladiators. This isn’t the famous Colosseum, which must mean this is still the time of Roman Republic. And, judging from the style of armor, and garments of the audience, we’re still least a few decades prior to the Roman Empire, and centuries before the release of Belgian techno anthem, ‘Pump Up the Jam’…

Still, there was little point in Billy’s attempts at temporal location—

not while half-naked men were trying to split him in half (and not in the fun way). Billy shook the sand, sweat, and dirty thoughts from his head and slunk off towards the arena exit.

“And where does this little fox think he’s running?”

The cold, hollow voice came from Billy’s left. He froze, forcing himself to turn towards its origin point. His first thought was: How on Earth do they keep BIGGER? His second, “Actually, my fursona is a bull, not a fox HOLY SHIT, THAT SWORD IS HUGE!”

Even more terrifying than the sea monster man from before, this full-metal tank of a walking-catastrophe wore a helmet with the unmistakable snake hair and grimacing visage of the medusa. He also carried a comedically large broadsword, the kind Billy had only seen in anime and role-playing video games.

Unfortunately, Billy was severely under-leveled…

“Now you DIE at the hands of The Gorgon, interloper!”

NEXT CHAPTER

Chapter 2.2 - Best Chest in the Empire

 

An old, bearded man with a long stick, who Billy identified as the gladiatorial version of a referee, stood meekly at a distance from the combatants. Billy looked towards him with eyes full of pleading. “Come on ref, do something!” He knew he wasn’t going to do anything. “Aw, fuck it…”

The demon gladiator shambled forward, slowly raising his mighty blade. Meanwhile, Billy reached into backpack to withdraw his mighty…smart phone. “Okay, this is just like fighting the first boss in Demon Shadows, ‘The Unflinching Executor’…who I died to like twenty times after breaking my controller in frustration.” Billy dropped his bag to the sand and held up the device, praying he wasn’t about to alter the course of human history in the process.

“Say ‘cheese’, SpartaCUNT.”

Click!

WHOOSH!

The gargantuan Gorgon swung his broadsword, just as the camera flash went off, temporarily blinding him. The sword missed Billy by a hair, landing with a thud in the sand beside him. Billy didn’t waste the moment. He slid his phone into his pocket and charged forward.

“I’m a brave boy!” he cried out, tapping into his extremely limited athletic ability. He forced his body forward, diving down into a penetration step.

Come on high school wrestling, don’t fail me now! Screaming in an embarrassing high pitch all the while, Billy—well-beyond his ‘skinny twink era’—wrapped his arms tightly around Gorgon’s meaty legs (his weak point) and pitched his body right, driving his head into the demon’s hip.

It was a clumsy, wobbly, inelegant dance. Nevertheless, it did the trick. Gorgon fell sideways, into the sand, out of the reach of his sword. Billy couldn’t believe he’d nailed it. Neither could the hollering crowd. Suddenly, Billy’s inherent narcissism superseded his fear. With a smug expression, he extended his arms outward in the victory pose of one of the heel pro wrestlers who’d supplied Billy’s (many) gay awakenings.

“That’s right! Take a good look at the greatest there ever WAS! Call me motherfuckin’ Theseus, ‘cuz I just slew medusa.”

“You mean Perseus…”

A scowling, beefy, freckle-dappled redhead slammed his trident into the sand at his feet. He gave Billy a hard look with his emerald-green eyes. “Theseus slayed the minotaur. You need to brush up on your lore.” The young warrior sported a loincloth, some shoulder padding, and precious little else.

Which was just fine by Billy, who couldn’t believe how swiftly fortunes turned in this arena. “You…could literally kill me,” he squeaked, more of a request than an observation.

The redheaded gladiator smirked. “But I won’t.” The handsome, short-haired fellow reminded Billy of an Irish rugby player…that had also served as one of Billy’s gay awakenings in his teenage years.

“Your single leg takedown needs work,” the ginger stud sniffed, shifting his green eyes between Gorgon, flat in the sand, and the two other gladiators struggling for supremacy a few feet away. “And you’re wearing way too much clothing for wrestling, anyway.”

If he weren’t such a fine piece of white meat, his ceaseless criticism would have bothered Billy. “Brother, I just got here!” he barked back. “Ugh, and I got sand in my sneakers…”

“I am not your brother. I am Brennus, the Celt. You do not look like a local boy.”

“A Celt!? No way, me too! Well, descended anyway. I’m Billy. I’m from Boston. Well, Revere, but close enough…”

This meeting across eras was interrupted by the groans of metal and man. Gorgon slowly towered back onto his feet.

Buff Brennus spat in the sad and pulled his trident free. He pointed at his neck, mirroring where Eros’ special chain-and-lock remained fastened to Billy. “You a slave, Billy?”

“Only consensually, and only in certain scenarios. Not big on the whole enslavement of other people thing.”

The trident-wielder gave him an odd look but smiled all the same. “Then you’re in the wrong territory, Billy of Boston. And that’s an odd sort of jewelry you wear around your neck. A chained man you are, aye, but not one of bondage?”

“Again, it depends on the night…”

Brennus looked like he had more questions, but he didn’t have time to ask them The Gorgon pulled his sword from the sand, his sights set on slicing.

“Duck!” Brennus commanded. Billy ducked. Bren jumped. Both cleared the swing of the broadsword, but Billy feared his luck was trickling closer to dry.

“I’m a freeborn Celt,” Bren said, as if the two of them were icebreaking over coffee, and not staring down death in the middle of a crowd of a thousand or more. “But that doesn’t mean much around here.”

“Wait, so you’re a gladiator voluntarily?” Billy examined Bren’s attire. Unlike the hefty murmillo warrior who’d saved Billy’s skin several minutes earlier, Bren’s armaments were that of a retiarius, a gladiatorial class reserved for the lithe and nimble of build. In modern, wrestling parlance, he was positioned as a jobber; fresh meat to be thrown at the bigger brutes to make them look better.

Still, Bren was obviously no pushover. He jumped straight over The Gorgon’s sword swipe and planted his trident directly into his foot (feel free to imagine how that looked).

The crowd reacted with shock, and Billy tried awfully hard not to puke. The ref, who no longer needed to fear Gorgon’s retaliation, accepted the injury as defeat and signaled to Brennus, raising trident triumphantly over his head as the unexpected victor.

“Phew. Rome is exhausting.” Billy looked up at the higher stalls and saw a bunch of stuffy, older men in togas exchanging frustrated glances with each other. Likely, they had just lost a bet on Bren’s life. The assemblage looked important, or rather they looked like they thought of themselves as important, anyway. Billy sensed they were the ones running the show, either as editors (promoters and managers) or by their patronage.

Bren and Billy’s fight was over, but the fish-faced gladiator—who had swapped out his broken spear for a pair of hard cesti—was still punching away at the murmillo, deflecting his strikes with his gladius.

“Don’t try to leave,” Bren warned through his teeth. “While I personally find you strangely amusing—kind of like a clown—the editors will seek your head for intruding on a match.”

Billy thought it best to take Bren’s words as truth, especially as Billy locked eyes with an intense man in a lavish toga glaring at him from the ‘VIP’ section of the stands. Billy felt the aristocrat’s gaze burn into his flesh. It made him shiver.

Breaking his staring contest with the creep in the stands, Billy nodded towards the tasty piece of pancetta who’d saved his twenty-first century behind. “Who’s the big guy over there that I owe my life?” he asked Brennus.

Bren’s eyes softened. His whole posture changed, and Billy even noted a tinge of red in his cheeks. “Sergius Sextus,” the young fighter said, like a prayer. “The bravest fighter to ever grace these sands, and a teacher of many a fierce gladiator himself. He’s the reason I’m here.”

Billy didn’t need a degree in history to figure this one out. “He’s…your lover?” Bren was likely in his late teens or early twenties, which was more acceptable an age limit by Billy’s 21^st century standards, but certainly pushing ‘over the hill’ in the customs of gay, ancient Rome.

“Gods, I wish.” Bren scratched his head and leaned against his trident, all the while watching Sergius and his opponent clash iron. “I’ve sacrificed to the gods to be taken on as his apprentice, but I think he often forgets that I even exist. Then again, unless he’s trying to cut your arms off, Sergius isn’t the most observant man Rome has to offer.”

“Oh, so he’s a himbo?”

“Er…no…I think he’s from Campania.”

Billy turned his head towards the fray. “Hey, Serge!” he shouted. “I bet you’re really hot with all that armor off, sexy.”

The big man easily deflected his attacker with his gladius, not missing a beat to answer Billy. “I am quite warm under this helmet, yes, but that’s why I always make sure to drink plenty of water!”

“Yeah, he’s my people.” Billy was satisfied. And smitten.

“GRAH!” Serge found his opening. In a flash of iron, he cut the bladed portions of his opponent’s gloves off in a single blow, leaving the warrior defenseless.

“LOOK! He’s going to use his ultimate move.” Bren squealed in excitement…before clearing his throat and resuming his stoic disposition. “What I’d give for him to teach me such definitive techniques.”

Shit, is he gonna’ lob his head off? Billy wondered if he should avert his eyes. Billy had already accepted that the distant past was more barbaric than the twenty-first century…but experiencing it in person was much more confronting than he’d imagined.

Fortunately, reality was also more arousing. In an act that would have drawn boos from any other gladiator, but cries of adulation (and lust) from the audience, Sergius reached up and tore off his own helmet in one smooth motion.

If Roman gods had Instagram, his face would belong to a particular handsome Mars, with a shortly-trimmed beard and an expression that was both fiercely enthusiastic and approachably soft—like a golden retriever trapped in the body of a hulking warrior. His hair was dark and cropped close. Billy could have easily imagined him go-go dancing on the blocks at a leather party. He would have gladly shoved dollars down his thong too.

The handsome gladiator clasped his hands behind his head, giving the audience—and his opponent—a fantastic view of his biceps, with peaks as tall as Olympus, and triceps even Hannibal would find too large and imposing to surmount with his elephants. All of that was delicious enough, but it was Serge’s chest that he weaponized best. With a flirtatious wink, Sergius began flexing and pumping his pectorals, which nearly defied physics in their bounciness. Billy thought he felt the earth shake.

“Don’t look directly at them,” Bren cautioned.

The ‘pecquake’ culminated in Serge’s opponent buckling to his knees, struck down and totally knocked out by the power of Serge’s titan tits. The referee checked the fallen gladiator, and then held up his thumb to the stalls, which all erupted in rapturous applause.

Bren stabilized Billy, ensuring he didn’t fall prey to the second-hand effects of Serge’s finishing move. “They say his chest can fell an ox at fifty paces,” he explained to the newcomer. “They say he challenged Hercules himself to a flexing contest, nearly won, and then bedded the god as a consolation. It was the god of muscle who taught Sergius the technique.”

No matter the era, everyone had an obvious ‘tell’ when it came to their favorite crush. Billy couldn’t fault Bren. His taste was damn good. “So…if you like him so much, why not skip the coy ‘apprentice’ overtures and just ask him to seal the deal?”

The nimble warrior Billy had fought alongside, mere moments ago, reverted into a red-faced schoolboy. “N-n-no, I couldn’t possibly. What if he says ‘nay’?”

“Like…a horse? Well, sounds pretty kinky, I dunno…”

Bren glared. “No, I mean if he should refuse me. It would shatter my heart.” Bren clutched his trident. “I would rather be cut down on these sands! And, by the gods, may Serge by the warrior to do it!”

Translation: that stud over there could literally kill me. Wow, ancient gays really were fuckin’ nuts. Still, Billy understood what it meant to both ‘desire’, and fear rejection. “It sounds like you’re down bad, Bren,” he said to his new buddy, with a nudge and a flirty wink.

The slang did not translate. “You…would tell me to go to the underworld?”

“What, no! I’m saying I hope he takes you on as his student.” Billy glanced over at Serge, doing his victory lap around the ring, flexing his muscles—by request—for any swooning fan who asked. “Though I’d like to take him on myself.”

Bren arched an eyebrow. “In a fight, right?”

A hush over the crowd prevented Billy from answering. One of the stuffy officials, a squat, red-faced man that Billy surmised was the editor, approached the preening giant with a crown of laurel. The man bent over, only highlighting his enormity, and received the wreath around his head.

Then, the editor called out to the crowd. “Will the conqueror grant mercy to the conquered?”

That Billy was about to watch a man enthusiastically murdered in front of his eyes hit him harder than an amphora filled with lead. Granted, that same man had also tried to kill him…

The death blow and ensuing geysers of blood did not come. Instead, Serge placed his hands over his wide, Mediterranean hips and scowled downward at his dazed foe. “Hmm! It is no mercy having to live all your days knowing you’ve fallen at the hands of I, Sergius Sextus! AM I RIGHT, ROME!?”

Rome’s spittle-spraying cheers and shouts answered Serge in the affirmative. Billy, unobservant at the best of times, suspected that Serge’s ‘playing to the audience’ was a deliberate, tactful defense of his opponent’s life.

“Then, let us spare the man that he might live to taste defeat at my hands yet again!”

Everyone liked that. Everyone, Billy noted, except the scary noble who’d previously glared at him from the stands. He saw him whisper a command to a man wearing segmented armor, a plumed helm, and a sword at his hip—a praetorian guard.

Bren and Billy looked on while Sergius showboated for the crowd. The arena staff helped both Gorgon and his monstrous partner onto their feet, escorting them to the infirmary. “He spared another life,” the trident-wielding fighter whispered to Billy. “During all the times I’ve fought alongside him, I’ve never seen Serge kill an opponent in my presence.”

Before Billy could further analyze Serge’s motives, the rugged shout of “YOU!” split the air. Having received the brunt of that particular tone from many different exes over the course of his life, Billy knew the ‘you’ in question was him.

The stern guard pushed past the ref. Bren flashed Billy a look. Don’t say anything stupid, it told him. Billy, naturally, had already prepared at least five stupid things to say.

“On the honor of the Praetor, you are to be put to the sword for your interference. We demand your head!”

Ugh, cops. “Which…head?” Billy asked, primed to blast house music from his smart phone; the tried-and-true ‘make them think you’re a god’ gimmick. And shit, which Praetor!? His eyes turned upwards to the creep in the toga, but the man had already fled the scene, leaving his guards to deal with the rabble.

The guard narrowed his eyes, as if he couldn’t decide if Billy were mad, or a moron, or a bit of Ionic column A, and Doric column B. “On the orders of his supreme augustness, Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix.”

Sulla? Oh, he’s a bastard—a tyrant who loved his coups. History hasn’t changed much since.

As always, Billy did not understand the depths of the deep shit in which he stood. And, as always, Billy was rescued by an inordinate amount of underserved luck, and a man who could bench press him.

Serge came marching over, kicking sand in his wake. “WAIT! Wait, my good man! I claim the miscreant as my prize.”

“Miscreant?” the time traveler balked. “Prize? Buddy, I am not just some object to be—”

Billy found himself in Serge’s shadow, which likewise dwarfed even the praetorian guard. Serge leered down at him, with an aura of discipline and menace.  “You defy me, boy?”

Billy puckered (and not just his mouth). “No, sir.”

With that, Serge picked Billy up from beneath his legs and scooped him into a princess carry, already hauling him towards destination unknown. The praetorian guard looked as if he wanted very much to say something. For that matter, so did Bren, who reluctantly handed Billy his backpack before it was left behind in the dust.

This is so wicked awesome that this keeps happening to me, Billy thought, as he tried very hard not to drool all over himself. Only his last remaining shred of situational awareness reminded him that he’d been literally swept off his feet in front of the man who admired Serge most. Granted, Billy had only known Brennus for exactly five minutes, but the code of homosexuals transcended time and space—and the highest edict was this: spilled tea was thicker than blood. Billy was many things, but a man-stealer he was not!

Then again, a little horseplay in the hypogeum isn’t exactly stealing now, is it?

nEXT cHAPTER