by C. M. Taylor
Our Aquaman, who was now two feet away from me and grinning. He was slightly shorter than me, the way I knew he would be, and I searched his face for some blemish or imperfection. For some sign that this could actually be a human being, and not the king of Atlantis.
“You’re SmileyNibor, the YouTuber?”
I had barely one thousand followers, so I’d never thought of myself as “a YouTuber,” but if Derek Kitow said it—it must be so.
“Yes, yes I am.”
Someone had the presence of mind to jab me with a microphone, and I repeated my answer into it, hands now full of mic and trident.
“And you made that trident?”
Was he interviewing me?
“Yes, yes I did.”
Oh my God. You’re talking to Derek Kitow, and you sound like a complete moron. Think of something! Anything! Quote Shakespeare! Quote DC Comics!
“Do you know how to use it?”
There was something in the way he asked the question that sent a little pulse of heat through me. Derek Kitow played a straight character on Human Street. For that matter, even Aquaman was straight. But the lilt in his voice just then—that queer, teasing, fahbulousness somehow meant he was not acting.
“Yes. I do,” I said.
Here’s a little something hardly anyone knows about me: I actually do know how to fight with a trident. When I was just starting out, and it seemed like I might actually be stahr material, I landed a role in a Jackie Chan-ish martial arts movie, playing a minor villain named Bamboo Bill. Bamboo Bill fought with a trident, so I learned to fight with a trident.
“Really?” he asked. “I don’t.”
This was very funny for some reason.
I had given Bamboo Bill an in-depth backstory: his descent into a life of crime, how he liked to taunt his victims, how he learned to use his weapon of choice—the trident. In the final cut, I’m basically an extra with two lines. That’s showbiz for ya. At least I got paid, and I heard a rumor that if they ever make a director’s cut, some of the fight-scene footage might actually make it into a “cutting room floor” bonus disc.
I had no idea how to say any of this to Kitow.
I had no idea how to say anything to Kitow.
“Can you give us a demonstration?”
My stupid grin was spreading even more broadly across my stupid face. But… I took a deep breath and did as I was told.
It’s just acting.
He’s the director, and you’re Bamboo Bill.
And with that realization, I was finally able to shake off a few of the starstruck jitters paralyzing me. I gave my best trident demonstration, swinging the hefty thing around in circles to my left, to my right, and over my head.
Here’s something that basically everyone should know about tridents: they’re freaking heavy. In China, only martial arts masters used the trident to fight with, and there’s a good reason for that. Tridents look stupid in the wrong hands. They have excellent reach, and they can be thrown, but a trident is not a track-meet javelin any more than a claymore is a rapier. You have to use the weight of the weapon as it falls to your advantage.
I’m blacksmith-bear ripped, but it really took all my strength to hold the thing fairly steady while I executed a series of swift, jabbing motions, all to the same imaginary point.
I had also been an extra in a Les Misérables, and a pike is a pretty close cousin to the trident, so next I went with a few moves that won the French revolution and kept Ireland Catholic and free.
And then—brass clashed with steel as his trident came down on mine.
Kitow had the element of mind-numbing shock, the faster and lighter weapon, and the fact that I had absolutely no desire whatsoever to do harm to his beautiful body or even the hem of his beautiful Aquaman suit. But I recovered as best I could. And luckily for me, while I am big and bulky, I’m fast, too, and I have surprisingly good accuracy.
I had him giving ground almost immediately, and then he half-fell backward into the white leather stage couch, with our tridents locked in a way that was totally not homoerotic at all. He yielded abruptly, lowering his weapon and throwing a hand up in surrender and melting into a panting grin, and when I finally actually touched him, it was to offer him my hand to help him to his feet, Aquaman to Aquaman.
His gloves were smooth and cool, his grip slight but strong.
Only then did I notice that the whole audience was on their feet, some of them standing on chairs to snap a picture.
“Ladies and gentlemen—SmileyNibor!” This was from the announcer, who was, like me, rolling with it.
Security guards were arrayed all around the base of the platform, unsure of what to do. I saw a Taser or two at the ready, but they were holding back because they thought I was part of the show.
And the weird thing was—I was part of the show. I had entered some bizarre reality show in which I was Kitow’s foil.
His hand still lingered in mine, and I finally managed to mumble something incoherent about the vastness of my fan-devotion.
He responded by trading tridents with me. Then, while I stood there holding the brass still warm from his hand, he covered his collar-mic, stepped closer, and whispered in my ear: “Meet me in my trailer, after.”
I DON’T remember returning to my seat.
I don’t remember Harry and Larry clapping me on the back and shoving their phones in my face to show the clips of my trident work that everyone was uploading.
I don’t remember most of the Q&A session, only that I had the vague impression of Kitow holding the audience in the palm of his polished sea-green gloves, never telling a joke that fell flat or leaving us hanging with a half-told story.
Not Derek Kitow.
My Derek Kitow.
I reverently touched his gift to me. A brass trident with sweeping, elegant, polished lines. While I had left him with my five-pronged eyesore.
I really should have done the pass-throughs. Why had I not done the pass-throughs?
My head was still buzzing with the unreality of it all. I had just entered a universe in which I was somehow cool and desirable. And Derek Kitow wanted to “meet me, after.”
I knew I must have misheard.
It couldn’t possibly be that—
“Oh my God,” Larry said into my ear as the concluding applause started, “Derek Kitow has been jerking off to your Gillette ad.”
“And,” Harry held his phone out to show me, “Jason Momoa just retweeted your trident moves.”
WALKING OUT to the south parking lot, flanked by Harry and Larry, I had envisioned the kind of swank, hotel-sized “trailer” that I had only read about, but the one we were directed to, by one of Kitow’s “people” who recognized the trident as authentic and cleared us for approach, was actually fairly modest.
Larry was chastising me as we went. “I still think you should have let him win. The crowd would have loved to watch Derek Kitow ravage Aquaman-Reboot.”
I hadn’t meant to beat him. I’d barely understood what was happening. I still barely understood what was happening.
Harry was, for once, at odds with him. “Whatever it was, it worked. Derek Kitow invited you into his personal trailer! Change nothing.”
This was logic I could not argue with.
I had no idea what I had done to be suddenly vaulted into the presence of perfection, or what had also changed my number of YouTube followers from 1,068 to ten thousand plus and climbing in the space of four hours.
I had little doubt that the real me would take care of this sudden popularity problem in short order, but I was going to go with “change nothing” for as long as possible.
A few feet from the trailer, I hesitated. “So you guys will wait for me, right? I mean, you wouldn’t want to miss me making an embarrassing ass of myself in front of a Hollywood superstar, would you?”
In a way, I almost hoped Derek Kitow wasn’t going to make a pass at me. You know how people say size doesn’t matter? Yeah, well, I’m why that’s a ph
rase. I have plenty of size. And it doesn’t matter.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Larry said, flattening my luxurious beard against my chest, “Haven’t you seen any romcoms? Every girl needs a gay best friend.”
“And as your gay best friends,” Harry put in, “we’re changing nothing. You went up to him alone, and alone is how you’re going to meet him. We’ll wait for you in the conference center.”
Larry gave my beaded beard a tug.
“Just be yourself! You’ll have plenty to talk about,” Harry reassured me. “You’re an actor; he’s an actor. You can talk about actor stuff.”
“Actor… stuff.”
“Yeah, you know lots of actor stuff,” Larry chimed in.
“Larry,” I said, “he’s an Academy Award nominee. I’m basically the ShamWow Guy. Only without the meme.”
“You have to start somewhere,” Larry replied.
“Yeah, like by shagging Derek Kitow,” Harry added.
“Are you guys trying to help me, or aren’t you?” I asked.
“Of course we’re helping,” Larry said.
“And of course we’ll be waiting for you,” Harry offered.
“Honestly, for an actor as good as you are, you don’t have any business being so starstruck over someone like—”
“I am not starstruck. I am immune to stardom. I’m just not immune to Derek Kitow’s stardom.”
“Get in there.” Both of them prodded me in the direction of Derek.
And, just like that, they stopped following me, waiting a respectful distance behind as I approached the holy of holies: Derek Kitow’s unmarked trailer.
I looked back at them, waiting for rescue. They shooed me forward. The stairs creaked under my aquaboots.
He opened when I knocked.
He was still wearing bronze and green, still the long-lost exile of Atlantis. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
“Hi.” His white teeth shone in his trademark crooked smile. “Come on in.”
I COULD feel the pit of my belly contracting as the door closed behind me. I saw my steel trident, points down like a broom, resting against a wall. Derek Kitow, slightly shorter than me, was inches away. Now, there was no crowd. Now, I could catch the smell of his expensive aftershave and almost taste the coppery tang of his scale armor.
If charisma had a face—it would be this one. Smooth, with even, white teeth and light dancing in his caramel brown eyes. Kitow is only two years younger than me, but the carefree way he carried himself, and this clean-shaven, all-American Aquaman look, make him seem even younger.
“It’s John, right?” he asked. “John Perlan?”
I managed to nod.
“That was some trident work.” His voice sent a pulse running through me from groin to throat. “Can I get you anything?”
There was something about the way his eyes were not leaving mine that made it very hard to look away. Something gripping and hungry and hot. And at that moment I had to stop pretending that this was going in any direction other than horizontal.
This—Derek Kitow—was actually going to happen.
To me.
Right now.
If I could somehow manage not to screw this up.
I had never let myself visualize a full-on, detailed sex fantasy with him. He was a god, and gods were above the sphere of mere mortals. And if I was honest with myself, I had always thought that fantasizing too explicitly would ruin my chances of ever actually meeting him.
And now….
It was clear that he had not been so restrained.
Oh my God, Derek Kitow has been jerking off to your Gillette ad.
He had actually been cyberstalking me.
How was this miracle possible?
My breath was already hitching in my throat, and the smell of him—salt and aftershave—was making my knees literally weak.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked again. It was an invitation as much as a question. “I’ve got a full bar.”
I really, really wished that I was suave at this moment. But I am not suave.
“Sure,” I squeaked. “Whatever you’ve got.”
I had to bite my tongue and squeeze his brass trident to keep from blurting something inane about how I think about him constantly, how I am a “great fan of his work.” Or many other pathetic, fan-gushy things that were undoubtedly obvious since I was wearing a costume to complement his.
His eyes moved to my beard, to where my lips were visible inside it.
Then he said, “So why ‘SmileyNibor’?” And he broke away to move to a tiny sink, and I thought I might actually be able to breathe again.
“Um, well,” I stammered. I heard ice clinking into glasses. “It was ‘Smailli W. Nibor’ at first.” I spelled it for him. “That’s ‘Robin Williams’ backward. I came up with the name because I see myself as a kind of reverse Robin Williams. Like, if acting hadn’t worked out for him and he’d had to pursue the career his father picked out for him.”
“Welding?”
“Yeah, welding.”
“That’s your day job, then?”
“Yeah.”
He glanced back at me while he gave a polite chuckle, but he seemed genuinely amused. “Well, I don’t think acting hasn’t worked out for you.” Ice cracked while something poured over it, and Kitow came back with a drink in either hand. “And besides, I always have had a thing for a man with muscles.”
In the artificial light, it looked almost like Kitow was blushing.
I rested the metal fork against my shoulder so that I could take a drink from him, our hands just grazing.
“Can I touch it?” he asked. One of his fingers was running lightly down the trident that had been his until a few hours ago, brushing the metal line going down my chest. His stance had shifted, subtlety angling his hips toward mine, making it suddenly, perfectly clear that it was not the trident he was referring to.
I swallowed. My hands started shaking so badly that the ice rattled in my drink. I think I managed to nod.
“Hold my drink for me?”
If I had had any blood at all in my head at that moment, I might have registered that this was a very odd request, given that there was a miniature table only a few feet away. As it was, I just took it.
“Any STDs I should know about?” His voice sounded rougher than I had ever heard it.
I shook my head as he took away the trident I was hiding behind and leaned it behind him.
“Don’t. Spill.”
Don’t spill don’t spill don’t spill.
I forced the trembling out of my hands and held perfectly still with a full drink in either outstretched hand, while Derek Kitow got on his knees in front of me.
Time seemed to slow down, and the silence between us had the muffled feeling of being underwater.
I could see every detail of him, from the glisten of his eyelids to his dark eyebrows to his remarkably long lashes as his eyes fixed on my waistline.
His hands went down my costume, smudging the faux tattoos and sliding down to my hips. He undid the belt.
A current of attraction flowing between us pushed me toward him, rocking my hips forward. But I hung on to the glasses.
His hands were on my boxers: pulling, tugging, freeing. My cock met cold air and the hot breath of my idol.
He licked his lips.
His manicured fingernails were scraping my balls, his hand gripped the base of my straining cock.
His lips.
His lips on me.
I held the glasses. I didn’t spill.
And then he started to move.
Oh. Shit.
I could see us together in the reflective surface of a darkened flat-screen on the wall. I could see him working on me. I shut my eyes, but that only made it worse. I could feel his tongue, his teeth, his breath. The slippery sound of what he was doing to me rattled in my brain. A prince, a god, had me by the cock, and he was crucifying me with the water I still held. My bones felt suddenly fl
exible in ways that no one my size ought to be. I was melting in Kitow’s mouth.
All except that one particular place, which was hard enough to drive nails, a quaking volcano ready to erupt.
I can’t take this. I can’t!
I opened my mouth, trying to warn him, gasping like a landed fish.
There wasn’t time.
The climax seized me with a jolt, pounded through me, shaking my rag-doll flesh as he wrung me dry.
Derek Kitow pulled away, a salty smile slicking his lips.
“I think I spilled a little,” I said.
“That’s alright.”
I had just been blown by Derek Kitow.
I think I’m going to cry, it’s so beautiful.
“Can I return the favor?” It seemed almost too much to ask, but I was finally putting the drinks down, my hands already reaching for him of their own accord. The shimmering scale armor looked like individual coins underneath my fingers.
He didn’t pull away. Despite all his smirking, he was affected too. I could tell something was going on underneath the green.
“Please… let me do this.”
If his voice was the lapping of calm waves, mine sounded like I’d just swallowed gravel.
“There’s something you should know about me,” he said, gloved hands stilling the fingers on his chest.
I stopped. Through my postejaculation haze, I was aware of a sudden vulnerability in him. In that split second, my mind grasped for the explanation and hit on the careful way he had phrased his STD question. I had just assumed he wasn’t being completely stupid, if sleeping with someone you’ve known in the flesh for less than fifteen minutes could be considered “not stupid.” But the way he said it—
I felt a rush of empathy for him, as if for the first time, he seemed human and vulnerable. If he was poz or—something…
But when he opened his mouth—that wasn’t what came out at all.
“I’m a submissive.”
A… wha?
“If that bothers you, we can stop. You really don’t have to. It’s just—I know what I need…. The only thing it seems I can like. I think the only reason it worked out with Angela—you know, my ex-wife—for as long as it did was because she was a good Domme. Believe me I understand, perfectly, if that’s not something you’re into.”