Trent was a 22-year-old intern at Zephyr Inc., a prestigious import/export service specializing in the markets surrounding the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Live, fate and genetics had been kind to Trent; he was from a well-to-doo, upstanding family (which was supportive of his homosexuality to boot) had been to the best schools and now stood at the start of a promising career.
He was solid 6-foot-tall, with a handsome built (if a bit too slender for his tastes) and thick, blonde hair. He also knew how to dress, never showing up in anything but a proper suit at work. It was by these good looks (and his father’s connections) that he had bagged the most coveted internship in the whole company; personal assistant to Mr. Marlon Derby, one of Zephyr Inc.’s top dogs.
The work was demanding, but Trent didn’t mind. He loved working with Mr. Derby, not just because of the opportunities it opened for further advancement, but also because Mr. Derby was a total silver fox of an office daddy. In his late 40s Mr. Derby possessed a full head of dark silver hair and matching beard, a broad frame and was even taller than Trent. Developing a giant crush on the man from the first moment they met, Trent had tried several times already to profess his attraction. But while Mr. Derby seemed to recuperate that attraction to some degree he had made it clear that Trent was, as of yet, too low on the power hierarchy to be of any serious interest to Mr. Derby. But that was only a matter of time.
Since Trent had almost everything he could wish for, and even more in his grasp, it might seem curious that he would resort to magic to change anything about his life. Shouldn’t he have been happy and satisfied with what he had? Yes, he should have.
But people don’t work that way, not often. No matter what advantages, blessing, riches they have, they’ll always want more. And if you offer them an artefact that grants them the power to get and achieve more than they have, most will take it. And Trent was no different.
It was these thoughts of more, more power, more success, more admiration that were on his mind as he sat at his desk and played with the unassuming, silver ring in his hand. The ring had been a present from their first Shri Lankan partner, who had given it to Trent after a meeting earlier. The partner had claimed it to be an artefact of immense power originating from the time of the Indo-Greek Kingdoms. It had some name in Shri Lankan, which Trent could not even hope to pronounce, but in English it might be called a “Merging Ring”, so called because it gave the wearer the power to merge other people into himself, gaining all their knowledge, talents, skills in the process, becoming a stronger person in every way.
It was, of course, most likely just some weird legend. Still Trent could not help but to think of the possibilities and opportunities a power like that would open. He could merge with a body builder and rectify his slender frame, he could merge with one of the senior partners and become Mr. Derby’s equal in a heartbeat…he could even merge with Mr. Derby himself…becoming one with the man he wanted to be close with so desperately.
And that were just the lowest hanging and most obvious fruit in such a scenario; if this ring really was magic and allowed him to fuse people into him, then he could be anything and everything he wanted in a wink of an eye and for as long as he wished. He could fuse with a rock star one day and a football pro the next, he could fuse with a criminal or a gang member and experience that kind of life and when he got tired of it he could go back to his old self or fuse with somebody else. He could spend the rest of his existence cruising from one life to the next, experiencing and achieving all there was to experience and achieve. The world would be his. And he wouldn’t even have to work for it, all he’d have to do was finding some other man who had what he wanted or needed and…well…claiming them.
Trent sighed as he slipped the ring onto his finger “If it only was real…”