I’m not proud of the way it started.

  I was deep in the woods, reading the test chapters of my favorite lewd fic on my phone when it occurred to me that I might…relieve a bit of stress.

  Mind you, I was not in the habit of public self-pleasure, but with an apartment full of noisy, disrespectful roommates, it was difficult to carve out the time and privacy for that sort of thing. Not to mention I was having a particurly awful week, between news of a rent-hike and rumors of downsizing at the call center where I worked.

  Needless to say, my anxiety levels were through the roof and so, yes, I resorted to a little woodnd wack-off session. The hero in the story had gathered his women together for a night of celebration after the conclusion of a successful war campaign. He lived in an opulent castle with his wives where his every whim was granted.

  A fine story to disappear into.

  As the author described the elf women disrobing, I did a little disrobing myself, getting comfortable as I perched at the edge of a boulder. This writer was particurly good at painting the scene and I really felt like a fly on the wall of the king’s private chambers.

  Which made it all the more jarring when a beam of silver light crashed down through the canopy some twenty feet in front of me. My body went rigid as I dropped my phone and looked up at the disruption.

  The silver light sang like an angelic chorus, a mellifluous sound that cut off abruptly when the light faded. It left behind a crouched figure robed in gold vestments, a flowing mantle, and an impressive collection of rings adorning his fingers.

  As he stood, I saw that it was a middle-aged man with a neatly-trimmed beard and wide, brown eyes presently bugging as they stared back at me. They dropped down to my johnson, still gripped in my left hand, then snapped back to my face, mirroring his own bewildered expression.

  My clothes y in a pile at the side of the boulder, but I made no effort to cover myself, instead freezing like a deer in headlights.

  We remained in this awkward standoff for several moments before I finally spoke. “You look like a wizard,” I told him.

  “I’m a god,” he replied.

  I nodded. “Makes sense, coming down from the sky and all.”

  He gnced through the hole in the canopy his light had burned. “This isn’t my dominion, though.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “you don’t look like any of the gods I’ve ever heard of.”

  He stomped across the clearing to close the distance between us. “What is the name of your world?” he asked, his tone curiously urgent.

  “Earth,” I told him.

  He csped his hands on my shoulders. “I rule over a pce called Milendria. How would you like to trade pces?”

  I arched a brow. “Like, become a god?”

  He grinned madly back at me. “Precisely!”

  I eyed him dubiously. “Why would you want to give that up?”

  He sighed. “Try it out for a few millennia, then you’ll have your answer. What do you say?” He seemed pushy, sort of desperate for the life swap.

  I gave it a moment’s thought. My life on Earth was not exactly an enviable existence. Few friends, no money, shitty apartment, garbage roommates. Surely there’d be a catch, but even a lesser god with problems was a killer upgrade. Besides, this had to be some sort of hallucination anyway, right? Brought on by stress, fear, and reading one too many web fics. What was the harm in indulging the fantasy? “Sure,” I said, ughing.

  The god ughed along with me, the two of us maniacally cackling for no goddamn reason.

  And then silver light filled my vision, erasing the forest, the god’s features, the entire world. “Holy shit!” I cried, realizing then this was no hallucination.

  Before I could rescind my consent, I found myself standing atop a stone ptform stationed in the middle of a woodsy pond fed by a waterfall cascading down the rocky face of a cliff. The forest surrounding me was very unlike the one I’d just departed, its tree trunks as wide as cars, its depths shrouded in mist.

  But I only observed the wood in my periphery. My focus instead fell upon the nude body of a young woman bathing in the clear water before me.

  She was curvaceous with honey-cream skin and long blonde hair presently fttened against her spine, shimmering wet. In fact, all of her was glistening, her body dripping with crystalline beads of pond water. It followed along her curves, poured rivulets around her navel, jeweled her pink nipples, glinting like diamonds.

  I was so enamored with her beauty that it took me several moments before I noticed her pointy ears. Is she some kind of elf? They stuck out like knives from the sides of her head.

  She turned and her eyes fell upon me. I expected something more like horror or disgust, especially since my member hadn’t yet drooped. I thought she might scream and call me a pervert, but instead she wore an expression of reverent awe and bowed.

  “Xandos!” she excimed while genuflecting before me.

  Xandos? I wondered. And then I realized that must’ve been the name of the god who gifted me his dominion. She didn’t know what the real Xandos looked like, which I supposed was good news. It would be easier introducing myself to my subjects if they didn’t already have an image in their head of what I was supposed to look like.

  “I have prayed to you every hour these past months that you might reveal yourself to me and save me from my tributions,” said the elf woman.

  I took a deep breath. I guess this is what it’s all about, I thought. Clearing my throat, I replied, “What ails you, my child?” I hoped to convey a godly air, but had no clue if I’d hit the mark.

  “Raiders have taken over my vilge, Great One! I pray that you vanquish them with your fire.”

  Fire? Apparently, I had control over the element of destruction. Let’s fucking go.