by Zack
Gil watched spellbound. He barely noticed the frantic signal the magazine guy beside him gave the hands at the back of the stage. They bent to the fiberboards and began to tilt them up off the stage. The whole back wall of the cardboard temple leaned outward, amazingly staying in one piece until it reached a steep forward angle.
Then it all came apart. The columns collapsed, their drums fell inward, which brought down the pediment. It cracked apart into separate boxes, all spewing fuller’s earth into the flashing strobe lights. The first boxes fell on top of Samson; the next lot flew farther out and when the back wall came apart it showered boxes down on the cowering heads of the front ranks. The unearthly bass sine-wave beaming out through Paradise’s massive speakers gave way to a crashing sound of rocks mashing together, above which rose the genuine shouts of terror from those engulfed by the falling debris. Farther back, the whole dance floor was a riot of cheering, jumping bodies, guys punching the air and grabbing each other from the sheer thrill of the spectacle.
The music opened up again, not a particularly Paradise number, but Queen’s latest, Another One Bites The Dust, seemed apt. The increased range of lighting revealed just how much dust hung in the steamy air above the tangled ruin. Gil’s first concern was for Mike and Rod, who had disappeared under the falling boxes not far from the unfortunate centurion. Kicking the lightweight rocks out of his way, he struggled through the disaster area to find them brushing off a coating of fuller’s earth. Mike shook in a fit of giggles, while Rod checked the Arri over, grumbling loudly, but grinning like a loon nonetheless. “Fucker just dropped on me. No one said it was gonna be like that.”
Gil scrambled onto the stage in search of Peter, who emerged from under a box clearly stamped on its unpainted side with the legend, “PYE DeLuxe 32-inch Colour Television.” Gil offered a hand. Peter grabbed it and hauled himself upright, almost bringing Gil down on top of him.
“Ta, mate. But what happened to Oli… the centurion?”
Peter and Gil jumped down amid the rubble on the floor, kicking boxes aside. “Give me a hand with this one,” he shouted at Gil above Queen, and Gil saw the centurion, flat on his back. Between them they got him upright. “You okay, Oli?” Pete asked contritely.
The centurion removed his helmet, shook his head, and felt his bones. “I’m fine.” He gave a hoarse laugh, and coughed up a load of fuller’s earth. “You knocked the breath out of me, but I’m okay, really. I think the armor saved me, more’n I can say about whoever I landed on.” He looked around at the destruction, beaming with pleasure. “I told Damien it would work. We didn’t kill anyone, I hope?”
Gil thought he almost looked disappointed when Mike told him that everyone had gotten up safely, and most were already frenzying themselves into a dance orgy.
Half an hour later, the three film-makers had the equipment cleaned off and packed up. “Good bit of kit, the Arri, toughest camera around.” Rod planted a kiss on the black camera body. “You could drop one of these off a mountain, pick it up, and it’d work,”
“That’s good,” Gil answered. “It had a mountain dropped on it.” He’d just about finished the lab paperwork for the exposed film when Damien Foot walked in on them.
“Did you get everything you needed?”
“I think so. I hope so,” Rod told him with a reassuring smile. “I’ll get it to Kays for processing tomorrow—can’t do it before evening—and check the rushes a day later. I’ll be in touch.” He turned to the others. “I don’t know about you fellas, but tomorrow’s a busy day. So I’m going to load this lot and get off home.”
“We’ll help,” Mike offered. “And it’s late enough for me.”
Gil readily agreed.
“Just before you go…” Damien began, “I don’t know how your schedules are fixed, but if you could make three or four days free at some time soon, I’ve been asked to send a small crew over to New York to do a similar movie of a big club there. Same pay deal and all expenses. How about it?”
“Coo,” said Mike happily, “I’ve never been to the place that was so good they named it twice.”
Rod quickly agreed that he wouldn’t mind, depending on work commitments.
“Gil?” Mike asked.
“I’m as excited as you. I’ve never been either.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Damien gave a nod of approval. “I’ll let you know when things firm up. Meantime—Gil excepted—get yourselves U.S. visas organized, if you haven’t got one.”
Gil gave a wide yawn as they drove home through London’s quiet late-night streets. The sodium lights glared a reflected orange off roads slicked with a recent shower of rain. Bunched leaves scuttered along the roadside gutters in the growing breeze.
“Better give the nightly fuck a miss, by the looks of it.” Mike smiled, snatching a sideways glance. “You probably haven’t got much left to give, anyway, after the Little Angel… oomph! ” He gasped as Gil dug him in the ribs.
“Thanks! Anyway, while you were… harrumph… changing film magazines, Rod introduced me to the guy who publishes the mags that promoted this evening’s do. He puts out a few gay soft porn magazines but he wants to do a proper hard-core movie and asked me if we’d be interested in helping out. Are you up for that?”
“What were we doing in Rome?” Gil responded sleepily.
“Oh that was mainstream soft-core stuff. This’ll be the real thing.”
Gil shrugged. “Might be fun.”
“He’ll arrange everything, all we have to do is hire a camera, nothing big. The sound will mostly be grunt and groan tracks and some music added later. He’s got this big studio setup somewhere in north London, so all the lighting’s available. I can get Jim to smuggle the negs into a lab for processing and final printing, and no doubt we can wangle Trevor into doing the editing. I know he fancies himself as a cutter and he knows all about sound-track laying.”
“Sounds good,” mumbled Gil, yawning hugely again.
“I’d better get you to bed fast.”
“I bet you say that to all the boys…”
He was almost asleep when Mike next spoke. “Right. I’ll give the guy a ring tomorrow when I get a chance. Hard-core porn, here we come.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Getting Splattered
Everything was set for a weekend shoot when Mike and Gil were not required at Pinewood. In any case, with the principal photography almost done, the production was beginning to wind down. The morning dawned overcast and blustery. Leaves lay everywhere, blowing in the gusts, piling up in corners. Mike drove them up through Highgate toward Muswell Hill and parked on the asphalt hard pan outside the ramshackle building that housed the magazine publisher.
“What’s his name again, the guy who owns this?” Gil asked as they swung out of the car.
“Aiden Parnell. He’s… well, you’ll see.”
Inside, it was quiet, being the weekend, Gil supposed, but as they entered a large room acting as an office, a bustle of activity met the boys. Four men of varying ages sat at typewriters, hammering away at some task. Gil recognized two: the unfortunate centurion Oli and the guy who had stood beside him to signal the temple’s downfall. Three youngsters with the distinct aura of hustler sprawled in mismatched chairs by the window. In the center of the room stood a massive table littered with large sheets of paper, sheaves of black and white photographs, rolls of typesetting, rulers, scalpels, and a pot of something called Cow Gum.
The walls were a patchwork of pinned up photos and printed sheets showing muscle-bound hunks in various states of undress and frankly nude (no real erections, Gil noticed).
The temple man saw Gil examining a photograph of a muscled hunk with a semi and walked over. “That’s what we call the ‘legal angle of dangle’,” he said. “More than thirty degrees from the downward vertical and
the Obscene Publications Squad will do you.”
Gil raised his eyebrows in puzzled thanks at the guy’s mysterious explanation.
A neatly presented young man seated at the table hopped to his feet as they crossed the room, dropping a lit cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. As lean as Gil, although an inch shorter, he was conservatively dressed in a cross-check red-and-black-patterned shirt tucked into new looking 501s, and sporting neatly cut short hair. The skin around his sprightly eyes crinkled when he smiled.
“Oh good, there you are, darling,” he greeted Mike breathily. “Nice and prompt.” He waved apologetically at the generous hand-turned cuffs on his jeans. “Such a nuisance that here you can’t get an inside leg to fit like you can in New York City. I must get around to cutting and hemming soon. Hi, I’m Aiden.” He proffered his hand to Gil, who shook it briefly. Aiden gave Gil an appraising look, head inclined sideways in examination. “Hmm, I ought to get you in front of the camera.” He ran a hand lightly over the outline of Gil’s chest and abdominals. “Oh, you mustn’t mind me, sweetheart. I see an opportunity in every good-looking boy.” The deprecating laugh sounded a bit nervous, although there seemed nothing nervy about Aiden that Gil could detect. Highly strung, perhaps, one of those busy busy busy people emanating a campy kind of command over everyone in his sway.
Gil, however, felt nervous in Aiden’s presence. He had to swallow, but smiled politely.
Mike gave Aiden a beaming smile. “Gil’s very shy… at least for an American. Anyway, we’re here to film others, I think.”
Aiden gave a theatrical sigh, shaking his head at Gil. “So many gorgeous men, so little time.” Picking up a few typed sheets from the table, he turned to the three loungers. “Our actors, all raring to go. And, for what it’s worth, the script. As you’ll see, there’s not much because no one’s going to do any talking, are we sweeties? Mouths are for more important things. Basically, all the action takes place in and around a boxing ring. My best Man Friday has already knocked that up in the studio. I don’t do that sort of laboring thing—it’s just too much for a white woman.” He mopped his brow theatrically with an imaginary handkerchief and gave another of those short nervous-sounding laughs with a shake of the head.
Gil couldn’t work Aiden out. His bright, breezy manner clearly hid an underlying manipulative nature, but he came across as very friendly. It was hard to put an age to him, but in spite of the world-weary jaded act, Gil suspected he wasn’t that much older than Mike and himself. The three against the wall were easier to decipher. One, whose name turned out to be Geoff, was a dirty blond, his lightly curling hair worn fairly long. He looked quite tall, even slouched down on his chair, his legs spread obviously wide to show off a generous mound of balls with what looked like a large banana pushing down the left leg of his faded khaki pants. He nodded a dull-eyed recognition of their presence.
In the middle sat Steve, shorter, stocky, fit looking. His sullen expression emanated from a blunt square face with furtive but come-to-bed sexy eyes set either side of a short pressed-in boxer’s crooked nose. His light brown brush-cut looked military. His legs were also splayed to display a carefully bumped up lump in the front of his jeans, accentuated by settled creases. The fly was heavily faded as though many hands had been scratching around the region.
The third boy, Chris, looked different, a bit out of place beside the other two. He was slight of build, with a soft face under long chestnut waves that fell over his forehead and into his eyes, and which he kept flicking out of the way. His posture looked more self-contained than the others, tucked up into himself as though he was surprised to be there.
All in all, Gil looked forward to seeing them stripped and doing stuff with each other.
Aiden explained that while they couldn’t print hard-core pictures in the magazines because of the law, the resulting movie was a different prospect, sold privately through mail order. “Shall we go through?” he said to Mike and Gil, then turned to fuss the three boys with little peremptory hand claps. “Come, my puppies, time to hustle.”
The studio was a tall, spacious square, with a glassed control room on one side. Gil saw two small video cameras on tripods against the studio’s farther wall. Aiden waved at them. “We’re experimenting, but the quality’s very poor compared to using film.” A hallway connected the studio to the work room and doubled back into what appeared to be living quarters. “A changing room for the shy of heart is down there, next to the loo and shower.”
There were no ceiling-mounted lights, but several powerful Blondes and Red Head lights with barn doors were raised on stands in a corner. In the center a small boxing ring had been built up, which looked pretty professional to Gil’s untrained eye. Along one wall a locker room bench suggested its own possible use as a prop, topped off by the row of four blue-gray sports lockers next to it. A moveable false wall screened the corner nearest to where they came in to form a third location, and in the enclosure sat two more benches beside a pile of towels, backed by more lockers.
Aiden bustled around as Gil and Mike unpacked the Arriflex ST, a much smaller and lighter camera than the Arri BL Rod had used at Paradise. Gil opened up the tripod and locked its legs ready for Mike to mount the camera. For this shoot, Mike had opted for 100-foot film rolls so they wouldn’t need a magazine. To Gil’s relief, there was no need for a change bag; he would simply pop into the photographic dark room to load the camera.
Aiden disappeared into the control room, fiddled with a large reel-to-reel tape recorder and seconds later disco music pounded out from several large floor-standing speakers. He adjusted the volume so it filled the room without being too intrusive. “There,” he said brightly as he came out, “Musak to fuck to.”
For the next hour Mike got a load of set-up shots around and inside the boxing ring as Steve and Geoff squared off against each other. The two lads were now only wearing sports shorts, white socks, and boxers’ boots. The shorts were decidedly much shorter and tighter fitting than boxers would really wear—for obvious reasons. Although Geoff had the advantage of height and reach, it became quickly obvious that Steve exhibited more skill as a boxer—also that he was Aiden’s personal property.
In between shots Aiden would go up to him, calling him by the endearments “my pet” and “puppy dog,” patting him on his perky bottom. Gil noted that Steve bridled at Aiden’s attention, often shrugging him off with contained but surly looks. It was equally obvious that he disliked his sparring partner.
“Steve used to be a squaddie,” Aiden informed Gil as the boys danced around each other, aiming and blocking blows for the camera. Seeing Gil’s questioning expression, Aiden explained. “Soldier, private rank. He was in the Guards, but got thrown out for the usual reasons—renting out to gentlemen who admire young men in uniform. Now I sort of keep him on a weekly retainer,” he said loftily, wafting a cigarette about. “It adds a bit to his income from the street. After all, he’s got a wife to look after and a kid on the way.”
Gil took this surprising news with raised eyebrows. “Er… and Geoff?”
Aiden waved his cigarette dismissively. “Oh darling, Geoff’s just a walking dick… a really, really big one. The punters will love him,” he added offhandedly.
It wasn’t all standing around for Gil. His main task entailed throwing up fuller’s earth into the air around the ring to create a dusty-smoky atmosphere under the lights, although Aiden’s chain smoking helped greatly in that respect. When Mike announced that he’d run through the first roll, Gil took the camera to the dark room and quickly removed the exposed film and replaced it with a fresh roll. When he emerged, Aiden was fluttering about in the small, enclosed area, sorting Steve out with Chris, whose role appeared to be that of a gym attendant. Steve still wore his shorts and boots, Chris was dressed in baggier gym shorts, with a polo shirt of light toweling fabric. After an application of oil and warm water spray, St
eve was ready for his first serious take.
As Aiden had promised, the script was to the point.
Steve enters the locker room, makes for the bench, sits down, obviously warmed up from the boxing match he has just left. He takes a towel, but before he can make more than two rubs with it, the cute attendant enters and takes over drying him.
Cut to lingering close shots of hands, towel, glistening muscles being rubbed, Steve’s face relaxing, Chris giving Steve longing looks. Chris kneels between Steve’s thighs to massage them. Steve leans back slightly, obviously enjoying the attention. Close up of Chris sliding fingers under the hem of Steve’s shorts, then over the top, massaging the cock and balls.
Move to fuck scene.
Which is pretty much what followed.
Aiden wasn’t too bothered by the logic of Chris losing his clothes in shot—like a Cadinot movie: clothed one minute, buck-naked the next. But he did want some shots of Chris pulling Steve’s shorts down before giving him a preliminary fluff job to get his cock up and hard. Gil noticed that Steve didn’t have too much trouble in that department, and Chris’s dick wasn’t the subject, since moments later he was bent over the bench and getting it fast and furious up the ass.
Aiden hovered anxiously. “Now, pet, just remember to hold back. We’ll have to get several different angles before the money shot.”
Gil helped Mike with focus pulling and moving the tripod when the camera wasn’t hand-held.
“Sorry, Steve,” Mike said after a long bout of Chris’ getting his ass well and truly reamed. “Can you pull out for a sec, and then let me see you go in again.”
