Sword and Sandal

by Roland Graeme

  But, as hot as it felt, it was soon superseded.

  “Double fuck, man,” I heard Gerardo telling Zeke. “Double fuck me!”

  I was still so new to big-city gay life that I wasn’t sure what he meant. I soon found out!

  Zeke stopped lapping at my flesh. He sat up and lifted Gerardo’s legs, high. The next thing I knew, he was leaning in against us, forcing his cock up into Gerardo’s ass right next to mine. He had to go slow, but after a minute I felt Gerardo’s sphincter give way and Zeke’s cock slide all the way in.

  And then we both began to fuck Gerardo at once. Zeke was shoving his dick in and out, rubbing it up against mine, and I was doing plenty of fucking on my own, slamming up against Gerardo’s butt while he manfully took both our cocks. Gerardo accepted the dual anal assault without protest or complaint, although he did utter a steady stream of obscenities in Spanish.

  We fucked Gerardo without mercy or letup, moving in and out of him together. Gerardo’s own erection hadn’t faltered, and I was still working his prick in my hand while Zeke and I fucked him, harder and faster. I could feel Zeke’s heavy balls bouncing up against Gerardo’s ass cheeks. We were all about to come. I felt Gerardo’s cock stiffen in my fist, and I heard him groan.

  Zeke started to whimper, “Oh, fuck … oh, fuck!”

  When I felt Gerardo’s cock tighten up, I let myself go.

  “Come shot,” I warned Mark.

  Zeke and I pulled out of Gerardo’s ass at the same time. Our timing was perfect. I sprayed my semen all over Gerardo’s buttocks. As though the wet jism smacking against his a flesh were a trigger, Gerardo began to ejaculate, too.

  Zeke shot at the same moment, deftly readjusting his position on the bed so that he and Gerardo both shot their loads helplessly high up into the air, from where their mingled fluid rained down onto the three of us.

  “Christ!” I heard Dirk shriek. “What a come shot! I’ve never seen anything like it. Are you getting this, Mark? Are you getting it?”

  “Of course I am,” Mark replied, calmly. “I’ve never missed one, yet.”

  Chapter Seven: Porn Pioneers

  I was making all sorts of changes in my life. To summarize them, I’ll depart from strict chronology for a moment.

  It was time for me to move out of my parents’ house, and to do something besides pumping gas and repairing automobiles to earn my living. I moved to New York City. There, I supported myself with a succession of jobs, some of which overlapped.

  I worked in a gym, which is practically a rite of passage for a young bodybuilder. This gym was patronized by a lot of gay men, and the management liked to have well-built numbers on the staff. The clients found us employees inspirational, hoping that some of our muscle and definition might rub off of them. We were also hit on, with some regularity.

  In my free time, I could do my workouts right there on the premises, which was a real convenience.

  I’d become cynical enough to conclude that my physique was an asset which I might as well exploit.

  My nighttime job was as a bartender in a gay leather bar. Again, I was hired for my looks, not for my skill at mixing drinks. I don’t think ever wore a shirt when I was on duty behind the bar. Even in the dead of winter, I was stripped to the waist, with a black leather body harness cinched tightly around my torso. My shoulders, biceps, pecs, and abs earned me a steady stream of pretty good tips.

  I also worked part-time for a delivery service, where at least I put my muscles to useful work, loading and unloading the trucks.

  And—as though all of this activity didn’t keep me busy enough—I also took a leaf from Eric’s book, and I went into business for myself.

  All I needed was a post office box and something to sell. I told John I wanted to pose for him again—this time, as both a model and a customer. I’d pay him to take some particularly sexy nude photos of me. Instead of signing a model’s release, I wanted to retain the rights to the pictures as my own property, which I could sell.

  John was willing to give me the photos for free, but I didn’t want to take advantage of our friendship. I insisted that this should be a business arrangement. He did give me a good deal.

  It wasn’t long before I had my own classified ad running in some of the major gay newspapers and magazines. Since it was obvious that modesty or subtlety would be wasted on my target audience, I described myself as Hot hung young Italian muscle stud Gino, who was Ready, willing, and able to get you off the way you want. My stock in trade was similar to Eric’s. I offered Gym and locker room sets of nude photos, used jockstraps, and Hot j/o calls—advance payment required—telephone number by return mail.

  The j/o calls turned out to be very popular, and lucrative. The customer would send me a check or money order, along with his phone number and the date and time he wanted me to call him. I would cash the check or money order, and add the customer to my list of guys to be called. Then I’d sit by the phone, usually in the evening, and I’d play my own private version of “dialing for dollars.”

  Many of my customers weren’t shy about telling me about themselves. I got the impression that a lot of them were successful, career-oriented men. They put a lot into their work, and they didn’t have the time, the energy, or the desire to hang out in a gay bar all evening trying to score for the night. Instead, they could talk to me on the phone, hear exactly what they wanted to hear, and jack off. Shortly afterward, they could be comfortably tucked in bed for the night.

  A lot of the customers wanted to be talked through specialized fantasies, which could become extraordinarily intricate and detailed. One of my repeat callers had the two of us create a scenario in which he was performing all sorts of sexual acts with a handsome local television news anchorman in his city. The whole time the caller was servicing the anchorman, the latter—that would be me—described the sex action which was taking place in a totally deadpan manner, while supposedly reading from a teleprompter! These phone conversations of ours always took place during the evening newscast that featured the reporter in question. I could hear my customer’s TV in the background on his end of the connection, and I could even hear the real anchorman’s voice.

  The most difficult calls, on the other hand, were those that required me to do all the talking. When I had a guy on the phone who wasn’t doing much except a lot of heavy breathing, it was hard to know if I was giving him what he wanted. It was much easier when the customer interacted with me, responding to my verbal sallies and talking back to me. That way, I could keep of track of what seemed to be working for him and what wasn’t, and I could adjust my performance accordingly.

  Of course, some customers shared my phone number with their friends, who would call me and try to get into a conversation without paying for it. Others would call at times other than the one I specified, but my answering machine took care of that.

  Still others wanted to meet me in person, and they were willing to travel cross-country to do so, or pay to have me come to visit them. I made it my policy never to do this, no matter how tempting the offer sounded. I told myself I wasn’t a hustler. What I was doing through the mail and over the phone might be a way of selling sex, but only indirectly. It wasn’t prostitution—was it?

  I had energy to burn, back in those days. Somehow, I managed to juggle my various jobs, conduct all this free-lance business on the side—and still lead an extremely active social life.

  Some sex researchers, at the time, did studies and concluded that approximately one man in ten had a homosexual experience at one point in his life. Living in New York City, I began to do plenty of sex research of my own, and my conclusion was that one in ten was a low estimate. There were times when it seemed that heterosexual men constituted the minority!

  I saw so many beautiful men going about their business in the city, while being so free about their sexuality, that I immediately knew I wanted a piece of the action. Well—a lot more than just one piece! Guys I met in bars would be friendly to me, and I invariably went h
ome with one of them. I racked up a succession of one-night stands, and I did enjoy a few longer affairs. The sex was always satisfying, and sometimes it was spectacular.

  But I wasn’t deluding myself. I knew that few of the guys I tricked with were interested in my personality. It was my hard-muscled body with which they wanted to spend some time. At the time, it was fashionable for guys to dance in the bars with their shirts off, smoking pot, snorting poppers, working up a sweat, writhing against each other in quasi-coital dance moves—all to the pounding beat of disco music. If I may be so immodest, I was one of those guys who didn’t have to take his shirt off. All I needed was a tight-fitting T-shirt or tank top, and I attracted plenty of admirers with it still on. When I did deign to strip to the waist and join in the gyrations on the dance floor, I could just about take my pick.

  I was generous with my favors. In other words, I whored around.

  I made out like a bandit. I was like a kid with his nose pressed up against a candy store’s window. I wanted to fuck everyone in town, and I was amazed by how often some man I was attracted to returned my interest. I did everyone and everything to excess—everything, that is, except neglect my rigorous weight training and my equally stringent diet. No backsliding into bad habits for me! Now that I was in the city and out, I was trying to make up for lost time.

  I used to daydream about finding a big, massively muscular lover, a fellow gym rat, who was out there somewhere, waiting to meet me and fall for me. But no matter how many hot men I met and how much fun I had with them in bed, they never seemed to fulfill my deeper expectations. I began to realize that in all probability I wasn’t fulfilling theirs, either, and maybe there was something unrealistic about my expectations. I began to examine my life and I tried to decide what I was truly looking for.

  I realized that everyone had different standards and that it was important for each person to know consciously what his standards are, and so recognize that they might not be shared by others. I accepted the fact that I liked men with muscles, but that by putting that at the top of my list, I was eliminating a lot of potentially fine relationships from my life.

  I made rapid progress on my physique during that first winter in Manhattan. At the first hint of spring weather, I emerged triumphant from indoors, clad not in the kind of baggy, comfortable clothes I’d tended to favor back home in New Jersey, but resplendent from the waist up in a garment I would never have considered wearing BM—that is, Before Muscles. I now sported as my preferred street wear a two-sizes-too-small T-shirt made from a stretch fabric—plain-colored, and of course with no logo or wording printed on its front or back, because I wanted no one’s message to be displayed on my chest but the clear signals my pecs were silently sending out.

  Meanwhile, Dirk Dervaux hadn’t forgotten about me.

  Now that I’d made a couple of successful loops for him, Dirk had no trouble getting me cast in his next hour-long, “quality” gay film. This would be my big break into the porn industry. As usual, Dirk would be making what was then known in the trade as a “three-day wonder,” with a miniscule budget and limited resources. And, again as usual, Dirk refused to be daunted by these restrictions. He was determined to put out a high-quality professional product—with good lighting, attractive color, and an easy-going but ceaselessly erotic mood.

  “No S and M, and no fist fucking, this time,” he informed me, cheerfully. Then, grinning, he added, “Just lots of good, wholesome sucking and fucking. A bunch of Boy Scouts earning their sexual merit badges.”

  Dirk pulled out a blank contract, and we got down to practicalities, filling in the blanks.

  He began by asking me what was I willing to do, and, more importantly, have done to me, in front of a camera? At the time, you must remember, and for a long time afterward, there was an unspoken distinction in status between “tops” and “bottoms”—or in other words, between those porn actors who insisted on doing the fucking, as opposed to those who were willing to admit that they liked taking it up the ass. My open-mindedness in this regard turned out to be a professional asset. I liked my anal sex either way; but I loved being fucked, especially by a big cock.

  Next, Dirk wanted to know what was my stage name? I was embarrassed to admit to him that I didn’t have one. In those loops which Zeke, Gerardo, and I had made for Dirk, we were identified only by our (actual) first names.

  Now, with only a limited time in which to ruminate over this absolutely essential identity protection device, Dirk once again demonstrated his resourcefulness.

  “Your last name, D’Agostino … that’s a variation of Agosto, the Italian word for “August,” isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “How do you feel about “August” as a last name? That sounds kind of classy. And it’s simple. Easy to pronounce, easy to remember. No one in porn ever uses a multisyllabic moniker.”

  “I guess it’d be okay. What about a first name?”

  “We could use your real one. And call you Gino August.”

  “No, I don’t feel comfortable using my real name.”

  Dirk grinned. “Too close to home, huh? Well—what other Italian men’s names begin with G?”

  “Lots of them. Giovanni, Giorgio, Giuseppe, Gregorio, Gianandrea, Gianpaolo, Gianni—” I recited.

  “Stop. I like that last one, Gianni. Gianni August. It almost sounds like ‘Johnny August,’ only classier. More European.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “God forbid a porn actor’s pseudonym should be lacking in class! But I suppose we could do worse.”

  And so I became—for the time being, at least—Gianni August.

  Near the bottom of the contract, just above the space for my signature, was the customary statement to the effect that I agreed to have two visible ejaculations per day, or I would forfeit my daily fee. Undaunted by this possibility, “Gianni August” signed his real name.

  Dirk congratulated me warmly. It was only at this point that he bothered to outline the “plot” of the film for my benefit. Dirk had a friend who was a bit of a gay playboy. This guy had a really nice apartment, a condominium in a high-rise building. He was willing to help finance the film, provided all of the sex scenes would be shot at his place. He wanted to be able to brag to all of his friends (and his tricks) that his apartment had been featured in a porn movie. His only other condition was that he’d be allowed to be on the set and observe the shoot.

  Dirk had come up with a token story line in which a bored, horny trust fund baby—a character obviously modeled on his friend—decided to celebrate his birthday by hosting an orgy in his apartment. He had invitations printed up, and during the days leading up to the big event, he wandered around town, handing out an invitation to any guy he encountered whose looks he liked.

  “So this diverse group of gay men from all walks of life, who at first seem to have nothing in common—they all end up at the rich guy’s place, where they discover their common masculine bond of sex,” Dirk rhapsodized. “In other words, they suck and fuck like animals, with my buddy’s gorgeous apartment as the background. Which reminds me. I’ll have to get him to give me a list of his really valuable antiques and knick-knacks. Then we can move them out of the way before we start shooting, so nothing gets broken.”

  “Or stolen,” I suggested.

  Dirk seemed shocked by my cynicism. “None of the guys who works with me would ever dream of pocketing something on a set during a shoot,” he insisted. “They’re professionals.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  Dirk, by the way, hadn’t been able to choose between two titles for the film: The Pleasure of Your Company and Be My Guest. This dilemma had been solved for him by those mysterious “studio bosses” behind the scenes, whom I’ve already mentioned. Operating on the (probably correct) assumption that subtlety would be lost on our intended audience, they’d decided to call the movie Cum as You Are—much to Dirk’s chagrin.

  “Fucking Philistines,” he said, contemptuously. “At least I have full cr
eative control of the actual shoot. I do insist on that.”

  “Good for you, Dirk. But define ‘full creative control’ for me. What do you mean by that, in layman’s terms?”

  “It means, in the simplest terms, that I say who puts what up whom, where and when. In what order.”

  “Oh.” I was a bit disappointed, which no doubt showed on my face. I don’t what I’d expected—some sort of profound philosophical statement from Dirk about the motion picture as an art form, maybe. “You almost make it sound like a sexual traffic cop,” I teased him.

  “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, Gino. As you’ll soon see for yourself.”

  We got back to business. Dirk issued me some instructions and advice. Although he never went so far as actually to ban booze and dope or booze from his set, he encouraged his performers to keep their use of it to a minimum. Overindulgence might make an actor feel good and calm his nerves, but it could also wreak havoc with his plumbing. And because it was highly desirable that the pipes be maintained at full pressure, Dirk recommended no sex for two or three days before the shooting, and no masturbation, either.

  “Go to bed horny, get up horny, and stay horny,” was the way Dirk put it. His final piece of advice was simple. “Instead of going out on the town and whoring around, stay home at night and rehearse inside your head, and think about all of your fantasies coming true.”

  Well, one of my fantasies was already coming true. I was going to be a porn star. I was about to present myself to the prurient eyes of innumerable other gay men as the celluloid embodiment of their deepest, most lurid shared desires.

  It seemed like a big responsibility. Once again, I suffered from a mild attack of stage fright.

  In short, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get it up on cue; or worse, if I did achieve and sustain an erection, I wouldn’t be able to come. So I followed Dirk’s suggested regiment scrupulously, with an added margin for error. I went without sex for four days, and I fortified myself with a steady diet of Vitamin E capsules. I gladly suffered for the sake of my art, imitating the ascetic renunciation of a monk.