Sword and Sandal

by Roland Graeme

  “Of course,” my worldly costar said, nonchalantly. I got the impression it wouldn’t be the first time she’d bared all in front of a camera.

  “And what about you, Mr. Dagaust?” the director inquired.

  “Aw, fuck it,” I said, in plain English. “Let’s just get the damn thing over and done with!”

  The prop man refreshed the suds, the chick and I both stripped naked, and we did another take of the scene. The result, for a film of that era, was rather risqué, with both of us showing quite a lot of slippery-wet, sudsy flesh.

  In another episode, I was in bed with a different actress. We were both topless under the sheets. But, although it was fine for me to be bare-chested, she had to keep her nipples covered at all times, to avoid trouble with the Italian film censorship. She had a strip of bright red plastic tape placed over each of her nipples. As we did the scene, going through the motions of feverish lovemaking, the director scrutinized us closely through the cameraman’s viewfinder. The instant those sheets slipped down far enough to expose any hint of red tape, he’d yell “Cut!” And we’d have to do the scene again. (The experience gave me a new appreciation for gay porn, where anything and everything could hang out, with complete impunity.)

  My male costar, Piero Marchese, played the preacher’s son turned avenger. He was a very young man at the time, but he was already an established Italian movie actor. Piero was a popular leading man—a heartthrob, in short. And no wonder—he was a breathtakingly beautiful man. To my bitter disappointment, he was also incorrigibly heterosexual, and a confirmed, tireless ladies’ man. What a skirt chaser! The guy never met a female whom he didn’t want to fuck. He didn’t care if they were old or ugly, married or virginal. I swear, that horny motherfucker was even capable of putting the make on a nun!

  In my mental rewrite of the film’s script, Piero and I rode off together at the end, to bed down together nightly on the trail. Wishful thinking!

  Piero and I in fact became great pals—probably because, once he found out I was gay, he realized that I would be no competition for him. To put it crudely, so far as I was concerned, he could keep all the pussy for himself. As strange as it may sound, we often double-dated—he with some chick he’d picked up, me with my latest casual (male) trick. As half of such foursomes, we had ourselves some good times.

  Whenever a guy made a pass at Piero—which occurred with some regularity—Piero would turn him down, politely, and steer him my way.

  “You’d like my friend Gino,” Piero would tell these men. “He’s the best piece of man ass in Rome. Or so I’ve been told, by reliable sources.”

  I did my best to live up to this reputation.

  Chapter Twelve: A Californian Interlude

  After completing the three films called for by my contract, I needed a break. And I have to admit I was a bit homesick. I wanted to return to the States, to spend some time with my family and friends. I was beginning to feel more Italian than American.

  Before I left Italy, though, I signed two new contracts. One was with the same studio, for a whole series of films, beginning with yet another sword and sandal epic. But this wasn’t an exclusive contract. Eric’s brother-in-law Daniel was still acting as my agent, and I have to admit that he knew how to drive a hard bargain. He not only got me more money, and a few other perks. He made sure that I was free to accept offers from other studios, to work for them. One of these rival studios, sure enough, was eager to cash in on my newfound fame by signing me up for a picture. At this stage in the contract negotiations, there wasn’t even a decision about what genre of movie it would be, let alone a title or a script. I simply agreed to do a film for them.

  I had a few months ahead of me before I would have to return to Italy and resume work. So I flew back to the States, where, among other things, I began to make certain arrangements, as part of committing myself to living and working abroad, for the foreseeable future. I also resumed my bodybuilding career—training hard, and entering a few competitions.

  My name—or rather, my stage name, “Gene Dagaust”—my face, and my physique were now much more recognizable quantities than they had ever been before. After all, I was a movie actor. Okay, so I was the sort of movie actor whom the critics sneered at, and who was working in the kind of movies they disparaged. But I had already acquired a loyal fan base, however small. Sometimes, I was recognized, in the gym, and even on the street.

  Entrepreneurs who thought they might be able to make a fast buck by doing business with me contacted me on a regular basis, flattering me, making big promises. To hear some of these guys talk, I was Steve Reeves and Laurence Olivier rolled into one—a world-class bodybuilder and a great actor, whose potential was unlimited. I filtered all such inquiries through Daniel, who was too protective of his ten per cent cut of my earnings to let me sign up for any risky ventures.

  I was already learning. I had a certain notoriety, which unscrupulous people weren’t above trying to take advantage of. There were smart ways to exploit my notoriety, and there were dumb ways. I’d decided that, if anybody was going to make a profit from my body and my name, it was going to include me, as well.

  Inevitably, my path occasionally crossed that of Eric Streiff. As a competitive bodybuilder, Eric was doing very well. And I have to say this for him—he was my biggest fan. He bragged about me to anybody who’d listen; Eric couldn’t have been prouder of my modest accomplishments had I been his own kid brother.

  “It is true that you encouraged Mr. Dagaust to pursue a film career?” an interviewer for a bodybuilding magazine asked Eric, once.

  “Yeah,” was Eric’s laconic response.

  “Have you ever regretted that he made it big in the movies, and you didn’t?”

  The interviewer was trying to get a rise out of Eric, hoping he’d say something negative about me that would make a good quote.

  “Nope,” Eric replied, just as succinctly. But then he came up with a pretty good quote, after all. “I’ve made it big outside the movies,” he said, “and I’m getting bigger all the time.” (According to the published interview, Eric treated the journalist to a double biceps shot at this stage in their conversation, to demonstrate the point.) “As for my old buddy Gene—the more time he spends over there in Italy, making movies, the less time he has to compete against me in contests, here. I wish more of the guys in my weight class were so accommodating. Not that I really have anything to worry about—from any of them. I’m the best,” Eric boasted, without shame. “The rest—well, they’re just the rest. Second best.”

  I also have to give my family, back in New Jersey, credit. They prevented me from developing too much of a swelled head. Oh, my mother had started to keep a big scrapbook of my photos and press clippings, and she’d haul out this “brag book” and show it to company at the slightest provocation. But my father was less impressed by the whole concept of My Son, The Big Hotshot Movie Star. He’d look at me, with a quizzical expression on his face, and then he’d ask me, “So tell me, fanciullo mio [my boy]—when are you going to stop all this nonsense, and get yourself a real job?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that.

  My Dad also couldn’t understand why the film studio wouldn’t let me use my real name. He never really forgave the industry for that. He had no use for my stage name. Gene Dagaust, he said, rhymed with “exhaust,” as in what came out of the tail pipe of a car. It sounded French, not Italian; and who did I think I was kidding? I was a goombah, he insisted, an Italian-American. That was nothing to be ashamed of.

  Back then, I still hadn’t come out to my family. My siblings enjoyed having a fledging star in the family. My sisters were thrilled to hear that I’d actually met a few male Italian movie idols. They pressed me for every detail of these (generally fleeting) encounters with these (generally heterosexual) guys.

  My two older brothers, on the other hand, just wanted to know how many sexy female starlets I’d dated—and banged. They were bitterly disappointed when honesty compelled me
to admit that the grand tally was a big, fat zero. So far as they were concerned, I was wasting my time in Italy, by not taking advantage of the obvious carnal possibilities.

  In truth, of course, I was taking full and unashamed advantage of these possibilities—only, I was dating and bedding a succession of sexy Italian men.

  My muscles had made my fortune, such as it was, and so I was careful to keep myself in good shape.

  As I’ve mentioned, while I had all this free time on my hands, before I had to return to Italy, I went out to the West Coast to live and train. There, I entered a few physique contests, and I also did a lot of guest posing, which brought in some extra money. After all, I was still a bodybuilder.

  I found a very cheap studio apartment in Los Angeles, which I shared with another gay (or, arguably, bisexual) bodybuilder. We slept together in the one bed, and whenever one of us wanted to entertain a trick, the odd man out either made himself scarce for a few hours, slept on the couch, or we simply turned the tryst into a three-way. The latter was the easiest solution, and so we availed ourselves of it often.

  My roommate and I were friends and fuck buddies, rather than lovers. We got along fine.

  Later, he became a quite successful Hollywood actor, working in movies and television. He has a reputation as a ladies’ man; but despite his several marriages, and his well-publicized liaisons with women, you can take my word for it—he prefers guys. But he’s extremely discreet. You’d be shocked if I told you his (stage) name, so I won’t. Let me just say that I’ve had his mouth on my cock, and my cock up his ass, plenty of times. We’re still good friends, and just a few months ago we got together for dinner and drinks, to talk about old times. We ended up in bed together, also just for old times’ sake. It still was pretty hot. Sometimes there’s really no substitute for experience.

  While I was in California, I really lived in the gym, which was the place where I’d always felt most at home.

  Up until this point, I’d been a natural bodybuilder, as we’d call it today. But steroids had begun to become part of the physique scene. Back in those days, it wasn’t at all uncommon for an article about a pro bodybuilder, published in one of the muscle magazines, not only to describe his weight training routine—but to itemize his steroid regimen for the edification of the readers, as well. Bodybuilders were utterly frank and matter of fact about which “stacks” of drugs they were taking, and the results they obtained from them.

  Within a few years, of course, admitting to steroid use became a big no-no, and it went underground.

  I wasn’t immune to peer pressure. I decided to do some experimentation with performance-enhancing drugs, myself. It was a short-lived experiment, on my part. But I did do it, so it would be hypocritical for me to deny it.

  While I was in Los Angeles, I began seeing a man whom I’ll call Doctor X. He was a physician and an insider in the bodybuilding subculture. For two decades, he’d been supplying bodybuilders with all sorts of steroids in exchange for money, or more often, for sex. Briefly, I became one of his loyal, repeat customers. I’d hit him up for a stack of prescriptions, and accommodating the doctor sexually seemed like a small price to pay. I also made myself useful to Doctor X by steering toward him a lot of aspiring young bodybuilders, who turned to me for advice.

  These kids had to find out sooner or later that the road to a physique title could take a detour through the office of Doctor X, or men like him. Nobody on the west coast was going to be truly competitive unless they put out for a daddy in the pharmaceutical business. The first night Doctor X “seduced” me (assuming you can seduce the willing), he proudly showed me a photo album, full of pictures of the physique champions he’d had sex with. There wasn’t any reason to doubt him, because in most of the cases, the photos, taken by a third party, showed the good doctor and the bodybuilder in question actually having sex together, naked. These muscle dudes—some of whom had wives, or girlfriends—were happy to prostitute themselves, in exchange for the performance enhancement drugs the doctor could provide. And they were reckless enough to leave a photographic trail behind.

  I was no better than the rest of them. At the time, I didn’t care if I ended up addicted to steroids, or even if I suffered any long-term physical effects from taking them. All I cared about was bulking up my body, so it would look good for the cameras on my next movie shoot.

  It was ironic. When I first moved out to California, I was down to about one hundred and ninety pounds, which was my natural body weight. So far as the real pro bodybuilders were concerned, I was a wimp. The bigger guys in the gym would yell at me, “Get off that bench, you fucking little punk, before I beat you into a pulp, because I want to use it!”

  Three months later, I was blown up to a hard two hundred and twenty pounds, and I was bench pressing four hundred pounds without any trouble. Then these same bastards would come over to me, looking all goofy and awestruck, and they’d say, “Hey, aren’t you Gene Dagaust, the guy who’s made all those gladiator movies? When did you start working out here?”

  And I’d tell them, caustically, “I’ve been here all along, you motherfuckers. I’m the guy you used to push off the bench, remember? Now, you can all go fuck yourselves.”

  Soon, I was hopelessly hooked on steroids, unable to leave my apartment without gulping down one drug in oral form, and taking a shot in my butt of another one. I’d crawl out of bed in the morning feeling all weak and sick, and I’d stagger around, thinking, Where in the hell is my shit?

  I’d become a junkie, and I knew it, and I hated myself for it. But I knew that I’d hate myself even more of I didn’t stay big and muscular. I lived for my visits to Doctor X’s office. I knew that he always had the really good stuff, which you couldn’t get anywhere else. His drugs were so powerful that you could feel them instantly going into your muscles, and you could taste them for hours afterward in your mouth. After a fix, my head would start pounding, and sometimes I’d even develop a nosebleed; but he would just pack my nostrils with cotton, and send me on my way. After, of course, he sucked my cock, licked my ass, and bent over so I could fuck him up the butt, which was his favorite form of payment. I wasn’t shy. I sucked his dick, too, and I even let him screw me. I’d have done more than that—much more, no matter how degrading—to stay supplied with those intoxicating drugs.

  When it was time for me to return to Italy and begin work on my next movie, I drew up a list of things I had to do. Near the top of the list was the notation, Ask around and find the Italian equivalent of Doctor X as soon as you land in Rome!

  Eventually, though, some semblance of sanity returned to me. I got off the juice. Once again, I became a natural bodybuilder. I didn’t regret it.

  Ironically enough, my motivation for getting clean was purely pragmatic, and financial. The studio bosses warned me that I was getting too big … too muscular, and too defined. It looked unnatural, they told me. They preferred my physique the way it had been before.

  I had to make a choice. And so I gave up any ambitions I still had, of pursuing a career as a professional bodybuilder. I concentrated on my acting career, instead. My muscles may have been smaller, but in the long run, they got a lot more exposure.

  In retrospect, it was the right decision. As a bodybuilder, I was good; but I wasn’t in Eric’s league. At best, I’d have had to settle for being second or third—the guy who always placed in the physique contests, instead of winning the overall title.

  Chapter Thirteen: Doing as the Romans Do

  It was a typical summer day in The Eternal City. It was the middle of August, the height of the long, hot summer. The city was all but abandoned to the tourists, because any Roman who could afford to do so was vacationing elsewhere, or was at least making a day trip or overnight visit to some seaside resort. Driving about the city, you could even find parking spaces without difficulty.

  Rome and its inhabitants seemed to have sunk into a complete torpor in anticipation of August 15. This was the Feast of the Assumption in th
e Catholic church, and it was also the start of the midsummer festival known as Ferragosto, in memory of the Emperor Augustus, who gave the Roman populace a few days off at that time of the year. Ferragosto meant that most stores and eating places would be closed for a few days, or even for weeks. Foreign guests who didn’t want to take their meals at their hotel would have to hunt to find an open restaurant.

  The city wouldn’t come fully back to life until the middle of September. And then, a little later, in October, the city would be enveloped during the daylight hours in a mellow golden sunlight which would be warm, but no longer oppressively hot. During these pleasant autumn evenings, Romans and foreigners alike would linger in the piazzas.

  I’d been on my way home when I decided to stop for a coffee. Parking my car across the street from a café which I often patronized, I seated myself at one of the small tables on the sidewalk. I was hoping to catch any passing breezes; but the air was so still that it felt like a heavy, invisible mass, weighing down everything it touched.

  Cruising around in my open Alfa Romeo, I’d felt like pretty hot stuff; and I flattered myself that, even without the sports car as a prop, I looked damn good sitting there in that café.

  In acknowledgment of my status as a (low-magnitude, perhaps, but still twinkling) film star, I sometimes made an effort to dress up a bit, even on casual occasions. Old, worn-out T-shirts, baggy sweatpants, and scuffed training shoes were all very well for the gym. But my public surely expected me to present a more glamorous image. If I was recognized on the street—and especially if I was stopped and asked for an autograph—I wanted to look the part.

  So, on this particular afternoon, I was rather spiffily attired, if I do say so myself. I wore tailored khaki slacks, cut with some extra room in the seat and the crotch, so that I was comfortable in them (and I could dispense with underwear if I chose—and I had so chosen, on this day). The slacks were held up by a brown alligator belt, which matched my handmade brown alligator shoes, worn without socks. (I was grateful to that croc, who had given his life so that I could look good.) Above my waist, I wore a polo shirt in a particularly vivid shade of hot pink. When the bright sun hit that cotton fabric, it looked practically neon. I was accessorized with an expensive wristwatch, a gold neck chain, and, of course, a pair of sunglasses with amber-tinted lenses.