Sword and Sandal

by Roland Graeme

  I absorbed this grim little narration in silence. I couldn’t help contrasting it to my own home life. And I’d thought my Dad could be stern!

  “What happened with Child Protection?” I couldn’t help asking.

  Renzo shrugged. “Nothing. I lied through my teeth, of course. I broke down and told the investigator this big story, all about how a bunch of guys shook me down for money, and when I didn’t hand it over fast enough, they ganged up on me and beat my ass. I can be a pretty good liar when I have to be. So my old man was off the hook. Not that he was grateful. Not that I expected him to be, either. But, what the fuck? He’s family. He’s blood. You got to look after your own, no matter what.”

  I felt sorry for Renzo—not that he seemed to need, or want, any commiseration. Still, I almost felt like hugging him, dirt and all. But I was afraid the gesture might be misinterpreted. As it was, though, I felt I had made a friend, and in a surprisingly short time.

  We got along famously after that. Renzo’s petty larceny was confined to sneaking beers from the fridge, and he was scrupulous about replacing what we drank. And now I had someone to talk to, which made the time at work seem to pass more quickly.

  We’d been working together for a couple of weeks when, one hot night, Renzo showed up at the garage with a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag.

  “Look what I’ve got,” he invited me. He pulled the bottle out of the bag. It was an unopened bottle of good-quality imported whiskey, with its paper seal still intact.

  “Where’d you steal that from?”

  “Oh, aren’t you funny. I bought it, for your information, with the big fat paycheck I pull down from working in this dump. Want a snort?”

  “Jesus, Renzo, I don’t know. Beer is one thing. But maybe it’s not such a good idea for us to be drinking hard liquor on the job.”

  “You pansy,” he taunted me. “Who’s going to know? I thought we deserved a change from just beer, for once. If you’re that worried about us getting caught … then I guess we can set it aside, and wait to break it open until an hour or so before the end of our shift. We shouldn’t be able to get into too much trouble then. How about it?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now you’re talking.” Renzo stashed the bottle away on a shelf. “After all,” he added, casually, “this is a special occasion.”

  “Is it? What occasion?”

  “It’s my birthday.”

  “I didn’t know. Shit! Are you telling me your old man wouldn’t let you take the night off, on your birthday?”

  Renzo shrugged. “I didn’t ask him to. It’s not as though I have somewhere else to go, to celebrate.”

  “If I’d known, I’d have got you something. You know, a gift.”

  “Why should you? You’re not my boyfriend. But you can at least have that drink with me, later on. That won’t kill you.”

  We got down to work. It was a slow night. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about when Renzo abruptly changed the subject.

  “Tell me something, Gino,” he said. “Do you still have your cherry?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “What do you think I’m talking about? Have you ever dipped your wick? You know, fucked a girl’s pussy?”

  “No,” I admitted, sheepishly.

  “What, never? You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Well, tell me that at least you’ve had a chick give you a hand job, or you talked her into going down on you. Sucking your dick,” Renzo added, as though he now thought I was such a complete innocent that he needed to spell everything out for me.

  “No. I’ve never done anything like that.”

  “Unbelievable. A good-looking guy like you? Are you telling me you’ve never been laid? In any shape or form?”

  I could feel my face reddening, becoming burning hot with embarrassment. I avoided Renzo’s eyes, and I devoted my attention to the engine parts I was cleaning. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

  “All right,” I mumbled, at last. “So I’m still a fucking virgin! You don’t have to rub it in, do you? You think I like it? Okay—now what about you? I suppose you’re the exact opposite, a big ladies’ man?”

  “I’ve banged my share of bitches,” he bragged. “And they always came back for more.”

  “Oh, really. Is that why you don’t have a girlfriend now?”

  “Maybe I don’t want one. They’re a pain in the ass. Always nagging you about where have you been and who were you with and what were you doing? To say nothing of do you really love me and when can we get married and how soon can we have a baby? Jesus! Who needs it!”

  “Lots of horny men seem to have a hard time doing without it,” I joked.

  “Yeah, the poor dumb bastards. I’d almost rather jerk off. At least my dick doesn’t talk back to me, or give me a hard time—so to speak. ‘A hard time’—get it?” Renzo asked, with a silly little laugh.

  I groaned. “I got it. Quite the comedian, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a barrel of laughs. Okay, so now that we’re taking turns in the confessional … what about guys?”

  “What about them?”

  “Has a guy ever put the make on you?”

  “You mean a queer?”

  “I ain’t talking about no cunt hound, trying to pick up a bimbo in a bar, or on the street. Come on, tell me. Has a queer ever come on to you?”

  “Hell, no!” But there was something about talking to Renzo that made me feel a need to be totally honest with him. “Well … if you really want to know … you won’t tell anybody, will you?”

  “Who the fuck am I going to tell? My Dad? You’re the only guy I ever really talk to. Come on, spill it.”

  “One time. One guy.”

  “Who was it?”

  “My swim coach back in high school. He was a good-looking guy. In his mid-twenties, I guess. Not married. I always assumed he must have lots of women chasing after him. He was sort of—almost too friendly with me, sometimes, you know what I mean? Almost as though he was singling me out, treating me differently than the other guys on the team. He was always putting his arm around my shoulders and giving me a little hug. Telling me how good I was, and how much I was improving. What a good body I had. That sort of thing. It was always when it was just the two of us, never in front of other people.”

  “That figures. He wanted to fool around with you,” Renzo said, flatly. “But he sure as hell didn’t want to get caught.”

  “That’s what I thought, but I guess I was afraid to admit it, even to myself. Then, one time he wanted me to go out of town on a trip with him. He said it’d be fun. We’d have to stay overnight in a motel. He told me my parents wouldn’t mind. I sort of wanted to do it, but I was scared. So I told him no. After that, he sort of cooled off toward me. It wasn’t the same.”

  “Shit, you broke the poor guy’s heart. But as far as you were concerned, no harm done,” Renzo assured me. “Is that all that ever happened?”

  “Isn’t that enough? Do you think I go out of my way looking for that sort of shit? Okay, so now there’s this instructor at vocational school. He’s a kind of a nerdy-looking guy. Thirtyish. He’s always staring at me through these big thick glasses he wears—you know? I can tell what he’s thinking. He doesn’t have the nerve to make a move on me. But he wants to suck my dick.”

  “So why don’t you let him?”

  “Don’t be disgusting, Renzo.”

  “He might be good at it.”

  “I wouldn’t be in any position to judge, one way or the other.”

  “So that’s the extent of your homo experience, is it? You’ve never actually had another guy touch you?”

  “No, I haven’t. What’s with the interrogation, anyway? What is it to you?”

  “Nothing, Gino. I was just curious.”

  We went on working for a few minutes, in silence.

  “You’re just dying to ask me, aren’t you?” Renzo suddenl
y asked.

  “Huh? Dying to ask you what?”

  “Whether I’ve ever been with another guy.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Have you ever been with another guy?”

  “Sure.”

  His calm, matter of fact tone of voice as he uttered the monosyllable took me completely by surprise.

  “Aw, you’re bullshitting me,” I accused him. “Just trying to get a rise out of me.”

  “No, I’m not. You think I’d tell you something like that if it wasn’t true?”

  “Where? I mean, where did this happen?”

  “In the slammer. Where else?”

  I was speechless. But Renzo seemed perfectly willing, and indeed eager, to talk about it. Later, looking back on that night, I realized that I was probably the first person he’d ever felt comfortable enough with to be able to confide in.

  “It was my cellmate,” he said, still quite matter of factly, as though he was telling me a story which had happened to somebody else. “He was a big, ugly bastard, half black and half Puerto Rican. I didn’t care about that. I’m not prejudiced. Neither was he. He called me ‘dago,’ but I didn’t take it personally. He turned me out—that’s the expression the guys on the inside use, they talk about ‘turning a guy out’—the very first night I was there. The minute they turned the lights out, he got out of his bunk and came over to mine, and he started coming on to me. He was naked, and I had just my underwear on. He told me to take my underwear off. I told him to fuck off. He told me I’d better do whatever he told me to do, or he’d beat the shit out of me. I was scared, I admit it. I knew he could take me, if it got down to a fight. But I wasn’t that stupid. I wasn’t going to take a beating for nothing. So you bet—I let him do whatever the hell he wanted to do to me. First, he made me play with his dick, and then he made me suck it. Man, that motherfucker was hung! I nearly choked on it. Then he turned me over on my belly and he got on top of me and he fucked me right up the ass. No grease, just my spit on his dick to lube it. When I tried to yell for help, he put his hand over my mouth and told me to shut up, or he’d kill me. I wouldn’t have put it past him. So I just laid there and I got fucked. Raped, just like some dumb cunt. He was one horny bastard. After that, he wanted it every night. I didn’t give him any arguments, or put up any resistance. You wouldn’t have, either, if it had been you. You’d have let that dude turn you into his bitch, just like I did.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Jesus,” I finally exclaimed, under my breath.

  “It was no big deal,” Renzo said. “It was just sex. Two guys getting their rocks off.”

  “Two guys? Did you—ah—?”

  “What?”

  “Did you get a hard-on? Did you come? While he was doing those things to you, I mean?”

  “Sure. I used to jerk myself off, while he still had his dick in me, pounding away. Or after he was done. Sometimes, when he was in a really good mood, he’d jerk me, or he’d even blow me. He wasn’t about to give me his ass, though. He was too much of a real man to do that.” Renzo emitted a short, breathless little laugh. “I thought you were going to ask me if I liked it.”

  “Did you?”

  “I learned to like it, quick enough. It’s funny, how your mental attitude toward something can change, once you realize there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s like I said—it was sex. It was as good a way as any to pass the time, before I went to sleep at night. I figured as long as I was putting up with it, I might as well get off on it.” Renzo paused. “I guess you think that makes me a goddamn queer?” There was a hint of belligerence in his look and in his voice, now.

  “No. I don’t think anything of the kind.”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with being queer. Necessarily.”

  “Of course not.”

  “You’re kind of open-minded.”

  “I try to be. You know, maybe you should talk to somebody about this.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It might make you feel better.”

  “I feel just fine. And I’m talking about it to you.”

  “Well, I won’t say anything about it to anyone. Did you tell the priest? You know, when you confessed?”

  “Fuck, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, I didn’t think it was a sin. I didn’t have any choice in the matter, remember? And for another, I didn’t think it was any of his business. And for a third—what does a priest know about sex? Unless he’s that kind of a priest. The kind who’s screwing around with guys on the side, himself. You know—fucking around with the other guys at the seminary, playing musical beds at night. And then all the time inviting boys to come see him for a little private ‘counseling,’ one on one. That’s a laugh. One on top of one, is more like it.”

  I was shocked. This was the early Sixties, remember. In our community, priests were respected. The possibility that a priest could be homosexual was unthinkable to me. (The scandals involving members of the clergy who were accused of pedophilia came decades later.) But Renzo had spoken casually, as though he possessed some inside knowledge.

  Before I could say anything, a car horn honked, and Renzo strolled out of the garage. I watched him gas up the vehicle, clean its windshield, take the customer’s money and give him his change—the usual routine. But there was something different about it this time. For the first time, I was looking at Renzo, and responding to him, differently. I was thinking of him as a sexual being, as a man who might be my own age, but who had a lot more worldly experience than I did. Next to him, I felt like a dumb, naïve kid. Which—let’s face it—was what I still was, essentially.

  He glanced up, saw me standing back there inside the garage, and he smiled at me. As the car drove off with a squeal, leaving a patch of burned rubber in its wake, Renzo came back into the garage with his eyes fixed on me.

  “That guy was in a hurry. He must have a hot date waiting for him. It’s getting late,” he said. “That could be our last customer for the night. How about that drink?”

  “Sure.”

  He closed the garage doors behind him, and then he walked over to me. He had to pass close by me to reach the shelf and retrieve the bottle of whiskey he’s stashed there. He fetched two paper cups from the wall dispenser next to the water cooler, opened the bottle, and poured us each a generous drink.

  “Happy birthday,” I told him, as we touched our cups together. “And many happy returns.”

  “Thanks. Down the hatch.”

  We drank. I wasn’t used to hard liquor, let alone to drinking high proof whiskey neat. It seemed to burn my tongue and the inside of my mouth. But I forced myself to take another sip, and this one seemed to go down more easily. When our cups were empty, Renzo refilled them.

  “This can’t be much of a birthday celebration for you,” I said.

  “It’s fine. This is pretty good hooch, isn’t it? It ought to be, for the price. Come on, drink up. Enjoy it. And you’re—” His voice broke off.

  “I’m what?”

  “Nothing. I forgot what I was going to say.” He hesitated. “So tell me. Do you at least jerk off? I mean, you being a virgin, and all.”

  I could feel myself blushing again. “Of course I do.”

  “What do you think about while you’re doing it?”

  I knew that the correct, conventional answer would be something along the lines of, I think about women, of course … bimbos with big tits and hot wet pussies. I think about lying on top of them, fucking them. Making them squeal, and beg me for more. Making them come. But the truth was, I thought about other guys … their bodies, their muscles, their cocks.

  “I think about sex,” I said, evasively. “You know—having sex. I try to imagine what it feels like.”

  “Imagining—fantasizing—that’s okay. But take my word for it—it’s no substitute for the real thing.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t.”

  “I think about my cellmate and his big hard cock,” Renzo said. “In m
y mouth. In my ass. Fucking my face. Fucking my ass. Raping me. Pounding the hell out of my ass, until he comes. Until we both come.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sometimes, when I’m lying in bed at night, I almost wish he was there in the bed with me. Doing those dirty things to me all over again.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can’t you say anything except ‘oh’ and ‘yeah,’ for Christ’s sake?”

  “I don’t know what to say, Renzo.”

  “Say you understand,” he whispered, softly, coaxingly.

  “Of course I understand.”

  We fell silent again, and we went on drinking. I was definitely getting a buzz. Had a car pulled up to the pumps at that moment, and I’d staggered out to take care of it, the customer might have noticed I was impaired. Renzo seemed to hold his liquor a lot better than I did. Drinking was no doubt something else at which he was more experienced.

  “You want to know something?” he asked, in a deceptively casual tone of voice, before he took another swig from his cup.

  “What?”

  “The last time I jerked off, I thought about you.”

  I couldn’t answer him. I swallowed a mouthful of my own whiskey. Maybe it was the liquor, maybe it was the frank talk about sex the two of us had engaged in. Maybe it was my own suppressed feelings for Renzo. Or my secret, guilty feelings for men in general! But I was now aware that I was springing a hard-on. I could feel my penis stirring to life, the lump it formed growing larger inside the crotch of my torn and stained jeans.