Sword and Sandal

by Roland Graeme

  Sometimes, our lovemaking began with a lot of foreplay, including deep kissing. We’d get each other hot, until we gradually threw off all restraint and things got athletic, and even rough. On other occasions, it would be the exact opposite. We’d start out down and dirty, absolutely frantic to reach our climaxes, and then, after our shared ejaculations, we’d relax in bed together, kissing and cuddling. It was never boring.

  My parents didn’t approve of my friendship with Renzo.

  “I’m afraid that Perotti boy is going to be a bad influence on you,” my father said.

  “I don’t see how,” I replied, lying through my teeth. “We work together. We’re earning money. We work out together, which is healthy. Neither of us has the time for anything else.”

  My Dad was skeptical. “Are you sure the two of you aren’t running around chasing women? You know what I’m talking about, son—the kind of girls you’d be ashamed to bring home to meet your mother and me.”

  “I promise you, Dad, Renzo and I are definitely not spending our time chasing women.” This, at least, was no lie. Renzo and I were too busy having sex with each other!

  “And this interest you two have, in pumping iron, or whatever you call it,” my Dad went on. “I’m not so sure it’s altogether natural.”

  “It isn’t natural,” I told him. “Most guys don’t have the motivation, or the discipline, for it. Bodybuilders are exceptional,” I insisted, proudly.

  My father grunted. “Exceptionally interested in their bodies, you mean.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “It seems narcissistic.”

  “It’s a sport,” I protested. “It’s healthy!”

  “Well … just don’t you let that boy Renzo lead you astray.”

  “He won’t,” I promised. But I suspected that Renzo had already done just that. And, far from being embarrassed, I exulted in the fact.

  Renzo did lead me astray, in a sense. It wasn’t bad enough that he and I were having sex with each other, every chance we had. He expanded my concept of sex to include the possibility, indeed the desirability, of having other partners. In short, Renzo soon introduced me to the pleasures of three-way sex.

  In those days, long before the Internet or Grindr, gay men had limited options, when it came to hooking up with one another. For example, there must have been at least one gay bar in nearby Newark, at the time. But if such an establishment existed, it operated so discreetly that neither Renzo nor I knew about it. After all, we didn’t have a very large circle of other gay men with whom we could talk about such things.

  One resource, interestingly enough, was the bodybuilding magazines. You could place a classified advertisement in the back pages of one or more of these magazines, saying that you were interested in “corresponding with” other physique enthusiasts. They’d reply, to your post office box. If the two of you seemed compatible, you’d arrange—still by mail—to get together for a face to face meeting, after which, with any luck, you’d fuck. It was all extremely discreet.

  It was Renzo’s idea, of course, to monitor these advertisements, and to respond to the ones placed by guys who lived in our area and who sounded promising.

  We hooked up with a number of hot guys by this means.

  At first, I was a bit shocked by the whole notion of three-way sex. But Renzo had no difficulty persuading me to experiment.

  “If having one guy in bed with you is hot,” he argued, with typical, irrefutable Renzo logic, “then having two guys in bed with you at once is twice as hot. You’ll see.”

  Chapter Three: A Lube Job

  As bold as we were in some ways, Renzo and I were still products of our time and place.

  There was a stigma about homosexuality. In fact, at the time, “sodomy” was still a felony, in every single state. New Jersey (and nearby New York) were no exceptions. Theoretically, Renzo and I could have been arrested and hauled before a judge, for what we were doing.

  That possibility didn’t stop us, but it did make us cautious.

  When we decided to place our own personal ad in one of the bodybuilding magazines, we tested the waters gingerly. First, we pooled our money and obtained that all-important necessity to ensure privacy and anonymity, a post office box. Each of us had his own key.

  We fussed about the wording of our ad, and we finally came up with something which, in retrospect, seems not only incongruously formal, but discreet to the point of banality.

  Two BBs, 20s, heavy lifters, Newark area, seek other BBs for correspondence about all aspects of weight training and physique culture, possibly leading to get-togethers for intense workouts.

  It sounded innocent and wholesome enough on the surface. But the references to “all aspects of … physical culture,” and “intense workouts,” were code words for we’re a couple of horny guys who are looking for sex partners.

  We received numerous replies, ranging in tone from tentative to sexually explicit. Imagine putting your most lurid erotic fantasies down on paper, and sharing them with a complete stranger! But that’s exactly what some of these men did.

  If a guy seemed promising, we’d write back to him; or, if he gave us his phone number, we’d give him a call and chat him up, feeling him out. In this way, we narrowed down the prospects, eliminating the boring and the weird (and the heterosexuals, since a few unsuspecting straight bodybuilders actually did respond to our ad).

  We needed some neutral ground, where we could meet these guys and check them out, before we committed ourselves to sex. (And, in all fairness, we knew that they’d want to see us in person, too, before they agreed to drop their pants.)

  Renzo had a bright idea. There was no point in possibly wasting our time by naming some bar or coffee shop as a meeting place. We might end up loitering there, waiting for some guy who’d never show up.

  All we had to do, when a guy expressed an interest in meeting us, was tell him the location of the garage, and when we’d be working. He could drive by and check us out. If he didn’t like what he saw, he could always keep right on driving, without even pulling in to fill his tank. And if he did pull in and strike up a conversation, identifying himself as our correspondent, then we always had the option of pointing out that we were at work—which was true.

  If we did like the guy, though, and he was hot to trot, then Renzo and I would tag team, so to speak. One of us would act as a lookout, staying out front, keeping an eye on the pumps, and taking care of any customers who showed up. Meanwhile, the other member of our dynamic duo would entertain our guest in the back of the garage, or in the rest room. And then, if the guy liked both of us—which they usually did—we’d switch.

  There were times, late at night, when business was slow, when we’d risk a real threesome, going at it hot and heavy right there inside the garage. Among other things, I learned the concept of “sandwiching.” That meant that one lucky guy bent over and took a cock up his ass and in his mouth at the same time, servicing two men at once. It was an efficient way for three guys to get off together.

  One of our more memorable conquests was a dude named Tony. (We later learned that this was short for Antonio. The guy thought that identifying himself as Italian-American might turn off some men!)

  Tony lived in a small town near Philadelphia, a short drive from us. The three of us became pen pals, and in the course of our correspondence we exchanged Polaroids.

  For the benefit of you youngsters who are reading this, I had better explain that the Polaroid “instant camera,” with its “self-developing film,” was the direct ancestor of today’s high tech cellphone selfie image. You could snap all the racy pictures you chose to, see the (unique) prints emerge from the camera within a few seconds, and discard those which weren’t satisfactory. Being able to skip having the film “developed” in the traditional way simply revolutionized the whole amateur nude and sexually explicit photography business.

  Renzo and I enclosed in our note Polaroids which showed us stripped to the waist an
d flexing, and Tony responded in kind. He had a nicely chiseled torso, with big biceps and pecs, and a reasonably handsome face with a big (broken) nose and a head of dark, curly hair.

  What a pair of fucking bodies, he wrote to us, acknowledging receipt of our letter with our pictures. You must be a couple of real studs. I want to suck your dicks and take them up my ass. I’ll do anything you guys want. When can we get together?

  Well, this sure sounded promising! We talked to Tony on the phone, taking turns with the receiver. He had a nice, masculine-sounding voice—without, as the unapologetically Politically Incorrect Renzo remarked to me, afterward, that “whiny fag tone” which was so typical of “screaming queers” who just wanted to “go down on some muscle man dick, and beat off while they do it.” Tony was interested in the three of us getting together, all right. He was hot for it. He was prepared to be the meat in our sandwich.

  But, to our amusement, Tony also insisted that, of course, he was definitely not gay. Oh, no. Far from it. He only liked to “fool around” with guys and have “hot sex” with them “to experiment,” and because he had “a really strong sex drive,” which most women couldn’t handle, because they just didn’t understand his “real needs.” (Man! If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that spiel over the years, I’d have been able to retire long ago!) He was worried that Renzo and I might expect some sort of a commitment from him.

  I didn’t know what form such a commitment might take. Three matching engagement rings, maybe?

  Anyway, we assured Tony that we, too, were only interested in sex. We weren’t looking for true love. Just for sordid, temporary physical satisfaction. In fact, the dirtier and the more transitory, the better.

  “Find ‘em, suck ‘em, fuck ‘em, and forget ‘em,” was how Renzo put, over the phone to Tony. “That’s all Gino and I are interested in. No last names. No bullshit. Just sex, buddy—sex, pure and simple.”

  This, as it turned out, was the right answer. Tony was eager to meet up with us, and he was willing to make the drive to come to our turf.

  We gave Tony the address of the garage, along with our work schedule.

  “Drive by some night,” was how we left it. “We’ll fill your tank, clean your windshield, and check your oil. And then, if you want, we’ll give you a good lube job, too. You can spend the night at our place, if you want.” By our place, we meant, of course, Renzo’s basement apartment.

  “I’ll think about it,” Tony promised, with that ambivalence which I’d already learned was typical of young guys who weren’t yet out of the closet. “I’ll sleep on it.”

  “Yeah, you do that, stud,” Renzo told him, cynically. “And while you’re sleeping on it, you have yourself a nice hot wet dream about my buddy Gino and me. But don’t shoot off all your cum, in bed at night, all by yourself. Save some of that sperm for us!”

  Tony said he might show up on the next Thursday night. And, helpfully, he told us that he drove a Buick.

  We left it at that.

  Thursday night, or rather early Friday morning, was just about the deadest of the graveyard shifts. Everybody was saving up his energy for the end of the work week, and the start of the weekend.

  It was a hot, humid summer night. As we often did, Renzo and I took off our shirts, and we worked stripped to the waist. Maybe it wasn’t the classiest way to conduct business, but none of the customers who patronized the garage during the graveyard shift ever complained. In fact, some of the male customers were downright appreciative!

  “Think he’ll show up?” Renzo asked me. I knew to whom he was referring.

  “Probably not. He looks good in his photo, and he sounded all right over the phone. But something tells me he’s the ‘all talk and no action’ type. And,” I added, “It’s hard to believe he can’t get laid in Philly. So why would he bother to drive all the way here?”

  “Because we’re not in Philly,” Renzo suggested. As always, there was nothing wrong with his self-esteem. “Oh, the dude wants us, all right. I could tell.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Want to bet on it? Five bucks says he shows up, and he ends up doing both of us.”

  “You’re on.”

  I lost that five bucks, damn it! Although I have to admit it was worth it. Talk about money well spent!

  About an hour later, Renzo told me wanted to stretch his legs. He went outside and wandered back and forth in front of the pumps. After a few minutes, he returned.

  “Okay, this good-looking young guy in an old Buick, who looks like he could be your cousin, or mine—he’d driven around the block, slowly, twice,” Renzo reported. “I couldn’t quite make out his face, because he was so far away, and he’s got this frigging baseball cap on, with the brim pulled down over his eyes. But it must be Tony. I wish he’d make up his mind, and pull in. I can’t wait to collect that five bucks.”

  “Maybe he’s the shy type,” I theorized. “Or maybe you’re just too goddamn ugly in person, and you’re scaring him off. In which case, you lose the bet.”

  “Very funny,” Renzo retorted. “No, he likes what he sees, all right. He’s hooked. It’s just a question of reeling him in. Come on, Gino. You go out there and stand by the pumps. Pretend to be doing something useful. Then, when he drives past again, let him see the merchandise. Flex your arms and your pecs for him, just a little. Try to be subtle about it, for Christ’s sake. And make eye contact with the horny son of a bitch. Smile at him, show him your pearly whites.”

  “You’ve missed your calling,” I grumbled. “You should’ve been a pimp! A gay pimp!”

  “Yeah, just like you were born to be a man whore. So start acting like one!”

  If the five dollars had meant all that much to me, I might’ve done whatever I could to discourage Tony. But I had to admit it—I was horny, and curious.

  Shirtless, I took up a position beside one of the pumps. I picked up a dirty rag, which I used to rub the gleaming metal housing of the pump, as though I was polishing it. I felt like an idiot. But I must’ve looked seductive enough; because this time, when the Buick turned the corner and passed in front of the garage in low gear, the driver stared at me, quite openly and unashamedly. Under the low brim of the cap, I was sure I recognized the guy who’d sent us his picture.

  He was good-looking. I returned his steady gaze; and, as Renzo had instructed me, I smiled, in the most disarming, inviting way I could muster.

  He pulled in, beside the pump I’d been rubbing. I approached the rolled-down window on the driver’s side of the car. As I did so, he pushed the cap back from his forehead. It was our pen pal Tony, all right. He looked a little nervous.

  “Which one are you?” he asked. “Renzo, or Gino?”

  It wasn’t until he made the inquiry that I realized we’d neglected to label the Polaroids with our names.

  “I’m Gino. That’s Renzo, posing for your benefit over there in the doorway. I assume you’re Tony?”

  “Yeah. Fuck! Look at the two of you. I hoped you’d be built, but I didn’t expect anything like this. Those pictures didn’t do you justice. You guys are hot.”

  “Thanks. So are you.”

  “I figured, from your names, that you’d be a couple of guidos,” Tony said, bluntly. “So am I.”

  “What’d you expect, here in this part of Jersey?”

  Tony chuckled. “I should’ve known,” he admitted.

  Renzo now came forward. “So here we are,” he said. “Three nice Italian-American Catholic boys, who like to fuck. Want to get started?”

  “Sure,” Tony was quick to answer.

  “Why don’t you take Tony into the back, Gino, and show him a good time? I’ll keep watch.”

  Tony hesitated. “It’s just the three of us here, isn’t it?”

  “We didn’t sell tickets,” Renzo retorted. “It’s safe, if that’s what you’re worried about. Gino and I fool around with guys here all the time. We don’t call it a full service station for nothing.”

  All the time
was a slight exaggeration; but the claim seems to resolve Tony’s doubts. He got out of his car, and I led him inside the garage.

  Once the two of us were alone, Tony lost his shyness. He shed his baseball cap and his shirt. We embraced, pressing our bare chests together and running our hands over each other’s bare shoulders and backs. We kissed, swapping spit and sucking on each other’s tongues. We rubbed our crotches together.

  It wasn’t long before we both unzipped and whipped out our dicks.

  “You want it sucked?” I asked him.

  “Hell, yeah,” he gasped.

  “Give me that meat.”

  I got down on my knees. I yanked his pants and shorts down to his knees. He’d worn freshly laundered underwear to this rendezvous, and he’d also showered, because his crotch smelled distinctly of scented soap. I suppose Renzo and I should have been flattered.

  But I wouldn’t have cared if Tony had been dirty, sweaty, and raunchy. I was in the mood to do some hot, prolonged cocksucking. If our fellow guido wanted to have his dick serviced, then he’d certainly come to the right place—a full service station, exactly as Renzo had described it!

  Our new acquaintance had an uncut cock knob, and I wrapped my fingers possessively around it, massaging the bulky column of flesh. I eased the foreskin away from the head. A drop of pre-cum was already emerging from his pouting piss slit and sliding down his glans, like syrup. I cupped his balls in my hand and squeezed them while I placed my lips around his cockhead. Moaning, I fed about half of his shaft into my mouth. It felt so good that I couldn’t deny myself the rest. Fighting to suppress my gag reflex, I pushed my lips the rest of the way down on him, until his public hair brushed my lips and the head of his erection jabbed down into my carefully cleared throat.

  “Oh, Mother of God,” Tony moaned. “Holy Madonna! You really know how to suck a cock!”

  Yeah, I was tempted to retort. It’s a goddamn miracle! But I had my mouth full.