Sword and Sandal

by Roland Graeme

  The story of how I met Eric deserves a chapter all to itself. As I’ve suggested, Eric and I became very good friends; and, like Renzo, he turned out to be a major influence in my life—although not quite in the way I might have anticipated.

  There’s a saying to the effect that when one door closes, another one opens. I suppose that we gay men could adopt that saying, modifying it somewhat. For us, when one man departs from our (sex) life, another man enters it. (Usually through the wide open bedroom door!)

  Unexpectedly, I found myself on my own, without a regular fuck buddy.

  Renzo’s father had purchased a garage in a small town in upstate New York, on the Hudson River, and he wanted Renzo to go and work there. Renzo would be promoted to “assistant manager.” He’d have to live there, of course, and his Dad had already found him a rented room.

  Renzo really didn’t have much choice in the matter. He had a fatalistic streak in him, and he went along with the arrangement.

  “It’ll mean a bigger paycheck for me,” he told me. “I should be able to save up some money. Then I can do whatever the hell I please. Starting with telling my old man to take his job and shove it.”

  “In the meantime, though, I won’t be able to see you,” I complained.

  “You still got the hots for me, huh?”

  That was putting it mildly. I was like an addict who, having gotten used to his regular fixes, now faced the prospect of going cold turkey.

  “Of course, Renzo. But it isn’t just the sex, you know,” I protested. “We’re friends.”

  “Sure we are, and we always will be. And, shit! It’s not as though I’m moving to the far side of the moon. I can come visit you—and you can come visit me. We’ll still be able to pound the mattress together.”

  “Right,” I agreed. But, inwardly, I already suspected that things wouldn’t ever be the same between us. I was losing my first lover, and that hurt.

  “And there’s always the post office box,” he reminded me, in a mocking tone of voice. “With me gone, all of those horny dudes who write in every week, looking for sex, will just have to settle for second best.”

  “Oh, you’re a real comedian. Hilarious. You ought to be doing stand-up in Atlantic City.”

  Renzo was good at concealing his feelings. He didn’t seem all that broken up by the prospect of our separation. But we arranged to sleep together, the night before his departure. As usual, there was plenty of erotic roughhousing. Along with it, though, came some unexpected tenderness. Renzo kept wanting to kiss me, and I certainly did nothing to discourage him. Neither of us got much sleep that night.

  After Renzo left, I told myself that of course I’d be faithful to him. I’d be celibate, until such time as we were reunited. I’d save myself for him. I’d read the letters that came in to the post office box in response to our ad, just out of curiosity; but I wouldn’t answer any of them.

  This resolution of mine lasted for approximately a month. During that time, I reacquainted myself with the fine art of masturbation. My self-abuse sessions were fueled by some remarkably lurid fantasies, in which I not only relived everything Renzo and I had done together—I invented additional debaucheries, which the two of us hadn’t gotten around to.

  After that first month, though, predictably enough, I got tired of jerking off, alone in my bed at night. I started whoring around. When Tony phoned me, I didn’t put him off. I agreed to drive to the town near Philadelphia where he lived, and spend the weekend with him. He had a little studio apartment, nothing fancy. But it was equipped with a bed, which was the only piece of furniture I was interested in.

  I was still living at home, in my parents’ house, and working at the garage. But now I found myself getting increasingly restless—and dissatisfied with small-town living. Thanks to Renzo, Tony, and the other men with whom I’d been intimate, my sexual horizons had been expanded, quite dramatically. I was now aware of the existence of a whole other world out there, waiting for me to explore it.

  Even before I’d met Renzo, I’d begun competing in amateur physique contests. I did well, winning a few titles. And, even when I didn’t win or place, I gained valuable experience. At first, I’m sure I didn’t have the most effective presentation onstage. Soon, though, I developed more self-confidence, and my posing routines became more effective.

  Now, with Renzo gone, I turned to my weight training more than ever, in search of distraction and fulfillment. I really pushed myself. I made some visible gains, which of course pleased me. But the hours I spent at the gym, although they exhausted me physically, did nothing to reduce my raging sex drive. And, although I probably didn’t realize it at the time, I was emotionally vulnerable. I was ready to get involved with another man.

  To compete even on the amateur circuit, you had to be prepared to travel. I always tried to do so as inexpensively as possible.

  One weekend, about six weeks after Renzo’s departure, I went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a physique contest. As usual, I traveled light. I had with me a change of clothes, my posing trunks, my round-trip train ticket, and enough money to pay for a cheap hotel room and a couple of meals—and that was about it.

  I went to the auditorium, where an excited crowd of muscle enthusiasts was already gathering. Backstage, I checked in, and I got ready to go on. I changed into my trunks, oiled myself up, and I started to pump up with the assortment of weights that the organizers of the competition had provided.

  I sized up the competition in my weight class, and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to win. I told myself that I’d be happy if I took second or third place—and then I’d have to go home and start working out even harder, if I hoped to compete successfully against some of these guys.

  Since I was there alone, I asked one of the other competitors, whom I befriended, to help me by oiling up my back, i.e., the parts I couldn’t reach. I returned the favor, oiling up his back. Touching another guy and being touched by him, even in such an acceptably macho way, reminded me of what I’d been missing. I began seeing my fellow competitors in a different light—as potential sex partners. I wondered if I’d be risking a punch in the mouth if I made a pass at one of them.

  These lewd thoughts of mine had one positive effect. They kept me from developing stage fright. I went out in front of the audience and did my thing, and I actually enjoyed myself. Maybe the fact that I wasn’t nervous, and that I’d stopped second-guessing myself, had a positive impact on my presentation.

  I was stunned when I did win first place in my class.

  One of my idols, Eric Streiff, was also competing that evening. He won in his class, and he also captured the overall title. The best part of the evening—or so I thought at the moment—took place at the end of the competition, when I received my trophy, and I got to stand beside Eric onstage, to be congratulated by him, to pose for photos, and to receive the acclaim of the audience.

  Now, you have to remember that Eric Streiff was already one of the biggest names in bodybuilding at that time. He was one of the prize studs associated with a well-known west coast gym, which sponsored him. Just being up there on the same stage with him was an honor, and a thrill.

  Backstage, I summoned my courage, and I decided to approach Eric and congratulate him. I desperately wanted to say only the right things to him, and not annoy him. As things turned out, I had a second pleasant surprise in store for me. He was the one who approached me. He was very friendly and laid-back. Just a regular guy, with no attitude whatsoever. At first I’m sure I came across as just another star-struck muscle groupie; but once my tongue loosened, I managed to keep up my end of our conversation.

  We were talking in the locker room, which was filled with other naked and half-dressed bodybuilders, some of whom were visibly disappointed by the results of the competition. All these guys wanted to do was get changed and get the hell out of there, so they could either sulk in private, or complain about the unfairness of the judging to their friends and anyone else who would listen.
But Eric didn’t seem to be in any big hurry, and I had eyes only for him. We stripped out of our posing trunks, grabbed towels, and we hit the showers together.

  I’d had to pay an entrance fee, just to participate in the contest. But, even if I hadn’t won anything, the fee would’ve been money well spent. I’d have gladly paid that amount, or more, for the privilege I was now enjoying—namely, of seeing Eric Streiff in the flesh, close up and totally naked.

  He had the most extraordinary physique I had ever seen. His photos, impressive though they were, didn’t begin to do him justice!

  He was a huge man, but so well-proportioned that his physique looked sleek, symmetrical, and agile—it was, quintessentially, an athlete’s body, primed for action on stage or off, in bed or out. His enormous shoulders and his massive chest, with its twin mounds of pectoral muscles, narrowed to a small waist and narrow hips. Even his hands and his feet looked as though they were packed with corded muscle. As for body fat—to my chagrin, the son of a bitch didn’t seem to have any. He was the epitome of what he bodybuilders meant by the term “ripped.” I felt thick and blocky compared to him.

  At the time, back in the Sixties (and for some time afterward, in fact), blue-eyed, blond California surfer types were the American bodybuilding ideal. But Eric was naturally dark-complexioned, like me, with long thick black hair. We had an advantage in that the dark tans which bodybuilders were expected to acquire looked more natural on us than they did on some of the fair-haired boys. Eric was deeply tanned all over except for the brief pale strip around his crotch and ass where he’d worn an indecently skimpy bathing suit. As most bodybuilders still do on a regular basis, he had shaved off all of his body hair, except for the dark bushy curls around his cock and balls. That hair could be retained, because onstage it was covered up by a pair of posing trunks.

  His genitals were in proportion to the rest of him. I tried not to stare, because I knew it’d be rude. But I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from his package. After all, it was the only part of him that was unfamiliar to me, because it didn’t get photographed regularly for the magazines! His balls dangled low in their black-furred pouch. The long thick hose of his uncircumcised cock stood out at half-mast from his groin. As though it was well aware it was being scrutinized, it seemed to stiffen perceptibly under my intent gaze. It had to be a good nine or ten inches long, and it looked even larger, as any guy’s dick does when it’s attached to a shaved torso and a pair of hairless thighs.

  If Eric noticed my blatant interest in his dick—and it would’ve been hard for him to miss—he wasn’t offended by it. He was probably used to having other guys check him out. Maybe he even enjoyed it. He only smiled as he slowly and languidly lathered soap all over himself and stepped under the shower head beside mine. He towered over me, making me feel like David confronting Goliath.

  “How’re you doing, big guy?” he asked me. “Now that the excitement’s started to wear off, I mean?”

  “I feel fine.”

  “Christ, this hot water feels good! It’s very relaxing. Being up there on the stage and doing all that flexing—it always gets me tense. Kind of excited, with my muscles knotted up, afterward. It takes me a while to unwind. How about you?”

  “I get nervous,” I admitted. “Even when I think it’s going well, I can feel my pulse pounding. It must have something to do with the adrenaline, pumping through our veins. Tonight wasn’t so bad, though.”

  “Posing in front of the judges and an audience always gives me a fucking hard-on,” he confided. “You, too?”

  “Sometimes.” I was both embarrassed and excited by the turn our conversation had taken. “It’s so embarrassing, when that happens. I try to think about something else. And I pray that my goddamn dick goes soft, again.”

  “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I’ve sprung my share of boners onstage. Of course, some of the judges like to see that,” Eric said, slyly. “It turns them on. They start fantasizing about what it might be like to make out with you. Hey, has any of them ever come on to you?”

  “No.” In my innocence, I was shocked by the mere suggestion.

  “Really? I find that kind of hard to believe. A good-looking guy like you? You’re just the type some of those horny motherfuckers go for. Well, just you wait. It’ll happen, sooner or later.” Something about the way Eric said that implied that he didn’t think being hit on by a judge was necessarily a bad thing. “You looked especially good up there tonight,” he added.

  I blushed—all over—at this unexpected compliment. “Thanks, Eric,” I said.

  “By the way, have you eaten yet tonight?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  I admitted to him that I’d been too nervous to eat anything before the contest.

  “Me, either,” Eric said, with a laugh. “And now, of course, I am absolutely fucking starved. You want to go someplace and strap on the feed bag?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re a wop, aren’t you?” Eric asked me, bluntly. “Do you like wop food?”

  In those days, you must realize, people weren’t as concerned as they are today about being Politically Correct in their speech. They thought nothing about uttering ethnic slurs in the course of casual conversation. The corollary was that I didn’t necessarily take offense at such talk.

  “I was reared on Italian food,” I admitted.

  “I’ve heard about an Italian place near here that’s supposed to be good. We can chow down together, if you want, and that’ll give us a chance to talk some more.”

  I jumped at the chance.

  I was a little surprised that Eric, like me, was traveling alone. I’d rather naïvely assumed that a bodybuilder on his level always went about with an entourage in tow.

  Even though neither of us had been in Pittsburgh before, Eric had done his homework and he had heard about a popular mom-and-pop restaurant that served good food at a reasonable price. The place lived up to its reputation. It was typically, indeed stereotypically, Italian—red and white checked tablecloths on the tables; candles stuck into the necks of empty Chianti bottles; framed Italian travel posters adorning the walls; Italian opera standards being played over the sound system.

  We ordered a bottle of cheap red wine, salads, and meat and cheese ravioli, with sweet Italian sausage served on the side—with everything smothered in a thick, spicy tomato sauce. With the pressure of the contest now behind us, we abandoned our stringent diets for the time being and we pigged out shamelessly. We even indulged in cannoli for dessert. Between mouthfuls, we talked. Eric continued to answer my questions about his training, and to give me advice.

  I didn’t realize it at the time, but this set the pattern for our subsequent relationship. He and I were exactly the same age, but he became a combination of a big brother and a mentor to me, letting me benefit from his experiences.

  Eric insisted on picking up the check. He even refused to let me contribute the tip.

  “I’m the star who’s being paid the big bucks,” he told me, self-deprecatingly. “Yeah, in my dreams! You’re the newcomer who’s just starting out. Let me at least pretend I’m the big man, who’s in a position to be generous. It’ll give my ego a much-needed stroke.”

  When Eric invited me to go back to his hotel room with him after dinner, I thought he was just still being kind to a novice competitor. We’d been drinking that cheap red wine during dinner to celebrate our victories, and if I wasn’t exactly drunk when we got to the hotel, I was definitely getting there. It seemed perfectly logical when Eric suggested that we both strip down naked so that we could compare our muscles and work on some poses together.

  There was a large mirror on the wall opposite the bed, so at first I sat down on the edge of the mattress, nude, and I had Eric stand in front of me with his back to the mirror. In this way, I could see both a front and a back view of him at the same time as he posed for me—also in the nude.

  I’d been naked or half-naked around other guys so often, in the gym or i
n the locker room, and onstage and backstage at physique contents, that I wasn’t at all self-conscious. But being sequestered with another naked bodybuilder one-on-one, behind closed doors, was a little different. There was an undeniable erotic charge to the situation. I was no virgin, after all. I’d had lots of sex, with Renzo, Tony, and a succession of other men. I knew what two—or three!—guys could do, in the privacy of a bedroom.

  Still, the idea of having sex with Eric seemed unthinkable. I assumed he was straight, and had chicks lined up, begging him to bang them. Furthermore, to me he wasn’t a mere mortal man, with an ordinary young guy’s lusts and shortcomings. He was a god, a divinity of muscle, whom I was prepared to worship.

  “You’re a nice-looking dude,” he told me, when we were both naked.

  “Thanks. So are you,” I replied, humbly.

  “You’ve got a pretty face. The kind that’s photogenic. That’s an asset.”

  “You’re embarrassing me, Eric,” I protested.

  “Am I?” He smiled. “You’ll get over it,” he predicted. “Now, do you want to see my muscles?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Tell me what you’d like to see,” he invited me, in a soft, coaxing tone of voice.

  I urged Eric on, calling out the names of the various poses and watching as Eric hit them. Double biceps, traps, lats, chest pose, most muscular … one by one, I put him through his entire repertory. I was sure that Eric was getting off on exhibiting himself in front of me like that. I was sure he could feel my eyes devouring his naked body, admiring it, envying it. My cock began to harden. Eric’s cock began to harden. For a few minutes we played a game of mutual denial, pretending that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. We mutely agreed to ignore the steady upward rise jutting out from both of our groins.