by Zack
When Gil knocked on her door, Emmanuelle’s voice screeched back. “Fuck off, whoever you are.”
Gil hesitated, then knocked again more softly. “Please, Miss Lai, it’s Gil Graham. Mr. Mitchener sent me—”
“Tell that fucking creep I’m not ready yet. I’ll be out when I say so and not a pissing second earlier.”
“She says she’s not finished in make-up yet,” Gil told Mitchener, carefully paraphrasing her words.
Mitchener glowered at Gil and swore under his breath.
“Kid,” he said with heavy deliberation, “you want a job in the cutting rooms?”
“Uh, why, yes, I guess, sir.
“I just ask, because you show a definite talent for editing things.”
“I do? Thank you,” Gil broke off, puzzled.
A hint of a smile played at the corners of the director’s mouth. “It’s just that the way you say it makes the cow sound so polite.” He sighed. “Okay, I guess I’d better go myself. Get everything ready, Del,” he said to the first assistant director. “I’ll be back as soon as I can drag her outta there.”
For the rest of the day Gil was absorbed by the numerous fiddling tasks of his job. Kennith Mitchener was a good director, driving his team hard and getting a hell of a lot of screen time in the can every day. Consequently Gil had little time to himself. The scene they were shooting that afternoon was one where Emmanuelle, as the mistress of a Fascist colonel, encourages one of her lover’s staff-officers to rape a Jewish boy after he’s been captured in the hills. At first the man is reluctant but she cleverly plies him with drink, while arousing his interest by touching first him and then the cowering boy in all the right places, and finally promising herself to him if he’ll do what she wants. Eventually the officer begins to play about with the boy, stripping him, and taunting him with his swagger stick.
By this time Emmanuelle, who was supposed to be slightly tipsy in the film, was actually completely zonked and ruined one take by losing her balance and falling across the other two actors.
“Oh really this is too much,” exclaimed teen heart-throb Robert Wyeth, a husky late teenager more used to showing off his muscles in vampire movies, who was somewhat miscast as the cringing Jewish boy. To placate them, Mitchener had Emmanuelle seated, and rapidly fired off a succession of drunken looking close-ups which he could later cut into the action between the staff-officer and the boy. Then they removed the now discomposed and virtually inert actress to her dressing room where the two props men dumped her unceremoniously on the bed. Her secretary commenced gleefully hurling glasses of cold water in her face, an action which never did a thing for Emmanuelle but invariably restored the poor secretary to a semblance of good nature.
Back on set Gil paused for a moment in his scurryings to watch as the Italian officer was fucking the boy silly. They weren’t really doing it of course, and most of what was taking place was only being shot in big close-up. Still it got Gil into a damned horny state and he felt a stab of pain as his cock jacked up between his stomach and tight cut-offs and ran out of space for expansion. He slipped a hand into the pocket with some difficulty and stroked the head of his troublesome prick with his fingers. All eyes were on the brilliantly lit set, so no one saw him masturbating. At least, so he thought. After a minute he became aware of a presence standing beside and slightly behind him. He glanced around, startled, to see Mike, face shadowed, looking curiously at him.
“Gets to you even though it’s faked, doesn’t it?” Mike whispered in his ear. Gil didn’t answer and took his hand out quickly. Mike smiled coyly and flicked a downward glance. Gil followed the indication and was thrilled to see that his fellow runner was also sporting an obvious erection beneath his safari shorts. Shaking slightly, Gil looked back up into Mike’s come-to-bed eyes. Gil’s mouth was dry with anticipation. The message in those eyes was compelling.
“You are just a little bit gay, aren’t you?” Mike softly suggested.
A few feet behind from where the two boys were standing the stagehands had pushed some studio flats up against each other and the gap between them made a secluded little space. Mike turned casually and strolled into the dark place. Gil followed him, mesmerized by the desire in his friend’s eyes. Gil entered the cosy warm enclosure, where the distant susuration of noise from the studio sounded more like the sunny buzzing of a summer’s afternoon through the muffling panels than a busy film set at work.
For a moment the two boys stood close together, hardly touching, enjoying the closeness of their bodies. Then Mike put out a hand and ran it across Gil’s chest, feeling the young guy’s finely muscled body beneath the damp T-shirt. The hand lingered over Gil’s stiffening nipples, then trailed lightly on down till it reached the denims and the pulsating cock pressing against the rough fabric. Mike squeezed it. Gil returned the contact, hands eagerly feeling Mike’s body. “You work out, don’t you?” He breathed huskily.
“A bit,” Mike admitted. “You’re not in such bad shape either. I bet you go surfing, and parading up and down those Californian beaches, showing off to all the girls.”
“I used to,” Gil said ruefully. “Things seem to be changing a bit. I’m getting more and more interested in other guys now,” he admitted—as much to himself as to Mike. Gil was slowly enjoying the texture of Mike’s flat, hard stomach. He had slipped his hands up under the T-shirt and could feel the fine down of hair matted together with a light sheen of perspiration. Gil looked up dreamily and saw Mike’s eyes still on him, glinting brightly from the reflected studio lights outside. Mike lifted a hand up to Gil and smoothed some loose strands of blond hair from his forehead, and the boyish gesture filled Gil with a great sense of longing. So far, although Mike was gently fondling his cock and balls, Gil had saved that pleasure up, keeping his attention on the sharply defined musculature of Mike’s belly.
Mike pressed closer to him and Gil laid his head on Mike’s shoulder. Their embrace became more passionate and Gil began nibbling at Mike’s ear lobe, taking the silver stud between his teeth. “God, I thought you were beautiful when I first saw you in the foyer that day,” Mike whispered.
“What, when Jeff called you over?”
“Nah, long before that. I was watching you from the second you walked to the lift.”
“‘Elevator,’ you mean. You English,” Gil said, grinning with pleasure. “I didn’t think you noticed me at all. I saw you at dinner that first evening.” He shyly ran his fingers through the floppy tangle of dark hair behind Mike’s ears.
Mike sighed contentedly and turned his attention to fondling Gil’s ass, caressing the hard rounded buns and tickling the bare skin of his thighs below the frayed edge of the shorts. “I noticed you okay. I didn’t know whether you were gay or not. Most guys on this crew are, because it’s Rosen’s film, but you can never be sure. I’m glad you are.”
“I’m not, really. This is just a phase I’m going through.”
“Sez you,” Mike laughed, the sound muffled against Gil’s neck.
“It’s not me, that’s gay… Just my dick.”
Mike chuckled and raised Gil’s head. Their lips met and for minutes they explored the interiors of their mouths. Eventually Gil could bear it no longer and dropped a hand lower until it touched the waistband of Mike’s safari shorts. He indulged himself in the feel of the fine, close-grained texture of the khaki for a few seconds. Then brought his other hand into play without interrupting the kiss and unhooked the top of Mike’s shorts. Mike shook his head, “No need,” he mumbled through their inter-twined lips. “Feel lower.”
Gil let his hand run down over the bulging fly and when he reached the lower hem of the shorts he understood. Mike’s ramrod stiff dick stuck straight down from the bottom. At least five inches protruded, hot and sticky from tumescence. Gil fondled the circumcised head, rubbing its own moisture around it. Then he ease
d the strained cuffs up to get at more length and feel Mike’s balls. Mike possessed a cock about the same size as Gil’s but his balls were enormous and accounted for the bulk of the guy’s crotch in repose. Now, under Gil’s hands they were hard and tight, the loose skin of the sack stretched over their heavy weight.
“Mmm, God, I want to do you,” Mike murmured. “What do you like? Do you fuck?”
“I never have, not a guy anyway,” Gil admitted. “What do you like?”
“Anything.”
“I know what I want to do right now,” Gil whispered. “I want to know what your cock tastes like.” And with that he bent down and started flicking his tongue over the convexity of the shorts, holding himself back from actually touching Mike’s cock, letting his tongue tip get lower with each stroke until the roughness of material became the exquisite smoothness of skin. Spit ran onto his tongue making a lovely slippery passage down the heaving shaft of Mike’s cock until the lobed head slid into his mouth, tasting sweet and salty at the same time. Mike leaned back and the action released his cock finally from the shorts, which rose up over the finely haired root of his weapon. Gil got the whole mouthful.
After a second Mike made him stand up. “Not so fast, Gil. We want to enjoy this. My turn for a go on yours now.”
Just as he was about to go down on Gil there was a shout from the studio floor outside. Their little world was shattered. “Jeezus! Where are those punks! Gil! Mike! Where the shit are they?”
“Soddit!” Mike exclaimed. That’s Del, the first.”
He looked sadly at Gil. “Have to make it later, matey. Work calls.”
Gil shrugged. “Okay, buddy. There’s plenty of time. I still want to know what well-brought-up English cum tastes like.”
“Yeah, some other time. I’ll slip out first and find out what they want. See you around,” and he hesitated for a second, smiling, “Yankee balling buddy.”
As soon as he had gone Gil gave himself a few seconds to calm down the frustration and get rid of his erection before he too left the space between the flats. Then he returned to work, utterly unable to concentrate properly, but it was okay—take this there, give that to so-and-so, go make coffees. It didn’t take brains. An hour later he had a ten-minute break and, still raging inside with frustration, went and scouted about for the thin little Italian stagehand. It took him a minute or two to find the kid, two seconds for his eyes to get the message across, half a minute to find a suitably quiet spot, and five minutes to shoot his load off into the kid’s face.
“Sure, sure. I get you a present. Soon’s I get paid. Okay?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Shovel Ass, Boy!
In the following week the unit took off into the countryside of the Campania, south of the city, for a few days exterior location work. They were housed in a filthy little road house across the street from the better class hotel where the actors and senior technicians stayed. Its owner boasted that it was an original ancient Roman mansione, the kind of inn Roman military post couriers used, and one wit suggested they hadn’t changed the beds since. But Gil didn’t mind too much. The food wasn’t bad and it was good to be out in the sunshine again after three weeks in the cavernous studios. Gil’s natural tan had begun to fade a little and he took every opportunity to get some rays. By the time they were well into shooting again he didn’t have to bother as the merciless sun bore down on them every moment of the long days.
They were shooting two separate scenes during this time. One was a long and complicated sequence of events where the Fascists hunted down partisans in the hills, one of whom was the Jewish boy who had already been raped in film time (but not yet in the story). The other was an execution scene, where several men were tied up and sexually tortured before being machine-gunned to death. In these days Harry’s skill as a camera operator became evident as he dashed about at Mitchener’s orders, strapped into the complex mechanism which allowed him to hand-hold the amazingly light Panaflex camera, a smaller version of the big one they used back in the studio.
The work was so hard that Gil had little time or energy left to fret about Mike. They saw each other every day and often at night but both boys were so tired that nothing much happened. A large part of Gil’s responsibility involved holding onto Emmanuelle Lai’s whiskey glass for her between takes and topping up as necessary. This was a tricky task that required a degree of psychological awareness. On one hand, Kennith Mitchener decreed the exact fix of alcohol he felt would allow him to complete the next take, a procedure which was accomplished with arcane hand signals made hurriedly behind her back. On the other, he had to contend with the irate Ester Bunt, who was always at her most bitchy when emerging from Emmanuelle Lai pretending to be someone else, and whose first act (and this really wasn’t acting) was to grapple with Gil to get her glass back.
Generally, when it was early enough in the day for her to be relatively sober, she grappled with more than just the glass, giving Gil a good grope in the process. She obviously found this to be the most effective method of making him lose his grip on the drink. “Gimme that glass you fucking little faggot!” she hissed at him.
“Typical rotten luck to get stuck on the movie set with faggots and fairy fruits for a crew,” she yelled on another day. One morning, in a desperate attempt to get her out of the mobile dressing room and onto the location, Gil took her a cup of coffee for “breakfast” on Mitchener’s express orders. The resultant shouts could be heard on the other side of the hill where Jeff and Harry were setting up the first shot of the day. All the crew had to stifle their laughter. Gil was fairly booted out the door by an enraged Emmanuelle.
“What in the fuckin shitfuck is this?” she raged. “I said bourbon, not coffee, you little asshole queer cocksucker! If you don’ shovel some ass, boy, and gimme my drinkie but fast, you ain’ gonna have no asshole left to shit from!”
The French accent, Gil noticed, had slipped again.
When the first week’s location had been completed, Mitchener hired the local cinema to show the last few days’ dailies to the crew. This was a rare treat because he was one of those directors who normally refused the crew a sight of the film—with the exception of the senior cameramen and the editor, when she was around. So it was with something approaching a vacation spirit that Gil and Mike made their way across the dry dusty street of the poor village toward the cracked little building that boasted only ancient posters for incomprehensible films as an indication of its function. When they got nearer Gil recognized that the posters were advertising Clint Eastwood in some Spaghetti Western. Titles such as Per un pugno di dollari featured the Man With No Name peering out enigmatically from under his broad brimmed hat, a poncho thrown across his shoulders, gun drawn, cheroot between his lips. Unfortunately some Italian kid had appended an enormous penis in felt tip, a grotesque parody of the fire-spitting Colt 45.
As the two boys entered the cinema several Italian youths, who were leaning against the building’s wall jeered at them, making obscene gestures with their hands. Gil stopped and looked at them, and one stepped forward, grinning all over his face. He made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, into which he pushed the forefinger of his other hand in an unmistakeable gesture. “Nice sister ’roun’ back,” he said. “You like nice sister, no?”
Gil laughed. Mike took his arm and pulled him toward the theater door. “Come on, Gil, don’t mess with them.”
The Italian boy mimed great disappointment. “No sister? Like brother?” And he made an exaggerated jacking off motion in front of his tattered jeans. The other boys set up further derisive shouts as Gil followed Mike into the darkened interior.
“Might be fun at that,” Gil murmured.
“You’re joking. They’ve all got the pox, these dumb farmboys.” He turned and punched Gil playfully in the ribs as they passed through the foyer door, “Never m
ind, ballin buddy, maybe we can grab a couple-a seats at the back of the stalls and grope each other.”
Gil grinned at his friend. “Doncha ever think of anything but sex?”
“Do you?”
But they were to be disappointed. Most of the crew were already seated when they got in and there were no double seats left anywhere in the tiny auditorium. Gil ended up sitting next to Del, the sour first assistant director, and Mike beside his other English mates from the sound team.
When the showing was over everyone was invited back to the village’s one good hotel for drinks on Mitchener. The director was pleased with the stuff they had already done and the movie was on budget and schedule. For no particular reason, other than it was a rest day tomorrow and he would be free of Emmanuelle for a whole twenty-four hours, Gil felt strangely elated, thrilled to be in Italy and not at home, and obscurely pleased with himself for accomplishing that. He had never been much of a drinker and was pretty incautious with the strong Italian red wine that flowed freely. Mike too, he saw, was beginning to look flushed, the smooth cheeks blushing under the sheen of sweat. Mike’s ebullient good nature was being given fuel by the wine and his jokes were getting raunchier by the minute.
Gil stumbled over to the table where the bottles stood and poured himself another good glass of Chianti, knocking most of it back immediately before refilling it.
“Hey, go easy on that stuff.”
Gil lurched around happily. “Hiyah, Jeff. Want some?”
“Depends what you’re offering. Have you been avoiding me recently by any chance?”
“Oh no, Jeff. Just bin so busy.” Gil fell against Jeff affectionately.
“And hanging around Mike Smith too. I’d better warn you in case you feel like getting anything serious going there. That boy belongs lock stock and barrel to the Big Man, and I’m not talking about Mitchener.