Keeping Up Appearances

A gay story: Keeping Up Appearances Luciano–Luc–Rosen stood up in the pool of the Hermosa Avenue house on the ocean at Manhattan Beach, south of Los Angeles, and cast an eye at Grant Gould, the owner of the house and currently the owner of Luc as well. Grant, stretched out on a lounge bed, whiskey glass in one hand and cock in the other, was looking back at Luc. The young man was naked, and, at twenty-three, in prime form despite his circumstance. Gould, at forty-eight, was at the height of his movie box-office worth as an action thriller leading actor, who, because of his age and his sinking into the whiskey bottles, was looking down the slope from that peak. He had a large following now, but that dam is going to burst in about ten minutes, and he fully realized that.

Gould was facing the downslide, especially if he couldn’t pull away from the drink. But Luc was in no better a position. At twenty-three, he already was on the downslide, having lost two high-profile careers and being at the nadir of being a kept man, when he was lucky, and nothing more than a male escort when he wasn’t lucky. And, although he was a luscious piece of manflesh–perfectly proportioned, Mediterranean-style sultry hunk now, looks were fleeting, and Luc was feeling weary.

Beautiful and charismatic son of an Italian father and B-movie American actress, Luc had already had and aged out of a career as a TV situation comedy series and gone on to a brief star flash as the male partner of a figure-skating ice dance duo that took bronze at the U.S. nationals one year and was followed in competitions on TV for two years. That’s as far as that went, though. He’d been with Grant Gould now, hiding out at the actor’s ocean-front Hermosa Avenue house for two months, experimenting with being his partner and working at saving Gould from the bottle. Gould had picked him up at a Hollywood party where Luc, with a male escort service then, had been brought in as eye candy and bedroom entertainment. If this didn’t work with Gould, it would be back to the escort service and looking for some way to get back into the movie world.

Gould was still a hunk in Luc’s mind and eye even if the drink was pulling him downhill. Both men were strikingly fit and handsome, models of sensuality at their more than twenty years age gap. They had no compulsion about being naked in the atrium patio area of the house, which nearly covered the forty-five-foot wide and hundred-foot-deep lot. A two-car garage with two bedrooms and a bath faced the street, with an eight-foot corridor running back across the atrium dominated by the swimming pool with the living-dining-kitchen section, the living room open up two stories and a bedroom and bath over the kitchen-dining area on the side toward the ocean. No other house looked down into the atrium. The two men were free to let it hang out here. Normally Gould–and perhaps Luc as well–would be the object of paparazzi interest, but in this section of Manhattan Beach, everyone was a celebrity for one reason or more–or they once had been. Both Gould and Luc were aware they both were moving inevitably to “had been.”

Having caught Gould’s attention, Luc waded out of the pool and up onto the stone terracing. When he reaching the movie star, Gould nuzzled his face into Luc’s crotch, and Luc reached over to put the man’s whiskey glass and the bottle out of reach.

About the only thing that distracted Gould from the bottle these days of being between movie projects and not sure where the next one was coming from was sex, primarily at this time with the cute young Mediterranean-type honey he’d picked up at one of his talent agent’s parties. Victor Parsons agented for all sorts of people, some on the rise; some, like Gould, threatening to be on the demise; and some, like Luc Rosen, on speculation, Parsons not being sure if they’d go anywhere. He had invited both Gould and Rosen to a party without any idea that they might click there, and not being all that pleased when they did. Rosen had possibilities, although he’d already burned through two careers and hadn’t reached twenty-five yet. But Gould was Parsons’s big worry. He was major box office, but he was about to tip over. The drinking was a problem, but not as much as the rumor going around that Gould might be gay.

When your bread and butter was as being a macho adventure thriller movie star, being outed as gay was almost a guaranteed career killer. A couple of movie prospects had evaporated in the last couple of months for Gould because of this rumor. Parsons was working hard to get a movie deal that included another needy client of his, the actress Janet Jensen, in the romantic interest role. Her plight was the same as Gould’s. She was being rumored to be a lesbian. So, Parsons’s dilemma of the moment triangulated three of his clients. If he could match Gould and Jensen in this action thriller movie deal he was working, he could scotch rumors about both by matching the two in the tabloids. That would bolster both of their careers for at least a bit.

That left Luciano, Luc, Rosen. He didn’t comfortably fit in PR terms between Gould and Jensen. He might have a career as a young heartthrob leading man, which could go in one of two directions–as a heterosexual male lead or in the more risky gay films. Parsons didn’t think the young man could do both. And, either way, if he was linked with Gould, Gould’s career, the much more lucrative of the two currently, would be destroyed.

That was what had brought Parsons to Manhattan Beach that afternoon. He’d heard Gould and Rosen were “doing it.” He had no idea that the young man had moved in with Gould, though. He came to the movie star’s beach house that day to discuss the movie deal he was working on, which included Gould playing very nice-nice with Janet Jensen for the paparazzi. He was used to walking right into the Hermosa Avenue house, as he did today.

As he reached the atrium and looked out on the pool and patio, though, he had not counted on seeing Gould, naked, on his back on a lounge bed, and Luc Rosen, naked, astride the movie actor’s hips, screwed on Gould’s cock, and riding him in a cowboy position. The look on Gould’s face was quite clear. He was lost to the charms of the younger, dark-haired actor. Being cowboy ridden was one of Parsons’s own favorite pastimes.

Matters had gone much farther than Parsons had imagined. He saw the half-empty whiskey bottle too. Gould was on the brink, in more ways than one, and something drastic had to be done to keep up appearances. He had two problems. Which to work first? That he decided as he turned and left before the two men saw him that he first needed to separate Luc Rosen from Gould didn’t take into account both how close the two men had become beyond the issue of sex and that Luc already was doing the most effective work possible in separating Gould from the whiskey bottle.

* * * *

His name was Roberto Tufini. He was tall and elegant looking, graying at the temples, dark and sultry. And his eyes followed Luc around the room as Victor Parsons worked hard to put Luc together with the Italian actress. Claudia Polli, who obviously was smitten with the young man a good ten years younger than she was. The Italians were in L.A. looking to fill some casting slots in a film Tufini was directing–a rather special, secret production to be filmed near Naples–and when Parsons had heard about the film and been told of the deeper context of it by Tufini, he had immediately thought that it might solve his problem of pulling Luc Rosen away from Grant Gould, who, indeed had gotten the film with Janet Jensen and had just departed for Puerto Rico, where filming was to start.

Luc was still staying at the Hermosa Avenue beach house, tasked with closing out the house and Gould’s L.A. apartment and winding up Gould’s and his affairs here before joining Gould in Puerto Rico. But the young man was very much at loose ends and had fallen back on revenues he received as a male escort. Parsons invited Luc to his Beverly Hills party for the visiting Italians but also paid the young man’s escort fees to attend and work the party.

“I would have been happy to come to the party without going through the escort agency,” Luc had said when he arrived at the party.

“One of the guests–the movie actress Claudia Polli–remembers you from your ice-skating days and obviously is infatuated with you,” Parsons said. “I know you don’t usually go with women, but I want you to pay attention to her. Paying your escort fee makes that worth your while and assures me that you will do so. I would like to sign her with my agency.”

That was all good and fine, but during the party, at which the Italian director Tufini and Luc discovered a mutual electric chemistry, Tufini and Parsons had their discussion on what Tufini was looking for in talent for his movie in Naples, and Parsons realized that it was Luc Rosen Tufini was looking for.

While they were discussing that in the library of Parsons’s home, though, and the party was swirling around them in the entertainment rooms and out on the pool patio, Luc was earning his keep in a bedroom upstairs. Claudia wanted the scene to be a dramatic scene, and Luc was being paid for it, so he did what was wanted. What was wanted was for him to stand between her open thighs as she sat on the end of the bed. Her long, red-suede skirt had a zipper almost up to the waist, which she slowly unzipped, revealing a garter belt and black mesh stockings, but no underpants. She unclipped the tops of the stockings from the garter belt, but as she unzipped Luc’s fly, he raised and spread her legs, rolled off the stockings, and kissed her legs. She leaned over and took his cock in her mouth, working him up, as he held her legs open with his arms under her knees. It was only a short nuzzle in, then, for her to put him into place and for him to mount, penetrate, and fuck her.

Claudia got her thrill and Luc earned his pay.

It was later in the party that Tufini saddled up to Luc. “Capisco che parli fluentemente italiano–I understand you speak fluent Italian,” he said. “Excuse me. I am Roberto Tufini, an Italian movie director.”

“Yes, I know who you are,” Luc said. Victor Parsons had, in fact, taken Luc aside and told him exactly who Tufini was and that he might have a professional acting opportunity for Luc.

“For the fee I’ve paid the escort agency, you can be nice to the Italian director instead of the actress,” he said. “He obviously is interested in you that way.”

Luc laughed. “I’ve already been with Claudia Polli,” he said. “The Italian director is divine, though. I’d go with him without a fee.”

When Tufini introduced himself and asked if Luc spoke Italian, Luc answered, in English, “I was raised to be bilingual. My father was Italian and my mother made sure I retained that part of my heritage.”

“That is fortuitous,” Tufini said. Their conversation continued in Italian, with Luc getting the impression his prowess with the language was being tested. “I understand you have acted in films, as well.”

“Only as a child actor in a TV situation comedy,” Luc answered, “but I’m still taking acting lessons and looking for work.”

“I may have something for you–in Italy. I’m filming somewhat of a special movie there. I am looking for someone young and handsome who can speak Italian. You’d be playing an American sailor from a naval base near Naples, but I don’t want to dub of the part. I want the actor to speak fluent Italian.”

Thus, Luc’s premise on why they were speaking Italian was borne out–as was his impression that he’d passed that test. “I would be interested in that,” he said.

“It’s a special production. The actor would have to be able to handle both heterosexual and homosexual roles.”

“I’m gay, but you can ask your actress friend, Claudia Polli, if I might be convincing with straight sex.”

“I’ve already spoken to Claudia this evening,” Tufini said, with a smile. “She had nothing but praise for your performance. She will be in this movie as well. Perhaps we can get together to pursue this further.”

“Get together?”

“Yes, I would like to check out your other capabilities for the role.”

“So, you have more interest in me than being in your movie?”

“You say you’re gay. Do you take or give cock?”

“Yes.”

“Will you come back to my hotel room with me now?”

“Yes.”

Luc sat at the foot of the bed, thighs open, and Tufini stood, facing him, between his thighs. The Italian unbuckled and unzipped Luc’s trousers as Luc did the same for the Italian. Tufini pulled Luc’s trousers and briefs off. Luc was wearing long stockings clipped to garters under his knees. They kissed and Tufini stroked Luc’s cock as Luc unclipped the garter attachments. Tufini rolled the socks off one raised leg after the other, kissing Luc’s legs. Luc then bent and took the Italian’s cock in his mouth, producing a hard erection. Coming off the man’s cock, Luc reached down and took Tufini’s cock in both hands, rolled his own hips up, and guided the shaft to his hole. The young man’s knees were hooked on Tufini’s hips as the Italian mounted, penetrated, and fucked the young man.

Luc passed that part of his audition with flying colors. But when Tufini offered him the part in the Italian film, and although he saw the advantage to his own acting aspirations, Luc held off. Gould needed him to fight against alcoholism and Luc had resolved to put his own ambitions on hold and to devote himself to a future with Gould.

Having heard that he was almost there but not quite close enough to keeping up appearances by separating Luc from Gould, their agent, Parsons, went back to scheming. In this, he had an ally in the movie director, Roberto Tufini.

“He is perfect for the role,” Tufini said, with Parsons fully realizing that Luc Rosen was perfect for Tufini for his bed as well. “I will keep it open for him, if you think you can convince him to come to Italy.”

* * * *

“What?” Luc Rosen asked, clearly shocked by what his agent, Victor Parsons, had just told him. “You brought me here to the Hollywood Historic Hotel to tell me that? I thought you’d set me up here with that Italian director, Tufini, again.”

“Keep your voice down, Luc. We want this to be well covered in the gossip columns, but not with a connection to you. That’s the whole point in Grant having married Janet Jensen in Puerto Rica yesterday. And I did invite you here to service Tufini again–and I want to sign you for his movie in Italy.”

The two were at the Edmon bar in what really now was named the Hollywood Historic Hotel. At one time it was the Melrose, and it was popular still with visiting movie people like the Italian director Roberto Tufini because it was the closest hotel to the Paramount Pictures studios and a lot of the famous Hollywood venues. It was where Tufini was staying and where he’d bedded Luc the previous week after Parsons’s party in the nearby Hollywood Hills.

“But I was getting ready to go out to Puerto Rico to be with Grant while he was filming,” Luc said. “How could he have gotten married so soon? How could he have married a woman at all?”

“It’s called keeping up appearances,” Luc. “Grant is doing it to try to keep himself marketable. I know you’ve been working with him in trying to keep him away from the bottle. We’ll work on that. But, for appearances, you both need to be separated. Grant’s career is over if anyone finds out he has gay sex. And yours won’t take off unless you manage to grab of the hetero heartthrob roles. I have Janet Jensen to worry about as well. She’s getting too publicly close to her girlfriends. This is all about saving your careers–Grant’s and Janet’s and allowing yours to be established.”

“But I told you I’d give up on the chance at the Italian movie until I can help Grant kick the booze. I’m going to Puerto Rico.”

“No one wants you in Puerto Rico now, Luc. Grant’s married. It will be splashed all over the gossip columns tomorrow and people will stop pursuing the rumor that he likes young men–that he fucks you. And if you go to Puerto Rico now, you’ll have to pay for it and we won’t let you near Grant anyway. If you don’t take this Italian film and you don’t lay down for Roberto Tufini, you don’t have a talent agent contract with me. This is what puts money in the bank for all of us–and this is what keeps up appearances. Take it or leave it. Now, do I ring Roberto up and say you’re ready to come up to him now and that we’ve got a contract to sign, or do you find someplace other than the Manhattan Beach house to go to from the hotel. I have men there closing it down. You have a room here at this hotel to stay in until Tufini takes you back to Naples with him. Which is it?”

Roberto Tufini met Luc at his hotel room door wearing just a silk robe. As Luc entered the room and shut the door behind him, Tufini was untying the sash to the robe and flaring it open. His body was lean and quite well-muscled for a man his age, and he hadn’t been in Hollywood long enough to have lost the edge on his Mediterranean tan. He was in half erection.

“Sono felice che tu abbia accettato di venire–I am glad that you agreed to come,” he said. “I’m glad Parsons says you are ready to sign the movie contract. Inginocchiati da me, per favore–Go down on your knees to me, please.” It wasn’t long until he was in full erection and not long after that that he was on top of Luc on the bed, with his hard shaft buried in the young man’s channel.

Grant Gould’s marriage to the leading lady in the action-adventure film they were doing in Puerto Rico, Janet Jensen, didn’t last for more than three months. The filming was over in two. The couple was almost constantly coming to blows that interfered with the filming and Gould’s perpetual drunken condition caused the production to shut down for good. The marriage and the reports of trouble on the set did, however, scotch the rumors of homosexuality on Gould’s part and no one really seemed to care that Janet Jensen was exhibiting as bisexual. The gossip mill instead raked Gould over the coals for his drinking and for being impossible to work with in films. His career dropped like lead.

By the time Gould hit bottom, though, and could really use the presence of Luc Rosen in his life, the young Italian-American actor had been sold on the need to keep up appearances himself. He married Claudia Polli, the leading lady of the movie being filmed as The Countess in Naples, Italy. Luc’s acting career as a young hunk being trained in sexual subservience by a senior actress was on the ascendance.

* * * *

The young man, dark, sultry, and trim appeared at the edge of the square of the village of Falciano del Massico, between mountains and the sea, north from Naples along Italy’s Tyrrhenian Sea coast. He was dressed as an Italian would recognize to be the uniform of an American naval sailor, in a white jumper, with a black scarf tie; white trousers, with a button fly, tight around the pelvis and the thighs and flaring at the hem; and black shoes. The day being hot, and the young sailor not having been aware he would be entering the square this soon, his jumper was off and slung over his shoulder, revealing a lightly-muscled, tanned, perfectly formed smooth-skinned torso rising from a low-rise waistband.

Realizing he was entering a square and a café with outdoor seating under an awning being nearby, he stopped and pulled the jumper on. He did not do so until a handsome, expensively dressed, raven-haired woman of forty, who was sitting at one of the café tables saw him, slitted her eyes, and took in her breath. He took his time pulling it on.

Seeing the café and having built up a deep thirst on what must have been a long walk from somewhere, the young man walked to the café and surveyed the tables. Both the square and the café were small. There were only three tables under the awning, all occupied. There was a free chair at the table where the woman sat who had spied him entering the café, and the woman caught the young sailor’s eye, smiled at him, and motioned toward the unoccupied chair.

“Per favore, questo posto è gratuito. Per favore, siediti. Mi dispiace, capisci l’italiano?–Please, this seat is free. Please sit. I’m sorry, do you not understand Italian?” And then she added in accented but quite good English, “Are you American? Can you only speak English?” She raised an arm and snapped her fingers. A waiter appeared immediately, fawning over her. “Questo giovane sembra assetato. Forse una birra per lui.” Nodding, the waiter ran off to fetch an iced beer.

“Sorry, I am not being too forward, I hope, but you look very thirsty. I’ve ordered a beer for you. Please, take this chair.” As the young man sat down and wasn’t looking at her, the woman unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse and hiked her skirt up to where her shapely calves were exposed. She was wearing sheer hose and medium-height heels. Her blouse was sheer and complemented her tweed skirt perfectly. She was both a smart and expensive dresser, and her figure, on the voluptuous side, was shown off to best advantage.

The young sailor spoke. “Parlo un po’ di italiano. La mia famiglia vive negli Stati Uniti, ma entrambi i miei genitori sono nati in Italia–I speak a little Italian. My family lives in the United States, but both of my parents were born in Italy.” She gave the young sailor an encouraging smile, and he continued. “Non desidero intromettermi. Spero che tu non aspettassi qualcuno–I don’t wish to intrude. I hope you weren’t expecting someone.”

“Your Italian is excellent,” the woman answered, and the conversation then proceeded in Italian. “You are quite welcome. I wasn’t expecting anyone. You look like an American sailor, though. A surprise to see here. A pleasant surprise I must say.” She turned on a coquettish look for the last sentence.

“I was recently assigned to the U.S. Naval air facility in Naples. We were being bused up into the mountains near here to visit some wineries and I got left behind at a rest stop. I figured if I kept walking up into the mountains, I’d find my bus at some winery.”

The woman laughed, saying nothing of the effort that would entail, as the young man did look fit enough to climb a mountain. “There are many wineries up on Monte Massico, and it’s a long walk from here. My family owns one of the wineries.”

The sailor’s beer had arrived and he practically drained it dry at one go to slacken his thirst. The woman laughed a tinkly laugh, snapped her fingers again, the attentive waiter quickly appeared, and she ordered another beer for the young man.

“Your family owns a winery here?” he asked.

“Yes. The Villa Tore winery. It’s one of the oldest on the mountain. I’m sure your bus was going there. I’m the Contessa di Ghiberti of Tore. My husband’s family, the Ghibertis, have been prominent in the region for years. But you can call me Maria.”

“A countess, and you’re married,” the sailor said. He appeared appreciably in awe.

“Yes, but the count is old. He’s probably off visiting his mistress now. This is Italy. But it’s modern Italy. If the rooster does as he pleases in the hen house, it is understood that the hens would have their fun as well.” Maria had reached over and touched the young man’s forearm, which had been resting on the small café table that separated them. The table was small enough that their knees touched. He didn’t pull his arm away, so she readjusted her knees so that his were pressed between them. He didn’t pull away from this either.

“Do you have a name too?” she asked, giving him a dreamy look.

“Yes. As I said, my family’s heritage is Italian. They named me Antonio. My friends call me Tony, though.”

“Well, Tony, I was about to go home–up to the Villa Tore winery on Monte Massico. It is a very long, dusty walk from here, I can assure you. I would be happy to drive you up there. My car is just over there. You could try out our wines and if your bus didn’t show up, I would be happy to drive you around to the other wineries until we find it.”

“I would hate to use your time for that,” Tony said.

“I have time to be used,” the countess answered, giving the young man a meaningful look. “My car is just over there,” she repeated, gesturing to across the square.

Tony looked across the square and his eyes opened very large. “That’s a new Maserati,” he said.

“Yes, would you like to take me for a ride?”

“Sweet,” he responded.

In her bedroom in the castle-like villa on the mountainside above the Villa Tore Winery, Tony unbuckled himself, but Maria stopped him, wanting to do that herself and, especially, to unbutton those eight buttons on the fly flap of his tight Navy whites. She was sitting at the foot of her bed, her blouse off and her ample breasts hanging free. Her tweed skirt was gathered up to her waist. Her sheer stockings were held up by a garter belt. Tony had already discovered she wasn’t wearing panties and had knelt between her legs, feasting on her labia and clit while his hands weighed and squeezed her breasts.

She made him stand between her spread thighs while she unbuckled and unbuttoned his trousers–his jumper had already come off. He was nearly twenty years her junior, but he was an Apollo and she was a voluptuous, experience woman in high need. She positioned his cock between her pendulous breasts and squeezed them against him there as he quickly hardened up. Then, grasping the orbs of his buttocks and pulling him in to her, she opened her mouth over his thick, long cock, and gave him head until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Grasping her throat with one hand, Tony lowered Maria’s back onto the bed. With the other hand, he unclipped her stockings, one after the other, and slowly drew them off her legs, running his hand up the inside of her thighs when he’d done so, causing her to shudder–and then to moan deeply as his fingers found and spread her folds. He hovered over her, lowering his chest onto hers and capturing her lips with his.

She struggled and writhed a bit as he positioned his cock head between his spreading fingers, but he maintained possession of her mouth as he slowly penetrated. She arched her back, dug her fingernails into his shoulder blades, jerked her mouth from his, and cried out, “Sì! Sì! Sei fottutamente grosso–Yes! Yes! You are fucking big!” and, hugging his hips with her knees, settled down in the rhythm of the fuck.

After fucking her for several minutes in the cunt, he turned her. She cried out, “Oh merda. Sei un ragazzo cattivo!–Oh shit. You naughty boy!” and then gasped and huffed as he drove his shaft up her anal canal and fucked her there as well.

Within minutes, the door to the room was thrown open, and a large man, older than Tony but younger than Maria and all muscle burst into the room. If this was the husband, there was nothing old about him. He grabbed Tony and the two men rolled to the carpet below the bed. Maria scrambled up onto the bed and crawled to a night stand. She pulled a revolver out of the nightstand drawer and scrambled back to the foot of the bed. The two men were grappling on the floor.

Maria raised the revolver, pulled the trigger, and two shots rang out. The intruder was on top of Tony–until the shots were fired. Then he fell off to the side. Tony looked up, his eyes wide in fear. Maria was pointing the gun at him.

The word “Cut” boomed out from the corner of the room. “That was great, Luc and Claudia,” the Italian film director, Roberto Tufini, called out. “That scene was just great this time. The filming down in the village square as well as the scene up here.”

The sex had, indeed, been arousing–and there had been nothing fake about it. Roberto Tufini was known for the realism of his movies’ sex scenes. The Italians liked their movies explicit. The anal fuck had not been in the script, but Claudia had managed it beautifully. It was obvious that she had been caught by surprise, and initially fought it. But once he was deeply saddled, she had settled down to it and had swayed with the rhythm of the fuck, as mounted on her as a dog would be, Tony grasped and manipulated her breasts as he pumped her to a buried ejaculation.

The three actors moved away from the bed, the actor playing the husband ushered off by a nurse to check for damage from the scuffle, and assistants handing robes to Luc and Claudia.

“Come over into another room with me, Luc,” Tufini said. “We’ll go over some notes for the scenes that are just yours that we’ll film tomorrow.” He turned to Claudia. “The driver will take you back to the hotel now. That scene was just great, sweetie. You won’t be needed for tomorrow. Keep the driver. He can take you into Naples tomorrow. Maybe you’ll find a dress you’d like to be married in–something that will photograph well by all of the paparazzi we’ll let know you and Luc are taking the impromptu dive into matrimony.”

When Tufini and Luc went into the other room and Tufini locked the door behind them, Luc found out what was so urgent for them to discuss.

“That last scene really did it for me, Luc.” The young man could see that. Tufini had unzipped himself and pulled his shaft out. He was in full erection. The director put his free hand on Luc’s shoulder and the young man got what the stage direction was. He went down on his knees, took Tufini’s cock in his mouth, and gave him head.

“Now, now! Fuck me now,” Tufini cried out as he shuddered and came. Luc turned him over, holding his body under him, both still standing, and pushed his trousers and briefs to the floor. Tufini cried out a, “Yes, yes, like a dog. Like you did Claudia!” and then gasped and huffed, as Luc drove his shaft up the man’s anal canal and fucked him like a dog.

* * * *

The handsome, trim, well-dressed, patrician-looking man, perhaps, aided by the graying at his temples, looking more distinguished in his fifties than he did in his twenties, crossed the small Italian village square, toward the café, with its three small tables under an awning. All of the tables were occupied, and the man decided to keep tapping his gold-headed cane along the cobblestones and continue on past the square to another café that he didn’t like as much as he did this one. As he approached the preferred café, though, the young man at one of the tables, incongruously dressed as an American Navy sailor, smiled at him–a sultry, darked-haired, tanned, all-American boy smile–and the man’s steps faltered.

The form-fitting sailor costume the young man was wearing so very well–out of place in this small village between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the mountains on the Italian coast north of Naples–was one Italians would recognize as that of an old-time American sailor rather than current issue. The white, bell-bottomed trousers were tight across the pelvis and thighs and had a button flap for a fly. The trousers were topped by a white jumper, with a black scarf tie. To a man like the one now standing in front of him, the combination of a smiling young man, who couldn’t be over nineteen, and his sailor uniform, was sexy and arousing.

“Excuse me, young man,” the man said in his well-practiced English. “Is this seat taken?”

“No, it isn’t,” the young man answered with that glowing smile. “Please, please do join me.”

“I’m sorry, but I was arrested by your visage,” the patrician Italian man said. “We rarely see American Navy sailors in our little village. You are an American, are you not?”

“Yes, I’m American,” the young man said. “I’ve recently arrived at the U.S. Naval air facility in Naples, and I was with a group being taken to the wineries up in the Massico mountains, but I was left behind at a rest stop. I have stopped here to regroup and try to figure out how to get back to Naples.”

The man raised his arm and snapped his fingers and immediately a waiter appeared. “Sì, conte, cosa posso servirvi?” he said and the man asked for wine. The waiter bowed low and hurried off.

“He called you count,” the young man said, with surprise.

“You understand Italian?” the man asked, showing surprise himself and taking a deeper assessing look at the young sailor that the sailor couldn’t help but notice showed a sexual interest. The sailor’s answering look returned that interest, and the two relaxed into their chairs. The table between them was small. Their knees already had been touching, but now the young man opened his stance, and the count moved his knees between the sailor’s. The sailor did not change his stance. The count then lowered the gold knob of his cane below the table top and touched the young man’s ankle, pushing the flared hem of his trousers up. The sailor didn’t withdraw from this touch either, and as they talked, the knob of the cane moved farther up the sailor’s bare leg.

“And, alas, I am a count, yes. The long version is that I’m the seventh Conte di Ghiberti of Tore. But you can just call me Salvitore, if you like–Sal, if we get on well.”

“My, that sounds very impressive and rich,” the sailor said, his eyes dancing in the sunlight. The young man widened his stance and moved his chair a bit closer to the table, leaning in more toward the count.

“Yes, I’m afraid that is my burden,” Count Salvitore responded. “And I own and live at one of those wineries your group is visiting up on the slopes of Monte Massico, I’m sure. The Villa Tore Winery.” The knob of the cane came out from beneath the hem of the sailor’s trouser and moved between his legs, rubbing on the inner side of one of the young man’s thighs, high up. Once again, the sailor didn’t retreat. Instead, he gave the count a dreamy smile.

“And your name, if I might ask?” The count obviously didn’t want the conversation to end, and his experimentation with how well his seduction of the sultry young sailor could be was being met with favorable results.

“My family’s heritage is Italian. They named me Antonio. My friends call me Tony, though.”

The rubbing of the cane knob had moved up to the young sailor’s crotch and was following the line of his engorged shaft within the tight material. There wasn’t much in question on what was transpiring here. Tony had done nothing to impede the exploration.

“Well, Tony, I was about to go home–up to the Villa Tore winery on Monte Massico. It is a very long, dusty walk from here either to find your tour bus up there or to return to Naples, I can assure you. I would be happy to drive you up to the mountain. My car is just over there. You could try out our wines and if your bus didn’t show up, I would be happy to drive you around to the other wineries until we find it.”

Tony looked across the square and his eyes opened very large. “That’s a Lamborghini Murcielago,” he said.

“Yes, would you like to take me for a ride?”

“Sweet,” Tony responded, rolling his hips up in his seat, and reaching down with a hand to grasp the knob of the cane and move it down under his ball sac to touch his hole through the material of the white trousers.

Count Salvitore smiled and said, “Are you going to give yourself to me, young man?” As he said this, he placed a wad of bills on the top of the table and nudged it in Tony’s direction.

“Yes, if you like–if you’ll give me a ride in your Lamborghini,” Tony answered, sliding the bills off the table and into his pocket.

As they approached the vehicle, Tony became like a small child, gleefully praising the Lamborghini Murcielago, the fastest production car in existence. Count Salvitore showed him just how fast it could go as they wound their way up toward Monte Massico. The hillsides were covered with regular rows of cascading vines, heavy with luscious grapes, aching to be plucked. The count was showing that he felt young again, having easily seduced a handsome young American sailor. He took the familiar twisting road up into the hills with a speed that delighted the young American, who pulled his jumper off, showing a young, smooth, tanned, lightly muscular torso. The young man twisted toward the count, rubbed the man’s slowly hardening cock through his silky trousers, and, then, uncovered it and got it unbelievably hard as the car flew along. If the count hadn’t been such a skillful driver, and the road had not been so familiar, his trembling from what the sailor was doing, leaning over now and taking the shaft in his mouth, surely would have put them tumbling down onto the rock-enclosed terraces cascading down to the sea.

As it was, when the count told Tony they were now on Ghiberti land, the young sailor urged the count, with a husky voice, to pull off into one of the side access roads. The count did so, pulling off to between rows of grapes and bringing the car to a stop. Tony urged Salvitore over into the passenger seat, where, pulling his trousers off, the sailor saddled himself on the count’s cock and they fucked.

The count’s winemaker, Luigi, a husky, muscular, man of forty, so thuggish looking that he would have arousal appeal to a certain adventuresome young man such as Tony was, appeared at the head of the row of grape vines and saw the Lamborghini rocking on its shocks as Tony sat in the count’s lap, facing him, and bounced up and down on the man’s shaft.

Luigi did not turn away. He positioned himself to where he could watch the action and not be seen by the men in the car. He freed his own cock and stroked himself off while he watched the sailor fuck himself on the aristocrat’s shaft. A camera crew was positioned to be able to go from the car to the Luigi in it’s film coverage.

The scene shifted to the count’s bedroom at the Villa Tore. Tony quickly, masterfully, and completely took control as soon as the heavy oaken door had shut behind them and the struggle for dominance was under way. His eyes quickly traveled around the large room, drinking in the wealth of the centuries, stopping briefly at a flattering half-finished oil painting of the count on an easel beside a fireplace, and focusing on the huge four-poster bed beside two full-length glass doors leading to a balcony and looking down through heavily fruited terraces of grape vines to the near-distant Tyrrhenian Sea. It was close to dusk in a musk-heavy late September, and the waning rays of the sun were picking out and making luminescent the white and ocher plastered walls and terra-cotta roof tiles of the buildings stepping down from the hilltop prominence to the turquoise Mediterranean waters below.

Tony tore at the count’s clothes, telling him how fit he was for his age, saying all of the right things to keep Salvitore in need of his power and youthful attention. When he had the count undressed, Tony sat the older man down on the end of the bed, stepped back, and slowly disrobed, showing the count a perfectly formed, trim, but well-muscled, horse-hung-equipped body, with low-hanging, egg-sized balls poking out of a profusion of curly, black pubic hair. His butt cheeks were bulbous, firm but round as melons.

Having given the count a full picture, Tony moved right into Salvitore. He pushed his cock between the older man’s lips and started a quickening rhythm, forcing the count initially to gag from the immediacy and unfamiliarity of the act. The count wasn’t used to giving up control. In turn, he cupped the sailor’s butt cheeks with his hands and very soon had him moaning and sighing his delight as well. Slowly, the count gained the control, taking his mouth off Tony’s cock and turning him until his back went down on the bed, The count knelt on the floor between the young man’s thighs and took possession of Tony’s shaft again with his mouth. His hands were establishing control. They roamed the younger man’s body, finding all of those mounds and crevices that made the sailor moan and give over control.

Salvitore picked up his cane from the floor at the foot of the bed, and while he hovered over Tony’s shimmering body, he moved the gold knob to Tony’s ass. The young man grunted and he arched his back as the count penetrated with the knob of the cane and fucked the young man with it. Extracted the cane, the count climbed up onto Tony’s prone body, saddled his chest, and forced his cock down into the sailor’s mouth and throat like a piledriver, trying to get it all inside the young man’s mouth. Tony sputtered and pulled away long enough to beg the count to slow down, but the dominate man was relentless in his attack.

“Later, later,” he said back to Tony in a throaty voice. “Big. Make me big now. I want you to feel every inch of my length and width when I show you what an old Italian count can do to a young American sailor’s ass.”

The count pulled out of Tony’s mouth and kissed down the young American’s body until his mouth and tongue were at the young man’s asshole. The rimming, kissing, licking, nibbling and tongue plunging went on for several minutes before he started forcing himself inside the young sailor with little lubricant. He had his hands under Tony’s buttocks and was rotating the young man’s hips back and forth on his huge cock head, pushing himself into the sailor. The count’s ruggedly handsome-featured face was all intensity, painted with the determination to stretch the American’s hole with his experienced, vigorous cock. His wavy salt-and-pepper-colored hair billowed around his head in the waning rays of light reflected up from the Mediterranean waters and through the French windows.

“Si, Si. God, that’s good,” the count, carried away with the intensity, cried out. “Fuck, you have one sweet ass! Young American ass. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

He gathered up Tony’s legs with both of his hands and spread him wide, giving him purchase for that last couple of inches of cock. And then he rode him and rode him and rode him. Tony shot his seed far up the Italian patrician’s belly long before Salvitore had come himself, in fast, furious, unrelentless strokes deep inside Tony. When the count did ejaculate, he collapsed on top of Tony and let out a couple of hoarse snores.

Then he didn’t move. He became a dead weight. And when Tony rolled the man off him and to the side, he could see that Salvitore was turning blue, appeared to be unconscious, but was making snoring sounds.

Tony bounded off the bed and cried out, “Help. We need help in here. I think the count is having a heart attack.”

Within seconds, villa servants started coming into the room, with one crying out for someone to call an ambulance as a couple of the servants brushed past the naked Tony and went to the equally naked Count Salvitore.

The word “Cut!” was bellowed out, the sound coming from where the count lay on the floor. The figure arose, becoming the Italian film director, Roberto Tufini, who had taken on the role of the count in the glossy porn gay male film they were shooting with the working title, “The Conte.” It was a companion movie to the one Janet Jensen was staring in opposition Luc Rosen that was being called “The Contessa.” Luc was playing the role of Tony, a young American sailor, in both films, the twist being they were doing two films at the same time, cutting costs by using the same scenery and basically the same plot. Claudia Polli didn’t know about the gay male film, though, and Tufini thought she might pull out of the hetero production if she knew her young leading man and soon to be husband for convenience was in the gay film as well.

The actor playing the hunky winemaker in “The Conte” was one of the villa staff members who came pouring into the bedroom upon the alarm being raised that their employer was suffering a heart attack in the throes of gay sex.

Tufini turned to Luc to tell him the scene had gone well, but when he did, it was to find that Luc had pulled on his white naval trousers and had been pulled out of the room and toward the vineyard by the actor playing the role of Luigi.

* * * *

Luigi motioned to Tony and left the bedroom. The actor playing a young American sailor, Tony, pulled on his trousers and jumper and followed, barefooted. When he reached the corridor, the vintner gestured for Luc to follow him outside the villa, and Luc watched the fluid motion of the Italian’s muscular body as he walked behind into the vineyard terraces.

Luc thought that the actor playing Luigi could have been a dancer despite his size. They walked out of the house and into the vineyard, where the rows of vines came almost up to the edge of the villa’s rear terrace. When Luigi halted, deep down the corridors of the grapevine support fences, Luc didn’t question what they were doing in the vineyard. When, as Tony, he had fucked himself on the count’s shaft in the Lamborghini in the vineyard, Luc had known that the actor playing Luigi was watching them and was stroking himself off. That was in the script.

It was hot under the sun in the vineyard and both men stripped off their shirts as they walked down a row and beyond the sight of the villa. As they walked, Luigi was pointing out which grapes were begging to be plucked and how to harvest them without bruising their tender skins. And all the time his torso was in perpetual motion, moving like a master dancer. The men with the video cameras followed them, filming from different angles, but keeping each other out of the lens or the other cameramen’s shadows.

They walked deep into the vineyard. The sun hadn’t reached its zenith when Luigi called for a respite beside a small tractor with an enclosed cab. They hadn’t been moving at random. Luigi pulled a blanket and a picnic basket out of the tractor’s cab and fanned the blanket out on the ground under a tree, where a section of the vineyard made way for an olive orchard. He began unpacking the picnic basket. There were several bottles of wine, uncorked, ready for tasting. With a merry laugh, Luigi took one of these and handed Luc the other one. He leaned against a tree and saluted the American actor with the bottle before drinking directly from it in a long gulp. Even leaning against the tree, his finely sculpted body was in languid motion.

Luc saluted him back from a leaning position against a different tree and took a long drink from the bottle he’d been given. The wine was refreshing and smooth, with a slight kick to it at the end–just the thing to top an hour of hard work in the fields.

Luigi was grinning at Luc, swaying his torso, and Luc began to ache for the man.

“Just how old are you, sailor boy?” Luigi asked in a wine-thickened voice.

“Old enough,” Luc said and flashed the Italian a beautiful smile. “Nineteen.”

“Ah, yes, old enough in your country, in America, by a year. By several years here in Italy. You know what I was asking? And why?”

“Of course,” Luc answered, feeling like they were falling into a dialogue that was familiar to him. Words rose into his voice almost as if of their own volition. “I saw it in your eyes on the stairs back at the villa. If you had not asked to come to the fields with me, I would have asked you to come myself. I’m sure you knew what the count and I were doing in his bedroom when he took ill.”

Indicating he did know, Luigi said, “I brought you to a section of the fields where no one else will be coming today. Come away from that tree, Tony,” the winemaker said huskily. “Come over here to me.”

“It’s cool here under this tree,” Luc answered, asserting himself, showing some backbone. “I am hot; I need to be cooled down.”

The cameras whirred away from the periphery, taking it all in.

“You need to be cooled down?” Luigi responded. And then, apparently impulsively, he rose from his crouch at the one tree and walked over to the other one. He upended the wine bottle he was carrying in front of Luc’s face, watching the dark red fluid cascading down the young man’s lithe, undulating torso and staining his cotton trousers and plastering them to his pelvis. One of the cameras zeroed in on the spreading stain of the wine.

At first Luc looked shocked, and then he laughed merrily and stood fast, taking the drenching with the wine. He extended his arm upended his own bottle of wine above Luigi’s much broader, more heavily muscled chest.

Luigi pushed Luc roughly against the olive tree where its two main branches split and brutally attacked the young American’s full-bodied lips with his. Luc answered Luigi’s kiss, showing the muscular winemaker that he knew a thing or two about the technique himself. Luigi pulled away in surprise, but then he reached out and pulled Luc into his body.

Luc’s mouth hungrily went to Luigi’s chest and found his wine-cooled nipples. A hand went to Luc’s crotch and almost lifted his lithe little body off the ground as Luigi quickly unbuttoned the flap fly of the now wine-stained sailor trousers, freed Luc’s shaft, and cupped the young man’s dick in his searching hands. Luigi stripped Luc’s trousers off his legs as the young American’s tongue and lips made their wine-tasting journey down the muscular Italian’s chest and belly, and the Italian was exposed and ready for the American when Luc’s mouth reached the man’s shaft. Luigi leaned back into the crook of the olive tree, his torso still in swaying motion, and sighed and moaned for Luc, as the American took possession of his cock and sucked him to ejaculation.

When Luigi stood, he started to lick the wine off Luc’s chest and belly as well, intending to do for the young American what Luc had done for him, but, on second thought, Luigi wanted to prolong the experience.

He took Luc by the hand and led him over to the spread blanket, warming in the olive tree-branch dappled sunlight of the strong Italian sun. Luigi stripped off his own wet pants, hearing the intake of Luc’s breath when the American saw how well-endowed the Italian was, and sat down on the blanket, his legs stretched out in front of him. He then pulled Luc down close beside him.

Luc’s hip was next to Luigi’s, but Luigi pulled the American’s torso over, across his chest, to where the young man’s shoulder blades nestled against Luigi’s chest and the curly black hair on top of his head was tickling Luigi under his chin. Luigi leaned over and plucked a long strand of oat grass that had found life between the rows of the vine stands. He encircled Luc’s waist with one arm, his palm fanned out on the young man’s lower belly, and, with the other hand, Luigi took the long, thick strand of grass and ran it across Luc’s chest and thighs and cock and balls. The perpetual undulating motion of the young man’s torso and legs matched the tracings of the grass on his beautiful little body, and, at length, with deep sighs, he turned his face to Luigi’s and they kissed deeply, their tongues finding each other, their sweet, wine-infused juices joining together.

While They kissed, Luigi moved one of Luc’s thighs up until it was on top of his. The nearness of him was intoxicating, and the motion of his body against the strand of grass was mesmerizing. Luigi pulled Luc farther up into his lap until the young man was on top of him, sitting in Luigi’s lap. The Italian’s long, hard, thick cock was running up the small of Luc’s back, telling him precisely what Luigi wanted and that he couldn’t wait much longer before he got it.

Luc’s back was in languid motion as well, so he was making love to Luigi’s cock, rubbing the small of his back across it. He was making humming noises, and his body was trembling as well as moving. Luigi knew that Luc wanted him too.

The young American raised his arm around the back of Luigi’s neck, bringing the Italian’s lips back to his. they kissed tenderly, and then Luc looked deeply into Luigi’s eyes.

“Now? Will you fuck me now? Please,” he asked.

“Yes, now,” Luigi said huskily.

Luc drew his calves up under his thighs then, keeping Luigi’s pelvis between them. He reached behind him and found Luigi’s cock, which was a little hard to miss, and then raised his hips up, with his weight on his knees, and just backed his asshole onto the Italian’s cock.

Surprisingly, Luc had no problem at entry, even though Luigi was quite large and thick, and the Italian’s shaft glided all the way in to the hilt. Then, Luc just started his hips in an undulating rhythm above Luigi, stroking in and out above the older man, alternating with rotations of his hips, fucking himself on Luigi’s throbbing cock. The sensation was phenomenal. Luigi was mining the young American deep, and his ass canal walls, like his torso, were in perpetual motion, making love to Luigi’s cock in wave after wave of caressing as it churned inside him.

Luigi was loving this, but he wanted to still the young man’s body, wanted to feel him at peace. The Italian slowly rolled the American so that he was belly down on the blanket, and Luigi was covering him completely from above, Luigi’s thighs holding Luc’s close between them, Luigi’s nipples gouging into Luc’s shoulder blades, Luc’s arms stretched on top of Luigi’s, the American’s fingers entwined with the Italian’s, Luigi’s pelvis churning around on Luc’s plump butt cheeks.

The young American’s torso quieted down, stopped its perpetual motion, but his hips were still in motion, a little elevated and rotating in countermotion to Luigi’s downward stroking deep inside him with his pulsating cock. The blanket had bunched up so that their pelvises were directly atop the rich Italian soil of the hillside. Luc’s hard dick was stroking along the surface of the mossy grass, fucking the fertile earth of Italy.

Luigi could feel himself ready to come. He pulled his cock out so that the head was just beyond the ring near the opening to Luc’s asshole, and the Italian found the American’s prostrate with the tip of the head and rubbed back and forth. Luc was moaning and groaning especially loud now, and Luigi felt him tense and shoot his load in the grass, spreading his semen on the ancient land of the noble Ghibertis, blessing the grape harvest in a ritual that just might have been part of tradition in centuries past. Luigi ground Luc’s pelvis into the grass then, with a strong deep thrust of his cock down into the center of the young American, where he injected spouting after spouting of good old Italian semen into the ass of the American whose parents had deserted Italy.

Luigi held Luc pinned to the ground with his long, thick shaft, waiting and hoping. Luc gave a long, lingering sigh, and Luigi felt all of the tension drain out of the young American, leaving him at complete peace. Luc was still stretched out on the ground, moaning and purring, when Luigi rose off him, retrieved his stained trousers, and disappeared into another row of the grape vines.

“And cut,” a beaming Roberto Tufini declared from the semicircle of cameramen who were filming it all. “That was terrific,” he said. “This will be an excellent movie.”

When he was able Luc returned to the villa and found one of the film crew members to drive him back to the hotel in Naples where they were staying. Claudia Polli was in the lobby bar and motioned for him to join her, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk to her. He most definitely didn’t want to have to maneuver around why so much of the filming was being done without her–that they were filming a gay male version of the movie she was working on–that it wouldn’t be just “The Contessa.” There were be a “The Conte” version too.

It hit Luc in the elevator that he didn’t know the real name of the actor playing Luigi in “The Conte”–the man who had covered him better than any other man than Grant Gould, who Luc had been separated from to keep up appearances. This was a man Luc possibly could forget Gould for. He had been so sexy and masterful–and inventive in sex. Luc would have to find out who he really was.

When he got to his room and started looking at the script for the next scene to be filmed for “The Conte,” though, he was deflated. There would just be more of the same in sex acts in “The Conte.” If there had been a coherent storyline, it would just be lost. It wasn’t an erotica film; it was just porn. The Luigi character was just another controlling top; he wouldn’t be developed into a love interest.

Well, shit, he thought, soured on this move now. It would be a miracle if he made it through getting these two movies in the can before he couldn’t take anymore.

It didn’t help later, when he went down to the dining room, to find Roberto Tufini and Claudia Polli discussing the logistics of the impromptu wedding Luc was expected to fall into with Claudia for the titillation of the gossip columnists and to clean up any thought that he and Grant Gould were a couple.

* * * *

Luc stayed with the production of the dual movies to the end of filming. That fulfilled the contract that brought in enough money for him to manage for some time. His agent, Victor Parsons, had come to Naples for the wrap-up of the movie and to help Claudia Polli and Roberto Tufini in planning the “impromptu” wedding that the paparazzi would conveniently be informed about that would boost the reporting on “The Contessa” in the showbusiness media. Tufini hadn’t wanted effort to go to the specific planning of the “surprise” event until the film of both movies was in the cans, and Luc took no part in the planning.

He did continue having sex with Claudia Polli for the purposes of appearances, with these trysts preceded by steamy evenings at night spots in Naples to keep the gossip columnists buzzing. Tufini also continued to demand his privileges with Luc in bed–but far from the eyes of the paparazzi and gossip columns. Luc didn’t see the actor who played Luigi in “The Conte” again after their vineyard sex scene had been filmed, but the encounter had caused Luc several hours of considering what–and who–he really wanted in life. The scene had been so real and satisfying but, at the same time, so fake and disillusioning.

On the day of the “impromptu” event, with the paparazzi lured to a remote Sorrento beach, Luc Rosen already was half way across the United States in a jet headed for Los Angeles. He didn’t really care how Parsons or Tufini–or even Claudia Polli–would feel about him ditching the fake wedding. They’d ultimately be happy. All of the appearances and publicity they were trying to garner through that farce would be realized. The gossip columns would eat the failed wedding up like candy. It would probably generate more fluttering PR and box office revenues than if the wedding had gone ahead as planned.

He wasn’t real sure where, exactly, he was headed when he reached L.A., but he was right on the first try when he arrived at the Hermosa Avenue ocean-front house on Manhattan Beach. He knew he was right when he heard the snoring. The first thing he did was go around pulling all of the drapes open.

“No more secrets,” he called out to the world in general.

The next thing was to ferret out all of the whiskey bottles, both empties and those still with some liquor in them, drain them, trash them in the can in the garage, and drag the can out to the curb.

Only then did he go looking for Grant Gould, passed out on the lounge bed on the pool terrace in the small atrium. It was going to be a long haul to pull Gould back up from the depths and an even longer one–starting with looking for a new agent for him after he was sober again–but they would face that together. And they would face it in public, Luc was resolved.

Fuck keeping up appearances.

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