I watched him complete a difficult set, my eyes drawn to his dick atop hairy nuts. He reeked of young manhood, dangerous and pulsing. I grieved, sensing someone else, definitely a girl, had already claimed his meat. When I left, he was squatting in front of the mirror, a thirty-pound weight on his right shoulder. His shorts stretched across his buttocks. It scooped up his meatballs and sausage-cock, keeping them safe between his legs. His crotch mocked me with its straight hunger. I determined never to pursue Gino again.
In those early years, Gino, thought to be the prosperous heir to a pasta kingdom, was also the North End’s wrestling champion. He had reaped a shelf of trophies, accumulated mat burns on his forehead, his nose, his ears, his back. There were other wounds: a broken shoulder, a fractured vertebra, sometimes a swagger he said followed all-night fuckfests with three bosomy blondes.
One day not too long ago, Gino’s father had approached me near tears. He begged me to bring Gino home. In his thirtieth year, Gino’s reckless pride defied his father, and he had abandoned the family business to a thuggish cousin. Generations moaned as Gino went to work for Lucio’s Pizzeria. I had heard rumors that Gino was married but getting a divorce. Ugo, Gino’s father, was afraid that Lucio was making a New World Italian out of his son in a sordid pizzeria. I laughed and agreed to reacquaint myself with my childhood friend. Gino was the only straight man before whom I’d humble myself to gain a peek at his sweaty groin and primo prick. Perhaps this good deed would bring Gino and me together again.
The crowd inside Lucio’s Pizzeria hovered before the sight of a muscular Italian with a beefy neck. Gino was preparing pizza. First, he molded huge pieces of dough into flattened shapes with his meaty fingers. Then he lavished an abundance of lion-sized toppings: spinach, dried tomatoes, mozzarella, portabella mushrooms. The customers, safe on the other side of the counter, gawked at Gino’s solid shoulders and strong arms. And their mouths watered as he crouched—his hind end a brute force!—and cast the adorned pizza into the oven’s fiery mouth.
His boss stood nearby. Lucio was a hulking Italian ten years older than Gino. He used to be a wrestling coach but was now a lady-killer. His teeth gleamed between brawny cheeks. Black hair sprouted above the neck of his apron, hair that matted his chest, probably his back, balls, and ass, too. And though his stout belly was far from athletic, it was sexy and sturdy. That potent blend of muscle and durability was favored in many weekend wrestling matches at the gym and savored in numerous nights with his mistresses. In truth, though, Lucio’s fleshy anatomy was a façade. He had enough of the Old World inside him to be forever amiable.
The crowd barked orders and Lucio barked back, “You’ll eat what I give you! I’m only playing with you; now order and get out of here!”
Lucio’s success, of course, rested in the form of Gino. At two bucks a slice any pizzeria would profit. But who would draw the spectators in, if not the daunting image of gigantic Gino, sweating and puffing and unnerving the crowd with his compelling arms and legs?
In the heat of his workspace, Gino’s thick dick bulged. I recognized its size, familiar from days past at the gym. I tried to look away, to discourage the old temptation, but Gino enthralled me once again with his cum-churned charm. The sight of his straight manhood, of the brutish club he yielded between his thighs, made me want him even more. I fell in love with Gino all over again.
Gino advanced to the counter and stared into my face. He stroked his cheek and grabbed his ear as if wrestling with a muddied memory. His dark eyes scrutinized my fair hair and lean chest. He peeled back the surface of years and found me staring from some unknown place in his earliest consciousness: I was the childhood playmate he couldn’t recall—or couldn’t forget. He dug into years of macho bravado to find me, the infatuated neighborhood friend, buried like an old plaything in his crib.
“Daniello?”
The midday crowd dissipated. Lucio plumped his haunches down on a stool to watch TV. Gino and I shared a table by the window. He possessed the assurance of a man who lived every hour fully satisfied and complete. There were no mazes dividing his soul from his body, as there were inside me. After all these years, Gino remained invincible, victorious, in control of his arena. He clasped his hands together, thunderous and wondrous, and welcomed me.
“Daniello! Did you cheat and ask Ugo where I was?”
“I already knew,” I said, adding nothing of his father’s request.
“How?” he asked suspiciously.
“Gino, the North End is small. I saw you in the window.”
“Okay,” he said. “But if Ugo’s behind this, tell him to eat his own pasta. I’ve moved on to pizza!”
Gino grinned, parting red lips. The breeding bull shined conspicuously behind those lips. He watched me watching him, the consummate male upon whom all my fantasies depended, and this tipped him off about my real desires.
“Gino, why did you leave the pasta factory?” I asked.
“Lucio hired me. I owe everything to Lucio, my whole existence,” Gino began. “I’m a man because of him. Ugo didn’t teach me anything, except when to fight, which for him was always after a meal. But Lucio taught me
how
to fight, and why and where! Lucio used to be my coach at the gym, remember? He’s been married for twenty years, with three kids, and he’s the happiest guy you could ever meet. I used to go to the gym like an orphan with nowhere else to go, lifting weights all day, all in the name of Lucio. Everything I did was meant to impress him. I never missed training because Lucio was more important than life. And he was more than my wrestling coach. He took me into his home, introduced me to his wife and kids, and let me use his den to study and sometimes to crash at night.”
Lucio was still watching the portable TV. He sat on his thick behind, which was as powerful as Gino’s. He, too, was completely satisfied in life. He was Gino’s role model: hearty and happy, a real Italian charmer.
Gino winked naughtily and dropped his voice to a whisper.
“And when everyone was in bed, Lucio’d come in and we’d fuck around. I can tell you that because you’re queer, aren’t you, Daniello? Guys who are hungry for certain flavors attract one another, you know?” Gino said, looking straight at me. “Maybe it’s because we’re pure Italian. But Daniello, that man there has a big fucking pole. I can’t even put my hands around it. It’s a bat, fucking nerve-wracking. I fucked it all those years. I went to the gym during the day, then sucked it dry at night, leaving nothing for his wife. I was his
l’amante maschio
.”
His male lover. My eyes watered as Gino opened his huge palms matter-of-factly.
“Sometimes the other guys in the gym joined us, but they usually chickened out when it got to the fucking part. Then it was just us. He stuffed his dick in my butt every night and didn’t come out until I started screaming. When I made too much noise, he’d screw me sidesaddle, which didn’t hurt so much. That’s how he fucked his wife. Ever screw sidesaddle, Daniello?”
I was about to reply when Lucio bounced off his stool to serve a customer. Lucio had grown hefty, years of pizza and pepperoni encircling his waist, but this only complemented his male authority. I envisioned young Gino riding Lucio, Gino’s legs spread around Lucio’s hairy waist, their muscular hips swelling and thrusting against one another. Two heavyweight brutes mating on the den floor: the image drove me crazy. If I had stayed at the gym, I might have been invited to play.
“Listen to this, Daniello. As soon as I got to his place,” Gino continued, “he’d tear off my Speedo, throw a towel on the floor, and head to the bathroom while I got myself hard. Then he’d come back, bare-ass, with a rubber on his hard-on. He’d crush me with his body as he shoved it up my ass. He’s like a bear and growls while he fucks. He used to give me rug burns on my back; everyone thought it was from wrestling. Ha! They were fuck burns. The only way I got him to ease up was by taunting him with my dick in his face. Remember how everyone talked about my fractured vertebra? Lucio had me between the desk and the wall, pounding me for an hour until my back gave. And another time he had me on his shoulders, sitting backward, while he ate my ass and sucked my nuts till I fell during orgasm and broke my shoulder!”
Gino’s voice turned to a contemptible pitch as he continued, enjoying the sight of my face gaping with hunger.
“It got so that my ass knew just how tight to choke his cock and make him come in a pinch. I never forgot that trick, and to this day he still can’t understand why he comes so fast with me, when usually he lasts an hour with his wife. Believe me when I say he’s the only guy I respect and the only man I’ll ever fuck, ’cause he has my kind of fuel in his engine, the same kind of cream, you understand? I’m speaking about guys here, straight guys, fuck buddies, who can’t get enough of one-on-one at the gym and need it in their own homes, in the closet, in the basement, wherever, while their families sleep unaware. Make me gasp for air,
mio amico
, that’s all I ask!”
My head was burning. My heart was bleeding. Gino was reinflicting an old wound and he knew it.
I lunged at Gino. He blocked me, seized my wrist, and yanked me roughly out of my chair.
“Hey! You okay?” Lucio called.
I stepped back, injured and insulted.
“And your dad?” I asked. “What should I tell Ugo?”
“I thought so,” Gino nodded, waving a clever finger at me. “Tell him what I told you. Ha! That’ll keep Ugo quiet! Tell him that I’m done with pasta like I’m done with pussy. Tough shit to everyone.”
Gay men can be cruel, but straight men can be clever. Gino had lied. Moreover, he had told a gay man the very lie gay men want to hear. I walked home, formulating the thought that straight guys have all the social advantage. They are permitted great faults as long as they play the part manhood has prescribed them. Across that table, Gino had revealed that he was aware of the power of playing straight. As a heterosexual male, he could do whatever he pleased, even lie to family and friends. With the shield of breeding in place, Gino could cast his cock about, suck or fuck whom he chose, work where he pleased, press iron, tell stories, shoulder misfortune, and always stay on top, provided he returned to the determining factor of his male purpose: pussy.
Unfortunately, gay men like me have no such shield. We lust candidly and are fucked constantly. I love cock; you have a cock; give it to me. In this way we are real like everyone else. Perhaps we’re too real, too simple and therefore socially flat broke. I was beginning to understand that it wasn’t just Gino’s physical body that I had wanted when we were boys, but also his
social
body. The dicking defenses of the breeder body. I wanted the safe male shield. I wanted the fucking fleece to empower my utterly human life.
At three o’clock in the morning, I was doing push-ups on my living room floor, replaying Gino’s lie in my head—and all the lies I had told myself about him. I was grunting and cursing and sweating when Gino waltzed in through the door of my attic room. Gorgeous Gino, straight Gino, deceitful Gino! He appeared like an alley cat with his rump preening. We stood face-to-face, two protagonists: one in love, the other a lie. His lumbering thighs, his huge chest, his weighty crotch possessed the lamplight, while I slunk into the shadows, wishing I had done three hundred more push-ups.
“I’ve come to shut you up,” he said with a smirk.
“Good,” I said. “Let’s see if you can lie your way through a hard-on.”
Gino laughed, though not much. He knew I knew. He stood there, three-times awesome, filling my room with his pizzeria scent, waiting for my eyes to beg for his fat dick.
“When the coach’s whistle is directed your way, you obey,” he teased. “But Lucio’s not my coach anymore. He’s just my boss.”
“Where’s the boss tonight?”
“Alone in his den. Pounding his sausage,” Gino shrugged. “We do it now and then for old times sake, I guess. But we both know the good times have passed. One day I’ll buy him out of the pizzeria. Train someone new to take my place, become the boss myself. Want to train?”
Gino grabbed his crotch, letting me know his New World sausage needed attention. He unzipped his pants. Truth is, he was feeling guilty for tormenting a boyhood friend. Gino’s cock hung raw, no boxers, no briefs, slick with the sweat of a day beside a hot oven. His pubic hair was dense and deep. He was no cultured breeder, that’s for certain, nothing groomed and sleek about him. His unshorn crotch was a masculine marshland, pubes cushioning his balls and tangled around his fat Italian cock. I wanted to kneel and inhale the straight stink clinging to his heroic meat. From two steps away, the balm of breeder ball-sweat swept over me.