football-type jocks holding the cattle prods. The photograph was printed on the front page of the newspaper, forcing an investigation of the initiation by the which includes members of the UT Longhorn football team, as well as the sons of many prominent Texans. Membership represents the cream of the crop of Texas manhood.

"Cowboys" alumni include former governors, U.S. Senators and leaders all over the state of Texas. Proof of membership is a UT brand burned into the chest of each.

Although hazing and the branding practices have been outlawed at the University of Texas for a number of years, enforcement has been passive as hazing is a traditional and generally ac- cepted practice among the Texas fra- ternity system. University officials bemoan the fact that those subjected to the harsh initiation practices condone the custom through their failure to report abuses and by their apparent eagerness to subject the next class of initiates to the same treatment they have endured.

Mel Austin, TX

FETISH FANS

I came across the July issue of DRUMMER and read the letter headed "Hates Crap, Loves Scat" from Don in Tucson.

I am also interested in the subject of scat, as well as spit, snot and Oral Frenching sweaty, smelly male feet and toes.

I'm especially interested in the spit fetish and guys who like to be spat upon. Could you please include some articles on the spit and snot fetish, as well as more articles on feet and scat?

S.A. Boston, MA

Keep up the good work! Yours is my favorite mag — have all issues. Especially liked the W / S and scat articles — more of the same, please!

How about a long reader questionnaire on sexual preferences, etc. with results in a future issue? Also would like to see more in-depth articles on leather bars around the country (like the Gold Coast article in the October issue).

Tony San Francisco, CA

DRUMMER IMPROVING

DRUMMER is great! Each issue seems better than the last. The fiction is mostly top-notch - I particularly like Andros' stuff and photo series of leather stud types, What about a series on Brian of the Gold Coast whose pictures are on page 49 of Issue No. 9? Keep up the great work.

Boston, MA

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one time when we got to chatting about watersports, my friend Rex Vidor got me hard just hinting at the things he could do to a guy. He had, he said, a small boat docked in an out-of-the-way cove on Lake Pontchartrain. He invited me out, asking, "You remember Gary, don't you?"

I remembered Gary very well indeed. I remembered him as the hunky young blond stud who could come just at the thought of being owned and abused by Rex, the kid Rex had branded as his own. I have no idea who Gary is, what he does, or where he lives. For all I know he could be bound, gagged, and shackled to the foot of Rex's bed at this very minute. If he were, I know he'd be happy.

As for watersports, Rex would only say that if I thought it was simply a matter of a golden shower and perhaps a Fels-Naptha enema, I sure as hell had a

I had a little bit of trouble finding the cove, so by the time I had located the dock and the Water King, and chained my bike to a tree and gone to meet Rex, he welcomed me with an apology for having started without me.

The Water King turned out to be a 38- foot Trojan, no slouch of a craft by any means. It rode high in the water, so that as I stood on the rickety dock I had to look up at Rex standing over me. He wore boots, open-crotch leather pants and a leather vest. I could well understand why he docked in this God-forsaken cove. I had a slave's eye view of his massive cock and balls, the sight of which caused my own cock to surge, and I swear his lifted a bit as well. Lord knows, I stared hard enough. "Come aboard," Rex said, "and get out of those clothes. I have a leather jock you can wear if you're the shy type."

I hoisted myself up onto the deck, offering my hand to Rex who took it and, by way of shaking it, hauled me on board.

"Welcome to the Water King," Rex said. I looked about, awed at the size of what Rex had referred to as a "small boat." What I saw, first, though, sur- prised me even more. There spread-eagled on the fantail, lashed naked and face down on the deck, lay Gary. His arms were stretched wide, each wrist fastened to a cleat with white nylon rope. His legs, spread wide, were also fastened by rope from his ankles to cleats. There was a slight slope of the deck towards the back, so that Gary's head was a few inches lower than his ass. The brand Rex had put on his cheek months before stood out raw, red, and angry.

Without even mentioning Gary, step- ping over his left calf as if he didn't exist, Rex ushered me into the cabin and down a short flight of steps beside the pilot's station. "Galley," Rex said casu- ally as if I saw galleys like this every day. He opened the refrigerator and took out two beers and opened them.

"Now, if you'll strip and get into this," he said, handing me the jock, "we can get started. I have a chore to do before we get under way." He vanished up the ladder.

I thanked him for the beer and began peeling off my clothes. "By the way," Rex hollered back down, "save your piss." I took a good swallow of the beer and then, without thinking, held the leather jock to my nose. Sperm, salty sweat, piss; the lingering odors turned me on. I slipped into it before I got hard. It fit well and tight. I pulled up my balls to emphasize my basket, grinned at my reflection in a mirror, and hauled myself back up into the cabin and out on deck.

"Get yourself another beer whenever you want it," Rex told me, "and there are some ham and mustard sandwiches in the 'fridge if you get hungry. They should give you a thirst." "Yeah," I said, smiling, "but what about pissing?"

"Use that bucket," Rex said, pointing to a large stainless pail lashed to one side about to do. He held a black hose in his hand, a little larger than the garden variety, with about five feet hanging free.

"Now," Rex said to Gary, "now, you miserable little fuck, I'm going to let your ass taste this. Let me know when you've had enough." With that Rex pulled his arm back and slashed the hose down onto the cheeks of Gary's ass. I could hear Gary's breath being sucked in, but he didn't say a word, and Rex let him have it again. Once more I noticed the scar of the branding, and it seemed to me that Rex was aiming for it. I could imagine its just healing over, or just scabbing, and Rex laying it open again to insure that the rugged scar, the scar of Rex's own personal brand, would last forever.

The brutal hose came down again and again, and finally Gary let out a moan. Rex stopped immediately. He ducked into the cabin and grabbed a couple of fingers of Crisco, then came back out and greased up a foot or so of the end of the

"Open it up," he told me, and I squatted down between Gary's legs and spread the cheeks of his burning ass. With no gentleness at all, maybe even dangerously fast I thought, Rex shoved the hose into Gary. "Keep it there," Rex ordered. He jumped off the boat onto the dock, where he gave the fresh water pipeline faucet a full turn.

"Shove his cheeks together," Rex shouted to me, and I did; for a full two minutes, no water escaped. Suddenly it back-flushed, and Rex told me to let go of Gary's ass. Water exploded out, bringing with it hunks of shit.

Rex came back aboard and began retrieving the shit and shoving it into Gary's mouth. He kept this up for at least ten minutes until the water from Gary's ass ran absolutely clean, and there was no more shit. I was learning fast.

Rex jumped back onto the dock, turned off the water faucet, and coiled

the hose at the dock's end, pulling it out of Gary as if he were pulling it out of some drain where it had been wedged.

Gary was released from his bondage, but he didn't even have time to say hello or rub his sore ass; Rex hit him with a barrage of orders to get the Water King under way.

In the meantime, Rex had given me a couple of director's chairs to unfold and set up on the fantail while he went below for more beer.

We sat back in the chairs, and once free of the cove Rex ordered Gary up to the flying bridge. He stood there nude, in the hot wind and the broiling sun, steering the Water King with utter concentra- tion. I had noticed that after the hosing, when he had been released, he'd had a rugged hard-on, and I noticed now, as he turned to watch a passing boat, that he was still hard as granite. A couple of hours up there and he would be broiled like a lobster. I wondered what a sunburned cock would be like, and knew that Gary would probably be able to tell me at the end of this day.

Except for beer breaks, and there were lots of those, Rex kept Gary out on the bridge every minute of the morning. Both Rex and I pissed in the bucket often, and it was at least half full. But whenever Gary begged permission to piss, Rex told him to hold it. And drink more beer. Gary drank.

About noon Rex ordered Gary to head for shore, and he watched the fathometer in the cabin until we were in shallow enough water to anchor. Then he cut the engines and yelled at Gary to get his ass up forward and drop the anchor.

We sat back down in the director's chairs, and when Gary had secured the anchor he came back to us and slipped to his knees before Rex, begging him for permission to piss.

"Three more beers," was all Rex said, and obediently Gary went to the galley and returned with the cans of Jax. "Come here, close," Rex commanded, and Gary obeyed, standing only inches away from Rex's face. If he had started to go soft, that was before; now he grew rock-hard again.

Rex took a long swallow of his beer and then dug into the pocket of his leathers. Out came a coiled tube.

"Suck on the end of this if you want it lubricated; otherwise it goes in without." Gary sucked, or I guess licked would be a better word, the end of the Foley tubing, and then handed it back to Rex. "Hold your cock," Rex said. Then, not at all slowly, he began forcing the tube down Gary's cock. It went in further and further. Gary was gritting his teeth, but then suddenly, he seemed to relax. The tubing had penetrated his bladder and the pent-up piss was at last on its way out. Rex clamped the tube shut.

Rex then bound Gary's wrists behind him and refastened the nylon ropes around Gary's ankles, told him to lie down, and handed me one of the ropes. We hoisted Gary by his ankles to the roof of the cabin, over the doorway, his head about six inches above the deck.

Rex brought over the half-filled bucket of piss, yanked Gary's head up by his long blond hair, and then let it back down into the bucket. We pulled on the ankle ropes until Gary hung just to his eyebrows in the piss; then we secured the ropes to cleats.

"We don't want to pollute the lake do we?" Rex asked. "I mean, before we swim, shouldn't we piss?"

Rex let loose a stream, aimed right at Gary's nostrils. The bucket filled another quarter inch. I let loose, too, at first away from Gary's face; but then, as I realized I was enjoying it, I, too, directed my stream at his nostrils. With the gentle rocking of the boat the piss was now sloshing into Gary's eyes, and he squinted them shut. Then, without warning, Rex released the clamp on the catheter, and Gary's own piss started pouring into the bucket.

"O.K., That'll hold him." He stripped and dove into the water. I shed my jock and plunged in after him. When I surfaced Rex told me he'd noticed I wasn't exactly turned off; he'd seen my hard-on. He was right.

We necked in the water, took turns going down on each other under water, and generally horseplayed around for 10 or 15 minutes. When we climbed up the stern ladder Gary was still hanging, of course, as we had left him, but the level of the piss was now over the base of his nose. He had struggled against the foot ropes and they had stretched a bit. To breathe, he had to lift his head up a fraction of an inch and breathe through his open mouth. Gary knew he hadn't had much time left.

Rex grabbed his hair and lifted his head and pulled the bucket from underneath . Then, admiring his slave spread-eagled upside-down, he very slowly pulled the catheter from his cock,

At that moment a sleek Chris-Craft came past, close alongside, and its passengers waved cheerily. They stopped waving suddenly, and Rex and I doubled up with laughter, imagining their horror at the sight they beheld.

Then we let Gary down, and Rex untied his wrists and told him to get us plates of cold chicken, potato salad and more beer. Without a word Gary hopped to it, served us, and then kneeled at our feet. "Want to come?" Rex asked me. Before I could answer he barked out the one word, "Suck!" and Gary was immediately down, all the way down, on me. I kept eating my lunch, hoping to drag it out: Gary was a real pro, but he kept eating, too, and it was not long before I had dropped him my load. Rex ordered him to get a cup then, and told him to start drinking the bucket. Rex was hard, and Gary had never stopped being hard, but I guessed Rex was saving his, and I doubted if Gary would be permitted to come at all. Gary dipped the cup in the bucket and started drinking.

When he had drunk every drop he could, six or seven cupfuls, he was commanded to drink another and another. He soon looked like he might puke, but he kept forcing it down.

By then Rex and I had finished our luncheon, so Rex ordered him to take our plates to the galley and wash them, then to bring us some K.W. joints and some more beer. This done, Rex told Gary to tie a long length of rope around each ankle, and after we had shared two Katherine Walkers (Gary was permitted that pleasure) we all went up to the bow. Slowly, measuring carefully, Rex tied each of Gary's ankle ropes to the lifeline stanchions on either side of the prow. Again he lashed Gary's wrists together behind his back. Next, he made Gary sit as far out on the prow as possible, facing toward us. Then, with one swift shove, he pushed Gary overboard.

Gary's fall was, of course, broken by the ropes, and he hung with his legs spread wide, in free air,, a foot or two above the water, his cock and balls hanging out forward like some small but proud figurehead on an old-fashioned sailing vessel.

Rex and I pulled in the anchor, Rex hosing it off with a water hose connected to some below-deck pump. When the anchor was secured, Rex went aft and came back with the Crisco and again lubricated this, Gary's second hose of the day. "It won't hurt him to get rinsed out again," Rex said, and, leaning out over the edge of the prow, he shoved the end of the hose down into Gary's ass. I could just hear Gary's moans over the noise of the water, but then Rex disappeared and the engines came to life; we began to move, and I could hear nothing.

I went back aft.

Rex was standing now, proud, still nude, steering from the flying bridge, and from there he could look down at the feet of his slave. We proceeded very slowly at first to avoid any waves which might have sloshed over Gary's head, but occasionally he would speed up when he saw another boat. He would search the other craft with his binoculars; if he didn't like what he saw, he'd speed away. On the other hand, if he did like what he saw through the glasses, he would idle over toward them, displaying the trophy hanging from his prow. Two young men fishing from an outboard could have reached up with their fishing poles and whipped Gary's cock as we slowly passed them. Another kid, in a speedboat, kept circling us, swerving at the very last minute to throw up a dense wave of spray which covered Gary's body, drenching it over and over.

Eventually, though, we were alone on the water again - it seemed like the high and Rex gradually increased our seas speed. Fortunately we had found an area of calm, and the pitch of the boat was so slight I doubted if even Gary's hair got dipped.

Rex locked the wheel and told me to join him. We went down the aft ladder and went around the cabin-walk up to the bow. The noise of the engines, the sound of the water rushing past his head, his own thoughts at that moment - all made it impossible for Gary to hear us.

"I'm going to keelhaul the worthless turd," Rex said. I must have looked puzzled. "There's nothing to it," he added. "I'll release one foot, you release the other at the same time. He'll drop into the water, and the fuckin' boat will run right over him. But we have to ease the slack out just right or he'll pull his legs together. The idea is to keep him

(Continued on page 54)

CANADA

* * * EDMONTON, ALBERTA, S. Cancer. 30. 5'6". 130. White. 8'4". Knowledgeable. Levelheaded, imaginative, will respect limits of dude heavy into ass work. No role-switching. Box 131.

EDMONTON, ALBERTA. M. Scorpio. 32. 5'8". 168. White. 8". Completely inexperienced . Hunky dude needs leather and male superiority from experienced, goodlooking bodybuilder type to 40 willing to train. No violence, fats, insensitive, unclean. Box 308.

PORT ALBERNI, BRITISH COLUMBIA. M. Pisces. 42. 5'7". 142. White. 6". Knowledgeable . Experienced and obedient, willing to service and please Leather Master. Into B&D, W / S. Black a real turn-on. No fems, fats. Box 048L

WEST VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA. SM. Warlock host offers vacation accommodations in totally dedicated S&M home to masculine male stallions, any race, and their Slaves. Box 011

DOWNSVIEW, ONTARIO. SM. Capricorn. 25. 5'8". 135. White. 7". Will do anything to or for a real motorcycle cop, MP, state trooper or cowboy type. White, clean, non-smoker preferred . No drugs. Box 285.

OTTAWA, ONTARIO. MS. Aquarius. 27.5'11". 165. White. 6". Knowledgeable. Prefers Master into heavy bondage, tit work, etc. Box 070X.

OTTAWA, ONTARIO. SM. Aquarius. 40, 5'11". 175. White. 5½". Knowledgeable. Prefers considerate, intelligent, bodybuilder type over 25. Box 024.

TORONTO, ONTARIO. MS. Capricorn. 23. 5'7". 120. White. 6". Completely inexperienced . Needs experienced, forgiving teacher enced. Needs experienced, forgining teaching under 30 in Toronto, Box 074.

**TORONTO, ONTARIO.** M. Libra. 31. 5'8'.

145. White. 6%". Novice. Intelligent, flexible, obedient, strong libido. Wishes to learn from mentally / physically dominant, hunky masculine partner to 45. Box 163.

TORONTO, ONTARIO. MS. Pisces, 33, 5'7". 130. White. 6%". Knowledgeable. Will service, please and obey butch stud in boots and smelly jeans. Bikers a plus. No fems, fats, blacks. Box 081Z.

TORONTO, ONTARIO. M. Leo. 37. 5'10". 156. White. 7". Knowledgeable. Enjoys being completely dominated by aggressive, stocky S over 30. No fems, scat. Box 157T.

* * * MONTREAL, QUEBEC. M. Virgo. 28. 5'7". 150. White. 7". Old hand. Docile boot-slave and expert boot-licker will lick your boots clean, French kiss, suck, mouth massage and polish them to a high gloss. Boots are made to be licked and sucked constantly by boot-slaves on the big, sweaty, smelly feet of cycle cops, firemen, SS boot-Masters, bikers, spurred rodeo cowboys, fisherman, road and construction workers. Keep a slave plenty busy. Put his tongue and mouth to work on your Masterful boots and those of your friends and working companions. Try me and see the results. Box 053.

MONTREAL, QUEBEC. M. Capricorn. 27. 5'8". 130. White. 6\%". Knowledgeable. 5'8". 130. White. 6½". Knowledgeable. Wants sadistic Master(s) to expand limits. Into S&M, scat, W / S, TT, toys, drugs, beer, poppers. Muscles in tight leather and group scenes a real turn-on. Often visits U.S. Box 157N.

* * * MONTREAL, QUEBEC. S. Aries. 30. 5'11". 160. White. 9". Old hand. Will respect and expand limits of willing slave to 40 who like pain, games, B&D. No fems, fats. Box 318T.

ENGLAND

ISLE OF MAN. M. Sagittarius. 52. 6'. 214. White, 51 / 2". Novice, Turned on by bondage, boxing gloves, hoods, rubber, W / S. Seeks firm, trusting non-butch Master. Eager to try new toys, positions, grease, poppers, chain bondage . Box 152T.

LONDON. M. Leo. 29. 5'11". 154. White. 7". Knowledgeable. Needs to be taught respect and beaten into passive ways. Box 060X.

LONDON. S. Pisces. 36, 6'2". 179. White. 9%". Knowledgeable. Hunky Eurasian into 9%". Knowledgeable. Hunky Eurosa. History FF, W / S, bondage, seeks clean partner 24 to 30. Should be muscular, hairy. Tattoos a turn-on . Box 071B.

LONDON. S. Aquarius. 47. 5'9½". 175. White. 7". Old hand. Must be able to meet partner with similar enjoyment of the S&M experience . Occasionally travels to New York, Maryland, D.C., California. No scat. Box 149.

LONDON. SM. Scorpio. 30. 6'. 180. White. 8". Completely inexperienced. Has strong, dominant character required of S; needs to learn M role. Wants slim, muscular, smooth- bodied partner to 25. Box 228.

HOLLAND

* * * THE HAGUE. SM. Pisces. 31. 5'11%". 145. White. 9½". Knowledgeable. Into whipping, B&D, FF, W / S, enemas. Possible permanent relationship with masculine partner. Visits USA twice a year. Box 295M.

SWEDEN

* * * SOLNA. M. Cancer. 30. 5'8%". 132. White. 6%". Novice. Seeks knowledgeable, masculine partner to 45. Can switch but prefers M role. Box 228M.

WEST GERMANY

FRANKFURT. MS. Leo. 32. 6'. 175. White. 9" Knowledgeable. American abroad will service Slaves / Masters passing through. Gang fuck can be arranged. No fems, fats. Under 40 only, Limits respected, Box 185K.

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In MGM's 1932 production of The Mask of Fu Manchu, villainous Boris Karloff orders heroic Charles Starrett flogged as punishment for invading his Oriental domain. Accordingly, Starrett is dragged off to an underground chamber where a pair of burly black slaves, dressed only in loincloths, suspend him from the ceiling by means of chains clamped around his wrists. Although the twisting victim kicks vigorously at these tor- mentors, the two slaves soon succeed in ripping off Starrett's shirt, exposing his hairless and muscular chest to view. Then the slaves, one standing behind and one in front, uncoil their whips and proceed to flog the helpless man. Their long black whips snap back and forth with remark- able speed and power, and Starrett's torso quickly becomes crisscrossed with a number of painful welts and bruises. In fact, so enthusiastically are these whips applied to Starrett's vulnerable body that within seconds the gallant American slumps down, unconscious in his bonds.

Several factors raise this episode above the standard set by most of Hollywood's flogging scenes. For one thing, the sight and sound of the victim's shirt being savagely torn from his body effectively establishes a mood of violence even before the first blow is struck. Secondly, Starrett's furious struggles — so unlike the passive acceptance shown by other victims of movie torture — significantly increase the vigor and force of the scene.

Thirdly, having a leather-covered stick thrust between the hero's teeth adds a note of authenticity to the proceedings. Finally, handsome Charles Starrett possesses the kind of rugged physique which both excites and challenges the sadistic mind.

(Starrett, a football star turned actor, was 28 years old when he made The Mask of Fu Manchu. He soon drifted into B westerns where he remained active until the early 1950s.) The importance of Fu Manchu's flogging scene, however, rests not so much in its sadistic qualities as in its depiction of Hollywood's attitudes toward Orientals, Arabs and other racial groups. For much of its history, Holly-

wood has chosen to picture these groups as being composed of hordes of wild-eyed barbarians led by haughty and tyrannical rulers who live in opulent though somewhat decadent surroundings. These bejeweled and effetely dressed rulers love to devise ingenious ways of torturing the white soldiers, explorers and missionaries who fall into their exotic traps

Charles Starrett, wearing the tradi- tional hero's garb of pith helmet, jodhpurs and knee-high boots, clearly represents Hollywood's notion of the Western man whose refusal to submit to foreign domination and ability to triumph in the face of overwhelming odds mark him as morally superior to his darkskinned enemies. Film-makers have often dramatized this racist notion by showing virile specimens of "Aryan" manhood being ruthlessly tortured by Arabian or Oriental villains, and while The Mask of Fu Manchu contains one of the best of these episodes, movie history can offer many more examples.

(For the record, Fu Manchu subjects three other members of its cast to Boris Karloff's lovingly conceived punishments. Lawrence Grant, for example, is spread-eagled under a constantly ringing bell which will eventually turn his brain into jelly. When Grant gasps out in thirst, Karloff obligingly pours salt water into his mouth. Later, Karloff's slaves tie Jean Hersholt between two spike- studded walls which gradually press together . Still later, these same slaves strap Lewis Stone to a device designed to slowly tilt its victim headfirst into a pool of hungry crocodiles. Both Hersholt and

Stone manage to escape.)

Gary Cooper carries the "white man's burden" in one of Adolph Hitler's favorite movies, the 1935 Lives of a Bengal Lancer. Cooper's rewarded for his efforts by an ungrateful Oriental potentate who inserts strips of burning bamboo under his prisoner's fingernails. Delightful as this torture might sound to sadists, it's presented on the screen with such admirable restraint - director Henry Hathaway chose to show the torture only through its reflection on a polished table-top - that the overall effect must be considered stylish but disappointing.

Cary Grant suffers a somewhat similar fate in George Stevens' 1939 production of Gunga Din when he's captured and tortured by a group of Hindu fanatics who wish to wring military secrets from him. They chain Grant to a pillar inside one of their temples and then, after ripping open the back of his uniform shirt, one of their numbers cuts through his skin with a series of well-aimed whiplashes . Needless to say, Grant remains defiantly silent during his ordeal, and he's soon rescued by his British comrades.

Tyrone Power, playing a follower of Marco Polo, must prove his bravery to a crowd of jeering barbarians in 1950's The Black Rose by walking a rope stretched tightly along an earthen ridge. Sharpened spikes have been imbedded on each side of this rope to punish clumsiness , but Power manages to avoid impalement by successfully navigating the course despite being taunted by his audience and sometimes even struck across his bare torso with sacks of sand.

(Three years later, in King of the Khyber Rifles, Tyrone Power must watch helplessly as several of his British Army colleagues are tied to stakes and used as target practice by spear-throwing tribes-men .)

In Escape to Burma (1955), Robert Ryan falls into the hands of an Oriental sultan who erroneously blames him for the death of his son and heir. Two of the sultan's guards strip off Ryan's shirt before tying him between two pillars, and then a third one begins to flog him mercilessly across the back. (The whip- ping's merely a prelude to a beheading ceremony.) Soon Ryan's writhing under the lash, but as so often happens in the movies, the camera pulls away to another scene - this one showing Barbara Stan-wyck pleading Ryan's innocence to the vengeful ruler while the sounds of the whipping can still be heard off-screen. Stanwyck's pleas finally sway the potentate , and there's a final shot of the weakened hero being released from his bonds as a jacket is thrown across his bleeding shoulders.

Though an accomplished actor, Robert Ryan's gaunt and 46-year-old physique does tend to reduce the visual impact of this scene. How much more satisfying it would be to have a bare-chested William Holden or Rock Hudson flexing his muscles and gritting his teeth in this piece of 1950s' sadism.

Those fiendish Orientals hang up their whips and take out their acupuncture needles in order to perform a bit of mayhem in a 1961 thriller called Terror of the Tongs. The victim in this case, a British sea captain searching Hong Kong for his daughter's murderers, finds himself held down in the back room of an opium den while an angry Tong member sticks a long needle into his chest, several inches below his right clavicle. According to one of the onlookers, this needle causes excruciating pain when it's scraped against a living bone and, sure enough, our hero - played by Geoffrey Toone even moans a bit during his torture. Unfortunately , this torture takes up less than a minute of screen time; and to make matters worse, the modest Chinese don't even rip off the sea captain's shirt before forcing this hellish agony on him. Instead, they're content to simply open his shirt at the throat and lay bare the necessary area of skin.

The promised torture of a British soldier captured by warring Hindus in The Temple of the White Elephants never occurs - though there's a glimpse of him chained against a cave wall - but in the 1965 Brigand of Kandahar, the Hindus do get to flog the bare back of a young British officer whom they've tied by the wrists to part of a mill apparatus. Meanwhile, in the 1975 Conduct Unbecoming , a pair of British cavalrymen in India react with suitably shocked expressions when they see that one of their comrades-in-arms has had his "sex ripped away" by bloodthirsty Hindus on the field of battle. Not surprisingly, however, the victim's mutilated body is never shown on the screen.

Torture of members of the white race by members of the yellow race did not

end with the Victorian Age, according to most film-makers. For example, in The Million Eyes of Su-Muru, Shirley Eaton plays a modern Fu Manchu who takes hostage the American agent sent to spy on her and her dope-smuggling activities. Audiences are then treated to a scene in which Eaton whips this bare-chested agent across the back in a vain attempt to learn from him the names of the people to whom he reports.

George Nader, incidentally, plays the tortured agent, but while the sight of this man's naked torso lent sexual interest to such 1950s' movies as Away All Boats and Monsoon, his once-muscular physique looks sadly past its prime in The Million Eyes of Su-Muru. Chaining the 45-year- old Nader with his hands above his head for this flogging scene merely emphasizes the flabbiness of his biceps and stomach.

Not only does Ivan Rassimov come equipped with a pleasing physique in The Man from Deep River (1973), but he also shows off more of it than George Nader ever dared; and, unlike Nader in Su-Muru, he suffers far more at Oriental hands than a conventional whipping. Playing a modern-day adventurer in trouble with the law, Rassimov wanders northward from Bangkok along the Thai-Burmese border until he's taken hostage by a primitive, superstitious tribe still practicing such barbaric customs as "initiation rites." To become a member of this jungle tribe, Rassimov must endure several days without water while staked out nearly naked under the burning sun. (It's assumed he must lie in his wastes - a situation which would surely attract clouds of stinging insects.) Then, their hostage still in a dazed condition, the tribesmen bind Rassimov with his arms outstretched against a rotating post housed inside of their huts. As Rassimov is slowly turned fround and fround like a shooting gallery target, his tormentors use their blowguns to riddle his torso with a barrage of poison-tipped darts. While the poison's not enough to kill him, each of the darts causes Rassimov obvious pain as it imbeds itself into his flesh. But, as might be expected, none of these darts find its way into that bulging area covered by the victim's scanty loincloth.

Although Hollywood's chauvinistic view of Orientals usually has found expression in scenes of sadistic Asians brutalizing courageous Americans and Europeans, movie-makers have oc- casionally constructed scenes in which Orientals torture members of their own race. (Often the victims of these tortures turn out to be Asians with Western ideas or Western friends.) In The Conqueror, for example — a 1955 "epic" produced by none other than Howard Hughes - John Wayne as Genghis Khan falls into the clutches of an enemy army whose leaders command their prisoner to be yoked like an ox to a heavy cart. A soldier on horseback wielding a whip makes sure Wayne keeps the cart moving at a respectable pace.

For those who admire John Wayne's hulking physique, it should be pointed out here that Wayne doesn't flaunt much of his torso in The Conqueror. Instead, he wears one of those strap-over-the-

Victor Mature, on the other hand, can usually be counted on to strip to the waist at least once during his movies, and the 1957 Zarak proves no exception to this policy. It seems that Mature, playing a bandit of sorts in 19th century India, must be punished for making advances toward his father's mistress. This punishment takes the form of a flogging carried out at the edge of the village where the bare-chested Mature is spread-eagled inside a wooden frame. Although staged in a routine manner, this whipping episode does afford the oppor-

tunity to see one of the best bodies ever found on a Hollywood leading man.

Later in Zarak, the 40-year-old Mature must again suffer under the lash, this time because his banditry has offended members of a neighboring village. First, Mature's tormentors tie him, arms out- stretched, to a low T-shaped post. Then one of them rips open the back of his white shirt and the flogging begins. Viewers expecting their hero to be rescued after an appropriate amount of anguish will be surprised to learn that the star of Zarak actually dies under torture, a rarity in the history of movies. Although several floggers are worn out in the process, and although the suffering victim remains defiantly erect during most of his ordeal, even massive Victor Mature weakens under repeated blows of the lash … finally slumping down in unconsciousness and then death.

Other examples of Asian-vs.-Asian torture pale in comparison with Zarak's whip orgies, but in the 1965 Genghis Khan, a nomad is pulled apart by four Tartar horses, and in The Sand Pebbles (1967), Steve McQueen watches in horror from the deck of his gunboat as his Chinese friend on shore suffers "the death of a thousand cuts." The friend, Mako, is suspended by his wrists inside a hastily erected tripod. Then his shirt's torn off and he's slashed over and over again by a gang of angry Chinese brandishing knives and swords. McQueen finally shoots Mako in order to put him out of his misery.

POWs from the Vietnam War may recognize that the manner in which a Cambodian chief ties up his native hostages in Lord Jim (1965) closely resembles the way in which the North Vietnamese bound some of their Ameri- can prisoners.

Arabs, along with Orientals, also appear frequently in movies when swarthy villains are called upon to abuse their white captives. While many of these episodes of torture involve that romantic and adventuresome institution, the French Foreign Legion, virtually all of them foster the notion that Americans and Europeans are somehow as superior to their Arabic adversaries as they are to their Asian foes.

In the 1936 Under Two Flags, for instance, Ronald Colman and his fellow legionnaires come across the sweat-soaked bodies of two former comrades buried up to their bare nipples in the scorching sands of the Sahara. The Arabs have left trays of food and jugs of water in plain sight of the dying men in order to in- crease the anguish of their final hours.

In Ten Tall Men (1951), the Arabs get to practice their pain-producing techniques on a brawny legionnaire played by Burt Lancaster. They bind Lancaster (stripped to the waist to reveal his splendid musculature) in a crucifixion pose inside one of their tents. Then they turn him over to their official torturer whose skills with hot branding irons are supposed to keep even the most gallant of men screaming for mercy all night. Alas, Lancaster's spared this gruesome fate by one of those meddlesome screen heroines who doesn't like to see men suffer pain, mutilation and death. Thus, sadistically minded audiences are deprived of the chance to hear Burt Lancaster cry out in agony as red-hot irons are pressed against his well-tanned flesh.

Nehemiah Persoff plays the legionnaire who must suffer the Arabs' wrath in Desert Legion (1953). In this instance, the Arabs rely on the whip to tear vital military secrets out of their recalcitrant prisoner, but the soon-to-be-rescued Persoff remains silent as the whip crashes against his bare back.

The French soldier who's captured by the villainous emir, John Dehner, in Tim- buktu (1959) doesn't have the luck to be saved in the proverbial nick of time. Instead, he's staked out shirtless on the ground while his Arab tormentor allows a poisonous spider to slowly crawl down a cord toward the victim's stomach. After the young soldier succumbs to a lethal dose of spider venom, Dehner complains that he died too easily and too quickly.

The 1965 remake of She includes a sequence in which handsome John Richardson, playing a British explorer, finds himself spread-eagled between two posts in the midst of a desert village.

Apparently the hostile residents have doomed Richardson to some kind of blood sacrifice, but before the savage ceremony can begin, Richardson's British colleagues come charging to the rescue. Adding to the disappointment prompted by this convenient turn of events is the fact that well-built John Richardson keeps his shirt on during the entire ordeal — though it is unbuttoned far enough to display an impressive slice of hair-covered chest.

Arabic torture of white prisoners continues well into the 20th century if The Lost Command (1966) can be believed. This ambitious film about the Algerian War contains a brief shot of Anthony Quinn discovering the bodies of fellow French soldiers who've been mutilated and left to die by the side of a dirt road. However, The Lost Command carries with it the implication that these Arabic atrocities are matched by the French willingness to torture prisoners by applying repeated electric shocks to sensitive areas of their bodies.

One of those "Take that, you Christian dog!" scenes from The Victor McLaglen inspects Gary Grant's multilated back in 1939's Gunga Din. Saracen Blade (1953), But shouldn't Ricardo Montalban's hands (Perhaps he's wondering why make-up men didn't do better.) be cuffed around the post?

The 1966 version of Beau Geste contains three separate examples of sadistic punishments, but unlike most movies about the French Foreign Legion, none of these punishments involve the Arab enemy. In the first example, Telly Savalas as a vicious sergeant orders a flogging for Guy Stockwell as punishment for allegedly sending him a threatening letter. Fellow legionnaires reluctantly bind the shirtless Stockwell to a whipping post, his wrists tied together above his head, and then one of them proceeds to administer a dozen lashes to the victim's bare back.

Savalas later has Stockwell's brother, Doug McClure, stripped to the waist and locked for hours inside a "sweat box" which is ventilated only by a small open-

ing near the victim's face. McClure's profuse perspiring inside the box, however , seems to owe more to make-up than to the temperature.

Finally, the insatiable sadist played by Telly Savalas orders a bare-chested Guy Stockwell buried to his neck in the desert sands for a sunrise-to-sunset ordeal of thirst and blistering flesh. Regrettably, this torture and the two preceding appear in such a cheaply made and poorly directed movie that their sadistic impact never approaches the level of realism.

Just as Orientals sometimes torture Orientals in the movies, so do Arabs sometimes torture fellow Arabs. In a 1963 "quickie" called Captain Sinbad, for example, rugged Guy Williams suffers a flogging in the court of a villainous sultan, but since Williams keeps his shirt on during the application of this torture, few viewers are likely to regard the sequence as a memorable one. In 1965's The Sword of Ali Baba, virile Peter Mann in the title role is spread-eagled in the town square to await some form of slow and painful execution, but he's saved by his men before the enemy can even get around to tearing off his shirt. In 1975's The Wind and the Lion, Candace Bergen discovers a bare-chested Arab played by Sean Connery hanging upside-down in the house of his Arabian foe.

In concluding this brief and obviously incomplete discussion of those Arabic and Oriental tortures which appear in the movies, mention should be made of the suffering and pain often inflicted by exotic villains on that supreme example of white superiority: Tarzan. While many of Tarzan's ordeals could be touched on here, three examples seem to stand out a bit from the others. In the 1953 Tarzan and the She-Devil, a gang of ivory poachers captures hero Lex Barker, whose 6-foot, 4-inch physique soon winces under the blows of a whip. Bondage fans will recall the 1958 Tarzan's Fight for Life as the movie in which natives kidnap Gordon Scott, transport him up-river while spread-eagled between two canoes, and finally bind him inside a torchlit cave as food for a hungry lion.

Perhaps Jock Mahoney suffers the most effective Tarzan-torture in a 1963 adventure, Tarzan's Three Challenges. In order to prove his strength to a colony of skeptical Orientals, Mahoney must keep from being pulled apart by two water buffaloes. These Orientals tie each of Mahoney's wrists to a rope which is then threaded through a hole in a wooden post and attached to the yoke of a buffalo. The animals are whipped in opposite directions so that the brawny man in the famous loincloth is lifted off the ground and suspended between the two posts like a meaty wishbone about to be pulled in two.

However, not only does the tanned and sweaty Mahoney keep from having his arms snapped off at the sockets, he even succeeds in pulling the two water buffaloes back toward him - and in the process he creates a notable scene of the male body triumphing over an ordeal of pain.

In the next issue: Maritime tortures.

ACROSS

Shave, Cram 1

Battle 4

Wheels 5

8 Record 10

Pig Instinct 12

Turd "I Give Up" 13

15 From

17 Chicago Train

19 Knight

21 Piece of Meat

23 Homos

24 Indian Stud

26 Egyptian God

28 Beating, Cowboy Style

---- in the Hole 31

Basic Trainers 32

DOWN

Jack Off 1

2 FFA Fetish

3 Master of Ceremonies

4 Deep Hole

5 Leatherneck

Biker 7

Sit - - It 11

The Finger 13

16 Slaves Usually Do It

18 Ogle

- - Trade 20

Negative 22

24 Hickey Repository 27 Mohammed - -

29 Officer of the Day

30 Watersports

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THEGREAT SYNWIRDER' MASIEW by John W. Rowberry & Rue Dyllon

PART III: Till Death Do Us Part

The tattoo of a black panther crawled up the outside of his right biceps, etched on during some forgotten revel when questions regarding his masculinity were important considerations.

On the left arm were two more examples of the needle's art: a small, spread-winged eagle, dominated by a larger figure, another panther, teeth bared in a snarl.

He sat on the unmade bed, cross-legged and naked. Relaxed , his beefy arms and chest were those of a bodybuilder, but his mind carried the picture of a cowboy with a lifetime of wrestling steers.

The golden hue of his smooth, hairless skin and the brief white demarcation circling his waist, however, erased the possibility that he was anything more than a civilized sun-worshipper . His fingernails were short and clean, his face only Palm Springs-weathered.

His thick, soft brown hair needed another trim to conform with his otherwise thoroughly masculine image.

Incongruous with his demeanor were his eyes and mouth, his great betrayers. Soft and forgiving, humble and accepting — they labeled him another kind of cowboy, one whose range was no wider than the pretense in a dimly lit bar.

In the early evening shadow another figure circled the room, weaving a net of tension through the lamplight. Occasionally moving toward the bed, the policeman strutted his half dress in silent menace. Discarded were the dark shirt and badge, but not yet the hard-billed cap or the taut trousers, and certainly not the official air of authority.

His cool eyes flashed on the silent, waiting, bedded man as if to enforce a leash that would prevent any sudden attempt to bolt away. The cowboy's eyes did not follow him.

The policeman's nude torso, as finely chiseled as the cowboy's was heavily built, rose pale from the wide shiny black belt around his waist. One hand was empty; the other held a .38 service revolver. It was cradled loosely in the curling fingers, fingers firmly protective of its cold casing but unsure of its potential.

The pacing, the glances, the accumulating minutes that smothered by their swelling number the soft sound of the clock - all built to a situation still unclear in both minds.

Finally the policeman strode to the bed's edge, and the empty hand circled to catch the back of the cowboy's head. Fingers snarled in the hair, tightened, pulled forward in a testing movement. The cowboy tensed but bent slightly, ready for either resistance or yielding.

For a moment the gun was tossed on the bed, the burning hand used to unfasten the belt cinch.

The cowboy watched, head slightly bowed, eyes absorbing the movements just inches away. He watched the waistband come unsnapped, the zipper ratchet slide smoothly down the fly. The fabric spread as if in slow motion, as if by itself.

He saw the fingers grope inside, freeing finally a semi-rigid organ and heavy testicles.

When the pressure resumed on the back of his head, he yielded forward, feeling his nose and lips forced into the waiting hair and flesh. A half-caught gasp was only partly to open his mouth and suck air into his shriveled lungs. It also measured his sexual tension, and he brushed his dry lips across the rapidly lengthening cock.

A hand lifted it, pointed it into the now-open mouth.

The policeman spread his free hand smoothly down the muscled back beneath him, arching forward to trail his fingers into the disappearing shadow of an ass. One fingertip found an opening, then another joined the probe.

For a moment the hand left but then returned. The cowboy felt a harder intrusion, sharp, cold.

The policeman forced the edge of the gun barrel into the dry, tight orifice, pushing until the bullet chambers met the resistance of surrounding flesh.

The cowboy didn't pause from his silent oral manipulations when he heard the chamber being rotated. But the sound of the hammer clicking backward brought him to a tense, unmoving alert.

"Suck it, motherfucker, or I'll blow your ass apart!"

THE COWBOY

Tom Holland never existed. Gary Miller made him up.

Miller had long needed an identity to describe an image of himself. Not just a picture in his head, emphatically not an alter ego sharing equal billing. Tom Holland was more like a character Gary Miller could become.

It was not a professional name in the sense that writers and actors adopted them. But in another sense, it became Miller's profession, being this Tom Holland. In time, it also became an iron mask.

Tom Holland was probably born 30,000 feet above water midway between Hawaii and Los Angeles. The act of conception was nonphysical, and required only a single parent. But when he was born, when he took on existing physical form, Gary Miller began to die.

Tom Holland didn't come to Los Angeles to become a hustler. It was an already acquired profession, rooted in an adolescence spent as trade for visiting salesmen and truckers in small-town Missouri. The road to Los Angeles was strewn with experiences that yawed wildly between the cheapness of impersonal sex for a few wadded bills to the burning flight for

The policeman forced the edge of the gun barrel into the dry, tight orifice … "Suck it, motherfucker, or I'll blow your ass apart!" redemption in the evangelical toils of Garner Ted Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God in Texas.

But the decision to become established as one of the movie capitol's best paid gentlemen of the evening would bind him forever. He had already learned that his sexual drives propelled him toward other men as masculine as, or more than, himself.

In the simple word of dollars and sense, however, he readily compromised.

By 1969, hustling for him had grown from a street corner lifestyle, where the next John and the next meal were a source of constant anxiety, to a more civilized condition. At his new level, a few phone calls and the right contacts could put a young man on the road to financial independence and the material rewards of the good life.

Of course, it was necessary to become visible to the best of the prospective clients. Holland pursued and obtained work as a model for nude magazines and soft-core photographs. His physique began to appear on calendars in leather and western bars.. But it was when he broke into the pages of the top macho studio that the contacts became reality.

Sexually uninhibited, young, masculine, attractive: he was desired by more than could afford to have him. Holland was also intelligent, pleasant, and aware enough of the social graces to become a perfect escort for illustrious names in show business, people on both sides of the camera. His reputed list

Continued from page 8 split wide open until the boat has passed over him.

"The propellors!" I shrieked. "Rex, and then just play it out gradually. Then we'll go back aft, letting him go a little bit ahead of us. O.K.?"

"Rex," I shouted, "the propellors!" "Ready? Go!"

I pulled on the rope and immediately felt it tearing through my hand as Gary dropped into the water, free of the hose, and was dragged under the boat. As best I could, I held the rope out and away from the boat, praying his nuts were not at that moment being chewed to bits by a propellor. The boat moved through the water fast, and the rope was soon trailing astern.

"Let go!" Rex yelled at me, and I let go. The rope slackened and then was drawn up tight at the stern. The same had happened on Rex's side of the boat, There, spread-eagled face down on the

Rex jumped into the cabin and shut down the engines, and as soon as he came back out onto the fantail we started to haul Gary's body in. I was horrified by what we might find at the end of the lines, but as his body was dragged nearer I could see signs of struggling and I knew that he was, at least, alive. When he was pulled up close, the boat was about dead in the water, and Rex leaped into the lake, cut Gary's wrists free with one swipe of a knife, and shoved him over to the stern ladder. Gary grabbed on and slowly pulled himself up from the water.

What really knocked me out was that Gary came back aboard with one fan- tastic hard-on. Exhausted, he fell to the deck and rolled over on his back. Rex, too, came up out of the water with an incredible hard-on. He stood, his legs spread, over Gary's inert body. I handed him a beer as he had asked, and he stood now, head tilted back drinking. At that moment, untouched, he shot his load. The sperm flew from his cock in great spurts, landing all over Gary's wet body; thick, white globules of it landing on Gary's chest, his face, his belly and then, as though deliberately aimed, a shot landed right on Gary's rock-hard cock and dripped down onto his balls.

Without moving a muscle other than those that spasmed, Gary, too, shot and his sperm flew up onto his chest, his face, into his hair, and beyond his head onto the deck.

Rex handed me his beer and threw his body onto Gary's.

I went back up to the prow and sat, nursing Rex's beer and thinking about those damn propellors while the Water King drifted aimlessly.

Fifteen or 20 minutes later Rex and

Gary joined me. "I had guards put on the propellors," Rex said. "Sorry I forgot to tell you guys."

Continued from page 22 basic emotional insecurities. For himself he selected the status of policeman, arbiter of human fate, judge, jury and, in his most explicit fantasies, executioner.

When they met, Gaugh was dividing his time between two benefactors. An interior decorator was serving as a stepping stone beyond the suddenly washed-out nest in La Jolla. Suffering under mysterious financial reverses, the jewelry shop owners were forced to give up their attentive manager and then closed the business entirely.

THE UNIFORM FREAK

Gaugh's badge, the uniform he occasionally wore, the gun, the car, the house in Pasadena that was being remodeled, the ready pocket money - all that Gaugh had to offer except his own body were due to the person providing most of his existence : the uniform freak.

Although the decorator and the uniform freak were ignorant of each other, it would scarcely have mattered if they knew. Gaugh was ready to dump the former, and the latter wouldn't care much at that stage.

Supporting Gaugh was a minor matter for the fetishist, a business investor and behind-the-scenes contributor to political and liberationist causes. Having Gaugh as a toy, with his uniformed style and looks, was a source of sexual amusement.

He allowed whatever indulgences his paramour required - he was not interested himself in forming an exclusive attachment . His interest in the younger man stemmed almost exclusively from their shared fascination with the garb and role of the police officer that Gaugh played so well.

Still, Gaugh was careful not to let his dual lives overlap. No longer capable or interested in fending for himself, Gaugh was a captive of the fetishist's lavish providence, even while he played out his own dream of authority and power.

He knew how much freedom he was granted, and Gaugh saw Holland as the ultimate conquest. Captive that he was, and content in his subsidiary, dependent role, Gaugh nevertheless needed to exercise his own fantasies of control. Holland was ripe.

The seduction was apparently perfect. Holland had lived a lifetime of standing, legs spread for adoring mouths. Without a trace of reluctance, he submitted to Gaugh's direction of their sexual encounters.

So enamoured did he become of the pseudopoliceman and his gun that he all but abandoned his former concepts of his own sexual self-superiority for the rules and demands that Gaugh forced on him. His conduct, his sexuality, his destiny were all placed in the ready hands of his new master.

It may have been the first time Holland felt the prospect of anything that he might consider "love." It was certainly the last.

THE CRISIS

The uniform freak required little of Gaugh in the beginning. When his kept boy's dalliance with Holland began to appear threatening, however, he started to pull in the string, forcing

Gaugh to make a decision about his alliances.

Ultimately, he made demands on Gaugh's time and attentions that negated any possible outside liaisons. Feeling the effects of his personal power over the young man confirmed, the fetishist decided that a full denouncement and final rejection of the pretender would be a satisfying conclusion of the affair.

It is not known for certain how Holland discovered that Jim Gaugh was an imposter. The masquerade had been perfect to the point of mass deception. Gaugh's undercover police identity was the only one known to most persons - the truth rested with just three or four people in Los Angeles circles.

When Holland learned the truth, he felt humiliated. He immediately went to the Pasadena residence and pounded hard and angry fists on the door. When the uniform freak answered,

But it was the emptiness that most threatened Holland.

He learned that almost everyone wanted him for the non-real person that Gary Miller had become. With the exception of his faithful patron, Holland found himself in an emotional wasteland.

He had placed too much of the real, subconscious person in Jim Gaugh's hands. He had succumbed to the need to be protected , cared for and directed, in whatever guise. He had let need rule reason. To discover that Gaugh was not his tower of strength, was scarcely even his needing peer, was the final demeaning implosion of his self.

It was more than he could handle. Gary Miller went home and blew his brains out.

THE BARTENDER

The affair had consumed itself in only nine months. On June 28, 1973, Gary Miller as Tom Holland ended his part in the web when he took his own life. Jim Gaugh had opened a new door in Holland's life, and Jim Gaugh had closed it irrevocably that night in Pasadena.

When Holland died, his friends were shocked and puzzled. How could such a minor thing, like Gaugh's betrayal, cause him to take such a drastic step? How could a Gary Miller, a Tom Holland, have felt a Jim Gaugh was worth that?

There was no more answer, no more understanding for that than there had ever been for the attraction between them.

At the funeral, grieving mourners were again amazed. The bier was surrounded with huge floral displays from some of the most noted names in California, from senators and studio heads, from Academy Award actors, directors and writers. The body was to be shipped home for its final consignment to earth.

Oddly, it was Gaugh who collected the cards from the

The victim had been beaten, cut, shaved and burned (the cause of death) over a period of hours. floral tributes, saying he would be sure proper acknowledgments were sent.

Death makes strange alliances, and Miller's was no exception . Gaugh and Miller's earlier patron began consoling each other over their mutual loss. Both had claimed to love him, in their insufficient ways. Both vowed to keep his memory alive.

Months later, Gaugh "lost" another friend. David Likens, the bartender who had brought him together with Holland, was discovered in a stupor, sitting on the sofa in his own living room with the charred body of a dead man stretched out at his feet.

The victim had been beaten, cut, shaved and burned (the cause of death) over a period of hours. The visitor who discovered this gory scene quickly called a well-known civil rights attorney who specialized in gay cases.

The attorney advised that the authorities be called im- mediately, and he promised to meet them at the police station. When David Likens was questioned, he would reply only with his name, age and address. To the attorney he steadfastly claimed innocence of the crime.

Since the case didn't fall into the attorney's specialized area of practice, he suggested another counsel. To the second lawyer Likens again claimed no part in the horrible torture and death. The attorney reportedly advised him that the evidence would be difficult to shake; the district attorney was confident a conviction would be returned by any sort of jury.

His reluctant advice to Likens: plead guilty for a reduction in the charge. Likens considered, then decided to accept the advice.

In April, 1974, David Likens pleaded guilty to manslaughter . In prison, to his friends, in letters home, he repeatedly claimed his innocence. But he offered no explanation for the crime.

THE MAD REVEL

Two months later - and nearly a year to the day after Holland's suicide - a friend set out with Jim Gaugh on a com-

The dead man, Gaugh, had knelt before the officers who had come to arrest him, seized a service revolver, put the barrel to his head and fired. The last name on his lips was Tom Holland. pulsive, and well-documented, terminal journey.

The evening's revels included visits to bar after bar in the Long Beach area. After dropping a tab of acid, Gaugh and his cohort decided to don their LAPD uniforms and visit San Diego, perhaps in hopes of picking up some unsuspecting gay and terrorizing him, perhaps just to be seen in their impersonation of peace officers in a gay bar.

Somehow they managed to arrive in San Diego without intervention . Already stoned and becoming disoriented in their actions and decisions, a few more beers brought them close to the critical level. Finally, in what can only be viewed as a wanton desire for self-destruction, they added more drugs to their already violated blood streams.

They keeled over in a crowded bar.

Fearful of the possible consequences, the bar owner immediately called both police and ambulance. The two imposters , their true identities still unrevealed, were carted out of the establishment, assumed to be authentic police brothers by the San Diego officers, and taken to the nearest hospital.

San Diego authorities placed a discreet call to Los Angeles to inform Parker Center bigwigs that two of their boys had overdone it in their jurisdiction. Would they wish to retrieve them quietly and spare any possibility of scandal for either department?

Los Angeles officials were concerned and cordial. They immediately dispatched several of their own to transport the errant officers back to Parker Center.

But at the hospital, checking over the personal effects and IDs of the patients in the privacy of administration offices, the real officers learned the truth. Calling the discovery back to their commanding officer, the rescue team was ordered to arrest and transport the fake police back to Los Angeles in irons.

The attending physician, who was out of the room at the time, did not believe the policemen's story that one of the men had grabbed a police gun and killed himself rather than face arrest. He called for an investigation, which was later taken up by the Grand Jury.

Ultimately, the police were ruled to be without fault. The dead man, Gaugh, had knelt before the officers who had come to arrest him, seized a service revolver, put the barrel to his head and fired. The last name on his lips was Tom Holland.

THE LETTER

A particular paranoid fantasy of both Gaugh and the uniform freak who kept him was that someday they might need a place to hide. Anticipation of race riots, attack from a foreign power, or the ultimate police state harassment may all have fed their fears.

At any rate, arrangements had been made. A secret, remote location had been prepared for their retreat from the ills and dangers of society. Provisions had been laid up, along with necessary tools for survival in a world gone mad.

They had a further agreement: that if either of them should disappear for an unusually long period of time, or should die mysteriously, the other was to go to the secret sanctuary to await the return of the missing partner or to seek out a message.

Jim Gaugh's officially labeled suicide was sufficiently mysterious to prompt a visit by his mentor to the hideaway. There he found a letter which, when revealed, added the final bizarre twist to the events of two years.

Gaugh had left a combination suicide note-confession. The letter told his intention to take his life on the anniversary of Tom Holland's own suicide. He had waited a year to add meaning and pathos to the act he planned. He could not face life without the dynamic Holland, the letter said, and wished to join him wherever he waited beyond the grave.

He missed the timetable by just six days.

The remainder of the letter contained a confession of the murder for which David Likens languished in prison. It held no explanation, however, of how the frame-up had been achieved, or how Likens came to be sitting over the corpse on the living room floor with no recollection of anything but his insistent innocence.

When the uniform freak took Gaugh's letter to the authori-ties , they dismissed it as a grandstand play on Gaugh's part to clear his friend, having already decided to end his own misery. They discarded any serious consideration of the confession's possible truth, though it would bolster in small part Likens' unwavering claims. Likewise the possibility of a new trial for Likens was brushed off.

So it ended. Both lovers slain by their own hands, the unwitting matchmaker in jail for murder, the patron and the uniform freak left mournful widowers, the numerous friends still puzzled by the twists life had dealt Jim Gaugh and Gary Miller.

They met and they died in California - but their marriage had been consummated in hell.

(Next issue: The background that nourishes the web.)

of clients would invite skeptics for the sheer weight of the names

The potential for legitimate exposure was nearly as potent a lure for Holland as were the big fees and the orbiting around famous figures. He was not immune to the itch to be one of those figures himself, and he had sufficient natural poise that a number of clients casually suggested that his potential should be developed.

He went so far as to assemble a professional photo portfolio and enroll in an acting school. But like many persons living in an artificial environment, Tom Holland was more skilled at strengthening his fantasies than in coping with reality.

He discarded potential securities in lieu of protecting the hard male role he had cast for himself. He became careful about his actions and associations. People who saw through his myth were either abandoned or relegated to a cool distance. His circle tightened as his image grew and began to consume the man behind it.

THE PATRON

There were a few others. One or two who understood the need of fuel for the myth, who played the game according to Holland's exacting rules, but who never forgot the pretense.

One of Holland's clients developed a more than passing interest in this midnight cowboy. He grew to love him for the Gary Miller he used to be in some forgotten, long-time past.

He played the game of pretend, but through the mask he comprehended the need and felt an honest compassion for the lost youth. He loved him, but did not possess him. Their relationship depended on unspoken agreement: that nothing be done to shatter the illusion.

When the patron grew beyond the will to use the heroic image of the striding cowboy as a sexual stimulus, he kept the understanding that Holland could not exist without it.

Finally, the patron provided Holland with an emotional refuge more valuable than cash or favors or potential for fame. Though the relationship never became exclusive, it created a space where Holland could soften his stance, if only for an instant, a space to bleed off the deadening pressures.

A space that ultimately wasn't enough for Tom Holland.

THE POLICEMAN

After Tom Holland first met Jim Gaugh, he commented that the slight man wasn't even his type. He couldn't explain their sudden rapport.

Gaugh wasn't unattractive. His trim moustache and dark hair accented a clean, youthful face. Though he wasn't the beefy, visually powerful figure of Holland, he did carry an air of authority and masterfulness that bridged the difference in their physical types.

Gaugh, on the other hand, felt the same sudden attraction to Holland that baited so many others.

The specific details of their first meeting are blurred in memory, like a camera view gone slightly out of focus. It is known that they met at the Gallery Room, where Gaugh had

Holland would probably not have noticed Gaugh. His gaze, selective toward his own ends, would have swept over the smaller figure of Gaugh without a pause. It is not known fetish for brute power and authority, it is likely that Holland's magazine layouts had attracted him to his guise as bike rider or leatherman.

The half-lit atmosphere of the bar gave Holland almost the appearance of a carved statue. The fabric of his shirt lay across massive pectoral muscles as snow would cover a rocky shelf, blanketing, but suggesting the clear definitions that lay beneath.

The image caught Gaugh's eye and fired his imagination.

Here was a reality he could never become himself. Here was a goal he could never reach. Obsessed with the male body, he had worked at his own development for long, arduous years. But he never had, never would, attain the level of msucularity that Holland wore so easily.

The next best thing would be to possess this perfect speci- men of homosexual fantasy.

Gaugh positioned himself so that Holland could better notice him. He casually moved into Holland's line of vision, against the interior dividing wall, carefully arranging a pose. The curve of one shoulder touched the wall; farther down, a small area of hardened hip leaned gently. One hand shoved almost fully into a snug denim pocket; the other held a beer

He might have spun out a fertile crop of tough experiences … On a trip to the john together, he could have shown Holland his gun. Whatever the device of seduction, it worked. bottle by the neck, letting it lie carelessly against his thigh.

His gaze seemed unfocused, unmoving, letting images pass his eyes without apparent notice. Maybe once he drew his vision directly across the object of his attention, taking the measure of his unattainability in that split second.

It is possible that Likens himself performed the introduction . He knew them both, had been spurned sexually by Holland, and expected nothing from the exchange of names between Holland and Gaugh.

Keeping his pose unruffled was a sheer exercise of will for Gaugh. Holland, by contrast, was scarcely interested or aware of what was happening. He accepted the offered hand, delivered terse answers to the obvious cruising questions about birthplace, current home, and the mundane observations of a bar exchange.

It was perhaps by sheer chance that Holland allowed a conversation to develop. Attribute it to lack of business, a flicker of kindness for someone destined for rejection. The truth is, not only did a conversation ensue, but Gaugh managed to intrigue the blase Holland into accepting an offer to accompany him home.

Possibly Gaugh told Holland he was an undercover policeman on a special assignment related to the Houston mass murders. Probably he did not tell him he had been living in La Jolla with a couple whose jewelry shop he managed, whose cash register he was tapping regularly. Gaugh was, after all, as protective of his fantasy image as was Holland.

He might have spun out a fertile crop of tough experiences, memorized from the pages of Dallas Barnes or Joe Wambaugh. On a trip to the john together, he could have shown Holland his gun. Whatever the device of seduction, it worked.

Later, everyone was amazed that the pedestrian Gaugh had not only landed the discriminating Holland, but had him jumping as well. No one was able to plumb the bizarre fascination Gaugh held over the cowboy. The closest they could come was attribution to the fetish of a gun symbol which Holland had felt more and more powerfully.

Their backgrounds were similar to a point, Gaugh, too, was from the midwest - Ohio - and had left home in search of a freer, more fulfilling lifestyle. Gaugh had never hustled at the same level as Holland, but he was not immune to a kept existence. It was a status he powerfully craved, more even than he craved power and sex.

Gaugh, like Holland, had assumed a role to cover his own

Continued on page 55

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NS

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five in the trainer’s room

PART VIII-CONCLUSIO to the arrogant Thaao Demosthenes by the worshipful Johnny Todd, his bare body rigid, sweat-shiny, but as yet un- touched this evening. "Belly down on the bench, asshole!"

Thaao bellowed, "an' cross yer fuckin' wrists underneath it!" Johnny complied instantly, stretching out on the hard wooden surface in acquiescent embrace.

He felt his wrists being strapped together and fastened securely to the leg of the narrow bench. Hands roughly spread his thighs wide, so that his knees nearly touched the floor. A long piece of tape was knotted around his right thigh, just above the knee, then pulled under the bench, its other end similarly fixed to the left thigh, opening wide the cheeks of his ass. His ankles were joined and anchored to the back leg of the bench. Finally, one strap was wound around his waist and the bench, and another at his neck. He was totally immobilized, able to move only fingers and toes.

Thaao stepped back and surveyed his handiwork with lustful excitement. The helplessly spread-eagled teen-age flesh beneath his gaze was utterly still: vulnerable , inviting, awaiting. His eyes were drawn as by a magnet to the exposed anus. His cock hardened and lifted. His breath quickened. He longed to mount that prostrate form, to grind his mounded pectorals into the broad planes of that muscular back, to plunge his prick up to its base into that tight asshole again and again. But that would have to wait. Right now he had other plans.

The eyes of Dicko and Manuel were likewise drawn to the single focus of their football-playing colleague's shit chute, but their hands were endlessly engaged in exploring each other: pinching at stiffened nipples, invading navels, pulling at semi-erect cocks. And Moses Brown, stop watch ready in one hand, idly maintained his enormous hard-on with the other. Though expressionless, his eyes, too, were focused on Johnny Todd's gleaming white buns, the finely haired crevice split open to his view.

Satisfied that all was in readiness, Thaao went to the janitor's closet and brought out the coil of green plastic hose years, Johnny Todd, the blond and blue- eyed left tackle, fixed all of his being - senses to spirit - on the sacrificial act of total submission. Ignoring the glint behind Dicko's eyes, Manuel's penetrating stare and Moses' heavy-lidded noncommittal glance, he turned directly to Thaao. He knew, without knowing he knew, that the unqualified surrender of his body was the least of his capitulation. More important, he was giving his heart, his soul, his very will.

Unconsciously, he brought his naked young swimmer's body to military attention and heard himself saying "O.K., I'm ready. How do yuh want me —?" adding, automatically, in a voice that was barely audible — "Sir."

The others looked up in surprise, Over a four-year period they had called each other many things, but never in all that time had they used the word "Sir" except to their tyrannical coach. What startled them even more than the use of the word itself was how natural and appropriate it seemed at this moment in time, addressed

DRUMMER 28

MASTERS that was used to wash down the shower room walls and floor. He screwed one end onto the faucet above the sink and approached Johnny with the other, fingering its long nozzle lewdly. His now-obvious intention caused the others to freeze into inactivity, struck once more with the frightening possibility that real and permanent injury could well be in- flicted this night.

Apparently unaware of his peers' concern, Thaao straddled the bench behind his victim's butt and carefully placed the nozzle of the hose against the fringed slit. Slowly he began inserting it into that silently protesting opening, millimeter by millimeter, mildly surprised at the power of its resistance and the strength needed to overcome that resistance. But he was determined to ram it far enough into Johnny's body so that the violated sphincter could not voluntarily force it out again.

The victim himself heard a low, throaty moan and recognized it belatedly as his own. Although he had allowed himself, in the throes of ecstasy during the week, to be fucked by Thaao, this was an agony unrelieved by passion. While narrower than his lover's cock, the nozzle seemed interminably longer and of an uncompromising rigidity. Even so, the pressure on his prostate produced the inevitable reaction and his own cock began to throb as it stretched its length along the bench top.

Preparations complete, Thaao called for the timing to start.

He dashed to the sink and gave both the hot and cold water faucets a full turn, then ran back to the bench where he settled himself in the small of Johnny's back, facing his target. Reaching out, he grasped the dial at the base of the nozzle that controlled the pressure of the spray and moved it to the "Fine" mark. Johnny jerked convulsively in his bonds as he felt the stream of lukewarm water splattering the interior wall of his large bowel, but he found the initial discomfort to be less intense than he had feared. As the seconds ticked by, however , and the liquid coursed deeper and deeper into his body, the discomfort grew proportionally, and he began to squirm under the torturer's weight on his back, Thaao clamped down more heavily to limit this squirming and gave the bare buttocks a hefty slap with his free hand. With the other, he increased the setting on the nozzle from "Fine" to "Medium."

The effect was devastingly immediate. Johnny lurched and screamed, the impact like a sudden blast in his lower gut. Distracted from their mutual preoccupation , Manuel and Dicko stared in horrified fascination at the writhing body and distorted features of their teammate, his screams now subsiding into a whimpering kind of groan. Moses glanced apprehensively at the stop watch, the fifteen minutes were scarcely half over.

Compounding Johnny's excrutiating agony now was the irresistible urge to evacuate his overflowing bowels, an urgency painfully frustrated by the plugging effect of the hose. He tasted a bitter bile in the back of his throat, and sweat ran from every pore as he gasped an endless series of "Omigod! Omigod!" Omigod!" Thaao's response was to flick the control dial to "Full" and to bounce up and down on the midsection of his body, dropping the dial in order to use both hands to rain a constant barrage of stinging slaps on the naked buttocks of his prisoner. "Time!" shouted Moses.

Slowly, reluctantly, Thaao got up. Dicko had immediately turned off the faucets, and Manuel pulled the nozzle from its berth. Water trickled from the orifice, slightly reddened with blood. Moses helped Dicko and Manuel release the pain-racked body as Thaao drew quietly to one side, himself now an on- looker. The instant he was freed, Johnny Todd made a mad dash to the Boys' Room, squatting gratefully to relieve himself of what seemed like gallons and gallons of water.

He sat there for nearly the entire fifteen minutes of the "half time" break, emerging with a dark scowl when told he had only a few minutes left during which to make the preparations for his final turn as Master. These were unusually simple, involving nothing more than the assembling of three long strips of the one-inch nylon straps and a few squares of adhesive tape. Thaao regarded this warily, but could no longer meet Johnny's expressionless gaze.

There was an awkward pause, as no one seemed to know what to do next.

"Ain'tcha gonna get the fuckin' Greek tied up?" Moses finally asked. "No," Johnny answered. "Just have the motherfucker stand with his back to me, his hands behind him. Then start yer timin'.

Thaao hesitantly assumed the required position, his brain a confusion of un-certainties . Dicko and Manuel, curiousity overcoming concupiscence, edged in closer.

"Gimme room, gimme room, y" turds," Johnny ordered. "O.K., are yuh timin'?"

"Get goin'," Moses replied. "He's all yours.

From behind Thaao's trembling nudity, Johnny took three squares of adhesive tape and slapped them over his slave's eyes and mouth. Then, grabbing the wrists which Thaao had obediently crossed behind his back, he began winding one of the long strips of nylon tape around them. Cinching the tie between those wrists, he next started working upward separately on each arm, up to the shoulder and down again, wrapping the tapes as tightly as he could.

Sweat beaded the young Greek god's forehead and ran in rivulets down his naked sides from silkily haired armpits. He longed to turn around and face his tormentor, to look into his amazingly blue eyes and whisper "Anything, Johnny-boy. Anthing. Y' can do anything at all to me. Anything y' want to. It's O.K. Let's just show these bastards you 'n' me can give or take anything. Anything!" But he stood obediently in place, awaiting the outcome of this strange session.

Suddenly, Johnny lifted Thaao's help- less body and threw it face down on the same bench that had just been the site of his own agony. He threw one foot over it and settled his bare buttocks on those of his slave, staring down at the taped wrists and arms. Now, starting at those wrists, he began methodically wrapping the long tape around both arms simultaneously, gradually working upwards, pulling the tape tight with all the considerable strength at his command.

The higher he wrapped, the more unbearable became the pain Thaao experienced . When the mummifying process reached his elbows, Thaao had the sensa- tion that his left shoulder was about to slip out of its socket. He saw bright lights and his ears rang. He shrieked. Manuel and Dicko stepped in to stop Johnny, but that ear-splitting scream had been enough. He tied off the tape and got up, turning his attention to Thaao's legs.

With another long piece of tape he bound the ankles together; then, bending the knees, twisted the other end around Thaao's throat and brought it back to the ankles, pulling it as taut as possible before tying it off. This increased the pressure on Thaao's aching shoulders, but if he tried to ease the pressure by forcing his head forward, he risked strangling him-

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BIKE CLUBS

God knows Florida, with its heat and humidity, is a helluvan area in which to wear leather, but it is probably the fastest growing state in the country in that respect , as more and more dudes here are turning to this macho scene.

There are now eight clubs dedicated to the L / L scene: the BROTHERS M.C. in Jacksonville; the ADVENTURERS in Seminole; the B.A.L.L. M.C. in Tampa/ St. Pete; the VIPERS M.C. and the CONQUISTADORS in Orlando; the BROTHERHOOD OF MAN in West Palm Beach; THE COLTS OF FT. LAUDER-DALE, in Ft. Lauderdale; the SUNRAYS M.C. in North Miami; and the THEBANS M.C. in Miami.

Besides the clubs, there are many GDIs who support these clubs as well as the bars which seem to come and go like anywhere else.

Florida Week 1977 will be coming up soon. It's a fantastic week in February (ten days, actually), beginning with THEBANSUN '77 in Miami and ending with HAVE A BALL '77 in Tampa. Between the runs the COLTS, BROTHER-HOOD OF MAN and CONQUISTADORS will have a party, cookout, and / or orgy in true L / L style every night. If you plan to be in this area during that time, contact one of the clubs.

If you're not into the club scene, you'll want to hit some of the bars that cater to L / L dudes … but don't expect a New York or San Francisco atmosphere . Some of the better clubs are THE BROTHERS in Jacksonville, the STABLE in the PARLIAMENT HOUSE in Orlando, the DOUBLE R and the RACK in Miami, TACKY'S (just what it sounds like) in Ft. Lauderdale, and the TOOLROOM at the WAREHOUSE in Coral Gables.

The LAUDERDALE BEACH HOTEL is under new ownership and management and is catering to many different life- styles, including L / L dudes. A bar named THE BODY SHOP is part of this complex . Give it a try!

Denim is more practical in Florida but with the growing interest in leather (both black and brown), you'll want to bring all your gear and toys with you when you visit. If you're a member of THE LEATHER FRATERNITY, be certain to let us know … we'll roll out the black leather carpet for you!

By the way, contrary to any rumors, Crisco is available in Florida!

A Visit from Slave Nicholas

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house Resounded the "Salome" of

The harness was hung in the playroom with care

In hopes that slave Nicholas soon would be there!

(Master) was ready, my whips tipped with lead,

While visions of discipline danced in my head.

In brass-studded leather, from my boots to my cap,

I oiled ev'ry chain and greased ev'ry strap.

Then out on the street there arose a wild clatter Announcing the bike of my night's subject matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash, And peered through the bars after

When what to my glittering eyes should appear,

On his chrome and black chopper, with a six-pack of beer,

But a hunky young driver, all asshole and prick; I knew, without doubt, 'twas my muscular Nick!

So I drew in my head, and was turning around, When into my room he came with a bound.

He wore a torn T-shirt (was naked of foot), With tattered blue cut-offs all covered with soot; A bundle of "toys" was strapped to his back. And he very obediently called for

As rapid as faggots our brothers all came, And Nick submissively savoured each

"Yes, Jeannie! Yes, Robert! Yes, Joey and Freddie!

On Wrangler! On Martin! On Masters, I'm ready!

To the cold soundproof room at the end of the hall:

Now lash away, lash away, lash away all!"

He kept his eyes lowered, and knelt, stationary,

Awaiting the orders to offer his cherry; A wink of my eye and a twist of my head Soon gave him to know he had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

Stripped off all his clothes, then turned with a jerk. He then donned the harness, with supposed repose (Except for his cock, which steadily rose).

He was hung like a horse, my bondage-mad elf,

And I drooled when I saw it, in spite of myself.

I sprang to his flanks with a dominant whistle

And took a firm grip of his vulnerable gristle;

Then I heard him confess, as my fancies took flight,

"Happy Christmas to you, Sir. I'm yours for all night!" by Ed Franklin (with no apologies to Clement C. Moore)

FAMOUS SADISTS IN HISTORY

Roman historian Suetonius reports that when, on December 15, 37 A.D., a son was born to Gnaeus Domitius and his lusty wife, Agrippina, the coldly realistic father wryly observed that any child born of that particular union "was bound to have a detestable nature and become a public danger." In later years to take the name "Nero," the strawberry blond, blue-eyed newborn was hastily farmed out to an aunt (Domitia Lepida) who anticly chose a barber and a dancer to be his tutors. Then, at 11 adopted by Emperor Claudius, he was put under the tutelage of Senator Annaeus Seneca. Almost immediately , that Greek-oriented philosopher discerned that his pre-pubescent charge gave signs of having "a naturally cruel heart."

Proclaimed Emperor at the age of 16 (54 A.D.), Nero was more interested in art, drama and athletics than in ruling an empire. Reflecting Seneca's dominating Greek influence, he inaugurated the "Neronia," a festival of competitions in music, gymnastics and horsemanship. He learned to worship all Greek culture and particularly loved to visit that fabled country where he could let his hair— normally set in careful rows of curls - grow long and hang down his back.

Of average height and "pretty rather than handsome" (according to Suetonius), Nero surrounded himself with muscular gladiators, knights and other youths, easy to recognize by their bushy hair, splendid dress, the absence of rings on their left hands, (and) much adorned with jingling bracelets and medallions." In the Annals of Tacitus, these "comrades" are described as always "men in their prime and remarkable for their strength." He rewarded "favorite" musicians and gladiators with lavish homes and estates, shod his mules in silver, and never wore the same clothes twice. His favorite costume for "giving audiences" was an exhibition-istically unbelted silk dressing gown, slippers and a scarf. (We are not advised on which side the scarf was worn.)

Second only to the delights of the dungeon and arena was Nero's passion for the theatre. He played the lyre (lute, harp, cittern — depending on which translator you read) and undertook all "the usual exercises" for strengthening and developing the voice, such as lying on his back with a slab of lead on his chest and the constant use of enemas and emetics to keep down his weight. He shocked Roman society by making personal appearances in operatic tragedies, more often than not in drag, portraying heroines and goddesses. Especially shocking was one well-documented ballet performance , The Minotaur, by Nero's 'beloved Greek youths,' at the climax of which one dancer, disguised as the bull, literally "mounted" the dancer playing Pasiphae.

One of Nero's own most memorable performances, his second homosexual embroidered upon by Waltari: "… on an open stage, he (Nero) had himself dressed as a bride. He was led to the bridal bed by Pythagorus, a handsome slave in bridegroom's costume. Whimpering with terror, Nero allowed him to untie the two knots in his girdle and, virtually undressed , they finally sank onto the bed in each other's arms. Nero imitated a terri- fied maiden's whimpers and squeals. Both he and Pythagorus carried out their roles so skillfully that it looked as if they had practiced the scene beforehand." Tacitus concludes his review of the bizarre oc- casion thusly: "… everything was plainly visible which, when a woman weds, darkness hides."

He played the reverse role at his first homosexual marriage, having fallen in love with an "indecently beautiful youth" by the name of Sporus. First castrating the boy, Nero gave him a medicine which an Alexandrine physician prescribed to stop the growth of hair on his chin, to enlarge his breasts and, in general, to develop his aphrodisiac characteristics. He then, according to Suetonius, "went through a wedding ceremony with him - dowry, bridal veil and all - which the whole Court attended; then brought him home and treated him as a wife. Dressed him in the fine clothes normally worn by an Empress, took him everywhere, kissing him amorously now and then." (Nero also married hetero- bisexual was are all male gods.") "Homosexualism," declares Will Durant, "was stimulated by contact with Greece and Asia" in those times. Many rich men paid a talent (the equivalent of $3,600 in 1944!) for a male favorite, and Cato complained that a pretty boy cost more than a farm. The average price of a slave was $400 (again, 1944 currency), and some Romans had as many as 20,000. Friedlander tells us that "there was a special slave market at Rome where one might buy legless, armless, or three-eved men, giants, dwarfs, or hermaphrodites.

FAMOUS SADISTS IN HISTORY

Let us now delineate some of those "exquisite cruelties." The younger Christians were all forced to strip, and tailors and shoemakers sewed them into animal skins. Then they were driven into the arena, where starving wild dogs were set upon them and "worried" them until they expired. Posts were erected along the park roads and pools of Nero's per- sonal gardens. Naked Christians were chained or nailed to them, smeared with pitch and wax and "set afire to serve as nightly illumination when daylight has expired" (Tacitus). They burned "with screams of pain and a spreading suffocating stench, writhing and struggling" gling …

Still others were nailed to crosses, a process described in detail herewith: "The customary method was to lay the victim, after stripping from his body every vestige of clothing, flat on the ground, face upwards, with his neck resting on the cross-beam and his arms stretched outwards along its length. Each hand was secured to the wooden beam by means of a large nail driven through the palm. Sometimes, additionally , and on other occasions, alternatively, his arms were bound to the crosspiece with rope. The next step was to lift the beam, with its human burden, and fix it securely to the upright, either with long stout nails or rope, in such a position that the victim's feet were well above the ground. Then a nail was driven the next. through each foot into the post.

Examples of Nero's variety in the uses of torture are listed in an angry passage

Small wonder power soon utterly corrupted Nero and "he sank lower and lower into vice, losing all sense of decency and morality."

Nero's intense streak of cruelty was never far beneath the surface. With his "comrades" he loved to cruise the back streets of Rome after dark, forcing young street boys to "perform lewd acts" with him, to "attack men on their way home from dinner, stab them if they resisted his advances, and then drop their bodies down the sewers; reveling in seducing freeborn boys." The stern, moralistic Tacitus sums him up as having "not omitted a single abomination which could

But it took the Christians to inspire his most inventive acts of curelty. Although he was away at Antium in 64 A.D. when the great fire that devoured 10 of Rome's 14 sections was started, rumors of his involvement caused him to fix of his involvement caused mini to may upon the Christians as scapegoats. He staged the first persecution on Vatican Hill near the Circus. "They (the Christians) were put to death with exquisite cruely," Tacitus relates, "t reliable (i.e. perpetuating that "fiddle fable") Book of Martyrs, Fox manages verisimilitude only with his statement that "Nero even refined upon cruelty, and contrived all manner of punish- ments for the Christians that the most infernal imagination could design." In this effort, he was aided by that "brutal, shameless, savage, lowborn, coarse, sa- distic pederast - the Sicillian, Tigellinus. of Seneca's Essay on Anger, in which he described "the wooden racks and other instruments of torture, the dungeons and other jails, the fires built around imprisoned bodies in a pit, the many kinds of chains, the varied punishments, the tearing of limbs, the branding of fore-heads, the forcing to sit naked on a chair of red-hot iron and being roasted …

Continuing the inventory, Eusebius writes that Christian men were flogged "until the flesh hung from their bones, or their flesh was scraped to the bone with shells; salt or vinegar was poured upon their sounds; the flesh was cut off bit by bit and fed to waiting animals … some victims had their fingers pierced with sharp reeds under the nails; some had their eyes gouged out; some were sus- pended by a hand or a foot; some had molten lead poured down their throats; some were beaten to death with clubs; some were torn apart by being tied to the momentarily bent branches of trees,"

The dungeons of the Praetorium, where Tigellinus reigned supreme and Nero was a frequent kibitzer, was the setting for the use of such devices as red-hot irons and iron claws. Here naked victims were bound with leather straps to bloodstained stone benches to undergo their ordeals. Scourging with lashes of lead-tipped whip-thongs was standard practice and the bleeding prisoners were then marched naked through the streets of Rome, targets for dung-throwing citizenry, as an object lesson in the perils of disobedience. A further refinement in the dungeons can be found in Dio Cassius' History of Rome, in which he

describes how men suspected of sedition were tortured by having "fire inserted into their private parts.'

As a practitioner of "every kind of scenity," Nero was far from content obscenity, to be an idle bystander at these sessions. Returning to Suetonius, we learn of one "novel game" he invented: "Nero would have himself 'released' from a den, dressed as a wild animal, and then attack the private parts of naked men who stood bound to stakes." He was also eager, it is said, "to get hold of a certain Egyp- tian – a sort of ogre who would eat raw flesh and practically anything else he was given — and watch him tear men to pieces and devour them." He also favored punishment "in the ancient style," which meant that the executioners "stripped their victim naked, thrust his head into a wooden fork, and then flogged him to death with sticks." In addition, he would have naked victims tied to posts in his garden, then let loose a lion which would come "rushing toward the posts, its tail thrashing … It rose on its hind legs to claw at the naked victims and sniffed at their sex organs."

Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History, portraying the martyrdom of St. Benjamin (who - masochistically? - ridiculed the "standard tortures" to which he was being submitted), reports he inspired his tormentor to the point that "the command was given for a reed to be pushed into his genital member, the which reed being drawn out and pushed in again to cause him inexpressible torments. Afterward the savage tyrant orders a stout rod, thick and extremely rough by reason of branches that stuck out all over it, to be inserted up his fundament."

Detailed first person accounts of torture by Nero and / or Tigellinus, whether by observers or victims, are virtually non-existent, but there does exist one semi-fictionalized account, obviously researched well enough to be a valid part of this report. It described the torture of The Gladiator, Faljan, in an attempt by Tigellinus and his assistant, the eunuch Urstine, to make him confess soldiers advanced and took hold of Faljan. They ripped off his tunic, threw him to the floor, kept him there. The eunuch applied the pincers to Faljan's chest, smoke and the odor of burnt flesh rising up, but no sound issuing from the gladiator.

"Urstine burned him elsewhere, sometimes at random, sometimes making what he called the pattern of a little springtime flower, each burn a petal and many contiguous burns for the stem. Tigellinus watches intently with his yellow flat eyes. "'Try the pins."

"Urstine caught up the iron pins and fell to jabbing them in Faljan's chest and arms and neck. Blood flowed, but the gladiator only said, "'You waste your time. I am ac- customed to such tickling.' "Tigellinus cried out, 'That's it! Give him the feathers!' "The soldiers took rope and bound Faljan's ankles together, sat on them, and removed his sandals … Urstine took a pair of peacock feathers and sat down cross-legged, facing the soles of the gladiator's feet. He began to tickle them, gently, delicately. Cramps began to seize upon his feet. He attempted to move his legs, but the cords and the weight of the soldiers rendered this impossible. He be-gan to laugh shrilly … his laughter be- came a series of staccato choking moans … he was gasping now, unable to get his breath … he swooned away. They slapped him in the face with wet rags until he opened his eyes.

"Urstine threw down his peacock feathers in disgust. There is only one thing left,' he said with bright eyes; 'and that is to alter him.' "'You see, Faljan,' cried Tigellinus cheerfully; 'I can do nothing with this detestable eunuch. Being himself no longer a man, he wants everybody else to share his fate … Will you confess?' "'There is nothing to confess,' Faljan muttered. "Urstine began to whet the bronze knife, a soldier ripped off Faljan's breechclout . The gladiator lay stark naked, breathing hard yet still obstinate .

In the ways of fiction, our hero is saved at the last moment. In the meanwhile , we have been treated to an accurate rendering of what, from all reports, must have been a most common scene in Nero's dungeons.

Universally loathed, Nero faced a series of uprisings with which he could not cope and so was compelled to com-being "What an artist the world is losing!" mit suicide in 68 A.D., his last words

He was 30 years old.

DRUMMER GOES TO THE TRADI

The Trading Post on Folsom Street in San Francisco ain't exactly Sears and Roebuck. Still, walking in the front door of one of the featured targets of Time magazine's "Porno Plague" cover story, with its feeling of wood, f

A sharp eye as you make your way towards the back of the number one leather department store might put you on the alert that … well, the unexpected the towards the total properties. on the alert that … well, the unexpected should not be too unexpected. It kind of starts off like a store in a snazzy new shopping center — shelves full of blue jeans, western shirts and cowboy hats. But then you're so

NG POST PARTY whips, paddles, leather jock straps, body harnesses, fancy lubricants, wrestling masks, dildoes, pornography for days, cans of Crisco, bondage equipment, and finally, a roomful of "Abused Furniture": cages, shackles, stock cages, stackies, stocks, restrainers. It tills doesn't hint that you might expect a different sort of band at this party, then perhaps the bathrooms labelled 'retentive,' with a door, and 'exhibitionist,' sans door, would cerally, inform even the most naive that something was a trifle different about this anniversary party than one for, say, Abercrombe and Fitch.

However, this was not exactly an easily shocked audience, people lolling around on various states of leather underest other time. dress, other wearing every conceiveable costume from evening dress to leather straps, not a small number with pierced noses and / or nipples. "Country Porn" ran through six or seven numbers before the crowd, getting a little drunk and a little loose on the free-flowing champagne , began to turn on to the music. pagne, began to turn on to the music. The crowd, realizing this was their kind of music, began to dance and sing along. All in all, Nick O'Demus had a big blowout, as did the about-400 people who showed up, as did Frank Mo

Where indeed. And in San Francisco, where else but the Trading Post?

Books for

CROWNED HEADS by Thomas Tryon. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 201 East 50th, New York, New York 10022, 1976, hard- cover, 399 Pages, $8.95.

Hunky Thomas Tryon's fourth novel, Crowned Heads, is a right fair read, several notches above the level of poolside fluff, yet not quite up to being the enduring classic one suspects the writer had in mind. Its 399 pages of extremely small typeface will be a source of dismay to those fans conditioned to the coiled spring tension of his tighter books (notably The Other), but even more readers may be put off by its perjorative hint of roman a clef, this device being rather in disrepute at the moment thanks to Jacqueline, Sprio, John, et al.

There are four, count 'em, four uneasy "crowned heads" to be considered, each representative of the synthetic royalty created by "The Industry" in Hollywood, C.A. These four once all appeared together in a movie, but that is the coincidental extent of their interrelationships and has little or nothing to do with their current conflicts and

Tryon has chosen here the structure of a four-part classical symphony as his basic design, assigning to each of the major characters his or her own self-contained movement. A kind of Coda then tidies up the loose ends and provides a platform from which the major themes are re- capitulated by a "good-looking" novelist who has been popping in and out of the proceedings all along, like a full moon on a clouded night.

The First Movement's subject is exotic Fedora, an ageless, foreign-born film goddess reminiscent of Greta Garbo. Following a slowish Introduction, the piece develops into a briskly Allegro detective caper, intent on discovering the unspeakable mystery locked in the heart of the reclusive actress and her bizarre entourage. Our omniscient writer-type, after misleading us down several spurious garden paths, dropping false hints and serving up red herrings, ultimately clears things up. Turns out to be a case of mistaken identity, but with a truly extraordinary switch.

A word or two is in order about this novel-writing novel-writing character, fictitiously named Barry Detweiller. I don't think you'll take to him, but I do think you were meant to. For my taste, he tends to be altogether too archly "in," too smugly "with it" (i.e. in Paris il faut refer to the "Boul Mich"), too drearily a name-dropper in the mode of one of those derivitive show tunes by Comden and

As required, three themes are intro- duced into this First Movement, each of special pertinence to gay readers. Theme A is the matter of identity ("It is foolish to try to be something one is not!" laments Fedora in a rare moment of clarity); Theme B wrestles with the follies of vanity; and subordinate Theme C con- fronts the problems of deceit ("Small deceits are easier than large truths." is just one sample of the shallow philoso- phies propounded). Author Tryon pro- ceeds to expose himself, from that blunted point, as one of our lesser epi-grammists : "One does not pay attention to what critics say. It would be like feeding the hand that bites you." (Come to think of it, that one also contrives to mix a metaphor.)

Lorna Doone (sic), a B moom pitcha actress who literally embodies at least three of the less savory manias (nympho-, klepto- and pyro-, the latter-day Marx brothers) is the focus of the Second Movement, your anticipated Adagio. In flight from her own impersonal black- birds of misery, she had landed in a tack Mexican resort "several hundred miles southeast of the tip of Baja California.'

Here she conspicuously interacts with a ship's company of fools, becoming particularly attracted (as who wouldn't?) to one Emiliano, a flamenco dancer cum beachboy, arousingly described as “like a sea god … his skin was brown and shining, he had a perfect body, a torso like a piece of Roman armor … dark, glossy blue-black hair." Emiliano's eyes and teeth also, alternately, flash.

Well, now, you can't really blame a girl for going a bit bonkers over this idealized piece of male meat, but, more's the pity, our Lorna is given to extremes. Unexpectedly rebuffed, she progressively takes up: cigarettes (French), coco locos (Mexican), drugs (International) and an entire itinerant tennis team (All-American). It is finally to die. Which Lorna does, pages upon pages later, in a cathartic act of mawkish symbolism that would bring a blush to the Teutonic cheeks of Gerhart Hauptmann. Anyhow, Doone is done.

A Scherzo-like Third Movement, vivacious , with sharp and unexpected contrasts , introduces us next to Bobbitt, a once-idolized child star, now at limbo in his mid-30s. This is a dark fable of in- nocence lost, innocence regained. Bobbitt himself at the outset asserts, Peter Pan-like , "I don't want to grow up." Com-pensatorily , he has become a kind of Pied Piper, entrancing to little children, perching atop Alice's mushroom in Central

Park … passing the hat.

"The Industry" plays its all-too-familiar villian role: "They tried to keep him a child, so he stayed a child … he lived in a make-believe world for so long, and he had clung to that make-believe. Slavishly true to show biz formula, Bobbitt makes a mandatory comeback, counterpointed with the smarmiest sentimentalism since the Glad Girl thanked God for her crutches: "There's the trick, the whole world holding hands, and never letting go… We must love one

Christmas Givins another."

Presto-like, the Fourth Movement is a horror story that surges at a relentless pace from the opening line ("A girl shrieks") to a harrowing climactic drama of unparalleled violence and sadism. It pinions the Willie Marsh (read Clifton Webb), for decades an international symbol of elegance and wit, now brooding and alone in his West Hollywood hilltop mansion, "He does not like thinking of what loneliness compels in people, what deeds it brings them to, what fear it breeds." So much for foreshadowing.

Willie's fragile world is shattered by the breaking in upon it of two boys and a girl straight out of post-graduate Manson family. "Vague currents of emotions swirled through the room, intangible feelings … there was complicity." The chilling events that follow are a ghastly realization of every elderly queen's most persistent nightmare.

His beloved possessions brutally dese- crated, Willie himself is literally and graphically crucified in his own chapel: "It's Gethsemane time, gang" his tormentor leers, swishing "the draperies which had been stripped from able body is used as a target for a game of darts ("a dart flew, striking Willie above the groin"); hot wax is dripped on it; lighter fluid is ignited against it "they seemed to revel in his screams"); and, well, you know the scene.

Also included is the first explicitly homosexual passage in this handsome writer / actor's ouevre, albeit, in the manner of pre-Myra Breckinbridge Vidal, softcore:

"… thick arms were thrown back over the head, tanned skin and a band of flesh untouched by the sun … over it, kneeling between the spread legs, was the curve of a back. It moved, too. It settled closer, the back tensing. He heard the low animal cries, muttered obscenities … a hand, palm up, the fingers spreading, stiffening, clenching, opening again. The head rolled to one side. Murmurs, whispers , cries. Two of them …

So much for pornography.

Of four movements, then, we have: one very good, one on the verge of good, one fair, and one just plain silly. Not too awfully bad - at least as good an average as Bruckner ever managed to score. And, as with his symphonies, this Tryon opus will most probably be very successful. For all the same wrong reasons.

Ed Franklin

What Happened to Good Queen Bess Her Last Night at the Cosmopolitan Baths?

A Prose Flick by John Paul Hudson and Warren Wexler

SUPERSTAR MURDER?, A PROSE FLICK by John Paul Hudson and Warren Wexler, Grove Press, 1976, 352 pages, hardbound, $10.95. Limited Author's Edition, autographed, available at $8.95 postpaid from Insider Press, Box 439, Ansonia Station, New York, 10023.

That debonaire young man-about-the- country, the ol' "Gay Insider" himself, gives us here a smackeroo who's-got-the-body mystery that's massive and suspenseful . En route we also get an insight- ful tour of gay New York, mostly as seen from the bowels of that famed gay bath which launched the career of a certain famed singer. That certain singer, here called Bess Mittman, like several other characters in this sweeping panorama, will be instantly recognizable to most regular readers of the gay press.

It isn't new for gay stories to take time out for a cook's tour of the gay scene - arguing contending philosophies of gay liberation or of S&M, stopping off for the annual baseball game between the gays and the cops, etc. - but it is unusual to do that without leaving the main plot lines hanging on a nearby fence. Hudson keeps his well-tangled plot line in skillful order and presents a vast array of characters - many of whom are not what they first seem - moving through their paces without losing credibility, and without confusion.

Spot (we learn early on that Spot is a dog's name) is a husky blond beachboy type picked up in the Islands by Brock Rugoff, bisexual owner-impresario of the Cosmo Baths. Spot is assigned the plush but not easy job of keeping Brock's son away from the faggots downstairs, but as the story opens, Spot is himself sent down to fill in for another handsome blond, just dismissed as Bess Mittman's bodyguard.

We learn that Spot is a fugitive, that he is handsome but not dumb (no one in the baths takes him for a dog, although one or two scenes go dog-fashion) and that, by the end of the first chapter, he has found the body - which later proves disconcertingly elusive.

The interplay between "Edgar Ball," columnist for the Village Vision, a paper despised by nearly every character in the story, and gay liberationist-film buff Guido Discostanzo is most intriguing, though awfully hard on Ball, drawn from life in everything but appearance and vitriolic in all other details. Guido be- comes Spot's Virgil in the tour of hell, and he is as charming on these pages as is his real-life counterpart.

The sex scenes are not heavy and conform to the notion more popular on the East than the West Coast, that to be really gay means turning one's back on sharp homosexual-heterosexual prefer- ences.

The story turns on Bess Mittman's supposedly last celebrity appearance at the Baths she loathes and where she has to pretend that she just loves "her people." Her entourage is shot through with jealousy and antagonism, and when Spot discovers her body after the per- formance, he can't get anybody to believe that she is dead. But he has no trouble at all finding potential suspects, and, above all, he is in no position to go to the police.

Were it not for Guido and a grandmother , one of those aristocratic matriarchs of the peace movement, he would run and forget the whole thing; but he stays on and becomes more entangled, more mystified and, while he is at it, comes out.

A fine, fun story building up to a good climax, but with two final twists at the end which may not satisfy everybody.

Jim Kepner

DRUMMER 65

DRUMMER views the Flick

MARATHON MAN

Marathon Man, as a piece of film, is nearly as tortured as its human protagonist , the "marathon man" himself. That now-notorious scene in which Laurence Olivier tries to extract information from Dustin Hoffman, literally by the application of his dentist's drill, had caused audiences to upchuck (also literally) in the aisles during preliminary screenings. Now that the original celluloid has been submitted to the agonies of at least 100 cuts, queasy viewers are able to make it almost all the way to the rest rooms before losing their cookies.

Hoffman's cinematic path to that periodontal confrontation is equally as tortuous as the pain inflicted upon him once he arrives there, Having read William Goldman's novel, from which the author adapted his own screenplay, I can perhaps be of some help in unraveling that tangled skein — but I make no guarantee. (It is unlikely that anyone coming "fresh" to the movie would be able to make any real sense of its implied ramifications and

Yes, this Paramount release has more loose ends than a cat-o'-nine-tails factory; but the major plot line finally does, serendipitously, unwind itself. We begin with the Olivier character, a sadistic ex-Nazi (Christian Szell), who amassed a fortune during the palmy days of German concentration camps by extorting gold (preferably in the form of teeth, and directly from the donor's mouth) and diamonds from hapless Jews in return for promises to save them from those cozy gas ovens.

Now living in luxurious Uruguay on his drill-gotten gains, he must consider leaving for Manhattan when his brother, prime guardian of the diamonds - hidden in a safe deposit box there - is acciden- tally incinerated in a car accident. Cagily mistrusting his regular couple of couriers, the wily Sir Laurence concludes he must check the loot in person. Those tough couriers, incidentally, are icily enacted by a most talented twosome: Roy Scheider (stripped to the waist in one exercise sequence, as if anyone cared) and William ("Kennedy") Devane.

Anyhow, cut to New York and focus on Dustin Hoffman (Babe Levy), a Columbia graduate student (bit of an in-joke there, kids) whose father had been coerced into committing suicide during the McCarthy era. Hoffman has this mysterious girl friend (Marthe Keller as a foxy spy), and also finds time to run around the Central Park reservoir a lot, favoring the punishment of the gruelling marathon event. Well, we had to explain the title, didn't we?

Now, then. It seems Babe's brother (a plenitude of siblings here) is associated with Olivier, a passing fancy for which he gets his reward early on, dying in Hoff-man's arms from a nice, deep gash across his stomach. Once so inadvertantly involved , our hero, some hour or so of running time later, finds himself in that near-fatal dentist's chair, subjected to the probings of Olivier's merciless drill in a bloodily graphic attempt to induce from him information he ironically doesn't happen to have.

Along the way to this meeting we have been exposed to some marvelous location cinematography (by Academy Award winner Conrad Hall) in Paris, Los Angeles and, of course, New York, Jim Clark's editing and Michael Small's scoring are of the calibre to be expected from this all-around classy effort. After all, Paramount's own (former) fair-haired boy, Robert Evans, produced (in association with Sidney Beckerman) and another Academy Award winner, John Schlessinger, directed – tensely. Speaking of Academy Awards, let's not overlook the fact that writer Goldman also snagge Oscar for his original Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid screenplay. And, finally, how about all those awards and honors gleaned by our stars?

Ah, yes, the STARS! Those two do, indeed, prove themselves exactly that. The ailing Olivier has lavished on his characterization the same meticulous care he gave in the past to an Oedipus or a Long Day's Journey into Night. As for Hoffman, it is as well-rounded a performance as he has yet given, up to and including a lengthy sequence that features his bare buttocks (not bad, either). When all has been said and violently done, however, it must be admitted that not even the involvement of all those award-winning skills are able to compensate for all those unresolved convolutions of plot. Even the film's inordinant length (124 minutes) cannot succeed in solving that particular - and basic - problem.

MER views the Flicks

Kansas City Trucking Co.

There are eight major male roles in Kansas City Trucking Co., six undress extras, and one gratuitous female (Maria Reina) whose sole function is to imply at the outset that Joe, a rookie truck driver, is basically heterosexual. He is about to leave her, after showering a la Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy, to go off tandem- trucking on a run: "three days to L.A., three days back." Lacking the prophetic insight of Cassandra, she comments "How boring!"

I can guarantee that a voyeuristic audience of healthy homosexuals will definitely not be bored unstiff by the on-screen activities of the lovingly photographed 70 minutes that follow. Every potential sexual linking between two or more males, both in fact and fancy, is gloriously recorded for posterity in this maiden Joe Gage film from all possible (and some seemingly impossible) angles. Result: an unofficial tally of one cum shot each three-and-a-half minutes - yet all mechanical, unleavened by even the slightest pinch of human warmth or

The narrative thread tenuously holding these stimulating encounters together is the developing relationship between driver Richard Locke and the young greenhorn during the three-day (and night) trip in their huge White Freight Liner two-axle cab-over. Admirably constructed , the rising action (sic) toward an obligatory confrontation at their ultimate truck stop contrives to sustain, without sacrificing a sense of forward movement (either geographical or psychological), a series of irrelevant but steamy sex scenes along the way.

As driver Hank, black-bearded Locke satisfactorily embodies the image of a big butch trucker, heavy-lidded Robert Mitchum eyes glinting with sexual challenge as he urges his youthful colleague in the cab to masturbate over a Playboy centerfold. And Steve Boyd, playing the ambiguous Joe, accurately suggests the knowing vulnerability of the successful call boy-next-door. He is additionally blessed with one of the most beautifully mammoth cocks in the business.

On their first day out from Kansas City, these original two pass a jeep (actually a VW "Thing") driven by Dane Tremmel who, in turn, does not pass hitchhiking back-packer Skip Sheppard, your standard sexy blond type. These latter two soon pull off into an idyllic copse and proceed to masturbate simultaneously . Motivation here is, at best, ephemeral, but an angle through the windshield of Sheppard shooting his load directly at the camera is effective, if familiarly so.

Driving through some magnificently photographed desert scenery on the second day out, Locke glances down from the heights of his rig into a passing Mercedes convertible at Duff Paxton and Bud Jasper who, by the merest chance, are playing with each other. A quickly glimpsed nude form in the window of a roadside shack distracts the lads from their mutual involvement, and they stop to get a better look.

Or whatever.

Well, that nude form turns out to be "desert rat" Kurt Williams, a hunk of man who would stop traffic anywhere. The mathematical challenges of a three-way are inevitably investigated and conquered in a variety of fascinating ways, and the memory, as we return to the road with Locke and Boyd, lingers on. We would like to have seen more of Williams. To say nothing of the extremely attractive Paxton.

But it is the charismatic image of Jack Wrangler that, Laura-like, pervades this film. As the Kansas City truck dispatcher, he was first seen in the garage at the be- ginning of the film jacking-off in a jock-strap (or is that jocking-off in a Jack-strap ?). He and Locke then got it on together , observed enigmatically by the late-arriving Boyd. It is Wrangler, not surprisingly, who becomes Boyd's idee fixe. Whenever in the course of the trip the kid drops into a fitful sleep, the erotic athletics of Wrangler rise up on-screen from his subconscious. It is a casting masterstroke, as are virtually all the actors in this thoroughly high class film

High class, yes. But not quite the earth-shattering "crossover" movie of its producer's extravagant claims. Writing and directing (Joe Gage), photography (Nick Elliot), scoring (Al Steinman) and sound (Glen Nathan's exciting "SurrounduSound") are all nearly first-rate . However, a certain sameness of activity sets in. It is predominantly oralistic and onanistic - if you're a dedicated ass man, you might be mildly disappointed - with the exception of a brilliant, mass golden shower sequence that is just this side of farce: a good part of the high budget must have gone for beer that day!

The lens-at-ground-level snake's-eye view of spurting cocks is an overdone camera angle, although one must admit that this device will gratify size queens. Point is, given the equipment of the performers , such distortion causes something of a visual redundancy. Another visual flaw is the lack of an immediately identifiable cue to help us distinguish between flashback and fantasy: i.e. did Boyd really make out with Wrangler, or is it just wishful thinking? Does it even matter?

In compensation, there are strokes (!) of visual brilliance: at the moment of truth between Boyd and Locke, Boyd's slow-motion strip, for example, is in no way lessened in terms of suspense by the fact that we have already seen him completely nude; or a bunk bed scene featuring , full screen, only the cock and balls of an unknown "guest star" hanging through the upper bunk, while the head and tongue of Locke, below, brings them to orgasm; or pouring beer on a cock and then licking off its glistening sheen.

The promise is here of better things to come (no pun intended), and we look forward to producer Sam Gage's future efforts.

BOOKS TO TURN YOU ON AND ON…

THE INITIATION YOU'LL NEVER FORGET! IN PHOTO-

BOOK FORM with text by Robert Payne

It's initiation time at the fraternity and you should see what happens. Every ritual you have ever heard of and more are performed on our stalwart heroes. An exciting journey into a punishment-packed happening that we have all experienced, or wish we had. 60 stills from the movie. 6.95 plus 75c.

FRED HALSTED'S MOTION PICTURE

Forty-eight pages of stills made while filming, including The SAILORS, the COPS, the BOXERS, the HUSTLER and the PARTY-Everyone is there, doing his thing. Shown as only Halsted can. 8½" X 11" on enameled stock in Black and White. 7.95 plus 75c

THE MOTION PICTURE THAT PEELED THE PAINT OFF THE WALLS OF THE THEATRES IT WAS SHOWN IN!

The wildest S&M scenes we've ever seen. Starting with the rape in a Leather bar, the shaving of a slave's entire body from head to toe, the retribution of the two cops with their victim in the park, it all comes to life in this beautiful 81 / 2" X 11" collection of movie stills in black and white on enameled stock. No text.

795 plus 75c for postage

GUARANTEES DELIVERY, QUALITY and SATISFACTION on every item!

The Story

THE STORY OF 'Q' by ROBERT PAYNE

SOLD INTO SLAVERY AT SIXTEEN. HE WAS A SLAVE ALL HIS LIFE.

Beautifully told in this variation of the classic "Story of O". Passed on from one master to another, "Q" is sold, rented, abused, branded and is ultimately the personification of more interesting and limited and of man's inhumanity to man. Limited and unillustrated edition… 6.95 plus 75c postage.

A FULL LENGTH NOVEL ABOUT TWINS by KURT KREISLER

One is agressively dominant and one finally completely passive. Both are hunky, athletic and lively but as one is pushed further and further-he is forced to subservience until he can do only his brother's bidding. A new and vast de-

6.95 plus 75c postage.

PHOTO COLLECTIONS by RAMON

" ESTHETIC MALE of Roger Hustex, Playgirl model with text by Carl Ripoli.

"IMPACT 1" Val Martin poses for Ramon.

2.95 EACH or

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LAUTREC Unlike any artist's collection you have ever seen. It is wild, raw, erotic, sensitive, beautiful. Here are over 100 faithfully reproduced pieces on art stock,

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THE LEATHER BAR SCE

WESTERN / LEATHER [×5+]

The RAMRON

By Mal Bernstein

Photos by Bill Irwin and Mal Bernstein

The Ramrod Bar in Phoenix, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, is a Stud bar with a capital S. The men inside are real men, and the massive chains hanging from the heavily beamed ceiling are not there just for decoration. At times like a wall-to-wall orgy room, some super-hot leather studs might be chaining a slave upside down on one of the two racks … or there may be two or three hunky dudes in full action on the edge of the pool table.

The only totally gay, totally leather bar in the entire state of Arizona - and the only bar in the area known to sponsor bike runs - the Ramrod has gained full support from the Sons of Apollo Motor- cycle Club. Members' motorcycles are lined up in front of the bar; helmets hang on racks around the top of the bar over each stool. Besides the bike bunch are some of the hunkiest cowboys imaginable , visitors from nearby ranches, usually wearing skintight Levis, western boots and shirts, and always cowboy hats on the backs of their heads. Their "cowboy Cadillacs," pickup trucks with ropes hanging from the rear, are parked close to their burdles! bile." their buddies' bikes.

Once your eyes adjust to the near pitch-darkness of the interior, and providing that you can take your eyes off of the male scenery, you'll notice plaques, trophies and certificates attesting to the visits of motorcycle club members from such places as Frankfurt, Germany and Australia. The christening plaque of The Sons of Apollo, too, hangs on the Ram- rod's wall, the names of members' bikes set on a copper plate.

A bike christening is an event not to be missed! The new member sits on his bike, inside the bar, while old members christen the two with ice water, champagne and beer, some of it recycled direct from a member's own tap.

The hunkiness of the patrons is matched only by that of the leather-clad bartenders. And they're cooperative … Need some handcuffs? Want to use the stocks? Borrow some toys? Ask and ye shall receive!

The same goes for the grabass and groping. People go to the Ramrod ready for real action, and real action is what they get. On one recent occasion, two slaves were hung upside down from the racks while yet another, held against the bar for safe-keeping, was being treated to a few dozen lashes from an extra-wide leather belt, carefully wielded by his Master.

Although the bar is fully air conditioned against the heat of the outside (often reaching 1100 or more during the summer), nothing can protect you from the heat of the atmosphere inside. The Ramrod is, without a doubt, a hot bar offering light and heavy pleasures, as well as a large assortment of proud and hunky Masters willing, able and available for those who need training!

WESTERN / LEATHER [×6+] To the best of DRUMMER'S knowledge, all of these bars are still alive and living in Leather.

Arizona

Phoenix

California

Garden Grove

Los Angeles / Hollywood

Driveshaft

North Long Beach

Palm Springs

He Leather Bar S

Tennessee

Nashville

Texas

Dallas

Leather Bar

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