Greek Ways (1975) by Samuel Steward writing as Phil Andros.

For the main article on the Phil Andros Novels and Stories, click here.

The final novel in the series. I had assumed from the title this one would take place in Greece, as Roman Conquests took place in Rome. But the first chapter is on a beach south of San Francisco and all the action is in the city. Phil has acrobatic sex with a surfer and then (a twist!), we discover in the last line of the chapter that it was a scene being filmed for a porno movie. Phil, and the surfer, and a handful of other guys are the employees of a male whorehouse in San Francisco. The “madame” (“monsieur”?) is Jerry who is also the director of the movie. Phil has sex, chapter by chapter, with the other guys in the whore house. He’s also contacted by an old buddy, Art Kain, from Pennsylvania, who’s in town for business. They have great sex at the Mark Hopkins where Art is staying.

Halfway though the novel, the whorehouse gets a call from a “Les Jackson” who Phil suspects is his old roommate Larry Johnson, who we remember from Shuttlecock. Phil recognizes the guy’s deep voice over the phone. Phil also thinks he recognizes the name from a newspaper article where a cop named Les Jackson arrested a guy on a morals charge. Les tells the guys he wants to come by to join the whorehouse team, but they suspect he’s actually setting up a sting operation to arrest them all. It’s never explained how Larry managed to get on the force after the frame-up that Phil arranged at the end of Shuttlecock. Phil and Jerry concoct an elaborate scheme to prevent Larry from shutting them down by capturing incriminating evidence against Larry by filming him having sex with Art Kain through a two-way mirror during his “audition.” The scheme works. Larry is chastened. But then a different guy shows up at the house who brings in the cops, Jerry is arrested, and the whorehouse closes. Phil decides, now that Larry is under his thumb again, to move in temporarily with Larry, but, arriving at Larry’s place in the Castro comes across Larry’s dead body, a suicide. Phil feels some regret, but finds a note from Larry that doesn’t mention him and he realizes with relief, and sadness, that Larry’s troubles went way beyond Phil. The final scene is Phil frolicking with his handsome rich friend Art Kain in Pennsylvania.

I mentioned earlier (in my entry for Shuttlecock) that the series of interconnected novels reminded me of a porno Proust. That was probably overstating it. But I was pleased to discover that Steward was thinking along the same lines. Jerry is having a little trouble coming up with scenes for the movie he’s making and asks Phil to help him out by providing stories from his experience. Phil agrees. “Where to begin? In New York, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco?” (p. 52) He starts with Larry Johnson but then runs through several memorable characters from the previous novels and stories: Rudolf Dax from Chicago, Ace Hardesty from Dallas. “Then Duke, the wickedest and most talented of American composers” (p. 53). Like Proust he concludes, “They came and went in my memory, hundreds of them, then thousands, a moving frieze on a Greek temple, stepping down now and then into my life” (pp. 53-54). I’m sure Proust wouldn’t mind the comparison.