Different Strokes (1984) by Samuel Steward writing under the name Phil Andros.

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

A book of short stories, again, not a novel. This time, although Phil Andros is still the credited author on the front cover, as a character he appears in only a few of the stories. Helpfully, in this case, there’s a “Note” at the beginning of the book from Samuel M. Steward himself, explaining where these stories first appeared. The earliest is “The Biker” which Steward notes, “Originally circulated in typescript in the 1950s” and was “later expanded into six connected stories in The Joy Spot by Phil Andros” published in 1969. That’s the only volume of the series I don’t own. The story is a biker telling a story to a seat mate at a bar about a sexual adventure he had with a farmer’s son in a barn. I can just imagine the typewritten pages being passed around from man to man in those pre-Stonewall years. The final story in the book, “Ecco Narcissus!”, is dated 1959 but was first published in Christopher Street in 1981. The rest of the stories are dated from the 1960s and 1980. I imagine that Steward’s publisher asked him for some more material and Steward cleared out his drawers of leftovers. The early stories came out “in one of those little queer magazines they publish in Europe” that Pete Swallow mentioned in Below the Belt and Other Stories: Der Kreis, eos, amigo, or MANege, which Steward describes as “a short-lived Danish leather magazine”. The 1980s stories were published in the American magazines Stallion and Advocate Men.

The earliest published story in the book is “The Economists” (1960). It takes place in Paris. A professor, John Sanders, and his student, Danny, fall in love. It’s romantic and the sex is all implied. The title comes from the exchange between the professor giving the student his education, and the student giving the professor himself. The student says, “It’s just returning oneself, after all–in gratitude, or tribute–to the one who did the work of creation” (p. 19).

“The Sergeant with the Rose Tattoo” (1960) also set in Paris. The first-person narrator is a tattoo artist, but unnamed. His first customer is Buck, the sergeant of the title. Straight. Buck is on a short leave from the army. They share an apartment, and a wonderful week in Paris, but no sex. Then Buck leaves to pursue a career as a boxer. A year later, Buck appears again at the tattoo shop, out of the army, and ready to consummate what was had been unconsummated.

These first two early stories, almost chaste, reminded me of the stories in E. M. Forster’s collection of gay themed short stories titled The Life to Come. Not published until after his death, Forster also wrote for his own pleasure and a small circle of friends he could share them with.

“The House on the Rue Erlanger” (1964). Paris again. The narrator is unnamed again. The narrator spends several weeks in the house of an old friend, a jealous queen named Prik, who is also hosting his Polish “nephew” a handsome young man named Erik. Erik and the narrator have sex, not because the boy is gay, but because, in the narrator’s summation, “You’re not really one of us anyway; you’re just a healthy sexual animal.” But Prik is jealous of Erik’s interest in an American girl and contrives to smear Erik’s character with the girl’s father. The narrator spoils the plan nicely.

In “The Jungle Cat” (1962) we’re in San Francisco. The unnamed narrator is again a tattoo artist. This time he’s smitten with a Puerto Rican boy named Angelo.

In “Baby Tiger” ( 1963) we have another unnamed tattoo artist in San Francisco, this time his shop is on Market Street. He’s involved with a younger couple, Mike and Dave. When Mike begins to explore his dominant side, the narrator grows eager to submit. There’s a nice bit of writing that leads up to the two having sex but then takes a discrete break before coming back with a numbered section II. In the second part, the narrator reasserts the balance between he and Mike by giving Mike a tattoo and becoming in the act the dominant to the submissive.

“The Tattooed Harpist” (1965) is a Phil Andros story, published under the name Phil Andros. It follows the two stories in Below the Belt and Other Stories where Phil got involved in Chicago with an English professor and a gangster. Now he’s hiding out in New York under an assumed named, Duke Andrews. The sex is with a guy who has the apartment below him. After the two are regularly getting it on the guy has sex with a woman and is so traumatized by the mother issues it brings up, the only recourse is to have sex with “Duke” again.

“The Cuba Caper” (1965) was published under the name John McAndrews. McAndrews, who’s called “Jock” McAndrews in the story, is an American of Scottish heritage formerly working for the State Department until he was kicked out for being gay. Now he’s back on the job because the U.S. needs someone to go down to Cuba and seduce a gay man in Castro’s government. There’s a lot of fun about kilts. It’s a farce with a drug-laced brandy and photographers hiding in the bushes. There is some weirdness, lightly noted, about a man whose career in the U.S. government was ruined when he was outed as gay, working for that same government to out another gay man in a different country with the purpose of ruining his career.

“The Pool Cue” (1967). This one was published under the name Ward Stames, but it can’t be the Phil Andros story by Ward Stames Pete Swallow says he read in Below the Belt and Other Stories because Phil Andros isn’t in this one, or at least he isn’t named. We’re back in San Francisco. A leeching roommate leaves behind an expensive pool cue, which the narrator is able to use to buy a date with a handsome man he desires.

“Anatomy of a Fiasco” (1983). A Phil Andros story. He ruins a client’s fantasy by revealing he’s educated and loses the gig. He drowns his sorrow at a bar and picks up another hustler named Prospero. The two of them have great sex every week until Prospero, after a drunken night, reveals a slightly feminine side in himself, and then it’s Phil, illusion dashed, who calls it off.

“On Andros Island” (1984). Another Phil Andros story. In this one he takes a summer holiday from cold San Francisco and flies to Andros island in the Bahamas. He has sex with Ken, the desk clerk of the hotel. And then lands another gorgeous guy, an Englishman, who claims to be bisexual. He’s Andy. And he’s rich. Phil starts to fall in love. They drink gin. They have sex. Phil is sure he’s seen the guy somewhere before and eventually Andy confesses. He’s Prince Andrew, Randy Andy, who comes down to Andros island “incognito two or three times a year, if I can” (p. 135). The next day he takes off, by helicopter. The desk clerk tells Phil he wasn’t really the Prince but a body double hired by the Royal Family. Phil concludes, “Maybe Ken had been lying, maybe not. After all, it had been a fine fuck, and perhaps if he were really telling the truth–that it wasn’t the prince–it might turn out to be the closest I would ever come to getting royally screwed” (p. 137).