LIFE AS THE TOPAZ MAN

NEW YORK -- Steve Sandalis can't find the right woman, he eats only bland food and he goes to bed early most nights.

Maybe being the Topaz Man isn't quite as romantic as it's cracked up to be.

Those pecs are produced by spending at least five days a week in the gym and ingesting six or seven protein-packed meals a day, and his fat-free body came about because the word "plain" describes everything he puts in his mouth.

That's a regimen followed by many bodybuilders, but they don't have Sandalis' je ne sais quoi, the long dark hair and the 90-degree-jaw that fit neatly into the fantasies of women who read what once were called "bodice-rippers."

Now they're called historical romance novels, and Penguin Books has chosen Sandalis to illustrate the covers of their new Topaz line.

There's his face and that of a voluptuous red-haired woman captured in a locket on the cover of Cassie Edwards' "Wild Romance." Open the cover to see the whole picture -- the Topaz Man and the woman embracing naked in a stream.

Sandalis, who lives in Manhattan, says that painting - like all the covers - started out as a photograph made in a studio. There was no swirling water. "We are just in that pose," he said. "But chances are we are wet."

Ironically, the Topaz man doesn't have much of a love life. The girlfriend he had when he assumed the title couldn't take the pressure of all his female admirers. He's finding it's a common problem.

"A lot of women get insecure because I'm doing a lot of traveling and they realize I have to meet a lot of other women," he said.

Sometimes they go out of their way to meet him. Women have tried to break into his room. When he ordered room service at one hotel, five women delivered his bowl of oatmeal.

Sandalis, who back in high school learned that girls make passes at men who pump iron, tells these stories in an earnestly boyish-pitched voice spiced with just enough modesty to make them palatable.

Not that long ago, Sandalis was a Florida junior college student with a muscular build. An agent saw him on the beach one day and put him on a plane to New York.

Eventually, he beat out thousands of applicants for the Topaz Man job. "At the interview I offered to take off my shirt," he said. "They liked my body and they liked my personality and they hired me."

Now, when he's not posing for the Topaz book covers -- three are published each month -- he's doing promotional tours such as the one that will bring him to Cape Girardeau Friday.

At trade shows such as this one, Sandalis wears what he calls his "Topaz Man uniform" -- poet shirt and tight riding britches -- to have his picture taken alongside fans.

Now 25, Sandalis tried to break into modeling for years but says he was unsuccessful because he refused to cut his hair or to assume the usual trim proportions.

His "look" is masculine yet sensitive. His publicity describes him as "sexy but gentle. Powerful but vulnerable. He stands on his own but he's never out of reach. He's the Topaz Man."

Someday he'd like to break into action movies, maybe as some kind of combination of Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Patrick Swayze. Until then he'll be the Topaz Man.

"As long as people are buying books, I don't see why I couldn't continue to have the job," he says.