Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 12:41:00 +0800
From: Lady Poetess <egiggles@moose-mail.com>
Subject: The Gentlemen's Club: Marc

THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB
Marc

By and copyright Lady Poetess


Disclaimer
This story is entire fictitious and has no resemblance to anyone dead or alive.


PROLOGUE

"I thought you hate reunions. They are sappy, you said," Scott Wolf said as
he started the car engine.

   His significant other, the younger Jesse Bradford stretched and
yawned. He was always in some permanent glaze of ennui, behaving as if life
wasn't worth his time. The only time his eyes came to alertness was the
rare moment such as now, when he looked at Scott.

   "This is different," he said. "I helped Marc and Brian end up together."

   "This is something you never told me." Scott looked at the invitation
card again.  Marc P Blucas and Brian Krause invite close friends to a quiet
celebration of their tenth anniversary together, et cetera. Scott had only
glimpsed Marc once, a very tall but quiet yet intimidating fellow, and he
had no idea Marc was attached for so long. Then again, according to Jesse,
very few people knew Marc. Marc had this wariness in him that rubbed off on
people he met. It was perfect for the man's job as a senior editor in a
publishing house, for Scott, a mere copyeditor, had done enough shouting
into phones. Lord only knew how often Marc needed to shout into phones.

   "How did you help them together? I thought you never believed in love or
other mawkish nonsense," he asked Jesse. Jesse was a darkly beautiful man
who more often than not reminded Scott of a fallen angel. Sometimes he
wondered what he did to deserve such a gregarious, annoyingly yet
endearingly know-it-all man. Jesse was home-schooled, very experienced, and
very weary.

   He said that Scott helped him believe again, and he said it so
eloquently and often that Scott started to believe it as fact.

   But this -- this was surprising and so out of character of Jesse.

   "Hey I was only 13 back then, and I had this big crush on then 17-year
old Marc. Tall, built like an Oxford rowing champion, yet so serious -- a
perfect Daddy's boy. His family was sort of in-between: his father was
definitely a cut above middle-class, but he was only marginally accepted in
my circles because he wasn't upper class enough. But that year -- was it
1990? -- I was sent down the summer to live with my Aunt Hannah. Marc lived
there then, as did Brian.  Small town, you know how things are, and those
two created a scandal that the town couldn't stop talking about for years."

   "Really?" Scott was intrigued.

   "Yeah. You really want to hear this?" Jesse teased.

   "Definitely. I can't imagine you romantic and playing matchmaker."

   "Remember, I was 13," Jesse reminded him gently.


ONE

1990

Marc Blucas's single moment of breaking the rules in his 17 years was
sleeping with the luscious widow Mrs Bernard. Okay, Mrs Bernard was pretty
loose and easy, and Marc was delivering her groceries when she seduced
him. He was easy meat, since he was only 14 and wasn't particularly averse
to losing his virginity, and he carried on the affair with her until last
year. Herman Shepard roared into town in his Harley, and Mrs Bernard fell
in love. Marc got a postcard from her last May -- those two were happy
following the bike circuit in Austin.

   He missed her, and he missed the sex. Mrs Bernard had awakened his
libido, and he found it hard to keep it repressed. It was even more
confusing when he started to view both attractive men and women with equal
desire. He had little doubt that in the presence of a willing man that
captured his lust, he wouldn't hesitate to perform. Thing was, did he dare
to find such a man?

   Having been an obedient son to his parents all his life, he still felt
residues of guilt whenever he masturbated at night to the memory of Mrs
Bernard and fantasies of heated touch and velvet kisses of both men and
women. After years of excelling academically as well as in athletics, he
still found it hard to say no to his parents. His father wanted him to be a
lawyer since Marc could read and understand the meaning of parental
pressures, and Marc didn't know what he want. What his father and mother
wanted for him were so heavily tangled up with his own uncertain wants that
sometimes he wondered whether he was even a human being.

   Well, his mother had been buried for two days now. It was a car
accident, and the drunk driver got only a minor scratch on her head
compared to Melissa Blucas's death. It wasn't fair. Marc didn't cry at her
funeral, however, and he couldn't even bring up the tears now, two days
later.

   His father told him it was shock -- soon he would face the emotions. And
his father was pleased, for he was of the old school belief that men
shouldn't cry. But while Marc couldn't cry, he was being torn apart inside
by this anguish so intense that he couldn't handle it.

   It wasn't just his mother's death, it was as if all his pent-up rage at
his inability to control his life or even severing his umbilical cord with
his parents had broken loose to wreck havoc on his well-organized life. He
hated his mother and himself for holding on too close that she had to leave
him so pain-stricken when she left.  He hated his father for not letting
him be, and he hated Mrs Bernard for taking away the last vestiges of his
innocence.

   So here he was, tonight, in a clumsy attempt to shake off his parents'
ghosts, standing at the door of the notorious gay biker-and-bear bar at the
outskirts of the red light district a town away from his father. He had
never been here, despite the intriguing whispers he had heard from some of
his friends in the locker room, but he was rather disappointed that the bar
was rather mundane compared to his imagination.

   He had imagined huge, brutish bears conducting open orgies with their
willing victims. But the bar was a far cry from the open hedonism he
naively associated with red light districts. Instead, he was greeted by
heavy cigarette smoke and loud Metallica tunes. A greasy man shoved past
him without an apology. Marc took in the other man's bare chest, leather
jacket, and dark tight pants, and then looked at his own tweed shirt,
University of Ohio jacket, and jeans.

   This was stupidity. He shouldn't be here. He should be at home,
preparing for his new academic term. Making a turn to leave, he stopped,
however. Because at that moment, he saw him.

   The man, a boy of Marc's age actually, was wearing tight white James
Dean shirt and tight blue jeans. The white top mould to every curve of that
well- muscled torso, lovingly delineating flat abdominal muscles and two
well-formed pectorals upon which the nipples were clearly erect. Those
jeans clung to muscular thighs and tight rounded buttocks, visible when he
bent over to clear the pool table.

   Marc felt his mouth dry up even as he gripped the doorway when all
strength left his knees. His cock surged to life while his buttocks
clenched and tingled in anticipation -- what was wrong with him? This was
far beyond the first time Mrs Bernard touched his bare chest and played
with his cock. This was a surge of potent lust that staggered him in its
intensity. If that beautiful boy looked at him this way in those dark,
beautiful eyes or even hinted at any welcome in that starkly chiseled face,
Marc would be the boy's willing slave.

   His heart hurt at such beauty, beating a million tattoos of sharp
piercing pain as he watched this boy. For the first time, he wanted someone
so badly, even if for the moment, and he had no idea how to get him. He
wasn't an assertive person, and he was used to obeying authority
figures. His inability to take what he wanted infuriated him at the moment,
and he wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.

   But maybe fate took mercy on him at that moment, for the beautiful boy
put down his cue and his eyes met Marc's.


Brian Krause was white trash, and he defiantly reveled in it. Screw life,
screw rules, screw authority -- his rules to live by. But watching the town
gold boy Marc Blucas standing uncertainly at the door of the bar, he felt
the old ghosts of insecurity and envy collecting around his mind
again. What was the boy doing here? He wasn't cut out for this crowd, not
like Brian.

   Marc had no idea what an appealing and irresistible figure he cut in the
smoky bar. Tall, muscled almost but not to the point of beefiness, yet his
awkwardly boyish face a clean template of innocence waiting to be
corrupted, he was a lamb among merciless wolves. The jacket and shirt did
nothing to hide the well- formed body they clothed, and the jeans
accentuated rather than hide the impressive bulge at the man's crotch.

   Brian, like probably every other man here, was scorched by this boy the
moment Marc walked past the door. Marc's obvious nervousness only fuelled
Brian's predatory instincts, which in his already very aroused state, was
driving him out of control. But when Brian saw Jerome walking towards Marc,
he knew he had no choice. Jerome was a man who never left his partners
without at least a broken arm. Brian had to protect Marc.

   It was his weakness, after all, to still play Lancelot to knights and
damsels in distress.

   He reached Marc first. "Let's get out of here," he whispered into the
boy's ear without preliminaries.

   He could have explained the situation, but his senses froze the moment
his hand closed around Marc's waist. Those traitorous fingers couldn't help
moving over the tight graceful curves of Marc's buttocks, and Brian's
treacherous heart stopped beating when he bent to whisper in Marc's ear,
for the scent of the boy's aftershave almost caused him to shoot his wad
right there and then.

   But Marc saw Jerome too, and his widened eyes told Brian that he wasn't
unaware of his danger. "Okay," Marc said, stammering only slightly,
although it was obvious he was trying not to break down and panic. He
really didn't belong here. Pity he only learned that too late.

   But he still threw Brian off-guard when he placed his hand over
Brian's. Marc's hand was cold with fear and slightly clammy with sweat, but
still, he held Brian's hand. Voluntarily. Brian stared down at their
clasped hands, speechless as a strange, not altogether unpleasant warmth
suffused him.

   "Why do you hold my hand?" he couldn't help asking.

   "Because you're getting me out of here," Marc said, his tenor shaky but
friendly.

   "Right. Let's go." Brian tightened his hold on Marc's hand. Even if it
was false, it made a nice fantasy really, that someone cared enough to
touch him, hell, to hold his hand.



Marc couldn't help but to laugh at the whole ludicrous situation when he
calmed down his fears twenty minutes later. He laughed.

   Brian, lying on Marc's jacket on the grass, looked up at Marc sitting at
the hood of his car. "What's so funny?" he asked, raising himself on his
elbows.

   Marc couldn't look away, not when Brian's action only tightened the
fabric of the boy's shirt across his chest. The shirt was thin enough that
in the moonlight, Marc could almost see the darker circles of Brian's
nipples through the fabric.  Heat burned through him, and he raised his
left leg to hide the painful bulge in his jeans. "I was stupid tonight,
wasn't I?"

   "Yeah." Brian didn't grin, not with humor anyway. He was looking at
Marc, staring actually, with an intensity that Marc found disconcerting.

   "What are you looking at?" Marc asked quietly, afraid to hope, afraid of
Brian's answer. He was secure in the knowledge that his clean-cut looks
attract people, hell, it attracted Mrs Bernard as well as the popular girls
in school who wanted him to take them out. But he wanted to be more than
attractive to Brian, he wanted to be the most beautiful person in Brian's
eyes. Then, maybe Brian would want Marc as much as Marc wanted him.

   Brian stretched lazily on the jacket, casually spreading his legs so
that Marc was treated with the sight of his bulging erection. "You know,
you just have to ask, and I'll give you a better look at my chest."

   Marc swallowed as his cock threatened to burst out of his jeans. He
couldn't believe this was happening. "Okay."

   Brian sat up and lifted his shirt over his head. He didn't care where he
threw it behind him.

   "The jeans too," Marc said, his voice shaking only slightly. When had he
become this daring?

   But Brian stood up in a fluid motion and unfastened his jeans.

   Marc didn't know what he was doing. Instincts he didn't even know he had
took over, and he climbed off his car. He was only aware of the strange
sensation of having Brian's cock in his mouth. He let his lips move over
every curve, let his tongue caress every vein, and finally, licked the
salty droplets from Brian's cock slit with increasing voracity. He sucked,
enjoying the taste as well as Brian's groans of pleasure, punctuating his
suction with not-too-gentle plays of his tongue on Brian's sensitized cock
head.

   "Slowly, yeah, lick that slowly, oh that's fucking good…" Brian said,
throwing his head back as his fingers curled into Marc's hair, guiding the
boy in his first giving head.

   Marc, the habitual obedient boy, obeyed. He was rewarded by Brian's
increasingly deep and rough thrusts, that cock stretching his lips and jaw
as its tip plunged deep to nestle in the depths of Marc's throat before
withdrawing.  Marc soon got into the rhythm, relaxing his throat applying
suction and licking at the right moments.

   Brian finally shouted in his climax, his semen flooding Marc's throat in
hot, steady gushes. If Marc weren't steadying him, he would have fallen
onto the ground, dazed in his white-hot orgasm.

   Marc wiped his lips as he looked at the barely coherent boy below. The
games he played with Mrs Bernard in bed were coming back to him now, and
with one fluid motion he unzipped his pants. Brian could only cry out when
Marc mounted him, his cock forging in forcefully up Brian's anus. The
stunned boy recovered, or maybe it was habit, and his legs lifted to clasp
Marc's torso even as Brian swiftly divested Marc of his shirt.

   They were a tangle of well-muscled and sweaty limbs as Marc fucked
Brian. He was taught well -- he varied the depths and speed of his thrusts,
so that when Brian was close to coming, Marc slowed down, pumping deep and
leisurely until Brian begged for surcease. Then Marc increased his speed,
banging Brian until the violent sounds of their coming together echoed
around the quiet night, accompanied by their groans of pleasure.

   He tried to keep it as long as he could, but Marc was only
human. Finally, one right moment, one perfect tight convulsion around his
cock, and he was gone.  Jamming his lips hard over Brian's in a bruising
kiss, he shuddered as he emptied his balls, his heart, and his soul into
the boy.


TWO

"Hey, Krause, your boy's here!"

   That was the usual greeting whenever Marc stepped into the bar two weeks
down the road. Actually Marc that was better than being called, say, "Hey
Krause, your bitch's here!" which was what he heard people called each
other in jail. Two weeks, wow, two weeks of him sneaking off at night to
meet Brian, where Brian would then teach him things even Mrs Bernard and
her large collection of porn couldn't inspire. It was one thing to discover
the joys of sodomy, but when Brian screwed him too, now, that was
exquisite.

   Tonight, Brian was at his usual place, playing pool with his
friends. These friends were like Brian, out of luck, out of favor, out of
school. Marc wouldn't normally even want to meet these men, but for Brian,
he was willing to do anything.

   Brian looked up, smiled, and hit the cue ball. Only then he straightened
and reached for his jacket. "Gotta go," he told his friends, who would
curse him for being led by the 'wife'.

   But Brian, surprisingly, didn't care. Every inch of that body was well
used and familiar to Marc by now, but Marc was fascinated more and more
with Brian's mind. Everyday he learned something new about Brian, and he
loved that.

   "Let's not go to the park," he said, an impromptu suggestion popping in
his head. They usually went to the park where they would fuck until they
couldn't move, and then they'd talk as they lay in each other's arms, a
tangle of sated flesh. They'd curse, insult each other, and couldn't help
sharing a piece of each other no matter how hard they tried not to. "Let's
go to my place."

   It was a daring suggestion, but Marc was pretty daring nowadays. "My
father was at some charity function, and he'd be back only by dawn."

   "You're not afraid I'll steal something?" Brian asked.

   Marc wasn't sure if the boy was teasing. Brian's continuous assumption
that Marc would wake up one day and realize that he was too good and upper
class for Brian could be annoying. Why couldn't Brian see that Marc didn't
care?  Confident in his youth and immortality, Marc decided to see it as a
joke. "You've already stolen something of mine," he told him.

   It came out before he could think. Silence as the both of them looked at
each other, not knowing what to say or do. At seventeen, what did he know
about love, Marc asked himself? What did Brian know? This was some youthful
indiscretion thing. Let just fucking enjoy while they could.

   "Let's see your place," Brian said finally.



They wanted to be quiet, but they ended up fucking first at the living room
floor, then at the couch, up the stairs two times, and they could only lay
on the bed in exhaustion when they finally made it to Marc's bedroom.

   "Nice room," Brian said.

   "Nothing much really," Marc said, still feeling slightly uncomfortable
at having someone else invading his private room. But it wasn't so
bad. Brian was okay.

   "So many books. I see you already made your decisions on which college
to go to."

   "Actually, it's my father's decision," Marc said, unable to mask the
bitterness in his voice. "He wants me to be a lawyer. I don't know what I
want."

   "Really? I thought you are the star student who has his next twenty
years planned to a tee," Brian said, letting his hand play along Marc's
chest. "Star student. Star football and basketball player in your school. I
bet you'll be the one giving the speech on your graduation day. Will you be
prom king?"

   "I don't care. I just want -- " What did he want? "I just want you."
That was the truth at least. He couldn't think, not when Brian's hand was
now running across the hair of his crotch. His cock was already
stirring. "I want to be inside you, always, just keep pumping and coming,
and everything else can go to hell." His father, his mother -- fuck them
all.

   As Marc moved over Brian's willing body, his cock ready to plunge up
deep, he looked at Brian, into the boy's eyes, and knew. Despite his best
efforts at reminding Marc that this couldn't last, Brian cared for him. It
was a relief, because Marc knew the same stupid affection was mirrored in
his own eyes.

   "I hate you people. Always too good for our company, but we are good
enough to fuck at least," Brian said, one last attempt to reenact the wall
between them.

   "You don't believe that," Marc said, ruthlessly demolishing it.

   "No, I don't," Brian said, a sigh of resignation following his
confession. Then Marc was inside him, so deep, that he couldn't think or do
anything but to cling on to this boy's muscular shoulders and torso and
enjoy the maddening pain- pleasure.


Marc's father came home early, unfortunately, and thinking that the groans
from Marc's room were his son in pain, smashed the door (which wasn't even
locked) open. The man was holding a baseball bat at that moment, and on
instinct and denial at what he was seeing, swung it hard.

   Marc saw the bat heading right for Brian. At that moment, even if he was
17 and stupid, he knew -- he loved Brian. He couldn't see that boy
hurt. Marc pushed Brian away, and the bat hit the back of his neck hard.

   It was the most daring thing he'd ever done, he realized, before the
pain and the darkness claimed him.



THREE

A week later

His head had stopped ringing. Thankfully his father's swing hadn't caused
permanent damage to his spine or mental faculties. But he hurt. Where was
Brian? For one week in the hospital, he held on to this futile hope that
maybe Brian would sneak in and visit.

   He was in pain because of the loneliness. He couldn't bear the sight of
his father, not when he kept telling Marc that it was some temporary thing,
that Marc wasn't really gay, the doctors would make him okay again.

  Nonsense. He would never be okay again. Now, when he got out of this
hospital, he would find Brian. He would tell him everything -- how he was
in love with him, yes, even when it was stupid, how he had this plan for
them both. They could work it out, he was sure.

   But that night, he walked home bloody and furious. Brian was nowhere to
be found, and in maddened frustration, Marc lashed out on the sullen
friends of Brian's. They knew, they had to, damn it! Marc threw the first
punch, and it went downhill all the way.

   Brian was gone. It was as if he never existed. Now, as he stood at his
house lawn, staring up at his bedroom window, remembering he and Brian, he
wanted to rage. It wasn't fair. People said he had everything, but he
didn't want them. He wanted Brian. He wanted to rage and pound his fist
into something, someone, until he died from this unbearable pain in his
chest.

   "I know where he is."

   Marc looked, and scowled. It was the annoying next door neighbor boy,
Jesse, who had been throwing him cow eyes all summer long. The boy had a
crush on Marc, Marc knew now from his own experience with Brian, but at
this moment, Marc had no time to let the boy down gently. He made to walk
away, but the boy's words finally registered in his head.

   "Your father had the cops arrest Brian. Nobody dares to tell you because
your father is a powerful man here, which you've probably known by now."

   He should have known. Marc looked at Jesse and felt a slight loosening
in the tightness of his chest for the first time in what seemed like an
eternity. "Where did the cops take him?" he asked, forcing his voice to be
gentle, not wanting to scare this boy away.

   "I don't know. But since he's a minor like you, I bet he's in some sort
of home."

   Yes, there was that. His father could pull strings to get rid of Brian.

   "Thanks." Marc hesitated, then reached down and kissed Jesse. Not a kiss
one gave kids, but one that could get Marc arrested. A minute later, Marc
licked his lips and patted the boy's head. "Thanks again," he said.

   "Wow," Jesse said, rubbing his lips. His first kiss, a real kiss. Cool!



He paced the floor impatiently. Anticipation warred with trepidation. What
if Brian said no? What if it wasn't Brian? He didn't know how to deal with
this hollow pain in his soul, and he prayed that if there was a god, a
merciful one, let him find Brian.

   Shit, if this was what it was to fall in love, it wasn't fucking worth
it. He might as well make sure this was the first and only time he got that
disease.

   Finally, the door opened.

   Marc turned to look at the person at the door, and finally let go of his
breath.

   "Brian," he said.

   "Hi." Brian sat down, across the table from where Marc was
standing. "Didn't expect to see you here."

   "I thought you were at some home. I tore all over the area looking for
you."

   "Really? No wonder you look like shit."

   "Please don't mock me, Brian. You have no idea what I went through these
few days." Marc sat facing Brian. "At least tell me I mean nothing to
you. I deserve that at least."

   "Your father," Brian said simply. "He just told me, you know, and he was
right.  You have a great future and a great life. I will only bring you
down. I will hate myself if I cause you to receive anything less than what
you deserve in life." He bit his lip, trying hard to be steady. "So I moved
away."

   Marc made a pained sound, as if he was being torn apart inside. But he
only reached into his shirt pocket. Brian watched, afraid to speak, as Marc
pulled out a small, square box and tossed it across the table. It hit the
table with a soft thud right in front of Brian.

   "It will be hard without my father's backing, but I can start again,"
Marc said. "I don't have to get into college so soon after graduation, so I
can work to stabilize us both financially. I expect you to work too, by the
way. I don't need a law degree. I just want a life, a content, happy
life. With you."

   Brian bit back a sob. "I'm no good for you." The tears fell then.

   "That's for me to decide," Marc said. "So Brian Krause, will you marry
me? I'll take you away from this place, and I will do my best to fucking
make us both happy."

   "I don't know." Brian looked at Marc, and wondered how Marc could be so
confident and so sure when he was giving up everything he knew. They were
both only seventeen, for God's sake, what did they know? But, but -- as
Brian looked at Marc, so serene yet so obviously in torment, he felt a calm
wash over him. Marc believed, and Marc really had to love him if he would
give up everything for him.

   Marc held his hand, and Marc gave up everything for him.

   "Yes," he said finally. He felt a heavy weight lift off him with that
one simple word of irrevocable finality. "Yes. If you think you know what
you're getting into, yes."

   Marc grinned.


EPILOGUE

Today

"I can't believe we made it this far," Marc said, grinning widely as he
washed the dishes.

   Scott Wolf smiled in reply. "Well, maybe the both of you are better than
you think."

   Marc shrugged. "Not really. God, it was hell trying to survive in New
York with my father cutting me off like that. There were times when I am
tempted to just walk out on Brian, and I am sure he felt the same too
during those times."

   "But you didn't."

   "I couldn't. I didn't, yeah," Marc said. "Through tuition bills, through
poverty, through eviction, and through so many arguments I have lost count
of."

   "To love then," Scott said.

   "Yes, to love," Marc said ruefully. "To fools like you and I."

   "Scott! Let's get home before Marc asks us to clean his toilet as well!"
Jesse called from the living room.

   "Coming." To Marc, he said, "It's been a pleasure."



When he had finished cleaning the house, Marc walked into the living room
where an exhausted Brian was snoring away on the couch. He watched the man
sleep for a moment, feeling the way his heart still ache, even after all
this while, at the sight of this man.

   How different they were from whom they started out as. Brian's old
friends wouldn't recognize him now, for Brian was now as
respectable-looking as Marc.  One couldn't afford to be bohemian when there
were always bills to pay. Brian had worked like hell to finance Marc's
college education, working two jobs, and now Marc was repaying the favor,
working his butt off to see Brian through college.

   Sometimes, it didn't seem worth it, working like hell, suffering the way
they did.

   But now, as he stood there like he did every night, watching Brian
sleep, he had no regrets. Gently, he went on his knees and shook Brian
awake. "Bri, they're gone. Time to go to bed."

   Brian opened his eyes and smiled weakly when he saw Marc. "Hi. You know,
ten years. It feels weird. I never thought we'd make it this far. But it's
been fun all the way."

   Marc wouldn't put it that way exactly -- fun? Get real. But Brian was
always the more impulsive and optimistic of them both. "I know what you
mean," he said honestly, gently helping Brian to his feet. "Wanna make it
another ten?"