THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB
Marcus

Written by Lady Poetess
egiggles at moose-mail.com
/~bbp

Please do not reproduce on any website without permission. This
story 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, 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?"