THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB Miguel 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. ONE "Good morning, Mr Kelner." "Please, call me Miguel." The young man almost dropped the heavy parcel in his hands when he saw whom the stationmaster was addressing. It wasn't hard to miss a tall, darker-skinned Latino man among the fair sun-kissed Scotsmen in this place, but Sean had been struggling to place the parcel onto the back of his bicycle to notice. Tourists were common in St Andrews, especially during the summer, but the author Miguel Kelner was definitely uncommon, in Sean's opinion. Sean had read Fool For Love since he first got a copy of it from an ex-boyfriend - an university guy working on his literature doctorate - and he went as far as to beg his townie brother down at London to mail him a copy of the out of print An Anglophile in San Juan - Miguel's debut - for which he paid almost a month's wage for. Miguel Kelner was an inspiration to the dreamy just- turned-twenty young man who knew very well that he was an uneducated hack who would probably live the rest of his life in St Andrew. But with the aid of his prized dictionary, he managed to get through Fool For Love and found himself seriously considering doing something with his life for once. Miguel's semi-autobiographical, frank, and even sexually explicit book about an openly gay man's life growing up in San Juan was a critical success and won him enough awards to establish his position among the literary darlings of New York. It was a very impressive feat for a man who was only twenty-four. Sean didn't care about what Miguel won, though. All he cared was that Miguel's story about a gay boy growing up in a strong Catholic family struck a chord in Sean, even though Sean's family was Presbyterian. Miguel could have been Sean's voice, and for the first time, reading that book, Sean realized that he was no longer alone in his feeling of isolation from his world. Or as Miguel put it in his book, he was no longer the only alien in this fucking planet. He recognized Miguel right away. He had memorized every inch of the handsome young man in the colored photo at the back of his hardcover book, but Miguel was even more striking in person. Miguel was somewhat shorter than Sean expected - probably around Sean's five nine - and his handsome face was more ordinary in real life, but Miguel was more striking because of the way he carried himself. Dressed in simple light brown trousers with suspenders and a loose white shirt that hinted only at his well-formed physique, he was every inch that erudite, intelligent man he was said to be. That confidence he radiated like a tangible aura, that sexy arrogant grin playing at his sensually gorgeous lips, and that gregarious charm - he made Sean's heart ache just to look at him. He didn't dare. He was well aware of his own inferiority in the charms, looks, and brain department. Also, he had to deliver this box of books to the university bookstore where he worked. Absently, he wondered whether Miguel would be giving a talk at the university. Maybe he could sneak into the talk and listen. "Hey, watch that. Come on, let me help." And Sean was dreaming, surely. He was so shocked when Miguel spoke to him that he dropped the box entirely. The other man caught it easily and to Sean's surprise and delight, the man lifted it up and held it, his biceps bulging impressively, as if it weighed no more than a small light parcel. "I have a rented car. I can give this box a lift if you want. You can join me," he asked, nodding towards the bike questioningly. "Okay, I will," Sean said, and winced at how stupid he sounded even to his own ears. He locked his bike and flushed when Miguel smiled at him. It was an unreadable smile - it could be anything from knowing bemusement to appreciation. But it couldn't be appreciation, of course, because why would a gorgeous man like Miguel give Sean a second look? Sean would look though. He couldn't help looking, not when with every step Miguel took, the fabric of his trousers stretched taut over two high and firm butt cheeks and powerfully muscled thighs. Not when the fabric of Miguel's shirtsleeves seemed to be stretched to the limit trying to accommodate his tensed muscular biceps and triceps. Not when Miguel was the epitome of beauty to Sean's besotted eyes. Sean liked smart guys. He had slept with a few guys down at the university, but these men are usually men into their forties who missed youth so much that they easily overlooked Sean's boy next door looks and inadequate intelligence. Smart, erudite men who fed off the admiration of others around him would never give him a second look, that he was certain. Still, his heart leaped and beat hard even as the warm rush of blood into his throbbing cock warmed him when Miguel placed his large hand on Sean's back and opened the car door for him. Nobody had opened car doors for Sean before. He could get used to that. He wanted to laugh, really. Look ma, he wanted to poke his head out the window and call out, I'm in a car with the man of my dreams. But he didn't, because he was a pragmatic, sensible guy who knew long ago that he would never be as smart as his siblings in his family and he was better off never even thinking the impossible. Dreams were not for losers like him. But for now, he'd enjoy this. Then he would return to his mundane life and try not to notice the colorless drudgery of his existence. TWO He's a cute guy but very quiet, Miguel concluded a few days later as he walked into the university bookstore and noticed Sean manning the place. As the guest speaker at this place, he was enjoying the adulation he was getting, but he tired of it just as easily as he tired of so many things in his life. He was bored and he wanted to get laid. It had been five days since he last fucked anyone, the longest period he had ever gotten without since he lost his virginity to his father's friend ten years ago, and he was getting restless. He had broken up with his last boyfriend before he left New York to come here, so he looked around these last few days for some pleasant diversion. He wasn't a playboy type, contrary to what gossips said. He preferred sticking to one guy that caught his attention. It was just that he tired of the men in his life soon after he had them, and this constant change of men in his otherwise monogamous sex life often gave others ammunition to gossip about him. He also needed to write. Yet every time he started his laptop, he could only stare at the blank Words sheet. There were vague ideas and this intense drive to write, but he couldn't find the words. A muse was what he needed, he decided. Pygmalion had Galatea, Orpheus had Eurydice, so maybe it was time Miguel Kelner had a muse for himself too. There were several gorgeous students here and some handsome teachers who had made it clear to Miguel that he could have any of them if he chose, but they bored him rather than to inflame his passions. Often, he found his thoughts going back to that unbelievably cute young man he had helped a few days earlier. The man was so shy that they barely exchanged words, but there was something about the man's quiet demeanor and his obliviousness as to how gorgeous he really was drew Miguel back to him again and again. "Hi there," Sean Biggerstaff - intriguing last name - said in that stunned manner that amused Miguel. "Er... can I help you?" Miguel could think of a few ways that young man could help his throbbing cock, but he just smiled his best smile and suggested that they go for a picnic instead. Sean looked shocked at that invitation. "I need someone to show me around," Miguel lied smoothly. "The people at the university are too busy to indulge me." They both knew that he had lied. Summer break was near. "Indulge me," Miguel said quietly. "Please." "Okay," Sean answered finally, looking down at his hands on the counter. Miguel couldn't stand that. He reached out and gently lifted Sean's chin so that they could look eye to eye. The vivid brown eyes could make poetry take wings. As his arousal flared even as he found himself fascinated by the suppressed passions underneath Sean's rigidly controlled fa‡ade. What would it be like to unleash those passionate fires in Sean's soul? Without being aware of what he was doing, he lowered his lips to Sean's. The warmth of Sean's mouth was almost shocking to his sensitized senses, and he groaned softly in tandem with Sean's soft murmur of surrender as he leaned over the counter to deepen the kiss and push his tongue into Sean's hesitant mouth. As the thunderous roar of his violent need to slake his lust in Sean overpowered the world around him until there was nothing but Sean making soft sighs of pleasure as they explored and tasted each other, he thought he was dying from pleasure. Had a simple act of kissing ever been this divine? He could nibble on Sean's lower lip playfully before letting his tongue run teasingly over the roof of Sean's mouth forever. He could just stand there, his fingers tangled in Sean's hair as they teased each other with tongues and suction, fuck the world, fuck the rest, because he had truly kissed for the first time in his life. He loved the taste of peppermint and coffee of Sean's mouth. He loved the feel of those teeth over his rough tongue, and he loved running his hands along Sean's chin and down that slender neck until he could feel the man's rapid heartbeat where his palm was over the man's heart. Was this passion? The question echoed through the desire in his mind, shocking him. The way his heart felt as if it was being ripped out of his chest just by the simple act of kissing, was this desire? It staggered him to realize that in his vast sexual experience, he had never been this aroused, this alive, and it was this realization that caused his fingers to tighten around Sean's neck. He should stop. This was terrifying; this was unwise. No, he thought even as he had no choice but to surrender to the need - this was what he was searching for all his life. His life, he thought stupidly as he broke the kiss to look wonderingly at Sean. Sean, he thought before claiming the man's mouth again. Sean's arms tightened around his shoulders, and Miguel felt strong, omnipotent. My muse, he thought with savage satisfaction. Mine. THREE Sean would have collapsed onto the floor were not for Miguel's hands steadying his thigh. He couldn't believe this, but worse, he thought he would go mad from pleasure when Miguel got down on his knees to take Sean's erect cock into his mouth. Miguel's mouth created a devastating rip through Sean's control as the man skillfully took that long and throbbing cock down his throat and savored it like candy. Sean wasn't a hung man, but his cock was longer than average, and most men had problems taking it down. But not Miguel - his throat was a fucking tight and moist sheath that threatened to cause Sean to explode. He was already feeding Miguel with copious pre-come. Miguel licked and sucked greedily at the crown of Sean's cock each time the man withdrew until only the cock tip was in Miguel's mouth. Sean pulled his shirt over his shoulders and tossed it carelessly behind him, not caring where it landed in his small bedroom. He cried out when Miguel pulled playfully at his buttocks, two clever thumbs mercilessly stretching and teasing Sean's anus before slipping in to drive surges of pleasure shooting up Sean's spine. The dam in his balls broke, causing the start of his powerful pulses of hot come to blast into Miguel's ravenous mouth. "Oh fuck," he moaned as he bent over, pushing Miguel's curly-haired head down his crotch as he thrust into Miguel's mouth hard again and again. With each thrust of Sean's cock, Miguel responded with the powerful thrust of his thumbs up Sean's warm ass, until Sean had no choice but to fall back onto his bed. His cock fell out of Miguel's mouth, causing one final spurt of creamy fluid to arc and smear a trail across Miguel's face. Miguel laughed as he wiped his face with the back of his face, and they both licked at Sean's juices until their tongues rubbed against each other and they ended up kissing one more time. Miguel, his shirt unbuttoned and hanging loose from his broad shoulders to expose a perfectly muscled torso, unbuckled his trousers. His cock tore through Sean's pliant and greedy anus, slowly thrusting in deep shallow plunges until Sean was finally trained to accommodate his dimensions. And then he was home, fucking the young man under him in abandon, never stopping until Sean, his cock in Miguel's hand, blasted a huge load onto his chest and stomach even as Miguel poured himself into him in wracked, virile shudders of ecstasy. Miguel moaned softly, spent, as he fell heavily onto Sean's side on the bed. He breathed heavily, trying to get his harsh breathing until control, as he turned to gaze at Sean's sated, blissful face. Sean, breathing just as heavily, just smiled and moved his head forward to let his tongue flick over Miguel's lips. Miguel looked down at the long cock throbbing from the sparse dark pubic bush at Sean's crotch, startled that the man was still hard, and then, wondering if he would die from pleasure before the day was out, moved to straddle Sean. As he felt that cock penetrate his ass, he looked down at Sean, at the man's hands pinching at Miguel's nipples, and decided that there were far more ways to die. Miguel frowned when he realized that he had run out of paper. He put aside his notebook and looked at the sea stretched before him. He was writing again. His editor would be pleased when he submit this book maybe in a few weeks after he had finished and polished it. This story would be far different from his self-effacing wit. Where his last two books were hailed as a rare, non-stereotypical gay novel that didn't try too hard to read like a bad Queer As Folk script, he wondered with a small smile to himself how this one would fare. The story that flowed from his pen was obviously a love story between a disenchanted novelist with an adorable ingenue of a young man during his trip to Scotland. Serious literature frowned on love stories unless one of the lovers died tragically to restore the cynical post-modern literary circles' belief in depression as the best form of artistic expression. He had been writing for so long, his earliest childhood memory was writing in his childish hand his first journal that he kept when he was five years old. His parents were a stereotypical traditional South American couple - his mother was submissive, his father was overbearingly chauvinist. Miguel's teenaged years consisted of pathetic attempts to placate his father by suppressing his love for writing to indulge in "masculine" antics his father approved of: fucking and using women for selfish sex, playing sports - soccer, especially, and drinking. By the time he was sixteen, he was so disgusted with himself that suicide was a serious consideration. Only when he found a teacher who encouraged him to be himself that he finally began to heal. Maybe one day he would tell Sean how he still felt this anguish in him, guilt whenever he recalled how he couldn't return to Brazil for his mother's funeral because his family hated him so much for the crime of being his own person. He could tell Sean about how he was kicked out of the house with blackened eyes the day he decided to tell his father that he was gay. Or how he spent the next few years working wherever he could work just to keep a roof over his head and food on this table even as he slaved away at a battered typewriter a boyfriend gave him. He had so many stories that, if he couldn't write them down, he could tell Sean, if he wanted to. The urge to bare his soul to Sean was palpable, but he hesitated, because he knew that if he did, he would complete the circle and became intimate with Sean in the way he had never shared with anyone before. The least he could do was to give back to Sean what he received from the man. Poor Sean, he was too sensitive for his environment. How could Sean's parents ever believe that man was stupid because Sean couldn't play to the masculine stereotype of sports and sex? Sean, whose idea of fun was to play the guitar and read, let the people around him convince him that he was inferior too easily, so much so that he dropped out of school because he was convinced he couldn't make it. It infuriated Miguel to see Sean miss all the opportunities he could have gotten because no one understood that quiet man who hid a teasing sense of humor that Miguel was only starting to discover. For the last few days, they would take long walks, hands clasped as they just walked, and Miguel would listen as Sean talked. He prompted Sean to talk about what the man wanted to do, and Sean's stories inspired Miguel even as they shamed him. He had gone soft over the years, enjoying his dream of writing so much that he was starting to becoming jaded by pleasures that were too easily obtained. Sean's dreams of seeing the world, writing stories down, and experiencing every day as a new and different day even as he was resigned to his mundane life made Miguel feel embarrassed for even daring to be bored of his life. He was living his dreams, and Sean made him realize how close he had come to being the very man he despised to be: a self-pitying narcissist. How he wanted to be the one to make Sean's dreams come true! Maybe they could collaborate on a novel. They could write a mystery or a romance. Miguel no longer cared for critical acclaim, not when he realized that he was alive and he could do what he wanted, damn what everyone thought of him. He wanted to do more for Sean, more than just making Sean climax wildly under him or above him when they fucked each other lustily, Miguel enjoying Sean unleashing his suppressing creativity into their coupling. Being an imaginative man himself, he contributed a few ideas, but it only gave him more pleasure to see Sean come alive and blush with pleasure as the man allowed himself to be free for the first time. Often they would just kiss, like they did last evening after their walk. They could kiss, lost in each other, as the minutes flew by, until their desires leisurely peaked and they couldn't hold back any more and just had to get their cocks sated in each other's mouth and ass. Miguel watched as Sean, gloriously nude, that long flaccid shaft hanging loose way past the balls, walked out from his swimming in the sea. "Hello," he murmured as he walked up to the man. Sean kissed him. He kissed back. When they finally broke it off for breath, Sean had left wet imprints of his palms and torso on Miguel's shirt, the white fabric soaked to the point that Miguel's muscular stomach and chest and his taut nipples were visible in the near-transparent wet fabric. Sean teased one nipple through the thin wet fabric as Miguel just unzipped his jeans. Then Miguel plunged home with an insistent cry, and Sean placed his arms around Miguel's shoulder and wrapped his legs high up around Miguel's torso as Miguel steadied him, his legs spread wide as he fucked Sean while standing right there on the beach. "Thank you," Sean murmured when they could talk after their violent orgasm. "Whatever for?" Miguel asked as he stripped off his clothes and lay there on the beach, hidden from view by the rock outcrop. "For making my dreams come true," Sean told him. "And you make mine come true," Miguel told him honestly as he touched Sean's passion-swollen lips with his fingers. So he kissed Sean again, his thumb absently wiping away a tear falling down Sean's cheek before he realized what it was. "I will miss you so much when you leave," Sean whispered. "Me too," Miguel answered. And he thought he could hear the sound of his heart breaking. FOUR It was hard returning to a life of drab drudgery once he had experienced what it felt like to spend time with someone whom he could talk with, sleep with, and feel like a human being with for once. Sean touched Miguel's photo on his well-worn copy of Fool For Love and closed his eyes briefly as he felt pain, he hurt so much. Miguel wanted him to join him down to the airport and see him fly out of Sean's life permanently, but Sean wasn't sure if he could be that masochistic. So he said goodbye that morning and tried to live his life the way he used to. Maybe in a few days he would get his old equilibrium back. He would forget how Miguel made him feel beautiful and intelligent or how he felt like flying as he exposed everything that he hid in his heart from others to Miguel and only Miguel. He would get over this foolish belief that with Miguel, he had finally found the missing piece in his soul. The door opened. Sean opened his eyes and straightened his back in shock. "You'll miss your plane," he said stupidly because that was all he could think to say. "I'd rather miss the plane than to miss what could have been the most correct thing to happen in my life," Miguel said simply as he put his luggage down on the floor. "I took the cab, let him drove for ten minutes, and then realized that I couldn't go to the airport." He looked beseechingly at Sean. "Unless you're coming with me." Oh no, he couldn't. "I can't," Sean started to say. He couldn't go with Miguel. He wouldn't fit in Miguel's world. He wouldn't know how. His world was here. He was safe here in St Andrew, where he would rot away inside day by day. Could he live with the knowledge that he had been offered a chance to be happy and he let it slip away? No, he couldn't, he decided resolutely as he looked into Miguel's eyes. He looked, he searched, and in Miguel's bright eyes, he knew with clarity what he must do as he saw with certainty what Miguel didn't say aloud. Could he be that important to Miguel? It was a gratifying thought. "Come with me, Sean," Miguel asked. "I can't live, much less write, in a world without you in it. Damn you for coming into my life. Bless you for showing me what really matters in this life. If you say no, Sean, I'll just live here and scandalize everyone by pining away for you." "That won't do," Sean said. "No it won't. Because we should be writing together and I want you to be the last thing I see the day I draw my last breath. If you go first, Sean, I'll probably catch up soon." Miguel lowered his voice but his urgency was palpable. Sean took a step towards Miguel. "Don't be melodramatic," he said, but he placed his hand over Miguel's outstretched hand and Miguel gripped him tightly and warmly. He would follow this magnificent, beautiful man who knew him like no one else even to the ends of the earth without a look back. "I'm a writer," Miguel said before kissing him. A kiss from Miguel was all Sean needed, but Miguel offered him the world. He tightened his arms around the man and lived his dream.