THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB
Stanislav

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

Stanislav Ianevski regretted stepping into the club the
moment his senses was hit by the loud music, the blinding
lights, and the sight of the shaved twink in G-strings that
barely contained the man's exceedingly large cock. He
couldn't understand how people could stand being in such
chaotic environment. He also felt uneasy when he saw those
hungry looks he received from the men he moved past.

Perhaps it was his body, muscular and hard from his
gymnastic training that he still kept up long after he had
left high school and college, attracted attention of other
men in this gay strip club. Perhaps it was his square-jawed
face that did the track. Stan didn't think that he was
handsome when he looked into the mirror every morning as he
shaved. In fact, his weaker opponents in the courtroom
feared him when he had the solemn hard-eyed look on his face
while the stronger ones treaded around him carefully when he
did, because Stan was a hard and ruthless public defender.
He fought harder than many of his colleagues to help people
who couldn't afford lawyers that charged big bucks for
service, perhaps because he was still an idealist inside
that wanted to help the people of the country that took his
immigrant Bulgarian parents in during the Cold War fallout.
He was a very good lawyer, and sometimes, he thought he was
a better lawyer than human being.

Tonight, he stepped into this gay bar because he was lonely
and hoped that he could somehow lose himself in the
pleasures of meaningless sex most likely paid for with his
money. The gay club scene never appealed to him, however,
and he realized that he had made a mistake the moment he
stepped in here. He couldn't stomach the thought of
meaningless sex, especially if money were involved in the
transaction, as it reminded him of his youth when he was
trying desperately to survive the slums that were his home
without sacrificing his sanity and principles. He hated
being looked at as a diversion for other men. When he looked
at the dancer on stage, he saw the hard lines on that man's
face and wondered whether the man needed any legal
protection from his pimp, his creditors, anyone.

"Wow, it's the superhero himself! Prince Valiant in all his
glory!" said a familiar voice that Stan disliked supremely.

Stan cursed under his breath when he realized that he had
came across the last person he'd want to meet in the last
place he'd like to be in. Michael Copon had just secured the
release of a rapist this morning. The rapist happened to be
the son of a powerful businessman that funded the campaigns
of several politicians in this country so despite several of
the girls in his college coming forth to testify about this
rapist's sadistic and cruel ways, he got off. Stan hated
even remembering that case because he felt helpless, in a
way. He wondered whether he could have made a difference if
the case was his. Albert Sweeney was a mild-mannered man who
was too tender as a district attorney to handle the case
while Michael Copon was too much of a black-hearted soulless
lawyer who would happily discredit the witnesses, painted
them as sluts who asked to be raped, and used all means
necessary to kill the case and set the rapist free to prey
on other women.

"You can't save everyone in this world, Stan," his law
professor had told him the day he graduated, "and while I
admire your drive and passion, I fear that you will one day
be consumed totally by it." Margaret Shayne had chuckled in
a bittersweet manner that day as she had tea with Stan to
celebrate quietly his being in the top one percent in his
Harvard law school. "You are, it seems to me, one of the
last idealistic people who fought for the law because you
believe in it. I was one like that. and that was why I
preferred to teach," she said vaguely. "Be strong, Stan, and
remember that sometimes you have to admit defeat. Defeat
should only make you stronger and motivate you to fight
harder."

Yet, when he saw all those drug dealers, pimps, murderers,
and worse returning to the streets everyday while the rich
men who controlled them remained untouched by the law, Stan
wondered how long he had to fight. And how much his heart
had to bleed and whether one day he would finally be
consumed totally by the fire in his soul. He felt so alone
in his fight. In his bleakest moments of loneliness and
despair, he would pray to whichever dark deity was listening
to make him into someone like Michael who made a career out
of following where the money was.

Seeing Michael here, Stan was reminded just how much he
needed to leave this place. He needed the peace and quiet of
his barren and clean room where he could hide from the world
in blessed solitude. Without a word to Michael, he pushed
the man out of his way and made his way steadily to his
exit.

"You think you are too good to speak to me?" Michael yelled
over the din of the music. "You think you are perfect
because you slave for hours for a fucking measly paycheck?
Fucking martyr Prince Valiant is too good to soil himself
with the rest of us?"

Stan stopped and turned around. His abrupt halt caused
Michael to crash against his chest. Stan's arms reached up
to steady the man. Without thinking, purely on instinct,
Stan held Michael steady in his arms and found himself
staring at Michael's eyes. In the dim light, Stan could
still see that the man's eyes were red and bright. Michael
was handsome, Stan as a healthy gay man could acknowledge
that, but Stan had never been this close to Michael before
and he realized now that his heart was vulnerable enough to
beat faster as a reaction to Michael's elfin beauty. "What
do you want?" he asked Michael, his voice rough with desire
that he was trying very hard to squelch.

Abruptly, Michael lowered his eyes as if he was scared to
see what was in Stan's eyes. "I don't know," he whispered.
He tried to break free from Stan's arms. "Let me go."

Perversely, Stan realized that he didn't want to let go. His
body ached to feel Michael's slim but muscular build pressed
against his bulkier frame. And his lips burned to touch
Michael's. Perhaps he was so lonely that even a man like
Michael would do, Stan tried to reason with himself. He
didn't need Michael. He could find someone else. "Where do
you live?" Stan heard himself say. "I'll take you back. You
seem drunk."

"Does it matter to you? Fucking asshole, leave me alone."

Stan couldn't turn his eyes away from Michael. The bleakness
of his soul resonated in him as he saw in Michael's
expression and eyes anguish and loneliness that mirrored
his. It made him feel strangely elated, as if he realized
now that he was no longer the only person who walked in his
shadows alone. For this moment, it didn't matter that
Michael was the person who stood for everything Stan didn't
believe in. He was compelled to discover this aspect of
Michael, as if by doing so he might find a brief moment of
salvation from his painfully solitary existence.

After all, he was only human to want to feel another human's
touch, if only for tonight.



TWO

It was only hot coffee served with greasy and oily ham and
eggs, but funny how it tasted like heaven. Stan sipped away
at the bad coffee, tasting very little on his tongue as he
watched Michael fidget in the seat across the table from
Stan. Stan was content to let the silence stretch. The
coffee was bad, the food was worse, the diner smelled of
sweat of late night-shift employees trying to get some brief
moment of calm before returning home to their mundane
routine - but Stan felt more at calm here than he had ever
felt in years. He had felt brief joy and even savage
satisfaction when he won in the courtroom, of course, but it
was a long time since he felt pleased with something he had
accomplished for himself. It was a disconcerting
realization.

"I let a monster back on the streets today." Michael finally
cut the ice and followed that with a weary sigh.

Stan could acidly offer his congratulations but he wasn't
petty in nature. "You are not happy with your victory?"

"No," Michael admitted with blunt honesty that surprised
Stan, considering how they didn't like each other.

Stan realized that he had judged Michael since he first
heard of Michael's reputation. Michael was a hotshot young
lawyer who made a splash by leaving his father's law firm
over some disagreement and moved on to become an associate
in a rival law firm. Michael's ruthlessness, coupled with
his intelligence and cunning, made him a force to be
reckoned with despite his age. Stan heard of Michael because
there were talks about Stan being Michael's equal in ability
but opposite in principles: the angel against the devil,
they said, although Stan had never clashed with Michael in
the courtroom before. When they met the few times outside
the courtroom, Stan found Michael rude and deliberately
antagonistic. He made sure to avoid the man since their
first encounter with each other that ended with Stan barely
suppressing an urge to wipe the smirk off Michael's face
with his fists. The taunting moniker "Prince Valiant" was
started by Michael. Michael also made it clear that he saw
Stan as nothing more than gutter material. Yet here they
were, seated at the same table and drinking coffee together.
Life could be odd.

"My father was admitted into intensive care today. They told
me that he was so furious when he heard that I had let that
fucker out on the streets that his heart couldn't take it."
Michael closed his eyes and shuddered visibly. "My sister
was raped when she was only thirteen and the man who did it
was never caught. I actually thought that I would hurt my
old man where it would hurt the most by making sure that I
let a rapist go free. oh God, what have I done?"

Stan bit his lower lip, not sure whether he could ever say
anything that would placate Michael. He was horrified at
what Michael was telling him, yet at the same time he wanted
to say something that would make Michael feel better. He
didn't know what to say, unfortunately. "I was angry with my
old man once," he finally said.

"Yeah, but you aren't such a soulless bastard that you would
hurt him in the worst way possible just to get back at him
for some petty purpose," said Michael quietly.

"Perhaps you can try to make amends," offered Stan.

"My father is in intensive care," Michael said with anguish.

"But when he comes out of it, you can be there for him."
Stan lifted his cup to his lips. "I don't know what to say,
I'm sorry. I'm not good at giving advice. Not legal ones,
anyway."
Michael chuckled at the weak joke. "How the hell did we end
up talking here like this, in this place anyway?"

"I don't know."

"What were you doing in that club? Hoping to get smashed?"

Stan shrugged. "I heard the entertainment is good."

"Depends on how inebriated you are. I wanted to get drunk.
Do you know that I found it impossible to get drunk because
I was so pissed with myself?"

"Why did you do it, Michael?" Stan realized that he needed
to know the answer to this, so that he could find the
missing piece to the puzzle that was Michael Copon.

Michael didn't pretend to misunderstand Stan. "I wanted to
get back at my father. We were never close; he always
thought I was the useless son and I did my best to live up
to his expectations. When my brother John died, he. I
thought I hated him for telling me that I should have been
the one who died, not John."

"Oh, hell, Michael, I'm sorry."

"Nah, he's just being himself. I wasn't responsible for John
dying. Hell, I was partying away with my friends when that
drunk driver ran down John. But it's okay. He was just being
himself, my fucking father, and. I became a lawyer like John
wanted to be, I worked my ass off, but did that make my
father happy? No, I can never compare to his precious John.
So I left his firm and did everything I could after that to
piss him off. When I had to the opportunity to defend
Morris, I knew I would drive my father crazy. I did, I drove
him straight to the brink of death." Michael smashed his
fist against the wall and didn't care when a trickle of
blood began flowing from his wounded knuckles. So yeah, I
wanted to get drunk but I couldn't, damn it."

Stan couldn't help it. He took Michael's wounded hand and
pressed his lips to the bleeding flesh. Michael flinched
when Stan gently licked at the wound with his tongue before
pressing his mouth over the hand and tenderly lapped up the
blood. His lips were redder than usual with the blood from
Michael's wound when he lifted them to touch Michael's lips.

He kissed Michael still when Michael climaxed in his arms in
the darkness of Michael's bedroom later that night, drinking
in Michael's moans of pleasure as Stan drove his throbbing
cock deeper into Michael's convulsing anus in rapid and
savage thrusts. He only broke the kiss when he realized that
he needed to see Michael's face when Michael was coming.
When Michael came, his eyes were tightly shut until Stan
kissed his eyelids, and when Michael opened them to gaze
into Stan's eyes in wonder, Stan saw eyes so dark with
pleasure that they were so black. Stan saw his face
reflected in those depths, and he could barely recognize his
own face. He looked feral, yet he looked alive. His
breathing was harsh and his heart was beating so hard and
fast that he couldn't remember when he last felt his body
hum with life this vibrantly. And then his buttocks clenched
as pleasure pooled at the base of his spine, and with a
harsh cry, he ejaculated into Michael with an intensity that
drained him completely.



THREE

It was a one night stand. Stan reminded himself that sanity
should return when daylight arrived and he would accept and
understand that it was only a one night stand he had with
Michael Copon. But as he looked at his own reflection in the
mirror, Stan saw what he always saw: a calm, expressionless
man with no human emotion to mar the smooth fa‡ade. He
closed his eyes, remembering how his heart nearly exploded
when he fucked Michael, and bit back a growl in his throat
when he realized just how much he hated that face that was
looking back at him in the mirror.

Michael had broken Stan's defenses and now Stan had no idea
how to control his emotions and resumed living the way he
used to. He grabbed for his phone and nearly ripped open his
pocket when he reached for it. "I want Michael Copon's
direct number," he said to the office secretary when she
picked up his call. "He's with Hutchinson and Markham." When
he had the number a few minutes later, he spoke the moment
Michael picked up the line. "It's Stan here. I am waiting at
the gent's room in the courthouse. Come to me now. I want to
fuck you."

Michael hesitated for a second. Stan wanted to howl in
frustration. "I'll be there. Wait for me," Michael said.

That was how their affair began. Whenever Michael and Stan
were at the courthouse, which was nearly every day, they
would arrange for meetings during lunch at a nearby hotel.
Sometimes, after a brutal case where Stan needed to find an
outlet to release his frustrations, he would pump away into
the tight luscious hole while gripping Michael's taut bubble
butt cheeks until he was feeling more at peace. He would
then kiss Michael and apologized for his roughness, making
it up to the man by fucking the man, this time tenderly.
Michael would do the same, and Stan fast learned that
Michael was a versatile lover, an aggressive bottom and a
responsive bottom, as they explored each other's body
throughout the next few weeks until they knew how the other
person would physically respond to their touch, tongue,
cock. They could understand what the other person was
feeling when the other person hadn't spoken aloud.

It scared Stan sometimes when he realized just how easy it
was for him to accompany Michael to visit his father.
Quietly, he could only watch, feeling helpless at not
knowing how to erase Michael's pain with a wave of his hand,
as Michael sat down and watched his father who was in a
coma. Sometimes Michael would wipe away at helpless tears
falling down his cheeks until Stan let his fingers take
over. It scared Stan more when he held Michael tight in
those nights when they were both too worn out from work to
have sex. They would live in Michael's room or his, where
they were alone and nothing in the world could disturb them
in their intimacy. Stan believed that he was falling in love
with Michael during those moments.

"You've ever heard of McDermott, Germann, and Associates?"
asked Michael one day as they had lunch together, a month
into their affair.

"Yeah," answered Stan. "A rather interesting firm, ran by
our people, I believe."

"Alberta Watson from that firm is suing Morris on behalf of
the three women he raped. I know I'm killing my own career
by doing this, but I am going to tell Alberta everything I
know about Morris. I don't care if I will never be a lawyer
again. I didn't care to be one anyway." Michael smiled at
Stan with a bravado that Stan suspected was false. "And if I
am no longer a lawyer, you don't have to worry about your
colleagues whispering behind your back about me."

Stan never cared about those innuendos and gossips about him
sleeping with the enemy and they never bothered him. He and
Michael had no conflict of interests by sleeping together
and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day.
He never hid his affair with Michael. In fact, he openly
called up a florist before his secretary one morning to have
some flowers sent to Michael on a whim. If people didn't
understand what he saw in Michael, well, they had no
business to care about what he did with Michael in the
bedroom. "I am not ashamed of you," he told Michael. "I
can't say I'm happy with what you did in the past but you're
trying to do the right thing now and that makes me." He bit
his tongue when he realized that he almost told Michael that
he loved Michael. "I am not ashamed of you," he said
instead.

"You can say you love me," Michael said, catching Stan off-
guard. Michael gave Stan a bright smile, a genuine one. "I
think I fell in love with you when we first had coffee
together that night and you tried to lift me up even when
I'm supposed to be your enemy."

"I love you," said Stan. There, he'd said it, and those
words caused his spirit to soar high with lightness. He
could get used to telling Michael every day that he loved
that man, he learned. "Sorry for not saying it earlier," he
tried to explain. "I thought you would laugh at me because
you seemed too cynical for love."

"I am learning to be less cynical from you," Michael told
him. "If they don't suspend my license and kick my ass, you
think I can be a public defender like you?"

"I can't see you in that role," said Stan with a smile.
"Legal Services would be too uneventful for you and the
office space is small. But you can try." And because he was
learning to enjoy doing it, he told Michael one more time
that he loved that man before lifting the man's hand to his
lips.




Alberta Watson might be a stickler for the rules but she
didn't mind bending them when she had to in order to
maintain a greater good. It was a lesson she learned from
watching her colleague Simon Baker in action. While she
didn't approve of everything Simon did, she reluctantly
admired Simon's ease with breaking rules when he had to in
order to see justice done. The law was blind and often
fucked-up, Simon always said, and if he had to break a rule
to make sure that the good guys win in the end, he would do
it. She decided to apply Simon's philosophy in order to see
that bastard Morris pay for what he did to those women. She
therefore accepted the information Michael Copon offered her
about Morris. The fact that Michael broke the foremost rule
all lawyers should adhere to was their secret. Michael was
never implicated in any way when Morris was finally given
his just desserts three months after Michael Copon helped
him walk free from the law.

Perhaps some people suspected something when Michael Copon
became the newest addition to that law firm later that year,
but no one bothered to say anything as Morris was a fucking
bastard who deserved to rot in hell. Stan remained at Legal
Services, content with his job, and he could only be there
for Michael as the man finally blossomed for the first time
when he finally became a lawyer for the right reasons
instead of being one just to antagonize his father.
Michael's father died two weeks after Morris was
incarcerated and Stan held Michael as Michael bravely stood
before the other Copons' condemnation as Michael paid his
last respects to his father. Michael accepted his
estrangement from his family as the pay he should pay for
his sins and he would never forgive himself for his father's
passing, but Stan was trying his best to mend the
relationship between his lover and the other Copons.
Michael's mother liked Stan, which was a start and Stan
hoped that he could use that to get her to forgive Michael.
Perhaps then Michael would start to forgive himself.

"Take care of him, Stan," she told Stan the last time Stan
called her. Stan called her every weekend since they met at
the funeral. Stan enjoyed learning more about Michael's
family - which was his, as well, by default since Michael
had moved in with him and replaced Stan's somber and basic
furniture with flashier ones that were to Michael's taste -
and he suspected that she enjoyed having someone to talk to.
"Michael isn't as strong as he imagines himself to be and he
needs someone to support and believe in him. His father was
never that person," said the woman who understood and
regretted the relationship between Michael and his father
more than most people in the world. "He will need you more
than the both of you believe."

"I will," promised Stan.

"How is he?"

How was Michael? Good, Stan supposed. Michael Copon enjoyed
his work, he laughed more often, and sometimes when he was
overcome by the bleakness in his soul, Stan was there for
him the way Michael was there when Stan needed him to remind
Stan of his direction in life. "He's fine," Stan told
Michael's mother. "In fact, we're both fine. We'll be okay."