THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB Greg
By Lady Poetess. Copyright c 1999.
Feel free to reproduce and distribute as long as you leave the credits and the author's note below intact. If you somehow make money out of this, well, good for you but please send some to me at egiggles@moose-mail.com!
Author's note:
This is actually a part of an ongoing fantasy fan-fiction about a fictional group of friends in New York whose weekly poker games form the basis of their story of finding love and laughter. These friends are - under inexplicable circumstances! - dead ringers from some music and movie celebrities, obscure or well- known, that I find worth a write or two. The men and their lives depicted here have nothing in common with the real people they are based on apart from their appearances and names. I am not speculating on their sexual orientation or personal past. Again, everything is strictly fictional, apart from the character's good looks. Suing me is a waste of time, as frankly, to be blunt, I'm penniless.
= = = = = = = = = Setting the Stage = = = = = = = = =
Jeremy Northam shuffled the cards and looked at the players at the table. "Greg's not coming."
"He's not going on about his dead dog again, is he?" Stephen Gately murmured.
"I believe the dog is the catalyst for the man's breakdown. It is eerie how he keeps it all in, insisting that he is okay even though he looks simply miserable." Jeremy shook his head. "He's right though. He goes on and on about how no one understands him, and he's unfortunately right on the mark. When he starts rhapsodizing the beauty of avocados and tiramisu I tune out."
"Still, you should be worried." This was Ethan who didn't look up from studying his cards. "Depression can make one do stupid things." He reached out to place his bet, and all eyes fell to the scars on his wrist. "What? Why are you looking at me that way?"
"Nothing." Jeremy quickly averted his eyes. "I'm worried. First he lost his nephew Jude and now his dog. The poor man is definitely on a one-way track to depressive breakdown."
"You're afraid he's take a gun and blow his brains out?" This was from Brian Littrell. From the silence that greeted his statement he guessed he had hit the exact truth. "Well, no problem. I know a friend who needs a room. You say Greg is offering Jude's half of the place for rent? Well, I can get him to rent the place and keep an eye on Greg."
"Who's this person?" Jeremy asked.
"A cousin of mine. He's reliable, don't worry."
"It's not Greg I'm worried about," Jeremy said. "Greg can be trail on one's nerves with his somewhat inscrutable moods."
Kevin Scott Richardson wanted to smash his fist into the man's face. But normal guys didn't go around punching people. "I'm to stay with this psycho who wants to kill himself?" he repeated, incredulous.
"He's not psycho, and he may want to kill himself. That's a big difference. All I'm saying is, you stay a few weeks with this fellow and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid like jumping off the window ledge."
"I have things to do." Like starting a new life as a happy, average citizen. "I've already got a job with Joe's Workshop."
Brian could look absolutely desperate when he wanted to. He looked pathetically begging and Kevin was finding it hard to tell his cousin and former superior no. "Come on, Kev, if you'll do this for me I'll consider us even."
Kev sighed inwardly in resignation. Brian had saved his life in Phnom Penh when they were caught in crossfire between civil war factions. He couldn't turn down this favor from a man to whom he owed his life. "Very well, give me the address."
= = = = = = = = = A Meeting of Two = = = = = = = = =
Greg Germann was barely out of the elevator when he saw his neighbor, a jolly big- boned transvestite by the name of Lula Bell waving insistently at him. What, he mouthed, trying his best to balance his briefcase and two big bags of grocery.
"Just come in here, and introduce your new apartment-buddy to me," Lula whispered theatrically, a carry-over from his night job as the flamboyant star of a cabaret.
Lula's idea of introduction was a full run-down on her object of curiosity's social life, personal preferences, eccentricities, everything. It was her habit to be the first to hear of a new person in the block, and the first to came sniffing around. Not that Lula had any intention of buying - Greg knew that Lula was involved with a long-term love-hate relationship with the cabaret bouncer Rocko who lived downstairs at Apartment 3C. Greg had bought a place at this area that was a well-known queer community in a desperate hope of meeting nice guys and improving his pathetic social calendar with a few one night stands (the more the better, he'd always believed). Yet so far all he had in his bed was several brassy and friendly drag queens, and those nice ladies spent the time there gossiping or watching TV with him after dinner.
Greg always cooked more on weekends. It was an open secret among all veterans of Block C that Greg Germann was a very nice man who may spoke funny things but cooked heavenly dishes on weekends. And everyone was invited. Okay, not exactly invited, but if you dropped by for some sort of reasons (Lula always needed to borrow sugar), more often that not you get to taste the finest mushroom cream soup this side of town.
In fact, even now Greg's grocery bags contained ingredients for his weekend cooking sessions. He precariously balanced the two bags under his left arm and dumped them on Lula's shabby couch and followed Lula into her kitchen. What was going on?
"Isn't that the cutest butt this side of Earth?" Lula whispered, gesturing at an indeed cute butt under the sink.
Greg placed one hand on the table and rested his weight on it. The room suddenly felt hotter by ten degrees and he had to loosen his tie or die from suffocation. "Is that Kevin?" he asked, almost afraid to raise his voice beyond a whisper. He had heard of the phrase looks good enough to eat but it was only now that he understood what that really meant.
"Yes!" Lula said, fanning herself. "Where did you find him? I want three of him."
Greg swallowed the "Me too!" that almost squeaked out from his throat. Kevin was on his knees, the upper half of his body under the shadowy cover of the sink cabinet. He was humming some tuneless song and his rump actually swayed a little in tune. It would had been hilarious if Greg hadn't felt as if his pants were too tight at the moment. Kev's jeans hugged the tight shape of those buttocks indecently, like a glove, and the man's shirt has hiked up to expose the lowering of the waistband of his jeans as he bent over. Greg could see the waistband of the man's underwear. Good Lord, it was a 2Xist brief, and Greg had a sudden image of Kevin in nothing but erotically cut and tight fitting and revealing underwear. The waistband dipped lower, exposing a tantalizing glimpse of a shadowed furrow and the always-seductive boundary of contrasting pale white skin and tanned.
"Maybe you should bend over a little more," Lula called cheerfully. "Have you found it yet?"
"No," Greg heard Kevin say in a muffled voice, and he gaped at Lula who winked back as Kevin raised his back a little to go deeper under the sink. The waistband slipped lower. Both observers released a long sigh of admiration and Lula reached for her refrigerator handle. "Lula, pass me an iced beer too. I think I need to pour some into my pants."
At that moment Kevin emerged from his sojourn below sink, his scruffy yet darkly Mephistophelean looks darkened with grime and dirt. He held up a shiny earbob. "Found it, Lula."
"Thank you, darlin'!" Lula grabbed Kevin and hugged the man in a bone-crushing grip/ Greg winced, and saw Kevin gritted his teeth. He'd bet his last dime Lula had cheerfully tossed her earbob under the sink just for this occasion. "You're a kindest soul. You must come visit often. Beer?"
"You're definitely the most popular guy in the block," Greg told him later while he added some marjoram into the stew he was stirring. "Yesterday you helped JoJo Bons rescue his cat from the tree in the park. The day before you took Mrs Greta out to the park."
Kevin walked into the kitchen, pulling on a shirt. Greg was too late to catch anything but a teasing glimpse of tightly muscled stomach and a fine trail of dark hair bisecting the corrugated abdominal muscles from navel to disappear into the waistband of the jeans. Damn.
"I thought it was a normal thing to do, helping people." Kevin pulled out a chair and sniffed the air as he sat down. "Smells great."
Greg frowned to himself. Kevin had a tendency to mention the word `normal' a lot. Sometimes the man would hesitate before doing something, simple things such as helping Greg clean a fish, and asked, "Is this way the normal way of doing things?"
"Kev, may I ask you a question?"
"Shoot away." Kevin sat back, letting the back of the chair support his weight and watched Greg with those glittering green eyes that stared with an intensity that was unnerving.
"What's this preoccupation with being normal?" Greg took a sip of the stew. Perfect - it just needed a little more salt. "The other day you offered to fix the remote, then asked if it was normal for you to know how to fix one. Who's normal?"
"Easy for you to say. I've never been normal. But I will be." Kevin looked as if he had said too much, his slight narrowing of eyes and thinning of those lips noticeable only if one had been watching him closely. "I have a plan."
"Really. What were you before this? Locked in a sterile cell on Mars?" Greg tilted his head slightly towards Kevin.
"No. I was a mercenary who works for anyone who has the money. I'm an assassin."
"Very funny. Now eat your lunch." Greg placed a bowl of steaming stew before the man.
Kevin eyed him with narrowed eyes. "You don't believe me?"
"Definitely. Did I tell you how the President of Andorra died? My mother took a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the arse for overcooking the Christmas turkey."
"Actually he died as a result of potassium salicyclate poisoning."
"Shut up and eat."
Kevin did just that.
= = = = = = = = = = = In Perfect Synchrony = = = = = = = = = = =
"What do you think?" Kevin asked, walking out from the fitting room. "You think I look nor-"
"Yes, normal, definitely," Greg answered quickly. To himself, he whispered under his breath, "Wow."
He had allowed Kevin to drag him along to a shopping trip. It was the start of Kevin's plan to be well, normal, for the want of a better word. Kevin's rather outlandish obsession with being an average Joe was become more and more disconcerting, and Greg had called up Brian about that. Brian was out of the country, however, and no one else seemed to know anything about Kevin, except for the fact that he was Brian's cousin.
He supposed he should be offended that his friends thought so little as to foist a man of unknown background on him. He was supposed to be depressive, was he not?
Not that it mattered. He hadn't felt any melancholic loneliness, not after Kevin had knocked on his door with a small luggage bag behind him. Kevin didn't know it, but Greg started cooking again after Kevin came to stay. Cooking for the both of them was therapeutic.
And there were perks to indulging that man, Greg thought, crossing his legs to hide the insistent throbbing in his groin. Kevin could make a simple turtleneck sweater looked elegant. The man's height enabled him to wear any sort of clothes easily, but this was amazing. Kevin had an innate elegance, Greg realized, that enabled him to carry himself off with regal ease. He exuded power and danger from every inch of him. The black sweater clung to his frame like a second skin, and the jeans mould to those muscular thighs and yes, those tight, nicely rounded buttocks weren't too bad.
"Sure?" Kevin said, eyeing himself critically at the long mirror. "You think the color's okay?"
"It's perfect." Greg took a deep breath and adjusted the other man's collar. "Here, you missed a button." Every touch burned his senses. His knuckles grazed the rough spot on Kevin's jaw line, where the latter had missed in his morning shave. And the scent of Kevin was an intoxicant he could drown in for all eternity. "There you go." He almost died when Kevin's right hand covered his, the large hand enveloping his in searing red heat that drove all strength from his knees.
"Thanks," the man said quietly, the voice flashing silk and sex.
"T-t-t-the color suits y-y-you," Greg stammered, trying to pull his hand back.
To his relief and disappointment, his hand was let loose easily.
Brian heard the phone ring and cursed silently as he gently dislodged a sleeping Ricky from him and reached for the phone. "It's five in the morning and I am in a bad mood," he growled, "so you better start pleading for your life now."
"Brian, about your cousin."
Greg, Brian thought. That meant the cousin in question had to be Kevin. "Okay, what about Kevin?" he said, rubbing his face wearily. Please don't let that crazy son of a gun blow up a building or something, he prayed.
"Did you know what Kevin do today?"
Brian didn't want to know. He really didn't. "No."
Greg purposely misunderstood the reply. "We went shopping for clothes because he wanted, and I quote, to look like a normal person. He's obsessed with the word `normal', which I would gag if I hear him say it another time. And after shopping, we came upon an accident on 45th Street, where there's this poor Rottweiler in trouble. Somehow the dog was tied to the fencing at the roof of the building and he managed to climb over the fence to fall over. He was dangling fifteen stories up in the air - fifteen stories! - and was suffocating. There were policemen and ambulance and the crew of the stupid show Rescue 911 to handle it, but guess what your cousin did?"
Brian shook his head. "Tell me," he said, hazarding a guess.
He was right. "Kevin actually climbed - climbed with his bare hands and feet - up the building," Greg said, his voice rising in pitch quite alarmingly. "He told me climbing such walls are easy because there are always cracks and jagged edges one could hold on to. He climbed the fucking wall and then actually carried the dog over his shoulder and lifted them both up to the roof. A boy asked me if Kevin was Spiderman and I wasn't sure if he wasn't either. What is he, Brian? He has this weird preoccupation with being normal, but he is anything but normal."
"Greg, listen."
Greg rambled on. "He knows how to fix a remote control with only a small test pen in his hand. He could tell me the name of the arteries in the chicken I'm cutting. He could climb walls with his bare hands!"
"Look, Greg, Kevin's story is his to tell. All I can say is that he hasn't any knowledge of how to live normal. He really has no idea. He can do some pretty amazing things, but he wants to be an ordinary person. Can you help him do that? Look, I send him to you because I'm hoping you'll do each other some good. You're a pretty average guy who knows what it's like being unhappy as well as happy. You can teach Kevin about both facets in life. And I'm hoping Kevin would add some color in your life."
"Which aliens kidnapped Brian and put Deepak Chopra in his place?"
"Laugh all you want, but think about it, okay?"
Greg put the phone down. He heard a forced cough and sighed when he saw Kevin at the door. "I guess you heard me screaming to your cousin."
"Yeah," Kevin didn't move. He stood there, in his dressing gown and pajama bottom, and Greg couldn't help but to notice the wide expanse of tanned chest exposed. Kevin looked like a valiant warrior despite his clothes, his shoulder stiff and unyielding, his bearing ramrod stiff, and his forbidden expression looked as if it was etched in stone.
Suddenly the hard facade crumpled, and Kevin collapsed onto the couch. His face looked weary and exhausted yet defiantly stubborn. And despite the hunched shoulder and defeated look, he still radiated control and restrained strength. When he looked up and scowled at Greg, Greg took a step back instinctively.
"I'm not very convincing as a normal guy huh?" he said.
"Guess not. Who are you really?"
"I'm Kevin Scott Richardson. I'm 28, and I'm not lying about anything else about me." Kevin gestured at the seat opposite his. "Sit down, Greg." It wasn't an invitation. "I once told you the President of Andorra died from poisoning. It's true. The man was a notorious womanizer with a taste for underaged girls. So they had a young girl sent to his bed, her lipstick smeared with the poison that would kill him after a kiss. How do I know? She's my colleague. I waited outside the bedchamber to pass her the antidote that would save her from the effects of the poison. I helped her escape."
"You're joking right?"
"No. I am a hired soldier-of-fortune, or was, as I'm officially retired. I got sick of the killing and betrayals, and I want to be a normal person. I haven't been normal - I've been trained to kill since I was ten. No friend, no social life, nothing." Kevin smiled weakly. "I think it's time I catch up on what I miss."
"Who did that to you?" Greg couldn't help asking.
"I can't tell you that," Kevin answered.
"Then why tell me the rest?"
"That's because I'm sure I can trust you not to tell anyone else." Kevin bit his lower lip. "Besides, you don't want me to kill you."
"Oh no, you can't threaten me like that." Greg raised to his feet shakily, and wagged his right index finger at Kevin. "I'm a lawyer. I know how to sue you for every bloody cent if you say a thing like that to me again. You're not going to kill me. And you're not Brian's cousin, are you?"
"Actually I'm Cousin. That's my code name. Brian's my former boss, though he's retired, long before me."
"Jesus! Brian too?" Greg collapsed back on the couch, suddenly feeling all his strength drained. "This is a dream. This is a twilight zone dream. Any moment now I will wake up and realize this isn't real."
"It'll be a waste if it's not real. You'll be missing a lot of fun." There was now a distinctly mischievous gleam in Kevin's eye. "I am rather hoping to tell you of my plan to be an ordinary guy."
"If it involves any more dark secrets, please, spare me. Not tonight. I have a headache coming on."
Kevin walked towards Greg. "Top of my list is finding a job. I always want to repair cars and machines. Now that I have a job at Joe's, I can proceed to Item Number Two."
Greg found himself against the wall. "Kev, look, I am very tired. I think I should just-" He gave a gargle of fear when Kevin's fingers gently closed around his throat. "Kevin," he began, his voice trembling slightly.
"I will never hurt you," Kevin whispered. He smiled, a crooked and cheeky smile as he casually placed a finger into the top most buttonhole in Greg's shirt. "Item Number Two, Greg. I need someone to share my life with." With a firm but smooth downward glide, he ripped the shirt apart along the buttonhole trail, button by button. Greg tried to pull his ruined shirt together but Kevin couldn't help it, he actually snarled at the man to back off. "I can always rip it open again," he growled. He hoped it was something normal people do, this snarling, when they were seized by lust. He had wanted to do this for so long, ever since he had knocked on the door and this man answered, his beautiful blue-green eyes tinged with hints of depression. This man who made him feel at home for once in his life, who aroused all his protective instincts and made him feel ashamed at the same time of his past. He would make up for his sins, which he knew he would burn in hell for, but in this life, he would make sure he was happy. And Greg was the one key to it, he could sense it in his bones.
He placed his mouth over Greg's nipple and suckled gently, licking the tender bud even as he applied suction. His hands delved into Greg's waistband, giving an insistent rend until the fabric tore in his hands. Just one tug at his own belt and his dressing gown fell to the floor, and then they were both pushing his trousers down, Greg's hands reaching down to touch him, feel him, and guide him into his hungry mouth. Kevin bit back a moan when the man's lips closed around the crown of his cock, enveloping him in its moist heat. He spread his thighs, bending forward and grasping the windowsill for purchase when Greg's tongue slowly traced the rim of his sensitive ridge, sending agonizing pleasure up his every nerve and draining the strength to stand from his tensed leg muscles. Then Greg was taking him deeper into his mouth, and Kevin pushed gently, feeling the man's throat relax at his gradual invasion. The head of his cock bumped against the roof of Greg's mouth, and Kevin shuddered, the feel of Greg's heated saliva pooling around his embedded penis driving him wild. Then, oh God, then Greg did something, Kevin never knew what, and he found himself sliding down Greg's wondrously red-hot and smooth throat.
He arched his back, his hands clawing into the windowsill as his semen gushed forth, bursting forth from his engorged cock to pour down Greg's throat. Greg's fingers dug into Kevin's buttocks, drawing him deeper, and Kevin lost control of all his faculties. He yelled his orgasm, not caring if anyone heard him, and he believed he called Greg's name. He wasn't sure, but he could always ask Greg. Probably later, he thought, right before any further coherent thought fled his head the moment Greg slowly fed Kevin's cock up his anus, Kevin's semen coating the shaft of his cock more than enough lubrication for them both.
= = = = = Closure = = = = =
"I'm still not exactly an ordinary guy yet," Kevin sighed, tugging at his badly knotted tie in exasperation. "Damn, I can't even get this thing right."
Brian bit back a grin as he tugged the tie loose and readjust it for his friend. "Just give it up, Cousin. You'll never be ordinary."
"I have a nice job. I have a nice home and I'm involved in a great relationship. If I can only master this tying of neckties, I'll be perfect." Okay, being the best mechanic who doubled as an unpaid handyman/repairman/cat and dog rescuer in Block C isn't exactly an average Joe job, but somehow with Greg around, he no longer felt the need to be like everyone else to feel secure. He felt an unusual and definitely unfamiliar rush of sentimentality at the thought of Greg and he passing their fifth month together, and patted Brian's shoulders awkwardly. "Thanks Bri, for setting me up with Greg. He's good for me."
"No problem. Now if you're ready, we can get this whole definitely embarrassing show of sentimentality over with. Get out there, go say your vows with Greg, and we can all go home and forget we are ever once at the mercy of our softer sides." Brian adjusted his own bow tie. He hated being best man. It made him feel mushy. "Shall we go?"
Kevin nodded, without hesitation or reservation, and opened the door to his future.