THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB Marc
By and copyright Lady Poetess
Disclaimer This story is entire fictitious and has no resemblance to anyone dead or alive.
PROLOGUE
"I thought you hate reunions. They are sappy, you said," Scott Wolf said as he started the car engine.
His significant other, the younger Jesse Bradford stretched and yawned. He was always in some permanent glaze of ennui, behaving as if life wasn't worth his time. The only time his eyes came to alertness was the rare moment such as now, when he looked at Scott.
"This is different," he said. "I helped Marc and Brian end up together."
"This is something you never told me." Scott looked at the invitation card again. Marc P Blucas and Brian Krause invite close friends to a quiet celebration of their tenth anniversary together, et cetera. Scott had only glimpsed Marc once, a very tall but quiet yet intimidating fellow, and he had no idea Marc was attached for so long. Then again, according to Jesse, very few people knew Marc. Marc had this wariness in him that rubbed off on people he met. It was perfect for the man's job as a senior editor in a publishing house, for Scott, a mere copyeditor, had done enough shouting into phones. Lord only knew how often Marc needed to shout into phones.
"How did you help them together? I thought you never believed in love or other mawkish nonsense," he asked Jesse. Jesse was a darkly beautiful man who more often than not reminded Scott of a fallen angel. Sometimes he wondered what he did to deserve such a gregarious, annoyingly yet endearingly know-it-all man. Jesse was home-schooled, very experienced, and very weary.
He said that Scott helped him believe again, and he said it so eloquently and often that Scott started to believe it as fact.
But this -- this was surprising and so out of character of Jesse.
"Hey I was only 13 back then, and I had this big crush on then 17-year old Marc. Tall, built like an Oxford rowing champion, yet so serious -- a perfect Daddy's boy. His family was sort of in-between: his father was definitely a cut above middle-class, but he was only marginally accepted in my circles because he wasn't upper class enough. But that year -- was it 1990? -- I was sent down the summer to live with my Aunt Hannah. Marc lived there then, as did Brian. Small town, you know how things are, and those two created a scandal that the town couldn't stop talking about for years."
"Really?" Scott was intrigued.
"Yeah. You really want to hear this?" Jesse teased.
"Definitely. I can't imagine you romantic and playing matchmaker."
"Remember, I was 13," Jesse reminded him gently.
ONE
1990
Marc Blucas's single moment of breaking the rules in his 17 years was sleeping with the luscious widow Mrs Bernard. Okay, Mrs Bernard was pretty loose and easy, and Marc was delivering her groceries when she seduced him. He was easy meat, since he was only 14 and wasn't particularly averse to losing his virginity, and he carried on the affair with her until last year. Herman Shepard roared into town in his Harley, and Mrs Bernard fell in love. Marc got a postcard from her last May -- those two were happy following the bike circuit in Austin.
He missed her, and he missed the sex. Mrs Bernard had awakened his libido, and he found it hard to keep it repressed. It was even more confusing when he started to view both attractive men and women with equal desire. He had little doubt that in the presence of a willing man that captured his lust, he wouldn't hesitate to perform. Thing was, did he dare to find such a man?
Having been an obedient son to his parents all his life, he still felt residues of guilt whenever he masturbated at night to the memory of Mrs Bernard and fantasies of heated touch and velvet kisses of both men and women. After years of excelling academically as well as in athletics, he still found it hard to say no to his parents. His father wanted him to be a lawyer since Marc could read and understand the meaning of parental pressures, and Marc didn't know what he want. What his father and mother wanted for him were so heavily tangled up with his own uncertain wants that sometimes he wondered whether he was even a human being.
Well, his mother had been buried for two days now. It was a car accident, and the drunk driver got only a minor scratch on her head compared to Melissa Blucas's death. It wasn't fair. Marc didn't cry at her funeral, however, and he couldn't even bring up the tears now, two days later.
His father told him it was shock -- soon he would face the emotions. And his father was pleased, for he was of the old school belief that men shouldn't cry. But while Marc couldn't cry, he was being torn apart inside by this anguish so intense that he couldn't handle it.
It wasn't just his mother's death, it was as if all his pent-up rage at his inability to control his life or even severing his umbilical cord with his parents had broken loose to wreck havoc on his well-organized life. He hated his mother and himself for holding on too close that she had to leave him so pain-stricken when she left. He hated his father for not letting him be, and he hated Mrs Bernard for taking away the last vestiges of his innocence.
So here he was, tonight, in a clumsy attempt to shake off his parents' ghosts, standing at the door of the notorious gay biker-and-bear bar at the outskirts of the red light district a town away from his father. He had never been here, despite the intriguing whispers he had heard from some of his friends in the locker room, but he was rather disappointed that the bar was rather mundane compared to his imagination.
He had imagined huge, brutish bears conducting open orgies with their willing victims. But the bar was a far cry from the open hedonism he naively associated with red light districts. Instead, he was greeted by heavy cigarette smoke and loud Metallica tunes. A greasy man shoved past him without an apology. Marc took in the other man's bare chest, leather jacket, and dark tight pants, and then looked at his own tweed shirt, University of Ohio jacket, and jeans.
This was stupidity. He shouldn't be here. He should be at home, preparing for his new academic term. Making a turn to leave, he stopped, however. Because at that moment, he saw him.
The man, a boy of Marc's age actually, was wearing tight white James Dean shirt and tight blue jeans. The white top mould to every curve of that well- muscled torso, lovingly delineating flat abdominal muscles and two well-formed pectorals upon which the nipples were clearly erect. Those jeans clung to muscular thighs and tight rounded buttocks, visible when he bent over to clear the pool table.
Marc felt his mouth dry up even as he gripped the doorway when all strength left his knees. His cock surged to life while his buttocks clenched and tingled in anticipation -- what was wrong with him? This was far beyond the first time Mrs Bernard touched his bare chest and played with his cock. This was a surge of potent lust that staggered him in its intensity. If that beautiful boy looked at him this way in those dark, beautiful eyes or even hinted at any welcome in that starkly chiseled face, Marc would be the boy's willing slave.
His heart hurt at such beauty, beating a million tattoos of sharp piercing pain as he watched this boy. For the first time, he wanted someone so badly, even if for the moment, and he had no idea how to get him. He wasn't an assertive person, and he was used to obeying authority figures. His inability to take what he wanted infuriated him at the moment, and he wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.
But maybe fate took mercy on him at that moment, for the beautiful boy put down his cue and his eyes met Marc's.
Brian Krause was white trash, and he defiantly reveled in it. Screw life, screw rules, screw authority -- his rules to live by. But watching the town gold boy Marc Blucas standing uncertainly at the door of the bar, he felt the old ghosts of insecurity and envy collecting around his mind again. What was the boy doing here? He wasn't cut out for this crowd, not like Brian.
Marc had no idea what an appealing and irresistible figure he cut in the smoky bar. Tall, muscled almost but not to the point of beefiness, yet his awkwardly boyish face a clean template of innocence waiting to be corrupted, he was a lamb among merciless wolves. The jacket and shirt did nothing to hide the well- formed body they clothed, and the jeans accentuated rather than hide the impressive bulge at the man's crotch.
Brian, like probably every other man here, was scorched by this boy the moment Marc walked past the door. Marc's obvious nervousness only fuelled Brian's predatory instincts, which in his already very aroused state, was driving him out of control. But when Brian saw Jerome walking towards Marc, he knew he had no choice. Jerome was a man who never left his partners without at least a broken arm. Brian had to protect Marc.
It was his weakness, after all, to still play Lancelot to knights and damsels in distress.
He reached Marc first. "Let's get out of here," he whispered into the boy's ear without preliminaries.
He could have explained the situation, but his senses froze the moment his hand closed around Marc's waist. Those traitorous fingers couldn't help moving over the tight graceful curves of Marc's buttocks, and Brian's treacherous heart stopped beating when he bent to whisper in Marc's ear, for the scent of the boy's aftershave almost caused him to shoot his wad right there and then.
But Marc saw Jerome too, and his widened eyes told Brian that he wasn't unaware of his danger. "Okay," Marc said, stammering only slightly, although it was obvious he was trying not to break down and panic. He really didn't belong here. Pity he only learned that too late.
But he still threw Brian off-guard when he placed his hand over Brian's. Marc's hand was cold with fear and slightly clammy with sweat, but still, he held Brian's hand. Voluntarily. Brian stared down at their clasped hands, speechless as a strange, not altogether unpleasant warmth suffused him.
"Why do you hold my hand?" he couldn't help asking.
"Because you're getting me out of here," Marc said, his tenor shaky but friendly.
"Right. Let's go." Brian tightened his hold on Marc's hand. Even if it was false, it made a nice fantasy really, that someone cared enough to touch him, hell, to hold his hand.
Marc couldn't help but to laugh at the whole ludicrous situation when he calmed down his fears twenty minutes later. He laughed.
Brian, lying on Marc's jacket on the grass, looked up at Marc sitting at the hood of his car. "What's so funny?" he asked, raising himself on his elbows.
Marc couldn't look away, not when Brian's action only tightened the fabric of the boy's shirt across his chest. The shirt was thin enough that in the moonlight, Marc could almost see the darker circles of Brian's nipples through the fabric. Heat burned through him, and he raised his left leg to hide the painful bulge in his jeans. "I was stupid tonight, wasn't I?"
"Yeah." Brian didn't grin, not with humor anyway. He was looking at Marc, staring actually, with an intensity that Marc found disconcerting.
"What are you looking at?" Marc asked quietly, afraid to hope, afraid of Brian's answer. He was secure in the knowledge that his clean-cut looks attract people, hell, it attracted Mrs Bernard as well as the popular girls in school who wanted him to take them out. But he wanted to be more than attractive to Brian, he wanted to be the most beautiful person in Brian's eyes. Then, maybe Brian would want Marc as much as Marc wanted him.
Brian stretched lazily on the jacket, casually spreading his legs so that Marc was treated with the sight of his bulging erection. "You know, you just have to ask, and I'll give you a better look at my chest."
Marc swallowed as his cock threatened to burst out of his jeans. He couldn't believe this was happening. "Okay."
Brian sat up and lifted his shirt over his head. He didn't care where he threw it behind him.
"The jeans too," Marc said, his voice shaking only slightly. When had he become this daring?
But Brian stood up in a fluid motion and unfastened his jeans.
Marc didn't know what he was doing. Instincts he didn't even know he had took over, and he climbed off his car. He was only aware of the strange sensation of having Brian's cock in his mouth. He let his lips move over every curve, let his tongue caress every vein, and finally, licked the salty droplets from Brian's cock slit with increasing voracity. He sucked, enjoying the taste as well as Brian's groans of pleasure, punctuating his suction with not-too-gentle plays of his tongue on Brian's sensitized cock head.
"Slowly, yeah, lick that slowly, oh that's fucking good…" Brian said, throwing his head back as his fingers curled into Marc's hair, guiding the boy in his first giving head.
Marc, the habitual obedient boy, obeyed. He was rewarded by Brian's increasingly deep and rough thrusts, that cock stretching his lips and jaw as its tip plunged deep to nestle in the depths of Marc's throat before withdrawing. Marc soon got into the rhythm, relaxing his throat applying suction and licking at the right moments.
Brian finally shouted in his climax, his semen flooding Marc's throat in hot, steady gushes. If Marc weren't steadying him, he would have fallen onto the ground, dazed in his white-hot orgasm.
Marc wiped his lips as he looked at the barely coherent boy below. The games he played with Mrs Bernard in bed were coming back to him now, and with one fluid motion he unzipped his pants. Brian could only cry out when Marc mounted him, his cock forging in forcefully up Brian's anus. The stunned boy recovered, or maybe it was habit, and his legs lifted to clasp Marc's torso even as Brian swiftly divested Marc of his shirt.
They were a tangle of well-muscled and sweaty limbs as Marc fucked Brian. He was taught well -- he varied the depths and speed of his thrusts, so that when Brian was close to coming, Marc slowed down, pumping deep and leisurely until Brian begged for surcease. Then Marc increased his speed, banging Brian until the violent sounds of their coming together echoed around the quiet night, accompanied by their groans of pleasure.
He tried to keep it as long as he could, but Marc was only human. Finally, one right moment, one perfect tight convulsion around his cock, and he was gone. Jamming his lips hard over Brian's in a bruising kiss, he shuddered as he emptied his balls, his heart, and his soul into the boy.
TWO
"Hey, Krause, your boy's here!"
That was the usual greeting whenever Marc stepped into the bar two weeks down the road. Actually Marc that was better than being called, say, "Hey Krause, your bitch's here!" which was what he heard people called each other in jail. Two weeks, wow, two weeks of him sneaking off at night to meet Brian, where Brian would then teach him things even Mrs Bernard and her large collection of porn couldn't inspire. It was one thing to discover the joys of sodomy, but when Brian screwed him too, now, that was exquisite.
Tonight, Brian was at his usual place, playing pool with his friends. These friends were like Brian, out of luck, out of favor, out of school. Marc wouldn't normally even want to meet these men, but for Brian, he was willing to do anything.
Brian looked up, smiled, and hit the cue ball. Only then he straightened and reached for his jacket. "Gotta go," he told his friends, who would curse him for being led by the 'wife'.
But Brian, surprisingly, didn't care. Every inch of that body was well used and familiar to Marc by now, but Marc was fascinated more and more with Brian's mind. Everyday he learned something new about Brian, and he loved that.
"Let's not go to the park," he said, an impromptu suggestion popping in his head. They usually went to the park where they would fuck until they couldn't move, and then they'd talk as they lay in each other's arms, a tangle of sated flesh. They'd curse, insult each other, and couldn't help sharing a piece of each other no matter how hard they tried not to. "Let's go to my place."
It was a daring suggestion, but Marc was pretty daring nowadays. "My father was at some charity function, and he'd be back only by dawn."
"You're not afraid I'll steal something?" Brian asked.
Marc wasn't sure if the boy was teasing. Brian's continuous assumption that Marc would wake up one day and realize that he was too good and upper class for Brian could be annoying. Why couldn't Brian see that Marc didn't care? Confident in his youth and immortality, Marc decided to see it as a joke. "You've already stolen something of mine," he told him.
It came out before he could think. Silence as the both of them looked at each other, not knowing what to say or do. At seventeen, what did he know about love, Marc asked himself? What did Brian know? This was some youthful indiscretion thing. Let just fucking enjoy while they could.
"Let's see your place," Brian said finally.
They wanted to be quiet, but they ended up fucking first at the living room floor, then at the couch, up the stairs two times, and they could only lay on the bed in exhaustion when they finally made it to Marc's bedroom.
"Nice room," Brian said.
"Nothing much really," Marc said, still feeling slightly uncomfortable at having someone else invading his private room. But it wasn't so bad. Brian was okay.
"So many books. I see you already made your decisions on which college to go to."
"Actually, it's my father's decision," Marc said, unable to mask the bitterness in his voice. "He wants me to be a lawyer. I don't know what I want."
"Really? I thought you are the star student who has his next twenty years planned to a tee," Brian said, letting his hand play along Marc's chest. "Star student. Star football and basketball player in your school. I bet you'll be the one giving the speech on your graduation day. Will you be prom king?"
"I don't care. I just want -- " What did he want? "I just want you." That was the truth at least. He couldn't think, not when Brian's hand was now running across the hair of his crotch. His cock was already stirring. "I want to be inside you, always, just keep pumping and coming, and everything else can go to hell." His father, his mother -- fuck them all.
As Marc moved over Brian's willing body, his cock ready to plunge up deep, he looked at Brian, into the boy's eyes, and knew. Despite his best efforts at reminding Marc that this couldn't last, Brian cared for him. It was a relief, because Marc knew the same stupid affection was mirrored in his own eyes.
"I hate you people. Always too good for our company, but we are good enough to fuck at least," Brian said, one last attempt to reenact the wall between them.
"You don't believe that," Marc said, ruthlessly demolishing it.
"No, I don't," Brian said, a sigh of resignation following his confession. Then Marc was inside him, so deep, that he couldn't think or do anything but to cling on to this boy's muscular shoulders and torso and enjoy the maddening pain- pleasure.
Marc's father came home early, unfortunately, and thinking that the groans from Marc's room were his son in pain, smashed the door (which wasn't even locked) open. The man was holding a baseball bat at that moment, and on instinct and denial at what he was seeing, swung it hard.
Marc saw the bat heading right for Brian. At that moment, even if he was 17 and stupid, he knew -- he loved Brian. He couldn't see that boy hurt. Marc pushed Brian away, and the bat hit the back of his neck hard.
It was the most daring thing he'd ever done, he realized, before the pain and the darkness claimed him.
THREE
A week later
His head had stopped ringing. Thankfully his father's swing hadn't caused permanent damage to his spine or mental faculties. But he hurt. Where was Brian? For one week in the hospital, he held on to this futile hope that maybe Brian would sneak in and visit.
He was in pain because of the loneliness. He couldn't bear the sight of his father, not when he kept telling Marc that it was some temporary thing, that Marc wasn't really gay, the doctors would make him okay again.
Nonsense. He would never be okay again. Now, when he got out of this hospital, he would find Brian. He would tell him everything -- how he was in love with him, yes, even when it was stupid, how he had this plan for them both. They could work it out, he was sure.
But that night, he walked home bloody and furious. Brian was nowhere to be found, and in maddened frustration, Marc lashed out on the sullen friends of Brian's. They knew, they had to, damn it! Marc threw the first punch, and it went downhill all the way.
Brian was gone. It was as if he never existed. Now, as he stood at his house lawn, staring up at his bedroom window, remembering he and Brian, he wanted to rage. It wasn't fair. People said he had everything, but he didn't want them. He wanted Brian. He wanted to rage and pound his fist into something, someone, until he died from this unbearable pain in his chest.
"I know where he is."
Marc looked, and scowled. It was the annoying next door neighbor boy, Jesse, who had been throwing him cow eyes all summer long. The boy had a crush on Marc, Marc knew now from his own experience with Brian, but at this moment, Marc had no time to let the boy down gently. He made to walk away, but the boy's words finally registered in his head.
"Your father had the cops arrest Brian. Nobody dares to tell you because your father is a powerful man here, which you've probably known by now."
He should have known. Marc looked at Jesse and felt a slight loosening in the tightness of his chest for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. "Where did the cops take him?" he asked, forcing his voice to be gentle, not wanting to scare this boy away.
"I don't know. But since he's a minor like you, I bet he's in some sort of home."
Yes, there was that. His father could pull strings to get rid of Brian.
"Thanks." Marc hesitated, then reached down and kissed Jesse. Not a kiss one gave kids, but one that could get Marc arrested. A minute later, Marc licked his lips and patted the boy's head. "Thanks again," he said.
"Wow," Jesse said, rubbing his lips. His first kiss, a real kiss. Cool!
He paced the floor impatiently. Anticipation warred with trepidation. What if Brian said no? What if it wasn't Brian? He didn't know how to deal with this hollow pain in his soul, and he prayed that if there was a god, a merciful one, let him find Brian.
Shit, if this was what it was to fall in love, it wasn't fucking worth it. He might as well make sure this was the first and only time he got that disease.
Finally, the door opened.
Marc turned to look at the person at the door, and finally let go of his breath.
"Brian," he said.
"Hi." Brian sat down, across the table from where Marc was standing. "Didn't expect to see you here."
"I thought you were at some home. I tore all over the area looking for you."
"Really? No wonder you look like shit."
"Please don't mock me, Brian. You have no idea what I went through these few days." Marc sat facing Brian. "At least tell me I mean nothing to you. I deserve that at least."
"Your father," Brian said simply. "He just told me, you know, and he was right. You have a great future and a great life. I will only bring you down. I will hate myself if I cause you to receive anything less than what you deserve in life." He bit his lip, trying hard to be steady. "So I moved away."
Marc made a pained sound, as if he was being torn apart inside. But he only reached into his shirt pocket. Brian watched, afraid to speak, as Marc pulled out a small, square box and tossed it across the table. It hit the table with a soft thud right in front of Brian.
"It will be hard without my father's backing, but I can start again," Marc said. "I don't have to get into college so soon after graduation, so I can work to stabilize us both financially. I expect you to work too, by the way. I don't need a law degree. I just want a life, a content, happy life. With you."
Brian bit back a sob. "I'm no good for you." The tears fell then.
"That's for me to decide," Marc said. "So Brian Krause, will you marry me? I'll take you away from this place, and I will do my best to fucking make us both happy."
"I don't know." Brian looked at Marc, and wondered how Marc could be so confident and so sure when he was giving up everything he knew. They were both only seventeen, for God's sake, what did they know? But, but -- as Brian looked at Marc, so serene yet so obviously in torment, he felt a calm wash over him. Marc believed, and Marc really had to love him if he would give up everything for him.
Marc held his hand, and Marc gave up everything for him.
"Yes," he said finally. He felt a heavy weight lift off him with that one simple word of irrevocable finality. "Yes. If you think you know what you're getting into, yes."
Marc grinned.
EPILOGUE
Today
"I can't believe we made it this far," Marc said, grinning widely as he washed the dishes.
Scott Wolf smiled in reply. "Well, maybe the both of you are better than you think."
Marc shrugged. "Not really. God, it was hell trying to survive in New York with my father cutting me off like that. There were times when I am tempted to just walk out on Brian, and I am sure he felt the same too during those times."
"But you didn't."
"I couldn't. I didn't, yeah," Marc said. "Through tuition bills, through poverty, through eviction, and through so many arguments I have lost count of."
"To love then," Scott said.
"Yes, to love," Marc said ruefully. "To fools like you and I."
"Scott! Let's get home before Marc asks us to clean his toilet as well!" Jesse called from the living room.
"Coming." To Marc, he said, "It's been a pleasure."
When he had finished cleaning the house, Marc walked into the living room where an exhausted Brian was snoring away on the couch. He watched the man sleep for a moment, feeling the way his heart still ache, even after all this while, at the sight of this man.
How different they were from whom they started out as. Brian's old friends wouldn't recognize him now, for Brian was now as respectable-looking as Marc. One couldn't afford to be bohemian when there were always bills to pay. Brian had worked like hell to finance Marc's college education, working two jobs, and now Marc was repaying the favor, working his butt off to see Brian through college.
Sometimes, it didn't seem worth it, working like hell, suffering the way they did.
But now, as he stood there like he did every night, watching Brian sleep, he had no regrets. Gently, he went on his knees and shook Brian awake. "Bri, they're gone. Time to go to bed."
Brian opened his eyes and smiled weakly when he saw Marc. "Hi. You know, ten years. It feels weird. I never thought we'd make it this far. But it's been fun all the way."
Marc wouldn't put it that way exactly -- fun? Get real. But Brian was always the more impulsive and optimistic of them both. "I know what you mean," he said honestly, gently helping Brian to his feet. "Wanna make it another ten?"