THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB Andrew
Disclaimer: This story is entirely fictitious and bears no resemblance to anyone dead or alive. Any similarity to any real people is strictly coincidental.
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ONE
Andrew Camden Riker leaned against the wall and took a deep, steadying breath. For the hundredth time in one hour, he muttered aloud under his breath, "Drew, you can do this. You really can do this."
It wasn't easy overcoming years of inferiority complex. Sure, he was gorgeous. He was a lanky, geeky kid with all teeth and too long limbs, but he grew up just nice to be a gorgeous hunk. $600,000 per modeling assignment couldn't be wrong. But he wasn't the most confident guy around. His identical twin brother Derek was older and just as gorgeous, but Derek was also the smart, responsible one who took over the family business and made it even bigger and better. Derek had a lovely wife and everybody loved him. Drew was the silly other brother who modeled and partied and did nothing much else worthy of notice.
Derek once asked Drew whether Drew ever hated Derek for making people compare them both so unfairly. Sometimes, Drew thought, but he never told his brother that. Through hell and heaven, yeah, Derek was his brother and while sometimes Derek could be as bossy as hell, Derek was also a great brother who stuck by Drew when everyone seemed to be sure that Drew was going to meet a bad end.
This was Drew's one chance to pay Derek back. Who knows, he might even like being responsible - now that was a thought.
It was very difficult though, because right behind that door was his old boyfriend Kenneth Stafford.
Luck wasn't with his side that day. He decided to chicken out and flee, but the door opened then and Ken himself walked out, adjusting his tie with one hand even as he grabbed his briefcase in the other, as if he was rushing to a meeting. Ken wasn't the usual suit and tie type, and even now, he seemed too primal and wild to be restrained by business suit. His usually unruly long dark gold strands of hair were slicked back and groomed, making Drew's fingers itch to ruffle them up again and luxuriate in the sensation of those soft, silky hair between them.
"Drew?" Ken's shoes made a screech as he came to a halt beside the other man. "Drew... how...?"
"Hi," Drew said, smiling in what he knew was a weak, flustered way. "Long time no see, Ken. You look great."
For a moment, Ken was staring at him in that stunned, stone-faced way Drew had always found charming, but soon shock melded into something more sinister: desire. In fact, Ken had dropped his briefcase from his now lifeless fingers and now he was taking a step forward towards Drew. Drew knew Ken would do next - Ken would kiss Drew hungrily, the way the man had always did even when one year had passed and they had known every inch of each other's body by then. If Ken kissed Drew now, Drew's last vestiges of barely controlled confidence will tear apart. "Don't," he whispered shakily, placing his hand up to stop Ken's vanguard. "I'm not here for that, Ken."
"Well that's too bad then, isn't it?" Ken said bitterly. He gestured at his office. "Want to come in and talk about whatever it is you want to see me about?"
"Don't you have a meeting? You seem to be in a rush. I can come back later," Drew offered.
"Nothing I cannot reschedule," Ken told him, opening the door.
It was what Ken always said to Drew. Drew always came first to Ken, and Drew had feared that loyal dogged devotion once. He still did, but now, as he entered Ken's office and feel Ken's eyes burning in him, still desiring him, Drew wondered whether he should be glad or terrified that he was finally back in Kenneth Stafford's life. He loved Ken - he always had, which was why he had fled two years ago. He hoped he had the strength to flee again when this was over.
TWO
"We can behave like adults," Ken said. "We can do this professionally," he echoed dully as he sat down across the table from Drew. "I miss you, Drew. I hated you for the first year when you left. I fucked every man that let me, hoping I can forget you. I hated all of them. They weren't you, Drew. They didn't break my heart like you did and fled with the pieces like the fucking coward you are. I missed you this second year we're apart, and I miss you so much that I actually was more than willing to sell my soul to the devil just to get you back, just like in the story of Mephistopheles that you told me. So now you came back. Now let's get down to business. How can I help you?"
Drew fought down an insane urge to laugh. "My brother Derek is the one that can use your help."
"Go on." Ken interlaced his fingers and placed them under his chin, the way he always did when he listened to Drew, hanging to every word of his as if what Drew said meant everything to Ken.
"He screwed up in an investment." It still felt surreal saying that. Derek had always seemed infallible. "He lost too much money and he would be in trouble."
"So this is about my money," Ken said bluntly, "and my business connections."
"We are just a small-time company, Ken, and there's no way Derek can afford to ask someone like Hugh Jackman to come and bail us out, not when bigger companies are vying for his attention. And especially when we are in the danger of being bought out by Anderson Cooper who is Hugh's close buddy."
"I'm Hugh and Coop's close buddy too," Ken pointed out. "I took you with me to Coop's third anniversary bash with his guy. Remember? We got a little bit hot and heavy in the elevator but we forgot to stall the elevator first."
Drew still blushed whenever he came face to face with Coop. Coop and Joaquin Phoenix were waiting for the elevator (Coop having just collected his new diamond ring for Ioan from Joaquin) when the doors opened to reveal Drew and Ken in a most compromising position. Lucky for them Coop was in a very good mood and found the whole embarassing event most romantic. "I am hoping that you'll help me help Derek. He never asks me to, but I know he is close to breaking point, and I want to help him."
"Okay."
Drew blinked. "Okay?" he repeated somewhat warily. He never expected victory to be this easy.
"Yeah, okay," Ken told him, making to stand up from his seat. "I'll drop by Derek's office later today and we'll see what I can do to help. I can pull some strings to increase the amount of loan he can take from this bank."
"Thanks," Drew said, dazed. Why was Ken so good to him?
"No, don't thank me," Ken said. "I made a promise to you once, Drew, that I will honor and cherish you through good and bad times, in sickness and health, through wealth and poverty. If I have to pauper myself making you happy, so be it."
"Don't make yourself a martyr out of this," Drew snapped, close to his limit as Ken's words cut him deep in the heart until he bled painfully inside. "You told me yourself about those men you had after I left."
"After you left," Ken reiterated. "I was faithful to you when we were together, and you know that. And I gave up fucking around soon after I started, because they were all pale shadows of you. I don't know why. You ran out on me without a word, and next thing I know I am reading about you and a different model or designer in some fuck-of-the-week story in tabloids and other fucking pieces of shit people were more than happy to give me to read. If I keep wearing my wedding ring long after you left me, it's because I am a fucking idiot who cannot overlook how the man that hurt me so much made me laugh and live in that short time we were together."
"We had two years," Drew said lamely.
"A hundred years is too short a time when I'm with you," Ken just said. He chuckled humorlessly. "Listen to me. I am never this melodramatic until I met you. I came out for you. I cut off my ties with my family because they hated you. Oh, what the fuck, get out of my life, Drew. I don't think I can survive if you walk out on me again."
"Ken..." But what could he say to Ken. "I'm sorry."
"Good."
At that moment, by a cruel trick of nature, sunlight fell on Ken's hand and a glint caught Drew's eye. He closed his eyes as pain washed over him. Ken wasn't lying when he said that he was still wearing his wedding ring. There it was, on his ring finger, the cross of a foolish man unable to let go of the fucking coward he loved in vain.
THREE
"Your Ken Stafford talked to me today," Derek Riker said as he watched his twin brother walked towards the side seats of the squash court, where Derek was seated. "He had an interesting proposal that will save my ass. Care to tell me how he came to know of my fuck-up and why he is willing to help me? He won't even talk to me after you left him."
"I just had a talk with him," Drew said. He always felt rather stupid in the presence of Derek, and even now, he had to fight this urge to look down at his shoes and fidget uncomfortably. "I'm in town after all."
"I notice that he is still wearing his wedding ring," Derek said softly.
"Oh shut up, Derek," Drew said in exasperation. "Don't butt into my life, okay?"
"I knew he was a major slut for a few months after you dumped him. I thought that was why you left him - maybe he fucked around on you. I beat him, you know."
"You did?" Drew scowled at his brother.
"Oh, don't be mad. I thought he hurt you, that was why I trashed him good. Don't tell Linda, by the way." Linda was Derek's activist wife; they met in college when Linda threw a rock through Derek's car window (she was among the protestors lobbying for environmental reforms while Derek was the son of an oil baron); it was love at first sight for Derek from thereon. "She hates the idea of me going macho and violent."
"I can't imagine a gym rat like you beating Ken up." Ken was a college boxer and wrestler and long after he left college and toned down his muscular bulk, he was still a tough stud as he was an active martial artist and kickboxer when he was not being Ken Stafford, financial guru. "Serves you right if he breaks that nose of yours."
"He didn't hit back, not once," Derek told Drew. "He just stood there. I asked him what the fuck he did to hurt you that way, but he just looked down in what I thought was guilt. It wasn't guilt, was it, Drew?"
No, it was probably Ken, bewildered and wondering what he did wrong to drive Drew away. Drew sat down and stared ahead, seeing only Ken in his mind. The enormity of what he had done seemed to have turned his heart to stone, for at that moment he felt as if his heart had stopped beating. "I love him," Drew finally said.
"Do you?" Derek asked quietly.
"Yes I do," Drew said without hesitation. "I really don't know why I walked out that day. Maybe I do, but everything's a confusing mess in my head, and I don't know how to sort everything out."
"You always are like that," Derek said gently. "You want me to help you out with that?"
Derek was always like that, always willing to be there and help when Drew needed his sensible twin brother the most. And Drew always pushed Derek away, he realized with sudden clarity. He did, he realized with a sudden rush of awareness. Even now, he wanted to tell Derek to mind his own business. What was he so afraid of? Or maybe he really hated Derek more than he was willing to admit, and accepting Derek's help was another acceptance that Drew really was inferior and dumb compared to Derek. Maybe he really did hate Derek for all those boyfriends Drew left the moment they made it clear that Drew was their choice because Derek was unavailable.
Maybe he really was a fucking coward.
"I think I can sort this one out, Derek, but thank you, bro. I appreciate you more than you imagine," Drew said shakily. "I'm a 32-year old male bimbo, and my modeling career will be over before we know it."
"What do you want to do?" Derek asked.
"I don't know. I think I'll stay here in New York."
The light in Derek 's eyes was genuine. "Great!" he said. "We'll get to see each other more often."
Why hadn't Drew realize how much Derek missed having Drew around? Drew didn't know why, but he saw it in Derek's eyes and crooked smile, and he wondered if he had hurt Derek unintentionally every year when he turned down Derek's invitation to come over for Christmas, thanksgiving, anything.
"I'm not sure if I should tell you this, since we're not certain yet, but I think Linda's having our baby," Derek blurted out.
Drew could only stare at his twin brother. "W-what?"
"She was late, so she bought this pregnancy test kit and did some test, and it said that we may be expecting little Carl Andrew Riker soon. We'll be getting her mother's trusted gynecologist to confirm it, but either way, I'm glad you'll be there when Carl comes into this world. We're naming him after you and Linda's dad, and you're becoming his godfather. Don't dare turn me down, lil' bro."
Derek had a life of his own, and the fucker seemed obscenely happy. Drew found himself bitterly envious of Derek, just as he always had been of Derek all his life, it seemed. Then he thought of Ken, and he wondered if he was a stupid ass, a coward, or both.
Maybe it was time he grew up and be his own man, just like Derek had. Maybe it was time that he accepted Derek's unconditional affections. And maybe, he thought, a broken man he had hurt so unforgivably crossing his mind, maybe it was time that he accepted Ken's affections too, if Ken was still willing to offer it.
FOUR
His friends had always mocked Ken Stafford for being an idiot. His decamped lover had been cavorting with men all over Europe, a pretty male model who was loved for being an eternal Peter Pan, loving and breaking hearts remorselessly, and here Ken was, still pining away like some love-struck idiot. But how could he explain what made no sense even to him - he just couldn't muster up any interest in anything anymore after Drew? He worked only because he had bills to pay and he was afraid that if he stopped, he would take one too many sleeping pills at night in an attempt to end the hollow ache in his soul.
He had long stopped socializing with his old friends, preferring to sit at the local bowling rink and watch people tumble pins with their bowling balls. Actually, he liked the music here too. And yes, here was where he first met Drew. Every night he would put in coins in the jukebox, so that he would listen to the same songs he heard that night he met Drew. On Thursdays (today) when a group of guys from the same family, however, they would ruin his melancholy. Like a bunch of nosey queens, they tended to believe that he would welcome their company. He didn't. Why couldn't they go away?
He scowled at that strange guy with too bright eyes, Jason Behr, who was as always studying him curiously.
"What the fuck are you thinking?" he snapped.
"I'm thinking of Superman."
"What?" Ken scowled at the man. Jason's boyfriend Jeffrey seemed like a decent guy, and Ken had met Jeffrey a few times because Jeffrey was a key man in Ben Affleck's business operations. Since anybody in the finance sector tried to know Ben better, they inadvertently had to pander to Jeffrey, as Jeffrey had Ben's ears and attention more than any other guys and women in the business. The tragedy was, to humor Jeffrey one had also try to be very nice to Jason. That wasn't easy.
"You look a lot like what I would envision Superman to be. Square jaw, clean-cut wholesome all-American hero looks, and great physique to match. And you have this great air of melancholy around you, which is good, because I always imagined that having super strength must be a terrible burden to bear. Have you ever wonder what Clark Kent will say if he ever gets drunk and loses his inhibition? Sort of like that song, I guess, by Five for Fighting, that goes 'I'm only a man in a silly red sheet digging for kryptonite in this one-way street, only a man in a funny red sheet looking for special things inside of me, it's not easy to be me'."
Ken stared at Jason. Was the man for real? "Uh, it is a nice song, I guess."
"I especially love the line 'It may sound absurd, but don't be naïve, even heroes have the right to bleed, I may be disturbed, but won't you concede, even heroes have the right to dream'. The trouble with the comic is that they make Superman so fucking perfect, just like they made Spiderman, when they should be showing the humanity of these people. It's tough being perfect, and I think they should just get drunk and bitch a little, you know?"
"Shouldn't you be bowling with your friends?"
"I can't bowl."
"Oh." Ken wondered if he could get away with gagging Jason into silence. "Look, I want to be alone."
"Okay. I'll leave you alone."
"Not with you studying me like I'm some pet or something!" Ken sputtered.
"I can't help it. You're fascinating," Jason told him. "You are gorgeous, a perfect Ken doll in every way - even your name's perfect, ha, ha. But I see you here every Thursday, just sitting here and listening to the same songs again and again, and I checked with the guy at the rentals and he confirms that you're here pretty much four or five days a week."
"Yeah, I'm a sad, neurotic fool."
Jason shrugged and began humming that fucking Superman song. Heroes had the right to bleed? Ken could have snorted in derision at that. He was no superhero, but he was slowly breaking apart, but he had no idea how to stop his downward spiral. He didn't want to let go - therein was the problem. Stubbornly, he had refused to move on because he just wanted Drew back. He wanted nothing else. He was stubborn enough to cling to that want and live in a limbo of grief and loneliness just to spite his fate that took Drew away from him. How could anyone love this obsessively and stupidly?
"Hey, that's a hot guy," Jason suddenly said. "I saw him once in one of Billy and Ed's ad campaign thing - what was his name? Drew Riker? Wow, he's kind of cute, but a bit shorter than I expected."
Ken quickly turned - it was pathetic, a part of him noted ironically, how he still responded with hope and alacrity where Drew was concerned - and stood up as Drew - it really was Drew - smiled uncertainly at Ken. And it was Drew who lost the smile in his unguarded look of pure vulnerability, and it was Drew who gave a soft sob as he threw himself into Ken's arms.
"Wow," Jason said, filing away this scene for use in his comic.
FIVE
Drew gasped in pleasure and bit into the headboard of the bed even as his fingers clawed into the sheets, arching his back in pleasure as Ken buried his wicked tongue into the depths of Drew's aching ass. Ken used his thumbs to knead and spread wide the delicious brown pucker as his tongue rimmed the perimeter of the throbbing ring of muscles. Then he was taking a long, deep taste of Drew's most intimate heat. He missed this unique scent and flavor of Drew, just as he missed everything else about Drew, and he lapped, sucked, and tasted Drew until Drew emitted a low guttural cry of pure pleasure.
Drew held on tight onto Ken's muscular shoulders even as he gritted his teeth in pain as Ken plunged deep into him. He tightened his thighs around Ken's torso as he lifted his buttocks to allow Ken better leverage, and then Ken was fucking him hard, so hard that all those years of desultory fucking with people he couldn't bring himself to care with seemed nothing more than an unpleasant dream. This was real, this was Ken, his soul, his life, and Ken's cock plunging deep, in and out, forcefully and hard was the only pleasure Drew knew was real enough to melt the ice in his heart.
The fire that seemed to burn in his body warmed and eased him even as he urgently tensed as his loins seemed to pulse with his inevitable orgasm. He felt safe in the embrace of Ken's solid muscularity, he felt loved and cherished when Ken kissed him hungrily, and he felt like power incarnate as he reveled in the sensation of Ken's powerful thighs pumping urgently between his. He didn't care if there were thicker and longer cocks buried in his ass - they weren't Ken's cock; Ken's cock was all he wanted.
Maybe he cried out that he loved Ken in that moment when he finally came in a powerful climax. Maybe Ken heard, because he was holding Drew tight when he came, and this time, Drew found his embrace a source of strength and calm rather than a suffocating chokehold.
"You love me?" Ken said when he had his breathing in a more steady rhythm.
"Yeah."
"When are you leaving?"
Drew always left for modeling stints in the too short time they were together, and Drew always called at craziest moments when he was lonely to laugh and joke with Ken. The distance between them then let Drew feel safe enough to break down his reservations, not knowing that by sharing himself to Ken and Ken sharing back, they were both falling deeper in love. Only one day did Drew realize how deep he was in this emotional snare he shared with Ken, and only then did he walk out and never looked back.
He had to tell Ken. Ken deserved to know.
"I left because you love me and I love you back," he told Ken. "I'm not justifying my leaving, Ken, I just want you to know why I did it. I was so afraid that you will wake up one day and realize that it's smart and stable Derek that you really want. Derek's straight, but you have no idea how many gay guys want him bad. Me, the gay one, who looks just like Derek minus the brain and charm, becomes their poor man's choice. I look like Derek, fuck, I become Derek to them, and when they realize that I'm not at all like Derek, they dump me, just like that. I always keep a distance between the people I sleep with, Ken, but somehow, you crossed that distance and get to me. I thought that running away and sleeping with prettier guys will do the trick, but it is killing me inside. Maybe if I didn't come back, you'll hear about me one day overdosing from some pills in some hotel room in Europe."
"You think I'm happy?" Ken asked gently. "I'm dying inside as much as you, Drew. I hated you when you left me, and then I hated myself because I was sure it was me who was to blame. I hated until I couldn't hate anymore, and then I was just, well, I stop feeling."
"I'm sorry, Ken. I don't know how I will ever forgive myself for hurting you."
"Maybe we should just shut up and start again?" Ken suggested. "That is, if you're not going to disappear again."
"I won't. I'm tired of running away. You're my good thing in my life, Ken. I'll probably never find anybody else like you, so why the fuck am I running away, I don't know. I'm going to live here, Ken, and I'm going to try and be a nice, responsible guy. Maybe I'll even learn to cook and make you some breakfast like a good man should."
Ken nodded and held the man close to him.
Derek won their game of squash. How typical of Derek, really. Drew rested his aching back against the wall and passed the water bottle to Derek.
"Why did you buy that rare edition of that Superman comic for Jason Behr?" Derek asked. "I thought you can't stand that guy."
"Ken said something about Jason and Superman bleeding. Who knows?" Drew shrugged.
"I'm glad you're back with Ken," Derek told his brother. "He's probably too good for you - "
"Yeah." Drew grinned back at his brother.
"But he's the only one I know stupid enough to want you back, man."
"Asshole." Drew uncorked the water bottle and playfully splashed his brother.
Derek made a playful growl and whacked his brother with the towel. Since Drew lost the game, he'd have to be Derek's best man when Derek renewed his vows with his wife later that week instead of foisting weak excuses on his twin.
"We're both lucky sons of bitches, aren't we?" he asked Derek finally.
"I know I am," Derek said.
Drew thought of Derek, Ken, and his life. "Yeah, I guess I am too," he said.