THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB Gary
By and (c) Lady Poetess
http://clik.to/there
DISCLAIMER This story is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone dead or alive is strictly coincidental.
ONE
"I first fucked a guy when I was fourteen."
Christopher Grace almost dropped the tape recorder he was about to switch on. "I think that classifies as too much information, Mr Lucy," he said.
"If you want to interview me, you should know that I really hate being called Mr Lucy. Call me Gary," the man said curtly. "And what? You don't want to know the sordid sexual details of my life? I thought that's all you people publish nowadays in magazines."
"Gary, well, regardless of the Advocate's occasional dip into exploitative journalism, and I admit there are quite a few instances recently, I can give you my word that I am not here to talk to you about your sex life."
Gary Mayhew Lucy shrugged and pour a glass of old 1904 champagne to Topher, who accepted it graciously. Then he took a deep drink from the bottle itself. Topher hoped the man would remain sober until the end of the interview.
"I let you interview me only because I feel like it," the man said, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his obviously expensive Armani shirt. "And I had to get away from the crowd outside. Fucking buttlickers, they all hate me, but they came because I invited them to and I'm fashionable."
Topher didn't respond to that, even if he privately agreed with Gary's speculation. The man was not born to money - he made it. Gary Lucy was very open about his far from prestigious beginnings - the eldest son of Australian immigrants that migrated here soon after World War Two, Gary was raised in a very middle-class home. His academic grades were average, his sole talent apparently in sports that involved very little thinking and a lot of brute strength. Yet, Gary managed to make an unexpected turnaround late in his high school years, scoring a higher than expected score in the SAT to get him into Yale without relying on any sports scholarships. The streak continued through Yale, culminating with Gary graduating at the top ten percent of his class. He could have been hired by any prestigious multi-national conglomerates, but instead he chose to offer his services to help ailing smalltown businesses compete with chains. Gary Lucy started his own company two years ago using the money he saved and invested on - and he had plenty - that helped entrepreneurs in advice, legal services, and investment opportunities.
How a smalltown nobody, apparently destined to be a nobody, managed to turn into Gary Lucy, considered a hero among many business circles, was what Topher wanted to find out today. Scoring this interview was a triumph, and he hoped to sell this article to some respectable gay magazines like the Advocate (okay, so he lied to Gary when he said he was a staff writer from the magazine) for some extra cash during his college break. He wanted to buy his boyfriend a car.
But now Topher would be grateful if Gary would remain coherent. The man was gorgeous in a totally wrong way: he wasn't handsome, but his very rough and strongly defined facial features were very appealing if one went for the rugged macho type. Gary still played rugby - not football, but the version played by the world outside America - and soccer, and his physique was still in tip-top condition. He might not be a pretty boy, but the cameras loved him. But now Gary seemed more exhausted as opposed to the defiant, blunt, and unapologetically middle-class millionaire that he was known as.
Gary should be happy, shouldn't he? Tonight, he had officially helped reopened the Brigadiers, the (in)famous cutting-edge performing art foundation. The man rarely showed interest in these performances, but he was well-known for never turning down any appeal for sponsorship from cultural foundations. This was another question mark in Gary's life that Topher hoped to find an answer to today.
"No response? You're a smart man," Gary said. He carelessly unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, revealing a little of his moderately hairy chest. "I won't hire you though. I like my employees to be upfront with me. If they think I'm an asshole, I want to say it to my face and tell me why. The other day a pregnant clerk called me a few choice words because apparently my company is not giving her the, what's the word, appropriate? Well, appropriate benefits it is. She wanted some facility where she could take her brat here when she popped the brat out instead of leaving that brat behind in her apartment with no babysitters. Maybe I should fire her. But I respected mothers - they're cool people - so I told my secretary to see if she can get some day care center to work with me on taking the brats of my overpaid employees. So tell me, er, what's your name?"
"People usually called me Topher."
"Topher? What kind of name is that?"
"It's short for Christopher."
"Okay. Topher, eh? Okay, Topher. Ask me what you want to know. I'm twenty-seven, born 27 November, I'm a Sagittaurus, or so I'm told. What else do people need to know about me?"
"Well, we can start with why you choose to help small and cottage industries in America when you could be - "
"Can we talk about something else?"
"Well," Topher said carefully, surprised by the feral tone in the man's until now bizarre but genial nature, "it'll be what people will find interesting about you."
"I'm sorry," Gary said. "I'm not in a good mood today. It's just that... I... you were there at the Brigadiers party, right?"
Topher nodded.
"They sang beautifully, didn't they? Those performers?"
Topher again nodded.
"I knew someone who could sing like that. Actually, I am living the life he should be living," Gary snapped. He shook his head, as if he was arguing with himself. "I'm rich and I can do what I want with my life. But it wasn't fucking right! Carl deserves this life, not me. I'm here because he's right, Topher."
"He is?" Topher asked, not really sure what the hell Gary was talking about.
"Yeah. He told me I don't have to accept that I'm a nobody, you know. I did all this because of him. I promised him I would make something out of myself. And he's right, I like being somebody. But it isn't what I want in this fucking life, Topher."
"And what do you want?" Topher asked.
"I want to be sixteen again. I want to go back in time where I would be with Carl once more." Gary smiled bitterly at Topher's startled expression. "Carl Phillips, that's his name. He was the new kid in school, and I was part of the gang that made his life hell. But everything changed when he was forced to tutor me after school. I was the star football player after all, and it was important that I kept my grades high enough to keep winning trophies for the school. I hated it at first, and I went to his place deliberately planning to make his life hell."
"And you changed your mind?"
"Not at first. I made him cry. It was something I'm not proud of. But the next time I went to his place, we decided to just take this like a business and went about it with as little fuss as possible so that we can both get it over and done with. Funny enough, things changed then. I hated the music he played in his room as we worked, I hated Duran Duran and Roxy Music and all that shit, but I soon started humming them. And somehow along the way he became my best friend." Gary sighed. "You don't want to hear this, right?"
"Actually, I think I do," Topher said, taking the second blank tape out of his bag, just in case.
TWO
Before
"Let's fuck," Gary said, closing the book. "I've done enough differentiation for one day."
"Finish the page, let me check your work, and then we'll talk about fucking," Carl said.
Gary playfully sighed and reopened the book. They were lying on the floor of Carl's room, the door locked and the music always playing, like every evening Gary came to be tutored by Carl. They were both shirtless, not just because of the heat but also because they had been more casual around each other these last few weeks. Gary knew Carl was enjoying the sight of his bare torso, and he often made sure that Carl would keep looking by rubbing his hand on his well-muscled stomach. He had lost his hard-on while he was tackling the calculus problems for the upcoming test, but now that he was close to being done, he was getting hard again in anticipation of sinking his hard meat into Carl's willing male pussy. He wore nothing under his running shorts - just for Carl's benefit - so his erection was very obvious under the flimsy material, a solid fleshy pillar that throbbed along his left thigh, the wide blood-engorged crown peeking out from the opening. Gary enjoyed the sight of Carl as well. Carl's skinny but well-formed body had made Gary lust after him like nothing else the moment Carl walked into class that first day, and now, with Carl's shorts hanging so low to expose the top half of the man's boxer shorts, Gary was itching to rip off the little clothes remaining of Carl's body.
"Done," Gary said through the knotted lust in his throat. He pushed the book along the floor to Carl. "Stop reading that fucking textbook, check my work, and then get naked and let me have that ass." On second thought, he decided to reach out and playfully lifted Carl bodily off the floor and carried the boy over his shoulder. "I'll get them all right," he told Carl cockily, "so let's just skip the checking and get straight to the fucking."
"Arrogant ass," Carl said.
"Well, I've stayed back today just to study a little longer in the library," Gary told him. "I want to get everything correct today. They're calling me a fag now, damn you."
"And are you a fag?" Carl taunted.
"Yes, sir, I am," Gary told him. "I'm your fag, and I'm proud of it."
Carl laughed when Gary climbed onto the bed with him. The laughter ended with a soft murmur of pleasure when Gary kissed him hard.
They were familiar with each other's body. Carl's first day at school ended with the football team cheering as Gary forcefully pumped his cock into Carl's mouth in the locker room. For the next few weeks, Carl would stay back after school to meet Gary in the locker room where Gary would feed his cock into Carl's mouth. It was considered acceptable in the all-boys school for Gary to use Carl as his bitch, such as all-boys school tended to be. Gary was more sexually experienced than his peers in that he'd had both male and female lovers and Carl shocked Gary pleasantly by his undeniable expertise in giving head. Most of Gary's lovers just sucked sloppily or made pained gargling noises as he pumped his cock into their mouths, but Carl got down on his knees and fellated Gary like a pro. Carl would lick daintily at Gary's cock slit to start, and Gary would moan pleasurably as Carl progressed to licking, suckling, and tonguing the whole crown. Carl would then sensually deep throat Gary in a slow rhythm that Gary had never experienced before, driving Gary nuts even after so many times he'd been sucked by Carl, that he would have to lean back weakly against the wall to keep standing on his feet. When Gary was close to blowing his load, Carl would stop and run his lips along Gary's cock shaft instead, his tongue licking the thick veins of that cock until he reached Gary's balls. Mouthing and suckling Gary's heated ball sacs until Gary thought he would just blow his load there and then, Carl would finish Gary off with a slow and steady deep-throat that only increased in pace until Gary was making incoherent bestial sounds of lust and shouted in uncontrollable ecstasy. And even then, Carl milked him until every blow job session left Gary drained, as if every inch of his body had been gloriously wasted from the pleasure.
Three days after Carl began blowing Gary on a daily basis after school, Gary fucked the boy in the ass. Their first time saw Carl hyperventilating as he bent over, the shower drenching his shirt to his skin and his pants and shorts around his knees as the entirely nude Gary wildly rammed his cock up that chute until Carl felt as if he was being torn apart by a baseball bat. Since then, their sexual encounters had been strictly sexual, devoid of any hint of affection, although Gary started walking Carl home soon after they began fucking.
But now, Gary finally kissed Carl. He started kissing Carl the first time he apologized to Carl for losing his temper and fucking the boy so hard that it was almost rape on their first disastrous tutoring session. He'd told himself that he needed Carl to help him pass his exams then. Now, he wasn't so sure as he buried his fingers in Carl's soft dark hair and let his tongue mate hungrily with Carl's. His tongue was already moving in that unmistakably carnal rhythm that mimicked the thrust of his groin against Carl's. His hand pulled Carl's shorts down and his fingers closed around Carl's throbbing erection. Carl repaid the favor by pushing Gary's shorts down to knead Gary's taut butt cheeks.
"Fuck me first," Carl pleaded. "I need you so badly, Gary, please, fuck me now."
"Ooh, someone's feeling selfish today," Gary teased. "I'm thinking of maybe we could suck each other's dick for a while, getting you to lick my ass a bit there while I finger you in the ass..."
Carl gritted his teeth and growled as he gripped Gary's face in his hands. "Fuck me, asshole! I've been without this cock for three days!"
"You know I can't avoid my football training," Gary told him even as he ran the tip of his cock playfully along the sensitive groove between Carl's legs.
"Yeah, and who knows how many cheerleaders or jocks you fucked in the meantime," Carl said with a gasp as Gary's cock crown playfully pushed his ass pucker open.
"Jealous, Carl?" Gary teased. "And you know there's no other fucking-body," he told Carl. "Right now I'm fully occupied with you. The guys are teasing me about it."
"Don't blame me for that - oh, shit!" Carl gasped when Gary finally gave him what he wanted.
Gritting his teeth as he slowly pushed his cock up that unbelievably hot ass, Gary paused to kiss Carl tenderly on the shoulder. "Relax, Carl," he whispered into the boy's ear. "Tomorrow is Saturday, remember? I'm staying here all night."
"You're all mine tonight," Carl growled.
"Absolutely," Gary agreed.
"All mine..."
"All yours," Gary concurred.
They both gasped for breath as they paused to savor the sensation of Gary's full length embedded completely in Carl's deep anus until the curls at Gary's crotch pressed against and teased the hairs of Carl's anal gash. Then Gary began thrusting that thickly-veined solid male cock in and out of that ass, slowly at first, as Carl lay on his left side and lifted his right leg high so that Gary could fuck him easier from the back.
There was a knock on the door. "You boys okay in there? No fighting, you hear?"
"Okay, Dad," Carl gasped.
"Carl is teaching me about friction and steady velocity," Gary called out as he didn't miss a stroke.
Satisfied, Carl's father left the boys to their own devices. Gary laughed with Carl as he playfully held Carl and turn them so that Carl was now sitting on Gary. Carl sat back and interlaced his fingers with Gary's as he began riding Gary's cock hard. Gary met his thrust with his own, lifting his hips in a powerful upward motion as Carl sat down hard on that cock, settling his hips down when Carl lifted his ass, until their moans of pleasure blended into the wet slapping sounds of their mating flesh. Gary's wide cock filled Carl entirely to the limit, bruising Carl's prostate so violently that Carl was soon coming so hard, his cock shooting his creamy come across his stomach and over his shoulders to splatter on Gary's stomach. Gary was close behind, taking advantage of Carl's orgasm-weakened state to move them so that Carl was on all fours now and Gary could really bang the shit out of him. He groped for the remote and turned up the volume of the music as the bed began creaking loudly and thumping hard against the wall with the force of his thrusts. Yes, so close, so close... Gary roared as the burning in his balls turned into a conflagration, every nerve on his body on fire as he gave one final thrust and surrendered to his powerful climax.
TWO
Carl's father was a brilliant researcher but he could also be unbelievably clueless at times. The man might be a respected Swede biochemist that was right now affiliated with MIT, but he was also lamentably oblivious to the relationship between Carl and Gary. Gary listened with a smile as all three of them sat down for breakfast the next morning, Mr Phillip talking about how glad he was that his son had found a friend here. Gary had heard this before since he dropped by the Phillip place more often. Carl's mother died a few years back, and the two men had been moving often since, wherever the next job of Mr Phillip's father would take them. Gary couldn't imagine that Mr Phillip would actually suspect nothing this morning when Carl looked flushed just like someone who had been fucked totally - which was what Gary had given him this morning before they came down for breakfast.
Gary was fascinated by both men. He enjoyed fucking Carl, but he was also starting to enjoy having both Phillips talking to him as if he's their equal. His own parents had given up hope on him and Gary's mother always said that she would be grateful if he would complete high school and then take over his father's convenient store. The thought of spending the rest of his life in this town often made Gary feel like beating up something, but he'd come to accept that he would probably amount to nothing more. In this household, however, Mr Phillip talked about recent current events and developments with Carl and he often included Gary in their chatter, so much so that Gary started reading the newspaper and paying more attention to the TV in his father's store when he worked there just to keep up. He kinda liked knowing things and he felt smart for the first time when he managed to discuss tax cuts and other issues with the Phillips. Too bad his parents thought he was going crazy when he started fighting with his father for the morning papers.
Like the concept of homosexuality, right-wing and left-wing politics had no meaning to Mr Phillip. The man read everything he could and absorb all information so that he could form his own opinions. Carl had told Gary that when someone took the left-wing stance in a conversation, Mr Phillip would deliberately take the opposite stance and vice-versa. He adored his father, and Gary somewhat enviously could see why. He had never seen some smart people like the Phillips before. The townspeople tended to be cordial to the Phillips but not close, as they were still newcomers. Gary was already privately wishing that they would stay here always. As he always did, for a brief moment he imagined himself a part of this household and how Mr Phillip would treat him like a beloved son-in-law.
Gary stole a goodbye kiss from Carl when they were alone before he left the house. Already, he felt bereft of something undefined as he took each step away from the house. In that house, he felt like a different person. With each step away from the house, he was slowly becoming Gary Lucy again, an oafish and badly-behaved dumb jock who was who he was because he couldn't help it. "Oh Gary," everyone would say, "why can't he just grow up?" Gary found himself wondering that too more and more frequently nowadays.
As was his ritual every weekend, he spent the rest of the morning and afternoon working at his father's store. Business was badly affected since they opened a Wal-Mart at the next town, but Gary's father had no idea how to improve matters. He was set in his ways. Gary never thought to question the way things were. But more and more often, he found himself thinking of the things he had read in the papers and books and devising ideas to improve this family business. The first time he suggested that they specialize their business instead of trying to do the same things Wal-Mart was doing ten times better, his father shot him down with a reminder of how little Gary Lucy is supposed to know. It stung more than Gary expected, and his ego forced him to shut up since.
"Hi there, bag boy," Carl said as Gary was busy fixing price tags on some cans of tuna. "Get me some milk, will you?"
"I'll give you milk," Gary retorted, thrusting his hips meaningfully, as he passed Carl what he wanted. "I thought you were supposed to be attending some nerd meeting at school."
"Well, I've changed my mind. I find that I'm a bit bored by nerd meetings. I've got some tickets to this cool cutting-edge play, this Saturday, but my father can't make it. I know this isn't your kind of fun, but my friends are all occupied, so I wonder if..."
"If I can drive you there? Hell, what do you think I am? Your driver?" Gary took the tickets and stuffed them in his pocket. They both know that it was most likely that none of Carl's acquaintances at school would go with him. But Gary didn't say it even as he made sure that Carl couldn't change his mind about asking Gary along. "I'll pick you at - " he pulled out a ticket - "five. We'll have an early dinner before the play. And if the play is dull, you're owe me a big one."
Carl's radiant smile was enough to make Gary walk on air for the next few hours.
"I've never had any friends before," Carl said, turning to look at Gary. "I hated you at first."
"I thought we had fun," Gary said. "I thought you liked getting fucked by me."
Carl looked over Gary's body. "I have a suspicion that many people would like getting fucked by you." Gary grinned. "I like it much better when we are acting more like friends. Fucking you becomes much enjoyable."
They spent some back in the back seat of Gary's car after the play. Now, they stood at the side of the road, watching nothing in particular, just enjoying the cool night air and not keen on this day ending too soon. Carl left his shirt unbuttoned while Gary didn't even bother pulling on his shirt. Both of them leaned against their car parked by the road, enjoying the silence.
"It can't be easy... you moving around and all," Gary broached cautiously.
"No. Dad always says I'm different from the other kids because I sometimes know too much."
"While I don't know anything," Gary teased.
"Really? You don't seem too ignorant to me," Carl said with a curious look at Gary.
"Well, I tried reading up to impress you and your father," Gary confessed. "Why do you think I worked so hard at shit like calculus and economics, man? I want you two to like me."
"Gary, are you falling in love with me?"
Gary cursed. He tried to make a joke. "I don't know," he confessed. "I just want you to like me, that's all. And I want you to stay," he added fiercely. "I want you to be there and cheer for me after every game and give me a victory blow job at the back seat of my car."
"You think too much about blow jobs."
"Don't blame you. You're good at me," Gary told Carl. "I bet you started blowing the guys in school young. Your father will be shocked if he knows, I bet."
"Hey, what I did with the guys in my old schools are none of your business." Carl chuckled at Gary's look of consternation. "But you are bigger than most of them."
"Most of them?" Gary echoed.
"Okay, all of them." Carl smiled to himself.
"That's better," Gary said. "As I'm saying before you interrupted me like that, I want you to stay. That's all."
"Then I have to tell you this, I guess. My Dad has received a tenure offer from Cambridge, and he is seriously considering accepting it."
"Cambridge? Isn't that in England?" Gary exclaimed.
"Yeah."
"Why the hell are you moving so soon after you came here?" Gary cried.
"Hey, you think I like moving?" Carl asked. He took a steadying breath. "But what can I do? He's my family, and I have to go where he goes."
"When are you leaving?" Gary didn't want to look at Carl. He couldn't stand it. He was slowly wishing that he had never even met the guy.
"Maybe in November. But there's still a chance that my father wants to stay here," Carl said. When Gary didn't answer, he said tentatively, "Gary?"
"I wish you've never come into my life!" Gary's yell startled the both of them. "Leave then, damn you," Gary cried even as his heart began hurting like hell. "I don't care. I don't need you. I don't need anyone." It hurt, it really hurt. Gary had never hurt so much before, not even when he broke his collarbone once during football practice. Wiping angrily at the tears that he wasn't even aware he was shedding with his sleeves, he opened the car door and gestured at Carl to get inside.
"Carl - "
"Shut up and get in!" Gary shouted.
Carl got in.
Gary drove like a madman, only stopping the car with a loud screech of burning rubber before Carl's place. "Get out," he snarled as he pushed open the car door. And he pulled the door shut and drove off without letting Carl a chance to say any more.
"Oh Gary. You'll get used to it, just like I've gotten used to it," Carl whispered sadly as he watched Gary sped over. He ran his fingers wearily through his hair, wishing he could do something, but he was helpless in this situation. Finally, he just walked towards the door, each heavy step an echo of the hollow thud of his every heartbeat.
During lunch time the next day, Gary placed his food on the table and sat beside Carl. "Don't leave," was the first thing he said. "You can stay at my place. When we graduate from this fucking school, I can rent us a room somewhere and we can stay together. Not here, but maybe in the city."
"I can't," Carl said. "I would love to, but you see how my father is. He needs someone to take care of him or he will forget to even eat."
Gary gave an ugly laugh. "I'm never going to leave this place," he said, his voice a high but quavery pitch that reflected his confused emotions. "I'll be forced to take over my father's store. I will spend my entire life shelving bottles of Seven-Up and Coke and wishing I've never been born. And now that I begin to like you more and more, Carl, you're leaving me behind in this shit hole. Fuck, I wish I can hate you. Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
"Carl, we just knew each other for a few months - "
"I don't give a damn how many months we've been fucking each other," Gary said fiercely. "All I know is that something in me changed after I knew you and your father, and I like that person I'm changing into. I don't want to go back to being the old me, Carl. I can't stand going back to that old life where I don't know you. Every night, I want to come over to your place, climb that tree beside your house, and tap on your window so that you will let me in. When I can't, I go to sleep dreaming that I did, you know, that I'm somehow sleeping beside you in your bed. The very idea that I am never to see you again, that is fucking unacceptable!"
Carl looked at his tray of food, what little of his appetite gone. "What do you want me to say?" he asked miserably. "I can't stay here when my father leaves."
Gary opened his mouth, but only shook his head instead. "Fine," he said finally. "Forget it. I don't need this shit. There are many people that want a piece of me. I don't need you. We're through, Carl. I don't even want to talk to you."
"Have it your way," Carl whispered tightly.
Gary backhanded his tray of food, causing it and its content to fall onto the floor with a loud crash. And then he walked away.
THREE
Present
"He left just like he said, in November," Gary said in a flat monotone. "By then, I've made a complete fucking mess of myself. I lied, Topher, when I told him that I could find his replacement in my bed easy. I didn't want anyone. I ended up getting drunk and fighting that I was worse off then before. My father threatened to disown me, but I didn't care. All I knew was that he was leaving for another continent, for fuck's sake, what was there for me anymore?"
Topher nodded sympathetically. He glanced at the clock. It was almost ten. Gary had been talking for almost three hours. Privately, he had sent a message to Jared on his cellphone that he would be running late because the interview had taken a strange turn.
"I didn't want to go to the airport to see him leave," Gary said. "I really didn't."
Before
"Go away," Gary snarled as he sat in his room and tried to get wasted.
"It's me."
"Go away, Mom," Gary snarled.
"Open the door or I will ask your father to break it down."
Gary cursed foully but he pulled on a clean pair of jeans over his shorts and let him mother in. Sure enough, his mother began scolding him over the stench of alcohol and the dirty clothes littering the floor. As he watched her pick up his clothes, he asked in what he hoped was a more polite tone, "Mom, what the hell do you want?"
"You have been holed up in here acting like a jackass," his mother said, throwing the dirty clothes at Gary. "You've always been a jackass, but never this deliberately nasty to anyone. You get into fights and the sheriff suspects you of doing drugs. What is going on, Gary? Is it that Phillip boy?"
"Mom, don't go there," Gary warned.
"What? You think I can't handle my son being in love with another boy?" She snorted at Gary's shocked look. "I won't speak for your father, but I'm too old to worry about who you are seeing. All I care is that you don't end up screwing up your life. I've seen my brothers get drunk, beat their wives, and generally being scums. Why do you think I told you I have no family? I disowned them all. I got lucky, I married your father, a good man, and I have a good life. And when I see how that Phillip boy get you to study and get decent grades in school, I'm happy for you."
"Mom, he's leaving," Gary couldn't help saying with a sob. "He's leaving me for fucking Cambridge in England!"
"Is that why you have been acting like a jerk these last two months?"
"I don't know what to do, Mom," Gary whispered.
"When is he leaving?"
"Today."
"So go see him at the airport." His mother sat on the bed and hugged her son tight. "Look, Gary, it will be better if you tell him goodbye. Listen to Momma, okay? If you don't make your peace with him, you will spend a long time after this wondering about what could have been."
"Okay," Gary said in a small voice. "I have to go then."
His mother nodded and got onto her feet. She pulled apart the curtains, letting the sunlight stream into the room. It was strangely appropriate, this sunlight brightening his room, Gary thought, as he unsteadily got on his feet. Where were his clean clothes? He need to look great for Carl, he thought as he pulled open his wardrobe door. He had to tell Carl how sorry he was and how he regretted being so stupid.
Before he ran out the door, he promised his mother that he would do the dishes tonight. She upped it to three nights per week.
"Carl!" Thank God, thank God he was in time, Gary thought as he ran towards those two at the airport hallway. "Carl, oh Carl!" he said, half-sobbed actually, as he embraced Carl like a man drowning. "I'm so sorry," he said, "I shouldn't have behaved the way I did, I - "
Carl's father coughed and murmured, "I'll leave you two alone. Carl, I'll be at the bar."
And that was when Gary realized that Carl's father knew about Gary and his son all along.
"I wish I've spent the last few months..." Gary tried to find the correct words to say. "I wish I had made you happy. When I think of the wasted time that we could have spent fucking and just enjoying each other's company, I hate myself, Carl. I'm an idiot. I deserve to be an idiot!"
"No. Damn it, Gary, no, okay?" Carl tried to steady his voice. Damn, he hated it when he cried. "I was hoping that you won't show up, because I always thought it will be easier to say goodbye this way. But I'm glad you did. I really am, okay? Shit, I'm babbling."
Gary tried to smile. "I'll always think of you."
"You won't," Carl told him. "This will be a nice memory, but we will move on. There will be other people. Don't look at me like that, Gary. I'm good at saying goodbyes and moving on. I know what I am saying. And in a way, you will always be my biggest mistake, because my first rule is to never let anyone get close to me, but you did. But yeah, I'm glad you did."
"So you'll forgive me?" Gary asked.
Carl nodded. "Only if I can one day open a newspaper and read about how they call you a hero."
"No problem," Gary said. "Maybe we can write? Call each other?"
"I'd rather not. I love you, Gary. And I think you love me too. So let's just go our separate ways on this, okay?"
What could Gary say to that? "Okay," he said, dejected and defeated at last. He kissed Carl on the lips one last time. "I love you," he said. His heart seemed to grow lighter and beat more freely when he said those words, as if his soul had been unburdened at last by his honest confession. "I think I always will."
"And I you." Carl looked at the arrivals and departures board. "I have to go," he said finally. "Get them to name a stage foundation after me!" he called jokingly.
Gary nodded. He held Carl's hand for as long as he could, until he had to finally let Carl go. "Goodbye, Carl," he whispered as he watched Carl and his father walked into the departure hall. His heart was breaking. But he would survive, he told himself fiercely. He had to.
Present
"So I did it. I'm a hero, in a way, and I had them name an arts scholarship after Carl," Gary said. "I did what Carl asked me to. So, what do you think? Am I an idiot or am I a romantic fool?"
"A romantic, Gary, and an admirable man who has done more for himself as well as the people around him," Topher said. He thought of the men that was constantly linked to Gary in the social papers. "And you've moved on with life after Carl?" he asked gently.
"I've tried. But I gave in and had people search for Carl a few years back because I'm so tired of thinking about him. I hoped that... well, they couldn't find Carl. It was as if he had dropped off the earth after he graduated from medical school in Cambridge. I don't know if he's dead or alive." Gary ran his hand over his face wearily. "I'm so tired, Topher. I still dream of him sometimes. I even had imaginary conversations with him in my mind when I am close to giving up in my job. Do you get me? He's my hero, Topher. Carl saved me, he made me a better person. I wish I could have told him just how much he means to me." He shrugged. "Anyway, that's it. Write what you want from this, I don't care. I just need someone to talk to, and I'm glad it's you. Thank you. Now fuck off."
Maybe he should have been nicer to that guy, Gary reflected when he was alone in his study. He pulled open a drawer and took out the weapoon he kept there. He checked it, made sure that the one bullet he had always kept in the magazine, and placed it on the table for his perusal. He lifted it, pressed it against his left temple, opened his mouth and pushed it against the roof of his mouth, and then placed it back at the table.
The telephone interrupted his thoughts. Cursing under his breath, he answered it with an ungracious, half-growled, "Yeah?"
"So you're a hero."
Gary couldn't find his voice for a heartbeat. "Yes, I am. Don't I look good on the magazine cover?" he finally said.
"I like what you did to my name."
"How did you get my number?" Gary asked. Not that he cared how. He would give the person who passed the number to Carl a million dollars for his service.
"I told them I'm the Carl Phillip whom you thoughtfully asked the scholarship to be named after." A pause. Carl was as equally unnerved as Gary. "How are you, Gary?"
"I'm fine. You read some of what I did in the last thirteen years. You want me to tell you the rest? And where the fuck have you been, Carl?"
"Through hell, I guess. My father died when I graduated - "
"I'm sorry. He's a good man."
"Thanks. I'm relieved he died the way he did - in his sleep. I miss him. And I miss you too."
"Thanks. The feeling's mutual."
"I spent the last ten years moving around the globe, being a doctor. Where there was a war, plague, or strife, there I was, working to save what wretched souls I could. I spent two years in between recuperating from a shell that lodged itself in my head and almost killed me. It was hell. I'm letting you know, Gary, because when I finally gone back to my apartment in London and found those letters you wrote to me six years back that I never even knew - I was away for so long, believe me, Gary, please - and then, I read that magazine a friend showed me when he was curious about the name (he knew that I had a boyfriend named Gary) and I - fuck, fuck, fuck!" Carl was shouting the last few words. Steadier now, he continued, "Gary, I'm the biggest fool in the world to think that I can't mean as much to you as you mean to me. Talking to you in my mind was how I kept sane these last few years. If I fly down to New York at the next flight to you, will you forgive me?"
Gary smiled into the darkness. "Yes, I will, Carl. Let me get a pen so that I can make note of your flight's time of arrival."
"Don't drive like a monster like last time. I want to see you in one piece."
"I won't," Gary promised. "I am a steadier, more mellow man now."
"While I'm a much more unsteady, half-crazed man with a certified case of PSTD. You've been warned, Gary."
"We'll take one day at a time and see where we go from here," Gary promised him.
He switched on the lights in his room so that he could see what he was writing. And Carl told him that he would be arriving next day at two in the afternoon.