THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB
Nicholas

Written by Lady Poetess
egiggles at moose-mail.com
http://www.asstr.org/~bbp

Please do not reproduce on any website without permission. This
story has no resemblance to anyone dead or alive.

PROLOGUE

Danny Nucci maintained that he never would had learned to
tolerate, okay, like Nicholas Kyle Westerly George Zane Wechsler
IV somewhat a little if they hadn't dropped a giant metallic
something through his apartment roof.

It was lucky he wasn't in bed at the moment, although it would be
a cold day in hell before Danny would admit to jerking off on his
couch to a porno video playing on TV. He had a no-nonsense, stern,
and smooth image to maintain, and fucking hell would he tell
anyone he was flying solo at home.

Still, it ruined what little of a pathetic come he was working
himself up to, and the sight of a large, metal round ball in the
center of the shattered debris that were his bed and roof left him
speechless. He looked up at where his roof was, and saw a
helicopter hovering at the night sky. There was a man yelling
something at him too from the open helicopter door.

"What?" Danny yelled.

"Zip up your fucking pants!" the man yelled.

Danny realized that his right hand was still holding his flaccid
dick. Perfect, his humiliation was complete, he barely escaped
death, and he had nowhere to sleep. Perfect.



ONE

Nick was the sort of guy everyone tried to avoid in the office. He
was a fellow who got things done, yes, but he was also quiet,
withdrawn, and looked at people in a guarded and surly manner that
people just tended not to include him in after-office social
functions. He ate his lunch alone in his office, talked to people
only when people found it absolutely necessary, and nobody knew or
cared to know what he did after office.

Danny didn't care either. He had been Nick's personal assistant
for two months now, organizing the man's life with the skilful
efficiency drilled into him by his hotel manager mother and
secretary father (yes, you read that right - the father was a
secretary and the mother a hotel manager). He was a good personal
assistant. So good, it seemed, that Nick actually asked him to
stay over at his house until the fucking bastards that crashed his
roof and almost killed him finished fixing his roof. (Danny was
also paid a nice close to six-figure sum to settle the case out of
court - the folks responsible didn't want the bad publicity for
their carelessness.) Danny agreed. He needed somewhere to sleep
anyway.

Nick was the sort of man who was short - five feet six or seven
was a reasonable estimation - and the lack of height was made
worse by the man's geek glasses and hair from hell. Some geeks
were handsome, tall creatures attractive in their silent
intelligence. Nick was. well, short and awkward.

But his house was gorgeous. Danny was surprised to discover that
books dominated the large house. Books lined the shelves of a
study as well as the reading room converted into Danny's temporary
bedroom. There was also a personal gym and a large kitchen that
Nick actually used. All was spick and span - Danny's parents would
approve.

It was just like Danny expected of Nick's place - apart from the
books. Nick didn't strike Danny as someone who read often. But
everything else about the barren neatness and personality-free
porcelain perfection of Nick's life fitted the man's friendless
life. And thrust into this sterile environment, Danny couldn't
help feeling a measure of pity for the lonely man Nick must have
been. At least Danny's control freak parents had each other. Nick
had his perfect, lifeless house.

Maybe he ought to do something to repay Nick for his letting Danny
sleep in the largest bedroom he had ever slept in.

Danny studied the white curtains of the glass pane overlooking New
York's skyline thoughtfully. Yes, that was what he'd do. He'd give
this apartment some personality.



"Hey, boss, what do you think?" Danny asked two days later,
stepping back to admire the effects of the pastel red curtains.

Nick had given him full rein in redecorating the house, much to
Danny's surprise. Then again, maybe he shouldn't be. Nick
exhibited as much care for this house and on his own self as one
would care for a dead fish left on the road. The man didn't seem
to come to life at all except at work, in the office, where he was
asked animatedly - in frustration, impatience, or with a smile on
his face for reasons unknown - for his schedule or upcoming
meetings from Danny. In his house, Nick was just as lifeless as
the perfect, polished ornaments that lined the wall.

"Nice," Nick said simply, watching Danny more than the curtains.
"Maybe you ought to get some new furniture next." He could be
mocking, if his voice wasn't such a monotone. "I'm off to read."

"Wait." Danny bit his lip. The word came out purely by instinct,
and now he had no idea what to say next to his extremely reticent
boss.

Nick was waiting for his answer, and it might be Danny's
imagination that the man actually looked. hopeful? Probably just
his imagination. "I don't get you," he said finally. "Don't you do
anything around here other than to work yourself out to a stupor
in the gym and then sleep? Come on, do something else for a
change."

He wouldn't be so impertinent, were he not feeling that it was
just wrong for even someone like Nick to just live like this, in a
void. He had seen the man sat in his study, his eyes gazing at
something far only he could see, or the man running on the
treadmill and demolishing the punching bag until he finally
collapsed from exhaustion. Nick had this inexplicable drive to do
- something, Danny guessed, and more than once Danny also imagined
Nick drowning in his own dark existence. And Danny pitied this
man, although he sensed Nick wouldn't appreciate that.

"What do you suggest?" Nick just asked, his face inscrutable as if
etched in stone. He wanted to say more, but he just closed his
mouth and walked away. A short, rather stout man only slightly
hunched in his posture, appearing to Danny like a man who knew he
was defeated without knowing the reasons why.



TWO

"Hello boss," Danny said.

Nick looked up from his reading the menu. Danny, his mind
registered, and as always when it came to Danny, his mind shut
down soon after. "What do you want?" came out before he could take
it back. No, don't go, I don't mean it, he wanted to say
desperately - please, Danny, stay. His fingers tightened
dangerously around the menu, and he didn't realize he was holding
his breath until Danny grinned and took a seat. Then he breathed.

"I hope you don't mind me doing this, but what are you doing this
Friday night?" Danny asked. "Anything good to eat here?"

Nick looked at Danny in disbelief. He was staring, he knew, like
an idiot, but he couldn't do anything else. As always, Danny had
this effect of sizzling his senses. The man's elfin face and
beautiful long, feminine eyelashes that set off brown, ethereal
eyes that compelled Nick to lose himself in their depths -- the
sight of Danny never failed to send a painful stab of longing in
Nick's stonewalled heart.

He wanted to flee this moment. Inviting Danny to stay, urged by a
wild hope that they might become friends and hopefully more, was a
bad mistake. Danny would know how just how pathetic a man he was,
and he had lost even the grounds to pretend he was a brilliantly
sunny and cheerful, gregarious man like Danny. Danny doing this,
inviting Nick no doubt to a friendly social, would only make Nick
dream more impossible dreams and want more than wise.

Maybe it was too late. This one gesture of friendly overture was
already catapulting Nick into feeling freer and happier than he
had ever remembered.

"I don't have anything to do this Friday," he said calmly. Hiding
his feelings was an art he perfected. Even the embarrassment of
admitting his lack of social life to Danny.

"Then it's perfect. You can't say no. I'm going to a friend's
birthday party. I want you to come along with me." Danny smiled.
"Come on, we may even find you a nice gay guy to be friends with."

He had thought Danny the most beautiful man he had ever seen since
he walked into his life.

"Okay," he said.



THREE

The days passed like a dream for Nick. He had a beyond wonderful
time on Friday night. Nick told Danny so as he opened the car door
for Danny to get out. Seth Green, whose birthday it was, was
actually shorter than Nick (yes, he was shallow) and he was a nice
guy. In that brief three hours, Nick felt as if he belonged to a
community of people. He wasn't the boy who hid behind the tree,
trying hard to belong but just not knowing how. So many nice
people who talked to him and even touched him in the back and
included him in their conversations even when he was an obvious
stranger - Nick was still reeling from the euphoria.

It was all because of Danny. Funny Danny who brought out the best
in him, a rare laugh that startled even himself. A man called
Jeremy even invited him to join the man and some friends in an
upcoming pool tournament Jeremy was determined to win. Nick
couldn't play pool, and he said he wasn't sure he could come.
Jeremy said he would call. Nick hoped the man would, he hoped they
weren't just friends in his mind. These people accepted Nick
because of Danny.

He took off his spectacles and watched Danny who was humming as he
switched on the light of the living room. His house - Nick
chuckled. He could barely recognize his house. Not just because of
the color he allowed Danny to add, but because Danny made the
whole house brighter and more livable. Sometimes when Nick had
given all his strength working out his loneliness and muted
frustrations in physical workouts, he would close his eyes and
imagined that Danny would never leave.

He grew to love the things Danny did as well. Danny, he learned,
was as beautiful inside as outside. This newfound sappy poetry in
him he embraced fully. For the first time in his life,
companionship wasn't just sex. He wished there was sex, but this
was something else. The way he allowed Danny into persuading him
into doing things, it surprised as well as delighted him. Danny
loved jazz and spent his free nights playing the saxophone with
his band, creating what he called 'the electronic jazz sound'.
Nick didn't know anything about jazz, but he watched Danny played,
and felt the world ceased into an insignificant blur as his senses
focused on Danny, only Danny. Always.



"Holy fuck," Danny said that Thursday night when they walked out
of the club. "Your car," he said unnecessarily.

Nick could see that. Someone had taken black paint and
thoughtfully left FAGGOT, loud and prominently at the driver's
side of his car. A few seconds of examination revealed that the
other side was just as thoughtfully decorated.

"Holy fuck indeed," Nick said as he peeled a note stuck under the
windscreen. His fingers instinctively crumpled it after he'd read
it. "It's for you."

"Now this is rich. First I almost were accidentally killed, and
now someone wants me out of town. Since when did I become this
popular?" Danny blew his bewilderment. "Shall I call the cops?"

"Why not?" Nick said. Someone tried to mess with Danny. The surge
of fury that washed through him was nothing he'd expected before.
If that asshole who wrote that note and no doubt spray painted the
car was before him, he'd tore the bastard apart with his bare
hands. No one touched those he had come to value above his own
life. And when Danny was once an infatuation, after Nick had known
the man better, Danny had become a good friend. Maybe more.

Nick released the breath he had been holding. Calm down, he told
himself - calm down. Slowly releasing his clenched fists, he
watched as Danny called the cops on Nick's cell phone. Danny cast
him a small grin, and Nick grinned back. He looked at the car as
he got into it. What the fuck, he always wanted to give it a new
coat of paint anyway.

Danny suggested red. Nick liked the idea.

That night Danny found another note, this time in an envelope,
shoved into Nick's post box along with the other mail. Nick spent
an extra hour boxing that night.

Danny was walking back from the kitchen for some late night snack
when he saw the gym lights still switched on.

"For fuck's sake, Nick, it's late." The words trailed when Danny
realized that Nick was wearing only a pair of tights that ended
probably an inch above the midpoint of the man's thighs.

Wow, Danny thought. He had known underneath the man's admittedly
fabulous clothes was a hard body - one would have a hard body if
one worked out as constantly as Nick did - but he never expected
this stunningly well-formed physique. Nick's body wasn't the well-
chiseled, polished Hollywood perfection honed by physical trainers
- his was the coarser physique honed by constant raw physical
exertion, a more exciting tapestry of sweat-soaked hard, fluidly-
moving biceps and triceps, perfectly delineated abdominal muscles,
and skin flushed in his exertions. And when Nick looked up at
Danny, Danny noticed that Nick's eyes were a startlingly brilliant
shade of emerald.

His body seemed to be imbued with an aura of romantic broodiness,
like a beaten warrior refusing to go down.

"What is it?" Nick asked, his voice still harsh from his
exertions.

"It's late," Danny said simply.

"So?" Nick smashed his fist onto the bag hard. "What good does it
do?"

"One of these days you are going to have to work on your
communication skills," Danny said, swallowing hard as Nick's
muscles bunched taut with every action of the man. The way those
hard muscled thighs tensed was giving Danny a hard-on, tempting
him hard with the tantalizing notion of having those powerful
thighs straddling him, or he himself clasping Danny's sweaty, rock-
hard muscular torso with his thighs, running his hands down those
perfect pectorals.

"I want you," Nick said. "How's that for communication, Danny? I
want you. You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen."
Wham! "I will give anything in my power if you will give me a
chance to be the man in your life." Nick smashed his fist hard
into the punching bag, ignoring the pain that shot up his arm.
"You make my life worth living in those few moments you are in it.
You make my world tolerable. Arrrgggh!" His knuckles started to
bleed with each hard pummel. "Just give me a chance, Danny."

Only then did he gave a choke - or was it a sob? - and let the
punching bag smash into him before he grabbed it with both his
hands.

"Wow. That's surprisingly many words for you," Danny said. He had
to sit down. He leaned against the door instead.

"I never had any friends when I was a boy. I was always the one
hiding behind the tree, because my father was an important man and
there was always people looking to get at him through me. I was
short." Nick slowly unwound the strip of white fabrics from his
bleeding hand. "I was tongue-tied. People can never remember I
existed at all. I have had men in all my life, but none lasted for
long. Do you know how hard it is to live like this? To have the
people you work with or face with every day in your life not even
caring about you?"

"Nick, I - "

"I tried to talk to you once, to ask you to go on a date with me.
You don't remember, do you? Why should you? You just nodded and
dashed off without listening to me," Nick said in a hard voice.
"Only when you need me do you listen to me. And stupid me, I still
live for the moment you smile at me. But the last few days you
confused me, Danny. What are you doing? You are being nice to me,
and I start hoping stupid dreams, Danny. Tell me what the fuck are
you doing?"

Danny flinched from the man's outburst. "I'm sorry if I was
thoughtless. You're right, I never thought to see you as even a
human being, until." He gestured vaguely. "I'm sorry. I just don't
think you should be living like this, in this life of perfect
angles and straight lines with so much white space. My parents are
like you, I'm like you, and in a way I understand how you are
feeling, and I. well, pity you."

"I don't want your pity. I want." Nick hesitated, not realizing
how cheesy or corny his inadvertent hesitation was.

Danny straightened himself and in a fluid motion pulled his shirt
over his head. He dropped it in front of him to the stunned Nick.
He swallowed his nervousness and smiled valiantly at Nick. "Well?"
he asked.

Nick released the breath he was holding. His feet took on a life
of their own, propelling him to the other man, as did his fingers
when they tangled themselves in the light fur on Danny's chest. He
couldn't speak, he could only parted his lips and prayed Danny to
be his. And Danny's lips grazed his tentatively, as if the man was
scared. Funny - Nick was the shorter man here, who had to pull
Danny's head down slightly, and Danny was feeling fucking nervous?

He wanted to say something, to tell Danny something, a flattery,
perhaps, but Danny's arms closed around his neck, and Nick didn't
care about talking.

"Hey, take it easy!" Danny said when Nick pushed him against the
wall.

"Sorry," Nick murmured sheepishly, his hands roughly pulling down
Danny's shorts. In a moment he had his shorts shoved down his
thighs, and then Danny's fingers closed around his cock. He almost
came at that contact, indeed, a spurt of semen greeted Danny's
fingers. Then Danny was guiding him into that tight, heated sheath
of his anus. Nick gasped as indescribably pleasure burned his
senses at the sheathing of his cock, and his hips reflexively
bucked up hard, feeding roughly his cock's length deeper up Danny
as the latter gave a choked cry.

His muscles, strained from his boxing/demolishment session,
protested as he pushed Danny up the wall, bending his thighs
slightly so that the other man could sit on him. As Danny's legs
lifted to clasp Nick's waist, Nick splayed his hands against the
wall. His greatest regret was he not being able to kiss Danny's
lips in this position, so he did the next best thing. As he pumped
the man, his lips closed over Danny's right nipple and he feasted
on that succulent bud of flesh. Danny's fingers closed around
Nick's buttocks, urging the man to fuck him harder with his
clawing fingers as well as choked gasps.

The orgasm caught him unawares - he moaned, his hips buckling
slightly even as he banged Danny in harder, shorter, bruising
stabs of his penis. He felt Danny convulsing in his own climax
even as Nick gave it to him. Nick only lost his balance after the
last of his ejaculation left him utterly drained in every sense of
the word, and he fell. And Danny, thank God, fell with him.



FOUR

"Fucking son of a bitch! He is supposed to be mine!" the wild-eyed
man screamed at Danny.

"I guess we are talking about Nick? Who the hell are you?" Danny
asked, edging towards the men's room door. Trust his luck to be
ambushed this way. The entire week, Nick had been the
overprotective bodyguard, watching over Danny with a tenacity that
infuriated as well as charmed him. But on this dinner date, Danny
had to confront the lunatic whom he supposed left those notes and
spray painted Nick's car. Danny quickly take stock of his
situation: there was nothing he could use as a weapon, except for
the wet roll of toilet paper which would be fucking useless.

"Look, whatever you want, take it easy okay," he told the man.

"What the fuck you think this is? A TV cop show?" the other man
shouted and lunged.

"Shit!" Danny cursed, ducked as the man jumped over him, and tried
to dash for the door.

"Danny?" Nick opened the door at the same time, the door catching
Danny right in the face. "Fuck! Donald, what are you doing?"

"You motherfucking bastard! I loved you, and you betrayed me!"
Donald said.

"This is turning into a bad TV show," Danny whispered to himself.
"Nick, get the fuck out of here."

There was a flash of light reflected on blade. Danny saw the blade
in Donald's wild eyes descending on him in slow motion. Move,
move, move! his panicked mind screamed. Nick gave a low growl at
the same time as he threw himself across Danny, simultaneously
shielding him even as he pushed Donald to the ground.

"You will not - " Nick shouted, his fist smashing into Donald's
jaw - "You bastard!" Another smash of his fist, and another. This
bastard wanted to hurt Danny - Nick would make sure this fucking
asshole pay. No one hurt the man he loved, no fucking body.

"Stop it, Nick," Danny said.

His voice cut through Nick's fury like a calm in the storm. He
lifted Donald off the floor and flung the man across the room that
the man smashed into the far wall with a sickening thud. "I'm
sorry, Danny," he said then. "I'm sorry - " He looked at where his
hand was at his stomach. Blood, he thought stupidly. Donald had
stabbed him and he never even noticed.

His last sight was Danny's anguished face, calling his name,
before all went black.



He opened his eyes to excruciating agony. He sputtered, and that
hurt even more.

"Don't," he heard Danny say. "Take it easy. You'll be fine. Donald
missed the vital organs, and they'll sew you up okay."

Nick nodded and closed his eyes. He felt Danny's hand clasping
his, the man's warmth flowing into his hand, providing strength
and comfort.

"I love you, Nick. I'm sorry I didn't realize it before," Danny
said.

Or was it his imagination? Nick tried to clear his mind, but
whatever they injected into his blood, it was making it hard for
him to think. Danny, he thought in frustration, Danny - his life,
his heart, his soul. Without Danny, his old life was unbearable.
And now that Danny might have said he loved Nick, Nick didn't want
to die. He wanted a chance with Danny. He didn't want to die -
please God, was his last thought.



"Hi," was Danny's first word to him. "If you do that again I will
kill you myself," he said.

Nick tried to smile. "Hi," he finally said weakly. "How long have
I been out?"

"One day. You're a tough bull." Danny smiled back, a luminous
smile. "You'll live."

"For you." Nick tried to sit up, but Danny pushed him back gently
into a sleeping position. "Look, I'm sorry about Donald. I just
slept with him once. He got a bit too clingy, and I cut him off.
It was before I met you, and I'm sorry he went nuts like that."

"Whatever really. I don't care about your past, and I don't blame
you for Donald. You get well, Nick, because my parents are
dropping by soon and they want to meet you."

"I guess that means you won't be going back to your old apartment
any day soon?" Nick asked.

"No," Danny said simply. "You're awake. I have been here all
night, and I need to go to take a leak. See you later?"

Nick reached out and caught Danny's hand, rubbing the man's
knuckles with his still weakened fingers. "Okay," he said finally.
