THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB
Eric

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.

ONE

Eric Johann Johnson slammed the door of his truck shut. He paused
to look at his reflection in the rear mirror, and tried to keep
his expression to a more pleasant and friendly alternative to the
dark scowl he had as he drove all the way here. Happy Thanksgiving
- what a fucking joke! His father wasn't close to him when Eric's
mother was alive, and now whatever fragile bond they had seemed to
be severed altogether with his mother's passing.

No matter, he thought defiantly as he stood there by his truck
waiting for Tom Welling. Tommy and he had been dating - okay,
living together - for some time now, but this was the first time
they went their different paths. It was Tommy's idea that Eric
tried to make up with his father anyway. Fuck, why hadn't he told
Tommy no?

Because it was impossible to tell Tommy no, Eric concluded. All
Tommy had to do was to smile at him and Eric would feel like the
luckiest man alive to have that man even looking at him that way.

He saw the door opened and Tommy laughing as he walked out.
Following him were his parents, also laughing. Tommy's father
hugged the young man, and the mother followed, and Eric had to
tamper the irrational burst of poisonous jealousy that exploded in
him.

"Hello, Eric, come on in," Tommy called. "Mom made some pie you
just have to try."

"Yeah, come on in Eric," called Mr Welling. "Let me have a look at
you."

"Be nice," his wife audibly whispered in a playful note that told
Eric more than anything of the bond still strong between those
two.

Eric's own father didn't even care when Eric left this morning.
And here, the family of a man he was sleeping with was asking him
to come in and eat with them.

Tommy wasn't his type. Eric didn't usually go for too-pretty boys,
preferring more down-to-earth looking boys-next-door; men like
what he saw himself as. It was a rather disappointing clich‚, he
had more than once thought laughingly to himself, that he wasn't
above lusting after men who looked too pretty for their own good.
Or at least, men like Tommy.

He knew Tommy had told his parents that they met over a blind date
set up by friends. Eric was okay with that. He didn't know how to
tell people that he and Tommy met while working out at a gym and
they ended up with he leaning against the wall of the shower room,
dazed, moaning incoherently as Tommy sucked him off like a pro in
giving head. Hell, Tommy was a pro. His tight ass could do magic
around Eric's cock, especially with that way Tommy could tightened
his ass to clamp on Eric or the way he ground his ass at Eric in
that indescribably pleasurable way...

Fuck, he had to stop thinking of Tommy this way or he would be
embarrassed before the parents of his best fuck ever.

He paused at that thought. Yeah, he decided, Tommy was his best
fuck. Eric had his share of guys in his twenty-eight years of
living, not many but enough to make an educated comparison, he
guessed, and yeah, Tommy was the best he'd ever had.

"Eric, you coming?" Mrs Welling called.

Tommy smiled, an assuring gesture, at Eric. His eyes were playful,
and even from this distance, his beautiful brown eyes seemed to
tease Eric - "Are you coming?" they seemed to ask.

And when Tommy asked, Eric answered. It seemed to be how the world
should be, at least where Tommy, dear Tommy was concerned.

Eric smiled hesitantly, and made sure he had locked his truck.




TWO

"You have lovely feet," Tommy whispered, kissing a toe. "I love
the shape of your toes. Not perfect, not smooth, rough and
callused - just perfect."

"You're contradicting yourself," Eric said with a chuckle.

Tom was taller, prettier, and in every way a more dazzling man
than Eric could ever be. Next to Tommy, people could easily forget
Eric's quiet demeanor, his ordinary blond handsome looks, and the
usually intimidating gravity and distancing act he exuded so often
that he did that by instinct now. Tommy also had a family that
accepted his sexuality and a life which, compared to Eric's, was
perfect in every way. Eric would have hated Tommy bitterly were
Tommy not who he was: a good fuck and maybe - hell - Eric couldn't
deny it: Tommy made him smile, laugh, and feel okay even when they
were arguing over their clashes in personality.

They had had a most energetic romp on the bed, despite Eric's
uneasiness at fucking the son of the very people who had given him
the best meal he'd had in a long time. It was Eric's suspicion
that Tommy's parents had no idea how sexually depraved Tommy could
be. Tommy, here, was a perfectly obedient, well-behaved son. With
Eric and fuck knew how many others before Eric, however, Tommy was
a sexual profligate who wanted to try everything: a well-hung cock
up his ass, in his mouth, or above his face coming in great
copious spurts in a sinful rain of pleasure.

Eric threw off whatever jealousy he was beginning to feel about
the men in Tommy's past as he took Tommy's hand - the one where
the knuckles were bleeding slightly. He had bitten into Tommy's
hand when Tommy fed it to him to muffle his loud lusty groans so
as to not to wake the parents as he fucked Tommy. He kissed the
torn flesh gently, tasting blood, and moved his lips down to the
wrist, raining light and slow kisses along the way.

"I'm not," Tommy whispered, watching through lowered eyelids at
Eric. Those beautiful eyes, Eric thought absently. "I've never met
a man like you."

Eric could use some ego-stoking. He had little praises in his
life. "Really?" he asked with a sensual grin.

"You're not my type, although I'm sure I'm not yours either."
Tommy played with the necklace Eric wore - his gift to Eric on
Eric's birthday one week after they met - absently, thinking.
"You're rough, uncouth, rather unpolished - "

"And you've been reading the thesaurus too hard," Eric cut in with
a laugh.

"No, I mean it. I love this rough side of yours. It's real. You
are the real deal, Eric. I can trust you."

"Yes you can," Eric told him. He sighed as Tommy rested his chin
on Eric's chest and played with Tommy's hair in slow, absent
strokes. "So you really like me, huh?"

"Yeah."

"That's good. I missed you, Tommy."

"So did I, Eric."



"Fuck! I mean - sorry," Eric mumbled sheepishly as he quickly
pulled on his shirt. It was good thing he had put on his pants
before he left Tommy's room to make his way to his own room, and
it was definitely a good thing he had cleaned himself. If he
smelled as if he had just left Tommy's bed - not that Mrs Welling
who bumped into Eric here would believe anything else, surely -
Eric would be beaten out of this place.

Not that he was a stranger to being chased out of one's life.
Sometimes his ex-boyfriends woke up one day to realize that they
could do better than a high school dropout who couldn't be
anything more than a courier delivery guy, and then Eric would
find himself pushed out the door. But the thought of a warm and
accepting family like the Welling clan here pushing him away made
him feel anguish more keenly than he expected.

"Jesus, you scared me," Mrs Welling just said with a laugh.

"I'm so sorry I - " Eric began to stammer, but she shushed him.

"I know my son is a grown-up and I definitely know the two of you
won't be happy with separate bedrooms," she told him. "I saw how
you looked at him during dinner, and it reminds me of how my
husband looks at me," she muses wistfully. "Oh be off with you,
young man. But don't let my husband catch you. He's not that
understanding, even if he noticed how Tom looked at you during
dinner."

Eric grinned, but his grin faded as Mrs Welling's last words sank
in. How Tommy looked at him...? "Mrs Welling?" Eric called
quietly, mindful not to wake the husband, but she had already
left.

What did she mean by that?



THREE

Eric thought it odd that Tommy was happier in New York than back
at his family's place in that farm. If he had a family like
Tommy's, he doubted he would ever want to leave. Tommy's telling
him about wanting to live far away from a lifetime of suffocating
parents made little sense to Eric. He told Tommy earlier that he
liked Tommy's parents, even if he didn't know their first names.
Tommy had laughed as if that was the funniest thing he'd ever
heard. "Marion and Charlie," he told Eric.

Marion and Charlie Welling. Eric repeated the names to himself
quietly. He wished he had a family like that. He wished he was
somebody else too, but then again, he learned early that wishes
rarely came true. How darkly amusing that the one thing he never
wished for - Tommy - just showed up day to make Eric feel as if
maybe, this time he had really been unbelievably lucky in his
life. Tommy was here, wasn't he?

He watched as Tommy slept that night, two nights after they had
returned to this city to resume their lives, and contemplated the
night outside this private world of theirs.

Even if they didn't fuck every night in this bedroom, they still
talked and laughed and argued here. This bedroom had seen so many
quiet moments between he and Tommy, he sometimes wished he could
keep them both here forever. In this world, he didn't have to face
his bosses who didn't respect him, worry about how he would pay
next month's rent, and he didn't always have to be so strong and
try so hard to take care of himself because there was no one else
to do it. In this world, he felt at peace with himself for the
first time.

But he was also aware of how Tommy needed to be free. Tommy came
alive, sophisticated and an ingenue all at once, as he flaunted
and laughed and danced through life with his equally good-looking
sophisticated friends as he cut a swathe through the fashion
industry, walking the catwalk and being immortalized in stylish
ads for designer labels. Eric was too aware of how inadequate he
was compared to, say, Drew Riker, Tommy's close friend, therefore
he wouldn't stand in Tommy's way when Tommy would want to walk
away like everyone else in Eric's life. No, Eric would stand aside
and watched until Tommy was gone before returning to his own life.
Or maybe he would blow his brain out. He didn't really know what
he would do, he was only aware of the fact that he might not be
able to survive losing Tommy. But he would deal with that only
when he came to that point in his life. He had always been alone,
no doubt that he would be that way, after Tommy, maybe ever after.



Thomas Isaiah Welling eyed the book thoughtfully. Making It Work:
Improving Communication in a Marriage. He hesitated, but he
finally caved in and pulled the book down from the shelf.

"You're in deep shit when you start seeing your fling as a
marriage," Drew's bemused voice interrupted his thoughts.

Tommy gave his friend a nasty look. "May I remind you that I
didn't laugh when you ditched me to face an angry mob in Paris to
get married to that guy of yours. You're lucky they are still
willing to take you back," Tom pointed out.

"I'm quitting the modeling business," Drew cheerfully told him.
"Haven't you heard? I'm going to be writing stupid articles for
Vanity Fair and work with Michael Biehn. That guy could use some
of my advice in his designs."

"So you are getting domesticated finally. You have the cheek to
laugh at me," Tommy said. A small burn started in his heart. No,
that was not some mild envy he felt at Drew's life or the way it
turned out. He wasn't that crazy. So what if Drew seemed less
cynical and more openly good-natured since he and that intense-
eyed Ken Stafford hooked up once again? Should Tommy envy his
friend for finding some peace that way? Tommy thought Drew and Ken
were over for good, but hey, if they worked out their differences
at last, that was good for them. He put the book back. What was he
thinking, to even consider buying the book?

"Come on, I'm just playing," Drew said. Drew had around seven
years on Tommy, but they never had any problems getting along as
good friends and friendly rivals all these years. "You have
problems with Eric?" he asked. "I always find him rather intense
and broody when he has the face of a man who should be laughing
and fucking his way through life. How did a broody loner found
himself with the looks of a Dionysian acolyte?"

"He was never close with his father, whom I guessed through his
often vague hints browbeat him until all confidence and self-
esteem is beaten out of him," Tommy said. Anyone who always
thought him a vapid pretty boy would be surprised at his confident
eloquent speech now. But Tommy had always been a chameleon, and
like Drew, his looks had often backfired on him, making people
assume him to be a dumb pretty face. He wasn't a genius, but he
wasn't dumb either. "He is also dyslexic and he dropped out of
high school - guess why. It must be tough on him to believe that
he's good for something."

"Or good enough for you," Drew guessed accurately. He shook his
head. "If only he knows what a retarded ass you can be."

"Oh, he knows," Tommy said cheerfully, picking up the book again.
"Remember when I got dropped from the fucking idiot Reynaldo's
campaign? He saw me scream and throw things and kick the wall, but
he took me to a field and taught me baseball."

"Baseball?"

"Yeah. He said that baseball always calmed him, and he thought me
to swing the bat." Tommy caught himself running his fingers along
the spine of the book in fond remembrance of that night. "He's
right. It calmed me down. He calmed me down, actually. I wept like
a moron in his arms that night, and he just held me and told me
that it was okay if I wasn't pretty enough for Reynaldo, because
to him, I was the prettiest man alive. I believed him, Drew."

"You're really in deep waters, Tommy," Drew told him. "You're
going down."

"I believe so. But he doesn't share anything of himself with me,"
Tom complained. "He is always so afraid of telling me anything, as
if I'll get spooked and run away. It's exasperating. How can I
feel comfortable if this is such a lop-sided relationship? I don't
want to feel indebted to him, I want to lo- fuck, what did I
almost say?"

Drew just picked one book out of the shelf and put it over the
book in Tommy's arms. Falling in Love in Ten Easy Steps.

Oh, fuck.




FOUR

Tommy's note to Eric (words within asterisks ** are scratched out)


*Dear My To my* Eric,

I'm going to be at a photo shoot (you remember me telling you how
they wanted me to pose for the cover of some silly teen romance
novel?). It will probably finish late so I will just sleep over at
Drew's old place for the night.

I may as well take this opportunity to tell you that I think I
want to be your to spend my us to last for a long time. Longer
than long, if that is possible. It probably sounds corny (it sure
does to me) but I think I'm fucking nuts in love with you. That's
horrible, right? I mean, I bet you are even now counting the
minutes until I leave you. Is that what you always believe? That I
will leave you one day when I'm bored with you.

If that is so, Eric, fuck you. Fuck you to hell for daring to
presume that you know me.

Remember when I said, oh, eight thousand times before how I think
you are the most real person I've met? Believe it, buddy. I met so
many people who are just plain insincere or fucking insipid, and
then I met you: a solid, honest man who sees me for me. Okay, so
we met under dubious circumstances, your hips around my neck as I
blew your big dick while the shower is on, but we did good after
that, yes? We had dinner, we talked nonsense, and we fucked some
more, after which I decided to move in and you let me. I moved in
because I like you. You say the things you really mean and when
you say you will be there for me, so far you mean it and that's
good enough for me.

*Sometimes I* (scratched out)

I'm also in awe of you. So you're *daislexic dilesix* dyslexic.
But you can find your way around those confusing words, and then
you have all those books in your place that you slowly read
because you love to read. I don't like reading, I just like to
write long rambling sentences, but Eric, you're cool. I only wish
I can be as strong as you. *Your parents are fucked up.* Living
with your parents and having to tackle your issues alone like that
- I only wish I have half your courage and independence. I'm a
Momma's boy and I love my father, and I'm a spoiled kid, but I'm
learning from you.

*Anyway* I hope you understand that I don't think you are in any
way inferior to me. If you are intimidated by my looks or career
like Drew suggested that you may be, I am intimidated by your
strength as well.

So, how about it? You think about this, and if you agree that you
and me should try make this relationship of ours something more
intimate, you know where to call or find me. If no, well, I guess
this is it then. I don't want to keep sleeping with you when you
don't want me as much as I want you. I'm not that fucked up.

*Will you marry me?*

*Marry me*

*Be my*

I really hope you'll give me a call.

XXX Tommy.

PS: You're a good fuck too. That's cool.





Tommy opened the door. There was Eric, like he hoped would be,
looking bewildered, confused, and scared. There was Eric, who
carefully took out a familiar piece of paper he had carefully
folded in his pocket and kissed it almost reverently before
passing it to Tommy. Tommy took it, never taking his eyes off
Eric.

"I suggest we frame this up," Eric said in a somewhat shaky voice.
"Twenty years from now, when we have pissed each other off so much
and I sometimes question why I love you, I want to read this
letter again and remember."

"Is that a yes?" Tommy asked.

"Was that a proposal?" Eric asked back.

"Do you love me?" Tommy asked.

"Yes I do," Eric answered without hesitation. He reached out and
took Tommy in his arms before kissing the man hard. "I love you,
Tommy. I'm the luckiest fucker because you love me back."

Tommy laughed in relief and lightness and rumpled the other man's
hair. "Oh, you silly fool. Now shut the door and prove to me how
much you really love me."

Eric shut the door and did just that.
