THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB
Mac

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

"Do you remember my son Adam?"

Of course Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan remembered Adam Brody. He
hadn't thought of his dear friend of his teenaged years in a long
time, but he had never forgotten the elfin Adam. They had done
some crazy shit back then, more than half of them instigated by
the deceptively innocent-looking Adam. Mac, the gardener's son,
was more than happy to step in and cover for Adam for his
reputation was less important than Adam's. Once, he would do
anything for Adam. Mac tried to remember Adam's face, expecting to
find only a vague, unclear image in the recesses of his mind.
Instead, he could still see with crystal clarity the cheeky smile
of his old friend. He could only remember dimly Adam's curly dark
hair and pretty eyes, but the intensity of Adam's smile was burned
indelibly into Mac's memories. With that memory, Mac found himself
remembering details he tried to forget. He could almost smell the
light talc Adam wore that first night when Adam, tired of... well,
Mac couldn't remember why Adam was tired, but Adam slept in Mac's
bed that night. He felt goosebumps on his shoulders, at the spot
where Adam would grab him in that special surprise-it's-me sneak-
up greeting Adam would give Mac whenever Adam visited the country
home for the holidays. Dear Adam Brody, he was Mac's summer
friend, his best friend of those days, and still the only friend
whom Mac allowed to get this close to him.

How was Adam? He was suddenly eager to know. He wanted to know
what Adam had done - why, when, with who, where, and how.

Instead, he just nodded calmly to Cecilia Cochrane-Brody. "How is
he?" he asked in a nonchalance he didn't feel.

"You were his good friend," Cecilia said as if Mac hadn't spoken.
"I never understood why he liked you so much, but he did."

Cecilia, like the rest of the stuck-up clan, didn't like Adam
getting too close with the hired help. Mac had no pretensions
about Adam coming from a different world than he, but he didn't
have to like how Adam's family looked down on him or his father.
Still, that was in the past and Mac didn't care for holding
grudges. "Is he well?" he asked.

"He hasn't spoken to any of us for years."

Mac kept his face impassive, but he was surprised. Adam was close
to his family, Mac remembered. He doted on his mother and while
Adam and his father weren't too close, Adam had never spoken a bad
word about Marcus Brody.

"He ran off to my brother Rory and told me that he never wanted to
see any of us again."

It was clear that Cecilia wanted to talk to someone who had a link
to her estranged son, even if it was to the son of the hired help
she had nothing but disdain for. Mac listened, figuring that he
had nothing to lose by doing so, and gestured for the waiter to
refill his coffee cup.




ONE

Mac should have known better than to tangle with an upper class
woman who knew how to get what she wanted, he mused a week later
as he got out of his car. He had no idea how Cecilia managed to
talk him into agreeing, but he had nonetheless agreed to talk to
Adam for her. Mac didn't mind doing her a favor in this case as he
was also curious. Why would Adam cut off all ties with a family he
had never exhibited any friction with the six years Mac knew him?
Some family hid their cracks well, but Adam was openly
affectionate with his mother and younger brother and distant but
cordial to his father. What the hell happened? Mac didn't know if
he approved of Adam cutting off ties with his family. His own
experiences told him that family was important and there wasn't
any good reason to cut off one's ties with them. But he hesitated
to condemn Adam even vaguely in his mind, for the idea that he had
a wrong impression of Adam in his head all these years was
sacrilegious and unbearable.

He mentally reviewed what he knew from Cecilia as he stood before
the quaint little store. Adam moved out a year since the last time
Mac saw him. There was no arguments of any kind with anyone
according to Cecilia. She didn't even know why Adam left. He just
left a terse note telling his family that he'd had enough of
pretending to be happy and he didn't even want to be a Brody
anymore. It wasn't difficult for Cecilia to know where her son
went to, however. Her brother Rory called her later that week to
tell her that Adam was living with him and it was best that
Cecilia and Marcus stayed away until Adam sorted himself out.
Three years later, Adam was still sorting himself out, Mac
guessed, as he'd still to initiate contact with his family.

Adam's was a quaint little store. True to his word, Adam didn't
use his family name in his business. Mac knew that Adam must have
surprised his family, who expected him to come crawling back on
his feet, by actually making Adam's a moderately successful
business. Adam's fortune might be changing for the better soon as
Mac's research showed that his store was becoming very popular
among collectors and romantics-at-heart. Mac remembered Adam as an
intuitive guy underneath his class clown exterior. Adam often knew
when Mac was hurting no matter how much Mac tried to keep an
upbeat face, just as he always knew what to give Mac on his
special days, gifts Mac often didn't know how much he wanted until
he unwrapped the gift.

"A wood carving set?" he had said with a laugh on his seventeenth
birthday. "Why do you give me these, Adam?"

He always asked that and Adam always answered. It was a game of
sorts between them to see how much or how little Adam and Mac
could understand the other person. They never kept score, which
was good because Mac would be losing really badly. Mac tried, but
Adam always knew him too well to be beat.

"Because you'll love them," Adam just said and grabbed Mac's hand.
"Come on, let's go get a drink!"

It was only weeks later, when Mac had carved a set of (ugly) birds
(many of which looked little like birds) that he realized how much
he enjoyed making things with his hands. He had always helped his
father around in the Brody holiday home grounds when he wasn't in
school, but he resented it. On a visceral level, he always feared
that he would never be anything better than a hired help if he
allowed himself to enjoy what he did. Adam knew that Mac loved
carpentry and woodwork even if Mac refused to admit it to himself,
and that gift slowly helped Mac understand that part of himself
that Adam had always seen through so clearly.

No wonder Adam was so good at running a gift store. He would
rarely be wrong when it came to selling the perfect gift to his
clients.

Adam's was located at a prime piece of Brooklyn real estate,
surrounded by forbiddingly upscale coffee shops and designer
boutiques, but the store was a kitschy entity clashing oddly with
its neighbors. Looking at it, the store didn't give off this
impression that one had to make at least ten thousand dollars a
month to afford anything inside but neither did it suggest that it
was a tacky, low-scale place. It simply invited all, the curious
and the interested, to walk in. It was open, it was inscrutable.
Just like Adam. Mac steeled his nerves, suddenly nervous at the
thought of seeing Adam again. But it was no use postponing the
inevitable, he thought.

He noticed two women, elderly women in their fifties, Mac guessed,
admiring the display through the window. He was about to cross the
street when he saw Adam walked out of the store. Mac couldn't
breathe until he remembered to tell his body to do so. Adam was
just like he remembered, but also a completely different man
altogether, insane as that concept seemed. It was the same curls
of dark hair, the beautiful elfin face, the smile that made Mac
forget the rest of the world existed. This Adam had put on weight
since Mac last saw him, but this gave Adam a healthy fullness to
his once too-thin frame that made him even more radiant with life.
But there was more to this different Adam than his figure - there
was a way Adam carried himself now, which made him seemed more
confident of himself. The Adam Mac remembered slouched a little
because Adam was always conscious of being taller than many people
around him. This Adam walked straight, but not too rigidly erect,
and once he might have smiled with cynicism, this Adam smiled at
the women outside his store with undisguised warmth.

"Can I help you, ladies?" Mac heard Adam ask them.

If Adam was just putting on an act to make a sale, Mac stopped
believing in that notion as he leaned against the street lamp and
watched, listened, fascinated, as Adam tilted his head as if he
cared for every word the ladies were saying. They were admiring
the new Beanie Babies collection on display, and Adam nodded,
telling them that it was an exclusive set for collectors. There
were only five other sets like this in the world. The ladies'
faces fell, knowing very well that therefore they could never
afford even one of the Beanie Babies. Judging from their clean but
well-worn clothes, Mac deduced that they were probably middle-
class women still working to pay the bills and they were probably
stopping by in this part of town for a few hours of window
shopping to escape the mundane reality of their lives. Ah, Adam
exclaimed after catching their expressions, he had on sale also
some hand-made miniature bear figurines. They weren't Beanie
Babies but he would give the ladies a special price on them if
they cared to take a look. He also asked about the scarf one of
them wore around her shoulder. The woman told him that she knitted
it herself.

Adam worked his magic well. The two women were more than happy to
reveal that they were spinster sisters living in an apartment in a
poorer side of downtown, just as Mac suspected, and Adam worked
them a deal. He really liked the scarf, and if Bertha could create
a few more like it and show it to him, he might find a way to sell
them in his store. The price he offered Bertha for her work made
Mac's eyebrow raise a notch, but he remembered that Adam was
always generous to a fault, never having been poor and hence never
actually knowing what greed meant. He had money to spend and he
often spent it freely on himself as well as his friends.

"You make it hard for me to be cynical," he once told Adam. "You
are making me believe that people can be kind."

"Well, you're teaching me to be cynical, so in a way we're even."
Adam grinned. "You're good for me like that, Mac. I don't get
taken advantage of when you're watching out for me."

Was that why Adam walked out on his family? Because Mac taught him
to be cynical? Dared Mac imagine that he had such an important
role in Adam's life? Mac smiled at his own pathetic attempts to
justify why he could be as important to Adam as Adam was once to
him.

"Mac? Holy hell, Mac! It's you!"

Adam spotted him and was right now running across the street to
Mac. Mac's thoughts scattered and he couldn't speak even if his
life depended on it, because his brain had stopped functioning
then. Adam threw his arms around Mac in an embrace and Mac could
only respond in kind. Adam felt good in his arms, he finally
managed to think. That was when he realized that his cock was also
as hard as a rock. Maybe it was the scent of that man - hmm, man
and cologne (Mac wasn't good with brandnames, but knowing Adam,
Mac'd bet it was expensive), how arousing - or the feel of Adam's
body under his arms. Sure, a well-muscled body was great to look
at, but Mac never found it as enjoyable to snuggle up to it. Give
him a man with a bit of meat on him. Adam was perfect to him. The
man was slim and sleekly muscled but his body was still soft and
supple enough for Mac to sense that he would enjoy resting his
cheek or any part of him on Adam's chest or stomach once they were
exhausted from fucking each other's brain out.

Adam laughed as he lifted his brow knowingly at Mac. He felt the
man's erection pressing against his thigh, definitely. "I guess
that rules out one reason why you ran like that four years ago.
It's not because you didn't want to fuck me."

Mac swallowed to clear the lump in his throat. "No, I wanted to
fuck you, Adam. I'm just..." What could he say? If he confessed -
that he wanted Adam so badly that they went as far as they did,
with his cock embedded deep in Adam's ass, before sobriety hit
him, that he wanted sex with Adam to mean as much to Adam as it
was to Mac, that he wouldn't want to fuck Adam because he loved
Adam so much that he only realized how much he felt for Adam only
right now?

"It's okay. I wanted to fuck you then too. But I was messed up and
we'd have ruined our friendship if we did. So thank you, Mac, for
being the sensible guy then."

"Me? Sensible?" Mac choked.

"Yeah, sensible. I guess it's inevitable that we wanted each other
- still do - as we were so close all those years. Sometimes it
feels as if you are a part of me that is missing all the time. So
why are you here, Mac?" Adam took Mac's hand and led him across
the street to his store. Mac could only follow. "On business? On
pleasure? Or do you want a present for your boyfriend?"

"No boyfriend," Mac said.

"Good," Adam said.

"I came here because I knew where to find you after all these
years and I really want to see you again," Mac finally said. It
was the truth. He knew that Adam only had to look at his face to
know that it was the truth. "And it is so good to see you again."

Adam smiled. Mac missed that smile so much. "Welcome back, Mac,"
Adam only said.

It was just three words, but Mac never imagined that three simple
words, arranged this manner - welcome back, Mac - could make him
feel powerful, invincible, weakened by relief, and close to tears
of joy. He wanted to tell Adam things he didn't know how to put to
words - how he remembered now those years they had, how they were
the best times of his life, and while he did live well without
Adam, he now couldn't imagine life without Adam, his friend, his
best friend. So, instead, he shut up. He took Adam's hand and
kissed the back of the man's hand. And for once, Adam was at loss
for words. He could only remove his hand and replaced it with his
lips.




TWO

"Cute guy," Rory Cochrane said. "He looks very lonely. Is this one
for real or is this another one of you weekend boyfriends?"

Adam placed his elbow on his uncle's shoulder and leaned forward
to catch a scent of what Rory was cooking. "I have a good feeling
that Mac will last longer than a week. We have known each other
for more than ten years."

Adam wondered whether he had an affinity to men who carried their
loneliness around them like a romantic cape. Mac was one such guy.
When they first met, Mac was alone. Mac was always alone, of
course, never letting anyone get too close to him. Then there was
Rory, who also wore his loneliness around him that people couldn't
help either keep away or be drawn to him for that. Adam loved Rory
like a father and he loved Mac in a far less holy manner and he
had grown adept at drawing men like these out of their shells. Mac
also drew Adam out of the shell Adam never knew he had. Once, Mac
wondered what Adam saw in him. Adam told him the same thing he
would tell Mac now: Mac was the darker side of life that Adam
never knew, yet at the same time Adam instinctively knew that Mac
would never hurt him. He was safe with Mac, his instincts told
him, and his instincts were very rarely wrong. It was tough to
live in pure, blinding light, never seeing the darkness, and Adam
never knew how miserable he was trying to be happy all the time
until he knew Mac. Mac allowed him to confront the tumultous
discontent boiling in him. It was Mac who gave him the strength to
do what it took to save his sanity.

"Hmm, I smell lasagna," a stocky, ruggedly masculine man said as
he walked in and playfully placed his arms around Rory's waist. "I
hope it tastes as good as... this." He nibbled at Rory's earlobe
and a rare laughter escaped Rory's lips.

Adam liked Dominic Purcell. Four years ago, he dropped by Rory's
place to fix the shower. Before he left, he asked Rory whether he
could take Rory out to dinner. Three months later, he asked Rory
to marry him. Today, he was very good for Rory, Adam could see
that. He wasn't so sure then but trusting his instincts, he told
Rory to say yes and he even sent them a great wedding present,
even if the law wouldn't recognize the legality of the union. Dom,
like Rory, was a lonely man too but he had it worse than Rory: an
ex-military man, he served the country but he had to leave when
his being gay was revealed and no one acknowledged how much he had
done for his country, much less show any concern for Dom who was
still suffering from PSTD. Adam marveled at the strength the timid
and shy Rory must find: it wasn't easy to fall in love for the
first time, but it must be harder when Dom suffered a mental
relapse and needed Rory to be stronger than Rory ever imagined he
could be. Was it worth it? Rory turned and playfully swatted the
spoon he was using at Dom's face and Dom roared with hearty
laughter. Watching them, Adam decided that it'd better be damn
worth it. No, it had to be.

Mac asked him once upon a time whether Adam believed in love. He'd
said that he'd like to believe in love. Now, he was sure that he
believed.

Mac was seated outside. Adam had told him that he would be in the
kitchen only for a minute. He had left Mac for too long and
quickly hurried back to him.



"Dinner was great," Mac told him that evening as they sat in the
couch in Adam's living room. "Your uncle and his husband are cool
people."

"They keep me sane and took me in when I left," Adam said. "I'll
always be indebted to them."

"Your mother told me where to find you," Mac said quietly. "She
asked me to tell you that the family needs you more than ever."

Now that hurt. "Did you find me just because my mother asked you
to?" Adam asked, trying to keep his pain away from his voice.

"No, but I listened to her because I wanted to know where I can
find you," Mac said.

Adam relaxed. His family was history. They wouldn't ruin what he
had with Mac. "Okay." He paused. His instincts, as always,
couldn't be silenced. "You can't understand why I left, of
course," he said. "Naturally you won't, as you are close to your
father."

"I won't judge you," Mac just said.

Adam sighed. "I don't know how to say this. Maybe I am an
unnatural son, seeing as my family are quite normal compared to
others. But that's the problem, Mac, my family desperately wants
to believe that it is normal, but is fucking isn't. My mother is a
professional victim who lets my father cheat on her and treat her
like dirt and she uses me and my brother in some insane
psychological warfare with that man. She can't divorce him because
that would mean that she will have a chance at being happy and she
can't fucking have that, can she? So no, instead she clings on to
me, telling me that I must never be like my father, sowing the
seeds of hatred in me against him, even as she insists that I must
love my father because he is everything we have to keep a roof
over our heads. Do you know how damaging those shit she was doing
to me? I lived for so long trying to please her. She made me
believe that I would never be good enough to be anything else
because she kept telling me that I was my father and a good-for-
nothing fool. For a long time I was going mad in that place.

"I know I have to leave when my father lost everything and they
start insisting that I live, marry, and work the way they want me
to so that I can spend the rest of my life repairing my father's
mistake. When I tried to tell them how I feel, they called me an
ingrate. Worse, Cecilia sensed that she was losing her hold on me
so she instigated a friction between me and my brother. I don't
care if she favors Jason over me, but damn it, I'm tired of all
this fighting, pretending, and living their way or no way at all.
If me leaving them means that I do not have to deal with them
anymore,. so be it."

"I never knew, Adam," Mac whispered.

"I never told," Adam told him defiantly. "I have always taken care
of myself, and I don't need anyone doing it for me." He sighed
again. "I can't go back, Mac. My family is poison. Maybe a decade
from now I may laugh at how my family was, but right now I need to
rebuild my self-esteem and confidence, and I can't do that with my
mother shrilly insisting that she is going to kill herself every
time that she doesn't get her way. Living on my own is the
happiest I've ever been in a long time. I have my own friends and
family who don't resort to turning my own brother against me or
using emotional blackmails or guilt-trips on me every single
moment." He bit his lower lip in frustration. "The only regret I
have now is that Jason has been conditioned to hate me. I know he
blames me for hurting Cecilia. We used to be so close, me and
Jason."

"You could have told me all this back then, Adam," said Mac. "I
could have tried to help."

"Yeah, I should have, but I didn't." Adam shook his head. "I
didn't know how to tell you because I wasn't sure what I was
feeling myself. I was a fucked-up, confused kid who couldn't find
a way to deal with his pent-up angry feelings. But you have
helped, Mac. Just being with you gave me some moment's peace where
I could be myself. I looked forward to summer every year because
of you. You were always there for me, in that cottage, and we'd
tear down to town and do crazy shit together."

"Yeah, we would." Mac smiled at the memory. "You helped me too,
you know? I was angry with my father because a part of me always
blamed him for causing my mother to walk out on us. He was never
good at making money and we were always unable to afford something
we needed badly. I loved him, but I hated him at the same time,
and I was so afraid to end up like him, always driving the people
he loves away with his abrasive ways. Thanks to you, I have some
peace. Without this peace, I'd probably never work out my feelings
about my father and who knows what I'd be today."

Adam rested his head on Mac's chest. "We'll probably be crazy if
we don't have each other. I suggest that we stick together, for
each other's own good."

"For each other's own good, yeah," Mac agreed with a grin. "Aren't
we rushing too soon, though?"

"Probably yeah, but I've known you for so long," Adam reminded
him. "I don't think there's anything you don't know about me now."

"Except what it feels to do this," Mac said, letting his hand
slowly move under Adam's T-shirt and up towards the man's chest
until he could let his thumb and index finger caress a rosy male
nipple.

Adam only lifted the T-shirt and pulled it off his head. And then
he lowered his lips to Mac's. Mac was more than happy to pull him
down for a sensual kiss.



THREE

Mac was a loner by nature. By default, he didn't have many lovers
in his life and he was far from the polished lover that he
suspected Adam had in his bed. He was afraid that he was too
clumsy, too fast, too brutal, or too slow. His hands trembled and
he had a hard time trying to actually steady himself to fit the
crown of his cock against the tight rosebud entrance to Adam's
tight, hot ass and plunge deep.

"You!" Adam exclaimed. "Don't tell me you're a virgin."

"I may as well be," Mac said miserably. "I haven't done this in a
long time."

"Here, let me," Adam said and climbed to straddle Mac. "Close your
eyes. Don't look."

Mac groaned as he felt something hot, moist, and unbelievably
tight slowly envelop the length of his throbbing cock. He had to
look. The sight of Adam, his face contorted in pleasure and pain
as he arched his back, his legs spread wide to expose his
obscenely-stretched asshole pucker taking in every inch of Mac's
boner, caused Mac to moan in delight. He had never seen such a
beautiful sight and his hips couldn't help thrusting upwards,
sending his cock deeper up Adam in an urgent primitive need to
conquer and mate. Adam gasped at the movement of Mac's hips, but
he only steadied himself by placing one hand on Mac's chest and
another on the his knee. And then Adam began to ride Mac, slowly
at first, as Mac responded with increasing confidence to Adam's
rhythm. "Don't come!" Adam urged Mac, "oh don't come until I tell
you to."

Mac wasn't sure how to obey him. His balls were already tightening
in response to the pleasurable fire coursing down every nerve in
his body. He clenched his ass, bit down on his lips hard, praying
that he wouldn't come so soon. He wanted this to be good for Adam
as well as for himself. He loved Adam. He fucking loved this man.

With that realization, Mac felt a steely determination clamp over
his fast-losing control. He loved Adam Brody. Because of this, he
would make sure that Adam was one satisfied man when he was in
Mac's bed. Mac wouldn't be some clumsy boy during his first time.
With a determined roar, he gripped Adam's hips and began banging
that man hard. One, two, three... Mac's balls were swollen and
aching with boiling semen that was causing every inch of his body
to shudder with the need of release, but he gritted his teeth,
vowing to make Adam come once, at least, or die from blue balls.
What Mac wasn't aware of then was that his large cock head was
doing an amazing job stimulating Adam's prostate and Adam thought
he would die from the pleasure. He was so close... so close... and
then he felt it, the powerful spurt of ecstasy washing over him in
one powerful climax. He screamed that he was coming - oh, he was
dying! - and coming and coming, screamed until he was finally
drained of all energy and collapsed in a spent heap of sweaty
limbs and sated smile onto Mac. And then Mac yelled in triumph,
finally letting himself be free to come hard, and his powerful
ejaculations were sweet afterlude to Adam's powerful orgasm.

"I'll do better the next time," Mac vowed.

Ten minutes later he tried to make good on that vow, and Adam
assured him that he more than delivered this time. And the two
times after that time as well.



"I'll kill them! I can't believe that Dom and Rory sat you down
and grilled you like that!" Adam railed.

"They have just your best intentions at heart," Mac told him with
a grin. "They are afraid that I am just playing with you and want
to make sure that I have only honorable intentions towards you. I
told them I would make an honest man out of you, Adam Brody."

"Oh?" Adam paused in the midst of his diatribe. "You are?"

"Damn right! We're not going to sneak around and have sex. We're
gonna get married and I'm gonna end your weekend flings." He
wagged a finger at Adam in mock anger. "I've heard from Rory about
those men you bring to your apartment. That's gonna stop because
I'm gonna be the only man in your bed from now on."

"That is the most romantic proposal I've heard," Adam drawled and
threw a pillow at Mac. "Be serious, Mac, you have a job in Chicago
and I have my store here. We have plenty of things to work out if
we're going to get married."

"I'll get a new job," Mac said, feeling invincible in his love-
intoxicated high. "I'll even be a janitor as long as I get to be
with you."

"You don't have to be a janitor, silly," Adam told him. "I'm not
going anywhere." He smiled. "I don't think I've gone anywhere." He
shook his head ruefully and looked fondly at Mac. "You go back to
Chicago. I'll join you. I need a vacation as I haven't taken one
in years and Rory can run the store in my absence. We'll slowly
work things out and we'll be okay, Mac, trust me."

Trust Adam? Mac didn't know how he could never not do that. Adam
was, after all, all the missing places inside his soul. "They say
that anyone can find the perfect gift in your store," he had to
tell Adam. "Well, when I walk into your store, I found the perfect
gift, Adam Brody. I found you."

Adam walked up to Mac and threw his arms around the man. "Benjamin
McKenzie Schenkkan, you sweet, sweet fool. Shut up and kiss me."

And Mac did.
