Gay Erotica the Reunion

By Mark Stevenson

Gay Erotica The reunion: 20 years after graduating, college pals reunite for pleasure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329057234

Mark Stevenson

'Reluctant Futurist' Mark Stevenson is a strategic advisor to governments, investors, NGOs and corporates and co-founder of Carbon Removals company CUR8. Though branded a 'futurist' by others Mark is more, as one client puts it, 'Chief Annoying Question Asker'. He helps organisations change the way they feel, think, invest and operate in order to answer the intertwined questions the future is asking us - on climate change, inequality, the retreat of democracy and the failures of the markets to price risk properly (to name just four). His two bestselling books, An Optimist's Tour of the Future and the award-winning We Do Things Differently map out some existing and proven solutions to our current dilemmas. He is Global Ambassador for environmental law firm Client Earth and former strategic advisor on peace, national security and climate change to the UK Ministry of Defence. He also enjoys a successful side career as a comedy writer and songwriter, which he regards as essential for maintaining key skills needed in his strategy work. 'The brain does the PR for what the heart has already decided, if you can't speak to the heart any systems change is dead in the water'. His hit podcast with comedian Jon Richardson and fellow systems change advocate Ed Gillespie is available on all major platforms.

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Gay Erotica the Reunion

Gay Erotica: The Reunion

Mark Stevenson

ISBN: 978-1-329-05723-4

Copyright © 2015 by DynnePublisher

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the Email below

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CHAPTER 1

He had been wrong about what he would feel when he stepped back onto the campus of his alma mater. Steelman College was a place where Lucas Boatright had mostly been unhappy. He hadn't fully realized this until he had left the place well behind him, and his real life and career had begun.

At forty-one years of age, by most standards, Lucas was a success--not a man of extraordinary physical beauty, but fit and attractive; not fantastically rich, but comfortably off; not world-famous, but well-known in certain circles for his regular writing appearances in a national publication. Yet he had never shaken off the sense that there was unfinished business in his life.

He was returning to Steelman for his twenty-year class reunion to try and come to terms with events that had almost destroyed him. He had wondered about the wisdom of such a venture. Perhaps it was better to leave old wounds alone. On the other hand, he had a few years back weathered the loss of a beloved partner to the prolonged and painful illness that had taken so many of them, and that still cast its long shadow. Having survived that, the prospect of revisiting his college haunts, and the ghosts that inhabited them, no longer seemed so daunting. When the literature had begun arriving about Steelman's Homecoming celebrations, this time he had responded, and now here he was.

He had worried that returning would depress him, but to his surprise his spirits lifted as he walked on the academic mall on that sunny Friday afternoon in late October. The campus had changed in appearance. Many new buildings were up, bright and majestic, all white limestone, glass and steel. Lucas was especially impressed at the sight of the new Student Union building. The old Union, now torn down, had been the place where he had spent many hours as a reporter for the school paper, the Steelman Banner. The Banner. Lucas chuckled as the memories came back. How he had sweated blood in service to that rag, how seriously they all had taken their journalistic mission. He didn't suppose he would see Josephine Scott, his senior-year editor, this weekend, since she had not been a member of the same graduating class. He would love to know what she was doing now. As much as he had wanted to throttle her sometimes, she had, after all, unintentionally been responsible for bringing him and Will DuBarry together.

Then again, had he known how that was going to turn out, he might have done the evil deed then and there.

What do you mean, I have to interview the swimmer? Lucas complained. I'm not the sports reporter around here. Where's Brant anyway?

Lucas, Josephine explained, with exaggerated patience. You know as well as I do that Brant is about to flunk out. He has taken a leave of absence from the Banner until he can get his academic shit together. That leaves you as our best reporter, and best writer. Ergo, you interview Will DuBarry.

They were in the office of the Steelman College campus newspaper, a cramped, uncomfortable set of cubicles in a room just off the first-floor atrium of the Student Union building. Lucas sighed. Josephine—never Jo or Josie—could be, and frequently was, maddening--where did she get off using words like ergo, anyway?--but he knew she was right. Their staff this year was pathetic, and there was no one else who could do the interview. Josephine had run for and been elected editor though she was only a sophomore--none of the upperclassmen vying for the chair last spring had been remotely qualified. Lucas had not run, though by virtue of his three continuous years on the staff he was virtually entitled to the editorship. He couldn't face the long hours, the deadlines, the responsibility, all of which she had shouldered. So it was poetic justice that he, senior reporter, now had to take orders from an underclassman.

Anyway, Josephine was saying, It really is a story, you know. Steelman has never been in the running for a Southern Athletic Conference title in swimming until this year. And it's all due to DuBarry transferring here last year and single-handedly re-energizing the team. Besides, Boatright, she added, her patronizing tone returning, it'll do you good to have to interview a jock. You're such an intellectual snob, you think they all talk in monosyllables.

Lucas thought about giving her the finger, but stopped himself. He knew that Josephine was as hard on herself as she was on others. It was her one saving grace. She also had a disconcerting habit of halfway perceiving truths about him he would rather not have admitted. The thought of being face to face with Will DuBarry did make Lucas uneasy, though not because he was arrogant about his mental abilities. The truth was, he had no idea how he was going to remain coherent, let alone coolly objective, around someone whose physical being took his breath away.

Lucas had realized in high school that he was gay. He had heard of the shattering trauma such self-discovery could involve, the depression, the suicide attempts. His own moment of truth, in contrast, had been arrived at with a mental shrug. Already shunned and scorned for his geekiness and weirdness, tagged with the dreaded label of nerd, he remembered exactly what he had thought at the time: oh well, one more thing they'll hate me for.

At Steelman, there was no immediate danger of anyone discovering and condemning the social preferences of Lucas Boatright, since he had no social life. He filled his time with his studies, working at the Banner and, quietly and inconspicuously, working out. One good thing about going to college here was that physical education was a requirement, so the classes were filled with students as uncoordinated and awkward as he felt himself to be. He had always liked the water, though he had never been fast enough to qualify for any team. Swim conditioning and Lucas, therefore, were made for each other, and he happily put in his required miles per week, giving himself yet another reason not to talk to other people.

After three years of this diligent training, Lucas, though he did not know it, cut an attractive figure at the pool, goggles temporarily replacing his heavy, awkward eyeglasses, his slim, toned body clad only in a brief Speedo. His dark hair, luxuriant on his head and sparse on his chest, contrasted effectively with his very fair skin. He never thought of himself as anything but ugly, however, and was lost in admiration of those he considered far more attractive. For Lucas, the ultimate treat was a glimpse of the elite users of the natatorium--the Steelman men's swim team.

He had gone one morning to the pool at eight o'clock to swim laps. During the competitive season the team held early morning workouts, and would finish at that time. It must have been on a Tuesday or Thursday, since he didn't have classes on those days that semester. Lucas often slipped into the pool area a few minutes early to watch the last few minutes of practice, admiring the grace and speed of the swimmers, so different from his own dogged stroking. He was mesmerized by the broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, muscular male bodies that paraded before him in dizzying array. When they got wet, the dark blue Speedos the team members wore clung to their buttocks