THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB Toby
By Lady Poetess. Copyright c 1999.
Feel free to reproduce and distribute as long as you leave the credits and the author's note below intact. If you somehow make money out of this, well, good for you but please send some to me at egiggles@moose-mail.com!
Author's note:
This is actually a part of an ongoing fantasy fan-fiction about a fictional group of friends in New York whose weekly poker games form the basis of their story of finding love and laughter. These friends are - under inexplicable circumstances! - dead ringers from some music and movie celebrities, obscure or well known, that I find worth a write or two. The men and their lives depicted here have nothing in common with the real people they are based on apart from their appearances and names. I am not speculating on their sexual orientation or personal past. Again, everything is strictly fictional, apart from the character's good looks. Suing me is a waste of time, as frankly, to be blunt, I'm penniless.
ONE
"Forthsworth County!" John Cusack yelled in exuberance from his standing at the back of the hay truck. "I love this blooming countryside." He cocked his head at the other man sitting more quietly in his corner and reading a paperback. "How's my toff accent, Toby?"
Toby's British accent was genuine, as was his face, a blend of aristocratic classic handsomeness and boyish earnestness. "'orrendous," he said in exaggerated Cockney accent.
"Well, at least I can get me some great countryside photographs," John said. "Lighten up, Toby, it's your vacation."
"I know," Toby answered, turning the page.
"Who's the man?" Toby murmured an hour later, standing up from his seat and walking across the diner.
He looked outside the diner glass pane, but there was no one. Yet he thought he had seen.
"You're losing it," John said good-naturedly.
"Probably."
Toby saw him again that night, only this time the man was stark naked. He stood in the shadows, his towel slung over his shoulder, his bag of toiletry and a change of clothes forgotten on the ground.
The woods were bright enough, thanks to moonlight and a battery-powered electric brazier placed at the riverbank, right beside a neat pile of clothes. The man in the river was basked in golden light and shadows, dusky play of light and shadows highlighting the breathtaking sculpture of the man's musculature. The man was humming a tuneless song - and Toby found this even more attractive than the man's body - as he gracelessly ran a wet cloth over his chest.
Toby's fingers clawed into the bark of the tree he was holding on to, feeling his blood rush in giddy arousal. The bather stretched, every muscle in his glorious wet chest and torso rippling in a sensual rhythm. Toby licked his dry lips, his hand rubbing over the insistent throbbing in his shorts as his eyes feasted on the man's lightly furred stomach with its corrugated muscles and the deep pubic dimples that made Toby's hand itched to touch them. Then the bather turned, revealing perfectly tapered back of adequately broad shoulders gently sloping into narrow hips, before spreading gently along the curves of well-muscled thighs. The deep mysterious furrow of his buttocks beckoned to Toby like a siren call, then the man bent over, the back muscles tensing and the buttock cheeks tightening. Toby groaned, thrusting his hand into his shorts to grip his swollen cock. He massaged himself gently, his fingers pressing lightly along the engorged shaft, his thumb rubbing the sensitive tip, spreading a few drops of semen that leaked out from him along the broad head.
Fuck, why wouldn't the man turn around and show Toby his cock? Toby bit back a moan as he watched the man looked downwards, his hand motion indicating that he was gently cleaning his crotch with the cloth. Toby shut his eyes as he imagined the stranger's hands on him. His grip tightened and he quickened his motions, tightening his grip when he reached the tip, loosening a little when he pulled his grip back. His cock was now pulsing in incipient release. Toby spread his legs as he gripped the tree for support. Then he arched his back, and he couldn't help it, he gave a loud cry of relief. "Aa-aa-aah God!" he moaned hoarsely as he arched his back, thrusting his pelvis up as a warm arc of creamy fluid spurted from his cock to splatter on the tree, on his stomach.
"Who is that?" he heard the bather say.
Shuddering, panting, Toby huddled into the shadows. A cold chill froze his lust when the man's eyes looked straight into Toby's. In what seemed like an eternity, their eyes held. Toby thought he was drowning, then he wanted to protest when the man broke their visual contact, looking around him.
Toby realized the man hadn't actually seen him. He should be relieved, but he felt instead something more mundane and infinitely more painful - disappointment.
TWO
Nicholas Christopher Lea liked his name, but very little else about him. Not many people had a last name like Lea, a thought that gave him something to be proud of. He lived alone in the cottage his parents left him, and Little Farthsworth was small enough for him to build up a steady clientele of people in need of odd jobs and manual labor to be done. As usual he would stop every morning at the diner's, where Clara had agreed to let him place a box at the counter. The folks of Farnsworth would leave messages in the box for the one and only cheap slave labor in probably the whole civilized world.
He saw the most beautiful creature in his entire thirty-six years of life sitting in the diner. The man was seated in his usual place, the same seat facing the window for three days now. Nick could lose himself, staring at the man's classically handsome features, with those exquisitely sculpted cheekbones and strong jaw line and deep, attractive dimples. The man was pale and his golden hair shone like the sun.
Nick saw the faint reflection of himself in the glass pane. He wasn't handsome, and he wasn't golden. And he was never more aware of the glass pane separating him and the glorious man inside the diner.
No use thinking, he told himself as he pulled out the notes in his box.
He heard a gaily voice behind him, but he ignored it until he felt the warm shine of a smile on him. He turned and his heart skipped a beat. The man was there, actually smiling, the vivid blue-green eyes behind the glasses so deep Nick could spend his life drowning in their depths. "Err, hi," he said tentatively. "You need anything fixed? Plumbing?"
He felt heat creeping up his face when he realized what he had just said.
"No. My name's Toby. Tobias Stephens, but call me Toby. Look, this may seem odd, but mind if I join you in your work?"
Maybe he was finally getting his long overdue luck, but Nick didn't question his good fortune. "Sure."
"Let me get this straight. You want me to help you find a fairy circle?" Nick didn't know whether to be disappointed that Toby, like every fucking one else, wanted something from him, or to berate himself for thinking Toby would be different.
They were outside Nick's cottage by the river, ten miles away from the nearest house. Nick dithered at the toaster he was supposed to be mending. He had painstakingly planked a thick board onto a dead oak to convert it into an outdoor table where he could work outdoors, which was where he was at the moment. He looked up at Toby sitting five feet up on an oak branch.
"Fairy circle?" he called back. "What is that?"
"I've been reading about fairies and other fay creatures, and this area was a hotspot for fairy sightings twenty years ago. Since you live here all your life, I thought maybe you have some experience in these sort of matters."
Nick had lived here all his life, never venturing farther than Wickolmshire thirty miles down the highway. He was content here, but hearing it from Toby, Nick felt rather backward and stupid. He had lived here all his life. That sounded pathetic, he realized. He had heard of his parents' native soil in Canada, but he had never bothered with anything beyond that.
"You believe in fairies?"
"No," Toby answered. "But it sure beats reading John Grisham. That fucker can't write."
"So why don't you go to London? It's more fun there," Nick asked as he hammered the broken church porch floor. Usually the Father wouldn't let him enter the church, but the priest decided that God would understand this time.
"My friend John needs some countryside photos. He is making a coffee table book for some publication house."
"John." Nick wanted to demand if Toby was fucking John, if John meant anything to Toby. If Toby was even willing to give Nick a second look. "I saw him with his camera the other day, pestering the locals to pose for some pictures."
"There's John. He has no shame. He would make himself a complete fool if that is what it takes to get what he wants." Toby climbed down the tree, his gray slacks stretching taut over well-rounded buttocks with each movement (Nick couldn't help it - he stared). He dusted himself and rolled his sleeves up, revealing muscular arms dusted with fine gold hair. "Me, I'm chronically shy. I close up whenever I'm in a crowd."
Nick could only shake his head. Toby was actually unaware of his beauty. Nick had noticed the female folks and some men cast appraising glances at Toby, but the latter was completely oblivious. He looked at Toby's hands, always encased in thin kid gloves. "Why are you always wearing these gloves?" he couldn't help asking.
"That's for you to find out." Toby's voice was almost flirtatious as he picked up his coat and cast Nick a backward glance. "I guess I better go back before John sends out a search party. Thanks for the great day."
"You're welcome." Nick's eyes followed Toby until the man left the field of his vision.
THREE
Nick was sleeping like a child. Toby sat back and watched the man, ignoring his half-hearted attempt to fish. The sun was setting, and light was dancing on Nick like fairies on midsummer's night. Nick slept like the dead, snoring softly. Not that Toby blamed the man for neglecting their aborted fishing lesson for Toby. Nick had helped Matthews the furniture mill owner unload six truckloads of timber products the whole morning and afternoon.
Dare he? Toby swallowed and slowly lay himself down on his coat on the grass beside Nick. "Nick?" he whispered. No answer. He edged closer and surreptitiously inhaled. Nick smelled of faint sweat, sawdust, and maleness. "Nick?" he whispered again. Nick's only answer was to roll onto his back. Toby could hear his own heart thundering as his blood surged into his penis, into his temple to pound wildly. He hesitated, then placed his head on Nick's chest. He shut his eyes and stopped breathing.
It was so easy to imagine his head right at home in the nook of Nick's arm and chest. "Nick," he whispered softly, a prayer. He felt Nick's arm reaching up to fall on his back. The illusion of Nick as his lover and protector was tantalizing, intoxicating. There would be no more loneliness, no more hollow feeling. He would be home.
He reached out his trembling right hand to touch Nick's face. He couldn't help it, he so wanted to touch the face that even now in sleep retained some of its tensed wariness. His gloved finger touched Nick's lip, and Nick's eyes opened.
"Hello," Nick murmured, his eyes nothing but tender warmth. "It's not very polite to take advantage of a tired man." He began to pull at the gloves.
"No, don't," Toby started to say.
Nick paused. "Why?"
"You wouldn't believe it if I tell you." Toby swallowed and pulled at his hand that Nick remained holding tightly.
"There's little I believe in anymore. But for you, I may just believe."
"I'm psychic." Toby smiled bitterly. "My bare fingers upon touching you will have snippets of your memory transferred here." He tapped his head. "Touching you will tell me things about you, sometimes secrets you don't want me to know."
"I see. And you don't want to know me. I understand." Nick started to push Toby away.
The loss of Nick's touch was too awful to contemplate. "No. I don't want to know you and then know everything. after a while you will hate me when you can't lie to me or keep anything from me. You will walk away. They always walk away."
"Then you're not even giving me a chance." Nick looked hurt and bewildered. "And yet you put your head on my chest and smelled my scent. I was awake the moment you touched me, by the way. You spent the whole week following me, staring at my ass and crotch. Hell, you jerked off when you saw me bathe in the stream."
"You saw me that day?"
"Oh yes. If I didn't take pity on you I would have taken you there on the riverbank." Nick smiled wolfishly. "So don't tell me you don't want me, Toby. Your eyes are like bowling balls rolling down the alley each time I take off my shirt to work."
"You are so fucking sure of yourself, aren't you?"
"Yes I am." Nick pulled Toby over him and kissed the man hard. He gave a grunt of approval when Toby opened his mouth and allowed Nick access. His tongue slithered in the man's mouth, licking and rubbing, then withdrawing to the tip before thrusting in again. Toby's thighs splayed over Nick's crotch, Nick's cock jammed at Toby's thighs, his hips moving in a motion mimicking that of his tongue's. His hands snaked under Toby's shirt, pushing it up to Toby's chest, then his fingers explored Toby. He pinched Toby's wine-dark nipples, playing with the fleshy nubs, then he was turning them over, he on top.
Toby looked at their touching crotches and slowly pulled Nick's zipper down. "Whoa," he murmured when Nick's cock leapt from the confines of his jeans to smack at Toby's chin. "It looks hot. Maybe I can cool it a little." With that, he stretched his mouth wide and took Nick's cock in. He licked at the tip, swirling his tongue around the smooth head, licking at the ridge, before swallowing it until his throat protested and Nick's rough pubic hair tickled his nose. Then he withdrew his mouth to the tip before repeating the tasting of the tip.
He gasped when he felt Nick's mouth closed over his own cock.
Nick pumped his cock into Toby's mouth, matching his rhythm with Toby's own pumping of cock up Nick's mouth. Their hands were a frenzy of exploration, feeling each other's nipples, tugging and rubbing each other's balls, and then Toby's fingers pierced Nick's anus. Nick arched his back at the penetration, crying his pleasure, then he was jetting his salty fluids down Toby's throat. His balls stung warmly as his orgasms burned, insensate in red hot ejaculation that seemed to last for hours.
When his last spurt had subsided, he gasped. He rolled over onto his stomach in silent invitation, raising to his knees and elbows. He looked back and stared, transfixed, when Toby moved to mount him. Toby's gloved hands rested on his thighs, then a finger pressed into the tight muscle of his sphincter. Nick tried to relax as the finger twisted in circular motion, testing the limit to the stretch of Nick's anus, then the finger was joined by another, and another.
"You're tight."
"I haven't done this in a long time," Nick managed to groan.
"Join the club." Nick shut his eyes and gritted his teeth when he felt the burn that was Toby's cock head spreading his anal entrance. He cried out in pain when the head pierced him, stretching his ass almost to tearing point, then the pain receded somewhat when Toby's cock plunged deeper. Toby felt like a battering ram up Nick's ass, and Nick ground his ass at Toby impatiently, aiding the man deeper until Nick felt the incomparable feeling of that cock nudging against his prostate.
Toby moved, his hips a steady pumping motion. Nick could only enjoy the ride, drowning in the potent pain and pleasure, and when he felt Toby's warm juices slathering his burning insides, he felt like a god. Revered and adored. Then it was his turn, his cock buried in Toby's delicious anus, and he never broke off the kiss even when he came for the second time that evening in Toby.
FOUR
"You looked like you just got fucked through and thoroughly," John remarked. "Spill it out, where did you find a stud in a crap hole like this? I want one too."
"Yeah? I'm not sharing. He's mine for this whole boring vacation." Feeling better than he ever had in days, he pulled off his shirt. He ignored John's exaggerated catcalls at the sight of the French kiss bruises and imprints of Nick's overeager passion across his back and neck. "God it feels great to get laid."
"Say you're not fucking the Madman, are you?"
"Which Madman?"
"The man you are following these past few days."
Toby looked at John. "He's not mad."
"He used to be, and the folks here wouldn't let him forget it. Poor Lea almost murdered a man when he was ten, and was kept in an asylum until five years ago. They say he has been pretty normal ever since, but you know these small town people, they never forget."
"Yes." Toby looked at the wall, his thoughts a million miles away. "And why are you telling me only now?"
"Well, I don't see why I should, but seeing that you're involved with him now, I thought you should know."
"I'm not involved with him. I'm just fucking him."
John gave Toby a who-are-you-kidding look. "I know guys like you, Toby. You can't just fuck someone, you will get involved whether you like it or not. Some guys are cut out to play the field, and guys as fragile as you just aren't that type."
"Let me handle my own affairs, okay John?" Toby grabbed his towel and headed for the shower. "I'll think about this."
He was gone. Toby and his friend John were gone. Nick stood at the diner, only half-listening to Clara babble about the two newly departed strangers. He walked away, not caring where he was going, until he found himself sitting at the spot where he and Toby had made love.
At least that was what they did in Nick's mind. Or he'd like to believe, actually, but he hadn't been in love to actually know if he was in love or not. What he knew was that he had somehow, despite his better judgements, started daydreaming about Toby and he starting a life together. His few sexual partners in the past had never evoked such uncharacteristic impractical wishing in him, hence he had to hand it to Toby for succeeding in sneaking under his skin and breaking his heart.
Maybe he would hate Toby later. Right now he just wanted to lie down and sleep. And so he did.
He continued his life as usual, in routine that was now killing him even more because he had tasted magic if only for a short while. He became short- tempered, not caring if the people thought him mad all over again. Why bother? He had been so stupid - why should he bother being on their good graces? His life was a rut of pathetic broken dreams. He was unemployable, uneducated, coarse, uncivilized. He knew it.
Except for one short week, Toby Stephens had made him feel beautiful. Toby listened to him, and Nick felt confidence took seed in his soul. At close to forty, he had stopped being afraid of himself and the people around him. It wasn't much, but it was a start. Then Toby took it all back.
He would have wept like he did the night he slept on the riverbank, if he didn't feel so useless and pathetic and exhausted in the same time.
And one week later, he watched, uncertain of his feelings, when Toby climbed down from the bus, fresh-faced and never more beautiful. "Nick!" Toby called.
Nick started walking the other way.
"Nick, I have to talk to you!" he heard Toby call.
The only reason he stopped for the heartless bastard was that he owed Toby something for the happiest week of his life. He stood, silent and forbidding, that Toby frowned, bewildered.
"What's wrong Nick?"
"What's wrong? You fucked me and then upped and left," Nick exploded. "What am I supposed to think?"
"I left a note." Toby paled. "Didn't I?"
"No."
Toby passed a large brown envelope to Nick. "What the fuck is this?" Nick growled.
"Why I left. For you."
Nick stared at the documents in his hand. "The man you almost murdered tried to rape your mother. The case was reopened eight years ago, but somehow they never get around to clearing your name. I've started the petition with the help of a few lawyer friends. I unearthed these while on a mad wild goose chase to obtain paperwork certifying that you are fully recovered from your stay in the asylum."
"So now you find out that I'm not a loony and you can now fuck me without qualms?"
"No," Toby said easily. "I want to make the townspeople treat you better."
"They never will. Trust me, I have lived with them all my life." Nick didn't dare to look at Toby or his nerve would break. "So you're done now. Go back to New York."
"Look, John has to go to Manchester to see to a family matter. I have a spare ticket. Care to join me?" Toby looked at Nick hopefully.
"Take off your gloves," Nick ordered.
"But I thought you don't believe in my psychic ability." Toby removed them nonetheless, and Nick placed the man's palms at his temple. Toby's eyes widened, then a wide grin split his face into a million sunshine. "You sure, Nick?"
"I'm sure." He held his hand to Toby. "Help me pack?"
Toby placed his bare hand in Nick's.