THE GENTLEMEN'S CLUB
Ralph

Written by Lady Poetess
egiggles at moose-mail.com
/~bbp

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

ONE

Ralph Fiennes was cool and debonair. He was, after all, the third
son of one of the last few true blue-blooded aristocrats of
England. Problems might rain on Ralph but he never seemed ever
perturbed even slightly by them. He leaned against the wall,
gloriously handsome in his chiseled and aristocratic face and
looking like temptation incarnate in proper black tux. He was all
in black, with only a glimpse of white from his shirt under the
suit to break the monotony.

Griffin Bracket stared at the photograph and heard his deep intake
of breath. His heart hurt at the sight of such beauty. Ralph's red
bow tie was careless slung across his broad left shoulder, giving
him an air of dishevelment.

And Ralph was looking at the camera in disinterest, as if he knew
a lustful audience was watching him, and he couldn't care less.

Griff perused the other photos disinterestedly. All were of
friends of John, all gay men that good-naturedly agreed to lend
their faces to John's latest project. Brian, in shorts and T-shirt
catching a basketball, his shirt lifted to expose a brief glimpse
of flat stomach; Mike grinning like a gleaming Ken doll to the
camera; Ethan biting his thumb and looking out of camera's range -
all men made even more beautiful by John's stark and elegant
photography. There was Seth, shy yet vivacious, in a clown suit
and sitting on a box in a fun house, looking at the camera and
smiling enigmatically. And of course, the two best friends Mikey
and Ryan laughing and jostling each other as they walked out of a
club.

John made simplicity sexy. Yet Griff's eyes kept darting back to
that photo of Ralph.

He had never met Ralph. No one seemed to know him very well.
Ethan, a playwright, has told Griff that Ralph was a very rich son
of a British titled lord, and hence had the luxury to hide away
and write as a life. Griff pushed aside a photo of Ronan sitting
at a park bench, looking at Stephen who walked past, absently
noting that Ronan looked indeed like a man in love, and looked at
John.

"I haven't met Ralph before."

John wasn't an unobservant man. "Join the club. When I first saw
Ralph I too fell madly in lust. Looking at him made my heart hurt.
Still do sometimes." John smiled at Griff. "Don't tell Mikey that,
okay?" he said, referring to his live-in lover. "Look at that smug
bastard," he said, poking his second finger at Ralph's face. "He
never gives anyone time of day, indulging people and himself at
his own whim and fancy. He's a heartbreaker."

"He broke your heart," Griff murmured.

John laughed almost bitterly. "I wasn't given any time of the day
by him, much less the luxury of having my heart broken by him. He
loves beauty, and he has no time for a plain man like me." John
said the last statement in an as-a-matter-of-fact tone. Looking at
Griff's simple handsome face, he smiled. "Don't go there Griff.
Don't commit emotional suicide."

"Just asking," Griffin murmured, still looking at the photo.

"Just be aware that you're not the first to look at him and feel
that way. I doubt you'll be the last." John hesitated - that photo
was the best of the series he had done on Ralph. He also knew the
pain of doomed lust. "Keep this photo Griff," he said gently.

Griff smiled then, a brilliant flash of white teeth and genuine
gratitude. That was the magic that was Griffin - he was
classically handsome yet he was so earnest and transparent in his
desires and wishes. He was a simple, linear man who lived no
further than today. "Thanks John," he said, pocketing the photo.

John watched Griffin walked out of the studio, another good-
looking man who had forgotten him after he had given the man what
the man wanted. He told himself that he was immune to beauty. But
his heart hurt each time he saw beautiful men and women around
him, always aware that he was too plain to even warrant a second
glance from them. Or a thought after they were done with him.

Until Mikey. Old habits, however, died a slow death. Maybe in a
hundred years he would finally stop feeling the hurt.

He saw the young man walked in, casually unzipping his leather
jacket. His heart, hurting before, now broke. "Mikey, tell me
again why you stay this long with me?" he asked softly, taking
Mikey's left hand in his right.

"Because you're cool," Mikey said, falling into John's arms. "And
because I love you."

"I'll keep you a little longer," John said, the pain in his heart
forgotten. He had Mikey - nothing else mattered.

He hoped Griff would learn fast that Ralph couldn't feel anything
for anyone but himself. He hated to see beauty broken into pieces.
Besides, he liked that man a lot.



TWO

The man bent over his keyboards, barely looking at the monitor as
his fingers flew, forming words in barely coherent speed. Ralph
Fiennes had lost his writer's block. He was inspired, and he
couldn't stop the words from pouring out of him.

"I'm lonely," he typed. "Save me before I lose myself. Today I saw
a man who taught me the meaning of desire. A man of tall stature
and a smile that could melt the sun in its warmth. I am, upon
laying eyes on him, exceedingly jealous of the very space he
occupied. I want to be the very air he breathes, and I want to be
one he breathes upon, he continued."

He heard Griffin stir in the bed behind him and felt a delicious
shiver surge up his naked spine, feeling the goose bumps of
anticipation on his skin. Then Griffin was behind him - so close,
the man's body heat burned Ralph. When Griff's large, rough hands
touched his shoulders, naked flesh searing white heat on naked
flesh, Ralph threw his head back and moaned, eyes closed.

He spread his legs, feeling Griffin's touch warming every inch of
his body. His balls filled the juncture of his thighs even as his
cock filled, standing strong and proud in abject worship of the
man touching him.

They had met each other ten minutes into the party last night, and
Ethan had barely introduced Griffin to Ralph when Ralph had
excused himself. He was shaken, in truth, at the way his heart
burst into flames of desire when he first saw Griffin. The shorter
man - six feet, Ralph guessed, to his six feet three - was
handsome in a pretty model way, but it was the man's brilliant
smile that blinded Ralph. That, and the sheer predatory gleam in
Griffin's eyes when the man looked at him.

Unnerved, Ralph had fled for the safety of Brendan's library. He
knew Griffin was pursuing, for he was somehow aware of every
bristling of hair on his skin, the way heat flushed his face the
moment Griffin was near. Ridiculous - it was as if they were both
animals in heat, which was impossible.

Griffin climbed the stairs, ten steps behind Ralph. Ralph felt
foolish running away from this man, who couldn't be older than
twenty-six at most to his thirty-four, but he quickened his pace.
Thrill, terror, fear, arousal... he couldn't distinguish his own
feelings anymore.

"No," he said to himself when he found himself on a deserted
corridor. Fuck Brendan, why couldn't he have a smaller mansion? He
couldn't hear the guests anymore. He could hear the steady
footsteps; however, the tap of sturdy leather soles on polished
marble floor.

Griffin walked slowly, step by step, grinning almost demonically
as he calmly loosened his tie with his right hand. The slow tug
and unloosening of the elegantly knotted fabric terrified Ralph,
who saw the promise in the graceful sweep of that hand.

He began to run, not caring where he was going. He only knew he
had to seek safety to think and reconsider this mad lust.

And he heard Griffin giving chase.

"Stay away," he cried in genuine fear.

He never felt the impact of falling when Griffin crashed onto him.

He was aware, however, of Griffin's chest and groin pressing on
the length of his back. He breathed softly, letting the scent of
Griffin's cologne overwhelm him like a drugged haze. "No," he
started again, trying to shake Griffin off. He hated this
helplessness and loss of his control.

"No?" Griffin murmured, a soft tenor of promise in his voice.

Both of them were aware of Griffin's throbbing erection pressing
into the juncture of Ralph's thighs.

"Please, don't do this," Ralph pleaded.

Griffin snarled and hooked his fingers into Ralph's collar. And
ripped.

Ralph leapt up then, throwing Griffin off. There was a loud tear
as his shirt and coat gave way. He couldn't make more than three
paces however when Griffin's hands grabbed his feet, tripping him.
Ralph fell heavily on his back even as Griffin pounced.

Rough hands mauled his cock through his trousers, then Ralph
screamed, his cries choked by a rough hand closing over his mouth.
That thick, very thick shaft that plunged hard up his anus,
tearing him painfully, drove him to arch his body up in agony.
This allowed Griffin to push him up against the wall, lifting
Ralph's legs to circle his waist. Then he withdrew an inch, then
rammed up another four. Ralph clawed at his back, pleading,
screaming, begging for mercy, but Griffin only rammed his mouth
over Ralph's in a bruising kiss.

His hips never stopped its brutal pumping, not even when thin warm
trails of blood began seeping from Ralph's anus down his shaft to
pool at his pubic hair and seep down his balls. He was aware,
however, that Ralph had stopped fighting, and those hands were now
biting into his tight rounded buttocks painfully, urging him on
even as their tongues now entwined and writhe in sinuous mating
dance. The hall echoed with the sound of their flesh slapping
flesh.

Then Ralph gave a keening cry, throwing his head into Griffin's
right shoulder. Griffin felt the man's teeth sinking into his
flesh, the pain, and the blood. Ralph was shuddering in jerky
spasms, his throbbing cock ejaculating its thick juices to splash
on their chests, at Griffin's stomach. The pain and the
contraction of Ralph's anus on his rapidly swelling cock drove him
over the edge.

He shouted, maybe screamed, pressing Ralph heavily against the
wall in one hard thrust. His semen erupted in powerful geysers,
pouring heavily up Ralph's anus in his climax. His buttocks
clenched tight as his hips bucked in short brief thrust with each
ejaculation.

Ralph shivered in excitement at the recall of last night's furious
rape at Griffin's hands. And Griffin had taken him again and
again, painfully brutal each time, later when they escaped the
party through a window to return to Ralph's place.

Now, however, Griffin was gentle, slowly kissing the bruises on
Ralph's shoulders and arms.

Then he was pushed up from his chair, and up the table. Ralph
found himself on his arms and knees. He looked down, at the sight
of his cock sticking out towards him, and almost ejaculated right
then at the sight of Griffin sitting on the chair, eyes looking
right at Ralph's semen-stained anus.

Then - oh yes - Griffin's tongue slowly lapped at the circular
pucker of Ralph's anus. The sensitive skin protested and reveled
at the rough texture of Griffin's tongue running and prodding at
it and Ralph bit back a cry of delicious pleasure. He spread his
legs further, lowering his buttocks so that he was more at level
with Griffin's slurping mouth. Oh God, now that mouth was sucking
and lapping at Ralph's asshole, licking and slurping at Griffin's
own semen mingled with Ralph's own anal juices. He looked down, at
the arousing sight of Griffin's lightly bearded chin moving
hungrily. He was moaning now, and he knew Griffin was equally
frenzied. The latter now was squeezing Ralph's hips with his hands
as he stood up, pressing his face deeper between Ralph's buttocks,
licking and sucking and eating at Ralph.

The slick, shiny cock crown of Griffin stood towards the man's
navel; and Ralph looked at it hungrily. He could still see the
shiny coat of semen and ass juices along the shaft and coating
that beautiful glan. But first - "Oh God have mercy!" Ralph gasped
when that clever tongue hit a sensitive spot that send hot flames
of pleasure up his spine - first, oh hell, what was the first
thing?

No matter. Griffin now was straddling the table, and now he was
slowly pushing that beautiful and thick fuck stick up Ralph's
welcoming asshole. Ralph shut his eyes and placed his forehead at
the table, in ecstasy even as they began thrusting towards
ecstasy.


THREE

"I don't even know who you are," Ralph murmured, turning his head
to look at the head buried in his neck. He stretched his body on
the sweat-stained sheets, letting out a sigh of pleasure as his
muscles rippled under Griffin's hands that were now roaming every
inch of bared skin. Every slow slick of Griffin's callused finger
on his pale skin sent flickers of awareness through every sizzling
inch of his soul, making him never more aware of their sex and the
anticipated climax at the moment.

When Griffin's right hang slipped between Ralph's thighs, Ralph
surrendered, biting back a sigh when Griffin's two fingers
penetrated his now sore and ravaged anus. When that hand touched
Ralph's lips, Ralph snaked his tongue out, licking those fingers
of the slippery moisture coating them.

"I can be who you want me to be," Griffin murmured.

"Fine, remain a mystery," Ralph said, closing his eyes when
Griffin slowly licked and bit into his shoulder blade. "Just touch
me." Hold me, tight, he wanted to say. Drive away the loneliness.



"People tended to say I was a fool. I was beautiful, they said,"
Ralph continued typing, "and I didn't deserve this beauty if I was
lonely. Since when was beauty intimate with loneliness?"

"I am lonely, I really am. I have had many lovers when I was
younger, taking and discarding them in my vain search for
perfection. I trampled on hearts, breaking them because I can.
Perhaps now I am paying penance for these broken hearts," Ralph
continued. "Not a day passes without me feeling this cavernous
hollow in my soul."

"I want color. I want magic. I want to stand at the rooftop of the
Empire State Building and scatter leaves in the wind. And God help
me, I want to jump. But not when I am now in his arms. I know not
why, but I feel safe. He is my anchor, my soul."

"Hey!" Ralph said, startled, when Griffin snatched the pile of
printed papers by his side.

"I made you feel this way?" he asked after reading a few pages.

Embarrassed, Ralph gave a vehement denial.

Griffin shrugged and tossed the papers carelessly up in the air.
An act of blasphemy to Ralph, who held the written word sacred,
and he started to utter a sharp retort. But he paused, lost, as he
saw, in slow entranced enthrallment, the papers danced in the air,
falling like autumn leaves around the very naked, very aroused
Griffin.

"At least you're writing again. I guess I'm good for your writer's
block. I don't think how you can sell this though," Griffin said,
sitting at the table beside Ralph. "Then again, I don't read much,
so what the fuck do I know?"

"Reading does not imply intelligence and vice versa," Ralph
murmured. "A reader is merely a man who knows how to seek color
where it is absent in his life. A man of imagination and of joy in
living."

"You love writing and reading," Griffin stated.

"I do." These activities never hurt, they gave him far more
happiness than any other thing in this world. "Of course, I'm
lucky. I'm fucking rich enough so I can devote my life writing."

"Unlike me who dropped out of high school," Griffin murmured.

"Don't feel bad," Ralph murmured back.

"I always have a crush on the pretty nerds in my school, did I
tell you that?" Griffin said, rubbing his freshly shaved chin.
"And you are the type of guys that I wanted to fuck all my days in
high school. Funny huh, Ralph? Others wanted to fuck the jock, I
was the jock who wanted to fuck the nerds."

"I bet the nerds loved you," Ralph said.

"Oh yes they did. And their teachers," Griffin said, smiling as he
pulled Ralph into his arms. "But I love them all, because they are
intelligent. I love an intelligent man."

"You would love me then," Ralph said before he could stop himself.

Silence. Then Griffin gave a clear, merry laugh. "Maybe," he said
in between laughter. "If you're lucky, maybe."



Griffin loved to be around intelligence. Ralph realized later how
much that was true - Griffin was never happier when Ralph brought
him to his critique circle. Griffin sat in the corner, listening
in a rapturous expression at Ralph and his writing circle
exchanged and debated plot lines and characterizations. He read
the books in Ralph's untidy pile, although he confessed that he
didn't understand half of anything he'd read.

Griffin craved knowledge but for some reason, he couldn't absorb
it.

And Ralph found his presence gratifying. He didn't care if Griffin
disappeared from ten in the morning to six in the evening. Griff
always turned up at seven in fresh clothes and scent, and by eight
Ralph would be at his knees, legs wide upon for Griffin's butt
fucking. And when they were temporarily sated, Ralph would write.
He would write stories he would never publish, personal
reminiscences, as well as a tight crime thriller that he knew
without vanity that would be another bestseller.

It was at chapter fifteen, three weeks after Griff walked into his
life, that he realized that he hadn't felt any melancholic
loneliness and meaninglessness of this whole life of his.

He might be falling in love with this man whom he knew not a thing
about. And it terrified him.



FOUR

"You better not come here tomorrow," Ralph told him the next
night.

Griff paused in the act of unbuckling his belt. He was about to
strip for a shower before his nightly fucking of Ralph. "Why?" he
asked.

"My lover Victor would be returning from his trip to London,"
Ralph said honestly. "I'm sorry, I never knew how I would tell you
until now."

"Victor? Your lover?" Griff asked, looking as if he had just been
stabbed.

"He and I have been together for six years. We are planning to get
married this September," Ralph said quietly.

"Well. Okay," Griff said nonchalantly. "A goodbye fuck then?"

Ralph wasn't fooled - not when Griff's voice now lacked the good
cheer always present, not when the man's hands trembled when he
slowly, tenderly touched and kissed Ralph's skin, not when his
tears fell slowly on Ralph's back like the purest of emotions even
as the man boned him.

Ralph felt his own tears running down his cheeks, but fuck if he
knew why.



"Mr Victor Garber?" the smiling young man said. "I'm Griffin
Brackett. I'm your driver."

Victor took in the man's well-honed physique underneath the simple
sports shirt and jeans and smiled. "Thanks."

Griffin grinned wider, opening the door for the man.



"I know he loves me. I do not know why," Ralph typed. "But I am
blessed, I feel, because he loves me. Poor fool. I will break his
heart. I always do."



"I fucked Ralph," Griffin said. "I fucked him six ways to Sunday
and you really don't mind?"

"Ralph and I have an understanding," Victor said. "When we are
away, we are free to date and see anyone we choose. Why don't you
fuck him and let me watch?"

Griffin stopped the car. He turned around and looked at Victor,
his pleasant eyes now cold with ice. "I love him, you know. When
he told me about you, I felt as if my heart was ripped out of my
chest and squeezed dry. He threw me out for you. Do you know how
that make me feel?"

Victor was now slowly panicking, especially when he realized the
passenger doors had locks that could only be opened by the driver.

Griffin reached for the Swiss knife in his pocket.

Victor gave a whimper of fear, but there was no place to run.



"He said he would do anything for me," Ralph typed. "I believed
him."



"Flowers for Mr Fiennes," Griffin said, flashing pearly white
teeth in a grin of pure roguishness.

"Griff, please, not today," Ralph said through the door.

"Victor's trip was delayed. Why can't we just keep fucking a few
days more?" Griff asked, knocking on the door again. "Ralph, come
on, let me in. I can make you forget the loneliness."

Ralph cursed himself for letting slip of his feelings. Or maybe
Griff deduced it. He could still hear John tell him, "Griffin? I
don't really know him. He was a model that I photographed a few
times, and I heard he retired a few months ago. Came up to me a
few weeks ago for some chitchat, and I gave him a photo of you. He
was really taken with you. God, Ralph, you're fucking him?"

But Griffin knew a lot about Ralph. Ralph shut his eyes,
remembering the late night talks when Griffin would quote from
Ralph's books. The man had read everything Ralph wrote. Small
things now pieced in Ralph's minds, things that he'd thought odd
briefly but soon forgotten, like Griffin knowing the location of
the bathroom, bedroom, and many rooms in this penthouse apartment
without being told. Griffin knowing the nature of the Church
landscape in the study without Ralph telling him. So many small
inconsequential things that Ralph might not have noticed if he
wasn't a study of inconsequential details.

"Oh God," he said in horror.

"Ralph," he said the man's low voice outside his door. "Let me
in."

"Please, go away," he said back. "Please."

He heard the man's low curse. Then silence, except for shoes
walking away from his door.



Griffin left messages on his machine, every fifteen minutes for
the first day. Ralph ignored the knockings at his door, or the way
Griffin shouted his name until his voice was hoarse.

"Let it stop," he typed, barely seeing what he was typing through
the tears blurring his eyes. "I should call the cops. I should.
But I can't."

Ralph heard the phone ring, and the answering machine coming to
life.

"Why won't you see me, Ralph?" came Griffin's broken voice. "I
know you're listening. Please, talk to me." Silence. "Talk to me,"
Griffin said now, calmly and steely. "Talk to me, Ralph. I love
you."

Ralph sobbed into his fist, biting the knuckles until they bled.

"Talk to me!" Griffin screamed now. "Talk to me! TALK TO ME!!!"

With a shaking hand, Ralph tugged at the machine, and ripped it
out of its socket and flung it across the room with a crash.



"Life has no meaning," he wrote. "Not now, not when the man I love
is nothing but an illusion. What am I living for now? I am
melancholy. I am bitterness. I am doomed."



Victor's body was found the next day, and they suspected homicide.

Ralph read the news, answered the cops' questions calmly, and told
them about Griffin.

"You okay?" John said, sitting beside Ralph and pushing a mug of
hot coffee in the man's shaky hands.

"I may never be," Ralph said. "Maybe I never was okay."

"You're never this screwed up before. Are you on drugs?" John
asked in concern.

"No." Yes, and that drug was Griffin. Even now, Ralph craved the
man, wanting the man's touch deep in every inch of his being.
"Please, I need to be alone."

John whispered before he left to the cop on watch to make sure
Ralph didn't have any easy access to potential suicide
instruments.



Ralph wasn't surprised to find Griff in his bedroom when he awoke
at one in the morning.

"Tell me, shall I shoot him?" Griff said, one muscular arm around
the cop's neck, another pointing a gun at the man's head.

"No." Ralph tried to control his rising fear and excitement.

"Too bad." Griff pulled the trigger.

Ralph cried, averting his ears, opening them only when Griffin
laughed. The man threw the still alive but unconscious cop aside,
having shot at the roof.

"You think I will disobey you?" Griff asked, his voice reflecting
genuine puzzlement. "I love you. I will do anything you say."

"You killed Victor," Ralph said. He was surprised at how calm he
felt.

"He tried to take you away from me," Griffin said simply.

"You lied to me."

"I never told you anything to even lie to you in the first place,"
Griffin said crossly. "Fine, I'm a stalker, I admit it. I am in
love with you ever since I read your book Incideterata. You
described my madness and torment so well that I thought you were
my soul mate."

Griffin climbed onto the bed, on all four, moving towards Ralph.
"My therapist said I was deluding myself. And I thought he was
right, so I decided to see you for myself. Lucky me, John knew
you. And lucky me too, you were so hot for me the moment we saw
each other that I knew I was right. You and I are soul mates."

He leaned forward until he was an inch away from Ralph's face.
That pleasant, charming face was now terrifying in its gentle
calmness despite the horrifying things he was saying.

"I have killed for you, and say the word and I will do it again. I
will lie, cheat, do time, and die for you, Ralph." Griff smiled
crookedly. "Yes, you have so much power over me. Doesn't that
excite you?"

"You're mad."

"As are you."

Ralph's eyes widened at that.

"How many times have you wanted to die? How many times did you
feel as if you're losing control? That's how I feel without you in
my life," Griffin continued. "And I know you feel the same way."

"Yes," Ralph whispered, looking away.

"Are you mad at me for killing Victor?" Griffin asked.

"Too late for that question, isn't it, since Victor is already
dead?" Ralph said with a short bitter laugh.

"Next time I will try to rein in on my impulsive actions," Griffin
said seriously. Then he smiled. "Admit it, Ralph, you're aroused
at the thought of me killing for you. I will even kill for us,
love." He placed the gun's nozzle at Ralph's forehead. "See?
You're shivering in excitement."

"I'm terrified," Ralph answered, breathing hard.

"And aroused," Griffin murmured, looking down at the steely
erection of Ralph pressing against his stomach. He bent down and
lowered his mouth to Ralph's. As they kissed, he felt Ralph's hand
slowly prying the gun from his hand. He didn't care. He deepened
the kiss, tasting Ralph's very essence, and not all caring when he
felt Ralph pushing the pistol at his chest.

A shot rang through the night.



FIVE


"The moral of the story is, I guess, never pick up strangers, no
matter how appealing they can be," Ralph told his friends.

He was back to his old self, witty, self-effacing, and debonair.
The same crazy writer who was pathetic in poker.

"Welcome back, old friend," John said.

"Hear, hear," Ben Affleck chorused to the agreement of those at
the poker table.

"Too bad about the cop who died after shooting that lunatic
stalker," Stephen murmured. "You can still stay at my old place,
Ralph. It'll be impossible to find a decent pad at this time of
the year."

"No, I've found a new place." Ralph smiled. "I'm leaving New
York." He looked at his stunned friends. "Of course, I'll be
seeing you guys as I'll be coming down often to rendezvous with my
editor and such, but you're right, John. I need new scenery. I
think I will love New Mexico."



Griffin was waiting with the car. Ralph smiled, picking his
luggage.

"I love you," Griffin said.

He killed, he lied, and he burned Ralph's pad.

Ralph climbed onto the car. Fuck all that, really. "Let's go to
New Mexico," he said.