A gay story: An Italian boy in Camford Pt. 01 [Most of the characters in this story have appeared in my previous stories, but you do not need to have read them. This is my first story written in the third person. It tells of two gay couples and an Italian boy who is in search of love and adventure in the English university city of Camford. As usual with my stories, some places and institutions are real, others are fictitious.]
Chapter One: Sandro arrives in Camford
On a beautiful summer afternoon in July, 20—, Alessandro Mascagnoli got off the train in Camford station. Sandro was 19 years of age and had successfully made the journey on his own from the small town where he lived in northern Italy to London-Gatwick airport via Valerio-Catullo-Villafranca airport. From Gatwick he had taken the train to Camford, a trip involving a confusing train journey through the centre of London. It was less than a year since he had last been in Camford, but then he had been brought by his parents for his grandparents’ fortieth wedding anniversary, and his cousin Luca’s civil partnership ceremony.
Sandro had grown up very close to both his parents. As a teenager he had never felt rebellious, and his discovery at the age of about 16 that the man whom he had always regarded as his father, Massimo Mascagnoli, was not his biological father, instead of creating a barrier between them, actually drew him closer, as he was old enough to recognize the kindness and nobility of a man who could marry a pregnant woman and bring up her child at his own. Surprisingly too, this revelation did not alienate him from his mother Dorotea, but drew him closer to her as he felt full of sympathy for a woman who had been so deceived. However, he nourished a lingering deep-seated venomous contempt for the man who had twice seduced her. The unexpected visit to the family of his hitherto unknown English brother, Luca, whom he had always thought was his cousin, had precipitated his mother’s revelation of his parenthood. Meeting Luca and his relatives may have made Sandro wonder more about the world outside his home-town.
At school, he had had friendships with boys and girls of his own age but nothing really close. His closest friends had all been boys, but this did not stop him from looking with interest and excitement at some of the girls in his class at school, many of whom were very pretty. So it was with a sense of adventure and uncertainty about himself and particularly about his sexuality, that he had set out in great excitement, having surmounted the rather considerable barrier of gaining admission to a foreign university, the University of Camford. Apart from his family, there was no-one whom he really regretted leaving.
Sandro’s intention was to matriculate in October at Saint Boniface’s College to read engineering, but in the meantime he had been enrolled by his uncle on a so-called intensive course of English language at one of the numerous private language schools with which Camford is well endowed. It was not that he did not know English: he had been brought up as bilingual, as his mother was English and his father Italian. However, his pronunciation left a lot to be desired and his knowledge of English grammar was rather fuzzy. Moreover the College had insisted that he sit the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and get the maximum grade.
His biological uncle David Singleton-Scarborough, Luca’s adoptive father, however, would not be there in Camford. He had recently started spending the summer months in the Dutch town of Heemstede, near Haarlem, where he was teaching singing and and having recording sessions for Philips. Accordingly, David’s partner, Luca’s cofather, Jonathan Singleton-Scarborough, would be keeping house for Sandro in their flat in Fountain Street until the Martinmas term began. It was a testimony to Jonathan’s deep love for David that he had separated himself from his partner for two months in order to oblige the needs of David’s extended family.
The bag that Sandro was carrying, together with a large backpack, comprised only part of his luggage. The remainder would be sent by an international road delivery service at some unspecified date in the future. Jonathan met him at the station and they loaded the two pieces of luggage into the back of the 4×4. Jon then drove them to Fountain Street. He never ceased to marvel at the resemblance between Sandro and his own adopted son, Luke, or Luca he was called by his Italian relations. This was scarcely surprising, as they were biological brothers. Both boys had long, very black wavy hair, both were tall and thin, and both were very brown-skinned.
Sandro had been assigned the small bedroom formerly occupied by David and Jon’s daughter Cathy. Cathy, who still had another year of study at Oxbridge University, had insisted on being upgraded to the other spare bedroom as soon as her brother and Tom had moved out, mainly because she wanted the en-suite bathroom. However, she was currently staying with one of her friends in Scotland. By the time unpacking was complete, it was turned six o’clock, and Jon and Sandro went out to eat at the Sparrowhawk, a pub close by the flat in Fountain Street.
On the way to the pub, Jonathan said to him, “Non parlamo Italiano! From now on, I will no longer speak Italian to you. Everything you say must be in English. If you don’t know the words, think of a different way to say the same thing in words that you do know. If that’s impossible, then ask me in English what the word you need is, and I will tell you. But the only way for you to get really good at speaking English is never to use your native language. I will try, when we are together, to try and improve your pronunciation. You know most of the words, but you don’t always say them in the right way. English is much harder to pronounce than Italian, because there are very few rules, and words are often not spoken the way they are spelt. Every evening before you go to bed, I will allow you to talk to me in Italian for not more than half an hour, just so that you can relax before you go to sleep.”
It was unfortunate for Sandro that his brother Luca, whom everyone who did not know the secret of the two boys’ parenthood thought was his cousin, was not around to welcome him. Luca had just gone to live in Italy with his partner Tom Appleton, where they had recently got jobs in the city of Trabizona. Sandro did not know his uncle David’s partner very well, they had only met about twice, but he felt that he was going to get on well with this elderly man whom his uncle loved so much. The guy, even though he was approaching sixty, seemed to understand the feelings of teenagers.
This feeling of Sandro’s was strengthened when they reached the pub. “As you’re 19,” said Jon “it’s quite legal for you to drink alcohol, so I am going to buy you some English beer. I don’t know whether you drank beer at home, but it is essential in this town to be able to drink and to enjoy beer. Most people don’t like beer the first time that they taste it, or even the second or third time! But if you persevere, you realize that it is one of the most enjoyable and refreshing drinks there is. A lot of women don’t like beer, but that’s because they are not prepared to make the effort to learn, whereas men think that it is manly to drink beer, so they do make the effort. It’s not true of course, but it makes men happy to think so! Language skills are just the same. You have to persevere and work hard to learn to speak a language well.” He presented Sandro with a half pint of Camford’s local brew, West London Bitter. Sandro tasted it and pulled a face.
“It’s very bitter,” he said. “What does ‘persevere’ mean?”
“Yes, it takes quite an effort to get used to it. Drink it up and you can then have a cola if you want it! ‘Persevere’ is perseverare in Italian, not very different. When you meet the kids from the language school, you’ll probably find that they are very juvenile and childish. Don’t drink the rubbish beer or the alcopops that they drink and steer clear of hash or hard drugs. If you don’t enjoy their company, don’t worry, the boys and girls you’ll meet when you move into college will be much more interesting.”
The next few minutes were spent by Jon telling Sandro what the various items on the menu were. The pub did have a few Italian dishes, and Sandro ended up choosing lasagne. “That won’t taste like the lasagne that your mother cooks!” said Jon.
“It’s fine!” replied Sandro. Teenagers are always ready to eat most kinds of food. He finished the beer and asked Jon for a cola.
“Here’s the money,” said Jon, “go up to the bar and order it yourself. I don’t think that they will ask for proof of age, as you are not buying alcohol, but if they do, show them your passport. You need practice in doing things like buying drinks.” They ate their meal, both having two courses, and Jon consumed a pint of West London bitter. Jon paid the bill for the food.
When they got back to the flat, Jon took a copy of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ from the shelf and told Sandro to read out loud from it. First Jon read a paragraph, telling Sandro to listen carefully, then Sandro read the same passage, and Jon corrected his pronunciation. “We’ll do half an hour of that every evening,” said Jon. “You’ll find that it is the best way to improve your pronunciation. It won’t always be the same book, and sometimes we’ll use a newspaper.”
They then had a long chat in Italian, in which both agreed that the complexity of their family relationships was not only confusing to themselves, it must totally baffle people outside the family. Sandro was in many ways so like Luke, that Jon found it easier to think of Sandro as another son rather than his partner’s nephew and Sandro found it easier to think of Jon as another father rather than his uncle’s partner. When speaking of Jon to other people, he resolved to call him his uncle. ‘Co-uncle’ seemed an unintelligible word, as well as being hard to say. Sandro went to bed thinking that England might be enjoyable as well as extremely interesting. Jon went to bed missing his son, whom he had not seen for six months, his memory having been awakened by Sandro’s amazing resemblance. He just hoped for the sake of family peace and quiet, that Sandro did not turn out to be gay.
Chapter Two: Problem at the opera house
David Singleton-Scarborough breathed a sigh of relief as the last pupil of the day left his house. The boy had been rather a pain. He persistently failed to get the tempo of the aria he was singing right to David’s satisfaction. Sometimes David wondered whether starting teaching was the right thing for him to have done. One of his reasons for doing so was so that he could spend more time with his partner Jon. However, things had not turned out that way. When his sister Dorothea, known by her husband as Dorotea, asked if he could keep an eye on her son Alessandro while he was polishing up his English prior to entering Camford University, David had said that he himself couldn’t do it, but that he would ask his partner Jon. So Jon agreed to spend an extra couple of months in the apartment in Fountain Street, Camford instead of sleeping every night in Heemstede with his lover.
David liked living in the Netherlands. Although he missed the academic hothouse atmosphere of Camford, the relaxed atmosphere of the Low Countries suited him. He was after all, half Dutch by birth. But at the same time, he also missed Jon. In Heemstede, he had more time to think of his partner than during his recital tours and opera engagements.
David got up and went into his office, where his PA, Loesje was checking his diary for the following week. “Net zodra je klaar bent, Loesje, ga maar een beetje vervroegd naar huis.” (As soon as you’re done, Loesje, you can go home a bit early) he said. When she had gone, fancying a bit of phone sex, even though it was only 4-30 pm in England, he reached for the telephone to ring Jon. However, at that moment there was a ringing sound from his laptop. It was Luke, calling from Italy via Skype. David looked at the handsome image of his twenty-three-year-old son. He radiated contentment. ‘Married’ life with his partner Tom obviously suited Luke. “Hi, Dad, after six months, I’m finally doing something interesting, and I need to ask you something. Our head répétiteur is leaving shortly, and my boss is looking for someone to replace him, and being very international in outlook (otherwise he wouldn’t have hired me!) he is thinking about someone from Northern Europe rather than another Italian. Do you know of any good répétiteurs who might want to gain experience in Italy?”
David thought for a moment. “There are very good ones in Copenhagen, Mannheim, Antwerp and Lyon,” he said, “but whether any of them might want to go to Trabizona, I don’t know. I’ll send you their names by E-mail, and their E-mail addresses if I can find them, which I doubt. How are you, and how’s Tom?”
“I’m fine. As for Tom, his Italian has now taken off! For months he’s been trying to talk Italian to me in bed. All the dirty words I learnt from the students in Bologna, I’ve taught to him, but a month ago I forbade him from speaking English to me, not just in bed, but all the time! That made it hard work for him, but now he’s starting to think in Italian, and we never use English in the house! He says it has made things so much easier in the lab, being able to talk to technicians, students and clerical staff, instead of just scientists. Do you know what he said to me in bed the other day? ‘Mi piace tuo cazzo bello’!” (I love your beautiful cock).
“It sounds to me as though he has finally succumbed to the charms of Italy!” David replied. “Italy has attracted Englishmen since the days of the Anglo-Saxons. No less than three Anglo-Saxon kings went on pilgrimage to Rome and died there.
“Anyway, I’m very glad that Tom has broken through the barrier. It is very hard, however much of a foreign language you can understand and read, to actually go out and speak to people. Now that Tom has gained his confidence in communicating, his vocabulary will increase like a bomb. But keep up the daily flash-card exercises. That is the best way to expand his vocabulary easily. The dirty words will help. There is nothing more limiting than not being able to curse in a foreign tongue! Sometimes when you say or do something, Luke, that I like or approve of, I regret that I’m not your biological father. I can’t even claim credit for your big dick! But I’m glad that Tom appreciates it!”
“It seems strange,” replied Luke “that Tom is such a big lad, and yet only has an average-size dick. But it’s good enough for me. I wouldn’t wish him any different. He’s my big boy from the North! He wouldn’t half be embarrassed if he could hear what we’re talking about!”
“Yes, you have certainly inherited my crude way of talking. That’s a dubious advantage of being brought up by two men, without a mother. For instance, I can’t imagine many fathers ever discussing the size of their sons’ cocks with them! But that comes from swimming naked in our indoor pool. It would have been a lot more difficult for us if you had been straight. You would have cringed, as Cathy often used to, especially when your Pop and I used to talk about women. I just hope that Jon and I are not going to have that sort of problem with Sandro. He’s a sweet boy, and I hope that he rapidly gets his uncertainty about his sexuality cleared up. I would hate your mother to accuse Jon and me of tipping him over the fence into gayness. Still, we shall know within the next year or so! Luke, are you busy this weekend?” (It was Friday afternoon).
“Not really,” replied Luke. I’m working tomorrow night, but only from five till about eleven. I’m free all day Sunday, though we’re going to my mother’s for lunch and dinner. Why?”
“I’m missing Jon, and I’ve no lessons this weekend, because a lot people are on holiday. If I can get a plane tonight, I’m minded to come and see you both.”
“What a brilliant idea! I’ll make up a bed for you and Tom will come to Valerio-Catullo to meet you, because I’m working tonight.”
“Right! I’ll ring you from Schiphol to confirm that I’ve got a seat on the plane. The flight’s at 7-30, so I should arrive about 9-30 pm.”
All went according to plan. As David emerged from the arrivals gate at Valerio-Catullo, Tom rushed up to greet him. David embraced him and gave him a quick kiss. They both noticed on each other the fragrance of Storing pour Homme, the gay perfume that they both used. Tom led him to the car park and unlocked a small white three-door Fiat. “Non parlamo Inglese!” he said, “solo Italiano.” They put David’s bag on the back seat and climbed in. Tom continued in Italian, “I’ve just bought this car from Massimo. He got it for Sandro to learn to drive in, as it’s small and easily manoeuvrable. But Sandro has now passed the driving test and in any case is in Camford, where cars are a liability. So Massimo offered it to me at a bargain price. Because I had only had a license for four months when we got here, I had no problems in adapting to driving on the right. It’s much easier for me to get to the lab by car than to use the bus, whereas Luca can easily go on the tram to the Teatro Musicale. We’re lucky enough to have off-street parking at our apartment.
“There’s a restaurant next door to the opera house that specializes in after-show suppers, so we’re taking you there to eat. We’ve booked a table for 11 pm, which is a bit late to eat, but I guess that you need some food!” They drove into Trabizona and Tom parked the car. At that time of night it was no problem.
They got into the restaurant and sat at the bar, awaiting Luke’s arrival. Tom’s cellphone rang. It was Luke, speaking in English. They had a major problem at the opera house. As he was leaving the building after that evening’s performance of ‘Rigoletto,’ the tenor had slipped on the stairs and broken his ankle. The hospital said that he must not walk on it for 48 hours. There was no understudy, and no-one in cast or chorus could sing the role tomorrow night with less than 22 hours notice, so Luke wondered if his father could step in. Otherwise they would have to cancel the performance and give the audience their ticket money back. He knew that David had sung the role of Il Duca di Mantova in Antwerp the previous year. David sighed. “I can’t get away from my job, can I?” he said. “Not even for a weekend with my family! Tell Luke that I’ll do it on condition that they assemble the cast principals and the répétiteur tomorrow afternoon to rehearse with me, and get me a vocal score, and that they have someone on hand to make sure that the costumes fit me! It’s too short notice to be able to get the orchestra in. Oh, and ask them to provide a free seat for Tom!” Luke was delighted and said he would ring back in ten minutes with his boss’s decision, and that he would be along to join us in half an hour.
Needless to say, they accepted David’s offer, and Luke joined David and Tom for a very late supper. He said that he had E-mailed his mother to warn her that her brother would be joining them on Sunday. Tom was delighted to get a chance to hear David sing again. David was secretly pleased that after twenty years as an international artist, he had finally got the chance of singing in an Italian opera house, and delighted that it was his son who had got him the chance. The three of them consumed only a single bottle of wine with their meal, and at David’s insistence, they were in bed by 1-30 am.
Chapter Three: David gives a ducal performance
The three men had breakfast at 9 am the next morning. David had brought his laptop and from it extracted the names of répétiteurs that Luke had asked for. Luke went off to the opera house to find out who was going to contact the other cast members, who would not be best pleased at having to give up their Saturday afternoon for an extra rehearsal.
Tom showed David their apartment. It was on the first floor and was reached by a flight of outside stairs from a courtyard reached by an archway off the street. It was spacious yet cosy inside. There were two bedrooms, a good-sized bathroom with washbasin, shower, toilet and bidet, a large sitting room with dining space at one end, a reasonable-sized kitchen, and small poky room that the boys used as a study. They paid a nice middle-aged lady who lived nearby to come in three days per week to do the cleaning, and she would on prior notice cook for them in the evening, if asked. They did their own laundry and much of their own shopping, and Tom cooked for them at the weekend if they were at home. “We’re very lucky to have some money of our own,” said Tom. “We could never have afforded the rent for this apartment on my Leonardo grant and Luke’s meagre earnings at the Teatro Musicale!” It was clear to David that they were a very happy couple. Luke reappeared in time for lunch, which they ate in a trattoria near the apartment.
The rehearsal was timed for 4 pm. Luke escorted his father to the theatre, where most of the cast were gathered with the répétiteur. David was introduced by Luke’s boss, Cornelio Sirigante. David apologized for breaking up their Saturday afternoon, but said that he could not appear without having sung at least the major numbers of the recitatives and ensembles with the rest of the cast. They began with the archetypal quartet ‘Bella figlia del’ amore,’ which went very well. They then ran through as many ensembles and exchanges of recitative as they could, and finished with just enough time to dress and make up for the performance at 7-30. Fortunately, David was of a similar height and build to the injured tenor, and only the trouser waist needed to be taken in a little. There was a spare box, so Tom was able to watch the performance from a box. The audience received with their programmes a duplicated slip informing them that the role of Il Duca was to be sung at short notice by Davide Singleton-Scarborough, a name that most Italians would find unpronounceable!
The performance was a great success. Tom led the applause from his box and the audience was obviously delighted. They knew international quality when they heard it. Luke’s boss was profuse in his thanks to David and asked if he would consider a season in Trabizona in two years time. David immediately agreed, saying that his agent would be in touch to negotiate a fee, as well as to collect payment for that evening’s one-off performance. That night their post-performance supper was a much more boozy affair!
Next day the three of them were up early and Tom drove them to Bologna for the service at the English church, at which the two boys had become regular worshippers, and which, apart from conversations while jogging with an American colleague from the lab, was the only time that Tom spoke English! From Bologna they went on to Sandro’s home-town to join Luke’s mother, Massimo and Bianca for lunch. David gave his niece a big kiss. She was now about fourteen. “I ought to come and see you more regularly,” he said to Dorothea and Massimo, “I hope the boys are not coming here too often. If you don’t watch out, they’ll start bringing their washing for you to do! If they’re too lazy to do it themselves, they should be paying someone to do it for them!”
“After not seeing my eldest son for nineteen years, I’m quite happy to see him as often as he cares to come, and Tom is sweet, he’s never any trouble! Bianca seems to have taken a fancy to him. The boys NEVER bring me washing! And now that my darling Sandro is in Camford, it’s even nicer to have one of my boys in the house.”
“But how does Massimo feel about it? Wouldn’t he prefer to have a weekend with just the three of you?”
“But he does. The boys don’t come every weekend, only every other weekend. And in any case, during the opera season, they only come on Sunday, when Massimo is always glad to see them, and they don’t stay overnight. Family is family, and it takes first place with Italians. Don’t forget that you were the one who could play with Luca when he was a toddler, took him for walks, got him into Winton College School, even tried to teach him to swim! I never knew him when he was a sweet little boy, so I’m just so glad that I can enjoy his company now that he’s a man.”
“Actually, much of that credit goes not to me but to Jon. He’s the one who got stuck at home with two kids, while I was gadding off round the world singing in opera houses. Sometimes I think that Jon is the kids’ real father, and I am just a visitor in my own home. But that is the way that Jon wanted it. He gave up a research career to promote my singing career, because he promised our Dad that he would give me maximum opportunity to use my inborn talent for singing, and we were not prepared to pay someone to bring up our children for us. And we both owe a lot to you for giving us the chance of being Luke’s parents!”
“I’m just as grateful to you, because by adopting Luke, you gave me the chance to do a Ph.D.” With these mutual compliments, the conversation ended and they all went out to a trattoria for a family lunch.
Next morning, David left early on a train to Valerio-Catullo airport for the return flight to Schiphol, and by 2 pm was listening to one of his pupils singing scales. He was rather pleased that he had finally broken into the Italian opera scene, which not even Marcello Fabioni had managed to achieve for him. (Marcello had been David’s singing teacher, had started off David’s professional singing career, and had got Luke his present job as assistant to Cornelio Sirigante).
Chapter Four: Sandro explores Camford
Teaching at Sandro’s language school took only three days per week. On the fourth day, excursions were organized to interesting places in and near Camford. The fifth day of the week was supposed to be used for private study, but few of the students did much of that. The course lasted six weeks, at the end of which the students took the TOEFL test, although they were encouraged to try the internet-based test at an earlier stage in the course. A few of the students at the school were hoping to start at once on a British University course, like Sandro, but most were using it as basis of preparation for more advanced exams, either in Camford or back in their homeland. In Sandro’s case, he had had a telephone/video conference interview, which had more or less satisfied the college admissions tutor, but to be absolutely certain, the offer had been conditional on Sandro getting the highest possible grade in the TOEFL test.
Sandro found that his uncle’s low opinion of of language school students had been right. The other students at the school were either obsessively shy, because they lacked the confidence to talk, or perfectly competent English speakers, who just wanted to have a few week’s enjoyment away from their parents. Most of the young people on the programme were from rich parents, who just wanted their children out of the way for a few weeks. After three weeks, Sandro took the test and passed as expected, at the highest grade. His result was sent directly to the college by the test agency, and at the end of August, his place at Boni’s, as Saint Boniface’s was known, was assured. His uncle agreed that there was little point in him staying on the course. He said that he would take Sandro to various interesting places in and around Camford, and of course his daily test regime at home would continue. Sandro’s pronunciation was steadily improving, and it was clear that he would have no problems with lectures or tutorials.
Jon also took advantage of his position as honorary fellow of Boni’s to show Sandro the college, including the staircase whose refurbishment he had paid for, and many other parts of the college that were not open to undergraduates. He then took Sandro out on a punt through the winding waterways that add an almost Venetian air of romance to the city of Camford. When they got outside the area of the colleges, he showed his nephew how to propel a punt. It is not difficult, but is harder than it looks. The essential point of technique is to keep the pole firmly pushed up against the side of the boat, to push hard on it and to lift it clear of the water between strokes. Sandro watched carefully, and in half an hour was propelling the boat as if he had been doing it for years.
They had also, rather to Sandro’s embarrassment, had a few personal discussions. Jon told Sandro that he had joined a family of very pious men, but that he would not be expected to go to church with Jon or the family unless he wanted to. He could go on his own to the local Roman Catholic church, or stay at home and do whatever he liked. There would be no religious pressure. Sandro admitted that although he had been an altar-boy when younger, he now went to church very rarely. Jon also said, and this was perhaps less embarrassing to Sandro, that although he and David were gay, there would be no influence on Sandro, and in any case, once Sandro was living in college, he could do whatever he liked, but warned him that he should always take prophylactic precautions. (The words he used to discuss that topic were not so polysyllabic, and indeed were Italian.) Sandro blushed, but admitted that he had come with the necessary equipment in his luggage. Maybe he was shy, but he was not naïve!
Jon also told Sandro that he had bought him a year’s membership of the Camford Men’s Fitness Centre. “I had better go with you the first time,” he said. “You need to know how the changing rooms work.” So one afternoon in August, the two of them entered the Fitness Centre. The building work on the extensions was nearly complete, and it was hoped that the new facilities would be available within a few months. Jon explained to Sandro that the swimming-pool changing facilities were a duplex, which shared a central locker room. One side of the duplex was for modest men, with closed cubicles and individual showers, and the other side for men who did not care who saw them naked, with communal changing and shower facilities without screens or partitions. Jon said that quite a lot of gay men used the facilities, and that Sandro should be aware that he might be propositioned, not in the changing room itself, where such approaches were heavily frowned on, but elsewhere on the premises such as the bar. He urged Sandro not to avoid the place, because unpleasantness was practically unheard of, but just to be aware that he might be approached. Sandro loved the facilities. The pool, the showers and the bar all seemed wonderful to him, and he decided to become a regular visitor, particularly during the summer when there were no undergraduates around.
Jon encouraged Sandro to go out on his own. He made sure that the boy had enough money to buy himself a meal in a pub or restaurant. They had already been several times together to the Venezia, Camford’s only good Italian restaurant, and Sandro knew that he could talk to the waiters and waitresses in his own language. Jon took Sandro to one or two concerts, but such events were not numerous in Camford in August and September.
One of Sandro’s favourite walks was to go with his uncle along the Camwell towpath to a pub called the Carp at Stubbington. Sometimes Sandro would go there on his own and drink a beer and eat a jacket potato or a pork pie or a Scotch egg, all new and unfamiliar items of diet. Jon’s slight pressure on the boy to persevere with English cask beer had been successful, and Sandro now after a month enjoyed bitter, mild and pale ales, and the bitterness which had initially deterred him he soon came to realize was what gave beer its essential thirst-quenching qualities.
One day at the Carp, he met a couple of girls as he sat in the garden eating his lunch. They were quite attractive, and he eyed them up appreciatively. The girls noticed his glances, and one of them came over and asked him if he would like to join them. He did so, and asked them if they would like a further drink. They said yes, and a few minutes later, he emerged from the pub carrying the drinks on a tray. In contrast to Tom’s struggles, in a month Sandro had adjusted to speaking and thinking in English, and the half-hour pre-bedtime conversations in Italian with Jon had now ceased by mutual agreement.
The girls were not English: one was oriental, the other from the Czech Republic. A few minutes conversation revealed that they were on an English language course prior to beginning their University studies in the Martinmas term. Sandro enquired which colleges they were going to. The oriental girl, who was from Thailand, said that she was going to Boni’s to read law, the Czech girl was going to Shrewsbury College to read agricultural science. In the course of conversation it became clear to all three of them that they could all speak English pretty well.
Sandro asked them how they had got to the Carp and they said on the bus. He asked them if they would like to walk back with him along the towpath to the centre of the city. They agreed, so when they had all finished their drinks they drifted slowly back in the direction of Camford. It was about 4 pm when they got back and Sandro asked them if they would like afternoon tea. They agreed and entered a teashop. He ordered tea and cakes for three. In the course of conversation, it emerged that the next day was the girls’ free day from the language school. As they did not yet have university E-mail addresses, they exchanged mobile phone numbers and arranged to meet the next day to explore Camford.
It was a warm summer day, and they met at about 10 am. Sandro suggested that they hired a punt before lunch and the big invasion of tourists that rather spoilt the city in the summer. They did so, and Sandro took them through the winding waterways and along the river Camwell until they reached a riverside pub, where they stopped briefly to purchase a few bottles and sandwiches before continuing their voyage. The girls loved it. They tied the boat to its pole jammed firmly in the mud and climbed out into a waterside meadow, where they ate their sandwiches and drank white wine out of a screwtop bottle in paper cups. Sandro had an allowance from his parents and another one from his uncles, and although the latter was not enough to live on, it made excellent spending money. After lunch, they slowly made their way back into the city, paid their hire at the boathouse, and explored a few of the colleges. They also went into the splendid fifteenth-century University Church of Saint Edward. Then they had tea in the ‘Stainless-steel Kettle’ a teahouse in the High Street. They bade farewell, and Sandro told them he would see them when term began. He had realized that you don’t date two girls at once.
Next day he started making regular visits to the Men’s Fitness Centre. Like his uncles and cousins, he was a swimming enthusiast and thought nothing of swimming 40 lengths of the 25-metre pool. At his first two or three visits, when he bought a beer at the bar, he was asked to show his membership card, but after that the bar staff got to know him by sight. He wondered how long it would be before some old queen asked to buy him a drink, but it did not happen. He looked with great interest at the other men in the changing room, and was relieved that he never saw anyone so attractive that he got an erection. He was genuinely and fairly objectively trying to establish his sexual orientation, but so far neither males nor females created any physical excitement. So he decided just to concentrate on enjoying himself and wait until something happened.
Chapter Five: Mediterranean Tom
Tom Appleton heaved himself out of bed. Luke was already up, out of the bathroom and dressed. Tom staggered into the bathroom, pissed copiously into the toilet, farted noisily and began to shave. They ate breakfast together, the sweet face of his partner smiling at him across the table causing a wave of love and tenderness to sweep over Tom. He got up from the table, walked round it and threw his arms round Luke and kissed him goodbye. He then set off to the lab. Luke did not start work until 10 am, and it was only a five-minute tram ride to the Teatro Musicale.
Tom had finally, after six months, adjusted to life in Italy. It had taken that long to become able to speak Italian all the time. The final seal of approval of his linguistic skills had come from Massimo, who said that he had never known an Englishman learn good Italian so quickly. Tom even felt confident enough to ask questions in Italian at the Departmental seminars in his lab. He could now understand the crude jokes of some of the other research students. It had been a hard struggle for six months, but now he finally felt at home in Italy. He found that Italian Ph.D. students had a very low status, because they were at the bottom of the research workers’ pecking order. Even the technicians had a higher status, because they had permanent jobs, and research students, even with a Masters degree, were only there for maximally four years.
During that first six months, Tom had been heavily emotionally dependent on Luke. Luke was his haven of security in a strange land. Every night Tom came home hungry for his partner. To re-establish his security to face another day without speaking English, Tom had to have a minimum of ten minutes lovemaking every night. Of course this did not necessarily involve fucking or even sucking. Kissing and cuddling were often sufficient to restore Tom’s self-confidence. Fortunately, Luke understood Tom’s insecurity, and in any case enjoyed his stud-boy’s attention. The effect on Tom was very noticeable. His self-confidence steadily increased. On the nights when Luke wanted to fuck him, Tom would lie back and relax and enjoy the sensation of Luke’s monster cock inside him. Just as an anxious or unhappy teenage boy finds consolation and release in wanking, Tom found it in fucking. It didn’t matter whether he was at the giving or the receiving end, the transfer of seed and the emotional as well as physical union, made sexual intercourse a source of emotional strength as well as of joy and pleasure.
There were no other English people in the lab. The only foreigners were a Dutchman, a German and an American, all postdocs. They welcomed him with open arms, as they found the Italian ‘siesta mentality’ very annoying. They wanted to leave the lab at 5 or 6 pm, when the others were just getting into their stride with the afternoon’s work. In this respect however, Tom was happy with the Italian system, because Luke worked until 11 pm at least four nights a week, always including Saturdays, during the opera season, which covered eight months of the year, and he could lunch in the canteen or in a student restaurant and spend the evening in the lab, where there was much less obsession with security than in Camford. Then he would meet Luke for a light supper before bed.
On Saturdays, Luke did not start work until 5 pm. The best swimming pool was on the outskirts of the city and needed a car journey to get there. Tom sometimes went there by himself during what the boys called the siesta period, the long Italian lunch-break. They usually went there together on a Saturday morning before breakfast. Tom readily adapted to Italian food, and found it was good for him. He also took up jogging, as the town was too big to travel on foot, and he needed more exercise than their limited swimming time allowed. There was a large park in the centre of Trabizona, which extended to the outskirts of the city on the eastern side. He usually went jogging there three times a week with the American postdoc, who was a nice friendly guy, and this was the only time during the week that Tom spoke English! After jogging, they usually had breakfast in a trattoria before going home for a quick shower before work. All this meant that on jogging days, Tom had to get up at 6-30 am, which was a struggle for him, as he had always been bad at getting up in a morning.
The lab had modern buildings with air-conditioning, so even in the summer it was a pleasant place to work. Tom’s supervisor was called Arturo Sescantanto. He was the academic equivalent of a British Reader or an American Associate Professor, with very limited undergraduate teaching responsibilities, and so he was available not just in the lab, but often at the bench alongside the students and postdocs who made up his research group. In spite of this ready accessibility, Tom found him difficult to talk to. It was not any lack of linguistic fluency on Tom’s part, so he could only conclude that it was because he was gay. He had never made any secret in the lab of his gayness, but coupled it with the statement that he was in a permanent relationship, although as yet no-one in the lab had met Luke. There was a social life in the lab, which involved a session in a café once or twice per month, and Tom always went along, though his ignorance of Italian politics and society meant that a lot of the conversation was lost on him. He could not bring Luke with him, because Luke was working most evenings at that time.
In many ways, he enjoyed most the Sundays spent with the Mascagnolis. In particular he developed a great fondness for his ‘mother-in-law.’ He had lost his own mother some seven years before, and Dorotea Mascagnoli was rapidly becoming a mother figure for him. Luke’s biological half-sister Bianca had also become very fond of Tom. Luke did not take this amiss, he was glad that his partner had become so fond of his mother and sister. Sometimes, though, Luke did worry slightly about the effect on Massimo of this evident affection of Tom’s for his wife. Fortunately, in spite of being a hot-blooded Italian, Massimo knew enough about human nature to know the strong need that most gays have for a mother figure, and that jealousy was pointless and unnecessary.
In early October, about the time that Sandro was moving into Boni’s, Tom decided that he wanted to resume piano lessons, neglected since the death of his mother. Not having any idea how to find a piano teacher in Trabizona, he asked Luke to ask around at the opera house. Their répétiteur said that he knew a good female piano teacher, who specialized in non-advanced pupils. She was a middle-aged widow called Signora Teodora Bruschetti. They gave him her phone number, and Tom, trembling with trepidation about making a phone call in Italian to a stranger, rang the number. The lady answered and asked him to call at her house at 5 pm the next day. She gave him the address, Via Mazzini 173.
At the hour arranged, Tom rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a very attractive middle-aged lady. When Tom said “Cerco Signora Bruschetti” she replied that she was Signora Bruschetti and invited him in. She was surprised to see a fit-looking young man in his twenties rather than a teenager. Tom explained rather haltingly, because he did not know all the technical terms in Italian that he wanted to resume piano lessons, having had none for eight years. Signora Bruschetti invited him to play something. Anticipating such a request, he took out of his bag the music of the third of Schubert’s first set of impromptus and sat down at the piano. Not having had access to a piano, and not having played the piece for several years, it was little more than sight-reading for him, so he played it rather haltingly and with a few mistakes. Signora B watched him very closely, noting his hand and finger positions and his use of the pedals. The piece lasted just over 5 minutes, and she let him play it right through. “You’ve got a lot to learn!” she said. “But your basic technique is good. Who taught you?”
“A lady in my home town in England,” he replied. “You wouldn’t know her.” They discussed her terms, and Tom agreed, but said that he could not start until he had acquired a piano. “I’ve got enough money to buy a new one,” he explained.
However, Signora B said, “I know someone who has a secondhand piano for sale. It’s in good condition, I’ve heard it played, and you could have it for €800.”
“That sounds a bargain! said Tom, “it could well cost me more than that to move it!”
It took several weeks to get the piano business sorted out. They had first to establish where they would put it, to ensure that the walls were thick enough not to disturb the neighbours when it was played, that the floor would stand the weight and finally what equipment would be needed to get the piano into a first floor apartment. Eventually though, all these problems were solved to the great benefit of both of the boys’ vocabularies, and Tom’s piano was installed in their small study and tuned.
Once his weekly lessons had begun, he began really to enjoy himself. Signora B was a charming lady and he soon fell under her spell. The difficulties which he had in communicating with Professor Sescantanto did not seem to apply to his piano teacher. She asked him about himself and how he came to be in Italy. “Tutto è a causa di amore.” (It’s all because of love), he told her. “My partner got a job here at the Teatro Musicale, so I came with him, and I’m doing research for a Ph.D. in chemistry.”
“Are you from a musical family?” she asked him.
“No,” he replied, “but my partner’s father is an opera singer. The reason for me resuming lessons is so that I can accompany him in his practising.” Considering that Tom only saw his ‘father-in-law’ two or three times a year since they had moved to Italy, this was not a good reason, but it was the only one that Tom could think of.
He could now, on the evenings when he was not working in the lab, get on with his practice without distraction. He could feel his old confidence returning and was happier for not feeling that he was spending the evenings just waiting for Luke to come home.
After several weeks of lessons, Signora B asked him whether he would like to bring his partner to dinner one evening. “I don’t have much time to cook myself,” she said, “But I have a lady who will come in to cook for me if I ask her. How about sometime next week?”
“Si, bene, could we come on Wednesday? Luca my partner works four evenings per week at the Teatro Musicale, but he is free on Wednesdays.”
“By all means. Come about 7-30, and don’t dress up.”
“Grazie, we will see you then.”
“You’ll need to work on those minor scales. You are not smooth enough. Also practise that new Schubert impromptu.”
“OK, e grazie.”
The following Wednesday, Tom and Luke turned up punctually at 7-30. They were offered glasses of Prosecco, and asked to sit down. Signora Bruschetti looked appraisingly at Luke and said, “You don’t look a bit like your partner!”
“No,” replied Luke, “It must be the attraction of opposites! I am adopted, and I am told that my father was an Italian. I was brought up in Camford by my uncle and his gay partner. My mother, though English, still lives in Italy, so you can understand that although I think and behave like an Englishman, I have a deep attraction to Italy. And now after nine months, Tom is starting to like it here too. We go and see my mother every two weeks. His mother died when he was fifteen, and he seems to have taken a fancy to my mother!”
“Luca does not seem to understand that even gay men need female company!” said Tom.
“Tom, you might not feel that way if you had to deal with some of the prime donne that I have to cope with on a daily basis!” said Luke. “Some are sweet, but others are figlie di puttana” (bitches). “Tenori and bassi are always easy to get on with. I never have any problems with the cast that I see nearly every day, the chorus, both men and women. They are the only permanent faces, and we get on very well. It’s the visiting principals who give me hassle, especially the women.”
“But you liked Leonora!”
“Yes, but the nice thing about Leonora was that she was sweet and feminine without showing any interest in sex! She was hoping to enter a religious order,” Luke explained to Signora B. “We used to go to the opera together when I was an Erasmus student in Bologna a couple of years ago. Quite why a prospective nun was so keen on opera, I never found out. As we were both very pious, we got on well together! She did let me hold her hand, but she was not keen on being kissed. This guy loves it!” he said with a gesture towards Tom. Tom blushed.
They moved into dinner, which was a delicious fish dish, accompanied by Soave. “Your cooking lady is an expert!” Luke said, “This is superb!”
Signora Bruschetti smiled. “Young men always enjoy their food,” she said. She said that she had a son and a daughter, but that neither was particularly musical. They were grown up, and the daughter was married. The boys divulged that they both sang in the choir of the English church in Bologna, but that only Luke had had any voice training when he was at choir school before his voice had broken, and that his voice, though good, was not good enough for a professional singer.
“I’m not trying to get myself a singing career through the back door!” he said. “I wanted a job in opera management because I’m more interested in people. Tom is quite different. He makes friends very slowly.”
“Yes, I was in love with Luca long before he thought of me as anything but a friend,” said Tom. Both the boys felt that this sweet lady was someone they could trust and confide in, without the handicap of her being a relative.
Chapter Six: David comes home
About the time that Sandro moved into college, David returned to England by train. Since the advent of high-speed services from Amsterdam to Brussels, London was one cross-platform change away from The Hague, and the whole journey from Heemstede to London only took about four hours. Jon was so anxious to see him that he went to London to meet him at St Pancras International station. Unlike in their younger days, they now embraced openly at the exit barrier before Jon carried the younger man’s luggage to a cab.
No sooner had they arrived at their London flat than they carried the bags upstairs, locked the door and began to tear each other’s clothes off. Jon had left the bed all ready, with a couple of unwrapped condoms and a tube of lube lying ready on the bedside table. As soon as they were naked, David threw his arms round him and began to run his hands down Jon’s back. Both were conscious of the other’s rock-hard tool. Unbridled lust was obvious on both their faces. David grasped the cheeks of Jon’s arse in each of his hands. Jon’s buttocks were as tight and muscular as ever. His regime of walking and swimming had kept him fitter than his younger partner. This was in spite of the fact that when he was in the Netherlands, David went swimming three times per week, went for an hour’s walk every day and spent half an hour a day on an exercise machine. All this was to try to combat the unhealthy lifestyle that an itinerant artist experiences when he is on the international round of opera, oratorio and recital performances.
Without discussing the matter, David let Jon be top first. He climbed on to the bed and knelt there, hands on the pillow, arse waving temptingly in the air. “You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed you!” Jon said. “Having young Sandro in the house was a vivid reminder of how good it was to be young. Many’s the night I’ve wanked myself off, wanting you like mad!”
“Right! Well you’ve now got me. Indulge your evil unnatural lust on my unresisting body! Commit the vile and bestial act of buggery on your helpless victim! Fuck me silly! I want you up my rear end NOW! Stick your male dagger into my welcoming arsehole!”
Having put the rubber on his dick, Jon began by kissing each of David’s slightly plump and rounded buttocks. The hair felt wonderful on his lips as he ran his mouth over the rounded surface. The warmth of David’s body and the faint scent of Storing pour Homme intoxicated him. He reached round David’s hips and took hold of his tool with his left hand and caressed it gently as he used his right hand to introduce lube over David’s crack and to poke the lube into his anus. Three fingers were needed to stretch the sphincter after its period of non-entry. Then, rather than enter him from behind, he turned David over, pushed him down on his back and lifted his legs on to his own shoulders. Smiling lovingly, he pushed his tool into David’s anus. David gave a little yelp as Jon slid through the sphincter, and Jon paused and bent to kiss his lips. “Ti amo, caro mio!” he murmured in Italian and smiled again.
David relaxed and said, “Come on then, give it to me hard! I want you just as much as you want me, my much missed man-fucker!” Jon complied, pushing his man-stick as hard and deeply as he could, until he hit David’s prostate. He rammed him roughly for some minutes, but then, as tenderness replaced lust, he slowed down and bent forward to kiss David’s face and neck and shoulders. When he resumed thrusting, he moved more slowly, savouring the moist warmth of David’s gut and spinning out the fucking for as long as he could.
“Do you remember that first time in the flat in Fountain Street, just before your second year began, when I took Viagra to make sure that I would stay hard when I took your anal virginity? I was dead frightened that if you suffered any pain or major discomfort, I would lose my erection! Nowadays my need for your body is so strong that I am as hard as a rock at the mere sight of you undressing!”
“Of course! An event like that, the first time of being fucked, is something that you remember for the rest of your life. The funny thing was that although we arranged that you would fuck me first because your dick, being smaller, would give me less discomfort, everyone that talked to me about our relationship, and particularly the women, all seemed to know that it was you that was doing the fucking. Even my mother seemed to know, though I NEVER discussed it with anyone. Do you know, my little brother Jeroen, when he was undergoing an adolescent period of fear that he was gay, used to ask me what you and I did together! He was only fourteen at the time and I wouldn’t have dreamt of telling him anything about what we two did in private.”
“I think it was probably due to your long hair making you look more like a woman, and my crew-cut looking more macho, replied Jon. “In fact, as we both know, no-one could be more macho than you. You have all the male characteristics of scruffy dress and a hatred of dancing! But I still love your long hair, even though you are no longer the sweet teenager that I fell in love with.”
“It’s a helluva nuisance when I have to wear a wig on the stage! But I still like it long, and I’m lucky that so far I still have most of my hair. But shut up and get back down to business. I need your prick doing its work up my bum NOW!”
Jon returned to fucking his partner with renewed vigour. A relaxed smile of pleasure suffused David’s face as he lay there, reaching up from time to time to run his hands over Jon’s shoulders and chest. Eventually Jon shot his load, and shouted David’s name before bending forward and smothering David with kisses as his erection slowly subsided and his tool slipped out of David’s hole.
The flat was quite warm, so David got up, naked as he was and, dick swinging between his legs, walked into the small kitchen and began to make coffee. There was no point in getting dressed, because it would soon be his turn to fuck. During his long train journey, there had been a build-up of gas in his gut, and their recent anal activities had loosened it, and as he waited for the water for the coffee to heat, he released it noisily. The noise of the fart echoed through the kitchen. “You didn’t lose much time making your presence heard!” Jon joked, as David brought the coffee in.
David giggled, “Oh, it’s wonderful to be home with you again!” he said, as they sipped coffee. “How has Sandro been getting on? Has he been any trouble?”
“None at all. He adapted surprisingly quickly to life in England. He’s got used to English food, and learnt the lessons I gave him on English beer, lessons that I never had to give you because your father brought you up with a taste for good beer. In that respect he was a good pupil. But it’s a relief to get him out of the house and into college. When Cathy got back from Scotland, the flat seemed crowded. It’s funny that when we had Luke here as well, it didn’t seem so crowded. In many ways, I can now treat Sandro as we treated Luke. But I don’t think he’s got his sexuality sorted out yet. I think he may be as uncertain as you were all those years ago. We were lucky in a way that both Luke and Tom knew that they were gay early in adolescence and they never had the uncertainty problem.”
“Well, I’ve never regretted being led astray by an older man! You were good for me then, Jon, and you’re good for me now!” With that, David took the empty coffee cup out of Jon’s hand, and pushed him on to the bed. His cock began to stiffen as he started to kiss Jon’s face and neck. “I’ve been wanting you for weeks. I’ve been counting the days up to today! He reached for the lube and began to prepare his lover for penetration. When Jon was ready, David rolled the condom on to his dick, lightly smeared it with lube and lined it up to enter Jon as he lay on his back, in the same position that David had been half an hour before. He pushed firmly and slipped relatively smoothly through Jon’s sphincter and began to fuck him. Jon lay back and enjoyed himself as David’s super-sized manhood repeatedly hit his prostate. His own cock took on new life and lay rock-hard against his belly. He began to writhe in excitement as David speeded up his movements, and before David actually came, Jon squirted another massive load of seed over his own belly.
When the miracle happened to him, David underwent the sacramental feeling that both the men felt when fucking. With the outflow of seed went an outflow of love that seemed to enwrap the two of them and carry them both away into the realms of the spirit. “With my body, I thee worship…” quoted David from the marriage rite as he pulled out of Jon, lowered himself on top of his lover, licked up some of Jon’s spunk, savoured it in his mouth and swallowed it before gluing his lips to Jon’s, who opened his mouth to allow David’s tongue to enter…
Around 4 pm, David said “We’re getting too old to shag all night! Let’s see if we can get tickets for the opera. He dialled the number of the assistant administrator at Covent Garden Royal Opera house, who was a friend of his, and asked him if he could find two tickets for that evening’s performance. “It doesn’t matter what the price is,” he said. Tickets for two seats in the orchestral stalls were available. David gave his credit card number and was given a reference number to obtain the tickets from the machine in the theatre foyer. They changed into suitable clothes and ate in a small Italian restaurant in the old fruit and vegetable market near the opera house, quite near the Apple Store, and got to the theatre just in time to buy a programme and take their seats. The opera was Rossini’s ‘La gazza ladra.’ They enjoyed the performance, holding hands in the darkness and ate ice-creams in the interval. “It’s just as if we were in our twenties again!” giggled David as they settled into their seats for the last act. This time they ventured to sneak a quick kiss when the audience’s attention was fixed on the stage.
“The tenor who sang Giannetto was very good,” said David after the performance “but it’s not a role I would fancy for myself.” They left the theatre hand-in-hand amidst the crowd and walked to Holborn underground station to catch a train back to the flat. “I’ll be back there myself next month,” he told Jon, “singing the role of Otello in the Verdi version.” (Rossini also wrote an opera called ‘Otello’). “The role really needs someone with a Mediterranean complexion, like Luke. I’ll have to be plastered with dark brown makeup, and wear a frizzy black wig. A blond-haired Otello in inconceivable!”
“What other fixtures do you have this season?” asked Jon.
“I’m at Glyndebourne in the summer, I’m deliberately interrupting my teaching in Holland for that. I’m also at Aldeburgh for the first time, singing in ‘Peter Grimes’, and I’m also singing in opera in Cardiff and Antwerp and Ghent. In addition, I have recital series coming up in various places, with Thomas Atkin as accompanist, to give poor old Brian a bit of a rest.” Brian Shaw had been David’s recital accompanist for many years, but was now well into his seventies and found that the hectic international music world was getting too much for him.
TO BE CONTINUED