A gay sex stories: Tommy's Second Year at College This story follows on from Tommy’s First Year at College, which should be read first. There is a key to the identities of the characters on my Biography page. Click on my name, then on the Biography tab, and then scroll down to the bottom.
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Chapter 41 Martin and Tommy’s Second Martinmas term
Tommy and Martin had after three months now got well settled into their apartment in Saint Saviour’s Street in Camford. By the first Monday of the Martinmas term in Camford University, they had completed their vacation work and checked out their schedule for the next two terms until their exams. A preliminary meeting with their respective college tutors led to them deciding which lecture courses they were going to attend. As usual there was some overlap, but about 50% were different, so they only met perhaps once or twice per day, and even their daytime periods of private study took place in different college libraries. Most nights they ate together at the Sparrowhawk or a student restaurant, but were obliged to dine in their respective colleges twice per week. Of course they fixed the same nights, one of which was Sunday, so that they were able to eat together at lunch and in the evenings about five times a week.
Tommy’s tutor Dr Featherstone had given Tommy at their first tutorial session an outline programme for what he should do in the two terms before the first public examination. He also asked Tommy about his plans for the rest of his course. Tommy said that he wanted to major in Italian for his last two years, and Dr Featherstone said that as Boni’s modern language tutor did not deal with Italian, Tommy would be ‘farmed out’ to a tutor in another college. Dr Featherstone recommended Dr Cagliari, the Italian Tutor at Buckingham College, who some years before had taught Tommy’s brother Luke. “I will get in touch with him next term and arrange a preliminary meeting with you,” he said. “I will also arrange it with the college, because money has to change hands!”
So the term continued, with lectures, reading and some translation work taking up Tommy’s work time, and in his leisure time, he and Martin went to concerts or to the cinema. Full-scale sex only happened about once per week, usually on Saturdays, but whenever one or other of them needed it urgently, a quick blow-job usually sufficed.
Conscious that so much social life in Camford University was concentrated among members of the same college, the Junior Common Room at Boni’s that year had introduced an innovation: a weekly guest night and black-tie dinner for undergraduates to invite members of other colleges to dine with them, or even friends from outside the university. The meal was held in the college function room, adjacent to the Hall and enabled college members with friendships or relationships outside the college to enjoy their friends’ company. The number of places was of course limited, and the price and quality rather higher than the standard college meal, but offered much more scope for hospitality than the old guest-table system. A bar was open until midnight, and all visitors had to be off the premises by 12-30. Tommy availed himself of this opportunity every two weeks and he and Martin were able to enjoy themselves in company together in college. More than 70% of the guests were members of the opposite sex to the hosts, but there were a substantial number of same-sex guests, not all of whom were in relationships of course.
In preparation for the first of these events, the question arose about clothing. Tommy already had the necessary outfit, although he wore it with reluctance, because his fathers had insisted on buying him a dinner suit as soon as he had stopped growing. Martin, on the other hand, did not have such garments, so he went to one of the top men’s outfitters in Camford and purchased a very expensive number, together with a frilly dress shirt with lace collar and cuffs. His tie too was of fine silk, though it was impossible to distinguish it from Tommy’s cotton-polyester tie! “I’ve persuaded my father to foot the bill for this outfit!”, he said.
However, Martin had got what he had paid for: the black and white outfit suited his slim figure admirably. He looked stunning. The first time Martin put it on, Tommy looked at his handsome red-haired friend and was filled with both tenderness and lust at his beauty. He got an immediate hard-on and wished for nothing else but to strip his friend naked and ravish him.
Tommy decided to make the first of these dinners his official coming-out in the college, so he introduced Martin to all his college friends as his boyfriend. This caused some surprise among his acquaintances, but was welcomed by those who knew him well. They now understood why he had decided to spend his second year living out. Carol, who attended one of the dinners with yet another boyfriend, and to the latter’s annoyance spent quite some time talking to Martin, was clearly impressed with the figure he cut, and she allowed him to buy her a drink. The boys would both come on foot to the dinner, as they did not want to cycle home if they were the worse for drink. They walked home rather unsteadily, hand-in-hand.
Towards the end of term, Tommy was invited to attend the President’s drinks party with other second-year students. Three such parties were held for each year of study of the undergraduates, and the President and his wife circulated with drinks, snacks and conversation. It followed the usual pattern of such events, finishing promptly five minutes before formal dinner at 7 pm. The President read assiduously the labels on the students’ lapels, and when he came to Tommy and saw his name he said, “You must be Jonathan Singleton-Scarborough’s son.”
“Yes,” replied Tommy, “both my fathers are honorary fellows of Boni’s. They were one of the first gay couples in the college to come out of the closet, back in the 1980s.”
“And this academic year, across the whole of the junior college members, I understand that we have ten gay and three Lesbian couples in the college that are out of the closet. How many there are still in the closet of course, I have no idea!” said the President. “Of course my predecessor, Lady Howarth, was a big supporter of the gay community in the university, to the extent that her marriage broke up when she defended her gay son against his father! How things have changed since then! Are you gay yourself, and if so, is your partner a member of the college?”
“Yes I am, and no, my partner’s at Sanguis,” replied Tommy. “He’s the reason that I am living out of college this year! The following year I shall, all being well, be in Italy on an Erasmus year, but I will be back living in college for my final year.”
“l hope that you have a successful Erasmus year, and good results in your first public exam,” said the President, and moved on.
On Wednesday of the last week of term, the chapel choir held a public Advent carol service. Martin said that he wanted to come and hear Tommy sing, and they would go on to the Venezia for a meal afterwards. Most of the visitors had to sit in the ante-chapel, but Tommy arranged for Martin to sit in the main body of the chapel. One of the numbers was Orlando Gibbons’ anthem This is the record of John, and Tommy sang the tenor solo. Afterwards, Martin said, “I never realized how well you can sing. Maybe you should consider professional musical training like your father David!”
Chapter 42 Christmas at Rockwell’s Barn
It was Christmas before Martin made his first visit to Rockwell’s Barn. Since Tommy’s grandparents had moved in, they occupied the second largest bedroom on the first floor. That room had previously been the guest bedroom, but the latter was now moved to the top floor, adjacent to the prayer room, which, when he was staying there, Tommy used for his evening prayers. At night, they had that floor to themselves, and as their room was adjacent to the study, they could also do vacation reading undisturbed by the rest of the house. David’s parents now had difficulty with steps, and found the lift that with great foresight had been installed when the house was converted from a barn, very valuable to them to move around the house.
As this was Martin’s first meeting with David’s parents, he had to undergo the ordeal which everyone who joined the Scarborough family had to undergo, of ‘evaluation.’ Thirty years before, this had first happened when Jon became David’s partner, and was now a sort of routine. What Mr Scarborough had originally considered as a scrutinizing process had now lost most of its ‘third degree’ character, and just become a friendly interrogation, much less demanding than the ordeal that Martin had been put through by Jon and David, but nevertheless involving pretty shrewd questioning. However, this time Tommy and Martin were interviewed together, and most of the hard questions centred around Tommy’s bisexuality. “Since you both want children, how are you going to manage it? By adoption, by surrogacy or by one of you finding an accommodating woman? asked Mr Scarborough.
“Tom and Luke were very successful finding a mother for their children. Maybe we could do the same,” said Tommy.
“But will you ever find a woman prepared to become number three in a man-man relationship?” asked Mr Scarborough. “It’s going to require a lot of love and self-control! I’m not really expecting you to answer these questions at this stage. You’ve both got to graduate and get jobs before you can even consider civil partnership or marriage and family life. But it’s important that you consider all the alternative ways of becoming parents and bear in mind all the consequences, because the wrong decision then could not just get you into deep water, but could destroy your relationship.”
“If we went down Tom and Luke’s route, it would have to be Tommy who fathered the babies. I couldn’t touch a woman!” said Martin.
“Tommy, could you father a child and still let Martin fuck you?” asked Mr Scarborough to Tommy’s total surprise.
Not wanting to enter into sexual details with his grandfather, Tommy said, “Yes, if we could find the right kind of woman without money coming into the transaction. But I know that the law is so heavily weighted in favour of the woman that we couldn’t just expect her to give birth, feed her baby for six months and then walk out of our lives. We would want to share parenthood with her, and even perhaps marry her as long as she was happy with moving into a household with two men. But all this has to be a long time into the future. Finding the right woman might prove impossible.”
“Well, I think that we have carried out as much discussion as possible. Things might change in the next few years. Welcome to the family, Martin. My descendants are a crazy lot!” And the old man kissed him and said, “and now, let’s have a drink!”
The only other family staying for Christmas and New Year were Cathy, Tommy’s sister and her husband Edmund and baby Hugh. Luke, Tommy’s brother could never leave Trabizona over the holiday period, and Dom and Sandro and their daughters were spending Christmas at Getheringthwaite with Dom’s brother’s family to meet their new nephew, the future Marquess, Gregory Philip Henry Thomas Overton, who was now nearly a year old.
Rockwell’s Barn had a 15-metre indoor pool. In the days before Cathy’s family arrived, Jon said to Tommy and Martin “You boys are welcome to use the pool in the mornings, David and I use it in the afternoons. But if you want to swim naked, please close the blinds on the window into the hall. No-one wants to see two naked men with partial erections fooling around in the water!”
Tommy blushed. He whispered to Martin, “I never thought of nude swimming, but it seems a nice idea!” Martin just grinned. “But we’d better not do it when Cathy is in the house,” continued Tommy, “she will complain, as she always has done about nude swimming, as if we were going to pee in the water or something! Personally I love Hockney’s paintings of naked men swimming. If I had money to spare, I would buy an original.”
Christmas followed its usual Ixton pattern. Tommy accompanied his fathers and grandparents to the midnight mass in the parish church. Martin assisted Jon in cooking the Christmas dinner, as much preparation having been done as possible the previous day. The lady who cooked for David’s parents came and assisted in the kitchen for a couple of hours, but had then to leave to see to her own family, who were home for the festive season.
The weather was mild that year, and on Boxing Day, Jon, David, Tommy and Martin and Cathy and Edmund all went for a long walk, while little Hugh stayed with his great-grandparents. On their return, they all, including David’s parents and Hugh, went for a pre-booked late lunch at the village pub, the Jellycotes Arms. The family had had a close association with the pub ever since Jon had stayed there when he was helping the builders reconstruct Rockwell’s Barn, and about the beginning of the twenty-first century he had bought the pub to ensure its continued existence in an era when country pubs were being closed and turned into private houses. When he had found a good tenant, he was careful to charge a rent that was adequate to maintain the building, and improve it where necessary, but never to be so exorbitant that the tenant could not make a comfortable living. As usual Tim Ingledown was a fund of useful advice about rentals.
One morning between Christmas and the New Year, Jon and David summoned Cathy and Tommy to a meeting. “We need to discuss money,” Jon said. “David’s parents have been talking to me. When they moved in here, they put the proceeds for the sale of their house at Loxton, plus most of their savings, into a fund managed by Tim Ingledown. Its income will maintain them until they both die. The proceeds of the fund will then be divided among their grandchildren: Luke, you two, Jeroen’s two children Andrew and Maria in Switzerland and Sandro and Bianca. David has no need of their money and there will be inheritance tax to pay, but whatever you get will be in cash and will be yours to do what you like with. What I want to talk to you two and Luke, whom I shall call up on Skype in a moment, about is the disposal of our property after David and I are both dead, and Tim Ingledown our trustee will of course be dead too by then. David and I have left our estates to each other, so the question of disposal will only arise after the second death.
“The main question is the fate of this house. I want it to remain in the family, so it would be useful to know which family member would like to live here permanently, and not use it as we have so often done in the past, as a place to spend weekends only. The same applies in lesser measure to the rest of our personal real estate: the flat in London, the house in Heemstede, the house in Montecatini-Terme, and the tiny little house in Madeira, not to mention the Jellycotes Arms. We would like each of you eventually to own something and wish to avoid selling any of the properties. Obviously not all the properties have the same value, but I don’t think that matters if each one of you gets his or her first choice.”
It was agreed that Cathy would get Rockwell’s Barn, Luke would get the house in Montecatini-Terme, and Tommy would get the house in Heemstede and the Jellycotes Arms. The three would share ownership of the London flat and they left open the fate of the house in Madeira. Everyone was happy with their choice, and David and Jon arranged to see Tim Ingledown to amend their wills.
The boys enjoyed the holiday period. Each morning they had a swim before breakfast and then spent three hours on their vacation reading, avoiding mutual distractions like snogging, and after a brief lunch went out early for a walk. The weather was cold, but dry, and Tommy showed Martin several of his favourite walks. Several times in isolated spots, one or other of them would stop, clutch the other tightly and kiss him passionately. When Tommy was in his arms, Martin thought of Whitman’s words,
We two boys together clinging, /one the other never leaving. Often too, they walked holding hands.
Mr and Mrs Scarborough decided not to sit up to see the New Year in, but the rest of the family went, as they had done for years, to the Rockwells for supper and drinks. On January 2, Cathy, Edmund and Hugh returned home to Richmond and Tommy and Martin returned to Camford the following day. The following week, term began.
Chapter 43 Introducing Kenneth
One afternoon, late in January, Tommy and Martin found that their lecture had been cancelled, and left with a couple of free hours, they went to the Fitness Centre for a swim. They each swam 50 lengths, not racing, but keeping pretty well together. On emerging from the water, they went to the communal showers and took off their swimwear and began to wash themselves and their hair. Another guy entered the shower area and positioned himself next to the boys, placing himself so that he could inspect their genitals without appearing to do so. He pulled off his swimming shorts and began to wash his hair, closely observing the two men as he did so. Martin grinned at Tommy when it became apparent that the man was developing a fairly obvious hard-on, which seemed to cause him no embarrassment. “Do you two lads fancy a drink?” he asked, as they stepped out of the shower and began to dry themselves.
The man did not look like a lecherous old queen. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and was tanned, muscular and fit-looking. His physique was certainly an advantage if he was looking for a pickup. So the boys, having looked at one another, said yes. They all got dressed and adjourned to the bar.
“What will you have?” he asked them.
Both asked for WLB, as West London Bitter was known, and two pints appeared on the bar. The stranger ordered a third for himself and they all went and sat near the window. “Do you come here often?” he asked them. “Not as often as we would like,” said Martin, “we don’t have much time during term. We’re only here today because a lecture was cancelled. What about you?”
“I’m a PhD student,” he said, “in history. I spend hours each day in the Watsonian, and I need a regular dose of exercise to keep fit. I also have a part-time job in a bookshop, which keeps me busy on Saturdays and Sundays. What do you two do? I presume that you’re students?”
“Yes, we’re second-years, both reading Classics.”
“I don’t know a lot of people in Camford, because I did my first degree in Birmingham. Are either of you interested classical music?”
“Yes, we both are.”
“I’m also a musician. I play the oboe in a small chamber orchestra. We have a concert on Thursday evening in Islip College. Would you be interested in coming? Tickets are only £5. It’s at 8 pm, and you could come and have a drink with the orchestra afterwards.” As they had no other commitments that night, Tommy and Martin agreed to come. They then said goodbye and left.
On the Thursday, after a quick meal at the Sparrowhawk, the boys walked to Islip College and bought tickets. They were fairly close to the front. The programme was very enjoyable. There was a Mozart symphony, a couple of works for string orchestra and a Haydn symphony. The concert finished soon after ten, and the boys accompanied the musicians to the nearest pub. They broke up into groups to buy beer. Somehow, their host, who introduced himself as Kenneth MacAlpin, managed to secure a seat between Martin and Tommy at a table some distance from the other musicians. As they sipped their beer, Kenneth McAlpin unobtrusively slipped his arm round the waist of each of them. “Although this isn’t the Randy Soldier,” he said, naming one of Camford’s gay pubs, “I know that you’re both gay. Are you an item?”
“Yes!” they both replied. He withdrew his arms.
“Sorry!” he replied. “I won’t make any overtures then. But welcome to the club. I hope that you won’t think any worse of me for making a pass. I’m getting to the age when one-night stands are not as much fun as they used to be, and I would like to find a partner. Do you have any unattached friends?”
“Not really,” said Martin, “we’re both loners, really. In fact, Tommy here only realized that he was gay a year ago. We don’t have a circle of gay acquaintances, indeed most of our friends are straight. We don’t feel excluded, Camford is a very civilized place for minorities.”
“My parents are gay,” said Tommy, “and they are college fellows. In fact, they met as students here in the eighties, when most gays were still in the closet. They never were.”
Chapter 44 A sexual proposition
As the term went by, the boys’ visits to the Fitness Centre and to concerts by Ken’s band took place fairly frequently within the constraints of their work pressures, and they began to enjoy Ken’s friendly and intelligent company.
“Without wanting to interfere with your relationship,” Ken said suddenly one day, “I would love one or both of you to suck me off. It would be so much better than wanking! I would strip naked for you, and you could wash my cock thoroughly before sucking. Also the other could watch, so that there would be no deception. If you’ve never watched anyone have sex, you’ve missed a treat. No porn will turn you on like watching someone having it off!”
The boys were surprised and taken aback by this frank statement of need by someone whom they did not really know well. Martin immediately replied, “Look here, Ken, I think we understand that you need sex, but suppose we agreed, and you told all your gay acquaintances about us, particularly if you found us either very good or very bad at blowing you. If we did you such a favour, we would need your assurance of complete secrecy. Also it would have to be a one-off experiment, unless we all enjoyed it so much that we agreed to continue. What do you think Tommy?”
Tommy was scarlet with embarrassment, but he could feel his cock in his trousers getting harder and harder. “Would you want to suck us off as well?” he asked.
“Of course, if you wanted me too. Every time I see your meat at the Fitness Centre, I want it in my mouth! But I understand your concern about secrecy. I promise that I would not talk about it to anyone.”
“Could we talk about it between ourselves, Ken, and let you know our decision next time?” asked Tommy.
“Of course.” Ken replied.
When the boys got home, they had a long discussion. “On the terms that Ken proposed, I can’t see any harm in it,” said Martin. “But there’s always the risk that he might want to go further, and while I don’t mind sucking it, I don’t fancy his big fat cock up my arsehole.”
“I’m not sure about his intentions, but like you, I wouldn’t want to be fucked by him. I suppose we could try sucking, and see how we both felt about it,” said Tommy. “He’s never going to regret anything that he does, because he’s a man desperate for sex. But we know nothing about his sexual history, and although the panic has died down, and the risk of contracting HIV via oral sex is low, he would have to give a very good BJ before I would consider doing it more than once.”
“You need experience, Tommy!” said Martin. “I’ve sucked enough men’s dicks to feel that although they all LOOK different, once you get one in your mouth, it doesn’t feel any different from any other cock, unless the guy happens to be circumcized. Not even jism tastes much different, although it is widely claimed that it does. But you are not the fellationary expert that I can claim to be, and you might well enjoy a BJ with someone whom we trust, without compromising our own relationship, and I must admit that the thought of watching you suck him off rather turns me on.”
“He’s got a nice hairy arse!” said Tommy. “I’d love to kiss it!”
“Watch out!” said Martin, “you might find yourself fucking him! He’s so desperate for sex that he might well be an easy lay. If it comes to that I might feel that you’re being unfaithful to me!”
“I think it’s more likely that he would want to fuck you or me,” replied Tommy.
In the end, they agreed to let Ken suck one of them off, provided that the other could watch and wank.
It was some time before the opportunity arose, but one day after a swim, the boys took Ken home with them. They had had a good look at each others’ genitals while getting dried, and they were all in a state of semi-erection as they walked the short distance from the Fitness Centre to their apartment. They locked the door behind them, went into the sitting room and tore off their clothes. All three were now hard and dripping precome. “Who do you want first?” asked Tommy, somewhat anxiously and ungrammatically.
“Martin can have the first mouthful!” said Ken. Martin knelt in front of Ken and opened his mouth, his hands holding the cheeks of Ken’s arse. Ken gently inserted his slimy tool into Martin’s mouth, while Tommy stood at the side, placing himself so that he could see Ken’s cock enter Martin’s mouth. He could see Martin’s jaws gently chewing on the head of Ken’s cock, and his own suddenly acquired a life of its own as it sprang, oozing precome, into invasive life. He got hold of it and began to stroke it, gently pushing the foreskin back towards his crotch, and then releasing it. He suddenly realized that unless he wanted to come on the rug that covered the hardwood floor, he should move it, so he pulled it back and pushed it out of firing distance.
Meanwhile, Martin was expertly playing Ken’s thick and giant tool with his lips and tongue, removing it from his mouth from time to time to lick Ken’s scrotum, which, in spite of shower and shower gel, still smelt of chlorine. Ken groaned with pleasure. “You’ve had a lot of experience!” he muttered as he held the back of Martin’s head and pushed his tool deeper and deeper into Martin’s throat. After a few more minutes, he started to pant and to quicken the pace of his thrusting, and with a yell, shot a stream of come into Martin’s mouth. As he did so, he released an enormous noisy fart from his rear end. Hearing this was the last straw for Tommy, who had been struggling to hold back his climax, and he exploded and shot two blasts of come onto the polished hardwood floor, with some of the spray reaching his two friends who grinned, Martin affectionately, Ken shamefacedly because of his embarrassing anal explosion. Tommy reached for the nearby box of tissues, handed one each to Martin and Ken, and took three others which he used to mop up his spunk from the floor.
Ken stood up between the two boys, and put his arm round each of their waists, before kissing each of them on the lips. “Thank you both!” he said. “I’m sorry for farting, but I was so carried away that I couldn’t hold it in. What are we going to do next? Does Tommy want to suck me, or does he want me to suck him?”
Decisions, decisions. What did Tommy want? “I want to suck you!” he said. “Have you enough spunk left for another go?” Ken said that he thought he had, but Tommy then said, “but first I want to kiss your hairy arse!” Cock dripping postcome, he walked behind Ken and knelt down and began to kiss his arse. Before he started he said, “but please don’t fart while I’m working on your arse, I don’t want to be gassed!”?
After a spell of licking and nibbling Ken’s arse, Tommy moved round his hip and began to lick and chew Ken’s scrotum. Ken grunted with pleasure and his prick became rock-hard. Tommy ran his lips along the lumpy, slimy cylinder before licking it from tip to root. He then opened his mouth and began to suck the head, gently nibbling Ken’s foreskin, and feeling the lumps and veins along its length. “You’re not bad for a beginner!” he said to Tommy. “You’ve learnt a lot from Martin.” He continued to enjoy the sensation of Tommy’s lips and tongue before beginning fucking movements and pushing further and further back into Tommy’s mouth. Martin meanwhile, cock in hand, had stationed himself so that he had a good view of Tommy’s face pressed up against Ken’s belly. He began to fondle his own manhood and stroke the sides with his encircling fingers. Just as Tommy was starting to gag, a wave of ecstasy came over Ken and with an unintelligible cry, he shot his load into Tommy’s mouth. He then withdrew his cock, and Tommy had no problems in swallowing the now much smaller ejaculate, which tasted vaguely salty. As he did so, Martin’s breathing and grunting became noisier, and a spray of man-juice shot from his prick on to the floor. Ken kissed the top of Tommy’s head and said, “Thank you again.” Martin grabbed some tissues and began to wipe the floor.
Tommy stood up, pulled on his underpants and went into the kitchen to make coffee. He took advantage of being out of the room to release a big fart from his back passage. When he got back with the cafetière and three cups, the other two had put their clothes on. He poured the coffee and Ken asked him if he had enjoyed the blow-job. “Yes,” he said, “I think that I’m acquiring a taste for spunk!”
“You need to, if you’re gay!” said Ken. “Men can’t spend all their time fucking one another. There has to be a nice and more hygienic non-anal alternative.”
Tommy took a swig of coffee, put down his cup and began to nibble Martin’s left ear. Martin gave a grunt of enjoyment and put his arm round Tommy’s bare chest. “He’s still my property!” he said with a grin at Ken, “don’t get any ideas about stealing him!”
“You don’t realize how lucky you are!” he said, “I’ve been looking for a boy like him ever since I came to Camford.”
“I realize only too well how lucky I am!” Martin replied, “I first of all had to convince him that men were better than women, and it was quite hard work. His girlfriend had taught him quite a bit about blow-jobs, so not all the credit is mine.”
They all agreed that the event should be a one-off occasion, and not become a regular habit, and Ken promised to renew his efforts to find a partner, and the boys decided to see if they had any gay friends they could introduce to him.
Chapter 45 Tom Appleton visits Camford
In mid-February, Dottore Thomas Appleton got off a flight from Valerio-Catullo-Villafranca airport at Gatwick and took a train to central London. Now aged 34, he was established in an academic post at Trabizona University and was rapidly acquiring a European reputation as a scientist. He had come for an Editorial Board meeting of the International Journal of Bioactive Molecules at the Royal Society of Chemistry in Burlington House. After two nights in an hotel in London, he took the train to Camford. After a cab ride to Saint Saviour’s Street, he rang the bell of the boys’ apartment, where Tommy was there to welcome him. Rather hesitantly, Tom kissed his brother-in-law. From the warmth of Tommy’s response, (Tommy moved his head as Tom kissed him so that he was kissed on the mouth rather than the cheek) Tom realized that he had done the right thing. “How’s young Giovanni?” asked Tommy.
“He’s started to eat some solid food, mashed up, but he’s not completely weaned,” said Tom. “When he starts to talk, we hope to bring him up bilingually, so that he won’t be disadvantaged at hearing two languages, one of which he can’t speak. But he has made me happier than anyone else in the world has except your brother! But since Martin’s not here at present, Tomasino, parliamo Italiano!” They continued to talk in Italian. At first, Tommy found this a great effort, but after ten minutes, he was surprised at his lack of hesitation.
When Martin got in from the Watsonian Library, the three men went out to eat. They decided to go to the Sparrowhawk, a pub frequented by generations of students, and where some years before, the reception after Tom and Luke’s Civil Partnership ceremony had been held. “This place has nostalgic memories for me,” said Tom. “I have many happy memories of the day that your brother and I tied the knot. Like you, Tommy, the Singleton-Scarborough family rescued me from a miserable existence. I was ten years older than you when I met Luke, and he rescued me when I was totally depressed and about to drop out of university. And now we have a son, even if we are only officially his guardians and foster parents.” He bought three pints of WLB as the Camford locals called it, and they started to look at the menu.
“Tomorrow’s Friday,” said Tommy “and I’ve arranged a musical evening at Octavia Avenue. Jon is going to cook for us; you and I, Tom, will play some duets that we will need to practise tomorrow afternoon, and David and I will sing a couple of items each to your accompaniment! So if you are going in to the Chemical Laboratory, please try and finish by early afternoon, so that we can have a practice! There’ll be a lot to drink, so it will not be a deadly serious occasion.”
“Don’t forget that I’ve got to be at Gatwick at 5 pm on Saturday,” said Tom. He settled down to enjoy himself. It was wonderful to be back in Camford among students again, and even nicer to be with family rather than in a college guest-room. ‘If you’re an a academic,’ he thought, ‘you’ve entered a lifelong love affair with students and universities.’ Next day he visited his friends and collaborators in the Chemical Laboratory and discussed further plans with them for collaborative research.
The musical evening was a great success. Tom’s fathers-in-law were delighted to see him and to hear his news about their grandson. David sang Il mio tesoro from Don Giovanni and Every valley shall be exalted from Messiah. Tommy sang Fairest Isle from King Arthur by Purcell and Ombra mai fu from Handel’s Serse. Much Prosecco was drunk and the evening ended with glasses of dessert wine. The three men returned to the apartment by cab. They went to bed at once, as Tommy and Martin needed sex.
They tore their clothes off and Martin immediately buried his face in Tommy’s arse-crack and began to kiss the smooth roundness of his bum. He then moved his attentions along the line of Tommy’s backbone until he reached his shoulders. He then pushed him on to their bed and resumed kissing his collar bone. He took the chain of the cross that Tommy wore round his neck into his mouth without biting it and ran his lips along it. Like all male Singleton-Scarboroughs, Tommy wore a cross, the fundamental symbol of all Christians, on a chain as a deep symbol of his belief.
“My darling Martin, fuck me, shag me, bugger me silly! I want you up my hole NOW! No more foreplay, just get the lube ready and push your cock in!” Martin quickly applied lube and three fingers into Tommy’s rear-end and rolled a rubber on to his slimy, precome-covered tool. He spread some gel on the rubber and, as Tommy spread his legs, he lifted them on to his shoulders and bent and kissed him before pushing his dick gently but firmly into the inviting orifice. After several months of regular penetration, Tommy felt no discomfort, and smiled with happiness as he felt the warm slippery cylinder push into his rectum. Martin began fucking movements, gently at first, increasing in speed and depth until he made contact with Tommy’s prostate. He then speeded up further and became quite violent. Tommy loved it. Each hit on his prostate sent shivers of delight through him, and his rock-hard dick was oozing copious amounts of precome. One triumphant push from Martin’s tool sent him over the edge, and three huge shots of man-juice were sprayed over Martin’s chest and his own belly. Seconds after the shower of hot spunk hit him, Martin came violently and filled the prophylactic inside Tommy’s gut with his own ejaculate. He fell gasping on top of his mate and they lay on top of one another until Martin’s shrinking tool slipped out of Tommy’s hole and he rolled off him and lay beside him on his back. They carefully got out of bed, washed themselves with a wet flannel, climbed back into bed and fell asleep.
Tom, meanwhile, lay in bed listening to the faint sounds from the adjacent bedroom of the two boys enjoying themselves. His heart filled with longing for his partner. He wondered if he should ring him for some phone sex, and then realized that not only was it 1 am in Italy, but that Luke would only have got home, weary from work at 11 pm, and would not have got to bed until midnight. Obviously, he would not welcome a phone call! Tom lay back and rapidly fell asleep. Little did he realize that his all-male world would last less than a year and that within two years he would be a biological father.
Next morning, he had a leisurely breakfast with the boys, and made Tommy promise to spend a couple of weeks with them in Trabizona before he began his academic year in Padua. He caught the 11 am train to Gatwick airport via London, then got the 7 pm flight from Gatwick to Valerio-Catullo-Villafranca airport, where he arrived at 9 pm, collected his car from the car park and was soon home in the new house in Trabizona and in bed beside his beloved Luke by midnight.
Chapter 46 The first public exams and afterwards
The Candlemas term went by rapidly. The boys stopped most of their social activities, as their exams were in the first two weeks of the Easter vacation. The only activity they permitted themselves was a twice-weekly swim with Ken. Evenings were spent reading and swotting, as were most of their daytime non-contact hours. The bad weather of January and February gave way to the warmer spring weather of March. The beginning of April saw them climbing the steps of the Examination schools for their first public examination. They had four three-hour papers in each subject and returned home each day totally worn out, wanting to do nothing but eat, drink and fuck. Meals were taken at the Sparrowhawk, as Martin was disinclined to do any cooking.
On their last day, rather to their surprise, Ken, in spite of his claimed unfamiliarity with Camford customs, turned up at the Exam hall with a bottle of cold Prosecco and three plastic glasses, and then carried them off, still in gowns and subfusc to the Venezia, where he had had the foresight to reserve a table, as the restaurant was quite busy. Martin was still amazed at how Tommy’s self-confidence in speaking Italian had increased since their stay in Elba. Not content with ordering the food and wine, he now exchanged banter in Italian with the waiters.
Soon after the end of their exams, Martin’s father and his fiancée arrived. They had bookings for two operas at the Royal Opera House and one for English National Opera at the Coliseum. They travelled up to London, had dinner at a restaurant, then after seeing the opera, would return to Camford on a late train. The boys’ spare room only had one double bed, so they just presumed that Mr Robinson was happy to share a bed with his fiancée. They reasoned that if they wanted separate beds, they would have asked. As nothing was said, the boys assumed that they were happy with the arrangement.
One night the boys went with them to see Rossini’s La Cenerentola at Covent Garden, which Martin enjoyed very much. Tommy spent quite some time showing his prospective parents-in-law the Camford churches and colleges, and one night they all went to a performance by the Camford Bach Choir of the Bach Saint John Passion in the Town Hall. Normally Tommy would have been singing, but he had opted out of participating because the rehearsals took up took much time in the term just before his exams.
After Martin’s parents had left, the boys moved to Rockwell’s Barn for two weeks over Easter. For the first time for months, they had no academic work to do. The weather was variable. Some days they went quite long walks and enjoyed the Spring weather. The daisies and celandines gleamed in the hedgerows. If it was wet, they exercised in the pool. At the weekends, Jon or Martin cooked: during the week the lady who came in to cook and clean for David’s parents cooked dinner for them. Over the Great Three Days of the Easter festival weekend, they invited Martin to come to church with them. He stayed at home when they went to Ixton church for the footwashing service on Maundy Thursday, but came with them to the Good Friday liturgy and the Dawn Mass of Easter Day, when the New Fire is lit and the Paschal candle and font blessed. David sang the Exsultet hymn by the light of the candles of the congregation. Martin sat in the pew admiring the slim figure of his inamorato as he went with his fathers up to the altar, and wondered what he was missing by not being a believer. He and Jon worked together for the Easter dinner, and they cooked the roast lamb that had always been a tradition in Scarborough family. Jon was impressed by Martin’s cooking skills. “At least I know that as long as he lives with you, Tommy will be well fed!” he joked.
They returned to Camford in time to see their exam results posted in the University Aula. Martin had got a first and Tommy had comfortably managed an upper second. This was no surprise to him, but it disappointed Dr Featherstone. He arranged an appointment for Tommy to see Dr Lorenzo Cagliari of Buckingham College just before the beginning of the Pentecost term.
Chapter 47 Tommy meets Dr Cagliari
The visit to Dr Cagliari took the form of an half-hour conversation in Italian and a half-hour test paper. Dr Cagliari gave him an immediate evaluation. “Your conversational skills are excellent, Mr Singleton-Scarborough, your vocabulary good with a few gaps, your grammar and syntax rather less good, but still intelligible. I don’t get many students coming into the honour school of Italian after five terms of classics, and you have a lot of reading to catch up with, especially since you are going on Erasmus in your third year. There’s no question of part-time jobs in the summer, you need to read and READ! You must come on a reading and conversation party that I am holding in the summer vacation. It lasts three weeks and we will be staying in a student hall of residence at Buxton University. I will give you some special books on grammar practice. Your knowledge of Latin has helped you so far, but Italian is a bit treacherous because it has significant grammatical and lexical differences. Considering your family background (I still exchange E-mails with your brother occasionally), I think that your Italian is not as good as I would expect, and you are going to have to work extra hard in the next 18 months if you are to do well in your final year.”
“I think my academic progress has been slowed down by spending too much time with my boyfriend,” confessed Tommy. “But now that we are studying different subjects, I hope that we will not distract one another.”
“You need less sex and more study! Buxton and your stay in Italy should keep you away from one another, which will be a good thing. You have the rest of your lives to shag but you cannot repeat the Camford experience! Where are you hoping to study on your Erasmus year?”
“Padua,” replied Tommy.
“Better to call it Padova. It helps in Italian conversation if you use the Italian place names. I think that’s a good choice. Moreover, I know an academic in Padova who could probably help you. Italian universities are very impersonal compared with how we do things at Camford and Oxbridge. There is no time to lose to get the Erasmus application in. I can help you with that. Here are the forms. Get them filled in and put the completed forms in my pigeonhole in the Buckingham lodge, or send them to me through the University internal delivery system. I’ll see you for your first tutorial on Monday and then we’ll decide which lectures I recommend.”
It was clear to Tommy that Dr Cagliari was much more hands-on than Dr Featherstone had been. He was sure that his progress in Italian would now speed up. He was advised to sign up for lectures in Italian drama, novelists, poetry, cinema, history, geography/archaeology, general literature and sociology. He chose to concentrate on literature and mass-media and to minimize sociology, and found himself with a timetable of eight or nine lectures per week and an expected reading list of two books per week. In addition to essays and translations, he had group tutorials with other students of Dr Cagliari in which his vocabulary and conversation were tested. This workload was far greater than Martin’s, and they agreed to do their private study in their own college libraries and only to meet for lunch when convenient, rather than daily. They still fitted in two swims per week with Ken and some leisure at the weekends, but neither evenings nor weekends were free of study. They continued to dine separately on Tuesdays and Sundays, except for the four black-tie dinners in Boni’s. The rest of the time, they tended to eat out. Even punt trips on the river were rare luxuries. Their lectures continued right through the period when first- and final-year students were busy with exams and Tommy’s last lecture was at the academic ‘graveyard’ hour of 4 pm on the last Friday afternoon of term.
Chapter 48 Martin’s father gets married
It was clear that holidays abroad were not on the cards that year. The first big event of the vacation was Martin’s father’s wedding in Sheffield. The boys decided to spend the short time between the wedding and Tommy’s reading party in Buxton at Martin’s home in Sheffield. Mrs Stephenson, the housekeeper, was happy to stay on and cook for the boys during his father’s and stepmother’s honeymoon in the Canary Islands. Because they both worked, the bride and bridegroom had asked her to remain as housekeeper after their marriage. The boys would make excursions out into the Derbyshire countryside, visit some attractive pubs in Sheffield, visit its museums and art-galleries and a brewery and generally relax.
The wedding itself, though quiet, was very enjoyable. Guests included colleagues from both Mr Robinson’s and Mrs Alderton’s places of work, and Mrs Alderton’s brother and sister, a total of some thirty persons. The reception was held at a beautiful country-house hotel in the Derbyshire countryside. The Prosecco flowed freely, and there was an excellent sit-down meal. Martin and Dom were the only persons under forty! Although there were no bridesmaids to toast, Martin was still asked to make a speech. He said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Mary as a new member of my family. My wonderful father, who for fifteen years has also been mother to me and as a single parent made a splendid job of bringing me up, has now got some female company and I have a new mother. I was a difficult teenager, getting into trouble at school because I was gay, but my father continued to love and support me. Both he and Mary have welcomed my boyfriend into their new relationship and both Tommy and I are delighted to be part of a new family. So instead of toasting the bridesmaids, I ask you to drink to the health and long life of Theo and Mary!”
After an enjoyable week in which they did most of the things they had planned, on the night before Tommy was due to drive to Buxton, the two men took Mrs Stephenson out for dinner at the local pub. Martin would spend the next three weeks reading and doing odd jobs in the house before he welcomed his father and stepmother back home.
Chapter 49 The reading party
When Tommy arrived in Buxton, his car loaded with books, he signed in at the hall’s reception and went to the common room, where about a dozen of Dr Cagliari’s students were assembled. They were all given a detailed programme of their time for the next three weeks. It included time to drink in the bar, time to go for walks and ‘media time’ where they were to watch DVDs of Italian films, TV shows and stage plays. There were three meals each day, and the food turned out to be very good. The big surprise was that all conversation, except with the staff of the hall, was to be in Italian. English was banned.
Of the students, eight were girls and only four were men, all except Tommy from Buckingham College. Buckingham was Camford’s only men-only college and in consequence had the reputation of being gay-friendly. But it was also attractive to students wanting to read Italian, as only a few colleges had dedicated Italian tutors. There was a family association with Buckingham, as it was the college where Tommy’s brother Luke had studied a few years before. Tommy found to his surprise as well as his satisfaction, that his conversational skills were much better than those of most of the other students, although his knowledge of Italian literature was much poorer. In addition to the students, Dr Cagliari was assisted by two Italian native-speakers, both Ph.D. students in the Italian department.
On the second evening of the stay, Tommy was sitting reading at a table in the library/study room of the hall, and making notes on Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi, when the man sitting next to him got hold of his hand, which he had momentarily rested on the table. He looked up to see one of the Buckingham men smiling at him. The boy was quite attractive, of medium build, fit and energetic-looking. Before he could say anything, the guy lifted Tommy’s hand, kissed it and whispered, “You’re gay, aren’t you?”
As there was no-one else in room, Tommy replied, “Yes, but how did you know?”
The man replied, “My gaydar is very good. I knew you were, the minute that I first saw you!”
“I’m not available,” said Tommy. “I’m in a relationship!”
“That’s no bar to being friends, said the man. “My name is Adam Williams.”
The two boys began to spend time together outside the classroom. Adam’s Italian was not as good Tommy’s, in spite of him having studied it in Camford for two years. They tended to touch one another more frequently than two straight guys would have done, and exchanged an occasional kiss, but not frequently. Adam confessed that he was in search of a long-term relationship, and Tommy wondered whether he might be suitable for Ken MacAlpin. In their free time, they went walks together and explored the countryside round Buxton.
There was not much time off. Saturday afternoons and evenings and Sunday mornings were free. However, the second Sunday that they were there was an entirely free day. When he discovered this, Tommy arranged for Martin to come from Sheffield by train on the Sunday morning. He told Adam that his boyfriend was coming and that Adam would have to entertain himself that day. He met Martin with the car at the local station, armed with two packed lunches, a 500-ml bottle of beer and a blanket with waterproof backing.
After visiting a well known beauty spot where they parked the car, they set off on a walk through a less well known area, with numerous old limestone quarries, now disused and overgrown by woodland. They found a secluded spot to sit and eat their lunch. When they had finished eating, they shared the bottle of beer. The place was quite isolated, and after a loud burp, Martin said to Tommy, “I’ve missed you enormously, and I need a fuck as a matter of urgency.”
“That’s OK,” said Tommy, “I chose this place with sex in mind! No-one will disturb us, we can fuck ourselves silly here, we can grunt and shout, and no-one will hear us! However, to be on the safe side, let’s only remove our shirts, and keep our pants and underwear round our ankles, so that we can pull them up rapidly if we hear anyone approach.” He set the example by undressing quickly, and raised himself up on the blanket on his hands and knees, presenting his sweet rounded arse to Martin, who promptly buried his face in the crack. After rimming Tommy for a few minutes to the accompaniment of grunts of pleasure from his mate as his tongue entered the hairy hole, he opened a tube of gel and began to poke it into Tommy’s back passage.
“That’s nice!” said Tommy, as three of Martin’s fingers, thickly coated in lube, entered his hole.
“You just wait!” said his friend, “The follow-up is on its way.” He hastily pulled a condom on to his tool, wiped the gel on his fingers over the rubber surface, and rammed it firmly up Tommy’s rear end. Tommy grimaced and then began to grunt happily as his hole adjusted to the solid object. Martin was so driven by lust that he threw gentleness to the winds and slammed hard into Tommy. Tommy, however, was enjoying every moment. Every second or third thrust, Martin hit Tommy’s prostate and filled him with absolute ecstasy. After a few minutes of frantic fucking, Martin gasped, “I’m coming!” as he shot his load of man-juice into the latex sheath. He slowly withdrew from Tommy’s hole and collapsed on the blanket beside his man. Tommy turned on to his side and began to kiss him, as Martin busied himself with knotting the end of the prophylactic in order to keep the blanket clean. “Do you want a turn?” he asked.
“Of course!” said Tommy, “I’m fed up with wanking. I want the real thing, and I want you!” Martin lay on his back and spread his legs. This meant that he had to remove his lower garments, which he laid within reach. Tommy knelt between his legs and began to poke lube into Martin’s arsehole, using his fingers to stretch his friend. He then gently pushed his man-stick into the hole and bent forward and began to nibble Martin’s nipples. As he took the adjacent hair between his teeth he could feel Martin shivering with pleasure.
“You’ve learnt a lot of lovemaking techniques since we got together!” said Martin.
“Yes,” replied Tommy. “Instead of reading Ovid and Catullus, I used to spent a lot of time thinking about your body and the things I might do to it!” He then began working on Martin’s lower regions with his cock, and before long the male miracle occurred as he shot several days accumulation of seed into the condom inside his friend.
After a long rest, they cleaned themselves up with tissue, and found deep hole under a tree where they were able to dispose of the condoms without any need to dig. They rearranged their clothes and continued their walk. As the day went by, they reached a country pub that was still serving food, and had a cosy meal together. At 5 pm on a Sunday, the pub was not busy, and they were able to enjoy a couple of drinks, Tommy had fruit-juice, Martin beer, before, about 7 pm, having unobtrusively kissed one another goodbye, Martin got a train back to Sheffield and Tommy drove back to Buxton.
The next day at breakfast, Adam said to Tommy, “Did you have a good day yesterday?”
“Yes,” replied Tommy, “when you’re deeply in love, you enjoy every minute of the other person’s company.”
“You’re a lucky devil. I wish that I was in a proper relationship.”
“I know a guy in Camford who’s a research student, who’s also in search of a partner. I can give you his mobile number, if you like, but if you ring him, be sure to mention my name as a sort of guarantor. I’m not going to be in Camford next academic year. I’m having an Erasmus year in Padova.”
“Thanks! I’m quite keen on the idea of an older man.”
“Ken’s not that much older. He’s twenty-six. I think he has quite a lot of sexual experience, though. It would be great if you hit it off with him. He’s a nice guy, and the four of us could go out together. But that would be after I get back from Italy. Are you likely to be in Camford before the beginning of term? I go to Italy in the last week of September.”
Tommy and Adam spent much of their small amount of free time in each other’s company, and although some of their conversation was inevitably in Italian, they got to know one another quite well. Tommy E-mailed Ken, giving him Adam’s name and phone number.
Chapter 50 A quick visit to Trabizona and the move to Padova
When Tommy and Martin got back to Camford, they had a blissful few days together before Tommy left for his visit to Trabizona. He took the opportunity to take double the permitted maximum of hold baggage, including many things he would need for his stay in Padua. His brother and Tom would store these things until Tommy had found somewhere to live in Padova. It took the three of them to load them into the car at Valerio-Catullo airport, but they were soon in the house in Trabizona, where Olivia welcomed them.
Tommy got a big surprise. Olivia was pregnant again, and Tom was the baby’s father! “Don’t tell anyone back in Camford, yet,” Tom asked him. “I still need time to adjust to the fact that I can fuck a woman and enjoy it. But it is wonderful to think that we’re going to have a baby of our own. Luke and Olivia are over the moon, but I am still just amazed how easy it was. And since it happened, I am beginning to realize how nice a woman can be!”
Tommy’s stay in Trabizona lasted two weeks. Tom and Luke did not let Tommy speak English after the first day, and they corrected his grammar and supplied the words that he did not know, which he was quick to remember. Soon Tommy’s shyness at speaking Italian wore off as he found that he could speak to strangers quite easily and be understood. He and Olivia would take young Giovanni in his pushchair for a walk in the Parco Emilio Guzzone every day. The little boy could walk short distances if someone held his hand. Tom took time off work to show Tommy the sights of the city. Martin would be very jealous to hear that Tommy saw two of Luke’s opera productions during his stay.
Back in Camford, Tommy made his last-minute preparations for his Erasmus year. It was decided that they would give up the tenancy of the flat in Saint Saviour’s Street, and that Martin would have Tommy’s room at Octavia Avenue when he was not living in college. Tommy had received much useful advice from a group who advised Erasmus students on the processes of registration and finding accommodation at their chosen university. By the end of September, Tommy’s arrangements were complete, and Jon drove a sad pair of students to Bristol airport, where after an emotional farewell, Tommy, with a maximum load of hold baggage, boarded the flight to Valerio-Catullo airport. It was not going to be a massively long separation. Tommy would fly home as soon as the Christmas vacation at Padova began.
This brings us to the halfway point in Tommy and Martin’s undergraduate life. Tommy has benefitted enormously from Martin’s mature friendship. He has developed an adult self-confidence and begun to think and make decisions independently. In the following episode, we shall follow their further progress.
THE END