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David Begins Graduate Study

By: WittePiet



[This story is set in England in the last quarter of the twentieth century, before cellphones and the Internet, before GPS and WiFi, and before our present social acceptance of homosexuality, before AIDS, before IVF, before surrogacy. A certain well-known female politician was British Prime Minister, but politics do not figure at all in this romantic, rather rose-coloured story. What do figure largely in the story are science, religion, classical music, singing, student life, explicit gay sex and crude talk. If some or all of these topics do not suit you, do not bother to begin reading.] 

Chapter 1 Jon

Two Weeks in Milapoli

My name is Jonathan Singleton, and this story begins early in September in a year in the last quarter of the twentieth century. I was sitting in a pavement cafe drinking a cup of espresso coffee in the small Italian seaside town of Milapoli. I was waiting for David to come back from the local churches, where he had been exploring and taking photographs. While I have no objection to churches as such, particularly Italian ones, nevertheless I found that too many churches in one day rapidly palled and became tiring. So I let David wander around on his own and take photographs to his heart's content. 

The day was hot, the time was 4 pm and there were few people around. I cast my mind back to when we had arrived in Milapoli four days before. On the train to Milapoli from Venice-Marco Polo airport, David had looked tired and short of sleep, and we had spent most of our first morning in the town in bed. But three days of sun, Mediterranean food, hot sex and visits to nearby cities had restored his youthful looks. The busy final year of his degree course in Camford University had been exhausting, even for a boy of just 22. I myself was glad of a break after nearly nine months of hard physical activity on the house we were building at Ixton, a village deep in the countryside of central England. 

David Scarborough has been my boyfriend for the last three and a half years. I dislike the word 'partner.' He is a beautiful, tall blond boy, who looks and sings like an angel, and I dote on him. At two metres tall, he is the same height as me, but more muscular and more heavily built. He weighs about twenty kilos more than I do, and his body is rather hairy, but as all the hair is fair, you have to touch him to feel it. He has a deliciously big uncut cock, which sticks out of his dense, fair pubic bush. He recently graduated at St Boniface's College, Camford, my own college, with a first class degree in chemistry and received a studentship to carry out research in the Pharmacology department for a Ph.D. He loves swimming and walking, but due to pressure of work has given up playing basketball.

I picked up a copy of the local newspaper that someone had left on the table, and began to read it. My spoken Italian is rather limited, but I did not have much trouble in reading the language. There was to be a local fiesta at the weekend, and one of the attractions was an open-air singing competition. I supposed that it would be some kind of karaoke, where slightly inebriated festival-goers would be able to show off their vocal skills, for the entertainment of all. Being Italian, of course, singing meant operatic singing. If one wished to sing, one had to enroll the day before. I thought it might be nice for David to have a try in the competition. 

I felt a hand running through my hair, and a voice said "Hi." I turned round and found myself gazing into the sweet face of my lover, which was rapidly browning with the Italian sunshine. He smiled, and a wave of tenderness passed over me, and my heart nearly melted within me.

"Have you got all the photos you needed?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied "and I've decided which church I want to go to on Sunday. Sant' Agostino is a beautiful little church, with a mass at 10 am on Sundays. I hope they have a written order of service, because otherwise I will be lost with the Italian. I wish there were an English church in Milapoli." 

I should explain at this point that David is a religious obsessive. It may seem odd that an atheist like me should be so attracted to someone who is a fervent believer, but David's sweet, faithful and forgiving nature makes him a good advertisement for the Christian faith. He has even been known to preach to me in bed. How someone like that can let me fuck him, suck him and rim him without feeling guilty is a great mystery to me, and has often led to theological arguments between us. It just goes to confirm the old Latin saying 'Amor omnia vincit' (Love conquers all). 

If the topics of religion, music, singing and (wait for it) chemistry are too "highbrow" for you, stop reading now, because they will get in the way of the sex. This story is no ordinary piece of gay erotica. 

I told David about the singing competition, and he said "OK, I'll sign up, so that the accompanist can get the music. But on the day, you'll have to get me tanked up, because although I know the words of the aria, I've never sung it in public, and I'll be a total bundle of nerves." 

"You'll be OK," I said, "and even if you make a hash of it, and I know you won't, it's just a piece of holiday fun. Now, we've just got time for an hour on the beach before we go and get some food."

"How the hell am I going to practise it? I can't do it on the beach or in a public building." 

"You'll have to do it in the apartment," I said. "As long as you don't go on for hours, no Italian will object to hearing your lovely voice."

We went back to the apartment, put on bathing suits and over them jeans and T-shirts, grabbed towels and mats and headed for the nearby beach. People from northern climates, especially if they work indoors, really need exposure to moderate sunshine to build up their vitamin D levels. That is why they have white skins. We lay in the evening sun for an hour before returning to the apartment, changing our clothes and crossing the street to the small trattoria where we usually dined. As usual, we had a couple of glasses of Prosecco before our food, and then an excellent meal, during which when not eating, we surreptitiously fondled one another under the table. We got back to the apartment at 9-30, and I said to David, "Before we start to make love, just run through your piece for Sunday." 

"I've got no music, so I'll have to do it from memory," he said. He began to sing 'Un' aura amorosa' from Mozart's 'Cosi fan Tutte.' I shivered in delight at his beautiful voice. He sang with great confidence and had no problem remembering all the words (It is, after all, a very short aria).

'A heart that's nourished by the hope of love/

needs no better food'

The minute he finished, I was on my feet, my arms around him, smothering him with kisses. I dragged him into the bedroom, pushed him on to the bed and pulled off his sandals and shorts. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, and I pulled down his briefs, revealing his monster cock in all its rock-hard glory. I kissed it briefly and began to tear my clothes off. In no time I was naked, and I knelt and got hold of his big dick and pushed it into my open mouth, with no nuzzling or licking. I did my best to swallow it, and David responded by enthusiastically fucking my mouth. He grasped the back of my head and thrust mercilessly for several delightful minutes until he came with a giggle rather than a shout. He squirted a small volume of come into my mouth. I savoured it for a minute before swallowing it, but there was not much for me to swallow. After several days of hectic lovemaking, we were both nearly dry.

He bent and began to kiss my hair. "I love you so much, my skinny boy," he said. "You are the only man I know with the build of a teenager!"

"Be careful what you say about teenagers," I replied "It's only three years since you were one yourself! Certain people in my lab accused me of baby-snatching when they found out that we were fucking. Anyway, let's go to bed. We can't get up late if are going to spend tomorrow in Ravenna."

Ravenna is a fascinating city that for many years was the Italian capital. We especially liked the two early sixth-century churches with their amazing mosaics, both dedicated to Sant' Apollinare, built by the Byzantine Emperors and their Arian Ostrogothic predecessors. David spent an hour obsessively taking photographs.

Chapter 2 Jon 

The Singing Competition

In preparation for the competition, David decided to get his hair cut. We visited the local barber, who obviously did not get many English customers. With some difficulty and repetition of the phrase 'dieci centimetri,' David finally succeeded in getting his hair considerably shortened (it had almost reached his shoulders). 

Sunday soon came, and the singing competition began at 4 pm. Apparently these competitions were a regular feature of the Milapoli holiday season. This particular month, the competition was for men's voices. There were about a dozen entrants and three judges. There were a lot of people present, not just residents of Milapoli, but also quite a lot of visitors. The idea was that the three best competitors would be asked to sing a second time without any prior rehearsal or any accompaniment, a different song.

Jon sang the Mozart flawlessly and got enormous applause. From the applause it was clear that the audience knew quality when they heard it, and I felt enormously proud of my faggot-boy. The other two finalists sang arias by Verdi and Puccini and were also very good. One was a tenor, the other a baritone. Both were swarthy Italians, not unattractive, but not bedworthy!

When it came to the final, however, it got a lot harder. The other two sang first. The tenor sang 'Una furtiva Lagrima' by Donizetti quite beautifully, the baritone sang an aria from 'Il Barbiere di Siviglia'. David of course did not have much of a repertoire and was forced to fall back on the Handel aria that he had sung at the choir's first concert in Camford, 'Enjoy the sweet Elysian grove.' It was not an ideal choice for an Italian audience as it was in English, but he sang it very well and the applause was good.

The judges conferred and David was ranked second. He got a fake silver medal and and an elaborate certificate. However one of the judges gave him a card with contact details and wrote on it 'Bravo!' He told David in heavily accented English that he should consider professional voice training and that if he did, he should contact a certain professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and mention his name. I urged David to make a careful note of the London professor's name.

The holiday continued just as enjoyably as it had begun. Our lovemaking became less frenetic as well as less frequent. We both acquired deep suntans (mine was merely reinforcing the tan that I had already acquired working on the building site at Ixton in the previous few months). We visited Verona, La Città dell'Amore, the city of love, where Romeo fell in love with Juliet. David insisted that we walked it hand in hand, and the romance obviously affected him deeply, because he was more than usually affectionate to me that night. Then we went to Bologna, Florence and Venice, we consumed lots of Prosecco and other wines, and returned to England much refreshed. We both vowed that one day, when we had enough money and time and especially if we had children, we would get a house in Italy.

My lover however found himself in a dilemma. Should he continue in his chosen path, or should he consider music college? My own reaction was very mixed. Much as I wanted him in my bed for the next three years, using his God-given talent to the best of his ability was part of the promise I had made to his father.

Chapter 3 David

Singing Lessons and New Jobs

We returned to Camford after a wonderful couple of weeks in Milapoli. I had a few days to spare before I was due to start work in the Pharmacology lab, so on Jon's insistence I rang the RAM professor's secretary and arranged a meeting in London, mentioning the name of the Italian judge.

I turned up at the College in Marylebone Road in a state of apprehension. I was received very kindly by the professor and asked to sing the aria I had sung in Milapoli. After that I was taken into a room with a piano and the professor asked me to sightread a test piece, a song by Vaughan Williams. After this we went back to his office. I explained that I was just about to start a Ph.D. in pharmacology, but that I would like to continue lessons in singing, preferably in Camford on a part-time basis. I told him that I had passed Grade 8 in flute.

"Your musical skills are well up to those needed for admission to professional musical training," he said, "but I can understand that with your background you may not wish to become a professional singer.

"Accordingly, what I advise is lessons from Dr Marcello Fabioni, a part-time tutor in the Camford University Music Department. He is not a cheap teacher, but he could develop your vocal skills at a more leisurely pace than fulltime professional training." 

I thanked him and returned to Camford, still in a state of indecision. When I told Jon about it he said "If you want to have lessons with Fabioni, I'll pay for them. I promised your father that I would do all in my power to foster your talent. But are you sure you want to continue with doctoral training?"

"I'm a scientist," I said "and that's the way I want to earn my living. But I would like to continue with singing lessons, so although I don't want to be your kept boy, I gratefully accept your very kind offer and I love you more than ever. Do you feel like a fuck?"

"No! I'm not after immediate gratification! I want what you think is best for yourself. I know you well enough to respect your judgement. You're not a teenager any longer." And with that, he kissed me affectionately.

I decided to approach Dr Fabioni by letter. In reply, I got a phone call from him giving me an appointment for an audition. This was fixed for the end of October, and on the first of October, I started my new job as Ph.D. student.

While all this was going on, Jon had been busy with frequent trips to Ixton. Work was well advanced on what we later started to call "the Afterthought," the frontage extension to the building, and it was hoped to get the stonework and slate roofing complete before the bad weather began, after which work could resume on fitting out the building. At the end of September, Jon bade farewell to the builders and left the site knowing that future visits would be short and mainly at weekends. He gave his phone number to Don, the gay apprentice on the site, and told him to get in touch at once if he had problems with his relationship. On the first of October, he also started his new job as postdoctoral assistant in the chemistry Department. 

Jonathan Singleton is my lover and life-companion. He is tall but thin, with dark, crewcut hair, considerable wealth inherited from his late father, a beautiful speaking voice and great personal charm, which, because of his reserved and introvert nature is not apparent to many people. His black body hair is sparse except round his pubes, where it is very thick and his average size, circumcized cock peeps out of the dense bush. His shoulders and hips are narrow, but muscular, and the neatly rounded globes of his arse make me constantly want to run my hands over them. He is a skilled chemist, computer expert, founder and funder of two charitable foundations, and has helped me enormously in my personal development during my student time. He is currently a postdoctoral research worker in the Camford University Chemical Laboratory. I owe him undying gratitude for all that he has given to me, including himself, and I feel honoured as well as uncouth and unworthy to be his fancy-boy. No amount of crude comments about me being a faggot or a kept boy can upset me. My relationship with Jon enriches and enables me and I am proud to be loved by such a man. Moreover I am grateful to God for giving me a man like Jon to love me, inspire me and care for me. To have such a friend is the nearest experience one can have of the love and care that God has for all of us, and human love is a great treasure just because it foreshadows the joy that God's love can bring to human beings. 

Chapter 4 Jon

Life in Camford

Because the interval between finishing his Master's study and resuming in the lab had been so short, David had no difficulty in settling down and beginning his doctoral research. He still went on the weekly trips to the pub that were the custom in his laboratory. Because we were both working relatively long hours in the lab, we only cooked at home about once a week and on the other nights ate in the Sparrowhawk (our local pub) or at a student restaurant. After the hecticness of the need for David to complete his Master's dissertation and our holiday in Italy, back in Camford life seemed rather humdrum and routine.

David had decided not to go back to playing basketball, but to concentrate such leisure time as he had on singing. He was accepted into the Camford Bach choir without an audition and had to spend one night a week practising with them. We still dined in college twice a week. There was some doubt as to what David should wear in Chapel: because he was technically no longer a scholar, he wore his scholar's gown instead of a surplice and looked a lot less pretty.

The oral examination for his M.Chem. degree passed uneventfully without any problems, and he arranged to take it at the same time as his bachelor's degree in the December degree congregation. I would be present at the same congregation to take my M.A. and Ph.D. degrees.

At the end of October, David turned up at the University music Department for his first lesson with Marcello Fabioni. On this occasion, he was not allowed to sing a number of his own choice, he was asked to sightread three separate pieces representing a variety of different styles of tenor singing. Fabioni did not make any concessions over linguistic knowledge: one piece was in English, one in Latin and one in Italian. He arranged for David to use the practice room in the University music rooms, so that he was not obliged to practise at home very often, although that possibility still existed. It was arranged that David would have lessons once every two weeks, and these were arranged to be at 5 pm so as to prevent interference with his work in the lab. He soon fell into a routine, because he was able to practice on one lunch-hour during the week and on Saturday morning. We both were obliged to spend time in the lab on a Saturday morning, and our Saturday morning swimming was shifted to the afternoon. This meant that our afternoon sex had to take place on Saturday evenings.

My laboratory project was rather different from my doctoral work, although it involved the same techniques, with a good deal of desk and computer-based work. However, like David I was still working in the old laboratory with the old colleagues so there was no dramatic change in my daily activities. Just as it had been during my Ph.D. studies, I was able to work from home on one or two days a week. There were a few comments from my colleagues about whether I missed my fancy-boy.

Chapter 5 Jon

Robin's Visit

One of my major interests (some people might say obsession) is the planting and promotion of new woodland in England. To that end, I had established with a hefty donation a Trust to promote new woodland planting. Because of my new job, I did not have time to visit the afforestation sites, so I summoned Robin Banks to Camford to report on progress on the Derbyshire site. Robin manages the planting and advises on the acquiring of additional land by purchase or lease. He is a closet gay. By now his boyfriend Arnold had graduated from Exminster, and I was curious to know whether he had got a job and what plans the two of them had. I said that we needed a full day to discuss things and suggested that he drove up on a Wednesday early in November, and stayed in our spare room for two nights, returning home on the Friday. I had arranged for a day off from my work in the lab. We had both just got in from our respective labs when he arrived. To my embarrassment, he greeted me by embracing me and kissing me on the lips. He then did the same with David. 


David Begins Graduate Study Pt. 02



[This part follows on directly from "David begins Graduate Study," which should be read first.]





Chapter 11 Jon

Celebrating David's first publication

The Candlemas term progressed. David, on the basis mainly of his undergraduate work, saw his name on his first scientific publication. It was shared of course with three other coworkers. He seemed excessively delighted at this and insisted on taking me out for a meal at the Carp at Stubbington at which we consumed a whole bottle of excellent Primitivo di Puglia and returned to the flat by taxi, which he insisted on paying for. 

When we got in, David set the coffee machine going and then sat beside me on the sofa, his arm round my shoulders. With his other arm, he quickly and expertly removed my shirt and began to tweak my right nipple and twist the hair on it round his finger. He then started to nibble my left nipple and started to caress it with his tongue. I shivered with pleasure and relaxed in his strong arms. "I want you, Jon," he said, which was rather redundant because he was obviously dying for it. He undid my belt and unzipped my fly before pulling my trousers down. I then obliged him by removing my shoes and socks, and was left sitting in my underpants.

David stood, went to the kitchen and came back with two cups of black coffee. "There's no aphrodisiac more potent than coffee!" he said. 

"I don't think that you need an aphrodisiac," I said, noting the enormous bulge in the front of his trousers. I reached forward, undid his belt and pulled his trousers down. He pulled his shirt off and started to undo and remove his shoes and socks. Clad only in his underpants, with a spreading moist patch on the front, he snuggled close up to me and resumed his attention to my nipples. He then started to move down my chest and belly, nibbling the hairs with his lips as he went. He chased my treasure trail down to the waistband of my underpants, and then stopped. I sat up, reached forward and pulled his briefs down to his ankles. His response was to do the same to me. We sat close together on the sofa and he resumed kissing my belly. When he reached my pubic hair, he suddenly sat up, put his arms round me tightly and began to kiss my face. Our mouths locked together as we each greedily explored the other's mouth. The sensation of his arms wrapped tightly round me made me almost melt in submission. He stretched out his legs behind me on the sofa, got hold of me under the armpits and turned me round to face him. I rose up onto my knees and lifted my left leg over him and raised myself so that I was above his king-sized dick.

I was about to lower myself onto his hard upward-pointing member when I remembered the lube. I kissed him and went into the bathroom and squeezed the gel onto my fingers and rubbed it on his rocky dick before applying some to my crack, perineum and arsehole. I resumed my position above and facing him, and he gently guided his cock into my hole. "Just stay still," he said "and I'll do all the work." I did as he said, holding firmly onto the back of the sofa as he lunged and thrust his manhood up and down in my rectum. Once or twice he hit my prostate and I nearly went crazy, and started to rub my dick, which up to that point had been limp and shook up and down with every thrust that my stud-boy gave. 

The penetration did not last long. David's lust was so strong that there was no chance of him being able to prolong the fuck session. I will never forget the look of happiness and ecstasy on his sweet face when he came, and only then did I realize that we had forgotten the condom as his hot stream jetted inside me! I collapsed forward onto my arms, pulling my arsehole off his dick. Then I gently lowered myself on top of him and began to kiss him and to rub my now hard tool against his sweaty belly. The scent of his perspiration was intoxicating. He kissed me and wrapped his arms gently around me as I rubbed my dick harder and faster against his belly, until I shot my load across his chest and even splashed a little on his chin and face. I lay there in the sticky mess, inhaling the chestnut-flower scent of my jism. "We're going to need a lot of tissue!" I said, before starting to kiss him again. David just grunted and smiled with contentment. 

After ten minutes or so in each other's arms, I slipped off the sofa and got a pack of tissues from the table. I mopped up David's belly and chest. "I'll get a wash-flannel from the bathroom," I said. I went into the bathroom with a bunch of tissues in my hand. I stood still in the bathroom, bent forward slightly, holding the tissues ready, and farted. A stream of man-juice began to trickle out of my rear end and run down my leg. I wiped it up with the tissues as fast as I could, and collected two flannels from the washbasin and took them into the living room. I carefully wiped my jism off my lover's chest and belly and kissed him. Before using a flannel on myself, I waited until I had farted again, and this time only a small trickle of David's spunk leaked out. I mopped it up from inside my legs with the tissue and then cleaned myself up with the damp flannel. "My coffee has got cold!" I exclaimed. "I'll go and heat it up in the microwave. Shall I do yours?"

"Yes, please," he said. Now reasonably clean, we still snuggled up close while drinking our coffee, and between mouthfuls exchanged kisses. 

"It was a mistake not to use a condom," I said "I hope that I have now farted out all your fuck-juice. If not, then there'll be a mess on the sheets tomorrow! But I must say thank you for that fuck. I'm getting to really enjoy being buggered. No wonder the men of Sodom in Rochester's play were quite happy without cunt sex. King Bolloximian set the example with his catamite Pockenello: 

"'Pockenello for a mate I'll choose.

His arse shall for a minute be my spouse.'

"I've got a copy of the play in my porn library. I got hold of it in Paris. It's been banned in England for 200 years. You should read it. It's very crude, but quite entertaining."

When we had finished coffee, we did not bother to get dressed, but showered and then adjourned to the bedroom. Naked as he was, David knelt down and said his prayers while I got into bed. David lay beside me, a happy smile on his face. "It's been a very good day!" he said. "I'm now beginning to believe that I do have a real possibility of a scientific career in front of me. How about you Jon? Do you see yourself as a scientist for the rest of your career?" 

"Yes, I do," I said. "What I would ultimately like to achieve is a college fellowship either at St Boniface's or at another college. Whether I shall manage that or not of course is another question. While I will have to continue research to have any academic credibility, there are so many other things that I want to do that I think I am going to have great difficulty in fitting them all in." 

"What are they then?" asked David. 

"I'm going to need time to adequately supervise the work of the two trusts, for Afforestation and Drystone walling, and also I want to see how I can help you in your development as a singer. Moreover I think it would be nice if in say about 10 years time, we could start a family, either by adoption or by surrogate motherhood with a suitably accommodating lady. Unless of course," I continued, "you could find a woman whom you loved who would be prepared to share you with me. That would be the ideal solution: a ménage à trois, with your bride and me taking it in turns to sleep with you."

A look of amazement and alarm appeared on David's face. "Whatever makes you think that I might fall in love with a woman?" he asked. "I really can't see that happening. I wouldn't have the faintest clue about fucking a woman. In spite of perfumes, I don't think that women smell very nice. But you smell delicious, even when you are dripping with sweat after a day on the building site. I don't think I ever told you how alluring I found your scent when you arrived back in Camford on a Friday night after a day's hard labour pushing wheelbarrows."

"You wouldn't have any difficulty at all fucking a woman," I said. "If she wanted you enough, she would tell you what to do." Within a couple of months I was to be proved right. 

"That's rubbish," he replied "Women never tell you what to do. They just assume that as a man you know what to do. But it's not just a question of poking your prick into their cunt, is it? Every woman who gets married expects that her man will please her and it is only fair that she should get as much pleasure out of being fucked as you do in doing the fucking. Men instinctively know how to make love to other men, because they know what men like. To make love successfully to a woman, you need to be educated about what turns a woman on. Successful marriage is as much about sexual satisfaction as it is about begetting and bringing up children."

"You could satisfy her in the same way that you can satisfy me," I said. "All you need is some lube and the girl bent over the bed."

"But that would not produce any offspring," David said, "even if she enjoyed getting it up the shithole! Besides," he added, "I could never talk to a woman the way I talk to you. Just imagine me asking my wife to let me shag her up the shithole! That's what broke up Lord Byron's marriage. He wanted anal sex and his wife Annabella didn't, so they split up after only one year. I enjoy your hole so much that I can't imagine being married to a woman who only wanted it up her cunt. Besides, as many men must have found over the years, buggery gives a man something to do when Aunt Rosie is visiting. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to be married to a crude woman. It's the old, old story of one rule for men and another for women. Men want a woman with the looks and manners of an angel in public, but who has the manners of a whore in bed, and that is not possible. No, my mate, you have nothing to fear from female competition for my prick! Besides, a woman who loved me would not want you fucking me. The other point is that I just want to be yours. I don't want you to share me with someone else, even the mother of a child of mine. 

"But it's getting late, and I have a lot to do in the lab tomorrow. Let's go to sleep." He took me in his arms and kissed me, and soon we were both asleep.



Chapter 12 David

Visiting Jon's mother in Nice

By now the end of term and the Easter vacation were approaching, although our work in our respective labs continued. As usual we were going to spend Easter with Jon's mother in Nice, and as usual we were expecting that she would do something irksome, guaranteed to make our stay on the Riviera a disappointment. The previous year she had organized a party in Jon's honour to celebrate his success in his doctoral exam, at which the evening ended in dancing, which she knew that we both hated. Her circle of friends did not seem to include many British residents, so for me there was always a language problem, as my schoolboy French was not up to a proper conversation. 

Jon telephoned her to announce our arrival and she asked us to come round for tea. When we arrived, she was sitting as usual on her terrace with a young man who stood up as we approached. "May I introduce Antoine?" she said. "He's my new boyfriend." A faint blush appeared on Antoine's face as she said this. I tried to conceal a grin, but I'm sure that Antoine saw it. 

Jon made no attempt to conceal a grin, he beamed cheerfully at Antoine and shook his proffered hand. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Antoine," he said. "This is my boyfriend David." 

I smiled and shook Antoine's hand. "Pleased to meet you," I said. 

"I am very 'appy to meet you both," he said with a heavy French accent. He was about Jon's age or slightly older, I thought. He was very handsome, dark-haired, slim and smartly dressed. But then, I knew that my 'mother' would not look at any scruffily dressed young men. 

"Shall I go and get the tea, mother?" asked Jon. 

"Yes, please!" she said. "David is Jon's nancy-boy," she told Antoine. "'E is very 'andsome" said Antoine with a grin, and it was my turn to blush. Jon reappeared carrying a tray, which he placed on the table and went back to the kitchen to fetch another one. I rearranged the chairs and as Jon returned, we all sat down. 

"So, what do you do for a living, Antoine?" Jon asked. I could tell from the fact that Jon spoke in English to him that he did not find Antoine likeable. If Jon had thought he was a nice man, he would have gone to the trouble of speaking in French. 

"I am an engineer." That sounds unconvincing, I thought. I felt a hand on mine under the table. I looked up and caught Antoine's eye. He smiled at me appraisingly. It was his hand that was touching mine. I pulled my hand away and put it on the table. This guy is after me, I thought. 

I wondered how Jon's mother was going to handle the tea party. Was she going to say or do something outrageous? She began to pour out the tea. There was no milk of course. "So, Jon, now you're a Doctor of Philosophy," she said, "and doing postdoctoral research. What will you do when you've finished?"

"I get fed up of being asked that question," said Jon "I want to find a solution to the problem that I am working on at present. It's an important problem and a difficult one, and I enjoy the challenge of finding out something new. I'm not in the business to make money but to get results. So at present, I have no fixed plan, I just want to get myself recognized as a scientist. My ultimate aim is to get a college fellowship."

"Don't you think that a daily, one-to-one exposure to the company of young men would be bad for your relationship with David?"

"There are young women, as well as young men in Camford now, Mother," he said "and the University has very strict rules about improper relationships in the tutorial system. Besides, not all gays are promiscuous."

"I thought that the three of you might like to go for a swim," Mrs Singleton said, "and I've asked the next-door neighbours if you can use their pool, and they have agreed. I realize that you may not have your swimming trunks with you, but the pool is quite private and the neighbours don't mind if you swim naked."

"I suppose that you would be watching us," said Jon. 

"Yes, of course," his mother replied. 

The eyes of Antoine (whose understanding of English was obviously pretty good in spite of his accent) lit up at the suggestion, and I was not myself particularly averse to the idea. However Jon reacted immediately and very indignantly. He said, "I do not think that that would be at all a good idea. The water at this time of the year in the open air would be extremely cold and I have no desire to spend half an hour with chattering teeth in cold water." Antoine looked a bit disappointed at this, but the conversation soon passed on to other matters. 

It was agreed that we would meet Jon's mother and Antoine at 8 pm for dinner at another hotel in the town, not the one we were staying at. We left about 6 o'clock to return to our hotel to get ready. "I know that guy fancies me," I said, "but I'm surprised at the way that you reacted to your mother's suggestion of nude bathing." 

"That's because you don't know her, "he said. Remember what happened the first time that you met her, and her outrageous suggestion that you went to bed with her. Now that she's got Antoine into her bed, she has to get her prurient delight in other ways. Besides, I bet he would love to see you naked. I don't see why we should gratify either of their kinky urges. I don't want them staring at your lovely big tool!"

"I think that you are being unreasonably possessive," I said.

"Do you want to flaunt your big cock in front of that lecherous, almost certainly money-grubbing French gigolo? I'm not going to give you permission to fuck him!"

"I think he probably wants to fuck me," I said.

"David, you're mine and I'm not going to let you accommodate him up your arsehole! If he were someone we both knew and liked, I might acquiesce, but I'm certain that guy is after money. I think you are having a bout of exhibitionism, which doesn't befit your religious faith!"

I had to admit that Jon was right. I had never thought very much about my male equipment until Jon started admiring it so much, but it would have been unreasonable to blame my vanity on his lust. I put my arms round him and kissed him hard on the lips. "Get your pants down and spread your legs," I said, "I feel like a bit of buggery!"

"You randy sod!" he replied, "OK, Sir, have your perverted way with me! Sate your foul unnatural lust on your poor helpless victim! Pour your evil fuck juice into my inmost being! Penetrate my most intimate hole with your merciless bayonet! I surrender myself to your base devices and desires!" 

I started to giggle. Jon did as he had been told, and removed not just his lower garments, but his shirt as well. I pulled on one of my few remaining Dutch condoms and reached for the lube. I spread it on my fingers, applied it to Jon's arse crack and perineum and pushed first two, then three fingers into his secret hole.

"I'm just sending messengers to prepare the way," I said "before my sex weapon ends up your hole!" 

"Pity your fingers aren't a bit longer," he said, "then you wouldn't need to use your tool!" 

"And what satisfaction would I get out of that?" I said. "It would be like wanking a woman off. Sex is all about close contact between the much under-used lower half of two bodies. Men only resort to wanking when there is no alternative!" 

Conversation then ceased as I concentrated on the job. I was a little rougher with Jon than I usually am, and not until I began to feel the spirituality of the experience did I slow down and think of his enjoyment. To my relief, his sweet face reflected contentment rather than discomfort, but I carried on at a more moderate pace, increasingly conscious of the quasi-sacramental aspect of fucking, until I eventually climaxed.

"Frot or suck?" I asked him. 

"Suck me please, you evil beastly sodomite" he grinned. I removed the prophylactic from my cock and started to kiss his belly, moving down and nuzzling his pubic bush. His limp tool began to stiffen. I took it into my mouth and felt it steadily swelling. I rubbed my tongue against its lumpy, veiny surface and ran it round the channel at the base of his glans. I chewed it and sucked it, while he sighed with pleasure, before he started to move it in and out of my mouth. Suddenly with a sharp intake of breath he came and unloaded his man-juice into my greedy mouth...

The evening with Antoine and Mrs Singleton passed very well. Antoine tried to hold my hand again, but I remained obstinately unco-operative. The food and wine were excellent and we ended with coffee and liqueurs. Antoine suggested one or two things that we should see in Nice before we left, and did his best to be friendly, although I suspected that he thought we were rivals for Jon's mother's money, which was not the case. Her income was entirely her own to dispose of as she chose, Jon had been separately provided for by his father, but of course we did not mention this.

The next day after seeing a few sights, we ate in the 'gay parlour' as we called the back room of the restaurant that catered for the wealthy gays of Nice and their boyfriends. We went there each year to watch the local queens and the married men with their male 'bits on the side.' The food and wines were as good as usual and I got a lot of lustful stares, which I did NOT appreciate. 

The following day we flew back to Bristol and drove in the new 4x4 vehicle that we had left in the car park at Lulsgate airport back to Camford, both ready to resume work in the lab. 





Chapter 13 David





David Begins Graduate Study Pt. 02



The New Chaplain

The new college chaplain, Edward Bairstow, decided, early in May, round about the anniversary of my engagement to Jon, to invite the chapel choir members to a drinks party in his rooms in college. He was not originally from Camford: he had done his degree at St Boniface's sister college in Oxbridge, and had come to the college as a junior fellow to do a Ph.D. and to tutor undergraduates reading theology. He was unmarried, but not gay, although a lot of Camford chaplains were. (In fact he did later get married). He was about 30, having read Greek and Hebrew as an undergraduate, and then had two years preparing for ordination at a well-known high church theological college (well known for gay ministry candidates presenting themselves as celibate). He had spent three years as a curate in London before deciding to resume his theological studies. The Diocese of London has for many years had a high proportion of gay clergy and he was very sympathetic to homosexuals of both sexes (not that the college had any Lesbian students at that time). 

He came round and talked to all twenty-four choir members individually about ourselves and our futures. As a result of that evening, I arranged to go and talk to him about my spiritual development, and about my future. In particular, I wanted to talk to him about gay marriage, a concept that seemed very novel at that time. It was the first time that I had ever had any inclination to discuss sexuality with a member of the clergy, and it was entirely due to the character of this guy, whom I felt was young enough to be able to give understanding and useful spiritual advice, and with whom I might be able to become friends. 

I went to his rooms in college by appointment one evening at 5 pm. He offered me a glass of Madeira, which I accepted with enthusiasm, because it suggested that we shared similar tastes. He asked me how I saw my spiritual development over the next few years, and how they might affect my life in general. I said that I hoped to remain steadfast in prayer and sacrament, and that I would strive by my love, my prayers and my example to bring my lover to faith, but I feared that it would not be an easy job. The Chaplain, who at the beginning of the conversation asked me to call him by his Christian name, then put me on the spot by asking, "What would happen if you were asked to choose between your faith in Jesus Christ, and your love for your boyfriend?" 

I replied: "I am an honest person, so I have to admit that my love for Jonathan would prevail, but I recognize that that love is itself a gift from God, to whom I owe the most precious gift that He can give, next to His Son, the gift of the man I love. Every night I thank Him for that. Moreover," I continued, "I think your question is a bit unfair. How could a God who is Love ever make such a demand on me?" 

"I think the answer to that is that you are elevating the second commandment of loving your neighbour above the first and great commandment," he replied. 

"But the second commandment is LIKE the first," I answered, "and what about Abou Ben Adhem then in Leigh Hunt's poem, whom God blessed because he loved his fellow men?"

"I don't think that Leigh Hunt could be described as a reliable spiritual guide, any more than his friends Byron and Shelley!" Edward replied. 

My reply was that I trusted in God, who understands and sympathizes with our weakness, and loves us as we are, and that it would be blasphemous to accuse such a God of bringing misfortune or evil on us. I also said, "Isn't it your job to counsel us in periods of adversity rather than to put our faith to trial?" 

"All right," Edward laughed, "enough of Camford debate. What do YOU want to talk about?" 

"Homosexuality," I said. "I don't want to discuss it from a scriptural point of view: I know all those arguments back to front. You have served a curacy in London, and everyone knows that London has a lot of gay clergy. I understand and agree that marriage is an institution for heterosexual partnerships. But why should the church not be prepared to officially bless same-sex relationships, using a rite totally different from the marriage service? I've read Aelred's book 'Spiritual Friendship' and I know that Christian same-sex friendship has a long and respectable history, and I have heard that rites did once exist to bless male friendships." 

"Yes, and I have used such a rite several times to bless same-sex unions in private ceremonies in London." 

"And did you have your incumbent's permission to carry out such rites?" I asked. 

"Yes," he answered, "he is a man of considerable wisdom and he sees the pastoral care of gays and lesbians as a vital part of the church's ministry. But at the same time, we have always insisted that because same-sex unions are not legally recognized that any blessing of them must be a private ceremony."

"Edward," I said, "you have restored my confidence in the Church of England! I was beginning to fear that it was falling into the hands of men who wanted to turn it into a loveless institution. I've heard of men like me being told to 'pray away the gay.' I thank God with all my heart that I am in such a civilized place as this University! You must come round and have dinner with us and meet my lover Jonathan. You will have a lot to talk about." We arranged a date for the following week, subject to Jon being available. 

I went home feeling very happy, some small niggles of my conscience having been allayed. Jon seemed quite happy at entertaining a clergyman, and began to plan a simple, quick and enjoyable menu, with a litre bottle of one of our favourite Italian wines. 



Chapter 14 David 

A Dinner Party 

The Reverend Edward Bairstow came to dinner at our flat in Fountain Street on a Tuesday in late May. He rang the bell, and I lifted the door phone and asked him to come upstairs. Jon came out of the kitchen and I introduced him to Edward, and I poured out three glasses of Prosecco. Jon started his glass, but put it down to see to things in the kitchen. He was cooking fish, which was not time-consuming, but did require his constant attention. Prosecco is made near Trieste in Venezia-Giulia and I asked Edward if he knew Italy at all. It turned out that he was a regular visitor to Italy and was particularly fond of Bologna, where he had studied for a few months one summer when up at Oxbridge. 

Jon served up dinner. I asked Edward to say grace, which I normally did silently. He said the full college grace in Latin. We began with a pâté starter (bought in, not home-made), for which I opened the litre bottle of Orvieto. We moved on to the fish, which Jon had cooked with a shrimp sauce, seasonal vegetables and new potatoes, continuing with the same wine. We ended the meal continuing the Italian theme, with tiramisu, bought in from the local supermarket. 

Since we had established that all of us were lovers of Italy, we talked during the meal about that land, and got on to religion via the two ancient churches in Ravenna. "How would you rate your theological position?" Jon asked Edward. "I mean how do you stand on abortion, contraception, homosexuality, priesthood of women, euthanasia, celibacy, working mothers and so on? Do you believe in vegetarianism, fasting, meditation or auricular confession? And perhaps most important of all, do any of these things really matter? As an atheist, I think religion is a lot of fuss about nothing, but I accept that since the man I love finds it so important, I must at least respect it." 

"Your question about relevance is the most important," said Edward, "but the others are all matters that affect our everyday life, and therefore are also important, because unless you take a postmodernist view, religion is something that affects every aspect of our lives from cleaning our teeth to feeding the cat. In most of the areas that you mention, I think that you would describe me as a liberal." 

Jon smiled. "What about the authority of the Bible? After all, doesn't Paul forbid same-sex relationships?" 

"He also forbids women to have uncovered hair in churches," said Edward, "but not many people nowadays think that is important. But you will bore David to yawns if you pursue that particular line of discussion!" 

The discussion over various topics carried on for about an hour, while we drank coffee and then port. It reached no conclusion, but it was obvious that Jon and Edward liked one another, and for me that was the most important outcome of the evening. Round about 11-30, Edward left to return to college, and we began to wash up. Jon said that he had decided to buy a dishwasher for the flat (there was one already installed in the new house, but we had not run it yet). 

"I like your new Chaplain," he said. "Just before he left, he asked me to sit next to him at high table on Sunday. I hope he doesn't try to hold my hand! You'd better go to the pub with the choir on Sunday. Edward said something about him taking me for coffee and drinks in the SCR or his rooms."

"I'm glad that you like him," I said. "I think the college is very lucky to have him." I was hoping that if the two of them could find a rapport, then Edward might help Jon discover his true self, which I thought was a Christian self. 

"He looked pretty fit," said Jon, "so I asked him what he did to keep fit. He told me that he walked, cycled and played squash. It turns out that he regularly plays squash with the President's husband. I suggested to him that he tries to persuade that man to moderate his attitude to gays. Then he told me the reason for the attitude. It turns out that one of the guy's sons came out as gay while at Oxbridge, and he blames the academics for not keeping an eye on him. He seems convinced that some older man in his college 'led him astray'!" 

"What claptrap!" I said, "If a boy is old enough to go away from home to University, he's old enough to make his own decisions about his sexuality. You don't need much sex education to know whether you fancy fucking a man or being fucked by one, or whether you are merely interested in women! And there's nothing irreversible about declaring yourself gay. If you meet the right woman, you'll soon realize if you've made a mistake about your sexual orientation. And besides, lots of men are bi. Look at Antoine. He made a pass at me as well as at your mother." 

"Yes, I noticed him gawping at your crotch."

"Besides," I said "In our case, it was the younger man, me, who by declaring my love led you astray. You would have put up with just friendship for a lot longer, because you thought that if you made a pass at me you would lose me. That is one of the many reasons why I love you so much." 

"You're so sweet to me!" he replied. "A lot of people are deceived by the fact that so many gay relationships are just casual fucking. They seem unable to grasp that, in spite of many examples to prove it, such as Britten and Pears, two men can be lifelong soulmates. But mere friendship, which you would say was God-given, cannot satisfy a man's need for penetrative sexual intercourse." 

"They don't understand about lifelong same-sex relationships because no-one reads that great mediaeval writer on male friendship, Aelred. Everyone interested in sexual relationships in the Middle Ages reads about Heloïse and Abelard instead! In case you don't know the story, Peter Abelard was a young and brilliant theologian in mediaeval Paris. It was the classic example of teacher falling in love with student. Abelard was Heloïse's tutor. She lived with her uncle Fulbert. Abelard moved into the house because he said his digs were too noisy, and bedded Heloïse, who got pregnant and had a son called Astrolabe, named after an instrument used in navigation. Maybe it was an allusion to Peter's prick, which he had so skillfully navigated into her cunt! But he was not able to enjoy penetrative intercourse for long." 

"Why, what happened?" 

"Heloïse's uncle got a gang of heavies to castrate him! It was all very tragic. At that time, clerical celibacy was not compulsory, but if Abelard had married the girl he loved, it would have been goodbye to further promotion in church or university. While he was trying to decide between his girl and his career, he was attacked and deprived of his manhood. Nobody seems to know what happened to Astrolabe. Heloïse was forced into a nunnery, where she became an exemplary abbess, and corresponded regularly with Abelard for the rest of their lives."

"Still," Jon replied, "it just shows the hazard of loving a woman rather than a man!" "But it's bed time. Let's get ourselves ready for bed." 

One thing that was nice about sleeping in Jon's bed that I have not mentioned previously is that he had silk sheets. When I was living in college, the thing I missed most about the flat were Jon's expensive silk sheets. It had been a nightmare making sure that they were not damaged when I was doing the laundry during Jon's period on the building site. I understood then why in the early stages of our relationship, when we were only frotting, Jon was so fussy about keeping his bed clean... 

I stripped off my clothes, and after cleaning my teeth, peeing and saying my evening prayers, I hopped stark naked into bed. I held out my open arms to him and he climbed into my embrace as he got into bed. 



Chapter 15 Jon

Rockwell's Barn

By late May, the trees were more or less fully in leaf, except for the oaks, and Ixton looked particularly beautiful in the spring sunshine. The house was rapidly approaching a reasonably finished state. The swimming pool plant and pipework had been installed and most of the bathrooms in the house had been completed. The provision of bathrooms upstairs was relatively lavish. Each ensuite bathroom in addition to washbasin and toilet also had a bidet and shower. Our own personal ensuite bathroom had in addition to washbasin, bidet and double shower also a urinal and a large corner bathtub. All bathrooms had large, easy-clean mirrors. The lift and its machinery had been installed and tested by a specialist firm. 

We proposed to furnish only two bedrooms in the first instance, our own and a spare room for visitors. Our own would have a decent-sized window and a king-size bed, the other room two queen-size beds. All the bedrooms were reasonably spacious, but none of the upstairs bathrooms were as big as our own. A new water main for the building had been required, and as it was of wide diameter (because of the need to supply the pool), its installation had been costly. The kitchen and upstairs sitting room were large, again with larger than usual windows. The kitchen was the only room where the windows were higher above the floor and without a window seat. Most of the kitchen fittings and appliances were in place, and the furniture that we had chosen for most of the rooms was on order. We had also chosen and ordered curtains for most of the rooms. 

I regretted that the amount of natural light in the pool room was very small, because large windows would not have been possible, so we had opted for small windows some 2 metres above the floor, and good fluorescent lighting in the ceiling. Some natural light was provided in the pool area, because the room had an entirely glazed wall at the end, looking on to the hall of the house, so as you came down our magnificent staircase, you could see the pool on the right of the hall through the glass wall. Ultimately, hall and pool would be ornamented with trees in pots, but that would be right at the end of the furnishing operation. There would be no large carpets in the house, just rugs. Solar panels to provide hot water in summer had been installed on the roof.  

Then something happened that made me change our plans. David had asked me what the running costs for the pool were going to be. I got various reference books out and began to work out the costs of water, water treatment and heating. The results came to me as a shock. The annual costs of running the pool were vast, and could not possibly be justified until we were living in the house for at least ten months per year! Reluctantly we decided not to proceed until we were permanently resident in the house. The necessary plant would be installed, but would not be commissioned. In the interim, a substantial but temporary floor would cover the tiled cavity. We had hopes also that more efficient heating technology might be developed in the next few years. I had to be grateful to David for showing me that it would be an irresponsible way of spending money. 



Chapter 16 David

The Long Vacation begins

The following Sunday we dined as usual in College at separate tables, and I went off to the Lion with the rest of the choir. As we left the Hall, Jon and Edward seemed very chatty on high table. They had nowhere near finished eating, their conversation was so vigorous. Afterwards they had a small espresso in the SCR, and Edward invited Jon to join him for a drink in his rooms. By now it was clear that they were enjoying one another's company, and friendship was cemented by opening a bottle of port. Things got quite warm between them. Edward touched Jon's hand a few times in conversation, and when Jon left, they put their arms round one another, though no kissing took place. It was clear that Edward, if not actually gay, had no inhibitions about touching men in friendship. Possibly he was bi. 

Soon the Pentecost term came to an end. My work in the lab got increasingly demanding. I had spent several weeks in the Biochemistry department learning the techniques of enzyme purification. Nobody in Pharmacology could give me any help, but there was a nice chap in Biochemistry who gave me a good deal of help. "Enzyme purification is an art rather than a science," he used to tell me. And indeed even now, getting on for 30 years later, it is still difficult to predict exactly what purification techniques will work with a given enzyme. I decided that it would be necessary to work for a couple of weeks on one of his projects that bore no relationship to my own, simply in order to get the necessary experience of handling these materials, the main problem of working with which is the need to keep everything cold, because of the inherent instability of proteins. I kept a sweater and scarf at the lab, to wear when working at 4 degrees in the cold room. 

My time in the biochemistry department was rather spoilt by the presence of a few research students and technicians who at coffee time and during the lunch break, would make snide and rather hurtful comments about my gayness. I did not want to make a great scene and tell them either individually or collectively to fuck off, so I just tended to avoid the break periods and was glad that I was only spending a couple of weeks in that department.

My singing lessons continued through the vacations, except when Dr Fabioni was away, which happened several times a year. He was consultant to impresarios and opera companies all over the world. One day at my lesson, he said to me, "Mr Scarborough, you are not a university music student, you are a paying pupil, and I am very pleased with your progress. I would like you to call me Marcello, and I will call you David, unless you object."

"No," I said, "I appreciate it very much."

"Please then, David, sing that scale again."

This signalled a change in our relationship. Previously, Marcello had shown a rigidly formality which I had interpreted as coldness. Now his warm Mediterranean emotion began to show. When I told Jonathan about the change, he grinned. "I think that he has fatherly feelings for you," he said, "which he tried to suppress out of fear that you would think him an old queen! But now he knows you better, and your sweet nature is clear to him, he can unwind, and sooner or later, he'll give you a paternal kiss."




David Begins Graduate Study Pt. 02



We had dinner at the Fabioni's every three months or so, and after three such visits, I asked David if we could invite them back to the flat for dinner. "Would you like me to cook for them or shall we get food sent in? he asked. "And should we invite anyone else, Edward for instance?"

"Their food is always so good, I think in the first instance we should get food from a caterer," I said. "In that way, you can enjoy the occasion without the distraction of cooking. Moreover, in that way we can spend more time on the choice of wines. We'll start with Franciacotta, a nice sparkling wine as a change from Prosecco, and end with Marsala, but we'll have to give careful thought to the other two wines. And we must make sure that they travel by taxi! At this stage, I don't think we should invite anyone else, and in any case, Edward is in Italy."

"When Rockwell's Barn is finished, we must invite them there. There they can stay overnight, and I will do the cooking. I don't think for this first visit I will order Italian food, I'll use the firm that I used the first time that we fucked, all of four years ago. Their menus are reliable and excellent quality. Moreover, they will supply any wine that I ask them for, and of course the wines will all be Italian."

The dinner party was a great success. Marcello was on top form, full of stories and reminiscences of great singers, and Mrs Fabioni, who asked me to call her Caterina, chatted happily to Jon about her days on the stage. They had one daughter, married to an opera singer in Italy, and two grandchildren, who loved to visit grandad in Camford. They enjoyed the food, which consisted of gazpacho, followed by a seafood salad with pasta, and the meal ended with a chocolate mousse. We had two excellent Italian white wines with it, Verdicchio and the rather sweet Albana di Romagna, and ended with espresso and Marsala. 



Chapter 17 David

The Choir in Durham

The August sun shone down brilliantly, making the foliage of the trees on the side of the hill where the Cathedral stands in a loop of the River Wear glow in their chlorophyll-laden richness. The minibus which had brought the choir to the city was unable to take us directly to the college where were staying. It had to park at the side of the street, and we had to carry our luggage over a bridge and up a steep hill to reach the summit on which the Cathedral and the Castle stand, together with a small number of university buildings, shops, restaurants and pubs. The old castle of the city has for nearly 200 years housed part of the University and a number of other departments and colleges were situated upon the hill, although the major buildings were lower down in the city

Before I left for Durham, I had had to have a long discussion with Charlie my supervisor about the length of time that I was going to be away from the lab in the course of that summer. He assured me that my progress was quite satisfactory and there was no reason why an absence of a total of four weeks should affect my research progress or my reputation in the Department. With that reassurance, I was able to go off on the trip in a relaxed state, ready to give my best in our performance.

In the end, 18 of us had managed to find enough time to fit in the visit. As might be expected, there were more women than men. However there were just enough tenors and an adequate number of baritones and basses for the organ scholar to feel that we could perform satisfactorily. He himself would be playing for us, except on the Sunday, because all the Cathedral organists were on holiday. We were staying in a college near the cathedral, which was very convenient, as we had to sing three times on a Sunday and at least once on each weekday, usually for evensong. It was also necessary for us to spend a lot of time rehearsing, because we had had no opportunity to practise before our visit. Over seven days we were to perform at least three settings for the liturgy and a different anthem each day. This of course was much more demanding than our usual Sunday evening college performance. 

However, although we were an amateur group, I was not the only one with an obsessive passion for singing. Two other men and three of the women felt as I did that our singing was the most important part of the visit. The rest of the choir, particularly the men, saw the trip as an opportunity to visit new pubs and taste Northern beer and such night-life as a cathedral city can offer in summer, which wasn't much. The microbrewery revolution was at that time only in its very early stages, but as a university city Durham had a number of pubs, especially in the old part of the city, where the landlord had a free choice of beer and the customers, more discriminating than students in many universities, made sure that excellent new brews were tried out. 

The six of us keen singers abstained from visiting pubs at lunchtime. In those days there were several unsophisticated cafés in the old city where we could obtain a decent light lunch. The college provided us with dinner in the evenings, which was just as well, as during the summer only a few restaurants were open. I used to spend the morning after breakfast at the swimming pool which was a stiff walk from the old city I would swim 25 lengths each morning before walking back to join the rest for a choir practice at 11 am each day. Evensong was sung at 3 pm and by the time that we had robed and disrobed we were in the Cathedral for over an hour. In those days the boozers did not open until 6 o'clock at the earliest, so we usually visited one of the cafes again for a cup of tea before college dinner at 7 leaving us from 8 o'clock onwards free to drink as much as we liked, or could afford!.

One of the women in our group of six was very attractive. She combined just the right balance of modesty, self-confidence, sweet introversion and chattiness that I found very pleasant. Her name was Laura. She was a first year student, new to the choir, and a good contralto. After a couple of days, Laura and I left the others and tended to have lunch together. I had never made any secret of my gayness, but it did not seem to stop Laura being her charming self. I confessed that I had not felt never felt very comfortable in the presence of women except for the members of my own family. She said to me, "Just because you are gay doesn't mean to say that you need to shy away from women." 

"No," I replied, "I know that. I know that a lot of women like gay men because they because they do not feel threatened or tempted. How about you, do you have a regular boyfriend?"

"Not just at the moment," she said, "otherwise I would probably not have come on this trip. But I am very glad that I did. I find the atmosphere in this city and the fun of being in the choir something that I will remember for a long time and certainly would have regretted if I had missed it." Then the tone of her voice changed, and became quieter and much more tender. "Besides," she said "if I hadn't come on this trip, I would never have had the chance to talk to you."

This amazed me, and I felt myself blushing. In spite of making it very clear that I was not available, this very attractive girl seemed to be interested in me. "It's very nice to be with you," I said. "When you live with someone on a daily basis, you tend not to look at other people, but you are being very sweet to me!"

It was quite late, most of the lunchtime patrons of the cafe had gone. So the place was quite quiet. "Would you like to kiss me?" Laura said quietly.

"Yes, I think I would," I said, hesitantly. I moved my chair to beside hers and turned to her and kissed her on the lips. I could not remember the last time that I had kissed a woman other than my mother or my sister, and I had forgotten how nice it is. And she actually smelt nice. Most women stink of make-up. She wasn't wearing any, and looked all the more attractive as a result. Although her response was quite passionate, it was totally different from the reaction elicited by kissing a man. She just seemed to melt in my arms, and she opened her mouth so that I could put my tongue inside. I kissed her very enthusiastically and to my amazement she put her arms around my shoulders and ran the right arm down to the small of my back and began to caress my arse. I could not believe that this was happening to me. I put my right hand round her waist and moved away from her lips so that I could speak. Down below, I could feel my dick beginning to stiffen. "You are so nice!" I said. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because I fancy you," she said.

"You must be teasing me," I said. "Women don't do this to men. They wait for men to take the initiative. And you know that I am in a committed partnership. Although my lover will not mind if we do anything together, I will have to tell him. So you need to know that we can't start a long-term relationship."

"Yes, I know all that," she said. "All I want is to spend one night with you."

"Okay," I said, "do you often do this? What I mean is do you often go to bed with men that you don't know very well? You are not very old, so how many men have you actually slept with?"

"I'm older than you think, I'm almost 20. And the answer to your other question is, I have slept with about a dozen men. Do you think that makes me a strumpet?"

"You're only a strumpet if you take money!" I replied.

"Of course I didn't take money" she replied indignantly "I slept with them because I fancied them."

"I don't want to sound old-fashioned," I said "but are you going to go on with one night stands for the rest of your life? I take it that it never happened more than once with any of these men."

"You're right," she said "they were all one night stands. And the reason I do it is to find out how different men are."

"Sexual intercourse to me is something that you only do with someone whom you know. I've only ever had oral sex with a stranger. If you and I do it," I said, "suppose I ask you for anal sex. That is something that obviously I have a lot of experience with. Would that upset or disgust you?"

"Not at all, I was going to offer you the choice when I finally got you into bed!"

"You can probably guess that I've never fucked a woman. So as this may well be the only time, I want to know how vaginal sex is done, so I don't want to go up the chocolate boulevard! I will need you though to tell me exactly what to do if you want to enjoy it."

"That's what I hoped you would say!" she replied. 

"Just remember," I said "that we are going to be together in the choir for another two years. If it goes wrong, it will leave both of us with unpleasant feelings every time we meet to sing. And another thing, do you tell people about your sexual experiences? It would make it impossible for us in the choir if all or some of them knew what we had been doing." 

"David," she said, "I tell you that no man has ever left my bed feeling unsatisfied, and I have never slept with an inadequate man. If I had any doubt that you would not give me pleasure, I would never have asked you in the first place! As for your second question, I promise you that I will never talk about this to anyone. It is not my practice to tell everyone about all the men that I've had.'

"But suppose that, to put it crudely, I can't get it up?"

"You'll not have any problems. My mouth will see to that!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This girl had the experience of a pro! "But we had better be getting ready to go across to the Cathedral" she said, "come to my room after dinner tonight, and bring some condoms with you. It's room C9."

My performance that afternoon in the psalms and canticles was not good. My mind was a turmoil of apprehension and excitement, mixed with guilt and doubt. After the service, I walked a little way down the hill towards the city and found an off-licence, where I bought some chocolates and a bottle of sherry. I felt that we might need some alcoholic encouragement...

I went back to my room and rummaged in my suitcase and pulled out the large, heavy, brick-like article that Jon had recently bought me. It was an early ("first generation") model of mobile telephone. Networks were few and sparse in those days, and it came as no surprise when I switched it on and tried to ring Jon's number, that there was no signal. So as far as decision-making was concerned I was on my own. Should I try and shag this woman or not? On the one hand, Jon had suggested that the best hope of us having a family was for me to find a woman who could live happily with both of us. On the other hand, this girl had no plans for procreation, but she was very attractive, and obviously wanted it. I was not in any way dishonouring her, and it would at least show me what fucking a woman was like. I asked myself whether it was sinful, and it seemed to me that assuming that Jon was not upset (and how could he be? I was not deceiving him and he wanted me to father a child, though in this case it was more about finding out what cunt-fucking was like), no-one would be harmed by this little escapade, as long as Laura kept her mouth shut. 

Dinner was a good meal and was finished fairly rapidly, and about ten minutes before 8 pm, I was knocking on Laura's door with a box of chocolates, a bottle of sherry and a packet of rubbers in my pocket. She opened the door with a sweet smile, put a "Do not disturb" card on the handle, invited me in and locked the door.

I grabbed her and threw my arms round her, and began to kiss her, while at the same time running my hand over her arse. She responded by rubbing her hand through my hair and caressing the back of my neck. She smelt good. She obviously used a high quality sophisticated perfume. She rubbed her belly against my hardening cock and smiled so sweetly. I then let go of her and said "How about a little drink? A small glass of sherry?" There were two plastic tooth glasses on the washbasin, and she fetched them. I poured us out a generous tot of sweet sherry each.

"Would you like a cup of coffee now, to drink with the chocolates, or would you prefer to wait until later?" she asked.

"Let's just have the sherry now, and the other things later," I said.

We started to sip the sherry. It was a pleasantly warm evening and the room had two easy chairs. Unlike rooms in Camford colleges, sofas were not provided. We sat close to one another and smiled. "What are you reading?" I asked. "English," she replied.

"That's a very respectable discipline for Camford," I said.

"Yes," she said, "we actually have to learn Anglo-Saxon."

"That should keep you busy!" I replied with a grin. "I expect that your vocabulary is more ladylike than mine, but my boyfriend and I use a lot of Anglo-Saxon words when we're talking to one another" I said "especially four-letter ones! What part of the country do you come from?"

"Surrey," she replied, "really Home Counties! What about you?"

"I come from not very far away from here," I said, "though I'm in my fifth year in Camford and can't see myself coming back to the North of England. I think my future jobs are all likely to be in the South, hopefully in the vicinity of Camford, because Jon my boyfriend hopes to get a permanent job there eventually. At present he is a post-doc in the Chemistry Department."

Laura leaned forward and started to unbutton my shirt. She slipped her hand inside and started to tweak the hair round my nipples. She certainly knew how to turn a man on, and her lovemaking techniques reminded me of Jon. She was wearing a loose-fitting blouse, which hung down outside her jeans. I ventured to get hold of the bottom of the blouse and she grinned at me, encouraging me to pull it over her head, which I then did. She was wearing a very small neat brassière covering her small neat breasts. Her body was quite suntanned, and she told me that she had been on holiday in Italy for a couple of weeks at the end of July. I sipped my sherry and admired what I could see of her figure, wondering whether I was expected to undo the bra.

"I'm sorry if I appear to be very hesitant and possibly clumsy," I said, "but I have never made love to a woman before. I don't know what you expect and I don't know whether I should take the initiative in for instance undressing you, or whether you prefer to stay in control."

"Well," she said, "if you want to see my tits you're going to have to remove my bra!" and she giggled. That giggle set me at ease. I had been shy and apprehensive, not knowing what she expected of me. As if reading my thoughts, she said, "Relax, take the initiative and make love to me as if I were a man."

"I can't do that," I said, "because I would be too rough. Besides, I know exactly what turns a man on, but I'm not sure what you would enjoy."

"Don't worry!" she said, "just do what you fancy and as long as it does not include beating or bruising I'm not likely to object! It's not often I get the opportunity to take a man's virginity! Most of my previous lovers have been pretty experienced."

"I am only a virgin is far as women are concerned," I replied "I know exactly what to do with my cock with a man. Of course a lot of what I do with a man I could do with you, but I really want to see what vaginal fucking is really like. I hope that you'll excuse my Anglo-Saxon words!"

"I don't mind at all," she said "fuck and cunt are after all standard words in that great classic of English literature 'Lady Chatterley's Lover.'"

"If you really mean that then," I said, "please let me take your jeans off and your panties, and spread your legs, so that I can get a good look at your cunt."

"My," she said, "no man has ever asked to take a look at it before. They've only been interested in finding where it is, solely to get their dicks into it."

"Well maybe they know exactly what a woman looks like and what angle to go into her at," I said. "But women below the belt are a foreign country to me. I'm also going to want to have a good look at your arse. You might enjoy that a bit more, because I'm going to spend some time kissing it."

By now we had finished the sherry and it was clear the Laura wanted me to remove her remaining clothes. I did this awkwardly but with some alacrity. It was a good job it was a warm evening. She lay on the bed and looked rather attractive. She was slim and suntanned, and her provocative pose had an immediate effect on my tool. She grinned broadly when she saw it stiffening, even though it was just a bulge in the front of my pants. I knelt down and cupped her right tit in my right hand and started to nibble the nipple. I kissed her between the tits and slowly proceeded to move my lips down her chest and belly until I reached the hair round her cunt. I could still smell her perfume, clearly she was not risking any fishy smells. I pulled back so that I could view her pussy in all its female glory, and began to tear off my clothes. My suntan from the previous September had long since faded, and I was conscious of the contrast between my white body and her suntanned body. I was totally amazed as I pulled off my underpants to discover the hardness of my tool. I had expected that at the best it would have been half erect. Laura giggled. "You see," she said "you don't need my mouth to get it up! Let me have a close up look at it."

"I can't imagine any woman except a prostitute saying something like that!" I said. 

"You don't have to do it for money to be interested in men and what they have between their legs," she said. "I suspected that you had a big one and indeed you have. I think it's probably the biggest of any man that I've had!"

I felt in the pocket of my trousers and pulled out the package of condoms and opened it, withdrew one and tore off the foil wrapper. I handed the rubber to her and said, "Please will you put that on for me? Do you need me to put on some lube?"




David Begins Graduate Study



We went for dinner at the Sparrowhawk and before and after the meal had about three pints of beer each. Robin told us that Arnold had got a good degree and a job, and that they had rented a flat together at Reading, where Arnold was working. They had settled in happily together and Arnold was enjoying his new job. This satisfaction had produced a big change in Robin, who was now much less "eeyorish." While naturally not being forthcoming about his sexual relations, he gave us to understand that Arnold was a good fuck and that they were blissfully happy together. 

As we walked home from the pub, possibly as a result of the beer that we had consumed, Robin demonstrated his newfound self-confidence by farting frequently and noisily. Inevitably David and I took up the challenge and matched his anal outbursts with blast-offs from our own rear ends. I asked Robin what Arnold thought of his farting habits and he replied that Arnold loved them and that his farting really turned Arnold on. "That's what's so good about fucking a man," he said. "Women always complained when I let off, but Arnold loves it!" We were all feeling a bit uninhibited, as you may have gathered, and the conversation became a discussion on farting habits. If you feel that farting and toilet matters have no place in a romantic novel, feel free to skip to the beginning of Chapter 6. 

By now we were back in our flat in Fountain Street, and we continued the farting competition with great enjoyment. As readers of the previous book may remember, I get very flatulent, and fart whenever I get the opportunity, particularly when I visit the toilet for a piss. However my anal blast-offs are noisy rather than smelly, but when David lets off, there is often a stink. "What time of day do you fart the most?" I asked Robin. "You'll soon find out at breakfast time tomorrow!" he replied, and let another blast escape from his arsehole. 

David started to giggle and bent forward and blasted another thunderclap from his rear. "I really enjoy farting," he said "It's a pity that making a rude noise with your arsehole is so antisocial, because it's fun!" 

"It's only antisocial because of the stink," I said "otherwise as Benjamin Franklin pointed out 150 years ago, the noise is no worse than coughing or blowing your nose. It's a shame that no-one has ever properly followed up Franklin's research proposal to the Royal Academy of Brussels to identify a material that could be ingested via the mouth to make farts smell pleasant." 

"You two are the chemists," said Robin "maybe it's a job for you!" We had a glass of White Shield each and then went to bed. 

The next morning we had breakfast to the accompaniment of a chorus of farts from Robin and myself. David left for his lab giggling. "I need a shit," I said to Robin "and I guess you do as well. Shall we toss for who goes first or will you use the bog in your en-suite?" 

"You do your business first," said Robin "and if you don't mind, I'll come in and talk while you're on the pot."

"OK," I said, without considering any possible consequences. I went into the bathroom, pulled down my lower garments and sat on the toilet. A couple of loud farts preceded the exit of a big installment of shit from my rear end. I did a quick courtesy flush before the stink got too awful and sat to await a further possible download. Robin entered the room and looked at my manhood dangling into the pot. "Nice dick!" he said. 

"It's nothing special," I replied. 

"Maybe not, but I don't get to see a lot of cocks, especially cut ones. Would you like me to suck it? Yours is the first circumcized cock I've seen close up, and that makes me want it in my mouth even more."

"What, here on the pot?" 

"Yes! Just open your legs and I'll kneel down and do the necessary." 

This was a dilemma for me. Here was a guy whom I had thought of as a friend and colleague, attempting to seduce me in my own bathroom! "Are you sure that you should be doing this? What about our partners? Don't you think we might be betraying their trust? Don't forget that we have to work together. Is that compatible with us having sex?" 

"I've always fancied you. I like skinny guys. And I love sucking dick. As for David, his turn will come tonight!"

"At least let me wipe my shitty hole and wash my hands and flush the bog again. It'll be better for you as well if there's no stink of shit." 

"OK" he said, and passed me the roll of toilet paper. I tore some off and started to wipe my hole. As I did so, Robin farted noisily. That excited me, and as I flushed the toilet, I could feel my cock stiffening. It took a lot of toilet paper to get my hole and crack clean. Having done so, I flushed again and stood up to wash my hands, my half-erect dick waving in the air. "You see!" he said, "you really want it!" 

I washed my hands, dried them and resumed my seat on the toilet. I opened my legs wide apart. Robin bent and kissed me passionately on the lips and knelt down between my legs, farting again as he did so. He took my semi-hard cock into his mouth and it reached full stiffness at once. He pulled it out of his mouth and began to nuzzle and lick it. He was obviously an experienced giver of blow-jobs and knew just how to give maximum stimulation and enjoyment. As it was years since I had last been sucked off by anyone except David, in spite of feelings of guilt, I relaxed and let Robin work on my dick. He was gentle and subtle and knew exactly how to prolong the experience without sending me over the edge. Eventually though, I did come and squirted my small volume of jism into his mouth. To my surprise, he stood up and spat it out into the washbasin and rinsed his mouth out. "My turn for a shit," he said and began to pull his trousers down, farting yet again as he did so.

"That's about the fifteenth time that you've let off this morning!" I said. 

"I know! Aren't I a dirty cock-sucker?" he grinned. He sat on the pot that I had just vacated and let a huge fart. I meanwhile had moved over to the bidet and was performing my anal ablutions with soap and wash-flannel. "Thanks for warming the seat with your arse" he said, and grunted noisily as a series of huge turds hit the water with loud splashes. "That's a lot better!" he exclaimed. A stink began to fill the room. He stood up and flushed the smelly heap of turds away. I handed him the toilet roll and he began to wipe his hole, inspecting the paper from time to time until it looked clean. 

"Do you want me to suck your dick?" I asked. 

"No, that's a privilege reserved for your boy," he said. I felt like asking what he would do if David refused, but decided not to. Robin really seemed to have changed from being a frustrated misery to a bombastic self-confident ephebomaniac. I asked him if he wanted to use the bidet. 

"I hope that your session on the pot has cleared your guts of wind. We don't want our discussions to be distracted by your farting," I said, as Robin washed his crack on the bidet. I still felt uneasy at what had taken place, but we had real business to do, so I kissed Robin (because he seemed to want me to) and we adjourned to our little-used dining room and discussed the project in Derbyshire. 

Chapter 6 Jon

Afforestation and a Blow-job

The repairs to the dilapidated drystone walling at the Derbyshire site were complete and the ground was ready for planting. Robin proposed to source the trees from two separate suppliers, one who specialized in the 'normal' small trees which would comprise 80% of the planting, and one who would supply ten-year-old trees that would be planted well spaced out, with the space between filled with the smaller trees. In that way we hoped to get mature woodland rather more quickly. I wished that I could go and see the planting, but being in a new job, the earliest that I felt able to get away was January, when the weather might not be satisfactory. 

I was also keen to see the drystone walling. The project team for that had managed to secure a very useful contract to repair a significant mileage of wall lining country roads, funded by a local authority in the Yorkshire Dales and they were hopeful that such a public exposure would be good publicity for more work. "Should we be looking round for a new site for the next project?" I asked. 

"Yes, I think so," said Robin. "Up to now, we have concentrated on sites of low agricultural value in attractive rural areas. Now I suggest that we find a small site in an area of heavily cultivated but relatively treeless chalk upland: downs or wolds. A patch or belt of woodland in such an area would have high landscape value." "It's worth a go," I said. "Could you try and identify a couple of such areas, and we'll spend a couple of weekends in December visiting them and looking for possible sites." There followed a long discussion on expenses, procurement and other financial matters that I would need to bring before the trustees. 

We adjourned to the pub at lunchtime for a beer and a bite to eat, and I took advantage of the break to slip into a public call box and phone David's lab. Fortunately he had not gone out to lunch, so I hastily told him what had happened and warned him that he would be propositioned that evening by Robin. I felt that if he were forewarned, he at least would be spared the need to make a hasty and ill-considered decision about a sexual contact. In the afternoon, Robin and I got out a large-scale land-use map and identified a few possible areas in which to concentrate our search. We wanted to avoid National Park areas, because of land-use restrictions, and because the Trust wanted to enhance the landscape value of ordinary countryside. 

Around 4 pm David came home from the lab. He had finished early. He unlocked the front door and came up the steps and I was filled with admiration at what happened next. He put down his bag, went across to Robin, put his right arm round Robin's shoulders and kissed him passionately on the lips, opening his mouth and endeavouring to stick his tongue into Robin's mouth. With his left hand he did what he knew drove me crazy, and I guess would drive most men crazy, namely that he clutched hold of Robin's crotch through his trousers and began to caress his genitals. He pulled his mouth away from Robin's for a moment and said "I can feel your dick stiffening, how about taking your trousers off? I will take your shirt off," which he proceeded to do. I looked on in amazement. 

In spite of his relatively recent haircut, David still looked pretty angelic, his blond hair shining in the late afternoon sun. What man could resist such an angelic vision of lust-raising male beauty? David knelt and removed Robin's shoes and socks. Robin himself then undid his belt and dropped his trousers leaving his dick making a huge tent in his underpants. David then pulled them down and left Robin standing completely naked. We both appraised Robin's body, which we have never seen before. He looked pretty good. He was well built with a quite considerable amount of body hair. He had a very slight paunch developing round his belly, but otherwise he looked a fit and attractive specimen of manhood. He had a relatively big dick, which was of course sticking up and a good 20 cm in size, comparable with that of David.

David handled the whole business beautifully. He did not immediately take Robin's projecting man-stick into his mouth. Unexpectedly, he bent down and started to nibble the rolled-back foreskin. He then stuck his tongue out and began to lick the sides of the shaft. He moved down to Robin's balls and after licking the scrotum, took each ball into his mouth in turn. Then he moved down to the tip of Robin's prick and gently licked the pre-come from it before putting his lips round the head. I did not know what the relationship was between Robin and Arnold, which of them was top and which bottom. However, it was clear that Robin was not accustomed to receiving gentle and subtle blow-jobs. He got hold of David's head and began to fuck his mouth rapidly and roughly. It was not long in these circumstances before Robin's heavy breathing turned into gasps and mutterings as he finally shot his load. David bravely swallowed the not insignificant amount of spunk that shot into his mouth. He then gave Robin's cock a farewell kiss and ran his hands over Robin's arse before standing up with an angelic smile on his face. "Well, what about a drink and then something to eat?" he said. "and, Robin, don't forget to tell Arnold about what we've been doing. And tell him that next time he must come with you and we'll have foursome!" We thus avoided what could have been a very embarrassing scene, and I hope had warned Robin not to keep anything secret from his lover if he really did want a long-term relationship with him. 

After a more sober and less crude evening at the Sparrowhawk, Robin returned to Exminster the following day. David and I then discussed the matter of infidelity, and concluded that a sexual contact outside our union should only occur if unavoidable, and that we should have no secrets from one another. This was a very wise and far-seeing decision, in the light of the AIDS epidemic of the following years. We also speculated about the respective roles of Robin and Arnold in their relationship. I reckoned that Robin was the archetypal top partner, even though Arnold did not seem a very submissive guy. Although inclined to agree with me, David felt that in spite of Robin's avowals of love for Arnold, the person who was most deeply in love was Arnold, and a big element of Robin's attraction was that he was in love with sex itself rather than with Arnold as a person. However, Robin's habitual taciturnity when it came to personal relationships made any real conclusions difficult, if not impossible, and it was none of our business anyway!

Chapter 7 David 

Dr Marcello Fabioni

Singing lessons with Dr Fabioni were very difficult and demanding. There were huge numbers of scales and voice exercises to carry out, rather than mere singing or learning of words and music. This was a novel experience for me, because I had not had any formal voice training. My untrained voice as a member of a choir or chorus had always managed to sound satisfactory, but I appreciated that solo singing was much more demanding both in technique, delivery and audience response. I also found Fabioni a difficult person to relate to. He was voluble and understanding, but not always easy to follow. Things changed somewhat when one week because of other commitments, he was obliged to change the time and place of my lesson. He arrange for it to take place at 5 pm the day after the usual day and in his home rather than in a rehearsal room of the Music department. 

Fabioni lived in a residential suburb in the west of the city in an old Victorian house with a large garden, well away from the road, so that the neighbours would not be disturbed by music from the house. I also met Mrs Fabioni. She was a delightful lady, a retired operatic soprano, who far from being a temperamental prima donna was a lady of firm but quiet charm, and delightful company. I instantly felt at ease with her, in contrast with Dr Fabioni, whom I found difficult to talk to. 

She at once recognized that I was gay and asked me about my friends. I replied that I was in a fixed partnership with a man whom I loved and respected enormously. "That's good," she said "I always find that men who do not have a fixed relationship are temperamental and unreliable, however charming they may be. Would you like to bring him round to dinner sometime?" 

"Thank you very much, we would both love that," I said.

To my surprise Mrs Fabioni telephoned within a few days and invited us to dinner on the following Thursday evening after my singing lesson. She said that she had a few other friends in the musical field whom she wanted me to meet. I asked what we should wear, and she said just suits, so we turned up to the dinner reasonably smartly dressed. Jon of course looked very smart in his expensive suit. My high street multiple store suit looked OK, to my relief. I mainly wore it for exams, where 'sub-fusc' clothing was compulsory in addition to gowns. The cuisine was superb, and was accompanied by several of our favourite Italian wines. There were three other guests apart from ourselves, and I knew one of them, the music director of the Camford Bach Choir, Justin Thyme. Jon was telling Mrs Fabioni about our recent holiday in Milapoli. She said that next time we should forget the seaside and stay at Montecatini Terme, where we could bathe in spa water rather than seawater. Fabioni introduced me to the other two guests, who were respectively, a well-known soprano and an assistant conductor at the Royal Opera House. We had a very pleasant meal, over which we discussed various musical matters and Jon, always very knowledgeable on such matters, though not himself musical, participated actively in the discussion. 

After the meal, to my surprise Dr Fabioni suggested that the soprano and myself each sing an item for our entertainment and enjoyment. I protested, saying that I was not yet an experienced singer. Fabioni's reply was "You need all the practice you can get!"

So we both sang an item, Fabioni accompanying us on the piano. The soprano sang an aria from the Messiah, and I sang a piece that I had just been learning in my lessons. It was 'Wenn der Freude tränen fließen' from Mozart's 'Die Entfürung aus den Serail,' an aria very much in the style that I was used to. After we had performed, I got talking to the soprano. It seemed that Fabioni had been her teacher in her younger days and she told me that he had really made her career. "If he likes you," she said "he will spare no trouble to get you a singing job, whether as soloist or chorus." 

"I don't know whether he likes me or not," I said. I've always had difficulty in deciding what he thinks." 

"He likes you all right," she said "otherwise he wouldn't have invited you and your boyfriend to dinner."

Nothing else of note was said, and Jonathan and I went home. I felt that I was warming somewhat to Marcello Fabioni. 

Chapter 8 David

The degree Ceremony and Afterwards

The final week of the Martinmas Term seemed, with hindsight, to be full of dinners and celebrations. The long-awaited degree ceremony took place in that week in December. We had both invited our respective parents, but Jon's mother had declined, saying that the climate in England in December would kill her. My parents had arranged for Jeroen, my young brother, to stay with friends for a few days, and my sister Dorothea was still in Oxbridge. My mother and father were booked in at one of Camford's best hotels. The ceremony was on a Friday, and my parents arrived on the Thursday and were to stay the weekend, leaving on Monday morning. 

On the night of their arrival, at their invitation we dined with them at their hotel. The wine flowed freely and it was a festive occasion. The following morning, we left my parents to wander round and see the sights of Camford. Jon and I, wearing sub-fusc, Jon in an expensive number by a top Italian designer, I in my dark suit from the high street multiple retailer, were at a lunch for the candidates in the Senior Common Room of St Boniface's, hosted by the college's Dean of Degrees. Fortunately, it was a very light meal, with not too much wine. The graduands then walked with the Dean from the college to the University Aula in Convocation Street, and on the way passed several similar groups from other colleges. 

The Camford degree ceremony is entirely in Latin, including the speeches. In both our cases, the matter was made complex because we were each receiving two separate degrees, which meant a double appearance for each of us, clad in two different gowns. The lower degrees were conferred first, and we were presented by college, so I and a group of that year's St Boniface's B.A. graduates went up together, I wearing my scholar's gown. After the Latin formula was pronounced, we left the hall, were re-robed in B.A. gowns, in my case by the husband of our cleaning lady, and re-entered the hall to applause. This procedure was later repeated for my M.Chem. degree, except that this time I reappeared in a Master's gown. 




David Begins Graduate Study



In Jon's case, he took his M.A. first. The M.A. degrees of England's two ancient universities are anomalous, and are hated by European legislators obsessed with study duration and academic credits. This is because seven years after matriculation, providing you pay a fee, you just turn up and collect your M.A. degree, irrespective of class of bachelor's degree, without any further residence or study. There was a bit more ceremony attached to Jon's M.A. Candidates knelt in a row before the Vice Chancellor and were gently hit on the head with a copy of the University Regulations. 

The conferring of his doctorate was even more elaborate. Appearing in his new M.A. gown, he was presented individually and given a parchment bull, with the University's seal attached in red embossed plastic (replacing the wax formerly used). He then had to re-enter wearing his violet/purple doctor's dress gown. The entire ceremony took up most of the afternoon. 

Then followed a half hour of photographs, after which Jon took us all out to an early dinner at Camford's only Michelin two-star restaurant, which he had booked two months before, he and I still wearing sub-fusc. As we were young, we had no difficulty in eating a second substantial meal, well up to Michelin standards, but our wine consumption was moderate and by mutual agreement with my parents, we separated about 10 pm. 

Jon and I walked briskly back to Fountain Street holding hands. Whereas an older couple would have been sleepy, we were burning with lust. We entered the flat, locked the door, rushed into the bedroom and started to tear our clothes off. Jon got his off first and I gazed admiringly at his still sun-tanned body as I struggled with my tie and shirt. As I watched, his tool got bigger and stiffer, and as I bent down to step out of my underpants, I gave it a kiss. He grabbed me, put his right arm round my shoulders and his left arm round my arse and squeezed me tightly up against his nude body. He pressed his lips against mine, and I opened my mouth in surrender. We spent several minutes exploring each other's mouth with our tongues while feeling the throb of each other's heart in the warmth of our mutual grip. 

Jon steered me across the room to the bedside locker, opened it with one hand and pulled out lube and rubber (we always kept one unwrapped just inside the drawer). He made me bend over the bed and without any bidding, I pulled my arse-cheeks wide apart so that he could apply the lube. The sensation of his fingers in my hole sent me nearly wild. "Push it in, push it in, I need you up my arsehole NOW!" I felt his berubbered cock tickling my arsecheeks, and in a moment he was sliding gently and smoothly into my fundament. He started to kiss my back between the shoulder blades and I could feel his sweat starting to drip from his armpits. His arms were tightly wrapped round my chest and belly, and his left hand was fingering my erect dick. His thrusting began, gently at first, but gradually accelerating and pushing deeper and deeper into my rectum. Once or twice his thrusts actually reached my sensitive spot and I was convulsed with desire. "Need a towel," I gasped and Jon grabbed one from beside the bed. I pushed it under my belly. Jon continued to fuck me for perhaps another minute before I convulsed again and shot my load onto the towel. Jon carried on thrusting and shortly afterwards he too came and I felt his jerk as he squirted into the prophylactic. 

His movements slowed down and he began to kiss me gently along my backbone, slowly withdrawing from my back passage as he did so. His kisses continued lower and lower until he reached my sweaty crack. He knelt down, pushed his face into the crack and began to rim me. I could feel my cock starting to stiffen again as his tongue rubbed against the walls of my crack. After a few minutes of lingual exploration of my hole, he moved out of the crack and continued his chain of kissing over each of my buttocks in turn. People who use the crude phrase 'kiss my arse' do not know how enjoyable arse kissing really is. I wriggled in enjoyment as his sweet lips ran all over my behind, and murmured in delight at his gentle and imaginative lovemaking. Eventually though, I stood up and wrapped my arms round him. "I want to see and touch your front," I said, and we remained standing, locked in a tight embrace. I kissed his hair, his cheeks, his nose, nibbled his ear-lobe and then violently and greedily attacked his lips with my own, my tongue forcing its way into his mouth. I moved my arms down his back and started caressing his arse, my lips still locked against his. "My own true lovely Jon, my treasure, my possession and my possessor, I love you so much!" I said, having withdrawn my lips from his mouth and I quoted from the 'Song of Songs' "'My beloved put his hand by the hole, and my bowels were moved for him.'"

"Is that another of your crude comments?" Jon asked. 

"Not at all, it's Holy Scripture!" I told him.

"We both need a shower before bed," he said. By now it was 11-30 pm. We cleaned each other up under the shower, and I put the spunk-soaked towel to soak in cold water. 

"What shall we do tomorrow?" I asked. 

"Invite your parents to coffee here at 10-30" he replied, "and then we'll walk along the river to the Carp, and have lunch there. In the afternoon we'll take them on a tour of the colleges, and in the evening I've booked a table at the George. On Sunday you can take them to church somewhere, and of course in the evening there's the Bach Choir Advent Carol Service. I'm sure they'll want to hear you sing!" 

"I've got some good seats, near the front of the Town Hall," I said. 

The weekend programme went according to plan. When my parents arrived at the flat for coffee, made with my fancy Italian coffee machine that Jon had bought me when I lived in College, Jon kissed them both emotionally and thanked them for giving him their son, and for becoming his real family. He was as near to tears as I have ever seen him. He's not as prone to tears as I am. Term had now finished, so there were no college chapel services, so on the Sunday we attended choral Matins at the University church and in the evening the three of them heard the Bach Choir perform Advent hymns and excerpts from the 'Messiah' and yes, I did sing 'Comfort ye, my people' and 'Ev'ry valley shall be exalted', and Jon was again near to weeping. 

I was surprised after only a couple of months in the choir to have been asked to sing a solo number. I felt sure that among the six or so tenors in the choir there was someone better than me. But Justin, the music director, assured me that the choir's policy was to let every choir member who was willing take a turn at singing a solo number, though he did not explain why he had asked me to perform at my first concert. So I got practising my recitative and aria. I am not a natural performer, I hate putting myself forward and I can't ever see myself as a professional singer. Hence my desire to be a scientist, as well as serving God and being Jon's besotted lover. Jon maintains that I can do all these just by singing, that my voice is God's gift and needs to be employed to praise Him. This is strange attitude for one who claims to be an atheist. (The other thing that I would like to do is to bring up Jon's child. But I never wish that I were a woman. I am a man, with a man's desires, even though I need to fuck Jon less often than he needs to fuck me.) After the concert, as we were leaving, Dr Fabioni came up to me and said 'Bravo'. I introduced him to my father and mother, before we went off to dine at their hotel. The following day they left for home, with the knowledge that we would be joining them for Christmas within a couple of weeks.

Christmas arrived and was passed in the usual enjoyable way of several previous Christmases. My little brother Jeroen was now 12, and showing the first signs of puberty, as well as experiencing a rapid spurt in growth of his arms and legs. The only notable fact that happened was that my sister Dorothea admitted that she had finally acquired a boyfriend. He was not a scientist, or linguist: he turned out to be an engineer. She showed us a photograph of him. He was of medium height and fairly heavily built, not the kind of man that was attractive to other men, and it seemed a bit strange that Dorothea liked him enough to tell us about him. I asked Dorothea if they were dating on a regular basis, or whether she had not finally made up her mind about their relationship. She said that she had not actually made up her mind, which is one reason why she was not ready to introduce him to anyone. 

Chapter 9 David

Winter and a new Term

After Christmas there followed a mild spell in January and so Jon, who had hired a car for us to come to my home for Christmas, decided that on the way back to Camford we should visit the two sites tentatively selected by Robin Banks as possible sites for new woodland planting. One site was in Lincolnshire, the other was in Norfolk. On the way to the first site, we drove through the Ancholme valley, a large area of flat reclaimed marshland, with very few trees. Although not a site that we had originally considered, it looked as though it would benefit from a few patches of woodland. The Lincolnshire site that we had been considering was on the very top of the Wolds, very exposed, and the ground was not even very suitable for grazing sheep. A significant area of about 3 hectares was involved and it was clear from the neglected appearance of the hedgerows and the number of weeds in the fields that the land was of insignificant agricultural value, in spite of the fact that lower down the hills, winter wheat was already beginning to sprout. We decided that that was a definite possibility and we then drove south from Lincolnshire and eventually reached Norfolk. 

The Norfolk site was quite different. It consisted of an area of drained marshland beside rich potato-growing fields and it seemed as though we could reasonably plan a long thin strip of woodland between the cultivated area and the drainage dikes which had made the agriculture in that region possible. Jon said that he would ask Tim Ingledown, his man of business, to open negotiations for purchase of both sites, to look for a further site in the Ancholme valley, and to take a hard bargaining line with the landowners. We were at that point about 200 km from Camford, and it was beginning to get dark. Accordingly, we decided to drive only as far as Ixton and to see if the landlord of the Jellycotes Arms had a room for us. This would offer us an opportunity to see Rockwell's Barn, which I had not seen since we got back from Italy in September. We got to Ixton about 7 pm, and there was indeed a double room available, and we settled down to an excellent dinner and some beer. 

Next morning, we went to see how our new house was getting on. We greeted Alec, the site foreman and had a good look round under his guidance. The Afterthought was in the process of being integrated into the existing floors and each floor landing led to a bay window in the new extension. When the integration had been finished, there would be window-seats installed in each bay. The plumbing and the interior woodwork in the upper floors was now complete, and we could start thinking about furnishings and decoration. The ground floor was not nearly so far completed. The pool area was ready for tiling, as were the toilets and changing rooms, but the heating, circulation and water supply were still not begun. In the interests of fuel economy, we had decided that the pool services should be entirely separate from the heating and plumbing in the rest of the house. The latter had been installed but had not yet been tested. The kitchen with its dining area and adjacent bathroom and store-room, were essentially complete, except for the built-in furnishing and equipment.

An early decision had been made that a shaft should be drilled at the end of the building nearest the road for a lift that would enable people with walking difficulties to access the upper floors and to facilitate collecting post and deliveries from the street-level door. That shaft of course had been completed and lined and was now ready for the installation of the lift. 

We reckoned that allowing time for us to select furniture and decorating materials, the house would be habitable in about six months, even if by then the pool area had not been completed. Moving in and getting our possessions installed might take a couple of weeks, so we reckoned that we would have to forgo any holiday that summer. Moreover, we would have to get a car, to facilitate much moving to and fro between Camford and Ixton. No longer could I expect long undergraduate summer vacations, and some commuting between Ixton and Camford was going to be necessary. Jon would have to face the problem of finding secure garage space for the new vehicle somewhere in Camford. 

Two weeks later, the Candlemas term began, and with it a big change in our habits. We had previously dined together in college twice a week, on Sundays and on one weekday. Now we could no longer eat together. Jon as an M.A. was obliged to sit on high table; as student, I could not sit there except maybe on a special occasion at a guest evening. Moreover, although in principle Jon could sit with the students if he chose to remind the college that he was a substantial financial benefactor, we both felt that to be inappropriate. It would not only draw attention to his benefactor status, which he did not wish to be generally known, but also it would be drawing attention to the fact that he was using his status to benefit his fancy-boy. So we gave up eating in college during the week, and ate at the separate tables on Sunday nights. After Sunday dinner we had coffee together in the Middle Common Room, a facility that Jon had not made much use of when he was a Ph.D. student. Then we would either go out for a drink, by ourselves or with members of the choir, or go home and make love. Indeed, there were spells when our weekend evenings were real fuck-festivals! Outside term, we usually cooked on Sunday nights. 

I had refused Jon's offer to buy me a brand new B.A. gown and hood. There seemed little point when I would only wear the outfit for three years, and would be quite likely to spill beer or food on the gown, so he gave me his own old robes, which he no longer needed. They had had little wear, and I was delighted to wear his hand-me-downs. It was sometimes a struggle to prevent Jon throwing money around. I absolutely insisted in paying a monthly contribution to the running costs of the flat and for food, because I said that if I lived with Jon at his expense, he was effectively paying me in kind for allowing him to fuck me. Besides that, I pointed out that if monetary benefits were to change hands, he was entitled to claim a rebate on the occasions when I fucked him! Moreover, I told him that as a taxpayer, he was already contributing to my upkeep in the form of my study allowance, which was not intended as pocket money. 

Chapter 10 David

The College Chapel Choir

I was now in my fifth year as a member of the Chapel Choir in college. It was a choir of volunteers. Only the Bible Clerk and the Organ Scholar were members of the establishment, the rest of us were there for the pleasures of singing and (I hope) of glorifying God. We only sang once a week during term, at Evensong on Sundays, although Matins and Evensong were said daily in the chapel during term. When I lived in college, I often went to one or the other, but since I was living with Jon, my chapel visits on weekdays were very infrequent, though I did sometimes go on a Saturday morning, if we were up early. I was of course one of the most senior members of the choir, as the maximum duration of most undergraduates was four years, and most of them graduated after three years. 

At the time that this story takes place, we had a new Chaplain and a new Organ Scholar, and both were keen to extend the choir's repertoire and make it better known. In my earlier years in the choir, we had had very successful concert tours in the Low Countries, but these had never been followed up. The Chaplain now wanted us to extend our singing season into the summer vacation by visiting cathedrals and churches with permanent choirs to fill in during the long choir holidays. This required an adequate number of our members to be available during the period of July and August, which was of course not easy, as Camford students are well-known for doing things other than studying in the university vacations. However in this particular year, the choir had reached an all-time record level of 24 members and between 16 and 20 of them said they could make themselves available for the first week of August, and it was arranged that we should sing all the services for seven days in Durham Cathedral during that period, staying in one of the Durham colleges, with our accommodation costs partially met out of a little-known college fund, with individual contributions capped at a reasonable level. I think a number of well-heeled student parents made a sizeable contribution. If the experiment proved successful, the following year would see the choir doing a fundraising operation to keep the activity going. 

This prospect had energized the choir's activities, and we found ourselves as a group growing closer together. In consequence, I was not lonely during Sunday dinner in hall, as the choir as a group started sitting together, though I did not usually participate in the Sunday evening pub visit that followed, unless Jon wanted to join us, which he sometimes did. Jon and I both felt that it was important not to live in each others' pockets, because we both had independent lives to live.

Some of the younger choir members, especially the men, tried teasing me because I was gay. They soon found however that I had none of the traits that are supposed to mark out male homosexuals, so a lot of their comments fell wide of the mark. I was not interested in clothes or fashion or dancing or theatre or design, I did not drink typical 'fairy' drinks, but consumed only beer and wine and I did not visit gay bars. I found myself getting much more at ease in female company and soon was on good terms with several of the older women. The college was slowly starting to shake off its male chauvinist image and beginning to accept that all Camford colleges would be co-educational in the future. 

[To be continued]