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David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 01

By: WittePiet



Dedicated to the memory of Alan Turing, OBE, FRS (23 June 1912--7 June 1954) the greatest gay scientific genius of the twentieth century.

[This story can be read on its own, but it is better to have read the earlier ones in the series first. You are warned that in addition to the gay sex that you are looking for, there is much in the story about music, science, religion, English college life and alcohol. There is also some crude language. Should any of these topics not suit you, then read no further!]

[To understand parts of this story, you need to know that the union of two persons of the same sex/gender only became legally recognized in the United Kingdom by the Civil Partnerships Act of 2004. This story takes place some 20 years earlier.]

Chapter 39 David

A new member in the chapel choir

The October morning sun shone brilliantly on Camford. In Jesserod Meadow, the leaves on the trees were beginning to change colour and assume brilliant gold, yellow, red and brown colours. The swans on the river started to look cold, and the morning frost still sparkled on the grass as Jon and I walked hand-in-hand along the gravel walk, noticed, if at all, by only a few early morning dog-walkers and a number of joggers. The weather had tempted us to walk to our respective labs, rather than go on our bikes as we usually did. Jesserod Meadow had a special significance for us. There, some five-and-half years before, Jon, my good friend of six months, had asked me, a first year student, certain of my academic choices, but uncertain about my sexuality, some searching questions about it which led within a few days to my realization that not only was I gay, but that I was desperately in love with him, so desperate indeed that I went to him and told him so. 

As this part of the story begins, Jon was 29, and a postdoctoral research worker in the Camford University Chemical Laboratory, and I was 24 and just starting my third and final year as a Ph.D. student in the Pharmacology Department. We had been living together permanently since I had finished my undergraduate studies just over two years earlier. Jon is the most important person in my life, which would have been very different if I had never met him. I came to Camford with really only four preoccupations: my Christian faith and my knowledge of music, literature and chemistry. Pretty well everything else that I have learned about life in the world has been taught me by him in the last six years. Of course I have learned a lot more about chemistry and for the last two years about singing, in my time in Camford, but Jon has been my tutor for everything else, including fucking. The classical Greek man-ephebe relationship has worked out spectacularly well in our case. To quote the old joke, we've been practising gays for years and are now rather good at it! 

Jon had just got back from a seven-day trip round England visiting the sites where trees had been planted and drystone walls repaired. He had set up a few years before two charitable trusts to promote afforestation and drystone wall repair, funded by his private income, and each employed a small labour force to carry out these objectives, and David tried to inspect each site at least once a year. Seven nights seemed a long time for me to sleep alone. Earlier in our relationship, Jon and I had of necessity had to spend weeks or months apart, and although it was irksome, it was not painful. But now after long periods together, separation seemed to take much longer to adjust to. 

The mobile telephone network was expanding rapidly around this time. The era when one had to look for car parks and garage forecourts to use a cellphone was almost gone. Cell base station towers were springing up like mushrooms over the whole land, many attached to church towers and other high landmarks. As I mentioned earlier, Jon had given me a massive first generation phone, heavy and unwieldy, but this September was the first time that we could make regular use of our phones. Every night about 11 pm, we would have a phone sex session.

It is embarrassing now to recall the things that we used to say to one another in these sessions, and I will not bore you with a lot of details, but here is a typical conversation:

D: "Hello, Jon, it's your dirty-minded faggot-boy here. Have you missed me? I've really missed you. I'm lying here in bed with a massive hard-on caused just by thinking about you and your beautiful arse. I wish that you were lying here beside me so that I could turn you over and rim your delicious hole and cover your arse-cheeks with kisses. I want to rub my face in the small of your back and turn you over again and lick your balls. I want that dick of yours in my mouth, I want it up my shithole, I want to hug you, squeeze you and come all over you!"

J: "Hello, slut boy. I hope you have not been offering that arsehole of yours to anyone else. If I thought that anyone else was fucking you, I would go mad with rage. I would have to thrash you for disobedience. The very thought of some other man poking his dick up that wonderful hole of yours fills me with anger and misdirected envy. You are MINE, and I intend to keep it that way! I want you now, I want to fuck you within an inch of your life. I want to blast my spunk deep into your guts, I want to hear the bubbling noise as you fart it out again, I want you, I want you, I want you!"

These conversations, terribly embarrassing to relate now, would go on for up to twenty minutes and by then we were both ready to come, and we could hear over the phone the grunts and shouts that the other made as he came. We always had a good supply of tissues to hand before beginning a call! With hindsight, I can only hope that the hotel rooms that Jon was sleeping in were well insulated for sound, particularly as the chances were that Robin Banks (gay manager of the afforestation scheme) would be sleeping in the adjacent room. You will note that these long-distance conversations were totally different to our conversations together face to face. All rationality and humour were absent, they had reduced our communication to mere expressions of lust, totally unedifying, as well as uninteresting, and merely a new mode of pornography leading to a mutual wank session. Perhaps then, not the most inviting way to begin a new section of these memoirs!

It was the Saturday of the first week of the Martinmas Term. The night before, the St Boniface's College Chapel Choir had assembled for its first practice. There were several new faces from hopefully enthusiastic freshers, and a few grins and/or yawns from the old hands of the choir. The organ scholar looked happy at the number of new volunteers, as indeed I did myself, as I was by far the most senior member. The organ scholar led the choir, playing the organ was delegated to his deputy. He proposed a Purcell anthem for the next Sunday, which meant that we had just two days to learn it. "It's quite a simple one!" he said encouragingly. I had sung it before, so it was not a problem for me, and I was not surprised to be assigned the tenor solo. After the practice, we all adjourned to the beer cellar, and one of the male freshmen came up to me and said, "Do you remember me?" I looked at him hard and remembered him. 

"You're Simon from Guildsham, but I don't remember your surname!" I said. "I didn't expect to see you in Camford until next year!" He was the beautiful baritone son of the secretary of the music society where I had performed the previous year in what was my first professional singing engagement. "It's great that you decided to come to Boni's!" (Boni's, pronounced "Boney's" is the nickname of St Boniface's). I was totally amazed that I had not spotted him earlier, as I always survey the male talent in the choir, and he still looked as ravishingly prick-raising as he had the year before. "But how do you come to be here?"

"What I didn't tell you when we met last year was that I had already done my A levels. Although I had long missed the UCCA deadline, after I had talked to you I made a few phone calls and the medical tutor here made me an offer as I had already got the necessary grades." This was perhaps not surprising, as he had struck me as being very bright. But the lad obviously had a great sense of initiative to have taken his future so cheekily into his own hands. 

"Well, you've ended up in the best college in Camford!" I said with a grin. "And, although we are not the biggest or most well known chapel choir, we have high standards and enjoy ourselves enormously. Some men join just to chat up the birds, but most of us are quite deeply committed, some to religion, most to music, and some of us to both. And during my time in the choir, we have had several trips away in the summer to sing in cathedrals or concerts abroad. So I guess you are starting your medical studies with a degree in Physiology?"

"That's right," he replied. 

"I always dine in Hall on Sundays after evensong," I said, "and many of the choir members sit together to eat. You're welcome to join us on Sunday nights, and we often go on for a drink in the Lion later in the evening. I have no official role in the choir, the organ scholar, Daniel, is in charge, but I am the most senior member, as I'm now in my seventh year.

"One thing I can assure you of: you are going to have a challenging but enormously enjoyable six years here, much better than if you had gone to a crummy London medical school! And if you are into sport or fitness, while the college has good facilities, in two years' time there's going to be an exciting new Men's Fitness Centre opening in town, with excellent state-of-the-art provision, including a 25-metre pool. And you will never be bored in Boni's, never lonely and never have time on your hands!" I felt that I had to put in a plug for the Fitness Centre, now under construction. 

Simon smiled gratefully, which made him look even sweeter than previously. "Come and have coffee," he said. We had finished our beer, so we left and went to his room, which was a small and poky bed-sitter, but had been well modernized so that there was adequate storage and work space, and it was right next to a bathroom that he only had to share with two others. I noted his room number and his name from the list at the bottom of the staircase. His surname was Mitchell. I looked around the room to see if I could find any indication of his sexual orientation, such as books, pictures or programme cards for GLBT societies, but could see nothing. Every time I looked at him, I felt my cock stiffening in my pants. I decided that it would be unfair to tell him I was gay: it would be better if he found out through other people. We agreed to sit together at dinner after Chapel on the Sunday, and I left after half-an-hour. 

As we walked through the Meadow, I told Jon about the beautiful boy who had joined the choir and what I had said to him. Jon said, "Well, I'll be meeting him tomorrow in the beer cellar after Chapel. Unless you want to be misleading, you will have to introduce me as your boyfriend. If you don't, someone in the choir will soon tell him, as soon as they see you together, and that would make him think that you were deceitful, and possibly predatory! Why didn't you tell him that you were gay? Do you fancy him? If you do, and he's not gay, you will probably scare him off, and if he is gay, he needs to know that we are an item." Duh! There I was again, making stupid and potentially serious mistakes. Thank heaven that I have Jon to advise me and look after me. Shortly thereafter, we parted company for our respective labs. 

Chapter 40 David

Saturday night sex 1

We met again at lunchtime and had a quick snack in the Chemistry canteen before walking home, collecting our bikes and riding off to the Olympic Pool for our Saturday swim. As we undressed, I said to Jon, "Don't mention Simon Mitchell's name until we get home. I don't want to get an erection when I'm wearing swimming trunks!"

"That boy must be extremely prick-raising!" said Jon.

"Just wait until you see him!" I replied "You'll need to keep your gown over your crotch!"

On leaving the pool, we rode home to leave our bikes before it got dark and walked to the Sparrowhawk to eat. We just had one pint of West London bitter, and two courses, and about 8 pm got back to the flat, where we spent half an hour with flash cards learning new Italian words. We then watched a porn video, kissing and cuddling as we watched a nice blond white boy being fucked by an equally attractive black boy. The black boy had a monster dick and we both speculated what it would feel like to have such a gigantic object up our rear ends. "I've no idea what Simon would look like naked" I said, "but his arse looked to be quite a nice shape and size." 

"It's all right fantasizing," said Jon, "but it's highly unlikely that you'll get him undressed. As you feel so randy, you'll have to make do with me! Shall we have a drink?" and he went and got two bottles of Rodenbach (red Belgian beer) out of the cupboard and poured them out. 

As we drank, I said, "OK stud-boy, get the necessary and we'll get undressed. By the way, I've got the words and music of 'Dear pretty, pretty youth' and I'm going to sing it at one of my next recitals."

"You'll be proclaiming to the world that you're as gay as nine-pound note," said Jon.

"I don't give a fuck! The thought of a sweet boy shivering with cold and having your arms enwrap him to warm him up in bed, just gives me an instant hard-on!" I said. "No wonder Shadwell the author wrote 'methinks I would from sleep be free'! Being in bed with a boy like that would make you want to shag all night!"

"By the way," Jon said as we got undressed, "as from next week I will be giving tutorials to second year students on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5 pm. I arranged the Thursday sessions to coincide with your singing lessons, so we can still eat together. Some of the students will be from Boni's, by arrangement with Dan C. It's the first teaching I've done since I was banned from teaching because I was living with you." Dan C was the St Boniface chemistry tutor, who had taught me for three of my four undergraduate years.

"Don't let yourself get led astray by any nice boys!" I said jokingly, as I rolled a condom on to my cock and started to smear it with K-Y gel. "Because you are out as gay, I would strongly advise you to sit well away from your students and ALWAYS leave your office door open." 

I put my arms round my now naked lover and started to nibble his neck and rub my rubber-clad man-stick against his belly. I loved the feel of his flat hard abdominal muscles. In spite of showering, he still smelt slightly of chlorine. "You need some 'Storing pour homme'" I muttered before kissing him hard on the lips and opening my mouth to his insistent tongue. That was a perfume for men that Jon had introduced me to the year before. "Bend over the bed," I said, and he held open his crack with both hands while I poked my K-Y-loaded fingers into his delicious hole, lined round the edges with soft black hair. 

He started to pant with lust and muttered, "Put it in! Put it in!" I gently pushed my dick through his muscular gateway and then further, until my bush was rubbing his arse-cheeks. I then increased my speed and fucked him deeply for perhaps five or ten minutes: I was so caught up with love and desire that of course I had no idea of the time, and the sacramental experience of pouring out my love into Jon's loving body overcame me. At the same time, I was gently playing with his dick with my right hand. Whether it was my prick or my hand, I do not know, but he suddenly convulsed, and shouting my name, came violently on the silk bed-sheet. 

He lay there in his puddle of jism as I finished off up his bum by coming hard into the prophylactic. I did not pull out, I just lay there, close-coupled to his back, my arms encircling his shoulders and whispering, "Jon, my gorgeous stud-boy, I love you so much!" 

My softening prick slipped out of his arsehole and he stood up, turned round and kissed me roughly before muttering, "We must put that sheet to soak in cold water!" These prosaic words served to damp down the romance for the moment and we cleaned ourselves up, changed the sheet and went to bed.

Chapter 41 David

Sunday night in college

The following evening there was a good turnout for evensong. The Purcell anthem 'Rejoice in the Lord alway' went well, and most of the congregation adjourned to the beer cellar after the service. We had just half-an-hour before dinner in Hall. Jon had been in the congregation, as he always was nowadays. Whether he came just to hear me sing, or to worship the God that he had just discovered, I was never sure, but these days there was rarely any time to discuss his religious views, although I knew that he was no longer an atheist, for which I could thank Ed Bairstow, the college chaplain and gay sympathizer. Simon walked along with me to the beer cellar and I ordered drinks for him, myself and Jon. He looked cute in his short commoner's gown, his curly brown hair reaching just into the nape of his neck. He was about 1.8 metres tall and like Jon, rather skinny in build. I then said to him, "May I introduce my boyfriend Jonathan Singleton? Jon, this is Simon Mitchell. He's a medical student."

"But everyone calls me Jon" said Jon. "David and I are an item, in case you were wondering!" Simon blushed slightly and I grinned in embarrassment. "You sang very well tonight, David," Jon said. 

"Yes, well it's not a new anthem for me. I've been in this choir for six years and the repertoire does not change all that much, so I know quite a lot of anthems by now! What do you think of our choir?" I asked, turning to Simon, "You've had a lot of choral experience." (Before he came up to Camford, Simon had been in Guildsham Cathedral choir.)

"Considering that only one or two may become professionals, I think it is very good," he said. "I felt quite at home singing and I think I will adapt very quickly."

"I'm glad that you felt able to continue singing," I said. 

"A lot of kids, when they leave home, immediately give up the things that they did as teenagers." 

People started to move towards the Hall, and Jon said to Simon, "I have to leave you now in David's tender care, as I have to sit on High Table." He hurried up the steps and disappeared. 

"Is your boyfriend a don, then?"

"Not exactly, he's a post-doc researcher who's just started doing some teaching, but once you become an M.A., you have to sit on high table. He'll probably come to the pub with us later. That is, if you're going to the Lion with the rest of the choir?" Simon did not reply. 

While St Boniface's is not exactly renowned for its cuisine, the kitchen always managed to produce a decent meal for Sunday night, and that night was no exception. After the meal, we all went to the Junior Common Room for coffee. Simon came too.

"I don't want to pressurize you into getting involved with a whole lot of distractions from your work," I said, "but if you have time to sing, you could get into the Camford Bach Choir without an audition. At the end of term we are going to perform one of my favourite works, Mozart's 'Litaniae de Venerabili Altaris Sacramento.' I think that I played a role in persuading the director Justin Thyme to choose it. I'm not sure whether my singing teacher entirely approves of my obsession with Mozart, as he's an Italian."

"What's he called?" asked Simon.

"Marcello Fabioni," I replied.

"Really? You've got one of the best teachers in Europe! I bet that he's expensive!"

"He is, rather," I said. "He might have felt differently about Mozart if he (Fabioni, I mean) had come from Südtirol rather than Tuscany. Südtirol was part of Austria until 1918. But the nice thing about Marcello is that he also acts as my agent and gets me a few gigs, which bring in a little extra cash that I use to buy music. But music is at present a sideline. I enjoy research enormously, and I still hope for a career in science, though maybe not in Camford, and maybe not as an academic. Are you going to come to the pub with us? By us, I mean the choir, though Jon will probably join us later at the pub."


David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 01



Chapter 42 Simon

The gay freshman

My first few weeks in Camford were very hectic. I had fallen in love with the place on the day in April when I stepped off the train on my way to an interview at St Boniface's College. It was a beautiful spring day, and the leaves were already showing signs of emerging on the trees as I walked into the town from the station. Although the medical tutor had made me a provisional offer over the phone when I had contacted him, he said that he needed to verify my exam results and that I had to be interviewed by him and the Senior Tutor and references taken up.

There were three people at the interview, the third was the Chemistry tutor, Dr DC. When asked why I had made an application outside the UCCA system at this time of the year, I had to explain that after my A level exams, and before the results were published, I had been asked to leave school before the end of term because I had been caught making love to a boy a year younger than myself on school premises. I was also told that provided that I did not take up the place that I had been offered at a medical school in London for the following October, nothing more would be said about the matter, and nothing ever committed to writing. They said that they did not want to blight my future, just to delay it, "until I had got a bit more sense" as they put it.

I told the three dons that I had conformed exactly to what I had been asked to do. I had turned down at once the provisional offer of a place at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, and reconciled myself to working in a supermarket and attending the local tech college part time after applying to different med schools the following October, with a view to beginning a year later. When the A level results came out in August, everyone except myself was surprised to discover that I had straight 'A' grades in chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics, and distinctions in the special papers. Up to that point, I had never considered Oxbridge or Camford as places to study until a young man from St Boniface's came to sing at a recital of our local concert society, and he had suggested that it would be good for me to consider one of the ancient universities. The picture he had painted of Camford made it sound, I thought, like a grown-up institution, which would judge people on academic competence rather than using the petty behavioural criteria that some schools used.

The Senior Tutor asked me to step outside for a few minutes. I did so and was soon recalled, to be informed that they were making me an unconditional offer of a place to study medicine via preclinical study in physiology, starting that Martinmas term. "We appreciate your frankness over a teenage indiscretion," he said, "and we are sure that your academic promise will be an asset to this college, and look forward to seeing you next term." I said to them that when the list of matriculated students was published that I wished my school to be recorded as my local technical college, (where I was a part-time student doing A level Further Mathematics while I stacked shelves in the supermarket), and not the school where I had been in the sixth form. No way was I going to give that institution any credit for my academic achievements.

I was about 16 when I realized that I was gay. The school I attended was coeducational and most of the boys I knew were interested in girls, whereas it was very clear to me that I was only attracted by boys. Unlike a lot of teenage boys, I had no doubt that I was, in the terms that they used then, a deviant. My homosexuality was never a matter for doubt. In the second-year sixth, I experimented with a number of boys at school. I never touched a boy under 16, so basically I was limited to those in the first-year sixth form. I had one close friend in my own year, and we sucked each other off a few times. It was easy with him, because my mother knew him and we were allowed in my bedroom, but he was not gay and soon lost interest. 

The younger boys were more of a problem. I fancied several of them, but as I was not friendly with them, there arose the age-old problem of schoolboy sex: to start a relationship and keep it secret requires either bullying or bribery. Bullying was out of the question, so I had to resort to bribery to get my way with them. The problem was, the bribe (which could not be money) had to be big enough to let me seduce them, but not so big that questions would be asked when the present was seen by their parents and friends. In the end I only got my way with two of them, and then it was only blow-jobs. Buggery required more care and opportunity than was available to me.

The incident that got me sacked was with boy number three. The kid was sucking me off in the gym changing room, when we were caught at it by one of the teachers. The matter was handled very skilfully by the head, who did not broadcast it among his staff and did not contact my mother. I did not dare tell her, and to explain my rejection of the London med school place, I had to make up a story that I needed an extra A level to be certain of getting in. (I got an A grade in it, by the way). My mother was a widow, and I could not conceive of what her reaction might be when the time came to tell her that I was gay. I delayed doing anything about it before I left home in the hope that I might ultimately find the right man to settle down with. She had never been as possessive as many lone mothers are towards their sons, and indeed I got myself tattooed without any comments or objections from her. 

The young singer David Scarborough who had performed the beautiful tenor arias at the Guildsham Music Society concert, the boy who had encouraged me to apply to Camford, turned out to be in the college choir at my chosen college of St Boniface's. I had rather fancied him from the time that I first saw him, as he was tall and athletic, with long blond hair and an expressive face, and indeed I had drunk coffee with him in my room two nights before. After our first college sung evensong of the term, he talked enthusiastically about the choir and tried to persuade me to join the Camford Bach choir. Then came the surprise: he introduced me to his boyfriend, a tall dark-haired guy who was a sort of don, who ate dinner, not with us, but on high table. So the guy I fancied was gay but spoken for! Moreover his friend looked as if he would not put up with anyone making a pass at his boy, though that would not necessarily discourage me if I decided that I wanted him!

Chapter 43 Jon 

Doubt or jealousy?

On the first Sunday evening of term we went to evensong in Chapel and then as usual ate at separate tables in Hall. David introduced me in the beer cellar to the new choir member that he fancied. The boy was, I gathered, 19. He was slightly shorter than David, still with a teenage skinniness, with longish brown curly hair and a good baritone voice. The more I looked at him, the more puzzled I got as to why David found him so attractive. There was something about him that worried me. I was pretty sure that he was gay, but I totally failed to see the attractive arse that David had banged on about. My prick remained obstinately limp, even when I was gazing at his crotch. However, unlike my lover, I tend to judge with my head rather than my dick. 

I did not stay in the SCR for coffee, nor did I go for coffee to Ed Bairstow's rooms, although he invited me. Ed is the College chaplain, a very amiable, enlightened and shrewd cleric. Instead I joined the choir in the JCR, just in time to leave with them for the Lion, the pub round the corner from Boni's that had a massive trade during term time, and long lean periods during the vacations. Simon, the new guy came along with the rest. I noticed that he kept throwing lecherous glances in the direction of David, who sometimes smiled back at him. I couldn't help wondering what might happen between those two boys. If they wanted to indulge in a bit of 69, I would not worry unduly unless David failed to tell me about it, but although he was young, and probably inexperienced, I was mistrustful of Simon Mitchell. If he decided to trawl the gay pubs of Camford, heaven knows what sort of diseases he might contract. By the time of this story, gays in the US West Coast region were starting to contract mysterious immunological failure and dying from otherwise curable diseases. No-one except certain fundamentalists had any idea of the cause of the immunological failure, and only they were certain that it was divine punishment for unnatural behaviour. In England a prison chaplain had died of a similar condition, with hideous implications about what chaplains got up to with the prison inmates.

I let David and Simon chat over a pint of beer and talked to Laura, the rather sweet girl who was the closet nympho who had seduced David the previous year. I just hoped that he would not fall into a similar trap with Simon. Laura was in her final year, and although she was very discrete, I was sure that she had probably been shagged by all the men in the choir in the course of the previous year! To my relief, I was obviously not her type, but she was shrewd enough to comment on the looks that David and Simon were exchanging. "I should watch out for that young man" she commented, "he looks predatory as well as lecherous, and he's got his eye on your boy." "Yes, I had noticed," I said. "I'm not sure whether I should warn him off before anything begins or wait till he makes a move. Basically, I think I should wait. If he's academically ambitious, he will have plenty of work to keep him busy." 

Chapter 44 David 

A proposition and an encounter

At the beginning of November, Charlie Crabtree called me into his office. "How's the draft paper getting on?" 

"It's nearly finished. All I need is an afternoon in the library to check some references for the methods section. It's too late today, I'm setting up an experiment at the moment."

"How long do you reckon the reference checking will take?"

"About an hour." 

"Then meet me after tea-break tomorrow. I'll take the manuscript home and check it over tomorrow night. But I also want to talk to you tomorrow about your future." 

At 4 pm the next day, which was a Tuesday, I tapped on Charlie's open door. "Hi" he said. 

"Here's the draft manuscript," I said. "I'm afraid it's longhand. I couldn't get time on the computer to type it out." 

"No problem, your handwriting is easy to read" said Charlie, "I'll look at it tonight. The main thing that I wanted to talk about is your thesis and what you are going to do when you finish." 

"How much more do I need in the way of results to be sure of getting the degree?" I asked. 

"About six months more bench work, if you don't run into any setbacks, i.e. about one further paper." he said. "But assuming that the thesis goes OK, and five months should be long enough to write it if you've had four papers accepted, then we need to discuss your future." 

"Yes, I know," I sighed. "I have a lot of problems about that. First, Jon finishes his post-doc job about that time, and he might decide to move on, as he's unlikely to get a university post without a track record of getting research grant money. He might just get a college fellowship, but he's not sure that he wants to fill his life with teaching. If he moved, I would want to go with him. In addition to getting finished in the lab and writing my thesis, I've got two singing competitions next summer, which I am very keen to do, and I have to ask myself whether a total career change into professional singing might be the best thing to do. I would have to start off in the chorus of an opera house, but it would be a regular job. It's all quite difficult." 

"Well, I have what you might think is a bizarre proposition to make to you. My wife has had a very tempting offer of a part-time job, starting next October, but we both feel very strongly that there should be someone at home to look after the children, especially in the school holidays. Moreover, I plan to take six months' study leave next year to write a major grant application, which if successful would enable me to offer you a postdoc job, effective in about 18 months time. So I want to ask you if you would consider a year's job as a paid male nanny to keep an eye on the kids, who both like you very much. 

"You could eat with us for free or go home and eat with Jon. Sometimes we might need you in the evenings, but you would in that case be able to stay overnight. It would give you plenty of time to practise your singing, and we would guarantee to give you time off for lessons, competitions or gigs. During the study leave, I plan to spend some time abroad, and I would be happier if my wife had a man in the house, and because you are gay, I feel quite confident that she would be safe with you around. In that situation, you might have to spend the night at our house more frequently, but not every night. We could offer you about £2K for the year, plus any expenses. 

"There would be some domestic chores, but not many. We have a cleaner, who will also do the laundry, but you would have to be able to cook meals for the children and also for my wife and myself on the days that she works, and a few odd jobs like shopping and bed-making, and taking Martin to school and fetching him in the evening. Emma walks to school on her own, as it's just down the road. You would work full time for three days per week and just occasionally a Saturday or Sunday. If your thesis isn't finished by the time that you start, you will effectively have two days a week full-time to get it finished. However in the school holidays, you would have to be around every day from 3 till 6 pm" 

I was, to say the least, somewhat amazed. "I need to discuss this with Jon," I said. "The biggest problem would be the cooking. My experience and skill in that area is VERY limited." 

"There's plenty of time for you to decide." 

I came out of Charlie's office to find a visitor waiting for me. It was Simon Mitchell. By now it was 5 pm. "Have you time to come for a drink?" he asked. 

"Yes, I guess so," I said. I knew Jon would be tied up with a tutorial until 6 pm, and we had arranged to eat at he Sparrowhawk, our local pub, afterwards. 

"Where would you like to go?" he asked. 

"We'd better go to the Whale and Wheelbarrow," I said, as it was quite near the science complex. When we got inside, I said to Simon, "What would you like to drink?" He replied that he didn't mind, so I got two pints of XXX's bitter, a pleasant, well hopped, 3.5% abv beer, and we sat down in a corner. "How are you settling in to life in Camford?" I asked. 

"I'm loving it," he said. "You were quite right suggesting that I should come here. It's the kind of grown-up place that I would never have dreamt of. No-one torments you if you are gay." 

"I didn't know that you were gay when I advised you to come here," I said, "but because of 'don't ask, don't tell', Camford has been gay-friendly for years." 

Like his hair, his eyes were brown, but they were not as alluring as Jon's. Why was I comparing him with Jon? He was several years younger than me, and though still a teenager he did not have that sweetness that younger boys had. He's after sex at all costs, I thought. He doesn't give a fuck about love. He just wants dick! This feeling got stronger when he reached out and got hold of my hand. 

I looked at my watch. "I will have leave in about 20 minutes," I said, "and I need to go for a pee." I gently disengaged my hand, stood up and went to the gents. 

I had just finished and was shaking my tool, when Simon sidled into the room, turned me round, my tool still hanging out of my fly, and kissed me ravenously. Mechanically, I opened my mouth, and his tongue entered it like a shot. He ran his hand over my arse and kissed me again, even more roughly. No words of love or grunts of pleasure escaped his lips. Before I knew what was happening, he had dragged me into a toilet stall and locked the door. He then pulled his pants and briefs down to reveal a hard rampant tool, the foreskin of which was rolled back by his erection. "Suck me, please," he said.

"Not unless you take your shirt off!" I said. 

"OK," he replied and removed his shirt. To my disgust, the whole of his torso from collar-bone down to crotch was covered in lurid tattoos. How could anyone want to be treated by a tattooed doctor? I thought. And how could a cathedral chorister get himself degraded by such bodily decorations? Still, there was nothing the matter with his dick. There were no piercings or rings, and it was a decent manly size, so I knelt down and began to lick it and to nuzzle it. It smelt a bit of stale sweat, but no man can avoid sweating, which is partly why Jon was so keen on 'Storing pour homme.' Altogether I gave him a treatment that would have sent Jon crazy, but he seemed not to respond, not even with a grunt of satisfaction. He came very quickly and discharged a good dose of spunk into my mouth. I was not very keen on the taste and swallowed it hastily. I stood up and he began to pull up his pants and zip up the fly. "Thanks," he said in a casual way, and he unlocked the door. 

We walked back to our table and finished our beer. I looked at my watch. "I must be off," I said. 

"OK, see you around," he replied casually, without any further sign of interest or affection. I headed off to meet Jon, decidedly underwhelmed by the encounter. I certainly felt no desire to have sex with him again, and hoped that he would feel the same way. I also hoped that academic pressures would cool his sexual ardour by giving him something else to occupy him. Ten minutes later, I was sitting with Jon at a table for two in the bar of the Sparrowhawk. I told him about the encounter with Simon in the pub toilet. 

"What has made me totally disillusioned with him was the fact that there was no indication on his part of anything at all except a desire for cock. He never smiled or gave any indication of happiness or satisfaction, and even his kisses were devoid of any tenderness or affection. And the fact that he was covered with the most revolting tattoos was the biggest turn-off that you can imagine. I can't imagine how I ever can have thought that he was cute. I hope that he's lost interest in me, because I don't want to see him undressed again. Oh, Jon, I wish I were not so attracted by teenagers. Why should I ever want anyone but you?" 

I then went on to tell him about Charlie Crabtree's proposal for the next academic year. "I'm very doubtful about the proposal unless I can get my thesis finished by then. The job is so fragmented that I think that it would delay getting the thesis finished quite seriously. On the other hand, it would provide a secure temporary job while we were deciding about both our futures. What do you think, Jon?" 

"My darling faggot-boy, I'm not at all sure that you are cut out for the job. You can't feed those kids fish fingers and instant meals all the time, and sausages and omelettes are only good for an occasional meal. Moreover depending on when you start, you will still be just under 25 at least for some of the time, and so you'll be driving the Crabtrees' car with age-loaded car insurance, which will cost either us or them an arm and a leg. Your current annual premium to drive the 4x4 is more than they will be paying you for a year's work! If they think that they are getting a nanny on the cheap, they have not thought through all the implications. As for my future, if I don't get further post-doc money and/or a fellowship, there are plenty of other jobs that I can do in Camford or at Ixton." 

"Such as?" 

"Administrator of the Men's Fitness Centre, which will be finished by then." 

"But you don't know anything about sports management, and there isn't enough time for you to do a training course. How about YOU taking the nanny job, if the kids liked you, and me getting a chorus job, either full-time or as casual at an opera house?"




David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 01



"That's a more likely proposition," he said. "My mother showed such few good parenting qualities that I'm sure that I could do better." Jon's mother lived in the south of France, and we went to see her each Easter. The best way to describe her is eccentric. The first time I met her, she tried to get me into bed with her. "I think that really I would do better as a nanny than a fitness centre administrator!" he said.

Chapter 45 David

Plans for commitment

Early in November, I went to see Ed Bairstow. I said to him "I understand from Jonathan that he is now a theist. Do you think that belief in God is sufficient for him to make a promise before God? I am thinking about a private blessing service in which he and I promise before witnesses to live together permanently and faithfully until death us do part, and to exchange rings and seek God's blessing. I haven't spoken to him about this, until I have heard your opinion." 

"I've been wondering ever since I met you two when you were going to ask me!" Ed replied. "The answer is yes. He may not be a Christian yet, but he is very deeply under your influence, and I think that he will eventually recognize God in Jesus Christ. But I couldn't use the college Chapel for such a ceremony." 

"No, I know that. If we provide a venue in a private house outside Camford, could you come and lead it? I totally understand that it would have no legal significance, but I'm not at present worried about that. I just want the seal of God's blessing on our union." 

We fixed that if Jon was happy with the arrangement, we would have the blessing ceremony on New Year's Eve at noon, as Ed (who was going away for Christmas) would be back in Camford for a party that evening. Only our families and Tim Ingledown would be present.

I raised the matter with Jon the same evening. His reply was that he loved me so much that he would give me anything I wished that was within his power, and now that he believed in a loving God, he could in honesty make such promises before Him. "In that case," I said, "we need to make prompt arrangements to furnish the last two bedrooms and the chapel. In any case, we need more dining room chairs."

Furnishing the two bedrooms was relatively easy and we ordered the necessary items at once. Furnishing the chapel was more difficult, but we decided that the best arrangement was to hire twenty stacking chairs to be divided between chapel and dining room as a temporary measure until we could secure suitable permanent items. We then began to look at secondhand furniture and secured a small seventeenth century table and an ancient kneeling desk with which to furnish the chapel. From the carpentry firm that had installed our antique oak staircase, Jon ordered a wooden dais, about 10 cm high, to be fitted at one end of the room, on which we could place the table and kneeling desk. The room had one single small narrow window, about 1.5 metres above the dais in the north-east-facing outer wall, which made it comfortable without being claustrophobic. 

My family was going to be with us in any case, as they had arranged to stay for Christmas and the New Year, so it was only necessary to tell them what was going to happen on New Year's Eve. Jon wrote to his mother inviting her to come, but she refused: she again said that the weather in January in England would kill her. 

Chapter 46 An invitation

Dear Tim 

This letter is to invite you to spend the New Year holiday with us at Rockwell's Barn. At noon on New Year's Eve, there will be an act of worship in the prayer room on the top floor in which Jon and David will make vows before God of lifelong fidelity, seek His blessing and exchange rings. The ceremony is private and the only persons present will be our families and you, if you are able to accept this invitation. The act of blessing will be performed by the Rev Edward Bairstow, Chaplain of St Boniface's College, Camford. 

There will be a celebratory buffet luncheon afterwards and we invite you to see the New Year in with us, and stay overnight as long as you don't mind sleeping on a sofa. We both hope that you will be able to come, as the only non-family witness. 

You have been Jon's friend and trusted advisor for many years and we are both anxious that you should share this highly significant moment in our lives with us. We hope that sometime in the future our union will be recognized by law, but until then we are content to live in God's love. 

Your affectionate friends, 

Jon and David. 

Chapter 47 Jon 

Jewellery and an accompanist

I felt particularly happy that David wanted an act of commitment for our union in the light of the incident with Simon Mitchell. David was obviously disillusioned after the incident in the Whale, and to my relief, Simon seemed to have finished his pursuit of him. I hoped that Simon was a male version of Laura, just seeking new men for one-night stands. It's well known that when teenagers get away from home to university and their life is their own, they often break loose into obsessions like sex, drink or drugs or non-academic activities like drama, politics or student journalism! Look at David and his singing! Maybe that's a predictable comment from a man nearing thirty.

A couple of days later, I said to David, "Try and finish early in the lab today and meet me about 4-30 at Laurifax." When we met, I led him down Fleamarket Street, explaining as we walked, "We're going to a jeweller's to order our rings. I think that we should have bespoke rings, and they can take up to six weeks to make. I don't know what you think, but because they are not wedding rings, there is no obligation to go for a plain metal band. I think we should look at patterns of rings set with small coloured stones." 

We entered the shop and started looking at catalogues.

"This one is nice," said David, pointing to a ring set with four stones equidistant from one another. 

"Yes," I said "why don't we get one with four sapphires for you and one with four rubies for me, so that they more or less match our eye colours?" 

"Brilliant!" said David, "in gold or in platinum?" 

"In platinum," I replied, and we ordered them. The shop assistant measured our ring fingers. We had decided to wear the rings on our right fourth digit because they were not wedding rings. We were told that the rings would take about a month and we were asked for £200 deposit, which I paid. 

When we left the shop, David said, "I will pay for your ring, and you can pay for mine. We are a partnership of equals. You will not be endowing me with all your worldly goods! I've got a bit of cash left from the money my parents gave me when I became 21."

In spite of numerous other activities, David still worked conscientiously at his lab work, which was developing in a promising direction, and it was clear that from Charlie Crabtree's comments that Charlie could see important applications of the work that might lead to industrial funding for a research team. My own work was also going fairly well, and because my computer expertise would not be easily found in someone else, my boss Dr Ed S reckoned that I would get a further three years post-doc funding. 

Of course I could live, had I so chosen, without working at all, as my late father's family trust paid me a regular income from its property investments. But I feel that it is vital for human beings to work for a living, and whenever my unearned income weighed on my conscience, I could and did, give some of it away. David was a partial beneficiary, as I funded his singing lessons, his astronomically expensive comprehensive motor insurance (very much against his will), and his trips abroad, even though he insisted on paying me for his daily board and lodging. I had promised his father that I would foster David's talent for singing, but also promised that he would never become my kept boy. 

David never let me buy him clothes or books. Most men in my position would have lavished gifts and designer clothes on their boyfriends, but David refused all such gifts except for birthday and Christmas gifts, and clothed himself at high street multiple stores rather than Savile Row. To me, he looked just as beautiful whatever he wore, and as I really preferred him without any clothes, it never seemed worthwhile to argue about his dress. I had got him to wear my favourite perfume, but even then he would only do so at weekends. He said that he did not want to go to work in the lab smelling like a tart! In spite of his feminine-looking long hair and sweetness of disposition, he is in fact much more macho than me in his disregard for clothes and his crudeness of expression. There is nothing about him that is girly. The only jewellery items that he will wear are items that have significance and do not just look pretty. So he wears the crucifix I gave him to signify his faith and will wear the ring when it is ready, to signify his union with me. The bracelet that I bought him for his twentieth birthday he only wears on Sundays, because it would be a hazard in the lab. And what could be more typically English male than that in spite of his inherent musicality, he hates dancing! The crucifix was the first present that I ever gave him. That was in my atheistic days, and I just bought it because I thought that he would look nice in it, but he wears it to show his allegiance to Christ, whom I had not yet learned to love.

The advantage of having Wesley Johnson the impresario fixing up gigs for David a long time in advance was that for recitals he could devise his own programme rather than stepping in as a last minute substitute for an already advertised programme. The first of such fixtures was in mid-November at a music society in Fitchey, the nearest cathedral city to Camford. Being so near, he could drive there in the 4x4 and return home the same night. He insisted in going alone, he said that he did not need me to hold his hand. 

The programme that David had devised was eclectic, encompassing the baroque (Purcell and Händel), Mozart of course, Verdi, Puccini and Vaughan Williams. He had to supply his own music for the accompanist, and of course therefore needed a run-through in the hall before the concert. The accompanist and hall were available in the afternoon, so they were able to rehearse before going to dinner with the president and secretary. He did not do the chosen items in chronological order, so for instance 'Recondità armonia' was followed by 'Where'er you walk' and 'Il mio tesoro' by 'Dear pretty, pretty youth'. The evening seems to have been a great success, the applause from the audience was enthusiastic, the elderly accompanist said it was the best recital he had ever played for and that if David ever needed an accompanist, to give him a call. This was very valuable for David, because there was no-one in Camford whom he could call upon regularly. So at the time, they fixed up that Brian Shaw, the accompanist would go with David to his recital fixture in June in a small town in Gloucestershire.

Brian Shaw also said that as he was retired, he could if necessary be available to accompany David in singing competitions. When David told Marcello, he was very pleased that David had found an accompanist and said that he had heard that Brian was an excellent pianist. Marcello said that David should enter for two competitions the following summer, in Wales and in the Netherlands, and the entries were duly made. David's other two booked engagements were bigger ones, 'Messiah' again at Christmas (as well being tenor soloist for the Bach Choir's Christmas concert) at a church in London, and Bach's St John Passion at Easter in Exminster. I agreed to go with him to Exminster, and we arranged to stay for a couple of nights before going on to Bristol to fly to Nice for Easter with David's mother.

Chapter 48 Jon 

Saturday night sex 2

The day after the Bach Choir Christmas concert in the last week of the Martinmas Term, we went for our usual Saturday afternoon swim. The pool was quiet. Most undergraduates were getting ready to go home for the Christmas vacation, and the local football team was playing at home. As usual, the sight of David undressed filled me not just with male desire, but a huge feeling of tenderness for the boy I loved. I could not help embracing him under the showers and kissing him hungrily during a few minutes when we were alone in the changing room. We rode home quickly, just as it was getting dark and having parked our bikes securely in the lobby of the flat, went upstairs and sat on the sofa, after I had made us cups of tea. I put my arm round my boy as we sipped our tea and kissed his neck and began to bite him gently in the neck.

"My darling boy," I said, as I rubbed my face in his beautiful blond hair, sniffing the scent of the 'Storing pour homme' shampoo that we had just used, "Now I begin to understand the beauty and insight in Shadwell's words in that Purcell song 'Dear pretty, pretty youth.' When I look at you, I don't just feel a stiffening of my prick, I feel full of tenderness. So many people, male and female, associate male desire with animal lust. They think of it as hot, violent and rapidly disappearing after sexual climax. But my desire for you is NOT like that. I feel so much emotion, such tenderness, sweetness and joy. I worry when you are out of sorts, I am anxious when you are away, I am fearful when you take risks, I ache to lie beside you in bed, to warm you with my arms when you are cold, to console you when you are sad. And when I suck you or fuck you I try to be gentle, so that you get as much pleasure as I do. I feel as I am doing it that the giving and receiving of love between us is the gift of God. 

"That union of our bodies gives us the same sort of joy that I am sure that God experiences when we recognize and acknowledge Him. We have both experienced that sacramental feeling when making love. The ultimate purpose of fucking is not to make babies, it is to bring two human beings together and so experience in the love between us the love that God has for His creatures, and to show us the way to Him. That is why the union of two humans has to be exclusive, because once we find God, there is no turning away from Him for another. It's strange! When we first met, as an atheist I was always telling you off for boring me with your God-talk, and now it seems that I am preaching to you!" 

"Jon, my dearest love," David replied "I thank our God that He has used me to help you find Him, even if you have found Him via the tightness of my back passage rather than via my eloquence of speech! All you need now is to encounter God in the humanity of His Son and you will be totally His and we'll get you baptized. We talked before about how carnality is the way to the love of God, because the supreme Creator loved His creation so much that He became flesh and entered the created world via the same genital passage through which we all travel into life, 'inter faeces et urinam'. You can't get more carnal than that!" 

I made no reply, but my face buried in his hair was moist with tears. He put his muscular arms round me and pulled my face down and kissed my lips, my cheeks and my tearful eyes. He whispered in my ear, "I need to fuck you, my love." He in turn began to rub his lips over my hair. I felt myself surrendering to a deep wave of tenderness. I was his to take as he wished. He tore off his clothes, dropped them on the sitting room floor, picked me up bodily and carried me into the bedroom, where he laid me on the bed and began to undress me. I felt myself no longer a man. I was a little boy. He pulled off my shoes and socks, undid my belt, unzipped my fly and pulled pants and underpants down to my ankles, where I kicked them off. He pulled my shirt over my head and began to kiss my face. Once more I could smell the fragrance of 'Storing pour homme' in his hair. He moved his kissing down, under my chin and down my chest till he reached my nipples. He got hold of the surrounding hair with his teeth and tugged on it gently. The slight pain started to arouse me, and as my nipples stiffened, he took each in turn into his mouth and nibbled it gently. I can't describe the wave of tenderness and desire that overwhelmed me. I put my arms round his shoulders and spread my legs wide, pulling him down on top of me so that his slimy dick rubbed against my belly. 

I moved my hands down to the small of his back and pressed him against me. After a few minutes he reached for the lube beside the bed and started to apply it to my person, poking first two, then three fingers coated in K-Y into my back passage. He then lay back on top of me and started to kiss my chest. I got hold of the condom box that lay beside the bed, pulled one out, removed its foil and rolled it over David's monster tool, red, lumpy, veiny and slimy, while he lay propped up on his arms patiently waiting for me to finish. He rubbed some K-Y on the rubber and gently but firmly pushed it into my fuckhole. The sensation of that monster dick stretching my sphincter is impossible to describe, all I can say is that the feeling of having him inside me was delicious, and perfection was exceeded when from time to time he hit my prostate. We dissolved in pleasure, though not yet ready for soft repose...

Chapter 49 David

A London gig and Christmas at Rockwell's Barn

As Advent progressed, my gig in London drew nearer. But before my paid public appearance was the Bach Choir's Christmas concert in Camford: the Mozart litany, in which I was tenor soloist. The ravishingly beautiful music, not frequently performed, went very well and moved Jon in the audience to tears. 

During the past year, encouraged by Marcello, I had worked hard on the tenor part in 'Messiah' and by now I knew it well enough to count it a repertory item, although on Marcello's advice I was practising adding ornaments to the basic vocal line. The performance was that of the East London Choral Society and it was held in a church hall in the Woodford area, reached by a long journey on the Central line. The weather that December was not good, cold, windy and extremely wet, and I persuaded David to come to London with me. The concert was on a Saturday, and the Society offered me overnight accommodation in a local Travelodge. I asked them to make it a double, explaining that my partner was coming, but would pay his own overnight bill.

We had to travel up to London early so that I could have a rehearsal with the choir in the afternoon. Jon was coming to the performance, so he did not attend the rehearsal, and went off to explore the East London suburbs. The rehearsal went well. The other soloists were all unknown to me, but they all knew their job and were extremely competent performers. My personal performance was vastly better than at Reading the previous year. In the evening, the packed audience applauded the whole performance rapturously. There were even a few requests for autographs of the soloists. When Jon and I got back to the hotel, we had a very enjoyable session of 69 before falling asleep in our separate beds.

My father arranged to have two weeks holiday over Christmas and the New Year. Three days before Christmas he, my mother and Jeroen arrived in Camford and picked me up and I directed them on the route to Ixton. Jon arranged to start his Christmas holiday three or four days before Christmas, and he and my mother worked incredibly hard in the kitchen for two successive days getting everything ready for the festive season. He and I took the 4x4 to Arthur's farm to pick up the turkey which he had obtained for us from one of his colleagues, and we also arranged for him to supply us with a Christmas tree. There had been a rather excessive number of fir trees among the supply of trees which had been planted in our original afforestation scheme, and it was necessary to thin these out after several years. We were not damaging the woodland by digging up a small tree that was surplus to requirements. Arthur also supplied us with a large container in which we could plant the tree for the Christmas period, after which it would be planted outside Rockwell's Barn by the door. 




David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 02



[This story takes place in the last quarter of the twentieth century, when things like the internet did not exist. You are warned that in addition to the gay sex that you are looking for, there is much in the story about music, science, religion, English college life and alcohol. There is also some crude language. Should any of these topics not suit you, then read no further!]

 [Chapter 01 should be read first. Chapter 03 will follow soon.] 

Chapter 52 David 

The New Year

We all got up late on New Year's Day. About nine o'clock I gently disengaged myself from Jon and slipped out of bed without disturbing him. I pulled on a dressing gown, a garment I very rarely wear, and went downstairs to find my mother in the kitchen setting the table with knives and forks and crockery for breakfast. "Maak daar momenteel geen zorgen over" I said. (Don't bother with that for the moment). "Wat was het gisteren een ontroerende ervaring," I continued (What a moving experience it was yesterday). And I walked up to her and put my arms round her and kissed her almost as passionately as I would kiss Jon, but with closed lips. 

"Pas op, jongen! Je hebt een harde baard!" (Watch it, boy, your beard is rough).

"Sorry," I said, "I'd forgotten that women's faces are softer than men's! But I'm so happy. After five years, I think that I love Jon more than ever. He has done so much for me that I'm a different person from the David of five years ago."

"You have done a lot for him as well. He is more friendly and open, and kinder and more thoughtful than he was five years ago, and much more relaxed and laid-back."

"Also, and I can't claim much credit for it, but it has made me enormously happy that he's no longer an atheist."

"He would still be an atheist if he hadn't met you!" she replied. "Laat me graag de ring even nauwkeuriger bekijken" (Let me have a closer look at the ring, please). I showed it to her. The sapphires at each quarter of the ring shone in the pale winter sunlight. "Wat mooi!" (How beautiful!) she said.

"I bought Jon's and he bought this," I said. "He's a partner, not a sugar-daddy."

"Why did you choose a ring with jewels rather than a plain band, and why do you wear it on your right hand, not your left?"

"Te laten zien dat we flikkers zijn" (to show that we are gays) I said. "The union of two men isn't marriage, so we do not feel bound by the rules and customs of marriage. OK, so we do want to bring up a family, but they can never be our own biological children, so why should we imitate the biological, as distinct from the social in our relationship? This is something that Jon and I have discussed at great length. Women have wonderful qualities that are often quite different from those of men, but many tasks, such as housekeeping are just as well carried out by men, as I'm sure that many women would emphasize. Eventually, homosexual partnerships will be recognized by law, but when that comes it will be for social, not biological reasons."

"Are you and Jon going to have a honeymoon?"

"You must be joking! We both have really hectic schedules, and often only see each other at bedtime. Mirapoli two years ago is the nearest we'll get to a honeymoon. And once my Ph.D. is out of the way, I've still got to get a job. We are keen to start a family, but I can't see it happening till the job situation for both of us is clarified. But we've thought about it a lot, and are willing to try anything from adoption to surrogacy. So please, if you come across anyone in your local social services children's department who could help, please let me know."

"It's wonderful to see the look on your face when you see Jon. Your father and I are both so happy that you have chosen such a nice man."

"He still makes me ache with love, tenderness and desire whenever I look at him! We are both amazingly lucky to have found each other.

"But to change the subject, how are Dorothea and Jeroen? I thought that Dorothea looked as though she was overdoing things, she looked tired."

"I know no more about Dorothea than you do," she replied, "but Jeroen is fine. He gets a bit stroppy at times, but that's the phase he's going through. He'll soon grow out of it."

"Is he still getting on OK at school? I want him to work hard and do well."

"Yes, as far as we know. His O Levels are in June."

"But the 'mock' exams in February should give you a good idea. He's a bright enough boy as long as he works. The worst thing at present would be for him to get deeply involved with a girl or girls. Jon says that he will give his special present to Jeroen when we have heard the results of his 'mock' exams next month, and there will be an extra present if he gets good grades in the summer exams. Does he want to stay on for sixth-form work?"

"Yes, I think so. He's interested in engineering. He's been keen ever since that trip to the Railway Museum in York that you and Jon took him on. He's concentrating on maths and physics."

"Sensible lad. Has Dorothea given any indication of what she wants to do on graduation?"

"I think that she would like a job in Italy."

"I think that I'd better go and get dressed," I said, and went upstairs to find Jon out of bed and shaving. I kissed him good morning at the back of his neck, and went to the other basin and started to shave. "Shall we have a shower after shaving?" I asked him "You go in first, I need a shit." I finished shaving, dried my face and sat on the toilet. After a huge fart, I began to do my business...

Having wiped my hole and washed it in the bidet, I joined Jon under the shower. "You're just in time to wash my hair!" he said to me. I was amused. It's usually he who washes my hair, but I opened the 'Storing pour homme' shampoo. He bent over and I proceeded to rub it in into his scalp. Before he could begin to rinse it off, I ran my hand along his back and started to caress his arse, before turning him round and smothering it with kisses. I then put shampoo on my own hair before kissing Jon's face gently...

After five minutes we turned the water off and got dry.

The next day my parents, Dorothea and Jeroen all left to drive home, and Jon and I settled down to cleaning and tidying the house before returning to Camford on January 3. 

The following Thursday I had my first singing lesson of the new year, and Marcello announced that he was going to teach me the techniques of singing lieder. "But is my German good enough?" I asked. "Yes," he replied, "you should hear the way that most German singers murder my native language! The few German arias in your repertoire are quite well pronounced. Also although you'll need an audition for the Llandewi Mawr Singing Competition, you won't need one for the Zwolldijk Competition in the Netherlands. All you'll need is a certificate from me. And if you win at Llandewi Mawr, you will not need auditions for any other competition you may enter." 

 Chapter 53 Jon 

Jon meets the Crabtrees

We were both phenomenally busy when we got back to work. Another paper had been accepted on David's work by the journal 'Genes and Biosynthesis.' In my lab we had also produced a couple of publications on the project, and I was busier than ever with computer-simulated model systems. I spent a day taking David up to London to see Tim Ingledown so that he could draw up a will for him. I explained to David that although he did not possess much money at present, he was a major beneficiary of my estate, and as things stood at present, the intestacy law meant that everything that he did have would go to his family on his death. So Tim drew up a will for David, leaving his estate to any children he might have, but making me his beneficiary if he died first and childless. In the event of me dying first, his estate would go to his children if any, failing which to Jeroen rather than his parents or sister. 

The idea of me taking on the job as nanny to Charlie Crabtree's kids to give David a chance to decide his future seemed to me important, and I asked Ed S what the prospects were of further funding on the basis of me working two days per week. He said that he had a grant application in the pipeline that would give him greater flexibility in hiring staff for the project, and a part-time situation for me seemed a possibility. 

The nanny job of course did depend on me meeting the Crabtrees' approval. We decided that the best way to approach this was to invite the Crabtrees to a dinner cooked by me. They could then find out what sort of a person I was, see our flat, where they had never been before, and sample my cooking, vitally important if I were to take on the child-care job. I liked the Crabtrees. They were a very cultured and lively pair, and I think that I met with their approval. I had pulled out the stops with my cooking. We had a brace of roast pheasants with a fancy sauce and exotic vegetables, followed by a home-made apple pie, testing my newly acquired baking skills, served with a syrupy sauce made of raisins soaked in rum and soft brown sugar. We drank Chianti Classico with the meal and ended with coffee and Marsala. I admit that with the time needed for the shopping included, the meal had taken me a full day to produce, but then you do pull out all the stops if you are after a job! 

David behaved in his usual sweetly extrovert way and kept up a lively flow of chatter about science, music, the Fitness Centre (which was now rising from the ground in the town centre), and his coming visits to Llandewi Mawr and Zwolldijk. His talk was mainly to Charlie, while Mrs Crabtree engaged me in conversation. I was reminded of my interview with David's mother when I was asking for David's hand in partnership. I was glad of the cookery skills that I had been taught at boarding school, because it was clear that the meal had impressed her. Unfortunately a scientific career is too busy to allow anyone to develop their culinary skills to the full, so my day-to-day cooking at home for David and myself rarely extended beyond pasta, steak or fish, and we had enriched the coffers of the Sparrowhawk pub with frequent meals there over several years since David had moved out of college. 

At the end of the evening, she invited David and me to tea on the following Saturday to meet the children, on whose approval it seemed my hiring would depend. The Crabtree children were every bit as smart and sweet as David had portrayed them. David introduced me to them as his special friend. As a final test I was asked to read them a chapter from a book by Edith Nesbit, their favourite author. The book was 'Five Children and It'. I answered satisfactorily all the awkward questions they asked about the period features of the book, which dates from 1902. After I had read the story, they left the room to confer, and came back with the statement that though I was not as good as David, I nevertheless met with their approval. I thought to myself that if the test had been one of cooking, I would have won the competition! 



Chapter 54 David 

Exminster, Bristol and Nice

Just before my appearance at the Saint John Passion in Exminster at the end of March, it was Jon's thirtieth birthday. I had bought him some more silk underpants, which he was delighted with, and a bottle of 'Storing pour homme.' I said to him "As you like it so much, I want you to wear it as well as me." 

"You shouldn't have spent so much money on me," he said.

"Jon," I replied, "you are so precious to me, I would gladly spend my last penny on you! I can't envisage what life would be like without you. You make me feel so secure, so cared-for, so protected, so wanted. You give me so much pleasure when you fuck me that I can't believe that God has been so good as to give you to me. I'm glad that you're coming to Exminster with me. The Evangelist role in the Passion is so demanding that I need you there in the audience supporting me!" 

Marcello had spent weeks coaching me in the Evangelist role, which was about the most exacting thing that I had ever done. Bach's Passions are not pieces of entertainment like an opera. They are acts of worship designed as offerings to God. Because of the intense religious significance of the Saint John Passion (it was written for performance on Good Friday) it was vital for me as an act of personal faith, to get it absolutely faultless as far as I could, because singing that role is participating in a direct offering to God. All went well however, and the audience seemed very pleased. But I was glad that Jon was there. I knew that I was singing for him, as well as for God. Without his presence my performance, even if musically faultless, would have been much more routine and mechanical. 

We left Exminster to spend a couple of days in nearby Bristol before catching our plane to Nice. In spite of the fact that it had been the slave trade that had given Bristol its prosperity in the eighteenth century, it had, thanks primarily to another evil, the tobacco trade, retained its status as a great, wealthy and fashionable metropolis, despite being badly damaged by bombs in World War II. In the eighties of the twentieth century it was building a new prosperity, based on redevelopment of the old harbour area. Our hotel was in the fashionable and expensive area of Clifton, near to Isambard Kingdom Brunel's great suspension bridge. 

The day after our arrival from Exminster, we explored the centre of Bristol and visited the cathedral, only finished in the nineteenth century and Saint Mary Redcliffe, a fantastic mediaeval masterpiece of a church, where I took a lot of photographs with the digital camera that Jon had given me for Christmas. We did not see the magnificent baroque triptych by William Hogarth that the Victorian gothicizers ripped out of the church and dumped in a now disused church elsewhere in the city. The following day was really warm, and we went for a walk on Clifton Down. Near the edge of the Down, towards the suspension bridge, we found a grassy, wooded area, sloping quite steeply down towards the gorge through which the river Avon flows towards the Bristol Channel. We sat down on the grass and I snuggled up to Jon as he lay on the ground, and began to caress his crotch. "Suck me, please, my sweet," he said. 

We were well out of sight of anyone above us on the Down, so I unzipped the fly of his denims and pulled them and his briefs down to mid-thigh, to give me unimpeded access to his by now rock-hard tool, standing up at right angles to his recumbent body. I rubbed my lips in his pubic hair, and rooted around, sniffing his personal scent, which filled me with a deep feeling of love and tenderness. My mouth began to water as I started to lick the side of his cock and slowly moved my lips along its length, feeling each lump and vein before moving on to the next. When I reached the rim of the head of his circumcized man-stick, I gently ran my tongue along it. He began to grunt with pleasure. Lubricated by my now copious saliva, I engulfed the head of his cock in my mouth, but did not attempt to swallow it deeply. Instead I rubbed it with my tongue and chewed it gently with my jaws. It was totally delicious to feel the nut-shaped object in the front of my mouth, much bigger than the acorn after which it is named ('glans' is Latin for acorn) and smoother than a walnut, smooth as a giant chestnut. But the realization that this was no nut, but a living part of the man I loved, made any comparison with a dildo totally unreal. 

"That is unbelievably sweet, my darling faggot-boy! See if you can make me come without me having to make any fucking movements," he said. It did not take long. A few more rubs with my tongue and a chewing movement with my jaws and he convulsed with a shout and fired two shots of man-juice deep into my mouth. I swallowed most of the delicious nectar, but spread some over my lips by licking them, so that I could return a taste of him in the prolonged kiss that I gave him as soon as his softening dick had slipped out of my mouth. He pulled a tissue from his pocket and wiped his cock with it, before using it to wrap round his cock to prevent after-come messing up his silk briefs. I remained glued to his delicious mouth and climbed on top of him to continue the kiss. After five ecstatic minutes of mouth-to-mouth contact, I rolled off him and lay beside him as he raised his knees in the air to pull up his briefs and jeans and zip them up. I think that it was the best blow-job that I had ever given him. Strangely also considering that we were gay, it was as far as I remember, the first time that we had ever made love in the open air.

The next day we drove to Lulsgate Airport, parked the car and flew off to Nice to see Jon's mother. I could not help wondering how she would receive her newly 'married' son and his fancy-boy. In fact she welcomed us warmly, and we enjoyed a wonderful evening of home-cooked food and champagne, and we showed her our rings and the photographs of our blessing service, and even posed for a photograph of us kissing one another, which I hoped that, gay pride or not, she would NOT display in a frame for public inspection. I recoiled at the thought of an intimate moment between Jon and me being displayed to her visitors, but she assured us that it would remain in her bedroom! I suspected that this was another example of her deviance. Pictures of men kissing one another in art are basically restricted to the single dishonourable kiss with which Judas betrays his Master, not something that raises pleasant feelings. As I have recorded in these memoirs before, she was like no woman I have ever met. After a few days of Spring warmth, we returned to Camford for what would be my final term as a student.

 Chapter 55 David

The audition for the singing competition

The Welsh International Singing Competition is held every five years in the small town of Llandewi Mawr in central Wales, one of the most beautiful and thinly populated parts of the principality. I had to go to Cardiff for the audition, which was held in a small BBC recording studio. Because of the male voice choir tradition in Wales, the competition was for men's voices only, although a few years later after allegations of discrimination, it was also opened to women. But in 19--, it was still men only. 

I decided to go to Cardiff alone: my audition was in the morning and I would only need to spend one night out of what I still thought of as Jon's bed, although it was now our bed. We had refurnished the big bedroom in the flat, so that I now had shelf-, drawer- and wardrobe space (of which I needed less than Jon, as I had far less clothes) and the spare room was now purely for guests. 

Among other entrants for the auditions were Mike and Nat, who were now in their third and final year at the Stamford School of Singing, and whom I had met the year before in the Dunchester auditions. They turned out to be staying at the same hotel as I was, and we met the night before to eat and drink together. Nat's success at Dunchester had, they told me, raised their profile at the academy, and they were no longer targets of homophobic teasing. Indeed one other pair of male students had come out as an indirect result of Nat's success. 

We all had rather a lot to drink that night, partly out of high spirits, but also because we were all nervous. We did not know what to expect. Marcello had told me that he had no experience of this particular competition, so knew nothing about the audition system. However, he said, because it was a quinquennial event, its prestige was very high. I had prepared two test pieces, as the instructions told us, the aria 'Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön' from 'Die Zauberflöte' and 'Waft her, angels, through the skies' from Händel's 'Jephtha.' We also had to sightread an unseen piece. 

Next morning, the programme began early and the tenors were auditioned first. Again, my surname pushed me down the alphabetical list and Mike went in before me. When he came out he told us that there were only four adjudicators, three men and a woman, none of whom he knew. He had been asked to sing one of his test pieces, and his sightreading had been a fiendishly tricky song by Roger Quilter. When my turn came, I entered the room with some trepidation. The adjudicators did nothing to set me at ease. They asked me to sightread the unseen piece first, a song 'O my blacke soule' by Benjamin Britten from his 'Holy Sonnets of John Donne.' It was not easy, but it was a nice piece. Then they asked me to sing the Mozart aria, which seemed to me to go very well. Nat's turn came in the afternoon, and he also felt that he had been put through the mill. We were all told that we would hear the result the following week, not by post but via our teachers, whose names we had had to supply on our application. In spite of our inclination to go drinking again, we all went home that evening, having exchanged phone numbers. I got a train about 6 from Cardiff and got back to Camford just before 10, having had a sandwich and a beer on the train. 




David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 02



The following week, Marcello rang me on my cellphone in the lab to tell me that I had passed and could I call in and see him on the way home from the lab. At 5-30, I left the lab on my bike and got to Marcello's 20 minutes later to find Jon there! Marcello poured out a glass of Prosecco for me, and one each for himself, Caterina and Jon. "They told me over the phone that you had done very well. The competition is in early July as you know, and it would be a good idea to make a hotel booking now. You don't want to end up staying in Newtown or Brecon, but Llandrindod Wells would be OK. There are not a lot of hotels in the area." 

"I'll do some research," said Jon. "We don't want to end up in a tent, and even the youth hostels will be busy in July." 

"David, you'll need to prepare something new for the competition," said Marcello. "Again there will be two test pieces, and I think that one ought to be a Schubert song. As far as accompanist is concerned, I've heard that they have good accompanists, so you won't need to ask Brian Shaw."

"It will be interesting to see how he performs when we go to Cirencester early in June," I said.

"Would you and Marcello like to come out to dinner?" Jon asked Caterina in Italian. 

"That would be nice!" she replied. "I was going to cook some pasta, but I can do that tomorrow." 

Jon and I left our bikes at Marcello's and we took a cab into town to the Italian restaurant where I had taken Jon for his birthday in my third year as an undergraduate, an occasion of which I have very tender memories. We all tried to speak entirely in Italian during an excellent meal and got through two bottles of wine, followed by as much espresso coffee as we could drink. The quality of my Italian nosedived during the meal, but improved again during the coffee! Jon insisted on paying the bill, and we all went home very happy. When the cab dropped Marcello and Caterina off at home, I got out and kissed them both goodnight. I think Marcello was touched by my 'Italian' demonstrativeness, which stemmed of course from deep gratitude. After all, he was acting as unpaid agent for me, so his lessons were not as expensive as they had first seemed.

 Chapter 56 Jon 

A surprise present

By June, David had begun to wind down his work in the lab. He was doing a few concluding experiments prior to writing a final paper, which would represent the end of his work. When that was done, he could begin to think about starting writing his thesis.  

My researches had found a pub in a small village about ten miles from Llandewi Mawr, which did dinner, bed and breakfast. Although it was not particularly cheap, it sounded very comfortable and as it was clear from the map that the surroundings were beautiful, I booked a double room for the five nights covering the competition. 

The Pentecost term was drawing to an end and our last Sunday evening dining in Hall arrived. It was a nostalgic occasion: after seven years 'in statu pupilari' David would never eat with the students again. The men and women in the choir organized a small gathering for him in the college function room after dinner, and Edward, myself of course, Dr Dan C, David's old chemistry tutor and Professor Smith were all present. Coffee and wine were served, the Organ Scholar and Bible Clerk both made jokey speeches about David being the oldest student in college as well as the longest serving ever member of the choir. At 9 pm we got a shock. The door opened and the President came in! 

Dame Elizabeth Howarth had been President of St Boniface's for eight years and was greatly liked as well as highly respected in both public and academic life. She had been created DBE a couple of years before. I had talked to her a couple of times on high table, but David had only met her on the few occasions when she entertained students in the President's Lodgings. Edward offered her a glass of wine, which she supped eagerly, and he brought her across to David, with whom she shook hands with a motherly smile. "You may not be aware of it, but I have followed your career in Camford with great interest ever since you came here," she said to him. "Now that it is nearly at an end, I hope that you continue to enjoy success and to give as much pleasure as you have given all of us here by your singing over the last seven years." 

She then cleared her throat and the Organ Scholar gestured for silence. "David here," she said, "has sung in the Chapel Choir for a record continuous seven years. During that time he has made himself widely liked by his friendly and generous nature, and distinguished himself academically as a Scholar of the college. Moreover by being open about his homosexuality and his relationship with Jonathan here, he has made a major contribution to belated and long overdue public acknowledgement of how great a contribution gays have made to university life over the last eight hundred years." David blushed bright red and rubbed his arm over his face. "Accordingly," Dame Elizabeth continued, "the choir and the whole college would like you to accept this small token of our friendship and appreciation." The Organ Scholar handed her a box, which she gave to David, shook his hand and to my amazement kissed him on the cheek. 

David's face was a picture of total confusion, as well as still being bright red. There were cries of "Open it, open it!" He opened the box and withdrew a pewter pint tankard with an inscription. "Read it, read it!" went the cries, so he read it aloud: 'To David Scarborough from Saint Boniface's College Chapel Choir to commemorate seven years of singing and drinking. June 19--.' It was clear to me that David was struggling to avoid bursting into tears, and I went across to him and took his hand. "Say something!" I whispered. 

"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen," he stammered, "it is so kind of you all to remember me in this way. My seven years at Boni's have been the most enjoyable of my whole life. In spite of only sleeping here for perhaps one third of the last seven years, I have come to think of this college as my home. I will never forget the warmth, intellectual challenge and sense of belonging which St Boniface's has given me, not to mention of course meeting this guy, who is now a permanent part of my life!" and he gestured in my direction. "Thank you all very much. We have no plans to leave Camford at present, so I'm sure that I shall see you all again after the summer vac." 

The President smiled and told us to carry on drinking, and quietly left. I went up to Edward and said "Did you write her script for her?" 

"No," he replied, "she wrote it herself. She obviously understands about homosexuality, because she has a gay son, and it's clear that she loves him. It's also clear that there is a big domestic difference of opinion about gays in the Lodgings! What she has just said amounts to a public recognition of homosexuality in the college. No more 'don't ask, don't tell.' The story will be all round Boni's in the next couple of days. In that respect, and thanks to her, Boni's has advanced beyond Buckingham."

Buckingham College, founded by King James's boyfriend/catamite George Villiers, has always had the reputation of being gay-friendly, certainly in the eighteenth century when scurrilous stories were in circulation about the fellows of Buckingham and their relations with the students, many of who were still young teenagers. 

"So if you are after a fellowship, you won't find the President an obstacle to your ambitions," said Edward.

"I was amazed when she kissed him," I said. 

"You're just jealous that someone has touched your boy!" he replied with a grin. "You're not the only one to appreciate his beauty, you know!" 

"Hands off him!" I joked, "I turn nasty if anyone tries to take what's mine!" 

"That's because you think that he might say yes to someone else. Don't you realize the significance of the promises that you both made six months ago? David would never turn away from you, even if he were led astray by someone else. You are too insecure, Jon! As a matter of fact, in weak moments, I do find myself fancying him. I wouldn't say this to anyone except the two of you, but you know what it's like being a man. You cannot, unless you are blind or hormonally deficient, stop appreciating a nice figure or backside in a man or woman. At least in the C of E, I as a cleric can look appraisingly at a woman (or man) without feeling guilty." 

"Some people would say that you should as a cleric, not be looking in that way at a man. You are fucking him in your heart!" 

"Yes indeed, but that's my problem, not yours. You are obviously not bi. And I trust you and David not to talk about me to anyone else." 

"Of course we won't." I replied. 

 Chapter 57 David 

The Welsh singing competition

Early in July we drove to mid-Wales for the Llandewi Mawr International Singing Competition. It was a hot sunny afternoon as we drove from Leominster along the A44 across the Welsh border, and within three quarters of an hour we reached the village of Llanmerthyr Fach. It consisted of perhaps twenty houses, a post office and the pub, the Fiddler's Arms where we were staying. A small stream flowed through the village alongside the main street, and after we had unpacked the car, we went and sat on a seat beside the stream and soaked up the sunshine. Across the stream was a footbridge leading to a path going up the hillside into a wood. 

I had a photocopy of my two competition numbers in my pocket. "Let's go up the hill into the wood," I said, "and if we find a quiet spot, I will just run through these two items once or twice each. Then tomorrow I don't need to queue to book a practice room." We climbed up the hill and found ourselves in pretty thick woodland consisting mainly of ash trees. We found an open spot, where I sat down on a fallen tree and got out the music. I stood up and sang the Schubert, which required elegance and sensitivity rather than vocal power. Then I began my second piece, which was not new to my repertoire, 'Wenn der Freude Tränen fließen' from 'Die Entfürung aus den Serail' by Mozart. I just had to repeat a couple of lines to make sure that I was following the markings properly, and then I said, "Right, that's that until I sing tomorrow afternoon." 

We ate about 6-30 pm and after a couple of beers adjourned to our room about 10 for a shag before going to sleep in our separate single beds. I was not feeling energetic and was content to lie back and let Jon have his way with me. He was quiet and gentle as he entered my anus and fucked me gently for nearly ten minutes before he came. He then caressed my dick and gently stroked my belly before rubbing his belly against mine. That got me really excited and in no time at all I shot my load onto our two bellies. 

We had set the alarm for 6 am with breakfast at 7, to allow us to be in Llandewi Mawr before 8-15 am. That enabled us to explore the town thoroughly before the competition started at 9-30 am. We located the main pubs and cafés, so that we knew where to head during the interval. Both Mike and Nat had qualified for the first round, so we knew that we would meet them. The first day was tenor voices, with the three best going forward to the final on the morning of day 4. Mike performed among the morning entrants. I came on about 3 pm as the last tenor entrant. I performed both pieces reasonably faultlessly, and got loud applause for the not very well known Mozart aria, which is one of the most beautiful melodies ever written. The judges then adjourned, and promised to deliver their verdict at about 5 pm. 

We all went out into the town. We did not feel that we could drink alcohol at that stage, and sat in one of the cafés drinking tea, and eating toasted teacakes. I held Jon's hand tightly when I was not eating, and Mike and Nat were also holding hands. We didn't give a fuck if anyone noticed us. At 5 pm we returned to the hall and sat to await the verdict. Fifteen tenors had performed that day from the US, Italy, Spain, Scotland, the Netherlands, the USSR (as it then was), Wales and West Germany (as it then was) as well as England. As usual the three winners were announced in reverse order. To my great pleasure, Mike who had been unplaced the year before in Dunchester was third. An American tenor of great expressiveness was second. My heart beat with apprehension when the envelope with the top name was opened. I was all ready to say to Jon, "Let's go home first thing tomorrow," when the name David Scarborough was read out! I nearly fainted with joy and surprise before rising to stagger up to the platform to collect my award, which was a cheque for £500, and a week's master-classes in Vienna. I then took the microphone to thank the organizers on behalf of the competitors in the tenor class. 

We then all adjourned to the nearest pub, pursued by three impresarios and a couple of would-be agents. I told the agents that I did not need their services, as Marcello would handle my bookings. I listened to each of the impresarios, collected their cards and told them that if they had not heard from Dr Fabioni within a week to contact him, and gave them each his card, a supply of which he had pressed on me before we left Camford. Then, before we got too drunk, I rang Marcello from a public telephone in the pub, as the mobile phone signals were very poor in rural Wales, and told him of my initial success. He asked what numbers I would sing in the final of the competition, and told him that I would sing 'Waft her, angels to the skies' that had not been used at the audition and Calaf's aria 'Nessun dorma' from Puccini's 'Turandot.' This of course was some years before it became the anthem of the FIFA World Cup in Italy in 1990. It had been one of the main numbers Marcello had taught me during my Italian Opera course, but I had never sung it in public before. He told me that if he could get there by train, he would come on the night before the final. 

The next day we had a break, as it was the turn of the basses. We attended the morning session, but then took the afternoon off. I booked a practice room for the next afternoon, to polish the two songs for the final. We then walked round the town and found a secondhand music shop. I had a good look round and picked up piano accompaniments for several operatic arias, which had obviously been sold on by competitors in earlier competitions, which might prove useful later on. We had arranged to eat that night with Mike and Nat in Llandewi Mawr, rather than return to our hotel. That meant that I should take my turn to drink fruit juice and drive back to Llanmerthyr Fach, so that Jon could drink a bit more than he usually did. 

By arriving early before the competition session had closed, we got a table in an amazing restaurant with unbelievably delicious food. It turned out that the chef had done his training in Ludlow, the gastronomic capital of provincial England, which was only about 70 km away. We got through two bottles of wine before we, having finished eating, were pushed out because our table was required. The four of us then had a minor pub-crawl through three of the more attractive pubs in the town, with me still drinking fruit juice, before I drove Jon back to our hotel. Needless to say, we were not really in the mood to do anything but sleep that night! 

Day 3 of the competition saw Nat up against about a dozen other baritones. To our delight, he came second, so that all three of us were now in the final. In the afternoon, I spent half-an-hour in a practice room and polished my two offerings for the final. About 4 pm, Marcello arrived by taxi from Leominster just in time to hear my final run-through. He dined with the four of us in an Italian restaurant in Llandewi that evening and Mike and Nat were both charmed by him. He had managed to get an hotel room because several unsuccessful competitors had already left.

 Chapter 58 Jon 

The competition final

Next day the finals began at 9-30. There were of course nine finalists, of whom David and the Stamford boys comprised three. All the finalists were segregated backstage from the audience, so they could not see and scarcely hear what was going on in the hall. The remainder were all from other lands, so together the three of them represented England, and there was also a Scottish baritone. This time there was a draw for the order of singing, and Nat came first. They each had to sing both their two chosen numbers. 

When Nat sang, I noticed that Marcello was nodding in approval, and with later finalists he sometimes nodded and sometimes shook his head. David's turn came at noon, just before the lunch break. He began with 'Waft her angels,' and though the words are dreadful eighteenth-century hyperbole, the beauty of David's singing made them sound so beautiful that tears began to run down my face and even Marcello looked moved. 'Nessun dorma' was even more impressive and Marcello grinned with delight and nudged me, whispering "That's a winning performance if ever I heard one." We had to wait till the afternoon to hear Mike's performance, at which Marcello remained inscrutable. 

The jury, which partially differed in composition from the jury in the tenor class, went out at 4 pm and it was nearly 6 pm before they reconvened the audience. The tension was high. David, who had now joined us in the audience, was visibly pale and apprehensive, much more than I had ever seen him before. The international jury comprised four men and two women, all world famed in their respective fields of artist, conductor, teacher or critic. The results were announced. Neither Mike nor Nat had managed a place. Third place went to an American bass, second place to a German baritone. David looked on the verge of collapse, and I grasped his hand and squeezed it. I held on to it as the chairman announced the first prizewinner as: David Scarborough of Camford, England. At once I kissed him and released my grasp so that he could embrace Marcello, before stumbling up on to the platform to receive his award of a cheque for £5K and a recital tour of Wales, England, Germany and Italy, one concert in each country, with an internationally famous accompanist, Thomas Atkin. As winner, David again had the role of thanking the organizers and sponsors on behalf of the competitors and he apologized for not being able to do so in Welsh. He looked exhausted. 

We all went to the pub, including Mike and Nat and Marcello was kept busy negotiating with four impresarios. He had come with draft contracts and was busy trying to get them to sign up to a fixed number of engagements from October of the following year onward. He did successful deals with two of them, so David's future looked fairly good, and he would certainly have some work to look forward to after giving up his day job at the end of September when his studentship expired.

 Chapter 59 David

A startling piece of news

By the time that we got back from Llandewi Mawr, I had finished most of my work in the lab and was staying at home in the flat putting materials together for my thesis. I was trying to unwind from the stress of too many commitments at the same time. Not even being given a good fucking by Jon could relax me. One afternoon I was sitting in the sun on our balcony, scribbling notes on the Methods section of my thesis, when the phone rang. It was my mother. It was very unusual for her to ring during he day and I wondered why. 

It turned out that Dorothea was pregnant. She had not been on the pill because she was not in a relationship and was not in the habit of having sex. The father of her child was an Italian boy who had no intention of acknowledging paternity and no intention of marrying her. Apparently she was quite happy about this, because she had no desire to marry and he had taken advantage of her in a weak moment (and with perhaps a weak condom!). Even so, she had no intention of getting the child aborted and indeed had been pregnant during her final exams at Oxbridge, and her condition had not prevented her getting a first. 




David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 02



She was now some three months gone, and she had been offered a research studentship that would enable her to work for three years in the University of Bologna. She had managed it seems to get the commencement date of the studentship deferred by a year, during which time she would have the baby, feed him or her for six months, and then turn him/her over for adoption. My mother said "Is it too early or could you and Jon adopt the baby?" It sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime, not only would the baby be a blood relative, but its birth surname would be Scarborough! Moreover my parents would be able to enjoy their first grandchild. I told my mother excitedly that I would talk to Jon, and get back to her as soon as possible. 

Jon was just as excited as I was at the possibility of us becoming joint fathers soon, but pointed out the complications. In 15 months time, I would have my doctorate and be looking for a job. Jon would either have had his post-doc job extended, or he also would be looking for a job. Even with part-time help, one of us would have to be at home most of the time to look after the baby. Money of course would not be a problem, but starting a family at that particular time would have far-reaching effects on both our career prospects. But it was indeed an opportunity that we could not let go. "I'll ring Tim Ingledown and try and find out what we need to do," he said, "the whole area of fostering/adoption/guardianship is a closed book to me." 

It turned out that it was also a closed book to Tim, but as usual he knew someone who could help us. She was a partner in the law firm that Tim also belonged to, but she was a specialist in Family Law. Her provisional advice was that in the first instance, after the baby was born, application should be made to a court for guardianship of the child either by myself as next-of-kin or preferably, if it could be managed, by Jon and myself jointly, rather than adoption (at least in the first instance). We relayed this information to my mother and settled down to wait. There was a lot to do in the meantime. 

I was feeling totally exhausted from the pressures of competitions, thesis-writing and the apprehension of the possible legal as well as career and household worries surrounding our future parenthood. I asked Marcello if he would let me withdraw from the Zwolldijk Competition, but he refused, he said that entry was the only way for me to get recognized in the rest of the European Union outside Britain. One afternoon, I felt that it was all getting too much for me to cope with, so I rang Edward and arranged to meet him for some counselling. I told him that I needed two weeks break, away from Camford, away from my parents and away from singing. It would be impossible for David to come, he was too busy, and in any case I needed to be completely alone, just to blank out from all responsibilities for a couple of weeks. Edward came up with two sensible suggestions, and a few international phone calls and some Eurostar bookings were made, and all was arranged.

 Chapter 60 Jon 

A big shock 

One Wednesday early in August I came home from the lab and found the flat empty. I wondered if David had gone to his lab, but when I went into the kitchen, I found the following note on the table:

Darling Jon 

I'm sorry to give you a shock, but I have gone away for a few days. The stress of finishing off my lab work, writing the thesis, competitions and the perpetual round of singing has left me feeling totally exhausted and I need to blank out for a couple of weeks doing totally different things to recharge my batteries. I also need to ease off on the drink: I vastly exceed the healthy alcohol intake level for my age.

Please will you ring Marcello and Charlie and tell them that I will be back in mid-August to resume normal activities? Please do not tell my parents that I have gone away unless they ask. I am not going to Amersfoort or to Loxton. Please do not try to find out where I am, I will be back on or about the 15th of August. The only person who knows my whereabouts is Edward, and he is under the seal of the confessional and will not reveal my location except in the case of a dire emergency with you or with my family. 

Please rest assured that I will not do anything harmful to myself (or to anyone else). I will not telephone you, but I will be living chastely, except for the occasional wank thinking of you, so do not fear that I have run away with anyone. I still love you and YOU ONLY. I will miss you, but think how nice it will be in bed when I get back. 

Work hard, keep cheerful, go for a drink with Edward, ask the Fabionis to give you dinner sometime and don't go chasing after boys! If you have time on your hands, visit a few drystone-walling projects, your visits are overdue. Remember that I am yours for ever and love you with all my heart. 

Your loving faggot-boy, 

David. XXXXX 

I did not know what to do. A sense of panic hit me. Had I done something to upset him? Why had I not noticed the stress that he was under? Where had he gone and whom was he with? What was he doing? That at least I could guess. He would be in a retreat house somewhere saying his prayers. What should I do? Whom should I contact about him? Above all, was he coming back? The thought that I might have lost him was unbearable. I looked in his wardrobe. Some clothes were gone, and his passport, but not his cellphone. He must have gone abroad.

I reached for the phone and rang Edward, who luckily was in. "I was expecting you to ring!" he said. "Don't panic! He's coming back when he said he will. He's gone abroad, but not far away, and he will be fine when he gets back. Come and have dinner with me tonight. We'll have a few drinks in college, and then I'll treat you to a meal at the Venezia" (the Italian restaurant where we had recently taken the Fabionis). "OK," I said, "that would be nice. In the meantime I need to talk to his supervisor and his singing teacher to let them know that he's away." 

I rang Marcello and told him that David felt exhausted and had gone away for a few days to pick himself up, but that he would be back for his lesson on the 18th. I apologized that David would miss a couple of lessons, but Marcello said that he quite understood, that he had noticed that David was showing signs of stress. Charlie Crabtree when I contacted him said more or less the same, and I was filled with guilt and self-reproach that I had not noticed how stressed my boy had been feeling. Usually any depression that he was feeling could rapidly be dispersed by some kisses and a good fuck, but even I had noticed that sex did not seem quite so good to him as it usually did. I wondered too if he had been thinking negatively about prospective parenthood, and whether there would be problems with the guardianship order that we hoped to obtain. He was somewhat inclined to worry unnecessarily about the future, and I had not bothered to tell him that if we had problems with a family adoption, my money would easily secure us an adoptive baby from somewhere in the third world. 

The evening with Edward was good. We got through quite a lot of Marsala before getting on our bikes and riding rather shakily through the quiet August streets of Camford to the restaurant. Over the meal he suggested that I follow David's advice and take a few days off to visit the drystone-walling sites. After coffee back in his rooms, we parted with an embrace that only just fell short of kissing... 

The next day I rang Michael T, the man in charge of the Drystone Wall Trust repair team, and apologized for the lack of recent contact and saying that I would be at the latest repair site on the moors above one of the more industrial Yorkshire Dales on the Friday, and indicated that I would stay the weekend and we arranged to do a survey trip to locate further sites needing attention. We found several such sites, and I authorized Michael to enter into negotiations with landowners with a view to improving the walls that abutted on to public highways and footpaths. 

Returning to Camford, I threw myself into computer work, and made quite a lot of progress. I also inspected the progress on the Men's Fitness Centre. The "topping out" ceremony was due to take place in December, and the internal work would be completed by June of the following year, with a view to opening at the beginning of August. 

On the 14th of August I went shopping to stock up with fresh supplies of condoms, lube, shower gel. But I also bought flowers, Belgian beer, Prosecco, Marsala, coffee and a couple of silk shirts in David's size. On the 15th I worked at home on my computer, hoping all day to hear the bell, but nothing happened, and after eating takeaway fish and chips, I went to bed early, but failed to sleep properly. Although it was mid-August, the bed felt cold. Although David had been vague about his date of arrival, I could not help feeling anxious that something might have happened to him. For only the second time since David came to live with me, I felt totally miserable. 

I crept out of bed about 8 am, put on T-shirt and underpants without shaving and helped myself to some müesli for breakfast. I poured myself a cup of coffee, sat down at the table and farted noisily. I wished that David had been there to comment on my rude noise, which he would have done with great glee. After breakfast, I got out a bowl and arranged the white roses in it and settled down in a chair in the living room for my second day of waiting.

[To be continued]



David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 03



[Historical Note for this story: Section 28 was a legislative provision by the Thatcher government in the Local Government Act of the United Kingdom Parliament in 1988, forbidding local authorities from promoting homosexuality as a normal way of life in any area under their control, which included most schools. It was repealed by the Labour government in 2000.]

[Chapters 01 and 02 should be read first] 

Chapter 61 David

Two weeks to dispel stress 

I packed a couple of weeks' supply of underclothes and socks, a couple of changes of outer garments, a few T-shirts, a bible and prayer book, two pairs of swimming trunks, a pair of basketball shorts, a pair of gym shoes and my toilet things one morning when Jon was out. Leaving him a note, I took a cab to Camford station and was on the 1 pm Eurostar train from London to Brussel-Zuid. From there I took a train to Hasselt. From Hasselt a bus took me into the woodlands of Belgian Limburg and the Covent of the Holy Cross. 

At the convent, the sisters of the Order of the Divine Love had a small retreat house, with room for up to six guests. I was to stay there for a week and at the time I was the only guest. Silence was enjoined on all the guests, except for 30 minutes after each meal. The guests, in this case myself and any day visitors, dined in the refectory with the sisters, eating the same food, but at a separate table. Because it was Belgium, the food though plain, was very good. During the meal, one of the sisters read from the scriptures or from a devotional book in Dutch, and I listened attentively as I had no distractions. 

I attended all the daily offices when I was not out, except for the night office. I got to be quite familiar with the Psalms in Dutch. When the service was sung, which was at terce and vespers, I joined in the singing, which startled the sisters at first, as the only male voices ever normally heard in the chapel were those of priests. When I was not in the chapel, I was out walking in the woods. During the walks, I thought mainly of Jon and prayed for him and for my sister that she would come safely and happily through her coming confinement. I prayed for the child in Dorothea's womb and prayed to become his or her father. I even prayed for my unrepentant Nazi-loving grandfather. Sometimes I would be out all day without eating anything. There was beer available at lunch and dinner, but I restricted myself to water only. The weather was good, the air fresh, and I slept like a log at night in my narrow little bed, waking to feel the absence of Jon's warm body beside me with an ache of regret. He would have 'hugged me, hugged me close and kept me warm'!

The second week of my blanking out was a total contrast. I had signed up for a 'Sportieve Kuur' at the world-renowned watering place of Spa, the town that has given its name in Belgium to fizzy mineral water, and the birthplace of the fictional detective, Hercule Poirot. Spa has the misfortune to be in Wallonia, rather than Flanders, and my French is not good, but fortunately the group that I was in had a majority of Dutchmen in it. 

The group members, all men, mainly Dutch with some Germans, stayed in an opulent hotel, where we had exclusive use in the mornings of all the hotel's exercise facilities, and were also able to play basketball, squash, badminton or tennis, and in the afternoons we could swim in the pools at Les Thermes, taking hot treatments or massage if we wished. Or most enjoyable of all, we could play water games ('thermoludism') in the water from the Clementine Spring.

One day in the shower after a vigorous game of basketball, one of the younger Dutchmen saw me using 'Storing pour homme' shower gel and said "Je bent toch geen flikker? Dat spul is het parfum van homo's. Wist je dat niet?" (You're not a poof are you? That stuff is a gay perfume: didn't you know?). I replied that I was indeed gay. It made me realize that Jon must have known that we were using a gay trademark! 

Without Jon, I did not dare try the naturist facility, but consoled myself by thinking that it would probably be full of obese Germans. The whole week was tremendous fun, and although the group collectively drank quite a lot of superb Belgian beer in the evenings, there was so much healthy exercise that I was too tired of a night even to wank myself off. 

The only thing I missed was Jon, who would have loved every moment. One or two of my fellow group members made passes at me, but I tactfully warded them off. It was flattering to be approached though. I suspected that I would need all the practice I could get at avoiding male overtures when Camford's new Men's Fitness Centre was opened! 

In my letter to Jon, I had mistakenly quoted August 15 as the date of my return, but it was actually the date that the 'kuur' ended. I was back in Brussels in the evening, but had to stay overnight and take the first Eurostar to London the next morning. By noon I was on the train from Fennington to Camford, and I took a cab from the station to Fountain Street. 

Thinking that maybe Jon was out, I unlocked the front door and left my bags in the lobby. I climbed the stairs quietly and unlocked the door of the flat. I was greeted in the living room by a big bowl of white roses. I heard a sound, and there in an armchair was Jon, snoring gently. He was wearing only a T-shirt and his silk underpants, and there was 30 hours growth of beard on his face. A wave of tenderness swept over me, so intense as to make me feel faint. Here lay the man whom I regarded as the one who looked after me, who was strong and firm when I was rash and impetuous, who judged with his head rather than his prick. I suddenly realized that he needed me as much as I needed him, my role was to care for him as much as he did for me, and I remembered my promise: 'to love and to cherish, till death us do part.' My brother Jeroen had said when I told him about Jon and me being partners that he was glad that Jon had me to look after him, and I realized how little consideration I had given to my darling boyfriend when I had run away to Belgium. I approached him quietly and knelt down beside him and brushed my lips through his bristly beard until I reached his lips. I kissed his lips firmly but tenderly and he opened his wonderful brown eyes, which were red-rimmed through lack of sleep. I pulled away from his lips and he smiled sleepily. "Kiss me again, stud-boy!" was all that he said. 

Chapter 62 David Reunion and hot sex

I did as I was told, I pressed my lips to Jon's mouth, which he obligingly opened and my tongue entered, to engage in sparring with his own. I put my hand on his head and pressed him closer to my face. After five minutes of facial contact, I said "Don't move!" I went into the bathroom and found his razor and some 'Storing pour homme' shaving gel. I ran hot water into a bowl and carried it to where Jon was lying sleepily. 

"Kiss me again," he said. 

"Not until I've shaved you!" I said. I spread a towel over him, I soaked a flannel in the hot water, and wet his face. and rubbed the gel into his beard with my finger tips. I dipped the razor in the hot water and began to shave him, beginning with his upper lip and chin, before going on to his neck and cheeks. After each area had been shaved, I gave it a kiss, with another kiss on the top of his head. "I feel like Figaro!" I said as I rinsed his face with the flannel, and began to dry it. It was hardly a professional job: Figaro would have done better, but I had never shaved anyone except myself. However it served its purpose of freeing the lovemaking areas of bristle. 

"Fag-boy, that was one of the most erotic experiences you have ever given me!" he said, as he grabbed me on my return from the bathroom. During my absence from the room he had removed his T-shirt and underpants and was sitting there naked with a major hard-on sticking up between his legs. I immediately knelt down and engulfed his dick in my mouth. "Don't work too hard on it, pretty youth, I don't want to come in your mouth!" he said. So I just licked each little lump and vein and ran my tongue round the rim of his glans while he bent forward and buried his face in my hair. 

After a minute or two, he grabbed the box of condoms and opened the foil wrapper of one, which he gave me to slide on to his well-lubricated cock. He then picked me up and carried me to our bedroom, where he laid me on the bed on my back, and began to remove my clothes with great impatience, particularly when it came to getting my shoes and socks off. He dragged my jeans and underpants down together and I kicked them off over my bare feet. I was quite sweaty: I had not showered for 36 hours, but it did not worry him in the slightest. I opened my legs and he squeezed out some K-Y gel on to his fingers and inserted first one, then two and finally three into my anus to stretch the sphincter, which indeed had stiffened up though lack of penetration for the last couple of weeks. He wiped his fingers on the condom and started to kiss my belly-button. From there he worked downwards to my pubic bush and nuzzled it gently. The delicate touch of his lips on my belly nearly sent me crazy and my tool became almost instantly iron-hard. He licked it and moved down its length until he reached my scrotum. He licked the hairs on my left ball and took it gently into his mouth. The loving desire that he exuded seemed almost physical. I felt that some superhuman (divine?) power was passing from him to me. "You smell and taste delicious!" he muttered before attacking my other testicle in the same way. Although I know almost nothing about women's lovemaking techniques, I am certain that no woman could give such pleasure as Jon could give me. 

He then climbed on top of me and knelt between my wide open legs and lowered himself till we were face-to-face. He began to smother my face with his kisses. How I had missed those kisses in the last couple of weeks! Then he moved to my right nipple and began to nibble it gently, more with lips than teeth. Again I felt as if an electric current was passing into me. He slowly moved down the length of my body with his lips, before ending once more in my pubic hair. He licked the precome from the end of my cock before lifting himself up and lifting my legs to straddle his hips, one on each side. "Stand by for entry!" he whispered and pushed his man-stick gently into my hole. My sphincter was still stiff and resisted, but he persevered gently and eventually passed through the muscular ring and gained access to the treasure house of my gut. Once inside, he lowered himself and began to kiss my chest. His breath was warm and sweet, and again I realized what I had been missing in recent weeks, not just through absence, but also through stress. I just relaxed and let him start to fuck me. 

He increased the pace of his thrusting, and my state of relaxation was suddenly broken when he hit my prostate. I convulsed with pleasure and sensation and my precome oozed even more copiously. He slowed for a moment, paused and kissed my chest. His inadequately shaven chin scraped rather enjoyably against my nipple and I gave a grunt of pleasure. He resumed his thrusting with increased vigour, and I found the lower half of my body responding violently as small convulsions shook me and I shouted "Stud-boy, you're mine!" as I squirted my white blood over our two bellies. Jon's thrusting now began to get violent for perhaps twenty seconds and then he in turn came into the rubber inside me. Gasping for breath, he wrapped me in his arms, his dick still stiff inside me, and kissed me repeatedly. I pulled him down on top of me and began to kiss his face as his prick began to soften. 

When Jon finally and gently withdrew from my man-hole, I experienced a quite enjoyable sense of emptiness, just as if I had just passed a giant turd! I did not tell him that, as it was distinctly unromantic. But the emptiness was almost as good as the sense of fullness that I had had when he was inside me. He collapsed onto the bed beside me and grasped my right hand with his left. The chestnut-flower scent of my jism was all-pervasive, and we sniffed it with delight as we lay there, not speaking, each just enjoying the presence of the person we loved most and with whom we had just joined in an act of union that seemed almost sacramental. After five minutes or so I broke the silence. "Thank you, thank you, stud-boy, you are so good to me!" I said.

"Thank YOU, slut-boy, you are the best fuck in the whole universe!" he replied. 

"How do you know? Have you ever fucked an extraterrestrial being?" I asked. 

"Yes, you!" he answered facetiously, "sex with you is out of this world!" I giggled at the feeble joke and put my left arm round him, shuffled towards him and began to kiss him. He also began giggling. "That little squirt of yours just now obviously wasn't enough, in spite of the mess it made!" he said, "I guess that you want a turn!" "Quite right!" I replied. "So you'd better get that thing off your dick and find a flannel to mop up some of this spunk!" 

Chapter 63 Jon We are still both hot and randy 

The desire that had, albeit unconsciously, built up over the last two weeks had not been satisfied by a single ejaculation. David was determined to have his way with me. From what he told me later, it was clear that he had gained in fitness from a week's abstinence from alcohol and a week's vigorous exercise at Spa. More lube and condoms were forthcoming, and we reversed our positions and David began to lube me up, chatting as he did so. "Jon, I missed you so much while I was away. A week with 100% female company that I was not allowed to talk to, then a week with 100% male company, which was OK, but with too much talk of women and football, both of which as you know I find boring. But you would have loved Spa. We MUST go there together sometime soon. Your French would come in useful." 

"I'm glad that you find football so boring!" I said, "Otherwise you would be sermonizing to me in bed about the offside rule!" 

David, having put a condom on, instead of kneeling upright, lay down on top of me. "I just want to lie here for a few minutes and feel the warmth of your body, and your heartbeat," he said. "It felt so cold in bed without you in my arms." It was so nice to feel his warm and sweet breath on my face, and I kissed him repeatedly. After a few minutes, to my relief he knelt up. His weight was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He moved backwards slightly and aligned his iron-hard dick up for entry to my arsehole. He knew that the size of his member meant that he had to take special care to enter me, but we were both well lubed up and he slipped in with only gentle pushing. He then bent forward and kissed me again several times before starting fucking movements. I reached up and stroked his chest tweaking the hair round his nipples with my fingers. He smiled blissfully and continued thrusting, until after five minutes or so (time is not something that you think about during lovemaking), he came violently and shot his load repeatedly within me, muttering my name as he did so. He then bent forward again and smothered the upper part of my body with kisses before gently withdrawing from my back hole. 

He turned over sideways and lay beside me. He got hold of my hand, raised it to his mouth and began kissing it. He sucked each of my fingers in turn. "You've no idea how much I've missed kissing you in the last couple of weeks!" he said. "There's something I want to ask you. Why didn't you tell me that 'Storing pour homme' is a gay trademark? You let me think that it was just a scent that you liked. I'm extremely glad that I refused to wear it at work. It would have shrieked 'Poof' to anyone recognizing it!" 

I grinned, "I thought that as an exponent of gay pride, you would be proud to wear it. It's not advertised as a gay perfume, but its use is widespread among male homosexuals."

"A laboratory is not the place to proclaim individualism," David replied, "Nobody wants to work next to a guy in tight pink jeans and a leather jacket. Nobody wants to listen to a classical singer who looks and behaves like Boy George. I'm proud of being gay, but I don't like camp clothes or behaviour. I'm an opponent of Section 28, because I just want gays to be seen as ordinary people, not extraordinary ones!" 

"David, David, instead of preaching the love of God to me in bed, you're now proclaiming gay politics! I think that I prefer God-talk to politics. And be honest, you know how much I like the scent of 'Storing pour homme' and I think that you do as well, otherwise you would not have agreed to wear it! Let's not get into violent argument after such a wonderful few hours together. I love you, even without perfume. Indeed your own scent is a thousand times better than 'Storing pour homme.' It's just that 'Storing' enhances your natural scent. Give me a kiss, please!" He obliged, very, very affectionately. 

Then he said, "Jon, I owe you an apology. I really should not have gone off like that without telling you before I went. I have subjected you to needless worry and concern. I really am very sorry," and he hugged me and kissed me again. "Before we go to get something to eat," he continued, "I just want to go into the spare bedroom to say a prayer of thanks. Would you like to come with me and hold my hand, or would you prefer to wait here? You've got to get dressed in any case." 

To my amazement, I heard myself saying, "I'll come with you, my love." We went into the spare room and David knelt down and opened a book. I sat on the bed beside him and held his hand. He prayed silently for about three or four minutes, and then started to recite something from the book. It began 'We praise thee, O God...' and went on for quite a long time 'all the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting. To thee all angels cry aloud..' and ended after quite some minutes with 'O Lord, in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded.' It was quite moving and beautiful, though I did not understand all the words. David told me later that it was an ancient Latin hymn of thanks to God called the 'Te Deum laudamus.'

David looked up at me with tears in his eyes and smiled. "God loves you, Jon. Never forget that! Now go and get dressed. Don't bother about showering, we can do that when we've had some food. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast in Brussels at 7 o'clock British time!" Ten minutes later at 4 in the afternoon, we were eating in the bar of the Sparrowhawk, washing our food down with some excellent draught beer. 

Chapter 64 David The Zwolldijk International Singing Competition 

Late in August, what would be my last paper was accepted, and I was ready to begin writing my Ph.D. thesis. I was going to use the same pattern of submission as Jon had used, with a series of published papers preceded by a general introduction and followed by a concluding discussion. However, the thesis had to contain a certificate from Charlie Crabtree to testify as to the proportion of the work that I had personally devised and carried out, so that it was clearly marked out from other contributing authors to the papers, and this could only be done once the thesis was complete. 

After a week in the library, I had identified the major references that I needed to write the Introduction, and I got photocopies made. It cost quite a lot of money, but it was worth it to make me essentially free of the library so that I could work at home. I said to Jon that since he only needed to be in the lab three days per week, why did we not spend the remaining four days at Rockwell's Barn? So we did, and as the weather was warm, we could sunbathe, nude if we wished, on the rooftop sun terrace of the house. Of course, I had to be in Camford for my lessons with Marcello, which were now weekly until the Zwolldijk Competition in mid-September. Both Jon's and my funding would finish at the end of September, but Jon's funding was to be continued on a part-time basis and he could work at home on the computer, and this would be compatible with his nanny job with the Crabtrees. My future was uncertain until after Zwolldijk. 




David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 03



The Zwolldijk Competition was different from my two previous competitions. Class entries were by genre, and competitors could if they wished elect to compete in more than one class. There was no overall final with the winners of the different classes competing against one another. I had elected to enter in both the Opera and Oratorio classes, but not lieder, Marcello said I was not yet experienced enough for that. We were hard at work on several new pieces. The other difference was that in the finals of the Opera and Oratorio classes, there would be an orchestral accompaniment by the Zwolldijklands Philharmonisch Orkest, with a day set aside for orchestral rehearsals. I asked Jon to come with me to Zwolldijk, as I needed the support. Marcello unfortunately had to be in Italy at that time, so he asked me to supply would-be impresarios with his card for later negotiations. In that way too, we could hopefully keep several different offers open at the same time. We knew that after the festival there were only a few days before Jon was due to start working for the Crabtrees as nanny, so we went to the Netherlands a few days earlier to stay with my uncle in Amersfoort, a visit that I had promised to make the year before. 

We flew from London-Stanstead to Schiphol and took the train to Amersfoort. My uncle and aunt were delighted to see us and we took them out for a meal on the Sunday evening when the café was not open. They said that they had not seen my little brother Jeroen for several years, and I said that I would see if I could get him to come and see them. He was quite old enough to travel on his own and could probably at 16 do some vacation work for them if they wished, even though he did not speak Dutch. I told them that he had done well in his O Level exams and that Jon had given him a substantial monetary present to encourage him in his career hopes to become an engineer. I told them too that the boy was not gay like his brother. 

Zwolldijk is a large Dutch town in the northern province of Zwolldijksland. It is notorious for being the only Dutch town of its size without a railway service, being reached by bus from Groningen. We had made advance bookings at a four-star hotel in the town, and arrived the day before the competition. We looked at the final programme and discovered that Nat had also entered the festival, but not Mike. 

I'm not this time going to describe all the competition details. I will just record that I won the Oratorio section and came second in the Operatic section. Nat came third in the latter class. The other positions were won by women. Although I had never performed with a full-scale orchestra before, Marcello had given me a lot of help and useful tips in my final lessons, using an orchestra-only CD. Accordingly, the orchestral finals went well. The provincial Dutch orchestra had a lot of helpful and experienced musicians in it, and what might have been a stressful ordeal became almost enjoyable. I sang 'Il mio tesoro', 'Recondità armonia', and arias from 'Messiah' and Mendelssohn's 'Elijah'. In my speech of thanks from the competitors after winning the Oratorio section, I was able to thank the organizers and judges in both Dutch and English, and I jokingly apologized for not being able to speak Zwolldijks, the regional language (according to some people almost as similar to English as it is to Dutch). I was approached by several impresarios, and there were offers of a number of small principal operatic roles and some permanent chorus jobs. There was even an offer of a one-off recording job, but not an ongoing contract. I gave all the impresarios Marcello's cards, and told them that he would be in touch as soon as he got back from Italy. 

Chapter 65 David An intermediate period in our lives

The minute that we were back in Camford, I got frantically to work on my thesis. By mid-November, the Introduction was nearly finished, the draft having been approved by Charlie. Jon had started work as the Crabtrees' part-time nanny (the word 'manny' for a male nanny had not at that time been coined). Jon was far better qualified than I was for the job. He could prepare tasty meals quickly and without making a mess, he was a confident driver in taking Martin to school, he dealt gently but firmly with disciplinary problems, and the children rapidly got very fond of him. It took him a while to get used to working on his project only two days a week, but he was now so experienced, and the results were coming quite quickly, that his boss Dr ES was very happy with the new arrangement. We both knew also that being a nanny was good preparation for fatherhood. The other big change was that my performance fees were no longer being used to buy music, they were now a contribution to our monthly household budget in addition to the £50 per week that Jon had negotiated with the Crabtrees as his 'nannying' fee, slightly more than I had been offered! When Jon was working at home, to give him full advantage of his time, I insisted that we ate out, usually at the Sparrowhawk. The other nights I survived on take-aways or instant supermarket meals, with an occasional evening of 'real' cooking, involving sausages or spaghetti. Jon did cook for us at the weekend, when we were not in bed!

Marcello had lined up for me quite a lot of engagements, approximately one a month, in all parts of the country, and even the odd one in Holland or Belgium. He was also fixing up bookings for the following year. What was great about Marcello was that he did all the fee negotiating, not just for me, but also for Brian. That was an area where as a beginner in the business, I had no idea of how much to ask. During the summer would be my four-recital tour with Thomas Atkin, no fee, but all expenses met. I had deferred the master-classes that were the prize for the tenor section at Llandewi to the following year. The four recital performances would be in Cardiff, the Wigmore Hall in London, in Frankfurt and in Milan. The major engagement for the following year, which would require a huge amount of practice, was tenor soloist in Haydn's 'Creation.' Fortunately so far, all the oratorio roles that Marcello had negotiated for me involved performances in English, rather than German. There was also an operatic role at the Royal Bristol Opera.

Jon helped me a lot by reading my thesis draft during his evening babysitting sessions at the Crabtrees. I had hoped to get the thesis Discussion done by Christmas, but the distractions caused by singing engagements at that time of the year, delayed things. I was no longer singing in either College or Bach Choirs, but I was still busy with learning new stuff in my sessions with Marcello. The partnership with Brian Shaw proved extremely good. Marcello had insisted on hearing Brian play for me, and emphasized how important the accompanist's role was, especially in lieder. To my delight, he has extremely complimentary about Brian's skills, and I in turn found Brian a great source of support and encouragement. We were able to use Brian's car to go to many engagements, which was useful because Jon needed the 4x4 to drive Martin to school on the days when he was 'nannying'. Brian agreed to accompany me in the two recitals that I had been engaged for in Holland and Belgium, which were in January and February. There was of course no question of Jon coming along. Dorothea's confinement was due at the beginning of February. In the meantime, she was staying with a woman friend in Oxbridge. 

Christmas was a subdued event. Jon and I went to Loxton, but only for four days, and we were back in Camford for the New Year. Jeroen had become a tall and fairly self-confident young man and was working hard at his sixth-form work, with a part-time job on Fridays and Saturdays at the local pub as a waiter. I feverishly resumed work on the thesis. The Introduction was now complete and I had made a good start on the Discussion. With luck, it would soon be done. 

At the end of January, Brian and I left for Nijmegen in the the Netherlands, where I was doing a recital. It did not require massive preparation, as all the numbers were already in my repertoire. Because of possible problems with the weather, we were travelling by air, having booked cheap tickets some months before. We flew from London-Stanstead to Amsterdam-Schiphol and continued by train to Nijmegen with a change of train in Utrecht. We were to stay two nights and we had been booked in at a very comfortable, old-fashioned hotel. 

We dined alone the first night and I took the opportunity to talk to Brian and find out more about him. He was a retired widower, with two daughters, one of whom lived in Fitchey, the other in London. As a young man he had passed grade 8 piano exams, and had wanted to go on to music school, but the financial circumstances of his family forced him to take a job as a bank clerk. Then he married and raised a family and had never had the opportunity to do more than play the piano as a hobby. The first time I heard him play, I realized that not only was he a skilled pianist, but he had that essential knack that accompanists need, to adjust his playing to the pace and volume set by the singer. Though no professional, he had all the skills of a fully trained accompanist. In fact he was streets ahead of Marcello in that respect. Like me, he was grateful to Marcello for negotiating his fees. It seemed to me that there was a case in recitals for me to refuse an offer with a locally provided accompanist, and insist that I be allowed always to bring Brian, appropriately remunerated of course. The collaboration was good for both of us, and I could see that Brian was beginning to develop the same sort of fatherly feelings for me as Marcello had. 

The recital went extremely well, the members of the local committee were very welcoming and hospitable, and the audience received my performance with enormous applause. It was particularly pleasant for me to be able to talk in my second native language, and I found myself wondering whether Jon and I should think of establishing a residence in the Netherlands. 

Chapter 66 Translation of a review in the 'Nijmeegsche Courant' of January 29, 19-- 

"Uitstekende voorstelling van liederen door Engelse rijzende ster-Tenor" (Excellent performance of arias by English rising star tenor) "The young English tenor David Scarborough, accompanied by pianist Brian Shaw gave a superb performance last Friday evening in the Nijmeegse Voorstellingzaal. Operatic arias by Händel, Mozart, Verdi, Donizetti and Puccini were punctuated by tenor items from 'Messiah' and Beethoven's 'Christus am Ölberge.' The soloist is a gifted newcomer on the operatic scene: he won first prize in the oratorio class and second prize in the operatic class in last year's Zwolldijk Singing Competition. He has not as yet sung his first professional role on stage, but the quality of his magnificent voice promises a very successful future for this young artist, of whom we hope to see more in the coming years. In particular, his performance in the Händel, Mozart and Beethoven numbers was specially remarkable." 

Chapter 67 David Luke Cornelis Scarborough is born

On February 6, 19--, my sister Dorothea gave birth in Camford Maternity Hospital to a baby boy, weighing 3 kg. Jon, myself and Dorothea had agreed that a boy should be given the names Luke Cornelis and he was registered with his mother's surname of Scarborough. All the Scarboroughs have one Dutch first name. I am David Maurits, Dorothea is Dorothea Johanna and Jeroen is Jeroen Edmund. After a few days, Dorothea and baby Luke were collected by my father and taken to Loxton, where they were going to live until shortly before Dorothea had weaned the baby and left for Italy to take up her Ph.D. Studies. With Dorothea's full co-operation, Tim's lawyer colleague made application to the Family Court for myself as next of kin and my partner Jon to be appointed guardians of the new baby, giving us parental rights and the right to petition for full adoption within five years. 

Tim's colleague must have prepared her case very well, because the application was granted without any objections being made that we were unsuitable for a parental role. I was surprised and relieved that there had been no objections from the Camfordshire children's department, who were notorious at the time for being hostile to children being brought up solely by men. To me this suggested that the presence of a skilled and experienced lawyer had been very valuable, and made me (as usual) deeply grateful to my lover that his wealth had secured for us our hearts' desire without hassle and distress. 

At Easter, instead of going to France to visit Jon's mother, we went to Loxton, and Edward came with us, and by agreement with the vicar, at dawn on Easter Day, during the rites of the Dawn Mass, he baptized our new son. The godfathers were Jeroen and Edward, and the godmother was Caterina for whom my mother stood proxy. The only persons with dry eyes during the ceremony were Dorothea and Jon. My parents and myself and even my brother Jeroen were all in tears of emotion when our little boy was presented to God. After the service, we all went back home for a champagne breakfast, with bacon and eggs cooked by Jon, who had celebrated his thirty-first birthday only a couple of weeks before. It was a good age for him to become a co-father. During the meal my father stood up, and after we had drunk Luke Cornelis's health, presented Jon and myself with books on child-care and parenthood, and reminded us that we only had six months or so to familiarize ourselves with the contents! My mother had told us also that in the event of any kind of crisis after Luke had come to live with us in Camford or Ixton, she would be instantly available to come to our aid. Jeroen was thrilled that he had become an uncle.

In a way, it was a dual celebration, because before we left Camford, I had submitted my finished thesis, with the required certificate from Charlie, to the University Registry. Looking back, we could not help but recall the circumstances of four years before, when Jon had submitted his thesis and got so drunk that he had made passes at our two gay friends, Tom and Steve at the same time in a public place. Jon said that he still felt guilty when he thought of it. 

After breakfast, when Luke had been fed, I persuaded Dorothea to come for a short walk. It was a warm spring morning, and I thanked her for giving Jon and me the greatest gift that we ever could have, and took her rather clumsily in my arms and kissed her. She grinned mischievously and looked happier than I had seen her for several years. "There's no need to thank me," she said, "I ought to be thanking both you and Jon for enabling me to bounce back and resume academic life after an unbelievable moment of total stupidity on my part! Luke's conception only took half an hour: I did not even spend the night with the guy! But I could NEVER have had an abortion." 

"You'll have plenty of opportunities to see your son who is also our son, in the future. Because we are keeping him in the family, it's the best of both worlds. You can see that Mum and Dad are also thrilled at the outcome. If he had been adopted outside the family, they might never have seen their grandson again." 

Chapter 68 Jon David's Ph.D. Examination

The Pharmacology department had moved speedily to appoint examiners, and David was summoned to defend his thesis late in May. The examination was to take place in a small room in the department, and while the occasion was theoretically open to any member of the university to attend, it was the custom for no-one other than the candidate and the examiners to be present. I set off to escort him from Fountain Street to the department, and we held hands as we walked through Jesserod Meadow. The sun was shining brilliantly on the honey-yellow stonework of the colleges, and the aura of eight hundred years of academic tradition was almost tangibly perceptible, as we strolled gently in the sunshine, Jon rather self-conscious in sub-fusc suit and white tie, the sleeves of his B.A. gown billowing behind him in the breeze. It was 11-30 in the morning, and the meadow was quiet apart from the occasional dog-walker. "I had better have a quick word with Charlie before I go in," said David. 

We went into the building together and sought out Charlie Crabtree, David's doctoral supervisor, in his little office off his laboratory. He shook hands with David and wished him luck. I then said to him, "Good luck, David," and shook him by the hand. He replied with a very quick kiss, before leaving the room to the sound of students and technicians wishing him the best. 

"Sit down for a few minutes, Jon," said Charlie, "and then we'll go and have coffee. How do you see your and Jon's futures, assuming that he passes today?" 

"Big changes to the plans that we cherished for the past three years," I replied. "I will definitely be leaving my job with you on 30 September, because by then I will have become full-time carer for our baby son, Luke. I will be full-time in that role until Christmas. I have taken three month's leave from my part-time post-doc job to give us time to get used to being parents. By then we hope to hire a nanny or other child carer to work for us two days per week to enable me to resume my home-based computer work. David will be engaged in various part-time singing engagements, some of which will require his absence from Camford for several days at a time, for example operatic roles in Bristol, and hopefully soon in London, as well as frequent recitals and one-off oratorio performances. He has an important recital tour in July and August with Thomas Atkin that could make or break his career, depending on how many engagements he gets offered. I am afraid that I have to tell you that the need to support our family means that David can have no future as a scientist. He is obliged to earn our family living as a professional singer, and I have to assume the role of mother figure for our son. Personally, although I regret the loss to science that this may mean, he has an obligation to make the best use of another of his God-given talents, his voice." 

"I understand from what David has told me in confidence, that you have considerable private wealth. Why don't you use this to allow you both to pursue your scientific careers by paying for full-time child care?" 

"Charlie, you are a man with children. Would you and your wife have paid someone else to bring up your babies? Of course not. You know, as we do that the first five years of a child's life are the time when it most needs its parents. If that's true for families with a father and mother, how much more must it be true for a family with two co-fathers? Our son has to grow up feeling happy and comfortable without a mother. Any kind of female carer would inevitably end up as a mother-figure for such a child. We could have provided that by letting Luke be brought up by his grandmother. But David's mother as well as his sister felt that as we both hoped eventually to bring up a family, now was a unique and unrepeatable opportunity. His sister is not going to repeat the experience of letting herself be casually shagged by an Italian sexual adventurer! I had the experience of a mother who by her personality made me feel alienated from her, and it has left me starved of affection. We intend to supply little Luke with all the love that a father and mother can give a child, even if it permanently damages our career prospects." 

"But surely David doesn't need to leave you and your son at home to go gadding off round the world singing?" 

"Charlie, the chances that he has to delight others with the beauty and skills of his voice will not be available in five years' time. The offers that he is getting now will not be kept open. It is now or never for his career. He hates the idea of being away from our son for days on end, but there is no alternative, except that of treating parenthood as a rich man's hobby that we can afford just because I have an unearned income. God did not put either of us into the world to live on wealth accumulated by others. We are morally obliged to earn our own living and provide for our son out of it. The days when music and science were hobbies to occupy a man of wealth are over. We owe it to other people and to God to make use of the gifts that we have been blessed with to earn our living. The only thing that we regret is that we both have had our roles thrust upon us without any choice. David will be breadwinner, I the home-loving carer, at least until Luke goes to school. We both have to learn the childrearing skills of a mother, without being able to offer our baby the breast that seals the bond between mother and child." 




David's Final Graduate Year Ch. 03



"You have mentioned God three times in what you have just told me. I thought that you were an atheist." 

"If I were, I would not have been able to hear your children say their prayers when I am babysitting for you. I now believe in a loving God in whom we mortals live and move and have our being. David hopes soon to convince me about God's role in Jesus Christ." 

"Thank you for sharing that with me. Shall we go for coffee?" We went to the small room that served the pharmacology department as a coffee room. One of the technicians maintained the commercial machine that dispensed real Italian coffee. A technician came in to say that David had asked her to take in three cups of coffee to them at 12-30. Charlie said that although he had work to do, he would wait a further half-hour to see if the examiners would finish. By 1 pm they were still tied up, so Charlie went back to his room and invited me to join him in a spare sandwich. We ate the sandwiches between us, and I then returned to the coffee room to wait. 

Just before 2 pm, David came out. "The examiners have asked me to wait outside for a few minutes so that they can discuss their verdict," he said. After five minutes, he was called back in and the three of them came out a few minutes later, all wreathed in smiles. David threw his arms round me and kissed me quickly but passionately, a gesture that I hoped did not discomfit the examiners. "You can now call me 'Doctor'!" he said. He then proceeded to introduce me to the two examiners. One was the Professor of Pharmacology himself, the other was a Professor of Organic Chemistry from Oxbridge. Both, like David, were wearing academic dress in accordance with university regulations. "I gather from David's behaviour that he has passed successfully," I said. "Yes, it was an excellent thesis," said the Oxbridge Professor. The word had now reached Charlie, who came in and started talking to the examiners, and David and I took our leave. We went into the lab, and everyone gathered round to shake David's hand. "Five o'clock at the Whale and Wheelbarrow!" he said, "or as soon after work as you can manage. Jon and I will be there from 4-30." 

We hastened back to Fountain Street, leaving the examiners to complete their paperwork. We locked the door behind us. It was now 3 pm. David dragged me into the bedroom and started to undress me. "We've got just over an hour to fuck ourselves silly!" he said with a grin. "We're celebrating our anniversary of May 12 as well as my successful viva. I want you, stud-boy, I want you NOW!" He continued to remove my clothes, he grabbed lube and a loose condom from a drawer beside the bed, and threw his B.A. gown and hood on a chair, tore off his white tie, dropped it on top of the gown, and feverishly removed his shoes, socks, sub-fusc jacket and trousers and dumped them in a corner. Stark naked, with his rock-hard dick projecting like a bayonet, he grabbed my naked body and enwrapped me tightly in his arms and began to kiss me, forcing my lips apart with his tongue and penetrating my mouth with it. 

I responded equally passionately and we stood locked together, feeling and enjoying the warmth and scent of each other's bodies. The pleasure of contact with my Ganymede's body was just as great and overwhelming as it had been that first time seven years ago on that same bed. Seven delicious, mind-blowing, heavenly years of love, companionship, joy, sympathy and desire. Seven years of sweaty, come-spraying, lustful, tender, joyful passion. Seven years of deep, prayerful, awesome consciousness of the working of an outside power transferring love as well as semen between us. Seven years of deepening understanding of each other's physiology, of deepening joy and of awareness of the goodness of God our Redeemer working His miracle of love. 

David led me to the bed and I lay on my back. He opened me up and lubed me, pulled the condom onto his cock, rubbed the rubber with lube and gently but firmly pushed his tool up my arsehole. He began to fuck me, gently at first, but with increasing roughness, bending and kissing my chest and nipples while I responded by arching my belly and pushing it against his manhood. Presently he came violently and shot his man-juice into the rubber within me. "I love you my darling boy, more than anyone except God and our son, maybe even more than them. I owe all my knowledge of the world to you, and nothing gives me greater joy than knowing that I am yours for ever." He bent forward and kissed me before gently withdrawing his shrinking dick from my hole. He then lay down on his back beside me and whispered, "Your turn now!" 

My cock was standing to attention as I lay there and I reached and grabbed a condom. I gestured to David to squat over me with his arse facing me, so that I could lube up his hole and perineum. He then turned round and lowered himself carefully on to my man-pole. We both worked like mad, pushing and thrusting and withdrawing until I finally grabbed him round the waist and shot my load with a shout. I reached up and put my arms round him and rubbed my face on his chest. "It's such a shame that all those genes of ours are going to waste!" I said. "If we have another baby, let's find a surrogate mother." For once we both felt disinclined to talk, and we lay beside one another in loving silence before showering hastily and getting dressed. "They will try and get you totally wasted tonight, you know!" I warned David as we left the flat, "and you must get something to eat, even if only a sandwich, when we get to the pub. You missed your lunch."

Both of us knew that a major period of our lives was now nearing an end. With a new career for David, a home-making role for me, and the care of new life in baby Luke, we would become a family rather than a couple. More time would be spent in Ixton and less in Camford. I could work from Ixton on my lab project and the development of electronic mail would make data transmission easier. David would only need to be in Camford for his continuing lessons with Marcello, and Rockwell's Barn would become our main home. Twenty years after this story, our baby boy, by then an adult, would be chief witness at our Civil Partnership ceremony, when our union would become legally recognized and Dr Jonathan Singleton, Fellow of St Boniface's College and Dr David Scarborough, internationally acclaimed tenor, would be publicly united.

THE END