2 comments/ 5973 views/ 0 favorites Tom and Luke Get Their Degrees By: WittePiet [Tom and Luke's Final Year Pt. 01 should be read first] Chapter Twenty-four Guilt and regret About 4 pm, my cellphone rang. It was Francis Eglantine. "Tom, I can see you for a maximum of 25 minutes just before Evening Prayer in Chapel. Come to my rooms at 6 prompt." "Thank you, Francis, I'll be there." I said. When I arrived at Francis's rooms, I knocked on the door and was immediately admitted. One look at my face prompted Francis without asking me to pour a glass of Madeira. I gulped down half of it and said, "I have done something extremely foolish, which I now bitterly regret. Luke refuses to speak to me. I have hurt him severely." And I went on to tell him what had happened and how Luke had reacted. I told him how sorry I felt for dishonouring our relationship and how I wanted to seek God's forgiveness for my selfish weakness. I said that I was more confident that God would forgive me than that Luke would. "Don't fall into the trap of trying to get God on your side!" Francis said. "I owe everything in my life in Camford to that boy!" I said, "I've disgraced myself in the eyes of the one person in the world whose opinion and love I value more than life itself. I would do anything to get his love back. I hate myself!" "Tom, you must let him know how you feel. I'm very reluctant to get involved with the two of you, but if you can't sort things out before Sunday Evensong, I will have word with Luke. In the meantime, do you want to make a formal confession? God will help you to make the necessary decisions and take the right action." I made my confession, and Francis absolved and blessed me, and I went with him to Evening Prayer, where I was able to admit publicly that I had 'done those things that I ought not to have done' and really felt myself to be a 'miserable offender.' I did not go into dinner. I did not feel like talking to Steve and Alex, and I sat down and made another attempt to write a letter to Luke. Chapter Twenty-five A letter from Tom to Luke Darling Luke I am SO sorry. Please read this letter. Surely you can't hate me. I love you more than anyone in the world, and by offending you I have put myself into an abyss of misery and regret by a moment of stupid self-indulgent sensuousness, with a boy for whom I feel no love or physical attraction. What's even worse, I did it on your birthday! Luke, I miss you so much, I have lost your respect through my own stupidity. I just hope that I haven't lost your love, although I admit that I don't deserve it. Can you forgive me? I mustn't upset you. Your exams are coming up within six months and I would kill myself if I felt that I had ruined your academic performance. I will give anything and everything that I have to regain your respect, though I don't really deserve it. I've been to see Francis and made my confession. For gross weakness and selfishness, I feel I don't deserve the name of Christian. I long to be in your arms, I ache to feel your loving presence beside me. Please don't give up all the happiness that we might enjoy together if you forgive me. I can't stay and work in Camford without you. You are more to me than anyone or anything. Please, please talk to me and forgive me. I will do anything that you ask. I will love you for EVER, even if you don't forgive me. I regard myself as yours for the rest of my life. With all my deepest love. Tom Chapter Twenty-six Reconciliation The evening went by. I felt slightly hungry and went out and bought a pizza, which I ate in our room with a cup of coffee made on my darling boy's espresso machine. By 11 pm, it did not look as if he was coming back, so I rang Jon at the Fountain Street flat. He confirmed that Luke was there and was going to spend the night there. "I've not spoken to him about the two of you, and he hasn't said much to me except that he didn't want to go back to college tonight. He seems very unhappy." I put my letter in an envelope and pushed it under his bedroom door. I then went to bed. I did not sleep well. I found myself thinking of all the good times that we had had together, and how we had seemed to be destined to be partners for life. The thought of never feeling his delicious lips again was heart-wrenching. Eventually about 3 am, I fell into an uneasy sleep. Around 8 am, I was awakened by the unexpected feeling of being kissed. I opened my eyes to see the brown eyes of my darling Luke filled with tears a few inches from my face. I reached out my arms and grabbed him and pulled him down on top of me. "Luke, my sweet love, I am SO sorry for what I did. I ruined your birthday. Please forgive me, I'm desolate without you. Please come back to me!" "My darling Tom, I've just read your letter. I couldn't believe that I could have upset you as much as you did me, I thought that you would just plod on being your own stoical self. I certainly forgive you, and I want my birthday present NOW!" Luke disengaged himself from my grasp, stood up, and began to tear his clothes off. "I came back in time to make my bed look as if it had been slept in and to get the breakfast that I've paid for! Then I found your letter. I couldn't believe that you would take so much trouble for me! But fuck breakfast, let's have a shag!" Now naked, he climbed into my bed and started to nibble my nipples. I could feel my cock steadily stiffening. I ran my hands over his delicious arse, and the feeling of his smooth hairless skin nearly sent me crazy. I could feel his hard dick pressed against my belly, and the sensation of his warm, pulsing, living body enwrapped in my arms nearly made me faint with love and desire. "Would you like to ride me?" I asked. "Oooh, yes, please!" he replied. He reached out to the bedside drawer and pulled out the lube tube and the condom box. After the necessary preparation, he squatted down facing me and slowly lowered his rear end until his delicious hole engaged with my rock-hard tool. I entered him without much resistance and began to push myself up and down and he did the same. I gazed in admiration at the sweet face that I feared I had lost for ever. Luke's look of concentration told me that he was doing his best to give me pleasure and I tried my best to make sure that I hit his prostate with my upward movements. After a glorious few minutes, I came violently with a shuddering gasp. As the blood slowly ebbed out of my shrinking tool, Luke lay down beside me. I put my arm round him and said "Please stay with me, wonder-boy. After a rest, it'll be your turn to shag me. We've got till about 11 before the bedder comes in, so we've plenty of time for more, and then we can go out and have breakfast. Then I've got to go to the lab, and we can't have you missing any more lectures!" After ten minutes of cosy kissing and cuddling, I opened my legs and Luke got to work with the lube. When he gently pushed his monster man-stick into my hole, I relaxed in delight, and he got to work with great energy. I think that it was the best fucking that he had ever given me. His huge dick hit my prostate with nearly every thrust that he made. I was in gay heaven! Looking into his sweet brown eyes, I could never be in any doubt that he still loved me even after what I had done. After he had shot his load of man-seed deep within my gut, and we were lying side by side gently embracing, I said to him, "Luke, I feel like the woman who was a sinner in Luke's gospel. The worse the sin that is forgiven, the greater is the sinner's love for the forgiver. I think that stupid moment when I stuck my tongue into Alex's mouth may have been the worst thing I have ever done. But you have forgiven me, and I love you more than ever! I don't deserve your love!" "Tom, no-one deserves God's love, but He offers it freely to all, whether they ask for it or not! But although you hurt me momentarily, I love you more than I did before. You have proved your love (not that I ever doubted it) by your sweet apology. I would be a pretty poor servant of God if I couldn't follow His example of forgiving you! I think it was a bit womanish and hysterical to behave the way I did. If I had been as drunk as you, I might well have done the same thing as you did. But it's over now, let's get shaved and go out and find some breakfast!" We went to a fancy new eating place in the the High Street called with typical Camford whimsy 'The Stainless Steel Kettle: Traditional food with a modern face' and I ate a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage, mushrooms and hash browns and drank three cups of coffee, holding Luke's hand under the table. Luke did not eat as much, but then he had had dinner cooked for him by Jon the night before, and all I had eaten all day was a sandwich and a miserable takeaway pizza. We then parted company, Luke heading for the Language Institute, I walking with a joyful spring in my step along Laboratory Road to the University science area. My mood was a total contrast to the misery that I had felt on that walk the day before, although the January day was just as cold. I silently thanked God for the strength of human love. Luke told me that night that his tutorial session with Dr Cagliari had gone extremely well. The whole hour had been exclusively in Italian, and he had joined in the discussion with amazing fluency. Obviously he was just as happy as I was. That evening was the chapel choir practice, and I smiled proudly at Dr Eglantine when he popped in briefly to hear our final rendering of Purcell's 'Rejoice in Lord, alway' and he gave me a grin of relief. I expect he thought 'at least I'm off the hook from needing to sort out that incoherent Northerner!' The following night, I was at a concert with Margaret, and I gave her a very abbreviated account of my foolish behaviour and its consequences. She was not surprised, she said that she and Sarah had a bust-up at least once a term. "Do you intend to become life-partners?" I asked her. "I'm not yet sure," she said. The only thing I do know for sure is that I will never marry a man!" "This is a bit cheeky of me to ask, you know that I would never make a pass at you, even though I think you are very sweet. Could you have sex with a man?" "I don't know. The thought of a man lying between my legs and sticking his big fat dick into me doesn't appeal, but maybe I haven't yet met a man that appealed to me in that way. All men want it, so it would have to be someone very special for me to let them have it! I'm not very keen on the smell of men, even when they use a fragrance like you do." "That fragrance is not designed to attract women, it's designed to appeal to men! But I'm not keen on the scent of women, either. Maybe that's what marks us out as gay." Chapter Twenty-seven The Candlemas term Early in the Candlemas term, Luke decided that he should be looking at possible future jobs. As our futures were closely bound to one another, we had to keep our career planning in step. He went to see Marcello Fabioni and asked him how he should go about getting a job in Italy. Luke loved Marcello and Caterina. They had been like second grandparents to him, and Caterina was his godmother. Marcello said "I know just the type of job that you need. Something that involves music, people and your linguistic skills, and something typically Italian that you would scarcely get in this country: opera house management. There are practically no training courses in that area, certainly not in England, it's something that you learn on the job. I have contacts in opera houses all over Italy: I'll see what I can do. When would you be able to start?" "Not before January next year," Luke said. He had to allow time for me to get my Master's degree completed. "OK," said Marcello, "that's a good timescale for looking now. Everything in the international musical world is set up years in advance. I'll see what I can do!" Our life continued that term in its usual fashion. Sometimes I had to spend long hours in the lab. Although we were not encouraged as juniors to stay in the lab beyond 5-30 pm, the work I was engaged in sometimes demanded a few hours in the evening, supervised for safety purposes by one of Dr Mills's postdocs, of whom he had a team of three, and four Ph.D. students. I knew that he would have liked me to stay on and join his team, but he knew my commitment to Luke meant my departure for Italy. If I had to spend the odd evening in the lab, Luke would come and eat with me at the Whale and Wheelbarrow, a pub in Laboratory Road, quite close to the chemistry lab. Occasionally too, he would come and have lunch with me in the chemistry canteen. I was making good progress with my project, already my name was on a paper in press as co-author. There's nothing like being a published author to stimulate hard work and creativity! Prior to partial retirement from artistic work, Luke's father David was doing a tour of the United Kingdom, which involved recitals in Reading, Bristol, Plymouth, Cardiff, Swansea, Birmingham, Camford, Oxbridge, and eight other places. He was due to perform in Camford on Wednesday of the fifth week of the Candlemas term. We obtained three tickets, for Luke, Margaret and myself. The Camford recital consisted of two parts, the first half various Schubert songs, the second half arias by Mozart and Händel. I got very excited about this and in conversation with Jon, discovered that David would be three days in Camford, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, before leaving for Birmingham. As Thursday was the undergraduate Guest Night in hall, I invited him to dine with me on Guest Table. Students using Guest Table could only invite one guest, so poor old Luke would have to eat with Alex and Steve in Poof's Corner! I further arranged for the members of the Chapel Choir and one guest each to join David and myself after the meal for coffee and Prosecco in the college function room, at my expense. Luke nearly collapsed when he heard what I had done. "You're really splashing out with your new-found wealth!" he exclaimed. "It's worth every penny to honour your wonderful Dad," I replied. "What's the cost of a few bottles of fizzy wine to enable people to meet a great artist? We might even be able to get him to sing for us!" The recital was a great success. The Town Hall was full with 700 people. The Schubert songs were from various of his song cycles, the Händel arias were familiar ones for the tenor voice, including of course 'Every valley shall be exalted' from 'Messiah'. The Mozart ones included some of my favourites,'Un' aur' amorosa,' 'Dalla sua pace,' 'Ah, se fosse intorno al trono,' 'Wenn der Freude Tränen fliesßen' and one I had not heard before, 'Dies Bildnis is bezaubend schön' from 'Die Zauberflöte.' At the end, I nearly went mad, clapping and stamping and shouting, with many others in the audience demonstrating similar enthusiasm. As encore, David sang, not my expected 'Pretty, pretty youth,' but César Franck's 'Panis angelicus.' After the hall had finally emptied, we took Luke's Dad and Brian his accompanist back to Fountain Street for a drink. Dad and Brian were going to spend the night there, and then Brian would go back to Fitchey for a couple of nights before they resumed the concert tour. It was great fun entertaining my future father on Guest Table. The college was a bit prejudiced against Italian wines, so the two of us shared a bottle of Chablis. The kitchen always supplied special food for the one-day-a-week guest table, limited to ten undergraduates and their ten guests, and they gave us an excellent meal of roast pheasant. Afterwards we went to the function room where the chapel choir and their friends were gathered, and we had coffee and Prosecco, and David gave us a fascinating half-hour talk about his singing career and the many amusing experiences he had had on tour. Most of the choir were amazed to hear that he had a Ph.D. in chemistry, obtained before he became a professional singer. The rest of the evening David circulated and chatted with the choir members, and answered questions from one or two, who were considering a career in singing. The evening ended with David singing 'Amazing grace' for us. Chapter Twenty-eight Tom's baptism The weeks went by in the usual round of lab work for me, lectures and tutorials for Luke, and swimming, shagging, cinema trips, walks along Camford's waterway network and trips to the pub for the pair of us. Before long, the last week of term and my baptism and confirmation arrived. We had some debate about my baptism service. We had arranged for it to take place in the afternoon, as the Confirmation by the Bishop of Fitchey and first Communion were to take place in the evening at a public ceremony. The college was not geared up for adult baptisms. The large seventeenth century punchbowl that was used to baptize the children of fellows of the college was quite unsuitable. I felt that a small quantity of water sprinkled on me was not suitable for a serious rite symbolizing our death to sin and rising to new life in Christ. Total immersion was also impractical in a consecrated building. After consultation with our family theological authority (Professor Edward Bairstow), we finally hit on a method that we all found suitable. We would use the antechapel. On the seventeenth century tiled marble floor we placed a child's paddling pool, filled to a depth of 15 cm with water. The persons present were Francis, who presided, assisted by Prof Bairstow who was Luke's godfather. The witnesses were Luke, his two cofathers, Alex and Steve and the organ scholar. My sponsors were David, Jon and Edward Bairstow. David had scheduled his national recital tour to leave a gap for my big event. It might have looked startling to an outsider that everyone present at my profession of faith except the organ scholar was gay or, in the case of the two clergy, gay-friendly, but it is a strength of the Church of England that it welcomes gay people, even if it is unhappy about ordaining them if they are in a relationship. We used the modern baptismal rite, I would not be a party to the use of the rite of 1662, which seems to use the word 'carnal' as a synonym for 'sinful.' I came into Chapel wearing a white towelling bathrobe, which I kept on during the promises and the signing with the cross. After the blessing of the water, I took it off. Underneath, I was naked except for a pair of white cycling shorts. I knelt in the water and Francis filled a large seventeenth-century silver ewer with the holy water and poured water three times over my head, shoulders and belly. After the baptismal words had been said, I stood up and put the bathrobe back on and put my wet feet into a pair of disposable slippers for the remainder of the service. Luke dried my hair with a small white towel. As he did so, Francis said to me the liturgical words, "'You have been clothed with Christ. As many as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ.'" Then we sang a hymn, accompanied by the organ scholar and the rite ended with me receiving a lighted candle. After the baptism, we all adjourned to our room, where I dried myself off, combed my hair and put on dry underpants, a white silk shirt and my Armani suit. We drank coffee and ate cakes. At 4-30, Francis left to meet the Bishop, and I put on my scholar's surplice, as did Luke, and we all returned to Chapel for the Confirmation and first Communion, presided over by the Bishop. During the service, my baptismal candle stood lighted beside my choir stall. There was a reasonable attendance of college members for the service, including most of our friends in the choir. The other two boys who were confirmed were second-year students, and had shared some of my catechumen classes. Edward read the Epistle, and Francis led the intercessions and the prayer for the college's founder and benefactors. Tom and Luke Get Their Degrees The choir sang an anthem by Robert Parsons, Byrd's predecessor as Master of Elizabeth I's Chapel Royal, the soprano line transposed by the organ scholar to the tenor range, 'Domine, quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo?' (Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle?) David joined the choir and sight-read the tenor part. So for the first time, I ate God's Body and gave my body up to Him as a dwelling place. Every eucharist is an act of surrender of our souls and bodies to God, Who will be assimilated into our bodies and fill us with His grace. After the service, Francis took the Bishop and Edward off to dine on high table, Luke's two cofathers went off to Boni's for dinner and the rest of us went into dinner in hall as usual. As a special honour the bible clerk had asked me, as one of the senior scholars, to deputize for him in saying the college Latin grace. I realized, perhaps for the first time, the thrill and privilege of belonging to a 400-year-old community. Two years ago, no-one would have asked me, even though by then I was a scholar. I had heard the Latin words so often in the last three years that I knew them off by heart without any need to be trained in the pronunciation. That night was the first time that day we had had time to ourselves. My sweet Luke had been enormously moved by the events of the afternoon. Indeed, during the baptism he had been in tears. "My darling Tom," he said, "welcome to faith. God has brought you home to Him, and we can now feel ourselves together in spirit as well as in mind and flesh." We celebrated my spiritual milestone in our room with a few glasses of Marsala, and a bit of carnal pleasure on Luke's bed. For the first time, I will not go into details about our sex, because on this occasion it was too precious and too private. It was almost like an old-fashioned newly married couple's first time together. But don't worry, there will be more sex later on in this story! Chapter Twenty-nine Our fourth Easter vacation As usual, there was a conference in Buckingham beginning on the Monday of the first week of the Easter vacation, so once more we had to pack up our chattels and get out. We took them by cab to Fountain Street, where we settled in, as there were two weeks before Easter, and I had a lot to do in the lab. By now I had got pretty skilled in synthesizing putative intermediates in the metabolic pathway we were tracing, and results were beginning to come. Luke had an assessed dissertation to write as part of his Final exams, and it was to be completed by the second week of the Pentecost term, so our trip to Nice would be short and swift. The dissertation was a short study of the plays of Goldoni with a comparative study of the works that he wrote in Italian, and those that he wrote in French. This meant that he spent a lot of time in the Watsonian Library. I couldn't of course make any contribution to the content, but I helped him by checking the text and references, hoping that he would do the same for me when I set pen to paper (or finger to keys!) in the Pentecost term. Our work during this period kept us too busy for there to be much of interest for you the reader. Even our lovemaking was restricted to active sex a couple of times a week. I had decided at Christmas that I would not be able to work at the Fitness Centre in August. I would be frantically trying to finish my Master's work. Moreover in September we were due to become Civil Partners, and we would have to have a very short honeymoon. Fortunately, the Manager of the Fitness Centre was happy to allow me to keep my employee privilege of out-of-hours swimming on Tuesdays until the end of September. On Maundy Thursday, the five of us, Luke and Cathy, their two fathers and myself flew from Bristol to Nice. I drove us to the airport. In Nice, we took a cab to our hotel and after unpacking, we all went to see Mrs Singleton. "I hear that you've got religion, Tom!" was her greeting to me. "You're just like the other men in this family: too pious for your own good. You should all try sinning a bit more. You would find life a lot more fun!" She was in one of her offensive moods, when she went out of her way to be rude. Saying outrageous things was one of the few pleasures that she had left in old age. Still, it was difficult for the three younger ones of the party to take offence, as she had been very generous in giving us so much money! We took her out to dinner at one of her favourite restaurants, and she enjoyed herself very much. She told us that she didn't want us to visit on Good Friday, as she was meeting some friends. Luke and I went to church on Good Friday and then the five of us decided to dine in the hotel. It was the first time that we had been together as a family for ages and we spent it catching up on each others' news. Cathy told us that she was going out with a young man in Oxbridge, an engineering student whom she rather fancied, but said that things had not yet reached the stage of him meeting her family, and indeed might never get to that stage. She didn't say anything about sleeping with him either. Jon told us that he was going to spend the whole of July and August with David in Heemstede. David told us that one of the reasons for shortening his performance season was Brian's increasing age. A load that sometimes amounted to as many as a hundred piano-playing sessions per year was getting too much for Brian. David told us that he had accepted an invitation to be artistic adviser to the Dutch Classical Singing Festival (Het Nederlandse Klassieke Zangfestival), which would entail recommending artists to be invited to perform at future festivals. He was looking for a part-time Dutch personal assistant, preferably female, to organize the complexities of his "double life." He also said that the change in his life pattern meant that he could make more recordings. He had recently signed a contract with Philips. Brian would come over to the Netherlands for the recording sessions and spend a few days in Heemestede as a holiday. David said that he had planned on a daily work programme in Heemstede of not more than ten lessons per week, with Saturdays or Sundays free on alternate weeks. His pupils would be essentially advanced students of singing, beyond the equivalent of British Grade 8. Some would be Music College students. He had become a part-time teacher at two Dutch conservatories. In the lessons, he would play the students' accompaniment himself. If he needed to be hands-free, he would use a CD for the accompaniment. He also said firmly to Luke and me that he expected that the two of us would spend at least one week every summer with him and Jon together in Heemstede. "We have so few opportunities to live together as a foursome, and I think it's bad for family life. I don't feel that I know my son's partner as well as I ought, even though I know that you are a great admirer of my singing, Tom!" he said, "after all, we are both chemists by training, even though I haven't laid hands on a test-tube for nearly thirty years!" Jon said jokingly that there were a few things that David liked handling besides test-tubes, which made us boys giggle and David blush. Jon said that he wanted to be there to check out the boys (and girls) and make sure that David did not get too friendly with them, or with his new P.A. when she had been appointed! Also, he said, he needed a break from Camford. It would be the first time since Luke had been adopted that Jon and David would be together every night for eight weeks. Luke would be done with his exams by then and could take charge of organizing the September celebrations in Camford and Ixton. We had fixed the date of our partnership registration, and the slot at the Registry Office and all the rooms at the Jellycotes Arms had already been reserved. The catering firm had been booked. The Saturday was warm and springlike, and Luke and I satisfied Mrs Singleton's voyeuristic needs by swimming naked for her again in the next-door neighbours' pool, having warned Cathy to stay away. We all dined out with her in the evening. On Easter Day, we all went to the English church, where I was able to make my first Easter communion. In the evening, we split up. David and Jon took Mrs Singleton out for dinner, and the three of us went out to another restaurant. It was I think, the first time since Cathy went to Oxbridge that she had dined out with her brother. She was now in her second year there. I liked Cathy very much and hoped that if she got deeply involved with a man, it would be someone who appreciated and respected her. She hoped for a career in the IT industry. "I don't understand how you boys can flaunt yourselves naked in front of my grandmother," she said. "Most men don't care a toss about being seen naked," I replied, "and your grandmother has been very generous to us. She's a woman who enjoys a vicarious thrill in her old age! I admire her, because there are not many women of any age who admit that they like seeing young men naked. After she comes to our civil partnership ceremony, she wants us to show her the sights of swinging London, rather than go off on honeymoon, and we've agreed! It will only be for a few days. We owe her that. She wants to go to places that we would never choose to go, like Madame Tussaud's, so it will be a learning experience for us. She also wants to be wined and dined at restaurants frequented by celebrities, whereas we prefer to eat at the family-run Italian restaurant that your fathers introduced us to." On the Monday Mrs Singleton took us all to the opera. She had hired a box. It was the first time that any of us had watched opera from a box, even Jon. Even more impressive was that a waiter came and served us champagne in our box during the interval. We men all felt that we preferred the much cheaper Prosecco to champagne, but in spite of Nice's proximity to Italy, Italian wines were only available in supermarkets. The opera was Donizetti's 'La Fille du Régiment,' and we all enjoyed it, even though my hero (David) was not in it. David particularly enjoyed it because he said that he rarely watched a whole opera, just the scenes that he wasn't in, and then only in rehearsal! He also said that he couldn't see himself playing the role of Tonio, although he felt that the tenor had sung very well. He had not studied French at the National Opera Studio, where he had learnt his German and improved his Italian, and it was his weakest language. He said that his French was nowhere near as good as Luke's. Luke says that his French is not that good however, certainly not as good as Jon's, who started to learn the language when he was seven. It was our first visit to an opera since Luke's decision to go into opera house management, and he took careful note of all that went on. On the Tuesday, Luke and I visited one of Nice's gay bars. Luke was anxious to survey the dress talent of the Nice gays. At least, that's what he said! We also wanted to check out how they compared with the habitués of the Randy Soldier, the Camford gay pub. It was a great contrast to such places in England. No noisy beat music and half-undressed men dancing wildly, instead smoochy, Édith Piaf-type music, and couples shuffling around the dance floor. We ordered two beers and sat down. The beer was pretty awful. We had some some desultory conversation with a couple of boys with tattoos and one with a ring in his nose, in which I was not able to participate. My schoolboy French was quite insufficient to cope with the gay argot. The one with the ring in his nose was trying to get hold of Luke's hand. I glared at him, and he let go. We sat there in some discomfort for about ten minutes and we then quickly finished our beer, said "Bon soir" to the two French gays and left hastily, hurrying until we got to a street with a fair number of passers-by. "I couldn't have dealt with those two if they had turned nasty!" I told Luke. "As you know, I will go to any lengths to defend you, but not being able to speak the language makes it difficult for me to handle the situation gently, and I was on the verge of trying to threaten them if they touched you, though even that would be difficult when I don't know the French for 'Fuck off!'" "Yes, it was a mistake to go there," said Luke. "I spent so much time gazing at the tattoos, that I scarcely noticed the clothes! You know how I hate tattoos, I was getting the thrill of revulsion!" When we got back to Camford, we had ten days before the Pentecost term began. We installed ourselves in the flat in Fountain Street, whereas Jon and Cathy decided to stay at home in Ixton. My work in the lab was getting more and more feverish, as I needed get finished in the lab in time to spend four weeks or so writing my Part Two dissertation for my degree finals. It had to be handed in before the last day of term, and two weeks later there would be an oral examination by a visiting examiner before our class list would be posted in the last week in July. Jon would have joined David in Heemstede by then. Luke's Final exams were in the last week of term and the first week of the vacation, so he also was busy, either in the flat or in the Watsonian. But my Part Two was not the end of my lab work. I had to try to get my research finished by the time of our civil partnership ceremony in September. After that I would still have to complete the Master's thesis, submit it, and be examined. We hoped to fit in a honeymoon some time before Christmas. We still had no idea about when or where we would go to Italy, or whether I could get funding for a Ph.D. there. In the next academic year, Margaret would have to go to concerts alone, or find another companion to go with her. Despite all these outside pressures, we still took advantage of the queen-sized bed and silk sheets to enjoy each other's bodies before the move back into college forced us into separate beds. Chapter Thirty Our final undergraduate term Such leisure as we had in that final Pentecost term was often spent on the river. Camford is like a little Venice: there are small streams that have been enlarged to become navigable channels branching off the river Camwell and criss-crossing the whole town among the colleges. It gives the city a romantic uniqueness only shared by other watery cities like Amsterdam, Stockholm and Delft. One of the few advantages of the cramped site of Buckingham College was a short, dead-end branch of the Camwell that led right into the college, to a boathouse that housed three punts. From there, at least once a week Luke and I would set off with a bag of sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer or wine and pole our punt up the Camwell out into the adjacent meadows that surround the town, where we would embed the pole in the mud of the river, tie up the punt to it, and cuddle up together to eat our lunch, kissing and fondling one another as we ate and drank. For years afterwards we would have happy memories of the blissful moments that we enjoyed in the boat. It was not unknown for couples to have sex in a punt, but we found it uncomfortable as well as open to public observation, so we limited our lovemaking to activities that did not require us to lie down! The weather was warm and dry that spring and summer, and as the examination period approached, the weather got even warmer. Sometimes we went out in a punt as a foursome with Steve and Alex, who were also approaching their finals. The use of college punts was free to college members, and this was an enormous saving on commercial hire. On one occasion, Steve told us that he was having money problems, and his family was in no state to help him out, he had four younger brothers and sisters in their teens. He said that he and Alex could not afford to go out unless Alex paid, and he did not know how he was going to pay his battels at the end of term. We knew the boys well enough to know that their student lifestyle was not extravagant. They were not into drugs, were moderate drinkers, did not frequent nightclubs and did not belong to expensive student clubs. As a gesture of brotherly friendship and gay solidarity, Luke and I each offered Steve £250, repayable before the end of September, which after some hesitation, he accepted. He said that fortunately he had no outstanding credit-card bills, and he was going to take a temporary job as soon as he went down at the end of term. He told us that it was a job that he had done every summer, shelf-stacking in his local supermarket, and was always open for him. He would be able to pay us back at the rate of £50 per week. This occurrence highlighted for us the problem of student poverty. The opportunities for students to spend money extravagantly in Camford were numerous, and it was often difficult for teenagers to distinguish between essential and non-essential expenditure, except for students like me, who had bitter experience of learning to watch the pennies. One night, when we were in our room talking, Luke said, "I am worried about this problem of student poverty. It's undeniable that Camford is an expensive place to live, and Camford University does not make adequate provision for many of its less affluent students. I'm going to talk to Pop about this and see if I can get him to make money available via the colleges to help students whose poverty denies them the chance of enjoying all the activities and facilities available. For instance, they should be able to pay the fee for membership of the Men's Fitness Centre. There would have to be some kind of simple means test, but not something that takes pages of paperwork and hours to fill in." Early in June, I celebrated my twenty-second birthday. The proximity of the exams made it a very low-key event. We went out for a meal at the Sparrowhawk, then returned to college where Luke gave me a prayer-book as a present, and some silk underpants. We retired to the shower before going to bed, where we washed one another thoroughly and ended up with Luke making me a present of his rear end, which I penetrated with enthusiasm that turned into love as we both came together. Eventually, the exams arrived. I made the deadline for submission of my dissertation with a couple of days to spare, and it was then just a matter of awaiting the call to an oral exam with the External Examiner, a Professor from Edinburgh University. Luke had six written papers in his Finals, including papers in literature, history and a translation paper. He also had an oral exam exclusively in Italian, but that was not to be held until the written papers had been marked. On his last exam day, I turned up at the Exam Schools with the by now usual bottle of Prosecco and four plastic glasses, because Margaret and Sarah also came along to wish Luke well. We all adjourned to the Venezia, Luke still in sub-fusc, and enjoyed a leisurely dinner at a table for four. I noticed that the waiters, whom we knew well from our frequent visits, were vastly amused at the way we were paired off, man with man and woman with woman! It was the first time that we had all dined out together. We drank Verdicchio and Bardolino, and enjoyed it hugely. The girls were going to their respective homes until the exam results were published. They were going to miss one another. Rejoicing that I was in a position to do so, I paid the whole bill for the evening, which was tinged with sadness. Sarah's course was finished, and she would be looking for a job. Margaret had a year's lab work yet to do for her Part Two. Luke and I walked back to college hand-in-hand. As we walked, I said to him, "I'm feeling randy. Are you up for a fuck when we get in?" "Yes," he replied, "you know my hole is always at your disposal. I willingly submit to your vile and unnatural carnal lusts. Humiliate me by letting loose your bestial appetites and buggering me senseless! Squirt your evil man-juice deep into my guts! Give reign to your perverted desires! I know that I will love every moment of it!" Tom and Luke Get Their Degrees "It seems terrible that the ultimate loving intimacy of two men and the spiritual experience that they undergo should be stigmatized in terms like that by some people. We find such talk hilariously funny, but it really is quite offensive," I said. "Yes," said Luke, "but maybe now is not the moment to get offended. Fuck all those people who think like that. Let's just get on with it! I love you, my randy stud-boy! But take it slowly. Lovemaking is not something to rush. What was it Marvell wrote? 'An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze. Two hundred to adore each breast: but thirty thousand to the rest.'" We climbed the stairs to our room for almost the last time. I locked the door and removed my shoes and socks, and did the same to Luke. We undressed one another slowly, with much kissing and fondling. Luke lay face downwards on his bed, a towel beneath him. I put my right hand under his belly and lifted him to a hands-and-knees position so that I could get my face into his arse-crack. I inhaled the intoxicating mixed scent of sweat and Storing pour Homme as I started to lick his anal hair. I applied my lips to the curve of his arse at the edge of the densest hair before pushing my tongue into the passage that my tool would shortly enter. He squirmed with delight. "Oh, Tom that's heavenly! Keep on doing it!" I obeyed his instruction. Even though too short and too wide to penetrate far, the tongue can give almost as much pleasure as prick-teasing. After a few minutes, I pulled away and reached for the gel. I lubed Luke up thoroughly and rolled a prophylactic on to my tool, which, as usual, was dripping pre-come. I encircled my boy at chest level with both arms and started to kiss his backbone. As I slid down his spine, kissing all the way, I moved my encircling arms down his front, tickling his belly-button before getting hold of his cock with my right hand and encupping his ball-bag with my left. He groaned with pleasure. His cock stiffened steadily within my fingers, as I prepared to enter his rear end. I pushed gently but firmly with my meat-stick and got it deeply inside him. I paused to let his sphincter adjust, before I began fucking movements. I started slowly and not pushing deeply, until it was clear that he was comfortable and then I speeded up and went deeper till I hit his prostate. He moaned with delight and a shudder went through him. I felt again that sense of joy and tenderness suffuse me as we worked together. Our efforts continued for quite some time until one hit I made of his prostate pushed him over the edge and he came violently with a muffled shout and shot his load over the outspread towel. I continued my fucking, and within a couple of minutes, I too came violently. I felt as the seed left my body that God's love was going with it and entering the depths of Luke's body. Lovemaking was taking on an increasingly sacramental role as my faith deepened. As we both felt the blood ebbing out of my tool, and slipping out of his arse-hole, Luke turned himself round and lay in the small puddle of semen on the towel. He clutched me tightly and pulled me on top of him. He began to wriggle and rub his dick against my belly. Obviously there was enough spunk in his balls to shoot again. I glued my lips to his and rubbed my belly against his, and after a delicious, if sweaty, few minutes, he squirted again over our conjoined bellies. "My darling Tom! he exclaimed, "you are the most wonderful man I know. Feel free to kiss any man you fancy, I am now certain that you would never leave me for someone else. You are my support and protector, my stud-boy and the light of my life. God will bless you, guide you and defend you." And we dissolved into passionate kisses. I felt so happy that Luke was so eager to forget how I had spoilt his birthday. Chapter Thirty-one The last Summer Vacation begins I resumed my work in the lab and we moved out of our college room for good, back to Fountain Street. It was a slightly sad occasion, looking back on all the fun and pleasure, the disappointments and the hard work that that room had seen in the two years that we had lived there, but it was good to be able to sleep together every night. Jon had gone back to Rockwell's Barn to prepare for his stay in Heemstede. As soon as the first year Chemistry results were published and he had seen his tutees, he would depart for the Netherlands via the Eurostar and Thalys train services. We had not fucked very much during Luke's exams, because he was very preoccupied with doing well, but as soon as we had the flat in Fountain Street to ourselves, we began to fuck like rabbits. Luke was busy with the organization of his grandparents' Family Festival, and was frequently on the phone to Mr. Scarborough. My interview with the External Examiner took place in mid-July. He congratulated me on my lab project and was further impressed when I said that a second paper bearing my name had just been accepted for publication. He asked what I wanted to do on graduation and I said that I wanted to do a Ph.D., but in Italy. He said that it was very courageous of me to contemplate research in a foreign land, and turn my back on any possible openings in Camford or elsewhere in Britain. I explained the personal reasons for my decision. A couple of days later, the Final degree class of the Part 2 Chemistry was posted in the University Aula. To my delight, I had got a first, and had been awarded the University's Perkin-Kekulé Prize. I went to see the Head of the Chemical Laboratory, to try and get my future sorted out. He shook hands and congratulated me (there had only been ten firsts out of 150 Part Two chemists. Two of them were Boni's students, whom Jon had taught in their first year). He said that my results would be forwarded to Brussels and that within a month I could expect a decision on whether I had got a Leonardo Award, but he also said that it was pretty certain that I would. "If all else fails," he said, "I am sure we can find some money for you here." I didn't tell him that if all else failed, I could fund myself in Camford! But in Italy, I needed external evidence of my competence to do research, which only a European Union award could guarantee. The next thing that happened was that it was Luke's turn to undergo interrogation by his External Examiner, and on this occasion the discussion was exclusively in Italian. They had a lively discussion, involving Luke telling of his experiences in the earthquake. He was congratulated on his exam performance, and asked about his future career. The examiner was surprised when Luke said that he hoped to go to Italy as a trainee opera-house manager. A couple of days later, the results of the Modern Languages degrees were published, and Luke also got a first, this time he was one of fourteen out of 300 candidates. He contacted both Dr Cagliari and Marcello Fabioni, in case they knew of any jobs. Marcello said that he had three possible jobs of assistants to opera-house managers in different parts of Italy, and none were wanting someone immediately, so as soon as I had heard whether I had a Leonardo grant, they could start negotiations. Obviously, we had to seek jobs in the same city. Luke's parents took us both out to celebrate our exam successes to the Michelin-starred Magic Python restaurant. It was a nice change for us to go out as a male foursome. The meal was a splendid success, and for once I did not feel guilty at eating at a restaurant where the bill for the four of us would feed two families of four for a week. In this case, I reckoned that we had both earned it. We had both slogged our guts out for four years, and even though we had enjoyed ourselves phenomenally in the process, it was a just reward. Moreover, it was nice to have an opportunity to see Luke's two fathers together. Regular separation had enhanced for them their pleasure in being together. They were just as bad as Luke and I were at holding hands under the table and pushing their knees against one another! Men don't get less amorous as they get older: indeed I have heard of many men of eighty and older needing to fuck or be fucked. The wine, Barolo and Orvieto, flowed freely. Secure in the knowledge that we were within walking distance of home was a major disincentive to sobriety! It was difficult sometimes to restrain ourselves to avoid offending other customers by making it obvious that we were two pairs of gays out on the town. It was regrettable that Camford did not have any restaurants with a men-only room as in the restaurant in Nice that Jon and David used to visit. In some ways it would have been easier at the Venezia, where all four of us were personally known to the staff. We were decidedly merry as we staggered back to the flat in Fountain Street, and had to be careful in crossing the street! When we got in, Luke made us coffee in his Italian coffee machine that had so frequently been transported to and from Buckingham College, but would now never go there again. Luke and I said quite openly to David and Jon that we were too sloshed to shag, and would go to bed as soon as we had drunk the coffee, but might be up late for breakfast. David said, "Don't worry, Jon and I will go out for breakfast and leave you two to your own devices! You'll be able to make as much noise as you like! I was awakened next morning in the usual way, by Luke kissing me. But it was no longer a Luke bent over my bed, but a Luke lying up against me in our bed! It was obvious that he wanted me, and that he was in too urgent a state of need to wait until we had washed and shaved. I turned over on to my side, so that my back faced him and let him smother my back with his kisses, working downwards till he reached my arse, and he continued kissing its cheeks. Then he stopped, turned over, opened the drawer beside the bed and pulled out the lube and a rubber. I eased my buttocks apart, so that he could poke his fingers in and apply the gel. He rolled the rubber on to his tool, rubbed some lube on it and rolled me over on to my back so that I could spread my legs before he gently pushed his live sausage (as Rabelais terms it) between my arse-cheeks. "O my America, my new-found land/ my kingdom safliest when with one man manned!" he quoted from Donne as he entered my hole. "It's not your new-found land, you found it eighteen months ago!" I said, "and like a good merchant venturer, you've explored it pretty thoroughly since then," I told him, "but certainly it's by one man manned. I would never let anyone or anything but your big dick enter my hole, faggot-boy!" By now he was deep within me and started to fuck me gently. I marvelled about how his technique had improved in the year since he got back from Bologna. His evident need had not made him rough in his approach, and slow lovemaking is always the best. Every so often, he would pause, bend forward and kiss me. His kisses were so sweet, they almost made me swoon. At the same time as he was working with his tool, he had hold of mine and was stroking it gently but persistently. By now after twenty-four hours, the odour of Storing pour Homme was very faint, but the unenhanced scent of Luke's sweat as it dripped on me from his armpits was just as, or even more, bewitching. I really can't imagine how women can resist that male scent, but many of them seem to hate it. After some minutes of total bliss, my sweet boy shouted "Tom!" as he came violently into the condom. He then fell on top of me and began to rub his belly against my hard, slimy and dripping cock. Within a minute I joined him in experiencing the male miracle as I sprayed my seed over our bellies and chests. We lay there for several minutes in warm contact before the rapidly hardening spunk started to crackle and we reluctantly staggered out of bed, turned on the shower and began to embrace one another again, as the warm water washed the drying man-juice away. We carefully washed each other, giving the usual close attention to each other's genitals, with much kissing and caressing. We then dried each other and shaved, before I went downstairs and started to scramble eggs for breakfast. Chapter Thirty-two Invitations The following invitation was sent out to three generations of the Scarborough family, to Tom's sister Liz and to Mrs Singleton. Included in the invitation were all of Mr and Mrs Scarborough's children and their partners, all their grandchildren and Mrs Scarborough's brother and his wife, who had just retired from running a café (Dutch for bar) in Amersfoort. This amounted to eighteen persons in all, including Mr and Mrs Scarborough themselves. July 1, 20-- 'Mr and Mrs Benedict Scarborough invite you to a Family Festival to be held on 11-15 September to celebrate Mr Scarborough's retirement as Chief Executive Officer of Moorside County Council and Mr and Mrs Scarborough's Fortieth Wedding Anniversary. 'The Festival will begin with a Ruby Anniversary Party on Sunday September 12 at Rockwell's Barn, Ixton, Ixfordshire at 12 noon. Limited accommodation will be available at the Jellycotes Arms, Ixton for the duration of the Festival. 'On Monday September 13 you are cordially invited to the signing of the Civil Partnership document of their grandson, Luke Cornelis Singleton-Scarborough, son of David and Jonathan Singleton-Scarborough, with Thomas Appleton at Camford Register Office, Speedwell Street, Camford at 12 noon, and afterwards at the Sparrowhawk Hotel, Thomson Street, Camford. 'Tuesday September 14 will be a private family day. The Festival will conclude on Wednesday September 15 with a farewell luncheon at 12 noon at Rockwell's Barn. Please do not send or bring gifts. If you wish to mark either event by making a donation to the Buckingham College student hardship fund, please send your gift to the College Treasurer.' Non-family friends received the following invitation: 'On Monday September 13 you are cordially invited to the signing of the Civil Partnership document of Luke Cornelis Singleton-Scarborough, son of David and Jonathan Singleton-Scarborough, with Thomas Appleton, B.A., son of John Appleton and the late Mrs Appleton of County Durham, at Camford Register Office, Speedwell Street, Camford at 12 noon, and afterwards at the Sparrowhawk Hotel, Thomson Street, Camford. Please do not send us or bring us gifts. If you wish to mark the occasion by making a donation to the Buckingham College student hardship fund, please send your gift to the College Treasurer.' The guests for the Civil Partnership event were mainly local people, for whom we did not need to provide accommodation, except for Tim Ingledown, who would stay at Rockwell's Barn. Chapter Thirty-three The Family Festival I: Preparations and Day 1 Tom resumed work in the lab. There were numerous loose ends to tie up in the following weeks. He had set a deadline for submission of his M.Chem. thesis of the end of October, but needed to have two weeks out of the lab for the period of the Festival and afterwards. August passed rapidly, with Tom busy in the lab and Luke finalizing arrangements for the Festival. They had decided to wear for both the Civil Partnership event and the blessing service the next day similar outfits to what Luke's parents had worn for their ceremonies: embroidered white silk shirts without jackets, suit trousers, in our case Armani, but instead of the pink ties that David and Jon had worn, they chose yellow ties. They wanted to downplay the gay symbolism, and in any case, Luke did not like pink as a colour, he said that it was girlish. For the blessing ceremony, they had chosen plain gold bands. Mr and Mrs Scarborough arrived in Ixton three days before the Festival to make sure that all the arrangements were complete and brought some home-made goodies to add to what the caterers supplied. All ten rooms at the Jellycotes Arms had been booked. Most were doubles. At Rockwell's Barn, there were three spare bedrooms, but only sleeping four guests in total. One room was occupied by David's parents, the two single rooms by Tim Ingledown and Liz Appleton. Everyone who had been invited had come. At the hotel, the two boy grandchildren shared a room and the two granddaughters shared another. They were young enough to be thrilled by sharing with their cousins. The Party on the first day was a great success. The boarded-over swimming pool was used for eating, but all the other rooms of the house were available for people to sit in and talk. Luke had the difficult job of introducing Dorothea and Massimo and their children to his grandparents, who had not met their daughter for nearly twenty years. The children were not in the least shy of their new grandparents and helped to make the reunion of their mother with her parents much less fraught. Massimo took everything calmly in his stride. He made a very good impression on Mrs Scarborough. His English was not perfect, but he had no problems in communicating. Of the young grandchildren, only Bianca had problems speaking English, and her cousin Maria, who had picked up Italian at phenomenal speed, had to help her out sometimes by translating. The caterers had done a good job with the food, and a good deal of Italian wine and English and Belgian beer was consumed. Mrs Singleton was on her best behaviour and Tom kept her happy by plying her with conversation, food and drink. There were only two speeches at the party. A toast was proposed by Jon to Mr and Mrs Scarborough. He said: "I invite you all to drink the health of my parents. They welcomed me into their family when I fell in love with their eldest son, and have always treated me as if I were one of their own sons. I will always be deeply grateful to them for giving me their son and for all the valuable support and advice they have given us over the years, especially when Luke and Cathy were young. They have always accepted and been supportive of our gay partnership in an era when homosexuality was severely frowned on by their generation. Ladies and gentlemen, the health of Benedict and Helena Scarborough!" Tears were running down David's and his mother's faces. Everyone drank and Mr Scarborough rose to reply: "Ladies and gentlemen, Helena and I are both deeply touched that all of you have come here to join us in celebrating the forty years of happiness that we have enjoyed together. We are proud of our three children and six grandchildren and are particularly touched to meet two of them, Alessandro and Bianca, and of course their father, for the first time and to welcome them on their first visit to England. Our only disappointment is that of the six of you, only Cathy is living in England. Luke and Tom will leave within a few months for Italy, as yet we know not where, and will be gone for at least three years. However the good news is that now that I am retired, we will be able to go round Europe visiting each family in turn! We are grateful to Luke for doing most of the organization of this Festival. Thank you all for coming to share our happiness and to witness tomorrow and Tuesday our grandson Luke tie the knot with our son-to-be, Tom Appleton." Now it was Tom's turn to shed tears. Lots of photographs were taken including several big group photos with everyone included. Chapter thirty-four The Festival, Day 2: Signing the the Civil Partnership register Luke and I got up early on the Monday morning. We had not drunk excessively at the party, nor had we spent time in bed doing anything but sleep! We shaved and showered carefully and enjoyed a light breakfast before putting on our 'wedding' outfits. David was to drive us into Camford in his car. There were to be no white beribboned Rolls Royces, just a hired bus and David's car. We were to meet all the guests in the spacious waiting-room of Camford Register Office. Unlike Luke, I had never been present at a Civil Partnership signing, but I had been warned that it was distinctly unimpressive. The only persons with any role in the event apart from ourselves were the two principal witnesses, who would sign the register. These were to be David, as Luke's cofather and Liz, my sister.