Tom and Luke's Third Year Pt. 02

During the whole term, Luke and I continued our phone sex conversations and our regular exchange of E-mails. Luke was in the process of running down his activities, completing his work and sitting the remaining exams and tests that were necessary for him before completion of his year in Bologna. By now the opera season had finished, but he still occasionally went out to a concert with Leonora. He was delighted to hear that I was to receive instruction in the Christian faith. He said that he had asked Leonora if she had been praying for us, and she admitted that she had, and added that she felt guilty for praying for us without our consent. Luke immediately told her that not only were we happy to be prayed for, but that we would like her to continue doing so, particularly for me, now that I was about to become a catechumen. Every night as I fell asleep, I missed him. I wanted to enfold his slim body in my arms and swallow him up!

Eventually the first day of my Final Public Examination, Part I, arrived. I had eight three-hour papers on a wide range of chemical topics spread over ten days, including one Saturday. The most stressful thing about the experience was the lack of my lover-boy to relax and unwind with at the end of the day. When he had been doing his second year exams, we had made love in some form or other every day. What we did do was to break our 'no daily phone calls' rule, and talk each day, often crudely, in an effort to shed the stress. Jon was very good too in helping me unwind. Sometimes he cooked an extra nice meal for us, other times he took me to the Sparrowhawk. He would not let me pay for my food, he said that I must just relax and go with the flow. On the last day of the exams, when I came out of the hall after the last paper, I was bowled over to find none other than Margaret and Sarah waiting for me on the steps of the Examination Schools with a bottle of Prosecco and three glasses. Swept away by relief of the tension, I hugged and kissed each of them in turn, though it was clear that Sarah did not relish being embraced by a man. After we had finished the wine, I insisted in taking the two of them out to dinner. We went to the Venezia with me still wearing my sub-fusc, which conformed to the restaurant's dress code (though I did leave my scholar's gown in the care of the cloakroom!), and had a very enjoyable, though unromantic evening. The waiters asked me when Luke was coming back from Bologna, and I said at the end of the month. They always enjoyed speaking their native language with him.

Margaret and Sarah were going to their respective homes the next day, and I packed up my things and took everything in a cab to Fountain Street. There I found that Luke's two cousins, Andrew and Maria had arrived and were already with their uncle at Rockwell's Barn. Jon drove me there, as I was going to stay there until August 1, when my job at the Fitness Centre began again, and I would have to move back to Fountain Street. He asked me to help him on the Saturday with the farewell party that he gave each year for his first-year chemistry students. David would take the two children to a Safari park for the day. As usual, the Boni's students had a great time, huge quantities of beer, wine, food and soft drinks were consumed and there was much splashing and fooling around in the pool. That year there were six of them, and I joined them in the pool, mainly I confess to size up the men! Fortunately there were none so attractive as to put my self-control at risk!

I began my catechumen classes with Francis, as Dr Eglantine asked me to call him. He reminded me that the course was not a tutorial, so first names were in order. I explained to him at the outset why I had not approached him directly, but had gone via Edward Bairstow, because of Luke's family connection. We didn't have to have any awkward discussions about my sexuality, as Professor Bairstow had already told him about that. Not that I was shy about my gayness, but it was not regarded as relevant to seeking Christ. "Remember, always, that the path of discipleship is not an easy one," he said. "When you are a Christian, your first instinct has to be pleasing God, not pleasing yourself. You have to re-orientate most of your basic instincts."

The first session set the pattern for all our meetings. After a minute or so of silence to gather our thoughts together, Francis would say a collect from the Prayer Book. Then he would pour us a glass of Port or Madeira before beginning our evening's work. He did not start the course with the Bible, or history, he started by teaching me the physical exercises that are supposed to facilitate openness to God, involving stretching and relaxing various muscles, and spells of breathing deeply. After a complete session of this type, which was not exactly intellectually demanding in any way, we did start to learn about the Bible. Later we went on to church history, then to doctrine, and sacraments, then to what is characteristic and special about Anglicanism. We also had sessions about spirituality and our approach to God, how to pray and how to read scripture, both privately and publicly. He said that I must go on the list of scripture readers for morning prayer in chapel during term.

I was surprised both at his enthusiasm and also on the amount of time that Francis was prepared to devote to my training. He was neither a typical parish priest, nor a typical Camford don. He was not forthcoming either about his personal sexuality, but obviously in a college like Buckingham he could not be anti-gay. When Luke got back, he invited the two of us to dine with him in a pub, and we had a very enjoyable evening. We broached with him the possibility of a blessing service when we had become civil partners. He said he would have no problems with such a service, but that it might not be possible to hold it in the college chapel, as it would have to be a private service. We said that was no problem, that we had a suitable room available at Rockwell's Barn: David's prayer room, where Luke's parents had had just such an act of worship more than twenty years before.

Chapter Thirteen

Italian and driving lessons

The visit of David's nephew and niece was my first experience with young children. Admittedly I did have several nephews and nieces of my own, but I had not seen any of them for years. At Rockwell's Barn, the rule was that English was totally banned for conversation. If I was not present, the conversation was to be in Italian. If I was there, it was to be in French. I had done French to GCSE level, and had had a small amount of practice in Nice, but chiefly limited to ordering drinks and paying bus fares! So much of the time I was struggling with my schoolboy French! However, I did sit in on the Italian grammar lessons in the afternoons and with that, plus listening carefully to the children's conversation with Jon and David, I began to pick up words and make out what was being said. Andrew and Maria however rapidly picked up a lot of Italian, though it was a struggle for Jon to get them to speak grammatically. The key item in all language learning is memorizing of a lot of words and young children have much better memories.

I found that small as it was, Ixton had a driving school, so I signed on for driving lessons, initially in the country roads round Ixton, and later, in order to experience traffic lights, in the streets of Ixfordingworth. I have to admit that my driving skills progressed much more rapidly than my Italian skills. My driving lessons would continue in my spare time when I was working in Camford. I had to pay extra per lesson for my instructor to drive into Camford for my lessons, but it was worth it, because he was a good teacher, and I was able to get practice under the sometimes nightmarish traffic conditions of the congested university city. Even when I had passed the test, I had no inclination to get a car, as garaging was difficult in Camford. David had set the whole month free from singing engagements, and he was able to sit in with me when I was practising my driving. I easily passed the written test, and had arranged for my practical driving test to take place in mid-September. The test would take place in Ixfordingworth rather than Camford.

Luke was due back home at the end of July, just over eleven months since he had left for Bologna. By then I had just started work at the Fitness Centre, and was awaiting my exam results, which were due early in August. He came on a flight to Bristol, and supervised by David, as it was my day off work, I drove to Lulsgate airport to meet him, since he had a lot of luggage. That was my first long drive. However, I refused to drive back to Ixton and let Jon take the wheel. I said that Luke was too precious a cargo to be driven by someone who had not yet passed the driving test! After the earthquake incident, I was becoming obsessively protective.

Luke left most of his luggage in the car for David to take to Ixton, but David was not surprised when Luke said that he wanted to spend his first night back with me! As I had to start work at 8 am, there was no question of us going to Rockwell's Barn. David dropped us at Fountain Street and went straight back to Ixton. It was now 6 pm, so we went immediately for a meal at the Sparrowhawk, so as to leave plenty of time for lovemaking in the evening. We only had some beer with our meal and after a small ice-cream dessert, returned to the flat without having coffee. No sooner were we inside than we began to tear each other's clothes off. We left them in a heap on the bedroom floor and before he knew it, my face was embedded in Luke's arse-crack, my hands on each of his buttocks. I kissed and nuzzled and chewed, and in spite of the sweat, the fragrance of Storing pour Homme lingered round his crotch. I moved my lips all over the delightful curves of his arse-cheeks, savouring the delights that I had missed for the last three months. At the same time, my right hand fingered his cock, gently but firmly stirring it to full male vigour. "My darling Luke, it's so good to have you back with me. You never seem mine when I can't get my hands on you every day!"

"I've missed you too, Tom," he said, "all the time I was in Italy, I never had profound male company. It's so good to be back with you! Please fuck me hard."

"Not so fast!" I replied, "I want to enjoy your body slo-o-o-o-wly." I spent a lot of time kissing him. I tried to kiss every square centimetre of his body, which was of course over-ambitious, but I still covered a fair bit of ground. The feeling of his warm, firm muscles against my lips was intoxicating. I silently thanked God again for giving him back to me. I turned him over to lie on his back and he smiled at me happily, so I transferred my attention to his lips and his hairy face. Although his beard was silky-soft, I was still not sure that I liked it, but decided to wait a few days and see if I got used to it and to try and find out how Luke felt about it. But once his mouth was open and we got to work with our tongues, I forgot about the hair. He put his arms round my shoulders and trapped me on top of him.

After some minutes of mouth-to-mouth-kissing, he released me and I began to move my lips down the front of his body. Starting under his beard, I moved slowly towards his nipples. When I reached each one, I licked and nibbled it gently and Luke wriggled with pleasure. I continued downward and reached his belly-button. I spent some time nuzzling and nibbling his navel before slowly following his treasure-trail down to his pubic hair. I then continued round the base of his towering dick, by now sticking up in full stiffness, twenty centimetres of delicious hard veiny, lumpy sweetness. I started licking and sucking the hair on his balls before moving my lips slowly up the side of his shaft, now freely oozing precome. Luke gave sweet grunts of enjoyment from time to time and I found myself full of happiness at his sighs of love and contentment. My feelings towards God had now changed to gratitude that He had made me such a precious gift, and at the back of my mind a sense of unworthiness was apparent, that I did not really deserve this beautiful, talented, sweet and generous boy. I hastily took the head of his cock into my mouth and began to play with his foreskin with my lips and tongue. He gurgled in delight. "Oh, Tom," he said "I've been waiting weeks for this. You are the king of lovemakers, you make me feel so content and secure. You are the best thing that has ever come into my life!"

As I felt exactly the same about him, that made me really happy, and it was with renewed enthusiasm that I resumed work on his tool. The organ in question is much bigger than my own, but I had no problems in spanning it. However, I never felt the need to deep-throat him, because I would not have been able to manage all of him. In any case, the front part was the most tasty. After a few more minutes of nibbling and chewing, my boy came violently and filled my mouth with a huge quantity of fuck-juice. I struggled to ingest it all, but it was so enjoyable to feel the sweet man-juice in my mouth. With some of it fresh on my lips, I resumed kissing his face. I lay beside him for a couple of minutes before I said, "It's time to bum you. I feel in a doggy mood, can you get off the bed and bend over?" Luke did as I asked and even pulled his arse-cheeks apart to reveal his mouthwatering man-hole. I gently pushed my lube-coated fingers in and then rolled a condom onto my tool. By now I was drooling with lust, the sight of that opening nearly drove me crazy! "Stand by for entry!" I giggled and gently pushed my rock-hard tool into that inviting entrance.

"Push harder!" he said, "drill a hole in me. I want you inside me! I want you to squirt your genes into me, even if they end up in the rubber! Oh, Tom, master-bugger, I love you so much!" I did exactly as he asked, I rammed my dick as deeply as I could, through his sphincter and deep into his gut. Movement, once I was in him, was smooth and easy and there followed quite a few minutes of bliss as I fucked him steadily and increasingly faster. He muttered grunts of pleasure, interspersed with squeals of delight when I hit his prostate. Eventually of course the ultimate male pleasure, ejaculation, racked my whole body. I clasped him round the belly after I had come and lay behind him squeezing myself against his bent body, until I felt my erection rapidly subsiding, and at the same time I released an enormous fart that had built up during my exertions!

I picked Luke up, dumped him on the bed, pulled the rubber from my tool, knotted it and collapsed beside him on the bed. I reached out to hold his hand and told him yet again how much I loved him. "If you'd been with me when the earthquake happened, you would have rescued me!" he whispered.

"Don't talk rubbish, my sweet boy!" I said, "We can't live in each other's pockets. I can't even have lunch with you tomorrow, my shift doesn't finish until 4 pm. But we'll go to the Venezia tomorrow night at my expense. The nice Italian waiters are missing you!"

"I bet that several of them are gay!" Luke said. I got up and made coffee for us. During Luke's absence, I had finally learnt how to use his coffee machine! "What I'm looking forward to, apart of course from giving you a good fuck," said Luke, "is someone to talk to in bed. Oh, and the silk sheets, of course!"

Chapter Fourteen

Summer activities

I was working on the day that the exam results came out, so I sent my lover to the exam schools to see my results, and make sure that I had passed! I E-mailed Colin Vaughan and made an appointment to see him to get some unofficial indication as to how I had performed, and to discuss my laboratory project options for the following year. He told me that my performance was as good as the college expected from a Scholar, which in Camford parlance, as explained to me by Jon, meant that I had done well. It was arranged that I would work on the synthesis of some new materials with bioactive properties, that might be of great biological or medical application, under the supervision of a friend of Colin's, Dr Mills. For the next academic year, I had arranged for us to get back the en-suite college room that we had had in our second year.

It was bliss to have Luke back in bed with me. We had the flat at Fountain Street to ourselves for the first time. David was off on his final tour of summer musical festivals, and Jon had gone with him. Cathy was at Ixton, travelling by bus or bike, depending on the weather, each day to a summer job in Ixfordingworth. Some weekends when I was not working, we joined her for two days, and I did the cooking, or we went out to the Jellycotes Arms.

In mid-August, the two of us and Jon took the train to London to see Tim Ingledown by appointment to sign our wills. In order to cover the fact that we both had some significant wealth, yet to avoid making wills that would be nullified when we became civil partners, our wills were drawn up in anticipation of civil partnership, which meant that the provisions would hold even if we had not tied the knot at time of the death of one or both of us. They were not mirror wills, because Luke had far greater wealth to protect and manage than I had. My will provided that in the event of my death, all my estate would be divided among any children that we might have, either by surrogacy or adoption. Failing children, my estate was to go entirely to my sister Liz, unless Luke had predeceased me, in which case she would get 15% of my estate, and half the rest would go to Cathy or her children, and the remainder would be divided equally between the Afforestation Trust, the drystone wall trust and Buckingham College. Luke's will was much more complicated. In event of his death, half of his estate was to go to me, the rest to any children that we might have, either by adoption or surrogacy. If we had no children, that half of the estate would go to Cathy or her children, and the rest divided equally between the three charities that I have mentioned. We could not of course anticipate how our financial affairs would change in the event of the death of either or both of Luke's parents, and at that stage we would have to make new wills. After the earthquake incident, we were both relieved that our financial futures had been safeguarded, and the messy pitfalls of intestacy avoided. Without wills, my family would have a claim on my money and so would not only Luke's parents and sister, but also Dorothea and her family have a claim on his. Tim told us that a job offer had been made to Mr Silverdale by the Afforestation Trust, which if he proved satisfactory, would lead to him becoming Administrator of the Trust, a new post that Robin Banks had turned down, because he preferred hands-on work in the field to an office job.

At the beginning of September, I finished my job at the Fitness Centre, and we needed a holiday. Rather than go abroad, we opted to go and stay with David's grandparents in Loxton. They were extremely glad to see us, because two of their children were now resident abroad, and my grandfather was looking forward to his forthcoming retirement, when they would be able to spend more time abroad and visit their offspring. They had not seen their daughter, David's sister (and of course Luke's mother), in the twenty-five years since she went to Italy. We borrowed the saloon car that was the second vehicle belonging to David's fathers to drive to the North, and I was able to get more practice in longer-distance driving with Luke as supervisor. In fact we took it in turns to drive the 300 km or so to Loxton.

On the way, we stopped off to visit three of Jon's woodlands, one in Derbyshire and two in Lincolnshire, and stayed in a couple of hotels on the way. We walked through all of the woodlands and checked up on their state, noting jobs that needed to be done. All three woodlands were in a pretty good state, and had got very well established in the twenty years or so that they had been growing. It was Jon's principle that public access to the woodlands should be available in the summer, but that the woods should remain closed over the winter until the trees were well enough established to allow permanent access. Most of these woodlands did not have resident wardens: a warden from the Afforestation Trust would visit each site about once a month. Jon still tried to visit some sites each year, but was limited to the summer months, and this year, as he was touring with David, he had asked us to do some visits for him.