Dom and Sandro Ch. 03

We also met the girls' mother. That was a difficult meeting, but she seemed to relish the unique opportunity to get rid of her children to a good home, almost like disposing of a brood of unwanted kittens. A good salary was agreed with Mrs Hambleton, and so in the summer of that year, Mrs Hambleton, several large suitcases of her possessions, several small suitcases with the twins' possessions and the two girls themselves were loaded into the 4x4 that we had bought when we moved to Womble, and driven by us back home. The girls were very excited to be moving to a new house, but fortunately slept for most of the seven-hour journey.

We had planned our change in lifestyle carefully. Mrs Hambleton was to be introduced in the village as our our new housekeeper, and the twins as her great nieces. No mention was to be made of her being a nanny or of any adoption ideas. Once we had got settled, and that involved reordering the house, so that Mrs Hambleton had her own bathroom, the twins would use the general bathroom, and we moved the guest room to the attic bedroom, where a bit of building work was necessary to install an additional bathroom adjacent to it, by taking in part of the unused roof space.

After a few months, the girls seemed to be settling. Mrs Hambleton gave them their high tea before we got home and the first thing that happened when one of us arrived was that he would help Mrs Hambleton get Anne and Jane bathed and ready for bed and then read them stories for half an hour before their light was put out. The girls would come running to greet us when we got in, and insisted on being kissed goodnight. After they were in bed, we three adults then had dinner together. Mrs Hambleton was an excellent cook and on her generous housekeeping allowance (paid to her separately from her salary) produced superb meals.

At the weekends, the pattern was different. We took all our meals together as a family. The girls went out for walks with us or to the shops, and they seemed to be growing to love us. As for Mrs Hambleton, she was very happy. We paid her a good salary, paid pension contributions for her and she got free accommodation. She soon became a familiar figure to all in the village, and she told us that she did not miss Getheringthwaite or her niece! Most Fridays, Dom would work at home in the study. The twins soon learned that they were not to go to the top floor of the house unless we invited them, so Dom could work undisturbed. But he had lunch with them, and finished work about 4 pm, leaving time to play with them before their tea.

Chapter XXXVII Dom: Will we become fathers?

Every weekday evening when I came home on the train, i found as time went by that not only was I longing to kiss my sweetheart Sandro, but also to kiss our pair of sweet girls. Most men's ideas about the opposite sex are coloured, or influenced, or determined, by their experiences with their sisters. I was unfortunate, I had been brought up in a family consisting solely of boys. I knew little about the female sex, and after I met Sandro, I no longer was curious about women. So baby girls were a totally new experience for me. Sandro had been luckier than me. His sister Bianca was sufficiently younger than he was not to have competed with him in his parents' affections, so he never experienced sibling jealousy and was extremely fond of his younger sister, now at university in Paris.

The nature of our work at YTS meant that the employees were not overly communicative. Most of us were of the introvert type that did not spend much, if any, time socializing. Also in my case, I only attended the weekly after-work pub visits once a month: the rest of the time I was anxious to get home to my family. My colleagues knew that I was gay, but it did not occasion much comment. Everyone in the computer world knows about the gay genius Alan Turing and his sad fate. So while I did not broadcast it over the office, I did mention once or twice that I and my partner had adopted two children.

Both Sandro and I found ourselves getting more and more loving towards these two little girls. Mrs Hambleton had made an excellent job of their upbringing so far. They were toilet-trained, had good manners, did what they were told and had well-developed vocabularies for their age. A year after they had come to Womble, it would be time for them to go to a part-time pre-school nursery. We realized that the time had come to make our relationship to the to girls official, so we contacted Tim Ingledown, and this time he was much more helpful.

He said that first we must get ourselves and Mrs Hambleton officially recognized as carers for the twins, by registering with Gloucestershire social services department. Only then could we set the machinery leading to adoption in motion. Tim's firm's family and children's specialist was then called in. Gloucestershire social services had to liaise with their South Yorkshire counterparts and secure the mother's consent to the twins' adoption. The whole business dragged on for months, with several visits from Gloucestershire social services to assess us and to see the house. The girls' mother vacillated for several weeks before agreeing: weeks filled for us by tension, apprehension and fear that she would change her mind, but in the end she agreed, the adoption order was made, and we became the fathers of Jane and Anne Overton-Mascagnoli. Yes, we decided that the children should bear my surname, not Dom's. By adopting girls, we were ruling out any claims that a son might try to make to the title later in life.

There was no question of taking Mrs Hambleton out for a celebratory meal, we knew no-one well enough in the village to baby-sit, so we had a specialist celebratory dinner sent in from a firm of caterers. I was in charge of this. We began with a seafood cocktail, followed by cold roast turkey and salad followed by sticky toffee pudding. All the meal needed was a microwave oven to heat the pudding. We had a delicious bottle of Alsatian gewürztraminer with the meal. It was a Friday night, we did not need to go to work the next day, and we men went to bed early.

It was obvious, and had been to me throughout our meal, that Sandro wanted me. I hoped that Mrs Hambleton, a widow, had not been too put off her food by Sandro's signs of lust! But she was very good-hearted and by now was getting used to our fairly obvious indications of wanting to fuck. We usually locked our bedroom door at night, just in case one of the girls could not sleep and got out of bed. We trained the twins to go to Mrs Hambleton rather than us. Fortunately the girls slept soundly most nights.

We tore off our clothes and leapt into bed. I lay on my back and spread my legs and waited for my darling boy to enter me. He liberally anointed my hole with lube and stretched it a little with his fingers before gently pushing his rubber-coated meat into it. He lifted my legs on to his shoulders and before starting to fuck, he bent forward and began to kiss my face and chest. "Fuck me!" I whispered, "Squirt your man-juice into my gut. Have your foul and unnatural way with me. I'm yours, all yours! You can suck my dick, kiss my balls, fondle my cock, tickle my nipples, stroke and kiss my arse, do whatever you fancy to your willing victim! I love you, fag-boy!" I reached up, pulled him down on top of me and began to caress his arse. He started to fuck me and the movements of his cock got faster and faster and his sweat began to drip on me from his armpits. It smelt delicious, mixed with the scent of Storing pour Homme. I lay back and let him have his way with me. How lucky I was, I felt, to be loved by this hot sexy Italian. I counted myself fortunate to be gay. Straight men never know that wonderful experience of total surrender, of giving your body up to your lover and not needing to take any initiative. Eventually Sandro shot his load inside me and lay still, tired from his exertion. I stroked his sweet black hair, pulled him down on top of me and buried my face in his hair as he disengaged his dick from my back passage. I did not wish to be wanked off, we just lay side by side and fell asleep, content with each other's warm presence beside us.

The next evening we had a discussion with Mrs Hambleton. I said, "We are now officially the twins' parents. You have looked after them continuously since they were a few weeks old, and they are always going to regard you as their mother. We hope that Sandro and I will soon be regarded by Anne and Jane as the only fathers that they have ever had. So I think that the time has come to drop formalities. Please call us Dom and Sandro, and may we call you Elizabeth?"

Mrs Hambleton smiled. "Of course," she said. "Although you pay me a salary, and I'm twenty-five years older than you, like you I regard the three of us as joint parents of the twins. I'm not just a nanny, or a cook/housekeeper."

"We must decide what the girls should call us," I said. "Sandro's brother calls his two fathers Dad and Pop. I think that's a good idea, don't you? I will be Dad and Sandro will be not Pop, but Italian Pappa. Sandro wants to try teaching the girls Italian. Would that worry you? At the same time, I hope to spend some time in the evenings having Italian lessons, if we can find a tutor who will come to the house."

"That would be OK. They are both bright girls and picked up English very quickly."

"What about the furniture and other chattels that you have back at Getheringthorpe? We need to make arrangements to get them here or sent to an auction room. What do you want to do?"

"There are a few odds and ends that I would really like to have here. It could all be loaded into the 4x4. The rest can be sent for auction and the key to my house returned to the Getheringthwaite Estate Office."

We did this the following weekend and then settled down into a comfortable routine. Sandro would read to the girls in Italian from a simple Italian picture book. I would read to them from a similar English picture book. After a few weeks, they could talk about the pictures they were seeing in either English or Italian. After a few months, their Italian vocabulary was as big as their English one. I benefitted somewhat from this, as at the weekend I sat in on Sandro's lessons. By now the twins were going to nursery pre-school on two mornings per week, and they still had two hours sleep each weekday afternoon. This left Elizabeth free to get on with household tasks, or even to go into Swindon for a couple of hours in the morning.

To find an Italian tutor for me proved difficult. Eventually with help from Tim Ingledown, we traced a man in Swindon, who was prepared for the cost of his travel on top of his fee to come out and give me 90 minutes tuition every week. Unlike the girls, I was soon learning irregular verbs and the conjugation of Italian verbs. Before long, I could easily read the books Sandro was using with the girls, but I still found conversation difficult. In the end, we decided that when Elizabeth was not present, we would try to talk in Italian all the time. Soon it became apparent that the girls were listening to what we said and sometimes joined in the conversation. This meant that we had to be careful in not using the dirty Italian words that Sandro had taught me in bed!

Chapter XXXVIII Two E-mails

(1) From a.ovenden-mascagnoli@yyyyy.camf.org.uk to dorotea.mascagnoli@zzzzz.serviziointernetto.it

Carissima Madre mia e caro Padre mio

Dom e io siamo padri! (Dom and I are fathers) Yes, the adoption order has now been finalized and you are now the grandparents of the Honourable Anne and the Honourable Jane Ovenden-Mascagnoli. We are anxious for you to meet them as soon as possible, but we are limited in the time that we can get off work. We have both elected to take our two weeks paternity leave in small instalments over some months. Could we come to you for five days over Christmas and San Stefano? I have to be back here to work over the New Year with a track renewal project that can only be done over a public holiday.

We would need to bring Elizabeth Hambleton with us, as she is the girls' de facto mother. If you don't have enough room for all of us, Elizabeth can have our room and Dom and I will stay in the hotel. If Tom and Luca are coming, they will need to join us at the hotel. It shouldn't be a problem for them as neither is short of a bob or two as they say in Yorkshire. We might even have an Italian boys' night out as a foursome! We don't want to overburden you! Please let me know as soon as possible, as we need to apply for passports for the girls, and possibly for Elizabeth as well. They are absolutely sweet children. Elizabeth has done a fantastic job in bringing them up so far and we hope that with two fathers, the twins will grow up to be even more delightful. As far as they are concerned, the adoption order has made no difference, but neither Dom nor I wanted to show them off to our families until they were really ours. I have started to teach them Italian. The sooner we do it, the more likely it is that they will grow up bilingual. In particular, we want to get them talking, however ungrammatically, in Italian before they start school. You see, Pappa, that I have not become totally anglicized!

Vi amo, a riverderci,

Sandro XXXXX

(2). From d.f.ovenden@xxxxx.camf.org.uk to e.r.batley@qqqqq.hcu-swanbridge.ac.uk

Dear Mum and Dad

You are now grandparents! Yes, the adoption order has been finalized and Sandro and I are now fathers. We both have managed to get a few days days off as paternity leave, and we wondered if we could come with Elizabeth and the twins for a long weekend at Paradise Place at the end of next week, so that you can meet our wonderful little daughters. We would come in the 4x4 on Thursday morning and leave on Sunday night. Richard will be able to meet his two nieces as well! Sandro has started to teach the twins Italian, and I am learning too.

I know that having five of us as guests is a bit demanding, but I'm sure that you are dying to meet the latest members of the Ovenden family. The girls are really sweet and extremely well behaved and are looking forward to meeting Granny and Grandad. Please ring my cellphone to let me know if this is OK.

Your loving

Dom XXX

Chapter XXXIX Dom: A visit to Paradise Place

Very early on a Thursday morning, two sleepy four-year-olds were loaded into baby seats in the car. Elizabeth climbed in beside them, having first supervised the loading of the baggage. I climbed into the driver's seat, Sandro took the front passenger seat, and after several hours on the M4 and M25 we arrived at Paradise Place in time for lunch. My parents came out of the house to welcome us, and I kissed my mother before helping the twins out of the car. I took the hand of both of them and led them to her. I said to the girls "This is your new Granny!" To my mother I said, "This is Anne with the red hair, and this is Jane with the dark hair." My mother put her arms round both of them and kissed them one at a time. Then I took them to my father and said to them, "This is my father. His name is Lord Batley, but you should call him Grandad!" He kissed the girls in turn and they both smiled shyly.

"Dad," said Anne to me, "when can we go in the pool?"

At exactly the same moment, Jane said to Sandro "Pappa, quando andiamo nella piscina?"

"Non fino a dopo pranzo," Lord Batley told them. (Not till after lunch).

The girls were surprised to find that my father could speak Italian. "Why can't Dad speak Italian when his father can?" asked Jane.

"Because nobody taught me when I was your age!" I replied.

Lunch was a great success. The twins behaved well, even though they were very talkative. After the meal, Elizabeth insisted that they should lie down for an hour before going into the pool. During their rest, my parents said how sweet and well behaved the twins were.

We had brought the twins' arm-band floats and their swimming cozzies. Similarly, Sandro and I had brought our own swimwear. He still wore the skimpy yellow briefs that he had been wearing the first time that we swam together in our first term at Boni's. One glance at his slim body and mouthwatering arse were enough to give me a stiffie, which I hoped desperately that no-one would notice if they looked closely at my crotch. The twins had been to our local public pool in Cirencester, but had never been in a private pool. They loved it, and were even jumping in at the shallow end. After an hour or so, we all got out and Lady Batley brought tea for Sandro and me, and milk for the girls.

On the Friday evening, my brother Richard arrived back from school for the weekend. He was introduced to the girls and they made a great fuss of him and eventually in response to their entreaties, he went into the pool with them. It was the first time that Sandro had seen him stripped, and I noticed that he was ogling him. My brother does look good. He is tall, slim, flat-bellied and fit, due to his sporting activities at school. He was in the sixth form and would be doing A levels the next year.

The next day, at Lady Batley's suggestion, we took the twins to church. They needed to be entertained with books, but they were quiet and well behaved. After the service, my mother asked Elizabeth if the twins had been baptized. She replied that they had not, that when she mentioned it to her niece, the girl had shrugged off the suggestion. Both Sandro and I were shocked by this. We had just assumed that the girls had been made Christians as babies. We decided that we would arrange for them to be baptized in the chapel at Getheringthwaite next time that we were there. In the meantime, we would have to find four women to act as godmothers, women who were not too old. There would be no problems in finding two godfathers, but we did not know a lot of women.

Before we left Paradise Place, my father summoned Sandro and me to talk to him. "I appreciate, and entirely support you lads' determination to work for your living and to bring up your daughters independently, but I would remind you that you live in an expensive area, and as the girls grow up, they will be quite costly to feed, clothe and educate. But there is no need to deny your children the advantages of a good education and the need to pay for for extras like swimming and music lessons. This is where we can help you. The advantage of making use of unearned family wealth is that you can both work in jobs that you enjoy but are not well paid, without your children losing out on educational benefits at the age when they can most profit from them. So I am going to ask Tim Ingledown to invest about £500K on the girls' behalf, to pay for private education for them when they get to the age of ten. Moreover I am going to give you an extra allowance of £15K per year to pay for things like swimming and music lessons, and for any extra clothes that they may need, and moreover to pay annual increments to Elizabeth's salary to at least keep up with inflation. That will enable you to bring up Anne and Jane in the manner suited to an Earl's granddaughter. I respect your desire to be self-supporting, but life in the Cotswolds is expensive, and you will never get the chance to live at Getheringthwaite, where goods and services are a lot cheaper."

We were both bowled over by this offer, and before I had chance to open my mouth, Sandro, to my father's extreme embarrassment, had thrown his arms round him and kissed him. "Thank you, sir!" he said. "I promise that we will not spoil the twins by using the money for presents or non-essentials."

"No, you won't!" said my Dad. "I'm going to ask Elizabeth to make absolutely sure that you don't!" I joined Sandro in thanking him.

Chapter XL Jon: Tommy's adolescence