Luke at University Pt. 02

What most worried me was that a number of the men on the course, especially the older ones, up about 35, were very attractive. And because I was in Italy, I was wearing some of my more stylish clothes, which definitely attracted attention. I decided that there was safety in numbers, so on the relatively few occasions when we had more than a couple of hours free, I made sure that I was not left alone in the company of one man, particularly if he was attractive. It's difficult for a man to flirt with a man, without letting things go further, as my experience with Nic had shown me.

After two weeks of the course, there was a single weekend free of any commitments. On the Saturday, I got the train to the small town near Verona, and sought for the address of my sister that grandfather had given me. It was Via Guglielmo Marconi 78. I found the street on the town map outside the station. It proved to be within walking distance of the station. I set off and soon located it. It was a large house with an archway going into a courtyard. Across the yard I saw a door with a number of bell-pushes. I found one with the name I had been given, 'Mascagnoli.' I pressed the bell and a voice answered. "Cerco Signora Mascagnoli" I said. "Chi è?" was the reply. "Luke Scarborough" I answered, using my birth surname. "CHI?" they asked again. "Scarborough Luca" I replied, this time in the Italian style of giving a name. There was a click and the door opened. I stepped inside.

After the brilliant sunshine outside, it seemed very dark. A teenage boy came down a wide staircase at the far side of the dark hall, and said to me "Veni." I followed him up the stairs and we reached a sort of well-lighted gallery. On the wall was a mirror and our two faces were visible side-by-side. I was shaken. The boy looked just like me, even to the dark line of pubescent facial hair on his upper lip, which had so upset me when I was his age! I think he was a bit surprised as well, but then he grinned and said in Italian "This way." He led me to an apartment door and we entered straight into quite a large room, where a very attractive lady in her late forties was sitting and a little girl of about ten was playing in a corner.

I looked hard at the woman and she looked hard at me "Sei mia madre?" (Are you my mother?) I asked her. All the conversation was in Italian of course.

She smiled. "Sì, e tu sei mio figlio Luca" (Yes, and you are my son Luca). The teenager, who must have been about fifteen, gasped in amazement.

"You never told me that I had an elder brother!" he said.

"No, because your father forbade me ever to mention that you were not his son!"

"Whose son am I then?" the boy asked.

"Your father's name is Mario Contadino, and he is also the father of Luca here. I have never seen him since you were born. I don't regard him as your father, the man that you call 'mio padre' is your father, just as I regard my brother Davide as Luca's father."

This scenario seemed to be getting as bizarre as the parenthood of Figaro in the opera! "What is your name then?" I asked him.

"I am Mascagnoli Alessandro," he replied.

"Buon giorno, fratello Alessandro!" I said, and shook his hand.

Then I went and put my arms round my mother and kissed her. Her eyes were full of tears. "It's so good to see you!" she said. "I can see that my brother has made a good job of bringing you up." We spoke in Italian, so that Alessandro could understand.

"Dad has been a wonderful father to me, even though his job has kept him away so much. Most of the time my sister and I were looked after by Dad's partner Gionata Singleton. I don't know whether my grandfather has told you, but last December, after twenty years, they entered into civil partnership, so my parents' union is now officially recognized. We all changed our names, so I am now Luca Singleton-Scarborough. Have you followed Dad's career at all? He's going to be Italy in September for a short recital tour, singing Monteverdi madrigals. We shall all be staying at a house that my parents own in Montecatini-Terme, Dad, Gionata whom I call Pop, my sister Caterina, and my boyfriend Tomaso. I'm afraid that, like my fathers, I'm gay. Tomaso and I are first year students at Collegio Buckingham, Camford." In spite of us speaking Italian, I wondered how much of this conversation Alessandro could follow. "It would be wonderful if we could all meet up."

"That rather depends on how my husband reacts. So far he has not encouraged me to contact any of my family."

"Mamma, I want to meet Luca's family!" said Alessandro. "Luca, let me introduce you to my sister, Bianca." He beckoned the little girl, who ran up and kissed him and then shyly extended her hand to me.

"Buon giorno, Luca!" she said. "Mio nuovo fratello!" (my new brother).

I put my arms round her and kissed her. "Mia nuova sorellina!" I replied.

"What happened with Mario Contadino?" I said to my mother, "I thought that you would never see him again after what he did to you."

"I'm sorry to tell you that four years later, just as I had completed my doctoral work, I met him again, and the same thing happened. He charmed me into his bed and begot another child."

"He must have been an incredibly attractive man," I said, "to have fooled you twice. And lucky with his time of the month too!" This is not the sort of comment that one would normally make to one's mother, I suppose, but our lack of acquaintance meant that I felt that I could speak frankly! She blushed, and so did I. Fortunately Alessandro was old enough to hear a conversation of this type, although I expect he found it extremely embarrassing.

"A few months later I met Massimo," she continued. "I fell for him at once. He was so sweet, he was happy to marry me straight away and accept Alessandro as his own son. A few years later, we had our lovely daughter."

"I can understand now why he didn't want to talk to Alessandro about his parentage. I hope that I have not created a problem by turning up like this, particularly the effect it may have on Alessandro. Maybe I should go, and disappear from your life once again."

"No! I could have sent Alessandro and Bianca outside to play. I WANTED them to meet you and hear about Alessandro's parentage. Family is family, and Massimo will be the first to agree that his children should meet their long-lost brother. I hope that you can stay and meet him. He should get home about 4 pm."

"I can stay as long as you like provided that I can catch the last train back to Trabizona."

"What are you doing there?"

"I'm on an advanced Italian language course at the university."

"Oh, yes, I went on it myself in the nineteen-eighties. So you're studying Italian like I did. I have to compliment you, you speak it very well!"

"Mamma, is Luca not Italian?"

"No, Sandro, è Inglese, come sono."(he's English like I am).

"Well, I had big incentives to study Italian. Both my fathers are obsessed with everything Italian. They both went on courses to learn it, and used to speak it to each other when my sister and I were little. Dad's singing teacher, Marcello Fabioni is Italian. His wife Caterina is my godmother. We only drink Italian wines, we eat regularly at an Italian restaurant in Camford. We even have an Italian house in Montecatini-Terme. The only people in our family not to be involved in the Italian thing are my sister Caterina and my boyfriend Tom. Cathy is Jon's biological daughter by a surrogate mother, but as you know, we are both adopted. One thing though: we don't like Italian beer! But even Tom has learnt to drink and enjoy Prosecco!"

I was impressed with Alessandro. He was much more self-confident and chatty than most English boys of his age. I turned to him. "What do you want to be, Sandro, when you get older? Do you want to study at University?"

"Yes, I want to study engineering."

"Good choice! Where would you like to go? Roma? Bologna? Trabizona? Camford? You could come to Camford if your English was good enough."

Chapter 37

The Mascagnoli family

About 4 pm, we heard a car drive into the courtyard, and a few minutes later, a very handsome middle-aged man, slim, fit and smartly dressed, came into the room. Sandro ran up to him saying, "Pappa, this is Luca. He's my new brother!" Hardly the best of introductions, I felt, considering the awkward circumstances of Sandro's birth. In fact, I nearly died of embarrassment at the thought of what I might have precipitated by my visit. Probably the last thing that Massimo Mascagnoli wanted was raking over the circumstances of an old and unhappy occurrence. I was sure that he had been looking forward to sitting down to a plate of pasta and a glass of red wine. My thoughts must have been reflected on my face, as I could feel from the flush of blood in my cheeks. I stood up and looked him in the face. He must have noticed my resemblance to Sandro, because he smiled and looked me up and down appraisingly, noting my Armani jeans.

My mother also stood up and crossed the room to stand beside me. "I'm sorry for the surprise visit," I said, "but I had no phone number, and this was the only weekend that I was free from commitments on my course in Trabizona." Unlike the children, he was well aware of my existence, even though we had never met. He recovered rapidly from his surprise and welcomed me with a handshake.

He kissed his wife. "Dorotea, can Luca stay to dinner with us?" he asked smiling, before he addressed me.

"Yes, please, Mamma, let Luca stay!" said Bianca, jumping up and down and hugging her father.

"Of course!" said my mother. "I haven't seen Luca for fifteen years, I'm not going to push him out of the door now!"

"So, Luca," said Signor Mascaglioni "What are you doing in Trabizona?"

"I'm on an advanced study Summer School for students of Italian, Signore" I said. "I'm studying Italian at Camford University."

"Isn't that what your mother did?"

"Yes, except that she studied in Oxbridge, not Camford."

"Your Italian seems pretty good to me!" he said. "What do you hope to do when you've graduated?"

"I don't know," I said, "but I will try to get a job in Italy. I like it here. The problem is that I'm in a relationship, and what I do may be determined by what my boyfriend wants to do. I'm gay, like my two fathers, you see."

Shortly after this we sat down to a lovely meal of lasagne al forno. My mother was bubbling with happiness and even her husband was smiling. As for my new brother and sister, they were chattering away to me with great abandon, asking me about my parents, where I had to tread very carefully about their relationship, while explaining that I had been adopted by them, and they asked about my sister and my boyfriend. I told them about how Tom had been thrown out of his home and had to come and live with us. We all had a wonderful evening and about 11 pm I left to catch my train back to Trabizona, promising to come again the following afternoon.

That Sunday was the only day on the month-long course that was completely free. I finished the small amount of written work required for the Monday, then attended mass in the nearest church. My familiarity with Italian made it easy to follow the service, though as a non-catholic I could not receive the sacrament. The nearest English church was in Bologna, which was too far away.

I then caught the train and had another wonderful day with my newly-found second family. I found myself confessing to my mother how much I was missing Tom. She smiled and said how nice it was to hear a man saying that. No Italian male, she said would ever admit to missing his lover. I said that maybe she had been unlucky with the first man in her life. I thanked her for the money that had arrived annually on my birthday, said how much I had appreciated it, and how sorry I was that I had not been able to acknowledge it.

We all went out and walked round the ancient walls of the town, and stopped for a gelato, which we ate sitting on a seat on the wall-top gazing at surrounding countryside. I enjoyed talking to the children. Bianca was very chatty and sweet and I said that when she was old enough to travel alone, she should come and visit us at Ixton. We exchanged addresses, E-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers before I left, rather earlier than the night before.

Chapter 38

E-mail from l.c.singleton-scarborough@buckingham.camford.ac.uk to d.m.singleborough@opsingnet.net

cc. j.singleborough@bonif.camford.ac.uk, t.appleton@buckingham.camford.ac.uk

'Dear Dad, Pop and Tom

You are about to be astounded by what I have to tell you. So sit down, pour yourself a stiff drink and read on. But Dad, do NOT read this before a performance, or you may well mess it up!

I got my mother's address from Grandad before I left for Italy, and last Saturday I went to visit her. She is happily married to a very nice, well-off businessman called Massimo Mascagnoli, and they have two children. So I now have another sister, Bianca aged 10 and a brother, aged 15. But the big shock is that the brother, Alessandro, is not Massimo's son. His father is Mario Contadino, who is also my father. Mother had a SECOND fling with that worthless wop just after she finished her doctoral work, and once again managed to get a bun in the oven. Fortunately, while she was pregnant, she met and fell in love with Massimo, who at once married her and brought up Alessandro as his own son.

They are all wonderful people who were very welcoming, even though the event must have been a shock for both Massimo and Sandro, especially the latter, who was told the truth about his father for the first time. So I have a full brother and half-sister that I never knew about! Please will you break this news gently to Cathy as soon as you can! I don't want to make a secret of it. Please let Grandma and Grandad know at the same time, and thank Grandad for giving me my mother's address. I have Italian phone numbers, E-mail addresses etc. and when you are all in Montecatini-Terme next month, we must all meet up. It will be a momentous occasion!

Your ever-loving, but still amazed son,

Luca. XXXXXX'

Chapter 39

Interlude at Glyndebourne

The rest of my stay in Trabizona went uneventfully. I met a few interesting people and collected a few useful E-mail addresses, although I felt in the end that as far as speaking was concerned, I had learnt more in the weekend with my new family than I had learnt in all the rest of the stay, but I did learn a lot about Italian life and institutions.

Before I went on to Montecatini-Terme, I flew home for one weekend in early September for Tom's late birthday present: the trip to Glyndebourne to hear my father sing the title role in 'La Clemenza di Tito.' Tom had never been to an opera. I don't suppose that I would have been to many either, if I had not had a singer in the family. But I had in fact seen quite a few, in Bristol, Birmingham, Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells. But the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera season is something quite different. The opera house is attached to a country house in glorious parkland in Sussex. It is a very upmarket occasion, with many people going for social rather than musical motives.

To please my boy, I pulled out all the stops. We did everything absolutely properly, a dinner suit was hired for Tom, a lavish picnic hamper for two was purchased, the weather was warm and kind (not always the case in an English September), a hotel room had been booked months before for an overnight stay in Lewes. We had a wonderful time. My father excelled himself in his new role, and the superb music of Mozart at his latest and most creative best (the opera was first performed only twelve weeks before he died), sent us (and the rest of the audience) nearly swooning at its beauty. I told Tom that this was an opportunity that he would never have again, because 'Clemenza' is only performed once in a blue-moon, perhaps because of the demands that it makes on the singers. We sat on the grass in the garden in the long interval with lots of other couples, some doting like ourselves, some casual, eating our picnic paté and cold chicken salad and tiramisu and drinking Prosecco.

At the end of the last act, the audience went crazy with its applause, Tom was nearly in tears with delight. We were invited to Dad's dressing room where we drank champagne while he removed his makeup, complaining bitterly about its effect on his skin. "I'm staying at the same hotel as you lads, the Lewes Vacation Station," he said, "so if you care to wait, I'll run you back to Lewes. I sang better tonight, because I knew you two were in the audience. I always sing better when my family is present! I won't buy you drinks when we get back to the hotel, because I know that you will be in big rush to get to bed. I know exactly what it's like to be away from the man you love for a long time, it has happened to me regularly for the last 25 years. It's only the fact that the job I do brings so much happiness and satisfaction to people that prevents me packing it in here and now and spending all my time with Jon. But there is a compensation: coming back together after an absence always makes the lovemaking much more enjoyable than routine fucking!

"Are you two planning to get engaged in the near future, or do you consider yourselves too young?"

"Not for a year or so at least," I said, "to give us a chance to see how we get on in our studies, and to get some idea about future jobs. You know that neither of us wants to live on your and Pop's wealth, we want to make our own careers."

Before long Dad was ready and drove us back to the Vacation Station (a ridiculous name for an hotel chain), where we bade him goodnight. We put the order card for room service breakfast to be served at 10 am on our door, and I locked it. As I did so, I released an enormous fart. Tom grinned. "You'd better make sure that you clear out all that wind before I start to shag you, or you'll blow me out!"

"Maybe I should visit the bathroom," I said, "I may be gone for some time!" I returned ten minutes later feeling nice and empty, my gut ready to be filled with meat! We removed our dress clothes and carefully put them into boxes. Tom's would have to be returned to the hire shop the next day in Camford, and he was going to take mine home with him, as the next day I was going straight to nearby Gatwick Airport to fly to Pisa.

We had less sleep than usual that night. We were both absolutely on fire with love and desire for one another.

I said to Tom "Let's have a gentle shag now, then sleep, but get up early in the morning. I want to ride your dick, if you would like that. But not tonight, I'm too tired." I surrendered myself to his loving arms before seeking release to unroll a condom on to his cock. I handed him the gel and lay back on the bed so that he could open me up and lube me well. My sphincter muscles had stiffened and tightened a bit in the month or so in which I had not been penetrated, and I was longing to feel Tom's manhood inside me, so he spent some time preparing me. He was so sweet and considerate. Many men would have just banged it in without any thought of the pain or discomfort that they might cause. How lucky I was to have found him.

He kissed me passionately on the lips and on each nipple and then on my belly-button, then on the tip of my rapidly stiffening dick, then on each ball. He sucked the head of my dick briefly before approaching my hole. He stuck his tongue in for a moment, before following up with his prick, which he pushed gently until it popped inside, giving me a slight twinge of pain that swiftly wore off. When I relaxed, he started fucking movements, slowly and gently, his hands on my hips, my legs over his shoulders. "Thank you my darling lad for this wonderful evening. Your Dad's singing nearly sends me crazy. And you've no idea how much I've missed you!" he said. "I need you to love me, I need you always to be with me, supporting me with your loving. Without you, I feel lonely, desolate and vulnerable."