Tom and Luke Get a Family Pt. 01

And Tom began to kiss Luke's belly. The sensation of his mate's rock-hard tool rubbing against his cheek was delightful. He began to lick the slimy precome, and when his tongue had spread it over the side of Luke's shaft, he took the head into his mouth and began to chew it. He rubbed his tongue over the nut-like head and pushed the tip of it into Luke's piss-slit. Luke wriggled with delight.

"That's wonderful, Tom. No wonder small boys like playing with their genitals. You wait, our son, as soon as he's out of napkins, will start playing with his dick! Even before puberty, the nerve endings that give men such pleasure are already there. I hope he does become ours. I'm so glad that he's a boy!"

"Personally, I wouldn't have minded if he had been a girl," said Tom, momentarily removing his mouth from Luke's cock. "But if you want me to pleasure you, you will have to shut up and let me get on with it!" He grinned before resuming his attentions to Luke's manhood, even trying to swallow it, and Luke responded with passionate fucking movements until after a couple of minutes he came with a shudder and shot his load into Tom's mouth.

Tom smiled seraphically as he slowly swallowed Luke's ejaculate, and then in his usual way kissed Luke on the lips and with his tongue pushed traces of Luke's jism into Luke's own mouth. He then pulled Luke into a sitting position and put his arms tightly round Luke's upper body and gave him a kiss that lasted several minutes. "My darling Luke, you are still the man of my dreams!" he whispered as they fell asleep.

Chapter VI Olivia's parents

The two men and Olivia met with Sescantanto a week later. Olivia had seen her parents. After the first shock of hearing that she was to become an unmarried mother (a traditional expression now highly politically incorrect!), they asked her how she was going to manage with very little income and a baby to feed and bring up. She told them about what her boss at work had proposed. At first shocked and surprised, further consideration (Italians are not basically romantic people) made them curious to meet the two gay men who were apparently so keen to bring up their future grandson.

The Professor suggested that a meeting be set up between Olivia, Tom and Luca and Olivia's parents. He preferred, having set the wheels in motion, to have nothing further to do with the arrangements, though he asked to be kept informed on a regular basis. The boys booked in for a weekend at an hotel in Ferrara, which was quite near Olivia's native village, Luke having managed to get a Saturday off work.

They let the churchwarden and choirmaster of Holy Cross, their church in Bologna, know that they were unable to carry out their normal Sunday duties in the choir, and early on the Saturday they drove to the village where Olivia was staying with her parents.

They had had a long discussion on what to wear. "If we wear suits, we will look like a pair of evangelizing Mormons!" said Luke, "but we can't wear denims or anything scruffy, so let's go for very smart casual." He made Tom put on his smart green leather jacket, and he himself put on cavalry twill trousers and a tweed jacket.

Before they left (Tom was driving), he said to Luke as they sat in the car, "Let's just have a minute of prayer to ask God to guide us in what we say and the decisions we make." After a period of silence, Tom took Luke's hand and kissed it. "But whatever happens today, we still have God and each other," he said and he reached out and turned on the engine.

The village lay in the flat plain of the river Po valley in the depths of Emilia-Romagna. The surrounding countryside was not especially beautiful. At about 10-30 am they knocked on the door of Via Umberto Primo 65. It was opened by a happy-looking Olivia. She invited them in and they shook hands with Olivia's parents. The parents were not as old as the boys had expected, they were in their early fifties. Signora Desparaldi went to prepare coffee.

Signor Desparaldi worked as a local government officer: he was not a rustic peasant. He was also quite shrewd in the questions that he asked. He asked their ages, enquired about their careers and their career ambitions, about their incomes, whether they had any criminal convictions, why they lived in Italy rather than England, about their parentage and family history, how long they had lived together and the legal nature of their union.

Finally he asked the most difficult questions of all, "Why do you want to bring up a child? You are both successful in your careers and have a good income, why do you want the responsibility of nurturing a child? It is a burden that many married couples nowadays want to avoid. Also, if your desire for a family is so strong, why do you not move to a land where you can adopt children rather than merely foster them, or even a land where you can commission a surrogate to bear your child? Moreover, what would you do if, God forbid, Olivia's child should turn out to be handicapped?"

Tom answered for the two of them. "All normal human beings want to have children, surprisingly even women, for whom childbirth is a painful experience. It is burned into our genes that we want to reproduce. Most men want to become fathers, and for those men whose love and instincts are directed to their own sex, what we want is biologically impossible, so we must seek to love and cherish the offspring of others.

"As regards your second question, Luca here has been learning Italian since he was seven, his biological mother and father both live here, he studied Italian for four years at university, so it is not surprising that he has a deep love for this country. I came here to be with him, I had to learn Italian starting at the age of twenty-two. It was hard work for me, but I had to do it to be with him, because by then we were civil partners.

"If we had stayed in England, I would easily have got a job, we could easily have adopted children, but Luca wants to be here in Italy, and I want to be with him. Besides, I now love it here myself. We visit Luca's mother and her family twice a month. I have no family in England except a married sister. My mother died fifteen years ago, and I am estranged from my father and my other sisters.

"As for your final question, it would be hard for us to bring up a handicapped child, but that is a risk that every prospective parent runs. We would not evade or seek to escape from a commitment just because it was harder and sadder than we expected. We have promised to be faithful to one another for better or worse, and we could never turn our backs on any agreement with Olivia just because she had had a handicapped child. Oh, and of course we have family money that would make child care very much easier. One of Luca's parents is extremely wealthy. We prefer to earn our own living, but there is no necessity except a moral one, to do so."

After that response there was a period of silence. Signora Desperaldi asked if they would stay for lunch, and of course the boys said yes. Olivia had been silent throughout their long conversation with her father. She asked the boys if they were religious and they said that they were, that they worshipped most Sundays at the English church in Bologna, even though it was a long drive, but that they then went on at least twice per month to Luca's mother's house and spent the day with her and her husband.

Luke told the story of how, when he became eighteen, he had traced her and visited her and her family when he was on a language course in Trabizona. He explained how he had effectively changed places with his Italian younger brother, who wanted to stay working in England!

About 4 pm, the two men left, and they were invited to come to lunch the next day. They spent the rest of the day exploring the village before returning to Ferrara and checking the mass times at the nearest church. They often used the local church when there was no English church within reach. After an hour in the hotel pool, they had a late dinner at the hotel. Just before they went to bed, Tom's cellphone rang. It was Olivia. She said that she would meet them before lunch for coffee at the local taverna at 11 am.

Next day, after church, they drove to Olivia's village and met her at the cafe. She told them that although they still had a lot of questions, her parents seemed quite favourably inclined towards them. Luke told her that if her parents were not opposed to the idea of fostering/guardianship, he would like his mother and Bastian to meet her before any decision could be made. Over lunch, the question of religion arose. The boys said that they would prefer to bring the boy up as an Anglican, but would not mind if Olivia wanted him to be a Roman Catholic. The important thing, they both emphasized, was that he should be taught the Christian Faith at a young age. This made a big positive impression on the Desparaldi parents.

Luke explained that he had been in a choir school from age seven until his voice broke and had been confirmed and received his first communion at the age of ten. The Faith had always been an important part of his life and was a determining and cementing factor in his partnership with Tomaso. The boys made it clear that the final decision about their guardianship must come from Olivia, but that if her parents did not agree, then the plan would have to be abandoned. They did not want to break up the Desparaldi family. Late in the afternoon they left, after a meeting had been arranged between Olivia and Luke's mother.

Chapter VII Olivia meets Dorothea, Arturo and Bastian

The biological clock was steadily ticking, so less than a week later Dorotea Mascagnoli came to Trabizona to meet Olivia and the boys. A lot of similar ground was covered as in earlier meetings, but the subject of Olivia's coming confinement was discussed for the first time. To the boys' amazement, Luke's mother offered to come to the flat and look after Olivia after she and the baby had been discharged from hospital. "You can't go back to your bedsitter on your own," she said, "and I don't know how often the midwife will visit, but you will need help starting to feed the baby. It's unlikely that his feeding will be properly established before you leave hospital.

"Moreover the men will need to be fed, and while Costanza can do that, she's not available every day. So you and the baby can have the spare room here, I will have the boys' room. Luke can sleep on the sofa in the lounge and Tom can go and stay with Ben and Leonora. Leonora may be able to give me a hand: she's a new mother herself and must know things that I don't know."

Tom offered to give Olivia a lift back to her bedsit, and Luke stayed to hear his mother's opinion about her. "She seems to me to be trustworthy. If she agrees to live with the two of you, I don't think she will run off with another man or woman. If she has sexual needs, you will have to get her to admit it. If she fancies of one of you, you will have to decide between yourselves what you are going to do about it.

"If she meets a man or woman with whom she wants to form a relationship, I think she would be happy to leave the child with you, provided that she can see him if she wishes. As for you two, you would have to find a resident carer, or else one of you will have to give up his job like Jonathan did.

"The flat is not really a suitable place for a young baby. It would be better for you to look for somewhere else to live that's more family-friendly. It's not as if you are short of money. My brother gave Sandro and Dom £500K to buy a house. He will do the same for you. So the two of you had better get looking for a house suitable for a family! You need at least four decent-sized bedrooms, and at least two bathrooms, preferably three. If you want to retain Costanza, you have to be reasonably near where she lives."

A few days later, a meeting was arranged between the men, Olivia and Arturo and Bastian at Arturo's villa. Arturo pressed Olivia to say what her parents' decision would be if she decided to let the boys become foster parents/guardians. She said that they would say yes. Bastian asked her what she would do if when the boy was say four years old, she met someone, male or female, with whom she wanted to form a relationship. Would she be prepared to leave the baby with the boys on a permanent basis, provided that she could see him whenever she wished? She said yes.

She in turn asked the boys what they would do if their relationship broke up. This caught them unawares. They had not thought of that possibility. They could only say that it would not happen, unless one of them was killed in an accident, but that if it did, and Olivia was unmarried or not in a relationship, the boy would be returned to her guardianship, but with money for his care. If she was married, one of them or the survivor would assume full responsibility for the boy. There was enough money to pay a nanny.

All present then asked Bastian if any legally binding agreement could be arranged, setting out all the agreed conditions. He was doubtful, but said that he would try to draw up some kind of agreement so that everyone involved knew exactly what the arrangements were, and the provision for the child in the event of the death, break-up or marriage of any of the parties would be spelt out. "You will need to make Italian wills to conform to this agreement," he warned the boys.

The subject of housing was then discussed. It was agreed that the boys' flat was quite unsuitable for a family with a young baby. The boys said that they had money to buy a house, without even needing a mortgage, but that it would take time to find the right house, buy furniture (the rented flat was furnished) and move in. Arturo then came up with an amazing offer. "You can all move in here for as long as you need to buy and furnish a house," he said. "This place is much too big for just Bastian and me, and I'm sure that if you give my housekeeper Isabella a pay-rise, she will take care of the cooking and cleaning. And I think that she would love to have a baby in the house. There is a big room for Olivia and the baby, another for Tom and Luca, and a small room that Luca's mother can use while she is here. I will of course charge you rent, but it won't be something that you can't afford to pay. There is only one other condition: you must make me godfather to the baby."

We were all delighted with the offer and its conditions. Tom thought back to his early days in the lab, and how he had found Arturo so difficult to talk to. He had not even guessed at that stage that Arturo was gay. Seven years had made a huge difference! He felt that he was increasingly coming to view Arturo as a second father. By the time that the baby was born, Tom would have had his thirtieth birthday.

Chapter VIII Olivia gives birth

The next few months passed rapidly. Luke explained to Cornelio and Pauline that he and Tom hoped shortly to become foster parents/guardians, and that his work would be irregular and frequently interrupted during the time that Olivia was having her baby and getting established in motherhood. Moreover, they were looking for a house more suitable for a family of four including a young baby. Cornelio assured him that they would be flexible and could manage in his absence, as the season in June/July was winding down for the summer. Pauline was delighted at Luke's prospective fatherhood. She said that no male was a complete man until he had been a father, and that a man could achieve that status with actually begetting a child, provided that he had been exposed to all the cares and responsibilities of fatherhood.

In mid-June, a week before the expected date of delivery, Olivia and all her clothes and possessions were moved with the boys' help to Arturo's villa. Then the boys moved the things that they needed on a daily basis to the villa also. Olivia had remained pretty fit during her pregnancy. She told the boys that she had given their names to the maternity hospital as next of kin, rather than those of her parents. "I want to be sure that you have family status while I am in hospital, even though I won't tell you my decision about your guardianship role until after the baby is born," she said. Her antenatal classes had taught her how to recognize the imminent onset of labour.

One night about three days later, she started to get contractions of her belly about 9 pm. "Don't worry yet!" she told the boys, "With a first pregnancy labour can go on for hours and hours. We must wait till the contractions get more frequent." About 2 am, the contractions were coming faster and more frequently, and the boys got the car ready. They helped Olivia, who was having difficulty walking, into the car and Tom drove them to the hospital.

The journey was comparatively quick as there was little traffic at that time of night. Olivia was admitted to the maternity ward, and by now it was clear that she was in considerable, if intermittent pain. She was put into bed by a nurse, who told them that only one of them could stay with her. They asked Olivia which of them she wanted to stay. "Voglio Tomaso!" (I want Tom) she said. Luke said that he would wait in the waiting room. By 5 am, the contractions were getting stronger and Olivia kept crying out in pain.

Tom went into the waiting room and told Luke to go home and get some sleep. "I'll ring you when things really get started," he said. "The contractions may go on for hours yet." So Luke drove back to Arturo's and went to bed.

Tom returned to the ward to find Olivia moaning and crying. "Tenere mano mia, Tom!" she moaned. So Tom got hold of her hand and remained holding it for the next few hours.

I will not describe the birth in any detail. About 7 am, it was clear that Olivia was in acute pain and nearly doubled up with almost uncontrollable contractions. The nurse brought a midwife and Tom was made to sit in a corner out of the way. They turned on the nitrous oxide and oxygen gas supply and gave Olivia small doses when she asked or cried. Her yells were getting pretty loud and distressed, and Tom felt awful.

It is pretty bad for a husband or lover to hear the woman he loves in physical agony, but at least such a man knows that he is responsible for her condition! Tom had no such solace. Here was this girl, whom he had only known for a few months, undergoing agony, and all he could do was sit there.

Another hour went by, and Olivia's heartbreaking shrieks continued. Then the nurses started to move around, there was a hive of activity, Olivia's yells got less, and in the pauses between, another higher sound could be heard, something between a shriek and loud whimper and the nurse started to wrap something up. She beckoned to a weary Tom and showed him a red-faced little object, yelling lustily, with a length of umbilical cord hanging out of his wrappings. "Vostro figlio nuovo" (your new son) she said.

Tom wished that the little bundle really was his as he went to the bedside and took hold of an exhausted Olivia's hand. "Felicitazioni, sei una madre!" (Congratulations, you're a mother), he said, and bent down and kissed her.

By now it was 9-30 am. He went into the waiting room and telephoned Luke, waking him up, and asked him to call his mother and ask her to come to Trabizona within a couple of days and to call Olivia's parents and tell them that they could come and visit Olivia in the evening. "And please could you come and pick me up?" he said. "I'm too shagged out even to consider coming out to Arturo's on the bus, and you've got the car! If you ask nicely, they'll let you take a peep at Olivia, but hopefully she'll be asleep by then."

By 10-30, Tom was in bed and asleep. He slept till about 3 pm, got up, washed without shaving and got dressed. There was no sign of Luke, so Tom went to the lab. He could not play the role of a proud father announcing the birth of his son, so he didn't say anything. He went to see Arturo and said that he could work half-days until Olivia and the baby were discharged from hospital, but thereafter he needed maybe a week's paternity leave, maybe more. "I've not announced the birth to anyone," he said, "or they might think the baby was mine! In a way I wish it was, but that would have meant that I needed to fuck her, and I'm not sure that I could!"