Tom and Luke Get a Family Pt. 04

"It's fantastic. I love changing napkins, helping to put shoes on, spoon-feeding and teaching my sons to pee standing up!" Luke replied. "Both Tom and I are convinced that Olivia is the best thing to happen to us since we met one another. I don't want to proclaim it to the world, but there's no harm in telling you that both Tom and I have decided that we are bisexual."

"Maybe if you hadn't met Mark Ravenscroft all those years ago, you would now be a married man."

"I think you do Mark an injustice! If I hadn't had my first sexual experience with him, it would probably have been with Tom. I regard myself as a married man, except that I am not married to my children's mother!" said Luke with a smile. "If Olivia were to meet someone and want to marry him, we would of course let her, but we would not let him have the children, and of course Olivia knows that. Our ménage à trois works very well, although I'm sure that the feminist in you does not approve. And how do you like married life and pregnancy? I hope you don't have nausea and heartburn."

"Well, I did have morning sickness for the first three months, but now it's worn off. Really, I left it rather late to have babies."

"Better late than never. You won't regret it." They agreed that Luke should make a special effort to come to the baby's baptism, as he was to be a godfather.

Bianca Mascagnoli had come with her parents, having broken up with her French boyfriend. She had now graduated from University and was working in France. One day she said to her brother, "Sandro, I'm minded to go to Pisa on the train one day to see Nonno and Nonna. I've phoned them and asked them if you and Dom and the twins would be welcome if you came with me!"

"What did they say? You know what their reaction was when we last went to see them!"

"It seems that you and Dom having got a family makes you more welcome!"

"Provided that Dom agrees, we'll come. Will you ask Dom?"

Dom having agreed, a few days later the five of them got up early and caught a train to Pisa. The twins Anne and Jane Ovenden-Mascagnoli were now about ten years old and on the verge of changing schools.

Sandro had warned them that the situation might be difficult because his grandparents were rather hostile to the concept of two men having a family. "You are now old enough to understand that same-sex families are still unknown to the people of the earlier generations, and we are relying on your sweetness and charm to be nice to these elderly people, because they are your great-grandparents." This was not strictly true, but Sandro was not going to tell his daughters that Massimo was not his biological father and that uncle Luke was his full brother, not his half-brother. That information would have to wait until they were much older, if only to prevent them giving the deception away to Massimo's parents.

By 11 am they were knocking on their grandparents' door. Their reception this time was totally different from the previous rather sad visit they had experienced a few years before. It was clear that the old couple had missed their grandson, and when they heard that his relationship with Dom had become permanent, and that they had adopted two children, their attitude changed significantly. At the time that the twins were adopted, Luke and Tom had not yet met Olivia, and so there were no great-grandchildren. The sudden acquisition of two, albeit adopted, made the old couple feel much happier. The two little girls, although not quite so quiet and submissive as they had been when they were five or six, were still capable of exerting a good deal of sweetness and charm, and their great-grandparents soon fell under the influence of this.

The discovery that both the girls could talk to them in Italian cemented the old couple's satisfaction. Clearly Sandro was not trying to shake off his Italian roots. Sandro explained how hard he and Dom had had to work to make the girls bilingual, but how it had had the spin-off effect of making Dom able to speak and understand Italian, though he was not entirely fluent. The two girls and Bianca rapidly took over the conversation, leaving Dom and Sandro able to relax and hold hands.

They stayed for lunch and the afternoon flew by, leaving them with no time to show the girls the famous leaning Campanile. They were glad that a family rift had been healed.

The next day, Tom, accompanied by Bernardo and Giovanni, went for a walk with Edmund Robertshaw. Tom congratulated him on overcoming his sister-in-law's militant feminism. "I've known Cathy for years, since Luke and I were students together at Buckingham, and I am convinced that motherhood will be good for her. The Singleton-Scarboroughs are a wonderful family. I come from a very unhappy family background, and when I left home for good, and fell in love with Luke, the whole family welcomed me as one of themselves, and I am proud to have such wonderful parents- and grandparents-in-law. You've made a good choice in every way! Where are you going to live when the baby is born?"

"We've got to stay in the London area because of my job, but the apartment that we live in at present isn't suitable for children. Jon and David have given us half a million to buy a house, but that is not going to be in a fashionable area with house prices being what they are in London. We hope to get somewhere in Greenwich, because of its easy access to Canary Wharf in the Isle of Dogs where I work."

Another day, Luke and Tom, Giovanni and Bernardo went for a walk in the spa park with Liz, Tom's sister and Aidan Satterthwaite, her husband, who had just arrived, their daughter Anne (another Anne!) and, in a push-chair, their new young son, Richard, who could only walk a short distance. Although neither knew a word of Italian, they got on well with the three Italian children and Dom and Sandro's two girls. It was good practice for the other five children to exercise their bilingual skills. Liz said, "It's so nice to see you boys with a family. I congratulate you as well in the choice of their mother, who obviously loves you both, in spite of your gayness! Of course to have two men at her beck and call is every woman's dream. I'm sure that you are both totally different in the way you make love to her!"

"Yes, but I think our unconventional lifestyle would be more easily accepted in England than here," said Luke. "I don't think that the advantage that you call every woman's dream is well accepted by most Italian women! But then that may be due to the fact that most Italian women have their work cut out keeping one man on the straight-and-narrow, not two. But Tom and I are not Italian, and we have each other as well as Olivia."

One night, all the younger men of the party went out for a drink together: Tom, Luke, Sandro, Dom, Tommy, Edmund and Tom's brother-in-law Aidan. Luke had taken the initiative to get all of them together. They gathered in a bar which sold German beer. An evening drinking Nastro Azzurro did not appeal to any of them. Tommy had been educated by Jon, just as Sandro had been, to appreciate and understand decent top-fermented beer. It was not intended to be a boozy occasion. All the men present knew how to enjoy moderate drinking. Even so, alcohol definitely increased the comradeship and conviviality. The medium of conversation was English. Although Tommy would have managed, Dom would have struggled if they had used Italian, and Edmund and Aidan would not have understood a word!

Before they broke up into groups to chat, Luke said, "Most of us here except Tommy, are in our thirties, just beginning family responsibilities that will take up more and more of our time over the next ten years. In order that we remain in touch as an extended family, I am going to propose that we have an annual family get-together, in a different place each year. Dom has kindly offered to host next year's reunion at either Paradise Place or Getheringthwaite. It would involve whole families where possible, so it is not an easy matter to find accommodation, and some years it will have to be a one-day event without accommodation, unless attendees fix up their own. Obviously, not everyone will be able to go every year, but we hope that those unable to be present will send news of their families. Also it would be good if someone here could organize a private Facebook page for family news, to which only family members have access. Please get your womenfolk to work on this! Most men will be too busy."

Dom got into conversation with Luke and Tom. "My brother Michael is getting married next year, and I am to be his best man. I particularly want the two of you to come to the wedding, by special licence in the chapel at Getheringthwaite. Michael's fiancée is a sweet girl, and not much of a career woman. So I'm hoping that they will get breeding as soon as they are married. I won't feel that the future of the Ovenden peerage is secure until Michael has at least one son. Then Sandro and I will definitely be off the hook! Will you be able to bring Olivia and the children?"

"Of course we'll come. Both our bosses will be leant on not to raise difficulties!" said Luke. "It will be nice to visit Getheringthwaite again. We should be able to bring the children. Giovanni does not start school till next September when he will be six. It will be nice for Olivia to see your ancestral home, even though you have only ever lived there for a few months, and the boys will love it! It would be best if we could arrange the family reunion to be within a week or so of Michael's wedding, to facilitate our travel arrangements. Could we manage that, do you think?"

"I don't see why not."

Chapter XXXVIII The Celebrations in Montecatini-Terme 3

Towards the end of the four-week stay in M-T, the second of the two parties was held to mark the two anniversaries. The hotel excelled itself in the celebratory food, the wine and beer were plentiful, there were a few special items of food and drink for the children, and everyone had a good time. Towards the end of the evening, there were two speeches, one from Luke and one from his grandfather.

Mr Scarborough spoke first. He said, "My Lord, Ladies and gentlemen," with a grin at Dom, "thank you all for coming here for the fiftieth anniversary of Helena's marriage to me. I appreciate that many of you here have unions and partnerships very different from a traditional marriage, but the important thing to Helena and me is that you all love your partners. Love is God's gift to human beings that enables them to understand His love for them. Any human partnership that does not involve love is worthless. You have collectively given us seven grandchildren and five, shortly to be six, great-grandchildren, with the prospect of more to come. What more could we wish for?

"But we are also celebrating another anniversary: the tenth anniversary of Luke's civil partnership with Tom. That they now have a family of three children is a great delight to all of us. Giovanni, Bernardo and Caterina, please come forward and let your great-grandmother and me give you each a big kiss!" Tom led the two boys and Luke and Olivia carried little Caterina to the old couple and they were all kissed.

It was then Luke's turn to speak. He spoke twice, once in English and once in Italian. "I want to thank you all for coming here at your own expense to celebrate this dual anniversary. As a family, we are scattered over Europe, and do not see much of one another. All the more reason then, to celebrate the wonderful couple who directly or indirectly brought us into the world. As our children grow up the chances for us to travel together will get progressively less, but I am trying to start a tradition of an annual family reunion so that the ones able to get to it will be able to meet the other families. Dom has kindly offered to organize the next one at Paradise Place next year, and I hope that as many of us as possible will try and be there. His parents are sorry to be unable to be with us today, and are happy to host next year's event and to meet you all."

Olivia's parents were at the second party. They seemed a bit overwhelmed by Luke's huge family. Signor Desperaldi spoke enough English to enjoy the event, but his wife, in spite of many friendly people talking to her in Italian, was struggling. Tom saw this and made sure that she got plenty to eat and drink. He spent a good deal of the time trying to make them feel comfortable. He said to them, "There are a lot of Italians who think that the English are cold and reserved and indifferent to their families. The Singleton-Scarboroughs are big exceptions. It must be the Italian blood that Luca and Sandro share."

The next day, Luke had arranged with Emeritus Professor Edward Bairstow, the priest who was his godfather as well as having baptized him in Loxton as a baby, to fly from Geneva to baptize Caterina. Research in the spa town had led Luke to discover a small spring with a mock baroque canopy erected over it, where warm water came out of a pipe into a small basin. The building was surrounded by a high fence and was not generally open to the public, but on prolonged enquiries, he found out from the spa authorities that it could be hired by the hour to private patients who wished to partake of its water. It struck him that rather than find a church for the baptism ceremony, this was an ideal venue.

So the following day, all the resident guests walked to the little spring, where a custodian let them in. Edward put on his cassock, surplice and stole. Caterina was clad in a simple white baby dress. Luke and Olivia carried her to the basin, removed her dress so that Edward could pour the water not just over her head, but over her whole body. After the words of administration, she was wrapped in a white towel and presented with a candle. The promises of fidelity to Christ were made on her behalf by the godparents, Bianca and Cornelio, specially invited for the day. The other godparent, Tom's sister Liz, had returned to England, so Olivia's mother stood proxy for her. They returned to a rather crowded house, put Caterina's dress back on after changing her, and sat down to cakes and panini prepared by Costanza. Tom had borrowed the baptismal register from Holy Cross, Bologna, so that Caterina's baptism could be recorded and a certificate issued.

The days following Caterina's being made a Christian were characterized by a series of departures, and by the end of September, the children and our two men and Costanza were left to tidy up before they returned to Trabizona.

Chapter XXXIX Tom is sick

When Tom got back to his lab, the first hints of autumn colour changes were evident in the leaves of the trees outside the lab. He spent some time seeing how Carlo and Eleanor had got on during his absence. It turned out that they had made good progress and not just in the lab! They told Tom that they were now an item. Tom gave them his good wishes and asked whether, when the had completed their respective doctorates, Carlo would like to go as a postdoc to Camford, or if they would prefer a year later for Eleanor to come to Trabizona. They said that it would be better if Carlo could go to Camford. Tom promised to see what he could arrange in the course of the next two years. At the end of the month, Eleanor returned to Camford.

Late in November, he went to read a paper at a meeting of the Royal Society of Chemistry in Oxbridge. It was the first time that he had been invited to deliver an account of his work to this august organization, of which he had been a member since he got his dottorato. The meeting itself was a great success, but almost immediately after he had returned home to Trabizona, he fell ill with influenza, which he had clearly developed from a virus picked up in the cold North.

Every part of his body ached. The symptoms of severe influenza are alarming: the victim's body temperature rockets, he or she sweats profusely and feels as if they were dying. The very young and the old are in great danger of actually dying, and Tom forbade everyone from entering his room except for short visits from Luke and Olivia. He moved into the guest room so that he did not disturb Luke or Olivia. After two days of feeling awful, regular doses of aspirin brought his temperature back to normal and the fever left him, but he felt weak and listless.

He spent a further two days in bed before he felt well enough to get up and play with the boys. Both had missed him and were incredibly sweet. Caterina, who was now taking a few hesitant steps and saying a few words, kept saying "Dove Dad? (Where's Dad?). The boys told her that Dad was ill in the guest bedroom, but she did not really understand. They kept bringing him glasses of water and cups of tea that Costanza had made. Fortunately, by now Olivia had resumed her cooking role. Tom ate nothing for four days, but as he recovered, so did his appetite, and Olivia went to great trouble to cook food that he liked. She even made him a fish pie. He missed a Sunday at church and phoned the chaplain with his apologies. The chaplain, hearing that he had been ill, came to Trabizona and gave him the Sacrament.

During his time in bed, both Luke and Olivia visited him separately to console him. Luke was particularly anxious and affectionate. "My darling Tom, you're never ill! I thought that you were as tough as leather!"

"Anyone can be attacked by the flu," said Tom, "but I hope that none of you catches it off me. It's been like a near-death experience. It feels as if it will be months before I am able to shag you!"

"In that case, as soon as you are a bit better, let me shag you, if you want sex!" Luke replied with a grin.

Tom smiled at him "Making you happy will help me get better! he said. "You are everything in the world to me!"

Tom continued to keep away from little Caterina however, as there was no way of knowing if he was yet free from infection. He really felt as if he had escaped the jaws of death. After the first two days, he had kept in touch by phone with Carlo and Alberto, and after a week at home, he returned to work, but came home early, about 6 pm. Fortunately no-one in the lab had caught it off him. Everyone there though noticed how weakened he had been. Before he went back to work, he took little Caterina on his knee and told her than he had been ill, but was now better again and moving back into the room he shared with Pappa. Although she could not understand what he was saying, his kisses reassured her.

Luke realized that, just as a recovering invalid needs tempting food like Olivia's fish pie, so he needs tempting and exciting sex. Tom had worn pyjamas during his illness to prevent his profuse sweating from soaking the silk sheets. He complained to Luke that pyjamas constricted his package and made him uncomfortable, so the first act of lovemaking was the gradual removal of his pyjama trousers. Luke would begin by slipping his hands through the fly of Tom's pyjamas and gently taking Tom's threefold package in his left hand and lifting it clear of his sweaty legs. Then he would gently stroke with one finger the hair on his mate's ball-bag and, gently encircling the shaft of his limp tool with thumb and index finger, would run them along its length. This was guaranteed to start it stiffening, and in an instant swell up so that Luke's fingers were forced apart and precome began to flow from Tom's piss-slit.

Next to their bed, he had assembled all the necessaries for lovemaking: a bottle of lube, a package of condoms, a dildo, a bottle of Storing pour Homme and an open box of tissues. After he had pulled Tom's pyjamas clear of his working parts, he would then begin work on Tom's nipples, gently tweaking them with his left hand and pulling on the hair surrounding them with his teeth. His face would then gradually move down the front of Tom's torso, kissing and licking its way past Tom's belly-button and along his treasure trail before embedding itself in Tom's sweaty but delicious crotch, alongside the hard and long fleshy cylinder of Tom's cock. The scent of male genital sweat is irresistible to a greedy gay, and Luke was no exception.