An Italian boy in Camford Pt. 02

When it came to relationships, Sandro was far from hot-blooded. He had never fallen in love as a younger teenager. Indeed, his aproaches were rather cool-blooded. Occasionally, he would sit for dinner beside Pragakorn Surabanagok, the Thai girl whom he had met in the summer. She was an attractive girl, and Sandro rather fancied her. Round about the middle of term, over coffee in the JCR after dinner, he asked her if she was interested in cinema. She was, and they began to go to films together at the Rialto, Camford's art-house cinema, which was still maintaining a struggling existence in the midst of multiplex cinemas showing 90% rubbish. Being Italian, and therefore anxious not to 'court too slow', at their first visit (to see an Italian film with English subtitles), he got hold of her hand. She let him hold it for the duration of the programme. After the film, he invited her to come with him to a nearby pub for a drink.

She seemed pleased to be in his company, and they talked about life in college. He asked her if she liked English food. She said that it was OK, but that she preferred Thai food. Sandro said, "Let's sign out of dinner on Saturday and go to the Thai restaurant in Canterbury Street!" Pragakorn said that she did not know that there was a Thai restaurant in Camford. Sandro of course had sussed out all the eating places during his summer stay in the town. He had to rely on his looks to interest this oriental girl, because seductive talk was not easy for him in English and in any case the culture gap between East and West was not easy for him (or any Western male) to bridge. He had not chosen an easy girl to date!

Their Saturday dinner went well, but on their return to college, Pragakorn, on being invited to have coffee in Sandro's room, said no. She had a slight headache and preferred to go to bed. So although it had been a pleasant evening, Sandro was no further with a relationship. However, the two still met regularly to go to the cinema, and still held hands. After three such visits, Sandro asked diffidently if he might kiss her. She said yes, but when they kissed, there was evidently little passion on either side, so they decided to stick with holding hands.

On Monday afternoons, Sandro was free at 3 pm, and he usually went for a swim at the Fitness Centre. None of his college friends were members (even at under-25 rates, the subscription was too dear for many undergraduates), so he used to go alone. Although he did not think of himself as gay, he always eyed up the other men in the pool and the changing rooms. About week 6 of the term, he noticed in the showers an astonishingly beautiful young man with short blond, curly hair, and suntanned body, slim, tall and muscular in build with a good-sized uncut dick. He was obliged to turn his back on the man out of fear that the object of his gaze should notice his stiffening cock. He concentrated on soaping himself. If he had been older, or more sexually oriented, he would probably have recognized the telltale significance of that erection.

When he was dry, it was only 5 pm, dinner in college was not until 6-30, and he only had some numerical problems to finish off that evening, so he went into the bar for a drink. He ordered a pint of West London bitter. Looking up, his eye was caught by the beautiful man he had seen in the showers, who had just come into the room. The man came and stood beside him and ordered beer. He looked at him shyly and the man replied with a grin. At close quarters, Sandro realized that the man was only in his early twenties. "What are you drinking?" asked the man.

"WLB" said Sandro, proud that he already knew the local name.

"You're new, aren't you? How long have you been in Camford?"

"About three months," Sandro replied.

"You're not English, are you?" asked the man.

"No, I'm Italian."

"Do you come here often?" said the man, reverting to an ancient chat-up line.

"Most weeks," said Sandro non-committally. "I need the exercise."

"You look pretty fit to me," said the man, looking at him appraisingly. "Are you into speed swimming?"

"No, but I'm willing to have a try."

"Right! Shall we meet at Reception next Monday at 3 pm?"

"OK."

Chapter Eleven: A weekend in Orta

Towards the end of November, it was still warm by British climatic standards, and it got dark later in the evenings, so on the one weekend in the month when Luke was not working on the Saturday, he and Tom made their way by car to Orta, on the lake of the same name, to do the pilgrimage that he had promised Tom nearly two years before, when he had done it with his 'fag-hag', Leonora.

They got there about 10 am and spent the day touring the World Heritage Site of the Sacro Monte. At that time of the year, there were few visitors on the holy hill. At each of the chapels that depict an incident in the life of Saint Francis, they stopped for a prayer, and also a snogging session. They each had a card, which had twenty-one prayers on it, in Italian of course, one for each of the chapels and one for the church at the end. In the middle of this devotional itinerary, they stopped in the shelter of one of the chapels and sat down on the steps to eat a picnic lunch and drink wine, after which they cuddled together for a few minutes and kissed passionately.

From the temperature, someone from Northern climes would never have thought that it was November. There were still even a few yellow or brown leaves left on the deciduous trees, while the conifers glowed in their winter green. A warmish breeze circulated through the trees, and for the first time, Tom began to feel at home in his new land, realizing that back in England it would be wet, cold and foggy.

They concluded their tour with a prayer in the Franciscan church of San Nicolà, before descending the hill, hand in hand back to their hotel. It was the same hotel where Luke and Leonora had stayed nearly two years before, but this time, instead of the chaste occupancy of two single rooms, (Leonora intended to enter a religious order) Tom and Luke occupied a double room with a huge double bed.

There was plenty of time for a shower. It was a roomy shower cabinet, and they undressed rapidly and turned on the water. When it had reached the right temperature, they both stepped inside and let the water pour over them before Tom started to rub shampoo into Luke's long hair. After he had rubbed the shampoo in and Luke had rinsed it off, they embraced and began to kiss. Luke ran his lips over Tom's hairy chest, kissed his shoulders and the nape of Tom's neck and then rubbed the Storing pour Homme shampoo into Tom's crew-cut hair. It only took a couple of minutes before rinsing it off and they could embrace and resume their osculatory exploration of each other's bodies, while at the same time running their hands over each other's shoulders and back. By now of course they each had rock-hard cocks, and in spite of the stream of water, precome was visible, exuding copiously from the tips of their engorged tools. Luke knelt down and continued his kissing downwards from Tom's waist at the back, over each of his deliciously hairy arse cheeks and ending up in the cleft of Tom's arse. His dick started to throb with lust.

Tom in the meantime ran his hand through Luke's dripping hair. "I love you, my darling fag-boy," he said. "You are my whole life and my whole future. You will be my darling boy even in fifty years time. We may end up as a pair of old queens, but we will be loving and faithful old queens! Fifty years of fucking each other is the most wonderful thing outside God's love that I can think of. Being partners is indeed combining maximum temptation with maximum opportunity! Bend over, I want to get inside that arsehole of yours!" Tom stepped out of the shower and dried himself sufficiently to roll a condom on his tool. He stepped back into the shower cell and said to Luke, "As we've got soap, we don't need any lube," and proceeded to rub soap into Luke's hole, while at the same time kissing Luke's slim but muscular buttocks with great enthusiasm. Luke obligingly bent over and offered his rear end to Tom, who in no time at all slipped inside and got to work with his tool. After the male miracle had taken place, Tom remained with his arms clutching Luke round the chest, kissing his spine and the nape of his neck, until Tom's limp and tired tool slipped out of his partner's back passage.

Tom pulled the rubber off his dick and knotted it, before increasing the flow of water to wash the seed off his penis. "Do you want a go?" he asked Luke.

"Not just at present," said Luke, "I just want to get dried and cuddle up in your arms." They began to dry one another, each paying close attention to each other's genitals, carefully lifting up the cock and drying the ball-bag and perineum carefully, and then kissing the dried area, before applying Storing pour Homme to each other's crotch. When dry, they lay on the bed and played comfortably with each other's bodies in a semi-somnolent state.

Suddenly Luke's tummy began to rumble. They looked at the clock. It was 6-30. "Time for a drink and then dinner," said Luke. Dressed, they went downstairs and entered the bar, and ordered a Campari-orange juice each. In spite of the mild weather, there was no possibility of eating in the open air. "This is so much more peaceful than Trabizona," said Luke, "and even without the spirituality of the Sacro Monte, this would be a place of quiet and great beauty. Next time we come, we must visit the old nunnery on the island."

As they sat there, an elderly couple entered the bar, accompanied by a young girl in her twenties. When they saw her, both Tom and Luke jumped to their feet. "Leonora!" they both cried out together. Leonora looked at them in some surprise and no little embarrassment. She rapidly recovered however, and introduced the two boys to her equally surprised parents. The boys explained that they were now resident in Trabizona, and had come to Orta for the spiritual itinerary of the Sacro Monte. Luke thanked Leonora for having introduced him to that spiritual place. Leonora had to admit that she had never told her parents about Luke dating her. Luke said that he had never told his mother about dating her either! Fortunately Leonora's parents did not seem at all upset by the discovery of Luke and Leonora's undisclosed trips to the opera and to Orta. They invited the boys to join them for dinner and the boys accepted.

Leonora's mother began a conversation with Tom during the meal, and to his own amazement, Tom found himself chatting reasonably smoothly in Italian. Her father engaged Luke in conversation, while Leonora quietly got on with eating her meal. Luke revealed that he now worked in the operatic business as a trainee theatre manager and that Tom was a Ph.D. student at Trabizona University. Tom was quite animatedly telling Leonora's mother about the problems that he had had in learning Italian, but how rewarding all the hard work had been. "If Latin was the universal language of scholarship, Italian is the universal language of culture," he said. Leonora told the boys that she was now in her last year at Bologna University, and that shortly thereafter she would enroll as a probationary novice. After eating, the five of them went into the lounge for coffee, and when the boys said that they had to leave early the next day to drive to the Mascagnolis' for lunch, they all arranged to meet for breakfast.

Leonora did not turn up for breakfast. She told her parents that she was not unwell, just not hungry. She did not tell them about the boys' relationship. So much became apparent when the four talked over breakfast. Tom told them that he and Luke were gay civil partners, and Luke said that was why Leonora felt safe enough to go to the opera with him. Gay men neither threatened nor tempted women! Leonora's mother revealed that she and her husband were not entirely happy with Leonora's religious vocation, she was their only child and they had hoped for grandchildren. Luke said, smiling apologetically that he was very fond of Leonora: she was the only female apart from his sister and mother who did not scare him, but that the chances of him giving Leonora a child were zero! He said that he himself was the illegitimate son of an Italian 'Don Juan' who had seduced his mother, and that maybe Leonora was better off in a convent. "In spite of my parentage, I am most definitely NOT a typical Italian male!" he said.

Before they left, David gave Leonora's parents his business card, which he asked them to give to her. It had his cellphone number on it, and he wrote his home address on the back. After bidding goodbye to the elderly couple, the boys packed up, paid their bill and drove off to the small town near Verona where the Mascagnolis lived. They arrived in time for lunch and spent a pleasant Sunday with Luke's mother and family.

TO BE CONTINUED...