Eleanor Meets Tommy And Martin Pt 02

There is quite a lot of straight sex in this episode. Feel free to skip any paragraphs in which you are not interested.

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Chapter Twelve

Eleanor's second year begins

Two weeks later, I was back in college beginning my second year. Hebrew was reduced to only one lecture course per week, and I started on New Testament studies, including NT Greek, ecclesiastical history and moral psychology. Martin had registered for an M.Litt. and was starting his study of Etruscan texts. Tommy had begun his teacher training. He was hoping to teach French, Latin or Italian up to A Level, or GCSE mathematics, at which he had always been rather good. Kenneth, their friend, had decided to reduce his musical activities, in an endeavour to get the major part of his Ph.D. work completed.

After our successful culinary operations in Arezzo, we decided to have an evening together each week at Tommy's home in Octavia Avenue, when Martin and I would cook a meal for the three of us. This inevitably meant that I would meet Tommy's parents, even though they usually arranged to dine in college on the nights that we wanted to cook! I instantly took a liking to the two men, who were now approaching sixty, and had been together for over thirty years. Like Tommy, they were religious, they were also kind, thoughtful, polite and easy to talk to. I was warned that one of them, the one called Jonathan, whom Tommy called Pop, the chemist, was rather uninhibited about farting, but he must have restrained himself when I was present, as I never heard any loud anal noises. His partner David, whom Tommy called Dad, was a retired opera singer who now taught singing.

They made me feel quite at home in their house, and never asked the boys or me any awkward questions about relationships. Their eldest son, Luke, more than ten years older than Tommy, had had a fag-hag when he was on his year abroad as a student, and his boyfriend Tom had had a lesbian fag-hag in Camford when Luke was in Italy. Luke's biological brother Sandro and his partner Lord Batley had had a fag-hag called Jennifer. The main role of these girls was to go to concerts with their men-friends. So the role of fag-hag was something that both of them understood, even though, Tommy told me, they had never had one themselves.

Towards the end of the Martinmas term, the three of us decided to invite David and Jonathan to join us for the meal that Martin and I were cooking. In the interests of simplicity, we decided to cook steak, but to make the dish more interesting, we cooked lots of interesting vegetables, including cauliflower, celeriac, and mange tout peas in addition to a madeira-wine sauce and a big helping of fries. Tommy had chosen a couple of bottles of Barolo from his parents' cellar.

Tommy's parents were impressed. "Who did all the work?" David asked, "Eleanor or Martin?"

"I did the vegetables and the dessert, and Martin did the steak, the sauce and the chips." The dessert was a fruit pie that had been baking in the oven all the time that the first course was being prepared, and for which I had even made the pastry.

During the meal, David told us that he was about to resume public singing on a very limited scale, with most performances during the university vacations. Previously his recitals had become quite rare events. "But I miss singing!" he said.

It was during the meal that I discovered that Tommy would be away from Camford for the whole of the Candlemas term. He would be on teaching practice in both primary and secondary schools all over Camfordshire and Ixfordshire. It struck me that this would give me the opportunity to get to know Martin better. But before that, I received an invitation from Tommy to come with Martin to spend Christmas at Ixton. I accepted on the understanding that I could leave in time to spend New Year at home in Winksey. Tommy then said to me, "I need to meet you before Christmas to rehearse the entertainment for the night of Boxing Day. You and I are going to play a duet on the piano at Rockwell's Barn. Then I'm going to accompany Dad in a couple of arias.

Chapter Thirteen

Christmas at Ixton I

Ixton turned out to be a small village about 100 km from Camford. It was clear that Tommy's fathers exerted a lot of influence in the village. They owned the pub, the Jellycotes Arms, and ensured that the village shop/post office received a subsidy sufficient to keep it open. They had even managed to ensure, thanks to the living being in the gift of Boni's, that they had a full-time resident vicar.

Although there was no squire and big house, their long-standing residency and generosity had ensured their popularity in the village, to the extent of them buying up residential property in the village and renting it to locals at affordable rates rather than letting it fall into the hands of wealthy commuters. David and Jonathan set the rentals at a level to cover costs and running repairs, such that they never made any money from the properties. The properties were managed by a local estate agent recommended to them by their financial manager and adviser, Tim Ingledown. Rockwell's Barn had once been a derelict agricultural building on the farm of the Rockwell family, with whom Jon and David still had close ties. Tommy told me that to avoid crippling inheritance taxes, Tim Ingledown was setting up a non-profit-making trust to administer the properties after the deaths of both Jon and David.

A few days before Christmas, I travelled by train from Winksey to Ixfordingworth, the nearest town to Ixton. Tommy met me at the station and quite spontaneously kissed me. I had two suitcases with me, because I had brought Christmas presents for the party at Rockwell's Barn. He then set off to drive the ten kilometres to Ixton. It was 3 pm, and dusk was showing signs of falling. To my surprise Tommy pulled into a side turning and stopped on the verge.

With hindsight, the conversation that followed seems almost surreal. He said to me, "Do you fancy Martin?" I nearly collapsed in amazement.

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"You spend so much time with both of us, but we're both gay. Unless you're frigid and scared of sex, I can't see why you're doing it. If you're wanting sex, you're wasting your time with Martin. He could never get it up with a woman, even if he wanted to."

"But what about you? I bet that you could fuck a woman." Tommy blushed.

"That's not a very ladylike thing to say!"

"Answer my question! I'm not a ladylike woman. A man who's 100% gay would never kiss me spontaneously, like you did just now. Can't you see that it's YOU that I fancy?" And I put my arm round him and kissed him on the lips. I was aware that once again I was reversing traditional sex-roles and wooing, instead of being wooed.

"I can't let Martin down. We have a commitment to one another."

"I'm not asking you to abandon Martin. Does your future with him involve children?"

"Yes, we both want children."

"And where do you think you're going to get them from? You can't have babies without a woman!"

"Don't be ridiculous! We could have a child using a woman as surrogate."

"I think that's disgusting. It's treating a baby as a commodity and your seed as an inoculant. What you need is a baby with a mother and two fathers!"

"Look, Martin and I are just starting out in careers, we can't consider Civil Partnership and children yet. As for you, you've got nearly two more years of degree study and at least three years of professional ministerial training yet, if you include your training curacies. And in your case you've got to develop a career before thinking about things like maternity leave."

"It's all right for you two, you can fuck one another till the cows come home without interfering with your careers. As usual, it's a man's world. Any relationship that I get involved in cannot lead to pregnancy for a long time, but I still need sex!"

"Are you asking me to fuck you?"

"Yes! But not unless Martin knows and understands. He has to be prepared to share you with me. If not, I will just walk out of your lives and look for another man. My friends tell me that I'm mad to go chasing after gays."

"Oh Eleanor, why ARE you chasing after Martin and me? You make things difficult for yourself as well as us. Why not go and find a pious young male ordinand?"

"I don't know any! Not many men under thirty get ordained these days. And if I did, he would be a virgin. I want to be fucked by a man who knows what he's doing. I don't want to learn how to do it from someone who knows as little as I do. I know that you are a sweet and considerate man, and so is Martin."

"So you're a virgin then?"

"You could put it that way, yes!"

"So is Martin, as far as women are concerned. He's never had the experience of lusting after anyone with a cunt. He told me so himself. So he would not meet your requirements!"

"But you would?"

"Technically, yes."

"But not without Martin's agreement I hope! I don't want deception."

"Look, Eleanor, this conversation is getting nowhere! Let's forget the whole matter and go on as before."

"Not unless you talk to Martin about me! Can't you see that I want you? What sort of man would say no?"

"Joseph said no to Potiphar's wife!"

"Yes, but Potiphar's wife did not ask her husband for permission! I do not, repeat NOT, want you unless Martin agrees. I respect your love for one another and the commitment that you have made to one another. I'm making you an offer that you are both highly unlikely to get from any other woman. If you want children in the future, I'm your best bet. OK, so we will have to wait a long time, and OK, it might turn out that I can't have babies, but there's no reason why we shouldn't start fucking, or even think about marriage as soon as we have finished our degrees. Oh, and you can tell Martin that my offer to you is also open to him. If he decides that he wants to have it off with me, he's welcome, even though he has zero experience of doing it with a woman. I like him so much, I can make an exception about previous experience. I'm struggling to avoid falling in love with both of you! Don't forget that this threesome was your idea! You asked me to come out with the two of you."

"I can't believe that we're having this conversation! It breaks every rule of human relationships. You are proposing a love triangle! I will talk to Martin. But not until the New Year. We can't have any emotional upheavals at Christmastime."

"Fine. I'm in no hurry. It's more important to get things right than to leap into bed." And with that, Tommy started the engine and we drove off. By the time we got to Rockwell's Barn, it was dark.

Chapter Fourteen

Christmas at Ixton II

I was impressed by Rockwell's Barn. It had only five bedrooms on two floors, all with en-suite bathrooms, one occupied by Jon and David and one by David's parents, leaving three available for guests. That year there were no young children staying, so Tommy and Martin had one room and I had another, leaving a single small bedroom vacant. There was a small prayer room that Tommy and his parents used for their devotions, and the ground floor had a big kitchen, a dining room, a large entrance hall and a fifteen-metre indoor pool with changing facilities.

Breakfast was available all morning in the big kitchen and adjacent dining room, but guests had to cook anything hot themselves. I wandered in one morning about 9 am to find only Martin there. I took the opportunity to kiss him good morning. He did not recoil: indeed, he kissed me back. As that was the first time that I had ever kissed him, I was happy and gratified. I didn't ask where Tommy was, I was glad to get Martin alone. He asked me how my course was going. I said that I was enjoying it, but that I was glad that I had now finished with Hebrew.

"Would you like me to cook you an omelette?" he asked.

"That would be nice." I replied. "Do you know, this is my first Christmas away from home?"

"With me, it's just the opposite. Since my father remarried, my parents have spent every Christmas in Madeira. They reckoned that since Tommy and I got together, we would be more comfortable here. So although we are not officially united, I've become an additional son-in-law to Jon and David, and we always spend Christmas here. I love it here in the countryside."

I envied him. To be part of a huge gay/straight extended family seemed to me to be an ideal existence. But the prospects of such an occurrence in my case seemed remote. Basically, all three of us needed to build careers before we could think in terms of any kind of union, except perhaps sleeping together sometimes.

Martin cooked two omelettes and we sat down at the table to eat them. "Tommy's in the pool, swimming naked with his two fathers. Mr and Mrs Scarborough are having breakfast in their room. They often do. I didn't feel like swimming first thing this morning. Tommy and I live too much in each other's pockets. But that will change when he goes on teaching practice."

"I hope that you will continue to go out with me while Tommy is away. I don't constitute a threat to your relationship. I admire and respect it. Why don't the two of us take a turn in the pool when Tommy and his parents come out? Not naked of course. I'm not a prickteaser."

"It wouldn't make any difference if you were. I can't get an erection with a woman. OK, we'll have a swim about half-past ten."

Although I am not obsessed with clothes, I do like nice ones. And the same goes for swimwear. Many men would describe my size 12 figure (US size 8) as skinny, but my two-piece swimsuit suited me rather well, and would have impressed most men, but of course not Martin. Martin took me by surprise. He wore an extremely brief bright green swim slip that left little to the imagination. It had a half back and indications of the presence of a sizeable package at the front. Wisps of ginger pubic hair showed at the edges of the swimsuit. I had not seen it when we were in Italy: it was obviously new. I found later that it had been a present from Tommy, who dressed very smartly. I knew that Martin was a good swimmer, whereas I was merely competent. Life in the countryside means life away from swimming pools! What country clergyman could afford a private pool?

We swam leisurely up and down the small pool for half an hour and then got out of the water. Martin solicitously wrapped a towel round my shoulders and started to pour coffee from a vacuum flask that he had previously prepared and we sat down in plastic chairs at the poolside to drink it.

As usual, his handsome figure with just a little ginger hair on his chest and under his arms, looked wonderful even when wet, and I looked him in the face and said, "Martin, I expect that Tommy has told you that I would like a long-term relationship with the two of you. I have no desire or intention to disrupt the commitment that the two of you have to one another, I would just like to join in. I know that you can't fuck a woman, but Tommy can. I envy you two the sex that you enjoy with one another and I wonder if either or both of you could share some sex with me. But any arrangement has to be entered into willingly by both of you. If this is impossible, I will, with great reluctance, walk out of your lives."

Martin replied, "Tommy and I both love your company. As far as sex and long-term relationships are concerned, we have not yet made up our minds. I promise that by the beginning of term, we will have decided, which will give you plenty of time to find someone else to fuck you! Now, how about some more coffee!" He poured me a second cup and went off to the men's toilets for a pee. When he returned, he poured himself a second cup and started to dry himself. It was interesting to watch how he wriggled as he towelled his wet back and to savour the view of his slim smooth arse as he bent over to dry his legs. He was undeniably sexy. Although nothing had been settled, at least neither of the two men had told me to get lost.

The question remained however, why was I doing this? Lots of girls of my age have two regular boyfriends, but they don't go out with two men at the same time! Why did I not just find a nice, clean, intelligent ex-public schoolboy—Boni's was full of them—and go to bed with him? Actually, I knew the answer. These two were not just attractive sexually, they were intelligent, hard-working, loyal, good-mannered and socially responsible. Either would make a good husband for a vicar. But they were not the marrying kind! I had to take care not to fall in love. That would constitute a major distraction and could lead to academic disaster. So if instant sex was not available, I would have to wait. Fortunately, getting fucked was not a need, but a wish!

Chapter Fifteen

Christmas at Ixton III

The Christmas festival seemed rather an anticlimax after these discussions. We all, including Martin, went to midnight mass in Ixton Parish Church. It seems that Martin had been confirmed quite young at the private school that he attended before he got himself expelled, but had largely abandoned religious practice. I sat next to him in church and, rather to my surprise, he held my hand. Maybe he sought reassurance.

After a late breakfast, we all gathered in the big sitting room to drink Prosecco and open our presents. I had spent a lot of money on the boys, because I considered that they were worth it. I bought Tommy a 64-Gb iPad, and Martin a boxed DVD set which was the first part of a new release of the complete operas of Vincenzo Bellini. There was a credit note with it to pay for the subsequent albums in the series as they were released. Each of the boys bought me a single pearl earring set in platinum surrounded by a circle of tiny diamonds. "We thought that platinum suited you better than gold!" said Tommy. I thought that the twin presents cleverly summarized their relationship with me. I kissed each of them gratefully.

Christmas dinner was served at 3 pm. The meal had been cooked by Jon and Martin, assisted by me. David asked me to say grace, so I said the Boni's college Latin grace, which most Boni's students know by heart. The words were deeply familiar to all those present except Martin and David's parents. As usual, all the three wines were Italian. After the meal, the family spent an hour on Skype or FaceTime with the family members who were not present: Tommy's adoptive brother and sister and their families, Luke's biological brother Sandro and his half-sister Bianca and their families and David's brother and sister and their families.

The evening was spent watching television. The next morning, Boxing Day, we got up early, split up into groups and went for a walk. David's parents only went as far as the pub, but the rest of us went for quite a long walk. I was shown the first wood to be planted by Jonathan Singleton-Scarborough's Afforestation Trust some thirty years before. The trees were now pretty mature, and the woodland, even with leafless trees, was still very attractive. After a couple of drinks at the Jellycotes Arms, we all returned home to a late lunch of cold turkey and salad. In the evening, we had a musical entertainment. David sang three arias, accompanied by Tommy. Then Tommy and I played a piano duet, Tommy played primo and I played secondo (the bass part). After drinks and coffee, we had an early night.

Two days later, Tommy ran me to Ixfordingworth station, where I caught the train home. My parents were glad to see me, even though they had had several guests staying over the festive period. My expensive earrings were admired without comment. When I was in Ixfordingworth, I had looked in jewellers' shop windows and realized with a shock that the earrings must have cost well over £1000. So either the boys were extremely fond of me or else they were trying to buy me off! It was clear to me that I would get no advice from my parents about my two boyfriends unless I asked for it. I decided that I must wait and see what transpired. So in the two weeks before term began, I got on with the reading that I had neglected before Christmas. New Testament Greek was going to be hard work.