Luke and Olivia's attempts at conceiving another baby did not prove easy, mainly due to Luke's difficult working hours. By the time he got home at 11 pm, Olivia was tired and Luke was exhausted. After a frustrating month, which neither of them enjoyed, in spite of Luke successfully overcoming his fear of impotence, they decided that the only way to success lay in making love in the afternoon. So after a very light lunch, Tom and Costanza would take the boys out to play in the park, or would take them out to lunch at their neighbourhood trattoria, and stay away from the house for two hours to give Luke and Olivia some privacy.
This happened for five successive days every month for several months. If the boys had been older, they would have asked why they were being taken out, but as it was, they just enjoyed the break from routine.
Finally in desperation, Luke arranged to get a week off work for the time of Olivia's ovulation the following month. He was owed holiday time because of the August reopening of the theatre. Leaving Giovanni and Bernardo in the care of Tom and Costanza, they took the plane to Sicily and booked in at an hotel in Taormina. They walked in the gardens, visited the Greek amphitheatre, swam in the hotel pool, had leisurely meals in the open air, and generally behaved like a honeymoon couple. Every night they washed one another under the shower, sprayed themselves with Storing pour homme, and slept in the same bed. Sometimes they made love at night, sometimes first thing in the morning, sometimes both! In general they had an excellent time, though Luke sometimes wished that he was fucking Tom rather than Olivia.
From the moment that Olivia had seen Luke naked, she had fancied him. It was not just his beautiful brown skin and his slender figure, but mainly his giant tool that caught her fancy. Unlike Tom, whom she had never sucked off, she really fancied a mouthful of Luke's meat. So when they got into bed, she would prick-tease him with her mouth before gently guiding his hard dick into her cunt. Giving birth to two babies had stretched her considerably, and she enjoyed being penetrated by Luke's big dick, which filled her much better than Tom's more usual-sized tool. Luke too enjoyed the fact that penetration was much easier with Olivia.
Their repeated attempts at conception, which can be a source of distress and frustration to many married couples, actually brought Luke and Olivia closer together. In Sicily, they were totally relaxed, without a care in the world. Each night at the childrens' bedtime they connected by Skype and wished them goodnight before enjoying an excellent dinner in the hotel. Much refreshed, they flew back home to an enthusiastic welcome from Tom and the two boys.
Chapter XXVIII Olivia's third pregnancy
The Sicilian holiday paid dividends. Olivia's next period failed to arrive, and two weeks later the doctor confirmed that she was pregnant, and a few weeks later, an ultrasonic scan revealed that she was expecting a baby girl. All three of them were over the moon. Tom was particularly happy that his darling Luke had proved his male functionality. Luke felt eternally grateful to Olivia for helping him to prove his manhood. Olivia's joy was two-fold. Firstly she had cemented the bond joining the three of them together, and secondly she was delighted to be expecting a girl.
Soon after the confirmation of her pregnancy, the three of them met in Olivia's bedroom to discuss their future sexual relations. The boys made it clear to Olivia that they loved her as a person, not as a baby-making machine. They told her very firmly that whenever she wanted sex, even during her pregnancy, they would be happy to oblige, but that it was important that she got rid of any female modesty about waiting to be asked. "If you want one of us to make love to you, you must ASK! We're not mind-readers, and we are rather wrapped up with one another, but if you want a fuck, just ask! We now know that we can do it, and if you don't want any more babies, we are happy to use a condom when your periods start again. After all we always use one when we fuck one another." That was as far as they were prepared to go in talking to Olivia about man-man sex.
They were much more reticent about publicly revealing Olivia's pregnancy this time. Only Ben and Leonora and of course Costanza were told until Olivia got so big that they could not keep it secret any longer. Of course they told their parents. Dorothea was particularly delighted, because although the baby was notionally and legally her fifth grandchild, it was in reality her first biological grandchild. That year they spent Christmas with Olivia's parents, who were now totally reconciled to their daughter's distinctly unusual domestic situation, were delighted by their two grandchildren and treated Luke and Tom as sons-in-law. They were very happy to hear of Olivia's third pregnancy, and thrilled to have Olivia and the two children under their care until New Year's Eve, although the men of course had to go back to Trabizona because Luke was working.
On New Year's Eve they collected Olivia and the little boys and drove to Dorotea and Massimo's for the holiday. Bianca was there with her new French boyfriend. She cheered up a little when she learned that the author of Olivia's bulge this time was Luke and not Tom! Gérard, Bianca's boyfriend was very taken wiith the children and spent quite some playing with them. He seemed a nice enough man, whom Luke and to a lesser extent, Tom were able to talk to in his native language.
Unlike many mothers-to-be, Olivia suffered neither nausea nor heartburn during her pregnancy and still found time to play with the boys. Because the cooking was being done by Costanza and Tom during her pregnancy, and the two toddlers still had a couple of hours sleep in the afternoons, she had a little time to herself, to reflect on her life. Both at school and as a university student, she had had very few female friends. She got on much better with men, which was why she had sought Arturo's help when she found herself pregnant the first time.
She felt that she had really landed on her feet by adopting the solution that he had recommended. To her, life with two different, but loving and considerate men was an ideal existence. She had no desire for a younger lover or a husband. Because of their family and personal wealth, there were no financial problems, which wreck many happy relationships and she had Costanza, who did a lot in the house. The men also did a lot of chores like the laundry. They took her out to the opera or to the cinema, and they all ate out at the local trattoria with the children at least once every two weeks. While she enjoyed sex, she did not feel a deep need for it as the men did. While the prospect of undergoing labour a third time did not exactly fill her with joyful anticipation, she was glad that her and Luke's joint efforts had not been in vain!
Chapter XXIX Introducing Rachel
A few weeks later, Tom had to spend a week in Camford, in connection with his collaborative research. After much discussion, they agreed that he should take Giovanni, who was now nearly five, to England with him, and squeeze in a weekend with Tom's sister and her family. The little boy was thrilled to be travelling without the rest of the family, and was now old enough to appreciate the fun of being in an aircraft. They went from Heathrow Airport by train to Paddington and from there via underground to Kings Cross station, where they caught a train to Newcastle-on-Tyne, the home of Tom's sister Liz.
Giovanni was very excited by train travel, and kept chattering away in Italian as he looked out of the window. Tom tried to get him to speak English without much success. Liz and her husband Aidan Satterthwaite were delighted to see the two of them, and Giovanni was introduced to his cousin Anne, who was now about seven. Liz was expecting another baby, and had a bump not unlike Olivia's. Giovanni knew at once what a big belly meant and, realizing that he had to speak English, said, "Are you going to have a baby, auntie Liz?" Liz smiled, kissed him, and said that she was. Anne was very taken with her little cousin and played with him a lot.
By the time that Giovanni had got used to the fact that no-one except his father would understand anything he said unless he spoke English, they were back on a train heading for Camford. Giovanni was fascinated by his visit to the train toilet, and kept asking to be taken to the toilet far more often than necessary!
In Camford, they stayed of course at Octavia Avenue with David and Jon. Tommy was living in college. Caterina Fabioni or one or other of Tom's 'fathers-in-law' looked after Giovanni each day while Tom was occupied in the Chemistry Laboratory. Some evenings, Jon cooked, other evenings Caterina cooked, and some evenings they ate at the Venezia. At home, whenever Giovanni addressed Tom or his grandfathers in Italian, they replied in English, and he slowly began to realize that in England you spoke English! However, at the Venezia, Giovanni was allowed to speak to the waiters in Italian, and in fact they spent the evening talking Italian. It was good practice for Jon, who rarely spoke it in his everyday life.
The research team in Camford had a new member, a Ph.D. student called Rachel Ellison. She was an attractive, tall dark-haired girl with a first in chemistry. Several of the techniques that she needed to employ in her work had no-one in Camford using them.
Since she needed to learn the methods, Tom suggested that if funding could be found, she should come to Trabizona to learn them, as Tom's group were experts. It was agreed that she should seek departmental and college funding for a six-month stay in Trabizona. "My research student uses these techniques on a daily basis," he told her, "and he and I could teach you all you need to know. It probably wouldn't take the full six months, but you could spent a little time seeing Italy. It took me a long time to settle in Trabizona, but I love Italy now."
"It will take a few months to get the funding organized," she replied. It was agreed that Rachel would work on other aspects of her project until the funding was in place, and would start in Trabizona at the beginning of the Camford Pentecost term, so that she could work on through the summer and so complete the six months. By the time she arrived, Luke would have been a father for quite a while.
