Howard, Lord Hardwick, often came to his small villa above the beach outside of Morgicchio, north of Brindisi, Italy, in August anyway. But this was his second August retreat here in 1931. At home the Labour government had just collapsed on the basis of the effect of the worldwide recession and bank failures, and he couldn’t take the chaos in London any longer. So much was expected of him at home when there was so little he wanted to do there. Increasingly, his joy in life came from what he called his “constitutional retreats” to this villa--all by himself, save for his Italian man. No wife or children allowed.

He had come to the terrace overlooking his private little beach early, to enjoy the sunrise, so he had already eaten when his man, D’Angelo, who lived permanently here and did for the lord when Hardwick was in residence--usually for ten days three times a year--poured Howard’s third cup of coffee and set the previous day’s Rome post on the wrought iron table. Lord Hardwick didn’t read or speak Italian, but having a fairly fresh morning paper was an unbreakable ritual. He just preferred the ritual in Italy over that at his country estate in Yorkshire precisely because he couldn’t read what the articles in the paper actually conveyed here. He enjoyed looking at the photographs and conjuring up his own accompanying text.

D’Angelo returned, back ramrod straight and nose in the air, to the kitchen. Hearing the chattering of the boys in the service yard beyond the kitchen door, he put the coffee pot back on the burner, smoothed down the sides of his pressed trousers, and moved toward the voices. There were four boys, all fourteen, as was the continuing requirement. Three of them had come earlier in the month, during the lord’s usual tenancy, and of these, two of them, small, blond, and blue-eyed, Fabiano and Valente, were quite acceptable. They were twin brothers. Nario, larger, coarser, and dark would not do for the lord--but he had his charms nonetheless, at least in D’Angelo’s eyes. The fourth boy, Teodoro was new to the service. He was small, and more beautiful than handsome, with a slim body, especially at the hips, dark, sultry aspect, and hazel eyes. He was the shyest of the lot, the others having been here before.

“Voi Tre--You three, you may go down to the beach and play there and in the water until and if you are summoned. Mostratevi bene--Display yourselves well--in the altogether, of course. Do not hide yourselves from the lord’s inspection. Fabiano and Valente, you know the game; see that Teodoro understands how to play on the beach.” D’Angelo had designated the three he had selected by touching them on the arms and nudging them--Fabiano, Valente, and Teodoro--together. “Do no frown so, Nario. You will be engaged as well. Go through the door over there. I will be with you shortly.”

“Ora, vai, vai, vai--Now, go, go, go. Come back to the kitchen when you are done for the fee that is commiserate with your service.” He shooed them off, like they were a small flock of geese, and the three directed to the beach below the villa ran off chattering, each taking two fluffy towels, one for lying on and one for drying, from a table outside the kitchen door.

Howard, Lord Hardwick, heard them as they passed the side of the terrace, and, moving his hand inside the folds of the robe he was wearing, he indulged in a slight, delicious inspection of each over the rims of his eyeglasses, smiling slightly and licking his lips as they danced down to the beach, ran straight into the water, and then came out to pass a soccer ball back and forth between themselves that had been waiting for them on the beach. They all were naked, and they all had beautiful, tanned bodies in various degrees of boys becoming young men. All three were small and smooth-skinned bodied, closer to boys than men. He paid particular attention to the slimness of their hips. He was well endowed and had fantasies of those two aspects together--a slim-hipped, plump buttocks fourteen-year-old boy and what he had to play with on that field.

Howard, sitting on the terrace above the beach, readjusted his chair so that he could watch the boys play while still paging through his Italian-language newspaper and sipping at his coffee. He was dressed just in a silken robe and sandals.

Howard was a man in his late forties, of military bearing, who had been an athlete and still rode to the hunt regularly and took care of his body. His hair was of reddish hue, with a ruddy complexion to match. The gray was beginning to mix in with the auburn red on his head, forming a semicircle around a balding top, which he fancied he drew the observer’s eye from by sporting a close-cropped beard and mustache in the style of the Russian tsar. There was less gray on the thatching on his chest and arms. The hair trailed down in a line down his sternum and exploded into a virulent red bush at his pubes. He was a well-muscled, tall man, of considerable weight, which was distributed such that he could be termed solid rather than obese out of politeness. He was a strong, powerful, robust man. Even the lovers he had had forgave the extra weight for his endowments.

He was well-hung, and the contrasts in a boy’s build and his own endowments was much of the arousal he had in indulging his fetish. A bit of extra effort and expressed suffering on the lad’s part added to the lord’s satisfaction.

As he watched the boys play, he slowly built an erection. It was only in Italy, like this, here, where he was free to watch the boys play and then play with them himself, that he was in an element where he could enjoy full arousal.

He stood and moved to the railing of the terrace overlooking the sea. He unknotted the sash of his robe and let the robe hang open, brushing it even more open, so that the boys dancing on the beach below could see the solid figure of the English lord at the railing above them and could clearly see his magnificent erection. They deserved to know the effect they had on him, he believed--to know he desired them.

Knowing their roles, the three boys, the blond twins Fabiano and Valente more expertly than the dark, sultry Teodoro, included the English lord in their play, even though he was standing apart from and above them. They posed for him and made him to know they knew he was watching their every move. Teodoro had no trouble posing himself to full advantage, it just was his first time and only by watching how the blond twins disported themselves could he see what sort of play the lord enjoyed watching the most.

Still, while a virgin to the actual acts he was supposed to fall in with, if chosen, Teodoro had been well trained—and willingly so, considering the money and training for a lucrative initial career that was involved. He did not play his part reluctantly or haltingly, at least until the point was reached where the indoctrination didn’t completely express the reality.

This being Teodoro’s first visit to the beach, it was natural that it was he who Lord Hardwick settled his attention to and smile upon. It was the blond twin Fabiano who Howard gestured to come up to the terrace, though.

There was no preliminary preparation. Fabiano had been here and engaged in these acts before.

Howard returned to his seat at the wrought iron table, his chair turned away from the table to face the sea, and kept his robe brushed open, as the sunny blond, naked Fabiano with a saucy dispositioning climbed up to the terrace; sank down on his knees between Howard’s spread thighs on the thick-napped towel he brought up from the beach with him; wrapped his boy’s hand around the base of the lord’s long, thick, hard cock; and took the meaty glans into his mouth. Howard cupped the lad’s head with one hand and lightly grasped Fabiano’s throat in the other and forced the gagging boy to take the shaft further into his throat. This wasn’t the first time Fabiano had given the lord suck, though, so he adjusted to the firm control and let the lord move his head to accommodate the slow pumping motion of the cock in his throat.

Howard forced the boy to service him until he neared released in the boy’s throat and then he guided Fabiano to come up and sit in his lap, both facing the sea, both of them watching Valente and Teodoro continuing to cavort in and around the water below. The lord grasped the boy’s orbs in his hands and squeezed and separated them as he guided the boy’s channel hole to his pre-cum-dripping glans, engaged in teasing rubbing and lodging there for a few moments to enjoy the boy’s moans and murmurings of “Tu sei troppo grande per me, Maestro--You are too large for me, master,” and then enjoyed Fabiano’s gasps and groans even more as he proved the boy wrong, pressing the boy’s buttocks down and pushed his pelvis up and started make the moaning boy rise and fall on his shaft.

When Lord Hardwick had released, he continued to hold Fabiano sheathed on his lap. The lord preferred repeats and Fabiano understood that from previous servicing.

D’Angelo, himself naked now, his body hard and wiry, his cock in erection, appeared with a second cup, the pot of coffee, and plates of sweets and fruit, set them on the table and returned to his own bed chamber opening onto the kitchen and his own bed. The boy Nario was lying on his back on D’Angelo’s bed, his legs spread and bent, his pelvis raised to receive D’Angelo’s long slide inside him again. D’Angelo grasped the boy’s ankles, raised and spread his legs wide and split the difference with his cock.