of its troubled thoughts was to have a drink with them so when Mike suggested just that, I agreed gratefully.

Last week I met my mysterious friend again. It was six weeks since Terry's party and I realized that he had changed his appearance again. I'd been miserable all day and decided that in the evening I'd treat myself to the cinema. It was "Spartacus", a wonderful long dramatic story of the Romans taken from the book by Howard Fast. I was held tense in my seat until someone sat beside me and the fragrance of "Mugent" drifted into my nostrils. Turning to glance at the supposed lady next to me I was surprised to see HIM.

"Hi there stranger," he whispered and smiled broadly. My hands sweated, my voice trembled a little as I replied, "Hello Nemo."

"Nemo," he echoed curiously, "why do you call me that?"

"Because I've never learned your name and I believe Nemo means nameless." "Oh how wonderful," he murmured, "what fun, I think I'll use that in the future." People nearby were shushing us so we fell silent until the end when I invited him back to my flat for a drink. At first he hesitated then said "Okay, but hadn't we better introduce ourselves?"

"I'm Brian O'Donnel," I said holding out my hand.

"I'm Raymond Summers," he replied, and I felt his slim dry hand in mine.

I swallowed a lump rising in my throat. This young fellow had upset my world. He smiled and the walls fell apart. He touched me and my whole defense collapsed. "Come on, it's not far," I said quickly to cover my nervousness, and we hurried out into the rain. He was dressed in a dark black suit, his hair was dark too. He looked older, yet as he told me later, he was only twenty-two.

Raymond refused a drink but made himself at home immediately, when I think of it now it still seems like a dream. Yet that dream could easily have become a nightmare, in just a week I both hated and loved this fantastic youth. Perhaps at first I loved him too quickly, too much. Raymond accepted everything, yet gave nothing in return. In just a week my whole carefully built world collapsed around me, everything changed. No longer was there any order in my life. Raymond became first in every matter. I gave in willingly at first to his whims and wishes, but saw that his ingratitude was something he couldn't help. He was as cold as marble, like a beautiful Greek statue he decorated the flat with his body, his looks. But like a statue I could admire him yet never received any love or affection in

return.

In the evenings when I returned from my lecturing at the college I found him wandering around my bedroom, naked, admiring himself in the long mirror of the wardrobe. He was trying on his clothes, clothes which lay scattered across the bed and the floor. Even in the living room I found coloured socks and pullovers. He said he was trying to "Capture his mood in colour". Moody he was indeed. Never the same from one hour to the next. Changeable, temperamental, inconsistent, all these words would have described him equally well. In one week I saw many different Raymonds. The serious, darkly dressed, the gay bright coloured thing, the beatnik in sloppy sweater and jeans. But in all these poses as I called them, he was still a model beneath his clothes. Water flowed where blood should flow, love had been replaced by indifference. He accepted things, he believed in the present, never the future. The past to him didn't exist. Raymond treated life as a game, his friends could join in and play, but they never received any fun from it. He lied too, and so often contradicted himself that one could never tell when he spoke seriously or otherwise.

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