Every now and then Ray would step up the pressure, crossing his ankles to get more leverage, until my ears roared and the print faded from in front of my eyes. That was exciting. If it didn’t happen for a while, I’d find myself pressing backwards against his groin, knowing that he might just get annoyed with me, but unable to stop myself trying for a reaction. I think Ray was proud of my endurance. There was one time he was a bit relentless and I started to pass out, and after that maybe I’d built up the strength of my neck and maybe he was a little bit easier on me. But not so much easier that I felt disappointed.
On my twentieth birthday I gave him his present, saying, ‘Happy Official Birthday, Raymond,’ and he didn’t exactly scowl, but he was a long way from smiling, and he said, ‘What makes you think my name is Raymond? Maybe it’s just Ray.’ It may have been that he was just being gruff because he’d planned a birthday surprise, Carmen. Not my top favourite opera — I like all the business about fate, but if you’ve actually known someone who changes her mind and won’t change it back, had one in the family, then you don’t find it all that thrilling to see the same thing up on stage. So not my top favourite opera, but still a huge treat.
I was wearing a nice suit, jangling coins in my pocket very happily, when Ray came out of the bedroom wearing his idea of evening dress suitable for a night at the opera. It was exactly what he would wear on a bike run, except that instead of a black leather shirt he wore one in tan leather, which laced up to the neck. That was the fashion then. For once I felt so very much the birthday boy that without thinking of the risk I was taking I blurted out, ‘You’re not taking me to the opera dressed like that!’ I know. Like the mother in a sitcom. Big risk to be taking.
I’m not a snoop and I don’t pry, unless you count the holiday snaps of strangers, but in the wardrobe in Ray’s bedroom in full view hung five beautiful suits — two grey, two cream, one brown. Was it asking so much to want him to dress down for me?
He gave me a truly poisonous look, but no, apparently it wasn’t so very much to ask. He slammed the bedroom door behind him, mind you, and he made me wait. He wanted me to think he was pulling a huge sulk, that he wasn’t ever coming out. But by then I felt I had the measure of the man. And sure enough, he came out all nonchalant in one of the creams. Looking absolutely fantastic. Before he phoned for the cab he said, ‘You know you’ll pay for this later,’ and by then I knew him well enough to say, ‘I’ll remind you.’ On the night of my birthday, of our birthday, Ray let me sleep in the bed, so I really was taking a risk, though all in all I slept better on the floor.
There were other surprises that took more getting used to than opera tickets on my birthday. One Saturday night while the poker club was in session, I was sitting there cross-legged reading my book when I looked up. I was trying to make sense of the Thirty Years’ War, which wasn’t that easy even during the thirty years that the war lasted. It took me a little moment to find my bearings in the present day, and to focus on what was in front of me.
In front of me was a pair of boots, but they weren’t Ray’s. Ray wore Gold Tops, the sort motorcycle policemen wear — he was very proud of them — and these were Doc Martens, which weren’t acceptable on a bike run but passed muster on a Saturday night. And if the boots weren’t Ray’s, then it followed that the cock sticking out of the jeans a little above my eye level wasn’t Ray’s either. Not Ray’s at all. It had a different shape and a different size and a different slant. Different animal altogether.
Paul stood there as if he was waiting for me to service him, staring flatly down at me in a way that I suppose was an imitation of Ray, and I honestly didn’t know what to do. I looked over to Ray, but he was concentrating on his poker hand and didn’t look up. Of course it was just me-in-the-window, him-cleaning-the-bike all over again. He knew perfectly well that I wanted some guidance, and he was letting me know that I’d have to make the decision without his help. I was on my own. I was standing at a crossroads where there were no signposts.
I just didn’t know what was the right thing to do. Ray was entitled to use me as and when he pleased, and if his poker hand folded and he wanted me to suck his cock until the next hand was dealt, then that was his privilege. I was well used to that. But didn’t I belong to him and him only? Wasn’t that the bargain that was struck the first night I spent with Ray, the night he took possession? The trouble with contracts made without a word being said is that you never have a chance to read the small print.
I was afraid that if I opened my mouth and got to work on Paul, the way he so obviously expected me to, I’d spoil things between me and Ray forever, and all for something I didn’t especially want to do. But if Ray had told Paul that he could help himself, then I would make him look bad in front of the club.
I didn’t refuse Paul, but it was obvious that I was unsure and hesitating. He called over to the poker table, ‘Ray?’ Ray didn’t look up, and his tone of voice when he drawled ‘Yeah?’ was somehow silky, which I took to be a bad sign. Right there and then I had the sinking feeling that I had made the wrong choice. I was already moving past the unsignposted crossroads, on a conveyor belt of indecision. I was already heading down the wrong road.
Paul’s cock was still jutting there in front of me while he carried on a little conversation with the group behind his back. He waggled his hips slightly, so that his cock waggled also, either with the idea of tempting me, or the way that some people wag a finger to mean naughty naughty. Paul said, ‘Ray, is this boy of yours on strike?’
And Ray said, lazily, drawling the words, ‘Not that I know of.’ Letting a little silence form. ‘Not unless he joined the union since this morning.’ Still he kept his eyes on the cards in his hand. So of course I had to open up to Paul, which was suddenly a relief since it meant that I didn’t have to look at the stupid grin of triumph on his face.
And that was how I learned that if this was some sort of commune, then I was part of what it shared in common. All for one, and Colin for everybody. Colin on demand. The crack about unions was definitely a punishment, I thought, for my wavering. A bit of a low blow. There was a lot of union-bashing around in the late seventies, before Thatcher came in. You could hardly open a paper without reading about how the unions were bringing the country to its knees with their lunatic demands — only I never thought so.
Ray knew full well I was a union man, and he’d heard me say time and time again that a strike was a measure of last resort and not what the trades union movement was really about. He even knew that the thing I liked least about Saturday nights was hearing the members of the poker club make ill-informed comments on that sort of subject, and not be able to put my point of view. It was a real test of character for me, curled up on the floor, trying to concentrate on my book, and of course not allowed to speak unless spoken to by a member. So Ray was really hitting me where it hurt, hitting below the belt, when he made that remark.
It was a bad moment. Of course I’d let Ray down in public — my hesitation had damaged him momentarily in the eyes of the group — so he was only retaliating, really. And after that I knew not to hesitate, and I made sure he never needed to feel ashamed of me again.