I did have the decency to call up Thelma and tell her I'd met old friends and would be home late.

``I could scratch her eyes out,'' Eileen cried and stamped her foot when I came back from the phone booth. ``You know I don't like my men to have other women. I hate it. I hate it.''

She got so drunk I had to take her home. It was a walk up on Hudson Street. She just about made me carry her upstairs and then she clung to me and wouldn't let me go.

There was a man's jacket on the chair and a straw hat on the table. The place smelt of some kind of hair lotion these pimp like characters use. ``What about Ballestre?'' I had to shake her to make her listen. ``Precious. What about him?''

Suddenly she was very mysterious and dramatic. ``Precious and I allow each other absolute freedom. We are above being jealous. He's used to me bringing home strange men. I'll just tell him you're my husband. He cann't object to that.''

``Well I object. If he pokes his nose in here I'll slug him.''

``That really would be funny.''

She began to laugh. She was still laughing when I grabbed her and started rolling her on the bed. After all I'm made of flesh and blood. I'm not a plaster saint.

Waking up was horrible. Never in my life have I felt so remorseful about anything I've done as I did about spending that night with my own wife.

We both had hangovers. Eileen declared she couldn't lift her head from the pillow. She lay under the covers making jabbing motions with her forefinger telling me where to look for the coffeepot. I was stumbling in my undershirt trying to find my way around her damn kitchenette when I smelt that sickish sweet hairtonic smell. There was somebody else in the apartment.