Michael paused. He almost smiled.

“Doc,” he said to the analyst, “I think we’re going to have to operate.”

The green eyeshade came back from the john.

“For what?” the analyst said to Michael.

“Asher’s got an obstruction,” Michael said. “A jammed-up reality detector. Nurse!” he barked at the analyst’s wife. “Get Kildare out of the shit house and tell him I want him in surgery at sixteen hundred hours.”

He looked at me.

“There’s nothing to fear, sir,” he said, gently. “You’ll never miss it once it’s gone.”

“Won’t I?”

“You’ll be a new man. No melancholia. No delusions of guilt. No indigestible moral crimes. I’ll send you a bill in the morning.”

“For how much?”

“Five hundred. That includes the anesthesia, drugs, and allowing you to hold Aurora’s divine twat.”

“You filthy-mouthed little bastard.”

“Okay already,” the fat asthmatic bushy-browed player said. “Let’s cut out the Grand Hotel and play cards.”

Michael looked at Aurora. “Asher doesn’t like me,” he sighed. “I try, but I can’t make myself likable.”

“I don’t like you much either,” Aurora said.

“Really, baby?”

“Give Asher back the money you took.”

“I said I didn’t want the money,” I said.

“He doesn’t want the money,” Michael said to Aurora. “Asher has a fine contempt for money. I can’t say I blame him. Very corrupting, money. He doesn’t want it. He wants my girl.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure she’s your girl,” I said.

His eyebrows went up. “Why don’t you look at her ass?” he said, politely. “She’s got my name tattooed on her right cheek. Isn’t that so, darling?”

“You scum.”

“Isn’t that so, Aurora baby? Tell this creep. He still doesn’t believe you’re my property.”

“Oh, shut up, Michael. You’re disgusting.”

“Okay. Everybody ante up?” the fat asthmatic bushy-browed player said. He counted the pot. “Who’s shy?” The cigarette smoke drifted. Michael picked up the ashtray in the slot of the cardtable beside his chips.

“Are you my property or not, honey?”

I prayed she wouldn’t say it. Not now. Not among these friends. Not with the sullen and annoyed faces bent over their cards.

She said, softly: “Yes.”

He didn’t smile. He’d have been a fool to smile now when his victory was so complete. He extended the ashtray toward her.

“Here, baby: empty it.”

He was ready to play poker again.

I prayed she wouldn’t take the ashtray. Not for my sake since I’d already lost but for her own. She took the ashtray.

There wasn’t any point in staying now. She’d taken the ashtray and she’d obediently empty it. I did not want to stay and see her empty it and return with the ashtray and possibly sit on his knee to make his possession of her evident to all. I started for the door. Asher, as he departs, a broken man: he was making me see myself as he’d made me see the soup-eater in the cafeteria. She watched me walk toward the apartment door. I heard the green eye-shade say: “I open for a half.”