“But first I’d like to ask you how regularly you sleep with Dusty.”

“Ah!” said Moira Clancy. “But … not regularly…”

She fidgeted her hands. Ray moved to get up.

“I’ll be going if you ladies are going to be personal.” His voice was nervous and a little disgusted.

“No, please.” I gestured him back to his place on the floor. “I have a reason for wanting you to hear this.”

A certain curiosity, a misplaced trust. He settled back on his haunches and sipped his wine.

Then I carefully, systematically, lovingly, elicited Moira’s tale of romance. Dusty, too, had gone to her because she was there.

“He didn’t mind about the cats. He let them stay,” she said.

She was easily lured. Perhaps because she so rarely found herself with a willing audience, she forgot who I was, or felt glorified by it, as though we sat with our chipped glasses on some Olympian plane of civilization in which there was no rivalry or jealousy. Or maybe she felt a cruel pride herself in dealing out her memories to the supposed official owner of the burgled property. We found it hilarious to discuss his capacities.

“He always ejaculates too soon,” she lisped.

“Yes!” I laughed. “And he has never heard of the clitoris!”

“Couldn’t you have told him?” Ray asked.

“Could you?” I answered, and we both laughed at his complacence.

“I told him he was the best ever,” she smiled.

“Naturally. So did I.”

Finally I had played enough. She had gushed every detail of their four meetings in her big bed. She had renounced his skills and confessed that it was the friendly exercise that soothed her and insured her a good night’s sleep. In this I concurred wholeheartedly. We refilled our glasses. I raised mine and looked at Moira over the rim.

“You really are,” I said, “just like the toilet in the house. Everybody knows where to find you when they need you.”

She giggled, but a nervous crease formed between her eyebrows.

“And, like the toilet in that house of yours,” I continued solemnly, “you are too dirty to use except in an emergency.”

She frowned at me, her eyebrows forming an anxious peak.

“Did you really imagine that I liked you?” I inquired ironically. “Did you suppose I could find anything about you even tolerable?”

Her lips opened as if to answer; some quick word came up as far as her teeth and then stopped. I waited, coolly, offering her the chance to defend herself. I let my hands dangle between my knees, on call for specific emphasis.