We'd met two hours earlier and were having sex at my apartment when her cell phone rang. It was her husband, an individual whose existence I'd been informed of several drinks into the easy, teasing, conversation we'd been having at the bar. He was the surprise answer to my question, "So, have you ever co-habitated with anyone?". Boy howdy. I'd finished my beer in shocked silence, trying to process the information but not sure what sort of moral protocol to apply. The fact that she was 100 percent my type inclined me not to apply any

So I watched her pale back and bottom as she stood in the harsh light of my little kitchen, arguing on the cell phone. It must have been 3 AM back east, but her husband was wide awake...alone in the middle of the night, your wife away on business- sometimes you just know, y'know? A disturbance in the force. She argued with the cool aplomb of a lady who, right or wrong, is used to winning arguments as I listened and drank the last tall-boy, feeling like an interloper in my own kitchen. Struck by a perverse pang of nostalgia for love's ugly flip-side I thought, "You guys don't know how lucky you are...".

We dressed in a hurry and caught up with her friends at a local bar. Alibis were established, new beers were served and, aware of the unfinished business between us, she inquired on our behalf, "Could Ernie sleep over?" It was out of the question (the situation actually involved two couples in crisis and is convoluted beyond my ability to document). So two hours later, at an address furtively whispered on my voice mail, I found myself (at the age of 35) climbing through a bedroom window behind which I hoped to find her.

I did.

An hour later, kicked out of bed for snoring, I trod, shoes in hand, across the dewy lawn. Making my way home under the familiar suburban orange of mercury vapor street lights.

Obla-dee, obla-da, motherfuckers.