I looked at the options, smiled happily and flipped a die four: Platonic love. Platonic love? How did that get in there? I was momentarily appalled. I decided that it was understood by number four that I might be dissuaded from Platonism by Arlene.

That Saturday evening Arlene greeted me at the door wearing a lovely blue cocktail dress I'd never seen before (neither had Jake) with a glass of Scotch and with a wide-eyed stare: representing awe, fright or blindness from being without her glasses. After handing me the Scotch (Lil was upstairs still dressing), Arlene fled to the other side of the room. I drifted over to a small group of psychiatrists led by Jake and listened to a consecutive series of monologues on methods of avoiding income taxes.

Depressed, I drifted after Arlene, poetry poised like cookie crumbs on my lips. She was yo-yoing from the kitchen-bar to her guests, smiling bigly and blankly, and then rushing away in someone's midsentence on the presumed pretense of getting someone a drink. I'd never seen her so manic. When I finally followed her into the kitchen one time she was staring at a picture of the Empire State Budding, or rather at the calendar beneath it with all the banking holidays squared in orange.

She turned and looked at me with the same wide-eyed awe, fear or blindness and asked in a frightening loud, nervous

voice `What if I'm pregnant?'

'Shhhh,' I replied.

`If I'm pregnant, Jake will never forgive me.'

`But I thought you took the pill every morning.'

`Jake tells me to but for the last two years, I've substituted little vitamin C tablets in my calendar clock.'

`Oh my God, when, when… Do you think you're pregnant?'

`Jake'll know I cheated on him and didn't take the pill.'

'But he'll think he's the father?'

`Of course, who else could be?'

`Well … uh…'

'But you know how he detests the thought of having children.'

'Yes I do. Arlene…'

`Excuse me, I've got to serve drinks.' She ran out with two martinis and returned with an empty highball glass.

`Don't you dare to touch me again,' she said as she began preparing another drink.

`Ah, Arlene, how can you say that? My love is like . . .'

`This Tuesday, Jake is going to spend all day at the Library annex working on his new book. If you dare try anything

like last night I'll phone the police.'

'Arlene . . .'

`I've checked their number and I plan to always keep the phone near me.'

'Arlene, the feelings I have for you are…'

`Although I told Lil yesterday that I'm going to Westchester to see my Aunt Miriam.'

She was off again with a full whiskey and two pieces of chewed celery, and before she returned again Lil had arrived and I was trapped in an infinite analysis with a man named Sidney Opt of the effect of the Beatles on American culture. It was the closest I came to poetry that night. I didn't even talk to Arlene again until, well, that Tuesday afternoon.

'Arlene,' I said, trying to rope in a scream as she pressed the door convincingly against my foot, `you must let me in.'

'No,' she said.

`If you don't let me in I won't tell you what I plan to do.'

'Plan to do?'

`You'll never know what I'm going to say.'

There was a long pause and then the door eased open and I limped into her apartment. She retreated decisively to the

telephone and, standing stiffly with the receiver in her hand with one finger inserted into presumably the first digit, she

said `Don't come any nearer.'

`I won't, I won't. But you really should hang up the phone.'

'Absolutely not.'

`If you keep it off the hook too long they'll disconnect the phone.'

Hesitantly she replaced the receiver and sat at one end of the couch (next to the telephone); I seated myself at the other

end. - After looking at me blankly for a few minutes (I was preparing my declaration of Platonic love), she suddenly

began crying into her hands.

`I can't stop yon,' she moaned.

`I'm not trying to do anything!'

'I can't stop you, I know I can't. I'm weak.'

'But I won't touch you.'

`You're too strong, too forceful…'

'I won't touch you.'

'She looked up.

`You won't?'

'Arlene, I love you..-.'

`I knew it! Oh and I'm so weak.'

`I love you in a way beyond words.'

`You evil man.'

'But I have decided [I had become tight-upped with annoyance at her] that our love must always be Platonic.'

She looked at me with narrowed, resentful eyes: I suppose that it was her equivalent of Jake's penetrating squint, but it

made her look as if she were trying to read subtitles on an old Italian movie.

`Platonic?' she asked.

`Yes, it must always be Platonic.'

'Platonic.' She meditated.

`Yes,' I said, `I want to love you with a love that is beyond words and beyond the mere touch of bodies. With a love of

the spirit.'

'But what'll we do?'

`We'll see each other as we have in the past, but now knowing we were meant to be lovers but that fate seventeen

years ago made a mistake and gave you to Jake.'

'But what'll we do?' She held the phone to her ear.

`And for the sake of the children we must remain faithful to our spouses and never again give into our passion.'

`I know, but what will we do?'

`Nothing.'

`Nothing?'

'Er . . . nothing . . . unusual.'

`Won't we see each other?'

`Yes.'

'At least say we love each other?'

'Yes, I suppose so.'

'At least reassure me that you haven't forgotten?'

`Perhaps.'

'Don't you like to touch me?'

'Ah Arlene yes, yes I do but for the sake of the children `What children?'

`My children.'

`Oh.'

She was sitting on the couch, one arm in her lap and the other holding the telephone to her right ear. Her low-cut blue

cocktail dress which for some reason she was wearing again was making me feel less and less Platonic.

`But…'she seemed trying to find the right words. `How . .. how would your . . . raping me hurt your children?'

`Because - how would my raping you hurt my children?'

`Yes.'

'It would . . . were I to touch the magic of your body again I might well never be able to return to my family. I might

have to drag you off with me to start a new life.'

`Oh.'

Wide-eyed, she stared at me.

`You're so strange,' she added.

`Love has made me strange.'

`You really love me?'

`I have loved you … I have loved you since … since I realized how much there was hiding beneath the surface of your

outward appearance, how much depth and fullness there is to your soul.'

`I just don't understand it.'

She put the phone down on the arm of the couch and raised her hands again to her face, but she didn't cry.

'Arlene, I must go now. We must never speak of our love again.'

She looked up at me through her glasses with a new expression - one of fatigue or sadness, I couldn't tell.

`Seventeen years.'

I moved hesitantly away from the couch. She continued to stare at the spot I had vacated: `Seventeen years.'

`I thank you for letting me speak to you.'

She rose now and took off her glasses and put them next to the telephone. She came to me and put a trembling hand

on the side of my arm.

`You may stay,' she said.

`No, I must leave.'

`I'll never let you leave your children.'

`I would be too strong. Nothing could stop me.'

She hesitated, her eyes searching my face. `You're so strange.'

'Arlene, if only…'

`Stay.'

'Stay?'

`Please.'

'What for?'

She pulled my head down to hers and gave me her lips and mouth in a kiss.

`I won't be able to control myself,' I said.

`You must try,' she said dreamily. `I have sworn never to go to bed with you again.'