It had been weeks since I'd made an appearance at the Pub. No particular reason. Just busy, I suppose. Bored, maybe. Buried at work. Too much housework to do. Chores I'd let go that really just had to be run.

Better this way. Keep occupied. Try not to relive the humiliation of my last display there. Close my eyes and wish away the bottomless way it felt to even imagine myself walking back in there. Everyone knowing.

I've had a few visitors. They've left me notes in my mailbox down in the building's atrium. Max came and waited until I finally came home from work one day. We stood down there and chatted. I told him I would have invited him up to my apartment but I'd adopted a new puppy from the pound and the place was such a mess.

That's also what I told Johnny when he came by. His eyes lit up and he asked me all about the puppy. Said he wondered if they'd let him have one at his place. Wanted to see the dog so damned bad. So I let him come up. We took the puppy for a walk together to the levee.

I like dogs. Cats are maybe less trouble but they're not good companions like a dog is. When this puppy grows up, he'll be a great guardian. Already he growls at any man who comes near me. He's so funny. He is a Shetland Sheepdog puppy who thinks he's a Rottweiler, full grown. He doesn't let me out of his sight. He even wants to follow me into the bathroom. When I shut him out, he sits outside the door, waiting on me. The first thing he did when Johnny walked in the apartment behind me was attack his ankle. I need to take him to obedience class when he's six months old because I can already tell that he's going to be needing it.

Max came by again two days later; tracked me down to where I was walking the dog on the levee. I figured Johnny must have blabbed to him. I guess that's a good thing, though, because it must mean that Max has taken Johnny under his wing. I figure Johnny only came by because Max put the idea in his head.

I've named the dog Buck. He just looks like a Buck to me.

Buck attacked Max, too. Max shook him off and growled at him. Poor Buck. He landed on his back and yelped pitiably. I told Max to leave my dog alone. Max told me the dog needed to learn manners.

Of course, Max is right.

Still, though, the dog's only five months old. You have to give him a break, I told Max. He's still a kid. Max just rolled his eyes. I want him to want to protect me, I told Max. He gave me this odd look. It's an instinct, Max said, not a choice.

Maybe so. Max probably knows.

We ended up in bed that night, Max and me. Buck was not happy about it. Max tossed him from the bedroom and slammed the door shut.

I told Terry about that later. He happened to drop by one Saturday afternoon to see if I'd like a ride to the Pub. I said no. I was swimming in the pool when he just appeared in the courtyard. I tossed him the key to my apartment and told him where he could find a suit that someone had left behind when he moved on. So Terry spent the day swimming and sunning with me. Not exactly the high old time he'd wanted for that day, but he was pretty okay about it.

When he came back down after changing into the suit, he told me he loved my dog. I asked him if Buck had attacked him. He said no way; they'd rolled on the floor and played tug o'war with my knickers, Terry said. I knew he was teasing me; I like when he does that something fierce.

Men always fight over getting my panties, I told Terry. And then I heard what I'd said and could have died. So he asked me how I was doing. I got out of the pool and laid down to catch some rays.

He asked me later if Max had at least come to check on me. Of course, I said. Max is a great guy. I sat up and asked Terry if he agreed with me on that. He shrugged and tried to change the subject. Talked about the trip they were all going on to Hawaii.

"It was our first time," I said to him.

"What do you mean, first time? What was?"

"Me and Max."

"That night?"

"Yeah." I shrugged my shoulders. "Some first time, huh?"

"Annie, I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be. It's fine. We've worked it out."

That's when I told him about Max coming over that one night. That he'd kind of established that we would see each other again. That he cared about me. That it still felt odd and all, but I was glad for it.

I fixed Terry dinner that night. He fixed the drinks. Margaritas in my blender. We sipped margaritas and I cooked steaks on the grill on my balcony. He spent the night with me. I like how Terry holds me. He looks out for me.

Man, it sounds like all I've done in these last few weeks is adopt a puppy and have sex with men. Not that that's a bad thing, but, then again, it's hardly representative of my life. But those are the high points.

So they all went to Hawaii. Terry wanted me to come, too. Johnny asked me to go with him but I said no. He offered to stay behind and keep me company but I told him I was going to be working. Max told me he'd invited Eris to spend the weekend with him. Terry said Eris had asked Terry to be her date at the luau. I wondered how that would work. Terry had just grinned.

I'd be lying if I didn't say it smarted when Max told me he'd invited Eris like that. I know he has a real thing for her. And I admire that he simply told me. But it still smarted. I haven't a clue as to what I expect from him, but I hate that it smarted to know he was moving on so easily from what had been a point in my life that I felt had changed my entire outlook about the Pub and the friends I had there. I mean, I'm still too embarrassed to even go back there with everyone knowing what I put into motion, how I used Johnny, how I tried to humiliate Max, that I stayed up there the whole night like I'd set it all up, like I'd set up both men just to give me a thrill.

God.

But anyway ... it's not a big deal anymore. I just prefer to not go back there. Not that I think for a minute that anyone will chastise me. I just hate going places where I'm awkward and reminded of stupid, asinine things I do.

So on this first night they are all in Hawaii, that's when it first happened. I was the only one not in Hawaii. I was home all alone except for Buck, my protector. There was this noise, like someone had bumped the wall in my living room. I was in bed, sleeping. Buck started barking his fool head off.

It scared the living crap out of me. I was dead asleep and the stupid dog starts barking like someone's breaking in. I don't think I even heard the noise that upset him except somewhere deep in the recesses of my sleeping mind. But Buck was adamant. I picked up the book I'd been reading like it was a weapon, opened my bedroom door, let Buck out and listened to what would happen as he dashed into the living room. I admit, I was horrible. I was waiting to hear if Buck yelped like someone had harmed him and then I thought, God, I can't let my puppy be hurt by an intruder!

So I went in there and ... of course, there was no one. Just one of those phantom noises in apartment buildings. I scolded the dog and he was all huffy with me, like I'd wounded his dignity. Then just as we settled back down in the bedroom, there was this huge noise of caterwauling cats outside my bedroom window.

One cat in particular kept meowing and hissing until I whipped open the window and lobbed a bucket of water on him. Damned alley cat.

So the next day, I ended up sleeping in. I had been more unnerved by the episode of the way Buck had been spooked than I wanted to admit. When it happened again that night, almost the same thing with Buck barking out ... this time, I was mostly awake. Lying in the dark, thinking about how I only had this puppy there to protect me if there was a boogieman out there trying to get in. And then I heard that noise and realized it was similar to the one that had set Buck off the night before.

Sure enough, same thing. He goes bananas and when I let him out into the other room, there was nothing there.

But this time, I knew I'd heard a noise from in there. Not from outside. That's what really unnerved me. 

When the fucking alley cat started up his shenanigans again, I didn't bother with the bucket of water. I threw the bucket at him. I swear, I think he was laughing at me except it was really this whining meow he did as he took off running down the fence.

The next day, I felt like I was hearing noises constantly. I was trying to work at home, catching up on correspondence, paying bills, doing laundry ... and Buck drove me crazy. Or maybe I drove him crazy. One or the both of us was jumping a lot that day at every single noise in the complex.

I finally gave up and stuck him in my car as I drove over to check on the Pub. Uma had asked me to go by each day and make sure there were no problems. The first two days they were gone, I'd just made quick runs to check the doors to be sure they were locked up tight like she left them. That's all she really wanted -- just someone to make sure the place didn't burn down or get burglarized or the faucets left on or a leak go unnoticed or ...

So this evening, I drove over there and checked the doors and then got to thinking that ... well, the apartment had gotten a bit spooky by then. I kind of was relieved to be away from it for a while. And someone might have left a faucet on inside the bar. Or the toilet might have been running or leaking ... someone should check it out.

Well, this someone had the keys to the place thanks to Uma.

Inside, I turned on some of the lights and wandered around. It was the first time I'd been in there when it had been completely empty. It felt off.

I almost turned and left but Buck was busily examining everything and so I made myself a drink as I went and really checked the place out. No leaks, no running toilets, no dripping faucets. In the kitchen, I was snooping in the fridge to see if there was anything good to eat when Buck started whining to be let out.

"You couldn't hold it 'til we got back, eh?" I asked him as I glanced over at where he was scratching at the door that led to the alley. "I mean, it's so dirty out there. Just cross your legs, Buck. Tie a knot in it, maybe."

But I was already heading that way with the keys to unlock the door. He pranced around and bounced once or twice as I struggled with the lock. I grabbed for his collar so I could get his leash on him, but he was so excited that when the door opened, he took off at a dead run.

Freedom!

He rushed into the darkness of the alley and I yelled his name out. He did not care one bit to obey me. I quickly lost sight of him as he rounded the large trash box just down from the door.

"You little fucker, get back here," I finally growled out after calling his name a half dozen times and being ignored. "I am signing you up for obedience classes tomorrow and we'll see who has the last laugh."

Retreating back inside, I went in search of a flashlight. I finally found one stuck in a drawer behind the bar. The batteries didn't work so then I had to find batteries in another drawer. Great system.

I went back out into the alley. I listened for evidence of Buck. I thought I heard his scuffling little feet down a bit further so I went looking with the flashlight. I heard a cat somewhere not too far. It started that pitiable noise the tomcats do when they're wanting some and know they may be out of luck. Finally, I found Buck who was merrily investigating a pile of rubbish and wood stacked next to the building. When I called his name, he rushed back to me. I would have scolded him, but I was too glad to see him. And I wanted out of the alley. I hate places like that.

The cat was still making his noises and he sounded like he was in between us and the door back into the kitchen. I banged on the fence and he stopped the noise. Inside the kitchen, I tossed Buck down and locked up.

But then I heard this other noise.

"Meow."

I turned around, thinking I'd see that damned cat strolling around in the kitchen. But ... nothing.

Then I heard it again. This time, it sounded further away. 

"Meow."

"Fucking tomcat," I grumped. The damned cat had somehow gotten into the bar! Looked at Buck. "Say, buster, earn your keep. Go find the cat, corner him so I can grab him and toss him out."

Buck just looked at me.

I opened the swinging door from the kitchen to the bar and looked back at Buck. "Go get 'em, tiger," I encouraged. I motioned out into the bar. Buck looked out there, back at me, heard the cat meow again and ... and he whined and ran to hide behind the counter.

"Why, you wimp, you! What kind of man are you to be scared of a little kitty cat? Wait until I tell all your friends," I chided Buck as I went into the main area of the bar.

It was dark in there. No lights.

"I thought I'd left these on," I said aloud to the empty bar.

I stumbled over to the nearest light switch and threw on some lights. If the cat was still in there, he certainly wasn't out in the open. I knew I had to find him before I left because he'd probably tear the joint up when he realized he was caged. I could see Uma's face if she came in and the cat had done the things feral cats do. Even as I grumbled aloud at the stupid cat, I started searching under tables and chairs to find it ...

There was a loud "whump" from upstairs. I stood stockstill where I was, over by the dartboard and listened. Whatever the noise was seemed much too heavy to be the treading of a cat up there. Now nervous, I scooted back into the kitchen only to be greeted by Buck running around all excited. When he saw me, he ran and jumped in my arms.

"What is it, boy?" I asked him. "Is someone up there?"

He kept looking over to the door. When I heard a sound of breaking glass from upstairs, Buck barked in fury and I got pissed.

"You fucking cat. When I find you, I'm going to skin you alive! Son of a bitch. Uma's going to kill me if the damned cat has destroyed anything of value."

I went running out into the bar and then took the stairs two at a time. At the top, I stopped to feel around on the wall for the light switch for the long hallway. Buck was yipping and struggling to get free so I put him down and told him to go corner the mangy cat for me.

Just as I found the switch to light up the hall, I saw Buck scampering away from me and then disappear into a room. He was barking in that way he's developing where it's turning a bit from puppy yelp to dog woof. I ran down the hall after him and looked into the room where he'd gone. I barely had time to wonder about why the room's door was open. I had thought Uma kept all of them closed and locked. But then Buck started jumping at the window on the opposite wall and barking like he was going to try to jump through the window to tear something apart.

"Hush, now, Buck. Good boy. That's right. You're a good boy. So where's the cat, buddy?" I reached down to pet the dog and calm him. Just then, I heard a cat down below, in the alley, setting up that racket again. "Good golly, Buck, that's the wrong cat. It's the cat inside here you were supposed to be hunting. Now, c'mon, let's go find the critter so we can go home."

I think it registered on me that the door was closed about five seconds before I reached it. I do know that just as I went to grab the handle, I asked myself if I remembered shutting it behind me.

I didn't have a memory of doing that; I think I knew instantly that I never had shut that door.

When I gripped the handle, it refused to turn. I tried harder. I tried just pulling the door in toward me. It wouldn't budge.

Everything flashed in my brain at once.

If the door was locked, it would have to be locked from my side, but I could see that it wasn't locked. If the doorknob wouldn't turn, then someone on the other side of the door was holding it.

"Holy shit," I whispered as I backed away from the door. I looked at Buck. He looked at me. He started jumping around like he wasn't sure what to do. And then he stood there, staring at the door. His hackles rose and quivered. This deep growl came from him that I'd never heard before.

My heart was beating so hard. Someone was in the building. Someone was on the other side of the door. Someone had me trapped in that room.

Who?

With every fiber of courage I had in me, I stepped up to the door. My hands were shaking as I braced lightly on the door and peered out the peephole. The hall was totally dark. Someone had turned the lights out in the hallway.

But ... in the midst of that darkness out there, I was sure I saw a darker shadow that was the shape of a man's torso and head. But that's all it was ... an amorphous shape that might not have been anything but my imagination but I was pretty sure it was real.

I grabbed the heaviest chair in the room, picked it up and wedged it under the door handle. I didn't mind so much being trapped as long as whatever was out there couldn't get in here. Then I shoved the chest that was along the wall over until it was lodged right in front of the chair.

There. Let whoever it was get through that. Have to be superhuman.

Buck's growling turned to whiffles and snurfles of barks intermingled with the growling. I hushed him and went to use the phone. I cursed in this fevered whisper when I found out it was dead. And of course, I'd left my purse in the bar downstairs so I didn't have my cell with me. Whoever was out there must have cut the phone lines. Now I was trapped and had no way to call for help. I sat on the bed and tried to stop shaking.

"Shut up," I whispered to Buck as he whined at me suddenly. 

But then I heard a new noise ... it sounded like a soft, high-pitched moaning from the hallway and intermingled with it was a weird, otherworldly sound of wind racing, kind of like a wavering "oooooo" or something.

I grabbed Buck when I heard it. I huddled down on the floor with him behind the bed. "Do you believe in ghosts?" I whispered against Buck's neck. He whimpered like he agreed with me that we should certainly consider that this place was haunted and that some ghost was trying to talk to us.

After a while, everything went still. Even the alley cat stopped wailing. And I began to realize that given the choice between whether I'd want all this to be happening because a man was in that building with me or because a ghost was present ... I would gladly have chosen the ghost.

I climbed up on the bed to think about what I should do. I thought it was stupid to even consider leaving through the door. And dropping two stories from the window into the alley seemed equally stupid. Either way, any intruder could have gotten me. So I decided that I was safer just staying put. Uma would be home from Hawaii the next day. I figured she'd not be alone; at least one of the men would be with her; maybe a bunch of them would be stopping off at the pub before heading home. That was my best chance ... wait to be rescued.

Leaning against the headboard, I considered how much calmer I was now that I realized I had no other choice but to wait. As I looked around the room, I realized where I was.

This was the exact room I'd been in with Max and Johnny. I couldn't believe that of all the rooms up here to be open, it would be this one. As if some supernatural force really was responsible and was doing this on purpose to make me face this scene.

Closing my eyes, I snuggled down into the pillows. I felt Buck's little body nestle in against my chest and I stroked his fur. He might not have been the best protector in the world, but he'd done okay as an early warning system and when push came to shove, he'd made some formidable noises at the force outside this room. Maybe Max was right about what he had said about instinct. Scrappy little Buck had done his best. You couldn't blame him getting spooked in these circumstances.

Max.

Shit. I wish I hadn't thought about him. Like that. Like how he could make me feel both safe and in danger.

If he'd been there, I'd have been safe.

God. I didn't want to think about that night here in this room. I didn't.

Turning on my tummy, I cuddled Buck under my arm and hid my face in the pillow ... and tried to find something to think about that wasn't about that night of being with two men ... of having proven to be such a low-class act as to have arranged all that in public, before people both those men cared about.

There was something about the silence. I could hear the building creaking. I'd never really focused on those sounds before. Maybe these weren't normal, old building noises? I tried to fight the fear. Was that footsteps in the hall?

Think about something pleasant. Something that will take you away from here. Something to pass the time.

Max.

But not in this room. Think about the other time, girl.

He'd just shown up one evening as I walked with Buck along the levee. Insisted he was taking me to dinner. Asked to come up to my place after. Wanted to talk.

His first question threw me. I never recovered.

"Why do you so avoid looking in my eyes?" he asked me as I handed him a glass of cognac while he stood still and imposing in my dining room. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled at him. Looked in his eyes. "Am I so difficult to look upon, Ann?"

"Fishing for compliments, Max?"

"Why do you not come to the pub again? You make it worse for yourself the longer you stay away."

"I've been busy."

"Am I such an embarrassment to you? Is that it? The idea that anyone would know you were with me ..."

"You know that's not the truth, Max," I whispered to him. "I am flattered you care about me. I am ... I am not ashamed of anything we did in that room."

"Then ..."

I shook my head and would have moved away but he stopped me with nothing more than a finger under my chin.

"I made such a fool of myself." And this was how I tried to explain to him. That it had been the fact I'd been so low class as to have done what I did before I dragged Johnny upstairs. Baiting Max in public. Coercing Johnny. Expressing a desire for something many people would have considered out of the realms of polite society.

"We were intimate. Intimacy itself is not polite. Society does not belong between a man and a woman," he said, his hand sliding behind my head and just that one gesture brought me closer to his body.

"How about between a woman and two men?"

"Something about that night bothers you, Ann. Be honest. It is not simply how it happened, but that it happened. Is it me?"

"No. Never." His lips were close to my neck. I could feel his breath whisking across my ear lob and it seemed to tingle down my spine. I shivered. "How you must view me, Maximus. It was our first time."

He stopped. He'd been pressing me into the table in my dining room. That hand behind my head had been clutching me in closer to him; his other hand was upon my thigh, raising my leg up along his own, almost to his hip. But this comment about that night having been our first time together, it made him stop.

I think, in all honesty, he had thought about this fact but that it had meant not that much to him. Now in the face of the truth that it meant something to me, he tried to process this.

"I would love you in this night, my lady," he said finally ... finally. His voice was deep, low, husky. "Be with me."

My eyes rose from where they were examining his neck and the way his hair there just turned me on. I looked inside his eyes for a truth. "I want this to be special if we do this. For it to mean something between us. For it to still be about trust."

And it was such a tender, beautiful moment.

Which was why it cracked me up when Buck destroyed it by attacking Max's ankles. I couldn't help chuckling, but Max tossed him off from where his little puppy teeth had latched into Max's jeans. I tried to protest, but it was hard to make intelligible noises when Max has got his tongue down your throat and is moving you backwards toward your bedroom. All a woman can really do in those circumstances is ... kiss him back. Right?

Inside my bedroom, Buck got out one growl and an accompanying bark. Max had already maneuvered me onto the bed; his hands were already upon my bare skin; he was hard and urgent. I didn't even really register Buck's protests about the abuse of his mistress. But then Max growled, deep in his chest, and rose from me in this sudden fury.

"Max! Don't ..." That was all I got out before I heard Buck hit the floor in the hall and the door slam on his yelps of wounded pride. Even as he bounded into the closed door and howled his head off, Max stood on my side of the door and stripped. I was up on my elbows, stunned by this sudden flow of events. I watched him strip down to his skin. His body in the low light of my bedside lamp was flowing angles and flexing muscles and dips and ... and his manhood on display.

He is such a beautiful man to look at to me. And utterly, fatally masculine and virile.

I rose to my feet even as he told me the dog needed to understand he was not the master of this home. I started stripping as Max asked me if I understood. I nodded. "Then who is the master here?" I said softly, inviting him closer if he wished to hear me.

"There can be only one in this room."

"Or none."

"I would bow before you, mistress. Would you have me?"

He confused me. He walked right up to me as I tried to figure this out. His hand stroked down my arm; when he reached my wrist, he pulled my hand toward his groin. He watched, this look of satisfaction on his face, as I stroked and examined his hardness.

But I closed my eyes so soon after first really touching him. Like I wanted to shut out all my other senses until only the sense of touch remained. Until touching him, holding him was all.

Into this reverie of remembrance of that night, that moment, I heard noises I could not identify outside the room above the pub. I worked hard to shut them out. I skipped ahead ...

Past the awkwardness of becoming fully aware of where I was, who I was with, what was happening. Past the way it felt when he reminded me that he wanted me to give myself over to the part of me he'd discovered the first time we'd been together.

How could it be, I asked him that night, that I could have the desire to remember how free I could be with him in that night of experimenting and experiencing what two men would give me ... and yet also have the feeling of unease that maybe I hadn't shown my real self to him that night? That maybe I was a fraud?

"I can prove to you that this aspect of you can be summoned at my will," he said, his mouth against my ear. Both my hands held his cock. It was as if by latching on so firmly, so resolutely to the visible symbol of his manhood that I was touching the way we would be together.

There was one master in that room. I have come to believe there was that undercurrent between Max and I that my young dog caught significant whiffs of from the first moment Max entered our sphere. It isn't that I feel I sublimated myself to Max; it's that I went by instinct with him.

And my instinct with him was to flow with my desires in the face of his.

There were only the two of us inside my bedroom that night. In many ways, this night was our first time. Yet we had intimate knowledge of each other already. It's hard to hide that. When he crawled over me after laying me upon the bed, I recognized his body's feel. Yet, I learned it all over. The touch of only his hands. The taste of only his mouth. The scent of only his skin. The arousal and satisfaction that only came from him.

Again, another indistinct noise in the pub's building. This sounded like it might have been in the kitchen, as if pots and pans were being rattled dimly.

I put my hands over my ears and screwed my eyes shut ... and dove headlong into the most visceral part of the night with Max, the memory I hoped would transport me away from my fear of what was happening outside the room I was in with Buck.

And the moment I chose to relish, to cling to ...

... him, inside me, the first time. Stretching me. That feeling ... nothing like it in this world. The feel of tension in his thighs as he holds himself just so ... controlling his entry ... not giving in to his urge to ram inside. The way his shoulders felt as my hands clung around his neck and how they felt when I struggled to accept him ... how I would alternate between tightening my grip and using my elbows to give me space. How every time I pushed back from him, his hand under my back would tilt me and he would use the way that would seem to widen me to push in a few more inches.

I fell asleep, there in that room above the pub, with heated memories so strong I would have sworn in the morning that a man had been between my legs that night. That is how strong the experience with Max was for me. And it still is.

No wonder then that it is the one memory that offered me an escape that night.

In the morning, I was awoken by a loud ringing near the bed. I sat bolt upright and Buck was sitting next to me, staring in this goofy way he has that almost looks like he's grinning at me.

It was the phone. I did the automatic thing everyone does when a phone rings; I picked it up to answer it. But there was no one on the other end. I hung it up and stared at it. Looked at Buck. And then it dawned on me.

The phone was working again!

I picked up the receiver, really expecting it to be dead like it had been the night before. But there was a dial tone. I dialed 911; told the dispatcher that there was an intruder in the building. She stayed on the line with me until I heard sirens coming near and then I leaned out the window when the cops came into the alley. They said the doors were both locked. I took a big gulp when they asked me to choose between them breaking one of the doors down and me taking the risk to come out of the room and let them in. I chose to un-barricade myself and race into the kitchen to unlock the alley door. They flooded inside, four of them. One stayed with me and Buck while the other three swept swiftly through the building, checking on the intruder.

"Well, whatever it was, there's no one else here now," one cop said to me when they all reconvened in the kitchen.

The only thing they'd found was a feral cat from the alley. He had been found defending a corner of the bar near the dartboard and had made known his feelings about being chased down by spraying on two cops and scratching one really badly along the arm and face.

So after they chucked the cat into the alley, they took me into the bar and told me to have a seat and relax. They stood there looking at me. "Go over it for us again? What exactly happened?"

And as I told them, I saw them exchange looks and they seemed oddly unconcerned. They made me walk through my movements; show them where I'd been and what I'd seen when. When I'd finished, I sat on a stool at the bar and they looked all around again. They still found no evidence anyone had ever been in there.

"Look, I swear to you that what I heard could not have been a cat. I mean, I heard the cat in here, I told you that. But it wasn't the cat turning off lights or holding the door closed or walking in the hall or ..."

"What do you do for a living, ma'am?" one cop asked me.

"What? What does that have to do with anything?" They looked at each other.

"Look, you were all alone in this big building. Maybe you were frightened by the first crash and then imagined everything else?" another cop asked.

"I do not frighten easily, officer, trust me. Look, if I was easily frightened, then I would have just totally freaked out the last two nights before this when I heard bumps in my apartment. But I didn't freak out then and I didn't freak out last night. Someone was in here."

They all shifted around and looked at each other. The first cop said quietly, "You've been hearing strange noises at night in your apartment the two nights before this night?"

I saw what they were thinking ... that I was obviously going through some recent emotional upheaval and it was giving me night frights. How ridiculous was that?

"Then explain how a cat grew into a man's form? Because I saw a man through the peephole."

"But you said the hall lights were out," the second cop said reasonably.

I hesitated. "But ... I saw a shape ..."

"Are you positive? Really positive, ma'am? No way it could have been your imagination? You'd be real surprised what people think they see when they're really scared," said the second cop.

"Someone was in here. And I'm not talking about the cat."

The cops were there for a long while before Uma and Terry showed up. I heard their voices outside as one cop tried to shoo them away but finally let them in when Uma said she was the owner.

I told them the outline of what had happened. The noises. Someone shutting that door and keeping me in there. The phone being cut off then back on. Lights going on and off. Buck being spooked. The cat. Everything.

Uma patted my hand and looked very concerned. Of course she would be; she spends a lot of time there by herself. Terry just listened with that blank look he gets when he's trying to add things up. As Uma fixed me a drink to steady my nerves, Terry went and huddled with the cops. I heard one of them tell him that there was simply no evidence -- no forced entry; the phones didn't appear tampered with; nothing broken into; nothing stolen from what they could tell; no damage.

Maybe you were just upset at being alone, Terry suggested as the cops packed up to leave.

I looked at Uma; she really hated to believe that I'd spent this whole night in terror when it had been just my imagination. But in a big way, it would make it simpler if that's what it was. And I was safe now. What did it hurt to swallow my pride?

Perhaps so, I told Terry.

But I was really put out that he didn't believe me. Why would I make something like that up? 

Unless ... no. It had not been my imagination. Surely not.

When he offered to take me home, I said I was fine to drive myself. I just felt it was important that I show I'm not such a dweeb that I create illusions of threats in order to scare myself silly.

Uma called me later that afternoon to check on me. I asked her how Hawaii had been; she said she'd fill me in later. I think I know what that means and that means it was a good trip for her. I'd not get all the details, of course; but I'd get enough.

Just before she hung up, she said, "I'm thinking of asking Terry and Dino about installing a new security system here."

"Maybe the place is haunted," I told her. "Maybe that's all it was. Maybe I just got spooked by noises I never hear there because when I'm there, there's always people there. Maybe it was just normal noises for a building like that, you know? I hate that I let myself get so rattled."

"Haunted, hey? Perhaps we have another attraction at the pub ... our very own ghost. Rather romantic, don't you think? Of course in England, a building's just not complete without the resident ghost or two."

"Sure. On Halloween, we can hold a séance and sell tickets to meet the ghost of the pub."

When we hung up, I shook myself from my lethargy, took a long bath and snuggled into my bed. Before my mind closed down for the night, Buck barked at a phantom noise from my living room. Right on cue, the stupid alley cat began serenading me again. I groaned, put in earplugs I'd bought from the drugstore on the way home that day, turned over and went to sleep.

Tomorrow, I sign him up for obedience classes so I can start getting a good night's sleep.