Don took the three steps one at a time, like they were a hundred and he was shaky with age. But with each step up, the front door seemed to move backward away from him, like the house was amusing itself in a sadistic contest with its master as he returned home in no shape to argue.
"Goddamn… I'll never make it," he mum bled aloud, not caring whether the neighbors were all watching. "I'll have to sleep out here on the fuckin' steps. Serves me right, I reckon, it's better'n I deserve!"
He made the top step and braced himself around the square pillar that supported the front stoop. He swayed dangerously and once he nearly tumbled backward down the stairs but he caught himself with one arm and a leg around the pillar.
Getting the key in the tiny keyhole was an almost impossible task and it wasn't made any easier by his outrageous laughing at himself and muttering, "Put some hair 'round it, Don, ol' boy… then y'can find it!"
The living room light was switched on but there was no sign of Diane. He silently thanked whoever up there was listening to a drunk's supplications and stumbled into the bathroom to undress before Diane heard him and got out of bed. He left his clothes on the floor next to the hamper, forgetting to open the lid and toss them inside next to Diane's, and he edged along the wall to the bedroom like a two year-old practicing walking, step-by-step as he leaned against the doorways for support.
Diane didn't stir as he pulled back the covers and he tried to kneel on the edge of the bed and climb in without disturbing her, but he lost his balance in the dizzying darkness and he fell with a bed-tossing thud next to her.
He lay perfectly still, waiting for her to wake up, trying to stay conscious long enough to sound reasonably coherent. He looked at her, primly clad in her favorite nightie, but all he could see was the hazy image of Lucy the cocktail waitress stretched naked beside him. It was a haunting, shimmering image that seemed to come and go, but it nagged him and gnawed at his soul.
Oh, Don, I'm so sorry, I really am… I'm not asleep, but I want you to think I am. How could I face you tonight, how could I touch you or let you touch him after the sins I have committed… I'm not worthy of you any longer, Don, I'm dirty and unclean!
Don slid under the sheet and stretched out languorously beside his wife; when he closed his eyes, the room swirled drunkenly as if he had fallen onto an all-night carousel and was spinning around and around. He felt his wife's slender body against his, the frail warmth of her nakedness beneath her sheer nightgown, and he cringed away instinctively. Just the thought of making love to her, of trying to make up for his drunken ribaldry, was sickening… How could he make love to his pregnant wife with the same cock that he had used on that shameless tramp from the bar? He wanted to touch her, to caress her and hope for her tender forgiveness, but he stayed away instead, far over on his side of the bed.
And for the first night since their marriage, they slept together as strangers, each with his own private shame.