A flight up, I went through the same routine at Creeley's door. I determined that no light showed below it or through the keyhole, then put my finger on the buzzer and buzzed away. When I heard Creeley's approaching footsteps, I knew just what I would do. I'd say "Mister Feldmaus?" and I wouldn't have to fudge the first word, because I'd established that Feldmaus was a man. (There might be a Mrs. Feldmaus as well, for all I knew, but that was neither here nor there.)

Then Creeley, Ms. or Mr., would tell me Feldmaus was a flight below, and I'd excuse myself, using the same English accent that had served me so well thus far. And then I'd go downstairs, not one flight but two, and then I'd go out of the building and, please God, catch the first cab I saw and go home.

But I didn't hear any footsteps.

I rang again, and got the same non-response. I put my ear to the door and listened to the silence.

There were three locks on the door. I unlocked all three of them, or at least I thought I did, but the one in the middle was unlocked to begin with, so picking it only served to lock it, as I found out when I went to open the door. I picked it again, retracting the bolt I'd unwittingly extended, and now the door opened.

And in I went.

What a feeling!

I don't know that I can possibly convey what it felt like. I can tell you that my senses were keener than normal, that the blood sang in my veins, that there was a tingling in the tips of my fingers, but the more precisely I record such phenomena the more pathological the whole thing sounds. What I'm hard put to get across is the sheer exhilaration that possessed me, combined with an all-encompassing sense of well-being, and even of appropriateness. I was, it seemed to me, precisely where I ought to be, doing precisely what I was supposed to do.

Which, when you stop and think about it, is palpable nonsense. I was in point of fact where I was manifestlynot supposed to be, where the law of the land told me in no uncertain terms I was not allowed to be. And I was doing what I was unquestionably not supposed to do.

But I can only tell you how it felt.

And it felt terrific.

For a few minutes I just stood there, monitoring my own response, enjoying every particle of it. The apartment was dark, and I let my eyes grow accustomed to the dimness. When they were equal to the task, I took a moment to lock all three locks. Then I had a look around.

The room the door opened on was the middle room of the apartment, and it was a combination kitchen and dining room. To the left, fronting on 36th Street, was a very large living room; in back, with windows looking across a courtyard at the buildings on 35th Street, was a bedroom almost as large as the living room. Any one of the three rooms would have served as a perfectly decent studio apartment, so Creeley, whoever he or she was, had an abundance of living space by New York standards. (To keep things in proportion, it's worth noting that a welfare mother holed up in a broken-down trailer on the outskirts of Moline, Illinois, would have at least as much square footage, and a front lawn and back yard in the bargain.)

There were blackout shades on the bedroom windows, which I lowered, and curtains as well, which I drew. I wondered if perhaps Creeley worked nights and slept days, which would account both for the blackout shades and the tenant's absence. It would also give me all the time in the world to finish my work.

I turned on a bedside lamp and had a look around. The bed-queen size, of Danish teak-was made, the pillows plumped. That alone suggested Creeley was a woman or lived with one, because what man living alone bothers to make the bed? Oh, I suppose military service gets some men in the habit, but my immediate thought was that Creeley was of the female persuasion, and a glance at the mahogany dresser, topped with little jars and bottles of makeup and scent and such, cinched it. Creeley was a lady, and a reasonably girly girl at that, with dresses sharing her closet with the suits she wore to work, and the jeans she wore for play.

I left the bedroom, closing the door far enough to block most but not all of the light, and with what leaked out I made my way through the kitchen to the living room, where some light came through the front windows from the street. The living room windows had floor-to-ceiling drapes, heavy velvet things that must have been hanging there since the Korean War. I drew them shut and turned on a lamp or two and made myself at home.

Sometimes I think that's the best part, when you can just take a few moments to slip into another person's life as effortlessly as you've slipped into their abode. I stretched out on the sofa, sat in the matching armchair, browsed the small bookcase (mostly trade paperbacks, proclaiming their owner as hip and sophisticated but cost-conscious, pretentiously lacking in pretension). I ambled into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Eggs, bacon, a few kinds of sausage, and an array of cheeses from Murray 's on Bleecker Street. No milk, but a half-pint of heavy cream. No beer, no bread, no bagels. No carbs, I noted, and recalled that one of the books in the bookcase was the latest work of the late Dr. Atkins. Ms. Creeley's refrigerator suggested that she practiced what he preached.

And to good effect, judging from the sizes of the clothes in her closet. If she'd ever been a chubbette, she'd long since banished her fat clothes to the Salvation Army.

Her first name, I learned from the Con Ed bill in her desk, was Barbara, and other bills and payment stubs confirmed this. I didn't find a checkbook, and assumed she kept it in her purse. Barbara Creeley lived alone, I knew, and generally slept alone, I could tell, though she evidently had High Hopes.

And how did I know all this? Well, the wardrobe told me she lived alone. If she had a boyfriend who stayed over with any degree of regularity, there'd be a few garments of his left at her place for convenience, and there weren't. The queen-size bed had surely been purchased with the intention of sharing it at least occasionally, and the mattress, with its shallow depression on one side and no evidence of wear whatsoever on the other, told me that she slept alone, and always on the right-hand side of the bed.

Yes, I checked. Yes, I pulled back the covers and felt each side of the mattress for firmness. Not out of prurient interest, I assure you, but out of a fierce curiosity that may well be every bit as shameful. I disturbed her bedclothing, I thrust my gloved hands into her linen. Of course I made the bed again afterward, but that didn't erase the psychic stain, did it?

Some years ago a friend of Carolyn's was burglarized. Whoever it was who did it didn't take much-he couldn't, she didn't have much-but she told us that what she'd lost was the least of it. "He was in myplace," she said, shuddering. "He was touching mythings. I feel like burning all my clothes and having the place tented and fumigated. I feel like moving out, I feel like going back to Nebraska, and you know how I feel about Nebraska. God, I feel so utterlyviolated."

I understood completely. I'd had the same feeling myself, when my own apartment had been inexpertly tossed. Tossed, I might say, was the operative word; the swine had taken all the books off my shelves and scattered them in a heap on the floor. I'd realized in a rush just what I inflicted upon the people I visited. I told myself it wasn't the same, that I never made a mess or damaged anything I left behind, but so what? The violation was the same.

Ah, well. Someday I'll reform. In the meantime, I might as well enjoy it.

I got to work.

There's a line that originated in the Army Corps of Engineers and has since had widespread circulation on T-shirts and bumper stickers and such. The wording varies, but the gist of it is that, when you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that your original purpose was to drain the swamp.