I must say that my first impression of Elaine was not a good one, as I considered her to be a bit hardened to the world. I, by nature, am a bit of a softie, and as a result have been taken advantage of quite a bit in my lifetime.

One day when I was covering for the receptionist, I saw Elaine walk coyly downstairs with a cup of sugar that I had purchased for my department. When I mentioned to her that someone in her department should be taking care of getting coffee and tea, she just giggled like a child who had been caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar.

At that moment I saw red and simply could not understand why I was so angry with this person who I barely knew for such a trivial transgression. I rationalised my dislike for Elaine because I was in a very destructive marriage, and therefore attributed my strong reaction to stress.

As the months progressed my marriage deteriorated further and further. My then husband even went so far as to tell me that he had absolutely no feelings for me whatsoever and the only reason why he would not give me a divorce was because he could not afford it.

Therefore, in my highly vulnerable state, I leaped into another equally disastrous affair with an individual who I was later to realise was not that much different from the man I married.

While my personal life was in an upheaval, one day I struck up a conversation with Elaine and it was discovered that we liked a lot of the same things.

It was not long after I had left the security of my husband's home that my paramour showed his true colours and dumped me as well.

I was literally in a state of shock and almost to the point of a nervous breakdown when I telephoned Elaine to get the number of a psychic who she knew. When I started to tell Elaine how awful I was feeling, her first response was to advise me to speak to my boss about it. Although it was not my intention to unload my problems onto Elaine, I soon got the message that she did not want to be bothered with what was going on in my life.

I therefore apologised and got straight to the point, and informed Elaine that I wanted the number of the psychic. It was at that point that Elaine decided that she wanted to go along with me, and that was how our friendship started.

Because both of us were having boyfriend problems, we spent more and more time together, mostly lamenting the fact that the men in our lives would not do what we wanted. Without the benefit of loving husbands to take care of us, money was tight and we both had problems making ends meet.

When the woman who I was living with found herself another boyfriend who would move into her house and pay the mortgage, she no longer needed my money and asked me to leave. Through tear stained eyes, I told Elaine of my dilemma, and she invited me to live with her. When I asked her how much money she wanted for me to live with her, her exact words to me were, 'The money is not important', and I trusted her.

Not long after moving in with Elaine, however, she settled her differences with her boyfriend, and suddenly I became excess baggage. On numerous occasions Elaine dropped not so subtle hints that I was in the way, but because I had nowhere else to go, I feigned ignorance to the situation that was rapidly developing.

Because I read the Tarot, one evening I read Elaine's cards and told her a little bit about her year ahead. During the reading, the Queen of Swords fell out with the Five of Pentacles beside it. I knew instantly that the placement referred to me, but decided to side-step the issue in an attempt to delay what I did not want to see.

Within a matter of weeks, however, the inevitable transpired. Elaine made up all kinds of excuses as to why I had to leave, ranging from her having claustrophobia to the fact that since she never advertised in the paper for a lodger she did not really know what she was getting herself into and therefore it was okay to dump me.

The excuses, however, were just that. The fact of the matter was that Elaine had gotten back together with her boyfriend and therefore had no further need of me. So much for Elaine's promise to me that I could stay as long as Iiked.

If what Elaine did was not bad enough, she made a point of telling everyone who I worked with that I was only invited to stay with her temporarily and that I had to leave the house because I had so many problems. This manoeuvre had a two-fold effect: not only had she deflected any guilt away from herself for making me homeless, she also manipulated the situation so that anyone who enquired about my departure would believe that I was a complete and utter nutter.

Within a week of my leaving Elaine's house I received a rather strange telephone call from her. She was not concerned in the least about how I was getting on, living with strange people, but thought that I owed her some money. Evidently I had lived with her for one week where I had not paid any rent. Sadly, that is what our friendship had come down to - dollars and cents. So much for Elaine's comment to me that money was not an issue when I moved into her house.

A few months after I had left Elaine's house I received some legal documentation with regard to my divorce. Elaine, it appears, had developed such a rapport with my estranged husband that she spoke to him in detail about my love life and made comments that were totally untrue.

Aside from the fact that someone who was supposed to have been a friend had betrayed me in such a way, I was amazed that Elaine would have even given him the time of day. I had told Elaine in explicit detail the circumstances for the divorce, to include the fact that he had been picked up by the police and cautioned for sexual deviancy.

I should not, however, have been surprised by Elaine's lack of discretion. She told my boss some things about my personal life that I did not want disclosed, and later told a group of people who we both worked with some very intimate things about my boss that I knew should not have been revealed to anyone.

Elaine also told several people that a young man, who she met at a science fiction club, was stalking her. I found this claim to be perplexing, as he never phoned or came by the house once while I was living there. I had never seen this man express anything but concern for her welfare, and he certainly did not deserve to be maligned in such a way.

Under the circumstances, I suppose that that telling my estranged husband things about me that had transpired after I left him, to be quite tame in comparison to some of the other things that Elaine had said.

Several months later I saw Elaine with an entourage of her friends at a local rock cafe, and understandably, I did not speak to her. I suppose that Elaine had seen me there because the following day she went into the dress shop where I worked to say hello. She didn't have the courage to come on her own, so brought her teenage daughter along for moral support. I found that to be surprising, considering the fact that she told several people that the reason why I had to leave her house was because she felt that she needed to protect them from me and all my problems.

I was not particularly interested in making a scene, so I was polite and distant. Elaine ended the conversation by saying that we should go for a drink sometime. Funny, she was not interested in going for a drink with me when I was living under her roof.