"Don't cry, it's not like I don't love you or anything," Steve said to Kat as they sat at the restaurant table on one of their forced and monthly dates.

        It was a date to keep their marriage fresh and an excuse to get a night away from the kids.

        Except the dates were boring, the dates were boring as neither of them had anything to talk about when the kids weren't around.

        They weren't comfortable in their solitude; it was as irritating as pants that are too snug at the waist.

        "Come on," Steve said to Kat as the electric waiter brought them their water, "it's just not the same, it hasn't been the same, you know, I mean really… Way back when, we used to tear our clothes off of each other, and now… now I undress in the dark and you undress in the bathroom… I mean… what happened?"

        "We're older," Kat said, wiping half-formed tears away from her eyes, wiping half-formed tears as she nervously glanced into the face of the electric waiter, a face that registered no interest in their conversation.

        "We're older and I mean really, I'm a mother. I can't do those things that you want to do, it just isn't right… I can't put my mouth there anymore, I mean, that's the mouth I kiss the kids with," she said with no small measure of loathing.

        "And they're your kids, too," and she entered in an order for a glass of wine on the table top menu display.

        "But what about me?" Steve asked, and it was the most direct conversation they had had about anything in years.

        All their previous conversations over the past decade had revolved around finances and family and television shows.

        They never talked about each other, they never talked about each other and Steve was ready to climb the walls.

        Kat was content being just a mother.

        "What about you? I know you have needs and all that crap, but those needs are just going to have to cool it for a while, until things change," Kat said as she sipped quickly from a glass of just dispatched merlot.

        "What about my… you know… my solution?"

        Kat rolled her eyes and drank more wine.

        "Oh, that. I don't know. I think it's kind of… I don't know, not right or something."

        "It's not adultery, you even said so yourself. It was on that one talk show you watch all the time, remember?"

        He had her there; she took all the advice from the talk show as divine truth.

        "Didn't they say love and lust aren't the same, and that one shouldn't confuse one with the other?" Steve prodded.

        Kat was trapped.

        "I guess, but I don't want you to spend a lot of money, and I don't want to be around when you do it."

        "Nope, nope, I'm not gonna spend a lot." And that was true enough. Steve was frugal; he never took Kat to a restaurant unless he had a coupon for the place. "And I'll do it, you know, when we always do it, after the kids go to bed or when they're out in the virtual yard."

        "And I don't want to be around, okay?"

        "Deal," and Steve attacked his plate of half-off spaghetti with youthful exuberance.

* * *

        Steve came home the very next day with a used one that was already assembled, a used one that had clothes fashionable in the previous decade—black thigh-high leather boots underneath a short black skirt and pink sweater.

        He missed the black leather boots and he was thrilled when he saw the electric lover in the window of the resale shop.

        Thrilled and excited.

        He snuck it into the bedroom as Kat was placing the evening meal tablets on the kitchen table.

        He put it in the closet and bounded towards the kitchen not caring which tablet he selected for the evening meal, a tablet he devoured quickly.

        "Wow, what a day," Steve said as he rose from the table.

        Kat and the kids stared at him in confusion. He had already dissolved his tablet and eaten all three courses of his meal while they had only gotten around to forming theirs.

        "What a day, what a day. Had to foreclose three mortgages today and you know how that wears me down…. If you don't mind, I think I'll go to bed."

        "But honey," Kat protested, "it's only six o'clock. Don't you want to spend time with the kids? Don't you want to spend time with your family?"

        Steve almost said no, but he decided to keep the truth in check.

        "Of course I do, but it's just that I have more foreclosures again tomorrow and I have to be sharp. I'm sorry, I really am. I'll make it up to them this weekend. I'll get the software for a new virtual yard. How about a jungle?"

        And Steve's kids jumped up and all but cheered upon that suggestion. All the kids at school wanted a virtual jungle, but no parent was brave or dumb enough to allow one in their house.

        Kat made a face of disapproval. "I don't know about a jungle, maybe a zoo instead, but we'll see, and I'll see you when I go to bed. Good night."

        She pecked him on the cheek and he made a small face as her lips brushed his skin.

        Steve feigned exhaustion as he walked up the stairs to the master bedroom.

        He perked up as soon as he was alone in his room.

        He took the electric lover out of the closet and entered in a few commands in the remote control and he wished he could have afforded a model with a wireless remote, but oh well he told himself, at least he got the leather boots that he wanted.

        After Steve entered about a dozen commands the blonde-haired electric lover sprang to life with nearly human and pale blue eyes that flickered ever so quickly as they opened and darted around the room.

        The pale blue eyes rested on Steve and the electric lover struck him across the face hard, with a slap that was probably audible downstairs.

        Steve said a silent prayer of thanks and grinned wildly.

        He had entered the commands correctly.

        The electric lover pushed Steve on the bed with the force of a football player.

        Steve started pulling his pants off.

        But the electric lover struck him again with the back of her hard and latex right hand.

        "You will get undressed when I say you get undressed, you filthy piece of shit!"

        Steve was nearly delirious with desire. He had programmed the electric lover to speak with a German accent, and it had worked.

        He had everything he wanted, a Euro-dominatrix who was twice as attractive as his wife.

        The wife he loved, the mother of his children.

        But he wasn't thinking about Kat as the electric lover straddled him and pulled his pants down with one hand while pulling his thin and balding hair with the other.

        He wasn't thinking about his kids as the electric lover hiked up her skirt and straddled him and he certainly wasn't thinking about anyone at all as the electric lover eased herself onto Steve and he came almost immediately as the electric vagina sent its impulses throughout the regions of his groin.

        He came and his desire subsided and he hit the off switch on the remote control.

        He didn't notice that Kat was standing in the doorway with a half-smile on her face.

        Steve stood up and covered his crotch with his hands in something akin to shame and pride.

        "I'm sorry…"

        "Don't mention it," Kat said with a wave of her hand and walked over to the bed.

        "I heard a strange noise downstairs so I sent the kids into the virtual yard and I came up here to see what was going on and, well… I didn't want to see it, but if that's what you like, then so be it… I can't do the same for you…"

        "Remember," Steve said, "love and lust are very different. One has nothing to do with the other."

        Kat nodded. "So you wouldn't mind if I bought one too?"

        Steve started to protest automatically, after all, he was a man and it was different for men.

        But he knew a negative and sexist answer wouldn't fly.

        "Yeah, I guess, but just tell me what you need, I mean, I'd do anything, anything you wanted to try, I'd be game for."

        Kat nodded. "I know, but like you said, love and lust are very different. Maybe I want something that you can't give me."

        "I guess," Steve said with wounded pride as he pulled his boxer shorts back on and he put the flaccid and silent electric lover back in the corner of the closet. "But I'm sure I could figure something out, you know, something that you like."

        "I don't think so," Kat said with her gaze directed right at his crotch.

        Steve understood the gaze and climbed into bed red-faced and not tired at all.

* * *

        A week passed and Kat and Steve barely talked, except those routine and inevitable conversations about family and finances and television shows. They rarely talked and Steve went to bed before everyone else to play with his electric lover.

        Except he let the electric lover play with him.

        But he came home from work early one Friday because the boss was in a giving mood and the firm had evicted a record number of clients that week and the banks paid extra.

        Steve knew the kids would still be at school, and he thought Kat would be home, home alone.

        But she wasn't.

        She was naked on all fours on the living room floor in front of the wall-sized television set, she was naked on all fours in front the wall-sized television set and she was watching some sort of pornographic movie.

        Steve never thought Kat would be one for porno, or else he would have suggested it years ago.

        But what got Steve was the electric lover Kat had purchased. It didn't look like a normal electric lover. The stomach was a bit flabby and the model didn't have a full head of hair and its back was covered with what looked like some sort of mangy shag carpet.

        Steve thought a male electric lover would look more perfect, more desirable, kind of like his electric lover.

        And Steve wasn't repulsed by the sight of his wife on the floor on all fours with the electric lover behind her.

        He was kind of aroused and he silently closed the front door behind him and stood innocently in the shadows of the front breezeway.

        Kat didn't see him, nor did her electric lover, and Steve liked the grimace of pleasure plastered on her face, he liked seeing the ends of her hair tinged with sweat.

        He was definitely aroused.

        He was definitely aroused and he was wondering where she got the money for a wireless model.

        He was definitely aroused and he thought about running upstairs to grab his electric lover, he thought they could get together on the floor…

        But Kat started to orgasm and he watched her mouth form a circle as her lungs let go of a scream that was almost a howl.

        He had never heard a scream like that before, not from his wife, not from any woman.

        His wife came and the electric lover started to shake behind her and they both collapsed on the living room floor.

        Steve walked into the living room and cleared his throat as a way to announce his presence.

        Kat reached for her clothes that were in a pile on the floor and her electric lover reached for his own pile.

        And this confused Steve. He was waiting for Kat to turn her lover off.

        But her electric lover turned pale and quickly dressed and dashed out of the house with a look of passion and longing in Kat's direction as he quickly brushed past Steve.

        And then it finally hit Steve; Kat's lover wasn't electric at all.

        He felt sad and angry tears form behind his eyes, he felt his heart descend towards his stomach.

        "How could you?"

        Kat shrugged.

        "Like the talk show said, love and lust are very different…"