Daniel covered my parted mouth with his hand. 

"Did you hear that?"

"W--what?" 

I could barely speak. He had me pushed up against an invisible stage and the lights were burning bright. 

His eyes darted over to his bedroom door. 

"That. Did you hear that?"

"Get back here. I didn't hear anything--"

Then I saw shadows beneath the bottom of his door. Someone was standing in front of it. I shot out of Daniel's bed and wrapped the sheet around my body. 

"Rex, what the hell are you doing?"

"We've got that lunch with Gloria and Tim today. We have to be there in less than an hour--"

"For fark sake, why didn't you remind me sooner."

Without thinking, I swung the door open. Rex looked away at the sight of Daniel. My Synthetic was naked. He had his hands covering his lower half. There's that flush all over his face that I missed so much. 

"He's only a Synthetic, right, Rex? Relax." I smacked his strong shoulder and called behind me to Daniel. "We'll continue this later on, babe." 

I blew Daniel a kiss and threw him my sheet. The looks on both Rex's and Daniel's faces were priceless. I walked down the hall to our master bedroom and started the shower. 

***

The lunch went well enough. Tim was one of Rex's old business partners and they had gone to school together as boys. Gloria was disposable in my eyes. She had a gorgeous face and could have passed as a Beauty Synth, but there was not much in her head and that's what gave the fact away that she was only a human. 

Rex locked the door to our home behind him and set the car keys on the catchall at the end of  the hallway table. I took his suit jacket off for him and hung it up in the closet before taking off my heels. 

"Thank you. I was thinking, Jacinda."

This was not going to be good. 

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"I was thinking that I don't want to share you with the Synthetic after all. I was too abrupt with my decision."

Daniel was playing his guitar upstairs. When he wasn't playing an actual silverchair song he just sort of jammed, fusing together random chords, wailing, screeching and ripping through the maze of his synth musical brain. That afternoon, though, he was strumming quite a pretty tune. It was light and reminded me of the way he first played in the mornings when it was just me and him. 

I was rubbing my heels and fell back onto the sofa. 

"I was only doing what you asked of me. Like a good little wife."

Rex took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes before putting them back in place. 

"Now, Jacinda, I appreciate you listening to me and taking my lead on this earlier, but here I am, being honest with you about how I feel. It's the very thing you wish of me. You've expressed that time and again in therapy."

"That's right, Rex. Absolutely right. Just like yesterday after dinner when I told you I did not want to sleep with Daniel. I was being honest with you about how I felt and still you insisted that I be with him."

I put the tele on. He swiped the remote off the coffee table and turned the tele off. 

"Jacinda, how many glasses of wine did you have?"

"Only two."

He nodded his head and sat down next to me, reaching his arm out to rest it behind my shoulders. "Sweetie, I don't want to argue about what happened earlier, I just want you to know I don't want you to be with Daniel, like that, again."

I took a deep breath. "You have got to be kidding me." I pointed upstairs. "He was on cloud nine this morning. Now you want me to tell him there's nothing between him and I again?"

"It's harsh, I know, but he loves you. In time, he'll understand."

I crossed my arms over my chest, and when I listened for Daniel's guitar I couldn't hear it anymore. 

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