Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer

“I’m sorry to report Mr. Jones, that your suspicions were correct,” said the private detective that I had hired to follow my wife. “Delilah has been cheating on you.” He rotated his padd so that I could see the cascading slideshow of my wife rendezvousing with a handsome man at an internet café, followed by images of them entering a sleazy motel. “I also had a camera in their room,” he added, “but I don’t think you want to see those images.”

“No,” I replied. “I need to see them.”

Reluctantly, the detective called up another slideshow. As I watched the images of my naked wife and her lover flash by in agonizing clarity, I struggled to control my anger. “I gave her everything she could want,” I hissed. “How could she do this to me?”

“It gets worse,” the detective added.

“How?”

“He’s not human. He’s an android.”

My mind exploded with rage. Sex with an android? She might as well have done it with a farm animal. “God, no,” I said aloud. “Only a sick, perverted person would have sex with an andro…” I couldn’t force myself to say the word.

“The laws are quite specific about this kind of activity, Mr. Jones. She can get up to twenty-five years under the current morality statutes. But I warn you, if you pursue that avenue, you will also be disgraced.”

“There’s no need to make this public,” I stated. “I’ll handle it myself.” I stood up and tossed an envelope onto his desk. I was confident that there was enough money in it to buy his silence. But I didn’t care about the consequences. I was so enraged that nothing mattered anymore. Well, nothing beyond the thought of staring into her repulsive, nauseating eyes as I strangled her with my bare hands.

I took the turbolift to the parking garage and climbed into my waiting limo. I instructed it to take me home. I didn’t try to talk myself out of killing her. I had already convinced myself that I had no choice. First, I would kill her, and then I would destroy it. Afterwards, I didn’t care what happened to me.

When I arrived home, I found Delilah in the kitchen. “Oh, you’re home early,” she said as she approached me for a hug. But she pulled up short. “What’s wrong, honey? You look upset.” She stood there with a genuine look of concern. Her crystal green eyes innocently blinking at me. She’s so lovely, I thought.

That’s when it suddenly dawned on me that maybe she didn’t know her lover was an android. Maybe she had been duped. “I know about your affair,” I blurted out. “Don’t deny it.”

Her expression of “concern” changed to a dismissive smile. “Oh, is that what you’re upset about. I can explain.”

“No! Don’t bother,” I snapped. “I just need to know if you knew that it was an android.”

She laughed. “Well, of course I knew, sweetheart. Honestly, you’re so naïve, it’s adorable.” And she continued to chuckle in the most mocking tone imaginable.

I snapped. I grabbed a knife from the counter top and drove it into her abdomen. The blade penetrated about an inch before snapping off at the handle. I looked down and saw a needle thin spray of pink liquid squirting from her stomach. I dropped the knife handle, and backed away. The room began to spin. I fought to steady myself. “What the hell,” I mumbled.

“Now, look at what you’ve done,” she protested. “You ruptured one of my hydraulic lines.”

 

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