We met Jody and Eliot at a party and hit it off enough to do an occasional show with them, sometimes after meeting for dinner. We shared a common interest in theatre. They had told us it was a second marriage for them both, but not much else. Then one day Jody and I were having lunch at my place. She told me this sad story with a happy ending. OK, I filled in some details and told it in order, though it came out in pieces over several conversations with her:

We were in our forties when it happened. Well, Ray was in his late forties and I was in my early forties. He kept forgetting things, people we knew forever, how to get to a friend's house. We joked about it at first, but it became clear - something was wrong. That something was early onset Alzheimer's. I can't imagine a more horrifying midlife diagnosis - not even cancer. For him, he was cognizant of what it meant, at least at first. For me, I could only imagine how our life was going to change. Our two teenagers had to watch this as well.

I won't go into all the details. After all, this is a story about sex. Ray's sex desire didn't fade at first. In fact, it was almost humorous. We started having sex every day. As the disease progressed, when he couldn't always remember my name, he would ask for sex several times a day. He forgot that we just had sex two hours ago. Worse, he lost the ability to keep his moves private from the kids.

I was shocked, though, when he would relive his early experiences with teenage girlfriends. "Rub me too, Valerie." My name is Ruth. "Oh Valerie, Oh Valerie, please, please." Valerie is married now with three kids, none of them Ray's. "Oh Valerie, I'm cumming. You like it, don't you? Oh Oh OH," he went as he ejaculated inside his current wife, me.

Boys, don't get early onset if you have been cheating. "Charlene, Charlene, I always wanted you." She was our next-door neighbor for a few years. I had figured that one out ten years ago, and somehow, Ray and I had worked through that. But still, it was a shock. Me, I had never cheated. And it all came rushing back to me in the present moment.

As the disease progressed, sex was no longer available. I took care of Ray as best I could at home. Still, an awful kind of loneliness crept over me. Even though the kids took on additional chores, taking care of Ray was so demanding that I didn't have time or energy to think about other things.

Eventually, it was time to find Ray a home in a "Memory Care" facility. What a euphemism. You can't care for someone's memory who's lost most of it.

I managed to visit him there almost every day. But back home each night in our four-bedroom house, I felt like I was lost in a shopping mall that had closed for the night. I began to realize I was still craving sex. I told Kathy about this. She suggested I buy a sex toy.

Feeling totally out of place, I took off my rings, parked on the side not visible from the road, and slinked into Adam's Nighttime "adult store." I stood in the doorway, embarrassed and a bit frightened. On the left, there were rows and rows of DVDs, on the right, racks of what must be sex toys. I screwed up my courage, turned to the right, and stared at the offerings. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't even tell how you were supposed to use some of them. But there were the plastic penises, some of them scary huge, and a few toys that claimed just to vibrate. I bought the smallest vibrator I could find. It was nondescript, maybe four inches long, silver. Thank God a woman was at the register.

"Something for travel, huh?" she suggested. I was beet red. I paid cash.

When I got home, I found it came out of the package partly charged. I turned it on and rubbed it on my clit. It was amazing. I got a huge orgasm. But I guess you're not supposed to aim it at your vagina. My toy went right in and stayed there. I got so scared I didn't enjoy its vibrations inside me. I had to stand up and jump up and down to get it out. I learned how to use it within its limitations.

I played with it morning and night between visits to Ray. But I couldn't get my mind off the plastic penises I'd seen at the store. And frankly, I wanted something inside. A little less shy, I returned to the store and bought a big blue plastic vibrating penis. I pretended it was Ray licking my clit til I had an orgasm. I even teased my nipples which had gotten hard. But I needed to be fucked, and with my legs wide on the bed, I teased my opening. Then in and out a little. "Oh Ray, Ray, fuck me," and in went the blue plastic penis. In and out, in and out. So good. So good. My hips rocked up against the hand that shoved it in.

I have to admit it wasn't always Ray who my imagination attached the toy to. "Quince, Quince, oh God, so good, so good. Cum inside me. OH OH OH." And even, "Julie, Julie, your fingers, yes yes yes." By about the fourth or fifth time, I would laugh quietly, "OH OH Plastic Vibrating Penis, fuck me."

I had to laugh out loud when she started referring to it like it was a person.

I should mention that there were periods at the memory care home when visitors were sent to a waiting room. A man, maybe ten years older than me, was there on occasion. "Is it your wife," I had asked.

"Yes. Emily. It's awful. Your husband?" We learned about each other in bits and pieces. "She is ... was an attorney." "She's only fifty."

I told him about our careers: engineer and teacher. His name was Eliot.

"I don't have anybody to talk to anymore. Perhaps we could have a drink?" he suggested.

It was a nice idea. We would sit in the back corner of a nearby pub and talk about all the events in our lives - children, travel, sports, college.

Back home with Plastic Vibrating Penis slipping in and out, I began to wonder what Eliot's penis would feel like. Would he do all the things that Ray loved to do? It's OK for a girl to have these thoughts, I told myself. But the thoughts grew on me. One night in the pub, I blurted out, "Would you like me to cook dinner for you? Sunday night, after I drop the kids at summer camp."

He was silent for a few seconds, then, "That would be nice." He added, "I'll bring some wine."

We opened the wine he brought, a merlot, and had appetizers in the living room - something easy I picked up from the frozen food aisle. I tried to hide my shaking hands as I sipped wine. Eliot seemed nervous, too. I put a swordfish steak in the oven and started some pre-made mashed potatoes in the microwave. The bottle was empty before the fish was done. I cooked some green beans a few minutes in the microwave and took out a chardonnay.

We ate quietly and were both a bit tipsy when it came time to put the dishes in the dishwasher. He rinsed and I loaded, our bodies in contact side by side for the first time. I felt myself getting wet from just that contact. I turned and faced him. He wrapped his arms around me, and our mouths came together.

"This is new to me," he paused to say, "You know, another woman."

"Me too," I replied, "Another man that is." I struggled for more words, "It's OK, isn't it? We're not hurting them, are we?"

Our kiss resumed. Eliot's hands gently massaged my breasts over my blouse. I pulled him tight against me. He was ready. This was going to happen. I shuddered a bit and grabbed at his trousers. He pushed my skirt between my legs.

We rubbed ourselves that way until Eliot decided to pull my panties down. I stepped out of my shoes and wiggled the panties off my feet. His fingers found their way over my pussy lips, where the rubbing felt so good. I opened his pants, slid them down, and started stroking his cock. A nice size but not as big as Plastic Vibrating Penis. A finger pushed between my lips. Our hips rocked forward and back as we stood there getting hotter and hotter.

It was time to see the prize up close, so I knelt in front of him. He murmured when I kissed the tip, sighed when I licked the shaft and sucked on his balls, and groaned loudly when I took him in my mouth.

"Emily never does that. Did that, that is," he blurted sending a shock down my spine at the mention of her name.

But I continued, "Do you want to cum?"

"Oh God, really?"

He didn't last long. I displayed a little on my lips and swallowed everything.

Eliot pulled me up and removed my blouse. My bra didn't have clips. I raised my arms, "Just pull it over my head." My 34 C's flopped out - used to be 32A's ‘til I turned thirty-five - and he bent down and kissed and sucked on my nipples. I unzipped the skirt and let it fall.

"Beautiful. You are so beautiful," he remarked. I backed up to the dining room table, put my hands on the edge, and hoisted my naked body up.

"Lick me," I begged.

He seemed to hesitate, looking at my furry sex displayed between my wide-open legs. "I've never done this," he noted as his head approached my pussy.

"Just lick it everywhere, especially here," I showed him, "And push a couple fingers in." He was a beginner compared to Ray, but he brought me to an orgasm. "Oh, Oh, Yes. Don't stop. OHHHHHHH."

We wandered over to the sofa and cuddled until he was ready again. I was thinking, my implant had expired a couple months ago; I hoped there was something left in it. When it had gone into my arm, Ray was completely normal. We would have sex two or three times a month.

"Are you sure it's OK?" Eliot asked.

"Yes, Yes," I lied; I wasn't sure at all. I lay across the sofa. Eliot climbed over me. I guided him in. This was it; really it. It was wonderful. His powerful thrusts. My pushing back. The sounds of two lovers. The heat of his ejaculation.

"Will you stay tonight?" I begged. And when we sat on the edge of the bed, I added, "That was so much better than what I do for myself."

"What is that?"

I opened the end table drawer and pulled out Plastic Vibrating Penis. He laughed, "How does it work?"

I turned it on and rubbed my clit.

"It's huge, so much bigger than me," he observed.

"I suppose. … It doesn't matter. Here, you do it."

I handed it to him and lay back on the bed, my legs wide, and held my cunnie open. He cautiously held it there. "Go ahead." I felt my vagina swallow the toy. It felt pretty good, especially because I wasn't the one stroking it in and out.

But when my orgasm arrived once again, I ordered him, "Enough! You. Now you. You fuck me!"

And he did, deeply, exuberantly. And again, before breakfast. And after breakfast in the kitchen. We showered together but I was too sore for more sex.

I had a twinge of remorse after we kissed at the door, and he left. I felt that same twinge every time we met at his place before going to the memory care home. Ray died three months later. Emily went a few weeks after Ray. Eliot and I couldn't figure out a way to keep getting together without drawing attention to ourselves, but after an appropriate interval, we got in touch and even went on a secret vacation together. A year later we married.