It was barely 7 a.m. when she heard the back doorbell. The husband, an early riser, had already left the house. She threw on a chenille housecoat and rushed for the door. She opened it to behold a tall Adonis in a tight twill jumpsuit. His hair was a golden mane, streaked with platinum. High cheek bones and azure eyes. Teeth gleaming white in the slanting rays of the dawn. Bronzed biceps bulging from his rolled-up shirtsleeves. Blonde hair curling from the V below his neck. On his left pectoral, which rippled when he raised his clipboard, the word "Whirlpool." Below that, his name: "Lance".

"Mrs. Liskovich, I'm here about your washer. I came as quick as I could."

"Washer?" she replied. "I didn't call about the washer."

"No, ma'am. The washer called me. It's got this computer inside, y'see. As soon as somethin' goes wrong I get a buzz." He smiled, a dimple denting his tanned and craggy face.

Half-asleep and confused, she showed him to the laundry room, then rushed upstairs to wash, and dress and put on makeup. He was heading out the back door as she returned to him.

"Washer checked out fine, Mrs. Liskovich," said Lance.

"What was the problem?" she asked, hoping to keep him long enough to brew coffee.

"Don't know, ma'am. Prob'ly just a computer glitch. But I don't fix computers. I'm just a dumb mechanic. The washer calls; I come."

The doorbell rang again just after noon. She was cleaning the grout in the shower stall. Hair caked with tile cleaner. Sweatshirt splotched. Pedal-pushers rumpled and bagged out in the butt. She hurried to the back door.

Lance stood there.

"Sorry, ma'am. Looks like a major emergency!"

"Impossible. I haven't used the washer," she said. "But come in, Lance. My goodness, I must look a mess."

Lance blushed and shuffled his feet. "Oh, if you're a mess, then Cindy Crawford is Godzilla, Mrs. Liskovich."

She didn't know quite what this meant, but their eyes met and it didn't matter. She said, "Please, call me Heidi."

Together with him in the laundry room, she could feel his body heat. He found nothing wrong with the washer. "Looks like another false alarm," he said. "Sorry, ma'am — er, Heidi."

Then he added, "I'm also real sorry about your miscarriage last year."

"But, but," she sputtered, shocked. "How could you know?"

"Oh, it's in there, Heidi. In the washer. Lots of information. I'm real glad the post-op tests showed there was no damage to your reproductive organs. And it's real good news about your husband's sperm count."

"You found that out from my washing machine?"

"Oh, sure. Lots more, too. Would you like me to print it out?"

"It's got a printer?"

"Oh, sure!"

They studied her bio together, for more than an hour. It was all there. Mononucleosis in junior high. Homecoming Queen in high school. Phi Beta Kappa key at Yale. The broken engagement to the bass player from Tulsa. Lance wondered why she hadn't tried harder to fulfill her dream as an environmental physicist. She sighed, and said, "I wonder, too, Lance. Every day."

When the back doorbell rang again, just after six, she was ready. She wore a negligee. She reeked of Chanel No. 5, her auburn hair cascading onto her naked shoulders. She grabbed him and covered him with burning kisses.

"Oh, Heidi!" he cried out. She pointed him toward the next room.

"Wait," he said. "Your husband."

"Are you kidding?" she said. "He never looks up from his desk until almost midnight. From Monday to Saturday, I never see the workaholic nerd."

"But you never know," said Lance. "Maybe there was a power failure at his office. Maybe he knocked off early. We should check on him."

"What? Call? All I ever get his his damn voice mail."

"We can check the washer," said Lance.

"The washer?"

"Oh, sure," said Lance. "He's in there. As long as he's using his computer, or his cell phone, his palm pilot or even the coffee machine in his office, we can find him. Track him right down. The washer's got GPS!"

As Lance was accessing her husband on the spin-cycle, Heidi moved closer. They never got out of the laundry room.

"Do you smoke afterwards," she asked later.

"I don't know," said Lance. "I never looked."

Novelist David Benjamin lives in Silicon Valley and occasionally writes on technology issues, usually from the Luddite point of view.