The Odd Couple

So, I'm at a party. And there's a married gay couple. I keep talking to them as they're near the food.

The thing about them is that... they're ALL about the sex. I talk incessantly about my cat, but pretty much their only topic of conversation was their sex lives.

This was a fairly nice, ordinary, mingly house party. There were straight men, straight women, a few gays... But (let's call them) Eric and Ernie filtered everything through cock-tinted spectacles.

Eg 1:

NICE LADY: "So how do you know our host?"
ERIC AND ERNIE: "Oh we spit-roasted him years ago."
NICE LADY: "Are these bruschetta?"

Eg 2:

"Any plans for the weekend?"
"Yeah. We're sling-fucking a Norwegian."

Yes. Eric and Ernie own a sling. This naturally required some explanation. Apparently they'd turned the spare room into an office-slash-dungeon. With a sling. Apparently it was self-assembly and was operational in minutes. I have a ceiling-mounted laundry hanger. This is excitement enough for me.

Ikea don't make a sex sling (although if they did, it'd be called Shünt), so Eric and Ernie got theirs mail order (I am trying to imagine the "we tried to deliver" note from the Post Office right now). Not so their cage. "No, we had that custom-built and fitted."

I don't have a cage for several reasons. These include:

• I would lose the keys
  
• It would take up valuable space which could be used for shelving, lego and cat-toys
  
• I met one of my boyfriends in a cage. It would bring back unhappy memories. I avoid Nandos for a similar reason.
  
• My flat is already cluttered with unwise impulse buys which are now gathering dust. There's a rice cooker, a USB vacuum cleaner and 10 metres of gold-plated S-Video cable. I'm wary of adding a cast-iron cube to the list. I'm not that much of a Star Trek fan.

Naturally, Eric and Ernie also have an extensive range of sex toys. They couldn't tell us in enough detail about their electro-shock butt plugs.

"Where did you get those?" I asked, stirring celery in the guacamole. "I mean, is there a catalogue?"
"Oh yeah. We got them from ErosTek."

It turns out that ErosTek are real. They've got a blog. Here's a sample post:
"When plugged into the AC adapter, the battery level displayed is higher since it sees the charging voltage being delivered to the battery via the charging circuit.... Don’t forget about the ET312 for 6 months and then expect the battery to have any life left in it." 

I have *exactly* the same problem with my mobile phone. See? It always pays to read the manual. Mind you, I salute ErosTek. I'm sure many companies will have done the following equation:

Electricity + Bottoms = Very Bad Idea

but clearly they've pressed on regardless. And the best thing? It turns out the electro-bummer is remote
controlled. This is supposed to lead to a uniquely tangled web of pleasure-pain-domination-control around the house at all hours of the day and night, but all I'm thinking is "What happens if the neighbours get a clicker for their garage?".

My new plan? I'm buying a universal remote.