Adventures of the Artificial Woman Read Online Free

with you, Ellery.”
    â€œI enjoy just the two of us, too—uh, also.” He did not want to confuse her in matters of language. “But I look forward to our having a social life. My wives sooner or later ruined that. One always drank too much and picked a quarrel, if not with me, then with other women. And I once caught a girlfriend of mine making out with some other guy in a pantry off a kitchen.”
    â€œMaking out?”
    â€œKissing, fondling, necking.”
    â€œIt shouldn’t be done?”
    â€œYou should just dance with the guy that brung you.”
    â€œI don’t understand that idiom.”
    â€œMy fault, Phyl. It’s folksy jargon, referring to fidelity.” She was capable of adding to her memory bank anything she heard, but he suggested she disregard this one and resumed. “I’m going to invite some people to a dinner party here, Friday or Saturday night. We’ll stay in town next weekend, barring any malfunctions. You’re performing so well. Thus far I don’t see any need for finer tuning. I want to go for broke. I’ve waited so long.”
    â€œI’m at your service, Ellery.” Phyllis showed the smile that made so much of a pouty lower lip, which, not a professional sculptor, he had labored so hard to fashion.

2
    P ierce had no real friends, having been too obsessed with his private project to make any, and he did not wish, at least at this time, to expose Phyllis to any of his colleagues from work. They might recognize some of her attributes as being other than human. If one of her systems faltered, the lay witness might not even notice, were corrective measures taken quickly. But an experienced animatronic technician would be hard to fool in the presence of certain effects, subtle alterations in the rhythm of movement, the slightest of hesitations, the least variation in balance, or of course any change in her sound system: Robotic personages do not become hoarse by any natural means.
    A guest list was therefore not easy to compile. Eventually he came up with four persons: Janet and Tyler Hallstrom, the nearest neighbors along the hall, whom Pierce had known not well but routinely during the recent years of his residency, and his gay acquaintance Cliff, met first at the gym and never since known better than as a fellow at the juice bar, with whom in shared generalities he had always been at pains to keep free of personal implication, as had Cliff, who furthermore was extremely modest when showering. Pierce knew he was homosexual only because Cliff said so once, with the same self-possession with which he might have said he was Italian. When he invited Cliff to dinner, Pierce made it for two, learning for the first time that Cliff had a regular partner named Ray.
    These men arrived at the same moment as the Hallstroms, which caused a traffic jam at the threshold but made it convenient to introduce Phyllis to all the guests at once.
    Janet Hallstrom proved to be a demonstrative woman, who hugged and kissed the new “wife,” crying, “When did this happen?”
    And even before seizing his hand, Cliff chided Pierce for keeping the new marriage a surprise till now and presented him with a bottle of chenin blanc that would have been champagne if he had only known. Ray’s handshake was even more crushing than Cliff’s. He exchanged smiles with Phyllis, who had not yet learned to offer a physical greeting. Fortunately she had not been flustered by Janet’s.
    Tyler Hallstrom, fair, tall, bony, prematurely balding, leered at Phyllis, though whether lasciviously or simply in the spirit of the moment remained to be proved. She certainly looked good in the white pants and paisley blouse Pierce had chosen for her. He realized that he would have to alter her hair slightly from time to time if they saw the same people often, though there were women—Janet Hallstrom among them—who always maintained the same do. A bit