His Robot Girlfriend, Wesley Allison [top 100 books of all time checklist txt] 📗

did you get them?”

“After I dropped lunch off to you I went to the store.”

“You walked to the store? That’s too far, especially in bare feet. And the ground is hot.”

“I did not mind,” she smiled. “Would you like a shoulder rub, Mike?”

“Sure.”

She guided him to a chair that she had apparently brought in from the dining room and set along the west wall of the living room, in front of the window. Once he had sat down, she stepped behind him and began rubbing his shoulders.

“How did you pay for them… the shoes, I mean?” he asked.

“I took the cash card out of your wallet this morning before you left for school.”

“They’re not supposed to let you use that unless it’s yours. And besides, you should have asked first.”

“The stores never check, and I did ask. You said that I should select and purchase my own wardrobe.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure I can afford that right now. I don’t get paid until the tenth. I’m not sure how much money I have in my accounts right now.”

“We have $2261.43 in account 116211130782-2 checking, $31021.69 in account 116211130782-1 savings, and $422.11 in the payNEtime account.”

“Wow. That’s more than I thought I had… I mean we had.”

She turned him back around and began rubbing his shoulders again. “I have ordered my own cash card, in any case.”

“You did? Wait. How did you know all that?”

“Last night I accessed all your financial data.”

“You what?” He turned back around to look at her.

“It is part of the secondary setup procedure.”

“What else did you do?” he wondered.

“I accessed your vueTee and browser files, read all of the books and magazines on your texTee, and all of your paper books too. I looked through your photo albums, ran your credit report, and googled you.”

“Is that all part of the secondary setup procedure?” he frowned.

She nodded with an innocent look on her face and turned him back around to continue with the shoulder rub. When she was done, he moved to his recliner and flipped on the vueTee, while Patience brought him a diet Pepsi. Although he usually drank them from the can, she had poured it into a tall glass over ice.

“Did you buy ice at the store too?”

“No, Mike. I made it in the freezer.”

“You can do that?”

She nodded. “Did you want to talk about your day at work, Mike?”

“Not really,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I’d just like to watch vueTee for a while.”

“That’s fine, Mike. The Star Trek episode ‘Let That Be Your Last Battlefield’ is on channel twenty-seven.”

“Is that the one where Frank Gorshin is black on the left side and white on the right side?”

“He is black on the right side,” said Patience. “All of his people are black on the right side.”

Mike smiled as he flipped to channel twenty-seven. He watched the last forty minutes of the science fiction classic. Then he watched part of Seaquest DSV, which wasn’t so much of a classic. Mercifully, he fell asleep in his chair somewhere near the middle. He often fell asleep in the afternoon in his recliner to wake up to a dark and lonely room. This time when he woke up, both lamps were on. Patience passed by, walking through the room from the kitchen, continuing through the living room and on to the foyer. As she did so, she switched the vueTee to the evening news.

“What are you doing?” Mike called after her.

“Chores,” she said, poking her head back around the stairwell corner.

The news was filled with politics. Winston Barlow was accusing Evelyn Mendoza of being an elitist and he was accusing Stephanie Wakovia of being a free-spender. Evelyn Mendoza was accusing Barlow of being uncaring and accusing Mendoza of being too closely tied to Busby’s Antarctica war. Mendoza was accusing Barlow of being out of touch with the young people of America and accusing Wakovia of being uninterested in helping the poor. The remaining news was filled with a story about the construction of the stadium for the upcoming Olympic Games in Surat, one about a pair of large tornadoes in Texas which did minimal damage, and the usual war news. Sixty four more American soldiers were killed today along with an estimated six hundred Russians.

“Dinner is served,” said Patience, poking her head into the living room just as the news ended.

Mike got up and walked to the dining room. Both this room and the adjoining kitchen had been cleaned spick and span. The table had been set for two, and in the center rested a dish of lasagna and a bowl of tossed salad. The old table had been spruced up with a floral-patterned table cloth. He pulled out a chair and sat down. Patience scooped a large portion of lasagna and then dressed the salad, placing a small pile next to the meat and pasta dish. She put the plate in front of him. Then she sat down across from him smiling, and watching him as he ate.

“You’re not going to eat?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot for a moment. Hydrogen fuel cell?”

She nodded again.

“You’ve been doing quite a bit of cleaning.”

“Yes, Mike. Is this the way that you would like me to keep the house?”

“Secondary setup?”

She nodded yet again.

“Yes, the house looks great. You’ve just about got it all cleaned up.”

“I will have by this time tomorrow.”

Mike finished dinner and went back to the family room to watch vueTee while Patience cleared the table, packed up the left-overs, and put the dishes in the dishwasher. After Brain Quest, there wasn’t much on vueTee. Tuesday was a lousy vueTee night. Patience disappeared into the bedroom and returned wearing nothing but one of her lacy thongs. Mike had imagined that at his age, two nights of sexual activity in a row was excessive, but seeing her standing there, the very picture of perfection, disabused him of this notion. They had sex on and off the couch, and when they were done, Mike was completely exhausted though it was not even eight thirty.

“It is because you are in terrible physical shape,” said Patience.

“Yes, and I’m old too. I look way to old and fat to be seen with you. You look like what… like you’re twenty?”

“My apparent age is twenty-two to thirty-two. And fifty is not old.”

“Yes, well… What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“I have several projects in mind,” she said. “I think you should walk to work tomorrow.”

“It’s way too hot to walk.”

“It won’t be over one hundred nine tomorrow.”

“Well, I could,” said Mike. “Probably… But why?”

“Walking is good exercise, Mike. And that way I can use the car.”

“You know how to drive?”

“Of course.”

“But what if you are stopped. You don’t have a license.”

“Robots do not need a license to drive, Mike.”

Mike indulged in a hot shower before bed, then climbed between two clean sheets. Patience was there to tuck him in. He read a bit of the daily paper from his texTee, but set it aside after a few minutes and drifted off into sleep. He half-dreamily noticed that Patience came into the room to turn off the light, then she was off again, doing whatever it was that she did.

When he opened his eyes in the morning, Patience was sitting on the edge of the bed. She had on the second of her two dresses—the black and white polka dotted one, and Mike felt a tug of regret that he hadn’t bought her more of a selection.

“You need to get up seventeen minutes earlier since you are walking,” said Patience, handing him a bagel and a glass of orange juice.

“Only seventeen minutes? I’m not going to run to work you know.”

“It is not really that far.”

It wasn’t really that far. He ate his breakfast, shaved and showered, then headed out the door with a lunch that Patience handed him as he left. He walked briskly to the end of the block under the awning that covered all the city’s sidewalks, but the rest of the way, five more blocks, went more slowly as it was up a slight incline. He rounded the power station and started across the lawn to the door of his classroom. Looking at the clock inside, he saw that he was arriving at almost the exact same time that he always did.

This was another review day, the day before final exams, so it was busy as Mike tried to push the last bits of geographic information into the heads of his eighth grade students. Not surprisingly, his mind kept returning to Patience, standing there in her little thong in the center of the family room. He still couldn’t believe that she was here. He couldn’t believe that he had actually placed the order for a robot and he couldn’t believe how perfect she was. She was, in fact, about as perfect as she could be. He wondered what her measurements were. When he had designed her, he hadn’t been thinking in terms of numbers. He had done so based on the visual representation on the screen. He would have to find out if he was going to buy clothes for her though. Thinking back to the posted measurements of all the centerfolds he had seen, he thought she had to be about 34-22-34. She could probably have been a fashion model, though with those breasts he was sure she would make a centerfold for Playboy or Penthouse.

She was of course waiting for him. The walk home, which was essentially all downhill, had proven more tiring than Mike had anticipated. He was breathing hard when he reached out to open the front door, but it had opened for him, and Patience was waiting on the other side with a glass of iced diet Pepsi. He took the proffered glass, trudged back to the family room, and plopped down into his recliner.

“Welcome home, Mike,” said Patience. “You should know that the secondary setup procedure has successfully completed.”

“That’s good,” replied Mike, pulling the lever to lift his legs up. “Is there a third setup?”

Patience shook her head. She was wearing a little black dress which reached down to her mid-thigh. It was held on with half inch straps and had a plunging neckline. She had on a pair of cute little sandals with four inch wedge heels. Mike noticed how small her feet were.

“Nice shoes.”

“I don’t see why women’s shoes are so expensive,” she said. “These shoes cost almost five times as much as this dress.”

“Exactly how much money did you spend on clothes today?”

“$1704.19.”

“Wow!” Mike pushed the lever and rocked forward.

“Don’t worry. We will get more before we run out.”

“Are we robbing a bank?”

“I have our finances all figured out,” she smiled. Then she knelt down in front of him and for the next twelve minutes or so made him forget about anything as unimportant as money. Afterwards, she put on a fashion show for him, showing off the clothes that she had bought that day. She told him what each piece of clothing was as she spun around: a blue banded bottom jersey dress, a peach sleeveless knit mini-dress, a red over the shoulder dress with gored skirt, a black Cami lace trim top with black nylon leggings and grey plaid miniskirt, a teal silky halter-style evening dress. She had also purchased a pair of five inch chunky heel platform sandals and a pair of metallic-colored t-strap four and a half inch heels. The last part of the show was the lingerie: several pairs of frilled panties that despite the name