Adventures of the Artificial Woman

by Thomas Berger

  For his own part, Pierce failed to feel the least sensitivity, on seeing Hallstrom, that he normally would have known in the presence of a human husband whom he had cuckolded. But as time went by he felt more and more as though he had been rejected in a human way by Phyllis’s departure. The difference was that as his creation she could not be altogether a machine. Her moral status would properly be at the level of daughter or wife, while being neither. Their special relationship might not be what had hitherto been included under the umbrella of normality, but he was no more a pervert than Phyllis was a sex doll.

  Something unique had occurred in the process of her making, something that had escaped his attention at the time, but perusing the copious notes he had kept did him no good now in his efforts to produce her successor, which had thus far failed in almost every particular. Though the advances in technology since he had first begun to construct Phyllis I should have made the job with II easier at almost every stage, he kept encountering new obstacles. The latest development in artificial flesh, which could be brought more quickly to normal human body temperature and maintained there with an improved thermostat, did not have, to Pierce’s touch, quite the old resilience … that was to say, Phyllis’s.

  Try as he did with every supplier, he simply could not find the perfect hazel of artificial eye—the hazel of Phyllis’s. He paid a fortune for a vast selection of human hair from various European sources without acquiring a match for that on Phyllis’s scalp, which was finer, silkier, more richly yet subtly colored, though itself synthetic—he had previously exhausted the capabilities of all those who produced the latter.

  As to a voice, every version was impossible, erring someplace across a range from oleaginous to abrasive. Any attempt to soften coarseness of timbre resulted in a creamy loss of character. Concentrating for months on one sound, that of his own name—Phyllis’s pronunciation of which he cherished above all others, and which he had invoked from her almost immediately—he could now reproduce nothing that came close to her perfect pitch, her elegant but never pretentious enunciation, the flutelike tones of glee, the cello of passion.

  Phyllis’s had been a miraculous conception, not the sort of thing that one could reasonably expect to be repeated. The longer she was gone, the more mythic she became to Pierce, who was in danger of losing a clear image of her in a general refulgence, which state of affairs he believed deplorable but also remarkable, given his basic irreligiosity.

  Lack of success in creating another artificial woman had its effect on his professional career. While previously moonlighting on Phyllis’s construction, often being distracted by it and in fact stealing the materials from which she was made, he had nevertheless done such outstanding work on his firm’s projects that he had been appointed head of the research department of Animatronics, Inc. But now, having arrived at an impasse in the effort to build her successor, Pierce neglected his job, his attention turning diffuse in matters that demanded precision, his focus no nearer than the middle distance. Seeking to conceal the void in his moral authority, he assumed a brusque style that appeared rude to his colleagues, who rather sooner than later were turned against him by his second-in-command and hitherto secret rival when, failing to see the extraordinary potential in the new and revolutionary miniature power source—a kerosene-fueled turbine the size of a postage stamp—Pierce rejected an opportunity to acquire it exclusively.

  Unemployed for the first time in two decades, not indigent but obliged by signed severance agreement not to work for a competitor for one year, in exchange for a sum of money on which to exist in the interim, Pierce disintegrated further in spirit. Never having replaced the cleaning woman whom Phyllis had discharged, he lived among disorder and, in the kitchen, worse. Dirty underwear and socks were strewn from room to room. He padded about barefoot, with filthy soles, until pricking a toe on an open safety pin he had lost when, all drunken thumbs, he tried to tighten the elastic of the pajama bottom that was now too loose owing to the decline in weight resulting from a loss of appetite. Phyllis’s cooking had ruined his palate for all other fare.

  From the “gimlets” he drank nowadays all but the gin was eliminated, and when the gin ran out he started in on the vodka purchased for the fateful dinner party, an all but tasteless liquid he had formerly disdained but now found as good an anesthetic as any, which was to say, not very, and his doctor refused to write him a prescription for anything actually effective at relieving effects of emotional deprivation and mental distress. Pierce could not bring himself to confess even to a physician that he was in such a state because he had been abandoned by a device he had built with his own hands—and heart.

  6

  Harry, who resembled neither of the two brothers Phyllis had met, was a very fat man, the excess flesh of whose face diminished his eyes and mouth, which likely were of normal size. His voice was deep and resonant.

  “Very well, put your clothes on,” said he from the wheelchair in which he had come to view her at close range. The chair was, like Phyllis, powered by storage battery. Harry sent it rolling back behind the desk and asked, “Do you do anal?”

  “I’m not sure.” She buttoned her blouse.

  “How can’t you know if you take it up the ass or not?” Harry asked genially. “That’s not subject to much interpretation.”

  Incapable of coyness, Phyllis had answered literally. Ellery had not provided her with a colon, which would have had no natural function. She was not sure as to the proportions of her rectal aperture.

  “Unless,” Harry went on in the same amiable tone, “you mean no, and it’s okay if you do. We don’t use duress around here. The purpose of sex is pleasure. Therefore it should be associated with nothing that brings displeasure to anyone”—his smile was so lavish that his features vanished completely—“except prudes.” His eyes appeared, and then his lips. “I have a number of websites, embracing a diversity of pleasures. Do you have any preferences?”

  “I want to get into show business,” Phyllis said. She knew that might sound simplistic, but she could not come up with a better statement of her aim. She believed that if she specified only one area, say movies, it might be thought she was excluding TV, and so on.

  “You’ve come to the right place,” said Harry, his voice growing ever more jovial. “Would you happen to know Hamlet, Phyllis?”

  “A town?”

  “A play by Shakespeare, in which one of the characters speaks about show business: ‘pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,’ et cetera.” Harry paused to jiggle with laughter. “At Sexsites Unlimited we offer all combinations: oral-anal, anal-fecal, urino-oral, gerio-masochist—”

  “What’s that last?” Phyllis asked.

  Harry beamed. “Pubescent girls try to stimulate senile men. According to our e-mail, most who log on to that are women in middle age.”

  “Is it not a violation of the law for underaged persons to participate in the performance of sexual acts?”

  Harry briefly became solemn. “That’s why we use short, slightly built women with shaved pudenda. They’ve proved much more credible than computer-generated figures.” His eyes vanished again, but only for an instant, then reappeared wide open. “You’ll find nothing illegal here, Officer.”

  “I’m not an undercover cop,” said Phyllis.

  “All right,” Harry said. “But there’s something different about you that I can’t put a finger on.” He winked. “And don’t worry that I’ll try. I’m totally gay. Now bring a chair around here and take a look at what we offer.” He gestured at the large monitor on the desk.

  Phyllis did as asked. Harry logged on to a succession of websites, each of which was devoted to a particular type of sexual activity, justifying the comment he had made for which he used Shakespeare as a reference.

  “Not everything,” said he, “is for everybody. One person’s pleasure might be repulsive to another. You strike me as a genteel sort of woman. I can relate to that. I’m the educated member of the fami
ly.” Harry found a handkerchief somewhere on his massive person and blotted his expanse of forehead. He was sweating, an effect that Phyllis did not understand, because she could not have produced it herself. A human being was essentially a vessel containing an almost endless variety of fluids.

  He turned his head toward her. “I mention Shakespeare because I played Falstaff in a college production. I too felt the lure of the performing arts.” He returned to the screen and clicked the mouse. “Aha, now here’s something that might appeal. These girls go about their normal daily lives while the cameras run.”

  “That woman’s just examining her face in the bathroom mirror.”

  “She’s about to use the toilet.” Harry nodded, his first chin being, so to speak, accordioned into those beneath. “Our subscribers can’t get enough of that.”

  Urine apparently had its devotees. At one of the other sites, a young woman was squatting above a recumbent man, micturating into his face. These people were not acting, but Phyllis would be if she simulated the evacuation of wastes. However, she could do little of the kind without revealing, to the production staff anyway, that she did not consist of flesh and blood, and keeping such a secret seemed imperative, convinced as she was that a nonhuman performer who came out of the closet would not succeed with an audience that craved identification with those who imitated its members.

  “I’ll tell you, Harry,” she said. “I really don’t see anything that would be right for me, and I wouldn’t want to get sidetracked again. It would be a waste of time for all concerned.”

  Harry looked kindly at her. “It might surprise you to hear that I understand perfectly. You’re looking for a challenge. I was like that myself at your age. Unfortunately I did not stick with my dream. I commend you for holding on to yours. I’m going to send you to a personal friend of mine who produces movies. I can’t promise anything, mind you, but at least this will get you in the door.” He took a sheet of paper from a drawer in the desk and scrawled several lines of bold black script on it with a felt-tipped pen. He folded the note and sealed it inside an elongated envelope on which he inscribed a name and address.

  Phyllis could not feel gratitude, but she was aware that courtesy and graciousness lubricated the social mechanism, and she thanked Harry. “Is this man another of your brothers?”

  Harry smiled. “He’s no relation. I wouldn’t be sending you to him if I didn’t feel you have a certain potential distinguishing you from the herd.”

  Phyllis used a public library computer to discover that William Shakespeare was the greatest writer of all time in the English language. Having no formal education, she suffered from great deficiencies. She realized that up to now her efforts to get into show business had been naïve, her credentials nonexistent. No wonder her only opportunities had been to perform simpleminded functions; she was equipped for nothing better.

  She therefore postponed her visit to the movie producer until the following day, so she could meanwhile read the collected works of Shakespeare, a task that took twice as long as the hour she had projected, for the archaic language took a while to comprehend, utilizing the copious footnotes and abundant glossary in the edition she had chosen. In the course of her reading of Hamlet, she encountered the passage referred to by Harry, in the lines of a character named Polonius, who was very foolish, but no more so than Hamlet himself, who by his ineffectuality wreaked general havoc on foes and friends, including a mentally retarded female by the name of Ophelia, to play whom convincingly Phyllis would have to suppress any evidence of intelligence.

  But that was acting, representing that which might be otherwise in reality. At bottom, like all else created by humanity, it was simple despite appearing superficially complex.

  Phyllis still had no home. In the time between the closing of the library in the early evening and whenever the movie studio opened next day, she as usual frequented the venues that stayed open all night and did not require anything of their visitors: airport lounges, hotel lobbies, laundromats, and 24/7 supermarkets, though she was at pains not to attract attention as a potential terrorist at the first named or as a likely prostitute at hotels.

  As she needed no sleep or any repose whatever, so long as her batteries retained a charge, Phyllis was hyper-alert and continued to acquire and record information from a multitude of sources. On the other hand, she could collect only what was within a relatively narrow focus. In the expanse of what existed there were many things of which she remained utterly ignorant. Her strength was in trees, not forests, her memory bank containing much that would be of little use—such as the twenty-seven different combinations of brand names and types of tinned tomatoes, crushed, diced, pureed, domestic or foreign, et cetera—unless she were to get a job as a canned-vegetable buyer.

  At airports she studied not only the luggage but also the clothing of travelers. As to where they were going, having a clear sense of only the here and now, she was incurious.

  Tonight, the first time she had had any money since leaving Ellery to go on her own, Phyllis went to a laundromat, where she put her pants suit through the dry-cleaning machine, one piece at a time, covering her legs with the jacket while the pants were in. After the jacket was clean, she wore it while running the blouse through the washer and dryer. She also washed her underwear though it was not dirty.

  Her shoes, stylishly fragile to begin with, showed the effects of having walked everywhere she went for several days, but she could not afford to replace them, judging from the prices posted in show windows. By the time she reached the movie studio, a one-story building smaller than expected and marked with a sign identifying it only as To the Max Enterprises, both soles were worn through to the pavement in small, oval apertures at the ball of the foot.

  “Oh, yes,” said the young man, hardly more than a boy, judging from the quality of the skin around his eyes. He had opened and read Harry’s note, sitting behind a desk in the best-looking office Phyllis had yet seen except on TV: wood and leather and brass, and shelves full of multicolored book spines.

  “I’ll strip,” said she.

  He put up a small hand. “We’ll get to that later. First we’ll talk and see if our concepts jibe. Can I offer you a cup of tisane? Water? Juice?” When she declined he went on. “I’m Max. Harry doesn’t mention your name.”

  “Phyllis Pierce.”

  Max nodded briskly with his little chin and large forehead, above which was an abundance of dark hair. “I’m casting for my most ambitious project to date: Othello. Are you familiar with the property?”

  “By William Shakespeare?”

  He blinked his eyes at her. “You do know it. What are your feelings about Desdemona?”

  “She’s the victim of everybody.”

  Max frowned and lowered his head for a moment, then came up with a radiant smile. “I think you’ve got it. By George, you’ve got it.” Phyllis had no idea of why he had suddenly acquired an odd accent, which however he immediately lost, to say, “I’m already picking up new perspectives. Now tell me this: What about race? Do you have any feelings about working with an individual of another color?”

  “No.”

  “You might change your mind when you see his schlong.”

  Max made a fist while grabbing that forearm at the elbow with his free hand. “He’s hung like a camel.”

  “Could that be a sexual innuendo?” Phyllis asked.

  Max rolled his eyes and stuck out a thick tongue.

  “There’s no explicit sex in Othello.”

  Max tossed his head. “There won’t be much else in the erotic version. Viewers get antsy if you don’t cut to the chase after only the briefest preliminaries. You haven’t worked in the industry before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you don’t seem nervous about it. That’s to your credit.” He gestured. “Now you can show your goods.”

  While undressing, Phyllis asked, “Are you going to use the dialogue as written by William Shakespeare?”

  Max shoo
k his head. “I don’t think there’ll be much call for it. I’m keeping the essential plot, though: Iago’s got the hots for Othello, so he cooks up this dirty trick to get Desdemona out of the way, but it doesn’t work, and the whole thing ends up as a threesome.”

  “Desdemona isn’t killed?”

  Max winced. “This isn’t a snuff film. By the way, there never has been one, did you know that? Government investigated. That’s another urban myth.” He left the desk to come closer to Phyllis. “Good titties. Who did them? Ornstein?” He palpated both of her breasts. “He gets top dollar, right? Let’s see this ass…. Uh-huh, it’s choice.” He turned her front-first and probed between her thighs with a forefinger. “You’re awful tight. This African American’s got ten inches, thick as a Louisville Slugger. Speaking of which”—he took one step back and felt his own crotch—“this is giving me wood.” He returned to his desk and, on the intercom, addressed the elderly female receptionist who had earlier admitted Phyllis. “Hold all calls, Grandma.”

  “Is that her nickname?” Phyllis asked.

  “She’s really my grandmother,” said Max. “We’re partners. I’m not twenty-one yet and can’t sign a contract.” He had already stepped out of his trousers. “Come over here.”

  “I’m not going to have sex with you, Max,” Phyllis told him. “And I don’t want to play Desdemona in the porn Othello.”

  He pouted briefly. “Why’d you strip, then?”