His Robot Girlfriend (12 page)

“
How was that,
Mike?”

“
If you had spots, it would
have been perfect.”

Just then a doorway opened right beside them
and a line of people filed past. Their private spot was the exit of
the Borg ride. Mike stepped calmly out of the way and pulled
Patience along with him. Then he surreptitiously reached down to
pull up his zipper.

After leaving the Star Trek Experience, Mike
and Patience walked to the very front of the casino and followed
the signs hanging from the ceiling to the monorail station. It was
a large station, looking very much like one would expect a train
station to look. Clean and modern. And crowded. Mike purchased two
way passes from a vending machine using his cash card. Then they
sat down to wait for the monorail train. It arrived seven minutes
later. The monorail was cool and futuristic and painted black. It
stopped and the doors slid open. Mike and Patience stepped inside.
There were a few seats along the sides of the train, but the center
was completely open, with handrails above to allow for standing
passengers. Mike chose to stand and Patience stood next to him. As
the train began to move, Mike braced himself on the handrail.
Patience wrapped her arms around his neck.

The train moved what seemed like only a few
feet before stopping again. This time it was at the Monte Carlo.
This hotel had a train station not too much different from the one
at the Tangiers. As the doors opened, several dozen people moved in
and out of the car. Then it started on its way again. This leg of
the monorail track was longer as it led from the Monte Carlo to
McCarran Airport. From the track, scores of feet above the roadways
below, there was a great view of the MGM Golf Course, a truly huge
expanse of green in an otherwise grey surrounding. As the train
approached the next stop at McCarran, they passed another monorail
going in the opposite direction. It too was painted black, but had
a gigantic Borg painted on the side of the first and last car. Mike
glanced at Patience to see if she had noticed it, and by her
tight-lipped expression, she had. They arrived at the airport and
got off. It was the last stop on the line.

Mike led Patience through the station and the
extensive mall-like structure that connected the station with the
airport gates. They browsed the store windows, looking at things
that Mike thought would take him a lifetime to pay for, if they had
been something that he would actually want to buy. Patience seemed
fascinated with the clothing and the shoes. But there was no way
that Mike would have been able to let her go on a spending spree
here. So they returned to the monorail station and took the train,
this time a yellow one, back to the Tangiers. The round trip had
taken them about an hour and a half. They found their car in the
parking lot and returned to their own hotel.

They spent one more night at the Palms and
when Mike woke up in the morning, Patience had everything packed
and ready to be loaded into the car. It took only a few minutes to
check out and then they were back on the road, driving up the
on-ramp to I-15. Mike steered into the travel lane of the
Interstate.

“
Well, this was the most
interesting trip to Vegas I’ve ever made.”

“
Are you sure you don’t
want to stay another day, Mike?”

“
I’m pretty sure. Why? Do
you want to stay?”

“
I want to do whatever you
want to do,” said Patience.

Less than forty miles south of Vegas, Mike
turned off in Primm. Primm, which used to be known as Stateline for
the obvious reason, consisted essentially of three hotels and the
associated restaurants, gas stations, and recreational activities
that went along with big resorts. One of these casino add-ons was
the Primm Fashion Outlet Mall. Mike wanted to give Patience a
chance to buy something for herself, since she hadn’t at the
airport mall. The mall here consisted mostly of stores that Mike
had never heard of. Almost all of them were for women who liked
clothes, though. They stopped at one store called Elie Tahari, and
Patience selected a sexy little dress with a scooped neckline that
the sales clerk called a Marcy dress, and at the Neiman Marcus Last
Call store she bought a pair of chocolate and gold Gucci
high-heeled sandals which were seventy percent off, but still cost
$405.28. Mike thought that, if given half a chance, Patience could
develop into quite the shoe whore. Patience seemed to have
developed that feature that many humans had, including Mike
himself, of finding satisfaction in buying something for herself.
If it could be considered a religious experience, and one could
certainly make that argument, at least Patience left the great
temple with her spirits raised. She never mentioned her agitation
at the Star Trek Experience, and after a while Mike forgot about it
as well. At least until he was reminded of it some weeks later.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful.
Patience drove and Mike slept, with his head wedged between the
back of the seat and the car window. He woke up long enough to
visit the restroom at the same filling station that they had
stopped at on the way to Vegas, and then snoozed away again until
they reached the driveway of his… their house. Patience pulled the
car into the garage and they both climbed out.

The remainder of June shot by. Each day Mike
got up and showered, to find a warm, dry towel waiting for him.
This was followed by breakfast, which he had gotten used to. Mike
began to follow Patience’s example and usually did a bit of light
home improvement work before lunch, but as the month progressed and
it became far too hot to work outside, he thought more and more
about doing some writing. On Monday the twenty-first, he cleaned up
the desk that had been sitting unused in the south bedroom and went
to Wal-Mart to purchase a new wriTee, which he quickly set up.
Within a few days, he had the first chapter of his book done,
though after that it became more of a strain to remember all the
stupid things that the kids at school had said or done. Afternoons
were almost always a time for relaxation in front of the vueTee.
Evenings had used to be the same, but right about the time that
Mike began working on his book, Patience began dragging him out
after dinner. They went to the movie theater, the city event center
to listen to the philharmonic, and even went dancing. Mike couldn’t
dance, but as with everything else, Patience was programmed and
ready to go and she guided Mike through it.

For her part, Patience didn’t really have any
down time. She went to bed with Mike, but within an hour or so,
after he had fallen asleep, she was back up. She used the night
time hours to clean and maintain the house and by the middle of the
month there wasn’t a spot anywhere that the most fastidious person
wouldn’t have been happy to eat off of. This left the daytime hours
free so that she could take care of all of Mike’s needs. She waited
upon him. She served as his accountant, personal trainer, and
expert chef. She was mother, friend, concubine, confidant, and upon
occasion taskmaster.

On the thirtieth, which was a Wednesday, Mike
stood on the scale at the gym and marveled that he had lost sixteen
pounds. Actually he was marveling that he had lost only sixteen
pounds, because he thought that he looked at least thirty pounds
lighter. It was, he supposed because muscle weighed so much more
than fat, and he was putting on a bit of the former as he was
losing the latter. He flexed his arm to make his bicep bulge and
smiled to himself.

He and Patience climbed back into the car and
returned home. A nice hot shower awaited him, and he didn’t take
long before climbing into it. He had his head bent down beneath the
steaming spray, when he heard Patience outside the shower door.

“
What do you think about
going to Knott’s Berry Farm?” she asked.

“
Why?”

“
This 150-acre theme park
has many exciting rides like the Jaguar, Montezuma’s Revenge and
Calico Thunder as well as many fun attractions like the Buffalo
Nickel Arcade, Camp Snoopy, and the Mystery Lodge.”

“
Are you reading a
brochure?” asked Mike, sticking his face out of the
door.

“
I memorized the ad on the
vueTee.”

“
Why do you want to go to
Knott’s Berry Farm?”

“
It is not that I want to
go. I thought you might like to go.”

“
I took the kids when they
were little,” Mike said, as he climbed out of the shower and took
the warm dry towel that Patience held in her hand. “I don’t think I
would want to go now. Besides, last time I went, I didn’t fit in
half of the ride restraints. If I was going to go somewhere, I’d… I
don’t know.”

“
June is over,” said
Patience. “You have less than a month and a half before you have to
return to school. We should do something that you would
enjoy.”

“
Alright, let me think
about it for a while.” Mike went upstairs to his den and began
typing away, writing down as many anecdotes about school as he
could recall.

Around noon, Patience arrived at Mike’s elbow
with his lunch. She had constructed a near perfect club sandwich on
toasted whole wheat bread and arrayed it on the plate with a cup of
tomato salad. A large diet Pepsi accompanied it. He had no sooner
accepted the tray and opened his mouth to thank her, when the front
door bell rang. She turned and bounced out of the room. Mike could
hear her going down the stairs. A moment later he could hear a
conversation going on downstairs, though not the words. He also
heard the door to the garage opening and a few minutes later,
closing. Mike didn’t get up to see what was going on because he
already knew. For the past week, the FedEx man had arrived every
single day with boxes of merchandise that Patience had bought on
eBay. She usually had at least one package going out too. A few
minutes later she entered the study carrying a very large and very
heavy looking box.

“
What is that?” he
asked.

“
It’s a desk,” said
Patience.

“
I don’t need a new desk.
This one works just fine.”

“
It’s not for you, Mike.
It’s for me.”

“
What do you need a desk
for?”

“
I’m going to use it when I
keep track of my shipping and sales. I’m going to get a little
vueTee and set it up here too, so that I can buy and sell on eBay
right from here. Then I’m going to set up shelves in this closet
and store my smaller merchandise right here. I can continue to keep
the bigger things in the garage.”

“
Alright.”

Patience tore the end of the box open and
began pulling out pieces of a black and white, assemble it
yourself, desk. She was still examining the parts that she had
pulled from the box, when the doorbell rang again.

“
Don’t get up,” Mike said.
“I’ll get it.”

He skipped down the stairs, to the front
door, and opened it. A tall man in a green army uniform stood at
the steps. Mike stared at him for a moment and then stepped outside
to clasp him around the shoulders.

“
General Smith! How are
you?”

“
Dad, you know I could get
court-martialed for impersonating a general. Why don’t you let me
in? It’s got to be four hundred degrees out here.”

Mike leaned back and looked at the
thermometer just inside the door. “Not a bit over one forty eight.
Come on in. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming, Lucas?”

“
I wanted it to be a
surprise.”

Mike closed the door and ushered his son into
the living room. Lucas was a younger taller version of his father.
His hair was shorter and thicker, but already had the trademark
Smith grey temples. He cut a fine figure in his uniform with four
stripes on each sleeve.

“
How long are you staying
for?” asked Mike.

“
I’ve got a week. I could
stay with Harriet if you’d rather.”

“
Don’t be silly. I’m
turning your room into an exercise room, but Patience has made a
really nice guest bedroom out of Harriet’s old room. I’m really
glad you showed up. I was just starting to get bored.” He paused.
“They’re not sending you to Antarctica, are they?”

“
No.”

Mike sighed. “That’s a relief.”

“
I wouldn’t mind going
actually. But they don’t need many accountants down
there.”

“
You never know. They might
want someone to inventory snowballs… or body bags.”

“
Yes, well, they might at
that. So where is your robot girlfriend?”

“
Patience!” Mike called up
the stairs. “We have company.”

Patience came bounding down the stairs.
Although Mike knew that she had been clothed, because she had made
her daily contact with the delivery man, he didn’t remember what
she had been wearing. She had on a pink halter top, a pair of
low-rise sky blue shorts with a two inch wide matching belt, and a
pair of pink buckle sandals with a cork wedge heel so high that a
person shouldn’t have been able to walk on them. Of course Patience
wasn’t really a person, at least according to the state of Nevada.
She stopped with a bounce in the living room.

“
Hello Lucas,” she said,
and gave him a great hug.

“
Wow, Dad. Nice
selection.”

“
Thank you,” said Mike and
Patience at the same time.

The three of them sat down in the living room
and just talked for quite a while. Before Mike or his son knew it,
the afternoon was waning. Patience went to the kitchen to begin
preparing dinner and Mike gave Lucas a tour of the house, showing
him the many improvements and repairs that Patience had completed.
He showed him the guest room, now complete with new bed and
furniture, new curtains, and new paint. Lucas’s luggage was already
there, having been brought up by Patience earlier.