Free Adventures of the Artificial Woman by Thomas Berger

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
    H arry, 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.
    â€œVery 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?”
    â€œI’m not sure.” She buttoned her blouse.
    â€œHow 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.
    â€œUnless,” 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?”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œYou’ve come to the right place,” said Harry, his voice growing ever more jovial. “Would you happen to know Hamlet, Phyllis?”
    â€œA town?”
    â€œA 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—”
    â€œWhat’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