Free To Be a Woman by Piers Anthony

interested. They consulted briefly with each other, then one man spoke. “Black, how about a date?”
    Mona eyed him speculatively. “Are you married?”
    “Damn!” he said, and the others laughed.
    “But the answer is no, to any of you,” Mona continued. “I am in love with my fiancee, Banner Thompkins, and want nothing to do with any other man. But I do appreciate your interest.”
    And she had studied Banner too, so as to be able to carry this off. He had mistaken her interest and been drawn to her. He was privately embarrassed.
    The man looked at Elasa. “You, Red?”
    “Echo,” Elasa said.
    They laughed again. The ice had been broken, and both subjects and jury had been rapidly humanized.
    A woman addressed Elasa. “Red, did you dye your hair?”
    “Yes,” Elasa said. “Ordinarily I am brown haired with gray eyes, matching my fiance. But too many local people know me, so I changed it for this interview.” This was the exact truth.
    “You, Black?” the woman asked Mona.
    “Echo,” Mona said, laughing. “How else could I fool you into thinking I'm alive?” It certainly looked as if she was fooling most of them that way.
    A man addressed Elasa. “Contumely abstract promotional anomaly squared?”
    Elasa looked blank. “Maybe a circuit is shorting out,” she said. “I don't understand you at all.” Which was the correct answer. The man had tried to bollix a machine with nonsense, knowing that a living person would never let it pass, while a program might revert to a programmed answer like “That is one way of looking at it,” which would be a dead giveaway. Then she added: “But I have to say, definitely not on a first date.”
    Several jury members laughed. Elasa was really sharp.
    “Maybe I can answer that,” Mona said. “Foreclosure icecream orgasm garbage cubed.”
    “That was on the tip of my tongue,” Elasa said.
    Now everyone laughed, including the judge and the opposing team. The other side wanted Elasa to be effective, regardless of the outcome of the case. She was a phenomenal ad for their product.
    The questions continued, but it was plain the jury members had no idea which woman was which. Banner was coming to appreciate the genius of Moncho's approach; the man really did know how to do it. Bringing in Mona like this was brilliant; she was perfect for the game.
    It didn't take an hour. In twenty minutes the members of the jury admitted bafflement. “They're both good,” the foreman said.
    “Then let's up the ante,” Moncho said. “Girls, kindly disrobe, so they can see your bolts and seams.”
    The two women stood and removed their outer clothing, standing in bras and panties. Both turned in place, showing off their bodies in the way Banner remembered so well. Both looked lusciously alive.
    “Still uncertain?” Moncho asked after a moment. “Then come and feel them. Groping is permitted, for this occasion. How else can you tell the difference between living and fake flesh?”
    Surprised, the jury members came forward and groped, at first tentatively by the women, then thoroughly. The girls stood with arms raised, offering no objection or resistance. The men followed suit, some looking guilty as they squeezed breasts and buttocks. But as Moncho had said, how else could they tell? This further explained Moncho's use of his daughter here: how could he have asked any other person to do this? She was one nervy woman, regardless. Until someone tickled Elasa, and she squealed. She remained in tickle mode, ever since she had invoked that circuit for Banner.
    But even with this hands-on examination, the jury members were unable to form any firm conclusion. “Time for the vote,” Moncho said briskly as the jury members returned to their seats. “This is informal. Show of hands: how many think Black is the robot?”
    One man and two women lifted their hands, uncertainly.
    “How many think Red is the robot?”
    One man and one woman signaled.
    “How many are hopelessly