Page 6 - Unlikely Stories 4

Quintessence

it, depending on the situation. Once, when a co-worker came up to
us in the bar and insulted me because I was with a woman not my
wife, Mary Ann stood up to her and defended me. We did spend a lot
of time indoors, particularly in the bar, where the low light hid a few
of Mary Ann’s imperfections.
I know what you’re wondering about: sex. It is a bit embarrassing
to talk about, given the sleazy reputation of those inflatable dolls. Let
me simply say that we did nothing together that didn’t seem both
comfortable and natural. She figured out my limits right away, and let
me know hers in a perfectly innocent fashion. The bigger question
you should have is about privacy: what would have been the point of
this sort of test if the data it produced weren’t being recorded—if not
transmitted in real time? I have to tell you that this crossed my mind
a couple of times, but it didn’t inhibit me one bit. I mean, we are
conditioned to yield almost every kind of personal information about
ourselves to the gadgets and appliances we use in our everyday lives,
right?
Yeah, I know: you think this is different, and that you would have
acted differently. Easy for you to say—and your certainty may be put
to the test if Mary Ann is mass-produced. I’m sure the next
generation Quintessence will be even more irresistible. But I won’t be
testing her: when I got back from that conference my troubles began.
The four real women in my life whose positive qualities had been
abstracted and distilled into one perfect but artificial woman now
became problematic. My daughter seemed very disagreeable; her
bouts of being an uncooperative and unpleasant child grated on me.
My mother appeared distastefully set in her ways and unwilling to
help out when we needed her. My sister, I realized to my disgust, was
continuing to play some kind of sibling rivalry game with me long
into adulthood. And my wife, whom I loved dearly, showed me with
startling clarity how much time she spent manipulating me into doing
things for her that I really didn’t want to do.
In short, the downside of dealing with actual human beings, with
their own agendas and neuroses and blind spots, stood out in sharp
contrast with the consistently positive expressions of universal
femininity I enjoyed with Mary Ann. I became moody and irritable,
as they say. And my work suffered. The unattainable ideal of the

5