Andre Norton - The Science Fiction anthology

But as he himself pointed out he was a Super Deluxe model.

Marge didn’t suspect a thing. In fact, George Prime seemed to be having a remarkable effect on her. I didn’t notice anything at first—I was hardly ever home. But one night I found my pipe and slippers laid out for me, and the evening paper neatly folded on my chair, and it brought me up short. Marge had been extremely docile lately. We hadn’t had a good fight in days. Weeks, come to think of it.

I thought it over and shrugged. Old age, I figured. She was bound to mellow sometime.

But pretty soon I began to wonder if she wasn’t mellowing a little too much.

One night when I got home, she kissed me almost as though she really meant it. There wasn’t an unpleasant word all through dinner, which happened to be steak with mushrooms, served in the dining room (!) by candlelight (!!) with dinner music that Marge could never bear, chiefly because I liked it.

We sat over coffee and cigarettes, and it seemed almost like old times. Very old times, in fact I even caught myself looking at Marge again—really looking at her, watching the light catch in her hair, almost admiring the sparkle in her brown eyes. Sparkle, I said, not glint.

As I mentioned before, Marge was always easy to look at. That night, she was practically ravishing.

“What are you doing to her?” I asked George Prime later, out in the workshop.

“Why, nothing,” said George Prime, looking innocent. He couldn’t fool me with his look, though, because it was exactly the look I use when I’m guilty and pretending to be innocent.

“There must be something .”

George Prime shrugged. “Any woman will warm up if you spend enough time telling her all the things she wants to hear and pay all the attention to her that she wants paid to her. That’s elemental psychology. I can give you page references.”

I ought to mention that George Prime had a complete set of basic texts run into his circuits, at a slightly additional charge. Never can tell when an odd bit of information will come in useful.

“Well, you must be doing quite a job,” I said. I’d never managed to warm Marge up much.

“I try,” said George Prime.

“Oh, I’m not complaining,” I hastened to add, forgetting that a Prime’s feelings can’t be hurt and that he was only acting like me because it was in character. “I was just curious.”

“Of course, George.”

“I’m really delighted that you’re doing so well.”

“Thank you, George.”

But the next night when I was with Dawn, who happens to be a gorgeous redhead who could put Marge to shame on practically any field of battle except maybe brains, I kept thinking about Marge all evening long, and wondering if things weren’t getting just a little out of hand.

The next evening I almost tripped over George Prime coming out of a liquor store. I ducked quickly into an alley and flagged him. “ What are you doing out on the street? ”

He gave me my martyred look. “Just buying some bourbon. You were out.”

“But you’re not supposed to be off the premises—”

“Marge asked me to come. I couldn’t tell her I was sorry, but her husband wouldn’t let me, could I?”

“Well, certainly not—”

“You want me to keep her happy, don’t you? You don’t want her to get suspicious.”

“No, but suppose somebody saw us together! If she ever got a hint—”

“I’m sorry,” George Prime said contritely. “It seemed the right thing to do. You would have done it. At least that’s what my judgment center maintained. We had quite an argument.”

“Well, tell your judgment center to use a little sense,” I snapped. “I don’t want it to happen again.”

The next night, I stayed home, even though it was Tuesday night. I was beginning to get worried. Of course, I did have complete control—I could snap George Prime off any time I wanted, or even take him in for a complete recircuiting—but it seemed a pity. He was doing such a nice job.

Marge was docile as a kitten, even more so than before. She sympathized with my hard day at the office and agreed heartily that the boss, despite all appearances, was in reality a jabbering idiot. After dinner, I suggested a movie, but Marge gave me an odd sort of look and said she thought it would be much nicer to spend the evening at home by the fire.

I’d just gotten settled with the paper when she came into the living room and sat down beside me. She was wearing some sort of filmy affair I’d never laid eyes on before, and I caught a whiff of my favorite perfume.

“Georgie?” she said.

“Uh?”

“Do you still love me?”

I set the paper down and stared at her. “How’s that? Of course I still—”

“Well, sometimes you don’t act much like it.”

“Mm. I guess I’ve—uh—got an awful headache tonight.” Damn that perfume!

“Oh,” said Marge.

“In fact, I thought I’d turn in early and get some sleep—”

“Sleep,” said Marge. There was no mistaking the disappointment in her voice. Now I knew that things were out of hand.

The next evening, I activated George Prime and caught the taxi at the corner, but I called Ruby and broke my date with her. I took in an early movie alone and was back by ten o’clock. I left the cab at the corner and walked quietly up the path toward the garage.

Then I stopped. I could see Marge and George Prime through the living room windows.

George Prime was kissing my wife the way I hadn’t kissed her in eight long years. It made my hair stand on end. And Marge wasn’t exactly fighting him off, either. She was coming back for more. After a little, the lights went off.

George Prime was a Super Deluxe model, all right.

I dashed into the workshop and punched the recall button as hard as I could, swearing under my breath. How long had this been going on? I punched the button again, viciously, and waited.

George Prime didn’t come out.

It was plenty cold out in the workshop that night and I didn’t sleep a wink. About dawn, out came George Prime, looking like a man with a four-day hangover.

Our conversation got down to fundamentals. George Prime kept insisting blandly that, according to my own directions, he was to pick the first logical opportunity to come out when I buzzed, and that was exactly what he’d done.

I was furious all the way to work. I’d take care of this nonsense, all right. I’d have George Prime rewired from top to bottom as soon as the laboratory could take him.

But I never phoned the laboratory. The bank was calling me when I got to the office. They wanted to know what I planned to do about that check of mine that had just bounced.

“What check?” I asked.

“The one you wrote to cash yesterday—five hundred dollars—against your regular account, Mr. Faircloth.”

The last I’d looked, I’d had about three thousand dollars in that account. I told the man so rather bluntly.

“Oh, no, sir. That is, you did until last week. But all these checks you’ve been cashing have emptied the account.”

He flashed the checks on the desk screen. My signature was on every one of them.

“What about my special account?” I’d learned long before that an account Marge didn’t know about was sound rear-guard strategy.

“That’s been closed out for two weeks.”

I hadn’t written a check against that account for over a year! I glared at the ceiling and tried to think things through.

I came up with a horrible thought.

Marge had always had her heart set on a trip to Bermuda. Just to get away from it all, she’d say. A second honeymoon.

I got a list of travel agencies from the business directory and started down them. The third one I tried had a pleasant tenor voice. “No, sir, not Mrs. Faircloth. You bought two tickets. One way. Champagne flight to Bermuda.”