“Eight thirty-nine AM,” said Patience.
“What is that in real time?”
“Three thirty-nine AM.”
“Shit. No wonder I’m exhausted.”
“I think the time has less to do with how long you’ve slept than the quality of your sleep. After all, you slept through much of the flight down.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he said, pulling off his underwear.
Patience waited until Mike was almost finished shaving before starting the shower and laying out a bath mat. He seemed to revive a bit under the hot water and after brushing his teeth. He dressed in the clothes that she had laid out for him without complaint. Finally he stood immobile, as Patience applied a coating of special Antarctic sun block to all the exposed areas of his skin.
“Where can we get some breakfast around here?”
“I thought you would enjoy a breakfast buffet this morning.”
“That sounds good. What time does it start?”
“There are two buffets with staggered times, so we can eat any time before eleven.”
“Great. Are we waiting for your buddy and her pet human?”
“No,” said Patience. “Ryan will probably sleep in a few more hours. He didn’t go right to bed.”
“He didn’t? What did he do? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
At that moment, Mike’s phone, which was on the dresser, rang.
“I can’t believe I have service in Antarctica.”
“Only in Adelaide or within range of the ship,” said Patience.
“Hello,” said Mike, picking up the device.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi Harriet. Is everything all right? Is Selma okay? Did my house burn down?”
“No, Dad. Everything is fine. I just called to see if you got there all right.”
“Yes, we made it. What are you doing up anyway? Isn’t it the middle of the night there?”
“I have a child old enough to climb out of her crib in the middle of the night and get into mischief if I sleep too soundly. Seems like somebody could have warned me about that.”
“I did,” said Mike. “How many times did I say ‘don’t have kids’?”
“Yeah, that was a big help. Well, have fun. I’m going back to bed.”
“Okay, sweetheart. I love you. Take care of my grandkid.”
“Right. Love ya, Dad.”
The Grande Bacchanal Buffet was on the Champagne Deck and was so large that it was easy to forget it was on a ship. Approaching the size of a football field, the room was ringed with a balcony level around three sides. Along the fourth wall were the winding counters of the food islands, divided up into sections according to food variety. As he entered, Mike was handed a plastic tag with his table number on it.
“Do you want me to serve you?” Patience asked her husband.
“No. You get the drinks. I’ll get my own food.”
Patience located two drink stations, equal distance from the walls along the x-axis and in the center of the room along the y-axis. She collected two tall glasses of water and a diet soda. Next to the drinks was a selection of condiments. She grabbed a bottle of Tabasco, taking it with her to their assigned table.
While she waited for Mike, she observed others nearby. As expected, the room consisted of about one half human beings and one half robots. At the table to her right, a handsome man of African descent, about thirty years old, sat with a new model Gizmo robot. The Gizmo was a female model, with a very shapely body and platinum blond hair. She hated to admit it, but Gizmos had definitely improved their models recently, at least on the outside. On the other side of her, a man about Mike’s age, but a good six inches shorter, sat with an Amonte 2. Tall and thin, the Amonte 2 was dressed in a business suit, despite her human’s casual clothing. And directly across from Patience were a pair of women, one human and the other a Barone model Daffodil. The human was five foot six inches tall, with short brown hair, and the Barone was an inch taller with long strawberry blond tresses. They both wore yellow sundresses.
“Lesbian watching, are we?” asked Mike, setting down his tray.
“I don’t believe they are lesbians,” replied Patience, looking from the two women to Mike’s tray. “You don’t care whether they are or not. You’re just trying to deflect my attention from your breakfast.”
Mike’s tray was filled with food: two eggs, three pieces of bacon, two sausages, three pancakes covered in syrup, two blintzes with a dollop of sour cream, hash brown potatoes, and a Danish. Patience’s hand quickly moved to seize the sausages and two of the bacon pieces. Then she lifted up the top pancake and removed the middle one. She wrapped the food she had taken in a cloth napkin and set it on the corner of the table.
“That’s it?” asked Mike. “You’re going to let me eat the rest of this?”
“Do you want me to take more?”
“Nope.” He sat down opposite her. “I’m just surprised.”
“You haven’t been eating well for two weeks,” said Patience. “I want you to regain the three pounds you have lost during that time, and I have decided to let you gain two additional pounds on the cruise.”
“Really. Two pounds.”
“It’s traditional that people gain weight on a cruise.”
“All right.” Mike spread the sour cream across his blintz with his fork, and then took a bite. Setting down the utensil, he salted his eggs. “How about rounding up some hot sauce?”
Patience slid the bottle of Tabasco across the table to him.
“Thanks.” He shook out several dozen drops onto his eggs, and then picked his fork back up and cut a piece. “So why don’t you think those women are lesbians.”
“Body language.”
“Excuse me, are you talking about us?”
Patience watched Mike look over his shoulder, his bite of egg waiting on the end of his fork. The brunette was standing right behind him with a hand on her hip.
“That depends. Are you planning on slapping me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well despite my better judgment I will answer. Yes, we were talking about you.”
“And what were you saying?”
Mike looked her up and down. “I was speculating that you might be a lesbian, but I can see now that I was mistaken.”
“I wondered when I planned this trip with Delia if people would think we were lesbians.” She waved toward the Daffodil now standing behind her and to the left. “How did you figure out that I wasn’t one?”
“Your shoes,” said Mike. “Lesbians usually wear comfortable shoes. Those sexy red pumps have to be killing your feet.”
“They would if I walked very far.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Bella.”
Mike shook her hand. “Bella, huh?”
“Don’t you like my name?”
“Is it Bella, short for Isabella?”
“No, just Bella.”
“Then no, I don’t like it.”
“May I sit down?”
Mike pulled out the chair next to him. Bella sat down and waved her Daffodil into the seat opposite her, next to Patience. The two robots locked eyes for just a moment.
“I’m going to go ahead and eat,” said Mike, finally putting the piece of egg in his mouth.
“Go ahead. We already ate.”
“Delia is Bella’s companion robot,” said Patience.
“That’s right,” said Bella. “I got her for my graduation present from my parents. They’re protective and we’re rich, so…”
“Bella thought this cruise would be a chance for her to meet some new people, without her having to leave me behind.” Delia’s voice was deep for a female, but sexy.
“She means that I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet some men, but my parents didn’t want me out without my bodyguard,” corrected Bella. Then she looked Mike up and down. “You’re pretty cute for an old guy.”
“I get that a lot,” said Mike. “But I’m married.”
&nb
sp; Patience held up her left hand, showing off her ring.
“You married your Daffodil? That is so cool. But I didn’t mean meeting men just for hook-ups. I want to meet some men and see what they’re like.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mike. “Did your parents keep you locked in the basement?”
“Four years at an all-girl prep school and then six years at an all-girl college, so yes. Can we get together and do something?”
Mike shrugged and kept eating.
“That sounds wonderful,” said Patience.
“Great.” Bella stood up, followed quickly by Delia. “We’ll see you around.”
“That was weird,” said Mike, exchanging the positions of his bacon and egg plate with his pancake plate.
“I think she seemed very refreshing,” said Patience. “Meeting new people is a wonderful idea.”
“No it’s not. People are horrible.”
“She seems like a lot of fun. Would you like to have an affair with her?”
Mike paused his chewing for just a moment. “No… why?”
“I just wondered if you felt like you needed to broaden your sexual horizons.”
“A: That sentence doesn’t really make sense. It’s just something somebody would say to justify an affair. B: I’m not twenty-five anymore. I get as much sex as I want already; too much, if anything. And C: Wouldn’t you be jealous?”
“Of course I would,” said Patience. “That is a well-thought-out response, Mike.”
“Well, I don’t need a crazy jealous robot on my hands… or coming after me… or whatever. Besides, if I wanted to have sex with somebody else, I could just have you dress up for me, couldn’t I?”
“Absolutely.”
He finished off his pancakes as he glanced at the nearby Amonte 2 sitting across from the shorter man. Nodding toward them he said, “I could have you wear a business suit like hers, and do you bent you over a table.”
“I doubt that, given their respective heights, that is their preferred position,” opined Patience.
“Remind me tomorrow to get some grits,” said Mike, finishing off the last of his food. “What now?”
“We visit the Oceaneum for thirty to forty minutes and then take a walk on the hiking path.” Patience gathered Mike’s dishes as she spoke and then set them on a tray carried by a Daffodil crewmember that just seemed to appear.
She led Mike out of the Grande Bacchanal Buffet and through a long series of corridors and elevators to the lower levels of the ship. Finally they reached a large lobby facing two large doors, above which was a neon blue sign spelling out “Oceaneum.” Passing through the doors, they found themselves at the top of a large round room with stairs descending from all sides toward the center. It was a little like being in a theater-in-the-round, but instead of a stage at the center, there was a thirty-foot wide pane of glass looking down into the blue ocean below them.
“Welcome to our new arrivals,” said the amplified voice of a Daffodil crewmember standing near the bottom.
Mike and Patience were the only new arrivals, and there were only seven seats occupied in the entire theater, though the interior was just dark enough to make it impossible to tell just from sight whether they were humans or robots.
“You thought I would like this?” asked Mike, taking his seat.
“Of course. You love sea life. And this will give your food a chance to settle before we go for a walk.”
“Swimming below our viewing area at this time is a very large school of small fish,” continued the crewmember. “These fish are common galaxias, found in large quantities throughout this area thanks to an extensive restocking program carried on by Rio Cruise Lines. In just a moment, we’re likely to see members of our own penguin habitat zipping down to get a bite to eat. The penguin habitat, located on the stern mid-plank area of Bacchanalia is currently home to 233 Humboldt penguins, the largest surviving penguin species.”
Suddenly the water below the window was filled with black and white torpedoes shooting this way and that after the tiny fish.
“Our penguin friends have been reluctant to get in the water since the sighting of a rare tiger shark earlier this morning. If you didn’t get a chance to see it yourself, just take a look at the video we captured.”
A large vueTee along the wall lit up with the image of a massive shark, swimming along with its mouth partially open in what seemed a sinister smile. Suddenly the scene changed to a live view of the penguins just as a group of larger black and white shapes shot among them.
“Oh oh,” said Mike. “Killer whales.”
“No sir,” said the Daffodil guide. “Our penguins have just been joined by a pod of Commerson’s dolphins. They have little to fear from these small cetaceans, who are taking advantage of the same school of fish.”
“Cute little guys,” said Mike, looking back and forth from the glass pane to the vueTee.
They watched another ten minutes, but saw nothing other than the three species already described. Mike stood up and Patience followed him out of the Oceaneum.
Once beyond its doors, she took the lead, guiding him up to the Sun Deck. Here was the beginning of a biking, walking, running trail. It was about thirty feet wide, though it varied in places. At the point they started walking, it moved out away from the ship, suspended hundreds of feet above the deep blue waves.
“So what do you have planned for me the rest of the day?” asked Mike, as they began down the walkway.
“Don’t you have any plans of your own?” asked Patience.
“Should I? Aren’t you my Daffodil and aren’t you supposed to watch over me and see to my every need, with your link right to the ship’s network? Don’t you have every activity, every luxury, and every opportunity right at your little robot fingertips?”
Patience pursed her lips and crinkled her nose.
“What emotion is that supposed to be?”
“This is 42.5% disapproval, 31.4% annoyance, and 26.1% a variety of other emotions.”
“A variety of other emotions,” echoed Mike. “Well, emote all you want to, but I expect you to come up with something fun to fill the rest of my day. I’m on vacation, damn it.”
“Then keep walking. I want you to burn off at least 300 calories before we change for the pool.”
Chapter Eleven
“I can’t believe it,” said Mike.
His hand reached out for his drink, but as his eyes were directed elsewhere, he knocked it over. Patience caught it before it did more than slosh a few drops over the brim, and placed the glass between his fingers. He took a drink and then would have missed the table when setting it back down, had not Patience taken it and done so herself.
It was their third day on the cruise. Patience had indeed kept Mike busy in the interim. After his walk on the first day, they had played shuffleboard and gone skeet shooting. The second day, after a breakfast that included grits, they had climbed the rock wall and gone ice-skating before having a quiet seafood dinner. This morning, after enjoying room service, Patience had brought Mike to the Celebrity Pool, a step above the ordinary swimming venue.
“What can’t you believe, Mike?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“I can’t believe that swimsuits could possibly be that small. I really don’t even see the point. They should just swim naked.”
The two of them sat side by side on chaise lounges. The twenty by forty foot Celebrity Pool, with a waterfall at one end and twin whirlpools at the other, sat beneath the cool blue panes of the solarium. The warm wood of the deck contrasting with the deep blue of the chaise lounge pads, made it seem like some trendy Los Angeles restaurant rather than an ordinary swimming pool.
Mike, like the other men present, wore a pair of colorful trunks that covered him from the waist to the tops of the knees. His suit probably contained as much material as every female swimsuit in the area put together. He had expressed his thoughts that Patience’s suit was quite scandalous when she had purchased it, composed
as it was of four three inch triangles, one in front and one in the back of her bottoms, and one as each cup of the tops. Cup hardly seemed the appropriate word. The little purple suit now proved to be the most modest at the poolside. Most of the women were completely topless and the bottoms of their suits consisted of mostly string—in back and in front.
“How do they do it?” he wondered.
“They seem to enjoy showing off their bodies,” replied Patience.
“No, I don’t mean the women. When I was twenty, I wouldn’t have been able to walk around here without a tent in my pants. I’m having a hard enough time now.”
He readjusted the texTee sitting in his lap.
“The boys are used to it,” said Patience. “And if it gets to be too stimulating, they can always jump into the water.”
Mike nodded. There did seem to be more men in the water than women.
Patience received a call from Wanda. She and Ryan were going to the water park to slide down the big water slides. Did she and Mike want to come along?
“No. We’ll meet you for dinner though. The Incubus Steakhouse: I have dinner reservations for 7:00. If I don’t hear back from you, I’ll assume that it’s all right with Ryan.”
“Affirmative.”
Patience frowned.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mike.
“Nothing. I think we should eat a light salad for lunch, given your breakfast feast. Are you hungry?”
“I will be in about half an hour.”
Mike lifted up his texTee and smoothed out the front of his suit. Then he began watching the rest of Watchmen. Five minutes later, he looked up to see Bella and Delia standing beside him. He slammed the texTee back into his lap, perhaps a little too forcefully.
“Ladies,” he said, through clenched teeth.
Delia wore a yellow bikini, the bottom of which seemed to be designed to divide and accentuate her nether region. The top was a fairly traditional bra-cup design except that, like the bottoms, it was completely transparent, leaving her magnificent Daffodil-constructed breasts exposed. Bella wore something that looked like a black ribbon of lace stretched around her waist, with a strip of similar material that went through her legs. She wore no top at all, and after what seemed a long, long time, Mike appeared to realize that he was still looking at her small, pert breasts.
His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue Page 10
