"Robert F. Young - Doll Friend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

DOLL-FRIEN
D By ROBERT F. YOUNG

ILLUSTRATOR SUMMERS
He had a beautiful wife. But the girl he really loved
came out of a slot machine — warm and soft and
clinging and unalive.

OF ALL the doll-friends Carter had ever danced with, Edie Four was by far his favorite. The mere
act of depressing keys E, D, and 4 on the console of the huge juke-doll box gave him a thrill comparable
to the thrill Aladdin must have felt when he rubbed his magic lamp; and the mere sight of her when she
emerged, all tall and golden in a golden gown, was in itself well worth the half dollar it cost to bring her to
life.
It was a truism to say that all doll-friends were beautiful. Man, working with his lathes and his shapers
and his plastics and his photoelectric cells, was a creator in his own right, and while unlike God he could
not endow his products with souls, he could, and did, endow them with a physical perfection unmatched
by any product ever to have come off the celestial production line. However, Carter's preference for
Edie did not stem solely from her physical allure: she had personality, too.
When he said something to her, she didn't respond with the cliches the other doll-friends used. For
instance, when he made a flattering remark, she didn't come up with an archaic bromide like, "I'll bet you
say that to all the girls!" Instead, she'd say something like, '"I'm going to write that down in my diary when
I get home tonight, and sleep with it under my pillow."' Or, if he asked her for a date—jokingly, of
course—she didn't quote Paragraph 16 of the Doll-Friend Handbook, the way the others did. Instead,
she'd drop her eyes demurely and say something like. "I'd love to Floyd, but you know what people
would say," or, "What would your wife think!"



Naturally, Carter knew that the first shift E-D-4 manipulator in the upstairs control room was
responsible for everything she said as well as everything she did; but he preferred to pretend that it was
Edie, and Edie alone, who danced and talked with him, and spiked his cup of life with the golden spirits
of romance.

"Personally,'"' he said one evening, "I don't give a damn what, my wife would think. And if I thought I
could get away with it, I'd sneak you out the backdoor sometime and take you riding in my Cadillette!"
"But what good would that do you, Floyd? My manipulator would simply break contact and call the
police. And you'd feel awfully silly being picked up with a rag doll on your hands."
“You're not a rag doll!"
"Without my manipulator I'm the equivalent of one."
Carter looked deep into the blue lenses of her eyes. "Who is your manipulator, anyway?"
"You know I'm forbidden to tell you."
Abruptly he whirled her between two of the booths that-bordered the dance floor, and stole a kiss.
"Anyway, tomorrow's Saturday," he said. "And my wife works full time Saturdays, but I only work half a
day. I'm going to monopolize you all afternoon!"
He whirled her back to the dance floor and they wound deftly in and out among the dancing
doll-friends and their partners. It was the last dance of the day that he had time for, and he concentrated
on enjoying it. The music became a pink cloud beneath his feet, and Edie turned into a golden-haired
goddess.
"You do like me the best, don’t you?" she said to his shoulder.
"Compared to you, the others are nothing but paper dolls," he whispered to the ribbon in her hair.