I had to assume I'd know it when I saw it.

"Listen up, motherfucker."

"Yeah, I hear you. Right on time. I'll give it to you on the click, of course."

"Of course," I said. "What time would that be, precisely?"

"Two or three minutes."

I'm sure the BC gave me that "precise" answer just to annoy me. So with all the annoyances in my life, l need a machine thumbing its nose at me? Apparently so. I tried having it kowtow and hated it even worse.

I'm just not a big fan of machinery.

The brick was sitting there across the room, on a transparent table. It looked like I could just walk over and grab it, but I knew better. I'd have been immobilized three times before I got within twenty meters, and killed if I got within five. When the BC says on the click it means precisely that.

There were a few other people in the Post Office with me. Some of them were people I knew. Keeping me company, I guess. And there was Hildy Johnstown, the "newsman," with his felt hat and his worn press pass sticking out of the hat brim. He puts out a paper with a circulation of around a thousand -- actually pastes it up and prints it with ink on paper. The last gasp of a once-proud profession. Today, who gives a shit? News is, by definition, bad news.

I wondered if he'd get a story. Sometimes the message say it's okay to tell others.

Sometimes it says keep this under your hat. Sometimes it doesn't say anything, and you have to decide for yourself. Time would tell.

On the click, the BC caused the brick to be opened. It made some noise. I confess to a slight case of nerves as I crossed the room and pulled up a chair. I picked up the tablet and looked at the message.

It was in my handwriting. I had expected that; they almost always are.

It said: There are good restaurants in Jack London Square. Go north on the freeway and follow the signs.

The Council will give in if you do not push them too hard.

Tell them the mission is vital. I don't know if it is, lest tell them anyway.

Don't fuck him unless you want to.

Tell him about the kid. She's only a wimp.

It was written in 20th Amerenglish. l read it through four times to be sure I had it all, and my jaw got tighter with each second I had to look at it. Finally, I stood up and backed away.

"Blow it to hell," I said.

"You got it," said the BC. The metal glowed white, whiter, whitest, and began to evaporate. I turned before the process was complete and strode from the room. I felt eyetracks all over me, but nobody said anything, not even Hildy.

I held on all the way back across town and right up until my apartment door slammed behind me. Then I fell down on the floor. I don't know what happened then. Whatever it was, it got my face wet and left me exhausted. Sherman carried me m bed and stroked me gently for a while, then left me alone. That fucking machine is the best friend I ever had.

I was not telling anybody about the kid. If the universe had to be destroyed because of that, so be it.

Sherman coaxed me out of it.

He's the only machine I've ever had any use for. At one time I scorned robots like Sherman. I thought they were only good for jaded femmedrones looking for a thrill. I used the pronoun "it" when referring to them, called them walking vibrators or humanoid dildos.

I stopped doing that after I got Sherman. He is definitely a male robot. One glance between his legs could leave no possible doubt of that.

He let me ... weep. That's the word I was looking for. I have cried before, but it usually comes from fury and I remain rigidly in control as the tears drip down my cheeks. I had never been helpless like this. Not even on the day she died.

If Sherman was surprised, he never let on. He stroked me, let me curl up in his arms. He could never make up for the mothering I missed and we both knew that, but goddam it, he was the next best thing. I could no longer handle the idea of a real human man., I hadn't been with one for years.

Sherman's attentions grew more meaningful. I didn't think I wanted to fuck, but he would know that better than I. His fingertips are lie detectors. He can read my feelings as though they were punched on my skin in Braille. Presently he pushed me onto my back and entered me.

I fell into a dream state. He fucked me for three hours, from late morning to early afternoon. (Made love? Don't make me laugh. I know when the merely ludicrous turns into the psychotic. I am well aware that, technically, what I did that afternoon was masturbate with the world's smartest solid-state life-size inflatable rubber novelty.) I had very little to do with it. That's my custom with Sherman, the Lord of Latex; I just lie there and he ravishes me.

What the hell else should I do? He can't feel a thing. He's an extremely complex series of programmed responses. He feeds off my responses and always does the right thing at the right time. He's a machine. I might as well worry about satisfying a pop-up toaster.

Sherman has no face.

He's a competent therapist, and he told me directly what that means in psychological terms. It is a very common female fantasy to be roundly and thoroughly fucked by a faceless stranger. At first glance, it looks like a rape fantasy. It most emphatically is not. Rape is not sex for a woman, and it has very little to do with sex for a man.

Sherman does not ask me what I want. He doesn't ask me when I want to screw; he knows. He simply takes me.

And I am so totally in control of the experience that I don't even have to tell him what to do. Each step he takes is perfectly in tune with what my body is telling him I want.

He is a reasonable facsimile of the perfect lover.

When I first got him he had a face. I couldn't stand it. I choose when and where to tell myself lies, and the lie his face told -- I am a real man, with real emotions -- was not one I wanted to hear. So I had him rebuilt with a head round and smooth as an egg. Like all the rest of his skin, it feels just like the real thing. As does my own "skin."

Sometimes he pastes pictures of faces over the front of his head and we pretend he's performing as some famous figure from the past would have. I've fucked my way through several history books.

Bizarre? All right. But it depends on what neighborhood you live in. I won't say it was as good as making love with a real man. I won't say it was worse, either. There was no emotional component. Sometimes I missed that; then I would think of Lawrence, and take Sherman to bed and practically wear him out. Sherman was a lot safer.

My reasons for this preference were complex and incompletely understood. Part of it was simple. There were plenty of opportunities to get hurt without going out searching for love.

Another part of it was deep down, and Sherman-the-therapist had to dig it out in many sessions. I was terrified of a real penis. It could make me pregnant and if I was pregnant I'd have another kid and be hurt again.

Part of it was lies. The ones I told myself, and the ones others told me.

It is impossible in my neck of the woods to tell if the fellow you're bedding down with has real equipment or a clever imitation. Harsh, but true. The chances were excellent that his cock was no more real than Sherman's. Then again, he might still have the genitals he was born with.

The whole idea of skinsuits is that you can't tell. And you certainly can't ask.