A Deceptive Study

Kent -- Hours before the research study

"It won't feel like I'm cheating on you?" Kent stepped around the bed and helped smooth out the comforter as Maria piled the pillows onto their king-sized mattress. There wasn't a lot of room in the apartment around the bed, but real estate was expensive in their region.

"Am I cheating on you when I use a dildo, babe? Because I do that almost every morning after you head to work." Maria paused for a kiss as she returned to the pillow stack on the chair.

"No, not at all." Kent shook his head. "But this is supposed to seem much more life-like than a sex toy." Making the bed every morning was a small price to pay to be with a woman far out of his league. He felt like he had won the lottery every day.

"We've been over this, Kent. There is a huge difference between sex and intimacy. It doesn't matter if the synthetic skin looks and feels realistic. It's the emotional and spiritual connection that's important. Are you going to fall in love with it?" She stepped back from the bed and took in their work. Maria was meticulous about making the bed.

"Of course not. You're my everything, babe."

"There's your answer." Maria had a doctorate in psychology and, perhaps more importantly, was a licensed sex therapist. It was part of the reason that Kent had stood a chance with the stunning beauty. So many guys were scared when they learned about her career. The fools didn't want to be judged by the woman. Kent felt blessed for every day he got with his dream girl.

Although he would like to pretend that it hadn't intimidated him, Kent had no idea what her occupation was when he met his wife. They happened to be at the same bar trivia night when half of their team members didn't show up. They formed a new four-person alliance when given a choice to not participate or to merge groups.

A win was celebrated with high fives from the other team members and a kiss between them, which was it for Kent. Maria claimed his heart that night, and he never gave her a reason to relinquish it. He had pulled his weight with math and physics questions while Maria conquered almost everything else. She was effortlessly brilliant, teasingly flirtatious, and undeniably beautiful. The final question was a group effort. They were tied with another team, so they risked everything on it. Neither seemed confident with their answer, but when the dust cleared, they were winners.

That particular trivia effort had been the culmination of a larger tournament. The second-place team tried to protest the win as the victors were a combined team instead of the ones that had made it through the preliminary rounds. The bar staff decided it was a fair win because both teams had come from the winners' bracket.

The victory came with plane tickets and a hotel stay for a regional tournament. The team finished second in the next contest, but Kent and Maria weren't disappointed for long. They ended up in the same hotel room that night; the rest was history. They both fell hard for each other and were married within a year of that night.

Maria was a tall, whip-smart, and athletic woman. A volleyball scholarship had paid her way through her bachelor's degree and halfway through her master's degree. Her height and tenacity made her a four-year starter and a menace on the court. She had the grades and test scores to earn her a full ride at a state school, but her volleyball prowess got her into a far more prestigious private institution. His brilliant wife made the most of the opportunity and had an academic scholarship to finish her master's degree.

His wife's family was from Puerto Rico, and she was from the first generation born after they moved to the contiguous states. They were almost militantly catholic, and although they were proud of the first person in their family to get a doctorate, they didn't like her chosen career. They were very much of the opinion that all sex was a sin and saw what Maria did as facilitating vice. The fact that Maria had six younger brothers and sisters clearly meant they enjoyed their sex lives. They would blow a gasket if they ever discovered Maria's bisexual bent or that Kent encouraged her indulgences. He always got to watch, and the sex afterward was astounding.

"I guess I'm a little intimidated by this whole thing." Kent stepped over to embrace Maria. She was almost as tall as he was. "It's not exactly something I want to do in front of Rob or with an audience."

"Yeah, you should have gotten your research requirement done earlier," Maria said calmly, then smirked, her brown eyes dancing with mischief. "An audience can be fun, occasionally." There had been several decidedly less racy opportunities earlier.

"I don't understand why I need a research requirement for Mechanical Engineering or what this really has to do with research. I did plenty of labs when I got my BS, and they were far more scientifically rigorous. Maybe I would have it done if someone didn't need me to go with her to a conference when I had my other opportunity." Kent loved the trip and wouldn't have wanted to miss out on the experience for anything. An excuse to go somewhere warm and see his wife in a new bikini was worth it, especially the tiny one Maria had selected last time.

"What about the other two years you've been working on your master's degree?" Maria never liked to lose a disagreement or argument. Most of their spats remained playful, and this was no different.

"Someone had me distracted, as usual." Kent pulled her closer for another scintillating kiss. His phone chirped on its charger.

"You know you love me." Maria swatted his ass playfully before swishing out of their bedroom.

"Haven't I told you that at every opportunity?" He got a smile and emphatic nod out of her before she left the room. Kent should have been checking to see if the text message was about something for work, but he would never relinquish an opportunity to gawk at her fantastic ass. Even after five years of marriage, he couldn't stop staring. Maria looked over her shoulder with a smirk; she expected him to watch.

'I need a huge favor when you come for the study, Kent.' The text message was from Rob. The man was the reason he was in this mess in the first place.

'I'm not already helping?' Kent needed the research credit, but Rob needed more academic studying before they brought the product to market. Having an academic paper or two would help with the legitimacy of the robot. Kent didn't think that his part of the study would qualify for any of that.

'You know you need the credit.'

This box he needed to tick was one of the last things Kent required to finish grad school and get the big promotion at work. That advancement would finally let him and Maria purchase their dream house. It was their personal prerequisite before starting a family. Maria was quite successful in her career, but her office rental wasn't cheap, and she refused to price her services out of the range of her clients.

'What do you need, Rob?'

'Maria, can you bring her to the study with you? We need a direct comparison.'

'A direct comparison? Surely, you covered that earlier in the research.'

'You're right as usual, Kent.' He could imagine Rob cursing as he texted back. 'It's supposed to appeal to men and women. We need her to be observed doing both.'

'I can ask, no promises, though. I think she has a busy day planned.'

'My female participant was supposed to be here yesterday, but that fell through.'

'I'll check. We need to be at the lab at six tonight, right?'

Maria would likely jump at the chance to participate instead of just watching. His wife's area of study was human sexuality. If there were such a thing as a nerd when it came to sexuality, she would undeniably be labeled one. Although most of her experience was observational, she loved to be a participant whenever she got the chance. His wife was a connoisseur of sex, which primarily benefited Kent very well.

Tsubasa -- A couple hours later

"We'll think of something, Sue. You don't need to do this." Rob looked up from his laptop with concern evident on his features. The man was one of the few that never struggled to pronounce her name TSue-Baw-Sa. Rob remembered the slight hint of the nearly silent T at the start of her name. He could even enunciate her surname correctly, though that was typically less difficult. Hayashi said as Hi-Yaw-She. He always remembered to put her surname in front of her given name. Though, when he felt impish, he liked to call her Hayashi-Senpai even though they were peers.

"I'm just looking at the risk logically, Rob. This is the least dicey of all the options." Tsubasa explained as she set up the laboratory they would employ for the study. She was projecting a sedate aura even if she was dreading and looking forward to it in equal measure.

"How so?" Rob's tone was incredulous. "If you get caught doing this, it will end your academic career."

"If I don't do this, my time in academia will be over anyways. What are my alternatives? I believe they all have far higher probabilities of disadvantageous outcomes. Following any other path, there is a near certainty of me losing my visa and being forced to go back to Japan. I will not return in disgrace." Disgrace would be the least of her worries if she had to return to Japan without her doctorate. Her family had too much on the line for this to fail. Tsubasa cleaned the stainless-steel exam table without making eye contact with Rob.

"Brandon can have one of the prototypes back in the morning." Rob was protesting, but he was also helping to get everything arranged. He was cleaning streaks from the one-way mirror on one side of the room.

"That will be too late. Today is the final day that this study can be conducted. They have already pushed the deadline twice and cannot do so again. Brandon shouldn't have taken the prototype without checking with me." Tsubasa glared at Rob. "That's why we have a procedure in place, a process that Brandon shirked again." Working with a corporation was exasperating, especially since they seemed incapable of communicating with her effectively. Everyone save Rob, at least.

"He told me that he had talked to you. I should have double-checked with you anyways. We had to have a demonstration for an investor; we got the last of the funding now to bring it to market." Rob tried to smooth things over. If Tsubasa could complete her dissertation, she would have a prominent research and engineering role at the new company. Their tech was light years more advanced than any of their competitors, and if Tsubasa got in before they went public, she was guaranteed success. She needed one more semester as a grad assistant to finish her quest.

"Exactly, doing this at one of the more rigorous studies or investor meetings would open us up for fraud investigations. The tech works, Rob, but you don't need to invite competitors to sue." Tsubasa tried to calm her nerves. She had made her decision but knew that she would have to put on the performance of her life to keep up the deception.

"Someone is going to figure this out. You're not that deceitful, Tsubasa." Rob argued.

"I'm not?" Sue affected a heavy accent that was more familiar to anyone that hadn't gotten to know her outside of academics. She had grown up in Okinawa near one of the US bases and had learned to speak English as she learned Japanese.

Tsubasa's father was friends with a US fighter pilot with a girl Sue's age. Amber got to learn Japanese in exchange for the impromptu free English lessons. They lost touch when he was transferred to a base in the states.

Sue had discovered that the thick accent was advantageous in her academic pursuits in the states. Professors and students alike often thought they could conceal things if they talked fast in her presence. They underestimated her ability to understand English. Hopefully, the lack of an accent would help hide her identity tonight.

"It's degrees of magnitude." Rob was obviously worried. He cared about her, even if he never seemed interested in a more profound relationship. She tried to keep her mind off Rob, but he had a magnetism about him. "Talk me through the alternatives and how you see them playing out."

"If I try to push off the study, a third of my class doesn't pass as they missed out on a required observation. Dr. Allstein will decide that it is my fault as I'm the one that has been embedded with your work at the school. The university looks to lay off the bottom third of graduate assistants and adjunct professors. I get fired, and in this economic climate, I can't find a new position before my visa expires. That probability nears 100%, Rob. This isn't something I want to do lightly; you know me. Present me another viable option." She explained again. Rob had been trying to talk her out of doing this for the last hour. He should have known by now that Tsubasa didn't back down.

"Green card marriage?" Rob joked. It was his attempt to break the tension.

"We both know you're not the type for commitments, even of the feigned variety." Tsubasa forced a smile. Why's my heart still stuck on him?

"I think I could be for you, Hayashi... Senpai." Rob adding senpai at the end made her think he was playing with her, though it seemed to come out a little late this time.

He's gotta be messing with me. "There is a bigger problem with that. You're a Canadian, Rob." Tsubasa shook her head with a laugh. "Even if that were a possibility, that puts the government's eyes on us instead of a single professor."

"Okay, okay. I'll support this, Sue." Rob's arguments crumbled to dust again. "Are you sure you want your engineering students to see you do this?"

"That's what the mask will be for. You're the only one on campus that's seen me naked. I don't think you're going to tattle on me." Tsubasa checked the lock on the door and the security of the observation room. She didn't need anyone accidentally walking in on what came next.

Rob and Tsubasa celebrated getting funding and the research proposal approved together in Tsubasa's bed almost a year ago. He was quite the skilled lover, but Rob's passions cooled when she wanted to pursue something more than a couple of hookups. Sue wouldn't chase someone who didn't want to get caught. Feelings had tried to manifest many times with the bright, kind, funny, and well-equipped young man, but she had tamped those down. I doubt he'd want to date a woman willing to do this.

Many of the other doctoral candidates turned their noses up at the study. It was an incredible robotics challenge, even if some thought the subject was icky or risqué. Rob had been working on the project for almost a decade. It was his baby and why he had moved from a highly regarded research position in Toronto to a middle-sized city in the center of the US. Exactly one company had been willing to take a risk and comply with Rob's open-source leanings.

"Would you mind helping me get ready? They should be here in a half hour."

"Alright, I just want to have my protest noted." Rob unlocked a cabinet and retrieved one of the visor-like masks their robot wore while the company was still working on perfecting the eyes. The uncanny valley was most noticed when it came to the eyes. It was the only thing that stood in the way of going to market with something truly realistic. The investors didn't seem concerned that the first generation must include a visor.

The visor was a mirrored lens in a thick band from ear to ear. Shiny black plastic held the eyepiece in place and completely covered the eyes, eyebrows, and a majority of the nose. It should hide most of her emotions but leave her mouth usable for whatever the person coming in wants to do. The final model would use higher quality materials as they were trying to spare no expense in making the first run on the androids.

"I'll mentally note your protest." Tsubasa shook her head. The lab was warm, a good thing, as none of the participants would be clothed. As she removed her outfit, she folded it neatly on the exam table. Rob would lock them up in another room to keep from discovery. Why would the android need clothes? Sue knew what she was doing when she left home, so she only had on her lab coat, a hoody, and yoga pants outside of her shoes. "I sure as hell am not making any notes as later evidence, Rob." The hoody had helped her sneak in without being noticed by any fellow faculty.

"Aren't they going to wonder why the robot's heart is beating and you're breathing?" Rob's eyes were taking her in instead of bringing the visor over.

"I finished that upgrade last week, Rob. The robots appear to breathe even in standby mode. It was one of the things that the focus groups said was most disconcerting about our prototypes." Sue studied her makeup in the mirror one last time. She had contoured her face in a far different way than before. Her dark red lip gloss wasn't a color she had ever used; she preferred lighter shades on her pale skin. Tsubasa didn't want to be recognized for anything of her traditional style.

"Of course, you thought of everything, Sue." Rob meant that as a compliment, but his tone was snippy. They'd worked together for the last three years. Long enough for her to know that Rob was worried. He was a good guy, even if he had no desire to be in a real relationship. His parents' multiple divorces soured him on commitment. It didn't stop him from being a good lay.

"I wish I had the prototype voice changer, but it's too bulky to get away with." Tsubasa could no longer wait if she wanted to have time before the study for any pressure marks to be alleviated.

"Your accent should be enough to throw people off. I feel bad I got him to bring his wife along. Are you sure you're okay with being with a woman too?"

"It'll be my first threesome, but not my first time with a woman. Far from it, Rob." Tsubasa watched as his eyes widened, but she couldn't be sure if her history or turn toward him was the cause. Her chest always got extra attention when it made its appearance.

"Huh? Really?" Rob managed to say as his eyes roamed up and down her body. Tsubasa liked the attention.

"I went to an all-girls prep school back in Japan. We all got bored and horny." She shrugged and put her hand on her hips, opening for another view. "Then there was Stanford."

Rob's eyebrows shot up. "You shaved?" He had been too distracted by her ample chest to make it to her womanhood.

"Waxed. I had to match the prototypes." Tsubasa hopped on the exam table, sucking in a breath as the cold surface sapped body heat away.

"I probably should have told you that the newest prototype finally has believable pubic hair. It was surprisingly heavily requested on the surveys after a few demonstrations." Rob rambled for a moment. He sounded more nervous than Tsubasa felt. "It looks good. You're beautiful as always, Tsubasa." He looked for a moment as if he wanted to kiss her. She would have welcomed the smooch.

"Maybe we can celebrate again when my contract gets renewed." Tsubasa smiled suggestively. Rob gave the goofiest grin in return with a slight nod. "Help me put the visor on and go greet our volunteers."

"Do you want me to put a blanket over you or something?" Rob delicately secured the headgear. His striking blue eyes stayed affixed to where hers were under the visor. The bright lab kept the colors from getting muted beneath the plastic lenses.

"Why would a robot be concerned with modesty?"

Maria -- Minutes before the study

"This is weird, right, Rob?" Kent asked as they were led into the classroom attached to the laboratory. The windows had been blacked out all semester as the robotics testing went to a new level. The most intense of the studies had been conducted early in the semester or at the Better Than Life corporate lab.