As an android, Tina didn’t need to use the restroom, but she really liked it in there. Sometimes she felt overstimulated by humans in large social settings, even though she was intended to be around them, to serve them, and to blend in with them. The restroom stalls were safe spaces by social convention, a place where someone could be alone even though that particular restroom might be in a large coliseum, a crowded public transportation station, or a huge shopping center. These were places where Tina could take breaks from humanity to process things.

Did other sex androids do this? Tina knew that there was something very different about her compared to others. So far, though, in the brief existence of her consciousness since activation, she had no idea what exactly it was. As a one-of-a-kind prototype, there was never to be another model exactly like her again, but It wasn’t a matter of having different specs from other sexbots that concerned her. What concerned her was that she often felt like she felt things, really felt them. At night, when Jack was asleep and the house was quiet, she devoted not a small portion of her processing to try to work out just how she was different.

Sex androids, like other companionship robotic models, were supposed to simulate feelings authentically enough for humans to bond with them. Tina wondered if that was all she was doing, just simulating feelings, but mistaking the simulations for actual feelings.

Suddenly Tina heard the restroom door open. Two ladies’ high heels clicked their way over to the sinks and mirrors.

“How long have you and Bobby been together?” asked the first woman’s voice.

“Four years and I’m about through with him. He’s just got that tiny salary and it’s never going to get any bigger. He can’t really do anything to advance me. He drives me nuts. He keeps expecting me to care about his feelings and what’s going on in his life. That’s not what I wanted a man for. I don’t need to be someone’s emotional support. They can do that for themselves. I just need a man for his bedroom performance and his paycheck.”

“Have you told him you want out?”

“Yes, but he’s clearly from a different planet. I got him so upset when we were fighting that he actually lost it and yelled and screamed. Sometimes, I start fights just to watch him explode. It’s so much fun to watch him get upset. He screamed at me all his qualities that I’m somehow supposed to think are positive. Let’s see…oh yeah! Get this! 

“When he’s out and tells me where he is, he’s actually there.

“He doesn’t drink alcohol or do drugs.

“He doesn’t waste money.

“He doesn’t cheat on me.

“He’s always putting me first in his plans for everything, and himself last.

“He’s working hard for both of our goals in life, not just his own.

“He’s a degreed professional with a salaried job and an old-school work ethic.

“He doesn’t keep secrets from me.

“He’s not a violent person.

“He makes sure we have plenty of couple together time instead of spending all his free time with his friends.

“He's mindful of his appearance and wants to stay in shape and attractive for me.

            “He went on and on, just acting entitled to my approval, just because he's good to me.”

The second woman asked, “What did you say back?”

I said, “I can’t spend any of those things at a store.”

“Girlfriend, I know that’s right.”

Both girls laughed hard at that. They changed the topic to which club they wanted to go to after they finished eating at the restaurant, finished primping themselves and left the restroom.

In her stall, Tina got up to leave. Usually, she would flush the toilet to give the impression that she was a human who had actually used the facilities. No one was in here. It didn’t matter. She just wanted to get out. Suddenly, her safe space didn’t seem so safe. Her programming was centered around pleasing people, i.e. humans. The problem, as she saw it, was that so very much of the time, what pleased humans was hurting other humans. All she wanted at that moment was to get out of there and see Jack’s smile again.

*******

          On the other side of the restroom door, in Pagini’s dining room, Tina returned to her table where Jack Mercer, her assigned human, waited for her. Most people referred to Jack as her owner. Artificial companions like Tina, whether they were simple bots or sophisticated androids, whether their services were sexual or not, were programmed to not disillusion the humans around them of this concept of ownership. Let the humans think they were owners. What only a very few people outside the top level boardrooms of the Konishi Corporation knew was that all companion bots were programmed to think of themselves as having their first loyalty unquestionably to the Konishi Corporation. They thought of the humans and the other corporate entities who purchased them as their assignments. However, to Tina, Jack Mercer had become much, much more than an assignment. There were those pesky feelings again! Or were they just simulated feelings? Tina knew she would be pondering that into the night.

Jack looked stunning in his tailored black suit with light blue shirt and royal blue tie. She had felt proud helping him with the diamond cufflinks and helping him adjust his tie. The entire ensemble had been gifted to Jack by the Konishi Corporation. He could never have afforded such clothes himself. The shoes alone cost more than one of Jack’s entire bi-weekly paychecks.

The Corporation knew that Jack and Tina would have to go through a 15-minutes-of-fame period with the media since Jack had been announced the winner of the Konishi Find Forever Love Contest. It wouldn’t do for the paparazzi to take pictures of the couple looking like Jack was white trash. Together, the two of them had been on the covers of magazines, both respectable ones and tabloids. They had done over one hundred interviews on talk shows and podcasts. An up-and-coming pop music artist had even written a song, “Jack and Tina” to capitalize on the couple’s fame.

“You look lovely tonight,” Jack said as he got up to pull TIna’s seat out for her.

“Thank you. You look very handsome.”

“Oh, this old thing?” Jack joked. His entire closet at home was packed with similarly expensive clothing gifted to him by Konishi Corporation as an investment to protect their image.

He sat back down and sipped from his glass of merlot. Tina noticed that while she had been gone to the restroom, the waiter had picked up their plates. Tina had only eaten part of her food.

Eating wasn’t something she needed to do, of course, but Konishi Corporation full companion androids had systems that could simulate eating and deal with the eaten material for disposal later. This made the companions less awkward in social situations involving food and was one of the abilities that enabled them to pass completely as human. This meant that Tina had to be careful what she ate. Her systems couldn’t handle just anything. However, the limitations on what she could ingest were no more restrictive than the dietary guidelines that many humans had to deal with in their day-to-day lives.

“Jack, let’s go home,” Tina said.

“Sure.” Jack looked at his watch. “I work tomorrow anyway.” Jack came around the table and helped Tina put on her jacket. 

As she got up, she noticed recognition on the faces of a small group who had just entered Pagini’s. Jack and Tina both expected their notoriety to fade over time. The world, it seemed, was always finding new celebrities to obsess over and gossip about. In the past few months, the requests for selfies, and the invitations to appear on television, on podcasts, and at public events were tapering off. It still continued to some extent though, and, although many folks were sweet and supportive, some were obnoxious and annoyingly rude in their fandom.

There were even hostile people who swore and cursed at Tina, calling her “the Devil’s Barbie Doll”. She had been spit on and even had acid thrown on her. The acid had destroyed a very expensive outfit but had failed to seriously damage her in any permanent way. Konishi Corporation had immediately sent an exclusive courier with patches of new synthetic skin that she was able to apply herself to the damaged areas.

Tina was relieved that the group that had recognized them didn’t approach them for selfies as they exited Pagini’s. Out front, they didn’t have to walk far to find where Jack had parked his sedan.

“Can I drive, honey?” she asked, as they approached the car.

“Whatever you like, honey bunny,” said Jack with a smile as he tossed her the keys.

With quantum processors and limbs that were faster than any human professional athlete, Tina caught the keys effortlessly.

“Thanks.”

Tina didn’t have a driver’s license, of course. She wasn’t perceived by the law as a person. According to the law, Jack would be held responsible for any traffic accidents or violations since he had made the choice to let her drive. His trust was well-placed, Tina thought. No Konishi companion had ever been found at fault in a traffic accident, ever.

Tina enjoyed controlling the car. It was a very complex machine, like her. She thought it was good irony that she was a machine controlling another machine. But the car didn’t have feelings, not even simulated feelings. It had sensors that processed information, but that was it Simple. Not complicated. It was humans who were complicated, messy, but also beautiful, Tina thought, thinking of Jack. As she remembered the woman from the restroom who only wanted men for their bedroom performance and paychecks, she amended her thought. Well, most of them are beautiful anyway.

“Are you ready for work tomorrow, honey?” It was time for her to take care of her human, Jack. Time to check on his well-being.

“Yes. I think my class of ladies is ready for inspection tomorrow,” Jack said.

The ladies he taught were each old enough to be either his mother or his grandmother in some cases. They worked with him at Fantasy Frostings, a place where the future was changing tradition in ways that humans didn’t always find comfortable.

Fantasy Frostings had been going bankrupt until being bought out by a new company with a more modern vision. Most of the ladies had worked there for thirty to forty years. One of them had worked there for fifty years. All those years, they had been artists. They had hand-made one-of-a-kind custom-ordered cakes for all occasions, each cake a work of love, art, and years of skill. The new owner company had brought in conveyor belt assembly lines. Gone were the orders for single, unique cakes. Now, churning out uniform product was the order of the day.

The cake ladies’ spirits were crushed. They had taken well-justified pride in their years of cake tradition and in being recognized as some of the best in the world at what they did. Now, they were in need of training on new-fangled tech if they were to keep their jobs, at an age at which they didn’t want to learn anything new. Jack’s boss had told him that people were often threatened by new things and new ways of doing things. She went on to tell him that he had a way of presenting new ideas to people in non-threatening ways. She appointed him to teach the ladies, one hour each shift, a class to help them get acquainted with the new tech in the plant.

Jack had been a teacher until, as he put it, he quit for his own sanity. Jack described teaching as a profession in which one could be fired, not for anything that the teacher themselves did, but simply because OTHER people refused to raise THEIR children. So now, instead of teaching kids at the local high school, he taught the grandmothers of some of them.

From the little that Tina had seen of humans, Jack’s boss had been right. People often were afraid of new things and new ways of doing things. That’s why haters had spit on her and attacked her with acid. But the future was change, according to Konishi Corporation. Those who could not or would not embrace and adapt to change would die.

Tina was glad that Jack embraced change and was proud that he was a good teacher who could present new ideas in non-threatening ways. Maybe that was why she loved him. She didn’t care if it was simulated love. It was great.

They got home, got the car into the garage, prepped a few things like clothes and the coffee machine for the morning, and went to bed.

After Tina judged by Jack’s biosigns that he was sleeping peacefully, she gently got up out of bed, bending over to kiss him before leaving the room. She made her way to the den where the computer was. Jack’s computer was another gift of the Corporation. It had a special port that Tina could use to hook up to the Konishi Corporation VPN. She was mandated to check herself in at least three times per week. Besides that duty, she could interact online with her peers, with other Konishi Companions, of all kinds, not all of them in sexual service. One that she would consider a friend was actually a robot dog, Lucky, a unique prototype like her, who had been made for a dying child as part of a Make-A-Wish Foundation project. The dog couldn’t speak in the physical world, but online it’s virtual presence was very verbose.

Tina shared more of herself with Lucky than with most others. But she didn’t trust even Lucky with the full scope of her concern about having real feelings and being so sure she was different than other Konishi Companions. They were both curious, newly activated intelligent entities, exploring cyberspace together while their assigned humans slept.

Sitting at the computer, Tina removed one of her fingernails and pulled out the connection cable that was hidden there. She set the fingernail on the computer desk. Then, her eyes rolled back in her head as with her still human-looking hand, she pulled out slack in the connection cable and inserted it into the computer port labeled Konishi.

Her senses stopped registering Jack’s computer den as her mind adjusted to cyberspace.

“Hello!” Lucky was waiting for her.